Foreword
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to relocate at a moment's notice this past Saturday, and have no net/phone at my new digs (yet). Most of the work for this article was done at Tim Hortons, which has free WiFi. Hanging out at Timmys in a semi-seedy part of Regina for a few hours during a weekday mid-morning is... uhhh... interesting. I am almost tempted to do a "stream of consciousness" piece, but you're not here to read my random gibberish and garbled thoughts. You're here to look at what's going on in Standard. Too bad, so sad.
Standard of Living
So. I'm now living with Mitch, Shane, and Ryan. Sharing a house with three young turks my son's ages. Since they're all players of magic, and consumers of mass quantities, I should fit right in, right? I moved in on Mitch's birthday, which also happened to be St. Patrick's day.
Happy Birthday, Mitch! Here's an old man!
I've been spending a lot of the past few days cleaning. While I'm not an anal retentive neatness freak, I do like to keep a reasonably clean house. Since these boys live like bears with furniture, I have my work cut out for me! Since the weekend, I've gotten the stove and countertops cleaned off, have run a few loads through the dishwasher, cleaned and reorganized the cutlery drawer and dish cabinets, cleaned up various appliances, and started in on the game room downstairs.
The basic premise here is to use Mulch and Grisly Salvage to plop fatties into your graveyard, then use Unburial Rites to pull from the graveyard to the battlefield. Simple, in theory. In case that doesn't work out to plan, the backup plan is use mana accelerants, like Avacyn's Pilgrim, Borderland Ranger, and Arbor Elf to plop fatties onto the battlefield directly. The usual Thragtusk/Restoration Angel shenanigans are also available. Which makes this type of deck a triple threat.
I'm a triple threat, too! I've been teaching the young'uns some of the finer points of magic, such as defining what your deck wants to accomplish, how does it get there, manacurves, the art of mulliganing, etc. Don't get me wrong, the kids aren't nubs. They know how to play. But I do bring a pretty deep pool of knowledge and play experience to the table in my senile old brain. Yeah. The grampa triple threat of cleaning, advice, and bustin' cards. I think I'm fitting on ok there, after being so brazenly thrown to the wolves...
The manacurve on this red heavy GRuul deck makes it looks more midrangy than aggro to me, but I could be mistaken. The only first turn play I see is Stromkirk Noble. Thinking about this card, it makes a lot sense in this deck. There are a lot of humans cluttering the battlefields these days, and the Noble just struts right through 'em. It seems my mantra is becoming You can't argue with results.
Ghor-Clan Rampager is some sweet tech in any aggressive deck that runs . It does double duty as either a 4/4 trampler hardcast for , or for it can be used to pump up an attacker by 4. With trample! Whoomp! There it is.
Hellrider and Thundermaw Hellkite provide the big beats for you to dance on your opponents face, and Kessig Wolf Run will make sure this dance is tramplingly painful.
Hammybot
Some of you might harken back to late Spring last year, when I had the pleasure of running the largest (as far as I'm aware) Player Run Event on MTGO, ever: Ham on Wry. One of the many wonderful things that came out of that project was Hammybot, set up by Heath over at MTGO Traders to sell off Erik Friborg's MTGO collection. All of the proceeds from Hammybot are slated to go to Erik's widow and boy-child.
Hammybot is still around, and prices are the exact same as at MTGO Traders. Hammybot still has over 27,000 cards left, and over 5,400 Tickets have been raised! Be sure to check out Hammybot first for all your card needs, and help out a good cause!
Hammybot will remain in operation at least through Ham on Wry II, which is in the planning stages. Only the date, time, and format of Ham on Wry II is set as of now: Saturday, May 4, 2013 @ 1800 UTC, Classic, X rounds of Swiss depending on attendance. Registration will be via Gatherling, which in turn means decklists will be required this year. Entry will be free, as always. Look for the official announcement mid-April.
At last year's event, several players put up cards, boosters, and tickets as personal pledges and bounties. You can use Hammybot to purchase cards for use as pledges or bounties for this year's event for a double dose of good karma!
