In other news, my first big tournament! After seeing how well it has performed (and realizing that it is exactly the type of deck that I love to play), I decided to build a version of Mythic Conscription. So...here it is!
While I mostly stuck to the archetype, I made a couple of adjustments that seemed to me to make the deck a little more consistent. I ran 3 Mul Daya Channelers and 1 Rafiq of the Many over 4 Rhox War Monk because of their versatility and aggro possibility. The Mul Daya Channelers are going to either be a massive threat big enough to get through anything in Jund or a hyper-accelerator, giving me another way to get to 6 mana on turn 3. Rafiq of the Many is...well...Rafiq of the Many. I decided to cut Qasali Pridemage in favor of Nature's Claim since people seem to be favoring removal over counterspells.
Anyway, on to the matches!
MATCH 1: vs. Acid Ramp
Land destruction is always fun (/sarcasm). A fantastic game 1 spoiled by...well...I'll explain in the next match.
Record: 1-2
Overall: 0-1
MATCH 2: vs. W/B Rogue
This guy was running an interesting mix of board wipe/spot removal (Day of Judgment, Marsh Casualties) and board re-establishment (Emeria Angel, Bloodghast). In both games of this match (and in games 2 and 3 of the previous match), I encountered one of two possibilities: 1.) I drew exactly three Sovereigns of Lost Alara and 5 mana, or 2.) I drew plenty of mana but none of my threats, including man-lands.
Turn 4 Eldrazi Conscription seemed pretty good in Game 1. Game 2 was more of a loss for him than a win for me, as he kept a one-land hand that he thought had multiple lands. Even so, he came one mana short of Time Warp followed but Time Sieve.
Hm, I feel this should be a worse match-up for me than it was. He killed a couple of my accelerators, but I played more threats than he could deal with.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 4-2
MATCH 7: vs. Jund
Another person I know! Faced off against Taylor from the BatCave. Now, for the match...F@&$in' F$%# JUND! Game 1 was a blowout in my favor, which made me quite happy. Game 2 was the most frustrating game I have had in a long time. I got him down to 1...1 BLOODY LIFE! He stayed there...for several turns. Finally, he dropped two consecutive Broodmate Dragon, which proved too much for my creatures. Game 3 was almost as frustrating, as I got him down to 3 before he killed me with Malakir Bloodwitch.
I am perfectly content with placing at my first major tournament, especially because I was 6 ridiculously bad draws away from going 8-0 (yes, I realize that this would have changed my match-ups). Even so, I love this deck. Not only that, but my matches are over one way or another REALLY quickly. I had at least 20 minutes to spare in almost every round.
Well, it finally happened. Boss Naya is officially dead to three types of decks: control, control, and super control. Huzzah. In response to the metagame activating this ability, I cast Big Naya, my new deck archetype meant to combat board wipe, planeswalkers, and auras, the three most prevalent win methods in Standard right now. So, here goes...
Ended up going 3-0 today, but against decks it should beat.
MATCH 1: vs. Naya Eldrazi Spawn
Game 1: 6 lands (including man-lands) and a Baneslayer Angel seemed decent enough in my opening hand, considering the likelihood of drawing something to play...I didn't until the turn I could play Baneslayer. He overwhelmed me before I could establish position. Games 2 & 3: No contest. The deck worked how it was supposed to. Enlisted Wurm into Bloodbraid Elf into Knight of the Reliquary seemed pretty good.
Record: 2-1
Overall: 1-0
MATCH 2: vs. U/W Aggro-Control
Both games she got stuck on a little too much land and not quite enough to do. I was only sad that, in Game 2, she Path to Exile'd my first Baneslayer Angel, then did the same thing to the second Baneslayer Angel I played on the next turn, which Cascaded from Enlisted Wurm.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 2-0
MATCH 3: vs. Ally Mill
I love this deck so much. I also love that my deck has built-in resistance to it in the form of Knight of the Reliquary. "I force you to mill 20 cards." Next turn, "Okay...I hit you with a 15/15..." These games went pretty quickly.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 3-0
I would love to test this out against U/W Control, U/W Tapout, or R/W/U Planeswalker Control, as that around what this deck is specifically built. I shall see how this new archetype works out. The sad thing is that, after a week of repeated losses and general despair about Boss Naya, it has placed highly in several PTQs. WT☺☺☺☺?
Same deck list as last week, so I will not bother posting it.
MATCH 1: vs. R/G Tokens
Super Smash Face Brawl. He could not establish enough of a board position before I got the Naya engine going.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 1-0
MATCH 2: vs. Jund
Game 1: Jund hates Behemoth Sledge. 'Nuff said.
