MTGO has returned from the nether void in which it has hovered for the last good chunk of time, so it is time for me to blog more about attempting to go infinite. I've been thinking about making my blogging a bit more regular, so the combination of thoughts regarding the nowhere zone that MODO has been in, the MTG story in general, and the v.3 interface have led me to a title.
This blog covers the details of my queue experience in the last days of 2.5, which came after a rather disappointing output in a tribal tournament. This will bring me up to version 3, and I plan on gettting out at least 1 entry per week to detail the ledger of this particular planeswalker.
Queue #10 (-83 tix):
Round 1:
I face down mono blue control of some sort. The most important fact I gather from this match is that pendelhaven desert. After game 1, 3 overruns come out for 3 squall lines because the 5 mana sorcery is not so great when your opponent can simply cryptic command to tap your creatures.
In game 2, I discover he may be playing pickles because he curves with t1 visions, t2 visions+desert, t3 morph. During this time I am producing loads of elf tokens without fear of wrath effects. He taps out t4 to play serrated arrows, but I rip my single remaining overrun to punish his lack of counter mana. The morph is in fact brine elemental. I may be a sack, but he is very good natured about the loss. I don't think he realizes I had sided most of them out.
Round 2: His info talks about the cards he owes people, all of which are parts of faeries. Free information seems good to me.
Game 1: On turn 3 I attack with a paragon into a faerie rogue token (courtesy of turn 2 bitterblossom), leaving back my 1/1 elves. He flashes in a scion of oona, and the elf trades with the token. I take the opportunity to avoid a potential rune snag and make a coat of arms, followed by enough elves on turn 4 to leave him at 1 if he blocks as best he can. With the rogue spewing-flower on his side of the board this elicits a concession. -3 overrun, +3 squall line. Conditional blowout < less conditional blowout. >
Game 2: This game is a close race. Turn 3 he restores the creature type of my animated treetop village to its original printing with a nameless inversion, and several turns down the road I am forced to drop a coat of arms to ask the game deciding question, "Do you have cryptic command?" He does, and the fog cantrip forces me to enter my scoop phase.
Game 3: I outmatch his t2 bitterblossom in token production, but scion of oona makes his tokens significantly more frightening than mine.
After the significant increase in profit I received by selling draft sets in the sellers room over offloading packs to people in the buyers room, I've decided to stockpile packs rather than imediately turning them into tickets. -83+M
Q11 (-87 +M):
R1:
Game 1, I don't get a very good read on his deck because I kill him too quickly. He is playing some sort of UG concoction, perhaps faeries. There is Venser and Remove Soul, and our pendelhavens legend rule each other at one point.
Game 2, again he strip mines my Pendelhaven on turn 2. Eventually he taps down for sower, so I resolve coat of arms, and a main-phase promenade forces him to have the cryptic command and the sense to tap me down along with countering the spell. Even in that scenario, I still have a mutavault to attack with and force a chump block and probably a win on the next turn.
Round 2 GB elves
Game 1 he leads with village. I throw out a druid and he inverts it, so I drop paragon, t3 paragon, and t4 cast hunting triad for 9 power worth of tramplers, t5 drop coat of arms and drop him to 7 with a 3/3 imperious perfect to my 4/4 token and 2 mutavaults. He trades some more to stay alive, but eventually my elves outnumber his.
Game 2 I misplay repeatedly (reinforcing with a hunting triad when I should make tokens and not dropping a coat of arms that would win it then and there), and he rightly stomps my head in.
Game 3 I make dudes aplenty but I don't hit any go-bigs or get them out quickly enough for it to matter.
(-87, +2M)
I decide to wait until the afternoon standard PE fires before getting back into an 8-man since I don't have time for a full event.
Q12 (-91, +2M)
Round 1: He is running some sort of GBu Rock/Mannequin hybrid. It has goyfs, mulldrifters, shriekmaws, mannequins, and profane commands.
Game 1 I make a bunch of tokens and overrun for the win.
Game 2 starts when he lightning bolts himself with a painland into thoughtseize. He hits a hunting triad. He has t2 into the north, so I don't vomit my hand onto the table to avoid being wrecked by t3 damnation. He tries to grind card advantage by evoking, playing, and mannequinning shriekmaws. My token generators outpace his ability to kill them, and with coat of arms on the board he is forced into chump blocking. Eventually an overrun allows my elves to get through for lethal.
