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Last week, I detailed the deckbuilding and first round of my Zendikar prerelease, in which I lost in three games. Stuck in the loser’s bracket, I’m hoping to win out and salvage a 3-1 finish. Fair warning: I checked replay functionality after the match, and unfortunately, several games in the final three matches had corruption issues. With no time to enter another prerelease (and no guarantee its replays would end up any better anyway), I decided there was enough content in the replays that survived to make a column of it, but I won’t be stepping through every game this week.

In the comments of last week’s column, there was some surprise and dissent over the inclusion of Goblin War Paint in my final build; understandable given the general (and appropriate) disdain for auras vulnerable to a 2:1. I chose it over several other bottom-end cards on the premise that the Goblin War Paint would convert reliably for more damage than my other options, which included Blood Seeker, Vampire's Bite, and Goblin Bushwhacker.

It can be tough to decide on those last few cards during deckbuilding, particularly when deciding between the least of evils instead of the best of solid playables. Whenever there are multiple defensible options for the final slot or two in a deck, I like to play the “Would You Rather” game during the matches. When a card I was debating appears in my hand, I ask myself if I’d rather have one of the benched cards instead. Now, even if I draw that card in every game, the sample size isn’t going to be large enough to produce a statistically-relevant conclusion, but it’s a good exercise nonetheless. First, if one card is consistently the one you want to have, or consistently isn’t, that starts to say something important, even if it’s not conclusive. Also, it’s an excellent way to get a feel for where marginal, bottom-end cards are good and where they stink, which helps inform future cuts to 40.

R2G1

I win the roll and draw seven:

Having a turn-one play is nice, but there’s no action after that, and the Spire Barrage is currently a five-mana, sorcery-speed, half-Shock. Villain keeps while I take a fresh six:

This looks much better, although I’ll be in trouble without a Mountain. We have a war paint sighting as well, and I think in this spot, not knowing what’s coming, it’s clear I’d want Blood Seeker from among my low-end possibilities for the slot based on my available mana. My first draws are a turn-two Mountain and a turn-three Plated Geopede, while Villain’s first play is a turn-three Makindi Shieldmate. I draw a Bladetusk Boar instead of a land on turn four, and face an interesting turn. What’s the plan?

R2G1 #1

I see two choices: swing in with the Bloodghast and Burst Lightning the shieldmate after combat, or put Goblin War Paint on the Plated Geopede and attack with both Bloodghast and Plated Geopede to ensure some damage, but leaving me unable to kill the defender. I like the second play. Villain has to choose between temporarily killing the Bloodghast and taking three, or blocking the insect and taking two, either of which is fine for me. The shieldmate jumps in front of the Bloodghast and I hit for 3.

Villain drops a Khalni Heart Expedition but no actual threat, and passes. I mise a Swamp to make the whole turn hum, bringing back the Bloodghast, pumping the geopede, and reaching Bladetusk Boar mana, all in one land drop. My attack goes unblocked, the boar joins my team, and I ship the turn back with life totals at 20 – 9. Villain plays a land and casts Expedition Map but again no threats, leaving me wondering if I should be playing around something in his four-card hand.

R2G1 #2

Even if I know I’m up against Into the Roil or Pitfall Trap, the correct play is still to swing with everything, so I send in the team. The shieldmate blocks the geopede, but 8 more sneak through, and Burst Lightning seals the deal after combat.

Despite the haste being irrelevant, Goblin War Paint led to more damage for me than Blood Seeker or Vampire's Bite would have, although I was fortunate to avoid Journey to Nowhere, Into the Roil or Pitfall Trap. Again, this is one game and is in no way statistically relevant, but slowly building up a mental case file can really help with future decisions.

R2G2

I didn’t take sideboarding notes, but I feel pretty sure I took out the Mind Sludge for something. I have these seven on the draw:

An easy keep. Villain starts off with a Blazing Torch. I draw a Goblin Shortcutter and open with the tap land to gain a life, which feels odd in a black/red deck without a drain effect.

No action from across the table is a good sign for me, meaning my two drop can swing in for one attack before anything can be torched. I pull a Quest for the Gravelord and have two creatures to choose from: Plated Geopede and Surrakar Marauder. Which do you cast and why?

