I spent the morning playtesting for a PTQ I'm attending next weekend. I'm pretty excited, since I have only played or twice this month, and I've been itching to get some time to beat face :)
I know that if I'm going to do well I'm going to have to beat Delver consistently and often. I tested against the 3 different variations that I expect will make up the majority of the field: LSV's WMCQ Winning List, Yuuya Watanabe's Runechanter's Pike Delver from last week's Grand Prix, and Sam Black's "Delverless Delver'' featuring Blade Splicer.
A few things I noticed about the matchups in general:
To that end I've added 2 Dismember to the main deck and removed a Timely Reinforcements and a Day of Judgment. Those cards are still quite good in the meta I feel, however the decks that they are amazing against (Zombies, Naya, RG Aggro) are all decks that I have a very good matchup against either way. The Dismembers are excellent for killing off Sworded guys or in response to Swording a Restoration Angel. The flexible cost makes it easier for me to fit it in while casting other stuff, it gives me a turn 1 play, and all around I think it is primed to make a come back at this late stage of its life in Standard.
Won't have too much time to practice before the PTQ, however I am off Friday and my local stor holds 2 Standard Constructed events for FNM, so I can play a bit then to prepare for the big game on Saturday.
I don't know why, but I feel very good about my odds this weekend. Although I haven't actually played much this month, I've kept up with the meta, tested the hell out of my deck, and feel more prepared than ever. Hopefully I can finally pull out a win in this somewhat higher level event as a result.
