Greetings kids, it's your old pal Keith here for another installment of everyone's favorite blog (okay maybe not, but it certainly made me feel good). I unfortunately had a pretty poor showing, which was unfortunate because I was very confident that Boros was the way to go for this particular tournament.
The morning was very uneventful, we arrived early and basically just sat around and zoned in and relax. I encourage anyone going to a big tournament to do this. I had 2 hours before the event started to chill and relax. This put me in a very good space and is one of the major reasons I don't think I went on tilt even though I didn't do well. As an aside, I've seen some very good articles on tilt recently and it's very important to keep yourself out of this mode. You will certainly lose and make others hate your guts.
I was also able to unload a lot of useless rares and mythics and got a pretty good penny out of them too. Team Big Sexy as a whole did this and was able to bring down a playset of Tezzeret and 3 Jace the Mind Sculptor as well. Not a bad pull for the day.
Round 1 I got paired up against Andrew Berke who was playing a version of U/W/R control. Emerge Unscathed ended up beign the real winner for me here as his lightning bolts proved to be worthless. I had two very fast starts and he just ended up not being able to DoJ in time to clear my board.
Round 2, it was Caw-Blade with Kurt Spiess. I hate this deck, but Kurt played it very well, as he should. I had to mulligan down to 6 on game 1 but was able to keep up with him until the inevitable board sweeper. I had nothing after that. Game 2 was a different story. I was able to keep him off creatures and just had a really good fast start. Game 3 ended up going to time, however he beat me right after with Gideon Jura. There's nothing quite like Gideon. He really does win games. Kurt went on to have a pretty good day and I send my congratulations out to him.
Round 3, it was Valakut Ramp with Sarah Simpson. She just had ridiculous ramp both games. Game one she was able to cast Primeval on Turn 3. I think that wins games. I just never had a shot either game. I couldn't get land to power my landfall guys and was just drawing junk. She meanwhile had cobras in play and was ramping up both games. I never had a shot.
Round 4, I was paired against Jessica Miller who was running Kuldotha Red. Game 1 she got a ridiculous start and i just could not keep up. Game 2, I was able to keep her off creatures long enough to start building up myself. She then cast Devastating Summons with a Bushwhacker kicked. The summoned dudes were 4/4. I was able to block 1 with my Hero of Oxid Ridge but it was lights out after that.
I dropped after this and decided to just mill about and root on the rest of my team. It wasn't a very good showing for me, but at least I can say that it wasn't because I made play mistakes. I never got angry and I played the best i could. Magic is sometimes a game of luck after all, despite what anyone will tell you to the contrary.
Special congratulations go out to my buddy Nick Harry who was able to get into that Top 32 at the end of it all and win some cash.
It's definitely something I would do again and am looking forward to the two Baltimore opens later in the year. I am definitely passionate about playing in bigger tournaments now.
If you look at the results, you'll see that pretty much everyone was running Caw-Blade. It's unfortunate but even though I saw a pretty diverse amount of decks in my rounds, overall i feel like it was dominated by Caw-Blade. It's definitely a good deck. Do i think it's the best in the format? No. I feel like Boros is still a dominating deck and I think Valakut is still a pretty viable build. Valakut I think more so because I saw it beat Caw-Blade several times. I don't know that Caw-Blade is bad for the format right now, but it's certainly disconcerting to see that many top 8 finishes go to this deck. Time to go back to the drawing board. I think decks that main deck artifact hate is the way to go here now.
I myself am working on a Tezzeret control build, probably Grixis colors, ala Patrick Chapin, but we'll see where it goes.
Till next time...
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Boros and the DC Open
So this coming Saturday marks my return to the bigger stages of Magic play. I'm a bit nervous and trying to figure out how to keep my calm in the face of losing. I plan to write a much bigger article at some point about the effects of going on TILT. That'll be a nail biter! :)
Anyway, I made some slight changes to Boros as you see it below. I -1 Mirran Crusader and +1 Spikeshot Elder. I think having a one of is pretty good. If you hit it with an Adventuring Gear it can be pretty brutal. I also took out -1 Koth of the Hammer and replaced it with +2 Hero of Oxid Ridge which I think has a better synergy. I also dropped the Emerge down to +2. I'm unsure if i'm going to run Emerge Unscated or the Journey to Nowhere. To be honest this will more than likely be a game day decision.
I also slightly tweaked the sideboard based on some playtesting and getting beat my Kuldotha Red and Ramp decks.
2x Cunning Sparkmage
2x Basilisk Collar
4x Kor Firewalker
1x Koth of the Hammer
4x Arc Trail
2x Mark of Mutiny
The list is very similar to what Paul Rietzl ran at Pro Tour Paris. I feel like it has pretty good match ups against most of the field.
I'll have a full report on my SCG DC Open experience next week.
Anyway, I made some slight changes to Boros as you see it below. I -1 Mirran Crusader and +1 Spikeshot Elder. I think having a one of is pretty good. If you hit it with an Adventuring Gear it can be pretty brutal. I also took out -1 Koth of the Hammer and replaced it with +2 Hero of Oxid Ridge which I think has a better synergy. I also dropped the Emerge down to +2. I'm unsure if i'm going to run Emerge Unscated or the Journey to Nowhere. To be honest this will more than likely be a game day decision.
I also slightly tweaked the sideboard based on some playtesting and getting beat my Kuldotha Red and Ramp decks.
2x Cunning Sparkmage
2x Basilisk Collar
4x Kor Firewalker
1x Koth of the Hammer
4x Arc Trail
2x Mark of Mutiny
The list is very similar to what Paul Rietzl ran at Pro Tour Paris. I feel like it has pretty good match ups against most of the field.
