An Exercise In Ignoring Evidence

I've actually gotten a heap of games in with Skalor, because I built it a few weeks before I wrote about it. I've been trying to hone it whenever I can but it's been an exercise in frustration because I steadfastly refuse to do what needs to be done, at least so far.

In this game against Fuz, my response to Cabal Therapy was: well, this is going to suck.

And it did.

The problem with Killing Wave is that it's helpful if I can get out to a good start: for the most part, nobody wants to trade life for creatures when they've already taken 8.

Now, I don't know if it's because I'm riding the wrong horse right now but I have found myself facing a lot of decks with lifegain. Paying 3 or even 5 life per creature isn't so bad when you're up to 34 life.

I kept looking at Vengeful Pharaoh; a 5 mana creature that is challenging to cast, deprives me of a draw when it does what I want it to and seems even more difficult to actually position so that the Pharaoh DOES do what I want.

Every time I lost a game, to this zombies deck, a U/B mill, or a white Soul Sisters (lifegain) deck, I kept thinking the same thing: I need creature removal. Something that I can just do and call it good.

So naturally, I'm replacing Vengeful Pharaoh with Mindslicer. This seems dumb but why not? I want a creature I can cast sooner and when it dies does bad things and this does fit the bill.

Sounds awesome. Plus: with Gutter Grime, my creature dying doesn't mean I will no longer have threats on the board. Basically, Mindslicer interacts with things in a way that hopefully my opponent doesn't want me to, so I want to give it a run.

But it doesn't kill creatures. I may have to change my ways, but not today.

Skalor

I've done a count: 173 decks, including Commander stuff. That's...not right. However, doing nothing but remodels to decks I already own has gotten a little dull and getting my ass handed to me at League suggests I'm not focused there, either. So if a cool idea hits then it's best to take advantage which leads me to: Gutter Grime.

Since Gutter Grime doesn't do anything if I don't have actual creatures, token generation or populate concepts don't help me as much as just flat out creature spells might. But the deck is really challenging to build and here's why: Gutter Grime costs 5 and doesn't do anything when it arrives. Five is more than the cost of most mass removal spells and spending a turn where you don't have an active impact on the board in the midgame is brutal on most decks.

Nevertheless, I like that card and the resilience it offers to creature sweeping effects, so I'm going to run with it. I'll use that as 'Plan B' when the creature stalemates come and as a great way to get mileage out of Killing Wave. I named this deck out of one of the nastier Decepticons, because I just felt that a slime producing deck ought to honor dirty things. 

Here was my initial list:

    4 Gutter Grime
    4 Gluttonous Slime
    4 Predator Ooze
    2 Tarpan
    4 Festering Goblin
    3 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
    4 Young Wolf
    3 Ghoultree
    2 Weatherseed Treefolk
    2 Viridian Emissary
    4 Vengeful Pharaoh
    4 Killing Wave
    8 Forest
    8 Swamp
    4 Golgari Guildgate
    1 Overgrown Tomb

I really like Predator Ooze. And Gluttonous Slime: I just can't stop going for creatures that I shouldn't, I suppose.

The initial issues came from the mana: Predator Ooze costs GGG to come out on turn 3 and Weatherseed Treefolk has similarly weighty green requirements. Vengeful Pharaoh has BBB, added because I just didn't feel abused enough but at least it's a late-game play.

There are some synergies; creature dies, something good happens, a creature stays dead and Varolz comes out to let them contribute again, somehow. Still, the goldfishing I was doing felt awful. I would play admittedly terrible creatures or worse, have nothing to do for 3-4 turns and I know that's a death sentence for any deck. So I cut the Predator Ooze and Ghoultree for more castable stuff in the form of Body Snatcher and Deadwood Treefolk.

It still wasn't quite right. I could tell just by goldfishing that it wasn't working out and very limited test games were usually won by default--my opponent getting mana or color screwed.

Also: Tarpan. I want to use this SO MUCH but no. This card is just terrible. It got the axe next.

