What I have been learning

So since the weekend I have tested at least a little bit every day this week. At the beginning of the week I was thinking about switching to Affinity, and I started with Ben Wienberg's list and modified it to put Thoughtcast for the Ethersworn Canonists, conceding a little to Elves, and then trying a few other things:

4 Tree of Tails
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Great Furnace
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers

4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
3 Atog
4 Frogmite
4 Master of Etherium
4 Ornithopter
4 Chromatic Star
4 Cranial Plating

2 Fatal Frenzy
1 Soul's Fire
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Thoughtcast

The lack of Myr Enforcer is weird, and I did get smacked in a set against Mono Blue Faeries. Atog seemed underwhemling in that matchup, as it doesn't give you the explosiveness that a Myr Enforcer for 1 would give you, so I think if I were to run Affinity I'd swap the Atogs for Myr Enforcer. Maybe Atog goes into the sideboard, I haven't thought enough about the sideboard to run the deck this weekend. Oh, and Jitte is especially bad for you in this matchup because it's more difficult to resolve a sac outlet, much less have a blocker for their Jitte-wielding Faerie. This is different than Jitte from Zoo because you can resolve an Atog and Arcbound Ravager and you can block with any Artifact man, sacrifice it and they do not get counters.

Some people think Master of Etherium is too slow for this deck, and I disagree with them. It gets past Spellstutter Sprite and Spell Snare and often will get around Vedalken Shackles. The card is a house. I could justify cutting 1 because it is a little expensive, but it is definitely good enough.

Also what scares me is this decks bad game against Mono Red Burn, especially since Smash to Smithereens main deck is apparently the new coolest thing.

So of course I'm coming back to Zoo. Here are the changes I've made so far:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Steam Vents
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Shadow Guildmage

4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Seal of Fire
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Duergar Hedge-Mage
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Jund Charm

First off, getting flooded in the late game blows, so I caved in and cut a land. Seems okay so far...

Gaddock Teeg has been pretty darn good every time I cast him. Faeries' only ways to deal with it are Vedalken Shackles, in which case you might be able to burn them out, and Threads of Disloyalty, in which case you could try running out Tarmogoyf and comment them on their nice play. It turns off Repeal and Engineered Explosives in that deck, and he does beat down. He is also relevant against UB Tron, Elves, Affinity (turning off Thoughtcast), Death Cloud (turns off Damnation or draws out a kill spell which is not directed to your huge face-beating Tarmogoyf), TEPS and Swans.

That extra Teeg could also become a third Umezawa's Jitte. The way you lose often against Faeries is they stick an Umezawa's Jitte and connect with it, taking them out of range of a burn overload. I don't know if I'll have time to try both. What the extra slot is not going to become is a third Shadow Guildmage. It's good... but not great. It's good against Faeries and Elves, but against other decks it is very underwhelming and is often the first thing look to I take out after Game 1. I think I'm fine with 2 and would rather have a Jitte or Gaddock Teeg.

I need to reevaluate what comes in and what comes out from the sideboard, but I replaced the Ancient Grudges for Katakis again because Affinity is a large enough portion of the field and poor enough a matchup that I would be willing to run 4 slots just against it. Plus Ancient Grudge actually doesn't come in against a lot of other things. I brought it in for UB Tron and I think I overreacted to it, it's actually a pretty good matchup, especially if you stick Gaddock Teeg and especially now that I run three of those guys. I kind of want a fourth Duergar Hedge-Mage and a Kitchen Finks or Ranger of Eos may be getting cut. It will probably be a Ranger.

So those are the format-specific things I have been learning about the format... but am I getting better at Magic? After all, this is what this blog is supposed to be about.

- I'm not planning ahead and executing well-enough. When the game is seemingly lost, I'm not taking risks or giving my opponent chances to blow the game.
- I feel differently when I'm in pressure situations against good players. I felt this way in the T4 of the Saturday GPT and in the T2 against Alex of the Sunday GPT. Maybe that's just how I'm going to feel and I need to get used to it.
- Deck-specific... I'm forgetting to play land and then leaving myself open to Mana Leak, or being forced to Lightning Bolt myself because I didn't play a sac land the previous turn. Again, planning.

In chess there's a concept of strategy (or setting up for the late game) and tactics (making immediate plays to gain an advantage right now). I feel like Limited focuses on tactics: attacking and blocking, setting up two-for-ones with your tricks, setting up a clock. In a word, execution. And Constructed values strategy: what is my path to victory, what cards are worth fighting for, what do I need the board to look like in four turns, and even before you sit down, what do I want this deck I'm building to do. Planning.

At least that's what I have in my head, we actually had a discussion about the parallels of chess and Magic (I think chess is closer to Magic than poker is, but I'm a math-guy when I play poker, and I think I could write an entire post about chess, poker, and Magic). I think that's why you've got Limited specialists and Constructed specialists. I definitely feel a shift in the way I have to think about the game this season as opposed to last season, and the change is welcome (or else I'd get pretty bored with the game).

That's all I've got right now.