Sunday, March 31, 2013

New deck ideas



   So there was no FNM for me last week, as I had to work til 7, every other Friday for me. But I have been trying to toss around some ideas on how to improve my Werewolf deck, "Moonmist Destruction," and I have come to the conclusion that everything in it not excruciatingly aggo needs to go bye bye. So I am currently working on that. The newest version of that can be found on tappedout.net as well. (I will link it in an edit later.)

   So anyways, here I am at work, looking through some trade offers from other players on TO (TappedOut.net I will refer to as TO from now on unless I am linking something) and it hits me that I have no idea what I am wanting to trade for right now. The two decks that I have built, one functions well and gets me 3-1's at FNM, the other I have been playtesting and it doesn't ever seem to do what I want it to do in an actual match. That's the "Golgari Aggro" I have nicknamed "Hydra Menace."

    But this guy has offered me 2 Chromatic Lanterns and 2 Dark Impostors for some cards I have. And I'm thinking to myself, what on earth could I build with those. Another guy has $14 worth of stuff he wants to get from me, and I am looking through his stuff and Drogskol Captain winks at me along with Captain of the Mists and Invisible Stalker. He also has a couple of Drowned Catacombs and Glacial Fortresses in his binder that I would be interested in getting off him, as I just traded off my last Drowned Catacomb in a large trade for a Huntmaster of the Fells and a Domri Rade

    Well, I have 2 Drogskol Reavers sitting around that I have been itching to use in a deck for a while. So I am thinking to myself that I might put together a super control, torment with some unblockable and lots of detaining B/W/U deck. With the tapping opponents creature whenever Humans enter the field ability of Captain of the Mists and the +1/+1 ability of Drogskol Captain with other Spirits, it could be some decent fun. Add in some unblockable 1 and 2 drops with Tormented Soul and Invisible Stalker which could be fun. By turn 3 you could drop either the Captain of the Mists or the Droskol Captain and be off to a good start. Then throw in lots of stuff that detains when it enters the battlefield for some stall. Some hate, some undying, some flicker maybe . . . who knows, with W/B/U you have tons of options, but I think it's going to be fun to play around with.

     Some possibles I have looked at for the deck are: 
Nephalia Downyard (for a possible mill effect), 
Avacyn's Pilgrim (only useful if I play Chromatic Lantern) for the extra mana later for getting Drogskol Reaver out faster. Also would activate Captain of the Mists ability.
Soulsworn Spirit - Gets the +1/+1 from Drogskol Captain and detains when it enters the battlefield.
Latch Seeker - for the 3/1 unblockable, also gets the boost from Drogskol Captain
Mindshrieker - gets a boost from Drogskol Captain, also forces target player to exile a card and he gets a boost from that card as well. Never hurts to have flying either.
Arrest - Not sure this one really needs an explanation. Traps the opponent in it's own body pretty much.
Undying Evil - keeps my guys around longer, or saves my bigger guys from Searing Spear or the like, keeping them around and giving them a boost.

     So far that's what I am working on, might be a rather shallow base to start with, but I really think it's got some potential for some nifty combos and stuff. I think I am going to call this deck "NeverLand"


Friday, March 22, 2013

Games for 3/22



1st Match: (0-2)
So went against a guy with a Colonel Mustard beard, love it! Also, little kids running running around. Not l
love it.

Anyhow, went 0-2 against a black/red/white. Kept Orzhov Charming and Boros Reckoning over and over again. He got a Blood Artist on the field and pretty much my transformed Reckless Waif and Young Wolf I had on the field had no answers.

2nd Match: (1-1-1)
Went up against one of "those" decks. It wasn't a typical shocklands and Thragtusk deck, I will give it that. But the Thragtusk and Restoration Angel combo was a little annoying to say the least. Exiling my cards with the flyer was annoying.
1st Game - got a Mayor of Avabruck and a Wolfbitten Captive on the field pretty early. Rancor on the Mayor by turn 5 or so. Had him down to 13 life. Then he played his mighty Thragtusk. Then exiled my cards with an angel. Had a Wolf token on the field when they left. Had a Wild Defiance on the field that was doing nothing for me. And the game pretty much went downhill from there.
2nd Game - I sideboarded two Plummet and two Tormods' Crypt and two Grafdiggers' Cage. Drew a hand with no land. Mulligan down to 6, he did the same. Second hand, all land with one Tormod's Crypt and Huntmaster. Dropped the Crypt and royally laid it to him.
3rd Game - Started the game and got one turn into it before time in the round was called. 5 turns later, he was at 14 life and I was at 22. Boo.

