This one is a short analysis plus five matches with a new Zoo-ish deck inspired by The Lightning Bolt Deck.
Yesterday Luis Scott-Vargas posted an interesting deck on Star City Games yesterday.
It was based on a PE Top 8 deck by Adam Prosak.
Some of the cards I don’t love (in particular Mutavault is not something I would have started with) but I didn’t change the deck over-much until playing it some.
What makes Mutavault send shivers up my spine? I don’t like it in general but this deck is three colors and sometimes it just screws you. I guess it gets in for damage sometimes but that damage doesn’t seem particularly relevant to me. Also I hate random two-ofs as you know.
This is how I played the deck:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Molten Rain
4 Seal of Fire
2 Sulfuric Vortex
sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Cryoclasm
2 Lash Out
2 Sulfuric Vortex
The original deck had a different three mana burn spell; I added Sulfuric Vortex in the slot (LSV made the same suggestion); you can’t avoid random two-ofs in a deck with twenty-two lands. Sulfuric Vortex is the strongest card in this deck. I mean Tarmogoyf is pretty good too but Sulfuric Vortex is the card that closes out games and makes them unwinnable for the opponent.
I left the Mutavaults because I didn’t know how to change things. Interestingly (especially for a twenty-two land deck) this one got flooded a bunch of times in the five matches I played. Small n, I guess.
The sideboard I made is very different from the ones posted.
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
This card is pretty good, you may have heard at some point. You kind of need it to zero out the opponent’s Jitte if nothing else.
4 Ancient Grudge
The original deck leaned more towards the Lightning Bolt deck than Zoo, but I think Ancient Grudge is more appropriate to this strategy than Smash to Smithereens (even though that is the sexier card in terms of you know, pure sex appeal).
4 Cryoclasm
I can’t cotton to playing Choke (even though I think I’ve won 75% of tournaments I’ve played lifetime with Choke in the sideboard). This deals three damage instead of giving them two permanents to blow up with Engineered Explosives after they’ve set you up with Venser. Random question… Do you think going to 8 Stone Rains is a strategy against real Zoo? They have a Plains, a Steam Vents, all kinds of Plains and Islands actually.
2 Lash Out
This card is great. Better than Incinerate against beatdown; comparable to Magma Jet, but does trips.
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Either they all come out or these two come in (more common) or you forgot to side them out.
I decided to play five matches with this deck because this is, you know, Five With Flores. I actually lost my notes from the first 2.5 matches on account of I was falling asleep last night and then my daughter decided to get up at like 5AM and play Lego Batman and I think she crashed the computer (dunno, I wasn’t up… but my document was gone when I got home).
1. Affinity (either that or Lightning Bolt Deck)
I think I got flooded in the first game, then drew Ancient Grudge in the second game, then drew three Ancient Grudge in the third game. So result: winner.
I dunno if the deck is even good or if Affinity is just bad. I mean I have always respected Affinity but I have never remotely come close to losing to it in Extended since the card Ancient Grudge was printed. I also don’t understand Affinity players who think they can beat Ancient Grudge. I mean I’m sure they have convinced themselves that they can (and have in testing) because they choose to play Affinity… But I’m just saying I have played against Affinity and never come close to losing since the card was invented. What does that mean?
I actuallycould have lost two or three (he drew a lot of Master of Etherium) but like I said, in the third I drew three Ancient Grudges and you can really only lose to all-in Atog. When I tested real Zoo (not this burn deck) I play / played Kataki and Ancient Grudge because that is the kind of person I am.
1-0, 2-1
2. Lightning Bolt Deck (or Affinity, one or the other)
I don’t remember too many details, just how one of the games ended. It was pretty cool. He played double Vortex on me with a reasonable expectation of winning before they killed him. Then I played Vortex on him. So he took six on his turn (was only banking on four). Given his hand he had more than enough to kill me with the six (and he had only planned on four) the next turn but I untapped and killed him first.
The match was really close.
I didn’t gain much if any life from Lightning Helixes or Jittes (sided out my Vortexes obviously, even though they won me the first), but I got there by having better cards. Now I guess I am remembering more (that triple Vortex affair must have been game one, logically); second I got my Tarmogoyf killed by an Incinerate due to being rusty at Tarmogoyf. I won anyway in what must have been uninteresting fashion based on the decks.
