WMCQ Report: Went X-3 in ten rounds, good enough to place somewhere between 16 and 64. Hopefully above 32, as that means a little bit more prizes, but not by much.
Some notes on the decklist:
-3 Nightveil/2 LBZ split: coming into the qualifiers I hinged on the fact that the meta would be mostly aggressive red decks, and black devotion (turned out to be true) with a smattering of green decks. I don’t want a set of LBZ against either, but then again 4 Nightveil isn’t really too hot either against aggro red these days so I thought I could hedge a split.
-Not playing the full set of scrylands: What do you do when you play scrylands tapped early and your opponent throws Goblin Rabblemaster + early dudes at you? Nothing, you shake their hand and sign the match slip indicating they won. I wanted filtering, but not to the point that I'd see it in my opening hand and play it early on. I experimented with 2-3 and 2 felt right. They’re B/W because I like to trick people into thinking I have Blood Baron, especially in the mirror.
-Sideboard: Geared against aggro. Whip, 2 Cure, Doom Blade, Bile Blight, Drown. Perilous Vault as the bogey card, and yes, it worked (see below).
-Why straight-up mono over B/W: First, see above note on Rabblemaster, except now you have shocklands, painlands and more tapped lands. I felt that mono could match up against aggro better, since your manabase is VERY consistent and you can most likely kill stuff faster. Second, B/W is a difficult match-up, yes, but I felt that I could work around it given my experience with the deck – I’ve been playing this for how many months now and was confident that I knew the ins and outs. Hence going for a build with a little more versatility at the 3-drop slot. 3 Devour, 4 LBZ and 4 Thoughtseize should also be enough protection against Baron.
Match Results:
R1: GB Dredge – W 2-0 – What I learned is that Thoughtseize into Pack Rat kills them. Absolutely. They don’t have a whole lot of removal and it takes them some time to set up. By the time they have huge Wayfinders with Nighthowler you have a bunch of big rats ready to strike. In G2 he kept Bramblecrushing my 3rd land to stop me from making rats, but I kept topdecking swamps and just went all-in in the Pack Rat plan.
R2: Esper – W 2-1 – I lost the first game, typical dead removal in hand. G2 I strip him of resources, sneak Connections, Erebos AND Vess under his counterspells (he was playing Planar Cleansing, not Detention Sphere). G3, I Duress and strip him of Verdict, he only has Jace, Revelations and Elspeth left. Drop a rat, all-in, he stumbles on land and can’t get Elspeth down on time.
R3: UW Control – W 2-1 – Game 1 he has no (!) answer to Pack Rat, and I win in 3 minutes. In Game 2 he boards in a LOT of creatures – Brimaz, Precinct Captain, Aegis of the Gods, and so on. I RESOLVED PERILOUS VAULT AND BLEW UP THE BOARD! YES! Freeing some Connections and Nightveil in the process, keeping me in the match... but then it turned out he had ANOTHER Brimaz and Captain in hand, and with me at 3 life, I died to the 1/1 tokens. G3 he had an Aegis in play, and I had a Nightveil that he’s Azorius Charm-ed back in play. He verdicts, I put my Nightveil into the graveyard.... oh, hey, your Aegis dies too. That gives me the opening to play Lifebane Zombie.... 2 Archangels in hand. Oh, wait, I have another Lifebane, yeah, those get exiled. Zombies went all the way and killed him. Had he left Aegis in play and just waited a while, I probably would have lost – I had no removal in hand and the 2 Angels would just kill me while putting the game out of reach. Dodged a bullet there!
R4: Boros Burn – W 2-0 – Friday and Saturday before the WMCQ I played this matchup 5 times in sanctioned matches, so I’m lucky I had practice. My Thoughtseizes hit a bunch of 4-damage spells – Boros Charm, Stoke the Flames, etc. – and I win Rat beats G1, and Demon beats G2. Almost lost G1 had I not sequenced combat/spells correctly, though.
R5: Rabble Red – L 1-2 – Run over G1. Board in removal G2, win with 2 Demons in play. G3 my opening hand is Bile Blight, Bile Blight, Devour Flesh, Demon and 3 lands. Yeah, I’ll keep. His play? Foundry turn 1, Loyalist and Satyr turn 2, swing for four, Rabblemaster turn 3, swing for 7. I die.
After this, I now believe that if you’re on the draw against Rabble Red G3, you MULLIGAN INTO DROWN. I don’t think any combination of removal would have saved me there. Either that or I should add 1 more Drown, if the deck remains popular. Or, you know, NOT be on the draw G3, which means you either end it in 2 games or win G1, lose G2..... how the hell do you win in Game 1?!
