Tag: MagicTG

Another FNM, another report. I played UR Delver because I really like counter-burn strategies (I played CounterHammer back when that was a deck in Standard, and then CounterPhoenix in Rath Block Constructed), and haven’t really had a viable shot at one for a long time, so when I saw this list online I figured I had to give it a whirl. I played pretty close to the original list:

[deck title=UR Delver]
[Creatures]
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Stromkirk Noble
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Chandra’s Phoenix
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Ponder
2 Vapor Snag
4 Incinerate
4 Mana Leak
1 Negate
4 Brimstone Volley
[/Spells]
[Land]
1 Ghost Quarter
9 Island
9 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Manic Vandal
2 Dismember
2 Spellskite
3 Flashfreeze
2 Stromkirk Noble
1 Steel Sabotage
3 Arc Trail
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

It’s 61 cards because I meant to take out one Island for a Ghost Quarter but I miscounted and didn’t realize it until I was shuffling up for the first match. I should have stopped and fixed it, but I didn’t. My bad.

If I had had more time beforehand I would have tried to work in a couple copies of Desperate Ravings which seems good in this deck, but I really didn’t have time to tinker with it and wasn’t sure what to take out. As has been the norm lately, I didn’t have a chance to playtest it at all beforehand and played it cold. I know, I know, that’s a horrible strategy, but it’s where I am life-wise right now.

5 rounds, cut to top 8.

Round 1: Michael, playing homebrew Naya Golems
I have to say that I don’t know very much about this deck. I guess he did OK with it overall, but mostly what I saw out of it was land. Both games he cast Rampant Growth on turn 2 to get his third color and thereafter mostly drew land. Game 1 he dropped an Adaptive Automaton naming “golem” and I never saw another creature. Game 2 I got turn 1 Delver, flip, turn 3 Delver, flip on a Galvanic Blast. I hit him down to 7, he cast Day, I Volleyed him down to 2 and Blasted for the win. I took zero damage total. Good start on luck and did kill pretty quickly both games, but not exactly a strong test of the deck.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Zack, playing GB homebrew
Zach is maybe 15 years old and a slightly awkward teen, but basically a good kid as far as I can tell. Game 1 I flashed in a Snapcaster early to either counter or burn something and he got in a few times before eating some removal spell, which I followed up with another one, then a Delver which I flipped off a Ponder, then finished with burn. Game 2 was more about permission and removal on my end, letting me poke away with little guys until I had him at 5 and won on a Volley. First point of note: this deck definitely punishes bad decks.
2-0 matches, 4-0 games

Round 3: Paul, playing RDW
Paul is a good player and definitely knows how to pilot RDW, which is not as brainless as many people think. Game 1 we had a good back-and-forth but in the end he drew more burn than I did, which isn’t really a surprise, and he took it home while still at 7 life. Game 2 I was very land-light, stuck on 3 for many turns, but he got flooded and my early Snapcaster (brought back a Blast) went most of the way. Game 3 was awful. He got a really fast start, I didn’t, and my Delver sat for four turns in a row of drawing land. I did not get there, but overall it was a close match, as game 1 really could have gone either way.
2-1 matches, 5-2 games

Round 4: Weylin, playing Haunted Humans
Weylin is also a strong player and the Humans deck can be very good; he smashed me with it last time I played FNM. Game 1 I got a turn 1 Delver and flipped it turn 2, burned all his guys as they came out, and finished him off with another Volley. Game 2 he got the god draw, or at least a very good one: Champion of the Parish on turn 1 and a second Champion and a Doomed Traveler on turn 2, then a Grand Abolisher. I never really caught up with that. Game 3 was closer, and we both made some small mistakes that might have swung it. I opened with a Stromkirk Noble, him with a Traveler. I know his turn 2 was another Traveler but turn 3 he went for Geist of Saint Traft and I Leaked it. (That was his mistake.) I followed with a second Noble and he followed with a Grand Abolisher (which is what he should have used to draw out the Leak). We exchanged blows a bit, he got my larger Noble with an O Ring and then I drew all three Phoenixes. I did screw up in that something died when I had a Volley in hand and I volleyed the Abolisher rather than sending 5 at him, but the three Phoenixes were too much in the air for him to keep up and I won anyway.
3-1 matches, 7-3 games

Round 5: ID
My opponent did the math, figured out we’d both be in, and so I accepted the ID. This turned out to be a mistake, because my 10 year old was 2-2 but won in the fifth round and finished 9th. If I had played, then he would have gotten in ahead of the loser of my match. (He was playing mono-Black Infect, by the way.)
3-1-1 matches

Quarterfinals: Joe, playing UB Control
Joe is almost certainly the best regular player in the store and my nemesis—I rarely beat him, because he’s better than me. It’s a game with luck, sure, but there’s enough skill difference here that it matters. Anyway, his build has Reassembling Skeleton and Sword of Feast and Famine, plus the usual suite of counters, card draw, and spot removal, a very tricky matchup. I mulled to six and kept a one-lander because it had three Delvers in it. Unfortunately, I could not get one to flip and Joe had all the early answers he needed for them (he runs Dead Weight main and had one, as well as a Ratchet Bomb, ugh) and even with a Ponder in the opener, I failed to get on enough early pressure and then fell too far behind in the land race. Game 2 was more competitive, as I got in a few hits here and there and had a Phoenix running, but he managed to get a Wurmcoil Engine, though he tapped out for it. He was at 6 life and I didn’t have the damage I needed to finish him. The only answer I had in my hand was a Vapor Snag, and what I should have done was Snag the Wurmcoil right away, rather than letting him untap and doing in response to combat, since he just Leaked the Snag. The six life he gained was enough to keep him out of burn range for a bit, and I never got there, ultimately dying to the 6/6. i probably should have won that game. Oops.
3-2-1 matches, 7-5 games

So, not bad, but certainly not great. Rounds 3 and 4 could easily have gone the other way. I probably could have won game 2 in the quarters if I hadn’t punted, but I still think the UB deck has the edge in game 3, at least against this build.

So, the deck. It’s a style I love, but I’m not in love with this specific build. Some thoughts:
• Galvanic Blast, which is really Shock in this deck, is really subpar. Incinerate isn’t l that great, either. This deck wants Lightning Bolt so badly it’s painful. If I were to play this again, I’d cut the Shocks completely, probably cut the Incinerates to 2 or 3, and run some mix of Arc Trail, Gut Shot, and maybe Geistflame.
• I have mixed feelings about Stromkirk Noble. When he’s good (turn 1, vs. humans), he’s fantastic, but otherwise he’s underwhelming.
• Brimstone Volley is amazing, but a little costly for this deck. 3 might be enough.
• Ponder is great with Delver, of course, but not so hot otherwise. I’d go to 3 and run a couple Desperate Ravings as well.
• I didn’t really like the sideboard all that much. Going to 4 Nobles vs. Haunted Humans was great and and Arc Trail very good in multiple matchups, and Flashfreeze has its place, too, but otherwise I’m not so sure. Manic Vandal and Steel Sabotage seem especially suspect.

Of course, I wrote this, and then a UR Delver list made top 4 of the SCG Open in St. Louis. That list is pretty interesting in that it completely foregoes Stromkirk Noble and uses a burn package more like what I’d switch to. The loss of Noble means the deck can lean on more blue mana and can thus support the Psychic Barriers, but seems like it might make Phoenix harder to cast. I like the sideboard Ancient Grudge plan but I’m not sure about 2 main deck Satchels. Don’t get me wrong, I love Satchel, but that seems like a sideboard card vs. control decks more than a main deck choice; I’d probably swap for the Arc Trails. The loss of Noble also seems like it’d make the deck softer to Humans, but I guess that’s what Mental Misstep is in the board for, and main deck Gut Shot probably also helps.

Anyway, it’s a great deck to play and I think it has solid potential to keep evolving well as the format evolves. The format, by the way, is fantastic. There are so many viable deck choices right now; the format feels completely wide open, and I love that.

So, at the last FNM I played a bad Grixis build (no, not Chapin’s worlds deck), and played it badly, and went 1-3. Ugh, and not worth writing about.

But on Sundays, my FLGS Montag’s Games runs Modern, or tries to—it doesn’t always fire. However, today it did, and I managed to be able to be there for it. It went well and so I thought it would be worth a short report. As the title suggests, i played Mythic Conscription, here’s the list:

[deck title=Mythic Conscription]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Fauna Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Rhox War Monk
4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Path to Exile
2 Bant Charm
2 Cryptic Command
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Gideon Jura
2 Eldrazi Conscription
[/Spells]
[Land]
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Gate
2 Plains
2 Treetop Village
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Bastion
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Nature’s Claim
2 Dispel
3 Mana Leak
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rule of Law
2 Creeping Corrosion
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Ideally, the deck would have more shocklands in it (I own a total of 4, three of which are Sacred Foundry and live in my Modern Boros deck) and would run a pair of Vendilion Cliques in the main deck and the War Monks would actually be in the sideboard.

This was one of my favorite Standard decks when it was legal, from what was my favorite Standard environment, the post-Rise, pre-M11 world, as detailed here. I will say that the current Standard environment is almost as good with a nice variety of viable decks. I was worried about Standard once Zendikar rotated because I’m not a big fan of Scars block, but Innistrad seems to be dominating the environment (with the exception of infect) and so it’s been fine.

Anyway, 10 players, 4 rounds of Swiss, cut to top 4.

Round 1: Festus, playing 4-color control
Game 1 was about me drawing not very many threats, but him drawing mostly land and a Tarmogoyf, but I had the Path for that and pulled it off. Game 2 we had a bit of a board stall after he had used Bribery to take a Sovereigns out and Threads of Disloyalty to take a Cobra, but he made a mistake swinging into a pair of KotRs and I could fetch to pump both of them. Then he Cliqued me on my upkeep and took a Conscription out of my hand, leaving me with a Soveregns… and I topdecked the land I needed to cast it, and crashed in with a huge Knight. Not sure why he didn’t take the Sovereigns, but I’ll take it.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Jeff, playing Affinity
Jeff’s build is a Wu build with Tempered Steel. Game 1 I punted because when I tapped out to cast a Sovereigns and swing for 19 (putting him at 1, of course), I tapped wrong and tapped a BoP, leaving a Hierarch untapped. I was at 8. Unfortunately, he had two Signal Pests out and I had no way to block fliers. He topdecked a blue source for Master of Etherium, and had just enough artifacts in play to swing for lethal using counters from his Ravager. Grr. Game 2 I put up a good fight and had him down to 7, but he had three Inkmoth Nexuses out, and then got a Tempered Steel and I died to poison. Grr.
1-1 matches, 2-2 games

Round 3: Andre, playing TurboFog
Look, I try to be nice, but Andre is an annoying jerk who also had just beaten my 10-year-old son and was kind of a dick about it, so I was determined to kick his ass… which I did. Game 1 he played a Rites of Flourishing and relatively early in the game (turn 5?) I hard-cast a Conscription on a fairly large Knight and while he fogged a couple times, the annihilator triggers wiped him out and I finished with a Sovereigns giving the Knight double Conscription. Game 2 I ramped into an early Gideon and had two Bant Charms and a Dispel for any fog effects, and won easily. Good.
2-1 matches, 4-2 games

