Innstrad Ltd: Stratergy and Synergy

 Hi everyone. 

Innistrad has now been fully spoiled and the pre release is coming up this weekend, first thing to say about this set for limited is that it looks absolutely awesome! everything about this set screams flavour, and should be a blast to play in both sealed and draft. 

Now around this time, every set, all mtg writers are spewing out articles about the different specific cards and there thoughts on how they will effect one format or another. For me to repeat that here would be nothing but an exercise in futility for all concerned and I have neither the time nor the patience to go through and review every card in the set individually. Instead what I'm going to do today is just give a brief overview of the set as a whole for the purposes of limited.

Bare in mind when reviewing this set for limited I have been looking just at the common // uncommon lvl cards, as everyone knows mythic in bombs are insane in ltd. you dont need telling.

This article is about the synergies and strategies for the different colours in Innstrad ltd. specifically sealed. What’s written here is quite generic in application so feel free to message me to pick my brain if anyone wants to know more about more specifics.

White:

Lots of humans, a few spirits, no gribbley monsters to be seen.

It’s possible to have a sweet human tribal theme going on, plays like a white weenie, lots of guys that die to make tokens, or make other guys bigger, or transform your men. + removal + fliers.

Not very good against other white decks as there stuff is made for killing wolf men.

Also. Rally the Peasants is insane. Splash red for it ^^

Blue:

Mixture of humans, zombies and mutants.

Generic blue fliers counter spells and ‘tap’ effects.

With the right combination of cards a mill deck may be possible, most of the time this will be very weak. The mill effects are passive on a ton of reasonable cards in blue, these effects can be put to much better use by milling yourself in order to pay for the additional casting costs on your Skaab guys (which are all sweet btw) there are also several good flashback cards that don’t mind being in the yard. Careful not to mill yourself though :p

Black.

 ZOMBIES! Also- vamps and skeletons.

Unsurprisingly, you can do zombie tribal. Allows you to generate a lot of tokens, backed up by solid removal. Zombie theme is less aggressive but has inevitability, which makes a controlish build work better.  Conveniently, blue also has zombies.

Red:

Vampires, werewolves

Lots of cheap efficient creatures with nice abilities. Tons of spells/ creatures that act as removal // burn.

Most of the werewolves are okay, but are sometimes hard to transform, and can randomly change back. In ltd, this is usually okay, as somebody is going to run out of spell eventually, and then they do the wolves get big. But this will take time so you can rely on them to be super aggressive. The best way to use them is if they are okay in there normal form then run them, then if they transform it’s a sweet bonus.

Green

Humans werewolves.

Werewolves in green are less exciting as they are generally more vanilla than their red counterparts, but possibly more reliable, as they’re bigger before transform. The power swing looks something like:

Red Werewolves:  Before: Weak and Puny. //// After: Obscene Violence

Green Werewolves: Before: Below Average //// After: Above Average.

See.

Green is also the major colour for morbid, which is unfortunate considering there is no removal here. it is a pretty strong mechanic, but as it is usually on creatures (and thus wants to be active in your turn)  so unless you can attack and trick your opponent into blocking to activate it, your best up pairing up with another colour that gets it dudes killed all the time. Namely black or white.

So that’s what the colours do for the most part. At first glance we can see which colours apear to work well together:

WR Aggro:

the red helps support the white aggression. Access to loads of removal with flier and burn to wrap the game up.

UB control;

probably with zombies. Has a large ability to utilise the graveyard, lots of flashback cards to generate zombie hordes and exile useless creatures to play under costed blue dudes.

GW // GB; Morbid.

I think morbid is strong enough to actively build around with help from white or black. Black has removal and sacrifice dudes, whilst white has many puny creatures which die attacking.

Obviously in ltd you can mix any colours you want, you’ve gotta use what you got anyways and there are clearly many more good combinations, but on first glance these seem like solid ideas to try to aim towards whilst your building a deck. Hopefully this has provided some insight into the workings of Innstrad in ltd.

I guess we’ll get to see how far off I am at the events coming up over the next couple of weeks. Good luck to everyone playing the pre release this weekend, I’ll see you all there ^^

Written by

Andy Mather.

New Phrexia Set Constructed Set Review

Hi everyone!

I’m not sure exactly what happened with the massive leak from wizards about the new set and I’m sure someone’s gonna get it in the neck for it, but for better or worse we now have the complete spoiler for new phyrexia, for full spoiler see www.mtgsalvation.com

For this article I’m just going to go through some of the more interesting cards (probably mostly rares and mythics) that might see constructed play.

