Five With Flores

Part 1: Deck List

Here is what I played, Naya Burn:

4 Lightning Helix

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl

2 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Seal of Fire
4 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Tarfire

4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Mutavault
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Lash Out
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Kataki, War’s Wage

Commentary
This is essentially what I posted at the end of last week. The only difference is a swap of two Incinerates for two Tarfires. I told Osyp I wanted to play like one Tarfire and he said that he thought that Incinerate was the weakest card in my deck. If I had to do it over again, I would have played all four Tarfires and no Incinerates; moreover I would have done something with those Pyrostatic Pillars. There is a longer winded way of putting this, but they under-performed.

Part 2: Anticlimax

I went 6-2.

Osyp beat Josh in the finals, Slide over Faeries. Josh went 9-1-1 with his only loss being to Osyp.

My favorite Josh moment was in the quarterfinals. Josh came back to win Game One. He was absolutely demolished in the Faeries mirror. Stuck on three lands. Down zero Riptide Laboratories to two, lands down three to seven or thereabouts. Pulled it out.

“At what point would you would you have given up?” he asked me between games.

So Game Two. He has three mana untapped and a bunch of lands. End of his turn. There is a relevant Spellstutter Sprite on the board, but backed up by no mana.

Josh Mana Leaks it rather than spending his Spell Snare (leaving up the one for the Snare). The implications of this decision were many but I only thought one thing, almost fatherly: At what point did you get so much better than me?

So of course this was followed by untap, Future Sight (tapping out), and the concession from Ravitz

Osyp played brilliantly against Josh in what was not only a lopsided matchup (in Osyp’s favor) but where Josh mulliganed several times, and both games.

Osyp’s facility with Ghost Quarter and Astral Slide to resolve spells was the kind of stuff that they write textbooks about. They were the kind of plays that seem absolutely correct when you see them going onto the stack, but that 80% of players will never see… The same players will complain about bad draws or being mana shy when they explain why they lost.

As for my tournament, I beat Tezzerator, Faerie Wizards, the Adrian Sullivan Ponza deck, Zoo, Bant Aggro-Control, and the Lightning Bolt Deck; I lost to Faeries and All-in Red. Notably I never played Affinity.

The only interesting matchup of the day was my second bout against Faeries. I have won literally every Game One I have ever played with Naya Burn against Faeries; that said, I have lost a fair number of sideboarded games, so it was obvious to me that I was doing something wrong at some point.

The problem was at least in part that I was winning all of those Game Ones (win the flip or no), meaning that I was always on the draw in Game Two. My model included valuing Pyrostatic Pillar, so I was forcing myself to make room for more Pillars… but they are not particularly good going second in sideboarded games. I was usually cutting two Lightning Helixes to fit my three Lash Outs (though this is something I am comfortable doing in many matchups, including Zoo-ish matchups… Lash Out is almost always better since you have to invest three life to make three life under pressure); and that was sub-optimal.

So Game One I won in a hurry. Concession on turn four, I believe.

Game Two I went to Paris, took some damage from lands, and foud myself with a pair of Lash Outs and a pair of Ancient Grudges in hand (I sided in two for this game). My board was a Wild Nacatl and a Mogg Fanatic.

He was doing not so much, played Thirst for Knowledge for no bonus, untapped, and played Threads of Disloyalty on my Nacatl (1/1 on his side, I believe). I ran Lash Out for value and got in with Mogg.

He played Sower of Temptation #1; I got him with the Mogg and got more value with the Lash Out, but nothing still.

He played a naked Sower.

I finally ripped a Tarmogoyf.

He ripped yet another Sower and killed me in basically one swing.

So I was on the play in the third game. I thought quite a bit about this and decided that I was going to morph into a 100% burn / anti-Jitte deck, taking out all my Nacatls, Apes, and ‘Goyfs. The reason is that even though I “shouldn’t” lose to Sower of Temptation very often, I was not likely to beat a Threads of Disloyalty on Tarmogoyf… and this game he showed me Firespout, Sower, Threads, and Chrome Mox… and since he played Thirst for Knowledge, I felt it safe to assume he was packing Vedalken Shackles, too.

Therefore he was an anti-creature Faeries deck, and if I made myself a creature-poor burn deck, I might be able to ride the repositioning. As it turns out, he out-sideboarded me and presented two Glen Elendra Archmages. I drew two Ancient Grudges and all three Jittes but he still out-Jitte’d me thanks to Academy Ruins. The sheet said “4″ at the end of the game, but he had an active Jitte, so who knows what his true life total was? That said, it was probably closer than it should have been.

My other loss was to All-in Red in two non-competitive games where he mised on the first turn. In either game if he didn’t follow up with Blood Moon I think I could have won. Nothing to say here… That deck shouldn’t do well, but you can’t complain about those kinds of matchups in the loser’s bracket.

Of the rest of my matches the most interesting was v. Luis Neiman (aka Luis not Vargas) right after I had dropped. He convinced me to un-drop and then we were paired! Pulled it out after getting face planted by Blistering Firecat in Game One (actually tagged all three games by that guy to one degree or another). Luis Molten Rained me to a Mutavault in Game Two and drew nothing, so I came back to force the third.

Part 3: What If… ?

I have to think on the new version of the deck list for a while, but I think I would play this again. Probably look something like this main:

2 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Lightning Helix

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl

4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Seal of Fire
4 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Tarfire

4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Mutavault
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
3 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

The Jitte’s a little out of place… Maybe Lash Out or Incinerate? Lash Out is the best burn spell in this deck after Tarfire and Seal of Fire. Yes, better in most cases than Lightning Helix. For example against one of the burn decks There was a Sulfurous Vortex in play before I even had the White for Helix! (Though admittedly it saved me from Zoo with a little careful damage stacking). In general you have to invest a couple of life to get back a couple of life… Still a great card, just not as good as Lash Out in a strategy that wants to hurt the opponent.

More later…

LOVE
MIKE

This video is a short showcase of Kenneth Ellis’s PTQ-winning Bant Aggro-Control deck. The Bant deck has numerous angles of attack and paths to victory (as well as opportunities to disrupt the opponent’s forward momentum). I would definitely consider playing it.

Consider this a sneak preview of this week’s Top Decks

Kenneth’s deck, which won the San Diego area PTQ the last week of January:

2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

2 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Spell Snare
2 Stifle
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

4 Bant Charm
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Rhox War Monk

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Troll Ascetic

3 Breeding Pool
4 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Treetop Village
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Stifle
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Voidslime
1 Worship

Now when I say that I would consider playing this deck, I am of course lumping it in a general sense with “Critical Mass” per the previous post “What Would MichaelJ Do?”. I think that either strategy could potentially gain from Noble Hierarch, particularly on the Tarmogoyf fight (Tarmogoyf race)-winning side(s).

Kenneth’s deck also plays Gaddock Teeg, which was so troublesome for me when I was playing ponderous control strategies earlier in the season; I don’t know how that would intersect with Path to Exile at this point, other than the fact that Kenneth’s deck has some basics to find and could itself benefit from some Path to Exile attention.

As you will see in an upcoming video, while Red is nice in the Critcal Mass-style sideboards, White is just a hammer. Poor Affinity.

LOVE
MIKE

Offense? Out of a U/W Control deck?

The U/W ‘Tron deck has such powerful mana production that it can produce some awfully awful threats. This video shows off the ‘Tron offense including Sundering Titan and the Mindslaver lock.

What is the Mindslaver lock? Check out the video already!