Adam Koska
About Adam Koska
Adam is an experienced player from the Czech Republic who has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:
- 9th at Worlds 2009
- 9th at Pro Tour Kyoto 2009
- 45 Lifetime Pro Points
- Top 32 GP Vienna 2008
- Top 64 GP Krakow 2007
- Three times Czech Nationals Top 8
GP Utrecht and Standard Updates
Hey everyone! Today, we
have two topics on our agenda. The first European team GP in a long while has
taken place in Utrecht a couple days ago and I was one of the 2000+ players who
battled it out on day one, together with my two good friends Petr Brozek (of
the Burn notoriety) and Jan Brozek. Even though we didn’t quite win, I still
had an awesome time and I’d like to share my view of this unique tournament.
And second, Standard is approaching its seasonal peak of importance, with the
next PTQ season being in this format and the WMCQs also featuring Standard
decks. That’s why I’m going to talk about several interesting (and successful)
decklists that were played in the past couple of weeks and deviate from the
mainstream set of well-known Standard decks.
GP Utrecht
But first, let’s talk about
Utrecht. I must say that the idea of a team GP was really appealing to me –
team events had always been among my favorite formats and I’ve played as many
as I could in my Magic life, a big number of them with the Brozek brothers, as
long ago as in 2002 or even earlier. The most important reason for that is
probably what could be called the „team spirit“ – every great experience is
better when you have somebody to share it with and every down is less tilting
when you’re not alone in it. Add to that the fact that team events are often
really skill-rewarding (except for 2HG, but that’s another story), because you
don’t only play best 2 out of 3 games, but essentially best 5 out of 9 (which
sometimes can be best 4 out of 9 if you go 2-1, 2-1, 0-2) and you have an event
every competitive player wants to attend.
So what was my Utrecht
experience like? In terms of matches won, it wasn’t the best tournament ever.
We didn’t have any byes, as neither of us plays much paper Magic anymore and
our pool was rather mediocre. We did have three shocklands, five guildgates,
two Greenside Watchers and two Verdant Havens, so the allure of five-color
green (an archetype I’ve been drafting quite a bit lately with mostly positive
results) was almost too strong to resist, but 12-pack team sealed is a much
faster format than regular sealed deck, or even regular draft, so you don’t get
much time to durdle around. In the end, there was really nothing worth playing
all these colors for, so we settled for a reasonable Simic deck, a good
aggressive Boros deck and a mediocre Orzhov deck, splashing Foundry Champion
and Angelic Skirmisher – two cards the Boros deck didn’t want as much because
its curve topped at 3 mana.
After winning the first two
rounds, we played against a good German team with good pools and promptly got
crushed, despite Jan’s Boros winning after mulling to five. We then got a bye
in round 4 (not the most usual chance to get one, but I’ll take a „no show“ by
an opposing team any time), won round 5 and then got crushed in rounds 6 and 7
to leave us with a record of 4-3. Worth noting is that my round 7 opponent
went, on the play, turn 1 Foundry Street Denizen, turn 2 Burning-Tree Emissary, Madcap Skills on the Denizen, attack for 5. Later on, he proceeded to counter
my removal spell with the „indestructibility“ mode of a Boros Charm and when I
pointed another removal spell at his key creature, he showed me another Boros Charm. Well, at least he was a cool and friendly opponent to play
against.
We kept playing (because
„what the hell“) and actually enjoyed ourselves quite a lot – again something
that I don’t think would be true if this was not a team event. The fact that we
were not in contention for day two anymore was illustrated by my next opponent
having a Dimir deck with five copies of Contaminated Ground, but the decks of
his two teammates were almost on a Block constructed level. Jan and Petr
managed to eke out one win and I was able to overcome my Dimir opponent. After
that, we lost to a friendly Norwegian team and decided to call it a day and
drop.
So, as I’ve said, the trip
was not overly successful Magic-wise. However, I still enjoyed myself and will definitely
attend any future team GP in a reachable distance. Also, Utrecht was a great
location, with many historical landmarks and a really nice atmosphere. Next
time, I might try harder when looking for accommodation, as we spent the two
nights in a 14-person dorm, but apart from that, it was a great experience.
Even the dorm had some positive aspects, like offering unexpected entertainment
at 4 a.m., when six drunk girls walked into our room and started beating some
random guy up and shouting because he snored. I mean, you don’t get to see
things like that in a normal hotel, do you?