2-0, 4-1
2.5 Lightning Bolt Deck I think.
I don’t remember. I remember being down a game and falling asleep. Match 2.5: You are erased from the record!
3. Braid of Fire deck
His deck was kind of cool but had some really less-than-Tier-One cards… just had things in common that they were cool with Braid of Fire (mostly jones that pumped for Red). Nevertheless I lost the first due to mana flood.
I came back and won the next two with these Tarmogoyfs. Uninteresting.
What was interesting was Braid of Fire. I am going to try to make a Braid deck that I will update on after I, you know, make it. The card seems quite powerful due to being asymmetrical.
3-0, 6-2
4. Anti-Red White Weenie
Game One he drew two Silver Knights and I wasn’t sure how I was going to win; then I remembered I drew Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf (which I had in play and in hand, respectively). Those aren’t Red at all! Thank you LSV’s article!
Game Two he drew first turn Burrenton Forge-Tender, second turn Silver Knight obviously, and followed up later with Serra Avenger and Silver Knight. I was playing kind of loose until I realized I was on the wrong end of 8-20 or thereabouts. I eventually won with Green cards on the ground, and burn cards to face.
4-0, 8-2
5. Death Cloud Rock
In the first I didn’t realize what deck he was; he won the flip and started on Polluted Delta. He later made a Swamp and cycled Barren Moor. Then he made turn two Loam. The game was not interesting; he conceded to Vortex on turn four even though I didn’t have that much going on.
Second game I lost to my own stupid mana base. He played two copies of Thoughtseize (why is that in your deck against a Red Deck sideboarded?)… he literally played Death Cloud for three (could have been six) before I could cast the Molten Rains I had left in. No, I had three. Three on three actually… But one of them was a Temple Garden and the third was one of those pointless Mutavaults. I conceded well before it was technically over because he left two Mutavaults and it was obvious I was not going to win.
Third game I kept two spells and he Thoughtseized my Vortex. Nevertheless I played a turn two Mutavault and a keldon Marauders and started getting in there (Mutavault kind of made up for the fact that it exists, therefore offending me). I drew another Vortex and Tarmogoyf and won thanks to the best cards in my deck.
5-0, 10-3 (if you want to count the aborted 2.5, 5-0, 10-4)
My conclusion is that this deck is very good. I would consider playing it in a PTQ. It really feels like Zoo to me, so if you like Zoo… that is what it feels like; much less so than the Lightning Bolt Deck.
I would add one Tarfire, possibly cutting a Seal of Fire, just for more Tarmogoyf mizing. Most people don’t have Tarmogoyf these days so I want to maximize potential bang bang. I guess you could also cut one random Sulfuric Vortex and move it to the sideboard, maybe over the third Jitte. The deck is actually reasonably prepared for Elves with Mogg Fanatic, Seal of Fire, and potentially Tarfire on one.
And to Mutavault: You are awful. But you aren’t fired yet.
LOVE
MIKE
PS Sorry this might seem a little grumpy. I am watching the Cavs at the Bulls and the worthless Bulls dropped our starting shooting guard (Delonte West) on his head and fractured his right wrist. It was about the worst hit I have ever seen in a basketball game. Very disconcerting, especially how the season has been going, how well Delonte has been playing, and the fact that we have a back-to-back home game (risking our NBA-best 19-0 home record) against the brilliant Chris Paul tomorrow night.
A short post Bill Stark did on the Mono-White Control deck he played last weekend (unsung credit goes locally to Reece Perry for believing, kschreve for Mistveil Plains, and everyone for reading and contributing):
I don’t recall if I have written about this before. Probably… It’s like I often say: I have a limited number of topics.
I’d like to flatter myself that my writing has changed the lives of some of my readers (I guess that helping a reader’s strategic game or cluing him in onto a deck list that he hadn’t heard of before so that he can get a Q might count)… That’s the dream for most writers anyway (or my goal, anyway).
This post is about the article that changed my life.
The setting: A little over 10 years ago* … Closer to lucky thirteen probably.
I was in the computer lab in my sophmore year dorm. I didn’t even have my own computer yet! (How did I survive?)
We thought Elvish Archers was a pretty good card to play in G/W Armageddon in these days.
I read a PTQ report by Bill Hodack about how he won “the Central New York Pro Qualifying Tournament” in Syracuse.
Bill played a creature-light “Necropotence” deck splashing Red for Lightning Bolt.
