Friggorid is a good deck. The fact that it plays no spells and doesn’t have to keep permanents on the board during opponents’ turns makes it very resilient against many of the countermeasures that other decks play. It can deliver hasty, hasty beats starting on turn two and it’s not uncommon for its opponent to die somewhere in between the first and second main phase of turn four. The disruption that it is most susceptible to, graveyard hate, hasn’t quite yet become commonplace enough to effectively stop it when it does show up.
Plus, in Vintage, the amount of free spells and artifact mana allows it to be run almost without lands, and in fact there was a completely manaless version posted on the Starcity forums a couple of weeks ago.
The manaless version had some interesting concepts, most notably the idea of running Serum Powders to mulligan safely until Bazaar of Baghdad is in your hand. Unfortunately, in testing conducted by my cousin Jeff, the deck being manaless didn’t quite push it far enough to be significantly faster than its’ mana-based predecessor.
Friggorid is clearly one of the most aggressive decks ever to bring beats into the red-zone. But, in talking about the deck, Jeff and I decided that it’s not really an aggro deck. It’s a combo deck.
Like Tendrils-based storm in Vintage, High Tide in Legacy, or Heartbeat in Standard, Friggorid moves cards around the play area quickly. An aggressive start can involve ten, twenty, or more cards moving from the library to the graveyard in preparation for next turn’s upkeep when four or five hasty 3/1s make the scene. By the end of turn two, the larger half of Friggorid’s deck should be in its graveyard. By the end of turn three, the biggest threat to Friggorid should be Wheel of Fortune or Memory Jar, which have actually won me 3 games against my cousin’s horrors.
However, like with the other combo decks mentioned, which often shoehorn as much control as possible into an already packed deck, it’s very easy to disrupt Friggorid with a number of cards. Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Tormod’s Crypt and Withered Wretch are the obvious choices. Climbing the cost ladder we see Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, and Caltrops to stop the aggro. And even mana disruption like Wasteland and Null Rod can put a lid on the deck’s aggressiveness by keeping Ashen Ghouls from seeing play.
This is the concept of velocity.
I know I’ve made the analogy before, but it’s like hitting a fastball. You see, it’s very easy to redirect energy that’s already there, so a batter who makes contact will have an easier time driving a 95 mph fastball over the wall than he will doing the same to a 75 mph changeup. At the same time, the fastball has a much greater chance of just blowing by the hitter and thwacking into the catcher’s mitt.
For a much nerdier example, think of a spaceship attempting to land on a planet. Everything has to go just right so that the heat shields hold and the craft can land or splashdown safely. If it approaches too fast, there’s a higher chance that it will skip off the atmosphere and go spinning into space or that it will tear through the atmosphere and incinerate itself. They explain this in Apollo 13 with diagrams if you want to see what I’m talking about.
Anyway, a combo deck that moves cards a lot of cards around in a short number of turns is easier to disrupt than, say, an aggro-control deck that likes to play one creature a turn and save mana for an economical counterspell or draw-spell.
Combo usually doesn’t have to worry about its opponent putting his plan into action because, if all goes well, combo will win before that matters. Even Darksteel Colossus gives combo another two turns to win. Combo just has to worry about stopping what stops it.
For most combo decks, counterspells are bad news, especially early ones like Force of Will, or even Force Spike, which can take that one extra point of mana away. As such, most combo decks pack counterspells of their own (usually free ones like Force or Daze), or cards that negate counters like Duress and Xantid Swarm. Xantid Swarm is a must-counter in any deck that uses it because if it hits, the opponent will never counter again.
Friggorid cares not for counterspells. It will cast maybe five spells a game, three of which are usually free artifact mana. Then there are two card drawing cards like Brainstorm or Ancestral Recall (which are really only threatening if they have cards in the graveyard to dredge). And finally there’s a bomb like Time Walk, Balance, or Crop Rotation for Bazaar of Baghdad.
That’s it, and lots of times they get away casting only two spells, usually a mox and a draw spell.
As such, Friggorid has to run cards that stop its plan. That means Chalice of the Void for Tormod’s Crypt; Pithing Needle for Wretch, Crypt, and Wasteland; and Chain of Vapor for Leyline of the Void and Caltrops.
Friggorid can actually run multiple playsets of these spells making it potentially more vigorous than many other combo decks, which may contain from two to four of their enablers. The problem is that most of Friggorid’s cards get dredged and never see the hand. Plus, anything that costs more than two, like Null Rod, is practically unplayable since that most cards never see the hand rule counts for lands as well.
