{"id":469,"date":"2011-08-14T17:05:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-14T22:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2011\/08\/14\/twinpod-at-m12-game-day\/"},"modified":"2011-09-10T14:43:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T19:43:09","slug":"twinpod-at-m12-game-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2011\/08\/twinpod-at-m12-game-day\/","title":{"rendered":"TwinPod at M12 Game Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Been on lots of travel lately, so I haven\u2019t gotten to play much, which is why I haven\u2019t filed a report in a while\u2014and why this one is so late. I have played in a few events since the M12 release party, but not many. Played UB Control in a standard on July 25th, went 3-1 in Swiss lost in the top 4 to the mirror. Played CawBlade August 2nd, went 2-2 in Swiss but made the cut to the top 4 anyway, then lost to UB Control. I also played in an M12 draft at Superstars in San Jose (home of ChannelFireball), drafted what should have been a stupid good deck (2x Doom Blade, 2x Pacifism, 3x Sorin\u2019s Thirst, 2x Stormfront Pegasus, 2x Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, splash red for Fireball) but lost to Angelic Destiny<\/a> and then color screw in round 3.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Game Day. Not a huge turnout, so 4 rounds of Swiss cutting to top 8. One think I haven\u2019t played in a while is an Exarch Twin list, and I have a playset of Birthing Pod, so I thought I\u2019d give @Smi77y<\/a>\u2019s TwinPod list a try, with a few tweaks:<\/p>\n

[deck title=TwinPod]
\n[Creatures]
\n4 Birds of Paradise
\n4 Lotus Cobra
\n1 Nest Invader
\n1 Phantasmal Image
\n4 Deceiver Exarch
\n1 Tuktuk the Explorer
\n1 Master Thief
\n1 Obstinate Baloth
\n1 Phyrexian Metamorph
\n1 Solemn Simulacrum
\n1 Vengevine
\n2 Acidic Slime
\n1 Urabrask the Hidden
\n1 Frost Titan
\n1 Inferno Titan
\n[\/Creatures]
\n[Spells]
\n2 Ponder
\n3 Preordain
\n3 Birthing Pod
\n3 Splinter Twin
\n[\/Spells]
\n[Land]
\n4 Copperline Gorge
\n3 Forest
\n1 Halimar Depths
\n3 Island
\n4 Misty Rainforest
\n2 Mountain
\n3 Raging Ravine
\n4 Scalding Tarn
\n[\/Land]
\n[Sideboard]
\n3 Arc Trail
\n3 Spellskite
\n2 Dismember
\n1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
\n1 Splinter Twin
\n3 Nature’s Claim
\n1 Thrun, the Last Troll
\n1 Wurmcoil Engine
\n[\/Sideboard]
\n[\/deck]<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have some comments on some of the cards at the end of the report. I should also note that my 10-year-old son Simon played a Goblin build with a singleton Tuktuk as well. He went 2-2 and missed the cut, but I was happy to see him win a game against another Goblins\/RDW build by Grenading his own Tuktuk and taking control of the board with the generated 5\/5. <\/p>\n

Anyway, the report…<\/p>\n

Round 1: Jacob, playing RG Infect<\/strong>
\nGame 1 he kept a one-lander and didn\u2019t draw out of it in time. Game 2 I stumbled a little on land and lost to a Glistener Elf<\/a> that was pumped and Assault Strobe<\/a>d. Game 3 we both had good land and had a real game of Magic (how about that). I was never able to combo off, but I did manage to get out both Titans and that locked it up.
\n1-0 matches, 2-1 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 2: Jason, playing WU Illusions<\/strong>
\nGame 1 I ramped into an early Frost Titan<\/a> and then followed up with an Inferno Titan and took it down. Game 2 I lost on an epic misplay on my part. He had Gideon Jura<\/a> out, and I dropped an Inferno Titan<\/a>. He copied it with Phantasmal Image<\/a>, and when I swung, like a moron, I directed all the damage to Gideon and traded with his Illusion. Why I didn\u2019t target the Illusion withe one of the damage I\u2019ll never know. Anyway, I lost that game because I\u2019m an idiot. Game 3 I actually won a strange way… swinging with Lotus Cobra<\/a>s. He stalled and only ever got out Illusions, I had my little guys and a couple Arc Trail<\/a>s, and won with a weenie rush. Weird.
\n2-0 matches, 4-2 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 3: Jeff, playing RDW<\/strong>
\nI have a tendency to play decks that struggle with RDW, so I never look forward to this matchup. However, no problem here. Game 1 I combo\u2019d off on turn 4. Game 2 I got a turn 2 Spellskite<\/a> that slowed him down enough for me to get out a Birthing Pod<\/a> and start working up the chain (yay Kazuul) and grind it out. Lowest my life total got was 15.
\n3-0 matches, 6-2 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 4: Tony, playing UB Control<\/strong>
\nID since we were both guaranteed a spot
\n3-0-1 matches<\/em><\/p>\n

Quarterfinals: Jeremiah, playing Kuldotha Red<\/strong>
\nGame 1 I mulled to 5 and lost, as he just came out too fast. Game 2 he also came out really fast, but I managed to stabilize on the back of an Arc Trail<\/a>, a Spellskite<\/a>, and a Baloth and then combo\u2019d off. Game 3 he got the god draw, and on turn 1: Memnite<\/a>, Memnite<\/a>, Ornithopter<\/a>, Kuldotha Rebirth<\/a> the Thopter. Awesome. I was not able to stabilize quickly enough and lost with an Exarch out but no Twin for it. Grr.
\n3-1-1 matches, 7-4 games<\/em><\/p>\n

I really like this deck a lot and will be sad to see pieces of it rotate out. <\/p>\n

Comments on specific cards:
\n\u2022\u00a0Tuktuk the Explorer<\/a> was very good.
\n\u2022\u00a0Urabrask the Hidden<\/a> wasn\u2019t particularly good. Maybe against another Exarch Twin deck, but in the main, I\u2019d rather have had Acidic Slime<\/a> every time.
\n\u2022\u00a0Solemn Simulacrum<\/a> was fantastic. Ramping land and a card, and then Pod\u2019ing into Slime, well, that\u2019s awesome.
\n\u2022\u00a0Master Thief<\/a> was also pretty much useless. If your environment is really full of swords then it could be great, but I definitely wouldn\u2019t main deck it again.
\n\u2022\u00a0Arc Trail<\/a> and Spellskite<\/a> were absolute winners out of the board. Kazuul was also good as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Been on lots of travel lately, so I haven\u2019t gotten to play much, which is why I haven\u2019t filed a report in a while\u2014and why this one is so late. I have played in a few events since the M12 release party, but not many. Played UB Control in a standard on July 25th, went … Continue reading TwinPod at M12 Game Day<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}