R/G Aggro 1st place GameDay Champion 2/15/2015 Decklist and some bullsh$tting about magic

I was playing Abzan Aggro against this guy playing R/W aggro at a local PPTQ recently. I play a fleecemane lion. He chains it to the rocks. I play an anafenza, he chains it. I play a siege rhino, chains it. wingmate roc, stoke. All this time he's playing Hordeling outbursts, Monastery mentor and stormbreath dragons. After having exactly 5 lands, he never sees another one. Every draw some insane win con. All the while I'm drawing a mix of things that kind of work here or there and lands. Both games went like this. I couldn't even look him in the face I just kinda stormed off.

The next round I played against abzan aggro, game one my opening hand has one land, my mull has six lands and my next has one. Game two, opening hand one land, mull one land and so on. After that I just had a total meltdown. Tilt city. Like the single sad girl a perfect wedding flip out.

...and that's the way magic has been going for me lately. I even quit buying packs because out of like 36+ I hadn't opened a rare over a $1. You know that simpsons episode where homer tries to make a bowl of cereal and it catches on fire? 

can you tell I'm the kind of person that gestures when they talk?

...like that. This is why you don't hear from me often.  If I'm not gonna be a puss I know I really need to write all the time even when I lose, but it's tough you know to get motivated to sit and ponder my failure right after it. I'm gonna try.

So anyway about the deck. 

After getting pummel lately by, honestly, my own deck. Be it pain lands or tapped I just got frustrated saturday night and decided to put all my favorite cards in a deck. It's silly but I have like a full page of those Fanatic of xenagos, and rabblemaster promos. 

I just decided that Abzan is straight up unbeatable in a punching match so I might as well just try and race them. To be honest with everyone on the Ugin plan thats not unrealistic.

I took a PTQ Temur deck I got beat in the face with and basically tore out everything blue. You'd be surprised how little you lose switching from Frost walkers and savage knuckleblades to Heir of the wild and fanatic of xenagos. In this format of one for one trading you're eccentrically sinking 3, tough to draw, mana for a 4/4 knuckleblade. Yeah someday maybe it could do more but creatures do not live that long in this format. FOX is a baller ready to go on turn 2 90% of the time with an elvish mystic. Yeah frost walker is a 4/1. You know how embarrassing it is to get Polukranos'd for 0? Yeah he didn't have to, but it was funny..to him -__-. 

YOU'RE OUT FROST WALKER

Frost walker out, Heir of the "can't touch this" wilds is in. The rest of it is pretty easy to put together logically. You'll note I'm being really aggressive here. I'm not really interested in interacting with my opponents. The removal is just there to remove small blockers and heroic type stuff. "Turn stuff sideways .deck" as always with The Piscian. For some reason in most games I found myself sideboarding out Shaman sadly. Against any kind of big butt defensive deck like abzan mid range he's awful on the draw and so so on the play. I never got to activate his khans ability.

I'm a very bad sideboarder but I'll try and explain my strategy

R/W, RWB Token low to the ground decks

2x Arc Lightning

2x Barrage of Boulders

3x Feed the Clan

2x Chandra, Pyromaster

- 3x Shaman of the Great Hunt

- 1x Stormbreath Dragon

- 4x Goblin Rabblemaster

- 1x Heir of the Wilds

The reason is they tend to have a ton of 2 or 3 power kill spells, so Rabblemaster just gives them a big target. Heir costs less usually gets ignored, they're waiting for rabbs. Shaman is easily beaten by a magma spray and costs too much. Stormbreath is just to costly to be stuck with in your opening hand. (I go down a bit on my 4 power when adding feed the clan, but its still in testing.)

Abzan Midrange

2x Nissa, Worldwaker

2x Chandra, Pyromaster

2x Ashcloud Phoenix

- 2x Magma Spray

- 3x Shaman of the Great Hunt

- 1x Goblin Rabblemaster

Nissa and Chandra help you get around elspeth and siege rhinos as well as help in the long game. Shaman just doesn't match up well with anything if they have a board presence. Magma spray is a dead card rabble get bile blighted a lot. Ashcloud flies over rhinos and hits elspeth.

