Pattern Recognition #231 - Slow Grow, Weeks 4 and 5

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

17 March 2022

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Hello everyone! This is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series as written by myself, berryjon. I am something of an Old Fogey who has been around the block quite a few times where Magic is concerned, as as such, I use this series to talk about the various aspects of this game, be it deck design, card construction, mechanics chat, in-universe characters and history. Or whatever happens to cross my mind this week. Please, feel free to dissent in the comments below the article, add suggestions or just plain correct me! I am a Smart Ass, so I can take it.

So, welcome back to Slow Grow! It's Week 6 tomorrow and I'm slowly slipping in points as players catch on to me and my wily ways. I'll have more to say after week 8. Let's get to the changes first, shall I?

WEEK FOUR

IN: Axgard Armory, Sacred Foundry, Inventors' Fair, Bruenor Battlehammer, Forging the Tyrite Sword
OUT: Wind-Scarred Crag, Transguild Promenade, Boros Guildgate, Boros Garrison, Stone Quarry

Right, so this week was "Punch Up my Mana Base a Little" week, taking out a bunch of dual lands that came into play tapped, or worse yet, required mana to enter the battlefield properly, and replaced them with the classic Sacred Foundry. Sadly, I have no Fighter Class to use, instead depending on Forging the Tyrite Sword. The other lands can act as Voltron-fetch lands, and Inventor's Fair can be pretty reliable in gaining me life if it hits the table.

(Spoilers, after six games, I haven't seen it. After 15 games, I still haven't seen Tiana, Ship's Caretaker either. What is this math?!??)

So, lands punched up, Bruenor acting as a backup Commander, just in case, it's time to head into Week 4!

Round 1

I'm sitting at a five player table, and I go first, with a Yuriko deck, then Miss Partners, Aesi and then Obunn. Partners Mills to five, and I keep a hand of five lands and card:Blazing Steel. Might as well, it gives +4/+0 right now.

Sadly, because we're playing five players, and the Aesi player has lots of stuff to do with nothing to show for it, it's a slow table. Partners gets severely mana screwed, and only casts her Commander on her last turn. There's also too many targets, and I can't drive Wyleth home on anyone. Yuriko plays Gonti, and gets something from me, which is revealed to be Deflecting Palm after the game. He was hoping I would go for broke on him, and then pull out the memetic Uno-Reversal card on me. We had a laugh at that.

Round 2

The Scarab God is to my left, a Commander switch on the Zombie Commander, whatshisname. Gavi, Nest Warden is to my diagonal, and Ezuri, Claw of Progress is across from me. I'm going last. Ezuri quickly becomes unblockable (though I can't say why, I didn't note it. The guy playing Ezuri was making some truly baffling decisions with his deck. Barely any experience counters gained.

Gavi cycles Dismantling Wave for free, and that sets me back quite a bit. However, I know better than to over-commit with a voltron deck, so I replay Wyleth, then on the following turn, drop the Blackblade Reforged with 7 lands on the table. I delete Ezuri, because at that point, it's a mercy kill. Sadly, I was going to also delete the Scarab God, but my Winds of Rath got countered, which would have left me with the only creature on the board. My face is a Sad Face.

Round 3

I'm going fourth again with Oloro to my right, Larathil is across from me, and rounding out the table is the Commander-replacement Sadrix Silverquill.

Lathril has a Turn 1 Llanowar Elves, and the rest of us are ready to hand him the First Blood point, the only question is who does he go for when instead he casts Augur of Autumn instead. Don't get me wrong, it's a good card, but my Turn 2 Oreskos Explorer hits no lands as I need the body - that cat is the one to get me First Blood. Woo!

I wind up board wiping twice over the course of the game to keep the Elfball deck down, and it still doesn't take. Oloro drops Aetherflux Reservoir with Bolas's Citadel and promptly declares he's going to sit there and take out anyone who threatens anyone who challenges his first place win. As he's at over 70 life, that's pretty enforceable.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I drop Shiny Impetus on Wyleth, and it continues to be a surprisingly effective combination of cards. I don't regret that choice at all.

But you know what I actually have in hand, and that I'm just waiting to get enough mana to pull off?

Go ahead, go check the cards I still have in my deck. I'll wait.

You looked? Cool.

