Free Pizza: Daredevil-Crimson Twilight season

 Hit my free pizza pretty early! 

went a little rogue and built a Wolverine Horseman of War deck instead of capitalizing on the new Daredevil season. Storm Horseman of Famine was both surprisingly good and frustrating, as the +2 could be immense, but the setback was no joke. That card really needs to be in a Hi Evo style deck.

Living the dream was having Mother Askani split Wolverine of course, and adding something like 35 points to the board. And while this deck did the lion's share of work getting me to 90, I also had a nice little backup deck. 

This deck has one severe weakness: it needs priority. If you get and keep priority by turn 3, you can do very silly things. Frequently, Wilson Fisk comes down on turn 3 and that can lock in Askani'son or Iron Patriot, and from there cards like Viv, Rocket and Groot and Alioth come in incredibly useful. 

Production Issues

 So far as I can tell, these are legit Magic cards.

Yet it is very clear that the cards on the right are darker than the ones on the right. 

Look, WotC: this kind of shit seemed like it never happened for years and years. Now it seems to pop up every set. Maybe this has always been a problem and it's just social media raising awareness but I'm not ever inclined to give a large corporation the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cutting corners. 

Need To Be Fast All The Time

 I think I like where this is at. 

I had to learn some hard lessons with this deck, and I'm keeping it in rotation for a little longer, because it's excellent practice. 

Seriously, if you ever want to practice how to utilize instants optimally, this kind of deck is worth playing. It's starting to change the way I pay attention to Magic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I want to practice with Skycoach Conductor, since I think that will add just enough value to nudge the deck forward. Kutzil's Flanker; you're going to the sideboard!

One other thing this deck will help with is not tilting out. I recently scrapped a game against Noah when he landed a Voice of Victory and I hadn't noticed. 

I immediately scooped, but looking back at the game, I should have utilized my tools to remove the VoV and then get back into playing my game. Because I wasn't paying attention, I felt bad and did the scoop of shame. Scooping wasn't the problem; not taking a breath to see if that was the correct thing to do, was.

Anyway, here's the decklist!

2 Skycoach Conductor // All Aboard

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

3 Sigrid, God-Favored

4 Brineborn Cutthroat

2 Merfolk Trickster

3 Errant and Giada

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Fire Nation Occupation

3 Opt

4 Counterspell

2 Path to Exile

4 Brainstorm

4 Tundra

7 Island

4 Plains

1 Swamp

2 Contaminated Aquifer

1 Sunlit Marsh

4 Meticulous Archive

SB: 2 Kutzil's Flanker

Going Too Slow

Let's talk about Force of Virtue.

This was a card I subbed in for a bit, thinking it would be a great fit for the deck. My creatures are small, the Flash quality of Force of Virtue meant I could play it off the top of my library if Giada was out, or play it for free boosting all my other creatures. 

But what this card actually represents is "win more". 

I get caught on this all the time. Why win when you can SUPERWIN? The Glory of Cool Things biting me in the ass. 

But...no. I don't need to do that. Just win. That's enough. I have Snapcaster Mage, a card that is practically waving a giant sign telling me to add it to the deck and I was just blowing past it because I was looking at white cards.

Cynicism

Hey, they announced a 2-Headed Giant event for the Avengers Academy set coming out! That's pretty cool I think it's rad that 2HG is getting some time in the spotlight, I think it's a great way to play Magic. Let's see who the theme deck characters are....

Lessee...Best Known Comic Guy, Best Known Movie Guy, Best Known TV Guy, They Can't All Be Men, and They Can't All Be White. 

What an interesting lineup of choices!*

*My point is not that there shouldn't be women or non-white characters heading the decks. There should-the game should appeal to a broad group. My point is that you have the most cliched picks possible with art that couldn't be more boring if it came with bong hits. It's just too bad that there aren't any real choices when it comes to Avengers you can pick!

Should've Been Faster

OK, back at it.

I was lucky to make some tweaks right away! I had Meticulous Archive and added that to the deck promptly. Then put it to the test against Rebecca playing a RW mice deck (going to write about that soon!) 

First lesson: I need Brainstorm. Tamiyo is a powerful effect, but the investment to get her to flip is really only helpful if she can do it cheaply. This deck isn't built like that and it needs to be. 

Second: Merfolk Trickster can be used after attackers are declared to make creatures with flying or first strike lose that ability. I learned it the hard way but it is useful!

Third: Fire Nation Occupation is very strong and one of the deck's win conditions. Brineborn Cutthroat is solid, but I haven't seen it pop off like I would hope-yet. What I'm concerned about is having enough threats to win the game. 

Fourth: I do not have Aven Interrupter available right now. What is up with that?? But I do have Errant and Giada and this might be perfect!

Union

Hey, WotC employees got a union now!

Sure, it's for the Arena devs but still. Good for them.