With the help from some guys in kings games, I present the new prototype of nyc rdw!
Currently planning to take it this friday july 2, 2010 to see how it fairs at King's Games. Will report back.
July 2nd:Lost really badly to a WW deck with Kor Firewalker maindecked. Holy crap that was insulting.
Won game 1 against vamps, but couldn't draw my burn in games 2 and 3 to deal with his threats. Wound up bluffing and losing with him at 3 :(
Won game 1 and 2 straight and easily against time sieve. Wasn't really a match except I didn't know that angel song was maindecked so I had to wait for him to tap out, which wasn't really hard. Finished the game with a nice bolt to the face.
My opponent left before the match even started lol.
July 06 2010Testing a sideboard that turns a rdw into a boros control deck. Should be interesting.
July 9th 2010 Placed 8th!Interesting results with the white sideboard. Its firstly something that throws people off by a long shot seeing a rdw player open with a land, and it makes them rethink their entire hand. Secondly, it just plain out OWNS kor firewalker, big creature threats and planeswalkers, but you have to mull correctly. Something I'm still getting used to.
Match 1: Homebrew U/wGood tough match, I had beaten him in a skirmish before actually playing the match so I think that might have something to do with why he beat me. Came out of the gate and knocked off game 1, lost game 2 and game 3 to well placed path's and an unanswerable kor firewalker. Tough tight match though that gave him a HARD time. Dude was pondering every turn trying to find answers.
Match 2: Bye, the guy just didn't think he could beat me so he just didn't play me. Meh.
Match 3: R/G eldrazziHe was a new comer and he just wasn't prepared. He had walls up but didn't use them because he was saving mana for the eldrazzis.
Match 4: Mirror, burn deck wins.My buddy seth plays a pure burn deck with ball lightning and goblin guide as his only creatures. Interesting idea, he soul's fire's his zektar for 14 damage. Its really a war about being smart and waiting for your opponent to tap out to play big shit. The sideboard completely failed me game 2 so I took it out and dominated game 3
Match 5: U/w tapout/chapin mixThe resident champ at my FNM paul mendez. Dude is seriously skilled. He messed my face up with baneslayer, spreading seas and wall of omens. Game 2 I just gave him a straight up hard time and he literally paused for a good 20 seconds when he saw me open with a plains.
I pathed one baneslayer, oringed a jace and pathed a gideon, but he kept the pressure on with another baneslayer and swung for game with that.
The problem with the white sideboard is that it really slows down the deck. Still fine tuning :)
July 16, 2010 Placed 5th!!!!
Game 1
Lost because I'm an idiot and didn't sign the paper with my dci. Stupid Stupid Stupid. It became a tie.
0-1-0
Game 2
My friend Telvin who plays u/w control with dijn of wishes to cast iona. I played smartly, and I won r1 and r2 even with instant speed DOJ's thanks to the new leyline.
1-1-0
Game 3
My friend Richard who I thought played time sieve but changed to jund last second. After a horrible misplay against a seige-gang followed up by a blightning (I didn't earthquake when I should have) I lost the game to god damn goblin tokens... :( Round 2 I didn't get any sense of a good hand and he did the typical leech, thrinax, bloodbraid-> blightning, broodmate and I was finished.
1-1-1
Game 4
Jank white life gain deck. I won round 1 simply. Round 2 he gained 70 life and I scooped because of time running out. Round 3 I raced him to death before he gained a single life point.
2-1-1
Game 5
White weenie deck. Round 1 went normal, guide, hellspark, ball lightning etc etc finishing with some timely burn. Round 2 was a slaughtering for me. He pulled out paths, firewalker, brave the elements, and celestial purge.
AND YET! Round 3? He didn't have a single damn card to use against me the whole time. Kargan fucking dragonlord took the game swinging 16/8 flying trample over a skyfisher with collar. Man that felt good.
I didn't even use my sideboard at all except for that last match where I put pithing needle out for student of warfare, although I should have named gideon.
3-1-1
July 24, 2010 Placed 3rd
Game 1
Was against NLB, and it was a slaughter fest. Wall of omens, with fauna shaman sitting there and more vengevine's then I care to admit hit me. What an amazingly powerful deck it is.
0-1
Game 2
Vampires. I just out-raced him and swung for game, he did have a nocturnus build but I beat him turn 4 both times.
1-1
Game 3
Mono white bant esque deck. It was the fastest game of the day taking a total of 4 minutes for both game 1 and game 2.
