Please include what kind of event it was, game/match results for every round, and the deck/play quality of your opponents. Also, it would be helpful if you could explain how you sideboarded for each match.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Game: Bioshock: Infinite
Mabbz on MTGO | Demgrinds on Twitch & Twitter | Helpdesk
Grabbed a couple reports from States from the Primer - there might be more than these two, but these are what I remember:
Khaospawn - Dos Rakis:
Quick report from my States Tournament.
I got 35th out of 251 people. I went 6-3.
Round 1 VS GW (LOSS)
Game 1: I lose the die roll and get overwhelmed with a Smiter paired with a Silverblade and a Rancor. Loss
Game 2: I punted this game. I had to deal 10 damage to win. Played a Conscript over a Thundermaw. I screwed up combat math and only dealt 9 damage. I should've played the Thundermaw and then the Conscripts the following turn. This was my fault. Loss.
Round 2 VS UW Aggro "Geist Tricks" (WIN)
Game 1: I dominate with Cacklers and Nobles. I seal the deal with an Aristocrat. WIN.
Game 2: He nails me with a loaded Geist. LOSS.
Game 3: Rape is spelled A-S-H Z-E-A-L-OT. WIN.
Round 3 VS GW (LOSS)
Game 1: I hit the nuts with Cackler, Zealot, Zealot and Cackler, Aristocrat. WIN.
Game 2: He hits the nuts with Smiter, Silverblade, Rancor and Sublime Archangel. LOSS.
Game 3: I had a great opener: Cackler, Land, Land, Land, Brimstone, Thundermaw, Pillar. Too bad I only drew 4 and 5 drops with no land to go with them. LOSS.
Round 4 VS UW Aggro "Geist Tricks" (WIN)
Game 1: It's just wrong to open with 3 Cackler, 2 Land, and 2 Zealots. Easy WIN.
Game 2: After a T3 Terminus by Homeboy, I'm basically just playing land and clutching 2 Brimstone Volleys while he's at 15 life. I land a KoI and hold off a Geist while he Thought Scours himself to fuel his Moorland Haunt. On T10 I play a Noble. He plays Thought Scours again. I draw a third Brimstone Volley. I attack with Noble. He suppresses a giggle as he makes a Spirit token to block the Noble. After combat, I Volley. And then Volley again. His eyes get wide. I Volley AGAIN. He's speechless and extends his hand. WIN.
Round 5 VS Bant Aggro(Win)
Game 1: Apparently, multiple Cacklers and Zealots in opening hands are good. WIN.
Game 2: I didn't even know he was Bant until he finally played a Forest. Didn't really see much of his deck because once I landed an Aristocrat, it was game. WIN
Round 6 VS BR Zombies (WIN)
Game 1: He gets me with by playing tricks with Bloodthrone Vampire and Blood Artist while I see NO burn. Also, he seems to love the color pink since he's wearing pink glasses, uses pink sleeves, and wears 2 pink bracelets....(LOSS)
Game 2: Zombies are no match for the almighty Stonewright/Zealot tagteam. An Aristocrat seals the deal. (WIN)
Game 3: It's no contest as I storm the gates with the infamous duo again. My burn mops up his mediocre offense. I'm told that I play a "control version of Zombies." Funny, I don't recall sleeving up ANY Zombies in my deck.....(WIN)
Round 7 VS UWR Miracles (WIN)
Game 1: I shouldn't be allowed to play with Ash Zealot and KoI anymore. They just win too many games....(WIN)
Game 2: Guy doesn't play any sources. He's getting mana screwed as my "Zombies" deck takes him to the cleaners. He tries to Syncopate a Stonewright, but I point to the Cavern I used to cast him and wave my finger at him. Later, I inform him my deck is NOT a Zombies deck. It's Dos Rakis! (WIN)
Round 8 VS GW Aggro (LOSS)
Game 1: It's the fabled nuts draw for the GW player as he beats me down with a Smiter paired with a Silverblade and then followed up with a Sublime Archangel and a Rancor. I see no burn at all. (LOSS)
Game 2: I go big and shove in all the removal I can. In fact, I draw all my burn and kill his creatures. We both empty our hands and then he topdecks a Smiter. Then a Rancor. And then a Silverblade. My 9 lands on the table cry. He asks me what the hell am I playing, BR Zombie Control???? I guess when people see a Blood Crypt, they just assume Zombies, I dunno. Or maybe most Floridians are stupid...I give up. (LOSS)
Round 9 VS BR Zombies (WIN)
Game 1: Since I'm out of the top 16, I slam a few beers and just go in having a lot of fun. Unfortunately for my opponent, who tells me his name is "Peaches" (WTF, right?), Zombies can't block. I ram 2 Zealots repeatedly up his ass. (WIN)
Game 2: I don't even board. This time I just ram 2 Stromkirk Nobles up his ass until he Searing Spears both of them. I follow up with a hasty Zealot and bait him to kill it. When he does, I Brimstone Volley to the dome for 5. I play an Aristocrat to mop up. (WIN)
So, in short, my only losses were to GW. All GW decks I played were sans Thragtusk, which was really weird. I didn't see a SINGLE friggin' Thragtusk!!! Not that they weren't there, oh no. They were everywhere in the tournament, just not in my games. So, I did make a few mistakes in my match-ups, but then again, these decks weren't what I tested against. I expected to see mucho 'tusks and instead faced off against Sublime Archangel/Silverblade beatdown. I had a little bad luck, but I think I did the best I could. Like I said, I was worried about the GW match-up, and that's what got me.
My buddy played GW aggro WITH Thragtusks and Resto and got 15th. He's the guy I was testing with, lol.
Anyway, I tried to keep this short and sweet. I JUST got home from an hour and a half drive and I have work in about 6 hours. I'm exhausted. But I had a blast educating people in the new RDW- Dos Rakis!!!
dpaine88 - RDW:
So for States, I am going to do my best to rememeber every deck, but honestly many of them were similar so I may not have results for each round.
Round 1:
I started off against a pretty easy opponent, no offense but it was a girl and she was running a White Weenie deck. There was a lot of card tradinng going on but the only one that really gave mea n issue was Silverblade Pally, but I burned him every time. I boarded in Flames of the Firebrand and that was huge. I never actually had a Noble in this game , but it would have been nice. I won 2-0.
Round 2: I played a G/W midrange deck here. SO many Healers!! I don't know how I ate through all this lifegain, but I did somehow. Hellkite was huge here and an overloaded Mortors gave me the upper land late to win. I believe I ended this one on a Conscripts play.
Round 3: I played against a Naya deck here, don't even know what means but thats what they called it. I lost 2-0 here. I never had a chance since I had a 4 land hand and kept it and drew into nothing but mountains and ended with 9 mountain when the game was over. The second game I had to Mulligan to 6 since I had no land. The 6 cards only had 1 land. I drew the second land turn 4 and then didn't draw another mountain the entire game and my opponent had 9 lands by the end.
Round 4: I played a deck, I don't know meta names that well ,but it was G/W/R with Huntmaster in it. Pillars of Flame came up huge here, killing off the damn Huntmaster really messed with their plan. They didn't play much until then so when I killed that guy and swung though, he was low enough to burn dead.
Round 5: I played against a control deck. Killed him crazy fast game 1. Then game 2 was the most epic game I have played since returning to MTG. The board was basically cleared and we were in topdeck mode, after THREE miracle terminus and 2 Supreme verdict. I topdeck a Hellkite to get him to 3 life. Then I draw into a Shredfreak, he had drawn a counter. Then I draw a Conscripts and tap out for it, he had topdecked a Syncopate. Then I topdeck a Brimstone Volley, he has another counterspell. Then I topdeck another Volley the turn after and he dies.
Then I agreed to draw round 6 to get top 8.
Then first round of top 8:
I played a Reanimator deck. He got stuck on 4 lands after I killed off his Mana dorks and he died reallly fast to my 2 Hellriders and a few guys. Game 2: I had a Tormod's Crypt in my opening hand and raped his GY with it once he got Grislebrand in there. Then he topdecked a Tragtusk to get back to 13 life. I had a Hellkite out at the moment. Next turn, I use Conscripts to steal Thrag and swing for exactly 13 damage.
Semi-Finals - I go up against a G/W Aggro deck and he had basically the same hand both games consisting of Ajani and 3 Strangleroots.
I could have had him game 1. He was at 5 life but I had nothing on the board, 4 land and a Hellkite in my hand. I drew for 3 turns and I drew Cackler, Cackler, Noble. Lame!!
Game 2- It was a race but he got a Smiter and Ajani out and got 2 Counters on it, then had 2 Cathedral of War. I was at 17 and he was able to get the Smiter to a 9/9 then give it double stike and flying and kill me in 1 shot....
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
redthirst is redthirst, fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. He was the leader of the Fires of Salvation, the only clan I'm aware of to get modded off the forums so hard they made their own forums.
Degenerate? Sure. Loudmouth? You bet. Law abiding? No ****ing way.
A pet deck I have been working on for a few days now. Notes on the selections are available in the primer.
Round 1 - Jund Zombies
Strategy: 1-for-1 them early, try to create a race with an advantage. Be willing to lose card advantage to buy time (and life) so that you can go over the top.
Game 1: On the draw, keep: Mountain, Hellion Crucible, Stonewright, Gore-House Chainwalker, Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite.
Against an unknown opponent, the hand is keepable. I love that it curves aggressively. I don't like that it is completely uninteractive ~ with no removal the hand is pretty soft to UW Aggro or Zombies, but amazing against Jund or UWx Control.
His first two turns only involve a Diregraf Ghoul. I draw a mountain and then another Cackler, giving me a real choice on Turn 2 ~ Cackler + Stonewright or Chainwalker? They represent the same amount of damage, but playing 2x 1drop is more resilient to removal, so I went with that option.
He clearly had kept a slow hand, playing a topdecked Cackler without unleash, then trading one of my cacklers for his ghoul. I believe that at this point I made a small mistake by not attacking with my Stonewright ~ doing so would have let me push some more damage through (by firebreathing whichever soulbond creature was not blocked). As it was, he played a dragonskull summit and killed my freshly played chainwalker and stonewright with a flames of the firebrand. Damn.
Thankfully, I untapped and played Hellrider (playing 25 land helps you get there), hitting him for a bunch and putting me way ahead in the race against whatever he could likely be holding. Another flames of the firebrand killed my Hellrider (must be nice to have perfect mana and draw all the flames in your Jund deck). However, Thundermaw Hellkite hit him once and he didn't draw for the turn before succeeding ~ this let me know he didnt have an answer maindeck, outside of a potentially morbid brimstone volley.
Sideboarding:
-4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 2 Mountain, Searing Spear, 2 Ash Zealot, Chainwalker, Thundermaw Hellkite
Two Ash Zealot is extremely solid defensively. I have Searing Spear for his 1 drop to slow him down and I have an endgame, just need to get there!
Turns out he had it all. Triple 1 drop backed up by three removal spells (Pillar of Flame, Dreadbore, Flames of the Firebrand), Rancor and Geralf's Messenger kill me before I can concoct a defence. Not much else to say, I just died. Must be nice.
Game 3: On the play, keep 2 Mountain, Hellrider, Cackler, Pillar of Flame, Searing Spear, Flames of the Firebrand.
Not the most aggressive hand, but it is highly suggestive of playing aggro-control.
I draw into another cackler. He has turn 2 abrupt decay, then perfect mana (for the 3rd game straight) on turn 3. I pillar his Gravecrawler, Spear his Mangler. He abrupt decays 1 Cackler. Messenger meets another Pillar of Flame and I am just miles ahead in the race, with Searing Spear, Hellrider and Flames of the Firebrand still in hand ~ he is at 10. I play Hellrider, he has Brimstone Volley (seriously, this guy...), go to 8.
He plays Falkenrath Aristocrat to hit me to 12. I hit him and burn him out. My opponent very courteously told me that 'Im certain your playing 20 land with 4 Hellrider and 4 Hellkite' and that 'if he had drawn his three thragtusk he would have won' ~ because if you're going to draw really well in all three games, why not go all the way?
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 - BG Zombies
Strategy: Same as above. They have less reach and more trouble dealing with your heavy hitters because of their removal suite. You can play at a slower pace as a result.
Game 1: At this point, I have to admit I don't watch replays between rounds so I had no idea what my opponent was playing. On the draw, keep: 3 Mountain, 2 Rakdos Cackler, Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite.
His first two lands are Golgari Guildgate and Woodland Cemetery (why didnt you mulligan?!) and he is on the backfoot immediately. I get through a lot of early damage, then he stabalizes the board with Dreg Mangler, Knight of Infamy and Gravecrawler vs Rakdos Cackler, Stonewright and Gore-House Chainwalker (Hellrider and Hellkite in hand). Stonewright lets me push damage through and trade down, clearing the way for Hellrider.
Then this happens:
Turns out that Hellrider is kind of good against a deck that doesn't block much.
Sideboarding: -4 Rakdos Cackler, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Game 2: On the draw, keep: Pillar of Flame, Flames of the Firebrand, Chainwalker, four land. Ugggh...probably should have mulliganed.
Basically, his draw is double gravecrawler, dreathrite shaman, double lotleth troll on three land. I draw up to 9 land, as well as another Chainwalker and an Annihilating Flame. Doesn't end well.
Game 2: On the play, keep: 2 Mountain, Hellion Crucible, Chainwalker, 2 Ash Zealot, Thundermaw Hellkite. Kind of a good hand...
My Chainwalker trades for a Diregraf Ghoul. The 1st Ash Zealot gets hit by Dead Weight. He rancor's up a Diregraf Ghoul, which I annihilating fire. We both play a lot of guys and the board starts to stall ~ exactly the position I had designed the deck for. We end up in this board state (image taken at my attack step):
He loses.
2-0 (4-2)
Round 3 - BR Zombies
Strategy: See the above two matchups. They have tremendous reach, so you want to always trade early and use removal early ~ keeping at 10+ life can be very important because they can just get you.
Game 1: On the play, keep: three mountain, Hellrider, Devil's Play, two searing spear.
Not an amazing hand, but you have to keep hands like this. It is interactive enough to give you game against most decks. Definitely not good, but a forced keep.
I trade removal against his creature heavy hand, stalling at three land ~ but this means I am drawing spells to keep me alive. Eventually, I have killed everything, and the board state is:
So, I find myself in a race. Can I do 20 damage before he can deal the remaining 5? Two Hellrider is a good start. I put him to 16. He draws a land, spears me to 2. I play a second hellrider, putting him to him to 6. He draws a diregraf ghoul. Get there!
Sideboarding: -4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, -4 Rakdos Cackler, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +4 Mizzium Mortars, +3 Annihilating Fire
Stonewright went to make me as resilient to Flames of the Firebrand as possible. Mortars was to try something new.
