2HG EDH Series Usti nad Labem

There is an EDH Tournament Series in Usti nad Labem. Honza asked me if I would be interested in playing and I said yes. We would go there have some fun and participate in the tournament. For that we needed some decks that would not play the same cards. We both play The Mimeoplasm normally so one of us had to play something else. Honza got Niv-Mizzet (the new one) from me and he made this card his general. Thus some blue cards had to go from my deck (like Force of Will and Jace, the MInd Sculptor) and some stayed as I had better chances using them recursively. I was supposed to be the one playing threats and Honza would be backing me up with counterspells and such.

We arrived at the site early (oh dreadful place...) so we had some time to chat with other players. I wasn't introduced to anybody but everyone seemed quite friendly and no one made bad remarks or anything which used to be the usual in Prague or well other places I went to (won't name).

We were let in finally by the owner I presume. Some time later we registered and waited for the pairings. The TO then recapitulated rules for 2HG EDH Series - 45 life, free French Mulligan, 1 of 1 game, 60 minutes, no sideboard. After this there was a note about banlist. So we checked it once again (because the one on the internet wasn't the same as the one on the paper I received at the tournament) and found out that Intuition is banned. I put in Victimize that I bought earlier. I really like the card, should be some fun with it. Pairings followed soon afterwards.

We - Plazmadrak (meaning Plasm - Dragon) - were pitted against team named Selesnya (probably the player who named their team this way is a Selesnya Guild member - at least PWP site says I beat Selesnya member in round 1). They played Teysa and Jhoira. My opening hand features Bitterblossom and Sword of Feast and Famine so I decided to keep that hand. Turn 2 Blossom wins the games, ain't it right? Well, I did not play it on T2 because Jhoira player was untapped so it was T3 when I played it. Jhoira died to Lightning Bolt and Teysa player also played his general. I was attacking with my fearies and was wielding the sword. Teysa player was the one active. He played Shrine of the Loyal Legions. Later he played Liliana of the Dark Realms and was fetching some lands. We decided to ignore her and attack the player instead. Gideon Jura was played later but that did not ruin our plan. The card was bounced and turn later Time Stopped and my flyers could be attacking the player all the time. Jhoira player tried playing his general again but Jhoira was sent to Command Zone once again. Honza also played Vendilion Clique to see what cards he has on his hands. Nothing much - Foil, Counterspell and many cards he could not even play. The path was clear and I could play more or less anything.

In Round 2 both are deck decided to be on strike. Honza was unable to draw lands and I was on the other hand drawing just lands and mana producing creatures. Our opponents (Ustecti luckeri) were playing Kiki-Jiki and Teferi. The red deck was full of land destruction and most probably Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon. None showed up to wreck my mana base but I think that I wouldn't care. I was drawing fetch lands all the time and got all my basic lands in play. Kiki-Jiki player thus decided to start torturing Honza destroying him his Volcanic Island. Honza's hand was good and we would be alright if he could draw one more additional land in four turns. But this did not happen and later we were killed by Detritivore whom I feeded quite a lot with all those fetch lands (and destroyed lands). I tried my best playing Go For the Throat 3 times, Honza used Pithing Needle on Kiki-Jiki but this wasn't enought and we lost (two Detritivores were just too much). (Zealous Conscripts and Gilded Drake took care of my attempt of at least blocking)

Round 3 was the epic failure of all times even though we managed to win in the first additional turn after the round ended. This time we played against a team called Philipe Morris. One player played Oona and the other one Cpt. Sisay. The Oona player started with Isochron Scepter + Counterspell which was not good for us. I tried playing Sylvan Library so I would have better chance drawing Krosan Grip, Honza tried finding an answer as well but we were not lucky. Library was destroyed and we were in top deck mode waiting for a miracle. Hopefully we feeded the counterspell from Isochron Scepter with something and then played Venser bouncing it. But the Sisay player was already developing his board and we were facing Sigarda, Karmic Guide and Yosei. Not to mention that there was Sword of War and Peace and Umezawa's Jitte equipped to Sigarda. We were so focused on trying to deal with Sigarda that we forgot that we can kill them in one turn. Anyway we were producing flyers that could chump block Sigarda and when she could finally go through the player decided to attack us instead of killing Jace TMS or Garruk Wildspeaker. This was a pretty big mistake as that's what killed them two turns later. Time Stop was one additional turn for us and Cryptic Command allowed us to attack with Overrun (allowed me as I was the one with creatures) for 35 damage (lethal).

Round 4 was the fastest game. It was either us or them as we both decided to win via combo. Our opponents were playing Sygg and Grand Arbiter Augustin. The both played signets on their second turn followed by their generals. We tried countering GAA but the spell was Force of Will'ed. Later we tried killing the Augustin and we managed that. But tutor was played on Sygg player's side followed by Buried Alive into Triskelion + Phyrexian Devourer + Necrotic Ooze. Reanimate followed and we could just shake their hands.

