Category: MtG

So, a couple weeks ago I had this idea for a Standard deck, and it wasn’t until tonight that I’d gotten a chance to actually play it in a tournament. This is the last Standard tournament for a while and the last one before Mirrodin Besieged rotates in, so I’ve been bummed that I haven’t had a chance to play it, but I had to miss FNM last week for a date night with my wife. These things happen.

Anyway, I’ve changed the deck some since I originally posted it. Here’s the list I actually played:

[deck title=Sin City]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
4 Emeria Angel
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Sunblast Angel
1 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Gideon Jura
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Doom Blade
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Mimic Vat
2 Day of Judgment
[/Other spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
6 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Tectonic Edge
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Duress
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Revoke Existence
2 Pyroclasm
1 Day of Judgment
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Liliana Vess
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Not playing Day of Judgment in the main was simple lunacy; Day is amazing. Admonition Angel is very cute and all, but with Gideon and Luminarch Ascension, my opponents tend to swing, so Sunblast Angel is just too good not to play 2 of in the main deck. Emeria Angel is a weird card. There are some games when she is just so good it’s ludicrous, and other games where I just want to hit myself for even thinking about playing her. I never figured out a better option, though, so I kept her in. The Revoke Existence in the sideboard are admittedly iffy; Act of Treason is probably a better choice.

In my mind, the sketchiest thing about this deck going in is the mana base. Three colors is hard to support without any really serious color fixing beyond the fetchlands. Fortunately you never really need more than one black or one red source, as long as you have two white available, the deck is happy.

The deck name comes from the color combination, in case that isn’t obvious. Sin City is partly a response to something someone said at FNM earlier, that there are only two viable choices in the current envrionment: all-out aggro and decks that require 4 or more $40+ mythic rares, usually Jace. I wanted to build a viable control deck where nothing in the deck cost more than $25; Gideon Jura is by far the most expensive card in the deck and is findable at under $20, so this fit the bill… if it’s actually viable. I am not, nor have I ever been, a great deckbuilder, but I’m proud of this one.

Turnout at Montag’s Games hasn’t been all that great lately and that trend continued tonight, only 16 people showed. 4 rounds of Swiss, cut to top 4.

Round 1: Brandon, playing RDW
Well, a real test right out of the gate. I’d seen Brandon at Montag’s before, but we had never played. I knew he was playing RDW because he and a friend were talking about it beforehand. Game 1 can be pretty tricky but post-sideboard should favor me since nobody actually plays Combust and four Wall of Omens plus multiple Baneslayers is still awfully good against RDW. Game 1 I opened with an Inquisition and a couple spot removal spells. He won the die roll, played a Mountain, and passed. I Inquisitioned him first turn and saw a Mountain, a Staggershock, a Koth, a Searing Blaze, and two Goblin Ruinblasters (main deck? really?). I took one of the Ruinblasters. Now, I don’t know why he kept this, as it’s not exactly what you’d call a pressure-packed hand. I guess in an environment with a lot of Lotus Cobras, it’s keepable. However, this gave me time to play out a Chalice then a Vat and then Gideon on turn 4. He got a Goblin Guide after I put down Gideon so Gideon was at 6, and I just killed the Guide with Gideon and put the goblin under the Vat… not exactly the greatest Vat run ever. He Staggershocked Gideon down to 2, so I pumped Gideon back up and played an Angel, which ate his topdecked Bolt. From there I just beat him up with Gideon. He threw various bits of burn at me before playing Gideon and I did end the game at 8, but I never felt like I was in serious danger. I sided out the Luminarch Ascensions, two Inquisitions, and two Emeria Angels for the extra Day, the Pyroclasms, and the three Baneslayers. Game 2 I opened with a Bolt, a Doom Blade, and a Pyroclasm and four lands, which I kept. He put down a Plated Geopede on his turn 2, then swung without landfall on his turn 3, then played out another Geopede. Then I Pyroclasm’d. He came back with a Mountain and a Kargan Dragonlord, which I did not immediately Blade, but waited for him to pour all three of his mana into next turn before paying homage to @Doom_Blade_Guy. I followed up with Gideon. He burnt Gideon out after two hits, but I had drawn into a second one and he went all the way. Hey, not bad!
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: John, playing Valakut
John is a regular at Montag’s and we’ve played many times, though not lately as John has been kind of sour on Standard of late. Nobody at the store had played Valakut in a long time (I think I may have been the last person to do so) and so I hadn’t really thought about that matchup much. In retrospect, my deck seems pretty soft to it. Game 1 I mulled down to 5 because of no white mana at either 7 or 6… and actually the five I kept had no white either. I didn’t draw a white source until turn 5 and by then it was just way too late, Mountains were bolts and I just died horribly. I sided out all four Emeria Angels and something else for the four Duresses and the extra Day.Game 2 I took a hand with 3 hand kill to keep him off ramp, but… no black source. In fact, I got stuck on two Plains and a Tectonic Edge for a couple turns, and I had to Edge off a Valakut. Needless to say, I lost this one as well. These were two quick and hopeless beatings. Completely hosed on mana, but I knew that was a risk with this deck so I decided to just suck it up and win the rest of them.
1-1 matches, 2-2 games

Round 3: Daniel, playing Caw-Go
Daniel is a regular who I’ve played before, though not too many times. He got stuck on a Seachrome Coast, a Mystifying Maze, and a Tectonic Edge for a couple turns. I wasn’t really putting much pressure on, but I did get a Luminarch Ascension on turn 4 and then just hit him a couple times with a pumped manland. He got Gideon, but that turn I got the fourth counter and thus two Angels, who made short work of his planeswalker. I came back with my own Gideon, but he came back with his second, killing both. However, I still had angels and they ended it. I sided out all four Walls and the two Days plus one Emeria for two more Luminarch Ascensions, the Duresses, and Liliana. Game 2 I got a little land-hosed, and he hit me with Spreading Seas three times in my first four land and I never really got anywhere. Game 3 I got a Luminarch Ascension on turn 2, hit him with Duress on turn 3 and took a Revoke Existence, and then got another Ascension on turn 4. I actually almost let him keep the Revoke and took big Jace since I had the second Ascension in hand, but I decided it was better to put max pressure on him. That worked, and angel tokens went all the way.
2-1 matches, 4-3 games

Round 4: Carlos, playing Gr homebrew
Carlos is another regular who I’ve played many times. His deck was largely Elves (including Nissa) with Bolts, but with a few curveballs in there, like Precursor Golem. Game 1 Carlos managed to get ahead and had a couple Nissa’s Chosen (one summoned by Nissa, who ate a Bolt) and 3 golems beating up on me, but I had a Wall of Omens, a Luminarch Ascension, and a Wurmcoil Engine. He had me at 7, but I dropped Gideon and made him swing into the Wurmcoil. Gideon took 7 but lived to force another attack, costing Carlos another dude, gaining me 6 more life, and I was accumulating Ascension counters. Gideon died to a kicked Burst Lightning, but by then I had 4 counters on the Ascension and that was it. I was at like 31 life when it ended. Game 2 I thought I had a good draw with a Day and a Baneslayer, but Carlos hit my land with Acidic Slime on turns 4 and 5. I had fetches to get more Plains to replace the lost ones and got a Day off killing the elf and both Slimes and followed that up with a Baneslayer, and I figured I had it, but he immediately answered my fattie angel with Chandra Nalaar. Wow, Chandra, hadn’t seen her in a while. Well, I got stuck on those 5 land with both a Wurmcoil and a Sunblast in my hand, and Carlos finished me off. Ugly. Game 3 I got off a Day on turn 4 and then got a Baneslayer on turn 5, which I had to swing into his Garruk which had made two Beasts. He also had two other creatures on the board and swung with everything since I had no blockers. This meant on turn 6 I managed a 4-for-1 with my Sunblast Angel. He never really recovered from that, and scooped when I followed that up with a Wurmcoil.
3-1 matches, 6-4 games

