Pseudo Newb and the Dark Abyss of June

Okay - This is the recap for all of June before I write up the pre-release weekend.


But I have three events that I have to enter into this journal before that and if you stopped by because you were looking for the Avacyn Art Review it's off to the side but it's also at these links

If you missed Red it's here

If you missed White it's here.

If you missed Blue it's here.

If you missed Black it's here

.

If you missed Green it's here

If you missed Other it's Here 

And I've been working on data analysis for the whole review so that will be coming up soon Stats for Vorthos!

Now back to the issues at hand. 

When I wrote my entries for June I ended up writing about some specific things but not the gameplay - 

So in June the FNM I was writing about was actually probably the high point - I was shut out in both booster drafts I played in but sort of felt like I was beginning to understand the cards better. In both cases the decks I put together worked really well when they worked and when they didn't it was most likely because of misplays.

The first draft I ended up in Blue/Red using creatres with evasion and direct burn to back them up. I opened the Avacyn in the first pick of the third pack making it the first angel I actually opened in Avacyn even though I played in all the pre-releases and had purchased a full box. The nice thing about that was that it meant there was no pressure on me and I could concentrate on learning to play with burn tactically with evasion creatures. All three games matches were close and all three went to three games.

Creatures

2 Deadeye Navigator

2 Latch Seeker

1 Fettergeist

1 Wingcrafter

2 Raging Poltergeist

5 Scrapskin Drake

2 Gryff Vanguard

4 Kruin Striker

1 Somberwald Vigilante
1 Scalding Devil

Spells

1 Battle Hymn

1 Guise of Fire

1 Pillar of Flame

1 Spectral Prison

1 Outwit

1 Searchlight Geist

1 Peel from Reality

2 Thunderbolt

Sideboard

1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope

1 Tyrant of Discord

1 Crypt Creeper

1 Dreadwaters

1 Malicious Intent

1 Diregraf Escort

1 Outwit

1 Thraben Valiant

1 Battle Hymn

1 Dangerous Wager

2 Demolish

1 Kruin Striker

1 Bower Passage

1 Rush of Blood

1 Gloom Surgeon

1 Midnight Duelist

This was also the first draft where I started to be comfortable writing in a notebook during the draft. 

The second Avacyn draft was much better for me as a player and exactly as disastrous for me as a competitor I played Greeen/White because I wanted to work with mana acceleration but I didn't read Abundant Growth properly and didn't realize it was just a color fixer not an additional land. I adjusted to that and I did end up using it for manafixing when I needed and didn't pull white. The Lair Delves were more helpful.

The main plan was to  use Cathar's Crusade and other buffs and the big threat was diregraf captains soul bonding with Lumberknot and Pathbreaker Wurm as the backup condition the games were within 3 points of each other where I lost and blowouts where I won but the match record was still 0-3 however I really learned a lot more about running green which will become really relevant later as we will see. Angel's Tomb in a creature deck rocked. 

1 Moorland Inquisitor

1 Natural End

1 Devout Chaplain

1 Moonlight Geist

1 Thraben Valiant

2 Borderland Ranger

1 Pathbreaker Wurm

1 Cathedral Sanctifier

1 Goldnight Commander

1 Flowering Lumberknot

3 Diregraf Escort

1 Builder's Blessing

1 Vanguard's Shield

1 Vessel of Endless Rest

1 Lair Delve

1 Wild Defiance

1 Terrifying Presence

2 Abundant Growth

1 Eaten by Spiders

1 Blessings of Nature

1 Cathars' Crusade

1 Angel's Tomb

Sideboard

1 Vexing Devil

2 Nettle Swine

1 Diregraf Escort

1 Yew Spirit

1 Spectral Gateguards

1 Angel's Mercy

1 Snare the Skies

1 Heirs of Stromkirk

1 Banners Raised

1 Dual Casting

1 Alchemist's Apprentice

1 Favorable Winds

1 Thraben Valiant

1 Somberwald Vigilante

1 Herald of War

The two FNMs of June I was playing a red/blue delver build with a splash of green for the sideboard - I like the deck but it was super weak against Lingering Souls. 

