Saturday, February 27, 2010

Like A Boss: FNM Report 2/26

Wow it's been a while since my last blog post. Life has been nuts lately and I've hardly had time to breathe, let alone write an article about Magic. This past week I've been looking over many of the Top 8 decklists from Pro Tour San Diego, specifically White Weenie, Open the Vaults, and Boss Naya (as well as Patrick Chapin's UW Control deck that barely missed the cut). I tested with each, and they all had their different pros and cons. White Weenie is fast but loses to many decks with large creatures, Open the Vaults is slow and takes a beating early on, but almost cant lose once you resolve Open the Vaults, Boss Naya can play both a fast aggro game or a slower midrange game, but can often lose to it's own mana (which is worse than Jund's mana sometimes), and Chapin's deck is (like Open the Vaults) also fairly slow but once it gets Jace online it hardly ever gets behind on card advantage. After much thought I arrived at FNM with most of the cards to put together any one of the four decks. A friend of mine decided he wanted to play UW, and Open the Vaults seemed like a bad metagame call (too much aggro at my FNM), so I was left with either White Weenie or Boss Naya. I weighed my options and decided to give Naya a try. I had to ask a few favors from friends to get all the cards I needed, but when the time came I was ready for action. Here is the list I sleeved up:

1x Scute Mob
3x Noble Hierarch
3x Birds of Paradise
4x Wild Nacatl
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Bloodbraid Elf
3x Ranger of Eos
3x Baneslayer Angel

3x Lightning Bolt
2x Path to Exile
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Behemoth Sledge
2x Ajani Vengent

5x Forest
2x Mountain
2x Plains
1x Stirring Wildwood
2x Raging Ravine
4x Arid Mesa
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Rootbound Crag
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Tectonic Edge

SB:
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Behemoth Sledge
3x Cunning Sparkmage
3x Dauntless Escort
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Manabarbs
1x Baneslayer Angel
1x Elspeth, Knight-errant

The decklist is pretty much identical to the list LSV ran. I had to make a few quick changes due to card availability (I only had access to 3 Ranger of Eos) and the sideboard could have been thought out better (the Elspeth was MB for a while but I tossed it in the SB right before FNM started).

Tournament Report:
Round 1 vs GW Equipment
My first round was against a good friend of mine and the local "deck building genius". He has never once netdecked, and all of his homebrew decks are simply insane. When he showed me the list he was running, I was quite impressed. It was a GW Little Kid deck ft. Stoneforge Mystic to fetch out all kinds of cool equipment (most notably Unscythe, Killer of Kings). I was shocked that he would run the Grixis colored equipment, but both games we played he had no trouble getting the spell on the board and making his Loam Lions and Pridemages much tougher to deal with. The first game he kept a fairly slow hand compared to mine and I easily took the lead with a Sledge attached to a Nacatl. I was near 30 life when he finally got a decent board position, but by then it was too late and I overran him. Game 2 was pretty similar, I got the early lead and never looked back.

Round 2 vs Mono Green Jank (seriously, it was Jank...)
Words cant even describe this deck... I dont know how it managed to win it's first round. It was a simple green mana ramp deck that ramped into... nothing. There were absolutely no bomb creatures in the deck. It had Leatherback Baloth, a single Omnath, and a bunch of random enchantments like Khalni Heat Expedition and that other enchantment that untaps all your creatures during each untap step. Needless to say, I won this match pretty easily.

Round 3 vs Jund
Well, it had to happen sometime... The Jund vs Boss Naya "rematch". I knew I had to win this round to avenge the defeat of LSV but I knew it wouldn't be an easy task. Game 1 went back and forth for a while, but I managed to squeak out a win thanks to Basilisk Collar gaining me enough life to stay out of Bolt and Blightning range. Game 2 he had the generic Jund nut draw and killed me with 2 Putrid Leech and a Bit Blast into Bloodbraid into Bolt to kill my only 2 blockers. Game 3 game down to the wire. We were both in single digit life totals, he had 2 Bloodbraid Elf, I had a tapped Bloodbraid with Collar on it, and an untapped Noble Hierarch. He draws his card, thinks for a second, then says "Pulse your Bloodbraid". I paused for a second, wondering if he had realized the misplay he just made, and then put my Bloodbraid into the graveyard. He went to attack and I calmly pointed out that his Bloodbraids were dead too thanks to his own Pulse. He stared down, shocked at his horrible play, and sadly put his two elves into the graveyard. I untapped and attacked with my Raging Ravine 2 turns in a row to end the game. I'd say even without the misplay I probably had that game, but blowing up his own creatures did help a lot.

Round 4 vs BR Vampires
This match was very interesting. He was playing a budget BR Vampire deck with the 3 different 1 Drop Vampires as well as Highborn, Nighthawk, Gatekeeper, and probably Bloodwitch (I never saw it either game though). Game 1 he knocked me down to 10 fast and swung for the win with 2 Gruul Draz Vampires (3/2 Fear is tough to deal with when you dont have Bolt/Path). Game 2 I overran him with Nacatl, and Game 3 he got mana screwed so i was able to win easily.

Round 5 I drew into Top 8, with a record of 4-0-1

Top 8 was pretty easy overall. The first round I played against a good friend of mine running Vampires, and I took the match in an easy 2 games. Vampires just cant keep up. Gatekeeper gets significantly worse when I have 3 creatures on the board, and one is just a 0/1 Mana while the other two are 3/3's. The second round I played against Eldrazi Green, Game 1 he kicked Joraga Warcaller 7 times on turn 5 and just destroyed me. Game 2 I beat him with good draws and tight play, and Game 3 he stalled on 2 land. As for the finals, I drew with Jund for a final record of 6-0-2 and $50 in packs. Id say it was a good night.