SNM > FNM

Being the captain of bondage gothiness means SNM is way more popular than FNM in my house. I was able to carve out time for a Standard tourney on Saturday and brought monogreen midrange and greater goyf. The Goyf was the list that went 7-0 at nats. There it was piloted by the owner of the store I used to play at in Tucson, Dusty Ochoa. Here it was piloted by me. I loaned monogreen midrange out to a deckless dude and sat down for my first round.

Round 1
Bye

Wasn't that awesome? Greater Goyf has the pairings mojo to kick me straight into the second round with three points. I sat and watched my MGM decklist get owned my Project X. It turns out that picking a deck at random doesn't work very well, especially when the person playing has little idea of the decks strategy. No disrespect to the dude who ran my deck, but he made some pretty significant play mistakes, which made this already difficult matchup absolutely unwinnable. Exhibit A. Board is 2 forests, bird and elf, Troll Ascetic. Opponent has just played a magus of the disk. Your hand is Heartwood Storyteller, Stampeding Wildebeests, Timbermare, Harmonize. Do you (A) leave regen mana up for Trollie, (B) play Harmonize, digging for the land you are about to need, (C) play Timbermare, essentially playing a four card Lava Axe? If you guessed (C) you may follow along at home and may CBG get paired against you in the 1st round of a ptq. After board, does he set Pithing Needle on Saffi? No he does not. Ouch. 1-0

Round 2
Dan with AngelFire

I think Greater Goyf is ahead against Angelfire but I am not entirely sure. Haven't exactly tested assiduously. In the first game, I get so close, but misplay and sac a Mogg Fanatic to Gargadon instead of itself. Was he on 8 life? Yes, he was. Did I have Char and Incinerate in hand with 5 land on the table? Yes I did. Game two, I never saw any of the Cryoclasms I boarded and lost to the classic turn 3 Lightning Angel. 1-1

Round 3
Greater Goyf with Dark Confidant.

I don't think he was playing Char. I do think that was the difference. I played very tight game one and had a terrible draw game 2. Burned him out from 16 game 3. Would you keep a 3 mountain 2 Char, 2 Incinerate hand? I threw it back and got 2 mountain, 1 Gargs, 1 Char 2 Incinerate. Gargs is the trump in this matchup and so I kept. Gargs stayed suspended, what with me being busy burning my opponent's face off. So I finally have my first sanctioned constructed match win in 3 months. Yay me. 2-1

Round 4
Assault Loam.

Well, recursive threats are bad for me, but a broken draw is good. Game 1, he taps out for something insignificant while on 12, and I have a seal of fire on board and a suspended Garg. EOT sac seal, shock you, sac my board, Gargs wins. Game 2, I almost get there but he gets Assault down and Loam in the graveyard. 6 to the head per turn is bad. Also, was stuck on 2 land for entire game. Game 3. Was stuck on 2 land again and he gets the nuts anti aggro draw. Double Hierarch, double wall of roots. I threw 13 points of burn at his dudes, but was still only able to force through 12 on the ground. With him gaining 8, that was never going to be enough. Again, I never saw my sideboarded Cryoclasms. 2-2

So what did we learn? First round byes suck. There is no room for error. Also, we are rarely going to beat double elephant draws on the part of anybody. It helps to draw your sideboard cards. Learn how to sideboard. I really felt like I was way behind in the sideboarded games.

Monogreen midrange went 1-3. Hmm. I'll have to check in with TJRome and see how it's going online. Hey TJ? Comment. Did you remember to go down to 2 harmonize yet?

CBG is Gothy and Dark

All this talk about mono black aggro gets me excited. I built MBA on MODO a couple months ago when the excitement of hitting with Liege of the Pit got a little too much to handle. There are enough hasty and evasion creatures in black now to just go very nicely with Bad Moon. Here's my list

22 Swamp

4 Plagued Rusalka
3 Festering Goblin
2 Withered Wretch
2 Mirri the Cursed
4 Deepcavern Imp
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Liege of the Pit
4 Nether Traitor
4 Bad Moon
3 Bottled Cloister

Pretty different, eh? No removal beyond Festering Goblin(!)/Plagued Rusalka(!!) and no Bob. Off color morphs.

