Daily Dose Ep. 26 - Standard
Daily Dose of Standard
KrazyCaley
6 March 2012
1590 views
vs. Awesomite
6 March 2012
1590 views
vs. Awesomite
Caley's deck:
The Doom That Came To Sarnath
Modern*
SCORE: 17 | 35 COMMENTS | 4142 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS
Game 1
Caley plays first and keeps an opener of Hinterland Harbor, Ghost Quarter, Rampant Growth, Volition Reins, Dissipate, Garruk, Primal Hunter, and Ambush Viper.
Enemy mulligans to 6.
T1
Caley plays Hinterland Harbor tapped and passes.
Enemy plays Darkslick Shores and passes.
T2
Caley draws Island, plays Ghost Quarter, and casts Rampant Growth for a Forest.
Other things equal, I always get the Forest if I can, because getting an Island starts up your opponent's anti-blue brain.
Enemy plays Island and passes.
T3
Caley draws Dissipate, plays Island, and passes.
Enemy plays Swamp and passes. End step, Caley flashes down Ambush Viper.
Blue-black control is my opponent, and so Ambush Viper is an annoying threat to use on him. Many builds use nothing but mass removal, and they hate having to deal with a lone annoying creature.
T4
Caley draws Rampant Growth. He attacks with Ambush Viper and passes. (Caley 20, Enemy 18).
Enemy plays Island and passes.
T5
Caley draws Forest. He plays it and casts Rampant Growth for Island. He attacks with Ambush Viper and hits. (Caley 20, Enemy 16). He passes.
Enemy plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.
T6
Caley draws Volition Reins. He attacks with Ambush Viper. Enemy flashes down Snapcaster Mage and blocks with it. Viper and Mage die. Caley passes.
Now THAT is a good use of an Ambush Viper. Now we're in control v. control standoff mode.
Enemy plays Island and passes.
T7
Caley draws Hinterland Harbor. He plays it and passes. End step, enemy casts Blue Sun's Zenith for 3. Caley Dissipates it.
Control v. control standoffs often go to the person who can muster the most land. This is a hidden bonus of my playing a ramping control deck. Regarding throwing a Dissipate at a card drawing spell - Net card advantage of countering this is 0. Net card advantage of NOT countering this is -2. Against a control deck, that's worth a counterspell, especially since I get the added bonus of making sure he doesn't get to cast this thing AGAIN.
Enemy plays an Island and casts Consecrated Sphinx. Then he passes.
Hello, Volition Reins target!
T8
Caley draws Viral Drake. Enemy draws 2 off Consecrated Sphinx. Caley casts Volition Reins on the Sphinx and passes.
On E's turn, Caley draws Birds of Paradise and Viral Drake off of Consecrated Sphinx. Enemy plays Nephalia Drownyard and casts Black Sun's Zenith for 6, killing Sphinx, then passes.
T9
Caley draws and plays Ghost Quarter. He casts Birds of Paradise and Viral Drake, then passes.
Likely gameplay error. Makes more sense just to cast Viral Drake.
Enemy casts Curse of Death's Hold, killing Birds of Paradise. He passes.
T10
Caley draws Hinterland Harbor and plays it. He casts Garruk, Primal Hunter, makes a Beast token, and passes.
Enemy casts Ratchet Bomb and passes. End step, Caley proliferates to make Garruk's loyalty 5.
A sometimes-used bonus of Viral Drake. Another fun Viral Drake advantage is that you can use it to mess up Ratchet Bomb since it proliferates at instant speed.
T11
Caley draws Island and plays it. He makes a beast with Garruk. He attacks with the other beast. Enemy pops Ratchet Bomb to kill the beast. Caley passes. End step, enemy uses Nephalia Drownyard on Caley, milling Mayor of Avabruck Flip, Predator Ooze, and Island.
Enemy plays Ghost Quarter and passes. End step, Caley proliferates twice to bring Garruk to 8.
T12
Caley draws Rampant Growth. He activates Garruk's ultimate to create 10 Wurms tokens. He passes.
Enemy plays Black Sun's Zenith for 5. Caley Dissipates it. Enemy concedes.
