Friday Night Magic
  Generally when it comes to FNM I draft and leave the 60 card decks to brave souls who want to play with or against Jund. But this week I played a deck that I've been working on for a few weeks just for S&Gs. The deck was GBW and really really greedy with landfall. When I was working out the deck list what I did was take a Jund list and made my card choices on based on what I thought would be a fair and comparable card to one of the 36 bombs Jund plays.
  Here's the list and I will talk about each card and how it matches up to Jund after you drool over the MILLION dollars on display here:
(Pre list Post script: Thanks to Evil Jared, Serge, and Boneitis Berghorn who all let me borrow cards.)

Lands:
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Sunpetal Grove
5 Swamp
4 Forest
3 Plains

Creatures:
4 Borderland Ranger
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Emeria Angel
2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen

Spells:
2 Grim Discovery
3 Mind Rot
3 Vines of Vastwood
2 Harrow
4 Path to Exile

Sideboard:
Creatures:
3 Grazing Gladeheart

Spells:
4 Celestial Purge
3 Disfigure
2 Luminarch Ascension
3 Oblivion Ring


  OK, first things first. In this format it is my opinion that 3 colors is really bad, because a lot of 3 color decks have to play lands tapped and thus not really doing anything early. To get around this the deck runs 8 fetches and a bunch of basics. Sunpetal Grove could come into played tapped but more often than not it won't.

  Lotus Cobra, Emeria Angel, and Ob Nixilis are our stand ins for Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast. The reasoning being that every landfall trigger is a mini cascade and as they build they are more and more overwhelming and powerful. This idea actually panned out fairly well, Emeria Angel making 7 tokens in a game and a 15/15 Ob Nixilis and turn 3 Baneslayer Angel are effectively as powerful as any cascade that isn't a full blown Powerball Lottery winner (i.e. Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning).

  - Borderland Ranger is directly stolen from Jund, only he is so much better in this deck after turn 4. a turn 6 Borderland for Jund is meh, turn 6 Borderland for this deck is usually a 2/2 + 1/1 flier.

  - Mind Rot is our Blightning. And won me at least 1 game all on its own when I resolved two on consecutive turns.

  - Knight of the Reliquary is just a 5/5 for 3 most of the time and should he live long enough (or not be attacking) to use his ability he generally nets you a pair of 1/1 fliers and himself +1/+1.

  - Harrow is actually as powerful as a cascade spell if cast with Ob Nixilis or Emeria Angel in play. To be honest, what Harrow does to an opponent is illegal in 7 states... It's astoundingly powerful.

  - Path to Exile... Not going to explain this cause we all know already.

  - Vines of Vastwood was Maelstrom Pulse until right before the event started. The switch was well worth it as it won me a game, and makes the Jund match up better. Jund because they are all about 1 for 1 then let cascade do the rest. With Vines the Jund player still gets a 1 for 1, but not the one they wanted. Also, the pumps just swing games and breaks backs if done at an opportune time.

  - Baneslayer Angel. Did you know this guy actually taps to attack?!?!?! What a P.O.S.
Jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk She's real real good and spells certain doom if not answered post haste.

  So in round one I played Mario, who was one of 3 or 4 people piloting mono white. Other than 4 plains, 3 Oblivion Ring, 1 Path to Exile and 2 Kazandu Blademaster (spread out over 2 games!) Mario's deck didn't do much. GBW (I need a name for this deck) did some stupid things including 7 Emeria Angel created bird tokens on the back of Harrow in game one, followed by Baneslayer on turn 4 then 5 in game two. Needless to say the games were not close and didn't actually tell me anything about the deck's abilities when under pressure.

  In Round 2, I played against Collin a.k.a. You're Welcome for the Foil Baneslayer, who was rolling a super interesting 75 cards in the form of URW 'Deal damage = to the # of cards in your hand Trap'. The deck also played Jace, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, and Wrath.

  I misplayed a few times in this match, as did my opponent, who had Jace at 13 loyalty and didn't go on the decking strategy. It wouldn't have mattered if I had been paying better attention to the game though. With Ob Nixilis in play Collin reaches to Path to Exile him and instead of casting Vines of Vastwood and keeping my Legend who would have killed Collin once I untapped and cast harrow plus the fetch land from my hand. It was a sloppy misplay on my part and it was a game that should have gone into the “Punted Like a Doorknob” file but I got a little lucky and did win. This game was beneficial to me in round 3, where I was playing for top 8 and if I had made a bonehead mistake like this one against Matt playing Mono Red I wouldn't live to tell the tale and need to play round 4 just to make top 8.