Karn, the Released

I wrote an entire article on this guy which can be found here:

http://kazanidibeatings.blogspot.com/2011/04/karn-not-yet-released.html#comments

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

This guy is pretty powerful, kinda the new crovax. 7 mana is a lot of mana to get too to play a guy that can easily be countered or killed by pretty much anything, but his effect is powerful as a sort of continuous massacre wurm effect, whilst also pumping your guys. I think the problem with this guy is he’s suffering from a major case of 'not as good as titan-itas' while the titans are around there is little reason to play this guy in std. and if rumour is to be believed we will be seeing the return of the titan cycle in M12

Norn's Annex

Moat type effects have traditionally been quite powerful in control decks, even condition ones such as teferie's moat and ghostly prison saw quite a bit of constructed play. that said the fact that you can pay the cost on this one with a measly 2 life per creature means that the decks that want to attack through this can do so easily as the life loss tends not to matter so much against the control match up.

Phyrexian Unlife

This card is a strange one, in a normal game its pretty much a straight up 2W  gain 10 life kinda effect, the fact that is does nothing in multiples pretty much limits its use to the side board, the only other thing worth mentioning is that its possible that this card could be broken in older formats as part of a combo deck, with this in play, effects that  cause loss of life actually have no effect on you, so by pairing it with spells such as ad nauseum- draw your deck. it is clearly capable of doing some quite broken things in the right environment.

Puresteel Paladin

Aggressively costed guys that do things have usually been pretty good, the WW casting cost here is pretty restrictive, but his ability to draw cards when equipment enters the battle field seems to make him stone forge mystics new best friend, his metal craft ability is a little less relevant, having said that the decks that want him usually run at least 3 equipments so its always a possibility. He’ll probably fit best in naya, boros or possibly quest  type decks.

Corrupted Resolve

Conditional counter spells for 1U usually see play at some point, its always nice to  have options and if a good blue infect deck becomes popular you will almost certainly want to be running a couple of these in it.

Gitaxian Probe

There are quite a few cards in this set with the phrexian symbol as a cost, meaning that any colour has access to spells that are usually not available to them,

I think this is one of the better ones, being able to get a look at your opponents hand

can be a pretty big deal right now, seeing if they have that bolt for your guy, and  weather its safe to tap out for play- sword - equip - swing, will mean you can play around there spells much better and not get blown out, on top of that, it can be free when your tight on mana or you can play U when its not an issue, and it cantrips itself as well- overall a very useful and playable card. May also see play in eternal formats where cheap, cantrip, and does something is sometimes all you need in a card.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

Another pretty sweet dread returns target for dredge wont exactly improve the deck that much as they have so many options for awesome targets already, but if you can  get this guy out first turn in a reanimator deck, then that is pretty big game. may also see some play in std control decks as a 1of, flashing him into play, blocking there guy, drawing 7 and making them have no hand for the rest of the game should guarantee you victory. even if he does cost 10

Mental Misstep

Another sweet phyrexian cost spell that can be 'free'. Not sure it'll see that much play in std but it legacy it has the potential to be kinda sick. It counters a whole ton of spells including path and eather vile even when you’re tapped out or on the draw, think it depends on the metagame how many of these you'll want in your deck though.

Phyrexian Metamorph

Clones have historically not been great in constructed, but the fact that this one is an artifact and can copy any creature or artifact and can cost 3 means he might see play, if only in block constructed. Seems to pair well with stuff that generates mana that can only be used to cast artifacts,

Tezzeret's Gambit

Another card that might see play in block, being able to draw 2 proliferate for 3 seems quite strong in the right deck. Also. Drawing cards in a red deck? When was that ever fair?

Despise

Another Duress type effect, like with counter spells it’s always nice to have options. for the purposes is std, this will probably be the go-to card for the 1 mana discard slot, being able to get walkers and creatures means it hits pretty much all the targets you want to go for against most decks, duress will still have its place in side boards but most people will probably choose to run these over inquisition in the main now.

