Braving the PTQ

Hi everybody!
"Hi Prof. Shine!"

So, I brought the Herd with me to the PTQ this weekend. And ... I pretty much bombed. I lost my first three (one in epically hilarious mana-screwed fashion), but I was having fun so I kept playing. Then I started winning. Then I found myself playing in Round 9 for three packs ... and I lost. So I finished 5-4. Not bad, I was hoping for better. Here's what happened, more or less (I don't think I can remember every match, but I'll try).

Plus bloodrush? Owch.

Round 1: vs. R/G Aggro. First match, I got paired against another Mox regular. And I got stomped by his Armed // Dangerous shenanigans. It seems like maybe my post-board strategy for Aggro wasn't quite up to snuff. Loss. Record: 0-1.

So many Clerics....

Round 2: vs. W/u Aggro. Another match against a Mox regular. :/ This time, I took him to three games, and we went to time. I was close to stabilizing, but he just had too many little doodz, and I was at too low a life total to start to turn things around. Yeah, my sideboard strategy needs work. More to come on that. Loss. Record: 0-2.

Yup!

Round 3: vs. Murkan Control. Game one I mull'd to 5 and kept a hand of: Mountain, mana dork, mana dork, Magma Jet, other spell. Ugh. Well if I draw any second land I'm probably okay. 7 turns later, I have a Mountain, and a graveyard full of spells, and he has Elspeth. Game two I mull'd once or twice again, and actually drew pretty decently. Unfortunately, I was so excited to be able to play spells, that I played right into his Ratchet Bomb that killed my Domri and Hammer. I think I drew like pewp after that. Loss. Record: 0-3.

Maybe I should have waited to play my Smiter.

Round 4: vs. B/R brew. Nice enough guy, but his deck was kinda janky. He had some discard shenanigans, but not nearly enough to hold back the herd's persistence. Win. Record: 1-3.

Round 5: vs. RUG. I don't remember much about this match. I think he didn't really get much going, and I had Elephants. Win. Record: 2-3.

Flying Wurms, o noes! :/

Round 6: vs. Selesnya. Some tokens, some non-tokens. Kinda aggro, but with the midrange explosiveness/reach that Ajani gives. Pretty good match, close, back & forth. But ultimately, I was able to stabilize against him to let my Elephants take over and bring him down. We lamented the suckiness of the Karametra (the new W/G God), and the general lack in general of support for tokens strategies in the current Standard environment. Win. Record: 3-3.

Gary. Yeah.

Round 7: vs. B/w/u Devotion. I had him on Esper Control, so I boarded accordingly after I stomped him game one. Second game I saw the Pack Rats and Gary and ... yeah, let me re-sideboard plzkthx. Game three I chuckled when I saw what I forgot to side out ... Hammer of Purphoros. But hey, maybe this won't be so bad. So I play it, and start stomping him with hasty Elephants. He couldn't get much of a board presence going and conceded shortly thereafter. Win. Record: 4-3.

Why did they have to reprint this? :/

Round 8: vs. U/W Control. He introduced himself and commented on my SCG Judge playmat, then he mentioned something about doing commentary for them. Oh yeah, I thought his name looked familiar! I complimented him and his organization's quality tournaments, while having a crazy epic match. First game, he got kinda land screwed, and I had way too much pressure for him to keep up. Second game, he kept up with me very well, matching me answer-for-threat, and eventually chaining Sphinxes. I thought maybe I could pull out of it and/or go to time, but ... yeah. So we played a hyper fast game three with about 5 minutes left, and again I had a lot of early pressure and he got land screwed. Fun match. Good guy. Win. Record: 5-3.

First to monstrous this guy wins!

Round 9: vs. G/R Midrange. Okay, by this point, I was pretty tired and loopy, and frankly, ready to go home. But hey, gotta battle for those three packs! IN IT 2 WIN IT!!/ Or something? Well anyway, I kept some marginal hands, and his monsters were bigger than my monsters and I got blown out by Mortars and a giant Polukranos and f- this s- I'm going home. Loss. Record: 5-4.

Well despite opening and ending the day with a some bad losses, I had a lot of fun. I got to mingle with my Mox friends and share bad beat stories and just in general have a great time interacting with the community. And playing Magic was fun too. Even the losses were either close matches, or comically bad. And winning 5 in a row was pretty sweet. Hooray Magic! \o/

So, what change(s) do I need to make? Well, I'm gonna start here:

Because elephants should TRAMPLE, amirite?

I've been noticing that the this Standard format is a "big life swing" format. I mean, it's being shaped by a common 5-mana creature that drains life. It's probably time I did something similar. At least two of my Aggro opponents commented about how much the lifegain can swing a game in one's favor, and +2/+2 and trample can make a beefy dood into a huge threat. Yeah, that's what I need. Too many times, I've started to stabilize against them, found myself unable to counterattack, and die to a topdecked burn spell or Brave the Elephants. Imma try it.

