1600 or the Server Fries - Vanguard!
Don't you love it when a metagame gets blown wide open? We're talking 7-11 open. No longer are there any 2-3 decks you need to worry about, but you'll have practically every possible deck available for you to go up against?
That's what Vanguard did to Magic Online.
In late April, the avatars in Magic Online were replaced with Vanguard cards, which alter your life points and hand size and gives you a game-length special ability. When that happened, everybody with a MTGO account found a Brand new toy to play with. As Wizards wanted to see what would happen when they made Vanguard in the first place (the paper version, of course) people are fooling around in deckbuilding to work with the tweaking effects of the Vanguard cards. Toss in the revelation that people are going into constructed tournaments in triple digit attendance, a rarity for tournaments that still cost 6 ticks to enter.
Maybe it's that Birds of Paradise Vanguard card you get when you enter. Maybe that's me.
While the Vanguard card (and Unhinged Island which looks considerably better than the Swamp, though I'm sticking with 7th Edition lands thank you so much.) is a nice comp for playing, what I really want is to have some more points in my rating, so I'm entering the Friday (6 May 05) 1PM (Central) tournament with that in mind. The format is Kami Block Constructed with Vanguard, and by the time I'm typing this with 3X minutes to go, the tourney's filling up fast.
I modified the standard deck I had in the last tournament for his one, my Snakes deck with a White splash for sideboard tech. As I said earlier, I tend not to stick to net decks, though they're a good start, but adjust my deck, or at least the sideboard, to go against decks I'm actually playing online. Mono-Green snakes are excellent in the Kami Block game, with their main nemesis being not black, with enough big thugs like Kodama of the North Tree you can hold your own against Rock type decks, but white decks with a lot of enchantments, so I splashed white so I can get some additional enchantment hate in the form of Terashi's Grasp. I picked this deck for Vanguard because I found out that I only needed to tweak it slightly.
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The key card in this deck is the Vanguard Card, Elvish Champion. It's not the additional life point or card in your hand that's important. The additional card helps tell the shuffler to behave, but the free Hasted Llanowar Elf that you get when you start is the important thing. This supercharges game play for me. You can put an Elder or Sustainer in play turn one and a legend on turn two; and that's just for starters.
Not too many decks can cope with the Nitro-charged start that Elvish Champion brings to the Snake Deck, especially when you get your Sosuke's Summons going. I've got my thugs to side in for decks that have big threats, and my enchantment hate for White Weenie and the decks that are Honden heavy.
The only problem I've found in playtesting is a mirror match against another Snake deck, especially with a deck that uses the Elvish Champ as well. In that matchup it comes down to a race for Seshiro. Because of this, I've not only added a fourth Seshiro in my own deck, but I've added another white card that is effective in slowing down the other guy and buying me some time; Ghostly Prison. There are other cards that can use the white splash, like Kami of Lost Hope can make for a Fog in the right time, but I chose the Prison because it can stay around and double if I can, and you know what happens to me against a deck like that.
By 15 minutes to go, the number of the players has shot past 80, that's good for at least 7 rounds, provided I don't lose three in a row or four games in total. That's almost a guaranteed seven hours if what I've seen in previous tournaments were a sign; there's always a deck that almost requires the whole hour to play a match with. To recap, my current rating at the time this dance starts is: 1580 Composite, 1574 Constructed, 1581 Limited.
My Goal: Get to 1600 Composite, or at least 1600 Constructed.
Round 1 of 7, Vs ejrider. 1606 Comp, 1600 Cons. Playing Snake Shamans splashing Red, Prodigal Sorcerer as the Avatar.
He was a Constructed rookie, or at least appeared so with his rating, and he couldn't counter both my explosive starts. I sided in the Prisons to test them out, but despite having one on the field they didn't come to play. I managed to get Seshiro out both games, making him tap out.
3 Points, 100% Win rating, Rating climbs to 1586 Constructed, 1586 Composite. (+12, +6)
I didn't have time to check out the rest of the field, although I overheard there were a lot of Snake decks. I had to check out my E-Mail, visit my usual web sites, and work on a novel I'm writing. Hey, did you think I'd just play this for a living. I'm working on a non-MTG story right now, but I've submitted to Wizards before and I'd like to do it again. You can see info on my projects over at my web site http://Foxfirestudios.us if you're interested.
As I suspected, someone took the whole hour to play his match. Hhe won and bailed with his Bird of Paradise avatar! He said he only wanted not to lose any points.
Round 2 of 7, vs Caellin. 1661 Comp, 1650 Cons. Playing Snakes with splashes of Black and Blue, Elvish Champion as the Avatar.
