Magic Game Day Standard at Card Kingdom

Well Card Kingdom was running a game day tourney. Swiss standard with a cut to top 8 after 6 rounds (like 35 players). For showing up I got on of these:

 

and one of these if I make top 8.

I don't know about you guys but I love stuff like this. All cards should be this way if you ask me, or something like this. Anyways I decided to play WUR similar to what was played at the Magic World Championships. Kaz played Kibler's Grull list.

Round 1: I got paired up against Jund. I opened up with no lands. Easy mulligan. Then I drew 6 lands. Awesome! Way to go deck. Finally I get down to 5 and keep. This game played out pretty normal. I drew about a million cards but only got lands. I managed some Sphinx's action, some Warleader's Helix, etc. My opponent managed to get a bunch of Thragtusks but I was always able to Turn//Burn or what not. He even missed a trigger when I Terminused, bonus! So on turn 7 I have a decision. Go for Aetherling leaving a blue up, or hold it. The way he was playing he had the necessary kill spells (I asked after the match and he had Doomblade and Dreadbore). So I hold the AEtherling. The next turn my opponent drops a Rakdos' Return. Boom shitty. However I was in control and nowhere near dead. Eventually he ground out the win because I kept whiffing. Oh well.

Game two was sweet. I got my sided in Assemble the Legion and deployed it. And the judge called turns. I didn't have enough time to finish my opponent off but he confirmed that he was toast. L 0-1-1 (0-1)

Well that was gross, I was crushing post board but it just took way way way too long. I guess I should have scooped on game one earlier and then I may have had time to finish game two and get the draw. But this isn't soccer, who draws. On the upside the judge dropped a few extra promos on us.

 

Round 2: Got paired up against a guy I have played against before. He usually gets pretty mad when he gets "screwed by luck". That happened again this game. Easy 2-0. The second game I was able to stick a Boros Reckoner on turn 3 and it swung turn after turn to kill him. W 2-0 (1-1)

Round 3: My opponent was rocking that elves ramp deck. He dropped a quick Garrruuuuk on like turn 4.

I had no answer. He activated it twice and I lost to a Craterhoof. Onto game 2.

I sided in a bunch of early burn and extra counters; I dropped my high end like AEtherling and Sphinx's. Didn't matter. I was able to keep burning out his early dudes but he still managed to stick a Garruk. A few activations later and it was all over. Same thing as before. I just rolled over to that match up. Had no plan, didn't know the deck, totally my bad. L 0-2 (1-2) Drop

Well that was a kick in the balls. I still like my deck but I just roll to that elves deck. I think I was ok against the Jund deck especially post board. And that wierdo in round two took himself out of every game. So I'm not writing this off yet. I do wonder if WUR is not good for the meta at this store. Just looking around it seems like tons of jund and creatures and aggro. Not much other stuff.

The good news was that I finished just in time to draft! Draft report to come!

Gross

Well the Magic World Championships are over. Sadly the format for the finals was Modern. WTF? wizards. Anyways here's a link to the winning decklist piloted by a 19 year old: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1291

I guess you'd call this deck a controlly/burn deck. I played it a bunch when Stefan was testing for his Modern GP. Just look at the hodge podge of cards. Soooooo many knobs to turn. I refuse to believe all of those numbers are correct. I don't know maybe MODO just crunches so many games you can just dial up the correct numbers but it seems fishy. boooo. that is all

Standard Playtesting

So Michael and I got some playtesting time in. The format was standard and we were playing preboard. I am pretty uninterested in the format but I've got the shocklands so I might as well use them. I was testing my new Mutavault + Haunted Plate Mail deck (working name, Haunted Vault). Michael was rocking the Naya midrange list I've been playing for a while.

I ... got ... crushed ... hard.

I don't know if I've blogged this deck idea yet but the premise is simple. Is plays on the synergy of Mutavault and Haunted Plate Mail with board sweepers.

 

That shell can exist in a few colors. White is a traditional wrath direction. Red usually has some sweeping as well as black. Blue even can do it via bounce. So the world is my oyster. I decided to start with a traditional WU control build and we will go from there. I'm going to go through what I learned from the testing card by card.

