A couple of things to report.
First, I played a casual Gatecrash Sealed event at a friend's house Monday night. My pool was kind of strange. I opened Zegana (making it I think the 3rd time I've opened her in a Sealed pool .. out of 3 GTC Sealed events I've played), but the Simic wasn't there. There were a fair number of good green and white creatures, and some good Gruul and Boros rares, so I ended up going Naya. Over the first match or two, I was realizing that the Boros stuff on the low end of the curve was making me have mana issues, so I made it into more of a W/G/r deck.
Some highlights:
* I played 5 of the rares I opened, and each one was great. Frontline Medic is a bomb 3-drop that enabled me to attack with wild abandon and force through a ton of damage. Orzhov's big-butt creatures slowed that down, though.
* I was able to set up a very threatening Rubblebelt Raiders several times, but each time I got her out, she died before she could do her thing.
* Signal the Clans did a lot of work for me. Most of the time, I'd cast it on turn 3-4 to find one of my bombs to try to set up an endgame. I was happy with it. It reminded me of Pack Rat--not because it wins games if unanswered, but it turns a bad card into a good card. In Constructed, you play good cards, so cards like Pack Rat and Signal the Clans are less necessary. I guess this is kind of like a Looter in that respect, too. It was good. Not a bomb, but definitely quality.
* Foundry Champion was pretty great. He was one of the few removal options I had (the others being two Smite), and he was a big threatening creature, too. Most of the time I cast him into a board where I wasn't already almost-dead, I won.
* Glaring Spotlight is this set's Teleportal. Except it's colorless. Good stuff.
* Prophetic Prism did a *lot* of work in the deck. It drew me into stuff I needed (lands, creatures), triggered Extort (I had a couple of Extort doodz), and fixed my mana so I could cast my red stuff and/or use Extort more and/or use Foundry Champion better. Cool card. I was glad I played two, but I think three would have been too many.
So yeah, I ended up going 4-2, losing to a Naya deck with Aurelia, and to an Esper deck with too much Extort, and both the blue and white Primordials.
Then, I played the $10 Win-a-Box at Mox Mania last night. I played Sphinx's Spam again, with a few minor changes. I think I took out a Detention Sphere and the Elixir of Immortality for two Feeling of Dread, I made a few sideboard tweaks, and I bought a Godless Shrine to replace one of my Watery Graves.
Round 1: vs. Jund. I misplayed in game one, and I didn't really recover. He had a Vampire Nighthawk out, and cast Olivia Voldaren. I had a Dissipate and Supreme Verdict in hand. For some reason, I wanted to keep my life total high, so I countered her. Two turns later, I got Rakdos's Return'd. I managed to slow the bleeding with some decent topdecks, but the damage was done. I got him game two after I killed a bunch of his creatures, Negate'd his Rakdos's Returns, and then I think I milled him out. Game three I didn't draw terribly well, I think I got Return'd again, and he finished me off in extra turns. 0-1.
Round 2: vs. Boros Deck. Game one I slowed him down, wiped his board, gained some life, landed a Thragtusk, and he scooped. Game two he killed me with a turn four Hellrider. Game three was more like the first. Quick and easy. 1-1.
Round 3: vs. Esper Control. A lot of people dread these kinds of matchups, myself included, but I didn't mind. It's much a much more interesting game, because the angles of play are so much different. Do I tap out? What instant-speed play do I repreresent? Does he have a counter? Can I protect my win condition. Apparently, I answered those questions better than he did, and I got him in two, somewhat long and grindy games. I had been worried about Obzedat going into Gatecrash Standard, but he presented no problem for me. I got him twice with A-Charm -> Drownyard, and Refuge -> O-Ring/Verdict a couple other times. Game one, I had to mill him for 3 a turn with Drownyard, and game two I found Jace early on, and was able to protect him with multiple counterspells. 2-1.
Round 4: vs. Mono-Black Exalted. Same younger fellow I played last week with the Simic deck, who again got pair up against me. This week his deck reminded me of a nuts M13 draft deck, with lots of Duty-Bound Dead, Servant of Nepharox, Liliana's Shade, Sign in Blood, Vampire Nighthawk, Murder, and Cathedral of War. He was able to knock me down to some pretty low life totals, but each time I was able to get out of it with a board wipe and/or Sphinx's Revelation. It's kind of unfortunate that to have success in Standard these days, the better cards cost quite a bit of money. I probably had close to $150-200 worth of cards in my manabase alone. Add in playsets of Sphinx's Revelation and Thragtusk, and it adds up quickly. 3-1.
So yeah, with just the two Feelings of Dread, I feel like my percentage against red aggro has done a decent uptick. I didn't have the displeasure of facing off against R/g though, so I'm still not sure about that one. I think it's still decent.
I was also able to trade in my 2x Boros Reckoners to the store for a couple of Godless Shrines and a little bit of leftover store credit. Reckoner topped off at about $27 yesterday, but today it seems like they're starting to float back down in price. I think it's a good card, but I don't see that it's worth that much. It's more like Thragtusk than Snapcaster Mage, but even Thragtusk is still fetching close to $20. So .. I dunno. I guess we'll see. I just hope I don't end up wanting to play something down the line that requires more than 1-2 of him and then I have to pony up another $50+ to finish a playset.
Now that I have 3 Godless Shrines, I've go the manabase to be able to play Esper now. It's really tempting, because I enjoy taking control of games, and it seems like Esper does that pretty well (it has better removal, at least). I just really like Thragtusk, Farseek, and Alchemist's Refuge, and I don't want to give them up. And I just can't bring myself to play four colors. Not without some kind of Reflecting Pool-type land. So for now, I'm still enjoying Bant and having success with it, so I'll keep going with that.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment