Ready for Regionals

[raybomb]

This thread is for the discussion of the article "Ready for Regionals" by Jeremy Fuentes. You can find it here - http://Magic.TCGplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=8087

Discuss!

[Rakavolver]

You're pretty damn close to nailing Merfolk, with the following exceptions:

Jan Reuss' Hollywood 2nd place list was HEAVILY anti-Faeries, with only 2 sideboard subs after game one. So THAT particular list was a GREAT metagame call for Hollywood, not that great for Regionals. Specific sideboard subs can be found at post # 107 at the Merfolk stickied thread, where you will learn ...

He DOES have answers for non-RDW Aggro. He just has them in the board. Actually he has answers for RDW too, but that's not a matchup I would bet the Merfolk on. Or Mono Black Control, but who plays that?

Overall great article thanks I rate it a "5."

Just curious though, which Mono-Red are you testing against, or suggest to test against?

And ... what do you think of "something new" UW Guile Control, which might not be a bad pick for Regionals, given an established metagame?

[JeremyFuentes_FTW]

The decklist maker wasn't working when I sent my article in (but it's working now). Here is Zvi's RG list for reference:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=309884


@ Raka: Thanks for the reply and the insight on Merfolk. I haven't tested anything with the matchup since before Hollywood, so I don't know how Reuss' list fares post-board against aggro. I just based my analysis on the results and statistics...

To be honest, my Red Aggro list ("Beats" from this article http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=8073) is actually very close to Darwin Kastle's list from Hollywood (with which he made Day 2, 69th place). For a more basic gauntlet list, I would probably choose something more along the lines of "Pure Red" from the same article, minues Redcaps and add Magus maindeck :)

[Rakavolver]

Green critters + Red burn + MoM and a sneaky Shivan Dragon in the board. What's not to love?

[JeremyFuentes_FTW]

Hahaha the Shivan Dragon coming out of the SB was more "talk of the town" than anything else. I'm sure there wasn't one person in the building who hated it. haha

[Rakavolver]

lol, but don't you ROOT for Shivan Dragon to be good again? Hell, I'm still waiting for Icy Manipulator to return.:D

God, I'm old.

[chia pet]

To be frank, this is a pretty disappointing article : some decklists from PT, a couple of sentences of purported analysis. This should not be a featured article; it's a blog and not one that belongs on the first page at that. Unless I am overlooking something, this is just emblematic of how this website has suffered in quality.

I used to check in daily, now a couple of times a week at most. I would gladly return more frequently if writers like Kuan were to work again or if writers like R. Bresler were retained. Don't want to be so critical, but it's enough.

[JeremyFuentes_FTW]

@ chia: I've been writing about Standard for months now and I didn't want to just regurgitate what I've already written several times over. This article was meant to serve as more of a last minute update before Regionals. I realize it's not that long and for some it's not 100% new information, but I thought something like this could help someone who was having trouble picking a deck and wanted to know what beats what. What would you like to see more of? I'd appreciate some constructive feedback, but "purported anaylsis" and "suffering in quality" don't exactly point out what I can improve upon...

[Eviljello]

nice read. Actually got me scared to play my fishes for this weekend listing everything that has a good chance for them pre-board. But then I realized your doing a good thing since a lot of people will end up playing them Its going to be a fun day. IDK I want to see some mono black control make a living at regionals totally unexpected dark horse haha get the pun?

[mtglordtom24]

This was probably the best article I've read from you. I like the analysis, however, the Big Mana analysis might have been spoken too quickly. In my circle of Magic playing friends, we haven't been able to get any version of Big Mana to win. They all (R/G Deus, RGb, R/G original) have been getting pounded by everything. I was also very surprised that you spoke about the Tideshaper Mystics in Ruess' deck, they were a bad call. However, you forgot the Sygg, River Guides. That was a lot of the talk from the finals. He had Sygg in his deck and it did well, what is your opinion on that?
I also noticed you really didn't have many bad things to say against Lark. I've had to play against the deck, it's a tight deck and all, but I don't know that you did it's opponents enough justice. The deck has trouble dealing with SB hate, you didn't really tip me off to what I should have in my SB. I was wondering if there was any "must-haves" for SB tech.

[JeremyFuentes_FTW]

@ Raka: Sorry I didn't include this in my other reply. In all honesty, I'm surprised that a solid UW Control deck hasn't shown its face in the meta yet. It is probably due to the fact that the format is too fast for a pure control deck to survive. UW Control is currently represented by Reveillark, but if you expect a lot of Reveillark, Faeries, and Merfolk, I don't see why a pure UW Control deck couldn't work. Of course, this is all theory and we would have to see and work on/test a list before any of this can be solid fact.

