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

Billings MT 8012014 Burning Jund Aggro Deck Tech and Saturday Mini-Con MTG Events

Those who regard the Gruul as savage simpletons underestimate the subtle power of their shamans.

Prior to the rotation of innitrad block I built a deck I dubbed jundigo. The idea was pretty self explainatory. Kill your opponent on turn 4 or force them to do something drastic to wipe the board and then every card you draw after that is going to finish the game because everything has undying, haste, trample, evasion or some other devastating mechanic. Here's a link to a run down one of the last incarnations of the deck.


After rotation the loss of buddy lands just made playing jund aggro or a 3 color deck at all impossible. I was forced to go to mono-red to continue playing competitively. With the printing of M15 and painlands not only was I able to put the band back together but the mana would be more consistent than after with 0 chance of any land coming in to play tapped. The catch is nearly every single land in the deck deals me damage when I play it. 12 shocklands 6 painlands. We'll lets rip the bandaid off and look at the deck.

Version 1.1 7302014 4-1

I was not really sure what my removal package should be but I knew my main fear was courser of kruphix. A wall that kills almost everything in my deck, can easily be played turn two and gains life very turn. My golgari charms are a great answer to this but I didn't feel like that was enough so I brought in 4 abrupt decay
which also hits banishing light, chained to the rocks, detention sphere and aggro or hexproof enchants like unflinching courage.

I ended up 4-1. I've made a bit of a foobar again and forgot the start taking notes on my matches. I got busy and by the time I had a chance to start writing this my matches are all foggy :(. Won't happen again I swear!

Last night was quiet due to Modern season we only had a few standard players and I went 3-0. Rather than spend time detailing the match ups I think it would be better to go over how the deck works since I don't ever really do that. Here's the latest version.




Version 1.2 8012014 3-0

I think the mistake a lot of people make is finding a cool combo and trying to haphazardly build around that. This forces you to hope to draw to it. As I mentioned in the previous post this is fine in legacy with the bizillion dig effects it has. Standard is so random it's almost a game of poker. That's I lean in the direction of having 3 and 4 combos and win cons. Sure I wanna draw a full house but I also want to still be able to win with a pair of 2's Ace high.

Turn 1 I always want an  Experiment One or Rakdos cackler. This is very important. Almost mulligan worthy if I don't see one of these. It's worth mentioning if you want to see a particular card turn 1 play 8 of it, maybe even 9. Same goes for turn 2.

Turn 2 I have 3 options some number of burning-tree emissary, madcap skills, and or spiked jester. some way to evolve experiment one, spiked jester for pressure, madcap skills to be an ahole, though a burning-tree emissary and a rakdos cackler on turn 2 is not the worst. whatever happens you wanna deal 5 damage on turn 2.

Turn 3, If you were able to create any of those potential board states the world is kind of your oyster. Preferably they did so minor board building not realizing how much gas you could potentially have left in your hand. Last night I had at one point a board of experiment one, burning-tree, burning-tree, madcap skills on the experiment one and turn 3 I played a 3/3 dreg mangler with haste which evolved my experiment one into a 6/3 that can only be blocked by 2 or more creatures and has regenerate. Polukranos who? So at this point I don't care what they have on the board I'm swinging for 13 damage on turn 3.  block whatever you want go bananas. I usually have a gore-clan rampager still in my hand this game is over.

Turn 4 is where the mogis maruader and spike jester tend to come into play as a combo. Think of the Mogis maruader as a replacement for hellrider or Falkenrath Aristocrat. What's cute is the mogis marauders text reads as follows.

When Mogis's Marauder enters the battlefield, up to X target creatures each gain intimidate and haste until end of turn, where X is your devotion to black.(Each  in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to black.)

This means if you have the devotion via cards like spiked jester or dreg mangler on the table you can give anything you play haste and intimidate. So lets say you have an experiment one, burning-tree, and marauder on turn 4 in hand, spiked jester and dreg mangler on board. you can play experiment one, burning-tree, marauder giving them all haste and intimidate...