  In round 3, the games were brisk and tense. Matt is one of the more solid players at Armada and my record against him is not great. Turn 1 Game on Matt had Goblin Guide (a creature I despise because it just undoes mulligans and loses you card advantage every time it draws your opponent a land) I revealed a land and drew but I didn't have a start that was particularly fast, with my first play being Cobra on 2 but nothing particularly spicy to accelerate into for at least another turn. Matt had Ball Lightning and I was stone clocked and in serious danger of NEEDING to put Cobra in front of a body just to keep in the game. I get to do some dumbness though on turn 4 thanks to Cobra, netting me Borderland Ranger into Mind Rot. Matt's turn I get to chump block the board clear but I go to 6 life thanks to another Ball Lightning. Matt has one card in hand when I untap, and I have no play other than Mind Rot, which saves my life when Matt has to throw away Elemental Appeal which would have killed me. From there the game was mine because Matt was not able to force through the last bit of damage with Knight of Reliquary and Ob Nixilis in play.

  Game 2 sees another Goblin Guide start from Matt, only this time he is not a double agent and I don't get the free card. The game is more serene this time as Matt is turn 3 Ball Lightning, turn 4 Ball Lightning, turn 5 Ball Lightning. This should be certain doom but I get Borderland accelerate into turn 4 Emeria Angel plus 1/1 Bird and a Path to Exile + Disfigure double team. Add to that 4 more Chump Blocking/Damage absorbing birds over the last few turns before I just produce critical mass and am able to push through for the win.

  From these 2 games I really can't gleam any real knowledge. I won both, against an incredibly solid player, but 1 or 2 different cards and I'm just dead. I think Side boarding in Disfigure and Grazing Gladeheart would have swung games if I had drawn them more than a single disfigure. I was glad to get the win, so I wouldn't have to play in round 4 and could draw in.

  I spent round 4 testing Legacy with Evil Jared. His deck loses to Aether Vial. Merfolk is so confusing! Looking at it, you'd think, it's just roll some dudes out there and beat, but there are so many options!! Needless to say a deck playing Island is not for me now, or ever.

  Its round one of the Top 8, Jund finally made it's appearance in front of me. And what it did to me is, first and foremost the reason it is the best deck in the format, and second all my fault. Game one I took a 2 land + Borderland Ranger hand that would have been fine except by the time I saw land 3 I was at -34 life. It's a mistake, I new Todd, my opponent, was playing Jund and I knew that if I did not hit land 3 and cast Borderland before turn four that I had no chance to even try and match the first cascade spell, or Blightning that was cast. And that's exactly what happened turn 3 Todd had Borderland. Turn 4 he had Bloodbraid into another Borderland and I was floating face down before I did anything.

  Game 2 I had to mull, which would have been fine if hadn't had to go to Paris twice and start the game on 5 cards. My 5 set was pretty baller though: Forest, Swamp, Marsh Flats, Lotus Cobra, Baneslayer Angel. A turn 3 Baneslayer Angel is hard for any deck to beat and it would have been hard for Jund to beat if Todd didn't have the Lightning Bolt for Lotus Cobra on turn 2. I didn't get much else going that Todd couldn't answer from that point on and was looking at a top 8 exit in fairly short order.

  Todd went on to make it to top 2 which only makes me feel a little less awful about the terrible decision to keep the 2 lander in game 1.

  All in all I think the debut of the deck went well. I'm going to make a few changes and see what she can do this Friday before giving back all the cards I am borrowing for it. The changes look like this:

-1 Swamp +1 Plains

  I didn't have mana issues, other than not drawing any, but I feel like the deck needs the additional white and more importantly needs less black.

-2 Grim Discovery +2 Fleshbag Marauder

  There were 2+ Grixis decks at FNM this week and I need a way to get rid of Sphinx of  “Can't Touch This” (This is not a condemnation of Grim Discovery, which I adore and feel like is almost universally underrated/underplayed)

  And That's it. Like I said I think the deck is really solid and I don't want to tinker with it too much. The Sideboard was, at least for this FNM and the opponents I played, perfect, except for Oblivion Ring which I never brought in and have no idea what I actually would use it for. Perhaps this becomes Maelstrom Pulse... although I don't know when I'd put that in either, perhaps against the mono white decks to just 6 for 1 them when they reach down deep for a Conqueror's Pledge? Beats me. Luminarch Ascension could possibly go up to a 3 slot because against Grixis they either counter it or lose to it, no in between.

  Thanks for reading this week. Don't forget Armada has Extended and Legacy on Saturday. The Legacy community is really looking brighter and brighter by the week and Extended is a really interesting format so come on out and battle!!!!

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