Standard

Trading with FFFreak

Lands. Lands everywhere. So many of the blasted things. No matter what I did leading up to FNM, I was seeing too many lands. I played a draft on Sunday and went 1-2 with one of the sweetest [card]Roaring Primadox[/card] decks I’ve ever managed to put together, with [card]Captain of the Watch[/card] and [card]Bloodhunter Bat[/card] and [card]Acidic Slime[/card] and TWO Primadoxen. What happened? Flood. I played UG Delver, with all of 20 lands, on Wednesday night at an event and – you guessed it – flooded out in two rounds. Won the other 3. In between rounds I was messing around with the Game of Life deck from last week…flooded out again. Frustrating to say the least.

All of that frustration was washed away when Brad Nelson agreed to come on Horde of Notions. There are few people for whom we will move our recording day, but he’s one of them. We had a great show (which should be up today or tomorrow, for those interested) and I was ready to play again by the time Friday rolled around.

Weapon Selection

One of the first columns I wrote for this site was about inspiration. In it I discuss ways to find ideas you can expand into your own deck. One of the prime sources of inspiration for me has been podcasts, including my own. Last week’s deck came about from a discussion on episode 48, and this week’s deck came from Brad Nelson on episode 49. Of course you know that means [card]Trading Post[/card].

On the show Brad mentions a JundPost list that he was working on, and after recording I asked him to ship me the list. It looked like a lot of fun but given the decks I expected, I wanted to make a few changes.

[deck title=JundPost]
[Land]
3 Phyrexia’s Core
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Swamp
4 Mountain
1 Buried Ruin
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
4 Dragonskull Summit
[/Land]
[Spells]
1 Faithless Looting
2 Doom Blade
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
3 Whipflare
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
3 Ichor Wellspring
4 Vessel of Endless Rest
1 Go for the Throat
3 Trading Post
2 Black Sun’s Zenith
2 Pillar of Flame
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Thragtusk
3 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
3 Zealous Conscripts
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
2 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Karn Liberated
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pillar of Flame
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The variety of control elements is what attracted me to this deck. Having [card]Whipflare[/card] AND BSZ to keep the board clear early seemed better than relying on red sweepers. [card]Thragtusk[/card] is also probably my favourite creature right now. Wurmcoil with [card]Trading Post[/card] or [card]Phyrexia’s Core[/card] is a really powerful tool that Delver and Zombies can have trouble dealing with. [card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card] shuts down Infect if you can land it in time and also makes NayaPod less of a problem.

My additions were the one-of Solemn and Olivia. I felt like Solemn would help me hold something off early and could be cast and cashed in later in the game, which seemed better than a second [card]Mycosynth Wellspring[/card]. I also didn’t like the low threat density, and Olivia seems well-positioned against things like Infect. When you’re making as much mana as this deck can, her 3BB ability often comes into the equation as well.

Vessel is just better than [card]Sphere of the Suns[/card] in this deck because of all the 5-drops you have. We speak about this in more detail on the podcast. Its ETB ability can also be relevant given your shuffle effects, and the ability to use it infinite a time is a definite plus. Having said that, Return to Ravnica promises to bring a far better alternative in [card]Chromatic Lantern[/card].

What else did I consider?

I wanted, and to be honest still want, a way to squeeze at least one [card]Kuldotha Phoenix[/card] into the deck. It’s possible that three [card]Vessel of Endless Rest[/card] would be enough, but I didn’t want to risk dropping the ramp and fixing for a spell costing RRR. I’m still searching for places to put [card]Ezuri’s Brigade[/card], but this wasn’t one of them. I also couldn’t decide between [card]Galvanic Blast[/card] and Pillar. Pillar is without a doubt better against Zombies, so I left it in.

Battle Hymn

In a shameless ripoff of Brian Kibler, I have always listened to a song on repeat before starting any Magic tournament. I have very varied tastes so the songs are all over the place, but this week’s was inspired by finally remembering to ask Joey Pasco of In Contention podcast about the song he uses for the intro to that show. I am now in love with it, and it was this week’s Hymn.

