Okay so before I jump into this time around, we have made some changes to the deck. I will not be sharing those changes until after the GP. Gotta keep some secrets ladies and gents. Overall though the changes are minor and only act to shore up some minor inconsistencies that the deck exibited over the weekend. I played extrememly well but definitely feel that I can continue to improve. I still kept some weak hands and got incredibly lucky with my opponent also stalling out. I need to remember that a good 6 is better than a mediocre 7. If I take anything away from this tournament it is that.
Okay so we went 6-0-2 on the day. I dropped from the tournament and split prizes with Nick Harry once we were set to play each other in the finals. The reason I did this is simple, I don't play legacy and would not be able to prepare in time for the Invitational. Nick meanwhile, can smash face and I wish him well. So we split some cash and the better part of a box of Dark Ascension.
The deck is just so incredibly resilient now with all those undying guys and the swords just give the deck so much reach. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the deck performed against Spirits, Pod Decks and Wolf Run Ramp decks. It even did extremely well against Solar Flare. The only major deck that I didn't get a chance to play was Zombies, but I feel in my testing that this isn't a horrible match for us either.
I will be playing this deck at the GP and i feel pretty good about it. I'm sure I'll have a more comprehensive update after the event.
As an aside, I had one guy tell me that his Pod deck just should never lose to Werewolves. I asked him if he had tested against it. He said it wasn't on his radar and it shouldn't be. I replied that I had just 2-0ed him so clearly it was something to consider. His reply to me was that if we played 10 games he would win 7 out of 10. Remember kids actual wins mean more than theroretical wins.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Werewolves
Okay, so since Werewolves had a great outing on Friday night (5-0-1 baby!) I wanted to write about the deck and the path it's taken to get to where it is now. I've been wanting to play Werewolves since they were first spoiled, but unfortunately Innistrad just did not have the toys we needed to make it anything more than a casual deck. Dark Ascension however gave us a lot of new toys that I believe finally make this a competitive deck. Immerwolf, while providing standard lord buffs also makes it so our guys are permanently in Night mode and this is where they are the most dangerous. We also got our hands on Huntmaster of the Fells which is just an absolute house. Over the course of two turns, you have 2 life gain, a 2/2 wolf, 2 damage to your opponent's head and 2 damage to one of their creatures, pretty good for 4cc.
Now let's talk about some of the card choices. Young Wolf, what else is there to say, he gets buffs from Immerwolf and flipped Mayor and he's hard to get off the field. They have to kill him twice and you're going to get in a few hits with him early because quite frankly your opponent doesn't want him to die.
Mayor of Avabruck is an absolute house. If your opponent can't deal with him, he pumps out 3/3 wolves turn after turn and in conjunction with everything else in the deck, very quickly starts the swarm.
Daybreak Ranger, or as I like to call him Formatbreak Ranger, is our removal guy, he blows up flying spirits and Delvers all day long and when he flips, he's capable of taking down pretty much anything, even Titans, especially with his buffs.
Instigator Gang is the coffin nail. Coupled with Full Moon's Rise, he's giving +3/+0 to all of your guys, that already have trample. Pretty sick.
Garruk Relentless also plays so many roles in this deck. He turns out 2/2 wolves. Later in the game it's correct to flip him, not only for 1/1 deathtouch wolves, but also the ability to search for guys after a wrath effect and also the overrun late in the game.
Here is what you came for.
Now after my playtesting and the feedback from Austin Faust, how played the deck on Friday, I have made some changes. Swords are bonkers in the format right now and I thought we needed a little bit more reach. Nick suggested that even though it doesn't fit the Werewolf theme maybe we needed more to do on turn 2 than Mayor. So we are adding Strangeroot Geist. Geist is another undying guy that holds a sword real well and also gives us much needed comeback from a Black Sun's Zenith. We are also going to try a 2/1 split on Sword of War and Peace and Feast and Famine. The other addition is to the sideboard. Mondronen Shaman I think is really good against control decks and I think better than Instigator Gang in those matchups. Something to try. For your consideration, Werewolves 2.0.
Now let's talk about some of the card choices. Young Wolf, what else is there to say, he gets buffs from Immerwolf and flipped Mayor and he's hard to get off the field. They have to kill him twice and you're going to get in a few hits with him early because quite frankly your opponent doesn't want him to die.
Mayor of Avabruck is an absolute house. If your opponent can't deal with him, he pumps out 3/3 wolves turn after turn and in conjunction with everything else in the deck, very quickly starts the swarm.
Daybreak Ranger, or as I like to call him Formatbreak Ranger, is our removal guy, he blows up flying spirits and Delvers all day long and when he flips, he's capable of taking down pretty much anything, even Titans, especially with his buffs.
