This week’s adventures in the fog were considerably more successful than they were previously. There were four rounds again, against Esper (BWU artefacts), Naya aggro (RGW), Vampires and finally Zombies. I finished with a 2-1-1 record.

Before I do my post-game analysis I want to say a little bit about the list I ran.

Misty Rainforest has become something of a pet of mine. I like it for a number of reasons. It’s a superb mana fixer, obviously. Need an Island? Have one. Short of green sources? This Forest will see you good. It seems like an auto 4-of for decks running blue and green. They’re a premium card and as such are fun to play and convey a certain cowbell; running a playset says something about how serious you are as a competitive player. Some of these reasons are better than others.

I was doing some playtesting with Kabira Crossroads to see how right Calafell was about them and swapped them in for some white sources but they didn’t work – I was still getting screwed for white. Then I swapped out the fetchlands. This stung a little at first but when I saw the difference it made that soon changed. It seems counter-intuitive that swapping out a fetchland for an Enters the Battlefield Tapped magical-life-gain land would make the mana base more consistent but that is exactly what happened. Suddenly I could play fogs and wraths when I needed them. The extra life was also useful to my staying alive long enough to mill strategy.

I’ve read the advice not to get emotionally attached to cards a million times and now I’ve finally listened. I’m worried I might have to cut Luminarch Ascension because it has never done anything unless I’m already going to win and if I do it’s going to sting. They only came online if my fogs were working and if my fogs were working my turbo engine was also working. The ascensions were pointless.

Oh, and how right was Calafell? Very right. That 2 life gain a couple of times a game is equivalent to half a fog in combination with the right plays.

Down to business.

Round 1

My first match was against Esper. My opponent’s deck was seriously aggressive and had some rather cunning removal. It was probably missing some control magic, though. A well timed counter of a fog effect on a 16 damage attack would have been useful.

My opponent scooped the first game after a few turns then boarded in his card removal, taking cards out of my hand and exiling them. Despite this I Archive Trapped him down to an empty library on my own turn. End of turn he dropped a draw effect and committed suicide. Losing on your own terms has a certain appeal, I guess.

2-0.

Round 2

Naya aggro: my favourite. A slow deck running fat creatures, mana producers and sorceries. First game he couldn’t stop Jace’s ultimate and conceded to an inevitable milling. Second game he killed Jace but had no answer to my Luminarch Ascension. I had 3 Angels on the table and 6 white mana free at the end of his facing down his single tapped flyer. He denied me my 6 Angels and conceded.

One thing of note here is that this is the first time I’d managed to get my Luminarch Ascensions online and producing Angels. My newly designed mana base was clearly helping me with my secondary plan as well as my fog effect, although it remains to be seen how much longer the secondary plan will last.

2-0 and 2-0 in matches.

Round 3

Black White vampires.

This deck has all manner of tricks for card advantage and is an awkward matchup for Turbofog. Mind Sludge, Vampire Hexmage, Haunting Echoes… They’re all horrible. First game I was thoroughly beaten by card advantage of various breeds and therefore being unable to fog.

Second game I boarded in Baneslayer Angels, which actually changed the game. My opponent declined to attack into them (I had a pair on the table) and after clearing away his only flyer a single attack changed life scores from 25-13 my favour to 35-3. Shortly after he conceded to an inevitable milling.

This game saw one of my favourite plays of the evening. I was targetted with a Mind Sludge so I Responded with a free Archive Trap, a Fog and an Into the Roil on an Oblivion Ring on my Baneslayer. I thought this was particularly neat as I advanced all three elements of the deck.

1-1, taking me to 2-0-1.

Round 4

Black Zombies. I needed this to go in my favour to finish first and I was reasonably confidant that it would.

I never had control of this match. Both games saw aggressive, high damage swings from the start. My final play in the match was Day of Judgment followed by an upkeep Silence followed by my opponent unearthing a million or so zombies for a fatal swing against no fogs. I wish I could remember more of the specifics of this match but many of the cards were from Alara and were unfamiliar to me.

0-2 for a 2-1-1 record.

