Besieged Midnight Sealed Tournament (3-1)

Mirrodin Besieged is here!
With this one, I had a rough time deciding on my faction. Eventually I went Phyrexia, mostly due to friends and the foil. I was rather surprised at the amount of Mirran players, with a roughly 50/50 split between the two groups. Either the Phyrexians around here tend to be the louder group, or I need more Mirran friends.

My last Sealed was a horrible memory. Opened a great infect deck, put itself together without much effort and all that jazz. Only problem was that I couldn't draw land. At all. The exception being a friendly few games with another player while we waited between rounds. I smashed him thoroughly. Oh yeah, he later won that tournament. Yeah. Moving on.

Here's a list of the deck I pulled together, the cards I ended up using in sideboard (in italics), and the "illegitimate" rest of the sideboard that only saw light of day while I opened my packs.


A Nightmare Awakens
---Lands (16)---
x9 Forest
x1 Glimmerpost
x6 Swamp

---Creatures (14)---
x1 Blight Mamba
x1 Blightwidow
x1 Corpse Cur
x2 Flensermite
x1 Flesh-Eater Imp
x1 Necropede
x1 Phyrexian Juggernaut
x1 Rot Wolf
x1 Rusted Slasher
x2 Viridian Corrupter
x2 Viridian Emissary

---Spells (4)---
x2 Morbid Plunder
x1 Untamed Might
x1 Virulent Wound

---Artifacts (7)---
x1 Grafted Exoskeleton
x2 Ichor Wellspring
x1 Infiltration Lens
x1 Mimic Vat
x1 Mirrorworks
x1 Spine of Ish Sah


---Sideboard (59)---
x1 Blackcleave Goblin
x1 Caustic Hound
x1 Corrupted Harvester
x1 Fume Spitter
x1 Gruesome Encore
x1 Phyresis
x1 Phyrexian Rager
x1 Carapace Forger
x1 Copperhorn Scout
x1 Creeping Corrosion
x1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
x2 Glissa's Courier
x2 Unnatural Predation
x1 Viridian Revel
x1 Dross Ripper
x3 Flayer Husk
x1 Moriok Replica
x1 Mortarpod
x2 Panic Spellbomb
x1 Pierce Strider
x1 Saberclaw Golem
x1 Sylvok Replica
x1 Vector Asp
x1 Vulshok Replica
x1 Wall of Tanglecord
x1 Arrest
x1 Banishment Decree
x1 Choking Fumes
x1 Fulgent Distraction
x1 Glint Hawk
x1 Soul Parry
x2 Tine Shrike
x1 Bonds of Quicksilver
x1 Darkslick Drake
x1 Disperse
x2 Fuel for the Cause
x1 Inexorable Tide
x1 Riddlesmith
x1 Scrapdiver Serpent
x2 Serum Raker
x1 Sky-Eel School
x1 Thrummingbird
x1 Turn Aside
x1 Vault Skyward
x1 Vedalken Certarch
x1 Into the Core
x2 Kuldotha Rebirth
x1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
x1 Turn to Slag
x1 Swamp


The matches themselves were four rounds; here's a quick summary.

Round 1 - Monoblack Infect (2-0)
I can't say too much here. Game 1 ended prematurely to a Untamed Might 9/9 Rot Wolf poisoning the day. An enjoyable first poison win, even if it fell one power short of unlocking the Praetor's Pet achievement. Second game I felt like a douche-bag; Rusted Slasher + Spine of Ish Sah equals a recurring pay 7 mana to destroy a permanent. Now toss in Mirrorworks and for an extra 2 mana you can destroy a second permanent as well as keep regeneration fodder for the more vulnerable combo piece. That's a worthy recipe for making an Eldrazi, if I say so myself.

Round 2 -Red/White Battlecry (0-2)
My first exposure to what the Mirrans had to offer. Would have gone better if I saw better draw during both games, but oh well. At least verified battle cry in my mind as being more than a "meh" ability.

