SCG: Invitational Columbus (Standard - Mono Red Aggro & Legacy - RUG Delver 06/13/13)

SCG: Invitational Columbus (Standard - Mono Red Aggro & Legacy - RUG Delver 06/13/13)

Not having played any standard for a few weeks left me feeling a little lost as to where to start. Thankfully I did some testing with Jeff Moseley the Saturday before the Invitational and settled on running either Mono Red Aggro or Mono Blue. Unfortunately, while we were testing SCG Providence was in full swing. The two big winners? Mono Red and Mono Blue. Well I am glad we spent all day testing when I could have just picked up the 1st or 2nd place deck from the week before.

Since Mono Blue made first I figured it would have a bigger target on its head - the best ways to counter mono blue are UW control and Mono Black. Thankfully mono red can slide underneath both of these decks. I wanted to be as aggressive as possible. I saw Tom Ross's build after his article went live during the week but having never played his version of the deck I thought it would be safer to stick with mine. After a little bit of tweaking I arrived at the following:

Standard Decklist

Maindeck:

 

Creatures (27)

4 Firedrinker Satyr

4 Foundry Street Denizen

3 Legion Loyalist

4 Rakdos Cackler

4 Burning Tree Emissary

 

4 Firefist Striker

 

4 Ash Zealot

Lands (17)

17 Mountain

 

Spells (16)

4 Madcap Skills

4 Lightning Strike

4 Shock

4 Titan's Strength 

The sideboard was interesting because I had no idea when I wanted to bring in Eidolon of the Great Revel, so I just cut it for Gore House Chain Walker which I really like against the Jund matchup since it bashes though Sylvan Caryatid. It also increased my Burning Tree Emissary nut draws. The rest of the sideboard is pretty straight forward.

The best cards by far were the 4 searing blood and the 4 skullcrack. They both came in almost every round.

Sideboard:

 

3 Gore House Chain Walker  

4 Searing Blood

4 Skullcrack

2 Mizzium Mortars

2 Seismic Stomp

As usual I was on RUG delver because delver, cantrips, counters, stifle and burn just feels so right. I decided to play a 1 of True-Name Nemesis main since it is basically like lightning bolting them every turn. You just get them with it sometimes game 1 and then they sideboard thinking you have more than 1 in your 75. Other than that the maindeck is pretty standard.

 

Legacy Decklist

Maindeck:

 

Creatures (12)

4 Delver of Secrets

4 Nimble Mongoose

3 Tarmogoyf

1 True Name Nemesis

 

Lands (18)

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Scalding Tarn

3 Tropical Island

3  Volcanic Island

4 Wasteland

Spells (30)

4 Brainstorm

4 Daze

1 Spellsnare

4 Force of Will

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Spell Pierce

4 Stifle

2 Forked Bolt

1 Gitaxian Probe

4 Ponder

I decided to be on the red burn spells plan rather than submerge. I think that this plan is very strong against BUG delver which I presumed would be a large part of the metagame (which it was on Sunday in the legacy open). I however didn't play and BUG delver decks at the invitational. I made a last minute change in adding a Gilded Drake since I also thought that sneak and show would be reasonably popular. I thought about playing a 1 of Venser Shaper Savant instead but I had never tested it and didn't have a sweet Russian one with me so I declined.

Sideboard:

1 Grafdigger's Cage

1 Ancient Grudge

1 Envelop

2 Destructive Revelry

2 Spell Pierce

1 Pyroblast

1 Red Elemental Blast

1 Gilded Drake

1 Vendilion Clique

2 Forked Bolt

2 Grim Lavamancer

 

Friday

 

Standard

Round 1 (Dan Musser  w/ Mono Black) -

 

G1 - I came out the gate with some one drops and just attacked for 2 each turn. Dan devour fleshed me a couple of times and I used my titans strengths to knock his life total down whenever he tapped out.

 

G2 - I was devour fleshed again this time several times and a huge desecration demon made it hard for me to stay in the game. 

 

G3 - Searing blood and skullcrack did a lot of heavy lifting as he tried to lean on blockers to close out the game, while I just burnt him out.

