States Think Tank

We haven't really done this before, but give love a chance. I'd like to hear everybody's answers to the following questions, preferably all but chime in as you'd like:

1. What do you expect the metagame at Oklahoma States to be? Feel free to provide percentages and/or reasoning if you want.

2. How would you ideally like to see our testing formatted this week? What deck do you want to try out? What deck do you need to learn how to play against?

3. What do you think has held you back in previous tournaments, and what can you do to keep that from happening at States?

Alrighty, I'm undecided about what I'm taking. Although bgr tokes has been performing awesome for me lately, it really doesn't have a terrible matchup, though rev can be hit or miss and is almost entirely dependant on seeing some board cards. I've yet to be able to test this against faeries alot, but I imagine its rough. RDW isn't horrid, but I'd like to find a way to shore this up further. We should test lots this week, I'm down for almost whatever. Lack of playing at big tournaments is more than likely what has held me back most of all, it's a little disheartening for me to say it, but there are times where I look at other players in the tourny and just don't think I can beat them. I fully expect the metagame to be all over the place, though I expect RDW, Fae, and Kithkin to be the most played decks followed by various janky control decks and QnT.

35 to 45% rdw/kithkin most sturdy
15 to 25% 5 color
5 to 10 % tokes
15 to 25% fae
5 to 10% lark?????


want to try green in lark need to play kithkin



mana screw shuffling harder taking practice more seriously/play mistakes

1. What do you expect the metagame at Oklahoma States to be? Feel free to provide percentages and/or reasoning if you want.
35-45pct agro
25pct control of some kind
10-15pct tier 2 stuff tokens combo
5-10pct 60 random cards
but if the whole crew from tulsa goes one of us will prolly end up winning

2. How would you ideally like to see our testing formatted this week? What deck do you want to try out? What deck do you need to learn how to play against?
i would like 2-3 days of solid play testing 4-6 hours (i have the rdw deck but still a few cards that i cant find around i got one stigma but could use prolly 2 more and one demm)
we could just play round robin so if we are having bad draws it dont get so hard to keep playing or if you can get prizes thats fine too.

3. What do you think has held you back in previous tournaments, and what can you do to keep that from happening at States?
not enough play testing and sloopy play on my part. changing decks the day before. the largest tournay i have won was a 45 man that was held in someones barn but that was the good old days. i work to hard for my money nowdays to not try my best when i spend 25-50$ to go play.

(holy cow i have 30 posts most on any forums so far)

Tony H wrote:want to try green in lark need to play kithkin

I will not be able to go to states this year, so take these answers with a grain of salt.

1. 5% Dead Money
5% Random decks that might actually be good (realmrazer.dec is a good example)
15% RDW
15% Kithkin
20% Fae
12% 5 color
8% Lark
5% Fish/Merfolk/Bant Exalted (I feel these decks play very similar)
5% Tokens
5% Elves
5% Lord of the Rings
2. I think it's important to have stock lists of any of the decks with over 5% up there for testing against, and when testing have both players play both sides of the matchup so that understanding of what cards are important and what to sideboard is seen from both angles.
3. Punting key games! How to fix it? Keep focus through the WHOLE match. And reflect on your matches after they are finished for mistakes that you can learn from. Example-At Kansas City I lost game 1 of my first match when my Stoic Angel was O-ringed and I had no gas left. Earlier in the game I had blightning played against me with 3 cards in hand and an Ajani at 4 on the table. In my hand were Bant Charm, Executioner's Capsue and Cavern Thoctar. I kept the Charm and charmed his big dude. I had a bant battlemage on the table at this point. I realized that I should of kept the Thoctar and tried to get there with the battlemage giving him flying. It woulda put him with 2 turns to answer one of the 2, and if he had had the O-ring then, my Stoic Angel probably would have gotten there. I will see that play next time because I found it now.

