One clover, and a bee,
And revery
Emily Dickinson
As some of you may have noticed, my posts have been sporadic these last few weeks. I haven't been playing much lately, because I'm feeling a little burnt out on Standard right now. Kessig Wolf Run was a fun deck, but it doesn't seem competitive in an environment saddled with Zombies and Infect. It just wasn't putting up good results anymore so I had to put it down. I took some time off and just brewed decks and organized my collection. I've been tracking the spoilers for Return to Ravnica and I'm generally excited about the new set, so I think I might play in a few sealed deck events when the set is finally released. Until then...I probably won't play much.
Anyways, I did manage to play in a couple of Standard events last week, running MonoGreen Infect both times. MonoGreen is fairly easy to play and cheap to build, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Some of you may remember, I was a big Tempered Steel fan back in the day, and MonoGreen has the same sort of balls-out aggro mentality. Both decks mulligan aggressively to get shape their starting hands. I scored 4-1, on Sunday, and 3-2 on Tuesday, which was sufficient for a second place finish and a new Mox Diamond.
I also played in the SCG Legacy Open on Sunday, scoring 2-3-2 with Merfolk and placing 89th (whoopee!). The SCG Open was definitely on my mind in the days leading up to tournament. I was testing several decks online, but came to the conclusion that I didn't like playing any of the viable decks in Standard, and that my time was better spent testing Legacy. I decided not to attend the Standard event at all, which was probably the right decision. I would have played Wolf Run, and the results show that the SCG Open was dominated by Zombies and Infect, which Wolf Run is just bad against.
Although I did not play in the Standard event, as I said before, I did play in the Legacy event. I really wanted to try this format, which is packed with expensive and powerful cards and seems rarely played by anyone inexperienced. I ran the following decklist:
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Coralhelm Commander
3 Standstill
4 Aether Vial
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
12 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
3 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Spell Pierce
4 Submerge
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Relic of Progenitus
Another version of this deck did well at this same tournament, and can be found here. Merfolk is a decent deck, but I now realize it just isn't my style. Merfolk is an aggro deck, but it has a lot of control elements. With 18 non-creature spells in the deck, I often felt like the deck had too few threats and would deplete its resources rather quickly. A few Lightning Bolts or Swords to Plowshares followed by a Snapcaster flashing them back was really all it took to remove enough of my Merfolk creatures and tip the game in my opponent's favor. I also realized my matchup against Maverick was less than optimal, since the islandwalk effect was virtually useless and Mother of Runes could block whatever she wanted to all day long. I guess that's why the deck runs four copies of Submerge in the sideboard. Honestly, if I had my choice of decks before the tournament, I probably would have played Lands, but I didn't have a copy of the Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale---a crucial card in that deck. That one is definitely on my wish list.
I also really like the deck that eventually won the tournament (a copy of which can be seen here). If Merfolk taught me anything, it's that a turn 1 aether vial can be one of the strongest plays in Legacy, or Modern for that matter, and like Merfolk, the winning deck ran four copies of Aether Vial. It looks like the price of Karakas has been steadily rising because of this deck, and because of the success of Show and Tell decks in general. I would pick up copies now, while they're still under $100.
In all, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot, so it was a great experience. The tournout for the SCG was a bit low, so I'm unsure if they'll hold the event in Portland again next year, but I hope they do. Thanks for reading.
