Day 6 rolling into 7

I did not get a day 6 in the books for a few reasons. First, I felt pretty good yesterday and we took a short trip up to the Outlet Malls in Hagerstown. Walked the mall, enjoyed the family and fresh air, and ended up rolling home via FNM. I already knew that there were 8+ so it would be 4 rounds and I was not sure that if I got into the tournament I would be able to last the whole time. I did however have a great relaxing evening playing some Commander and assisting Don with opening a case of Innistrad. We are getting a great group of people in our local tournament arena and it certainly is becoming very enjoyable to just be there. I am not sure I am ready to get back into the competitive scene again yet, but when I do, I am certain I am in the right place for it. I did have a deck that is not in the top tier or was not used at the last GP or SCG open. I wanted to try it and I have been testing it against the MTGO field for a week or two. It reminds me of a time when.....

First, I want to re-post an article one of our Magic group posted recently. It says a lot of what I would have said about the subject and even more. I only have a few things to add and a personal experience with the subject as well.

http://wingmanmtg.tumblr.com/post/18590238620/being-the-rogue-in-todays-standard

So, if you got through the article, it is well written and detailed and even comes with a good example deck. I do hate to go to a tournament not only knowing that the deck I am playing is not my own, but also knowing that all the other decks are not the invention of the player. It reminds me of a time when....

The highest finish I had in my Magic the Gathering history was in Ft. Lauderdale Florida for a Pro Tour Qualifier. I finished second on the day. It was Invasion Block format and the flavor of the day was the deck built around Fires of Yavimaya and massive creatures. I had seen the deck for a month and played it, as well as playing against it. I deck tested everything I could against it and nothing was a match. I wasn't having much fun, so as a joke, I put together a U/B fun bounce/discard deck. I love manipulating the playing field and this deck did it to a T.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ptq-2-finish/

I loved going into the room with something completely counter environment and running the field dry. That was my personal experience. I do only have one thing to add to the article Tom wrote above. It is unfortunate that there is such a large gap between competitive and casual play. You cannot force the casual environment to not play a deck found on the internet or from the last big tournament just like you cannot force a rogue deck player to not play in a large Grand Prix or PTQ. The solid truth is that a rogue deck, unless extensively tested against the current field, will only work a fraction of the time. To drag a quote from Tom's post:

I've come to the realization that, while running these top decks (or at least testing against them) is usually a safe bet on any give week, some of these strategies are not ones that I am particularly comfortable with and I usually end up running worse than I would if I took the time and effort to build a deck that A) I was comfortable with and B) no one was expecting..

I think this is at the essence of why rogue players (and I consider myself one as well) do what they do. I think the only thing missing from this statement is that as a rogue player, you assemble a deck from scratch and usually out of what you believe is a fun mechanic or card. This brings you closer to each individual card through labored choice and keeps you in your "wheel house" when playing the deck as well. I think the whole article was well thought out, but this particular part needed to be elaborated on, in my opinion. The idea is there, I just think it goes deeper in the rogue direction, rather than the failure in playing a deck that wins consistently, but you are not familiar with.

I will go out on a limb and say that I believe that some of the issues with this stem from the structure of playing Magic. When I played while I was in college, Friday nights for us was 8 players around a table at Denny's playing "run what you brung" Magic. You didn't have restrictions or limitations (other than the four of rule) and money didn't bring the best cards. Yes, there were older cards that were quite devastating, but most of our group did not have enough of those cards to matter. What it did force us to do was be prepared to make decisions with cards that wouldn't be made in normal play sometimes.

I really enjoyed Tom's blog as a nod to the rogue player and hope that maybe some of it sticks with everyone out there. Remember, somebody brought a rogue deck to play test that ended up being the last GP winner and that somebody may be you next time!