39 th place report Eindhoven and the Cornelissen principle.

by Rinke Koopman

Format: Extended

Hi all

I came in 39th in the Grand Prix Eindhoven, earning $250 in amateur prizes. This is a story how a regular player did well at grand prix Eindhoven.

In this article I’ll write a story about preparations for the tournament and the GP itself. The first part is how we figured out which decks to play. In this part, I’ll introduce a principle which I came to call the ‘Cornelissen principle’. The second part is how I ended up tuning the deck list and the third part is the actual tournament report.
In the first weeks of testing, our playtest team tried to figure out the format and the expected metagame. To do so, we wanted to answer three questions

1) Which is the fundamental turn of the format

2) Find out whether Rock, Paper or Scissors was the best

3) Answer the ‘Cornelissen principle’

To answer the first Question, Lets have a quick look at the fundamental turn theory written by magic professor: Zvi Mowshowitz. For convenience, Starcitygames has archived this article here. Have a look, it might be one of the most important articles on magic theory.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=3688

The following are the essentials from the article.
It's the concept of the Fundamental Turn. Whenever I make a deck, I assign it a Fundamental Turn (FT). For beatdown or combination decks, the FT is the turn you kill your opponent. It's an easy concept and you have one number. For a control deck, each aspect can be said to have an FT. But the most important one is the turn in which the deck's strategy begins to work and you make up for any early disadvantage.

Zvi introduces this term, to analyse ones own deck. It can also be used to analyse a format. It is the turn on which the decks that are expected most in a format should win the game. In the case of extended, we set this FT at turn 4. For example, aluren will drop its namesake enchantment and win right there. Goblins can attack with a warchief and 2 piledrivers. Ravager will attack for lethal damage of disciple you out. A sceptre with an imprinted orims chant will lock you out of the game.
Therefore, if one wants to play a competitive deck, it should be able to win on turn 4 in most of its games. Playing a deck that can not accomplish this, means that it is simply not competitive enough in the format.

To answer the second question, we looked at which type of deck (control, combo or aggro) would be the best to play. To do so, we simply set up a chart with the decks that had been doing well at larger tournament. In theory, one should introduce all decks in this chart, but as it is almost impossible to cover all decks, I suggest you simply use the decks in your gauntlet (the decks you expect to do well)

Aggro viable decks: 4
Affinity
RDW
Goblins
Madness

Combo viable decks: 6
Aluren
Minds desire
Life
Cephalid life
Reanimator
Teen titans

Control viable decks: 2
Rock
Scepter chant

Some people will disagree on which decks are competitive, some people will disagree on the type that some decks are given. In this chart for example, one could put sceptre in the combo type, as it tries to win with a combination of card. But that discussion is besides the point of making a chart. Separate playing groups will make separate charts, as they evaluate decks differently.
Usually, people call this chart the rock-paper-scissors metagame. Aggro should beat control, combo should beat aggro, Control should beat combo. In the case of extended, this concept is very outdated. It is based on the fact that control decks run loads of counterspells. As extended is blistering fast, this is simply not the case. In current extended, control decks are under severe pressure from the other two categories. Commonly, they have a very hard time to stop the flood of goblins or the number of threads affinity can play in a single turn and can not afford to play counterspells. The availability of cabal therapy and aether vial make it even harder.
From setting up such a chart, we figured out two things.
Firstly, control decks in general had bad matchups against agro decks and combo decks. Secondly, agro decks had good matchups against most the field, but lost to decks that had the ability to gain a million life.
GP Boston showed this clearly, with 4 decks in top eight that were able to pull this of. Bringing these elements together, we decided that combo decks with a life element were the best to play at the moment in extended.

To answer the last question, we take the ‘Cornelissen’ principle. It is based on these statements Kamiel Cornelissen stated during the necro donate era. Simply enough, he stated two things:

‘Play the best deck’
‘The best deck consists of the highest number of the best cards in extended’.

Now that we figured out which ‘type’ of deck we wanted to play, we had to find the deck which simply holds the highest number of the best cards in extended. So, we tried to figure out which cards those were. We came to the list written below. Again, this analysis will not be the same for every group of players, but it is a method to analyse a format. We came to the conclusion that the following cards are the best in extended, if you want to play a combo deck.

Brainstorm
Cabal therapy
Vampiric tutor

Followed by
Aether Vial
Intuition

Looking back at our list, we came to the conclusion that 2 decks qualified for having the best cards. Aluren and Cephalid life. Now that we figured out what to play, we tested the decks heavily in our gauntlet.