Semis: Daniel, playing BUG Wave
The other two in the top 4 were my round 1 opponent Brandon (he hadn’t lost since) and my round 2 opponent John (undefeated). I’d played Daniel a couple weeks before and knew he had the same deck as that time. It’s basically a green ramp deck with Genesis Wave, which waves into Ob Nixilis, the Fallen or Avenger of Zendikar. The only blue main is, I believe, Jace. It’s a very streaky deck: when it doesn’t work, nothing much happens, and when it works, it’s a freaking explosion. Anyway, game 1 was a train wreck. He won the roll, and I faltered a little on mana after hitting him turn 1 with Inquisition and seeing Explore, Ob, Primeval Titan, Genesis Wave, and three lands. I took the Explore, and of course he topdecked a Cobra. Meh. He Cobra’d into Primeval Titan getting two fetches, and while I had a Doom Blade, it did not bode well. He got an Oracle then Ob and then Waved for the win. Yikes. I sided out all four Emeria Angels for the Pyroclasms, the Day, and a Duress. I got a turn 2 Luminarch and that was the difference. He ramped into a bunch of land but I knew what he had from an early Inquisition and he didn’t have the two black he needed for the Ob in his hand. I got the Luminarch active and made angels, hitting him down to 7. He fired off a big Wave and got an Avenger, but all the plant tokens in the world won’t block a sky full of 4/4s. I went back to the sideboard, putting in a third Luminarch and changing out the Inquisitions for Duresses. This game was really tight. I got a turn 2 Luminarch again, but he got Ob before I got enough counters to go crazy. I came back with a Wumcoil. He played a basic land to Ob me down to 8, but of course he didn’t swing. I swung with the Engine going back up to 14 and played a Sun Titan. He got a Wave and hit some land and an Oracle and a couple small dudes. He flipped the top card in his deck and missed a land, so he cracked a fetch to put me down to 2 and missed land again on the top of his deck. He probably figured he had to get rid of the Sun Titan to get in next turn with his new little guys, so he swung with Ob. I chumped with my Titan, and came back with a Sunblast Angel to kill Ob. I could then swing in with the Wurmcoil to go back up to 8 life. He was at 7 so he chumped with a Treespeaker. We both knew his next draw was another Oracle, so he couldn’t really do anything, and that got my Ascension up to 4 counters. I made an Angel and swung for lethal. Whew!
4-1 matches, 8-5 games

Brandon bested John in the other semi, and because he really wanted to get to another store that was having a midnight prerelease, we agreed to split.

I got to bank my credit toward a Tezzeret 2.0 which Guy (the store owner) said he’d almost certainly acquire on Sunday, which is when Montag’s has its prerelease. Excellent!

So, the deck. It’s not the most consistent deck in the universe, as the mana is a little suspect. Sphere of the Suns would be much better than Everflowing Chalice here, though the Chalice was pretty good to me overall, I only cast it with more than 1 counter once all night. On the other hand, the deck has some great tools. Luminarch Ascension is a really terrific card against non-aggro decks, and combined with 8 1-mana discard spells makes post-board games pretty good against control decks. Day and a full suite of Walls and Bolts, plus Wurmcoil, is a fantastic pain in the ass for aggro decks and that worked out great as well. Valakut is definitely the worst matchup and I’m not sure what the best solution is there.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that a 16-man FNM isn’t exactly the Pro Tour or anything and 8-5 isn’t a stellar game record. I’m not suggesting that Sin City is a Tier 1 Standard deck. However, I think I was able to make my point that it is possible to build a reasonably viable deck that isn’t all-out aggro and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Later edit: OK, so the right answer for Valakukt is (well, was, since the format is all different now) probably Leyline of Sanctity. Not sure that it’s really all that great since most Valakut builds run some kind of artifact/enchantment control in the side, but it has to better than the current nothing.

It’s late in the rotation and a new set is about to come in, and people are complaining that Standard is getting stale. So, here’s something new to try.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of an original deckbuilder. However, every once in a while I have an idea that I think is worth at least exploring. Yesterday as I was doing errands before FNM, an idea struck me and I thought it was worthy enough to hastily try to throw it together and give it a spin. Unfortunately, FNM didn’t happen last night since not enough people showed. I did get to play the deck a few times against what I think is actually a pretty good Metalcraft aggro deck. I was worried that the deck would be soft to aggro in Game 1 and it didn’t seem bad at all.

The deck name is obviously drawn from the color combo: black and white with a splash of red. Here’s the list:

[deck title=Sin City]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
4 Emeria Angel
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Grave Titan
1 Admonition Angel
2 Sun Titan
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Gideon Jura
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
3 Everflowing Chalice
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Luminarch Ascension
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Doom Blade
2 Mimic Vat
[/Other spells]
[Land]
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Marsh Flats
4 Arid Mesa
5 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Mountain
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Duress
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Pyroclasm
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sunblast Angel
2 Day of Judgment
1 Liliana Vess
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The deck was actually inspired, in a weird way, by Mike Flores’s Mythic Titan deck and the point he made about Luminarch Ascension and then some other thoughts I had about changes to that deck I was going to make. In particular, I wanted to add Wurmcoil Engine (because it’s amazing) and the “other white Titan,” Admonition Angel, to take advantage of all the land the deck generates. Then I realized that Emeria Angel would be good there as well, and then it occurred to me that many of those effects would be fine off fetchlands. @dcampa93 on Twitter suggested going more control and adding Wall of Omens somewhere, and that made me think about Pyroclasm as a mass removal option in lieu of (or in addition to) Day, and I realized I wanted to try something that doesn’t use the Jace-Cobra-Preordain-Mana Leak basis that makes Flores’s deck in some way just the Bant variant of BUG and RUG.

Once I decided on the color combination, and realized I’d be running eight fetches, I really wanted Emeria Angel. There have been some interesting discussions out there about using her in UW control decks as a way to protect Planeswalkers, but I think she’s actually pretty good even without a large number of Planeswalkers.

The other card I really wanted was Mimic Vat. I think this card is incredibly underrated, or maybe just underplayed. It makes your own removal better, can blank opposing removal, and is simply nuts with creatures that have ETB effects. It’s also amazing with a Wurmcoil on the table.

Overall, Sin City plays like a control deck but one that can turn aggro very quickly. Gideon is key to this ability, and the other thing I’ve noticed about the current environment is that it is, in general, light on fliers. The titans are all ground-pounders, and even most of the aggro decks are pretty much all on the ground. Bird tokens are great blockers but also can go aggro very effectively. Lavaclaw Reaches is also really aggressive in the late game if you can get their board clear or get all blockers tapped via Gideon, and of course you can finish with Lightning Bolt.

The sideboard is also really important. Against control decks, the other two Luminarch Ascensions come in with all four Duresses and Liliana. This gives you 8 cheap hand kill, 1 expensive but recurrent hand kill, and 4 Ascensions, which certainly seems like it should be good. And even if they can kill and Ascension, you can possibly get it back with Sun Titan.

Against aggro decks, you obviously take out the Ascensions and bring in the Baneslayers and Sunblast (Sunblast is great with Gideon) as well as the Pyroclasms and the two Day of Judgment. You end up with a lot of lifelink with the Baneslayers and the Wurmcoils which should give you a lot of extra clock. What else you take out would depend on the matchup. Emeria Angels aren’t very good against decks running Bolt, but they don’t die to Disfigure, so that’s at least something. Regardless, the two Days, two Pyroclasms, and all the lifelink makes you hard for aggro decks to kill.

(B/R)UG is probably one of the tougher matchups. Pyroclasm is great against the Cobras and Oracles but you only have two, and that’s not in game 1. I need to test more against this matchup; it might be the case that something like Sword of Body and Mind is called for in the sideboard. The good news is that Inquisition of Kozilek kills Lotus Cobra, Explore, and Mana Leak, which is pretty good. Unless they run Acidic Slime main (unfortunately, some do), they most likely won’t have an answer to Mimic Vat in game 1 and that can be a game-swinger but again, you only have two.

In general against anybody playing Blue I’m thinking keep in all the Bolts as an answer to Jace. You want all 8 hand disruption cards not only to keep them off things like Jace and Mana Leak, but to make sure you know when they have permission so you can safely cast your big guns.

There are a few things that definitely merit further consideration:

• Act of Treason. It certainly seems really good right now against some decks and Sin City runs the right color, but I’m not sure what to take out to run one or two copies. Except maybe:

• I’m not 100% sure that I’m sold on Grave Titan in this deck. Is that the card to cut for an Act of Treason or a second Admonition Angel or perhaps another removal spell?

