Losing is Hard, Writing About it is Harder

I'm not going to sugar coat this, I've been losing a lot lately. 

It seems I used up all of my luck, skill and whatever else it takes to maintain a winning record at a Magic tournament in the SLAM Qualifier because I've been running cool at best ever since. 

I stuck with the trusty Esper Control deck for 2 tournaments after the SLAM and just couldn't seem to pull in the wins. I was losing to my own poor draws, my opponents' excellent ones and often a mind-blowingly unlikely combination of both. Obviously this is called variance and I'm supposed to shrug it off and keep on keepin' on but I have a really hard time doing that. 

While the losing was taking place I had a few days off from work and the change in routine made it very easy to skip writing up the first tournament. Then when I did poorly again it was even easier not to write about that. Here we are over a month later and I haven't written about anything since the SLAM Qualifier and I really don't want that gap to keep growing.

So here I am, making an attempt to catch you up on what's been happening. 


Standard Decks -

A lot of the locals have adopted the Devotion strategies that seem to be everywhere at the big tournaments but some just play whatever they're used to. It's hard for me to separate myself from the results that are fed to me on the interwebs to plan my deck for the expected field and not the one that exists everywhere else. This leads me to planning very specifically for things that never happen and occasionally losing to something from out of left field. For example, a local player blindsided me with the ol' Whip of Erebos + Obzedat combo the other day despite none of the "Top Tier" decks running that pair of cards for over a month now. 

I've tried Esper, Mono Blue, Mono Black and various forms of Red (both little and big) and haven't been particularly happy with anything other than Esper. If I could get a promise from the Shuffle Spirits that I wouldn't always draw the wrong amount of lands I'd probably be the most steadfast Mono Blue player on the planet. 

The deck I have the most hope for is something I'm calling Drowned Rat. It's a blue black control list that runs the full amount of Pack Rat in the main. I have yet to actually play a game with it....but man does it sound good. I've also got some inkling that there's a UWR list that isn't awful but I'm even further away from playing that one. The standard metagame moves so fast that I'll likely have built, dismantled and re-built 7+ decks by the time I publish this!

Modern Decks - 

I don't have a ton of real evidence to support what I'm going to say here, just my limited testing and the feelings in my gut, but Modern is just an incredibly open format. There are so many viable decks, crazy combos and brutally effective hate cards available that any deck can be good, bad and horrible depending entirely on what is being run. I've had fun playing Twin most recently at tournaments because it combines a little bit of control and tempo with a powerful instant win combo but there are actually several other decks that do the same thing. 

The next Modern deck I want to try and learn well is Robots because it seems to reward skilled play while also giving free wins against any unprepared or stumbling opponent. There is a lot of math involved in playing robots well and I don't know if that's what I want to stay with going ahead but the only way to know for sure is to try it out. 

I think the biggest obstacle in my way of getting good with a single deck is the sheer number of wacky, exciting and off the wall decks that somehow 4-0 Daily Events on Magic Online. I've been sidetracked by Ad Nauseam Combo, Death's Shadow Combo, Restore Balance, Mono Blue Time Warps and now Death Cloud decks along the way, none of which are likely to be lasting pillars of the format. These decks have been a lot of fun to play with and have largely been cheap to assemble but I can't help but wonder if my time would be better spent practicing with Twin or Pod. 


Legacy Decks - 

I don't actually like to think too much about Legacy because I've always kind of written off the format for costing entirely too much to get started in. I know there are pages and pages written that attempt to prove me wrong in that belief but none of them have actually done a very good job doing so. Now what has changed that makes me want to build a legacy deck? 

I found one I like that's (relatively) cheap to get going. Mono Black Pox ala Reid Duke! Now I have no illusions about finishing building this deck any time soon, much less actually having somewhere to play Legacy on a regular basis, but it's now a minor goal for me to aim for in lieu of constructing another Commander Deck from the ground up. 

Yes, the deck still requires Wastelands, Sinkholes and other ungodly expensive cards. I'll bide my time, save up trade stock and try to get there some day. If I do, sweet! If I don't, no big loss. 