Standard Updates
As I’ve already mentioned
in the first paragraph, Standard is going to be very relevant in the coming
weeks and months. Despite numerous major tournaments taking place every single
weekend, the format still seems to be quite diverse and also friendly to “rogue”
approaches, as long as you have a good plan against the most important
strategies in Standard – the „Revelation decks“, the „Unburial Rites decks“,
the „Flinthoof Boar decks“ and the „Thragtusk decks“, to put it in a very
simple way. If you’re not afraid of going rogue, the reward can be a fun deck
to play and many confused looks on the faces of your opponents. However, that’s
not the only advantage – since most of the tier 1 decks have been in the format
for quite some time, your opponents will usually know exactly what to do
against you if you’re playing a stock list. With a rogue approach, the
opponents are bound to make a lot more mistakes which come from them not
knowing the deck. And in a stabilized format, where every small edge is
important, this might be just what you need to push you over the top.
A good example of a
successful rogue deck can be a list that Tomas Vanek, a good friend of mine who
made it to the semifinals of GP Bochum earlier this year, played at GP Verona
to a 25th place finish. Here’s the list:
| Colors |
|---|
| Black | 7 |
|---|
| Gold | 12 |
|---|
| Hybrid | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 25 |
|---|
| Red | 8 |
|---|
| White | 4 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 4 |
|---|
| 2 | 12 |
|---|
| 3 | 9 |
|---|
| 4 | 2 |
|---|
| 5 | 6 |
|---|
| 6 | 2 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 1 |
|---|
| Creature | 16 |
|---|
| Instant | 2 |
|---|
| Land | 24 |
|---|
| Planeswalker | 1 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 16 |
|---|
So what category does this
masterpiece fall into? It’s not a fully-fledged reanimator – there are two Unburial Rites and a playset of Faithless Lootings in the deck and it’s
certainly capable of reanimating an Aurelia on turn four, for example, but
these cards are there mostly to gain some value. Looting gets rid of cards you
don’t want in a certain matchup (Gloom Surgeons against Augur decks, too much
fat against aggro...) and to dump Lingering Souls and Rites into your
graveyard. But you don’t rely on your graveyard that much and don’t care about
hate (which is something your opponents will often get wrong), to the point
where you play three Rest in Peace in the board yourself.
It’s not a control deck –
despite playing lots of removal and some of the best finishers in its colors,
the deck can actually put up a pretty good early offense. The label that
probably describes this deck the best is „midrange“, in a similar way to many
Jund decks. But instead of playing green for Farseeks, Thragtusks, Huntmasters
and planeswalkers, you play the flashy finishers like Obzedat and Aurelia,
together with some of the best flashback cards in Lingering Souls and Unburial Rites. The deck is a value machine and as long as the opponent doesn’t draw a
ton of cards with Sphinx's Revelation, your cards should be much better than
theirs and one-for-one trades should lead to an easy victory. A ton of removal
plus cards like Boros Reckoner and Gloom Surgeon should help you survive the
early game against aggro, before your bigger cards take over. And against
control, it’s you who’s trying to beat down, with small punches provided by
Spirit tokens and big hits by the Orzhov and Boros guild leaders, who can both
finish the game in a very short time.
The second Standard deck
that I’d like to talk about today is the B/W Zombies deck that Dustin Allen
played to a top8 finish at the SCG Open in Washington this past weekend. Here’s
the list, for reference:
| Colors |
|---|
| Black | 26 |
|---|
| Gold | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 23 |
|---|
| White | 7 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 13 |
|---|
| 2 | 13 |
|---|
| 3 | 7 |
|---|
| 4 | 4 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 11 |
|---|
| Creature | 26 |
|---|
| Instant | 6 |
|---|
| Land | 12 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 5 |
|---|
The fact that playsets of Diregraf Ghouls, Gravecrawlers, Geralf's Messengers and some numbers of Blood Artists and Bloodthrone Vampires work well in the same deck can hardly come as
a surprise. However, why should the addition of cards like Restoration Angel, Orzhov Charm and Lingering Souls be better than Falkenrath Aristocrats and Searing Spears? And what is Thrull Parasite doing in the deck? It’s obvious
that now that Zombies have access to good black-white duals in the form of Godless Shrine, it’s possible to play this combination. But is it advisable?
The answer to such
questions is rarely simple. There’s not much sense in comparing cards like Falkenrath Aristocrat and Restoration Angel in a vacuum, without mentioning the
context, the metagame. Both of these cards are pretty powerful and blinking a
Messenger with a Restoration Angel can go a long way towards winning the game,
just like feeding Lingering Souls tokens to Bloodthrone Vampires and Blood Artists, but the final answer – if there even can be one – depends on what
other people are playing. With the rise of „The Aristocrats“ deck and a huge
presence of Boros Reckoner in Standard, Tragic Slip has become one of the most
popular removal spells. This is bad news for all the Falkenrath Aristocrats out
there and can be a big part of the reason why Restoration Angel might be the
better card now and white the better secondary color. However, as the Standard
metagame tends to shift quite swiftly, reacting to results of GPs and SCG
Opens, this can change as well. But it’s good to know that the possibility of
Zombies paired with white is there and Dustin Allen’s list can serve as an
inspiration and a good starting point for those who would like to put some Isolated Chapels in their Zombie decks.