Personally, I took a liking to cephalid life as it showed itself consistently faster than aluren. We fixed this up with playing sakura tribe elder over wall of blossoms, but I still preferred the fishy combo. Secondly, it showed a better resilience against the cards that commonly can hurt combo decks such cabal therapy because of its brainstorms and tutors. Also, it can stand land denial such as wasteland and rishidan port because it only needs few lands and has aether vial to compensate. On the other hand, it had more trouble with specific sideboard cards such as coffin purge,

Also, I had to deal with my personal magic skills, which are not the greatest. This conflicted with the fact that cephalid life has a small suicidal tendency, milling its own library. The version we build also tried to compensate my non-magic pro skills. We came to the following build:

//NAME: Cephalid Breakfast
// land
2 Starlit Sanctum
2 Brushland
2 Yavimaya Coast
1 Caves of Koilos
2 Underground River
2 Tarnished Citadel
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
3 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
// mana stuff
4 AEther Vial
// combo men
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
3 Cephalid Illusionist
1 Shaman en-Kor
1 Sutured Ghoul
2 Krosan Cloudscraper
2 Krosan Reclamation
1 Dragon Breath
1 Reanimate
1 Exhume
1 Worthy Cause
// search
4 Brainstorm
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Vampiric Tutor
2 Living Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Cephalid Illusionist
SB: 1 Daru Spiritualist
SB: 1 Nomads en-Kor
SB: 1 Forsaken City
SB: 1 Starlit Sanctum

SB: 1 Dragon Wings
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 Unspeakable Symbol

SB: 1 gilded drake
SB: 1 Bone Shredder
SB: 1 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Stern Proctor
SB: 1 Kami of Ancient Law
SB: 1 Viridian Shaman
SB: 1 Blinkmoth Well

Im not stating this is the best build for the deck, it is simply the build I ended up playing. Most remarkable are the 2 krosan reclamations and 2 krosan cloudscrapers. The double reclamations was to have an out, when opponents where able to fight off the ghoul with a topdecked card and the double cloudscraper is simply to prevent me from having to do the exact math. In the sideboard, you can find some cards to deal with very specific cases. Ray of revelation deals with active pernicious deeds, which could blow up the dragonbreath on your ghoul. The unspeakable symbol can speed up wins after one goes to a million lifes, by throwing a overly large cleric to your opponents faces through the sanctum. The blinkmoth well is your out against sceptres with a chant or counterspell.

Now, on to the report. As I said, im a regular player, so I started without any byes.

Round one
Aluren
In the first game, I keep a hand with a turn 3 kill. Sadly, my opponent has the first turn birds of paradise and decides that he should win on turn three and not I.
In the second game, I keep a hand with double living wish and no aether vial. This made me vulnerable to cabal therapy, as it is quite easy for him to make the correct call after a wish. My hand gets stripped and he combos me out before I can draw some tutor effects to recover.

Matches 0-1

Round two: Affinity
My opponent plays a variant with cranial plating, which is harder to deal with. He explodes his hand on the table on turn 2 and drops a nexus. The combo of daru spiritualist and nomads en-kor can hold him offhis ground forces, but the nexus flies over for lethal damage.
In the second game, my opponent play a engineered plague on wizards, locking illusionist from the game. In the following turn, I manage to go toa million life. As my opponent figures a draw will only hurt his record, he concedes.
In the third game my opponent drops a turn 2 ravager and a frogmite, where I get a turn 1 nomad and turn 2 illusionist. The reanimate in my hand smiles at me. A city of brass and a caves of koilos have been eating my life total and I am at 11 lives. He adds a disciple to his board of 7 artifacts and attacks. As the ravager and the forgmite can go lethal, I block both. After damage goes on the stack, I have to figure out how to possibly win this match. The disciple makes it impossible to play the reanimate for the win and I don’t have enough life components on the table to pull that off. I still won that game. I targeted the illusionist once at a time, dropping 3 cards in my grave. Piece by piece, the combo parts fell in the grave. 1 sutured ghoul, 1 dragon breath, 2 cloudscrapers and the necessary number of 1 power dudes to make a 33/33 ghoul, as he can sac artifacts to get a total of 13 toughness. More importantly, the single exhume in my deck stayed in the library. On my turn, I draw a irrelevant card. I cast the brainstorm I was still holding Of the city of brass (10 life) and lady fortuna smiles at me showing me the third land I need and the exhume. Tapping the caves (9) I play exhume. My opponent sacs a frogmite to a ravager to drop me to (8). His 7 artifacts in play can not kill me and the 33/33 hastes over to deal the exact 20 damage and take a match against all mathematical odds.