This pretty much owns in the casual room, to the point where I stopped playing it there. You can only play so many 5 turn games, you know. Occasionally you get a nothing draw, but a Bad Moon sticking around for 2 turns is pretty much game. Actually, that speaks to the big issue with this deck. Hitting with 2/2s sucks pretty hard compared to hitting with 3/3s. I have no idea how this compares to TS's list because I haven't played his. Liege is occasionally a liability, but you'd be surprised just how effective 7/7 (or 8/8, or 9/9) evasive tramplers are. Turn 4 flips are just a bonus. Even Spectral Force doesn't like to see that. Don't pull the Bottled Cloisters out. They are so good. Even if they have artifact removal, you will rarely lose more than a card. Just make sure to flip Gathan Raiders on your own turn.

It's a little heavy at the three slot. Might go -1 Liege +1 Wretch (especially given how good wretch is against Tarmogoyf). Just a different idea, sparked by my opening of a foil Liege (just like the deck sparked by my opening of a foil Auratouched Mage and the other deck sparked by my opening of a foil Phyrexian Etchings (sounds like a Shivan Hellkite deck is in the offing (or a Pithing Needle deck (Cloud Key=free Pithing Needle(!))))). Have fun and don't think yoo hard.

Mono Black Aggro Reprise

The black aggro deck (see the list below) did reasonably well, snagging second in a field of about 16 players. Since I won my draft pod on Friday this brings the weekend winnings total to $30 in store credit, or two drafts and a standard tournament (I picked up a underground river for getting second in the 8-man afterdraft yesterday, but had to settle for third place and razormane masticore during Friday's afterdraft). Enough bragging, how did the deck play? Things went reasonably according to plan, winning the first two rounds against homebrews. There was a game in the second round where my opponent had an active Loxodon war hammer equipped on his hypnotic specter that really tested how many resources I could afford to give away (being forced to sac permanents to my phyrexian totem while getting cards stripped from hand) to continue to deal damage to my opponent. I think I was swinging with a bad moon in play, so I was (barely) able to take him down. These are the sorts of situations a deck like this excels at- swinging ftw at three life with three lands, an active totem and Bob Maher left on board. Not for the faint of heart! Round three I play the self-styled Asshole Jason, who is using my own angelfire deck that I borrowed him. This seemed like a good match up for me, since I had tested it solo many times while I was still trying to figure out whether my aggro black deck was worth building. Bad Moon is the key card in the match up for me, and my totems are much worse because of lightning helix. The Stromgald Crusaders turned out to be quite good since half of angelfire's creature base and all of it's targeted removal is white. Game one Jason wraths then busts, then booms his land and mine (using a signet). Oh yeah his land happens to be flagstones of trokair. But I draw two more swamps (all this deck needs) and Jason draws more and more signets. My nether traitor does seven points of damage to him and I get him. Between games my opponent asks if I want to draw, but after considering how this would make the last round (we would both need to win to get first and second) I elect to play it out. Game two is all Asshole Jason, probably because of two big play mistakes by me. The first was overextending into his turn three wrath of god, making it a three for one, not a two for one. Turn four I lay my last two creatures in hand, creatures I hope will go the distance- two stromgald crusaders. He untaps, plays a Court Hussar, one of the few non-white dudes in his deck. Stupid pro-white weenies. My turn I give my guys flying and beat for four, really wishing I could draw a bad moon. Here comes the second mistake. Jason finally gets his second red source, and plays molten disaster, un-kickered, for one. I pick up my dudes and bin them. Instead and giving them flying until end of turn in response to the Disaster. That was game. Game three all came down to Korlash. I have a 6/6 korlash in play with regen mana up. About the only thing Jason can do is wrath (or bust, which is the same thing with korlash) at this point. Then he plays Faith's Fetters on the guy. Forgot about that out. A huge Aeon Chronicler finishes the match quickly. Rough beats, getting taken out by your own deck. Luckily Teenage Tony is ousted from his undefeated roost, so Asshole Jason is the sole undefeated going into round four. Luckily for my breaks, he wins. So do I, over a mono-black discard deck piloted by a small child, so I lucksack into second. After the tourney I play a high schooler by the name of Paprocki for the hell of it. He is sporting a mono red aggro deck with Big Gargs, Mogg Fanatics and War Marshals, Keldon Marauders, and lots of burn. I got owned. It was awful. I think I took a game, but it was sheer luck. I don't know if mono red aggro is better overall than mono black, but the Red Deck certainly wins the match up heads up. Black's weenies just aren't as fast, and you have no answer to Gargadon. After boarding you can slow them down with damnation, but that only gives the Red Deck a way to take off time counters from gargadon. And once the big guy hits, you're sure to be under 9 life and very vulnerable. I guess maybe Terror should be in the board over Death Mark. I think angelfire is the better deck over black aggro if your meta has a lot of red.

