Minotaur Battle Rage
Pioneer
SCORE: 96 | 66 COMMENTS | 17700 VIEWS | IN 38 FOLDERS
COWS WON 2nd Place on Weekend Tournament —Nov. 30, 2014
A new store was opened last weekend by a friend of mine. One of the good treats are free deck boxes and food too!! What's also good is that he is selling most cards for 50% off from Standard to Modern!! Good having scry temples for half a price, and also Sorin and Sarkhan!!
Anyway, the events that evening was both a Standard format and a draft and my cows joined the Standard format Tournament. I finished 2nd Place, only loosing to a Mardu Mid-range deck.
First Game: vs Sultai Delve - WIN
The game went 2-1, with me winning the first and third rounds. First game, I managed to lay down the early cow beaters while he starts off slow. Although he has dorks like Sylvan Caryatid, he was scared to block with Felhide Petrifier on the board. He lost with an alpha strike combination of the minotaur lords. I lost the next round narrowly. He was able to beat me faster with Sidisi and her horde of zombie tokens. He was also to kill most of my cows with Murderous Cut too. The final game was quite bad for him because all the land he drew were pain lands. I managed to land Mogis for added pain, leaving him no choice to sacrifice all his creatures. When he hurt himself down to 2 life because of the pain lands to cast something, I burned him with Magma Jet to end it.
Second Game: vs Mono Black Aggro - WIN
I won all rounds 2-0. The first game, he won the dice roll and leads and early Thoughtseize, removing my own Thoughtseize off. He started slow while I lead with Gnarled Scarhide and Deathbellow Raiders. He was able to land Bloodsoaked Champions and we exchange attacks. All things messed up for him when Ragemonger and Felhide Petrifier hits the field. Next round, he was able to land Brain Maggot and took my sole Magma Jet off and leads the attack. I was able to get the card back with a surprised Dark Betrayal and swing with Gnarled Scarhide. He made two mistakes this round. First, he lands a Mogis Marauder and grants intimidate on his two Bloodsoaked Champions and swings. Too bad for him, I got two untapped Ragemongers and I blocked. He failed to realize that they are black too. His final error resulted his downfall when he casts Thoughtseize with me having one last card, which is the Magma Jet that I got back. In response, I cast it on his face, and thus hurting himself for 4 damage.
Third Round: vs Abzan Midrange - WIN
I won this one too at 2-0. First round, he leads off a slow start with tri lands and scry lands while I beat him with early Minotaur beaters. I was able to kill his Courser of Kruphix when it blocked my Gnarled Scarhide, allowing me to kill it with Magma Jet easily. I managed to assemble all the Minotaur lords in the field and despite him having a couple of Doomwake Giants on the field, he was hesistant because all my cows have deathtouch and trample. After I land a second Kragma Warcaller, he concedes. The second round, I lead with an early Thoughtseize and ripping of the Courser of Kruphix and I also saw a Herald of Torment and the rest are lands. I attacked him later on with two Gnarled Scarhide and then he casts the Herald of Torment next turn, which I killed on his EOT with Dark Betrayal. On my 5th turn, I cast a Kragma Warcaller and swing for the win.
Fourth Round: vs Mardu Midrange - LOST
I horribly lost this one at 0-2. On the first game, he was able to get rid of every Minotaur I land with Lightning Strike or Murderous Cut and he doesn't allow any at all. He was able to land a Sorin, crack a token from it and then land a Rubblemaster next. Although I managed to Magma Jet Sorin away and Thoughtseize off Sarkhan, he killed me with tokens and with Butcher of the Horde quickly. The next round, my sideboard cards didn't show up, save for one Murderous Cut that I used to kill a Rubblemaster, but he managed to land another one. The round was almost a replay of the first.
Overall, everything went really good if not that excellent. What is really interesting is that my opponents always read what I land since Minotaurs rarely sees play nowadays. The advantage we could have in playing the deck is that we know their decks (since most are net-decked) and they rarely know ours. We have a basic idea how certain decks will run, but being a rogue deck is an advantage since they really have no perfect idea how Minotaurs play.
The mana-base was in the right combination because I never got mana-screwed and I only mulligan once (and that hand is full of lands). I can say that Bloodstained Mire improved the deck well since deck shuffling is what it lacks, although we still don't really draw cards, except to set it up using Magma Jet only. Bloodfell Caves is good too since it help off-set the life payment from the fetch land and somewhat reduces or offsets the life lost from Thoughtseize. I still trying to find ways to make this deck competitive.
Although I finished second place, I managed to get a Flooded Strand on one of my winning packs. I felt the real winner since the guy who beat me all got crap rares.