Sideboarding
Caley puts in 2x Bramblecrush and 3x Mind Control and removes 2x Viral Drake, 1x Predator Ooze and 2x Moldgraf Monstrosity.
Moldgraf Monstrosity is too expensive in a deck where I can kill with small creatures. Bramblecrush is a great way for me to win the mana war against a fellow control deck. Mind Control is a fantastic answer to the only win condition I saw, and any others he's likely to have. Predator Ooze is not very good against any of his removal, and Viral Drake serves no purpose here but to proliferate.
Game 2
Enemy plays first and keeps his opener.
Caley keeps an opener of 3x Island, Birds of Paradise, Dissipate, Acidic Slime, and Rampant Growth.
This would be unacceptably risky against a more aggro deck, but against this opponent it's just fine.
T1
Enemy plays Darkslick Shores and passes.
Caley draws Forest, plays it, casts Birds of Paradise, and passes.
Lucky draw anyway.
T2
Enemy plays Darkslick Shores and passes.
Caley draws Island, plays it, casts Rampant Growth for Forest, and passes.
Again, against most other decks I would always leave the counterspell mana open rather than ramp, but here I have no fear of anything he will cast on turn 3.
T3
Enemy plays Swamp and passes.
Caley plays Island and passes. End step, enemy casts Forbidden Alchemy, throwing away Island, Swamp, and Think Twice.
Two lands into the graveyard makes starting a campaign of land destruction very tempting.
T4
Enemy plays Drowned Catacomb, then casts Bloodline Keeper Flip, which runs into Dissipate. Enemy passes.
That could have gotten out of hand quickly.
Caley draws Volition Reins. He casts Acidic Slime blowing up Drowned Catacomb. He passes.
I am far more eager to LD a control deck than a token deck, as you can see. I also feel much better about doing this with a Volition Reins in hand for backup.
T5
Enemy plays Ghost Quarter and then Black Sun's Zenith for 2, killing everything. He passes.
Caley draws Stoic Rebuttal, plays Island, and casts Acidic Slime blowing up Drowned Catacomb. He passes.
T6
Enemy does nothing and passes.
Excellent.
Caley draws Stoic Rebuttal, attacks with Acidic Slime, and passes. (Caley 20, Enemy 18). End step, enemy flashes back Think Twice.
T7
Enemy does nothing and passes.
He has either drawn or Forbidden Alchemy'd 17 cards to this point. 7 of them have been lands, leaving a likely 18-19 lands left out of 43 cards. This is a good thing for me, especially if I can draw one more piece of LD to destroy that Darkslick Shores and deny him blue mana.
Caley draws Forest, plays it, attacks with Acidic Slime, and passes. (Caley 20, Enemy 16).
Somewhat troubling is his inability or unwillingness to kill Acidic Slime. That indicates to me that he has a hand full of awful things that cost a lot of mana.
T8
Enemy does nothing and passes.
Caley draws Bramblecrush and blows up Ghost Quarter with it. In response, E casts Go for the Throat on Acidic Slime. Caley Stoic Rebuttals the kill spell. Caley attacks with Acidic Slime and hits. (Caley 20, Enemy 14). He passes.
I prefer to destroy Ghost Quarter here so that he definitely can't fix later or stop my next land denial play, though it makes little difference. With two nice answers still in hand and a low likelihood of him casting anything scary soon, I could very much afford to counter his kill spell and keep the damage train rolling.
T9
Enemy does nothing and passes.
Caley draws Mayor of Avabruck Flip. He attacks with [[Acidic Slime]. Enemy flashes down a Snapcaster Mage targeting Think Twice for flashback.
Not that that matters since he has no mana to cast it.
Enemy blocks the slime with the mage, both die. Caley casts Volition Reins on Darkslick Shores and passes.
Speaks for itself, really. It would take a big run of land for him to get back to Bloodline Keeper Flip levels, much less anything nasty. I have nothing but time.
T10
Enemy does nothing and passes.
Caley draws Hinterland Harbor, plays it, and casts Mayor of Avabruck Flip, then passes. End step, enemy Tragic Slips it.
I allowed this because I have only one precious card in hand, and because countering it would probably just let him kill it with another Slip or some such.
