Standard, 3/19/13

Hello everyone...

Okay, so my mood isn't that great today. Besides not doing terribly well at Standard lately, other personal things aren't going well. So ... yeah.

Anyway, I played the Standard Win-a-Box at Mox Mania last night. I played the same deck I've been running, Wolf Run Bant, with no changes from last week. I thought about making room for another Centaur Healer in there for a *little* more early game against Aggro, but I couldn't figure out what to take out. So .. no changes.

Card's good.

Round 1: vs. Naya Aggro. Same round 1 matchup as last week. I still lost, but at least I took him to three games. This kinda matchup seems to come down to a few things coming together: (1) early disruption, (2) board wipe, (3) opponent stalling out, (4) another board wipe. If two or more of those things happen, then I'm usually fine. It worked great game one, when I had multiple Supreme Verdicts, and subsequently pulled away with a Wolf-Run'd Restoration Angel. The other two games I stumbled and he didn't. 0-1.

This is gonna be a long one.

Round 2: vs. Junk Midrange/Serenity. Very grindy matchup. Lots of doodz on his side, lots of board wipes and D-Spheres on my side. Angels on both sides. Eventually, I managed to run him out of cards after multiple Revelations, board wipes, and trading in combat, and I was left with a couple of creatures and about 15 lands (including Wolf Run, of course). Second game, I held him in check pretty well, using Purify the Grave very well to slow down his graveyard shenanigans, but this time I ran out of gas, and he finished me off right as time was expiring. I would have liked to play this one out, but .. you know, time limits. Also, at one point in that second game, I forgot he had another Unburial Rites in his graveyard, and though I don't remember exactly what I could have done differently, it probably would have changed what I did the previous couple of turns. 0-1-1.

Round 3: vs. Budget Gruul. My opponent seemed nice enough, but her deck was .. well .. budget. She had some Rancors and some Flinthoof Boars and some of those 4/4 trample bloodrush guys, but ... she couldn't keep enough pressure on me to keep my deck from doing its thing. Second game, I got two Faithmenders out and ended the game at 80+ life. 1-1-1.

Counter target Sphinx's Revelation.

Round 4: vs. American .. Tempo? Midrange? Not sure. He had Boros Reckoners, Augurs of Bolas, Restoration Angels, Snapcaster Mages, and lots of spells. It was an interesting matchup, but I don't think I played it right. I was playing it like a control deck, when I should have been thinking about it more like a Delver deck. He used burn spells to the dome pretty frequently, and I should have taken that into consideration when I took 3 from Reckoner several turns in a row. I also stupidly forgot that he could get first strike when I tried to trade my Centaur Healer with him. Other than that, I got pretty lucky in game two when he topdecked 5 lands in a row while I finished him off with a Restoration Angel. But I didn't know that, thinking that he was waiting for a chance to burn me out, so I held back. I had him dead on board with Angel and Wolf Run, so I should have just forced the issue--I would have been dead to a burn spell anyway. I think I was worried about Azorius Charm. Games two and three, it seemed like he almost always had countermagic for my Revelations and other threats. But that's how it goes. 1-2-1.

So, yeah. Kinda frustrating. I'm sick of losing to Aggro. So I think I'm gonna switch to either Zegana, or Esper. Probably Esper. Whichever one has a better matchup against Aggro, really. The way I see it is, if I have a bad matchup against someone, I would rather have the bad matchup against a deck that's gonna beat me by outplaying me, not run me over on turn 4-5 if I don't get a perfect draw. I'd like to, you know, play Magic.

Another part of me is pondering taking a break, though. I want to practice and get ready for the Star City Games Open in Milwaukee next month, and I want to do well. But if I keep getting frustrated like this, maybe I want to not bother. It sucks, though. I see myself becoming more of a serious Spike, and I'm not sure if I like that. But maybe that's just how I am: I like to win. I love brewing decks, and doing crazy stuff, but I don't wanna lose every match just to play something fun. That's why I had to abandon stuff like my Heartless Summoning and Spider Spawning decks. They were super fun, but they didn't win enough. And with my mental/emotional/psychological state as it is, I'm wondering if spending my free time losing at Magic is what I want to do with my life right now.

Well anyway, thanks for reading. Until next time...