FNM: 2/8/13

Hi everybody!

So here's my first actual current report. This Friday I played Friday Night Magic at Mox Mania here in Madison. I was gonna go to Misty Mountain to do draft, but the weather has been yuck lately, so I figured I'd go with the "not drive across town in crappy weather" option. So, it's Standard at Mox, and I played with my Bant Control deck that's been doing well for me lately. Mox's metagame seems to lean towards aggro, with a smattering of control, combo, and midrange, so I skew my deck to be able to deal with lots of critters nibbling at my ankles and throwing burn in my face, mostly with lots of lifegain. I call the deck Sphinx's Spam. Here's the list I ran:

25 Land (including 2 Alchemist's Refuge and 2 Nephalia Drownyard)

1 Elixir of Immortality

4 Farseek
4 Azorius Charm
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Syncopate

2 Centaur Healer
2 Dissipate
2 Detention Sphere
1 Oblivion Ring

4 Supreme Verdict
2 Restoration Angel
1 Rhox Faithmender

1 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Thragtusk
4 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Terminus

Sideboard:
3 Rhox Faithmender
1 Centaur Healer
3 Negate
1 Curse of Echoes
1 Psychic Spiral
2 Terminus
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Rest in Peace
1 Purify the Grave
1 Ray of Revelation

I don't remember the exact mix of lands, but I had 2 Alchemist's Refuges, 2 Nephalia Drownyards, 2 Water Graves, and typical Bant-colored things.

So my plan is: stall early, boost my life total a little, wipe the board, then either start beating face with 'tusks, and/or start milling. I had been doing very well with this plan, not having lost a match in the previous two Standard events I played at, but sadly, my luck was to run out. Here's how it played out.

Round 1: vs. Jund Midrange. Cool! I've been wanting to play this matchup for a while, but dreading it .. but .. still wanting to get a feel for it. Previously, control decks I've played have struggled against Jund. Mostly because my sweepers tend not to be awesome value against them, and planeswalkers are hard to deal with (I run D-Spheres and an O-Ring, but they run Abrupt Decay, and sometimes Golgari Charm post-board). Oh yeah, and Rakdos's Return. >_< Anyway, my opponent admitted that he was somewhat new to the deck, and wasn't sure if he was making optimal plays. I'm not sure if he did or didn't, but my deck actually played out very well against him. I suspect he overextended a little bit, because I did 3-for-1 him with a Verdict, and he didn't draw the Return. For game two, I sided out a lot of my lifegain stuff and brought in the Negates, the Curse (admittedly an experiment), and the Eviction (for planeswalkers and other random shenanigans). Well, I drew into all my counters (thanks Sphinx's-es!), and countered everything that I needed to (planeswalkers and Rakdos's Return). At least one game I won via mill. Maybe both. I like having the Memory Adept in there, though I *really* miss Tamiyo. 1-0.

Round 2: vs. Azorius Aggro. Finally got to play this matchup too. I felt pretty good about it, being slightly slower than your typical R/x aggro, and very creature heavy. Problem is, they are a bit more explosive with stuff like Sublime Archangel, Geist of Saint Traft, and Silverblade Paladin. Well, I was able to keep him off-balance enough to keep my life total high, sweep the board multiple times, and start chaining Sphinx's-es. I think I won via mill. Second game was more of the same, but with time kinda short, I went on the aggro plan after I wiped the board a couple times, and ended up with a board full of Thragtusks, Beast tokens, and Restoration Angels, and beating down for 10+ a turn. 2-0.

So far, so good! I think this was 10 straight matches (or more) without a loss. But now I'm facing other winning players, so things should be a bit tighter.

Round 3: vs. R/g Aggro. I played against this deck earlier in the week, and beat it pretty handily with my stall + lifegain plan, so I was feeling pretty good about it. It worked great game one, but I kept a bad hand game two and lost to a pretty explosive start. Game three I kept a much better hand, but he came out SO FAST. I think I was able to start stabilizing somewhere around 5 life with a Faithmender in play. I drew a Terminus, and chose to cast it to get rid of his two (relatively small) doodz, but also my Faithmender. I wasn't sure if that was the right play, and in retrospect, I don't think it was. He's got much better (i.e., hastier) topdecks than I do, and I could have used the Faithmender to keep my life total up. I don't remember how it ended, but I think it involved a bloodrush'd dood and/or Skullcrack, with Sphinx's as my next draw. 2-1.

Round 4: vs. R/g Aggro. Yup, same deck. I don't remember much about what happened, but it came down to a close game three again. This time, I misplayed against Pyreheart Wolf. I forgot it had undying when I Verdict'd, and then I played a Thragtusk, forgetting about the Pyreheart ability. Turns out that he's not just a 1/1 for 3 mana. Who knew? Well anyway, I think I died to a bloodrush'd dood and/or a Skullcrack. 2-2.

Well all that was good enough for 9th place overall, with by far the best tiebreakers in the room (2 of my opponents fininshed 3-1, and one finished 3-0-1). So I got 2 prize packs, and cracked a Prime Speaker Zegana (completing my playset). Yayyy.

So yeah, I still like this deck a lot, but I'm starting to wonder about the Centaur Healers. They combo great with Faithmenders, but I think I need a better speedbump. With these aggro decks, they can Spear the Healer, and do a ton of damage with creatures. Others play Feeling of Dread in the "speedbump" role, and I think that's probably better. I'll take an extra burn spell to the dome, but I can stop two attackers two different times, which is probably worth around 8-10 life total. Then, I don't cost myself creatures when I have to sweep the board with a Healer in play.

So if I'm gonna change what I'm doing with the lifegain, maybe I should consider other changes. Like, if I'm increasing my spell count, maybe I should try Augur of Bolas? He's a good blink target for Resto, and it's good card advantage. Well, sometimes anyway. Yeah, I think I'll try testing with that. I think the Healers are still worth keeping around, but I don't think I can rely on them quite as much as I used to, in the same way that I used to. We'll see.

Then, I've been slowly but steadily getting into Magic Online. I've read that Pauper and Momir Vig Basic are the "cheap" formats to get into. So I've been dabbling. I've played a little bit of competitive Momir Vig, and I've done okay. I 0-2-drop'd the first 4-found daily event I played in, and went 2-1 in the three 2-man queues I tried later on. It's pretty cool, because the strategies are subtle, and a lot of it comes down to playing the percentages. It really does help teach combat math, though, which is definitely something I could stand to get tighter with.

For Pauper, I decided on Mono-Blue Delver. I've only played it in the Tournament Practice room so far, as I'm trying to get used to how it plays. But I like it so far. Delver is of course a really good card, and I love playing with cards like Brainstorm and Counterspell. I'm a little nervous about the Cloudpost matchup, though, since they play a bunch of creatures that are hard to punch through with 1/1 dorks, and they play so many X-for-1s: Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle, Serrated Arrows. I noted in one game that Mulldrifter was a 6-for-1: for one spell, he got a dood, 2 cards, and blank 3 of my creatures. Yikes. :/ But ... maybe I just need to be diligent about countering the right things (letting Sea Gate Oracle resolve, but saving counters for Mulldrifters).

I'm gonna try Momir Vig again tonight, then play Gatecrash Sealed tomorrow at a friend's house, then maybe Standard again on Tuesday.

Cool. Well that's it for now. Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave comments.