If I cast Rise of the Dark Realms with my graveyard containing only 2 copies of Jarad and 1 Nighthowler, will my Nighthowler die due to SBE prior to me losing the extra Jarad? For simplicity, assume the opponent's graveyard is totally empty.
Let's be honest, Cloudfin Raptor is lucky to evolve more than once (on average). Hypnotic Siren is always 1-power, and unlike Raptor, it's better* if topdecked late game.
My shop does a Tuesday night Standard tournament. We had a great turnout this week. 6 rounds of play! Here is my deck and a brief report on my matches.
Round 1: WB Midrange Control 2-0; 1-0
Paired against my buddy. His deck is a Midrange-Control strategy utilizing High Priest of Penance, Agent of the Fates and kill spells to attrition out creatures until he drops Ghost-Daddy or Baron to clean up.
Game 1 – Fogs for days until wrath, rinse and repeat. Couldn’t find a Maze’s End until I got some extra turns with Ral Zarek. By that point, I had all the lands assembled already.
Game 2 – Same pasta as game 1. Needled on Vizkopa Guildmage, and went to turns but eked out a victory on turn 3.
Round 2: RGB Jund Midrange 1-2; 1-1
Game 1 – Turn 6 Sire. My list can’t deal with that unless I topdeck Verdict; I didn’t.
Game 2 – Fogged/blocked some early aggression. Turn 6, I get out a Crackling Perimeter with 5 gates and a Ral Zarek out. 5’d him ‘til he was dead.
Game 3 – Fogged/Wrathed for a while. I got slowly burned down a bit to 3 life. He eventually got a Stormbreath Dragon to stick and on the following turn he used the monstrosity ability and killed me. I had misplayed my turn and had not left correct mana open for a Riot Control. After this game is also the first time I read all of my Fog variants very closely.
Round 3: GW Aggro 0-2; 1-2
Game 1 – Fogged for days but never got to a wrath. He eventually killed me.
Game 2 – Kept a slightly sketchy opener. It had fogs, wrath, a Sphere and some land. I couldn’t get wrath online until after he had monstrositied a Lion. I ran out of fogs and life before I could get to all of my gates.
Note: I felt like I could have won this match if I had been running more wraths. Also, more Rifts and/or Aetherize would have been good too (esp. versus the Lion).
Round 4: RG Ramp 2-1; 2-2
Game 1 – Fogged/wrathed until victory, no real speed bumps. Ember Swallower made me nervous but Verdicts/Rifts were there in a timely fashion. My opponent flooded the board with hydras, but I didn’t care. He even ultimated Domri Rade, but it didn’t matter.
Game 2 – Ramped into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. No timely wrath here. Stomped by the ogre.
Game 3 – Same as Game 1, no Domri ultimate this time though.
Note: I ended both winning games with extra fogs. Riot Control and Sphinx's Revelation did a lot of work here. I gained enough life in those games to just absorb attacks anyway.
Round 5: RW Purphoros Assemble Midrange 2-0; 3-2
This guy was trying a deck kind of like Big Boros with Aurelia, Assemble, Elspeth and Purphoros for shenanigans.
Game 1 – Fogs and wraths kept him off of enough dudes to devotion P-Daddy, but the incdental damage did make me nervous. I won in the usual fashion.
Game 2 – This game I Needled on Elspeth. A Rift was my clinch card to tempo him out on an important turn after he had double Legion out for a while.
Round 6: Opponent No-Show 2-0; 4-2
Nothing here to report. Easiest match all night.
I won’t count the last round; we’ll call this a 3-2 record. Out of the 33+ people (I forgot to ask how many…), I placed 11th. Not bad for week 1.
After that tournament, I saw some issues with the deck.
First, I really need a way to deal with the following cards:
Third, I didn't really like Jace, Architect of Thought. Most of the time he was an expensive Divination since all the creatures going up against me were of significant size. I would rather just have more card draw or another Ral Zarek to help Maze's End work faster.
MaRo has stated multiple times on his blog that NWO is strictly a common thing. You may be recalling his April Fools article where he pretended that there was a NNWO that applied to uncommons as well.
or with Puncture Blast
Thanks!
If I cast Rise of the Dark Realms with my graveyard containing only 2 copies of Jarad and 1 Nighthowler, will my Nighthowler die due to SBE prior to me losing the extra Jarad? For simplicity, assume the opponent's graveyard is totally empty.
*Yes I know "better" is subjective.
My Decklist:
4 Gatecreeper Vine
2 Saruli Gatekeepers
Spells: 29
4 Fog
4 Druid’s Deliverance
4 Defend the Hearth
4 Riot Control
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Urban Evolution
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Ral Zarek
Lands: 25
3 Maze’s End
3 Azorius Guildgate
3 Selesnya Guildgate
3 Simic Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Dimir Guildgate
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Island
4 Negate
3 Crackling Perimeter
2 Sundering Growth
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Detention Sphere
2 Pithing Needle
Round 1: WB Midrange Control 2-0; 1-0
Paired against my buddy. His deck is a Midrange-Control strategy utilizing High Priest of Penance, Agent of the Fates and kill spells to attrition out creatures until he drops Ghost-Daddy or Baron to clean up.