R6: BW Midrange – W 2-0 – Experience with the deck. Proper sequencing of spells G1 won it – bait out removal with Demon/Nightveil/Lifebane (taking some Barons down too), draw cards, drop Pack Rat and win. In G2 I just outdrew him – I strip his answer to my creatures, and his 2 BBoV get taken out by back-to-back Lifebanes. Hero’s Downfall took out Elspeth, and I build up enough devotion to Merchant for 8.
R7: UWR Control – L 1-2 – Pack Rat took Game 1. Rats and Zombies ALMOST took Game 2, but he had enough mana to cast Revelations and gain life so he would just fall down to 1. Drew Verdict, wiped my board. Topdecks kept me in the game but he stabilizes and lands Jace, Memory Adept – in 2 turns, he milled out the rest of my creatures and Mutavault. G3 I ship my opening 7, draw 6 – 2 Mutavaults and some spells – threw that away – Swamp, LBZ, LBZ, Rat, Nightveil. I brick for god knows how many draw steps, and 2 Mutavaults took me from 20 to 0. Part of the game, I guess.
R8: Selesnya Aggo – W 2-1 – Pack Rat takes game 1 (so many free wins thanks to this card, the amount of mental willpower it conserves is beyond amazing). I try and race him Game 2 but fail to find a 5th land for the 3 Garys in hand. G3, I draw my hand – Nightveil, LBZ, Demon, Thoughtseize, 2 Mutavaults..... and an Urborg. Thoughtseize.... 2 scrylands, some 2 drops. Great. Disrupt the curve, Lifebane the dudes stuck in hand, ride that and Demon for the win. Urborg, making double Mutavault draws less painful.
R9: Monoblack Devotion – W 2-1 – G1: Thoughtseize-Pack Rat, I win. G2: Thoughtseize-Pack Rat, he wins. G3: No Thoughtseize, but both of us play Pack Rats. I go all in, he spends a turn casting Demon.... so I'm slightly ahead in rats, and I have 2 Mutavaults to his 1. I'm at 6, he's at 5. 4 rats in play, 1 Mutavault and 2 Swamps and a card in hand, he has a tapped Demon (ate my Mutavault during his tun), 2 rats, 4 open lands and a mutavault. I hesitate for a while.... then I realize that he HAS to block all my rats because they can go up to 5/5, so all are lethal. Makes a rat, activates Mutavault and he’s forced to block each 5/5. Board clears, and an 8/8 Demon is staring down 5 5/5 Rats, he draws nothing relevant (not sure what the out would have been, anyway). Welcome to the rat race.
R10: Selesnya Aggro – L 1-2: I lost the first game when he puts Unflinching Courage on a dude, rendering my efforts to race useless. In G2 I go double Lifebane – Merchant for exact, outracing his dudes – no Ajani, no Unflinching Courage this time. G3 goes similar to G2, except he’s on the play – and he has Banishing Light to keep my devotion low. I die to a 5/5 Wurm, two 2/2 VoRs, a Brimaz and a 1/1 token.
So 7-3, and 17-10 in the games I played. Despite the losses I think it went well – I lost one round to the worst possible mulligan, another to a really terrible matchup, and one where I was just plain outplayed – those things happen, sadly, and best you can do is to make the most of your other matches – which I felt I did, for the most part. There’s some luck involved, too, but that’s also part of the game, I guess.
Moving forward, if Rabble Red remains popular I will seriously have to think about adding a 2nd Drown in Sorrow – maybe take out the Perilous Vault (I’ve achieved the ultimate goal of blowing it up, but I was already far behind that game anyway, heh) for a 2nd Drown. Still strong on staying mono-color, too. Fine with the Ultimate Price/Doom Blade split, because those Prices carried their weight in Game 1s, taking out Rat and Demon (which Doom Blade can’t). May go back to Doom Blade if G/W builds pick up in popularity, because that card doesn’t kill Fleecemane Lion and Voice of Resurgence, but for now I’m fine with it.
And a note to everyone thinking of playing the deck at tournaments: I HIGHLY suggest you do, because Thoughtseize into Pack Rat just leads to so many free wins, and in the course of a long tournament you won’t be as tired as say the guy who plays Floch’s version of U/W control. I went to time in only about 2 rounds (Round 2 and 7), the rest I was done usually by 30 minutes. People will expect your deck and be prepared, sure, but as long as you’re familiar with the deck and know how matchups play out you will do well.
Now to figure out the blazing fast deck that is Rabble Red. If any of you have, let me know, lest I be stuck believing that Mulligan into Drown in Sorrow is the way.
I got placed in between a bunch of red drafters last night, so I tried this out to see if it works. I almost got on track with those numbers from Mengucci, except I had more late-game bombs and little removal - Nightfire Giant splash being the only actual way I could take out dudes G1. And no defense against flyers - never saw a Netcaster Spider.