Dismember

More sweet phrexian cost cards, letting you kill a guy using any colour mana for 1 is really quite strong, I’m not sure weather is just worse than the other black removal in black decks, but having access to this in blue or green could be quite strong, and again, it will likely see play in older formats due to no colour requirements and cheap cost. Just be careful not to pack too many into your decks or you might find yourself on low life a little too soon

Phyrexian Obliterator

This card is very tough for its cost and can be a pain for some decks to get rid of, unfortunately at the moment it suffers from miserably failing the jace test, once jace rotates out of standard, he might have a place in some decks, although BBBB to cast is pretty restrictive,

Praetor's  Grasp

I don’t think any other card printed does quite what this does, at least not in the same way, cant think of many uses for it in std right now, but could be a useful tool in older formats or causal formats (edh)

Sheoldred, Whispering One

blah blah blah edh blah

Surgical Extraction

I keep trying to tell people this card is not good (except against vengvine) and they don’t believe me. For further convincing see :

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/in-development-how-to-waste-two-life-at-instant-speed/

I mean I could be wrong, I might be waaay off the mark and it might be just great, but I’m pretty sure I’m not.

Act of Aggression

As we all know, red has been trying to imitate blue spells since alpha, because they are the best, and has had varying degrees of success, any now after years of having medioca threaten effects they at last have there very own ray of command!... except its not really their very own... due to the crafty phrexian mana cost now any colour has access to the life intensive version of the best threaten ever. Still, limited bombs aside, it might well see some play in constructed too. stealing their titan or guy with sword and swinging could be pretty big game, and gives decks that have trouble with these types of threats a reasonable answer (vamps or example)

Invader Parasite

I have a soft spot for land destruction, not sure if this guy is good enough, but when he goes after a land it tends to stay gone, could be a pain for valakut etc.

Moltensteel Dragon

Everybody should be aware that this dragon exists, I’m not sure he’s going to be good, or even see play, but having a 4/4 on turn 4 can be pretty awesome, and if your mono red you can swing for 16 on turn 5 all by himself, having said that he dies to pretty much anything. But I really want to see someone combo him with phrexian unlife and swing for infinite, that would be sweet ^^

Slag Fiend

Tarmagoyf this guy certainly is not. But if an artifact deck that runs red becomes any good he might have a home there.

Urabrask, the Hidden

Red hasty guys with an ability are usually pretty good, at the moment I think hero of oxid ridge is just better though.

Beast Within

This is the kinda card that makes me want to play green. i mean seriously, instant speed vindicate is just absurd! And the decks that are playing this really don’t care that much about the 3/3

Their opponent has that used to be a jace or a gideon, Bop- T2 get their land is also strong, and sometimes you might just nuke your own stuff to get a 3/3 blocker / haste guy at instant speed. I really like this card in RUG, where if you have mana up T3 and they jace, you can kill their jace, play your own on your turn and bounce their token, seems strong. Also hitting equipment is a big deal. A very powerful card that I think will see a lot of play.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast

Everyone loves a hate bear right? :p this is bit of a weird one, to make infect useless against you then take it away from your opponent seems counterproductive. but still, infect creatures are usually pretty puny once they lose infect. Also, play her after resolving phrexian unlife and laugh as they fail to kill you! (untill she dies of course)

Batterskull

A lot of people have written a lot of things about this card, suffice to say it’s broken with stone forge mystic and leave it at that.

Hex Parasite

Hear we can see versatility in action, a cheap creature that has the ability to kill planeswalkers, swing for a potential ton of damage, accessible in any colour and deals with stuff like tumble magnets and everflowing chalice. I think this lil guy will see play in a couple of different decks and do powerful things in all of them

Immolating Souleater

Turn 3 combo with phrexian unlife! sign me up :P

Mycosynth Wellspring

I really hope that with this and ichorwell spring, someone will make an artifact sacrifce deck would be soo good if that worked, I dunno what with yet though- maybe koldutha rebirth?

Myr Superion

Can you cast this off the spirit guides in legacy? (credit to john and owen if you can)

Soul Conduit

blah blah blah phrexian unlife blah.

Spellskite

Being able to change the target of any spell or ability to this guy seems pretty strong, target player draws 3 cards? I think you'll find spellkite draws 3 cards! (can you change the target of a spell to an illegal target? maybe not.) But still. There is a lot of potential for this guy to be though, and as a 0/4 he's not a bad blocker either.

Sword of War and Peace

Another strong equipment to dominate std with, most decks that run stone forge mystic will probably want a copy of this, the ability to hit there face then burn their planes walkers pretty good, it just gets obscene with another sword on the same guy, and gaining life isn’t a bad side effect either.

