Back at Ancient Wonders

On Tuesday night I played in the usual Standard Magic tournament at Ancient Wonders. I haven't played at AW in over 3 months, mostly due to my class schedule this semester. I am proud to say I returned with a bang, going undefeated in four rounds to take clear first place. I once again ran R/G Wolf Run, with a few alterations to the sideboard after my experiences on Sunday.

The first round of the tournament I played against Will Wilding running Vampires. Will's version of the deck was different from other versions I've faced because Will runs multiple copies of Falkengrath Aristocrat. In my opinion, Falkengrath Aristocrat is just bad in the current metagame, with so many copies of Gut Shot and Tragic Slip in the mix. I lost game 2, but ended up winning the match without too much trouble due to multiple copies of Slagstorm, 2-1.

In the second round, I once again faced Ryan Engbrecht (the third time this week!), though this time he was running R/G aggro instead of Naya Pod. Ryan's draws were shit (again), and these games were fairly one-sided. Ryan seems to have bad luck against me, and I now have a small win streak going against him. I won the match, 2-0. There was one moment in this match where I learned something. In game 1, I went first and played a Copperline Gorge. Ryan went second and played a Birds of Paradise, and after he said "done," I paused for a bit to consider whether to cast Galvanic Blast on the Bird. This revealed to Ryan I had the Galvanic Blast in my hand, and he made some comment about it. I ended up casting the Galvanic. From now on, I should attempt to "bluff" having a Galvanic in my hand as much as possible, pausing at the end of the first turn even if I don't have it.

In round 3 I played against Steve Empey running B/G Birthing Pod. Steve's deck utilizes creatures like Glissa, the Traitor, Strangleroot Geist, Gravecrawler, and Geralf's Messenger to deal as much early damage as possible. Although our games never went long, I imagine he also includes creatures like Massacre Wurm, Wurmcoil Engine, and Sheoldred, Whispering One.This deck reminds me of Alec's version of Birthing Pod, although I think the absence of Blade Splicer and white in general makes Steve's version strictly inferior. After all, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is pretty damn good in Pod. Nevertheless, Steve did beat Alec with this deck the round before, and I just learned Steve also won this week's FNM at Knightfall Games running this deck, so who knows?

Anyways, as I said before the games did not take long. In game 1, Steve was able to do 16 points of damage before I could stabilize. At 4 life, I resolved a Primeval Titan and fetched enough lands to kill Steve with Kessig Wolf Run on the subsequent turn. He was unable to do 4 points of damage as I had already fetched enough Inkmoth Nexii to block any attackers. Game 2 was much more one-sided, as I resolved Inferno Titan on turn 4 and was able to eliminate any early agression. I won the match, 2-0.

In round 4 I faced Benny Gonzalez running U/W Venser. Benny's deck was unusual because it ran no counterspell magic of any kind. The first game took forever, and basically came down to a 2-turn sequence where both players took like 15 minutes to decide what to do. There were simply too many card interactions. Benny had Venser, the Sojourner, Mimic Vat (with Primeval Titan exiled), Phyrexian Metamorph, and Spellskite, and I was doing my best to kill him with either Primeval Titan or Inkmoth Nexus. At the end of his turn, I was able to cast Beast Within on his Mimic Vat, and then Galvanic Blast his Spellskite (with metalcraft). This freed up a Wolf Run activation which won me game 1. Game two was more one-sided, as Benny boarded in copies of Grafdigger's Cage, which just seems useless against my deck. Yes, it does shut down Green Sun's Zenith, and yes, it does sort of shut down Ancient Grudge, but it just ended up being a useless card. I won the match 2-0.

To conclude, my deck went 8-1 to take clear first and brought home the $30 credit prize. I was happy with the deck's performance as I only had to mulligan once the whole evening and I generally found ramp in each match. Thanks for reading!