Report Gen Con 2002
Stompy by Danny Morano

Well, like everyone else I'm back from GenCon.  As everyone has said, Masters of Peasant Magic II was a great deal of fun, with interesting players, clever (and varied) deck designs, and excellent hosts (great work CardShark guys).  What I'd like to talk about is MOPM2, how my deck did there, and whether Peasant Magic should have restricted or banned cards (besides ante cards).  I even reveal what The most broken card in Peasant Magic is!  What ties these together, of course, is the metagame.

     In Type 2, if you can beat Quiet Roar and Mono-Black Control then you'll win.  The Peasant Magic metagame is much, much more interesting.  I went into MOPM2 figuring there would be approximately seven decks to beat; here they are with the decklists I playtested against (several where stolen from articles by Jason Chapman and Johnny Lai).  I should say in advance, look up cards you don't recognize (because I'm too lazy to explain all my Unglued references).

     The original metagame for Peasant Magic features Sligh as the classic first thought for a commons format deck, with White Weenie as the classic answer.  Stompy is expected to make an appearance with its creature base more-or-less intact, as should black with its vast array of cheap, common, and powerful removal and discard cards complimented by undercosted flying and shadow creatures.  To some, more threatening than Sligh with its stoppable creature base is burn-to-the-head with consistent turn 5-ish wins that ignore your permanents in play.  On a similar note, a high tide combo deck could conceivably go off reliably on turn 4 or 5, winning without any board position at all besides basic lands.  Accordingly, an improved red-hate deck like Tight White Life 2 could almost win the metagame by rapidly achieving a solid board position and gaining life, stopping the prevalent highly-aggressive decks, while winning with hard-to-remove evasion creatures.  With Standard Bearer / Mother of Runes it could even shut down the MagmaTide combo build, long enough to win with Army of Allah.  I was convinced this sort of deck could win MOPM2, and my friend Joe played something similar.

     Beatdown man that I am, I found myself powerfully drawn to a deck laden with green critters.  My early builds focused around breaking the card Arboria, a Legends uncommon Enchant World for 2GG that reads (with errata), Creatures can't attack a player who didn't play a spell and didn't put a card into play during his or her last turn.  The deck I settled on at first was deceptively named Stompy Extreme and looked like the following:

4 Magnify
4 Rancor
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Skyshroud Ridgeback (As a 2-drop, this guy lasted plenty long to win, I thought)
4 Ghazban Ogress (Yeah, the Unglued one – a 2/2 for G with no real drawback in most tournaments)
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Blastoderm
4 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
12 Forest

SB: 4 Arboria
SB: 4 Moment's Peace
SB: 4 Double Play (Unglued sorcery for 3GG – search your library for a basic land and put it in play, and do the same at the start of your next game with the current opponent)
SB: 2 Feldon's Cane
1SB:  Harmony of Nature (amazing lifegain card from Portal)

     The maindeck is a remarkably consistent, blazingly fast critter-machine that unhindered scores regular turn 4 kills.  It runs out of steam quickly, though.  The highlight of the deck is the secret sideboard tech: against a creature matchup game 1 (not sligh or burn or combo or drain lifes or tims), the entire sideboard goes in for rogue elephants, skyshroud ridgebacks, and the like, and painfully slowly decks my opponent, who thoughtfully sideboarded out all of their enchantment destruction (or at least enough that I can hold them off with chump blockers and moment's peace).  With enough time to cast double plays, a stompy victory game 3 with a 2-or-more land bonus to start with seemed entirely plausible.  Unfortunately, playtesting revealed the deck to be quite fragile – small creature beatdown was mediocre against sligh and white weenie, and even when my secret-sideboard-tech-scheme would work, I'd have to draw the accursed Arboria with no card draw at all, and then win by decking my opponent the slow way.  This seemed suboptimal at best.

