Scars Remain

Hey Paul, guess what? I updated my blog. Yeah, it makes me happy too.

It's Sunday Morning, about 12:30am and last night/morning I was at the Toys N Things pre-launch party. It was absolutely awesome! While I doidn't blow away the competition, I went 2-2 with a fun UB Infect deck. Before i get to the deck itself, these are the rares I opened in my packs:

Sword of Body and Mind
Nim Deathmantle
Inexorable Tide
Myr Propogator
Razorverge Thicket
True Conviction
Ezuri's Brigade - foil

I made a UB infect deck that was more than half artifacts, although I didn't have any metalcraft cards in almost my entire sealed pool. I didn't know how good infect was going to be, and Inexorable Tide is my only proliferate card (although an amazing one at that), so there wouldn't be too many shenanagans going on.

Round 1: BR
My opponent for this round was a pudgy ginger that looked to be 12 years old. I didn't really like him at first because he was acting like a punk the whole time during the match. Over the course of the night I saw him from time to time and his actions simply proved he was a complete jerk. On a side note, he looks like he was 12 years old and he claims to have been playing Magic for 6 years. A little odd...

Anyways, Game 1 started off interestingly. We both were trying to poison eachother and I soon got him to 6 counters when I dropped Inexorable Tide. Now every spell would infect him. He then dropped Carnifex Demon and wound up getting me down to 4 life. He had 9 poison counters, I had 4 life. If I draw a spell I win, otherwise I lose. Top deck: Island.

Game 2 went worse for me, he only got up to 4 poison counters and he beat me down with his Demon again.

0-2
0-1

After that game I realized I was a little removal light, so I splashed red into my deck to add Shatter, Arc Trail, and Assault Strobe.

Round 2: Mono Green

Talk about meeting all kinds of people. Round 1 I was against this punk kid who had a voice like Justin Beiber and was all bragatory. Round 2 I am against a kid who has no business at the store, but said he was only there because his brother needed a ride. As it turns out he just gives all his cards to his brother and he doesn't even have any Magic constructed decks of any type at his house.

With that being said, his deck didn't actually do anything and i quickly won 2-0 without anything spectacular happening. Although I guess turn 3 Sword of Body and Mind against mono-green is pretty sick.

2-0
1-1

Round 3: Mono White
I honestly don't even remember playing this round.... According to my notes I went 2-1. Sounds good!
2-1
2-1

Round 4: BG Infect
At this point I was confident in my deck based on its success so far. Of course right when I get confortable is when I get awkward draws and go 0-2.

0-2
2-2

At that point I just dropped because I was tired and there was no chance of getting a prize. Despite my lack of success, there were a couple people of the 52 who were there who had some pretty sick stuff opened up. One guy got a foil Venser, which he smartly sold to the store as soon as he could for $50 (it's price will go down, I can almost garuntee it). Another guy opened both Elspeth and Koth, and a third guy opened Skithryx, Geth, AND Mox Opal. As he put it, "I am not normally a fan of black, but looking at my rares I really had no choice in what deck I was playing".

My initial thoughts right now is that green is amazing in limited and that there is very little removal in this set. I went through and looked at all the cards in the set and the removal is incredibly janky. Galvanic Blast and Grip of Darkness are the best removal spells, and the best removal is in green and red, but every color does have a bit of removal. The only removal in this set is mainly small damage spells that you have to sacrifice a bit of board advantage for, so if you are able to manage your recources effectively, something like Heavy Arbasest can completely dominate the game. Of the 120 creatures in this set, 55 have 3 or more toughness, so more often than not a simple shock card can kill anything. Of those 55 creatures, 16 are common, 15 are uncommon, 14 are rare, and 8 are Mythic. In other words, Almost every creature you will face will have very little toughness. The removal is also has slightly more artifact hate than average, but not as much as other people may have expected.

While I may not have actually mentioned it in this blog, most people who know me know I would much rather play constructed than limited any day. So, I shall segway into some more exciting stuff.