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 2 mountain, chainwalker, searing spear, two mizzium mortars :rolleyes:, hellrider.
I draw two more Mizzium Mortars. He has two grave crawlers, three blood artist and two messenger. I think I die and he is at ~20 life. Ugggghhh
Sideboard: -4 mizzium mortars, +4 rakdos cackler
For pressure.
On the play, keep: Cackler, two mountain, hellion crucible, two flames of the firebrand, pillar of flame.
He stalls on two land and my flames of the firebrand wipes his board twice, while all the while my Cackler is nudging him for 2 each turn. His third land is a guildgate, I am able to improve my board with another Cackler and start adding pressure counters to the Crucible.
We end up here (my 1st mainphase, have played a land already):
Pillar of Flames your Messenger. Play Ash Zealot. Crack Hellion Crucible for Hellion hulk-smash. You're at 3. There are upsides to playing a big mana deck.
3-0 (6-3)
Round 4 - Jund
Strategy: Get him to ~10 with little guys, then kill him with burn, hellrider triggers and dragons. Evaluate every attack with The Philosophy of Fire in mind ~ you can throw away a card if it is generating 3+ damage. You're aiming to have them dead to any topdeck while you're at a high life total, so that you have as many drawsteps as possible to hit your outs.
Game 1: On the draw, keep: two mountain, two rakdos cackler, stonewright, devil's play, thundermaw hellkite.
Again, against an unknown opponent, this is a pretty aggressive hand. Easy keep.
He plays some taplands, I build a board presence. He plays some removal, I do some damage. The Huntmaster of the Fells comes down and we have to make our first decision.
Searing Spear on the Huntmaster itself is obvious. What is more difficult is whether or not to attack into the wolf and 2-for-1 myself. I have not done as much damage as I need to; for the dragon to work I need him ~10 life. I felt at the time (and still feel now) that waiting is the incorrect line. He blocks the paired cackler (not the stronewright) which is an error (though not a big one because he dosn't know about the second stonewright).
Olivia Voldaren comes down, but a timely Hellion Crucible off the top lets me devil's play her (that spell is REALLY good). I hit him to 10. Stage 1 of the plan is complete ~ he plays Garruk, Primal Hunter and makes a token. I play my second Stonewright and elect to against give up a card for damage (to him). There are two factors in play:
1) I have drawn three Stonewright. 1 is very good, but every stonewright after the first is a 1/1 for R. Not good.
2) Garruk using his -3 to draw three can help him find cards like Huntmaster and Thragtusk. Keeping him from this line is greatly to my advantage ~ if I can just draw a land I probably have him.
He plays a land, makes a token and plays a Rakdos Keyrune, preventing any progress on the ground. I draw my 4th Stonewright. He gets to -3 garruk, finds some removal to kill some of my guys and plays Thragtusk.
Enter the 5th land.
Hellkite you. Pair with Stonewright. Attack. Go to 8. He draws for the turn, tells me I am really lucky with my top decks (turn 9 5th land, so lucky!) and concedes.
Me: Hit you to 18. Mountain, Chainwalker, unleash.
Him: Dragonskull Summit, tapped.
Me: Mountain, Ash Zealot, hit you to 11.
Him: Farseek fetching Overgrown Tomb, Blood Crypt, tapped.
Me: Hellion Crucible, hit you to 4.
Him: Forest, Thragtusk, go to 9.
Me: Traitorous Blood
Him: Accusations of luck based play and poor deck design.
4-0 (8-4).
Finished 1st (out of 78).
Thoughts on the deck to come ~ I havent lost a match yet (improving now to 14-0 for matches and 28-6 for games), so I need to play some more and get a better handle on the deck.
It is tremendous fun to play though.
Thanks for reading!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Game 1: On the draw, keep: 2 mountain, ash zealot, 2 searing spear, 2 hellrider.
Seems pretty good against most decks, you're obviously not mulliganing a hand like this against an unknown opponent!
The first couple of turns see him attempt to nut draw me by spewing four 1 drops onto the battlefield. For the most part, I am just playing land and removal; on turn 4 I am able to play Ash Zealot (which gets searing speared) and a Chainwalker (unleashed). His board is only swamp + bloodcrypt + unleashed Cackler, so I want to start pressuring him.
He signs in blood to find removal and his 3rd, then 4th land. I just play Hellrider into Hellrider. He draws four straight removal spells then a Falkenrath Aristocrat, and we're on to game 2. Oh, then he complains about how he has trouble making 4 mana in his 21 land deck...
Sideboard: -4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Stonewright comes out to reduce my vulnerability to his Flames of the Firebrand; otherwise I am sideboarding into a control deck.
Game 2: On the play, keep: 4 mountain, Chainwalker, Ash Zealot, Thundermaw Hellkite.
Not as agrgessive or well-rounded as I would like, but sometimes you have to keep looser hands. He does me a favour by going to 5 looking for land, complaining the whole time.
Going into turn 4, I have done a little bit of damage with my two creatures, but he has two 1 drops of his own, never missed a land drop and had two removal spells. Must be nice. I am able to wipe his 1 drops in response to an Aristocrat on the stack, before untapping and playing Hellkite to get a free-kill; he has to sign for blood in desperation on his turn and is able to find his 3rd pillar to kill the Ash Zealot, but two more hits from the Hellkite ends him.
Sideboarding: none.
Game 3: On the draw, mulligan: 6 mountain + searing spear. Yeah, right!
Keep: Mountain, two Cackler, 2 Searing Spear, Chainwalker.
Ugly, only 1 land, what can you do?
He has two 1 drops; I have Cackler into Chainwalker, who then trades for his Diregraf Ghoul. Geralf's Messenger makes his first appearance in the series, while I stall on two land and a board of Rakdos Cacklers
I was pretty sure I wasn't winning. He attacked me to 9, played a land and passed (3 cards in hand). I drew a land and played it for my turn, then attacked him to 10. He elected to only attack with his Cackler, which I searing speared. This is a difficult decision tree ~ killing the Cackler now though means I take the same damage from Brimstone Volley either way (3 + 2 from cackler; 5 morbid). If he doesn't have it, it means I can race the messenger if I draw another land. Thankfully, for once, he doesn't have it, so I untap and draw a land (better lucky than good right?!). I decide not to Hellrider him though, attacking him to 6 and putting a counter on his messenger ~ I know he doesnt have brimstone volley, I have a spear for the messenger, and at 9 life, he now needs exactly Aristocrat + Searing Spear to win. Messenger + Spear for my Hellrider are not enough as I get him for exactsies.
1-0 (2-1)
Match 2 vs Travis Woo RDW
Someone had copied Travis Woo's RDW list, although I didnt realise it until Game 2.
Game 1: On the play, keep: 2 mountain, crucible, 2 stonewright, hellrider, devil's play.
His draw is a little more aggressive, but I am able to get some beats in with the Stonewrights, while killing his turn 1 Noble with my Devil's Play. He has a pillar of flame for 1 Stonewright, then an Ash Zealot, and I am in trouble. I Hellrider him to 10, but he has 5 power in play and more cards in hand. Searing Spear for my Hellrider and another Chainwalker leave me at 10 life, facing down a vastly overhwhelming board position. Pillar of Flame accounts for the Zealot, and a turn later the Devil's Play flashes back to kill a Chainwalker. A Stonewright of his own forces mine to chump, so we end up here:
Fortuntely, he proceeds to draw some 1 drops that cannot get past the Zealot, while I draw a land and a Dragon, which then has to chump his all-in attack the next turn Hellion Crucible quickly becomes a threat however, giving him a single turn to draw a Brimstone Volley. It doens't happen.
Sideboarding: -4 Rakdos Cackler, -2 Stonewright, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +2 Mizzium Mortars
Taking out the defensively porous cards, replacing them with good removal.
Game 2: On the draw, keep: Stonewright, Flames of the Firebrand, Searing Spear, two mountain, crucible, Mizzium Mortars
He has Cackler into Volcanic Strength. My Stonewright into Mizzium Mortars blows him out. He complains. His draw was otherwise pretty slow, and I had removal for his Ash Zealot then Stromkirk Noble, all the while building up my Hellion Crucible. We end up here going into Turn 7:
He opts to attack, so I just untap and kill him.
2-0 (4-1)
Match 3 vs 4 Colour Reanimator
Game 1: On the play, keep this
Fast forward to turn 3 ~ he is at 10. My board is Cackler, two Zealot and 3 land. He has three land and two lingering souls tokens. In his graveyard are two Angel of Serenity. I pair a Stoneweight with the Cackler to attack him to 6. He draws for his turn and scoops (reanimating an angel dies to Ash Zealot triggers).
Sideboarding: -4 Pillar of Flame, -2 Devil's Play, +3 Traitorous Blood, +3 Flames of the Firebrand
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 4 mountain, hellrion crucible, cackler, zealot.
Not exciting at all, but it has a lot of early pressure that can get me a long way towards victory.
I get in for a little damage because he kills my Cackler then has two Centaur Healer and a Thragtusk. It looks bad, but a few turns later, we get to swing the Sledgehammer...
3-0 (6-1)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
I am new to the competitive section so I will do my best to not embarrass myself. I attended a tournament yesterday with about 40 people. I was playing a black/red version of the sledgehammer variant. I went 3-0-1 and finished third.
Round 1 - GW
Game 1 - We trade back and forth until Thundermaw comes out and kicks him in the nuts
Game 2 - Silverblade double strikes me straight to game three
Game 3 - Boarded in the Zealous conscripts and swiped Silverblade and attacked with both along with Aristocrat. Sacced the Silverblade and left him at one life and finished him next turn. 1-0
Round 2 - Izzet Delver
Game 1 - This game drags on for a while but was never really in doubt. Just grinded him down with one and two drops and finished him with a Volley to the face.
Game 2 - Conscripts came in and basically did a repeat of round one with swiping the delver, attacking and saccing to Aristocrat and again finished him off next turn. 2-0
Round 3 - GW
Game 1 - I burn a few of his creatures, he o-rings a couple of mine. Thundermaw comes in again to end it.
Game 2- He has a Silverblade and three rancors out in one turn. Hard to recover from that after Thundermaw gets o-ringed.
Game 3- He thinks he has won after he o-rings the Aristocrat but next turn you know who is going to show up. Thundermaw! He drops a Thragtusk next turn which delays the inevitable for one turn. 3-0
Round 4 would have been against RG zombies but we agree to ID and I end up third with her being second. One guy finishes 4-0, who was also playing RG zombies.
MVP was obviously Thundermaw, with Conscripts being second. Most of the tournament regulars all turned their nose up at Stonewright. He didn't do a whole lot this time, but I can see his value and will keep him. I was debating putting in Hellrider instead of Falkenrath Aristocrat and I am still not sure about it. Yeah, the Conscripts/Aristocrat synergy is fun and hilarious at times, the few extra damage from Hellrider would have ended two of the games one turn earlier. Another thing of note is how people play against Hellion Crucible. Everyone was always nervous when I started putting counters on it and really devoted way too much attention to it, which was fine with me.
ROUND 1: 2-0 vs. G/W something?
I played against G/W something, I'm not quite sure what. I believe the only cards I saw from my opponent were arbor elf, avacyn's pilgrim, strangleroot geist, and a centaur healer. The deck didn't seem to do much, I removed his blockers and 2-0'd him very quickly.
ROUND 2: 2-1 Vs. B/R Zombies
Round two I was up against B/R zombies. I must say, pillar of flame is an absolute star in this matchup. The most threatening card in my opinion is Geralf's Messenger, but if you have the pillar of flame for it you can deal with their t3 play with just one card. One important thing against zombies is to evaluate whether or not you want to be the beatdown in a particular game. If you're on the play and have an extremely aggressive hand feel free to run it out, but be careful about taking too much damage, aristocrat, messenger, and blood artist will ruin your day. I'd honestly rather have a hand with 1-2 threats and burn (pillar of flame/annihilating fire) than all threats.
That being said, I should talk about how my match actually went. The details are a bit hazy because this was early in the day, but I was on the play game 1. I opened with a noble or cackler, and he played a cackler as well. For the most part I burned out his creatures, and we traded damage fairly aggressively. Every time a messenger hit the field I pillar of flamed it, and I beat him with a hellrider because he had nothing to block with. I won the first game.
In terms of board I believe I brought in 2 annihilating fire and dropped either FoF or Volley. I didn't have a super strong board for Zombies.
Game 2 swung drastically in the other direction. My opponent opened with a gravecrawler, which I pillared. His turn 2 was two more gravecrawlers, and I was pretty worried at that point. I dropped an Ash Zealot to block with, which promptly ate a brimstone volley. He proceeded to drop 2 geralf's messengers in that game, and there was no way to burn my way through that. Game 2 went to my opponent.
Game 3 I was on the play again, I opened with a noble, followed up by an ash zealot. I pretty much beat with those two and had exiling removal spells for messenger's and towards the end threw a little burn at the face. Pillar of flame and annihilating fire are both great against zombies, as is ash zealot. Those are pretty much your key spells. I'd say if your opening hand has no good removal or an ash zealot it's a very questionable keep.
ROUND 3: 2-1 Vs. American Delver
Game one I trounced my opponent. I was on the play with a rakdos cackler, followed up by two more rakdos cacklers t2. Dropped him really low quickly and followed it up with burn. One thing I note is that delver players are really hesitant to block with unflipped delvers, even if it means preventing damage. My opponent played guttersnipes at some point, but I always killed them immediately because they were both a blocker and damage.
For sideboard I brought in my Shred-Freaks and dropped chain-walkers. Getting a chain walker azorius charmed is just too much tempo loss.
Game 2 I still had a decent hand, but most of my early threats got burned out by pillar of flame. I got out a hellrider and Hellion Token with my opponent fairly low, but I couldn't get in for damage because he had two Feelings of Dread. That card is extremely obnoxious, it can shut down our entire board for 2+ turns. He had a GoST and it could just freely swing as he tapped down my attackers/blockers for 4 turns.
Game 3 I was on the play again. I had no t1 plays, but my opening hand had 3 hasty beaters, so it was an easy keep. I burned delvers and attacked. I landed a stonewright as well, and forced damage through pretty quickly. He resolved a Geist at one point, but by that point in time I had gotten him so low I just burned for game before it got the chance to attack.
ROUND 4: 2-1 Vs. G/W Ramp? Midrange?
My opponent was playing a fairly unusual list. The curve was really wonky. I saw mana dorks, farseeks, Ranger's Path, and then Wolfir Silverheart/Armada Wurm. Either way, it was a very durdly deck. Game 1 I played quick threats, noble and Zealot, and got in for early damage. He resolved a wolfir silverheart or armada wurm on his last turn, but it didn't really matter because I had burn to finish him off if he did or didn't block.
