I played a bunch of events last night. Mostly 8 mans, but I didn't want to wait to win one as the night got later so I played a couple 2 mans as well. In total I went 6-4 which was a lot worse than the practice room but the people here actually seemed semi-competent so it's not too surprising. One thing I discovered is I simply can't beat Valakut and it saddens me. I wonder if I can find a better sideboard card in the next 16 hours to even the odds there a little...
Also, vengevine makes control decks cry like a little girl unless they have Karn. Even against burn my plan is often resolve a vengevine and then try to bring it back turn after turn as they kill it.
Here's how I sideboarded in each match. Not sure if this makes sense or not, but it's what I did.
vs Goblins
+4 leatherback
+1 obstinant
-2 ranger
-2 ezuri
-1 corrupter
My thinking here is my opponent was big on burning out my dudes and swinging past them with goblin guides so I want to play more dudes that survive burn spells. Gaining life is good. In retrospect Ezuri is probably better than archdruid in this match since my opponent had arc trails which 2-for-1 archdruid and an elf but Ezuri can regen the elf.
I lost the match 1-2. One of the games involved my opponent playing turn 1 goblin guide, turn 2 goblin guide + goblin guide (beat me to 12), turn 3 attack + goblin grenade + goblin grenade. Yeah, a full house. And I was dead before getting a 3rd turn. Despite casting 3 creatures myself in those 2 turns. Bah.
vs Valakut
+4 leatherback
+1 obstinant
-2 ranger
-2 ezuri
-1 corrupter
This was the first time I ever saw Valakut in action and didn't know what to side in or out. I was worried about pyroclasm so I brought in the dudes that live through pyroclasm.
+2 ezuri
-2 leatherback
I didn't see any pyroclasm effects in game 2 (I won game 1) so I sided Ezuri back in. (He did cast primeval titan on turn 3 though!) He then proceeded to play turn 2 pyroclasm, turn 3 slagstorm (pyro for 3). I lost 1-2.
vs UW control
-2 sylvan ranger
+2 nature's claim
He had a pro-green sword. I didn't want him to hit me with the pro-green sword and I hate the ranger. I won this match 2-0.
vs Splinter Twin
+4 torpor orb
+4 nature's claim
-4 lead the stampede
-2 ranger
-1 ezuri
-1 warcaller
He comboed me out on turn 4 in game 1. I brought in the full package with enchantment removal for the twin and torpor orb to force him to try to deal with it. Going up to 31 non-creature spells with lead the stampede seemed wrong so I took those out. I took out the rangers again and then 1 each of Ezuri and warcaller. Not sure why.
+1 ezuri
-1 warcaller
I won game 2 and it featured a turn 2 torpor orb and then I topdecked my last warcaller. I decided his ability wasn't going to work with the orb in play (I ended up playing him for 1 to bring back a vengevine) and took him out for game 3. I have since realized he should still work since his ability isn't triggered. The corrupter, on the other hand, doesn't work with an orb in play. But I think I still want to leave him in to kill spellskite?
I won game 3 as well. 2-1.
vs Valakut
+4 torpor orb
-2 ranger
-1 corruptor
-1 ezuri
I decided to go for a different game plan against this valakut deck and tried to slow him down with torpor orb. I didn't draw one and it didn't matter. I exploded 0-2.
vs Mono green beats?
none
I honestly didn't know what this guy was trying to do. He cast a lot of midranged green creatures (including acidic slime to blow up a forest) but didn't seem to have any way to actually stop me from blowing him up with an army of elves. I didn't sideboard and blew him up with an army of elves. 2-0.
vs Puresteel
+2 creeping corrosion
-2 ranger
Puresteel plays with a lot of equipment and I want to be able to blow it all up. Not sure if I should also side in the claims here or not. It seems like with a decent draw I'm just faster than they are though they can get some sick combos going. At any rate he stalled on land in game 2 and I blew him up. 2-0.
vs UW control
-2 ranger
+2 claim
This is how I sided against the last UW control player despite this guy not playing a sword.
