So Many Elephants

Hi everybody! "Hi Prof. Shine!"

Well, the holidays are behind us, and I'm getting back into my normal [Magical] routine. For Standard, I'm continuing to rock the Elephants. I've made a couple of tweaks, and right now I'm right about here:

Land (24):
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple of Triumph
3 Temple of Abandon
4 Forest
2 Mountain

Creatures (25):
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Boon Satyr
3 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Spells (11):
1 Magma Jet
1 Chained to the Rocks
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Domri Rade
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Warleader's Helix

Sideboard (15):
2 Boros Reckoner
2 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Wear // Tear
2 Assemble the Legion
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Shock
1 Scavenging Ooze

And here's how the matches went last night:

"Mountains come out of the sky and they [punch you in the face]." - Yes (paraphrased)

Round 1: vs. R/g Devotion. I wasn't terribly thrilled to get paired against this right away, but it seemed to go well in the first game. She didn't have much action in the first few turns. A Hammer turn three, followed up by Purphoros turn four. Okay, cool. Then, Burning-Tree, Burning-Tree, Ash Zealot, Hammer, all with Purphoros triggers, and swing for a bunch. Owch. D: I picked off some of her doodz, but a Boros Reckoner finished me off. Second game, I landed some early elephants and she got stuck on three land. Third game, she quickly kept a 7-card hand, hit all her land drops, and did a lot of scrying. So ... I was a bit concerned. I played it pretty safe, holding on to burn and waiting for the critters to start coming out. But .. they never did. So I bonk'd her to death with an Elephant or two. No Nykthos explosions, no Purphoros shenanigans ... just a few random dudes and a few random burn spells. Well, it's a win! Win, 2-1. Record: 1-0.

Remember this guy? Yeah, I don't think I can beat him.

Round 2: vs. Esper Midrange. Sweet deck. Some early aggression, some disruption, some reach, and some synergy. Kinda like the old Aristocrats deck, but .. not really. Anyway, this was a tough matchup. I got a bit color-screwed the first game when I didn't hit a white source of mana until turn 4 (with Chained to the Rocks and Loxodon Smiter sitting in my hand). Then Imposing Sovereign hindered my "Blockers" plan. Oh well. So I sided into my aggro configuration, with more burn, cheaper creatures. And that's when I saw the Esper deck's Plan B: Control. I played into not one, but TWO Supreme Verdicts, and when the dust settled, he had an Obzedat, and I had nothing. Loss, 0-2. Record: 1-1.

Hasty pro-blue elephant that can't be countered? Yes please!

Round 3: vs. American Control. Holy crap do I love playing this deck against Control. I lost game one to an unchecked Assemble the Legion, but games two and three, I showed him my powerful post-board plan: "Deal with this, or die." I love it when every card I play draws a response of "Oh, [swear word]." He was able to Pith Domri in both post-board games, but he couldn't stop all of my different angles of attack. I'm pretty sure most of my sideboard cards played some role in this match, including my getting a sweet sweet 2-for-1 with Wear // Tear (Pithing Needle and Assemble the Legion). Win, 2-1. Record: 2-1.

Not awesome against Jace, AOT, but if they don't have Jace, then she and a random unblocked  elephant will just win.

Round 4: vs. Esper Control. I offered the prize split, but he declined. Okay, more free packs for me. :) Well, I won the first game when he failed to draw enough answers to deal with all my aggression. I quickly sided into my "mono-ridiculous-must-deal-with-threats" configuration and prepared for an easy 2-0 win. Unfortunately, he actually had answers to all my threats! Domri got D-Sphere'd. Chandra got Thoughtseize'd. Mistcutters and Elemental tokens (Elephantals?) got Verdict'd. Then he started chaining Sphinxes and ... yeah. Couldn't keep up. Game three, though, he went to 16 to Thoughtseize me turn one and found: Land x3, Smiter, Chandra, Hammer, Aurelia. He took the Hammer. I played out a Caryatid, a Smiter, and topdecked the 5th land to finish him off with Aurelia. We played a few more for fun, and they mostly played out the same way. I congratulated him, though, on being the first Control player to beat me in a post-board game. Win, 2-1. Record: 3-1.

So yeah! That was good enough for 4th place (out of 23). I got 8 packs ($18 store credit) for my efforts. I paid $11.50 for the event, so ... hey, I came out ahead! I'm a professional Magic player! Okay, not really.

Anyway, the obligatory post-mortem/debrief:

• So glad I added the 4th Mortars in. Such a good card. I don't think I overloaded it much last night, but I was more than okay just killing a Soldier of the Pantheon with it.
• Shock out of the sideboard was pretty sweet. It kills a surprisingly large number of creatures in this format.
• I was actually kind of impressed with Scavenging Ooze. Against the red deck, he gained me a little life and became a pretty serious threat. I might try that out in the 'board instead of Fiendslayer (which I still have yet to see in an actual game). I even brought it in against Control as another threat (especially post-wrath).
• I really wish I could have gotten in some matches against Mono-Blue and Mono-Black. I think I'm okay against Mono-Blue, but I'm not at all confident about Mono-Black. I just don't think I can beat a sequence of Underworld > Desecration > Gary. Or even multiple Desecrations. It makes me want to try out Selesnya Charm, or more Chained to the Rocks. Because ... ugh.
• Speaking of other cards I wanna try out .. Peak Eruption. Several times over the last month or two, I've been thinking it would be really sweet against these Red/Boros decks. But I really don't wanna dilute my creature base any further.
• Speaking of which, I really want to find room for that 4th Domri. I can probably take out that Helix. But I've been thinking of maybe trying out a Sc'Ooze in that slot. But the extra removal is pretty sweet, too. Hmmm.
• Actually now that I think about it, Sc'Ooze could be good against Mono-Black, too, for nullifying the Whip-value tactic.
• Very minor point: Far too often, I found myself wanting white mana and having to wait longer than I would normally like to get it. I think I'm going to swap a Temple of Abandon out for a 4th Temple Triumph.

So yeah. Elephants! I like this deck a lot. It's fun, it's winning, and there's still room for improvement. Of course, Born of the Gods is coming, and that's likely to shake up the format somewhat. I'm not sure about my specific deck yet other than [obviously] adding the W/G scryland. But for Elephants .. I'm not sure yet. We'll see what Xenagos and Karametra bring us. :)

Not much else going on with other fronts yet. I haven't gotten to play Pauper lately, but I think I'm going to try Dimir Control next chance I get. Probably in 2 weeks. I Judge'd at a PTQ in Green Bay last weekend, and I had a great time doing it. I talked to the HJ about testing for L2 (his wife is an L3), and hopefully I can set that in motion sooner than later. There seem to be quite a few more Judge opportunities coming up over the next few months. So that's exciting. :)

Well, that's about it for now. Thanks for reading!