Parting Shots

I’ve learned a lot about Magic over the last few weeks of playing Turbofog. Make the right play at the right time, know yourself and your opponent, that kind of thing. I’ve also learned that I love the kind of Magic that involves minimal interaction, that allows your opponent to play out their game then nullifies their efforts. When I used to play years ago, before my hiatus, I had most fun with blue control and my favourite card was the white Limited Resources, but that was as nothing compared to this way of playing. It’s official guys: I’m a griefer.

Having made the changes to the deck I took it for a ride.

It performed horribly, mostly. I had matchups against BW life-loss, Boros, Boros with land destruction and White weenie. I have identified 2 main problems with the deck.

Problem 1

When you’re running a deck that prevents damage, what do you do about life-loss? Let me tell you: you die. Sorin Markov, Tainted Sigel, Sanguine Bond. This deck is a really bad match up but I’m putting it down to a quandary that needs to be solved rather than an auto-scoop but it’s a deck I’m likely to play against reasonably often so I’d like to solve the quandary.

Problem 2

The deck has serious mana issues. It simply does not have enough white mana available and too much blue. The deck is actually much more in White than at first appears. It’s running Day of Judgement, for God’s sake! This card may very well see play in the same turn as a Luminarch Ascension. DoJ often needs to be followed up with Silence on the opponent’s turn. One White source really does not cut it. (It’s funny how White seems to be an invisible colour in deck building, or is that just for me?) Green seems just about balanced considering I’m ostensibly splashing it for four Fogs. I made a trade last night to get a pair of Sunpetal Groves which will replace one Island and one Forest.

Overall I did not have a good time last night. I had a 1-3 record, got splattered by fast aggro and life loss and land destruction keep me off my balance. I need to focus on my mana base and I need find answers to life loss and annoying permanents like Pithing Needle and Oblivion Ring.

This is an update to my adventures in Turbofog. For the deck list I used to play the games reported here please refer to the previous post in this series.

I started with a typical Standard Turbofog core for the deck, then fleshed it out with some countermagic and removal along with an attractive secondary kill condition. This seemed like a good place to start refining the archetype. On the way out of the door I also put together the following sideboard as I needed something to swap in for game 2 to prevent the usual “Ah, it’s just Turbofog” comments.

The Sphinxes were there to board in after my opponent had boarded out removal. Their shroud ability offered ensured that once a Sphinx had resolve it would be hard to remove from the board. The Silences and Into the Roils were designed as a answer for burn and control decks with irritating instants and permanants. Quest for Ancient Secrets were a defence against the mirror and the mill matchup.

Match 1 – vs. mono-black vampire.

Mono-vamp was one archetype I was feeling confident against – aggressive creature decks, no matter what tribal advantage they get, are still combat damage and combat damage is beautifully preventable. Duress and Mind Sludge were a real threat though and I was grateful for my main deck Negates as I sat down.

Game 1 I didn’t draw into any early fogs and took a few to the dome in the first couple of turns as I started to draw into my and turbo cards. I got some mines and fonts online and finally had some fogs in hand along with Jace and managed to get an Ascension down and on-line as well as Jace on his way to his ultimate ability. My opponent played one surprising play against when he cast Vampire Hexmage then took my Ascension off-line rather than killing Jace. I guess he thought the angels were more of a threat than being milled. Then my opponent dropped a Sludge – and me with no Negates in hand. I binned my hand completely forgetting that Fog would have been a perfectly fine answer. He swung for 16 and killed me: I’ll never make that mistake again.

Game 2, in came the Silences, out went a Negate, a Charm, a Tanglesap and something else. This game saw the deck running smoothly. By the end of the game I had my full array of mines and fonts out, along with Jace and Magosi. I hadn’t dropped an ascension though – I kept digging but they never showed up. My opponent was also having trouble diugging up his cards as Hexmage didn’t make a return appearance in this game, despite having additional copies boarded in and the accelerated draw from the artefacts and Jace. In the end I popped Jace’s ultimate then used Magosi to skip a turn, milling my opponent.

We went 1-1 for a draw and I was 0-0-1 over all.

Match 2 – vs. mono-black vampire with evils.

