Saint Traft for President
Modern
SCORE: 28 | 37 COMMENTS | 4585 VIEWS | IN 11 FOLDERS
Weekly Results —Aug. 17, 2016
I went 3-1 tonight and just barely missed going 3-0-1 and splitting for first. I've implemented a few changes to both the mainboard and sideboard. I'm holding off on updating the decklist until I have some more results, but I'll outline the changes here.
MainBoard:
- -2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant: Elspeth felt great against the decks where I was already favored to win, but was almost always boarded out against aggressive opponents like Burn or Infect. She is also generally worse than Collected Company against the control decks. Furthermore, I've been a total scrub playing 62 cards, so these were a pretty easy solution.
- -1 Scavenging Ooze: Without any graveyard decks to prey on, Scooze has been mediocre. This card does grant us some lifegain and the ability to shrink opposing Tarmogoyfs, but both of those abilities typically come too late in the game to matter. If I were playing against more Dredge or Abzan CoCo decks than I would definitely play more copies.
- +1 Voice of Resurgence: Took out Scooze and the fourth Voice replaced it. This also felt smart in the face of more decks in the room.
- +1 Loxodon Smiter: There looked to be an increased presence of decks as well decks like Tron and Restore Balance that will go over the top of Bant Company. For these reasons I added another uncounterable, 4 power creature to help keep up the tempo against control and put the pressure on in matches where I'm the aggressor. This was my 61st card, but I guess 61 is better than 62.
SideBoard:
- -2 Thrun, the Last Troll: I've always loved playing Thrun, but I think that he is just outclassed by Collected Company. I would often have to board out a couple copies of CoCo because I was boarding in Thrun and some removal spells which felt like a waste of sideboard space. He has also been less impressive than I had hoped against Jund - they are able to snag him with Thoughtseize or simply ignore him once their Scavenging Oozes and Tarmogoyfs are bigger.
- -1 Vendilion Clique: The cost has proven much more cumbersome than I had anticipated.
- -3 Meddling Mage: Since I primarily play against Jund, Grixis, Burn, Hatebears, Merfolk etc. there aren't many matchups where I can confidently make a strong name with Meddling Mage. Furthermore, the matchups where I'd like it aren't great environments for it either. Against Tron I can name Ugin, the Spirit Dragon which I can otherwise not handle, but then Mage just dies to Pyroclasm or Kozilek's Return. You can try to wait until you have Dromoka's Command backup, but that's easier said than done. Against Infect I would name Phyrexian Crusader, but then just die to the other creatures in the deck. I'll be keeping this card in consideration, but it's certainly not right for all metas.
- +3 Rhox War Monk: Over the last couple of weeks, there have been points where I really wanted to board in the Azorius Charms for the lifelink mode but also wanted to keep my creature count high for Collected Company. Thus, I've decided to add War Monk to the board to serve as additional lifegain as well as another beefy threat. I'm also keeping the Charms for now since they can serve as additional removal.
- +3 Dismember: These are a concession to Infect mostly, though they also give another way to deal with Tarmogoyfs and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Unlike the rest of the removal in the deck, these can kill Phyrexian Crusader!
I haven't included round by round sideboarding notes this week because I waited too long and forgot how exactly I boarded. They will be returning next time.
2-0
Playing Islands makes this match up intrinsically more difficult. Fortunately for me, my opponent had to mulligan to 5 in game 1 and 6 in game 2. In both games he was unable to front an early offense and I kept the pressure on.
2-0
This was my first time playing against this deck. My opponent was being spicy and playing Pyromancer's Ascension, which did not match up well against Dromoka's Command. Having Path to Exile and Dromoka's Command (and possibly Dismember) in the deck allow us to keep their Thing in the Ice Flips down. This means that the game will probably go long, which favors the deck playing Kitchen Finks, Eternal Witness, Collected Company and Gavony Township.
It's also super satisfying watching your opponent take a turn to cast some cantrips and tick think in the ice down to two counters only to cast Flickerwisp and reset it.
1-2
This deck was playing all of the extra turn cards plus Exhaustion to stall and then cast an awakened Part the Waterveil and kill you. The sideboard also contained Thing in the Ice Flip to serve as another win-con. I won game 1 on the play via a turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft. Game two I punted:
- Had my opponent at 4 life with a Geist of Saint Traft and Birds of Paradise on my side and a Thing in the Ice Flip on his.
- He untaps, casts Threads of Disloyalty on my Birds and like an idiot, I let him take it. Had I tapped it in response, he would not have been able to block the Angel token the next turn and died.
- My opponent uptaps and proceeds to flip Thing in the Ice Flip and take 6 turns in a row before killing me. Live and learn I guess...
Game 3 was close, though my opponent was able to start chaining turns when he was at 1 life.
2-0
After throwing away a match I was rewarded with one of the deck's best matchups in Burn. We already play quite a few resilient blockers in Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence and have quite the trump card in Dromoka's Command. I felt especially good going into the match having access to 3 Kitchen Finks, 3 Rhox War Monk, 3 Loxodon Smiter, 4 Dromoka's Command and 3 Azorius Charm accross my 75.