The original was a UGw blink deck from US nationals, but in testing I wasn't very impressed with it. After we'd updated GR aggro the matchup was close to a 50/50 with a slight edge to blink prior to sideboarding. After sideboarding it was the other way around. Not what you want. We did like the deck, though, and felt there were several cards that simply didn't cut the cheese against aggro. We cut snakes from the main deck along with a blink and chroniclers. We added Spell Snare and Compulsive Research. This made the deck a lot more stable and turned the aggro matchup around instantly. With the new version we had a walkover against all the aggro decks we testetd, them being GR aggro, BR aggro with Gargadons and without Gargadons (and thus several other cards as well) and RW aggro (our best aggro deck). The RW was a result of a reflection on the metagame on my part. Basically it was Mono red with Lightning Helix and Jötun Grunt instead of green for Tarmogoyf and Treetop Village. It was simply better against aggro and the amount of burn made it better against our blink decks. It was still not good enough to deal with GUw blink well enough. The blink deck had a slight edge.
Anyhow, after we'd updated the UGw blink deck it performed well against all the aggro decks that we correctly anticipated and in full matches with sideboard it also had a comfortable edge against blinktouch, UWR blink and control and mono green aggro. It gave away walkovers to BG rack, bridge and more dedicated control decks like Dralnu. I felt it was useless to try to even get a small grip on those matchups and rather play the field with a rather solid glass cannon, and I was right. In the end they all agreed with me (dodecapod should've been sunlance, the rest of the sideboard is fine), but they discarded parts of my fine sideboard for pods right before the tournament. One even added two Tormod's Crypt. Come on! That was useless. Anyhow, the Moats on the other hand proved solid, and that was Lars' idea. Draw a Moat and mono green was gone. Crovax is just awesome against most aggro decks out there. He shuts down Solifuge, both Moggs, most of the creatures of GB rack, Bob and Rakdos' Guildmage's dangerous ability. Oh, and he's near unkillable.
Of all the matches played with the deck it went 4-0-2 (Lars) and he felt that was rather fair (he punted one game on a mistake and won another on a mistake). Åsmund, my other friend who played the deck, felt he should've been 5-1 with the same matchups, but he punted two games. Like me. I played a different deck, though.
The tournament started with three rounds of standard, in which I scored a silly 1-2. Honestly. That was horrible. Both my losses were to my own misplays. One of them I lost 2-0 (I got mana screwed in the first and stalled on three lands against RBg aggro), so that would only make me 1-1, but I had a seriously strong edge against the deck. My deck was a RUW control deck with 12 counters (Remand, Spell Snare and Rune Snag) and the last loss I had with it came to 4(!) main deck Detrivores. I had no way to deal with that pre sideboard and promptly lost, and lost the match 2-1 all in all.
After my horrible start in standard I pulled myself together and drafted a solid UW deck that went 2-1. Which was fine. It was nothing broken and didn't have a single bomb card. Not one. Just solid cards all over, like most UW decks end up with. I could've gone 3-0 in that pod, though, as the pool of cards was weaker than most.
After that we had another draft and I went 2-1 again with a broken UR deck. It's one of the best decks I've ever had in draft. I lost the last round of that pod to one of the guys in the top 8. I could possibly have won with a different play, and while I probably should've made that play, it was a difficult judgement call. I stalled on lands in all three games, but in the middle one I was still able to run him over with goblins (I had 2 Empty the Warrens) after 3 suspended creatures resolved.
After that I went 2-1 in standard again. I didn't notice any major misplays. I noticed one play I may have done differently, but that I think would've been wrong anyway (sometimes it's wrong to do the winning play). However, I had no chance. His hand was full of hate. A mulligan (to 5) may have been in order, though, but I'm not sure if the odds were good after that either.
Oh, and most of you probably think I'm a poor player after pointing out the fact that I've lost 4 games throughout the tournament on bad plays, and that I probably don't lose as much to poor luck as some of you seem to judging on a lot of people's whining. Just so you know; I mulliganed 7 times in the first 3 rounds of standard (24 lands). 6 due to too little land and once because my hand had nothing useful until turn 6 and five lands to boot(I could've top decked a Compulsive Research, but I didn't want to take that chance against aggro). My mulliganing went down as the weekend progressed, and so did my misplays. In the end here's my summary:
Biggest dissapointment:
2 consecutive rounds of bad plays due to low levels of concentration
Personal highlight:
Making 14 goblins on turn 6 in draft round 5 (round 8 total).
Non-personal highlight:
My roommate winning the entire thing (he's a better player than me). Oh, and it's a bit personal. He won with the deck I tuned for him.
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Posted Sep 19, 2007Jeg hadde tenkt å skrive en artikkel om NM, jeg hadde et par venner som skrev coverage av topp 8 og greier, men jeg vet ikke om jeg gidder. Det blir vel bare en blogg som vanlig (link).
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Posted Sep 14, 2007-
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Posted Sep 6, 2007Jeg likte decket til Lars, mye mer basert rundt Tarmogoyf enn det som er vanlig for slike Blink-decker.
Selv spilte jeg Gruul, og kom i topp 8 etter å ha vært på delt førsteplass med Wefald hele turneringa... Tapte deretter første matchen i topp 8 mot en god venn, Andreas Nordahl.