Going to my first FNM tomorrow night. Anything I should know or be prepared for? I already have my deck list printed out (taking this deck). Wish me luck!

It varies from LGS, but you shouldn't need anything apart from your deck and some money to get snacks or anything while you're there. And of course, LOTS of dice ;D

I know you will do very well there, let us know how you did, good luck ;)

Wow... so meta at the FNM was pretty much all control lol. I have a VERY hard time with control decks, and so went 2-2-0.

Round 1 (2-1) - B/R Eldrazi: First game was a horrible start to the night. I had to mulligan, and kept the second hand because I didn't want to go down to 5, but probably should have. He was generating a lot of scions to get creatures down, but they were all smaller. He won that one without too much problem. The next two games I took though, and they weren't all that close.

Round 2 (2-1) - B/U Eldrazi Control: First control deck I dealt with. I trounced him the first game, getting out 2 Hardened Scales and growing insanely big. Second game, he was able to keep me from doing anything, and killed me with flyers. Third game ran 30 minutes with him tempoing me every turn, but I was able to keep the pressure on long enough that he ran out of temp. In the end, I had a Gleam of Authority on an Avatar of the Resolute and had out a Abzan Battle Priest. I would bolster with the priest and held out on the avatar and used the gleam's bolster on his end step. He kept growing wider, but eventually my avatar was just too big. and I was able to swing for the win.

Round 3 (1-2) - R/U Control: This control was much more devastating for me. He had the dragons that tap a creature until it leaves the battlefield, and I didn't have any direct removal that could deal with them. First game he controlled all my creatures and swung with his flyers for the win. Game 2 I put in my Ainok Survivalist like a moron because he had a number of equipments I wanted to deal with, but ran into his control dragons again. I was able to get enough out though to still pull this one through barely. Game 3 I pulled the survivalists for the Hidden Dragonslayer to deal with the dragons... and he ended up not getting any out, and was control enough without them to completely stop me in my tracks.

Round 4 (1-2) - Dark Jeskai: This deck was pulled directly from pro tour deck lists. I destroyed him first game with a perfect hand, but the next two games he just repeatedly stopped everything I wanted to do. I have no idea how this deck manages to do so much with so little mana. I'm glad most of it's cards drop in April lol.

Overall an OK outing. Control is the only deck I've run into that does so well against this deck, and my Monday night group has nobody running control... so having to play against 3 control decks was really hard. It was fun though, so I may have to come up with a control deck to take out there :)

I can tell you by playing against this deck in person many times that the real game changer is that stupid Managorger Hydra. It does so many things just by being there. It forces players to target that instead of the Avatar of the Resolute or the Abzan Falconer which will surely kill you. There will always be a Feat of Resistance in hand to keep it alive and grow more counters anyway, or just another Managorger Hydra in hand. Dromoka's Command ruins so many plans and gives more counters... That one Gleam of Authority is usually just the final nail in the coffin, especially when everything has flying, vigilance, and lifelink. The only deck I have that I do not fear this deck with is my Mono-White Ally/Equipment deck that has a ton of Isolation and Removal (Immolating Glare, Stasis Snare, Quarantine Field, and sometimes hit it early with a Gideon's Reproach). Usually the only reason I can win is by being faster.

A well constructed and play-tested deck for sure, too bad for you half of it rotates out of standard next week :)

what actually rotates out again? dragons and khans?

Khans and Fate Reforged rotate out, Dragons is good until mid July.

The big one he loses is Hardened Scales but the Abzan Falconer and Abzan Battle Priest remove a lot of this deck's clout. Feat of Resistance and Valorous Stance are gone too, so he would have to update his protection as well. Those could all be retooled I'm sure, but the Scales are what really ramp up all the counters and I'm pretty sure there isn't a good substitution for those. Except Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, she does generate quite a bit of counters. A pricey upgrade for sure, both in CMC and Quatloos.

The deck loses it's main card. It won't still be played post rotation (well most people will stop) because Hardened Scales is what makes the deck competitive, without it, it is too slow for competitive play.

Unfortunately, the cards that stay aren't quite good enough by themselves to be competitively used without Hardened Scales, sure Managorger Hydra is still broken, but it won't get big enough to win games before it gets removed post rotation.

All I can say is this: Ripperoni In Pepperoni G/W Hardened Scales.

Have you thought about the enduring scalelord combo?

Hi, Harbynger! All hope for this deck is not lost due to rotation! Check out how I changed my deck for new Standard.

Use ALL the dice!

Standard darleen

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I have actually. I even bought a playset of them, but in all the games I ran them in, I never got it to go off. I ended up removing them to go for a more agro build. If you had a way to pull them or play them for less maybe with some ramp, they would be an interesting play, but it's hard to pull it off and easy to disrupt that late in the game.

Any thoughts to making this deck modern would be amazing!!