Fuck you, Guttersnipe











Now that the sting of losing has finally subsided, I guess its time to blog about States. As many of you know, I attended the Magic the Gathering Oregon State Championship this weekend, scoring 0 wins and 4 losses before dropping. Ouch. I don't know what happened. I felt like I spent a lot of time and thought preparing for this tournament, but I didn't expect the large number of aggro decks that eventually showed up and I basically just got run out of the building. Here is the deck list I ran:

Creatures (16):
2 Armada Wurm
1 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Angel of Serenity
2 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk

Spells (20):
2 Lingering Souls
4 Mulch
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Unburial Rites
4 Farseek
2 Sever the Bloodline

Lands (24):
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Seraph Sanctuary
2 Vault of the Archangel
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Woodland Cemetery
1 Isolated Chapel
2 Forest
2 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard (15):
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Restoration Angel
4 Cathedral Sanctifier
2 Angel of Glory's Rise
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Angel of Serenity

In round 1 I faced GW Aggro. This new GW Aggro deck is especially potent because of cards like Silverblade Paladin, Loxodon Smiter, Rancor, and Sublime Archangel. He won the die roll, went first, and played an Avacyn's Pilgrim. It seemed like every turn thereafter he played a Loxodon Smiter. Even though I was eventually able to cast a Thragtusk it wasn't enough to hold and I lost the game.  I lost the second game in similar fashion.

In round 2 I faced, surprise, GW aggro again. Sigh. Same deck, same result.

In round 3 I played against BR Vampires. I think my opponent was running an exact copy of this deck. I got my face smashed in once again as my opponent seemed to draw the nut curve both games.

In round 4 I played against a deck based around Guttersnipe. I can't believe I lost this round. I just went home with my 0-4 score. So, States went awful.

Still, I do like the tournament a lot. Unlike most other tournaments, States gives players some opportunity to show off their deck building skills. That said, the tournament does have several flaws: First, the card pool is quite small, so it's really difficult to innovate and come up with something that can "corner" the metagame. Usually, whatever deck you create has been tried and published in the weeks leading up to States, and you are simply running a variation of the deck. It comes as no surprise that most players are prepared for the cards you're running. Which leads me to my second point: States has a lot of aggro. Maybe this is because the card pool is so new or fresh, but for whatever reason, the last two State Championship tournaments have featured a lot of aggro decks. Last year it was Mono Red. This year it was GW and BR. Something to keep in mind next year.

Gonna make some changes to the deck. Until next time.