To our modern eyes his deck looks pretty inefficient (though at this point in 1996 I seriously doubt if I could have restricted myself to 60 cards)… Lots of janky two- and three-ofs.
But in 1996 I didn’t make judgments like that. I was a sponge. The amazing altran and I would compare notes. Standard Kim plays two Elvish Archers! Individual customization was not within the realm of our power sets. For deck variations, we looked to established deck lists and compared their moments of dissonance.
Bill’s deck, then, was a refreshing departure from Mono-Black.
Hodack only had to wade through four rounds of Swiss to make the single elimination rounds, and he had people running their Autumn Willows into teams of first striking Knights… But in the end, he got there.
Tournament reports were pretty new at this point. You automatically rooted for the narrator, even when he was a scumbag Necropotence deck. I stayed with him reading through this tournament report. There was no sad ending, no manascrew in the second-to-last round of Swiss. Bill just got there. Fulfillment of our — as readers — our wish-fulfillment.
It inspired me to want to do the same thing.
…
Five months later, I would qualify for my own first Pro Tour, also with a B/R Necropotence deck.
I’ve written a 700+ page book about Magic, headlined premium services, sat the Sunday booth in the most exotic locales the Pro Tour has ever dropped anchor, and even had the credits roll over my image hefting a trophy on ESPN, but in many ways, Hodack’s newsgroup post is the most important thing about the game I’ve ever read. It is full of strategic nuggets like “Drain Lifes become useful at about five mana” that have stuck in my mind for 13 years. In 1996, sentence fragments like that one taught me to think about the game in a different way and laid the groundwork for my ability to race in the heated give-and-take battles of the spring of 1999.
I’ve never met Bill Hodack (so I’ve never had the opportunity to tell him how important this tournament report was to me) but I recall Pikula once told me he is an all right guy. People assume I modeled much of my writing and directon on the work of Rob Hahn, but I am pretty sure I would never have attempted what I have done in Magic without reading this report.
This is the “unacceptable” discussion and “solution” (if you can call it that) to You Make the Play – enCRYPTed.
… And the first You Make the Play Video response!
To refresh everybody’s memory, it was Game Three against ‘Tron. We had two up, Spellstutter Sprite in hand, fully loaded Archmage on the table and UU up.
The opponent presented Tormod’s Crypt.
The board looked more-or-less exactly like this:
So what is the what?
The first question is, do we care about a Tormod’s Crypt?
We don’t care about graveyard recursion overmuch; what we care about is that the Tormod’s Crypt can keep up from doubling up with Archmage Persist-ence.
So the first question is whether we should be doing anything about it.
I think — and it will be obvious from my “solution” to the board position — that I thought it would be worth dealing with (I care[d] about my half of an Archmage).
So the next question is, assuming we care, what we are going to do.
I have to admit that at the time (I am sure I was watching Gossip Girl out of the corner of my eye) that I didn’t even consider using the Archmage to defend the Archmage. To me, it was Spellstutter Sprite 2-for-1 or nil.
So I went for the Sprite.
Results were disastrous.
Obviously he was the super uber miser, and had not just natural ‘Tron, Ghost Quarter, and a significant threat, but Mindslaver as well.
Ka-pow!
Mindslaver connected.
Archmage died without ever doing anything profitable for michaelj (AKA Number One).
Interestingly if I had used the Archmage, I would have been in a pretty similar position (albeit with one more Mana Leak). I would have been obligated to eat the Mindslaver anyway. That said, I think using the Archmage to stop the Tormod’s Crypt was the best play.
Pat Chapin — who called my Spellstutter Sprite / terrible read “unacceptable” when I talked to him about it — said he would have done nothing. “You realize you are talking about pulling down your pants to a potential Mindslaver in order to save half a card, right?” (He said something like that).
But what is really interesting is all the things that happened next. Check that action out here:
I’m sure you loved every minute!
Oh, and before I forget – Congratulations to Joshua Scott Honigmann who won a Kentucky PTQ with a Mono-White Control deck similar to what we have been discussing the past couple of days. You go Temple of the False God!
Recently I watched a video about negotiations. The expert negotiator (you would know his name) talked about how he went from making $38,000 per year to $1,000,000 per year in one year. This involved hunting down really successful businesspeople and convincing them to buy expensive training that would make them even more successful… A daunting task for a twenty-something with little formal education. What he said was that in these negotiations, the person who is more certain [certain of victory] will invariably come out successful. He credits his ascent to pure, unwavering certainty.
