Shadowmoor Sealed, Week 1

Quintuple black is a lot to ask for in a black red deck. It should be only a mistake that a noob should make, but alas I too have fallen victim to the delusion that I should play all of my bomb rares that are in any of the colors that I am playing.

Kind of a different intro than I usually do, but I am having a really hard time keeping my thoughts straight. Anyways, this past Tuesday we started over with a fresh sealed deck of Shadowmoor, and I am happy with what I am seeing. Amongst the Painter's Servant, Ghastlord of Fugue, foil Knollspine Dragon, & Dusk Urchins; I have the makings of a pretty solid red-black deck. Add a heaping helping of aggressive dudes, a splash of reasonably costed removal, and season to taste. If only it was that easy.

Well enough of my incoherent thoughts and on to the deck list.

Ashenmoor Cohort
Dusk Urchins
Sickle Ripper
Bloodmark Mentor
Boggart Arsonists
Knollspine Dragon (foil)
Rustrazor Butcher
Ghastlord of Fugue
Gravelgill Axeshark
Ashenmoor Gourger
Kulrath Knight
Murderous Redcap
Sootstoke Kindler
Painter's Servant
Scrapbasket
Tatterkite

Corrupt
Gloomlance
Burn Trail
Ember Gale
Puncture Bolt
Torper Dust
Blight Sickle

(10) Swamp
(7) Mountain

Well as you can see, I've managed to get a deck that wants to (an can reliably) get in there with a guy with both wither and first strike. Unfortunately, you need to actually draw the guys and not all of your removal and all of your lands (with the exception of my games against the Captain, I got mana flooded and failed to draw guys I could play with the mana I had. I managed to get to 11 mana against AJ and not be able to play the Knollspine Dragon in my hand because I only had one mountain in play). Well them's the breaks.

Looking forward to next week, here's what I opened.

Traitor'r Roar
Curse of Chains
Somnomancer
Rattleblaze Scarecrow
Devoted Druid
Smolder Initiate
Gloomwidow's Feast
Sinking Feeling
Goldenglow Moth
Smash to Smithereens
Tattermunge Maniac
*Incremental Blight
Dawnglow Infusion
*Ashenmoor Liege
*Burn Trail (foil)

I've marked with an * the three cards I'll try to include in next weeks deck. Well, until next time, may the mana gods not hate you.

Shadowmoor Sealed, Week 3

I can’t wait for May to be over. May has been nothing but bad week followed by worse week. So this past weekend I head back up to the Twin Cities Friday night for my brother’s graduation from law school (by the way Hamline has a really beautiful campus) only to have to drive back Saturday night so I can be back at work on Sunday. I finally thought that we had gotten over the hump, but we always manage to find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.

To further complicate things, I am train my counterpart from Irwindale (near LA, CA) on the BrewAS tool that I use. It has moderately increased the amount of time I am spending at work this week, but at least the scenery is nice.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to the store on Tuesday, but did make it down to TS place Tuesday night for a cook out and a few games of EDH (I didn’t get done at work until after 6 pm). One conclusion I can draw in two player is that the person on the draw wins ~80% of the time (that extra card is a huge advantage).

I do intend to try to make it down to the store next Tuesday, but with the way things have been going, I won’t hold my breath. Well until next time, may the mana gods not hate you.

Shadowmoor Sealed, Week 2

Red-Green Beats, literally. Those four words best describe or Shadowmoor league right now. I am not sure if it is just because of the ridiculous cards many of us have opened in those colors or if they are really that good, but here we are.

I myself am glad to have access to both the Black-Red hybrid and White-Green hybrid cards in my Red-Green deck. I am also very pleased to have access to both the best and second best two ability combinations in my colors. What are the best and second best two ability combinations? (Thank you voices in my head) Well I’m glad you asked. After some discussion with the Captain, we agreed upon the best two ability combinations both being in Red-Green.

The best is Wither and First Strike. Sending in your wither/first strike guys makes for some very touch blocking decisions for your opponent. As Scoop-Phase can attest to from the prerelease, first striking wither guys will win the ground stall. I know that I am very fortunate to have multiple Bloodmark Mentors to go with my multiple Boggart Ram-Gangs.

The second best (a very close second) is Double Strike & Trample. At current there is only one card in the set that enables it (Runes of the Deus) and that is why it isn’t the best. However, it is still amazing to crack back with a huge beastie that has both double strike and trample.

As my previous words alluded to, I found much success with my red-green beats deck, but also found many challenges in the two mirror matches.