Fifth round was relatively uneventful. Or at least we were not under constant pressure even though the decks showed us that they can actually do that quite easily and in one turn. One player was playing Damia and the other one Sigarda (our favorite^^). In this game the wierdest play ever happened. Damia player played Liliana of the Veil because he probably wanted to get rid of my Thrun (the only annoying creature in play). Liliana was Commandeer'ed. She survived the attack from the otherside of the table. Each of us discarded a card. In my case it was Woodfall Primus. I played The Mimeoplasm destroying a land with it (and one more land was destroyed by wasteland). I started outracing Sigarda but later we killed the opposing team via Lord of Extinction + Triskelion combo.

We ended up third and won some booster packs in which was 'nothing worth noting'. But the tournament was nice. We played 5 games, had some fun, made silly mistakes, won majority of the games...well it was nice. I'll try not to miss another tournament of the series.

Our decklist for those interest.

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

Creatures [12]
1 Deceiver Exarch
1 Gilded Drake
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Goblin Electromancer
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Trinket Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Planeswalkers [3]
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

Spells [44]
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Batterskull
1 Coalition Relic
1 Comet Storm
1 Commandeer
1 Condescend
1 Control Magic
1 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Desertion
1 Devil's Play
1 Expedition Map
1 Fire // Ice
1 Force of Will
1 Hinder
1 Impulse
1 Into the Roil
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Izzet Charm
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Mimic Vat
1 Mind's Eye
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Negate
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Opportunity
1 Pact of Negation
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Remand
1 Remove Soul
1 Spell Crumple
1 Splinter Twin
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Syncopate
1 Time Stop
1 Time Warp
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Treachery

Lands [40]
1 Academy Ruins
1 Arid Mesa
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Cephalid Coliseum
17 Island
1 Lonely Sandbar
11 Mountain
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Urza's Factory
1 Volcanic Island

The Mimeoplasm

Creatures [28]
1 Acidic Slime
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Genesis
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
1 Grave Titan
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Mulldrifter
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Shriekmaw
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Triskelion
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Planeswalkers [5]
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Karn Liberated
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana Vess

Spells [28]
1 Animate Dead
1 Bitterblossom
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Brainstorm
1 Buried Alive
1 Careful Consideration
1 Compulsive Research
1 Damnation
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Go for the Throat
1 Harmonize
1 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necromancy
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Putrefy
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sylvan Library
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Victimize

Lands [38]
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Hinterland Harbor
3 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Sunken Ruins
2 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Twilight Mire
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Woodland Cemetery

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 + Ravnica expansion

Quite some time passed since I won the DotP expansion. I was incapable of downloading it in order to play it. But I was looking forward to it, because when Innistrad was out and new cards were added to DotP 2012 the game became really awesome. The games started to be good and fun and sometimes it even felt like playing constructed (still too far away).

Core sets are usually pretty dull and there's not much of interaction. What I liked in DotP is the little info about synergy, speed etc of your deck. That at least let me avoid decks I don't like at all. I finished the game with monowhite lifegain but that's not my kind of deck. I beat Bolas with a mill deck otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance, or at least playing aggro seemed pretty useless against Bolas's Cruel Control. Mill on the other even without any unlocked cards was a perfect choice!

Now with Return To Ravnica we get new decks for the game and there are new - multicolored - decks. There are cards from five guilds in Return To Ravnica - Azorius (UW), Selesnya (GW), Izzet (UR), Rakdos (BR) and Golgari (BG). One guild represents two colors...Each new deck in this expansion represents one of the guilds.

Azorius deck - Aura Servants - is build around Enchantments. The most interesting card in this deck is Sigil of the Empty Throne that let's you put a 4/4 angel token in play after you play an enchantment.

Golgari deck (Sepulchral Strength) - is build around sacrificing creatures and using them to your advantage (usually meaning ruining your opponent's plans via Grave Pact or Blood Artist). The deck's most annoying creatures are Mortivore which can get really big and can regenerate and Spiritmonger that can also be pretty big and it is also pretty difficult to get rid of it. There's some ramp in the deck so you cast big creatures earlier and a lot of good removal. The deck has Pernicious Deed main deck and Maelstrom Pulse that can just hit anything (ok, not a land...).

Players that choose Izzet have the chance to play with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. This card is so good - it deals damage to the opponent and it draws cards - everything a control deck needs. This deck has some really wierd creatures and quite a lot of burn effects. To be honest I don't like this deck much. I would expect more counterspells and more cards like Electrolyze or Prophetic Bolt (that do something and draw cards).