Torpor Orb

Would be awesome if it either cost 1, or drew a card for you. But it doesn’t, so it isn’t. it might see play in a sideboard somewhere. Maybe.

So that about wraps it up for constructed cards. They are probably a couple of things I’ve missed out, cards that seem awful to me now will probably be worth loads in a couple of months. Anyway, I hope this has been vaguely helpful to people looking to find out how the new set will have an impact on the constructed formats. Personally I think this set will change std for the better. I think the same sort of decks will remain to be good until rotation, but the way they play and the tools used to combat them will differ with this set. And what will after rotation who knows!? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Till next time.

Andy Mather

Karn, The (not yet) Released

 Hi everyone! Its time for another unnecessarily long Andy article full of nothing that you didn’t already know- enjoy anyway ^^

So originally I was going to write an article about all the rares and mythics we’ve seen previewed in New Phyrexia so far, but after thinking about it I decided that Karn as this sets (only?) planes walker probably warranted enough attention to have an article all to himself.

I'm pretty sure that a couple of months ago i read an article somewhere that specifically said karn would not be released as a planes walkers in the next set, never the less it is now clear we are just a few short weeks away from having the new father

of machines stomping around the standard metagame.

Karn, the Released (Oh Hai!)                        7

Planeswalker - Karn              Mythic Rare

+4 Target player exiles a card from his or her hand.

-3 Exile target permanent

-14: Set aside all non-Aura permanents exiled with Karn. the restart the game.

The put all cards set aside this way onto the battlefield under your control.

Loyalty 6

So. planes walkers are good right? - nuff said - but seriously, for those of you that didn’t know: I. Freakin. Love. Planes walkers! so there is a chance that this article might turn out slightly biased, but I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum :-)

NB: it’s worth noting at this point that when I’m talking about Karn in this article I’m talking about playing him in standard unless it specifically says otherwise.

Karn is the first colourless planes walker we've seen, although his price tag of

7 mana may seem a little high; he can actually go into any deck with his casting cost and has the ability to vindicate something or discard and go to 10 loyalty off the bat making him a pretty tough guy to deal with.

That said there are some decks that are going to want him more than others. A cost of 7 is pretty high whichever way you look at it, having said that Nicol Bolas was 8 total and in 3 colours and still saw some play in Grixis control. It’s pretty clear that this guy is too expensive for most aggro decks. their plan of simply ripping your face off and running away laughing is exciting to them. Getting to 7 mana is not.

He seems to most naturally go into control decks (who knew?), where getting to 7 mana is just eventually going to happen naturally, and finding your copies of him in a pile of 60 cards isn’t a big deal. (I mean- your gonna draw all your cards in your deck eventually anyway… right?)

He could also fit happily into mid range decks and ramp decks quite easily. Ramp decks would have no problem landing him on turn 4-5 (even 3 if they have tasty nuts) but I’m not sure that Karn is what they would want to spend their mana on, mostly they just want to cast instantly game breaking spells// creatures (Emrakul anyone?) and whilst Karn is sweet, he doesn’t actually win the game on his own on the turn you cast him.

I could see some midrange decks playing a couple of him, just as a powerfull high end card, mostly used for his vindicate//discard abilities rather than doing broken things with his ultimate.

Let’s take a closer look at some of his abilities: because it’s Sunday morning and I feel like laying in bed writing about planes walkers :-D

The +4 ability here is pretty sweet, gaining that loyalty is gonna keep himself around without you having to put much else into it, the decks that are capable of dealing this much damage in one shot would probably just rather swing at your face and hope to kill you. This ability is never bad when taking a card out of someone else’s hand, Liliana only got +1 for doing this, and Karn doesn’t have the disadvantage of accidently putting their Vengvines into the bin. Another thing to keep in mind is that this ability also combos with his ultimate, so a sweet thing to do is target yourself in order to exile the cards you want in the next game then ultimate to restart the game with yourself waaay ahead. (Seems fair?)

His -3 is also sweet, exiling any permanent is just awesome, this effect is reminiscent of Nicol Bolas type abilities, except that, again like his +4 ability, these poor exiled cards have no chance of coming back from the yard. I also like the fact that he can come into play and immediately deal with any opposing walkers that are causing you problems, not matter what loyalty they happen to be on. (Also seems fair?)

