BlastodermMan's picture
By: BlastodermMan, Carl E Wilt
Jan 07 2016 1:00pm
5
Login to post comments
2920 views


I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, as my alarm starting singing the song of its people at 5:30 AM. I groggily rolled over, hit the snooze, and lay staring at the numbers on my clock as they ticked by. Seven minutes later, even before the snoozed alarm blared again, I swung out of bed, turned the alarm to the off position, and made my way to the shower. It was going to be a long day...and one I made longer by not actually going to bed until 1:30 AM. 

After getting ready, making a last check for both my stuff and Jeanie's stuff, it was time to hit the road. The wife and I pulled out of the driveway about 6:10, and after a quick stop to grab some all-important Red Bull, we were on our way to Cincinnati for the Open. Sadly, my results were much different than the results that Bill Belichick had last year when he famously stated at a press conference following a bad loss, "We're on to Cincinnati.

Sure, I want to simply blame my deck, always drawing the wrong half against my opponents. I never saw Blood Moon against the Scapeshift decks; I never saw Burning-Tree Shaman or Damping Matrix against my Twin opponents, and when I needed that Bonfire of the Damned to clear the board against Zoo, or the Banefire to burn out my Mono-Blue Aggro foe, neither came springing forth from my deck. But, at the end of the day, it was largely my own fault. I played badly. I made many poor mulligan choices. And, quite honestly, I was not fully on my game the entire day.

I was worn out. Apparently, my old body refuses to behave like it did back in my late 20's and early 30's, where three or four hours of sleep were more than sufficient prior to an event. I started to think about it more in detail in the days that followed my amazing 2-5 performance, and I realized something, For at least the last year, or year and a half even, every time I've driven greater than 2-hours to get to an event the morning of, I've done very poorly, and have not had a winning record in any of the events. On the flip side, at those events where I traveled at least the day prior to the event, if not more, and stayed the night in a hotel prior to playing, I've not had a losing record. Seems to make sense, especially for a fat guy in his mid-forties. I know I don't do myself any favors being a natural night owl and rarely getting to bed prior to midnight, regardless of the time I wake up in the morning. So, as such, I have made my own, belated, New Year's resolution to always leave, at a minimum, the night prior to any event that is at least 2 hours away, and stay the night locally to where I will be playing. Will it fix my play and help my results? Well, it can't hurt, and I'm willing to give it a shot this year and see what happens, what with having at least four upcoming tournaments that fall within these parameters that I would normally consider driving to the morning of. 

I was not the only one not doing well in Cincinnati. I built the wife a Troll deck, based around Sphinx's Tutelage and Painter's Servant. Before going any further, here is that list:

In theory, this looks like it should work. Or, at least, it should be capable of getting get a couple wins minimum. Honestly, though, since the first time my wife shuffled it up and played it was the start of round one, and being as she was not really involved in the theory behind the deck, I can't say I'm shocked at the end result. While things didn't go as well as planned for her, there were a couple things that came up during the course of play that were a lot of fun.

She played against a rather off-the-wall Eldrazi deck that seemed really different from pretty much all the stock lists floating around. Funny enough, she had a Painter's Servant out, naming red, as well as a handful of other creatures, and a Rest in Peace. Her opponent wanted to remove her colored permanents, so cast All is Dust. Board wipe level = ABSOLUTE! It was the reset of all resets. Unfortunately, he rebuilt quicker than she did, and his Oblivion Sower grabbed all of her lands that were exiled. It should also be noted that Painter's Servant does stop Eldrazi Temple from tapping for 2 to cast Eldrazi, being as they all suddenly have a color, and stops Ancient Stirrings from being able to actually get any cards. With the Servant out, Jeanie was also able to draw up past seven cards when she resolved her Baleful Stare, which was a fine return for her three mana.

In the end, Jeanie said she had fun (possibly only to not completely destroy my ego), but she wants changes made, which is probably appropriate. I have a feeling this may push towards a Mono-Blue build, with cards like Pili-Pala, Grand Architect, and Blue Sun's Zenith.

