Through the Wringer

[Warning: most of this was written using my iPhone's voice-to-text feature. I've tried to go through and clean it up, but I'm fairly certain something will have slipped through. For added fun, read the "bonus content" to see what it looked like originally.]



One hour before testing

I'm going to try this as a two-part series contained in a single post. Tonight I'm heading over to my buddy's house to do some testing and tweaking of my two Magic decks - Slivers and Rats. The rats are completely untested, while the Slivers currently have a 4-2 record. As I said in a previous post, I'm not the guy who makes winning decks. I have ideas for making decks, and I have the skills to play made decks, but I can't actually make a good one myself.

I'm not sure what to expect tonight since I've never set aside a time where I dedicated my brain to finding weaknesses and strengths in a deck. I expect it will go well, especially since my buddy Fritz is a solid deck builder from what I've seen. If I had to guess, I imagine my tweaks will be as follows:

Slivers: The deck needs more removal. I can get powerful creatures, but if my opponent gets something on the field that I can't simply squish, I'm useless.

Rats: My way of winning with this deck is to get a bunch of little creatures on the field to prevent me from being directly attacked, all while removing cards in my opponent's hand and dealing damage to him when he has no cards in hand. I have a feeling the deck will be too slow, and may have too many hand-destruction cards with few ways to deal with spells and creatures that are played.

Two hours after testing 
[If you don't care about Magic but want to see my overall thoughts, use CTRL F and type in Conclusion to skip the nerdy stuff]

We were able to get 3 games with each deck. We didn't get as much analyzing done as I'd hoped because many of our games has one of us struggling to get the resources to even cast spells. However, even bad games can be analyzed well, even if only to say "the deck is solid on resources, I just had some bad luck."

My slivers deck performed about how I thought it would. It can definitely get powerful creatures out and with their "hive mind" abilities, as each one I play makes the rest even more powerful. However, having five colors in my deck  I was also incredibly difficult because if I don't have every single mana resource I can sit with a handful of unplayable creatures [For the uninitiated, Magic cards can require 1 of 5 colored resources to play. Decks usually run 1-2, with 3 pushing it. Running 5 on a budget is rough.] I can say that from experience-I had one game where I couldn't get a single green mana, and at the end of the game I have five green creatures sitting in my hand begging to be played.

I definitely think the deck needs a bit more removal, especially since anytime I do play removal it's incredibly powerful and can even sway the game for me. The difficulty is that many of my non-creature resources are devoted to getting me mana to play. My first priority is going through and cutting what I definitely don't need and trying to find room for powerful creature and enchantment removal. I also need to take a look through all the slivers again. I although I love the slivers that make my guys powerful I found that I actually like the more utilitarian slavers like those that give me protection from my opponent's spells or make it difficult to block my attacks.

My rats performed surprisingly well. I learned from my forays into the draft format that Pack Rat can be a game changing creature. While his effectiveness is unsurprisingly reduced in constructed format, getting him on the table and beginning his replication tilts the odds heavily in my favor early on.

I was also surprised by what I think must be a fluke - I actually found I didn't have nearly enough removal in the deck! I have a few cards that punishes the opponent for not having enough cards in his hand, dealing damage after I've made him discard them all away. Drawing these "punisher cards" occurred too rarely, and even when they hit the field it took several turns to make my opponent discard down enough.

I'm tempted to rebuild this as a stall/hand destruction deck. I loved my last game where I had 2 punishers on the table, and it was very much a "do or die" moment for each of us. It wasn't just a "I attack, you attack back with whatever survived" game - it was sneaky and tricky, and a very different experience. Swinging with creatures has become boring over times, but alternate win conditions... now there's a rush.

This leaves Pack Rat in a precarious position night although he can install my opponent well and I feel like his four cards would be better spent on creature removal or more hand instruction. The deck needs some work, that's for sure, but I like where it's headed. I think splashing blue for some more board control and card draw is the key here, but I so enjoy my mono-black!

Conclusion

Although three games isn't nearly enough time to truly assess a deck, especially since I tested my Rats against another Rat deck, I really enjoyed this exercise. Looking at a game after a win or loss gives a skewed view of what did and did not do well. Taking an hour or two away from the game and then looking at it has given me a better insight into what the decks do right.

It's allowed me to look at the games as a whole and not what just happened and try to figure out what I can do better and what I am happy with. I feel like this is a good step towards making a better deck builder! I don't know that I will put the required brain power into the decks, especially since Magic is a much more casual and relaxing game. If I were to get serious about improving my game I think this would be the number one way to get me over the "my decks suck" trench I've been stuck in.

So how do you guys assess your lists? Do you play once and then change things? Do you play it several times and wait for patterns to reemerge? Or do you have an entirely different way of improving something you've built? Let me know!


See you tomorrow!

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Bonus Content - Now with 100% more slippers!

My slivers deck performed about how I thought it would. It can definitely get powerful creatures out and with their hive mind abilities each one I play makes the rest even more powerful. However having five-man I was also incredibly difficult because if I don't have a single man outsource I can sit with a handful of unplayable creatures. I can say that from experience-I had one Gaymore I couldn't get a single green source, and so at the end of the game I have five green creatures sitting in my hand begging to be played. I definitely think the deck needs a bit more removal, especially since anytime I do play removal it's incredibly powerful and can even sway the game for me. The difficulty is that many of my non-creature resources are devoted to getting me Manitu play. I definitely need to make my first priority to be going through and cutting what I definitely don't need and trying to find room for powerful preacher and enchantment removal. I also need to take a look through all the slippers again I although I love the slippers that make my guys powerful I found that I actually like the more utilitarian slavers like those that give me protection from my phone spell or make it difficult to block my slippers.

My rats perform surprisingly well. I learned from my forays into the draft format that packrat India game changing creature. What effectiveness is unsurprisingly reduced and I'm constructed format getting him on the table and getting a single copy out until odds heavily in my favor early on. I was also surprised by what I think must be a four-I actually found I didn't have nearly enough removal in the deck when I needed it. I have a few cards parentheses link cards parentheses that punishing opponent for not having enough cards in his hand. Drawing these occurred too rarely-and When I did draw that need a few more times to even reduce the opponents hand is okay. I'm tempted to just service stall/discard any obstruction. This leads packrat in a precarious position night although he can install my opponent well and I feel like his four cards would be better spent on creature removal or more hand instruction.

Although three-game isn't nearly enough time to truly assess the next strength, especially since I test my Braddeck against another RAMDAC, I really enjoyed this exercise. Looking at a dad after a win or loss is a skewed view of what it did and did not do well taking an hour or two away from the game and then looking at it has given me a better insight into what the text strengths work. It's allowed me to look at the games as a whole and not what just happened and try to figure out what I can do better than what I am happy With. I feel like this is a good step towards making a better deck builder! I don't know that I will put Juliana console energy into the decks, especially Since magic as a much more casual or relax game if I were to get serious about improving my game I think this would be the number one way to get me to a better position to build decks

So how do you guys assess your list after the game? Do you client wants and then change things? Do you play it several times and wait for patterns to reemerge? Or do you have an entirely different way of improving something of Artie belts? Let me know!