My first DGM-GTC-RTR draft

For someone who claims to prefer limited it sure has taken me a while to play a draft of Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash, and Return to Ravnia. Let me say this, it is awesome! Of course we had no clue what is going on. I got a fourth pick and fifth pick Bronzebeak Moa. I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

 

I don't know about you but that card is off the hook. I also got a first pick Far//Away and a second pick Putrefy. The other exciting pics were, Ready // Willing, two black gatekeepers, and a green gatekeeper. I was feeling White Black Green with a dabble of blue off a guildgate for the Far. I was feeling a little anxious about going three color, but the power was there White, Black, Green.

In pack two I first picked an Urbis Protector, which is good but not great. And then the extort came. Two Kingpin's Pets and a basilica screecher. Assault griffin was the only other palyable from the pack, except for like the 5 guildgates I got to power up my gatekeepers.

My first pick in the final pack was a Selesnya Charm. I love that card. Then I got passed a Collective Blessing, sweet. My third pick was a Dreg Mangler. I was feeling pretty good, I seemed to be getting paid off in my colors. The pack rounded out with a Centaur Healer, Gatecreeper Vine, Selesnya Sentry, and an easy on the curve Tavern Swindler.

There were a few other dorks, but I mentioned all the highlights. Did I draft some cluestones? Hells yeah. Did I play them, hells no. Onto the matches.

ROUND 1: I curved out, he didn't. Easy win. I applied solid early pressure, and he stumbled a bit. I was surprised at how smooth the deck played. I figured with three colors it was going to take some doing. Maybe I just drew well. I never got my gatekeepers online but didn't need them. I think my opponent was a little to aggressive with his colors and spell costs (too many and too expensive). W 2-0 (1-0)

ROUND 2: Game one was a mulligan for me, and then keeping 6 with a lot of land. I was slow out of the gate but so was he. Eventually he got down a Wind Drake and a Deathcult Rogue. I never drew an answer for them and died a few turns later. I tried to race but this dude played two counterspells, and stopped my lifegain cold. Game two was pretty interesting. I got my two guildgates down early and had all three of my gatekeepers in hand. Coupled with a turn 5 bronzebeak he was in trouble. He managed to stabilize with a 0/5 defender and had some bouncy tricks for the moa. However eventually we got enough land where I could drop two creatures a turn. Once he ran out of the bounce the moa stuck and it was race time (he got his evasion plan online again). Then I played a back breaking

 

on the same turn and swung with the Moa for 8, a total life swing on the turn of 18.

We didn't have much time for game 3 so I was playing fast. It was a good start with a Dreg Mangler on turn 3. However he had some answers and also stuck a wind drake. He played the discard cipher card and got in so I lost two cards. Fortunately I was able to fuse a Far//Away the next turn. I was in solid shape from there on out. I resolved my Collective Blessing and every dork was just dominant from that point on. He did counter my Ready//Willing so the game dragged on. We went to turns and I was turn 0. However I had three dudes out and thanks to the blessing they were all huge/huge. He had two dudes and was forced to chump on my attack. His draw yielded nothing and I swung for the victory on the next turn. W 2-1 (2-0)

ROUND 3: He came out firing in game one. I was behind because he had the 3/1 haster. Finally I slammed some gatekeepers down without value and stabilized. But I was still low. He had some removal and it was back on. Then I caught a lucky break. He had two dudes and so did I. He swung and I double blocked his 4/4. Then he played a spell that pumped blockers +3/+1 and first stike. I was all, "Ok which one get's it?" He was all, "my dude, obviously". Then I informed him that it was only blockers. He tried to take it back. I felt like a douche but was all, "Man I'm so far behind I need everything I can get". We called the judge, his dude died. And I had control from there (he was out of cards). I dropped a Collective Blessing and it was on. I let an attack through figuring I would go low and swing back for the win. Yeah but he had bloodrush. Oops.

Game two was great. He came out early and was rocking with dual 3/1 hasters. I was taking some hits and biding my time. I dropped a gatekeeper on turn 4 with no value and that slowed him up a bit (no attacks). I was at 11. Then on turn five he was excited about his draw and attacked. Man was I glad I save my mana to fuse my Far//Away. He rolled in, I blocked, he bloodrushed, I Far//Awayed. That was pretty ugly for him. He couldn't do anything else that turn and passed. Turn 6 I dropped a Moa. And steadily dropped creatures every turn from there on out. He was in topdeck mode and I had a hand full of cards. Onto game 3.

