Night of the Aggro Decks (1st place FNM) 5-0
Seriously, everyone I played was on aggro. Crazy times.
Round 1 - WEREWOLVES RAWR (2-0)
Going to admit a bit of luck here: managed to get T1 Arbor Elf, T2 Elvish Archdruid in both games, with following turns devoted to playing large threats and killing his Mayor of Avabruck
Flips, Reckless Waif
Flips, Immerwolf, etc with various removal. Game 2, he got color screwed out of red mana.
Sideboard: nothing. Could have brought in Ultimate Price for the Mayors and such, but the Abrupt Decays and Sever the Bloodlines were doing plenty enough work on their own.
Round 2 - ENCHANTMENT AGGRO RAWR (2-0)
My opponent had some very aggressive starts with the likes of Geist of Saint Traft and/or Invisible Stalker suited up with any number of copies of Rancor, Spectral Flight, and Ethereal Armor (additionally powered by Detention Spheres and such). At 22 lands, his 3-color mana base was a bit shaky, and I managed to draw multiple Thragtusks, so his starts weren't as explosive as they perhaps could have been. Notable play: Game 2, he swung for lethal with an 11/11 Invisible Stalker with like 4 auras attached, two of which were Ethereal Armor. I was at 8 life. Before damage, I Golgari Charmed one of the Ethereal Armors, dropped to 2, and killed him on the counterattack.
Sideboard: -3 Deathrite Shaman, -2 Sever the Bloodline. +3 Golgari Charm, +2 Silklash Spider. The spider blocks Traft and his guardian angel all day (buying me at least a turn), and the charm breaks enchantments and kills off early, aura-less Invisible Stalkers.
Round 3 - RIX MAADI AGGRO RAWR (2-1)
A somewhat unusual Rakdos deck leaning heavily on tons and tons of two drops, including the somewhat surprising Rix Maadi Guildmage. Games 1 and 3 were very similar: he got in with early Rakdos Cackler attacks, I ramped into creatures which outclassed his, I killed him with soulbonded Vorapedes. He managed to deal exactly lethal in game 2 after wearing me down with three(!) Tormented Souls and a Hellhole Flailer sacrifice.
Sideboard: -4 Elvish Visionary, -1 Garruk Relentless
Flip. +3 Golgari Charm, +2 Silklash Spider. The charms didn't actually come in from the sideboard until I lost to the triple Tormented Soul beats of game 2. Suddenly the instant -1/-1 looked very applicable.
Round 4 - GOLGARI ZOMBIES RAWR (2-0)
Lotleth Trolls + supporting cast. Game 1, got him to pour more and more resources into his Lotleth Troll by playing steadily larger speedbumps for it, encouraging him to play out his hand before I finally hit the troll with Sever the Bloodline. He couldn't recover and died to large green things. Game 2 was very evenly matched until pure luck took over: we both played out a bunch of small creatures, only to burn all of our removal spells on each other, effectively clearing the board. He topdecked lands, a Killing Wave, and a plucky little Lotleth Troll. I topdecked two Vorapedes and a Thragtusk. Killing Wave, as it turns out, is not terribly effective against Vorapedes.
Sideboard: -4 Elvish Visionary. +3 Golgari Charm, +1 Sever the Bloodline. Favorite play: using Golgari Charm to kill two of three Bloodthrone Vampires, just before the survivor took out my Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
Flip, who had killed both his Blood Artist and Deathrite Shaman. Revenge is a vicious, never-ending cycle.
Round 5 - MORE GOLGARI ZOMBIES. RAWR AGAIN (2-0)
Lotleth Trolls + supporting cast, again, favoring the likes of Knight of Infamy and Crippling Blight over my previous opponent's Bloodthrone Vampires. Both games were simple and straightforward: he derived a ton of value and damage from his trolls and Gravecrawlers, but depleted his hand in the process and eventually succumbed to the likes of Wolfir Silverheart and Vorapede. Deathrite Shaman and timely Abrupt Decays did a lot of heavy lifting for me, keeping my life total above zero and finishing off any wounded trolls that had already regenerated through all of my opponent's untapped mana.
Sideboard: same as above, -4 Elvish Visionary. +3 Golgari Charm, +1 Sever the Bloodline
Random conclusions:
Golgari Charm is infinitely useful as a sideboard card. It really seems to have a solid use against almost every deck. I certainly boarded it in aggressively tonight. While I have used it in the main deck in the past, I've been finding lately that I'd really rather have the 3x Rancor and a more purely offensive strategy for game 1, and save the added versatility for the later games, when I can better adapt to my opponent's deck.
Yeva, Nature's Herald rules. We need to get this lady her own guild.
I have severely underestimated the Standard-level usefulness of Rogue's Passage in the past, but at two copies main deck, I stand corrected. Its unblockable-ness lets you dispatch planeswalkers and opponents when you absolutely must break through any number of defenses, but I've been finding tonight that merely having the passage on the battlefield is enough to make some opponents hesitate and/or attempt to play around it. Even if you never use it for its ability (which is unlikely, as it's awesome), there's still some psychological impact to be had from its presence.
Where did all these aggro decks come from?
I'm feeling pretty happy with how the deck's running currently.
