Showdown #26: Season 2 HYPE

Showdown

Spootyone

1 October 2014

2272 views

Hello all! It's time for a brand-new season of Showdown, where I pit my current standard deck against those submitted to me by you, the members of TappedOut. Rotation has come and gone and as many of you already know, I have switch to be a member of the Temur Frontier! Surrak has taught me his ferocious ways but I have brought with me a love of ramp and a reactive playstyle. And together we have created a bear-punch of an awesome brew. This is my Temur Control deck:

Enlightenment of the Dragonclaw | Temur Aggro

Standard* Spootyone

SCORE: 207 | 258 COMMENTS | 62698 VIEWS | IN 110 FOLDERS

In it, I use a plethora of burn spells as removal while utilizing the ever-powerful Caryatid-Courser core to ramp me into my win-cons, namely Sarkhan, Stormbreath, and even Crater's Claws. Additionally, I have blue mana to allow for counterspells when necessary and Kiora to help with some utility. I've been very happy with its success in testing thus far and I really like playing with the build -- which is very important. Being in red means I have access to ways to deal with aggro decks using spells like Anger of the Gods, Lightning Strike and Magma Spray. This will be very important here...as we are about to face a deck I've had my eyes on for a while now anticipating its success.

I present to you all Femme_Fatale and her Mardu Aggro deck:

Edge and Scale, Bring Forth the Victory

Standard Femme_Fatale

SCORE: 148 | 202 COMMENTS | 24942 VIEWS | IN 113 FOLDERS

The things I fear from an aggro deck should be pretty obvious. I hope that I don't become overwhelmed by numerous ground forces before I can stabilize. Additionally, Mardu has access to every single one of the best removal spells in standard, meaning that relying on creatures to survive will be tough (sorry courser!). Bloodsoaked Champion is a very big threat just because of how hard it is to get rid of. And post-board Butcher of the Horde and Thoughtseize are going to be tough to deal with as well. I've found in testing that my first games against aggro aren't always the best, but that after sideboarding things become much easier. Hopefully we have a good match here!

Femme wins the flip and is on the play. She keeps an opening hand of 2x caves of kolios, plains, Mana Confluence, Oreskos Swiftclaw, Sightless Brawler, and Mardu Charm. I'm curious to hear the opinion on this hand. I believe it's land-heavy, but there are spells to cast - most of which are creatures. It's not great but I still think it's keepable.

Spooty keeps an opening hand of 2x Shivan Reef, Temple of Abandon, Yavimaya Coast, Sylvan Caryatid, Stoke the Flames, and Lightning Strike. Again, land-heavy. But I do like the spells I'm seeing. Decent keep.

F1: caves of kolios, pass.

S1: Draws Courser of Kruphix. Nice. Temple of abandon tapped, scrying forest to the bottom. Pass.

F2: Draws Launch the Fleet. Plains, Oreskos Swiftclaw, pass.

S2: Draws Sylvan Caryatid...interesting. I play the Yavimaya Coast and then the caryatid. Pass.

F3: Draws Purphoros, God of the Forge. She plays Mana Confluence and then attacks with the swiftclaw. No blocks. This is followed up by a Sightless Brawler. Pass. (s 17/20 f)

S3: Draws Temple of Abandon. Given her boardstate, I think now seems reasonable to play some burn. I destroy the Oreskos Swiftclaw with a Lightning Strike and then play a Shivan Reef to help cast a second Sylvan Caryatid. Pass.

F4: Draws Goblin Rabblemaster. Ooh spicy. Alright so here she could play the Purphoros to set up a better boardstate to drop the Rabblemaster, or she could just remain aggressive and play the Rabblemaster to give the brawler a chance to attack while the boardstate supports it. It's a tough call. I feel that since the curve thus far hasn't been insanely aggressive, it's better to begin to think about alternate forms of damage (purph) -- especially when there's no mana for a counterspell up. She plays a second caves of Kolios and the God of the forge and passes the turn. (s 17/19 f)

S4: Draws Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Alrighty then. Kiora is typically bad in this sort of matchup but she does do a great job of turning off Purph. I play a Shivan reef and then cast Kiora, using her +1 to place the God into a bubble. Pass. (s 16/19 f)