Round 3: Mike, playing RDW
Game 1 I didn’t have a great draw and he slowly burned me to death. Game 2 was really interesting and was my win of the day. I shut down his early Lavamancer with Linvala, but in order to prevent beatings by bigger creatures, he had sided in an Ensnaring Bridge and he got it. He then emptied his hand, which was huge as I had both Elspeth and Gideon out. The key play was me getting a Fauna Shaman and him not burning it. I used the Shaman to tutor for Sovereigns. He didn’t think it was a big deal, as he had zero cards. However, I had a Birds out, which can swing with its zero power, and then become huge due to the Conscription and the exalted trigger. He burnt me down to 4, but I drew another Bird (if I hadn’t drawn it, I would have tutored for it) and ended it with another massive swing. Game 3 he once again burnt me down to 4 but I had Elspeth and a very big Knight and won the game with two swings, one for 9 and one for 11.
3-1 matches, 6-3 games

Semifinals: Jeremiah, playing WW
He won the roll and made a Savannah Lions… err, Elite Vanguard on turn 1. I took a couple hits from it but got a Rhox War Monk and a Knight out. He came back with a Hero of Bladehold, but I got Sovereigns and hit with a huge Monk, bringing him to 4 and me to 30. Game 2 he started with a Vanguard again, and I got a Hierarch into a turn 2 Monk. He used Journey to Nowhere (not Path, apparently he didn’t want to ramp me) to take out the Monk after I hit him with it once. I came back with a Pridemage, and he swung in with the Vanguard and I sac’d the cat to kill the Journey and blocked, going back up to 21 life. My next few turns were Cobra, fetchland, Sovereigns, swing for 15 with lifelink, GG.
4-1 matches, 8-3 games

The other semis paired Jeff and Festus, and they were clearly going to take awhile. My son and I wanted to head home to be able to have dinner with the family, so they agreed that the winner would split with me, and I used my winnings for a Temple Garden, so next time around I’ll have one more shockland, which is nice.

I know, I know, it’s been an age since I actually wrote a tournament report. September was really busy and October was all draft at my LGS, and I missed FNM last week. I made top 8 at Game Day with UB Control, losing in the quarters to Kessig Green on some pretty bad draws in game 1 and turn 3 Thrun in game 2.

So, since I never play the same thing twice in a row, and I am now determined to play @Smi77y builds with some regularity, I figured I’d go with his Mono Black Infect deck. I had built this version a bit ago, and today was a mess and I didn’t have time to update it for more recent meta and went to battle with a slightly out-of-date version. Here’s the list:

[deck title=@Smi77y’s Mono Black Infect]
[Creatures]
4 Plague Stinger
3 Spellskite
4 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Whispering Specter
2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Liliana of the Veil
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
3 Virulent Wound
1 Go for the Throat
3 Trigon of Rage
3 Victim of Night
4 Lashwrithe
2 Tezzeret’s Gambit
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Inkmoth Nexus
22 Swamp
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Despise
1 Virulent Wound
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Black Sun’s Zenith
1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
2 Postmortem Lunge
1 Wring Flesh
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

4 rounds, cut to top 8, with only top 4 earning prizes.

Round 1: Warren, playing UB control
He was playing the build with Reassembling Skeleton and Sword of Feast and Famine. I lost the roll, got the zero-land opener and mulled to six, and kept a slightly suspect hand…. and drew very little action. All three Wounds, multiple Spellskites, and a great deal of land. Not enough pressure to threaten him, and while I eventually got him up to nine poison counters by hitting a Snapcaster with multiple Wounds, I could not bring it home and he milled me out with Jace. Game 2 wasn’t much better. I again started with a no-lander and mulled into a slow hand, which was assisted by him Leaking an early Stinger and then Extracting it. I did manage a Skittles to kill his active Jace, but he killed it with BSZ. I did get it back for one shot with Postmortem Lunge, but that was all I got through and again got milled out, this time by Drownyards.
0-1 matches, 0-2 games

Round 2: Parker playing WW
He won the roll, I mulled another zero-lander and kept a hand with a Stinger and a Crusader, a couple Swamps, and I don’t remember what else. He opened with turn 1 Champion of the Parish, turn 2 Elite Inquisitor, turn 3 Doomed Traveler and Elite Vanguard, turn 4 Honor of the Pure. I had to chump off my Stinger and hold back the Crusader, but it was just too much damage too fast. I boarded in all the Despises, Zeniths, and the Wring Flesh. I kept a one-lander because I had three Despises and a Crusader in it. I tore apart his hand full of creatures, eventually drew land, dropped the Cruader, and won in five turns. Game 3 was just a race, and I won it on the back of two Crusaders.
1-1 matches, 3-3 games

Round 3: Festus, playing UR Tempo
I just want to say that I absolutely love this UR deck. I loved playing CounterHammer and CounterPhoenix back in the day, and this deck reminds me of that. If I had all the cards and had time to put it together, this deck (or something like it) is what I would have played. I’ll probably play it next week. Anyway, game 1 I opened with a one-lander… an Inkmoth Nexus. So, after mulling to six and keeping a sketchy hand, he opened with a Delver and flipped it turn 2, and of course my next draw was a Wound. Grr. Anyway, he drew burn when he needed it, and bounce for my (relatively late) Crusader, and that was it. Game 2 was all about my turn 2 Spellskite. I used it to protect my guys, got a Trigon through, and managed to get there. It was close, though, as I took a lot of damage redirecting things to the Spellskite. Game 3 I got a Stinger with a Lashwrithe on it and managed to get a Skittles out, though he Vapor Snagged it. He just didn’t have the counters, though, and I managed to get through for the win.
2-1 matches, 5-4 games

Round 4: Chris, playing mono-Blue Grand Architect
I was the lowest-ranked of the 2-1s so I couldn’t draw in. Chris was 2-0-1 so he still had a shot even if he lost, so we shuffled up. Game 1 I had a good draw with a Stinger, a Crusader, and a Trigon, and that got me there. Game 2 I had a slightly slower draw and no removal, and that became a problem because he got two Vedalken Certarchs and an Architect. I had two Stingers out and even had a Lashwrithe on one, but he cast a Pentavus (!) and made some Pentavites to chump, and I could not get through, His swingback was lethal, so on to game 3. I got turn 2 Stinger, turn 3 Crusader, turn 4 fourth Swamp, Lashwrithe on the Stinger. He did have an Architect, though, and managed to get a Treasure Mage to fetch a Steel Hellkite and cast that off the Architect, but I had Wound so that I didn’t need to trade. He got another Treasure Mage into a Thopter Assembly and for that one I did trade my Stinger, but I followed with Skittles for the win.
3-1 matches, 7-5 games

Quarterfinals: Jacob, playing UG
Interesting deck, pretty much all dudes, and some strange ones: Civilized Scholar, Kessing Cagebreaker, Splinterfright, Jace’s Archivist, Boneyard Wurm, ramp guys. However, pretty much no removal. He won the roll and flipped a Scholar early, but I came back with a Crusader and had a Trigon out. He got a 5/5 Splinterfright out, but had to leave it back to block, and I was able to keep him on the defensive and got there without too much difficulty. Game 2 was all about me with guys in the air, including a Skittles on turn 5. Match was over very quickly, and I had a long wait for my semifinals opponent to finish up.
4-1 matches, 9-5 games

Semifinals: Fernando, playing GW Kessing
Game 1 I had an early Stinger and a Crusader a bit after, and a Trigon at some point. My play of the game was a Tezzeret’s Gambit with him at a few poison counters, me proliferating on a Trigon and Liliana. Anyway, he ramped a little but didn’t get a Titan, but did manage a White Sun’s Zenith for four, and the tokens took out Liliana. However, they didn’t help against the Crusder, but he got a Garruk, Primal Hunter to make a token for the Crusader. I had a Spellskite out as well, and the Stinger was getting through with pump; his one Inkmoth died to a Wound and I carried it. Game 2 I got turn 2 Stinger, turn 3 Specter, turn 4 Trigon, swing for five poison counters and destroy his hand. Followed with Skittles and that was it.
5-1 matches, 11-5 games

The other semi was the RDW mirror, which was over in about 10 minutes. By the time Fernando and I finished, it was about 12:15, and Brandon (the other finalist) and I were both ready to pack it in, so we decided to split. RDW seems manageable with 3 main board Skites and the Crusaders, but I haven’t played it so I’m not sure. (Shrine does seem like an awfully good answer for Crusader.) Anyway, I turned my winnings into almost all the cards I need for UR Tempo for next week, as well as a pack for each one of my boys, so it was a good night.

Thoughts on the deck:
• The deck seems completely solid with no really bad matchups. UB seems like the toughest, and there I felt like if I hadn’t drawn so much land, I could have won that one. It’s funny because I’m not a huge fan of Scars block, but of course this deck runs only two cards from Innistrad, a set I like much better—a little irony there.
• Trigon of Rage is amazing. If you play this deck, play Trigon in it. 3 seemed like the perfect number.
• Spellskite was also amazing. @Smi77y, why did you cut these from the most recent version?
• I wasn’t all that impressed with Whispering Specter and sided them out every match except for my first and last match. I might consider relegating these to the sideboard if I play this again.
• Tezzeret’s Gambit was a really mixed card. It was really good a couple times, and really awful some others. Not sure if I’d keep it main in the future.
• Victim of Night was excellent. Kills everything, or at least everything that anybody plays.
• Virulent Wound is also outstanding. So many targets in Standard right now!
• Lashwrithe seems awesome in principle, but in practice it’s sometimes a little slow. Absolutely terrible against permission and any deck running Slime. Honestly I liked Trigon better, and would consider cutting down to three Lashwrithes main.
• Really wanted Nihil Spellbomb. Should definitely board that next time.

I would also note that I playtested this exactly zero times. The first time I ever even shuffled it was the first game of round 1. It’s not the hardest deck to play, either, so a solid deck that easy to pick up, and not that expensive. A very solid call for FNM or maybe even something bigger…

Trying to get caught up on FNM reports. This week I played another @Smi77y creation, Mill Blade. I figured nobody would be metagaming at all for it, and I’ve never played a mill deck before, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Here’s the list I played:

[deck title=Mill Blade]
[Ceatures]
4 Hedron Crab
4 Squadron Hawk
1 Sun Titan
[/Ceatures]
[Spells]
4 Ponder
4 Visions of Beyond
2 Into the Roil
3 Mana Leak
1 Trapmaker’s Snare
2 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Day of Judgment
4 Archive Trap
3 Jace, Memory Adept
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
6 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
5 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Condemn
1 Day of Judgment
2 Dismember
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Celestial Purge
1 Dispel
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Seemed like it would be a good time.

