Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Deck Tech Tuesdays: Secret Standardized Deck Revealed

The story of Theros is the story of normal people who ascend through a greater calling. They complete quests, help friendly moo cows cross fields, gain experience, and, ultimately, become the heroes they were meant to be. I believe MGR and I will become the heroes that Food Chain Griffins needs. He's already started his journey and has done well at States and the most recent Game Day but it is not too late for me to jump in and try and succeed too! Together, we'll one day conquer a PTQ and GP and, maybe just maybe, become world champions. I've been gaining xp via limited Theros events and have done okay so far. I've got a lot more to learn to take down one of the bigger limited tourneys but am excited. It's been a fun experience so far. But today, I join the ranks of standard players with a deck of my own. Designed with MGR's help over the past couple days, we feel this deck will be able to hold its own in future local tourneys. I can't wait to test it out!

I consider this deck similar to Jund decks of years past. It's what a friend of mine likes to call a "value" deck. Every card has lots of value and you just try and drop enough and hope for the best. Untap, upkeep, play bomb, go! In true Timmy fashion. There may be some synergies here and there but mostly it's just cards I like mashed together. MGR was there to help refine the list and be a very helpful play test partner.

Here's the list:

Lands - 24
2 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Blood Crypt
2 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Stomping Ground
1 Gruul Guildgate
3 Temple of Abandon
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Golgari Guildgate
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Creatures - 17
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Ember Swallower
2 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
1 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Underworld Cerberus
1 Sire of Insanity

Artifacts Enchantments - 6
1 Rakdos Keyrune
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Whip of Erebos
1 Deadbridge Chant

Sorcery Instants - 13
3 Dreadbore
2 Rakdos's Return
2 Read the Bones
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Doom Blade
1 Devour Flesh
1 Putrefy

Sideboard - 15
1 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Golgari Charm
1 Underworld Connections
2 Slaughter Games
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Deadbridge Goliath
2 Arbor Colossus

So time to explain some card choices. As you'll come to find out, I'm a budget player first and foremost. I love powerful and pricey cards but unfortunately I do not have the monetary capabilities to go all out with a Phelddagrif EDH deck with foil Unhinged lands. This is partly why I enjoy EDH so much as a format: you only need one of certain power cards and a lot can be made up for via budget alternatives that maximize deck synergy. So as of now, this deck is currently a work in progress and it explains the questionable mana base. Not too bad for a start though, I must say. Once again, big thanks to MGR for assisting me with trades to getting the deck this far. I'll continue to add to it over time if it proves to be a worthy Standard deck. But for now, I'll point out some of the more interesting card choices one by one.


These are the mana rampers that help me hit my key 4 and 5 drops a turn earlier. In a deck like this that's very mana hungry, these are great help. Hitting a turn 3 Ember Swallower or Reaper of the Wilds has been great so far and even in the late game, casting a large Rakdos's Return or activating monstrosity abilities has proven pretty potent.



My powerhouse 4 drops. They each sport above curve power and toughness and come with powerful abilities. I'd like to get another Polukranos if I could as his ability to fight small toughness creatures like stray mana dorks or the rather scary Master of Waves has been great. Ember Swallower offers the least initially but the ability to threaten the land sacrifice ability can all but close games in your favor. Reaper of the Wilds has been an all-star through all three of her abilities. Scrying off creature deaths keeps the deck running smooth. Deathtouch means she can trade with any creatures to happen to be bigger than her. Hexproof has proven to be incredibly valuable in turning off removal or removal like abilities like those from Banisher Priest and Boros Reckoner.


These last four creatures round out my utility support creatures. Gore-Clan Rampager threatens a lot of damage for the low price of two mana. It's not so bad on its own either. Underworld Cerberus has the potential to be very strong but I haven't had the chance to use it enough just yet. It's anti-graveyard ability is potent in shutting off opponent's Scavenging Oozes and Whips. It does shut down mine too but at least I'll have an evasive 6/6 life linker at that point. Scavenging Ooze is there to cover up the two drop and help stop opposing Whips. Sire of Insanity is just like his name states: insane. Dropping it early enough when an opponent doesn't have an answer that turn can strip a slower opponent's victory out of their hands.


