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By: Basic Land, Andrew Westin
May 27 2009 1:44pm
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Another Friday Daily Event
I'm still in the hunt with 4 of the requesite 15 QP as of my first Swiss Draft. This will be another make or break weekend.
If I don't have any more points by Monday, I should save my resources for season 3. I again had time on Friday for another Daily Event. With my 3 10th ed packs left over from the swiss, I jumped into the 10th sealed event. I picked up another three packs (for 12 tix). Combine this with the two tix entry fee for a total investment of around 70 tix this season. 

Here's my pool. Hopefully in a better format (thanks for the comment ElwoodPDowd), broken up by color.

White
1 Heart of Light
1 Holy Strength
1 Serra Angel
1 Skyhunter Patrol
1 Skyhunter Prowler
1 Steadfast Guard
1 Suntail Hawk
1 Tundra Wolves
1 Venerable Monk
2 Wild Griffin

Green
1 Canopy Spider
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Elvish Berserker
1 Enormous Baloth
1 Giant Spider
1 Llanowar Sentinel
2 Pincher Beetles
1 Rootwalla
1 Rushwood Dryad
1 Scion of the Wild
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Stalking Tiger
1 Viridian Shaman

1 Aggressive Urge
1 Rampant Growth
1 Sylvan Scrying

Red
2 Anaba Bodyguard
1 Arcane Teachings
2 Goblin Piker
1 Goblin Sky Raider
1 Lightning Elemental
1 Uncontrollable Anger
1 Viashino Runner

1 Fists of the Anvil
1 Goblin Lore
2 Guerrilla Tactics
1 Lava Axe
1 Shock
1 Spitting Earth

Blue
1 Aven Fisher
1 Cloud Sprite
1 Dehydration
1 Dreamborn Muse
1 Fugitive Wizard
1 Lumengrid Warden
2 Merfolk Looter
1 Shimmering Wings
1 Sky Weaver
1 Spiketail Hatchling

1 Aura Graft
1 Counsel of the Soratami
1 Remove Soul
1 Sift
1 Time Stretch

Black
1 Bog Wraith
1 Contaminated Bond
1 Dross Crocodile
1 Gravedigger
1 Hate Weaver
2 Highway Robber
2 Looming Shade
1 Phyrexian Rager
2 Plague Beetle
1 Vampire Bats

1 Assassinate
1 Essence Drain

Artifacts and Land
1 Platinum Angel

1 Demon's Horn
1 Leonin Scimitar
1 Spellbook

1 Forbidding Watchtower
1 Ghitu Encampment
1 Quicksand

2 Terramorphic Expanse

Color Breakdown

White: Serra Angel is a clear bomb. Heart of Light is a rare piece of removal that can also be used on the Platinum Angel. There's a great flier in Skyhunter Prowler and some mediocre fliers in Skyhunter Patrol and Wild Griffin.

Green: Civic Wayfinder, Giant Spider, Rootwalla, Stalking Tiger are all solid. Enormous Baloth is enormous. Scion of the Wild and Seedborn are good in the right decks. Viridian Shaman and Rushwood Dryad are great sideboard cards. Agressive Urge and Rampant Growth are solid green spells. Sylvan Scrying acts as a decent filler. 

Red: Anaba Bodyguard and Arcane Teachings are OK. Lightning Elemental and Viashino Runner are great in an aggro/burn deck. There's some solid removal with 2 Guerrilla Tactics, Shock and Spitting Earth. Not much else here.

Black: Bog Wraith can be crucial. Dross Crocodile usually trades one for one, unless hit by a cantrip (Afflict) or a repeatable effect (Prodigal Pyromancer).  Gravedigger, Highway Robber, Looming Shade, and Phyrexian Rager are all solid. Assssinate and Essence Drain are great removal.

Blue: Aven Fisher is nice. Dehydration is OK. Dreamborn Muse is great in the right deck. Merfolk Looter, Counsel of the Soratami,  and Sift are all solid cards. Remove Soul is OK.

Artifacts and Land: Platinum Angel is a true bomb. Leonin Scimitar is OK. Demon's Horn and Spellbook are useless cards in limited, I think. All of the lands are playable.  

I decided to pull on the fliers from White, ground creatures of Green and draw from Blue. Here's my decklist. How would you have built the above pool?


Recap
I started the event with a limited rating of 1655 and 4 QP. Here are how the matches played out.