Round 1: Brandon, playing RDW
The are real differences in RDW builds and RDW players. Brandon brings legit RDW decks and knows how to play them. And, unfortunately, I was never really in these games. Bad draws, but not sure I would have won with good ones. Mostly what milling him did was fuel his Lavamancers and put Phoenixes in his graveyard. Got steamrolled.
0-1 matches, 0-2 games

Round 3, Amy playing Random GB ramp
Game 1 was going along smoothly, early Crab, Trapped off her Cultivate, etc. However, second Trap hit… Kozilek. Really? I just scooped a couple turns later since that’s pretty much game unless I can get a Sworded Hawk, and I didn’t. Game 2 I sided in the Extractions and kept a hand that had one. I then drew both the others and when I extracted her Kozilek, I found that she had nothing else worth extracting and died with some dead cards in hand. This was dumb and displays a critical weakness of mill: Eldrazi hose you.
0-2 matches, 0-4 games

Round 3, Matt playing Pyromancer’s Ascension
Seems like a bad matchup, me actually trying to put stuff in his graveyard. My T1 Crab ate a Bolt, but I had one turn 2 and had fetches. He got an Ascension active but I had multiple traps (including Snaring into a Trap on his end after he had cracked a fetch) and got Jace out and that got me there. Game 2 he sided in Exarch Twin. I sided in the Extractions and extracted the Twins early. He never got a PA active but drew tons of burn. He almost managed to burn me out but I managed to double-Visions my way into six land, which allowed me to thereafter draw gas and I got the last Trap I needed for the win. This match reveals the other down side of mill: people are so demoralized after losing to you that they drop, which destroys your breakers.
1-2 matches, 2-4 games

Round 4, Marvin playing mono Black infect
Game 1 I had an early Crab that he Dismembered, then a Hawk and another Crab. Timely Reinforcements wasn’t very good here. I chumped off a couple Plague Stingers with Hawks, and then he dropped a Crusader. I still had a Crab and didn’t want to have to use it to block, but I topdecked a Sword, equipped a Hawk, and then had Wolf token to block. He scooped as another hit from the Sword would end it. Game 2 I kept an opener with two sources of blue but no White and I paid the price. Got stuck on three Islands and never really recovered. I did Dismember a Crusader at one point in this game but it just wan’t enough. Game 3 I got a bunch of cards milled with a Crab before he killed it, and got Jace on turn 5. He didn’t swing into Jace instead swinging at me, but I had two Traps in hand and was able to mill him out for the win the turn before I would have died.
2-2 matches, 4-5 games

Round 5: David, playing RDW
Game 1 I got the god draw and had two Crabs in the opener and a fistful of fetches. I milled off 36 cards over the next three turns before he burnt off both of the Crabs and then refilled my hand with a Visions and got there. I was assisted in that he had three Shrines out but was stuck on two land for a long time, which gave me time to finish him. Game 2 he again got an early Shrine but had the O Ring for it. I had Timely Reinforcements to get me from 16 life back to 20, but it just didn’t matter as I didn’t draw enough other mill cards. Game 3 came down to the wire. I had him down to a few cards in his library, but he had killed my Jace and we were both in topdeck mode. I drew a Sword but had nothing to put it on, land, and then land, and then he drew Hero. I drew another Sword and played it. He drew Guide and hit me down to 3, then Burst me down to 1. I drew Visions, then ancestralled into Timely Reinforcements. Yes! I went back to 7, cracked a fetch down to 6 so I could equip both Swords to the tokens so I could block. He only had 2 cards left in his library and so that did it. Hooray, Visions!
3-2 matches, 6-6 games

And, of course, I missed the top 8 on tiebreakers, which were horrific. My round 2 opponent didn’t do well and my round 3 opponent rage quit… err, dropped, so I really had no shot of making it on breakers. That’s a bummer, because I think I would have had a shot in the top 8.

The deck is a blast to play, as nobody was expecting mill. Visions of Beyond was definitely the MVP card in this deck—turns out that Ancestral Recall is pretty amazing. It’s really unfortunate that so much of this deck is rotating out, as this deck would be even better in an environment with no Eldrazi.

Oh, well. One more FNM to go before rotation (for me, that is). Might go back to Caw Blade, might replay Twin Pod, which was great. We’ll see.

OK, so this was way back on August 26th and I’ve been lame in writing up the report. Mostly, I played this deck because it was silly and fun. Somebody tweeted about a SnakeBlade list but I didn’t have access to it, and I decided that I could generate a humorous one, and here’s what I came up with. I’ve always loved the card River Boa and hadn’t played the Zendikar reprint, so here way my excuse to do so.

[deck title=Snakes with a Blade!]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra
4 River Boa
3 Spellskite
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Consecrated Sphinx
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Preordain
1 Spell Pierce
2 Into the Roil
4 Mana Leak
4 Spreading Seas
2 Dismember
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
2 Halimar Depths
4 Island
2 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Verdant Catacombs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Obstinate Baloth
3 Nature’s Claim
2 Dismember
3 Flashfreeze
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Cobra Trap
1 Deprive
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Obviously, the point is to get a River Boa Sworded up and Islandwalk your way to victory. Yes, it’s very silly.

Round 1: Zach, playing BG homebrew
Game 1 I ended up getting a Lotus Cobra sworded up with SoFF and he went all the way. Sword of Feast and Famine is pretty good against straight BG. Game 2 was more of a grind and he got me down to 5, but I finally managed to get out a Sword and a Sphinx and take it in the end.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Joe Bass, playing UW Venser control
Joe is the consensus dominant player in the store and always a touch match. Game 1 I actually won pretty easily with an early River Boa. I got SoFF on it, but he O Ringed the Sword. I promptly came back with Sword of War and Peace and that ended it quickly as Joe had 6 cards in hand. Game 2 I didn’t come out fast enough, and while I Nature’s Claimed his first O Ring, he got Venser and Walls and somehow had no Islands (all duals for his blue) and I never got there. Game 3 was all about me having a slow start and him having Gideon to keep the Snakes off him.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Chris, playing Bant Planeswalkers
Gideon, Garruk, Jace, and Karn were all in his deck. Game 1 I managed to color screw him off white for a long time with Spreading Seas, but I was drawing nothing but land besides my one Cobra (which got him down to 12) and so when he finally got Garruk out, I had no answers. Game 2 was more of the same, but with me not even having a Cobra. It was pretty awful, frankly, as I don’t think this one said anything other than it’s really hard win when you get flooded badly two games in a row.
1-2 matches, 3-4 games

Round 4: Mitchell, playing Gr Infect
Game 1 he quickly ran me over with pumped infect guys. Game 2 I got an early Spellskite, which is amazing against him since he can’t pump his guys. I got a Sworded Snake and then a Sphinx and ended it. Game 3 he got me to nine poison counters on turn 2: Glistener Elf, Teetering Peaks, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth. Yow. However, I didn’t panic, put down a Spellskite in addition to the Bird I had, then Spreading Seas on his one Forest (he had another Teetering Peaks out, so no help there) and then Sworded up a Boa (“Snake with Blade!”) for the win.
2-2 matches, 5-5 games

Talk about disappointing! Losing to Joe was legit, but I felt the deck could have done better. Still, it was loads of fun to have one opponent and one onlooker exclaim “motherfucking Snake with a motherfucking Blade” so it was totally worth it.

I had to miss the M12 prerelease because of an annual family reunion/camping trip near Rochester, NY. Following that, I had a work obligation in North Conway, NH. So, I drove starting on Friday afternoon. Based on what I thought I could do each day, I figured the best stopping point for Friday night was Amsterdam, NY. Luckily for me, the WotC site let me know that a new shop called Prof. Bond’s Emporium was having a release party on Friday evening. So, I packed some sleeves, dice, a deckbox, and playmat and headed over for the party. The store itself is beautiful, just a really nice gaming space. Players were all incredibly friendly and welcoming to this out of town stranger. Overall, I think the level of competition is not what I’m used to at my local game shop, but I think having a store available to the audience will improve everyone’s game. Turnout was pretty good, but I don’t think the five rounds of swiss was quite necessary for the size of crowd. Overall, though, it was a terrific time and I was very happy to be able to play with M12 cards for the first time.

Here’s what I opened:

[cardlist title=M12 Release Party Sealed Pool]
[White]
Pride Guardian
2 Gideon’s Lawkeeper
Celestial Purge
Stormfront Pegasus
Pacifism
2 Divine Favor
Alabaster Mage
Benalish Veteran
Griffin Sentinel
Guardian’s Pledge
2 Stonehorn Dignitary
Peregrine Griffin
Gideon Jura
[/White]
[Blue]
Flight
Unsummon
Merfolk Looter
Coral Merfolk
2 Mana Leak
Negate
Turn to Frog
Merfolk Mesmerist
Skywinder Drake
Aven Fleetwing
Phantasmal Dragon
Master Thief
Levitation
Mind Control
[/Blue]
[Black]
2 Disentomb
Tormented Soul
Wring Flesh
Onyx Mage
Duskhunter Bat
Distress
Smallpox
Mind Rot
Bloodrage Vampire
2 Devouring Swarm
Drifting Shade
[/Black]
[Red]
Firebreathing
Goblin Arsonist
Goblin Fireslinger
Incinerate
Circle of Flame
2 Fling
Goblin Piker
Goblin War Paint
Manic Vandal
Act of Treason
2 Lightning Elemental
Chandra, the Firebrand
Gorehorn Minotaurs
Bonebreaker Giant
[/Red]
[Green]
Autumn’s Veil
Reclaim
Plummet
Runeclaw Bear
Rites of Flourishing
Arachnus Web
Sacred Wolf
2 Lurking Crocodile
Giant Spider
Cudgel Troll
Bountiful Harvest
Stampeding Rhino
[/Green]
[Artifacts]
Demon’s Horn
Kraken’s Eye
Wurm’s Tooth
Swiftfoot Boots
Greatsword
Scepter of Empires
Manalith
Druidic Satchel
Adaptive Automation
Thran Golem
[/Artifacts]
[Land]
Sunpetal Grove
[/Land]
[/cardlist]

Yes, it’s a bomb-tastic card pool. The three obvious bombs are, of course, Gideon, Chandra, and Mind Control. Turns out that I’d classify Druidic Satchel a bomb in any deck not trying to race, so that was four. Given that my creature base was not exactly awe-inspiring in any color, I decided that the best route to victory was… stall. Play the long game, get the bombs out, and grind out the wins.

This of course meant three colors, which I generally dislike in any format like this when I can’t play some kind of green ramp/fixing, but I figured I had a Manalith and not very many double-color cards until the casting costs got a little higher, so it’d be worth a shot. I will admit that I flirted with the idea of a heavier Red build, as I do like Fling, particularly with Lightning Elemental, but that was just too aggro for what the rest of the deck felt like it wanted to do.

Here’s the list I played:

[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Gideons Lawkeeper
Goblin Arsonist
Goblin Fireslinger
Alabaster Mage
Stormfront Pegasus
Merfolk Looter
Griffin Sentinel
Skywinder Drake
Stonehorn Dignitary
Master Thief
Thran Golem
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
Chandra, the Firebrand
Gideon Jura
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
Unsummon
Swiftfoot Boots
Divine Favor
Pacifism
2 Mana Leak
Incinerate
Manalith
Druidic Satchel
Mind Control
[/Spells]
[Land]
6 Island
4 Mountain
6 Plains
[/Land]
[/deck]

My most often sided in cards were Negate, Celestial Purge, Manic Vandal, Turn to Frog, and Circle of Flame. I may have sided Act of Treason once as well.

