Mini testing results - Red with Phrexian Metamorph

I did some testing with Phyrexian Metamorph this weekend, and I was pretty impressed.  I played two main, and three side, and in most matchups, I was reaching for the third in my sideboard as the first thing I put in.  Now, maybe this was just a gut reaction from trying the card, but it seemed quite powerful, and I was often in the scenario were I just wanted to draw a metamorph off the top, for the win.

I brought it in against control decks, especially Blue/Black and Esper, because you can copy Shrine, which is probably your best card against them. (Copying Grave, Sphynx, Wurmcoil, Batterskull out of their deck are all good as well)

I brought it in in the mirror, because copying the protection from red guy, when it can't be shattered (or blocked, etc) is pretty good.

I brought it in against ramp, because it was a way to kill Thrun (I killed a Thrun in most every game with this), as well as copying Primeval (then taking their swing, then swinging in for the win)

I brought it in against the random combo decks, because they are trying to cheat something out, and you just copy it. (but bigger, often).

I brought it in against a Mayor of Avabruk human deck.  Let me tell you, letting their mayor flip, then copying it, and IMMEDIATELY GENERATING A TOKEN to block their Mayor is good times.  That game was almost over on T3, but it did last another 4 or so turns, since he kept playing guys that I'd either kill, or that would have to chump block my army of wolves.  (The copied flipped mayor won't flip back, it just keeps pumping out tokens for you)

The one matchup where it didn't seem phenominal was UW Delver.  I'm not sure I can play any of the life payment cards (except Gut Shot, and probably Growth), because if they counter them, or bounce the Metamorph, you're probably just dead, and that deck is all about redundancy in bounce/counter/attack.

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Other problems:
It doesn't combo all that well with Koth, and copying a (1/1) Vampire isn't that hot, but I was never in the scenario of having a Metamorph in hand I couldn't or didn't want to cast (except against delver perhaps, and even then I probably should have run it out w/o fear to copy a delver or snapcaster).  I did run into one scenario against mono red where I couldn't afford to cast all my phyrexian mana stuff, but I think what I should be cutting in that scenario is the Gambits, not the Metamorphs. 

If I had played more games, I might have run into more situations where my only metamorph target was destroyed in response, but that only happened once (UB opponent virulent wounded his own Snapcaster in response, which was fine by me)

My first day of testing I was making mistake after mistake.  Post-combat Koths, Koth +1ing a summoning sick mountain.  Getting distracted and not winning with a ultimate Koth.  (Just don't do anything against U/B but kill them, eventually I'll learn this.  Don't turn on their dead cards in hand!)  I was racing in scenarios I was clearly losing in.  (Block Geist with 3/3 Vampire?  Nah, attack!  3 turns later, I'm dead)  I'm pretty sure my mulligan decisions were pretty bad too.

On the second day, I didn't feel like I was making nearly as many mistakes.  I was mulliganing a bit more, but I was also winning perhaps twice as much.  So maybe taking a month off actually playing the deck didn't do all that much for my ability to play the deck =)

I do need to play the delver matchup more.  Their tempo/aggro is no joke, and simply siding up to 4 arc trails and 3 1-damage spells isn't doing the trick.   Snapcaster -> Vapor Snag was brutal every time, so I need to make sure I'm winning the race if I try to get aggressive.  I've watched alot of SCG live games where the delver opponent thought they could race, and just lost, with more (and less) aggressive decks than mine.  I found I was using my arc Trails on T2 to kill their one threat, and in this respect, Geistflame is probably a better answer.  (I have 4 AT 2 GF now)

Anyway, it felt good to play the deck again, and the metamorphs really seemed sold.

P.S.:
I made alot of terrible plays (and alot of terrible keeps, and sideboard decisions), but one that I liked was when I had 5 mana, a shrine, and a Berserker.  You can cast the Berserker, get the counter on the shrine, and also use it to deal damage to your opponent, and get the Bloodthirst on the Berserker.  I'm not sure if it actually won the game for me, but it was nifty.

Red - Tweaks before Dark Ascension

The red deck has performed pretty well in the TPR, but had some troubles with the ramp decks, which may become more popular going forward.  We have the tools to deal with one-toughness dorks en masse from the ever-popular illusions deck, and can deal with Geist by blocking (hopefully).

On top of this, I have been keeping up with the tournament reports, and statements such as "I have a bad mono Red Matchup", or "the only thing this is bad against is mono red", or "I have timely for Mono Red" (this deck largely ignores timely, because it does damage in huge chunks, and deals primarily in hard to block threats, or going over the top with Koth)

So, we seem fairly well positioned in the metagame.  We have access to the right removal for the aggro decks, and we have huge threats on the control decks, that they have to answer mostly individually, or die.

Our early threats (Noble, Waif) will have taken somewhat of a hit from the metagame being anti-little-dudes, but our little guys just set up our main plan (ultimate Koth), which decks still don't have a good generalized answer to.

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So, what are the steps going forward?

Well, we probably need to get some time spent in some real games online.  There's no substitute for real playtime, and we'll work out the kinks this way one way or the other.  I've been fairly busy lately, so I haven't been able to put time

We also need to lock down our last few slots, and figure out a sideboard plan for ramp that actually does something to tilt the matchup in our favor.

