Questions from the brewing company.

Features

crossclimber

17 January 2011

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Table of Contents

*What is “Brewing?

*What is Out There?

*Who are you?

*What Goes with Calamari?

*How Does Your Brew Stack Up?

Magic has changed in the past 5-10 years in a lot of ways. The number of tournaments has exploded, the number of players has boomed, power creep in the cards used to be a theory now it’s blatant (which I like), and brewing has become a lost art for a majority of Magic community. With the proliferation of decks and articles available on the internet many players prepping for a tournament will simply do a bit of research about what the pros are playing, tweak a little for their specific meta and go. In all truth that’s not a bad strategy and as I prep for my next big tournament, Grand Prix Atlanta, I fully admit that I may be playing a version of a known deck. But even if I do end up playing something that others will recognize and probably have a game plan for, I can honestly say that I’ve been fully enjoying the brewing process leading up to the event.

Brewing is simply deckbuilding. Not deck-tweaking, but building a deck from the bottom up. For me this is the best part of Magic, the Gathering. Its why I play and enjoy the game so much. Its what makes the game unique or at least it was when it came out. The playing field is level but it’s vast! Everyone has the same card pool (ideally, but don’t get me started on the cost of the game today) and guidelines but what players do with that card pool is what separates the good, the bad, the ugly, and the great. When two players sit down to play, even though they started on an even playing field, one can find himself/herself at a severe disadvantage. Brewing is looking at the card pool available and assembling a deck that can give you the best advantage against the field.

I’m going to talk about extended here just as a point of reference and because its what I’m currently preparing for but the ideas here are useful in any format. I feel like my last article post:The New World of Extended hit at what the popular decks are pretty well so please check that out for more detailed descriptions. Faeries is rising to the top as the deck to beat as the PTQ season gets underway. 5cc gained a lot of popularity due to several pros writing about it online and having good results but the one deck that 5cc struggles with is Faeries which also has a decent game against the rest of the field. So as we start our brewing process we can assume that one of the most popular decks that we will face is Faeries. 5cc will also be played in strong numbers because control players love options and this deck is filled with them. Its hard to prepare for 5cc because of how customizable it is and its ability to basically play any card out there. Strategies that beat 5cc regularly are decks that are fast and can win on turn 4 or 5 regularly or decks with a land destruction package, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Other popular decks will be Steel Artifact, WW, Jund, and RDW. And a few decks to be wary of because of their power level are Mytic Conscription, UW Control, and Wargate Omen. Then there are the decks we don’t know about. For big events like a Grand Prix where the pros come out to play and teams from all over the world come together you are sure to find some new strategies that are powerful and surprising. There is not much you can do about that other than build a deck that doesn’t really care what the other person is trying to do or pack your control deck with cards that are very very versatile.

The field is really pretty wide open right now as all of the above listed strategies are so different and must be attacked or disrupted in different ways. I’m not sure its possible to have a deck which is largely favorable in any and all match-ups. A good goal is to build a deck that beats the “best deck in the format”, Faeries, and has a solid or favorable match-up against what will be popular. The reason I say to focus on these two segments is because in the early rounds you will be facing more of the popular decks even if they aren’t on the power level of some others. In order to play in the later rounds of the tournament against the other “best decks” you will have to wade through lots of budget and easy to build easy to pilot decks to make it there. Then in the later rounds your chances of facing the best deck are significantly higher than the chances you’ll face any other deck. There will be a Faeries deck in the Top 8 if not more than one. And if you’re on the bubble you want to know that if your opponent leads with Secluded Glen then you can relax and play a match-up in your favor. I’m not at all saying to ignore the other potential winning strategies but simply saying that if your deck doesn’t perform against these two populations you should scrap it and move on to greener pastures.