Heroic decks 

2x Arc Lightning

2x Barrage of Boulders

3x Feed the Clan

2x Chandra, Pyromaster

- 3x Shaman of the Great Hunt

- 3x Stormbreath Dragon

- 4x Polukranos, World Eater

Take out anything that could clog up your opening hand. Bring all the removal and the lifegain in, I know were taking out all  the 4 drops, but life gain is life gain. I'm still working on a more efficient way to do this. 

R/G, Abzan Aggro decks

2x Arc Lightning

2x Chandra, Pyromaster

2x Nissa, Worldwaker

- 3x Shaman of the Great Hunt

- 3x Goblin Rabblemaster

Heir is ok since he can race and block anything so he stays. Rabble is pretty slow and is an easy target so he's out. Shaman just doesn't do anything and is a big target.

Control Decks

2x Chandra, Pyromaster

2x Nissa, Worldwaker

2x Xenagos, the Reveler

2x Ashcloud Phoenix

- 3x Lightning Strike

- 2x Magma Spray

- 3x Crater's Claws

Take out all your removal you can and bring in every threat possible.

I only lost one match, to R/W aggro. I didn't lose for any specific reason. It's fast and reacts to everything thing I can do. It's actually a bad match up due to the lack of removal. However I'm not willing to adjust for one deck however prevalent it may be. I think I'd rather try to mulligan aggressively and accept it as rough. If all else fails maybe bring in two nylea's disciples. I'm having trouble finding lifegain effects in R/G.

0-2 R/W aggro

2-1 Mon white weenies

2-1 abzan midrange

0-0-3 draw R/W heroic

2-1 Abzan midrange

2-0 Abzan midrange

2-1 R/W heroic

As always thanks for reading. feel free to chime in if I could I'd probably just talk about magic all day and night.

Later

Fate Reforged buying guide (I cuss a lot in this FYI)

For the first time since I started playing magic I've decided to just buy the cards I want and not dick around with opening packs. I'm feeling the urge to share my thoughts on what cards to buy now during the pre-release speculation period.

There are a number of pros waaaaaay better than me that can comment on which cards are OP whats good and whats bad so you should just go read those. I just feel like typing with my mouth open. It's a disease. I'm trying to get help.

You still here? Ok I feel like talking about magic cards so here goes. This is my buy list for Fat Reforged. Not what I think is hot shit you should buy, or my dumb EDH opinions(Yeah I went there. what about it?) just me sitting on TCG looking at prices and trying to save a buck..

Cheap Buys and fun ofs

I think of Atarka, World Render as a simple win con. ok so if he survives 1 turn he does 12 damage if you don't have stormbreath dragon on the table. Thats just gross. He also goes over Hornet queen. The reason he's on the list is hes currently $.89. If he doesn't pan out oh well.

I feel confident saying yasova is a $2-3 rare. It has trample when boon satyr doesn't, it helps keep chump blockers like hornets nest out of your face. Thats what you want to be thinking about. Bodies are one thing but always be thinking about the utility of a card. Same deal this one is like $.70. I'm at worst losing taco bell cash on this one.

I understand your reluctance considering his hat, but man is it just me or is there a whole lot of goddamn warriors in this set? I mean not one accountant or I don't know, RF engineer? of any sort on Tarkir? 

I feel like  they've done a much better job of, this time around, is taking a theme and building a block around it. In innsitrad we had vampires out the kazoo, maybe it was the management musical chairs but return to Ravnica had 0 theme and Theros started a really interesting enchantment theme that didn't even get going until midway through the block. I realize I sound like a disgusting casual but I do wonder if a 3, 4 or even 5 color warrior deck is not possible at this point? take all the warriors we know about and all the good abzan cards? I swear the deck is there and we'll see it in the coming weeks. Dragon Scale General is currently sitting at $.20. *shrug* why not?

Reasonably priced things Nate will play

I think I literally played Chandras phoenix from the day it was printed until the day it left standard. A 2/2 flyer with haste you can rebuy. /fin

$3.40. This is probably going to be it's price until it rotates. I'm buying Flamewake Phoenix because it's great and I'm going to play it.

