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...

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.

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!

Boros

So this is my new brew and what I intend to run on Friday. The deck can basically cast everything on turn 2, except for Koth. Some of the lists that are going around don't run Bushwhacker in the main board and I think this is a mistake. There's absolutely no reason not to run him in the mainboard. So far i've playtested against Ascension and Elves and it has a pretty good match up against both. For Elves I've got them dead before they can get off their Wave and with Ascension it's kind of a crap shoot, I have to kill them before they get Ascension online.

The sideboard will look something like this:

4x Luminarch Ascension
2x Adventuring Gear
4x Kor Firewalker
4x Cunning Sparkmage
1x Emerge Unscathed

Luminarch is obviously for the control decks out there. The additional Adventuring Gear are out there for control as well just because if I'm able to drop just one on Spikeshot Goblin, that's pretty much all she wrote. Firewalker for the red match up. Sparkmage for Basilisk Collar shenanigans against aggro and a singleton Emerge Unscathed depending on what i'm facing.

The deck can win on turn 4. It's very fast and it forces your opponent to make some decisions that they may not want to do.

A typical goldfish can look something like:

Turn 1: Mountain, Goblin Guide, swing for two
Turn 2: Plains, Steppe Lynx, Goblin Guide, swing for four
Turn 3: Arid Mesa, double landfall, swing for eight, drop Stoneforge Mystic, find Adventuring Gear, leave a Mountain open
Turn 4: Equip Adventuring Gear to Guide, Scalding Tarn, trigger on both Guide and Lynx, attack step, during their block step crack the fetch double landfall,bolt at the end for good measure

Again this is only goldfishing, your opponent will have ways to deal with you, but you can at least see how devastating it can be.

Questions, comments?

ANNOUNCING

TEAM BIG SEXY IS COMING TO SMASH YOUR FACE...OH YES!

ROCKETSHIPS...RECOGNIZE!!!

Big (Mythic) Red

Okay so this is the new brew I'm working on. Obviously I'm still working on the sideboard but I'm very happy with the main board.

The basis of this deck is to power out big creatures using Koth of the Hammer and Everflowing Chalice. It is actually possible to turn 4 Koth and then cast Kozilek on turn 5. Pretty sick for a red deck. I think an interaction people don't see on Koth is that his first ability almost plays like a mini Garruk. You can tap a mountain for mana and then use Koth's ability to turn it into a creature, but then you can tap that guy for mana again.

Cyclops Gladiator is a card that I think people underestimate. This guy can get on the board turn 3 and do serious damage to a deck that is relying on mana dorks.

The rest of the choices are just big creatures that are fun to see on the field. I am seriously considering making room for the Cunning Sparkmage/Basilisk Collar combo, but I don't think that's what this desk wants to do. Maybe in the board.

A full compliment of burn is here obviously to control the field until you can start putting out the fatties.

If you can't win with your fatties obviously you've got a few other win conditions. Koth's ultimate absolutely KILLS. A deuce of Comet Storm is also there for double mana shenanigans. If the game goes late, you've also got Valakut which is always fun.

All in all it's just a fun deck to play. I haven't playtested it yet, mainly because I'm looking for the cards, but I'm certain that this will be a blast to play...no pun intended. Until next time.

Agents of SHIELD

Okay so in an effort to better understand control and to not dislike it so much I put together U/W/R Super Friends a while back and generally smashed face with it. I may have even come to like playing the deck. After a while my aggro roots kicked in and I went back to my default playing style. With the new planeswalkers in Scars however, I decided that it was time to put Super Friends back together, but not your grand pappy's Super Friends...no sir! This version is all about intrigue and manipulation and stabbing you in the back. So with that in mind...I give you Agents of SHIELD. And yes Jace is supposed to be Nick Fury! :)



I've tested it against RDW, against aggro, even against the mirror and it generally does well. I feel like it will have a good match up against ramp too, but haven't been able to test it yet. Comments?