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.

New Legendary Rule is LEGEN ...

... DARY!

Now that we've got that out of our system. Let's talk about the new rule. For all the deets you can go here. If, like me, you prefer the tails, then you need to read this article.

I for one am super excited about this rule update. One of my favorite cards from back in the day was 

 

and its pal Vesuvan Doppelganger. But they just didn't work with everyone's favorite creatures. You see on the playground we all knew that the best creatures were legendary. And who could argue:

Just pure awesome. Well except for

But you get the idea. Anyways you couldn't clone those guys, everyone would just die. Now that has been fixed. When I play my clone on your

I get to keep it. As the spirit of clone has always intended. In fact we used to play that way back on the blacktop. And this leads me to another point. Blue shouldn't have the ability to destroy creatures. And clone did exactly that. With the importance of Legendary creatures on the rise (thanks* commander) now more than ever blue could dip tap into something it just shouldn't have. Ever.

So I say bravo wizards. BRAVO! Finally coming around.

PS: That update to indestructible was badly needed as well.

* that was a sarcastarix if you couldn't tell

Standard Playetesting

Well PTQ season is upon us. And the format is standard. There are a couple tourneys here is Seattle and Stefan and I am pumped to crack the format and DOMINATE, with some major innovation. I am determined to make these guys get there.

  

Right now I'm thinking counter tricks and some golgari goodness.

  

But we'll see. Played with it a little and only lived the dream once. Outside of that I'm playing my double strike deck a bunch. I'm sorta getting bored with it. Kinda feels too inconsistent for the later rounds of a tournament, I just feel like it is super prone to dropping a match on me. That is no way to hit a top 8.

The other thing I would like to try out is a Liliana deck, with farseek, thragstusk, and

This card seems crazy good in standard right now. Better than mutilate. We will see.

PS: Stefan is trying out this monoblack 5-color control deck. It rocked my aggro with super efficient removal, then this happened