Standard.
Ol' Reliable.
After a sweet excursion into Modern it was back to the format that everyone loves to tolerate.
I enjoyed playing the Mono Blue deck last week but, as is always the case for me, I wanted to look around and see if anything else was making waves in the world of standard.
The Green Devotion deck that originated at the Pro Tour had been on my radar for several weeks but I never took the plunge to build it and now there was a new version that used Blue as the second color. Blue allows you to play sweet trumps like Cyclonic Rift and Prime Speaker Zeganna and seems like a sweet place to be.
Another interesting deck I looked at was the Naya Control list from the SCG Invitational over the weekend. I was pretty skeptical about this deck that literally couldn't draw a single extra card but I sleeved it up to get some games in. In you read my WNM post from last week you know that I wasn't impressed with the deck in the least. I gave up on it without any reservations.
Continuing down the rabbit hole, I found a nice looking UWR Control list from Shaheen Soorani that used Assemble the Legion as a trump for the Mono Black matchup as well as the typical suite of counterspells and Wraths to beat the other decks. I was pretty hesitant to play this one simply because I'm not entirely convinced that a 2-of, 5 mana cost enchantment was where I wanted to be against the hordes of Mono Black players and I never got a chance to do any playtesting to prove myself wrong.
In the end I stuck to Mono Blue. Mostly it was out of a lack of time to try anything else but I was also comfortable with the deck and definitely enjoyed playing it. I stuck with the same 75 as I had used a week ago.
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Cloudfin
4 Tidebinder
4 Frostburn
4 Nightveil
4 Thassa
4 Master of Waves
3 Bident
1 Jace, Archie
1 Rapid Hybridization
2 Cyclonic Rift
20 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Nykthos
Sideboard
2 Jace, Millhouse
2 Jace, Archie
1 Bident
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Dissolve
2 Rapid Hybridization
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Nykthos
3 Gainsay
I met up with several of the guys for lunch and then several more to go and see Ender's Game. The movie was very good! If you have any interest in it I definitely recommend it. After the credits rolled we all made our way over to Magic Comics & Hobbies for some sweet, sweet Commander Goodness (tm).
The brand new Commander 2013 decks had just been released and several of us had been smart/lucky enough to pre-order them at the shop. John Arnaud had the truly genius idea of battling the unmodified Preconstructed Decks against each other in a 5-way, winner take nothing, Commander extravaganza. John himself was kind enough to allow me to use his sweet Naya deck and the experience was pretty great.
All 5 decks have fancy new Commanders and several new cards in them and they felt pretty well balanced. As is usually the case in a 5 man game of Commander one person got ahead early (John Arnaud) and was teamed up on and eliminated. Then, the living person who had the best board position (Me) was teamed up on and so on and so forth. It was a blast!
A LOT of Commanding was done, both with the Pre-Cons and with my own decks and it was generally fantastic. Eventually the clock crept around and it was time to do battle!
Round 1 - Nick M. w/Naya Control
I don't actually know if this matchup is supposed to be a good one or not but it definitely felt winnable. Nick generally doesn't play bad decks and so if he likes the Naya Control it might not be as bad as I thought.
Game 1 - I kept a slowish hand and wasn't able to put enough pressure on Nick to do much of anything through his Anger of the Gods + spot removal. Loxodon Smiter was a pain as was Stormbreath Dragon.
I'm not entirely sure what the correct sideboard strategy is for this deck but I brought in all of the Jaces and took out the Bidents. My reasoning was that Jace is better when they don't have Hero's Downfall and that they probably run Wear//Tear for Bident.
Game 2 - I had a very fast draw with multiple Judge's Familiars and a Cloudfin Raptor. I was able to get through a ton of damage with Mutavault and the Fliers and Nick never really had time to get going.
Game 3 - I kept 2 lands, Judge's Familiar along with multiple 3 and 4 drops. I missed my 3rd land drop and died very swiftly to a Smiter + Stormbreath Dragon. I was really impressed with how quick the Naya deck was able to dole out the damage when it was the aggressor.
Nick and I talked about the Naya Control deck a bit and whether or not Chandra was good right now. I still find her a lot worse than she used to be thanks to Hero's Downfall but Nick said that with all of the must answer threats Downfall can't get them all. He definitely has a point.
