Ghost Dad's Circus Stampede

Standard* mrbloo1848

SCORE: 71 | 64 COMMENTS | 19523 VIEWS | IN 35 FOLDERS Top 8: 05/10

FNM Report 4/19/13 —April 20, 2013

Went 4-2 out of 6 rounds and placed 11th out of....36 players? There were several 12-pointers, me included, and one or two of them even made the cut, but my atrocious tiebreaker knocked me out of the money.

R1: Simic Midrange (L 1-2)

A simic Biovisionary midrange combo that has the Biovisionary as one of the win-cons but I lost to an army of Wolfir Silverheart copies which were way too big for me to deal with. The games 1 and 3 that I lost were very likely from the fact that I couldn't ramp away from him and his deck is designed to go right over most midrange decks.

R2: Golgari Aggro (W 2-0)

This match wasn't too difficult. The deck consisted of your usual Golgari members, Lotleth Troll, Strangleroot Geist, Blood Artist, Geralf's Messenger and other resilient creatures. Game 1 was back-and-forth for a while until I got Staff of Nin out and started devastating him through card advantage. Game 2 he was stuck on 3 lands the entire game and I got a chance to ultimate Garruk, Primal Hunter at 7 loyalty counters, netting me 7 6/6 wurm tokens and still was able to pump out more beast tokens...but he conceded.

R3: Prime Speaker Bant (L 0-1-1)

Man, was game 1 ridiculous. Game 1 was basically us throwing Thragtusks at each other until he started winning after getting the draws from Prime Speaker Zegana. Game 1 ended with his life total in the low 200s thanks to Conjurer's Closet and Vault of the Archangel. Could not finish game 2 in time so I took a draw in game 2 resulting in a loss for the round.

R4: BUG Aggro (W 2-0)

A fun BUG aggro deck that ran undying creatures and Blood Artist and a few counterspell supports. Kessig Wolf Run did the work in finish him off while I was at 9 life and at risk to get stomped. Game 2 went smoothly thanks to Rhox Faithmender setting up the Thragtusk into Restoration Angel into Cloudshift and gaining me beast tokens and a truckload of life.

R5: Grixis Mill (W 2-1)

Wow, was this deck fun to play with/against. It was a grixis control deck that centers around milling as win-con through Mind Grind and Consuming Aberration with plenty of removals to support the strategy. Got milled out game 1 thanks to Jace, Memory Adept, couldn't even touch his life total since he milled out all the key cards. Won game 2 thanks to exiled Consuming Aberration due to Appetite for Brains turn 1. He didn't draw anything threatening after that. Game 3 had similar results, this time taking out Jace, Memory Adept and once he had 2 Consuming Aberration in play and attacked, I activated Vault of the Archangel (that he forgot to take into account and blocked them with my tokens. That combat won me the game since he was going to mill me for pretty much everything after that.

R6: RDW (W 2-0)

Maybe there's some bad luck aura coming from me when I play this guy but every time I play him he seems to get flooded for loss. Game 1 he got me as low as 5 before I started stabilizing thanks to Thragtusk and Vault of the Archangel. Game 2 was close. I was at 13 life, I had a Rhox Faithmender as the only blocker on field, with a beast and vampire tokens and Loxodon Smiter tapped from attacking last turn. He grabbed Loxodon Smiter with Zealous Conscripts and swinging in with Hellrider for 4 trigger damage up front (putting me at 9), 3 from Hellrider, 3 from Zealous Conscript, and 1 from Stonewright while I blocked my own Loxodon Smiter with Rhox Faithmender. He tapped out to pump the Stonewright 3 times, sending in a total of 10 combat damage, but he forgot to take into account that my Rhox Faithmender returns 2 life to me, putting me at 1 which let me swing out for lethal the next turn. He was rather displeased.

So from tonight, I have decided that Desecration Demons do not pull nearly enough weight to earn a spot especially in an aggro-rich meta where they can choose to tap him down for relatively cheap. Therefore, the two will be cut in favor of other spells that I will come up with in near future. The Kessig Wolf Run package definitely won me some games today and it was the right decision to take it for a spin.

As for sideboard, Rhox Faithmender did win me a few games, but I am still a bit iffy on the pick since he doesn't usually remove the threat outright, he's just there to block and gain me life. Some sideboard changes will need to be made to accommodate anti-midrange cards such as Selesnya Charm since that seems to be my weakness.

That is all for now. Thanks for reading!