This past Friday was another great day filled with fun times and Magical Cards.
I got see Thor 2 with a bunch of Magical folks (really enjoyed it, good stuff!), hung out for several hours playing Commander and even picked up a pile of foils to distribute across several Commander decks. But that's jumping ahead a bit!
I decided to play the Mono Blue deck again because it's still my favorite deck in standard. I did waffle back a forth a little before the tournament between 17 land mono red, Red Devotion and the Blue deck but settled on Thassa's Army in the end.
My list changed a little from last week based on the results of the tcgplayer 5k tournament last week. The most exciting addition is Curse of the Swine in the sideboard, take a look.
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Tidebinder
4 Frostburn
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa
4 Master of Waves
2 Bident
1 Domestication
1 Jace, Archie
1 Rapid Hybridization
2 Cyclonic Rift
20 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Nykthos
Sideboard
1 Jace, Archie
2 Jace, Millhouse
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Negate
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Gainsay
1 Domestication
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Rapid Hybridization
1 Bident
I
really liked the looks of Domestication and who can turn down the
opportunity to cast Curse of the Swine? I was a little hesitant to play a
Domestication in the main deck since it could end up dead but I trusted
in the people who are smarter than me a sleeved it up as is. The only
difference between our lists is the 2 Ratchet Bombs I played over the 4th
Gainsay and something I can't recall at the moment. There have been a lot of Pack Rats floating around lately and the Bombs give me a decent answer to them as well as random things like Mistcutter Hydras.
Before the Standard tournament started I got to play 2 large, 6-player Commander games with some friends. I typically shy away from games with more than 4 players because they take FOREVER but there was no one else to battle when the 1st started and so I trudged in. I battle with my current favorite Commander Teysa, Orzhov Scion. It's a lot of fun because it's just a pile of small creatures and sacrifice effects with ways to punish the opponent when my fellas die. Think Grave Pact, Blood Artist and the like.
The first 6-player game was dominated by a Maelstrom Wanderer player who set up Prophet of Kuphrix and Etherium Horn Sorcerer to cascade on each player's turn. He had some very fortunate cascades (Clone to copy a GIsela was particularly good) and stomped us all out of the game pretty swiftly.
Since that one actually finished we decided to play another game with a couple of players bowing out for others. The Maelstrom Wanderer player kept a land-light hand and never really got into this game, he felt it was karma paying him back for the previous one, but everyone else contributed at some point or another. I came out of the gates strongest, expected since so many of my creatures are cheap, but stopped drawing lands and could never keep up with the others past the first board wipe. The Jund player, I hesitate to call it a Xira Arien deck since she only showed up once and briefly, abused the hell out of a Supulchral Primordial as well as a Diluvian to create some absolutely ridiculous swings of board. Living Death went off multiple times. Decree of Pain was cast twice. It was a truly epic game.
In the end it was Kyle with Sedris, Josh with Cromat and myself with Teysa facing off. I was at a pretty healthy life total thanks to Kokusho coming back a lot (Living Death, Karmic Guide) and had a few creatures on the board including Teysa, Pawn of Ulamog and Blood Artist. Kyle had several planeswalkers ticking up including Nicol Bolas and Jace, The Mind Sculptor. Josh was clinging onto life and harassing Kyle with his commander. None of us could really do much of anything and Kyle was sitting back and protecting his 'walkers. On the turn before Kyle would've been able to ultimate Nicol AND Jace I drew into Viscera Seer which allowed me to kill both opponents through Blood Artist triggers. Whoa!
After that wild ride I was ready for some standard!
Round 1 - New Guy who's name I forgot w/ BG Midrange
This guy was brand new and had come with Nick from school. We had talked a little before the tournament and he definitely struck me as good egg. I feel bad that I'm drawing a blank on his name but I don't wanna guess and be wrong.
