Adventures in the Forgotten Realms will be Remembered

 

Adventures in Forgotten Realms has been described as a core set in all but name, and like any core set I struggled a lot with this format. I did about 35 drafts and got about 4 trophies with a 54% match record and 50% game record. Definitely a downer after great success in Kaldheim and moderate success in Strixhaven.

Despite that, I really enjoyed drafting AFR more than Strixhaven, despite the imbalance of the power of Red-Black compared to Blue-anything. The flavour of the set really appealled and I found enough room to experiment and play around.

Still, I've gotten very frustrated lately with my lack of success. 

There are three major areas you can leak percentage points:

- drafting

- building a deck

- playing the games

I think drafting I sometimes get too tunnel visioned or not tunneled enough. For example, sometimes I pick a colour pair too early and ride and die on that despite obvious signs a different pair is open. And other times I get to distracted by signals and end up with a pile of junk.

But overall I think I draft OK. Could be better, but not too bad. When it comes to building a deck, I sometimes have trouble deciding on what curve topper I should go for. A big creature? Big spell? How much removal is too much? Not enough? I hear the podcast experts talking about modifiying number of lands and I'm here like thinking "really?". 

And then when I play the games, there are times I know I make stupid punts and lose games, and other times I make no obvious mistake but simply play too agressively.

All told these three leaks and weaknesses adds up to a lot of lost games and percentage points overall. With the upcoming Innistrad Midnight Hunt release I'm going to try and tighten up all three and see if we can't get back to some Kaldheim numbers.

The Blog Lives!

 What the hell happened? What have I been up to since Feb 19th?

I've been chasing a particular project at work for about two years, pushing for a technology and implementation that I thought was very necessary for our product offerings and that people agreed was desirable, but could not get time funding for to actually do it.

Things came to a head in late February where I asked if I should just give up on this project and focus my energies elsewhere and my excellent managers found a way to carve the time for me to work on this pet project alone for one year. I went from "this is never going to happen" to "OMG this is happening RIGHT NOW" on a dime.

Since I've been campaiging for this project for two years very loudly I feel like my repuation is on the line based on the success of said project. If it fails to deliver, my hopes of influencing future projects could dim precipitously. My managers have assured me that they are measuring how much can an enthusiastic developer get done in a focused project in a year and that I cannot fail as a result, but there is a wide gulf between failing and succeeding that can be preceived as disappointing to others excited about the outcome of this project.

All of that to say, I've been working harder than ever in order to guarantee early success on this project which means less time for "smoke breaks" at work where I can put together a blog post over a couple days. The good news is that the extra work has paid off and I feel like my project has gotten off to a good solid start and I'm at the point where some of the pressure I put on myself can relax a bit so I can take a chance to breath again.

SO..... what's been going on?

Magic the Gathering: Arena

I have continued to play Magic the Gathering: Arena focusing mainly on Limited draft. When I last wrote I was commenting on how Kaldheim set was some of my most successful drafting ever, and now that the set has sunset I can see the difference. 

My end result with Zendikar Rising:

Game Record: 134 - 128 (51.1%)
Match Record: 116 - 112 (50.9%)
Total Events: 48 (7 Trophies)

And with Kaldheim:

Game Record: 134 - 109 (55.1%)
Match Record: 72 - 57 (55.8%)
Total Events: 39 (7 Trophies)

The number of trophies did nto increase but my win rates in matches and games both had a dramatic increase. And the results so far in the new set, Strixhaven: School of Mages?

Game Record: 65 - 53 (55.1%)
Match Record: 36 - 24 (60.0%)
Total Events: 17 (3 Trophies)

Still looking good.

Board Games

I talked about how we were entering a Golden Age of board games with my kids and that has continued. Not only is Axis & Allies and Tapestry a choice for us, but recently Settlers of Catan and Scythe have entered the picture, along with a borrowed copy of Memoir 44. And Tapestry and Carcassone have continued to be in the rotation.

Computer Games

With the exception of MTG Arena, there has not been much. Like I said, I've been busy with work and keeping 3 kids, two who are teenagers now, active and happy. We'll see if there is room for some extra games in the summer.

Continuous Drafting

I've run into a curious situation with drafting the new release, Kaldheim.

I can't stop. 

I just ... keep.... drafting.

In all seriousness, I started the draft with 40,000 gold and using the gems from winning and draft tokens from the season pass and a couple draft tokens on sale for half price in the store, I've been drafting more than ever as I earn enough from winnings that I almost never completely drain the wallet. As a result I've done 23 drafts over a period less than a month; in comparison I did 35 drafts for Zendikar rising that went from late October to early January.

For some reason, I feel more successful in Kaldheim than I did in Zendikar, and I felt good about the latter to begin with. The stats support this: I had 5 trophies total in ZNR, and I'm at 4 in KHM. I think a big part of that is concentrating mainly on Best of Three drafts instead of Best of One. 

Although the reward structure is more skewed in Bo3 there are factors that mitigate this skewing and have lent to my better results.

1) Not Ranked - so I'm playing against any level player instead of increasingly better opponents

2) No Hand Smoother - so decks are less likely to "go off" on curve and games are longer

3) Variance Reduced - since its a best of three, a bad game or mulliganning down to 5 does not mean you have lost the match; the variance is spread over 2 or 3 games per match

4) Maybe I'm getting better?

Let's not put too much stock into that last one.

