"The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm."
---Charles Colton










Another weekend comes to a close, and with it another tournament at Guardian Games. I was hoping to follow up my performance on Friday with another strong result, but alas, it wasn't to be. I finished with three wins and two losses, and failed to receive a prize. Sad me.
I felt like my Jund Wolf Run deck played a little weaker today, perhaps because of some poor mulliganing decisions on my part. Although the deck seems to prey upon the NayaPod and Delver decks which were once popular in Standard, those decks seems to be receding in favor of different strategies, including Infect and Elves.

In round 1 I played against Michael Hume running NayaPod. As I mentioned above, I have been preying upon these decks recently. NayaPod is enormously weak to Slagstorm. Their ideal play is turn 1 Birds of Paradise, turn 2 Blade Splicer, and turn 3 Huntmaster of the Fells, which means I can sometimes cast Slagstorm killing everybody and getting 3-for-1. Thalia is a relevant card in this matchup if it comes out before I am able to cast Rampant Growth, but on the draw I think the Pod player should just board it out. These games were fairly one-sided and I won the match 2-0.

In round 2 I played against MonoWhite Humans. I believe Wolf Run is slightly favored in this matchup due to the various board sweepers it runs, which nearly always generate 2-for-1 situations. Nevertheless, Mirran Crusader and Hero of Bladehold can sometimes cause problems(especially when combined with Sword of War and Peace, Honor of the Pure, or Angelic Destiny). This time I drew enough sweepers early and my opponent quickly ran out of steam. I won the match, 2-0.

In round 3 I faced Aaron Henner running G/W Ramp. In Game 1, I kept a hand I shouldn't have and Aaron ramped better than I did. He played an Acidic Slime to keep me behind and a Karn Liberated to seal the victory. Karn Liberated has always been especially strong against ramp, as he kills Titans with ease and can completely take over a game. Game 2 was a bit more even, but I definitely felt like I misplayed. I had the 2-4-6 Titan, but slow-played for fear of running into a Day of Judgment or Planar Cleansing. In other words, I passed the turn instead of casting the Titan, hoping Aaron would cast a Titan first and ensuring that if he happened to cast Day of Judgment, we'd both lose a Titan. I realize now this was probably timid play, and I should have just gone for it. Aaron eventually took control of the game with a couple of Inkmoth Nexii and a Gavony Township. I lost the match 0-2.

In round 4 I faced Zach Ledesma running RUG Ramp. It's strange that I faced two ramp decks this tournament when I hadn't faced one in so long. As some of you may remember, RUG has caused problems for my deck in the past, and Sunday was no different. Whereas the usual RUG deck to I run into is more control oriented, Zach used some unusual RUG goodies: Frost Titan, Rampant Growth, Mana Leak, Primeval Titan, etc. I think I saw him netdecking before the tournament, so maybe his list can be found here. Either way, his list was potent and made short work of my few threats. I finally resolved an Inferno Titan, which he just Zealous Conscripted and killed me with. I lost the match 0-2.

In round 5 I played against Natalie running Esper Control. Game 1 was relatively short. I resolved an Inferno Titan which pretty much went the distance. In Game 2, I sideboarded in two Grave Titans and that's when some hilarious stuff started to happen. I resolved the first Titan on turn 4, which Natalie quickly dealt with using Go for the Throat. Next turn, I resolved an Inferno Titan, which Natalie killed with a Terminus. The following turn, I resolved another Primeval Titan, which Natalie killed with an Oblivion Ring. I followed that up with a Grave Titan, which Natalie finally killed with another removal spell. In the end, I casted a Karn Liberated, killed the Oblivion Ring, brought back my Titan, and won the game. She seemed a little upset at the number of Titans I drew, and I admit, even though I ran 9 Titans, drawing 4 or 5 is a lot.

So there it is. I finished 3-2, and failed to win a prize. Boohoo. Still, got another chance tonight at Ancient Wonders. See you there!

"And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
 In human gore imbued."
 ---Edgar Allen Poe, "The Conqueror Wurm"












Time to update! As many of you know, I spent the last few months preparing for the bar exam, which I finally took on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (hurray!) What this means is, I have time to play Magic again! My first tournament back was a 5 round FNM at Guardian Games. I scored 4-0-1 and tied for first place with Ryan Engbrecht. I ran my usual Jund Wolf Run list.