I'll have a full report on my SCG DC Open experience next week.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Boros: Post Mirrodin Besieged
Greetings fellow friends in brewing! The period right after a new set is released is an exciting time in Standard (as well as all formats I'm sure) as we get an opportunity to try new card interactions and determine whether the set has an immediate impact on the format. For me Besieged definitely brought some new toys to toss into my Boros brew and we'll go into some detail on why I've made the choices I've made. For your consideration:
Okay so obviously things look a little different here than the standard Boros list that's been running around. The most glaring is the omission of Spikeshot Elder and I'll be mum about why he's not here. On turn one, I want to cast either a Steppe Lynx or Guide. On turn two either a Mystic or Geopede, by the time I want to cast him I feel like there is something better to put on the board. Enter Mirran Crusader. He's a beast ladies and gents and so far in playtesting he's doing phenomenal. If he gets one piece of equipment on him especially one of the two Swords, he starts doing very good things, even a simple Adventuring Gear makes him do massive amounts of damage on his own. Adding the Crusader also made me re-evaluate Journey to Nowhere in the main board as I needed a way to save the Crusader (or any of my creatures for that mattter) once they hit the board. Enter my "counterspell" Emerge Unscathed. This card wins games. Being able to give one of your guys protection from whatever color you need to swing through makes the alpha strike near impossible to deal with. They've got a Grave Titan you need to get past, no problem. You need to get past your opponent's army of 0/1 Plant tokens to score the win, again we've got you covered. They've got Go For The Throat, we've got answers. The fact that it rebounds makes for a nifty repeat and the protections the two sword provide are invaluable. Having a Sword of Body and Mind equipped will hit your opponent for 8, mill them 20 cards and net you two 2/2 wolf tokens. Not bad for turn four huh?
Now obviously the matchups that give us problems are certain control builds and right now Vamps and Kuldotha Red (the recent Open Top 8 is very indicative of this). Depending on the build control isn't really that big of a deal. With U/W, you basically don't overcommit before they DoJ and refill with Squadron Hawk. Again Emerge Unscathed is great here for when they try to Condemn your big guy. I have also thought about putting Hero of Oxid Ridge in the board for control in particular, but I have to test this.
Vamps and Kuldotha Red are (in my opinion) going to be your toughest matchups. It's really a crapshoot because it's all about who gets there first. I think Emerge Unscathed again becomes a house here and may be why you win the game. Vamps in particular just have so much removal and it's difficult to race it. I think the Emerge is what can possibly get you there. Obviously you're bringing in the Arc Trails and Sparkmages/Collars for this matchup. I think Kuldotha Red is interesting too because it's just as fast as Boros. I'm still not sure there is a sure fire way to beat either of these decks which really makes for some fun and interesting matches.
This will continue to be a work in progress. Some really like Hero of Bladehold, but I don't think she has a place in this particular build. It's the same reason I'm not running Contested Warzone in the deck. But again perhaps the meta will shift and take me to a version of this deck that I would consider this approach. That's what is so fun about Magic, how constantly it changes.
Until next time may your inner Timmy shine!
Okay so obviously things look a little different here than the standard Boros list that's been running around. The most glaring is the omission of Spikeshot Elder and I'll be mum about why he's not here. On turn one, I want to cast either a Steppe Lynx or Guide. On turn two either a Mystic or Geopede, by the time I want to cast him I feel like there is something better to put on the board. Enter Mirran Crusader. He's a beast ladies and gents and so far in playtesting he's doing phenomenal. If he gets one piece of equipment on him especially one of the two Swords, he starts doing very good things, even a simple Adventuring Gear makes him do massive amounts of damage on his own. Adding the Crusader also made me re-evaluate Journey to Nowhere in the main board as I needed a way to save the Crusader (or any of my creatures for that mattter) once they hit the board. Enter my "counterspell" Emerge Unscathed. This card wins games. Being able to give one of your guys protection from whatever color you need to swing through makes the alpha strike near impossible to deal with. They've got a Grave Titan you need to get past, no problem. You need to get past your opponent's army of 0/1 Plant tokens to score the win, again we've got you covered. They've got Go For The Throat, we've got answers. The fact that it rebounds makes for a nifty repeat and the protections the two sword provide are invaluable. Having a Sword of Body and Mind equipped will hit your opponent for 8, mill them 20 cards and net you two 2/2 wolf tokens. Not bad for turn four huh?
Now obviously the matchups that give us problems are certain control builds and right now Vamps and Kuldotha Red (the recent Open Top 8 is very indicative of this). Depending on the build control isn't really that big of a deal. With U/W, you basically don't overcommit before they DoJ and refill with Squadron Hawk. Again Emerge Unscathed is great here for when they try to Condemn your big guy. I have also thought about putting Hero of Oxid Ridge in the board for control in particular, but I have to test this.
Vamps and Kuldotha Red are (in my opinion) going to be your toughest matchups. It's really a crapshoot because it's all about who gets there first. I think Emerge Unscathed again becomes a house here and may be why you win the game. Vamps in particular just have so much removal and it's difficult to race it. I think the Emerge is what can possibly get you there. Obviously you're bringing in the Arc Trails and Sparkmages/Collars for this matchup. I think Kuldotha Red is interesting too because it's just as fast as Boros. I'm still not sure there is a sure fire way to beat either of these decks which really makes for some fun and interesting matches.
This will continue to be a work in progress. Some really like Hero of Bladehold, but I don't think she has a place in this particular build. It's the same reason I'm not running Contested Warzone in the deck. But again perhaps the meta will shift and take me to a version of this deck that I would consider this approach. That's what is so fun about Magic, how constantly it changes.
Until next time may your inner Timmy shine!
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