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Main » Articles » Testing Guide for GP: Providence

Testing Guide for GP: Providence

Christopher Walton
Posted on May 12, 2011
 Reddit

Introduction

If you just thought about, or just started, testing for Providence recently . . . Congratulations! Normally, this kind of slacking would be heavily punished, but the metagame is going to shift with the legality of Mental Misstep, regardless of how good I think it is in the metagame. So, since everything is going to be chaotic, I'm going to take some time to suggest some lists and some strategies to help you test for the event. For those of you in Europe, I suppose that most of this can be translated to the Legacy Bazaar of Moxen event as well.

What Should I Expect?

This is the question on everyone's mind. If you can answer it better than most, you're going to be among the best-positioned people in the room. I've got a few worthwhile ideas that I'd like to share with you.

1. Expect combo!

Why combo? While Legacy is the second-most-popular constructed format, there are still a lot of people who don't normally play it and refuse to play it unless they positively must. These are the people who want to do as little testing as possible. Bringing a combo deck to the tournament allows you to have minimal experience with the format, or its metagame, and still generate wins off the raw power of the cards. While on the surface it may look as though Storm and other combo decks are inherently weakened by Mental Misstep, this is very likely far from the truth. At this point, several of the big Storm advocates have declared that Mental Misstep impacts their decks in a mostly negligible way. These may be the same people who claim their decks have no bad matchups but can't provide the numbers to support those claims. The important thing is, be it T.E.S., ANT, Belcher, Elves, Painter, Aluren, Doomsday, or any other fringe combo decks that pop out at the zero hour, combo is going to be in the room, and you'll be hard pressed to navigate through the event without seeing it so you should be prepared.

2. Expect all the usual suspects . . .

Last week, I did a pretty thorough metagame breakdown of what we've been seeing played since High Tide came on the scene back at the beginning of March. Decks such as Junk, Merfolk, Team America, Natural Order Bant, Dredge, Bant Aggro, and assorted G/W decks made up a sizable portion of the metagame with Team America on the decline and Bant decks in the incline. These are all fairly solid and adaptable decks that don't lose too much to Mental Misstep, although some lists may change to either accommodate or make concessions to the card. For decks that are more interested in playing around Mental Misstep rather than with it, we should expect to see redundancy among the weaker points these decks have, such as Bant and Junk decks playing copies of Swords to Plowshares supplemented with Oblivion Ring, Journey to Nowhere, Path to Exile, Condemn, Oust, Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, or other cards of that nature. While it isn't on the radar yet, we'll probably even see respectable numbers of Cat Sligh and Big Zoo at this event, for the same reason we're expecting combo.

3. . . . except Goblins.

No, that's not a typo—that's except, not expect. We're not expecting to see too much of Goblins. When I did the metagame breakdown, Goblins was only making up about 4% of the metagame among successful decks, and people have only been spreading negative opinions about what Mental Misstep means for the deck. People are going to be scared off the deck, and a lot of Goblins' best plays may be severely impeded by the number of Mental Missteps that are flying around. For the same reasons that many people still play Zoo in this current combo-heavy metagame, some people play Goblins because it is the limit of what they own as far as Legacy is concerned. As a result, we'll still see people getting hit by Lackeys and Piledrivers, and we'll likely still see Ringleaders flipping the perfect four cards that allow games to be won. Just don't expect to see too much of it at the top tables.

4. Expect the cheaper decks.

While Merfolk and Dredge were already covered, I'll state again that you need to be aware of these decks because they are still some of the easiest to assemble in Legacy. Among these decks are burn, some builds of Enchantress, the G/W aggro decks, and mono-Black aggro or control. If you're not resting comfortably with three byes, it's likely good to at least know what your plan is against burn, mono-Black, and Enchantress, because much of the time, these decks are able to generate wins because of the opponent's misplaying due to an unfamiliar matchup.

5. Expect Emrakul.

I haven't gotten around to detailing exactly how much I hate Emrakul, the Aeons Torn yet, but it is quite obviously among the most unfair cards ever printed, and you can certainly expect to see him in Rhode Island. Sneak Attack/Show and Tell and Doomsday were both in the Top 8 at the last Legacy Grand Prix, and the lists hadn't had very much time to be worked out at that point. The format is expected to be slower, and a lot of people are cutting what would normally be Spell Pierce slots for Mental Misstep. But the expected prevalence of Misstep is a boon for Sneak Attack, Doomsday, and even Enchantress decks. While last year was the year that Hypergenesis was supposed to make its big splash, if the metagame truly does shift in the way I anticipate it will, this could easily be the year that Hypergenesis is able to navigate many copies into Day 2.

