So, I was on the road Sunday through Thursday and didn’t really have time to test or brew, so I went back to my old buddy, Mythic Conscription. Montag’s didn’t have quite the turnout of the week before, possibly because of either the holiday weekend or the outrageous torrential downpours we’ve been getting off the edges of hurricane Alex. 4 rounds of Swiss, cut to top 8. Here’s the list I played:
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Dauntless Escort
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Planeswalkers
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon Jura
Other spells
1 Finest Hour
2 Eldrazi Conscription
Land
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Forest
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
2 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
3 Negate
2 Bant Charm
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Emerge Unscathed
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Qasali Pridemage
Round 1: Marcus, playing Esper Artifacts
Marcus was a new face at Montag’s which is always good to see. I have to be honest, I felt bad about how this one went. Both games I used ramp and Jace to get out an early Sovereign and beat him down with it; in the second game it was turn 3 off a pair of Lotus Cobras. It was pretty bad.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: Daniel, playing Jund
I’ve played Daniel at least once before. Actually, we ID’d in the fifth round about a month ago. I knew he was playing Jund, which is generally a pretty good matchup for Mythic. Game 1 I got out a couple Knights of the Reliquary. He tried to Pulse one but I had it without summoning sickness and was able to sac a Plains for a Steppe. Next turn I got down a Baneslayer, and that was it. Game 2 I kept a hand I should not have kept: six lands and a Dauntless Escort. I got beat down, of course Game 3 was pretty funny. I had a Bird and a two Cobras early, and Bant Charmed a Thrinax to swing for 4. He generated another Thrinax and the only card in hand was a Conscription. I drew a sixth land, dropped it, and hard-cast the Conscription on one of the Cobras (he was tapped out). The best part about hard-casting a Conscription is you get the annihilator trigger. He sac’d the Thrinax and a land. He dropped another land and Terminated the Conscripted Cobra, and I was able to kill him with a activated Colonnade.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games
Round 3: Trevor, playing Jund
Trevor is a Montag’s regular, or semi-regular at least. Game 1 he got an early Geopede and I had a pair of Hierarchs and a Cobra. I managed a Knight and then a Gideon and that got me the rest of the way. I don’t really remember the details of Game 2 all that well, but it was a Kor Firewalker and a Knight that carried it.
3-0 matches, 6-1 games
Round 4: Tony, playing Next Level Bant
I was rounded down, but guaranteed to make it to the top 8, and Tony decided his tiebreakers were good enough for us to ID. Joe and John were also 3-0 and they also drew, and so Joe and John taught Tony and me how to play Dominion. Good times.
3-0-1 matches, 6-1 games
Quarterfinals: Nolan, playing 4-color Warp World
I knew it was a wild homebrew with Avenger of Zendikar in it, but not much else. Game 1 was pretty silly. I managed a Cobra on turn 2 off a Hierarch, then a fetch into a Baneslayer on turn 3, then a fetch into a Sovereign on turn 4. I didn’t really see anything from him other than a Birds and a Trace of Abundance. Just in case, I sided in the Pridemages for the Escorts. Game 2 was a bit more drawn out. I got a Knight and a Jace out, and then managed one whack with a Baneslayer before it died to a combination of a Path (to draw out a Steppe) and Siege-Gang tokens. I was fatesealing with Jace and got down Elspeth and a second Knight, and they carried the day.
4-0-1 matches, 8-1 games
Semifinals: John, playing RDW
These games went really poorly. Game 1 I opened with no source of green and multiple green cards, then mulled to 6: four land, a Conscription, and a Sovereign. I went to 5, and it was four land and a Conscription. Ugh. I didn’t think I could win with 4 so I kept. He of course got a turn 1 Guide and I kept drawing nothing but mana dorks, which he burned each time I cast one. I finally got a Knight, but he burned me down to 3. I dropped a Sovereign and swung with the Knight, putting him at 5 and dead next turn, but he finally managed his third land and killed me with a Hell’s Thunder. Game 2 I took an OK hand: a forest and a plains, two mana creatures, a Firewalker, an Escort, and something expensive (Gideon?). Unfortunately, I didn’t draw a third land and he burned off both the mana dorks, so I never got a second source of white. I eventually got the Dauntless out, but that was it… burned to death.
So, I finished 4-1-1 in matches, 8-3 in games; not too bad, really. For finishing in the top 4 I got like $15 in store credit, so not bad at all.
I stayed to watch the final, which was John’s RDW against Tony’s Next Level Bant. Tony pulled it out in three games; John got a little mana-flooded in the third game. This was the first time I’d seen Next Level Bant at Montag’s other than the time I played it
So, one more week of Standard before we switch to drafting M11, and then M11 will be in play, so one more week of the current environment. I’m not sure what I’ll play. The Junk deck that should, in theory, be good hasn’t tested very well in the limited time I’ve given it, so I’m not sure what route to take. I saw almost no UW or Super Friends this week, so maybe something along that line. We’ll see.