The Iceman Plays Standard Pt I

I was reading Karsten's coverage of the Dutch nationals and noticed the U/W Martyr of Sands deck he linked here. I thought it looked awesome but untuned. Lucky me a couple Page Down's later we find this spicy number:

Olaf Koster's U/W Martyr 2007 Dutch Nationals

Main Deck 60 cards 3 Nimbus Maze 4 Hallowed Fountain 7 Snow-Covered Plains 2 Tolaria West 1 Mouth of Ronom 1 Urza's Factory 2 Azorius Chancery 2 Adarkar Wastes 2 Snow-Covered Island 24 lands 4 Martyr of Sands 3 Aeon Chronicler 7 creatures 2 Sacred Mesa 2 Beacon of Immortality 3 Proclamation of Rebirth 4 Wrath of God 3 Story Circle 4 Condemn 3 Foresee 1 Pact of Negation 4 Mind Stone 3 Azorius Signet 29 other spells

Sideboard 3 True Believer 2 Take Possession 3 Angel's Grace 1 Whetwheel 1 Return to Dust 3 Muse Vessel 2 Aven Riftwatcher 15 sideboard cards

It has everything a man could dream of; a great aggro matchup, a combo that doesn't win you the game but helps a great deal, and mirror matches that will drive grown men to tears. I checked ye ole' MODO account to see what I needed. Short a few cards here and there but nothing that is too expensive or will stop me from testing.

I save my deck and head for the Tournament Practice room. I hop in a game, win the die roll and elect to play. I'm greeted with this not optimal but quite playable hand:
I pass the turn and face an opening from my opponent that is dreaded by mages world-wide. Oh wait this isn't Standard Vanguard and he isn't running the Mirri Avatar? Hmmm, guess he is just running some janky Thallid deck then. And a janky Thallid deck it was. On my second turn I mised an Snow-Covered Plains so I could start accelerating my mana. He played some more bad Thallids while I developed my mana. I then cast Foresee flipping the following four cards: Hallowed Fountain, Tolaria West, Proclamation of Rebirth, and Martyr of Sands. This was a very easy choice as I had three lands in hand along with a Proclamtion. I happily drew the Martyr sending the rest of the cards to the bottom of my deck and drawing a Condem while I was at it. The rest of the game is pretty much a joke as I draw a second Foresee finding me a Wrath of God. A pair of fat Cronics finish him off with me just shy of 50 life. He saved me the trouble and conceded the match.

/RANT ON
Why do people bring these awful piles into the TP room? Was this power-house of a mono Green Thallid deck terrorizing the casual room to the point of being chased out? Was this guy a noob thinking he has a shot at tournaments with this pile? It goes without saying that this deck from the seven or eight cards I saw was Block Constructed legal. I face idiots like this all the time in Classic TP games often with decks much like his. In matches like this I play game one to show the crushing difference in power-level between tuned decks for that format and casual decks for another format. Then I concede the match to save us both time. Moral of the story: casual decks=casual room, decks with a shot of winning a match in a PE=tournament practice room!
/RANT OFF

So can anything be learned from games versus joke.dec? A little but nothing we couldn't figure out by looking at the deck list. Unsurprisingly as a deck with light color requirements and running four cycles of dual lands, the mana is very consistent, think I'll be tweaking it some but even that isn't really needed. Mind Stone is grade A awesome as a card. It becomes A+ awesome in decks where you don't need color fixing. It becomes A++ in a deck that hits the Cronic. Third, Foresee is great for finding the card you need be it a Wrath, combo piece, or win condition. It is now almost 2am and I have class tomorrow morning. This means my first night of Standard testing has shown me that a tuned Standard deck can beat a casual block deck. Good to know. Tomorrow I plan on heading back to the TP room in search of real decks. I'll keep you posted.