Needs Moar Wear and/or Tear

Moar adventures in Blood Baroning! "Baroning" is a word, isn't it? Firefox's autocorrect doesn't think so. But Firefox doesn't think "autocorrect" is a word, either.

Anyway! So I've been too lazy to sleeve up a new deck, so I played my Blood Baron deck again. It's basically burn early, Blood Barons late. Cavern of Souls often names "Vampire," but once in a while it's "Advisor" or "Angel" or "Lhurgoyf." Here's how the evening went:

I can haz blood food?

Round 1: vs. Selesnya. Nice kid, and a decent deck, but my deck had his number this match. Both games I burned away his tokens, Rakdos's Return'd, and then Olivia'd the stragglers. He had no answer for Olivia (I assume S-Charm was in there, but he didn't draw it). Win, 2-0. Record: 1-0.

Woulda been nice.

Round 2: vs. Golgari Control. One game I managed to stabilize at somewhere around 3 life, though, and come from behind to win it thanks to Obzedat (didn't draw his Putrefy, apparently). But the other two games ... Yeah, I could have used Wear // Tear for this one. He got Underworld Connections out early, and used it often. I wasn't able to get any early pressure on him, and had to waste a bunch of burn on Desecration Demons. Third game, he Pith'd Olivia, so that pretty much killed my only remaining out before dying to Thrag/Demon beats. Tough match. Loss, 1-2. Record: 1-1.

Woulda been nice.

Round 3: vs. Big Red. This was a fun one. Lots of back and forth the whole match. One game he was the aggressor early, and I managed to hold him off just long enough to keep myself out of burn range and start gaining life with Obzedat. The other two games, he had all the Mortars for all the Vampires, and I couldn't keep up. Oh yeah, game three: Burning Earth. WOW does that card hurt. D: Coulda used a Wear and/or Tear. Loss, 1-2. Record: 1-2.

Mono-White is not beating this card.

Round 4: vs. Mono-White. Got paired up for the last round against a friend of mine. We were chatting between rounds, and he was lamenting that his only loss was to Blood Barons. Oops. :( Well, my deck is pretty much built to take out decks like his, and it did its thing very well. Burn early and often, and then Blood Baron just wins. Since the prize structure is such that 2-2s often don't get anything, I decided to offer a split and then concede after he agreed (remember, kids offer a split and/or concession and/or intentional draw separately, and completely independent on acceptance of other offers or match results). So we each got two packs, which we cashed in for store credit, making back approximately 45% of our entry fee. :/ Anyway, officially, this was a loss for me, but I would have won had I not conceded. So for the purposes of this blog, I'll call it a Win, 2-0. Record: 2-2.

I think I wanna stubbornly give it one more go, this time packed with Wear // Tear. And maybe I'll try out some M14 goodies, like Lifebane Zombie and Chandra. Otherwise, I'll probably move on to something else.

I'm looking forward to playing some Modern, too. I've got most of the pieces I want for a U/W/R Midrange deck, I just need to disassemble my Delver deck and replace the bad stuff (Steppe Lynx, Izzet Charm, Serum Visions, Delver) with good stuff (Vendilion Clique, Cryptic Command, Spell Snare, Electrolyze). Unfortunately, I'm pretty busy the next few weeks, so I probably won't get a chance to play much before the Grand Prix in Detroit in mid-September. Hopefully doing some testing with friends will suffice.

I'm hoping to do some more judging coming up this fall. There are two regional Star City events, in Milwaukee, and Indianapolis. And maybe also a PTQ or two? Depending on how Theros shakes out, that could be pretty sweet to get more packs and not have to buy as much. In the meantime, after great experiences in Green Bay and Minneapolis, it's back to the more relaxed and easy-going FNM. Oh yeah, coming up over Labor Day weekend, I get to go to my first Judge Conference, which I'm greatly looking forward to. Sweet judge foils, but also great company, and hopefully great learning experiences.

So, Theros. More stuff has been released about the set and its world, and it looks pretty sweet. Gorgeous, awe-inspiring artwork of gods and vistas and heroics. They're saying it's very flavor-driven, with lots of emphasis on hero archetypes. Knowing that Mark Rosewater is a big Joseph Campbell fan makes me excited to see what kinds of cool stories we get. Fun stuff!

Okay, that's it for now. As always, thanks for reading!