The deck works, I'd say - Undergrowth Scavenger goes so late that you actually don't try to look for it - it just comes. Didn't pick any Scavenger earlier than 10th last night and wound up with a whole set of them. Satyr Wayfinder is also VERY important for the deck, it gets your engine going and allows you to fill up the yard, serves as an early blocker, and allows you to hit land drops (which you want to be doing).
You just need to know what wheels and what doesn't, and pick accordingly. For now, this is something I'll continue to draft - the deck is fun as hell to play. Anyone else here with experience drafting the archtype?
I've added 2 LBZ main because there seems to be a resurgence of green decks where I am, but still not at the point where I'd go back to running 4. Hence testing a 3/2 split. Price for Blade because Black decks are still around, and Doom Blade is just miserable there. Price at least kills Demon and Pack Rat.
Perilous Vault is something I picked up from the list Zach Jesse ran at Pro Tour M15. Someone asked him on Reddit about it and he responded saying that it's another answer to Blood Baron, as well as decks that like flooding the board with Walkers (Jund). The Nissa-heavy Jund version is more resilient to it, though, because it can't hit the 4/4 trampling land. :\ I also tried out Soul of Innistrad and it just wins you the long game, but I feel as if you can only have either that or Whip of Erebos, and I'd still go with the Whip at this point as you can also board it in against aggro, and from experience the one-time recursion still helps you get ahead. Drown is back, because I'm expecting Rabble Red to pick up in popularity at the WMCQ (cheap to build), and 2 Cure isn't enough.
I'd still like one more Bile Blight somewhere, will have to look at that. Maybe a 2nd Liliana Vess, too, removing a Duress for it.
After going back and forth the past couple of days, the flex spots in the maindeck seem to be the 4th Hero's Downfall, and the lone Doom Blade. Upon reverting to mono I started off with 4 Connections and 2 Sign in Blood, but with Aggro rising due to G/W and Rabble Red I'd rather play the catch-all removal than the draw spell. Other cards I usually consider for that MD flex spot are Lifebane Zombie and the 4th Devour Flesh.
Vess is my favorite M15 sideboard option, and the one I think is the best. Boarded in, she is simply at home in this deck - against Revelation decks it's a way to keep up constant disruption, while in the mirror it provides devotion and fetches what you need (straight-up tutor if you have Underworld Connections). I've won some mirror matches now by dropping Vess , putting Gary on top of the deck, drawing via UC and casting - it can catch some people unaware. I've gone back to 2 Erebos - decks you want it against are usually willing to blow their Deicides on Connections, and you DO want to see it against them. Detention Spheres are also dwindling in number as of late.
This is how I sideboard with the deck as of now:
VS Mirror
-4 Desecration Demon, -1 Swamp, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Hero's Downfall
+2 Duress, +2 Erebos, God of the Dead, +1 Dark Betrayal, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Liliana Vess
VS BW Midrange
-4 Desecration Demon, -1 Swamp, -1 Hero's Downfall, -l Doom Blade, -1 Gary
+2 Duress, +3 Lifebane Zombie, +1 Dark Betrayal, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Liliana Vess
VS Monoblue Devotion
On the draw: -4 Pack Rat, -1 Sign in Blood, -1 Devour Flesh, -1 Desecration Demon
On the play: -4 Underworld Connections, -1 Sign in Blood, -1 Devour Flesh, -1 Desecration Demon
+2 Pharika's Cure, +2 Doom Blade, +1 Whip of Erebos, +2 Lifebane Zombie
Basically Tyler Blum's plan against Monoblue: No Rats on the draw, too slow, the rat plan loses to a Mono-U god curve. On the play, Thoughtseize into Rat and win - they have ways to deal with Pack Rat (Rapid, Domestication), but it isn't that much, clear the way. If they have more than one, they probably don't have much action in their hand. Otherwise, race them with Lifebane, and kill stuff that can outrace you.
VS G/W Aggro
-2 Desecration Demon, -4 Nightveil Specter, -1 Devour Flesh (on the draw)
+3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Doom Blade, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Duress (on the draw)
Devour Flesh is just horrible on the draw because Voice comes down before it, so I'd rather play the Duress as an additional way to strip them of haymakers (Ajani, COP, Advent of the Wurm, Banishing Light, etc.). I may actually go -2 DF +2 Duress. The rest is pretty standard - LBZ still kicks them around.
