Hello again. It's been a while since I've written one of these blogs. I got busy with school and had a bit of a bad stretch. I always find it difficult to write when I don't win. I expect that the readers here are different from the ones 2 months ago when I was last writing, so I'll give a quick reintroduction about what I write about.
I write about my experiences playing Magic. I play mainly at the FNM and City Champs level although I am starting to attend PTQs now as well. We also have drafts on Monday nights which can sometimes attract some of the best players in Iowa, although they haven't been attending as regularily recently.
Okay, for this specific entry, I am going to talk about a FNM and one of those Monday night drafts. Some time this week I hope to reminisce about my PTQ experiences for this season. For the most thought provoking scenario of this blog, skip down to Match 1, Game 2 of the draft.
I've qualified for our store City Champs Top 8 and that means I want to not give away which deck I will be playing for that while also exploring which decks are good and how to play them. To that end, I've been switching up decks from week to week learning how to play each deck while keeping the metagame for City Champs a little undefined. For this week, I wanted to give a Reveillark deck a try.
With my general theme selected, the first thing to do was to research what has worked for others trying this theme. I looked at the results of GP Shizuoka where I knew there were multiple different successful Reveillark decks. I settled on Kenji's as my favored skeleton. I didn't like that Kazuya Mitamura didn't play the combo, his was just UW Blink. I didn't like that Akira Asahara didn't play Wrath of God. I did have to modify Kenji's list a little to support my collection, but the main was definitely inspired by the Kenji list. The SB then would have to be tuned to my expected meta: Reveillark decks and random aggro, but no Faeries. I selected Trickbind and countermagic for the mirrors, Teferi's Moat and Crovax for random aggro, and Wispmare just in case.
Round 1: Josh with Reveillark, banter makes me think it may be Kenji inspired too. Game 1 he has more Mulldrifters, but I get an extra use out of mine since I use Riftwing Cloudskate to bounce mine. We're pretty equal on guys, but I draw my Mirror Entity. With about 7 land in play and 3 guys, Mirror Entity activations take Josh down from 14 life.
Game 2 we battle back and forth with Larks. He has kept his Aven Riftwatchers in while I have taken mine out. Those Riftwatchers make it so I can never go on offense, but that doesn't worry me, I figure if I can take control I won't need the Riftwatchers. The big problem is that Josh has Oblivion Rings, which I wasn't expecting. He is able to permanently answer my guys, I am not able to permanently answer his. Okay, for game 3, bring in those Wispmares.
Game 3 Josh must have gotten land flooded. In 9 turns he only played a Mulldrifter, a Wrath, and a Reveillark. Maybe a Rune Snag too. I'm bad at recording the usage of removal.
Round 2: Scott with Reveillark. Scott is one of the players who will be in the City Champs finals and he has been playing UW Blink since before Morningtide came out. However he does not have Rune Snags and the store was sold out.
Game 1 I'm a little land light, but I have Venser and both Momentary Blink to stall Scott when he tries to combo out by evoking Reveillark -- return that spell to your hand. A Mirror Entity joins my side just before I run out of Momentary Blink and that allows for a large strike. I also have the combo in hand, but I can't afford to play the pieces while preventing Scott from comboing.
Game 2 my notes are sparse. Scott brought in Tormod's Crypt while I had my Trickbind. We both had Reveillarks and Body Doubles but my Trickbind was more effective than his Tormod's Crypt when both were used after a Wrath.
I did win this match, but think I may have screwed up the City Champs metagame since Scott is now sick of Reveillark. We were all making plans assuming that there would be multiple Blink decks, now there may only be one.
Round 3: Shane with Reveillark. We both had early Riftwing Cloudskates and Vensers, but I had a Mulldrifter. Shane hit the first Lark, but I had Sower of Temptation making the Lark mine instead. That was then sufficient to put the game away. Game 2 Shane, on the play, kept a 1-land hand and didn't draw another until I already had two guys in play.
Round 4: Tim with monogreen Elves. I had been hoping to be able to take the final round intentional draw, but we ended up with only me as undefeated after 3 rounds. Game 1 is a bit touch and go at times as I needed the turn 4 Wrath to set Tim back but even then he had a Treetop Village. My turn 1 and 2 were land go, but I tapped out every turn thereafter until I killed with Mirror Entity armies on turn 8.
Game 2 I kept a land heavy hand and died without putting up much more of a fight than a Riftwing Cloudskate.
Game 3 Tim tried to get off to a quick start with Llanowar Elf, Imperious Perfect, and Call of the Herd. I met that with a Wrath of God. Tim just smiled and played a Chameleon Colossus. I played Reveillark which chump blocked. I played Body Double which chump blocked but then returned itself -- Body Double as Reveillark, the perfect chump blocker. I was then able to play Crovax, Teferi's Moat, and another Lark to finish the game out.
