My local shop, Montag’s Games, has the occasional Tuesday Standard-for-a-box, but we didn’t have the 8 necessary for a box, so a couple people decided to play a standard tournament for $5 instead. This may be the death of standard-for-a-box, but since I can only make Tuesday night some of the time anyway, that’s OK.
So, last Friday I played GW Quest, which was fun, but of course I lost to my own BUG deck that I had loaned out. Funny and all, but I figured I’d give BUG another run. I made one minor tweak, going down to 3 Explore for a Garruk. Here’s the list:
[deck title=BUGger Off]
[Creatures]
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Grave Titan
1 Frost Titan
1 Primeval Titan
2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
4 Preordain
1 Disfigure
3 Doom Blade
3 Explore
4 Mana Leak
[/Other spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Halimar Depths
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Drowned Catacomb
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Acidic Slime
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spell Pierce
2 Consume the Meek
2 Disfigure
3 Memoricide
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
With the small turnout, 4 rounds cutting to top 4.
Round 1: Trevor, playing Boros
Trevor plays at Montag’s often enough that we’ve played a few times in the past, though not too many. I had no idea what he’d be playing, but it became apparent when he played a first-turn Goblin Guide followed by a second-turn Plains. The Guide actually helped ramp me into an early Grave… Titan, and he didn’t have an answer for that, so I was able to outrace his little guys. Game 2 he got in a couple whacks, but I got an early Oracle followed by Ob, then played a regular land land and a fetch, killed the blocker he left back with either a Doom Blade or a Disfigure, and swung for lethal. Ob is seriously good in this deck.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: Jack, playing Caw-Go
Jack is also a regular who I’ve played several times. This was a pretty long match, and unfortunately my notes aren’t all that good. Game 1 I know I took a bunch of whacks from a Hawk and eventually a Colonnade and I was down to 4 with multiple cards on Journeys to Nowhere, but I stuck a Frosty and a Jace, and things swung my way quickly after that. Game 2 he got a very slow start, missing his turn 3 land drop, but I was drawing pretty much all land so I couldn’t put on any real pressure. I do remember getting Ob and a land and then cracking two fetchlands and Ob eating a Celestial Purge in response to the double-crack. Oops. Game 3 I also don’t remember that well, but given that his life total went 20-14-8, I’m pretty sure I stuck a Frosty. Good match.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games
Round 3: Joe, playing UB
I play Joe pretty much every time I head over to Montag’s. Joe is almost certainly the strongest player in the store and UB is a very good deck, so we were both expecting a long, drawn-out battle. Amazingly, games 1 and 2 were both very quick. Game 1 he tapped out for something (probably Jace) and I stuck Ob, then got an Oracle next turn, and just exploded on him. Game 2 on turn 4 I Memoricided him for Mana Leak and got all 4 of them, so I thought I’d be able to not have to play around his permission. However, he Duressed me on his turn 5 and got the one Mana Leak I was holding, so his turn 6 he stuck a Grave Titan, and I never came up with an answer for that. Game 3, however, was epic. I made one key mistake here, and it probably cost me the match. In my opener I had two or three spells with Green in the cost—including a Cobra—but no Green sources. However, one of my lands was a Halimar Depths, so I figured it was worth keeping since odds are good there’d be a green source in the next three cards. I played the Depths and found… no green sources. It was an Explore, a Preordain, and another Green card (Garruk, maybe, I don’t remember). Great, I could put the Preordain on top, slide past the two nonlands, and hopefully draw into a source of Green. However, when I got to my next draw phase, I drew… Explore? Oops. I put the cards back in the wrong order! I basically gave Joe a free Time Walk. Very sloppy.
