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FACE OFF: THE AFTERMATH
This report was based on the results obtained by the project: FACE OFF series. There is a summary of each part of the project. Some information you read may be in the author’s opinion. You are free to think as you chose, but the following is the sponsor’s side of the project. Keep in mind, however, that I am a critical thinker when it comes to Magic: the Gathering cards, and deck strategy. The whole meaning of this project is based on these results and I would like to reveal them to all anyone who wants to know, so this information may be shared to the curious.
In the first part of the project, FACE OFF: GENESIS, each of the players dueled each of the other players. To keep confidentiality, I named each of the players 1,2,3, and 4. Because this was the first time that probably anyone has executed such a strange assignment, the players probably did not know what to expect. Personally, there was a lot of thinking to do because there were so many different kinds of cards used because of the different kinds of sets. The results of anyone’s decks are unpredictable, because I allowed them to change decks between matches. The players, therefore, had to prepare for anything in order to win. The sets distributed as follows: Player #1 had Mirage, Player #2 had Tempest, Player #3 had Urza’s Saga, and Player #4 had Mercadian Masques. Because it was a sealed deck, it was difficult to play well because each deck needed to use at least three different colors to satisfy the 40-card deck requirement. I also know that all the players had at least one instance that they got “mana screwed” too, and that was understandable because I was screwed many times to prevent my game from going well. With those possibilities in mind, I believe the players were balanced equally in cards. The quality, however, is a different story. The quality of the cards within a set was exactly what I wanted to measure, especially in limited play. The results told me which set could do better in limited play. Now I will briefly describe each of the matches, according to the player’s accounts, starting from Player 1and so forth:
Mirage vs. Tempest- It was a fairly quick match. These two sets are known for their speed and relentless offensiveness. The first two rounds were awful and had to paris twice, the score was 20-0 then 0-20. Therefore, it was the third round that really determined the winner. Eventually, Mirage won with nine points left.
Mirage vs. Urza’s Saga- Player 3 (Urza’s Saga) was kind of screwed in this match up, shuffling wise. Nevertheless, other than that, it was a tight game between the players. Eventually, Mirage proved dominant.
Mirage vs. Mercadian Masques- I have no comments from Player 4 (Mercadian Masques), so all accounts relating to that round will be based on his opponents. It seems that from the beginning, Player 4 got the upper hand. Mercadian Masques proved strong in defense by losing minimal life, meanwhile attacking Player 1 with evasion creatures and controlling the match overall. Mercadian Masques proved triumphant.
Tempest vs. Urza’s Saga- This was Player 3’s first match, and it seems he was quite unprepared. Urza’s Saga was not in its most glorious days as the player had no good draws. It was a slaughter with Tempest picking up the win.
Tempest vs. Mercadian Masques- Generally, Player 2 started the offensive early but was later halted by Player 4’s strong defense. Player 2 also screwed himself up by forgetting to sideboard. Mercadian Masques became very strong later in the game because of the large creatures. Mercadian Masques used the evasion creatures to score the victory.
Urza’s Saga vs. Mercadian Masques- The Urza’s Saga deck now had 43 cards than the original 60, so the deck improved. However, Player 4 did exceptionally well in this match. Urza’s Saga managed to win the second round, but there seemed no mercy in the first and third rounds by Player 4. It was no contest, with Mercadian Masques coming out the champion.
Surprisingly, the set I liked least came out on top, Mercadian Masques. Maybe even Player 4 was surprised at the success. There were many factors, which contributed to this astonishing flawless victory. Mercadian Masques is a very deep set. That is, there are many complexities in the cards that it covers most aspects of game play. The gameplay may be slow at first, but then it grows strong defenses as the high cost cards are played. It had the control advantage during mid-game because of it numerous spellshapers, APC cards (alternate play cost), and tough creatures, especially walls. In addition, this was the only set that participated that did not have an “introduced” special ability like buyback or echo. Therefore, it did not suffer any penalties that would come to “introduced” ability cards, except for the high mana cost for the APC cards. Overall, Mercadian Masques covered most of the grounds it needs to win, with the exception of speed. In addition, I must also commend Player 4’s skill in this sealed deck play. Though he did not like the cards he opened, he managed to beat the competition with them.
