Boarding Party

Meandeck Mox Pearl Tournament
$15 entry gets you Unlimited Proxies!
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Registration starts at 12:30 p.m.; round one commences at 1 p.m.

The Soldiery
4256 N. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
(614) 267-1957

Ohh… mana, it’s tourney time!

I’ve got two decks that are geared up and ready to go at the drop of a hat or a penny off the Sears Tower. I’m serious, they could totally kill somebody.

Anyway, although I really want to try UbaCaps again because I feel like I have a better handle on the deck, I’ll probably be playing UB Fish instead, like usual.

It’s pretty good.

I like it.

4x Dark Confidant
4x Martyr of Frost
3x Withered Wretch
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours

4x Force of Will
4x Duress
4x Stifle
3x Null Rod
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Remand
1x Echoing Truth
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal

4x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Island
3x Swamp
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Yeah, it’s pretty good. I kind of wish I could get some more creatures in there, and I could probably drop a land for another, but I don’t know. It hasn’t failed me significantly yet, and there have been numerous times where it’s been amazing. First turn Bob with Force back up, second turn Ninja, third turn Bob is brutal. So is the control plan: Duress and Stifle can be demoralizing when they show up unexpected. Remand is pretty good too, like Time Walk.

What’s been bothering me is the sideboard:

3x Planar Void
3x Diabolic Edict
3x Energy Flux
2x Propaganda
4x Chalice of the Void

Most of it is pretty strong too. Planar Void is a house against a lot of decks, and it affects me not at all. Diabolic Edict is pretty good against Oath and Colossus, I hear, though it would be a liability against UW Fish’s True Believers (a lesson I learned the hard way playing Easter Tendrils in a tournament with Chainer’s Edict in the side). Energy Flux can wreck Stax a lot, making it so I only have to be able to counter their Ray of Revelation or other enchantment kill.

So two Propaganda and four Chalice of the Void…

The Propaganda comes in against things with creatures. My leaflets rain down, and their offence dries up. Adam started playing it in UW Fish when Ichorid was the hot new thing because Ichorid gets maybe three mana into play if it’s lucky. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much against Fish and other decks that have lands. It does, at least, tie up mana.

Chalice comes in against Gifts most of the time and Long all of the time. The problem is that after the first Chalice for zero comes down, the rest of them are usually dead draws. Based on the experiences of two Meandeck tournaments ago, I just don’t like Chalice in my build of Fish.

Chalice of the Void for one: $2
Urza’s Saga Duress: $2
Playing one into the other: Retarded

Chalice for zero is a good play, but it’s easy for combo to play around because all of their bounce still works. It does shut off Lotus, five moxes, Lotus Petal, and Mana Crypt. That’s an eight for one: some good.

But probably the most useful, reasonable setting for Chalice against combo is one. It shuts off four Dark Rituals, Mystical and Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Chain of Vapor, four Brainstorms, and Imperial Seal, along with a few other cards that may come in from the sideboard like Duress or Xantid Swarm. That’s at least thirteen cards that suddenly suck—real strong.

After zero and one, the next best setting is probably three or four, but if I make it to six or eight mana, I should probably win the game anyway.

I can play Chalice for zero, no problem. It affects me almost not at all, especially if I start out with one of my four zero-cost artifacts in my hand.

Chalice for one, though, bites a big one. I lose Stifle and Duress, the very cards that would make my deck good against Long in the first place.

So I’m trying to figure out something other than Chalice to play against combo. I’d prefer something turn zero, but my options are a little short on that end because I don’t want to run four Leyline of the Void. My next two choices are Foil and Disrupting Shoal.

Foil
Instant – 2UU
You may remove an island and a blue card from your hand instead of paying this card’s casting cost.
Counter target spell.

Holy card and mana disadvantage, Bat-Manuel! You just mulliganed three times!

Yeah, it’s got some problems.

It does counter a spell and if I’m going to lose that turn or next for sure if that spell goes through, I count a two card loss as a victory for me. Realistically, though, no.

Disrupting Shoal
Instant – XUU
You may remove a blue card with casting cost X from your hand instead of paying this card’s casting cost.
Counter target spell with casting cost equal to X.

It’s limited Force of Will. Very limited Force of Will in fact. I do have 23 cards to pitch to Disrupting Shoal, but not all of them are that useful. As pointed out earlier, the two most important numbers in Long are one and three—that’s tutors, draw, broken stuff, and mana.

I have zero three-drops in my deck. Disrupting Shoal will never, ever stop Force of Will unless I also side in Energy Fluxes, and though they will have some utility against combo, I think they have more utility on the bench in that matchup.

Curse you Ninja of the Deep Hours for having one overcosted and one undercosted way of getting into play instead of two averaged costs! Ninja won’t counter anything except one copy of Tendrils. Likewise Time Walk, Echoing Truth, and two Remands (which probably go to the sideboard anyway) might snag a Demonic Tutor or a Cabal Ritual for five, but there aren’t a lot of them and they don’t do much anyway.

Pitching Force of Will counters, uh, Force of Will. At least I don’t lose any life for it.

Okay, it also stops Misdirection and a hardcast Memory Jar.

Stifle, I can’t pitch unless not doing so will kill me—like my opponent has tutored Tendrils to the top of his library and is playing Brainstorm with four mana floating and cards in his hand that may or may not be a counter.

That leaves me with four Martyr of Frost, two Chain of Vapor, and Ancestral.

Crud.

From 23 useful pitches, I’m down to seven.

A lucky number for Friday the Thirteenth? Perhaps.

Even worse, maybe some of those come out for sideboard cards. Maybe not, though. Ancestral’s not coming out. Martyr of Frost is weak, but might still get some action. And Chain probably stays in for the Colossus gambit.

I will try three Disrupting Shoal in the sideboard. It will be good. I will counter the ninth copy of tendrils at some point and then go on to win the game because I am that awesome.

It's about the best I can do.

The last three slots?

You and I will both just have to wait and see. It’s Friday, and I’m going to Thurman’s.