I'm also looking to make a few changes. Not to my important tournament deck, but at least for FNM. As a sanity break, I thought it would be fun to play something off the beaten path for a few weeks. Sure, I played the Gold Guys deck over the summer, and I could just go back to that. But, I wanted to try something different. Obviously, looking through random old Modern decks on MTGO was going to have to be a path I pursued. Here are some of the winners so far:

My friend, Eric Crump, sent me this deck when it did well in a daily several months ago. While I am normally not one to sully my decks with Blue, I have to admit, it's hard not to play a Worship deck that includes Geist of Saint Traft. The added evasive, hexproof Ascended Lawmage, plus the ability to make the Geist unblockable with Steel of the Godhead are both additional reasons to make an exception for blue cards. 

This deck is weak to Infect, and I have to admit that I've never beaten that deck in the TPR. The store I play at, though, has very little in the way of Infect players, so this may be a more than reasonable option. I also like the inclusion of Suppression Field, a card I built a deck around back in September and played at another SCG Cincinnati event. While the idea of playing a Worship deck has appeal, it's possible that the fun level goes way up with something like this: 

Not sure how many of you follow or watch MJ when he streams, but a while ago, he was playing a Mono-Green Devotion deck in Modern that he adamantly believed was terrible, but also could never seem to lose with. I built a copy of it and played around some with it, but got bored. So, I decided to add a little of that special "Carl Spice" to the shell of the deck, and went with the Doubling Season plus planeswalkers gambit. It was really fun.

No, seriously. It really was a blast to play...and completely fair in every way.

It's pretty straight forward. With Doubling Season in play, your planeswalkers enter the battlefield with double loyalty. In most cases, this will allow you to use their ultimate ability right away, and do some pretty unfair things. Like in that first picture above. I had a Sarkhan Vol in play from pre-Doubling Season, played the Doubling Season, and then followed up with Garruk, Primal Hunter, who was able to ultimate to give me a 6/6 Wurm token for each land, which Doubling Season was kind enough to double, and Sarkhan was kind enough to give them all +1/+1 and haste.

That was a completely fair and interactive turn.

For fun factor alone, this may be the best deck for me to roll with the next several Modern FNM's. There is no way this does well at a "real" event, but when playing for giggles on a Friday night, there's no reason not to simply roll with something like this. It should be noted that I am willing to go GW with this list, as there are some pretty decent white planeswalkers, like almost every version of Elspeth plus the multiple Ajanis. This would also give me better sideboard options, like Stony Silence, Leyline of Sanctity, Rest in Peace, and Kor Firewalker, among others. 

Of course, since we are writing about decks for a web site, we need to take into consideration that if there is one thing the internet is all about, it's kitties: 

This deck is at least two years old, and is a modification of a list I ran across on the Dailies lists. This Nay Cat list plays very much like every Zoo list, with a low curve and efficient creatures coupled with the best and cheapest removal and direct damage spells. It's quite tempting to want to shove Collected Company in here somewhere, but I fear doing so would come at the expense of Ajani Vengeant, which is a card that I feel is tragically underplayed in Modern. I do think that once Oath of the Gatewatch is released,  I would want to replace Pyroclasm with Kozilek's Return, since the Instant speed plus the Devoid ability adds value and flexibility, albeit at the cost of an extra mana.

I do worry that this deck is too close to the typical Zoo lists, and thus would be really more competitive than fun. Not that you can't have fun with competitive, Tier 1 decks, but I'm looking for an almost "Kitchen Table" feel for the upcoming FNMs. I just have the hunch that this particular deck would not provide that. 

I have a full year of Magic ahead of me, and I'm looking forward to this being a great year. Regardless of how it goes, at the end of the day, as long as I have some fun, and get some more sleep, it'll all be worth it. 

Peace, 
Carl Wilt