But ... Honestly, I think 9 rounds of trying to compete with this deck has worn on me. It might be time to look elsewhere. I have Mono-Blue built, and who knows what goodies Born of the Gods may bring. We'll see!

Thanks for reading!

So Many Elephants

Hi everybody! "Hi Prof. Shine!"

Well, the holidays are behind us, and I'm getting back into my normal [Magical] routine. For Standard, I'm continuing to rock the Elephants. I've made a couple of tweaks, and right now I'm right about here:

Land (24):
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple of Triumph
3 Temple of Abandon
4 Forest
2 Mountain

Creatures (25):
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Boon Satyr
3 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Spells (11):
1 Magma Jet
1 Chained to the Rocks
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Domri Rade
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Warleader's Helix

Sideboard (15):
2 Boros Reckoner
2 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Wear // Tear
2 Assemble the Legion
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Shock
1 Scavenging Ooze

And here's how the matches went last night:

"Mountains come out of the sky and they [punch you in the face]." - Yes (paraphrased)

Round 1: vs. R/g Devotion. I wasn't terribly thrilled to get paired against this right away, but it seemed to go well in the first game. She didn't have much action in the first few turns. A Hammer turn three, followed up by Purphoros turn four. Okay, cool. Then, Burning-Tree, Burning-Tree, Ash Zealot, Hammer, all with Purphoros triggers, and swing for a bunch. Owch. D: I picked off some of her doodz, but a Boros Reckoner finished me off. Second game, I landed some early elephants and she got stuck on three land. Third game, she quickly kept a 7-card hand, hit all her land drops, and did a lot of scrying. So ... I was a bit concerned. I played it pretty safe, holding on to burn and waiting for the critters to start coming out. But .. they never did. So I bonk'd her to death with an Elephant or two. No Nykthos explosions, no Purphoros shenanigans ... just a few random dudes and a few random burn spells. Well, it's a win! Win, 2-1. Record: 1-0.

Remember this guy? Yeah, I don't think I can beat him.

Round 2: vs. Esper Midrange. Sweet deck. Some early aggression, some disruption, some reach, and some synergy. Kinda like the old Aristocrats deck, but .. not really. Anyway, this was a tough matchup. I got a bit color-screwed the first game when I didn't hit a white source of mana until turn 4 (with Chained to the Rocks and Loxodon Smiter sitting in my hand). Then Imposing Sovereign hindered my "Blockers" plan. Oh well. So I sided into my aggro configuration, with more burn, cheaper creatures. And that's when I saw the Esper deck's Plan B: Control. I played into not one, but TWO Supreme Verdicts, and when the dust settled, he had an Obzedat, and I had nothing. Loss, 0-2. Record: 1-1.

Hasty pro-blue elephant that can't be countered? Yes please!

Round 3: vs. American Control. Holy crap do I love playing this deck against Control. I lost game one to an unchecked Assemble the Legion, but games two and three, I showed him my powerful post-board plan: "Deal with this, or die." I love it when every card I play draws a response of "Oh, [swear word]." He was able to Pith Domri in both post-board games, but he couldn't stop all of my different angles of attack. I'm pretty sure most of my sideboard cards played some role in this match, including my getting a sweet sweet 2-for-1 with Wear // Tear (Pithing Needle and Assemble the Legion). Win, 2-1. Record: 2-1.

Not awesome against Jace, AOT, but if they don't have Jace, then she and a random unblocked  elephant will just win.

Round 4: vs. Esper Control. I offered the prize split, but he declined. Okay, more free packs for me. :) Well, I won the first game when he failed to draw enough answers to deal with all my aggression. I quickly sided into my "mono-ridiculous-must-deal-with-threats" configuration and prepared for an easy 2-0 win. Unfortunately, he actually had answers to all my threats! Domri got D-Sphere'd. Chandra got Thoughtseize'd. Mistcutters and Elemental tokens (Elephantals?) got Verdict'd. Then he started chaining Sphinxes and ... yeah. Couldn't keep up. Game three, though, he went to 16 to Thoughtseize me turn one and found: Land x3, Smiter, Chandra, Hammer, Aurelia. He took the Hammer. I played out a Caryatid, a Smiter, and topdecked the 5th land to finish him off with Aurelia. We played a few more for fun, and they mostly played out the same way. I congratulated him, though, on being the first Control player to beat me in a post-board game. Win, 2-1. Record: 3-1.

So yeah! That was good enough for 4th place (out of 23). I got 8 packs ($18 store credit) for my efforts. I paid $11.50 for the event, so ... hey, I came out ahead! I'm a professional Magic player! Okay, not really.