I brought out my pillar of flames, my flames of the firebrand, and brought in Hellkites, Conscripts, and the crucible. No need for mortars, he never played a single loxodon smiter.
Game 2 I ended up losing because of a very stupid misplay. I was in full aggro mode, trying to shove through as much early damage as I could. He t4'd a wolfir silverheart, followed up by a t5 armada wurm. The board state was something like Armada Wurm, Token, Silverheart, Pilgrim, to my 2x Chainwalker (Unleashed) and Noble (2 counters). I had a zealous conscripts+ hellkite in hand and at least 5 land. I yoinked the wurm that was bonded to Silverheart with conscripts, and proceeded to beat face with everything but conscripts. However, I apparently had math'd wrong, and he killed me on the backswing, which was a shame because Hellkite could've gotten through for lethal next turn. Should've left noble up as a blocker... oh well, on to game 3.
Game 3 I had an absolute nut draw. I opened with a cackler, followed up by ash zealot, shred freak, and another ash zealot. By the time he had stabilized at 9 life with a silverheart and pilgrim on board I dropped a hellrider, and swung with 5 attackers, and he couldn't prevent lethal. Quick game to make up for my misplays.
ROUND 5: 2-1 Vs. American Delver/Tempo
Not quite sure if delver is the right name for this list, because it didn't quite revolve around delver. It ran delvers, Stromkirk Nobles, Snapcaster Mages, and GoST. Game 1 I was on the play and opened with a noble, which promptly got burned. Overall he had removal for all my creatures, and dropped a GoST which I couldn't deal with. Game 1 went to him and I wasn't feeling super confident.
For my sideboard I took out my chainwalkers (they don't like getting unsummoned) and replaced them with shred-freaks, and an extra flames of the firebrand (kills a snap+delver, or a noble, etc. etc.)
Game 2 I was on the play and decided to go beatdown. I opened with a cackler, he played a noble. t2 I played more beaters, a decision I almost regretted when he played spectral flight on his noble, taking it out of the range of my spears. That being said, he didn't have any other threats so I just attacked, forcing him to block with his noble, which then got removed. He dropped a Geist but at this point I was too far ahead for him to come back.
Game 3 he mulled to 6 and kept what was apparently a pretty ****ty hand. The only land he played were islands, and his t2 was flashing a snapcaster at the end of my turn targeting nothing. It got spectral flight'd but I removed it and just beat in with my dudes. He had 3-4 islands and nothing else by the end of the game, so it was pretty clear he lost to land screw. Maybe should've mulled to 5, it's hard to say.
ROUND 6: 2-0 Vs. American Control
I was glad to finally be playing against a control deck, because in testing I'd had very little trouble with this matchup unless they had absolutely insane hands. Onto the games!
Game 1 I was on the play, with a noble followed by a chainwalker. The noble got in twice, and the chainwalker once before they got wiped (can't remember if it was a miracled terminus or a verdict). Followed that up with a hellrider that got in once before being removed, and then an unbonded stonewright that got in for one damage. At that point he was at 9 and I had three burn spells, so I burned him EoT and then twice on my turn. Syncopate was actually a somewhat annoying card, because we're often tapping out to play our threats. If you know your opponent is running it think about dropping lower cost threats (Ash Zealot before Hellrider, etc.) that they can't counter.
In from the board came Hellkites, Conscripts, Crucible, and Shred-Freaks. Going out were my chain walkers, pillar of flames, and flames of the firebrand.
Game 2 was a bit more of a fight. I had early threats, which ate lots of removal. That game I believe he played 3 pillar of flames, and snapped back two of them (once was double pillar on a hellrider), and a detention sphere. He was able to get me to 10 on snapcaster beats. His second to last turn he tapped out playing a sphinx's revelation during his turn (no clue why he main phased it), and I burned him EoT. I hit a hellkite, dropped him to 5, he had no answers for it, and that was game.
ROUNDS 7 & 8: Since I was undefeated up to this point, both my round 7 & 8 opponent wanted to take an intentional draw to guarantee that we top 8'd. Both times I said sure (didn't feel like being that guy). Round 7 I played the guy afterwards for fun, and I got trounced 2-0 by G/W aggro, although I didn't make tight plays and kept sub-par hands (Which I 2-0'd in the quarterfinals, guess there is a bit of variance). Round 8 after we took a draw the judges asked for our decks so they could start deck checks, so we never got a chance to play. Onto the top 8!
QUARTERFINALS: 2-0 vs. G/W Aggro
My opponent was playing a much lower curve than most G/W lists. His curve topper was silverheart, and he had strangelroot geists, silverblade paladins, Sublime Archangels, Loxodon Smiters, and dorks. Game 1 he was on the play (he had been 4th in rankings and I was 5th so he got to choose ._.). Overall this game wasn't particularly remarkable. He did t2 a loxodon smiter, which got rancor'd, but I had double spear for it, and other than that he had no other threats. Apparently he drew nothing but land from his top 5 cards, so I had threats and burn for his threats and he didn't have anything else.
For my sideboard I had a lot of cards to bring in. First, I brought in all my 'big' cards, thundermaw hellkite, conscripts, crucible, and then my mizzium mortars. I took out my pillars (which in hindsight was a bad idea against a deck with strangleroot, but I got lucky and he didn't play any), my shred-freak, and nobles/flames of the firebrand.
This game he played a couple loxodon smiters and silverblade paladins. I traded aggressively and managed to burn through big threats with brimstone volleys, hitting paladin if there was no morbid, and smiter if I could trigger morbid. I was at a pretty disadvantageous board position, with an Ash Zealot and a non-unleashed chainwalker to his Loxodon smiter bonded to a paladin, and a pilgrim. We were both at 10 and I ripped a hellkite off the top. Dropped him to 5, he had no removal and couldn't get in for lethal so the game went to me. He proceeded to complain that hellkite was the one card in my deck that would win me the game which was a bit off-putting, but losing to topdecks in the top 8 can be pretty annoying so I can understand. Oh well, on to the semis.
SEMIFINALS 1-2 vs. American Delver
Once again my opponent had the choice of being on the play. He had been in 1st place going into the top 8, while I was 5th. Game 1 was a fairly quick loss for me. He pillar of flamed my early threats, dropped a GoST and just beat me down from there. GoST is an obnoxious card when your opponent can protect it. From his deck so far I had seen snaps, pillars, and geists, so I had thought he was American Control, so I did not sideboard appropriately.
For my board I brought in shred-freaks, Hellkites, Conscripts, and crucible. I dropped my pillars, chainwalkers, and a volley, spear, or FoF.
Game 2 I had a lot of hasty two drops, so I forced in a lot of damage pretty quickly. He did t3 a GoST, but at this point I was full racing, and I had gotten him pretty low. His board state was GoST, unflipped delver, at 7 life, and I had two shred-freaks and a volley in hand with mana for it. I swung in, he didn't want to block with Geist, so he only blocked with delver. I burned for lethal, and we went to game 3.
Game 3 He was on the play again (much to my general dismay), and t2'd an augur of bolas. That card is obnoxious against us if we don't have searing spear. I had to wait until t3 to either FoF or Volley it. Either way, after I'd done that I was in pretty good shape with two unleashed cacklers beating in. Then he flips a bonfire off the top, killing my cacklers. I proceed to run out some more threats, which once again eat a bonfire, this time hardcast. This continued with him beating with snaps and casting bonfire for 1-2 (once it was flashed back even). I had him at five life, while I was at 3 life. I had a hellion token, and a shred freak, to his two snaps and a delver. Twice in a row I flipped nobles off the top, and he flipped a brimstone for game. Moral of the story? F***ing bonfire ._.
With any luck upcoming gameday will go well and there'll be a lot of people.
This one is short because I didn't keep great notes during the tournament. Some thoughts on the matchup in-line and thoughts on the deck after. I missed 2nd place on tiebreakers, but pulled two shocklands in my 3 prize packs. Not bad for $5. A good night!
I figured out quickly that he was running UW control elements while splashing black for Lingering Souls and black removal with Tragic Slip. I sided out my 1-drops and brought in more removal and my Zealous Conscripts. He was unable to interact with my Knight of Infamy and paired Stonewright, eventually beating him up 4 damage at a time.
Round 2 (2-0): Dubstep Control (W/U/b)
Basically, this deck was a UW control shell plus black for Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. I stuck an Aristocrat and flew over him. I would have won 2-0 but a Divine Deflection in game 2 prevented an alpha strike and he wiped my board the next turn.
Round 3 (2-1): GW Midrange
This player and I have faced each other before, but our games seem to devolve into mana screw/flood coin flips. This one was no different. I beat him up in game 1, got nut drawn in game 2, and then game 3 was a slugfest when he got stuck on 2 land for 10 turns as I flooded out with a Conscripts in hand.
Tribute to Hunger is a bad sideboard card against Sigarda, it seems! I neglected to read her static ability about not being able to force a sacrifice.
Silverblade Paladin bound to a Sublime Archangel is super scary.
Thundermaw Hellkites are absolutely no good vs a GW deck, as I've said before. I boarded them out and I saw plenty of Selesnya Charms in games 2 and 3.
Round 4 (2-1): WUG Control
Tamiyo, Jace, Entreat, the works! Plus Thragtusk! The deck was a bit unfocused, but quite powerful. He lost game 1, then talked about how Thragtusk would have saved him. I boarded in my Slaughter Games, pulled them all from his deck in game 2, then boarded the Games out in game 3 for some next level trickery.
Falkenrath Aristocrat provided the early beats to get him low on life, and then I finished him off with some Searing Spears.
Pillar was a dead card.
Round 5 (0-2): RakDW
He ran Hellrider, Rakdos Shred-Freak and Thundermaw Hellkite on 21 land, so he was faster and less prone to flood. Greedy, but he got there! Every game was a race, and I died each game with lethal in hand or on the board next turn. The RakDW mirror match comes down to which player gets the better draws. Every creature I played was met with a swift burn spell, but his creatures tended to get into combat before I could get rid of them.
The Pillar of Flames maindeck really hurt me here, as I had to wait a turn to kill his hasty dudes who had already smacked me in the face.
Ramping up to Thundermaw Hellkite is no good vs. a quick aggro deck if he can just kill me on the backswing.
I kept wishing I had a Bonfire in there or a sweeper like Magmaquake.
Thoughts on the deck
I'm disappointed in Pillar of Flame. I feel that it weakens me against every deck but Zombies, which I managed to dodge tonight. It was rarely worth 2 damage to the face, and I frequently boarded it out for Flames of the Firebrand.
Dreadbore was great! I used it to kill planeswalkers, a rampaging Thundermaw Hellkite (none of the red removal will kill it) and various nasties.
I'm considering a 2/2 split of Ultimate Price and Dreadbore maindeck in place of the Pillar of Flame.
The Rakdos Keyrune was nice and acted as a 3-drop in most games where I saw it. In one case, it let me play my Aristocrat on curve after missing the 4th land drop. I was also able to keep a 1 Cavern of Souls / 2 Mountain / Knight of Infamy / Falkenrath Aristocrat opening hand because I had a Keyrune in there. It lets me commit my Cavern to a 2-drop and still get the right mana fixing for my Aristocrat. I frequently boarded in the 2nd Keyrune when I brought in the 2 Zealous Conscripts.
I'm not sure that I like 3 slots for Slaughter Games, but in the case where I really need it, I'd want to be sure I could draw it. When I boarded it in for Thragtusk, I found it. I'm not sure it's a wise sideboard tech against GW though, because they have so many other threats that I'd rather just beat down with Aristocrats and steal their guys with Conscripts.
I agree. Zombies are getting more scarce around here too, so I see less and less point in them. I´d love some MD answer to PWs game 1 though. Otoh is Dreadbore also Sorcery. An eot spot removal like Price seems very much like something we´d love. We are very good at swinging for the win as long as they stumble for a sec. Maybe we´ve ben staring ourself blind into burn as we are a derivative of the mono red deck? Is there a tactical advantage in instant spot removal that merits MD inclusion?
I thought the question deserved some discussion, so I've made a SCD thread for Ultimate Price.
Round 1 (2-0)- RUB Grixis Control
He mostly permission based game 1 I believe as I landed an early caverns along with stonewright into gorehouse chainwalker, and he didn't have an answer for them until he was within burn range.
game 2- he sides in a little bit more removal, which a shred-freak and a stonewright eat a t3 bonfire of the damned. I still had 2 ash zealots, stonewright, hellrider, and a searing spear in hand. My next two turns I draw 2 lands and curve into hellrider to which he couldn't answer.
He told me after the match he was more permission heavy and didn't expect to see mono-red nor that it would be that fast.
I get stuck at 4 lands this game so thundermaw just sat there. I tried racing with stonewright, shred-freak, and another freak I drew but they ate a golgari charm, then gravecrawler w/ 2x rancor and lotleth troll take over this game.
Game 3 was rediculous and we eventually came to a board stall where I had rakdos cackler unleashed, stonewright bonded to ash zealot, and gore-house chainwalker leashed with 4 mana on the field, and thundermaw hellkite and searing spear in hand. He had 2x lotleth trolls (I also killed one earlier) and corpsejack menace. He wouldn't attack me I think because of the possible damage from a hellrider, and I was stalling for thundermaw mana. I finally hit my 5th mana and swing him down to 7 life and I still have searing spear in hand for next turn. He responds on his turn with increasing savagery and rancor on the menace and swings with 16/14 trampling, I can only block 4 of it while Im at 10 life.
Round 3 (2-1) RUB Grixis Control
game 1 goes nearly as fast as the first grixis player I beat, except I notice he's playing with auger of bolas which slowed me a little
game 2 He has a much more prepared side for fast aggro as my guys hit removal nearly as soon as they hit the field. I was killed in a long drawn out control fashion by snapcaster mage as he just kept drawing cards that draw more cards
game 3 I had a much more aggressive start while he mulled down to 5. Stonewright and gore-house chainwalker get him down to 12 before he miracles a bonfire, then he eats a morbid brimstone bringing him down to 7. Im stuck at 3 lands with an empty board and 2x hellriders plus hellkite in hand. I draw another brimstone and hit him down to 4 at end of his turn. He rakdos' returns me for two, so i keep one hellrider. He has tamiyo on the board tapping down my lands so i wait two turns which I topdeck a mountain and a cavern of souls. My hellrider swings into his Olivia voldaren and auger of bolas that he just played, so he only has 1 untapped mana. Blocks with bolas takes 1 from trigger, down to 3, and dreadbores hellrider his turn. I topdeck searing spear and he has no counter.