In short, before sideboarding, when it runs usually just Chalice of the Void and some random Chains or Rays or Revelations for support, Friggorid can expect to see one, maybe (maybe) two of its control cards. And hopefully that one is a Chalice for zero to shut down Tormod’s Crypt and opposing moxes. If it’s not Chalice, then Friggorid will no doubt discard soon enough to Bazaar.
It is this full-on balls-out attitude that makes Friggorid a combo deck rather than an aggro or aggro-control deck. In fact, aside from Tooth and Nail, this is the only deck I can think of where the combo synergy leads directly to aggressive beats.
At least Ichorid sort of has a chance to maybe draw and play some answers if it has to. Manaless Ichorid just kind of scoops if it doesn’t see its Leyline of the Void or other few hate cards.
This brings up the question of just how balls-to-the-walls attitude a deck can need without losing to itself.
When I played Easter Tendrils all the time (I hate to bring this up, but other people have been bringing it up recently as well), that was about as hellbent as a deck could get. It rolled to a Force of Willed Helm (or later spell if I used a Draw 7), Chalice for one, Null Rod, Orim’s Chant, Stifle, and some others that I’m not thinking of. The one out it had against these things was Burning Wish.
That’s it. Burning Wish. Which most of the time (like against Null Rod or Force of Will), I couldn’t play because I wouldn’t have red mana. Plus, if I did use it and my answer got countered, it was a terrible uphill battle to get Yawgmoth’s Will online for the recursion and the win.
Decks with high velocity don’t get going, fail spectacularly, or win almost instantaneously and spectacularly.
And that’s why they’re so much fun. Spectacular.
Anyway, I realize that I haven’t actually said anything new about velocity. Mostly, I think that Mark Young is wrong saying that cards doing more than one thing is velocity. Magic decks have, or should have anyway, one direction to a goal and velocity is how fast you can get to that goal.
A Tendrils-storm deck wants to get from zero to ten spells and the opponent from twenty to zero life. That deck has to be both “aimed” and “powered” perfectly, though, or it will miss wildly and go shooting past its mark before running out of gas or it will just peter out in the middle of the course.
Belcher wants seven mana, a Belcher in hand, and a land on the table. It doesn’t care about two-for-one’ing your Goblin Welder and Mox Monkey with Fire and Ice unless those creatures are going to mess up its plans. If it cared, it would run Fire and Ice!
When a group of cards comes along like those in ProsBloom to do multiple things (i.e. lands tap for mana, get sacrificed for more mana, which ultimately goes into a Prosperity for more cards and mana) that’s great, but most of the time, I’m happy ripping through a deck just to play a Tendrils FTW. Plus, who’s to say that upping storm counts isn’t multiple uses?
Decks with low velocity, like Stax (which can have high-velocity plays through accelerated mana) or Fish (which gains velocity in the form of card advantage) need to maximize their cards because that’s how they eventually stop the high velocity decks.
Stifle is good because it negates your entire storm count or stops your fetchland from developing your mana for a turn or makes the Charbelcher you activated off a Lion’s Eye Diamond fizzle. Force of Will is bad if it’s played on the first spell of Tendrils-storm. Not only have you increased their storm by one for free, you also two-for-one’d yourself! Plus, if your opponent is lucky and smart, they’ve still got a mox or two in hand to continue going off.
Things are different with Friggorid, though. Countering that one early Brainstorm, for example, might actually fifteen-for-one your opponent as it will stop them from finding Bazaar of Baghdad or dredging cards with Golgari Grave-troll. It’s not countering one spell, it’s countering multiple later effects and could cripple them long enough for you to get a foothold.
Reflection is something I know most Magic players do after a tournament or playtest session. It helps to have multiple ways to go back, and velocity is just one of many.
Velocity is an interesting concept, one worth examining before, during and after you play your games. Think about your deck’s potential: do you want to go all in early or wait and bait? Think about your opponent’s plays and how to best disrupt them or maintain and increase your advantage. Examine your plays afterward and see where you could have done better.
For more information on Velocity, consult your local library, or check out these websites.
Mike Flores - http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9530.html
Nathan J. Xaxson - http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10011.html
Mark Young - http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10204.html
You actually have to take my word for it; it’s my blog.
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