I was playing tired on the second Friday but I was also out of the house with The Perfectly Normal Husband, who borrowed my white weenie deck.  I won a single match ( and had difficulty with mana screw) and got paired up the rest of the evening it seemed but The Perfectly Normal Husband came in 4th even though he had never played FNM before. It was my second time out with my deck, I had put in some board sweep but I didn't do it as confidently as I would now that I used more red in the pre-release. I just realized that I don't have the decklists that I'm running stored in my DeckedBuilder archives so I'd better update them.

I was going to add the pre-release to this entry but I'm going to post it and update with the two decklists, the one I was playing and the one I gave the Perfectly Normal Husband. It was literally his first FNM, he'd had a very bad day at work and met me at the store. He's a very good strategy player for all sorts of other games but because he doesn't have ego invested in winning he doesn't consider himself "good" however he did come in 4th that night.  I was really happy for him, but I would have been happier if I'd done well, not because I'm in competition with him, but at the back of my head is a little voice that whispers "great, now people with think you play because of him not the other way around" which is dumb, but it's there and it's a distraction. 

What's not a distraction is that now that he's placed, he'll understand that when I really can only play standard with my kitchen table friends I might need some playtime with him when we can play and just have fun but with actual practice happening, because neither of our egos are invested in playing against each other we can play at a pretty high competitive level and help each other and just have fun, we never get into those strange fights or dominance contests I see other couples who play get caught in. I guess maybe the closest I've come is that little voice, but that little voice is stupid, almost everyone who plays there knows me at this point, and it wouldn't matter if they didn't as long as I was winning, I'm just over sensitive to it because it felt like I lost some skillsets and the "girl gamer" thing is raging every single day in new and shiny spaces. 

I'm not even sure that I count as a "girl gamer" because seriously? WTF I hang out with a whole bunch of older ladies and when the 60-80 year olds do stuff they're still referred to as girls but "gamer girl" GIS brings you nothing but teens and 20somethings with their cleavage exposed. I am a "girl" but frankly I'm a little concerned that there's no space between supa young and very old which I sit squarely in the middle of.  Most of the time I can just sit in a genderless formless void "outlier magic player" but when my actual sig other is there I have an insecurity I never had before based on gender in SF or gaming. Not that I'm uncomfortable with him or my femininity more like I feel that I have to "represent" for both age and gender. It's self imposed - no one is asking me to. 

This is also a distraction, but only after the event not during it, it's more like a feeling of embarrassment or of letting other women gamers down by setting a low bar instead of busting through it. Real life side effect though is that it does increase my anxiety level enough that I might not be playing pick up games or going to new places to play because of fear of looking dumb.  Starting to address that by going to Monday night causal magic at the store. 

However that is June's Headspace - Apparently the problem might have been Avacyn Restored and I were not the best mix for each other because pre-release came and some of the work I had done where I was specifically using the drafts to practice strategies really paid off. 

Next entry - Pre-Release 

Psuedo Newb and the 2-headed Giant FNM

I did actually make it to the FNM before pre-releases, and for the pre-release itself I'm going to post the competitive stuff here but an arty blog about it on my main blog.

Here's what happened on Friday:

I did actually manage to put together the Darwin Kastle white budget deck, and realized that I've completely become the kind of person who can put together that deck because I have the cards in the house.

To get the 4 Honor of the Pures I had take apart a couple of other decks but I just made a list.

Here is the deck as Darwin listed it

Creatures (13) 4 Champion of the Parish 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Elite Vanguard 1 Mikaeus, The Lunarch Spells (24) 4 Midnight Haunting 4 Gather the Townsfolk 4 Lingering Souls 4 Honor of the Pure 4 Intangible Virtue 4 Oblivion Ring Lands (23) 17 Plains 2 Swamp 4 Isolated Chapel Sideboard (15) 4 Revoke Existence 4 Shrine of Loyal Legions 4 Loyal Cathar 2 Timely Reinforcements 1 Mortarpod

I was one Isolated chapel short so I put in an Evolving Wilds, and I was one Champion of the Parish short so I put in a Grand Abolisher ( also because I knew my local meta would have a problem with the Abolisher, they like to do stuff at the end of my turn).

I followed his suggestion in the Beyond the Build article and had some Divine offering in the sideboard since a lot of people are playing pod decks all of a sudden so I had 2 in the sideboard and 2 revokes but what I didn't have were shrines of the Loyal Legions. I put out a call for substitutes and had already thought of putting in one Heros of Blade hold and moving the Abolisher to the sideboard.