Suicide Black in Standard

Too Sarcastic here:
I'm running a Nationals winning (*COUGH* umm, South African Nationals) aggro black deck this FNM. It has been inconsistent in testing, but that's probably because I don't what I'm doing with it yet. The following is the build "as is" from savannas of Africa. I think I will be adding the 4th Dauthi Slayer and relegating one of the Phyrexian Totems to the board. They're too much of a liability against anything other than (non-red) control decks. I only have 2 Damnation for the board, and no Pithing Needles, so I will probably run 3 Extirpate, 2 Damnation, as many Stupors as I can find, the singleton Totem, 4 Deathmark (what up, Tarmogoyf?) and maybe some other creature removal like one or two Tendrils of Corruption. We'll see how she does.

23 Swamp

4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Dark Confidant
3 Dauthi Slayer
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
4 Nether Traitor
4 Plagued Rusalka

4 Bad Moon
2 Consume Spirit
4 Phyrexian Totem
4 Sudden Death

Sideboard
4 Deathmark
2 Extirpate
3 Damnation
2 Pithing Needle
4 Stupor

T

Pit-Skulk! A MonoG deck from Japan

So of course I mention my love for Skarrgan Pit-Skulk shortly after a mono-Green list that doesn't include him. And of course, a monoG list from one of the grinders at Japanese Nats emerges with the Pit-Skulk as a 4-of (with Troll Ascetic, natch). Endo Ryota placed 2nd and ground into Nats with this list...

4 Boreal Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Scryb Ranger
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Giant Solifuge

1 Giant Growth
4 Might of Old Krosa
4 Moldervine Cloak
2 Stonewood Invocation

2 Pendelhaven
4 Treetop Village
15 Forest

Sideboard

3 Call of the Herd
2 Seal of Primordium
4 Spike Feeder
1 Wall of Roots
3 Pithing Needle
2 Serrated Arrows

So how does this differ? Should I stick with my version or should I net-deck like a master?

Let's start with 4 Boreal Druid over 4 Birds. Druid has a power of 1 but no evasion. Birds makes Green. I think that if I keep all the double green in my deck, Birds is better for me. Endo's deck doesn't have all the double costs, especially on turn 2, and thus can afford to run the slightly more aggressive guy.

4 Scryb Ranger. Wow, I hadn't thought of Scryb Ranger, but wow is she amazing. She fixes mana and flies and provides instant speed blocking. Unfortunately for me, she's a 2-drop, which I was trying to avoid.
4 Silhana Ledgewalker. Ledgewalker + Moldervine Cloak. Beating people down since February 2006.
4 Pit-Skulk. I really think he's amazing. Your mileage may vary. He's especially good with MoOK since you wanna cast that mainphase anyway.
4 Troll Ascetic. I feel as if we have talked about this already. He's almost unkillable. He's 3 power for 3 mana. He's amazing.
4 Giant Solifuge. Anti-Wrath tech. Thank you sir, may I have another?

7 pump spells plus 4 Moldervine Cloak. I know it seems crazy, but this is where I disagree most strongly with the Japanese list. All pump spells except Stonewood Invocation are asking to get 2 for 1-ed. Without anyway to generate card advantage, this seems really dangerous to me.

The land base is good. Notice how he still doesn't go down to 20 land, presumably because he would like to activate Monkeytown every once in a while. I like the idea of Pendelhaven. Randomly screwing with pyroclasm or seal of fire seems good right now.

