Daily Dose Ep. 25 - Standard

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

5 March 2012

1022 views

vs. kilopower

Caley's deck -

The Doom That Came To Sarnath

Modern* KrazyCaley

SCORE: 17 | 35 COMMENTS | 4142 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

Game 1

Enemy wins the toss, plays first, keeps opener.

Caley keeps an opener of 4x Forest, Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip, Acidic Slime, Viral Drake

Not the best, but pretty versatile.

T1

Enemy plays Plains for Doomed Traveler and passes.

Caley draws Dissipate, plays a Forest, and passes.

My counterspells can tell when I don't have any blue mana.

T2

Enemy plays Evolving Wilds, cracks it for a Swamp, and attacks with Traveler. (Enemy 20, Caley 19). He passes.

White and black and runs Doomed Traveler.

Caley draws Rampant Growth. He casts Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip and passes.

If I knew that my next draw were a source of blue mana, I would cast Rampant Growth, but ignorant of this, the best play is Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip.

T3

Enemy casts Intangible Virtue, then attacks with Doomed Traveler and hits. (Enemy 20, Caley 18). He passes.

Caley draws Hinterland Harbor, plays it, and casts Rampant Growth for an Island. He attacks with Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip, hits, and passes. (Enemy 19, Caley 18).

Now I don't only need double blue for counterspells; I need to make it to five mana quickly to kill that Intangible Virtue.

T4

Enemy casts Go for the Throat on Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip, attacks with Doomed Traveler, and hits. (Enemy 19, Caley 17). He passes.

Caley draws Volition Reins.

Now we have one of those interesting "playing a control deck is hard" moments. Let me run down what I was thinking at this point. My opponent is sitting on two land and has been since turn 2. He is playing a token deck that uses kill spells. I have several options:

I chose 2.

Caley plays Forest and passes.

T5

Enemy attacks with Doomed Traveler and passes. (Enemy 19, Caley 16)

Still not playing any land, and not developing any further threats. I am ok with this because either he is genuinely land-screwed and has nothing to do, or is slow-playing me and trying to make me act first. Either way, my deck is gaining time and mana. Eventually, if I do end up having to act first, I'll be able to respond with something more powerful than he can deal with, like a Predator Ooze or a Moldgraf Monstrosity backed up with Acidic Slimes available to regen.

Caley draws Hinterland Harbor, plays it, and passes.

T6

Enemy attacks with Doomed Traveler and passes. (Enemy 19, Caley 15).

Caley draws Island and plays it. He casts Viral Drake and passes.

Now I can have my blocker to stop the bleeding and buy me even more time while still also having a counterspell available. This broadcasts my intentions to my opponent, but with him having only two mana out, it's not as important as casting the Drake.

End step, Enemy Go for the Throats the Viral Drake.

More or less expected. I am not countering this because I don't care all that much about keeping my Drake compared to having a counterspell available for worse stuff.

T7

Enemy casts Intangible Virtue. Caley Dissipates it. Enemy attacks with Doomed Traveler and hits. (Enemy 19, Caley 14). E passes.

That's the worse stuff I was afraid of. Now I've been able to make very efficient use of my counterspell, and I can switch over to a much more aggressive mode of play. Another option would be to continue to play cautiously and leave counterspell mana open even though I don't have one as a bluff, but because he is sitting on two lands and is doubtless aching to cast stuff, this is unlikely to be an effective strategy.

Caley draws and plays Island.

The same conundrum about what to do with the Acidic Slime is confronting me. I decide to go for the aggressive play and take out a land, mostly because I have a Volition Reins available to deal with his Intangible Virtue if necessary. This IS risky because he could potentially Oblivion Ring my Volition Reins, but I feel like this is the best way to draw the game out, which is really in my favor at this point because I have a ton of land out and a very nice, thinned-out deck full of most of the really nasty stuff.

Caley casts Acidic Slime destroying Plains, then passes.

T8

Enemy plays Isolated Chapel and passes.

Of course. Still, this is good; most of the awful token-generating stuff in this kind of deck costs three, so I have indeed bought at least a turn, hopefully more. I am puzzled as to why he didn't attack with Doomed Traveler to get his spirit token.

Caley draws and plays Hinterland Harbor, then passes.

At this point, about 30 of 43 cards left in my deck are non-lands.