I have been thinking about this a lot.
There have been times in my life when I was playing Magic as well as anyone ever played.
I made the tightest reads, knocked off top players like tenpins, bit my lip until my mouth filled with copper in order to break myself of bad habits. The stretch of time between about Pro Tour Charleston until I won the New York State Championship, I was playing like I had never played before (or sadly, since).
I played so much MTGO in between those two tournaments. One of the things I am very proud of was the discovery of Skred as the best card in Standard (it would take almost two years for everyone else to figure out I was right). During this stretch I got really good at beating Solar Flare-type decks. My strategy revolved around attacking my opponent with Ohran Viper and drawing attention to Ohran Viper, manipulating with Scrying Sheets and Sensei’s Divining Top, and generally being a nuisance to my vastly more powerful opponent. I got him to worry about all these little cards and little things, devote his mana to my Viper; meanwhile I was concentrating on hitting my land drops.
A few turns later, the game would end.Â
Always the same way.
Lethal Demonfire.
At the time, I thought that I was good at deception. I thought that the keys to victory were in misdirection, “tricking” my opponent into dealing with what was “beating them” right now, managing the battle but invariably losing the war (when they would only be able to win by racing).
I carried the same mindset to the New York State Championship, but with Brian Kowal’s This Girl deck. The path was similar: incremental card advantage. I bluffed Remands that I didn’t have all day. Lethal Demonfire. Over and over, Blue deck after Blue deck: lethal Demonfire.
But now I understand (or at least can concretely contextualize) that I was winning on account of superior certainty. I was certain of victory because I knew the path to victory. My opponents, for the most part, played improvisation-ally. They saw something, assumed it was going to kill them, and utilized their cards and mana to deal with that thing, not realizing the games were always going to end the same way.Â
First of all I have to thank reader kschreve for Mistveil Plains. This card has given the MWC deck a new layer of capability it didn’t have before. For example against Faeries in a long game…
The starry eyed Faeries player might think that he is eventually going to gain inevitability with Vendilion Clique. However the addition of two Mistveil Plains (might even go to three over the second Urza’s Factory… a suggestion by Bill Stark) allows the MWC deck to push the game to the exact same position almost every game.
It is the kind of game where only unwavering certainty can lift the MWC deck… but if it is there, victory is certain.
The power of this strategy is that Faeries is also certain of victory, and invests a tremendous amount of psychic energy into a recursive long game plan… while MWC chips away at its certainty until eventually winning with damage. Consider the decline…
I’m winning! I have more cards! Plus, I’m Blue.
That was annoying.
I can use Riptide Laboratory to get out of this.
Wasn’t I winning a minute ago?
Okay, new plan: I have to use Riptide Laboratory and Academy Ruins to stay in this, eventually I am going to win with…
I didn’t care about those permanents anyway.
Okay, new plan: play for the draw. Come on Engineered Explosives!
How much time is left on the clock again?
FAIL
It is a lapse in certainty that will often cause us to err. There are matchups where we can see the light — the exact light — at the end of the tunnel; we need to get to that light. We know if we get to that light, that victory is certain… But the opponent presents us with a bump, another bump, in the road. Sometimes I say things like “Their cards only matter if you let them.” This is what I am talking about: When you start bleeding certainty, you make uncertain — often strategically ill-advised — moves.Â
Do you ever find yourself varying your plays because of something the opponent did? Suddenly you feel like something else is the right course of action. You get distracted and two LEGO pieces come un-hitched in your mind. You stray from the plan.Â
Brain fart? You made a move because you were — however momentarily — uncertain of the way to win.Â
I remember when I won 28-of-34 matches over three tournaments with The Rock (GPT win, undefeated in game wins; 6-2 GP finish; PTQ win). One of the things that I held like iron in my mind was that Trix could not win if I had Pernicious Deed in play and I had four mana untapped. Sometimes I missed a land drop and desperately wanted to play Yavimaya Elder. Sometimes I was frightened of all the cards that the opponent drew and had to dig half-moons into the palms of my hands to stop myself from casting Duress. Do you know how hard it is to ignore a Morphling on the board?
Those cards in hand…
Those missed land drops…
That Morphling…
What could he have?