3rd Match: (1-1-1)
Played a kid who wanted to read every card. He was playing a Demir Mill Deck. He thought Consuming Aberration was the best card in the world.
1st Game - I mana screwed bad, by turn 8 I still had only 2 Rootbound Crag on the field, had managed to bring out 4 creatures somehow by blind luck and had him down to 4 life before he finished me off. His Consuming Abberation was like a 30/30 and for some reason he never attacked with it until he made it unblockable on like turn 18.
2nd Game - Got plenty of land and just laid into him with Mondromen Shaman, Wolfbitten Captive, Mayor Of Avabruck and Immerwolf. It was over by turn 8.
3rd Game - Once again, ran out of time since he wasted so much time the first game. Went to turn 4 before time was called this time. Except this time he got smart and started attacking with a Deathcult Rogue early on with some mill card Ciphered onto it. 5 turns later, with a Searing Spear in my hand and one just cast with no mana to cast the other, the game ended in a draw on his turn with 2 life for each of us. Grr.

4th Match: (2-0)
Played a guy who was playing a life gain deck. White/Green/Black.
Both games I just took him to town. By turn 7 both games were over with never pulling anything bigger than a Kruin Outlaw and an Immerwolf onto the field. Mayor Of Avabruck was out both games and just stuffed Wolf tokens down his throat. It was ugly.

All in all ended up with 5 points on the night. Not too awful bad. Due to spring break there was only like 17 people playing and I ended up 8 out of 17. Got 3 packs, a Gatecrash an Innistrad and a Dark Ascension. BUT for qualifying top 8 I got two mini boosters with 6 cards in them. Cool deals.

Picked up a Havengul Runebinder and Stromkirk Captain out of the Dark Ascension.  A Duskmantle Seer out of the Gatecrash. And an Essence of the Wild and Falkenrath Noble from the Innistrad. A Duskmantle Guildmage and Ripscale Predator from the bonus packs. All in all, not bad.












Decklist for 3/22/2013

Sat down and went through my cards and here is tonights' decklist:
Moonmist Destruction  3/22/2013

2x 2/2 Green Wolf Tokens (I will need more of these I am sure)

Land: (22)
8x Mountain
8x Forest
1x Gruul Guildgate
1x Stomping Ground
4x Rootbound Crag

Instants: (7)
3x Moonmist
2x Searing Spear
1x Burning Oil
1x Hunger of the Howlpack

Sorceries: (4)
2x Mugging
2x Revenge of the Hunted

Enchantments: (5)
2x Descendants' Path
1x Full Moon's Rise
1x Wild Defiance
1x Rancor

Creatures: (22)
1x Huntmaster of the Fells
3x Wolfbitten Captive
2x Reckless Waif
3x Immerwolf
3x Kruin Outlaw
2x Instigator Gang
3x Mondronen Shaman
4x Mayor of Avabruck
1x Young Wolf

For the Sideboard: (15)
2x Gruul Charm
2x Pit Fight
2x Verdant Haven
1x Searing Spear
1x Full Moon's Rise
2x Plummet
2x Grafdiggers' Cage
3x Tormod's Crypt

I think it should do well. Just wanted to get this up ahead of time.
 



It is FNM day

Okay, its a Friday, and I am off. Excellent. I still am waiting on cards for my Hydra Menace deck, so I will be playing the Moonmist Destruction Werewolf Aggro deck tonight. Lacking one of my Huntmaster cards, and a couple of common cards I would like to have, but I feel like it will still perform well. Hopefully it will still go 3-1 at least tonight.

I am trying out a new FNM tonight at Mayhem Collectables in Ames. Should be fun. It's a $5 charge, but they award prizes, unlike Main Street Magic, who only award the FNM promo card, but play is free standard.

So I will be blogging my matches tonight as I play them. Good luck to all other players, see ya at the tables!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Blogging from the Phone

Excellent, I can blog from my phone. This will make it a lot easier to blog at FNM events and such. With pictures!

