#standard #mtgo

So as I said a few weeks ago I will be grinding 2 man ques to try and gain value.

not entirely sure if I explained my logic behind this but here I go:
I have a very limited time to play MTGO. at best I have 3 hours at one go I do not have time for a daily even though I am well aware of the fact that it pays out better. that is it nothing else.

I started off today with 2 tix and 1 booster. so I jumped right in. I took my RB Zombies deck into a 2 man. first up UWR controll. he sees a few pillar of flames and a few snapcasters I see a few haste guys and eventually he is dead. we sideboard and the same thing happens.
sell the boosters at 3.2 each I get 6 tix. 3 games lets play.
next up mono red. we race I won the die roll. I take game one. game 2 I see all 4 nighthawks and all my removal. eventually I draw a messanger aswell to help with the beats.
4tix 1 booster
next up bradnelson’s petal to the metal. game one I race, game two I look dead until he gets grady and makes olivia too big. I draw a Zealous Conscripts and kill him with a smile on my face.
2 tix 2 boosters
next up bant controll
he farseeks, wraths casts thragtusk and then revelation’s for 3. the next turn I kill him game 2 is much of the same only there is a zealous conscripts and a hellrider wreaking havock with his fresh thragtusk.
0tix 3 bosters
sell 2 boosters
6 tix 1 booster
the next 3 matches are a blur, I did not take notes as I had a friend on teamspeak. I won 2 and lost 1. I belive the loss was to mono red.
sell 2 boosters
this time I get 7 tix rotating credit.
I won 3 more in a row there and I cannot even tell you what I faced. there was a opponent that did not cast any spells other than farseek and staticaster. there was a UWR that took a game off me and nearly cost me the match but forgot to ultimate his Tamio so I took it ulimated it beat him for 3 and did the rest of the 17 life with a single pillar of flame (I sided 3 out) while he was tapped out looking all his cards in hand thinking wow that was lame. then there was a very close match against mono red. I do not like playing against mono red. I want to be casting the hellriders and 2 power 1 drops!

all in all it was a good night for me on mtgo. I logged in at about 18:20 CAT and I got in a good 3 hours. its now 21:27 and I am logged out. agro formats dude, makes for quick games and loads of grinding

 

thank you for reading. expect another little post like this next week Monday.

And the Grind continues.
The grind to reach 100 competitive Planeswalker points by April 1st. What a joke right? 100 points is easy! FNM here and there, a PTQ and a few GPT’s and boom you are there. Sure that may be true if you lived in the United States and there was a PTQ less than a day’s drive each weekend. But, sadly, I live in South Africa; here our FNMs reach 40 players and the distributor talks about it on Facebook. My entire country most likely moves less stock than most internet retailers pre order to open for singles. But enough about my #thirdworldproblems.

Thursday evening I sleeve one of my favourite archetypes of all time, Elves! This was for the modern GPT I was planning to attend on Sunday, thinking the deck was not viable in the format. I mean really, what can Elves do that Storm can’t do, right? And when it comes to beat down decks, Zoo is just better right?

In my testing I ran my concoction against Storm, Zoo, Affinity and RDW. Two hours later, I am 14 and 0. Something is wrong here. The list is on the Decks lists tab under Modern Elves!
Satisfied with my testing we move to EDH and Olivia holds her own for a good three hours against a hostile board. Eventually I get killed in one giant sweep.

Friday on the train home I realise I do not have a deck for FNM, having spent all of Thursday focussed on modern. So, I decide to brew a standard mono green deck. Awesome, I don’t need to sleeve too many cards in the half an hour I have to prepare. You can find the list under decks named MonoGreenWTF.
Round one:
Illusions.
He wins the die roll and starts bear, lord, ponder, image, dragon. Not a bad start right? He died the turn after he cast the dragon. Here is my start:
Llanowar, Archdruid, Copperhorn Scout, Archdruid, Ezuri, and Copperhorn. That is when he played the Dragon. Awkward when you have a 7/7, two 4/4s and a 2/2 and you cannot attack for the win. I untapped, played a land and attacked for roughly 109 damage. I was on 14.
At this point I was pretty happy. After that start who wouldn’t be? Game two, I transformed into Hexproof blade dot deck and smashed with a Dungrove Elder until my opponent died. I flooded but at least I had the Dungrove, a Batterskull and a sword of war and peace. I felt kind of dirty…