Any or all were potential chinks in my certainty. I won because I never let them penetrate. Once you pass the turn with less than four mana in play… That is when you can lose to their combo.Â
Will certainty win you every game of Magic?
Obviously not.
But there are some games, some matchups that go for a long time and settle into the same card sets each and every time. They are won by the same deck every time, without variation, provided that that player holds true. When the opponent wins, it is because the other guy was mana screwed, well before Stage Three; that, or when the favored player gave up too much certainty and spent too much time and mana on things that had no bearing on the outcome of the game.
Sorry if this seems a little vague right now… I will flesh it out as the PTQ season progresses.
You Make the Play returns! This time it is Fae v. ‘Tron in Extended… So are you a metagamer or a savage miser?
It is Game Three.
Your opponent is on the play on account of you savagely destroyed him with Negate and so on in Game Two.
It is game three because even though you savagely destroyed him in game two, he made you look like a child — a child smaller than your Spellstutter Sprites — in Game One, exposing the severe inability of the Herberholz / Nassif-style Faeries / Wizards deck to deal with certain kinds of expensive threats.
Namely Mindslaver.
You conceded to Mindslaver but of course filled your deck with Negate, Annul, and Glen Elendra Archmage for Vedalken Shackles, Threads of Disloyalty, &c.
If you haven’t seen the deck (you have probably seen it because all the guys who have soap boxes to stand on have been saying it’s the bee’s knees, plus you are playing it so how could you not have seen it), here it is:
4 Mana Leak
3 Repeal
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Stifle
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Riptide Laboratory
1 River of Tears
1 Steam Vents
sideboard:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Annul
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Flashfreeze
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Negate
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Academy Ruins
Okay, back to Game Three:
It is your opponent’s turn seven. He only has six lands in play even though he has been a savage miser this game because one of his lands — a Ghost Quarter — is in the bin. He plugged your Academy Ruins (not realizing you are also a savage miser and are palming the other Ruins). He has just attacked your face with his Platinum Angel, so life totals are 20-16 in favor of the degenerate mana deck..
This is his board:
This is his graveyard:
(Simic Signet, Ghost Quarter, and Gifts Ungiven)
On turn two you sent Annul at his Simic Signet, his Ghost Quarter “traded” for your Academy Ruins, and his Gifts Ungiven was successfully stifled (not Stifled) by a Mana Leak last turn after he played his Platinum Angel.
Which means, yes. Savage. Miser. He has almost a double ‘Tron, a handy dandy Island, hasn’t missed a land drop, all-natural.
This is your board:
Not too shabby. You even have mana open for your Glen Elendra Archmage… twice if necessary.
Your graveyard is seven cards:
(Annul, Chrome Mox, Chrome Mox, Thirst for Knowledge, Thirst for Knowledge, Academy Ruins, and Mana Leak)
This is your hand:
Mana Leak
Spellstutter Sprite
Spellstutter Sprite
Riptide Laboratory
Riptide Laboratory
Academy Ruins
Tormod’s Crypt is on the stack.
I would do images to show your hand and to indicated Tormod’s Crypt being on the stack but I am tired of looking up hideous background images.
Anyway, the bad guy has two mystery cards in hand.
If I had to draw a picture of this game, in total, it would look, um, EXACTLY like this:
Okay You Make the Play-ers…
He is playing Tormod’s Crypt. Ye olde zero mana spell is on the stack.
This is actually Game Two of the previous post’s brawl between Zoo and the Lightning Bolt Deck.
… But this time, we are examining the game from the perspective of the enemy!
Why is Spark Elemental worth playing in a world full of Mind’s Desires and Death Clouds? Why would the greatest player of all time have chosen this deck, let alone posted a top finish with it at the World Champsionships?
Check out the SWOT on the Lightning Bolt Deck to find out!
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. Here is Jon Finkel’s Lightning Bolt Deck from the 2008 World Championships:
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Lava Spike
4 Magma Jet
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Rift Bolt
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Spark Elemental
4 Sulfuric Vortex
I have been calling this deck the Lightning Bolt Deck largely for want of a better name.
Basically the deck has every “bad” Lightning Bolt reprint from Spark Elemental and Lava Spike on one (Lightning Bolts that can’t kill Hypnotic Specters) to Incinerate on two (Lightning Bolt for twice the cost).
In all seriousness, the critical mass of burn in the Lightning Bolt Deck can help win the game very quickly (as in the video itself). This deck is definitely on my short list.
