Last night I completed a 30 hour on and off grind session on MTGO playing block constructed to get myself from 1 qualifier point to the required 15 to qualify for the champs this Saturday. After playing so many matches I was reminded of many of the things that were vital to my block decks success, and how many of these same things seemed to be completely lost on my opponents. I also realized that I had promised our favorite (level 2 yea!) Judge Paskoff that if I cashed I would write him a tournament report for Islandhome as thanks for borrowing some cards, and here we are.

My name is Jim Davis, and if you are reading this on this site you probably already know who I am. If you don’t know who I am, I am from New York, I top 8ed a Grand Prix once (and came in 9th on breakers in Chicago, ding!), and when I do anything else relevant I will let you know. Most recently I came in 33rd at Pro Tour Hawaii, going 9-1 in constructed with this:

Nothing too shocking. The idea was to play the best deck while also beating the best deck, which is usually a very powerful strategy for a focused format. It seemed that both at and after the Pro Tour there was a lot of complaining about how the format was a very poor one; Cascade was way too random, mulligans hurt much more than in other formats (mostly because of Blightning), and many of the cascade mirrors just came down to who played the last spell. While to an extent some of this is true, I believe that much of it was actually just complaining, and human nature is often to complain about bad situations instead of seeing what they can do to seize the power back into their own hands.

So how did I do this? The shocking revelation is that I chose to draw rather than play first. In fact, every single game in the constructed portion (save for game 3 round 16, which I will get to later) I was on the draw. This worked out very well because despite losing most of my die rolls in 10 rounds I was always exactly where I wanted to be as my opponents all chose to play.

Now, why draw? When I was first testing the deck Blightning was in the board, and it was simply devastating in the mirror. The deck has no card draw style card advantage, and needs its lands to get going, which means Blightning either stunted mana development brutally or spiked two big spells. This is huge because the way the deck is designed all of your spells have the card advantage built in, meaning most are in essence two spells in one. So if you discard two spells to Blightning you have discarded almost 4 spells of value.

After playing mirror style matches over and over (usually vs the standard Jund Cascade deck), Blightning made its way to into the maindeck, and I began to play with the idea of drawing first in the mirror to help combat this, which is something I do in limited sometimes when I have a reasonable amount of discard in my deck. Being on the draw does two very important things in the Blightning war. First it simply puts you up a card, which is naturally very good against discard, and of course it puts them down a card making your Blightnings better.

The other major feature of the cascade style mirrors is that it often seemed you would just play this attrition war back and forth, and due to the extreme power of the spells the person who cast the last one would usually win. The extra card from drawing first gave you the best shot and having the last spell. I also found that due to the power level of the spells and the advantage gained by cascading it was usually difficult to fall behind tempo wise as long as you played smart, which negated the disadvantage of going second. The last important reason for drawing was that it help to negate how devastating both mulligans and not finding your colors are in this format, and actually allowed me to cut a land which further helps in drawing spells in the late game. Notice how most the things that were solved by drawing first were the things people were complaining about in the first place?

The other revelation in testing was something I tend to do naturally; I throw around the term “to play for value” a lot, which to me means to get the maximum amount of value out of each of your spells. For example, after playing White/Blue Revilliark in Standard for a long time, I think the ratio of times I cast Mulldrifter as opposed to evoking it has to be at least 10:1. Besides the fact I enjoy paying 5 mana for a 2/2, Counsel of the Soratami is simply the pits, so why would I turn my awesome Mulldrifter into a stinky Counsel of the Soratami if I could help it?