+2 ranger
-2 claim
I drew both claims and he didn't play an artifact in game 2. He did destroy me with Karn though. I was probably playing too passively in fear of wrath and I think it cost me. I undid my sideboarding for game 3. I also played this game too passively and frequently had 7 creatures in hand. (He tapped out and I lead a couple stampedes.) Eventually he played a wrath, I played a few dudes but not as many as I could. Then he played Karn and I realized I was just screwed if he had a wrath to go with Karn. So I played out an army of 1/1s. He didn't have wrath. I topdecked Ezuri and killed him. 2-1.
vs RDW
+5 baloths
-2 ranger
-1 llanowar
-1 arbor
-1 treespeaker
This match was a 2-player queue one. This guy wasn't playing goblins, he was playing full on burn with lavamancers and shrines. He had a lot of arc trails too. I decided my cheap stuff was just getting burned anyway so I sided a bit of it out and brought in large men. It worked, and I won 2-1.
vs GUW Pod
+4 orb
+4 claim
-4 stampede
-2 ranger
-1 ezuri
-1 warcaller
The last 2-player queue match. I got locked down behind Venser + stonehorn dignitary (skip your next combat phase every turn) so I sided in torpor orb to deal with him. And claims to kill off any pods. These are non-creatures again, so I pulled the stampedes along with my hated rangers and one of each of my finishers. I got locked again in game 2 and eventually got killed with about 120 power of dudes in play. I did get a torpor orb but by that point I had 2 extra combat phases skipped and he used Venser's ultimate to get rid of it. Pretty sure a turn 2 orb wins this game though, so I probably should have mulliganned into one.
Showing posts with label Standard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Standard. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Elves!
On Tuesday I realized I had only 4 days left to pick a constructed deck, get the cards online, test it, and get the paper cards. This isn't a lot of time but I was still no closer to a decision. The problem is I am too apt to believe whatever it is I read/hear when I don't have any basis to disagree. Give me some actual knowledge and I'm front and center when it comes to being polemic about any argument but when it comes to an area I have no ability to critique I'm apt to just believe what I read.
I'd been reading a lot of constructed posts on various sites and they all espouse playing their own pet decks. RUG Twin-Pod is awesome says the guy who won Australian Nationals. Many people say to play Caw-Blade because it's powerful and the mirror is highly skill intensive. Of course these people are all in desperate need of having you believe they're an authority (they need you to come back to their sites to generate more ad revenue) so making claims implying that the choices they made show they're skilled may be more self-serving than true. Basic blue-red Twin had an article about it and made it seem to easy. Use your card filtering spells to build an unbeatable hand, then win with your unbeatable hand. I could do that! If I tested for weeks and weeks and knew what an 'unbeatable hand' was against each deck in the format, anyway.
The last article I read talked about playing cheap discard, removal, counters, and bombs. 6/6 flyers for 4. Gideon for 5. Some sphinx that draws a ton of cards for 6. Who cares that the mana for that sequence is BB2, WW3, UU4. You'll draw that mana mix, no problem. I was all set to get that monstrosity online when I realized just how many of those were mythics. A quick search online put the deck at about $400. I'd probably need to sink more money into online tickets to even put that together, but since the deck is clearly awesome it must be worth it, right? As a comparison I also looked up an elf deck and it was substantially cheaper... (I also wasn't looking forward to spending another $400 for paper cards for the deck either.)
I was still no closer to a decision but Duncan had recently posted on Facebook that he'd have to miss Sky's birthday since he was going to be at Nationals. Pretty much everyone I know has shifted into playing board games or having children instead of playing Magic and Duncan is no different. At least compared to the past where I could count on Duncan having pretty much all the cards. I decided to send him an email asking if he was playing or not, and what his card situation actually was. Then I put off playing constructed for another day and drafted a bunch, including the mono-green deck I posted yesterday.
Falling asleep is not something I do easily and I ended up playing sample games with the UBW deck in my head that night. It all sounded so simple in the article but I kept casting my discard spells in my (day?)dreams and not knowing what to take. I kept taking the wrong things, people kept mana leaking my 6/6 for 4, and wrecking me. Of course this has no actual basis in reality but the idea was implanted anyway... I still don't know what I'm doing so playing a deck with a lot of interactive choices can't be right.
I checked my email before going to work on Wednesday and Duncan had replied back saying he was judging, that he didn't have a ton of cards, but if I sent him a list he'd see what he could lend me to cut down on how much I had to buy which is awesome of him. But I didn't have a deck. I still had the elf deck open in my browser from the price comparing the night before and I didn't recall it being very interactive so I sent it to Duncan.
