Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Trying Blitzkrieg vs.Ramp

I ran 15 or so test games againt GerryT's Valakut ramp list, since he won the most recent tournament, and it seems pretty straightforward. I played only 'sideboarded' games, with me taking out the slow top end (2 Call to Mind, 2 Foresee) for 4x Kiln Fiend, and taking the 3 maindeck Pyroclasms out of the ramp deck for 3 Acidic Slimes, which seems like a good general plan vs. My deck.


It didn't go terribly, but it didn't exactly go well.  (5/8 -> 38%)

Observed problems:
1) The mana (colors)
For the blitzkrieg strategy to be effective, you need your KF down on turn 2. Often, I would not have 1R available on turn 2.
This is not really a problem for the deck in general, because I often don't (or shouldn't) cast PA on turn 2 anyway. But it is definately a problem for this strategy.

The straightforward plan also has no need to cast 2-4 spells in a turn, so KFs also stress the one-turn mana.

Also, taking out 4-8 blue cards for red cards doesn't help your mana base.

2). Still have many bad cards.
Mana leak is pretty terrible with the blitzkreig strategy. You won't have the mana open to cast it on turn 2 (when you drop the fiend) and you'd rather be casing something else for 3 KF ppower any other turn. It doesn't draw a card, and almost never pumps "{ for damage in this matchup.

Into the Roil is not very good either. It can only bounce a titan, slime, wall, 1x plant token, Avenger, or Khalni Heart Expedition@in this matchup.
Bouncing Titan would be fine, if Titan #1 didn't kill off any/all of your KFs, or if you could swing for victory.
Bouncing avenger is terrrible. Bouncing Khalni Garden token is not amazing. Bouncing an Avenger token is 100% irrelevant.
Bouncing a KHE would be good, if it happened on your turn pre-attack, but that never happens. I've often cast turn 2 KF on the draw, and they have 3 counters on their KHE by the time it is my turn 3. Pretty meh there, for ITR.
Bouncing a wall is about as good as I could do with this spell, and it was never a time walk.
I ran into quite a few board states where my only ITR target was acidic slime, and that definately doesn't improve my problems with mana colors.

3) Not able to deliver killing blow often, despite 2-4 turns of KF attacks, and only 4 3cc+ spells in my deck.
Not enough 1cc burn + Preordain + card draw, or something. I'd draw ITR + Mana Leak + PA + KF + Staggershock, and be at 2 land, or just not enough damage before turn 4-5 came around.

That said, I did go about 50% against the deck, which beats the heck out of my MtGO record against general ramp decks.

I'm not really happy with my testing methodoly, because solo testing is inherently dangerous. You might make decisions differently, unconciously, because you want the deck to win/lose, or make bad mulligan decisions, orother bad practices.

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I did do some goldfishing today, with See Beyonds over Mana Leak, and it was significantly better, but I don't know that I have sideboard space for that, or how it would play out vs. A real opponent.

















If I had Arc Trails instead of Pyroclasms in the board, I would bring those in too over ITR.





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