• The mana base might not be quite right. Three Tectonic Edges seems like the right number, particularly since they can be recurred with Sun Titan; but because of the Titans perhaps even two would be OK. It’s great to have eight fetches, too but maybe there’s something else that would be good.

• Is there a call for Oust or Journey to Nowhere? Bolts and Doom Blades seem pretty good, but they don’t handle indestructibles or produce great results vs. things like Wurmcoil Engine, and of course neither one really handles Grave Titan, either.

Maybe it’s awful, but it seems at least feasible in concept and of course, you can build it without $300+ worth of Jace. It’s not as cheap as Boros and Vampires, of course, but if you want to play something other than aggro without Jace, maybe some version of this is an option for the next couple weeks.

I’d love to get feedback! Comment here or hit me up on Twitter, @SunByrne.

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.

OK, so welcome to 2011! Here’s my first report for the new year. Standard at Montag’s Games, my local shop.

Last Standard I played a BUG deck that I really, really liked. However, I have a “no repeats” rule for Standard so I had to find something else to play. I really liked Sovereign Conscription before Shards block rotated out, and Quest has a similar feel to it. I had done some playtesting with the standard mono-White version of the deck, and I just never really liked it that much, despite really liking the Quest-into-Argentum Armor mechanic. I’d seen a list running Blue for some interesting tweaks, but I still just didn’t like it against decks like RUG and UB.

However, I’ve always really liked Vengevine and Fauna Shaman, and I put together a version running those and I liked it a lot better. The Fauna Shaman makes it easy to cut down some of the suboptimal cards in the mono-White list, like Kor Outfitter. The Vengevines give you a much better game against permission and removal, and Green also gives you a fun 1-of, Beastmaster Ascension. It seemed like it was worth a go. Here’s the final list that I played:

[deck title=Quest for the Fauna Vine]
[Creatures]
3 Ornithopter
4 Memnite
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Glint Hawk
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Kor Outfitter
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Vengevine
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
[/Creatures]        
[Other spells]
2 Argentum Armor
1 Sword of Body and Mind
4 Quest for the Holy Relic
1 Beastmaster Ascension
[/Other spells]        
[Land]
8 Plains
5 Forest
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
3 Sunpetal Grove
[/Land]        
[Sideboard]
2 Celestial Purge
1 Autumns Veil
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Journey to Nowhere
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Kor Sanctifiers
2 Natures Claim
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Darksteel Axe
2 Oust
1 Stoneforge Mystic
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

One of the regulars, Tony, who has become less regular because of a loss of cards (long story) showed up but couldn’t play because he didn’t have a deck. He asked me if I had an extra one (I had loaned him Dredgevine a few months back) and so I loaned him the BUG deck I played last time. This will become relevant later.

Turnout was a little on the small side, not a huge surprise coming off the holidays and all, so four rounds of Swiss cutting to top 4.

Round 1: Dan, playing Gbu Genesis Wave
Dan was brand-new to the store, having just moved here a few days ago. He’s also getting back into the game after a hiatus, which I can certainly identify with. Game 1 I didn’t get the fastest start but got a Sword active and that was definitely enough. Game 2 was utterly stupid. I opened with Quest, Birds, Shaman, and four lands. Not a great hand but turn 1 Quest isn’t bad. So, next I drew land. And then land. Then land. In fact, I drew land for 8 straight turns before he finally killed me, having done nothing of any real use. The deck has only 22 lands and 30 creatures, and not a single non-land card appeared. Game 3 was again not the fastest start, he mostly got a lot of ramp and thus had a ton of land out. He was at 9 and I was at 20. All I had out was a Vengevine, he played an Ob and passed the turn. I had a second Vine in my hand so I cast it and swung with both, putting him at 1. He topdecked a Wave, Waved for four, and hit three lands, one of which was an Evolving Wilds, meaning I took 12 direct and the one swing from Ob was lethal. In all likelihood I misplayed this somewhere, which I didn’t have space for given game 2, in which I could have done nothing different to win. I was a bit displeased with myself.
0-1 matches, 1-2 games

Round 2: Jason, playing GB Infect
Jason is a regular, and he’s been playing this deck for quite a while. This was about a five-minute match. I got Quest on turn 1 both games, and did silly things with the 0-artifacts and Glint Hawks both times. I took a total of 2 poison counters in game 1 and none in game 2.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Chris, playing WU Myr
Chris is also new to the shop, and also just came back to the game after a really extended hiatus—since Mirage! That’s an even longer break than the ten years I took. Chris said he only got back in the game Monday, which seemed pretty amazing. The deck was interesting, kind of a light Standard version of the Extended Tempered Steel deck. Myrsmith, lots of mana Myr, Steel Overseer, Tempered Steel, Chimeric Mass, some counters. Good concept. However, it was short on removal. Game 1 I got a Sword early, which wasn’t really great, but certainly wasn’t awful, but I eventually triggered a Quest and ended it quickly. Game 2 I got an early Shaman and when he dropped a Tempered Steel, I tutored up Kor Sanctifiers. I again eventually got a Quest to go and again ended it quickly.
2-1 matches, 5-2 games

Round 4: Mike, playing WW Knights
Mike is a semi-regular at Montag’s, but I’m not sure if we’ve ever actually played before. Game 1 we both mulled to six with me on the play. It wasn’t a great hand but I kept it. Turns out he kept a one-lander, and while he had three one-drops, all Students of Warfare, I had a Vengevine on turn 3, which was just too much. I boarded in the Ousts and out the Sword and the Mystic. He got a Knight Exemplar and then a Kemba Skyguard, which is actually pretty good, though I had a Beastmaster Ascension. I also managed to get a Quest, but counters were slow in coming until I got a Squadron Hawk, and once that happened, I worked up to getting the Quest and then the Ascension, and that was just too much.
3-1 matches, 7-2 games

Made the cut to the top 4, but of course you knew how this would work out…

Semis: Tony, playing my BUG deck
Of course. Joe and Tony both asked me who was favored, knowing I had gone through this matchup numerous times. In general, pre-sideboard, the Quest deck has a small edge, but post-sideboard it’s a coin flip, as Disfigure, Consume the Meek, and Acidic Slime are all really good against this. Game 1 I got a Sword in my opener and dropped it turn 3 and it went all the way. I boarded in the second Mystic, the Ousts, the Veil, the Lightcaster, and maybe the Journey (not sure on that one). Game 2 I got a turn 2 Mystic and got the Sword, but the Sword got Leaked. He dropped Ob on turn 5 and I came back on my turn 5 with the Lightcaster, which seemed like a pretty sweet play. I beat him down to 9 and then (finally) got a Quest, but he pulled a Consume which wiped my board completely. He got out a Frosty and beat me up before I could get the Quest active. Game 3 was a train wreck. No early Quest, he ramped into an early Slime, hitting one of my two sources of green, and pinning the Vengevine in my hand. He then got Frosty out again and I just never drew an answer. Grr.

Tony drew in the finals. As a rental fee, I confiscated his promo Chalice. I pulled in more store credit than my entry fee for finishing in the top 4, too, so that was good.

So, the deck. It certainly has amazing draws, and the Hawk-Shaman-Vengevine engine is wonderful. The problem is that if you don’t get a Quest early, you’re still playing with a lot of really substandard cards (e.g., Ornithoper) and that puts you at a disadvantage against a decent deck. If your opponent has good ways to deal with artifacts and/or enchantments, it’s also not as good, but not a lot of decks pack a great deal of that so I didn’t see that as a big problem. And hey, at least I lost to my own deck…

So, on the occasional Tuesday night, my local game shop, Montag’s, runs a Standard-for-a-box tournament. Normally this isn’t a good night for me (my kids have piano lessons on Tuesday night) but sometimes it’s my wife’s turn for piano and I am not completely stomped at work and can actually play on a weeknight.

As it turns out, I needed 18 packs. My brother is coming for a visit soon and we usually do a 1-on-1 Sealed for kicks, and I wanted three packs each for my kids’ Christmas stockings. So I was well-motivated, particularly since last FNM I was expecting draft and we played Standard and the only vaguely reasonable deck I had on me was a really bad build of Valakut, and it was simply awful… I went 1-3.