I got home from work to another email. Duncan has a lot of the elf deck (it being terrible draft commons and all) and gave me a list of what was missing. Perhaps a smart person would build the deck online but time was running short so I went downtown to 401 to buy the missing cards without having played the deck or even really knowing what it did. It turns out Duncan runs a board game night at 401 on Wednesday so he was also there.
It turns out 401 installed a second air conditioner upstairs since I went to the M12 pre-release event. Unfortunately the second AC wasn't working so the room was sweltering and I didn't feel like sticking around to play board games. I did go and get someone who worked there to fix the AC which helped a little, but I still just hung around a bit to talk to Duncan about cards and left. 401 didn't have everything I needed and Duncan pointed me to Harry Tarantula with a warning that they tend to be overpriced but as a result probably had what I need in stock. They did, with Vengevine being $25 there instead of $16 at 401. Ouch. (Though between the two stores they didn't have enough Ezuris and I had to buy a foil one for an extra 2 bucks. It was either that or risk that Marv would have one for sale at Nationals and knowing Marv it would probably cost $20 and a kidney.)
New cards in hand I headed home, put a tv dinner in the over, and bought the deck online as well. Thankfully the online marketplace is a lot more efficient and I was able to find all the cards in short order. The set of Vengevines was 65 tickets but the entire rest of the deck combined was under 20. Including the 10 forests I had to buy for a penny since I somehow only had 9 on my account. I then went to the solitaire room to give the deck a few spins to see what cards were in it and what they did. The first game I won on turn 4. I played probably 20 more solitaire games while eating and always won on either turn 4 or turn 5. In one game I did 47 by turn 4.
Ok, but that's goldfishing for no opponent who can block, cast counters, or burn out my dudes. So I headed to the tournament practice room to get some actual games in. I joined the first open table and it turned out to be one mcguirecj, former roommate and team sealed teammate. It turns out Chris is coming down from Ottawa for Nationals this weekend and was also getting some testing in. Small world! At any rate Chris was playing goblins. The first game he played a 2/2 haste for 1 on turn 1, then a grim lavamancer and a bolt for my elf on turn 2, and then just killed all my dudes and eventually me. So much for the goldfish, huh? I did manage to take games 2 and 3 after siding in an army of large men.
From there I went on to play against illusions, poison, hawkward, puresteel, GUB pod, some terrible deck that scooped before game 2, and finally caw-blade. I beat them all, though some of the players failed to take guaranteed wins on board so I'm not sure I can really be too thrilled. At the very least the deck actually seems to have game which is nice. The next step, tonight and probably Friday night, is to dive into the constructed queues on Modo for actually games with people willing to pay to play with their decks.
One trouble I had was I didn't have a clue how to sideboard. I had a rough idea what to bring in but no clue what to take out. I actually haven't found an article about how to play elves anywhere online so I thought it might be instructive to go over how it seems the deck plays and what I should do and solicit feedback from others. This is going to be a pretty long post, so here's a jump...
I'd been reading a lot of constructed posts on various sites and they all espouse playing their own pet decks. RUG Twin-Pod is awesome says the guy who won Australian Nationals. Many people say to play Caw-Blade because it's powerful and the mirror is highly skill intensive. Of course these people are all in desperate need of having you believe they're an authority (they need you to come back to their sites to generate more ad revenue) so making claims implying that the choices they made show they're skilled may be more self-serving than true. Basic blue-red Twin had an article about it and made it seem to easy. Use your card filtering spells to build an unbeatable hand, then win with your unbeatable hand. I could do that! If I tested for weeks and weeks and knew what an 'unbeatable hand' was against each deck in the format, anyway.
The last article I read talked about playing cheap discard, removal, counters, and bombs. 6/6 flyers for 4. Gideon for 5. Some sphinx that draws a ton of cards for 6. Who cares that the mana for that sequence is BB2, WW3, UU4. You'll draw that mana mix, no problem. I was all set to get that monstrosity online when I realized just how many of those were mythics. A quick search online put the deck at about $400. I'd probably need to sink more money into online tickets to even put that together, but since the deck is clearly awesome it must be worth it, right? As a comparison I also looked up an elf deck and it was substantially cheaper... (I also wasn't looking forward to spending another $400 for paper cards for the deck either.)
