MTG Salvation

Round 1 – Bant Control

Game 1: Took around 40 minutes. I had an excellent draw, but so did he. I had him down under 10, but he landed a Jace, AoT as well as a Tamiyo and, after several board wipes, managed to keep my only creature, a Thragtusk, tapped down. He ended up ultimating it, but I figured I might be able to draw it out until he milled himself by accident. I lost this one only because he dug into all of his Detention Spheres via Jace.

Game 2: After shuffling and mulligans, I ended the match in roughly five minutes. My opening hand was something along the lines of double Loxodon Smiter, two lands, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, Farseek, and a Huntmaster. Absolute nut draw, and I beat his face in before we went to time. We end up drawing.

Current record: 0-0-1

Round 2 – G/W Midrange

Game 1: I ramp quickly into a Loxodon Smiter ,followed by a Huntmaster. She lands a Thragtusk and a Restoration Angel, followed by a Collective Blessing. I miracle a Bonfire, but can only cast it for 6 (and she has lethal with the creature that survives). I miracle Entreat the Angels, but only for four. This would normally be fine if I wasn’t so vastly outpowered. I manage to trade my remaining creatures efficiently enough that she ends up with no blockers. I have two angels and enough mana to hit her for 14 damage.

Game 2: Mana dorks into Farseek into Huntmaster into Zealous Conscripts after she lands a Loxodon Smiter. Swing for nearly lethal (16 down to 3) and she topdecks a land. GG.

Current record: 1-0-1

Round 3 – U/W Control

Game 1: I ramp into a Huntmaster (which gets Supreme Verdict’d), followed by a Thragtusk, followed by a Zealous Conscripts. Game ends in short order.

Game 2: Due to being cocky and up a game, I kept a no-lander with two Pithing Needles, two mana dorks, a Farseek, and three Loxodon Smiters. If there was any land, it’d be an absolutely bonkers hand against any control deck. I was on the draw, but didn’t get a land T1. Got a Temple Garden T2 and simply played the game out as usual. His deck was extremely slow, so it wasn’t too big of a tempo loss. He went from 20-16-12-4 and then scooped as he didn’t draw anything useful.

Current record: 2-0-1

Round 4 – Junk Tokens/Aggro

Game 1: He lands a T4 Armada Wurm and I miracle an Entreat the Angels. We fight a very slow war of attrition, but I end up being two damage short.

Game 2: I play a Dryad Militant T1, followed by a Loxodon Smiter and a Restoration Angel. He’s forced to chump with Lingering Souls tokens (which he can’t flash back) and I swing for lethal with Selesnya Charm mana up.

Game 3: Ramp into a Huntmaster, which ends up flipping. He lands a Thragtusk and I swing for a ton (15 down to 3 without trading for his Thragtusk courtesy of Selesnya Charm). He lands another Thragtusk and I just keep swinging. We go to time. He goes to 1, but I’m tapped out and it’s turn 4. He passes turn and we draw, unfortunately.

Current record: 2-0-2

Top 4 – Omniscience

Game 1: I ramp into a Loxodon Smiter and a Thragtusk. This game was over in a grand total of like 6 turns as he was unable to play anything of use.

Game 2: Ramp into a Huntmaster, followed by a Thragtusk. He throws down a Centaur Healer. I trade the Thragtusk and play a Restoration Angel on his end step. I play another Thragtusk and we start to trade back and forth. We trade back and forth and he jumps up another ten life after playing a Thragtusk and blinking it with a Restoration Angel. I pull a Kessig Wolf Run and start plowing through his board. He’s at 9 and I’m at 4. He has a Restoration Angel and two 3/3 Beast tokens, one of which is tapped. I have an Acidic Slime, a Restoration Angel, and 9 mana with a Pillar in hand. He chooses to only block the Angel (a HUGE mistake) and I pump the slime for 5 and then Pillar to the face for the win.

Current record: 3-0-2. I end up splitting first with my friend.

I'm strongly considering putting a third Entreat in, simply because it's almost always a game-ender or a way to turn the tides when I'm way behind board presence-wise.

Quote from chanco

I am gonna try a different build. Using more miracles. With more and more players shifting to mid range, I want to see how Entreat and Bonfire would work. I will post results later this week.

Here's my list from the Deck Garage:



Trust me when I say that the miracles work well.

This is the Naya build I'm currently testing. I was originally playing Selesnya Tokens with Trostani, but it wasn't getting there enough. So I went back to the drawing board. Entreat the Angels and Sigarda, Host of Herons are our big finishers here.