VS Red Aggro/Rabble Red
-4 Underworld Connections, -1 Sign in Blood, -2 Thoughtseize
+2 Doom Blade, +2 Pharika's Cure, +1 Whip of Erebos, +2 Lifebane Zombie
Remove stuff that shortens their clock, add stuff that prolongs it. Probably -3 Thoughtseize/+3 LBZ, will test.
VS Jund Monsters
-4 Nightveil Specter, -2 Underworld Connections, -1 Pack Rat (on the draw)
+3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Doom Blade, +2 Duress (1 on the play, 2 on the draw)
(I have not yet thought of how to board against Jund Walkers, anyone with experience in this matchup?)
VS Sphinx's Revelation Decks
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Devour Flesh*, -2 Bile Blight*, -1 Doom Blade*, -1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel, -2 Desecration Demon
+3 Duress, +1 Whip of Erebos, +3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Erebos, God of the Dead, +1 Liliana Vess
*I try to play it by ear with regards to boarding out removal vs. Rats, because these decks board in a variety of threats (Brimaz, Sheep/Archangel, Precinct Captain, Nightveil Specter) when they expect you to board out removal.
These are mostly based on what's worked, but I'm not 100% on the boarding strategies/SB. Let me know where there are matchups where you'd board differently.
Right now I'm about 60% to play this deck at the WMCQ (40% thinking of B/g or B/w). People will expect it, but it's the deck I'm comfortable with/can play the best, has the occasional freeroll win in TSeize + Rat, and has matchups I'm familiar with.
Ichikawa has the best Standard record of the Top 8, guy's on a monster run at the moment.
Mondon was 9-0-1 in standard (the 1 being an ID), which puts him one point ahead of ichikawa,
Yeah, I missed it, kinda confusing when the Standard total is beside the overall points total. Heh.
So the matchups for tomorrow's Top 8 are:
Naya (Cox) vs. Orzhov Midrange (Turtenwald)
U/W Planar Control (Floch) vs. Boros Burn (Sperling)
Jund Walkers (Ichikawa) vs. GW Aggro (Cunningham)
Orzhov Midrange (Huey) vs. Jund Walkers (Mondon)
Those on the left are the higher seeds, which we'll see matter.
Predictions for the final? Think the Peach Garden Oath brothers are pulling this one off. There's just something poetic to having the two of them slug it out that any other finals matchup doesn't look as fun. Hoping Ichikawa does well too.
Top 8 out yet? Can't watch Twitch right now, but Standings/Pairings for Round 15 seem to say:
- Top 3 tables just need to draw. So Ivan Floch, Huey Jensen, Pat Cox, Matt Sperling, Pierre Mondon and Jackson Cunningham are all in at 37 (Cox at 38).
- Jonny Magic vs. Yuuki Ichikawa is win and in, Finkel at 36 and Ichikawa at 34.
- One person at 36 points probably makes it in, so either Dezani vs. Greg Orange or Turtenwald vs. Neil Reeves? Is that correct? I think even Finkel could get this.
Hoping Turtenwald sneaks into Top 8, only fitting that the face of Thoughtseize-Pack Rat decks ends up there.
Seriously people you're worrying about a small scale event. They even upped the amount of them and the prizes.
A PTQ is as big as it gets in my part of the world, especially the past couple of years we've had no Grand Prix. There is no SCG here. These changes do feel like it shafts us hard.
Yo, Wizards.... Asia-Pacific gets shafted HARD by this.
3 Regional PTQs per season in AP means that there will most likely be some traveling done... which just sucks, especially for us island countries.
As for having more accessible, competitive play around I don't think it changes much in our situation. If we wanted to go one step up from FNM, GPTs fulfill that role here (especially with local TO's arranging the prize support to be as such). What we're getting here is instead of having one PTQ per season, we're going to get a bunch of events that will compete with how GPTs are run here, and risk the chance of players who win the prelims NOT go to the PTQ at all because of cost/distance/etc.
(Unless the promo card given is like, Moxen. Of course, the Reserved List nuts would never allow that to happen.)
Lifebane Zombie. Yeah, everyone hates it, but I absolutely adore the card and if Wizards ran a contest for someone to decide ONE card to be printed in every Core Set, I would join and do my best to win it so I see this every damn time.
Also, Pack Rat. Thoughtseize + Pack Rat just led to so many free wins, so in long tournaments I haven't felt exhausted as I used to.
UPDATE: 33. Damn. It.