Currently in std it seems to be the case that your planes walkers tend to get very grumpy when you pass priority with them on 3 loyalty, because for some inexplicable reason, this turns them into lightning rods and shortly thereafter they'll be winging their way off your plane of existence and onwards through the multi-verse onto less lightning filled pastures. But to be fair, all you have to do to avoid this is keep your Karn above 3 against decks that run lightning bolt. And, if rumour is to be believed, we wont have to worry about it at all if bolt isn’t reprinted in M12.

-14 eh? seems like a lot, but then again starting on 6 and having +4 means its only going to be a couple of turns until your starting game 2... or 3... or 4... or... well you get the idea.

So restarting the game, don’t think I’ve ever been able to do that before. Lets see if I get this right:

First you set aside all (non-aura) cards exiled specifically with Karn (I think this only counts the ones exiled by your current incarnation on Karn, not any other previous versions that have since died) then to restart the game, each player shuffles all their other cards, including normally exiled cards, (so that’s: hand, board, graveyard, exiled zone, and library...yes, yes, and suspended cards etc...) into their library, life totals become 20, poison counters become 0, each player draws 7 cards. I guess you get to mulligan as normal?

Now what I’m not sure about is who gets the first turn. when this ability resolves does it end the turn? Or when the game restarts does the player who started the last game start this one as well? Or do you simply continue playing from the turn you were on when you ultimated Karn. At first I thought this last option seemed the most logical, but restarting the game must include resetting the turn clock as well since there are some cards that care what turn it is (Serra Avenger), so now I’m not so sure. If anyone has any insight into this please feel free to share it with the class.

Moving on. Once the game has restarted you put all the cards that were set aside into play under your control. Pretty broken. Basically this means once you ultimate Karn, you shouldn’t have any problem locking down// wining the next game (kinda) due to the advantage you've built up in the first. One of the more fun (/un fun) things to do is to have 2 Karns in your deck, and use one to exile the other from your hand before you ultimate, thus letting you start the next game with Karn in play. This process can then be repeated until your opponent gets bored and scoops. (After the first time this happens it shouldn't take too long in future.)

So yea, seems pretty good, I’m not sure how he's going to impact older formats like extended and legacy but i get the feeling he's gonna be a bit too expensive for them.

Not really too much to say about him in limited either. You opened Karn, well done, play with him, win with him, be happy about it.

Overall I think Karn is a pretty solid card, he's going on eBay at the moment for around $170/£110 for 4. This is a little higher than I would have predicted, but its understandable due to him being awesome and colourless.

I’ve invested in these at this price for a couple of reasons, firstly, it's certainly a card that I will want to play, so I’m gonna have to get them eventually at whatever price. I’m also not sure weather the price is going to go up or down, my instinct is to say it might drop slightly some time after release, as not many people will want more than 1-2 in a deck,

but I don’t think he'll drop that much as he is clearly very playable, he might even go up- who knows. if the worst come to the worst and he turns out to be terrible I can always trade him away or use him in EDH.

Another reason I’m buying him on pre order is that the prices of mythics tend to rise slightly just after there release then settle back down to an overall lower price a couple of months down the line, this is fine if your willing to wait that long to get your 10% discount but I personally feel I’ll want to be using him right from the release day, so getting him asap is important for me to get most value from him.

My advice to people thinking of purchasing him would be, if your gonna want to play with him a lot. Get a couple now as he's not that much, and your almost certainly not going to lose out that much in the long run, if your not that bothered, wait a couple of months and see what price he stabilises at.

Well that’s about all I have to rant about for today. Hopefully this article will have provided some insight into the latest addition to the planes walker family, and spark some interesting ideas for future use, and has not just been a complete waste of time and space. (Dr who would get grumpy with me for that)

Hope you all have fun casting your Karns in the near future ^^ and as always feel free to post your comments (helpful or otherwise :p) below

Thanks for reading.

Andy Mather

Nationals Qualifier Report (3rd) 19/03/2011

Nationals Qualifier Report (3^rd) 19/03/2011

            By Andy Mather

            So it’s the first NQ of this year and its being held at our local Patriot Games in Sheffield. The format is Standard and we’re expecting a pretty big turnout and thus a fair amount of qualifying spaces available. Our group had been doing a fair amount of prep during the run up to this event, and we’re mostly running decks that had posted good results in previous tournaments i.e. PT Paris and SCG 5k.

