After looking around for a budget standard deck to play I saw a couple of threads talking about a mono-red deck that can fight the big boys. So, after a lot of reading and card searching, I put a madness type deck and a more aggro deck together to come up with this baby, which I named Sid Vicious. On to the decklist:
The deck is quite fast and usually by the time I cast everything in my hand the opponent is dead.
Tonight I took it to a local store to play in the Standard Showdown tournament and went 3-0 with this deck to win first place. Here is the match info:
Round 1 - vs. Red/Black aggro 2-1
He played a bomat courier aggro deck but I didn't see much else in the first game since he was stuck on 3 lands and so was I but I kept casting creatures almost every turn after the 3rd and took the game. In the 2nd game I got mana flooded and didn't draw enough creatures so he beat me. In the 3rd game he got mana flooded so I ran him over by curving out perfectly.
Round 2 - vs. Red/White Humans 2-0
He played a few small humans which got burned by me, then I started to drop creatures on turn 4 and won the first game easily. In the second game he got mana screwed so I ran him over by curving out.
Round 3 - vs R/U Enigma Drake discard 2-0
In the first game he used a couple of burn spells on my first two creatures to come out and then he was out of spells by turn 3, he cast an enigma drake but I killed it with a lightning axe, and the turn after that he cast another which also got killed by an axe, he had no blockers so he died soon after. In the second game he got a drake out quickly that was an 8/4 by turn 3 but since the toughness is only 4 it died to my lightning axe again, and next turn he cast another drake which died to a madnessed Avancyn's Judgment and he died to my creatures attack the very same turn.
So, I didn't play against any tier 1 decks and also the players were not the best at piloting their own decks but I did win almost every game comfortably, including winning with only 3 lands in play in one game, and mulliganing to 6 on the play and still winning that game as well.
MVP's in this deck were:
lightning axe - cleared the road of blockers so my guys can go through ahn-crop crasher- better in constructed than in limited, stopped my opponent's creatures from blocking glorybringer- just for being himself avacyn's judgment - got madnessed for 4 damage to kill a blocker so my guys can go through sunscorched desert - very underrated card in an aggro deck, did 3 damage in one game where out of 5 lands I had 3 deserts and 2 mountains.
Everything in this deck is a threat, and the best part is that no card is useless, even if you draw lands after the first 5 and you don't need to use them you can always pitch them to another card. Also, late game almost anything you draw is a great topdeck with a lot of hasted creatures and burn.
If you want to piss off some people at your local store give this deck a try for FNM or Standard Showdown and let me know how it did, I will probably give it another go at the next Standard Showdown tourney and see how it fares again. It is also kind of a budget deck coming in at under $50 since the manabase is as cheap and can be and the only $5 rares are the play set of Glorybringers, the other rares being in the dollar range.
So, I went to the Standard Showdown this Saturday again, taking the same deck built as in the previous post. I played much better players and decks, got all kinds of bad luck with mana and finished 1-2 out of 3 rounds. Here`s the short tourney report:
Round 1 - VS. W/R/B with Gideon, Chandra, Thraben Inspector, and some removal - 0-2
Game 1 - I mulled to 6 on the draw due to having a one-land hand and managed to bring him down to 15 but I played slow so he got time to get Gideon out and beat me with him.
Game 2 - I kept a 1 land hand this time, and missed the next 2 land drops, making my 2nd land on the 4th turn by which time he already got out a Gideon and a Chandra and beat me with only those two. Nothing much I can say about that, total bad luck in the opening hand and subsequent draws in both games.
Round 2 - VS. Black/Red artifacts with Heart of Kiran, Liliana and lots of removal - 2-0
Game 1 - I was on the play, he mulled to 6 and played very slow, missed his 3rd land drop and I curved out to beat him.
Game 2 - He mulled to 6 again, but I put the pressure on every turn, again he managed to get heart of kiran out and a creature which I killed. The next turn he cast Liliana, and he made my Heart-piercer manticore a 2/1 with ability. Next turn I cast combat celebrant and said go, on his turn he activated Liliana again but I cast Fling in response and threw the combat celebrant at his face for 4. On my turn I cast Glorybringer and attacked with him and the Manticore but he blocked Glorybringer with heart of kiran activated by removing one counter from Liliana. However the damage from the manticore was enough to kill him.
Round 3 - VS. Black/White Zombies with Gideon - 0-2
Game 1- This was a tight match, I hit him hard and killed his dudes and managed to bring him down to 1 life even though I was mana flooded. I had about 8 lands and 7 other cards, and I went to 2 life. My next turn I needed to topdeck a haste creature or a burn spell that targets a player to be able to do that 1 damage to him but I topdecked....of course, a Mountain. My 9th land out of 16 cards played so far, if only I topdecked a sunscorched desert, that would've been an amazing win.
Game 2- Again a one land hand, so I mulled to 6 on the play. He ended up curving out and I killed his one drop and two drop with my combo of Lightning Axe and Fiery Temper on the second turn. Then he cast a Diregraf colossus which was a 4/4, the next turn another Colossus at 4/4 which came with a 2/2 zombie. I attacked him in the air but I couldn't bring him down lower than 10 before he locked the board with the 3 zombies. I killed the 2/2 Zombie token but my next draw was a Glorybringer and that wouldn't be enough to kill him. He also got out a Gideon, and I made a mistake earlier of hitting him for 4 instead of hitting the Gideon which was at 4 loyalty. If I killed the Gideon then, I might have been able to deal with the 2 Diregraf Colossi when I cast my 2nd Glorybringer. This is probably because I don't have anyone to playtest with so this was my first time facing the zombie deck with my deck and also I didn't expect the B/W zombie deck to play Gideon.
So, I managed to mull to 6 on 3 games and kept a 1 land hand which should've also probably been a mull which means I had 4 poor opening hands out of 6 games. Basically, the 2 games that I didn't mull my opening hand I won. The other 4 games were 2 losses for sure in the first round and I could've won the 2 other games in the last round against B/W Zombies if I topdecked good in the first game and if I didn't make a major mistake in the second game.
Right now out of 2 Standard Showdown tourneys this deck is 4-2 (6 matches) and I am planning to play another Standard tourney tomorrow as well.
