It's Been Picked Clean To The Bone

I kept this hand against stonethorn and I probably shouldn't have but it highlights the real trouble I've had in the matches I've played What Doesn't Die. What I've got is two Goblin Welder, two Bosh, a Synod Centurion, Swamp, Mountain and an Ancient Tomb. I am attacking with Goblin Welder because I don't have any other plays to make.

Over the course of five games, I had a couple situations where I didn't have any artifacts in my graveyard and so couldn't use Welder's ability.

And boy, did Welder's ability cause some rules headaches for stonethorn & I. He wanted to respond to my selection of targets and I didn't think he could, because I thought the ability was resolving by then. I thought he had to respond to the tap activation, not my selection of targets. And boy did I hang onto that idea much, much longer than I should have. Like, ten minutes longer, because I'm a stubborn human being.

But he was right and I was wrong: once I've picked targets, responses can be made. On the upside, once I realized that I was wrong, I tried to acknowledge it and move on. There is no point in holding onto a dispute like that and going forward, I hope I can say I've learned something.

I did learn something useful about this deck, though; Guardian Idol is not what I'm looking for. I was thinking about one of the Baubles (Mishra's or Urza's) because this would allow me to put an artifact in the graveyard for free, allowing me to protect artifacts I have by swapping them out. But stonethorn has suggested Ichor Wellspring and that is likely the better choice. However, I'm going to split the difference for now; there are clearly situations when both cards are useful and both will draw me a card, it's just a matter of recognizing what play will be most useful. Should be interesting!