Afterwards I apologized for setting him on fire as I know its a bad feeling...He just nodded his head and we chatted for a bit after we were done.

Round 2 (Greg Price w/ Mono Black) -

 

G1 - Out the gate I come and I just play dudes and pumps until he is dead.

 

G2 - He dies after playing Whip of Erebos because I just race him to death.

Round 3 (Derrick Roper w/ RW Burn) -

 

G1 - I play as many dudes as quickly as possible and I am patient with my burn which I use to burn him out when he tried to EOT Warleaders Helix me. Oh yeah and he played turn 2 maindeck Satyr Firedancer. Shock is a good one.

 

G2 - He gets to Warleaders Helix me and searing blood me a couple times leading to my very quick death.

 

G3 - This game is really weird since he is able to control my guys and even play x2 Warleaders Helix gaining 8 life. Then he magma jets me for 2 and keeps both. I presume I am dead but 1 of the cards he kept was Mutavault, so instead he dies...He definitely bricked a little but that keep, keep was really bad.

Round 4 (Wing Chun Yam w/ Mono Black w Green) -

 

G1/G2 - Our first 2 games are extraordinarily close...He wins game 1 but we were both at 5 life and it could have gone either way, I win game 2 in another close game. These were both very fun games that we both spent a lot of time looking at each other trying to figure out when we could push or not.

 

G3 - Despite being on the draw I tempo him out with 1 drop, searing blood for his pack rat, then lightning strike for his nightveil specter plus a follow up 1 drop, then skullcrack for his grey merchant.

Wing was a super nice guy and probably the most technically proficient player I played all weekend. He was on a summer magic tour around the US after playing at the Pro Tour in Atlanta.

*Update* - 06/29/14 Congrats to Wing on making Top 8 of GP: DC!

Legacy

Round 5 (Jeff Kruchkow w/ TES -

 

G1 - Storm my face off on turn 1 with a cabal therapy to make sure the path is clear.

 

G2 - Storm my face off on turn 2 with a thoughtseize to make sure the path is clear.

Oh yeah, I  had the force of will both times...

Round 6 (Mason Lange w/ Jund) -

 

G1 - I constrain his mana with Wasteland and Stifle and he keeps making me gain life with his grove of the burnwillows, this makes it really easy for me to race him.  

 

G2 - I get beat up by an early tarmogoyf with back up punishing fire to machine gun down my grim lavamancer as well as my delver.

 

G3 -  This game was really weird since we were racing and I made the decision to let his bob live for 3 turns so that it would deal him some damage. I knew it was a risky play but he was already at 8 life and I had a burn spell in hand. It ended out working ok but it was a tough couple of turns.

Round 7 (Joe Losett w/ Miracles) -

 

G1 - He takes over the game early and manages to lock me out. I think I shifted my play pattern too much Game 1 because I knew what he was playing.

 

G2 - On one EOT I have 8 cards in hand and announce clean-up (I have one threat in play already and a bunch of counters in hand), Joe plays a spell in response letting me not have to discard. Later in the game I manage to ambush his top with a destructive revelry turning off his instant speed miracles and clocking him for 2.

 

G3 - I manage to destructive revelry him again while he is a little choked on mana.

After the match I say it feels good to avenge Jeff Chen's (Esper3k) loss to him in the top 8 at SCG Dallas. He says - "Oh the Asian Kid." I cannot stop laughing and when I tell him that Jeff is older than he is we both begin to laugh. We also talk about Destructive Revelry which I absolutely love and he says he thinks it is very underplayed as well.

Round 8 (Greg Smith w/ Imperial Painter) -

 

G1 - He takes a bunch of damage from ancient tomb and every time he tries to combo I bolt his painter in response. He made a weird attack one turn with his painters servant while my goose was only a 1/1 but I wasted and stifled my own wasteland to thresh my goose and ambush his painter...I also removed a goose in this game to Force of Will - See it is Blue!