Noah took a look at it and suggested: 'Varolz is anti-synergy, isn't he?' I tried to justify Varloz because it seems like a pretty awesome 3 drop but in the end, I had to admit that he just didn't fit in with the deck as well as I would like. So I'm going to try this:

4 Gutter Grime
4 Gluttonous Slime
4 Festering Goblin
3 Young Wolf
2 Weatherseed Treefolk
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Killing Wave
9 Forest
9 Swamp
4 Golgari Guildgate
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Deadwood Treefolk
2 Yavimaya Elder
2 Viridian Zealot
3 Reassembling Skeleton
3 Rancor

Reassembling Skeleton is a card I've wanted to use for a long, long time and I think that this deck gives is a proper home. I even thought about this in my initial brainstorm but there wasn't room when I got done. Now I'm thinking I was right the first time. Rancor? Well, if all goes well I will always have a creature to cast it on and Rancor is so good that if you're building a green deck, you practically have to justify not putting it in. Finally, Viridian Zealot is there for the inevitable weird decks I will play that make enchantment or artifact destruction necessary but, if there aren't any then they are good food for a Gluttonous Slime.

We'll see how it does.

League Day 3 results: Misassignment of Role

This is a game I was fortunate enough to go on to win:

That streak of fortune did not follow me through the match, however, nor during the day. I had my worst showing yet: 1-3.

My deck was virtually unchanged: addition of Simic Guildgate and Simic Charm, yet as an inverse from last time when I went 4-0, when I needed creatures I got land. When I needed land, I got creatures. When I needed removal, I got Fuck You.

What went wrong? I believe I did not properly evaluate how fast everyone else's deck would become. Every match I lost, I lost in no small part because I had built a deck that was overly reliant on bombs that show up on turn 5, instead of a deck that could steadily increase the pressure or withstand pressure until I could win.

On the upside, every match I lost, I lost 1-2, so clearly those bombs were good enough to make the matchups a struggle, they just weren't enough to carry me to victories.

Now to add the weakest link, the Dragon's Maze pack, and re-evaluate the entire deck:

Maze sentinel
Haazda snare squad
Hidden strings
Murmuring phantasm
Ubul sar gatekeepers
Fatal fumes
Pilfered plans
Sin collector
Species gorger
Warleaders helix
Armored wolf rider
Flesh/blood
Boros guildgate
Gruul cluestone
Azorius cluestone

League Day 3

Here's what I've got going into Sunday. The new stuff is italicized.

Eaten by Spiders Wandering Wolf Grounded Geist Trappers Strangleroot Geist Somberwald Dryad Hollowhenge Beast Grizzled Outcasts Spidery Grasp Ambush Viper Moonmist Bountiful Harvest Druid's Deliverance Axebane Guardian Savage Surge Burst of Strength Disciple of the Old Ways	Harvester of Souls Essence Harvest Harrowing Journey Sightless Ghoul Morkrut Banshee Unburial Rites Walking Corpse Victim of Night Liliana's Shade Daggerdrome Imp Syndicate Enforcer
Leap of Faith Farbog Explorer Cathedral Sanctifier Ray of Revelation Smite the Monstrous Voiceless Spirit Oblivion Ring Guardian Lions Palisade Giant Murder Investigation Basillica Guards Boros Elite	Afflicted Deserter Pyreheart Wolf Fling Russet Wolves Somberwald Vigilante Uncanny Speed Searing Spear Traitorous Instinct Massive Raid
Favorable Winds Beguiler of Wills Nephalia Seakite Artful Dodge Runic Repetition Rooftop Storm Jace's Phantasm Encrust Faerie Invaders Merfolk of the Pearl Trident Index Vedalken Entrancer Doorkeeper Downsize Inspiration Spell Rupture	Bladed Bracers Angelic Armaments Heavy Mattock Ghoulcaller's Bell Ring of Xathrid Slitherhead Izzet Staticaster Spawn of Rix Maadi Sluiceway Scorpion Simic Charm Purge the Profane Ruination Wurm Assemble the Legion Shimmering Grotto Evolving Wilds Rootbound Crag Rakdos Guildgate Simic Guildgate 2xPlains Mountain 2xSwamp

That's quite a zoo. Part of me wants to go G/R/W (get it!?) with a hint of B because there's removal, there's good creatures, the Red can handle occasional artifacts (which I saw few of) the White can go for troublesome enchantments (which I saw plenty of) and Black, essentially, for Unburial Rites. I get access to Ruination Wurm, which is the largest creature I have (without the effort Grizzled Outcasts requires) and Assemble the Legion, which everyone seems to insist is awesome but the lure of getting a 1/1 with haste on turn 6 feels like a trap.