Round Two:
RB vampires.
Game one was long and drawn out. He had some removal, I had some elves then I had a Dungrove and a hunter’s insight. He took 7, I drew 7 and played some more guys and then he died.
Game two he curved out very nicely and had the right cards. It was very beautiful to see a deck do that.
Game 3 I resolved a Dungrove and a Batterskull. He did not find anything and died.

Round Three:
RDW.
I sit down across from Abigail and she comments, “I hope you are not playing your disgusting Elves”. I smile and say that “Elves are not viable” and I have exactly the same opening as I had in round one. She died with two lands in play and a few small goblins.
Game two I play bird, sword of war and peace and I pray. She does not kill the bird. I do not draw a land for the rest of the game. And she did empty her hand onto the board very quickly but there is not much she could do after that. I did not play another card for the rest of the game as I wanted to gain as much per swing as possible,

Round Four:
GW tokens.
Game one we get into an interesting race, Mirran Crusader vs. Ezuri and his friends…. I drew 4 lands off the top and die with him on one. My final draw could have been a gut shot and I would have still won as I was on 6. There was a Hero going to town with the crusader.
Game two I bash him to oblivion with Dungrove and a sword of war and peace.
Game three I draw only land. Not a single non land card was drawn after my opening hand.

Round Five:
GW tokens.
This was really awkward as it was pretty much the same as the previous round. Too much land and close races while a crusader goes to town on my life.

What I took away from the tournament is that I like Dungrove elder, sword of any kind and hunters insight. I honestly feel like I can improve on this concept a lot and have a lot of fun with this same deck idea again on Friday

Originally I intended to give a rundown of the GPT that I attended on Sunday as well here but I feel this post is already too long winded. I will post that tomorrow night.

As a side note, my “evil plan” (as the love of my life calls it) actually worked. I convinced her to help me test the theory that a player can reach 100 points by April 1st only getting points for participation and event multipliers. The point of the whole exercise was to play every event and concede matches. What I was actually trying to prove was that 1) she is actually really good at the game, 2) she actually likes playing and 3) she really does care about winning. Points all proven. Success.

 

When I build an EDH a Commander, no, an EDH deck I always build around a general. There is very little that annoys me more than a deck built without any synergy.

First things first, my playgroup is made up of my best friends. We have been playing since one of us read about the format in 2007. My first deck was a Scion of the Ur Dragon deck. I still have it built. It’s still a deck based around a general. And that is how I believe EDH should be built, around a general + synergy. Your deck should do something, have a point, you know?

So here we go. This is my latest project that survived the first night. More on that another day…

Image thanks to http://www.spudlicious.net/ it simply broke my brain….

General:
Oliva Voldaren
The reason the deck was built: Ooh nice vampire, its mine now…

Planeswalkers:
Liliana Vess
Tutor over multiple turns? Sweet. Rip hands apart? I can do that. Oh you have not dealt with me? I’ll just reanimate your entire graveyard then…

Artifact:
Phyrexian Vault
I need a way to sacrifice the new vampires I have stolen so people cannot get them back
Khalani Gem
Pet card, bad accel blah blah, I don’t care. I like the card, ok? Yes, I know there are a 100 better options out there. My deck, my choice.
Scroll Rack
Such good card filtering! I just love the card.
Mask of Avacyn
More than one way to give shroud was needed
Wanderer’s Twig
I hate drawing land. And every now and then I want to just make sure I draw less of it.
Fellowar Stone
Ramp.
Veinfire Borderpost
Did I mention how much I hate drawing land late game?
Rakdos Signet
Ramp.
Coalition Relic
Good ramp.
Darksteel Ingot
Iif you have an EDH deck this needs to be in there. It feels so good to have someone blow up all artifacts and you still have one of these. It’s also pretty good ramp.
Swiftfoot Boots
So my general wants to survive for a while? Hexproof any good?
Armillary sphere
So, did I mention my feelings about land late game?
Phyrexian Totem
Ramp and a good creature, there is not actually that much burn in the format that I can spot…
Sol Ring
Probably the best card ever printed. Starting with sol ring into signet is just so good….