Instigator Gang is the coffin nail. Coupled with Full Moon's Rise, he's giving +3/+0 to all of your guys, that already have trample. Pretty sick.
Garruk Relentless also plays so many roles in this deck. He turns out 2/2 wolves. Later in the game it's correct to flip him, not only for 1/1 deathtouch wolves, but also the ability to search for guys after a wrath effect and also the overrun late in the game.
Here is what you came for.
Now after my playtesting and the feedback from Austin Faust, how played the deck on Friday, I have made some changes. Swords are bonkers in the format right now and I thought we needed a little bit more reach. Nick suggested that even though it doesn't fit the Werewolf theme maybe we needed more to do on turn 2 than Mayor. So we are adding Strangeroot Geist. Geist is another undying guy that holds a sword real well and also gives us much needed comeback from a Black Sun's Zenith. We are also going to try a 2/1 split on Sword of War and Peace and Feast and Famine. The other addition is to the sideboard. Mondronen Shaman I think is really good against control decks and I think better than Instigator Gang in those matchups. Something to try. For your consideration, Werewolves 2.0.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Back After a Long Hiatus
So since I am no longer associated with Team Big Sexy, I am going to start writing articles on this again. More or less just getting my thoughts out because I haven't really had an outlet. Magic in general is really fun right now. I hate that in order to be competitive at FNM I've had to start running Infect, although Kibler's U/B list at least requires some thought whereas the mono black list doesn't. I really have turned into a blue mage, which anyone that knows me knows is really fucking hillarious. I used to hate blue. I invariably feel that as you grow as a player you naturally turn towards blue.
I'm excited for Dark Ascension mainly because I think that Burning Vengeance will finally be a great deck. I'm looking forward to seeing what other cards they'll print to make that deck tick.
I really don't have a lot to say for now. I'm feeling good about being on my own again. Until next time...
I'm excited for Dark Ascension mainly because I think that Burning Vengeance will finally be a great deck. I'm looking forward to seeing what other cards they'll print to make that deck tick.
I really don't have a lot to say for now. I'm feeling good about being on my own again. Until next time...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Making the Jump
Good morning kiddies! Today I'd like to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart because i'm currently trying to accomplish the feat, and that is making the jump from small local tournaments to large national "semi-pro or even pro" level events.
If you're like me, you've spent most of your time at local FNM's grinding away and winning packs, or not winning packs for that matter. The biggest tournament you've probably ever been to is more than likely a large regional pre-release. Not a lot of pressure there. Recently, and if you read this blog you know, I attended the Star City Games Open in Washington D.C. This was a huge jump for me in a lot of ways and I'll detail why.
1) At local FNM's you will find good players, but more often than not 90% of the field is going to be made up of new players or casual players. You find a lot of rogue decks at these events, a lot of decks that really don't do anything, and occasionally you'll find some Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 decks to play against. For example at my shop (Collector's Corner, Harford Rd. in beautiful Parkville, MD...end shameless plug) often we find maybe 3 or 4 really good players. Everyone else is a mish mash of casual and new. At these events it's not uncommon for me to Top 8 and typically Top 4. I don't feel i get the even spread of players that I will see at a big event. This SEVERELY impacted me at the Open because a large majority of the field are really good players all playing competitive Magic. This brings me to my second point...
2) Playtesting! It is absolutely imperative that you playtest regularly. Have all the top decks sleeved up and play games and figure out what you're going to come up against. I luckily have a group that I playtest with (TEAM BIG SEXY in DA HOUSE) and although we get together fairly regularly, I don't feel we do enough playtesting and I certainly was not prepared for the Open. I feel this will get better as we move along, but if you're not playtesting you're not ready. Even if you don't have all the cards (although playing with a team gives you access to a rather large card pool) proxy out the top decks, even play sideboard games. It's important to know the ins and outs of every deck you anticipate seeing.
3) TILT. This is something I really harp on and especially recently because of the type of player I am. I'm a passionate player and I HATE to lose, just like i'm sure everyone else. However traditionally I'm a little more vocal about it. I have recently begun curbing this in an effort to become a better player. Getting upset at misplays, the game itself, etc is a good way to continue playing bad for the rest of the tournament. It's important to keep a level head and understand the lessons that you can learn from every game you play. It doesn't matter if you lose or win, there is information to be garnered from the time spent playing that game and you need to mentally document it and save it for future match ups. Playing Caw Blade is perfect example of this. In playtesting before the tourney, i expected aggro to be very heavy (Vampires, Boros, K Red, etc) and so I thought Arc Trail a better burn spell to have in the deck. It turns out Lightning Bolt and instant speed is the way to go to keep them from equipping their Hawks. Had we done a better job of playtesting we may have discovered this. As it stands I garnered that from my first match and sideboarded accordingly. The point is, don't get upset and don't go on tilt. If you do you are going to make play mistakes and you are more than likely going to lose. We must all keep level heads when playing the game.
