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.