Round 3 - Black/Green Geth (2-1)
Another Untamed Might gave Rot Wolf another player kill. Loved it. Geth, Lord of the Vault saw play in game two, which took up the majority of our match time. Ish Sah killed it eventually. Eventually. But after being milled twenty or so cards, he had the creature advantage to seal the deal. Game 3, however, saw me with more infect creatures than I could shake a stick at. Helps when Phyrexian Juggernaut has Infiltration Lens on him and whatnot.

Round 4 - White/Red Battlecry (2-1)
I was nervous this time around. Games for all the beans can do that sometimes. Particularly after the first Mirran bout. Game one started, and a bad omen Mulligan gave me a worse hand than the first. Kept it, eventually popping my two Viridian Emissaries a total of five times thanks to Morbid Plunder. Mostly it was done to avert the total lack of land I was drawing early game, and to help stem the tide of double Master's Call (two 1/1 Myrs each) followed by Kuldotha Rebirth (-1 Myr, +3 1/1 Goblins). Seemed pretty good, but he wasn't seeing more than one mountain. By the time he could play his battle cry red creatures, I had enough mana to fuel my Mirrorworks and Spine of Ish Sah. Without my Slasher, I had to use my mirrorwork copy to destroy the original so I could recur it. Oh well. Eventually, Grafted Exoskeleton on none other than Viridian Emissary went the distance. Game two I got to see battlecry go to town. My blockers helped a ton, but a well-placed Arrest on my Juggernaut kept me from stabilizing. Awfully quick game. The third game saw us going past the round time limit into five-turn draw mode. I can't recall all of what happened there; happened too quickly, but I can say is that Koth was involved, Juggernaut saw me drawing lots and lots and lots off Infiltrator Lens, and we both had Mimic Vats out at any given time, even two in my possession at one point. Crazy stuff, even if I didn't get to combo. In the end, lack of flying on his part let Flesh-Eater Imp go the distance.

So yeah, five prize packs to me next week. Hope they are worth the wait!

Phylactery Dick

First deck post of the new year, and I misspell the title? Nah, totally intentional.

Here's a deck I've been playing around with since roughly mid-October. Started with me looking at a Phylactery Lich and thinking, "Gee, there sure are a lot of artifacts in the new set." First iteration came about around the same time Liquimetal Coating was popular. While people built destructive decks around it, my mindset was more towards aiming the effect at a Land or existing Lich before dropping a second one. Darksteel Axe seemed to be an obligatory include, considering it nearly erased the Lich's main weakness. And Prophetic Prism gave me mana fixing with the added bonus of filling up the hole it left in my hand. Early versions also played with Darksteel Juggernaut for both the amount of artifacts in the deck (A few myr and vampire-favoring equipment can boost numbers) and my inclusion of a certain white spell.

Anyways, here's what it looks like at the moment;


Phylactery Dickery
---Land (23)---
x3 Marsh Flats
x4 Plains
x12 Swamp
x4 Terramorphic Expanse

---Creatures (17)---
x2 Abyssal Persecutor
x3 Baneslayer Angel
x2 Darksteel Myr
x4 Leaden Myr
x4 Phylactery Lich
x2 Wall of Omens

---Artifacts (8)---
x4 Darksteel Axe
x4 Prophetic Prism

---Spells (12)---
x4 Day of Judgment
x4 Dispense Justice
x4 Journey to Nowhere


---Sideboard(15)---
x3 Kor Firewalker
x4 Leyline of Sanctity
x4 Memoricide
x4 Sadistic Sacrament


