Overall Record: 2-2
Overall Impressions: The deck performed better than I originally thought, but I am also taking these results with a grain of salt as it was the first set of games that I had played with the deck, as well as I had a couple of suboptimal card replacements since I couldn't get them in time: +2 Dread Wanderer & +1 Diregraf Colossus for -2 Gravecrawler & -1 Wayward Servant.
Individual Matches:
Round 1 vs 8-Rack (1-0) (2-0)
Game 1 was over rather quickly, as I was on the play, and he didn't have targeted discard spell to disrupt double Tidehollow Sculler, and he wasn't able to get anything going before he dies to the 2/2 beats.
Game 2 was slightly less lopsided, as he got off to a good early start, but Geralf's Messenger was a great threat that he had a hard time getting rid of and helped deal with his Liliana of the Veil, and he was unable to find an Ensnaring Bridge before he dies to the beats.
Round 2 vs Boggles (1-1) (3-2) Game 1 was rather quick as he got a Slippery Bogle with an Ethereal Armor and Daybreak Coronet by turn three and ran away with the game. Game 2 he mulliganed down to 5 cards and 2 of those 5 were Leyline of Sanctity. Game 3 was by far the most interesting game of the night. He started off rather slow, and I chose to use an Abrupt Decay on an early Kor Spiritdancer that he hadn't done anything with up until that point, and I got punished by drawing the Fatal Push the next turn. The game ended up stalling out as he had a Gladecover Scout with 13 power including Daybreak Coronet and Rancor, but due to a turn 3 Diregraf Colossus that had gone unchecked I had enough power to be able to lose half my board to first strike and then still kill the creature. This continued to stall out until he eventually drew a Griff's Boon and ended it there. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but if I didn't Decay the Spiritdancer early I easily win the game there with the Decay, so that is something that I need to consider for the matchup in the future.
Round 3 vs Hollow One (1-2) (4-4) Game one went relatively quickly, with him hitting an early Flameblade Adept into an Hollow One, and I couldn't quite catchup in time not to die to Flamewake Phoenix beats in the air. Game 2 I managed to clog up the ground with Geralf's Messenger, and had the Path to Exile for the Phoenix and managed to out beat him on the ground after grinding him out with Collected Company and Messenger. Game 3 started out very similar to game 2, but he managed to get two Phoenixes online early and I wasn't quite fast enough to race him on the ground, however with Collected Company I got much closer to winning the race than I originally thought I would.
Round 4 vs Grishoalbrand (2-2) (6-4) I wish I had more to say about this match, but Game 1 I simply took his only discard spell with a.Tidehollow Sculler and just played creatures and beat him before he did anything. Game 2 was also over relativly quickly, as I landed a turn 1 Nihil Spellbomb and had the Collective Brutality to strip his Through the Breach and easily pick up the win.
Final Thoughts The deck performed better than I originally thought, but there were plenty of better play and sequence choices that I could have made if I was more familiar with the deck, but the deck definitely has legs. Collected Company is still a great card, and it can definitely take you from losing to winning extremely fast. I'm considering cutting the Mutavaults and replacing them with Swamps, as that is what the original list played, and it's still unclear whether they are too much of a liability or not. Also figuring out what cards I'm going to use to round out my sideboard, which will likely include some copies of Damping Sphere since me local meta has quite a bit of tron and Izzet Phoenix. If you guys have any comments/criticisms I would love to hear it, I'll probably be posting another tournament report next week!