The gore-clan rampager is surprisingly the most unnecessary maindeck card. It's mostly just there for teh trample effect. It doesn't have haste. It doesn't combo with anything. It just kind of pushes that last bit of damage through when someone has managed to stabilize after turn 4. I rarely if ever play it as a creature. It's just gonna die honestly. 

Seismic Stomp was a last minute move to the mainboard to provide some late game evasion and synergy with burning-tree shaman. I don't see it staying I was just filling a curve spot. 

Sideboard

When sideboarding the first thing I do is take out all the gore-clan rampagers. They don't combo with anything and removing them doesn't hurt my combos or curve. I might take out the abrupt decays if they are a dead card.

1x Dark Betrayal

2x Destructive Revelry

2x Ultimate Price

1x Doom Blade

4x Thoughtseize

2x Domri Rade

3x Mutavault

Dark betrayal is a cheap early effect against mono-black throwing a wall or threat at me like lifebane zombie or nightveil specter on turn 3 to slow me down.

Destructive Revelry - comes in against anything heavy on enchantments and synergizes with burning-tree

Ultimate price and doomblade are very situational. Honestly I haven't been able to justify bringing them in yet, they may come out of the deck in the future.

Thoughtseize all four of these come in against anything I don't have a strict answer to because they're cheap and don't hurt my curve.

Domri rade and mutavault come in against control. This is a new strat I'm trying against control. I had a crushing loss against mathew last week playing Naya control. He ran 4 anger of the gods mainboard. I wracked my brain trying to figure out a way to deal with that. I got him down to under 5 life both games but he beat me solid 2-0 angering 3 times of over the course of the two games and stabilizing both times near death. I don't see a defensive measure I can take that doesn't break up my combos so I think the best thing to do is bring in mutavault which dodges anger of the gods and Domri rade to keep my card advantage going. Naya control doesn't play a lot of 3 and under drops and even less after sideboard so in a change of pace I'd pull out the abrupt decays and one gore-clan rampager....

MINI-CON

There's a scifi/fantasy convention going on down at North Park today you can find more details here

Kab Sports cards is going to be running Draft and Modern Tournaments today with a box of M15 as the first prize in Modern. As soon as I finish with this I'm gonna head down and help run the booth with Kris. You should come by and...do whatever it is you do at these things I've never been to one. I don't even have my chun-li costume ready :(

Modern is at noon the entry is $10.

M15 Draft at 2:30pm Entry is $15 

Billings MT 7252014 FNM Mono Red Party People 4-0 and Upcoming MTG Events

I took a vacation from magic more specifically standard because pre-M15 I just found the format to be pretty stale but I decided to give it a shot last night as I was also wanting to poach people for a trip to the Modern IQ in Great Falls, which was no bueno :(. It didn't occured to me until I uploaded my list I'm not playing anything out of M15 other than lands. That's kind of a shame, but the beauty of the last 3 months of a standard format is at least we have the lands to play whatever we want. Now that M15 is out I'm hoping people will start stretching their legs. I'm wrapping my head around a Jund aggro list I'll try and add a primer for at the end of this post. 

Watching the SCG open this weekend in KC it's not too interesting but it's nice to see Genesis Hydra getting the love I was predicting. It's currently sitting at a buck or two on TCG. It could just be a cheap staple like Mistcutter Hydra  but I don't think it'd hurt you to grab a set now if you can skip hardee's just this once in case it goes up later. 

I 4-0'd last night with the following list.

As a deck builder I was recently inspired by a guy who took a G/W conversion deck to a top 8 scg open finish a few months ago. If I can find the deck I'll post it but the basic concept was a G/W aggro deck in the main and then a bunch of enchantments in the sideboard like ethereal armor and unflinching courage.

The MTG meta is now heavily affected by the availability of decklists online. It's funny they even mentioned today about how a protour 12 years ago was group deck testing and skill based where as today you don't need a dedicated testing group the internet does it for you. The reason I bring this up is because after game 1 in a competitive environment an opponent can make a general assessment of what archetype you're playing and sideboard accordingly for the rest of the match. So what now? well you just sideboard as best you can to respond or you can try and fake them out making no changes other than replacing dead cards. Well I say fuck that...

 Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may. - Tyler Durden

I already posted about my top 8 at states with Naya Transformers but here's the list if you're interested. Frankly I've just gotten tired of sideboarding in one or two cards and praying you draw your one answer to Obzedat, but at the same time you can't brew silliness and expect to win consistently. So why not just throw your opponent for a loop? Use your sideboard as a tilt mechanic.

I did really well with Mono-red devotion at a GP in Louisville ky and it's always held a soft spot in my cackles but it's a little dated. Since you don't really care about your life total the first change I made was to bring in the R/W ouchie lands and add boros charm to combat control. Then I thought about Tom Ross's success with boss sligh. I decided I wanted to be somewhere inbetween. I kept the Eidolon of great revel in the side board because after game 1 I don't want them to sideboard around it. the Legion Loyalist is in the sideboard so I can bring him in against any exceptionally slow deck or supreme verdict decks.

Round 1: This match was uneventful. 2-0 versus a casual B/U deck.

Round 2: A local guy named Jeremy playing Bant Mid-range. Game 1 he quickly moved out of reach with lifegain triggers and Courser of kruphix before I could get the train out of the gates. My opener had two lands 3 chanda's pheonix a lightning strike and Fanatic of mogis. the two problems with this hand is that it's incredibly slow in the dark and mono-red wants an explosive game 1 because most opponents playing anything but aggro will just keep any playable hand in the dark. Unfortunately my 6 was unplayable and even my 5 was garbage. Game 2 I was able to get an eidolon out early and he kept a hand with 2 mana confluence and ended up killing himself trying to catch up with me. Game 3 he managed to get walls up and assumed I was playing boss sligh. I allowed him to play out board control while I added devotion. Once he fell down to 10 I just slammed Fanatic for the kill. 2-1 me.

Round 3: Greg playing Junk midrange with a life gain tilt. Game 1 I was able to whittle him down to near death but at the same time he curved out into 4 courser of kruphix. Each time I was almost in kill range he pulled just out of reach gaining life off lands. Game 2 I ran him over with legion loyalist before he could ever get anything online. Game 3 I got him in a headlock with eidolon into madcap skills making it impossible for him to even begin to put anything on the board.

Round 4: Sump playing Slivers 2-0. His curve was ok but without any kind of protection slivers tends to be a glass canon. Both games I was able to remove his key slivers with magma jet and lightning strike while keeping consistent pressure on. I actually like slivers a lot and I think it's capable of being a competitive deck, but I think that people look at it wrong. People seem to assume that slivers exist in a vaccum and that it should for just contain slivers and lands for the most part. I don't really agree with this. Junk Midrange doesn't just contain Archangel of thune and courser of kruphix. It contains abrupt decay and other tools. Decks aren't either tool boxes or combo decks. There's room for both. I mean part of the combo literally is your ability to play up to 5 colors consistently so why is selesnya charm and boros charm not in the deck? I don't know, when I have some time to dedicate to it I'll try and present my impression of what a modern and standard slivers deck should look like.

(I want to clarify I tied with michael sump for 1st. Regardless of doing that I try to wager cards or what not with my fellow winner in an actual match so that we both play our best and I can post a clean report at the end of the night. I defeated michael after the event in a side game.)

Montana events

GP Trial Salt Lake City at Know Dice in Great Falls  Today 7/27/2014
Today at 12:00pm
Know Dice
512 Central Ave, Great Falls, Montana 59401
$25 entry fee. 2 packs per player in the prize fund! Sealed format. Winner also gets 2 byes at GP Salt Lake City!!

TCG Player Modern States - Missoula
When
Saturday, Aug 2, 2014
Where
Ruby's Inn & Convention Center, North Reserve Street, Missoula, MT, United States
Description
Entry: $25
Registration from 9:00 - 9:45
$13, 8-man, Win-a-Box (Standard, Modern, Legacy) side events!!!!