Game three was awesome. We were both coming out slow and I was forced to drop my black gatekeepers without the activation (sad trombone). He god a unleashed Spawn of Rix Maadi. But I had a Collective Blessing and my Ready//Willing. He got in with it and I went to 14 but had three dudes in play. My plan was to drop the Blessing and then set up for a Ready//Willing blowout (the Blessing needed to be down to really maximize that lifegain off of Willing). However I never got to. On his turn he swung with the Spawn and a 4/5 dude who kills a random creature when he enters the battlefield. I blocked that guy favorably (thanks to the Collective Blessing). The he got his bloodrush on the unblocked Spawn.

   = 14

And I was dead. Uggg. I thought the game was iced. I was going to gain like 15 off of the Ready//Willing. Or I could have just blocked the Spawn and he couldn't have gotten in for lethal. L 1-2 (2-1)

DECKLIST:

Dimir Guildgate

Selesnya Guildgate
Orzhov Guildgate

Thespian's Stage

4x Plains, 4x Swamp, 5x Forest

Assault Griffing

2x Kingpin's Pet

Basilica Screecher

Urbis Protector

Centaur Healer (this card is a absolute beating)

Gatecreeper Vine

Selesnya Sentry

Tavern Swindler

Dreg Mangler

Selesnya Charm

Collective Blessing

Wayfaring Temple

Maze Behemoth

Maze Abomination

Saruli Gatekeepers

2x Ubul Sar Gatekeepers

Far//Away

Ready//Willing

Putrefy

2x Bronzebeak Moa

Late Cuts: Rubbleback Rhino (didn't have anything to enchant it with), Perilous Shadow, some cluestones.

Return to Ravnica Bloc Draft #1 - Disaster

I head into my first full bloc Return to Ravnica draft with a plan to draft a tight, single-guild deck, preferably Gruul aggro, but Rakdos and Boros are not far behind, along with Simic and Selesnya. If a two-color deck isn't in the cards, I will try to stay light on the third color with the goal to increase consistency and avoid mana issues. And if everything goes all wrong, I wouldn't be opposed to drafting four- or five-color madness, picking up early gates, late cluestones and any bombs I happen across.

First Pick:

Power or Versatility + Consistency?

For about 5 seconds I debate sticking to my plan and taking the Maaka, but my love of extort ends up pulling me to the rare. If the pontiff gets going, there is no stopping him.*

My next few picks are Armed//Dangerous, a couple of black gatekeepers, a late Krasis Incubation, and a Profit//Loss. I cement myself into black, despite not having any real signal that would be a good idea. I tell myself I will pick up any gates that make black, but still manage to finish this pack without a single one.

Pack 2:
I first-pick One Thousand Lashes, then grab a bunch of Orzhovian cards, including two Basilica Screecher, Knight of Obligation and a wheeled Vizkopa Confessor. Unfortunately, each of those packs with one extort creature also featured either a Basilica Guards or a Syndic of Tithes or both, while the other packs were lacking in extorters. I took the fliers over the 1/4s, which i stand by as correct. Little removal is passed my way, only an Executioner's Swing. I do manage to pick up one on-guild gate.

Pack 3:
This pack figured to be less exciting and sure enough first pick Azorius Arrester. I develop a minor token  subtheme, with Security Blockade**, Eyes in the Skies, and Trostani's Judgment. This pack features only two gates that are either black or white, both in the same pack. Not good for the gatekeepers.

The masterpiece:

Some tough decisions here, including gatekeeper (or 2) as a vanilla 2/4? Golgari Guildgate to offer the (slim) chance of triggering the 'keeper***? How many mana sources for a two-color, five-extorter deck?

My plan is to gum up the ground, save my removal for big threats, ping the villain in the air, and extort them out with Hired Torturer and One Thousand Lashes help.

Round 1, Fight!

Villain, playing BUG, gets a trio of unblockable/tough-to-block guys while i stall at two land after a mull to 6. Sewer Shambler, Deathcult Rogue, and Korozda Guildmage do me in before I find rogues or removal. In game 2, I mull again and keep a three-swamp hand with black castables. I play Screecher, Screecher, Bane Alley Blackguard, then stall at three mana for two pivotal turns while he sets up an Experiment One and a Sewer Shambler. I Loss as a one-for-one on the swampwalker, then Beckon Apparition to keep it from being scavenged, which is a nice sequence, until villain drops the second Mr. Shambles. I pack it in to the unblockable guy against my removal-light black deck.

This round was not great, but I feel like I mulliganned twice and saw the weaker parts of my deck.