Round 4 (2-0)- Mono white humans
Not really a whole lot to say about this match as I won both games by turn 5. Was a typical humans deck with thalia, guardian of thraben, silverblade paladin and friends. I had the burn and my guys beat face.
Interestingly the shopkeeper messed up the pairings since my humans opponent was 3-0 till this point and I was supposed to fight his brother with the same name. And there were no 4-0s as they drew to share top 4. So 5 of us had 3-1 or 3-0-1 and split $80 and 1 foil pillar of flame haha
MVP- Stonewright by far put out the most pressure of the night, they either had to lose a guy to ash zealot or take 6-7 damage a turn from a 1 drop.
Here’s my FNM report for 10/26/2012. Since I’m a couple of days behind, I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details, so just bear with me. I’ll try to be as descriptive as I can. FNM had 15 people with 4 rounds, cut to standings. Prize payout was for Top 4.
First off, here’s my deck I was playing, “Dos Rakis.” I tweaked the SB slightly to include a 3rd Slaughter Games.
Game One: I’m on the play and lead off with a Guildgate. He plays a Mountain and passes the turn. I follow up with a Dragonskull Summit and an Ash Zealot and swing. He plays a Sulfur Falls and passes. I play Stonewright , bond to the Zealot, pump for 2 and get him to 14 life. On his turn he plays another land and passes. I play a KoI on my turn and gor for the swing with a giant Ash Zealot, but she gets fried by an Izzet Charm while the exalted trigger was on the stack. His next turn consisted of summoning a Guttersnipe and passing. On my turn, I draw a Stonewright and play it. I bond to the KoI and Pillar his Guttersnipe. I swing and pump, bringing him to 10. On his next turn, he plays Faithless Looting and a Think Twice and passes. I swing with KoI on my next turn, pumping to the max, and bring him to 3. He asks me if I have a burn spell to finish him with and I flash him the Searing Spear. On to the next game!
Game Two: While sideboarding, he lets it slip that he wished he could’ve just drawn an Epic Experiment in our game. I jam in 3 Slaughter Games in response. That’s it for my boarding, since I really didn’t see much from his deck.
He’s on the play and after playing a land, passes the turn. I start with a land and a Cackler. He plays a land and passes. I drop a KoI and prepare to attack, but homeboy has an Izzet Charm for my Cackler. On his turn he Pillars my KoI and drops a Gutternipe. I play a Guildgate and pass. On his turn, he plays Faithless Looting, I take 2, and he smiles. He plays Talrand, and I know now that this could get ugly. On my turn I Brimstone Volley his Talrand, since he was tapped out and I knew he ran counterspells. He untaps and begins a barrage of Faithless Looting and Think Twice before swinging with his ‘Snipe. I go from 20 to 10 in the blink of an eye. On my turn I play an Aristocrat and swing, finally putting damage on him and putting him at 16. His turn he draws, sighs, swings with ‘Snipe and passes. I’m at 8 and he’s at 16. I topdeck an Aristocrat, play it and swing, putting him at 8. On his turn, he Pillars on of my Aristocrats, I take 2 and then he swings, putting me at 4. On my turn, I end this madness by swinging with Falkenrath Aristocrat, putting him at 4, and then sacrificing the Aristocrat to itself so I can trigger morbid on a lethal Brimstone Volley.
Win. 2-0
He signs the sheet and drops. What a douchebag.
Record: 1-0
Round 2 VS Esper Spirits
Game One: I lose the dice roll, mull to 5, and he leads off with a tapped Hallowed Fountain. I play a Guildgate and pass. On his turn he plays Isolated Chapel and Intangible Virtue, and then passes. On my turn, I play a Zealot and hit for 2. Turn three he plays a Lingering Souls and passes. I play a KoI and attack for 3 and he takes it. Life totals are 20 and 15, respectively. On his turn, he plays another Intangible Virtue and flashes back the Lingering Souls, bringing him to 13. He swings for 6 and takes me to 14. I swing with the KoI on my turn, taking him to 10. I don’t really have a lot of options at this point: Thundermaw can’t take out the 3/3’s by appearing and my hand was mostly land. On his turn, he plays ANOTHER Intangible Virtue and I extend my hand. 4 flying 4/4’s is pretty good, methinks.
Sideboarding: -4 Cackler, -4 Pillar of Flame/ +2 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Rakdos Charm, +2 Olivia Voldaren, +2 Mizzium Mortars
Game Two: I’m on the play and lead off with a Mountain and a Stonewright. He plays a Glacial Fortress, tapped. Turn two, I play a Zealot, bond, and swing. On his turn, he plays a tapped Isolated Chapel. I smile a little on the inside: this is a perfect example of stumbling on mana and I’m going to punish him for it. I play another Zealot on my turn, swing, and pump +1, putting him down to 11. Turn 3 he plays a Lingering Souls and passes. On my turn, I turn the 2 Zealots sideways and he chumpblocks with his tokens. Then he makes an idiot play by flashing back the Souls. “Take 6,” I tell him. He groans and I mark our life totals at 20 and 5. I topdeck a Brimstone Volley and swing with my team. When a Soul token dies to a block, I play the Volley and win the game.
I elect not to sideboard again.
Game Three: The action doesn’t start until I play a KoI on turn 2. On his next turn, he misses a land drop. My next turn, I follow up with another KoI and swing for 4. He hits a land and plays a Lingering Souls. I topdeck another KoI, cast it, and then swing for 5 with another KoI. He tries to block, but I remind him about the pro-white. He’s not looking happy at this point. On my turn, I play and Aristocrat but don’t attack with it. I swing for 6 with my infamous knight troop. He’s at 5. He draws a card, shakes his head and concedes.
Win. 2-1
Record: 2-0
Round 3 VS Jund
First off, I want to say that my opponent is my brother, who plays what I believe to be THE Jund deck. Main deck, it runs 4 Thragtusk, 4 Huntmaster, 2 Olivia, 3 Thundermaw, Keyrunes, Bonfire, Decay, Pillar, and a whole slew of other nasty things. And it only gets better post board. He is an experienced pilot of this deck and is part of my test team. I knew this was not going to be an easy match.
Game One: He mulls to 5 and I quickly establish board presence with two Zealots and a Stonewright. I have him dead in a matter of turns. What an easy match!
Sideboarding: -4 Cackler, +2 Dreadbore, +2 Sever the Bloodline
I wanted a way to deal with Thundermaw and a possible army of Wolf and/or Beast tokens. Also, Garruk is a real card and must be dealt with.
Game Two: I had an awesome opening hand with Mountain, Blood Crypt, Guildgate, Zealot, Dreadbore, Aristocrat, and a KoI. He led off with a tapped Blood Crypt and I did the same on my turn, after drawing another Aristocrat. He plays Woodland Cemetary and passes. I draw a Sever the Bloodline, play a land and a Zealot, which immediately gets Decayed. He plays a Keyrune on turn 3 and passes. I draw a Thundermaw Hellkite. I’m starting to get nervous as I play my Guildgate and cast KoI. I’m going to need land and soon. On his turn, he plays a land and taps out (with his Keyrune) to play Thundermaw Hellkite. I take 5 and he passes. I draw my third Aristocrat and Dreadbore the Hellkite. I swing with KoI and pass. On his turn he plays a Thragtusk, which puts him at 22. I draw another Sever the Bloodline. It’s apparent: I’m getting mana*****ed here. I attack into Thragtusk, he blocks and we trade. He gets a token. On his turn, he plays a Kessig Wolf Run and pumps that Beast for all it’s worth. I manage to not draw another land that I needed and he has me dead in a few turns.
Sideboarding: -4 Pillar, +4 Cackler
Since I was on the play, I wanted to just race with my creatures and win early. Pillar is kinda useless in this MU because it only kills a Huntmaster and a Wolf token.
Game Three: This match I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but it was a perfect balance of creatures and kill spells for the both of us. I’d play a guy and it would die. He’s play a guy and it would die. I started to get some hits here and there with my haste critters: Zealout and Aristocrat. I managed to bring him to 11 before we got into a topdeck war. He topdecked a Keyrune. I draw and play a land. He draws a Kessig Wolf Run and beats me down with a pumped Keyrune. I draw another land. He beats me down again. I draw another land and extend my hand.
Loss. 1-2
It seems like my deck just failed on me Game 2. I really believe that I had the goods to beat him, but I just needed the mana. Also, Keyrunes are amazing.
Record: 2-1
Round 4 VS 4 Color Reanimator
This deck is piloted my good buddy and testing partner. Not really somebody I wanted to play right now, but I knew this would be an interesting game.
Game One: More fuzzy details here, but I mounted an early offense which was derailed by a miracle’d Bonfire. He began to Mulch and Salvage at an alarming rate until he hit the goods. I played a Thundermaw Hellkite and swung, bringing him to 4. He reanimated Griselbrand on his turn and used a Deathrite Shaman to gain some life back. On my turn I draw a land and pass. He miracles another Bonfire, for 6, and then attacks me. I’m down to 3. I draw a Brimstone Volley, but it’s not enough. He’s at 13 with all that lifegain, so I just extend my hand.
Game Two: There really isn’t too much to report here. I was on the play and curved out with Cackler into Zealot, into Koi, and then into Aristocrat. He played a couple of Deathrite Shamans and whiffed on some Mulches. I beat him down hard and fast. On to game three!
I swear, I think I have almost my entire SB in at this point, except for the Mortars.
Game Three: I witness the stonecold nuts from the Reanimator deck. He’s on the play and a turn 2 Mulch places Griselbrand, a Craterhoof, and an Unburial Rites into the ‘yard. On turn three he Grisly Salvages (I forget what he keeps) and on turn four, he’s rain’ ‘brand. I had put a few guys on the board, but I didn’t have an answer for this. He swings into me on his turn five, draws a brick, and then plays some Deathrite Shamans and a Centaur healer. I topdeck a Sever and tell Griselbrand to go home. However, next turn, he miracles a Bonfire to wipe my field and then casts Unburial Rites on Craterhoof Behemoth to wipe me out.
Loss. 1-2
Record: 2-2
Well, overall the tournament wasn’t really what I expected. However it did give me a chance to reevaluate my sideboard. I think I want 1 more Rakdos Charm and I think I’m going to yank the Mortars out. Olivia has been kinda meh so I expect an overhaul on the board at some point.
Since I didn’t get much Thundermaw action in Dos Rakis like I wanted, afterwards we went to the bar down the street (as usual) for beer and more magic. I pulled out my version of Sledgehammer with the Bonfires in it and played everybody there. I faced Bant, several Jund, a WB Exalted deck, and a GW agro deck. I must’ve played about 20-30 games.
As for the SB, I've cut Olivia because she isn't as good as she was a few weeks ago. If you're on the 4 Hellkite plan md, I don't think you can run Zealous Conscripts in the side ~ six 5 drops is too much. I would probably run two traitorous blood.
Mizzium Mortars is often just a bad dreadbore / sever in my experience, so that gives you some space.
Since Sledgehammer is doing so well for you ~ what are your approaches to the other key matchups?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Tried out Zemanjaski's Sledgehammer Red deck in two mtgo Daily Events last night and went 3-1 in both. I probably should have wrote this up last night since I can't recall everything and mtgo only saved a few of the games.
For Daily Event 4485666:
Round 1 - Jund (2-0)
The only thing I can recall from this is that my opponent decided to activate his Rakdos Keyrune to chump block my Stonewright in game 2 and it got speared instantly (I'm really surprised he fell for that).
Round 2 - G/W Midrange (1-2)
Had my opponent down to 1 life and at 9 in game 1 but he had an exalted angel and I wound up drawing a mountain :(. Him having rancor in his opening hand for game 3 pretty much won him the game once I ran out of removal for his creatures.
Round 3 - 4-Color Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1 was a typical Sledgehammer game with Hellkite and burn finishing him off even with Thragtusk on board. Just barely won game 3 before Grisselbrand could wreck things.
Round 4 - Bant Control (2-0)
I don't know which was funnier - my opponent going up to 28 life and losing game 2 or that I won without even needing Hellkite or that he had to use Sensory Deprivation on my Cackler before removing it with Detention Sphere because another Cackler was soulbonded with Stonewright. Siding in Traitorous Blood did help a lot as did using Searing Spear on a TB Thragtusk to give me the token.
For Daily Event 445674:
Round 1 - U/W Humans (2-0)
Two straight games with a double striking Geist? Thank you, Ash Zealot!
Round 2 - Jund (2-1)
For game 1 my opponent had 3 Thragtusks. Luckily he only had 2 in game 2 and also decided to chump block one of them when I used Traitorous Blood. Devil's Play helped finish him off that game while game 3 wasn't even close.
Round 3 - Junk Tokens (1-2)
I'm not sure if this is just a terrible matchup for us or if he just had a nut draw g2 (from a mull to 5 no less) where he was able to use multiple Restoration Angels on Thragtusk to overcome a double Hellkite on my side.
Round 4 - G/W Aggro (2-0)
Game 1 my opponent twice used Selesnya Charm to create tokens, once to chump block a Chainwalker. I doubt he would have done that he he expected a turn 5 Hellkite! Still, Rancor on the second token and soulbonding it with Silverheart nearly won him the game. He got mana screwed game 2 as I removed all his mana dorks and beat face with my small creatures.
As for the SB, I've cut Olivia because she isn't as good as she was a few weeks ago. If you're on the 4 Hellkite plan md, I don't think you can run Zealous Conscripts in the side ~ six 5 drops is too much. I would probably run two traitorous blood.
Mizzium Mortars is often just a bad dreadbore / sever in my experience, so that gives you some space.
Since Sledgehammer is doing so well for you ~ what are your approaches to the other key matchups?
The land count has been fine for me at 24, except for the game where I got stuck at 3 but hey, that's MTG for ya. As for the 2 Conscripts, I just swapped them out for two Thundermaws and had a 2/2 split. Six 5-drops is definitely too much, I agree with you there.
I certainly agree with your assessment of Mortars in Dos Rakis. They're coming out.
Jund seems to be taking off in my area. Jund players (and I use this term loosely since most are just really...bad) can't handle the constant pressure from Hellrider and Thundermaw and all the little critters when you get an "aggro" draw. On the other hand, when it comes to a board stall, Bonfire is a blow-out and so is a charged Crucible.
The GW Aggro was actually kind of tough. I think I just got kind of lucky. Bonfire seemed to just come out and save me before I was gonna eat it, and then I would drop a dragon and ride it to victory. Mortars and Flames of the Firebrand are absolutely necessary postboard.