All my events (Standard and Modern) are currently on hold. Events will resume ASAP.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I find myself writing this from Tim Horton's, where they have free WiFi. I am without phone/net for the time being. This is in the process of being rectified as you're reading this. I hope to have some sort of arrangements worked out for this coming weekend.
Friday Night Standard is a free-to-enter Player Run Event that runs twice every Friday on MTGO. It is structured very much like the daily Scheduled Events: 4 rounds of Swiss pairing, with prizes to all 4-0 and 3-1 players. Seating is limited! You can find complete information here. I look forward to seeing you at the next Friday Night Standard!
Friday Night Standard - EU #5
March 15, 2013
Players: 11
4-0: None
3-1: _Kumagoro_, romellos, Lickitung, SekKuar Deathkeeper
Players, pairings, and results can be found here.
Decks from all Friday Night Standard - EU events can be found here
No 4-0 deck to present!
Friday Night Standard #16
March 15, 2013
Players: 22
4-0: Lickitung, geleroff
3-1: Robin88, Gilipolleces, starheroz, RJF67, KaraZorEl
Players, pairings, and results can be found here.
Decks from all Friday Night Standard events can be found here
Where do I begin? The UWR Flash deck is a big player is Standard, and I'm sure you've run into it. As with most Midrange decks, it's game plan is to deny your opponent his/her game plan, then smash face. Restoration Angel bounce to recycle Snapcaster Mages is a fun thing to do. Boros Reckoner with Harvest Pyre is there for those broken power blasts.
I'm sure we all know how blazingly fast this deck comes out of the gate. Since its breakout performance at GP Quebec City, this deck has been showing up everywhere. Easily capable of swinging for 7 on Turn 2, this is a fast, aggressive deck with a very low curve, which tops out at three with Frontline Medic, Flames of the Firebrand, and Fiend Hunter in the sideboard. Everything else costs 2 or less.
Burning-Tree Emissary has proven itself to be quite the efficient accelerator! Basically, this card is a "free" 2/2 chump. It does empty your hand quicker, but when your game plan is empty your hand onto the table and smash face, this is actually an upside.
Frontline Medic and Boros Elite are both aggressive humans from Gatecrash. The Battalion ability from the Medic helps drive home the beats while making your own creatures indestructible. Boros Elite also has Battalion, but only pumps himself. However, he costs a mere pittance at . Lightning Mauler's Soulbonding to give haste also makes for some interesting beats.
The usual human synergy cards are here: Champion of the Parish getting counters with each of your humans resolving, and Mayor of Avabruck to pump 'em up. (And spit out some wolves!)
This deck also uses Experiment One. This interesting human's Evolve ability means he can grow into something bigger. Not always, but often enough! Flinthoof Boar, the only non-human in the deck, is an excellent beater in its own right, and should trigger an Evolve.
Paper Cuts
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I was going to build a deck around Daggerdrome Imp, a flying 1/1 with lifelink for . After digging through a box of Gatecrash leftovers (John had bought a box of GTC boosters and cracked 'em all), and rummaging through Shane's boxes, here's what I ended up with:
I tried to keep it as Standard as possible. But Lightning Bolt was just too good to pass up. This deck was hated by the end of the night.
Extort in a multiplayer environment is just plain mean! When there's 5 or 6 other people at the table, and you're paying for a pair or trio of Extorts, well... On top of that, I tried to slide in aggressive critters that give some added punch during the attack phase. Let's just say it was a night of groans.
In my own, not so humble, opinion, I think I did pretty good for twenty minutes of rummaging through "leftovers"! While I was the target of gangups throughout the night, the deck did prove to be reasonably quick and effective. I did come close to taking down the table a couple times. The Extort guys did their thing, the Battalion guys did theirs, and a good time was had by all. Lightning Bolt and Murder were allstars; apparently no one expected removal.
If I had time and cards, it could definitely use some tweakage: Frontline Medic, more Syndic of Tithes, etc.
Until next time...