First off. Talk about a very aggressive deck. We'll start with my practice matches.
Before FNM kicked off, I had an hour to spend play-testing against a deck I was hoping to never see again during match play. The dreaded Grixis Control Standard Deck. I had 4 matches against this deck and couldn't even put a dent in it. Too much removal, too many counters, and too aggressive for my deck. I lost all 4 games in quick fashion to it. First I'll give a run down of the deck that beat me. With a small list of the main culprits that destroyed me and continue to do so with little issues.
The deck Grixis (B/U/R) Control Deck only featured 2 creatures and 1 Planeswalker.
Torrential Gearhulk, Thing in the Ice
Flip, and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh. The rest of the deck featured draw power, removal, counters, and two very hostile cards I couldn't deal with.
Here is the list of the primary hostile cards I had to deal with in the match-ups:
Essence Scatter, Magma Spray, Fatal Push, Torment of Hailfire, Sweltering Suns, Supreme Will, and Countervailing Winds.
With Heroic Intervention's ability to give indestructible to my creatures for a turn, I could survive the Sweltering Suns if it isn't countered. Torment of Hailfire and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh pretty much killed me every match and I never really got started or could do much to contend with the deck. It was a complete nightmare.
FNM Results & Thoughts:
1st Match: Vs. Jund Desert's. The opponent played a bunch of deserts for lands, creatures with triggers from deserts and black & red removal/Burn spells to try and wreck my creatures. It was successful for the most part but usually the opponent kept having issues with keeping up with me and running out of mana each turn. With Adorned Pouncer, Sacred Cat, Anointed Procession with Appeal / Authority and Nature's Way, I was able to usually remove or hinder my opponents creatures while pumping up my own and out-damaging them. Usually the sequence would be:
Turn 1: Play Plains + Sacred Cat
Turn 2: Play Plains or Forest + Metallic Mimic or Adorned Pouncer, Swing with Sacred Cat
Turn 3: Play Plains or Forest + Pride Sovereign or Adorned Pouncer + Appeal / Authority and swing with the previous Adorned Pouncer that has Trample and Double Strike and +x/+x were x is the number of creatures I control on the field. Best case scenario is that I had a Metallic Mimic in play before the adorned pouncer giving the pouncer a +1/+1 counter making it a 2/2. Than play an additional Sacred Cat or Adorned Pouncer with additional counters on them and finish with playing an Appeal / Authority at the end of Main Phase 1 just before the combat phase giving the Adorned Pouncer that is able to attack an additional +2/+2 or +3/+3 to stack with that double strike making me able to strike for between 8 and 12 damage.
Usually by turn 5 with a Regal Caracal, Anointed Procession, and the creation of tokens, the deck usually beat down the opponent. I used Nature's Way to kill their creatures and Authority's aftermath ability to tap their creatures and attack with Vigilance.
Result: 2-0 Win
Match 2: Vs. Blue/Black Mill
The Mill deck basically utilized the Startled Awake
Flip+Fraying Sanity combo to make me mill out. The deck used Torment of Scarabs and counters like Essence Scatter or Supreme Will.
I was able to Cast Out and Fragmentize (After first game) the enchantments and utilized Prowling Serpopard to keep my other creatures from getting countered. The deck didn't have enough removal to keep me from beating him. The Heroic Intervention was also helpful as well. The Adorned Pouncer was the winner in this match-up with the help of Appeal / Authority. I lost the first match handily. But after side-boarding Fragmentizex4 and 1 Cast Out and taking out 2 Nature's Way and 3 Pride Sovereign, the mill deck was very easy to handle. I basically just stalled out his combos and beat him to death with combat damage.
Result: 2-1 Win
Match 3: Vs. Naya Exert Aggro Deck
This match was a little more confusing. My opponent had issues with poor draws and 1 game with being mana-screwed. So I couldn't really gauge how well my deck did against him. I never had to side-board out at all in this match-up. I just was able to get more creatures out faster and was able to utilize Nature's Way to kill creature's and play Appeal / Authority for both abilities to buff, tap creatures, and deal extra additional damage when using Appeal on my Pouncers. I just steamrolled him in under 20 minutes on both games. I think if he had used more white control cards like Declaration in Stone, Cast Out, Magma Spray, and Sweltering Suns, He would have put up a better fight. His deck was too budget and was more focused on using abilities of creatures with exert to dictate the game and it didn't work against my deck.
Result: 2-0 Win
3-0 for the FNM Standard Tournament.
Other thoughts and matches I played after FNM:
I played 5 matches against a 4-color -1/-1 Counter Solemnity Deck. Its main focus was to play Solemnity and then spam 3 and 4 drop creatures that are 4/4 5/4 3/3 and would usually start with -1/-1 counters on them and then just continually deal damage till they beat the opponent. My opponent never was mana-screwed and would usually always start with a decent hand.
The two main problems against this deck was first they their mana curve was the same as me but the creature my opponent played had about 2 to 3 more power and toughness making it hardly to deal with. I ended up using Cast Out on his creatures to remove them, using Nature's Way to deal damage and kill them, or trying to focus on getting as many tokens out as possible to pump up the Pride Sovereign's and use Appeal / Authority to use trample and vigilance and other bonuses to run them over.
The Result ended up being 5-0 in my favor on 5 test matches against the exert deck.
My last match was against a pre-rotation G/W Tribal Cats deck. My only mirror match I had during the day. My opponent was still using lands like Fortified Village, Canopy Vista that will be rotating out. They also were using Declaration in Stone, Always Watching, and Cast Out and not focusing too much on making tokens or using abilities like embalm or eternalize. They also didn't like the Prowling Serpapard. He didn't even use Nature's Way at all and only used 2x Appeal / Authority.
There was basically no match up at all and I beat him in the one game we played.
I had talked to him in regards to the use of energy. He was intrigued by the possibility of using it with cards like Longtusk Cub, Attune to Aether, and Aether Hub. Three cards I already dropped from the deck due mainly in part because of Solemnity and all the issues with playing against that card.
So to finalize the day. I didn't have many changes to the Mainboard. It held up pretty well. I mainly needed to change and fix the sideboard.
I removed the Watcher of the Deadx2 from the Sideboard. They were unnecessary and actually hurt me more by removing playable graveyard cards like Authority, Embalm, and Eternalize.
Vizier of the Menageriex1 was also removed due to not being needed at all and not meeting the "cat" requirement and has a mana-curve that is too high for practical use.
Act of Heroismx2 wasn't used as well and I removed them.
I added Gideon's Interventionx2, Plainsx2, Ramunap Excavatorx2.