For next week, here is the pack I opened:
Cinderhaze Wretch
Silkbind Faerie
Wanderwine Rootcutters
Scar
Boggart Arsonists
Presence of the Gond
Goldenglow Moth
Zealous Guardian
Loch Korrigan
Embergale
Niveous Wisps
Seedcradle Witch
Sapseep Forest
Fossil Find
Demigod of Revenge

Until next time, may the mana gods not hate you.

Shadowmoor Sealed, Week 1

What a difference a week makes. Last week there were very few people (or so I’ve been told) and this week there were at least eight of us by 6 pm. I just guess a new set will do that, but I am also inclined to believe people are sick of Morningtide/Lorwyn sealed.

This week I opened fairly well, a solid Red/Green deck, with the possibility to tap into some White/Green cards if necessary. Without further ado, here is what I played this past Tuesday.

Creatures:
Blistering Dieflyn
Bloodmark Mentor (2)
Boggart Arsonists
Boggart Ram-Gang
Crabapple Cohort
Cultbrand Cinder
Elvish Hexhunter
Juvenile Gloomwidow
Kulrath Knight
Morselhoarder
Mossbridge Troll
Scrapbasket
Sootwalkers (2)
Tatermunge Duo

Spells:
Fists of the Demigod
Jaws of Stone
Puncture Bolt
Scar
Tower Above (2)
Trip Noose

Lands:
Mountain (9)
Forest (7)
Reflecting Pool

A couple of quick comments about some card selections. Blistering Dieflyn is very sub optimal and is the 16th guy in the deck. Also for those who are not aware, Tower Above is amazing!!!

Overall the deck was fairly aggressive and was able to push past the slower more controlling decks as needed. The toughest match up was against Mark’s Red/Green deck as he had way more removal than I could handle (something about getting Puncture Bolted three times in one game). As far are the rest of the games that I saw, I do vaguely remember the Captain getting blown out by Prison Term coming down on his 4/4 indestructible lifeline critter enabling her to swing for just enough, but I’ll let the Captain tell the story of how he got beat down by a girl (no offense to Kerstin as her game play has improved dramatically over the past few months and she has the potential to beat any person at any time).

Here is the pack for next week (I currently can’t find the rest of my pool, but it should turn up):

Safehold Duo
Scuttlemutt
Medicine Runner
Ghastly Discovery
Wildslayer Elves
Woeleecher
Prismwake Merrow
Crimson Wisps
Viridescent Wisps
Cinderbones
Boggart Ram-Gang
Trip Noose
Sapseep Forest
Dusk Urchins
Smash to Smithereens (foil)

Until next time, may the mana gods not hate you.

Last month of Morningtide Sealed, Part 5

Well as can be expected, by the time the fifth week rolled around I wasn’t in the mood to play any more Morningtide limited, with the release of Shadowmoor at the end of the week. I did manage to make it down to Game Universe (GU), but decided a few days before to draft Shadowmoor instead. We; namely myself, CBG, Too Sarcastic (TS) & Scoop Phase (SP); managed to put together a four man over at Genesis (For those of you who aren’t familiar, Genesis is a Greek-style family type restaurant up the street from GU. The food is decent and moderately priced and they are very good about letting us hang out and draft after we are done eating). One other thing of note is how busy they were on a Tuesday at 1800. I understand a dinner rush, but every table in the non-smoking section was full on a Tuesday.

Anyways, TS & headed over and met up with SP and got a table and had no more than given our menus back to the waitress and CBG shows up. I am still impressed with your innate ability to show up at the last minute even though you had the shortest distance to travel, but I digress. So while we are waiting for our food we take care of the draft. For ease we decided to draft as we were seated at the table when we ordered (in the past we have switch the seating order after we order and it is kind of mean to the wait staff) with TS to my immediate left, SP across from me, and CBG to my right.

As far as overall picks I only remember a few key ones. Pack 1 pick 1 was a Burn Trail with my second pick being a Mercy Killing. From pack 2, I first picked a Flame Javelin only to have Puncture Bolt come back on the lap. As far as the rest of the draft, I took as much red/green removal as I saw and all of the green fat I could muster. One other note, the black we opened was terrible which leads to my next point. As could be expected in a four man it is highly likely that the person sitting across from you is in the same colors. Well, we managed one better, with both SP and I in red/green & CGB and TS in blue/white.

I will be the first to admit that my deck wasn’t very good nor was the curve great, but it was good enough to go 3-0. I will also not that I had enough removal and curved out enough times to play my 8 drop in three of the first four games by turn nine. Well without further ado, here is what I played.

