Into the truth, let myself burn

Changes made to 1000 Shards: Nature's End for the Naturalize effects and that's it. I don't know what I was talking about when I said I'd cut Simic Guildmage: there aren't any in the deck! I blame myself...which is going to be the theme in the games I describe.

Game one vs U/B zombies; I did bad math with a Blood Artist and Diregraf Captain out = I quit before I should have. I had made a proper comeback and could have possibly won but nope: my brain worked against me.

Game two I have to mulligan to 5 cards (bad sign) keeping 2 Islands, Spike Drone, Simic Growth Chamber and Vigor.

Sigh. I luck into a Forest and while that's good, I keep drawing more Forests while Fuz gets a Gravecrawler, Carrion Feeder and a Quest for the Gravelord online. All I can do is ramp up and hope that I can find something to do before he starts pounding me with huge zombies. Instead I draw another Vigor.

Sometimes I hate this fucking game. But what the hell; let's try a rematch.

The situation: I am stuck on three lands-two Island one Yavimaya Coast and because of this I cannot cast any of the three Spike Feeders in my hand which, if I can get a Forest, can keep me in the game.

Then Fuz casts Cabal Therapy.

I really hate this fucking game.

Let's move on. Up against a mono-W deck with an Angel theme and a lifegain/blink subtheme, I had some decent starts but I was held off one game by a Ghostly Prison, unable to draw a Natural End.

Sure, I made it through a Day of Judgement and two Phyrexian Rebirth, on top of casting Mirrorverse twice. But I couldn't force enough damage through and ended up dying when stonethorn swung for 32 in the air. While at over 60 life. And I had two 27/27's on the table.

It always stuns me how I create decks that prepare for situations where 'All I need is a Naturalize!' and I then can't get the damn Naturalize.

Game two I had a strong start but overreached on turn five, casting Gaea's Skyfolk when I shouldn't have. The Phyrexian Rebirth gave stonethorn a 4/4 and a way back into the game. In this instance, I can precisely identify the moment when things went wrong and that was it.

I also used my Llanowar Reborn counters too quickly. Once I knew the board resets were coming, holding back so I can cast a bigger creature in game two was the correct choice that I failed to make.

I seem to be on a streak of losses lately. Some bad decisions but also bad draws and nothing really going like I hope.

I've also finally noticed something: in a third set of games with Rider, I couldn't get enough green mana. Despite this deck providing 16 sources of green I don't seem to have enough to regularly hit two green by turn 3. I'm going to look for another Oran Rief and, failing that, just use a Forest. This deck has been amazing in the past: now it's telling me I need to tweak it.