Imminent Return

Who doesn't love a good apology-for-not-updating post? Obviously it's been a while. I'm not blaming it entirely on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but lord knows it certainly didn't help. Allusions to a truly incredible TV show aside, I couldn't be bothered playing M11 any more and the other contributors were too lazy or busy to write any reports.

Well, Scars of Mirrodin is happening, as I write this there's the first GP of the new Sealed format taking place in Sydney, States will be showcasing the latest and greatest Standard tech (and FNMs around the globe will probably be showcasing some Infect decks) and MODOers like me will be tapping their feet impatiently awaiting some draft queues.

I played in my local prerelease tournament to a disappointing 3-3 finish. I opened a pool that looked almost capable of supporting Infect (13 infect creatures including a Putrefax, and braces of Ichorclaw Myrs, Necropedes, Cystbearers and Tel-Jilad Fallens) but I still wasn't totally sold that it would work and I wanted to start the day playing a deck I felt comfortable with.

I built up a RW metalcraft deck that splashed Swamps for double Trigon of Corruption. My colored spells were Sunblast Angel, Barrage Ogre, Shatter, Auriok Edgewright, Auriok Sunchaser, Dispense Justice and Khemba. I also had two Ferrovores, but I wanted to run as many artifacts as possible and deck contruction time was running short, so I ended up cutting them. In retrospect, playing one over the Sunchaser would probably have been better - at least Edgewright is a bear in the absence of metalcraft. My artifacts were something like this:

2 Perilous Myr
2 Mana Myr (1 red, 1 black)
2 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Myr Reservoir
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Tumble Magnet
1 Lux Cannon
1 Rusted Relic
2 Trigon of Corruption
3 Snapsail Glider

On the day, the Contagion Clasp was probably the MVP. The deck was caught between having a lot of two drops and a weighty late game with synergy combos like Perilous Myr/Barrage Ogre/Myr Reservoir, Lux Cannon/Contagion Clasp, Contagion Clasp/Trigon of Corruption. I was relatively happy with it at the time, but cold medicine makes you relatively happy at all times, so writing this now and thinking about it again is making me sad. Myr Reservoir and Lux Cannon were just too slow. Barrage Ogre does not need cute combos to make him a game ender. If I had replaced the artifacts with Ferrovores, I would probably have needed to cut the Sunchaser anyway to add in another artifact (maybe Necropede since it trades up well in defense and has value with Ferrovore and Barrage Ogre).

The deck won its first round against a UW metalcraft deck. I gained too much life with my Lifestaffs when we traded our identical guys for him to catch me in what was a long game 1. Game 2 he stalled on mana and by the time he had managed to put a team together I had Barrage Ogre, Myr Reservoir and Perilous Myr going to give me the reach, and Sunblast Angel in hand in case of emergencies. His deck was really good though and he ended up 5-1. I'm afraid my recollections of rounds 2, 3 and 4 are spotty at best - at some point I played my friend Stu (whose draft reports you can see below) and got thrashed, and decided that since I was unlikely to finish too highly to get anything decent, I would audible to Infect as a learning exercise to see how it played. My deck was:

2 Ichorclaw Myr
2 Necropede
1 Plague Stinger
2 Cystbearer
1 Contagious Nim
2 Tel Jilad Fallen
1 Blackcleave Goblin
1 Putrefax
1 Edge of Darkness
1 Lux Cannon
2 Trigon of Corruption
1 Contagion Clasp
2 Perilous Myr
1 Leaden Myr
1 Tumble Magnet
2 Sylvok Lifestaff

I figured that the Perilous Myr were just good blockers that could clear some space for my plagued army, since I didn't really have anything else that was too exciting. It went 1-1 in the last two rounds but I actually did like how it played. I boarded out Lux Cannon every game for something I don't recall - it's a nice card but without early proliferators it's just too slow to do much (and I got it Volition Reins-ed because I tapped for the third token in my main phase once...)

Really looking forward to draft, as I feel that this set benefits a lot from focus and it can be hard to get that in a sealed pool. I still want to play a lot of sealed though as I am Paris bound next February and want to try hard to qualify for the PT to take full advantage of the 5 days I'll be there. Sidenote: waking your girlfriend up and saying "How would you like to spend Valentines Day in Paris" accumulates enough points to then blindside her with the news of the 4 days of Magic preceding it and have her not get mad.

The release of Civilization 5 precluded my playing in the Release event. It's the perfect marriage of board and video game and ideal for the strategic minds that are attracted to Magic. My GFX card died two days after purchase, but if the company who sold it to me are good to their word, I will have it repaired or replaced by next Friday. Once I get that back up and running I will try and do a CFB style Draft video, although I fear that there is a chance my accent will prove impenetrable to some of you.

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Oh wait, there was supposed to be an apology... Sorry!