Prizes:
1st Place: TCGplayer State Champion Playmat + 50 Points + 2 Author Tokens
2nd Place: TCGplayer State Top 8 Competitor Playmat + 20 Points + 2 Author Tokens
3rd/4th Place: TCGplayer State Top 8 Competitor Playmat + 10 Points + 2 Author Tokens
5th-8th Place:TCGplayer State Top 8 Competitor Playmat + 5 Points + 2 Author Tokens
9th-16th Place: 2 Points + 2 Author Tokens
Format: Modern

STARCITY GAMES STANDARD IQ TOURNAMENT

Saturday, August 9at 10:00am
KAB Sports Cards & Collectables
2059 Broadwater Ave Suite C, Billings, Montana 59102
SATURDAY AUGUST 9TH. $25 ENTRY FEE
REGISTRATION AT 10AM. TOURNAMENT STARTS AT 11AM.

Bonus Deck Jund Aggro Standard

Pretty self-explanatory, beat the shit out of them tell the doctors you fell down some stairs. Wasteland viper and deathrite shaman belong in here somewhere. I'm not sure where yet. You're probably wondering why mutavaults are in there. If you want you can take Exava out as well as some lands and lower your curve to out aggro the aggro cause aggro.

aaand I'm out.

SCG Modern Open Trial 1st place 5-1-1 7/19 @ KAB + W/r Soldiers a standard deck

"Nathan Sary is a terrible magic player" - Cody Trafton

I didn't want to write about this because I feel like a bit of a scumbag. Somebody mentioned the Modern Open Trial @ KAB so I literally just asked around if I could borrow a deck and Shawn had affinity. I don't actually know that much about modern. I understand what you can and can't play...mostly. I don't know how a lot of decks work. I'm sitting here watching Channel Fireball explain Melira Pod because despite Dan Porisch trying to explain it to me 3 times I still don't really get it. I feel like a jerk because I walked in with someone elses deck not knowing how to play and more or less dominated the tournament. Worse I had to constantly apologize as I'm doing the math out loud in my best sling blade impression and swinging for 7 and 14 on turn 2 and 3 mmmm potaters. I think the best thing to do is elaborate on my record so I can both un-brag and maybe provide some perspective on the matches. Also I said I'd write this win or lose so I'm writing it.

Affinity by Shawn Anderson

I actually played a couple practice games with the deck and still had no idea how it worked. It wasn't until my 6 match that I had a firm idea of what I was supposed to do. I can say in hindsight I'm pretty in love with this deck. I looked up a couple decks as I was filling out my deck list for this and I have to say shawn's version is, at least in my opinion, preferable over any other I've seen.

Magic is partially up to chance. Less so as you work your way down the formats. Limited is comically random, block/standard you have average control of, modern you have a larger control of depending on the deck archetype and most  legacy archetypes have so many "dig" and land thinning affects you have near complete control of your draws. In all formats excluding legacy there's two schools of thought. Consistency vs Individual Threat.

Consistency is a style of deck building in which you want very specific cards in your opening hand and your first 4 draw step. After that the game is likely over, either you've won or you've lost. These decks contain mostly 4 of's. 3 to 4 of each land and spell type. Look at this mono red deck as an example.

Individual Threat is a style of  deck  building in which you prefer to carry your early draws with random removal, mana ramp effects and then play a turn 3, 4 or 5 board state affecting card like Polukranos, World Eater.

When I build decks I prefer an approach like Shawn's affinity. I want X opening hand. That's what this deck does. It's opening is incredibly consistent but if your opponent can stall out past turn 4 it's difficult to keep it from falling apart.

Games Report 

"You're the worst" - Jason Roberts

$25 entry is pretty backbreaking. I almost turned around and walked out. If it was standard maybe but my skill set is non-existent when it comes to legacy and modern let alone with a deck I've never played. 