Bant was a nightmare, actually. I think it I just had some good luck and experience working in my favor. The first game I played went for awhile and he Entreated for like a million. I laid down my 9th land and Bonfired for 4 to shut the angels down. After that I just kept getting in there with Hellrider. Postboard, I had 4 Mortars in there and I was ready for the Entreat when it happened. The planeswalkers were kind of a problem, especially Tamiyo. He'd boardwipe and then lock down the one guy I would play. Then a GoST comes down and goes to town. Again, a miracle Bonfire is just a blowout there. We played about 4-5 games and every time I'd win it be just barely. Then he says I'm just really lucky and too stubborn to learn when to not play red. I replied, "Well the joke's on you if you think blue is the thinking man's color. Cuz it's not. Red is the thinking man's color." We stopped playing after that.
The WB exalted deck I played is really not worth mentioning. It's just...not good.
Now even though I won all those games, I also realize that most of the players in my area are just not that great. Good guys they all are, but there's a few really good players and then there's the rest. For example, I played a lot of Jund decks, but the one that really gives me a hard time is my brother's. He's a very experienced player and is either 1st or 2nd at most of the FNMs. When he gets behind his Jund, he's very formidable. Put somebody else behind that same deck and it's not even fair for them most of the time.
Anyway, I really want to play some other MUs with it. Especially against Reanimator (I missed my chance at the bar for a rematch :/).
I built the Sledgehammer deck just to mess around with in case I got bored with Dos Rakis, and honestly, I'm having more fun with it. I'm going to try to get more games in with it this week.
Tried out Zemanjaski's Sledgehammer Red deck in two mtgo Daily Events last night and went 3-1 in both. I probably should have wrote this up last night since I can't recall everything and mtgo only saved a few of the games.
For Daily Event 4485666:
Round 1 - Jund (2-0)
The only thing I can recall from this is that my opponent decided to activate his Rakdos Keyrune to chump block my Stonewright in game 2 and it got speared instantly (I'm really surprised he fell for that).
Round 2 - G/W Midrange (1-2)
Had my opponent down to 1 life and at 9 in game 1 but he had an exalted angel and I wound up drawing a mountain :(. Him having rancor in his opening hand for game 3 pretty much won him the game once I ran out of removal for his creatures.
Round 3 - 4-Color Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1 was a typical Sledgehammer game with Hellkite and burn finishing him off even with Thragtusk on board. Just barely won game 3 before Grisselbrand could wreck things.
Round 4 - Bant Control (2-0)
I don't know which was funnier - my opponent going up to 28 life and losing game 2 or that I won without even needing Hellkite or that he had to use Sensory Deprivation on my Cackler before removing it with Detention Sphere because another Cackler was soulbonded with Stonewright. Siding in Traitorous Blood did help a lot as did using Searing Spear on a TB Thragtusk to give me the token.
For Daily Event 445674:
Round 1 - U/W Humans (2-0)
Two straight games with a double striking Geist? Thank you, Ash Zealot!
Round 2 - Jund (2-1)
For game 1 my opponent had 3 Thragtusks. Luckily he only had 2 in game 2 and also decided to chump block one of them when I used Traitorous Blood. Devil's Play helped finish him off that game while game 3 wasn't even close.
Round 3 - Junk Tokens (1-2)
I'm not sure if this is just a terrible matchup for us or if he just had a nut draw g2 (from a mull to 5 no less) where he was able to use multiple Restoration Angels on Thragtusk to overcome a double Hellkite on my side.
Round 4 - G/W Aggro (2-0)
Game 1 my opponent twice used Selesnya Charm to create tokens, once to chump block a Chainwalker. I doubt he would have done that he he expected a turn 5 Hellkite! Still, Rancor on the second token and soulbonding it with Silverheart nearly won him the game. He got mana screwed game 2 as I removed all his mana dorks and beat face with my small creatures.
I'm glad someone can play the deck well
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
FWIW I think Jund and Bant will be the most popular decks in the format prior to GTC. GW Midrange just isn't very good against either of those decks so I expect it to go the same way as Zombies.
That blue mage sounds like a stereotypical ego-tripping spike that needs his power cards to feel smart ~ I try not to let dolts like that get to me now.
I'll be really interested to follow your results ~ I'm not getting to play much at the moment so I need to vicariously live through others
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Please include what kind of event it was, game/match results for every round, and the deck/play quality of your opponents. Also, it would be helpful if you could explain how you sideboarded for each match.
Mabbz on MTGO | Demgrinds on Twitch & Twitter | Helpdesk
Khaospawn - Dos Rakis:
dpaine88 - RDW:
—Jaya Ballard, task mage
Decklist:
A pet deck I have been working on for a few days now. Notes on the selections are available in the primer.
Round 1 - Jund Zombies
Strategy: 1-for-1 them early, try to create a race with an advantage. Be willing to lose card advantage to buy time (and life) so that you can go over the top.
Game 1: On the draw, keep: Mountain, Hellion Crucible, Stonewright, Gore-House Chainwalker, Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite.
Against an unknown opponent, the hand is keepable. I love that it curves aggressively. I don't like that it is completely uninteractive ~ with no removal the hand is pretty soft to UW Aggro or Zombies, but amazing against Jund or UWx Control.
His first two turns only involve a Diregraf Ghoul. I draw a mountain and then another Cackler, giving me a real choice on Turn 2 ~ Cackler + Stonewright or Chainwalker? They represent the same amount of damage, but playing 2x 1drop is more resilient to removal, so I went with that option.
He clearly had kept a slow hand, playing a topdecked Cackler without unleash, then trading one of my cacklers for his ghoul. I believe that at this point I made a small mistake by not attacking with my Stonewright ~ doing so would have let me push some more damage through (by firebreathing whichever soulbond creature was not blocked). As it was, he played a dragonskull summit and killed my freshly played chainwalker and stonewright with a flames of the firebrand. Damn.
Thankfully, I untapped and played Hellrider (playing 25 land helps you get there), hitting him for a bunch and putting me way ahead in the race against whatever he could likely be holding. Another flames of the firebrand killed my Hellrider (must be nice to have perfect mana and draw all the flames in your Jund deck). However, Thundermaw Hellkite hit him once and he didn't draw for the turn before succeeding ~ this let me know he didnt have an answer maindeck, outside of a potentially morbid brimstone volley.
Sideboarding:
-4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 2 Mountain, Searing Spear, 2 Ash Zealot, Chainwalker, Thundermaw Hellkite
Two Ash Zealot is extremely solid defensively. I have Searing Spear for his 1 drop to slow him down and I have an endgame, just need to get there!
Turns out he had it all. Triple 1 drop backed up by three removal spells (Pillar of Flame, Dreadbore, Flames of the Firebrand), Rancor and Geralf's Messenger kill me before I can concoct a defence. Not much else to say, I just died. Must be nice.
Game 3: On the play, keep 2 Mountain, Hellrider, Cackler, Pillar of Flame, Searing Spear, Flames of the Firebrand.
Not the most aggressive hand, but it is highly suggestive of playing aggro-control.
I draw into another cackler. He has turn 2 abrupt decay, then perfect mana (for the 3rd game straight) on turn 3. I pillar his Gravecrawler, Spear his Mangler. He abrupt decays 1 Cackler. Messenger meets another Pillar of Flame and I am just miles ahead in the race, with Searing Spear, Hellrider and Flames of the Firebrand still in hand ~ he is at 10. I play Hellrider, he has Brimstone Volley (seriously, this guy...), go to 8.
He plays Falkenrath Aristocrat to hit me to 12. I hit him and burn him out. My opponent very courteously told me that 'Im certain your playing 20 land with 4 Hellrider and 4 Hellkite' and that 'if he had drawn his three thragtusk he would have won' ~ because if you're going to draw really well in all three games, why not go all the way?
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 - BG Zombies
Strategy: Same as above. They have less reach and more trouble dealing with your heavy hitters because of their removal suite. You can play at a slower pace as a result.
Game 1: At this point, I have to admit I don't watch replays between rounds so I had no idea what my opponent was playing. On the draw, keep: 3 Mountain, 2 Rakdos Cackler, Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite.
His first two lands are Golgari Guildgate and Woodland Cemetery (why didnt you mulligan?!) and he is on the backfoot immediately. I get through a lot of early damage, then he stabalizes the board with Dreg Mangler, Knight of Infamy and Gravecrawler vs Rakdos Cackler, Stonewright and Gore-House Chainwalker (Hellrider and Hellkite in hand). Stonewright lets me push damage through and trade down, clearing the way for Hellrider.
Then this happens:
Turns out that Hellrider is kind of good against a deck that doesn't block much.
Sideboarding: -4 Rakdos Cackler, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Game 2: On the draw, keep: Pillar of Flame, Flames of the Firebrand, Chainwalker, four land. Ugggh...probably should have mulliganed.
Basically, his draw is double gravecrawler, dreathrite shaman, double lotleth troll on three land. I draw up to 9 land, as well as another Chainwalker and an Annihilating Flame. Doesn't end well.
Game 2: On the play, keep: 2 Mountain, Hellion Crucible, Chainwalker, 2 Ash Zealot, Thundermaw Hellkite. Kind of a good hand...
My Chainwalker trades for a Diregraf Ghoul. The 1st Ash Zealot gets hit by Dead Weight. He rancor's up a Diregraf Ghoul, which I annihilating fire. We both play a lot of guys and the board starts to stall ~ exactly the position I had designed the deck for. We end up in this board state (image taken at my attack step):
He loses.
2-0 (4-2)
Round 3 - BR Zombies
Strategy: See the above two matchups. They have tremendous reach, so you want to always trade early and use removal early ~ keeping at 10+ life can be very important because they can just get you.
Game 1: On the play, keep: three mountain, Hellrider, Devil's Play, two searing spear.
Not an amazing hand, but you have to keep hands like this. It is interactive enough to give you game against most decks. Definitely not good, but a forced keep.
I trade removal against his creature heavy hand, stalling at three land ~ but this means I am drawing spells to keep me alive. Eventually, I have killed everything, and the board state is:
So, I find myself in a race. Can I do 20 damage before he can deal the remaining 5? Two Hellrider is a good start. I put him to 16. He draws a land, spears me to 2. I play a second hellrider, putting him to him to 6. He draws a diregraf ghoul. Get there!
Sideboarding: -4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, -4 Rakdos Cackler, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +4 Mizzium Mortars, +3 Annihilating Fire
Stonewright went to make me as resilient to Flames of the Firebrand as possible. Mortars was to try something new.
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 2 mountain, chainwalker, searing spear, two mizzium mortars :rolleyes:, hellrider.
I draw two more Mizzium Mortars. He has two grave crawlers, three blood artist and two messenger. I think I die and he is at ~20 life. Ugggghhh
Sideboard: -4 mizzium mortars, +4 rakdos cackler
For pressure.
On the play, keep: Cackler, two mountain, hellion crucible, two flames of the firebrand, pillar of flame.
He stalls on two land and my flames of the firebrand wipes his board twice, while all the while my Cackler is nudging him for 2 each turn. His third land is a guildgate, I am able to improve my board with another Cackler and start adding pressure counters to the Crucible.
We end up here (my 1st mainphase, have played a land already):
Pillar of Flames your Messenger. Play Ash Zealot. Crack Hellion Crucible for Hellion hulk-smash. You're at 3. There are upsides to playing a big mana deck.
3-0 (6-3)
Round 4 - Jund
Strategy: Get him to ~10 with little guys, then kill him with burn, hellrider triggers and dragons. Evaluate every attack with The Philosophy of Fire in mind ~ you can throw away a card if it is generating 3+ damage. You're aiming to have them dead to any topdeck while you're at a high life total, so that you have as many drawsteps as possible to hit your outs.
Game 1: On the draw, keep: two mountain, two rakdos cackler, stonewright, devil's play, thundermaw hellkite.
Again, against an unknown opponent, this is a pretty aggressive hand. Easy keep.
He plays some taplands, I build a board presence. He plays some removal, I do some damage. The Huntmaster of the Fells comes down and we have to make our first decision.
Searing Spear on the Huntmaster itself is obvious. What is more difficult is whether or not to attack into the wolf and 2-for-1 myself. I have not done as much damage as I need to; for the dragon to work I need him ~10 life. I felt at the time (and still feel now) that waiting is the incorrect line. He blocks the paired cackler (not the stronewright) which is an error (though not a big one because he dosn't know about the second stonewright).
Olivia Voldaren comes down, but a timely Hellion Crucible off the top lets me devil's play her (that spell is REALLY good). I hit him to 10. Stage 1 of the plan is complete ~ he plays Garruk, Primal Hunter and makes a token. I play my second Stonewright and elect to against give up a card for damage (to him). There are two factors in play:
1) I have drawn three Stonewright. 1 is very good, but every stonewright after the first is a 1/1 for R. Not good.
2) Garruk using his -3 to draw three can help him find cards like Huntmaster and Thragtusk. Keeping him from this line is greatly to my advantage ~ if I can just draw a land I probably have him.
He plays a land, makes a token and plays a Rakdos Keyrune, preventing any progress on the ground. I draw my 4th Stonewright. He gets to -3 garruk, finds some removal to kill some of my guys and plays Thragtusk.
Enter the 5th land.
Hellkite you. Pair with Stonewright. Attack. Go to 8. He draws for the turn, tells me I am really lucky with my top decks (turn 9 5th land, so lucky!) and concedes.
Sideboarding: -4 Rakdos Cackler, -2 Pillar of Flame, +4 Traitorous Blood, +2 Mizzium Mortars
Take out some ineffectual 1 drops (especially on the draw), bring in some higher impact cards.
Game 2: On the draw, mulligan: mountain, stonewright, chainwalker, hellrier x 2, thundermaw hellkite.
Obviously if I 4 lands I am probably winning, but if I don't draw three in a row I am just dead.
Keep: 4 mountain, searing spear, Hellrider.
Yeah, not winning this game.
His draw is turn 2 farseek, turn 3 huntmaster, turn 4 thragtusk, turn 5 olivia with mana up.
Sideboarding: -2 Searing Spear, -2 Pillar of Flame, +4 Rakdos Cackler
I want a more aggro heavy draw.
On the play keep:
You know, the reason to play RDW
Me: Mountain, Rakdos Cackler, Unleash.
Him: Woodland Cemetery, tapped.
Me: Hit you to 18. Mountain, Chainwalker, unleash.
Him: Dragonskull Summit, tapped.
Me: Mountain, Ash Zealot, hit you to 11.
Him: Farseek fetching Overgrown Tomb, Blood Crypt, tapped.
Me: Hellion Crucible, hit you to 4.
Him: Forest, Thragtusk, go to 9.
Me: Traitorous Blood
Him: Accusations of luck based play and poor deck design.
4-0 (8-4).
Finished 1st (out of 78).
