I played a lot with this deck other friday through the weekend, and I have made some changes to the build, being Yeva's Forcemage replaced Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Flip as well some sideboard tweaks such as an inclusion of Bow of Nylea and another Fleshbag-Maruder to deal with big creatures and pesky flyers. Yeva's Forcemage ended up being much better than I expected, helping me screw up combat math get through for damage protect my creatures from removal or pump my blockers even bigger to kill threats using either Collected Company or Chord of Calling Because of this I have decided this is better than Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Flip as it is more aggressive and versatile. With that said I will give you a run down of these 4 events from the best of my memory.
FNM 8/7/15
I ended this event going 3-1-0 finishing in second place.
To be honest I can't exactly which decks I played, but from what I can remember I played mono red burn, a three color collected company build, abzan control and this golgari deck running cards such as Satyr Wayfinder, Evolutionary Leap Grim Haruspex Nantuko Husk, Graveblade Marauder and Hangarback Walker to amass tons of value. I won 2-0 against every deck at this FNM expect for the last deck I mentioned which ended in a draw on game three due to going to time. The games between this deck and mine were very long due my opponent being able to fill up his hand and board consistently. I would go through specifics of each match like I did before but not only do I not have the time to do this with 4 of events but I also don't have that great of a memory. Moving on...
8/08/15 Gameday
This was one of the worst performances I have had at an event period. I kept having to mulligan to 5-6 card hands with no 2 and 1 drops. Out of the 5 Collected Company I cast throughout the night 3 missed completely one only grabbed one creature and the other hit two Elvish Mystic.
My first match up was against green red devotion which I was quickly stomped by due two two consecutive match ups with this curve turn one Elvish Mystic turn two Courser of Kruphix turn 3Xenagos, the Reveler using the +1 to drop Sylvan Caryatid then turn 4 dropping a Dragonlord Atarka. Normally this would be a hard set of plays to fight but getting stuck on two lands with a Dwynen's Elite being my only real play just led two quick defeats.
My next match up I am still uncertain how I lost to it. It was some weird green red deck that through big creatures out and then cast Chandra's Ignition In the first game I had firm control of the game, until I was hit with a surprise Chandra's Ignition leading to me getting one shot.
Game 2 my side board and hand hate allowed to quickly kill my opponent without having to deal with shenanigans.
Game 3 I had to mulligan to 6 and I kept a one land because it contained an Elvish Mystic and a Elvish Visionary but sadly to say I drew my third land on about turn 5 or 6 and died to generic big threats.
My third round was up against mono red burn and I ended up losing in three.
The first game was really close and turned into a top deck battle. I was at 5 with 3 creatures and my opponent was at 9 with a Monastary Swiftspear. I top decked and Obelisk of Urd and decided that I would force my opponent to chump block with his creature by alpha striking, my thought process being that one card could not deal 5 damage to me from mono red. This was a huge misplay as I forgot about Lightning Berserker which my opponent topdecked, dashed, and pumped to 5.
Game 2 I managed to quickly outpace my opponent with threats and Shaman of the Pack triggers. The game ended rather quickly.
Game 3 I was shut out due to a Monastery Swiftspear into an Eidolon of the Great Revel. This would have been fine saying that I had to Collected Company in hand but I was unable to cast then due to mana issues.
Game 4 since I had no chance to get prizes and my opponent did I conceded to him
Today my deck was at its' darkest hour, but I kept my head high as I still had faith in it.
I was rewarded with this as I won back to back gamedays on 8/09/15.
Over the course of these two gamedays I had a game win loss ratio of 21/3.
The first game day I went to had 3 rounds before cutting to top 4,
Round 1 was against a blue black control deck, Both games ended very quickly as I had very fast hands that were able to kill on turn 4 and and turn 5.
I honestly can't remember what deck I played in round other than the fact I won in 2 games.
Round 3 was against Abzan constellation. The deck ended up being to slow to deal with my elves even though it had big threats such as Doomwake Giant.
In the semi's I was re matched against this deck and won in two games
In the finals I was up against Temur midrange and managed to outrace the deck with Gnarlroot Trapper being a key card. Post side I Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen played a key role as it was able to survive through a Anger of the Gods. Fleshbag Marauder Also helped fight past big threats.
My record at this gameday was much better than my first as I went 10-0
This gameday finished in around 4 hours and I managed to catch another one which started just as this one finished.
This tournament was bigger than the previous one so there were 4 rounds before a cut off.
In round I was placed against a new player to the game with a deck that was obviously comprised of miscellaneous cards from booster packs. Needless to say I won this round in 2.
In round 2 I was paired up against another Abzan constellation deck which as I said before is a good match up for this deck. I won this set in 2 aswell.
In round 3 I lost in 3 to a green red dragons deck running Stormbreath Dragon Thunderbreak Regent, both Atarka's as well as plenty of burn and ramp.
In game one I lost to a 24 damage combo with Xenagos, God of Revels and Atarka, World Render. In game 2 it turned into a race but a well time Ultimate Price allowed me to swing in for lethal damage. Game three I was shut out with a lot of flyers as well as mass removal such as Seismic Rupture.
In Round 4 I played against The black green graveyard deck that I mentioned in the FNM in this post. I managed to quickly get in damage and prevent the games going long by chaining Shaman of the Pack.
In the semi's I played an abzan counters deck. Game one was rather close as Dromoka's Command can be rather annoying, but Shaman of the Pack managed to pull through in winning the race. Game 2 my opponent ended up stumbling a bit on mana which lead to a quick game two win.
In the finals I ended up playing the green red dragons that I lost two before.
In game one the game went late but I was eventually killed by a monstrous stormbreath a normal one and a Thunderbreak Regent.
Game 2 I managed to get all of my hand hate and creature removal to prevent his threats from entering or remaining on the battlefield. I was then able to swing through with my elves for lethal. Game 3 was a long grindy game Bow of Nylea being my MVP. Fighting me through big creatures, gaining me life, buffing my creatures and most notably helping me fight through a Hornet Queen. This game was a battle of attrition as I had to fight through Xenagos, the Reveler twice as well as other big creatures. In the end I was able to answer my opponents threats and he couldn't do the same, winning me the game.
I am very content with how the deck performed as I can't complain about two game days mats. My first game day was merely an outlier in my deck performance as normally my deck runs far better than what happened that day.
