Friday, March 16, 2012

FNM Recap - MonoPod (4-1-1)

Just a quick recap this time around, as I'm prepping for tonight's FNM shortly. Top Four'd with MonoPod last week. Still enjoying the deck.

Minor changes to the deck from the last post:
-1 Myr Propagator, +1 Garruk Relentless.
Sideboard was the same, minus the Naturalizes.

That said, it was a rather absurd night, pairings-wise. Here's a quick summary.
Round 1 - Lost 1-2 vs U/W Delver (swords focused). Something about a game one early Body and Mind and a game three major-mana screw really impeded my ability to race him.
Round 2 - Won 2-1 vs U/B Zombies.
Round 3 - Won 2-1 vs U/B Zombies. This one played an excessive amount of Obliterators, each matched with my own Metamorphed/Mimic Vat copies. Good games all around when each attack from either side can carry more risk than reward.
Round 4 - Won 2-0 vs U/B Zombies. My deck was sick of zombies at this point. It stomped hard. Game two even had two Dungroves in opening hand followed by two drawn shortly after.
Round 5 - Took my chances with an ill-advised draw. It worked somehow.
Top 8 - Won 2-0 vs an Esper control build. I played around his counters and board wipe magnificently. Not bad for a fool galloping through a minefield.
Top 4 - We split the prize.

Now to see how tonight fares...

Until next brains!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Recap - Heartless Hellrider [RB] (2-1)

Hmm, the more I post, the faster I can get the lack of updating behind me! Yes!

So, for a whiles now I've been wanting to assemble a B/R Heartless deck. Something about the loose synergy of a random assortment of cards really appeals to me. Played the deck last night in a casual Standard tournament, and didn't do too bad. Let's start with the list.


Heartless Hellrider [RB]
---Lands (23)---
3x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Dragonskull Summit
14x Mountain
2x Swamp

---Creatures (25)---
1x Balefire Dragon
4x Hellrider
1x Inferno Titan
1x Moltensteel Dragon
4x Myr Superion
4x Phyrexian Metamorph
4x Priest of Urabrask
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
3x Solemn Simulacrum
2x Urabrask, the Hidden

---Enchantments (4)---
4x Heartless Summoning

---Sorceries (8)---
1x Devil's Play
4x Faithless Looting
3x Galvanic Blast


So, the main goal of the deck is fast damage. Hellriders can hit hard early on, especially with friends to work with.
Heartless Summoning or Priest of Urabrask get out Myr Superions.
Heartless Summoning turns Priests of Urabrask into red Dark Rituals and Phyrexian Metamorphs into quick copiers. That spells big things out fast and bunches of annoying things, respectively.
Not too complicated, right?

Summary time!

Now, I noticed the lack of reactive spells in the deck, so I decided to make the sideboard pretty much just that. In other words, I could switch into a control deck at a moment's notice. Ideally, Heartless Summoning and the Myr Superions would be the first ones to go out in the switch.
- 2x Kruin Outlaw: 2/2 first strike isn't bad on the defensive.
- 2x Dismember
- 2x Tragic Slip
- 2x Brimstone Volley: I will note that this spell loves a Heartless Priest of Urabrask
- 3x Curse of Death's Hold: Eats little things.
- 4x Shatter
Shame I had to do this in a hurry. I'd have preferred Manic Vandals, Slagstorms, and some Ratchet Bombs. Or something.

Round 1 - [WG] White Sun Myr (2-0)
- A deck that uses the Galvanizer combo as well as huge mana in general to pop out massive White Sun's Zeniths. Zenithes. Zeni?

I felt bad in game one. That's one heck of a way to start a tournament. Turn two Heartless Summoning. Turn three Priest of Urabrask, generating enough mana to drop the Balefire Dragon. Which proceeded to eat all the little Myrs until my opponent was dead. Ouch.
Game two was a bit slower. Heartless Summoning showed a turn three Priest -> Solemn Simulacrum + Moltensteel Dragon. Risk was worth the reward; as turn four saw the phyrexian firebreather hit him for 6 as I played another Simulacrum, and turn five saw me slice my life in half to help the Dragon bring him into a metalcrafty Galvanic Blast range. Felt awesome.

Round 2 - [WU] Human Aggro (0-2)
- A casual Standard deck I've helped construct / assemble. Human oriented, it plays a mix of aggressive humans and suppressive whiteyness.