Whatever the reason, my enjoyment of drafting on Arena has increased with these improved fortunes as I rarely find myself grinding standard for gold and can just enjoy the game the way I like.

Now, time to see if I can break my trophy record...

Welcome to Kaldheim

 

The new Magic the Gathering set is out two weeks ago and I had stored up 40,000 gold, enough for 4 drafts. This time I was planning to concentrate just on Best of Three instead of Best of One, so there was some risk that the Gem rewards were going to be more lacking, but I was willing to try as I've been finding the Best of Three format to feel less frustrating as I know the variance gets spread over 2 or 3 games instead of just one.

I went into the limited format feeling a little overwhelmed. There is a lot of words and mechanics and things at play and after enjoying the straightforwardness of Zendikar Rising I was worried it was going to end up being another Theros Beyond Death experience for me.

I'm happy to report that I've done better than I hoped:

KHM
2021-02-03 12:00	UW	2 - 1
2021-02-02 12:04	WB	2 - 1
2021-02-01 7:43	UG	1 - 2
2021-01-31 20:47	RG	2 - 1
	WB	1 - 2
	UW	3 - 0
2021-01-29 12:30	RB	2 - 1
2021-01-28 12:05	UW	1 - 2

One trophy and I've earned enough Gems for 5 more drafts (still have one draft to go so wish me luck) and I feel like I have a moderate handle on the format. 

So far my favourite deck was the RB Berserker/Giants that was pure gas fun.

Deck

2 Deathknell Berserker (KHM) 83

1 Demonic Gifts (KHM) 84

2 Draugr's Helm (KHM) 88

1 Elderfang Disciple (KHM) 93

1 Feed the Serpent (KHM) 95

1 Jarl of the Forsaken (KHM) 100

1 Karfell Kennel-Master (KHM) 101

1 Raise the Draugr (KHM) 105

1 Skull Raid (KHM) 111

1 Basalt Ravager (KHM) 122

1 Doomskar Titan (KHM) 130

1 Dual Strike (KHM) 132

2 Frost Bite (KHM) 138

1 Immersturm Raider (KHM) 141

1 Provoke the Trolls (KHM) 144

1 Run Amok (KHM) 147

1 Shackles of Treachery (KHM) 150

2 Tuskeri Firewalker (KHM) 157

1 Kardur, Doomscourge (KHM) 216

1 Blightstep Pathway (KHM) 252

2 Snow-Covered Swamp (KHM) 281

8 Mountain (KLR) 298

6 Swamp (KLR) 293

My trophy deck was a busted Blue White Foretell deck that won more than a couple games on the back of the Niko planeswalker who is very powerful in limited

Deck

1 Battlefield Raptor (KHM) 3

1 Clarion Spirit (KHM) 6

1 Codespell Cleric (KHM) 7

2 Doomskar Oracle (KHM) 10

1 Kaya's Onslaught (KHM) 18

1 Stalwart Valkyrie (KHM) 31

1 Starnheim Courser (KHM) 32

2 Valkyrie's Sword (KHM) 36

1 Augury Raven (KHM) 44

1 Bind the Monster (KHM) 48

1 Brinebarrow Intruder (KHM) 49

1 Cosima, God of the Voyage (KHM) 50

1 Depart the Realm (KHM) 53

1 Draugr Thought-Thief (KHM) 55

1 Giant's Amulet (KHM) 59

1 Karfell Harbinger (KHM) 65

1 Mists of Littjara (KHM) 67

1 Mistwalker (KHM) 68

1 Niko Aris (KHM) 225

1 Niko Defies Destiny (KHM) 226

1 Funeral Longboat (KHM) 238

2 Gates of Istfell (KHM) 256

1 Shimmerdrift Vale (KHM) 267

7 Island (KLR) 290

7 Plains (KLR) 288

I'll continue drafting and let you know in a month how things are shaking out.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Magic the Gathering Arena Mobile has been released for early access and I got it on my phone and I can confirm that it works pretty good. It uses the same account as the PC version and all my decks are there, I can play games with no issue against opponents on PC or mobile, and the experience has been pretty solid. 

That being said, I did a test draft on it, from Pack 1 to Pick 1 to all three matches and I found that more difficult. I like to build my deck as I go and this limited size made that much harder. And I found the gameplay in the more competitive environment more stressful. I noticed at one time that I had 5 fewer minutes left on the match clock than my opponent because it takes longer to do anything.

Overall, I'd recommend the mobile version for doing daily quests on the go, or just passing time. I'll stick to the PC for more competitive Magic games I play.

Zendikar Rising Sunset Post

 

As we enter the spoiler season for the next Magic the Gathering set, Kaldheim, which is due out at the end of the month, its time to set aside Zendikar Rising and start hordeing gold and gems. 

Zendikar Rising (aka ZNR) was by far my most drafted format, with 51 total drafts compared to 24 for Ikoria. Part of that is due to a slightly better win rate and a much better trophy rate, and part of it is that I really enjoyed the tribal / party decks a lot and had a lot of fun trying to put them together.

This is also the first set I dipped my toe into Best of Three and while my success rate there was not so hot, I find I enjoyed the games there more as the variance monster's effect is lessened by the multiple chances to face an opponent. 

My slight improvement in wins and trophies I think can be acreditted to finally starting to see the signals in the draft and read the table better than I used to. I still can sometimes tunnel vision into a colour pair but I think overall I'm getting better at paying attention and finding my lane for my seat. The next step is to actually trying to evaluate the cards and keep the valuations in mind as I draft.

