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!

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!

Concept Decklist - MonoPod [G]

Had a few deck ideas once the Dark Ascension spoiler came out. Rather than solidify any of them (BW tokens, BRU Vengeance, BRU Curses, and most entertainingly, BW Myr), I decided to see how the Prerelease treated my thoughts. I'll talk about that later, I think.

So anyway, this has nothing to do with that. I just wanted to kick a monogreen Birthing Pod deck out of my head.


Monopod
---Lands (22)---
2x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Mountain
18x Forest

---Creatures (34)---
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Llanowar Elves
3x Strangleroot Geist
4x Viridian Emissary
4x Dungrove Elder
2x Predator Ooze
3x Solemn Simulacrum
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
2x Woodland Sleuth
1x Bellowing Tanglewurm
2x Vorapede
1x Primeval Titan
2x Wurmcoil Engine

---Noncreature Artifacts (4)---
4x Birthing Pod


The goal is to stomp hard. With seven one-drop rampers, chances are on your side that you'll have one in opening hand. Speaking of ramp, it's packing seven more just to up the Timmy Fury. Primeval's solely to get out a Wolf Run and / or Mountain if you need them, and Bellowing Tanglewurm's intended to be an End-of-Opponent's-Turn pod-fetch finisher. This build leaves problem solvers purely to the sideboard; Deal with it.

Concept Decklist - Goblincry [R]

Okay, kinda surprised I've gone this long without posting. Snagged a few top spots with some decks I'd been meaning to share. Suppose I'll get those up before Dark Ascension comes up and I dismantle them.

Anyways, a friend of mine was throwing together an aggro deck for next Friday. I took the general concept and spun it around my head a bit. It... strayed quite a bit. My bad. Well, for the off-chance sake of posterity, here it is.


Goblincry
---Lands (22)---
x18-22 Mountain
x0-4 Contested War Zone*

---Creatures (20)---
x4 Goblin Wardriver
x4 Memnite
x4 Signal Pest
x2 Spikeshot Elder*
x4 Stormblood Beserker
x2 Vault Skirge

---Spells (18)---
x4 Brimstone Volley
x2 Curse of Stalked Prey*
x4 Goblin Grenade
x4 Kuldotha Rebirth
x4 Reverberate


Basic strategy goes something like this; Aggro your opponent ASAP to ~10 life, then use Brimstone Volley or Goblin Grenade combined with Reverberate to turn that 10 into 0 life.

If such synergy's not for you, toss out the 'verbs for more aggro and do your thing.

* Deck notes: War Zones if you have them, I guess.
* Spikeshot Elders are meant to be more of a goblin filler than anything else. Without it, you've only got eight to work with when grenadiering. So if you're okay with that, max out the Vault Skirges. Otherwise, feel free to toss in other goblins there as you see fit. Preferably cheap ones, if you like early grenade options.
* Stalked Prey is a great idea in concept, but out of all the cards here, I've the least experience with it, period. Consider it a wildcard if you don't like it. More artifact/goblin fodder? Incinerates? Sure.


[Oh right, happy belated new year. Or something.]

Decklist - Metakiller [B/W]

So what did I want to talk about that one week? A deck I devised to take on the current meta.

Do realize this was literally made the night before New Phyrexia Game Day, so Big Boy Jace and his Stoneforge Waifu were still around in T2.


Metakiller
---Lands (22)---
x6 Plains
x8 Swamp
x3 Marsh Flats
x1 Mystifying Maze
x4 Terramorphic Expanse

---Creatures (23)---
x2 Abyssal Persecutor
x3 Baneslayer Angel
x4 Leaden Myr
x2 Leonin Relic-Warder
x3 Myr Battlesphere
x3 Palladium Myr
x2 Sun Titan
x4 Wall of Omens

---Artifacts (7)---
x2 Everflowing Chalice
x3 Myr Reservoir
x2 Prophetic Prism

---Spells (8)---
x3 Dispense Justice
x3 Go for the Throat
x2 Smother


---Sideboard (15)---
x4 Sadistic Sacrament
x3 Memoricide
x4 Celestial Purge
x4 Divine Offering


This one kinda looks like a mash between the Myr and Phylactery Lich decks. Suppose if you play with the parts long enough, you'll figure out if they can help in a particular situation or not. The situations aimed for, in this case, are Exarch Combo and Cawblade.

Breakdown:
- Marsh Flats, Prophetic Prism and Terramorphic Expanse: Mana fixing. Purely. Said it before with Liches, but this time I purely want them for Sadistic Sacrament. And my usual bad luck.
- Everflowing Chalice, Leaden Myr, Myr Reservoir, and Palladium Myr: Ramp. The Reservoir is aimed at Myr Battlesphere, but we can't forget the disentomb effect.
- Celestial Purge, Divine Offering, Go for the Throat, Leonin Relic-Warder, and Smother: For getting in the way of Exarch Combo as well as Stoneforge Mystic and her weird collecting hobby.
- Dispense Justice: Mostly aimed at Abyssal Persecutor, but I won't complain about slowing down a Batterskull or Blightsteel Colossus with it.
- Abyssal Persecutor, Baneslayer Angel, Myr Battlesphere, and Sun Titan: Win conditions. Sun Titan particularly enjoys long frolics in Zendikar with the Marsh Flats, Relic-Warder, and Wall of Omens. Strange tastes indeed.
- Memoricide and Sadistic Sacrament: Love these things. A 'Sad Sac' eats all the single artifacts those pesky Quest and Cawblade decks. Memoricide, good against combos. One murders Valakut almost completely.