I was still no closer to a decision but Duncan had recently posted on Facebook that he'd have to miss Sky's birthday since he was going to be at Nationals. Pretty much everyone I know has shifted into playing board games or having children instead of playing Magic and Duncan is no different. At least compared to the past where I could count on Duncan having pretty much all the cards. I decided to send him an email asking if he was playing or not, and what his card situation actually was. Then I put off playing constructed for another day and drafted a bunch, including the mono-green deck I posted yesterday.
Falling asleep is not something I do easily and I ended up playing sample games with the UBW deck in my head that night. It all sounded so simple in the article but I kept casting my discard spells in my (day?)dreams and not knowing what to take. I kept taking the wrong things, people kept mana leaking my 6/6 for 4, and wrecking me. Of course this has no actual basis in reality but the idea was implanted anyway... I still don't know what I'm doing so playing a deck with a lot of interactive choices can't be right.
I checked my email before going to work on Wednesday and Duncan had replied back saying he was judging, that he didn't have a ton of cards, but if I sent him a list he'd see what he could lend me to cut down on how much I had to buy which is awesome of him. But I didn't have a deck. I still had the elf deck open in my browser from the price comparing the night before and I didn't recall it being very interactive so I sent it to Duncan.
I got home from work to another email. Duncan has a lot of the elf deck (it being terrible draft commons and all) and gave me a list of what was missing. Perhaps a smart person would build the deck online but time was running short so I went downtown to 401 to buy the missing cards without having played the deck or even really knowing what it did. It turns out Duncan runs a board game night at 401 on Wednesday so he was also there.
It turns out 401 installed a second air conditioner upstairs since I went to the M12 pre-release event. Unfortunately the second AC wasn't working so the room was sweltering and I didn't feel like sticking around to play board games. I did go and get someone who worked there to fix the AC which helped a little, but I still just hung around a bit to talk to Duncan about cards and left. 401 didn't have everything I needed and Duncan pointed me to Harry Tarantula with a warning that they tend to be overpriced but as a result probably had what I need in stock. They did, with Vengevine being $25 there instead of $16 at 401. Ouch. (Though between the two stores they didn't have enough Ezuris and I had to buy a foil one for an extra 2 bucks. It was either that or risk that Marv would have one for sale at Nationals and knowing Marv it would probably cost $20 and a kidney.)
New cards in hand I headed home, put a tv dinner in the over, and bought the deck online as well. Thankfully the online marketplace is a lot more efficient and I was able to find all the cards in short order. The set of Vengevines was 65 tickets but the entire rest of the deck combined was under 20. Including the 10 forests I had to buy for a penny since I somehow only had 9 on my account. I then went to the solitaire room to give the deck a few spins to see what cards were in it and what they did. The first game I won on turn 4. I played probably 20 more solitaire games while eating and always won on either turn 4 or turn 5. In one game I did 47 by turn 4.
Ok, but that's goldfishing for no opponent who can block, cast counters, or burn out my dudes. So I headed to the tournament practice room to get some actual games in. I joined the first open table and it turned out to be one mcguirecj, former roommate and team sealed teammate. It turns out Chris is coming down from Ottawa for Nationals this weekend and was also getting some testing in. Small world! At any rate Chris was playing goblins. The first game he played a 2/2 haste for 1 on turn 1, then a grim lavamancer and a bolt for my elf on turn 2, and then just killed all my dudes and eventually me. So much for the goldfish, huh? I did manage to take games 2 and 3 after siding in an army of large men.
From there I went on to play against illusions, poison, hawkward, puresteel, GUB pod, some terrible deck that scooped before game 2, and finally caw-blade. I beat them all, though some of the players failed to take guaranteed wins on board so I'm not sure I can really be too thrilled. At the very least the deck actually seems to have game which is nice. The next step, tonight and probably Friday night, is to dive into the constructed queues on Modo for actually games with people willing to pay to play with their decks.
One trouble I had was I didn't have a clue how to sideboard. I had a rough idea what to bring in but no clue what to take out. I actually haven't found an article about how to play elves anywhere online so I thought it might be instructive to go over how it seems the deck plays and what I should do and solicit feedback from others. This is going to be a pretty long post, so here's a jump...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)