Round 2:
What a beating this was. No mulls, but villain's turn-two Skargg Guildmage, wearing turn-three Madcap  Skillz + Ethereal Armor = 7/4 first-striker that can only be chumped by two guys. For extra insult and injury, a Mountain hits me in the face on his turn four. I scrape to hang on and hope to draw Executioner's Swing or One Thousand Lashes, but no dice.

Game two, villain gets another quick start with Ash Zealot and Bomber Corps but i have some 2/4s to perhaps stem the tide. No luck as bloodrush x2 powers through my defending forces. At the end of this game, I hold my mana open, keep my last land in hand, and even though I am dead on board he does not attack for two turns in a row. Unfortunately, I draw two more land with my extra draw steps and still lose.

Round 3:

One last match to scrape my pride off the floor and win back a pack. I keep four land and two castable spells, and villain drops Swamps, Island, Prophetic Prism, Kingpin's Pet against my Skyjek and Knight of Obligation. All seems to be going pretty smoothly until Mirko Vosk hits.

Take a look at that deck again and you'll see that I need to find one of my three hard removal spells or else I am dead in three hits. I come up with what I think is a decent plan of Maw of the Obzedat + Basilica Screecher to chump as many turns as I have extra useless creatures sitting around, but villian foils that by bouncing my bat and getting there.

Game two, I keep a two-lander that stumbles on mana but still manages to play Screecher, Screecher, Arrester, missing a few extrort triggers, but building a board presence. He has Keening Apparition, Sunspire Griffin, Vassal Soul and Mortis Strider, so our armies stare at each other while my two, then three extorters grind him down.

Game three, for all the loser's marbles heads toward a stalemate, with each of us having multiple extorters in play and no good attacks due to our big-butt, small power teams. My stupid guys are barely beating his stupid guys, and I get him down to 6 at one point but my attack won't quite kill him but will leave me vulnerable on swing back, so I hold back, then he drops his third extorter. The game ends as you see below.

Really not good.

What you see here is me making a last ditch attack with a removal spell and three extort triggers on the stack when time runs out on my chess clock, making me the biggest loser. I counted it up after the fact and it looks to me that as long as villain makes all the right blocks, he survives this turn at the very least.

Conclusions:

• I think i got a little worse luck than I deserved from my two-color deck with a reasonable curve. Mulligans and getting stuck on land hurt me, but my deck was underpowered by my estimation. Check out an opening hand that seemed very typical:

Keep... I guess

• How many times did i draw Actually Zero Lashes? Zip
• Next time, I am going to stick with my gut. I love the flexibility that bloodrush allows and I want to get an aggressive two-color deck going while others are fiddling around with their kluged mana bases. Or go crazy five-color. Definitely one or the other.

* How many times do you think the Pontiff got going? Zero

** How many times did I miss Security Blockade shields-up? Twice

*** How much did that comes-into-play-tapped swamp cost me? One activation of Hired Torturer. How many times did the Gatekeepers actually trigger? Zero.

Standard - Dragon's Maze - Naya Aggro Analysis

Last weekend saw a good performance from RG and a White aggro decks. Check out these deck lists.

2nd place at a grand prix - piloted by Willy Edel
1st place at a SCG open
2nd place at a SCG open

What cards are in common from all these decks?

4x Boros Reckoner

The reckoner is back baby! Check out this article for some analysis. I was looking to retool my deck and this is totally the direction I want to go. I already have all the lands, so that is a huge plus. I don't to spend any money but Voice of Resurgence... we shall see. Let's focus on this Naya Aggro archetype:

I love the simplicity in deck building. Four ofs all over the place. However I wonder about the spell selection.  How is only two rancor correct? spoiler ... it isn't. Just no way. Totally needs to be four. But what comes out?  

I think the weakest creature in the deck is a toss up between Dryad Militant or Loxodon Smiter. The Militant has two things going for it, curve and metagame. The value of Militant against Reanimator cannot be ignored. That deck is everywhere right now and an early Militant sucks the value out of Grisly Salvage and Mulch. Onto the Smiter benefits as well. Counterspell sytle control decks are few and far between these days so the uncounterability just doesn't get me excited. However the second ability is nicely poised against one of this decks worst matchups.

 vs 

Liliana is super popular right now ($50 and out of stock over at Card Kingdom). Let's take a look at what she does in the Naya matchup. Typically Liliana is going to come down and make the Naya player sac a creature, leaving her on one loyalty. Next turn she usually dies to an attack. And the owner is happy with that, she just removed a creature and soaked up a hit. However if you are holding the Smiter you can let her live and just keep pushing the damage in. They can either let her sit on one counter or activate the +1 mode and make each player discard. BAM! Smiter in play. I seriously doubt anyone would just let her sit their unless the knew for certain you had a Smiter in hand (so don't telegraph it).

