Pattern Recognition #315 - Slow Grow 5 - Weeks 3 and 4

Features Pattern Recognition

berryjon

7 March 2024

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

And welcome back! Today, I will be covering weeks three and four of my tournament, with me going into week five tomorrow. So let's get into it, shall we?

WEEK 3

IN: Inventors' Fair, Karn, Legacy Reforged, Combustible Gearhulk, Meteor Golem, Daretti, Scrap Savant
OUT: Psychosis Crawler, Thopter Assembly, Duplicant, Foundry of the Consuls, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

This week, I do my one Land switch of the tournament, replacing the Foundry with the Fair, which is a much better option as it provides passive life gain and the ability to search up an artifact when I need it. Karn is here to provide another solid body, as well as free mana to cast my Artifact Spells. Meteor Golem is here to blow things up on ETB, and copying him means more destroyed targets. The Gearhulk is another powerful creature, a 6/6 with First Strike is nothing to sneeze at, and his ETB 'Draw or Burn' effect is absolutely bonkers with some of the stuff I'm rolling in the deck. And Daretti is here for the added draw value, as well as recursion. Sacrifice a Servo to get Blightsteel back? YES PLEASE!

In the 'losers' round, the Crawler is good, but this deck doesn't have the relatively good card draw to make it sing. Thoper Assembly is ... not the worst, but if I'm in a position where it does its thing, I have bigger problems than a lack of Thopters. Duplicant is... not that great. And Brudiclad is going because it's a great card, but it's better as the Commander, and not in the 99.

ROUND 7 - FIGHT!

Anikthea, Hand of Erebos is first, Galadriel, Light of Valinor is second, I'm third, and Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher is fourth. My opening hand is three Island, an Izzet Boilerworks, a Highland Lake, Unstable Obelisk and Etherium Sculptor. I can work with this.The Enchantment deck drops a mana dork on Turn 1, and claims First Blood on Carmen. I drop a T2 Etherium Sculptor and the Enchantment player drops a Cunning Rhetoric on turn 3, discouraging people form attacking him. I literally only have one response to that in my deck, which is Chaos Warp. But I play Saheeli and start her Token Making fun time. But I haven't gotten much in the way of cards to play, and things go from annoying to worse as Galadriel comes online, and the Vampires are... doing things?

And then The Enchantment Deck plays Mindwrack Harpy. I mill Daretti, Scrap Savant, Combustible Gearhulk and Vedalken Humiliator.

I am absolutely salty at loosing such card draw! I'm stuck with normal amounts of draw, and by unspoken agreement, the Harpy dies. So it does. However, I've sort of stalled out, and Galadriel tries to break the stalemate with a Genesis Wave for 9. Gets some stuff, but also gets Asceticism which puts paid my idea to buff points by Commander removal. I'd need a global wipe at this point, which isn't coming. But hey, I have my token army! Just need something to do with them all. Not even Bosh can help me because there's nothing to throw!

Then Enchantments casts Culling Ritual and gets nine mana, mostly off of me, and yeah, I'm hooped. At the end of the game, Carmen casts Return to Dust on Bosh and Asceticism, and I threw Bosh at Galadriel's face because he wasn't watching his life total and I was, meaning that I came in second. Not a great game, sadly.

ROUND 8 - FIGHT!

Morska, Undersea Sleuth is first, Pantlaza, Sun-Favored is second, I'm third, and Pants2 is fourth. Look, two DinoDiscover Decks at the tale, I need some way to differentiate them! They are now Pants and Pants2.

I don't record my opening hand, but it's good enough to contain Inkwell Leviathan and enough for me to cast it. Which I wind up doing on turn 6. Sadly, the Pants deck gets a dork on Turn 1 and hits me for first blood while I can't defend myself. I get Retrofitter Foundry just a little too late to do anything about that.

Pants2 casts Welcome to ...  ^Flip and targets my Foundry, and some other things. In response, the Detective drops a Detective of the Month and slams lethal combat damage into Pants2. I don't have a response, and am just hoping to survive and get 2nd by being the lesser of two threats.

Pants1 resolves Defense of the Heart, and grabs Apex Altisaur and Temple Altisaur, and he fights 9 creatures to death, stopping only when he realizes that the only thing left to fight is my Inkwell Leviathan, and he's too big to die to a fight, and also has SHROUD. Which bites me in the ass because I can't use Saheeli's Artistry to make token copies of it and finally go on the offensive! But you know what I can copy? My Coveted Jewel as time is running low and I'm desperate for something I can use. So I copy it three times with Echo Storm, then a Sculpting Steel. And nothing. I come in third on Life totals, but everyone was laughing that I did that on the last turn of the game because if anyone else hit me, they could have gotten all those Jewels and the card draw.

ROUND 9 - FIGHT!

