Articles

Scott Landis

As I began to do my research on Core at the World Championships in Atlanta, it was impossible for me to not reflect on my own experiences in Core during the same tournament. I'm going to begin at the end of the story: I did not make Day 2 of the World Championship purely because of the Core format where I went 2-3 instead of the 3-2 I needed. The question everyone asked, including myself, was "Why?"

"If your senses are numbed with delusion and denial, you will stop looking for these true strengths and wind up living a second-rate version of someone's life rather than a world-class version of your own."
-Donald O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths

The answer is very complicated and I think offers advice for any tournament player. The fault was not my choice in decks, since many of my teammates played the exact list to a 4-1 record. Nor was it mistakes made with the deck, as I felt we had tested and tweaked it to account for the aggressive metagame. Was the deck the right choice for a metagame defined by Monster Hunter? Maybe not, but again, others did fine with the deck. Was I on the play a lot with the deck? No, but again, many of my friends did quite well starting on the draw all day long. I will come back to this point later but again this was not the overwhelming factor.

I did not make Day 2 of the World Championship (admittedly for the fourth year in a row, as Worlds is just NOT my tournament apparently) for many reasons, but the most important factor is that it is my own fault. There is no one to blame but myself. If I am not self-reflective on this event and blame it on outside factors, I will not grow as a player. You have to understand your weaknesses and tendencies and build to your strengths, not solve your weaknesses. This was the biggest factor, and something I have grown to learn in TCG gaming and in life. Build to your strengths; do not solve your weaknesses.

Before I get into specifics, here is the deck I ran in Core, one that I would still recommend overall to the player community and should be in your playtest gauntlet going forward:

Hero: Wildseer Varel

Allies:
4 Thrall the World-Shaman
4Faenis the Tranquil
4 [Edwin VanCleef
4 Vanessa VanCleef
3 General Husam
4 Thadrus, Shield of Telrassil
4 Stormwind Summoner
4 Nasala Silvertree

Abilities:
4 Mooshard
4 Malfurion's Gift
1 Mark of Restoration

Equipment:
4 Bottled Life
4 Tyrande's Favorite Doll
4 Viewless Wings

Quests:
4 The Path to the Dragon Soul

Locations:
4 Shadowfang Keep

*note, you will see the similarities to the undefeated Contemporary lists my teammates Matt Walsh and Chris Reilkoff ran in this Core list

"But if you find yourself thinking in the future, if you find yourself actually anticipating the activity-'When can I do this again?'-it is a pretty good sign that you are enjoying it and that one of your talents is in play."
-Donald O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths

Are there changes I should have made to this list? Sure. Could I have run Lord Kur'talos Ravencrest if I expected as much Distraction Technique Rogue? Sure. I am not here to look at the specific card choices as the reason I failed, that is the entire point. My point is that for me personally, this was not the right deck for me, even though it could do very powerful things (especially in the early game).

This deck was entirely dependent on its opening seven cards. If you did not play a high-impact three drop on turn 2 (aided by either Shadowfang Keep or Tyrande's Favorite Doll) you were behind in the matchup, especially on the draw. This was an improvement on the deck my teammates and I ran at DMF Indianapolis, since only Shadowfang Keep was viable to power out the three drop on turn 2. The format this time, with Monster Hunter as the main enemy deck, was simply too aggressive to overcome unless you were able to impact the board faster than they could. Efficiency was not the key. Speed was. Or at least we assumed it was because for me personally, this deck seemed to fit the bill. You want to play a Child of Agamaggan on turn 2? Sure, I'll play a Thadrus, Shield of Telrassil or Nasala Silvertree. Who wins in that one? What happens when you do not draw your accelerant on turn 1? What happens if you draw too many of them and no ally to power out on turn 2? You see, if you draw your opening seven and do not see a hand like that staring back at you, chances are you have few ways of actually coming back to win in the game. In fact, the deck has so few two drops, you almost had to drop a three drop on turn 2 or risk being without a turn 2 play. Again, this is not an indictment of the strategy, which is powerful, but leaving yourself with so few options and being entirely "first seven cards" dependent is not the way I personally succeed at this game.

You see, at the center of my card playing, I am a control player. I have been playing trading card games competitively for close to twenty years and it was not always with a control deck in hand. In fact, for the first few years playing the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, I played exclusively aggressive decks, playing into the mechanics of the game where allies and heroes could choose where to attack and damage was permanent until healed. It did not make sense for me to turn to control archetypes in this game until much later in its design, specifically after the breakout of the Varanis Bitterstar based Mage Control strategies that dominated the Scourgewar era of the game. Even this year I played control where I thought it was the right call for the metagame. In Contemporary I played an Arcane Potency based Horde Mage deck to a 3-1 record, a deck that several of my teammates could not win at all with in playtesting, losing consistently to the Alliance Hunters that dominated the format. That is a very important point. I played a deck that others either could not replicate the success or believed was inferior, people whose opinions I trusted, and yet my own self-confidence in the archetype propelled me to a deck choice that resulted in a 3-1 record.

