GP London

When I heard about GP London, I thought I'd head along to play some Magic, making a change from only playing at prereleases. Not in the main event; I play seldomly enough that I have no idea if I have enough cards to make a half decent Standard deck, and certainly not a good one. Plus an incredibly long tournament didn't seem too appealing. 

Liz got the Friday off, arranged for the kids to be looked after by their grandparents while we were away, we were ready for our first weekend away from the children. We booked a hotel a couple of days before we went so we wouldn't have to travel far each day, staying at the Marriott which was very nice. 

It was about midday when we arrived at the Excel centre. We picked up our Infinity Challenge badges and wandered around a bit as we had some time until the first event we signed up for was going to start (2 Headed Giant Sealed). One of the Wizards people with a camera chatted to us, and we also did an interview with Dan who was videoing people there for a future GP London video. 

Dragons of Tarkir Prerelease

I did really well at the Dragons of Tarkir prerelease, not only winning the tournament but winning all games I played (6 rounds, so 12 games in a row with no losses). I can't remember getting a Game Win Percentage of 100 before, certainly not in a tournament lasting longer than 3 rounds. 

While I don't have a chance to play Magic as often any more, I generally try to make it along to the prerelease events. I usually prefer draft to sealed, but they are a nice way to just have some fun with the new cards. 

I've been going to a new venue as well after I found out a prerelease is now being held on Saturdays down the road from my Dads house (which makes it easier to find someone to look after the kids). 

Unexpected output: strtok

I was reading up on the differences between Java and C++ (as I have used the former the most recently and wouldn't want to wonder why declaring an array in the Java way in a C++ file was causing errors in a side project I'm working on). 

One of the things pointed out was to read up on the strtok function (splitting up a String into tokens based on a delimiter) as it works quite differently than how it works in Java. So I read through it that evening - it does work very differently, so if I have to use it I need to remember to be careful when doing so. 

The next day I looked at my laptop and found this:

Tokens everywhere! Something must have gone wrong...

(My son had found a pile of Magic: The Gathering tokens and decided they needed moving)

Khans of Tarkir Prerelease

I managed to get to two pre-releases for Khans of Tarkir (making up for missing M15 apparently). 

Saturday
The Saturday event was in Bedford; I hadn't played at the store before, so it was interesting to go along. I picked Sultai (BGU) for my clan pack and started building a deck. I had a hard time getting a decent amount of creatures, and realised that I could switch out blue for white and I would have a better chance. I had a lot of the common enters battlefield tapped lands that were half blue, so I did play Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as my only blue card (although I never drew it in a single game, and only use blue to activate the ability on Smoke Teller to peek at some opponents morph creatures). I went 2-2 and had some fun.

Sunday
On the Sunday, I went to my usual store in St Albans, and picked Abzan (even though I had already played those colours, it was one of the other clans I had planned on playing). I opened a pretty good pool and went about building my deck. 

Creatures
[One]
1 Mardu Hateblade - This was mainly played for the deathtouch ability

[Two]
1 Ainok Bond-Kin - I had two of these on the Saturday, and they looked pretty good, just outlasting it once would make it a good blocker for a few turns. 

[Three]
1 Abzan Falconer - This drew removal pretty quickly, and for good reason as it is a great creature
1 Mardu Hordechief - This card helped a lot, I think I always got the token when I cast it (not always on turn three)
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Watcher of the Roost - I cast this as a morph one turn when my opponent had a flier. They attacked me (I was tapped out) and I unmorphed it to trade. 

[Four]
1 Unyielding Krumar
1 Longshot Squad
1 Alabaster Kirin

[Five+]
1 Wingmate Roc - Somewhat unsurprisingly, this was really good in sealed
2 Abzan Guide - This was really good as well, I gained a load of life off it one game, giving me a very healthy buffer
1 Necropolis Fiend - I think I cast this once, exiling all the cards in my graveyard, but a 4/5 flier was enough to win in a turn or two anyway. 

Spells
1 Suspension Field
1 Debilitating Injury - good in a format with morph creatures
1 Abzan Charm - I think I may have used all three abilities over the day
1 Abzan Ascendancy
1 Dragonscale Boon
1 Smite the Monstrous - Started with two maindeck, but often didn't have that many targets
1 Dutiful Return
2 Throttle

Lands
1 Sandsteppe Citadel
1 Nomad Outpost
2 Jungle Hollow
1 Scoured Barrens
1 Blossoming Sands
3 Forest
3 Swamp
6 Plains

(I think that is the correct basic land distribution, I know I played 18, and about half the deck is white). 

Sideboard
Bloodfell Caves & Mardu Charm - One of my lands already produced red, and I could add in a second and play the charm. I felt I didn't need it as I had two spells that gave a creature -4/-4, which in most cases is the same as 4 damage. Two 1/1 tokens would be nice, but I had a lot of bigger creatures that they wouldn't really matter later in the game, and I felt it was better to have good mana than adding a splash. 

Dragonscale Boon, Savage Punch, Smite the Monstrous - Extra removal themed cards if needed. I started the event with the second Smite the Monstrous main deck, but took it out as I felt I only needed the one. 

Highland Game, Longshot Squad, Shambling Attendants, Sagu Archer, Alabaster Kirin - Extra creatures if I needed them in certain matchups. 

Round 1
I lost the first game as my opponent (playing a fast Mardu deck), removed all my creatures while playing lots of their own. I won the second and third games, one to my opponent stumbling on mana a little, but both games were fairly close. 

1-0

Round 2
My opponent was playing a Sultai deck, with a lot of defensive creatures. I went up to 31 life thanks to an Abzan Guide before they blocked it with three creatures to kill it. I came close to winning in a single big turn by casting Abzan Ascendancy with about 4 or five creatures out (and I think a Abzan Falconer to give everything flying), but they countered it. 