The thing to keep in mind when comparing this list to mine is our different plans. This is a true aggro plan, attempting to deal 20 in the first 5 turns. The only real long game plan is Ascetic plus pump. The only anti Wrath plan is Giant Solifuge. They are good plans, but they depend heavily on having certain cards in hand at certain times. My deck is much more midrange. The 3 drops are much less aggressive, but the 4 drops are much bigger threats, I think. Frankly, Timbermare is pretty hot post Wrath as well, and the Trample on the Wildebeests makes a big difference when compared to OpponentShroud® on the Ascetic. I just feel like my build is more resilient to bad draws, while maintaining the capability of explosive draws. On the other hand, I am not in Japan's National Championships and Endo Ryota is. CBG out.

Edit-2 minutes after I first posted this. Of course, Treetop Village makes a pretty good anti Wrath plan as well. I don't mean to suggest it's a bad list. It's just not what I would play. Then again, CBG is a bad player.

Why I don't play Troll Ascetic in monogreen aggro

Here's my new list...

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Heartwood Storyteller
4 Ohran Viper
4 Timbermare
2 Harmonize
4 Might of Old Krosa
2 Stonewood Invocation
4 Stampeding Wildebeests
4 Citanul Woodreaders
4 Llanowar Reborn
1 Hurricane
1 Overrun
18 Forest

I had 4 Harmonize but went down to 2 to shove in a couple of alternate win conditions. I have been playing MGA since I noticed the delightfully dirty interaction between Skarrgan Pit-Skulk and pump spells (Might of Oaks). Go right ahead, block my 8/8. What's that? You don't have anything with a power of 8? Sorry about that. This was in like April 2006. I discovered shortly thereafter it wasn't all that original an idea, and most of the tuned builds that did well online ignored the Pit-Skulk thing but hey, what can you do? MGA got some great new tools with Scryb and Force and was a metagame player for a while but it appears to have fallen by the wayside in favor of multicolor builds with more reach (R/g Tarmogoyf), more card drawing (Suicide Sligh or R/B aggro) or both (U/G Tarmogoyf).

I look at the current field and wonder if there isn't a build of monogreen that can hang with these players and gain the advantage of consistency. Keep in mind that the Tier 1 field is very open, and one generally isn't going to have a hugely favorable matchup against a vast swath of it. What I am looking for is fun, power and consistency. It's also nice not to have to leave Remand mana up once in a while.

So I start with the classic MGA package of 8 one mana accelerators. Then I ignore the 2 drop slot. There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the 3 drop. This is where your MGA lists win or lose the game, because it is in all likelihood, your turn 2 play. The problem with my MGA lists in the past has been a lack of reach after the initial rush. I get a good board position, do 10-15, then the board stalls or is cleared, and I lose. So I decided to go with card drawing instead of true aggro in those slots. Ohran Viper is a damn house. Ophidian is good I hear, and people played Stinkweed Imp in Standard as well. Heartwood Storyteller is amazing. At the very least, he's card advantage when they burn him out. If he picks up a graft counter, Incinerate can't touch him.

The third three mana dude is Citanul Woodreaders, and this is the obvious pull in favor of Troll Ascetic. So why go with Woody?

(1) 1/4 is good. Kills little stuff, bounces off big stuff.
(2) Doesn't tie up my mana. Troll Ascetic needs regeneration mana to be a credible threat. I do not want to leave mana open unless I am representing pump.
(3) Can be returned for huge effect in the late game. You know what seems good to me? Returning my wall to my hand when I have a 5/4 (or 6/5) trampler on the board and recasting it for 2 more cards in hand. A slow green Gush, that's what it is.
(4) Troll Ascetic does not trample. Even if I can pump him, he can just be chumped by any old thing (Goblins).


The four mana slot is where this deck shines. Timbermare is everything from a turn 3 Lava Axe to a turn 8 14/14 tap all yr dudes and swing for the win. Lovely. Stampeding Wildebeests, is also amazing. Why yes, I will pick up my one mana dude and swing for 5 (trample!) on turn 4. Some (The Fugitive and 2S) would argue the Harmonizes are slow or unnecessary. I say that your only problem is running out of threats and quick recovery from Wrath is really hard without this.

