Wizards announced that Force of Will would be the Magic Online Monthly Online Champions (MOCs) promo for April 2014. This is consistent with the company's apparent focus on Vintage for MTGO in the last year - the promos so far for 2014 have been Natural Order (December 2013, included in 2014 MOCS), Tropical Island, Batterskull, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Force of Will. Contrast this to 2013, which, in the first 5 months, paid out Force of Will, Supreme Verdict, Lotus Cobra, Savannah, and Mind's Eye (WHAT????), and continued with such hits as Cryptborn Horror, Bribery, Plateau, and Ratchet Bomb. FoW and a couple of the less-needed duals, along with junk for the first half of 2013, 5 cards that are all Legacy/Vintage staples for 2014. This could just be a concerted effort by the MTGO team to give a real reward for playing a lot, but I feel like we're seeing them push Vintage through MOCS in preparation for the upcoming Vintage release. The transition appears to have started in the second half of 2013 - the last three promos of the year were Underground Sea, Scrubland and Land Tax. Not the best "reward," maybe, but still fine, especially in Vintage preparation.

Some background, if you're not familiar with the MOCS: The Monthly Online Championships have a history going wayyyyy back on MTGO. Before I'd really started playing, they existed in one form (that I don't know much about) - at some point they died off (probably due to MTGO crashes, as are most changes on MODO), and then as new folks took over the MTGO helm, they were re-introduced. The idea, more or less, is that if you win enough events, you'll earn Qualifying Points (for each win) that in a quantity (15 is the main number you want to hit, with additional, less-important-to-most-people thresholds you can hit after that) that earns you entry into a large, month-end tournament. By hitting the threshold, you also earn a promotional card of some rarity. It's usually a "good" card (a staple of a format), but occasionally, as seen above with cards like Cryptborn Horror, it's an unplayable stinker.

Yep, this was a MOCS promo once!

For many people, the promo is the real prize, giving them incentive to play the tournaments needed to win the card. They were going to play a ton anyway, and this helped them have the extra fire to keep going, and gave them a small-but-tangible reward for their high volume of play (and ticket-usage, which is the "real" way MTGO makes money). The MOCs tournament has had a range of additional prizes as I recall, something like an additional promo to the top 64, and a foil promo to the top 8, and some packs as well, plus, in the event that it is sealed, your sealed pool. For the non-sealed events, as I remember, you could elect to skip the tournament (by contacting customer service) and be given something like 6 boosters for making the election - helping folks who didn't have a deck for a constructed format while also taking the strain of the tournament on the servers down a notch. It is probably worth mentioning that Wizards has currently delayed the MOCS tournaments until further notice, due to the strain they place on the servers (and the devastation that is left behind when they crash, as people lose not just the tournament, but the time they've invested into it, which Wizards has a hard time "truly" compensating them for).



I have never played enough in a given month (or won enough) to qualify for the 15 Qualifying Points needed for a MOCS (and associated promo). At the start of this MOCS month (before April 1, if I recall correctly), I took a look at my QPS, and realized I was at 7 a few days into the month. This seemed odd, then I realized that, well, anytime cube is around, I tend to get half-to-two-thirds of the way to a promo, then cube goes offline, and I play a lot less MTGO. I thought about it, and realized that with Force of Will as this month's promo, it was probably worth going after the remaining QPs with a full month (more or less) remaining.

I looked at a few ways to get QPs. The best way to get QPs historically had been Daily Events, where you'd get qualifying points for 4-0s along with good prizes. I'm not sure if you always got QPs for 3-1s, but you do currently, plus solid prizes. Other (less-efficient) ways are running infinite draft or sealed queues - if you're pretty good, you can going near-infinite while picking up the points. You also have the option of constructed 8-man queues, which give you a QP for a win*.



I had quite a few phantom points from the cube drafts, and settled into Born/Theros phantom sealed queues. I got a couple of wins, but the payout if you don't 3-0 is basically awful, and I ran out of points. Not wanting to "waste" tickets on a format that wasn't so enjoyable as to do so, I decided I might want to change it up - I either wanted to get some cards back for my tickets, or be playing constructed.

With that in mind, I looked through my mostly-non-existent collection, noticing I had most of a decent pauper Mono-black deck. I liked the "aggressive" lists I saw on MTG Goldfish. I have played Mono-Black Control in pauper for something like 5 years, on and off, and I saw that (apparently) Gray Merchant of Asphodel had contributed a bit piece to the deck. You can't escape Gary, no matter the format you play! Typically the best Mono-Black decks have been grinding, Rock-like control decks. They're pretty similar to Jund in Modern (or any format, I suppose) - solid against most decks, lots of cards that work together on power-level, not synergy. Now though, I was seeing some decks that cut most of their copies of Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt for Grey Merchants, running lots of cheap removal and some card draw, and only creatures that were Gary or 2-for-ones.



