PRERELEASE!

I played in one today. I'm not going to give a full write-up yet, Ill edit this post later with full write. here's what you need to know:

I went 3-2-1 and finished 9th place. I won 2 packs for that... total field was 28

My final deck:
Conflux:
1x Scepter of Dominance (the house!)
2x Sedraxis Alchemist
1x Rhox Bodyguard
1x Rhox Meditant
1x Armillary Sphere
1x Countersquall (never got played)
1x Aerie Mystics
Lands:
1x Rupture Spire
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Unstable Frontier

Shards of Alara:
1x Sharuum the Hegemon (the bomb)
1x Steward of Valeron
1x Waveskimmer Aven
1x Court Archers
1x Branching Bolt
1x Resounding Wave
1x Windwright Mage
1x Executioner's Capsule
1x Blister Beetle
1x Deft Duelist
1x Resounding Thunder
1x Couriers Capsule
1x Agony Warp
1x Sprouting Thrinax
1x Elvish Visionary

Basic Lands:
4x Plains
3x Islands
3x Swamps
2x Forests
2x Mountain


Round 1, Russ, 5 color Jund Focus.
Game 1 I get Mana-Flooded with 2 early Blister Beetles (I later changed one of them out for the Courier's Capsule) I'm able to hold him off for a while but his big creatures mean that my early Beetles are nothing but chump blockers (I think one of them removed a Skeleton Token.) He beats me pretty handedly.
Game 2, I get some exalted Beat-Down going on. and drop my Scepter of Dominance in the mid-game to keep my opponenet from blocking. game goes pretty quickly.
Game 3 I start of with a Turn 2 Armillary Sphere, followed by Windwright Mage, Sac the Sphere to get my forest and mountain to flesh out my manabase and give my Mage Flying. a little while later I get the Scepter of dominance out and I get my opponent down to 8 before he stabilizes off of a Rakka Mar, and a Grixis Slave Driver. I'm holding a Resounding Thunder with enough mana to cast it, Time gets called during his turn. at the end of his turn I use some removal to get rid off one of his blockers (I have 3 power on board, he has blockers for everything. I answer, he answers.) on turn 5 I top-deck a Branching Bolt to get rid of his last 2 blockers, swing and cast the Resounding thunder just in time to keep from drawing the game. It was Awesome!
RECORD: 1-0

Round 2, James - 5 color esper focus
Game 1 was not good. He gets an c out early and just begins the beatdown on me. The Fear ability means that I have very few creatures to block it and he just whittles away at me with the bad boy. I never get enough removal to take care of it before he beats me down. a couple of other creatures he plays speed things along. I dont even bother showing him the Scepter of Dominance. Side-board some Artifact hate in.
Game 2 is the exact opposite. I drop dudes on turns 2-6 including Elvish Visionary and Rhox Meditant to help keep my hand full. He cant do a thing about it.
Game 3 I open up with a bit of board advantage while he gets a bit of a mana ramp. (+1 creature) Then he drops a Skyward Eye Prophets on turn 5 off of some obelisks, I immediately cast Resounding Thunder to get rid of him (the CA that guy gives is the nuts.) his following turn: Scornful AEther-Lich he beats me down with it again before I can come up with a timely answer, Scepter of dominance helps but he answers with a bigger creature.
RECORD: 1-1

I could not find my record sheet so the rest is from jumbled memories.

Round 3 - ??? too fast to really tell
Game 1: I get mana Screwed. mull to 5 and get stuck on 2 land. I lose. fast.
Game 2: My opponent gets mana screwed, after mulling to 5 gets stuck on 1 land. I win. Fast.
Game 3: I get mana screwed after mulling to 6, get to 3 land, but the colors dont work for whats in my hand. I lose. Fast.
Record 1-2

