Top-Notch Tech: Evolution Brian Kibler Charles Darwin had the Galapagos Islands. Magic players have PTQ seasons. What's the relevance? Both are wonderful resources to observe the phenomenon of evolution. Thankfully, those of us interested in evolution in Magic don't have to examine hundreds of years records to draw our conclusions, whereas Darwin, I'm sure, spent countless hours in the field. Magic time blazes by at lightning speed, sometimes so quickly that what was "tech" this week is obsolete next week. Nowhere can this be observed more poignantly than in the rapidly evolving metagame of Pro Tour Qualifier seasons, where the most successful players are those who not only read up on the popular decks on the internet, but take those decks one step further. That coveted Pro Tour invitation goes not to those who show up each week with the deck that won last time, but rather to those who show up with the deck that BEATS last week's winner. Evolution in action. Only the strong survive. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." - Isaac Newton The strategy discussion on the internet surrounding the IBC season for Pro Tour-New Orleans has many remarkable examples of this kind of evolution, some so blatant that they're almost gift-wrapped for an analysis like this one. Articles written about the format in the "early days" - as nearly everything before these past few weeks of Grand Prix can be collectively grouped into - are almost no longer useful except as documents to chart the course of Magic history. Even previous editions of this column have become dated not long after their initial posting, much to my chagrin when replying to emails regarding the "tech" my posted decks are lacking. I can do little more than smile, nod, and tip my hat to those who go the step beyond the frameworks I provide. The phenomenon of evolution permeates IBC to the core, but nowhere is it more prevalent than in the development of the base-green tempo decks that emerged at the very first PTQs of the season. My previous examination of this archetype, which can be found here , is already woefully out of date, mere weeks after its initial posting. The tempo deck, which many have come to call "Air Bears" due to its use of Gaea's Skyfolk, the flying Grizzly Bear, morphed from a deck designed almost solely around the exploitation of time advantage cards such as Mystic Snake, Repulse, and Rushing River, into a solid aggro-control deck that is able to merge these tempo elements with cards that are powerful in their own right. While the original deck was nearly unbeatable when it established an advantage due to its ability to press this advantage with an overwhelming concentration of bounce spells, its ability to work from a disadvantaged or parity position was much less impressive. This weakness is a near fatal one in a format defined by 2/2 creatures for two mana, particularly against decks like g-r that are decidedly faster and more aggressive. Compounded with a near inability to deal with certain popular creatures in the format - such as Spectral Lynx and Voice of All - you have a recipe for failure. Or, perhaps, the foundation for success. The first showing of the tempo deck with new ingredients was at the Friday PTQ at the World Championships in Toronto, where Ben Stark (not to be confused with Saturday PTQ Finalist and everyone's favorite Australian, Ben Seck) ran the tables with a u-g-r design that seemed to plug all the holes of the previous archetype. The largely suboptimal Rushing Rivers and Temporal Springs were gone, replaced by Urza's Rages and Fire/Ice, while Flametongue Kavu found a home in the sideboard. Rather than simply bouncing everything the opponent plays, the u-g-r deck can take them out of the game for good, which makes recovering from a disadvantaged position with this deck much easier than with its ancestor. Fire, in particular, strengthens the deck enormously against g-r designs, as well as providing a way to deal with pesky pro-color creatures, while the Ice half improves the deck's ability to seize tempo advantage against slower control strategies. Ben Stark Main Deck Sideboard 4 Shivan Oasis 4 Shivan Reef 4 Yavimaya Coast 6 Island 6 Forest 4 Blurred Mongoose 4 Gaea's Skyfolk 4 Mystic Snake 4 Kavu Titan 4 Repulse 4 Fact or Fiction 4 Fire/Ice 4 Urza's Rage 4 Exclude 3 Dodecapod 4 Gainsay 4 Jungle Barrier 4 Flametongue Kavu But even this design did not remain the standard for long, and a mere week later Dave Price took up his trusty Mystic Snakes and Blurred Mongooses and piloted them to a 7-0 run in Grand Prix-Denver, flying high until a tiebreaker disaster ended his run at the Top 8. Price, always the King of Beatdown, decided that Fact or Fiction just didn't fit in the deck, citing its lack of impact on board position, although those of us in the know realize it was just because Dave couldn't stomach playing a card that doesn't deal damage. In came Prophetic Bolt, a card that has quietly become an IBC superstar, capable of knocking off almost any creature in the format or going straight to the dome for a quick four points of damage, all the while not only