OK, so this was way back on August 26th and I’ve been lame in writing up the report. Mostly, I played this deck because it was silly and fun. Somebody tweeted about a SnakeBlade list but I didn’t have access to it, and I decided that I could generate a humorous one, and here’s what I came up with. I’ve always loved the card River Boa and hadn’t played the Zendikar reprint, so here way my excuse to do so.
[deck title=Snakes with a Blade!]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra
4 River Boa
3 Spellskite
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Consecrated Sphinx
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Preordain
1 Spell Pierce
2 Into the Roil
4 Mana Leak
4 Spreading Seas
2 Dismember
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
2 Halimar Depths
4 Island
2 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Verdant Catacombs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Obstinate Baloth
3 Nature’s Claim
2 Dismember
3 Flashfreeze
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Cobra Trap
1 Deprive
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Obviously, the point is to get a River Boa Sworded up and Islandwalk your way to victory. Yes, it’s very silly.
Round 1: Zach, playing BG homebrew
Game 1 I ended up getting a Lotus Cobra sworded up with SoFF and he went all the way. Sword of Feast and Famine is pretty good against straight BG. Game 2 was more of a grind and he got me down to 5, but I finally managed to get out a Sword and a Sphinx and take it in the end.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: Joe Bass, playing UW Venser control
Joe is the consensus dominant player in the store and always a touch match. Game 1 I actually won pretty easily with an early River Boa. I got SoFF on it, but he O Ringed the Sword. I promptly came back with Sword of War and Peace and that ended it quickly as Joe had 6 cards in hand. Game 2 I didn’t come out fast enough, and while I Nature’s Claimed his first O Ring, he got Venser and Walls and somehow had no Islands (all duals for his blue) and I never got there. Game 3 was all about me having a slow start and him having Gideon to keep the Snakes off him.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games
Round 3: Chris, playing Bant Planeswalkers
Gideon, Garruk, Jace, and Karn were all in his deck. Game 1 I managed to color screw him off white for a long time with Spreading Seas, but I was drawing nothing but land besides my one Cobra (which got him down to 12) and so when he finally got Garruk out, I had no answers. Game 2 was more of the same, but with me not even having a Cobra. It was pretty awful, frankly, as I don’t think this one said anything other than it’s really hard win when you get flooded badly two games in a row.
1-2 matches, 3-4 games
Round 4: Mitchell, playing Gr Infect
Game 1 he quickly ran me over with pumped infect guys. Game 2 I got an early Spellskite, which is amazing against him since he can’t pump his guys. I got a Sworded Snake and then a Sphinx and ended it. Game 3 he got me to nine poison counters on turn 2: Glistener Elf, Teetering Peaks, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth. Yow. However, I didn’t panic, put down a Spellskite in addition to the Bird I had, then Spreading Seas on his one Forest (he had another Teetering Peaks out, so no help there) and then Sworded up a Boa (“Snake with Blade!”) for the win.
2-2 matches, 5-5 games
Talk about disappointing! Losing to Joe was legit, but I felt the deck could have done better. Still, it was loads of fun to have one opponent and one onlooker exclaim “motherfucking Snake with a motherfucking Blade” so it was totally worth it.