Daily Dose of Standard - Ep. 3

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

4 December 2011

1205 views

vs. Toaster12

Caley's deck - Crawling Chaos, a U/B homebrew.

Game 1

Caley wins the toss and plays first.

Caley (C) keeps a hand of:

Island, Swamp, Drowned Catacombs, Reassembling Skeleton, Dissipate, 2x Army of the Damned.

Pretty darn good opener other than double Army of the Damned.

Enemy (E) keeps their opening hand.

T1

C plays Island and passes.

E plays Mountain and casts Goblin Fireslinger, then passes.

Time for another installment of Red Deck Wins.

T2

C draws Skinrender, plays Drowned Catacomb and casts Reassembling Skeleton, then passes.

E plays Mountain and casts another Goblin Fireslinger, then Goblin Arsonist, then passes.

Goblin Arsonist put me on my guard. That is a very unusual card for RDW, so this is perhaps a customized deck.

T3

C draws Swamp and plays it. Then he passes. He takes one from the Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 19).

E plays Shrine of Burning Rage. C hits it with Dissipate and it is countered. E passes.

If my opponent had that Shrine of Burning Rage to begin with, he would have been better-advised to cast it on turn 2 when I was tapped out from casting the skeletons. Even if he thought I might have a Mana Leak, an entirely reasonable assumption, I could not have stopped his shrine while tapped out, and it would have been FAR better to resolve the Shrine than both of his small goblins. This strange play, plus his reluctance to attack me with the Arsonist, made me think that perhaps this was a goblin deck!

T4

C draws Island, plays Island, and casts Skinrender, destroying a Goblin Fireslinger. In response, E activates both Fireslingers. (Enemy 20, Caley 17). C passes.

E casts Goblin Chieftain and attacks with Goblin Arsonist. C blocks with Skinrender. Arsonist dies and marks Skinrender with one more damage, killing it.

It is goblins!

T5

C draws Skinrender. He plays Swamp and casts Skinrender killing the Goblin Chieftain. E activates Goblin Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 16). C attacks with Reassembling Skeleton. (Enemy 19, Caley 16). C passes.

E activates Goblin Fireslinger. (Enemy 19, Caley 15). Then he casts Stormblood Berserker with the counters on it. Then he passes.

Or maybe this is some kind of strange goblins/RDW hybrid. Very interesting.

T6

C draws Swamp, plays it, and passes.

E attacks with Stormblood Berserker, which hits. (Enemy 19, Caley 12). E passes.

Misclick caused me not to block with the Skinrender and Skeleton.

T7

C draws Darkslick Shores, plays it, and passes.

Well, either I'll get enough mana for Army of the Damned, or I'll draw some kind of help.

E attacks with Stormblood Berserker. C blocks with Skinrender and Reassembling Skeleton. During the declare blockers step, E casts Galvanic Blast on Reassembling Skeleton. Skinrender and Berserker trade.

My opponent confessed that he thought killing Skeleton would make the block invalid, but alas for him, once blocked, always blocked.

E passes. End step, C returns Skeleton to play.

T8

C draws Swamp, plays it, and casts Army of the Damned. E activates Goblin Fireslinger. (Enemy 19, Caley 11). C passes.

E draws, then concedes.

Sideboarding

Caley removes 2x Corrupted Conscience, 3x Volition Reins, 1x Evil Twin, 1x Dissipate.

Caley inserts 4x [[Flashfreeze], 3x Doom Blade.

I don't really need the big heavy steal spells, and otherwise I just make the deck a little faster.

Game 2

E plays first and keeps the opening hand.

C keeps an opening hand of Island, Swamp, Drowned Catacomb, Flashfreeze, Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip, Think Twice, and Sorin Markov.

T1

E plays Mountain, casts Goblin Fireslinger, and passes.

C draws Swamp, plays Swamp, and passes.

T2

E plays Mountain then activates the Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 19). Then he casts Stormblood Berserker with counters. E passes.

THIS is how RDW is supposed to roll.

C draws Go for the Throat, plays Drowned Catacomb, and passes.

T3

E plays Mountain and activates Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 18). Then he casts another Stormblood Berserker with counters. C responds by destroying the older Berserker with Go for the Throat. E passes.

C draws Evil Twin, plays Island, and passes.

T4

E plays Mountain and attacks with Stormblood Berserker. (Enemy 20, Caley 15). He passes. C casts Think Twice in the end step, drawing Skinrender.

C draws Skinrender. He plays Swamp and casts it, destroying Stormblood Berserker. He passes. During the end step, E activates the Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 14).

T5

E plays a Mountain, then activates the Fireslinger. (Enemy 20, Caley 13). Then he sacrifices the slinger while casting Goblin Grenade targeting Skinrender, which kills it. Then E casts Goblin Chieftain and attacks unopposed with it. (Enemy 20, Caley 11). E passes.

Missed a Think Twice flashback. Whoops!

C draws Island and plays it. He casts Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip then passes.

T6

E casts Goblin Arsonist and Ratchet Bomb. He attacks with Goblin Arsonist and C chooses not to block. (Enemy 20, Caley 9). E passes.

C draws Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip. He does nothing and passes.

Somewhat arguable play here. Having forgotten to cast Think Twice, I would like to do so to possibly speed up casting Sorin Markov. Having mana open for both that and Flashfreeze are nice comforts to have with my life now half gone, and another Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip or Evil Twin, my other options, would be superfluous, I think.

T7

E plays Goblin Chieftain, which runs into Flashfreeze. He attacks with Goblin Arsonist, which hits. (Enemy 20, Caley 7). E passes. End step, Caley makes a vampire with Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip and flashes back Think Twice, drawing Swamp.

I forgot to set MTG Online to stop at Declare Attackers, so I could not make a token in time to block.

C draws Swamp, plays Swamp, and casts Sorin Markov. Sorin kills Goblin Chieftain with his +2 ability. (Enemy 20, Caley 9). C passes.

T8

E casts Spikeshot Elder and immediately activates it targeting Caley, choosing not to redirect the damage to Sorin. (Enemy 20, Caley 8). E passes. End step, C makes another vampire.

C draws Swamp, plays Swamp, and casts a second Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip. He uses Sorin's +2 to blow up Spikeshot Elder. (Enemy 20, Caley 10). He attacks with both vampire tokens. (Enemy 16, Caley 10). He passes.

An all-too-familiar position for the RDW player. The control deck has survived and now the end comes quickly.

T9

E draws and concedes. Caley wins the match 2-0.

Thoughts

1 - This was an interesting build to play against. It did not match up well against my deck due to my deck's healthy stock of kill spells and a few bad draws, apparently, from my opponent. I would like to see how this goblin-heavy RDW build does generally in this metagame; it's certainly nothing I've encountered before.

2 - My attention lapsed a few times during this game - blocking misclicks, forgetting to cast Think Twice, and other such carelessness plagued me, though I was lucky enough for it not to cost me any games.

3 - This was an encouraging run for this deck after being narrowly defeated 2-1 in its last RDW run-in. I hope to try it against the more traditional RDW build in standard again soon.