Repeated Lessons

I pulled a few games against Fuz over the weekend and unconsciously, he played two different decks that had the exact same theme: White Weenie with Wrath of God and Zombies with Damnation. Essentially: get out small dudes, buff them and when in doubt, wipe the board.

I can't beat this style of deck. I don't have the removal nor do I have the tools to recover from Damnation. The tools I do have: creatures with protection from blue, the ability to recur damage resources, destruction of artifacts, punishment for playing non-creature spells, they attack very different decks and so here's my weak spot.

Fuz and I talked a little bit and we agreed: as powerful as Spitebellows is, Flametongue Kavu is a necessary upgrade. Spitebellows can kill so much but it goes away: it's a Combust I can cast under Ruric Thar. Flametongue sticks around and forces opponents to use removal on it.

So I cannibalized a couple decks and pulled three Flametongues out to replace the Spitebellows.

Of course, my next matchup was against Noah playing a Scapeshift deck, and he dropped Primeval Titan on me.

Fuck it, I can't win here. Maybe the Cinder Elementals come out for Spitebellows now? I don't know.

However, Viceroy is a pretty neat deck that is just a hint shy of what it needs. It's definitely one I need to keep in my pocket because it's almost there and if they print the right card, can make it.

One Card

It seems like all the gaming I got in over last weekend was...(almost) all the gaming I was going to get in at all!

Well. Lame. And that's on top of some personal lameness, too. Bah.

Which is to say that I didn't really come to the realization that I hadn't looked for Rootbound Craigs until late last night. Found none.

The alternatives aren't very appealing because they involve lots of money but I did crack open the Guildpact binder and find a solitary Gruul Turf that looked awfully lonely. And I know that I said that this deck really couldn't use more ETB tapped cards BUT the Turf has the potential to interact with the Temples of Abandon, while at the same time providing me with the mana to cast damn near anything I need to (or bloodrush it), once I untap.

So I dropped one in for a Forest and managed to get a game in with Noah, who was playing a Legacy-legal version of Birthing Pod.

And you know what? That matchup didn't go as badly as you might think. Hammer Mage and Scryb Rangers give this problems by attacking the base card (Birthing Pod) and being problematic for many of the important creatures like Baleful Strix. The games were entertaining and had enough challenge that I didn't feel like I was just durdling around while Noah found awesome creatures and beat the crap out of me.

He did win though, 2-1. I was outpowered, regardless of everything else but when I have a good matchup like that, I think that I should keep this deck in rotation because it's probably one tweak away from being really good.

Gamedays

Since Flickr is borked and I cannot get URL's for pics I've taken now....fuck them. (Update, I got something worked out. Whew!)

Anyway! The good news is, I got in quite a few games with Viceroy. And the better news is: the Spitebellows and Cinder Elemental were both useful in the games I got them out in. They did their jobs well.

However, what I've been noticing is that I need more red than it appears. The stats say that I have a 55/45% split, green/red generation and that the deck has a 61/39% split between green and red mana costs.

Yet every time I got stuck, it was almost always because I couldn't get a red source of mana. In one game, I started off solid with a couple Forests and a Skaarg, the Rage Pits but saw no sources of red, along with a hand that started to include Zhur-Taa, Ghor-Clans, and Ruric. And boy howdy, did I lose. The problem is, I don't want to ditch any sources of green: it's just as critical and I don't want to cut any creatures; this deck needs to be as packed with goodies as I can get it.

One thought is to cut the Zhur-Taa Druids for Quirion Elves. This could go a long way to helping my mana problems. However what it eats away at now is my ability to do damage! Time and time again the Druids would come online and eat away at life totals that would help put the game in a winnable position.

Another is to trade some Forests for some dual lands: Rootbound Craig being the most obvious and probably cheapest solution. Again: how many is too many? Too many and those lands will enter the battlefield tapped too often and the 4 Temples are about as slow as Viceroy can afford to get.

Lands are going to be my first option, if I have them. Let's get after it.