I liked the idea. The other bonus was that it was cheap! I think the only thing I was missing initially was an Unearth.

If you want to read about my Mono-Black times, they're summed up in the next section, if not, skip ahead to "PART TWO."

Mono-Black is not a very complex set of cards – there isn’t a combo kill. There isn’t an aggressive gameplan. There isn’t a singular win condition. However, playing Mono-Black can be complex. I say this not to toot my own horn (or because I feel like I do it well) but because I played the mirror quite a few times, and was able to use my experience to my advantage, and because after matches, mirror or otherwise, I was able to pick out better lines of play that should (or could) have been identified during the game.



My first queue saw me roll into the finals, and lose the mirror. My sideboard, at that point, didn’t have Oubliette. My opponent’s deck did, and it was one of the different makers. In an otherwise-close match, his Oubliettes counted as devotion while preventing my Death Denied from getting back guys that he had cleared out of the way, giving him just enough devotion (and removing just enough devotion and card advantage from me) to kill me with Gray Merchants. At this point, I experienced the pleasant surprise indicated by the * above – 8-man constructed queues pay out 2 QPs to winners, and 1 QP to the other finalist!

This gave me a boost, and I quickly cranked out the rest of my QPs over a few days. Some things to know about that particular build, should you want to play it - 22 lands is pretty greedy. It works, most of the time, but you'll find yourself dropping many more turn 1 Barren Moor than I have in my life. You'll also aggressively Sign in Blood to hit lands at times, and sometimes you'll just lose with a "perfect" hand that doesn't hit a third land despite you drawing 3+ extra cards. It may be worth it to go to 24 lands. Your main-deck and sideboard configurations can fluxuate rapidly too.

Lands:

Depending on your playstyle and which you hate losing to more, flood or screw, you may want 22, 23, or 24 lands. You may want 0-4 Barren Moor. You might even want a Karoo, Polluted Mire, or Bojuka Bog! Really, it's kind of up to you. I had one sideboarded Karoo for the mirror and other matchups where I want both card advantage and to "hit every land-drop," plus it can turn a Moor into another card. I also side it in if I'm siding out a lot of cheap spells (1-2CC) for bigger spells.



Creatures:

There is a core of creatures that consists of Chittering Rats and Gary. After that, I really like Phyrexian Rager, and Liliana's Specter was probably the "worst" card. If you're seeing a lot of Goblins, Faeries and Elves, you may want some number of Cuombajj Witches. If you're seeing a lot of the mirror, you'll probably be happy with the four creatures I'm playing, but it could be worth it to run Gravedigger or a similar effect. There is also Crypt Rats, who are near-and-dear to my heart, but are not as good as Witches as far as devotion for Gary and curve concerns go. I still played them, as I enjoy going aggressive with the Rats, but Witches are almost certainly the "right" card in that slot.

Spells:

Your spells can change a lot too. You will probably want about 10-12 removal spells in the main deck, but depending on the opponents that you expect, they may not be the same 4-ofs I have. If you're seeing many aggressive decks, you'll probably have to consider playing 4+ 1-casting-cost removal spells, along with another 8 or so that could cost 1-4. If you're on 24 lands, it is probably worth the higher cost to have a Tendrils of Corruption or two. If you're expecting much, or any, creatures you can't target (think Hexproof and (Guardian of the Guildpact)), you'll likely want 8+ effects that can take those sorts of things down - (Geth's Edict), Diabolic Edict, Innocent Blood, and/or Devour Flesh, but they don't have to all be in your main deck. Finding a nice balance between the removal spells you can side into in some matchups is important.





You will probably want some number of multi-use or sweeper effects - this is where (Cuombojj Witches) and Crypt Rats might be worth mentioning (despite being creatures) along with Echoing Decay, Shrivel effects, Pestilence, and probably other things I'm missing.



Card Drawing:

This partially ties into your lands, given that you may play the cycling lands, but you'll probably want some card draw. If there were a similar card to Phyrexian Rager, you'd probably just run it over Sign in Blood, but Sign is cheap and efficient. Sign and Rager are pretty important. The other alternatives - Barren Moor/Polluted Mire, Read the Bones, Mulldrifter (getting into Blue), Unearth (both as cycling and re-using your Ragers), and that's about it.



