My Weekend with King Hulk by Ben Botts

Ben Botts aka @BottsThoughts has graced us with another guest blog post — this time with his experience with Raka XXX / King Hulk.

Anyone who wants to check out Ben’s last contribution to Five should read Cascade Control by Ben Botts.

Thanks Ben!

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Hello e’re body. I have yet again been honored with a guest blog on this here interwebs, courtesy of Mike Flores.

Per request I have made some time to scribble down my adventures of last weekend’s Type 2 Saturday at the local card shop here in Humid Fayetteville, North Carolina:

(smell the plug)

Cardz-N-Things

(inserting Garth Brooke’s, Shameless, while i’m at it)

Moving along …

I had been enjoying his more recent [sic] Mid-“Borderland”-Ranger Naya list recently, yet when Flores had mentioned he had “teh tech” (early that Friday via Twitter) for this past weekend I was refreshing his blog every few minutes (Come on … don’t lie to yourself; I know a few other folks who were just as feverish as I).

His list became the cards I sleeved up and shuffled towards a successful 4-1-1 record on the day.

Raka XXX, tBVotBD (King Hulk, in my book)

4 Ajani Vengeant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

4 Wall of Omens

4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Spreading Seas
2 Oblivion Ring

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Mind Spring
3 Martial Coup
3 Day of Judgment

4 Celestial Colonnades
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Plains
4 Island
3 Mountain

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The only changes to my 60 and that of Mike Flores were:

-1 Island, +1 Mountain
-1 Cancel, +1 Ajani Vengeant

Having gone up one more copy of an amazing Planeswalker I then needed to make sure I could validate this inclusion (i.e. eight Red spells in an essentially U/W Control build). I know, I know most of you are now scratching your heads, or simply clicking your way to another website, but hear me out! Or at least continue reading.

I am no Menendian when it comes to percentiles, nor am I able to simply conjure a perfect pie chart to display my reasoning. Yet to go from 7 Red spells that only ask for 1 red source to 8 Red spells that; yes continue the aforementioned trend; isn’t as simple as it seems. To me anyway.

I figured I needed to make sure that my 6 Fetch Lands were capable of meeting said requirements. This having been said it should then lead you to see why I added my third Mountain. I did not want to find myself in a situation where I needed to hit a red source for my Lightning Bolt(s), and/or Ajani(s) yet couldn’t. I wanted to increase my chances of hitting said color requirements without straining the already dedicated mana base.

Three Mountains for eight Red Spells. With six fetches available to delivery the goods I never once had a color screw on the entire day. That is the only Maindeck exception from what is entirely Mike’s creation.

OH! Sideboard … right, right:

4 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
2 Scepter of Dominance
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Telemin Performance
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Note the lack of Baneslayer Angels… if you have extra lying around I would gladly help you find an adoption agency willing to help relocate them to my 75.

Telemin’s Performance was brilliant on the day; just give it a chance.

As to prevent further boredom (hopefully you are still awake this far along) I am going to give my 6 rounds of play a somewhat paltry breakdown.

Round 1: Jeff, playing U/B Control

Game 1: I win the dice roll (lucky mise)

The game is boring from the get-go. He is playing an entirely obscure deck that I was neither worried about, nor hesitant to play into. For the first 9 turns(!) it was the typical: draw, land, go. Game 1 consisted of my Jace killing his Jace, me sticking an Ajani that went Bruce Willis on his manabase after a few redundant turns of “Simon Says” on his CitP tapped lands. I did fumble a turn 4 Jace off of a chalice, however. Instead of opting to roll Jace up w/ his first ability I simply brainstormed without much thought. Then when my opponent untapped I sadly frowned at his Creeping Tar Pit that suddenly went sideways into my Jace. I promptly made sure the next Spreading Seas made sweet nautical love to said offender ASAP.

me 1 – him 0

Game 2: After having not seen a single creature game one on his side of the table I took quick action

-3 Day of Judgment
-2 Martial Coup
-1 Wall of Omens

+2 Negate
+2 Scepter of Dominance
+2 Telemin’s Performance

Please do the math and figure out what happened … turn 6 he scooped on an unanswered Telemin’s. I flipped 1 of his 3 Sphinx of Jwar Isle. He had taken out his spot removal, and had also sided out his Gatekeeper’s. It didn’t hurt my feelings when I flipped 2 foil Sorin’s along with 1 foil Jace after the Telemin’s resolved.

Round 2: John, sporting White Weenie

I do not master the art of winning the dice roll, and John leads off the match w/ a Student of Warfare (How cute).