Round 2:
He leads with boreal druid and a nonsnow land, and I suspect a mirror. A turn 2 scryb ranger shows that is not the case, but rather he is non-tribal monogreen aggro. I curve with boreal/paragon+heritage/triad/prom ritual+overrun. Game 2 is also ugly for him.
Round 3:
I'm up against a true R(g)DW in this one, focusing on a Sligh curve with efficient dudes instead of burn. In game 1 I go on tilt after mulling to a mediocre 5 card hand, and I misplay badly, reinforcing with hunting triad instead of making tokens when he has a magus of the scroll out and only 2 cards in hand.
Game 2 he is stuck on 2 lands and I curve out acceptably into 2 hunting triads and coat of arms, which he ancient grudges. I land another coat of arms while he has no green mana up and send in my comrade-bolstered, pointy-eared tree-huggers.
Game 3 he has 3 mutavaults so I'm hesitant to play coat of arms until I have enough to turn on my vault as well, eventually I'm forced to play it because he will win in 2 turns if I don't (if he continues his current play pattern) and it gives him the chance to misplay if I do. He doesn't misplay so I lose anyway.
+LM (-91, LMMM) (sell MM for 5=, -85+LM)
Q13 (-89 +LM)
Staring at kithkin on the screen, I curve out game one with t1 mana elf, t2 one of each 1 drop, t3 hunting triad and another llanowar. I just can't keep up with the life gained by knight of meadowgrain and can't pendleblock it with cenn making the first striker a 3/3.
Game 2 I make heritage druid turn 1, on turn 3 I cast 2 gilt-leaf ambush, and turn 4 I send my elves to prom and then drop a coat of arms.
Game 3 I make a decent number of 2/2 tokens and drop a coat of arms, then walk into a pollen lullaby...at least it wasn't wrath of god this time.
Queue 14 (-93 +LM)
Post shadowmoor I think we'll be seeing more of the deck I faced in round 1. Blue black merfolk seems decent now. In game 1 I'm completely outclassed due to lord superiority, and in game 2 I overextend into a damnation I should have seen coming when he didn't drop a t3 reej that he had revealed with his t2 silvergill adept. I had assumed sage's dousing, but should have gone for a more cautious approach to put the game away in 2 turns rather than going for the throat that instant. I need to stop assuming that swarm aggro decks won't have boardsweepers. After the board wipe, I draw 2 overruns, a llanowar elf, and an elvish promenade. Mopey.
I'd been thinking about tweaking the deck to make for better potential to grind out some wins when the blowout plan doesn't work and in the process bring the curve down slightly so I feel comfortable cutting 1 land. -2 overrun, -1 coat of arms, -1 forest, +4 imperious perfect, +1 garruk. I don't buy any new cards for this, but it is changing the value of the deck by about 4 tickets, so I'm going to go ahead and say -97.
4 llanowar elves
4 boreal druid
4 heritage druid
4 bramblewood paragon
4 imperious pefect
4 gilt-leaf ambush
4 hunting triad
1 garruk
3 elvish promenade
3 coat of arms
2 overrun
2 pendelhaven
1 horizon canopy
1 treetop village
3 mutavault
16 forest
Queue 15 (-101+LM)
Round 1 I face Reveillark and go 3 games against it before losing. I haven't seen much of this deck online, and I suspect that it is because of 2 main reasons: the meta is very heavy with faeries and it seems like working through the combo when you can't just say "50 entity activations on the stack, evacuate you" is a pain.
Queue 16 (-105+LM)
Round 1: Once again it is white weenie. I crush him thoroughly in game 1. Game 2 is much closer, I am at 1 to his 8 life, and I hit the 6th land I need so that I can drop coat of arms and activate mutavault to make sure my elves are large enough to finish him.
Round 2
He is UW something (I suspect 'lark), but he gets stuck on 2 lands. I do as well, but I have 2 boreal druids and a heritage druid...eot ambush eats a runesnage which lets me resolve 2 perfects on my turn, prompting a concession.