Let's keep in mind - these aren't all sources of true card advantage - they're ways to see more cards. Need a land? Barren Moor can be played as a land. Need a spell instead? Cycle the Moor. Have a removal spell, but you need to kill a creature with a different one? Cycling that Unearth can help you try to find it! The card advantage in the deck comes from the Ragers, Signs, and the Rats/Specters. If you want more card advantage, your options are basically Read the Bones and...

Utility:

This comes down to, "How do you play Mono Black." If you like going into an aggression mode of play, cards like Corrupt, Undying Evil, and so on can help you do that - Corrupt gives you great reach (and functions as removal as necessary) while Undying Evil, Unearth, and Wrench Mind are cheap ways to interact with the opponent's hand and board.



I think towards the end of my Mono-Black run, I had cut the Duress and Ostracize for two main-deck Wrench Mind, as I was seeing less Affinity and more MBC/other decks that Wrench Mind was much better against.

Matchups:

It's basically, "Do you know the deck really well? Great, you're slighttttly favored," against everything but Burn, where you can't possible win with the build I was running. I guess I felt like Delver was nearly-unlosable (obviously if they have the nut-draw + play very well, it's hard), and the 4-color Tron deck COULD be tough, but that was a series of questions to be asked as well - "Did Tron get Tron on turn 3? Did you hit lands through turn 5? Did you flood out on removal or something awkward. Do they play Rolling Thunder, and did they have to blow it on a creature early?" I guess there was one other deck I felt I could never win against, Shaffawaffa5's UW deck, which was, I think, a variant or updated version of this. I don't remember seeing some of the auras (or any Drakes) but the core of 8 self-bounce dudes, 187 effects, seemingly unending amounts of life via Crossroad and Pilgrims made it very hard to ever get ahead either on cards or on life.

PART TWO - A BRIEF COMPLAINT! ORCs STILL SUCK?

Spoiled behind the "Show/hide" button is a recent irritating experience I had with an ORC. Feel free to skip on to the next section if that's not interesting to you.

Before going on, I'd like to get this off my chest, and measure the community's feelings on it as well. During the grind, a player asked about cube. They had phantom tix, but were worried that they would be crushed or confused by the format. I said (I cleaned up chat just a little, for HTML tags, but otherwise, this is what was said. I didn't edit the words, just tags, to be clear): 12:12 PM walkerdog: maybe, but you can watch some channelfireball dot com videos or puremtgo dot com walkthroughs or magic academy or any other site to get a feel for the format Note, I was careful to avoid hotlinks, and I didn't "pick" one site, to avoid some sort of "advertising" complaint. I write for puremtgo of course, so I wanted to include them, and I think we do a nice job on cube, but I also included two other quality sites for cube (and magic in general), including a direct competitor to mtgotraders. I also didn't hotlink it - I understand that that could be a danger if someone posted misleading hotlinks in chats, leading to sites that are inappropriate for a general audience, or viruses and spyware. 12:12 PM ORC_Loki: Please do not post non-Wizards of the Coast URLs in chat.



12:12 PM walkerdog: right, that's why I didn't put an actual URL



12:12 PM ORC_Loki: It is a violation of the of Conduct.

12:13 PM ORC_Loki: Still a violation.

12:13 PM ORC_Loki: Please don't so that.

12:13 PM ORC_Loki: Thank you kinly.

12:13 PM ORC_Loki: *kindly

12:14 PM walkerdog: interesting. I see nothing about outside sights in the CoC, other than "nothing abusive, offensive, etc"

12:14 PM walkerdog: what part of the CoC is it you're referencing?



12:15 PM ORC_Loki: Walker - For issues relating to the of Conduct and how it is enforced, please contact Customer Service. To contact Customer Service please click ]. Head to the "email us" tab and fill out the form in full. Make sure to make an account there if you have not made one before.

12:15 PM ORC_Loki: Now lets please move on.



12:16 PM walkerdog: no, i'm serious. I just read that thing quickly, and I'd like you to provide a reference or quote, since you guys frequently cite that. I'm sure you have it handy right? Why is that unreasonable? I want to read it. I'm not being a jerk



12:16 PM ORC_Loki: Please move on.



12:17 PM walkerdog: okay. I'll be e-mailing support including your lack of assistance and apparent lack of knowledge about the CoC you're supposed to enforce



12:17 PM walkerdog: thanks!

I was a bit douchey in the red part, I think but I also felt like the ORC was being unhelpful, and obnoxious. So, I write to customer service. Surely they can clarify why what I did would be against the Code of Conduct. I said the above stuff, plus: "So, first, I'd like to understand what in the CoC is prohibiting, apparently, the MENTION of any outside site in chat.

