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Post by JediCheese on Nov 18, 2012 5:10:25 GMT -5
Played in the Win a Case tournament. Ended up 4-0-2 (the 2 draws were intentional after going 4-0) and cut into top 8. Won the first round in top 8 and then we drew in top 4 for a box + 3 packs. The Deck: 4x Stromkirk Noble 4x Rakdos Cackler 4x Rakdos Shred-Freak 4x Ash Zealot 3x Mogg Flunkies 3x Pyreheart Wolf 2x Hellrider 4x Bump in the Night 2x Thunderbolt 4x Searing Spear 4x Brimstone Volley 4x Blood Crypt 4x Dragonskull Summit 13x Mountain 1x Swamp SB: 2x Guttersnipe 2x Archwing Dragon 2x Pillar of Flame 2x Thunderbolt 2x Mizzium Mortars 3x Rakdos Charm 2x traitorous Blood The best game was vs U/W Flash, and I had Ash Zealot and Guttersnipe vs their open board with my 6 mana open. I just refused to attack due to an Azorius Charm shown off Auger of Bolas earlier, and kept 6 mana open with a bunch of burn spells in hand. Eventually the opponent lost it and in response to an EOT Searing Spear, played Snapcaster and flashed back his unsummon for a grand total of 8 damage. As they say, convenient I proceeded to unleash the power of the burn and finished him off The most awkward hand was Swamp, Dragonskull Summit, Dragonskull Summit, Stromkirk Noble, Hellrider, Rakdos Shered-Freak (I had mulliganed down to 6) in game 3 of top 8 match. The opponent mulliganed to 5 and had a turn 4 Thragtusk followed up with Vault of the Archangel. Thank god I got an Pyreheart Wolf + Hellrider and the burn to destroy stuff in response to using the Vault.
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Post by John Galli on Nov 18, 2012 10:24:57 GMT -5
Damnnn nice Chris! Glad to see this deck can do well with a good pilot and your list doesn't break the bank. I have pretty much all that stuff from when I lent the deck to Zach, and while its a fairly simple list to pilot any thoughts on playing the deck? What else did you go up against? Also, I notice no pillars maindeck, was that just an accidental omission or done because of the bumps? I like Guttersipe too. Lastly, I aquired some pithing needles this weekend from the ptq, what do you think about this in the sideboard?
Any thoughts on only running two hellriders and the mizziums in the board? Also, what about Vexing Devil instead of flunkies?
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Post by JediCheese on Nov 18, 2012 12:00:28 GMT -5
Sorry for the gigantic wall of text this ended up as. I spent all Thursday and a good part of Friday looking at deck lists and matchups. I've slowly been adding to my post as I revise my thoughts and try to make it clearer. The primary note I would mention is you need to take the first game in a match. If you can't do it, the match is a very upward climb. Few people are expecting the deck and this means their very keepable hand of Lands, Draw and Counters is unplayable vs you. I wouldn't have gotten as far if I played it every FNM and was a known value. The ability to sit down at the table and come out of nowhere is pretty key. Most opponents had only heard of the deck and had never played vs it, so they had no clue WTF I was doing until about turn 2 and by then the board state + your hand makes it unwinnable for them. Rounds 1 and 4 I played vs U/W flash. I expected a ton of this deck and thought long and hard about the matchup. On this matchup, you need to know what tricks they have in hand. As to SB, you take out the Flunkies and Rakdos Cacklers and put in the Guttersnipes, Thunderbolts and Rakdos Charm. Rakdos Charm has three relevant abilities, the damage to the player ability if timed properly can do about 2 damage. Often their removal is soft (unsummon and/or Azorius Charm) so if you can stick an Ash Zealot and not attack with it, their deck becomes awkward. The Flunkies are bad because you can get stuck with them alone after a bounce spell so that's why they come out. Surprisingly, Auger of Bolas is their best card vs you because it's a wall you can't get around. When they play Restoration Angel, your deck is mostly instant burn so proceed to melt their team Raiders of the Lost Arc style. U/W/G Thragtusk is a bitch of a matchup (round 2). Mogg Flunkies + Pyreheart Wolf are your MVP creatures. You don't have to worry so much about bounce. If they have Restoration Angel, you remove Cacklers for Thunderbolts plus Guttersnipes. If they don't have Restoration Angel, you remove the Thunderbolts and two Cacklers for Guttersnipe and Traitorous Blood. Plays much the same as U/W flash but they gain a little life before