2-1
match 4 was against my buddy richard with jund again. I learned my lesson from last time and made sure to correctly play my entire hand and destroy thrinax. He won game 2 with some tricky sarkhan moves hitting me with a dragon for 5 and then hitting me with 5 more from sarhakn. Its a really cool deck. But I sped up my game and beat him game 3 and beat him with 3 bolts and a burst lightning. 11 damage for 4 mana. I love red.
3-1
game 4 was against a naya player that had been doing "mad work" on the other red players at kings games. He won game 1 with a nice combination of sparkmage and llanowar elves with behemoth sledge. Game 2 he started with leyline of sancity, which I don't care about because if you look at my build its all creatures anyway. I won this by keeping his board clear and hitting with t.peak'd ball lightnings and hell's thunder along with the slow bleed of guide. Game 3 was becoming a stalemate. I still had plenty of burn in my hand but he was running out of steam I could see. I think he top decked a baneslayer and said to me "if you combust this you win" so I tapped two mana and combusted it. Great tight game.
4-1
July 30th 2010 Placed 3rd again.
Game 1:
Against my buddy Ahmed's u/w vamp/angel deck. He had never played fnm before but that didn't mean I was going to go easy on him. Set him on fire.
1-0
Game 2:
U/w aggro. Same as last time. Fire and forget. Although, end of turn sphinx of jwar isle is a bitch to deal with.
2-0
Game 3:
Went against the elfdrazzi guy at my fnm Jack Vargas. Guide, pede, spark, ball, bolt and 2 fetches, perfect hand, twice. He did however get me down to 1 on round two because of two nissas chossen.
3-0
Game 4:
An antagonizing match against u/w control. Game 1 was a disaster, shouldn't have kept the hand, didn't have enough speed and three walls of omens. Game 2 I played manabarbs and just killed myself with earthquake. Just wasn't into that game at all.
3-1
August 07
Game 1: Artifacts
Match 1 was done and over before the rest of the players got finished shuffling their decks. Match 2 became annoying as steel overseer was slowly making every thing bigger and bigger. I anticipate that when mirrodin comes out I'm gonna need a whole lot of artifact destruction. Any way, match 3 I just sped out of the gates and didn't stop.
Game 2: Vampires
Match 1 I came out of the gates swinging and never stopped. Match 2 sided in leyline of punishment to deal with nighthawk. Finished the game with 2 timely face aimed bolts.
Game 3: U/G Polymorph
Simple enough, match 1 was done in 4 turns. Match 2 lasted long enough for him to poly into pelakka worm (which was infuriating lol) and won swinging with that fat fucker. Game 3 he didn't get enough blue mana out to mana leak my stuff so I wound up just burning face.
3-0
Game 4: U/W Control
Nightmare match. Won match 1 barely by squeezing in a second hellspark after he countered one. Unearth ftw basically. Game 2 comes in 15 u/w hate cards. I pull out leyline turn 1 and play pithing needle on jace. The game becomes a gideon game fighting over to try and kill that bastard but that never worked.
Match three ended badly, I attacked with a geopede and he blocked it with a celestial colonnade, but before putting it in the graveyard I said "wait hold on", I never let the card go into the graveyard because I never let go of the card. In anycase the guy I was facing wouldn't let it go. So I stupidly combusted the CC like I was going to originally. He played baneslayer when he was at 5 life and it was over.
Note to self. Combust ONLY goes to baneslayer, nothing else.
3-1
August 13th 2010
Game 1: W/x Lifegain
Won game 1 even with his life reaching 60. Dragonlord is just beast. Game 2 he got too much life (250) so I just scooped for time. Game 3 I brought in the leyline, mulled to get 2 of them, played 2 of them and won with a timely ball lightning + smoldering spires on kor firewalker.
1-0
Game 2: U/W control
Matan. Cool kid, but very new to control. Tapped out way too many times for jace belren and didn't put out wall of omens once. Games 1 and 2 went quickly as I just kept the pressure on and landed a manabarbs after he tapped out for a jace.
2-0
Game 3: Next Level Bant
Anthony G. This match up just plain out sucks. Bant goes almost as fast as red and gets vengevine to help them out make fauna shaman one of the most broken cards I've seen in my career. Round 1 ended with a baneslayer, Round 2 ended with me busting the door down with a dragonlord and Round 3 ended with a vengevine and a colonnade swinging ftw.
2-1
Game 4: U/W control
Paul. This match took forever, and he fell to the pressure created by THE ENTIRE FNM ATTENDANCE SWARMING AROUND THE TABLE! Literally every red and aggro player was standing on my side and all the control players were next to him just shouting at each other. It was very fun to say the least. I lost round 1 to baneslayer, I won round 2 with just massive damage and a fast start, and round 3 almost ended in a tie. Basically it amounted to me getting leyline of punishment, brittle effigy, mana barbs, 4 geopedes and 2 goblin guides on the table within 5 turns and just sitting there playing ball lighting after ball lightning.