Matches 1-1

Round three: Affinity
This time I meet a very young player playing affinity. He tells me this is his first tournament and explains he lost a affinity mirror because he doesn’t know how the stack works. Again he drops his hand swiftly, but the team of nomads and spiritualist holds off the offense. I end up with 6 life. To make sure he can’t shrapnel blast me out, I stack a city of brass trigger before going to a million life. He asks me, is he can win with the blast in his hand and after some explanations he see why not. After a few more turns, he asks me what to do now, as he can’t win. After explaining to him he is allowed to concede he does so.
In game 2, he taps out on his third turn and a turn 3 ghoul comes over for the kill. Explaining how that works took some time, but all was clear in the end. Lastly I told him that he should notify a judge that he did not have a sideboard registered. He simply didn’t have one.

Matches 2-1

Round four: Aluren
This time the cabal therapy can not hurt me, as I can vial in a nomads and put a cephalid on the top of my library. I win on turn 4 after therapy ensure he cant win on turn 4.
In game two, he goes off on turn 4. In attempt to stop him there I play a SBed melding mage in response to a harpy. He responds by playing a familiar and tops another harpy. Its happy sailing for him from there on.
In game three, He goes for living wish on turn 2 for a academy rector. The therapy in my hands gets an easy call and the follwing turn I can drop my library in the grave and rid him of his other combo pieces. A topdecked brainstorm does not bring him the necessary pieces and a ghoul cleans up.

Matches 3-1

Round five: Goblins
In game one, the infinitely big walls keep the goblins at bay and a worthy cause ensures the win. In both game 2 and 3, he sneaks in a vortex on turn 3. In both games, I went for the life road, but I don’t get the time to find the sided in ray or ancient kami and die to the vortex. After the match, he gniffles and shows me he only runs two.

Matches 3-2

Round six: affinity
In this match, I did not see a single plating on a flier. In the first game I took 4 damage from his creatures and 9 from my tarnished citadel before going to infinite life. After some turns, my opponent decides he cant win and scoops. In the second game, I hit infinite life again before he can kill me. He complains and asks me how I am going to win. I point at his thoughtcast and tell him he will deck himself. He agrees and scoops.

Matches 4-2

Round seven: madness
Ah, your best matchup. Madness lacks pressure until turn 3 and tries to prevent you from winning by logics and daze. Aether vial and cabal therapy prevent that plan. They can only win if the get a first turn mox and mongrel. He doesn’t and twice I hit a million life before he gets some real pressure on the table.

Matches 5-2

Round eight: madness
He starts with a first turn mox mongrel and I start the game of a tarnished citadel and a brainstorm. He pick up speed by dropping a rootwalla, where the brainstorm gave me a brushland and a vial. He discard a wonder as I vial out a spiritualist to attempt to block. He drops me to three. On mine, I can drop a second vial and a sanctum. On the next turn, I can vial out a cephalid and desperately shuffle away his wonder, so I can block the 2 critters. I need to find another land to wish for a nomad and go to a million. Off the top comes the nomad himself. I can go to a million after going to one and force the concession.
In the second game, I therapy a stifle away before hitting a million life on turn 4.

Matches 6-2
Round nine: Aluren

Once again, the 4 mana enchantment deck. In win the dize and drop my library on turn 3. some therapies ensure the win.
In the second game, a similar game is played. As I collect the nomad and the cephalid, I therapy him for aluren. He is holding a naturalize and a cranial extraction and has the mana to play either. The second therapy hits the extraction. He draws and says go. I put the reanimate on top of my library and play it, putting me at 4 life. I could have morphed the 2nd cloudscaper from my hand and used the third therapy to strip his naturalize, but I miss sadly that playHe naturalizes. He draw a card and plays a gilded drake, stealing my ghoul. says go thinking he already won the game. My 2nd reclamation puts two living wish on top. I wish for my own gilded drake and steal the ghould back. Sadly, in the process I gave him too many spirits and I get beaten down by dorky one/ones.
In the second game, I get the vial, tutor for a nomad in the upkeep of turn 2. he senses the third turn kill and sacrifices a battleground to cast a cranial extraction. After some thought I let it resolve and he calls krosan reclamation. This is the correct call as it should keep my from going off and wrecking the leftovers of his hand, but in this case the reanimate in my hand ensures the turn 3 kill.

Matches 7-2
I make day 2 in 93rd place, with horrid tiebreakers because of my round one loss.

