Yeah, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I played some more Standard last night over at Misty Mountain on the east side of Madison. I mostly wanted to pick up my box of Modern Masters, but I also miss those guys over there sometimes.
So I'm still playing Junk Rites. Have I posted a decklist lately? Well, here it is:
Land (23):
2 Gavony Township
21 Other Lands
Doodz (26):
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Arbor Elf
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Friend Hunter
4 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk
2 Acidic Slime
3 Angel of Serenity
Spells (11):
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Mulch
4 Unburial Rites
Sideboard (15):
2 Pithing Needle
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Voice of Resurgence
2 Acidic Slime
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Sin Collector
1 Sever the Bloodline
I feel like the creature count is off. I thought I was running 3 Friend Hunters, but then that would add up to 61 cards. And I'm not that tech. I don't know what the other cut would have been. Maybe I'm only running 3 Arbor Elves? Hmmm.... Anyway, here's how it went:
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| Populate THIS. Actually, please don't. D: |
I recognized my opponent, but for whatever reason I don't think I'd ever played him before. He needed to read a lot of the cards I played, and his mana base was less than perfect (using Guildgates and Evolving Wilds for fixing). But he had some good cards and put up a good fight. Sigarda came down both games, and he even got his Grove of the Guardian token out, and the Guildmage to populate it. But I was able to stay alive with Thragtusks and eventually grind him out. Win, 2-0. Match Record: 1-0.
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| Graveyard shenanigans AND Aristocrat shenanigans? D: |
Is this a thing? Junk Aristocrats with the Immortal Servitude combo in the same deck? Well it seemed to be pretty effective. This is one of the matches where I got lucky. I had a near perfect draw the first game, including the turn-four Angel of Serenity. He got game two after Servitude'ing his Voices, Aristocrats, etc., and comboing me out with Blood Artist triggers. Owch. Third game, I landed a Pithing Needle to stop his Skirsdag High Priest. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite close it out. He had Bloodthrone Vampire and Cartel Aristocrat out to keep sacrificing his own things, and he got several rather large Elemental tokens out (via Voice). A rather sizeable Immortal Servitude made things worse. But he couldn't quite alpha strike without me being able to chump and then kill him on the crackback. If he would have gotten a Blood Artist down, I would have been dead. So what happened? I Mulched into a Friend Hunter and Restoration Angel. I Rites'd my Friend Hunter, exiling my Angel of Serenity. Then I Rites'd my Restoration Angel, blinking Friend Hunter, exiling four of his Elemental tokens. And he didn't have an answer to that. BTBLTG. Win, 2-1. Match Record: 2-0.
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| Yup, gettin sick of this card. D: |
That's kind of a cool thing about Standard right now. There about 3-4 different flavors of Naya you could play right now, along the aggro-midrange spectrum. This one was right in the middle. Most of it was pretty aggressive, topping out with Advent of the Wurm and Thragtusk. Okay, so the critical moment of the match was this ... He had two Boros Reckoners attacking, with me at 13 life. I had a Thragtusk out, holding a Restoration Angel (with mana available to cast it), and an Angel of Serenity ready to cast the following turn. My plan was to just take it, blink the Thragtusk, and wipe his board. So I go to 7, and he passes turn. EOT, Angel. In response, Searing Spear, Boros Charm. D: Guess what I didn't do .. again. Respect the burn. I could have done just about anything else, and I would have lived. If I Resto before blockers, he would have Spear'd the 'tusk, but I would have still gotten a Beast, and I could have blocked the Reckoner with Resto, either trading it, or killing it and taking 3 to the dome. Or, I could have blocked with Thragtusk, then tried to blink it before damage. Either way, I don't die, and then I wrath his board the next turn. As Robert Fripp likes to say, the only mistake is the failure to learn from a mistake. Loss, 1-2. Match Record: 2-1.
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| Will you be my friend? :D |
Another Naya deck, this time with a bit more top end. Still plenty of Reckoners and things, but with a Dragon at the top end, with an option to overload Mizzium Mortars if it comes to that. Well, it was a pretty close match, but other than getting blown out in one game by the aforementioned overloaded Mortars, I feel like I'd probably win this match more often than not, depending on luck and how well I play. My opponent in this match is a pretty good player, and he usually beats me when we play. So I feel pretty good that I've been able to beat him the last couple weeks. Anyway, I don't remember exactly what happened, other than grinding him out with card advantage from Angels and Thragtusks and Rites and other such things. You know, what this deck does. I do seem to recall that I got lucky with a topdeck one game, though. I don't remember exactly what or how, though. Hmmmm. Win, 2-1. Match Record: 3-1.
So yeah, that was cool. I'm really enjoying the Friend Hunter interactions in the deck. Sometimes I exile something, and he just dies and they get it back, but I'm usually okay with the tempo loss. Plus, sometimes trading my 1/3 for their removal spell is fine. Plus, then I can usually Rites him back anyway. Plus, I love the shenanigans that he can pull off. I love shenanigans.
I'm still not sure about a few slots in the deck, though. Voice of Resurgence is rad, but I'm thinking about relegating some number of him back to the 'board, in favor of something else. Maybe a maindeck Sever the Bloodline? Another Friend Hunter? And I'm looking at my sideboard, and I'm wondering what I need Abrupt Decay for. Most of what I'd use it for, I can do with Friend Hunter, Voice, Garruk, and/or Slime. I'll probably take it out. I'll probably also put in a third Pithing Needle, because that card rocks in the right matchups (Aristocrats, AEtherling).
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| Suspend counters!! :/ |
Jhoira, and a foil Gargadon. Oh. Cool. Well at least they're worth a little something. Oh, and I think there was a Manamorphose, too. Yay.
Anyway, I think that's it for now. Thanks for tuning in. :)
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