Realizing this was the last FNM before Avacyn restored and I still hadn't actually cast a planeswalker in my entire life I looked over the token strategy and figured WHAT THE HELL and put in a Sorin and Elspeth Tirel that I had never even sleeved up because I didn't have the Legions.

What I was really trying for was playing a focused deck with very little card variety to see if I could run a strategy that streamlined.  Darwin was trying to build on a budget but even though the Hero's and Planeswalkers were expensive I was trying to play the deck because it was constructed in a way that was synergistic

So my final build was this.

Creatures (13) 3 Champion of the Parish 1 Hero of Bladehold 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Elite Vanguard 1 Mikaeus, The Lunarch Spells (24) 4 Midnight Haunting 4 Gather the Townsfolk 4 Lingering Souls 4 Honor of the Pure 4 Intangible Virtue 4 Oblivion Ring

Lands (23) 17 Plains 2 Swamp 3 Isolated Chapel 1 Evolving Wilds Sideboard (15) 2 Revoke Existence 2 Divine Offering 1 Elspeth Tirel 1 Sorin Lord of Innistrad 1 Hero of Bladehold 1 Grand Abolisher 4 Loyal Cathar 2 Timely Reinforcements 1 Mortarpod

So this was my sideboard going into my usual Just In Case or I'm Playing Badly I Might As Well Get Used to Playing These Strategic Cards plan. I would have bought the Legions at the store if they were available but there were no loyal legions to be had.

As a matter of fact when I had gotten there I didn't realize that it was the end of the month so therefore it was 2 headed giant which is not my favorite format - especially since it would only be the second time I played it but Phil who is a very friendly and helpful dude who was friends with Married Keith ( remember there are many different Keiths, Dans and Kyles in Magic) needed a partner and I made the number to sanction the match ( and I really, really wanted to play I felt like I hadn't moved cardboard in FOREVER but it was really only 2 days since I played some casual) when we stopped.

The last time I had played 2-headed it was a sealed pre-release I had never played constructed. Phil said "Hell, we can't partner up you're playing Delver right?" Why did it matter? Because in constructed you can't have 8 copies of the same card between the two teammates ( or "heads).

But NO i had taken the time to put together the Darwin Deck and there was no overlap except Lingering Souls. But EVEN BETTER, Phil's Delver build didn't use Lingering Souls.

We spread everything out, checked the decks ( luckily I'd gotten there early). He's a much better player than I am but a looser competitor than many of the "good" players. He's fun to play with.

Preparation -  Well I'd spent a good bit of time prepping for this one and absolutely no time prepping for  2-Headed giant so I was simultaneously prepared and flat-footed.

Comfort Level - It was good, I've been playing white but haven't liked my deck in competition but like it find to play. I couldn't tell if it was because my play had deteriorated from lack of tournament play or if my construction was just bad. So knowing that Darwin had made the deck meant that I could really focus on whether or not I was playing properly. I was a little thrown because it wouldn't be head-to-head but that was easily solved by just making Phil the primary player.

Results

We beat people quick - right until we didn't and that  games was longer.

Our record was 2-1 out of 3

Takeaways

2-headed giant means 30 life points shared and you have to read cards that you are familiar with carefully, it suddenly makes a really big difference if it says "opponent's" or "opponents"

It was a good thing that I'd played because it meant I wasn't playing 2-headed giant cold the next day at the pre-release non-helvault version.

We lost game 3 because I had no removal and they cast an Elesh Norn.  Checking my deck all my Oblivion Rings were in the lower half of the deck. One of the things you get used to playing blue is the ability to move through your deck and reorder things. One of the reasons I might not be playing my regular white deck properly is that I'm not thinking strategically enough about what happens if I DON'T get the cards I need next.

Elesh Norn pretty much shuts down this deck if they kill off your enchantments first ( which they did) we were in the game as long as we were because I could get a Hero out.

2-Headed giant doesn't let you sideboard since it only goes one game. So I let phil go through all the cards and substitute based on what we would need the most to compliment his deck, we took out 3 elite vanguards put in the other Hero, the Abolisher, and Elspeth. Elspeth never came into play but the Hero and the Abolisher both worked out for us. Also he had an Isolated Chapel ( foil!) with him and we swapped out the Evolving Wilds to run the proper amount. I bought one from my LGS after the game.