I know some of the decisions are pretty weird, and now post-event, even I can’t quite remember exactly what I was thinking. For example, I’m not sure about 2 red 1-drops with only 4 Mountains. The Thran Golem is the biggest beater, and yet I ran only one enchantment when I had two Divine Favors available. The thing about the Thran Golem is that he represents such a potential threat that he garnered an awful lot of attention when he hit the table. Still probably should have run the Aven Fleetwing or even the Phantasmal Dragon in its place, maindecked the Negate, and cut the one Divine Favor completely. Alternatively, I should have cut the Master Thief from the main and run both Divine Favors.

I didn’t take notes, so everyone will have to excuse my many memory flaws here.

R1: Dave, playing RW
This one is now kind of lost in my mind. Mainly, what I remember was grinding out a very long victory in game 1 largely through the magic of the Satchel. I do recall that I got Chandra and then he immediately top-decked an O Ring, which was unfun. However, the Satchel did everything in this game: built up my life total, kept me drawing gas, made tokens to chump and then later attack with. I remember when that card was spoiled and my first thought was “wow, that seems like it’ll be really good in Limited.” I didn’t know the half of it. Game 2 we were in danger of timing out and I punted by tapping wrong when I drew what was actually an answer to his 12/12 Furyborn Hellkite. We didn’t get to a game 3. Not a good start.
0-0-1 matches, 1-1 games

R2: Nick, playing WB
Nick had a good build with a Royal Assassin in it, but just had no answer to my bombs (I know in one game I had both Planeswalkers out, and Game 2 chumped almost every attack of his with Saproling tokens thanks to the Satchel) and I pretty much plowed through these two games.
1-0-1 matches, 3-1 games

R3: Cody, playing RW
Game 1 I kept a two-lander (on the draw) with both a Mountain and an Island in it, never drew a Plains the whole game, and died with five white cards in my hand, including Gideon… and he pummeled me with his Gideon. Game 2 he killed me very quickly with the amazing combo of Goblin Tunneler and Firebreathing on a 1/1, and I was again color-screwed. Pretty much an all-around spanking.
1-1-1 matches, 3-3 games, a ludicrous record given the conditions.

R4: Jeff?, playing GU
His deck had green fatties and a couple nice blue cards, but basically no removal and no way to get through Gideon’s Lawkeepers and Gideon himself. I think I ultimated Chandra once in this match as well, and I know in game 2 that I won by Mind Controlling a Giant Spider that had Trollhide on it. Seemed good.
2-1-1 matches, 5-3 games

R5: Brett, playing BR
Game 1 he took by getting a Gorehorn Minotaurs out after pinging me, then giving it hexproof with Boots, then pumping it with a Goblin War Cry. Basically, all I could do was chump it, and when the 7/7 started to get through, it was ugly. When he got out a Grim Lavamancer to boot, that was it. Game 2 I got a first-turn Goblin Fireslinger that went most of the way by himself. I Mana Leaked a couple of his early plays, stole his Swiftfoot Boots with my Master Thief, and then Mind Controlled his one creature and finished him with the trio. Game 3 I don’t remember as well, though I do know that the key plays were early Mana Leaks and when I Mind Controlled a creature of his that had Dark Favor on it.
3-1-1 matches, 7-4 games

Quarters: Nick, playing WB
Rematch from round 2. Game 1 he had to mull down to 4 and there was just no way he could beat me with that. Game 2 was a little more back and forth, but only a little. Unfortunately I don’t remember it all that well, other than once again getting huge advantage out of the Satchel, but it was pretty one-sided.
4-1-1 matches, 9-4 games

Semis: Matt, playing WG
Game 1 he kept a 1-lander on a mull to 6 and didn’t draw a second land until it was way, way too late. He discarded a lot of cards, including his three bombs: Garruk, a Sun Titan, and an Archon of Justice. Game 2 was more interesting, including a really horrific punt, but I still won it. The punt: He got out both the Archon and a Sun Titan, and I drew into Mind Control… and took the Titan. Hunh? So, of course I had to kill the Archon at some point, and so he killed the Mind Control. Duh. However, the good news is that he killed that instead of the Gideon that I had out, and I got a Lawkeeper, and that allowed me to keep the Titan off me long enough to grind out enough card advantage through the Satchel and swing enough life through my Alabaster Mage that I was able to take it in a long game.
5-1-1 matches, 11-4 games

Finals: Mike, playing BW
Game 1 was a medium-length affair decided primarily by my inability to draw things other than land; I think I died with 12 of my 16 lands on the table having drawn little gas. Game 2 I don’t really remember all that well, but I won it without too much difficulty. He did Doom Blade Gideon when I attacked with him, but I also had Chandra and was able to ultimate her while still keeping her on the board (also killing his only creature), and took it home with her and a Fireslinger. Game 3 I played an early Goblin Fireslinger followed by Boots, he had turn 2 and 3 Stormfront Pegasus and a turn 4 Cemetary Reaper. Here’s where I punted in this game: On my turn 3 I didn’t equip the Boots on the Fireslinger. On turn 4, I dropped Chandra and killed a Pegasus, figuring that my Fireslinger could chump the Reaper and then kill the other Pegasus the next turn. Of course he had a Sorin’s Thirst to kill the Slinger and then killed Chandra by attacking into her. Bleah. He got two Zombie tokens out of the Reaper but I was able to Mind Control it to make his tokens smaller, and forced him to use a Celestial Purge to kill his own Reaper. I got Gideon and then a Dignitary and a Divine Favor on the Dignitary, and then a Lawkeeper, which I protected from his spot removal with Boots. He made a Zombie token indestructible with an Aegis Angel, but I killed the Angel with Gideon after tapping with the Lawkeeper. He did get me down to 6, but after that, he couldn’t attack through the 2/6 Dignitary meaning I was free to use Gideon alternatively as an assassin and a fog. He had been holding the same one card since I cast Gideon, which I read as the Doom Blade, so I never attacked with Gideon and just waited for creatures to come and won with Skywinder Drake and Alabaster Mage and a couple Saproling tokens created by the Satchel.
6-1-1 matches, 13-5 games

So, for eight rounds of work, I got… 5 packs of M12. Seems a little light if we had enough people to justify 5 rounds of Swiss, but I had a good time, and that’s what was key.

Some comments on cards: Chandra is very good, but not nearly as good as Gideon, at least in a deck like this. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still very good, but she’s a bit slow to get to ultimate, and I didn’t use her -2 at all. Gideon, on the other hand, was absolutely fantastic. Druidic Satchel is terrific; in particular, it’s a real beating to throw lands directly into play to be able to continuously draw gas in the mid to late game. Think about that for a second—how many Limited games end up in board stalemates, with the winning player being the one able to draw out of it? Now, think about building up your available mana while never drawing land in the mid to late game. It’s pretty insane.

Alabaster Mage is another card I thought would be good but is, in fact, much better than just “good.” The fact that the ability can be used the turn he comes into play and can be used multiple times in a turn is outstanding; I won several games on the back of life gained this way. Master Thief was a little disappointing and I’d relegate him to sideboard duty in the future. Unsummon is really good in a format where Bloodthirst means creatures often have counters on them, and there are a fair number of token generators and creature enchantments as well. Manalith is also even better than expected; the fact that it comes in ready to use means you can cast it on turn 4 and then still have two mana open for a counter, which I did several times. Absolutely a must-run, if you’re in a three-color deck, and worth thinking about even if you’re in two.

In general the format seems sort of medium speed, not blazing fast like Zendikar but not glacial like Rise of the Eldrazi. I think in draft it’ll work out to be a little faster than M11 because some of the Bloodthirst guys seems pretty aggressive, but II don’t yet have as good a feel for it as M11 as I haven’t drafted it yet, but it seems like a pretty well-balanced format in terms of both speed and color parity. Looking forward to drafting it next FNM!

That’s right, I’m reporting on FNM for two players… plus there will be a bonus decklist at the end!

The two players are me and my 10-year-old son, Simon. This was his second outing to Montag’s for FNM. We’ve been playing at home for a while and I figured he was ready for some real tournament Magic as long as he played something simple. So I built a Tempered Steel deck for him that he played to a 1-2-1 record with his one win being a bye. However, all his matches went to three games. He made a lot of play and sideboarding mistakes, even though we had talked about it beforehand, but for his first time out I thought he did pretty well. So I took him again, and I’ll cover it from his end after going over my tournament.

So, my deck. I’m a big fan of Planeswalker-centered decks running Day of Judgment; probably more fond of it than I should be. Anyway, back when Shards block was still legal, I enjoyed the SuperFriends deck of that time. It’s not the same, of course, without cards like Ajani Vengeant, Oblivion Ring, and Martial Coup. However, there are some new cards like Koth, Venser, Tezzeret’s Gambit, and Preordain that seem good, so I put this together. I originally suggested this via Twitter and put it up in my last report. I didn’t like Elspeth at all in a few test games so I cut her for a Sun Titan and a Wurmcoil Engine. Here was the list:

[deck title=SuperFriends]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
1 Sun Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Koth of the Hammer
2 Gideon Jura
2 Venser, the Sojourner
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Preordain
4 Spreading Seas
3 Dismember
3 Day of Judgment
3 Tezzerets Gambit
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Island
7 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroclasm
2 Combust
3 Tectonic Edge
2 Divine Offering
2 Celestial Purge
3 Luminarch Ascension
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Frankly, in testing this list a little bit, I came to not like it very much. It’s inconsistent and the mana base is shaky. I wanted to switch to a different deck but I didn’t really have time to put one together. Well, I might have been able to, but nothing really excited me other than the Sin City deck (list further down), but I couldn’t make that since I only have one set of Marsh Flats, and my son’s deck already had them, and I really didn’t have time to deal with two decks, so I just went with it.