3-1
Game 5: U/W control
Another new u/w player. Won game 1, didn't sideboard, won game 2.
4-1
August 14th 2010 m11 gameday
No one showed up except my buddy kyle, so we played for the certificate and alex gave both of us liliana specter's and mitoic slimes.
Game 1: D.force
Won game 1 timely enough. Lost game 2 to garruck getting all tappy on me and scooped to a d.force. Game 3, alex, owner of the store, came over and said "is that enough damage in your hand?" jokingly. The hand was:
Fetchland, mountain, teetering peaks, dragonlord, ball lightning, mountain.
I got my turn 3 11 damage in with geopede + ball lightning and the rest was just bolts and dragonlord.
1-0 1st place m11 lol
August 20th, 2010
Game 1: RDW Mirror
Against Anthony G, one of the better players at my fnm. He had hinted that he was using mountains and I quickly figured out that he was playing RDW due to the change in response he had when I asked him.
Round 1 went to me simply being 10x faster than him since he chose to use his burn on my hellsparks and ball lightnings instead of me. He put up a fight though and in Round 2 he was able to get me due to a lack of goblin guide on my side. Round 3 however, I just had every burn spell in my deck in my hand basically. Opening hand was mountain, guide, bolt, bolt, bolt, burst, mountain and I top decked a hellspark next turn.
1-0
Match 2: w(x) lifegain
Perhaps the most annoying matchup to my deck. Round 1 I simply couldn't do enough damage and ajani was all up in my face gaining life. Round 2 and Round 3 I mulled to get the leyline and shut down his kor firewalkers with earthquakes and ball lightnings.
2-0
Match 3: RDW(U) kiln fiend deck
Round 1 I sped out of the gates with a 20 die roll, guide, pede, ball lightning for 11 damage, finished with a few bolts. Round 2 he never got a land and top decked an island to which I went "why?" "because my friend thinks distortion strike is cool and this is his deck". The only damage I took that round was from an arid mesa.
3-0
Match 4: Sun Titan Uw Tapout Control
John Carlson's new Uw deck that he piloted to the 1st place match. Great deck, very powerful, but my ego got ahead of me and I was tired so I didn't sideboard (bad move). Round 1 went quick enough, round 2 he got a gideon out with wall of omens and that kinda just ends the game right there. Round 3 I had to mull to 4 due to mana flooding each time, that went horribly bad.
3-1
Match 5: Jund
My favorite matchup by far out of all the decks standard has to offer. Jund simply isn't fast enough to compete since I think 75% of their lands come in tapped. A putrid leech on turn 3 isn't really that good what so ever. Rounds 1 and 2 were over in about 5 minutes but the kid is great and a blast to play against.
4-1
August 28, 2010
Match 1: Esper control
Both game 1 and game 2 I had him down to 1 life. But wall of omens caused too much early disruption.
0-1
Match 2: RDW
He didn't really know what he was doing in his red deck and he was using cards like Chandra's spitfire instead of hell's thunder.
1-1
Match 3: RDW
What can I say, getting hit with flinged ball lightnings are not fun.
1-2
Match 4: U/w
Actually won this match by being so supremely hyper aggresive that I was even shocked how fast the deck went. Guide, Geopede, fetch, ball lightning, burn burn burn FTW
Match 5: Vamps
I know the guy, I know the deck, go aggro, burn vampire nighthawk and continue swinging.
3-2
Match 6: U/G polymorph
The guy simply put too much stuff in the way for me to get any damage. 3 obstinate baloths in game 2 put him to 12 life. Lucky bastard.
3-3
17th place. Awesome.
August 29th
Match 1: Green Eldrazzi
Simple, goblin guide did about 12 damage both games.
1-0
Match 2: Valakut Titan
My deck got stolen, thus, in the process of rebuilding it I didn't have enough time to actually play the match.
1-1
Match 3: Bant something
My buddy jack, never got enough mana to do anything besides counter 1 ball lightning
2-1
Match 4: Rdw Mirror
Guy straight up outplayed me and drew into his unearth dudes faster than I did (thats the real key to winning the mirror)
2-2
Match 5: Naya
I out raced him game 1, and held a hand with 1 mountain, 1 teetering peaks, a guide, combust and a ball lightning in game two. Applied liberal amounts of combust to his baneslayer he fetched up with fauna shaman
3-3
Match 6: Soul SistersI honestly didn't even bother playing this match since I was so pissed off so I just gave him the win since he would have had a chance to top 8
Horrible day.
