Tuesday, November 27, 2012

1-1

Well, I'm getting a better handle on what kind of decks Prisoner can handle now. Only two matches last night but they still gave me some perspective on what kind of key this deck will unlock.

First I went against a UW spirits deck. It was working a midrange aggro thing, with creatures that left flying tokens when they died, along with Favorable Winds to keep the pressure on. The 'aha!' moment for me was in game 2 when I got a Martial Law down, allowing my opponent swing for 4, then casting Supreme Verdict and being able to use a Mistfolk enhanced Flagbearer and Somnophore followup to lock down my opponent forever.

In this instance, the few counterspells I had were fine, because I could use the global reset to start things over and then ensure an edge with the Mana Leak in my hand. Since Martial Law isn't affected by creature control, opponents had to find another way to get around my stalling tactics and even though I was only doing two damage at a time, I was doing it with creatures that locked down victory conditions.

The opposite problem bit me in my games against a UR Guttersnipe deck. My Mana Leaks were not enough to stop my opponent's strategy, my locks were meaningless and he had a fuckton more removal. It's very difficult to land a Frost Raptor/Coalition Flag combo though countermagic and burnination. That was my only viable plan though and having to waste Supreme Verdict on Guttersnipes left me open to other creatures coming through, as you can see.

I was able to Faith's Fetters the Consecrated Sphinx but that didn't prevent the card draw and I was forced to use my mass removal before Talrand took over the game. Both times I cast Supreme Verdict it was in the face of countermagic, which was awesome. Unfortunately, it put me in the same position: having Guttersnipes combine with instants do 4-5 points of damage per spell cast and I couldn't come back from that.

Most of the time, Blinding Angel and Somnophore are good enough to lock down creature decks, with Faith's Fetters running support but things with triggered abilities necessitate the big guns of removal. I was overwhelmed by them and I'm not sure how I could tweak this deck to take down that angle. Could just be a bad matchup.

All in all however, I feel that this deck is still a bit of a work in progress. It's in a good place for now and it's certainly time to move on.

1 comment:

  1. U/R Gutternsipe deck is also known as: Gun on Ice Planet Zero

    Any feedback on that build would be appreciated as well, primarily because there are 3x cards in there that I am on the fence about, and I feel that I could possibly be more "consistent" with the build.

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