Today, a played in a sealed grand prix trial that was hosted at the local game shop. I've had pretty good luck with zendikr sealed so i figured id try my hand at my 1st zendikar gpt experience. I got a pretty solid sealed pool that had a bomb in every color. White:emeria angel, blue:sphinx of lost truths, black:(not so bomby, just decent) blood tribute, red: chndra ablaze, green:beastmasters ascension
Round One-gbr allies
I found out that allies was better in zendikar limited than ithought, i had decided on a red white build because i felt that a hyper agrresive deck that supported both chandra and emeria angel because i felt they were my strongest cards and colors. I lost to lots of five five two and three mana aliies, and apparenty goblin bushwacker and steppe lynx just cannot compete with that. Game two I found out he had both blade of the bloodchief and beastmasters ascension.
Round Two-gw allies
My second allies deck of the day, i was scared of facing, because one i had just lost to an allies deck, and tow had just changed my colors from red white to red blue, and ended up being pretty siccesful wiining to games with this build by milling with hedron crab, or beating with 3/2 intimadators
Round 3-ub aliies
I was playing for the top four and had once again chanced my colors to red green so i had the beastmasters ascension. Game ine i might have had a chance, but my one red source was shut off when he played a spreading seas on my mountain, i couldnt draw another mountain and every card in hand was red. Game two, I think from turn two on he dropped an ally that got a plus one plus one counter. He won 2-0 and i ended up dropping, but got some real power trading in. I picked up three 30$ chinese dark depths and a regular english 25$ one as well as a day of judgement a merit lage toke, a vendilion clique, 2 ball lightning, a jace beleren, and a gemstone caverns for an ajani venjeant, 2 foil dauntless escorts, and 4 knotvine paladins. So, i made close to 100$ on that trade. Then one of his friend shad 3 misty rainforest and 1 arid mesa, which i got for 3 chandra naxalaar, 2 underworld dreams, 4 hellspark elemental, and a drowned catacombs. So I made like 30$40 there, and later I traded to a foil violent ultimatum for a foil flagstones of trokair, plus a got 3 ball lightnings for 2 silences, so even though i wasted 30$ on the sealed i was happy to have mde my money on some trading. Happy gaming, see you at grand prix tampa
When you've been playing magic for a while, you see that good cards and decks tend to endure the tale of time. Because of this you will always see repeating trends in this game. If you have been playing for a while you remember when dragonstorm combo was the deck to beat. So some guy came up with this deck called snow white, a deck that utlized matyr of sands to gain lots of life and put you out of range of a dragonstorm attack.
So, if you've been keeping track of extended and pro tour austin, you probably know that the four big decks are: hypergensis, dark depths combo, naya zoo, and next level blue decks. Other then that there is dredge, and mono red burn. Aside from mono blue all these decks essentially function by trying to deal lots of damage as soon as possible whether by dropping lots of creatures and swarming, or comboing or burning you out. Well, snow white has great match ups against all of those decks.
Lately I have been winning a lot of events, trying to get my rating up and get back onto the train that is the pro tour. Today I top foured at another tournament, playing my five color cascade.
Round One-Naya Landfall
This was kind of a janky deck. He dropped a lot of sub par creatures like steppe lynx(bad kitty) and plated geopede. I just cascaded into answers, and that was the match.
2-0 win
2-0 in games
1-0 in matches
Round Two-Jund
This guy hads a really good deck that ended up winning the event. Game one I won , pretty easily, with multiple cruel ultimatums.
Games two and three I boarded incorrectly and he got god draws consisting of bloodbraids into jund hackblades and multiples of blightning, that is what really hurt me.
1-2 loss
3-2 in games
1-1 in matches
Round Three-Esper Control
Two guys came into this tournament playing this deck, and afterwards they both tore in apart, saying how bad it was. I won pretty easily, shutting him out with cruel ultimatums and easily winning.
Round Four-turbofog
At this point I had to play and win to make top four, bit who nedds intentional draes anyways, those are four good players. Right? Well, playing against turbofog is my favorite match up still because its a really really hard match up, but I come out wth 60/40 odds in my favor. Game one I started out slow, but managed to pull out with well timed burn and hand disruption. Game tow i got decked. game three, i burned him out with ssideboarded anathemancers
top 4
Semifinals-vampyres
Red black vampires with a home brew twist, and was terrilbe, but somehow managed to top 4, but, i handily disposed of him, with quick removal, riding on the back of play skill. 2-0 win
Finals-Jund again
he won again, apparently its just not a good matchup
Last night, I got to play in my first standard fnm with Zendikar. I played five cascade, starting with chapin's list, and then ten minutes before the tournament I realized that his list sucked, and I should probally be playing jace in a control deck. Duh.
Round One-Grixis Control/Sphinx control
If you read the star cit games articles you probally saw this list wednesday. Its a deck running lots of sub par planeswalkers and for sphinx of lost truths, hoping to generate enough generate enough card advantage to somehow win. Game On i reslve an ajani vejeant and he has no answer. Game two he gets a lot of card advantage and wins. Game Three he has an active liliana, chandra, and jace. He wins.