But yeah, that's it. Shame I only got to test it out at one FNM, and not even against the decks it was aimed for. Afterall, a few of these require the little ramp doing their thing to get the drop on or a little luck to turn up, or so I suspect. Oh well, happens.

Recap - Walled Up [G/W] (3-0)

Right, I tell you to expect a post later in the week, and I post a whole month later. I'm so good at this... <.<

Anyways, let's get something up here.

Built this deck a bit before New Phyrexia released. Objective is simple: Ramp into something dangerous. Whether it be a single-serving angel, or a pack of wolves. NPH gave it something fun, though: Beast Within. It eats whatever is a real threat, turning it into something my ten walls can handle.


Walled Up
---Lands (23)---
x8 Forest
x7 Plains
x4 Razorverge Thicket
x4 Sunpetal Grove

---Creatures (24)---
[Walls]
x2 Perimeter Captain
x4 Overgrown Battlement
x4 Wall of Omens
[The rest]
x3 Baneslayer Angel
x1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
x2 Sun Titan
x2 Terastodon
x4 Wolfbriar Elemental
x2 World Queller

---Spells (13)---
x4 Beast Within
x4 Explore
x3 Summoning Trap
x2 White Sun's Zenith [a.k.a. Rain of Kitties]


Summary time!

Forenote: This tournament had a smaller-than-expected turn-out; Six people. Thank you, Independence Day. What this meant was that it wasn't a sanctioned tournament, and therefore we were allowed to use any deck we had. Sucks to not have brought anything other than T2 with me!
Also, I didn't have most of those fancy lands today, so those were substituted by three Terramorphic Expanse and four Forests, respectively. Happens.

Round 1 - [RW] Metalcraft Aggro (2-0)
Game 1 showed him a tad mana-flooded, and Wolfbriar was eager to get out there. Him and two wolves cleaned up the victory. Game 2, well, early Metalcraft and a pair of Galvanic Blasts ate both my World Quellers. My walls stopped any form of attack until Baneslayer did the heavy lifting.

Round 2 - [GRW] Slivers (2-0)
Well, I can't say I expected to face something like this. Fun. One main thought entered my head: I didn't want to hold anything back. Backing up this thought meant exposing my creatures to removal (A wolfbriar in hand restocks the field after a board wipe), but slivers in my experience tend not to play removal, opting for more slivers, preferably those that can do some removing other stuff. The slivers I saw him play; Bonesplitter Sliver (+2/+0), Fury Sliver (doublestrike), Pulmonic Sliver (Flying, "If this card would be put into a graveyard, you may put it on top of its owner's library instead."), Quilled Sliver (": This permanent deals 1 damage to target attacking or blocking creature."), Sidewinder Sliver (Flanking), Two-Headed Sliver ("This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures."), Venser's Sliver (), and Watcher Sliver (+0/+2). Make of that what you will (Slivers, on Gatherer).
Game 1 saw a few wolves, plus a baneslayer. The wolves held off the increasing amounts until a Baneslayer showed up. After two swings, He played Pulmonic Sliver. My response? A wisely-saved Beast Within. He poorly chose to play other slivers on his next turn, saving his Pulmonic for another turn. It fell again to Beast Within, and shortly after so did he. Second game, I saw another threat; Quilled Sliver. Gemhide's made sure he emptied his hand early, but is was the ping-ability that made him dangerous to another Baneslayer. He chose wisely to leave five untapped, buying him time, but a hard-casted Iona showed up, shutting down his white and giving him more to worry about, Quill-wise. Beast Within once again showed up, sabotaging his air defenses. He probably should have attacked more...

Round 3 - [B/U] Artifacts and Stuff (2-1)
Huh, how to describe this one. Had some artifacts, and a few creatures. Before we started, he asked what my favorite card in my deck was. I said Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. A little fibbing never hurts when I suspect something going on. Game 1 saw him play a few minor critters, Golem's Heart, and Venser's Journal. Why were the latter two so important? They died to Terastodon, that's why. It and some wolves attacked him, until Terastodon got Mind Controlled. No worries, though, a heavilly kicked Wolfbriar afterwards kept up the critical mass I needed to take the win. Before I did though, he attempted a Memoricide, naming Ulamog. Poor guy... not really. Moving on! Game 2 kinda sucked. Sure, I had walls, but I only got a second white mana after, say, turn seven or so. Basically got my ass kicked by a Vampire Nighthawk rather well-equipped. World Queller proved itself worthy, even if it was too uphill to be won. All in all it murdered four creatures and one dangerous artifact. The upside to playing without planeswalker nor non-colored. Game three went quicker; he played little in the first few turns, so I wasted two Beast Withins on his lands. Proved to be for the better, as a Summoning Trap hit Terastodon and blasted more. Hard to win after that much mana-hurt. His elephant/beast combine defended as well as they could, but couldn't hold-up to the suicide pact forged by wolf and cat alike.


Glad I tried out the deck, even if a little hindered by lack of completion. Now to see how it'll fare at an FNM...

Over three months already? Fine, expect something later this week...

<.<