Feeling less scrubbish now than I have in the past, I have set my sights on making it into the Top 8 at a Realm Qualifier, or should I need to persist, a Regional Qualifier later this year. Why set my sights on Top 8 of either? Is it for the Realm Champ event? Nay! Is it for a potential Nationals Invite? Nay! I have set the goal so that I may... gain a new playmat.
Yeah, I tweaking a deck for about 5 weeks now, playtesting it online via Magic Workstation or www.onlinetcggames.com (check it out if you haven't yet..) all for the sake of earning a playmat. A playmat I have seen trade for about $20 in cards following such events. I want the playmat, but do not want to have it without having earned it.
So, to that end, I have been playtesting and tweaking my Taheo Gifts deck for several weeks, often using MWS for a fast test after making a minor change. Sometimes it is swapping out Varimathras for another ally, or adding 2 Barkskin and 2 Twig of the World Tree in place of 4 allies or so forth. Recently, during one such test, I ran into an opponent that delivered one of the best backhanded compliments ever 'Nice deck... where from?'
The intent was clear... They were indeed noting and commenting on the deck having a nice pace, strong presense and generally reliable play, but were inferring that such a deck was beyond my ability to design, so I must have found a netdeck list for it somewhere and then just mashed buttons like a monkey to play it. A compliment and a veiled insult in one fell swoop. Or rather, it would have been seen that way if I wasn't so pleased that it had finally started to play solidly enough to frustrate someone who clearly thought themselves the better player in the match. I did take the time to explain that while the core engine (4 Force of Nature + 4 Gift of the Wild) was something I had seen in a decklist, the rest of the deck around it was my own mix based on a metric buttload of testing. Sure, I have 4 Bloodsoul like every other version of the deck, but that is moreso due to Bloodsoul almost being an automatic include in Horde rush/beats deck. Bloodsoul is just that good for his cost. My other 1 drop, as of this writing, is Magister Ashi, another almost mandatory in a horde deck, due to his ability to rotate cards through the deck. Kagella Shadowmark has found a home in my deck, which only makes sense with Force of Nature, as I can drop Kagella turn 3, and should she survive to turn 4, drop a Force and add another +3 to her, pushing her to a minimum of 5/3 on turn 4. And with her being inside the range of Finkle's restrictions, she is an ideal member of Team Rush.
I recently started testing with a pair of Barkskin, which is all I have in my collection, knowing I want to aquire at least 1 more, and a pair of Twigs, which provide at least an alternate or additional bit of damage. At one point in testing I had swapped out the Twigs for a pair of Thorns, but found Twig to be more useful in general, although Thorns kept the counter rush of Teep and Merry down to 1 run each at me.
So what drives someone to drop a backhandedd compliment when they lose a game in a format (online play) that has no bearing on any real ratings, etc? Why take the time to type in what is clearly meant to be an insult just because the guy you thought you could out-tech happened to have the better deck for a series of games? And while I really don't want to write an article about 'netiquite', I do want to write a bit about my own experiences playing/testing online and how I prefer to interact with my opponents.
1) Be social but not overly so: While I can be a Chatty Nancy at a gaming table, the fact that I am testing online means I have to type instead of just talking, so I try to be sociable, but not release a wall of text at my opponent. Jedion, a semi-regular I have played online, is a great example.. We chat in a small amount, such as me wishing him a Happy St. Patty day, and he explaining he is messing around with non-standard decks. I explain I am still tweaking my deck and we both know where we stand on seriousness of play, etc.
2) Polite is good: Part of the reason I am still tweaking is that I want my deck to be as lean, efficient and deadly as possible, within the constraits of my wallet or card pool. To that end, I can find myself overplaying, ie: I have brought a much stronger deck to the game than my opponent. Rather than gloating, or apologizing (afterall, why would I be sorry my deck is working?) I let my opponent know that I have other less serious decks if they want the next game to be more interesting or balanced, and I let them know that I have been tweaking my deck quite awhile, so if the game seems lopsided, it is because I have put that much effort into the deck.
3) Don't be a ... : It goes without saying that if you are doing any of the above, the chances of you being labeled a douchebag jerk are slim, but you could still pull it off if you tried hard enough. I make it a point to not try to be a jerk. Don't disconnect midgame just because you are tired of losing or being beatdown. Take a moment to message your opponent with 'Dude, I am just not in the game at the moment, and this is just making my head hurt, can I just scoop now and save you a few turns?' Folks will appreciate this, will not be stuck waiting forever for you to play, or won't assume the worst if you disconnect after that point.
That all said, I did want to discuss briefly my thoughts on playtesting a deck and tweaks to the deck.
First off, I always print a hardcopy of my current decklist so I can make notes on it as I playtest, and those notes can be useful in evaluating the value of a card in the game. It was using such methods that I finally decided to cut Voss Treebender, as I had note after note indicating he would come into play, and then soak a burn spell, leaving me with one fewer Voss and the opponent with 1 fewer burn. However, I always felt that I was getting the less useful side of the equation.
Another must in testing and tweaking is consistancy. And by this I mean does the card show up enough, on a regular basis, to make it worth including. To determine that, I will play each version of my test deck at least 10 games, just to make sure I have a fair assessment to work from. More is better of course, but 10 is really the minimal number of games to throw at a deck.
My third and last point to cover today is the ever mysterious Synergy, which I previously wrote about. While it does turn out that Debros + Into the Fray has great synergy, relying on a two card combo, mid to late game, in order to maybe secure a win is not the ideal path to travel. Finding the synergy that makes each card in your deck valuable is more important than finding a coupling that, if it happens to come into existance, is godlike. Kagella + Force is great, but Kagella + the rest of my allies I planned to play anyways is good as well. Clearly Kagella has significant synergy with my Gifts/Rush deck. Instead of asking 'Which card can this best pair with..' when tweaking my deck, I find myself asking 'Would I run this card even if I wasn't running Card Y?', and if the answer is yes, such as it is with Bloodsoul, I keep the card or at least look for one that is a bit of an improvement but with the minimal downsides.
Ok.. there you go, another long winded screed, as I prepare my deck for April 5th when I will travel down to Portland in an attempt to get a playmat. If that doesn't work out, I have April 12th in Seattle, then April 26th in Portland again. 3 more chances to get into T8 for a playmat before Realm Champs, which I would love to attend. And with my 3 Realm/Regional rankings of 19th, 18th and 13th, I see steady improvement which keeps the hope alive that I can slide in at some point.
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