Tournament Report: SCG 5k Premier IQ, Providence

I registered this 75:

4C Loam

Lands (26)
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
3x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Taiga
1x Savannah
1x Forest
4x Wasteland
1x Karakas
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Treetop Village
2x Barren Moor
2x Tranquil Thicket

Noncreature Spells (23)

4x Mox Diamond

4x Chalice of the Void

2x Green Sun's Zenith

3x Life from the Loam

1x Sylvan Library

3x Abrupt Decay

3x Punishing Fire

3x Liliana of the Veil

Creature Spells (11)
4x Dark Confidant
1x Tarmogoyf
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Knight of the Reliquary

Sideboard (15)
SB 4x Leyline of the Void
SB 3x Ethersworn Canonist
SB 1x Gaddock Teeg
SB 1x Relclamation Sage
SB 1x Phyrexian Revoker
SB 1x Thrun, the Last Troll
SB 1x Krosan Grip
SB 2x Golgari Charm
SB 1x Toxic Deluge

To my surprise, there were almost 200 people so it was an eight round tournament. I was only expecting there to be six based on the usual turn out for these types of events.

Round 1: Elves (0-2)
Kept a reasonable looking hand game 1. He played his whole hand on his second turn and I conceded shortly thereafter to conceal information.

-3 Loam, -1 Treetop, -1 Ooze, -2 ?
+3 Canonist, +1 G. Teeg, +2 G-Charm, +1 Deluge

Game 2 I had a 7 with turn 2 Chalice and Canonist. He got out a Nettle Sentinel before I could Chalice him, and next turn I played Canonist. He played Visionary his next turn. I was sandbagging a Liliana and decided to deploy a Knight first to have a blocker for his Sentinel since I thought the game would go long and Liliana would be better sticking around. Unfortunately, next turn he simply cast NO sacrificing a Dryad Arbor, and his Sentinel, Visionary, and Hoof actually presented lethal damage unless I chump-blocked with a Knight (I attacked with Canonist the previous turn) and went to 2. At this point I had Decay and Liliana in hand so I could survive another turn by killing a creature and chumping the Hoof with Canonist. I stupidly played Liliana and edicted the Visionary instead of Decaying the Sentinel, leaving me exactly dead. I'm not sure what my outs were there, but I definitely squandered another draw step. In hindsight, it looks like I handled this game very poorly overall. I should have prioritized simply trading cards after I stuck Chalice instead of playing creatures, which would have delayed the NO aspect of his deck rather than having Gimpse handled redundantly by both Chalice and Canonist.

Round 2: Storm (0-2)
Kept turn 1 Bob turn 2 Liliana. Unfortunately I was dead on his second turn. He flipped his deck with Ad Nauseam so at least I got to see he was on A.N.T..

-3 Loam, -3 P-Fire, -3 Decay,
+4 Leyline, +3 Canonist, +1 G. Teeg, +2 G-Charm

I kept a 6 with just Leyline game 2 and didn't get there. He had a pretty quick kill once again. I can't lie, seeing a beautiful foiled/signed/foreign Storm deck flipped off AdNaus is beautiful.

Round 3: Omni-Tell (0-2)
I had turn 1 Chalice on 1 on the play, which he Forced pitching Intuition. I put him on some kind of Show and Tell deck. On his 2nd turn he cast Show and Tell, put Omniscience into play, cast Dig Through Time, cast Cunning Wish-->Eladamri's Call, and cast Emrakul.

-3 Loam, -3 P-Fire, -1 Ooze
+3 Canonist, +1 G.Teeg, +1 Rec. Sage, +1 K-Grip, +1 Revoker

I didn't know if Revoker did anything but I brought it in anyway. Ooze might have been better because of Dig, but I figured he was generally casting it without paying its mana cost. I decided to take drastic action and mulligan aggressively to either Canonist or Rec. Sage. I ended up with a 4 of Chalice, Bob, and 2 lands. I managed to resolve Chalice, but was dead to similar shenanigans a turn later. After getting Annihilated I took another draw step and then conceded, joking that it wasn't Karakas, but then realized Karakas does nothing against Omniscience except give him infinite turns. This deck is super gross.