dying. You have to decide how controlling they are going to be, the longer the game goes the worse the Cacklers are and the better Guttersnipes are. If they are more midrange, then Traitorous Blood is better and their Restoration Angels are worse so you have less need for Thunderbolt. U/W/B Planeswalkers was round 3. Their deck isn't really interactive with you except for Sorin. They will -2 Jace so you don't attack him. Tamayo is good, but it taps down one creature. You want to add Archwing Dragon vs them because you want a flying beater that returns to your hand (and thus can't be wrathed). I really forgot this match, other than to say game 1 I rolled the opponent hard, game 2 lost to infinite Planeswalkers, and game 3 proceeded to do what RDW does best: Team swing FTW. For top 8, I played vs G/W/B Thragtusk. They ramp to Thragtusk. Obviously, bad. You need to attack into their 1/1 mana dorks with Stromkirk Nobles and Shred-Freaks and hope you can get through (or trade and slow them down, I'm not sure what's the right play for them). It's a very scary matchup and I don't know if I should have won. for the SB plan, take out Thunderbolts and Cacklers and put in Archwing Dragon, Mortars and Traitorous Bond. Game 1 I got Pyreheart Wolf and infinite Ash Zealots and Flunkies. At one time I was attacking with three Zealots and two Flunkies Game two I got stuck on two lands. game three, I had the awkward hand mentioned above after Mulligan but he Mulliganed to 5 and wasted a Sever the Bloodline early on a Shred-Freak. Pillar of Flame was bad in the meta I expected. It's awesome vs Zombies, but Zombies isn't all that prevalent (plus the people piloting Zombies tend not to be the greatest). You have Ash Zealot to certify their graveyard stays in the graveyard. Sorcery speed burn isn't that great in the format (too many flash creatures and 3+ toughness). I would take shock over it if shock was available (and shock is definitely playable in the deck). Another possible include on the burn front is Electrickery. It does what you want to do with instant speed damage. The normal ability would get a 1/1 mana dork in the G/W/B matchup, fries a Snapcaster Mage blocker that just flashed in, or adds that 3rd point of damage to an Auger of Bolas/Thragtusk/Beast token from your infinite number of 2/2's. Plus I feel with it's cheap overload you could easily get a 2 for 1 in some situations. Only downside is it doesn't dome. I liked Pyreheart Wolf over Hellrider. Hellrider requires you to slightly over commit to the board plus it costs 4 (which is sometimes hard to get if you are fighting it out with gigantic creature waves). Pyreheart Wolf has Undying so it's key in two situations. The first is vs Supreme Verdict (I have a 2/2 and can easily rebuild with my 10 haste creatures). The second is there are too many decks that think Thragtusk or Auger of Bolas is a sufficient blocker, and the Wolf turns the game back into a race that they can't win. I think the numbers are ultimately right, but I could definitely see a 4th Pyreheart Wolf in the SB. The Mizziums are vs creature decks. The ability to wipe their board and then alpha strike in a stalemate situation is pretty clutch. I really don't like the idea of Vexing Devil. It gives the opponent a choice, that I feel they will make correctly (take the 4 damage) unless they are about to Wrath. Flunkies is a 3/3 that typically can attack due to enough haste creatures and trades vs Thragtusk and kills Auger of Bolas. I don't know the correct number of Mogg Flunkies, Pyreheart Wolves, Hellriders, and Thunderbolt. They all have good matchups vs some decks and bad matchups vs others. I think I mixed it correctly vs the meta I found, but you can definitely mess around with the numbers more. Another potential area of contention is the Swamp. Some decks play it as swamp, some go with a Guildgate. I hate the idea of ETB tapped land in RDW, so I went with Swamp. I think the Swamp is the right play. Another option is to cut the Swamp and play a Mountain but I think we do need the 9th source of black (despite only really playing one black card). I think there is a compelling reason to add a 14th Mountain. I lost two games to getting stuck on 2 lands (I went 10-4 for games so I got mana screwed to a loss 2 games out of 14. Someone else can do the math to see if that's average). But I could be wrong (sometimes I would get flooded, but then you can flash back the Bump in the Nights or unleash 2-3 burn spells that all can't be countered at their EOT). Plus I would love to run a 3rd Guttersnipe in