The last deck that I’d like
to share today is an interesting twist on the „R/G aggro“ archetype and was
played by Ryan Glackin to a 20th place finish at the SCG Open in Washington,
D.C. Here’s the list:
| Colors |
|---|
| Gold | 7 |
|---|
| Green | 28 |
|---|
| Hybrid | 4 |
|---|
| Land | 21 |
|---|
| Converted Mana Cost |
|---|
| 1 | 8 |
|---|
| 2 | 16 |
|---|
| 3 | 3 |
|---|
| 4 | 8 |
|---|
| 5 | 4 |
|---|
| Type |
|---|
| Basic Land | 13 |
|---|
| Creature | 32 |
|---|
| Land | 8 |
|---|
| Planeswalker | 3 |
|---|
| Sorcery | 4 |
|---|
The biggest innovation in
this R/G aggro list is the addition of Increasing Savagery. The card has one
awesome application in this deck – if you cast it on a Gyre Sage, it immediately
ramps you by five mana. This can lead to starts like turn 2 Gyre Sage, turn 3 Ghor-Clan Rampager + evolve, turn 4 Increasing Savagery on Gyre Sage, tap it
for six mana, cast Wolfir Silverheart and attack for eight with the Rampager.
On turn five, you have plenty of mana to flashback the Savagery and attack for
upwards of twenty-five damage, a big portion of which tramples. This might not
be that spectacular, but it’s also not a draw where you need a ton of specific
cards, so it’s going to happen quite often.
The biggest strength of
this deck is probably that it’s fast enough to keep up with the
super-aggressive decks, but has bigger creatures, so it can easily take over in
the mid-game where you’ll be able to match your opponent’s 3/3s and 4/4s with
your 6/7s and 8/8s. The biggest weakness is not being explosive enough to steal
games against control. Also, Azorius Charm hoses this deck pretty badly, which
is something you’ll discover after only a few games with it, probably the first
time when your 7/8 Gyre Sage will fly to the top of your library. But even
though the deck has some weak spots, it’s still a viable metagame call and
should post solid results in the right environment.
Well, that’s all from me
for today. Thanks for reading and see you next time!
Adam Koska
Comments
Hey Adam - nice discussion of GP Utrecht. Just wondering what you think of Gatecrash Team Sealed vs e.g. another set of team sealed? Practicing for GP Utrecht (and at the event itself) we kept feeling like once you settled on one guild deck, the others all fell into line because of the strictly 5-guild flavour - which made deck selection a little boring, since it mostly came down to the odd splash. This might be as opposed to another expansion where any two+ combinations of colours - or a mono deck - could be feasible. Then again, we went 2-6, so probably best to ignore everything I say...
GP Utrecht was great fun! We went 4-1-3 and dropped after round 8 because we had to take the train back.
We had poule that gave us a Simic deck, a Boros deck with a splash of Orzov and a Dimir Beatdown deck, that was the deck I played with and had the same result, personaly, as the team.
I must agree with cwjames on the fact that if you made 2 'okay' or 'great' deck, you ended up with 1 'crappy' deck. But in my opinion, was not the case with our decks. I still have my deck-list here and shall post it later.
Hey MV - bad luck about needing the train - we could crash at a friend's place 20 min walk from the venue!
But re decks - my point was not how good they were, but rather that once you chose one deck colour combination, everything fell into place from there, while normally you would need to choose two decks (e.g. red/black aggro, and blue/black control) for the third to fall into place. So it felt like there were less decisions and room for innovation. This is why I'm really looking forward to Dragon's Maze - I think sealed there will be awesome!
cwjames: yeah, I agree that the guilds make the team sealed a lot less interesting. I'd say that 80% of the teams were on Boros + Simic + control (esper, orzhov, dimir). Probably not the best set to have a team GP in, but I'm happy that there was one anyway.
MichaelVermij: I'd say that with 12 packs, most teams had three very good decks, possibly even some really broken ones. I think that unless you open most bad commons in 3-4 copies (which might have been your case?), you should always have three decks with 28-30 potential playables. Simic + Boros + control, or Gruul + Boros + control typically don't steal that many cards from each other.
Good point Adam re power - our team made the mistake of thinking that our decks were 'really good' (which, by normal limited standards, they were) when actually they were pretty average. And another good point - team limited is a lot of fun even in a set where it's not ideal! Though I wish it had been Dragon's Maze/Gtc/RtR