Daily Dose of Standard - Ep. 2

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

3 December 2011

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Caley's deck - Crawling Chaos

vs. Jaxsdad

Game 1

Enemy (E) wins the toss and plays first. E keeps his opener.

Caley keeps a hand of 3x Swamp, Island, Darkslick Shores, Army of the Damned, Go for the Throat

A bit land-heavy, but I'm playing a control deck, and I have an answer to start, so it's better than a mulligan.

T1

E plays Darkslick Shores and passes.

C draws Reassembling Skeleton, plays Darkslick Shores, and passes.

My opponent is playing blue-black too. Most likely this is the standard-issue U/B control deck that is floating around, but let's not assume anything.

T2

E plays Darkslick Shores and passes.

C draws Swamp, plays Island, casts Reassembling Skeleton, and passes.

T3

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Volition Reins, plays Swamp, attacks with Reanmiating Skeleton and passes. (Caley 20, Enemy 19). End step, E casts Forbidden Alchemy, throwing away Drowned Catacomb, Black Sun's Zenith, and Forbidden Alchemy.

Definitely the standard-issue U/B deck then. One of the many reasons I don't like Forbidden Alchemy is that it gives so much early information to your opponent about your deck.

T4

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Darkslick Shores, plays it, and attacks with Reassembling Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 18). caley passes, but first during the end step, E casts another Forbidden Alchemy, throwing away Think Twice, Island, and Wurmcoil Engine.

Curious choices! What his hand actually contains is a complete mystery, though I suspect there are no small number of counters.

T5

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Reassembling Skeleton, plays Swamp, casts Reassembling Skeleton, attacks with the old Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 17). Caley passes. End step, E flashes back Think Twice.

T6

E plays Swamp and casts Grave Titan.

Ordinarily a very bad idea to tap out to cast your win condition so relatively early in a control vs. control matchup. He is staring down the barrel of two Skeletons now, though, so perhaps he felt threatened.

C draws Think Twice, plays Swamp, and plays Volition Reins targeting Grave Titan.

I have always been a fan of stealing things. Every steal is automatically a 2-for-1: You get a thing, they lose one. When used properly, you get a very NICE thing, and they lose one.

T7

E plays Island, casts Consecrated Sphinx, and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb, casts Go for the Throat targeting Consecrated Sphinx, which dies. Caley attacks with Grave Titan, which goes unblocked. (Caley 20, Enemy 11). Caley passes.

Forgot to play the land!

T8

E plays Island, casts Think Twice, then another Think Twice, then concedes. Caley up 1-0.

Sideboarding

No changes.

Not sure what could be boarded in that would particularly help against this deck other than Memoricide, but I'd rather steal it than wipe it out. I'd rather see what he boards in before I make my decision. .

Game 2

Enemy plays first and mulligans to 5 cards. Caley keeps a hand of 2x Swamp, 2x Go for the Throat, Rune-Scarred Demon, Dissipate, Evil Twin.

No blue, but it doesn't even matter against this opponent. I'll just keep my card advantage, thank you.

T1

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Reassembling Skeleton, plays Swamp, and passes.

Fantastic card. Skeleton is defense against aggro and a potential win condition against other control decks.

T2

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Swamp, plays Swamp, casts Reassembling Skeleton, and passes. End step, E casts Think Twice.

T3

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Swamp, plays Swamp. Attacks with Reassembling Skeleton. (Caley 20, enemy 19). C passes. End step, E flashes back Think Twice.

T4

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Army of the Damned, plays Swamp, and attacks with Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 18). C passes.

T5

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays it and attacks with Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 17).

T6

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Black Sun's Zenith and attacks with Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 16).

Win condition, baby.

T7

E does nothing and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb and plays it. He attacks with Reassembling Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 15).

T8

E does nothing and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb and plays it. He attacks with skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 14). He passes.

T9

E casts Forbidden Alchemy, throwing out Swamp, Darkslick Shores and Think Twice. He passes.

Very puzzling. Doesn't he need land? I have no idea what to think of what's in his hand.

C draws Think Twice, then casts Rune-Scarred Demon.

