Final Tweaks: Hurt

I found three Massacre but no more Flesh Reavers in my collection so the two Spiteflame Witches are staying in for now.

Last night's game was uneventful. This is the trouble with scheduling and people having lives. I got one game in-a multiplayer game at that- before there was a notion to change to the Tiny Leaders format (which has been interesting so far) and the Massacres never appeared. I was stuck on only one red mana for most of the game I did get to play (Thanks, Nomad Outpost!) but it didn't badly constrict was I was doing.

Still, I don't know if I've made a good choice or not. It's difficult to get enough games in with people who play a similar format of Magic to understand if I've made proper decisions.

Watching this video by AJ Sacher, I am very impressed by his analysis of the game. He has put in so much time that he can clearly articulate why he thinks as line of play is superior (the Snapcaster Mage + Serum Visions or Lightning Bolt decision around 15 minutes in is especially good, I think). And this comes while watching to people who have also put in a TON of time playing their decks, finding the best decisions they can for complicated scenarios.

I understood and even agreed with things Sacher had to say, I just don't know that I could make similar evaluations. I definitely can't make them with only one game under my belt.

Thankfully, Fuz came to my rescue tonight, including this conversation:

So there's that. I suppose you had to be there.

Anyway; when I lost I had board states that looked like this:

I think it's pretty obvious what the problem is here.

This kind of thing happens and it's precisely why cards like Solemn Offering are generally relegated to the sideboard; I am in need of some action and I can't get it.

Yet, I did draw Massacre in a couple games and it often did some work for me, killing Animar or Utopia Trees, forcing some Mogis decisions. I even managed to use Solemn Offering on my Mogis just to gain 4 life when there weren't any other targets.

However, I think I may need to adopt more targeted removal than Massacre. I don't have many creatures and keeping them on the board is relevant to my interests. At the same time, I need something that takes out multiple creatures to give me breathing space and Mogis time to work.

I don't know that I have that option. It's just too much to ask for, isn't it?

For the moment, I think I've taken this deck as far as I can. Massacre stays but I'm keeping Hurt in rotation to try and learn more. We'll check back in a bit. For now, I have a really interesting deck I want to bring to the plate.

What Have I Become?

You know what's frustrating? Having your camera battery die so you can't take any (crappy) photos of your games. Visual representations matter! Sigh.

It's allllllmost as frustrating as having a new exciting idea fall flat on its face. I played against a zombies deck and Noah's Doran lead tiny leaders deck and got smashed pretty hard by both. Mogis appeared (sometimes in multiples!) but 2 damage a turn isn't much of a consideration if you can generate a ton of zombies swiftly or a squirrel every turn to satisfy Mogis's requirements.

This means that I need more removal, because at the moment, Mogis often just reads: opponents take 2 a turn and who cares? Since I can't have multiple copies of Mogis in play to stack the effect, now what?

Noah suggested two things: Cut one Mogis and find some non-red sweepers. Red sweep will ruin me but on the up side, black has many ways to destroy a lot of creatures that don't do damage. Crux of Fate is probably the newest and may very well be the best option for me. Damnation is too expensive and many of the -x/-x spells in black, like Mutilate, want a lot of swamps to be extremely effective.

But perhaps I don't need to be extremely effective. Maybe Massacre could do the trick and still leave me the option to keep a Flesh Reaver on board. On the upside, at least I know the next step and can make more changes to test it.

Let You Down

This is not a problem I like having.

Three White cards, not a single source of white mana to speak of. This is a good excuse to run the deck through the Deck Stats generator to make sure I'm running enough sources of white.

Turns out, I'm shy on red mana! And I'm running 25 lands, which might be a bit much.

However, there's a bigger tweak to be made, coming out of games I played on Cockatrice against Fuz. He's playing a Rakdos the Defiler deck and that fucker is MEAN.

Sure, it's a pretty neat trick when I can Harm's Way Rakdos into making Fuz sacrifice twice the number of permanents he needs to but I still can't kill Rakdos and that is a very big problem.

I explained some of the issues I was having with the deck, including the need to find something that was both Red and Black in order to trigger Dega Sanctuary regularly. Ideally, I told Fuz, something that was an enchantment, to provide me with ways to trigger Dega Sanctuary.

"Everlasting Torment?" he joked, which brought a wry smile and I admitted I didn't have any ideas, beyond doing a search at Gatherer.

"How about Mogis, God of Slaughter?"

Oh. My. God.

Let's try a new list:

3 Loxodon Warhammer

4 Dega Sanctuary
4 Mogis, God of Slaughter

3 Solemn Offering

4 Harm's Way
1 Char
2 Orcish Cannonade

4 Shinka Gatekeeper
2 Spiteflame Witch
3 Jackal Pup
2 Filthy Cur
4 Flesh Reaver

4 Nomad Outpost
7 Mountain
6 Plains
7 Swamp

My Empire Of Dirt

"How's that deck working out for you?" Caitlin asked.

It's a good question, one that is illustrating a recent mistake.

I got some games in against both Noah and Matt and the routine was pretty much the same: Hurt plays like a R/B aggro deck with some neat tricks from White, until I get something like Loxodon Warhammer and then it becomes scary. But I found myself disappointed with Personal Sanctuary, which I swapped in for three copies of Solemn Offering.

Redundancy is very important in Magic, especially if you're running non-Blue decks. One of the reasons Blue is the most powerful color, set after set, is that it often has the easiest access to tools that draw cards and smooth over the inconsistent bumps that other colors face when they try to execute their strategies. So, it would seem that if I can add in some cards that will help Hurt do what it wants to do, but do it more consistently, then that would be a good thing!

The mistake I made was thinking that Dega Sanctuary was the card I wanted to do more with. I don't win via Dega Sanctuary, I keep myself alive long enough to force them to lose. On top of that, multiple copies of Dega Sanctuary means that I gain more life, extending the time I have to find answers and win the game. Multiple copies of Personal Sanctuary doesn't do anything for me at all.

So I went in the wrong direction and the Personal Sanctuaries should come out of the deck. The question becomes; do I go back to the Solemn Offerings or not? My losses were to Noah playing Jeskai Tokens (whomever thought Jeskai Ascendancy should untap ALL creatures was insane) and the Offerings would also shore up my matches against Jason, doing whatever Jason does. Because he does it with artifacts or enchantments, for the most part.

The unsung hero of this deck has been Harm's Way. The first time I played that card, Noah exclaimed, "I almost lost to a Harm's Way!" (he survived by one. ONE!) I got it off twice against Matt to kill off one of his relevant creatures and protect my life total. That kind of smiling knife is something that is worth investigating, if only for its versatility but when coupled with the surprise factor? I may be onto something and I should push that for all it's worth.