6. Also, expect Progenitus.

Natural Order decks have been picking up a lot of steam recently, and when you combine all the different iterations of these decks, they make up just under 10% of the metagame. Green Sun's Zenith has enabled these decks to run at turbo power, play fewer creatures, and still have secondary and even tertiary plans of attack if Natural Order doesn't pan out. Just before Columbus and up until relatively recently, Natural Order decks have been on the downswing, but this year may end up being their year.

7. Expect Life from the Loam to return.

When going through the list of some of the truly powerful cards that Mental Misstep isn't going to be able to touch, one of the remarkable ones that stood out for me is Life from the Loam. I touched on this subject a bit last week, but assuming the metagame does slow down, Loam decks are traditionally able to enjoy over 50% win ratios against most of the aggro strategies, specifically Merfolk, and have overwhelming card advantage that the aggro/control decks struggle to keep pace with. Loam decks are still going to have a fair number of questionable and even poor matches to consider. Historically, a failing of these deck is their inability to handle Progenitus and much of the time Emrakul as well, not to mention that combo is easily able to KO these decks.

8. Expect control.

After doing a significant amount of testing with New Phyrexia, and Mental Misstep, to be more specific, I think we're going to be likely to see a format where control is viable again. This isn't me saying that I feel Mental Misstep is great in control decks, but it is me saying that some of the cards that are being cut for Mental Misstep are areas that will allow control to steadily come back into the metagame. Landstill variants (even U/b/g) and Thopters are the two decks I have in mind, but there is a lot of room for control decks to fill in what may be a new metagame where decks that lean on simply using Jace, Grim Lavamancer, and Vendilion Clique as the primary control elements. Control pilots are going to need to make some decisions rather quickly regarding what nature of concessions they intend to make to Mental Misstep and if those are going to take the form of alternative-cost spells, redundancy, or variant strategies, or if any concern at all should be paid to the card—or if it's business as usual.

9. Expect Chalice of the Void.

Even before a single card from New Phyrexia was spoiled, I was somewhat confident that this year's Grand Prix was going to pan out to be a strong one for Dragon Stompy—providing it could get at least one more card on the curve. Essentially, the strength of Dragon Stompy is entirely in its Blood Moons, and recently, mana bases have been getting incredibly sloppy. Now, with the spoiler out, one of the early and primary reactions to Mental Misstep for a lot of people is to pick up decks that use as few 1-cost spells as possible to generate the virtual card advantage of forcing unfortunate opponents to be stuck with dead cards. With the overall decline of Qasali Pridemage from the metagame, that may be a great choice for a lot of people. I've seen a lot of buzz surrounding a variety of different Stax lists and different Chalice aggro decks, and this isn't even taking into account the MUD decks that we've seen with increasing popularity, and, very recently, with increasing success in the last few weeks. Scars block has given the more aggressive decks a lot of tools to play with, and the shifting sands may even allow for Geddon or even Dutch Stax to be a decent choice in Rhode Island.

10. Expect Counterbalance.

Even though this in many ways meshes with the warning about control, people love Counterbalance and are going to find ways to play it. The soft-lock interactions may seem weaker now with Mental Misstep around, but Counterbalance is inherently good at blind-flipping 1-cost spells, and we've seldom seen fewer Krosan Grips since the card has been printed than right now, where most decks that are in Green aren't even running it anymore (there were five total copies of the card in the entire Top 16 from Star City Charlotte.) People who played it in Extended love Counter-Top, and while most people who frequent Legacy were taking Counterbalance out of their decks last year around the Grand Prix, many of the pros showed up touting the card and making excellent finishes (Tom Martell and PV—you can visibly see it in Game 2, so I didn't misspeak this time.). The versatility of the Counter-Top lock can allow it to show up in a lot of places, and one of them may just be across the table from you, so don't forget about it, and at least have a plan in mind for the dreaded "Unsorted Counter-Top" deck.

11. Expect Affinity.

Builds of Affinity come in as some of the cheapest, most viable decks that can be built in Legacy, and as a result it shouldn't be surprising that the deck makes up a large portion of the field. Last year, only a single copy made Day 2, but we can expect that to be much higher with the numbers of cards that have been printed for the card in Scars block, and it should be interesting to see which builds do the best. Affinity's very aggressive play style has given a lot of trouble to aggro/control decks, especially now with Go for the Throat being such a popular choice for removal, so it's especially important for people who are thinking about playing Bant, Team America, Canadian Thresh, or another midgame deck to consider.