As I read it, your CoC goes like this:

1. don't have an offensive username

2. don't post/link to offensive stuff.

3. Don't hassle people

4. don't promote/commit crime!

5. don't impersonate people

6. don't disrupt chat

7. don't access accounts that aren't your (or try to)

8. don't advertise

9. don't collude





Hmmmmm - first, your CoC doesn't say anything about talking with people and recommending sites, especially when you're trying not to be an adservice or whatever, and it doesn't say anything about ORC loki being a moron who doesn't know what he's citing. Please help him out, update the CoC, and give him (and me) a specific reference for the rule he's citing.



Thanks,



Tyler" Again, I get a bit douchey, I'll admit. Customer service though... well, first, they didn't reply for 4 days. Then I e-mailed asking for an update. I get:

"Hello,



I understand you may not agree with this action, but I remind you that Wizards of the Coast staff are the final judges of whether a member's behavior qualifies as inappropriate or disruptive. Our moderators are trained in the enforcement of o"ur policies. We will take your feedback into account, but cannot reverse this action. I apologize for the frustration this has caused. " I felt like I was reading it incorrectly, or that I must be confused. Or that the person writing me didn't bother reading my e-mail, that could be it too! I wrote back asking for further clarification, and why the ORC was unable to reference anything other than go, "CoC!" "Hello,



I understand that it is frustrating that we can't speak as specifically as you would like, but your feedback has been passed along and is always appreciated. We are unable to assist you in interpreting any of our user agreements.With this in mind, our policies may not always seem to be the best fit for everyone and every situation, but are geared toward managing the most common hurdles the community faces. I can say that yes, our moderators and staff are the final judges of whether a member's behavior qualifies as inappropriate or disruptive and that the moderator is enforcing our policy. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding." At this point, I go back and re-read the Code of Conduct. In the third paragraph, it does say, "Wizards of the Coast staff are the final judges of whether a member’s behavior qualifies as inappropriate or a disruption. This Code of Conduct is subject to change at any time at Wizards of the Coast's sole discretion." Was I being disruptive? I didn't think so, but maybe that's what Loki was thinking but was unable to communicate? Either way, it certainly irritated me to be told I was violating the Code of Conduct when I was trying to help someone and avoided the typical "no-nos."

Show/hide

Part Three: Go Big?

After earning my 15 QPs on my account I've had forever, I was a little bit adrift. I had a problem – I was enjoying MTGO, and even had a little time in the evenings to keep playing, I was winning, but I didn’t have anything to win “towards.” I didn’t care to try for the 35 QP threshold - while I was eclipsing my previous "success" on MTGO, I lacked (Delusions of Grandeur). I doubt I will play in the MOCS prelims when they come up, unless it is sealed or draft. I decided on my first-ever QP-grinding account. I haven't spent actual cash on MODO very much, but I ended up sinking $30 into a new one (for 20 tickets + the new account). Most of my account "back in the day" was a result of grinding 2-man queues, writing, and speculating.

I swapped my Mono-Black deck over to this new account, and fired up some queues, but something bad was happening. I kept running into Burn and yhe Mirror. The mirror doesn't feel like a bad match-up - I've played it enough to know most of the right choices to make. Burn though. That is some deck to try to play against with the deck I was running! I got to the point that I had 4 Child of Night in my sideboard. I soon reevaluated my decision-making process, and decided that I could either go to a 24-land build of MBC, with Tendrils of Corruption, or I could play another deck if I was seeing much burn.

Tangentially, I found myself losing most frequently than I felt I should to creature-heavy aggressive decks. It's not that MBC can't beat them, but there are so many creature-based angles of attack that a MBC player can find themselves staring at 2 different removal spells and praying they rip the third one in the deck that is a different effect, to turn the other two on. MBC can also just draw 1-2 too few lands over a few turns and not be able to keep up with decks that are able to cast 2 spells per turn, plus, while the blue-based matchups were fine, they weren't amazing.

I decided that MBC wasn't actually a great place to be in the meta right now, and started looking around. I talked with DeluxeIcoff, who is basically my pauper go-to resource any time I have questions, as he tends to do well and tune strong decks almost all the time. He mentioned both his facebook page and his monogreen deck. I reviewed both. For posterity, here is the most recent build he has on record:

I tried his build to start with, but it felt a LITTLE bit off - there was a tension between the deck having too many lands and flooding, and Uktabi Drake being poop. There were two times you wanted a third land on turn 3 - either you had a Drake that you were going to pay Echo on (but only after Turn 3!) or you had Viridian Longbow and needed to be able to equip it/move it around.



