Sometimes Magic the Gathering is like Sweet Valley High/Melrose Place/90210. Sometimes. This time. I'm going to be the bigger person (I'm used to that, HIYO!).

   It's been an odd MTG week for me. I went 0-4 in matches 1-8 in games. Yep. Well, actually, I am 1-7 and “Robert, I'd rather watch my friends sing Lady Gaga – Bad Romance at Karaoke so you win!”

   So, what am I going to talk about? Well, I do have some stuff to address, a little closet cleaning if you will. And a fairly big, pretty cool announcement which I will hit you with at the end of business.

   First things first. GBW standard.

   You guys remember this deck from the previous two articles. I love this deck to death but I got paired against 2 rouge decks on Friday and played poorly in both and in the 4^th game I just gave up and left to watch my homies Erika and Beth do some totally genius singing of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance at Gaspar's down the street.

   Was it worth it? Hells Yeah.!!!!!!!. The performance was SO good. Especially when Gaga starts singing in French and Ka and Beffers start singing in broken gibberish!!!!! Add to that total dopeocity, the crazy drunk dancer guy, the total adoring dude at the bad and the, I kid you not full on standing ovation; it was worth it a billion times over!!!

   The GBW deck was by all accounts a failure this week.  To me this says to the deck is no better than tier 2. I guess that means it is by all accounts a COMPLETE failure. One top 8, one 0-2. Not good enough. Jund and Grixis are still the 2 decks to beat in standard, and here are the lists the Berghorn twins and I collaborated on for both (I say collaborated on because, I told Carl to play Mind Rot and Nighthawk in Jund and to main deck spreading Seas in Grixis other than that I didn't do anything to these)

 

Jund

Creatures:
2 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Great Stable Stag
3 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Borderland Ranger
3 Broodmate Dragon

Spells:
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
3 Mind Rot
4 Blightning
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Bituminous Blast

Lands:
2 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Savage Lands
3 Dragonskull Summit
2 Forest
3 Mountain
3 Swamp

 

Grixis

Creatures:

3 Sphinx of Jwar isle

 

Spells:

4 Spreading Seas

3 Essence Scatter

3 Flash Freeze

3 Courier's Capsules

2 Negates

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Terminate

3 Earthquake

3 Cruel Ultimatum

1 Sorin Markov

1 Chandra Nalaar

 

Lands:

4 Scalding Tarn

2 Terramorphic Expanse

4 Drowned Catacomb

4 Crumbling Necropolis

2 Arkoum Refuge

3 Islands

2 Mountains

3 Swamps

2 Dragonskull Summit

  But Worldwake is right around the corner so I am sure we won't have to suffer through a stagnant 2 deck meta for much longer... Oh I mean I guess you could play Bushwhacker... Never mind... Hopefully we won't have to suffer through a stagnant 2 deck meta for much longer.

   Anyhow, on Saturday, Armada ran an extended event and I ran Hyper- wait, no, I didn't, I ran a home brew deck. Carl Ran Hyperawesomeness, and top 2ed. I 0-2ed. Hyperawesomeness is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good. It's unreal.

The deck I played, was designed to beat a meta full of Scapeshift combo, which we saw was being tested in an abundance. However, I did not play against it, I played against Zoo and Affinity.  Here is the list.

 

Creatures:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Kitchen Finks

Spells:
4 Bitter Blossom
4 Small Pox
4 Mind Wrench

Lands:
4 Fetid Heath
4 Marsh Flats
4 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
5 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

 

  Against Matt and Zoo I did manage to make it to a game 3 where Goblin Guide found his soul mate. Lets watch:

 I'm on the play and Mull down to 6.

  Turn 1 I make a Fetid Heath and pass.

Matt Lightning Bolts himself and plays Goblin Guide revealing Dark Confidant for me.

  Turn 2 I play a no win Tidehollow Sculler, taking Meddling Mage.