It was the race of the Seshiros, and with his Cranial Extractions in play, he was able to win that race on games 2 and 3. I managed to test out my Prisons which did it's delaying job, but since I kept losing my Seshiros and Summons it was no contest.
(2-0, 1-2)
3 Points, 60% Win rating. 1577 Cons, 1582 Composite (Loss of 9 and 4 points)
Round 3 of 7, vs 2say_Yawgmoth. 1627 Comp, 1590 Cons. Playing Hondens, Elvish Champ as the Avatar.
No contest, especially with the enchantment hate sided in.
(2-0, 1-2, 2-0)
6 Points, 71.43% Win, 1589 Cons, 1588 Comp. (Gain of 12 and 6 Points)
Round 4 of 7, vs Jslutz2003. 1655 Comp, 1613 Cons. Playing RU Ire deck, Prodigal Sorcerer as the Avatar.
RU Arcane decks are the few decks that can keep up with an Elvish Champ Turbo start, but they lack staying power, instead hoping to put enough Arcanes in the yard for a game-winning Ire of Kaminrai. That is so Odyssey block. I pulled a Seshiro win in the first game and sided in my North Sides for game two.
(2-0, 1-2, 2-0, 2-0)
9 Points, 77.78% Win, 1601 Cons, 1594 Comp. (Gain of 12 and 6 Points)
I made my first Peek above 1600 in a long time. While I'm jumping in the aisles inside, I'm still cautious. I need to get out of the tournament with a 1600 rating.
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Round 5 of 7, vs Random Magic Cardname. 1610 Comp, 1621 Cons. Playing 5-color Myojin, Etched Oracle as the Avatar.
Thought I'd come across a deck at this point. This particular deck takes advantage of the Etched Oracle avatar to cast the Myojins once he gets all five basic lands on the field.
Key words are once he gets all five basic lands on the field.
I couldn't do much with my deck once he hits all his lands in games 1 and 3. I tried siding in the Prisons and it only helped marginally. If I had some land destruction cards in block (Plow Under may be good for Standard Play) I would have fared better. Of course, I needed to know that suck decks are being played beforehand, of course.
(2-0, 1-2, 2-0, 2-0, 1-2)
9 Points, 72.73% Win, 1590 Cons, 1588 Comp. (Loss of 11 and 6 Points)
So I won't be getting into the Final Table with two losses. Not that I'm worried. I'm up 16 points in Constructed and 8 in Composite. If I end up with a shark like last time, I can bail with some pride.
Round 6 of 7, vs Matthjar . 1547 Comp, 1541 Cons. Playing GU Ninjutsu, Higure as the Avatar.
I felt sorry for this guy, but after the spanking I got last turn I needed the confidence booster.
This deck tried to use Higure to draw into a bunch of big crits, but it was too slow, tooo sloooow against my deck, and the shuffler bit him in game two. God, I felt dirty after that game.
(2-0, 1-2, 2-0, 2-0, 1-2, 2-0)
12 Points, 76.92% Win, 1600 Cons, 1593 Comp.
Looks like I'm going to see this to the end, although I won't be winning any packs, the point boost has been excellent. If I win this final round, I may have achieved my goal, at least in part.
Then again, I decided against it and dropped at this point. If I had only one loss instead of 2 I'd give it a shot, and besides, like I said before I had other items to attend to. I left with a Constructed rating of an even 1600, a net gain of 20 points. My Composite rating climbed 19 points to reach 1593, and a good chunk of my MTGO goal has been achieved. I'm back to where I've started (at least in Constructed) and now I have to work on pressing on with my good success and get my composite ranking past the 'Virgin Account' mile marker and further up the road to a decent rating.
Points of interest involve that first loss (the second one was more of an auto-win once you get all five basic lands out) as well as the White Splash. My original snake deck is equal parts Shamans and Warriors, so I can easily switch gears when someone took out Seshiro and go with my Shamans, using them to activate the Orochi Hatchery. Should I main deck the Hatcheries instead of Jittes? I wonder.
Then there's the Ghostly Prisons. I've haven't had the proper test for this card in the meta-game, and the one match where it would have worked was out-trumped by the Cranial. So I'm still iffy about this card. Fortunately, Saviors of Kamigawa is being previewed as I'm typing this, so they'll be a new set of cards for me to look over. So far, Michiko-Hime's card seems to be the best bet, but I'd like it to be more pro-active.
David "Daveykins FoxFire" Gonterman
http://Foxfirestudios.us
FoxStudiosDavid@MTGO