Round 1: Joey, playing Beastmaster Ascension
The deck was ramp, lots of little guys, and of course 4 copies of Beastmaster Ascension. Game 1 I drew removal when I needed it, and the right Walkers at the right time, and he was a little land-flooded, and I took this one pretty easily. I sided in three Pyroclasms and that was it. Game 2 I got behind a little and he managed to get an Ascension active. I had 8 land out and was able to dig with a Wall of Omens into a Spreading Seas into a Day of Judgment to stabilize, but after that I could not draw out of it other than a Gideon that was turned into a token via Beast Within. Game 3 I had some early mana color issues, but managed a Koth, and managed to wipe his board, but he came back with Fresh Meat. He eventually got two Ascensions active, and managed to Beast Within Gideon again, and I just could not draw a Day to get back into it.
0-1 matches, 1-2 games

Round 2: Simon, playing Tezzered Steel (see below)
Yep, the pairings computer hates us. We had actually practiced this matchup before heading over to the store, and it’s pretty close. SuperFriends can’t always handle the early swarm, but if the game goes long, it has the edge; the combination of Day and Gideon is pretty difficult. Game 1 was long; I got two early Spreading Seas to cut off his access to double white so he couldn’t cast Tempered Steel, but he got enough creatures to make it difficult. I cleared with Day but then he got Tezz and got to draw a blocker, but I bolted it, dropped Koth, and hit Tezz with a Mountain. He followed with his second Tezz, made his Mox Opal into a 5/5, and smashed my Koth. I had to use Day to kill the 5/5 Mox and eventually killed Tezz with Gideon, and then got another Koth, and was able to get him all the way with help from a Sun Titan, though Gideon did eat a Go for the Throat shortly thereafter. Simon had used Tezz’s +1 a couple times and one time he was pretty agitated about it, and he told me afterward that yes, he got an artifact, but he had to put all four Tempered Steels on the bottom. Ouch. I sided in the two Divine Offerings and two Pyroclasms. Game 2 he got off to a bit of a slower start, I was able to 3-for-1 with Day and get Gideon and Venser up, and was able to draw many extra cards off blinking a Wall with Venser. Venser went ultimate and I finished him with two turns of Gideon plus Colonnade. A shame we had to face each other and I felt kind of bad beating him, but he took it well.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Weylin, playing mono-Black
Game 1 he got off to a slow start and I got out a couple Spreading Seas and a Wall and then Venser. He came back with a Grave Titan and then I dropped a Wumcoil. He swung with the Titan which of course killed them both, but I got two tokens out of it. He had multiple Zombies, of course, and I gained still more life blocking his zombies with my tokens, and I also generated another Wall. He did get Venser down to 1 at one point, but I was able to build Venser back up and ultimate him, and he scooped. I drew a zillion cards in this game by using Venser to bounce Walls and Spreading Seas; the ludicrous card advantage really was the difference in this game. I boarded in the two Purges and maybe a Pyroclasm. Game 2 I was a little land-light and never saw a Wall. I did eventually get Koth and got in a couple swings with Mountains, but Koth doesn’t actually protect himself or the player very much and he only made a token effort to keep Koth off ultimate and mostly just swung at me for the win. Game 3 I again had colored mana problems (no white for a long time) and while I once again got Koth going and had a couple Walls for protection this time, he got down not one, but two, Phyrexian Obliterators. Man, O Ring or Path would be great… I cast every draw spell I had digging for a Purge or a Day, but saw neither, and died… with a Day as the top card in my library. Argh.
1-2 matches, 4-4 games

Round 4: Chris, playing UB Tezzeret
While I was clearly going to miss the top 8, hey, playing Magic is fun! I rarely drop unless I’m really not having fun, which happens pretty rarely. Anyway, game 1 was pretty interesting. We both did a lot of nothing the first couple of turns, then both came out with planeswalkers, him with Tezz and me with Koth. My Koth was protected by a Wall, but only for a turn as Tezz turned a Tumble Magnet into a 5/5 and swung. He had a Go for the Throat for the first Mountain that I sent at Tezz and then he held the Magnet back since I had another Wall. He got a Batterskull and I came back with a Wurmcoil. He misplayed by equipping the Batterskull onto the Magnet and swinging into the Wurmcoil. Yes, we both gained all kinds of life, but he didn’t initially realize that his 9/9 still died because of the deathtouch. Oops. He drew very little action after that, and I managed to get in with some token hits before he bounced the Batterskull, re-cast it, had it die to attacking into a deathtouch token at Gideon’s command. Somewhere around here I went ultimate with Koth after taking out Tezz with an animated Mountain. He bounced Batterskull again and re-played it, saw I had three cards in hand, and he Inquisitioned me. In response, I Dismembered the token and Bolted him twice down to 9, pinged him with a Mountain, then next turn untapped, hit him with Gideon and another Mountain ping for the game. I boarded in the two Divine Offerings and the three Luminarch Ascensions. Game 2 I took a two-lander since it also had a Bolt, an Ascension, a Divine Offering, a Day and a Koth. He started with an Inkmoth Nexus and a Tectonic Edge and just started hitting me for poison counters, which I pointed out to him did not cause loss of life after I put down the Ascension on turn 2. I drew not lands for a few turns and when he hit me with an Inquisition it was a whiff since I had drawn into both a Venser and a Gideon as well as the Koth, Day, and Wurmcoil all stuck in my hand. I bolted a Hex Parasite immediately after he cast it and he knocked two counters off the Ascension, but I finally got it active, which was important since he had a Clasp and was proliferating poison counters on me. I finally drew some land and made Koth, then was able to make Angels enough to win. We had a few spectators for this last game since the top 2 decided to bird as did some of the people who dropped, and the Luminarch Ascension got more than a few comments. “Wow, bringing it back! Killer vs. UB control.” Yep, I’m bringing it back exactly because it is so good against other control decks…
2-2 matches, 6-4 games

It would have been nice to have made the top 8, but I guess when you know your deck isn’t all that great and you still win more games than you lose, that’s OK. Mana issues were indeed a factor in more than one of my losses. Frankly, I think a straight UW build would be better (though I admit I’d miss the Bolts). Actually, the M12 version of Chandra would be pretty good here, as it’d then be possible to build it with a less Mountain-heavy mana base. Tezzeret’s Gambit is already very, very good in this deck and with Chandra in play, yikes.

However, I certainly wouldn’t bring this deck to a PTQ or even an FNM unless you just really, really like to play with Planeswalkers.

Now, on to Part II. Simon played a very straightforward Tempered Steel deck last week, and in watching him play, four things stood out: [1] Dispatch, while really nice when you have Metalcraft, is beyond awful when you don’t, [2] The deck tends to just barf up its hand and then kind of fizzle. There’s no card draw/advantage of any kind, [3] The deck has very little in the way of disrupting combo decks, other than just winning first, and [4] Simon made a lot of sideboarding mistakes. That’s pretty understandable, but I thought it would be good to help him with all of these things beforehand.

So, the deck. Essentially, it’s Esper colors to beTempered Steel and then still run Tezz and a few other black cards, most importantly Go for the Throat in the main and Memoricide in the sideboard.

[deck title=Tezzered Steel]
[Creatures]
4 Memnite
3 Glint Hawk
4 Signal Pest
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Steel Overseer
4 Vault Skirge
2 Etched Champion
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
2 Mox Opal
4 Glint Hawk Idol
3 Go for the Throat
4 Tempered Steel
[/Spells]
[Land]
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Marsh Flats
7 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Swamp
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
1 Ajani Goldmane
2 Divine Offering
2 Etched Champion
3 Celestial Purge
2 Refraction Trap
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Memoricide
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Here’s the sideboarding/play guide I gave to Simon before he went in:

Red Deck Wins
+2 Refraction Trap, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +2 Celestial Purge
-3 Porcelain Legionnaire, -2 Phyrexian Revoker

Vampires
+3 Celestial Purge, +2 Etched Champion
-2 Phyrexian Revoker, -1 Memnite, -1 Glint Hawk, -1 Signal Pest

Exarch Twin
+3 Memoricide, +3 Celestial Purge
-3 Legionnaire, -3 Glint Hawk
Revoker names Deceiver Exarch
Memoricide names Splinter Twin

Valakut
+3 Memoricide, +2 Etched Champion
-3 Legionnaire, -1 Overseer, -1 Memnite
Memoricide names Primeval Titan

Blue-Black Control
+2 Phyrexian Revoker, +2 Etched Champion
-3 Legionnaire, -1 Memnite
Revoker names Jace Beleran or Liliana Vess

Blue-White Control
+2 Phyrexian Revoker
-2 Legionnaire
Revoker names Jace Beleran, Gideon Jura, or Venser, the Sojourner

Tempered Steel
+2 Divine Offering, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +2 Phyrexian Revoker
-3 Go for the Throat, -2 Etched Champion
Revoker names Steel Overseer

We played some test games and he liked it a lot better, especially the Go for the Throat.

Round 1: Joe, playing UW control
Joe’s got a rating in the high 1800s, multiple PTQ top 8s, day 2 of GP Fort Worth, top 16 Star City Open Dallas, etc. Basically, the store’s best player and the worst possible matchup for Simon. Game 1 Simon managed to kill Joe’s Sun Titan with a Go for the Throat but Joe just saw too many Days for Simon to hang in there. Game 2 Simon Revoked both Gideon and Jace and Joe didn’t see enough Days and Simon just ran him over. Game 3 I didn’t really see, but Simon told me Joe managed three Days and that was just too much. I was glad that Simon at least took a game off Joe, that was something.
0-1 matches, 1-2 games

Round 2: Mike, playing SuperFriends (see above)
0-2 matches, 1-4 games

Round 3: Chris, playing UB Tezzeret
I didn’t see very much of this match, either, but Simon apparently played it quite well. I looked over at one point and saw Simon was swinging with four artifact creatures, one of them being Signal Pest, and a Tempered Steel out, which seems good. Hooray! Simon won his first sanctioned tournament match, 2-0!
1-2 matches, 3-4 games

Round 4: Joey, playing Beastmaster Ascension
Simon got a really good draw in game 1, coming out with two Memnites and a Mox Opal into turn 2 Tempered Steel—pretty good. Game 2 I know Joey got an Ascension active and I think that let him outrace Simon. Game 3 Joey also got an Ascension active, but pretty late, and Simon had Tempered Steel and a timely Go for the Throat. Apparently Signal Pest was key in this game since Joey could never block it. Hey, Simon won another one!
2-2 matches, 5-5 games

By virtue of tiebreakers, Simon actually finished one ahead of me in the standings. Way to go, Simon!

I was really pleased that he managed to win two matches. He played a lot better, apparently, and that’s really good to see. He’s really coming along as a player and might be ready for something more complicated, but it’ll be a while since he will have to miss the next FNM and we’ll both miss the pre-release due to travel. After that it’ll be draft for a while, and I’m not sure he’s really ready to draft just yet. I might just buy a dozen packs of M12 just for us to play sealed against each other to give him some practice with that first.

I personally probably wouldn’t bring this to a PTQ or even FNM myself, but it’s good for a novice deck, I think, and I think the Tezz addition, while making the mana base a little worse, allows some stronger other cards. Simon mostly didn’t have mana problems except when he played me and I hit him with Spreading Seas multiple times in the same game.

So, what would I play at a PTQ, or at least the next FNM? Actually, this is what I would have played at this FNM if I could have scared up another playset of Marsh Flats. Back at the end of January, before Mirrodin Besieged came out and CawBlade became all the rage, I took down an FNM with a White-Black-Red control deck that I dubbed “Sin City.” I really liked that deck a lot and I came up with an updated build that I am now just dying to play at FNM. Here’s the list:

[deck title=Return to Sin City]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
3 Hero of Bladehold
1 Sun Titan
2 Sunblast Angel
2 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Gideon Jura
1 Liliana Vess
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Go for the Throat
2 Luminarch Ascension
3 Sphere of the Suns
2 Mimic Vat
2 Day of Judgment
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mountain
6 Plains
3 Swamp
2 Tectonic Edge
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Baneslayer Angel
4 Duress
2 Luminarch Ascension
3 Memoricide
2 Pyroclasm
2 Go for the Throat
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I know, I know, it looks like the SuperFriends deck, just with Black instead of Blue. But that makes a huge difference, as you never need any double color except for white, and while you lose Preordain, you get hand kill and better instant-speed removal. The big changes from the original version are that I got rid of the Emeria Angels, replacing one in the main deck with Lilliana and the other three with Hero of Bladehold. I think Lilliana is better against other control decks, and I think Hero with Gideon allows a faster transition from defense to offense and is much better under the Vat than the Angels. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Emeria Angel—it’s one of my favorite cards—but I think Hero is probably just a better 4-drop, in no small part because it doesn’t just die to Bolt. The three Memoricides in the board are also new additions, as that’s good against both Exarch Twin and Valakut.

