Locations
There is an upcoming RCQ Season?
The RCQ Season is Standard? Weird. I heard Standard was dead.
I should test what?
I'm not testing that. That deck seems awful. Why? It's all awful cards. Look. I get there are combo elements about it. But it's structurally a mess.
Historically there are really only two kinds of combo decks that have performed. One of them is mostly bad cards; or, specifically, two kinds of bad cards. The payoff for those kinds of decks is usually just that you win when you put them together. Illusions of Grandeur and Donate are a good example of this kind of deck. Illusions of Grandeur has text, sure; but you have to jump through some hoops for it to do anything but break even. But luckily, one of those hoops is the Donate that can help kill your opponent.
 |  |
Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin is kind of special in that its individual elements weren't that bad individually. Deceiver Exarch isn't a "good" card exactly, but it could help you resolve your next powerful spell; hold off a Red beatdown creature (or even two of them); or attack an opposing Planeswalker in a pinch. You already know what kind of abominations I've assembled with Splinter Twin so I won't bore you with the terrors some poor 2011 opponents had to go through.
 |  |  |
Pilgrim's Eye actually? Those brave 1/1 tokens would jump in front of an oncoming Squadron Hawk - no matter what kind of Sword it was carrying - and draw an extra card to boot. I would have hated losing to that kind of jank; but you have to admit it looked good from over the shoulder.
So, no. I'm not going to entertain this deck. If the best you can do is advertise a Snapcaster Mage that costs extra and doesn't even have Flash? I'm sorry. No, NO, NO. There are just too many structural problems. Besides the cards not being any good. I know Monastery Mentor can be good! The rest of it is just all over the place. It's half creatures; how can this be a plausible Haughty Djinn deck?
What do I suggest?
You mean besides Mono-Red? I'm telling you Mono-Red is winning a lot of-
Fine. Fine FINE FINE.
I actually think Roman's deck from Store Champs is pretty good. Like, as long as the opponent isn't going to play that crazy Inti/Slogurk Legends monstrosity. Now that is a stack of weirdos that I wouldn't mind putting some reps in with.
Yes, of course I want you to qualify. Tell you what. I'll run an Event with Roman's Azorius deck and tell you how it goes. I'm a little rusty on Arena but I can promise you already: I think Roman's deck is pretty good.
Roman's Deck:
U/W Control | LCI Standard | Roman Fusco
- Creatures (2)
- 1 Chrome Host Seedshark
- 1 Horned Loch-Whale
- Planeswalkers (6)
- 2 Jace, the Perfected Mind
- 4 The Wandering Emperor
- Instants (19)
- 1 Impulse
- 1 Negate
- 1 Quick Study
- 2 March of Otherworldly Light
- 3 Dissipate
- 3 Make Disappear
- 4 Get Lost
- 4 Memory Deluge
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Temporary Lockdown
- Artifacts (1)
- 1 The Celestus
Export Arena
So... This is an Azorius Control deck. Roman had a devil of a time getting his hands on physical Get Lost before the tournament, but he managed all the way to the Finals. I told him that I figured he could play something like a Fateful Absence or Destroy Evil in that slot. But playing the deck myself, I'm glad I popped for the wildcards. Get Lost is quite a bit less painful (not to mention generally more flexible) than either of the cards I just named. Map tokens are not Clue tokens, so the downside isn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be.
The central reason to want to play this 
deck is the popularity of Up the Beanstalk / Domain strategies. You can't peruse a list of 5-0 decks without seeing a ton of Angels and Dinosaurs and this deck spends the entire end game picking feathers out of its teeth.
For all its card power Up the Beanstalk mostly interacts with Leyline Binding; which, though flexible, is kind of a trumped up Swords to Plowshares. One of the actual downsides of the deck is that while it can produce a ton of raw cardboard advantage with Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave; Atraxa, Grand Unifier; and of course Up the Beanstalk, it ultimately has to attack the opponent to death. That makes it particularly vulnerable to cards like Sunfall and especially Jace, The Perfected Mind in the end game. All that card drawing can put you in a bad way, especially if draws both its main deck Jaces.
Here's how my Event went.
Round 1: Golgari Midrange
Pre-game I thought this would be an Azorius victory, even if it took a long time.
I was right, although it ended up a lot harder to win than I guessed ahead of the games.