Commander -

Commander remains my favorite way to play magic and I think I've just about hit a sweet spot between extremely oppressive decks and ones that sit and do nothing for too long. I also feel a lot more comfortable being knocked out of Commander games ever since I adopted the "Attacking = Complimenting" mindset, even if I'm the only one who actually has that philosophy. 

I've been playing a Teysa, Orzhov Scion deck the most, it's a grindy, creature-based deck that wins through small damage over time. I love it because I get to play with a pile of creatures that look generally pretty unimpressive on their own but that provide huge advantage combined with the other moving parts of the deck. Sengir Autocrat is the flag bearer of this type of creature. Who cares about three 0/1 creatures and a 2/2, right? But add in Teysa and a sac outlet or something even more gross like Ashnod's Altar and things get obscene quickly. I've enjoyed tinkering with this deck over the last month or so, tweaking the mana base and lowering the curve to be more efficient. Of course I'm on the hunt for foils for this deck, something I swore I'd never do for mtg....

Another current project is Shattergang Brothers, a Jund Commander that sacrifices everything, every time, everywhere. I've held off on actually building this deck since it shares so many themes and moving pieces with Teysa and there doesn't seem to be a good reason to assemble two decks that do largely the same thing. I'll probably end up building it anyway and then eventually tearing it apart. There are a couple of things that keep pulling me towards the Brothers though, one of which is Destructive Flow. This enchantment causes each player to sacrifice a non-basic land during their upkeep, it feels so wonderfully evil! The other pull is finally playing with the Perilous Forays + Bloodghast combo to pull as many basic lands as you can pay for from your deck. 

I've also been tinkering with a Derevi Bant deck that uses Winter Orb and similar effects to lock everyone else out of the game while relying on Derevi herself as well as Sword of Feast or Famine to keep untapping my lands. I haven't spent too much time on this deck because I know it's not the kind of thing I want to be doing on a regular basis against the people in my regular play group. I really love the feel of the deck though, it gets to play most of the over the top ridiculous cards in the format like Prophet of Kruphix, Sylvan Primordial and their ilk and those cards are just as much fun to play WITH as they are miserable to play against. I'm not really sure how to move forward with Derevi and it comes back to finding that fine line between too weak and too powerful. 

I struggle with that problem in Commander a lot more than I probably should, just how powerful should a Commander deck be? Often I find myself frustrated when my deck is too slow or weak because I don't actually do anything to effect the outcome of the game. Then I tweak the same deck and make it better only to perform so well that no one else seems to effect the outcome of the game. It's pretty strange to feel wrong about playing Magic for doing too well and for doing poorly but that's where I find myself sometimes at the Commander Table. I think the secret is to build your deck with the goal of enjoying yourself while playing rather than building with the goal of winning. I don't know if that's something I quite know how to do but at least I have something to focus on. 


Jason - 

This week we lost one of our regular Magic players for good. Jason Lejeune came down with pneumonia and his condition worsened very quickly, combined with his existing health problems it was too much for him and he passed on Saturday morning. I got to see Jason Wednesday evening and he seemed to be feeling alright then so my hope is that he didn't suffer for a long time.

I've known Jason now for about as long as I've been playing Magic regulary, since late 2011, but I'd only recently gotten to spend any amount of time talking to him. Jason was a very guarded person, very much like myself, but once you got through the armor he was one of the friendliest and most kind-hearted people I've ever met. 

I loved talking to Jason about horror movies, Magic, toys, tv and all kinds of other wonderful and nerdy things and it destroys me to know that I'll never get to do that again. 

It's tough for me to write about for very long but I can't even begin to grasp how hard Jason's loss is hitting his closer friends and his family. He's going to be missed forever.

If anyone is interested in making a donation of any kind for Jason's family it'd be greatly appreciated, the local shop is helping to coordinate this and their info is below. 

Magic Comics and Hobbies
727 Robert Blvd.
SLIDELL, LA 70458
(985)649-4171


I know I'm ending on a bit of a down note here but I think it's important to talk about everything that happens in my Magical World and this is definitely a huge deal. I'll be back later this week with more happenings.

Thanks for reading.