F5: Draws Oreskos Swiftclaw. Alright, well so much for setting up the boardstate I guess. Best to go ahead and play Rabbles now to get some aggression going. She plays him and go to combat, creating a goblin token and attacking with it and the sightless brawler to Kiora. Both are blocked by a caryatid and one of the caryatids dies. Pass. (s 16/18 f)

S5: Draws Courser of Kruphix. This seems decent. However, the rabblemaster must perish. I +1 Kiora to turn off Purph and then stoke the flames to destroy Goblin Rabblemaster. I then play a tapped Temple of Abandon and scry a Sylvan Caryatid to the bottom. Pass. (s 15/18 f)

F6: Draws Bloodstained Mire. Kiora is becoming a big problem here. Purphoros needs to be able to deal damage and on top of that she can't have her go to ultimate. Femme casts Launch the Fleet targeting the Sightless Brawler and the goblin token, then attacks with both making 2 soldiers. All of these head towards Kiora. I begrudgingly chump block the brawler with my other caryatid and Kiora is dropped to 1 loyalty. Femme then plays another Oreskos Swiftclaw and the Bloodstained Mire before passing the turn. (s 17/15 f)

S6: Draws Lightning Strike. I need to stabilize quickly here. Things are getting out of hand. I cast Courser of Kruphix and reveal another courser from the top. Heh. I +1 Kiora targeting Purph and pass the turn.

F7: Draws Bloodsoaked Champion. She casts Mardu Charm to destroy my courser and then swings with everything. 2 tokens go to Kiora and everything else to me. I have a choice here of striking something to keep Kiora alive or one of the bigger threats to preserve my life total. I fear purphoros' wrath, so I strike one of the 1/1 tokens, leaving Kiora at 1 loyalty and me taking a hefty 7 damage. She follows up with a Bloodsoaked Champion and passes. (s 7/13 f)

S7: Draws Courser of Kruphix. I play a courser and reveal a Chandra, Pyromaster from the top. Agh. I would love that card if it had been here a turn or two earlier. Hmm...Well, I'm basically dead without something more here. I destroy Kiora to draw a card. I draw Chandra and reveal a [temple of mystery]] beneath it. I play the temple, gain a life, and scry Wooded Foothills, keeping it on top. I play it as my second land, gain a life, then activate it to get a forest, which I use to play my second Courser. After shuffling, a Shivan Reef is revealed. Pass. (s 8/13 f)

F8: Draws Chief of the Scale. She plays the chief, dealing 2 damage to me with Purph, then swings with everything. I block the two 3-power attackers and a pump from Purphoros is enough to deal the rest of the needed damage.

Sideboard tech with Spooty:

That felt like a pretty good first game. I know I lost, but I think I played my cards to their fullest potential for the most part. After sideboarding, I'd like to think my chances of winning increase by quite a bit. I have a decent number of ways to deal with aggro decks after sideboarding in the form of Anger of the Gods, Magma Spray and even Sedge Scorpion, though the scorpion is typically meant to be potent against Green midrange decks. I will bring in these eight spells while removing Nissa, Worldwaker, 2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Crater's Claws, 3 Dissolve and Negate. The planeswalkers are a bit slow, the claws aren't very good against aggro and the counterspells, while decent, are probably just better to leave out than other cards are.

Sideboard tech with Femme:

Femme's sideboard is a bit of an interesting one as it allows her to switch up her playstyle from aggro to midrange to throw off the opponent and to better her own chances against other decks. As such, a lot of sideboarding will be taking place. 3 Butcher of the Horde will be coming in as huge and powerful finishers, 3 Hero's Downfall will be coming in as extra removal that can also hit walkers, 2 Crackling Doom will be coming in to handle my larger threats or even courser of kruphix, not to mention it hits Sarkhan, and finally 3 Thoughtseize will be coming in since they're potent against control shells. In their wake, 3 Oreskos Swiftclaw, 3 sightless butcher, 3 Launch the Fleet a Mardu Charm and a Spear of Heliod will be leaving.