But Simic Charm has many, many uses and Simic Guildgate helps improve my mana. I don't really improve my best colors unfortunately, but mana wins games and that is a bigger key than Assemble the Legion. I feel more as though I should continue to shore up the current leaks in my boat than try and build a new one, so I'm going to stick with my UGB/r deck for now, and look for places to bring in Simic Charm Syndicate Enforcer or Ruination Wurm.

Contingencies

The board looks like this vs. Fuz's Paint It Black deck for one reason: Krosan Grip.

Fuz's deck uses Darkest Hour, Elephant Grass and creatures that either have protection from Black or get a bonus if the opponent has Black permanents (like the pictured Spectral Force) in order to lock down the opponent's win conditions and punch through his own. It's a little janky but it has enough efficient creatures in it to win, even if his soft-lock pieces don't show up and protection from anything is always useful.

I won the series, 2-1: game one I claimed victory because Fuz drew no Swamps, game 2 I lost for the same reason, and in game 3 I was able to bide my time until I could destroy the Elephant Grass and then bring the house with slivers. It worked.

I may have to tweak the mana a little bit: Chromatic Sphere and Jund Panorama are working well but I felt squeezed a bit for black mana. Perhaps a Shadowblood Ridge over the Mossfire Valley would be appropriate.

Still, the changes did their job and I think I need to keep the Grip in Menasor because of the potential number of decks I might face. In a format that is more rigorously defined, having an our like Krosan Grip is a waste of space--vital space, at that. But against everything? A card like Krosan Grip can save your game.

Separate Components

I got in a few games against Jason and Menasor did well for the most part, or at least did what I expected it to do.

The matches I did well in usually were against some kind of creature combo and the matchups I did badly in were ones that Jason either had excessively fast mana, as with a Mycosynth Lattice/Cloudpost deck, (although those games were very close) or with something just striking from out of left field.

Here's a picture I call: "Fuck I hate Confusion In The Ranks"

What I really like about this picture is how it tells you so much about how goddamn evil Confusion In The Ranks is especially when Norin the Wary is added. Even the mighty Jitte has betrayed you. It really informs you how utterly shit is must feel to know that in the presence of one card, all of your plans have gone to Nuremberg for the fireboming.

Don't stay up. They ain't comin' back.

And the thing that really pisses me off the most about this picture is knowing that one single card would have saved me: Naturalize. One Naturalize and all those neat tricks wither like a wurm in the sun and I can continue my Sliver beatdown the way the gods intended.

On the other hand, I believe this really demonstrates why Crystalline Sliver is so key to the Sliver deck. But where we have limitations, there are opportunities to innovate!

When I look at Menasor, I can see that there are plenty of redundancies built into it and in this area I might be able to whittle out some space for cards that might let this deck beat difficult matchups. The high end of this deck uses Might Sliver to boost my creatures but with Muscle Sliver, Sedge Sliver and Umezawa's Jitte providing boosts for my creatures, do I really need it? Five mana is quite a bit and I'd like to win the game if I'm in that position.

While I'm at it, the other creature that sticks out is Darkheart Sliver. If I'm sacrificing my Slivers, I'd rather do it because I have an Acidic Sliver on board, not in order to extend a game that I can't win. So let's swap that out for a Fungus Sliver. I have plenty of regeneration effects: why not play into that and pump my creatures at the same time?

This still leaves me with three slots to add in that could be helpful. First card to test: Krosan Grip. If anything can put a stop to these kinds of shenanigans, Krosan Grip can.

League Day 2: Results

You know how I said:

This is a very attractive prospect because it means I can play stronger cards, it just feels insane because there is one experience that I know is coming:

I have red cards and no Mountains.

 Yeah, well that happened. Just not quite the way I predicted.

What you see is that there are no Forests on the table. What you don't see is the fistful of Green cards mocking me as I die to the onslaught of Mogg Flunkies and Knight of Glory.

However, this was a rarity for the day. I did well, even managing to beat the previously undefeated person, and my deck frequently gave me the outs I needed to win close games. Mana was an issue for everyone (still) and once again I heard or overheard the line: "I shouldn't've kept that opening hand."

I didn't say that; every hand I decided to keep I kept because I had faith in it.That paid off and I'm glad.

Then I opened my pack of Gatecrash:

Burst of Strength

Disciple of the Old Ways
Massive Raid

Syndicate Enforcer

Murder Investigation

Boros Elite

Basilica Guards

Spell Rupture

Assemble the Legion

Simic Charm

Purge the Profane
Ruination Wurm

Simic Guildgate

Armored Transport

Swamp

Oh, boy.