Decklist:
2 Temple of Silence
18 Swamp
4 Mutavault
4 Pack Rat
2 Lifebane Zombie
3 Nightveil Specter
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Underworld Connections
1 Sign in Blood
4 Hero's Downfall
3 Devour Flesh
2 Bile Blight
1 Ultimate Price
3 Duress
2 Pharika's Cure
2 Doom Blade
1 Bile Blight
1 Drown in Sorrow
2 Lifebane Zombie
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Perilous Vault
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Liliana Vess
Some notes on the decklist:
-3 Nightveil/2 LBZ split: coming into the qualifiers I hinged on the fact that the meta would be mostly aggressive red decks, and black devotion (turned out to be true) with a smattering of green decks. I don’t want a set of LBZ against either, but then again 4 Nightveil isn’t really too hot either against aggro red these days so I thought I could hedge a split.
-Not playing the full set of scrylands: What do you do when you play scrylands tapped early and your opponent throws Goblin Rabblemaster + early dudes at you? Nothing, you shake their hand and sign the match slip indicating they won. I wanted filtering, but not to the point that I'd see it in my opening hand and play it early on. I experimented with 2-3 and 2 felt right. They’re B/W because I like to trick people into thinking I have Blood Baron, especially in the mirror.
-Sideboard: Geared against aggro. Whip, 2 Cure, Doom Blade, Bile Blight, Drown. Perilous Vault as the bogey card, and yes, it worked (see below).
-Why straight-up mono over B/W: First, see above note on Rabblemaster, except now you have shocklands, painlands and more tapped lands. I felt that mono could match up against aggro better, since your manabase is VERY consistent and you can most likely kill stuff faster. Second, B/W is a difficult match-up, yes, but I felt that I could work around it given my experience with the deck – I’ve been playing this for how many months now and was confident that I knew the ins and outs. Hence going for a build with a little more versatility at the 3-drop slot. 3 Devour, 4 LBZ and 4 Thoughtseize should also be enough protection against Baron.
Match Results:
R1: GB Dredge – W 2-0 – What I learned is that Thoughtseize into Pack Rat kills them. Absolutely. They don’t have a whole lot of removal and it takes them some time to set up. By the time they have huge Wayfinders with Nighthowler you have a bunch of big rats ready to strike. In G2 he kept Bramblecrushing my 3rd land to stop me from making rats, but I kept topdecking swamps and just went all-in in the Pack Rat plan.
R2: Esper – W 2-1 – I lost the first game, typical dead removal in hand. G2 I strip him of resources, sneak Connections, Erebos AND Vess under his counterspells (he was playing Planar Cleansing, not Detention Sphere). G3, I Duress and strip him of Verdict, he only has Jace, Revelations and Elspeth left. Drop a rat, all-in, he stumbles on land and can’t get Elspeth down on time.
R3: UW Control – W 2-1 – Game 1 he has no (!) answer to Pack Rat, and I win in 3 minutes. In Game 2 he boards in a LOT of creatures – Brimaz, Precinct Captain, Aegis of the Gods, and so on. I RESOLVED PERILOUS VAULT AND BLEW UP THE BOARD! YES! Freeing some Connections and Nightveil in the process, keeping me in the match... but then it turned out he had ANOTHER Brimaz and Captain in hand, and with me at 3 life, I died to the 1/1 tokens. G3 he had an Aegis in play, and I had a Nightveil that he’s Azorius Charm-ed back in play. He verdicts, I put my Nightveil into the graveyard.... oh, hey, your Aegis dies too. That gives me the opening to play Lifebane Zombie.... 2 Archangels in hand. Oh, wait, I have another Lifebane, yeah, those get exiled. Zombies went all the way and killed him. Had he left Aegis in play and just waited a while, I probably would have lost – I had no removal in hand and the 2 Angels would just kill me while putting the game out of reach. Dodged a bullet there!
R4: Boros Burn – W 2-0 – Friday and Saturday before the WMCQ I played this matchup 5 times in sanctioned matches, so I’m lucky I had practice. My Thoughtseizes hit a bunch of 4-damage spells – Boros Charm, Stoke the Flames, etc. – and I win Rat beats G1, and Demon beats G2. Almost lost G1 had I not sequenced combat/spells correctly, though.
R5: Rabble Red – L 1-2 – Run over G1. Board in removal G2, win with 2 Demons in play. G3 my opening hand is Bile Blight, Bile Blight, Devour Flesh, Demon and 3 lands. Yeah, I’ll keep. His play? Foundry turn 1, Loyalist and Satyr turn 2, swing for four, Rabblemaster turn 3, swing for 7. I die.
After this, I now believe that if you’re on the draw against Rabble Red G3, you MULLIGAN INTO DROWN. I don’t think any combination of removal would have saved me there. Either that or I should add 1 more Drown, if the deck remains popular. Or, you know, NOT be on the draw G3, which means you either end it in 2 games or win G1, lose G2..... how the hell do you win in Game 1?!