Loxodon Smiter is pure beats, and Huntmaster helps to establish board presence. The Thragtusk/Restoration Angel interaction works as usual, pumping up our life totals and generating tokens.

I chose to run Kessig Wolf Run and Slayers' Stronghold here for a few reasons. First off, it stops your opponent from stalling out the board with Lingering Souls/Midnight Haunting/mana dorks and allows you to put excess mana to use every turn. Slayers' Stronghold is actually a very strong card here as well, even with our fragmented mana base.

With splashing red, we also get to use their excellent removal suite-- Bonfire of the Damned is still an excellent one-sided board wipe, and this deck has the mana potential to make it a hard-hitter. Pillar is here in a smaller quantity than usual due to Zombies becoming rarer and rarer. It's also very good at taking out mana dorks.

For the sideboard, we have some much-needed graveyard hate courtesy of Rest in Peace and Dryad Militant. This deck doesn't have any positive synergy with graveyards, so being able to shut down reanimator decks and those that run Snapcaster Mage with no downsides is huge.

Jace, Liliana, Tamiyo, and many other cards can be rendered useless by Pithing Needle. Centaur Healer comes in against RDW and other burn-heavy matchups. Acidic Slime is excellent against control decks (with the prevalence of Detention Sphere and O-ring) and 4/5 color decks with fragile manabases, as well as mirror matchups with Kessig Wolf Run.

Zealous Conscripts is likely going to be brought in against most matchups, and being able to permanently take an opponent's creature due to its interaction with Restoration Angel is huge late-game.

Last, but certainly not least, is big Garruk. Now, GR was great due to being able to shoot down mana dorks, flipped Delvers, and Vampire Nighthawks, but I'm seeing less and less of the last two. Big Garruk fits well into our mana curve alongside Thragtusk and Sigarda and generates both tokens and tremendous card advantage.

What happens if they Slaughter Games your Acidic Slimes? GG and scoop?

Quote from bfellow

Well that's fine considering Acidic Slime is a 5-drop.

Whoops. Fixed.

Quote from Cero Oscuras

Granted I run GW+B, but where is Acidic Slime?

I run 1 main, with 3 side. And it always hits a relevant card, be it a Keyrune, some enchantment (Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere) or Kessig Wolf Run.
The fact the card has good synergy with Restoration Angel, and in my build also with Unburial Rites, he can really improve the boardstate,

I was running anti enchantment/artifacts side, but those have been shifted into Acidic and Crushing Vines. Having acces to 4 Slime, 3 Angel, 2 Unburial Rites and 2 Angel of Serenity can crush a manabase in grindy games.

I've been running two Sundering Growth sideboard to deal with problem artifacts and enchantments (plus the populate clause occasionally gives you a bit of extra board presence), but the more I think about it, the more Acidic Slime seems like a better answer. The only issue I see is that for many lists, the five-drop slot is already quite crowded (especially for Naya builds).

I don't understand why you're running one each of Tolmad's Crypt and Nihil Spellbomb. If you're set on running graveyard hate, run two spellbombs instead. I wouldn't run Killing Wave over Bonfire here, either.

Pulled this beauty and immediately threw it into a sleeve and into my binder. Pristine condition (the white spots near the bottom are from the miscutting).

Thoughts on value? I haven't seen a miscut this large in quite some time. I also have a Reforge the Soul with a smaller top border.

I played Tempered Steel for many months but with the Scars block rotating out soon I'm looking for a new deck. I love the feel of Wolf Run Ramp and similarly aggressive decks and fast wins, but I don't feel like dumping a few hundred into a deck that'll have a bunch of expensive cards rotate out in a couple months. Therefore, decks largely composed of cards from the Innistrad block and M13 would be ideal.

Quote from Nuclearsunburn

My first thought......another cutesy card that doesn't do much on its own. Sure, blinking stuff for free is good, but unless you're in a stalemate situation this isn't going to make or break you. Usually it's going to be win-more, or not enough. I could see it as a 2-of in a dedicated Blink deck, but outside of that..no. But if your testing says otherwise I'm happy to be wrong!

I'm going to be doing some T2 AVR testing today, actually, so we shall see.

Conjurer's Closet
Artifact - 5
At the beginning of your end step, you may exile a creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under your control.