            The top three of these are what most of us ended up running and also what I expected a large portion of the meta game to be. They are, in order of expected popularity; UW caw go and variants (either with red or black), Boros and Valakut  

             I had spent most of my time play testing with the UWr caw blade deck as I was planning on running it this weekend and spent the final week making adjustments to the Side Board, when I was looking at the board I currently had on Friday morning, it became clear the plan against over half the matchup’s was to try and side into a more classical UW version of the deck, taking out the removal and putting in cards like tectonic edge.

            This seemed a bit stupid to me and after talking it over with a friend, I decided at the last minute to change to a straight UW list. Now I know in general this is a really bad idea, because you’re supposed to play with a deck you’re experienced in using etc etc. But the UW list just seemed like a better 75 and I had managed to clock some game time with it after PT Paris before UWr had become popular, so I figured it’d be okay.

           

Here is the list I ended up running.

UW Caw Go  

Main Deck: 60

4 Preordain

4 Spell Pierce

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

4 Squadren Hawks

4 Stoneforge Mystic

3 Mana Leak

1 Motarpod

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

3 Tumble Magnet

4 Jace the Mind Sculptor

2 Day of Judgment

1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence

2 Gideon Jura

2 Glacial Fortress

4 Celestial Collonade

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Techtonic Edge

1 Arid Mesa

1 Scalding Tarn

5 Plains

5 Island

Side Board: 15

2 Day of Judgement

1 Divine Offering

4 Flashfreeze

3 Oust

1 Mystifying Maze

1 Sun Titan

1 Sword of Body and Mind

2 Baneslayer Angel

            I ended up building the deck on Friday day time because I was going out that evening, also meaning I was unable to attend that nights NQ practise at FNM. This meant that I would be playing these exact 75 for the first time in the qualifiers the next morning . . . fun.

            Wake up Saturday morning with a bit of a hang over, but being in Yorkshire I have no trouble finding someone to sell me a full English breakfast in a bread bun and then it’s off the store!

            Get to the shop pretty early but there are already a fair number of people already there, I meet up with people and we were able to register in good time, however for some people it was not so simple. Now I think the store has a rough capacity of around 64 people. That quota was quickly filled with people still queuing out the door still waiting to register. After a frantic 15 minuets running about by head judge Mark Hammond, he somehow manages to persuade a quaint little café just down the road into letting us rent half the place out for the day, Good Job! So with the crises averted we move on!

            The total body count for round 1 is 88 people- making it 7 rounds and giving a hefty 11 qualifying spaces. As well as store credit prizes for the top 8 so we are quickly able to calculate using rule a rule of thumb method that a 5-1-1 result should ensure your Top 8 position, while a 5-2-0. might get you into the Top 11 if you have good tie breakers. With that out the way we go to look at the pairings and find out seats for round 1.

            These are the rounds as far as I can remember them, I might not have got everything exactly right (especially SB choices) as I was concentrating on playing and didn’t take notes, also apologies to people who’s names a cant remember.

Round 1 Vs. UWB Control

Game 1

            So first game of the first NQ and there’s everything to play for, my opponent quickly gets U and W mana online closely followed by B, I get a mystic into play to grab a sword that looks awesome in my hand for a whole of 10 seconds before it gets inquisitioned away. Now at this point I’m thinking to myself, sure, he’s playing a UWb caw go deck with inquisition and the like. However that doesn’t seem to be the case. Next turn my mystic eats a doom blade before I make another one to get life staff. This one also dies, as does every other threat I play in the first 10 turns or so. This game goes very long due to him doing nothing other than killing my guys, but taking 5 minutes each turn in doing it, however I’m not too fussed at the time as I’m well ahead and if I’m a game up it makes no matter to me. I see him running Day of Judgment , Black sun’s Zenith, doom blade, condemn, Gideon and around 8 Jaces, to kill all my threats and walkers, but no counters or threats of his own in sight. Eventually I manage to beat him with a hawk carrying a lifestaff for a few turns before he decides to BSZ it leaving him on 8 (I’m on 40+ at this point but he seems to think he can pull it back. he has more doomblade for my celestial colonnade but I draw another and have techtonic edge for his. He finally runs out of removal and I close up the game, so far so good

SB; having seen 0 creatures from him G1 I side out removal in place of more threats and land.

