OK, so I wrote this a while ago (December 29th, so almost a month) and forgot to actually post it. It’s not a super impressive win or anything, but I need this for reference in a post I’m going to do soon, so here it is…
On Sundays my LGS has been running standard, and every once in a while we make it to that. For Christmas this year I got a couple of Stormbreath Dragons and so I decided I should put those to use, and put together Naya Control. Here’s the list:
[deck title=Naya Control]
[Creatures]
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Mizzium Mortars
4 Selesnya Charm
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Selesnya Keyrune
2 Advent of the Wurm
2 Assemble the Legion
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Forest
4 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Triumph
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
4 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Pithing Needle
2 Wear // Tear
2 Last Breath
2 Bramblecrush
2 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
The sideboard is a little weird as there really should be 1 or 2 more Assemble the Legion in there, but I only had 2. (That situation has been corrected.) Not tons of people, so four rounds cutting to top 4.
Round 1: Sean, playing Jund Aggro
G1 I got a little behind, but got him to swing into 4 open mana on my end (1 was a Keyrune) and thus into a Wurm token. I ended up with two Keyrunes, which are actually pretty good against 2-power creatures and Dreadbores. I played Elspeth and that covered it. Game 2 he mulled to 5 and I kept a 2-lander with 3 Chained to the Rocks, an Anger, and a Charm. Needless to say, nothing of his early plays lived, and I eventually drew into a Smiter and Xenagos, and they went all the way.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: John, playing Orzhov Control
Best match of the day, though this is in part because I punted the first game. I got T3 Smiter, then T4 I played land and passed because I had an Advent in my hand, and he played a Sin Collector, so I cast Advent in response. He took a Mizzium Mortars. I came back with another Smiter and swung, he chumped the Smiter with the Collector. The problem is that he came back with a Blood Baron. Oops, no Mortars. Now, with 13 power on the board and a lead on the life total, this was winnable, but he drew some removal and then I punted. He was at 11 and had a Pack Rat in play and 3 mana open; I had a Chained, an Anger, and a Charm in hand. So, if I got rid of the Rat, I had him. Unfortunately, I led with the Anger. He just let the Rat die and cast Devour Flesh when I swung. If I had used the Chained instead, I could have Charmed in response to the Devour to sac the knight token and gotten in for lethal. Of course, he came back with a second Blood Baron and I lost that race. G2 I kept a 2-lander (both W/R land) with a Keyrune, both Elspeth, a Xenagos and a Charm. he Thoughtseized me turn 1 and took Xenagos. I did eventually draw land—more W/R land—and he got stuck on 3 Swamps. I cast T5 Elspeth and made tokens, he Downfall’d her. T6 we did it again. He did draw a 4th land, but the tokens and the Keyrune got there. G3 I took out both a Pack Rat and a Llifebane Zombie (that had missed) with Anger and then stuck an Assemble, then locked it out with Ruric Thar after taking out his Connectioned Swamp with a Bramblecrush.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games
Round 3: Sabrina, playing Monoblack
This wasn’t quite the standard monoblack build but did run Gray Merchants and a mess of other black cards, including things like Tormented Hero and Agent of the Fates. Game 1 was T2 removal for me, T3 Smiter, T4 Advent, T5 Smiter and she was stuck on 3 and I just rolled. Game 3 was much closer. While I did eventually develop an insane board with two Assembles, Xenagos, and Elspeth, my life total was dangerously low because of a couple Gray Merchants. Fortunately, she did not draw another one or any kind of answer to my massive token assault, so I carried it.
3-0 matches, 6-1 games
Round 4: Festus, playing RDW
We were the only two undefeateds so we were guaranteed a spot in the top 4 and we ID’d.
3-0-1, 6-1 games
Sometimes at the LGS we split the top 4, and this ended up being one of those times because one of the guys who made it had to go, and one of the others in the top 4 was my son Simon, and we hate playing each other to determine differences in store credit that we end up splitting anyway, so we were all cool with a split.
Thoughts on the Deck
Very fun, lots of different angles to play, and the matchups seem interesting. I played a couple games between rounds against a proper monoblack devotion deck and split. The deck really should run 2 more Assembles in the sideboard, which is amazing against Monoblack. I’d like to play the monoblue matchup to see how that goes, but it seems to have very solid game against other aggro. I’d also like to play against UW or UWx control, which seems like it might be a tougher matchup.