This philosophy transferred very well to block with the cascade spells. People assume that because Bloodbraid Elf is a 3/2 haster, that running him out onto an empty board on turn 4 to bash has to be right, but lets look at the decklist. Assuming for simplicitys sake that I have no cards in my hand or graveyard, there are 8 spells I can hit that are proactive (Blightning and Sprouting Thrinax), and 11 spells that will be stone blanks to an empty board. If I don’t want to turn my awesome Mulldrifter into an underwhelming Counsel of the Soratami, why would I ever want to turn my Bloodbraid Elf into an overcosted, do nothing Vulshok Berserker? Yet time and time again both at the Pro Tour and on my Modo Block binge, people just run that guy out there, and then get upset when they hit a Maelstrom Pulse. Now I understand that many Jund lists were running Putrid Leech as well, meaning that to an empty board they prob have an above .500 average in hitting a proactive spell, but I personally don’t like flipping coins. The same philosophy applies to the other cascade spells as well.

Which leads me to another important point in the decklist, that every spell is either one of the most efficient removal spells possible (with many being able to negate the advantage of Sprouting Thrinax), or it generates some kind of card advantage. The cascade spells are so good at catching up that playing do nothing aggressive creatures like Putrid Leech does not further your game plan. Instead the idea is simply to live, and then cast powerful spell after powerful spell. The only card that is not efficient one of one removal or a card advantage spell is the baddest mofo in the whole format, Uril, the Miststalker. Because cascade has made all the formats Wrath effects unplayable, he is almost unstoppable. Immune to removal and a well costed 4 turn clock, many games simply went cast turn 5 Uril, and then blow things up with cascade spells for the next 4 turns while he wins the game singlehandedly. Another card in many of the Jund decks that simply is not very good (in this format) is Broodmate Dragon, who often times just provided an awesome Bituminous Blast target, and even if the Bituminous Blast only killed one dragon the other can’t deal with either Uril or an Enlisted Wurm by itself.

I won’t delve to deep into the other card choices, as pragmatically Shards of Alara block constructed is basically a dead format, but a few quick ones: Path to Exile was excellent over Terminate as it gives you a good answer to both Sprouting Thrinax and protection bears, the extra mana in this format is not very relevant, and costing only one mana was key for tempo. In the board, Elspeth and Fleshbag Marauders were an attempt to deal with Wall of Denial out of the Five Color decks, and Infest was stellar over more Jund Charms in the board as it kills protection bears. The Fleshbags were not very good but Elspeth was very good in the mirror and against Five Color.

As for the tournament itself, I started out very well, going 5-0 in matches and 10-0 in games in the first constructed portion:

I had a relatively easy time as I played against four Jund/Cascade mirrors and one Five Color Control Deck. I lost my first four die rolls, but at table one in round 5 I won and chose to draw to the confused look of my opponent. Game one contained the coolest play of the tournament, as my opponent has some lands, a Sprouting Thrinax that has been problematic, and 1 card in hand. I decide I want to Bituminous Blast it, and I recall a play my boy Jay Imperiale had made earlier in the day he told me about. So I say go, stop him on his draw step, and Bituminous Blast the Thrinax. I hit Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning, and look like God’s gift to Magic.

You can follow the draft here: http://gatherer.wizards.com/magic/draftools/draftviewer.asp?draftid=6_5_2009

Put simply, this draft was a shitshow. I first picked Knight of the Skyward Eye for a few reasons: I have had success with Green/White aggro in this format and the card is a spectacular 2 drop which is very important for the deck, and also the Angelic Benediction would likely wheel. In retrospect perhaps the Esper Battlemage is a more reasonable first pick. Pick 2 is questionable but I know everyone hates Bant (myself included) so maybe I can capitalize. Pick 3 is where everything goes to hell. A third pick Vein Drinker is quite a surprise, and I figured someone is trying to tell me something. From here on out things got crazy, I made a few picks I was unhappy with, and somehow ended up with a an average Grixis deck and a sub par 1-2 record. It wasn’t until I got back to our hotel room that I saw what was really happening on the draft viewer. The guy to my right took Branching Bolt over Rhox War Monk, which is certainly right, but then his pick 2 he has the choice between Vein Drinker and another Rhox War Monk, and for reasons unknown to me he passes the bomb rare that puts him in 3 colors to go straight into 4 colors after passing a War Monk already. This changed the entire complexion of the draft, and left me struggling to put it together, which I was not able to.