At this point I had played around 30 minutes of Magic total and lost every single game. I couldn't even be salty or tilted, just amused at the absurdity of Legacy. I had ample time to go and convert a pile of junk cards into a Containment Priest, eat, use the bathroom, and scout around. The meta was far less fair than the last big local Legacy tournament I went to in Worcester shortly after Bob Huang's win with UR Delver. There were many Lands, Post/MUD, Sneak/Omni, and Miracles decks in the room, with Delver and Blade looking less represented than usual. Of course, being a Legacy torunament in New England, almost everything was in the room including Moggcatcher Stompy and Zombardment. To my extreme surprise, I even saw someone else playing 4C Loam! turns out he is an active poster I have chatted with on The Source who plays a lot of the same decks as me. Its a small world sometimes, particularly in the Legacy community.

Round 4: Reanimator (2-0)
I had turn 1 Chalice in my opener which I hoped was good against whatever he was playing. Turned out to be pretty good-he discarded a Tidespout Tyrant to hand size. I was able to resolve two Knights but he found an Exhume for his Tyrant. However, he conceded, probably being unable to cast spells to bounce my Knights with one unblocked being lethal.

-3 Loam, -3 P-Fire, -1 G. Teeg
+4 Leyline, +2 Canonist, +1 Toxic Deluge

Game 2 I mulliganed to Leyline. I kind of drew dead from there but managed to land a Chalice on 1 and cobble together a clock of Arbor + Treetop to finish the job.

Round 5: Burn (1-2)
My car buddy! We had been joking around about getting paired since we were both doing poorly. This is a very poor matchup for me but I managed to snag game 1 by aggressively mulliganing to Chalice. We were kind of messing around and playing loose, I forgot a Chalice trigger on a Lavamancer and he forgot an Eidolon trigger.

-3 Loam
+3 Canonist

Games 2 and 3 I got wrecked.

Round 6: Shardless (0-2)
I have seen this player before on Shardless and kept a hand appropriate for the matchup. Surely enough he started with a suspended Ancestral Vision. He Thoughtseized my Knight and Decayed my Library and Chalice on 0 to snag his Vision. I drew a Liliana but had only one Black source.

-1 G. Teeg, -1 Chalice
+1 Thrun, +1 Deluge

I kept a hand with no removal but pressure in the form of two Knights which I could start deploying on my 2nd turn. I got totally blown out by Maelstrom Pulse and he Thoughtseized my Thrun. I proceeded to draw multiple Lilianas but had only a single Black source.

Round 7: Bye

Round 8: Team America
I saw this player earlier and knew he what he was on. As we shuffled and presented out decks to be cut we got distracted by something and then realized we didn't know which deck was which since we had the same sleeves. We called a judge who decided to resolve this odd issue by taking us each aside and asking for a description of our deck and then examining each deck. Anyway, Game 1 he flipped two Delvers I couldn't answer.

-1 G. Teeg, -1 Chalice
+1 Thrun, +1 Deluge

Games 2 and 3 he was a bit slow out of the gates and I was able to answer his board and then Loam lock him. This is a very poor matchup for me in my experience thus far so I was pleasantly surprised, and able to end the tournament on a semi-high note at least.

Final Record: 3-5

So, the tournament ended in tears for my LGS's contingent. One guy had started 4-0, with Goblins no less, but ended 4-3-1. Another guy on Miracles had 3 no shows throughout the day and was able to end 5-3. We joked that he might make Top32 and cash, but he ended up in the 40's. My buddy playing Burn was 3-5 as well I believe, though he might have had a bye too. We went out for some drinks in downtown Providence after, lamented our bad beats and the even worse service at the joint, and then headed back to Boston. All and all, we still managed to have a good time. At the end of the day, having fun is important than anything else in Magic.