Courtesy of 17lands.com, my most drafted cards are: 

Grotag Bug Catcher? Makes sense, I loved red/X party decks in this format. Utility Knife? I didn't want it a lot, probably just left over a lot in packs.

Uncommons:

Types!!!!!

And rares:

My favourite deck archetype? I did like the BW Clerics and UB Rogues, but my favourite by far was RW warriors with Kor Blademaster, Grotag Bug Catcher, Goma Fada Vanguard, and friends. Four of my eight trophies were that deck.

With that we bid ZNR adieu, and look forward to shenanigans with Vikings next month!

Risk Versus Reward When Drafting

 Drafting on MTG Arena is very fun but has a frustrating aspect to it. It costs money. 

I know, the nerve of Wizards of the Coast wanting to be paid for their online product! 

The good news is that it can be free to play even for drafting because you can earn gold (and rarely gems) through playing normal games of Standard or Historic and achieving daily quests. Its not fast, but its doable. It takes about a week of grinding in order to get the 10,000 gold you need to enter a draft.

The good news is that the drafts offer rewards and the more you win in a draft the larger your reward. In fact, you win enough and you earn enough gems to enter another draft and have some left over! If you are really good, you can draft infinitely and never put any more effort into grinding Constucted. 

But how likely is that?

First off there are multiple limited modes, you can read all about them here. I'm discussing today are drafts against other humans, Premier Draft which is Best of 1 (aka Bo1) match play and Traditional Draft which is Best of 3 (aka Bo3).

In Bo1 you face your opponents in a single "winner takes all" match and the draft ends when you get 7 wins or 3 losses, whichever comes first. Your rewards are:

- No wins — 50 gems and one pack
- One win — 100 gems and one pack
- Two wins — 250 gems and two packs
- Three wins — 1000 gems and two packs
- Four wins — 1400 gems and three packs
- Five wins — 1600 gems and four packs
- Six wins — 1800 gems and five packs
- Seven wins — 2100 gems and six packs

Since it costs 10K gold OR 1500 gems to enter a draft, at 5 wins you have made your investment back and essentially played for free. Now getting 5+ wins before 3 losses is not easy, in 18 tries in Zendikar Rising Bo1 drafts I've managed it only 4 times. But even getting to 3 or 4 wins is a big deal as the amount of gems you receive puts you very close to affording another draft. 

As you can see from this graphic from 17 lands for Throne of Eldraine drafting, most drafts end below the line but still in the 3-4 win range (usual disclaimers about self selecting data, not whole playerbase, etc).

Courtesy of https://www.17lands.com/

I want to highlight the massive jump in rewards between 2 wins (250 gems) and 3 wins (1000 gems). That is the largest jump in reward of all the levels and is the difference between feeling like "I wasted my money" and "not bad, almost enough for another draft!". In fact, assume a player starts a format with 40K gold, enough for 4 drafts:

As you can see in the table above, the number of drafts you are able to do increases exponentially if you are a better than average drafter, to the point where the best drafters can draft while never paying another dime. Now I realize it does not work out that way in reality because the Bo1 is a ranked queue, players in bronze play against other players in bronze and players in diamond or mythic play each other as well, leading to the type of graph you see above where most results are in the 2/3 and 3/3 range, indicating that the win percentage trends towards 50%.

However, what it does mean that boy does it suck to be a bad drafter.

What about Traditional Draft, i.e. Bo3? Bo3 is not ranked so who you play is random and thus the better drafters can rise to the top more easily in theory, but there are two limiting factors related to each other that impact that.

1) The rewards suck if you don't get 3 wins.
2) Lower skilled drafters stick to Bo1 as a result.

Why do the rewards suck so bad? Well, for a 10K gold or 1500 gem entry fee you can earn:
- No wins - One pack
- One win - One pack
- Two wins - 1,000 gems and four packs
- Three wins - 3,000 gems and six packs

As you can see, even winning 2 out of 3 matches fails to earn you the rewards to do another draft. But winning all 3 matches wins you enough gems for 2 more matches! I'm not exactly sure why they chose this reward structure compared to Bo1. Is it because Bo3 is seen more as "real magic" and they expect players to pay a premium to participate? Is it because its not ranked so there are more 2 win and 3 win players (i.e. the distribution curve is slanted more to the right), and if rewards were higher on the 1 win and 2 win slots that too many people would be making too many gems?


Regardless, this reward structure makes it very hard for me, an average player, to justify paying for Bo3 with a 50% record on good days when that record can earn me twice as many follow up drafts in Bo1.

I Am Not Dead

 Last post was Sept 4, wow. Time has flew. I thought that being back in the office would give me more time to blog but honestly I've been working extra hard lately on some new projects with new teams and finding the 20 minutes to write something down has been difficult.

But I've decided to ressurect the blog and try to get content out again. 

Gaming? I've been gaming for sure. Still doing the Magic the Gathering thing online with Arena, drafting as much as I can and the latest release Zendikar Rising is a blast, lots of different archetypes and directions to go, I'll have a post on my results in the last three formats coming up soon.

I've also been dipping my toe back into Heroes of the Storm as just a way to pass some time. Its a fun diversion and it makes me wonder about trying something with a larger playerbase like League of Legends, but as long as I'm having fun in HoS I don't see the point of learning a new game.

