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Insert Witty Title Here [Coming Out: My Victory Day]
[Editor's Note: Because Andrew didn't title this with an actual title, I
decided to give it a Family Guy reference - of course referring to Stewie's
escape from Lois' womb.]
Another wonderful tournament has come and gone once again on this beautiful mid-winter day. Well, as beautiful as dirty muddy snow-filled day can get. I suppose the only truly beautiful part of the day was when I was handed the first place prize slip: something I have really only seen on a few random occasions where my deck decides that winning=good, and losing horribly=well....horrible. Today my deck decided that winning=good since that means I get to type out my decklist. Shouldn’t take THAT long to type out. It isn’t like there are that many different cards in the deck.......oh wait....damn you highlander.
Andrew’s Almighty Deck of Goodness:
Creatures:
1 Albino Troll
1 Anurid Brushhopper
1 Basking Rootwalla
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Suntail hawk
1 Noble Panther
1 Treetop Scout
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Quirion Sentinel
1 River Boa
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Elvish Archers
1 Fleetfoot Panther
1 Kavu Titan
1 Skyshroud 1337 (:P)
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Savannah Lions
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
Non-creature spells:
1 Call of the Herd
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Arrest
1 Pacifism
1 Chrome Mox
1 Glorious Anthem
1 Raise the Alarm
1 Chatter of the Squirrel
1 Empyrial Plate
1 Eladamri’s Call
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Parallax Wave
1 Rancor
1 Bonesplitter
1 Land Tax
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Armadillo Cloak
Lands:
1 Savannah
1 Windswept Heath
1 Mishra’s Factory
1 Brushland
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Tundra
1 Flooded Strand
1 Treetop Village
1 Tropical Island
1 City of Brass
6 Plains
6 Forest
Sideboard:
1 Armageddon
1 Phantom Centaur
1 Choke (What I want to do to this long decklist.....)
1 Karma
1 Silver Knight
1 White Knight
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Worship
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Topple
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Heros Reunion
1 Sacred Ground
1 CoP: Red
1 Absolute Law
Now that I’m done typing that nice short decklist, I suppose I should talk about the deck itself and the tournament itself. I knew there would be plenty of Control at this here tournament of ours, so I decided early on to play aggro. Well, I choose aggro for ANY tournament, but that is besides the point.
The hardest part of building an aggro deck was making a reliable aggro deck. My Mono-Green and WW decks that I built didn’t have enough aggro by themselves to be reliable. They both had too little fast aggro creatures to be playable. So I did the only thing I could: I shuffled the two decks together and hoped for the best.
As one can see, almost every card in the deck can be grouped with another card or two. Birds, the three mana elves, Chrome Mox, and Spirit Guide can all be grouped as mana acceleration. Troll, the two Panthers, Brushhopper, and Call all work as the same type of card. Pretty basic strategy when trying to make a reliable deck.
What would I change after playing the deck? Land Tax would be the first thing to come out. I have enough land and mana acceleration in the deck that it was always a useless card that just doesn’t seem to fit. It felt too random when playing with it. The other card I would replace would be Albino Troll. A first or second turn 3/3 is great, but the tempo loss is just too great for this deck.
Now a small tournament report for those who give a damn.
Round 1: Dave Nash
I must admit, he does have the intimidation factor on his side. What I have on my side, though, is the fact that I tried as much as possible to prepare for Control. Game one I bust out the gates with a
Savannah Lions and other fast creatures and overrun him. Game two I get one of my luckier draws of the day: A first turn Troll Ascetic. Against Control, Troll Ascetic is the king of creatures, and I even had my Fleetfoot Panther to save Mr. Troll from a pesky Perish. So I start out the day with a nice record of 1-0.
Round 2: Adam
"Well shit," I thought to myself when I saw the pairings for round 2.
As many of you know, I play Adam in almost every tournament, and I am pretty sure he has beaten me more then I have beaten him. Overall there isn’t much I can say about this round. Lady Luck was cruel to him, and he saw no red mana first game, and very little land second game. An undeserved win is still a win I suppose. 2-0
Round 3: Christopher M. Shumand
I was pretty sure he was playing a decently high amount of creature removal in his deck, so I didn’t like my odds before sideboarding.( Note the nice amount of pro-red and pro-black in my SB.) Game one was one of those
games I thought I was going to lose until I drew my nice friend, Caller of the Claw. I attacked with a small army, and he ended up blocking and killing 3 of my creatures. Four 2/2's for three mana isn’t all that bad I guess. Game two provided me with Phantom Centaur, Silver Knight, and White Knight. A nice Wave thrown into the mix was enough to spell victory. 3-0, awesomeness.
Round 4: Cory
Now Cory was playing a mono-blue control deck. I feared his deck less then others since he didn’t have red or black for creature removal like my previous opponents had, but Control is Control. We all know that Control can just win, so I made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse. He refused. Damn. Oh well. First game I went down to 6 cards and was not too happy keeping those 6. My creatures were basically a Fyndhorn Elf and a Fleetfoot Panther. A 1/1 and a creature that relied on that 1/1. JOY. But he didn’t seem to have a counter or bounce spell that entire game, so I managed to beat him down with an Empyial Plated Panther. Game two wasn’t that different then game one, except that I had a better opening hand. I guess he shouldn’t have refused....4-0, even more awesomeness.
Round 5: Eric
Since I was undefeated and hadn’t even lost a game yet, I offered him the draw. He said that he needed to win this round, so off we played. First game I had some pretty good speed, but he locked my creatures down with his own problematic creatures. The problem was that his creatures were Morphling and ‘Tog, two of the only creatures in the game to ever hold the title "Best". I lose my first game of the day. Game two and three weren’t that great for him, and I got pretty good hands. A 5/5 Kavu Titan put him on a clock in game three, and when I played Armageddon, I offered him the draw again. This time he
accepted.
4-0-1. Not a bad record at all, and I only lost one game the whole day. Now I’m kind of happy that I didn’t skip the tournament like I had planned. My deck ended up being more reliable the I could have ever wished for. Only one bad opening hand the whole day. Now for the classic Props and Slops.
Props:
Me winning. I like winning
Adam for making me go.
Dennis and Carla for the posters and cardboard sword.
Adam for having 10% off at Arbys
Slops:
Eric. Tradition is tradition ;)
Cory. I ought to put a horse head in your bed.
Only 10 people being there. The one time I win, the prize is small.
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