@ Evil: My friend Kevan and I did some testing with different versions of MBC (against Faeries and RDW) and it just seemed too slow. The main problem was that a turn 3 Beseech couldn't fetch a turn 4 Damnation. Up until that point, the deck isn't really doing much more than playing Mind Stone or a kill spell. If you think about it, by turn 4 Faeries can set up a Bitterblossom, Scion and Mistbind Clique you; RDW can curve out with creatures and then get you in burn range; Merfolk can curve out with lords and have counters for your Damnation or Corrupt. I'm not saying the deck is bad, but I have yet to see a build that is fast enough to keep up with the meta.

@ Mtglord: Thanks. re: Big Mana - It is possible that 1) you haven't played enough games with it yet, 2) you're not playing the deck right, or 3) you got an odd sample of the deck's ability. Don't take offense, let me explain first.

In a lot of testing games, I played Faeries against matchups I should've been beating, but I was getting horribly owned. Why? Because I tried to play Faeries like an Aggro deck and not a Control deck. I thought of how I could try to set up the win as fast as possible, but in the end couldn't counter my opponent's crucial spells. If I had played the deck correctly, the results should have shown that Faeries was more favored than our incorrect results did.

My cousin had the same problem with the Big Mana deck at first. He ran out early Goyfs and accel to try to get beats in when he was playing against an aggro deck. What he should have done (which he quickly caught on to after some swift beatdowns) was that the deck is meant to accelerate, stall, and then sweep and overpower -not race.

re: Merfolk, I haven't tested a version with River Guide, so I don't know how good it is, or isn't. You might be better of asking Raka, our resident Merfolk expert. :)

re: Lark, There isn't much left to say about the deck that hasn't already been said. The deck is solid and it's consistent. The only problem is that it has 2 VERY VERY HORRIBLE matchups. Were you looking for SB tech for or against?

I appreciate the comments, guys. Keep them coming!

[mtglordtom24]

@Jeremy and Raka- I'm playing U/w control at my regionals, CT!!!, the deck is sooooo good. I'm still tinkering with it to get it right. The deck has no trouble with speed, it plays the best cards in both colors, so it gets Cryptic and Kitchen Sink. Kitchen Sink pretty much beats your speed question. Also running full sets of Remove Soul and Rune Snag doesn't hurt. I really like it, the worst matchups are unfortunately three of the biggest decks, Merfolk, Fairies and Elves. Elves being potentially the worst. Fairies and Merfolk are predictable, Wrath the fish, counter the fliers. Elves has the most anti-control threats though. Garruk hurts major if it resolves, Treetop Village is problematic and Imperious Perfect can win on its own. So Wrath is especially key, but I would say that that deck has the most threats against me.

Re: Big Mana; we played in at least 4 or 5 tournaments, the pilot was decent, the decklists were ranging from optimal to meta-geared and we couldn't get a single day over .500. All losing efforts.

Re; Lark; I suppose Tormod's Crypt is good enough, maybe Wheel of Sun and Moon. Don't need much of your insight unless there's some super secret tech I don't know about.

[La_Sin_Grail]

While this isn't the best article of yours I've read (in my opinion obv.), I think this is a good one-stop shop for people looking for last second regionals review and prep.

I just don't think anybody that needs that prep still is going to do any good anyway :\ This probably would have been more useful closer to the PT (further away from Regionals) before people chose decks.

Still, an accurately compiled jumble of info is never unappreciated.

Oh, on the big mana thing: I have a very abnormal list of big mana (G/r/w) but it's pretty much doing what you described. I'm a little less of faeries...

Agro: 90-100%
Faeries: 50-60%
Lark 20-30%
B/G Elves 60-75%

sideboard helps, but it's tough to beat lark regardless.

I would also like to mention that there are a ton of builds of big mana which are viable- you can play the mixture of big mana and hammer time (LSV and Cheon's deck) like I am, the Bear's build, or pure G/W. And many variants in between.

[DarkDamon]

JeremyFuentes_FTW - I think in general with mbc, most people dont build good versions. It is possible to build one that can keep up, but it will look like more of a control/aggro. A good build will play more low mana spells so it does more on the first few turns. The deck could play thoughtseize or play its own bitterblossoms for example. Corrupt and beseech really have no place in the deck.

[Eviljello]

yea, I just realized all the types of decks I have been thinking of are Past MBC decks So nothing new I guess. WOW sorry I been out of the game for well over 3 years now just getting back in for regionals.

[Rakavolver]

A good build will play more low mana spells so it does more on the first few turns. The deck could play thoughtseize or play its own bitterblossoms for example. Corrupt and beseech really have no place in the deck.

Does a good one play Stupors, like 3 main? Pls tell me it plays Stupors. I frigging love that card.

[DarkDamon]

Raka - I just meant alot the mbc's floating around are jam-packed with high costing spells, where the good ones would play lower costing spells (like stupor) to match the meta

[Rakavolver]

I don't consider 3cc low or high, and yes I know what you mean. I'm sorry I'm not up on current MBC, I love the whole idea, especially 4 Damnnations, but I'm serious when I say I love Stupor. Yum, 2:1 advantage, munch munch crunch, although ... I suppose that would suck vs Mannequin dex.