Roundup

For $300, I went with Radiant's Blessing. Killing a large creature if needed or getting rid of the Blessing for another card was too valuable than playing a more reactionary card like Smite. The testing was imperfect; Fuz was working out a new deck and Jason was playing something non-interactive and slower-much slower-than I was, so games would end when I'd hit turn four and swing for 11, with more on the way for turn five.

Still, so far, so good.

Slamdance worked well with the Inferno Titans. While they don't mesh with the theme in the same way that Frost Titan would, Inferno Titans did something very similar; made the resources that my opponent played go away, boosting the tempo that I had, giving me more time to find cards/win out/make my conditions inevitable. While they may not mesh as well as other win conditions I can't argue the effectiveness they had when they appeared.

Fun times with this deck: on turn three Jason cast a Show & Tell dropping Darksteel Colossus. My drop: Avalanche Riders. I lost that game. However, in that matchup, once I realized I needed to keep him off white mana so he couldn't cast Cataclysm, games 2 and 3 were about putting Inferno Titan out, getting it bounced, and recasting it until the game was won.

So I guess the changes stand. Until I get sick of them...

I need for you to be reasonable

So in my second matchup with $300 I got pounded. Why?

The matchup was white weenie/equipment, using Stoneforge Mystic on a Soltari Visionary. The claim is that it's a milling deck but when you win via damage it really can't be a mill deck. Milling is just extra. I am making big creatures really fast-faster than the mill deck could run me out of cards, so once again: why did I lose?

However the answer to the question is: because I could not bring enough pressure to bear against a deck that was using unblockable creatures to win--and I didn't have enough ways to interact with that unblockable creature. I needed ways to kill creatures and I didn't have them. The WW deck had tutoring to ensure a steadily increasing threat count and I did not.

Fun moment via loss: I cast Bind on a Stoneforge activation, preventing a Sword of Body and Mind from coming into play. My draw; Forest, which is a small indication of how the whole thing went. I do something cool and my reward is mundane.

So here's where I have to decide what kind of situations I want to accept losing with this deck. If I keep $300 as is, what are the good matchups? Where is it weak and what can I do to push through those weaknesses?

Looking at the decklist, the card that I'm most suspicious of now is Sigil Blessing and here's why: I already have five cards in there that give permanent bonuses to my creatures. Giving that bonus as an instant isn't what I care about; I care about making sure I can send the troops over faster/better than my opponent. With the use of Afterlife, I've already stretched the deck into a slightly longer game and I don't think that Sigil Blessing is making it shorter.

So it's coming out. Three cards may not seem like much but people agonize over every selection (and I'm no different) because what I've been taught after fifteen plus years of playing is that every card matters.

-3 Sigil Blessing
+3 ????

That's the question. Possible replacements:
Radiant's Blessing-something to take care of creatures bigger than mine, cycles if I don't need it.
Pacifism: cheap, means the best creature my opponent has can't attack or block, classic answer.
Cage of Hands: Pacifism but can be bounced to use on another creature
Prison Term: Arrest only switchable.
Shackles: A more interesting trick.

Of these, the one I'm looking at the most is Radiant's Blessing.

More interesting replacements: Last Breath (I don't know that I care if they get 4 life but limited by it's targeting requirements) and Reciprocate (have to take a hit but only one.)

I've got a soft spot for Reciprocate so it's down to this and the Blessing to see what might work best.

You turn me up like a garage door

I got a few games in with $300 last night and they weren't terribly instructive. I don't blame anyone for this; Fuz was testing a new deck and in the first matchup, I just rolled him as nothing came up for him to play.

The second matchup was more interesting; he was playing a G/B deck based around Darkest Hour, making all creatures black while playing creatures with protection from black and I was playing a deck that needs its creatures to be green and white.

I didn't even realize what was going on because I had a creature advantage at the time, until I put down a Knight of New Alara and attacked with two Pridemages, saying "Swing for 8," and was corrected "4."

Yup. That's going to be a problem, especially if I'm not paying attention.

Except that it wasn't. I played another Pridemage next turn, destroyed the enchantment and attacked for 12. (So I got lucky, really. Paying attention is crucial all the time, Magic just tends to magnify the need for that skill.)

This is the hallmark of really good builds, I think. Redundancy is certainly part of it but the quality I'm really thinking of is reliability. Can I as a player, depend on this deck/card to do what I want it to do when I want it done-usually, when I draw the card.

The Darkest Hour matchup also showcased why Pridemage really isn't the questionable choice I thought it might be.

Advantages of Qasali Pridemage: Green and white, creature, cheap, has extra ability, has board-impacting ability.

Disadvantages; standard power toughness, doesn't contribute to the masses.

The synergies outweigh the disadvantages and I may have been evaluating the card entirely wrong. It's not like I don't know the card is good, my question was always; Is this good enough? Which it totally is.

Bind is probably the card that most rational people would question. There's just no way for me to know that I'll need that card, right? And in a focused deck, cards I don't have use for 100% of the time just don't belong.

However, the saying goes; No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Bind is my neat concession to this idea and it's why I don't question that card. Nobody expects it, it's useful against many, many abilities and it draws a card. Why not? It's something that if I was in a tournament environment I might axe it but in a deck that is overwhelmingly about aggro force, having a cheap, cool trick to pull on someone is a good thing, especially since I haven't really let that cool thing run away with my deck's overall theme.

Or put another way; I don't always need Bind, but when I do, I giggle.