Friday Night Focus is a series of articles aimed at the Friday Night Magic player. It will present deck lists that are suitable for FNM competition, some match reports of the decks in action and other random discussion. The decks presented in this series will not have any particular budgetary constraints in mind, but they will aim to be both competitive and fun to play.
Hello and welcome back to Friday Night Focus, I hope you all had a great holiday. As you may dimly recall, through the haze of mince pies and brandy butter, the last article introduced my Form of the Firemind deck. This week I have two Friday Night Magic tournaments to report on, so I’ll jump straight in with the deck list I started with:
Form of the Firemind v2.1
Designed by Steve McAleer for Standard
3 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
2 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Izzet Signet
4 Rune Snag
4 Remand
4 Electrolyse
2 Ophidian Eye
4 Psionic Blast
4 Careful Consideration
3 Sulfurous Blast
3 Demonfire
4 Steam Vents
2 Shivan Reef
2 Izzet Boilerworks
7 Island
6 Mountain
2 Desert
1 Demonfire
1 Sulfurous Blast
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
3 Evacuation
4 Flashfreeze
4 Shadow of Doubt
There were nine people at the tournament, which would be played over three rounds.
Astoundingly the very first match I play with the deck is the mirror match! James has a lot of similar cards, but has a heavier focus on counters than I do.
In the first game we both start relatively slowly; I get a couple of points of damage in with an Electrolyse, while James is playing draw-go. My first attempt at Careful Consideration is countered, but I draw a second copy the next turn with James tapped out. After trading a few more burn spells I am able to flash in a Bogardan Hellkite at the end of his turn, then attack for lethal damage. I take out the three copies of Sulfurous Blast for 2 Teferi and Demonfire in game two.
I am forced to mulligan in the second game, and when my second turn signet is countered, followed by my fourth turn Careful Consideration things look bleak. James takes my life total low through burn spells, but can't quite finish me off. Having stabilised I am able to flash in an EOT Teferi, and with Rune Snag and Remands in hand I am able to protect him long enough to get James into burn range.
The second round faces me against yet another UR control deck. Ross has had a good deal of success with this deck; using the best blue and red suspend cards coupled with counter spells and burn.
The first game is a close affair as Ross suspends an early Kraken and Ancestral Visions, while I develop my mana with a signet and play Careful Consideration. I Remand the Kraken back to Ross's hand and he suspends it again. Ross seems to have drawn most of his counter spells, and is able to sit behind them while the counters tick off the Kraken. We trade burn spells, until I am at 4 life and there is one counter remaining on the Kraken. I Demonfire Ross for 2, triggering the Kraken which comes into play, I then have 7 mana left to play Demonfire for 6 on the Kraken. Unfortunately Ross yet again has the counter to protect it and takes game one. I sideboard in exactly the same way as for round one, very glad that I put Teferi into the side at the last minute.
Game two gives me my God draw, with turn two signet, turn three Careful Consideration and Teferi at the end of turn four. Ross doesn't have the counter to stop him, and at the end of his next turn I flash in Niv-Mizzet. During my draw phase I respond to the Niv-Mizzet trigger by flashing Ophidian Eye onto him for the combo win.
Onto the decider then, and it is once more a close game – one that is decided by a mistake on my part. With me low on life, Ross removes the last counter from an Errant Ephemeron and plays it, I have four untapped lands in play and two Remand and a Demonfire in hand. I Remand the Ephemeron, and Ross responds by Mana Leaking my Remand. At this point I decide to Remand my own Remand, rather than the Ephemeron - putting myself in the position where I must draw a land next turn to be able to use Demonfire on the flyer. As it turns out I do draw a land; Izzet Boilerworks, and I die before being able to kill the Ephemeron off. My mistake was trying to be too flashy and too greedy, if I had instead remanded the Ephemeron it would have taken another 4 turns to return and I would have been able to deal with it.
The third round, and yet another deck sporting myriad counter spells. Did I mention that my local meta-game was control heavy? Seb was running Mana Leak, Rune Snag and Cancel (and possibly Remand, all the countering became a bit of a blur) with Phyrexian Ironfoot to provide defence and Triskelavus and Urza's Factory as win conditions. He had no real removal, so if I could manage to get one of my dragons onto the board that should be enough.
Unfortunately for me, game one, which should be my strongest since I have the element of surprise, was decided pretty firmly by mana screw. I kept a hand with two mountains, figuring that with 70% of the remaining mana sources in my deck producing blue I shouldn't have any worries. As it was I missed my third land drop and then drew three mountains in a row. By the time I got enough mana to play any spells even Seb's glacial deck had had time to manoeuvre into a winning position.