Thoughts on the deck to come ~ I havent lost a match yet (improving now to 14-0 for matches and 28-6 for games), so I need to play some more and get a better handle on the deck.
It is tremendous fun to play though.
Thanks for reading!
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Your a beast
My Trades
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=459514
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Match 1 vs BR Zombies
Game 1: On the draw, keep: 2 mountain, ash zealot, 2 searing spear, 2 hellrider.
Seems pretty good against most decks, you're obviously not mulliganing a hand like this against an unknown opponent!
The first couple of turns see him attempt to nut draw me by spewing four 1 drops onto the battlefield. For the most part, I am just playing land and removal; on turn 4 I am able to play Ash Zealot (which gets searing speared) and a Chainwalker (unleashed). His board is only swamp + bloodcrypt + unleashed Cackler, so I want to start pressuring him.
He signs in blood to find removal and his 3rd, then 4th land. I just play Hellrider into Hellrider. He draws four straight removal spells then a Falkenrath Aristocrat, and we're on to game 2. Oh, then he complains about how he has trouble making 4 mana in his 21 land deck...
Sideboard: -4 Stonewright, -3 Devil's Play, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +3 Annihilating Fire
Stonewright comes out to reduce my vulnerability to his Flames of the Firebrand; otherwise I am sideboarding into a control deck.
Game 2: On the play, keep: 4 mountain, Chainwalker, Ash Zealot, Thundermaw Hellkite.
Not as agrgessive or well-rounded as I would like, but sometimes you have to keep looser hands. He does me a favour by going to 5 looking for land, complaining the whole time.
Going into turn 4, I have done a little bit of damage with my two creatures, but he has two 1 drops of his own, never missed a land drop and had two removal spells. Must be nice. I am able to wipe his 1 drops in response to an Aristocrat on the stack, before untapping and playing Hellkite to get a free-kill; he has to sign for blood in desperation on his turn and is able to find his 3rd pillar to kill the Ash Zealot, but two more hits from the Hellkite ends him.
Sideboarding: none.
Game 3: On the draw, mulligan: 6 mountain + searing spear. Yeah, right!
Keep: Mountain, two Cackler, 2 Searing Spear, Chainwalker.
Ugly, only 1 land, what can you do?
He has two 1 drops; I have Cackler into Chainwalker, who then trades for his Diregraf Ghoul. Geralf's Messenger makes his first appearance in the series, while I stall on two land and a board of Rakdos Cacklers
I was pretty sure I wasn't winning. He attacked me to 9, played a land and passed (3 cards in hand). I drew a land and played it for my turn, then attacked him to 10. He elected to only attack with his Cackler, which I searing speared. This is a difficult decision tree ~ killing the Cackler now though means I take the same damage from Brimstone Volley either way (3 + 2 from cackler; 5 morbid). If he doesn't have it, it means I can race the messenger if I draw another land. Thankfully, for once, he doesn't have it, so I untap and draw a land (better lucky than good right?!). I decide not to Hellrider him though, attacking him to 6 and putting a counter on his messenger ~ I know he doesnt have brimstone volley, I have a spear for the messenger, and at 9 life, he now needs exactly Aristocrat + Searing Spear to win. Messenger + Spear for my Hellrider are not enough as I get him for exactsies.
1-0 (2-1)
Match 2 vs Travis Woo RDW
Someone had copied Travis Woo's RDW list, although I didnt realise it until Game 2.
Game 1: On the play, keep: 2 mountain, crucible, 2 stonewright, hellrider, devil's play.
His draw is a little more aggressive, but I am able to get some beats in with the Stonewrights, while killing his turn 1 Noble with my Devil's Play. He has a pillar of flame for 1 Stonewright, then an Ash Zealot, and I am in trouble. I Hellrider him to 10, but he has 5 power in play and more cards in hand. Searing Spear for my Hellrider and another Chainwalker leave me at 10 life, facing down a vastly overhwhelming board position. Pillar of Flame accounts for the Zealot, and a turn later the Devil's Play flashes back to kill a Chainwalker. A Stonewright of his own forces mine to chump, so we end up here:
Fortuntely, he proceeds to draw some 1 drops that cannot get past the Zealot, while I draw a land and a Dragon, which then has to chump his all-in attack the next turn Hellion Crucible quickly becomes a threat however, giving him a single turn to draw a Brimstone Volley. It doens't happen.
Sideboarding: -4 Rakdos Cackler, -2 Stonewright, +4 Flames of the Firebrand, +2 Mizzium Mortars
Taking out the defensively porous cards, replacing them with good removal.
Game 2: On the draw, keep: Stonewright, Flames of the Firebrand, Searing Spear, two mountain, crucible, Mizzium Mortars
He has Cackler into Volcanic Strength. My Stonewright into Mizzium Mortars blows him out. He complains. His draw was otherwise pretty slow, and I had removal for his Ash Zealot then Stromkirk Noble, all the while building up my Hellion Crucible. We end up here going into Turn 7:
He opts to attack, so I just untap and kill him.
2-0 (4-1)
Match 3 vs 4 Colour Reanimator
Game 1: On the play, keep this
Fast forward to turn 3 ~ he is at 10. My board is Cackler, two Zealot and 3 land. He has three land and two lingering souls tokens. In his graveyard are two Angel of Serenity. I pair a Stoneweight with the Cackler to attack him to 6. He draws for his turn and scoops (reanimating an angel dies to Ash Zealot triggers).
Sideboarding: -4 Pillar of Flame, -2 Devil's Play, +3 Traitorous Blood, +3 Flames of the Firebrand
Game 2: On the draw, keep: 4 mountain, hellrion crucible, cackler, zealot.
Not exciting at all, but it has a lot of early pressure that can get me a long way towards victory.
I get in for a little damage because he kills my Cackler then has two Centaur Healer and a Thragtusk. It looks bad, but a few turns later, we get to swing the Sledgehammer...
3-0 (6-1)
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Round 1 - GW
Game 1 - We trade back and forth until Thundermaw comes out and kicks him in the nuts
Game 2 - Silverblade double strikes me straight to game three
Game 3 - Boarded in the Zealous conscripts and swiped Silverblade and attacked with both along with Aristocrat. Sacced the Silverblade and left him at one life and finished him next turn. 1-0
Round 2 - Izzet Delver
Game 1 - This game drags on for a while but was never really in doubt. Just grinded him down with one and two drops and finished him with a Volley to the face.
Game 2 - Conscripts came in and basically did a repeat of round one with swiping the delver, attacking and saccing to Aristocrat and again finished him off next turn. 2-0
Round 3 - GW
Game 1 - I burn a few of his creatures, he o-rings a couple of mine. Thundermaw comes in again to end it.
Game 2- He has a Silverblade and three rancors out in one turn. Hard to recover from that after Thundermaw gets o-ringed.
Game 3- He thinks he has won after he o-rings the Aristocrat but next turn you know who is going to show up. Thundermaw! He drops a Thragtusk next turn which delays the inevitable for one turn. 3-0
Round 4 would have been against RG zombies but we agree to ID and I end up third with her being second. One guy finishes 4-0, who was also playing RG zombies.
MVP was obviously Thundermaw, with Conscripts being second. Most of the tournament regulars all turned their nose up at Stonewright. He didn't do a whole lot this time, but I can see his value and will keep him. I was debating putting in Hellrider instead of Falkenrath Aristocrat and I am still not sure about it. Yeah, the Conscripts/Aristocrat synergy is fun and hilarious at times, the few extra damage from Hellrider would have ended two of the games one turn earlier. Another thing of note is how people play against Hellion Crucible. Everyone was always nervous when I started putting counters on it and really devoted way too much attention to it, which was fine with me.
Everyone underestimates Stonewright
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
4x Stromkirk Noble
4x Rakdos Cackler
3x Stonewright
4x Ash zealot
4x Gore-House Chainwalker
1x Rakdos Shred-Freak
4x Hellrider
4x Searing Spear
4x Brimstone Volley
2x Flames of the Firebrand
21x Mountain
1x Hellion Crucible
2x Zealous Conscripts
1x Hellion Crucible
2x Annihilating Fire
3x Rakdos Shred-Freak
3x Mizzium Mortars
2x Flames of the Firebrand
ROUND 1: 2-0 vs. G/W something?
I played against G/W something, I'm not quite sure what. I believe the only cards I saw from my opponent were arbor elf, avacyn's pilgrim, strangleroot geist, and a centaur healer. The deck didn't seem to do much, I removed his blockers and 2-0'd him very quickly.
ROUND 2: 2-1 Vs. B/R Zombies
Round two I was up against B/R zombies. I must say, pillar of flame is an absolute star in this matchup. The most threatening card in my opinion is Geralf's Messenger, but if you have the pillar of flame for it you can deal with their t3 play with just one card. One important thing against zombies is to evaluate whether or not you want to be the beatdown in a particular game. If you're on the play and have an extremely aggressive hand feel free to run it out, but be careful about taking too much damage, aristocrat, messenger, and blood artist will ruin your day. I'd honestly rather have a hand with 1-2 threats and burn (pillar of flame/annihilating fire) than all threats.
That being said, I should talk about how my match actually went. The details are a bit hazy because this was early in the day, but I was on the play game 1. I opened with a noble or cackler, and he played a cackler as well. For the most part I burned out his creatures, and we traded damage fairly aggressively. Every time a messenger hit the field I pillar of flamed it, and I beat him with a hellrider because he had nothing to block with. I won the first game.
In terms of board I believe I brought in 2 annihilating fire and dropped either FoF or Volley. I didn't have a super strong board for Zombies.
Game 2 swung drastically in the other direction. My opponent opened with a gravecrawler, which I pillared. His turn 2 was two more gravecrawlers, and I was pretty worried at that point. I dropped an Ash Zealot to block with, which promptly ate a brimstone volley. He proceeded to drop 2 geralf's messengers in that game, and there was no way to burn my way through that. Game 2 went to my opponent.
Game 3 I was on the play again, I opened with a noble, followed up by an ash zealot. I pretty much beat with those two and had exiling removal spells for messenger's and towards the end threw a little burn at the face. Pillar of flame and annihilating fire are both great against zombies, as is ash zealot. Those are pretty much your key spells. I'd say if your opening hand has no good removal or an ash zealot it's a very questionable keep.
ROUND 3: 2-1 Vs. American Delver
Game one I trounced my opponent. I was on the play with a rakdos cackler, followed up by two more rakdos cacklers t2. Dropped him really low quickly and followed it up with burn. One thing I note is that delver players are really hesitant to block with unflipped delvers, even if it means preventing damage. My opponent played guttersnipes at some point, but I always killed them immediately because they were both a blocker and damage.
For sideboard I brought in my Shred-Freaks and dropped chain-walkers. Getting a chain walker azorius charmed is just too much tempo loss.
Game 2 I still had a decent hand, but most of my early threats got burned out by pillar of flame. I got out a hellrider and Hellion Token with my opponent fairly low, but I couldn't get in for damage because he had two Feelings of Dread. That card is extremely obnoxious, it can shut down our entire board for 2+ turns. He had a GoST and it could just freely swing as he tapped down my attackers/blockers for 4 turns.
Game 3 I was on the play again. I had no t1 plays, but my opening hand had 3 hasty beaters, so it was an easy keep. I burned delvers and attacked. I landed a stonewright as well, and forced damage through pretty quickly. He resolved a Geist at one point, but by that point in time I had gotten him so low I just burned for game before it got the chance to attack.
ROUND 4: 2-1 Vs. G/W Ramp? Midrange?
My opponent was playing a fairly unusual list. The curve was really wonky. I saw mana dorks, farseeks, Ranger's Path, and then Wolfir Silverheart/Armada Wurm. Either way, it was a very durdly deck. Game 1 I played quick threats, noble and Zealot, and got in for early damage. He resolved a wolfir silverheart or armada wurm on his last turn, but it didn't really matter because I had burn to finish him off if he did or didn't block.
I brought out my pillar of flames, my flames of the firebrand, and brought in Hellkites, Conscripts, and the crucible. No need for mortars, he never played a single loxodon smiter.
Game 2 I ended up losing because of a very stupid misplay. I was in full aggro mode, trying to shove through as much early damage as I could. He t4'd a wolfir silverheart, followed up by a t5 armada wurm. The board state was something like Armada Wurm, Token, Silverheart, Pilgrim, to my 2x Chainwalker (Unleashed) and Noble (2 counters). I had a zealous conscripts+ hellkite in hand and at least 5 land. I yoinked the wurm that was bonded to Silverheart with conscripts, and proceeded to beat face with everything but conscripts. However, I apparently had math'd wrong, and he killed me on the backswing, which was a shame because Hellkite could've gotten through for lethal next turn. Should've left noble up as a blocker... oh well, on to game 3.
Game 3 I had an absolute nut draw. I opened with a cackler, followed up by ash zealot, shred freak, and another ash zealot. By the time he had stabilized at 9 life with a silverheart and pilgrim on board I dropped a hellrider, and swung with 5 attackers, and he couldn't prevent lethal. Quick game to make up for my misplays.
ROUND 5: 2-1 Vs. American Delver/Tempo
Not quite sure if delver is the right name for this list, because it didn't quite revolve around delver. It ran delvers, Stromkirk Nobles, Snapcaster Mages, and GoST. Game 1 I was on the play and opened with a noble, which promptly got burned. Overall he had removal for all my creatures, and dropped a GoST which I couldn't deal with. Game 1 went to him and I wasn't feeling super confident.
For my sideboard I took out my chainwalkers (they don't like getting unsummoned) and replaced them with shred-freaks, and an extra flames of the firebrand (kills a snap+delver, or a noble, etc. etc.)
Game 2 I was on the play and decided to go beatdown. I opened with a cackler, he played a noble. t2 I played more beaters, a decision I almost regretted when he played spectral flight on his noble, taking it out of the range of my spears. That being said, he didn't have any other threats so I just attacked, forcing him to block with his noble, which then got removed. He dropped a Geist but at this point I was too far ahead for him to come back.
Game 3 he mulled to 6 and kept what was apparently a pretty ****ty hand. The only land he played were islands, and his t2 was flashing a snapcaster at the end of my turn targeting nothing. It got spectral flight'd but I removed it and just beat in with my dudes. He had 3-4 islands and nothing else by the end of the game, so it was pretty clear he lost to land screw. Maybe should've mulled to 5, it's hard to say.
ROUND 6: 2-0 Vs. American Control
I was glad to finally be playing against a control deck, because in testing I'd had very little trouble with this matchup unless they had absolutely insane hands. Onto the games!