For a few weeks in September I was playing Into the Breach that I got in the Epic store for free. This is a smaller game like FTL where you go as far as you can with a team of mechs you upgrade as you fight the bug aliens, and then restart when you die with one mech pilot only. Its a lot of fun for a small game, highly reccommend it.

Like everyone else in the world I tried Among Us. Its ok just playing by yourself with random strangers, but the game is awesome with people you know. Going to be playing it tomorrow at lunch with friends. Its like Battlestar Galactica Lite with the cooperation and the traitor mechanic.

Until next time... watch out for the vents....

Drafting Magic

 Drafting on Magic Arena continues to be my favourite pastime this long long quarantine. Last time I talked about it here I was lamenting my frustrations with Theros Beyond Death format:

With that said, I did not have fun drafting Theros Beyond Death. I ended up at 55 wins and 60 losses after the many drafts I did, and only once got to 6 wins out of 7 before losing three times. I had many 0-3 results and generally felt flummoxed even when I thought I had a deck that could compete. it really killed my joy in March.

The Ikoria Lair of Behemoths was a 180 degree turnaround for me and I had a ton of fun in that format and was sad to see it go. I finished it at 73 wins 68 losses and got to 7 wins three times in 24 drafts. I think the biggest factor in the turnaround is that archetypes I used were very obvious and decent wide support so you could force a lane whereas in Theros you needed to have extremely good card evaluation skills and reading the drafting signals in order to make the best working deck.

But after Ikoria came Core Set 2021 (aka M21) and I have not had a great run again. Only 58 wins to 56 losses and no 7 win drafts in 20 tries. The win percentage was slightly better than Theros but no trophies (as 7 win drafts are called). I think the same thing as in Theros was plaguing me in m21: trying to find an open lane that had the support to make a strong synergistic deck.

That being said, I still had fun and much prefer drafting with other humans instead of the Arena bots. My goal for the next set, Zendikar Rising (which looks awesome by the way) is to continue to work on that skill of drafting decks as opposed to piles of cards. Let's see if I can get back to getting some trophies!

Cycling Through Standard

I needed a new deck for grinding in Standard on Arena this month and with Ikoria released there was a plethora of choice (even in some flavour of Fires of Invention or Wilderness Reclamation are still the meta to beat). I looked at my options and decided to go with an aggressive RWB cycling deck with a Lurrus as companion. 

The idea is, you get the Valiant Rescuer, Flourishing Fox, Dranith Stinger, and/or Improbably Alliace on the field in some combination and then cycle yourself to board stalemate until you can cast a Zenith Flare (or two, or three) to win the game. If you so happen to win with going wide soldiers and fairies or going tall with Flourishing Fox, so much the better. Lurrus is really just a trick to recur a few things from the graveyard if needed.

Its not the greatest deck in the format but its solid and has the advantage of lending itself to quick games; you either win early or you know its over.

With a 56% win rate over 57 matches I got to Platinum 4 last week which was nice for a deck I was just playing around with and didn't require a ton of wildcards to craft. I'm still replenishing my stockpile after crafting the Temur Reclamation deck that I struggled with. Might have another go at that now that aggro decks are shifting out of the meta some.

Beyond Theros and Into Ikoria

My main love of Magic the Gathering is the Limited Draft format. I like the excitement of opening a pack and seeing what cards are there, passing them around and trying to build a deck, and then the excitement when a deck comes together. But the best part is that everyone is on the same level playing field, with ~45 cards to build a deck and play each other.

With that said, I did not have fun drafting Theros Beyond Death. I ended up at 55 wins and 60 losses after the many drafts I did, and only once got to 6 wins out of 7 before losing three times. I had many 0-3 results and generally felt flummoxed even when I thought I had a deck that could compete. it really killed my joy in March.

But along comes Ikoria Lair of Behemoths and the joy has returned! I'm at 28 wins and 18 losses, I've trophied twice (i.e. got 7 wins before 3 losses) in just seven drafts, and really feel like I've got the meta of drafting this set understood.

My best deck was a Sultai deck (Black, Green, Blue) based around Gyruda as companion with a couple cards that also fetched things from the graveyard. It went 7-1 and the only loss was close. Companions are busted.

I think part of my success is owed to drafting against real humans instead of bots. Somehow the open lanes are more obvious when drafting against humans, and it seems more likely that humans will try and force lanes that are already contested if the meta suggests its the best deck, leaving other colours super open and that just does not happen with bots. For example, twice I've drafted powerful Sultai decks because everyone seems to be trying to force Red White cycling decks. That' fine, those are powerful decks, but it means that I'm picking up relevant rares and uncommons deep into the packs.

Hey, I'll take it.

Another thing I like about Ikoria is that the mechanics are super fun. Mutate is a blast, companions are wicked when they work out, cycling is powerful. Theros' mechanics of Enchantments matter and escape were not exciting... escape was ok, but it did not grab me like Mutate does.

Overall, having lots of fun and I look forward to getting some more craziness in the next draft.

February Arena Progress Update

At the beginning of February I talked about how I was trying two new decks, the UW Dream Trawler control and the mono Red Embercleave decks. I also decided to tip my toe into Best of Three ladder climbing instead of Best of One. Here is my report.

First off, by the end of the month I made Platinum again. Considering I was not trying to aggressively climb I was happy with that result.

Secondly, Best of Three is exhausting! I found it a lot more stressful trying to figure out what to swap in and out for matches two and three, and the time commitment against a slow control deck could be as much as 30 -50 minutes! Also, I discovered that there were a lot more control decks in Bo3 compared to Bo1 where aggressive decks seemed more prominent. Over time I found myself drifting back to Bo1.