True story, when I was in grade school I had a massive crush on this chick Alesha. In the 5th grade I won honors as being in the top 5 students, grade and representation wise, in the school. Right before the award event alesha found me sitting on the steps outside bawling my eyes out because my tie had come undone and I had no idea how to fix it. She sat down, completely straight faced, no judgement, tied my tie and walked me into the auditorium. I never saw her again after graduation.  Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is $1.90 and I suspect might not even see play until rotation but going back to the issue of warriors I can't help but wonder if theres a deck for this card so I'm buying a 3 of.

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT DAVE I TOLD YOU TO WAIT IN THE CAR!". Part of me is buying this card because when I saw it that was my immediate first thought, but also it's a value card and I think as control decks become more playable the "dash" mechanic is going to see a lot more play. Currently it's a $1.40 and while you could pull a set out of boosters easily I imagine if you're going to buying a ton of boosters I see no reason not to get Mardu Strike Leader now.

I'm just in love with this card. I've been trying to point out to people that it gives elvish mystic life outside of mana dorkdum. I'm buying it now because I honestly think getting my hands on a 4 of locally is going to be a pain and Shaman of the Great Hunt is only $6.75. It might be bad but I really doubt it. 

Uncommons I'm buying

Why? Duh. Fight? Bring it

                                                                           $0.61

This is a 3 mana 3/1 non targeting kill spell that is just looking for the right deck. oh and its another goddamn warrior. $.32

1 mana 2/1 with value. whats not to like. It's just a shame they couldn't give him a real job like fire-fighter or something. $.22

2/2 lifelink flyer for 3. I'm not gonna feed you everything here. I will say in white weenies or maybe heroic there isn't a card you'd be sad you accidentally manifested. $.09 on TCG

BUT WHY AREN'T YOU BUYING..

That about wraps up my thoughts on cards I'm buying today I do have some opinions and I'm putting them here at the bottom so you can just leave if you disagree. Why am I not buying these cards? Because your mom had a bad week on the corner.

I think Ugin is great, but it's just not a card I'm ever going to cast and not for $30. It's like $8 irl.

I think Monastery Mentor is fucking terrible. White sorcery decks that play a lot of instants and sorceries, in any format, do not want 3 drops with no immediate value. Show me different. I'm calling the shot on this one. 

Why they decided to poke it in the dick by making it a 2/2 instead of 2/3 screams "OMG deathrite shaman again nooooooo!" Fucking babies. Man up. Tommy Hilfiger made the ultimate designer mistake of admitting he's a giant racist twat and he's fine. Stop being pussies.

Soulfire Grand Master is probably crazy good. If it weren't $20 I'd probably get a set. I'm just waiting for it to go down a little. Dat Lifelink.

Brutal Hordechief and Warden of the First Tree both seem good I just don't know if they're $8 good. They feel like fleecemane and Herald of Torment rares. I want to wait and see on both. If I'm going to be wrong it'll be on Brutal Hordechief and I'll pick him up next week maybe.

If I were a G midrange player I'd pick up Whisperwood Elemental now at $6.

Soulflayer is weird. It's a mardu card that want's to be in Sultai. I'm not seeing it, but I could be wrong $2 ain't the worst.

Ok I'm bored of reforged card talk now. BYE

Also I would not be a proper self-absorbed cunt(the UK insult chill) if I did not mention winning a GPT with this deck.

reclamation sage would have been far more efficient. My deck was built literally the night before the GP opened. That GP trial was the first time I'd actually played the deck, no testing. I ran Andrew tenjums MTGO build for the GP not knowing that it was vastly out of date tool wise. Additionally abzan aggro made up like 50% of the Meta. If I'd know all that going in I would run 3 reclamation sages in the sideboard, brought both elspeth to the main and taken out Heir of the wilds I think though Rhakshaa death dealer really never impressed me either. I might have taken out 1 piece of removal or a death dealer for another wingmate roc.

-2 heir

-1 downfall

- 1 anafenza

+2 sorin

+1 elsepeth

+1 wingmate roc

SIDEBOARD

1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

2 Nissa, Worldwaker

3 Drown in Sorrow

3 Glare of Heresy

1 Back to Nature

3 reclaimation sage

1 whip of erebos

1 murderous cut