Nihil Credo
08-17-2007, 06:27 PM
Richard Feldman is currently, in my and many others' opinions, the best Constructed Magic writer on this planet. A rogue deckbuilder and technician that consistently manages to find the cutting edge in pretty much every format he tackles, his contributions to Legacy so far amount only to the G/b Trinity deck he ran at GP: Flash, causing players' and coverage's jaws to equally drop.
Since his articles deal almost exclusively with PTQ formats and have been SCG Premium for a while, I thought it likely that most of us Legacy players did not get to read them. This is a shame, because some lessons to be found in them are amazingly important for any prospective deckbuilder (whereas other articles, like this one (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13726.html), are just plain awesome, but hardly relevant in a format without weekly PTQs).
Because of that, I have collected here what I consider the most relevant Feldman articles for a Constructed non-PTQ player, with money quotes and a short presentation.
Enjoy. You may thank me later.
SCG Daily: Better Right than Pretty (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11371.html)
How many times have you dropped your Boros deck's Kami of Ancient Law count from three to two in order to make room for a fourth Char, and then maybe from two to one, to make room for a fourth Zo-Zu, and then suddenly felt obliged to go way-out-of-your-way to eliminate that last copy because “one copy can't be right, can it?”
When you read this, it will seem pretty obvious stuff to you. You're not that silly, aren't you? Then some months later you will be tweaking a new deck, and you'll catch yourself doing exactly the same thing. And you'll piss your pants realizing how often you must have done it before.
If you're going to read only one of these articles, read this one. It's short, too.
Tenacious Tron, Start to Finish (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13690.html)
We weren't sure if four Chrome Mox was too greedy; on one hand, we were playing four Thirst for Knowledge and could easily get rid of extra copies, and on the other, redundant Moxen tend to be mulligans until you do find a Thirst. When you identify this kind of question ("three Mox or four?") early on in playtesting, the correct thing to do is to run the greedy option and see if it gets you in trouble. If not, keep it. If so, go back to playing it safe. This is the correct approach because playing it safe to begin with doesn't really tell you anything; you can't very well play three Moxen, experience no problems, and conclude that "nothing bad will happen if we go up to four copies."
For those who didn't know, Richard Feldman and Zac Hill built a Tier 1 deck during the 2007 Extended season. This is the second article in the series (the first one (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13614.html) was the unveiling) and it is a splendid example of the process of scratch-building a new competitive deck in a more or less "open" format like 2007 Extended... and like Legacy.
Updates (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13800.html)
I realized something, looking at Saito's list. If I'd skipped out on this Extended PTQ season, I would have done the same laughing, head-shaking routine I always do when looking over his list. One Disenchant and one Dismantling Blow in the sideboard? Akroma's Vengeance? Chalice of the Void? Petrified Field?
This time, though, things were different. That was my Petrified Field, my Crucible of Worlds, and Zac's Chalice of the Void. For once, I knew exactly why these strange cards were there - we'd put them there!
Comparing Saito's decklist to the (mostly similar) one I suggested in Tronnovation made puzzling through his card choices and counts pretty manageable. For the first time ever, I was actually able to look at a Japanese decklist and figure out exactly why the cards had gone there.
We may not have Japanese lists in Legacy, with their indecipherable weird numbers, but we surely have complicated decks with lots of interaction that do warrant those kind of tweakings (I'm looking at you, Survival). Here, Feldman illustrates how Tomoharu Saito effectively refaced entire Tenacious Tron matchups without even touching the deck's core engine.
An aside: we often hear about how Eternal formats develop much slower than prize-supported ones. To realize how very true this is, think about this... the changes presented in this article are roughly comparable in relevance to the addition of Wastelands and Ports in 2004/05 Goblins (a Tier 1 deck, with lots of hate and a few troublesome matchups, that incorporates new card choices into his strategy to turn them around). But in PTQ formats, this is the kind of deck evolution that happens every week.
Battle Royale, Round 1 - The Aftermath (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12155.html)
To sum up, deploying your mana in a control mirror is very much like deploying your creatures in an aggro mirror. Falling behind in the mana race gives your opponent the opportunity to play (A) bigger, more relevant threats than you - see the Kokusho example, (B) expensive trumps to your more cost-effective win conditions - see the Debtors' Knell vs. Firemane Angel example, (C) threats in conjunction with answers to beat you on damage - see the Helix-your-2/1-activate-Red-Genju-swing example.
This Budget Standard report leads to some important observations on the dynamics of the Control vs. Control matches. Thought it was all about the Holy Cow of card advantage? Think again.
The Constructed Manabase, Part 1: Mana Ratios (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12780.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 2: Mana Ratios, continued (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12780.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 3: Color Balancing (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12990.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 4: Detail Work (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13130.html)
Now, several people I have met like to figure out their manabases by adding up the total number of mana symbols represented (i.e. one copy of Exalted Angel counts as two White symbols, while one copy of Vindicate counts as one White symbol), and then doling out colored mana producers in the same ratio.
While this method won't usually leave you with a horribly mismatched manabase, it is pretty rare that such a massive simplification of a process as complicated as building a manabase will lead you to the correct solution. Case in point: Ben's deck has eighteen White symbols, seventeen Blue, and sixteen Black. Moreover, his only card with double colored requirements is a White card (Exalted Angel)…so why did he go 15-12-12 in favor of Blue? (From Part 3)
This massive opus analyzes over twenty tournament-successful decklists to extrapolate the fundamental (!) rules in building an effective mana base. You will skim through some parts of it, depending on your Constructed experience, but I'm pretty sure only very seasoned deckbuilders already know by heart everything contained in this article series.