Round 4: 5 Color Good stuff featuring Grixis focus
Game 1 We both Mulligan to 6, I land a turn 3 Scepter of Dominance and what follows is a very long game of swapped control. Early on my opponent has in play 2 1/1 creatures and a Grixis Battle Mage. I begin tapping down the Battle Mage during his upkeep to force him into making the decision on what to do early, he makes the right decision just about every time. Because of this he continues to maintain CA over me and I get a little worried. by the time he gets multiple sources of blue in play he also has Grixis Slavedriver in play, so I stop tapping down the Battle Mage in the upkeep so that I can tap down the Slavedriver during his Attack Phase. As the game goes on I eventually get to Sharuum which I drop and return to play my Courier's Capsule so that I can get more cards in my hand. I use Sharuum to block the Slave Driver at one point to which he responds with a Resounding thunder to kill my Sharuum. With Damage on the Stack I cast Resounding Wave, returning Sharuum to my hand so that I can cast him again and get yet a 3rd use of my couriers Capsule. Ultimately, he overcomes all of my efforts and finally finishes me off with Rakka Mar's 3/1 elemental tokens. This game actually lasted 40 minutes
Game 2 I keep my opening hand do to its ability to speed through and knowing I HAVE to win this game quick. my opp. mulls to 6 and informs me that he doesn't believe in mulling below that. I play a turn 2 Steward of Valeron, followed by a turn 3 Armillary Sphere to fix all my mana (sac it at opponents eot) followed that up with a rhox meditant - his life goes like: turn 3-18-16-12-8-2-scoop
Game 3: we have 4 minutes when it starts. I have a slightly slower start (dont have the mana accel/fix to start the game. time gets called on my opponents turn with him sitting at 16 life, Im at 20. at the end of his turn I kill his flyer that can block and kill mine (he still has one other reach guy on board) Turn 1 (me) I swing and get 2 damage in {14}) His turn he drops another blocker to replace the one I killed. My turn (3) I swing, get 2 more in {12} and drop Elvish Visionary plus the Scepter of Dominance I drew off of it. also am holding a branching bolt to drop during his turn, which he is actually able to counter. :( On my turn 5 I have the ability to get 6 damage through, but no more. I just needed one more turn to turn this game into a win!
Record 1-2-1

Round 5: 4 color - no white.
Game 1: Im able to drop most of my creatures in good time, get a turn 2, 4, and 5 drop down but am unable to find a second source of white mana for my Scepter. this slows me down a bit but a turn 8 Sharuum pretty much makes the Scepter Useless as I beat down for 6 in the air thanks to a waveskimmer aven. he cant compete
Game 2: Similar setup I dont get any exalted creatures down, but Sharuum comes a little bit earlier and I have executioner's capsule in the yard so I get to recur it to kill off another blocker. My opponent tries to kill off Sharuum at one point, but Im holding the resounding wave again so I just bounce him and replay. easy win.

Record 2-2-1

Match 6 5-color Naya Focus.
Game 1 - I have to mull to six and decide to keep a subpar hand. High curve lots of power in it. My opponent happens to have a very fast hand with creature drops on 2,3, and 5. The early advantage he gets and the fact that the only removal I get is the Scepter spells my defeat. Sideboard 2 2/2 pro green guys (Zombie Outlander.)
Game 2: Outlanders are GOOD. I get both of them down before turn 6 (a little draw help and deck thinning from Visionary, Meditant, and Armillary Sphere.) His Mosstodon becomes a blank and I overwhelm him with my army of small creatures. the Sprouting thrinax when he is at 5 made him scoop.
Game 3: We go back and forth in this one, early Visionary for me, answered with Rip-Clan Crasher by him. Steward of Valeron by me, Visionary by him. Rhox Meditant by me, Aerie Mystics by him. On my turn though I top-deck Branching Bolt and play a Rhox Bodyguard. He plays a Grixis Slavedriver and swings with the Mystics. I decide to take it and save the Bolt so that I can hit the slavedriver as well. I get a Windwright Mage on the following turn and wait one more turn. when my opponent swings I throw the Visionary in front of the Slave Driver, and wipe out his slavedriver and mystics with the branching bolt. the momentum shift is huge and gets bigger when I top-deck the couriers capsule and draw a resounding thunder off of it. I ride the Windwright Mage to victory.

New card for Sean and his gobbies!

Voracious Dragon
3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
Devour 1
When Voracious Dragon comes into play, it deals damage equal to twice the number of Goblins it devoured to target creature or player.
4/4


From the Official Conflux Spoiler!

Nifty Combo for Extended

Intruder Alarm + Master Transmuter + Ornithopter + Any Comes into Play effect Artifact

Master Transmuter
3u
Artifact Creature - Human Artificer Rare
{U}, {T}: Return an artifact you control to its owner's hand: You may put an artifact card from your hand into play.
Illus. Chippy 1/2

All sorts of nifty abilities here.