• Round 1 vs Tarmo Twin - Jason beat me cleanly 2-0 with what I'm pretty sure was Tarmo Twin or Rug Twin. I actually was made aware many times he likes splintertwin and tarmagyof, at the time I was so unhinged by my lack of experience with my deck it did not occur to me to even try to play around it. Game 1 I kept a hand with lands in it and put out creatures. He killed me with twin on 4, game 2 I brought in Bloodmoon because he had a lot of non-basics? and torpor orb because someone told me you bring that in for twin. Again I just tried to put out creatures. Jason waited for my board to fill up and used Engineered Explosives, wiped my board and killed me with twin. 0-2

• Round 2 vs Melira Pod - I defeated Dan Porisch 2-0. At this point I had a firm understanding that My hand required 1 and 0 creatures and that I just needed to dump my hand. The first game dan was unable to build a board that could block or combat my aggressive attacking. game two I was able to galvanic blast his qasali pridemage and he was unable to hit the lands required to combo before my own went off. I brought in spellskite but never saw it.

*note at this point I'm unsure in what order my next match ups were.

• Round 3 vs Slivers - I played a guy named loren? He doesn't play a lot of standard but I've seen him around. Now I kind of got the cranial plating card and utilizing the Vault scourge combo. Game 1 he defeated me squarely with a sliver wall, I really didn't have anything to bring in game 2. I pulled a combat trick I had to call a judge on. He alpha struck with double-strike/life link. I blocked with an invulnerable Etched champion then used spring-leaf drum to tap it and glimmervoid for black, attached cranial plating and killed his Bone-scythe sliver. After that I was easily able to overwhelm him with Steel Overseer, Vault scourge and Cranial plating. Game 3 he held firmer ground however he lost tracked of my life total and swung out for 7 flying, I was actually at 10. I swung back and killed him. In my defense I'd gained 3 life from a vault scourge attack the previous turn which I'd specifically announced and moved up my die. He was distracted by a mana problem he was having getting sliver hivelord out and forgot.

• Round 4 vs Splinter-twin  - I defeated Kalvin playing splintertwin 2-0. Game one I had a fiendish hand drawing 3 galvanic blast and killing his Deceiver Exarch no less than 3 times. Game two he tore my board apart with Ancient Grudge 4 times, unfortunately he accidentally forgot to exile his final grudge flashback and was unable to come up with an answer to my 6/6 etched champion which walked right past a batterskull.

• Round 5 vs Greg - I drew with Greg because I didn't want him to touch me or my cards. I assume he was playing something stupid.

"Nathan Sary how long have you been playing magic?" - Cody Trafton

• Top 8 Round 1 vs Jund - vs Fellipe game one I just threw my hand on the table. 0 cost creatures, land, spring leaf drum etc etc. It's a terrible match up game one because Jund is geared towards removing individual threats and not a wave of pestermites. Game two I played slightly slower and he was able to kill or ancient grudge away some of my artifacts but I believe he got stuck on lands while I built up a board and crushed his. 

*Top 4 we split for the prize money and mats. Loren and Jason dropped. I played Kris Brester for the Monthly passes and SCG Open Entry Pass. Those don't come cheap and I plan to use them. 

• Finals vs Jund - I dumped most of my hand and ran him over with pestermites and vault scourges in a couple turns. Game 2 I swung on turn 3 with 2 cranial platings for 14 after swinging for 7 the previous turn. *censored.

I won 2-0. 

Bonus Deck Tech: W/r Soldiers standard

 I gotta leave at 6 am for Riverton Wy so sorry I gotta make this quick. This deck is inspired by a local casual player named Lion who asked me to edit his mono-white devotion soldier deck. His revolves around Ajani's Pridemate and life gain triggers. I suggest you ask him about it if you see him. The idea here is to take weenie update it with Preeminent Captain as well as boros charm to combat control. The hot little combo I'm sure I'm not a special original snowflake on is that of attacking with Captain and putting Azorius Arrester in play to break your opponents back. The combo sadly does not work with battalion however which really sucks. However I still think a potentially free fire-fist striker is worth it. With imposing sovereign, arrester, and Fire-fist striker you should have no problem bending mid-range decks over backwards. You have brave the elements, boros charm and I'm trying on the chariot in the sideboard versus control. The deck is strictly weak against boss sligh and mono aggro. I'm still thinking about how to deal with it without hurting the deck synergy. I've added warleader's helix as a trial. I'm trying two convoke cards - Stoke the Flames and Devouring Light. Devouring Light may go in the main deck. I suspect it's going to be a breakout card in weenie decks mainly because you'll never know when I'm actually tapped out.