T9

Enemy casts Doomed Traveler. He attacks with Doomed Traveler and hits. (Enemy 19, Caley 13).

Caley draws and plays Ghost Quarter. He passes.

The best land I could have drawn. Will thin out from 12 of 42 remaining to 11 of 41 remaining if I decide to use it, but my thinning is already so good that I think it's more worthwhile to let the land sit there and see if he plays some land that I need to deal with.

T10

Enemy attacks with both Doomed Travelers. Caley blocks one with Acidic Slime. It dies and generates a spirit token. The other hits. (Enemy 19, Caley 12). Enemy passes.

I blocked because now is a pretty good time to steal that Intangible Virtue.

Caley draws Volition Reins.

New plan.

Caley casts Volition Reins on a Spirit token and passes.

Now I can steal the Intangible Virtue AND stop his fliers.

T11

Enemy attacks with Doomed Traveler. Caley blocks with Acidic Slime. Enemy responds by Go for the Throating the Acidic Slime. Enemy passes. End step, Caley uses Ghost Quarter on Forest to get a Forest.

Very puzzling again. Why make a suicide attack, wait until you're blocked, then kill the blocker? And I was getting pretty tense about drawing so many lands, so I decided to thin some more, just to be extra safe. I couldn't think of many lands he could have that would really hurt me.

Caley draws Ambush Viper. He casts Volition Reins on Intangible Virtue, then passes.

T12

Enemy does nothing. He discards Lingering Souls.

Well, that's one way to do it. I feel for his mana screw pain.

Caley draws Moldgraf Monstrosity and casts it. Then he passes.

Finally.

T13

Enemy plays Evolving Wilds and gets a Swamp with it. Then he casts Lingering Souls from the graveyard and passes.

Caley draws Forest.

Certainly we've had the opposite problem of each other here. Still, I'd rather be flooded than screwed any day.

Caley attacks with Moldgraf Monstrosity and hits. (Caley 12, Enemy 11). C passes.

T14

Enemy casts Lingering Souls and passes.

Caley draws Acidic Slime. He casts it destroying Isolated Chapel. He attacks with Moldgraf Monstrosity and hits. (Caley 12, Enemy 3). He passes.

T15

Enemy draws and concedes.

Sideboarding

Caley removes 2x Ambush Viper and inserts 2x Bramblecrush.

Game 2

Enemy plays first. He keeps his opener.

Caley mulligans an opener of Forest, Island, 2x Stoic Rebuttal, Dissipate, Garruk, Primal Hunter, and Chancellor of the Tangle.

Way too risky, even with the draw.

Caley keeps a six hand of 2x Forest, Hinterland Harbor, Birds of Paradise, Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip, and Predator Ooze.

T1

Enemy plays Swamp and passes.

Caley draws Stoic Rebuttal, plays Forest for Birds of Paradise, and passes.

Love that draw. Just what I needed.

T2

Enemy plays a Plains for Gather the Townsfolk and passes.

Caley draws Chancellor of the Tangle. He plays Hinterland Harbor.

Another tough decision to make here. I could leave counterspell mana open or cast a creature. The risk I take by casting is that he'll sneak out an Intangible Virtue, which I can't presently answer. However, I have 8 answers sitting in the deck ( Bramblecrush, Acidic Slime, and Volition Reins ), plus eventually I can ramp up to big creatures that can stop his tokens. I decide to cast a creature that will pose a problem right back at my opponent.

Caley casts Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip and passes.

I like the Mayor because, like Telepathy, even though he's not the BEST card by himself, he confounds the decision-making of opponents so badly that he's well worth it. When you are playing a control deck and cast him, he makes the game considerably less clear to the person on the other side of the table. "Do I kill the Mayor? He has bigger, nastier creatures somewhere in there, so he might just be baiting the kill spell. Also, he's tapped out. Should I try to resolve my stuff? But then what if he untaps and does nothing, flipping the Mayor and leaving counterspell mana open to protect the Alpha?" And so forth. Playing the Mayor in this deck makes it very hard for your opponent to know what the right play is.

T3

Enemy plays Isolated Chapel and casts two Doomed Travelers, then passes after attacking and hitting. (Enemy 20, Caley 18).

Caley draws Forest and plays it, then passes.