Anyway, the obligatory post-mortem/debrief:

• So glad I added the 4th Mortars in. Such a good card. I don't think I overloaded it much last night, but I was more than okay just killing a Soldier of the Pantheon with it.
• Shock out of the sideboard was pretty sweet. It kills a surprisingly large number of creatures in this format.
• I was actually kind of impressed with Scavenging Ooze. Against the red deck, he gained me a little life and became a pretty serious threat. I might try that out in the 'board instead of Fiendslayer (which I still have yet to see in an actual game). I even brought it in against Control as another threat (especially post-wrath).
• I really wish I could have gotten in some matches against Mono-Blue and Mono-Black. I think I'm okay against Mono-Blue, but I'm not at all confident about Mono-Black. I just don't think I can beat a sequence of Underworld > Desecration > Gary. Or even multiple Desecrations. It makes me want to try out Selesnya Charm, or more Chained to the Rocks. Because ... ugh.
• Speaking of other cards I wanna try out .. Peak Eruption. Several times over the last month or two, I've been thinking it would be really sweet against these Red/Boros decks. But I really don't wanna dilute my creature base any further.
• Speaking of which, I really want to find room for that 4th Domri. I can probably take out that Helix. But I've been thinking of maybe trying out a Sc'Ooze in that slot. But the extra removal is pretty sweet, too. Hmmm.
• Actually now that I think about it, Sc'Ooze could be good against Mono-Black, too, for nullifying the Whip-value tactic.
• Very minor point: Far too often, I found myself wanting white mana and having to wait longer than I would normally like to get it. I think I'm going to swap a Temple of Abandon out for a 4th Temple Triumph.

So yeah. Elephants! I like this deck a lot. It's fun, it's winning, and there's still room for improvement. Of course, Born of the Gods is coming, and that's likely to shake up the format somewhat. I'm not sure about my specific deck yet other than [obviously] adding the W/G scryland. But for Elephants .. I'm not sure yet. We'll see what Xenagos and Karametra bring us. :)

Not much else going on with other fronts yet. I haven't gotten to play Pauper lately, but I think I'm going to try Dimir Control next chance I get. Probably in 2 weeks. I Judge'd at a PTQ in Green Bay last weekend, and I had a great time doing it. I talked to the HJ about testing for L2 (his wife is an L3), and hopefully I can set that in motion sooner than later. There seem to be quite a few more Judge opportunities coming up over the next few months. So that's exciting. :)

Well, that's about it for now. Thanks for reading!

Road to Level 2 .. .and .. more Elephants

Hi everybody!

So, I ticked off another requirement on my Level 2 Judge checklist: head-judge'd a Competitive event. It was the Legacy 1K at Mox Mania this weekend. Turnout was a little less than we would have liked, but considering the weather's been crappy and that seems to be finals time right now, 29 players isn't that bad.

I originally thought I was going to have my L2 mentor as one of my Judglings, but we had a miscommunication/misunderstanding, and he wasn't able to make it, so I had two relatively new L1's judgling-ing under me. I think that was actually better experience for me, getting to (and having to!) babysit them more. Thankfully, though, one of them has judged other Competitive events, and was able to demonstrate deck checking to the other one.

So yeah, the whole thing was lots of work. I underestimated the complexity of running the logistics of the whole thing: entering in results, generating pairings, posting pairings, printing match slips, starting the clock, cutting match slips, handing out match slips, swooping for deck check, etc. It was kinda hard work, but very rewarding. Great experience for by myself, and for my Judglings. A++, would head judge again. :)

Next step ... Meet with my L2 mentor, then probably contact an L3, and then take my test. Woo!

On the playing side of things, I'm still having fun with my Elephants deck. I made one minor tweak .. I swapped out the Lightning Strikes for two Selesnya Charms and a Warleader's Helix. I'm not sure that was the right call, however. Here's how it went:

Uncounterable elephant.

Round 1: vs. U/W Control. Game one didn't go that great. I beat up on him for a few turns, he wrath'd once or twice, then stabilized with Elspeth, and locked the game up with a Sphinx's Revelation. Textbook. Game two, I sided into the ham-fisted Control Hate configuration of my deck, with Mistcutters, Assembles, Boros Charms, and The Hammah. From there, the rest of the match just plays itself. One hard-to-deal-with Elephant after another. I won both subsequent games, I think both times with multiple threats still in hand ("I still had all these!"). Win, 2-1. Record: 1-0.

Electro-elephant.

Round 2: vs. Mono-Red Devotion. Same opponent as last week or a couple weeks ago. Again, he didn't get the greatest of draws, but he drew well enough to get one game. I don't remember much about this match, other than lots of burn and Boros Reckoners being tossed around. Win, 2-1. Record: 2-0.

Not an elephant.

Round 3: vs. RDW. This one didn't quite go as well. Game one, he put Mad Skillz on a Reckoner, and I had to dome myself for 4 to kill it. From there, he just had to patiently draw into his remaining burn spells. Second game, his turns were: (1) Cackler, (2) Zealot, (3) [something .. I forget], (4) Burning-Tree, Burning-Tree, Fanatic of Mogis. GG. I guess. :/ Loss, 0-2. Record: 2-1.