"Teaching" Decks

A friend in one of my classes expressed some interest in learning to play Magic, so as an exercise I decided to make three 40-card "teaching decks" out of cards in my bulk box. I ended up with a Mono-Red Aggro Deck, a GW Midrange deck, and a UB Control deck. I was restricted to what cards I had available, so none of the decks are quite basic enough for teaching a new player. However, I hope they could be somewhat effective at exhibiting different strategies and mechanics.

Me and my roommate played a few games with the decks and made some tweaks to them, but again the card pool is quite restrictive as I only have a single fat pack full of cards not in/for decks that is more biased towards some strategies than others. I think they might be horribly unbalanced but oh well.

Mono-Red Aggro:
2x Monastery Swiftspear
1x Rakdos Cackler
3x Valley Dasher
3x Goblin Shortcutter
1x Dragon Hatchling
1x War-Name Aspirant
1x Keldon Marauders
3x Bloodfire Expert

2x Shock
1x Burst Lightning
1x Lightning Strike
2x Madcap Skills
1x Act of Treason
2x Hordeling Outburst

16x Mountain

GW Midrange:

4x Elvish Mystic
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Centaur Healer
2x Wayfaring Temple
1x Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
1x Soul of the Harvest
1x Mikaeus the Lunarch

4x Call of the Conclave
2x Farseek
2x Selesnya Charm
1x Unflinching Courage

2x Selesnya Guildgate
7x Plains
8x Forest

UB Control:
3x Augur of Bolas
1x Archaeomancer
1x Talrand, Sky Summoner
1x Sphinx of Uthunn

2x Ponder
3x Terror
2x Essence Scatter
2x Agony Warp
1x Ultimate Price
1x Disperse
1x Distress
2x Consult the Necrosages
2x Dissolve
1x Domestication

1x Dimir Guildgate
1x Evolving Wilds
6x Swamp
9x Island

Local Legacy: 4/6

Only 2 weeks left until the IQ. At this point in my playing the only big matchups that feel extremely unfavorable are Team America and Elves. Today I played the same list as last week. We had 12 people show up tonight so it was 4 rounds again!

The Meta was:
2x Miracles
1x 4C Loam
1x Junkblade
1x Death & Taxes
1x Goblins
1x Merfolk
1x Burn
1x Team America
1x RUG Delver
1x Reanimator
1x MUD

Round 1: Reanimator (2-1)
I know this player is usually on Reanimator. I made a kinda sketchy keep Game 1 of T1 Zenith->Arbor T2 Knight in a hope to get there with Karakas somehow, but I knew my chances of winning weren't great anyway. Didn't get there.

-1 G. Teeg, -2 Loam, -3 Punishing Fire
+4 Leyline, +2 Canonist, +1 Revoker

Games 2 and 3 I mulled to Leyline which got there. This player doesn't play Show & Tell and leans on Decay for permanent hate so Leyline is pretty good against him.

Round 2; Team America (1-2)
Don't really remember game 1 but I clearly was short on answers since he had 3 Tarmogoyfs when I died.

-1 Chalice, -1 G. Teeg
+1 Deluge, +1 Thrun

Game 2 I managed to trade 1-for-1 then landed a Deluge to wipe his board. We both went into topdeck mode and I drew out of it first with a Tarmogoyf he couldn't answer. Game 3 I kept a sketchy 6 with Chalice and Liliana. Didn't draw into enough removal to answer his stuff. Overall this is a pretty worrisome matchup from my side and one that is hard to fix. I asked one of the players there who is familiar with both decks about it, and the only additional suggestion he could make was maybe bring in some G-Charm. That seems ok against builds with Bob and I'll try it in future.

