[Question 40] Grand Prix: Chicago

[Bardo]

Zach Tartell asks these excellent questions.

* Are you going to GP: Chicago?

* If not, why not?

* If you can't make it, what would you have played and why? (Post lists if you want to.)

[Pinder]

* Yes.
* I am.
* I can make it.

See you guys tomorrow.

[Eldariel]

* No.

* Something to do with Wrong Continent™, plane ticket prices, increasing sunspot activity & the kilo price of cheese.

* Well, in my case it's rather obvious. The deck I've played the most, the only Legacy deck I presently happen to own in its entirety is Faerie Stompy. As a bonus, it seems to have a solid match-up against much of the expected metagame of Chicago given that BGW midrange and BGx control doesn't seem to be out in much force, and different flavours of Tendrils, Dreadstill, Goblins, Threshold & co. on the other hand do seem to be expected to litter the floor. Not posting a list since it hasn't changed since the last time I posted it in the FS thread.

[Zach Tartell]

Zach Tartell asks these excellent questions.

No, Dan. I don't ask questions:

That swhat I do; I droip Truth Boms

* Are you going to GP: Chicago?
* If not, why not?

I'll answer these two at once, because writing just "no" for one answer seems kinda... pedestrian.

I will not be attending Chicago. Much to my own chagrin. I really wish I could make it, but, as Married to the Sea taught us all:

* If you can't make it, what would you have played and why? (Post lists if you want to.)

Oh, G-d, there are so many things that I'd want to play here. I've been experimenting recently with The Mighty Quinn to mixed results. It's freaking amazing against blue decks (hey, permission, my name is eight "you-can't-say-'no'-this-turn" effects, what's up?), fairly strong against aggro, and great against Thresh decks, if you can keep Counterbalance off the table (or Sensei's Top, too). The only problem is that it either runs too few lands (22) or too many (24) and gets manascrewed. There have been a host of times when having drawn any spell (save a redundant top or whatever) would have saved me and I've kept topping into 3 lands forever. Or, the even less fun, "yeah, I'll keep a two-lander" curse of NEVER DRAWING A THIRD MANA SOURCE. Let me use my favorite kind of function and map out other choices I've mulled over and helped teammates make:

• Natural Order Thresh
  
  • The Hatfields (let me digress my pants off for a minute - I had my record-shattering back-to-back-to-back top eight break-out back in February of 2007, and then laid in a terrible "I can't do anything well" mode for a while, coming up with 3-3 and 4-2 finishes for like six months. Then, in August, right when Cephalid Breakfast started to not suck again, Eli (T-Organizer) held a DLD in Syracuse. Naturally I showed and wrecked up the place, and in the sixth round after drawing with Alix Hatfield, I sat down with him and Adam (or perhaps next to Adam's match) and discussed the differences between the LDV and Eladamri's Call builds of Breakfast. While I was taking notes for Alix's build, I wrote his name next to his list "Hetfeld," which Adam made fun of me for. He then spelled it phonetically, by pointing at Alix's head-clothes and then out the window at the empty lot. I was all, "Hat...Field?" It was kinda funny, and, I believe, an endearing manner in which to make my acquaintance with Alix) (took me a minute to get back on track after that) cannot make a bad build of Thresh. I feel like the Natural Order build they put forth at that weird proxies-are-okay tournament down yonder was a fairly good build, and that the use of fetches for Dryad Arbor is a PIMP way to get a dude into play, but that more creatures would be good. Josh Silvestri (our own Artrowis) has built a fairly good list (in my inexperienced opinion), but I won't publish it here, at least until tomorrow night (if then - I'd feel awkward sharing lists that are half-secret already).
• Aggro-Loam
  
  • There is a Team SPOD Aggro Loam list, found here, for which I have incredible nerd wood. It reminds me of playing my Horde of Notions EDH deck, only it's... good. I still have issues with the combo match (although Clemens, Der Imagianer Freund, assures me that it's worth just playing as a glass cannon), but it drops a train on Thresh and Landstill, losing to decks that play Exitrpate and combo (and good draws of Control). I hate to be that guy who says that his favorite deck has 100% matches against everything, but this deck is really good at beating blue-based decks, most of the time. The other half you end up drawing 1,000 cards and they're all lands or irrevelant (read: more Mox Diamonds or Explorations after you have a Chalice for one out).
  • I actually see that the list has changed a bit. Stupid internet, you fickle friend. I'll toss up my list in the Aggro Loam thread for everybody to make fun of later, then.
• Survival Evles
  
  • Not only am I saying that this is a great deck because my team built it, it's put up some pretty good numbers recently. While perusing some German forum or another, dict.leo.org told me that Elf Survival has put up 8 top 8 appearances in the last month (and that traditional Survival lists haven't done too shabby themselves, neither). I think that's pretty significant. And if you can't combo out for endlessly huge guys via the Priest of Titania-Wirewood Symbiote-Mirror Entity loop, you can just vomit a bunch of one, two, or three mana dorks on the table and turn sideways. Super cool bonus about playing Elvish Champion against Tarmogoyf-based decks? Tarmogoyf requires Forests, which in turn make elves unblockable. Pretty sweet, huh?
• RGBW Survival (Order?)
  