Spooty is on the play and mulligans a hand with two lands but also both copies of Dig Through Time. With no blue mana that almost makes this a mull to 5 immediately and I don't like that too much. The kept hand contains mountain, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast, Wooded Foothills, Courser of Kruphix, and Keranos, God of Storms. This hand isn't fantastic either, but I have to keep at this point.

Femme keeps an opener of Nomad Outpost, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Bloodstained Mire, Mana Confluence, Bloodsoaked Champion, Chief of the Edge, and Thoughtseize. Hand seems solid for the most part. I like it.

S1: Wooded Foothills. Pass.

F1: Draws Crackling Doom. Urborg, Bloodsoaked Champion, pass.

S2: Draws Wooded Foothills. I play a Yavimaya Coast and pass the turn.

F2: Draws Bloodsoaked Champion. Beautiful. She plays Thoughtseize and discards my Keranos, then attacks with the first champion. Afterwards, she plays Mana Confluence and another Bloodsoaked Champion. Pass. (s 18/18 f)

S3: Draws Lightning Strike. Agh. So I can play Courser of Kruphix here for possibly no value (assuming it gets killed) or I can strike one of the champions just to have it come back. I don't like this very much. Playing the courser seems to be the smarter choice here but she didn't remove it with the Thoughtseize so I can only assume she has an answer for it. I play Shivan Reef and pass the turn. This is already sorta rough, but I'll try to push through it.

F3: Draws Goblin Rabblemaster. Not bad at all. She plays a Bloodstained Mire and cracks it for a mountain, then casts Goblin Rabblemaster. Before combat, I lightning strike the Goblin Rabblemaster. She attacks with both bloodsoaked champions and then passes the turn. (s 13/17 f)

S4: Draws Sedge Scorpion. I'm learning that I take quite a lot of damage from my lands. I knew this already, but as I go to do these next plays I feel like things can be reworked a little bit to help facilitate things in the future. Anywho, I crack the foothills to get a forest, then play Courser of Kruphix. This reveals a Sylvan Caryatid from the top. I then play another foothills, crack it for another forest, and play Sedge Scorpion. Shuffling reveals Temple of Abandon. Pass. (s 13/17 f)

F4: Draws Butcher of the Horde. She casts Crackling Doom and I sacrifice my courser and take 2. She attacks with both champions and I block one with a scorpion. This is followed up with a Nomad Outpost tapped and passing the turn. (s 10/16 f)

S5: Draws Temple of Abandon. I play it and scry a Shivan Reef to the bottom. Pass.

F5: Draws Ruthless Ripper. Alright time to get aggressive. She plays Butcher of the Horde and sacrifices the bloodsoaked champion to give it haste. She attacks for 5 and passes.

S6: Draws Stormbreath Dragon. I play a mountain and then the dragon. Pass.

F6: Draws Chief of the Scale. Hmm...Is trading the butcher for a dragon smart here? Doing so and then playing both champions again seems valid. She attacks with the butcher and I block with my stormbreath dragon. After combat, she uses raid to bring both Bloodsoaked Champions back onto the battlefield. Pass.

S7: Draws Anger of the Gods. Well, that was possibly the best draw thus far. I cast it to exile both Champions. Pass.

F7: Draws Spear of Heliod. She brings both Chief of the Edge and Chief of the Scale to the battlefield. Pass. (s 5/15 f)

S8: Draws Temple of Abandon. That will unfortunately do it for me. I concede.

Wow that...sucked honestly. This is isn't quite how I wanted to start off the season and to finally show off my new deck, but as always it's important to remember losing can teach a player a lot about their own deck/playstyle. So, let's begin.

First off, I've been trying to find a balance with my lands. Although I'm a control deck, I prefer to have my lands come in untapped so that I can cast my spells in time. That said, I agree with what a lot of people have been saying in that I take too much damage from them. I plan on testing with much less painlands before the next Showdown to see if the prevention of life loss is worth the speed loss. I want to try out the new lifelands as well, so this seems like a perfect time to do so.