Lessons learned from testing:

First off I had 28 lands in the deck. Oops. That went down to 26. And there are only 8 unique non-land cards in the deck. Let's go through them one by and and let me talk about what I learned.

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I love this guy. I probably will never use the lifelink option but the other two are great. Smoothing draws early is always solid and the removal mode is pretty good too. Look for places to keep aggro off their mana and a way to pseudo-remove things with death triggers. Solid 4 of.
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This guy is in the deck just to give me some turn two action. Perhaps it could be a Augur of Bolas but that is a creature which I'm trying to avoid. It may be that against aggro these go out for the Bolas. 4 of but only until I find something better.

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Probably wrong. Looking for something better. Does anyone know how to multicolumn in blogger without editing the HTML. I was hoping there was a fiddly bit at the top for it but no such luck. Placeholder until I find something better.
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Love it, it gets planeswalkers, it gets Voice / Geist w/o the downside. It slices, I love it. 4 of city.
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Love it. This guy kills every creature, also planeswalkers. The lifegain is great! And it's an instant. Auto 4 of. I know what you're thinking ("whoa Pete a Red splash?"). Shocklands are great! Never had any trouble hitting this guy off of just a bunch of shocklands.
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Sometimes you gotta wrath. Everyone plays creatures now so this isn't going to be dead. It is a bit annoying with persist and voice.  Still it's a 4 of.
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Heart and sould of the deck. Must stay. That being said I loved this dude. I hated the casting cost, but it was just brutal. Only sorcery speed removal gets this guy. He survives my wrath and then bashes. Just sweet.
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Super important. There were several games where I just needed to draw this guy and I win. However I had a lot of trouble finding it. Not sure what to do because I am already playing 4.
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And that's everything I've been playing with. Now I'm going to checkout some WU control decks and look for tech. I think the Cancel slot is weak. And there is room for another 2 cards because I am going down to 26 lands.



Decklist:

26 lands - 4 Mutavaults and 24 dual lands, every combination in WUR. (yeah it doesn't add up, figure it out)
34 spells - 4 of everything.

• 2drop: Azorious Charm, Think Twice
• 3drop: Detention Sphere, Cancel
• 4drop: Supreme Verdict, Haunted Plate Mail, Warleader's Helix
• X: Sphinx's Revelation

M14 - Draft #1

I had three M14 packs burning a hole in my virtual wallet so I jumped into a Swiss draft in the wide beta. Just in case, I also pre-booted v3 to the log screen so that I could get right back in if anything went awry with the software.

This is my unsurprised face.

As anticipated, the beta client crashes, but just after the draft portion ends, so I have some time to get into v3 for deckbuilding.

The recorder also seems to be defaulted to off in the beta, so there is no blow by blow for the draft. Next time I decide to try to use the new interface, this won't be an issue (unless there is a new version that resets to the default state.)

Below is the deck I cobbled together:

It doesn't look too bad from here, right?

I ended up trying to go for a quick tempo game, with two 5/3s at four mana, plus some decent fliers and cheap Goblin Pikers. 

This plan did not ever come together through three rounds. I went 0-3 and I don't really want to go into too much detail. I think it was a bad deck and I played even worse. Some amusing anecdotes are included below.

• I faced down a 12/12 Voracious Wurm
• A Capashen Knight and a Giant Spider were holding off my entire team of about 6 terrible creatures
• I lost a game in the loser's final that featured FOUR Dragon's Eggs in play at the same time.

Business Opportunity

http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx?x=dotp/redemption14/tos

Well I've been flying on planes a lot recently. So I decided to drop some money on a few items for my Nexus. One that I have been super happy with is:

The game play is pretty smooth and this time you even get to do two sealed pools. Nothing like building a sealed pool at 30,000 feet to pass the time. The came is $10 on steam and well worth it. But wait, there's more! Check out this info from the mothership.

Too small to read? Let me help you out.

