Greetings fellow summer Magic players. There remain endless hours at the beginning and end of each Cape Cod day where no one does anything. We sit around watching TV, not going mini-golfing as much as we should, while I play MTGO. M14 is out and I want to get better at Limited, so my Limited-exclusive friends (Rolex, Zach, etc.) have some sort of respect for me. More likely, I just want to be GOOD enough to attend sealed tournaments with them instead of rage-smashing my cards and shit-canning them. Here’s the sealed deck pool I was given:
Drafting and building decks is so much better on MTGO than IRL. I just drag/drop/click my way to looking at whatever the heck I build. I separate this into mythics/rares/etc. and I see a Shadowborn Demon and a Shivan Dragon. I also see 100 Trollhides, two Rumbling Baloths, and an Enlarge. Then I see two Shocks, a Tenacious Dead, and a Bubbling Cauldron. What do I do? I built this first:
Before I submit I want to look at G/R and put this together:
And while it has tons of anti-flier sideboard (and a Naturalize), I can’t pass up the opportunity to play Shadowborn Demon, all the Gravedigger-like creatures, and the Tenacious Dead/Bubbling Cauldron combo. I put the first deck back together and click submit.
I’ll start round one off at the end of game one. There are five creatures in my ‘yard and I had tutored for Shadowborn Demon the turn before to kill my opponent’s Shivan Dragon, which had just ended the life of my Chandra, Pyromaster. On my upkeep I sacrificed a Blood Bairn to the Demon so he’d stay around, cast Canyon Minotaur, equipped Fireshrieker, and was ready to pass the turn when my opponent IMs, “Good game.”
I wasn’t going to attack because s/he had two white up and I figured a Celestial Flare was in store for my Demon. The plan was to wait until next turn to swing with the Minotaur and Demon so if s/he Flared I could sacrifice the Minotaur (I would have six creatures in my yard that upkeep so wouldn’t have to sacrifice anyone at the Demon’s trigger). “Good game,” I read it again. No one is that much of an asshole that they’d bluff the Flare and then say “Good game,” hoping to lure me into a false sense of security to swing and then actually have the Celestial Flare and kill my Demon. No way. No one would do that. I swung in with my Demon, he starts tapping Plains and my heart sinks. “Shit,” I say out loud and then to myself, “this guy is that much of a fucking asshole.”
“Nice Jedi Mind trick,” I say at the beginning of game two. He doesn’t respond. I beat him quickly. Game three I drop a single swamp all game and eight mountains. I keep drawing black cards, no removal, and can’t play them because I need to keep my Tenacious Dead/Bubbling Cauldron combo going. I couldn’t let his lifelink knight hit anything, ever, and had to make up for the other five damage he was doing. Eventually I draw Chandra, use her +0 ability, and the exiled card is Pitchburn Devils, which I can’t cast because I used four mana on my Chandra and was one mana too few. My opponent sees this, knows the card would’ve helped me, and IMs me “
.” What a dick. I tell him that playing him hasn’t been that awesome and I hope his attitude changes and then draw another Mountain.
Round two I play this guy:
He didn’t show within ten minutes and I got the win. If I was a believer in imaginary skygods I’d have thanked one of them for dodging this bullet.
Round three I win game one on the back of Shadowborn Demon and a flierless opponent. Game two I win with a double-striking Blood Bairn at +4/+4 (I sacrificed another Blood Bairn to it) with my opponent at nine. I had almost +0’d Chandra to draw another two or less mana-costing creature (turns out I would have) so I could sacrifice it, too, to my Blood Bairn. Instead my brain kicks in and I +1 her and win the game.
Round four this happens:
Then I lose a pretty lousy but not tilty game two. Then this happens and I’m done:
My opponent just out-drew me. What can ya do?
So that’s my first digital foray into M14. It’s actually pretty fun. I know you hear shitty things about Core Sets, some of it from me. If you have to play any Limited format you might as well give M14 a whirl. There are some dope card interactions and green’s pretty good. There are a lot of sacrificing combos involving Tenacious Dead—gaining you life, making your Blood Bairn enormous. You can make seriously crazy Act of Treason/sacrifice decks, too. I played against one of those IRL last week and it wasn’t fun for me at all (my opponent loved it).
This deck seemed capable of doing more than I was able to do with it. Had I not been mindfucked by my round one opponent who knows how well I’d have done? Probably 2-2, if we’re being honest. HA!
Thanks for reading,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator