·14 min read
AC5 Testing Diary #1
Soundtrack for today:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5dK1qxuVTRmckVMtThjoGu?si=ryrtRY71TciUkq-aDQn4VA
Intro
I've been playing competitive MTG since I was 13, but hadn't had many meaningful results until the past few years. A lot of this I credit to living with my current roommate Mora Steudel, who was a MOCS competitor back in 2020 and who is essentially my Magic soulmate. In the past few years we've been playing every limited Arena Open and doing quite well. It's really fun to have a regular high-stakes, significantly-positive-EV limited tournament that I get to prepare for and play from home with one of my best friends. Of course, I'm a sucker for any high stakes Magic, so I play the qualifier weekends when I can and occasionally get into grinding up the 17lands leaderboards in formats I really dig.
This December, I was lucky enough to open some insane (day 1) pools (day 2) in a Lost Caverns of Ixalan sealed qualifier and make it to Arena Championship 5. This happened at a very fortunate time in my life. I'd already been planning to leave my Data Engineering job early this year and take some time off - Qualifying for the AC gave me the perfect way to use that time… well… let's call it semi-productively.
There's only one problem: AC5 is 3 rounds of draft, and 6 (+3) rounds of Explorer. I haven't played tournament constructed in roughly 8 years. *I'm going to need a LOT of help.*
Luckily, I've stumbled into some pretty excellent assistance. I've met a group of fellow AC5 competitors through Twitter/Discord - Most of us are limited grinders, but even the limited grinders are still a couple miles ahead of me on the constructed curve. I also have Mora, who's always been more constructed-tolerant than me and generally an excellent Magic player who lives two doors down, and some truly excellent connections through their old Set Roulette group, who used to dominate similarly structured small-field online tournaments. I also have more than 2 months to get up to speed.
So let's do this. Enough background, more Magic.
Testing Plan
Quick outline of my testing roadmap
January 16 - February 6 (~3 weeks)
- MKM spoilers will be coming out during this period, so I'll be paying attention & doing some theorycrafting, but the main focus will still be on constructed
- Biggest focus right now is on improving my gameplay through varied practice with feedback:
- Playing matches against other good players with the most popular decks
- Playing more slowly than I would normally and learning to recognize and pause at difficult decision points (this is hard for me and slowing down is one of my biggest weaknesses as a player)
- Getting feedback from either my opponents or teammates with 17Lands gamelogs.
- This will also help me get more extensive knowledge of the format and how each deck feels to play, what environments it would be a good choice for, etc - but I'm not worrying about deck selection yet.
February 6 - February 16 (~10 days)
- MKM comes out on Arena (and I assume MTGO). Pull back on constructed prep because we only have a few weeks to prepare team members who are qualified for draft at PT Chicago
- Probably going to approach this how I typically approach an Arena Open — Goal is to get fluent in ALL viable strategies in a format as quickly as possible, rather than “finding the exploit”. We want to be able to draft the hard way while everyone else is metagaming.
- Emphasis is NOT on maximizing winrate, but on experimenting to figure out what clusters of cards work together, power thresholds to make each archetype work, and common decision points in drafts
- This is a personal philosophy that has served me and Mora well in Opens, but of course there's room for nuance and maybe not everyone will want to take this approach
- For PT competitors, probably important to get in some pod drafts on MTGO - For the rest of us, less critical to get these in now but will be later.
February 17-26 (~10 days)
- Chicago baby!! Mora and I are taking a trip to A) visit friends and B) Meet new ones & support teammates at the PT
- Hopefully we can get in some in-person limited testing the week before 😊
February 27 - March 30 (~4 weeks)
- Stretch run. Focus will be back on constructed, with limited sprinkled in to stay fresh and prep for pod drafts.
- Post-PT is when I need to narrow down on deck choice and start developing expertise in an archetype. There should be relevant-to-explorer metagame changes from the Pioneer PT, and I'm going to need help from my constructed experts interpreting them and choosing what to prep with for the AC.
Okay, onto the real Magic stuff!
Format First Impressions
The past month or so I've been in the process of leaving my job, and haven't had the time or the energy to truly begin testing in earnest. However, I've been making a good-faith effort to play a variety of Explorer and at least get a feel for every deck. Today marks the start of a more conscious and intentional testing process, so to start I'm going to lay out how I feel (in brief) about every deck I've tried so far - Goal here is mainly just to crystallize my thinking by writing things down.
The Big 3
This is the current rock-paper-scissors of Explorer as far as I can tell. Not by any measure a three-deck format, but these are clearly the leaders to me right now
Amalia Combo
Strengths
- Fast - Can kill on turn 3 a non-insignificant portion of the time
- Consistent - Will kill you by turn 5 almost every time if you don't interact
- Resilient to interaction - You can't kill one or two of their creatures, you need to kill nearly every creature on sight and then somehow deal with Return to the Ranks
- Good against other creature/aggro decks because it gains so much life
- Flexible - There are 10+ “flex” slots in the maindeck. You can build a creature toolbox, enhance your disruption, supplement the “crappy beatdown” gameplan, or a mix of both.