R2G2 #1

The shortcutter is going to be very good later so I want to save it, and either of my other two drops will likely connect in combat next turn. Since the torch won’t be active until after my third turn at the earliest, I’m going to have to present both the geopede and the marauder anyway. Given that, I may as well go for maximum damage, which means the geopede. I expect Villain to take out the geopede over the marauder, but I think over the course of an entire game, the marauder is likely to hit for more because of the unblockability, so I’m fine with that.

Greenweaver Druid enters the battlefield across the table, which means Villain will have to choose between accelerating or throwing the torch next turn. I untap and pull a Guul Draz Vampire. Knowing that the geopede is likely to die to the Blazing Torch next turn, what should I play alongside the Surrakar Marauder: the Quest for the Gravelord or the vampire?

R2G2 #2

I think having a 5/5 zombie token in play a turn sooner will be worth more damage in the long run than running out a 1/1 that isn’t likely to do much until it becomes a 3/2 intimidate anyway. I hit for 3, cast the quest and the marauder, and pass. Villain has Gomazoa plus the mana left over to equip the torch to the druid. Gomazoa is annoying, but between all my intimidate and the shortcutter, it may never have the chance to block anyway.

I rip and play a Mountain, and the geopede eats the torch before the landfall trigger can resolve. I’m still able to hit for two and cast the Bladetusk Boar, passing the turn with the life totals at 21 – 15 and a board strongly in my favor.

A kicked Sphinx of Lost Truths tries to change the balance, but despite the amazing a card advantage, I still have aggression and a superior board—I just need to seal the deal before those extra cards have a chance to matter much. I rip a land to clear the way for 5 points of intimidate, and a Kazuul Warlord in my second main piles on the pressure.

Life totals stand at 21 – 10 when Villain casts a Grazing Gladehart and an Expedition Map, and finally drops a Turntimber Grove to gain two life and buff the sphinx. I take 4 damage in the air before getting the turn back. I draw a Spire Barrage and plot the turn. What’s the play?

R2G2 #3

Attempting to win a race against a Grazing Gladehart is not advisable—that thing has to die soon, but not necessarily this turn. It will be worth more to the damage race to use the Goblin Shortcutter to falter the Gomazoa and swing, which leaves mana up for the Guul Draz Vampire as well. With Gomazoa unable to block, I obviously I attack with the boar and the warlord, but the marauder has to stay at home because I don’t want to trade it for the druid.

I send in the boar and warlord as planned, and when the Grazing Gladehart jumps unexpectedly in the way of the warlord, I prepare for the Vines of Vastwood about to come. Sure enough, the antelope inflates to a 6/6 and annihilates my 4/4. Side note: instant-speed removal is fantastic. A Burst Lightning in that spot instead of the Spire Barrage I drew would have been a blowout. Still this isn’t a terrible trade, since it’s clears out a trick that could “counter” my removal, and it’s going to be tough for a non-evasive 4/4 to get through successfully from here anyway. I drop an intimidating Guul Draz Vampire after combat and pass.

That intimidate only lasts for a moment, as a land drop on Villain’s turn puts the score back to 17 –11, but there’s no other action. I draw into my Magma Rift and plot the best way to use the removal at my disposal:

R2G2 #4

Now the gladehart needs to die, especially with the Expedition Map guaranteeing at least another two life if it lives. If I can keep Villain at 10 or less life, I should be able to end this with another landfall trigger. It would be nice to save the Spire Barrage for a dome shot, but I think I do more damage in the long run by aiming at a creature with it anyway, so I may as well do that now. Barrage the antelope, swing for 3 to make it 17 - 8, and hopefully a land drop will be all that’s needed to finish the game next turn.

Villain manages a River Boa and an Archive Trap. The archive trap is fine with me, I love it when my opponents pay five mana and a card to shuffle my library. Happily, only three lands are milled (as is my Bloodghast: please, don’t play a singleton mill cards, kids), meaning ten of the remaining 13 cards in my library are game-winning draws: nine land and one Burst Lightning. I like those odds! I pull a Swamp and that seals the deal, sending 8 points of intimidate into the red zone.