Anyone else seeing the massive potential here for synergy with Wolf Run? Just look at all the effects you can abuse with this flicker:

• Acidic Slime
• Primeval Titan (the fastest ramp outside of an infinite mana combo)
• Inferno Titan (damage level: troll hard or go home)
• Phyrexian Metamorph
• Solemn Simulacrum
• Viridian Corrupter
• Tree of Redemption
• While I don't run them personally, Huntmaster of the Fells would be an absolutely fantastic target-- another wolf and another two life.
• Even an animated Inkmoth Nexus!

Plus, you can use it on any creature to free up mana dorks or give yourself blockers for your opponent's turn. Yeah, it's a 5-drop and we have that spot often filled by Batterskull or Garruk, Primal Hunter, but the abuse potential here is HUGE.

Here's an example:
You play Simulacrum, then this next turn when you get stuck on 5 mana. Flicker your Simulacrum for an extra land, then cast Primeval Titan the next turn. At your end step, flicker him for ANOTHER TWO LANDS. You can do this every single turn, too, giving you four lands a turn AND a ghetto version of vigilance.

Results for the Fenton, MI Super IQ. Eight rounds, went 5-3.



Notes:

I maindeck two Spellskites normally for FNM because my meta has tons of artifact hate, Gut Shots, Vapor Snags, and Mortarpods. I figured that the latter three would still be common at the tournament, so I kept them in. Spellskite also gave me the advantage of both a 0/4 blocker and a way to shut down Kessig Wolf Run (which saved me many times).

Mental Misstep is a totally underrated card against any ramp deck. Pay two life (or, with an explosive start, tap your Mox) and stop their mana dorks (Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves) and you get a huge lead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ended up losing to a B/W tokens deck (one of our worst matchups) courtesy of Day of Judgement with no GHI, OS, or Inkmoth Nexus out. I need to work on not over-extending myself against decks like that.

Sideboarding: G2 had no sideboarding, since G1 was over before he could actually play anything of use. G3 had Shrines, O-rings, Ray of Revelation, and a Dismember.

Second loss was to a B/R zombies deck. This is actually an alright matchup for us, but my opponent played smart and I misplayed in G3, giving the win to him.

Sideboarding: G2 brought in Celestial Purge, O-rings, and Spellskites. G3 was the same.

Third loss was more misplaying on my part against R/G Wolf Run Ramp. I was slowly gaining poison counters and even though they had a large board presence, I was too focused on my life total and just let the poison tick. He animated two Inkmoths after I lost my flying after trading for his Wurmcoil Engine.

Sideboarding: G2 had O-rings for titans, Mental Misstep for mana dorks, Spellskites for Naturalize, Grudge, etc., and Indomitable Archangel for some wonderful shroud. G3 was more of the same.

The other matchups were a Frites deck (G1 he mulled to 4 and scooped, G2 he got F but no Rites), some R/G/W pod deck (G1 was over in a flash, G2 was ended quickly after double Mental Missteps), and a couple others I can't remember. Oddly enough, Delver representation was way lower than we thought it would be, so I never went up against one.

All things considered, I think I did pretty well for my first large tournament and I'll definitely go down for the next Super IQ in June.

Best deck in Standard?

Tempered Steel. True story.™

Quote from Zeriel

Looks kinda fun but its too conditional, i don't like the fateful hour mechanic...it seems to be trying to delay your inevitable defeat...

I disagree with your opinion. Tempered Steel is a +2/+2 pump for 1WW, and it's what makes the deck. I think that Break of Day is weaker, but functions as a stopgap measure for when you aren't drawing TS but still want to make an aggressive push against similarly quick decks or mirror matchups.

To be honest, you shouldn't be playing this card for the Fateful Hour mechanic. That's the only conditional part, but the game should ideally be over long before you get to trigger it. If it isn't, then hey; you've got a bit of backup!

Lastly, there's always the option of playing single-creature pumps, but that's a tradeoff. Tempered Steel gets a lot of small creatures out quickly. If you can pump one creature with +2/+0 or +2/+2 or four creatures with +1/+1 each, it's an obvious choice.

(Unrelated note: I'm a little surprised that Nils didn't run Mutagenic Growth in his GW Steel in Virginia.)

tl;dr: It's a slightly cheaper, slightly weaker TS.

I picked up a couple Break of Day in a trade earlier. It's 1W for an instant +1/+1 pump (plus a Fateful Hour effect for indestructibility). I figure that it gives us some nice 2-mana options and gives us a temporary backup plan for metas that have enchantment hate (Ray of Revelation, Revoke Existence, etc).

What do you guys think about having it as maybe a 2-of in SB? A good balance mana-wise, cheap dollar-wise, and (in dire emergency) gives us resiliency.