Matt Kills the Sculler with Lightning Helix.

  Turn 3 I almost win the game outright with Ghostly Prison, which is SO BAD for the Zoo player.

Matt plays the Mage naming Small Pox.

  Turn 4 I play a Nighthawk and feel 100% ahead in the game.

Matt has Tribal Flames for Nighthawk.

  Turn 5 I get another Nighthawk and Lacerator fully on the really bad block vampire plan.

Then Matt says, “You know what's better than Vampires? Goyf. Holding a wooden stake named Umezawa's Jitte”

  Turn 6 Nighthawk gets sideways joined by Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler.

Which is not great cause Buffy the Vampire slayer attacked next turn at this point I'm just going to say it doesn't turn into a blow out, but I stopped taking notes, because I was desperate to find a way to win, and I almost did.

I cleared the board, no counters on Jitte, had a Nighthawk in play tapped from an attack, Matt had one card in hand.  On draw step he draws Gobin guide. The Guide picks up a sharp object and starts running with it. Revealing a GAME WINNING Kitchen Finks. Or he could have been. But Matt's card? Goblin Guide's soul mate, Meddling Mage. Matt plays him, locking out the Finks and locking me out of the game.

   It wasn't a bad beat. I feel like I played it well. Matt just out played me, out drew me and, yes, it may be hard to admit, because I really believe in the BW deck, he just had a better deck than me.

   Post Script to this, I get paired against Matt in EVERY TOURNAMENT. HATE IT. I LOSE EVERY TIME. HATE IT.

   In Round 2 I played Affinity. Turn one of game one Affinity went Land, Ornithopter, Ornithopter, Ornithopter, Frogmite, sigh. Can't beat it, especially when turn 3 and 4 Myr enforcer 1 and 2 join the party and never actually have to attack, and I just die to my own Lacerators and (not so) Awesome Blossom.

 Game 2, turn 2 Ravager. Can't beat that either.

   The deck probably is not as bad as this result. The world may never know.

   In other news, like I said, Carl top 2ed with Hypergenesis. I keep telling you guys. But what I love about this is, Carl pretty much cannot lose when he plays a deck that just cascades and prays. LOVE IT.

   Armada also had Legacy on Saturday, I didn't stay because I did not have a deck and did not feel up for coverage, but Evil Jared wants you all to know he top 8ed.

   Also did some pre PTQ testing this week and the only thing I learned was All In Red is crap. And Scapeshift is probably too difficult for most people to play.

   And now Imma steal a lil'  bit from WotC: ANNOUNCING:

  This week Brennan, Evil Jared, and Myself sat down with Aaron and had a little conversation. What we talked about was starting a Podcast for Armada Games. The show is going to be hosted by Brennan, EJ and I and perhaps have others on from time to time. We have thus far only been given the green light for 1 show, a preview/review of Worldwake. We are going to record it the week before the prerelease (pending legality cause nobody wants WotC looking our way with their angry faces on for “unauthorized spoilers”)

   This is something that the 3 hosts and Aaron think has the ability to be first and foremost really fun for our community. But also, something that can be important for Armada's place in the national landscape of Magic the Gathering. Some very exciting things have already happened for the store. The 3k last September attracted some attention from Wizards, including bringing down some bigwigs to see what the fellas had going on. Armada was chosen as one of the 8 stores to receive a piece of Jace. And this could be another step in Armada becoming a store that is recognized as a leader in our community and the global community for Magic players and I can speak for Jared and Brennan when I say I'm quite proud that the Armada guys are giving us the opportunity to be the ones to get the ball rolling on this project.

   Thanks for reading again this week and as always any feed back, good or bad I'm stoked to hear.

   I'm going to give you to the count of 10 to get your ugly, yella, no good keyster off my property before I pump your guts full of lead.

1

2

10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 *Insert Tommy Gun Fire and Wicked Gangsta Laugh Here*

 

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