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.

Warp World, Updated

Just wanted to post a quick update to my 'Drazi Warp deck, since it has changed a tad. Surprisingly few introductions from M11.

'Drazi Warp
---Land (24)---
x4 Evolving Wilds
x4 Forest
x4 Khalni Garden
x6 Mountain
x2 Rootbound Crag
x4 Terramorphic Expanse

---Creatures (28)---
x3 Avenger of Zendikar
x4 Bloodbraid Elf
x3 Bogardan Hellkite
x2 Gaea's Revenge
x4 Joraga Treespeaker
x3 Lotus Cobra
x2 Mnemonic Wall
x4 Nest Invader
x2 Rampaging Baloths
x1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

---Spells (8)---
x4 Growth Spasm
x4 Warp World


Change Summary:
+2 Rootbound Crag, -2 Mountain; A change meant for the early game. With the fetchland, it's practically a guaranteed turn 2 untapped dual. Any more though, and I feel like I'd be putting stress on the mana base. It does, however, sacrifice the potential of two post-Warp lands coming into play untapped. A minor inconvenience, as I find Lotus Cobras do most heavy lifting after a warp. A shame I can't get a hold of one more of them...
- -1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, +1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre; I've mentioned wanting to replace She Who Tears the Aeons before, as much as I like her, and now it's done. Ulamog is still a heavy hitter, and still gives me limited mill dodging. Unlike his big sister, though, he's much, much easier to hard cast if need be. As far as experience has taught me, in most games I can net 9 or 11 mana, with 12 being the hardest curb to cross. While 11 isn't the optimal cost, it's still a start.
- -1 It That Betrays, -2 Terastodon, +3 Bogardan Hellkite; I love these guys flavor-wise, and they tend to be awfully fun to warp into. The Hellkites double that utility, giving me something that can eat critters and fry players post-warp, driving my advantage home. Oh, and flying defense! That rarely hurts. I can't wait for a game against Destructive Force in which I flash one of these in after the flames to fry their Titan of choice and bring in the pain.
-2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, +2 Rampaging Baloths; Nixilis is a great guy for ending games, but I've gotten tired of games in which he sat in my hand, dead until a Cobra decided to help out. Too much dependence on three specific cards in my deck. Sure I could toss in two swamps, but that would slow down my usual concern of fetching red to afford Warp World. The Baloths give me some landfall play still, with the added bonus of being affordable as soon as turn four.
-1 Goblin Bushwhacker, -1 Madrush Cyclops; I liked the haste idea, alot. But after witnessing a reduction of mass kill in my metagame, and especially after having Madrush as a dead card in hand during too many games, I decided to drop the idea for now. Mayhaps sideboard two Bushwhackers or something, but not maindeck for now.
- -1 Omnath, Locus of Mana; He had his moments, sure. But in a deck full of heavy hitters, he usually wasn't too impressive, offensively. Utility-wise, it's sad to say he rarely helped out. The specific mana costs of Warp World meant he usually could only bog me down with green mana. Great for the green critters, I suppose, but the Treespeakers already do that job just fine :/
- +1 Avenger of Zendikar, +2 Gaea's Revenge; These guys were mostly included to give me something to cast with my mana while waiting for a warp, and not definitely not bad after one!


Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go cry to myself while thinking about the lack of Warp World post rotation.

FNM Recap - Cascade Redux

So, long story short, after a bout of insomnia, I decided to some deck tinkering on the Polymorph Deck I never use in tournaments. Eventually I came across the half-cannibalized remains of a cascade deck I built for a friend to play with before he got his vampire deck operational. I decided, "What the heck," and rebuilt it.

Considering how the concept of a cascade deck is old news, I'm assuming I don't have to go into too much detail behind the concepts of abusing the keyword. The old deck's build essentially cascaded down into one of three different cards; Blightning and Esper Charm for discard, and Rhox War Monks for beats and making up for the deck's slow start. Considering the recent release of RoE, at the time I decided to skirt around the Ruinblaster problem by having it run Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, and Rupture Spire as the only nonbasic lands. Considering my budget nature, open slots in the deck were filled in by "majoring" in a color. For him, unsurprisingly, we went with black. Also gave a rough justification to run a one-of Hellcarver Demon for the sake of shenanigans. Surprisingly enough, his first night using the deck, he took ninth, barely edged out of top eight by a tiebreaker.