Now, the last deck I had good success with was RUG. The problem I have with RUG is that it’s soft to both Flashfreeze and Doom Blade and sometimes you just ramp land like crazy into… nothing. So, I thought the right solution might be BUG. Doom Blade is better than Bolt against other Titans (except Grave, of course). And black provides another amazing, non-Blade-able use for all that land… Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. And, of course, that color combination also gives access to a full 8 relevant fetches. It’s a wicked fun deck to play, like a cross between RUG and Valakut, as well as some excellent sideboard options.

[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]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Other spells]
4 Preordain
1 Disfigure
3 Doom Blade
4 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]

12 people, so four rounds of Swiss into top 4… obviously, for a box.

Round 1: Alan, playing UW
Alan isn’t a Montag’s regular, but he’d been there before and we had played each other at least once before this. Game 1 was a long, slow, drawn-out playing-around-each-other’s-Mana Leaks kind of event, assisted by my slow draw and his getting stuck on four lands. But ultimately, the threat density was high enough in my deck to get past his Leaks and Tumble Magnet. It took a very long time, though, but eventually I stuck a Titan and he went all the way. However, we didn’t have much time to get into game 2. He had an advantage and got a Colonnade going but I Bladed it. I got a Primeval Titan, and he Clone’d it and fetched up another Colonnade. I Bladed the Clone, but he came back with Day. I got Jace, which he didn’t kill with the Colonnade (he had to try to kill me instead), but that didn’t work when I got an Acidic Slime. He got another Colonnade, but I bounced the Slime with Jace and re-cast it. That was his offense, and we drew on time.
1-0 matches, 1-0-1 games

Round 2: Joe, playing UB
Joe is a Montag’s regular who I’ve played many times and, frankly, who I had not beaten in a very, very long time. Game 1 did not go very well, as he got an early Mimic Vat through and I have no main-deck ways to handle an active Vat other than a Frost Titan. I actually did get one out, but he managed to Blade it and that was it. Game 2 I managed to get an early Ob plus a fetch, managed to clear out his only blocker, and that was it. Game 3 he got a slightly slow start on land, stuck at 4, and I got an early Frosty and then locked it up with Jace to keep him off drawing any more. Holy crap, I beat Joe!
2-0 matches, 3-1-1 games

Round 3: Victor, playing Elves
Both of these games were dumb. I got an early Lotus Cobra in both games, and then not very much else. Game 1 I did Disfigure a Fauna Shaman and then Bladed a second, but he got a Vengevine and I never got enough in the way. Game 2 I got to a state where I had two Cobras on the board, five lands in play, and two Titans in hand… but I couldn’t cast them, and did not manage to draw another land or anything I could cast. Ugly.
2-1 matches, 3-3-1 games

Round 4: Terry, playing UB
So, I had to win to make it forward. Game 1 was somewhat tentative on both sides, but I ultimately stuck a Grave Titan that he couldn’t kill. Game 2 he got an early Jace 1.0 and managed to draw a ton of cards off of it (he made me draw once in a while) but I managed to cast out an Ob with a Pierce backup, though he didn’t attempt to counter it anyway. He did play a Vampire Nighthawk, though, so I couldn’t swing with Ob. I did, however, have two lands still in hand and I kept drawing more (I did finally draw a Jace to kill his; not a good trade but I had to stop the one-way Howling Mine) and I got him down to 4 this way. He finally swung with the Nighthawk to get back to up 6, but I drew a fetch to end it. “Protection from Doom Blade” is an awesome special ability.
3-1 matches, 5-3-1 games

Semifinals: Alan, playing UW
Same Alan as Round 1. The other semi was Joe vs. Victor, so there was going to be a lot of repetition. Game 1 again took forever, but I eventually ran him out of permission. However, he had a Venser out and I was having a hard time doing damage to Alan since I was keeping Venser off going ultimate. He had two Mystifying Mazes out and I had a Cobra and an Oracle with his two Wall of Omens (one of which was actually a Clone) in the way. I got a Grave and then a Frost Titan out, though, but he got a Tumble Magnet. I managed to get a Jace down and that sealed it as I was able to keep him off Day and then wear him down with my guys. Game 2 I again managed to stick an Ob, drop some land, and clear away the only blocker. Ob is amazing in this deck…
4-1 matches 7-3-1 games

Victor agreed to split, so I got my desired 18 packs and all was well.

I really like this deck a lot and I generally didn’t have great draws today. In playtesting it, I was frequently getting a Cobra on turn 2 and it is, of course, amazing when that happens. However, I didn’t get that very often today, and the deck was still good. RUG was fun and I didn’t lose a match when I played it about a month ago, and it might be a little better against fast aggro decks (Pyroclasm is awesome there), but this thing feels like it really has better staying power against control decks. Ob is the bomb here; there’s nothing quite like Ob in RUG. This is a very fun and resilient deck; I highly recommend it!

So, on the occasional Tuesday night, my local game shop, Montag’s, runs a Standard-for-a-box tournament. Normally this isn’t a good night for me (my kids have piano lessons on Tuesday night) but sometimes it’s my wife’s turn for piano and I am not completely stomped at work and can actually play on a weeknight. However, with the holiday and other work constraints, I had no time to tinker or build, so I literally just grabbed whatever I happened to have together at the time. However, that wasn’t bad, as because what I had together was this:

[deck title=Fauna Angels v2]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
4 Vengevine
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Journey to Nowhere
4 Mana Leak
1 Sword of Body and Mind
[/Spells]
[Land]
2 Plains
2 Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Stirring Wildwood
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
4 Razorverge Thicket
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
1 Basilisk Collar
4 Flashfreeze
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4 Obstinate Baloth
1 Gideon Jura
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Acidic Slime
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This is Alexander Shearer’s deck, and it looked like a blast to play and I figured nobody would be ready for it, so I figured why not? I wish I had some time to practice with it beforehand as I went in cold having never played it, but you know, it’s not like it was a PTQ or anything. I have to say, this deck wants Noble Hierarch back in the worst possible way.

Turnout was OK for a weeknight, four rounds of Swiss and cut to top 4.

Round 1: Lee, playing GR
This was Lee’s first tournament and the deck was, I think, a Scars precon with a few customizations. I pretty much steamrolled him in both games. In one of them I got a third-turn Baneslayer off a Cobra and a fetchland, which is pretty much broken against any deck light on removal. In the other game I got Squadron Hawks with Masticore, which is also pretty evil. I actually felt kind of bad about the whole thing, but Lee was cool about it, so that was good.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Matt, playing RUG
Matt is a regular and we get matched up pretty routinely. I had a turn 2 Cobra and a fetch in hand for a Baneslayer, but he had a Bolt for the Cobra. I had no three-drop, and that put me seriously behind, and his deck did the RUG thing and just kind of barfed up a bunch of stuff I couldn’t handle. Game 2 I mulled to six and kept a hand with no source of Blue but two Shamans, which seemed reasonable. Unfortunately, he kept a hand with two Bolts in the opener, and I never drew a source of Blue, so this wasn’t a particularly good game, either.
1-1 matches, 2-2 games

Round 3: Casey, playing GR
Casey came with Lee. He’s not a new player overall, but newly back in the game. This was again a completely unfair matchup and I again managed a turn 3 Baneslayer in one of the games. Turns out a Wall of Tanglecord will actually hold off the big angel for a while, but it’s not what you’d call a good long-term answer. But, really, neither of these games were close.
2-1 matches, 4-2 games

Round 4: Mike, playing UW Control
I had actually played Mike at FNM on the 19th, me playing RUG and him playing UB. We played a pretty good 2-1 match in which I prevailed, but it was certainly one of those that could have gone either way. Game 1 I over-extended a little bit into a Day, but I wasn’t that worried about it because I had a Vine in hand and one in the yard, but my deck deserted me and I just could not draw threats late and could not trigger the Vines. I managed to drag it out with Colonnades, but he gained a ton of life with repeated Elixers off Trinket Mages, and I just could not get there. Game 2 I came out with a 2-drop and an early Vine, and put him back on his heels. He did Day them off and did manage a couple Elixers, but I managed to keep the pressure on and eventually triggered a pair of Vines out the graveyard for the win. Game 3 he mulled down to six and didn’t seem happy about it. I had a turn 2 Cobra into a turn 3 Acidic Slime, which took out a dual land, and I figured that was pretty good to get him behind on land, but his problem was more land flood than anything, and I was drawing threats and just overwhelmed him.
3-1 matches, 6-3 games