Sorceries:
Gruesome Encore
Creature recursion is a problem in my playgroup. Remove the Witness and then we play Magic.
Syphon Mind
I like drawing and I like my opponents discarding. So this is a best of both worlds card for me.
Bane Fire
I am a red mage, there is very little that feels better  than taking that guy out of nowhere simply because he did not block that bear…
Damnation
To deal with what cannot be taken.
Threaten
Mine.
Consuming Vapors
To deal with what cannot be taken, again.
Rise from the grave
Sometimes they played the good creature and killed it before I had a chance to play with it.
Barter in Blood
To deal with what cannot be taken.
Innocent blood
To deal with what cannot be taken, once more.
Temporal Extortion
So, half your life or time walk?
Diabolic Tutor
What more do I need?

Creatures:

Conquering Manticore
Mine
Puppeteer Clique
Sometimes they played the good creature and killed it before I had a chance to play with it.
Defiler of Souls
To deal with what cannot be taken
Lyzolda, the blood Witch
I need a way to sacrifice the new vampires I have stolen so people cannot get them back
Bloodshot Cyclops
I need a way to sacrifice the new vampires I have stolen so people cannot get them back
Fleshbag Marauder
To deal with what cannot be taken
Ink-Eyes, servant of Oni
Sometimes they played the good creature and killed it before I had a chance to play with it.
Dimir house Guard
Sac con or transmute. Mostly this is the 7 mana damnation
Shriekmaw
Removal
Nezumi Graverobber
Remove the witness or steal the big fat creature
Deathbringer Thoctar
I love this guy. He just helps to keep the board manageable so much.

Instants:

Sudden Death
I said no, die.
Makeshift Mannequin
And guess who is back? Mostly it brings back a sac con or a Thoctar.

Terminate
Removal
Treacherous Urge
What would you block with now?
Grab the Reins
Hell is all about repetition.
Diabolic Edict
To deal with what cannot be taken.

 

Lands:
Barren Moor
Late game, remember?
Polluted Mire
Late game, remember?
Vault of Whispers
Banned in modern so we might as well play them in EDH, right?
Tresserhorn sinks
Colour fixing
Tainted Peak
Colour fixing
Molten Slagheap
Good land to have lying around, just not late game…
Urborg Volcano
Colour fixing
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
I like it when everyone has swamps and someone else’s swampwalk creature kills them.

Rakdos Carnaruim
Love the Karoo land cycle.
Stensia Bloodhall
A land that does stuff, hell yeah!
Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
I like keeping their hand empty.
Sulfourous Springs
Colour fixing
13 mountain
15 Swamp

I know what you are thinking, where is the Blah blah, or the hurpa and the durpa. Three possible answers to your question exist:

1 “Wow, you are right I totally forgot about that. I should cut a land for that!”

2 “Well, whenever I resolve one of those I die.” My playgroup is a funny and hypocritical bunch of guys. I resolve a Swiftfoot Boots and I get killed because it’s broken and too powerful and stuff like that. But at the same time the guy to my right has a Lightning Greaves in play on his Rafiq of the Many slowly killing off player by player. So if that could be the answer to the question then it probably should be.

3. “I am a poor South African, there are like 7 of those in the country. Where the hell would I find one?” I do not have a lot of money to spend on EDH. I did not buy a single one of the Commander decks. My money goes to standard, and when it is not any good in standard or has rotated or I am not using it in any of my standard decks then it makes it into an EDH deck.