My opponent was getting ahead of card advantage, playing Bitter Revelation, Treasure Cruise, Weave Fate and Dig Through Time, but (mostly thanks to Outlast), my creatures were big enough that they couldn't attack through. They did lay a giant Hydra (came out as an 8/8), but I had the Smite the Monstrous to turn it into 8 1/1 snakes, which was a little more manageable.  I ended up winning as my opponent ran out of cards, although I did get down to three life (from a previous 31), before stabilising (Wingmate Roc helped, token for blocking, creature for attacking and gaining a little life as I also had something with vigilance). As we were shuffling up, time was called for the round (yup, the whole game took the entire round). 

2-0

Lunch
Liz had arrived with the kids, so we wandered to a bakery to get something to eat quickly. 

Round 3
The first game was very back and forth, I think it ended when I cast a Wingmate Roc and my opponent realised he couldn't beat it. 

In the second game, I drew my 7 cards, saw one land so mulliganed. One land, mulligan. No lands, mulligan. One land in a four card hand - I'll keep it. On the draw, I not only drew into lands to cast a three drop on turn three, but I had all my colours. All the cards I had drawn were cheap ones, so I put a lot of pressure on my opponent as I wasn't sure on my chances in the long game due to the cast disadvantage. The last card I cast to give me an empty hand was a Smite the Monstrous on a newly cast Meandering Towershell (at that point my opponents only creature as I had removed any others they had cast, through removal and them blocking). 

3-0

Round 4
My opponent is playing Jeskai, and have a lot of tricks. I get a strong draw in the first game and cast something they can't deal with to win (possibly Wingmate Roc again). The second game is a lot closer, but I ultimately win. 

4-0

Round 5
Final round. First game I get off to a good start and my opponent can't catch up. They are playing an aggressive Mardu deck, but I get bigger creatures out faster. In the second game they play a Bloodsoaked Champion and one or two other creatures and get me down to a low life total thanks to removing all my creatures. I made a play mistake here by allowing them to attack with the Champion as the only creature before using a removal spell on it, so they could return in as they had attacked with a creature. Later in the game, I cast Abzan Charm on 6 life to draw two cards (and lose two life), as I needed to draw into something to help me stabilise. I didn't, so lost. The second game was a little closer, but I started losing my creatures again, took a hit from Zurgo Helmsmasher, and didn't draw anything to remove him next turn so lost. 

4-1

I won 6 packs in the end. Pretty happy with the result, considering the last time I played was the Journey into Nyx prerelease. Back when Shards of Alara was out and I was drafting a lot, I always had issues with mana, but I had more success this time around, which is good. That is probably part me having more experience and part more experience with developing multicolour sets in Wizards of the Coast. 

All in all, I think it is a fun set. I'm still not sure about morph, I have generally just blocked if they attack with one, as it forces them to unmorph it or use a trick or they lose it, meaning they're not developing their board. I'm more likely to get blown out this way, so I will see how well this strategy works to see if I need to be more cautious. 

Casual Magic

I got a chance to play Magic: The Gathering with Liz for the first time in a while. Both kids had gone to bed early, so we were spending sometime together. We weren't sure what decks to play (considering she hadn't played a game outside of pack wars for quite a while). In the end I picked two more casual decks that I had constructed but not played that often. One was a Zombie deck (mainly black with a little blue), and the other was a bloodthirst/counter themed deck. 

BR Bloodthirst
This deck has a very low curve.

One
3 Rakdos Cackler
4 Gut Shot
4 Tormented Soul
4 Goblin Fireslinger

Two
4 Stormblood Berserker
4 Duskhunter Bat
4 Contagion Clasp

Three
4 Volt Charge
2 Cryptborn Horror
1 Hellhole Flailer

Four
4 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Bloodfray Giant
1 Rakdos, Lord of Riots

The deck can (and did) push through a lot of damage quite quickly. The Cryptborn Horror was played in one game and was pretty sizeable (about a 6/6) early on in the game.  

Bu Zombies
This deck has an odd curve (by which I mean the converted mana cost of most of the cards is an odd number...)

One
4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraft Ghoul

Three
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Diregraft Captain
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Forbidden Alchemy

Four
4 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Door of Destinies

Five+
2 Rise from the Grave
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Army of the Damned
1 Killing Wave

Lands
14 Swamps
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Dimir Guildgate
2 Vivid Marsh
1 Drowned Catacomb

There was an awkward point during one game where I managed to draw three Cavern of Souls, but wanted to cast Moan of the Unhallowed and didn't have the coloured mana available... The deck was quite fun. A little slow to get going, but was able to get in a fair amount of damage quite quickly once it had. In some ways, it is a little too aggressive for some of the cards, particularly the five plus costing ones, and maybe even the Cemetery Reaper. The Door of Destinies worked quite well, even though I had to take a turn off to cast it, I could cast two cheaper Zombies next turn to get a big boost. 

The games were quite fun, and it was nice to play a much more casual game than usual. 

Theros first picks

Due to doing well at a recent tournament, I have some Theros packs to look through, so I'll think about what I would choose if I opened it in a draft (as I don't get to draft very often, just doing the thinking about it helps).