Other than that, I was pretty happy being stuck on 1 land for a turn or two rather than hitting 3 on turn 3! Don't get me wrong, if I could always have 3 on turn three, and never another, sure, I'd make that deal, that's absurd, but it rarely worked that way. I wasn't beating MBC all of the time, or aggressive mirrors, and the Drake wasn't actually that evasive when I was running into Squadron Hawk/Kor Skyfisher decks (which was more often than I expected, to be honest). I do want to say, DI is a better player than me, and I may have just been "doing it wrong", but I wasn't quite satisfied with his list. I may have not been mulliganing enough, or maybe I wasn't playing it right!

My adjustments turned into this list:

My list is not nearly as good at Longbowing - I've cut a lot of land. My list feels much stronger against grinding decks, like MBC and UR midrange. Those the main differences I came across before and after. This deck, unlike MBC, is really easy to play, and there are just a few "tricks" that might not jump out at you at first glance, which I'll share, hoping you either enjoy them or use them.

I (almost) always keep hands with 1-2 lands and any reasonable mix of creatures/pumps. All creatures + 1-2 lands becomes both shakier, and more matchup dependent . You'll probably be fine against controlling or removal-heavy decks if you're all dudes (especially if they're cards like Wolf and Flayer Husk), less so if it's, say, all Boggles and Pit-skulks, where you may not get to turn "on" Bloodthirst, and even if you do, they may just kill the PS and leave you with 1/1s.

There are two plays that I really enjoy. The first is simple, but using Vines of Vastwood on an opponent's creature is fine at times - sometimes you need to prevent them from blinking it (typically vs. the Esper-blink storm/mill deck), and sometimes they are Mono-Blue Faeries who also happened to have Phantasmal Bear against you.



The second is pretty simple, but it is turning on Hunger of the Howlpack through non-conventional means. While it's not actually clever except for the first time you do it, it sure FEELS clever each time (aka one of my favorite feelings). Some options - you have Scattershot Archer, and the opponent has a flyer that is 1-toughness. Why he played it? Well, it could have been Spellstutter Sprite, that countered a spell earlier, or maybe it was in play before your Archer was. Anyway, it's going to die. But you're tapped out! And you have Hunger! And a hexproof dude or a Pit-Skulk, or you're using the lifelink on Vault Skirge to race... so you untap, then kill the flyer, play the Hunger, and hit them.

Or maybe you untap, attack with everything but the Archer, and then kill whatever troublesome blocker they might have by killing their flyer after blocks, and casting Hunger after that. Other scenarios that come up frequently involve Flayer Husk and/or Young Wolf. You can often attack with several guys, and the opponent, who has learned from too many bad experiences with leaving Husk or Wolf unblocked, blocks them with his 2/2. You're fine with that, and you Hunger your evasive creature after one of your 1/1s dies.



You might also have played a 1-drop, attacked on turn two, played Rancor on it, hit them, and played Husk as your second card for the turn. They do stuff, you pass, and, assuming you have 3 lands, you can equip Husk, attack, and drop Hunger onto the guy you just equipped, since the Germ token died. The "coolest" game I stole was similar to this, but my Husk had been in play for a bit, and had stranded my Rancor on it too, to some extent, since my opponent had something big enough to negate my little 3/1 trampler - I was a little flooded, but it worked out alright this time, since I was able to equip Husk to an evasive creature, Hunger it, and Rancor it for exactly lethal.



Other than those sorts of things, it sure feels like you end up with a lot of judgment calls - I'll have a better idea after a few weeks playing the deck, I guess, but I don't have a firm grasp (yet) on when to just Hunger for one and get damage in, how to decide between Rancoring on turn two compared to playing out 1-drops, and (hardest for me) when to just tap out for Vines to pump damage through compared to when I should be holding it as an Avoid Fate.



Generally speaking, you want to play either a 2-power 1-drop or an evasive one-drop on turn 1, and have the potential for either a lot of damage every turn after, via Rancor/Bonesplitter, or the ability to keep pushing the damage through, even if it's a little slower (such as having a turn 1 Vault Skirge into Pit-Skulks and Ledgewalkers along with Vines to bash past blockers as needed).

As we "speak," I'm up to 10 points on my second account, with 1 week left to grind out the last 5. I feel pretty good about it, but I guess I could whiff. I do think I'll get there. I hope you're getting your QPs this month, and I'd like to hear QP grinding strategies you may employ. Next time I'll be back with either a sealed pool or a draft.