Round one was quite difficult. I played against a U/W Venser control deck, and as you can imagine, the match took forever. My opponent's deck included cards like Ponder, Tumble Magnet, Tezzeret's Gambit, Venser the Sojourner, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Terminus, and Gideon Jura, and every other card that seems to turn Magic into a 2-hour game. It wasn't until game three that I began to suspect my opponent actually played no counterspells. Anyways...

As I said before, the games were quite long. My opponent slowed my deck down by casting Tumble Magnets and then replenishing the Magnet's counters with Venser or Tezzeret's Gambit. In the early game, he'd tap down my Sphere of the Suns, inhibiting my ramp strategy, and in the later game, he'd tap Titans to try and force me to overcommit into a Terminus. His threats were substantial, as Venser can be particularly scarywhen he gets close to ultimate, but the lack of instant speed removal meant that my opponent had little way to interact with Inkmoth Nexus. I won the first game and my opponent the second, but we quickly reached the match time limit in game 3. Nevertheless, I was able to win game three just before the 5 turns were up with poison damage (while everybody was overlooking). I won the match 2-1.

In round 2 I played against another U/W deck, but this one seemed much more mid-rangey. My opponent's deck included Blade Splicers, Restoration Angel, and Mana Leak, and Fog Bank. I think the later card was included in response to the increasing number of infect decks, but it seems like a poor choice in view of the Infect deck's ability to create trample damage with Rancor. My opponent didn't seem to have any creature removal, and I won both games after resolving an Inferno Titan. Cavern of Souls was a terrific card in this matchup. I won the match 2-0.

In round 3 I played (down) against a noob running BR Vampires. He was a beginner to the game and made several play mistakes, but he was a very nice guy and I enjoyed the match. If anything, I learned that Falkengrath Aristocrat and Thatcher Revolt can be quite good together. I won the match 2-0.

Round 4 was the defining round of the tournament. I was paired against an undefeated opponent running RG Aggro. My opponent's deck included the usual goodies: Birds of Paradise, Bonfire of the Damned, Green Sun's Zenith, Strangleroot Geist, and Rancor. Game 1 wasn't much of a battle. My opponent cast Birds of Paradise on turns 1 and 2 and I responded with a Whipflare. He missed his third land drop and never recovered. Game 2 was a bit closer, but continual Slagstorms and Whipflares cleared the board until I could slam down a Titan. I should mention that Glimmerpost did a lot of work in both games in this match, as the life it provided often meant the difference between a win and a loss. I won the match, 2-0.

I drew with Ryan Engbrecht in the fifth and final round. We played the games out and I would have lost the match 0-2. MonoGreen Infect continues to cause me headaches. There were at least 4 copies at this tournament, so I have to adjust my sideboard for next time. Until then....stay tuned.

"Unknown spears / Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes...."

---William Butler Yeats, "The Valley of the Black Pig"









That was some serious bullshit.

I just got back from another tournament at Guardian Games; the usual three round skirmish on Tuesday evenings. Things were looking good until the final round, when I lost to Henry Freedman running Mono Green Infect. I've decided I hate that deck, and worse yet, I think the deck is unfair bullshit.

Obviously, you can tell I'm upset at the loss, but before explaining why I think the deck is total bullshit I should relay the rounds leading up to the final round, because I did get to play some nice games.

In the first round I played against Dane Frank running Mono Black Control ("MBC"). MBC is a deck that has been gaining more and more popularity lately, especially after Phillip Johnson's top 8 finish a couple weeks ago (see Phillip's list here, and a copycat, here). Although Dane's list appeared to include some of the usual cards, he put his own twist on the deck with Mutilate. Dane basically got land screwed both games, so there isn't much of a match to describe. I won the match 2-0.

Round two was quite different, however. I played against Zach Ledesma, again, although this time Zach was running NayaPod instead of his usual deck, UW Delver. His deck appeared to be a card-for-card imitation of the deck that Caleb Durward used to win the most recent Star City Games tournament (see the list here). I anticipated this deck would be popular, and so I added extra board sweepers to my deck before the tournament. I ran the following list, which we can just refer to as Jund Wolf Run:

Creatures
4 Primeval Titan
3 Inferno Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Huntmaster of the Fells

Spells
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
2 Doom Blade
4 Whipflare
1 Blasphemous Act
3 Slagstorm
2 Beast Within
1 Green Sun's Zenith

Lands
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Swamp
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Rootbound Crag
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Glimmerpost
3 Forest
3 Mountain

Sideboard
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Sever the Bloodline
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Naturalize
1 Beast Within
1 Doom Blade
2 Grave Titan
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Karn Liberated

With EIGHT sweepers and 4 removal spells, I felt like my deck would be well matched against any creature heavy strategies. I lost the first game, but was rewarded for my preparation in games two and three. As I predicted, Blasphemous Act and Grave Titan performed quite well against my opponent. He was unable to put his Zealous Conscripts or his Act of Aggressions to good use. I won the match 2-1.