the SB, but I don't know what to take out of the SB (it could also viably float in the maindeck as a singleton). Another possible card to add is Deviant Glee. It's horrible in the U/W matchup with a bunch of bounce spells. But in any creature fight, making an Stromkirk Noble trample (and run over 1/1's before he's grown with counters) or make the Ash Zealot a 4/3 first strike trample is a winner. I didn't expect the meta to allow me to play it, so I left it behind but there could be a meta that allows this card to shine. I don't think I like Pithing Needle. I can't come up with a justification as to which deck I sideboard it in against. Is there any card that has an ability that wrecks this deck? You have tons of maindeck creature removal with your burn and with 3x Rakdos Charm SB, you have enough artifact removal. About the only cards I would want to Needle would be Planeswalkers, and you are typically going to swing into them and kill them or ignore them and try to finish the opponent. Even then, we have Archwing Dragon which would fly over defenders for a Planewalker kill. If I was to play this deck in a series of FNMs, I would need a number of Falkenrath Aristocrats, Olivia Voldarens, and Thundermaw Hellkites. Right now it's a glass cannon that was designed to prey on U/W and U/W/G. It did exactly what I expected it to, and I will happily go back to drafting this Friday while everyone loads their SB with anti-RDW. I should also say there are 8 GOOD Wrath of God effects in Standard right now. Of those, I only had a single Supreme Verdict and a single Terminus played vs me and every deck I played against could cast them. The deck wins partially because it is good, partially because the opponents aren't ready for it and it jumps out of nowhere (it's essentially Eggs at PT R2R. A marginal deck that wins because the opponents haven't planed for it).
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Post by John Galli on Dec 8, 2012 20:12:59 GMT -5
Finally cracked my cherry after all these years, made a top 8 ;D Tourney Report: It started on Friday when I decided to play Standard FNM at the new Mox Mania shop on Odana Rd. I had the basic RDW shell from around the time of States when I bought some hellriders and stromkirks so that I'd have it if I wanted to mess around and for Zach since he didn't have a deck. That tournament ended up being 20-25 people, 4 rounds, and ultimately I finished 1-3 but it was a great test run for me to see some of the problems with the deck, things to improve matchups, and also to get some of the misplays out of my system since I hadn't played in a while. In that tournament I played two Bant decks and two Jund decks, beating one of the Bant players. I was about to sell the deck after the tournament but it's not worth too much to beginwith and I figured I'd hang onto it just incase. I had already sold my lone Thundermaw Hellkite that night to fill in the rest of the cards I was missing. While I was at the tournament, several players mentioned the Minotaur $500 Standard Open in Baraboo that was going to be on Saturday. I didn't think much of it because I had heard about it before and knew the entry was fairly steep not to mention I wasn't taking my deck too seriously. Fast forward to Saturday morning at 8:15am after a long night out at the bars + delivery pizza and not going to bed until 3 AM. I woke up, not feeling too terrible, and just had a thought "eh, I kinda want to play magic today" and looked at the clock and realized I could drive to Baraboo and make it just in time to register. I packed up my stuff and drove in, got there about 35 min before registration ended, bought the last few common singles, arranged what I wanted to play for my build on the spot, re-sleeved, and registered. Ultimately, this is what I played- Galli's RDW4 Rakdos Cackler 4 Stromkirk Noble 1 Stonewright 4 Ash Zealot 3 Lightning Mauler 4 Pyreheart Wolf 4 Hellrider 3 Archwing Dragon 2 Pillar of Flame 2 Thunderbolt 2 Flames of the Firebrand 4 Searing Spear 2 Hellion Crucible 21 Mountain Sideboard: 4 Reckless Waif 3 Traitorous Blood 2 Flames of the Firebrand 2 Pillar of Flame 2 Thunderbolt 2 Frostburn Weird Tournament was 5 rounds of swiss, 30 players, with prize breakdown of: 1st - $200 2nd - $100 + $30 store credit 3rd - $50 + $30 store credit 4th - $50 + $30 store credit 5th - 8th - $25 + $40 store credit Round 1 I played against R/B Zombies. I beat this in practice rounds the previous night a lot and generally my deck is faster than theirs so I was pretty stoked. The guy piloting it had just