G2 - I burn him out from 18 life with a grim lavamancer, x2 lightning bolts and x1 forked bolt...I was surprised too. Oh yeah my lands were a tropical island and a wasteland so I let his blood moon resolve to help bring on the burn. I also removed a Land this game to Force of Will a pyroblast on my grim lavamancer...that was weird and good.

I had a great showing after day 1. Both my decks felt good and I played well in all of my rounds. The loss to storm was one of those where variance reared its ugly head and there wasn't a lot I could have done to salvage that round.

Saturday

Standard

Round 9  (Chris Vanmeter w/ Jund) -

 

G1 - I mull to 5 but try and put up a fight, if I had drawn a land a turn sooner I may have been able to race, as it stood instead polukranos just machine gunned my dudes and smacked me in the face. I did kill his turn 2 Sylvan Caraytid on turn 2 with a titan's strength.

 

G2 - I go 1 drop, shock your elf, 1 drop, shock your elf, 1 drop and he concedes. He never blocks this game for fear of titans strength and because he also needs to develop his mana :).  

 

G3 -  Chris mulligans and stumbles on mana. I keep representing titan's strength and he doesn't trade with my 1 drops since he needs to develop his manabase.

Round 10 (Rudy Briksza w/ Jund) -

 

G1 - He kills me with giant monsters.

 

G2 - I tempo burn him out.

 

G3 - One of the weirdest games ever that I almost win despite him having an active Whip of Erebos. I did get to searing blood a Satyr in this game and redirect to Xenegos which felt pretty good. He eventually draws a scavenging ooze off the top to gain a bazillion (10) life and I have no out to that.

This game was very, very interesting and was the first time that I really wanted at least some access to a treachery type effect out the sideboard.

Round 11 (Thomas w/ Esper) -

 

G1 - Turn 2, 3, 4 removal spell means I just lose.

G2 - Turn 3 Fiendslayer Paladin. I actually had the firefist striker but he just killed it. GG.

 

Round 12 (Jessie w/ Burn) -

 

This goes similarly to how round 3 went. I am not sure who is supposed to win this matchup but I presume it is not me.

Legacy

Round 13 (Bernie w/ UW) -

 

I lose to restoration angel... This is legacy right?

Round 14 (Trevor w/ Sneaky Show) -

 

He turn 2 show and tells me both games with counter back-up, one game he also probes me first.

Oh know the wheels are well and truly starting to fall off...

Round 15 (Danny Jessup w/ RUG) -

 

I play the control role all 3 games and just play around everything patiently (daze, stifle, submerge, etc). I did have a nutty turn one game where I Gitaxian

Probe (paying mana) and draw the perfect card (lightning bolt) so that I can stabilize the game when he is super far ahead. He had a flipped and an unflipped delver and x2 lightning bolts and a stifle in hand. So I went from dead to winning the game. The probe was super good...what he didn't know was that I run 8 burn spells and x2 grim lavamancers. Afterwards he questions me about bringing in grim lavamancer and I try to explain I have to bring them in because I have no submerge and they deal with goyf stand off's as well as delvers. He is pretty unhappy after the match.

 

Round 16 (Sam Pardee w/ UWR Delver) -

 

We play 3 games and the 3rd game is a doozy. We both have 5 lands in play on turn 5 in the delver quasi mirror. I keep representing stifle and he doesn't want to crack his fetches. I end up winning a long drawn out game where I deal with all of his cards through REB, Bolt and Ancient Grudge.

 

Day 2 was a long hard slog but I managed to at least keep my head and close out strong in the end.

 

After the end of the day, I wound up 26th out of 454 people. Not a bad showing for the largest invitational ever.

-Cheers-

PTQ Sealed (4th 05/10/2014)

I made Top 8 of the Asgards sealed PTQ on 5/10/2014. It was the first time I had played Theros block sealed with all 3 sets (aka it was my pre-release). I lost round one and then had to win out for the rest of the day to make Top8. I honestly don't have much more to say since I know nothing about the format.

:)

-Cheers-

Asylum Games: SCG Invitational Qualifier (Standard - Boros Aggro 05/03/14)

Asylum Games: SCG Invitational Qualifier (Standard - Boros Aggro May 3 2014)

The plan was to grind the SCG IQ to gather up some more open points. To do this I would need to top 8. 