R3G1

This replay isn’t even in the list and corrupted, it’s just not there at all. There are about 11 total minutes of clock gone in game two, so it was a fast game. I remember Villain was red-white with great removal in both colors (red burn two, Journey to Nowhere and a Pitfall Trap) and a maindeck Seismic Shudder that gave me a scare, but I managed to pull out a win. I remember seeing so many one-toughness creatures in game one that I brought in my own Seismic Shudder for something.

R3G2

Villain elects to play and keeps (so I must have won game one), and I evaluate my seven:

Oh, two-landers! You look so pretty, but can be so disastrous. Still, I have good early plays, and a couple of lands should turn this into a real beauty. Keep.

No plays at all from Villain through three, and no land for me through three. I draw Goblin War Paint, though. Normally I would consider what low-end card I would want here, but being up against a known Seismic Shudder, I’m definitely in the war paint camp for this matchup. Do I play it out there?

R3G2 #1

No, he’s shown too much removal. I really want to play the paint in this matchup when I’m at least getting in for a guaranteed swing in case I get 2:1ed after. Sure enough, I swing in and get Pitfall Traped. With no plays, I pass, and Villain casts a Bladetusk Boar. I again fail to pull a land, and ship the turn. The pressure mounts, with a Goblin Bushwhacker creating a 6-point attack.

R3G2 #2

I make a terrible mistake at this point, failing to use my Seismic Shudder to save a couple of damage and add a counter to the quest, thinking it was a sorcery, because most one-point Earthquake effects have been in the past. Reading cards: highly recommended! I manage to find a Swamp, but I still have no play besides crippling myself again with the Magma Rift (or recognizing that the shudder is an instant). I pass, and the boar applies some Goblin War Paint to add to the pile-on. I manage to find another Swamp, which means I can’t play the Shatterskull Giant. What should I play?

R3G2 #3

I have to burn the Magma Rift now to ensure my survival. The Seismic Shudder misplay is looming large: I’m about to take four extra damage and be unable to make a 5/5 zombie token because of my no-play on the shudder. Huge. I take another point, but Villain has no play despite six lands and three cards. I find a replacement land on my draw, and work out which creature to cast:

R3G2 #4

I go with the 4/3, but I’m not really expecting anything to live. Yup, Inferno Trap. This completes the quest and I make a 5/5 after Villain casts a Geyser Glider, then I cast the Nimana Sell-Sword on my turn. Villain removes both my 5/5 token and my sell-sword, then drops a teetering peaks to hit for exactly seven for the game. All told, I took six unnecessary points from the bushwhacker. I didn’t have removal for the glider, but who knows, maybe I could have come up with some in time to turn it around if I’d played the shudder correctly.

R3G3

That will not do on the play when I need to come out swinging. I send it back. Man, Mind Sludge is decent at best in this deck, and has so far been nothing but ugly.

That looks much better. Villain mulligans to five, and I’m hoping that will buy me the time I need to beat down and win before I’m facing much of a defense. Despite not drawing a land on turn two, I opt again for the Plated Geopede turn two over the Surrakar Marauder. If I don’t draw land I’m likely going to lose anyway, so I may as well play as though I’m going to draw some.

Villain casts a turn-two Goblin Shortcutter off of a second Mountain, which are both good signs for me: no Plains, and no better turn-two play than a guy you’d rather play on turn four or five. I can't find another land, though, so I hit for one, play the marauder, and pass. Villain has Adventuring Gear for the goblin, but also misses the land drop. The race to unscrew is on!

I rip Unstable Footing, play Quest for the Gravelord, and crash in with both. I’m happy to offer a trade right now since it puts me 2/3rds of the way towards a 5/5 zombie for . He accepts, and I hit for 1. We both continue to miss land drops, and I finally hit my third on turn six. My only play is the Giant Scorpion, but at least the geopede hits for three this time.

Villain finds a third land too, but it’s another Mountain, and he’s already confessed to having a grip full of white cards. My deck laughs at my situation with Adventuring Gear off the top, and I throw it on the scorpion to diversify my threats once I finally find a land. Hitting with two creatures sets off an Inferno Trap, and I lose my scorpion to it at the end of my turn.