R6: BW Midrange – W 2-0 – Experience with the deck. Proper sequencing of spells G1 won it – bait out removal with Demon/Nightveil/Lifebane (taking some Barons down too), draw cards, drop Pack Rat and win. In G2 I just outdrew him – I strip his answer to my creatures, and his 2 BBoV get taken out by back-to-back Lifebanes. Hero’s Downfall took out Elspeth, and I build up enough devotion to Merchant for 8.
R7: UWR Control – L 1-2 – Pack Rat took Game 1. Rats and Zombies ALMOST took Game 2, but he had enough mana to cast Revelations and gain life so he would just fall down to 1. Drew Verdict, wiped my board. Topdecks kept me in the game but he stabilizes and lands Jace, Memory Adept – in 2 turns, he milled out the rest of my creatures and Mutavault. G3 I ship my opening 7, draw 6 – 2 Mutavaults and some spells – threw that away – Swamp, LBZ, LBZ, Rat, Nightveil. I brick for god knows how many draw steps, and 2 Mutavaults took me from 20 to 0. Part of the game, I guess.
R8: Selesnya Aggo – W 2-1 – Pack Rat takes game 1 (so many free wins thanks to this card, the amount of mental willpower it conserves is beyond amazing). I try and race him Game 2 but fail to find a 5th land for the 3 Garys in hand. G3, I draw my hand – Nightveil, LBZ, Demon, Thoughtseize, 2 Mutavaults..... and an Urborg. Thoughtseize.... 2 scrylands, some 2 drops. Great. Disrupt the curve, Lifebane the dudes stuck in hand, ride that and Demon for the win. Urborg, making double Mutavault draws less painful.
R9: Monoblack Devotion – W 2-1 – G1: Thoughtseize-Pack Rat, I win. G2: Thoughtseize-Pack Rat, he wins. G3: No Thoughtseize, but both of us play Pack Rats. I go all in, he spends a turn casting Demon.... so I'm slightly ahead in rats, and I have 2 Mutavaults to his 1. I'm at 6, he's at 5. 4 rats in play, 1 Mutavault and 2 Swamps and a card in hand, he has a tapped Demon (ate my Mutavault during his tun), 2 rats, 4 open lands and a mutavault. I hesitate for a while.... then I realize that he HAS to block all my rats because they can go up to 5/5, so all are lethal. Makes a rat, activates Mutavault and he’s forced to block each 5/5. Board clears, and an 8/8 Demon is staring down 5 5/5 Rats, he draws nothing relevant (not sure what the out would have been, anyway). Welcome to the rat race.
R10: Selesnya Aggro – L 1-2: I lost the first game when he puts Unflinching Courage on a dude, rendering my efforts to race useless. In G2 I go double Lifebane – Merchant for exact, outracing his dudes – no Ajani, no Unflinching Courage this time. G3 goes similar to G2, except he’s on the play – and he has Banishing Light to keep my devotion low. I die to a 5/5 Wurm, two 2/2 VoRs, a Brimaz and a 1/1 token.
So 7-3, and 17-10 in the games I played. Despite the losses I think it went well – I lost one round to the worst possible mulligan, another to a really terrible matchup, and one where I was just plain outplayed – those things happen, sadly, and best you can do is to make the most of your other matches – which I felt I did, for the most part. There’s some luck involved, too, but that’s also part of the game, I guess.
Moving forward, if Rabble Red remains popular I will seriously have to think about adding a 2nd Drown in Sorrow – maybe take out the Perilous Vault (I’ve achieved the ultimate goal of blowing it up, but I was already far behind that game anyway, heh) for a 2nd Drown. Still strong on staying mono-color, too. Fine with the Ultimate Price/Doom Blade split, because those Prices carried their weight in Game 1s, taking out Rat and Demon (which Doom Blade can’t). May go back to Doom Blade if G/W builds pick up in popularity, because that card doesn’t kill Fleecemane Lion and Voice of Resurgence, but for now I’m fine with it.
And a note to everyone thinking of playing the deck at tournaments: I HIGHLY suggest you do, because Thoughtseize into Pack Rat just leads to so many free wins, and in the course of a long tournament you won’t be as tired as say the guy who plays Floch’s version of U/W control. I went to time in only about 2 rounds (Round 2 and 7), the rest I was done usually by 30 minutes. People will expect your deck and be prepared, sure, but as long as you’re familiar with the deck and know how matchups play out you will do well.
Now to figure out the blazing fast deck that is Rabble Red. If any of you have, let me know, lest I be stuck believing that Mulligan into Drown in Sorrow is the way.
I got placed in between a bunch of red drafters last night, so I tried this out to see if it works. I almost got on track with those numbers from Mengucci, except I had more late-game bombs and little removal - Nightfire Giant splash being the only actual way I could take out dudes G1. And no defense against flyers - never saw a Netcaster Spider.