Pack A
This pack has: Fleshmad Steed, Breaching Hippocamp, Fleetfeather Sandals, Aqueous Form, Nylea's Presence, Divine Verdict, Traveler's Amulet, Two-Headed Cerberus, Setessan Griffin, Pharika's Cure, Triton Tactics, Battlewise Hoplite, Shipwreck Singer, Abhorrent Overlord

I think Cure and Verdict come under consideration as removal, as does Triton Tactics which can potentially be more effective given the right circumstances. The Abhorrent Overlord is expensive, but given the right deck can be quite powerful. For me, it's quite close between Verdict and Overlord and my answer would probably depend on what mood I was in :) Verdict is good for consistency, but the overlord seems fun so I'd probably pick that. My last couple of drafts seemed to end up Green and/or black so for me the black card would be better as I'm more used to that play style.

Pack B
Battlewise Valor, Feral Invocation, Boulderfall, Loathsome Catoblepas, Griptide, Gods Willing, Omenspeaker, Sedge Scorpion, Prescient Chimera, Timed Ox, Magma Jet, Heliod's Emissary, Horizon Chimera, Celestial Archon

I took cards out of this pack when I found an interesting one. The first was Feral Invocation, which I like as a persistent surprise. Next was Griptide which is good for tempo and better on a target with an aura, but between the two I'd probably pick the Invocation.

Then I set aside Gods Willing, which is good as it will protect against the already small amount of removal in the format. Sedge Scorpion is also one to consider as the death touch makes it close to removal. Magma Jet is also powerful, killing smaller creatures and smoothing the next turn or two.

I think, however, that Heliod's Emissary and Celestial Archon are the two more powerful cards in the pack. The Elk has the benefit of being possible to splash in a deck and the creature side is cheaper, but I think the Celestial Archon is the pick here due to the higher power. The bestow cost is essentially the same, but for a more powerful effect.

Pack C
Nessian Asp, Nimbus Naiad, Messengers Speed, March of the Returned, Unknown Shores, Benthic Giant, Returned Phalanx, Silent Artisan, Satyr Hedonist, Traveler's Amulet, Spellheart Chimera, Stoneshock Giant, Insatiable Harpy, Nepotism Charlatan

The 4 I like from this pack are Nessian Asp, Nimbus Naiad, Stoneshock Giant, Insatiable Harpy. The Asp and Giant are quite similar, but I think I prefer the Asp here as the monstrosity is cheaper and larger, and the reach is going to be useful over multiple turns as opposed to the one off effect of the giant. I quite like the Harpy here, as it is possible to increase the power and get a better effect from the lifegain. The Naiad is aggressively costed which I think gives it the edge over the harpy, but for this pack I think the asp is the best choice here.

Pack D
Boon of Erebos, Deathbellow Raider, Breaching Hippocamp, Bronze Sable, Nessian Courser, Fleshmad Steed, Wavecrash Triton, Wild Celebrants, Opaline Unicorn, Evangel of Heliod, Witches Eye, Centaur Battlemaster, Chained to the Rocks, foil Ordeal of Erebos

I have seem Evangel of Heloid make a lot of tokens so I know it can be powerful. Wavecrash Triton looks good if if can be repeated, but I think Centaur Battlemaster is the most powerful here, the bonus it gets even if targeted once is impressive.

Tournament: Modern Infect

This Friday I went along to a Modern tournament. I'm trying to get some Magic playing in occasionally when I can, and having a selection of formats that I can play in means I am more likely to be able to play in an event at a time that suits me. 

As I have blogged about previously, my go-to Modern deck is a modified infect deck back when infect was in standard. I have changed the removal around a little bit after thinking about what I needed, and changed a sideboard around a little bit. Here is the decklist:

One
4 Vampire's Bite - A good amount of extra pump. The lifelink later on can be sometimes handy

2 Mutagenic Growth - A nice surprise (for me). This is one of the card on the "edge" - cards that I like, but are one of the first for consideration if I am looking for something to cut. Didn't really use them all that much this tournament. 

1 Thoughtseize - I opened a Thoughtseize! Just the one. I am currently trying to figure out how many I want of these and how many Inquisitions. Whenever I cast Thoughtseize, I note whether I could have gotten the card with just an Inquisition, if it is a fairly common occurrence, then I don't mind not having a full 4 Thoughtseizes if I can't get a full 4. Obviously Thoughtseize is generally going to be better, but there are a couple of places where I am already paying life which I would like to keep to a minimum if possible, so don't mind playing under 4 if Inquisition is "good enough". 

3 Inquisition of Kozilek - The other half of checking out the Thoughtseize/Inquisition split is noting down whenever I cast an Inquisition and saw I card I would have rather gotten but had a converted mana cost greater than 3. Inquisition is usually good enough against most decks, apart from Tron. 

2 Bonesplitter - I've had one game where I had two of these and no creatures, but as there is a limited amount of Infect creatures I'd like to run, I think 2 is enough for now. I don't think more than two is good though. 

Two
4 Plague Stinger - Mainly here to up my Infect creature count, but it also has evasion which is useful. 

3 Devour Flesh - A lot of the decks I have played against seem to just get one creature out, in which case this will get it, with a bonus of being able to get hexproof and indestructible creatures. As I win by poison counters, I don't care about the lifegain at all. 

2 Rime Transfusion - I have not seen a snow creature played against me so far. 

Three
4 Phyrexian Crusader - My favourite card in the deck. I have talked at length about this card on a number of occasions, and don't really have anything to add. 

3 Dismember - This is the replacement for my previous targeted removal. I think it should cover most situations, but didn't really draw it in the tournament. 

3 Read the Bones - While I did have one game stuck on two lands with this in hand, I much prefer this to Night's Whisper. 

1 Tezzeret's Gambit - I might replace this with another Read the Bones; I played it once and I don't think the extra poison counter really mattered that much. 

Four
4 Phyrexian Vatmother - I don't often see many creatures bigger than this. If I do, they usually don't stay that big...