Against control you side in the other two Luminarch Ascensions and the 4 Duresses and possibly the two Go for the Throats depending on exactly what they’re playing. Nine hand kill plus 4 Luminarch Ascension should be pretty good against most control decks; UB generally has no way to get rid of an Asecnsion and UW often doesn’t, either, since Revoke Existence isn’t that common. This is one of those places where the lack of Oblivion Ring (my favorite FNM promo card) is actually to your advantage.

Against aggro, you side in the Baneslayers and the Pyroclasms and again, possibly the Go for the Throats. Actually for Vampires the Baneslayers are iffy, but definitely against RDW or Elves.

Against Exarch Twin, you side in the 4 Duress, the 2 Go for the Throat, and the 3 Memoricide. I considered Combust for that slot since it’s uncounterable, but there are too many other matchups where you’d just rather have the Go for the Throat that I thought it’d be worth the risk.

Your worst matchup is, unfortunately, Valakut. You side in the 3 Memoricide, the 2 Go for the Throat, the 2 Baneslayers for sure and then it kind of depends on how they’re ramping. If they’re using Cobras, you side in the Pyros, otherwise you side in the Duresses. I know Baneslayer doesn’t really stop the combo, but life gain is relevant as sometimes they don’t draw enough in the way of Mountains to get there. If you hit once you gain five and they have to spend two triggers to kill it, which overall means that’s 4 triggers more you get to live through. Note that you keep in Day of Judgment in this matchup; Mimic Vat makes any way of removing a Primeval Titan good, because not only is a Titan under the Vat good in general, it is awesome against Valakut because it lets you tutor up your Tectonic Edges. I know it only runs two… three might actually be a possibility now that the deck can run Sphere of the Suns rather than Everflowing Chalice; I’ll have to test that out.

If anyone has thoughts or comments, you can leave ‘em here or hit me up on Twitter (@SunByrne).

Reaction to the Ban
First, let me be clear that I was not an advocate of the ban. My thoughts on it ran pretty similar, not surprisingly, to Alexander Shearer’s as outlined in his blog post. (I disagree with Dr. Shearer on the degree to which Jund and CawBlade are skill-intensive, though, as I do think there really is a meaningful difference between the two on that score that goes beyond the dollar value of the cards.) However, I definitely agree on other stuff, in particular I don’t think Jace was the main problem and they could have gone a long way toward solving the CawBlade problem simply by banning Batterskull. Vampires and RDW have been getting better against CawBlade and with no Batterskull I think it’d be a tough match for CB, especially game 1.

I’d also point out that while the top tables at SCG Opens and Grand Prix may have been dominated by CawBlade, I didn’t see that at FNM. Since that’s almost entirely what I play—and I suspect a lot more players play FNM than either the Opens or GPs—I don’t think Standard was really as “broken” a format as many people said. I don’t play MTGO, but people tell me that it also was not dominated by CawBlade, either, for whatever reasons.

That said, I understand WotC’s reasons for the ban and I’m not up in arms about it.

What I am a lot more interested in than complaining (some other people need to get off that bus) is what the environment will be once the ban kicks in. I don’t think it’s at all clear what the “best deck” is. Maybe Valakut, but maybe not. Remember, we’ve had a few new cards come out since Valakut was king, and I think those will change things. RDW and Vampires are still viable, Exarch Twin decks seem very good and I think there are good decks out there yet to be found because they just lose to CawBlade, based on Tezzeret, Birthing Pod, and maybe even Tempered Steel that have a shot. It’s also an environment that will be extremely short-lived, since M12 will become legal just weeks after the ban takes effect. I think we’re in for pretty much chaos in Standard for a while starting July 1—chaos can be fun, too!

In fact, it’s got me brewing again…

Decklists
These are just deck ideas I’ve kind of thrown together in response to the ban. Got some help from @AuranAlchemist on the first one, which is my favorite of the two. I liked SuperFriends as a deck the last time around, and while I don’t think it’s quite the same without big Jace or Ajani Vengeant, it still has potential:

[deck title=SuperFriends]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
3 Koth of the Hammer
2 Elspeth Tirel
2 Gideon Jura
2 Venser, the Sojourner
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Preordain
4 Spreading Seas
3 Dismember
3 Day of Judgment
3 Tezzerets Gambit
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Island
7 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroclasm
3 Combust
2 Tectonic Edge
3 Flashfreeze
1 Day of Judgment
3 Divine Offering
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The sideboard is kind of thrown together—maybe too much Valakut hate—but I think the deck could be fun and might have some game. One of the things that Jace TMS taught us is that the current environment doesn’t have enough good answers to Planeswalkers, and with CawBlade going, I suspect there won’t be as much flying, so Walkers protected by Wall of Omens and Day of Judgment seems like a viable plan.

The other deck is a RUG Twin deck, but of course one without Jace.

[deck title=Shaman Twin]
[Creatures]
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Deceiver Exarch
1 Manic Vandal
2 Trinket Mage
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Vengevine
1 Frost Titan
1 Inferno Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Brittle Effigy
2 Mimic Vat
3 Splinter Twin
[/Spells]
[Land]
3 Copperline Gorge
4 Forest
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine
4 Scalding Tarn
[/Land]
[/deck]

Comments so far are that Mimic Vat seems kind of random and that might be right, but with Sparkmage/Collar, there are going to be a lot of dead things, and it makes your opponent’s removal so much worse. If your opponent kills your Exarch, if you have a Vat out, they haven’t solved the problem in quite the same way…

Anyway, it needs some testing and a sideboard, but seems like it might also be fun. The Vengevines give you a way to win without the combo, and the Sparkmage/Collar interaction should allow you to go the long game against any creature-based deck.

If anyone has any thoughts on either of these, I’d love to hear them! I’m likely to sleeve up some form of SuperFriends for the July 1 FNM.

Tournament Report
Hey, look, another Tuesday at Montag’s! I don’t let myself play the same deck twice in a row at Montag’s and last time around was CawBlade. Now, with the ban hammer coming down soon, I decided that “different” could be awfully similar in that it’s also a deck with Jace and Stoneforge Mystic, but there aren’t any Squadron Hawks and there’s a fun alternate (and immediate) win condition. Here’s the list I played:

[deck title=TwinBlade]
[Creatures]
2 Spellskite
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Deceiver Exarch
2 Inferno Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
2 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
2 Dismember
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Splinter Twin
1 Batterskull
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Arid Mesa
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
3 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Seachrome Coast
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Divine Offering
3 Pyroclasm
2 Celestial Purge
2 Combust
3 Mental Misstep
2 Lightning Bolt
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I threw this together without playing it a single game first… I figured, as usual, that I’d learn it as I went. (And I wonder why I don’t win more, right?). I’ll talk more generally about the deck after the blow-by-blow.

Turnout was decent for a Tuesday (13 or so), so four rounds of Swiss and cut to top 4.

Round 1: Rolaund playing RDW
I’ve played against RDW a lot lately, but of course not with this deck. I kind of have a thing about RDW as being the one archetype that I never play (though we’ll see after M12 comes out. Grim Lavamancer? Really?) Game 1 I got turn 2 Stoneforge into Sword of War and Peace, and he didn’t have removal for the Mystic, so I flashed in the Batterskull that was in my opening hand. He clearly wasn’t expecting that, looked at it for a turn, and just scooped to it. Game 2 was sick. Turn 1 he played a Spikeshot Elder, I played land and passed, he hit me and played an Ember Hauler, my turn 2 I came back with a Spellskite. He attacked and I blocked the Elder. He added another Elder and passed. My turn 3 I played land (now had one of each color up) and passed. We went to combat and I flashed in a Deceiver Exarch, tapping down his Hauler, and he passed the turn. I untapped, topdecked a Scalding Tarn, cracked it for a Mountain, and got the combo on turn 4. Whee, magical Christmasland! We were done in like 10 minutes, most of which was me pulling my sideboard out of my deck after game 1 because I accidentally shuffled the whole thing in. Best RDW match ever.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Danesh playing Grixis Twin
I’d never played Danesh before but I hope I get to do so again, as he was a really fun opponent. I wasn’t sure how this matchup would go and it’s pretty intense. Game 1 was a lot of back-and-forth trying to establish some kind of control and build up mana on both sides to try to be able to combo off… I did get a Stoneforge, but she ate a Go for the Throat and the Sword I got was blown up eventually as well. He finally got ahead enough to combo off. Game 2 was another long, drawn-out affair. I Probe’d him early (ouch!) to see two Exarchs and two Twins in his hand, yikes. I managed to get Jace on the board for a couple turns before losing Jace to the legend rule, but that was enough to put some removal in my hand. I bluffed counters and kept him from going off, and got out a pair of Exarchs and got one Sworded up (Feast and Famine) and he eventually got there, but it took considerable time since he had an active Tumble Magnet and a Spellskite that I took a long time to get rid of. Whew! We started game 3 with only a few minutes left and tried to play quickly to get a resolution, but neither of us were able to combo off, though he did get me down to 7 with a Creeping Tar Pit, it wasn’t enough.
1-0-1 matches, 3-1-1 games

Round 3: Joe, playing CawBlade
Ah, Joe, one (if not the) store’s strongest player, and one against whom I have a terrible record, was 2-0 and got rounded down. We did some early draw-go and I got to Probe Joe to see that he had no Mystic or Hawks in hand so I knew I had time. He Jaced and I Pierced, and he Pierced back, giving him Jace but tapped out. I came back with Inferno Titan to kill Jace, which surprised Joe—I don’t think he was expecting the Titan. He Dismembered an Exarch at some point, bounced the Titan with Into the Roil the next time he came out, and they killed it with Day the time after that, but the 3s were adding up and I had a Sword out which I equipped to a Colonnade and that got me there. Game 2 he did the full CawBlade thing and had Jace and Hawks and was Brainstorming fresh cards each turn and I could not get through to Jace or get much going. I did hit a Sword with Divine Offering, but I was too far behind. I did get an Exarch out and had mana to pay for a Leak and tried to go off, but rather than Leak he had Into the Roil and two mana to pay for the Pierce I had in my hand, so that failed. When he dropped Sun Titan to get back his Sword, I was done. Game 3 he got little Jace out and I had to tap out to activate a Colonnade to kill it, and he followed that up with Big Jace, and again I had to tap out (nearly) to bring the Colonnade to kill it. However, I had Probe’d him (ouch!) and I knew he didn’t have anything major after that, just a Hawk and a Leak. He did brainstorm into another Jace and had two Hawks out, but I was up to 8 land with the combo pieces in hand, flashed in an Exarch with Pierce backup, untapped and Twin’d him up for the match. Whew, very intense match.
2-0-1 matches, 5-2-1 games

Round 4: Tony, playing JunkPod
Tony and I were 1-2, but there were 5 people with 6 points, one who got rounded down and was playing someone with 4, so I was not guaranteed to be in if we drew, so we played it out.