Breakdown:
- Marsh Flats / Terramorphic Expanse: I'd up one and lower the other, but one must have before one can do. Anyways, they fix up the mana base quite well, considering how important it can be to have that third swamp or that first plains.
- Abyssal Persecutor: Another thing I'd probably play four of. This demon's downside is rarely an issue when 20% of my deck is capable of buggering off the minion when he's no longer needed.
- Darksteel Myr: Indestructible artifacts are great with Phylactery Lich, and this one makes a great wall. Not as good as the Axe, considering the expanded selection of vulnerabilities.
- Leaden Myr: Ramp! I'd rather not risk sticking a Phylactery counter on him, but he fixes black as well as help with a turn three Persecutor.
- Phylactery Lich: The main attraction. 5/5 Indestructible is rather awesome, particularly when most methods of dealing with him aren't too mainstr- metastream? Eh, um... yeah. And with a deck packing maximum Day of Judgment, it can spell "direct damage" to an opponent. As it hits it. Preferably repeatedly. With an Axe. Moving on <.<
- Wall of Omens: I'd replace the Darksteel Myr with two more of these cantrips, if only I took the time to acquire two more. With Besieged coming out, 0/1 buy less time to infect than a 0/4.
- Darksteel Axe: Suck on this, Liquimetal Naturalize decks! Also, a more effective weapon than a Bone-Wand.
- Prophetic Prism: My first non-Darksteel choice for the Lich's weakness. It cantrips, and it filters in ways I could only have dreamed of if only I weren't playing since, ever. But for Standard, it's the only mana filter I have available, and fortunately it rarely lets me down. As a turn two play, it can allow for a turn three Lich and turn four DoJ without annoying things like mana-Myr or say, green. All in all keeps the chroma in check. That metaphor works, right?
- Dispense Justice: Catches offensive creatures off-guard. Metalcraft isn't too important, but can happen. Honestly, the card I'm most displeased with. Used to be Sunspear Shikari's back when there were more equipment. I'm thinking about changing them to Reassembling Skeleton, considering my lack of Bloodghasts and love of post-wrath board recovery. What do you think?

Sideboard:
- Firewalkers: Actually thinking about taking them out, but Red Aggro seems a tad high in the current meta.
- Leyline of Sanctity: Can severely hinder mill, direct damage (including Valakut), discard, and other random shenanigans. A shame it can't deal with Venser.
- Sadistic Sacrament, Memoricide: Almost obligatory includes in games two and three. Basically takes potshots at my opponent's strategy, particularly Valakut and Relic Weenie. And in my opinion, this is where a consistent solid turn three black mana pays off the most.

So, that's about it. There's little doubt in my mind that it'll need some adjusting before using it after Besieged. Industructible more useful for surviving wrath effects than it is at enduring -1/-1 counters, afterall...

Update

So it's been a little over five months since my last update. My bad.

Time can go quickly, and laziness can be a factor. And honestly, I've had a lull in crazy ideas. September was a mixture of anguish and anticipation. For the former, I had to part with my Warp World deck on the months end. I'll admit I'm rather fond of the deck; a rare trait that only two of my Standard decks had managed to possess until that point (A Mirrodon/Kamigawa block Leveler deck, and a consistant top 8ing Ravnica/Time Spiral block "Zombify" deck). As with the previous two, a new block was arriving, hence the anticipation. When Mirrodin (my first block being a competitive player) left I was introduced with Ravnica, reveling the Golgari guild. I moved on fairly easy, and hardly missed the artifact-heavy sets when the Orzhov came around. Hell, even Dissension's Nephilim kept me entertained. When the time came for Lorwyn to kick out all my fun creatures in Ravnica, I don't feel like I was compensated for the loss. To this day I keep bitter feelings towards those storybook sets. And then came Scars of Mirrodin.

I savored the final FNM before the transition. Warp World almost possessed a will of it's own, giving me good draws the whole night. Even legitimately massacring the rare Valukut match I encountered. It was good times to Top 8 once again; the last time being the first time I tried out the deck.

As for Scars itself, it was good to see Mirrodin again. Old friends. Like Time Spiral was for me. I won't go into an in-depth review of the set; too late in the game I'd say, but also because critique of it can easily be found in abundance elsewhere. I will say though, as someone who never saw Affinity as an actual threat back in the day, I found Metalcraft to be quite underwhelming.

So I've been here and there, mostly playing with one deck that I've tinkered with on and off. I'll post it a bit later. Tempted to play it again tonight, but I'm considering another deck to try toying with before MtG goes full WoW and Besieged brings about the Infected Horde.

Here I'm almost on the eve of another set release, and I'm surprised to see myself dreading Infect's spotlight. Mayhaps the Phyrexians are coming back to their old selves. We'll see.