I am still sold on the core of the deck. 
4x:  (24 cards)
Noble, Berserker, Volt Charge, Koth, Tezz's Gambit, Shrine of Burning Rage
Scattered Removal: (6-9 cards)
Some combination of Geistflame, Gut Shot, Arc Trail, Devil's Play
Mana Base:
24 mountains.
Koth ultimate really wants you to hit 6 mountains, and though we'd like to play something like 4x of the new UR "dual", I don't know that we can afford it, just to ease a bit of pain from Koth, or other blue splashes.  We could go up to 25, but I wouldn't want to go below 23.

This leaves us between 3 and 6 more slots for random other stuff.

Previously, we played 7 removal spells, leaving us 5 "other" slots.

We played 3x Reckless Waif, which was a real beating against the do-nothing blue decks, but it got sideboarded out against anything with early creatures, because it never flips there, and it trades far too easily.  The strongest argument for this is that it is another way to enable Berserkers.

We also had 2 Chandra, the Firebrand.  This was meant as another must-answer counter-capable effect, but in the end it ended up being something like a 4-mana curse of the Pierced Heart that they could attack and kill.  Chandra's ultimate is very lackluster, and you can't play the game of "defend her for a turn and win" like you can with Koth.  Drawing 4 is sweet, doubling Devil's Plays is sweet, but she was just glacially slow.  Perhaps in the new all-moorland-haunt metagame, she'd get better, but these are definately slots that can be "adjusted"

One spell that has been catching my eye lately to replace Chandra is Phyrexian Metamorph.  PM has alot of advantages in this metagame, including:
1) Has synergy with all the things the deck is trying to do already.  It's a 5-6th Noble, Berserker, Shrine, etc, whichever is the best in the particular matchup.
2) It magnifies the power of sideboard cards, which tend to be creatures or artifacts (Sword, Ratchet Bomb, Manic Vandal)  (Similar to what Snapcaster does for blue decks with instants and sorceries)
3) It Kills the Heck out of Thrun (a card we can't beat), Geist, and any other stupid legend that people play these days, on often the same turn our enemies play them.
4) It copies Titans, and doesn't die to them.  (on 6 mana, we can even kill a Inferno with this guy + Volt Charge (which has no other targets anyway)
5) It overloads artifact hate, which people are playing a criminally low amount of these days anyway.
6) It's a house against Heartless Summoning/Pod, because it's bigger than their version.
7) Copy a Grave Titan, and they can't Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, OR Tribute it...  Copy a Sphynx, and it really seems like we'll be able to do more by stacking our deck than our control opponent. (aka kill them)

It really seems like Metamorph has +'s in all the matchups. 
\The downside of it is that it's the 5th and 6th phyrexian blue mana we have in the deck, which could be somewhat painful against the most aggroeist of aggro decks.  Good thing we're packing Geistflames and Arc Trails to take the momentum back from those decks!  But this is a concern, so we should probably include some way to mitigate all this life loss.

Going through the list, we see a ton of bad options, and:

Batterskull is a bit slower than sword, but is a game-changer in aggro matchups.

Sword of War and Peace does a great job of getting our guys in for damage past the various white tokens we're seeing these days, and protects our guys from some of the more played removal (red).

Having one or two of either of these main, and one or two side seems like it would be a solid plan to prevent us from killing ourselves in aggro matchups.  They happen to combo fairly well with Metamorph, and our overall aggressive strategy.  The sword is the most aggressive, so that's what I'd start with, and see where it goes from there.

If we presume that represents 3-4 maindeck slots, we still have a couple left over after 2x Devil's Play, 2x Geistflame, 1x Gut Shot, 2x Arc Trail.

One piece of technology that has been rearing it's head (again through the abomination that is Phyrexian Mana) is Mutagenic Growth.  The removal spell of choice nowadays is Gut Shot, which Mutagenic Growth is fabulous against on the swing-in.  It saves your guys from Whipflare, Slagstorm, Galv Blast, and the like.  It causes a T3 Thrun to unexpectedly die to a Berserker or Noble as well, which is always good.

I'd want to play at least one of these, since it's never dead, and could very likely win games against the kind of removal that is being played nowadays to deal with the delver threat.  If I played two, with two metamorph, and 4 Gambit, I almost certainly need some sort of way to mitigate that damage in a longer game, so I'd almost have to include two of the life-gain options.

Mutagenic comes at the cost of Reckless Waif, but I can't imagine any deck that exists in the new Mono-Delver metagame being weak to a 1/1 on 1.  It makes me sad to remove these, because they did so much damage, but keeping a Noble alive to swing in for a counter and 3 damage is probably worth the hit here.  Maybe.

Definately worth testing.  It's possible that we'll just have to include some Sulfur Vents, especially if Metamorph proves their worth up to a 4-of...  That'd be good times.

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I do like that the deckbuilding requirements on this deck are quite a bit looser than on Pyromancer Ascension.  I can include any number of one-ofs, and things work out just fine.  Wish me luck in the queues...