This time around I wanted to try things out a tad differently. Firsthand experience taught me that the disruption brought on by excessive amounts of Blightning/Esper Charm (aka Facsimile Blightning) made games tough on opponents (My poor Warp Deck lost to him that first night. Rawr). I decided to drop the War Monks to run as much of a guaranteed-discard as possible. Being unhealthily attached to Elixir of Immortality, I tossed one in. Justification being that it provided life gain, but more importantly put all those discard spells back into the deck, ready to cascaded into at another moment's notice. And it helped my conscience a tad, considering how brutal making my opponent discard nearly every turn once my mana's out. Speaking of mana, running the Elixir, plus a lack of both Ruinblaster and Cruel Control sightings made me want to try out the less "stable" mana base of Shard tap lands. Main justification being that shuffling fetchlands back into my deck would just be upping the dead card count late game. Trust me on this one, playtesting in the past (with a one-of Quest for Ancient Secrets) taught me fetchlands just get in the way hard late game. As for my left-over open slots after tossing everything in, well, I won't keep you waiting too long. Take a look!

Cascade Redux
---Land (24)---
x1 Akoum Refuge
x2 Arcane Sanctum
x4 Crumbling Necropolis
x1 Island
x2 Jungle Shrine
x1 Jwar Isle Refuge
x1 Kazandu Refuge
x1 Mountain
x1 Plains
x4 Rupture Spire
x4 Savage Lands
x1 Sejiri Refuge
x1 Swamp

---Creatures (17)---
x1 Baneslayer Angel
x4 Bloodbraid Elf
x1 Enigma Sphinx
x4 Enlisted Wurm
x4 Esper Charm
x1 Maelstrom Archangel
x2 Sphinx of Lost Truths

---Spells (17)---
x4 Bituminous Blast
x4 Blightning
x4 Captured Sunlight
x4 Deny Reality
x1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

---Artifacts (2)---
x1 Elixir of Immortality
x1 Obelisk of Alara

---Sideboard (15)---
x4 Kor Firewalker
x3 Naturalize
x4 Rhox War Monk
x4 Summoning Trap

Breakdown:
- Mana base: Just wanted to note here, that since I didn't have all the tap lands I wanted, I substituted Refuges. Also note that I went for variety in those four replacements rather than doing the proper thing and going with 2 Jwar Isle and 2 Sejiri Refuges. Me being nit-picky in post. The five basic lands are just for fun as well, unless people still use Path to Exile these days...

- Bituminous Blast, Bloodbraid Elf, Captured Sunlight, Deny Reality, Enigma Sphinx, and Enlisted Wurm are my cascade fuel. Reasonable bodies and decent shenanigans that cascade are what got them in the deck, predictably enough.
- Blightning and Esper Charm are what the fuel burns into.
- Elixir of Immortality restocks the deck, with the handy bonus of cheap life.
- Baneslayer Angel is good, like Mike Flores said way back in Lorwyn / Shards Standard. Not the best with the current mana base, in my opinion, but as a one-of, clearly just me jumping at the first opportunity to use her since opening her.
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor works way, way too well in the deck. Usually I just brainstorm, and set up cascades "manually" for brutal results. I like him way too much in this deck.
- Maelstrom Archangel is a decent body at a cost that I'd rather cascade into. Still, fun when she gets out.
- Obelisk of Alara is a one-of I can see dominating once it gets out. But that's the problem; it has to get out first.
- Sphinx of Lost Truths is actually my least favorite critter in the deck. Body's decent, and the discard is negligible with the Elixir. Something to use until I find something better I guess.

Sideboard:
- Kor Firewalkers need an explanation? Not really, but I could use more white mana in the deck for hard casting them <.< - Naturalize is a last minute replacement for Elixir's I don't have. - Rhox War Monk may not have stayed in the deck, but he's still in option in my mind against Red Deck Wins and whatnot. - Summoning Trap, but pretty much every blue deck in my meta runs mana leak. No cascade, but a creature is a creature nonetheless.


