Daily Dose 32 - Standard

Daily Dose of Standard

KrazyCaley

8 February 2013

1710 views

vs. Muromisan

I am, as ever, using Bolas for a Better Tomorrow.

Game 1

Enemy wins the toss and plays first. He mulls to 6.

Caley keeps an opener of Swamp, Dragonskull Summit, Mountain, Island, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Barter in Blood, Mystic Retrieval.

Enemy keeps his 6 hand.

Turn 1

E plays Swamp and passes.

C draws Island, plays Dragonskull Summit tapped, and passes.

Turn 2

E plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays Island, and passes.

Turn 3

E plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.

C draws Think Twice, plays Drowned Catacomb, and passes.

Turn 4

E plays Island and passes. End step, C casts Think Twice, drawing Tribute to Hunger.

C draws Mystic Retrieval, plays Island, and passes. End step, E casts Forbidden Alchemy tossing Pillar of Flame, Dragonskull Summit, and Rolling Temblor.

Excellent choices.

Turn 5

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Gilded Lotus and plays Mountain.

Here I come to the first significant decision. Against another obvious control deck, I must decide whether to cast Gilded Lotus.

Really the primary problem is being tapped out on his turn, especially if he counters the Gilded Lotus, leaving me unable to represent a counterspell. However, I'm not too worried about this because I don't think his win condition costs six mana, or if it does, I'll easily be able to deal with it using a kill spell. If it's a Planeswalker though, I'm in trouble. But that's a risk I'm willing to take, and I'm betting he'll let the Lotus resolve to preseve any counterspells he may have in any case.

C casts Gilded Lotus, which resolves. C passes.

Turn 6

E does nothing and passes. End step, C flashes back Think Twice, drawing Think Twice.

Bad news for him. The control player that gets out the mana lead has a big advantage.

C draws and plays Mountain, then passes.

Turn 7

E plays Mountain and passes. End step, C casts Think Twice, drawing Dreadbore.

That's what I wanted to see.

C draws Drowned Catacomb. He plays it and passes.

Turn 8

E casts Think Twice and passes.

Makes sense; he's looking for a land drop.

End step, C flashes back Think Twice, drawing Mystic Retrieval.

I figure that Barter in Blood probably won't be too badly needed, so I'll ditch it if I don't draw something I can play.

C draws Gilded Lotus and casts it. He plays Swamp and passes. End step, E flashes back Think Twice.

He is at least representing a counterspell by not flashing it back on his own turn to look for the land drop.

Turn 9

E casts Pillar of Flame targeting C. (E 20, C 18). He passes and discards Curse of Death's Hold to get to 7.

Interesting choice for the mainboard, but very defensible. A huge proportion of the metagame hates to see that card.

C draws Murder and passes. He discards Murder.

Turn 10

E casts Vampire Nighthawk and passes. End step, C casts Tribute to Hunger. (C 21, E 20).

ACTION! EXCITEMENT!

C draws Chromatic Lantern and casts it. He passes.

Turn 11

E plays Dragonskull Summit and passes.

My window to use my mana advantage is closing. What I really would like to have is Bolas and a couple of counterspells.

C draws Island. He plays it and passes. End step, E casts an overloaded Cyclonic Rift. C discards Mystic Retrieval and Barter in Blood to get to 7.

I paused a while when he cast it, to again fake the counterspell.

Turn 12

E does nothing and passes.

C draws and plays Dragonskull Summit. He casts Gilded Lotus and Chromatic Lantern, then passes. End step, E casts Izzet Charm to draw and discard, discarding 2 copies of Essence Scatter.

Turn 13

E plays Island and taps out for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. Bolas blows up Gilded Lotus and E passes.

C draws and plays Swamp. He casts Dreadbore targeting the enemy Bolas. Then he casts his own Bolas. Friendly Bolas blows up Dragonskull Summit, and C passes.

This summer, ONLY ONE BOLAS can defeat BOLAS. And that Bolas.....IS BOLAS.

Turn 14

E plays Desolate Lighthouse. He casts Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, killing both Bolaii, and passes.

