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aliaspseudonym) wrote2015-08-08 04:37 pm
aliaspseudonym) wrote2015-08-08 04:37 pm
FNM Report!
Decklist:
3 Leaf Gilder
3 Titanic Growth
1 Disperse
1 Timberpack Wolf
1 Bounding Krasis
1 Guardians of Meletis
1 Anchor to the Aether
1 Scrapskin Drake
2 Yeva's Forcemage
2 Separatist Voidmage
1 Pharika's Disciple
1 Whirler Rogue
1 Wild Instincts
2 Ringwarden Owl
1 Joraga Invocation
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
8 Forest
9 Island
My draft starts off with a fairly weak pack, the rares were shivan reef and a foil Relic Seeker. Relic Seeker is not exactly a rare-quality card, but it's very comparable to Topan Freeblade which is one of the best commons in the format and certainly first pickable, so I took that. In the next couple packs I picked up a Stalwart Aven and a mix of medium-quality green and blue cards, but white dried up very quickly and I ended the first pack with a pile of scrapskin drakes and timberpack wolves and stratus walks with a ringwarden own as the highlight. Pack 2 went much better for me, I opened a strong rare in alhammarret and was rewarded for cutting off blue to my left with a fourth or fifth pick Whirler Rogue (!) a card that is arguably the best uncommon and comparable to one of the best rares in the set. I rounded out the pack with a couple of separatist voidmages and wheeled a couple of titanic growths and things were looking much better. Midway through pack three my deck has an abrupt spike in power level as I'm passed one Leaf Gilder after another and end the pack with three of them! I also got a Thopter Spy Network in pack three, but ended up with not nearly enough artifacts for it. Oh well, trade binder I guess.
Overall my deck ends up looking quite strong and relatively defensive with a full three mana elves to accelerate and a few strong lategame fliers and bounce spells slow my opponent down. I'm leaning quite a bit on my three titanic growths to function as virtual removal spells inside combat and my three drop slot is quite weak with three out-of-place aggressive creatures and an 0/6, but I'm relatively confident that ramping into my powerful blue spells will get me some wins.
My day has a rocky start -- in the first match I'm paired against a b/g elves deck that plays a thornbow archer into a dwynen's elite into yeva's forcemage and gnarlroot trapper and proceeds to kill me before I have a chance to do much of anything. In game two I have a leaf gilder turn two on the play and my opponent's thornbow archer suddenly looks a lot less impressive, and I'm able to go over the top of my opponent's elves fairly easily.
Game three I have a slow start on the draw and take a lot of damage but on turn 3 I'm able to flash in bounding krasis to eat a timberpack wolf, then untap and use wild instincts to fight another elf with it. I stabilize at 10 behind my krasis and a guardians of meletis and start to clock my opponent with a ringwarden owl, but he plays a rogues passage to make one of his two power creatures unblockable and starts hitting me back and things get scary, especially when he produces a 1/4 reach to block my owl on any turn I can't produce a prowess trigger. He plays a hangarback walker as well which threatens to make a bunch of fliers and race me easily, but fortunately my 0/6 guardians can easily block it without setting free the cloud of thopters.
Now I draw joraga invocation, which could force my opponent to make a bunch of chump blocks -- BUT, if I attack with a ground creature he can just chump with hangarback and set loose the swarm. I'm forced to only attack with my ringwarden owl to destroy my opponent's reach creature so my owl can keep getting in. Fortunately for me, my opponent continues to brick off drawing either lands or small elves and timberpack wolves and the owl finishes him off in the air for a very narrow win in the first match!
Round two, I'm matched against a r/b deck of some sort. My opponent leads with a turn three Ramroller and I pass my third turn with two forests and an island up. My opponent asks if he's allowed to talk to a judge and confirm the text on a card, which obviously he is. He plays a chief of the foundry pre-combat and attacks with his now very intimidating 5/4 Ramroller, but before he goes to attacks I flash in the Bounding Krasis he suspected I might have to tap it down.
On my turn I miss a land drop and deploy a 0/6 guardians of meletis to hopefully deal with the 5/4. My opponent swings unproductively into it, since the ramroller must attack, and plays out a Boggart Brute. I find my four land and pass the turn back holding up all four mana.
My opponent's next turn is the crucial one of the game -- he attacks with the 5/4 ramroller and I go to block with my 3/3 krasis, then cast disperse targetting his chief of the foundry which would turn the ramroller into an unimpressive 2/3. My opponent has negate for my disperse, but I use my remaining two mana for titanic growth on my krasis, turning it into a 7/7 and eating the ramroller. With my opponent's main threat dealt with and their chief of the foundry now looking particularly bad, I'm able to draw some deploy a ringwarden owl and eventually bring out Alhammarret himself to finish off my opponent in the air.