First Round: asthma attack
Game One: I start with Scion of the Wild, Heart of Light, Sift, Forest, Forbidding Watchtower, Skyhunter Patrol, and Serra Angel on the draw. My first couple of draws are a second Skyhunter Patrol and Wild Griffin. Meanwhile, he lays down a Bloodrock Cyclops which meets Heart of Light, and a Stalking Tiger. I draw Quicksand and play Wild Griffin which gets shocked. He puts Blanchwood Armor on his Tiger. I draw an Agressive Urge, and play a Patrol. He stuns it and brings me to 10. I draw a rampant growth and pass. I Urge my Patrol and sack the Quicksand to kill his tiger. He drops a Prodigal Pyromancer and while I somewhat stabalize the board with a Serra Angel and Civic Wayfinder. Then he drops a Shivan Hellkite. Insert :( I look through my decklist and realize that nothing can kill his Hellkite.

Game Two: I side out the blue package for a faster deck. I start with Skyhunter Prowler, Leonin Scimitar, Seedborn Muse, Scion of the Wild, Forbidding Watchtower, 2x Forest. Using the equipment I was able to favorably trade for his Hill Giant and 2x Bloodrock Cyclops by activating Watchtower on both offense and defense with Seedborn Muse. Scion of the Wild goes the distance.

Game Three: I didn't feel too good going into this game as I had no way to deal with a Shivan Hellkite. I start with Platty, Forest, Plains, Quicksand, Pincher Beetles, Enormous Baloth, and Wild Griffin. He lays down a Rushwood Dryad, I get Serra Angel and Skyhunter Patrol off of successive draws. He gives me Agonizing Memories setting me back two turns without lands. Then he Cruel Edicts my Wild Griffin and proceeds to drop a Festering Goblin and a Sengir Vampire. I drop a Patrol and he plays a Skyshroud Ranger. I play Watchtower, my sixth land, and hope for a seventh. I draw a Sylvan Scrying, searching out a Terramorphic Expanse to thin my deck. I chose to drop an Enormous Baloth to stabilize the board instead of my Platinum Angel. The card that I didn't play around, Overrun, made an appearance and he gets in for 12 while I was at 11. I was too worried about a removal spell, although I'm not sure why. Silly mistake.

1-2, 0-1, 1639 limited rating.

Second Round: Scabs
Game One: My hand starts with 2x Wild Griffin, Forest, Plains, Quicksand, Scimitar, and Heart of Light. I drop the Scimitar and Wild Griffin, he plays Treetop Village and a few lands then Twitches the equipped Griffin. I play another, and he plays Llanowar Elves. He has Counsel of the Soratami and Air Elemental - on which I put a Heart of Light. He gets out an Icy Manipulator and Commune with Nature for an Aven Fisher. I get down Platinum Angel, but with Icy Manipulator and Air Elemental, I can't break through. He gets down a Kavu Climber and finally plays a strength 4 Hurricane which knocks both my Angel and me into the grave. 

Game Two: I start with 7 non-lands and am forced to mulligan. I side out the blue package for Viridian Shaman and a more consistent mana base. My hand starts off with a Civic Wayfinder, 2x Plains, Forest, Serra Angel, and Rampant Growth. I play Growht and Wayfinder. Then drop Serra Angel which meets his Air Elemental. I play Platinum Angel off his Hunted Wumpus and finish him off through the air.

Game Three: This was a total blowout. I didn't have a chance and was always a step behind. I also noticed that the AAACCC sealed was starting at 1pm, so I jumped that event as well.

2-4, 0-2, 1632 limited rating.

From here, my rating went up to 1647 with a win, then to 1655 with another win. I was in the next round down a game (and losing the next one) when both events started demanding my time. I had to drop the tenth as I had no chance of getting top 8. I would love to tell you all about my AAACCC sealed pool, but that will have to wait for another time. Let's finish analyzing the XXX XXX pool, and find out what went wrong.

Miscalculations

Heart of Light to me is only psuedo removal but can be useful to protect your own creatures, say a Platinum Angel, or provide a permablocker. Going into this event, I valued Heart of Light as a solid piece of removal. I realize now that while it has its advantages, it's no Pacifism. I learned this the hard way when I played Heart of Light on his Air Elemental, giving him a flying blocker that never died. A Pacifism could have nuetralized a card, instead I had to overcome a self made obstacle. 

I truly treasure a consistent manabase; in the future I will be hard pressed to splash for a third color in XXX, unless there are true bombs. After the event, I refocused on the card pool in greater detail and realized that with a Platinum Angel as the constant, the two best colors from this pool were actually Black and Red. You will notice that these were the precise two that didn't make an appearance in my deck. With BR, I would have had the most removal, recursion in Gravedigger, and solid cards in Phyrexian Rager and Looming Shade. Also, I noticed the interaction between the usually overlooked Hate Weaver and the mediocre Anaba Bodyguard. Any card that can be pumped that has first strike, can be sent through the red zone to push through damage or hold off attackers. It's nice to have that on your side of the table.