T11
Enemy does nothing and passes.
Caley draws Mind Control, does nothing, and passes.
Even though I'm out of gas, I can refuel easily while he takes time to rebuild a mana base.
T12
Enemy plays Nephalia Drownyard and passes.
Caley draws Mind Control, does nothing, and passes.
T13
Enemy does nothing and passes. He discards Grave Titan.
Caley draws Island and passes.
I felt it would be more demoralizing to watch me draw a ton of cards while he has to discard rather than taunt him with how much LAND I kept drawing.
T14
Enemy plays Darkslick Shores and passes.
Caley draws Bramblecrush. He casts it destroying Darkslick Shores. Enemy responds with Forbidden Alchemy throwing away Island, Drowned Catacomb, and Mana Leak. Caley passes.
What an awful way to have to search for lands- you have to THROW AWAY lands in the process.
T15
Enemy plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.
Caley draws Mind Control, does nothing, and passes. End step, Enemy flashes back Think Twice.
Bring on that Bloodline Keeper Flip.
T16
Enemy plays Island and casts Ratchet Bomb, then passes.
Caley draws and casts Predator Ooze, then passes.
He isn't adding counters to Ratchet Bomb, probably out of token fear.
T17
Enemy plays Drowned Catacomb and casts Black Sun's Zenith for 1. Caley Stoic Rebuttals it.
If I can just have a turn, I can get Predator Ooze out of range of Tragic Slip and Curse of Death's Hold...
Enemy casts Phantasmal Image copying Predator Ooze and passes.
Caley draws Birds of Paradise. He plays Mind Control on the copied Predator Ooze / Phantasmal Image, killing it. He attacks with Predator Ooze and hits. (Caley 20, Enemy 14). He passes.
T18
Enemy plays Island and casts Wurmcoil Engine. He passes.
Caley draws Ambush Viper. He plays Island and casts Mind Control on the Wurmcoil Engine. He attacks with Predator Ooze and hits. (Caley 20, Enemy 11). He passes.
T19
Enemy plays Swamp and casts Grave Titan. He passes.
Caley draws and casts Birds of Paradise, then casts Mind Control on Grave Titan. He attacks with Wurmcoil Engine and Predator Ooze, which are both chop-blocked by zombie tokens. (Caley 26, Enemy 11). Predator Ooze becomes a 5/5. Caley passes.
T20
Enemy plays Nephalia Drownyard and passes, then concedes. Caley wins the match 2-0.
Thoughts
-
I feel like I am at my strongest as a player in control vs. control matchups. It's also where I have the most fun. It's one of the most poker-like, intriguing, thoughtful forms of Magic you can find.
-
Careful sideboarding is important. I feel like my sideboarding directly won me game 2.
Blue-green is always a fun control deck. :)
How good has Predator Ooze been to you, anyway?
March 6, 2012 1:17 p.m.
rckclimber777 says... #3
I'm impressed. The deck seems to not only be holding strong, but dominating games/matches lately. Who would have thought that a deck that main boards both mind control and volition reins would be this effective.
March 6, 2012 11:02 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #4
@Miasma - I would agree that he probably popped that Ratchet Bomb a turn or so too early. He was probably counting on Black Sun's Zenith to see him through the Wurmpocalypse, and wanted to buy enough time to get enough mana for that big a Black Sun.
@CrushU - Predator Ooze is a very nice creature when you can get it out, I'm finding. In a control deck, you often have to make the difficult choice of getting out your Ooze to block and leaving yourself open to some new awfulness, or not getting the Ooze down and taking damage, but having counterspells online. Having it sitting in the same CMC slot as my counterspells, in other words, is somewhat rough. The triple green doesn't help either.
Still, all that said, it's just such a filthy play. It blocks anything (and in the process is a very hard problem for most aggro decks), is a nasty threat against control decks that can be cast very early with some luck, and, I think, is the best pound-for-pound creature in the deck; certainly a huge improvement over Cudgel Troll, the previous filler of the "resilient early-midgame meat" role.
Now if I can just find a more efficient mainboard solution to fliers than Viral Drake and a counterspell of better quality than Stoic Rebuttal I'll be set.