Before getting into it, a few words about Tony’s deck: it’s outstanding! Almost every card in the deck (other than the Birthing Pods, a little removal, and the equipment) is a creature with an ETB or leaves play effect, and it has a full curve up to 7 mana: Birds of Paradise, Stoneforge Mystic, Squadron Hawk, Mirran Crusader (ok, no ETB there), Viridian Corrupter, Cadaver Imp, Phyrexian Metamorph, Kozilek’s Predator, Entomber Exarch, Acidic Slime, Massacre Wurm, Wurmcoil Engine, Elesh Norn. I know some of those seem subpar, but trust me, it’s quite effective. I’m probably missing something, and of course many of these are 1-ofs. If you cannot keep Pod off the table it’s a massive beating, very flexible.

Anyway, the games. Game 1 was pretty crazy. I got an early Stoneforge and then more of them later, and got to the point where I had a germ token wearing a Batterskull and both Swords. That’s when he fetched up a Predator, making two Spawn tokens, which are colorless and can be sacrificed before damage, meaning they can block something on the ground with whatever swords and vanish before damage to prevent the life gain. Now, I had gotten through with the just the Batterskull once and with the Sword of Feast and Famine on the Batterskull once and I was at 26 life, but Tony got the Corrupter to kill one Sword, got it back with the Imp to kill the second, and despite going down to 1 life, managed to keep himself alive and gradually grind me out. It was ugly. Game 2 I kept a hand with 4 lands, a Jace, and 2 Preordains. Both Preordains yielded… more land. I drew into another Preordain, which yielded… land. The game was over quickly, ending with me having seen 9 lands and six non-lands, three of which were Preordains. Not going to win many games like that.
2-1-1 matches, 5-4-1 games

Now, in a strange twist, the 2-1 who got rounded down lost, so I made the top 4 in 4th, behind Tony and the two 3-1s. Unfortunately, that meant my semifinal match was… Tony. Ugh.

Semis, Tony… again
Game 1 I got early Mystic and Batterskull pressure, and then a Jace to fateseal, but he got out a Pod and Hawk into Corrupter killed the Sword and eventually the Batterskull, but I managed two Exarchs on the table, Jace at 9, and two Splinter Twins in hand along with an Inferno Titan… and only one Mountain in play. I had to start brainstorming with Jace, and not only could I not find a fetch or a Mounain in several turns of that before Jace died to a Crusader, I never found a shuffler to get me another shot at it. Dying with the combo and a great answer to half his deck in hand because you’re color-screwed is… frustrating. Game 2 I finally drew a sideboard card, but not the right one: Pyroclasm. I had a Stoneforge on the table and a Batterskull in hand, which I bounced to avoid a Corrupter the previous turn, and he had a Bird, a Pod, and the Corrupter out, so I Pyroclasm’d and activated the Mystic in response to put the Batterskull back in play to his creatureless board. I also had the combo in hand, but again, only one red source on the table (four lands), so I figured even if he dealt with the Batterskull I had him in two turns. Here was his play: Corrupter cast from his hand to kill Batterskull, sacrifice Corrupter to Pod up Entomber Exarch to kill the Splinter Twin in my hand. I of course next drew a second Mountain but had no Twin, and Tony killed it anyway, saccing Exarch for Acidic Slime, then Slime into Wurmcoil into Elesh Norn. Well, that was fun… not. I was pretty aggravated with my deck since I definitely had the first game if I could have drawn just one out of 10 red sources still in my deck, with several turns to hit it and even a deeper dig with a brainstorm. Would have been nice if somewhere in the two post-board games I had ever drawn an Offering, too, but not meant to be.
2-2-1 matches, 5-6-1 games

I got like $10 for coming in the 3-4 slot, so at least I got double my entry fee back. Got some Puresteel Paladins for post-rotation; we’ll see how that goes.

Comments on TwinBlade
This kind of hybrid deck is weird, it’s like a bad CawBlade deck fused with a bad Exarch Twin deck, so it’s not really as good at the main plan as either one in purer form, but of course it has a different way to win than either of the pure forms. All of my opponents save the RDW player in round 1 commented on how difficult it was to sideboard against this deck, because most decks just cannot afford both the full anti-Caw and anti-Twin package. It’s a little weird to play, too, since a lot of the decisions involve which game plan you want to pursue. That decision isn’t always hard—sometimes the opening hand makes that very clear—but sometimes it isn’t clear. The deck also sacrifices some permission (only two Leaks and two Pierces) and you cannot play the control game like with the purer forms of either deck, but you can still bluff it credibly. The lack of Hawks is also weird, since you have absolutely no defense against anything in the air other than tapping with a flashed-in Exarch.

Were I playing it again at FNM or in a PTQ before the ban kicks in, I would definitely change a few things. First, the mana base. I played only one Colonnade, figuring that wasn’t the way you wanted to win with this deck anyway. Wrong, wrong, wrong; Colonnade is still a great answer to an opposing Jace or your own board that is empty save for a lone piece of equipment. I’d go up to two or maybe three, and I’d cut one of the Islands for a 4th Mountain, too.

The other thing I would change is the sideboard. Mental Misstep is awful; I’m not sure what I was thinking there. Well, I know, it’s there to stop Spell Pierce, Duress/Inquisition, and Goblin Guide. This just isn’t good enough. What I really want in that slot, maybe even main deck in place of all the other permission, is Dispel. The main answer in most decks to your big hitters—both the equipment and the combo—are instants, e.g. Divine Offering, Into the Roil, Dismember, Go for the Throat, permission, etc. (Combust still hoses you, but neither Spell Pierce or Mana Leak help there, either.) Now, Dispel would not have helped against the Birthing Pod deck, but neither does Mental Misstep. The only solution there is to counter the Pod or Divine Offering it, or of course just have two red sources so you can actually combo off.

I would probably keep the Inferno Titans. They have good surprise value, are amazing vs. a lot of the field, and give you another reasonable target for Splinter Twin that does not die to Dismember or Combust.

The good news: I haven’t been able to make it to Tuesday night Magic at Montag’s since December, so I was pumped to be able to go back to it. The bad news: no time to really brew, so I just picked up CawBlade. Boring, yes, but so good… Here’s the list I played:

[deck title=CawBlade]
[Creatures]
2 Spellskite
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
1 Jace Beleren
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Preordain
3 Spell Pierce
2 Into the Roil
4 Mana Leak
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
2 Day of Judgment
2 Batterskull
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Flashfreeze
2 Divine Offering
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Emeria Angel
2 Celestial Purge
1 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Dismember
1 Gideon Jura
1 Day of Judgment
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I still run Day of Judgment main because I expect a majority aggro in my local meta and relatively few mirrors. If I were to take it to a PTQ or something I’d probably swap the Days and Divine Offerings.

8 players, so four rounds of Swiss cutting to top 4.

Round 1: Parker, playing Puresteel Paladin
Parker’s a regular I’ve played many times, though he doesn’t often play Standard. I had no idea what to expect when we started but I won the roll and took a hand with 2 Mana Leaks and drew into a third pretty early, so I was able to mostly keep the pressure off, though he did get one whack in with a Paladin equipped with a Sword of Body and Mind, which I had some trouble with since I couldn’t bounce it with Jace. I finally killed it and a germ token on a Batterskull with Day, and was able to recover faster and bash back for the win. I boarded in the additional Day and of course the two Divine Offerings. I know I boarded out Jace Beleren but I don’t remember what else. Game 2 I got both Jace and Gideon out (felt like pre-NPH Caw there for a bit) and got help from him being land flooded and carried that one pretty easily.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Paul, playing mono-Black
I was 0-2 the last two tournaments against this particular deck, first with CawBlade and then with BantBlade, so I really wanted this one, but my expectations were low. I ran out a turn 2 Spellskite, then on turn 3 I Preordained. I saw two Colonnades, and I know how badly Caw wants land, but I decided to send them both to the bottom and I topdecked a Mystic. I cast it (fetching Sword of Feast and Famine) and he tried to Disfigure, but I redirected to the Spellskite and he was still stuck on one 1 land, so he just scooped. I boarded in the Divine Offerings (for his Swords and Lashwrithes), the Dismembers (for his Phyrexian Obliterators), Gideon, and of course the two Purges. Game 2 I took a two-lander that had a Preordain and mostly blue spells, but I got stuck on those two land, missing both turn 3 and 4 land drops, and was just too far behind to get back in it. I got beat down by a Bloodghast that I couldn’t keep dead or even slowed since I was under 10 life. Game 3 I was able to get a Sworded Hawk going, and he was a little light on land, and the Hawk carried the day.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games

Round 3: Chris, playing RDW
Chris has been around a lot lately, but I haven’t played him before, though I knew he was playing RDW. Game 1 was a disaster, turn 1 Guide, burned my turn 2 Mystic, Elder, then second Guide, and I just could not keep up and died holding a handful of too-slow blue spells. Game 2 was much better, I opened with two Day of Judgment, and got 3-for-1 both times, then followed with Linvala, which I was able to equip with Sword of War and Peace, and that ended it with me at 11 life at the lowest point—a comfortable win. Game 3 was a more drawn out, and I did get down to 5, but I managed to stop the bleeding with Gideon, then Jace, then a Batterskull. I was just lucky that he didn’t topdeck a couple more burn spells before I could get the beastly skull fired up, but it only took a couple turns of Gideon+Batterskull both swinging.
3-0 matches, 6-2 games

Round 4: ID
I was the only undefeated, so I drew in. My opponent was taking a chance by doing so, but the other 4 2-1s all played, so he was seeded #4, and me #1, so we still got in our match.
3-0-1 matches, 6-2 games

Semis: Joey, playing UB Tezz
Joey also doesn’t play that much Standard, but his deck was really, really interesting. Tezz, lots of artifacts, 4 Phyrexian Metamorphs, and… Phylactery Lich. The coolest play I’ve seen in a while was Joey in an earlier round with a Metamorph on the board, having copied a Lich in play and putting the counter on itself. Very tech! (Though I just read Oracle on the card and it turns out that’s not a legal play. Hmm.) All three of these were very long games. I got a turn 2 Mystic into SoFF, but he copied the Mystic to get a Darksteel Axe. I got a Batterskull, and he copied it… twice. He got a Tumble Magnet, which kept my own Sword off him. When he got Tezzeret and made the Axe a 5/5—nice play—I was in trouble, and he got more counters on Tezz and was able to ultimate him for 16, and I couldn’t get back in it from there. I really didn’t know what to sideboard, and decided to board in a lot: the Offerings, the Emeria Angels, the Purges, the Sphinx, and Gideon. I struggled with what to take out of after the two Days and decided that Batterskull was just dangerous, so I took it out. That meant I could take out a Mystic, too, and then I was stumped. I finally took out two Preordains, which is dangerous, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Game 2 went pretty smoothly as I got Jace out on my turn 5 and had one blue open for the Pierce, which caught his Tezz, and that was enough of a lead that I carried it. At one point I had an Emeria Angel out that he copied with a Metamorph, but I had an Offering for it. He managed to make a bird token, but I bounced that with Jace, but he was able to go for the Angel’s throat before I could make any tokens, though. I still pulled it out anyway. Game 3 was another epic. He came out with turn 1 Inquisition and saw that I had two Pierces in my opener. He played around them really well, and got two Spellskites on his side and then used Tezz to make one of them a 5/5, but I was able to kill Tezz with a Hawk and an activated Inkmoth. I had Jace, but couldn’t bounce the big Skite because of the second, and then he got a Lich, ugh. I had a handful of Hawks, though, and was able to chump and get a Gideon. I had Gideon send everyone over, blocked one of the 5/5s with a Hawk and Gideon took 5. I bounced Lich with Jace, which of course got redirected to the 0/4 Spellskite, and then I used Gideon to slay the 5/5 Skite. I swung back with a Colonnade and Gideon next turn, then just chumped the Lich until I could fly over for two more hits with the manland. I was at 4, so it was pretty tight. It was a great match that could easily have gone either way, and I have to say I really really liked the deck a lot. It would get blown out by Creeping Corrosion, I’d think, but who plays that?
4-0-1, 8-3 games

Joe, who was also playing UW CawBlade (but was the only other one playing it), also made the finals but wanted to leave so we agree to a split before we finished the semis.