1-2 lose
Round Two-Esper Control
I have no idea were this deck idea came out of, but i know it was god awful. I just gained control of the game and cascaded the way to victory.
2-0 win
Round 3-Naya Zoo
It was interesting build, and he had fast creatures but i always had answers.
2-0 win
Round 4-turbofog
This was honestly the best matchup I have played in years. Had to actually play a tight matchup, were everthing depended highly on play skill. Game one we both plsyed tight games, and on the turn i would have won, he ended up archive trapping for the win. Next game, I went triple blightning, into haunting echoes. Game Three, was good. He drop an eternity vessel for 17, and I just plsyed around it. Using blightning and esper charm to keep him away from having any lands.
2-1 win
Top 4
Vs. Mono White Control
This was the deck that ended up winning. He had a really synergetic deck, using the rare whit eland that returns creatures to essentially recur his board, and elsbeth, baneslayer, knight captain of eos, and wall of revernece. The rest of the deck was a straight up ramp into Iona, using kor catographer and knight of the white orchid. He just really beat my deck hard, but i think the situation ma have been different, had I resolved identity crisis or haunting echoes.
0-2 lose
I came in third place, and at least did not lose ny points off my rating.
For the time being until pro tour:austin, im just gonna be just talking about extended decks and whats gonna be at pro tour:austin, if its even relative to anyone who reads these blogs.
One of the decks that been brought to the table, and is expected to make up the majority of the pro tour, is next level blue. Next level blue, much like faires is a multi colored aggro-control deck. I typical build of this is blue-green, lightly splashing some colors here nad there for tarmogyf and engineered explosives.
Instead of the typical next level blue, a lot of pros are now suggesting that next level blue should go blue-green-black, and run the dark depths combo. This may/may not be a bad idea. On the upside the blue allows you to definetly keep your 20/20 avatar on the board by protecting it with counter backup, and also allowing you to have good game one matchuos against dumb decks like hypergenesis. It may be a viable idea, and I'm definetly testing it for the pro tour. By the way if your going to the last chance qualifier, do not play aggro, because in this standard format, everyone is gonna be playing control, and if you can keep a creature on board you'll be pretty lucky.
Extended pro tour qualifier is right around the corner, kicking off in a few weeks with pro tour:austin. Right now, there is a lot of discusion going on about what to play? One deck that has been brought tp the table is Hypergenesis.
If you have no clue about what hypergenesis is, or what it does, let me explain it quick. Hypergenesis was/is a deck that surfaced towards the end of last extended season winning a few big events. The deck revolves around resolving a demonic dread,ardent plea, or a violent outburst and hitting a hypergenesis, using it to drop a bunch of fat creatures.
Game One this deck is a lot like dredge, but more efficient, meaning you probally win that game. The problem with the deck is that after game one your opponenets can bring in about 10 diferent cards against you the most prominent being ethersworn cannonist,thoughtsieze,meddling,mage,chailice of the void, trinisphere, or thought hemorrage. Anyone of those cards that are played against you and stay on the board will certaintly result in a game loss for you. Thats not to say though that hypergenesis does not also have very strong boarding options. Since it plays five colors, you have easy acces to the lorwyn elementals:shriekmaw, ignot chewer, or aethersnipe. You also have wipe away,volcanic fallout, and toils of night and day as your popular boarding options.
Overall, the deck is very strong, and a definite tier one deck choice for this extended season, as long as you can play around the hate. Whether your playing at an extended pro tour or you are playing at the local gamestore you better come prepared with enough sideboard hate, otherwise you might be losing to a hypergenesis off the top of the deck.
So, the local game shop was running a second zendikar release on sunday for the people who were unable to attend friday night, or just people who wanted to experience the Zendikar selaed again . This time I had almost an equally as good deck list:
8 island
8 swamp
1 gruul daz intimadator
1 grim discovery
2 crypt ripper
1 windrider eel
1 vampire nighthawk
1 quest for the gravelord
2 giant scorpion
1 adventuring gear
2 welkin tern
1 sky ruin drake
1 surrakar maruader
1 gatekeeper of malakir
1 vampires bite
1mind sludge
1 cancel
1 whiplash trap
1 vampire hexmage
1 gruul daz specter foil
1 bloodchief ascension
1 rite of replication
Round One Green White Allies
Game One Im on the dra because of the time my opponent lets me draw or I will always chose to do so. Turn One is pass and go and on my turn two i drop a surrakadar marauder. He dropped an ally, and i dropped a giant scorpion. I swung in with both dropping him to 17. He drops another sub par ally, I kee the scorpion back to block, and Im able swing in with the marauder. I add to my force with another flier in the form of the specter. He can not stop all of the flying. Game Two once agian i would prefer to draw, and he starts of the gae with a kazanda blademaster. I curve out perfectly with a turn one vamp, turn tow adventuring gear equip, turn three giant scrpion. and a turn four crypt ripper, he scoops
Round Two-Black White
My opponent is one of th many semi pros and pros that frequent the area. Unluckily for me I did not know he was mong my league. and kept sub par hands both games, game one with 5 lands thinking i would curve out on the draw. 0-2 lose
Round Three Blue Black Ob Nixis
Another pro, I knew him from years of playtesting, and was happy to see him again after a succesful three month tour of the europeon grand prix circuit. These were the closest games all day with him always playing ob nixis but me having the rite of replication to kill him. There was one game were he was at two and i was at nine and the only for him to win was to drop three lands to give his crocidle the win, but instead he kicked a rite of replication on my crypt ripper, and somehow managed to win the game. I dropped being one two and traded my way into a baneslayer angel and some other stuff for my four color control deck. could some one please tell me how tp use the deck posting thing.
