"In that case, I'm a black guy"

Monday 1 November 2010

A word on Scars drafting

After the standard tournament we had a draft - my personal favourite format, although i'm not quite as keen on the SoM format itself. Scars is okay, and it doesn't seem to rely on bombs as much as M11 before it did, but the lack of exciting rares does make the pack opening part slightly less exciting. As much as i enjoy playing nuts and bolts limited for limited's sake, i like to open an awesome card as much as the next guy.

I ended up with just two rares, neither of which were on-colour but both of which will see their way into my EDH decks. I know this isn't very "Spikey" but i just couldn't resist, besides, True Conviction seems amazing for my soldier deck! On top of that, i actually ended up with a solid deck and a 2-1 record. I would've gone 3-0 but my 3rd opponent simply drafted a better deck than mine and piloted it nicely. We had an insanely long stalemate game which was broken by Heavy Arbalest + Infect guys combo. It sounds janky, i know, but when both players have 4-5 medium sized guys each it gets the job done.

As fun as that game was, and don't get me started on my first round game against the Ajani kid from the last post (I ended up milling him in both games with Screeching Silclaw - i'm not joking), i actually wanted to write a little about my draft technique for this set.

I don't pretend to be a limited god - although i do enjoy it more than standard, on the whole - but i've done well in my few Scars drafts and feel like a lot of people seem to be missing something in Scars. While everyone else veers towards Infect.dec or Metalcraft.dec, i've had much more success with Goodstuff.dec. I often end up in black because of the "nobody drafts it" feeling it has (at the last Steel City Magic i ended up with three copies of Grasp of Darkness!) I go down the LSV-style of card advantage a lot, which is easier than you might think in this set.

Instil Infection seems like a pretty poor card in most sets and would likely make the cut as filler once in a while. But it's been incredible for me so far in Scars. Against Infect decks in particular it wrecks so many of their important creatures (regenerate blight mamba? nah) at the same time as drawing you a card. In terms of consistency i also rate Grasp higher than Galvanic Blast. Blast is a great card, to be sure, but without metalcraft it's merely "good." Grasp, on the other hand, kills basically every relevant creature in the set.

Oh, and lest we forget, black has Skinrender. D'uh.

As for blue, it feels like a pretty normal set for that colour. Proliferate is fairly underwhelming to my mind so far. I did have Steady Progress this weekend with both Trigon of Corruption and Culling Dais but never at the same time. Maybe i just haven't played with it enough. I like Sky Eel School a lot and Plated Seastrider holds the Infect deck off for quite a while by itself. Again, none of these cards are spectacular, but that's the point i'm making.

Would i pass Skithiryx or Hand of the Praetors though? Of course not.

Scars Game Day - Oct 30

So with a few tweaks, i took the deck to game day this past weekend. I added 2 Memoricide to the main deck (removing 2 Crystal Ball) and added one Consume the Meek to the sideboard (removing a Marsh Casualities). I am looking to swap the remaining two MC when i can.

It was a pretty decent turnout by the shop's usual standard so i had four rounds to put the deck through its paces.

Round one was against Owen, playing UW control. He's a solid player who knows what he's doing but i usually fancy my chances against that deck. In game one neither of us seem to have actually taken any damage, except from a Sign in Blood. However, he seemed to draw the right answers in the form of Mana Leak at a couple of key times. I had no answer to Venser (2nd time in two tournaments that i got an emblem on the other side of the table). Artifacts are also near impossible for me to deal with and once he used Volition Reins on my Titan it was over. I managed to remove it instantly with Consuming Vapors but the damage was done. Sun Titan followed by Frost Titan was too much for my Zombie tokens to handle. Game Two was much closer but i didn't take as many notes. I did make a misplay, attacking into a Mystifying Maze when i had Tec Edge ready to go but the power of Planeswalkers was plain for me to see in this game. Please, Wizards, give us a good black walker soon!

Round two was fairly silly by all accounts. I played a kid who was about 11 i guess. His deck was clearly built out of a fat pack and some boosters, although he did have a couple of decent cards in there. In game one i destroyed him with two Nantuko Shades (i really think Mono Black Aggro might be a deck) while a couple of Gatekeepers kept his board clear. Game two was actually hillarious. I drew NOTHING useful for about six turns and he managed to ultimate both Jace 1.0 and Ajani. He gave me multiple chances to topdeck a Doom Blade (or anything) by playing poorly but suffice to say 11 lands are no answer to a 38/38 Avatar token. After that ridiculous example of the luck aspect of Magic, game three was another blowout. He managed a bit of damage this time but once i got my board going it was completely one-sided. I pretty much learned nothing about the deck in this game, except a growing suspicion that i could convert to aggro.