Game two is kind of a blowout. We trade evasive three drops in scrapskin drake and boggart brute, then I have whirler rogue on turn 4 and my opponent isn't willing to attack into a potential double block from the thopters, instead playing out an akroan sergeant. Next is my turn 5 and I play out a ringwarden owl and swing for two with my drake, since it can't block ground creatures anyway. My opponent swings at me with his team for a total of five and I'm not remotely interested in blocking, so I take 5 going to 12. He plays an awkward post-combat firefiend elemental and passes the turn.
I apologize to my opponent before tapping six mana for Joraga Invocation, giving my entire team +3/+3 and attacking my opponent for a total of 20 damage in the air. GG, on to round three!
Next I get matched against I player I know piloting a w/b auras type deck -- he seems somewhat surprised to have gotten this far, which makes me feel a bit better about my chances. In game one he plays a turn one 0/4 yoked ox, which turns out to be less than effective against my aggressive curve of timberpack wolf into yeva's forcemage to make the wolf a 4/4 into whirler rogue to make my forcemage unblockable. My opponent plays a blightcaster; I put out a ringwarden owl. He puts weight of the underworld on my owl, using the trigger to kill my rogue. I play out a pharika's disciple and hit him with my thopters, he has suppression bonds for it and gets to kill a thopter with blightcaster.
At this point I play voidmage bouncing his 0/4 and make a questionable attack with all my creatures, including the 0/1 owl. He blocks my forcemage with his blightcaster and I pass priority, and my forcemage dies because APPARENTLY blightcaster is a 2/3 and not a 2/2 and I'm saving the titanic growth in my hand for lethal. Darn. Fortunately for me, my opponent has run out of removal and is hopelessly behind despite getting multiple blightcaster triggers, and my next swing is easily lethal with the titanic growth.
I board out a Yeva's Forcemage for a Negate since my opponent's deck seems slow and full of auras, but in game two I find myself facing down turn one annointer of champions into turn two cleric of the forward order; my first creature gets killed by a fleshbag maurader and I find myself sitting with two titanic growths in my hand and no way to stick a creature without taking a ton of damage. My ringwarden owl gets supression bonds'd, and by the time I can sort-of stabilize I'm at 4 and my opponent has an active shadows of the past in play, so I'm just dead to drain-untap-drain.
Game three I keep a 2 spell hand with leaf gilder and bounding krasis on the grounds that those are two of the better spells in my deck and to my dismay my opponent starts with the annointer into cleric yet again. On turn three my opponent puts grasp of the heiromancer on their cleric and attack, tapping my leaf gilder -- I make a slight mistake by letting my opponent go to the declare attacks step when I should have flashed in the krasis tapping their annointer as soon as they went to combat. I only take one extra damage, since I didn't really want to trade the krasis, but it was still a little loose.
I've drawn a land and a titanic growth after keeping my two spell hand and am feeling pretty miserable, but meanwhile on my opponent's side he's stuck on two mana after missing two land drops, and when he attacks with the cleric tapping my krasis titanic growth on my elf makes it a 7/5 which eats the cleric even after the buff from champion. My opponent continues to miss land drops as I beat him down for 5 a turn; by the time he hits land three I cast joraga invokation to kill the only two creatures he had in play followed by alhammarret to look at his hand of 4 drops that wouldn't affect the board very much even if he could cast them and name, um, weight of the underworld I guess. He draws a fourth land on his next turn, is dead on board and concedes.
Having 3-0'd my pod, I move on to the finals against the winner of another pod with a foil serum visions on the line for the winner! In game one I once again curve two-drop into forcemage into whirler rogue while my opponent is casting caustic caterpillar into read the bones on turn three. My rogue gets reave soul'd (again) but the thopers get to keep beating down, I play out some more stuff, bounce some of my opponent's stuff and finish them off relatively easily -- including a stylish finish involving double titanic growth on a thopter token to kill them from 7 while they were tapped out.
Game two is a bit anticlimactic; I play out some creatures, my opponent casts read the bones multiple times and get off some 5 mana removal spells on my stuff but then floods out badly, I get to use pharika's disciple to fight his rhox maulers with wild instincts. I play a ringwarden owl, he uses an unholy hunger to deal with my disciple then plays a Gilt-Leaf Winnower (!) killing my 0/6 guardians of meletis, since the ringwarden owl is untargetable. At this point though, my opponent is just horribly flooded and I have a second ringwarden owl and a whirler rogue in hand. I elect to hold back and just play out a timberpack wolf on the grounds that the only way my opponent can win at this point is by sweeping away multiple threats with a card like languish. They failed to draw anything to interact even after casting multiple copies of read the bones and die to three or four more attacks from my owl.