Flying elephant!

Round 4: vs. Junk Reanimator brew. I appreciate this guy's brewing spirit, but it seemed like his deck was trying to do too much. He was playing four colors, splashing red mostly for Sire of Insanity. Game 1 went pretty quickly, with me overwhelming him pretty early with Elephants, and punishing his "all-in" play on Lotleth Troll with a Chained to the Rocks. Game two, he had the turn three Whip of Erebos, but I had the Wear // Tear to put the kibosh on that. I quickly followed up with Elephantile beatdowns and soon victory was mine. Win, 2-0. Record: 3-1.

Well all that was good enough for second place! The RDW opponent ended up winning out, and all of my previous opponents did pretty well, so my tiebreakers were pretty good. It was enough for about $13 in store credit, so minus the $10 entry fee, I made $3 on the night. Woo!

Thoughts on the deck:

• I should probably shore up the red aggro matchup. Voices and Reckoners aren't quite cutting it. Selesnya Charm is cute, but I think I really need more removal. I think I should just put in that fourth Mortars, and maybe some lifegain. Hmmm .. Fiendslayer Paladin? Unflinching Courage? That could be pretty sweet on a Polukranos or Reckoner. But I need some early burn, too. Maybe I just side out all the mana dorks and bring in Anger of the Gods? But I do like my Caryatids...
• The Control matchup seems just fine. I can probably cut back on some of the sideboard hate. Probably the Boros Charms. Or maybe bring some of that into the maindeck? It's hard, though, because both my Control and Aggro matchups seem pretty bad for game 1, and I don't know how to shore up one without borking the other.
• Deck is still lots of fun, and still has room for improvement. Which is both good and bad. I like the deck, and it's doing well, but I kinda wanted to try out Mono-Blue at some point. Plus, I just love saying "Elephant".

This weekend is gonna be an inaugural/test run of Pauper Constructed, which I'm looking forward to. I'm building my mono-blue Delver deck in paper, and it think it'll be pretty fun. Lots of Mox regulars have been expressing interest, so I figure we can try to start it up again after the holidays. I'd love to see it take off. But if not, I'll have fun trying. :)

Okay, well that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Elephants and Such

Hi!

Lots of stuff to talk about this week, so I'll just dive right in.

Flying Elephant!

Standard! Elephants! Stomp! I didn't really tweak much. I think just I just swapped out a Chained to the Rocks for a third Mizzium Mortars. Well, here's a brief rundown of how things went:

1. vs. Green Devotion. He had way too many Kalonia Hydras and I couldn't keep up. I Chained one of them, and he Bramblecrush'd it. Didn't recover from that one. D: Lost 1-2.
2. vs. U/W Controlol. Finally, a Control matchup! I lost game one when he stabilized at about 1-2 life, and my Last Elf Standing couldn't quite finish the job. Thankfully, most of my board was perfect against him, and he didn't really come close to being able to keep up with my never-ending threats. Voices, Hydras, Dragons, Elephants, oh my! Won 2-1.
3. vs. Drown in Filth. He drew terribly. I killed all of his doodz, and then him. Won 2-0.
4. vs. Red Devotion. Quick 3 games, mostly one-sided. Game 1 he couldn't keep up with my Elephants, game 2 I couldn't keep up with his Nykthos, and game 3 he Mortars'd my mana dorks and I was stuck without red mana and died to the Last Minotaur Standing. Lost 1-2.

Some thoughts:

• Boon Satyr was actually pretty sweet. 4-power flash for 3 mana is a nice ahead-of-the-curve tempo body. I think I'll keep him around.
• Mana continues to be awkward. I think getting the G/W scrylands would help. Of course, getting the M10/ISD duals would help even more, but .. yeah.
• I wish I could have more Rocks to chain things to. But damn, that Bramblecrush hurt. Maybe I should try Selesnya Charm. Hmmm ...
• Chandra did some good work. She helped me get a surplus of cards, ping dorky doodz, and force through damage.
• Mortars was pretty much always awesome. Solid early, and blowout late. I think I should go up to 4 of these.
• Boros Reckoner doesn't trade as well with trampling Kalonian Hydras as well as I was hoping. :( I wonder if I should drop to three of him in the 'board.
• Aurelia was pretty great at finishing games. Interesting little synergy with mana dorks, too. Makes me want to run more instant-speed stuff ... like Selesnya Charm?? Hmmmm....

Geist of Holy-Mackerel-Look-At-All-Those-F-ing-Merfolk

Modern! I love Modern, but my deck has been bombing lately. It's kind of frustrating, really. I don't want to abandon it quite yet, but I feel like I might have to. It seems like the games I lose are one of these scenarios:

1. I draw a bunch of control game early, but can't follow up with a threat. I run out of gas and die.
2. I draw a bunch of threats early, and die to early aggression/combo.