March 7, 2012 2:15 a.m.
KrazyCaley, I have a question for you:
Why do you play Ambush Viper instead of Beast Within? They are both "instant speed removal" in green, but Beast has an added benefit of being able to hit anything. Sure they get a 3/3, but wouldn't blowing up there planeswalker or Consecrated Sphinx be better?
(Of course, this is assuming you don't Volition Reins the Sphinx, lol)
-BuLLZ3Y3
March 7, 2012 4:39 a.m.
KrazyCaley says... #6
@BuLLZ3Y3 - You already have the question half-answered- for things that Ambush Viper doesn't stop, there's Volition Reins.
The reasons are mainly these:
Generally, I want this slot to function as a kill spell. Green-blue doesn't have a lot of those, of course, so Ambush Viper it is. Beast Within is not a great kill spell for me simply because it just substitutes in another problem. Creature-wise in this deck, if I could stop a 3/3, I wouldn't need to cast Beast Within in the first place. It has good utility against non-creature permanents too, of course, but my deck is full of Acidic Slime and Volition Reins already for just that purpose, and it packs Bramblecrush in the sideboard just in case.
A BIG reason is that Beast Within does not deal with hexproof creatures. Ambush Viper does.
Beast Within costs, annoyingly, one more, and is right in there with all the other 3-CMC stuff that's important for me to cast.
Finally, Ambush Viper serves an important additional function, which is cheap, fast aggro that can sneak in against a rival control deck and deal damage. Basically I like Ambush Viper because it's a flexible card. It often gets sideboarded out because I have specialist cards that are often better when I know what deck I'm up against, but in a game 1 where you don't know what you're up against, it's a great card to have in your starting hand.
March 7, 2012 3:30 p.m.
That was an extremely well written answer, thank you. After reading it, I'm going to have to try out , , so if this deck can't stand up to those types of decks, I don't want to invest the money into it quite yet.
Thanks for responding,
-BuLLZ3Y3
March 7, 2012 3:51 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #8
Against RDW, the bag is mixed. Generally I have to mulligan really aggressively until I get to a Predator Ooze or other effective blocker, and going first is REALLY important. So is having a Dissipate for Chandra's Phoenix, and drawing answers for Shrine of Burning Rage. I'd say I win about half those games.
Against Geist of Saint Traft U/W Human decks, this deck is pretty crushing. Except for those Intangible Virtue god-mode draws, which few decks can stop, Sarnath deck here can hold its own quite easily, simply because it can counter all the relevant spells and easily stop Mr. Geist on the ground, with Ambush Viper or otherwise. You just have to use your Volition Reins and such wisely. I win 60-70% of matches vs. U/W humans, I would say.
Burning Vengeance Delver decks are not really a problem because of Acidic Slime and such, plus Nihil Spellbomb dings that build pretty badly. Delver decks in general are not too threatening for me.
March 7, 2012 4 p.m.
I love Daily Dose.
Caley, will we see a new deck soon? I dig Sarnath, but I'd like to see your gifted narrative and operating skills employed by something new.
March 7, 2012 10:35 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #10
@Dismay I experimented with playing the Crawling Chaos deck for a while and found that I didn't really enjoy playing it; am having much more fun with The Doom That Came To Sarnath, for sure. It would probably be fun to switch it up again.
Alas, throwing another deck together is an option at this point only if you guys want to fund it, for alas, I play on MTGO and cards, while cheaper there than in the real world, can still set one back considerably.
-C
Miasma says... #1
I would say game 1, that Awesomite misplayed pretty badly. I would have saved the Ratchet Bomb
for the token army of wurms sure to come, or at least scare you into not unleashing the ultimate. He was at 16 life, and was only going to take 2 from that, and then 4 from the next, and then 6, ect provided that he didn't answer them with something else. The Ratchet Bomb
at that point, was good and set. You couldn't have possibly done something to it. But playing blue meant you had access to counterspells (always assume they do) and even though he could zenith the wurms, it left room for error. But a thrilling game either way. I love reading these articles KrazyCaley, and I look forward to more in the future. Keep up the great work!
March 6, 2012 11:02 a.m.