That time is finally here where I get to go crazy building decks for the upcoming standard. One deck I mentioned in my last post that I have been looking at and evaluating is the Primeval Titan deck. For the past while its been a GR Comet Storm deck, but I was thinking about making it mono-green. Matt Nass then wrote an article on ChannelFireball.com (which most comments stated the article felt like it was made overnight, wasn't thought out, and was written just to meet a deadline) where he mentioned putting Ob Nixilis and Primeval Titan in the same deck. My mind was blown to to how awesome that is as soon as I read it. I also tossed in a pair of Grave Titans and Doom Blades to expand on black a little more. The deck is actually very powerful, but only if you get Ob Nixilis. With the demon in play, you could attack, then in response to them taking damage you can cast Harrow. 3 damage all of a sudden becomes 15 thanks to his landfall ability!

However, If the deck didn't draw Ob Nixilis, it just fizzled. That's when I decided to try making a mono-green build with Genesis Wave like I mentioned in my last post. It turned out to be insanely powerful and WAY more consistant than GB. Here's my decklist:

4x Primeval Titan
4x Oracle of Mul Daya
3x Avenger of Zendikar
3x Overgrown Battlement
2x Kozelik, Butcher of Truth
2x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

4x Khalni Heart Expedition
4x Explore
4x Harrow
3x Cultivate
2x Genesis Wave

17x Forest
3x Tectonic Edge
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Eye of Ugin

Sideboard
Hornet Sting
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Artifact Hate (Slice in Twain?)

I wound up playing several games against Mark with the mono-green build. We played a couple games against Pyromancer Ascension after boarding to Polymorph (we thought that would be a better matchup because a turn 4 polymorph into Emrakul would stop my deck cold). Game 1 Was pretty much neither of us drawing anything until I cast a turn 9 (slow) Ulamog. Game 2 was the Polymorph show when Progenetis came out on turn 5 and there was nothing I could do. However, I asked Mark to get his UW control deck and play it because UW control has been and will continue to be an incredibly powerful deck.

Game 1
Mark and I both kept our opening hands and I won the roll. My hand consisted of:
Eldrazi Temple
Forest
Khalni Heart Expedition
Harrow
Primeval Titan
Ulamog
Kozelik

Turn 1
Me - Eldrazi Temple
Mark - Sejiri Refuge
20-21

Turn 2
Me - [D - Explore] Forest, Khalni Heart Expedition
Mark - Island

Turn 3
Me - [D - Primeval Titan] Explore [D - Genesis Wave]
Mark - Glacial Fortress, Sea Gate Oracle

Turn 4
Me - [D - Forest] Forest, Harrow, trigger Khalni Heart Expedition
Mark - Tectonic Edge, sac Tec Edge to destroy Eldrazi Temple, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
19-21

Turn 5
Me - [D - Kozelik] Genesis Wave (x = 2) hitting a pair of forests
Mark - Island, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Brainstorm with Jace, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
18 - 21

Turn 6
Me - [D - Eldrazi Temple] Eldrazi Temple, Primeval Titan (fetch Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple)
Mark - Arid Mesa, Jace unsummon Primeval Titan, Attack with Sea Gate Oracle
17 - 21

Turn 7
Me - [D - Harrow] Ulamog (destroying Jace the Mind Sculptor when cast). End of turn Mark pops Arid Mesa for a plains and casts Jace's Inginuity
Mark - Celestial Connelaide, Wall of Omens, discards Jace Beleran and Elspeth, Knight Errant at end of turn

Turn 8
Me - [D - Cultivate] Attack with Ulamog (Mark sacrifices Island, Plains, Wall of Omens, Sea Gate Oracle), Mark casts Condemn on Ulamog, I cast Kozelik, Forest, then discard another Kozelik at end of turn
Mark - Celestial Connelaide, Jace the Mind Sculptor, unsummon Kozelik with Jace

Turn 9
Me - [D - Cultivate] Avenger of Zendikar, Forest, Harrow, Cultivate
Mark concedes

I wound up getting insanely lucky that game on turn 5 when I hit 2 lands off of Genesis Wave, but aside from that it was a very solid deck that, if I had my entire hand discarded and Mark cast Day of Judgement, I could use Eye of Ugin to fetch a Kozelik, cast Kozelik to draw 4 cards and just keep on going. We decided to play another game which actually wound up being a ton crazier.