In FACE OFF: CONFRONTATION, Player 1 and Player 2 joined the Extended format team, Team MT. Likewise, Player 3 and Player 4 formed the Standard team, Team USMM. When I received the results of my survey, I decided that each player play the same set they had previously played in GENISIS. I also came to the conclusion that the deciding factor of this test would be a two-on-two chaos match. Because of this, we all had to choose a time and place that could fit everyone’s schedule. Finally, someone suggested to me that we could all meet on the freshmen portfolio day, because neither of us was a 9th grader (Avohir’s mercy, thank goodness!). so we did not start class until 10:00 am. That day came on March 27, 2000. There we met on a bench and began our match. The players positioned themselves so that each person sat next to or across from a player from an opposing team. Therefore, the turns alternated between Team MT and Team USMM. We decided that each team would share a total of 40 life points, but share nothing else: each individual handled their own ground. This way, both sides would always have a full team because if one person could be “knocked off” because he was teamed up against, then it would be an unfair match for the surviving teammate. Once we started the first round, we all had our problems. First, we had to move from G-Hall to the rally court. Then we dealt with bad draws. Game 1 was a close match, but eventually Team USMM managed to overwhelm Team MT. Game 2 however, was one-sided. It became apparent that Player 4 did not have the lands to keep a steady flow of play. Thus, Team USMM did not have enough defenses to block Team MT’s constant aggression (I never seen a dream fighter deal so much damage in my life!) . Game 3 was a different story. It was a match tighter than the first. What happened was that Player 3 managed to play a Pestilence and the opponents could not do anything about it. As a result, a weenie massacre commenced and much damage was dealt (one activation of Pestilence dealt 1 damage to each player, or 2 damage to each team, taking away 4 life points at a time). Eventually, Team MT had 4 life remaining and Team USMM had 2. Team MT had the advantage, but when Player 2 was about to begin his turn, Player 3 activated Pestilence 2 times, which spelled the end of the game. At the moment, it was a considered a draw (there is a ruling that creates a controversy relating that match, which I will discuss later). Then we went on to Game 4, a round that I did not expect to occur. From the looks of the life progression, it seemed that Team USMM was struggling to stay alive. Meanwhile, Team MT was doing some serious beatdown (This was the first turn of the match; Swamp, Dark Ritual, Dauthi Marauder: not a good sign for Team USMM). At the end, the Extended Team MT prevailed. (Side note: Team USMM could only play with 8 forests, less than what they should have played. This was partly due to the fact that Player 3 had them some hidden place and did not find them on time. For more details, check the “decklist” section at the end of this report to analyze the deck compositions.) To understand how the team pulled it off, we must first examine the cards they used. Player 1 and Player 2 had two opposite decks. Player 1’s deck was a typical Mirage/Tempest deck. It was red and black, full of creature killers and fast attacking creatures such as Dark Banishing, Fevered Convulsions, Aftershock, and Splitting Earth, as well as Dauthi Slayer, Blood Pet, Searing Spear Askari, and Fireslinger. That is basically an “ideal” beatdown deck. Since Mirage and Tempest are fairly “fast” sets, that is, having spells with generally low casting costs, Player 1’s deck was the kind you would expect from these sets. On the other hand, Player 2 had a steady control deck (This is primarily because he loves control decks), which was blue and white (Another sidenote, Player 2 was the only player to use gold cards). Blue and white happen to be the two most defensive colors in Magic, and Mirage and Tempest gives no exception. The cards used managed to balance speed with control. The creatures that Player 2 used had medium to high casting costs. In fact, only Time Warp had a converted casting cost of five or higher out of Team MT’s decks (Team USMM used 10 cards with a converted casting cost of 5 or higher). Another addition to Team MT’s success is Tempest’s ability of shadow. Shadow was a nice evasion ability that Team USMM could not deal with. Team MT used a total of 6 shadow creatures, 3 of them which wrecked havoc on the defenseless defending player. I would also make a note that Player 2 master-planned both of Team MT’s decks, with help from Player 1. Thus, the two deck of Team MT complemented each other and made up for each other’s weaknesses because they focused on different aspects. They won despite having 14 less cards to choose from as well. Going back to the controversial Game 3, I believe that Team MT won that match, making it unnecessary to have fourth match. I have evidence supporting this claim. There are two factors that effect this ruling, the stack rules and the life rule. According to the stack rules from the Classic Sixth Edition Rulebook (the one in the Starter set), “…the things on a stack resolve one at a time, top to bottom” (58). The life total rule is that you start with 20 life, and whenever a player reaches zero life, that player loses the game. There is also the rule that says if a spell or ability causes both players to drop their life total to 0 or less, the game is a draw (48,49). I believe it was the lack of understanding of all three of those rules that misdirected the players at the end of Game 3. You see, Pestilence was in play and Team MT had 4 life and Team USMM had 2 life. Player 3 activated Pestilence twice. When he did, he placed one activation in response to the other, thus creating a stack. Pestilence’s ability has to resolve one at a time, according to stack rules. Even if he did not stack the ability, the result would be the same: one ability happens at a time. Anyway, when the first activation of Pestilence resolved, it dealt 2 damage to each team, therefore bringing Team MT to 2 life and Team USMM to 0 life. At that point, since they would be at 0 life, they would lose, and the second Pestilence activation would fail to resolve because Team USMM already lost. In other words, they cannot do anything when they have zero life because they are already dead.
