SELESNYA!!! SELESNYA!!! SELESNYA!!!

Showdown

Spootyone

24 January 2014

3905 views

Hello all and welcome to the next edition of Showdown where I pit my current standard deck against other standard builds that have been sent in to me. In the last episode, we saw the end of an era as my Conclave Counter-Cutter deck saw its final hurrah (A moment of silence for those still in grief). We took on psychoza and his Gruul bloodrush beasts deck. We lost the match, but ended up showing what we were capable of in the final extra game. This time, however, I am ready (eh, eh?) to unveil my latest creation:

Are You Ready? | Dark Selesnya Aggro

Standard* Spootyone

SCORE: 55 | 44 COMMENTS | 8800 VIEWS | IN 9 FOLDERS

This deck utilizes the rarely-used Ready / Willing and I hope to show it off well today for the first time. For a more detailed description of the deck, please check out the deck tech here

This time around we have a fun matchup against one of the most well-received tribal and budget decks on this site. I present to you Matsi883 and his deck:

SLIVERS!!!!! SLIVERS!!!!! SLIVERS!!!!!

Casual Matsi883

SCORE: 178 | 172 COMMENTS | 45867 VIEWS | IN 157 FOLDERS

There are many sliver decks out there and that's not different for this site. And many do end up in the Naya colors due to the nature of M14's slivers. But I'm excited for this matchup to see how a budget deck can do against my deck as well as due to the fact that I get to play with slivers. Slivers! SLIVERS!! SLIVERS SLIVERS SLI-- ehem Sorry, I think Matsi got to me there...

As per usual now, I did a number of practice games before the actual write-up. Matsi's deck can really be explosive out of the gates and my small creatures do little to defend me if he can start off with a Striking Sliver and Predatory Sliver. Spot removal and other kill spells are what I need to avoid the initial onslaught of the deck, but once I manage that, Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Archangel of Thune do an utterly magnificent job of winning the game for me. So, basically, the games come down to did I get removal? If so, I can almost always win. If not, I will almost always lose. Bet you can't imagine how sideboarding will go, huh?

This might be a close one depending on both players' draws. Let's see how it goes!

As for this edition's musical add-on, I will be going with the following track by another one of my current favorites:

Game 1

Spooty wins the flip and is on the play. He keeps an opening hand of Temple of Silence, Selesnya Guildgate, Temple Garden, plains, Soldier of the Pantheon, Fleecemane Lion and Putrefy. With all of our color, some early pressure, and then some spot removal, this hand looks fantastic.

Matsi keeps a hand of forest, mountain, Sylvan Caryatid, Predatory Sliver, Striking Sliver, Blur Sliver, and Mizzium Mortars. We have both our lands, some ramp, and all sorts of good early game slivers. Woo!

S1: Plains. Soldier of the Pantheon. Pass.

M1: Draws forest. Plays mountain. Plays Striking Sliver. Pass.

S2: Draws forest. Plays forest. Casts Fleecemane Lion. Pass.

M2: Draws mountain. Plays forest. That lion is a pain to deal with. Destroys the lion using mizzium mortars. Attacks with the [[striking sliver. Pass. (s 19/20 m)

S3: Draws plains. Plays Temple of Silence tapped and scrys Temple of Silence off the top. It goes to the bottom. Swings for 2 with the soldier. Pass. (s 19/18 m)

M3: Draws Bonescythe Sliver. Plays mountain. Casts Blur Sliver. Swings with all creatures for 3. Pass. (s 16/18 m)

S4: Draws Abrupt Decay. Sweet! Plays Selesnya Guildgate tapped. Swings for 2 with the soldier. Pass. (s 16/16 m)

M4: Draws Mountain. Plays forest. Plays Predatory Sliver. Spooty responds by destroying the Blur Sliver with Abrupt Decay. Swings with the Striking Sliver for 2. Casts Sylvan Caryatid. Pass (s 14/16 m)

S5: Draws Selesnya Charm. Plays plains. Pass (No good attacks and we need blockers for combat tricks).

M5: Draws forest. Plays forest. Taps with the Sylvan Caryatid to cast Bonescythe Sliver. Swings with the striking and predatory sliver, both of which are 2/2 double-strikers for the time being. Before blockers, Spooty casts Putrefy on the opposing Bonescythe Sliver. Then, He casts Selesnya Charm to make a 2/2 knight token with vigilance. The knight and soldier double-block the Striking Sliver. Matsi chooses to destroy the knight token. Pass. (s 12/16 m)

S6: Draws plains. Plays the plains. Swings for 2 with the Soldier of the Pantheon. Pass. We're basically making it look like we have Ready / Willing in hand when we don't, in an attempt to get the opponent to play more conservatively. Pass (S 12/14 m)

M6: Draws Predatory Sliver. The opponent looks to be keeping up mana for something. This could be Ready / Willing. It could be Celestial Flare. It could be a lot of things. But we're not going to win this game without continual aggression. Casts a second Predatory Sliver. Swings with the now 3/3 original predatory sliver. It gets in for 3 (s 9/14 m). And now we know he likely had nothing. Pass.