1 Liliana of the Dark Realms - I think one here is better than the two I was playing previously. 

Land
4 Inkmoth Nexus
19 Snow Covered Swamp

Sideboard
1 Dismember - Just an extra one really - this is a sideboard slot that I don't know exactly what  I want

2 Sadistic Sacrament - I think I would like one more if I can get it. It can come in quite handy. 

3 Infest - I think it it more I don't get to play against decks that they're good against than anything against the cards themselves. Whenever I sideboard them in, I don't seem to draw them. 

1 Damnation - An improved Infest, gets bigger stuff. 

4 Pithing Needle - Probably my most sideboarded in card, to the point where I could consider playing them main deck

4 Nihil Spellbomb - This is in a similar camp as Infest; good against some decks, I just don't seem to play against them that often. 

Games
The tournament was 4 rounds long, but I can't remember exactly how many people were playing. It was less than the huge tournament that had previously been held, however. 

Round 1 - Hexproof
My opponent had planned to play another deck, but didn't get the cards in time, so were playing a slightly modified pre-rotation hexproof deck. Unfortunately they had some bad draws so lost both games. 

Sideboarding: I took out the Dismembers as they can't target anything and I think I put in some Infests and the Damnation

Round 2 - BR Death trigger
This deck was fairly efficient creatures with a sacrifice/deathtrigger subtheme which was interesting to play against. First game was a turn 3 Liliana of the Veil, and I don't really have enough creatures to fight that properly, so I lost eventually. The second game was a lot closer, but I think I may have played too aggressively, and lost to a hasty vampire. 

Sideboarding: In went the pithing needles for the Liliana (I think I named a Blasting Station in the second game). They had a couple of smaller creatures in addition to Geralfs Messenger, so I took out the Devour Flesh as my opponent gets to choose and seemed to want to sometimes sacrifice some creatures anyway. 

Round 3 - White lifegain
I think I was probably the worst matchup possible for my opponent. There was a close first game as they created some large creatures, however the Crusaders could attack and be pumped without worrying too much. I also won the second game after my opponent had a low land start for a couple of turns. 

Sideboarding: Infest for Devour Flesh (didn't want them gaining extra life, plus they had a lot of small creatures)

Round 4 - Tron
Probably one of my worse matchups (I suspect Maleria Pod might be worse, but I am yet to play against that). I was able to get through a beat a turn three Tron, I think with the Inkmoths and pump mainly. In the second game, I slowed them down dramatically (turn three Sadistic Sacrament, saw they didn't have a Tower and found all 4 in the deck, so removed three of them; I also played three Pithing Needles naming some of the cards they had out), but eventually succumbed to Wurmcoil Engine tokens. I think I was a turn away from losing the third game, but had some extra pump on a Crusader with Rime Transfusion, so won with two hits. 

Sideboarding: Pithing Needles and Sadistic Sacrament. Dismember and Inquisition are less good here so I took them out. 

Final record: 3-1. I think I came 4th. 

Thoughts
I did a lot better this time around then before, so I would like to think the extra changes help. I am more pleased with the numbers of a couple of the cards that I had too many of before, and really like Read the Bones. 

The next lot of changes I'm considering are just really minor ones; mainly trying out more Thoughtseizes and an extra Read the Bones. I may consider the removal suite more, but I am happy with it for now. 

Theros Prerelease

As usual, I picked the Sunday prerelease at the Comic Shop for the Theros prerelease, mainly as it means I don't have to stay up as late (I have a son who is teething to do that...). As a change from my usual preparation, I didn't have time to finish listening to the Limited Resources podcast beforehand. 

I arrived in St Albans fairly early on, so wandered around briefly before waiting around outside for the shop to open. Before registration, I let Kaleb have a wander around before his granddad picked him up to look after him for the day. This did involve a couple of dashes outside to the courtyard (and to some probably wet socks). 

Getting started, I picked the green path. I was considering the black one, but wasn't impressed by the promo. Well, I wasn't blown away by any of the promos really, and green looked interesting, plus I liked the Hero card. 

Opening my pool, none of my colours seemed particularly deep, with a lot of just random bits in all the colours. I was going to be green regardless, just because I had more cards in that colour, most of which were decent enough, so went around narrowing down a second colour. Blue and White didn't seem to have a high amount of playables, and black seemed a little too thin. Some expensive removal and 2 Read the Bones, but nothing that exciting, so I went with red. This choice was helped by a number of removal spells in red.

My deck was fairly aggressive, with a little bit of reach for longer games, and overall I think I was helped by a lot of removal that I could use, and some sizable creatures. 

To be honest, I thought the deck was fairly mediocre. But I managed to go 4-1 (lost in the finals), so it can't have been that bad. 

M14 Prerelease

Following my now somewhat tradition of sporadic Magic playing, I went along to the M14 pre-release in St Albans earlier today. My preparation had been going over the visual spoiler a few days before and listening to most of the Limited Resources set review. 

As it was a nice hot day, the tables were outside instead of in the shop, in a sort-of-tunnel that goes from the road to the shop, so we had some shade to play in. A nearby shop seemed to be doing well by selling slices of watermelon, which was welcomed on the hot day. I had wandered around the farmers market before the tournament started, picking up a small lavender plant for Liz to cook with. 

When I opened my boosters, I came to the conclusion that all my colours were fairly strong. Blue was less strong and a colour I don't play much anyway, so set that aside. I set aside most of black as there wasn't too much there either, and half my white cards, so started putting together a red/green deck. 

I originally build the deck splashing just Doom Blade for black, but also splashing three white cards (2 Pacifisms). Just before the first round started, I decided that it was being a little too greedy, so took out the white. 

