I took the deck as my son and I headed off to our first FNM...it was an absolute blast to play! Despite making some significant errors in game play against some very good players (and learning a lot in the process--great people, I came out 2-2-1 from my first constructed event. The deck carried me really well despite my goofs, so I can't wait to see what it can do with better handling.
Observations: I know already that I am going to have to tweak to keep a couple of Ratchet Bomb MD. I faced U/R Delver variant, U/W Delver variant, B/W Tokens, a homebrew R/U/W Burning Vengeance and Werewolves, and the Ratchet Bomb pair replaced either the Grim man himself of the Fume Splitter duo in most every match. I didn't get Grim up and going once, which leads me to think he may need to move on to a different deck.
The U/R Delver match went 2-0 in my favor, but partly due to the player. It was a borrowed deck played by someone coming back into MtG from years away and I gained a lot of leeway from his trying to play beatdown with the deck. Once I started cycling Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger through Mortarpod I was able to march on without much trouble.
The U/W Delver was a different story...I was playing a very experienced player and I really made some blunders. I learned during the match (after losing) that Ratchet Bomb set to 0 kills flip cards, which helped immensely for the rest of the night. Still, despite my mistakes, I took game 2 and made him fight for game 3, so the deck does have potential against Delver. Had I remembered to side in Nihil Spellbomb and zap his graveyard play might have gone differently. Live and learn...
B/W Tokens mopped me up in short order. I couldn't get a Ratchet Bomb to surface and his deck played like there were 30 Honor of the Pure in it as he hit two early game each time to start sending big flyers in droves. I could have played better, but honestly his deck took me down before I could really start to roll.
The homebrew Burning Vengeance deck was created and play by one of the shop employees. It was very mana-heavy and he was holding me off with some red burn, but I still took games 1 and 3 because he deck took so long to get really online that the synergy between Falkenrath Noble, Gravecrawler and Messenger put him down with help from Phyrexian Metamorph. I will say that game 2 was an awesome display from his deck...I was up on him lifewise 16-4 when his Burning Vengeance engine finally came online and wiped my 16 life in one turn. Again, I know that Nihil Spellbomb to his graveyard would have shut him down had I hit it, so a remember for next time.
Werewolves was flat-out a fun match. The guy was running Kessig Wolf Run along with a deck full of flip cards and it did scary damage when given the chance. The first match went relatively long...he got out 3 werewolves and got them flipped as I got out a Ratchet Bomb. He was planning a big kill stroke when I set the bomb off at 0 (thanks to my earlier lesson!) and cleared his board--much to his surprise (he now knows moonside cards are 0 CMC as well). Messenger and Falkenrath Noble along with dying smaller zombies carried me on to take him down. The second game ran close as well; we had a ball beating down on one another with chained attacks, and he finally beat me by one turn when I could only bring Gravecrawler out in trio and couldn't block his fatal strike as he sat on 2 life.
The deck performed well despite my occasional mismanagement. Mortarpod and Ratchet Bomb were key players and really took people off-guard when they saw them in "the zombie deck". Alter's Reap also did a great job putting creatures in my hand while cycling zombies for ping damage. I think Grimgrin is going to have to find a different deck since my metagame is really open to Ratchet Bomb use. I hate to let go of the Fume Splitter pair as they can be used to extend the life of Geralf's Messenger by knocking off his +1 counter so he can do undying damage again, but it really fizzled the few times it came out. I think rather I will pull the pair of Havengul Lich in to MB and see about keeping the zombies all coming back out of the graveyard.
After seeing the Burning Vengeance deck, I also realized that this deck would be perfect for running that card. At 2 points per cast from GY, Gravecrawler alone could take down most folks in short order. But I can't see how to work it in...