I've elected to run the trio of God weapons. It's still quite funny to see enchantment artifacts but for the most part that minor detail has been set aside as these have performed very well. Bow of Nylea's static ability turns my creatures into fearless attackers and combos very well with Gore-Clan Rampager. It also turns Polukranos into a more fearsome monster that threatens to 2 or 3 for 1 any creatures who dare stand in its way. The activated abilities are varied enough that they've been useful. Shocking fliers has been great against Chandra's Phoenix and the mono blue aggro list's many fliers. The +1/+1 counters can turn Sylvan Caryatid into a potent blocker or make combat math tricky. The 3 life gain has been great to help race opponents. And lastly, this deck even uses the graveyard thinning ability via it's secret tech: Deadbridge Chant! More on that soon.

Wow, I've been really gushing on the bow. On to the other weapons, the Hammer of Purphoros turns top decks into scary threats and it's ability to pump hasty 3/3s can help push board stalls into your favor. The Whip of Erebos has been so powerful that I've put two in the deck. Lifelink with huge creatures makes racing impossible and it's reanimation ability means your monsters perform double duty in helping to finish the late game. Very powerful.




I initially put this in because I lacked a 4th Sylvan Caryatid but it's proven itself to be quite useful. With the bow out, it's scary good and even without any help, it's a nice wrath proof attacker that ramps the turn it comes out.


My pet card for the deck. I initially put it in because I loved the effect as a continual source of card advantage and for that exciting little moment where you wonder if you'll get lucky and cheat a creature back into play or get back a critical removal spell. In testing, it's proven to be even more than that with great synergy with Scavenging Ooze, Underworld Cerberus, and the bow and whip. It does cost a lot of mana and doesn't give you an effect till next turn but the listed cards help minimize the uselessness of that one turn. Plus I love mini games within games.







My heavy removal suite is pretty sweet (and standard). Low cost and powerful, they help get rid of problem creatures and clear the way for my dopey 4/5s and above into the red zone where they just want to hug opponents (the life loss is an unfortunate side effect). Dreadbore's unconditional kill ability has been great and taking out pesky planeswalkers becomes a whole lot easier. Putrefy's flexibilty to take out opposing god weapons has proven useful and worth the one extra mana. That can't be regen clause was hilariously relevant when MGR held a Golgari Charm in hand. Meanwhile, since my deck can sometimes stall in getting to my critical 4-5 drops, Anger of the Gods helps make sure early aggression is put to an end. I don't want your aggressive low cost hugs! The exiling clause is a great bonus against Voice of Resurgence and opposing whips.


Read the Bones helps dig me into more gas. Divination has always been playable according to MGR (I believe him) and this is even better! Meanwhile, Rakdos's Return is designed to do the opposite: cause my opponents to run out of steam. With the nice amount of ramp in the deck, firing off a timely Rakdos's Return can sometimes guarantee me a victory I wouldn't have otherwise had.

I used MGR's expertise in the Standard metagame to help design the sideboard and it looks fairly solid. Each card has a role to play but I'm currently to sleepy to write about specific match ups currently. I just wanted to point out one of the dreams I hope to achieve: Bringing in Erebos and getting him active and swinging to win games. I believe it's going to happen!


I'll keep you all posted on how this deck performs. MGR and I are going to a free Standard tourney on Thursday and there the deck will finally be field tested. The field should be softer than at a pay tourney but I hear some of the promo prizes are still worth winning so I won't hold back nor expect easy competition. If the deck performs well, I'll keep slowly upgrading it and think of a cute nickname to give it. My plan to draft Theros weekly should help in obtaining the missing pieces like Thoughtseize and Heroes Downfall. Everything else I think I'll be able to trade for. That's all for now and stay tuned for the results in this Saturday's Under Construction article!

Hump Day: Matches 9, 12, & 13

So first off, I'll be talking about Match 9 that QSP left for me to report on.

Game 1: So, I was on the progenitus deck and QSP was on the Rafiq deck.
I was stuck on just green and black lands forever! He had an academy rector out and was swinging every turn. I didn't want to block it with my garruk relentless tokens because that would allow him to get any enchantment he wanted from his deck. So I was taking one every turn. Stuck on just green and black lands, I finally drew a demonic tutor. I can search for a land! No one ever counters the tutor, they counter what you tutor for right?