So I made the top 4 and drew…

Semis: Joe, playing UB Control
Joe recently made top 4 at the TCGPlayer WWS in Austin with this deck; he is consistently the best player at the store, and I’ve lost to him in the semis multiple times recently, once at Scars Game Day and in the last two draft FNMs in October. A brief check on the DCI page tells me that I was 1-6-2 against Joe going into this one; not what you’d call a stellar record. Anyway, in Game 1 he Disfigured a early Bird and an early Cobra, but I managed to get a Sword out and get it equipped on a Squadron Hawk. He got a Wurmcoil but I had the Journey in hand to stop it, and that gave me a couple more hits with the equipped Hawk, which got me some tokens and just generally made life difficult for Joe. I did not draw well in game 2 and got pretty much rolled; I got a Masticore on turn 3 off a Bird and the Masticore immediately ate a Doom Blade and I just could not draw threats. Game 3 was interesting and really drawn out. We spent far too much time in this game with me simply activating a Colonnade and hitting Joe with it while Joe would swing back with a Tar Pit into my Venser. I kept blinking a Forest with Venser so he’d gain counters, so Joe had to swing at him to prevent him from going ultimate. In the interim he gained a bunch of life off a couple Elixir activations, but fundamentally the problem was that all I could draw was Journey to Nowhere. Eventually my hand consisted of all three Journeys and my board was all lands and a Sword. I probably should have sided one of them out (I had sided in the Slime, Gideon, and Venser for a Sunblast Angel and I don’t remember what else.) I did get Joe down to 2 at one point, but an Elixir took care of that and I eventually died because I just couldn’t draw threats. Actually another land would have been good enough so that I could equip a Colonnade with the Sword and then swing, and then I’d have had a token to equip. Grr. Overall I think the deck has a perfectly decent matchup here, but you do have to at least occasionally draw a threat. Oh, well.
3-2 matches, 7-5 games

I’m glad I got to play the deck, since it’s fun—probably just about any deck with Fauna Shaman and Vengevine is likely to have a good “fun” factor—but it wasn’t exactly a stringent test of the deck’s quality, since my rounds 1 and 3 were pretty close to byes. On the other hand, I felt like it was clear that the only way this deck “feels” right is if you get an early 2-drop, either a Cobra or a Shaman, to stick. I do wish that I had time to change the sideboard before I went, because I really wanted to try Autumn’s Veil as a foil to UB.

My next Standard will probably be another Tuesday night, the 21st, since December is Scars draft at Montag’s, and I’ll have to miss the next two weeks of that and also the last two weeks of the month, so I won’t get much MTG in until January when we go back to Standard.

I had missed FNM the previous week for a “date night” with my wife, and the week before that I had one of the worst MTG nights ever—lost games to getting stuck on 2 land when running 28 land Valakut. Just not my night.

So this week I wanted to take a deck I knew was solid, and so I went with RUG, which has certainly been doing well lately. Here was my build:

[deck title=UGr Ramp Control]
[Creatures]
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
2 Avenger of Zendikar
2 Frost Titan
4 Lotus Cobra
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Explore
4 Mana Leak
1 Volition Reins
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
4 Island
2 Mountain
3 Copperline Gorge
2 Halimar Depths
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Raging Ravine
4 Scalding Tarn
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroclasm
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flashfreeze
1 Volition Reins
3 Goblin Ruinblaster
2 Lavaball Trap
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

It seems trendy right now to run Ruinblasters in the main but I wasn’t so sure and wanted to run the Volition Reins and the Garruk instead. Garruk was awesome—there is no way I would cut him—but the Reins was almost never what I wanted to see. I would cut that and the one in the board if I were to play this again.

Turnout at Montag’s wasn’t very good, so only four rounds cutting to top 4.

Round 1: Mike, playing UB Control
I’d not seen Mike at the shop before so I had no idea what to expect. Game 1 he had only one Island and three Swamps, and I had ramped a little and used Reins on his lone Island, and that quickly ended that game. Game 2 was equally dumb the other way. I had a lot of UU spells in my hand but could not find a second Island for the life of me. He got an early Creeping Tar Pit that went all the way. This is partly my fault as I had sided out most of my Bolts and failed to side in the Ruinblasters. I fixed that and we went to game 3. Game 3 I drew out counters with a Ruinblaster and something else, then stuck Garruk, made a token, and the next turn stuck a Frost Titan. We played counter war after that, but he never stopped my pair of dudes.
1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2: Jason, playing BG Infect
I had been rounded down, so I really had to win this one. Game 1 was pretty bad. He got T1 BoP, turn 2 Plague Stinger, turn 3 Vines of Vastwood (kicked) and I had five poison counters. I never managed to fully stabilize after that because I never drew an answer to the Stinger. Game 2 I had early removal, then ramped into a Frost Titan, then the second Frost Titan, which locked him down completely. Game 3 I got the Oracle/Jace/Cobra engine going and kicked out an Avenger that made 10 plant tokens, then pumped them to 4/5. I attacked for something like 58 total.
2-0 matches, 4-2 games

Round 3: Marvin, playing UB Control
Game 1 we went back and forth a little, countered a few of each other’s things, killed a couple things on each side, but I managed to stick an Avenger and that sealed it. Game 2 I mulliganed down to 5 (two one-land openers) and had trouble getting double green. He hit me with Memoricide for Avenger (I had one in my hand at the time) and I just could not get there when he dropped a Jwar Isle Sphinx. Game 3 he got stuck on two land, but leaked my turn 3 Ruinblaster and then my turn 4 Jace and my turn 5 play, whatever that was. Turn 6 I did stick a Jace, then an Oracle, and that was it.
3-0 matches, 6-3 games

Round 4: Paul, playing RDW
We ID’d since we were guaranteed to be in.
3-0-1 matches, 6-3 games

Semifinals: Carlos, playing UG
Carlos and I have a tendency to alternate who wins, and he won last time, so I felt like I had the upper hand. Game 1 I managed both Garruk and Jace and got an Avenger first, but had to tap out for it, and then he cast… a kicked Rite of Replication. OK, well, then. Game 2 I again got Garruk and Jace, and then I got an Avenger. He came back with a Ratchet Bomb and killed my Beast token and all my plants. I bounced my Avenger with Jace, then re-played it for a new suite of plant tokens, and used Garruk to untap for a counter. He tried something, I countered, he played Jace to kill mine, but I had many plants and Garruk’s ultimate, so that was mine. Game 3 was all about Spell Pierce. On my turn 3 i played a fetch, but didn’t crack it. He went for a Cultivate and I Spell Pierced it. I kept drawing counters, he kept drawing and playing land. Eventually I went up to seven land with a Frost Titan and a Pierce in hand. Carlos played something (I don’t remember what) that I countered, then on my turn I tapped six for the Titan, he countered, and I Pierced his counter. I just held counters in my hand and let the Titan go all the way.
4-0-1 matches, 8-4 games

Finals: Travis, playing Elves
Travis is a Montag’s regular and a cool guy. We decided to split prizes and play for points. He won the roll and got the god draw and just threw a zillion little dudes onto the table. He had turn 1 Llanowar Elf, turn 2 Treespeaker, level, turn 3 Garruk, untap 2, play more Elves, turn 4 Genesis Wave for like three more guys including an archdruid. Yeah. I got what would normally have been considered a good draw: turn 2 Cobra, turn 3 Jace, turn 4 Frost Titan—and I wasn’t even in this game. Yikes. Game 2 I got a turn 2 Explore and then was able to Pyroclasm away two guys on his side, then dropped a Cobra, then Jace, then an Oracle, and that was too much as my deck just spewed a pile of land onto the table and then an Avenger. Game 3 he kept a 1-lander—not usually all that dangerous for Elves—that also had the green Leyline in it. But he had no 1-drop. I ramped into a turn 3 Jace off a Cobra and fatesealed him. My next two turns were Garruk and an Oracle, fatesealing him both times, successfully keeping him off either a second land or a 1-drop, and he scooped.
5-0-1 matches, 10-5 games

The prize pool wasn’t very big because of the low turnout, but I got a Venser and a couple other cards for my trouble, so all in all, a good night. Also nice to not drop a match, of course. After it was over, a few of us stayed and played a couple games of Ascension, which was the first time I had played it. Fun game!