No, this is not the same existential question that every teen must answer before moving on to adulthood and those who fail to do so are left floundering in a post-adolescent wasteland playing Magic. But when thinking about building a deck it is important to start with a look at yourself. What do you like to play? How do you like to win? What decks are the most fun for you? Do you enjoy trying to hard cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, swarming the opponent with a massive amount of creatures or tokens, sliding in some wicked infinite combo, or do you like to play control and lock the other person out? Start with what you like to play. Tournaments are long days of Magic and it can be hard to stay on your game as you get into the later rounds in the day. This gets even harder if you are not playing a deck that is fun for you. Sure winning is fun and I’m all about that but even the best deck in the room in the hands of a tired and brain-dead pilot is going to struggle mightily against the field.

Start with how you want to win or your “win condition.” This can be anything from a single card, Emrakul, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Avenger of Zendikar, or it could be a combo, Pestermite + Splinter Twin, Quillspike+Devoted Druid, Prismatic Omen + Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, or it could be a simple strategy like card advantage, life gain, or land destruction. There are certainly more options than this short list of known winning cards and combos. This is the fun part of deck-building because it’s the most creative. Here you get to imagine wild scenarios and work to get them into decks. I mean think of Venser, the Sojourner and Glimmerpoint Stag blinking the board in and out of existence. There are lots of fun things to blink as well with Kitchen Finks, Oblivion Ring, Wall of Omens, Acidic Slime, Spreading Seas to name a few. And then when he goes ultimate !!!

         

This is often the hardest part of deck building, finding the cards that turn your win condition into a competitive deck. In this step of the brewing process hundreds of cards need to be evaluated. A good start to narrowing the list down is to determine what your deck needs to make the win condition reliable. There are essentially two types of decks and yours needs to know where it fits in this spectrum. There are decks that goldfish well, meaning that left undisrupted they win very quickly (turn 4 or 5 at the latest) and decks that interact well with your opponent’s deck. An example of a good goldfish deck is the current extended Elves deck, where left to itself it will win with an overwhelming swarm as quickly as turn 3 and regularly by turn 4 or 5. The other side’s best example is 5cc which sits back and decides which cards the opponent is playing could cause them to lose and then removes those cards from play. 5cc by design can interact with any other strategy out there. Now there are decks that blur the line such as Jund (but if you look closely at different Jund builds you can see which side they lean to) but most decks usually fall to one side or the other pretty clearly.

If your win condition is efficiently costed it would most likely fit well into the goldfish strategy and so you should look for on color cards that can help you find the pieces you need quickly and support them with cards that protect the win condition. When you are playing lots of cards quickly, ie you have a low curve, it is important to consider ways to find 2 for 1’s or card advantage. This will help you replenish your hand and/or filter through the cards in your deck to find the key pieces of the puzzle. Cards like Preordain, Wall of Omens, Elvish Visionary, Ranger of Eos, Tinker, Fauna Shaman, Stoneforge Mystic are all good examples of cheap cards which provided card advantage and help you find the cards you need more quickly. Ramp is another good goldfish strategy but only if green is one of your colors. Which brings up a good point. How many colors should you play? With extended’s large amount of dual colored lands of both enemy and allied colors it is very easy to play 2 colors with almost no penalty as far as land is concerned. When trying to build a fast reliable deck adding a third color bumps the risk of having mana issues up significantly. In any situation a 2 color deck will have mana issues and miss an early play one in every 9 games roughly even after a mulligan. 3 color decks are going to miss an early play due to awkward mana roughly 1 out of every 6 games (these figures are rough and come from my personal play testing but I stand by them and would be very surprised if anyone could mathematically prove me wrong). All this to say when looking at your win condition if it is mono colored then you can feel safe adding a second color but should be wary of adding a third especially if there are any double colored mana costs.

If you are looking to go for more of a control or interactive build I feel safe saying you should be using at least 2 different colors and make sure that you have a curve in your disruption suite. A curve is simply cards at each casting cost. And the number of cards you have in each converted cost slot form a nice curve with the majority being in the 2, 3, and 4 mana slots and fewer in the 1, 5 or more slots. This will allow you to interact at all stages of the game. When looking to be interactive cards that are 2 for 1 or even better 3 or 4 for ones are a must! Each card you play need’s to give you options or deal with several threats at once. I realize that is hard to do low in the curve but from 3 mana on up you should be looking to gain card advantage with each play you make. Cards like Planeswalkers, SoA Ultimatums, Cryptic Command *list*, Esper Charm, Day of Judgment, Volcanic Fallout, Wurmcoil Engine, Grave Titan, Acidic Slime and the like are cards which give you options or can deal with a large number of your opponent’s threats at once.