So do I go more Control? I don't know if that's what I want to do. But I sorta have to. Geist of Saint Traft on turn three does nothing against a turn-four Living End or Merfolk swarm. Do I concede Game 1 against them and board in a bunch of countermagic? (And speaking of Living End, Grafdigger's Cage doesn't do against them what I thought it would do. Frowning face.) Or maybe I play a grindy controlling game 1, and board into more Midrange stuff for games 2-3? I don't know. There's a big-ish Modern tournament coming up in February up nort' that I'd like to attend, so ... yeah.

What else ... Well, I'm head-judging a Legacy 1K at Mox Mania this weekend! I'm pretty excited about it. It's another step toward Level 2, as well as a great opportunity for me to get some experience head judging stuff. And I get to boss people around, too, which I'm looking forward to. :) I was hoping to maybe test for L2 at SCG Indy coming up in January, but my application got declined for that, so I probably won't even bother traveling to it. Frowning face. Oh well. Soon...

Yes, this was a common.

I'm also organizing a Pauper tournament to run at Mox for the following weekend. There was a tournament up nort', and some on the local MTG Facebook group seemed interested, so we'll give it a shot. :) I'm trying to find the last few pieces to finish putting together Delver. Should be fun. :)

Okay, well that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Braving the Elephants

So I gave Domri'z Doodz another spin last night at Mox Mania's Tuesday Standard Win-a-Box thingy. tl;dr ... I went 3-1, losing only in the final round to one of the two 4-0's, and getting 4th place (missing 3rd place on breakers). I'm pretty happy with how it ran, and I had lots of fun with it. Here's what I played (give or take a card or two?):

Land (24):
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple of Abandon
3 Temple of Triumph
4 Forest
2 Mountain

Doodz (25):
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Boon Satyr
3 Polukranos, World-Eater
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Removal (7):
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Lightning Strike
1 Magma Jet 

Planeswalkers (4):
3 Domri Rade
1 Chandra, Pyromaster

Sideboard (15):
2 Wear // Tear
3 Mistcutter Hydra
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Assemble the Legion
3 Boros Charm

... and here's how the matches went:

What's the saying about bringing a Cackler to an Elephant fight?

Round 1: vs. Mono-Red Devotion.
My opponent didn't draw very many of his lands, and I beat him up with elephants and such. Not much of a match here. Win, 2-0. Record: 1-0.

When her devotees are all getting trampled by elephants, all she can do is watch.

Round 2: vs. Mono-Green Devotion.
I was able to keep him off his devotion game with well-timed removal (Lightning Strike, Domri) and consistent elephantile pressure. I'm pretty sure Aurelia made an appearance, too, which was pretty hot. Win, 2-0. Record: 2-0.

Protection from Domri. :(

Round 3: vs. Mono-Blue Devotion.
So much devotion. Again, I don't think my opponent got the greatest draw here. I think he got kinda flooded at least one game, and failed to draw his best threats (early fliers and Thassa). His lonely Bident couldn't quite stave off the elephant beats. I survived a misplay in one game where I could have just monstrous'd my Dragon and killed him. But I thought I'd play out Domri and an Elephant and fight his Master of Waves. Then I realized, Domri's fight ability is red and can't even target the Master. Oops. So I just killed him the next turn. Win, 2-0. Record: 3-0.

Brave the Elephants.

Round 4: vs. Orzhov.
Hey, it's not devotion! At least, I don't think it was. He played lots of Orzhov lands, but I don't remember if I ever saw any black cards. But I didn't see any devotion stuff either (e.g., Heliod, Nykthos). Anyway, the first game I staved off his early doodz with removal. Fighting a Banisher Priest to free my elephant (okay, Hydra) helped a lot. I think Aurelia made another appearance.
Second game, I saw the Superfriends: Gideon and Ajani. Huh. So I was getting ready to set up my game-winning play.. attacking with an elephant, then following up with another elephant and a dragon the next turn. Then I looked at the friends: Gideon was at 11 loyalty, and Ajani at 7. I was dead on board to a doubple-striking/flying Gideon. So I attacked him down to 7 and took 14 the next turn. The next couple of turns were really weird, and I probably misplayed. I was able to dispatch Ajani over the next couple of turns, and attack Gideon down to 1, but then their old friend Elspeth made an appearance to kill all of my elephants. D: I followed up with a dragon, and I chose to kill Elspeth. The next turn, however, he had the Brave the Elephants to sneak his Gideon past my elephant. What I should have done was to kill Gideon (as silly as that sounds), and then I had the Mizzium Mortars in hand to handle Elspeth's flunkies, plus any other followup on his end. Live and learn. Or, die and learn. :/
The third game was much less interesting. I curved out with a couple of early elephants, but he unceremoniously Banish'd them both. I failed to draw into removal to get rid of them, and I was dead shortly thereafter. Loss, 1-2. Record: 3-1.

