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Argothian Treehouse
with Andy Van Zandt
Slide to the
Right
Here's a look at an interesting phenomenon in the recent
Texas 5k tournament
qualifiers: the R/W slide deck. It's qualified people
two weeks in a row
now, and slide in general put 5 in this weeks top 8. 3
of those were
red/white slide, assumedly based on the previous week's
winner's deck:
4 Exalted Angel
4 Teroh's Faithful
4 Astral Slide
4 Lightning Rift
4 Slice and Dice
3 Starstorm
3 Wrath of God
4 Renewed Faith
4 Lay Waste
10 Plains
8 Mountain
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Secluded Steppe
SB
2 Boil
3 Earth Rift
4 Pillage
4 Stone Rain
2 Wildfire
The only real thing of note in the deck is the
sideboard, running heavy land
destruction so that it can get it's stuff through vs.
control decks.
Here's the three R/W decks from the following week's
qualifier:
----
4 Exalted Angel
4 Teroh's Faithful
4 Astral Slide
4 Lighting Rift
4 Slice and Dice
2 Starstorm
4 Wrath of God
4 Lay Waste
4 Renewed Faith
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Forgotten Caves
9 Plains
9 Mountains
SB
3 Akroma's Vengence
3 Akroma's Blessing
3 Auramancer
2 Demistfy
1 Disenchant
2 Circle of Protection- Green
1 Circle of Protection- Red
----
4 Wrath of God
4 Slice and Dice
4 Renewed Faith
4 Exalted Angel
4 Lay Waste
4 Lightning Rift
4 Astral Slide
3 Teroh's Faithful
3 Starstorm
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Secluded Steppe
8 Mountain
10 Plains
SB
2 Boil
1 Teroh's Faithful
2 Auramancer
4 Stone Rain
3 Pillage
3 Earth Rift
----
and the winner from that week:
4 Lay Waste
4 Wrath of God
4 Exalted Angel
4 Slice and Dice
4 Astral Slide
4 Renewed Faith
2 Teroh's Faithful
4 Lightning Rift
3 Starstorm
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Forgotten Cave
9 Mountain
10 Plains
SB
4 Intrepid Hero
2 Rorix Bladewing
1 Disenchant
4 Avarax
1 Teroh's Faithful
2 Cleansing Meditation
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
These decklists are all available at the
www.texasmagicleague.com website
too, of course.
It's interesting to note that all the maindecks are very
very similar, only
a couple of cards changed from list to list, and of
that it's more often
just using a different piece of mass removal- less or
more wrath of god's,
starstorms, etc. aside from those changes, it's 2-4
copies of Teroh's
Faithful and 26 or 27 land. And of those two cards,
this week's winner had
the highest variance, with more land than the others and
less Teroh's
Faithful.
Now while the land is debatably a minor point, I found
the lower count of
the Faithful to be an odd point. Having watched the
deck in action quite a
few times, these guys will buy you turns and turns of
extra time against
beatdown decks by themselves- and an indefinite amount
of time if you have
the slide to phase it in and out for bonus life. More
importantly, bad
draws aside, they are very important in the mirror. If
someone gets rift
advantage on you and you aren't gaining life by swinging
with an angel
(assuming they don't have a slide, which is rare) or
sliding out your
faithful, that's often the turning point of the game.
It's important to understand that one of the strongest
aspects of the slide
decks is that they force themselves to have a consistent
draw. If they
don't have business cards or land drops, they just cycle
into them. While
this is true, even with that built in consistency,
having only 2 copies of
something can leave you open to missing out on it when
you need it.
Apparently this was not the case this past week, but it
is something that
struck me as abnormal.
But I digress. This forced consistency of the decks is
one of the main
contributors, in my opinion, to the lowered variance of
maindeck cards. So
then we move on to the sideboards, where the real
action is going on.
Somewhat surprising here is that only one of the three
R/W decks went with
Zamora's (the previous week's winner) land destruction
sideboard. After watching the decks in action though, I
can't say I blame them for their diversity. While I
understand that the
landkill can be key in the Tog and Wake match-up's,
neither of them are
prevalent deck types in this area at the moment. Some
people would say that
you can also bring in the land-d in the mirror, but in
watching this play
out, it simply doesn't work unless your opponent is land
stalled to start
with. Once again, the cycling cards will generally give
you consistent land
drops no matter how much your opponent blows up.
So one of the second week's decks included the
mana-denial sideboard
strategy, one had what could be described as a more
balanced approach, with
sideboard redundancy for it's maindeck effects, and a
couple of circle of
protections. The third deck, the winner of the group,
had a heavy
<i>anti-slide</i> sideboard. I don't think much
explanation needs to be
given for it, the avarax's are tech from the recent
PT, and cleansing
meditations do stupid stuff at threshhold. Now, with my
previous
dissertation on the Faithful in mind, it springs to mind
that perhaps that
was on purpose... a slightly weaker game maindeck for
the mirror, but with a
much stronger sideboard for it.
How does this pertain to us as a whole though? Well,
the most obvious thing
is that regionals is coming up. And these 5kq's may be
a good indicator of
what the tone will be for regionals, at least in the
south. I'm not saying
slide will be -the- deck at regionals, but I am saying
that these 2 weeks
of q's show an interesting metagame swing... indeed, a
much more evident
one than you'd get in a lot of cases. First Zamora
qualified with a R/W
slide deck, land destruction sideboard. The following
week <b>five</b> more
people get in the top 8 with slide decks, 3 of them
being similar r/w slide,
one with the land destruction sideboard and the winner
with the anti-slide
sideboard... or it could be said, with the
anti-previous-week's-winner
sideboard. See where I'm going? So maybe as we get
closer and closer to
the 5k tourney itself, it may behoove those of you out
there who are looking
for a hint of what to expect to pay attention to how the
metagame
develops/shifts around... and even just what the 5k
winner's deck is, the
week before regionals. -shrugs- just my two cents.
You can reach
Andy at: andyvanzandt@hotmail.com
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