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Main » Articles » Lessons from Grand Prix Pittsburgh

Lessons from Grand Prix Pittsburgh

Kyle Boggemes
Posted on February 23, 2017
 Reddit

Hey everyone!

I laid in bed from Thursday through Sunday with a bad bug during the week of Grand Prix Pittsburgh. My preparation was not for nothing as I followed the coverage closely and learned plenty more about Standard. A week has gone by since the tournament so I’m going to focus on deck-building and metagaming lessons rather than the cards themselves. I’ll also go over my lists for the big three Standard decks.

A lesson from Steve Rubin and his U/R Fevered Visions deck: don’t change for the sake of change.

Since Steve was dominating on the first day I watched with the latest take on Prized Amalgam combo.

U/R Fevered Visions ? Aether Revolt Standard | Steve Rubin

This deck is in a very unique place in the metagame. The graveyard is not a large focus in Standard at the moment which means opponents won’t be ready for this deck. Notice the sideboard isn’t trying to do anything fancy and is looking to do the same thing every game. Why do you need to dupe your opponent with an entirely new deck when they likely don’t have any hate for you in the first place?

This is similar to an idea I hear often in Modern that always strikes the wrong chord with me: I’m playing this crazy graveyard deck out from left field so I will have an edge. These two cases are very different because Dredge decks have been popular in Modern so opponents will be ready with Rest in Peace even if they don’t expect your wild brew.

Transformational sideboards are strong when you know opponents are ready for your deck. Mardu Vehicles is a great example of this. When playing small creatures is the most popular thing to do in the room you better have a way to pivot after sideboard. We saw the Grand Prix runner up, Bronson Gervasi, ready to control the board with Fumigate against Black Green.

Sideboarding too heavily against the Game 1 strategy

Gonti, Lord of Luxury
I remember as a young turk tricking people with Troll Ascetic and Iwamori of the Open Fist out of my Tooth and Nail sideboard when they were trying to hit me with Cranial Extraction. I felt very smart and most people weren’t used to the idea of transformational sideboards in 2005. Times have changed and everyone has some way to adjust their deck based on what role they should take in each matchup.

B/G will often board in a bunch of cheap removal against Mardu Vehicles while they are busy bringing in planeswalkers and Skysovereign, Consul Flagships. Rather than fighting the small creatures you need to be prepared for a balanced mix of threats from Veteran Motorist to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Natural Obsolescence actually plays better than Natural State a lot of times after board even though it’s stronger against the Game 1 deck.

This is why Gonti, Lord of Luxury is such a powerful sideboard card, but doesn’t often make the maindeck. It’s a ? deathtouch that blocks early creatures, but the triggered ability helps you grind in the mid game. It does everything you want in a post board game, but you often just need to survive against the hyper-aggressive maindeck.

Don’t assume one matchup always plays out the same way every time

I’m harping on the Mardu Vehicles analogy again because it highlights a lot of key errors in deck-building and metagaming. The deck is powerful because it has a mix of aggression, removal, and Planeswalkers- that’s how Standard will be played until WOTC decides to make fundamental changes to design theory. Gideon and Chandra will be able to take over a game so you can’t just blow up creatures and expect to get anywhere.

I found Gifted Aetherborn in B/G Constrictor to be insane in the Vehicles matchup because I was able to stick a clock that wouldn’t have to immediately trade off. My deck doesn’t function well when I’m top-decking because I need to add +1+1 counters to win. Even if I started with the ideal Fatal Push on early creatures it wasn’t enough because the game would go late with an empty board and I would die to Gideon. I would teach my kid to ride a bike by putting a couple Gideons on the back tire because that card is training wheels.

Don’t sideboard for specific game states

I’m often skeptical of boarding in too many cards in mirror matches because everyone seems to think the games play out a different way. They aren’t wrong either; the games are typically dynamic and the collection of anecdotal evidence will often be the correct answer to what the matchup looks like. It is speculative to bring in cards that are sometimes good, but can be useless in other cases. Make sure your sideboard cards that fall into this category can be useful in other matchups. A good example of this type of card is

Why aren’t more people playing the best deck?

When a single deck such as Mardu Vehicles has such a dominating performance it’s clear hate decks will emerge afterward. I saw control decks at Grand Prix Pittsburgh full of removal for specifically Mardu such as Aether Meltdown. This card doesn’t do much against another popular card in the format, Winding Constrictor. As you craft a control deck to beat a single strategy, it’s harder to win other matchups. It’s not even clear that jamming a bunch of cards to specifically beat Mardu Vehicles is even good. Gideon can come down at put the control player behind even though each removal spell is effective.

What to play at the RPTQ?

I will be attending the RPTQ in Pittsburgh next weekend and I’m not 100% sure what to play.