  • Just straight-up 4 color Survival is a pretty good deck, I reckon. It is made even better with the possibility of Tinker. The only problem is that existing builds don't run enough green creatures to abuse Natural Order correctly. Maybe something with Wishes will do well (y'know, 4 Burning Wishes and 3 Natural Orders main. But that seems like putting a lot of eggs in one basket - something I've never been known to do).
• TES
  • I made this flow chart for our team forums to make fun of Adam for being way to wishy-washy about deck decisions, but I feel that it adequetly illustrates my view on TES:
    

    

  • I promise that I didn't plan it too far in advance to use that picture of ol' Willy Shakes.
• Merfolk
  
  • We had a fairly busted list of Ug Merfolk built in our team discussions. I can't say whether it's any good, because I had zero input with it, but I feel like if Colin and Adam and Bryant say it's good then it's probably a little good.
  • Dear Merfolk posters: I don't care if this is strikingly similar to your list - I didn't make it, and you can bet whatever part of you anatomy that you'd like that I didn't take the time to hunt through your thread to pirate it. If it's like a card-for-card copy of your list, great jorb. Otherwise, I hope you audible to this at the last minute and do well so I can take the credit for having created the list (also, forget everything I just said about not having anything to do with creating the list if you do well. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.).
  • I'm fairly sure that the rules of English Grammar state that that extra period is necessary.

  • 4 Cursecatcher
    4 Silvergill Adept
    4 Lord of Atlantis
    4 Merrow Reejerey
    4 Tarmogoyf
    
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Standstill
    4 Force of Will
    3 Daze
    4 Stifle
    
    4 Wasteland
    3 Rishadan Port
    2/3 Mutavault
    4 Flooded Strand
    3 Tropical Island
    5/4 Island
    
    Sideboard:
    3 Blue Elemental Blast
    2 Hydroblast
    3 Tormod's Crypt
    3 Krosan Grip
    2 Seasinger
    
    The deck's only real weak point was aggro, and Tarmogoyf helps that tremendously. I have a ton of faith in that deck as it has such an incredible aggro-control, control, and combo game. It's sideboard just needs to be adjusted a bit to handle aggro a bit better, but I'm confident this is a good call.

• Herbig Project number x.y
  
  • So secret is the current build of the Herbig Project that I'm not even allowed to publish the numbers yet. But Colin said that I could post the list tomorrow night, so I will. I'll say this much about it without compromising his confidence:
    
    • It plays lands that tap for green mana, among other colors.
    • It can use the combat step, if necessary.
    • The deck can fit inside a breadbox.
    • The list can be found, one letter at a time, in the book of Genesis.
      
      • Sorry, kids - no Xantid Swarm in this house.
        • I didn't check, but I'm pretty sure that the book of Genesis doesn't have any xes in it.
          
          • (The deck doesn't play Xantid Swarm)

In short, there are SO MANY good decks in the format right now, but, aside from TES, which requires a great deal of playskill to be called even a passable pilot. It's really tough to pick out even the great decks from those that are fair, and, for this reason, I don't see a best deck out there for Chicago.

I hope everybody has fun this weekend, and does well, and tells everybody at Wizards about their friend Zach who'd love a job making Magic cards all day.

[Nihil Credo]

* No.

* See Eldariel

* Well, technically I still currently only own a full Dragon Stompy list, as I slowly collect the blue staples (I enjoy Magic, but not enough to become a student worker only to pay for a deck). However, a manageable GP would certainly have given me reason to do it a bit faster, in which case I'd probably have brought Faerie Stompy; I'm actually building Merfolk ATM but FS is much more suitable for a GP (Sowers of Temptation are insane, and FS is the best shell for them that I know of), and Sea Drakes have become more affordable of late.

Assuming no card pool limitations, I'd be strongly tempted to take my chances with time limits and bring some build of U/W/x Landstill, just because I'm a paranoid freak and that is the only deck with which I'm truly not afraid of anything in the format - the absolutely worst thing I could run into is Solidarity, where I'd need to hope to draw like four post-side bears in each of two games, and really, what are the chances of meeting that particular deck? (I'd never say that phrase if I were actually going, ofc) Same as above, though, given a few months to prepare for a GP I would probably have invested the time to learn to pilot Ad Nauseam well enough; according to the ever-amazing DeckCheck, Extended players may be familiar with Tendrils but have not been properly introduced to the utter beating that is threebeebeegeegee. Most likely it would be in ANT form, since TES is a deck that tends to crap in my hand almost as much as Ichorid - also, see 'paranoid freak' above: if only for the sake of my mental energy, I'd rather fight my way through Counterbalance with Grips and Wipe Aways than go crazy estimating my chances of successfully going off turn 2. I hate poker.

[Bardo]

* Are you going to GP: Chicago?

I'm writing this post on March 7th; draw your own conclusions.

* If not, why not?

$$.

* If you can't make it, what would you have played and why? (Post lists if you want to.)

If I could go, I'd probably just play "Vorosh," since it has a decent game vs. about everything -- though no real dominating %s -- and I've put a ton of hours into playing it.

"Grand Prix Vorosh"

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare

4 Pernicious Deed
3 Diabolic Edict

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Island

Sideboard
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Krosan Grip

Good luck to all MTSers who could attend!!! I wish I was there.