Thirdly, my early success rate for both decks was not great. My mono-Red was 59% (23-16) and my Trawler deck was an abysmal 42% (11-15). This might have been compounded by being in Bo3 and not being experienced at sideboarding for the UW deck. Halfway through the month I switched to another version of the mono-Red embercleave deck and focused on Bo1 and was much more successful, going 23-9 for a 72% win rate.

Deck
4 Runaway Steam-Kin (GRN) 115
4 Light Up the Stage (RNA) 107
4 Scorch Spitter (M20) 159
4 Bonecrusher Giant (ELD) 115
3 Embercleave (ELD) 120
4 Fervent Champion (ELD) 124
4 Rimrock Knight (ELD) 137
4 Robber of the Rich (ELD) 138
3 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell (ELD) 147
4 Castle Embereth (ELD) 239
4 Anax, Hardened in the Forge (THB) 125
18 Mountain (THB) 285
Sideboard
1 Experimental Frenzy (GRN) 99
3 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
1 Tibalt, Rakish Instigator (WAR) 146
2 Chandra, Acolyte of Flame (M20) 126
4 Unchained Berserker (M20) 164
3 Redcap Melee (ELD) 135 

It felt competitive in every match when I was not mana-flooded and could steal the occasional match with a surprise Embercleave. If I was solely interested in climbing the ranks I would probably use this deck in Best of One matches.

But we're in March and I wanted to try something new. I wanted to really push into Best of Three and mean in and I wanted a deck that could go toe to toe with the control decks there. One of the latest hotness around is Temur Clover and since it uses a few cards I have and I needed to craft only a handful of rares, I decided to try it out.

The basic idea is run them over with Lovestruck Beast, Bonecrusher Giant, and Beanstalk Giant and everything else is support to get you there. Lucky Clover is a force multiplier for the spells on the Eldraine cards, Escape to the Wilds is surprisingly a "don't always need it" card to search for things you need. Fae of Wishes is the big value even by themselves but really is game winning when combined with 1-2 Lucky Clovers. Excuse me while I get from the sideboard two cards I need to dismantle you.

Eight matches in and I'm only 50% win rate but I'm still getting the hang of this deck so I'm not worried yet. A good thing about this deck is I don't really need to sideboard between games as they are better off in the sideboard where the Fae can fetch them.

I'm really liking this deck as I learn it. Will report on my progress with it in a couple weeks.

Cleaving and Trawling

Since it was February and the month of love due to Valentine's day I decided to go wild and try and Mono Red aggro deck. Well, also because I had accumulated a bunch of Embercleaves so why not? I also decided it was time to try out "traditional" play, i.e. playing Best of 3 games and using a sideboard between matches. 

This is the deck I settled on:

Deck 4 Runaway Steam-Kin (GRN) 115
4 Light Up the Stage (RNA) 107
4 Tin Street Dodger (RNA) 120
4 Scorch Spitter (M20) 159
4 Shock (M20) 160
4 Embercleave (ELD) 120
4 Fervent Champion (ELD) 124
3 Robber of the Rich (ELD) 138
3 Castle Embereth (ELD) 239
3 Anax, Hardened in the Forge (THB) 125
4 Infuriate (THB) 141
2 Phoenix of Ash (THB) 148
17 Mountain (THB) 285
Sideboard
4 Unchained Berserker (M20) 164
4 Claim the Firstborn (ELD) 118
2 Embereth Shieldbreaker (ELD) 122
3 Redcap Melee (ELD) 135

 It did not go well. I stopped after going 5-9 record.

Part of it was learning the deck I admit, learning when to mulligan, which order to cast spells, how to get your attack through, etc. And I know people have ranked high with similar decks, but this version felt so finicky, that is to say if your lands didn't come in just right, or you flooded, it petered out fast. And everyone knows the key cards to remove to disable it.

There are other red aggro decks I'm tempted to look into, but really the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. So I decided to try out something else I had my eye on: Blue White Dream Trawler Control:

Deck
4 Absorb (RNA) 151
4 Hallowed Fountain (RNA) 251
2 Dovin's Veto (WAR) 193
4 Teferi, Time Raveler (WAR) 221
1 Tranquil Cove (M20) 259
2 Castle Ardenvale (ELD) 238
2 Castle Vantress (ELD) 242
4 Banishing Light (THB) 4
4 The Birth of Meletis (THB) 5
4 Shatter the Sky (THB) 37
4 Omen of the Sea (THB) 58
1 Thassa's Intervention (THB) 72
4 Thirst for Meaning (THB) 74
3 Dream Trawler (THB) 214
3 Temple of Enlightenment (THB) 246
6 Plains (THB) 279
8 Island (THB) 281
Sideboard
2 Narset, Parter of Veils (WAR) 61
1 Dovin's Veto (WAR) 193
3 Aether Gust (M20) 42
1 Glass Casket (ELD) 15
1 Mystical Dispute (ELD) 58
2 Sorcerous Spyglass (ELD) 233
1 Elspeth Conquers Death (THB) 13
1 Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis (THB) 14
1 Heliod's Intervention (THB) 19
2 Whirlwind Denial (THB) 81

I've had better success in initial testing, going 5-2. The basic idea is similar to other UW control decks I've run last fall where I delay and put off their creatures until I dominate the board. The big difference is that this deck does so with the impressive Dream Trawler instead of waiting for opponent to give up.

