Green Day

In between all the homework, exams, and Wolfenstein there is Magic.  Magic is that eternal constant in my life.  It’s hard to imagine how my life would be today if it weren’t for Magic and the community it brought me to, but I’m sure it would be nothing the same.  Knowing my luck, I’d be a popular chick magnet with a great job and plenty of friends.  Thank God I avoided that fate.  Phew, instead I get to hear Destan Loudhoots and Mr. Croxton exchange threats and stupid..um…I don’t even know.  I’ll just forget it.

For those that don’t know, there was a tournament yesterday – 2/28/04.  It was Extended and I didn’t have much time to think about what to play.  My options were something like this.
Tog
White Weenie
Green Power
Rock (haha, yeah right)
Enchantress

I didn’t really have a preference, and when Andrew came over we had this little exchange.

  Andrew: I think I’m going to play Suicide.
Me: [Punches Andrew’s arm]
Andrew: ?
Me: You said to hit you if you ever said that again.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.

  So, that was out of the picture.  I suggested Green Power and that was pretty much the end of it.  We built up the same deck here:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Rofellos, Llanowar Emmisary
4 Call of the Herd
3 Living Wish
3 Masticore
3 Skyshroud Poacher
3 Deranged Hermit
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Troll Ascetic
1 Viridian Zealot
2 Slate of Anscestry
4 Chrome Mox
3 Gaea's Cradle
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
6 Forest

  There’s not much to talk about here.  You try and ramp up your mana so you can start casting threat after threat until your opponent can’t do anything about it.  For a green deck, this does everything the color should do.  It just pumps out fatties that march over aimlessly.  Many of the cards generate card advantage, and the Slate can become insane.

We decided on a similar sideboard too:

3 Naturalize
1 Skyshroud Poacher
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Genesis
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Platinum Angel
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Masticore
1 Living Wish
1 Wasteland
1 Molder Slug

  They probably would have been the same as well if it weren’t for the fact that I didn’t have any more Vigilantes or a fourth Troll Ascetic.  I used Platinum Angel for some surprise, and Naturalizes as added enchantment/artifact hate.  The Molder Slug was there in case Chris played affinity.  (although, I’m sure he has plenty of awful artifacts to sack to it).  It was easy enough to justify since Robert had been playing a RDW deck with plenty of artifacts.

  Round 1:  Matt Scott w/ Stompy

I felt confident going into this.  He has some faster creatures than I do, but that didn’t really matter.  After second turn, if everything goes well I’ll be putting our bigger creatures and he’ll have Wild Dogs or that Elf that can only be blocked by fliers.  Well, one of the games didn’t go so hot.  I didn’t get enough fast mana and he ran me over with enough small critters and a few tricks.  The other games however involved me casting big guys and even a Platinum Angel to take down life points at a quick pace.  He just couldn’t keep up.  Ravenous Baloth helped keep my life high enough to win the race.  The last game he concedes despite being at 20 life after I explode beyond his ability to catch up.
Me over Matt 2-1

Round 2:  Andrew w/ UG pseudo-Madness

I feel comfortable against UG, and his has things like Compulsion.  Again, my deck decides that mana isn’t something I want and it gives me only one land off of a mulligan.  That doesn’t work at all and I’m forced to win the other two.  He has some sizeable threats, but there are some slower elements of his deck that force him to play the control side.  This isn’t something he wants to do, and his deck can’t do much when I keep casting larger and larger creatures.  I even got a slate going for over 20.  He has Moment’s Peace, but that’s just a temporary solution for a perpetual threat.
Me over Andrew 2-1

  Round 3: Chris Shumard w/ UG Tempo

His deck was odd.  It was packed with lil guys like Cloud of Faeries and Gaea’s Skyfold backed with Temporal Springs and bounce.  Despite looking like jank, it’s all quite efficient.  First game starts with a triple mulligan for me.  I still live long enough to end up with three of both Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves.  By the time I get an actual threat to cast, it’s far too late.  The second game gets a mulligan from him and I get to play this time.  I cast stuff, attack and win.  I don’t even remember that much, because I think this autopilot.  The third game was a double mulligan for him, but he still got a Sigil of Sleeped flier.  The game was all about the Sigil.  Eventually, I cast a Deranged Hermit, playing around Mana Leak.  I also played out Troll Ascetic.  Since he couldn’t bounce the Troll his only other choices were Squirrels and eventually the Hermit.  This fat was enough to race him.  I win the game on one life.  Close, but still alive.
Me over Chris 2-1

  Round 4: Robert Luken w/ RDW

Robert managed to beat my brother the previous round, playing the same deck.  But I felt comfortable.  Andrew said that his hands were subpar, and while he says that a lot, I believe him.  The fact is, my threats are just huge compared to his.  The biggest threat he can get is a Firecat to take some life away, and then burn me out.  Troll Ascetic proves extremely good both games, dodging burn all the way.  Deranged Hermit soaks up a few kitties and proves to be excellent as well.  Three toughness elephant tokens are some good as well as Baloths that give life.  The second game is a little harder after he draws all four Blistering Firecats, but it still wasn’t enough.  I can’t think of any way this could be a bad matchup.  The most he can hope for is a really fast start and some disruption of my mana creatures.
Me over Robert 2-0

  Round 5: Cory w/ UW Control

UW control??? WTF.  Looking around, there are two aggro-green decks, a RDW, a Goblins, a UG madness, a UG tempo, a stompy.  Wow, there’s a lot for Cory’s deck to hate.  He has 4 Wrath of God, 4 Vengeful Dreams, and as I found out, maindeck Hibernation as well.  Our first game was interesting – probably my favorite of all day.  He deals with threats as I try and get some threats on the board.  Somewhere in there, I slip out a Slate of Ancestry.  This turns out to be the pivotal card.  Every time he’d deal with one of my threats, I’d just replace it.  A Masticore comes down after he’s exausted his compliment of non-hibernation answers and I ride to victory.  I offer him the draw, and he accepts, guaranteeing himself third place and myself the 1st.

  I really like Green Power.  Despite being something far from my usual interests, it is an exercise that I greatly needed.  It made me think of combat math, calculate risks, and keep track of far too many creatures.  Now I can start work on my other Magic project - my Efficiency in Inefficiency series.  Until next tournament!

  Props:

Wow, I don’t know.
The Mechwarrior players for not really being there.

The randoms who came – Travis, Matt, and Andrew

Dave, for getting back in.

Eric, for perpetually starting fights between Andrew and Cory after they lost a game of Axis and Allies as the allied powers (Andrew as USA, Cory as USSR and UK).

  Slops:

Travis and Destan, for there gay little exchange.

Eric, cause we didn’t play (or should this be a prop)

Cory, for letting the army of darkness march across the earth. (j/k)

-Adam Whitlatch-

awhitlat@knox.edu

 

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Last changed: 08/01/2004 by AMW

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