Here is the deck I played at the end of the day:

1 Shock
1 Wring Flesh - this performed a lot better than I thought it would. Mainly helping out in combat as opposed to killing a creature outright
1 Rangers Guile
1 Lay of the Land - I mainly played this because I wanted to limit the number of lands I had for the splash, and also I had a lot of double colour costing cards in both Green and Red
1 Scavenging Ooze - This did really well - I got 12 or so counters on it one game
1 Doom Blade
1 Green Doom Blade Deadly Recluse
1 Kalonian Tusker
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Predatory Sliver
1 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Advocate of the Beast - The main issue I had with this is that I usually wanted to attack with it and a beast to keep the pressure up, so often lost this in combat before I could get something really big
1 Rumbling Baloth
2 Chandra's Outrage
1 Marauding Maulhorn
2 Pitchburn Devils - My opponents didn't block these very often, or attack into them. Not complaining too much about that
1 Enlarge - I can haz trample?
1 Woodborn Behemoth
1 Shivan Dragon

End result: I went 4-1 and came 4th overall. I'm happy with that result considering I don't usually perform well at sealed and had done minimal preparation (the one opponent who did beat me had an agressive red/blue deck that had a lot of good tempo plays; they had also played in two or three other M14 prereleases beforehand so knew the set a little better).

Playing Magic (Standard)

It has been a fair while since I last played Standard (I play less Magic in general now I have Kaleb to look after, and when I do it is usually draft/pre-release sealed), but I made the effort to go and play at the St Albans comic shop at their Friday Night Magic event.

Even though I haven't played Standard in a while, I still had a deck in construction, mostly made up of cards from draft decks. Part of me thinks I enjoy deck building compared to playing more than usual (which would explain why I like draft), so I didn't have to rush to get something ready to play (although I did make a last minute adjustment while getting ready to go). 

There were two tournaments ongoing on the night; one with prizes, and one without (it was free). The one with prizes would be more competitive, so I opted for the free one (like I said, haven't played Standard in a while, and certainly not the current standard environment). 

The deck I put together was originally based around Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, but evolved while I was tinkering with it. The main premise is playing out creatures that have dual use (bloodrush or scavenge), which act similar to spells, but don't trigger Ruric Thar's ability. Here is is:

Two drops
4 Zhur-Taa Druid: No one drops in the deck, and I start ramping on turn two. Not as fast as some other decks, but my curve gets better at 4 anyway, so I'd rather play a 4 drop on turn 3 than a 3 drop on turn 2. I did have the one drop elf that untapped lands for a while, but added things like Rootbound Crag, so I might not always have a forest to untap. I think if Llanowar Elves or similar was legal, I would consider playing one of those instead. 

2 Scorned Villager: Put in when I took out the one drop elves. I tried a couple of other mana generators, but liked this one the best. 

4 Lotleth Troll: Doesn't work as well with bloodthirst, but alight with scavenge. I mainly added it in for the regeneration more than anything else. 

4 Mayor of Avabruck: This was the last minute change I did. I realised that, while I wasn't anywhere near Human or Werewolf tribal, I had just enough humans to make it useful. Plus getting a couple of tokens would help. 

Three Drops
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped: I really liked this one, but only have the one. Would add a couple more if I get my hands on them. Good to use with bloodrush creatures, and lowers the actual scavenge cost of some of the creatures that normally have it. Also regenerates which is nice (I think I was worried about Day of Judgement style effects)

4 Dreg Mangler: Quite handy to have a couple of things with haste really. Efficiently costed too, plus the scavenge is a decent amount. 

1 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker: Can get a couple of creatures in the deck, plus a couple in the sideboard. Might have played more, but I only have the one. Still undecided on this, it did let me get a useful creature the one game I did play it, but that creature was not needed to win in the end. 

Four Drops
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager: Would play another one of these if I had it. Saved some of my creatures a couple of times, big on its own, and a nice scavenge target. 

3 Deadbridge Goliath: While I only have 3, I'm not sure whether 3 or 4 is the right amount. I think I would like to try the deck with 4 as it is a big creature and always welcome. While I didn't get to do it, Varolz lowers its scavenge cost, which is nice.

2 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch: I started the deck with more Unleash creatures, but took them out in the end. Haste is nice, first strike is good, if I can play a creature and scavenge something onto it in the same turn it randomly also gets haste. A human so gets pumped by the mayor. 

Five Drops
1 Wolfir Silverheart: Only played it the once, but was good when I did. I have a second one now so will put it in (whether I play standard again before rotation I don't know, but if I do I have a second). 

1 Vorapede: Seems good, anti-combo with scavenge the first time it is played, but when it comes back with a counter from undying, Exava can give it haste. This was just a card I threw in as it seemed big and fairly resilient. 

1 Bloodgift Demon: This was a last minute addition to allow be to gain a little bit of card advantage later on. Never drew it, so I don't know how well it works in the deck. 

1 Wrecking Ogre: I don't think this is rated highly for constructed, but I like it. Did have two in at one point but took one out, might see if it will squeeze back in. 

Six Drops
2 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: I had three (possibly four) in the deck at once. Took some out to lower the top end of the curve slightly. Nice creature to play, works well with scavenge (and bloodrush too), puts a bit of hurt on control decks (and none in this deck as it is all creatures and lands)

1 Sire of Insanity: Really helped me come back from a bad board state one game. I lost that game in the end, but this made it a close game, as opposed to me being trampled over. 