Choosing a deck went like this - I don’t play much standard and I didn’t buy in on sphinx’s revelation when it was released because I wasn’t playing too much magic when it was spoiled. Consequently, I have been shying away from sphinx’s revelation decks solely because I don’t have the experience in the mirror matches (or v. aggro for that matter).  Also, nobody offered to loan me a sphinxes revelation deck. I was offered Naya Hexproof (sans mana confluence) as well as white weenie. I borrowed white weenie as a backup plan incase the Naya Hexproof deck didn’t show up (previous Magic lessons learned, Magic players are extremely unreliable). I wanted to splash a colour and I figured the worst matchup for white weenie was probably control; this instantly led me to indestructible white weenies via boros charm as opposed to the WB version. I had a list that was several months out of date from the master of multiple States (Ty). It still seemed fine, so with a few tweaks I arrived with the list sans any new cards. I made a friend convince me to add an additional land into the deck since my initial build was a pretty greedy 21 lands with 8 3 drops. I added 1 mana confluence as my 22^nd land and removed a 3 drop, since I didn’t want a guild gate but wanted a 9^th red source for among other things Mizzium Mortars. My sideboard was horrible but I just didn’t have the time or cards to fix it in time, many of the choices were right but the specific cards were incorrect, i.e. wear//tear was fine since I wanted to fight v enchantments but it would have been better as deicide.

Oh yeah and the Naya Hexproof deck never showed up so Boros it was!

R1 (Mono Black) –

G1 -My opponent flips a card while shuffling (we are both mulliganing). I look away but I see that it is an underworld connections. I snap keep the following on the draw: Banisher Priest, 3 Plains, Mutavault, Scryland. My opponent goes Godless Shrine (take 2), Thoughtseize you and takes my Banisher Priest. I win this game.

R2 – UWR Control

G1 – I use brave the elements to counter a detention sphere and that gains me enough tempo to kill them with a boros charm a turn or two later.

G2 – I have a guy in play and a mutavault and they land Jace. I untap, attack jace for 1 and slam Manabarbs Burning Earth. The next time they tap mana I redirect the damage to Jace and kill him. From there I just grind out as much damage as possible without over committing to the board.

R3 (Naya Mid-range) –

G1 – I nut draw with triple boros elite into spear. GG

G2 – Soldier of pantheon does a lot of work for me and I win the race while he struggles with his atrocious mana base.

R4 (Jund) –

G1 – I know he is on jund and play around as many spells as possible. He overloads mizzium mortars and I brave then win.

G2 – He curves out and gets me with multiple removal spells.

G3 – He has loads of removal but eventually I run him out of removal and we both start racing I have just enough to kill him on a final swing when we are both close to dead and busy racing back and forth.

R5 – ID - go to Whataburger and grab some food.

R6 – ID

T8

GW Aggro

G1- I have no idea what he is playing and I get man handled by courser of Kruphix and friends.

G2 – I know what he is playing and I get man handled.  

I definitely sideboarded incorrectly, though it might not matter since it seems like a tough matchup.

Making top 8 was good for a couple more open points and a little standard practice.

-Cheers-

Under the Sea (Legacy Merfolk Deck 02/15/14)

I decided to stick with Merfolk again this week and take it for another spin.

I updated the list a little by cutting Sygg, the River Cutthroat for a second Merrow Reejery. Sygg, the River Cutthroat was pretty good in every game that I played him but I figured that the extra damage provided by a lord would be almost as good as the extra couple of cards.  I also trimmed a Cosi's trickster to add an extra land to the deck. The decision was between Wasteland and Mishra's Factory. I decided I would get more free wins off of Wasteland so I went with that.