This match was against a deck built by an experienced player in tte metagame being piloted by a rookie player. To be fair though, she played tightly. She managed to get a couple of early swings in before I started digging into my fogs and she made the most of the acceleration to bring Liliana Vess and Sorin Markov. My hand dwindled to Liliana, Duress and Mind Sludge, I had no answers for the planeswalkers and Sorin killed – two games in a row.

I went 0-2 for 0-1-1 over all.

Match 3 – vs. GW mana-ramp aggro.

This was a slick, well-oiled deck. Game 1 for my opponent went land, Elves, land, Cobra, land, BaneSlayer. If I wasn’t fogging I’d have had a loose bowel, as it was first strike, evasion and lifelink are only relevant if damage is being inflicted. Props to the designer, though. My fogs deserted me on a critical turn as I went from 16 to 2 on a single turn. By this time Jace was fully charged and ready to pop, followed by my letting rip with Magosi during my opponent’s end of turn, followed by a thorough milling.

Game 2 was a different story. The acidic slimes started hitting the deck, killing my turbo engine, then the only white source I’d managed to drop all game. With a clutch of Safe Passage and Angelsong in hand I had to take 16 damage (from 19 to 3 on about turn 7 or 8). My turn I dug up no more green fogs or white sources and had to concede.

Game 3 was a similar story to 2 – my mana base failed me, I got the wrong colour fogs at the wrong time, I lost my turbo, didn’t get the draws – he hit me with combat damage twice – once for 13 then for lethal.

This match went 1-2 leaving me at 0-2-1.

Match 4 – vs. BW evilness.

The same weaknesses that my deck had against mono-vamp it had against a discard black-white deck. Malakir Bloodwitch put in a regular appearance as did Liliana Vess and Duress. I was left with an empty hand and no answers more often than I’d like and got sucked dry. During the game I saw a shedload of removal being discarded – most notably Day of Judgement.

Game two I boarded out the Bant Charms – I saw no threatening artifacts of instants – and brought in a pair of Sphinxes and my Silences, figuring that the Days would be gone, as it would be fairly dim of my opponent to clear the board of creatures if thought they’re all be his. I was hoping the Sphinxes shroud would ensure they stayed in play. And to be fair, they did. However I didn’t see the point of attacking into, or blocking, deathtouching lifelinking Vampire Nighthawks. Pretty soon Sorin came out and kept pinging me. Pithing Needles were plonked down on Jace and Luminarch Ascension and after a long, slow game – even by Turbofog standards – I was dead: 0-2.

My final result for the tournament was 0-3-1.

Overall Performance

Despite losing horribly I had a great time piloting this deck, as I knew I would. I like this way of playing – bringing the game to my tempo and stopping stuff happening. I usually prefer counter magic to stop spells from resolving but preventing combat damage turn after turn filled a similar purpose. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the deck at work – speeding up the draws, slowing down the beats, milling, manipulating, winning a real attrition war.

As often as not, the reasons for losing games was down to player error. I missed a number of plays by not answering sorceries with fogs. A couple of times I had issues with my mana-base and there were a number of threats that I just did not have an answer for – like creatures’ come-into-play trigger abilities and stifling artifacts once I’d boarded out the Bant Charms. I also had nothing in the deck to deal with Planeswalkers, which in hindsight, in a metagame full of them, was a tad stupid.

The Luminarch Ascensions were an interesting conundrum. Whilst they seem a natural inclusion for this deck, they really went on-line, even if they did get onto the battlefield. That said, they do represent a threat and drew fire from Jace and my milling engine, but less of a threat than either I or at least one of my opponents thought. Another surprise for me was Jace, but for interesting reasons. Well, interesting to me, anyway. In my last article I said that Jace was a mid-game play at the earliest. I can now tell you this is absolutely not true. Sure, if he’s there to provide you with draws and card advantage, mid-game, when you’re running out of cards and options, he’s a welcome sight, but it you want to get his ultimate on-line and use him as a win condition he needs to come out as early as possible and start being a virtual Howling Mine; the earliest he can land is turn three – which is almost early enough. (He’s not enough of a reason to be running mana-ramping in this deck, however.)

A correct decision, I feel, was to run two Fonts. I frequently found multiple copies of my four-ofs in my opening hand – each of the fogs, the mines, the charms – but having the real possibility of finding two fonts in my first seven cards would have been a virtual auto-mulligan to six. These cards never landed,before turn six. Two was the right number.