Odd night in that I never lost a match, but all my matches were 2-1. I think this is because the deck has such sensitive mana requirements—you really want both double Blue and double Green available early. It’s not that hard to get with this deck, but when you don’t it’s crippling. Seems like I had trouble with this about once every three games, hence all the 2-1 outcomes. RUG is obviously a strong deck. The Jace/Oracle synergy is, of course, crazy good and if there’s a Cobra in play it’s silly. The Red is almost incidental and I can see why people have been successful using Black in its place. The best part of the Red is Pyroclasm from the sideboard, which is really good against things like Elves and WW. (I have an Ice Age Pyroclasm and I got a lot of comments from bystanders about how cool that is.) The deck is also a little soft to fliers overall since you can never block them, not even chump blocking, so that puts a lot of pressure on to bounce them with Jace or make them the lockdown target for Frost Titan.

Not sure what to play next time. Right now I’m leaning toward Shearer’s WGU Shaman deck, because that looks like fun. That’s actually why I picked up a Venser. I love the idea of Gideon-Sunblast Angel-Venser, even if that combo comes from the sideboard and even if it’s not really all that great, it just seems fun.

So, it appears that Standard is completely wide open right now with no single dominant deck. I think that’s fantastic! It does make it hard to decide what to play. I didn’t actually think I’d be able to go to Game Day so I hadn’t been thinking too hard about this problem and I had almost no time to put things together, so what I ended up playing was essentially what I happened to have already thrown together. I had a Valakut deck together, a UGR Fauna Shaman/Vengevine/Titan deck together, and a Mono-Black Control deck together. I figured there’d be the least hate around for mono Black, and I haven’t played much control of late, so I went with that. Here’s the list:

Creatures
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Wumcoil Engine
2 Grave Titan

Planeswalkers
2 Liliana Vess
1 Sorin Markov

Other spells
3 Everflowing Chalice
3 Ratchet Bomb
4 Doom Blade
2 Grasp of Darkness
4 Sign in Blood
2 Mimic Vat
2 Consuming Vapors
2 Mind Sludge
2 Corrupt

Land
22 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge

Sideboard
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Vampire Hexmage
1 Consume the Meek
2 Memoricide
2 Mind Sludge
2 Bloodwitch of Malakir
4 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Marsh Casualties

This is obviously based on Philip Green’s Monoblack Control from the Nashville Star City Open. I made a couple pretty minor changes, dropping one Grave Titan and putting in a pair of Wurmcoil Engines and going down to only two Consuming Vapors. It’s pretty much “kill everything and then drop fatties.” One of my favorite things with this deck is that you are pretty much guaranteed to actually go ultimate with Lilliana at least once during the day.

Turnout at Montag’s wasn’t all that great, so we only played four rounds of Swiss and cut to top 4.

Round 1: Cory, playing Esper Allies
Game 1 he never really developed any board presence. I beat him down with a Gatekeeper and a collection of his own dead guys from the Mimic Vat and then when it was pretty much academic I beat him down with a Wurmcoil. Game 2 he definitely made a game out of it. He started with a turn 1 Hada Freeblade and just kept dropping guys and I wasn’t quite keeping up on the removal front, so he beat me down to 9. I managed to Corrupt a 5/5 Nimana Sell-Sword to stabilize both my life total and the board position, and then I got down another Wurmcoil and then managed to keep his board clear and beat him up with it.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Melissa, playing B/r discard
The deck was interesting, Slavering Nulls and some burn for removal/finisher, then the full Lilliana suite including both Spectres and Caresses, as well as Mind Rots and Doom Blades. Game 1 I opened with a turn 5 Grave Titan off a pair of Chalices, and she never had any answer for the big fattie and his zombie minions. Game 2 was a much more drawn-out affair because not only did I get a slow start, but she got a turn 5 Painful Quandary and that was pretty annoying. However, I was able to work around it. I had her dead Slavering Nulls in the Vat and got Liliana down. She did Bolt Lilliana once, but I was able to go ultimate and then pop the Ratchet Bomb for 5 to kill the Quandary. Then I rushed her. She actually killed many of the things out of the graveyard with a Pyroclasm, but not the Wurmcoil that I had thrown away to her last Mind Rot, which was after I was pretty sure I’d be able to get Lilliana to go ultimate. Oh, and I should note that in both games the lethal final two points of damage were done via Sign in Blood.
2-0 matches, 4-0 games

Round 3: Jeff, playing Pyromancer’s Ascension
This is a horrific matchup for my deck. Game 1 was just a festival of dead removal cards. I did not get a fast enough start, and he got two active Ascensions and Bolted me into the earth. Game 2 I sided in 11 cards: both Memoricides, the Sacraments, the extra Mind Sludges, and the 4th Ratchet Bomb. This game took forever, with neither of us able to do much. He had permission, but I managed an early Ratchet Bomb and then had another one for his Jace, and then a third for another Ascension. However, I then proceeded to draw nothing but land. I drew a total of 13 Swamps and 2 Edges, and not much from my sideboard or in the way of significant threats. I had him in top-deck mode (both of us were) from a good Sludge, but no help from my deck. My last draw was a Swamp, of course, and underneath that was a Corrupt that would have hit for 12 (yes, I had 12 Swamps on the board) and almost certainly would have been game because he was nearly out of burn spells. Grr.
2-1 matches, 4-2 games

Round 4: Parker, playing mono-green infect
Small, fast Infect dudes, some Arbor Elves for acceleration, and lots of pump spells. It’s actually pretty decent, and a really cheap deck. However, Game 1 I opened with two Doom Blades, a Grasp, a Ratchet Bomb, and a pair of Swamps. Pretty good. He got several good swings in with little guys—i let them through and held on to the instant-speed removal in case of pump spells, and stabilized at something like six poison counters before dropping a Grave Titan, to which he scooped. Game 2 was more of the same. I opened with a Doom Blade and two Ratchet Bombs, some land, and a Wurmcoil. He actually got me up to nine poison counters but I blew up one Bomb set to 2 to kill two small Infect guys, and then another Bomb for 1 to kill a pair of Elves. I also got off a Sludge so he was in topdeck mode. Soon after I got a Coil out and an active Vat, and that was it.
3-1 matches, 6-2 games

Semifinals: Joe, playing UB control
I’ve lost to Joe in the semis of two recent FNM SOM drafts, so this all seemed eerily familiar. I knew what he was playing going in and I knew it was going to be a tough matchup for me. Sure enough, he pretty much wrecked me. I made one “duh” play error (he tapped out to cast a Frost Titan as his only creature on turn 6 of game 1, and I used a Doom Blade as a sorcery to kill it when I had not one, but two Gatekeepers in my hand… d’oh) but I think that was the only real mistake. I liked his build a lot. i knew he was playing Mimic Vat and Frost Titan and Wurmcoil Engine, but I did not realize he was playing two main deck Negates until Lilliana ate one of them game 1. Things did not improve from there. The worst problems with mono black are, of course, artifact/enchantment removal, and planeswalkers. Ratchet Bomb is an answer, but a slow one.
3-2 matches, 6-4 games

So, it was feast or famine with MBC, win 2-0 or lose 0-2. I don’t think I’ll play it again, but if I were going to do so, I would definitely dump Sorin for something else. Going down to 2 Consuming Vapors was definitely the right thing to do, as they really weren’t all that good. It’s an OK deck overall, but nothing special. It’s great against creature-heavy decks, but less so against anything else.

Now I have to figure out what to play at FNM on Friday, since we’re done drafting Scars and now we get a month of Standard, yay!

Recently, Mark Rosewater responded to one of Aaron Forsythe’s “random card comment of the day” entries, and in his response, included this phrase that just seemed really wrong to me: “Black is very restricted in creature keywords.”

Hunh?

My perception is that black is the favorite child for creature keywords. Seems to me like black gets pretty much everything, not the other way around.