At long last, Villain finds a Plains and sends my other insect on a Journey to Nowhere. I pop the quest at the end step, and finally draw my fourth land. Mana! What precious commodity! How should I play this spot, now that I actually have some options?

R3G3 #1

I can either equip the zombie, drop the land and hit for 7, or attack for five, play the land, and cast Nimana Sell-Sword. Assuming I find another mountain in the next four or five turns, I can effectively think of the life totals as 21 – 7 because of the Unstable Footing. Given that, hitting for 7 now would be good, setting me up to win off any Mountain. If I don’t find a Mountain, though, I will have failed to develop my board with that play, leaving me creatureless next turn if Villain has removal, which I’m predicting at this point.

Hitting for 5 and dropping the sell-sword also sets me up for a win off a Mountain next turn, though, unless Villain can take out both creatures. Without a second Plains that seems unlikely, but there are definitely some scenarios where I could lose both creatures before the end of my next attack phase.

I decide to max out my mana and develop my board with the sell-sword play. It has some advantages, but in my quest for turning my 95% chance of winning into 96.5%, I like equipping and attacking Villain down to within Unstable Footing range in hindsight. It gives me a certain inevitability: unless I can’t find a second red source in the next 5-10 turns or so, I’m going to win with that play.

I attack for 5 and pass, and my giant zombie shuffles off on a Journey to Nowhere, leaving behind the sell-sword. I don’t have to wait 5-10 turns: a Mountain is on top, and the attack plus the Unstable Footing take the game and match.

Round Four

Sadly, two out of three of my round-four games were corrupted, and this article is starting to run long anyway, so I’m going to summarize my final match.

G1

Villain was playing a red-black splashing blue for two Windrider Eels with the help of anAkoum Refuge and a Khalni Gem. In the first game, I’m the early aggressor with Bloodghast, a Giant Scorpion and a Nimana Sell-Sword. Villain has an early Quest for the Gravelord which gets a couple counters when he blocks my Bloodghast with his not-very-intimidating Surrakar Marauder. I drop him to 9 before he stabilizes with a kicked Gatekeeper of Malakir. I sac my Bloodghast of course, but now he has a 5/5 to hold the ground.

We stall out, but I have Heartstabber Mosquito and six land, so I figure to be taking out the zombie shortly. Then, Villain casts Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and drops a land to make it a 6/6, and my mosquito target changes in an heartbeat. Of course, instead of pulling a land, I pull the Magma Rift, again putting me in the spot of having six land, the mosquito, and the rift. I have the Giant Scorpion though, so while I have to take an attack from the 5/5, I have some time to find land #7.

I hit it on the next turn, take out the now-9/9 Ob Nix, and breathe a sigh of relief. Without missing a beat, Villain untaps and casts Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet. Wow, he has my pool from the cancelled event! I Magma Rift the vampire bomb of course, and I’m feeling like I can win this thing with the life totals at 9 – 7 and me with the 2 /2 flyer, but Villain drops two Windrider Eels on me the following turn. A couple landfall triggers later, I’m toast.

G2

This one was equally tight, but I end up winning on a play error. I almost had the game, but Villain stabilized just in time with Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet, and this time I had no removal for it. All he needed to do was use Kalitas’s ability to destroy one of my threats and use the resulting token to hold off the other, but instead he cast a creature that used up one of his three black mana sources. That allowed me to charge in for just enough damage to win, and he saw his mistake immediately, lamenting about it at the start of game three.

G3

I won game three fairly convincingly with the turn-one Adventuring Gear, turn-two Plated Geopede, turn three equip, drop a land, swing for five, and play Surrakar Marauder. I had my Kazuul Warlord and Magma Rift in hand, so I elected to play my Heartstabber Mosquito as a 2/2 flyer for 4, as it curved me out nicely and applied intense pressure along with the 5/5 first striker. With removal to clear out a key blocker, I won the game before I would have ever been able to play the mosquito kicked anyway. I can get greedy with sweepers and kicker spells, but I managed to find the right play that time, and salvaged a 3-1 out of it.

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, although there ought to be a new podcast up today as well over (link below). Thanks for reading, and join me next week for a Zendikar draft walkthrough!

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