Creatures:
Intimidator Initiate
Rustrazor Butcher
Crabapple Cohort (2)
Devoted Druid
Foxfire Oak (2)
Gloomwidow
Juvenile Gloomwidow
Woodfall Primus
Sootwalkers
Mudbrawler Raiders
Scuzzback Marauders
Scuzzback Scrapper
Safehold Elite

Spells:
Burn Trail
Flame Javelin
Power of Fire
Puncture Bolt
Runes of the Deus
Mercy Killing (2)
Blight Sickle

Lands:
Sapseep Forest
Forest (8)
Mountain (8)

Other cards of note from the side board:
Ember Gale
Smash to Smithereens
Gloomwidow’s Feast

As far as the matches, I played SP first and managed to turn 8 and turn 9 Woodfall Primus to hit a key artifact and win soon there after. I also may have managed to put Runes of Deus on Mudbrawler Raiders and swing for 13 on turn five.

In the second round I played TS who drafted a very controlling blue/white/black deck with lots of bounce and tap effects. I got the first game due to pure agro combined with four removal spells (including the combination of Blight Sickle and Power of Fire too off his weenies). For the second game I brought in Gloomwidow’s Feast taking out Runes of the Deus (it didn’t out right kill anyone and set me up for a two for one). But missed my third and fourth land drops to die to multiple weenies. In the third game he got mana screwed and I had a slow start (didn’t play anything until turn four). I did have enough removal to take care of his first few plays and managed to beat down with random guy (also not that I never say a green source but managed to see six of my eight mountains).

The last round was me versus CBG and it wasn’t very close with him scooping to me when I managed to get better threats to his many land draws.

Well that’s all for this week and I look forward to next week and Morningtide Sealed league.

Last month of Morningtide Sealed, Part 4

Despite having gone to the Shadowmoor prerelease last Saturday, I was still looking forward to Tuesday night Old Fart Magic. I think that I may have started to turn the tide in the war against mana screw. I only mulliganed once in 6 games this past week.

As far as my two matches, all but one of the games was really good. My three game set against the Captain was by far one of the better limited matches I’ve played in a while. Winning the clash on Gilt-Leaf Ambush to get rid of his Taurean Mauler and his other guy was key to turning around a game in which I had few outs (Some times you just get lucky).

My second match really came down to Ed (Tesch) not getting Taurean Mauler with his Elvish Harbinger on turn 3 of the first game and instead getting Wren Run Packmaster (he forgot that Elvish Harbinger can make red mana as he had no other red sources in play). He did manage to crush me in the second game (this would be the one that wasn’t even close). The third game was really tight until I got down Wolf-Skull Shaman, Bramblewood Paragon, & Lys Alana Huntmaster (getting free 2/2 wolves every time you kinship an elf and then getting a free 2/2 trampler every time you play an elf spell is ridiculous).

As far as the final week, here is the pack of Lorwyn:

Oblivion Ring
Quill-Slinger Boggart
Bog-Strider Ash
Aethersnipe
Tarfire
Gilt-Leaf Seer
Protective Bubble
Ingot Chewer
Amoeboid Changeling
Spring Cleaning
Veterans of the Depths
Makeshift Mannequin*
Jagged-Scar Archers*
Fathom Trawl
Island (foil)

Cards of note:
Jagged-Scar Archers warrants serious consideration in my mostly mono green elf deck.

Makeshift Mannequin seems like an interesting combat trick or way to recur Shriekmaw at instant speed.

Moving along to tonight, current plans are to draft Shadowmoor tonight @ CBGs. I am sure that CBG will do the post mortem tomorrow, but I would just like to send out a special thanks to Scoop Phase for hooking me up with two more draft sets of Shadowmoor.

Last month of Morningtide Sealed, Part 3.

Well, I’ll briefly recap last Tuesday’s Old Fart. I got there kind of late (after 6) and spent a lot of time shuffling. I was only able to get one match in with Mark. However the lack of quantity was overshadowed by the quality of our three games. At no point were either of us completely out of it. Over all my deck did what it was supposed to do.

As far as next week, here is the pack that I opened (notables marked with an *):

Sunflare shaman
*Moonglove Changeling
Fertilid
Burrenton Bombardier
Disperse
Brighthearth Banneret
Ink Dissolver
Frogtosser Banneret
Mothdust Changeling
Blightsoil Druid
Forfend
Waterspout Weavers
*Bramblewood Paragon
Boldwyr Intimidator
Gilt-Leaf Archdruid

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get down there a little earlier and get in more than one match.

Last month of Morningtide Sealed, part 2.