And that's how I 4-0'd the FNM with my sweet u/g deck! I'll consider it justice for only going 2-2 with the ridiculous r/w deck I had last time.
3 Leaf Gilder
3 Titanic Growth
1 Disperse
1 Timberpack Wolf
1 Bounding Krasis
1 Guardians of Meletis
1 Anchor to the Aether
1 Scrapskin Drake
2 Yeva's Forcemage
2 Separatist Voidmage
1 Pharika's Disciple
1 Whirler Rogue
1 Wild Instincts
2 Ringwarden Owl
1 Joraga Invocation
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
8 Forest
9 Island
My draft starts off with a fairly weak pack, the rares were shivan reef and a foil Relic Seeker. Relic Seeker is not exactly a rare-quality card, but it's very comparable to Topan Freeblade which is one of the best commons in the format and certainly first pickable, so I took that. In the next couple packs I picked up a Stalwart Aven and a mix of medium-quality green and blue cards, but white dried up very quickly and I ended the first pack with a pile of scrapskin drakes and timberpack wolves and stratus walks with a ringwarden own as the highlight. Pack 2 went much better for me, I opened a strong rare in alhammarret and was rewarded for cutting off blue to my left with a fourth or fifth pick Whirler Rogue (!) a card that is arguably the best uncommon and comparable to one of the best rares in the set. I rounded out the pack with a couple of separatist voidmages and wheeled a couple of titanic growths and things were looking much better. Midway through pack three my deck has an abrupt spike in power level as I'm passed one Leaf Gilder after another and end the pack with three of them! I also got a Thopter Spy Network in pack three, but ended up with not nearly enough artifacts for it. Oh well, trade binder I guess.
Overall my deck ends up looking quite strong and relatively defensive with a full three mana elves to accelerate and a few strong lategame fliers and bounce spells slow my opponent down. I'm leaning quite a bit on my three titanic growths to function as virtual removal spells inside combat and my three drop slot is quite weak with three out-of-place aggressive creatures and an 0/6, but I'm relatively confident that ramping into my powerful blue spells will get me some wins.
My day has a rocky start -- in the first match I'm paired against a b/g elves deck that plays a thornbow archer into a dwynen's elite into yeva's forcemage and gnarlroot trapper and proceeds to kill me before I have a chance to do much of anything. In game two I have a leaf gilder turn two on the play and my opponent's thornbow archer suddenly looks a lot less impressive, and I'm able to go over the top of my opponent's elves fairly easily.
Game three I have a slow start on the draw and take a lot of damage but on turn 3 I'm able to flash in bounding krasis to eat a timberpack wolf, then untap and use wild instincts to fight another elf with it. I stabilize at 10 behind my krasis and a guardians of meletis and start to clock my opponent with a ringwarden owl, but he plays a rogues passage to make one of his two power creatures unblockable and starts hitting me back and things get scary, especially when he produces a 1/4 reach to block my owl on any turn I can't produce a prowess trigger. He plays a hangarback walker as well which threatens to make a bunch of fliers and race me easily, but fortunately my 0/6 guardians can easily block it without setting free the cloud of thopters.
Now I draw joraga invocation, which could force my opponent to make a bunch of chump blocks -- BUT, if I attack with a ground creature he can just chump with hangarback and set loose the swarm. I'm forced to only attack with my ringwarden owl to destroy my opponent's reach creature so my owl can keep getting in. Fortunately for me, my opponent continues to brick off drawing either lands or small elves and timberpack wolves and the owl finishes him off in the air for a very narrow win in the first match!
Round two, I'm matched against a r/b deck of some sort. My opponent leads with a turn three Ramroller and I pass my third turn with two forests and an island up. My opponent asks if he's allowed to talk to a judge and confirm the text on a card, which obviously he is. He plays a chief of the foundry pre-combat and attacks with his now very intimidating 5/4 Ramroller, but before he goes to attacks I flash in the Bounding Krasis he suspected I might have to tap it down.
On my turn I miss a land drop and deploy a 0/6 guardians of meletis to hopefully deal with the 5/4. My opponent swings unproductively into it, since the ramroller must attack, and plays out a Boggart Brute. I find my four land and pass the turn back holding up all four mana.
My opponent's next turn is the crucial one of the game -- he attacks with the 5/4 ramroller and I go to block with my 3/3 krasis, then cast disperse targetting his chief of the foundry which would turn the ramroller into an unimpressive 2/3. My opponent has negate for my disperse, but I use my remaining two mana for titanic growth on my krasis, turning it into a 7/7 and eating the ramroller. With my opponent's main threat dealt with and their chief of the foundry now looking particularly bad, I'm able to draw some deploy a ringwarden owl and eventually bring out Alhammarret himself to finish off my opponent in the air.