I kept my opening hand while Mark mulliganed to 6. My opening hand had:
3x Explore
Forest
Eldrazi Temple
Cultivate
Primeval Titan

Turn 1
Mark went first starting with a Celestial Connelaide. I responded by playing a Forest [D - Harrow]

Turn 2
Mark played a Mystifying Maze, while I [D - Explore #4!!] played an Explore [D - Forest] and then played the forest.

Turn 3
Mark played a Wall of Omens followed by a Tectonic Edge. I [D - Forest] played my Forest then cast an Explore [D - Genesis Wave] and then cast my 3rd Explore [D - Forest] and played that Forest.

Turn 4
Mark played an Island and passed. I [D - Forest] played a Forest, and then cast Explore #4 [D - Forest] and played a second Forest. When I tried to play Cultivate though, Mark dropped a Flashfreeze on it.

Turn 5
Mark Played Jace Beleran and used its -1 ability to draw a card. I [D - Khalni Heart Expedition] played Primavel Titan, and fetched up Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple

Turn 6
Mark used Jace Beleran's -1 again and played a plains before passing. I [D - Forest] played Khalni Heart Expedition and then my Forest. Mark then used Tectonic Edge to destory Eye of Ugin because I had spent the mana preventing me from beng able to fetch an Eldrazi in response. I then cast Harrow, which wound up getting countered by Deprive, so I lost a land. I then attacked with Primeval Titan, whose ability allowed to get 2 Eldrazi Temple and then trigger Khalni Heart Expedition, but before I could deal damage Mark had a condemn for the Titan.
26 - 20

Turn 7
Mark played an Island and used Jace's +2 ability [D - Genesis Wave], then passed. I drew and played Avenger of Zendikar, but Mark had another deprive for the Avenger. After that I cast Harrow and passed.

Turn 8
Mark played a Glacial Fortress and used Jace's -1 ability. Then he cast Elspeth and dropped a soldier token in play. I [D - Cultivate] cast Genesis Wave where X = 10 and got a monster hit. I revealed Avenger of Zendikar, 2 Primeval Titans, 2 Overgrown Battlements, Kozelik, Oracle of Mul Daya, Emrakul, Forest, and Cultivate. I couldn't play Cultivate or Emrakul, but I did drop Avenger of Zendikar first getting me 13 plant tokens, which all got 5 +1/+1 counters after dropping the forest and the 2 Primeval Titans, which both fetched up a pair of lands.

Mark started to scoop, but then commented out loud about how he forgot for a moment he had Day of Judgement in his hand, so we kept on going!

Turn 9
Mark played Day of Judgement, which was followed by Elspeth making a Soldier Token and Jace going -1 to draw a card. After that he played an Island and cast Preordain (1 on top, 1 on bottom). On my turn [D - Overgrown Battlement] I played the Overgrown Battlement and passed

Turn 10
Mark used a Tectonic Edge to destory an Edlrazi Temple, then used Jace's -1 again to kill Jace. He then played Wall of Omens and used Elspeth to give the Soldier token +3/+3 and playing to bash for 4. I [D - Harrow] cast Harrow, followed by Cultivate, and then I played the Forest in my hand from Cultivate
22-20

Turn 11
Mark played Glacial Fortress followed by Baneslayer Angel, and then used Elspeth to attack for another 4. I drew Harrow and passed.
18 - 20

Turn 12
Mark used Elspeth's ultimate Ability to make everything indestructable, then played another Elspeth to make Baneslayer an 8/8 and bashed with the Angel. I drew and played a Primeval Titan which fetched me an Eye of Ugin and a Forest.
10 - 28

At this point I thought to myself that if I could survive the turn I had enough mana to fetch and cast Emrakul, which would then allow me to fetch other Eldrazi on my extra turn. However, Mark showed me that he had enough mana to animate Celestial Connelaide for the win.

While I did lose that last game, it was against a powerhouse deck (and I did win the first game, so I split). Mark agrees with me that this could be the next big deck on campus. I really look forward to making the sideboard, getting comfortable with the sideboarding process, and taking down an FNM. I am pumped!

I look forward to making other decks in the near future. Some decks im currently working on are Mono-Blue control, Mono-White Myr, and Boros Equipment. Stay tuned for more updates whenever I can about all these new decks. Even if they won't take down a tournament, if they're fun, that's all that matters.

Until next time, never stop thinking about new decks and variations of your old ones, you never know when you're about to strike gold