Day 2

Round ten: RDW
After twelve hours of play, five hours of little sleep I am happy to face a deck which wont make me think too much. Against RDW, you win or lose, singly depending on the hands and possibly on their (bad) plays. In the first game, he keeps a slow hand but my double mulligan can not keep up, even though my sleepy opponent tries to burn out a daru with an active vial. The shaman enkor comes to the rescue, but in the end I miss a single life point to combo him out, I lose to red burn spells.
In the second game, I therapy him for volcanic hammer seeing a vortex, but no direct burn spell. He frowns when I decide not to sacrifice a nomad to rid of the vortex which he plays on turn three. As he is tapped out, I can tutor for an exhume and drop a cephalid to combo him out on that turn.
In the third game, I hit infinite life on turn 3. We have about twenty minutes left, but my opponents tries to stall the game out. A call for a judge prevents this and we start heading for draw go. After a few turns and some vampiric tutors I get the symbol. I vial out a cleric and drop a 100/100 in his face.

Matches 8-2

Round eleven
Tooth and Nail with elves

For the first time, I don’t know what Im up against when he drops forest, llanowar elf. A turn 3 tooth and nail on kiki and duplicant makes that clear enough and I scoop turn 3.
In the second game I mulligan to five and miss a combo piece. He gets out a symbiot and a multani acolyte and starts drawing cards. A therapy on tooth and nail keeps him from going off. In the course of a few turns, he draws approx 12 extra cards with multiple symbiots and acolytes. Because his mana is drawing cards, he cant really build a force and I get the time to find a worldy tutor. I drop my libr and therapy him for living wish, seeing a naturalize which I therapy this time. I wish for the medling mage to prevent him to play an eternal witness to get back any of his cards. He starts drawing cards again and finds a living wish for spike weaver. I reclamate to put 1 living wish on top and wish for a gilded drake to take his weaver. In his turn, he starts drawing and plays another living wish for platinum angel. At the end of his, I reclamate for living wish and reanimate, while his weaver is keeping me safe from the creatures that are piling up on my opponents board. I top de reanimate and have say go. Even thoug he gets a cradle and again draws about 4 cards, he cant find a win condition. In my turn, I set the vial to 3, vial out a shaman to deal with the angel. Therapy for naturalise and come in with a flying big ghoul.
In the last game, he plays t2 rofellos. I have to chose to go for the turn 3 kill, or play a medling on tooth and nail, preventing him to win. This costs me the valuable counter on a ice bridge, but prevents him from possibly winning. I never find another colored land with a brainstorm and cant go off. My opponent builds an army and kills me on turn 4 of the extra turns.

Matches 8-3

Round twelve: Madness
Not much to tell here. This matchup is just too onesided to repeat the story. I hit infinite life game one. Mulligan to 4 in game 2 and lose. And go to infinite life and throw a big cleric in his face on in game 3.

Matches 9-3

Round thirteen: scepter chant / draco
This is one of your harder matchups. This deck runs so many instants that u need to luck out on your calls with therapy, as they can have chant, fire/ice, or any counterspell to prevent u to combo out with your deck in the grave. Against regular sceptre, u can wait to set up a good hand and give it a go, but In game one he shows me that that plan isn’t going to work, as he explosions me out on turn 4.
The second game follows the same pattern, as he tries to explosion me on turn 4, I shuffle his library after he tutors the draco on top. He still hit me for 4 with a fire/ice, which makes a win through reanimate impossible. To win, I need to topdeck a 4th land, to enable a reclamation and exhume on the next turn. It doesn’t happen as the cloudscraper shows up.

Matches 9-4

Round fourteen: madness
Jada jada jada
I actually ghoul him out twice, as he doesn’t get a better hand than land mox looter in either game.

Matches 10-4

Round fifteen: Goblins
Revenge on the green men. In the first game, he plays a tangle wire. At the end of his turn, I vial out a shaman and during my main phase I vial out a illusionist, ready to drop my library and reclamate for a reanimate on the next turn. I can therapy only once, as the wire would tap me out during my next upkeep. The only thing than can win for him is a warchief out of him vial, which can move up to 3 in his upkeep. The therapy misses, but he tops it and attacks for enough to prevent me from reanimating a ghoul. I die with no outs
In the second game, I tutor to a exhume and can combo him out in a single turn, not having to fear a mogg fanatic putting reclamated cards back in the grave.
In the last game, I find the pieces to go to infinite life with a living wish as he misses to tap one of my lands with his port. After I hit a million life, he ponders after being giving the turn. After I count to ten I call a judge for watching slow play with ten minutes on the clock. A judge arrives, but my opponent waves him off and concedes. I had no clue why, for I hadn’t found a win condition at all. Guess I got lucky again.

Matches 11-4

I get 39th of my bad tiebreakers but make some amateur money, which is nize.

So,
That’s the whole story

Props
Playtesting team
Ruben Snijdewind for testing a load
Maarten ferguson for testing some more
Wilco Pinkster for a little testing

And to my friends for borrowing me the cards to play this deck.

Slops
Ruben, for losing 4 matches after going 11-0

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