Current List:

Creatures (30)

 

• 2 Cosi's Trickster


• 1 Tidal Warrior


• 4 Cursecatcher


• 4 Lord of Atlantis


• 4 Master of the Pearl Trident


• 4 Phantasmal Image


• 4 Silvergill Adept


• 4 True-Name Nemesis


• 2 Merrow Reejery

 Lands (21)

• 12 Island


• 4 Cavern of Souls


• 4 Mutavault


• 1 Wasteland

Spells (10)

• 4 Daze


• 4 Force of Will


• 2 Spell Pierce

Sideboard (15)

• 1 Grafdigger's Cage


• 1 Pithing Needle


• 1 Relic of Progenitus


• 1 Divert


• 4 Swan Song


• 2 Submerge


• 2 Umezawa's Jitte


• 1 Manriki-Gusari


• 1 Reality Ripple  

R1 Affinity (Win 2-1)–

I usually play a lot of RUG Delver and Affinity is a joke matchup because you have Lightning Bolts and a quick clock. Sure Stifle isn’t too hot (though sometimes they never get to equip their cranial plating) but your main deck is pretty well setup against them and it only gets better G2/G3 as you get to bring in at least 1 Ancient Grudge at a minimum. Merfolk on the other hand doesn’t have a really good way to interact with the little robots, so we are simply off to the races!

 

I brought Jitte and Manriki - Gusari in since they are running SFM. This gives my Phantasmal Images some additional utility.

R2 Elves (Win 2-1) –

Ugh another matchup where I have very little interaction with my opponent game 1. Game 2 and 3 isn’t much better either… Submerge and Grafdigger’s cage are pretty much all we have as well as some copies of swan song to replace the weak spell pierces.

R3 Lands (Loss 1-2) –

Game 1 – I play turn 1 Cursecatcher. He plays turn 1 Tabernacle….

Game 2 – I play turn 1 Cosi’s Trickster. He plays turn 2 Tabernacle…

Bad matchup number 3! We are rocking and rolling today. To win this matchup you really need to curve out and have a couple of counters to keep them off balance. Cursecatcher is awkward because it isn’t amazing like it is v. combo but it is almost a necessary evil.

Well those were quick games. These are the only games where I really miss having extra Wasteland in the 75.

R4 Mono Red (Win 2-1) –

 

Wait what?!?!? Are these matches fixed? While none of these decks are super rogue it is a pretty unlucky cross section of the metagame to come up against.

Game 1 – This game is quite interesting. We both start racing and he has me at 10 when he plays Sulfuric Vortex. I have 3 Merfolk on board (Cursecatcher, Lord, a TNN) and a Mutavault in play. In my hand I have x2 Cavern of Souls, a Force of Will and a Lord of Atlantis. I can put him to 2 after the Sulfuric Vortex trigger and I will be at 8. I can make an argument for either play but I thought having him almost dead on board would better. He had the flame rift + fireblast to get me for 8. While I just had a FOW left in hand.

Game 2 – I play turn 1 curse catcher, he suspends rift bolt. I play another Cursecatcher and attack for one. He unsuspends rift bolt and I divert it to him. After this I just play a couple of lords and race.

Game 3 – I Phantasmal Image a Cursecatcher in the early game and win the game by double daze + curscatcher on a lethal fireblast.

 

The deck handled itself surprisingly well today in spite of playing against solely rogue decks.

 

-Cheers-

The Little Mermaid (Legacy Merfolk Deck 02/08/14)

Friday –

Earlier in the week I had promised the wife that I would pick us up some homemade Italian pasta at some point. Luckily for me as Friday rolled around I remembered to swing past Fabio’s Trattoria to pick some up. As usual I was not disappointed – One tupperware of Fettucine with black pepper and a tub of freshly made pasta sauce with cheese, tomato and basil. I have no idea what the sauce is called but it is the most tasty and delicious thing ever. Thank you Italy!

 

 

 

Saturday-

I desperately wanted to play something new and/or different. I had been on a DNT and RUG kick for the last several months and hadn’t played much of anything else. After poring over lists on – The Source, TC Decks and Happy MTG, I couldn’t find anything to get my creative juices flowing. Ultimately, this is why I usually end up playing RUG or DNT. That and I have them pre-built, pre-sleeved and mostly miscut/misprint and foreign. I then decided that I wanted to play a deck with 4 TNN. This then quickly deteriorated into a quick brainstorming session of how I could play with as many TNN’ as possible.