So, after a week of Zendikar a lot of people have started to accept four color control as the new tier one behemoth. This blue black white red control deck seems really good for the very aggro intensive format that zendikar is pushing. last night in addition to coming to 3rd in the release i had time to try my hand in a little standard with zendikar, playinght efour color control.
Round One-Warp World
Game One I play and drop a crumpling necropolis and pass. He goes Land BOP pass. Then he drops a lotus cobra fetch and another cobra plus a bop. I drop a land a exotic orchard and pyroclasm. He scoops up his cards. Game 2 he plays again and i have bolts and pyro clasms. We sit ther eand I cant draw a win condition, so when he warp worlds i have a negate.
2-0 win
Round Two-Time Sieve
Game one he has a three archive traps in his opening hand, and i have a 1st turn fetch. Game Two I burn out his tezzeret and his howling mines give me to much card advantage. Game Three I dont play early fetch lands, and while he is going off he decides that he should get rid off an arhive trap with some extra mana, but i had a twincast to get him for the win.
Round Three-Blue White Baneslayer
I just had 2 mana cruel ultimatums for himto handle and he was playing more of an aggro approach than the control approach.
Top Eight
Quarterfinals-Mirror Four Color Control
When other semi pros come and play the tier one decks against you its always challenging. Game one half of our decks were dead because the deck is made to combat aggro. He got cruel when i had negates and i had negates when he had cruels, and game one came down to the fact that he had fallouts where i had pyroclasms. I boarded into 4 archive traps and twincasts for the cruel ultimatums, and i boarded out to of the cruels. Game two i got a turn three jace turn 4 ajani venjeant and a turn 5 baneslayer angel, winning the game. Game three, we both got jaced. I got hit by jace for twenty and then dropped my jace to mill him for the win.
Semifinals-Mono Red Aggro
It was really really fast. I had not played against a super fast aggro deck yet, so game one he caught me off guard with the turn oe gobli guide turn two lotus cobra turn 3 bloodbraid elf. I had no answer. My board was not prepared for this guy because game one i did not see he ran ball llightnin, elemental appeal, and hellspark elemetal, but i boarded in haunting echoes. I ended up winnig the gane with haunting echoes by having well placed spot removal for his creatures and being able to turn 5 haunting echoes wrecking at least 23 cards frm his deck. Game three he had to much stuff again.
I walked away with 12 packs from that event, happy with being able to collect more of the rare zendikar.
So, not having been able to go to the prerelease, i was certainly excited to be able to go to the release last night. So, when I busted into my first few packs a was excited to see an arid mesa, and a misty rainforest. My sealed was pretty decent being littered with removal and having a few bombs, but some of the peoples were not so decent and the ended up paying thirty dollars to get six new packs.
So I ended up with a very solid blue black build.
Round One-Blue Black with double sorin
Honestly I have no clue how I won that match because Game On hes on the play and sixth turn he drops sorin while im still sitting in three land. I kept dropping dudes and eventually hit a fourth land and a into the roil with kicker attached to take the game. Game Two I just powered out because I got early good creatres like vampire lacerator and gruul daz vampire and late game support like halo hunter to win and always kept spell pierce mana up if he was to drop sorin
Zendikar brought a lot of cards to the general magic the gathering metagame, from standard to vintage and every format in between. That means new decks and a lot of them, so for every day to the prerelease im gonna put uo a decklist that was succesful at the constructed with zendikar side events at regional prerealeses. Since I just wrote about knight of the reliquary, I'm gonna write about a deck that tokk one of these side events: Reliquary Razor
3 Realm Razor
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Noble Hierach
4 Knight of The Relliquary
4 Lotus Cobra
1 steward of valeron
3 Baneslayer Angel
the deck is really interestng it rvolves around acclerating your mana either into a realm razor or baneslayer angel stright up on turn two or three, or by getting you summoners trap and hitting a realm razor or baneslayer. Late game the knight of the reliquary is a house, since you can net lands like crazy. I was talking to the creator of this contraption after the the tournamnet. He had some rough mathcups, with red white control and mono black vampires in abundance, and also got paired up with a five color aggro deck in th finals. He said that he chose to run terramorphics instead of an additional set of playsets, because the net your basic lnd sthe smae way as a fetch without the life lose. Also, he said the one of cruel won him more matchups as a top deck then anything, by being a game swinging card, and essentially recurring a realm razor. Its a solid list and definetly worth playtesting.