Bolas-score: Me 2, Him 1.

C draws Murder. He casts Gilded Lotus and passes.

Turn 15

E plays Island and casts Slaughter Games naming Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. He removes the remaining two copies in C's library but does not remove the copy in C's graveyard.

A common oversight. Lucky for him I have no way to bring it back.

E passes.

Bolas-score: Him 3, Me 2. Now, at this point, you might say, 'Caley, shouldn't you concede? Your only win condition has been stripped out of the deck." But that's just not so. There are now two ways I can plausibly win the game:

2 - I currently have 33 cards in my library and I draw next. He has 32. If I use no further draw effects and avoid losing the game, I will win.

C draws Counterflux, does nothing, and passes.

I want as many Counterflux as I can get. Hopefully he's not packing too many more Slaughter Games though; they would strip good cards out of my deck if he looked through it carefully last time, and it would have the unfortunate side effect of making my library slightly shorter than his. Another Slaughter Games naming Rakdos's Revenge and he could just sit there and play nothing for the rest of the game. He should know this if he carefully searched my library.

Turn 16

E does nothing and passes.

C draws Island. He plays it and passes. End step, E casts Searing Spear hitting C. (E 20, C 18)

I should perhaps have saved that Island to fake an extra card in hand, but with 4 vs 5 cards, it doesn't matter too much. I'm not too afraid of him burning me to death based on what I've seen so far, especially if he tries to cast another Vampire Nighthawk or whatever, which I will feast upon with Tribute to Hunger.

Turn 17

E casts Vampire Nighthawk and passes. C kills it with Murder.

I know I said I'd use Tribute to Hunger, but I got lazy.

C draws Mountain, does nothing, and passes.

Now I'll start saving a land in hand.

Turn 18

E activates Desolate Lighthouse, discarding Drowned Catacomb.

This puts me 1.5 cards ahead of him in the mill-out race. He can still force a win by casting Slaughter Games naming Rakdos's Revenge, but he can't use Desolate Lighthouse anymore and have that remain true.

C draws Swamp, plays it, and passes.

Turn 19

E activates Desolate Lighthouse, discarding Island. He passes.

Interesting. This is either

I consider (a) most probable; Slaughter Games is definitely not a card you want to mainboard too many of.

C draws Dreadbore, does nothing, and passes.

Turn 20

E activates Desolate Lighthouse discarding Island, and casts Gilded Lotus. Then he passes.

C draws Counterflux, does nothing, and passes.

Is it terrible that games where no one is doing anything are my favorites?

Turn 21

E activates Desolate Lighthouse, discarding Swamp. He passes.

He better find whatever he's looking for pretty soon; he's almost down below 20 cards now, and I have plenty of defenses left.

C draws Mountain, plays it, and passes.

Turn 22

E activates Desolate Lighthouse discarding Essence Scatter. He passes.

C draws Island and plays Mountain. He passes.

Turn 23

E casts Vampire Nighthawk and passes.

C draws Swamp and plays it. He flashes back Mystic Retrieval targeting Tribute to Hunger. Then he casts Tribute to Hunger, which resolves. (C 21, E 20). C passes.

I sensibly make the play that was already showing on the board this time.

Turn 24

E casts Desecration Demon and passes.

I don't know, man, you might have noticed that I brought some kill spells earlier when you looked through the deck? Possibly he was baiting a counterspell and hoping to get Bolas or something through on me soon, but kill spells will do the trick. Perhaps his plan is to keep the demon by defending it with his own counterspells?

C draws Dreadbore. He casts it targeting the Demon, which dies. Then he passes.

True, I might need this Dreadbore for a planeswalker, but I have so many Mystic Retrieval that it doesn't matter. Plus I have another Dreadbore anyway.

Turn 25

E casts Think Twice. Then he activates Desolate Lighthouse discarding Mountain. Then he casts Chromatic Lantern.

He's down to 15 cards now.

C draws Swamp, does nothing, and passes.

Turn 26

E does nothing and passes.

Curious. I mean, it's not going to save you NOW to stop using the lighthouse; you might as well keep digging for whatever it is. Maybe he now has a hand of really good stuff and doesn't want to risk drawing another really good card with the lighthouse. That seems probable.