I know this post is missing a lot of links and probably has tons of errors. fuck off
-Piscian

M15 Midnight Pre-release sealed 1st place of 70 people! 8-1-1 B/G Demons

So I won my first pre-release. I came pretty close in gatecrash but this is the first time I was able to take it all the way thanks to honestly an amazing sealed pool and a little luck. In my defense though I did have to slog through 7 rounds and a top 8. The funny thing is I haven't played MTG in a month. I just got kind of bored and frustrated with the format. Not top 8'ing the GP trial last month while on the same day with the same deck a guy won the SCG Open pretty much put a bullet in my heart for the game.

 I'd had a long day of work, I didn't get any sleep the night before and had been pretty set on playing CS:GO until I crashed. Then around 11 just as I was settling in I got a text from my friend Kris Brester who owns KAB sportscards saying "Pre-release centennial club!". Not even gonna explain what the C club game is but to say I replied HELL NO. No more boozing for little nate :D I'm getting a little too embarrassing. Anyway I said whelp screw it, it's friday night, I need to be social. With any luck I can join team 0-2 drop and go get some sleep. Little did I know I'd be playing magic for the next 11 friggin hours!

When I showed up I was confused. I couldn't find a damn parking spot.

Omg the place is packed to the gills with more people showing up every minute! The final tally was just at 70 people. I'm in this picture. I'll let you "where's waldo" it :P

* it may appear small, but it's not. the store is 2000sq and there's 3 more tables to the left of this picture. Traditionally on normal nights those are used for x-wing and warhammer/40k

B/G Demons Sealed

I picked black before jason could finish saying "It's the demon that lets you draw ca..." GIMME!

I remember my sealed pulls being ok. Nothing amazing, but I did pull an Avacyn and a

  Soul of New Phyrexia

I remember thinking to myself as I'm sorting my cards and making my deck - "Ok I guess I'm playing B/W", but when I finished making my deck I looked down at my pool I realized I had 3 Elvish Mystics and 3 Charging Rhino's. Well avacyn you're cool and all but I gotta be high not to play green and so I tore it apart and started over. This is what I came up with.

"Man Nate, you are intense.." - Tyler South

After the first 2 rounds I was pretty beat.

• Round 1 I defeated someone I didn't know  I don't recall what they played :(

• Round 2 I defeated Aaron Benner playing Jund. I won 2-1. His deck was doing the same thing mine was but splashing red. This was by far my hardest match up mostly because Aaron is a talented player and can read limited combat tricks like leaving b,g, elvish mystic up for a block using necrobite. Sealed is 90% combat tricks which is what allows janky decks an advantage you don't see in other formats. Being able to read your opponent is a huge part of MTG. After playing Aaron I developed ways of separating my mana and "almost" tapping it to represent things I may or may not have. I hope to take these skills to other formats.

• Round 3 I was defeated Handily by Steve Mcgarrah 0-2 playing a B/R burn deck that essentially takes your board apart and then burns you out with shocks. My deck is built for a slower game. If you can suit up a turn 1 or 2 dork with pants you can beat me up long before I can build my board. Most of my creatures are 5 and 6 drop.

At this point in the night you most likely would find me balled up in the corner trying to sleep or drinking a cup of coffee with an ice cream sandwich bar in it trying to keep my shit together. It's blurry on who I played at this point.