This part of the story ends halfway through Friday, still at a measly 4QP and down 70 tix. Join me next time for a recap on the Alara Sealed event. 

13 Comments

Response: by Exodus at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 14:40
Exodus's picture

Basic Land,

As per usual here is what I would've ran:

1cc:

1x Shock
1x Leonin Scimitar

2cc:

2x Goblin Piker
2x Gorilla Tactics
1x Spitting Earth
1x Hate Weaver

3cc:

1x Arcane Teachings
2x Looming Shade
1x Phyrexian Rager
1x Assassinate

4cc:

2x Anaba Bodyguard
1x Lightning Elemental
1x Viashino Runner
1x Bog Wraith
1x Gravedigger
2x Highway Robber

5cc:

1x Essense Drain

6cc:

Nothing

7cc:

1x Platinum Angel

Lands:

1x Ghitu Encampment
1x Quicksand
2x Terramorphic Expanse
7x Swamps
6x Mountains

Comments:

Heart of Light has never been played by myself as you said it isn't even close to removal or a Pacifism, and for future reference I would never play it regardless. Remove Sylvan Scrying from your vocabulary ;) as you will be much more successful if you stay away from it. Dross Crocodile isn't very playable as there is a huge difference between Lightning Elemental with haste and Dross Crocodile which will collide with a 1/1 or just be afflicted during your opponents next turn. I would suggest to think more consistent and to be much more specific on your decisions as Dreamborne Muse is unplayable regardless of what deck you use or are intending to build, if you have your mindset on winning and solely winning then ideas and mediocre cards will not allow you to think of 'other' ideas that could cost you in the end. I disliked how you built your initial GW deck and if you would like me to comment on that I can as well although will wait for your reply in regards to that. As per usual my best words of advice is stay 2 colours, or if your lucky to have 2x Terramorphic Expanses etc then you can potentially splash bombs yet in this case there wasn't anything standing out.

Although remember I enjoy your articles! That's the key ....

Wow, nice article. by Anonymous (not verified) at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 14:45
Anonymous's picture

Wow, nice article.

Including Red by Necropotent at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 18:59
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5

If it were me, I think I would have gone with red. Hard not to include Shock, Guerilla Tactics and Lightning Elemental.

Thanks for writing such a detailed report. I appreciate your honesty about the mistakes you might have made. Best of luck to you on getting the rest of those QPs! Can't wait for the next Bandwagon article...

B/G splashing red removal. by Anonymous (not verified) at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 19:15
Anonymous's picture

B/G splashing red removal. Civic + 2 Expanses is all the mana fixing you needed. Black and green had great, efficient creatures and 7F 7S 2TE 1M for land, running 17 creatures + Shock/2GT/Aggressive Urge/Drain/Leonin (or 16 and adding the dubious Assassinate) might have been money. (Back of napkin math is about 56% chance you get one of Civic/TE/M in your opening hand.) Good article.

Much easier to wrap our by ElwoodPDowd (not verified) at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 19:16
ElwoodPDowd's picture

Much easier to wrap our brains around with your new Sealed formatting.

Yes, Heart of light is bad. Sylvan scrying I would only consider if I was playing 3 or more colors or if I had a good man-land (red, green or blue).

I like your cards, but the good ones are all spread out among all the colors. I like to play 2 colors if at all possible in Xth. Your deepest colors are green (nice critters, no bombs), blue (card draw, looters, but no bombs) and black (solid beaters, a bit of removal, no bombs). Red has nice removal but otherwise lacks - it could be splashed. White has Serra but not enough else. Big Plats is your bomb.

I would have gone G/B. With the baloth and big plats, I'd go 18 land (both terremorphics and the quicksand in. 2 drops - Rushwood dryad (yes, play her main) 3 drops - rootwalla, civic wayfinder, scion of the wild, viridian shaman (yes, main), 2 looming shade, phyrexian rager 4 drops - giant spider, stalking tiger, 2 highway robber, gravedigger, bog wraith 5+ drops - seedborn muse, enormous baloth, platinum angel Spells - aggresive urge, assasinate, essence drain.

Yeah, that's only 20. Now I'm looking to shore up the curve - and canopy spider moves in as a 2 drop and leonin scimitar as a 1 drop. The hate weaver would be fine or the bats.

While I would never side out green (fixing) , I could see moving whole cloth into 3 color playing the best of the red removal (teachings, tactics, and shock) and dropping color intensive black cards.

But I would feel fortunate to top 8 with this deck.