Progenitus Win - Challenge o'f the Week

1x Progenitus
2x Primal Command
2x Dramatic Entrance
4x Cryptic Command
4x Negate
4x Firespout
4x Ponder
4x Mulldrifter
4x Path to Exile
4x Pollen Lullaby
3x Wrath of God

4x Reflecting Pool
4x u/g Filter
4x Mystic Gate
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Adarkar Wastes
2x Vivid Creek
1x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Meadow

Planes-Razer

So I've been checking out the Decks to Beat section on the gleemax forums whe I ran into this cute little thing. Its reminescient of that Walkers deck we were working on a bit back. Here's my slight variant:

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Sarkhan Vol

4 Wooly Thoctar
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Bloom Tender
3 Realm Razer

4 Naya Charm
4 Firespout
4 Oblivion Ring

25 RGW lands.

Challenge of the Week

With conflux coming we suddenly have some new bad cards to use in our weekly challenges. I figured I'd go ahead and put the worst of the worst from the spoiler so far out and see what we can do:

Progenitus
wwuubbrrgg
Legendary Creature - Hydra
Mythic Rare
Protection from everything
If Progenitus would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, reveal Progenitus and shuffle it into its owner's library instead.
10/10

If you can actually survive long enough to get this guy into play, and can keep a wrath from hitting the board, you are pretty much guaranteed the win. the problem is 10 colored mana.

Blightning Deck Challenge

4 Bitterblossom
4 Mulldrifter
4 Blightning
4 Ponder / Thoughtseize
4 Incinerate
4 Agony Warp
4 Sedraxis Specter / Sygg, River Cuttthroat
4 Grixis Charm
4 Flame Javelin

4x Crumbling Necropolis
4x B/R Pain
4x Underground River
4x Graven Cairns
4x Sunken Ruins
4x Reflecting Pool

Blighting, such a wonderful way to play BR

4 x Thoughtseize B discard lose 2 life

4 x Ravenous Rat 1B discard 1/1

4 x Mind Rot 2B discard 2

4 x incinerate 1r 3

4 x firespout 2r 3 to all w/o flying

4 x Oona's Prowler 1B 3/1 discard -2/0

3 x bitterblossom

4 x Blighting 1rb 3 damage discard 2

2 x threaten

4 x lavaborn muse 3R 3/3 if 2 or less cards in hand deals 3

37 cards 23 land

T1 land thought seize

T2 land Oona's prowler

T3 land blighting, 3 from oona, 3 from blighting opp. 14 life

T4 land ravenous rat, bitterblossom, 3 from oona opp. 11 life

T5 land firespout, mind rot, 1 from faerie 3 from oona opp. 7 life

T6 land Lavaborn, 2 from faerie 3 from oona 3 from lava opp. -1 life

so don't know if above is god draw or not, but if you don't see a thought seize for turn 1 with a turn 3 double discard. Pretty basic get rid of their combo early, kill the small ground threats with firespout, and finish with a lavaborn and faeries.

You may have noticed a few other cards I didn't use up there, I've always wanted to do a sleeper agent deck, and it seems like it should go into a discard deck, if I built that one it would be

-4 firespout +4 pyroclasm, -4 lavaborn +4 sleeper agent, -4 Oona's prowler +4 Muddbutton Torch runner, +2 Threaten.

T1 land sleeper agent opp. is 18

T2 land ravenous rat opp. is 16

T3 land blighting 3 to opp. is 11

T4 land incenerate 3, pyroclasm, opp. is 6

T5 muddbutton, thoughtseize opp. is 4

T6 mind rot, att w/muddbutton, opp. is 1

T7 att w/muddbutton = win

Challenge of the Week

Ok here is a card I saw and immedeately wanted to use. It is one of my favorite color combos. It is only three converted mana, and just two colors. It features direct damage, which isn't my typical approach. It features discard, which I love. It's an instant.

Yup, it is Blightning!


















I love this card for so many reason, and yet I have never included it in any decklists. So I'm going to try to build a BR deck that focuses on the theme of blightning--damage and card advantage. Ok, here goes.

4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Thoughtseize
4x Raven's Crime
4x Lash Out
4x Incinerate
4x Manamorphose
4x Bitterblossom
3x Sygg, River Cutthroat
4x Blightning
3x Flame Javelin

4x Sulferous Springs
3x Graven Cairns
8x Swamps
7x Mountains



Adding blue for some puppeteer clique and vendilion clique makes good sense (make your opponent discard kitchen finks, sower of temptations, and murderous redcaps, then use them against them). Also, I'd like some grixis charm in there. Basically, take the focus off of burn and put it into control. Bring in the burn from the board, if necessary.