If you can get this guy to land on the board, it will quickly dominate the game. Power it up with some draw card spells and its game over.

One thing I will say about Best of 3 though is that its far more mentally exhausting than Best of 1. Sideboarding cards in and out is stressful, control decks tend to take longer already, and one match can easily take 25 minutes for three games. Take a look at these 5 test games:

And if you lose a 22 minute match? I find it more of a blow than losing a 10 minute match. I want to get better and I think learning the ins and outs of Best of 3 is important, but I'm not sure I want that to be my main playstyle.

So Close, Yet...

... So far.

I was running along fine since reaching Platinum 4 tier and it seemed like Diamond was easily within reach thanks to the broad shoulders of the Questing Beast and friends, and then Theros Beyond Death started to impact Standard.

Right around when I was one win from Platinum tier 1 in fact. I started getting hit with Legendary Enchantment gods, Escaping Titans, Mono-white aggro decks and Mono-black devotion decks (Gray Merchant of Assholery is on my Hate list). I was forced to make some modifications to my deck like removing Midnight Reapers for some Return to Nature instants that do triple duty against enchantments, enchantment creatures, and escape creatures in the graveyard, but even with those changes I was not doing as well.

Before Theros my record was 47-27 (64%) and after is was 53-53 (50%). While I expect the record to flatten out as I climbed the ranks, it is apparent I need to go back to drawing board.

That being said, I did manage to put on a winning streak last week and got into Platinum 1 and yesterday was twice within 1 win of my goal of Diamond. Failed to convert both times and the second time had a wonderful little 5 game losing streak. With only a few more days left of this month's season I'm not hopeful I'm going to make that goal, but that's OK. I've already started planning for next month's deck...

Blue White? Blue Black? Mono-white? Mono-black? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Going On An Adventure

At the beginning of November I set a goal to climb the ladder to Platinum and after a few missteps I did so with a Rakdos sacrifice Cat Oven deck. In December I wanted to expand my horizons and do a control deck on the ladder and failed to reach Platinum again, but stilled learned a lot.

January, the last month of the Throne of Eldraine standard meta, I decided to try a Green Black Golgari Adventures deck as it seemed to be one of the toughest decks I was running into on Arena. I'm happy to report that its not even the middle of the month and Platinum rank has been achieved.

Now I'm going to see if I can climb to Diamond before the end of the month.

I started off with a deck I got from @MythicMeebo who used it at the Mythic Championships to a top 8 finish.

I didn't have a great start with it, having a 2-4 record. So I switched to a similar deck:

I played this one a lot, 79 matches, and while I had some early success climbing to Gold 3 quickly it flattened out. At a 54% win rate I was not going to climb very well. The problem seemed to be that it was too slow to kill early, and lacked a lot of end game power. I tried a version with more Beanstalk Giants and a Liliana Dreadhorde General, but really it was too late or too easy to counter. I always felt I was fighting from behind.

So finally I switched to this deck:

This deck had the four mythic Questing Beasts and three Rankle, Master of Pranks which both increased the ability of the deck to hit hard and fast in the early game or as surprise damage in late game. Ideally I overwhelm the opponent before they can stabilize, and if they do stabilize then Cavalier of Night or Massacre Girl can break the deadlock.

One of the things I learned from these decks is the importance of card draw from the Edgewall Innkeeper and Foulmire Knight (and less so from Vraska). Those extra cards are necessary to keep up the pressure against counter spells from control decks or removal from other decks. Without them the deck runs out of gas and its hard to get going again.

My current deck is working well at the moment, but I've got an eye on some substitutions in case it flounders on the ladder. Noxious Grasp is useful in a lot of situations but could be swapped for something like Lucky Clover to get more value from the adventure spells (as long as you have enough targets or enough life for the ones that take your life as a cost like Swift End), and the Great Henge is OK but rarely affects the outcome of my games, its more of a "win more" card so I might swap it out for another Cavalier of Night who is a definite momentum swing.

Look out Diamond, here I come!

December Wrap Up

So the experiment with controlling decks in December comes to a disappointing end. Things were going swimmingly, I was 1 win from Platinum with over a week left and then... boom. Ended down in Gold 2.

Oof.

I went from a 60% win rate down to a 55% win rate pretty quickly. What the hell happened? Taking a look at my most played match ups gives a good hint.

The meta shifted hard in the last month to more aggro decks than I was seeing before; Red decks of various stripes, Golgari adventures, and Simic flash all were appearing more frequently and all exposed weak spots in my deck's game plan.

- Red aggro simple got in under my defenses faster than I could set up and if I didn't get a turn 5 Time Wipe or maybe a turn 5 Planar Cleansing I was toast.

- Golgari Adventures either hit me with a turn 3 (!) Questing Beast or used Midnight Rider or Edgewall Innkeeper to draw replacement cards enough to simply start over after I did a board sweeper.

- Simic flash simply got creatures on the board and then counter spelled my attempts to remove them.

All three of those matches I faced more frequently in the last ten days of December and all of them were well below a win rate to climb higher. On the upside I dominated against the mirror match up and had a good handle on any Cat Oven decks.

For the last month of Throne of Eldraine standard I'm going a new/old direction. I'm going to find a Golgari deck to use and climb the ladder with. Its going to be difficult since I only have 6 rares with which to craft a deck with so I'm going to have to leverage my existing collection more than I would like. I'll report on this experiment once I have some matches under my belt.