Re: question #2, try to be more specific than "test a lot/get comfortable with my deck"

states metagame will be as follows

20% rdw
15%kithkin
20% 5cc
10% reveiliark
10% faeries
15% tested rogue decks
10% random poo

rounds 1-4 you will play random stuff. these are the rounds you have to get lucky. if you play your good matchups youll do well if you play your bad ones well have fun watching from the sidelines. last year i played r/g tokens it worked awesomely because i dodged the matchups i needed to and as a result i top 8ed. the year before that i played a project x and lost to heavy control decks. the year before that i played the mirror 3 out of 4 rounds and lost to jitte in two of them.

i would love to test at least twice if not three times this week. i dont care where preferably not castle. i want to test against faeries, kithkin, control of all types

my performance had been held back by jitte, bad deck chocie, and keeping one landers against removal in game three of top 8

bigwill

Everyone can come over to my house tomorrow night anytime from 6 til late and test. Bring decklists for anything you want to play with or against. If a couple of people could bring Sharpies that'd make things go a little faster. Also if everyone brings $5 we'll order pizza. Haven't had pizza since I got back, mmm American food...

im down ill try to be there a little after 6 if everyone else gets on board

I would love to do some play testing. I dont get off work until 11pm. Let me know if that is too late.

chuck wrote:Alrighty, I'm undecided about what I'm taking. Although bgr tokes has been performing awesome for me lately, it really doesn't have a terrible matchu

Holy shit you got RBG tokens to work!? Cuz I'm crying myself to sleep every night asking myself, "Why? Why?" I'm just getting into competitive magic and I"m sure I'm making play mistakes, but seriously for some reason I can't make this thing roll.

We'll probably be up til 2 or beyond, so late is fine with me.

sounds good ben im there

1. I honestly think it will be 50/50 aggro and control. I'm keeping it simplified because States is known to have some really janky decks though I believe Fae, Rev and 5 Color Control to be at the top tables.

2. Round Robin would be cool. We should practice playing fast because I think most of us will be playing control. I would like to build and test Fae since nobody plays it here and we may face it in OKC.

3. I think switching decks and not enough post board playtesting has held me back. Also, not playing one of the best decks because I want to be different. Pretty big mistakes in my book.

ok i just need directions. leave them on here or txt them to me at9183613754

Oh yeah... I'll be there. Any chance on puppy chow?

Ender wrote:

chuck wrote:Alrighty, I'm undecided about what I'm taking. Although bgr tokes has been performing awesome for me lately, it really doesn't have a terrible matchu

Holy shit you got RBG tokens to work!? Cuz I'm crying myself to sleep every night asking myself, "Why? Why?" I'm just getting into competitive magic and I"m sure I'm making play mistakes, but seriously for some reason I can't make this thing roll.

Not BGR tokens, BGR big tokes, it doesn't play that furystroke combo bullshit, its more like a midrange aggro deck that plays fatties and such, only reason i call it tokes is because it plays 4x thrinax and 2x broodmate dragon, look at my g/b/r jund list if you want, thats what big tokes is.

I've been doing some limited testing with Fellowship of the Rings and I found out that flying Faeries give it problems though oddly, Rev does not. It's combination of tempo, flyers, counters and disruption that makes the difference pre-board. I've been trying full sets of Raking Canopy and Gutteral Response and it has proved the difference. I recommend the build I posted. I'm really liking my Rev build with Story Circle md. I've tried to take SC out only to put it back in because it is so powerful and allows me to take many game 1's vs Kithkin and RDW or any other 1-2 color deck. I've also been messing with the Ad Naseaum 40 land deck and I just don't like it. It is very fragile to aggro and RDW so I don't see this making the top tables. Anyway, I'll keep posting info as I go...

I think I convinced Chuck not to play the Planeswalker deck. It's just so bad against Faeries and good Reveillark decks. About the time Tony played a Glen Elendra Archmage was about the time Chuck got some sense talked into him. Sometimes you just gotta put your hand on the frying pan though.

I'm deciding between UB Faeries, multicolor Faeries, 5cc, and Lark. I'd say multicolor Faeries and Lark are my favorites right now, even though I haven't played any games with the multicolor Faerie deck yet. I like the idea of a Faeries shell against a control deck and awesome white cards against aggro decks, all thrown into one 75-card Jesus. If I can get the numbers right I think MCFae will be my deck, and if not then I know what I'm doing with Lark and have a solid backup plan.

Your choices are solid, though I have not played McFae yet as well. Please post a list or PM it to me.

WOOT! STATES BITCHES! [I'm just doing this for the post count]