Round 3 was some total bullshit. Henry was running the new Mono Green Infect list (a somewhat bad version can be seen here). As you can see, I was prepared for this matchup, as I included both Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Curse of Death's Hold in my sideboard, but it didn't help. Here is why the deck is so unfair:

In game 1, Henry killed me on turn 3. He went first: He played Forest, Glistener Elf. Turn 2: He skipped his land drop, but played Rancor on the Glistener Elf, then attacked me for 3 poison. On my turn, I tapped out to cast Whipflare. This would kill the elf, but Henry responds with Mutagenic Growth, saving the Elf from death. On his next turn, he untaps, drops an Inkmoth Nexus, attacks with his elf, and casts Titanic Growth on it. I take 7 poison and die.

I'm sorry, but turn three kills are not supposed to happen in Standard. They should be relegated to Legacy or Vintage.

I boarded in Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Naturalize, Ancient Grudge, Curse of Death's Hold, Doom Blade, and Karn Liberated, and boarded out my sweepers and some Titans. Melira and Curse are obviously the hoser cards---I figure if I get either I should probably win.

I go first in Game 2, and things seem much more calm. I end up resolving a couple of Sphere of the Suns on turns 2 and 3. On Henry's third turn, with an Inkmoth Nexus already out and 1 poison previously delvered, Henry casts Wild Defiance. I untap, draw, lay a land (6 mana now possible) and I cast Green Sun's Zenith for Melira, Sylvok Outcast. I have 3 mana untapped for the Beast Within in my hand. I'm at 21 life and 1 poison; I couldn't possibly lose now right? Henry untaps, activates his Inkmoth and attacks me. I don't block. He attempts to cast Ranger's Guile on the Inkmoth. I sense something amiss, so I respond by casting Beast Within on the Inkmoth Nexus. He resonds with another Ranger's Guile, which resolves. Then, as if on cue, he casts two Mutagenic Growths on the Nexus. If you add up all the bonuses, the nexus is now a 21/21 and kills me with NONPOISON damage......on turn 4....yeah, that happened.

I'm sorry, but the deck just seems insanely overpowered. You could say I made a play mistake---that I should have cast Beast Within on my turn, targetting the Wild Defiance. Hindsight is 20/20 however, and I hardly think I should HAVE to kill a Wild Defiance when I'm at 21 life and my opponent has nothing but an Inkmoth Nexus in play.

I realize now that Curse of Death's Hold is perhaps my only effective weapon against the Mono Green Infect deck, and that perhaps I can tip the scales more in my favor by adding additional copies to my sideboard, but even the Curse doesn't come out until turn 4-5, and Mono Green CAN kill you on turn 3. Other than the Curse of Death's Hold, can anyone think of anything that can help. Please suggest?

Anyway, maybe I shouldn't be too upset. I placed third and used my store credit to purchase a new Ancient Tomb. More Legacy goodness.

I played in a Standard tournament at Guardian Games on Tuesday, running RGb Wolf Run and taking clear first place. There was an extremely low turnout at this event---only seven players showed up, but the store employee added himself to the tournament so that the event would be sanctioned (Wizards requires 8 participants to sanction a tournament). Although the turnout was small, the event was relatively packed with good players, as both Henry Romero and Henry Freedman showed up running various versions of U/W Delver.

As you may have noticed above, I have completely removed white from my wolf run deck. I  originally added the white so that I could deal with creatures like Dungrove Elder, Geist of Saint Traft, Restoration Angel, Consecrated Sphinx, Wolfir Silverheart, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, etc---i.e., creatures who had high toughnesses and were resilient to Red's usual board sweepers. However, I also needed Day of Judgment to deal with Entreat the Angels, which has caused my deck difficulty in the past. After doing some reflection I decided to replace the three copies of Day of Judgment with 1 Whipflare (bringing the total to 4), and 2 copies of Blasphemous Act. Blasphemous Act is a card that has worked particularly well for me in the past (several months ago I ran one copy in the sideboard) and I was glad to use it again. Although Blasphemous Act is more expensive than Day of Judgment in most situations, the fact that it only costs 1 red is helpful in a three color deck. Playing the Act meant that I could remove white from the deck entirely, and thus I could remove the three copies of Abundant Growth from the maindeck, freeing up some space (for now those slots are taken by 2 Green Sun's Zeniths and another Huntmaster of the Fells. I also added 2 copies of Slagstorm to the sideboard, so that I could board out the Acts against decks where they are useless, i.e. Delver.