--

S7: Draws Voice of Resurgence. Alright the bluff didn't work so well, but we had to go for it. Plays Voice of Resurgence and passes.

M7: Draws plains. Plays plains. Swings with both of the 3/3 slivers. The first of which is double-blocked by Spooty's Soldier of the Pantheon and Voice of Resurgence. All three are destroyed. An elemental token enters Spooty's field. Pass. (s 6/14 m).

S8: Draws Voice of Resurgence. Okay, that sounds fine. Plays the voice. Passes.

M8: Draws forest. We unfortunately can't afford to lose our only sliver. Pass.

S9: Draws plains. Still no point in attacking here. Pass.

M9: Draws Striking Sliver. Plays striking sliver. Swings with the Predatory Sliver. Spooty blocks with the voice. An elemental token enters his battlefield. pass.

S10: Draws Elspeth, Sun's Champion. There she is! Casts Elspeth and uses her +1 ability to make 3 1/1 soldier tokens. Swings with the two (now 5/5) elemental tokens. Sylvan Caryatid chumps one and the other gets through. Pass. (s 6/9 m)

M10: Draws Gruul Guildgate. This doesn't look very good. One of our only ways of beating Elspeth is just...winning before she enters the battlefield. Pass.

S11: Draws Precinct Captain Plays the captain. Uses Elspeth's +1 to make 3 1/1 soldier tokens. Swings with the two 9/9 elemental tokens. Both are chumped by Matsi's creatures. Pass.

M11: Draws Hive Stirrings. Plays hive stirrings to make two 1/1 sliver tokens. Pass.

S12: Draws Ready / Willing. And now we don't die to Mizzium Mortars! Uses Elspeth's +1 to make 3 guys. Swings with everything but them. Matsi chumps the two elementals. Spooty get's an additional soldier token of the captain. Pass. (s 6/1 m)

M12: Draws Prophetic Prism. Concedes.

Spooty wins game 1!

Sideboard tech with Spooty: That was a bit close, but in the end we did what we wanted to do. We wanted to slow down and control the aggression enough to get to our bombs since Matsi's deck does not contain many ways to get around them. Soldier of the Pantheon is pretty horrific in this matchup, so the playset will be sided out in lieu of another Putrefy, another Celestial Flare and 2 copies of Unflinching Courage which will hopefully net us a bit of life gain.

Sideboard tech with Matsi: We appear to have lacked the reach needed in an aggressive deck such as this. Slivers are also very susceptible to removal and other disruption. For this reason, I'm bringing in the rest of the playset of Boros Charm. Coming out is the Sylvan Caryatid (felt weird not being a sliver) and the 2x Megantic Sliver (we're not worried too much about overpowering other creatures, just being super aggressive).

Game 2

Spooty Mulls a one-lander. The six-card hand contains plains, forest, Overgrown Tomb, Precinct Captain, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and Ready / Willing. This hand is far from perfect, but we have all of our colors and that means drawing into any kill spell will be viable (except celestial flare). Odds are that we will be fine. Especially on the draw.

Matsi mulls and hand containing all high drops and no green mana. The second hand contains 2x mountain, forest, Mizzium Mortars, Blur Sliver and Bonescythe Sliver. I'm not too happy about this hand either due to its lack of early game aggression, but the odds of getting a terrible 5-card hand are really large and I don't want to just lose the game due to not having enough cards.

M1: Mountain. Pass.

S1: Draws Celestial Flare ... ... ...Well, that's an expected first draw, huh? Plays plains. Pass.

M2: Draws Bonescythe Sliver. Bad draws on all sides, I see. Plays forest. Pass.

S2: Draws forest. Plays Overgrown Tomb tapped and passes.

M3: Draws mountain. Plays mountain. Casts Blur Sliver and swings for 2. Pass.

S3: Draws plains. Plays plains. Casts Precinct Captain and passes.

M4: draws Manaweft Sliver. Plays Manaweft Sliver. Plays mountain. Casts Mizzium Mortars on the opposing Precinct Captain. Swings with the blur and manaweft slivers. Pass. (s 15/20 m)

S4: Draws Voice of Resurgence. Plays forest. Plays voice of resurgence. Pass.