Rakdos (Grinning Malice) on the other hand has some nice cards. There are discard effects and cards that destroy creatures. This deck's aim is to kill what stands in its way, to discard threats and to deal additional damage via other cards like Lyzolda

Selesnya (Collective Might) just tries to overrun you with a lot of tokens and creatures and it can gain some life as well. There are cards that create tokens and cards that can make them bigger. It can either kill in one attack via Overrun or simply by shear number of the creatures.

As with any other deck you can unlock other cards and tune your deck. Promotional unlocks are much better and there are really strong cards and good old time's staples and even nowadays ones from Magic: The Gathering. This expansion brings life to the relatively dull game (compared to DotP 2012 which was way better in my opinion.) The expansion comes with 10 add-ons for single player campaign (5 for each) and new challenges. There are other small things you might enjoy like new personnas and new set of achievements but well, that's not something I'd pay for.

Overall this expansion makes the game better but still it lacks compared to the previous one + its expansion. I'd still say that it is worth the money though. I had lots of fun with this game while playing multiplayer mainly.

Brainstom no.2 Alter

After some serious meddling with scanner and this my mother's computer (rather its operating system) I managed to scan majority of my Brainstorm alter. It could use some work and I wonder what to do with the text box. I thought about adding something there, but nothing came to my mind and it was like 4 am so I decided to go to sleep. Anyway after this alter I think I'm going to try some other ones...

Harmonize Alter

I haven't done any alter in a long while so I needed to start with something easy so my hand would get used to holding a brush. As I slowly work on my EDH deck cards I chose one of those cards - Harmonize.

(I'm not entirely content with this alter...or rather I'm not content with how it felt when I was trying to do this alter. It seemed that my skill flew away or something.)

Standard? Bant Control

I've been playing Legacy for the past few weeks and haven't played anything else much. This Saturday though is Return to Ravnica Game Day and that is one reason to build a type 2 deck.

I started with Jund colors. I took all dual lands I could, added Kessig Wolf Run twice and some basic lands. The cards that seemed obvious were Olivia Voldaren and Thragtusk so I put those in. I added Rakdos's Return because I really like the card, Rakdos Keyrune because I just find it good (and especially control), Farseek because that card seems pretty important if I want to play such cards and then I was a bit stuck. What other creatures to put there? There is Huntmaster of the Fells for sure but what else? Removal? Dreadbore (Annoying walkers+creatures), Mizzium Mortars (Entreat the Angels), Pillar of Flame(Zombies) .... and Bonfire (not entirely sure about this one)? I just put all those cards together and tried playing with it. It seemed strong and relatively working.

But still what bugged me was that Thragtusk and Restoration Angel is WAY better than any combination of creatures in Jund and I really missed something like Think Twice. So I switched to Bant. There is one more possibility and that is Grixis as that keeps the cards from Jund I like and eliminates green which I don't like (decklist can be found here -> Grixis Control).

What I did not like in Jund was the fact that it was quite slow and was unable to draw some cards. (I could have added Disciple of Bolas or Underworld Connections) So I tried to avoid these 'issues' in Bant. That's where Azorius Charm and Think Twice come in. There's also Jace, Architect of Thought and Tamiyo even though her role is many times different and I'm not really fond of the new Jace.

My Jund deck also had problem with late game. It did not have something AWESOME just something good. Bant has access to Angel of Serenity and to Entreat the Angels for example. Angel of Serenity is a really strong card. Not only it can work as removal so you can attack for lethal but you can also get your creatures from the graveyard and get them back when Angel of Serenity dies.

The deck starts slow, either draws cards during the first few rounds or tries to ramp a bit. Sometimes Centaur Healer shows up which can either be an attacking body or just something helping you to survive. But getting to 5-6 mana is quite fast and then you can really play some powerful spells which can usually kill aggressive decks. There's a lot of removal against aggro decks and a lot of life gain. None of these though help against true control. There the battle is a bit different - it has to be you to be the aggressive player even though that you still have to control the board. That requires some heavy sideboarding even though it seems my SB is not enough.

No matter what here's my decklist from yesterday's Return To Ravnica Game Day. Building this deck was fun and I'm glad that I started with that. Now I want to build more decks and see what works and what not. In the end it was useful for one more thing - I won the RTR Game Day, I have another play mat for my collection. I really like this one.

Bant Aggro/Control

Main Deck:
2 Angel of Serenity
1 Armada Wurm
3 Centaur Healer
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Restoration Angel
2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
3 Thragtusk

2 Azorius Charm
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Detention Sphere
2 Entreat the Angels
4 Farseek
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Terminus
3 Think Twice

1 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard:
3 ? (I played with basic lands there...)
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Detention Sphere
2 Negate
3 Pithing Needle
2 Purify the Grave
2 Syncopate