Lands
I basically played the on colour lands I had access too: 
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Woodland Cemetery
3 Blood Crypt
2 Kessig Wolf Run: Another way to use mana in a spell-like way, without actually casting a spell
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp

Sideboard
The sideboard was me just guessing as to what the meta game would be. I had read about control decks and re-animator decks, so had a few aimed at those, but also some generally useful cards:
1 Predator Ooze: A bit harder to cast in a three colour deck, I had Supreme Verdict and Putrify in mind with this

1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord: The double black is a bit tough here. Some good reuse, which is nice, and pumps with bloodrush. Anti-synergy with scavenge (and Varolz). This might be useful against decks that also run a lot of creatures, as I can win without having to attack. 

2 Crypt Creeper: Might be useful against Snapcaster Mage, but mainly there in case of reanimator

1 Ash Zealot: There for Snapcaster Mage, plus first strike is always handy, nice if this can get counters. 

1 Skylasher: I would put 4 of these in the sideboard if I had them. Maybe I just dislike blue...

4 Acidic Slime: When I was putting a sideboard together, that deck that won with Mazes End kept on appearing online, which is my main reason for wanting this. Hits a lot of other permanents as well, which is always good. 

1 Glaring Spotlight: The creatures losing hexproof isn't as useful as I have no spells to target anyway, but making my team unblockable is always nice. 

1 Creeping Renaissance: One of the few non-creatures. If everything else I have is a creature, this could restock my hand very well in long games. 

3 Pithing Needle: Really like this card. I remember a deck that used this and Goblin Guide together

Matches
There were three rounds in the free pod, as it was the smaller one. I was not doing great in the first game, after a bit of a slow start. My opponent had some largeish creatures, and some I couldn't block. I was one turn away from losing to something I couldn't block, but had a lot on the board. My opponent played two spells which flipped back the Mayor to its human side on my turn, which pumped a couple of my creatures. That and an Exava pushed the damage up to a big swing which won the game. I had a more aggressive start to help win the second game. 

In the second round, I lost the first match, but stabilized (just not enough) with Sire of Insanity (they topdecked a Huntmaster of the Fells which helped them a lot). I boarded in a couple of cards as my opponent was playing Snapcaster and counterspells, and won the next two games. 

In the final round, my opponent had an interesting spell based deck, I won the first game with some larger creatures (but was on 1 life when I won, so a close game). In the second game, I got out a lot of big creatures quickly and there wasn't much my opponent could do about it. 

Even though it was the free pod and there were no prizes, I got some promo cards for winning, and one of the leftover badges from the Dragons Maze prerelease (which is nice, as I wanted a Gruul one but didn't have one yet). 

Modifying the deck
I'm not sure where to start modifying the deck. In theory I should take out all the Innistrad cards as they'll rotate out soon, to see how well it will do in Theros standard. That being said, I did get a Wolfir Silverheart and Huntmaster of the Fells for trade, so might pop them in while they're still legal. I now also have one Dryad Militant, so might look out to get some more. I prefer this one over Rakdos Cackler, even though the Cackler might have a bit more toughness if unleashed, and can be cast by both halves of the hybrid cost in this deck, I get an extra counter if I scavenge the Dryad with Varolz. Plus, I don't care about the cards it exiles as I don't have any in the deck. The sideboard could also do with a bit of work, I want more Skylashers, but that's just me. I don't really have a sideboard plan (i.e. what to take out against certain matchups, which I know you're supposed to), so the sideboard is less of a priority; its more just some cards that might be good in certain cases. 

First Dragons Maze Draft

Unlike the last set, I actually found time to draft this new set, which I'm happy about as I usually prefer draft over sealed. Due to the numbers at the comic shop, we had a number of smaller pods, so I was drafting with 5 others. 

Opening the first pack (Dragons Maze), I found a Warleader's Helix, but was more interested in the foil Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, which I took. This sort of set the tone for the draft, and I picked up as many red and black cards as I could. I also like playing green, so took a few late, but also knew that white could work well too, so kept an eye out for those. At the end of the first pack, I had Blood Scrivener, Carnage Gladiator, Punish the Enemy, Ubul Sar Gatekeepers (but no gates...), Riot Piker and Phytoburst, as well as two cluestones. 

In the second pack, first picking a Stomping Ground from a fairly weak pack, I picked up of note a Scorchwalker, a Pit Fight and a Gruul Keyrune. I did also get a Wojek Halberdiers, but didn't really have much white to play, and the card needs to come down early so isn't a great splash. I did know, however, that if I was in black red, and possibly green black, I would have more to choose from in the final pack, where I did pick up a Korozda Guildmage, Electrickery, Giant Growth, Dead Reveler and Gore-House Chainwalker. 

Building the deck, I did need to include green as I didn't have enough black red cards to stick two colour, which is not entirely unexpected. I did have three mana fixers (four if you include the shock land), but didn't want to add a fourth colour just for two cards, so stuck with three. My curve topped out with one card at 5, so, with the mana artifacts I played 16 lands. 

I won both games of the first round, the set is a fun one to play. Some of the games took a surprisingly long time, considering I was in theory playing a fast deck - the games were very attrition heavy. 

In the second round, I won two of three matches, playing some very close games. One game my opponent tried to get the upper hand in a trade with Weapon Surge, so I played my own one to even things out. In the last game, I narrowly won a race, getting just enough creatures on the battlefield at the end so my opponent couldn't do much about them. 

In the final round, I won a close first match being dead on board next turn. My opponent had played a Sluiceway Scorpion, as the only blocker (a good blocker to have), and to win I drew my second additional green source so I could activate Gruul Keyrune and play Phytoburst on it to trample enough damage through. I was running out of steam at this point, but luckily had done enough early damage that I only had a little more to do to win. 

The second game I faced a turn two Pack Rat. I started racing a bit, but think I should have thought ahead a little more. I saw it in the first game, but killed it with Electrickery before it could do anything, but didn't have anything this time. 