Round 3: Burn (1-2)
Ahh, the Nightmare Matchup. Every Legacy deck has it. For Miracles its 12-Post, for D&T its Elves. For 4C Loam it might be Burn. Its a similar matchup to Elves in that you need to cobble some kind of lock together while keeping their board clear/irrelevant, but is even harder to interact with. Chalice on 1 seems amazing against Burn until you realize they still have Rift Bolt, Price, Eidolon, Fireblast, and Vortex. You're kind of hedged against Price with Moxes, but on the other hand they are awful against Eidolon. Game 1 was over quick.

-3 Loam
+3 Canonist

You can't actually afford to take out Bob in this matchup since you need to draw a bunch of specific cards. Game 2 we were both on 5 cards. I lived the dream of answering his board then sticking Chalice on 1 and Teeg. That basically put him on Price, which I was insulated from, and Vortex. He got Vortex but I was able to kill him first. First game I've won against Burn with a Loam deck! Got wrecked again game 3 though. Its kind of sobering to have your $3,000 deck get trounced by a Burn deck. To add insult to injury, he was an inexperienced player on a WIP build with no fetches, no Blazes, and only 2 Goblin Guides. Every deck I play in Legacy loses to Burn, so I'm pretty used to this by now and was a good sport since he was a cool guy. I know this kind of thing drives some Legacy players up the wall but its just part of the format, and maybe one that contributes to its greatness.

Round 4: RUG Delver (2-1)
I saw this player was on RUG earlier and drew a God hand on the play with Chalice and removal.

-1 G. Teeg, -1 Loam, -1 Treetop Village
+1 Deluge, +1 Thrun, +1 G-Charm

Game 2 I kept a hand of P-Fire, Deluge, and lands. I decided to go for P-Fire on my second turn for his Delver but it got Dazed. I had to use the Deluge to kill his flipped Delver after he Forced my Library. He drew another Delver but I had Decay into Ooze. Ooze is a house in this match-up and I felt favored at a healthy 8 life and both of us low on cards. I knew he had a Bolt from his Delver flip so I planned on leaving up GG for the rest of the game to eat his 2 Delvers and basically kill him with a 2/2. He somewhat surprisingly went for Bolt on the Ooze. I figured he had Stifle or something but I went to eat a Delver anyway. In response, he cast Surgical targeting his Delver...welp, he got me. We both went into topdeck mode. I found a Bob which unfortunately took me to 2 hitting a Knight. He drew a Bolt to kill me! Game 3 I had a God hand again with Thrun action to back up my Chalice. Thrun is a good man.

Final Record: 2-2

I already had 2 losses but he was live for prizes still so I conceded at the conclusion of the last match. Good night and good games overall even if I didn't perform the best.

Local Legacy: 3/30

Unfortunately there was no Legacy last Monday due to the store being wiped out from Prerelease weekend (curse you, Standard players!). I was able to get some games of Legacy in during the week with friends but was definitely craving more when I showed up tonight. I played the same 4C Loam list from when I last played with the minor change of -1 Stirring Wildwood +1 Treetop Village. I've felt for a while now that the marginal benefits of White mana production and the extra point of toughness don't justify the Wildwood in Legacy (being out of Bolt range is fantastic in Modern though). Part of the reason I clung to it so long is that I have a $wag artist-signed Japanese copy, but I think my ego will survive it. I also changed the basic Forest in the deck from this impossible to fetch Masques foil to a more ergonomic white-bordered one.

Turnout was more than usual with a whopping 10 players, so we had 4 rounds. The meta was:
1x Casual Mono-Red: a kid showed up with this deck, happens from time to time.
1x 4C Loam
1x Miracles
1x Punishing Jund
1x BUG Delver
1x T.E.S.
1x Goblins
1x Sneak & Show
1x Reanimator
1x MUD

Round 1: T.E.S (0-2)
Didn't know this player so kept a "lands and spells" type hand in the dark. By his second turn he was clearly on Storm. I happened to have G. Teeg in my opener but he had double Therapy to bin it. He made a bunch of Goblins shortly thereafter and I was ded.