One thing that did happen in almost all of the games I played, is I ended up discarding a batch of fogs at the end of my turn. Frequently, as many Tanglesaps and Angelsongs went straight to the graveyard as were resolved. I’m confident that the fog engine could have performed just as well on 12 fogs as 16, especially once the turbo had kicked in.

The turbo engine was well balanced. The cards turned up as often as I felt I needed them. Jace was almost always in my hand by turn 5 with a second turning up a few turns later. It’s quite a reassuring position to be in to have a planeswalker down and another copy in hand. The third or more copy feels a lot like a blank, though. True, a single blank isn’t necessarily anything to be to concerned about when by turn 6 your drawing 5 cards but a blank isn’t a fog or a mine or a control card.

For Next Time

I wish, I wish, I wish I had main decked the Silences. Every game 1 I played I regretted not having them in my deck. Once they were in for game 2 the trick to using them was timing and reading the opponent. Did it look like something big was about to happen? Did I have a fog in hand to deal with haste beasties? Did I have the Negates to stopping the slaps? Would I be better off saying “No spells this turn, thanks, come again”, pre-emptively shutting down my opponent’s turn? This was a tough call and varied from deck to deck.

Next time I’m also main decking Day of Judgement. Fogs or not, having a board over flowing with critters is annoying – Lotus Cobra, Llanowar Elves, annoying 1 damage pingers (keeping the Ascension off-line) – it’s easier to just splat the lot. I still hold that spot creature removal is silly in this deck – seldom is there a single creature that merits removal, except I guess the Cobras or the Elves from the green-white deck in my round 3 matchup. Tanglesaps are out, next tournament. Not for the stupid “trample limitation” reason, but because they’re not as versatile as Safe Passage and not as cheap as Fog, and I don’t feel I need to run 16 fog effects.

The Turbofog archetype has recently caught my eye and gained my interest enough for me to build a deck. I intend this to be the first article in a series about Turbofog in my current Standard metagame. At the time of writing I am yet to play the deck so in future articles I plan to discuss how it performs and evolves to answer questions other archetypes pose it. For now I’ll summarise the archetype, discuss building decisions and explain why I made the decisions I made. Turbofog has a long history and is the subject of a wealth of writing already available elsewhere on the web.

It’s a control deck based around two key  strategies: milling your opponent as the primary kill condition using accelerated card draw effects and the prevention of damage through fog effects. In fact it’s these combined strategies that gives the archetype its name – turbo for increased card draw and fog for, well, fog. The accelerated card draw provides the added advantage of ensuring you draw into more fogs. The current Standard, M2010 and Alara, offers four main fog effects. Fog and Tanglesap from green and Safe Passage and Angelsong from white, all of which are efficient instants having a converted mana cost of 3 or less. Tanglesap has the limitation of not preventing damage from creatures with trample, which could become an opportunity or a threat, depending on my metagame and the build decisions I make with my deck. Safe Passage has the bonus of only preventing damage to you and your creatures – damage dealt to your opponents and creatures controlled by them is dealt as usual. All four of these cards are commons and are easy to source.

The the turbo engine there are two main cards available: Howling Mine and Font of Mythos. Both are artifacts and both give your opponents the increased draw first, maximising the chance of milling them before yourself. For my build each of the fogs are an easy 4-of. It’s been suggested in other forums that the limitation on Tanglesap represents too much of a risk and that running it in Standard is folly due to the format having creatures like Baloth Woodcrasher and Child of Alara. I am yet to see trample make a big impact in my metagame so I will run four. Howling Mine is a 4-of also, as it’s so easy to cast. Font of Mythos less so, as it’s unplayable before turn 6 (it costs 4 mana and the deck requires 2 open mana sources for fogs during the opponent’s turn) so I’ll be running two. If I get my entire turbo engine on-line that’s a total draw of 9 cards per turn.

