Okay, it's been a few days, so a few things have happened since last I blog'd.
M14 prerelease! It's a thing that happened. I was originally slated to only judge that weekend, at three different events at Mox Mania, but I ended up just doing the Friday Midnight event, and the Sunday Two-Headed Giant. So, my unbroken string of playing in prereleases continues! I think. I dunno, I may have missed one somewhere, actually. Anyway, I got to play, yay!
The two events I judge'd at were pretty uneventful. We had a great turnout for the Friday one, I think 38 players. Which was more than we were expecting. So, yay! I was originally going to have another judge helping me out, but I allowed him to play instead. Which prompted a tsk tsk from the L2 who assigned him to me, informing me after the fact that the whole point was to get me used to having an underling. Oups. :( Well, next time.
But yeah, it went pretty smoothly. Nothing really weird happened. Players seemed happy. Planeswalkers and Mutavaults were cracked. Fun was had. Yay, Magic!
So I got to play in the Sunday Sealed event with about a dozen other players. It was a nice low-key event for the L0 to get experience with. I started opening my pool, and my rares were:
* (Lifelink Sliver)
* Xathrid Necromancer
* Liliana of the Dark Realms
* Scavenging Ooze
* (Green Mythic Enchantment)
* (Green Mythic Hydra)
Whatttttttttttttttt. So I played green/black. :) My gameplan was to ramp up into my bomb rares/mythics and WIN. I also had some supporting things too, like Sengir Vampire, some ramp, and a few value creatures (Corpse Hauler). But I had little in the way of early-game or removal, and it cost me. I ended up going 2-2, losing to a tempo-oriented Slivers deck, and a deck with the Mythic Dragon and Ajani (and I failed to draw green mana). I traded all that money stuff for a black-bordered Spanish Sylvan Library and a Strionic Resonator. Okay!
So I got to play some Standard this week, and that's got me pretty excited. I decided against the MURKA deck and ended up playing the black/red/white midrange deck, aka Blood Baron:
Lands (25):
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Clifftop Retreat
Creatures (17):
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Olivia Voldaren
4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
2 Obzedat, the Ghost Council
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
Spells (17):
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Searing Spear
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Rolling Temblor
4 Warleader's Helix
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Toil // Trouble
Sideboard (15):
1 Pillar of Flame
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Rolling Temblor
2 Sin Collector
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Pithing Needle
1 Underworld Connections
2 Rest in Peace
1 Rhox Faithmender
2 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Yes! Tibalt is back. ^_^ I know, he's terrible, but I couldn't resist. Anyway, I was pretty excited to try out my playset of Blood Barons, and, well ... let's see what happened:
| What. |
So .. uh ... Strange deck this was. He opened on Jar of Eyeballs. Let that sink in for a minute: Jar of Eyeballs. It's a jar ... that has eyeballs in it. I think his next play was Assemble the Legion. Oh, and some Faithless Lootings, pitching Tragic Slips and maybe lands? I played some Vampires and stuff, which got Blasphemous Act'd, but Obzedat helped me recover and finish the job. I figured he was some kind of weird Stuffy Doll combo, so I planned for that. The next game was actually kinda like an Aristocrats variant, with a bunch of Doomed Travelers and Falkenrath Nobles (yes, Noble, not Aristocrat) and a Heartless Summoning (killing his own 1/1 creatures ... oups). He tried getting me with a Sire of Insanity, but Searing Spear put a stop to that particular shenanigan. Then I think he had another one, but I had a Blood Baron to finish quickly thereafter. Odd deck that probably had too much going on to be really competitive, but it looked like a lot of fun to play. It looked like a more combo-y version of The Aristocrats, with lots of death-trigger stuff (especially Morbid). Probably too many moving parts, but the guy was great to play with, and I always appreciate a good homebrew. Win, 2-0. Record: 1-0.
