PPTQ Standard - 40 person tournament - 6 rounds
Overall record 3-3 (8 wins, 7 losses)
Overview: First I will say I understand magic is a game of probabilities and I in no way am complaining about my results. Objectively, I got less lucky than lucky this time in terms of lands in opening hands and die rolls. 25 Lands is exactly where we want to be, even tho my experience was that I missed land drops keeping 2 on the draw and 3 on the play. I Feel VERY good about the deck. Made small tweaks for consistency and keeping mainboard answers applicable to all strategies. Lost multiple games because Harnessed Lightning is bad if you don't have other energy :/ Literally any other removal spell would have won the games.
Round 1: Mardu vehicles 0-2
Game 1 lost die roll, got ran over but not by much. I needed anything but harness lightning to kill Heart of kiran. Killed every creature he put down
Game 2 got mana screwed on 3. He won with 8 lands on the battlefield. I still feel great about this matchup, but I need to draw that 4th mana sometime.. #feelsbad
Round 2: Saheeli Combo 2-0
Won die roll. Got Void Winnower out both games and it shuts it down hard. Kept Stasis Snare and Shock up to stop the combo/torrential gearhulks and it worked.
Round 3: Blue white control 1-2
Lost die roll. Very close matches. Missed land drops both game losses even when I kept 3. Both games I could not cast my planeswalkers. The game I won I resolved a single Chandra, Torch of Defiance and ticked up to a victory
Round 4: Green Black constrictor 2-1
Won die roll. This was simple, one of our best matchups. Fumigate with all the removal spells made it impossible for him to do much of anything. Got the Combustible Gearhulks going and won from there.
Round 5: Black white control 2-0
lost die roll. Won games where I resolved my spells. Lost a game I did not have 4 lands... are we seeing a pattern? lol
Round 6: Jund Energy aggro 1-2
Won die roll. Best matches of the night by far. Game 2 I mulled to 4 with NO LANDS and still was able win. WHAT?!@ He had 7 cards, played 4 attune from the aether, and still managed to draw enough lands to give me time to play walkers and fight back. Game 3 I had Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger on the field (I hard casted it) and it came down to him top-decking a creature, he did. He crewed up his 6/5 flying boat and I could not kill it with Harnessed Lightning... #feelsbadman.
So if you made it to the end, here is what I take away: Harnessed Lightning sucks if you don't play energy (DUH) and making sure to draw enough lands is important above all. We an easily turn the corner given the mana. Build has been improved, and I will continue to take to events and update.