Hey, it was nice to be back in the X-0 bracket in the final round. :) Though like I mentioned, I didn't have the best breakers, and I fell to fourth place. But I split with my final opponent, so we each got 14 packs for our efforts. Not bad.

So, some thoughts about how the deck played out:

• The mana continues to be somewhat wonky. I'm not sure what I can do about it. I feel like I want another white source so I can more consistently hit Voice on turn two. Maybe the G/W scryland will help.
• I think I'm going to relegate Chandra to the 'board. I almost always wanted to side her out, and the one time I cast her, it didn't really matter. I think I'd rather have just more removal.
• Okay, Stormbreath is good. So many times he sealed the deal as "just" a 4/4 hasty evasive guy. Even against mono-blue, who has lots of fliers, he puts enormous pressure on them. And monstrous'ing is not out of the question.
• I need to tweak the removal some more. I kept finding myself with Chains stuck in hand without a Mountain to chain anything to. I'll probably go back down to a 1-of. But I'm really nervous about not having an answer for Thassa or Master.
• Also, I think I want more Mortars. A two-mana 4-damage burn spell is unexciting, but good. A six-mana one-sided wrath is pretty much a blowout. I think I should have 3, or maybe even 4.
• I probably need to let go of my irrational love of Scry. I love Magma Jet, but I think having that third point of damage is more important than stacking my next two draws.
• Polukranos. Man, what an elephant. It's a 5/5 on turn 3 or 4, and it picks off annoying little dorks on the other side of the board. Sometimes I wonder if I should go to 4 of these.
• Domri. Again, what a nice utility card. He draws me into moar doodz, and he uses moar doodz to kill other doodz. I didn't ultimate him last night, but I didn't really care if I did or not. Most of the time he was at least a 2-for-1, drawing me a dood or two, and picking off one of their doodz. Sweet sweet card. Sometimes I wonder if I should go to 4 of him too.
• Of course, when I'm thinking about adding cards, the question becomes ... what do I cut? This week, I'm looking at Boon Satyr. But really, there's nothing else quite like it. I really like it as a 4-power flash guy, and when I can flash him in at end of turn and follow up with a Dragon, that's pretty sweet. I know I've bestow'd him at instant speed, too, but that doesn't come up all that often.

So yeah, I'm enjoying the deck. It's fun, it's winning, and there's still room for improvement. I think I'll keep doing it. I started sleeving up Mono-Blue Devotion as a backup plan, in case I crashed and/or burned this week, but I think I'll give the Doodz another week or two.

On the Judge front, I'm pretty excited to take the next step towards Level 2: head-judging a Competitive event. Mox Mania is gonna run a Legacy 1K, and I'll HJ that with a couple of other guys doing the dirty work of deck checks and stuff. It's pretty exciting. I get to boss people around, I get to see weird stuff happen in an interesting format, I get to edumacate a new Level 1, I get to keep learning from my Level 2 mentor. And hopefully sooner than later I get to test for Level 2. I am excite. :D I was also told by my mentor that there's been interest in Judge Classes, so hopefully I'll get to run those too. I had a great time running the one a couple months ago. And at some point, I hope I'll get to start working Grand Prixs. Fun stuff. :)

Okay, well that's it for now I guess. Thanks for reading!

Where's the Beef?

In my deck, that's where!

So yeah, I'm enjoying my Naya Midrange deck, which I've been alternately titling "Domri'z Doodz," or "Where's the Beef?" Because, you know, the deck has lots of beefy doodz. Anyway, here's where I'm at now:

Land (24):
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Temple of Abandon
3 Temple of Triumph

Doodz (25):
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Boon Satyr
3 Polukranos, World-Eater
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Spells (11):
1 Chained to the Rocks
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Magma Jet
3 Domri Rade
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Sideboard (15):
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Wear // Tear
3 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Assemble the Legion
1 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Boros Charm

And here's how the matches went!

My brambles are no longer as concerned on turn 5 after I've already dropped 15 power on the board.

Round 1: vs. Gruul LD. Well, I give the guy credit for trying. But there's a reason why LD isn't good right now. When you're spending your resources to try to start blowing up lands on turn 3 or 4, and I'm dropping 4/4 elephants a turn or two sooner .... yeah. It didn't really end well for him. Win, 2-0. Record: 1-0.

Obey your master.

Round 2: vs. Mono-Blue Devotion. I was on the ropes for most of this match. Game one, he was poking at me with Nightveil Specters, stealing my lands, while I struggled to get a board presence. But then I landed a Stormbreath Dragon to hold them at bay while he started flooding out. Games two and three, he hit Thassa and/or Master of Waves early and often and I couldn't keep up. I think I need to tighten this matchup up a little bit. Loss, 1-2. Record: 1-1.