Testing

For me, the purpose of testing is to fulfill two needs. First, the need to understand how opposing decks in the metagame operate and how to best attack them; this is accomplished by playing with and against these decks through rounds of testing. You'll seldom get a better understanding of what a deck's weaknesses are other than when you're sitting behind it stressing about all the things that could go wrong. Second, the need to be sure that the slots in my main deck and sideboard are being used to optimal efficiency, which is accomplished by taking notes regarding how often and to what effect cards in my deck are being used against the major decks in the metagame. The first step to testing is to identify which the most important decks in the field are and to prioritize your time accordingly.

The Gauntlet

Regardless of the shakeup, we're not going to have a great idea of what the metagame looks like until Sunday the 15th, when we'll have results late in the night from SCG Open: Orlando and the far more exciting Bazaar of Moxen V! Traditionally, we wouldn't be too interested in comparing events from Europe and the United States, as they have historically had radically different metagames, but for this upcoming change, people are going to be looking everywhere for information—and what better place than the largest single third-party Legacy event of the year? While we eagerly anticipate those results, we can start making some predictions and suggesting reasonable decks to test against, gauging from the recent past.

Last week, I did a very comprehensive breakdown of the best-performing decks in the metagame, and one of the delightful by-products of this is that I was able to show what percentages we're seeing at top tables, which isn't truly an accurate metagame breakdown, but for the intent of aiming to test against what does and has been doing well, it's an excellent measure, and it's where I'd like to start now.

For those of you who may be attending your first large Legacy event, I've assembled a gauntlet of decks I suggest you test against and what I feel their testing priority should be.

Top-Tier

"Mark Quackenbush's Pile of Junk"

I identified Junk as being the best-performing archetype of the last couple of months by a narrow margin over Merfolk, and with good reason—it should be somewhat difficult to find a Top 8 that doesn't feature a copy of the deck. I present a more traditional list of the deck, but it's worth noting that we've also been seeing builds with Green Sun's Zenith do quite well. I think for the purposes of the Grand Prix, it's most important to know how you fare against a stock list of the deck, and if you have time, move on to worry about the accelerated problems that the other lists are able to present. We likely don't need to be concerned with too many changes to the deck with the advent of New Phyrexia, but we should be concerned with the deck even if it wasn't putting up numbers, because it carries favor among many pros, some of whom will undoubtedly be Junking in Providence.

"Merfolk Suggested by Just About Everyone"

The second-best-performing deck I found was Merfolk, which is reasonable considering that it's now Legacy's most-played deck according to some sources. Most people agree that Merfolk is a good home for Mental Misstep, and the cuts are generally pretty obvious. Liam Kane and Drew Levin both suggested a nearly identical set of cuts from Alex Bertoncini's pretty much standardized list of Merfolk. I think there's merit to playing the additional creatures, but this seems like a fine starting point for those who are interested in testing against Merfolk, which should be everyone, considering that the deck has a new tool and is the commonest deck in the format.

"NO Bant"

It's difficult to say how much a deck like this is going to want to deviate from its plan to either incorporate or fight against Mental Misstep, and there is likely going to be a fair amount of discussion going both ways. For now, I think that it's better to err on the side of playing Spell Pierce, as this deck is likely more concerned with countering opposing bombs and Force of Wills, although the deck is often weak to Merfolk, so it can certainly go either way. Natural Order Bant is a deck that has been performing better as time has gone by, and seems very well-positioned for a metagame with Mental Misstep regardless of whether the deck is playing it.

"Team America"

First, you should notice that this is a real list of Team America and not a U/b/g control deck that's been mislabeled; this is partially to do with the success of Team America and the lack of successes we've seen from the lists that are hypothesized to be better. It is, however, worthwhile to test against both iterations of the deck, which can often be done by swapping Tombstalkers for Dark Confidants and playing an additional Jace over what I've suggested in the main. Although we've seen a dropping in the success rates of the deck as time has gone by from its initial appearances, Mental Misstep allows this deck to protect its threats in a reactive manner, which is something it's really struggled to do for some time now, and the ability to do so may well revitalize the deck. While this list plays a couple of extra Terravores than the standard zero, I think that testing against builds that play the creature are going to be better, as the card is exactly what the deck wants—more than eight creatures and a huge finisher.

Mid-Tier

Dredge is one of the decks that is going to seem most unattractive during the first few months of Mental Misstep, and as a result, I think it's safe to do a bit less testing against the deck than you normally would—but I assume that most people weren't going to test against the deck anyway, regardless of the fact that it was the third-best-performing deck of the last two months—which likely could have been prevented if people ever tested against or even expected Dredge.