Game 2: Speeding into a Malakir Bloodwitch really helped his cause, as I was unable to get enough going through his removal to get him down past about 10.
Game 3: A hard-fought match that left me a single turn away from drawing the Bloodbraid Elf I needed to reanimate Vengevine and swing for game. This marks my first loss to Jund in a long time.
Record: 1-2
Overall: 1-1
MATCH 3-5: R/W/U Planeswalker Control
Yes, I played against almost the exact same deck for three rounds in a row...and it wasn't Jund! Yes, it seems that Jund has been replaced as the most popular deck in the local metagame for the first time since I have been playing again. And there was much rejoicing (yay...). In each of these matches, it was a race to establish board position: could I get a swarm of creatures (with reserve Bloodbraid Elf or Ranger of Eos in my hand in case of Day of Judgment or Martial Coup) before he could get any combination Wall of Omens, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and Gideon Jura to lock me down? Strangely enough, the edge went to me in a match-up that should be TERRIBLE for Boss Naya. Perhaps my slight adjustments to the basic Boss Naya build have helped it make up some ground against the control match-ups. Perhaps, as they say, R/W/U Planeswalker Control is simply a difficult deck to play. Perhaps none of this discussion matters and I just got lucky. Regardless, I went 2-1 in matches against the deck.
Record: 2-0, 1-2, 2-0
Overall: 3-2
Not a terrible record considering the decks against which I am playing. While I am unable to attend the PTQ tomorrow as a result of a lack of money, I will almost definitely be at Nationals Qualifiers next weekend. Until then!
Ran through a few decks. Only tough match was White Weenies, which I beat 2-0. Decided to draw the final match on the basis of time.
Standard @ Guardian Games (Portland, OR)
Okay, I lied. I'll post the actual games on this one.
MATCH 1: vs. G/U Aggro
It was the guy's first tournament and he was playing with a deck with more than 60 cards. Match 1 to me.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 1-0
MATCH 2: vs. Open the Vaults
I was quite excited for this match, as I had never played against it. Game 1 was a toss-up, but I ended up pulling it out due to a well-placed Oblivion Ring and a huge tempo advantage. In Game 2, he had to mulligan down to 5 cards and never really picked back up.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 2-0
MATCH 3: vs. Jund
Obligatory Jund match #1. First game, I swung with a 5/5 double striking, trampling, lifelinking Kor Duelist to put the game out of reach. Second game, he drew nothing but CiPT lands, while I drew, double Noble Hierarch, double Wild Nacatl and enough land to pump them.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 3-0
MATCH 4: vs. Jund
Obligatory Jund match #2. I do not usually say this about Jund, but I loved how this guy built his deck. Nest Invader and Sarkhan the Mad are great additions to the base list.
Game 1: Similar result to Game 1 in the previous match. Too much trample and lifelink before the Jund engine got going. Game 1 to me.
Game 2: This game went back and forth for a while, neither of us able to draw any win conditions. Finally, he got out Sarkhan the Mad and turned his second Malakir Bloodwitch into a 5/5 Dragon, which sealed the win.
Ugh. This was bad from the start. Allies always seem to give me trouble, as it is one of the only Standard decks that swarms as quickly as the Boss Naya archetype, but with creatures that grow even larger than most of the Boss Naya creatures. It did not help that, in the second game, my misplay of Gideon Jura (choosing to destroy one of his Hada Freeblade instead of making everything attack) cost me the second game.
Record: 0-2
Overall: 4-1
3rd Place
Highest place at Guardian Games yet! Still need to work on not making those stupid play mistakes. We'll see how this deck works at PTQs next weekend!
This is definitely (read: possibly) the final deck list for CEO Naya...for a while, at least. The bad news is that I came one turn from playing for a top spot. The good news is that I ended up getting 5th, which marks my first place at Guardian Games!
Pretty easy sweep. He dropped turn two and three Lotus Cobras both games, but I drew too much removal for it to matter much.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 1-0
MATCH 2: vs. U/W Control
I was pretty scared for this match-up, as I have had trouble with it in the past.
Game 1: He got stuck on three lands, which allowed me to build up enough of a force to win.
Game 2: I dropped an early Knight of the Reliquary after 2 sac-lands. After top-decking a second, I decided to hold it in case of a Day of Judgement. Good play on my part, as the bomb came the very next turn. I played the second Knight, which finished him off.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 2-0
MATCH 3: vs. Vampires
Whew, was this a close match. For the third time in a row against Vamps, the match came down to the final turn of post-round turns. Surprise, surprise, he dropped a Vampire Nocturnus and flipped over a black card. Sigh.
