Kraken's Out of the Bag

Hi everybody!

Well I haven't gotten a chance to play much lately. After being gone for a weekend to test for Level 2, I've placed more priority on my home life. Then, I was asked at the last minute to sub for another local L2 at a TCGplayer event in Chicago, so I wasn't able to try out the Pauper Dredge list I've been excited to try out. But this last Tuesday, I finally got a chance to play some Standard. And I couldn't resist trying something different/new/exciting, so I sleeved up this:

Lands (25):
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Watery Grave
3 Breeding Pool
3 Temple of Deceit
4 Temple of Mystery
4 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Island

Creatures (9):
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 AEtherling
2 Sepulchral Primordial

Planeswalkers (7):
4 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2 Vraska, the Unseen
1 Jace, Memory Adept

Spells (19):
1 Mana Bloom
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ultimate Price
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Read the Bones
2 Dissolve
2 Hero's Downfall
1 Inspiration
1 Urban Evolution
1 Gaze of Granite
2 Reap Intellect

Sideboard (15):
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Unravel the AEther
2 Golgari Charm
2 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Drown in Sorrow
1 Bile Blight
1 Doom Blade
1 Dark Betrayal
2 Gainsay
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 (I forget?)

Yup, this is the "Makin' Krakens" (pronounced "kray-kins") list that Frank Lapore and Melissa DeTora have written about on TCGplayer.com (which in turn they got from someone on Magic Online). I tweaked it somewhat to match what I felt like playing, but the core is pretty much the same.

Basically, I want to control/survive the early game, hit a bunch of land drops, and then start landing haymakers with 7 mana in play. AEtherling, Primordial, planeswalkers, and/or the Timmah! combo of overloaded Cyclonic Rift followed up with Reap Intellect for a million.

Well, how'd it go? Read on ...

F- this Kiora in particular.

Round 1: vs. Rakdos Midrange. He had some early aggression with Young Pyromancer, but also lots of burn and removal. I made plenty of play mistakes during this match, usually involving getting greedy with Kiora. Basically, I wanted to splash a random dooder and tick her up, but then she'd just die to Lightning Strike or Dreadbore. I needed to user her -1 ability more, to ramp and to get some card advantage. I did land a turn-6 AEtherling (with a blue mana open to blink it), so that was pretty sweet. I also should have brought in Jace AOT to deal with the Pyro token storm and/or to dig for some answers. Loss, 1-2. Record: 0-1.

Great roadblock vs. aggro.

Round 2: vs. RDW. So many 1- and 2-drops. I got ran over pretty badly in game one, but games two and three I had all kinds of removal and sweepers (Golgari Charm, Drown in Sorrow), and my planeswalkers took over the game. Courser of Kruphix was an all-star in this one, stabilizing the board, and gaining a non-trivial amount of life. Win, 2-1. Record: 1-1.

Apparently all those spells are blue vapors?

Round 3: vs. Esper Control. Hard match. Game one was a lot of draw-go, and he had counters for my threats. Game two, he ripped apart my game plan with Thoughtseize and counters, but got greedy with running out win conditions. I bounced his Elspeth and topdeck'd a Reap Intellect, which resolved. I took his Elspeths, Sphinx's Revelations, and Detention Spheres. Unfortunately, he won the topdeck war, drawing into counters for my threats, and eventually an AEtherling that I couldn't deal with. Loss, 0-2. Record: 1-2.

Not new-player-friendly.

Round 4: vs. Boros Midrange? Control? Very new player here. Her boyfriend/friends told her, "you're coming with us to play tonight." So all of her opponents had to show her how to play. I don't mind that aspect of it, but they gave her a hard deck to try to learn how to play. Lots of stuff like planeswalkers, gods, enchantments, scrying, triggers .... So much vocabulary. Anyway, the actual games went in my favor, though they took a long time. Win, 2-0. Record: 2-2.

So yeah, some rough going. Some tweaks are definitely needed, some of which I've already made. I moved Jace AOT into the maindeck, to give me some better game-one action against Control and Aggro. I'm thinking about moving Jace MA into the 'board for similar reasons. I don't really want to see him in game one against Aggro. I think the singleton Inspiration is really cute, but it's better suited to a more hardcore draw-go style of play, which I'm not really doing. I love Read the Bones, but that life loss can really add up, especially if I don't have Courser out. I'm not sure how I feel about Mana Bloom. Again, I suspect it's better suited for a draw-go style of play where you can take better advantage of the whole mana-on-both-turns thing.

So .. do I want to play draw-go? I don't think I do. At least not right now. I want to spend my early turns setting up. Caryatid, temple-scrying, spot removal (and sweepers post-board). And once I do get set up, I tap out a lot for planeswalkers and other threats. It's hard trying to establish a threat presence and leave countermagic up when need a million mana in order to do so.

But overall, I love the deck. It can be frustrating when I can't get much going, but it's a blast once the engine gets fired up. I really like how a lot of the key pieces pull doubple duty as disruption/control and potential win conditions. I'm gonna make a few tweaks, hopefully learn how to play the deck better, and see if I can release some Krakens. :)

Thanks for reading!