     After toying with a U/G Capsize-lock variant, I gave up on Arboria in favor of an uncommon that I'm convinced is THE MOST BROKEN CARD IN PEASANT MAGIC.  What makes a card broken?  Let's consider everyone's favorite cantrip: Ancestral Recall.  It reads, U – Draw two cards, then draw a card.  It's ridiculously broken.  It's not the instant speed or the option to target either player that make this card better than other good cards that see little or no constructed play, like Concentrate.  It's the price.  One mana for 3 cards is insane, while for 4 it's merely reasonable.  Let's consider another card at a comparable power level to Concentrate.  For only 2G and the loss of a land, Harrow offers significant mana acceleration in addition to the usual land drop for your turn.  It comes with two lands built in, ready for immediate use, and at three mana and a tremble that only hits you, it's a fair deal.  Now suppose you didn't have to sacrifice a land for Harrow; that makes it unbalanced, with outright card advantage in addition to delayed-a-turn mana acceleration.  In Invasion block, where they brought back dual lands with only a one-turn delay, Harrow without sacrificing a land would just be way too good.  Now imagine that this unbalanced, too-good Harrow only cost 1, a single colorless mana.  Suddenly, we've got outright, Dark-Ritual-esque mana advantage on turn 1 that's still around for 2 additional mana every turn of the game, splashable into any deck.  Meet Sol Ring, the most broken card in Peasant Magic, the only member of the Power Ten to be reprinted in Revised, and the basis for my new-and-improved Stompy deck.  Sure, it doesn't thin your library or make colored mana, but who cares?  By any reasonable measure it's at least 2-for-1 card advantage plus mana acceleration, and that's always worth 1 colorless mana in my book.  Here's my deck:

Look Ma, No Putrid Imp!  (after a string of putrid imp-based decks at local events)

14 Forest
4 Land Grant
4 Sol Ring (Uncommon)
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Phyrexian War Beast
4 Simian Grunts
4 Blastoderm
4 Uktabi Efreet
1 Stampeding Wildebeests (Uncommon)
4 Symbiosis
3 Serrated Arrows
2 Maze of Ith

SB: 2 Maze of Ith
SB: 1 Serrated Arrows
SB: 2 Seal of Strength
SB: 2 Rejuvenate
SB: 2 Strip Mine
SB: 3 Tranquil Path
SB: 3 Moment's Peace

The deck was motivated by two notions – that card advantage wins games, and that whoever spends the most mana wins games.  Rather than a super-fast horde deck I tried to pick cards that would net me board advantage and creatures that were hard to kill.  In particular, the majority of draws with Sol Ring see a turn two 5/5 or 5/4 – that's right, 21% of hands when I go first and 28% when they do, not figuring in the deck-thinning effects of Land Grant.  8 mana elves guarantees that Sol Ring-less draws at least have acceleration, and 21 fat, undercosted creatures ensure that I'll see something beefy on the board on turn 2 or 3 with any decent draw.  Here's a card-by-card analysis:

• Forest – Makes the deck go.

• Land Grant – Usually outright better than forest, especially with relatively few counterspells in most Peasant Magic decks.

• Sol Ring – Amazing, absolutely amazing.

• Llanowar/Fyndhorn Elves – Early mana, targets for Symbiosis, chumps for Diabolic Edict and more.

• Wild Mongrel – The smallest beatstick in the deck is a good finisher that doesn't have to be green.  The threat of pump is often enough to get damage through rather than risk unfavorable trades.

• Phyrexian War Beast – For 3 mana, a 3/4 is better than even green's creature options, and as a two drop with an elf or with a sol ring and only one forest it's a great deal.  The downside hardly matters in a deck this aggressive – and four is the toughness of choice.

• Simian Grunts – For 6 mana over two turns, this guy's the most expensive in the deck, but the magical four toughness and the surprise creature removal (and surprise damage threat) push it over the top.  An affordable end to the game in a deck with 30 mana-centered cards.

• Blastoderm – This guy beats Juzam Djinn any day of the week.  Juzam can eat Serrated Arrow counters.

• Uktabi Efreet – Only theoretically more killable than Blastoderm; in Peasant Magic not a lot of good cards handle 5/4's for 4 very efficiently.  Cumulative Upkeep is a very manageable downside with my huge mana base.

• Stampeding Wildebeests – Another 5/4 for 4, this one tramples and bounces: Blastoderm with no fading counters left (good deal), Uktabi 

• Efreet with an unaffordable cumulative upkeep (good deal), Simian Grunts before echo is paid (not bad), and elves (not bad).  My fifth uncommon of choice.

