Finished 3-1 and took 2nd place again. I was happier with my mulligan decisions tonight, but still unhappy with the sideboard. I really need to find the damned Pithing Needles for one, and the bounciness of Cyclonic Rift and Disperse are not doing enough to protect me in my meta. Wall of Frost isn't cutting it either (Frostburn Weird is doing just fine against aggro decks) and I feel like I'd be happier with Claustrophobia instead. Neither Judge's Familiar nor Cloudfin Raptor is particularly thrilling, but I can't convince myself to cut one or the other in favor of Galerider Sliver. Not many options for decent, evasive 1-drops in the current standard blue other than those three.
No one seems to be siding things against me that would be effective, which is strange. This weekend alone, I've played against two Selesnya decks, one Bant, two Fog/Maze's End, and a weird homebrew Junk, and never saw a single Selesnya Charm hit Thassa (who consistently does a lot of 5/5 unblockable work, paving the way for Master to winmoar). Only the dude with the Junk deck bothered to cast one at all, and he put a 2/2 Knight into play, which I dispersed. At least 3 decks (Izzet Control/Maze's End/Fog) had access to both blue and red mana but did not hit Thassa with Turn/Burn. I've yet to play a single deck in tournament that actually had Supreme Verdicts in it, but Azorius will almost certainly present a problem.
I feel like three maindecked Mutavault is causing more mulligans than I'd prefer, but I'm nevertheless still refusing to cut to two because of how well they perform in the mid-to-late game with Master(s) out. The main problem is that you wind up with an opening hand like, say... Island, Mutavault, Cloudfin, Tidebinder Mage, Nightveil Specter, Thassa, Disperse. You most likely need to mulligan. You will be loathe to throw away that hand, but you'll feel worse if you pin everything on the need to draw 2 Islands quickly, and if you miss on either of your next two draws. You'll feel especially stupid if you miss on both. Two islands and a two-drop or fuck it.
Round 1: 0-2 (vs Heroic Selesnya):
In a rematch against the guy who got mana-screwed twice in R1 against me last night, he got his revenge, and so began an evening where the only thing that truly plagued me was Fabled Hero. At one point he swung at me for 8 flying/double strike/trample (Unflinching Courage/Gift of Orzhova on the Fabled Hero). I threw everything I had at that fucking Fabled Hero and he had a protection spell each time (Ranger's Guile or Gods Willing). I asked after the round how many targeted prot spells he was rocking, and he had 12 without counting the Giant Growths. I just couldn't seem to get anything going in either game.
Round 2: 2-0 (vs Junk Homebrew):
Deck appeared to be an attempt to cram every weird card in Theros into it plus Orzhov fatties (I saw Ashen Rider and Alms Beast, but never saw Blood Baron or Obzedat). I saw 4 Pyxis of Pandemonium in the main deck. Also packed Akroan Horse, Sin Collector, and High Priest of Penance. I had two God-hands and ran over the deck without any trouble. He scooped both games to Master at times when he had no blockers (and evidently none coming in time to beat the clock). Rough game all around because my deck was on easy-mode and it's unlikely I'll ever see anything like the opponent's deck again, so no knowledge was really acquired from round two.
Round 3: 2-1 (vs Heroic Bant):
This was rocking Fabled Hero and Hidden Strings, which is a ridiculously hard to deal with combo if you can't stop it from happening. Fabled Hero is for real once Hidden Strings is ciphered onto him. I very nearly lost 0-2, but a sided-in Rapid Hybridization saved the second match in time for Master of Waves to do his work. In game three, I dropped two of them and they both stuck.
Round 4: 2-0 (vs Fog-or-Maze's End):
I'm honestly not sure what was going on with this deck or how I wound up playing against it in R4. If it was Maze's End, then I never saw one, but it was running Gatecreeper Vines, Into the Wild, and Guildgates. In match one, I swung for 14 (thanks to Master of Waves) something like 6 or 7 times in a row to no avail. My opponent cast at minimum 6 Fog-or-Fog-like spells in a row. Eventually he ran out of Fogs, but I did not run out of Elementals. In match two, I drew what I considered to be a nut hand against his build, and opened with Cloudfin->Tidebinder->Nightveil->Master->Master. I swung for lethal on T6 (held eight of the elementals back but swung with seven 3/2 elemental tokens and a 5/5 Thassa) then negated his Druid's Deliverance.
