Daily Dose 42 - Standard

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

27 February 2013

1130 views

vs. spam009

Deck Upgraded!

I have been tuning Bolas for a Better Tomorrow, and saved up some funds here and there to give it a few badly-needed upgrades and tweaks. I believe it is now a considerably better deck. You can view the new decklist below:

Bolas for a Better Tomorrow

Standard* KrazyCaley

SCORE: 107 | 506 COMMENTS | 23118 VIEWS | IN 42 FOLDERS

Game 1

Caley wins the toss and plays first. He keeps an opening hand of Sulfur Falls, Drowned Catacomb, Swamp, 2x Barter in Blood, Think Twice, Gilded Lotus.

Enemy keeps their opener.

Turn 1

C plays Sulfur Falls tapped and passes.

E plays Temple Garden untapped. (C 20, E 18). He casts Avacyn's Pilgrim and passes.

Likely token deck. Fortunately the new changes to the deck gave it a serious upgrade in the token matchup.

Turn 2

C draws Island and plays Swamp. He passes.

E plays Gavony Township. He attacks with the Pilgrim and hits. (C 19, E 18). Then he passes. End step C casts Think Twice, drawing Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.

Good news, this. Usually token decks get out of the range of my Barter in Bloods before I can make them do serious damage.

Turn 3

C draws Dreadbore. He plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.

Now I am very nicely set up. If he casts a single creature next turn, I can Barter in Blood his board clean and be set up nicely for Gilded Lotus soon, followed by Bolas, followed by the easiest game I've ever played against tokens.

E casts Champion of the Parish. Then he taps Avacyn's Pilgrim to help cast Gather the Townsfolk. He passes. End step, C flashes back Think Twice drawing Slaughter Games.

Damn, there goes my beautiful vision. At least I still have two copies of Barter in Blood.

Turn 4

C draws Barter in Blood.

This summer, Barter in Blood 3 - BARTER HARDER.

C plays Mountain and casts Barter in Blood. E sacs the tokens, keeping the Pilgrim and the Champion. C passes.

E plays Gavony Township. He taps the Pilgrim to cast Garruk Relentless  ^Flip. Garruk makes a Wolf. E attacks with the now-3/3 Champion and hits. (E 18, C 16). E passes.

Turn 5

C draws Island and plays it. He casts Barter in Blood. E sacs a Wolf token and the Champion, keeping Avacyn's Pilgrim.

Showing me that he's got mana problems, which was already pretty obvious.

This is a gamble, because if he just keeps making Wolf tokens, he'll be in excellent shape. I have a feeling he really wants to tutor using Garruk, the Veil-Cursed  ^Flip, though, so it's a risk I'm very happy to take.

C passes.

E casts Gather the Townsfolk. He destroys one of the new tokens with Garruk Relentless  ^Flip, thus transforming Garruk. He attacks with Avacyn's Pilgrim and hits. (E 18, C 15). He passes.

As I hoped.

Turn 6

C draws Murder. He casts Dreadbore on Garruk, the Veil-Cursed  ^Flip and passes.

I am in good shape now. He has only three cards and is in some mana trouble; I don't think he can cast any of this three cards. It would be better if I had the right colors of mana for Murder, but with a Barter in Blood still in hand, I should be able to power through any remaining creatures he gets out.

E attacks with his creatures and passes. (E 18, C 13).

Turn 7

C draws Nephalia Drownyard. He plays it. He casts Gilded Lotus, then Barter in Blood, killing the remaining creatures.

Ahhhh.

E plays Forest and casts Champion of Lambholt. He passes.

Turn 8

C draws Counterflux. He casts Slaughter Games naming Intangible Virtue. He exiles one copy from the library, finding no others.

Why not Bolas? Well, since I believe I have this game more or less wrapped up, I want to take a look at his deck before I provoke a concession by playing Bolas. This will make future Slaughter Games more powerful and generally give me a better idea of what I'm up against.

The deck was a somewhat unconventional token deck that much preferred generating tokens to pumping them. There were also a lot of creatures that get benefits when new creatures enter the battlefield or when there are tons of friendly creatures on the board. I marked Increasing Devotion and Midnight Haunting and the most Slaughterable cards, in addition to the Gather the Townsfolk I already knew about.

E attacks with the Champion of Lambholt and hits. (E 18, C 12). He passes. End step, C Murders the Champion.

Turn 9

C draws Chromatic Lantern. He passes.

Probably should have played Bolas. My thinking at the time was this: he had an Increasing Devotion and Midnight Haunting in hand. If I play Bolas, I can put him down to 3 land and guarantee no Increasing Devotion. But for some reason I thought it was important to counter it?

E plays a Plains and casts Cathars' Crusade. C hits it with Counterflux. E passes. End step, C hits E with Nephalia Drownyard, milling Silverblade Paladin, Mentor of the Meek, and Champion of the Parish.

