#uw control

[magical-leak]

[takedrasticaction]

FINALLY

Made top 4 at a modern locals for the first time. UW Control worked incredibly well and the games were great. People were talking positively about the deck between rounds, which felt amazing. Probably gonna try and find some sort of replacement for Mana leak. I sided them out so often that I felt like I never wanted them. I really wish they'd just give us counterspell already, but whateves. Sun Titan was insane, which is all I could've hoped for, given that he was the most untested card in the deck. But it turns out getting Kitchen Finks, Blade Splicer, and Wall of Omens back every turn is pretty solid. Can't wait til the next one :D

[justindz]

Miracle Whip

That's the punch line to a joke involving Gideon Jura and the rest of my FNM deck. What follows is more serious: shorthand tournament report and thoughts on the UW Miracles deck. I do not currently own any UW duals, so I played it with 4 Evolving Wilds and basic lands. Surprisingly, this worked out perfectly. I had no relevant mana color issues all day. I had lots of other issues. Just not those.

Round 1 - Ian w/ UG Infect

Ian hears the pairing and gets depressed, assuming he's going to lose. I tell him that I'm playing a bad deck. Game 1 I mulligan to five, never get anything for Miracle and lose. Game 2, he and I both mulligan. He keeps a not-so-good hand. I keep a Gideon, which I play on turn 4 via Pristine Talisman and he loses to Gideon, effectively. Game 3, he curves out Elf, Lash, Artful Dodge. I Ponder looking for a two-outer Divine Offering, since I can play a blocker the next turn and then have Gideon and so on. I hit lands, shuffle, draw, hit a land, die. I mulliganed three times this round.

0-1

Round 2 - Dan w/ Delver

This is the worst match for Miracle Whip. Everything in your deck is a 700 cmc Sorcery. If they can flip a Delver and Leak/Snap, they can generally get there unless you run insanely lucky on Miracles. He is playing the variant with Champion of the Parish, which also gives him another "nut draw."

Game 1 is surprisingly hard-fought. But, I end up flooding and getting 7 land in a row, seeing no Miracles and slowly die to a Delver. I think I mulliganed this game as well.

Game 2, I board in 11 cards. He flips a Delver pretty early. I win the game in turn 4 of extra time after casting a total of four full-value Timely Reinforcements, getting a nice Pike blowout with Divine Offering and eventually playing enough Angels that he runs out of Vapor Snags and Snapcasters. Fettergeist was an MVP, getting me through flooding yet again by making several attacks unprofitable.

0-1-1

Round 3 - Joe w/ RB Vampires

This is a new guy. He's playing an un-sleeved, 70ish card pile of RB vampire cards and apparently no removal other than Act of Treason. Mana Leak, O-Ring and Gideon get there two games in a row.

1-1-1

Round 4 - Ben w/ RB Undying

This is a Blood Artist/Killing Wave deck, but runs a ton of Undying creatures, most with some kind of evasion. It also runs Bone Splinters and Barter in Blood. Luckily for me, Terminus is really good against Undying. Also, this round taught me how critical Ponder is to the deck. In the prior rounds, I had seen maybe two Ponder total and they all blind-shuffled away garbage. In this match, I was able to set up Miracles a few times and they went the distance. I had one mulligan this round.

2-1-1

Thoughts on the Deck

I don't think I like Miracle Whip. It's possible I played it poorly, so I'll probably give it another shot. But, mostly I think the deck is extremely high variance. It floods easily, but it also needs large amounts of mana. It's very slow and sometimes you just don't hit Miracles and the deck largely does nothing. However, when it works it's very rewarding. Nothing quite like spitting out ten Angel tokens.

Also, I got to ultimate Tamiyo for the first time on paper (did it once on MTGO beta with an Orim's Chant in hand). My opponent did not conceded, so I got my first taste of true power. Machine gun Ponder is pretty sweet, as is semi-infinite Mana Leak, etc. Regardless of what deck choices I make in the future, they will include Tamiyo.

What I want to try next is UR control. However, I cannot find any Bonfires locally to trade for or borrow. I'm not sure the deck will work without them. So, I may run Miracle Whip again, see if I play it better or shuffle better and go from there.

As far as sideboarding goes, the big decision I made was to fit in a full four copies of Fettergeist. That guy plus Timely Reinforcements really tips the fast aggro matches pretty well. I will continue with this strategy. Fettergeist is one of my favorite cards right now.

[icandomagicme-blog]

Avacyn Game Day! Oh wait...

Ah shit it's standard. I don't play standard.Ah screw it I'll just make a silly little blue white control deck. Let's see...

3x Fiend Hunter 2x Dungeon geists

So to go with the Ghostliness

4x Drogskol Captian

Then of course

4x Phantasmal Image

To clone my lords or my lockdown creatures.

Since I have a spirits sub theme already

3x Geist of Saint traft

Need some cheaper creatures so...

4x Delver of Secrets

Now for some control spells

4x Mana leak/Negate

Probably a 3/1 split there. Add in some more lockdown.

3x Oblivion Ring

Cheap tap down effects with some flashback for when things get testy or when I'm playing against mana ramp creatures.