FNM Play
vs. Jund (2-1) [Sideboard choices: -4 Esper Charm, -1 Obelisk of Alara, -2 Sphinxes, -1 Maelstrom Archangel; +4 Kor Firewalker, +4 Rhox War Monk]

Can't recall too much about the first game, aside from baneslayer appearing pretty much right before a concession on his side. I do remember commentary from a neighboring player, along the lines of, "What else can you expect he triple blightnings?" That gave me high hopes, considering the intentional discard build seemed more based of luck than it was. Anyway, second game was what I like to refer to as a "balls draw." Combined with the slow start that Cascade is known for, and it was quickly game. Third round took some time to say the least. Hands cleared fairly quickly, and with the excessive life gain from firewalkers and pancake tossers, my high point was 43 life, riding down to 27 before the combined efforts of my creatures and quite a few blightnings took their toll.

vs. B/R Aggro (0-2) [Sideboard choices: -4 Esper Charm, -1 Obelisk of Alara, -2 Sphinxes, -1 Maelstrom Archangel; +4 Kor Firewalker, +4 Pancake Tossers]

This one, quite frankly, sucked. He essentially played, "the best creatures he had in black, which ended up being mostly vampires," with a splash of red for burn. First game took some time, myself gaining life while waiting for decent mana as he chewed on me with a Vampire Nighthawk and a Child of Night. The turn before I could slaughter his critters, he pulled out a Whispersilk Cloak onto his Child, and that chick ended up being more problematic than I can appropriately express. Second game was worse. Much worse. His sideboard shows, I didn't see any of mine. All I can say here is double Ruinblasters hurts hard.

vs. Turboland (1-2) [Sideboard Choices: None]

A fun little deck. There's not too much to say about this round. First game saw an Avenger of Zendikar and a full crew (seven) of plant tokens staring at an Enlisted Wurm while my discard shenanigans do their work. I mention feeling bad about pulling off a Bituminous Blast into Blightning at the end of his draw step and relent on his next turn, in spite of having another Bit. Blast in hand. One of those moves where you know you've made a mistake as soon as you let it happen, as those plants somehow turned lethal on that very turn. Game two was faster, mainly thanks to Baneslayer Angel coming out. She pretty much single-handedly did the job (I hope Serra Angel doesn't find out I'm seeing her; that'd break her heart). Third game, quite frankly, sucked. Seeing an Avenger, Primeval Titan, Time Warp, Avenger, and a metric fuckton of beefy plants tends to end anyone's existence pretty hard. Made me miss the excessive mass removal shenanigans I ran last week x.x

vs. B/U Mill (2-0) [Sideboard Choices: -4 Bituminous Blast; +4 Summoning Trap]

A rather quick round. First game saw him without blue land in enough turns for me to somehow cast Jace, the Wallet Raper. Remembering my earlier defeat from letting up on someone, I pressed the advantage against my friend, fatesealing his deck to almost eliminate any chance of him seeing an island. Once he'd realized I'd give him blue cards but no blue land, which happened pretty quickly, he conceded with 17 life left. Second game I sided the Summoning Traps on a hunch, and it paid off. Turn 4 Bloodbraid saw a mana leak. I yelled out the heavily expected phrase, revealed my Trap, and took a gander at the top seven cards of my library. Naturally, luck dictated that my only creature seen was another Bloodbraid Elf. Poetic Justice? Mayhaps. I took what creature I could get and got to whacking. Quite honestly, that girl was intent on avenging her countered comrade, for she pretty much went the distance alone. We finished with enough time for us to get two games of RDW vs. Warp in, so good times!


Overall took 14th place. Not too bad, considering. Should I play the deck again, I want to replace the two Sphinxes with two Haunting Echoes. Don't ask me why, but it's a fun feeling thinking about that change.

Whee, need a better camera. Anyways, Have fun all!

Dual Ascensions

Alright, first thing first: sorry about the lack of intended updates. Starting up school again put a hamper on my free time, and I've since (hopefully) adjusted. Lots of Magic has been played, but hasn't been tracked too thoroughly. I plan on fairly frequent future updates. Now, onto some meat.

A few weeks back, I got tired of my Ajani Vengeant play set sitting around gathering dusty sleeves, so I thought up a deck around him. It was rather straightforward; red burn and white removal gives Ajani leeway to burn opponents' faces and land alike. Having a few weeks of Polymorph deck play back in February, I knew the problems of waiting for one of four cards to finally be drawn. To put statistics in my favor, I threw in a play set of Pyromancer Ascension, which I also eventually used in the Polymorph deck. Rationale being that the excessive amount of four-of counts and at least twenty instant/sorceries would mean I could eventually bolt creatures and players at the same time. Nothing wrong with that, right?