Word of Seizing. For , I can take any permanent for the turn. And it has Split Second. Which means that when I cast it, Oloro can't respond by killing me. I take it, then smile as I Abrade it.

He respects that. He's good like that. He laid down a challenge, and I rose to it, so he only responded by stealing my Wyleth with Spinal Embrace, and smacking down the Lathril player with an extra hit of Commander Damage.

After the game, we asked the Judge how that would be handled. Had Lathril died to that (which could have happened thanks to Surprise Double Strike), would Oloro have gotten the Commander Kill, or would I have? Answer: Neither. It wasn't his Commander, and I wasn't doing the attack. Oh well.

Anyway, I run out of Wipes, Shadix is busy spinning wheels, and Lathril finally builds enough boadstate to Shadowsage into second place, with Oloro casting Teferi's Protection to seal the deal.

Seriously, the guy playing Lathril in that round had no idea what they were doing with the deck, it was mostly on auto-pilot for the most part.

Anyway, that's Week 4. Only one Commander Kill, but I realized that I had focused too much on the offense, that I had neglected my defense. I would need to fix that this coming week.

Still don't have Open the Armory or Magnetic Theft. Neither of them are at my FLGS at this point. But I still have options. And is pretty good on the defense.

WEEK FIVE

IN: Feat of Resistance, Resolute Strike, Shelter, Benevolent Blessing, Sanctuary Blade
OUT: Encroaching Wastes, Flickerwisp, Jaya's Immolating Inferno, Martial Coup, Ring of Valkas

And that's IT for mana cuts! No more! Rather, this week, I put in five different protection effects. OK, three Protection, one Hexproof, and one Utility spell. Without Magnetic Theft, Resolute Strike is my "Surprise Equip!" spell, and depending on what I have on the board, can prove to be quite useful, or not. Sanctuary Blade is reusable, and did good work in my old Killian, Ink Duelist deck, but that was then and this is now. Feat of Resistance gets the nod over other options for adding a +1/+1 counter to the creature in question.

Flickerwisp goes as I have Trample, and we're at the point where there are multiple blockers at any given point in time. It's not that good any more, and never way. Inferno and Coup go as they are too expensive, and Jaya's spell is Legendary, meaning that I need a Legendary Creature in play to cast it, and honestly, I don't have enough to make it worth my while, especially with the hate that Wyleth is drawing.

Martial Coup goes for being a 7 cost board wipe, and this deck isn't going wide at all to need the extra creatures. They won't help. The choice to cut the Ring of Valkas wasn't that hard as Haste has a very narrow of opportunity to be useful, while the Vigilance granted by the other Ring will always be useful, except for that same narrow window where Valkas is. So, choosing to cut one or the other, the Ring of Valkas goes.

Round 1

Aesi is going first, Eva-1 is going second, I'm third and a non Slow Grow Ezuri, Renegade Leader is fourth.

Turn 0, Ezuri drops Leyline of Abundance and on Turn 1, I drop Sigarda's Aid. Great start!

I get lucky, and drop a turn 4 Benevolent Blessing on Wyleth, and after some deliberation, call . While the other option was , I judged needing to defend or break through the Elfball to be more important than being prepared for partial defense against Vehicles.

I get Wyleth up to seven power and hit the Elfball once. Great!

Then the Elfball deck takes a 15 minute turn.

I'm not joking. We timed it. The Elfball deck was "Cast spell, draw, draw, trigger, trigger, trigger, draw", and just kept going and going and going. Hell, he hardcast Craterhoof Behemoth, not to close out the game, but so that he could have more Devotion for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx! Tapping, untapping, doing NOTHING for 15 minutes except built a board state that is less a state and more a mess of cards that happens to be a pile of creatures, tokens, and I don't know what the hell is going on over there.

Then he passed the turn, and three minutes later, it was my turn. I have Sunhome. I have enough power. I have protection form Green. I swing!

"I Wilt Shadowspear," Elfball player says, which would prevent me from having 7 power. Not Benevolent Blessing. Shadowspear

What comes next is a high intensity five minute discussion where the other players hem and haw over countering the spell, and I argue that the Elfball player has already taken a 15 minute turn, and if I don't delete him now, there's nothing left for the rest of the game as he'll just durdle his turn away again. Elfball is saying "no! this is totally legit!"

