Sept. 12th, 2012

(subtitle: U/W Vial hate-bears)

I'm still short a few cards for the U/W Miracle Counterbalance deck, and though I had planned to borrow them from the guy I drove with, I was led astray this week. I hadn't cast a Meddling Mage in some time, and, well, when you just get handed a deck..

Anyway, I'll try to summarize the list- I know there were normal U/W lands, with Wastelands and 2 Karakas. Mother of Runes, Meddling Mage, Swords, Brainstorm, Vial were 4-ofs.. Man-o-War, Jotun Grunt, Mangara of Corondor, and I think Stoneforge Mystic were 2-ofs, and there was 1 Jitte, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice, Geist of Saint Traft, were singles. There was a mystery number of Aven Mindcensors, and that rounds out what I recall.
4 Phyrexian Revoker, 3 Submerge, 3 Surgical Extraction, 1 Jotun Grunt, 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender was the sideboard if I remember correctly.

In the first round, I played against Anthony with a sweet Death's Shadow deck. I saw him laying it out before the tournament started, and I didn't really "get it"- but he totally steamrolled me in both our games.
In the first, I had a relatively slow start that got ripped up by Thoughtseize and Duress. He Gitaxian Probed me a few times before playing a 1/1 Death's Shadow on turn 3. I had a Mom and a Meddling Mage on Force of Will (it was nice to have seen his decklist before round 1) with a basically empty hand. When I tried to race him by using my Mom to sneak in 2 damage, he showed me his grip of Dismember + Snapcaster on Dismember to wrath me and also make his Shadow a 9/9. When I cast Man-o-War, he laughed out loud then Forced it. At least I had hit with my Meddling Mage..

I didn't really have anything to bring in, but I was totally over Man-o-War already, so a few Revokers tagged in.

In game 2, I kept my seven with two lands, Vial, various creatures. He Forced my Vial, pitching Jace, then killed every creature I played. I wasn't really in this game, though I do remember cleverly realizing that he would never play two Shadows at the same time, which would let me 2-for-1 him by Swords-ing one of them. Someone paying less attention might have lost this game, but as it was, I didn't have enough removal to keep up with his back-to-back monstrous Shadows.

In the second round, I played against Chris with the U/R Show and Science deck. I kept a Karakas+Wasteland opener on the play and didn't draw a blue source for my Meddling Mage before he cast Show and Tell into Omniscience into Griselbrand (which got Karakas'd!) into Emrakul. On turn 3. The Man-o-War I showed into play was.. minimally effective.

In game 2, I kept a sweet one with Vial, Mangara, Karakas, Thalia, and other lands. When my Vial resolved on 1, I was sure I couldn't lose this one. Then, inexplicably, I cast Thalia on 2 (which obviously got Dazed). Chris Pondered a bunch on his turns. On my turn 3, I declined to run my Mangara into the myriad counterspells I had since put him on, and just passed. Then on his turn 4, with my Vial at 3 and Mangara in my hand, Chris Showed an Omniscience into play and cast an Emrakul. Maybe I should have talked Sean into some Stern Proctors for the board.

After that one, I dropped and played some games with my pauper cube.

Looking back, I probably was a little loose with the opening hands I kept. They tended to be durdly, and I imagine decks like this need to be aggressive and disruptive to be effective at all.

Next week, I plan on playing the UW Miracles deck, so look forward to that.
Until next time, remember to avoid temptation.
Casey