Given all of that I am inclined to remove two Smiter's to make the room for the full set of Rancors. I'll sleve it up and get back to you. Pontificating is great but no replacement for good ole, playtesting.

Standard Aggro

So I have been playing around with a bunch of ideas over the past week. Trying to figure out where to go with aggro in the current standard. Pro Tour DGM was little help because nobody and I mean nobody is running wrath in standard. It is all aggro or reanimator. The people who do attempt control have gotten tricksy and rely on sacrifice effects instead of destruction. A la these bad boys (and girl)

 

And some just skip it all together and go for the jugular.

With that being the case, where am I to turn? Sometimes my double strike deck can just get in fast enough. But sometimes not. Sometimes the best thing to do in standard is to eschew the synergies and just play, expensive_shit.dec. So with that said let's take a look at where the power resides in aggro.

From a card advantage standpoint there are really three cards that are head and shoulders above the rest:

  

In terms of being above the curve we have:

  

This stuff really puts us in some admixture of White/Red/Green. Also it soundly eliminates a humans deck and probably something like Cavern of Souls for mana fixing. Let's take a look at the one drops.

In white we have very few options.

  

Green has a little more to work with (plus we could go with a mana dork, there are two available):

   

Red has got:

  

I think we want to optimize for card advantage here. But in the context of the black removal spells that narrows us down to just the Young Wolf.


The next step is to check out recent top 8s and compare notes. Then I'll get back to you with a decklist.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=55875: This dude only rocks two Rancor, that feels wrong. I think I'd cut one land and the Thundermaw to make room for the full four.. I guess it may be bacause Domri, but I would say, Rancor is card advantage. But I guess the wolfrun needs it. Regardless I'm not spending to get the cavern's and domri and vexing devils (oh my.)

link to gp guadalahara: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpgua13/welcome#9

Willy Edel domri deck

love this one too: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56122

here is that budget link: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56096

5th grade - my black deck

The summer of 1994 was the first time I played magic. The first game I ever saw was played during a session of "quite games" at Olympian Sports Club, the camp for champs. The match featured a green deck with Force of Nature versus a black deck with Lord of the Pit.

 

And let me tell you, that shit was epic, EPIC. I was hooked. I forced my mom to take me to the store that night and I bought some packs. My best friend at the time did the same, and we didn't sleep for approximately 3 days. Pretty soon we realized that we needed to specialize in colors. I chose black because I manage to crack:

 

I was immediately drawn to the power of the ritual. And nightmare has "unlimited" power. Plus some amazing art that holds up even today. (Melissa Benson I love you!) When school time came around that fall a few people played but it was not everywhere. Back then we played on the asphalt at the playground, no sleeves  like men. People would come over and ask what we were doing. The game spread like wildfire. Pretty soon everyone at Central Elementary was spending their hard earned allowance on magic packs.

I still have most of those cards and even though we battled with no sleeves, and shuffled like monsters they help up. Check out this gem.

Man that was sweet. Anyways my deck was doing pretty well. I had started playing earlier so I had a major edge in "strategy". You see back then everyone played nothing but creatures so I filled my deck with:

 

I remember when we found out about the card Royal Assassin, one day a kid showed up at school and played it. We had no clue that existed. It was mind blowing. No internet (my spell checker wants to capitalize "internet", lol) back then and the company actively tried to hid the card lists from you. The rarities were anybodies best guess. You could get some info from the  duelist.

But that was money you spent not on a pack of cards. So forget that. We also had a bunch of house (or I guess school) rules. The chief among them was that you could only play one Sol Ring in your deck.

Why you may ask? Because, "There is one ring to rule them all"!

Rant

Let's talk about the Gruul guild. Why do people call it gruel? What is up with that. Seriously I just want to punch them in the face. I don't care if that is the official wizard's pronunciation. It just sounds dumb.

Also there was this gem from the mother ship:

"Gruul was a beast! (Pun intended.) The original tree-fire/Cyclops-eye was just a casserole of look-bad. We wanted something more tribal... something that could be scratched and smeared on to surfaces as a territorial warning. I wiffed on this one. Badly. I tried twenty or thirty variations and none of them worked. This was another case of a Richard Whitters save." link

For your comparison:

Just don't talk about this guild. It make you stupider. (lol, couldn't resist)

Live Blog - Game Day Standard Tourney

Card Kingdom is running a standard tournament today for game day. It is free! Woot! You get a card for playing and a card for making top 8. We had 32 people show up so it is 5 rounds of suisse with a cut to top 8. Let's Go! (I'm playing my aggro deck btw)

Not this version, but google didn't immediately return a good scan of the new card.