At this point I woke up and realized that Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is a pretty good card and I should probably just cast it and deal with whatever he did using Bolas.

Turn 10

C draws Drowned Catacomb. He casts Bolas and blows up Temple Garden with it. He passes.

E draws and concedes.

Sideboarding

C boards out 3x Think Twice and 3x Devour Flesh. He boards in 3x Illness in the Ranks and 3x Cyclonic Rift.

Now that is some anti-token SAUCE, my friends.

Game 2

E plays first and keeps his opener.

C keeps an opener of 2x Dragonskull Summit, 1x Nephalia Drownyard, Illness in the Ranks, Dreadbore, Cyclonic Rift, and Chromatic Lantern.

Slow, but excellent.

Turn 1

E plays Forest for Avacyn's Pilgrim and passes.

Good thing I have that Illness.

C draws Sulfur Falls. He plays Dragonskull Summit tapped and passes.

Turn 2

E plays Temple Garden tapped. He taps the Pilgrim to cast Gather the Townsfolk, then he passes.

C draws Barter in Blood. He plays Dragonskull Summit tapped and casts Illness in the Ranks, killing the tokens. He passes.

Get down with the illness!

Turn 3

E plays Forest, then casts Oblivion Ring on Illness in the Ranks. He passes.

No attack from the Pilgrim? Also, on my earlier Slaughter Games, I only saw this one Oblivion Ring. Still, he may have boarded in more.

C draws Illness in the Ranks.

Siiiiiick. No, really, your creatures will be sick.

C plays Nephalia Drownyard. He casts Chromatic Lantern, then Illness in the Ranks. He passes.

Turn 4

E plays Temple Garden tapped. He attacks with the Pilgrim and passes. (E 20, C 19).

C draws Murder. He plays Sulfur Falls tapped and passes.

Casting my Barter in Blood net by not killing the Pilgrim.

Turn 5

E plays Plains and attacks with the Pilgrim, then passes. (E 20, C 18).

C draws Chromatic Lantern. He casts it and passes.

Turn 6

E casts Avacyn's Pilgrim. He attacks with the old Pilgrim, then passes. (E 20, C 17).

Barteriffic

C draws Nephalia Drownyard and plays it. He casts Barter in Blood, killing the Pilgrims, then passes.

Turn 7

E casts Avacyn's Pilgrim, then passes. End step, C kills it with Murder.

This calls for some metal.

C draws Cyclonic Rift. He does nothing and passes.

Turn 8

E casts Midnight Haunting, creating tokens that die immediately to Illness in the Ranks. E passes.

He forgot.

C draws Watery Grave and plays it tapped. He passes.

Turn 9

E casts Champion of the Parish. Then he passes.

C draws Gilded Lotus. He casts it and passes.

Note that all this time I should be using Nephalia Drownyard on him, but being new to this card being in the deck, I am forgetting to use it.

Turn 10

E casts Avacyn's Pilgrim, then Gather the Townsfolk, boosting the Champion of the Parish to 4/4. He attacks with it and hits. (E 20, C 13). He passes. End step, C Nephalia Drownyards, him , milling Cathars' Crusade, Mentor of the Meek, and a land.

C draws Drowned Catacomb. He plays it and passes.

Bolas is off playing hide-and-seek again.

Turn 11

E plays Temple Garden tapped. He attacks with his creatures. C overloads Cyclonic Rift in response. The two creatures and Oblivion Ring return to E's hand. The other Illness in the Ranks returns to play. E recasts the Champion and the Pilgrim in that order. End step, C uses Nephalia Drownyard. One of the milled cards is Increasing Devotion.

I don't like to do this since O-Ring can now hit Bolas, but I need to buy some time.

C draws Chromatic Lantern. He casts Dreadbore on Champion of the Parish, then the Lantern, then he passes.

Turn 12

E plays Gavony Township and immediately uses it. He attacks with the now-2/2 Pilgrim and hits (E 20, C 11). He passes. End step, C Drownyards twice, milling no graveyard-relevant cards and leaving 31 cards in E's library.

At this point I really started to regret not being conscientious about activating the Drownyards on earlier turns, since if I'm unlucky I'll have to mill him quickly to win.

C draws Swamp. He does nothing and passes.

Turn 13

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

A little premature! He can win with what he's got on the field; I can mill six cards a turn and he has 30 cards left = about 4 turns. I have 11 life and he'll attack for 3 this turn, 4 next turn, and then fatal damage the turn after = 3 turns. Of course, I have Cyclonic Rift, but he doesn't know that.

Thoughts

1 - Nephalia Drownyard is really powerful.

2 - The deck's changes make it much more effective against token decks, it would seem.