Standard FNM: A bad night for the IRS

It was a grim week for the IRS and Friday night brought absolutely no relief. Death & Taxes was pretty much wrecked from the word go.

Match #1: Blue/red burn, Geist nonsense. 0-2
The first match wasn't much fun as I got manascrew off a mulligan and got toasted pretty fast. Actual quote from opponent, "I'm not sure what your deck is really trying to do." You and me both buddy. The second match was significantly more interesting. I get my extorts up and running and I'l steadily whittling him down to a 15-10 split when the damn Geist of Saint Traft gets up and running. I don't really have a lockdown option for it (hexproof?!) and after he pulls his third damn Geist I've lost all my extorters and it's all over. My opponent, Justin, was very friendly and rattled off a bunch of advice that made absolutely zero sense to me.

Match #2: Green/Red homebrew 1-1
Back in the 'quiet room' with the rest of the 0-2 losers I play a friendly guy named Matt. He's running this weird red/green land destruction deck that drew absolutely zero land destruction against me. The first match was the most enjoyable game I played where we're trading blows but I steadily work him down to 1 life when I'm at 19. He goes on an all-out attack with this weird artifact that mills me until I pull a land, granting +1/0 for each card revealed. All I need is one land in my top five cards and I win. I do not. 19 point swing, fucking rad. I win the second one pretty handily and then the third game is called though I think he probably had me.

Match #3: Blue/red planeswalkers?! 0-2
The first game was pretty interesting as Andrew was manascrewed... at four lands (huh?) and could do little but poke my extorters down. Still, I swing him to 3 life then he finally powers up

Pulls an azorius charm to give his AEtherling lifelink to grant enough health to where he was out of danger and then killed me. It was a slick move.

Game two ended fast and dully. Sphinx's Revelation can blow me.

Match #4: Vaguely interesting red/green heavy hitter deck 1-1, then forfeit.
Back in the 'quiet room' where I belong, I play against another homebrew that appears to have a little of everything. A black planeswalker, some lifegain... it was mostly just confusing and I steadily whittled him down. Pretty bad strategy on his part as he was so desperate to keep Lillana safe that he held back his huge 5/3 thumpy (that I had no answer for). Extort downed him on turn 12 or so.

The second game was much like the first except uglier. He got his Scar Troll down and throwing +1s all over the place. I actually manage to deal with it for a little while with some chumping and Hands of Binding and get him to 3 life, but I couldn't fend off his final attack.

Conclusion: the deck pretty needs a total rework. A fun workable mechanic in Sealed (cipher/extort hilarity) cuts zero ice with real constructed decks that disrupt and destroy. The gameplay of "I'll gain enough life to fend off whatever scary things you have" doesn't work especially when someone is rudely plinking off my extorters. Or another way of putting it, my deck needs more "good cards" and fewer "cute cards" that fit my conceit. There's just too much conflict between tapping out aggressively to extort, leaving mana untapped for instants, and whatever the hell I'm trying to do with the ciphers.