Eva-1 saves the day, and decides, "You know what? I want to play Magic" and hard-counters Wilt. Wyleth hits, I get life, and 2 points for a Commander Kill.

Time is called on that turn as the other players realize that yes, enough time had passed with Elfball that letting the Voltron Player score a kill was the best play. Oh my god, the people in this town....

Aesi goes next, and we do the math and realize that he can take out either myself or Eva-1, but not both. We hash it out, and Eva-1 reveals that he actually hadn't cast his Commander yet this game. I nod, and suggest that he take me out first, leaving Eva-1 to cast his Commander on his turn. I've got the Commander Kill points under my belt, losing 1 for coming in third won't kill me. Much. Just in my heart. And Eva-1 won't be in the position of being in last place and losing points for a lack of a Commander.

With that, we're good.

I'm going to have words about threat assessment in the future.

I ask the Judges afterward for a pity point for everyone at the table for needing to sit through that 15 minute turn, and the Judges can't decide on anything right away as the Elfball wasn't Slow Grow and they couldn't punish them for it. Fair enough.

Round 2

It's Miss Partner! She goes first. I'm second. Beside me is Kaalia of the Vast and due to poor planning, Eva-1 is sitting at the same table as me, in fourth. We wave hello, and I remind him to cast his Commander before we go into extra turns this time with a grin to show I'm not being serious, just poking fun at how we ended the last game.

Anyway, I get Wyleth out on schedule, only to have Miss Partners force me to sacrifice it to a Priest of Forgotten Gods. The others take exception to that being a thing, and kill it dead. Then she starts going after me. To the exclusion of all else, Miss Partners has it utterly fixed in her head that because I have the most points at the table (I'm in fourth going into this week, with a tie in third), she absolutely needs to kill me. And she argues this with everyone else at the table, wanting them to gang up on me for the chance to get a single point.

Threat Assesment people. Know it. Love it! Recognize when you need to stop being so mono-fixated on a single person. Because admitting to modifying your deck around beating me is bad in multiple ways.

I wind up needing to break out a board wipe, but Mister Vehicles is quite alright with that, and Kaalia is a bit mana screwed, so they don't really lose out. Miss Partners takes this as a personal affront, and the game ends with no one winning, but no one losing either. Well, OK, some people have lower life totals, but I score points, and I'm happy.

Round 3

A non-Slow Grow Meren is going first, I'm second, Aesi is third and The Scarab God is fourth. My notes here are pretty sparse because I see Meren and I know how bad it can explode, so I focus fire on him. He and I start trading blows, and when he plays a Lord of Extinction, things ae kicking into high gear. The other players are vocally "We're staying out of this!"

Then the crux turn. I can swing past Lord of Extinction when he attacks, but if he doesn't attack, I can gain advantage until I can Protect or Evade around him. Wyleth is tapped from the attack and I have up and what's relevant in my hand is Deflecting Palm and Timely Ward. I have other cards, but they're not good. Now, on the previous turn, I screwed up and instead of giving Wyleth Double Strike and punching over all his creatures to get the kill, I made him Pro-Green and Meren blocks with Wild Mongrel. He had just enough cards in hand to keep him at 20 Commander Damage. Double Strike would have been more effective. Oh well, I screwed up.

And honestly, how often have I said that Surprise Double Strike is how this deck wins? Not enough? OK.

Surprise Double Strike is amazing, and my most reliable win condition.

Anyway, Scarab God starts off his turn with a Damnation. Meren passes priority, and I look at my board state and decide that I want to keep my Commander and pulverize Meren next turn. You see, I was holding Palm in my hand, and before the Damnation, I was going to Deflect the Lord of Extinction back into his face to KO him, but with the Boardwipe on the stack, I figured I would protect my Commander instead and do directly.

Then Aesi counters Damnation.

I'm stuck with shields down and the Lord of Extinction takes me out. Oh well.

So that's that for these past two weeks. We're in the end-reach now, and I'm expecting more players to drop as they would be in the bottom half. Me? I'm hoping to stay or claw my way back into near-top spot, but that's going to be pretty hard. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but they are all dependent on the luck of the draw.

So, join me next week when I talk about something. What, I don't know yet.

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!