At this point, alarms should have been going off in my head at maindeck Empty and to a lesser degree fetching nonbasics in the face of Wastelands he knew about, but seeing Bayou made me decide he was on A.N.T. for some reason.
-3 P-Fire, -3 Decay, -3 Loam, +4 Leyline, +3 Canonist, +2 G-Charm, +1 G. Teeg

Game 2 I decided to keep a hand with Leyline, Wasteland, and Liliana, still laboring under the delusion that he was on A.N.T.. He Duressed my Liliana and quickly Emptied out some Goblins again. I had a few turns to draw G-Charm, but didn't. Lesson learned.

Round 2: MUD (1-2)
Game 1 on the play I had Wasteland, removal for Metalworker, and dudes.

-4 Chalice, +1 Revoker, +1 K-Grip, +1 Rec. Sage, +1 Deluge

Game 2 I kept 7 with good spells but only 1 land and 1 Mox. He played a Lightning Greaves which I elected to ignore, and on his second turn played Lodestone Golem and started beating me. I didn't draw much mana and Lodestone managed to lock me out of casting relevant spells and killed me.
Game 3 I seemed favored but let him untap with Metalworker while sandbagging a Revoker for his Ratchet Bomb instead. My reasoning was that I had a Library in play and the Bomb would have killed the Revoker on Metalworker when popped on 2, and he had only 1 or 2 cards in hand. At any rate, he untapped and slammed Platinum Emperion. I happened to draw Deluge and cast it but had no answer to his Forgemaster the next turn. He was able to untap with Forgemaster and activate it to get a Wurmcoil. That card is the scariest card in his deck for me. I had Bob and Library so I had sweet card selection and started cobbling together a plan playing big Knights to trade, but he drew a second Wurmcoil. At that point I was just trying to force a draw by chump blocking his army in turns, but he drew a Lodestone Golem which threw a wrench in my now Bob, Library, and Loam shenanigans. I forgot about the tax on turn 4 and did something wrong that couldn't make enough chump blockers to live.

Round 3: Bye
Booooo!

Round 4: Miracles (1-1)
I had a fine hand but never hit BB for Liliana and he removed my other threats with Plow/Terminus. A fast Entreat closed things for him.

-1 P-Fire, -1 Decay, -1 Ooze, -1 Mox, -2 Loam
+1 K-Grip, +1 Rec. Sage, +1 Thrun, +1 Canonist, +1 Revoker, +1 G. Teeg

Game 2 I had the unique turn 1 Liliana off 2 Moxes. That put a lot of pressure on him and I drew further gas. We were the last people there and were tired, so we decided to call it quits for the night after.

Final Record: 1-2-1 I guess. A bit of a disappointing night overall, but had some good games. With the SCG 5K IQ less than 3 weeks out, I just want to get in as many games with the deck as possible.

Local Legacy: 3/16

Unfortunately I was unable to attend my local Legacy last week. I have decided to lock in 4C Loam for an SCG 5K IQ that is now just over a month away. With that in mind, I decided to play something different this week for the last time before the IQ: Jund.

Here is my "I Can't Believe Its Not Jund" Jund special:

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Scavenging Ooze
3x Bloodbraid Elf

4x Thoughtseize
2x Lightning Bolt
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Punishing Fire
3x Hymn to Tourach
1x Sylvan Library
4x Liliana of the Veil

4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marsh Flats
1x Wooded Foothills
3x Badlands
2x Bayou
1x Swamp
1x Forest
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
3x Wasteland

SB 1x Scrubland
SB 2x Ethersworn Canonist
SB 2x Gaddock Teeg
SB 4x Leyline of the Void
SB 2x Red Elemental Blast
SB 1x Krosan Grip
SB 1x Duress
SB 1x Golgari Charm
SB 1x Toxic Deluge

Yes, I have a bit of a problem. Getting away from White all together is nearly impossible for me. While I love Punishing Jund, I'm discouraged from playing it much because, well, the sideboard cards aren't great. Perhaps I should to make a greater effort to get away from my Gaddock Teegs, but it wasn't to be tonight. White cards or not, I gravitate towards playing a bunch of relatively narrow but high impact anti-combo cards in the board for Jund. Jund's fair matchups are good enough that there's no point trying to improve them much.