From conflux you can play with Nyxathid. If your opponent isn't holding many cards, it is a huge turn three creature.

Nyxathid 1BB
Creature - Horror
As Nyxathid comes into play, choose an opponent.
Nyxathid gets -1/-1 for each card in the chosen player's hand.
7/7

So there you go. I finally build my blightning deck. Anyone else?

Was I supposed to be Fixing Sean's Charm deck? Oops

3 x bird of paradise

4 x llanowar elves

3 x Rhys the Redeemed

4 x Elvish Visionary

3 x Wolf-Skull Shaman

3 x crib swap

4 x Mirror Entity

4 x Elvish Harbringer

4 x Imperious Perfect

2 x Gilt-Leaf Archdruid

1 x Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

looks like a 35 card 25 land?

Ever get one of those moments where you look at a card and get an idea that you feel is really funny and then when you're done looking at it, you realize how dumb of an idea it was. Well welcome to the 'prowess of the fair' inspired elves. I originally thought hey persist elves would be hillarious, but guess what there aren't that many of them, then I thought ok cauldron haze elves with prowess, then I saw it would be way easier just to pump out other tokens.

So basic win concept is Harbringer for a Gilt-leaf Archdruid, hopefully you've tokened to 7 creatures and a mirror entity then you tap 7 and woopie you have all the opponents lands, and swarm into them. If you haven't done this by turn 6 you should have muliganed into a llanowar and a harbringer or at least a visionary.

T1 land llanowar

T2 land Elvish Harbringer

T3 land rhys the redeemed, imperious perfect, bird of paradise

T4 land mirror entity, wolf-skull

T5 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid tap 1 - 4 mana make creatures druid 1/1 to 4/4 tap 7 of them and steal opponents lands

T6 tap your and their lands to make all creatures your 4 lands plus all theirs up to 5 equals potentially 7 creatures at 6/6 to 9/9.

That's on god draw, and assuming you didn't get firespouted, or wrathed or jund charmed in the mean time. If you did, you're screwed game over cause this is a one trick pony.

Side board Cauldron haze in, along with elvish champion, and prowess of the fair against mass board removal, and now you might have a chance, cause you cauldron haze, if you have a prowess in play you get 1/1 equal to the number of creatures you lost, and then cauldron haze gets you them back and if you had a imperious perfect or elvish champion in play, all your creatures get to stay in play (I think, Drok will probably let me know if I'm wrong), and even if you don't have either of those in play, so long as you have a prowess of the fair, then they come back into play gets a -1/1 counter and then leaves play again giving you double the number of creatures you originally had in play.

Woopie for answers. other sideboard elves, elvish hexhunter (G, tap sac. destroy enchant), elvish eulogist (sac. gain 1 life per elf in graveyard), oracle of nectars (2G, pay X tap, gain X life), oblivion ring, maybe heartmender for the cauldron, don't really know.

So this is what I did when I couldn't figure out what to do for Sean's Charm deck. I figure Drok will cover that one for me.

Building Challenge

No one came up with a challenge of the week. So here's what I'll do. I will put up a decklist that I think has a fun theme, and you guys can try to improve it, if you feel inspired to do so. I think this decklist has lots of potential. I love Naya Charm, in particular. It lets you get back a card from your graveyard at instant speed. So whatever card in your deck is most useful for your current game, you get to cast a second time. Esper Charm can be devestating with its discard or draw at instant speed, plus it kills pesky enchantments. Grixis Charm has three good abilities all on one card. It is useful in vertially every match-up. So I built a deck around those three cards, with the idea of being able to nullify what my opponent is trying to do, meanwhile whittiling away at their life with my bitterblossom. Here it is:

5c. toolbox-charms

4x Rampant Growth
4x Bitterblossom
4x Fairhaven Elf
3x Esper Charm
3x Naya Charm
3x Grixis Charm
3x Jund Charm
3x Murderous Redcap
3x Sower of Temptation
2x Makeshift Mannequin
3x Mulldrifter
25 Lands

So I like the versatility of the charms. This deck has lots of targeted control stuff, but it is slow, and doesn't have a clear win condition (grixis charm to give my faerie tokens +2/+0 until EoT might be the most obvious).

So how can I improve this obviously not very good deck? The only thing I care about is having Naya Charm, Grixis Charm and Jund Charm all in a deck together.

Conflux Spoiler Discussion

Here is a post for discussion of the upcoming Conflux Set as Spoiler information is currently being released:

http://mtgsalvation.com/conflux-spoiler.html

Post your thoughts on various cards.