got 3rd at states playing Jund though so I know we had a real match ahead. Fortunately, it played out well and I got there I believe in two games. Heavy burn is pretty critical in this matchup, I typically sided out some dragons, stonewright, a land, and some lightning maulers for more burn and the Weirds. Frostburn Weird was a house all day long, having a 1/4 blocker on turn 2 against aggro is so nice, it blocks everything in their deck outside fliers, even hellrider, and when you're in the lead he can hit for 4 damage which is insane. The guy put in a ton of work for me on the day. Some would maybe not have the thunderbolts, but they were pretty great in almost every match just as a lightning bolt and between Olivia, Aristocrat, and Resto Angel, there are plenty of flying targets to be had, not to mention builds that include nighthawk. Round 2 I played against R/B Zombies again, this time losing in Game 3 with him at 1 life. It was another firefight against another fairly good player that I see in Madison a lot, and it came right down to the wire. Round 3 I played against Bant Ramp. He struggled with cards and lands early in game 1 and I capitalized with the usual Mono Red beatdown. I think Hellrider came down and had 5 damage triggers so that usually seals the deal. Game two he got down an early Garruk but I archwing dragon'd into it and then he dropped an armada wurm but I burned him out for lethal. Round 4 I played against B/R Zombies AGAIN, which honestly I had no problem with as even though the match can be close and you have to play tight it's something I'd much rather see than some of the obnoxious bant life-gain decks abound. The games went pretty similar to the rest of the zombie matchups. Round 5 I was 3-1 and in 6th seed, but my opponent was 3-1 in the eighth seed and he had a chance of getting bumped out of top 8 if he drew so we played it out. He was playing 4-color planeswalker control and stumbled on mana both games, and I had the nuts both games so the match was over in less than 10 minutes. Since some others had drew, this locked me in as the 1st place seed going into top 8. In the top 8 I was paired against Jed playing Jund. I got to go first by rule of my seed, but I had to take six cards and had a pretty slow start. Jed had double pillar of flame and ultimately an active Olivia and I just got steamrolled. Game 2 I came out blazing and Archwing Dragon got 3 hits in if I remember correctly along with other burn and dudes. Game 3 I sided back in some pillars to deal with some of his huntmaster shennanigans and it definitely helped, but I made the mistake of siding out a lot of other burn. I got him down to 2 life with a ton of lethal on the board including pyreheart wolf, but he ripped a thragtusk off the top to go up to 7. He also had an olivia on board. It was a critical series of turns, he had a lot of time and decisions to make and so did I. Ultimately, he had a wolf token, olivia, and thragtusk, and I had Pyreheart Wolf, Lightning Mauler, and a Crucible token. I was able to swing in and get him to 1 life, but couldn't draw any burn for the win. On the following turn he hit me and kessig'd for 3 damage to do exactly lethal. My next card on top - Pillar of Flame Going forward I probably wouldn't make too many changes. I never got to use and didn't really like the Waifs. I did board them in on the play against jund in game 2 of the top 8, but then changed my mind anyway since they really aren't good late game. I think 2 of these become vexing devil as no matter what your opponent chooses they are almost always low enough in life that it's a bad thing for them. The only times they aren't are when you face the heavy lifegain versions of bant and jund, and then you're usually screwed anyway. Cards like the Centaur healer and Disciple of Bolas are really annoying in combination with thragtusk. I'd probably cut a maindeck archwing, he was fantastic all day, a straight-up all star but you really only need 2 maindeck as you never want to draw multiples. He dodges like 80% of the played removal in the format and he comes down a turn sooner than thundermaw in a deck where the difference between 4 and 5 mana is a lot. I'd also cut stonewright as he's just basically a filler to have 9 one mana dorks. I'd probably put devil in his place or another lightning mauler as that card also impressed. It's possible some other 2 drop deserves some room like flunkies or chainwalker. Pyreheart Wolf, as Chris mentioned, is insane. People were not happy to see him when I burned out their second blocker.