After today's tourney I made a couple of changes to the deck, the new version I will be playing tomorrow is below:
I tried to sideboard Harsh Mentor today and he didn't do much, so I am looking for something else to put in the sideboard and take him out. Also, I can't wait for the next set to be out, there's a hasty Khenra for 2 mana which I need to get a playset of and stick in this deck as soon as HOU is legal.
I decided to run 2 Heaven/Earth in my sideboard because I can discard Heaven and then after turn 5 or 6 I can cast Earth from the graveyard to clean the board. I know that Sweltering Suns is better but the problem is that I don't need to cast it on turn 3 or 4 at all, but I do need to be able to do more than 3 damage. Yesterday I was facing 2 Diregraf Colossus which were both 4/4 creatures so aside from Lightning Axe the rest of my burn only do 3 damage, or with Avacyn's Judgment I could probably only kill one. So, I'm going to test Heaven/Earth out today, it's also much cheaper to buy than Sweltering Suns and of course, I can do 4 or maybe even 5 damage to everything if the game goes past turn 7.
I went to a local Standard tourney again last night and went 2-1 with this deck to come 3rd out of 8 people. So far the deck is 6-3 out of 3 tourneys and 9 rounds in total.
Here's the tourney report:
Round 1 - VS. Mardu Vehicles (R/W/B) - 1-2 (same guy I played two days ago and lost 0-2 to him that time)
Game 1- I put up a fight and drew very well, managed to get back to back Glorybringers to get him down to 2 life and then finished him off with a fiery temper.
Game 2- He got everything out and ran me over quickly with a turn 2 Heart of Kiran, turn 3 Scrounger and equip, and then turn 4 Gideon. I had a slow start so basically no chance to win.
Game 3- I made the mistake to keep a 1 land hand and didn't mulligan (last tourney I mulled 4 out of 7 games) so I missed my 2nd land drop and got a second land on turn 3. I still managed to kill a Gideon by attacking and then throwing a fiery temper to the face but after another turn he cast a second Gideon for which I had no answers. I am not sure how to deal with Gideon using mono-Red, aside from attacking him or throwing some kind of burn to the player's face and then redirecting it.
Round 2 - VS. Mono Black Zombies - 2-0
Game 1- In the first game he was stuck on 3 lands, and so was I so we kept trading blows with me also killing his guys with burn because he was casting them 1 at a time. He also took damage from Lathnu Hellion which hit him 3 times for a total of 12 life since he didn't want to block it for some reason. (I harnessed lighting a couple of Cryptbreakers and had leftover energy to keep the Hellion alive one extra turn)
Game 2- He killed a few of my early creatures with Grasp and Fatal push, but that meant soon I got down a couple of Glorybringers and started to exert and kill his guys off and hit him for 4 damage each turn. He managed to get 2 Diregraf Colossus out and they were each kind of big but I kept attacking him so he was on the defense the whole game, I managed to stall the board until he was down to 6 life then I cast a Fiery Temper at the end of his turn for 3 damage, and cast another one on my turn for another 3 damage which killed him. I found out after the game that he is a new player and also he didn't see my deck/cards before so he didn't know what to do to fight the deck.
Round 3 - VS. R/W Humans - 2-0
Game 1- I kept a hand of land, 4 burn spells and Combat Celebrant. The burn spells were 2 Fiery Tempers, 2 Lightning Axe. So, he cast a couple of creatures on turn 1 and 2, and end of turn two I used the first 2 Lightning Axe/Temper combo, on the 3rd turn I cast my Combat Celebrant, then on the 3rd turn and 4th turn he cast two more guys, which I again killed at the end of turn 4 with Axe/Temper. I started to hit him with the Celebrant for 4 since he didn't have any blockers. He ran out of cards and on the 5th turn he cast another creature, which I managed to Harness Lightning and kept hitting him with Celebrant which basically killed him. First time ever that I managed to beat someone down with a Combat Celebrant alone, without exerting, but the only other cards I played the whole game were burn spells to wipe out his board.
Game 2 - He got a couple of Always Watching out so his guys became quite big, but I kept attacking him with the Ahn-Crop Crasher and exerting so he couldn't block and burning his other smaller creatures. He also hit me back a couple of times to bring me down to 5, and the turn before I got him down to 3 and I had a tapped Ahn-Crop Crasher as the only creature on my board. I drew a Glorybringer but was afraid he might have some instant kill spell, so instead I embalmed my Heart-Piercer Manticore and sacrificed the Crasher to deal the final 3 points of damage to his head and win the game.
So, again I lost to Mardu Vehicles mostly due to Gideon and it was the same player to whom I lost the day before. I need a good draw to beat the deck since the creatures are kind of big or have flying (heart of kiran) and Gideon is a pain to get rid off. The other two decks were pretty standard Mono B zombies and Humans but I got really good draws and totally ran them over with my deck which is what it's supposed to do.
The deck is deceitfully skillful to play, it may seem like it is easy because it's just creatures and burn but you have to keep track of what you discard and how much land you have, as well as interactions on the board and with the graveyard. As for cards the battlefield scavenger was an MVP in every game where he came out on turn 2. I was able to exert him and attack and usually do at least 2 or 4 damage to my opponent as well as cycle through 2 cards. The fact that he exerts to do the ability means it can't be stopped by an opponent and also he gives that same ability to another exert creature. He is the single most important creature in the deck.
For an aggro deck that hits hard with 24 creatures and 15 burn spells being able to discard something and draw a new card or even cast something with Madness is amazing since you can keep the pressure on the opponent each turn. I'm not sure when the next local tourney that I can play with this deck is but I am definitely loving playing it and can't wait to incorporate a couple of Hour of Devastation cards in the deck to make it faster, stronger, and better!
It seems like you have too few lands in your deck. 21 lands isn't really enough for the number of 3 drops you have, and you have 4 and 5 drops as well. In your tournament reports, I read a lot of losses due to mulligans and 1-land hands. And those losses far exceed the games you lost to flood. You definitely seem to be in a place where you want more mana. Also with your curve as high as it is, you probably want 24 mana. Either that or shave the curve lower.
Actually, I have enough lands, at 21 lands out of 6 cards, and I'm also running only one color, so as long as I get to "draw" the lands I'm fine. Besides that, I can cast all but 8 cards in my deck for 3 mana, and I've won a couple of games where I was stuck on 3 mana for the first 4-5 turns.