M5: Draws Battle Sliver Taps manaweft sliver and lands to cast Bonescythe Sliver. Swings with him and the Blur Sliver. Voice blocks the bonescythe sliver. Spooty gets an elemental token. Pass.
(s 11/20 m).

S5: Draws Ready / Willing Plays forest. That's a little clunky. Unfortunately, the double-strike sliver makes it so that all of our removal sources in hand right now are a little useless. We cannot use willing to destroy attackers and we cannot use Celestial Flare successfully since we will be attacking with the Manaweft Sliver most likely. Pass.

M6: Draws Manaweft Sliver. Taps all lands and the on-field manaweft to cast Battle Sliver, then swings with it and bonescythe and blur sliver. Spooty casts Celestial Flare before blockers. Matsi sac's the Blur Sliver. Spooty chumps the battle sliver with the elemental token and takes 8 damage. Pass. (s 3/20 m)

S6: Draws Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Aww booo...BOOOO. Spooty concedes.

Matsi wins game 2!

Sideboard tech with Spooty: Nothing really to change here. Our draws were a little crappy in that we drew a lot of awkward and clunky stuff instead of our spot removal. I'm hoping Game 3 goes differently.

Sideboard tech with Matsi: That went fairly well! the opponent didn't really seem to be doing too much but we also curved out magnificently. I hope Game 3 goes the same exact way!

Game 3

Spooty is on the play and keeps a hand of 2x plains, 2x Temple of Silence, Selesnya Guildgate Selesnya Charm and Putrefy. Tapped lands in our needed colors are annoying, but we also have the spells we will need to survive.

Matsi keeps a hand of forest, mountain, Boros Guildgate, Striking Sliver, Manaweft Sliver, Blur Sliver, and Bonescythe Sliver. This looks amazing.

S1: Plays Selesnya Guildgate tapped. Pass.

M1: Draws forest. Plays mountain. Casts Striking Sliver. Pass.

S2: Draws Selesnya Charm. Plays plains. Pass.

M2: Draws Predatory Sliver. Plays forest. Plays predatory sliver. Swings with the Striking Sliver. Pass. EoT Spooty makes a 2/2 knight token with a Selesnya Charm. (s 18/20 m)

S3: Draws Fleecemane Lion. Plays Temple of Silence tapped and scrys Archangel of Thune off the top. She will help us win by her life gain, hopefully. It stays. Plays Fleecemane Lion.

M3: Draws Bonescythe Sliver. Plays forest. Casts Blur Sliver. Swings with the Blur Sliver. No good blocks. (s 15/20 m). Pass.

S4: Draws Archangel of Thune. Plays Temple of Abandon tapped and scrys Precinct Captain off the top. Not sure about that one. I'll keep it though, since I can't afford to be drawing anything besides spells right now. Pass.

M4: Draws Sentinel Sliver. The opponent could very easily have a kill spell at this point, but we still must be aggressive. Casts Manaweft Sliver. Taps it, Striking Sliver, Predatory Sliver and the final land to cast Bonescythe Sliver. Swings with bonescythe and blur sliver. Spooty responds by casting Putrefy on the opposing Predatory Sliver. He then blocks the bonescythe sliver with Fleecemane Lion. They trade. Pass. (s 14/20 m)

S5: Draws Precinct Captain. I think I'd rather wait to see what the opponent has in store before completely committing to the archangel here. Especially since I could just be running right into a Mizzium Mortars, and that would screw me up big time. Casts Precinct Captain. Swings with the vigilant knight for 2. Pass. (s 14/18 m)

M5: Draws Boros Charm. Alright, now we just need to get the opponent to 4 health before we can moth likely win. But they also still are holding up mana that may be for a kill spell. Losing this second Bonescythe Sliver would likely mean a game loss, but (again) we WILL NOT win without hyper-aggression and a little luck. This is a hard matchup for this deck and we have to sometimes just play as if the opponent has nothing. Casts Bonescythe Sliver. Casts Sentinel Sliver by tapping Striking Sliver and Manaweft Sliver. Swings with blur, sentinel, and bonescythe sliver (all of which are 2/2 vigilant, double-strikers...ouch). Spooty blocks the Bonescythe Sliver with Precinct Captain and the Blur Sliver with the 2/2 knight token, and then plays Selesnya Charm on the 2/2 knight making him a 4/4 until end of turn. Matsi responds by tapping 2 of his creatures to cast Boros Charm making them all indestructible until end of turn. Pass. (s 10/18 m). That was a devastating turn for Spooty

S6: Draws Celestial Flare. Casts Archangel of Thune. Pass.