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Post by JediCheese on Dec 8, 2012 23:01:43 GMT -5
John, you've made top 8 before. I remember you rocking standard Jund in Minneapolis to a top 8. Sadly, I didn't do as well this weekend. Opened the nuts then had to pass it at the PTQ
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Post by John Galli on Dec 9, 2012 0:23:00 GMT -5
Nah, got 12th there at the scg open, no top 8 till this one. Yeah RTR ptq is tough
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Post by JediCheese on Dec 9, 2012 0:42:33 GMT -5
OT: I ran into John Trevanius (sp?) at the PTQ. I saw his name on the pairing sheet, and my first thought was to report it to the judges Ended up running into him between rounds, he's now in Santa Fe going to school. Do you have him on FB? I can't find him in your friends list to add.
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Post by John Galli on Dec 9, 2012 0:46:58 GMT -5
Ha yeah he got 7th at AZ states. He was on my friends list but he either defriended me a while back or changed his fb name / dropped fb.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 10, 2012 17:40:30 GMT -5
I don't get the part about reporting him to the judge. Did that guy get banned or something? Also, if anyone wants to try something really fun for Standard, check out this video series: www.channelfireball.com/articles/channel-lsv-omnidoor-daily-event/The list was originally designed by Travis Woo (of Living End combo fame) and then modified and piloted by LSV. It's pretty hilarious. He ended a standard game against Rakdos at 235 life.
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Post by John Galli on Dec 10, 2012 18:07:31 GMT -5
I think I'm going to play at Misty tomorrow if anyone else is interested.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 10, 2012 18:13:39 GMT -5
I think I'm going to play at Misty tomorrow if anyone else is interested. I'm bowling on Tuesdays for several months now, and MSCR basketball starts this Wednesday night. I can usually get away to play cards on Thursdays, and maybe on Fridays if absolutely necessary. The draft at Pegasus was awesome...I'd do that again.
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Post by JediCheese on Dec 10, 2012 18:26:25 GMT -5
I don't get the part about reporting him to the judge. Did that guy get banned or something? I was wondering if someone was using his name and/or the TO was inflating the number of players (only ~70 players in the PTQ). I know John was on the PTQ rounds, but Phoenix is a long drive from Madison.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 11, 2012 16:47:06 GMT -5
This is probably a dumb question, but if I were to consider playing standard, is there a list I could play that would not involve multiple copies of Thragtusk, Bonfire, or Sphinx's Revelation?
In other words, could I play standard without having to drop $100+ on a playset of stuff that is likely to rotate in awhile and lose half its value?
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Post by John Galli on Dec 11, 2012 17:17:13 GMT -5
Other than my deck and outlier brews, no. That said, there's about a dozen options or so out there, so it's pretty far away from a stale format, those just happen to be a lot of the power cards in the format along with resto angel, geist of saint traft, and thundermaw hellkite. The only option outside of this would be something like G/W Aggro which I think is a narrow deck that doesn't have enough gas, but it's still a playable option for some- mtgpulse.com/event/11514#160130Or Rites without the tusks in the board- mtgpulse.com/event/11516#160147
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 11, 2012 17:54:08 GMT -5
I was originally thinking about just making a Junk tokens list and putting something else in place of the four Thragtusks. I like the combination of Lingering Souls, Gavony Township, early ramp, and planeswalkers (which I could see myself buying since they would still hold value in EDH or Legacy). I kinda like the idea of using a couple of Trostani in a deck like that.
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