So I tried it out, and it was kind-of iffy, but consistent. I should probably apologize to Sonny about burning all his vampires so many times while waiting for the M11 Prerelease to begin...

Ajani was too vulnerable in a creature-less deck. Even with all the removal, all it'd take was a hasty creature or just one too many for me to handle at that moment in time and bam, win-condition gone. Oh yeah, decks fighting fire with fire could take him out as well.
This hasn't been my first deck devoid of creatures, thanks to a few months playing Underworld Dreams back in Kamigawa / Ravnica block, and I was rather content with this deck's results so far. Even if I didn't want to keep Ajani, I wanted to keep the concept. So I looked for another card to take his place.

I didn't have to look too far from the Pyromancer Ascension. That one random Bloodchief Ascension in my rare binder practically screamed "Pick me!" while I was passing by. I could imagine how well they fit together; I use Pyromancer Ascension with burn spells, and burn spells helped power up Bloodchief Ascension. With Bloodchief active, merely saving my own butt by killing a creature still would harm my opponent. Such potential! And with that, I had little hesitation taking out white.

Exposition aside, here's the deck after a few weeks of tinkering.

Dual Ascensions (aka ASCII)
---Land (24)---
x4 Dragonskull Summit
x4 Evolving Wilds
x4 Terramorphic Expanse
x6 Mountain
x6 Swamp

---Spells (35)---
x4 Bituminous Blast
x4 Blightning
x4 Bloodchief Ascension
x4 Burst Lightning
x4 Consuming Vapors
x4 Lightning Bolt
x3 Pyromancer Ascension
x4 Staggershock
x4 Terminate

---Artifacts (1)---
x1 Elixir of Immortality


---Sideboard (15)---
x3 Chain Reaction
x2 Consume the Meek
x3 Leyline of Punishment
x1 Pithing Needle
x3 Pyroclasm
x3 Volcanic Fallout


Breakdown:
- Evolving Wilds & Terramorphic Expanse guarantee me a color or second mountain that I might need, as well as thin out the deck a bit. Helpful for when I'm low on gas and need to draw more it. While I'm on the mana topic, the deck fluctuated between 20-22 mana before the fetchers were thrown in. Still a work in progress, as always.
- Bloodchief Ascension & Pyromancer Ascension are the heart of the deck. Left out one Pyromancer Ascension, since drawing multiple copies, as fun as a quadruple Blightning can be, is not always good. Particularly when one bolt away from victory or defeat.
- Burst Lightning & Lightning Bolt are general purpose burn. I like flexibility.
- Staggershock deserves special mention; it can rev up either Ascension superbly under the right conditions.
- Bituminous Blast, Consuming Vapors, & Terminate are creature-exclusive kill. I'd like to lower the count of this kind, but man lands and titans persuade me otherwise.
- Blightning is player exclusive, justified by its disruptive capabilities of course.
- Elixir of Immortality is just in the deck. I'd like to four-of it in the sideboard eventually. Still in thought I guess. It restocks my deck after Pyromancer goes active, although at the same time the fetchlands hinder that effort, it's still better to have the chance. The life gain is quite respectable as well. Good potential against Red Deck Wins and Mill, methinks.

Sideboard:
- Chain Reaction, Consume the Meek, Pyroclasm, and Volcanic Fallout are crowd control. Think I'm going to cut out Chain Reaction, as it's speed (in more than one respect) isn't living up to my satisfaction.
- Leyline of Punishment helps against Kor Firewalker a little, and eats lifegain decks fairly easy.
- Pithing Needle for use against planeswalkers and whatnot.

Feel free to voice your opinions about these selections. Should I keep the fetchland? Reduce land count and use more basics? Better sideboard tech on a budget?

Testing experience against other decks:
- Aura decks tend to get stomped. Burn spells kill while enchants are on the stack, and even Canopy Cover can't deal with Consuming Vapors very well.

- Discard decks tend to be decided by coin flip. It's hard to make me discard an Ascension, but my fuel is still fair game. With no enchantment destruction, it can turn into a race.

- Naya Beats beats my face in. Only have one game to base this off of, but it doesn't look good when half of one's removal spells are ineffective against Woolly Thoctar, Marisi's Twinclaws, and the like.

