Freaky Friday pt. 1

So after having 2 days of noting to write about on this here blog, I had a rediculous Friday of Magic insanity. I'm going to leave some topics for tomorrow though, because I took pictures and I left my camera in Mark's car after the FNM at Toys N Things. Despite that, I still have an FNM report for you, and an evaluation of the Standard Meta, so let's get to it!

FNM at Toys N Things
So for the FNM I was planning on running an updated Valakut ramp deck, but after buying 2x Elspeth vs Tezzeret, and DJ bought another one himself, I had 3x Elspeth to finish out my Soul Sisters deck, so that is what I ran. Here is my list:

Main Deck
4x Soul Warden
4x Soul's Attendant
4x Serra Ascendant
4x Ajani's Pridemate
2x Ranger of Eos
2x Baneslayer Angel
2x Sun Titan
=22 Creatures
3x Elspeth, Knight Errant
3x Ajani Goldmane
=6 Planeswalkers
4x Survival Cache
2x Oblivion Ring
1x Path to Exile
1x Oust
1x Brave the Elements
=9 Other Spells
16x Plains
4x Kabira Crossroads
3x Tectonic Edge
=23 Lands

Sideboard
4x Journey to Nowhere - For creature heavy matchups
4x Celestial Purge - Color Hoser for appropriate games
2x War Priest of Thune - For Pyromancer Ascension, Control decks
2x Felidar Sovereign - For Control decks and the mirror matchup
2x Oust - Creature heavy, or Mythic
1x Ajani Golmane - No real purpose.... but a 15 card sideboard is required, 14 is illegal

Round 1: UW Control
For the second week in a row, I am placed against my best friend/arch rival Mark round one. While I have some fresh deck tech, he is using the same UW Control deck that went 3-1 last week and completely routed me. However, Soul Sisters has a great UW Control matchup because it is so fast, and in game one I had an explosive draw that ended the game fast. Among my sideboarding was the Felidar Sovereigns. While I didn't wind up drawing them for game 2, I was still able to pull out a victory and win 2-0
1-0

Round 2: UW Control
Once again, I am against UW control, but this time I am matched up against ADB, the best player in the store. Maybe it was lucky draws or simply better playing, but I saw all the same cards from ADB as I did from Mark, but I lost slowly to Baneslayer Angel. After sideboarding, I hoped to do better, but it was all for naught as I played sloppily, missed about a half dozen triggers for Soul's Attendant, misplayed around his Celestial Connelaides, and ultimately lost 0-2
1-1

Round 3: GR Land Destruction
I had no idea what I was playing against when I sat down, but it soon turned out to be a very bad matchup for him. My deck has a very low curve, so his land destruction was effectively negated. My curve has 15 for 1 mana, 4 for 2 mana, 6 for 3 mana, 8 for 4 mana, and 4 more above that. After a fairly straightforward game, I sideboarded out my Sun Titans to lower the curve and be more aggressive. However, I found some serious backlash during game 2 where I was soon staring down a fair of Inferno Titans. I sent one on a Journey to Nowhere, but a timely Back to Nature quickly sent me packing to game 3. For this game I brought in the Celestial Purges, because I didn't want to get blown out again. Game 3 wasn't very tough though, and at the end of the game I found myself with almost 20 minutes to watch everyone else play some Magic. 2-1
2-1

Round 4: Pyromancer Ascension
In my 20 minutes of watching everyone else play their games, I came up with a mental pool of about 4 or 5 decks I could play, and was matched up with a fearsome Pyromancer Ascension deck which I watched win with 4 extra turns all cued up incase 2 active Ascensions with recursive Lightning Bolts was't enough. Despite it's awesomeness, I was able to pull out a game 1 victory when I had Oblivion Ring in my opening hand and I was able to turn off his deck before it got started and let my own plan take over. I actually have a great sideboard for this matchup bringing in 6 ways to remove the Ascension while taking out creature removal and the less mana efficient Oblivion Ring. Despite the grand sideboarding, he quickly got 2 Pyromancer Ascensions running, played Time Warp, got it back with Call To Mind, Warped some more Time, and then showed me a second Call to Mind. I just scooped as he has infinite turns now. During game 3 I had all my adrenaline pumping because I knew it was a pivitol game. For some really peculiar reason though, he never found any Pyromancer Ascensions for what seemed like 10 turns. It came to the point where he had more cards in his graveyard than in his deck, and there was no Ascension still. I hadn't been able to win though because he seemed to have more than ample removal and nothing I had could stick. Finally, near the end of the game, my creatures weren't getting bolted as the hit play, but he finally found his ascension with one card in hand. "And I bet he has been holding 3 War Priest of Thunes all game waiting for when I play this guy." Well, he almost called it. I had 2 War Priests and an O-Ring. It turns out the mystery card in his hand was a Mana Leak, but I had 6 lands, so it just fizzled. 2-1
3-1

As I was waiting for this round to end, I caught up with Defo, who had been doing insanely well with my revamped Valakut Ramp deck, and was 3-1 just like me. We decided that if we were matched up against eachother, we would just draw and split the prize. Mark also wound up going 3-1 up to this point, so we were wondering if Defo would play either of us.

Round 5: Valakut Ramp
Well, speak of the devil, I'm against Defo! After speaking with the higher powers running the event, we realized that drawing will prevent both of us from receiving a prize, and so the only way for a payout would be to play it out and see who wins. Game one kicked off really slow for me, but on the other side of the table, it seemed like his lands were doubling in size every turn. Ultimately without the help of Primeval Titan, Defo blasted me out of the game. However, I was able to come back for game 2 and 3 and managed to go ahead and win 2-1.
3-1

For going x-1 I won $12 in store credit =D. After the FNM Mark came back to my house for a little more Magic (because 4.5 hours isn't enough). The last thing we did before we left was write down all the decks we could think of that are in the Standard Metagame. We came up with 32 decks:

UW Control
UW Titan Control
UW Control -> Eldrazi
Mythic
Mythic Conscription
Next Level Bant
Naya Fauna Shaman
Next Level Naya
Nayallies
Pyromancer Ascension
Pyromancer Ascension -> Polymorph Sideboard
Simic Polymorph
UR Polymorph
Standard Jund
Jund w/out Removal
Grixis Control
Esper Control
Soul Sisters
Red Deck Wins
Beastmaster
Eldrazi Green
Vampires
RB Vampires
Megrims!
Runeflare Trap
Valakut Ramp
RUG Valakut
Destructive Force
Naya Homebrew
USA Superfriends
Eldrazi Ramp
Dredge-uh-vine

Long list short, Standard is a huge diverse game right now, and there isn't a better time to play. Of these decks, 14 are very unlikely to be around after the rotation of Standard with the release of SoM. Anyways, I just recieved a txt asking me to get this thing posted, so that is what I will do. Have a glorious rest of your life, and check in tomorrow for pt. 2