Game two is kind of a blowout. We trade evasive three drops in scrapskin drake and boggart brute, then I have whirler rogue on turn 4 and my opponent isn't willing to attack into a potential double block from the thopters, instead playing out an akroan sergeant. Next is my turn 5 and I play out a ringwarden owl and swing for two with my drake, since it can't block ground creatures anyway. My opponent swings at me with his team for a total of five and I'm not remotely interested in blocking, so I take 5 going to 12. He plays an awkward post-combat firefiend elemental and passes the turn.
I apologize to my opponent before tapping six mana for Joraga Invocation, giving my entire team +3/+3 and attacking my opponent for a total of 20 damage in the air. GG, on to round three!
Next I get matched against I player I know piloting a w/b auras type deck -- he seems somewhat surprised to have gotten this far, which makes me feel a bit better about my chances. In game one he plays a turn one 0/4 yoked ox, which turns out to be less than effective against my aggressive curve of timberpack wolf into yeva's forcemage to make the wolf a 4/4 into whirler rogue to make my forcemage unblockable. My opponent plays a blightcaster; I put out a ringwarden owl. He puts weight of the underworld on my owl, using the trigger to kill my rogue. I play out a pharika's disciple and hit him with my thopters, he has suppression bonds for it and gets to kill a thopter with blightcaster.
At this point I play voidmage bouncing his 0/4 and make a questionable attack with all my creatures, including the 0/1 owl. He blocks my forcemage with his blightcaster and I pass priority, and my forcemage dies because APPARENTLY blightcaster is a 2/3 and not a 2/2 and I'm saving the titanic growth in my hand for lethal. Darn. Fortunately for me, my opponent has run out of removal and is hopelessly behind despite getting multiple blightcaster triggers, and my next swing is easily lethal with the titanic growth.
I board out a Yeva's Forcemage for a Negate since my opponent's deck seems slow and full of auras, but in game two I find myself facing down turn one annointer of champions into turn two cleric of the forward order; my first creature gets killed by a fleshbag maurader and I find myself sitting with two titanic growths in my hand and no way to stick a creature without taking a ton of damage. My ringwarden owl gets supression bonds'd, and by the time I can sort-of stabilize I'm at 4 and my opponent has an active shadows of the past in play, so I'm just dead to drain-untap-drain.
Game three I keep a 2 spell hand with leaf gilder and bounding krasis on the grounds that those are two of the better spells in my deck and to my dismay my opponent starts with the annointer into cleric yet again. On turn three my opponent puts grasp of the heiromancer on their cleric and attack, tapping my leaf gilder -- I make a slight mistake by letting my opponent go to the declare attacks step when I should have flashed in the krasis tapping their annointer as soon as they went to combat. I only take one extra damage, since I didn't really want to trade the krasis, but it was still a little loose.
I've drawn a land and a titanic growth after keeping my two spell hand and am feeling pretty miserable, but meanwhile on my opponent's side he's stuck on two mana after missing two land drops, and when he attacks with the cleric tapping my krasis titanic growth on my elf makes it a 7/5 which eats the cleric even after the buff from champion. My opponent continues to miss land drops as I beat him down for 5 a turn; by the time he hits land three I cast joraga invokation to kill the only two creatures he had in play followed by alhammarret to look at his hand of 4 drops that wouldn't affect the board very much even if he could cast them and name, um, weight of the underworld I guess. He draws a fourth land on his next turn, is dead on board and concedes.
Having 3-0'd my pod, I move on to the finals against the winner of another pod with a foil serum visions on the line for the winner! In game one I once again curve two-drop into forcemage into whirler rogue while my opponent is casting caustic caterpillar into read the bones on turn three. My rogue gets reave soul'd (again) but the thopers get to keep beating down, I play out some more stuff, bounce some of my opponent's stuff and finish them off relatively easily -- including a stylish finish involving double titanic growth on a thopter token to kill them from 7 while they were tapped out.
Game two is a bit anticlimactic; I play out some creatures, my opponent casts read the bones multiple times and get off some 5 mana removal spells on my stuff but then floods out badly, I get to use pharika's disciple to fight his rhox maulers with wild instincts. I play a ringwarden owl, he uses an unholy hunger to deal with my disciple then plays a Gilt-Leaf Winnower (!) killing my 0/6 guardians of meletis, since the ringwarden owl is untargetable. At this point though, my opponent is just horribly flooded and I have a second ringwarden owl and a whirler rogue in hand. I elect to hold back and just play out a timberpack wolf on the grounds that the only way my opponent can win at this point is by sweeping away multiple threats with a card like languish. They failed to draw anything to interact even after casting multiple copies of read the bones and die to three or four more attacks from my owl.
And that's how I 4-0'd the FNM with my sweet u/g deck! I'll consider it justice for only going 2-2 with the ridiculous r/w deck I had last time.