Game 1 – Fogs for days until wrath, rinse and repeat. Couldn’t find a Maze’s End until I got some extra turns with Ral Zarek. By that point, I had all the lands assembled already.
Game 2 – Same pasta as game 1. Needled on Vizkopa Guildmage, and went to turns but eked out a victory on turn 3.
Round 2: RGB Jund Midrange 1-2; 1-1
Game 1 – Turn 6 Sire. My list can’t deal with that unless I topdeck Verdict; I didn’t.
Game 2 – Fogged/blocked some early aggression. Turn 6, I get out a Crackling Perimeter with 5 gates and a Ral Zarek out. 5’d him ‘til he was dead.
Game 3 – Fogged/Wrathed for a while. I got slowly burned down a bit to 3 life. He eventually got a Stormbreath Dragon to stick and on the following turn he used the monstrosity ability and killed me. I had misplayed my turn and had not left correct mana open for a Riot Control. After this game is also the first time I read all of my Fog variants very closely.
Round 3: GW Aggro 0-2; 1-2
Game 1 – Fogged for days but never got to a wrath. He eventually killed me.
Game 2 – Kept a slightly sketchy opener. It had fogs, wrath, a Sphere and some land. I couldn’t get wrath online until after he had monstrositied a Lion. I ran out of fogs and life before I could get to all of my gates.
Note: I felt like I could have won this match if I had been running more wraths. Also, more Rifts and/or Aetherize would have been good too (esp. versus the Lion).
Round 4: RG Ramp 2-1; 2-2
Game 1 – Fogged/wrathed until victory, no real speed bumps. Ember Swallower made me nervous but Verdicts/Rifts were there in a timely fashion. My opponent flooded the board with hydras, but I didn’t care. He even ultimated Domri Rade, but it didn’t matter.
Game 2 – Ramped into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. No timely wrath here. Stomped by the ogre.
Game 3 – Same as Game 1, no Domri ultimate this time though.
Note: I ended both winning games with extra fogs. Riot Control and Sphinx's Revelation did a lot of work here. I gained enough life in those games to just absorb attacks anyway.
Round 5: RW Purphoros Assemble Midrange 2-0; 3-2
This guy was trying a deck kind of like Big Boros with Aurelia, Assemble, Elspeth and Purphoros for shenanigans.
Game 1 – Fogs and wraths kept him off of enough dudes to devotion P-Daddy, but the incdental damage did make me nervous. I won in the usual fashion.
Game 2 – This game I Needled on Elspeth. A Rift was my clinch card to tempo him out on an important turn after he had double Legion out for a while.
Round 6: Opponent No-Show 2-0; 4-2
Nothing here to report. Easiest match all night.
I won’t count the last round; we’ll call this a 3-2 record. Out of the 33+ people (I forgot to ask how many…), I placed 11th. Not bad for week 1.
After that tournament, I saw some issues with the deck.
First, I really need a way to deal with the following cards:
Second, I need to see wraths more often, and in some cases, the kinds to combat indestructible creatures (Lion, Gods, etc.). Options:
Third, I didn't really like Jace, Architect of Thought. Most of the time he was an expensive Divination since all the creatures going up against me were of significant size. I would rather just have more card draw or another Ral Zarek to help Maze's End work faster.
My New Decklist:
4 Gatecreeper Vine
2 Saruli Gatekeepers
Spells: 29
4 Fog
4 Druid’s Deliverance
2 Defend the Hearth
4 Riot Control
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Merciless Eviction
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Urban Evolution
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Ral Zarek
4 Maze’s End
2 Azorius Guildgate
2 Selesnya Guildgate
2 Simic Guildgate
2 Boros Guildgate
1 Dimir Guildgate
2 Golgari Guildgate
2 Gruul Guildgate
1 Izzet Guildgate
2 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
2 Forest
2 Plains
4 Negate
4 Essence Scatter
3 Crackling Perimeter
2 Wear
2 Pithing Needle
Changes:
Main:
-2 Defend the Hearth
-2 Jace, Architect of Thought
+2 Merciless Eviction
+1 Ral Zarek
+1 Urban Evolution
-1 Azorius Guildgate
-1 Selsnya Guildgate
-1 Simic Guildgate
-1 Island
-1 Forest
+1 Maze's End
+1 Boros Guildgate
+1 Golgari Guildgate
+1 Gruul Guildgate
+1 Orzhov Guildgate
SB:
-2 Sundering Growth
-2 Detention Sphere
-2 Jace, Architect of Thought
+4 Essence Scatter
+2 Wear
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/264