(-2 coat, -2 overrun,-4 imperious perfect, -3 elvish promenade, +3 squall line, +4 harmonize, +4 door of destinies)
Game 2 my opponent mulls to 5 and I mull to 6. I get a t1 llanowar. He gets stuck on 2 lands, and I attempt to bait rune snag with an EOT ambush, and then play heritage druid on my turn...I attack with elves hoping he'll block with mutavault (I am holding hunting triad), but he lets it through. He gets adarkar wastes to go with his island and poocave, and on my upkeep vendillion cliques me (2 squall lines, hunting triad, door of destinies). No matter what he cycles away, he is going to die.
Round 3 vs. mana ramp.
Game 1 I mulligan to 5, he is running hellkites main which is bad news for me, and when he has the sense to use primal command as a timewalk (+7 life and land to the top of my library) it makes things even worse.
g2 I don't do anything stupidly broken out of the gates after mulling to 6, so I end up getting smashed by sulfurous blast and better creatures than I can muster. I also think I mis-sideboarded for this; I left in 2 imperious perfects, and they basically read "target opponent plays a burn spell before you can do anything useful with this, and maybe he takes a couple extra points of damage if he was tapped out."
(-105+LLMM=-93+M) I tweak my sideboard after more discussion with Bill Stark, swapping out wurm's tooth (which were in for primal commands and eulogist) out for spike feeders. I also change my main slightly by removing a perfect and going back up to 4 coat of arms. We'll call this an even swap (and note that the xth edition coat is in for the perfect in case I ever have a situation where perfect would be better than the coat).
Queue 17 (-97+M) In three games vs. faeries he has t2 bitterblossom every time with only 1 mulligan.
Queue 18 (-101+M)
Against monored burn I play a perfect t3 in game 1, he taps out for a Countryside crusher, allowing me to safely reinforce my elf lord out of burn range.
Game 2 I slow roll door of destinies. In the following elf-flurry I tap myself out to put out a spike feeder (with 6/6 mana elves in play) letting him lash out the spike EOT, and then on his turn incinerate me, pitches a card to jaya ballard, and then goes all in on a gargadon. This wasn't quite an on-board, but it was dang close. If the 2 cards he had in hand includes any burn and the other (or the card on the top of his library) is an incinerate, I just lose with the play series I made. I should have kept the elves untapped to act as blockers and deployed the spike next turn.
Game 3 I mulligan into oblivion and am never in it.
Queue 19 (-105+M)
Round 1 vs. monored burn
Game 1 I keep a hand that has the explosive elements but lacks in basic elves (it has heritage druid, coat of arms, mutavault, and overrun), when I make a t3 boreal druid he burns the heritage druid, when I play t4 coat he burns the boreal druid. He swings in with 2 vaults and fanatic, and the next turn I leave mana up. He swings in with just fanatic and I ambush it (losing the clash), blocking with just 1 token. With damage on, he taps & activates vaults to save it. On my turn I swing with the tokens and 2 mutavaults, ambushing after blockers to push it up to 16 damage, which combines with some earlier nickle and diming to get there.
Game 2 I am too slow getting going when he sulfurous blasts away a pair of mana elves, but game 3 goes exactly to plan. Turn 3 spike feeder eats a lash out and gains me 4 life, letting me soak up hits until I drop t4 door. Turn 5 I drop 3 elves, turn 6 I drop more elves and just win it.
Round 3 is against monoblue pickles. I find this matchup tedious to play and even more tedious to write about. Sowers are his all-stars as they typically 3 for 1 me unless I have squall line. The lesson I take away from this is that if you've got blue on the ropes, don't add the extra creature to play around removal. They'll drop sower and have an extra blocker.
(-105+MM=-100)
I think that I'll take this opportunity to rant about the prize structure for queues. The huge over-supplying of morningtide packs means that the market is flooded with them and they are a poor consolation prize. I don't think that my overall record of 7-10 from this batch of queues warrants going up any, but it seems like a 17 ticket drop is pretty harsh. Even though I only had 3 more losses than wins, my output was worse than scrubbing out 4 times in a row. Unless shadowmoor introduces some new tools for dealing with swarm aggro, I expect that I'll be able to post some better results when 1-1 in a queue doesn't result in losing 1.5 tix.
Tags: Elves Blind Eternities
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Magic: the Gathering
