Manalink Tournament (May) (tournament complete)

[thedrigo]

Congratulations to the winners!!

Kinda sad to see my deck fared so poorly... hahaha. It had done so well against the decks from the 1st tournament.
Hopefully we'll see a change of format for the next tourney, to mix it up a little.

[aww1979]

Alright then, I'll play the tiebreaker match right now and see who is the winner between Salbei and Yggdrasil.

[juzamjedi]

I was just thinking I wish we had Trinket Mage. Trygon Predator would also be sweet. Win or lose it's been a lot of fun reading through the game summaries of how my deck has performed.

[aww1979]

Began the tiebreaker round with Salbei:
1) kakodrilo 2-0
2) stroggoii 2-0
3) salbei 2-0

http://rapidshare.com/files/392664103/s ... 1.zip.html

Summary:
Match 1: Games were fairly easy. Baneslayers and control beat burn easily, especially with the AI.
Match 2: The second game of this match was awesome, and was very close.
Match 3: BORING. BORING. BORING. Won with help from AI misplays. In game 2, it threw away Balance when it had 8 cards, and I had 2x Baneslayer, Keiga, and walls.

More coming soon...

[Stroggoii]

I'm trying to figure out how this card can possibly be good; it doesn't seem very good to me, except its first ability. I suppose it combos with other dragons you have, as well as stuff like Day of the Dragons, but that's low-tier casual combo at best. Still, just because it's a planeswalker, I'd probably put it in all my 499-card decks. (I put one copy of all planeswalkers in those, except sometimes Nissa Revane, since she's so specific)

I like being able to deal with WoD's, Sphinxes and such. He is a draw engine that breaks the otherwise hardcore UW creature cast back to fragile walls and flyers. And he's the only planeswalker I play 4 of in standard, not to make the deck flow faster, but because he replaces himself and keeps going, he may not be Jace but BR and Jund have noticed how strong he really is.

[scherbchen1]

As in the previous tournament, please feel free to submit me the card of your choice. I'll pick up one of them as my third card for the prize.

fine then

Basilisk Collar or Gideon Jura

[monopoman]

I would like to see Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in the game personally hes the best fattie ever made!

[Broolex]

Cavern Harpy !

[aww1979]

4) juzamjedi 2-0
5) aww1979 2-0
6) scherbchen 2-0
7) shantak 2-0
kakodrilo 2-0
9) enigma73 2-0

Most of the games were won fairly easily, albeit slowly. The enigma games were really funny; in game 1, the AI seemed to have bet money on me, as it dropped a turn 1 Knight of the Reliquary with Black Lotus, only to Swords it on turn 2 during the attack phase! It then followed up this brilliant play by dropping Armageddon right after I play Baneslayer Angel! AI wins Retard of the Year.

Game 2 saw equal stupidity, except on my end. On what I thought at the time was my second last turn before winning, I play Keiga because, as I say in the video, I look through enigma's decklist and don't see any mass removal. So imagine my shock when it topdecks Wrath of God, wiping Mulldrifter, Keiga, and Baneslayer, with AI going to die next turn! Well, then the turn after Wrath, it plays Armageddon. About 20-30 turns later, I finally win with another Baneslayer, with about a dozen cards left in library. I steal Retard of the Year from the AI, but at least I still won!

More matches to come... video will be uploaded a little later.

edit: the video link http://rapidshare.com/files/392730434/s ... 2.zip.html

edit again:
Played two more matches:
10) yggdrasil 2-0
11) cognis 2-0
Uploading video; I'll post the link tomorrow, as I'm falling asleep in my chair :p

edit again: (video for round 10 & 11)
http://rapidshare.com/files/392976478/s ... 3.zip.html

[Yggdrasil]

Cavern Harpy !

One more time, please.
Some readers may have not yet understood.

[Nyktorion]

Already thanks to aww for doing all the work with this tournament. Congratulations to Yggdarsil, Salbei, and Stroggoii for bein being the winners of the tournament. Specifically, congratulations to Salbei for achieving such an insane AI win percentage - with a control deck (so I'm rooting for you in the tiebreakers ).

[aww1979]

12) stroggoii 2-0
13) kakodrilo 2-0
14) cognis 2-0
15) scherbchen 2-0
http://rapidshare.com/files/393069798/s ... 1915213048

The scherbchen games were quite good; he has enough weenies to keep pressure on. I had some pretty nasty mulligan choices in here, and one or two that were likely mistakes, but they all worked out anyway, though some were due to blind luck than any skill on my part.

[Brandon822]

As in the previous tournament, please feel free to submit me the card of your choice. I'll pick up one of them as my third card for the prize.

