Its funny. I was talking to Andre Coimbra yesterday and he was lamenting the loss of Frank Karsten from the rolls of active authors as he was agonizing over his deck choices and pick orders prior to departing for Memphis. Then links to these two illuminating pieces appeared in my inbox courtesy of ManaMaze publisher Sven Djit of the Netherlands.

Have you ever wondered how a Pro player arrives at a decision about what deck to play in a given tournament? Well, I am not sure the linked article will provide any insight into how most people arrive at that decision but it does show you how Mad Genius Frank Karsten can grind numbers and data mine to not only arrive at the deck he wants to play but the exact configuration of the 75 cards in the deck. This is an excellent metagame overview from the much-missed Frank Karsten with a bonus link to his triple Shards pick order for all commons and uncommons in the first pack of a draft. There are a lot of surprises in here such as Resounding Thunder over Oblivion Ring, Corpse Connesieur being as high as fourth, and Branching Bolt being as low as he has it.

This is the deck that I built with Andre Coimbra for Pro Tour Berlin:

4 Spire Golem
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Vedalken Shackles

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Cryptic Command
1 Pact of Negation
4 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

1 Academy Ruins
21 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Tolaria West

sb:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Echoing Truth
4 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Trickbind

Stupid me, I tried to get Andre to change to All-in Red at the last minute (if you’ve seen my video on it you know how enamored I was).

In fact, the Blue was probably the better deck.

It is much better than “Next Level Blue” in the current Extended for a couple of reasons. First of all, all basic Islands. Andre defeated something like five Zoo decks on day one (most popular archetype) based largely on not taking any damage from his lands.

Also, if you are in the faux mirror, your Spire Golem is hard to deal with (especially as you draw into more Islands) whereas in the typical version you present a Tarmogoyf which will inevitably meet a Spell Snare.

Also, due to the large amount of bounce in this deck, it is the best deck in the format against All-in Red. I never lost a Game One in testing.

Andre went 6-2 on day one. His first loss was to Zoo unfortunately. His opponent: nada. Andre: All. More than all. His opponent’s Dark Confidant under a Threads or perhaps bound by a Shackles. Move to… damn it! Six life, flip a Spire Golem. Really!

The other loss on day one? Luis Scott-Vargas (and you know how he did).

The deck as we presented it in Berlin was not competitive whatsoever with Elves. The problem was that we had no Chalice of the Void. I think Jake Van Lunen tricked me. Or at least he enchanted me. I knew I wanted to play Stifle in my main deck. But Jake suggested Trickbind supplementing in the sideboard as anti-storm. I believed the combo deck of the tournament to be storm, so more Stifles seemed like a good idea, especially when…

Storm your face.

Stifle that.

Pact your Stifle.

I can respect that; Trickbind your face.

I will die on upkeep to my dastardly Pact promise.

See?

Storm.

Jake.

Anyway, I thought storm was going to be the most popular combo deck and despite an email from Andre about sideboarding Chalice of the Void against Elves, I discounted that deck (incorrectly) and we did not make room for Chalices.

Had Andre been packing Chalices, he would have at least been competitive with the mighty Elf deck. As it was, we had no cards and no sideboard plan; Andre did quite solidly on the first day with 6-2, but was stuck on day two, losing multiple times to the Elves.

Is this a good deck?

I think so.

Other than adding Chalice of the Void and potentially something along the lines of an Engineered Explosives (and probably going up to the full four Tolaria Wasts therefore), the main change would be Ancestral Visions. According to a phone conversation with my friend Mark Herberholz this week, “Ancestral Vision is the worst card in the format!”  so I would therefore have to reconsider its inclusion. Mark holds a lot of weight for me.

Also, common sense dictates that if the mode deck of the format can goldfish on turn 2-3 on the draw, a card that optimally serves to draw cards well after that goldfish point may not be up to snuff any longer.

So anyway, that is the first piece we are doing on Andre’s Blue deck. Check back soon for updates or perhaps a longer analysis.

LOVE
MIKE