For those of you who don't know me, I am John Jackson, a high school teacher by day, mighty planeswalker by night...at least on Friday nights. My magic related accomplishments include such illustrious things as occasionally stealing points from Bill Stark and Blake Rasmussen at the local drafts and FNMs, top 8'ing a smattering of 2hg PTQs (which cut to top 4), and playing Haakon, Stromgald Scourge far more often than I should. Basically, if you are here to learn at the feet of a master, you're in the wrong place.
One thing that is unique about my situation is that I live in a small town in rural Iowa, with the nearest game shop 40 minutes of driving distant. This limits my face-to-face magic to about once per week, usually a draft or FNM. I've played MTGO online, but I've never before attempted to document my successes and failures for public scrutiny. Since Blake hasn't posted a Going Infinite blog in a very long time, I thought I might try my hand at something similar, though likely more to the red side of the ledger.
I started by building the ELVES! deck that Bill Stark has been writing about on another site with some slight budgetization. 4 mutavaults breaks the limit of what I am willing to spend on the secondary aspect of this hobby. Instead I upped the pendelhaven count and stuck in a horizon canopy and a couple of treetop villages. This left me with this list:
4 Boreal Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Bramblewood Paragon
4 Gilt-Leaf Ambush
4 Elvish Promenade
4 Hunting Triad
4 Coat of Arms
4 Overrun
2 Pendelhaven
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Treetop Village
19 Forest
SB:
4 Harmonize
4 Door of Destiny
4 Squall Line
3 Primal Command
It took about 25 new tickets to acquire the pieces I was missing (most of the Morningtide uncommons and all of the rares save 1 command and horizon canopy), and I peg the value of the other cards I put in at around 25 tickets going off the prices in the Sellers room. This fuzzy math lets me conveniently call the deck a 50 ticket investment, which makes it simple to remember. With the deck built and half a dozen goldfished games, I headed to the 8-man queues.
Queue #1:
Round 1 I am up against elves (not to be confused with ELVES! that I'm playing). Though I throw away game 1 by putting coat of arms out too early, I manage to take games 2 and 3 using overrun and door of destinies (in for the coats).
Round 2 I face monored burn, and the near-creatureless version of it at that. A riftbolt suspended on turn 1 hits my face rather than a bramblewood paragon to give you an idea of how seriously this guy takes his gameplan. He is just a bit faster than me and burns me down before I can put together an overwhelming offense. Game 2 is little better.
1-1 is good enough for a pack of Morningtide, which I was disappointed to find is only going for 2.5 in the buyer's room (3.5 in sellers). If I had more time, I probably could post in the seller's room and get 3 for it, but until I have a slightly more substantial buffer of packs this doesn't seem worth my time. 2.5 tix it is.
(-50 start up costs-4 entry+2.5= -51.5)
Queue #2:
Rogues tear me apart game 1. I keep a mana-light hand that has a pair of overruns and coat of arms, his t1 nightshade stinger, t2 stinkdrinker bandit, t3 earwig squad (which amusingly eats my remaining overruns and a coat of arms) are enough to outdo my performance when I stall out with 4 mana available and he adds Oona's Prolwer to the board.
Game 2 I make more tokens than he can deal with, especially when pendelhaven followed by a hunting triad reinforce eats his turn 3 earwig squad. Game 3 is a close race, with him putting me to exactly 0 the turn before I would drop coat of arms and swing back for 35 (barring blocks).
(-4 entry, no prizes= -55.5)
Queue #3:
Round 1, game 1, I am unsure of my opponents archetype, it looks to be some sort of elf build with heavier black. Undetered by my lack of knowledge, I smash face with a bunch of elves and coat of arms. Game 2 is a good example of the sort of powerful start this deck is capable of, even in the face of resistance. On turn 4 his board position consists of 2 goyfs (4/5), gaea's anthem, and bitterblossom (it turns out he's playing Rock). I, however, have 7 elves and only need one of them for mana when I overrun and swing in for 16 that gets past his blockers. Bleeding from the blossom on his turn, a swing with the 6 survivors past 5 blockers with pendelhaven pumping the unblocked one, and another self-ping from the blossom are enough to finish him off. Especially against a mid-range deck, ELVES! feels more like a combo deck than an aggro deck.
Round 2 I beat faeries handily. My token production outstrips theirs greatly, and post-boards squall line comes in, which can wrath their board or burn them out if they tap out for some reason.
Round 3 I face the version of monored burn with countryside crushers and greater gargadons. Game 1 he races me and wins, and in game 2 I walk into an onboard trick of gargadon noshing on some lands and pumping up crushers in response to reinforcing a blocked token. The next turn he burns my only blocker and goes all-in to finish me off exactly. In my haste to remove his giant, I neglected to think of it from the point of view of a swarm aggro deck. Instead of trying to bring down his monster, I should have let that elf die and then made 3 more.
-4 entry +7 (L@4.5, M@2.5) puts my balance on the evening at -48.5. At this rate I only need another 97 queues before I've made back my investment. Things should improve as my familiarity increases, and I make fewer blatant misplays.
Tags: Going Infinite Elves
Related to:
Magic: the Gathering
