(Not) The Last Tweaks

The final straw that made me re-evaluate the mana in Ephemeral was against Fuz's rat deck. Oh, Pack Rats, you are...really good.

This image is from the end of the game, when I was wondering when my second source or mana was going to come and how badly I needed that mana to be white. A pretty good lesson in how important it is for me to have two mana; even though I was able to get a Scout, a Rancor and a Spider Umbra down, it did not save me. Now I did go 1-2, so it's not like the deck completely ran me over. However, I've noticed I frequently keep questionable hands with new decks, because I am thinking they can get me out of trouble. I don't know why I ignore my experience but I think that should be something I work on this year: effective mulligans.

After this game, I tweaked the deck more using some data via deckstats.net. Femerf Enchantress, as much as I like the concept, is out. She just doesn't fit in with the deck's overall vibe. I think that in a deck full of Bestow creatures though, she'll be excellent with mass removal and that's a concept I can get behind. In Ephemeral, I'm hoping my opponents will take care of such things and most people don't run Disenchant maindeck. At the moment, I'm going to use the currently accepted Silhana Ledgewalker with an ear to the ground while inspecting Born of the Gods and looking at Journey Into Nyx to see if a better replacement comes up.

In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to make my creatures invincible with Umbra Mystic who totally proved herself in a game against Noah, who was playing R/B Goblins. Umbra Mystic and Rancor are a brutal combo, working almost like a Gift of Immortality that provides trample.On top of that, not many people are ready for it. Sure, they can use a removal spell the turn Mystic comes out but after that, I've got it enchanted and now all my creatures have become far more difficult to kill.

I went 1-2 against Noah's Scapeshift deck, which is a GR version and a very, very good deck. I lost game three when I mulliganed down to 6 and kept a hand with plenty of land but only an Umbra Mystic for gas.

Umbra Mystic is good but it's not that good. But I think I have a solid decklist now and we'll see how it performs.