Game 1 I was on the play, with a noble followed by a chainwalker. The noble got in twice, and the chainwalker once before they got wiped (can't remember if it was a miracled terminus or a verdict). Followed that up with a hellrider that got in once before being removed, and then an unbonded stonewright that got in for one damage. At that point he was at 9 and I had three burn spells, so I burned him EoT and then twice on my turn. Syncopate was actually a somewhat annoying card, because we're often tapping out to play our threats. If you know your opponent is running it think about dropping lower cost threats (Ash Zealot before Hellrider, etc.) that they can't counter.
In from the board came Hellkites, Conscripts, Crucible, and Shred-Freaks. Going out were my chain walkers, pillar of flames, and flames of the firebrand.
Game 2 was a bit more of a fight. I had early threats, which ate lots of removal. That game I believe he played 3 pillar of flames, and snapped back two of them (once was double pillar on a hellrider), and a detention sphere. He was able to get me to 10 on snapcaster beats. His second to last turn he tapped out playing a sphinx's revelation during his turn (no clue why he main phased it), and I burned him EoT. I hit a hellkite, dropped him to 5, he had no answers for it, and that was game.
ROUNDS 7 & 8: Since I was undefeated up to this point, both my round 7 & 8 opponent wanted to take an intentional draw to guarantee that we top 8'd. Both times I said sure (didn't feel like being that guy). Round 7 I played the guy afterwards for fun, and I got trounced 2-0 by G/W aggro, although I didn't make tight plays and kept sub-par hands (Which I 2-0'd in the quarterfinals, guess there is a bit of variance). Round 8 after we took a draw the judges asked for our decks so they could start deck checks, so we never got a chance to play. Onto the top 8!
QUARTERFINALS: 2-0 vs. G/W Aggro
My opponent was playing a much lower curve than most G/W lists. His curve topper was silverheart, and he had strangelroot geists, silverblade paladins, Sublime Archangels, Loxodon Smiters, and dorks. Game 1 he was on the play (he had been 4th in rankings and I was 5th so he got to choose ._.). Overall this game wasn't particularly remarkable. He did t2 a loxodon smiter, which got rancor'd, but I had double spear for it, and other than that he had no other threats. Apparently he drew nothing but land from his top 5 cards, so I had threats and burn for his threats and he didn't have anything else.
For my sideboard I had a lot of cards to bring in. First, I brought in all my 'big' cards, thundermaw hellkite, conscripts, crucible, and then my mizzium mortars. I took out my pillars (which in hindsight was a bad idea against a deck with strangleroot, but I got lucky and he didn't play any), my shred-freak, and nobles/flames of the firebrand.
This game he played a couple loxodon smiters and silverblade paladins. I traded aggressively and managed to burn through big threats with brimstone volleys, hitting paladin if there was no morbid, and smiter if I could trigger morbid. I was at a pretty disadvantageous board position, with an Ash Zealot and a non-unleashed chainwalker to his Loxodon smiter bonded to a paladin, and a pilgrim. We were both at 10 and I ripped a hellkite off the top. Dropped him to 5, he had no removal and couldn't get in for lethal so the game went to me. He proceeded to complain that hellkite was the one card in my deck that would win me the game which was a bit off-putting, but losing to topdecks in the top 8 can be pretty annoying so I can understand. Oh well, on to the semis.
SEMIFINALS 1-2 vs. American Delver
Once again my opponent had the choice of being on the play. He had been in 1st place going into the top 8, while I was 5th. Game 1 was a fairly quick loss for me. He pillar of flamed my early threats, dropped a GoST and just beat me down from there. GoST is an obnoxious card when your opponent can protect it. From his deck so far I had seen snaps, pillars, and geists, so I had thought he was American Control, so I did not sideboard appropriately.
For my board I brought in shred-freaks, Hellkites, Conscripts, and crucible. I dropped my pillars, chainwalkers, and a volley, spear, or FoF.
Game 2 I had a lot of hasty two drops, so I forced in a lot of damage pretty quickly. He did t3 a GoST, but at this point I was full racing, and I had gotten him pretty low. His board state was GoST, unflipped delver, at 7 life, and I had two shred-freaks and a volley in hand with mana for it. I swung in, he didn't want to block with Geist, so he only blocked with delver. I burned for lethal, and we went to game 3.
Game 3 He was on the play again (much to my general dismay), and t2'd an augur of bolas. That card is obnoxious against us if we don't have searing spear. I had to wait until t3 to either FoF or Volley it. Either way, after I'd done that I was in pretty good shape with two unleashed cacklers beating in. Then he flips a bonfire off the top, killing my cacklers. I proceed to run out some more threats, which once again eat a bonfire, this time hardcast. This continued with him beating with snaps and casting bonfire for 1-2 (once it was flashed back even). I had him at five life, while I was at 3 life. I had a hellion token, and a shred freak, to his two snaps and a delver. Twice in a row I flipped nobles off the top, and he flipped a brimstone for game. Moral of the story? F***ing bonfire ._.
With any luck upcoming gameday will go well and there'll be a lot of people.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
This one is short because I didn't keep great notes during the tournament. Some thoughts on the matchup in-line and thoughts on the deck after. I missed 2nd place on tiebreakers, but pulled two shocklands in my 3 prize packs. Not bad for $5. A good night!
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
2 Stonewright
4 Knight of Infamy
4 Ash Zealot
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
Spells
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
2 Brimstone Volley
2 Dreadbore
1 Rakdos Keyrune
Lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Cavern of Souls
9 Mountain
2 Rakdos Guildgate
2 Tribute to Hunger
2 Zealous Conscripts
3 Sever the Bloodline
3 Slaughter Games
2 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Rakdos Charm
1 Rakdos Keyrune
Round 1 (2-1): Dubstep Control (W/U/b)
I figured out quickly that he was running UW control elements while splashing black for Lingering Souls and black removal with Tragic Slip. I sided out my 1-drops and brought in more removal and my Zealous Conscripts. He was unable to interact with my Knight of Infamy and paired Stonewright, eventually beating him up 4 damage at a time.
Round 2 (2-0): Dubstep Control (W/U/b)
Basically, this deck was a UW control shell plus black for Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. I stuck an Aristocrat and flew over him. I would have won 2-0 but a Divine Deflection in game 2 prevented an alpha strike and he wiped my board the next turn.
Round 3 (2-1): GW Midrange
This player and I have faced each other before, but our games seem to devolve into mana screw/flood coin flips. This one was no different. I beat him up in game 1, got nut drawn in game 2, and then game 3 was a slugfest when he got stuck on 2 land for 10 turns as I flooded out with a Conscripts in hand.
Tribute to Hunger is a bad sideboard card against Sigarda, it seems! I neglected to read her static ability about not being able to force a sacrifice.
Silverblade Paladin bound to a Sublime Archangel is super scary.
Thundermaw Hellkites are absolutely no good vs a GW deck, as I've said before. I boarded them out and I saw plenty of Selesnya Charms in games 2 and 3.
Round 4 (2-1): WUG Control
Tamiyo, Jace, Entreat, the works! Plus Thragtusk! The deck was a bit unfocused, but quite powerful. He lost game 1, then talked about how Thragtusk would have saved him. I boarded in my Slaughter Games, pulled them all from his deck in game 2, then boarded the Games out in game 3 for some next level trickery.
Falkenrath Aristocrat provided the early beats to get him low on life, and then I finished him off with some Searing Spears.
Pillar was a dead card.
Round 5 (0-2): RakDW
He ran Hellrider, Rakdos Shred-Freak and Thundermaw Hellkite on 21 land, so he was faster and less prone to flood. Greedy, but he got there! Every game was a race, and I died each game with lethal in hand or on the board next turn. The RakDW mirror match comes down to which player gets the better draws. Every creature I played was met with a swift burn spell, but his creatures tended to get into combat before I could get rid of them.
The Pillar of Flames maindeck really hurt me here, as I had to wait a turn to kill his hasty dudes who had already smacked me in the face.
Ramping up to Thundermaw Hellkite is no good vs. a quick aggro deck if he can just kill me on the backswing.
I kept wishing I had a Bonfire in there or a sweeper like Magmaquake.
Thoughts on the deck
I'm disappointed in Pillar of Flame. I feel that it weakens me against every deck but Zombies, which I managed to dodge tonight. It was rarely worth 2 damage to the face, and I frequently boarded it out for Flames of the Firebrand.
Dreadbore was great! I used it to kill planeswalkers, a rampaging Thundermaw Hellkite (none of the red removal will kill it) and various nasties.
I'm considering a 2/2 split of Ultimate Price and Dreadbore maindeck in place of the Pillar of Flame.
The Rakdos Keyrune was nice and acted as a 3-drop in most games where I saw it. In one case, it let me play my Aristocrat on curve after missing the 4th land drop. I was also able to keep a 1 Cavern of Souls / 2 Mountain / Knight of Infamy / Falkenrath Aristocrat opening hand because I had a Keyrune in there. It lets me commit my Cavern to a 2-drop and still get the right mana fixing for my Aristocrat. I frequently boarded in the 2nd Keyrune when I brought in the 2 Zealous Conscripts.
I'm not sure that I like 3 slots for Slaughter Games, but in the case where I really need it, I'd want to be sure I could draw it. When I boarded it in for Thragtusk, I found it. I'm not sure it's a wise sideboard tech against GW though, because they have so many other threats that I'd rather just beat down with Aristocrats and steal their guys with Conscripts.
Watch my Twitch.tv stream.
Take the Ham Challenge.
I'll be playing mono R sledgehammer.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
I thought the question deserved some discussion, so I've made a SCD thread for Ultimate Price.
Watch my Twitch.tv stream.
Take the Ham Challenge.
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stonewright
4 Ash Zealot
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
2 Rakdos Shred-Freak
4 Hellrider
3 Thundermaw Hellkite
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Brimstone Volley
land
20 mountain
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Rakdos Shred-Freak
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Annihilating Fire
3 Flames of the Firebrand
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Mountain
3 Traitorous Blood
Round 1 (2-0)- RUB Grixis Control
He mostly permission based game 1 I believe as I landed an early caverns along with stonewright into gorehouse chainwalker, and he didn't have an answer for them until he was within burn range.
Sideboard +2 Rakdos shred-freak -2 Pillar of Flame
game 2- he sides in a little bit more removal, which a shred-freak and a stonewright eat a t3 bonfire of the damned. I still had 2 ash zealots, stonewright, hellrider, and a searing spear in hand. My next two turns I draw 2 lands and curve into hellrider to which he couldn't answer.
He told me after the match he was more permission heavy and didn't expect to see mono-red nor that it would be that fast.
Round 2 (1-2)- Golgari Zombies; absolutely hate lotleth troll
So I'm on the play with a decent hand: stonewright, rakdos shred-freak, ash zealot, thundermaw hellkite, 3 mountain
I get stuck at 4 lands this game so thundermaw just sat there. I tried racing with stonewright, shred-freak, and another freak I drew but they ate a golgari charm, then gravecrawler w/ 2x rancor and lotleth troll take over this game.
sideboard +2 Annihilating Fire +2 Flames of the Firebrand -4 brimstone volley
Game 2 went alot smoother, as I was able to kill an early lotleth troll, pillar of flame a geralf's messenger, and annihilating fire a dreg mangler. Hellrider and some early beats win this.
Game 3 was rediculous and we eventually came to a board stall where I had rakdos cackler unleashed, stonewright bonded to ash zealot, and gore-house chainwalker leashed with 4 mana on the field, and thundermaw hellkite and searing spear in hand. He had 2x lotleth trolls (I also killed one earlier) and corpsejack menace. He wouldn't attack me I think because of the possible damage from a hellrider, and I was stalling for thundermaw mana. I finally hit my 5th mana and swing him down to 7 life and I still have searing spear in hand for next turn. He responds on his turn with increasing savagery and rancor on the menace and swings with 16/14 trampling, I can only block 4 of it while Im at 10 life.
Round 3 (2-1) RUB Grixis Control
game 1 goes nearly as fast as the first grixis player I beat, except I notice he's playing with auger of bolas which slowed me a little
sideboard -4 pillar of flame +2 Annihilating fire +2 mizzium mortars I only wanted more burn that could take out the early augers
game 2 He has a much more prepared side for fast aggro as my guys hit removal nearly as soon as they hit the field. I was killed in a long drawn out control fashion by snapcaster mage as he just kept drawing cards that draw more cards
game 3 I had a much more aggressive start while he mulled down to 5. Stonewright and gore-house chainwalker get him down to 12 before he miracles a bonfire, then he eats a morbid brimstone bringing him down to 7. Im stuck at 3 lands with an empty board and 2x hellriders plus hellkite in hand. I draw another brimstone and hit him down to 4 at end of his turn. He rakdos' returns me for two, so i keep one hellrider. He has tamiyo on the board tapping down my lands so i wait two turns which I topdeck a mountain and a cavern of souls. My hellrider swings into his Olivia voldaren and auger of bolas that he just played, so he only has 1 untapped mana. Blocks with bolas takes 1 from trigger, down to 3, and dreadbores hellrider his turn. I topdeck searing spear and he has no counter.
Round 4 (2-0)- Mono white humans
Not really a whole lot to say about this match as I won both games by turn 5. Was a typical humans deck with thalia, guardian of thraben, silverblade paladin and friends. I had the burn and my guys beat face.
Interestingly the shopkeeper messed up the pairings since my humans opponent was 3-0 till this point and I was supposed to fight his brother with the same name. And there were no 4-0s as they drew to share top 4. So 5 of us had 3-1 or 3-0-1 and split $80 and 1 foil pillar of flame haha
MVP- Stonewright by far put out the most pressure of the night, they either had to lose a guy to ash zealot or take 6-7 damage a turn from a 1 drop.
link pls?
This is quite similar to my standard playtesting experience on Cockatrice -
Watch my Twitch.tv stream.
Take the Ham Challenge.
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
First off, here’s my deck I was playing, “Dos Rakis.” I tweaked the SB slightly to include a 3rd Slaughter Games.
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stonewright
4 Ash Zealot
4 Knight of Infamy
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Thundermaw Hellkite
Burn (12)
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rakdos Guildgate
10 Mountain
2 Zealous Conscripts
2 Olivia Voldaren
2 Dreadbore
3 Slaughter Games
2 Sever the Bloodline
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Rakdos Charm
Round 1 VS UR Epic Experiment
Game One: I’m on the play and lead off with a Guildgate. He plays a Mountain and passes the turn. I follow up with a Dragonskull Summit and an Ash Zealot and swing. He plays a Sulfur Falls and passes. I play Stonewright , bond to the Zealot, pump for 2 and get him to 14 life. On his turn he plays another land and passes. I play a KoI on my turn and gor for the swing with a giant Ash Zealot, but she gets fried by an Izzet Charm while the exalted trigger was on the stack. His next turn consisted of summoning a Guttersnipe and passing. On my turn, I draw a Stonewright and play it. I bond to the KoI and Pillar his Guttersnipe. I swing and pump, bringing him to 10. On his next turn, he plays Faithless Looting and a Think Twice and passes. I swing with KoI on my next turn, pumping to the max, and bring him to 3. He asks me if I have a burn spell to finish him with and I flash him the Searing Spear. On to the next game!