I land a turn 2 Chalice which allows me to plant 2 Wall of Omens on my third turn; which had me feeling pretty safe. Until his 4th turn procured an Elspeth (The angry virgin). On my turn I rip 1 of the 2 O Rings MD and promptly lay it down on her. Only to watch as John gleefully lays down a Gideon on the following turn. Now I have to race a Gideon and a Student of Warfare. He paths one of my Walls on his turn, and I happily get one of my 3 Mountains. After I stick an Ajani his Gideon never untaps the rest of the match (Seriously … Ajani is teh nuts). The usual song and dance involved a Celestial Colonnade and a few swing with a 7 deep Martial Coup then we were off to the SB for game 2.

me 1, him 0

– 1 Elspeth
– 1 Jace

+ 2 Oblivion Ring

Nothing much to change in my Maindeck for the 2nd game … I figured more O Rings would be helpful to stunt an early onslaught – long enough to land a DoJ and/or a healthy Martial Coup. And Mike’s list essentially favors the aggro match-up (especially WW, or any non-RDW list for that matter).

Game 2 was over pretty easily. Nothing to elaborate on except that Mike’s list rolls aggro … hard. Sad to say nothing exciting to discuss on this match-up.

2-0 (4-0) so far

Round 3: Bobby, running Jund (ala Stock Car)

Bobby is a friend of mine, and sad to say he was playing Jund. Yet unlike Affinity – you can’t just punt every misplay and still come out ahead. With that as my precursor it is safe to say I won this round … because … honestly WHO WANTS ANOTHER JUND MATCH-UP ANALYSIS? Maybe I am being trite, and rather unforgiving but I will not sit here and delegate on the behalf of “Well, Johnny, this is how you play against Jund”.

All I will say is that we went all 3 games. I ended up squeezing out the 3rd game with some extremely tight play;that and he never saw a Blightning (the entire 3rd game … who was the lucky duck? Me)

3-0 (6-1) On the day so far

Round 4: Adam (3-0) w/ Jund

We ID into the Top 8 so neither of us have to spend the next 50 minutes figuring out what will be cascaded and how much my Martial Coup will be for. I seriously loathe playing Jund. It isn’t a contempt for said deck … it’s the bandwagon it generated (eg, Faeries, Affinity, etc, etc). Almost no innovation has taken place since the original list surfaced some time last year.

Sure we’ve seen a few Borderland Rangers, Elvish Visionaries, and the sporadic Master of the Wild Hunts being featured in some builds. Yet nothing truly innovative has come from playing Michael_Jordan.dec (greatest all time; hands down) That said I don’t see Lebron James hoping to be “Like Mike”. He is creating his own future in the NBA. Did that help drive my point home?

3-0-1

Round 5 (Top 8): Matt, playing ??

… … … … My opponent dropped? … … I sat there for 11 minutes (giving them plenty of time to make it since we don’t run a clock for the Top 8 matches) waiting for him to show up. The round was almost over when his (Matt) girlfriend shows up. He had left with his boys to go out for drinks, and apparently forgot to pick her up from work. Her mom dropped her off.

Needless to say his chops were busted.

And I was given a free round … luckily while I had been waiting I was able to squeeze in an Epic Game of EDH so the entire time had not been wasted.

4-0-1

Round 6 (Top 4): Adam (w/ Jund)

So we couldn’t draw this round, thusly we shuffled up.

Please … Please … Please … for the sake of Orphans all around the world … do not begin to hound me for this round’s analysis.

I’ll give you a “Real Life: I’m Recovering” break down in a free form poem.

Game 1:

Putrid Leech
Blightning
BBE > Blightning
Blightning
FML.

Game 2:

Putrid Leech < Oblivion Ring Blightning < Flashfreeze BBE > Putrid Leech = Flashfreeze + Lightning Bolt
Wall of Omen(s) < Maelstrom Pulsing two'fer Master of the Wild Hunt < Oblivion Ring Martial Coup for 8 > his life total.

Game 3:

Duress > my Spreading Seas
Wall of Omens > his Putrid Leech
Blightning < Flashfreeze Blightning > nets 2 cards
Raging Ravine > my life total
Maelstrom Pulse > Ajani Vengeant
Ajani #2 < Lightning Bolt Ajani #3 < BBE into Blightning FML All in all I enjoyed the day. Hopefully that Jund Poem spoke to your soul as much as it did mine. Flores's list is legitimate. And in all honesty has an option to transform into "Super Friends" post board if you felt the urge to sport 2 decks in one. Laskin and Flores were spot on with calling the dominate color choices for this past weekend; as well as the months to come. As is the case I will gladly play this until another case of Deckbuilding ADD strikes. Which shouldn't be too far off in the near future. Sorry for the sporadic and hasty nature of my post this time around. I was unable to hit up a much larger venue to give this deck a Wayne Brady around the block. La'Chaim Benjamin David