FNM - 3/8/13 - O'Fallon, IL

So, I promised a rundown on my matches at the FNM, and I am good to my word, so here it goes.
The deck I was running was at the time a sloppily thrown together Werewolf deck that I was just playing because my other deck wasn't ready yet and would get stomped. I didn't really expect much out of this other than maybe a few points, so I threw it together with what I had which was this:

Moonmist Destruction Decklist

Creatures: (20)
1x Huntmaster of the Fells
4x Immerwolf
1x Village Ironsmith
2x Reckless Waif
3x Wolfbitten Captive
2x Scorned Villager
1x Mondronen Shaman
4x Mayor of Avabruck
1x Scorchwalker
1x Skarrg Guildmage

Instants: (11)
4x Moonmist
4x Searing Spear
3x Pillar of Flame

Land: (22)
8x Forest
9x Mountain
2x Gruul Guildgate
1x Stomping Ground
2x Rootbound Crag

Sorcery: (4)
1x Mugging
3x Revenge of the Hunted

Enchantments: (3)
2x Descendant's Path
1x Rancor

All in all, a fairly balanced, albeit, not all that powerful aggro deck.

This won't be super specific, because it was over a week ago and my brain isn't that great. But I will post the highlights.

2-1
1st Match vs - A guy who had been playing for 14 hours. Playing a storebought Boros deck that he had filtered a few things out of to make it a burn deck.
Game 1 - (I won) He mana screwed super bad and basically just burned a couple of my creatures with searing spear, but after I flipped Mondronen and Bloodrushed Scorchwalker turn 4 and then answered it with a searing spear and a reckless waif next turn, followed by another Moonmist and searing spear the next turn, it was over quick.
Game 2 - (He wins) I mana flooded. Yes, that's right. I mana flooded with 22 lands. I dropped one land and brought in another Village Ironsmith for the next game.
Game 3 - (I won) Drew the Huntmaster the second draw of the game, had a Stomping Grounds and A rootbound crag out by turn 4. Had already dropped a Mayor and A wolfbitten captive with Immerwolf onto the field, dropped the Huntmaster. He speared the Mayor. I dropped a Moonmist and that pretty much ended the game after he went in swinging with 3 spells, effectively killing himself at the beginning of my turn.

Match 2 -
2-0
vs a Blue/White control with some flying.
1st Game
   This one was a bit unexpected in my opinion. I opened my hand with a Rootbound Crag, a Forest, and a Mountain, one Reckless Waif, one Searing Spear, one Descendant's Path and a Rancor. Probably one of the best opening hands I could hope for.
By turn 3 he was down to 14 life with no creatures on the field, mana screwed and got mowed down by turn 6.
2nd Game
    Got a little more complex. He started. I had two Mountains in my opening hand. Mulligan to 6 cards. This time no land. Mulligan again. Two more Mountains. So I stick. Two Mountains, a Searing Spear, a Wolfbitten Captive and a Rancor. Wow.
T1    So he plays a Land. Passes turn. I draw my card. An Immerwolf. Not really helpful. I play a Mountain. Pass turn.
T2    He plays another Land, passes turn. I'm in the same boat, so hey, I won't complain. Draw my card, it's Descendant's Path. Just what I needed, more green. So I drop my second Mountain, and pass turn.
T3    He draws, looks at his card, sighs and plays yet another land, then plays an angel of some sort, I don't remember exactly what it was. Alls I know is I dropped that Searing Spear like it was HOT. He looks pretty hot himself, so I just took the card back and deposited it directly into my graveyard. I untapped my Mountains and drew my card. A Forest, finally. Dropped that and deposited my Immerwolf onto the field. Pass turn.
T4    He draws, drops another land, and plays a human knight, once again, can't remember the name, I do remember it gains +1/+1 for every other human on the field. Nice. He passes turn. (I promise, I will get better at the names the more recent the games get.) I draw, don't remember what it was, but it wasn't anything spectacular, so I dropped the Descendant's Path and swung with Immerwolf. He decides not to block and take the damage, no big deal. So he is at 18. I pass turn.
T5   He draws, scowl face, drops another mana. Might I add that all his mana is white up to this point. He is not happy. He passes turn. I flip over my top card, and wouldn't you know. It's an Immerwolf. Sometimes my luck is awesome. So now I have 2 3/3 wolfs on the field. Oh yes, I forgot why he didn't block last turn, he couldn't, with the intimidate effect he can't block with a white. Then I draw my card for the turn. It's a Forest. Still, not too bad and I could use the mana. So I drop my Forest and proceed to drop my Rancor on my Immerwolf that can attack. I also drop my Wolfbitten Captive giving me 0 cards in hand. I need it on the field if I flip over a human or werewolf card, as I'm thinking I won't get lucky with yet another Immerwolf. So I swing with the Immerwolf, and he, thinking he will be clever, thinks that he can block and declares a blocker calling out "Haha!" and drops a Smite. I point out that Immerwolf has intimidate and cannot be blocked by a white creature. He assigns the 5 damage and now has 13. I pass turn.
T6   He draws, drops a white land, and shakes my hand. Game he says. I will be swinging lethal next turn. 4 from the transformed Wolfbitten Captive, 3 from Immerwolf 1, and 5 from Immerwolf 2, and when I flippy the card over, guess who it is, The Huntmaster.