• Symbiosis – Handily beating Giant Growth in most matchups, Symbiosis offers 4 damage for 2 mana or wins two creature trades you would otherwise lose, or some combination of these.  It even gets around Flagbearers.

• Serrated Arrows – Combat trick and green removal in one, this 2-drop (if you're in a rush) pops Mother of Runes, Soul Warden, virtually any evasion creature, Crypt Rats, and more.  This card easily swings a creature battle in your favor if cheap fatties just can't cut it on their own.

• Maze of Ith – This card defeats Armadillo Cloak, Empyrial Armor, Hypnotic Specter, and that one pesky evasion creature that's killing you.  It's terrible in this deck.

Sideboard:

• Serrated Arrows and Mazes were as needed,

• Seal of Strength offered tempo-advantageous extra damage when I needed to race, 

• Rejuvenate was my two or 3 drop against burn to buy me a turn of Blastoderm beatings, 

• Moment's Peace was for faster creature decks that could beat through my ground-pounders (ha!),

• Tranquil Path was for Pestilence, Story Circle, and the like (plus I can afford the 5 mana for the cantrip effect thanks to sol rings), 

• and Strip Mine is good against absolutely everybody.

How did I do? 

I got wrecked match one by mono-black control.  Piles of creature removal like Innocent Bloods and Diabolic Edicts traded one-for-one with Blastoderms and other fat creatures.  Symbiosis (thanks to never having two creatures), Serrated Arrows, and Maze of Ith were all dead draws.  Drain Lifes and Corrupts perpetuate the stalling until I withered away.  Sub-optimal hands combined with a lack of elves to draw removal before sacrifice effects hit the big guys didn't help.  I lost 0-2 round one. 

Similarly, in some later match, I lost 1-2 to Jason Chapman's nearly creatureless black control deck (Report), with one slow hand, one fast hand, and one average hand.  Monoblack control is the one matchup I saw that could handle my fat creature base.  Strip Mines maindeck and more answers in the sideboard would have helped.  Fortunately, 

Peasant Magic is all about the fun; I would have been happy to keep playing with an 0-5 record.

     Otherwise, I won nearly every matchup.  I beat Story Circle / Armadillo cloak 2-1 with fast, fat, not-necessarily-green creatures and Tranquil Paths. 

I beat the Berserk deck that Jason Chapman and I goaded Erik Weissman into putting down in favor of Properity/High Tide.  I beat some other deck that I don't remember right now (apologies to whoever it was – I'm sure I had a good time playing you).  In the final round I was 3/2 with decent tiebreakers, but I needed a win against a player with a good record to make top eight for the playoffs.  Fortunately (for me) I was paired against my good friend Joe Anderson, the only player with a 4-1 record who didn't just draw to automatically get into the top eight.  So far, the metagame-winning deck he was playing had only lost to strip mine / sinkhole land destruction.  Serrated Arrows triumphed as I squeaked off a 2-1 win to bump myself up to eighth place (and Joe down to 9th, doh!).

     Eighth place meant I got paired up against the only undefeated player there – Erik Weissman with his High Tide / Prosperity combo deck, which used Snaps and Clouds of Faeries and Frantic Searches to generate huge amounts of mana with High Tide to Prosperity his opponent out, using the one Feldon's Cane in the deck to win.  It was just like the MagmaTides deck I had playtested against with three exceptions:

1) it got its combo off turn 4 fairly reliably, 

2) it wasn't bothered much by instant-speed creature removal and 

3) it had room to pack Disrupts, which are excellent against most of what can interfere with his combo. 

Not only was he undefeated in every match, but he had not so much as lost a single game (although he drew round 6 so his opponent would get guaranteed top 8).  Like me, he had not seen the sort of sligh, stompy, and suicide black speed it would take to beat him on turn 4 or 5, prior to death by combo.  He won the crucial die roll, and did not hesitate to choose to go first.  My Blastoderm army needed 5 turns to kill him, but he combo-ed on his turn 5 first, ending my hopes at victory game one.  Game two I chose to go first and had a speedy start, and managed to incur his very first game loss.  Game three he chose to go first, and I needed a miracle.  Opening hand: no sol ring.  Mulligan.  Next hand: really bad.  Mulligan.  Last hand: a bunch of elves and two forests.  Keep.  