Hurricane is there because direct damage is nice and honestly, who plays around Hurricane? Plus I have an Ice Age one, so pbthht.

The pump is nice, but you don't wanna go overboard on it. I think 6+the Overrun is right. I might go back to four Stonewood Invocation. Sometimes that just sits in hand though.

It might also be tempting to go 20 forest, no Llanowar Reborn and pick up 2 more spells. I think this is a mistake. You have the card drawing to pull you out of a land glut and while you'd rather see spells, you do have good uses for the land you have. Plus, it's nice not to be completely wrecked by pyroclasm.

The sideboard is not complete so I am not going to list one. There's the possibility of going aggro-er with Gaea's Anthem+Uktabi Drake. Probably should fit Naturalize in there given the environment. Graveyard hate might be okay depending on how popular Aggro Loam is in your area. Or maybe anti discard/control with Quagnoth. I'll have to think about it some more.

It's nice that aggro still has its place a year after Jitte and this one definitely has some explosive draws combined with a bit of staying power. I like it.

-CBG

Why is Armageddon so good?

My name is TooSarcastic and I netdeck. I have a problem, I know. While several other bloggers here were actually working hard to build viable U/W control builds, I decided to attend last week’s FNM with the most recent Angelfire lists and try to pound some n00bs with Angels and Dragons. I did, in fact pound some n00bs, but it was not with the newest technology. Most of the decks that I found eschewed Boom/Bust (with the exception of the 1st place Georgia Regionals decklist) either for the Aethermage’s Touch inclusions or just for more threats like Demonfire. I felt like I, too should cut the Red Armageddons but found myself hesitating and ultimately deciding that I couldn’t do it. I wanted to run them so badly. So I did just that. Here’s the list.

Lands
1 x Adarkar Wastes
2 x Steam Vents
4 x Flagstones of Trokair
1 x Ghost Quarter
1 x Boros Garrison
1 x Shivan Reef
2 x Island
1 x Mountain
2 x Sacred Foundry
1 x Urza's Factory
3 x Plains
2 x Hallowed Fountain
1 x Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 x Izzet Boilerworks

Creatures
1 x Bogardan Hellkite
3 x Aeon Chronicler
4 x Lightning Angel
3 x Court Hussar
1 x Numot, the Devastator

Spells
4 x Boom // Bust
3 x Lightning Helix
4 x Azorius Signet
4 x Wrath of God
3 x Compulsive Research
2 x Izzet Signet
3 x Remand
1 x Molten Disaster!

I feel compelled to write Molten Disaster with an exclamation point, kind of like “Panic! at the Disco.” Not really at all, actually. As I was saying… It turns out that one sided Armageddons are quite good, and having quad flagstones and six signets (plus the bouncelands, which conveniently fill up you hand with land that you can play post-Busting) make the Boomer McBust very much one sided. I played against several Sligh decks at the tourney, and both played the Greater Gargadon. Now I’m not saying you should be Busting while big gargs is suspended, but if he ain’t, there’s nothing wrong with getting rid of permanents before the sacrificing begins. Yes, mono red’s threats cost far less than your answers; but who cares? The aggro matchup is so good for Angelfire that the ability take away what little end game their deck can muster is worth it. You have vigilant fat-bottomed Angels that hold down the fort while attacking in the air. You have Helix for removal and life gain. You have quad Wrath, obv. The ideal time to be busting is one or two turns prior to your humungous Aeon Chronicler strolls onto the board. If; 1) Chronicler is suspended and 2) you have anything close to board parity plus 3) the ability to untap with three more mana than your opponent, then Congratulations! You should be Busting it up. This is not an infrequent situation, in my experience. It should be obvious that the control matchup is far more scared of Bust than aggro. As well they should be. It’s true that a control opponent with signets can sandbag some land to play around the ‘Geddon, but it’s a rare control vs. control matchup where the player who holds land back wins. Essentially Bust must be countered by most control decks. I can imagine a scenario where the U/B player flashes in Teferi in response to Bust, gets Teferi to stick and then flashes out some other creature prior to Bust resolving, but that’s about the only time any control player would willingly part with their lands. God help the control player who can’t counter Bust (or Boom for that matter!) and has a storage land in play brimming with counters. So the Busts are simply four more threats that a control player must deal with. The play is usually to lead with one or more turns casting Bust (hopefully with Remand in hand as well), let them counter the land-D and then next turn flash out Hellkite or play McNumot FTW. Let them counter the ‘Geddons! They have to! Meanwhile you will be continuing to presure them with creature threats and ready with Remand when it matters.
Begin rant #2:
Demonfire is great and all, but I really like Molten Disaster against control. Split Second is good, and you know you’ll have 10-15 mana available by the time you’re ready to end the game. Here’s the “kicker.” Get it? Kicker? I’m hilarious! The Angelfire player doesn’t have to be Hellbent to get the Molten Disaster to stick. This seems better than Demonfire. Angelfire is definitely the beatdown against most other control decks, but this does not mean that it wants to spill out its hand. Molten Disaster protects this resource while shortening the clock for other control decks. Sure, you probably won’t be casting Molten Disaster FTW against a lot of aggro, but it does a great Earthquake impression. Molten Disaster for 2, anyone? Once I own more of these babies, they’re going in the deck. Our time with Angelfire as we know it is limited, because once the signets, duals, and bouncelands rotate, Boom/Bust is much less attractive. But until October, I recommend this deck (Busts and all) heartily. One more thing; it is very forgiving to play. You can repeatedly punt away games and suddenly find yourself swinging for the win anyway. Some of us need this kind of insurance more than others.