• Round 4 My next opponent was a young gun named Justin Ortiz age 13. Despite the stigma Justin is mostly the only younger player at our meta. Justin's favored guild is boro's or R/W. He's one of those kids you have to respect. He's not a casual player, his cards have sleeves. It's generally agreed if he keeps at this he will be a notable competitive player later on in life. Unfortunately Boro's is one of the weaker limited decks. Boro's is an early game aggro deck which needs a tight consistency to function. It's nearly impossible to obtain that in limited and even if you do Boros doesn't play cards that can affect a late game board state. Let me use an example. About the biggest Boro card you could play in M15 limited is Soul of theros or Soul of Shandalar keep in mind the rest of your deck is tiny guys or 1/1 tokens. At best you can give them an edge. Now look at Soul of innistrad. 1 turn later you're refilling your hand. That's what's called "affecting the board state". There's many other examples of this and it's important to recognize how each format and deck functions. Due to the awkwardness of removal and creatures most limited games last 10+ turns and it's important to be able to turn things around late game. 1/1 dudes just do not do that. I defeated justin 2-0.

• Round 5 Next I played a guy named Zane. I don't know much about him other than he watched the board state like a hawk and his top decks were insane. We spent the games goofing around and trying to recall who we'd even played. My vision was even started to blur at this point. I won 2-1 

"Omg is it light out?"

• Round 6 I believe my final game was against Jordan Miller. Probably the most feared limited player having won several pre-releases. Jordan is not forgiving. He will hold you accountable and it's your job to know what your deck does not his even if it's friendly limited. This tournament Jordan had gotten a weaker pool but again a lot of it comes down to how tightly you play. I ended up winning because I had a Charging Rhino with Eternal Thirst on it after he'd played Goblin Rabblemaster. Each turn he had to run a 1/1 goblin into my rhino trigging lifegain and +1/+1 counters. He held out several turns. I was honestly kinda out of it and so I was unable to formulate a plan to alpha strike him and risk losing my board so I just sat back and waited for him to give in. I won 2-0

• Round 7 I tied with Tyler to enter top 8. Too tired just want my packs.

For some reason I was the second highest seed player standing @2nd/8. I wish I'd kept the sheet. I believe it was because nearly all my opponents I'd played got in top 8 or vied for it.

• T8 Round 1 My opponent was my only loss of the night Steve M again. This time I knew what I was facing and and knew I had to get and maintain board state. regardless he beat my face in game one. Game 2 and 3 he flooded out on land just long enough for me to get my board online and put him under. 2-1

• T8 Round 2 I was up against Aaron again. This time we understood perfectly this would be a match revolving around elvish mystic coming out swinging. I decimated him game 1. However game 2 he got his deathtouch combo online Paragon+Black creatures like Typhoid Rats before I could get any damage in. He swung all in and I made the mistake of double blocking a small non deathtouch guy thinking he had a combat trick. He gave it deathtouch :(. game 3 was exceptionally close but I believe I won by getting soul of phyrexia online and pushed him out a window.

• T8 Round 3 final match was against Clay Hathaway playing R/G pants. The idea was to put mean red guys on the table and enchant the crap out of them. In my defense it was 10:30 in the morning and I begged him to figure out a way we could split. unfortunately due to the massive number of attendees the prize pool split between 1st and 2nd didn't justify it and there was a little prestige on the line for both of us in limited. While this is mostly a fog I know I basically crushed him 2 games to 1. his draws were not perfect, mine were and anything he put on the table I murdered. Good games though.

Not really sure what to do with this box. Open it? Ebay? Put it on the mantle? can't decide. I once won $200 at an SIQ and tried to hold onto it but Matt Fucking Cooper accidentally used it for gas money. I mean I clearly left it wadded up in the center console as a momento!

I celebrated by going and getting some CatFish from alberstons(I miss kentucky.) for later and crawling into bed for the day. At this point I'm ready to say regardless of standard M15 is a ton of fun in limited. More fun than I've had since Return to Ravnica and I'm gonna try and play another one tomorrow. 

I hope you enjoyed the blog. Thank you everyone who came out and made the night memorable! ....Fuck you Greg. I hate your face.

I'm out.

SCG Montana State Championship Top 8 5-1-2 Naya Hexproof Transformers

Man I haven't written anything in so long. You know life stuff etc etc. Let's just skip the introduction and talk about the trip.

The Montana State Championship was graciously hosted by Rook's Comics & Games in Bozeman MT.