Game 2 starts off much the same with him taking forever, but eventually answering my threats and jaceing my jace away, only this time he lands sun titan turn 6 with lil jace in the yard, making it impossible for me to resolve mine for longer than a turn, he starts attacking and drawing a ton of cards then manages to resolve a grave titan a couple of turns later, having sided out Doj I have no real answers to this and am low on time so scoop to game 3

Game 3 I come out the gates with mystic into sword, - Jace, Gideon, Baneslayer Angel, Sun titan, he throws all the removal in the world at me but jace and Gideon stick around with the sword, I also have more Gideon and baneslayer in hand, Time on the round is called with me having a massive hand and a ton of threats, he has around about 2 cards in hand, unfortunately he has a Gideon for my Gideon and a doom blade for BSA, I play my 2nd of both but there is not enough time for me to do lethal. We end at a 1-1 draw and he complains about bad luck and how he would have beaten me if the game had continued… Needless to say, I didn’t see it happening.

            I was slightly annoyed that his slow play cost me a round 1 win, but a draw is better than a loss so trying not to let it affect me I go to round 2.

0-0-1

Round 2 Vs. Boros (Chris Vincent)

Game 1

            I sit down opposite Chris, who has been playing at our local monthly steel city tournament pretty much since its been going, I know he’s a good player who has beaten me many times over the years, on top of that I have zero idea what he’s playing. However I know he also drew round 1 so surely it cant be anything that fast….? Right?

            Wrong! Turns out he’s playing boros it’s a bit of a blur, but I remember  keeping what is a average hand, he gets some dudes down and I get mystic lifestaff, equip and block, I got some hawks in hand and feel pretty safe on my 16 life, I’m tapped out when he taps for 4 and with an exuberant cry of “Falco…Punch!” slams hero of oxid ridge down on the table and swings for 14. I fail to draw Doj and die next turn.

SB; out; some counters and a lot of random stuff, In: removal, offerings, BSA Etc. It’s important to note I leave 2 mana leaks in against boros, especially after having my face torn off and eaten by hero powered geopedes.

Game 2, this game was a bit weird, he gets stuck on only white mana for the first few turns with what I can only assume is a ton of red cards in hand. I get stuck on 3 land. But its not too problematic as I draw and play all 3 tumble magnets, I draw more land for my walkers before he hits red and he scoops soon after.

Game 3. We both have pretty good starts but not the best ever. He attacks strongly but I have oust for his hero of oxid ridge the first time and know when its coming back, thinking I have no counters left in he casts it into my open mana and is shocked to see it promptly hit the bin! “who leaves mana leak in against boros!?!?” “apparently I do.” (smirk :p) I also have divine offering for his bone hoarder which stalls long enough for me to draw baneslayer angel and give her a sword. I was on 7 life at this point but she does what she’s supposed to and steals games I simply have no right in winning.

1-0-1

Round 3 Vs. Naya (Andrew) sorry I cant remember your last name Andrew L but he’s another strong player (I think based in Leeds?) who I’ve played several times over the past year or two.

            as far as I can remember Andrew always brings sweet decks to events that are awesome but not always on radar, today was no different as he had an awesome Naya deck complete with every little combo pack in those colours. Mystic + swords + collar for his sparkmage, with faurner shaman to sue vengvines and get whatever bullets he needed.

Game 1. we both see a lot of action but I’m on the play which basically seems to decide the game, I’m always one step ahead and have T2 mystic into sword, followed my all the answers I need.

SB; from what I’ve seen of the way his deck works, he doesn’t have much space in it for removal as he uses collar sparkmage for that. Which means that I can mostly play my threats without fear.

Game 2 goes much better for him and I take a hammering from his ridiculous vengvine attrition, but manage to land a BSA which promptly stops his attacks. and then I gave it a sword… apparently this is good against aggro decks. Who knew.

2-0-1

Round 4 Vs. Elves (Kieran?)

I think this guy was called Kieran? But not 100% on that, but talking too him while were shuffling up I learn he’s 3-0 and all 3 games he’s won have been against Caw Go variants… I have a baaad feeling about this.

Game 1

            He has T1 llanowar elves into arch druid… guess now I know what he’s playing, despite landing tumble magnet and using jace to bounce his guys he is too fast and I die soon after to a combination of arch druid, Ezuri and vengvines.

SB; all those tasty anti aggro cards, I knew I put them there for a reason.

Game 2, this game goes back and forth, we both get good draws and play well. He’s using green sun’s zenith and has acidic slimes for my equipment, I draw like a god and over the course of the game play all 4 of my Doj’s to keep him in check, he draws more gas and rebuilds, but eventually I stick a baneslayer which he cant answer and dies soon after.