Weaknesses
- Does usually lose if the opponent is dedicated to interacting with everything you do
- Combo is not a guaranteed win against every deck, and you have to play some clunky cards if you want to have that ability
- Easy to go over the top of if not comboing. The crappy beatdown plan is, unfortunately, actually somewhat crappy. Prosperous innkeeper and Wildgrowth walker are unfortunate
- Very vulnerable to nonbasic land hate
Playstyle fit?
Definitely - I used to be a pretty good Melira combo / Abzan Rally player. I'd definitely have to get used to the huge level of toolbox creatures available and the different combo lines, but this is a Ryan deck.
Izzet Phoenix (/drakes)
I think the Drakes version is close enough to the Phoenix version to count as the same archetype. One basically turns into the other post-board.
Strengths
- Card flow and optionality - This deck sees half of its library reliably, and has a ton of micro-decisions every game. An expert can craft winning board states very consistently.
- Interaction and hidden information - Often the Izzet player is playing face-down and the opponent has to play somewhat face-up, making decisions with incomplete information that Izzet can react to
- Cheap cards - Izzet's threats cost between 0-4 mana, and on average they probably cost something like 1.5. This is the only tier 1 deck that effectively uses treasure cruise, which is a huge advantage. All of its interaction costs 1 as well (spell pierce, lightning axe, fiery impulse)
Weaknesses
- Some phoenix-based variance - If 3/4 of your phoenixes are in the bottom half of your deck, it can be hard to win. This happens enough to be a weakness.
- Slightly weak to graveyard hate - Treasure cruise is the bigger achilles' heel here than phoenix.
- Threat-light - Because of the need for tons of card flow, the “density” of this deck is quite low. If opponent can manage to deal with 3-4 of your threats throughout a game, it can be hard to win a long game.
Playstyle fit?
Maybe. Phoenix is hard to categorize as an archetype, but I'm pretty familiar with this kind of deck. For me, it feels closest to Delver - a tempo control deck. The entire premise is your threats and interaction are cheaper than your opponents', and you have enough card selection to craft winning hands consistently. Games can easily swing on whether you were able to craft a state where you can treasure cruise for 1 instead of 2, which might require decisions like binning a relevant spell with consider 2 turns before. Since you see (and make decisions on) so many cards, you've gotta have a keenly developed intuition for the mix of threats, answers, and card flow left in your deck.
I haven't played this type of deck in high-stakes constructed tournaments before, but it actually fits quite well with my limited knowledge - I've grown a fondness for these card flow-based spells decks in recent years.
UW Control (Yorion/non-yorion versions)
Yorion version gives up some consistency for a powerful companion, but they're really the same deck.
Strengths
- Best threats in the format (once on-board) - Wanderer, Teferi, and Shark Typhoon are a finishing package that's nearly impossible to compete with, especially if you throw an abundance of utility lands into the mix.
- Huge variety of interaction - Many different kinds of counters, sweepers, and targeted removal available. Temporary lockdown is a format-warping effect that keeps aggro and lots of kinds of combo in check
- Goes over the top - Really hard for another deck to have inevitability against UW. The answers cover too many bases and the threats each have to be dealt with in a different way. This deck claims the control title very successfully. To beat it, you have to go under.
- Interaction and hidden information - Similar to Phoenix, this is a blue deck that can play on your turn and wait for you to act first. If you guess wrong and they can answer the thing you did, you're screwed
Weaknesses
- Sometimes can't find the right answers - You “have” an answer to everything, but you don't always have it. Especially true for the Yorion version
- Expensive spells - This deck's threats are excellent, but they aren't cheap, and the interaction honestly isn't either. Curve starts on 2 when most other decks start on 1 (or stay on 1, like phoenix)
- Vulnerable to hand disruption - UW has more card advantage than selection, so if you can nab their draw spells and/or threats early, they often only have 1-1 answers. They'll still be able to last a while with those, but if you can get out ahead enough on board, they often won't draw their haymakers in time.
Playstyle fit?
It's workable, but not ideal. I played esper control with 6-mana elspeth and Sphinx's revelation for a long while back in the day, but have never felt highly competent in a control mirror. Playing UW helped me realize I need to get out of my limited training of maximizing mana efficiency and answering every threat I see. I've got good teammates and a lot of time, I'm confident I'd get there, but this would probably take the most practice out of the top 3 decks.
“The Rest”
All of these decks I consider totally viable choices, but I'm not sure they have as much “staying power” as the top 3. Choosing one of these would be more of a “metagame call”.
Rakdos Midrange
Strengths
- Good cards - The classic “play all the best cards midrange” deck. Thoughtseize and fatal push are the best 1-mana interaction in the format. Sheoldred and Fable of the mirror breaker are some of the best threats. Everything above 1 mana is flexible or a 2-for-1.
- Flexible - Gives a lot of room for gameplay and sideboarding
- Tough to hate out - Very difficult to have an 80/20 matchup against this deck. Best you're going to do is something like 65/35.
