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aliaspseudonym) wrote2015-08-03 11:36 pm
aliaspseudonym) wrote2015-08-03 11:36 pm
Magic Report!
I played a Modern event at Phoenix comics today, borrowing a friend’s extremely shiny affinity deck. I unfortunnately went 2-2 and got the bye, but all the matches were close and I feel pretty ok about them.
Match one was against burn. In game one my opponent fortunately has lava spike on turn one instead of a haste creature. I play memnite, ornithopter and blinkmoth nexus -- the memnite gets searing blazed. I attack for one and played out an arcbound ravager in hopes of protecting myself from future searing blazes, my opponent responds by playing an eidelon of the great revel. I’m at 14 now, but I have to play a steel overseer and pay two life to play a vault skirge on my turn -- that means I take a total of 6 damage on my turn without my opponent having to cast a spell. I pass the turn back, my ravager keeps the eidelon at bay but I get hit with a boros charm and a bolt, putting me to one life before my opponent passes the turn back.
Now I’ve got to get something going if I want to live. I tap steel overseer to put a +1/+1 counter on all my creatures, then it’s time to make some sacrifices. I sac three darksteel citadels, my steel overseer, and my ornithopter to my ravager to make it a 7/7, then I sacrifice it to itself to trigger the modular ability, transfering all 7 +1/+1 counters to my vault skirge. Now I have an 8/8 lifelinking flier and I smash my opponent for over half their remaning life total (they fetched some untapped shocklands and were at 14) putting myself back up to 9 with my opponent on only a single card in hand and an eidelon in play. They play a goblin guide, attack me for four, then bolt me down to 2, but my gigantic vault scourge finishes them off on the swing-back.
Game two is kind of rough, my opponent has evidently boarded in multiple copies of smash to smithereens and distructive revelry, and I play out mulitple vault scourges only to get them shattered for bonus damage to me. I manage to whipflare away some opposing creatures but I get burnt out easily after paying so much life.
Game three I keep a kind of slow hand and my opponent has a swiftspear into a goblin guide; I manage to whipflare them away again and race back with signal pest and multiple blinkmoth nexuses. Eventually it comes down to me at 5 with my opponent on only one burn spell in hand and no creatures on board, needing to draw a burn spell to finish me off or die to my army of robots on the following turn. Unfortunately they drew an atarka’s command to combine with their lightning bolt to finish me off.
Match two was against black/white tokens, a sort of tier-two deck but certainly still capable of competing. In game one I kept what was probably a questionable hand, had a difficult time developing my threats and on one turn made a serious mistake with my mana that left my arcbound ravager open to being killed by path to exile without me being able to take advantage of the modular ability.to move its counters to one of my inkmoth or blinkmoth nexi, then I was run over by spirit tokens pumped up by intangible virtue.
In game two I got to untap with a steel overseer on turn 3 and put a counter on all my artifact creatures and get a big swing in. My opponent played out a bitterblossom and made some more tokens on the next turn but had no answer to the overseer and therefore no chance of winning; I whipflared their tokens away and won on turn 4.
In game three my hand was amazing, I got to play out two ornithopters, a blinkmoth nexus, a mox and a steel overseer on turn one on the draw, with a master of etherium left over in my hand. Then my opponent played stoney silence on turn two, turning off my steel overseer and my source of coloured mana for master of etherium and then I didn’t play any spells for the rest of the game, which was fun. Oh well.
In round three I got the bye, in round four I was matched against Jund. Game one I played out a vault skirge and steel overseer early and I managed to get one activation out of the overseer before it got bolted. Then I played a master of etherium, further pumping up my artifacts and putting a 6/6 on the board -- my pumped up life-linking vault skirge helped me easily race my jund opponent’s tarmogoyf and scavenging ooze on the ground.
In game two I played out two significant threats -- a steel overseer and a cranial plating -- only to have them taken out by abrupt decays and bolts while my opponent developed the board with tarmogoyfs and other big ground creatures. Fortunately, I had a cranial plating left over and an inkmoth nexus on the board; I equipped up the nexus and, with the help of a signal pest, smashed my opponent for 5 poison, leaving them one turn to find an answer to the land or the plating or die on the next swing. The best they could muster was an attack on the ground for 10 from their ground creatures and a raging ravine, putting me to six life but leaving them dead in the air to my inkmoth nexus on my next turn. I won the match convincingly 2-0.
