My last standard - Solar Flare

Return to Ravnica is coming closer and the time when SoM block rotates as well. I haven't really played standard much and I wanted to play one more time. There were two standard tournaments this weekend. After three days of not sleeping I wasn't really sure if I could make it to the first one.

At 8 am my alarm clock tried to wake me up but for some reason I woke up an hour later. My father gave me a lift so I managed to get on the last bus with which I could get there on time. There weren't so many players but the tournament took place.

As I was tired of playing ramp or RG aggro I wanted to play something that could at least a bit be considered as a control deck. I took out my Solar Flare and decided to play with it. It needed few tweaks though. The cards I had available were my Naya Pod deck, RG Aggro and EDH decks. I took out restoration angels and blade splicers from pod and got go for the throats from EDH decks. I put that in my deck and ended up with something like this....Hybrid deck between Solar Flare and Esper Midrange I guess^_^.

Esper!

3 Phantasmal Image
3 Sun Titan
2 Gideon Jura
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2 Day of Judgment
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Lingering Souls
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Go for the Throat
3 Ponder
3 Blade Splicer
2 Restoration Angel
3 Mana Leak
1 Unburial Rites
3 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Plains
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Swamp
SB: 2 Timely Reinforcements
SB: 2 Divine Offering
SB: 2 Flashfreeze
SB: 2 Negate
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Celestial Purge
SB: 1 Dead Weight

In the first round I played against mono red. I won the first game, but in the second I was unable to draw a single Celestial Purge nor Timely Reinforcements. I died because when I finally could play something I was already down to 11. I won game three though and wondered what my next match up would be. As there were 3 delvers that won it was highly possible that I would play against delver.

Second round I played against... delver. My opponent is known for being unlucky while playing magic. I won both games. The second game was bad for my opponent who was incapable of drawing 4th land.

Round 3 and it wasn't delver. It was a zombie deck. He played gravecrawler, diregraf ghoul and one more creature. I played Day of Judgment and was quite happy that I did not see Blood Artist till that time. Blood Artist finally came but at that point of time I was already at 6 mana and could drop a Titan and win. In the second game I had relatively aggressive start and managed to beat my opponent with my little creatures.

Next deck was mono white human aggro that did not even give me a chance to do something. I lost the die roll and day of judgment would not be able to save me. In the second game I tried surviving for quite some time, but I was unable to destroy moorland haunt. There were 2 Honor of the Pure on the table and those 3/3 flyers were just too much for me.

My last game that day was against Battle of Wits deck. One of the games was quite fun^_^. Fog bank can be pretty annoying^^.

Came up second, opened nothing but was really glad that I played...

Anyway if I would want to play in next tournament I would take out Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites, Sun Titan, Oblivion Ring a Forbidden Alchemy. The rest of Restoration Angels, Blade Splicer and some Snapcaster Mages would go in. I really missed Snappy in many games. I'd prefer to keep Tamiyo, but if I would need more space it would be her to be the first on the list to be taken out, followed by Gideon.

Sideboard would need one more Celestial Purge, no need for Timely Reinforcements twice. Batterskull is probably a better choice. I'd rather play Dissipate over negate or flashfreeze.