“Maybe you need a break,” suggested Hugh Kramer moments after I scoop to him in game three of our round one match.
I drafted a fairly solid three color deck with a black splash for Maze Abomination—the rest was Naya, my favorite. Zero swamps made the final list as the Abomination was a “Free splash,” as Christian says in our GP Providence practice sessions, due to a Transguild Promenade and Golgari and Orzhov Guildgates.
Game one I had mulled to six, kept a two lander, and Hugh beat me on turn five with a Frilled Oculus. I was on the same two lands at that point with a bunch of three drops in my hand. Game two was better. Hugh made me swing, and shoot him with a Bomber Corps‘ battalion trigger, before conceding the game. “I wanted to see if you knew to do that,” he said. Game three the board got pretty complicated. Many turns earlier he cipher’d an Oculus with Hands of Binding. He hadn’t swung with it in ages and I guess I kind of forgot. He swings and I didn’t block. Hugh tapped down my Armored Wolfrider wearing Unflinching Courage. “What a fucking idiot,” I said to myself. I couldn’t come back from that mistake, a point Richard agrees with from the peanut gallery, and scoop up my cards. I stayed in the draft only because I was planning on writing about the game for the Twenty Sided Store’s blog. I still will.
After the draft, which Hugh x-0’d, splitting in the finals, I walk to the L train with Hugh and Derek, my round three opponent and bomb dropper (his deck WAS ALL BOMBS). We talked about how much Magic we have been playing and I agree, sometimes I need a break.
Friday night I 0-1 dropped after I lost to Jonathan’s Bant deck. I had 0-2 dropped from the early draft (it was a seven person pod so I wasn’t screwing anyone over). Once again I had left my studio, despite an urge to keep working, to make the early draft and play with my bros. Once again I drafted a three color deck and got my ass handed to me. Hunter, editor and writer extraordinaire (and my beloved team leader for GP Providence) is ever in my mind. “Don’t go three colors. A six, six, five mana base is horrible.” I just can’t help it! I want to play all the big monsters.
Jonathan, heart-breaker, rage-inducer.
For FNM I was on the Junk Aristocrats build Matt Guido had been having success with both in real life and online. It featured zero Skirsdag High Priests and went all in on Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Round one, game three, Jonathan played a Rest in Peace and I kept adding dudes to the board. Eventually he played a Loxodon Smiter and end of turn I Abrupt Decayed it. Later in the game I tried to Tragic Slip one his dudes end of turn only to find out that Rest in Peace shuts that off, too. Creatures don’t die, they never hit the graveyard at all, so none of the cards in my deck fucking worked anymore. Really great use of the Abrupt Decay, Matt. Idiot. On my walk to the train that night I texted Li asking him to take down the decks of FNM for State of the Meta later in the week.
The deck looked like this:
Junk Aggro/Combo
| Land (24) 1 Gavony Township 4 Godless Shrine 4 Isolated Chapel 4 Overgrown Tomb 2 Sunpetal Grove 4 Temple Garden 1 Vault of the Archangel 4 Woodland Cemetery Creatures (25) 4 Blood Artist 4 Cartel Aristocrat 4 Doomed Traveler 2 Maw of the Obzedat 3 Varolz, the Scar-Striped 4 Voice of Resurgence 4 Young Wolf Spells (11) 2 Oz Charm 3 Lingering Souls 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 4 Tragic Slip | Sideboard (15) 2 Abrupt Decay 3 Deathrite Shaman 2 Garruk Relentless 2 Golgari Charm 3 Sin Collector 3 Unflinching Courage |
If I was going to play Standard this week, which I’m not, I’d play this:
Jund Midrange
Mark Webb’s Golgari Evolver deck (direct quote from Mark, “Oh, and what should I call the deck? Dennis the Menace? New CorpseJack City? Gnarls Darwin?”) has been a blast to play online but just crumbles with some shitty draws. There are a few games you’ll win by dumping 100 creatures onto a Lotleth Troll or double evolving EVERYTHING with Renegade Krasis and Corpsjack Menace in play. Sometimes your opponent has all the removal. The deck looks like this:
Jund Midrange
| Creatures (36) 4 Experiment One 3 Rakdos Cackler 3 Gravecrawler 4 Thrill-kill Assassin 4 Lotleth Troll 4 Gyre Sage 4 Dreg Mangler 4 Renegade krasis 2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped 4 Corpsejack Menace Spells (3) 1 Abrupt Decay 1 Putrefy 1 Tragic Slip Land (21) 7 Swamp 6 Forest 4 Overgrown Tomb 4 Woodland Cemetary | Sideboard (15) 4 Devour Flesh 4 Knight of Infamy 2 Tragic Slip 2 Putrefy 2 Vampire Nighthawk 1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped |
In an attempt to redeem myself I recorded a draft that went all in on Gruul and I built a pretty dope monster of a deck. When round one started I had cards from my sideboard that hadn’t made my deck in my hand. I looked over to my library and it had way more than 40 cards in it. I must have not clicked submit. The concede match button was clicked. “Oh, of fucking COURSE!” I yelled. I then made the three best paintings of my life.
“Maybe I can redeem myself at Montasy Monday night at their Standard event,” I thought. I called Twenty Sided Store to get some Stomping Grounds (which I’m missing, anyone borrowing them?) and Orlando answered. I asked him to pull four Stomping Grounds for me and told him I’d be right over. It wasn’t long into the walk to Twenty Sided that I called him back and said I wouldn’t be making it to the store before closing. I felt spazzed out and needed to get home to write this article.
I’m taking a few days of MTG rest. Hunter, Christian, and I head to Providence on Friday and my break will end so we can take down the Team Sealed Grand Prix.
Thanks for reading!
All the best,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator
BONUS: Here’re photos of everyone I’ve played in the last couple of days or weeks who maybe hasn’t made it to the blog because I didn’t write about our match. You are all awesome.
These punks take down FNM like every week.
Best smile winner.
If Pancakes wasn’t there this guy easily would’ve won the best t-shirt contest.
I didn’t play Pancakes here, but he lent me his Sorin, Lord of Innistrad emblem and a vampire token. Mostly, though, I wanted to show his pancakes shirt. His high school team is the Pancakes. Hilarious.
I like his sleeves. He was playing BWR Aristocrats and crushed me.
This guy is kinda nuts. He beat me in a GPT. I was on Junk Aristocrats, he was on RDW with green, and game one he should’ve won but didn’t, game two he crushed me, and game three became a land top deck obliteration (I was the one who was obliterated). I later found out he’s an intense MTGO grinder with lots of MOCS hopes and dreams. Good luck!
Mark Webb, host to another batch of my misplays, Twenty Sided Dragon’s Maze champion, and all around good guy.