The deck works, I'd say - Undergrowth Scavenger goes so late that you actually don't try to look for it - it just comes. Didn't pick any Scavenger earlier than 10th last night and wound up with a whole set of them. Satyr Wayfinder is also VERY important for the deck, it gets your engine going and allows you to fill up the yard, serves as an early blocker, and allows you to hit land drops (which you want to be doing).
You just need to know what wheels and what doesn't, and pick accordingly. For now, this is something I'll continue to draft - the deck is fun as hell to play. Anyone else here with experience drafting the archtype?
After some more hours put into testing I've gone ahead and done the following changes:
-1 Underworld Connections
-1 Nightveil Specter
-1 Doom Blade
+2 Lifebane Zombie
+1 Ultimate Price
I've added 2 LBZ main because there seems to be a resurgence of green decks where I am, but still not at the point where I'd go back to running 4. Hence testing a 3/2 split. Price for Blade because Black decks are still around, and Doom Blade is just miserable there. Price at least kills Demon and Pack Rat.
SB: -1 Dark Betrayal, -1 Lifebane Zombie, +1 Drown in Sorrow, +1 Perilous Vault
Perilous Vault is something I picked up from the list Zach Jesse ran at Pro Tour M15. Someone asked him on Reddit about it and he responded saying that it's another answer to Blood Baron, as well as decks that like flooding the board with Walkers (Jund). The Nissa-heavy Jund version is more resilient to it, though, because it can't hit the 4/4 trampling land. :\ I also tried out Soul of Innistrad and it just wins you the long game, but I feel as if you can only have either that or Whip of Erebos, and I'd still go with the Whip at this point as you can also board it in against aggro, and from experience the one-time recursion still helps you get ahead. Drown is back, because I'm expecting Rabble Red to pick up in popularity at the WMCQ (cheap to build), and 2 Cure isn't enough.
I'd still like one more Bile Blight somewhere, will have to look at that. Maybe a 2nd Liliana Vess, too, removing a Duress for it.
1 Temple of Silence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
19 Swamp
4 Pack Rat
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Doom Blade
2 Bile Blight
3 Devour Flesh
1 Sign in Blood
4 Hero's Downfall
4 Underworld Connections
1 Dark Betrayal
3 Duress
2 Doom Blade
2 Pharika's Cure
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Liliana Vess
After going back and forth the past couple of days, the flex spots in the maindeck seem to be the 4th Hero's Downfall, and the lone Doom Blade. Upon reverting to mono I started off with 4 Connections and 2 Sign in Blood, but with Aggro rising due to G/W and Rabble Red I'd rather play the catch-all removal than the draw spell. Other cards I usually consider for that MD flex spot are Lifebane Zombie and the 4th Devour Flesh.
Vess is my favorite M15 sideboard option, and the one I think is the best. Boarded in, she is simply at home in this deck - against Revelation decks it's a way to keep up constant disruption, while in the mirror it provides devotion and fetches what you need (straight-up tutor if you have Underworld Connections). I've won some mirror matches now by dropping Vess , putting Gary on top of the deck, drawing via UC and casting - it can catch some people unaware. I've gone back to 2 Erebos - decks you want it against are usually willing to blow their Deicides on Connections, and you DO want to see it against them. Detention Spheres are also dwindling in number as of late.
This is how I sideboard with the deck as of now:
VS Mirror
-4 Desecration Demon, -1 Swamp, -1 Doom Blade, -1 Hero's Downfall
+2 Duress, +2 Erebos, God of the Dead, +1 Dark Betrayal, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Liliana Vess
VS BW Midrange
-4 Desecration Demon, -1 Swamp, -1 Hero's Downfall, -l Doom Blade, -1 Gary
+2 Duress, +3 Lifebane Zombie, +1 Dark Betrayal, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Liliana Vess
VS Monoblue Devotion
On the draw: -4 Pack Rat, -1 Sign in Blood, -1 Devour Flesh, -1 Desecration Demon
On the play: -4 Underworld Connections, -1 Sign in Blood, -1 Devour Flesh, -1 Desecration Demon
+2 Pharika's Cure, +2 Doom Blade, +1 Whip of Erebos, +2 Lifebane Zombie
Basically Tyler Blum's plan against Monoblue: No Rats on the draw, too slow, the rat plan loses to a Mono-U god curve. On the play, Thoughtseize into Rat and win - they have ways to deal with Pack Rat (Rapid, Domestication), but it isn't that much, clear the way. If they have more than one, they probably don't have much action in their hand. Otherwise, race them with Lifebane, and kill stuff that can outrace you.