The first few times I played the deck it went very well. I got controll of the board and slowly started taking the annoying creatures. I was having an interesting back and forth between the Rafiq of the Many deck to see if I could keep the deck in check. Suddenly, at the end of the turn, the Rith the Redeemed player played White Sun’s Zenith for close on thirty kittens. In his turn, he cast True Conviction and killed the table with a one two attack and Hurricane.

This is the point where I realised that I needed a way to deal with that, so the next three games he died first. I cannot deal with his deck so I dealt with him. On a side note Lightning Greaves is not good against this deck, its godly. Rafiq with his new pair of boots has shown that to me on more than one occasion. Olivia has taken the table a few times, but we do not really keep track.

Sadly, I have not had a chance to play with Olivia some more in the last few weeks, since I have been focussing more on Standard and Modern than on EDH. There is a PTQ coming up that I am winning. Unfortunately, I cannot win it with my EDH deck. Stay tuned for my PTQ report, it should be up by end of February since the PTQ is only on the 25th…

Cheers
Baxteen1

And just like that 2012 is here and 2011 is gone.

So, seeing as this is a new year and a new blog I should introduce myself.
My name is Herman Potgieter and I am a South African Magic: The Gathering player and web developer. Since you are reading this blog it means one of two things. You love magic as much as I do and you go out of your way to find new ideas and ways to spend your time based on the game. Or you love reading blogs. If you just plain love reading blogs I have no idea how interesting this would be to you. If you love, magic then you are going to find a lot to disagree with here.

There is this blinding flash that hits your brain when you realise that what you just did is pointless. This happened to me when I realised that due to the changes to organised play there was no point in trying to play magic anymore. Nationals were gone, so why even bother? All we do is win Planes Walker points. With this mind set, I went to all my regular events with this half assed attitude. I played loose, I chose bad decks, I blamed bad draws and I simply did not care. To put things into perspective, since Innistrad, I have won just under 30% of my games of Magic. I stopped caring. Then there was the Christmas present we all got from Wizards. And I got back on track and tried to play with gusto.

First FNM after the announcement, 23 December 2011.

I decided I wanted to play @Smi77y’s mono black infect. I have had it built for so long, but I have never taken it to a tournament.

Round one: bye.

Round two: I lost to Wolf Run. I thrashed my opponent in game one but in game two I did not find the swamp to make the Lashwrithe lethal. Game 3 I stalled on 3 lands and he hit triple Acidic Slime. Not a fun game.

Round 3 I faced off against mono red, close but the Shrines get to me despite double Phyrexian Crusader in the second and third game.

Round 4: By this point I am pretty down and we could say tilted. And I face the new guy who just got his order in that morning. Channelfireball’s Tempered Steel. My opener has some removal and some flyers to block. He wins the die roll. He passes the turn with one card in hand. I play my land and Despise him and he shows me the Tempered Steel. WOW. I look at the Mox Opal in play and I decide to pray he does not find the second white source. His turn 3 I was dead. Game 2 I almost stabalise, I need to draw a black sun’s zenith to get rid of his board then I win, I have 4 turns before his Etched Champion double team kills me.

So I went home pretty disappointed, I blamed the deck. I blamed my plays, my mulligan decisions. In truth it was just not my night,

After that I decided to get back into the swing of things.  I plan on winning FNM with an original deck I will build myself to take advantage of this meta. What it is I don’t know yet but I do know I want to brew it myself.

Then I am getting my first taste of modern. I have been reading about the format a lot and I have been playing since the original Mirrodin block. I’ve pretty much seen all the cards in standard at some point.

I want to play Faeries. But without Bitterblossom there is no point, so next up is most likely some sort of affinity deck. Most likely a red/blue one. The mana base in the format is so good that another colour does not even matter. The idea is to drop my hand on turn one, cast a Tempered Steel on turn two and finish you off with a flurry of burn on turn 3. All I know is I am planning on winning a box tournament on the 7^th.  When it’s done, I’ll let you know.

Ok, enough talking, more doing. I’m off to build a deck. Happy New Year everybody,

H.