2024 at What If Brews
And some thoughts on who I am as a Brewer
I can point to the moment my Magic playing trajectory shifted from “good player” to “excellent player”. It was episode 185 of Limited Resources: Brian Wong’s second episode, focused on Sideboarding.
This was right around when I started listening to Limited Resources. I had been a low 1700’s rating limited player on Magic Online and I decided I was going to make a focused effort on becoming better and of course listening to Limited Resources was one of the first recommendations I found.
In short order from that episode I massively improved. Maxing out at a 2070 rating and getting on the Pro Tour.
I improved my game in a ton of dimensions during that period, but the genuine elite Limited skill I honed was sideboarding. And I had never even thought seriously about sideboarding in Limited before episode 185.
The core message of that episode is you need to throw out what you know about the limited environment starting with Game 2. You are no longer building a deck to beat a wide range of potential decks. You are building a deck to beat the deck you just saw in Game 1. That is an entirely different proposition.
The classic example is 1/3’s for 2 are generally not good. But if your opponent is playing an aggressive deck full of 2/1’s, suddenly those two mana 1/3’s are a Doom Blade caliber card.
The big takeaway of the episode is that most people think about sideboarding in terms of “hey, my opponent has some enchantments and artifacts, I’ll side in Naturalize”. But the real power in sideboarding is understanding “who’s the beatdown” and getting your deck to line up optimally against what your opponent is trying to do.
Who I am as a Brewer
The way I brew is like we are permanently in Game 2 of a Limited match. There is a clear metagame. I do not need to brew a generically strong deck that can take on all comers. I need to build a deck that crushes the much narrower range of decks that I am likely to face.
That’s the lesson I learned from Limited Resources 185, it is what made me an excellent sealed player, and it is what I have carried into my brewing.
Looking back at my 2024, you can see this principal loud and clear.
By far my most popular article was my initial Fecund Greenshell and Frogs list:
The core message of this article was “Competitive brewing is about hard targeting the meta”, which is exactly what I am saying above about it does not matter if cards are generically strong. It matters if they line up well against what your a likely to face.
This is why I can have success with decks like this one that are full of bulk rares. It is all about how well the card lines up against the current meta. Fecund Greenshell is currently not as good in Standard as it is in Pioneer. That’s because the core creature interaction there are cards like Go for the Throat and Into the Flood Maw.
But in Pioneer the core creature interaction spells are Lightning Axe and Fatal Push. That makes all the difference.
Also, these things are not locked in stone: the Standard meta is rapidly changing towards Nowhere to Run being the main removal spell, so Greenshell could become good. Phoenix is becoming less popular in Pioneer, so Greenshell might wane there.
My next two most popular articles were:
Both of these articles were focused on how I was adjusting the deck to aggressively target the changing meta. In the first maindecking 4 Temporary Lockdown. In the second rebuilding the deck away from Storm the Festival so I could maindeck 10 Enchantment removal spells.
How many people are brewing out there with their leading thought being “what deck can I come up with that will allow me to have 1/8’th of the maindeck be enchantment removal.” But that is how you brew when all you care about is “what are the common themes in the most popular decks”.
My next most popular article was my Orzhov Greasefang article.
This was my ode to Sideboarding (and real sideboarding here, not just positioning for the metagame). Hopefully it persuades you that 1) I am not full of it when I say I am really good at sideboarding and 2) that sideboarding is crazy important and you need to brew thinking of the full 75 (or 95) and not think of the 60 and the sideboard as an afterthought.
Wrapping, Thank You’s, and Looking Ahead to 2025
So if you want to see the DNA of this blog, go listen to Episode 185 of Limited Resources. It is not just how I approach brewing there, but also you can see my approach to writing where I try and do for brewing what Brian Wong was able to do so exemplary for Limited: break things down into digestible and generalizable theoretical constructs using local examples.
2024 would not have been the year it was for What If Brews without the support and promotion from Faithless Brewing and Fireshoes. Thank you!
It would not be what it is without the awesome community over on the Faithless Brewing Discord. Thank you!
And the quality of What if Brews would not be what it is without my brothers editing and giving me feedback on every article. Thank you!
I do not really do anything to promote this blog, so the only ask is that if you have a friend who you think would get something from a given article, share it with them, because they are unlikely to stumble across it.
I am excited for 2025. For how I engage with Magic six standard sets a year works out kind of perfectly. I have also had nothing but good experiences with Universes Beyond so far, so I am excited to get to engage with them more regularly.
I can also finally play Pioneer on my phone thanks to Pioneer Masters coming to Arena, which should expand my ability to test more ideas. And MagicCon Chicago is less than two months out!
Let me know if there is anything you would like to see more of from this blog. Any specific kinds of articles you want to see more of? More brewing theory, more coverage on the decks I test that end of being mediocre and generally do not make it into articles, occasional Standard decks, more random/general interest, workshopping reader submitted decks?
Thanks again and now here is to another year of brewing!
