Pattern Recognition #101 - Slow Grow, Week 4

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

21 February 2019

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.net's longest running article series about the bric and brac of Magic: The Gathering, card design, game history and theory as well as being my own personal soap box for when I want to go on and on about things that interest me. Who am I? Well, I am berryjon, self professed Old Fogey and yes, I've been playing this game for longer than some of you have been alive. I've earned that title.

Today, we come back to my second-to-last issue regarding my Slow Grow League tournament, and the events of Week 4. For those of you who have forgotten what this is about, or haven't read my previous articles, this is a six week league, three rounds each week, in which each player starts with the pre-constructed Commander deck of their choice. After each week, each player may make up to five substitutions in their deck.

So without further ado, here's my work going into...

Week 4

OUT: Deathreap Ritual, Bloodtracker, Fury Storm, Grisly Salvage, Centaur Vinecrasher
IN: Naturalize, Thunderscape Familiar, Kaervek's Purge, Dead Man's Chest, Necrogenesis

Some choices were well intended. Other choices were the result of my seeing the writing on the wall with regard to how the Leaguoe was going to end. But I was not going to give up or get out without going down swinging!

First on the out list is Deathreap Ritual. A Conspiracy card first, this card gives some small card advantage to me if a creature died during that turn.

Except that I never saw it. Not once in any of my games going into this week had I seen this card. And in Commander, when creatures die, they tend to die in large blow-outs, not one at a time, which minimizes my ability to gain from the card. So honestly, out it goes to make room for cards I might actually have more use from.

Now, Bloodtracker is a card I did see a couple of times. However, I just didn't like the exchange rate on the creature's ability, but at least the last ability triggers on leaving the battlefield, not dying, like, say, Paladin of Atonement. Which is something that I found out back in Week 0, when an opponent overloaded Cyclonic Rift.

Wait, does anyone cast Cyc Rift when it isn't Overloaded?

Nevermind, it's a silly question.

Anyway, Bloodtracker is gone as I don't want to lose faster.

Fury Storm is part of the Commander Storm cards cycle in this set. It's a duplication spell in the vein of Fork. It's a gimmick spell, especially when my Commander already costs as much as it does, and duplicating spells is something of a situational boon to a game. And there's not a lot of Instants and Sorceries in this deck as it stands that I want to copy.

So out it goes in favor of something that should be more helpful.

I actually cast Grisly Salvage a couple of times so far in the game, but I'm still old school enough to accept that the Graveyard isn't just an extension of my hand. Honestly, I should break myself of that habit at some point. Hell, I still remember the rules for when graveyard order actually mattered. As a card itself, self-milling for five is a lot more palpable in a 100 card deck than it is in a 60 or even 40 card deck. I mean, sure, it did its job, but in the end, I just didn't think that this card was the right thing for me. Perhaps when combined with Gyrus, Waker of Corpses, it would be better, but not in the way I was aiming this deck.

As for Centaur Vinecrasher... uh... Land destruction isn't a big thing in this format. Or at least in this league. And I'm not about to keep lands in my graveyard just to make this guy bigger! Why were you in this deck for so long? Out! OUT! OUT!

Now for the more positive additions to my deck.

It was a huge fight between Naturalize and Tranquility for the additional Enchantment destruction card, but I went for the Disenchant as while blowing up all the Enchantments would take out the Tuvasa player, he was only one person by this point. And he ran the store/league/tournament, so I didn't want to be that guy. Instead, I went for the one that would also slag an artifact if it came down to is, as this deck was sorely lacking in artifact removal. So Naturalize it was!

Hey, do you remember when I said I should have put Thunderscape Familiar in my deck last week, but I didn't? Well, guess what! I fixed that this week! A low cost creature, First Strike, my (second) favourite creature type, and cost reduction on a good portion of my deck - including the Commander! What's not to like!

Well, only that I should have seriously thought about including Nightscape Familiar and Thornscape Familiar, but they didn't have the same overlap that the Kavu does and I only have so many cards I can change out each week. But hey, in retrospect, maybe I should have? Overlapping cost reductions and more creatures? It should work out!

Kaervek's Purge came to me because it was old, part of my pre-2000 collection that wasn't too badly damaged (it's... playable) and because I loved the idea of picking a creature and going "BOOM!" to it. And then dishing out the pain to that creature's controller.

I had visions of casting this card, and my opponents all reading it because hey, it was printed in Mirage, and that's pretty old. And then feeling smug about it.