League Day 2: The Mana

Here's what I've got going into Sunday:

Eaten by Spiders Wandering Wolf Grounded Geist Trappers Strangleroot Geist Somberwald Dryad Hollowhenge Beast Grizzled Outcasts Spidery Grasp Ambush Viper Moonmist Bountiful Harvest Druid's Deliverance Axebane Guardian Savage Surge	Harvester of Souls Essence Harvest Harrowing Journey Sightless Ghoul Morkrut Banshee Unburial Rites Walking Corpse Victim of Night Liliana's Shade Daggerdrome Imp
Leap of Faith Farbog Explorer Cathedral Sanctifier Ray of Revelation Smite the Monstrous Voiceless Spirit Oblivion Ring Guardian Lions Palisade Giant	Afflicted Deserter Pyreheart Wolf Fling Russet Wolves Somberwald Vigilante Uncanny Speed Searing Spear Traitorous Instinct
Favorable Winds Beguiler of Wills Nephalia Seakite Artful Dodge Runic Repetition Rooftop Storm Jace's Phantasm Encrust Faerie Invaders Merfolk of the Pearl Trident Index Vedalken Entrancer Doorkeeper Downsize Inspiration	Bladed Bracers Angelic Armaments Heavy Mattock Ghoulcaller's Bell Ring of Xathrid Slitherhead Izzet Staticaster Spawn of Rix Maadi Sluiceway Scorpion Shimmering Grotto Evolving Wilds Rootbound Crag Rakdos Guildgate 2xPlains Mountain Swamp

Filling out a 60 card deck is easy with U/B/G, so long as I am willing to play substandard cards. Doorkeeper is awesome! Jace's Phantasm is not. Then I thought I should go B/G/r because I do have some really good cards there. I just don't have enough to make 60. 

So there's the tension folks: I can play a deck with crappy cards or I can play an illegal deck. 

Except: the mana is there to splash Red. Rootbound Crag and the Guildgate mean that I can start putting in some Red without losing my ability to play Black or Green. The format is a little slower, so it's possible I could weed out the worst Blue, Black and Green cards to make room for even 4 Red ones, without disrupting the whole process. This is a very attractive prospect because it means I can play stronger cards, it just feels insane because there is one experience that I know is coming:

I have red cards and no Mountains. 

This means I'm going to have to take my advice from last time: Make sure I'm confident in my opening hand. So long as I keep that in mind, I should do OK. 

Everyone have a safe 4th of July!

A Slight Confusion

I only got one game in this weekend because I was struck with the flu. Flu during the summer pretty much sucks on every level you could ask for: 90% humidity AND my body aches? What's the honeymoon?

So yeah.

But I did get a game in against Fuz, who was playing a Blue deck using cards like Psychosis Crawler to win, while employing Arcane Laboratory, Evacuation and even Sunder to do damage under Ebony Owl Netsuke. And there's really only one problem with that:

That plan is terrible when dealing with an aggro deck and/or Umezawa's Jitte. Fuz was stuck playing Evacuation when all I had on the board was a Darkheart Sliver equipped with a Jitte. I won that race because even under an Arcane Laboratory, I could to more with less.

I didn't play again because I was sick and couldn't keep playing matches at 10 PM. I wanted to but my brain just wasn't there.

That said, a few days later I noticed that there was a minor difference between my Cockatrice listing of Menasor (which is what I listed) and my real world deck: I don't have two Vampiric Slivers, I have one and one Spectral Sliver.

(A short aside; I keep every deck I build in real life on Cockatrice. When I make changes to one, I mirror those changes to the other, so I can maintain a database of what I have and when I test, those results are something I can learn from. If you ever play me online, I am playing decks with cards I actually own {or will very soon} because I don't believe in proxies. I believe that if I can't make the deck with cards I either own or can reasonably acquire, I need to innovate and use something that I can own or acquire in order to make things work. I don't judge anyone else: that's my little quirk but limitations do help foster creativity.)

I don't know why I have this discrepancy; in my mind two Vampiric Slivers are better in an aggressive deck like this. Paying to pump individual slivers doesn't make sense when you have Muscle, Blade, Sedge and Might Slivers running around. On the upside, I caught this before playing the deck in the world so my next few games can still mirror what I feel the deck should be.