Sideboard
1 Deathmark
4 Thoughtseize
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Sundering Vitae
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ethersworn Canonist
Thaler’s deck does a lot of things differently than you might consider doing them. For starters he has all of his Jittes — three total Jittes — in the main deck. We would not have seen that a year ago.
Secondly, he mixes up his one mana removal spells and creatures. Thaler plays with a full set of Mogg Fanatics, and before any one mana burn spells, he stocks the one with almost the maximum number of Shadow Guildmages (killers who can also carry a Jitte)… Once he got there, Thaler mixed up Seal of Fire and Tarfire (one of each) to maximize the potential boost on Tarmogoyf, part tribal, part aura.
Osyp suggested a similar idea (but no deck list) on our mailing list. You know that I am like a feather and anyone suggesting I play this… I probaly will float in that direction if it is mentioned.
The deck list:
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
2 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
4 Decree of Justice
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Mana Tithe
4 Martyr of Sands
4 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Wrath of God
22 Snow-covered Plains
4 Temple of the False God
sideboard:
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Unmake
4 Condemn
1 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
I played about five matches with this deck last night but my computer crashed so I lost the notes. So I am going completely on memory for the first night.
For the first night I played on Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the main. It was kind of awful. In fact I played it as my first land against Zoo and Red decks and I think it cost me the Zoo Game One. So I moved it to nowhere (I always had the second Boseiju in the sideboard). Anyway, I crushed Swans with two awful draws and I don’t see how you can reasonably lose to Faeries or Wizards on MTGO; I don’t see how those decks can beat you in a tournament unless you don’t draw anything the whole match.
Swans
I get the worst mana flood ever. Crush him.
I get a medium horrible mana screw. Crush him.
The Swans matchup was pretty simple. I drew sixteen straight lands in Game One, and somehow won. Basically I took a couple of hits from his Swans and then played Chalice of the Void for two, to counter his Chain of Plasma. I blew up his guy.
Wait, wait wait… He goes for it, Repeals my Chalice and plays the combo with all his mana… I have the Mana Tithe. Of course I re-play the Chalice and finally draw Eternal Dragon. Blood Moon of course did nothing.
Game Two was the opposite… I wasn’t completely screwed but I was discarding for a while. Just so happened to have a key Mana Tithe, etc.
Affinity
I actually got run over by the super fast draw in Game One. Game Two I got Akroma’s Vengeance, and Game Three I got Kataki. Affinity is a non-issue for this deck.
Zoo
As above, I was quite punished by the main deck Boseiju. I replaced it with a Plains… The deck actually needs 26 lands, and skimpint to 25 hurt.
Game Two I kept a hand with three Eternal Dragons and Condemnm but only one Plains. It took six turns to find the second one. Some nice stalling with the Martyr helped a lot. This was actually pretty close… He didn’t play Teeg (at least against me).
Going down 0-2 to Zoo is annoying if he doesn’t present Teeg… Just a case of my hiccuping against Zoo and the fact that you don’t want to do that. The sideboard is chock full of cards that are actually cheap enough to point at Teeg.
Gifts Rock
Nope, this deck can’t beat Gifts Rock. Death Cloud and Life From the Loam destroyed me. I had a Chalice on two in play in I think Game Two but he just killed me with Kitchen Finks.
Today…
All-in Red
A surprisingly easy matchhp. Especially in sideboarded games, I had every Unmake a girl could ever want.
Lightning Bolt Deck
This one was also super easy.
My hot play was to Martyr for four, not five, not revealing my tricky card. The opponent tapped out to point Flames of the Blood Hand… My last card was Mana Tithe 🙂
Weird Elf Deck
I conceded match after he showed me a fourth Thoughts of Ruin. I actually screwed up on the first Thoughts of Ruin.
Fae
He timed out. I was the beatdown eerly, then got him eventually to three life. I suggested he concede but he kept playing.
There seems to be very little Fae / Wizards can do against this deck, at least in Game One. White has more card advantage, which is inexorable as it is inexhaustable.
The main advantages of this deck are that it is solid against Red and Fae. It cannot however beat The Rock, ever.
Just some thoghts. Happy New Year!
LOVE
MIKE
PS Is it worthwhile to splash Red? Lightning Helix is already White for the Martyr… Firespout might be good against Zoo and playable against Elves. Thoughts?