Game 1 - I mulliganed to 6 and kept Judge, Specter x 2, Mutavault x 2, Island. I ended up drawing several double blue creatures before I drew a second Island and by the time I did it was too late to catch up to the Pack Rat train. I don't know if I was supposed to mulligan to 5 there, it's possible.
I sided in the 3rd Bident and well as the 3rd Rift for Jace and Rapid.
Game 2 - I curved Cloudfin into Weird into Specter into Bident but was in danger of losing for several turns to a Grey Merchant off the top. Pack Rat made a showing but so did Ratchet Bomb to clear the way. I wasn't particularly impressed with the bomb though since it took several turns to deal with the rat and let him get me to a low life total. I managed to pull out the victory on the back of a swarm of dudes.
Game 3 - I kept a hand of 2 Islands and reasonable spells but failed to draw a 3rd land in time to beat the Pack Rat.
I was frustrated that I only got to play 1 actual game of Magic there but it helped to be paired up with a friendly opponent who seemed to genuinely feel bad about it. Mana screw is one of the few things about Magic that truly bothers me because it's generally completely out of my hands to do anything about. Looking at Game 1, I definitely could have mulliganed the hand with 2 Mutavaults but game 3 the hand was 100% a keep, especially on the draw.
Round 2 - Brian H. w/ UB Control
It seems like I've been paired with Brian H in every tournament for a while, I certainly don't mind since he always fun to battle, it's just odd how that works out. Brian and I talked a lot about Pokemon X/Y which I've dipped my toes into. It seems like Brian is a lot more knowledgeable about Pokemon than you'd expect him to be but I have to admit that stuff is fascinating.
Game 1 - I curved out with several 1 drops into Bident and got going way too fast for Brian to keep up. All of his removal was 1-for-1 or just cost a ton of mana and I pulled ahead very far. Master of Waves eventually came down and closed it out.
Game 2 - Brian resisted much better this game by playing Thoughtseize into Doom Blade into Jace. My draw of mostly small guys and counterspells worked out very well and allowed me to ignore the Jace and go for the throat.
Round 3 - Josh G. w/ Mono Red splash white
Josh was playing a Fanatic of Mogis based red deck that used the RW dual lands to allow Boros Charm and Chained to the Rocks. Typically the red decks are a pretty good matchup but fighting against burn is always a pretty scary place to be.
Game 1 - I curved out quickly with multiple Cloudfin Raptors and Frostburn Wierds and was able to top out with Master of Waves. I'm pretty sure Josh can't kill Master in his main deck and I crashed in for the win.
Game 2 - The board bogged down fairly quickly thanks to Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage but I stopped hitting land drops after 2 and stuck there for several turns. Josh also stalled on 2 lands for a turn but hit 3 the next turn for a Chandra's Phoenix. I was holding onto 2 Domestication and a Master of Waves which I was very far from casting and the Phoenix kept smashing me. By the time I drew into the 3rd and then 4th land to Domesticate the Phoenix Josh had a pair of Boros Reckoners and eventually a Fanatic of Mogis to squash me. It's possible that I should have Domesticated the Reckoners since I eventually drew a Nightveil Specter to block the Phoenix but I'm not sure it would have mattered in the long run.
Game 3 - I again stalled on lands, at 3 this time, and got run over by lots of 1 drops into Fanatic of Mogis x 2.
I reported the results of the round and decided to drop from the tournament. After 3 rounds, 2 of which I lost to mana issues, I needed to take a break before I got to aggravated with the deck. Several others were having similar off nights and had dropped so I got to do quite a bit of trading and ended up picking several foils for the Teysa deck. I also got to spend some time looking through the oft-forgotten foil binders at Magic Comics and found some treasure in there too.
Before heading home I also scooped up some fresh sleeves for the Mono Blue deck. As I've mentioned before I'm a bit superstitious when it comes to Magic and I'll blame a bad performance on silly things like which basic lands I'm using as well as worn out sleeves. It's pretty ridiculous at times but I am who I am.
Thanks for reading and please let me know anything I can change to be better.
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