I also briefly thought about sleeving up something starting with the following:

X4 Phantasmal Image

X4 Stoneforge Mystic

X4 True-Name Nemesis

As much as I (still) love the idea I think this deck idea needs a little more work. Hopefully this is something that we can revisit at some point in the future.

To date I have only played decks utilizing a maximum of 3 TNN so I had to open one of my sealed mindsezies. After holding my breath in the hope that the whole thing was miscut - it wasn’t - I quickly found the TNN and started to sleeve up the mer-men.

It has been a while since I have brought trident’s to battle in legacy.

The list:

 

Creatures (30)

 

• 3 Cosi's Trickster


• 1 Tidal Warrior


• 4 Cursecatcher


• 4 Lord of Atlantis


• 4 Master of the Pearl Trident


• 4 Phantasmal Image


• 4 Silvergill Adept


• 4 True-Name Nemesis


• 1 Sygg, River Cutthroat


• 1 Merrow Reejery

 

Lands (20)

• 12 Island


• 4 Cavern of Souls


• 4 Mutavault

Spells (10)

• 4 Daze


• 4 Force of Will


• 2 Spell Pierce

Sideboard (15)

• 1 Grafdigger's Cage


• 1 Pithing Needle


• 3 Relic of Progenitus


• 1 Divert


• 4 Swan Song


• 1 Flusterstorm


• 2 Umezawa's Jitte


• 1 Manriki-Gusari


• 1 Reality Ripple

The Cards (you see):

Island / Cavern of Soul’s

 

This combination is a very good reason to be playing Merfolk right now. The “combo” of not being vulnerable to wasteland and having uncountable threats is particularly powerful when the current most popular deck is UWR and a large part of their game plan is Wateland + Daze.

Tip: Slow roll-your cavern of souls to play around your opponents wastelands. This is worth doing even if you open up some of your merfolk get countered but then you land TNN.

Mutavault

Mutavault adds a lot of offensive power to your board and gives you some more play against control decks which can be rough matchups. It also provides even more offensive power in a race situation.

True-name Nemesis

You get to play all 4 TNN and if you have a cavern they are uncounterable.

Phantasmal Image

Sorry did I say 4 TNN? Image does everything and is the best creature in almost every situation – v. Combo and light on disruption, take another cursecatcher, need to draw cards? Become another silvergill adept, need to race your opponent have some more lords.

Cosi’s Trickster

This guy is quite tricky… He comes down as an innocuous one drop that nobody wants to counter or kill but almost every single deck in the format will help you out by putting at least 1 counter on him. After that he is just a lord away from being a one blue mana wild nacatal. He really shines against the combo decks (though he is no cursecatcher) as he add a lot of offensive power to your board very quickly while they are busy fetching and playing cantrips to find their combo.

Tidal Warrior

One blue mana. Check. Power and Toughness. Check. Ok so this guy looks bad on paper…he probably is bad but he lets you make some really funny/cute plays.

Imagine the following opener:

Cavern of Souls, Mutavault, Tidal Warrior, Lord of Atlantis, Daze, Merrow Reejery, Spell Pierce

Turn 1: Cavern, Tidal Warrior

Turn 2: (Draw Master of the Pearl Trident) Mutavault, turn Mutavault into an island with Tidal Warrior then cast a Lord of Atlantis.

 Sygg the River Cutthroat

The last time I played merfolk I was trying to cast turn 1 Island - Aether Vial, Turn 2 Mutavault – Standstill. This was merfolks draw engine other than silvergill adept as well as additional insurance versus combo. I am sans standstill primarily because of a lack of vial and secondarily because as legacy has developed it has gotten worse as a card (more people know how to play around standstill nowadays).

Fish

All the other fish from the sea (LoA + Master, Curse, Silvergill, etc)

Spell Pierce

I don’t like to lose to combo and sometimes you just need to protect your fish from Lightning bolt, swords to plowshares, et al.