[youtube]

War Report

With Friday morning consumed by running errands, I had a grand total of 75 minutes to throw my deck together after eating lunch. As many of the cards were already in decks I didn’t think this would be a problem, but somehow I was still sleeving up the last few cards while pulling on my pants and heading out the door. My time management is the absolute worst.

Given that I was arriving early, there were more people around than I expected. I had a few games with Tyler’s NayaPod deck (very close losses) and a game against Ethan’s UR Delver deck (easy win). It was good to see Ethan back after a long layoff; he’s been focusing on acquiring Modern staples and as a result has taken a break from Standard. He’s also started recording his own music, and dude has talent.

I was in a really good mood throughout these practice games, and that normally means goofiness. If you ever see me at a tournament and I am in this sort of mood, it’s worth sticking around. Either I will be hilarious or you will be able to tell everyone you witnessed first-hand how dumb I am. I am told I was in the former camp this week as Pastor Lansdell made an appearance. One of my better characters I think.

Six o’ clock came too fast. I was still trying to force an extra threat into the deck when pairings went up for round 1. I hastily shoved the deck together and did some mad shuffling while waiting for my opponent to find me. I was using Max Pro Tournament sleeves this week, and I have to say I love them. They last longer than UltraPro, they are easier to shuffle and less dirt-magnetic than Dragons and the price is right between the two.

Round 1 – Mark George with Mono-White Humans

Mark is an occasional visitor to FNM. He and his friends seem to have been playing for a while but I would venture they play mostly at home with friends. Still, coming to an FNM is the best way to integrate yourself into tournament Magic (if that’s what you want) so as always I was happy to see him come down.

Game 1 was slightly unfortunate, as an early [card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card] really prevented him from playing at all. To make it worse, I was having trouble finding a win condition. The Wellsprings were awesome for me here, as I drew about 7 extra cards from them before finding a [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card]. [card]Vessel of Endless Rest[/card] was really good for me in this matchup, letting me drop the Curse on turn four and recycling an early [card]Doom Blade[/card].

I sided in the extra Curses for game 2, which would show me just how ridiculousness of Olivia. Very early there were two [card]Intangible Virtue[/card] across the board from me, and when the [card]Gather the Townsfolk[/card] and [card]Champion of the Parish[/card] came down, I wasn’t sure how I was going to live. I had attacked with Olivia into an empty board the previous turn, so in his end step I pinged both tokens then untapped. Still stuck on four lands, I had to Black Sun for two, making all his dudes 1/1 and removing Olivia’s counters. Swing for three. He didn’t have a pump spell so on the next turn I pinged the tokens and swung in for five. He played [card]Increasing Devotion[/card] and [card]Crusader of Odric[/card], and I thought I was dead…until I realized he was dead on board to Olivia. Stuck on four lands, never played another permanent, and she just won the game. Crazy good.

Post-match I chatted with Mark about his deck. He was only running 20 lands so that was my first suggestion. He knew what he was doing as a pilot so hopefully he keeps coming down for FNM.

Round 2 – Josh Blanchard with Wolf Run Blue

I do so love playing this deck, but I have not played against it. Josh is a good player too. I knew his Titans weren’t THAT scary, but both Inkmoth and [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card] were going to be my biggest problems. Main deck I have very little instant removal and no flying blockers. After board I can bring in Curses, Conscripts and [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]s to keep me in the game but it was going to require some good draws.

Josh is not only a good player, he’s a funny guy. I much prefer playing against people who are having as much fun as I am, even if he does get serious once the game starts. Game 1 saw me drop a [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] which ate a topdecked Bonfire for seven. The game would come down to one play: he played a second Primeval and passed the turn. I had both my Wurmcoil tokens in play, a single [card]Pillar of Flame[/card] in hand and he was on eight life. I was dead to poison the next turn. I needed [card]Doom Blade[/card] or [card]Curse of Death’s Hold[/card], which would be four outs, but to dig for it I had to tap too low to cast the Curse. That left me with two outs. I swung with the deathtouch token to take him to five.

