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A Champs Massacre!

By Anthony Skinner

 

Well as you probably know the limited champs were last weekend and as most of you know I bombed rather badly, so what went wrong?

 

Well they say you learn far more from your defeats than your victories, by the end of the day I was sure I was singing from the same song sheet as the England Football Team by making everything as difficult for myself as possible!

 

A staggering 25,000  people have filled the St Mary’s stadium, unfortunately only fourteen showed up for the Southampton MTG County Championships! Until about twenty minutes before the tournament was to begin I was a lock for top8, as there were only eight of us! Oh well, six more competitors show up and after a deck swap I receive the following pile of cards:-

 

Red

Whiptail Moloch
2 Sparkmage Apprentice (1Foil)
Seal of Fire
Kill Suit Cultist
Tin Street
Ogre Savant
Dogpile
Galvanic Arc
Rain of embers
Torpid Moloch
Molten Sentry
Seismic Spike

 


Black


Slaughterhouse Bouncer
Delirium Skins
Necromancer's Magemark
Cry of Contrition
Infectious host
Thoughtpicker witch
Clinging Darkness
Last Gasp
Mortipede
Slithering Shade
Vindictive Mob
Mausoleum Turnkey
Revenant Patriach

Blue

Runeboggle
Cytoplast Manipulator
Terraformer
Vedalken Entrancer
Quickchange
Flight of Fancy
Tattered Drake
Telling Time

 

White

 

Guardian of the Guildpact
Skyrider Trainee
Storm Herd
Auratouched Mage
Divebomber Griffin
Leave no Trace
Wojek Siren
Nightguard Patrol
Veteran Armorer

Land


Temple Garden
Rix Maadi
Sunhome
Selesnya Sanctuary
Boros Garrison

Green

Cytospawn Shambler
Simic Initiate
Ghor-Clan Savage
Gather Courage
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
Elvish Skysweeper
Elves of Deep Shadow
Battering Wurm
Hunted Troll

 

Mulit-coloured

Wrecking Ball
Azorious First Wing
Scab-Clan Mauler
Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
Thundersong Trumpeter
Selesnya Evangel
Selesnya Sagittars
Rise/ Fall
Boros Swiftblade
Flame-Kin Zealot

Hybrid

Boros Recruit
Izzet Guildmage
Mourning Thrull


Artifact

Simic Signet
Gruul Signet
Peregrine Mask

 

 

It didn’t look too bad at first, obviously no bombs, but lots of solid cards, the only brokenness being Izzet Guildmage and the Last Gasp / Rise & Fall.

 

Once you move past the individual cards it is clear that blue does not have enough cards to be a main colour, which also means it will be difficult to splash the Cytoplast Manipulator due to it’s double blue cost and only one Simic Signet for mana-fixing. The colours with the most number of playables are White and Green, the best win condition this pool has is to cast the large green creatures and hope for the best. Seeing that my pool was relatively weak on power cards I felt it was vital that I played all the removal spells I had, unfortunately the majority of my bounce lands and signets produce green and white, my main colours where basic lands would have been fine. I also overplayed the Auratouched Mage, yes it can be very powerful to fetch an Arc or Flight of Fancy and yes I generally have more mana for each colour than I do spells, but by hindering myself with a five colour mana-base I just provided my deck with another way to beat me, and hand life lines to my opponents in games I should be winning.

 

The deck I played for reference:-

Red

Sparkmage Apprentice
Seal of Fire
Tin Street
Galvanic Arc


Black


Last Gasp

Blue

Flight of Fancy

White


Guardian of the Guildpact
Auratouched Mage
Veteran Armorer

Land (17)


Temple Garden
Sunhome
Selesnya Sanctuary
Boros Garrison

 

2 Swamp

1 Island

3 Mountain

3 Plains

4 Forest

Green

Cytospawn Shambler
Ghor-Clan Savage
Gather Courage
Elvish Skysweeper
Elves of Deep Shadow
Battering Wurm

 

Mulit-coloured

Wrecking Ball
Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
Thundersong Trumpeter
Selesnya Evangel
Selesnya Sagittars

 

Artifact

Simic Signet
Gruul Signet

 

 

The mana base has 8 Green sources, 6 White sources, 5 Red sources, 3 Black and 2 Blue. Versus 9 Green cards, 7 White cards, 6 Red cards, 3 Black and 1 Blue. The only double casting cost is the Ghor-Clan Savage.

 

During the games it became obvious that I was too obsessed with trying to overcome the weaknesses of my deck, where as I should have focussed on consistency. I remember winning an Odyssey sealed deck at Gencon, where I played a W/G deck with one removal spell and went 3-0 and won the event, had I had some other removal spells I would have probably splashed them and lost!

