Raised Weird

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!