There were 8 of us so it was a 3-rounder:

Round 1: Goblins (0-2)
Game 1 I was surprised to find myself staring down a T1 Gobin Lackey on the draw. I fortunately had a Deathrite for blocksies, but he removed it and chained Matron into Ringleader into a swarm of little green men.

-1 Liliana, -1 Hymn, +1 Golgari Charm, +1 Toxic Deluge

I punted Game 2. I had a good mix of spells but a combination of weird attacks with Deathrites instead of activating them and jamming a Liliana and going up while I had removal in hand put me in an awkward place. I was a bit light on lands and he cast Goblin Settler targeting one of my Black sources. I used the floating mana to activate Deathrite Shaman instead of cashing in an Abrupt Decay on one of his men. I couldn't cast it for the rest of the game and lost with him at 2 and no spells in either graveyard.

Round 2: MUD (2-0)
Game 1 I had double Thoughtseize for his stuff and men + Liliana cleaned up the leftovers.

+1 Krosan Grip, +1 Toxic Deluge

Game 2 he was on a double mulligan of double Metalworker, Ensnaring Bridge, and lands. I had double Thoughtseize again and elected to take both Metalworkers even though I had a Liliana to answer one of them. He stuck Bridge and I began to amass a small army while having no way to remove it. I was able to keep him from doing stuff (timely Bloodbraid cascading into Hymn) until Liliana went ultimate, but I made bad piles and allowed him to keep Bridge and 2 Ancient Tombs when I could have put Bridge in a pile alone and forced him to take it since he was facing lethal from my 7/8 Tarmgoyfs. I managed to draw a Deathrite Shaman and kill him that way over a few turns instead.

Round 3: Miracles (2-0)
Game 1 he had Countertop but I had a Bob and Ooze in under it. I went for Bloodbraid and he countered both spells, which put creatures in my yard to give me a reasonable clock. Between not drawing many lands and fetching a basic Island to play around Wasteland he was off White mana while I beat him down. He found White and Terminus at 2 life. I had a leftover Liliana which managed to sneak past Countertop and got to ultimate. I went with the old "Lands VS Stuff" piles. He kept lands and I ended him with the Punishing Fire I drew that turn.

-1 Grove, -2 Bolt, -1 Decay, -1 P-Fire, -1 Ooze, -1 Hymn
+1 Scrubland, +2 G. Teeg, +2 REB, +1 Krosan Grip, +1 Duress

Game 2 he had his Top and I saw Clique, Brainstorm, double Terminus, and lands with my T1 Thoughtseize. I took Brainstorm and followed up with another Thoughtseize for one Terminus. I drew Duress next turn and cast it. He cast Brainstorm but I REB'd it, and my Duress snagged his last Terminus. Clique gave me some trouble but I was amassing a board unopposed. He found RIP which shut off my Tarmogoyf and reduced my Shamans to Squires with Pithing Needle to add insult to injury. I had two Deathrites and two Bobs clocking him while he blocked and bounced Clique repeatedly looking for an out. He found Explosives and decided to blow it on 2 to kill my Bobs and Goyf but unlocked my Shamans from RIP, which coupled with a timely Decay on Pithing Needle got there.

Final Record: 2-1. I made some sloppy plays due to my inexperience with the deck but all in all had a good time. I'll find time to play Jund more in the future after the IQ.

Standard Musings

I have a love/hate relationship with Standard.

Despite having not played at all this season and being unfamiliar with the format, I decided to tune in to some GP Miami coverage over the weekend. I told myself I would just leave it open in a tab and listen to Patrick Sullivan and Cedric Philips banter, but I got sucked in-truly the term "Cardboard Crack" is best applied to Standard. Despite, or perhaps because of, the limited design space, Standard is a constantly evolving and exciting format to play and follow. There are always a variety of playable decks, lots of tournaments to go to, and room for relative "innovation" and metagaming, all aided by the proliferation of tournament coverage and netdecking. The cards are easily accessible and appear relatively cheap up front.

