Just took the deck to Monday Night Magic, and in all honesty, I'm still incredibly happy with it. The board plays extremely well against almost every match-up, but tonight was definitely shakier than I'm used to. Weird things went on.
Overall, I ended with a record of 2-2-0. Definitely not where I should've been, and I'll explain that in just a bit. Here's how the breakdown goes:
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First game, I faced a Bant Control deck, but it was incredibly weird. I managed to beat him late after multiple Thragtusk and Cloudshift came into play, but the second round against him is where it got crazy. He main-boarded Conjuror's Closet. Yeah. But that isn't even the half of it. He played a Lavinia of the Tenth, and every turn, blinked it to detain my whole board. He had a Champion of Lambholt in play that he was pumping, and waiting every turn to try and make it bigger than my creatures, but I just kept pumping them bigger and wasting time until we got all the way past Turn 0 and had to call game 2 a draw as time ran out. Overall, very weird, very cool, and eye-opening: Win.
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Second game, I faced the same BUG deck that I played against last time, and one the first game quickly. During the second match, he managed to pump himself, as I was becoming land-starved, and played a wide variety of pesky things, from Thragtusk to Garruk, Primal Hunter/Garruk Relentless
Flip and ever Vraska the Unseen. He won game two, but in game three, I managed to out-match him with speed again, and ultimately finished the match: Win.
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The third game was upsetting, only because I was facing another Selesnya deck, that specialized more in using Trostani, Selesnya's Voice in conjunction with blinking Thragtusk and populating. (Gaining crazy life). I lost the first game. Won the second, and only drew two land on the third, being unable to catch up to him: Loss.
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The fourth and final round was easily the most upsetting for me. I had victory in clear sight, and I blew it, which I will never make the mistake of again. My opponent was playing an almost identical Selesnya deck (two mirror matches in a row; not my night), but she ran Thragtusk, and Armada Wurm making for an interesting match. I won game one by swinging completely through to her almost every play. In game two, she beat my strategy by speeding up her deck with her side-board. After having a crazy match in game 3, with tons of creatures on both boards, the board stood as such: She was completely tapped out, had tapped all but one Centaur Token, and had 12 life remaining. The turn prior, she attacked into me, and I blocked a Centaur with an Experiment One, which I should have regenerated, but for the first time in the night, I forgot the trigger. Fast-forwarding to the following turn with her 12 life and one Centaur, I have in hand two Selesnya Charm, but only enough mana to play one (I still only had one green source, and three land, by turn 13). Breaking it down, what this means is, if I would have regenerated Experiment One, I would have won that turn, with that one extra damage to get through. She inevitably won, because of my stupid mistake, but a lesson was learned, and I will not forget how the mistake occurred.
Overall, a great night of games. Tough competition, and I can only hope not to end up in so many Thragtusk heavy/mirror-matches next time around. I will update as I make it there. Thank you for reading!