The path u took is by Tarmotog at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 23:02
Tarmotog's picture
5

The path u took is correct.
Basically, u played
#1 ur bomb => serra angel
#2 evasion
#3 mana fixing into blue
#4 card draw (sift n soratami which are both really very strong in Xed cos cards are vanilla anyway.. u need to grind down cards at a 1 for 1 basis most of the time.)

However, u did not manage to maximize ur deck with the cards you had.
You need to take out scion, pinching beetle, heart of light, suntail hawk as a start because playing subpar cards in 3c does not help you at all.
-scion is just plain small and lets you lose more to simple removals.. it's a win more card.
-pinching beetle is bad in ur deck cos it doesn't let you attack favorably not block favorable most of the time
-heart of light stops ur own plan.. the dehydration sitting in ur sb can easily replace this
-1 mana 1/1 flying is too small to matter

Since you have fliers and good attackers, you want cards that can gum the board. As such even the lumengrid 1/3 is much better in your deck than the above mentioned few, depending on how afraid you think you are of 2/2s.

A card you missed was merfolk looter which can be very valuable in the format where you change excess lands into proper spells or get you out of mana problems too.
You could possibly add aven fisher into the deck too.

Finally u would naturally up the number of islands by probably 1 since u have mana fixers.

One thing to note is that you can actually board out blue and play black/red very easily depending on what you see in game 1 because getting into a color that can attack the opponent's playstyle can be quite strong.

For example, if your opponent is playing smaller cards, you can go into red for ur arcane teachings/shock/tactics

if you opponent is slappin ur with 3/3s, black can be a good way to go.

Still, I would play blue first, at least, because it would let you maximize the strength of your main deck, until you figure out that you can use something else to strengthen your attack angle.

Your plan of "going faster" is not a very good plan because you don't have enough supporting cards for you to go aggro like a couple of giant growth effects so if your opponent drops a 3/3 vs ur 2/2, u'll be stopped in ur tracks without much effort.

Good luck =)

Great Article. I agree with by TheMiseDotCom at Wed, 05/27/2009 - 23:21
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5

Great Article.
I agree with Tarmotog, but I actually think a case could be made about splashing red instead of blue.
Shock and 2x Guerrilla Tactics seem like good enough over card advantage, since that when I see the deck, when I cast a card drawing spell I'm only looking for platinum.I also think that probably Arcane Teachings would have made the cut.Still good luck for the remaining seasons

I checked quickly, but UGb by TuSaisPas (not verified) at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 05:49
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I checked quickly, but UGb looks quite obvious to me.
Green gives you good creatures and mana fixing (you can easily maindeck dryad and probably even shaman if needed).
Blue gives you sift and counsel which are great, some (but not enough) fliers, and some other good spells, as well as 2 looters, which are really good in that format, help you to easier run your splash and get your bombs.
and assasinate, essence drain, gravedigger should make a decent splash

Blue is kind of useless if by TheMiseDotCom at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 08:16
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5

Blue is kind of useless if you dont have nothing to draw into. You can looter all you want but if don't have nothing to draw whats the point?Rbr may be a good combination give the cards you have but I dont see blue as a main color.

I think its funny how your by Metalman (not verified) at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 12:36
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I think its funny how your round one opponent played Shivan Hellkite, Sengir Vampire, AND wins with Overrun. Did he take out the Red or something?

I have a hard time playing the little to no removal and few tricks deck you ended up with. I'd think that black (Assasinate, Essence Drain, and Gravedigger) or red (Anaba Bodyguard x2, Arcane Teachings, Shock, and Guerilla Tactics-mabye) is an auto-include. You get swayed to playing White for the Serra and other flyers, which seems ok but not great, but then you play a third color (Blue) which doesnt fix the problems of the deck. AKA, no removal or tricks.

The Serra is good but not a big enough bomb to make up for no removal.

-M

Oops, thought that said the by Metalman (not verified) at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 12:39
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Oops, thought that said the Anaba pinger guy. Not the first striker. My bad.

Poor Pool Review by Basic Land at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 12:57
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Thank you all for the comments. Clearly, Two colors I should have been considering Black and Red were the only two I didn't play. I obviously built the wrong deck and didn't farewell because of it. Although, there is some disagreement between what exactly to play with Black, Red, Green or Blue, we can all agree White doesn't cut it, and it should either be a focused two color deck, or splash with Blue for draw and fixing.

I'm ok with playing White as by Anonymous (not verified) at Thu, 05/28/2009 - 14:40
Anonymous's picture

I'm ok with playing White as a primary color, since it has tons of flyers. But I really just don't understand splashing Blue, specifically for card drawing. I mean, you have to hope you draw your Islands, just to be able to draw more. I think you would have been better served splashing your Shock, Guerrilla Tactics and Arcane Teachings (great on the 1/3 vigilance flyer).