We had a total of 88 players making it my largest tournament to Top 8 in. I honestly haven't done decently with any deck in months and I wasn't going to go but Kris at KAB Sports Cards dragged me along. My only deck I had put together was Naya Hexproof. With so much removal and big creatures in the format it's a deck that lets me kind of play my own game. It feels more like it's mine to win or lose. Though I definitely was expecting an 0-2 drop and to just go drinking with Kris and the boys. What happened was a miracle. Let's go to the deck.

So on the ride to the SC I started thinking about my deck and how difficult it is to pull one thing or another out of it and still have everything be functional. I ultimately decided having a bunch of "one of's" and "two of's" just wasn't where I wanted to be. If I was going to win at all I needed a leg up on my opponents. So I dumped my sideboard and added a top of aggro creatures. That way when they pull all their removal out after game one seeing as I literally only had one target-able creature I could switch to an aggro deck and just dump a bunch of creatures on them.

This is what happened...

• Match 1 Naya HexProof Vs Mono-red devotion 2-0

Game 1: I was on the play Witchstalker into ethereal armor x2 unflinching courage turn 5 boros charm.
Game 2: on the draw, I got stuck on temples on his turn three he played a boros reckoner, I played bassara archer, turn 4 Fanatic of mogis (ugh) I'm down to 13 attach gift or orzhova up to 16, turn 5 Storm breath dragon down to 5. shockland  for x2 madcap skills back to 12. he swings for 11. "sooo, you have a lightning strike?" "nope" 2-0 me.

• Match 2 Naya HexProof Vs Brave naya 2-1

game 1 though I was on the draw I ended up pushing him out with multiple armors and courage it was quick. game 2 he raced and beat me with ghor-clans to the face before I could get online. Game 3 He played a fabled hero and blew his hand pumping it for a kill swing with ghor-clan boros charm and giant growth. I played selesnya charm. 2-1 me. Worth noting I wasn't really paying attention because I was gonna charm him anyway but we both got a written warning for him getting heroic off ghor-clan :(

• Match 3 Naya HexProof Vs Brave naya 2-1

Same deal more or less. I lost game 1 and won game 3 and 3. game 2 was sort of interesting in that I completely flooded out on gladecover scouts and 0 enchantments.....and one selesnya charm. I baited out a brave the elements with a banishing light and then waited for the big pump *exile*. Game 3 was kinda lame. He had me dead on board turn 6 but got stuck on 3 mana and couldn't combo. *magic*

• Match 4 Naya HexProof Vs B/G Devotion 2-0

I felt I had a very terrible match up against this deck but ultimately I was able to draw out all the removal spells and push through both games. Game 2 He made the mistake of thoughtseizing twice for my enchantments. It's unfortunate because my enchantments though scary are easily replaced and also target-able with golgari charm and abrupt decay. Though with how fast I moved both games I'm not sure there was an out of any kind if I'd drawn more creatures. I'd sided in 8 for game two. He stabilized at 8 life using devour flesh on my 4 unflinching couraged voice of resurgence. I had 2 boros charms in hand with the right mana on my next turn.

• Match 5 Naya HexProof Vs Junk Midrange 2-0

I wish I could provide a little more detail on this match up. Ultimately both games he got two a turn 3 advent of the worm which I had a banishing light for or a bigger meaner dude.

At this point I was an incredible 5-0 and the top seed. I double drew in to top 8 and then....

• Top 8 Round 1 Naya HexProof Vs Junk Midrange 0-2

Same guy Andrew. My game 1 I had 2 temple gardens an archer an eidolon an ethereal armor an ajani, and a boros charm. I never saw another land :(. Game 2 My opener was 6 lands and a madcap skills. I mulled to 6 with 3 perfect lands and 3 enchantments. I don't know why I kept it. I suck at magic. I didn't keep a bad hand the entire tournament until then but of course I never saw a creature. The tilt strike again.

Congrats to him btw he won the whole thing :)

I'm the failwhale in the Red. Norwood to my left. The picture was taken at the beginning of the top 8. Jeremy behind me won.

Then we went out and drank until a tard I'll leave anonymous (it was ian) puked all over our hotel room.