I didn't get any mana flooding and I probably wouldn't mind it since I can discard the lands to various effects and draw more cards. I'm not sure what you mean about my curve being high, as I said out of 49 non-land cards only 8 of them cost more than 3 mana to cast and I can also discard those instead of casting them and use the discard effects to their full potential.
In other news I did decide to get 3 Hazoret so she will be part of the deck starting next week sometime and I'll post some more tourney reports after I get her, with her in the deck it means it is fully optimized and there are no better cards to add in until Hour of Devastation becomes legal.
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Now, while that article is technically about how many colored mana sources you need to have your colors by a certain turn, you can use the info to infer other mana conclusions. For example, the 22 colored mana sources you need to be able to cast a triple colored spell by turn 3, that's the same number of total mana sources you need to be able to hit 3 total mana by turn 3. So even for turn 3 3-drops, you're a mana short.
By your own reports, you have quite a few mulligans that lead to losses and quite a few additional games where you kept a 1 lander and lost. Even without Karsten's article, that's enough to tell me you're running land light.
What I meant about your curve being too high is in relationship to your lands. To be able to cast those higher cmc creatures, you want more lands. If you like the number of lands, and 'can win being stuck on 3 lands until 4 or 5,' then you probably don't need the higher cmc creatures and can probably shave them and have a curve that closer matches your land count. If you like the bigger creatures (I believe you called Glorybringer an MVP), you should have a higher land count to accommodate that.
**Point of reference - you did actually attribute two game loss to flooding. compared to 4 losses from drought. I think I read only 1 other loss that wasn't due to mana issues.
Thanks for your explanation, I didn't read the article, too much math involved in it and also didn't understand much of what he was saying. I understand what you meant by 22 lands to manage to hit 3 lands on turn 3 most of the time so because of that I took out Insult/Injury from the main deck and will be playing 22 lands at the next Standard Showdown tourney and see how it does.
As long as I have some discard outlets like a Battlefield Scavenger out, or Lightning Axe in my hand then I don't mind keeping a 4 land or 5 land hand, but I usually like to keep a 2 land hand and draw the 3rd land in the first 2 draws.
Again, thanks for your advice and I'll let you know how the 22 lands deck does, I definitely want to be able to cast Glorybringer on turn 5, but have usually cast it on turn 6 or 7 so far.
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Glad I can help. Another good tool to use is a Hypergeometric Calculator. Saffron Olive did a video showing the basics of how to use one. It can help you figure out all kinds of stuff. Such as how many 1 drops you'd need in your deck to ensure you have one in your opening hand, how many lands you'd need to ensure you can hit your 5 drops on a curve, etc. Here's the video showing the basics. GL with your building, and keep the tourney reports coming. It's how I live vicariously through the community when I'm stuck at work or out with the family.
Yeah, I looked at the video, it's an interesting idea, I'm not a big believer in math though. That sounds strange but I'm a big believer in chance, however I am also a logical person that's why I decided to test the 22 land build for now before I get my Hazoret and then I will add her in and take out a couple of the Manticores which are also 4 casting cost creatures.
I just got back into magic in April after a 7 year hiatus, and I'm in Tokyo now so I didn't have any cards when I started so I had to decide what cards to buy to make standard decks. My first deck that I finished is my U/W control deck, which has about $100 worth of cards but after playing two tourneys with it I realize that I don't know enough about metagame and different decks to be playing a control deck.
So, I decided to do the mono red aggro deck since all I have to do is attack every turn and burn some creatures or the face so I don't need to know much about what's in my opponents' decks, definitely much different than playing a control deck with counters. So, I've been focusing on building this mono red deck for the past two months and keeping it budget but with the addition of Hazoret the deck's price will go to about $70, which is still kind of budget.
I'm planning to play another standard showdown tourney tomorrow and see how the deck does one last time without Hazoret and hopefully starting next week i'll be playing it fully tuned with 2-3 Hazorets maindeck. I'm not free on Friday nights this month and next month so I can't play the FNM's but the Standard Showdown events get enough people to have 3 rounds and a variety of decks so that'll have to do for testing for now. I don't have anyone here to play with for fun or test the deck, so playing in the tourneys against unknown opponents is my only method of testing the deck aside from goldfishing at home.
It feels good and challenging brain wise to be playing magic after 7 years, in an unknown metagame and trying to communicate with players in a language which I don't really speak very well at all. I'm trying not to make too many mistakes because I can't explain myself in Japanese, so it's good my deck is aggro and doesn't have too many strange things to do, usually just attack and burn.
It's ironic that I'm a control player at heart and am playing the exact opposite of what a control deck is!
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I went to the Standard Showdown last Saturday with the new 22 land deck and the deck didn't like...I went 1-2 due to mana flooding issues and playing top tier decks played by competent opponents.
The deck is up to 7-5 out of 4 tourneys and 12 rounds. However 3 of the losses are to the same Mardu deck and the same player, so only 2 other losses are to 2 other decks/players.
Round 1 - VS. U/W control - 0-2
Game 1 - I kept a 5 land hand because I didn't know what deck he was playing, unfortunately for me the next 2 draws were also lands, so by the 3rd turn I had only 3 spells drawn and 7 lands and although the U/W deck is slow he noticed I wasn't casting anything and he dropped a Gideon on turn 4 and beat me quickly with it.
Game 2- I had a normal hand but not enough creatures, I made the mistake of casting a Hellion on turn 3 which got Cancelled...I'm not sure what was wrong with me since I usually play U/W so I knew what was in his deck but I just played poorly and he dropped a turn 5 Archangel Avacyn and a turn 6 Gideon and beat down from there. I didn't expect to pay against U/W control, I also don't have a good sideboard against this type of deck, I was geared on beating creature decks only, which I usually do. Once I update the deck with 2-3 Hazorets this week then it'll do better against Gideon and his ilk.
Round 2 - VS. Mardu Vehicles R/W/B (same guy I played last week, this is the 3rd time I played him and the 3rd loss to him) 0-2
Game 1- I beat him down, and killed his stuff and managed to drop him down to 2 life, but he managed to come back with Gideon and beat me down since I didn't draw anything to finish him. This match-up is hard for me if I don't draw very good in the first game and he drew really good.