Spoilers!

I never draw it.

The idea here is that I recognized that I wanted spot removal for creatures at this point, but I also wanted to be flashy about it. This card fed both my Spike and my Vorthos, and the Vorthos won out.

Dead Man's Chest came from my prize pack the previous week, and it was something of an impulse to add it to the deck. I was honestly hoping to cast this on someone's creature, wait for one of the other players to kill that creature, then reap the rewards for it. For added bonus points, I could use the aforementioned Kaervek's Purge to do the killing, netting me a dead creature, damage to a player, and more cards to play on my side of things!

Yeah. Didn't work out that way. Never saw it.

Necrogenesis was a straight replacement for Grisly Salvage. I saw this as a chance to remove cards from the reach of Meren of Clan Nel Toth, which was running away with the League by this point, as well as just general munching of creatures for the benefit of giving me 1/1's to work with. It was a nice card, but the only time I saw it was when I was flipping the top cards of my deck and it showed up as a solution to my problems on my next draw.

sigh

This is a running theme with me, isn't it? Putting in all these nice cards, and never seeing them. I know, I love consistency in my decks, and one of the appeals of Commander when isn't running roughshod all over it is the idea that your deck won't play the same way each time. And so I hope for the luck of the draw to turn my way eventually, but it doesn't happen.

But that's enough lolygagging about. Let's get on to the games, shall we?

ROUND 1

Rest in Peace.

Helm of Obedience.

Time to pack it in.

Have I mentioned not liking the fact that I rarely do anything before turn 4? Because I rarely do anything before turn 4.

ROUND 2

My best game during the league, bar none, happened here. I was sitting across from Tuvasa the Sunlit, corner from Saskia the Unyielding and beside me was Saheeli, the Gifted.

I was already behind, simply due to the quality of Commanders, and for once, I wasn't knocked out right away as the weakest player. A great opening hand that started off with Forest then Explore then Savage Lands had me nice and set as I went second.

Then on his first turn, the Saskia player went and played Magus of the Vineyard. And I celebrated! Because hell yeah, Turn 2 Lord Windgrace!

Then Mr. Tuvasa, wise old man that he is, blows up the Magus with a vengeance on his turn - "Don't give the Artifacts Player Free Mana!" was the explanation as my joy at that possibility went down the drain.

So I went into turn 2 with 3 mana total, which I then used to cast Harrow, which was followed on my next turn with Lotus Cobra, Retreat to Hagra and then on turn 5, with my mana well fixed and ready to begin, Lord Windgrace hit the table.

I had position, and the early mash up meant that I passed under the radar, the other three players vying for position as I built up a good hand to do what I wanted to do.

Which was play Avender of Zendikar with 13 lands, followed by putting 8 lands into play over the next two turns thanks to Lord Windgrace pulling fetches out of my graveyard.

I had a small army of token creatures, but then I discovered that this deck has a vital flaw in it for supporting the huge ground army.

No Trample. At all. No Overrun. No way to swing over someone else's blockers to deal lethal damage to the chewy player behind the crunchy outer shell. I mean, if I had lucked out with Nesting Dragon, I still would have been able to figure out how to flip my eggs into Dragons properly, but this wasn't the case.

I had an army that I could sit behind, and no way to exploit it! But my sudden explosion caught other people off guard, and they suddenly had to contend with a large army of angry plants looking to whack someone who made the wrong move.

And then I stalled out because that was all I had going for me, and I couldn't use any of my board wipes in hand (like Gaze of the Gorgon) to clear the way for my guys to get through.

But it was fun and exciting to play there, knowing that I ballooned up to be a contender.

Then Tuvasa the Sunlit became the target of Holy Mantle, and that was that. I was kaputski.

Round 3

No real notes here. Just a slow lowering of my life total reaching 4 before being taken out of the game. It appeared as though nothing interesting happened, or rather nothing that you couldn't already guess. Man, I really need to get into the habit of taking better notes. And it's been nearly three months, so my memory is fading.

I came out of the Week with another handful of points, and a certain sinking feeling.

I was going to miss Week 5. Work had me scheduled that evening. I mean, I already knew how this whole thing was going to end, but it was the effort being put into it that I wanted to matter. But that's for a couple weeks from now.

Join me next week when I talk about cards that came up when I was going over the Alpha Boons, when cards are better or just plain worse than others.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!