As described above, this is the good response I have available if you try to cast out a bunch of stuff while I'm tapped out. Now I'm sitting on a full range of mana with a Howlpack Alpha out. He has also given me some valuable information. This would have been the time to cast Intangible Virtue if he had it, but he didn't. So he probably doesn't have it yet.

T4

In E's upkeep, Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip transforms. E tries to Doom Blade it but runs into Stoic Rebuttal. E attacks with everything. C blocks a Human token with Howlpack Alpha, killing it. The other three 1/1s hit. (Enemy 20, Caley 15).

He is going to try to race me, but without an Intangible Virtue he can't win. He is gambling on topdecking it. This is probably the right idea given what he most likely has in hand, and especially given that I am about to play the indestructible and generally horrifying Predator Ooze, which he can't kill to gain time for his Intangible Virtue, though he has no way of knowing I have the Ooze in hand, or even in my deck.

Caley draws Island and plays it. He casts Predator Ooze and passes, getting a wolf token at end of turn until further notice.

T5

Enemy plays Doomed Traveler and passes.

He no longer is racing and now wants to draw the game out to get his Intangible Virtue; he recognizes that eventually the most he'll be able to do is 2 damage per turn from his fliers, which I can easily outmatch.

Caley draws and plays Forest. He passes.

I am also inclined to delay the game because I have a Chancellor of the Tangle in hand, which stops everything he has unless he kills it or produces so many tokens as to overwhelm it. However, he's unlikely to have a kill spell (or he would have used it on Howlpack Alpha by now), and I think I can still outrace him easily enough, especially as the Chancellor has vigilance.

T6

Enemy plays Lingering Souls and passes.

Alarming levels of tokens now, since he can recast that.

Caley draws Volition Reins and casts Chancellor of the Tangle. He attacks with Predator Ooze. E blocks with Doomed Traveler, which dies, and E gets a spirit token. C passes.

The board is this.

I have no problems on the ground, but I do have a few problems in the air should an Intangible Virtue come down. I have a Volition Reins to steal it, but the damage might already be done before I can steal the thing.

T7

Enemy casts Lingering Souls from his hand and attacks with 3 spirit tokens. Caley blocks 1 with Chancellor of the Tangle; the token dies. The other two hit. (Enemy 20, Caley 13). E passes.

He will soon be in range to KO me if he topdecks an Intangible Virtue.

Caley draws Hinterland Harbor and plays it. He attacks with Predator Ooze, one Wolf token, and Chancellor of the Tangle. Doomed Travelers chop-block the Ooze and the Chancellor to get spirit tokens; Wolf hits. (Enemy 17, Caley 13).

This is the tense moment. If he draws Intangible Virtue THIS TURN, I'm in real trouble, otherwise I can begin to work the problem down.

T8

Enemy casts Lingering Souls from his graveyard. He attacks with six spirit tokens. One dies to Chancellor of the Tangle; the other 5 hit. (Enemy 17, Caley 8).

Caley draws Birds of Paradise.

This may look grim, but I actually have the game more or less in hand now with that draw. This is because while turning Doomed Travelers into spirit tokens is great for his offense, it's terrible for his defense, as other than aside from his badly-needed spirits, he now only has one 1/1 human token left to block my ground army. With the play I am about to make, I will have four blockers in the air, while he'll only have six attackers. This will easily buy me enough time to crush him with my other creatures.

Caley casts Birds of Paradise. Then he casts Volition Reins on an untapped Spirit token. Then he attacks with Howlpack Alpha, Predator Ooze (which becomes a 6/6 in attacking), Chancellor of the Tangle, and four Wolf tokens. Human token blocks Predator ooze and a Spirit token blocks Chancellor of the Tangle. Everything else hits. (Caley 8, Enemy 2). Caley passes.

T9

In E's upkeep Howlpack Alpha becomes Mayor of Avabruck  ^Flip. E casts Doom Blade on Chancellor of the Tangle and attacks with 5 spirit tokens, hitting. (Caley 3, Enemy 2). E passes and concedes. Caley wins the match 2-0.

Thoughts

• I tried to go a little more in-depth as to some of my in-game thought processes with this one? Like, dislike? It takes a lot longer, so I'm not sure I can always do this, but every once in a while it might be a good idea.

• Enemy made a few play errors that hurt him a bit, but mostly his play was quite good. For never having more than three lands out, this was a very nice performance.