He drops his first land, I drop my first elf and draw some huge creature, and then he seems quite upset when he Brainstorms at the end of my turn: no second land!  My miracle had come!  I proceed to drop elves and fat critters while he fails to draw land for the next turn again (no surprise – Brainstorm, remember?).  I think it was my third turn when I made my fatal, game-losing mistake.  With plenty of land in play, I don't hesitate to play the last card in my hand for free – Land Grant.  He Disrupts it!!!  He draws into land, and before my slow start can finish beating him down, he goes off with his combo with only 3 land!   Thanks to excellent play and deckbuilding, Erik sailed into first place, earning him GenCon 2002's illustrious Master of Peasant Magic honor. 

     Why are these restricted?  For starters, they've all appeared in multiples of four in some winning type 1 deck(s).  Most of the restricted list contains powerful card drawing, graveyard recursion, and tutoring elements that makes combo decks viable.  Tinker is another combo card.  Channel, Sol Ring, and Lotus Petal are mana acceleration used for turn 1 kills.  Black Vise, Berserk, and Strip Mine are just too powerful for their cost.  Again, why are these restricted?  Because these cards facilitate decks that are not fun to play against.  Nobody wants to lose before they take their first turn.  Nobody wants to go down without having the chance to put up a fight.  (Force of Will has not made it onto this list for good reason.)

     Let's look at these cards in Peasant Magic.  I'd like to first observe that four of one of these cards was at the heart of most of the best decks I saw.  Erik had 4 Frantic Searches, the card with the most synergy with his combo besides the combo itself.  I ran 4 Sol Rings, because they're ridiculously undercosted.  The monoblack control decks I saw ran 4 Demonic Tutors to get to their Cabal Coffers or to find an answer to whatever threat they faced.  I saw the four Libraries of Alexandria counter/burn deck, which made top 4.  Number two was a burn-to-the-head deck, running 4 Strip Mines.  

Heck, my deck should have had four Strip Mines.  Creator of the format Rob Baranowski had 4 Berserks powering the Stompy deck he borrowed from Erik.  I'll admit to playtesting a Channel-Fireball (Kaervek's Torch, really) deck that could manage turn 2 kills 35% of the time if it went second, and I'm sure tweaking and aggressive mulliganing could bring that up to around 50%.  That's the kind of deck that could eliminate good players with good decks from a tourney and still manage a losing record.

     At first I disagreed with Erik, but now I suspect that the type 1 restricted list ought to be in effect.  Don't get me wrong – Peasant Magic is the most fun I've had playing Magic in a while, and I've played a lot of Magic recently, but the cards on the type 1 restricted list are not really the reasons why this is so.  As much as I dislike reducing the cardpool, the cards on the type 1 restricted list should be considered for restriction in Peasant Magic as well.  Who enjoys losing a game to Strip Mine?  How about Black Vise?  Channel-Fireball?  

The 5-uncommons restriction prevents uncommon abuse from becoming too degenerate, with most combo decks having to trade uncommon combo elements for uncommon tutors, but I think we'll see more of these cards as time progresses.

     There are, of course, several objections to this worth noting.  

1) Peasant Magic is fun, and until it's not, why change anything?

2) No dominant deck types are pushing rogue builds aside with these cards; it's not like decks with these cards have outdated decks without them. 

3) This list does not exactly describe the unbalancing Peasant Magic cards.  For example, Crop Rotation and Tinker are mediocre with 5 uncommons and no rares, and probably don't need restriction. 

4) When you start restricting things, new power cards emerge to take their place, so perhaps no progress is made anyways.

     Anyways, in the meantime I don't know that there's cause for anything to be restricted, but I sure don't want there to be a Peasant Magic tourney where every competitive deck opens by stripping my first land or comboing me out turn 3.  Is another vote in order?  If new restrictions are in order, what cards (commons in particular) really need banning, besides Strip Mine?

     Coming soon: more deck lists and an overview of how MOPM2 changed the Peasant Magic metagame.

     Oh yeah, I do want to propose a Chicago-area Peasant Magic tournament sometime this year.  I don't know where or when it could be, but I imagine that with a reasonable location a bunch of you Midwesterners could show up and we could have a grand `ole time.  Ideas anyone?

Danny Morano