| Mustard counters! |
Okay, a more typical deck. I don't remember exactly how game one went, but I seem to recall tossing around lots of burn and removal at his sundry Olivias, Garruks, and/or Thragtusks. I probably won with an Obzedat or something. I sided in Tibalt (yes!), Assemble the Legion, Mortars, and ... something else. Rakdos's Return? Sure. Anyway, he had me on the ropes for a while, hovering around 2-4 life, when Assemble the Legion pretty much single-handedly took over the game. He lacked a Wolf Run, so my musters chump blocked his Beasts for a few turns until I was able to start trading with them, and then start regaining life with ... something. Blood Baron, probably. Or Obzedat. Or both. Good times. I think I want a second Assemble in my board, because the card is rockin not unlike Dokken. Win, 2-0. Record: 2-0.
| Counter target Blasphemous Act. Oh, and have a Human token, too. |
"Cavern, naming Human, Champion, go." "Oh. This deck." Well, it wasn't the Naya Blitz deck I thought it was. But regardless, I basically tossed burn at all of his creatures, and then Blood Barons took over. The second game was close, because he had a Rootborn Defenses for my Blasphemous Act. But he didn't have anything for the second one I also had. Then Blood Barons took over. Win, 2-0. Record: 3-0.
Round 4: Intentional Draw.
Well that was that! I never got a chance to actually play the guy, since we were both keen to get home to our respective significant others. Turns out the guy has only been playing again for a couple months or something like that, having not played since Unlimited (!). So yeah, it's pretty cool to get another old timer back into the game. :) Still really wish I'd have not tossed all my old cards. :/ Oh well. I got new cool cards now. :)
So yeah! This deck is pretty sweet. I had a blast playing it. It's basically 1/3 lands, 1/3 burn, and 1/3 Blood Barons. Cavern-Naming-Vampire was a common play, but I did get to name Advisor one time too. I kinda wanted to name something silly at some point (like Badger), but I never got that chance. Oh well, next time. Anyway! Some thoughts on the deck:
* Gameplan was straight-forward, yet effective: Burn early, Blood Barons late.
* Mizzium Mortars is a blowout if I can overload it. It's still fine if I "merely" 1-for-1 with it early, too. Sweet card.
* Warleader's Helix is pretty sweet. It hit planeswalkers, it hit midrange creatures, it hit players, and it games me 4 life! Card was very worthy of being a 4-of.
* Obzedat and Aurelia are kinda Blood Barons #5-7, but they each did their own thing pretty well. I only got Aurelia out once, and though she ended up dying to a Vampire Nighthawk, she did a good job of ushering Blood Baron in for a 16-point life swing to seal the game. Obzedat was great at closing out games, too.
* Holy crap Assemble the Legion did a lot of work in that Jund matchup. It turned a losing position into a "not dead yet" position into a "holy crap I'm stabilizing position" to a "huh, looks like you're outta creatures" position into a "overrun with mustard" position. That's one card. I gotta find room for another one. So much mustard.
* Boros Reckoner didn't really get much of a chance to do his thing. Most of the time, he was the first or second threat I deployed, so he was the first one to eat a removal spell. That's fine. That's one less removal for my vampires.
I'm not sure where to take this deck moving forward. M14 might add a few interesting things, like the color hosers, or Doom Blade. The Archangel of Thune sounds kinda sweet, I suspect that it'd be better if I had more creatures to put counters on. Maybe this isn't the deck for her. Fiendslayer Paladin could be good, especially if I get several of them (and/or Boros Reckoners) out. Lifebane Zombie could be good as an Appetite for Brains-on-a-stick kinda card to bring in against W/G fatty decks. Something to think about!
Not much is going on at the moment. I've got some Judge stuff coming up, working at a PTQ in Green Bay, and a SCG event in Milwaukee. That'll be fun, and great opportunity, too. I definitely want to get more Competitive experience in. I still don't feel 100% confident doing policy-related stuff quite yet, and the more I see and deal with stuff, the faster I'll learn. Fun!
Okay, well that's it for now. Thanks for reading!
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