If He Should Live Forever

I might just have that final piece together. More testing will help, of course but this feels right.

I've gotten a chunk of games in, and I like where I've got I Hate It When That Happens To Me. Cutting a Fumigate for an Angel of Invention has helped improve the deck's reach and threat level, while shoring up it's win-from-the-side condition. Blessed Alliance gives me some flexibility that I didn't have, too, while providing me with some surprises for my opponents.

This has been apparent in multiple games and it's also put me in situations where I have to remember to play the board and to the situations I am presented with. I Hate It... is not the kind of combo deck that can afford to strictly ignore the opponent. I have to play smart or else I'll get blown out.

Sometimes, as with Noah's blue control decks, that's going to happen anyway. The above picture against Matt's U/R/W deck was also a rough loss, though I was able to come back and win game two.

But later that evening, against Caitlin's W/Artifact Assembly Worker deck (which has surprising resilience and the ability to just win from nowhere thanks to Mirror Entity) I was able to pull off convincing wins.

A few days later, playing against Fuz and his G/W Aura deck, and a mono-W Knights deck, I lost two games-one in each match-and in both instances, it was because I did not know what I was facing.

By the time I figured it out and put a strategy together, I couldn't find the cards to help me overcome.The Knights defeat was especially amusing, as I had the opportunity on turn 5 to cast Fumigate to destroy one Knight Exemplar, decided I'd wait for "value" only to see another Knight Exemplar appear, holding two now useless Fumigates in my hand.

However, in the other two games of each match, I was able to pace myself and use Aetherflux Reservoir at points, to win.

I was especially proud of myself in the last game, where I had been put down to ten life, but through the use of careful play, gained forty life in one turn and was able to set myself up for the win.

It isn't every day that gaining forty life is even possible, much less the win condition.