Well no, he played mystic snake to counter the demonic tutor....
Long story short, game 1 was a disaster. I didn't really get to do much of anything while he beat down with academy rector and a mystic snake.






As you can see in my hand, I needed more than just Green and black mana. I drew one island, but I needed a lot more to even do anything.

So anyway, lost game 1.

He top decked a good one!
Game 2: I had a quick start with an ajani vengeant, karn liberated, tezzeret agent of bolas, and doubling season out in play. Karn was at ultimate, ajani V was at ultimate, and tezzeret was making

my artifacts 5/5 every turn to swing in. Additionally, because I was making so many 5/5's, I had QSP down to 4 life. Then the turn I was going to win, he time stops me when I try to ultimate with Ajani. He top decks an oblivion stone and takes everything out. Then the tables were turned. He started coming back. Eventually the board state looked like this:





He had a venser that he was crystal sharding, and a mulldrifter with double swords! Things were not looking good.

He eventually just outright won as I drew nothing that could dig me out of that ditch.





So final score for match 9, Progenitus (MGR) 0 - Rafiq (QSP) 2

---

The next match I have to report on was a new EDH deck that QSP was building based on Karador, Ghost chieftain. He considered it a "beta" deck, but I said I wanted to try it out anyway. So he picked up the Kaalia deck to play against it, and there we went.


A new commander enters the fray
One of the best budget reanimation spells.

Game 1, I got mana screwed. I had 3 lands and couldn't do anything. Luckily, I had an animate dead in my hand, so when I got to 8 cards in hand, I discarded a Teneb the Renewer. The next turn, I was able to play a lotleth troll and stall out with teneb as Kaalia was summoned on the opponent's
battlefield. The following turn, I attacked with both teneb and lotleth troll, discarded more creatures to lotleth troll and started a reanimation engine that Kaalia could not beat, even with angelic arbiter out.

Game 2, I was stuck on 2 lands. QSP put a reliquary tower in the deck so I could not start the same shenanigans again with the discard at cleanup step due to 8 cards in hand. I thought I was going to lose when I played Erebos Emissary (which QSP asked me about as a last slot). I was using the Emissary to pitch my creatures to the graveyard to play gnaw to the bone to keep me in the game, because at this point, I have about 6 or 7 angels, demons, and dragons attacking me. I am down to 5 life when I have enough mana to pitch a sunblast angel to the graveyard thanks to the emissary and then cast it with dread return. It wipes Kaalia's entire board and I slowly start to come back after that, to end up winning.

So final score for this match, Karador (MGR) 2- Kaalia (QSP) 0

------

So next match was to see if Karador could do it again, another upset? I picked up Rafiq with many changes while QSP was to play Karador.

One of the best green creatures in EDH
Game 1: I was stuck on 2 lands for a while, although I was able to play simic signet and coalition relic to mana ramp me up. On QSP's side, he played a karoo land which allowed him to discard
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. Since I was able to ramp up to 5 lands, I played an acidic slime and blew up the karoo land. However, he played exhume getting his Teysa into play.







I played a crystal shard and returned acidic slime to my hand to recast him, to try to keep him off of
Really annoying to attack into
lands while he continued to swing in with Teysa. His teysa was getting to be too much so I had to cast oblivion stone, as Teysa was being joined by friends. Additionally, since his reanimator deck plays big creatures, his lurking predators enchantment made me play around it. Everytime I cast a spell, I had to wonder if a big creature was going to come out into play.

However, QSP kicked marshal's anthem to bring teysa back into play. Then I genesis wave'd for 6, mostly getting lands, but also getting a phyrexian metamorph to copy teysa. QSP then reanimated mageta the lion from his graveyard. I played a deadeye navigator and a prime speaker zegana, while QSP continued to swing all out with his big army of big beaters.

He brought me down to 6 life, while I wargated for 6 grabbing a mana reflection with a grim monolith on the board already. That allowed me to sphinx's revelation and draw my entire deck, and proceed to win the game from there.

Best non Black tutor in EDH
 Game 2: So at the start of game 2, he played a karoo land on turn 2. I ended up strip mining it, allowing me a large tempo advantage. There was a turn he was stuck on one land and I thought I was going to be okay, however he played kodama's reach, recollect into another kodama's reach on turns 4 and 5, making him ramp even faster than I was.
Better than primeval titan?