Those of you who are slightly better at analyzing potential wins might see a different path to potential victory. By attacking with both tokens I opened myself up to winning by drawing the other [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]. A [card]Faithless Looting[/card], Wellspring and sacrificed Wellspring didn’t find me the [card]Doom Blade[/card]…but it did find the Pillar. Of course he might have blocked the second token, but keeping it back didn’t help me any and I should have seen that it might have won the game. Play to your outs!

Game 2 was decided pretty early when he cast [card]Crushing Vines[/card] on my turn three Vessel. I saw neither Grudge nor Curse (I had sided up to four) but did have a Conscripts. Alas my plan to steal and sacrifice to [card]Trading Post[/card] to return a Wellspring was scuppered by not actually drawing [card]Trading Post[/card]. You see my difficulty there. Instead I had to steal his Inkmoth, animate it and sacrifice it to [card]Phyrexia’s Core[/card]. That threat out of the way, he played an [card]Alchemist’s Refuge[/card]. That was the first time I had ever seen the card in a tournament, but with all the mana he had it posed a nasty threat. He had a lone [card]Solemn Simulacrum[/card], which was lethal with Wolf Run, so I cloned Conscripts with Metamoprh, stole the Solemn and sacrificed it to draw a card. I couldn’t find a kill spell and of course he flashed in a Titan to trample over me.

Despite losing 2-0 here I never really felt like I was out of the match, which suggests that with practice it’s winnable. Between rounds I played a couple of games against good ol’ Julio who was playing a 4-color Miracle deck that seemed way more consistent that it had any right being. If I found [card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/card] I had a chance against an Entreat, but otherwise I was just dead to it. Not a matchup I want.

Round 3 – Julian “Julio” Smith with 4-Colour Miracles

Dammit.

Game 1 played out as I feared it might. He Entreated for four and I couldn’t find a Zenith in time to save the day. Julio told me he built the deck himself and considering the mana requirements, that’s damn impressive. He had [card]Mana Leak[/card]s when I needed to resolve something, [card]Doom Blade[/card]s when I needed to stick a threat and [card]Day of Judgment[/card] for the rest of the time. My sideboard decisions were more based on the things that were useless in the matchup ([card]Whipflare[/card], [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]) than things I wanted to bring in. [card]Spine of Ish Sah[/card] and [card]Karn Liberated[/card] both seemed like they could be good, and [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card] was another creature that might be able to rustle me up an Angel token.

Game 2 was as little of a contest in the other direction as I saw three [card]Thragtusk[/card]s. He had two [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]s and a [card]Doom Blade[/card] for them (and a [card]Steel Sabotage[/card] for [card]Trading Post[/card]) but he never drew a threat and so I was able to grind him out. I love [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] but it needs some help. In our practice games he had cast [card]Drogskol Reaver[/card], which I Metamorphed. I was reasonably sure he had sided them out but I kept Metamorph in since copying a Wurmcoil or [card]Trading Post[/card] was still pretty effective.

Game 3 was much more competitive. He got an early miracle Entreat for one, and then hard cast one for another 4/4. [card]Spine of Ish Sah[/card] disposed of one token, then he untapped and played Karn. Instead of exiling the Spine he took a card from my hand, an excess land which I was happy to provide. I had my own Karn in hand but I really didn’t want to waste it to destroy his. I knew I could sacrifice the Spine and survive a turn with Karn in play to destroy it, but I drew [card]Zealous Conscripts[/card]. Good thing I brought those in! Karn went all Inception and exiled himself, and I was left with a tough choice. I had a Cavern set on Beast and Human but not Shapeshifter, and I knew he had [card]Steel Sabotage[/card]. I was holding a Metamorph and could have copied my Spine to destroy his Angel, but instead went with [card]Thragtusk[/card]. He had no answer and I untapped to win.

Round 4 – Nick Crocker with UB Tapout Control

Another good player. I’m still trying to convince Crocker to take his judge test, largely because he knows the rules better than almost anyone in town. One of those days he’ll do it, I’m sure. He just likes playing too much.

