Well, you never look a gift horse in the mouth and when your girlfriend says she also has half a day off on Friday and do you fancy a trip to Scarborough I don’t give her the chance to change her mind, maybe she just likes the bracing sea air this time of the year but for me it’s the FNM at Space Myth and Magic.
And by now you’re wondering, why the title? Scarborough took to Ravnica Block, in fact they really took to it and you see many decks themed around the Guilds. I only had to play a sacred foundry to be questioned “do you like Boros?”. The newer sets are used but to complement what deck they have been building for some time e.g. Dralnu will be talking to his best mate Circu before that party pooper Teferi comes along in the same deck.
Ashley is a young player and very inquisitive about my deck as it doesn’t seem to be doing a lot, if anything for the first few turns, just playing land on the whole until I play a morph and next turn reveal Akroma, Angel of Fury. I swing for six as my mana has been used to unmorph. My opponent isn’t fazed and plays a Vulturous Zombie and then casts Glimpse the Unthinkable. Hang on, just wind that back a minute, I get to respond to the Vulture first.
Okay, I can’t and there’s nothing I can do about the Glimpse, so that’s 10 counters on the flyer. Bugger, that kind of makes my Akroma a chump blocker don’t it. Ashley is very pleased as the board swings his way again. My turn and its oh, Firemane Angel in the graveyard so gain a life, play Wrath of God, yours. The board is reset and the battle is still slightly in my favour and then he plays Circu, Circu resolves, Lightning Helix Circu before you can cast anything else (EDIT: priority rules would argue otherwise...). Okay, I am not exactly worried as I have a handful of removal and new threats but my opponent has a rather nasty reanimator discard strategy running. Next turn I drop the Adarkar Valkyrie and swing, opponent brings out a creature (I forget what exactly). Mortify your dude, graveyard trigger tap Angel, I’ll have your guy. My turn and I swing for the win.
Okay, where’s my sideboard? Ivory Mask for the Glimpse and the Jötun Grunt for his graveyard. Right, let’s get cooking. JOY!!!!!! Start hand is pretty damn near perfect: Martyr, Debtor’s Knell, a Firemane Angel, three land and a Helix. And it’s land drop, land drop etc. until my opponent goes play Vulture and then Glimpse. Now, what did we say earlier about responding? Okay, Mortify the Vulture once it resolves (EDIT: hmm... in response to the Glimpse maybe?). Now I could have waited until he put the tokens on the Zombie but I just wasn’t that confident – other tricksy tricks may be about with him playing blue as well. The Glimpse resolves and I cough, two more Firemane Angels are in the graveyard! My turn and the life gain starts and better still I get a Proclamation of Rebirth to hand. I play my Firemane Angel in hand to start the beats next turn and my opponent is in trouble, just drawing land. Next turn and the lock is pretty much established, gain life, swing for 4, play Martyr of Sands and sacrifice him at end of turn, from then on I am gaining 9 life a turn and dealing 4.
Two-nil to me and the match next to us has been watching for the last five minutes and are not impressed at what they saw. Who plays life gain?
The funny thing was that we didn’t meet round 1, you know the old accepted fact of Magic that round 1 you tend to play someone you travelled to the event with? No matter when you both register, fate will take a hand.
Game one and who was playing life gain again? Well... erm... seems my girlfriend was as I keep having to Condemn her creatures or she drops Hierarchs. I throw a few Lightning Helices at her 2/2s and I am hanging on for dear life as the assault keeps coming in. At one stage she hits 36 before I see a credible threat in the shape of a Akroma, Angel of Wrath who from then on keeps on swinging for the win.
Game two and Rochelle knows exactly what is needed against my deck and the last thing I want to see is a Kavu Predator. The Kavu Predator is bad enough but when it is joined by a pair of twins (elephants) and another elephant who thinks he is in charge things start to get messy.
I am down to twelve life and well, she has lethal damage on the table for next turn. At this point I become a top-decker, draw Martyr of Sands and play him. Her turn, block, damage on, sacrifice, gain 18 and so it begins. I Fetters the Predator in my next turn and it eventually has well in excess of 50 counters on it as time expires for a dodgy one nil win in the end.
Not sure how to describe the following turn of events.
“Oh no, not your deck.”
“Sorry !”
And it seems my opponent is concerned about the effectiveness of my deck. Now at this point I have been up since stupid o’ clock in the morning and I am feeling worse for wear.
“Tell you what, if you don’t want to play call it a draw and we’ll both get the promo cards on seven points?”
“Agreed !”
And there we have it, a sell out in Friday night magic. Okay, I was tired and didn’t want to make any mistakes but had the feeling my deck would just blow his away from witnessing it in other matches. I decided I would be happy with a foil and make my opponent’s night as he would be guaranteed one too. We both went home unbeaten.
Anyway, curiosity meant we had to play out the match to see what if ……
My opponent starts by having a pop at my Coldsnap storage box:
“Coldsnap is crap!”, he goes.
Unfortunately for him this comes just as I sacrifice Martyr of Sands for 18 more life at end of turn and then play an Adarkar Valkyrie.
“Hmm, seems them Coldsnap cards look quite good.”
And basically the match became a control one then as despite my opponent getting creatures into play my flying angels were causing more problems for him and I even stopped life gain when I hit the end of the page on my pad, Whittled down to zero and with not much time on the round it was an unofficial 1-0 to me.
So how did things progress elsewhere? My first round opponent beat my girlfriend to storm into third place after milling her out twice. Indeed, the words “Glimpse you for ten” seemed quite common and I counted four players using it over both pods.
And so to the results …
8..
Ryan Stennett
0
7..
Sarah Chew
1
6..
Rochelle Wadner
3
5..
Matthew Watts
4
4..
Mark Pailing
5
3..
Ashley Ingham
6
2..
Patrick Holbrook
7
1..
Mark Pinder
7
Another successful night out and one where I learnt some new edges to the deck. The problems with the unstable mana base since adding in the option for black have been resolved. The Sunhome can enable swifter damage or survival of creatures and the Urza’s Factory becomes very useful late game for creating dudes as in essence the deck is one for control.
1 Urza Factory
2 Orzhov Basilica
4 Godless Shrine
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Boros Garrison
4 Vesuva
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
2 Adarkar Valkyrie
4 Martyr of Sands
4 Firemane Angel
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
4 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Lightning Helix
3 Mortify
2 Faith’s Fetters
2 Debtor’s knell
1 Demonfire
4 Condemn
4 Wrath of God
Qty Card name
2 Extirpate
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Faith’s Fetters
1 Jötun Grunt
2 Ivory Mask
3 Sacred Ground
1 Storm Herd
2 Searing Meditation
And so another report comes to a close and the deck should be riding again the following week, no doubt with a few tweaks or variations to see how it plays, though admittedly I have very few new ideas on how I could make it more effective, more of the time.
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