M6: Draws plains. Swings with the Blur Sliver, Sentinel Sliver, and Bonescythe Sliver. Spooty blocks the Bonescythe Sliver with the angel, and both die. Pass. (s 5/18 m)

S7: Draws Elspeth, Sun's Champion. And we're (unfortunately) dead to exactsies on board. Spooty concedes.

Matsi wins the match!

Afterthoughts

Ahh...so close. I really thought I had that one in game three, but Matsi's slivers found a way to crack open my defenses and proceed to eviscerate my dear Archangel of Thune... (too much?). Well in any case, that was quite a good bit of fun! Slivers, much like any tribal deck, are a ton of fun to pilot because you can go from losing to winning with a single creature. It's a little annoying that I failed to see a good bit of my removal in the second and third game, but it happens. Shame it had to happen during the actual showdown though!! glares menacingly at my cards

Given the fact that Matsi's deck is a budget deck, I feel it isn't really my place to give too many pieces of advice since most of mine will be for non-budget decks. That being said, I think I'd suggest the removal of Sylvan Caryatid at least. While I love the card, I think it's just not needed in this deck. I think I'd love to see a second copy of Boros Charm in the main board instead, as it provides late-game reach, protects from wraths, and is a fantastic combat trick.

Many thanks to Matsi883 for his entry (Sorry it took so long to get around to it!) And thank you to everyone else who put in entries last article. I would like to try to get more consistent with these like I used to be but unfortunately things keep coming up, be it deck brewing, testing, creation, spoilers and of course life. But I'm going to try to get things going more regularly again soon (most likely once BOTG comes out). In any case, please bear with me! And I hope you all are still enjoying my content when it comes out.

If YOU points at you. Yes, you! want to be the next challenge for me to take up, let me know! Just place your deck in the comments below and I will give it a chance between all the rest. Don't hesitate! And if you have any comments, complains, advice, or ideas let me know those too!

As some of you might be aware by now from following my new deck, the newest spoilers released in BOTG have given me good reason to decide against playing a deck such as this in the meta that will be coming up. Cards such as Searing Blood and Drown in Sorrow really make me feel as though creatures with 2 toughness are going to be easily gotten rid of and that G/W aggro will have to change dramatically just to be able to keep up in the new meta (I could be wrong, these are just my opinions). I feel like my deck full of Precinct Captain, Voice of Resurgence and Soldier of the Pantheon will just be annihilated by the top tier decks and there's just a little too much Spike in me to be playing something like that. My apologies if you wanted for me to continue on with this deck, but once BOTG is released, I shall be switching once more.

Good question, random commenter! I'm working on a brew right now trying desperately to make Karametra, God of Harvests work in standard. And, no, I don't mean playing G/W and just sticking one or two copies of her in there and being good with that. I want to utilize her to her full abilities! I'm utterly determined to crack this one and be one of the people in the forefront to her use in standard. The deck I'm working on is Bant. This makes me happy since I used to play Bant and I've always been a control player at heart. But don't worry -- this will be different. And while I'm likely not the first or the last to come up with the strategies located in this build, I want to at least be one of the ones playing and experimenting with them. I hope you look forward to a deck tech on this new deck once BOTG is fully spoiled and I've had time to test the deck thoroughly!! GET HYPE.

The Question of the Week!

Thanks for the large amount of approval on the newest changes I've made to this series. I really do appreciate that. As for this week, the question is simple: Which card are you most looking forward to play from Born of the Gods? And furthermore, what was your biggest disappointment? My favorite card so far is either Brimaz, King of Oreskos or Courser of Kruphix. My biggest disappointment has obviously been Karametra, but that doesn't stop me from pursuing her might!

Magic Trivia

Last installment we discussion the mechanic known as "bloodrush" and how powerful it can be since it cannot be countered by things like Cancel or Essence Scatter. I asked you simply: How can it be countered. You all gave me a ton of answers! And creative ones too! I began with answers that I was looking for, such as thataddkid and his answers of Stifle and Voidslime to itchiuchicha117 and his answer of Azorius Guildmage. I did enjoy the creative answers of Unsummon (a personal favorite of mine) and things like kill spells and even just straight up Fog!

This time I've got some trivia about slivers for ya! First off, how many are there? How many individual slivers are there in the history of MTG? Also, in what set were they first introduced? Good luck! And Spooty points to whoever gets it first!

Thanks to everyone for your continued support. And as always, thanks for reading!

-- Spootyone --

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