4x Feeling of Dread

Some chump blocker creation/ flood them with an army of 1/1s

4x Lingering Souls

Some wrath for aggro decks

2x Day of Judgment

Then its mana base time!

[justindz]

Here We Caw-Go Again

Another successful #mtg Friday Night Magic event. I ran Caw-Go for a second time and this time I finished in 7th place with a 4-1 record.

With these guys:

Who doesn't like a ton of free, cheap, flying creatures that thin and shuffle your library?

The Report

Round 1 - Travis w/ BR Vampires - 1-2 - on the draw

Game 1 - I get off a good Day and he scoops with one card in hand against Jace and Gideon. I board in Celestial Purge, Tectonic Edge and another Day of Judgment. I think I made a mistake here by not swapping Journey out for Condemn, which I think is probably better in this match due to being instant speed.

Game 2 - He resolves Dark Tutelage, so I lose.

Game 3 - He resolves Dark Tutelage, so I lose. I played well and most of the games were pretty solid and even quite close, but I just didn't rip when I needed to rip.

Round 2 - Cody w/ Mono-White Allies - 2-0 - on the play

Game 1 - Yay, loser's bracket. He doesn't have a real deck and has basically no disruption. After he's forced to play Pacifism and Journey on two of my Squadron Hawks, I pretty much bowl him over with Colonnade.

Game 2 - He gets stuck on lands and I reinforce the situation with Jace. That guy needs to rotate out of standard so that it's no longer impossible to recover from missing an early land drop.

Round 3 - William w/ Valakut - 2-1 - on the draw

Game 1 - I Spell Pierce a Harrow and he gets to ramping but is too slow and dies to beats while he's trying to catch up. He had main deck Pyroclasm for my Hawks but they just kept. on. coming.

Game 2 - I keep a bad hand on the draw and regret it in approximately 2 seconds. He basically ramps unopposed and does the thing his deck does when you don't have any counter spells. I put up a good fight and draw it out a bit, but I get to where I can only win if I draw a few Edges in a row and that's just not likely.

Game 3 - He apparently keeps a loose hand full of good things, but two mountains. It takes him a few turns to get a green source and I stop his first few ramp spells and pretty much seal the game with Gideon and crew.

Round 4 - Kevin w/ Elves - 2-0 - on the play

Game 1 - He has to mulligan to 5, which is pretty much a death knell in this match. He eventually over-extends into a 3-for-1 Day of Judgment and I take over the game from there.

Game 2 - He keeps a somewhat loose hand, fearing a mulligan into a worse one (see prior game). I believe he misses a few land drops. We end up fighting over Vengevine and a Monument which I kill by a combined Journey and Jace bounce to leave him with no guys. He puts up a fight with Acidic Slime, but I keep throwing Hawks in there and pop a Jae ultimate with two Condemn in hand.

Round 5 - Emily w/ UW Control - 2-0 - on the draw

Game 1 - I actually new what Emily was playing, but managed to forget. I kept a workable, but not optimal hand, per the evaluation I made when she opened with a Colonnade. She started out of the gate going for Jace and I stopped two of them before landing mine, despite her getting ahead on land by edging my Colonnades. For the rest of the game, I protect Jace, she has Gideon and Colonnade and I have Hawks and some removal options. Eventually, she gets a Luminarch (she plays this with Clasp, which works quite well in our meta). I kill her Gideon with my own Gideon and then the Hawks end the game very slowly as I have too many cards from my Jace action for her to get past. The game takes 41 minutes. Yow. Love that mirror. After sideboarding, I remark that I hope we have a real second game and everyone gets to keep their hand.

Game 2 - I keep a hand of 2 Day of Judgment, 2 Negate and 3 lands. Days are not great in this situation, but she does play Baneslayers and I'm squarely focused on the Jace war, where Negate is excellent. Apparently I jinx Emily. She gets stuck on two land for a while, I Negate two Jaces, she finally gets to four land, but I have 3 Tectonic Edge, so I double hit her and she is left with two plains. I play Jace and the game is over in a few turns. Not the way I wanted things to go, but realistically we probably would have just gone to time and I would have won anyway. Unless she had a blowout hand.

Caaaaawwwwww Yeah

This deck continues to work well. I believe, had it not been for the round 1 loss and my round 1 opponent eventually going 3-2, I would have probably had 4th or 5th place. Bad breakers. But only dropping one match is pretty solid and it was definitely a winnable match. The little Hawks are quite versatile and the deck has a ton of tricks up its sleeves. I have yet to play the UB control match, though, which is one I hope to hit next time or maybe practice in advance.

I would recommend this as an option. It does well against aggro and ramp and seems to have some trump cards in the control mirror. That gives you game against the whole field if you are a good technical player. Also, Spell Pierce is still the bee's knees.

[justindz]

First Place at FNM - Report

Here's a summary #mtg report from FNM. I ran Caw-Go in a five round event and placed 1st. Heading in to the last round, I was 4-0 on matches and 8-0 on games. The other undefeated player was my teammate Ben, so we drew for 1st and 2nd and split the prize pool (Ben was 2nd, given that he had lost at least one game).