He was able to pitch his sylvan primordial to the graveyard along with an unburial rites, so I destroyed his strionic resonator he had out on the field with bant charm. I did not want him blowing up 2 of my lands. I then cast prophet of kruphix which allowed me to cast a lot more spells than him, eventually leading to me casting a genesis wave for 13 a few turns later.
Reads: Destroy an artifact, counter an instant, or tuck a general













He then conceded when the board state looked like this:



So in the end for match 13, Rafiq (MGR) 2 - Karador (QSP) 0


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Mistform Monday: Commencing Operation Hungry Hungry Hydra

Hi again. We're back with my first impressions of the Face the Hydra deck released to the public from WotC this past Game Day. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Game Day and play in both the standard and bonus hydra event but was very happy to hear that MGR did well. Inspired by his heroic success, I decided it was time to jump into standard with a deck of my own! This would have been the perfect time to mention Wizards marketing succeeded in getting me to purchase the Inspiring Heroics event deck (which is a strong starting UW list if you want to jump in with such a deck) but that was not meant to be. Instead, with MGR's help, I am building the monstrous shard deck known as Jund. Yes, his heroic actions have set into motion a series of events that will have him facing the monstrous Ember Swallower, Erebos and his friendly whip, and (so that I may help get revenge since MGR beat the Hydra event), even a hydra or two. I will avenge you fallen hydra friend! I am but one of your many loyal heads. So let's go a-head and get started on my first impressions!

This was a cool stand. Didn't come with the deck though. :(

MGR and I met up at a very nice local Starbucks to blog (so hip!) and to play a couple games against the hydra. All I had were a couple EDH decks with me so we tested out with those. First up was Daxos on normal difficulty. This meant the hydra started with three heads out. After some solid early damage from the hydra (it's quite good at this), I was able to stabilize then dominate with the fact that all of my blink creatures like Flickerwisp and Banisher Priest were ETB: own target hydra. Once I resolved an Isochron Scepter with Momentary blink to be able to kill a hydra head every turn, it was all over. I felt this ability to blink was too strong. Perhaps I read the rule wrong about if the hydra would leave play, it dies instead. In the future I believe we'll use blink effects to do what it normally does and blink the hydra heads. Which means it'll probably be completely useless, haha.

This powerful side effect of blinking the hydra heads to destroy them meant I was confident going into hard mode in which the hydra started with 4 heads. However, that smug confidence was quickly diminished as I saw how aggressive the hydra deck could get in dealing early damage. Flipping an early elite head with me lacking a blink effect usually meant game over and this is exactly what happened. I tried a second time but was destroyed. A worthy challenge!

I'm so elite, I lightning bolt at end of turn. Mmm charred heroes.

Next up, MGR piloted the Kaalia deck with her as a general but using normal mulligan rules. As we feared, the fact that Kaalia was a stock list and was a deck meant for multiplayer EDH meant it was a bit slow and if the hydra started aggressively enough with good flips, it quickly snowballed from there. There was one awesome game where Kaalia was able to come out early and start dropping bombs though.

After we built my new jund deck, we obviously decided to play test and see how it'd fare. Here are a couple of the more memorable details:
  • Whip of Erebos + any solid creature = too much damage and life gaining capability for the hydra to recover from.
  • Anger of the Gods is the perfect answer to a swarm of non-elite hydra heads. At one point it was used against 4 heads and only flipped over 3 heads so it was a gain. I hope to see the day when this backfires tragically and flips over 8 elite heads.
  • This match was also one of the more interesting ones as the hydra flipped over back to back Strike the Weak Spot which let me, as the controller of the hydra deck, destroy an elite head to give it an extra turn. So in the end I took two turns in a row and hoped to bury MGR in many hydra bite marks. Alas, with each destroyed elite head, I did no flip over more heads and Jund won against my now no longer elite team.
All in all, it was a very fun experience. I haven't tried team play against the hydra yet but I look forward to it. And we'll play around with the rules of the deck to see if we can improve the experience such as maybe putting more hydra heads in or taking out cards like Neck Tangle which just owned the hydra. Very sad. Be better friends, heads! Purchased at our LGS for $12, I feel this was worth it for the hours of fun it already provided.