Round 2 - Brian H. w/UB Control
B-Horts was on his Ashiokennanigans deck again and I was truthfully a bit scared of Ashiok and what he can do against this deck.
Game 1 - I got off to an aggressive start and Brian stumbled a little bit. He was forced to use his removal spells on a big Cloudfin Raptor and Nightveil Specter and did not have one for the Master of Waves that killed him.
Game 2 - Brian drew just about all of the lands in his deck while my Nightveil Specters stole first 1 then 2 of his Specters from the top of his deck. Thassa let me sneak through his defenses and I eventually had 4 Specters all going at the same time. I felt pretty lucky for things to break the way they did and, as always, Brian was a pleasure to battle.
Round 3 - Josh V. w/THE MIRROR
Josh has been gone from FNM for a quite a while and he's decided to come back with the deck that all the intelligent people choose....Mono Blue! I gave Josh my list to compare with before the event and so this was very close to a true Mirror Match!
Game 1 - Josh and I both had fairly quick starts with 1 and 2 drops but I had a Nightveil Specter to Josh's nothing on turn 3. It looked like Josh would run me over when he played a Master of Waves but I had a Rapid Hybridization and a Cyclonic Rift to buy me just enough time to get in the last points of damage.
I sideboarded out all of the Bidents and all of the Master of Waves for more Jace 4's, Gainsays and Hybridizations. This plan felt a little bit scary but it's a strategy I've read about and I wanted to try it out. I guess the idea is that your opponent is bringing in all these answers to your Masters that it makes them much worse.
Game 2 - I again had a pretty speedy draw with Cloudfin into Judge into Nightveil but Josh's draw was much slower. He didn't play anything until turn 4 when he dropped a Bident and he was too far behind at that point for a Master of Waves to do much.
I showed Josh how I boarded and we played several more games to get him some practice in.
Round 4 - Josh G. w/ Mono Red (splash white)
I knew before hand what Josh was playing because my previous opponent told me about how he had lost to Josh on Mono Red. As I sat down Josh told me I would probably win because he had messed up his sideboard, I laughed and said I was alright with that. I don't get to play Mr. G too often in tournaments but we battle in Commander all the time and he's a fantastic fellow.
Game 1 - I kept a hand with a 1 drop and a 4 drop and lands and promptly got run the hell over. Josh curved out with Ash Zealot > Reckoner > Chandra's Phoenix > Fanatic and I was D.E.D. Dead. I resolved to mulligan into something with more interaction.
I boarded out the Bidents and I forget what else for the extra Rift and the 2 Hybridizations. I considered the Jaces for a while but couldn't decide on anything to take out for them. Going ahead it's possible that some number of Thassa should come out since she often doesn't impact the board right away.
Game 2 - Tidebinder Mage and Frostburn Weird held down the ground long enough for Master of Waves to solidify things. Josh played a Pithing Needle on Thassa which was pretty relevant as it kept me from killing him a turn sooner and gave him a chance to draw some burn to finish me off.
Game 3 - This one played out similarly to Game 2 but in the end double Master of Waves was the killer. Josh scooped 'em up and explained what he'd messed up in his sideboard: 4 Chained to the Rocks specifically intended to kill Master of Waves.
So in the end I finished 3-1 but, because of my first round loss, I sat in 7th place in the final standings. It sucks pretty bad to finish with the same number of wins as 2nd and 3rd place only to go home with a Colossal Whale promo but I've been on the other side of that situation too. Such is the fickle nature of the Magic: The Gathering Tiebreaker System.
Good Guy John Raykiewicz managed to go undefeated over the night and finished cleanly in 1st place. He was on the BW Midrange deck that has fallen ever so slightly out of favor in the bigger tournaments although I really have no idea why. Raykie showed that Obzedat and the Whip is still pretty hard to beat.
I absolutely loved the Mono Blue deck and will likely hem and haw over 6-13 other decks throughout the week before deciding to run it back again. It doesn't seem so powerful on paper but when all the parts are humming together it really is an interesting and challenging deck to play and that's basically all I need need from a Library.
As usual, I crave your commentary so please let me know what you thought.
This week is Standard on Wednesday so I'll be writing about that and I'm hoping to have a follow-up to the Anax and Cymede deck soon. Spoiler: I didn't like it very much.
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