3rd Match
2-0
vs a Gruul Bloodrush deck, it was brutal.
1st Game
He won the toss and by turn 2 had already hit me for like 5 damage. I just remember him turn 3 bringing out Vexing Devil. I let him bring it out and then blocked it with a Reckless Waif and Searing Spear. Then turn 4 he brought out another on, this one I didn't have an answer for, but let it come out anyways. He bloodrushed it with a Ghor-Clan Rampager and hit me for like 7, which brought me down to 8. I don't remember how, but I pulled an Immerwolf and had a Scorchwalker in my hand that I played swinging at him for 7, he blocked with his Vexing Devil. Then from there on, he misdrew and got nowhere. I won handily after Mugging his remaining creature and then Pillar Of Flame'd it.
2nd Game
This game went more my way. He started, I mulligan. Drew good cards, don't remember what they were. But the game only went to 6 turns, and by turn 6 I had 2 Mayor Of Avabruck, 1 Immerwolf, a Scorned Villager and a Mondronen Shaman on the field with a Moonmist in my hand. He conceded on turn 6.

4th Match
0-2
vs a multicolored hellfest of stuff, most of it was red and white I think . . . some green, some black. It was a super fantastic infinite loop (which I thought if an infinite loop ever occured the game ended in a draw)
    Alls I remember, he kept saccing Burning Tree Emissary, two of them, and had an Undercity Informer out that he used to mill me til I hit lands, and then was using Restoration Angel to exile all zombies and restore all humans. So looptey loop, I am milled out infinitely, he keeps saccing humans, attaching something that exiles Resto Angel unless he is removed, then the human comes right back as soon as he sacs with the Burning Tree Emissary, who produces the mana he needs to keep the loop. Ugly. Did it to me twice. I had no defense.
   Meanwhile, my 6 turn speed wins were nowhere to be found. Mana flooded the first and second game. Absolutely infuriating. Especially with the Foil Promo Farseek on the line for top 2 of the night.

   So that was my night, walked away with 3 packs that I pulled a Domri Rade and a Foil Breeding Pool out of. Not too bad at all.

















First ever blog

Well, since I am not currently sitting next to my cards and I am actually at work right now on a Sunday, (not exactly the most exciting thing ever) I can't really go into any major details of my cards and what I have or hope to accomplish.
   I can say that currently I am at a point where I won't be buying any boosters or anything for the foreseeable future. I have tons of cards and have found that trading is the name of the game, and it's more beneficial to work on one deck at a time (I am currently working on 3, so yes I am a hypocrite) and pour a lot of time and effort into making it the best playable possible within reason.
    I main deck that I am currently working on (Standard) is a Gruul Werewolf deck employing one of the most sought after cards currently out there, Huntmaster Of The Fells. I have 2 and have paid for neither of them, acquiring them both through trades. So right there the deck sits at around $70 in value. I have been tweaking it and played it last week 03/08/2013 at FNM for a 3-1, which was a lot better than I expected. I will break that down in a later blog about FNM performances.
     I'm not sure anyone will ever follow this, but hey, if not, then I will just have fun talking to myself about nothing.
    For now, that is all.