ROUND 1: I loose the die roll. And draw no lands. My hand isn't that good, only one land. But playtesting has shown I'm best off keeping and hoping to draw out of it then go to 5. Fortunately I get the land I need and we are off to the races. He is also playing aggro,  but with black instead of white. Everything is going per usual and on turn 3 he drops a Vampire Nighthawk.

This is the best guy against me. I need to find a searing spear to kill him. I don't. I loose the race.

Game two was sweet. I'm on the play and don't need to mull. I drop a turn 1 Stromkirk. He proceeds to play one creature every turn for the next four turns and I kill it with searing spear (or the oblivion rings I brought in from the board). I kill him without taking a point of damage (if you don't count the shocklands).

Game three was shitty. I drew 7 lands and 4 spells, but the initial hand was a sure keep. He dropped a turn 1 noble and I never saw an answer for it, so it got out of control and killed me. At one point he was down to 11 (mostly off of his own shock lands). I had a window to kill him if I got a Ghor-Clan Rampager, but I never saw one. Balls. Given that it is five rounds I think I need to 4-0 the rest of this bad boy to make top 8. Ugg. L 1-2 (0-1)

ROUND 2: Well I suck at magic. I was up against a reanimator deck and it dropped a Griselbrand on me turn 4 (a little help from faithless looting).  And the fact that I greedy kept a 1 lander. We're talking, Stomping Ground, Noble, Rancor, Burning-Tree, Lightning Mauler, Flinthoof Boar, Boros Charm. I was on the draw. Anyways I didn't hit a land and I lost. Game two was even uglier. I again had a one lander and kept. Because I thought I had two lands in my hand. Let's talk about being on tilt, shall we. Who misreads cards like that. Anyways it took him about 20 turns to kill me, and eventually I got to 3 lands. But he had the board on lock down and I never had a change. L 0-2 (0-2) 

So I suck at magic hard. Just being a fool and getting greedy. I was going to drop but the judge says two players on 3-2 will make top 8. So We'll see what happens. I will need some serious breakers which I probably won't get from going 0-2. I imagine someone with go 3-0 then loss, loss, and make the top 8 but we'll see. If nothing else this will be a chance to practice coming off tilt.

ROUND 3: Finally I win. Played against a dude who just started playing two weeks ago. He was rocking a golgari deck but without the shocklands or creature removal. I rolled it up. He was dropping creatures 1st main for no effect then attacking, etc. W 2-0 (1-2)

ROUND 4: My opponent just dropped. Back to .500. Woot*! W (2-2)

ROUND 5: Started off on the play. No mulligans (finally). My opponent drops a Nivmagus Elemental. I drop a Stromkirk Noble.

 vs 

I'm feeling ok about this. Then he blows up my Noble with an Izzet Charm. And gets in (17-20), I had shocked myself. Next turn I drop a Burning-Tree and a Cackler and pass. He swings with his Elemental, and I don't block. He then drops two Weapon Surges and exiles them. Going all in pretty early this game. His elemental smashes me for 5 (12-20), he drops a Blister Coil weird.. My turn I bash for 4 (12-16). And drop a land. He swings back on his turn (7-16). This race isn't looking good for me. I drop a Ghor-Clan Rampager and pass. He then also passes. Hmmmmm. I draw another Ghor-Clan and bash. He blocks with his big Elemental and I bloodrush. He has no answer and it dies, along with his chances of winning the game.

Game two was pretty spicy. I've got BT->BT->Boar, assuming I can survive to turn 2. I make it and drop all three. My opponent groans. He's got a dude out and chumps on turn 3. Then he blows up one of my dudes with Mizzium Mortars and passes. I've got two Ghor-Clan Rampagers in my hand and it is time to rock. I swing in and pump. It sticks. I figure it's time to press the advantage and do the same next turn. He goes to 2 and I'm at 15. Finally the next turn he succumbs to my swing. He shows me his hand after the game. W 2-0 (3-2)

  

I was just a little to fast for him. Lucky for me he wasn't packing ...

 

With that I improved to 9 points on the day and a tie for XXX place. However due to my early losses and my opponents not crushing it I fail to make top 8 on breakers. That being said after the abysmal play early on I didn't deserve to make top 8. For the day I went 2-2 in matches I played. Uggggg.