Back To The Front

It didn't take me long to figure out that something as expensive as Crovax really shouldn't be in a deck with only 22 mana sources. I held that card in my hand in one game, even getting to five mana, and still couldn't cast it.

So I went searching for a card that could work in the deck and decided on Skyhunter Skirmisher. As a flyer it doesn't seem too impressive but with all the pump effects in this deck, it's pretty easy to imagine it attacking for four, six or more. Plus, it fits well on the mana curve, so in it went.

And every time it showed up, I was pleased. I managed to get many games in with Disposable Heroes, in part due to good timing and fortune and in part because I was pushing that deck to see if the mana was an issue. It was, in one game with stonethorn, which I ended up losing. On the upside, every other game went really smoothly in terms of mana.

The other good thing about DH is that it's really well positioned against nearly any B or R based deck, which happened to be what Fuz was playing much of the weekend. It also had some solid game against Jason, cleaning up with Light From Within faster than he could wipe me out.

Similarly, against a deck stonethorn was working on; a solid little bit of mono-b undying + board resets just waiting to be more awesome, I still had him up against the ropes rather quickly. Protection is a really strong ability and I wonder if people abuse it as much as they could.

Now, when I lost it was in three games to stonethorn's mono-G deck. He was able to accelerate out mana and ramp into big (and better) creatures faster than I was able to drop a creature booster. Don't get me wrong, my creatures are good but cards like Arrest don't work against Dungrove Elder (which is what I lost to in game 1.) Plus, the critical game three was when I was stuck on mana with two Light From Within and an Ajani Goldmane while I got to learn a lesson in exponential growth from Primordial Hydra.

Still, I like the way this has been shaped up and how it has come together. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on potential cards that can be used: Lifelink seems like it would be the kind of thing that would give this deck quite a bit of reach. Unfortuately I just can't justify a defensive posture like life gain when this deck is so needing to be aggressive.