Game 2- This game I also kept a 5 land hand, don't ask me why I didn't mulligan it. I thought I could draw onto spells, but with this deck I need a hand of 2 lands and 5 spells so I can go aggro starting turn 2. I didn't manage to do much since he got out a turn 4 Gideon and then an enchantment that makes a zombie when a player casts a planeswalker spell, or rather he got out the enchantment first then gideon. I managed to kill gideon but the next turn he cast a 2nd one and beat me down with it.
Round 3 - VS. Black/Green/Red Constrictor with Hazoret 2-1
Game 1- I curved out since I actually did draw a 2 land and 5 spells hand, and I killed his first couple of drops of a snake and another creature and then started to beat him down with my hasty guys.
Game 2- Again it was a close fight but he got do discard his hand and cast a card that had 3 abilities, I had to discard a card, I lost 2 life and he gained 2 life and I had to kill a creature of my own. After that he cast Hazoret and I didn't have an answer to her so he beat me down with her.
Game 3- He tried to use a ballista to beat me down but I kept killing it with direct damage, he also got hazoret out but I already had him down to 5 life. The next turn I was able to cast a Glorybringer to hit him and bring him down to 1 and had a heart piercer manticore to block. I blocked his Hazoret and my manticore died but the turn after that I drew the 6th land, embalmed manticore and threw the tapped Glorybringer to his face for 4 damage and won the game like that.
So, again I lost to the Mardu Vehicles deck due to his Gideon again, I'm not sure why I get paired against him every tourney since the last one had 12 players but I still managed to have to play him on round 2.
Against U/W I was just unprepared having not playing against the deck with my red deck ever and also I haven't play my own U/W deck in a couple of months so I didn't know how to play against it, also I drew almost no creatures in Game 1 and also had some bad draws of not much aggro in game 2 either. Again, after adding 2-3 Hazorets to this deck the match-up will improve.
The last deck was a creature deck and my deck won, it wasn't an easy win but my deck is supposed to beat creature heavy decks anyways.
Next week is pre-release so the next Standard Showdown will be 2 weeks from now and I will have my Hazorets in the deck and maybe even also some Hour of Devastation cards since the tourney is on July 15th so HOU should be legal by then.
So, I played another Standard Showdown at my local store today, with HOU being legal and having gotten my Hazorets already the deck is finally fully tuned, as much as it can anyways before September but the sideboard still needs some work.
I went 2-1 at this tourn they but I gave away 1 game so I should've been 3-0 if I played that one turn properly. So far the deck is 9 - 6 out of 5 tourneys and 15 rounds.
While that doesn't sound too exciting keep in my I am using these tourneys as my testing ground, I don't have anyone else to test with and don't have magic online either, and this deck is 100% my build and it has changed quite a bit since 2 months ago when I ran the first version.
Game 1 - I got stuck on 3 lands and only 1 Mountain for the first 5 turns, but all he did was play lands and 0 casting cost artifacts while I was beating him down slowly, I didn't know what his deck did but still won.
Game 2 - I got flooded this time but again he tried to cast some stuff and then gained some life, then got hit by my creatures, gained some more life but I already had enough on the board to kill him. He didn't draw any Engulf the Shore so he died. It was the first time for me facing this deck and although my deck worked very slow both games he just didn't get the cards he needed to combo off both games.
Round 2 - VS. R/G/B Aggro - 1-2
Game 1- He got the nut draw with turn 1 Attune with Aether, turn 2 Greenbelt Rampager then turn 3 Longtusk Cub and turn 4 Bristling Hydra . All this time I was holding 4 Fiery Tempers in my hand with no way to discard them and they couldn't even kill his creatures due to his creatures' fat butts. So, his nut draw vs. my crappy draw means he beat me down game 1 pretty fast but he didn't get to see much of my deck which was to my advantage.
Game 2 - I got the nut draw and I curved out beating him down very quickly and actually killing his creatures with the turn 2 combo of Lightning Axe plus Fiery Temper, which got him very surprised. I ended up casting a turn 4 Hazoret who beat him down in a couple of turns.
Game 3 - This was a tight game, with both of us fighting for position, he dropped a Longtusk Cub and managed to get it to 4/4 with energy the he dropped a Rhonas to hold the fort, I had a Hazoret and another smaller creature. I got a Kari Zev's Expertise out and hit him with my Hazoret and his own Rhonas for 10 damage. Then the next turn I made a mistake of attacking with Hazoret into his Rhonas because I thought he would die, I forgot that his Rhonas is also indestructible. The next turn I would've been able to win if I just stayed back and used Hazoret to block if he attacked, so I gave him the 3rd game and the match. In my defense it was my first time playing with Hazoret today and also the second time facing Rhonas, I have no idea why I blanked out and thought he would die if he blocks.
Round 3 - VS. U/W Spirits 2-0
Game 1- He cast some spirits, I keep trying to burn them, he Negated a couple of my burn spells and kept hitting me for 1 or 2 damage, but I managed to get my creatures out which are bigger than his. He got me down to 10 life and I got him down to 1 and on my turn I used a Ramunap Ruins to sac a desert and do 2 damage to him.
Game 2 - It was the same thing, but I noticed he was running only Negates so I stopped trying to cast burn and I cast my creatures instead, he managed to counter one with Spell Queller but I still hit him harder than he hit me. I managed to resolve a Fiery Temper and kill his Queller and got back my creature which hit him since it has haste and brought him down to 1 life. I use the Battlefield Scavenger's ability to discard a card and draw a card and I drew into a Sunscorched Desert and I played it killing him. The irony is that he lost both games to land damage since he was at 1 life by the end of both games.
This is the version of the deck that I played today, the fully tuned main deck but still working on the sideboard options against control/counter decks.