Sadly I was the only player in our room to make day 2 as Max Tiezte, Jay and Mike Bianco all failed to make the cut. Me and Jay did a MTGO draft in our hotel room to try to get me back on track which we lost in the finals to some timely Titanic Ultimatums, and I was feeling a little better. Then, things went worse. Basically I just had yet another bad draft. I misinterpreted some signals and ended up with a poor White/Blue splash Green deck. Despite the fact that having 2 Esper Stormblades and 3 Talon Troopers should lead to at least a few curve out wins, I picked up a total of zero shattering my chances to top 8.

Once we got back to constructed I got back into my groove:

This time around it was not as flawless, As I went to 3 games versus Michael Jacob’s Five Color Control deck and Taylor Webb’s Five Color control deck. I had a fairly easy mirror versus Carlo Mazzurco, and another easy match vs Shouta Yokoyama’s Green/White deck where Infest was out of this world, but the real heartbreaker was round 16.

Brian Boss was playing a somewhat outdated Bloodhall Ooze/Jund Hackblade Jund aggro deck, and Game 1 despite my mulligan I won fairly easily. During the game he mentioned his constructed record was poor and that’s what he gets for bringing a month old decklist. I deduce that he is playing the old 6 Borderpost version of the deck (despite him not playing any), and decide to board out my Blightnings and bring in the Vithian Renegades to both block his early crappy guys, and to hopefully Avalanche Riders as well which seems like quite a blowout. Game 2 I stumble for a bit and lose to a few back to back Anathamancers. Apparently what I did not realize is that he boards out the hackblades and Oozes in an attempt to match the power of my spells, and this plays right into my decks strengths. He also played 0 Borderposts that game as well. I don’t really catch on to this and decide I am going to play first for the first time in 10 rounds because I just need to live to turn on my powerful spells. And this is where everything that goes wrong that made me draw first in the first place decides to go wrong. I mulligan, he Blightnings me once or twice, and just draw a few worthless Renegades that have no value and die. I should have realized how he had boarded, boarded my standard mirror plan, and chosen to draw.

33rd place, 5 Pro Points and $1300 is nice, but if I had been a little more attentive I could have picked up a respectable top 16 finish, 8 points and $5000, which is a very bittersweet ending to an overall good weekend. I think the most important lesson in all of this is the answer is usually is there, you just have to look for it. If your just going to complain, bemoan bad formats, luck or what have you and cop out, your never going to get anywhere. Also a shoutout to all the guys in my room, Calcano for letting me borrow a Uril on site when they were $25, and Owen Turtenwald for providing me with the early skeleton of the deck.

-Jim Davis
jimdownside on MTGO
jimdownside azzit hotmail dizzot com

Bonus: My most recent decklist from my MTGO binge. I cut one Rupture Spire for a Swamp to help a little versus Anathamancer main, but the more relevant changes were to the sideboard: Vengeful Rebirth was good in the mirror and vs Five Color Control but is not really needed and Fleshbag Maruaders sucked. Naya Charm is a more verstile answer to the huge stalled boards Wall of Denial creates in the Five Color matchup, and the 4th Vithian Renegades is a response to the growing popularity of Esper.

As far as playing or drawing first, I believe game 1 against an unknown opponent you should choose to draw. Drawing is strictly superior against Jund aggro, Jund control, the mirror, five color control, and basically any deck that is cascading or playing Blightning, which is most of the field. Against Esper, Green/White, or some Naya Aggro decks playing first is better, because their only chance to win lies in winning a fast tempo game before your powerful spells come online. Despite this, on the numbers alone it is better to draw game 1 against an unknown opponent because these decks are far less than 50% of the field, and simply play first if given the choice in the remaining games.