Daily Dose 34 - Standard

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

10 February 2013

988 views

vs. dabeezor

My deck is Bolas for a Better Tomorrow.

Game 1

C wins the toss and plays first. He keeps an opener of Mountain, Swamp, 2x Tribute to Hunger, Mystic Retrieval, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Chromatic Lantern.

E keeps their opener.

Somewhat suspect opening hand, but one land in my first 3 draws and all is well; I can afford to miss one early land drop with this hand.

Turn 1

C plays Mountain and passes.

E plays Woodland Cemetery and passes.

Turn 2

C draws Mountain and plays Swamp. He passes.

Yaaaay

E plays Dragonskull Summit and passes.

This makes it highly likely that this deck is the standard four-color reanimator, though other possibilities exist.

Turn 3

C draws Barter in Blood, casts Chromatic Lantern, and passes.

I'm in pretty good shape, though I'd really like a Counterflux.

E plays Dragonskull Summit and passes.

Usually reanimator would have something going by now.

Turn 4

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays it, and passes.

E plays Blood Crypt tapped, casts Vampire Nighthawk and passes.

Turn 5

C draws Mountain, plays it, and passes.

E plays Overgrown Tomb tapped. He casts Rancor on his Vampire Nighthawk. C responds with Tribute to Hunger, killing it. (C 23, E 20). E passes.

I was going to take 2 and see if he gave me a reason to cast Barter in Blood, but I'll happily use Tribute to Hunger instead to 2-for-1 away the always-incredibly-annoying Rancor permanently.

Turn 6

C draws Dragonskull Summit. He plays it and passes.

I am feeling really good. I am one mana away from Bolas and my opponent has no board, plus I have the capability of killing seven creatures in hand. Still, I am somewhat uneasy, as I don't yet know what my opponent's deck is supposed to do. Rancor suggests an aggro deck that is currently misfiring, and the cards I've seen thus far are consistent with Jund.

E plays Blood Crypt untapped. (C 23, E 18) He casts Rakdos's Return for 4, and C discards Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Barter in Blood, Tribute to Hunger, and Mystic Retrieval. (C 19, E 18). E passes.

Ouch. Now I'm REALLY wishing I had that Counterflux. The good news is that thanks to Mystic Retrieval, I am not now utterly defenseless.

Turn 7

C draws Dreadbore. He does nothing and passes.

E casts Farseek, finds a swamp, and passes.

If this is Jund, though, where are all the creatures?

Turn 8

C draws Tribute to Hunger, does nothing, and passes.

E casts Dreg Mangler. Then he casts Rancor on it, but C responds with Tribute to Hunger. (C 22, E 18). His card advantage is not so strong as you might think after a Rakdos's Return for 4; I've two-for-one'd him twice, and of course I have graveyard resources to draw on.

Turn 9

C draws Murder. He does nothing and passes.

E casts Farseek for Overgrown Tomb tapped, and passes.

Turn 10

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays it, and passes.

With 2 copies of Bolas left in a now 44-card library, very quick and dirty mental math says that on the average I can expect to draw about 10 cards before reaching a Bolas.

E casts Strangleroot Geist, then scavenges Dreg Mangler onto it. C responds with Murder, and the Geist returns with undying. It attacks and hits. (C 19, E 18).

Note that without Tribute to Hunger I'd be down a far more perilous 13 life by now).

Turn 11

C draws Mountain. He blows up the Geist with Dreadbore, then passes.

The land is more valuable as a bluff than on the battlefield, at least with Bolas mana already there.

E casts Vampire Nighthawk and Strangleroot Geist. He attacks with the Geist and hits. (E 18, C 17). He passes.

He's starting to turn up the heat on me now; he possibly has something even worse and knows this will draw the graveyarded Barter in Blood out of me. He's playing very cautiously, which is not ordinarily what you want to do with this kind of deck, but which is wise given how much kill he's seen out of me.

Turn 12

C draws Gilded Lotus. He flashes back Mystic Retrieval targeting Barter in Blood, then casts the Barter. The Geist returns with undying. C passes.

E casts Wolfir Silverheart, soulbonding it with the Geist. The Geist attacks and hits. (E 18, C 10).

Flawless play by the opponent. Now I need a kill spell or Bolas to stay alive.

Turn 13

C draws Swamp and concedes.

Lethal damage next turn.

Sideboarding

C boards in 2x Redirect and boards out 2x Think Twice.

A pretty silly error. This is for Rakdos's Return, but that card hits a TARGET OPPONENT and thus cannot be retargeted onto its original caster. It didn't end up being relevant, but still, yikes, Caley, you know better than that.

Game 2

C plays first and keeps an opening hand of 2x Mountain, Dragonskull Summit, Counterflux, Murder, Rakdos's Return, and Dreadbore.

E keeps their opener.

Turn 1

C plays Mountain and passes.

E plays Forest for Deathrite Shaman and passes.

Turn 2

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays Dragonskull Summit, Dreadbores the Deathrite Shaman, and passes.

E plays Woodland Cemetery untapped (C 20, E 18) and casts Farseek, finding Overgrown Tomb, and passes.

Turn 3

C draws Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. He plays Drowned Catacomb tapped and passes.

E plays Dragonskull Summit. He casts Underworld Connections on Forest, draws a card with it, and passes. (C 20, E 17).

Turn 4

C draws Mystic Retrieval. He casts Rakdos's Return for 2. E discards Rootbound Crag and Mountain.

With nothing else to do, I figure I might as well spend some time trying to hurt his hand. If I don't draw other help, I can at least bring it back and keep casting it to cancel out Underworld Connections AND do some damage.

E draws a card with Underworld Connections. He plays Blood Crypt untapped. (C 20, E 14). He casts Dreg Mangler and puts Rancor on it. It attacks and hits. (C 15, E 14). He passes.

Turn 5

C draws Dragonskull Summit and plays it. He passes.

E casts Rakdos's Return for 3 on C. C discards Counterflux, Mystic Retrieval, and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. (E 14, C 12). E attacks with Dreg Mangler, but C Murders it. E passes.

AGAIN with that.

Turn 6

C draws Mountain and plays it. He casts Mystic Retrieval on Rakdos's Return, then passes.

He must now cast anything he wants to cast.

E draws a card with Underworld Connections. (E 13, C 12). He casts Vampire Nighthawk, puts Rancor on it, and passes.

Could be a lot worse than that.

Turn 7

C draws and plays a Swamp. He casts Rakdos's Return for five on E, causing him to discard Farseek and Vraska the Unseen. (C 12, E 8).

The decision to get out the Vampire Nighthawk instead of Vraska bears a little examination. At first glance it might seem silly to a less experienced player, but consider -

So his decision is indeed quite correct.

C passes.

E casts Wolfir Silverheart.

Hell of a topdeck.

E attacks with the Nighthawk and hits. (E 16, C 4). He passes.

Turn 8

C draws Dragonskull Summit and concedes. E wins the match 2-0.

Needed a kill spell to stay alive.

Thoughts

• He played both games well, but game 1 is what really shows my opponent to be a strong player. Most aggro players, having hit their opponents with a big Rakdos's Return, would rush right in and go for the kill, but he, paying attention to my deck and its capabilities, proceeded with deliberate caution, forced me to spend my kill spells as HE chose, not as I chose, and then built up his fatal attack.

• Redirect does NOT affect Rakdos's Return. I never drew Redirect in this match, but all the same, let us all observe this fact and make sure we remember it for future reference, if we had not already.