VS G/W Aggro
-2 Desecration Demon, -4 Nightveil Specter, -1 Devour Flesh (on the draw)
+3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Doom Blade, +1 Whip of Erebos, +1 Duress (on the draw)
Devour Flesh is just horrible on the draw because Voice comes down before it, so I'd rather play the Duress as an additional way to strip them of haymakers (Ajani, COP, Advent of the Wurm, Banishing Light, etc.). I may actually go -2 DF +2 Duress. The rest is pretty standard - LBZ still kicks them around.
VS Red Aggro/Rabble Red
-4 Underworld Connections, -1 Sign in Blood, -2 Thoughtseize
+2 Doom Blade, +2 Pharika's Cure, +1 Whip of Erebos, +2 Lifebane Zombie
Remove stuff that shortens their clock, add stuff that prolongs it. Probably -3 Thoughtseize/+3 LBZ, will test.
VS Jund Monsters
-4 Nightveil Specter, -2 Underworld Connections, -1 Pack Rat (on the draw)
+3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Doom Blade, +2 Duress (1 on the play, 2 on the draw)
(I have not yet thought of how to board against Jund Walkers, anyone with experience in this matchup?)
VS Sphinx's Revelation Decks
-1 Doom Blade, -3 Devour Flesh*, -2 Bile Blight*, -1 Doom Blade*, -1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel, -2 Desecration Demon
+3 Duress, +1 Whip of Erebos, +3 Lifebane Zombie, +2 Erebos, God of the Dead, +1 Liliana Vess
*I try to play it by ear with regards to boarding out removal vs. Rats, because these decks board in a variety of threats (Brimaz, Sheep/Archangel, Precinct Captain, Nightveil Specter) when they expect you to board out removal.
These are mostly based on what's worked, but I'm not 100% on the boarding strategies/SB. Let me know where there are matchups where you'd board differently.
Right now I'm about 60% to play this deck at the WMCQ (40% thinking of B/g or B/w). People will expect it, but it's the deck I'm comfortable with/can play the best, has the occasional freeroll win in TSeize + Rat, and has matchups I'm familiar with.
This thing where you don't play Elspeth main and rely on 2 Mutavaults + Elixir as your wincon seems to be working well for Floch.
Yeah, I missed it, kinda confusing when the Standard total is beside the overall points total. Heh.
So the matchups for tomorrow's Top 8 are:
Naya (Cox) vs. Orzhov Midrange (Turtenwald)
U/W Planar Control (Floch) vs. Boros Burn (Sperling)
Jund Walkers (Ichikawa) vs. GW Aggro (Cunningham)
Orzhov Midrange (Huey) vs. Jund Walkers (Mondon)
Those on the left are the higher seeds, which we'll see matter.
Predictions for the final? Think the Peach Garden Oath brothers are pulling this one off. There's just something poetic to having the two of them slug it out that any other finals matchup doesn't look as fun. Hoping Ichikawa does well too.
Ichikawa has the best Standard record of the Top 8, guy's on a monster run at the moment.
- Top 3 tables just need to draw. So Ivan Floch, Huey Jensen, Pat Cox, Matt Sperling, Pierre Mondon and Jackson Cunningham are all in at 37 (Cox at 38).
- Jonny Magic vs. Yuuki Ichikawa is win and in, Finkel at 36 and Ichikawa at 34.
- One person at 36 points probably makes it in, so either Dezani vs. Greg Orange or Turtenwald vs. Neil Reeves? Is that correct? I think even Finkel could get this.
Hoping Turtenwald sneaks into Top 8, only fitting that the face of Thoughtseize-Pack Rat decks ends up there.
EDIT: And he makes it in at 8!!
As a black mage, this season has been awesome
EDIT: Anyone know what goes in that Rabblemaster Red deck?
A PTQ is as big as it gets in my part of the world, especially the past couple of years we've had no Grand Prix. There is no SCG here. These changes do feel like it shafts us hard.
3 Regional PTQs per season in AP means that there will most likely be some traveling done... which just sucks, especially for us island countries.
As for having more accessible, competitive play around I don't think it changes much in our situation. If we wanted to go one step up from FNM, GPTs fulfill that role here (especially with local TO's arranging the prize support to be as such). What we're getting here is instead of having one PTQ per season, we're going to get a bunch of events that will compete with how GPTs are run here, and risk the chance of players who win the prelims NOT go to the PTQ at all because of cost/distance/etc.
(Unless the promo card given is like, Moxen. Of course, the Reserved List nuts would never allow that to happen.)
Also, Pack Rat. Thoughtseize + Pack Rat just led to so many free wins, so in long tournaments I haven't felt exhausted as I used to.
For something outside monoblack... Garruk, Caller of Beasts.