Getting the Hang of Controlling the Game

On December 4th I talked about trying to learn control decks in Magic the Gathering. This was a learning opportunity and I threw myself into it with the usual starting disaster I have trying anything knew. I'm just not a natural at anything I try, I can't see the combos and strategies like others can, I need to learn them from falling down a lot.

And boy did I ever. Fall down a lot I mean.

I was not having luck with the Azorius deck I was trying so I borrowed one from my friend's lists and did even worse. I went back to the Esper control deck I started with and had a bit more luck, but still couldn't make headway on the ladder.

Finally I heard about Ben Stark playing Ally Warfield at the Mythic Championship with an Azorius deck and decided to check out his list. It was even simpler than the ones I had previous tried so I loaded it up and gave it a try. This new deck, combined with some very painful lessons-learned, started to click and I finally climbed my way out of Gold 4 to Gold 3 and then Gold 2 this past weekend.

So far a 63% win rate and while it has not been completely smooth sailing up the ladder, its definitely a lot more consistent than I was experiencing earlier.

My version of Ben Stark's Azorius list for Bo1 ladder play.

And why is that?

First off was the learning curve. When you play with aggro creature-heavy decks or even mid range decks you get value from things on the board, not in your hand. Its second nature to cast things as soon as possible to get the maximum value from them, taking into account what your opponent is doing and how to get around things of course. But at the end of the day, the heuristic to use as much of your mana base as possible each turn is ingrained into my psyche.

But with a control deck every spell has to be weighed against what spells you can't cast if you cast this one. Hesitation, patience, playing the (very) long game are all called for. Its literally like playing a different game, and while I knew in my head that it was a different play style, I had to learn it in my heart and learn new instincts. That took a while.

Another factor was that the first couple decks I crafted, the Esper control and Azorius decks, were based on Best of 3 matches and I suspect that they suffered when playing Best of 1 matches. Control gets more powerful when it can customize the list for colour hate and the opponent's play style in matches 2 and 3 I think.

The Ben Stark deck on the other hand, was a simpler version of the Azorius deck and I found it surprising at the lack of win conditions. Just a few Gadwicks and Brazen Borrowers, how can this be? But it turns out that once you have control of the game in hand, a couple creatures and some 1/1 from the Ardenvale Castle are all you need to win.

Which brings me to my last point: control decks seem to have a lot more decision points involved. My normal decks have decision trees with 2 or maybe 3 branches at each point; control decks seem to have 4 or 5 branches each turn and making the wrong move can be disastrous (as evidenced by my record). Playing control is not for the casual match!

Now that I feel like I'm getting the hang of how this deck plays, I can see the attraction of control decks, the feeling that you are playing multi-level chess while your opponent is playing tic tac toe. Its intoxicating.

Next step is to ride out the rest of the December season and see if we can't get that Platinum level once again!

Trying to Take Control With Esper and Azorius

With the November season in the books I started the December season with a new Esper control deck I found on the internet and wanted to try.

This deck required a lot of rares to craft (mostly those dual lands) but I had hopes that this would work out and I could learn about the ins and out of control decks more intimately.

It did not go well.

After 23 matches I had a 26% win rate, 6 wins, 17 losses.

I'm pretty sure the problem is me and not the meta. There are a lot of decision points with a deck like this: when do I wipe the board, when do I hold off for a counter spell, do I counter this spell or that one? So many decisions and so many chances to do the wrong thing.

Against aggro decks I seemed to get down to low life before I got enough mana to take control and against other control decks I was simply out played. But there is some good news; I started off 2-13 and then went 4-4 so it was getting better.

I decided to switch to an Azorius control deck as I hoped it would be simpler to learn how to use and I didn't have any rares left to craft something in other colour pairing really. it has a number of similarities to the Esper control deck with Teferi and counter spells but the win condition is based on the Agent of Treachery and Mass Manipulation instead of Liliana.

I've gone 7-11 with it, slightly better with a 39% win rate but still not enough to climb any ranks. I'm still running into the same issues: aggro decks getting me before I can take control and control decks out-controlling me.

Still, I'm going to give it the old college try because its a good learning experience and I have no more rares to craft anything else.

Surprising Climb

A few weeks ago I was lamenting how my efforts at climbing the ladder in Standard Constructed for November's season was not working:

Its amazing how quickly the meta shifts in Magic the Gathering. Just a little while ago I was celebrating getting to Platinum Standard Ranked with my mono black deck and now I'm getting beat around the face like no one's business, languishing in Gold 3 and 4.

 That was back on Nov 5 and I stuck with the deck for another week to give it time and see if it could bounce back (or if I could play it better more accurately) but while I climbed to the cusp of Gold 2 I could not bridge the gap.

I decided to try something else on Nov 13, switching from the mono-black deck centered around Ayara and Liliana to a Rakdos Sacrifice deck that leaned heavily into the Cauldron Familiar/Witch's Oven combo.

At first it did not seem to make a difference, falling all the way down to one loss from back in Silver. It seemed like I was facing nothing but control decks based around Doom Foretold and Fires of Invention! By the middle of the month I had written the season off as I had very few rare wildcards to draft with and was getting very frustrated so I decided just to ride it out and plan for December.

And then something strange started to happen. I started to win more. I don't know if the meta shifted so I saw fewer control decks, or if I relaxed after giving up so I played tighter, or my luck of the draw changed, or some combination of all three but I began climbing from the bottom of Gold IV and after a few days was hitting Gold 2 and 1.