providing card advantage, but improving card quality with its Impulse effect. Bolt contributed to the deck becoming significantly more aggressive, providing for an efficient means to finish off the work a turn two Mongoose began. David Price "Monkey, May I?" Main Deck Sideboard 6 Forest 6 Island 4 Shivan Reef 4 Shivan Oasis 4 Yavimaya Coast 4 Blurred Mongoose 4 Gaea's Skyfolk 4 Kavu Titan 4 Mystic Snake 4 Repulse 4 Exclude 4 Fire/Ice 4 Urza's Rage 4 Prophetic Bolt 4 Jungle Barrier 4 Flametongue Kavu 4 Gainsay 3 Tranquility The differences seem cosmetic, but the results are tremendous. Price finished ninth, at 10-2-1, while Stark (piloting a maindeck identical to the one he qualified with) posted an unimpressive 55th place finish. Price's heroic effort (and tragic fall) did not go unnoticed elsewhere in the world, and just this past weekend Jose Echeverria posted a Top 8 finish in Chile with Price's exact decklist, while champion Matias Gabrenja simply shaved off a Repulse, Exclude, and an Urza's Rage to fit a trio of Fact or Fictions back in, walking away with the title and amateur prize. A tremendous accomplishment, to be sure, and one that owes a great deal to Stark and Price, and even all the way back to Bill Fleming, who is credited with the creation of the original g-u IBC tempo deck. Evolution in action - standing on the shoulders of giants. This sort of evolution can be seen everywhere in the format - g-u-r is simply the most prominent example. Go-Mar builds, for instance, have undergone tremendous upheavals in construction since the beginning of the season. My initial Go-Mar article was, admittedly, off by miles as to the common components of the deck for this qualifying season, and that's due in large part to the metagame shifts that have taken place since that article's publication. Most Go-Mar designs have eschewed the big dragon entirely, going with full complements of Meddling Mages or Galina's Knights and Spectral Lynxes to combat the Grizzly Bear-defined field, and some players have had success with a Go-Mar-Solution hybrid, occasionally referred to as "Dark Solution". Upping the black mana component of the traditional Solution decks (which generally play Caves of Koilos simply to regenerate Spectral Lynx), these decks support a larger counter base than Solution but a higher concentration of creatures than Go-Mar. Designed to play the aggro-control game to the hilt, these decks fight the Grizzly Bear battle with twelve two-drops of their own, while retaining enough late-game punch to beat the control decks in the format due to their higher-than-average countermagic count. Andres Hojman No-Mar Main Deck Sideboard 4 Caves of Koilos 4 Salt Marsh 4 Coastal Tower 1 Dromar's Cavern 5 Island 3 Swamp 3 Plains 3 Stormscape Apprentice 4 Spectral Lynx 4 Meddling Mage 4 Galina's Knight 1 Desolation Angel 4 Undermine 4 Vindicate 4 Dromar's Charm 4 Fact or Fiction 4 Disrupt 3 Exclude 4 Gainsay 2 Crypt Angel 3 Crimson Acolyte 2 Lobotomy 1 Rout The inclusion of four copies of Disrupt in the maindeck is a clear sign of metagame evolution. As the decks to beat in the format become more clearly defined, the value of particular cards shifts drastically. Disrupt is one of these. In a format in which seven of the Top 8 decks in back-to-back Grand Prix have at least three copies of Fact or Fiction, and all but ONE of these sixteen decks has a blue component in some form, Disrupt is an extremely powerful choice, allowing you to "walk into" Excludes with your bears on turn three, as well as requiring extreme attention to mana management on the part of your opponent. It's also a potent psychological tool, causing players to make otherwise poor strategic decisions for fear of giving you a free card. With g-r aggression the only popular deck in the format against which Disrupt is a poor card, the maindeck may the appropriate place for it. The same can be said of Gainsay, as Geno Buffi showed at GP-Denver, finishing in the Top 16 with three in his maindeck. The last Extended PTQ season saw maindeck Pyroblasts carry a number of players to qualifying finishes - perhaps this year Gainsay will do the same. But if everyone plays Gainsays, all of a sudden g-r will start to win, and the cycle begins anew. The key is not to ride the wave of metagame evolution, but to be at the head of it. Morgan Douglass won many a game by virtue of his opponents not playing around maindeck Disrupts in the Saturday PTQ at Worlds, and I'm sure Geno Buffi stole at least a few with his maindeck Gainsays - he certainly worked me with them in our match at the GP. Don't just test to figure out if this deck beats that deck - test and figure out WHY this deck beats that deck, and then see what you can do about it. Evolution in action. Only the strongest survive. If you have any specific questions about this article, feel free to email me at majesk@aol.com. Please be patient - I'm still digging out from my Worlds backlog, and it may take me a while to respond, but I will. Also, my thanks to everyone who voted for me for the 2001 Magic Invitational. I'll do my best to make myself deserving of your support.