The Monday Mulligan #12: Less players?

I will post the Gatherling entry for the event (which I or ZeroFusion would have edited to include at least all decknames and colors), so you can browse the meta yourselves. The play-offs and metagame paragraphs will list the archetypes that were played (aggro, control, etc.) and how many.

Gatherling Metagame Breakdown

Play-offs:
Jungle Storm by Nate316
WW by stiffdiddypinky
Red Deck Wins by frycek
URw Burn Blink by wildman4420

Metagame:
Aggro - 6
Control: - 3
Aggro-Control: - 3
Aggro-Combo: - 2
Mid-range: - 1
Unclassifiable - 0

Discussion:
Wow, almost half of the field was aggro! It has been a long time since the metagame was so heavenly disbalanced in one of the basic archetypes. My last weeks undefeated run with Red Deck Wins seems to have inspired quite some people to give it another try, with four out of those six aggro decks being RDW. It even put one in play-offs, but failing against Martyred WW. The other two contributers are White Weenie twins.

The winning list was Jungle Storm, a deck that was extremely popular and quite competative in Timespiral block, but hadn't really influenced standard due to being overshadowed by the other storm deck, SC. Looking at the list we can see that Nate made some different than usual choices. First of all, the usual suspend beatsticks Durkwood Baloth and Giant Dustwasp are missing, replaced by Civic Wayfinder and Aurochs Herd. It also plays Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, land destruction that is not commonly seen in storm decks. This allows the deck to play less as a combo deck and more as a mid-range/fattie deck. An Auroch is much easier to ride to victory (due to its friends) than a Baloth (which dies to a wide assortment of removal). An other Jungle Storm deck was piloted by Boin but lost and dropped in the first round.

Last weeks Spotlight entry, Burnt Blink, got two pilots this week, of which one made top four, though with a 1-2 Swiss record. I am glad people are picking up this deck, it has lots of potential.

The rest of the meta was more random, Storm Control, Blinkdrifter with Reality Acid, a big mana deck and a Elves list. The most intruiging is kehmesis' Mystic River, both because kehm piloted it, meaning it must be some good, and that it hasn't been entered. Kehms confession that he hasn't been trying hard lately because of the issues with pdc attendence in general might dampen the expectations though.

As for my weekly predictions: Red Deck Wins will fall again due to only a 25% play-off percentage. White Weenie will remain a serious contender with at least one deck in top four. Jungle Storm will be played much. People will experiment more because they think that with low turnouts it will be easier to win with a "homebrew". Good luck!

Due to not being on MTGO a lot except for hosting/attending events, I won't be doing interviews regularily. If I find time and someone worth interviewing, expect a new Mic to appear.

Previous interviews:
JMason
SerraGodFather
Kingritz
kehmesis
RaiserUK
53N531/Sensei
icarodx

Greedy Pyramid Scheme, as piloted by SypherSun at MPDC 2.04

Creatures
4 Aurochs Herd
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Mulldrifter
3 Fertilid

Spells
4 Edge of Autumn
4 Remove Soul
4 Strangling Soot
3 Mystical Teachings
3 Skred
2 Grim Harvest
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Sprout Swarm

Lands
9 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Island
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

SIDEBOARD
4 Essence Warden
4 Festercreep
3 Faerie Trickery
3 Terror
1 Sprout Swarm

Discussion:
Due to lack of interesting new decks, I thought I'd highlite one of "my own" creations, based of the Polish Level Grimdrifter decks that were moderatly succesfull at the beginning of this season. The basic idea of the deck is using Edge, Wayfinder and Fertilid to accelerate and make sure you don't miss any land drop if you get to two to three mana. You can use this mana to do rediculous things, including playing and abbusing Herd and Mulldrifter with Grim Harvest, having all the answers and threats at your fingertips with Mystical Teachings, all while keeping mana open for answers like Skred, Soot and Remove Soul.

The beauty of having this much mana fixing is than both mana screw and color screw generally don't happen, even when playing a mana intensive four color deck. You might look at the list and say, "this deck wants , and turn two and turn three, how does it do that?", but the deck doesn't want that all actually. You want one of those three colors turn two to be able to cast Edge or Skred or Remove Soul, and will then play a Wayfinder turn three to find the missing color. You just need to practice which land to fetch in the earlygame in what situation. Fetching lands out of your deck is also a form of card advantage. Even though it won't topdeck you your winning spell like a Phyrexian Rager, in the long run, where this deck wants to go, thinning you deck of lands will increase your topdecks drastically. I have had multiple times that I was out of lands to fetch and all my topdecks were bombs.

In comparison to a deck like Grimdrifter, Pyramid Scheme has a couple of advantages. It can end the game much more quickly by playing a barrage of Aurochs, hard hitting and difficult to deal with, or by using its superior mana to create a bunch of saps with Swarm. It should also be able to outresource all other decks with Grim Harvest based endgames. There are two main dissadvantages. First of all, Grimdrifter can start the game with a lot of tempo; turn two Pit Keeper, turn three Phyrexian Rager and then beating down with them while keeping the ground clear. Without a two drop two powered beater this is almost impossible, you can't put pressure enough early enough. The second main problem is the Storm Control matchup. All discard and maindeck Shamblers have been removed, which makes the Storm matchup allmost impossible, even post board. This can be dealt with by puting a number of Ravenous Rats and Mournwhelk in the boards, complementing the Festercreeps.

I think this deck, in it's current incarnation, can handle metagames without a lot of Storm Control or Red Deck Wins. Jungle Storm can be handled with the Festercreeps from the side in combination with removal for their big guys. White Weenie is though, but beatable if you can prioritize threats and gum-up the board with threats before your big beaters and saps start taking over the board. With Wardens and more removal from the side, the match is far easier. RDW has reach, which makes it far more difficult to beat. They play early threats and then finish you off with burn, which you don't have an answer too. Warden is nice, but usually gets blown away early. Mid-range decks, aggro-control decks and most control decks (that don't have a bunch of 1/1's as win-condition) fall to lots of removal on their wincons while ramping up to giant, hard-to deal threats.

Previous decks:
Burnt Blink
Fearie Rogues
Blinkdrifter
Gruul Warriors
Dreamspore Rock
Lorwyn Season:
Red Deck Wins
Storm Control
New Tricks and Grimdrifter
Use UR Illusion
GW Changelings

It seems PDC has fallen into somewhat of a recession, as said in this thread. Attendance for all events are way down in comparison to pre-v3 and the /join pdc room hasn't been this empty since I started playing about a year ago (has it been that long?). While I myself am on the "Don't Panic!" side of the fence, there are already some players that have postponed their playing untill further notice. I think the time of the year and the early faults in v3 are to blame, and the release of Service Pack 1 and Shadowmoor will create a rise of players. In the meantime, we need to keep strong, keep playing as much as we can and want to, maybe get some new players to try pdc (try the newplayers room!) and, most importantly, keep having fun!

I am also considering splitting The Monday Mulligan into different parts, so the writers block of one part won't hold up the other one. This would results in a more "bloggy" feel of the series, objections?

See you tonight, at MPDC 2.09!