 

The deck as I should have played it :-

 

Red

Seal of Fire
Galvanic Arc
 


Blue


Flight of Fancy

 

 

White

 

Guardian of the Guildpact
Skyrider Trainee
Auratouched Mage
Divebomber Griffin
Nightguard Patrol
Veteran Armorer

Land
(17)


Temple Garden
Sunhome
Selesnya Sanctuary
Boros Garrison

 

2 Mountain

1 Island

 

5 Plains

5 Forests

Green

Cytospawn Shambler
Ghor-Clan Savage
Gather Courage
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
Elvish Skysweeper
Elves of Deep Shadow
Battering Wurm

 

Mulit-coloured

Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi
Thundersong Trumpeter
Selesnya Evangel
Selesnya Sagittars

 

Hybrid

Mourning Thrull


Artifact

Gruul Signet

Simic Signet

 

 

I think it is still correct to splash the Flight of Fancy as not only is card advantage extra important in this slow environment but my deck has many large green targets for it, not to mention the Auratouched Mage.

 

Lets look at the games I played and whether the changes would have made a difference:-

 

Round 1 Vs Gareth

 

I lose to Dowsing Shaman + Seal of Doom in game 1. I have wrecking ball in hand but can not find black mana for 5 turns to cast it. Had I played the lower power white and green cards there would have been no difference, as I still lose.

 

Game 2 see Game 1 , except I board in all my black creatures, take out the majority of red and white cards and lose the blue splash as well. Darkblast takes out Mourning Thull and Mortipede, the combo takes down my green creatures, my two remaining white cards are stranded in my hand when I scoop.

 

Had I gone G/W again, I lose to the combo

 

0-1

 

Round 2 Vs Lawrence

 

These two games go long and I win because Lawrence is more screwed than me. He draws a million land, I draw a million spells, eventually I draw land before he draws spells and I win. This is after both of us taking out critical mana sources with Wrecking Ball. Game 2 I win with only drawing 3 or 4 spells for the entire game, one was a wrecking ball the other a Battering Wurm, Lawrence is mana screwed and a Wrecking Ball compounds things allowing the Wurm to dominate the game.

 

Had I dropped the black, things would have been a lot worse for me. In game 1 Lawrence has Seize the Soul but couldn’t cast it because Wrecking Ball took out his Golgari Rot Farm.

 

1-1

 

Round 3 Vs Only person I played who I didn’t know and can’t remember your name , sorry! 

 

My mana base lets me down again and I can’t find blue for the Flight of Fancy until he Ghost Quarters my Sunhome, Cytospawn Shamber backed up by Gather Courage and Last Gasp gets me a win before the 9 extra cards my opponent has drawn (from Compulsive Research, Consult the Necrosages, Repeal and Dimir Guildmage) have a chance to take over.  The G/W heavy version would have been better here as I had to wait a long time to cast my creatures, which could have come out a couple of turns earlier.

 

Game 2 , things are looking good when I board into the Black plan, for greater consistency, as I have a Revenant Patriach with Necromancer’s Magemark and Clinging Darkness swinging in for 1 a turn, who is not being blocked as my opponent doesn’t want me to get to recast it when the Magemark triggers. I have Gather Courage in hand and my opponent is on 3 life. Unfortunately he transmutes Perplex to get Consult the Necrosages the turn before I go for the win and strips both my cards from my hand, usually I would have kept some land in my hand, but randomly an Ogre Savant had bounced my Cytoplast Shambler and I had Auratouched Mage in hand so I played my thirteenth mana source, cast both creatures and said go. He takes the win as time is called on the round, 1-1

 

1-1-1

 

Round 4 Vs Graham

 

A strong opponent in exactly the same situation as me, win to make top 8, nothing else will do. Game 1 I keep a reasonable hand, no white mana but only one white card in hand, I draw 4 more white cards in the next 5 turns and die as our green creatures trade. G/W would have helped here as black mana screwed me.

 

Game 2 I board the black again and draw my white splash again and no plains, things start off okay with my red cards. I lose the game to Moldervine Cloak, first on Stinkweed Imp, then Golgari Rotwurm, then finally Daggerclaw Imp. I think I lose to Cloak whatever I do.

 

Had I made a more consistent deck to start with I would probably have won game 1 and game 3 would have been anyone’s guess!

 

1-1-2

 

Result 10th out of 14,  lose 37 rating points, scrape into nationals on rating in 73rd place!

 

The second build would have probably given me just enough extra consistency to turn the draw in round 3 into a win as my green creatures were stranded in hand for sometime. However it really wasn’t my day, I lost all four dice rolls and drew both enchantments on all three occasions I was able to cast Auratouched Mage!

 

No foily Voidslime for me this year!

 

Anthony

Editor

 

What would you have done with this card pool, would you have done things completely differently, please discuss you ideas in the forum.