I'm considering adding another copy of Blasphemous Act to the sideboard, because the card seems so well placed in the current metagame, with the large numbers of Blade Splicers, Heros of Bladehold, Entreat the Angels, and Huntmaster of the Fells running around. Let me know if you think three copies is too many? I should also mention that I considered replacing Blasphemous Act with Bonfire of the Damned just before the tournament, but Bonfire seems less reliable (though I do like Bonfire's ability to affect Tamiyo, the Moon Sage---another problem for this deck).

As before, the only black cards in the deck were targeting removal spells (even though such spells are dangerous in the current Angel-filled metagame). Doom Blade is still decent against most decks (although there's an argument to be made for Go for the Throat as the better spell). However, I was surprised at how useful other black cards were in the sideboard. I added Sever the Bloodline, which is great against decks with Entreat the Angels, Zombie decks, and of course, Predator Ooze (who I fucking hate). I also kept Memoricide in the sideboard and thought about Grave Titan (who is a good substitute for Inferno Titan against decks with Zealous Conscripts). The problem with Grave Titan is the following situation: I cast him, the opponent clones him with a Phantasmal Image or a Phyrexian Metamorph, and now I can't kill the clone with my Doom Blade. Obviously, Go for the Throat would be slightly more useful in this situation, but what about when they cast Phyrexian Metamorph on my Inferno Titan? Then the Go for the Throat just sucks. So...for the moment...I am undecided which is better. Anyway, the black cards look good, so now, on to the games.

In round 1 I received the bye. Kinda sucked, but did give me a chance to see what everyone was playing.

In round 2, I played against U/W Humans, and I won the match 2-0. The Blasphemous Acts were perfect, and I had more than enough answers for the three Mirran Crusaders cast by my opponent.

In round 3 I played Zach Ledesma running U/W Delver. I won game one in typical fashion, with an uncounterable Primeval Titan. Game 2 was much closer, and I ended up losing to a spirit equipped with two Swords of War and Peace. There wasn't enough time for a third game and the match was called a draw.

So there you have it. My record of 2-0-1 was sufficient for clear first place, even though I only played one full match. I used the store credit to pick up another copy of City of Traitors. Come to me Legacy deck....come to me. Until next time readers.

I realize I haven't posted in a while, but I haven't been playing much lately and my most recent result at Guardian Games was a bit painful. I played on Tuesday night scoring 0 wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw with Grbw Wolf Run. What a mess.

In round 1 I played against Solar Flare. Personally, I hate Solar Flare. The games take too long and the odds of drawing are too high. I lost game 1 because my deck ran out of gas pretty early in the game and my opponent did the Sun Titan into Phantasmal Image combo. This often happens if the  games against Esper go too long. In game 2, I sideboarded in Memoricide (so that I could name Sun Titan) and a couple copies of Karn Liberated, which was enough to turn the match in my favor. However, with only 1 minute remaining for the third game, my opponent and I agreed to a draw. Laaaaame.

In round 2 I played against Monogreen Dungrove, again, and I lost, again. My opponent's version was using Predator Ooze, which proved especially difficult to kill. Neither Day of Judgment, Whipflare, nor Go for the Throat were any help. I just had to sit there and watch as the Ooze attacked every turn and got bigger, and bigger, and bigger... I lost both games to that one creature.

In round 3 I played against U/W Humans. This matchup is often determined by whether or not I draw sufficient removal---i.e., Whipflare and Day of Judgment. Perhaps I should have mulliganed more aggressively; I'm not sure, but I lost the match 0-2 to a total noob running Mirran Crusader and his crew. Talk about painful.

So there it is. Another tournament in the books, but not much to report. I'm once again considering switching decks until M13 rotates into Standard.

On a side note, I am getting excited for the Star City Games event coming to Portland this August. There's a Legacy Open! I have been wondering what deck to play. Any recommendations?