Game Two: While sideboarding, he lets it slip that he wished he could’ve just drawn an Epic Experiment in our game. I jam in 3 Slaughter Games in response. That’s it for my boarding, since I really didn’t see much from his deck.
He’s on the play and after playing a land, passes the turn. I start with a land and a Cackler. He plays a land and passes. I drop a KoI and prepare to attack, but homeboy has an Izzet Charm for my Cackler. On his turn he Pillars my KoI and drops a Gutternipe. I play a Guildgate and pass. On his turn, he plays Faithless Looting, I take 2, and he smiles. He plays Talrand, and I know now that this could get ugly. On my turn I Brimstone Volley his Talrand, since he was tapped out and I knew he ran counterspells. He untaps and begins a barrage of Faithless Looting and Think Twice before swinging with his ‘Snipe. I go from 20 to 10 in the blink of an eye. On my turn I play an Aristocrat and swing, finally putting damage on him and putting him at 16. His turn he draws, sighs, swings with ‘Snipe and passes. I’m at 8 and he’s at 16. I topdeck an Aristocrat, play it and swing, putting him at 8. On his turn, he Pillars on of my Aristocrats, I take 2 and then he swings, putting me at 4. On my turn, I end this madness by swinging with Falkenrath Aristocrat, putting him at 4, and then sacrificing the Aristocrat to itself so I can trigger morbid on a lethal Brimstone Volley.
Win. 2-0
He signs the sheet and drops. What a douchebag.
Record: 1-0
Round 2 VS Esper Spirits
Game One: I lose the dice roll, mull to 5, and he leads off with a tapped Hallowed Fountain. I play a Guildgate and pass. On his turn he plays Isolated Chapel and Intangible Virtue, and then passes. On my turn, I play a Zealot and hit for 2. Turn three he plays a Lingering Souls and passes. I play a KoI and attack for 3 and he takes it. Life totals are 20 and 15, respectively. On his turn, he plays another Intangible Virtue and flashes back the Lingering Souls, bringing him to 13. He swings for 6 and takes me to 14. I swing with the KoI on my turn, taking him to 10. I don’t really have a lot of options at this point: Thundermaw can’t take out the 3/3’s by appearing and my hand was mostly land. On his turn, he plays ANOTHER Intangible Virtue and I extend my hand. 4 flying 4/4’s is pretty good, methinks.
Sideboarding: -4 Cackler, -4 Pillar of Flame/ +2 Sever the Bloodline, +2 Rakdos Charm, +2 Olivia Voldaren, +2 Mizzium Mortars
Game Two: I’m on the play and lead off with a Mountain and a Stonewright. He plays a Glacial Fortress, tapped. Turn two, I play a Zealot, bond, and swing. On his turn, he plays a tapped Isolated Chapel. I smile a little on the inside: this is a perfect example of stumbling on mana and I’m going to punish him for it. I play another Zealot on my turn, swing, and pump +1, putting him down to 11. Turn 3 he plays a Lingering Souls and passes. On my turn, I turn the 2 Zealots sideways and he chumpblocks with his tokens. Then he makes an idiot play by flashing back the Souls. “Take 6,” I tell him. He groans and I mark our life totals at 20 and 5. I topdeck a Brimstone Volley and swing with my team. When a Soul token dies to a block, I play the Volley and win the game.
I elect not to sideboard again.
Game Three: The action doesn’t start until I play a KoI on turn 2. On his next turn, he misses a land drop. My next turn, I follow up with another KoI and swing for 4. He hits a land and plays a Lingering Souls. I topdeck another KoI, cast it, and then swing for 5 with another KoI. He tries to block, but I remind him about the pro-white. He’s not looking happy at this point. On my turn, I play and Aristocrat but don’t attack with it. I swing for 6 with my infamous knight troop. He’s at 5. He draws a card, shakes his head and concedes.
Win. 2-1
Record: 2-0
Round 3 VS Jund
First off, I want to say that my opponent is my brother, who plays what I believe to be THE Jund deck. Main deck, it runs 4 Thragtusk, 4 Huntmaster, 2 Olivia, 3 Thundermaw, Keyrunes, Bonfire, Decay, Pillar, and a whole slew of other nasty things. And it only gets better post board. He is an experienced pilot of this deck and is part of my test team. I knew this was not going to be an easy match.
Game One: He mulls to 5 and I quickly establish board presence with two Zealots and a Stonewright. I have him dead in a matter of turns. What an easy match!
Sideboarding: -4 Cackler, +2 Dreadbore, +2 Sever the Bloodline
I wanted a way to deal with Thundermaw and a possible army of Wolf and/or Beast tokens. Also, Garruk is a real card and must be dealt with.
Game Two: I had an awesome opening hand with Mountain, Blood Crypt, Guildgate, Zealot, Dreadbore, Aristocrat, and a KoI. He led off with a tapped Blood Crypt and I did the same on my turn, after drawing another Aristocrat. He plays Woodland Cemetary and passes. I draw a Sever the Bloodline, play a land and a Zealot, which immediately gets Decayed. He plays a Keyrune on turn 3 and passes. I draw a Thundermaw Hellkite. I’m starting to get nervous as I play my Guildgate and cast KoI. I’m going to need land and soon. On his turn, he plays a land and taps out (with his Keyrune) to play Thundermaw Hellkite. I take 5 and he passes. I draw my third Aristocrat and Dreadbore the Hellkite. I swing with KoI and pass. On his turn he plays a Thragtusk, which puts him at 22. I draw another Sever the Bloodline. It’s apparent: I’m getting mana*****ed here. I attack into Thragtusk, he blocks and we trade. He gets a token. On his turn, he plays a Kessig Wolf Run and pumps that Beast for all it’s worth. I manage to not draw another land that I needed and he has me dead in a few turns.
Sideboarding: -4 Pillar, +4 Cackler
Since I was on the play, I wanted to just race with my creatures and win early. Pillar is kinda useless in this MU because it only kills a Huntmaster and a Wolf token.
Game Three: This match I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but it was a perfect balance of creatures and kill spells for the both of us. I’d play a guy and it would die. He’s play a guy and it would die. I started to get some hits here and there with my haste critters: Zealout and Aristocrat. I managed to bring him to 11 before we got into a topdeck war. He topdecked a Keyrune. I draw and play a land. He draws a Kessig Wolf Run and beats me down with a pumped Keyrune. I draw another land. He beats me down again. I draw another land and extend my hand.
Loss. 1-2
It seems like my deck just failed on me Game 2. I really believe that I had the goods to beat him, but I just needed the mana. Also, Keyrunes are amazing.
Record: 2-1
Round 4 VS 4 Color Reanimator
This deck is piloted my good buddy and testing partner. Not really somebody I wanted to play right now, but I knew this would be an interesting game.
Game One: More fuzzy details here, but I mounted an early offense which was derailed by a miracle’d Bonfire. He began to Mulch and Salvage at an alarming rate until he hit the goods. I played a Thundermaw Hellkite and swung, bringing him to 4. He reanimated Griselbrand on his turn and used a Deathrite Shaman to gain some life back. On my turn I draw a land and pass. He miracles another Bonfire, for 6, and then attacks me. I’m down to 3. I draw a Brimstone Volley, but it’s not enough. He’s at 13 with all that lifegain, so I just extend my hand.
Sideboarding: -4 Pillar, -2 Thundermaw, -2 Brimstone Volley, -1 Cackler, +2 Dreadbore, +2 Sever the Bloodline, +3 Slaughter Games, +2 Rakdos Charm, +2 Zealous Conscripts
Game Two: There really isn’t too much to report here. I was on the play and curved out with Cackler into Zealot, into Koi, and then into Aristocrat. He played a couple of Deathrite Shamans and whiffed on some Mulches. I beat him down hard and fast. On to game three!
Sideboarding: -3 cackler, +2 Olivia, +1 Thundermaw
I swear, I think I have almost my entire SB in at this point, except for the Mortars.
Game Three: I witness the stonecold nuts from the Reanimator deck. He’s on the play and a turn 2 Mulch places Griselbrand, a Craterhoof, and an Unburial Rites into the ‘yard. On turn three he Grisly Salvages (I forget what he keeps) and on turn four, he’s rain’ ‘brand. I had put a few guys on the board, but I didn’t have an answer for this. He swings into me on his turn five, draws a brick, and then plays some Deathrite Shamans and a Centaur healer. I topdeck a Sever and tell Griselbrand to go home. However, next turn, he miracles a Bonfire to wipe my field and then casts Unburial Rites on Craterhoof Behemoth to wipe me out.
Loss. 1-2
Record: 2-2
Well, overall the tournament wasn’t really what I expected. However it did give me a chance to reevaluate my sideboard. I think I want 1 more Rakdos Charm and I think I’m going to yank the Mortars out. Olivia has been kinda meh so I expect an overhaul on the board at some point.
Since I didn’t get much Thundermaw action in Dos Rakis like I wanted, afterwards we went to the bar down the street (as usual) for beer and more magic. I pulled out my version of Sledgehammer with the Bonfires in it and played everybody there. I faced Bant, several Jund, a WB Exalted deck, and a GW agro deck. I must’ve played about 20-30 games.
And I never lost a game.
I think I know what I’m playing next week at FNM.
Thunder! Thunder! Thundermaw! HO!
As for the SB, I've cut Olivia because she isn't as good as she was a few weeks ago. If you're on the 4 Hellkite plan md, I don't think you can run Zealous Conscripts in the side ~ six 5 drops is too much. I would probably run two traitorous blood.
Mizzium Mortars is often just a bad dreadbore / sever in my experience, so that gives you some space.
Since Sledgehammer is doing so well for you ~ what are your approaches to the other key matchups?
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
For Daily Event 4485666:
Round 1 - Jund (2-0)
The only thing I can recall from this is that my opponent decided to activate his Rakdos Keyrune to chump block my Stonewright in game 2 and it got speared instantly (I'm really surprised he fell for that).
Round 2 - G/W Midrange (1-2)
Had my opponent down to 1 life and at 9 in game 1 but he had an exalted angel and I wound up drawing a mountain :(. Him having rancor in his opening hand for game 3 pretty much won him the game once I ran out of removal for his creatures.
Round 3 - 4-Color Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1 was a typical Sledgehammer game with Hellkite and burn finishing him off even with Thragtusk on board. Just barely won game 3 before Grisselbrand could wreck things.
Round 4 - Bant Control (2-0)
I don't know which was funnier - my opponent going up to 28 life and losing game 2 or that I won without even needing Hellkite or that he had to use Sensory Deprivation on my Cackler before removing it with Detention Sphere because another Cackler was soulbonded with Stonewright. Siding in Traitorous Blood did help a lot as did using Searing Spear on a TB Thragtusk to give me the token.
For Daily Event 445674:
Round 1 - U/W Humans (2-0)
Two straight games with a double striking Geist? Thank you, Ash Zealot!
Round 2 - Jund (2-1)
For game 1 my opponent had 3 Thragtusks. Luckily he only had 2 in game 2 and also decided to chump block one of them when I used Traitorous Blood. Devil's Play helped finish him off that game while game 3 wasn't even close.
Round 3 - Junk Tokens (1-2)
I'm not sure if this is just a terrible matchup for us or if he just had a nut draw g2 (from a mull to 5 no less) where he was able to use multiple Restoration Angels on Thragtusk to overcome a double Hellkite on my side.
Round 4 - G/W Aggro (2-0)
Game 1 my opponent twice used Selesnya Charm to create tokens, once to chump block a Chainwalker. I doubt he would have done that he he expected a turn 5 Hellkite! Still, Rancor on the second token and soulbonding it with Silverheart nearly won him the game. He got mana screwed game 2 as I removed all his mana dorks and beat face with my small creatures.
The land count has been fine for me at 24, except for the game where I got stuck at 3 but hey, that's MTG for ya. As for the 2 Conscripts, I just swapped them out for two Thundermaws and had a 2/2 split. Six 5-drops is definitely too much, I agree with you there.
I certainly agree with your assessment of Mortars in Dos Rakis. They're coming out.
Jund seems to be taking off in my area. Jund players (and I use this term loosely since most are just really...bad) can't handle the constant pressure from Hellrider and Thundermaw and all the little critters when you get an "aggro" draw. On the other hand, when it comes to a board stall, Bonfire is a blow-out and so is a charged Crucible.
The GW Aggro was actually kind of tough. I think I just got kind of lucky. Bonfire seemed to just come out and save me before I was gonna eat it, and then I would drop a dragon and ride it to victory. Mortars and Flames of the Firebrand are absolutely necessary postboard.
Bant was a nightmare, actually. I think it I just had some good luck and experience working in my favor. The first game I played went for awhile and he Entreated for like a million. I laid down my 9th land and Bonfired for 4 to shut the angels down. After that I just kept getting in there with Hellrider. Postboard, I had 4 Mortars in there and I was ready for the Entreat when it happened. The planeswalkers were kind of a problem, especially Tamiyo. He'd boardwipe and then lock down the one guy I would play. Then a GoST comes down and goes to town. Again, a miracle Bonfire is just a blowout there. We played about 4-5 games and every time I'd win it be just barely. Then he says I'm just really lucky and too stubborn to learn when to not play red. I replied, "Well the joke's on you if you think blue is the thinking man's color. Cuz it's not. Red is the thinking man's color." We stopped playing after that.
The WB exalted deck I played is really not worth mentioning. It's just...not good.
Now even though I won all those games, I also realize that most of the players in my area are just not that great. Good guys they all are, but there's a few really good players and then there's the rest. For example, I played a lot of Jund decks, but the one that really gives me a hard time is my brother's. He's a very experienced player and is either 1st or 2nd at most of the FNMs. When he gets behind his Jund, he's very formidable. Put somebody else behind that same deck and it's not even fair for them most of the time.
Anyway, I really want to play some other MUs with it. Especially against Reanimator (I missed my chance at the bar for a rematch :/).
I built the Sledgehammer deck just to mess around with in case I got bored with Dos Rakis, and honestly, I'm having more fun with it. I'm going to try to get more games in with it this week.
I'm glad someone can play the deck well
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
That blue mage sounds like a stereotypical ego-tripping spike that needs his power cards to feel smart ~ I try not to let dolts like that get to me now.
I'll be really interested to follow your results ~ I'm not getting to play much at the moment so I need to vicariously live through others
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com