In which Zac sheds his janky Delver coil and dons his porcelain mask once more for Friday Night Magic at Twenty Sided Store.
Friday afternoon I still had a lot of work to do for my article for INKED magazine. I took off work at the bar and put my nose to the grindstone, and finished the article. As a reward (over and above not having to work on a Friday night) I planned to hit up Twenty Sided Store for FNM. Time to tweak this Zombie Deck. I decided to take off the sleeves and recommit to building the deck from the ground up. I pulled out my “playables” box and put forth a notion to make sure I’d have a much better chance against Delver.
MORE:
Tragic Slip for Delver
Geth Verdict for Geist
Gutshot for Delver
Flames of the Firebrand for Delver and a little extra card economy
LESS:
Dismember
Bonfire
Brimstone Volley
Go for the Throat
The loss of key burn spells might make top decking less awesome, but the cards I put in are overall good vs the 20ss meta (Naya Pod, Delver, Zombies). Sure you’ll run headlong into the random Rhox Faithmender/Wolfir Silverheart deck, but I think it’s safer to play the likely match-ups here than hope to get paired with a random doozer (Rogue Deck Builder).
Here goes nothing.
6pm I’m still trying to find Geth’s Verdict, and I didn’t come out with much more than the FNM entry fee. And I need another Flames of the Firebrand. I sit down for a few games and my opponent tells me he’ll lend me the Verdicts. “Now I’ll I need is someone to actually have a Flames of the Firebrand.” Like an instant cast Restoration Angel in swoops Matt Jones with a Flames in hand. There you go! Rad!!! Deck complete. (I begin to conspire ways to use this card against Matt before he can destroy me with with his Naya Aggro, that I’ll surely face in the finals or the second round as we both go 0-1… either possibility is likely).
Round One
I’m familiar with my opponent… the last time we played it was a rout…sort of. He killed me with Battle of Wits (humiliating!) and the second game of that match-up I manaleak’d his Battle and Surgical’d the BoW from the graveyard. I was like Oh yea, 250+ card deck… there’s no way he has other win conditions… WRONG Sun Titaned bro!
Anyhow that was then, this is now. I kept a pretty spicy hand, 2 gravecrawler 1 Diregraf Ghoul, Swamp, Blackcleave Cliff, Geralfs Messenger, Gutshot.
I was on the play.
Turn 1:
Me: Cliff Crawler Go
Him: “Great a ZOMBIE Deck” Fastland Bird Go
Me: Gutshot Birds
Him: “UGH”
Turn 2:
Me Draw Swamp play Swamp
swing for 2 CRAWLER DIREGRAF go
Him: “%$^*”
Land, StrangleRoot Geist, go
Turn 3:
Me: Draw Geralf’s Messenger Play Swamp Play GM (play mistake) attack for 6 one ghoul blocked
his life 12
Him: “&(*^” (seems to be land screwed) pass turn
Turn 4:
Me:
Draw Falkenrath Aristocrat (I have to be grinning like an Idiot)
Swamp, Play Vampire Princess Leia, Swing for 11. He blocks a crawler looks really pissed off life at 3.
Him: Draws scoops
Game two i look at my board and side in two more gutshots and a bonfire
Game 2 I kept a one land hand… 3 one drop Zombies, 2 gutshots, blackcleave cliff, Geralf’s
more of the same but he didn’t get land screwed, I hit land for the next three turns followed by a Falkenrath Aristcrat then a bonfire on turn Five which I accidently put right into my hand (SLOW DOWN ZAC) and didn’t even try to play. Used it to win the next turn. Both games lasted about 7 mins, I rerely ever have to go to time. Those playtest sessions with Paul really paid off. There was a fair amount of complaining after the match to which my response was, “I felt a little bad, but not enough to report that he won.” That got a couple laughs. All this said I respect the heck out of this guy, not for the way he took the loss, which was sort shitty, but I know he’s one of the better players in the shop. Mot folks have no idea about my skill level and with 12 years out of the game I’m still prone to massive play mistakes, so I’m likely underestimated somewhat. This guy is good, I wasn’t looking forward to playing him round one, so it was a relief when I ended it fast… I have way too much ADHD to play those creature stall games, which is why I sided in the Bonfire.
1-0
Round 2
First time playing this guy, Jason. Jovial dude. I guess everyone in the 1-0 round two slot is pretty jovial. Jason was playing somekind of Artifacts based Deck I haven’t really seen. Game 1 was brutish. ended in about 6 turns after a couple of blocks.
I sided in Smelts, I frankly hadn’t seen enough of his deck, to know if he would just “GO OFF” so I prayed for mojo and mulled to 6 another curve hand, plus a smelt where my Gutshot had once been. i misplayed a Flames of the Firebrand at one point. “Sorcey.” Jason pointed out… “OH! I put it back in my hand, “Smelt then.” Details are fuzzy after that, but I snuck out a victory after running into a wall for a bit. Thank you burn spells.
Again, we were of the first to be finished. We looked at trades and waited for round three. I texted Paul to let him know I was still destroying Naya Pod, and to ask how work on a Friday Night was going… he responded with FML, or something like that.
2-0
Round 3:
MONIQUE!
Alright! I love playing Monique! We stormed over to the Feature Match table (It’s just the front table in the store really). “This is it Monique, one of us gets to uneven the lifetime tie score we have for sanctioned play.” She was excited to take back the win from Tuesday’s Lone Delver win. We shuffled up. and I took the play. We were BOTH playing Zombies. “For those that can’t Delver.” We both had pretty disappointing nights this week with the “BEST DECK IN THE FIELD”.
It was a quick game we both did some damage but the first turn favored me and i took the first game.
Game 2 was much the same but Monique went first… ergo she won.
We both confessed that we hoped the third game really came to blows. Haymaker after Haymaker and play the best ghoul win.
I wish so badly, that this was a video match. It was truly Epic Zombie Brawling at it’s finest. Geralf’s Messengers were blocking Blood Artists were countering Blood Artists in the end I top decked an Aristocrat and swung with the board and FLAMES’d a few blockers for maximum effect. We chuckled it was a exactly as we hoped (well, maybe she would have rather won, but a great game!)
3-0
Woot I’m in the money!
Round 4
Li Xu, DELVER
Li and I realized that since Matt Jones (2-0) down last round and lost he was the only other person that could win a foil souls if we didn’t split. We split. I was drooling for this match-up so I wanted to some blood. Li was relieved to not have to play it out for resulted as I’d been talking about how I’d made the deck Anti-delver focused since he walked in the door.
Li still CRUSHED me. Curse you Timely Reinforcements and Geist of Saint Traft… Key play in the game? I Geth Verdicted a lone Geist, Li taps two land and throws a Snapcaster in the graveyard… Neat trick.
3-0-1 not too shabby! I took an M13 Fat Pack, OPENED TRASH and rode off into the night for a beer and some well deserved back patting.
(I’m starting now to not just remember the names of the players and stuff like that but they’re remembering mine! I’m sort of a regular here now. That’s a pretty great feeling. Trading is starting to not feel like such a pain in the ass too. )
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