Funny Things You Learn

One neat thing happened while I was reviewing Let's Take A Trip Together; I gave Rebecca Burn to Shine to play.

She asked for a copy of it, and started to tweak it for herself.  So when we played the decks against each other, I got to see how powerful Legion's Initiative could be. If the sequence is: T1: creature, T2, Legion, swing for 1, T3, Initative and attack for 6 or 7, this seems pretty good.

Another thing that I've been addressing is some card draw: in other games I've felt very on the edge, and reloading my hand seems important. So to that end I'm trying out Thrilling Discovery. 

The testing as been very positive, I have to admit. Burn To Shine has a nice curve, where there are some reasonable plays early, some stronger plays later. But it has been the addition of General Ferrous that has pushed this deck forward, without question. Having a difficult to answer threat early that generates a LOT of value means that a rough start can be smoothed out. That's a big deal.

Dream Away My Tears

 Let's update the list first, shall we?

4 Balefire Liege
3 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
2 Boros Swiftblade
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Boros Recruit
4 Swiftblade Vindicator
3 General Ferrous Rokiric 

3 Squee's Embrace
2 Ossification 

4 Lightning Helix
2 Lightning Bolt 

8 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Needle Spires
4 Sunbillow Verge

SB:
4 Cursed Totem

Now is this the bestest list? Probably not. But it does do a few important things.

Moves Cursed Totem to the sideboard. There probably isn't a place for that in the metagame anymore but we'll keep it there. Burn To Shine is never going be an A+ deck. 

Adds a little more removal in the form of Ossification. And with General Ferrous in there, I've now got a T3 play that has the potential to really put pressure on my opponent. 

Fuck This

I get that Universes Beyond is there to exploit other IPs. 

But the advertisement inside of my game inside of my game is something I vehemently dislike. It isn't funny. It's just a crass grab for money. 

Burn To Shine

 Taken from the delightful Ben Harper song, I started off with this R/W Liege deck:

4 Cursed Totem

4 Balefire Liege
3 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
2 Boros Swiftblade
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Boros Recruit
4 Swiftblade Vindicator

4 Squee's Embrace

4 Lightning Helix
3 Chance for Glory

4 Scabland
7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Needle Spires

Years ago, this started off as a Cursed Totem deck, if you can believe that. Inspired by a writer at Starcity Games, who used the Totem to remove the drawbacks to cards like Glittering Lion and Flailing Manticore, while also serving as a way to pre-emptively deal with other problem cards at the time (notably the Rebels deck) this deck was an easy one to morph into a Balefire Liege deck. The tech was SO old, why not make it a fun aggro deck? 

But here it languished until a card I've had for years but had forgotten about was brought to my attention via a Thraben U video: General Ferrous Rokiric. 

Let's get going. 

The Retired: Gigantor

Ah, I so wanted this deck to be a thing!

3 Kilnmouth Dragon

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

3 Fierce Empath

1 Bladewing the Risen

1 Steel Hellkite

1 Harbinger of the Hunt

1 Destructor Dragon

1 Atarka, World Render

1 Swift Warkite

3 Thunderbreak Regent

1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

1 Thundermaw Hellkite

4 Fertile Ground

3 Naturalize

6 Mountain

3 Jund Panorama

6 Forest

3 Swamp

1 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon

2 Jungle Hollow

2 Bloodfell Caves

1 Grand Coliseum

3 Rampant Growth

3 Painful Truths

3 Crux of Fate

2 Radiant Flames

So, what's wrong here? Well, the big concept was to make a massive Kilnmouth Dragon and that right there is a problem. Because it's a Glory of Cool Things card: you could have a 14 power dragon, right?

Then why aren't you just attacking with it? Why tap it to do 9 damage to something?

Which is a bit of the issue with the entire deck; all these big creatures and they don't just revolutionize the board when they enter. Which, if you're paying six mana for something, ought to do that.  

And that's really the issue here: when this  deck gets to 6+ mana, it doesn't play cards that brick the opponent's board. 

So I'm using all the cool stuff here and putting into the Ur-Dragon deck. It needs to be updated anyway, what with all the cool new Dragonstorm stuff. 

Late To The Party: Evil West

 I finished up Evil West recently, having had it recommended back last year via the Jimquisition channel. 