This round was silly. Game one was good. Mulliganed. Heartlessed into a Hellrider. Hellrider, with backup, works quite well. Without it, not so much. An Elite Inquisitor stopped his swings. Urabrask popped out, but was quickly shut down by an Oblivion Ring. A Vigilance flip human comes out and gets enchanted by Spirit Mantle. Inferno Titan comes out. Nope, another Oblivion Ring. The kill only aggravates the vigilance human, and my last turn sees him get trampley and finish off was his vigilance (and an Invisible Stalker) began.
Game two was absurd. I sideboard in control, end up mulliganing again. Nada in the kill department. Which sucked, considering she played a turn one Champion of the Parish followed by two more on turn two. Needless to say, I was quickly buried under a mass of +1/+1 counters.

Round 3 - [UB] Zombies (2-0)
- From what I've gathered, he's got one-ofs Gravecrawler, Rooftop Storm, and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in addition to his normal zombies to set up a cute combo; Grimgrin sacs Gravecrawler for a +1/+1 counter, then Gravecrawler comes back due to there being a zombie on the field plus having a zero cost from Rooftop Storm. Rinsed/repeat leads to an ∞/∞ Grimgrin. Now mix that infinite sacrificing with life loss the playset of Diregraf Captain in the deck can generate.

Ah, zombies. So fun. Game one saw Faithless Looting to set up a Heartless Summoning. Turn three I kamikaze'd Priest of Urabrask into a Solemn Simulacrum and three more from Phyrexian Metamorphs, leaving me with 14 life and six land. Those land get relevant, as I have to blow about four more Faithless Lootings to start hitting win conditions that can chew through the horde he's building. That's done by a combination of Hellrider and Inferno Titan, but only after I'd hit six life.
Game two was something different altogether. Turn three Priest of Urabrask into a Superion. Hellrider pops out the next turn, the Superion eating his blocker. Another Hellrider and a Metamorph Superion come out after that, eating another random zombie, and anything I play on the last turn is hardly relevant after, though I did pop out an Urabrask, burn up his little blocker, and swing for ~26 damage. Brag brag brag.


So, not too bad overall. I'm rather pleased with the ability of the deck to blow out an opponent quickly. And be able to manage without a drawn Heartless Summoning. And manage a three mana game with a Heartless around. And keep a bad hand then fix it with Faithless Looting. Hell, Faithless Looting gets it's own mention. I can draw a land on an empty hand, flashback it, then keep the best one of the three cards drawn that turn. Screw card advantage when digging for something relevant/helpful makes for a better priority.

Sorry about the mass of text. I do feel the deck needs a few more fatties to keep the game going, but I might be wrong on that vibe. Also, without a Heartless or Looting, turns one-through-three can feel pretty slow. Off the bat, I'd support nixxing a Superion and a Metamorph for something playable in those slots. Maybe two mainboard Slagstorms in addition to that, for getting a last push if the Hellriders fail just short of the finish line. Because Devil's Play can't always do it.
Meh, more rambling...



Until next time!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Decklist - MonoPod [G]

So, the FNM after I posted that quickly-made list, my friend's Birthing Pods were free to use, so I tossed my loyal U/B Heartless deck to the wind and assembled the build. After a month's worth of FNMs, I'm still royally digging it, especially the fairly frequent Top 8 scores. Here's how it is now.


Monopod
---Lands (23)---
2x Kessig Wolf Run
19x Forest
2x Mountain

---Creatures (32)---
2x Acidic Slime
2x Avacyn's Pilgrim
1x Birds of Paradise
4x Dungrove Elder
4x Llanowar Elves
1x Myr Propagator
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Precursor Golem
1x Predator Ooze
1x Primevil Titan
3x Solemn Simulacrum
3x Strangleroot Geist
4x Viridian Emissary
2x Wurmcoil Engine

---Artifacts (6)---
4x Birthing Pod
2x Mimic Vat


---Sideboard (17*)---
3x Autumn's Veil
2x Batterskull
3x Corrosive Gale
1x Karn Liberated
2x Naturalize
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
2x Ratchet Bomb