Kaust, Eyes of the Glade is first, Galdriel (the only one) is second, I'm third and Magus Lucea Kane is going last in the turn order. I take a hand with two lands and a MV Rock, and guess what?

I miss my Turn 3 and Turn 4 land drops. I'm far behind, and everyone else is just setting up for each other. And then on Turn 5, with me having a ful hand, Kaust casts Jeska's Will, hitting me up for Seven , and he casts an Entwined Tooth and Nail to go get Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. He goes infinite and wins, so the rest of us agree that we'll fight it out for second, but that the round is done, and so on and so forth.

I finally cast Myr Battlesphere, and I have a hilarious option. I do my math, and I realize that I have just enough power to take out Galadriel, and he doesn't believe me. So I ult Saheeli, and copy the Myr Battlesphere and some other things. The Battlesphere copies, and creates four more Myr. I swing with the team at him, and tap all my Myr to deal direct damage to his face divided between the two Battlespheres, and he doesn't realize this is what I can do until it's too late. he scrambles, but comes up short on the defence, and it's just me and Kane for second.

Oh, and the four Myr created by the Saheeli-copied Battleshpere? They stick around because they were created by the Battleshpere, not Saheeli.

Kane holds back on the defense. I cast Thopter Engineer. I cast Echo Storm on my Myr Battlesphere, and it only copies once. That's Three Battlespheres, some other stuff, and 16 Myr. I swing for the kill and...!

AEtherize

Good game, I take third.

15 points total on the week, not great, but I had fun with it, and the deck is definitely coming together. I have some cards that I purchased ready for next week, so it's time for refinement.

WEEK 4

IN: Saheeli Rai, Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance, Cyclonic Rift, Masterful Replication, Padeem, Consul of Innovation
OUT: Darksteel Juggernaut, Mimic Vat, Enchanter's Bane, Inkwell Leviathan, Treasure Nabber

In this week is perennial "Too good to really leave out" card CycRift, so if I have to explain why, I don't think this is the format for you. Padeem is inserted both for providing Hexproof to my threats as long as he is on the board, but also for ancillary card draw. No one else is running Artifacts past MV3 rocks, so I will definitely have the advantage there. Of course, he does nothing against boardwipes, but there is little I can do about those.

The Sun's Brilliance is another copy-maker, which is part of my game plan as you're going to see this week and next. Sahheli Rai herself is here to help Scry my problems away, dealing incidental damage to my opponents, and then, she can copy something if she needs to. Or if she ults, that's three Artifacts from my deck to the battlefield. What's that? Blightsteel? Don't mind if I do!

Lastly, Masterful Replication's most important aspect is its Instant speed. I can turn everything into one Artifact (be wary of the Legend Rule), or in a pinch, make a couple of Golems. I know what I'm here for. Copying something very dangerous and letting loose!

Coming out though, some good, some bad. Treasure Nabber is great in more constructed formats with plenty of mana rocks to go around, but in this format, they're not as thick on the ground as I would like, to the point where I've gone entire games with me being the only one with rocks. He's gone. Same with Enchanter's Bane. Yes, it is great when it lands against the Abzan Enchantress deck, but it's a bit on the slow side in terms of life loss or removal. Sad to see it go, but I want to make room for the advancing of my game plan.

Inkwell Leviathan is going for one simple reason. Shroud means I can't copy it. Yes, it's an 7/11 Trample Islandwalker, but it's all by itself, and that doesn't help me any. It's gone. Darksteel also goes out because of the forced attack, and no innate Trample. When I talked about this creature type way back when, I rated it pretty lowly for this. Yes, it's Indestructible, yes, it scales with the number of artifacts I control. Yes, it can be blocked forever by a 1/1 token.

Lastly, the Mimic Vat goes because something has to die for it to start making copies of it, and I'm not much in the business of that. It's a decent card, but it can get expensive very quickly for its effect, so out it goes.

But now, it's time for the week's event, let's get it rolling!

ROUND 10 - FIGHT!

Mirko, Obsessive Theorist goes first, I am second with Shorikai, Genesis Engine third and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald fourth. I keep an opening hand of two Island, Darksteel Citadel, Sol Ring, Hedron Archive, Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance and Thirst for Knowledge. I'm really hoping to draw into a source quickly, and I have extra card draw to do it with. Mirko and I are Turn 1 Sol Ring buddies, and I miss drawing the right mana source on Turns 1 and two. I'm hoping to draw on Three to get going, when everything goes sideways.