Awkward combat math combined with a threatening clock.

Round 3: vs. Boros. I played against a friend and new Level 1 Judge. This matchup seems pretty good for me, though. He didn't get great aggro draws, and my doodz quickly and thoroughly outclassed his. I was struck once again how swingy Boros Reckoner can be. In matchups where he's not as good, he's really not that good. But in matchups where he is good, he's one of the best cards in my deck. Also, Aurelia can finish a game nicely once I get a couple of beefy doodz out. It was also somewhat satisfying to scry a Domri to the bottom of my library after he got Pith'd. Win, 2-0. Record: 2-1.

I'm still not entirely sure how I'm supposed to chain this to the rocks.

Round 4: vs. Mono-Green Devotion. Piloted by a kid who's the younger brother of another regular at the store. But he's starting to come into his own, and he's been doing farely well lately. I was happy to meet him in the 2-1 bracket. Unfortunately, the actual match wasn't that exciting. We went to three games, where each game was decided on who got the biggest beefy dood out first. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't satisfying to finish the game by Chaining Nylea to the Rocks, and subsequently Mortars'ing his board before swinging for way more than lethal. Win, 2-1. Record: 3-1.

So yeah, I'm back above .500! Well, at least for this week.

Some thoughts on the deck:

• I hate to say it, but Stormbreath Dragon hasn't really been exciting me that much. He's decent, but rarely awesome. It's nice having a 4/4 hasty evasion dood, but ... sometimes I feel like it's just an expensive Loxodon Smiter. I wonder if I could cut down to two of him.
• I feel like I need a little more removal. I'm starting to think that the Magma Jets might should be Thunder Strikes. Too many times, I had a Jet, but my opponent had a 3-toughness dood that I wanted to off. But ... scry. :(
• Domri continues to impress. Most of the time (if not all the time), he was just a kill spell, or cycled, and absorbed some burn or beats. But for 3 mana, that's not horrible. I was pretty reckless and impatient with him, though, too. If I would have either played him after playing a dood to protect him, or played him and not swung with one of my other doodz, I could have gotten more value out of him. Either way, great card. I might consider going up to 4.
• I didn't get a chance to use Chandra much. She impressed me a lot in testing, but she didn't really come up all that often. She did pick off a couple of 1-toughness doodz, and she cleared the way for my one game win in the mono-blue matchup. But ... yeah. I'll keep my eye on her and see how she performs.
• I'm realizing one of the keys to this deck is tempo. I hit oversized doodz on curve and beat face. To that end, I feel like maybe I could work in an Advent of the Wurm somewhere. 5/5 flash for 4 mana seems good.
• I'm not really sure about Boon Satyr. I like the idea of having a 4-power flash, but I never really wanted to do the Bestow, and the flash wasn't really that relevant. A potential cut.

So yeah, I have a few things I could tweak with this deck to tighten it up a little more. I'm enjoying it, so I think I'll keep rocking it for now. Yay Magic. :)

On the Judging front, I went to a nice Judge Conference in the Twin Cities a couple weeks ago. That was pretty cool. Lots of great seminars, some good networking, some sweet Judge foils, and a nice presentation from our Regional Coordinator. Yay, Midwest. :)

And I'm continuing to be pushed towards Level 2. I think I'm ready. I just want to tighten up my rules knowledge a little bit more in preparation for the exam. And I gotta head judge a Competitive event. We might be able to just run a random Tuesday event at Competitive and let me do that. That's kinda cheesy, though. I'd rather do an actual bigger event. But whatever. I just wanna get 'er done at this point.

Yay. :)

Next Stop: Naya

Good morning everybody!

So I've been pretty busy lately, and oddly, I haven't gotten to play much actual Magic. I've been doing a lot of Judge Duty. But over the last few days I've gotten to play some, which is pretty cool.

I helped out at Gamehole Con, a great new local tabletop gaming convention, with a focus on "old school gaming" (e.g., Ernie Gygax, Gary's son, who was involved in the early days of D&D, was there to run some first-edition campaigns). We were supposed to be running a pair of 32-man tournaments, for Standard and Legacy, but very few people showed any interest in it. So we ran some Pack Wars and some Drafts. I ended up playing in one of each, and I actually had a lot of fun.

The way we did Pack Wars was a little weird, though. For subsequent rounds, we just shuffled the second (and third) packs in, without tweaking anything (including the number of lands). So a lot of it was dependent on hitting land drops. So in that respect, my MVPs were my scry land and the pair of Traveler's Amulets. I ended up winning the whole thing, which was pretty rad.

The Draft was a 6-man affair, and I had a pretty fun black/red deck packed with removal and some light devotion aspects. My all-star, by far, was Whip of Erebos. Card is insane in Limited. Racing me was almost impossible. I ended up going 1-1 before dropping because I had to get going. But the format seems like fun, and I'd like to try it again sometime.