The core of my deck consists of 22 cards, all but two of which are playable by turn 3. With a projected mana-base requirement of 22 to 24 lands, depending on the rest of my build, I have 14 to 16 slots to fill to either answer threats in my existing metagame or further develop my turbofog theme. The Jund archetype has made its presence felt on the pro tour circuit with decks performing superbly well. Locally, however, Jund is yet to filter down in a meaningful way. White Weenie is an efficient powerhouse as is mono-black vampire. Both depend on combat damage so are not too much of a worry. I’ve also seen a slickly built Bant exhalted deck as well as UB control. Getting my turbo cards on the the battlefield, let alone staying there, could be a problem. Red burn is also a siugnificant concern – it’s only a matter of time before burn finds a competitive deck in Standard and this deck so far will lose to it instantly. The other 14 to 16 cards need to provide me  with either efficient answers to threats like these and an efficient secondary kill condition, and I don’t believe that either green and white alone cut the mustard. It’s time to look for a third colour.

The obvious choices open to me are to run either a Bant or Naya mana-base. Red would offer me a wealth of burn spells, ranging from the heavy Lava Axe to the efficient Punishing Fire. However, I’d need to be able to inflict 20 damage consistently and efficiently, otherwise a burn strategy would be pointless. Blue offers efficient counters and removal in the shape of Negate and the beautifully versatile Bant Charm, providing answers to a control match-up and a red burn strategy. In addition I’d have the option of extending my milling engine with Archive Trap and Jace Beleren. A Planeswalker on the board would also offer my opponent an alternative target combat and burn damage at, in a round about way extending my fog strategy. It’s true that either Chandra Nalaar or Chandra Ablaze would off the same, but I’d be unlikely to be able to use her effectively given the density of green and white in the deck so far and the distinct lack of direct damage. As an added bonus, blue provides two sneaky tricks in Zendikar that could be useful in a Tubofog deck. Quest for Ancient Secrets represents a layer of defence against milling myself. The rare land Magosi, the Waterveil could be used to ensure my opponent is a whole extra turn closer to milling than me: add an eon counter to it and never take back the turn. Mid-game this would leave me with a library 4 to 8 cards larger than my opponent’s, that difference becoming larger each time I used Magosi’s charge ability.

Blue seems like a solid third colour choice.

Jace is a mid- to late-game card so does not need to be run as a full playset. That said, he is likely to draw fire, combat and removal so will need 2 to three copies. Negate and Bant Charm are easy 4-ofs in the main deck; I want to be able to answer counters and burns. Additionally, the charm can remove annoying creatures and artifacts with stifling abilities. So far my deck list looks like this:

For my first build I’m going to assume a mana-base of 23 lands, leaving me with 4 card slots to fill. Zendikar introduced the intriguing Quest cycle: common expeditions, uncommon quests and rare ascensions. The white Luminarch Ascension seems almost designed for this deck: get the deck doing what it’s designed to do and gain the ability to summon angels at instant speed. Conveniently this card provides our secondary kill condition (would you want to face down a hoard of 4/4 fliers?) as well as a defensive wall to hold attacking creatures at bay. Four of these seems like a must for this deck.

My mana-base is going to need to support a complicated array of casting costs, including 1UU for Jace Beleren and UGW for the Bant Charms. Fetch lands like Bant Panorama or Misty Rainforest look indispensable for mana-fixing. Along with Bant’s multicolour land, Seaside Citadel, to provide a smoother mana-base. Despite my low mana curve I’d rather pay a life to fetch an untapped basic land than pay 1 mana to fetch it tapped: Misty Rainforest gets the pick here. 4 Rainforests and 4 Citadels leaves me with 15 land slots. Magosi, the Waterveil is to tempting to pass up. Two seems like a sensible decision – its miss a turn ability is a mid–game play at the earliest and as a mana source coming into play tapped is too much of a limitation to run more. I’m not comfortable with 13 basic lands but as a starting point for play-testing it seems at least playable. Jace’s mana cost makes me want to run exetra Islands so I’m playing 5 of them alongside 4 each of Plains and Forests. Over all, including the non-basic lands, I have 15 blue sources, 12 green sources and 8 white sources in a reasonably smooth base.

I’ll leave the sideboard and how it performed in matchups for future articles, but for now I’m reasonably happy with this deck. I’m confident it can answer most applicable threats whilst sufficiently wearing out the opponent. Expect an update soon.