Mirko casts Animate Dead on his Doom Whisperer, and pays 14 life to Surveil Grave Titan into his graveyard, pinging people all the way. I throw caution to the wind, drop my third land, and tap out to cast my second rock and use that to pay for my Thirst, getting me my source of Red. Turn 4, Mirko casts Syr Konrad, the Grim, and in response, Shorikai uses Reality Shift on the Doom Whisperer. It resolves, but Mirko is really big right now, and while I am able to cast Saheeli, she dies to Mirko. I'm able to recast her, and Mirko takes a hands-off approach for then. Shorikai performs emergency intervention, casting Swift Reconfiguration onto Mirko, then Tishana's Tidebinder to try and turn off Mirko before they can recur even more stuff, because the Grave Titan was already a pain. They fail.

I stall out, and take second on life totals when Mirko swings out for the win. 6 points.

ROUND 11 - FIGHT!

After a roll-off, with Kaust, Eyes of the Glade, he's first, Rin and Seri, Inseparable is second, K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is third, and I am fourth. Now, Rin and Seri is the Secret Layer precon deck, which was ruled admissible for the Slow Grow. They used their own cards to build it though, and didn't spend money on the Lair. K'rrik is the new helm of the Necron WH40K deck.

Kaust drops on Turn 2, and then delivers First Blood on the Pets Deck. He then casts Panoptic Projector and goes to town with that. But you see, I have a plan. A cunning Plan. A stupidly hilarious plan that should go right. It's my turn. I just drew my fifth land, and Saheeli has seven loyalty on her. I have a Thopter from Loyal Apprentice, I have Sharding Sphinx, Mind Stone, Izzet Signet, and Commander's Sphere.

No one has any Fliers, and I have Masterful Replication in hand.

Step 1 - Forget about the Thopter made by my Loyal Apprentice this turn as that would have won me the game.
Step 2 - Ult Saheeli, and double my artifacts. I have ten total.
Step 3 - Sadly use one of my Mind Stones for the sixth mana to cast Replication to turn all of my creatures into Sharding Sphinx.
Step 4 - Swing with 9 4/4's in the air at the Krast deck, doing not enough damage to kill him, but that's OK.
Step 5 - Giggle like a madman when I explain what just happened.

90 Thopters flying in the air! Ninety thopters or more!

That's NINTY. NINE ZERO. 90 Thopters you see before you. Kraust looks at everyone and asks if anyone has a solution. They don't.

So he looks at his hand, and on his turn, casts and kicks this card.

Galadriel's Dismissal

And so, between everyone else, over the course of the turn, they manage to generate exactly lethal damage on me because they all knew that if I got my turn, they were all dead.

You know what? I came in last, but it was an amazing last, and I think this was my best game so far. I still have two weeks to go.

ROUND 12 - FIGHT

Holy Urza, I'm going first! Second is Lathril, Blade of the Elves, third is Gylwain, Casting Director and last is the single Shorikai deck. I open with a hand of Island, Mountain, Buried Ruin, Mind Stone, Blasphemous Act, Whirler Rogue and Unwinding Clock. I drop the Mind Stone on curve, and Lathril drops the first creature, looking to take First Blood. Going into turn 3, I am resolved to never getting that point again when the deck provides. Thopter Engineer makes a Thopter and gives it haste. So I swing to get First Blood! Woo!

I get Saheeli up and running, but the Elf deck is starting to gain momentum, and the Casting Director is really putting together an interesting stage play. So I fire off the Blasphemous Act to get some breathing room, and it seems to work. However, because Shorikai wasn't a creature at the time, I don't get a full sweep of Commanders.

I have a better idea.

You see, I drew Sculpting Steel and while the intent was to copy something of mine, the card doesn't actually specify that it has to be my artifact that it copies. I have Unwinding Clock.

I copy Shorikai itself. And suddenly, I'm drawing 2, discarding 1, and making a token:Pilot every turn. In addition to everything else. I just have to draw down to something that will let me win.

Oh, I also cast Chaos Warp on the Commander-Shorikai, giving me the full sweep of Commanders. Points!

So for the second time tonight, I'm the massive threat, and people are trying to slow me down long enough to come up with a solution, and it's Gylwain who comes through with Nylea's Colossus. They have their Commander, and they care able to recur Enchantments that I've been removing thanks to killing the underlying creature with Meteor Golem, and they start chain-casting, and casting enchantment Creatures to give roles to, doubling the enchantments-entering effect.

I take 1541 Commander Damage from the Casting Director. We double-checked the math twice.

You know what? I'll take it.

Slow Grow 24 - Saheeli the Gifted

Commander / EDH berryjon

54 VIEWS

This is my deck after Week 4. Two more weeks of changes to go.

I'm sitting at 70 points, with the current leader - a Tivit, Seller of Secrets deck that wins with Time Sieve - at 106. I'm well out of winning this, but I'm going to go the distance and fill out all six weeks. But of course, I'm already thinking about next year, and while I have the deck, there might be a better option coming soon. I don't know yet. We'll see.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments. Join me next week when I talk about something else. What, I'm not sure about. Then in two weeks when I give my Slow Grow finale, and retrospective.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! 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!