I have confused rounds three and four in my memory but i think it was Valakut next, the same guy i played at FNM last week. In game one i flooded out badly. Even though i got off to a near perfect start, making him discard Harrow on turn one, then Memoricide-ing Primeval Titan, i somehow failed to win. My shuffling seems to have failed me as i once again got flooded. In a game where both players are topdecking, Valakut is practically unbeatable. Every time either of us drew a land it pushed him closer to an inevitable victory. Game two was closer, and i made a pretty sweet play, but still lost. It was pretty much the same story as game one, but i'll brag about my sweet play. I managed to kill a Primeval Titan with Consuming Vapors and happily passed the turn. He then topdecked an Avenger of Zendikar but i had Consume the Meek in hand. I untapped, cast CTM, killing the tokens. Consuming Vapors resolves, killing the Avenger and netting me a hand 5 life.

I got him down to 9 life but just couldn't race fast enough. Valakut really pushes me towards even more disruption. After the game, Quinton suggested Sadistic Sacrament and it seems pretty incredible against Valakut at least. Gutting a deck of its three best cards is pretty disgusting, especially in a deck with Haunting Echoes. I'm going to order two this week and do some testing with them in the maindeck.

Anyway, onto game four, and i played Chris. When i saw he was playing Esper Control i was pretty confident. I've never lost to that deck with Mono Black and that didn't change. In game one i managed to remove most of his threats before they did anything. I seemed to draw tons of disruption and just enough removal to fill the gaps. I ended the game on 22 life, although i have to say that he got pretty flooded. Game two was a pretty similar affair. It's rare to see Chris tilt but he was getting pretty frustrated with his land topdecking. I felt kinda bad for him, but since it was happening to me too (and had happened twice already that day) i was just happy for the win. Overall, this match was a perfect example of what i want this deck to do. Put down a couple of hard-to-answer threats and then protect them with removal and discard.

I ended the tournament 2-2, and with a bit more luck i could have easily gotten myself a pretty Tempered Steel to go with my Mitotic Slime. As it is, i had to settle for 11th out of 21. It was a much more re-assuring tournament though, and Sadistic Sacrament seems like a very useful addition. Memoricide worked wonders for me when i cast it and made the near-impossible Valakut matchup closer than it's ever been for me. At Steel City in a couple of weeks i hope to Sacrament the Valakuts themselves and totally destroy the deck's game plan. We'l see how it goes.

Friday 22 October 2010

The Deck!

It occurred to me that i haven't actually written up the decklist yet on this blog. Here's the incarnation that i took to FNM this week and went 1-3 with.

20x Swamp
3x Tectonic Edge
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Mind Sludge
2x Crystal Ball
2x Brittle Effigy
2x Consuming Vapors
2x Haunting Echoes
2x Grave Titan
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Corrupt
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Sign in Blood
4x Duress

Sideboard

2x Malakir Bloodwitch
2x Sword of Vengeance
3x Vampire Hexmage
3x Marsh Casualties
2x Leyline of the Void
3x Marsh Casualties

It definitely needs updating for the post-Scars meta game but i have a few tweaks in mind already. More hand disruption in the shape of Memoricide seems like a no-brainer (I wonder how many times i'll say "...naming Primeval Titan" at the next FNM). I picked up one Consume the Meek but i don't know how many to run exactly. They're going to replace Marsh Casualties in the sideboard, so maybe just swap them 3-for-3? I'm also umming and aahing over Skithiryx but i'm not sure how good a single infect card is on its own, although its other stats might be good enough to pull it through anyway. 4/4 regenerating flier with the possibility of haste that also puts your opponent on a 3-turn clock by itself? Seems okay, but for 5 (or 6 mana), a three turn clock isn't THAT exciting. Plus i only have one copy and the price keeps going up, so maybe not ;D

Black history blog

So Mono Black Control. That's some kind of ancient relic, right? Well i wasn't playing when MBC was 'a deck' but the theme struck a chord with me when i was looking for a new deck around the launch of M11, with a view to post-Scars rotation. Maybe not all the cards were perfect and my budget is usually pretty limited, but when i opened a Grave Titan in my birthday booster box and another one at my first draft i took it as a sign. Oh yeah, and i couldn't play blue anyway, 'cause... well, Jace.

It started off as a pretty discard/disruption-heavy deck as i expected a lot of UW control at my local store. This tended not to happen, however, and i often felt like Mind Sludge was a dead card (i still do); making someone discard 1-2 cards for 5 mana. I'm considering swapping it for a Mind Rot or two when i get round to testing again.

So here's a brief history of how i've done with this deck so far. I don't get to many FNM's these days but i won't bother posting kitchen table results because why bother?

M11 Game Day


M11 Game Day was the first Sanctioned tournament i played in and, shockingly, i won! Yay alternate art Mitotic Slime! It was a 3-round tournament with a little bit of luck, but the deck performed pretty well. In round one i faced my friend's Esper Control deck in the toughest game of the day. He's one of the better regulars at the store and i don't think i ever beat him in standard before. In game three i made him discard a JtMS and Gideon after Doomblade-ing a Baneslayer. I followed that up with Haunting Echoes (probably my favourite card in the deck) and essentially the game was done.

