So it turns out that winning is a lot more fun than getting brutally mauled with an ineffective deck over and over again. I ran the Maze's End deck (Maze --> Labyrinth --> David Bowie --> Under Pressure) which is gimmicky because it really relies on the value of surprise and the fact that nobody sideboards for it.
Game 1: 2-0 victory over green/black scavange deck.
Pretty straightforward 2-0 victory against Nicole's deck It was pretty slow, about the only issue either way was waiting to stop a vampire nighthawk.The second game was a little closer but once I cleared the board I was never seriously threatened. Detention Sphere against scary scavenge creatures is funny.
Game 2: 2-0 victory over red/blue homebrew.
This was an interesting deck idea: red/blue self-milling to use flashback to power a Nivix Cyclops. Along with direct damage blah blah blah. The first game was total manascrew for Chris, I actually killed him with an unopposed Centaur Healer. The second game was actually a lot closer (I kept a two-land hand... but it worked dammit!) where he got me down to 4 before I stabilized with a pair of Saruli Gatekeepers.
Game 3: 1-2 loss to enchantment geist/fencer etc.
Lost game one to a nearly perfect opponent draw: mana dork, 2nd turn Geist, 3rd turn explosion of enchantments. I won the second game when he quadruple-mulliganed... BARELY. A Fencing Ace with Rancors was just carving me up until I got enough removal to deal with it. Game three Hong sideboarded nicely and kept one creature alive with Rancors forcing me to waste removal and kept card advantage.
Game 4: 0-2 loss to Domri Rade deck
This was the one I was kicing myself over. He got an early Domri and dropped that evil medallion. I actually held on for a while but it turns out that haste/doublestrike/hexproof creatures are really really hard to deal with. The second game I made a critical mistake not to go get a second black mana to remove a hellkite and lost RIGHT as I was establishing control.
Lessons
I've only played Under Pressure once before on octgn, so I was definitely learning as I went a lot.
1) So mana hungry
SO HUNGROY. With over half the lands coming in tappe and a bunch of big hitting spelled (The 4+ slot is... pricey) the need for mana is paramount. As a corrolary, using the Maze's End to drop a land into play is almost always the right thing to do unless you are reasonable sure that death in immenent.
2) Treasured Find is surprisingly useful
I didn't think I would be find digging stuff out of my graveyard as useful as it turned out to be. But bringing Far//Away back, or whatever removal card, just seemed to be shockingly handy.
3) Sphinx's Revelation is surprisingly not as useful
Don't get me wrong, it's still a nice fit, but the power of the SR comes from it's instant speed: you can keep mana untapped and threaten the counter and then at the end of the turn blow it all. But the deck is quite happy tapping out sitting on it's fat lifegainers. For the price, Urban Evolution is almost better...
4) The mana curve is all kinds of crazy
So crazy, I don't even know what to say. 14 gates and 10 shocklands felt nice as it allowed me to put a land into play untapped if it needed it for the 4-5 drop clearing.
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