This was exactly what MGR and I envisioned when we defeated the hydra.

As a bonus, I'd also like to introduce another feature I'm going to have for Mistform Mondays. Since the mistform creatures can take on many types, I thought I'd do a feature called Random Creature type of the week. I'll use gatherer's random card button and whatever creature type appears (ignoring repeats and non-creatures), I'll write about. Today's creature type was: Thrull.

When I first started playing around Odyssey/Onslaught block, I believe I missed the majority of thruls printed so I don't have much experience with this dopey looking tribe. It is nice that more thrulls are appearing recently. Variety is good for the game. So while I didn't have much experience with them as a tribe, I did have experience with a particular thrull:

You've got to sacrifice!
 I have a friend who loved black's theme of sacrificing life and creatures for power and fell in love with this card. Blood Pet could ramp you in ways Llanowar Elves only dream of: through the awesome power of sacrifice! So he had a deck which had 3 or 4 of these in it and would laugh maniacally as he cast these then, a turn or two later, sacrifice them to cast some big probably also life draining or sacrifice inducing big black creature. It was pretty fun in those early days of Magic as we played less removal then and therefore an early bomb was very, very tough to deal with. Alas, as what happens over time as players become more focused on finding newer, better cards to put into decks, my friend found Dark Ritual was a card and used that instead. And we learned to play more removal at some point, I'm hoping. As my upcoming deck tech on Jund will show you, playing early bomby creatures is still a joy I share to this day.

 .........

...Oh I almost forgot one last thing. MGR and I were wondering what it'd be like to command our own hydra decks to battle each other. So before MGR went and bought a deck of his own, we split the hydra deck as evenly as possible and played. End of turn hydra damage would just be redirected to a head of our choice. Let's just say one game in this quickly convinced us that this was a terrible idea. Some of the sorceries were useless (at one point I'm sure I flipped lots of Neck Tangles. Sorcery speed fogs for the lose) and once an elite head landed for one side, it had far too much defense to be taken down by the 1 damage dealing regular heads. Maybe we can make this work one day but today is not that day. $12 saved! And probably transmuted into a bbq bacon burger of some sort.*

*See MGR's great review in his upcoming Sample Saturday article to see if he also heroically conquers this delicious task.

The Tues Blues: Mistakes on Gameday

So, for today's edition of the Tues. Blues, I will be talking about three specific instances of play mistakes I made on game day.

There were three specific mistakes I made on gameday that I will be touching upon. These mistakes cost me, or almost cost me a game, as the games were extremely close.

This versatile card saves me so many times
First, when I played my mono red opponent in round 4. There was a point where he was at 11 life and I was at 8 life. He had one blocker where I had 3 creatures with power 4. He also had 3 other creatures tapped (they attacked). I swung all in as I thought he was at 8 life. He would block 1 of the
4 power creatures and still take damage from the other two. However, he pointed out after damage that the game was not over, and that he was at 3 life. He swung on the crackback to try to win, luckily I had double golgari charm in my hand for instant speed infest to save me, otherwise I would have lost that game.




One of the better Gods
My second mistake at gameday was in my top 4 match vs boros midrange. My opponent had a purphoros god of the forge, and 2 chandra's phoenixes. I had an advent of the wurm, sylvan caraytid, and a whip of erebos. At the time, I read chandra's phoenix mana cost as 2R instead of 1RR. So I
thought purphoros was offline. However, after I attacked with my wurm, he blocked with purphoros and said it was online. A huge misplay as I lost my wurm, and subsequently, lost the game!






 The final mistake at gameday was in the finals vs the mono black devotion deck (that splashed blue). I had one card in hand (golgari charm) and was attacking with a reaper of the wilds. He went to hero's
So many abilities
downfall it, and I used golgari charm to regenerate when I should have just used the hexproof instead. It would not have removed my reaper from combat and would have saved my golgari charm for something else.









Anyway, those are my three moments of misplays at gameday. I wanted to post them to show that even though I won, I need to make tighter plays. I need to take more time to evaluate board states, and I need to remember smaller things not mentioned (trostani and reaper of the wilds triggered abilities)

Monday, October 21, 2013

Modest Monday: Izzet edition

Today I wanted to talk about a fun deck that is worth about 1 to 2 event tickets, what I call Izzet Aggro. It features all 1 drops and 2 drops, and is inspired by QSP's use of hidden strings. I really liked the idea of using hidden strings multiple times in a turn, and really liked its interaction with nivmagus elemental. The problem was that I wanted more with hidden strings. I wanted to be able to utilize it more often, so I turned to Young Pyromancer. From there, I decided I could not go more than two colors because this was budget.
Here is the decklist:

Click to make the image larger.