I’m going to miss FNM at Montag’s this week because I’ll be in Minneapolis, but I plan to play at a store there. I’ll either hit up Monster Den, Dreamer’s, or Universe Games since they’re all about the same distance from my parents’ place (bringing my kids up to visit their grandparents). If anyone has any thoughts on this, please share! (I’m @SunByrne on twitter.)

My rule is that I never bring the same deck to two events in a row at my local game store, Montag’s Games. I played CawBlade last week and wanted something without counters, and so I decided on a Bant deck. It’s certainly Caw-like in that it still runs Jace and the Stoneforge package, but otherwise not so much. This was what I considered to be the “missing deck” from Alexander Shearer’s (@parakkum, and my favorite MTG columnist) recent excellent column.

Here’s the list:

[deck title=BantBlade]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Spellskite
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Vengevine
2 Acidic Slime
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Frost Titan
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
1 Sword of War and Peace
2 Batterskull
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Forest
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Verdant Catacombs
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Frost Titan
1 Spellskite
3 Dismember
1 Acidic Slime
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Nature’s Claim
1 Celestial Purge
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Always slightly scary to play a deck with exactly zero maindeck removal, but I loved the idea of discarding a Vengevine to tutor up a Stoneforge, so why not? You’ll notice that I also went Hawk-less.

16 players showed up, 4 rounds with top 8. I feel the need to put in a note here about the store metagame given the amount of bitching going on in the Twitterverse about the CawBlade hegemony. Exactly 1 out of the 16 of us played standard UW CawBlade. Now, there were a total of 4 decks running the Stoneforge package: me, the UW Caw, a Junk (WBG) deck, and a Darkblade, but without the blue (that is, straight White-Black). Yes, the recent GPs and SCG Opens have been dominated by CawBlade, but FNM really isn’t.

Round 1: Weylin, playing BUG
Weylin used to be a regular, then didn’t show up for about a year, and has started showing up again recently. He only has a limited pool of standard cards as he’s getting back in, so this wasn’t the strongest build possible, but Weylin is a strong player so you never know. I honestly don’t remember these games very well. I know I got early Stoneforges both games, the first game for a Batterskull, though I think he handled the Batterskull at the expense of losing to a Vengevine, and game 2 it was a Sword of Feast and Famine that did the trick.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games

Round 2: Tony, playing Stoneforge Junk
Tony’s a regular, we’ve played many times. Game 1 I got a Sword of War and Peace early, but he killed it, then he got a Sword of War and Peace of his own onto a Mirran Crusader, and ended it quickly. Man, that thing is a beating. Game 2 I opened with two Stoneforge Mystics, Jace, and four land, two of which were Scars duals. I got Sword of War and Peace on the same germ token carrying the Batterskull and it was over pretty quickly. Game 3 I opened with a Stoneforge and two Mirran Crusaders and no white source, and didn’t draw into any white until it was far, far too late. My fault for being too greedy with my opening hand.
1-1 matches, 3-2 games

Round 3: Elijah, playing Grixis
Elijah seems to be turning into a regular, as he’s been there a bunch lately. Game 1 After a bad turn 4 where I cast Jace into one open blue and had it Spell Pierced (yes, I’m a moron), I lived the dream: I had an active Fauna Shaman, pitched a Vengevine to get a Mystic, tutoring up Batterskull, then played the Mystic (with 3 mana open for a leak, which did not come) and then a Spellskite (which he responded to by Doom Blading the Mystic), triggering Vengevine. Whee. Player at the next table: “that is a sick, sick play.” I won that game, natch. Game 2 was a long, drawn-out game where I had trouble getting much going until I could hard-cast a Batterskull, which I got onto a Mirran Crusader. Unfortunately, he had a Grave Titan out, so I only got a little ahead… until he got Splinter Twin on the Titan. Ouch. Still, Batterskull was gaining me all kinds of life, all the way up to 65, but eventually he started to swarm with tokens, got a Manic Vandal (forcing me to bounce the Batterskull), and then a couple turns later, after I got a second Batterskull, he got a Splinter Twin on the Vandal as well. We actually had time called on us, but he won in extra turns.
1-1-1 matches, 4-3 games

Overall, not going as well as I’d have expected. Had to win the next round to have a chance.

Round 4: Kelly, playing RDW
I played Kelly last week and won 2-1. RDW certainly seems like it could be potentially difficult in game 1, but sideboarding seems good. That pretty much was how it went, as game 1 she just ran me over with Guides and burn. Game 2 I got a turn 2 Stoneforge into Sword of War and Peace, though she burned the Mystic right away. I got to four land and had two Birds out, but she smartly Arc Trailed the two Birds. However, I managed to keep myself alive until I got to six land, then dropped a Frost Titan and she hit me down to 5. Next turn I equipped it with the Sword and cast a Phyrexian Metamorph copying the Frost Titan, and there was no way she could come back from that. Game 3 I again had an early Bird roasted, meaning I couldn’t drop an Obstinate Baloth until turn 4, but Baloth was huge, bringing me from 10 to 14. She had two Guides out and I was pretty successful at drawing land off of it. She, on the other hand, had only two land, and turn 5 I cast an Acidic Slime (rather than the Batterskull) to kill her second land. That slowed her down even more, and I got out Linvala and then a Batterskull that I hard cast. That was it, and so I got to move on.I should note that in game 2 she got me down to 5 and game 3 she got me down to 6 before I could come back and take it, so these were pretty close.
2-1-1 matches, 6-4 games

Quarterfinals: Joe, playing UW CawBlade
Joe is the strongest player in the store and my lifetime record against him was 3-10-2 going in. (I don’t really keep track, but I looked it up online.) I was pretty sure he didn’t maindeck Day of Judgment, which I think gives the Bant version a small advantage in the matchup. I took a one-land draw because it had a Bird, a Cobra, and a Stoneforge in it. I won the roll, produced a turn 1 Bird, turn 2 did not draw a land and played my Stoneforge for a Sword of War and Peace. He noticed that I missed my land drop and passed. Turn 3 I drew a Seachrome Coast and equipped the Stoneforge, which he bounced with Into the Roil (unkicked). Turn 4 I drew another Coast, decided to press the advantage since we both had full grips of cards and equipped the Bird and swung for a total of 9. He never got back in it. Game 2 was a little more drawn out. He got Squadron Hawks early and a Stoneforge, but I had the Nature’s Claim in hand when he went to equip the Sword. I was still taking a couple points per turn from the Hawks and didn’t want to run out too many creatures since I knew he boarded in Day. I drew into a Batterskull, and the germ token ate a Dismember. Next I sent out a Jace into open mana to draw out a Mana Leak (he had only two cards in hand) and followed that next turn with a Frost Titan. He had multiple Hawks out with a Sword of Feast and Famine and had me at 4, but Frosty got a Batterskull and that turned it for me. Hey, I beat Joe!
3-1-1 matches, 8-4 games

Semis: Paul, playing mono-Black
Same Paul with the same deck that I lost to in the Swiss last week. Game 1 he got off to an OK start with a pair of Bloodghasts but stalled a little after that. I had a Sword of War and Peace on turn 3 and I got turn 4 Jace. He spent a lot of damage trying to deal with the Mind Sculptor, and I was able to pull off what I pulled off against Kelly, which is Frost Titan followed by a Metamorph and an equip on Titan #1, and he could not handle that. Game 2 he came out very fast and had removal when he needed it, and I wasn’t really in it. Game 3 I kept a two-lander with no white land because I had a Bird and two Cobras as well as a Stoneforge. I got the Bird turn 1 and the Stoneforge turn 2 into Sword of Feast and Famine. He killed the Mystic immediately and my turn 3 I put down a Lotus Cobra and then a fetch, tapped to equip the Cobra and he Verdicted me. I sacrificed the Bird so that I had a Sworded Cobra… and never drew another land. Even with the Sword I could not race him, particularly when he got a Lashwrithe on a Vault Skirge. Ouch.
3-2-1 matches, 9-6 games

Always nice to earn for top 4, even it it was only $10, but hey, that was twice my entry fee, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Frankly, the deck underperformed, or more appropriately, I did. What I didn’t like about the deck was the mana. Despite the 8 mana creatures, I frequently had trouble getting white, especially the double white needed for the Crusader. This is my fault, I didn’t think hard enough about the mana base here and should have played a couple of Plains or made some other change. I certainly should have mulliganed more aggressively.

I was also a little underwhelmed by Vengevine, to be honest, and often boarded out one or two of them. Fauna Shaman was pretty good in that when I got one, it almost always ate a removal spell, but every once in a while I managed to get a Stoneforge off of it. Crusader was great when I could cast it, but that wasn’t quite often enough.

The interesting thing about this deck is that I think it’d be better in an environment more full of CawBlade. With so little spot removal and generally no main deck Day, it feels like it should be pretty solidly favored against the current UW builds, but if they have a lot of spot removal you end up with a lot of expensive spells in hand. In a more diverse environment, straight UW CawBlade is probably slightly better.

I wasn’t able to play at Game Day on Saturday, but I heard Joe won it all with his UW Caw and Tony took second with his JunkBlade. I hear that Stoneforge Mystic is a pretty good card, or rather, there’s some pretty amazing equipment out there these days.

Not sure what to sleeve up for Tuesday night… I’d actually like to give Exarch Twin a try, but I only have two Splinter Twins and the store didn’t have any more for me to pick up on Friday. I might just go back to UW CawBlade, though that’s kind of boring. Maybe Vampires or RDW, though neither of those is really my style.