This is very likely to be countered. However, I am now at 8 cards, and would rather cook a counter out of his hand than discard.

E counters the demon with Mana Leak. C passes.

Forgot to attack with the Skeleton in all the excitement. Man, I suck at using creatures sometimes.

T10

E does nothing, discarding Doom Blade.

C draws Darkslick Shores, plays it, and attacks with the Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 13). End step, E flashes back Think Twice.

T11

E does nothing. End step, C casts Think Twice. E casts Mana Leak target Think Twice. C pays 3. E casts another Mana Leak targeting Think Twice, and it is countered.

Not a good play. He spends two cards to keep me from drawing one. Even if they ARE mana leaks in the late game, they're more valuable than THAT.

C draws Darkslick Shores, plays it, and casts Army of the Damned. E responds with Mana Leak and the spell is countered. C attacks with Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 12). C passes.

T12

E plays Darkslick Shores tapped and passes.

C draws Island, plays it, and attacks with Skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 11). C passes.

T13

E plays Swamp and passes. C flashes back Think Twice in the end step, drawing Swamp.

C draws Reassembling Skeleton. He plays Swamp, casts Reassembling Skeleton, and attacks with the old skeleton. (Caley 20, Enemy 10). End step, E flashes back Forbidden Alchemy, discarding Island, Darkslick Shores, and Doom Blade.

T14

E plays Swamp, then casts Grave Titan. C casts Dissipate targeting the Titan. E responds with his own Dissipate, and Titan resolves. E passes.

C draws Corrupted Conscience.

Well I was going to Evil Twin it, but I like this much better.

C casts Corrupted Conscience targeting Grave Titan. C passes.

T15

E casts Life's Finale, trashing 2x Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip and a Rune-Scarred Demon. E passes. End step, C brings back both Reassembling Skeletons.

C draws Island, plays it. He attacks with both skeletons. (Caley 20, Enemy 8). He passes.

T16

E casts Grave Titan then passes.

C draws Darkslick Shores. He plays Evil Twin targeting Grave Titan. Evil Twin gets a Dissipate. C casts Go for the Throat on Grave Titan, which resolves. C passes.

T17

E plays Island and casts Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip. E passes.

C draws Swamp and plays it. C attacks with both Skeletons. E blocks one each with a zombie. The skeletons die.

Arrogance move. I did not expect him to be able to stop the wrath, so I did the tradition pre-wrath attack.

C casts Black Sun's Zenith. E responds with Snapcaster Mage. C responds with Go for the Throat targeting Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip. The kill spell resolves, the Mage returns Dissipate. E casts Dissipate targeting the Zenith, countering it. C passes.

I have no hand left, so I am slightly exposed. However, I'm still in good shape thanks to my trusty skeletons.

T18

E attacks with all his creatures. (Caley 14, Enemy 8). Then he casts Wurmcoil Engine and passes. End step, C returns skeletons.

Now I'm on the clock, but I still have a good number of answers for this.

C draws Corrupted Conscience.

Why, there's one of them now!

C casts Corrupted Conscience targeting Wurmcoil Engine and E concedes the game. Caley wins the match 2-0.

I'm not certain that this is the end of the line for him. He's got blockers and I think the probability of drawing some kind of answer, based on his deck. Probably premature.

Thoughts

1- Always remember to attack and take free damage unless you have a very good reason not to, especially if you're a silly control player who forgets what creatures are other than murder victims or "those things that Remove Soul gets rid of."

2- Here again we see a premature scooper. He still had plenty of turns to go before he would be dead and I was topdecking when he conceded in that last game. His victory may have been improbable, but far from implausible. Fight to the end.

3- Reassembling Skeleton is a very good card for the control player. It has obvious uses as a never-ending chop blocker, but it also is fantastic in the mirror match as a really annoying problem.

4- Always consider the efficiency of your plays! My opponent used two Mana Leaks to stop one Think Twice (which I then flashed back anyway). This is not a good play! My opponent probably figured that he would never again make use of the Mana Leaks since we were in the late game, but it rarely makes sense to assume that unless there are truly obscene amounts of mana on the board, which there were not. He had already seen that I run huge spells and should have saved those leaks for better targets.