Since his articles deal almost exclusively with PTQ formats and have been SCG Premium for a while, I thought it likely that most of us Legacy players did not get to read them. This is a shame, because some lessons to be found in them are amazingly important for any prospective deckbuilder (whereas other articles, like this one (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13726.html), are just plain awesome, but hardly relevant in a format without weekly PTQs).
Because of that, I have collected here what I consider the most relevant Feldman articles for a Constructed non-PTQ player, with money quotes and a short presentation.
Enjoy. You may thank me later.
SCG Daily: Better Right than Pretty (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11371.html)
How many times have you dropped your Boros deck's Kami of Ancient Law count from three to two in order to make room for a fourth Char, and then maybe from two to one, to make room for a fourth Zo-Zu, and then suddenly felt obliged to go way-out-of-your-way to eliminate that last copy because “one copy can't be right, can it?”
When you read this, it will seem pretty obvious stuff to you. You're not that silly, aren't you? Then some months later you will be tweaking a new deck, and you'll catch yourself doing exactly the same thing. And you'll piss your pants realizing how often you must have done it before.
If you're going to read only one of these articles, read this one. It's short, too.
Tenacious Tron, Start to Finish (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13690.html)
We weren't sure if four Chrome Mox was too greedy; on one hand, we were playing four Thirst for Knowledge and could easily get rid of extra copies, and on the other, redundant Moxen tend to be mulligans until you do find a Thirst. When you identify this kind of question ("three Mox or four?") early on in playtesting, the correct thing to do is to run the greedy option and see if it gets you in trouble. If not, keep it. If so, go back to playing it safe. This is the correct approach because playing it safe to begin with doesn't really tell you anything; you can't very well play three Moxen, experience no problems, and conclude that "nothing bad will happen if we go up to four copies."
For those who didn't know, Richard Feldman and Zac Hill built a Tier 1 deck during the 2007 Extended season. This is the second article in the series (the first one (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13614.html) was the unveiling) and it is a splendid example of the process of scratch-building a new competitive deck in a more or less "open" format like 2007 Extended... and like Legacy.
Updates (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13800.html)
I realized something, looking at Saito's list. If I'd skipped out on this Extended PTQ season, I would have done the same laughing, head-shaking routine I always do when looking over his list. One Disenchant and one Dismantling Blow in the sideboard? Akroma's Vengeance? Chalice of the Void? Petrified Field?
This time, though, things were different. That was my Petrified Field, my Crucible of Worlds, and Zac's Chalice of the Void. For once, I knew exactly why these strange cards were there - we'd put them there!
Comparing Saito's decklist to the (mostly similar) one I suggested in Tronnovation made puzzling through his card choices and counts pretty manageable. For the first time ever, I was actually able to look at a Japanese decklist and figure out exactly why the cards had gone there.
We may not have Japanese lists in Legacy, with their indecipherable weird numbers, but we surely have complicated decks with lots of interaction that do warrant those kind of tweakings (I'm looking at you, Survival). Here, Feldman illustrates how Tomoharu Saito effectively refaced entire Tenacious Tron matchups without even touching the deck's core engine.
An aside: we often hear about how Eternal formats develop much slower than prize-supported ones. To realize how very true this is, think about this... the changes presented in this article are roughly comparable in relevance to the addition of Wastelands and Ports in 2004/05 Goblins (a Tier 1 deck, with lots of hate and a few troublesome matchups, that incorporates new card choices into his strategy to turn them around). But in PTQ formats, this is the kind of deck evolution that happens every week.
Battle Royale, Round 1 - The Aftermath (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12155.html)
To sum up, deploying your mana in a control mirror is very much like deploying your creatures in an aggro mirror. Falling behind in the mana race gives your opponent the opportunity to play (A) bigger, more relevant threats than you - see the Kokusho example, (B) expensive trumps to your more cost-effective win conditions - see the Debtors' Knell vs. Firemane Angel example, (C) threats in conjunction with answers to beat you on damage - see the Helix-your-2/1-activate-Red-Genju-swing example.
This Budget Standard report leads to some important observations on the dynamics of the Control vs. Control matches. Thought it was all about the Holy Cow of card advantage? Think again.
The Constructed Manabase, Part 1: Mana Ratios (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12780.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 2: Mana Ratios, continued (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12780.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 3: Color Balancing (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12990.html)
The Constructed Manabase, Part 4: Detail Work (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13130.html)
Now, several people I have met like to figure out their manabases by adding up the total number of mana symbols represented (i.e. one copy of Exalted Angel counts as two White symbols, while one copy of Vindicate counts as one White symbol), and then doling out colored mana producers in the same ratio.
While this method won't usually leave you with a horribly mismatched manabase, it is pretty rare that such a massive simplification of a process as complicated as building a manabase will lead you to the correct solution. Case in point: Ben's deck has eighteen White symbols, seventeen Blue, and sixteen Black. Moreover, his only card with double colored requirements is a White card (Exalted Angel)…so why did he go 15-12-12 in favor of Blue? (From Part 3)
This massive opus analyzes over twenty tournament-successful decklists to extrapolate the fundamental (!) rules in building an effective mana base. You will skim through some parts of it, depending on your Constructed experience, but I'm pretty sure only very seasoned deckbuilders already know by heart everything contained in this article series.