This is also where your knowledge of your meta is going to come in handy. When you are evaluating cards think about the popular decks and how you could or want to attack them. This will help you narrow down your options. If a card looks like it would be sweet in your deck and boosts your win condition but doesn’t help in any specific way to beat the popular decks you should probably set that card aside. You are most likely looking at a “win more” card. If your win condition is to somehow put five 5/5 flying dragons into play, a “win more” card is one that gives them all double strike (all hypotheticals not sure this is possible in current extended). Now that is an extreme example but you get my point. It would be much better to add removal to your deck than a card that turns your 25 power attackers into 50 power.

Building a mana base is where the internet comes in very very handy. In this case brewing mana is simply reinventing the wheel. There is not a color combination you can come up with that hasn’t already been played in some form so go online and find a deck with similar color distribution and borrow the mana base. You’ll have to tweak it of course but that shouldn’t take a very long time. One big question is how many lands should be in your deck? The depends on a lot of factors and again some internet research of decks with a similar curve and number of ramp spells should give you a guideline to start with.

         

How Does Your Brew Stack Up?

Now its time to see how your brew performs. Proxy up a gauntlet of decks to test your own build against. Start with the best decks and the most popular ones and if you’re doing well move on to the others you’ll expect to face. If you are having trouble with the best and most popular decks it may be time to head back to the drawing board and tweak your line-up. I would make sure that I test at least 10 games against each deck before I make any changes, but be sure to take notes as you play of what cards worked well and if you have ideas of what you could take out/add in. Then after playing 4 of 5 very different decks look at your notes and see which of the ideas should be mainboarded and which are sideboard worthy and which just need to be tucked away for future reference.

One of the biggest pitfalls players fall into during this phase of brewing is to become too attached to their pet cards. If the Bloodbraid Elf just isn’t cascading into anything relevant after 20 games it might be time to find a replacement no matter how powerful the card is supposed to be. Some cards are inherently powerful and fun to play but every card’s power level is tied to the deck it is being played in. Don’t be afraid to take out a “bomb” of a card for one that has the potential to give you better value or to be more synergistic with your current build. It can’t hurt to try new things and even if they don’t work out you’ve learned some valuable information. Some cards that may start as a one of in the sideboard may move to a 4 of in the main after you’ve tested the deck 100 times, and other cards can go in the other direction. You never know until you try things out. This is often where playtesting with your friends is going to be invaluable. They will see things that you hadn’t before and have ideas that you’ve yet to consider. Together with them you can really streamline a deck in a hurry. With 3 people play testing the required 100 games or more can be accomplished quickly and the tweaking process and sideboard construction can begin.

No matter how hard you try and how much time you spend on a brew, as tournament time approaches you must be ready to admit that the deck just doesn’t have the power level that it was supposed to when you dreamed it up. And while FNM’s are great places to play fringe brews that have a marginal chance of winning, PTQ’s and Grand Prix are not. At those events you need to be confident that the deck you are bringing to the table gives you the best chance to win against the field as you anticipate it. In my preparations for this upcoming Grand Prix I’ve gone through 5 solid brews that in the end I couldn’t find a way to make them reliable enough. I’m still working and I’m still brewing and I have still got some ideas to try. As I said before this what I feel is the best part of Magic, so I’m going to continue to enjoy the process and hopefully it will pay off with a surprisingly good deck to play in Atlanta. So good luck and happy brewing and don’t forget to post your ideas on this site for feedback. I’ll be sure to keep my ideas flowing and I welcome any and all feedback and if you’d like me to take a look at your deck I’d be happy to do so.

-Cheers

Crossclibmer
aka Dan C

P.S. - At the time of writing the current brew involves a Bant deck using Admonition Angel, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor for devastating sweeps.