Daily Dose of Standard - Ep. 4

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

5 December 2011

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vs. Slobberpit

Caley's deck - Crawling Chaos.

Crawling Chaos is brought to you by Hipster Nyarlathotep: "I liked cthonians better when they were underground."

Game 1

Enemy wins the roll and plays first.

Enemy (E) keeps opening hand.

Caley (C) keeps opening hand of

3x Swamp, Island, Skinrender, Black Sun's Zenith, Rune-Scarred Demon

I feel a little naked. This is a great hand against creature-based decks, but awful against anything else. It's tough for me to feel secure without my comforting counterspell blanket.

T1

E plays Forest and casts Birds of Paradise.

Probably Wolf Run Ramp with that first play, though other possibilities exist.

C draws Island, plays Island, and passes.

T2

E plays Sunpetal Grove and passes.

Iiiiiinteresting. Could this be a human deck running birds?

C draws Island, plays Swamp, and passes.

T3

E plays Swamp and passes.

Guessed wrong again. I have no idea what this deck is, but it is a straight up baller playing (at least) WBG. I am incredibly curious to see what happens here. And I really, really want my counterspells.

C draws Army of the Damned, plays Swamp and passes.

T4

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Dissipate, plays Island, and passes.

Oh man. You have no idea how much better that feels.

T5

E plays Razorverge Thicket tapped and passes.

C draws Go for the Throat, plays Island, and passes.

The suspense!

T6

E plays Plains and casts Entomber Exarch. C answers with Dissipate. E passes.

This probably means it's a very unorthodox, but very versatile pod deck. ( Birthing Pod, that is) This isn't my favorite target for Dissipate, but if Exarch resolved, it probably would have smoked my Dissipate anyway. Notice that he waited to cast this until he had three spare mana. I do not run Mana Leak, yet I still benefit from its pervasiveness in standard. Love that.

C draws Volition Reins, plays Swamp, and passes.

T7

E plays a Plains and passes.

C draws Dissipate and passes.

Counterspells are drawn to my hand like magnets.

T8

E plays a Swamp, casts Precursor Golem, and passes.

I could counter this, but I have a Black Sun's Zenith sitting in my hand, so eh.

C draws Island, plays it, and casts Black Sun's Zenith for three, wiping the board. C passes.

Still showing Mana Leak mana.

T9

E casts Glissa, the Traitor *oversized* and passes.

C draws Island, plays Island, and casts Skinrender, destroying Glissa. C passes.

He was burning a hole in my pocket too.

T10

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Evil Twin, attacks with Skinrender (Caley 20, Enemy 17), and passes.

Playing carefully. With this many answers and board advantage, it would be inexcusable to rush by tapping out in casting Army of the Damned.

T11

E casts Fiend Hunter exiling Skinrender. Then he passes.

I love it when people do that. It's like a free extra kill spell.

C draws Evil Twin, does nothing, and passes.

Waiting to see what the best approach is. I'd like to draw something like a Reassembling Skeleton or a Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip here to just maintain a tiny board position. Sorin Markov and a land or two would also be nice.

T12

E attacks with Fiend Hunter and passes. (Caley 19, Enemy 17)

C draws Army of the Damned. He does nothing, discards Evil Twin, and passes.

Must have been confusing for my opponent.

T13

E attacks with Fiend Hunter. (Caley 18, Enemy 17). E casts Birthing Pod, but it runs into Dissipate. E passes.

Oh no you don't. I know exactly what happens if I let that resolve, sir or madam.

C draws Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip. He casts it and it resolves. He passes. End step, E casts Doom Blade on his own Fiend Hunter, returning Skinrender to the battlefield. Skinrender kills itself.

This play might look silly, but it is well-considered. He has a Doom Blade in hand which, from his perspective, is never going to do anything. He knows that if he casts another creature, I will probably blast his Fiend Hunter to get back my Skinrender, blowing up his new creature. He decides to make use of his useless Doom Blade in order to disarm this threat. I'm still winning on the board, but now he can cast creatures without worrying about the revenge of Skinrender, or as my last opponent affectionaly referred to him, "Alien." He really does look like one.

T14

E casts Splinterfright and Birds of Paradise, then passes.

C draws Swamp and plays it. He casts Rune-Scarred Demon and draws Sorin Markov with it. He passes.

There are a lot of ways I can deal with Splinterfright, but for now, let's get this bit of business out of the way. The demon can block the fright for now as well.

T15

E mills Brutalizer Exarch and Forest with the Splinterfright. He casts Acidic Slime. In response, C casts Go for the Throat targeting Splinterfright. It resolves. Acidic Slime enters and destroys an Island. E casts Avacyn's Pilgrim and passes. C makes a vampire in the end step with Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip.

C draws Swamp. He plays it and casts Sorin Markov, leaving open 2x Island and a Swamp. He uses Sorin's +2 to destroy Birds of Paradise. (Caley 20, Enemy 17). He attacks with Rune-Scarred Demon and a vampire token; both hit. (Caley 20, Enemy 9). C passes.