Overall I found affinity interesting to play but I don’t think I would choose it as a deck, losing to hate cards that shut down everything you’re trying to do is a bit too frustrating. Playing out 4-6 permanents on turn 1 is certainly pretty fun, though!
Match one was against burn. In game one my opponent fortunately has lava spike on turn one instead of a haste creature. I play memnite, ornithopter and blinkmoth nexus -- the memnite gets searing blazed. I attack for one and played out an arcbound ravager in hopes of protecting myself from future searing blazes, my opponent responds by playing an eidelon of the great revel. I’m at 14 now, but I have to play a steel overseer and pay two life to play a vault skirge on my turn -- that means I take a total of 6 damage on my turn without my opponent having to cast a spell. I pass the turn back, my ravager keeps the eidelon at bay but I get hit with a boros charm and a bolt, putting me to one life before my opponent passes the turn back.
Now I’ve got to get something going if I want to live. I tap steel overseer to put a +1/+1 counter on all my creatures, then it’s time to make some sacrifices. I sac three darksteel citadels, my steel overseer, and my ornithopter to my ravager to make it a 7/7, then I sacrifice it to itself to trigger the modular ability, transfering all 7 +1/+1 counters to my vault skirge. Now I have an 8/8 lifelinking flier and I smash my opponent for over half their remaning life total (they fetched some untapped shocklands and were at 14) putting myself back up to 9 with my opponent on only a single card in hand and an eidelon in play. They play a goblin guide, attack me for four, then bolt me down to 2, but my gigantic vault scourge finishes them off on the swing-back.
Game two is kind of rough, my opponent has evidently boarded in multiple copies of smash to smithereens and distructive revelry, and I play out mulitple vault scourges only to get them shattered for bonus damage to me. I manage to whipflare away some opposing creatures but I get burnt out easily after paying so much life.
Game three I keep a kind of slow hand and my opponent has a swiftspear into a goblin guide; I manage to whipflare them away again and race back with signal pest and multiple blinkmoth nexuses. Eventually it comes down to me at 5 with my opponent on only one burn spell in hand and no creatures on board, needing to draw a burn spell to finish me off or die to my army of robots on the following turn. Unfortunately they drew an atarka’s command to combine with their lightning bolt to finish me off.
Match two was against black/white tokens, a sort of tier-two deck but certainly still capable of competing. In game one I kept what was probably a questionable hand, had a difficult time developing my threats and on one turn made a serious mistake with my mana that left my arcbound ravager open to being killed by path to exile without me being able to take advantage of the modular ability.to move its counters to one of my inkmoth or blinkmoth nexi, then I was run over by spirit tokens pumped up by intangible virtue.
In game two I got to untap with a steel overseer on turn 3 and put a counter on all my artifact creatures and get a big swing in. My opponent played out a bitterblossom and made some more tokens on the next turn but had no answer to the overseer and therefore no chance of winning; I whipflared their tokens away and won on turn 4.
In game three my hand was amazing, I got to play out two ornithopters, a blinkmoth nexus, a mox and a steel overseer on turn one on the draw, with a master of etherium left over in my hand. Then my opponent played stoney silence on turn two, turning off my steel overseer and my source of coloured mana for master of etherium and then I didn’t play any spells for the rest of the game, which was fun. Oh well.
In round three I got the bye, in round four I was matched against Jund. Game one I played out a vault skirge and steel overseer early and I managed to get one activation out of the overseer before it got bolted. Then I played a master of etherium, further pumping up my artifacts and putting a 6/6 on the board -- my pumped up life-linking vault skirge helped me easily race my jund opponent’s tarmogoyf and scavenging ooze on the ground.
In game two I played out two significant threats -- a steel overseer and a cranial plating -- only to have them taken out by abrupt decays and bolts while my opponent developed the board with tarmogoyfs and other big ground creatures. Fortunately, I had a cranial plating left over and an inkmoth nexus on the board; I equipped up the nexus and, with the help of a signal pest, smashed my opponent for 5 poison, leaving them one turn to find an answer to the land or the plating or die on the next swing. The best they could muster was an attack on the ground for 10 from their ground creatures and a raging ravine, putting me to six life but leaving them dead in the air to my inkmoth nexus on my next turn. I won the match convincingly 2-0.
Overall I found affinity interesting to play but I don’t think I would choose it as a deck, losing to hate cards that shut down everything you’re trying to do is a bit too frustrating. Playing out 4-6 permanents on turn 1 is certainly pretty fun, though!