After looking around for a budget standard deck to play I saw a couple of threads talking about a mono-red deck that can fight the big boys. So, after a lot of reading and card searching, I put a madness type deck and a more aggro deck together to come up with this baby, which I named Sid Vicious. On to the decklist:
17 Mountain
4 Sunscorched Desert
Creatures(26)
3 Heart-piercer Manticore
4 Glorybringer
4 Lathnu Hellion
3 Furyblade Vampire
2 Reckless Bushwhacker
4 Ahn-crop Crasher
2 Combat Celebrant
4 Battlefield Scavenger
2 Avacyn's Judgment
3 Harnessed Lightning
1 Insult // Injury
3 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Temper
3 Kari Zev's Expertise
2 Destructive Tampering
2 Fling
3 Harsh Mentor
2 By Force
3 Magma Spray
The deck is quite fast and usually by the time I cast everything in my hand the opponent is dead.
Tonight I took it to a local store to play in the Standard Showdown tournament and went 3-0 with this deck to win first place. Here is the match info:
Round 1 - vs. Red/Black aggro 2-1
He played a bomat courier aggro deck but I didn't see much else in the first game since he was stuck on 3 lands and so was I but I kept casting creatures almost every turn after the 3rd and took the game. In the 2nd game I got mana flooded and didn't draw enough creatures so he beat me. In the 3rd game he got mana flooded so I ran him over by curving out perfectly.
Round 2 - vs. Red/White Humans 2-0
He played a few small humans which got burned by me, then I started to drop creatures on turn 4 and won the first game easily. In the second game he got mana screwed so I ran him over by curving out.
Round 3 - vs R/U Enigma Drake discard 2-0
In the first game he used a couple of burn spells on my first two creatures to come out and then he was out of spells by turn 3, he cast an enigma drake but I killed it with a lightning axe, and the turn after that he cast another which also got killed by an axe, he had no blockers so he died soon after. In the second game he got a drake out quickly that was an 8/4 by turn 3 but since the toughness is only 4 it died to my lightning axe again, and next turn he cast another drake which died to a madnessed Avancyn's Judgment and he died to my creatures attack the very same turn.
So, I didn't play against any tier 1 decks and also the players were not the best at piloting their own decks but I did win almost every game comfortably, including winning with only 3 lands in play in one game, and mulliganing to 6 on the play and still winning that game as well.
MVP's in this deck were:
lightning axe - cleared the road of blockers so my guys can go through
ahn-crop crasher- better in constructed than in limited, stopped my opponent's creatures from blocking
glorybringer- just for being himself
avacyn's judgment - got madnessed for 4 damage to kill a blocker so my guys can go through
sunscorched desert - very underrated card in an aggro deck, did 3 damage in one game where out of 5 lands I had 3 deserts and 2 mountains.
Everything in this deck is a threat, and the best part is that no card is useless, even if you draw lands after the first 5 and you don't need to use them you can always pitch them to another card. Also, late game almost anything you draw is a great topdeck with a lot of hasted creatures and burn.
If you want to piss off some people at your local store give this deck a try for FNM or Standard Showdown and let me know how it did, I will probably give it another go at the next Standard Showdown tourney and see how it fares again. It is also kind of a budget deck coming in at under $50 since the manabase is as cheap and can be and the only $5 rares are the play set of Glorybringers, the other rares being in the dollar range.
Thanks!
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Mtg Lifestyle
So, I went to the Standard Showdown this Saturday again, taking the same deck built as in the previous post. I played much better players and decks, got all kinds of bad luck with mana and finished 1-2 out of 3 rounds. Here`s the short tourney report:
Round 1 - VS. W/R/B with Gideon, Chandra, Thraben Inspector, and some removal - 0-2
Game 1 - I mulled to 6 on the draw due to having a one-land hand and managed to bring him down to 15 but I played slow so he got time to get Gideon out and beat me with him.
Game 2 - I kept a 1 land hand this time, and missed the next 2 land drops, making my 2nd land on the 4th turn by which time he already got out a Gideon and a Chandra and beat me with only those two. Nothing much I can say about that, total bad luck in the opening hand and subsequent draws in both games.
Round 2 - VS. Black/Red artifacts with Heart of Kiran, Liliana and lots of removal - 2-0
Game 1 - I was on the play, he mulled to 6 and played very slow, missed his 3rd land drop and I curved out to beat him.
Game 2 - He mulled to 6 again, but I put the pressure on every turn, again he managed to get heart of kiran out and a creature which I killed. The next turn he cast Liliana, and he made my Heart-piercer manticore a 2/1 with ability. Next turn I cast combat celebrant and said go, on his turn he activated Liliana again but I cast Fling in response and threw the combat celebrant at his face for 4. On my turn I cast Glorybringer and attacked with him and the Manticore but he blocked Glorybringer with heart of kiran activated by removing one counter from Liliana. However the damage from the manticore was enough to kill him.
Round 3 - VS. Black/White Zombies with Gideon - 0-2
Game 1- This was a tight match, I hit him hard and killed his dudes and managed to bring him down to 1 life even though I was mana flooded. I had about 8 lands and 7 other cards, and I went to 2 life. My next turn I needed to topdeck a haste creature or a burn spell that targets a player to be able to do that 1 damage to him but I topdecked....of course, a Mountain. My 9th land out of 16 cards played so far, if only I topdecked a sunscorched desert, that would've been an amazing win.
Game 2- Again a one land hand, so I mulled to 6 on the play. He ended up curving out and I killed his one drop and two drop with my combo of Lightning Axe and Fiery Temper on the second turn. Then he cast a Diregraf colossus which was a 4/4, the next turn another Colossus at 4/4 which came with a 2/2 zombie. I attacked him in the air but I couldn't bring him down lower than 10 before he locked the board with the 3 zombies. I killed the 2/2 Zombie token but my next draw was a Glorybringer and that wouldn't be enough to kill him. He also got out a Gideon, and I made a mistake earlier of hitting him for 4 instead of hitting the Gideon which was at 4 loyalty. If I killed the Gideon then, I might have been able to deal with the 2 Diregraf Colossi when I cast my 2nd Glorybringer. This is probably because I don't have anyone to playtest with so this was my first time facing the zombie deck with my deck and also I didn't expect the B/W zombie deck to play Gideon.
So, I managed to mull to 6 on 3 games and kept a 1 land hand which should've also probably been a mull which means I had 4 poor opening hands out of 6 games. Basically, the 2 games that I didn't mull my opening hand I won. The other 4 games were 2 losses for sure in the first round and I could've won the 2 other games in the last round against B/W Zombies if I topdecked good in the first game and if I didn't make a major mistake in the second game.