Phyrexian Etchings in Standard

I come to you today with a deck that is beyond rogue. It passed rogue so long ago it doesn't remember where rogue lives.

Etchings, ftw

4 Phyrexian Etchings
4 Soul Spike
4 Drekavac
4 Nightshade Assassin
4 Dark Withering
4 Deepcavern Imp
2 Ravenous Rats
2 Consume Spirit
2 Last Gasp
2 Damnation
1 Avatar of Woe
1 Dimir Machinations
4 Dimir Signet
22 Swamp

Am I kidding? No I am not. The objective of this deck is to stick Phyrexian Etchings and ride enormous card advantage (along with removal and lifegain) to the win. Early game can go one of two ways. If you have say, 2 Drekavac, 1 Dark Withering, 1 Nightshade Assassin and 3 swamp, you can go Aggro control, dropping 8 power of dudes by turn 5 and destroying a couple opposing creatures along the way. Hands like 1 Rats, 1 Etchings and 5 Swamps are a little speculative but entirely keepable. If you are playing against someone with no enchanment removal, the etchings will save your ass long before they can kill you.

Don't be afraid of card disadvantage. Etchings will refill your hand with goodies (or in the case of this deck, mediocre-ies). Pitching your last two cards to a Soul Spike on Teferi is nothing but good times.

Don't be afraid to let the etchings go. Once you are under the etchings, you should have plenty of tools to stall the game and gain life. There's nothing like drawing 8 cards EOT, pitching 4 cards to double SS, then let the Etchings go for 18 life and Consume Spirit for 10 ftw. Just watch out for Shock.

Dimir Machinations is to transmute for Etchings. Four is not enough. You have to have etchings or, barring a complete goldfish on the other end, you will lose.

Things I've tried

Darkblast instead of Last Gasp is nice against Birds and Elves.

Sangrophage. Don't do it. So aggro. So bad.

I have done a transformative sideboard with 4 Dark Confidant, 4 Bad Moon, 4 Withered Wretch, 3 Nether Traitor, removing SS, Dark Withering, Avatar of Woe, Nightshade Assassin and 2 signets. It's okay. Probably the Soul Spikes should stay in, because whoa is direct damage is nice, and they really only cost you 3 life if you get to cast em.

Call to the Netherworld. Sometimes hot, often not. If you discard eot, you go back over 7 cards and get to cleanup all over again. 2 is right if you play it.

The best part about this deck is the incredulity on people's faces when they lose to it. Man is it ever fun. It has monstrous inevitability. There's nothing quite like casting four Soul Spikes in a game.

Also, it's black and gothy and stuff. Woo!