I have to say: I dig it! There was a comment that Evil West was a bit of a throwback to the PS2 era and I can see it: the graphics are solid but not overly detailed, the gameplay is medium on it's depth, the locations are reasonably bite sized, and the enemy AI strategy seems to be: fuck it throw a lot of dudes at you. 

But the thing is? I enjoyed it anyway! A reasonably sized game executed reasonably well for a reasonable price. Call it a AA game if you like, but I found Evil West to be pulpy fiction and fun.

The controls were tight, and I was able to figure out different combos that fit a playstyle I enjoy. There were neat little rewards (just cosmetics) for collecting pieces of lore, there were just enough enemy varieties that I had to remember to change up my strategies when they showed up in different combinations. 

It wasn't perfect by any means; there were points of frustration that felt like I was being punished for not being perfect, and occasionally it felt like the controls were not as crisp as I would have liked. 

But all in all, a solid game!

Nervous Wrecks Going Down

I think I've come to the final list.

Playing Let's Take A Trip Together against Noah's goblins deck, one thing has become clear:

It's about a turn slow. 

This is a fun deck to play and there's a lot of outs to problems! Lifegain from Knights and Thrags, global resets leaving me a 3/3 beast, and I've even figured out Astral Slide flickers a creature when you cycle it!

It's still a turn slow; the plays on turns one and two don't suck (if I can get them) but the whole deck needs to stop for a turn to get the Astral Drift/Slide out. That's a problem if I don't have good follow up plays.

Now: between Wrath of God and Thragtusk, I can absolutely have those great follow up plays! 

As much as it pains me, I will probably have to remove Titanic Bulvox for something that I can play sooner; Fanatic of Rhonas or Tender Wildguide seem like reasonable choices. 

In addition: Titanoth Rex was a card I just didn't care about: I'm not here to give my creatures trample. ETB triggers and if I get behind, Wrath 'em. For that reason, Fanatic of Rhonas is probably the better choice. 

What I need is mana to do things with-so to that end, I'm swapping the Rex for Timeless Dragon. 

Edit:I don't have a Timeless Dragon available, but I do have a Pale Recluse. It'll do! Here's the final listing.

2 Tilling Treefolk
4 Flourishing Fox
2 Eternal Witness
4 Knight of Autumn
4 Charming Prince
3 Thragtusk
1 Splendor Mare
1 Greater Sandwurm
3 Fanatic of Rhonas
1 Pale Recluse

1 Astral Slide
4 Astral Drift

2 Secluded Steppe
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Grasslands
4 Plains
6 Forest
4 Scattered Groves
4 Overgrown Farmland

4 Edge of Autumn
2 Wrath of God
1 Akroma's Vengeance

With the Glistening Edges

Research begins: 

If nothing else, I need to let go of what this deck was and look at what people are doing with it now. So much has changed in the Magic landscape since the original Astral Slide decks were a thing that it's only sensible to see how it's advanced.

And they are doing something completely different. 

Why try to sneak a big creature into play when you can abuse enter the battlefield triggers? 

So here's what I ended up building out of the cards I had available. 

2 Tilling Treefolk
2 Titanic Bulvox
4 Flourishing Fox
2 Eternal Witness
4 Knight of Autumn
1 Charming Prince
3 Thragtusk
2 Splendor Mare
2 Titanoth Rex
1 Greater Sandwurm
1 Valiant Rescuer

1 Astral Slide
4 Astral Drift

2 Secluded Steppe
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Grasslands
4 Plains
6 Forest
4 Scattered Groves
4 Overgrown Farmland

4 Edge of Autumn
2 Wrath of God
1 Akroma's Vengeance

And whoa. What an improvement! The deck actually did things!

I'm still having a little trouble; if I draw the payoff cards but no cycling then obviously that's an issue. But at least I'm getting to play the game in a way that executes the plan. 

Cold Black Space

 What. A. Disaster.

Fuz was playing a Big Eldrazi deck (are there small Eldrazi decks?) and Trip just did nothing. Nothing at all. 

In a different game, I had the same problem: nothing meaningful to do and very frustrating turns.  

Part of the issue might be that Let's Take A Trip Together doesn't do anything until turn four. Despite running Flourishing Fox, the deck doesn't do anything for too long. It needs to be sped up by a turn or it needs to be able to nuke the board so I have enough time to do what I need to.

Considering Astral Drift and Slide both exile creatures until end of turn, there are ways to avoid mass removal, if I can get to that point. 

But I really have to rethink this deck if I want to keep it.