C draws Mountain and plays Swamp, then passes. End step, E activates Desolate Lighthouse discarding Mountain.

Oh, I see. Well that's a good way to do it too.

Turn 27

E activates Desolate Lighthouse, discarding Mountain, then flashes back Think Twice. He plays Drowned Catacomb and passes.

C draws Counterflux, does nothing, and passes.

Turn 28

E plays Mountain and casts Gilded Lotus. Then he passes.

C draws Island and plays Mountain. He passes.

Turn 29

E plays Swamp. He casts Searing Spear at C. (E 20, C 18). He passes.

Oh no, my pride!

C draws Dragonskull Summit. He plays it and passes.

Turn 30

E casts Chandra, the Firebrand.

He has 7 cards left, and thus 9 turns including this one to use Chandra with. By my count, that's good for about 13 damage out of my 18 life; possibly slightly more if he copies a small burn spell. He might also be planning to cast a bigger spell and copy it.

E dings Caley for 1 with Chandra and passes. (E 20, C 17).

C draws Dreadbore. He casts it, destroying Chandra, and passes.

I'm beginning to wonder if my opponent actually HAS counterspells. In any case, I was tempted here to just let Chandra do her thing and laugh when she came up short, but with a full hand, another Dreadbore, two Mystic Retrievals, and the remote possibility of my opponent having something relevant for Chandra to copy that he somehow can get through my Counterflux pair, the technically superior play is to kill her.

Turn 31

E draws and concedes.

I love it when I win games that way.

Sideboarding

C boards in 2x Lone Revenant, 2x Dissipate, 2x Pithing Needle, 3x Slaughter Games, and 2x Redirect. C boards out 4x Murder, 4x Barter in Blood, 1x Chromatic Lantern, and 2x Think Twice.

My sideboard is excellent against other control decks. Note that Lone Revenant is a good choice despite his deck having plentiful creature answers, because having seen absolutely NO creatures from me, he will likely board most or all of them out, and the Revenant is immune to many of them anyway. Note that I am careful to leave in Tribute to Hunger against him to avoid the same issue hitting me in the face, and I can also deploy Dreadbore against creatures if I use them carefully and with proper Mystic Retrieval backup.

Game 2

E plays first and keeps his opener.

C keeps an opener of 2x Island, Mountain, Counterflux, Mystic Retrieval, Chromatic Lantern, and Dreadbore.

Turn 1

E plays Swamp for Duress and gets rid of Counterflux. He passes.

A sensible choice.

C draws Dreadbore, plays Island, and passes.

Turn 2

E plays Dragonskull Summit and passes.

C draws Drowned Catacomb, plays it, and passes.

Tense early moments in this game. Slaughter Games will be critical; I assume he boarded in a few more. He will have the privilege of casting it first if he can get it in his hand.

Turn 3

E plays Island and passes.

C draws Counterflux, plays Mountain, and casts Chromatic Lantern.

Sometimes Slaughter Games being uncounterable is great, but other times...

Turn 4

E does nothing and passes.

Salvation for at least a turn.

C draws Slaughter Games.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

C plays Island and casts Slaughter Games. E concedes. C wins the match 2-0.

Probably a little premature, but it IS pretty crippling, and certainly very demoralizing, especially if he HAD a Slaughter Games in hand but couldn't play it because of mana screw. I name Slaughter Games with it, of course, leaving him relatively toothless, and he knows I will be able to bring it back at least twice, which will either leave him counterspell-starved (he can counter the Mystic Retrievals if not the actual Slaughter Games ) or leave his deck stripped of most of its valuables.

Thoughts

• His deck looked a lot worse than it is. His deck is built in a slightly different way from mine, but it's a way that makes the mirror matchup really bad for him. His 4x Vampire Nighthawk, for instance, is just a dead draw, as is the Desecration Demon. The fact that he apparently does not run too many counterspells really worked to his disadvantage here. Still, a mostly game effort by him.

• In control standoffs, always be aware of who is winning if it comes down to who draws out first.