If I sleeve up some snakes I would take this list:

B/G Constrictor ? Aether Revolt Standard | Kyle Boggemes

Sylvan Advocate
I have some slight delirium synergies in Traverse the Ulvenwald and a couple Mindwrack Demons. Grim Flayer was performing badly for me because the Standard format is all about playing early creatures which made the 2/2 hard to attack profitably. Sylvan Advocate exceeded my expectations as a good target for Rishkar. I still think Gifted Aetherborn is the most powerful 2-drop in B/G. There were some matches against control where the deathtouch and 3 toughness was relevant; I was nervous it wouldn’t be strong enough against Gearhulk Control.

Traverse isn’t amazing, but I don’t want 25 lands to support Tireless Tracker and Sylvan Advocate. The mana base can be touchy because I need bb on turn two for Gifted Aetherborn while still needing Green mana to cast most of my spells.

Mindwrack Demon has been getting flack because it matches up very poorly against Unlicensed Disintegration. This is going to also be an issue with the other evasive threat that pressures Gideon: Aethersphere Harvester. The game will be equally unwinnable if you crew a harvester and it gets hit by an Unlicensed Disintegration. It also gets hit by Release the Gremlins which can be a scary card out of the sideboard to supplement the Fumigate midrange plan.

In the past I would definitely register the B/G deck, but I found the Mardu Vehicles matchup to be difficult even when I tried hard to get an advantage. Scrapheap Scrounger, Gideon, and Heart of Kiran can get around the cheap removal spells by sequencing accordingly.

I didn’t think I ever would say this, but I like Mardu Vehicles a lot. The current format is littered with 4-Color Saheeli decks that is a poor matchup for B/G.

At this point I’m the most likely to play this list:

Mardu Vehicles ? Aether Revolt Standard | Kyle Boggemes

Pia Nalaar
I found four Gideons to be too many. Drawing multiples can be frustrating in most matchups. Chandra has been very good for me and I found myself wanting her in play after sweeper effects over Gideon.

Shock is currently not popular in the maindeck because it matches up poorly against Heart of Kiran and Winding Constrictor. It happens to be very good against 4 Color Saheeli so it has a place in the sideboard. Thalia was a poor option in the early weeks because she died to Shock, but is now great in the mirror. Creatures entering the battlefield tapped makes opposing vehicles weaker. I also wanted more ways to interact with the Saheeli combo.

Pia Nalaar is my other 3-drop because the artifact was helpful in making sure Spire of Industry added colored mana. I was unhappy with Depala, Pilot Exemplar because the x ability was never needed. It often functioned as a 3/3 for 3 mana and not much else.

The biggest change to my deck is the sideboard. The Pro Tour featured a bunch of sideboard cards that were arguably not needed. The Blue splash for Metallic Rebuke made my mana bad with a whopping 12 fast lands in the 75. I played a bunch of league matches with Max McVety in search of useful sideboard cards.

I got an idea for a transformational sideboard against a surprisingly difficult matchup, 4 Color Saheeli. Gosaku won an online PTQ with this list:

Mardu Vehicles ? Aether Revolt Standard| Gosaku, MTGO PTQ Winner

I want a focused aggressive deck in Game 1 because you will notice this Vehicles deck doesn’t play Veteran Motorist. Walking Ballista is great in the mirror and against 4-Color Saheeli, but it doesn’t crew Heart of Kiran.

Scrap Trawler is an interesting 3-drop because it can return fallen Heart of Kirans against grindy control decks. I found Thalia to be weak against control because there aren’t many creatures to enter the battlefield tapped. It has 3 power to crew both of my vehicles and is an artifact for Spire of Industry and Unlicensed Disintegration.

I want Archangel Avacyn in my sideboard instead of Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. Why would I want to board in an expensive artifact when the mirror is ready with Release the Gremlins. Avacyn can flip easily with Walking Ballista and can pressure Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

Aethersphere Harvester feels weaker than Cultivator's Caravan because I only have 23 lands. The harvester is decent in the mirror, but is still weak to Unlicensed Disintegration. They both die to Release the Gremlins after sideboard so I don’t care to upgrade my vehicles either.

4 Color Saheeli ? Aether Revolt Standard | Kyle Boggemes

This deck is very focused and has the ability to win from nothing very easily. I found this to be a challenging matchup with Mardu Vehicles, but it felt like it should be easy in theory. Aetherworks Marvel is always great against B/G decks, too. Elder Deep-Fiend helps your control matchup tremendously. Gerry Thompson has advocated almost this exact list and I think he’s on the right path.

Again, this deck falls outside of my comfort zone, but is powerful enough to consider.

I’m excited to try out the new sideboard for Mardu Vehicles because that was easily the weakest part of the deck. I get to play an artifact value game after sideboard and have a great matchup against Saheeli combo.

Thanks for reading!

— Kyle

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TAGS articles, standard, strategy, metagame, constructed, analysis, decklist, kyle boggemes, aether revolt standard

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