- Red Deck Wins is coin flippy, again. I've got direct burn to match his and then some, but Unearth variants of the deck eat them up.

- Titan Beats tend to be uphill battles, but with nondiscriminatory terminates and well timed Consuming Vapors, I've so far been able to keep their advantage limited long enough to at least claim a 60% win rate (won't claim any accuracy in this statement, as only five games were played. Shut up).

I can only theorize about the other decks, but considering I have nothing hard to go off of and have already typed quite a bit already, I think I'm done for the night.


Also, I've got to love it when a match makes me feel I have this out:

One Warped Friday - A Quick FNM Warp World Recap

Right! FNM report. Conveniently a day before the next one... how... lazy of me. Probably explains why it's not even close to in-depth or anything.

All in all I went 3-2 (8-5 individual game-wise) for the night. Don't get five rounds every week, and usually I don't get to go up against such a variety of opponents. For the slow ones reading, the deck used was my Warp World deck, listed in the previous post.


The sideboard I eventually decided on:

x4 Cunning Sparkmage
x3 Basilisk Collar - Such an annoyingly fun combo.
x4 Naturalize - A little Conscription paranoia. None saw play.
x1 Pithing Needle - Not that my deck in theory has issues with planeswalkers...
x2 Lightning Bolt
x1 Ricochet Trap - These last three were replacements for what I wanted to use; x3 Relic of Progenitus for use against Vengevine and Open the Vaults users.


Match One - Black/Green/Red Weenie (2-0)
Their deck played small creatures coupled with shenanigan spells like Virulent Touch. There isn't much to say about the match, since both games saw early Warp World into ludicrous board advantage, proceeded by a next-turn victory for the first game and in the second, the rare situation where I "go infinite" and empty all my permanents onto the battlefield. Semi-medium story short, optimal situation.

Match Two - Blightning Vampires (1-2)
Vampires, heck, any weenie deck that features high permanent counts are something I don't want to test my odds Warping against. First game I wasn't even given the chance, thanks to losing an early Treespeaker and not drawing the last land I needed to use that Warp in hand for four more turns before my demise. Second game saw two Avenger of Zendikars and at least 15 plants around. Victory was rooted (hurr hurr). Last match was nuts. He had a kill spell for every creature I played. Without blockers, I didn't last very long. Seriously, painful.

Match Three - Jund (2-1)
This one I'd been wanting to face for a while. In theory, it should prove a fair challenge do the whole card advantage thing. In any case, real bad draws in game 1, causing a lose mostly to a Geopede. Game two and three proved Warp's worth. Even warping with near similar amount of permanents, Jund's spells brought it down quite a bit (a third of it's position, on average). Combined with siding in the SparkCollar combine, the little goblins provided by a Seige-Gang Commander didn't last very long. Mix in Terastadon for added pain. Jund is mana-specific, afterall.

Match Four - Red Deck Wins (2-1)
Ick. Didn't like this match. Not because of it's speed, but because I didn't draw a single warp in all three games. In theory all the minimum land count, burn spells and "end-of-turn sac" creatures don't help it out much, but all of that argument is useless when the blasted sorcery doesn't turn up at all. Long story short, it wasn't, except for game two, which was one through sheer persistence of creatures coming out nearly every turn and clogging up the battlefield until a plant-oriented win. Still, ick.

Match Five - Green/Red Eldrazi (2-0)
Very straightforward. First game a warp turned up double-Eldrazi monument and two creatures on his side of the field. Ouch much? Didn't alleviate my fears of uncovering any of the big three in his deck. Regardless, game two was relatively easy with Sparkmage / Collar out, and warping turned out in my favor. Went easier than expected.

Overall could have done better, but still not bad. I'm considering fitting a Rampaging Baloths or two in somewhere, to help lean the deck off depending on a warp. I'm really pleased with the Sparkmage / Collar in the sideboard. Really clears up the board when needed. Haven't seen it against Mythic yet, so that'll be interesting when it happens. Also Superfriends; "Your deck's half-planeswalkers?! Alright, I'll Warp World..."

As for tomorrow's FNM, I'll be using a different deck (which I'll talk about later today or tomorrow. Probably tomorrow). Warp will be showing up, since I'm letting a friend borrow it. We'll see how it does!