"Maybe I will get back to Platinum this month," I thought, and sure enough, I did.

Highlight is Rakdos Sacrifice deck.

So my original goal of getting to Platinum 2 is back on the table!

About the deck: the base engine of Cat -> Oven is what this deck is built on. They are both one mana to cast and operate without further mana investment, pinging the opponent for 1 each turn and gaining me 1 life in return. And it operates at instant speed so if someone tries to kill the cat early, I can simply remove it myself and bring it back later.

Everything else in the deck is gravy. Mayhem Devil can deal a lot of extra damage if left unchecked, Cavalier of Night and Rankle can beat down as well as trim the herd on the other side of the board, Reaper of Night is value add with some draw cards, and my spells are around removal to make sure I don't die until they do.

Biggest threats to this deck besides bad luck on the draw are decks with tools to remove the Oven and control decks with lots of counter spells. A particularly bad matchup is against the Esper control deck making rounds that uses Doom Foretold to slowly clear the board and take apart my engine and then cripple me with Ethereal Absolution.

I'm going to ride this deck out to the end of the month and see if Plat 2 is reachable in 5 days. Next month, maybe back to mono black with Cat Oven and Ayara?

Limited Success

While my woes in Standard Ranked continue and this season is a write off for the most part, let's talk about Limited Draft.

I love doing drafts, either in Arena or in person. The thrill of opening a pack and seeing what's there, finding bombs, building a deck... it all appeals to me in a visceral way. The first sets I really understood what was going on and what I was doing (largely thanks to Limited Resources podcast) was War of the Spark, and the base set of M20 followed thereafter and in both of those I had moderate success.

But then Throne of Eldraine drafting started and... wow... I did not do so well.

There is someone about Throne of Eldraine that flummoxes my drafting. I know the card values, I know the deck archetypes, I know about drafting the hard way versus easy way, but for the first 9 drafts I struggled to get to 3 wins before the third loss. I never felt this bad in the previous two.

But then I got my first 6 win deck which bolstered my morale, and a few drafts later another 6-3 deck and my average in Eldraine started to look less like a disaster. Still didn't run the full 7 wins though...

That brings us to my latest draft. I pay the gold, open Pack 1 and see that smirking bastard, Oko:

Right then, that's an easy first pick! I continue on, selected other blue and green cards for what I think will be a Simic Food deck.

But there is a problem: the green cards are not coming to me. One of the 7 bots is cutting my green cards and leeching my card pool! I opened pack 2 looking for a good card to complement Oko but saw Robber of the Rich, and I wasn't changing lanes for that. But on the other hard, Merfolk Secret Keeper and Didn't Say Please kept showing up, and the bot cutting my green cards continued to, well, cut my green cards!

By the end of two packs I had this card pool going on:

In pack 3 (pick 2 no less) I did manage to score Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig but the rest of the cards continued to be scarce on good green cards. So I was left at the end of the drafting with a conundrum: Green-Blue, Blue splashing green, or go full on mill deck Mono Blue?

How can you even consider NOT using Oko, you ask? I mean, he is a super bomb and voted most likely to get banned from Standard next week. But...... I didn't have the cards to support him in the Simic food deck where he shines best. I decided reluctantly to cut him (*gasp*) and go pure mono blue:

With 5 Merfolk Secret Keepers, a Lucky Charm, 3 Didn't Say Please counter spells, I felt pretty good I could mill consistently and score some wins.

And boy did it ever! I went 7-1 with only one fast RW aggro deck killing me when he had 2 cards left in his library. There were a couple other close games but the milling always won out in time.

Sorry Oko, maybe next time.

Post Script: So that Oko I drafted, mythic rare? I had one already from the Renewal gift when set rotation happened, so this was my second copy of the card. And in the packs I got for winning this draft? I opened a THIRD Oko! You know what this means, right? Guaranteed banning incoming...

Back to the Drawing Board

Its amazing how quickly the meta shifts in Magic the Gathering. Just a little while ago I was celebrating getting to Platinum Standard Ranked with my mono black deck and now I'm getting beat around the face like no one's business, languishing in Gold 3 and 4.

Not Climbing The Ladder :(

The big issue is that when Field of the Dead was banned, decks around Oko, The Thief of Crowns started to dominate the format, typically in green ramp decks that overwhelmed the opponent and turned their best pieces into 3/3 Elk tokens.

Oko Oh No!

The meta shifted in response to this with more focus on controlling decks, either based around something like Esper Doom Foretold or Fires of Invention enchantments. There is also a fair number of Red and Gruul aggro decks.

My black mono decks, both last season's version and my new one based around Ayara and Midnight Reaper/Liliana Dreadhorde General, do decently against those aggro decks, but the Oko and control decks are very difficult for me to deal with because they have the tools to dismantle parts of my engine fairly easily in the midgame and then overwhelm me with big powerful spells/creatures in the late game.

Look at my stats:

Doesn't look too bad in the matchups, right? Yeah, the Simic is crushing me but everything else is ok...

OMG OUCH! A lot of those decks are really similar Fires of Invention variants which are dragging me down from a win rate of 63% last season to 55% this season, hence the stalled at Gold 3/4 tier.

So I'm going back to the drawing board, just not sure if I'm going to ride the rest of this season out and try again fresh next one, or craft some sort of deck that can get me over the hump.