For eligible customers who purchased the Steam Games, iPad® or Android version of the Game, a voucher for a special Magic 2014 booster pack containing an alternate-art Scavenging Ooze;

That's right ladies and germs. For the low low price of $10 and a little leg work you get. A foil

but Pete, how much is that worth?

Well let me show you, courtesy of the card kingdom website.

That's right you could just roll over to the store and buy this little guy for 20 bucks. Oh and is it relevant in constructed? [quick search of the deck from the magic world championship - http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/wc13/ModernDecklists - where we find out it was in half of the decks in both Modern and Standard]

Yes it is Other Barry, yes ... it ... is.

How to be a better gamer -- Watch the Pros

I'm pretty sure the number one thing you can do to improve your game is play against people who are better than you. Failing that watching people who are better than you is pretty good to. For me the first time I became aware of the bigger scene in magic cards was 2007. That was the summer where I really got into the game and was reading everything I could about magic cards. I even completed that crossword puzzle they posted with a Lorwyn spoiler.
Anyways right as I was taking my qualifying exam Pro Tour Yokohama (back then they didn't know how to properly brand the Pro Tour to advertise for the current set they were selling) was underway. And on the website they post the videos -- with commentary -- of the final rounds of the tournament.

Spoiler Free Links:

• quarterfinals
• semifinals
• finals

Watch them, or at least the modern day equivalent. They are playing Time Spiral block constructed and the match ups are pretty sweet. I learned a lot from watching these matches and even built the my first proxy decks out of them to battle with. I know I am certainly better for having studied these matches.

The maze not taken

Standard FNM is on the calendar two weeks from now and I have basically zero time to do responsible playtesting before then. Fortunately I have ample time to SIT and THEORIZE, which I'm sure is just as good.

Fog vs. Terror

The originality (and to my way of thinking, fun part) of Maze's End is that it can win with a stalemate. Just a single Maze's End can bring victory within 10 (and more likely, 6-7) turns. It takes a lot of mana, it takes a lot of time, but it CAN win games. Thus Maze's End decks thrive on stalemate conditions, the longer the better. There are two ways to stalemate: trading cards or nullifying turns.

 
(man the old cards were wordy. I miss that needless complexity)

Both of these stall for time using two different mechanics. Terror is straight up card for card trade. Sure your board state didn't evolve but you kept your opponent from racing too far ahead. Imagine a hypothetical where your deck was 100% terrors and they had 100% creatures. Empty board, perfect stalemate, and perfect for buying time.

Fog is kind of the opposite. It nullifies everything on the table but does not set back the opponent's board state. The knock against fog is that you effectively cancel your opponent's attack. This allows you to draw... the card that you would have drawn instead of the fogging. Imagine 100% fog vs. 100% Mons Goblin Raiders. Still a 0 damage stalemate... but instead of an empty board your opponent has 59 1/1 creatures out. Time is bought... but you're just one Fog away from 39 points of overkill.

Maze's End: Terror

10 Gates 4 Maze's End

3 Temple Garden 1 Hallowed Fountain 3 Stomping Ground 1 Watery Grave 2 Overgrown Tomb

4 Gatecreeper Vine 4 Centaur Healer 4 Saruli Gatekeepers

4 Supreme Verdict
3 Far // Away
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Ground Assault
3 Dreadbore
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Treasured Find

4 Urban Evolution
1 Door to Nothingness

Maze's End: Fog

21 Gates (2 of each except 3 Simic and Seelsnya and only 1 Radkos)

4 Maze's End

4 Augur of Bolas

3 Gatecreeper Vine

4 Fog

4 Druid's Deliverance

3 Safe Passage

4 Riot Control

3 Terminus

2 Supreme Verdict

3 Urban Evolution

3 Into the Wilds

2 Think Twice

(based off Channel/Fireball's The End as We Know It)

I like the focus and clarity on the Fog end, though it sucks that a lot will be cycling out in a month. As Day9 said (with regards to starcraft) "something is complete when there is nothing left to take away, not when there is nothing more to add." Works a good rule of deckbuilding elegance too.

Thoughts?