Right now out of 2 Standard Showdown tourneys this deck is 4-2 (6 matches) and I am planning to play another Standard tourney tomorrow as well.
After today's tourney I made a couple of changes to the deck, the new version I will be playing tomorrow is below:
17 Mountain
4 Sunscorched Desert
Creatures(24)
4 Heart-piercer Manticore
2 Reckless Bushwhacker
2 Combat Celebrant
4 Glorybringer
4 Lathnu Hellion
4 Ahn-crop Crasher
4 Battlefield Scavenger
1 Insult // Injury
2 Avacyn's Judgment
4 Harnessed Lightning
4 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Temper
3 Kari Zev's Expertise
2 Heaven // Earth
2 Fling
2 Harsh Mentor
1 Release the Gremlins
2 By Force
3 Magma Spray
I tried to sideboard Harsh Mentor today and he didn't do much, so I am looking for something else to put in the sideboard and take him out. Also, I can't wait for the next set to be out, there's a hasty Khenra for 2 mana which I need to get a playset of and stick in this deck as soon as HOU is legal.
I decided to run 2 Heaven/Earth in my sideboard because I can discard Heaven and then after turn 5 or 6 I can cast Earth from the graveyard to clean the board. I know that Sweltering Suns is better but the problem is that I don't need to cast it on turn 3 or 4 at all, but I do need to be able to do more than 3 damage. Yesterday I was facing 2 Diregraf Colossus which were both 4/4 creatures so aside from Lightning Axe the rest of my burn only do 3 damage, or with Avacyn's Judgment I could probably only kill one. So, I'm going to test Heaven/Earth out today, it's also much cheaper to buy than Sweltering Suns and of course, I can do 4 or maybe even 5 damage to everything if the game goes past turn 7.
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Mtg Lifestyle
I went to a local Standard tourney again last night and went 2-1 with this deck to come 3rd out of 8 people. So far the deck is 6-3 out of 3 tourneys and 9 rounds in total.
Here's the tourney report:
Round 1 - VS. Mardu Vehicles (R/W/B) - 1-2 (same guy I played two days ago and lost 0-2 to him that time)
Game 1- I put up a fight and drew very well, managed to get back to back Glorybringers to get him down to 2 life and then finished him off with a fiery temper.
Game 2- He got everything out and ran me over quickly with a turn 2 Heart of Kiran, turn 3 Scrounger and equip, and then turn 4 Gideon. I had a slow start so basically no chance to win.
Game 3- I made the mistake to keep a 1 land hand and didn't mulligan (last tourney I mulled 4 out of 7 games) so I missed my 2nd land drop and got a second land on turn 3. I still managed to kill a Gideon by attacking and then throwing a fiery temper to the face but after another turn he cast a second Gideon for which I had no answers. I am not sure how to deal with Gideon using mono-Red, aside from attacking him or throwing some kind of burn to the player's face and then redirecting it.
Round 2 - VS. Mono Black Zombies - 2-0
Game 1- In the first game he was stuck on 3 lands, and so was I so we kept trading blows with me also killing his guys with burn because he was casting them 1 at a time. He also took damage from Lathnu Hellion which hit him 3 times for a total of 12 life since he didn't want to block it for some reason. (I harnessed lighting a couple of Cryptbreakers and had leftover energy to keep the Hellion alive one extra turn)
Game 2- He killed a few of my early creatures with Grasp and Fatal push, but that meant soon I got down a couple of Glorybringers and started to exert and kill his guys off and hit him for 4 damage each turn. He managed to get 2 Diregraf Colossus out and they were each kind of big but I kept attacking him so he was on the defense the whole game, I managed to stall the board until he was down to 6 life then I cast a Fiery Temper at the end of his turn for 3 damage, and cast another one on my turn for another 3 damage which killed him. I found out after the game that he is a new player and also he didn't see my deck/cards before so he didn't know what to do to fight the deck.
Round 3 - VS. R/W Humans - 2-0
Game 1- I kept a hand of land, 4 burn spells and Combat Celebrant. The burn spells were 2 Fiery Tempers, 2 Lightning Axe. So, he cast a couple of creatures on turn 1 and 2, and end of turn two I used the first 2 Lightning Axe/Temper combo, on the 3rd turn I cast my Combat Celebrant, then on the 3rd turn and 4th turn he cast two more guys, which I again killed at the end of turn 4 with Axe/Temper. I started to hit him with the Celebrant for 4 since he didn't have any blockers. He ran out of cards and on the 5th turn he cast another creature, which I managed to Harness Lightning and kept hitting him with Celebrant which basically killed him. First time ever that I managed to beat someone down with a Combat Celebrant alone, without exerting, but the only other cards I played the whole game were burn spells to wipe out his board.
Game 2 - He got a couple of Always Watching out so his guys became quite big, but I kept attacking him with the Ahn-Crop Crasher and exerting so he couldn't block and burning his other smaller creatures. He also hit me back a couple of times to bring me down to 5, and the turn before I got him down to 3 and I had a tapped Ahn-Crop Crasher as the only creature on my board. I drew a Glorybringer but was afraid he might have some instant kill spell, so instead I embalmed my Heart-Piercer Manticore and sacrificed the Crasher to deal the final 3 points of damage to his head and win the game.
So, again I lost to Mardu Vehicles mostly due to Gideon and it was the same player to whom I lost the day before. I need a good draw to beat the deck since the creatures are kind of big or have flying (heart of kiran) and Gideon is a pain to get rid off. The other two decks were pretty standard Mono B zombies and Humans but I got really good draws and totally ran them over with my deck which is what it's supposed to do.
The deck is deceitfully skillful to play, it may seem like it is easy because it's just creatures and burn but you have to keep track of what you discard and how much land you have, as well as interactions on the board and with the graveyard. As for cards the battlefield scavenger was an MVP in every game where he came out on turn 2. I was able to exert him and attack and usually do at least 2 or 4 damage to my opponent as well as cycle through 2 cards. The fact that he exerts to do the ability means it can't be stopped by an opponent and also he gives that same ability to another exert creature. He is the single most important creature in the deck.