The Cards (you don’t see):

Aether Vial

Turn 1 Island, Aether Vial. There are not many better starts than that, right? So why did I refrain from casting any vials? Vial may be the absolute worst card to draw after turn 3. Oh yeah and guess what, I am already running a quasi aether vial in the deck (cavern of souls). Cavern of Souls doesn’t take a spell slot and cannot be stifled. Sure it means I don’t get to make sweet instant speed plays like flashing in lords to protect my guys, etc. However, it lets me play more fish! FISH! FISH! FISH!

Wasteland

While building the deck I realised I was going to hit a land constraint. I used to play merfolk a lot and I know that at a minimum I need to have 12 Island’s in order to cast my spells and in order to play Daze. The next 4 lands were going to be cavern of souls. This would give us an even more robust manabase with which to cast our turn two UU spells. As for the last slot. Do we go mutavault or wasteland? Ulitmately, I decided that the offensive power of Mutavault would allow me to get some more play against control decks which I deem as bad matchups. In addition, there are a few matchups where you have to just race your opponent and nothing helps to race your opponentbetter than “free” creatures.  It also makes your lords marginally stronger and gives you some more play around edict effects which are important when you are playing TNN.

Merrow Reejery (2, 3 & 4)

Oh yeah so TNN is a card and it is 100% wrong to play less than 4 TNN. This means that the 3 slot is quite packed so some Reejery’s have to get the axe.

Sideboard:

Swan Song

I played the full 4 of these because it is super powerful and I wanted to see just how good this card is (so I wanted to draw it). You probably never bring this in against anyone that isn’t running Islands so you don’t really care about the “drawback.”

Divert

This is a way to - deal with opposing TNN’s, protect your lords, “countering” abrupt decay, making players hymn or thoughtseize themselves, and being an additional spell pierce in a counter war.

R1 – Reanimator (Budget build base black)

Game 1 – I play a turn one trickster and I have a daze in hand to deal with anyone trying to do any shenanigans on turn 1. I then play Silvergill adept into Curse Catcher, into a lord to put him on a very quick clock with just enough disruption.

Side In: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Grafdiggers Cage.

Side Out: -2 True-Name Nemesis, -1 Tidal Warrior

Game 2 – Daze’s just stop him dead in his tracks. From there the little fish beat down.

R2 - RUG

Game 1 – He plays turn 1 delver, I play turn 1 Cosi’s Trickster. He doesn’t flip delver. He plays a Ponder and he shuffles J (trigger Trickster). Then I just play a cavern of souls and jam merfolk every turn until he is dead. He tried to race with Delver but Island walk is really good and mutavault gave me an extra attacker.

Game 2 – He leads off with a ponder and I just start jamming mer-men until he is dead. He has goyf but I play a TNN and just keep attacking.

R3 – BUG

Game 1 – I curve out and just overpower him with Island walkers.

Game 2 – Mis-sequence my plays to protect Cavern from Wasteland but it puts me really behind on board when he plays a golgari charm. I should have just started laying lords down but I was playing around daze as well. Sometimes you need to just play your game and not worry too much about what your opponent has. He had the abrupt decay and the golgari charm so it probably doesn’t change the outcome of the game but I should have used my mana more efficiently each turn.

Game 3 – We both slow down a bit for this game but I leverage being on the play and get TNN into play ASAP and try to play around golgari charm as much as possible.

R4 – Miracles

Game 1 – He leads with top. I lead with Cosi’s Trickster. I play a silvergill adept and start beating down. I try not to overcommit to the board and have a mutavault for after his first terminus. I eventually kill him with a mutavault + TNN (he has swords in hand).

Game 2 – I refrain to counter a counterbalance because I don’t think it is relevant (I have cavern of souls in play but I have a swan song, fow and a blue card in hand). I end up losing when he counters my FOW with his counterbalance (me trying to FOW his Terminus).

Game 3 – I lay a couple of threats and use my counter magic to protect them.

In conclusion - here is why fish is quite powerful:

Island’s + Cavern of Souls + True Name Nemesis + Counter Magic

-Cheers-