Went to FNM last night and got ninth place out of forty-something players. I was down-paired all night long, so my Opponent-Match-Win Percentage was garbage and had to play in the sixth and final round. I got knocked out by some Boros Aggro deck with incredibly narrow, nearly-unplayable cards in the main-board, that just happened to stop all of my removal right when I cast it. Also, I had to mulligan to five cards in both games. shrug
I need to improve my anti-aggro strategies. Blind Obedience in the main surely helps (especially when I can keep Extorting a Misthollow Griffin from exile), but I need more. I played six aggro decks last night (out of six rounds, mind you), so it's safe to say that I could do with main-boarding some more narrow hate. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage would have been good, but she's awful against aggro (unless I can Wrath and they play just one more creature). So she's out of the main-board, at least.
I'm also considering removing one copy of Rest in Peace from the main-board to the side and adding in another Moorland Haunt in place of Ghost Quarter. My one-of Moorland Haunt did work last night, mostly because I saw it in almost every game and my opponents were packing a lot of copies of Abrupt Decay and stopping Rest in Peace. The Haunt keeps my Misthollow Griffin going and gives me a chump-blocker/mini-beatstick to boot. Rest in Peace is critical to my Griffins working for me, but by figuratively replacing it with Moorland Haunt, I'm not losing any of the utility. And Rest in Peace is dead against aggro decks, unless I stabilize to at least turn-six and start using Misthollow Griffin - though it's harder to stabilize that far into the game against Boros or Gruul aggro when one of the cards I have does nothing to help.
So. My suggested changes?
-2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
-1 Rest in Peace
-1 Ghost Quarter
+1 Moorland Haunt
+1 Terminus ??
+2 ???
I need your help, now, deciding what I should add in and anything else I could take out. I've thought about adding in some main-board Essence Scatter to give me more early-game options against aggro, as well as adding AEtherize to the mix. I'm hesitant, though, with AEtherize since a lot of the creatures I would bounce would likely just come back to the battlefield the same turn (I'm looking at you, Burning-Tree Emissary). Then I might as well just be using Safe Passage, which isn't exactly a fantastic main-board option.
Thoughts?