So, hey, I got a new Standard deck. Finally! I settled on Naya Midrange, and my deck looked kinda like this:

Land:
4 Temple Garden
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
4 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Temple of Triumph
3 Temple of Abandon

Creatures:
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Aurelia, the Warleader

Spells:
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Domri Rade
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Warleader's Helix
1 Assemble the Legion

Sideboard:
2 Wear // Tear
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Assemble the Legion
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Primeval Bounty
3 Boros Charm

And here's how it went:

Round 1: vs. Boros Devotion. A recent runner-up deck. Kind of a RDW kinda deck, but focusing on Devotion for reach (Fanatic of Mogis). White was a splash for stuff like Chained to the Rocks, and I think some other random creature. We played three fun, really close games. The match really could have gone either way, but in game three he got stuck in topdeck mode, looking for a Fanatic or a Dragon that couldn't quite find its way to his hand. So I had to go on the offensive and try to get there as fast as I could. Which I did. I won, but could have easily lost in an alternate universe. Win, 2-1. Record: 1-0.

Round 2: vs. 3-Color White Weenie. Huh? Well, it's mostly white weenie, but with a blue splash for Rapid Hybridization, and a red splash for a couple of doodz and I think a couple of spells. Unfortunately for me, Soldier of the Pantheon is really hard to deal with. Most of my early creatures are multicolored, and when buffed by Spear of Heliod, Caryatid can't hold the fort. Then by the time I can get Polukranos online, he's ready to Brave the Elements. Tough loss. Loss, 0-2. Record: 1-1.

Round 3: vs. Bant Control. Pretty cool brew, but it seemed like he couldn't really get much going, or even slow me down that much. I played doodz, he Jace'd, he Verdict'd, I played more doodz, ultimate'd Domri, and he died. Second game, I played a couple of planeswalkers and had the Boros Charm when he tried to Ratchet Bomb them. Win, 2-0. Record: 2-1.

Round 4: vs. Boros White Weenie. Mostly the same deck as round 2, but without the blue splash. It played out similarly, though I did win the first game pretty easily by curving out into all my monsters. Loss, 1-2. Record: 2-2.

My round 2 opponent went on to 4-0, and so I had pretty good tiebreakers. Good enough for 11th place, and 4 booster packs. The best pull from them was a foil Anger of the Gods. Pretty sweet. :) But more importantly: I'm winning again! That felt pretty good. However, the deck is pretty flawed, and I'm not certain how much I'm actually going to play it. Here are some thoughts:

• The mana is really, really awkward. Curving out is darn near impossible, with so many ETBT lands, mono-green acceleration. There were way too many games where I didn't have much to play out until turn 3.
• Along those lines, I need to revisit my removal suite. I need more early removal. Helix is a great swing, but at 4 mana, it's not terribly practical. At that point, I want to be deploying monsters, not burning random weenies. I think I probably want something like Shock or Thunder Strike or Magma Jet for that purpose. Chained to the Rocks was pretty sweet, but I wasn't nearly as likely to have a Mountain in play at any given point as when I was playing B/W/R. Probably a good spicy one-of.
• Some of the maindeck singletons were cute, but not terribly effective. I love Hammer, but it's not really what I want to be doing maindeck. I'm moving it back to the 'board. Assemble was the same kinda thing. I always wanted to deploy a Dragon or a Hydra instead of a slow enchantment.
• Chandra was excellent. I only got her out once, but she killed a mana dork, and drew like 3 cards. I think I'm gonna splurge for a second one. She'll kill Soldier of the Pantheon, that's for sure. Her Falter effect could help me tempo out an alpha strike, too.
• Xenagos wasn't that exciting. The hasty Satyrs were fine against the Control deck, but again, I'd rather deploy a monster.
• I was impressed with Voice of Resurgence. I was fine just chump blocking with them, and letting the Elementals they left behind loom threateningly on board. The Elementals make mana dorks not-terrible topdecks, too.
• Domri was pretty awesome, too. He mostly drew cards, but he did instigate a fight that helped swing the board state in my favor. I'd consider a fourth, if I wasn't terrified of having multiples stuck in my hand. And the interaction with the scry lands was very cute, and actually pretty good.
• I'm pretty happy with my suite of beefy doodz. Smiter is a huge undercosted body that clogs up the board like a boss. Ditto with Polukranos. Stormbreath Dragon, with its hastiness, was a great way to set up alpha strikes.
• I was thinking about the possibility of going Jund, because black gives me access to Thoughtseize and lots of great removal, but giving up white means giving up some great creatures like Smiter and Voice. Part of the reason I wanted to play Naya was for beef, though, so I think I'll stick with Naya for now. Plus, we're missing two of the color combinations for scry lands. So .. yeah.

Yeah, I like the deck. I think I can make some tweaks, tighten it up, get some better game against Aggro, and we'll see how it goes. :)

Thanks for reading!