In the final game, I was ahead after my opponents slow start, but they were starting to stabilise. They ended up having a good blocker that they could pump, so I could only profitably attack with a Wasteland Viper, getting in a little bit of extra damage before he played a creature to trade with it. Then, with them on 7 and me on 18, time was called and we had to start 5 extra turns. My opponent calculated that he couldn't win, but by returning a card to give his pumpable creature lifelink, he could get a draw instead. He had to tap out to do this, and I had played out my hand (hoping to get some value out of Blood Scrivener, but it was killed before I could draw). I drew for the turn and attacked with my 2/2 and 2/4. They blocked one so I used the bloodrush from Scorchwalker on the unblocked creature to deal the exact 7 required to win.  Another very close, but fun game. 

I do enjoy this set, hopefully I'll be able to draft it again at some point. There seems to be a lot of scope for many different decks, which looks interesting. Again, playing in the last round made me remember why I prefer drafting over sealed; the final round in sealed is usually the 5th, so including deck construction it is a long time to be concentrating while playing. Drafts are generally 3 rounds, so even though the pre-game part may be longer as it involves the draft and deck building, the draft is finished before I get to the point of starting to lose concentration (like I did at the pre-release, losing only in the final round). 

Plus, this draft I did have Liz and Kaleb there to keep me company.  Kaleb more active than the last draft when I had him on my lap, so I gave him a token card at one point to entertain himself, which he decided would look better folded in half and chewed...

Dragons Maze prerelease

Being busy with Kaleb, I don't play Magic as much as I used to, but still try to get some games in when I can. I only managed one draft after the Return to Ravnica prerelease, and only played Gatecrash once at the prerelease for that. I generally try to get to the prerelease events when I can at least, even if I can't get to anything else, so for the Dragons Maze one, I ensured I registered in advance.

In the morning, before getting ready, I thought it would be fun to write a little app that could flip 5 coins for me, on the off chance I needed to due to the new Planeswalker (Spoiler: I didn't, but it was fun to code nonetheless).

Liz and Kaleb were not going to be playing, but travelled down with me so they could go shopping. We arrived almost exactly on time; good train picking skills on Liz's part there.

I had picked Golgari as my main guild (wearing the guild T-shirt I got too), with part of me hoping for Gruul as those are the two guilds I picked for the other two prereleases. My actual secret guild was Orzhoz, so I started to get into the mindset of having some longer games.

Opening the pool, I think I got a decent set of cards. I figured my guild packs were good enough that I would probably play them, so decided I would start thinking from a different point of view, and pick a colour to not play, if possible. The first colour eliminated was blue, as I didn't really have all that much worth playing.

I almost eliminated red, but really wanted to play Ruric Thar and Warleaders Helix, so thought I would see if I could keep them in. I almost set aside Advent of the Wurm before realising that if I was paying green-black and white-black, I was also playing green-white...

My big Orzhov bomb was the mythic Blood Baron, and I had Alms Beast too. Other good cards included Dread Mangler, Toil & Trouble (and I could play both halves with my red splash), and two Ubul Sar Gatekeepers, which I was happy to play as all 6 gates I got were in my three main colours.

About half my deck needed black mana, so I played 6 swamps, the rest being covered by gates, and a couple of plains and forests, as they were also covered by the gates. I played one mountain and two red cluestones (boros and rakdos) to cover my two and a half card red splash, but I think I could have gotten away with just the cluestones and a prism in retrospect.

I won all four of the first matches I played, my deck seemed to play quite fast. Not by number of turns as it took me a few turns usually before I had played that much, but whenever I did play something, it was usually really good. One game I was able to play a turn three cluestone into a turn four Blood Baron. I think in those four matches I only lost one game to a madcap skills creature with double strike and a flyer, but being hit for 17 in one turn isn't something I was expecting.

The whole day I had been having fun and feeling relaxed, but come the last round (the finals), the games were very tense. Very fun, but still very tense. I lost the first game, I think it was close though. The second game I won, but that was close too. In the third game I think I made a few mistakes and lost, but was impressed with my record part the first round really, so didn't mind that much. One mistake was I was being attacked with a 5/2 and 5 power of double strike and temple, I had a 5/5 to block and blocked the one with double strike, I should have blocked the other one to trade as I took 10 in any case. Another mistake I think was that I held on to the gatekeeper waiting to draw my second gate (all other games I played I had two gates out quite quickly), when I should have played it earlier to either trade or hold off some damage. I did spend a turn playing two cluestones and not developing my board which was also a mistake.

All in ask it was a fun day. I'll see if I can actually get to draft this set unlike the last one when I didn't have the time. I wasn't too good when I last drafted a set that encouraged more than two colours, but I think this one supports it better, so hopefully I'll be OK :-)

Return to Ravnica - first games

I have, so far, now played Return to Ravnica limited twice. The first time being the prerelease where I played Golgari, and the second being a draft where I drafted, erm, Golgari. 

The prerelease, at Chaos City Comics in St Albans, was a fun time. Liz had been out in London during the day, but came back with Kaleb to cheer me along. I thought I had a really good sealed pool (I had the Golgari prerelease box), with a Lotleth Troll, and a couple of scavenge creatures (plus the creature search thing), but only managed to win the first match. All other games were fun and close, which is the main thing. I think I've been out of practice for a while (not that I normally do well in sealed anyway). 

At Hemel the other week, both me and Liz were there to draft, again with me having Kaleb on my lap. I opened up a pack with the red X spell with overload, so took that first. After that, I didn't get passed too much red, and got a couple of BG cards, so moved into Golgari. In the second pack, I opened a Niv Mizzet, which I took wondering if I could get enough cards to support him, but saw very little blue or red so didn't bother risking trying, and stuck with the Golgari plan. 