Breakdown:
- Kessig Wolf Runs, Forests, and Mountains: Forests are the primary fuel of the deck, with Mountains in only to support the game-ending potential of the Wolf Runs. And while it is annoying to run into either of the non-green sources early in some games, most of the deck only cares about having just one green symbol anyway, and the redundancy has dashed at least three opponent's plans to date.
- Avacyn's Pilgrims, Birds of Paradise, and Llanowar Elves: Provide the early game support. Blue hates it when I turn two Dungrove Elder. The Pilgrims would be Birds, but they're on loan and I don't mind the early aggro nor really need the color fixing.
- Viridian Emissaries and Solemn Simulacrums: Give me ramp, and decent Pod fodder.
- Strangleroot Geist: Early aggro and not a bad Pod target, since he can swing after it, unless he's busy with having been killed earlier by removal or previous sacrificing.
- Dungrove Elder: The tastiest critter in the deck. He provides the most of the beats, wins, and opponent disliking. Especially when it's an Emissary providing Pod fodder for him.
- Wurmcoil Engine: Doesn't show up as much as the Elder, but still provides a decent amount of beats.
- Phyrexian Metamorph: Jack-of-most trades. Kills opposing legendaries. 85% of the time becomes Dungrove Elder and doesn't afraid of anything. Especially in this artifact hate-filled environment.
- Precursor Golem: Fun against light-removal decks. Mostly only a bridge between a Simulacrum and a Wurmcoil, though. Never hurts when he leaves behind his posse!
- Acidic Slime: Only removal in the deck pre-sideboard. Loves to eat swords and long walks on unique locales.
- Myr Propagator: Occupies a very chaotic spot in the deck. Used to be a Pyreheart Wolf until I disliked the lack of early game red for it. Then was a Daybreak Ranger, but wasn't relevent / alive for enough games. Almost became a One-Eyed Scarecrow until Spirits got lucky and I thought better of it. Knowing my luck will become a Jar of Eyeballs, but more likely will become a Garruk Relentless until I get a better three-drop in color in Avacyn Restored. Assuming I don't take it out now that I've noticed there's 61 cards in the deck. Fingers crossed.
- Predator Ooze: A convenient one-of. Rarely shows up in games he shouldn't participate in, and can be Podded into when he is needed. Blocks opposing Dungrove Elders on the defensive, and offensively can swing all day long until they run out of chump blockers or I hit a Wolf Run. So basically, an anti-mirror / Timmy deck tech inclusion.
- Primeval Titan: Purely in the deck for fetching up a Wolf Run and a mountain. If he lives to swing, good for him; the Dungroves are sure to appreciate it.
- Birthing Pod: One of the key bits of the deck, but not vital. Generally only used as a tool to turn cmc 2s into Dungroves and cmc 4/5s into Wurmcoils.
- Mimic Vat: Defensively, keeps an expendable blocker around at a low cost. Offensively, lets me swing and Pod if the fake critter survives. Douchebaggingly, can steal a Chandra's Pheonix or a Gravecrawler if need be. Serves 'em right for depending on graveyards instead of their deck for more critters.
What's Missing:
- Predator Ooze: One's out, since it's intentional use is veeeery specific so far.
- Woodland Sleuth: I took her out after rarely ever seeing her hit play, much less have time to fetch / abuse it. Sadly, I haven't missed her.
- Vorapede: No access. Acidic Slime seem to be doing fine in their place.
- Bellowing Tanglewurm: A casualty of never showing up. Podwise, I always felt more of a need to pull acidic slime instead.

Sideboard:
Note: I listed 17, because I've been switching between the two Naturalizes and Batterskulls. Both have merits and have won me games, so it's tough.
- Autumn's Veil: For screwing over control. Especially if it's to play a hexproof creature. A resolved Elder just eats them alive.
- Batterskull: For when the Pods come out and I go into pure ramp mode. They evade artifact hate, and that can really matter.
- Corrosive Gale: For stalling Delver decks and the occasional Spirit-focused token deck. Since I can't always draw a needed Dungrove for racing them.
- Karn Liberated: Another ramp mode choice. Slower decks don't appreciate his bulky exiling bullying.
- Naturalize: Mostly intended for busting Oblivion rings and Swords.
- Surgical Extraction: For the French Rites deck that's going around, mostly. With that, I almost feel like I need two Nihil Spellbombs as well to screw it over. Not sure, since it's probably the toughest matchup. Anyways, I also have a bad habit of exiling counterspells after they've annoyed me, with the added bonus of seeing my control opponent's hand.
- Thrun, the Last Troll: Another anti-control measure. Resolving hexproofers has been what's allowed me to eat them alive in most of my matches. He makes it easier, and (although I haven't needed it), can survive the rare board wiping.
- Ratchet Bomb: Disentegrates tokens. That is all.


That's about it. Most of the strategy involved is covered in the breakdown. Lastly, I do want to know how deceptive I've noticed the deck can be. With Dungrove Blade and Wolf Run metagame decks running around, I've noticed the more "internet-informed" players jumping to the conclusion that this deck's one of those, only to see "the other half" appear shortly after.

Tldr; Dungrove Elder beats.


Until next post!