Games two and three i faced two variations of a White Weenie deck. The first was a landfall kinda thing with Steppe Lynxes and Sejiri Steppes and big-ish top end. In game one he got pretty mana-screwed, however, and it wasn't a contest. In game two i sided in my Bloodwitches and Swords of Vengeance. He managed to Day of Judgment one of them but when i cast the 2nd one from my hand, he pretty much scooped on the spot.

Round three was very much more weenie than the previous. I saw multiple Students of Warfare and Knights of the White Orchid but this was pretty much a joke matchup for me. It was so straightforward that i can barely remember what happened, just that i won 2-0.

September Steel City

More recently, after a few tweaks to the deck, i took the deck to Steel City Magic - a monthly tournament in Sheffield. Sadly, my confidence in the deck was hugely dented. I don't know if i ran bad or played bad, but i ended up 1-3. Against Mono Green Eldrazi i just had no answer. It was an easy 2-0 for my opponent and i was left feeling like my deck could do nothing. Mono green has only a handful of removal targets so my Doom Blades were useless, as were Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek - they also had no real targets. In all honesty it seems that i wiped that tournament from my memory because i don't remember much else. On the plus side, i did finish 2nd in the draft.

FNM (Oct 2)

Even more recently (2 days ago, in fact) i went to my first standard FNM in quite a long time. I really wasn't sure what to expect since i haven't played any post-Scars standard whatsoever due to a holiday in early October. It was quite a sobering experience, but i think i learned a lot about what this deck needs.

Round one paired me against the nerd-raging Frenchman, Eric. It started so well for me after he scooped with a sigh when i killed his Birds of Paradise (i assume he was land screwed). Games two and three were pretty one-sided in the opposite direction. I didn't have any idea about his deck but his plan seemed to be massing on planeswalkers with lots of spawn tokens and proliferate. In game three he got an emblem on Venser but he couldn't seem to get any threats on the board except for a beast token from Garukk. I was playing for a draw by this stage as the game had gone on for a looooooooooong time but eventually he got enough tokens that Garruk's overrun killed me (i still think this game went on way longer than the time limit, but meh).

Round two went much better. I was against what i think was the 'big red' deck, but frankly i didn't get to see much of it. He did resolve a Koth but i was able to beat it down pretty quickly in game one. In game two i was more like an aggro deck, with a couple of Nantuko Shades hitting for 18. I sealed the deal in style with a Sign in Blood: well, two actually, since he Ricochet Trapped the first.

The third round was fascinating and confusing. My opponent played a Mimic Vat deck with a ton of cards i never expected to see in constructed. Also, four Wyrmcoil Engines. In game two he drew all four of them and even my combination of Grave Titan zombies and three Doom Blades couldn't protect me from that. In game one i was just confused. Do you kill creatures against a Mimic Vat or let them beat your face? It depends on the creature, to be sure but i don't really think my deck could win against his unless i got incredibly lucky. If this deck becomes popular, Mind Rot and Memoricide seem like obvious additions for my deck.

Round four put me against Valakut. Urgh. This was the deck i'd been most worried about since it was the post-Scars deck i knew most about (I had a non-Titan version of the deck built for months but it's so much worse than the post-M11 version that i gutted it). Sure enough, i felt like a rabbit in the headlights. I got unlucky when he top-decked a Cultivate after my Duress, and drawing more of my Tectonic Edges would've helped, but in game one i was so mana screwed that the one i didn't dare to sacrifice the one i did draw. Game two was more of a contest but still wasn't really that close. This matchup definitely makes me want to go more of a hand disruption route, sacrificing some Sign in Bloods, perhaps, for at least two Memoricides.

Anyways, that's the tournament results up to now. I hope to improve it rather than lose faith and dismember it. Although the results have been sporadic to say the least, i feel like it can be made into 'A Deck.' I need to get to more FNM's and generally play some more non-EDH Magic but i do feel inspired to do just that, so fingers crossed for Mono Black. Luckily there don't seem to be many super-expensive black cards at the minute, and the one rare i definitely want to test (Memoricide) is currently around the £2-3 mark, which is good.

Wh-w-what?

What's all this then? It's a blog about Magic: the Gathering, to put it bluntly.

The name comes from my first serious homebrew deck that I actually consider to be somewhat competitive - mono black control. Just calling a blog MBC was too boring, of course, so I came up with Liliana's Vest ('breast' seemed a bit too childish) even though my current build runs zero copies of Liliana Vess. As you can tell, hours of thought went into the title.

What i will post here is probably just about Magic in general but Mono Black Control will be a regular theme. I will post about FNM's and other tournaments i attend and 9/10 of those will probably see me playing MBC. You probably won't be reading much about Pro Tours or even GP's since i simply don't have the funds to attend them (and there aren't many here in England anyway). Maybe i'll give my thoughts on those tournaments from a fan perspective, maybe i won't - we'll see.