We’ll look only at cards that are Standard-legal, or were just a couple weeks ago. Let’s walk through keywords and just throw out a few examples for each:

Deathtouch: Giant Scorpion, Grave Titan, Nirkana Cutthroat, Painsmith
Lifelink: Child of Night, Escaped Null, Vampire Nighthawk
Haste: Blackcleave Goblin, Bloodghast (conditional), Crypt Ripper, Extractor Demon
First Strike: Black Knight, Nirkana Cutthroat, Vampire Hexmage
Flying: Gloomhunter, Cadaver Imp, Howling Banshee
Trample: Abyssal Persecutor, Thought Gorger, Demon of Death’s Gate
Regenerate: Null Champion, Skeletal Wurm, Skithiryx
Shroud: Hey, look, a miss!
Vigilance: OK, another miss.
Intimidate: Surrakar Marauder, Guul Draz Vampire, Geth

Now, yes, Trample only appears at high rarity, First Strike appears only at uncommon, and Regenerate doesn’t appear at common, either, but most colors don’t get regenerate at all, so that’s not much of a limitation.

Oh, and I refuse to count Reach, at least for any color which get actual, you know, FLYING.

So, the only keywords that appear to be off-limits (so far) to black are Shroud and Vigilance. Compare this to white, which has “none” for Deathtouch, Regenerate, Intimidate, and Haste. White has only a single mythic rare for Trample (Mirror-Sigil Sergeant; almost totally unplayable; I had never even heard of this card before it came up in the search), and very little with Shroud in mono-white. though there are some gold cards with white that have shroud, all of those are because it shares color with blue or green. White has effectively six blank keywords while Black has only two.

Oh, and of course Black is one of the two colors that got Infest, which I didn’t count because it’s new and block-specific. Infect is certainly flavor-consistent, but not exactly a limitation for Black.

So, uhh, how is Black “very restricted” in creature keywords, again?

This was probably the most expensive prerelease ever, since my wife was out of town and I had to pay for a sitter to be able to go. I had to miss the last Standard FNM on Friday and couldn’t go to a Saturday prerelease, plus I’ll be on the road the next couple weekends so I won’t get to play at all for a bit. So that means I’d miss the first two weeks of drafts, too, and I really wanted to get a chance to play with the new set, so I decided it was worth it. I did have some concerns about the fact that I would be missing the Texans’ game against the Cowboys, but it turned out, unfortunately, that I was glad I had to miss that game (ugh). So, I went the Sunday prerelease at my local shop, Montag’s Games.

Here are the contents of the six packs that I received:

White
2 Seize the Initiative
1 Salvage Scout
1 Whitesun’s Passage
1 Abuna Acolyte
1 Myrsmith
1 Auriok Sunchaser
2 Fulgent Distraction
1 Arrest
1 Dispense Justice
2 Kemba’s Skyguard
1 Glimmerpoint Stag
1 Ghalma’s Warden
1 Vigil for the Lost

Blue
1 Turn Aside
2 Disperse
1 Thrummingbird
1 Trinket Mage
1 Neurok Invisimancer
2 Bonds of Quicksilver
1 Sky-El School

Black
1 Tainted Strike
2 Psychic Miasma
2 Dross Hopper
2 Plague Stinger
1 Grasp of Darkness
2 Contagious Nim
2 Instill Infection
1 Flesh Allergy
1 Skinrender
1 Bleak Coven Vampires
1 Carnifex Demon

Red
2 Goblin Gaveler
1 Oxidda Daredevil
1 Ferrovore
1 Blade-Tribe Berserkers
1 Galvanic Blast
1 Shatter
1 Vulshok Heartstoker
1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
1 Koth of the Hammer

Green
2 Copperhorn Scout
1 Lifesmith
1 Carapace Forager
1 Tangle Archer
1 Bellowing Tanglewurm
1 Untamed Might
1 Genesis Wave

Artifacts
1 Mox Opal
2 Gold Myr
1 Copper Myr
1 Silver Myr
1 Auriok Replica
1 Neurok Replica
2 Soliton
1 Accorder’s Shield
2 Necrogen Censer
2 Chrome Steed
2 Darksteel Sentinel
1 Razorfield Thresher
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Perilous Myr
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Bladed Pinion
1 Iron Myr
1 Myr Galvanizer
1 Myr Propagator
1 Prototype Portal

So, the good news here is that I absolutely came out way ahead on the money cards of Koth and the Mox. Essentially, playing with house money all day, so that was a good thing. Not as nuts as some of the other pools I saw, though, as a guy near me opened Elspeth, Venser, and a Sunblast Angel. Yeah, that’s not too broken.

So, the clear bombs are Koth and the Carnifex Demon, which put me into Black and Red. The only Green card that interested me at all was the Genesis Wave, but otherwise the Green was pretty shallow. Not enough good stuff in Blue, though of course the Trinket Mage and the Thrummingbird are appealing, they didn’t seem enough to put me into Blue.

So the real thing I had to consider was whether or not to play the White. The White removal is good, but most of the threats in white take double white, and I didn’t want to try to run three colors all with double requirements. In retrospect, I might have considered splashing white just for the Myrsmith, Dispense Justice, and Arrest. However, that would compromise Koth, since I also wanted to run a decent amount of mountains with the Hammer.

So, I tinkered with the build throughout the day, generally looked something like this:

9 Swamps
7 Moutains

2 Darksteel Sentinel
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Perilous Myr
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Bladed Pinion
1 Iron Myr
1 Myr Galvanizer
1 Myr Propagator
1 Prototype Portal

1 Galvanic Blast
1 Shatter
1 Vulshok Heartstoker
1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
1 Koth of the Hammer

2 Plague Stinger
1 Grasp of Darkness
2 Contagious Nim
2 Instill Infection
1 Flesh Allergy
1 Skinrender
1 Carnifex Demon

Round 1: Johnny, playing WR
I didn’t know Johnny, but a friend of mine did and told me that he’s a good player and to expect a tough match, and it was a very even battle. These games both went long, as we both had pretty even board positions that made it hard to make progress. He got ahead on life in game 1, then I managed to even up the board state with Skinrender, but he put down a Golem Artisan, which became a problem. I dropped my Carnifex Demon and made the Golem smaller, but then he dropped a Steel Hellkite, and the combination of the Artisan and Hellkite meant I couldn’t go anywhere; his bomb was better than mine because of the pump and trample and won out, and from there I mostly drew land. In the second game I managed to get a bit ahead on the back of my pair of ETB hill giants (Skinrender and Scrapmelter), but nothing bigger than that. He dropped the Steel Hellkite again, but this time I had the Grasp in my hand and topdecked the Contagion Clasp, so I hit it with a -1/-1 counter off the Clasp and then Grasped the Hellkite, and he never generated another serious enough threat to stop me from slowly grinding him out with my pair of 3/3s—they ran over a lot of 1/1 and 2/2 chumps along the way. It’s a good thing, too, because I never drew a sixth land. Time was called as we were shuffling up for the third game. He offered to flip for the win, but I thought a draw was recoverable and I hate things like flipping for the win, so we just took the draw.
0-0-1 matches (1-1-0 games)

Round 2: Alan, playing UB
Alan is one of the cool Montag’s regulars who I’ve played many times. We both mulled down to six, he grumbled a little and kept his six. I dropped a turn 2 Plague Stinger, he looked at his one land and passed, I dropped another Plague Stinger, and he scooped. He kept a one-lander with multiple Myr in his hand, but no way to handle early fliers and missing two land drops that early he decided he didn’t have a way to get back in the game on the short clock created by the two flying Infect-ers. Game 2 was an actual game, but it wasn’t a good game for Alan. He’d play something, and I’d answer it. He did manage to get a Bonds of Quicksilver on a Plague Stinger, but I Shattered something, and Instilled infections on a couple of his smaller guys, then blew up something of his with the Scrapmelter, and Grasped a Skithrix after it hit me once. He was getting frustrated, but I had accumulated a few poison counters (courtesy of a the Skithrix and a Blackcleave Goblin before I Instilled it) and he did have a Clasp out so I was on a clock. He grabbed my Scrapmelter with the Volition Reins because he really needed a chump blocker, but I killed it with the Skinrender and carried the day.
1-0-1 (3-1-0)

