Why do my victories slip by, and my losses stay with me forever... Nagging me into eternity, and causing me to think, and rethink my plans, and wonder what would have happened if I had done things differently... If I hadn't been watching GGsLive at the same time...
So, overall, I was 6-1 day one, 7-2 day two.
My first game out of the blocks was my only loss on day one. It was against a junk (WBG) ramp deck, with all the things you'd expect for that match-up, but he had even more colorless lands, which was perhaps my undoing. Game one, he was on 5 lands, with two colorless lands, a forest, another basic, and a green dual. He slimes me, down to like 4 lands. (aka Irrelevant). I look at my hand, with no real pressure, but two Metamorphs. I see I can take him off double-green, and double anything else for at least a turn, and off either white or black entirely by killing the dual, and my eyes get big, and I slam down the Metamorph as a slime. I even have another, to slime him off another land, which I do the next turn. Take that ramp deck!
Anyone see the problem with that? My opponents deck has something like 75 mana sources in it, and my current plan if all goes according to plan is beating down with a grizzly bear, after he trades off the slimes.
Well, turns out he has a few dozen more lands in hand, despite his apparent weakness with almost no colored sources in play, and he puts down a Grave Titan, and I'm ground into the dirt. If I save those metamorphs for him to play his natural grave titan or whatever the next turn, I can get two of THAT, how does that game play out? He can't kill either, without wrathing. And I can burn his slime.
Game two, I cast faithless looting, and click a little too fast, and discard the wrong card (because the cards shift left). Without that, I ultimate Koth on my mull to 5, and I'm probably winning that game too. GARG!
I am a bit upset after those games, but I rattle off 6 more match wins, with only 2 game losses among them. A Burning Vengeance casual deck, esper control, esper delver (won narrowly preventing an on-board Red/White sword from killing me), a 20x spellbomb/4x Ancient Grudge/4x Liquimetal coating/ 12x sweeper deck (surprisingly good against me if they have a coating, just like the "block deck" with all manic vandals), junk tokens, and the one-drop mono-red non-mirror. (Goblin Fireslinger and Tezzeret's Gambit are not the same strategy).
I'd call 3-4 of those wins as being against actual decks , played semi-competently. So that's good.
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Day two, I start off with a couple wins, against UB control.This deck just doesn't seem like it can beat any of my threats, be they Noble, Shrine, or Koth. I even have better card advantage than them, with Gambit and flashbacks. They can't let any of my spells resolve, and no non-counterspell answer deals with more than one of them. I'd play against this match-up all day if possible. Curse does little, BSZ is on the border of too slow, Koth is an auto-win, etc.
Then I hit the wall of a crazy "ramp" deck, that appears to be BRW (no green!).
Game one I mull to 5, have noble into Berserker on the play, but his Sphere gets him to 4, and fixes his terrible mana to cast a day of judgement (or he was dead the next turn to the last card in my hand - a Volt Charge + proliferate Noble + Berserker). He uses the second counter to cast something terrible, and the last to cast a Grave Titan. Grave Titan against mull to 5 - pretty good.
Game two I go Noble into Berserker into miss land drop into Gambit, and he concedes.
Game three, I have no notes.
I beat a mono red Faithless Looting + Phoenix deck, when he scoops to my T5 Batterskull. (RSZ in hand for his Phoenix). This guy Arc Trailed my first three plays (Stromkirk Noble, into Stromkirk Noble, into Stromkirk Noble off the top T3), which just shows (IMO) how terrible Arc Trail is. (Which makes me sad)
Then, I play a 4-color birthing pod deck. he has Slimed me a couple times, and has an Inferno Titan in play, to my board of three lands, a Koth on 2 counters, and a Berserker, with two Metamorphs in hand.
Can you see the good play? What I did was Metamorph the Titan, do 2 to it, and one to him, then attacked with a Koth-Mountain. He blocked, which was probably terrible, which put me down to two lands, a 3-counter Koth, and an inferno titan, vs his board of like 9 lands and a Pod. He plays another titan or something, and a Fiend Hunter for my Metamorphed Titan. I fail to draw a land again, and die quite easily to the titan.
If I'm competent, I play a Metamorph, doing 3 to the titan, then Koth minus, generating 3 mana, casting another titan, and finishing off the Metamorph. I lose my Koth, but I have two Inferno Titans on board, and he doesn't have the chance to stone rain me, etc. This sucked. I can see the Koth -2 when I have 6 land in play, but I don't see it when I have three, because really, how often do you have a Koth and 3 lands in play? Not very often.
Game two, I side in 2x Manic Vandal, and prepare for the worst. The guy plays a T3 Splicer, T4 Mimic Vat, and I play about as bad as possible against that card. It is insane! I Metamorph it, and kill things on his turn so I get them and he doesn't, and Metamorph a Geist Honored Monk, but he has Gavony Township, and is not playing terribly. He also played Helvault, and that's a pretty crazy card in that deck too....
Conclusion from this is that I need some solid artifact removal. 2x Manic Vandal is fine, but not good enough against Sword, Pod, Batterskull, etc. I've looked through the list of artifact removal, and I'm really not impressed right now. Requires some thinking. I really want Into the Core to be good enough, but it really isn't.
I rattle off a few wins against RB Zombies, WB Tokens (Blasphemous Act), UB Control, and UW Delver.
The delver match-up was very close. The Slagstorms were great, I want max of that, and Metamorph to kill things like Geist of Saint Traft, and Invisible Stalker. (and, you know, their whole deck) All of the games were very close, I thought the first two would both be easy wins, but they came down to the wire, thanks to Geist + Moorland Haunt dealing a ton of damage, and blocking my guys. I lost one of them. The third game, I started with 2x Shrine + Ratchet Bomb, and he hit me with 1/1's for a while, while I drew land, and burned him out.
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The Mono-Red-Control plan was pretty awesome every time I used it. It really fed into Koth well, or a late (T8) shrine-victory.
I have two Mana Barbs against control, but they were probably overkill. (because the game is all things that they can't deal with). I have a few easy take-outs (1x Devil's Play, 1x RSZ, 1x Grim Lavamancer, 1x Spikeshot Elder), so it's nice to have some game-winners to bring in.
RSZ was a all-star. I loved 3x Ratchet Bomb between main and side.
I brought in Chandra sometimes, but never drew/cast it.
I never brought in the Tumble Magnets, though they should be good against ramp.
I need some great artifact answer.
I need something to smash ramp. I might not be aggressive enough for a steal effect to be game, and that's the conventional answer...
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