Weaknesses
- Lack of a cohesive gameplan - This is not the most powerful, the fastest, the most interactive nor the most synergistic deck in the format. It just plays its cards and hopes that's good enough
- Underwhelming - This isn't a specific criticism, but I think this deck is popular because it's an easy default more than a proactively good strategy.
Playstyle fit?
Definitely. I like to live in the midrange and just make the best plays I can figure out. However, this is something to look out for, I don't want to bias towards this deck because of my limited player tendencies.
Mono Black Waste Not
Strengths
- Super interactive - You have a lot of control over what your opponent gets to do in any given game
- Combo potential - Weird to say for an interactive deck, but this is how I think about it. Your best draws are almost unbeatable. Thoughtseize/Duress (6-of) into Waste Not (4-of) into Go Blank (3-of) on the play is straight up GG most of the time.
- Good utility lands - Being mono-colored lets you play lots of lands that do things. This deck has a lot more card flow than the typical rack deck that wants to play a low-resource game
Weaknesses
- Inconsistent - Can often draw the wrong half of your deck in game 1. Keeping a hand with 2 removal spells against control, or a hand with zero against aggro, and you're likely screwed.
- Note that this will be an issue in testing, but will be lessened with open decklists
- Threat-light - This deck only plays ~12 threats that can actually close a game, and I'm counting Waste Not. You often end up answering the opponent's opening hand, but they have an answer to your singular threat, and you end up in a topdeck war where you have more card flow, but their deck is more threat-dense.
- Easy to go over the top of - If your opponent can wriggle out of your interaction and do what their deck is trying to do, you're likely dead.
Playstyle fit?
Probably. I've never played a rack/discard deck in constructed before, but this is absolutely up my alley as a player who loves resource-light games.
Quintorius combo
Strengths
- Consistent and redundant - This deck gets to play ~12 “win now” cards (Quint, Gyruda, Carnosaur). Your 1 thoughtseize won't save you.
- Surprisingly interactive - Leyline binding rocks
- Surprisingly resilient to counterspells - Cavern of Souls & Thought Distortion rock
- Can go over the top if the combo fails - Upside of a Keruga deck is all your cards are beefy
Weaknesses
- Does sometimes fizzle - If you draw too many spark doubles or only draw 1-2 combo initiators vs. an interactive deck, you're in trouble
- Slow - Will usually get run over by a fast aggro deck before it can combo
- Surprisingly weak to removal - Combo can definitely be disrupted by simple creature or planeswalker kill, which is not ideal. Would be pretty easy to hate out of a metagame.
Playstyle fit?
No, but — This is a pretty simple deck to pilot. I wouldn't be worried about bringing it.
“Aggro”
This is a broad space that includes red deck wins, boros heroic, boros convoke, humans, and I'll throw in some of the tribal/combo decks like angels and merfolk and ensoul
Strengths
- Fast - If you can't interact, these decks will kill you faster than anything outside of maybe Amalia. If you don't stop them, you won't make it past turn 4.
- Consistent - These decks do their thing 85+% of the time
Weaknesses
- Easy to hate - Thrown some temporary lockdowns and/or fatal pushes in your deck, supplement it with either efficient threats or more interaction, and you probably have at least a 60% matchup here. Some of the highest played cards in the format happen to be really good against these decks.
- Brittle - Not a lot of room for tuning and customizing these decks depending on the field you expect. If people are prepared for you, you'll lose.
Playstyle fit?
No. Aggro decks are not easy to play, and I am not experienced with them. If I felt like one of these decks was the right choice, I could definitely learn it, but this is not my wheelhouse, and I'd only go for it if I thought the field was completely soft to cheap creatures
Jund Ponza
Strengths
- Cleans up against the decks it's designed to beat - Against Amalia and any kind of leyline binding deck, it's really hard for this deck to lose.
- Blanks maindeck removal - This deck wins with manlands when the opponent can't cast spells, and generally there is a lot of removal played in this format, so blanking ~30% of your opponent's cards is a huge advantage
- Strong sideboarding plan - You get to bring in extra interaction or very strong threats depending on the situation.
- The blanking removal / bringing in high impact threats plan gets worse with open decklists
Weaknesses
- Inconsistent - Can definitely “draw the wrong half” (sweepers against control, land destruction against aggro)
- This gets slightly better with open decklists
- Easy to prepare for
- Basics and hard-to-remove threats. UW control is a bit of a nightmare
- Threat-light and threat-expensive
- If they can answer your planeswalkers and manlands, or you don't draw enough of them in a long game (which you're playing towards), you might just lose. Your threats also cost tons of mana to utilize (which is what the ramp is for, but makes you pretty clunky)
Playstyle fit?
Yes. I love to play resource-light games, and while decision-intensive, this deck is going to reward experience and studying the format much more than it'll reward high-level constructed gameplay.
Leftovers I don't have significant experience with yet
I think these archetypes are probably bad / worse ways to utilize their most powerful cards than something I've already listed — I'll pick them up if the metagame shifts towards them or if I'm not feeling comfortable with the current deck suite
That's all folks!
Originally published on Patreon.