Elves is perhaps the deck that looks the most unattractive to play in a format with Mental Misstep, as suddenly not only the deck's primary route to victory but over half its spells are all vulnerable to being one-for-oned by it, meaning that it's going to be difficult for the combo version of the deck to launch an offensive. If the opponent pegs you for the aggro build, Mental Misstep can be used as a way to generate a lot of tempo (maybe) to try to delay the otherwise backbreaking Lords that the deck plays.

Bant Aggro is often used as an open-ended archetype heading that covers the ranges of the Stoneforge Mystic–based decks with Mirran Crusader and a couple of Goyfs to the very tempo-oriented New Horizons. When testing against this archetype, it's probably better to go with the more streamlined builds of the deck, considering that it's not reasonable to attempt to prepare for all of the tricks that can be jammed into a deck like this. Regardless of which build you test against, you're mostly testing to see how well your deck fares against large, standalone guys plus Blue counter magic and Swords to Plowshares.

ANT/T.E.S. are going to test about the same for most decks, so if you're not testing a Blue deck, it's likely only important to test against T.E.S., which is generally the more popular of the two decks and is probably a little better positioned this year than ANT. If you're testing with a Blue deck, it becomes important to understand the intricacies of these two matches and what one is often capable of doing that the other isn't—such as playing against Orim's Chant and Duress versus playing against six Duress effects, or how Empty the Warrens changes the dynamic of the matchup.

G/W aggro with or without Natural Order has been an archetype that has been picking up a lot of momentum recently and putting up a number of finishes that have really surprised me. These decks aren't affected by Mental Misstep the way that a lot of other Vial decks are, and are fairly resilient to much of the metagame. Overlooking this deck for any serious player going to the Grand Prix would be an unfortunate oversight.

Affinity and (somewhat in the same vein) MUD are archetypes that have been somewhat popularized since SCG: Indy, but have seldom put up numbers until fairly recently. Most decks are inherently good or inherently poor against them; unlike the low-tier decks, it's worthwhile to test against these decks to get an understanding of how they operate and what plan of attack is likely to give you the best results. These are decks that a lot of people have been dedicating sideboard slots to, and you should figure out if yours is one of the decks that could gain a lot from this.

Low-Tier

Goblins is really only an important match to test if you have the time; while it has been among the most popular decks over the last few months, a lot of people are likely to be scared off playing it, since one of the deck's most pivotal matchups, Merfolk, now has a great new tool to use against them.

Thopters, Landstill, U/W Counter-Top, and other control variants have seldom made up a large portion of the metagame, and as a result, it's not time-efficient to test against these decks unless you find yourself really reaching for things to do or want to get an understanding of how your deck needs to play against a more controlling strategy.

Even if High Tide players show up, putting the time in to test against it isn't efficient, because most players aren't even going to see the deck unless they actively go looking for it. Even if you do have time to test this match, much like Belcher, you're either going to have a good game against it or you're not going to; there isn't much room in most decks to alter how you're playing to better combat the deck.

There are a lot of other decks out there, but these are the most important known quantities that you can test against, from my perspective. You can obviously tailor your testing needs to specific decks and weak points for players.

Conclusion

I've previously gone into detail regarding how I like to go about testing—in short, ten games pre-board, twenty to thirty games post-board, alternating play regardless of who wins, with the deck you're testing against taking seven-card, competitive hands regardless of mulligan. I feel that this method gives you a great sense of what an opposing deck is capable of doing and how you can best fight against it. I've tested with people in the past who felt this was slanted against them, especially the mulligan rules, but my retort to that is when military or even militia forces train, they train for scenarios that are far worse than anything you'd normally expect to undergo. Similarly, here, by ensuring that your opponent always has a viable hand, you're actually playing Magic against him, working out how to best fight an opponent. If in a tournament you get a free win from the opponent's mulliganing into oblivion or keeping a weak hand against you while they're blind, then take it, but while you're doing the testing, make sure that you're learning something while doing it, not simply inflating your ego.

I was going to go to a prerelease this weekend and try to pick up some of the cards I really liked out of this new set, but that didn't end up happening. I took a long time off after last week, and I'm not quite sure how I got around to writing this for this week, I imagined that I was going to take the entire week off. I'm toying around with an idea for next week, but gathering information for it seems like it's going to be a real pain, but if I start off talking about my favorite card in New Phyrexia, Blade Splicer, you'll know that I went through with it. I don't have a clever catchphrase to close out my articles, but I am thinking of just making the contact information I close out my articles with absurdly long. Anyway, thanks for reading this, and maybe you'll read more things I've written next week.

~ Christopher Walton in the real world

im00pi at gmail dot com

Master Shake on The Source

@EmperorTopDeck on Twitter

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