   Good
Form 2005.
Description of deck by Brian
David-Marshall & Thomas Gundersen
(quoted):
...But if you scratch the surface of the Top
8, a new deck archetype took 5th, 6th, and 9th place at that event. The
deck is called Good Form, an Enduring Ideal deck capable of plopping the
still-warm-from-the-Core-Set-oven Form of the Dragon onto the table
within the first few turns of the game.
“The deck was initially designed by Tarjei Kvalø, but
Alexander Dahl and I helped tune it,” explained fifth-place finisher
Thomas Gundersen, who may have a tournament report posted on one of the
major strategy sites as early as today. According to Gundersen, the first
couple of passes at the deck occurred before the release of Ninth Edition
and was a hybridization of back to back block decks with Mirrodin's
Krark-Clan Ironworks powering out the Kamigawa Enduring Ideal.
While the deck was capable of casting its eponymous
spell on the fourth turn, about two-thirds of the time they were intrigued
by its power but wary of artifact removal. When Ninth Edition was released
they were able to forgo their reliance on the Ironworks for acceleration
and turn to the source all good red mages have relied upon for their Arc-Sloggers
since Pro Tour-Kobe – Seething Song.
The addition of Seething Song was made possible by the
entrance of red painlands into Standard but the real innovation that Ninth
offered the deck was the flavorful enchantment.
“The main change in Ninth that allowed this deck to work
was probably the addition of Form of the Dragon,” Gundersen said. “The
great synergy with Zur's Weirding and Ivory Mask, as well as it being a
kill card really helped the deck.”
The trio began running the deck through its paces a few
weeks before their National Championship. Their main concern during
testing was to be able to beat monored decks and Tooth and Nail.
Counterspells were not a big concern for them originally as they felt that
monoblue decks were not the fashion and BlueTooth had not become the Tier
1 deck it is today. Then U.S. Nationals took place and the entire format
tipped away from Tooth and toward blue-based control decks.
“We then added Boiling Seas to compensate for this. This
also made us add the two non-basic 'islands' to avoid Boiling Seas
backfiring,” explained Gundersen, who also had a message for the R&D
denizens responsible for the inclusion of the blue hoser in Ninth Edition.
“Please stop reprinting Portal cards in the core sets! Boiling Seas was
infinitely hard to get hold of.” They ended up buying the cards through
mail order and having them shipped via an express carrier at the last
minute.
Good Form fares much better against aggressive creature
decks because it can simply shut down an offense with a Form of the Dragon
on the fourth or fifth turn – something Gundersen claims happens in about
two-thirds of his games. As for the control decks, Gundersen liked his
matchups against black discard decks due to having seven cards – the Forms
and Enduring Ideal – which are “I win” cards.
“They have to have a Specter and a Jitte with counters
already to give you a run for your money with Form in play,” he said.
The secret to winning the Tooth and Nail matchup
involves fetching Zur's Weirding to prevent the Tooth player from
assembling his Urzatron. Gundersen said that they get the Tron, Oblivion
Stone can open the door to get them back into the game.
While the deck is the first exciting development for the
new Standard format its poor matchups against monoblue and BlueTooth may
relegate the deck to Tier 2 status in the coming weeks if Islands continue
to be a popular strategy.
“The deck obviously had a lot of surprise value – for
instance, I managed to beat monoblue once because he tapped out on turn
five for Thieving Magpie,” Gundersen explained. “Losing this surprise
value will weaken the deck against the control decks. However, the deck is
really good and consistent, and if you're expecting a lot of aggro, I
would definitely recommend it. It's also a lot of fun! Having Zur's
Weirding in play and knowing there is no way for your opponent to win,
even though he doesn't know it himself, is definitely very satisfying.
“One change we would probably make was to take out the
Wraths and put in COP: Red instead. Wraths are mainly there against WW,
but are also good against some forms of red. Since red decks are your
worst aggressive matchup (but still good), I would rather shore up that
matchup, since it seems like a really popular deck, and seemed to
constitute about one-third of the field at our Nationals,” concluded
Gundersen.
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