Fortunately, Joe had no early pressure. Many things were countered, I was Duressed a couple times. I did get the Cobra and an Oracle out and with a Tar Pit had Joe at 7. He Edged my Tar Pit and stuck a Frost Titan which got in a couple whacks before I was able to put down Jace and brainstorm for a Doom Blade. He dropped Jace to kill my Jace. We were both in topdeck mode, I drew a couple lands which did nothing but with two Cobra hits had him down to 3 when he topdecked a Wurmcoil Engine. Urgh. However, I drew an Acidic Slime and so had to Slime his Wurm. I still had a problem with those nasty tokens, and he topdecked… Mimic Vat. I drew I don’t remember what and passed. He swung with the tokens, so I blocked the lifelinker with the Cobra since I didn’t want him to get the Slime, putting me at 1 and him back up to 6. I topdecked Jace and bounced one of his tokens, killing it. I figured next turn I could then bounce the Slime and recast it to kill the Vat, and then he’d have a token to my ooze and we’d be stalemated so I could brainstorm for an answer after that. (Something about this doesn’t add up, so I know I’m remembering something wrong but I’m not sure what.) Unfortunately, he topdecked a Doom Blade so he killed the Slime and swung in for the game. So close! Oh, well, my own fault for the bonehead play on turn 1.
2-1 matches, 5-3 games
Round 4: Dillon, playing UB
Ugh, another UB control deck… Dylan is also a semi-regular who I had played a couple times before. Dylan is also a strong player so I figured I’d be in for it. Game 1, however, I got Garruk on turn 4 so on turn 5 I got a Grave Titan, Dylan having tapped out (well, only 1 land untapped) for little Jace. When I swung the next turn he tried to Consume the Meek in response to blockers, but I had a Leak and countered it. He was again tapped down, so I followed with Frost Titan and he scooped. Game 2 he hit me early with an Inquisition (getting a Cobra) so he knew I had a Grave Titan in hand. I got an Ob through with Spell Pierce help, and so he came back by tapping out for his own Grave Titan. I put down my Grave Titan on my ensuing turn, so the board was Ob, two black Titans, and four zombie tokens. He drew and passed the turn. Since I had the advantage of having Ob, I swung in with my Titan only. He blocked with two tokens and an animated Tar Pit. He drew and passed. I drew a fetchland, making Ob into a 9/9 and swung with Ob and all the zombies. He had no answers, so that was it.
3-1 matches, 7-3 games
Semis: Jeff, playing Wb Metalcraft homebrew
Jeff is a regular and we’ve played many times. I didn’t quite know how this would go, as I didn’t really know what was in his deck other than 0-drops and Steel Overseer. I presumed Tempered Steel but otherwise wasn’t sure. Game 1 was over quickly. He had no 1 drop but his two-drop was a Myrsmith. Didn’t seem too bad and it was something I could kill later if necessary so I tapped out for an Oracle. Turn 3 he got Tempered Steel. Yikes. Turn 4 he produced 3 Ornithopers, making Myr tokens with the Smith and suddenly I was staring down six 3/3s. I Disfigured the Myrsmith next turn, but it was just too late. Yow. In went the Consume the Meeks, the Acidic Slimes, the Baloths, and the two extra Disfigures. Unfortunately, he was a little mana flooded and I was mana light, which made my Leaks dead. He had a Chalice and a couple little metal guys out and then dropped an Etched Champion. It turns out Etched Champion is really, really good against my deck when Metalcraft is active. My only real out is that they’re not very big so it’s a slow death so I had some chance of drawing Consume the Meek. I got a Slime to kill his Steel Overseer, though he responded with an activation so his Champion was 3/3. I also got a Baloth, but I could not keep him off Metalcraft. He drew a second Champion and that meant he could outrace my Tar Pit, and that was it. The two Consumes were in the bottom five cards in my deck, so it wasn’t like help was on the way. Really wicked little aggro deck, great homebrew. Very soft to Day, but not enough people are playing UW. Pyroclasm would be good, but only assuming no Tempered Steel. Nobody is running 4 Consume. Next time I play BUG I’ll run 3 in the board.
3-2 matches, 7-5 games
Still loving BUG, though I might tinker a little more with it. I might try Duress in the sideboard instead of Memoricide, and definitely go up to 3 Consume the Meek. So the big problem is what to play next FNM. I don’t want to go with RUG or BUG, I did GW Quest last time, and I don’t want to go with UB or UW since there’s enough of that around. I haven’t played a lot of Vamps but I’ve seen it at the store. I’m definitely not going back to Valakut after the last time I played it, so… hmm.