Next, I feel the need to mention the fact that I don't think this was a good representation of what my deck can do. I've been doing a lot of playtesting (goldfish, against other decks, and against other people) and I typically have enough aggro hate to live past even the scariest starts. Perhaps I need a third Anger of the Gods like I used to have. Or perhaps I should have sideboarded differently as to not have the Dig Through Times in the deck post-board. It's hard to say at this point.

All that said, I really like Femme's deck. Chief of the Edge and Scale are quite interesting cards, but I think it goes without saying that the real threats were Goblin Rabblemaster and Bloodsoaked Champion in those matches. While I have answers present in my deck specifically for them on purpose, they still demand a response or things get nasty quickly. And I also like how her deck can change its structure post-board to fit the niche that it best accompanies for any given match.

Mardu Charm seems great as a Courser of Kruphix killer, if nothing else. Being a three color deck with access to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth seems very nice as I found in this match. I sure wish I could make use of it...Crackling Doom also seems really powerful and I wouldn't be surprised if it began to see more play. Ultimately, I think that Sightless Brawler and/or Oreskos Swiftclaw could be replaced by something better, but it's hard to say that when I was just killed by them.

Going back to how I think my deck could be improved, I wonder if moving the Kioras to the sideboard and having Magma Spray main board is a good call right now. The only reason I haven't yet was because of the fact that spray can't hit players, but I think it's safe to say that the chances I use it will far outnumber the chances I don't, and the difference could mean living to tell the tale. Kiora is one of my favorite planeswalkers out there and I think she sits quite favorably in the format, but I do notice her being painfully "dead" in certain matchups like this, whereas a MB Magma Spray being "dead" would be much less painful.

Lastly, I'm wondering if it's better to split up the copies of Dig Through Time between the main and side board. As powerful a card as it is, it's not very good against these aggro and tempo decks, and as we just saw in game 2, getting both in an opening hand basically forces a mulligan in the wrong matchup. I'll have to move things around and test things further. Hopefully I can bring more of a challenge to the table next time.

There are two things I want to talk about in this section today. The first thing is the ongoing competition I have going to determine what my Username is going to look like. I have only had 1 valid submission thus far so I really encourage others to take part in this. Remember, the winner will receive 5 free feature tokens from yours truly! The rules for entry can be found at the bottom of this article, here. Please join in!

Next up, I wanted to quickly address donations again. I really like the sort of "reward" system a lot of sites like Patreon have in place. I looked into doing Patreon for this, but I didn't think people would enjoy the fact that you're expected to pay a certain amount per article. If you would actually like me to go through Patreon I can, but I'd need to know so. Instead, we can still go through pay pal, but I have created my own reward system for us both to enjoy! Here we go:

• $5.00 = You will receive a personal thank you and mention in the next article I release!

• $10.00 = I will do an in-depth analysis of the deck of your choice, giving my advice and opinions in detail (Note: this will need to be limited to Standard and EDH for the time being as I grow my skills and knowledge in other formats). Additionally, you will receive the mention in the next article!

• $25.00 = In addition to the deck analysis, I will run a 5-game playtesting match between your chosen deck and any other of your choice, be it your own, a pillar of the format, or even one of my own creations! Afterwards, I will provide you with a detailed synopsis of how things went, and give my opinions and suggestions about the chosen deck. This will be in addition to the notation in the next article.

• $50.00 = If you are generous enough to donate 50 or more dollars, you and I will set up a meeting via Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. to discuss archetypes, cards, formats, or anything even remotely MTG-related. Afterwards, we will meet up on Cockatrice to have our very own Speedbrew where you can challenge me to anything you'd like! (This will be purely for fun -- not an actual episode of Speedbrewers). Due to time restraints, I'll have to keep this portion to ~ 2 hours long. In addition to all this, you will still receive the 5-game playtesting match of your choice, in-depth deck analysis, and mention in the next article I send out!

Feeling generous? Wanna help out? It's easy! Donating even a small amount really helps make these happen, and I will always be appreciative of it.

Keep up with all the showdown action and more!

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @Spootyone

For more articles by me, check out legitMTG.com!

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This article is a follow-up to Showdown #25: Lightning Crashes The next article in this series is Showdown #27: Scorch on the Rocks