Won my first Stafford FNM last night, netting myself 2 boosters (opened Odric and Silklash Spider) with my clone wars brew (which has done well at the Lancaster FNM before). Deck has some of the Zombies base, but I was running the full 4 Phyrexian Metamorphs and 4 Phantasmal Images, as this was the last opportunity I would have to play with them in Standard. I love these cards and am sad to see them go.
Round 1: 2-0 (actually about 5-0) Against GR Aggro. The guy had been playing for a while but it was a fairly Janky deck, hoping for quick beats and cheap wins. Unfortunately, my midrange control took care of the fast aggro and I beat him fairly easily 2-0. We then played a few more games and I didn’t lose one against him. Cards such as Strangleroot Geist are difficult to deal with, but I still did fine. He had quite a lot of targeted removal, which isn’t great against Zombies. I managed to win game 2 by doing 16 due to Black Sun’s Zenith for 1 with what was effectively 4 Blood Artist out (using the clone cards). Looked at his deck afterwards and offered him a few tips, especially with his sideboard which fell into the age old trap of “cards I couldn’t quite fit into the main deck”.
Round 2: 2-0 Against Zombie Pod. Won a cheap game 1, smashing face with plenty of Zombies and winning the race due to having more blood artists than my opponent. Game 2, sideboarded into Surgical Extraction and Nihil Spellbomb and out of some of my removal. Much more exciting game. Highlight of which was having in play a Phantasmal Image copying a Geralf’s Messenger. Then playing Phyrexian Metamorph, copying my opponent’s Disciple of Bolas, sacrificing my Phantasmal Imaged Messenger to gain 3 life and draw 3 cards, which came back due to undying, copying the disciple again, then sacrificing a gravecrawler to draw 2 more, gain 2 more life. Then play a land which I drew and recast the Gravecrawler from my graveyard. My opponent was actually impressed by this play! Was pretty awesome and I won on 1 life. My opponent kind of misplayed (which I spotted 
). He had a Birthing Pod and after a board wipe, chose to have his undying phyrexian metamorph come back as a copy of Butcher Ghoul, whereas he should have just had it come back as a 1/1 metamorph, which he could sacrifice as a 4 drop to the birthing pod to get Thragtusk.
Round 3, Lost 1-2 against UB trading post/zombies. Our decks were fairly similar, midrange Zombies and there was lots of copying (both of us running metamorphs) but the fact that he had massive card advantage in the late game meant that I lost. Very close games but no remarkable plays, I sided out the midrange to go more aggro for game 2 and 3 but he managed to hang on until the late game in game 3, where he has a much better game than I.
Round 4: Won 2-0 Played super fast green aggro, running elves and Strangleroot Geist and Rancor and basically hoping to over-run people super quickly. I won game 1 due to a few well timed board wipes with Mutilate and Black Sun’s Zenith. Game 2, I sideboarded out all of my one drop Zombies and sideboarded myself into a control deck. I was not going to be able to out race him (Zombies don’t block Strangleroot Geists very well), his deck was simply too fast so I sided into all my control/midrange, took out Diregraf Ghoul and Gravecrawler. My opening hand had 2 Black Sun’s Zenith and a Phyrexian Obliterator and I was fairly confident I would win with that. Just let him play out his dudes, BSZ them and then drop the Obliterator. Game went BSZ T3 to kill an Elf and a Rancored Strangeroot Geist, T4 Phyrexian Obliterator (which he swung into and killed with the Rancored Geist), leaving himself with 1 land, then T5 Curse of Death’s Hold which pretty much locked him out of the game. Killed him in the end with Falkenrath Nobles flying in for the win, with double Phyrexian Obliterator left back to Block his Triple Rancored Strangleroot Geist.
Anyway, 3-1 was enough to net me the top spot due to tiebreakers (my game win %) and got my first FNM Stafford win. What a fitting way to say goodbye to Scars + Innistrad Constructed and a fond farewell to Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image, as well as the last time I’ll play with Phyrexian Obliterator.
Deck List.
Creatures:
3 x Diregraf Ghoul
3 x Gravecrawler
4 x Blood Artist
4 x Phantasmal Image
4 x Falkenrath Noble
Spells:
3 x Mutilate
1 x Killing Wave
Lands:
4 x Drowned Catacomb
4 x Darkslick Shores
1 x Island
X x Swamp
Sideboard
2 x Gravecrawler
1 x Diregraf Ghoul
3 x Nihil Spellbomb
1 x Sever the Bloodline (note: not good in the Zombie Mirror. Exiles ALL cards with the same name)
2 x Mortarpod
1 x Killing Wave
1 x Diabolic Revelation (In case I faced control/grindy Trading Post and could just go and get 4 x Blood Artist or whatever)
Bit of a random brew. If I played it again, I’d lose the one of Island for a swamp, but it wasn’t meant to be a super tuned deck, just a fun one. Did well so can’t complain.