For an aggro deck that hits hard with 24 creatures and 15 burn spells being able to discard something and draw a new card or even cast something with Madness is amazing since you can keep the pressure on the opponent each turn. I'm not sure when the next local tourney that I can play with this deck is but I am definitely loving playing it and can't wait to incorporate a couple of Hour of Devastation cards in the deck to make it faster, stronger, and better!
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Mtg Lifestyle
I didn't get any mana flooding and I probably wouldn't mind it since I can discard the lands to various effects and draw more cards. I'm not sure what you mean about my curve being high, as I said out of 49 non-land cards only 8 of them cost more than 3 mana to cast and I can also discard those instead of casting them and use the discard effects to their full potential.
In other news I did decide to get 3 Hazoret so she will be part of the deck starting next week sometime and I'll post some more tourney reports after I get her, with her in the deck it means it is fully optimized and there are no better cards to add in until Hour of Devastation becomes legal.
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Mtg Lifestyle
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
Now, while that article is technically about how many colored mana sources you need to have your colors by a certain turn, you can use the info to infer other mana conclusions. For example, the 22 colored mana sources you need to be able to cast a triple colored spell by turn 3, that's the same number of total mana sources you need to be able to hit 3 total mana by turn 3. So even for turn 3 3-drops, you're a mana short.
By your own reports, you have quite a few mulligans that lead to losses and quite a few additional games where you kept a 1 lander and lost. Even without Karsten's article, that's enough to tell me you're running land light.
What I meant about your curve being too high is in relationship to your lands. To be able to cast those higher cmc creatures, you want more lands. If you like the number of lands, and 'can win being stuck on 3 lands until 4 or 5,' then you probably don't need the higher cmc creatures and can probably shave them and have a curve that closer matches your land count. If you like the bigger creatures (I believe you called Glorybringer an MVP), you should have a higher land count to accommodate that.
**Point of reference - you did actually attribute two game loss to flooding. compared to 4 losses from drought. I think I read only 1 other loss that wasn't due to mana issues.
Thanks for your explanation, I didn't read the article, too much math involved in it and also didn't understand much of what he was saying. I understand what you meant by 22 lands to manage to hit 3 lands on turn 3 most of the time so because of that I took out Insult/Injury from the main deck and will be playing 22 lands at the next Standard Showdown tourney and see how it does.
As long as I have some discard outlets like a Battlefield Scavenger out, or Lightning Axe in my hand then I don't mind keeping a 4 land or 5 land hand, but I usually like to keep a 2 land hand and draw the 3rd land in the first 2 draws.
Again, thanks for your advice and I'll let you know how the 22 lands deck does, I definitely want to be able to cast Glorybringer on turn 5, but have usually cast it on turn 6 or 7 so far.
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Mtg Lifestyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPH17prodgM
I just got back into magic in April after a 7 year hiatus, and I'm in Tokyo now so I didn't have any cards when I started so I had to decide what cards to buy to make standard decks. My first deck that I finished is my U/W control deck, which has about $100 worth of cards but after playing two tourneys with it I realize that I don't know enough about metagame and different decks to be playing a control deck.
So, I decided to do the mono red aggro deck since all I have to do is attack every turn and burn some creatures or the face so I don't need to know much about what's in my opponents' decks, definitely much different than playing a control deck with counters. So, I've been focusing on building this mono red deck for the past two months and keeping it budget but with the addition of Hazoret the deck's price will go to about $70, which is still kind of budget.
I'm planning to play another standard showdown tourney tomorrow and see how the deck does one last time without Hazoret and hopefully starting next week i'll be playing it fully tuned with 2-3 Hazorets maindeck. I'm not free on Friday nights this month and next month so I can't play the FNM's but the Standard Showdown events get enough people to have 3 rounds and a variety of decks so that'll have to do for testing for now. I don't have anyone here to play with for fun or test the deck, so playing in the tourneys against unknown opponents is my only method of testing the deck aside from goldfishing at home.
It feels good and challenging brain wise to be playing magic after 7 years, in an unknown metagame and trying to communicate with players in a language which I don't really speak very well at all. I'm trying not to make too many mistakes because I can't explain myself in Japanese, so it's good my deck is aggro and doesn't have too many strange things to do, usually just attack and burn.
It's ironic that I'm a control player at heart and am playing the exact opposite of what a control deck is!
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Mtg Lifestyle
I went to the Standard Showdown last Saturday with the new 22 land deck and the deck didn't like...I went 1-2 due to mana flooding issues and playing top tier decks played by competent opponents.
The deck is up to 7-5 out of 4 tourneys and 12 rounds. However 3 of the losses are to the same Mardu deck and the same player, so only 2 other losses are to 2 other decks/players.
Round 1 - VS. U/W control - 0-2
Game 1 - I kept a 5 land hand because I didn't know what deck he was playing, unfortunately for me the next 2 draws were also lands, so by the 3rd turn I had only 3 spells drawn and 7 lands and although the U/W deck is slow he noticed I wasn't casting anything and he dropped a Gideon on turn 4 and beat me quickly with it.
Game 2- I had a normal hand but not enough creatures, I made the mistake of casting a Hellion on turn 3 which got Cancelled...I'm not sure what was wrong with me since I usually play U/W so I knew what was in his deck but I just played poorly and he dropped a turn 5 Archangel Avacyn and a turn 6 Gideon and beat down from there. I didn't expect to pay against U/W control, I also don't have a good sideboard against this type of deck, I was geared on beating creature decks only, which I usually do. Once I update the deck with 2-3 Hazorets this week then it'll do better against Gideon and his ilk.
Round 2 - VS. Mardu Vehicles R/W/B (same guy I played last week, this is the 3rd time I played him and the 3rd loss to him) 0-2
Game 1- I beat him down, and killed his stuff and managed to drop him down to 2 life, but he managed to come back with Gideon and beat me down since I didn't draw anything to finish him. This match-up is hard for me if I don't draw very good in the first game and he drew really good.
Game 2- This game I also kept a 5 land hand, don't ask me why I didn't mulligan it. I thought I could draw onto spells, but with this deck I need a hand of 2 lands and 5 spells so I can go aggro starting turn 2. I didn't manage to do much since he got out a turn 4 Gideon and then an enchantment that makes a zombie when a player casts a planeswalker spell, or rather he got out the enchantment first then gideon. I managed to kill gideon but the next turn he cast a 2nd one and beat me down with it.