So a bit about my card decisions before I jump into a game!
First, mizzium mortars is there to hit big guys that the elemental might never be able to hit. The 4 nimagus elemental and 4 young pyromancer are already givens. Akrosan Crusader is also just another guy I can hit with hidden strings as a bonus, since I do not have wavecrash triton like QSP did in his blue/white deck. From there, I realized that one activation with nivmagus elemental's ability would turn on an ordeal, but I only had two to choose from. One that would let me draw 2 cards, or one that would burn something. I like the shock over the burn. Triton tactics is there to save me from burn, since my guys do not have any real protection on their own. Shock is there because I used up the 2 tickets and those were the cheapest burn spell. Rakdos Cackler is something that I thought would help, its unleash brings you that much closer with ordeal of thassa. Additionally, I wanted to use madcap skills because I feel like this deck needs to put as much pressure as possible. That also works well with rakdos cackler in the ways RDW used both last standard season.
The sideboard: I put in blistercoil weird because if you are facing a deck that is like esper that has tons of removal, you need more creatures. I could not think of a better 1 or 2 drop that also benefited from me ciphering/casting spells. The 1 electrickery is in there in case I face someone who is playing tokens or RDW. Mizzium skin is additional protection against spot removal or burn. Negate is there for the same reason, but can also counter an anger of the gods or a planeswalker if it gets to that stage.
Skull crack is probably the most important, I don't think I'm winning if the opponent is gaining life every turn.

 Anyway, we have the deck suited up. Let's go and play a match or two!

So here was my starting hand. I was going second and I don't know what I'm playing against:

Seems keep-able right? If you can't see this image or any, then just click on it to make it bigger.
Anyway, as long as they don't kill the pyromancer, I can get in some good damage.

So here you can see they killed the young pyromancer and they are playing grixis control! So I better be careful. I do like that I have Cackler and two ordeals though.

So here you can see, I was able to get the two ordeals on the cackler and top decked a hidden strings as well to tap down his lands for a safe attack. Because of this, I am able to sacrifice one of the ordeals and draw two cards on the cackler's first attack.

As you can see here, he was able to deal with everything I had with multiple burn spells on my big guy. I feel like my chances of winning are slipping as all I am drawing are lands (in a 18 land deck!!) He soon after beat me with a jace, architect of thought followed by chandra, pyromaster

So it's sideboard time!




Essentially it's sideboard in 2 negate and the 4 blistercoil weirds so I don't get devour flesh'd as much.

So here we go:

So I'm on the play. This hand is very good if I can get there and draw an island!

I draw. It's not an island. Oh no. I'll just play another creature so I can try to protect myself from devour flesh. I can't just overextend everyturn by dropping one guy though because these grixis decks do play anger of the gods.

So I draw again. It's a land! Too bad it's a mountain.



So I use the dynacharge to make my nivmagus elemental bigger so I can start attacking. Meanwhile, I draw an izzet guildgate and have to wait next turn to pass. Then we get to the above. I am set up. I can hidden strings, target my crusader and then exile with the elemental and the weird will buff up as well!


So I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but the turn after he ended up trying to cast far/away. I negated it. He then goes to spend all of his mana to double magma jet my big elemental and the following turn drops this mercurial chemister. I, however, draw dynacharge, which given his lifetotal and the fact that he is tapped out is GG.

He conceded before game 3 started.

So for the other game I want to show, I uploaded to youtube. I have to find a better way to record MTGO matches outside of my phone. It's horrible quality and I'm sorry. I'm the player on top. However, you get to see how well I do facing down a blood baron and esper in general.

Anyway. That's the izzet aggro deck! I think it does pretty well, all things considered, for budget. Control like esper or grixis is definitely the hardest matchups. I think I get lucky when I beat those ones.

Finally, last night Jace vs Vraska duel deck was announced! Maybe Jace Architect of thought's price will go down!