Round 3: Dustin, playing WB
Another Montag’s regular and a cool guy. I hadn’t even drawn Koth the first two matches, much less played him. Well, this match was all about Koth, who I got early in both games, and went ultimate with in both games, but didn’t kill Koth to go ultimate, meaning I could ping, then use Koth to untap, and either ping again or swing for 4. These were both pretty one-sided beatings, though that was also in part because I was able to keep him off many creatures, as he had some hot equipment, including a Nim Deathmantle and Argentum Armor. Game 2 we both drew a lot of land, but when I finally got Koth, a lot of land was not a bad thing to have.
2-0-1 (5-1-0)

Round 4: Name?, playing UW
I’m really sorry about not having the name here, as I can’t even read the writing in my own notes. He’d been at Montag’s before, I’m pretty sure, but I hadn’t played him before. Well, this was a great match. He won the first game by just having too many threats for me to handle all of them, including a Mimic Vat, a Steel Hellkite, and a Scrapdriver Serpent. Yow. I actually had him at like 7 poison counters because of an early Plague Stinger and then a Clasp, but I just couldn’t stop the onslaught. Game 2 was sort of like my game 2 in the second round: he put stuff out, and I blew it up. Both Instills, both 3/3 ETB killers, so I was up on cards and up on board position. He did manage to kill off my hill giants, but I had him down to 4, and I managed to use the Myr Propagator to make a copy, and that got me to metalcraft and I could burn him out with the Galvanic Blast. Game 3 was a tight game. I got two early Plague Stingers but he got a Skyguard. I gave up a Stinger to put a counter on the Skyguard, then put Bladed Pinion on the other Stinger to clear the path for the Stinger. However, he cast a Scrapdriver Serpent when I had Koth at 5 counters. What to do? Well, I had a Scrapmelter in my hand, and I did something maybe a little odd: I cast it and blew up my own Bladed Pinions so that I could block the Serpent. I plussed Koth up again and then went ultimate and pinged off the Skyguard. I had him at seven life and many poison counters so he had to block when I swung in with a mountain and then pinged the Serpent, and he couldn’t topdeck anything and that was game. Great match!
3-0-1 (7-2-0)

Given that record, I needed to win only one more and then I would be in. I was feeling good, though getting hungry and thirsty, but I still hadn’t lost, so how hard could it be?

Round 5: Kris, playing WR
Kris is a Montag’s regular. He beat me the first time we ever played, then I went on to win many matches against him—all in constructed—but he beat me in the Rise prerelase in the first round and then dropped, and I missed the top 8 there only on tiebreakers. (We didn’t play enough rounds to sort out all the X-1s.) Game 1 he just came out on fire, clogging up the board with a slew of 2 drops and 3 drops, including an Embersmith. I did manage to Instill the Embersmith, but I was kind of on my heels, though I got out a couple flyers and was putting on some poison pressure when BLAM he cast a Sunblast Angel, killing two of my guys and generating a board presence I could not handle. Game 2 he again got the Embersmith and some other 2-power guy, and I nuked the Embersmith with Skinrender and then blew up a bunch of stuff with Carnifex Demon. The Demon carried the game with no problem. Game 3 sucked. I took a no-Swamp draw since I had two Mountains, three artifacts, two red cards, and two black cards with only one black in the casting cost, plus I was on the draw. Didn’t seem unreasonable, though I did think about shipping it back. Well, my next six draws were black card, Mountain, then four more black cards. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, deck. Awful. Horrible way to lose. Karmic payback for game 1 in round 2, I guess.
3-1-1 (8-4-0)

Round 6: Carlos, playing WRg
Carlos is another Montag’s regular and is good buddies with Kris, and they always ID when they get paired, which is how I ended up playing both of them since I had a draw as well. Basically, this was for a spot in the top 8. Pretty much everyone else drew, so we had an audience. I got an early Plague Stinger again and then a Contagious Nim but Carlos had Elspeth and cast her on turn 5 or 6. I blew up one of his artifact blockers with my Scrapmelter and was able to swing through the next turn and take out Elspeth and all his tokens, though it cost me the Scrapmelter and the Nim. We clogged up the board with guys—I managed both the Myr Galvanizer and Myr Propagator, but the 3 cost to make a new guy was too much as I was a little light on land. I finally drew some more, but he had a Darksteel Sentinel and then, ugh, a Strata Scythe with four Mountains in play. I took a big whack from that but then managed a Sentinel of my own. I was still poking him with the Plague Stinger and he was in danger of poison death. Unfortunately, he drew a Golem Artisan, which was ugly for me, as he could make his Sentinel fly over mine, and of course his was huge. I couldn’t take another hit from that and live. So, instead, I hit him with my Plague Stinger to get him to nine counters, then Instilled his Sentinel for the card, hoping to topdeck a Clasp so I could poison him out with propagate. Instead I got a Mountain. Bummer. Game 2 I had a Darksteel Axe and a Plague Stinger in my opener, as well as a Sentinal, so I kept. I of course equipped the Stinger on turn 3 and swung, but next turn he was able to kill it, though I don’t remember how. We had a couple turns of both of us going land, go. I hit six land, he did nothing, so at the end of his turn I put out a Sentinel. My next draw was another Sentinal so next turn I didn’t equip the Axe and hit him for three, then at the end of his next turn cast the second one, and he couldn’t handle that, particularly when one had the Axe. On to game 3, the deciding game of the entire day. I opened with two Swamps, an Iron Myr, a Myr Propagator, and a bunch of black cards including the Carnifex Demon. Unfortunately, I got kind of stuck on land—again—and made a blunder. On my turn 4, he had two guys out, including an Etched Champion and another artifact. I had both a Scrapmelter and a Skinrender, and I didn’t want him to get to metalcraft with that on the board, so I killed it… with the Skinrender. Unfortunately, a couple turns later (his turn 6) he cast a Hoard-Smelter Dragon. Ugh. Had I used the Scrapmelter instead, I would have been able to contain the Dragon for longer by cutting it down to a 2/2 and then maybe getting a smaller flier of my own or a Galvanic Blast. I drew Koth, but it turns out Koth isn’t very good when you’re behind and facing down a 5/5, because swinging for 4 wouldn’t help, what I needed was something that would impact the board, and I only had one Mountain in play. I needed one more land to cast the Demon, which could hang with the Dragon, but I didn’t get it, and then when he came across with the Dragon he first blew up my Iron Myr, and I just never made it up to six mana sources and couldn’t stop the Dragon.
3-2-1 (9-6-0)

Very disappointing. I really felt like I should have made it to the top 8 given the deck I had and that I only needed one win in the last two rounds and couldn’t manage that. I don’t think I made any really egregious misplays. I guess I should have mulliganed my hand in game 3 of round 5, and/or used the Scrapmelter instead of the Skinrender in the last game of the last round.

In retrospect, I probably would cut the Myr Propagator. 3 is just too much mana to pay for a 1/1, even if that 1/1 can make another 1/1, but it’s a slow way to do it since at best you can do it once a turn. Producing the tokens doesn’t even trigger things like the smiths (Myrsmith, Embersmith) because they trigger on casting an artifact spell, not an artifact ETB. I was almost never happy to see it.

Now, some musings on the set as a whole. Maybe this isn’t true for draft, but for sealed this set feels slow, or at least sometimes slow. Every single round we had multiple pairs who went to time, and some of them took a long time for the extra turns because of very complicated board states. It took us a very long time to get through six rounds because we were always waiting for someone. I went close to time in all of the matches that went three games except for round 5, and of course in round 1 we didn’t even start game 3. I will note that this wasn’t a problem at the Rise prerelease, and Rise was supposed to be slow. Maybe draft will be better; I certainly hope so.

I’m not so sure about Infect or Metalcraft for limited. You really need to be able to run a lot of artifacts to make Metalcraft work, and while there are a lot of artifacts in the set, I’m not sure how reliably one will be able to put together a deck that can consistently achieve Metalcraft. As for Infect, so far I’m not all that impressed. Maybe I found it underwhelming because I didn’t have enough of it. I see the value of Wither as damage for creatures, but most of the time I would have been just as happy to deal real damage to players rather than poison counters. Again, perhaps in draft it’ll be better as one could probably force a decent BG deck, though I think Black is going to be popular as a draft color because both Skinrender and Grasp of Darkness are awesome, and Instill Infection is pretty good since there are a lot of x/1 targets in the set.