Round 3 - VS. Black/Green/Red Constrictor with Hazoret 2-1
Game 1- I curved out since I actually did draw a 2 land and 5 spells hand, and I killed his first couple of drops of a snake and another creature and then started to beat him down with my hasty guys.
Game 2- Again it was a close fight but he got do discard his hand and cast a card that had 3 abilities, I had to discard a card, I lost 2 life and he gained 2 life and I had to kill a creature of my own. After that he cast Hazoret and I didn't have an answer to her so he beat me down with her.
Game 3- He tried to use a ballista to beat me down but I kept killing it with direct damage, he also got hazoret out but I already had him down to 5 life. The next turn I was able to cast a Glorybringer to hit him and bring him down to 1 and had a heart piercer manticore to block. I blocked his Hazoret and my manticore died but the turn after that I drew the 6th land, embalmed manticore and threw the tapped Glorybringer to his face for 4 damage and won the game like that.
So, again I lost to the Mardu Vehicles deck due to his Gideon again, I'm not sure why I get paired against him every tourney since the last one had 12 players but I still managed to have to play him on round 2.
Against U/W I was just unprepared having not playing against the deck with my red deck ever and also I haven't play my own U/W deck in a couple of months so I didn't know how to play against it, also I drew almost no creatures in Game 1 and also had some bad draws of not much aggro in game 2 either. Again, after adding 2-3 Hazorets to this deck the match-up will improve.
The last deck was a creature deck and my deck won, it wasn't an easy win but my deck is supposed to beat creature heavy decks anyways.
Next week is pre-release so the next Standard Showdown will be 2 weeks from now and I will have my Hazorets in the deck and maybe even also some Hour of Devastation cards since the tourney is on July 15th so HOU should be legal by then.
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Mtg Lifestyle
So, I played another Standard Showdown at my local store today, with HOU being legal and having gotten my Hazorets already the deck is finally fully tuned, as much as it can anyways before September but the sideboard still needs some work.
I went 2-1 at this tourn they but I gave away 1 game so I should've been 3-0 if I played that one turn properly. So far the deck is 9 - 6 out of 5 tourneys and 15 rounds.
While that doesn't sound too exciting keep in my I am using these tourneys as my testing ground, I don't have anyone else to test with and don't have magic online either, and this deck is 100% my build and it has changed quite a bit since 2 months ago when I ran the first version.
Here is the tourney report:
Round 1 - VS. Mono Blue Artifact combo aka. Mono Blue Reservoir (seen here - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/680714#paper) 2-0
Game 1 - I got stuck on 3 lands and only 1 Mountain for the first 5 turns, but all he did was play lands and 0 casting cost artifacts while I was beating him down slowly, I didn't know what his deck did but still won.
Game 2 - I got flooded this time but again he tried to cast some stuff and then gained some life, then got hit by my creatures, gained some more life but I already had enough on the board to kill him. He didn't draw any Engulf the Shore so he died. It was the first time for me facing this deck and although my deck worked very slow both games he just didn't get the cards he needed to combo off both games.
Round 2 - VS. R/G/B Aggro - 1-2
Game 1- He got the nut draw with turn 1 Attune with Aether, turn 2 Greenbelt Rampager then turn 3 Longtusk Cub and turn 4 Bristling Hydra . All this time I was holding 4 Fiery Tempers in my hand with no way to discard them and they couldn't even kill his creatures due to his creatures' fat butts. So, his nut draw vs. my crappy draw means he beat me down game 1 pretty fast but he didn't get to see much of my deck which was to my advantage.
Game 2 - I got the nut draw and I curved out beating him down very quickly and actually killing his creatures with the turn 2 combo of Lightning Axe plus Fiery Temper, which got him very surprised. I ended up casting a turn 4 Hazoret who beat him down in a couple of turns.
Game 3 - This was a tight game, with both of us fighting for position, he dropped a Longtusk Cub and managed to get it to 4/4 with energy the he dropped a Rhonas to hold the fort, I had a Hazoret and another smaller creature. I got a Kari Zev's Expertise out and hit him with my Hazoret and his own Rhonas for 10 damage. Then the next turn I made a mistake of attacking with Hazoret into his Rhonas because I thought he would die, I forgot that his Rhonas is also indestructible. The next turn I would've been able to win if I just stayed back and used Hazoret to block if he attacked, so I gave him the 3rd game and the match. In my defense it was my first time playing with Hazoret today and also the second time facing Rhonas, I have no idea why I blanked out and thought he would die if he blocks.
Round 3 - VS. U/W Spirits 2-0
Game 1- He cast some spirits, I keep trying to burn them, he Negated a couple of my burn spells and kept hitting me for 1 or 2 damage, but I managed to get my creatures out which are bigger than his. He got me down to 10 life and I got him down to 1 and on my turn I used a Ramunap Ruins to sac a desert and do 2 damage to him.
Game 2 - It was the same thing, but I noticed he was running only Negates so I stopped trying to cast burn and I cast my creatures instead, he managed to counter one with Spell Queller but I still hit him harder than he hit me. I managed to resolve a Fiery Temper and kill his Queller and got back my creature which hit him since it has haste and brought him down to 1 life. I use the Battlefield Scavenger's ability to discard a card and draw a card and I drew into a Sunscorched Desert and I played it killing him. The irony is that he lost both games to land damage since he was at 1 life by the end of both games.
This is the version of the deck that I played today, the fully tuned main deck but still working on the sideboard options against control/counter decks.
16 Mountain
4 Sunscorched Desert
1 Endless Sands
1 Ramunap Ruins
Creatures(24)
2 Heart-piercer Manticore
3 Earthshaker Khenra
3 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Glorybringer
4 Lathnu Hellion
4 Ahn-crop Crasher
4 Battlefield Scavenger
2 Avacyn's Judgment
4 Harnessed Lightning
4 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Temper
2 Kari Zev's Expertise
2 Combat Celebrant
2 Fling
2 Chandra's Defeat
1 Insult // Injury
1 Abrade (I only own 1, after I get 2 more I will exchange them with the 2 By Force)
2 By Force (will get replaced with 2 Abrades)
3 Magma Spray
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Mtg Lifestyle