I have heard claims both from people in real life and on the internet that the current Standard is awesome and much better than last Standard. I think these claims are greatly exaggerated. I believe that in a healthy Standard format, Aggro, Midrange, and Control should all be well represented and viable decks. Unfortunately, while this format appears diverse at first blush due to all the different deck names and colors, there is very little strategic variation between them, with an overwhelming presence of 3-color goodstuff midrange decks. True fast aggro has a hard time coping with all the Caryatid/Courser and Lifelink in the format, and while control decks have appeared to fight the Green midrange decks, they are appallingly bad against everything else. This was somewhat inevitable with the quality of mana fixing available alongside powerful wedge colored cards.

Overall, I do like that Standard has been decreasing in power level over the last few seasons, because it provides a home for lots of awesome cards that won't see play in other 60-card formats like Trostani, Selesnya's Voice. When cards like Snapcaster Mage, Primeval Titan, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor are being played in Standard, there isn't much room for worse cards to compete. However, I know people who hate playing with "bad" cards, and lament that Standard is an "easy" format for inferior players. While I prefer playing Eternal formats, this attitude is conceited and ignorant. Standard is certainly accessible and has a low floor for skills required, but a very high ceiling. Things as basic as attacking and blocking, more prevalent in Standard than Modern or Legacy, are very skill intensive and separate the good players from the average players.

Unfortunately, the characteristics that make Standard great are also those that make it one of the most expensive formats. Last Standard season alone I played 5 different archetypes and spent about $500 on cards that are nearly worthless outside of Standard. Does the fun of playing Standard justify its costs? I answered "no" to that question, sold all my Theros cards, and decided to sit this Standard out for the sake of my wallet. But I can't deny that watching GP Miami gave me the itch again. 

Vintage! (Sort of)

Last night I decided to try my hand at Vintage for the first time ever.

Pandemonium Books & Games in Cambridge has an unsanctioned Vintage event every Tuesday with a devoted following. Proxies are allowed but many of the players there have real Power. I have a vague idea of what a few popular Vintage decks are like but have never watched a full match of Vintage or played a single game of Vintage.

By the time I decided to go I didn't have time to proxy a deck so I just threw together this pile of Legacy cards (with the help of a friend slightly more familiar with the format than I):

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Spirit of the Labyrinth
2x Stoneforge Mystic

4x Mox Diamond
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Thoughtseize
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull

4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marsh Flats
1x Windswept Heath
3x Scrubland
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
1x Plains
4x Wasteland
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SB 4x Leyline of the Void
SB 3x Ethersworn Canonist
SB 2x Gaddock Teeg
SB 1x Krosan Grip
SB 1x Reclamation Sage
SB 1x Duress
SB 1x Pithing Needle
SB 1x Phyrexian Revoker
SB 1x Stony Silence

I showed up prepared to get my face smashed in hilarious ways.

Underwhelmingly, I ended up losing only 1 game without having taken a game action.

In fact, 3 of the 4 decks I played against were "fair" decks by Vintage standards and the games were long and interactive. The matchups were Mono Blue Belcher (1-2), Bant Humans (2-0), UW Mentor (0-2), and UR Delver (1-2). The Bant Humans deck was sweet and it warmed my heart to see Knight of the Reliquary and Noble Hierarch, my two favorite Magic cards, being played even in Vintage.

Despite being un-Powered, my deck wasn't terrible, and I believe I can improve it a lot without using a single proxy. The land count was too high, and the Stoneforge package can go due to all the artifact hate out there (I got blown out by Hurkyl's and Dack Fayden). Of course, now I have to add Knight of the Reliquary, which conveniently utilizes the downside of my "Moxes".

All in all it was a positive experience and I will definitely try it again!