Almost immediately after CONFRONTATION I prepared for the third part of the project. As soon as I received all the project cards, I divided them up into colors. I removed all the multi-colored and colorless cards that were not basic lands. I decided against using artifacts and non-basic lands because 1) no one uses them anyway, with very rare exceptions, and 2) it would not be fair if one person got a key artifact or land and another person did not. Therefore, I decided to use only mono-colored cards and their corresponding basic lands. When I got the cards back, I did much card counting and organization to make sure I had all the cards back. When I was sure I had all the cards, I totaled the number of cards each person received. Because this part required that each person have a 15- card sideboard, I realized that some people would use all the cards because there was only 75 given to them. The astonishing thing I found was the number of green cards there was- 85! The quantity of green cards (including the colorless forests) did let me ponder the impact it would have in this part of the project. However, I decided to withhold this information so it would not affect the outcome of this experiment. Thus, MANA CLASH, the final part of the FACE OFF’s trilogy, began. Each of the of the players (including the recently-added Player 5) had their own separate deck and worked independently. As the players finished their matches, they recorded their points (and if they did not, I did the work for them). Because of the change in the point system (see FACE OFF: THE QUEST, fourth paragraph) the point totals needed to be recalculated. After the tedious calculations and strenuous telephone calls, here are the results, in ascending order, of how each color performed along with their point totals:
5. Blue- If one word could describe this color, it would be slow. It may have some fast weenies, but in the end, the deck takes too long. There were two problems withholding blue’s effectiveness in this project; high cost, conditional creatures and the hesitation of using countermagic. If you play blue, you have to decide whether to play the creature or wait and see if you want to counter a spell your opponent is playing. If you are tapped out, your countermagic in your hand is temporarily useless, thus making it better discard fodder. With a disastrous loss to all other colors, blue was down for the count, getting only 14 points.
4. Red- With fast creatures, fast creaturekill, and s.r.b.-style cards. Speed is the winning factor with this color. However, the creatures are too weak on the defensive side: they are mainly there for attacking. It has the potential to do early damage, but later in the game it becomes risky to attack or do direct damage. This is a flaw for red. Big beef and regeneration creatures are its greatest adversaries. Though red received the same number of points as blue with 14, it is higher in rank because it managed to beat blue two times in a row.
3. White- If you want to see the best army of weenie creatures, this is the color to get. Almost every creature in white has either a good casting cost to its power/toughness, or a special defensive ability like first strike or protection. The most defensive color against permanents, this color can leave you in an almost imminent stalemate, then make a surprise offensive that you cannot deal with. White is both fast and defensive at the same time, making it adaptable for both short and long games. Beating the two previous colors, white gained 16 points.
2. Black- With the most effective creaturekill of the game, black mainly wins with unblocked creatures, not only with evasion, by also from the lack of defense. The most aggressive color, attacking opponent’s creatures, graveyard, hand, and life total, this color can deal with most other situations. It is also the second fastest color in Magic, allowing it to work well without many lands. This color has very offensive creatures and medium defenses. Defeating its subordinates, black managed to get 18 points.
1. Green- The only color that is left, as you figured out, is green. Green is the fastest color in Magic, with multiple ways to obtain mana. Green also has the largest current creatures. Because of its big creatures, it also has high casting costs. The creatures with mana abilities, however, compensate for this, accelerating its mana base. Like white, green’s creatures are both defensive and fast. Though it is limited on creature control, it does not really need it. Once there is a big green creature on the board, the controller gains the upper hand in the game. In addition, drafts always favor large creatures, so green is the ideal choice to play. Despite the surprising minor loss over blue in the second round, green defeated all the other colors at the end, with the highest score of 20 points, making it the best color to play in limited sealed or draft formats. This result contradicts the recurring myth of black and red superiority in limited play.
The result of this part was almost perfect: no two players beat the same number of opponents, making it easy to rank them. Thus, there were no sudden death matches. It would have been nice to have a sudden death match, but having none just keeps things simple.
In conclusion, the entire FACE OFF project was satisfying in my thirst for knowledge. I, as well as the other participants, learned much in the series. Although the results of this project may not prove conclusively that everything here is true to the world, it does put some thought into mind when determining these kind of Magic comparisons. Human errors may affect the results, because nobody is perfect. We were all inexperienced with this style of playing. After all, this is the first time anyone has done it, I am sure of this. I would also like to thank the participants of this project for being my first lab rats (I mean that in a good way) and cooperating, to some extent, to my relentless demands. If there is any questions concerning this project, please write to me or email me at kennethcheung1@hotmail.com. I may write a separate FAQ page in the near future, if I believe there is enough questions to answer.