Crocker was playing a deck which he claimed had no playable cards in it. When he started doing things like casting [card]Archaeomancer[/card] (which got nuked by [card]Pillar of Flame[/card]) and [card]Talrand’s Invocation[/card], I was not in a position to argue. Unfortunately I was having trouble finding threats and he was having no trouble finding Planeswalkers. He had a Karn and a [card]Liliana of the Dark Realms[/card] down before I could deal with either, and I was unlikely to be able to win the game. That said, I had no idea how to sideboard against him so I wouldn’t concede until I saw his win condition. As a result the game went on for almost 40 minutes with my growing more and more frustrated each turn. In retrospect I should have conceded a lot sooner and gone with my gut, which was to bring in Spine, Conscripts and Karn.

When I finally decided I’d had enough, it still took me a long time to sideboard. I was probably too frustrated at my inability to figure out what the hell was going on, which would end up costing me game 2. I had played a [card]Mycosynth Wellspring[/card] and played the land I found a turn before. I also had [card]Trading Post[/card] out. I played Metamorph to copy his Titan, leaving myself a land untapped and the Wellspring still in play, and passed the turn without cracking the Wellspring and playing another land. As a result I could not untap, play my sixth land and Conscript his Titan, then sacrifice it to Post. That one stupid play cost me the game and a point in the match, and turn five of extra turns came along with nobody able to win. I conceded game 2 to him, as losing in one did me no good and winning in two was more help to Crocker. Here’s another lesson I have been struggling with recently: control your tilt.

Round 5 – Evan Connors with Mono-black Control

Ahh, one of the Twin Little Ninjas. He was playing a JamRand deck (a control deck by JamRand…shocking I know) and had been doing quite well. His brother had been playing Mev’s mono-black Infect deck and was undefeated, so it was a good day to be a ninja.

As has been a trend in recent weeks, round 5 did not treat me well. Game 1 he had triple [card]Lashwrithe[/card]s on a [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]. I was able to copy his Nighthawk every time he cast one, enabling me to stay alive, but in the end Sad Robot picked up the demonic lash and flayed me with it. Game 2 was over in a hurry as I got a good strong start – turn four [card]Thragtusk[/card], copy it on turn five, [card]Go for the Throat[/card] on his Nighthawk and Conscripts on his Lashwrithe-equipped Germ for the win. Unfortunately we ended up stalled out in game 3 and neither of us could find a way to even establish a strong presence before time was called. Olivia made her second appearance and stole a Nighthawk but I didn’t have time to make a difference with her.

Make That Change

No doubt that the deck would have won more with [card]Galvanic Blast[/card] over Pillar, though that is in limited testing. I also really wish I could have found a way to get some more threats in the deck, probably a second Olivia and a [card]Kuldotha Phoenix[/card]. Both are able to survive or come back from a [card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/card] and they can both win a game with little to no help. Pillars would have been fine in the board, though Zombies seem to have disappeared locally.

I think the deck is fine, though it feels like it’s missing something. My losses were due to mistakes in a couple of places but also possibly due to not being prepared for the matchups. If you have a lot of Delver and Zombies decks locally, play this.

Side Note: Magic Online Judge Open and Streaming

I played in the MOJO this weekend, trying to run back my top 64 finish last year. Despite having a very good pool with crazy amounts of lifegain and some strong creatures, I finished at 4-5 and out of the prizes, due to some horrible misplays and some terrible mana flood. I decided to stream most of the event as an experiment and I am happy to report there were no quality problems once I got my settings worked out. This means I will be streaming more often at twitch.tv/lansdellicious. Whatever happens I will guarantee amusement, either at my jokes or my horrible playing.

One final note before I mosey on my way. If you want to smoke weed before playing Magic, that’s up to you. None of my business. However, at least have the common courtesy to do something about the smell before you sit down across from me or, worse yet, one of the children frequenting the store. I’d rather smell nasty sweaty armpits.

That’s it for this week folks. I have no idea what I’m playing this week for FNM, hopefully something comes along before Friday to inspire me.

 

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