HELIX PINNACLE revisited

while on mtgo, I played Knollij. It was the funniest thing I ever saw, and far surpasses our own feeble attempts at abusing helix pinnacle. This is the decklist I faced:

4x Ponder
1x Helix Pinnacle
4x Rampant Growth
1x Idyllic Tutor
4x Farhaven Elf
3x Fertilid
1x Idle Thoughts
4x Mulldrifter
4x Mana Reflection
4x Clarion Ultimatum
4x Time Stretch
2x Mind Spring

4x Plains
4x Bant Panorama
7x Forest
9x Island

Sure it is missing cryptic command, but this version costs about ten bucks to build from the ground up. And it is very amusing.

(Thanks to Knollij for the decklist.)

red goblin deck wins

I really love goblin decks. So I came up with a blazing fast mono-red beauty for our own discussion and entertainment. I probably will never actually play a goblin deck at FNM (unless we can improve on this considerably).

19 Mountains
4x Tattermunge Maniac
4x Intimidator Initiate
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Mudbutton Clanger
4x Tarfire
4x Lash Out
3x Incinerate
4x Goblin King
4x Sensation Gorger
4x Boggart Ram-Gang
2x Seismic Assault

sideboard
4x Flame Javelin
4x Magma Spray
4x Dragon's Claw
3x Relic of Progenitus



This deck is played like a combo, except your combo pieces are all your little red turds turning sideways as fast as possible. You want to win before your opponent stabilizes. That means you have four turns to do as much damage as possible, then you need to find a way to do just a little bit more on turn four. The easy way would be get to three lands, then start hording them so you can get a nice seismic assault finish.

Did I mention that I love goblins?

BRG Tokens. Again again again.

4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Bitterblossom
3x Dragon Fodder
4x Jund Charm
4x Sprouting Thirnax
4x Kitchen Finks
4x Murderous Redcap
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Seige-Gang Commander
2x Profane Command
4x Sulferous Springs
3x Graven Cairns
2x Karplusan Forest
2x Reflecting Pool
4x Savage Lands
2x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Crag
1x Vivid Marsh
4x Llanowar Wastes
1x Swamp
1x Mountain

Sideboard:
4x Guttural Response
4x Fulminator Mage
4x Cloudthresher
3x Primal Command


In my previous build, I had BoP. Due to my eight comes in tapped lands, I never once got a turn one birds. So turn four was usually my first chance to play a bird. So it kinda sucked. I replaced it with mogg fanatic, which is a nice drop on turn four or five. It also is a good drop turn one, if that ever happens.

I moved Fanatics to maindeck, so the leftover spot is filled with guttural response, because I want to beat faeries, and I want to beat five color control. That said, I did take out my 2x mind twist (for 5 color control matchups) in favor of +1 cloudthresher and +1 primal command. There are lots of BW token decks in this meta, and I lost to elspeth and glorious anthem and spectral procession. Cloudthresher and Primal Command work well against those three things.

Goblin Assault, although I think its a solid card, wasn't helpful. It makes a turn four and five goblin, but the phrase all goblins must attack if able nerfs their ability to stay around long enough to get help from garruk, and also makes seige-gang considerably worse.

Finally, since I dropped my four birds, I went -1 Seige-gang, and added a fourth dragon fodder.

It might be better to be playing Sarkhan Vol instead of Profane Command or Seige-Gang Commander, but if it is, it is only slightly better. And topdecking a PC or SGC is probably going to win me more games.

potential fnm deck for tomorrow

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Bitterblossom
3x Goblin Assault
4x Jund Charm
4x Sprouting Thirnax
4x Kitchen Finks
4x Murderous Redcap
3x Garruk Wildspeaker
3x Seige-Gang Commander
2x Profane Command

It is not ideal, but here are the 25 lands I had to use:
4x Sulferous Springs
3x Graven Cairns
2x Karplusan Forest
2x Reflecting Pool
4x Savage Lands
2x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Crag
1x Vivid Marsh
4x Forest
1x Swamp
1x Mountain

(I don't have any GR or GB filter lands, don't have any gilt-leaf palace, or llanowar wastes, only two reflecting pools, only two karplusan forests. I wanted Tree-top villages, but being forced to play four vivids means I can't)

Sideboard:
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Fulminator Mage
2x Mind Shatter
3x Cloudthresher
2x Primal Command