Conclusion: Kenji is something of a genius for creating this iteration of Reveillark. In going undefeated, I had to go through 3 other Reveillark decks. I never once got to play the full combo, but was very impressed with just Mirror Entity when I was able to draw him, not that I'd ever want 2 in hand.
Draft
I had a first pick of Profane Command and second pick of Jagged-Scar Archers, but I sensed that black was being drafted by the guy to my right. I took a chance on a third pick Kithkin Greatheart and was pleased to see a fourth pick Plover Knights. I was rewarded in pack 2 with a third pick Thoughtweft Trio and fourth pick Oblivion Ring. The really happy reward was a pack 2, 15th pick Kinsbaile Skirmisher (I had taken Goldmeadow Harrier the first time round.)
The Deck:
2x Mosquito Guard
Goldmeadow Harrier
Goldmeadow Stalwart
2x Kithkin Greathheart
2x Ballyrush Banneret
Cenn's Heir
Kinsbaile Skirmisher
Kithkin Zephyrnaut
Kithkin Harbinger
Kithkin Healer
Thoughtweft Trio
2x Changeling Sentinel
Meadowboon
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Plover Knights
Runed Stalactite
Surge of Thoughtweft
Triclopean Sight
Veteran's Armaments
Oblivion Ring
16x Plains
SB:
Shields of Velis Vel
Goldmeadow Dodger
2x Shinewend
Woodland Changeling
Kithkin Mourncaller
Fistful of Force
Gametrail Changeling
So I ended up monowhite kithkin. Decent enough looking aggro deck, although a little lacking in removal, and maybe sitting a touch high on the curve. There were some nice green cards, but I just couldn't justify endangering my mana base to fit them in. It did mean playing things I really didn't want to play like Kithkin Healer, Triclopean Sight, and Kinsbaile Balloonist though.
Round 1: Scott with RBW good stuffs. Game 1 I was always on my back foot since he won the die roll and hit turn 2 Squeaking Pie Sneak and turn 3 Avian Changeling while my turn 2 was Veteran's Armaments.
Game 2 I looked at my opening hand and sent it back because it reminded me too much of the game 1 hand -- not very aggressive. I traded my Kithkin Greatheart for his Weirding Shaman on my turn 3 attack while adding more guys every turn. Turn 6 for Scott, he has a Ghostly Changeling, a Shriekmaw, and two of each Mountain, Swamp, Plains. The life totals are 16-11 me-him. I have a tapped Mosquito Guard and an untapped Thoughtweft Trio but no open mana. He attacks with both guys. Do you block? I was pretty sure he had Swell of Courage which would make Ghostly Changeling bigger than Thoughtweft Trio. Can I survive not blocking if he does have the Swell? I decide not to block this time, next turn I'll have Triclopean Sight for the Thoughtweft Trio. I think Scott is so shocked that I didn't block that he doesn't use his mana for anything. I crack back to put life at 11-5. On his next attack, I do block the Ghostly Changeling with Thoughtweft Trio and Scott realizes I have lethal on board if he taps out to kill the Trio.
After that game Scott ponders if he could have won by using Swell of Courage. I think he was mostly thinking it should have gone on the Changeling. I think I still win there, but lose if it goes on Shriekmaw. Is it right to put all of one's eggs in one basket -- the counters on the evasive creature? Was it right for me not to have blocked?
I crush him game 3 as my hand just throws out tons of guys while Scotts first play is Violet Pall. His last chance to stabilize, a Hunter of Eyeblights, is destroyed when I have Surge of Throughweft to kill the Hunter.
Round 2: David with UB Faeries-Goblins. Game 1, Kithkin are generally larger than faeries. I struggle in not making my 3rd land drop until turn 8, but I do have multiple plays at 1 and 2 mana this game -- including Goldmeadow Stalwart and Goldmeadow Harrier. After the game he shows me a Boggart Mob for which he never had any goblins to champion.
Game 2 I crush him since he draws only Islands while I have one of my most aggressive curves -- Stalwart, Banneret, Armaments and Greatheart, Skirmisher and Changeling Sentinel, not bad for 4 turns (although I kill turn 6, which isn't bad itself.)
Round 3: Louis with UB Faeries. We intentionally draw since the draft was only 8 people and the tournament is 3 rounds, prizes to the top 2. We take our packs and go while everyone else is still playing round 3.
Conclusions: How does one cut a Profane Command from a limited deck? Well, get cut off from black entirely. Would you play Profane Command in an otherwise monowhite deck? What do you think of the monowhite deck versus that small green splash? My inexperience with this archetype was telling at times, but it got there. I was fairly happy with how the deck turned out.
See you Friday.
Zachary
Team FNM #36
Tags: Magic FNM Draft Reveillark Kithkin
Related to:
Magic: the Gathering