I'm less worried about the Dreadknights. They're "card advantage" sure, but half that advantage is a random 2-drop. Azorius isn't really scared of that kind of offense. They also end up with a lot of different kinds of tokens (e.g. Food). But most of everything they're doing is just annoying but ultimately irrelevant.
Like a lot of Cut Downs and Go for the Throats get aimed at Mirrex tokens and Samurai if you know what I mean.
The dangerous elements are mostly just Restless Cottage and Mishra's Foundry. Remember: These cards have additional context in this deck because of Blossoming Tortoise; and Restless Cottage in particular can have additional impact if you're lazy around Memory Deluge.
Lesson #1: You have to approach mid-range decks with low offense differently than you would a fast attack deck, mostly because they have cool tools and actual routes to card advantage Resist the temptation to go one-for-one a lot because their individual cards really aren't worth your individual cards heads up. Worse, a lot of their individual cards are actually two (or more) cards, so trading one-for-one a lot will put you behind. Rather, save March of Otherworldly Light, the life gain exile from The Wandering Emperor, and Get Lost for their creature lands. You're largely going to have time to snag multiple threats with Sunfall or Farewell... and if you don't, they're probably not putting enough of a clock on you for you to care.
1-0
Round 2: U/W Mirror(?)
I can't actually explain how this match went, logically.
The opponent had three Memory Deluges in their first twenty cards; to my zero. The same top third of their deck gave them two copies of The Wandering Emperor; meaning I was playing on the back foot the whole front half.
It's not that I didn't have anything. But I got caught with a Dissipate on a Memory Deluge early (which seemed like an okay exchange to me, even though I knew something nasty was likely to resolve). But they just got more and more Deluges.
I had one kind of leverage opportunity early, which was an Impulse. I could have gotten a Deluge or another Dissipate; but I didn't have a fourth land in my hand, so I just took an Island. this just didn't work out.
I spent a ton of turns trading cards for half-cards; as I drew all the removal, while they had all the semi-soft locks.
But at some point, when they still had three cards and I was just coming out of it... They conceded?
I had finally found a Memory Deluge, and despite desperate cost, managed to get rid of all their Planeswalkers. So... Scoop?
I realized what had happened only reviewing these notes, in hindsight. They had the better front half, and swung and swung... But didn't finish me. They probably realized they were out of all the good stuff and I was going to start lacing Deluges into Deluges I had already cast a bunch of Sunfalls and Get Losts so I wasn't going to draw those any more. They were still ahead on the numbers; but it was like that one time Fischer won the World Championships. He won that one game so well the other guy just went home.
Lesson #2: Other folks are going to figure out that is a good deck. As such, we're going to have to be prepared for the symmetrical matchup. I think beating the good cards with the terrible half of the deck (in matchup) is going to be a source of potential rewards. File this one away and you might just bag a Blue Envelope in the coming weeks.
2-0
Round 3: R/W
He had play but didn't do anything early. I was able to answer the first four turns with one-for-ones, and still had 20 life come turn five or six. At that point I realized it was all over but the actual game.
Lesson #3: Aggro decks are methodologically the opposite of mid-range. Trade anything you can for time. Once you get to the daylight stage with the opportunity to gain two with The Wandering Emperor they're the better way down to being cooked. So just live. The difference here is that come the mid-game instead of topdecking an individually powerful card they're probably ripping three points of direct damage or a 1/1 for two. You become the bigger deck by default.
3-0
Round 4: U/R +1/+1 Counters
This deck was weird. I did manage to get them to not play a Shivan Devastator I knew was coming by telegraphing The Wandering Emperor. So, I in fact did Wander a dude to the true death, which was followed by a not-hasty 4/4 flyer. As above, I was then able to translate my plays into additional time. It took a second but this deck wants all the seconds it can get.
Lesson #4: The idea that Control decks want to play long games in the abstract because they have Inevitability is kind of a false aphorism. Red Decks, well played, often have Inevitability in longer games, based on the ability to force through a ton of Lightning Strikes in a kind of non-interactive way. I liked stretching this game only because I got those first two points from The Wandering Emperor. Be very wary about stretching the length of any game against folks with a lot of burn and / or haste.
4-0
Round 5: Mono-Red
At this point I was 4-0 and already mentally writing this tournament report. "How I went from 5-0 to 7-0 with the bestest Control Deck by Michael J. Flores."
My hubris, at least in part, encouraged me to keep a two lander that didn't really beat any deck, but could potentially develop a bunch of different ways.
Then my opponent opened on Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano.