4) Reading Articles and Understanding the National Meta. This is huge. I have my premium subscription to Star City Games. I read the mothership. I read the forums. It's so important to do this. It's important to understand what is currently dominating and looking at the future as well. Who would have expected Red Deck Wins to win the Open in Edison? No one! But by reading the tells in the meta, we can sometimes sneak one in. Magic is constantly evolving and we need to evolve too. We can't just sit on a deck for months and be lazy with deck building. We should constantly be trying to improve ourselves and we should want to take advantage of shifts in the game. It's how tournaments are won. Listen we all net deck, but good players should be able to make changes on the fly to account for these shifts. It's so important.
I hope you learned something from this, or maybe you hated it. Feel free to send me feedback or just shoot the breeze at kierandraven@gmail.com or on Twitter @draven_corvinus. Till next time!
If you're like me, you've spent most of your time at local FNM's grinding away and winning packs, or not winning packs for that matter. The biggest tournament you've probably ever been to is more than likely a large regional pre-release. Not a lot of pressure there. Recently, and if you read this blog you know, I attended the Star City Games Open in Washington D.C. This was a huge jump for me in a lot of ways and I'll detail why.
1) At local FNM's you will find good players, but more often than not 90% of the field is going to be made up of new players or casual players. You find a lot of rogue decks at these events, a lot of decks that really don't do anything, and occasionally you'll find some Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 decks to play against. For example at my shop (Collector's Corner, Harford Rd. in beautiful Parkville, MD...end shameless plug) often we find maybe 3 or 4 really good players. Everyone else is a mish mash of casual and new. At these events it's not uncommon for me to Top 8 and typically Top 4. I don't feel i get the even spread of players that I will see at a big event. This SEVERELY impacted me at the Open because a large majority of the field are really good players all playing competitive Magic. This brings me to my second point...
2) Playtesting! It is absolutely imperative that you playtest regularly. Have all the top decks sleeved up and play games and figure out what you're going to come up against. I luckily have a group that I playtest with (TEAM BIG SEXY in DA HOUSE) and although we get together fairly regularly, I don't feel we do enough playtesting and I certainly was not prepared for the Open. I feel this will get better as we move along, but if you're not playtesting you're not ready. Even if you don't have all the cards (although playing with a team gives you access to a rather large card pool) proxy out the top decks, even play sideboard games. It's important to know the ins and outs of every deck you anticipate seeing.
3) TILT. This is something I really harp on and especially recently because of the type of player I am. I'm a passionate player and I HATE to lose, just like i'm sure everyone else. However traditionally I'm a little more vocal about it. I have recently begun curbing this in an effort to become a better player. Getting upset at misplays, the game itself, etc is a good way to continue playing bad for the rest of the tournament. It's important to keep a level head and understand the lessons that you can learn from every game you play. It doesn't matter if you lose or win, there is information to be garnered from the time spent playing that game and you need to mentally document it and save it for future match ups. Playing Caw Blade is perfect example of this. In playtesting before the tourney, i expected aggro to be very heavy (Vampires, Boros, K Red, etc) and so I thought Arc Trail a better burn spell to have in the deck. It turns out Lightning Bolt and instant speed is the way to go to keep them from equipping their Hawks. Had we done a better job of playtesting we may have discovered this. As it stands I garnered that from my first match and sideboarded accordingly. The point is, don't get upset and don't go on tilt. If you do you are going to make play mistakes and you are more than likely going to lose. We must all keep level heads when playing the game.
4) Reading Articles and Understanding the National Meta. This is huge. I have my premium subscription to Star City Games. I read the mothership. I read the forums. It's so important to do this. It's important to understand what is currently dominating and looking at the future as well. Who would have expected Red Deck Wins to win the Open in Edison? No one! But by reading the tells in the meta, we can sometimes sneak one in. Magic is constantly evolving and we need to evolve too. We can't just sit on a deck for months and be lazy with deck building. We should constantly be trying to improve ourselves and we should want to take advantage of shifts in the game. It's how tournaments are won. Listen we all net deck, but good players should be able to make changes on the fly to account for these shifts. It's so important.
I hope you learned something from this, or maybe you hated it. Feel free to send me feedback or just shoot the breeze at kierandraven@gmail.com or on Twitter @draven_corvinus. Till next time!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Star City Games: DC Open (A Tournament Report)
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...
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...
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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