In the third pack, I was passed an Underworld Connections (the opener taking a on-colour Mythic over it). I build my deck quickly so I could keep Kaleb amused before we started, I had a fairly low curve, but a fair number of scavenge cards, so did have a couple of things to be doing in the late game. 

In the first game, I played Joel, where we had some close matches, and I was fortunate to win the last match with a pair of Giant Growths. 

The second game, I played Liz, playing Rakdos, and we had some interesting games. The first looked like there was a bit of a board stall, I had some good defenders, and she had some big unleash creatures (who couldn't block, but would do a lot of damage on the swing back if I attacked). I won the first game, but lost the second very quickly due to a lack of lands of the right colour. She had a very aggressive start which punished me greatly...

I was able to win the third match, when she unfortunately had similar problems that I did  (although could do more with less, so it wasn't as quick). Kaleb at this point had decided to go to sleep...

In the final round, I played Sam, who we hadn't seen for some time. He had the four mana Demon, but by the time it came out I had a big enough board that I could tap it and swing for the win. I did stall a couple of turns once he played a swampwalker and I kept a swamp in hand, casting my black spells using only a gate, until I was able to deal with it otherwise. 

The set is a fun set, and I'm sure I'll play another guild eventually... I do quite like the multi coloured scavenge creatures, I had multiples in my deck and they seemed to work quite well. I did like the green hexproof dude, that worked well with the scavenge creatures. Removal seems a little light in the set, but the hexproof is always handy against what there is, and it makes the deathtouch creatures all the more useful, and giant growth a nice trick to help in combat. Hopefully a set I will be able to play some more in the coming future. 

Drafting Avacyn Restored

Me and Liz went along to Hemel to do a draft of Avacyn Restored last night; probably the last time we'll be able to go for a little while. This would be the second time to draft the set, so we had a bit of an idea about what some of the cards did. 

The Helvault and Avacyn Restored draft

Due to some illness, I didn't go along to a Avacyn Restored pre-release. With a baby coming along soon I'm not going to be going to as many events as usual, so I didn't mind too much. I had a look through the set while it was being spoiled and it looked interesting though (but I sometimes find it hard to see what a set looks like without playing it). It wasn't one that I looked through and thought it looked awesomely fun straight away, but not all sets do that, so that's fine. There were a couple of fun looking cards, that I might try to get for a couple of decks. It seems to take me a couple of days to listen to the Magic pod casts I listen to (The Mana Pool and Limited Resources), so I think by that point I had listened to the pre-pre-release ones so was about as prepared as a pre-release (which, it kind of was to me, the second interaction with the set [1])


Even though we had missed the pre-release, on the weekend the set was released we popped in the comic shop I play at sometimes (Chaos City in St Albans) as it was free comic book day (and we were passing through St Albans), and were asked if we wanted to come to the Monday night Magic event they were doing, which would be a draft of the new set. We said we might come along if we had the time spare to. As it was on a bank holiday, we did have a bit of time, and did make an effort to go along, if anything because it's a few set and we'll have less Magic playing time soon...

Dark Ascension draft

I've not been able to draft as much as I would have liked recently, so was happy that me and Liz had a spare evening to go along to Hemel yesterday. Getting ready, we wondered how many times we had actually drafted the set, figuring it had only been once, maybe twice. I had gone to the pre-release so was one time up, but it was still a lot less than I would have liked. 


Sitting down, we opened the Dark Ascension pack and I had a look through, before deciding that, as I hadn't played the set much (and won't have much of a chance to soon), I would go for a fun deck as opposed to a super powerful one, and went with Diregraf Captain, with the intention to get a fun Zombie deck. 

Magic deck: HaakonStorm

When Innistrad was first being spoiled, one card that caught my eye was Rooftop Storm. Reading the card, I thought it would be fun to pair it with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge...

Updated Terravore deck

A while back I updated my Terravore deck, and had it sitting around for a while waiting to test it. Then a friend of mine came over for a bit, and we got to playing some Magic so I got to test it out. 


The deck is all based around the card Terravore, one I really like when I first saw online when I started playing Magic years ago. I decided I would build a deck around it, and when I eventually got some copies of the card, I did. 

Dark Ascension pre-release

Bit late for this posting now, but I've been busy. 


Went to the Dark Ascension pre-release in St Albans the other weekend - it was on a Sunday (so they had already run two the previous two days). I had donated some basic land cards as there was a message on the forum saying they were low and couldn't get hold of any land stations. Luckily I had a box of spare lands that I sent along to be used over the weekend. 


I got there a bit early and we waited around until the start, lining up to get the boosters and then we all opened them at the same time (I got mine towards the end of the line so didn't have to wait as long as others). 

Drafting the Laboratory Maniac deck

I did another draft last night and, while I didn't do well with blue last time, ended up playing blue again. I had been reading about an archetype where you mill yourself and make many spider tokens over and over again, but didn't want to go into the draft looking to play the deck, and just went with what I saw. As it turned out, I ended up going with a deck very similar anyway. 


When I opened the pack, the first card I picked was Skaab Ruinator. Massive creature, evasion; generally a great bomb. Meant I was going to be in blue again, but I had a win condition, whereas last time I just had ways to delay my inevitable defeat. It also meant I would have to be looking into playing cards that filled my graveyard, so kept that in mind. I can't remember what my next pick or two were, it might have been a Victim of Night. But my pick either 3 or 4 was Laboratory Maniac, which looked so fun I took it and decided to build my deck around it...