This one ended up super close; but I got screwed by Mirrex. My opponent played a ton of tiny permanents right into a Temporary Lockdown... That I could not cast because Mirrex no longer made White mana.
So, my Temporary Lockdown had to wait for Restless Anchorage. Even then they had to rip. They ripped a lethal Lightning Strike. Could have been a lot of different things, probably, but I was up four cards to nil, with Dissipate and The Wandering Emperor among them.
Lesson #5: The Red Deck matchup is draw dependent to say the least. If you can answer them one-for-one quickly, I think you have a good chance. If you can't, they're going to put you into a situation where basically everything off the top is lethal.
4-1
Round 6: Mono-Red Again
Whatever I said for Lesson #5, only paid off this time.
I was able to trade one-for-one for the first several turns, gained card advantage the first time, gained life the first time, and at that point too many dominoes had fallen.
Lesson #6: I'd recommend you trade anything you can one-for-one in beatdown matchups in exchange for open land drops. Once you can one-up Goddric with The Wandering Emperor, or have the long, Blue shadow of Horned Loch-Whale looming (after a two-mana tempo play) their options start to narrow precipitously.
5-1
Round 7: Mono-Red Again
They had play. They had three Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano (and some friends to go with them). Heroes were run over.
Lesson #7: It's really hard to take a take-away from a one-sided roflstomp with the opponent on the play but I'll just point something kind of out-of-format out. I'm playing an Arena seven-win Event but we're ultimately prepping for an RCQ Roman could go to four copies of Temporary Lockdown after sideboarding; which is a lot of potential time-buying in-machup. It's going to be easy to dismiss Heroes in the Mono-Red matchup because all our losses are coming at the hands of basic Mountain. But it's way less hopeless than it might look given the quality of the sideboard.
5-2
Round 8: R/W Again
This game was cool because I ended up playing the beatdown fairly quickly.
I just got the good, fast, answers early; and they struggled to land anything. So, I was all making Mirrex tokens, giving the tokens +1/+1, giving Samurai first strike during defensive combat... and at one point just said "eff it" and slammed my Seed Shark.
Once you're making a 4/4 with Seed Shark on consecutive turns with the front and back sides of Memory Deluge an opposing beatdown deck probably just not going to be happy with their spot.
Lesson #8: I remember watching Jon Finkel play a game against Aaron Forsythe in the Top 8 of the 2000 US National Championships. "You wouldn't have played it like that, would you?" Jon later asked me (he won, of course). Jon didn't outright say that I would have lost the game, but he did emphasize that he was "playing to win" despite being the Control deck in-matchup. What I took away from the game was that there are times where the Control deck just has the opportunity to show off. The beatdown deck on the other side stumbles, or doesn't have purchase on the battlefield, and gosh darn it... If they're not going to litter The Red Zone with bodies, somebody has to, am I right? You can quickly expose their inability to deal with a stack of 4/4 creatures. And if you kill them from there, by definition, you're not going to have to worry about drawing a ton of relevant answers several turns in a row come the end game. Never fear! Boon-Bringer Valkyrie might not be quite here, but she's close, and on the way.
6-2
Round 9: Golgari Good Stuff
This one was close because the opponent had Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton. Remember when Our Hero argued that 3/3 for three was the best card in Standard? it's awfully good!
I answered the first Tresspasser but the second snuck past our defenses, got in a ton of damage, and forced card advantage before going down. The card advantage of a Trespasser and that of a Dreadknight are quite different from one another. A Dreadknight is an extra donkey that you don't really care about whereas a Trespasser makes you discard one of your own super valuable cards.
Make sure you understand not only the difference between the two, but that the kinds of card advantage are ultimately additive. You can't let them lace together too many plus-ones, unless you have a windmill slam that can zero it all out and more. Some, but not too many
Lesson #9: I never actually got to play or activate The Celestus in this Event, but just don't forget you have it. There are a lot of matchups where a small amount of life gain can swing a big door; and there are other times when a Merfolk Looter effect is going to feel like a Fact or Fiction. For instance, the mirror, where turning a spare Farewell into a Dissipate will often be game. In this matchup it might have been beneficial to turn it to Day, just because Graveyard Trespasser does more damage when it's Night. That's the least important aspect of The Celestus, usually; but in the spirit of "every part of the buffalo" ... make sure you are aware of every advantage you can lever.
7-2
We got the chip!
Thanks Roman.
Definitely playing this on Thursday at my LGS.
LOVE
MIKE