I have plays for days. I decide to leave the Acidic Slime alive in case it becomes handy to copy it with Evil Twin.

T16

E casts Splinterfright, then concedes.

Sideboarding

C inserts 3x Doom Blade and 3x Deathmark. He removes 3x Reassembling Skeleton, 1x Army of the Damned, and 2x Rune-Scarred Demon.

When facing pod decks, you will be in good shape if you leave absolutely nothing alive.

Game 2

E plays first. E mulligans to 6.

C keeps an opener of:

2x Island, 2x Swamp, Corrupted Conscience, Volition Reins, and Dissipate.

A little light on creature answers, but I'll take it just to get better chances at stopping Birthing Pod.

T1

E plays Razorverge Thicket and casts Avacyn's Pilgrim.

C draws Army of the Damned, plays Swamp, and passes.

It would be nice to be able to slow him down with a kill spell so he doesn't rush to Birthing Pod before I can do anything, but for now I have to ride the storm.

T2

E casts Birds of Paradise and plays a tapped Sunpetal Grove. He attacks with Avacyn's Pilgrim. (Enemy 20, Caley 19). E passes.

Sunpetal Grove is an excellent sign. He may be very low on land. Creature answers would probably sink him right now.

C draws Darkslick Shores and plays it, then passes.

T3

E attacks with Avacyn's Pilgrim. (Enemy 20, Caley 18). Then he casts Birds of Paradise and passes.

Black Sun's Zenith more or less wins the game here.

C draws Corrupted Conscience, plays an Island, and passes.

At least I can cast Dissipate now. I bet he's still worried that I have Mana Leak.

T4

E attacks with Avacyn's Pilgrim and passes.

Ok, he had five mana that turn. He is either playing VERY conservatively or he has teh Mana Leak Ph33r.

C draws Deathmark, plays Island, and casts Deathmark targeting Avacyn's Pilgrim. C passes.

One down, two to go!

T5

E plays Viridian Emissary and passes.

C draws Doom Blade and plays a Swamp. He casts Corrupted Conscience targeting Viridian Emissary and passes.

Yes, now he can cast Birthing Pod or whatever free from worry, but I would like to deal with the Emissary, and in a way that does NOT give him a land. Best to get this problem out of the way ASAP, and I have a Volition Reins ready in one more mana in case it IS pod.

T6

E casts Skinrender targeting Viridian Emissary. C fetches a Swamp with it. E passes.

Fine by me.

C draws Black Sun's Zenith.

Joy!

C casts Black Sun's Zenith for 3, wiping the board. C passes.

He has two land. I am two land away from casting Army of the Damned. He may still be fine though, if he's packed his Day of Judgments.

T7

E plays Forest and casts Splinterfright. He passes.

C draws Swamp and plays it. He casts Doom Blade targeting Splinterfright and passes.

On my turn while he is tapped out, to prevent Autumn's Veil tricks.

T8

E does nothing and passes.

C draws Swamp, plays it, and casts Army of the Damned. He passes.

Quick! While he's still under Day of Judgment mana!

T9

E draws, then concedes. Caley wins the match 2-0.

Thoughts

1 - I really liked the idea of a WBG Pod deck. I feel like it ran into some hard luck in this deck; first time around I drew all the right cards and he couldn't get going, and in the second one, he might have done well, but then he got mana screwed. It also seemed like he never had Birthing Pod itself when he needed it. I feel like I never really got to see what this deck could do, but then, I'm a control player, so that means I've done my job.

2 - I strongly believe my opponent was Mana Leak-paranoid. It would have been a tough inference to make, since I could just be very disciplined about countering mere mana creatures, but he did see that I failed to Mana Leak many, many spells that could have been Mana Leaked. Nevertheless he played as though I had a Mana Leak in hand at all times, and this seemed to slow him down considerably. If you're playing against blue, carefully observe your opponent's countering habits. If in two early games where you cast a bunch of tiny creatures, you see no Mana Leak, there probably IS no Mana Leak. Blue players typically use Mana Leak with wild abandon in the early game, knowing that the card loses value as the game progresses.

3 - Pod decks are tough to describe as a unit because there are so many different kinds of them, and this deck is a great example. I like the pod decks precisely because they ARE so modular; depending on what you think the metagame will be, you can customize your pod deck to a huge degree while retaining the core awesomeness of the pod. Honestly, I may just like the WORD "pod," but hey. It's a great, versatile deck that can tutor up an answer for practically anything using pod AND build up an overwhelming board position in short order. In conclusion: pod.

4 - There are two big ways to stop pod decks. Number 1 - Keep Birthing Pod off the field. The deck is still dangerous without its key ingredient, but it'll have a hard time answering your deck and generally becomes considerably more clumsy without it. Number 2 - Kill absolutely everything. If there's nothing to pod, the deck can't hurt you at all. In this match, I had the good luck to be able to do both. Killing everything is the better solution, but it usually not feasible for a deck with less removal. Use your judgment.