Record: 1-2
Overall: 2-1
MATCH 4: vs. Jund
I have been struggling much more with this match-up than I should, considering the deck. Game 1 contained a major revelation for me...Broodmate Dragon and its mate are...well, dragons...meaning that Baneslayer Angel is immune to them. Totally changed my sideboard against Jund.
Record: 2-0
Overall: 3-1
MATCH 5: vs. Polymorph
I was lucky enough to have seen how this guy's deck functions during one of the first few rounds. Since he needs a creature to sacrifice to Polymorph, I made sure to remove each and every creature he played, even down to the teeny Plant tokens from Khalni Garden. Knowing this resulted in a fairly quick match.
Well, it's been quite a while since I posted! Naya Blade has gone through quite a few variations, and continues to see adjustments almost weekly. The newest version looks something like this:
FNM tomorrow at Amazing Stories, followed by a possible Saturday tournament at the BatCave, then the weekly Sunday tourney down at Guardian Games. Let's see if this version is a little faster.
I would like to wish everyone a very happy Decemberween/Festivus/Christmas. Also, a happy holidays to all the others.
Currently gearing up for a Standard Tournament at the BatCave tomorrow. I adjusted my deck to have a little less protection and a little more aggro/control. Here is the newest decklist for the deck now called Naya Blade:
Well, I can most definitely say that this deck is getting progressively better. Definitely still needs work, but it has improved each tournament in which it has played.
The last time I played a Standard tournament at Guardian Games (my first Standard tournament ever), I lost...badly. In fact, I did not win a single match and only won one game. At the time, the deck was attempting to be a mono-green Landfall deck that overwhelmed the opponents with more creatures than they could handle. Turns out that Standard has PLENTY of control right now. Needless to say, my strategy did not work.
Learning from my enemies, I added a control element to the deck (Silence, Lapse of Certainty, Path to Exile, Oblivion Ring). I took this version to the Batcave a few weeks later, where it performed moderately. While I only won the one match, I squandered an almost certain win in Round 2 on a misplay. Consistency had become my primary enemy, which left me with no choice but to cut the deck back down to 60 cards and make a few more changes.
In celebration of Winter Break, I decided to grab my Standard and head down to Guardian Games to test out this new iteration. I removed a bit of the control from the maindeck and threw in three Knight of the Reliquary, which served me quite well.
I did not keep track of each individual game, but here is the general feel of each round.
Round 1: G/W Knightfall vs. G/W/B Rock
I do not particularly remember this round, only that I was swept pretty decently. Apparently this guy wins the tournament weekly. He maintained board control throughout both games before playing a midgame killer. Typical Rock.
Result: 0-2
Overall: 0-1
Round 2: G/W Knightfall vs. G/W/U Bantfall
This guy, admittedly, build this deck in his spare time the other day for fun. Whatever the case may be, it did not turn out too fortunately for him.
Game 1: While he threw a few threats my way, my Gigantiform'd Scute Mob proved a bit too much for his underwhelming defense.
Game 2: A tale of two shortages. He failed to draw more than two mana for the majority of the game. I failed to draw a single threat for the first half of the game, save for a Knight of the Reliquary that he immediately Path to Exile'd. I had so little to do that I did not feel the least bad using Oblivion Ring on both of the Llanowar Elves he got out in order to disrupt his mana flow. After what seemed like an hour, I got out a Baloth Woodcrasher with a Terramorphic Expanse to say GG.
Result: 2-0
Overall: 1-1
Round 3: G/W Knightfall vs. G/W Soldiers
This is the reason I hate the white Planeswalkers.
Game 1: Oi, this one killed my soul a little. Not because I got crushed (which I did not). Not because he controlled the board (which he did not). No, my soul died a little because every single one of the cards that would have won me the game ended up in the bottom third of my library. All 4 Baloth Woodcrasher, one Rampaging Baloths (he Path to Exile'd the other), both Gigantiform, both Overrun, both Whispersilk Cloak, and Garruk Wildspeaker. Almost 1/4 of my deck ended up in the bottom 1/3.
Game 2: I would rather have lost like this the first game. Quick and easy-like.
Result: 0-2
Overall: 1-2
Round 4: G/W Knightfall vs. G/R Beatdown
I do not really know what to call this deck, because I never got to see how it functioned. In both games, I Gigantiform'd a Birds of Paradise for both much laughter and a solid win. The entire match took barely more than 10 minutes.
Result: 2-0
Overall: 2-2
Say goodbye to this variation. While the deck is performing significantly better, I realize now what this deck truly needs to be: Nayafall. Or, rather, Naya Strike. So...hello, red! If the Batcave is having their weekly Standard tournament on Wednesday, I may find out how good it is sooner rather than later.