This deck in Core was not a control deck. If anything, it was a mid-range combo deck.

"But if you find yourself thinking in the future, if you find yourself actually anticipating the activity-'When can I do this again?'-it is a pretty good sign that you are enjoying it and that one of your talents is in play."
-Donald O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths

Again, I am not saying this was a bad deck choice, it was just not the right choice for me. I play each game like I am behind, trying to find the ways and combinations of cards to climb back into the game and win the long game. This is not a deck for this, even though it has some elements of that I thought I could rely on, with Malfurion's Gift. I could not spend my first few turns controlling the board in order to make mid to late game pushes that put me in a position where it was impossible to lose. I did not outdraw all of my opponents, pushing my late game card advantage over their early aggression and tempo.

Every deck is prone to bad draws or being much better on the play versus the draw. These are excuses, however. I needed to understand how to adapt this deck to my style and constant state of mind or choose a different deck. I did this in Contemporary, analyzing the format from a control player's point of view and "solving it" in a way that was satisfactory to me. Core was a relatively unknown metagame, and even if I not expecting the overwhelming amount of Monster Hunters to be played, it was generally considered the default aggressive deck in the format. It definitely became the "beat this deck or start over" type of measuring stick, but I thought that angle was covered. Again, as a control player you can never overcompensate enough for your public enemy number one. I did not approach the tournament with that in mind.

My fellow writer Corey Burkhart summed up my feelings in one of his latest articles on Daily Metagame, as he talked about his Core deck:

"I fully believe the psychology behind playing a deck you like because you'll play better with something you're comfortable with. Maybe this means that the deck you choose is not the best deck for the tournament, but as long as the deck you choose has a decent shot against most the field, I'd take that over some deck you absolutely hate but is the best in the field. Many other people will disagree with this, and say you should always take the deck that has the best percentages in the field. But this is coming from a math guy: I'll take the feel or read every day of the week."

I could not agree more with this statement, and for the last few years at Worlds, not following this advice seems to be my own undoing. Again, I could blame it on outside factors, but in the end I would only be lying to myself. My choice of decks did not fit my playstyle and I suffered because of it.

So what should I have done differently? Well, as a control player, I should have just sought to attack the metagame starting at point one. This is going to read like a short "guide to building control decks" but it bears out nonetheless. Step One was to identify the correct build of the best aggro deck, or the best list for Monster Hunter. I already did that a few weeks ago right here so that step was complete. Next was to build decks specifically to beat it over 60% of the time on the play or the draw. Notice I said "build decks", not to modify existing ones we had been testing for weeks. DMF Shanghai offered a great opportunity for a control deck builder like myself and I squandered the opportunity. I should have kept building various control decks until I was satisfied in that matchup and then moved that deck to test against other potential matchups. Granted, this was difficult in the generally unknown metagame, but considering I eventually faced FOUR Monster Hunters in the Core rounds, it would have been a fine strategy. Creating the rest of the metagame would have been a challenge, but again a Control deck would give me more confidence entering those unknown metagame rounds. Even though you may not have every single answer for every single problem, having the card drawing to get myself out of the situation and the universal answer cards would have put me at ease.

This is not to say that playing a control deck was right in this Core metagame, but it was right for ME. If you were an aggro player that loved beating down with green men, this was the format for you! An aggressive player would have known when to keep pressuring their opponent, putting themselves in a position to draw that Legacy of the Legion for the win in the mid to late game. Not me, however.

If you speak to other players, they may tell you different stories. They may say that you should be able to play "the best deck" you find as long as you have enough time to practice with it and internalize it. You should not handicap yourself from playing a certain deck just because it does not fit your style. In a vacuum that is great advice, but not the type I can subscribe to. I am sure there will be many in the forums that feel this way, but I only know myself and I cannot approach a major tournament in that way. Does that make me a weaker player than the elites? It probably does. In the end, however, coming to the table with a mental edge due to familiarity with the play style of your deck is just as important as familiarity with the deck itself.

"You know what that means? It's Latin. Means, 'Know thyself.'"
-The Oracle to Neo, The Matrix

There needs to be a distinction on style. This does not mean you can say "I am a Mage Player," or "I am a Shaman player" and always find a deck within those classes for each metagame. This is about which end of the aggro to control spectrum you find yourself on. Chances are R&D made it possible to find a deck archetype within these categories. It is only up to us to discover them.

You do not have to build your own decks. You do not need to be a fantastic deck builder in an unknown metagame. You do not need a team of deck builders trying out every combination that sticks. You just need to be confident and knowledgeable about your own strengths and weaknesses as a player. Weaknesses in your game do not always need to be overcome, they can simply be ignored. You need to build and play decks that specifically play to your own strengths. You cannot rely on others to simply tell you that xyz deck is the "best deck." You have to know it is the best deck for you! You need to understand your limitations, and do not always work to overcome them, just over compensate for them with your natural talents. Embrace your natural advantages, do not abandon them! Learn from my mistakes and succeed!

-Scott

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