FNM and MNM in Oregon

I did another triple Coldsnap draft last Friday at Rainy Day Games and finished my usual 2-2. I can't seem to get over the .500 mark with Coldsnap events. I started a Coldsnap release league online last week and just got horrible cards. My cards were OK this time but I found myself playing UB again. I think I've gone UB in every Coldsnap draft I've done because everyone is fighting over red and green. I think I need to fight for Into the North and Boreal Druid more and try for that acceleration trick. The format is usually pretty slow, even for draft. Most games turn into creature stalemates since there's only one board sweeper and it costs 5WW or two other white cards to play. I also think that I should value Rune Snag higher if I go with blue again. It's quite good especially when most mana curves are on the high side.

I did get to play in a unique Monday night Vintage tournament at a new local store called The Mana Curve. Unfortunately they seem to be behind the curve because there was almost nobody there---just four people including me. We played round robin and my rustiness with the old Slaver deck showed as I finished 1-2. I got horrible draws against Shared Fate (of all things) and Oath including getting my only source of blue Strip Mined away in the last game. Combine that with stupid mistakes like tutoring for a Goblin Welder when there's an Engineered Plague in play set to Goblin and it just wasn't to be that night.

Thanks, Eddie, for the Slaver tips though. I will adjust my deck accordingly (insert evil laughter here). I still like Jester's Cap main though---Oath is one of the decks that it's designed to face. I've activated the Cap before and literally stripped all their win conditions away in one fell swoop. But I have to be able to get it into play and counter that first Oath and I couldn't do either on Monday night.

Friday Night Magic August 12, 2006 - Angels Away!

After at least a two month layoff I finally made it back to Friday Night Magic. I saw this decklist in the Nationals Top 8 and thought it looked like fun, which was mainly what I'm after in Standard after endless games with Zoo or "random creature plus Jitte" decks.

I made just a couple of tweaks and ran with this build. I think the deck's much better with Adarkar Valkyrie instead of the second Angel of Despair but that will have to wait until after the 20th.

Creatures (9)
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2 Angel of Despair
4 Firemane Angel
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
2 Yosei, the Morning Star

Artifacts (4)
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2 Orzhov Signet
2 Rakdos Signet

Enchantments (6)
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1 Debtors' Knell
1 Faith's Fetters
4 Phyrexian Arena

Spells (22)
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4 Castigate
1 Culling Sun
4 Lightning Helix
2 Moonlight Bargain
4 Mortify
3 Rise // Fall
4 Wrath of God

Land (19)
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1 Blood Crypt
3 Caves of Koilos
4 Godless Shrine
1 Mountain
3 Plains
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Sulfurous Springs
4 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
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4 Condemn
2 Ivory Mask
2 Faith's Fetters
2 Kami of Ancient Law
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Sacred Ground

I had only played this deck three or four times and haven't been online or reading much about Magic all summer so I had no hint about the metagame or how to board this thing. But hey, fun, right?

Round 1 - Jesus Molina - Boros

Jesus is a quiet guy but a good player and friendly. The first game was wacky. He's playing Boros, maximum cc of three or so, and he was stuck on one Plains for at least eight or nine turns. And he still got me down to seven before I started to right the ship. I was mana flooded but finally started drawing some removal, and then the Angel of Despair came out and blew up his one Plains. That was pretty much it.

Games two and three he must have boarded in more burn because I think he cast at least one every turn after turn two or three. He burned me out very quickly in game two. Game three was a bit more of a challenge for him but still not difficult.

Games: 1-2
Matches: 0-1

Round 2 - Tom Miner - BG Golgari Germination

Tom was clearly a new tournament player, a fact revealed by the brand-spanking new DCI card sitting beside his library. His deck was fairly well thought out creatures he could sack (STE, Grave-Shell Scarab) but he didn't have a lot of big threats and he had no removal at all. He counted on that enchantment to generate a bunch of 1/1's and swarm you. Perhaps not the best strategy in an enviornment filled with Pyroclasm and Mortify but still, points for originality.

Game one he actually got me down to six before I could mount an offense. I drew three Mortify's to keep the Germination off the board but I couldn't find much other removal or any actual threats. I think I had to Wrath of God away a Golgari Brownscale or something similar just to avoid dying. Then I started playing angels.

Game two he didn't find any of his threats and only one Germination, and I found Helixes early and angels late.

Games: 3-2
Matches: 1-1

Round 3 - David Stroud - GWu control

David usually pounds me in FNM and he was sporting some net deck or other which is similar to mine in the early game but also runs Enduring Ideal late game to go fetch Fetters and Debtors' Knell for free. He also had the Miren/Yosei combo to keep opponents tapped out.

Game one took at least half an hour. He spent early turns spinning the top and Farseeking for land. I spent the early game drawing land naturally, expect for a truly misplayed Castigate. Finally David played Zur's Weirding at 34 life. I could have conceded right then but he used it to stop almost everything and I foolishly thought that perhaps the angels in my yard and hand might go the distance. I forgot about Mr. Fetters and the Angel didn't last long, at least as an offensive threat. I also forgot to gain my Angel life at least four times by my count but I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered.

Game two actually went pretty quickly. I got angels out quickly and he couldn't find Wrath in time.

Game three threatened to be another long one and by now we had everyone else watching our match since we were the last ones playing. I had to move to a second sheet of paper to keep track of the life totals. I was able to get a Firemane Angel into play and she brought down David's life total quickly. When she was joined by an Angel of Despair David scooped.

Games: 5-3
Matches: 2-1

Round 4 - Ben Snyder - Owling Mine w/Magnivore

Ben has been playing this deck for some time and is quite good with it. Worse, this deck is a terrible match up for my little net deck since half of my deck is either useless most of the time or outright plays into his strategy of keeping my hand full.

Game one went as expected with the added bonus of me mulliganing a one land hand. It might actually be an interesting strategy to deliberately mulligan against this deck but I decided not to go that far out on a ledge. I kept the six. I Helixed him once just to get it out of my hand but otherwise it was him bouncing or blowing up my land and then Sudden Impacting and Owling me with my 7+ card hands.

Game two was better. He was flooded and I got a turn two Sacred Ground. An early Fall hit Magnivore and Wildfire and he was left with one card in hand. I cruised after that as his land destruction was rendered useless and he doesn't really have a lot of burn main. I wound up with all three Sacred Grounds and an Ivory Mask in play and those really neutralized much of his deck.

Game three was back to tricks except that I was mana screwed this time. Almost a sure win for the Owl. He bounced my land turn two then I couldn't get more than two to stick at a time. I finally got two Signets into play and he Shattering Spree'd them both away. After that he joked, "Now all I need is Boomerang and Wildfire." He drew and smiled and said, "There it is." I told him that if he showed me Eye of Nowhere (his deck's Boomerang) and Wildfire that I'd scoop. He did and I did.

Games: 5-5
Matches: 2-2

That's true parity, I suppose. I think the deck might need to resort to Pyroclasm in the board instead of Night of Souls Betrayal. NoSB is quite good but it does cost four and thus isn't great against the aggro decks. It's good against Glare but so is Mortify. Alternately I'm thinking maybe fighting fire with fire is a good idea---pull a Terry Soh and do a transformational sideboard into an aggro Rakdos/Boros combo. I might toy with that since I'm just playing around with this deck anyway.

I wound up losing to the guy who finished second (Jesus) and the guy who finished third (Ben). Not great but I don't feel too bad about losing to two bad matchups for this deck. I think. I'll have to play it more to find out.