Game 3. I manage to slow him down with oust into lifestaff, mortor pod into Doj, he rebuilds and I’m in dire straights with a sun titan in hand but only 2 land on board, lucky lucky me I rip plains followed by island off the top to land my titan bringing back stone forge mystic, which chumps and I go to 2. he cant stop a sun titan carrying a sword which keeps bringing back the stone forge mystic, but I now have enough mana to equip lifestaff and motorpod, block and sack to kill a guy before damage, netting me life. We go to time, but he’s dead on the board and offers me the hand.

            Afterwards he shows me the 2 plummets he had in hand, sided in because his deck can’t deal with BSA any other way- but unfortunately they were useless against sun titan. 

3-0-1

Round 5 Vs. Caw Go (UWr) (Owen Debenham)

            This round made me a bit sad, Owen is one of my friends who I play against often, and tested with for this event. I know exactly what he’s running, and think he wins over 50% of the time in testing, however, this time he got pretty unlucky and things turned out different.

Game 1. I’m still not sure which deck has the edge in this matchup but he draws land while I draw allll the planes walkers and kill him pretty dead.

Game 2 he starts off strong with mystic into sword against my puny squadron hawks, but he doesn’t see a 4^th land all game (literally, at least 10 turns!) and I am able to stabilise then finish him.

Needless to say he’s less than impressed by this and I don’t blame him. Things could easily have turned out differently.

4-0-1

Round 6 Vs. Caw Go (UWr) (Lin?)

Another unknown player playing an unknown deck. He’s on 4-1 at this point so if he wins he can ID to qualify, whereas I need to win one of my next 2 games to get that 5-1-1 result I’m looking for.

Game 1 sees me play lifestaff, squadron hawks and slowly kill him with tiny guys, I have tumble magnet and more counters than him to keep him in check.

Game 2 was a little awkward for me. I have a hand with counters including spell pierce but only ETB tapped blue sources, I keep anyway and he punishes me with a T2 lumiarch ascension into my tapped land L I have no answer and scoop soon after it turns active.

Game 3 I’m on the play and want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen, I get a turn 2 mystic opting to get a motorpod over sword, thinking at least I can ping him to keep the counters off, he lands the T2 ascension but I draw another mystic to secure my sword, end up using the motorpod to get his hawks and am able to get in with my mystic to keep the counters off. eventually I play and equip swords and have tumble magnet and motorpod + hawks to keep his blockers low. He dies with zero counters on the ascension. And with that I breath a massive sigh of relief as I am now qualified for UK nationals 2011

Round 7 Vs. Boros  ID

            There’re only 3 of us on 5-0-1, as the two people on 5-0 ID’ed round 6 in the hopes that the people below them would also want to ID round 7 to get themselves into the top 8, and they would then be on 5-0-2 which would be above them. The other two people were my friend and co-tester John Roberts (boros):- who has a knack of casually crushing most events he plays in, and another strong local player:- Yin (you know. I don’t even know if that is right? But that’s what I’m going to call him anyway ^^) playing Valakut.

            I get paired against John, I could at this point play for the larger money as Yin is IDing, so if I win I would get first place. But we work out that if people below us also ID as predicted, we still get 1^st-3^rd between us anyway, this seems like a safer course of action and we agree to draw.

            The other players obediently ID, except one who is paired down so his opponent was forced to play. This is annoying as if he wins his record is 6-1 which puts him above us. We watch the game to see how it plays out but unfortunately for him, his tezzeret deck is no match for the UW caw go deck he’s facing and he gets dream crushed.

Final Record 5-0-2
Position: 3rd Place

            So, went the whole day undefeated in rounds. Me, John and Yin finished the day on 17 points and get our predicted places: 1^st John, 2^nd Yin 3^rd Me. this was due to the awful tiebreakers I received owing to my draw in round 1. But after a very adrenaline filled stress heavy day I can relax and am more than happy with the result.

            It’s nice to see the variation in the top three decks as it means multiple strategies are still viable in standard. My advice to anyone looking to qualify in the future NQ’s is to play whichever one of these three decks you feel most confidant playing, remember its not like a PTQ where you need to get 1^st  place. Hitting the Top 8 of most NQ’s will more than likely qualify you. For this reason you don’t need all the latest innovative tech in your deck to win, you just need a solid net deck that has a proven track record. Good Luck and I’ll see you all at nationals ^^