As I expected last week, Diviner’s Wand made the deck, and was amazing, when I saw it. However, I think that I’ve unintentionally angered the mana gods, as I had two of three games against the Captain in which I did not see more than one black source, if any at all. Overall it was a decent week. I ended up cutting Black Poplar Shaman, Scarred Vinebreeder, & Crib Swap in favor of Bosk Banneret, Winnower Patrol, & Diviner’s Wand. I also replaced the lone plains with a forest and in hind sight should replace Shimmering Grotto with a swam ( I am no longer running three colors so the Shimmering Grotto is not nearly as necessary).

Here is the Lorwyn Pack for next week:
Hamletback Goliath
Shriekmaw*
Vivid Marsh
Kithkin Mourncaller
Flamekin Brawler
Spiderwig Boggart
Spellstutter Sprite
Lairwatch Giant
Giant’s Ire
Leaf Gilder*
Pestermite
Necksnap (#2)
Inner-Flame Acolyte
Runed Stalactite
Lys Alana Huntmaster*

I’ve marked the cards worth considering with an *.

Until next time, may the mana gods not hate you.

Last month of Morningtide Sealed, part 1.

Well, we’re off to a good start for our last month of Morningtide sealed. We had a pretty good turn out on Tuesday (9 people => Me, Sco0p_Phase, The Captain, Jake, Ed, Mark, Bill, Kirsten, & Cameron). The mood was definitely good and I think I can conclude good times were had by all (6-0 in games, 3-0 in matches). For the third time in recent memory I open good black-green elves/treefolks. I think I can summarize why my deck wins as follows:

1. Epic Proportions on random guy can just win games (four times on Tuesday).

2. Removal is good.

3. Death touch is amazing.

4. Kinship is broken when Gilt-Leaf Seer is out.

Enough about why my deck wins games and on to the deck list. Here is what I played:

Black Poplar Shaman (less than optimal)
Elvish Eulogist
Gilt-Leaf Seer
Kithkin Daggerdare
Leaf-Crowned Elder (potentially game breaking)
Lys Alana Bowmaster
Moonglove Changeling
Moonglove Winnower
Nath’s Elite
Scarred Vinebreeder (sub-optimal)
Warren Pilferers
Weed-Pruner Poplar
Winnower Patrol
Wolf-Skull Shaman (amazing!!)
Woodland Changeling
Wren’s Run Vanquisher

Crib Swap
Epic Proportions (see above)
Gilt-Leaf Ambush
Hunting Triad (almost always Reinforced)
Pack’s Disdain
Violet Pall
Weed Strangle
Springleaf Drum
Shimmering Grotto
Plains (1)
Swamp (6)
Forest (8)

As far as the rest of the pool, other than Mulldrifter & Fodder Launch, there isn’t much else I am saddened to not be playing. Well, you can just judge for yourself.

White
Changeling Hero
Goldmeadow Dodger
Kithkin Ballonist
Neck Snap
Surge of Thoughtweft
Burrenton Shield-Bearers
Changeling Sentinel
Coordinated Barrage
Daily Regimen
Kithkin Zephyrnaut
Order of the Golden Cricket
Stonybrook Schoolmaster
Swell of Courage

Blue
Amoeboid Changeling
Etheral Whiskergill
Faerie Trickery
Mulldrifter
Protective Bubble
Scattering Stroke
Sentinels of Glen Elendra
Shapesharer
Wings of Velis Vel
Latchkey Faerie
Merrow Witsniper (2)
Negate
Slithermuse
Stream of Unconsciousness

Black
Boggart Harbinger
Exiled Boggart
Fodder Launch
Lys Alana Scarblade
Morsel Theft
Stinkdrinker Bandit

Red
Axegrinder Giant
Boggart Shenanigans
Caterwauling Boggart
Ingot Chewer
Inner-Flame Acolyte
Mudbutton Torchrunner
Smokebraider
Soulbright Flamekin
Thundercloud Shaman
Hostile Realm
Shard Volley
Stingmoggie
Sunflare Shaman

Green
Springcleaning

Artifact
Twinning Glass
Thornbite Staff

After looking over the rest of the pool, I am just now realizing that I am playing all but one of the green cards in the pool. What is even more amazing is that Springcleaning is a valid sideboard option against many white decks.

Looking at next weeks pack, Morningtide, I am pleased to see even more good green picks. I’ve place an * next to the cards to consider for inclusion for next week. As always feel free to post your ideas as far as what I should include. Here is the pack for reference:

*Winnower Patrol
Seething Pathblazer
Final-Sting Faerie
Latchkey Faerie
Lunk Errant
*Earthbrawn
Negate
*Bosk Banneret
Prickly Boggart
Stingmoggie
Festercreep
*Diviner’s Wand (2nd best equipment in the set)
Pyroclast Consul
Heritage Druid
Titan’s Revenge