Putrid Imp

[Cognis]

Can't wait for the next tournament, I already made a deck that might actually win a game

[Salbei]

Can't wait for the next tournament, I already made a deck that might actually win a game

Same here
Created a Legacy Deck with minor AI flaws, but it is already good enough to consistantly beat the current Vintage Decks when the AI plays it.Don´t worry, this one is a lot faster than "Stall".The "theme" is similar, but the execution is a lot smoother.Even lost the mirror twice in a row which is a very strong indicator for a good AI deck.
I´m still fine tuning it and replacing cards the AI uses wrong or not at all (even if that means i have to cut superior cards and replace them with worse).

Here are a couple tips on deckbuilding for these tournaments:

I advise you to not play the deck yourself too much - let the AI play it while you play a different deck.
Check the AI hand with debug mode and see what choices it makes.Already had to cut 3 different strong cards and replace them with mediocore ones because of that.Especially watch out for specific non-basic lands - usually the AI either doesn´t use them at all or plain wrong - replace them with basic lands to improve the decks consistancy and also to lower the potential threat of Wasteland / Blood Moon.

Focus on how the AI is playing your deck since 2 AI wins will give you the same points as a 10-0 gauntlet.If the AI can beat a human player with your deck then most likly a human player will be able to do the same.

Leave out fancy combos the AI is going to mess up - keep it simple and focus on a simple task your deck should do (stall the board, flood the board with weenies etc).

My rule of thumb for AI decks is:
Less options = less chances the AI is going to choose the wrong one.keep it simple.
(this is why the AI is so bad at playing burn - it doesn´t know when it should burn to face or burn a creature.same thing with countermagic - it usually burns its counters for the first thing it sees, even if that target is completly irrelevant.)

Metagame
Expect at least 2 creature heavy decks you are going to see during your gauntlet - can your deck handle the pressure ? Also expect a lot of fast removal spells for the same reason - so if your deck only got 2 creatures as a win option those 2 will obviously get removed on sight, make sure they got shroud for example to negate that.
Fast fatties is always a very valid strategy.Tons of ways to get that going - make sure you got an answer for that (bounce/mass removal/edict).Gonna be at least 1 deck trying to do this aswell.
Last but not least - what cards/strategies would literally crush your deck?How likly is it you are going to see these cards played ?

How vulnurable is your deck to the following cards:
Blood Moon / Wasteland / Price of Progress ("Mana denial")
Wrath of God / Damnation ("mass removal")
Swords to Plowshares / Path to Exile ("fast spot removal")
Grim Lavamancer / Royal Assasin / Gorilla Shaman ("permanents that destroy your permanents")
Tarmogoyf / Baneslayer Angel ("efficient creatures")
Planeswalkers (especially Elspeth)
Worship / Moat / Abyss / Platinum Angel ("you can´t win")

How vulnurable is your deck to the following strategies:
mass small creatures (trying to overrun you early)
mass Mid-sized-creatures (aka Tarmogoyf)
mass evasion (swarming you with fliers or unblockables)
early fat (Illusionary Mask -> Phyrexian Dreadnought for example)
massive lifegain (can you beat an opponent who got 40+ life ?)
heavy discard
slow control (aka my "Stall")

Deckbuilding

After you´ve found your weakspots try to replace the cards as best as you can, but don´t loose focus on what your deck should be doing.It is very likly you are going to face one of those "archetypes" / specific cards during the next tournament so you better be prepared for them.

good cards you should not play due to AI playing them horribly:
Berserk (aka pumpspells)
Dark Ritual (aka manaboost)
Fireblast (aka burn)
Force of Will (aka counter)

Try to get a specific scenario consistantly and focus that scenario (swarm the opponent for example).
Don´t toy around with too many cards that don´t help you get to that scenario.Make sure your Manabase works out, playing many colors usually leads to a very vulnurable Manabase -> leading to dead cards in your hand.
You want to avoid that.

Manascrew is usually a sign of a bad designed deck and usually completly the designers fault.
You should rather include 2 more lands than needed, cause the AI is going to keep 1 land hands along with dead cards.
Your Manabase highly depends on your decks average manacost - try to get most cards near a certain average number and try to avoid cards that are way above your "curve" - playing a 8 mana creature when the rest of your creatures only cost 1 or 2 means that this card is going to sit in your hand for a looooong time unless you got a way to sneak that in or adjust your manabase.It is usually better to just cut that card for consistancy.

Try to watch out for card quality. Mogg Fanatic / Kird Ape are fantastic early drops, but getting worse and worse each turn.Do you want to draw that card after turn 5 ?
Good card quality pays off after the initial first few turns. We´ve all been there and had to learn it the hard way.Topdecking a Tarmogoyf after a Wrath of God is better than drawing a couple Savannah Lions

Rule of Thumb:
lower manacost = good early cards but usually getting worse each turn
higher manacost = dead early cards but usually good lategame cards
lower manacost might beat the higher manacost cards player before they can be played or dish out too much damage for the opponent to recover.so don´t go too high on the manacost. the increased manacost also means you need a very consistant manabase to rely on.what good is your Wrath of God if you just can´t get the 4th mana ?

Hope this might help one or the other.