In game two things were much more evenly matched, and I got several burn spells through to reduce Seb to 12. I then proceeded to make another mistake that would cost me a game. With 7 mana available and Bogardan Hellkite and Demonfire in hand I drew a Steam Vents for my turn. I played the Steam Vents untapped, telegraphing my intention to drop the dragon. Seb didn't do anything during his turn, and when the dragon came into play the expected counter spell was waiting for it. What this meant however was that I would now be able to get Hellbent on my turn to send through some uncounterable damage. I untapped, drew a mountain (yes!) and then... bottled out of the Demonfire. I was at 10 life to his 12, and had the option of putting him down to 2 - where any number of top-decks could kill him. Instead I decided to try and wait out drawing enough mana to do all 12 in one go. I then drew a second Demonfire, meaning that if I had played correctly the turn before I would have won. I tried the Demonfire at last, but Seb was able to counter it before winning the next turn with Triskelavus.
A pretty poor first outing for the deck then, but there are some lessons to be learned from this and we can identify some room for improvement.
Of course we could always experiment with a third colour…
I retooled the deck for the next FNM, and turned up with the following list:
Form of the Firemind v2.2
Designed by Steve McAleer for Standard
3 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Izzet Signet
4 Rune Snag
4 Cancel
4 Electrolyse
1 Ophidian Eye
3 Psionic Blast
4 Careful Consideration
2 Sulfurous Blast
2 Demonfire
2 Mystical Teachings
4 Steam Vents
2 Shivan Reef
2 Izzet Boilerworks
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
5 Island
4 Mountain
2 Desert
1 Ophidian Eye
1 Psionic Blast
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Demonfire
2 Sulfurous Blast
3 Evacuation
4 Shadow of Doubt
I actually put this list together before the World Championships, so the credit for the Mystical Teachings tech actually goes to Tony who suggested using it in conjunction with Teferi. I have also defocused the sideboard, which contains several additional copies of main deck cards to allow me to tweak the deck in games two and three. This is mainly a sop to my lack of testing with the deck going into FNM, with only Evacuation and Shadow of Doubt appearing with no copies in the main deck.
Once again there were nine people at the tournament and it would be over three rounds.
Andy's deck focused on countering, card drawing (also using Mystical Teachings) and finishing with good ole SSS. The first game was a blowout for me - when Andy tapped out early for Mystical Teachings, I was able to slip a Teferi into play, stymieing his suspended Ancestral Recall and disabling his counter magic.
By contrast, I lost the second game to a savage mana screw. I mulliganed to four, kept a no land hand and failed to draw any land for the first five turns.
In the third I was able to stay focused and force Andy into a play error to win. I played a Teferi with two mana open and Rune Snag, Mystical Teachings and a land in hand facing Andy's four mana open and three cards. Instead of countering my Teferi he opted to Gigadrowse my Island - of course with Gigadrowse on the stack I tapped the Island for mana and said okay. As I could clearly still counter anything he tried Andy was forced to let Teferi resolve. On my turn I drew Ophidian Eye and passed, using the Mystical Teachings at the end of his turn to fetch Niv-Mizzet. In my next Upkeep step I flashed Niv into play, put the Ophidian Eye on him and won in my draw step.
Apparently no one plays aggro decks any more, as this is the fifth control deck in a row I have faced! In game one we play a fairly cagey opening few turns, each of us assessing the other's strategy. I quite quickly realise that I need to force the issue as Gu's long game is superior to my own, and chain together some burn spells into a 10 point Demonfire that puts him on 2 life. This nicely mirrors the situation I talked about previously, except that in this case I made the right play. Sure enough a couple of turns later up pops the Electrolyse to deal the final two.
In game two I try to play out quickly to put Gu under pressure, but the turn before I can launch a large Demonfire at him he plays Ivory Mask! Realising that I have no way to deal with the Mask in my deck or sideboard I am forced to come up with a new strategy. Gu is almost certainly going to win this game, but he will not be able to do so quickly. So I choose to play out the game rather than concede, as it will mean that there is not enough time left on the clock for Gu to win game three. Sure enough, Gu wins with only five minutes left on the round - meaning that I am guaranteed a draw, and have a shot at getting the quick win in the decider.
I get a good draw and use two early signets to get off a 6 point Demonfire, with Bogardan Hellkite in hand ready to play next turn. Alas, it is not to be, as Gu top decks Ivory Mask once more. I play the Hellkite, assigning four damage to itself and one point to me, but Gu has Wrath of God on his turn to kill it off and seal the draw. This is still a good result to take from a round that I should by rights have lost.
Guy is playing in his first FNM, using the Orzhov pre-con deck. Yes, due to the vagaries of the pairing system I had managed to get paired down in the final round. Suffice to say that this round was effectively a bye, although interestingly I did lose 13 life to Infected Hosts over the course of the two games, which is somewhat surprising.
I finished in third place on tiebreakers to Gu, who was paired up in the final round.
Squeezing in two FNM reports has left us a little over budget in the word count department, so I will leave the wrap up until next time. Join me then when I will also be looking at putting a new deck together from scratch - I fancy something a little more… evil... Bwa-ha-ha-haa!
Steve McAleer
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