Here's the match sequence, and then I'll talk about the deck:

Round 1 - Bye

Srsly? Oh well, I got to shuffle my deck which had been constructed just before the event and then go see what people were playing. I noted that a vast majority of decks were ramp decks. Lame, but good for me. Maybe the pairings software noted that I hadn't played in a few months and decided I needed some prep time.

Round 2 - Kevin w/ RUG - 2-0

Game 1 - He does some Cobra stuff, we trade some counter spells. He fratricides my Jace eventually, but he ends up over-extending into a Day of Judgment and I believe dies to Hawks and Gideon. I believe I boarded in Flashfreeze and Day of Judgment, a Tectonic Edge and boarded out one Hawk as part of that, since Gideon and Colonnade would be able to carry the game once he ran out of gas.

Game 2 - He gets stuck on 3 land and I Jace him to death. Not the game I wanted to play, but it happens sometimes.

Round 3 - Brian w/ GW Eldrazi Ramp - 2-0

Game 1 - My strategy here was to basically prevent him from casting Emrakul, as I could effectively handle everything else. I would Tectonic Edge and Spreading Seas his Eye of Ugin #1, then Wildwoods to protect Jace, then Eldrazi Temple. I also used Jace to periodically bounce his Overgrown Battlement as another way to slow the mana down. I pierce his opening explore. I think this game tipped in my favor when I managed to stop a Summoning Trap w/ Spell Pierce. One thing I did, which an onlooker thought was a bad move, was throw some sacrificial baby and daddy Jace action in front of Wildwood to keep Brian's mana occupied while I tried to build up enough of my own to play Gideon w/ counter mana backup. That seems to have worked, and since I play enough Jaces to let a few go and don't need to worry about him countering any I play, I think this was the right move. I boarded in Spreading Seas, Day of Judgment and another Journey for Condemn, since Condemn isn't as fun against Titan and Annihilator triggers. The game was pretty long.

Game 2 - I pierce his opening Explore. Long story short, I think the deciding moment was when he whiffed on a Summoning Trap, netting a Battlement. I was able to keep him off Emrakul mana and man-lands and managed to also handle a resolved Kozilek. I believe the game ended in turns on maybe turn 3, via Colonnade + Hawks beats.

Round 4 - Quentin w/ BR Vampire Aggro - 2-0

Game 1 - I get down to about 8 from Pulse Tracker, Viscera Seer and other small beats, trading a few off with Squadron Hawks along the way to keep my life total out of Bolt range. I Spreading Seas his Lavaclaw Reaches and focus on trying to prevent Dark Tutelage from landing. I get to where I'm fighting Bloodghasts, but I can safely kill stuff because I Condemn a Kalastria Highborn. I basically establish a Jace/Gideon combo which he can't remove and kill him slowly with Colonnades. The game took about 36 minutes and I thought he might concede before lethal to save time, but he did not. I boarded in Day of Judgment, Celestial Purges and another Condemn and Journey, I believe. I took out baby Jaces, which don't help me keep my life total up, and also removed a Mana Leak and Spell Pierce as well as possibly a Preordain.

Game 2 - He opens with a Duress and takes a Day of Judgment, which leaves me with mostly spot removal and a spell Pierce, which hits a Tutelage. The quick beats/Hawk battle continues, but my life total remains much higher this game. He Memoricides me for Jace. I think he should have called Gideon. Ultimately, I kill enough of his creatures that even after a few Doom Blades, I kill him with Gideon and Colonnade to his top decks of small, irrelevant dudes.

Round 5 - Ben w/ Mono-Green Eldrazi - ID

And we play some Commander. He borrowed Brian's (round 3's) Doran deck and I played Teferi. He beat me on the play with an un-answerable Doran and then I beat him on the play with Teferi, Jitte and Vendilion Clique.

Thoughts on Caw-Go

I like the list. Day of Judgment is a good card. Colonnade + Gideon is a fast clock. Spreading Seas is obviously quite good right now. Squadron Hawks are great chump blockers that last forever, protect Jace, speed up wins, manipulate the library, provide card advantage and trade with lots of Vampire dudes. I felt a bit uncomfortable playing without Elixir, which I think is very, very good in control mirrors. But, I did not run into any, and therefore the world may never know. I think I would play the deck again, for sure. The secret reason that I decided to play it initially is because it runs 4x Spell Pierce, which is my favorite card in Standard, narrowly edging out Tumble Magnet.

As far as the metagame goes, I think Caw-Go is a good fit. There are lots and lots of ramp decks, and it performs well against ramp decks. There are some control decks that prey on the ramp decks and it seems to have at least a fair shot if not an edge there (subject to control player skill). But, I also feel like the Gideon/Hawks combo gives the deck a pretty good game 1 and even better game 2 against aggro than UB, which was fine but always a bit more touch and go given the reliance on one or two copies of Consume the Meek to deal with actual swarms.

Right now, if you have a good ramp match, your deck is probably a good choice. Standard is just that boring. If you aren't an underdog against control and aggro, your deck is likely a great choice. Anyway, I'll bank those winnings for the Commander set in February.