Dies to Removal

Question for you guys: How do you play the match against G devo? I have been trying to control them but beating a resolved Garruk is really an uphill battle. However racing T3 Polukranos into t4 Kalonian Hydra is quite the tall order as well.

It seems to me that with mono G their fast draws are too fast for us to beat race and their CA is too strong for us to control. It is very likely that i just don't play well enough to beat the MU (something I'm working on improving), but I think having a general strategy for the MU (like i have for most other MUs thanks to MDU's amazing videos) would be really helpful.

I would advise against adding blue to the deck. It makes us less consistent and Verdict can hurt us just as much as it can hurt our enemies. If you want to run a sweeper, look into using Anger of the Gods or Mizzium Mortars. That gives us some added protection against the swarm decks while keeping our mana base intact.

What he said.

Also i don't really see what we want the sweeper for. The match-ups where sweepers are really good are already in our favor (thinking on GW and red aggro here) and vs UW (which is a hard match-up) the sweeper is totally dead. And the extra dmg you'd take from the lands would make the mirror practically unwinable.

if you're referring to the Donald Smith poster, yea that's me.

Nice try man, nice try

I just don't see wasting a spell to turn a 2/2 into a 3/3 or 4/4. Casting on their turn isn't important since you want them blowing their pumps and protections on your turn.

Everything else has far greater priority than him. I'm not even eager to hit it with an early chains if I know they have bigger creatures and auras waiting. Then again, I run creatures that can wall it so maybe that skews my opinion.

Totally with you on this one. I will genreally only kill the Voice if i have too much removal in hand (when does that ever happen anyway) or he is totally out of gas. A 2/2 that i can chump forever with YP tokens just isn't much of a threat.

(When i realized this some time last season my GW MU went from being very hard to being relatively
easy, against us voice only gets better when you kill it)

Depends what he does with Jace. I'm going to guess that he goes +1 which seems to be the obvious choice for him here.

In that case, even if you kill Jace, your army will still only swing for 1 (which must go on Jace to kill him) and you will be totally out of good cards in hand, which seems like a bad position to be in, especially when he has 5 cards in hand. I think I would bank on getting lucky, go for his face and hope to get a good card off the top. If you rip Helix or Charm off the top you win, if not his 5 mana revelation is not too terrifying if you draw any other burn spell. If you draw another land you'll probably loose in either case.

But I am by no means sure it is the best play.

While font has a really good damage/card, it's damage/mana is just horrible. It seems a lot like T//T in that It's probably a good card in your starting hand. I just can't help thinking it's gonna feel really awkward to topdeck this with 4-5 mana on the table and you opponent at 2 (the kind of thing i know would happen to me ). Against control i think 1-drops might just be better (for that early pressure). Against midrange? Idk, if a big burn spell is what what we need this fits, and it's probably better than T//T there as they will quickly be on fewer than 5 cards in hand.

I guess it's reasonable to say that Burn matches up well against Bx's plan, but the raw power of Bx decks makes it tough to beat them if we don't have the answer immediately, and their discard makes having that especially tough.

Yes, Bx is very powerful and some games we just get steam rolled. Most games however, I find that the black player is struggling to find pressure before they die. Often i see the B player doing desperate stuff like casting Grey Merchant into skullcrack mana simply because passing the turn means losing.

My strategy against Bx is to try and pressure their life total as early as possible to keep them on their heels.

Just won my first FNM ever (going 3-1 with best tiebreakers) using this list:

[deck]
Creatures
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer

Spells
2 Chained to the Rocks
1 Banishing Light
3 Shock
1 Searing Blood
2 Flames of the Firebrand
4 Lightning Strike
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Boros Charm
4 Magma Jet

Lands
2 Borors Guildgate
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Mutavault
1 Temple of Silence
1 Temple of Malice
9 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Toil/Trouble
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Wear//Tear
1 Banishing Light
1 Spark Trooper
[/deck]

R1 vs Mono black 2-1
Game one i cannot find a white source and 2x Desecration Demon make short work of me.
Sideboard: -4 Boros Charm -1 Searing Blood +2 Chained to the Rocks, +1 Banishing light, +2 Chandra
Game 2 and three were similar and both came down to me chaining his demon and skullcracking him when he played grey
merchant. Finished him rather quickly.

R2 vs Boros Devotion 1-2
Game 1 i mana screw and he beats me to death with stormbreath dragon
Sideboard: -4 Skullcrack -1 Boros Charm, +3 Mizzium Mortars +1 Banishing Light +1 Spark Trooper (had no clue how to board for this MU)
Game 2 I remove everything he plays, and when he taps out on turn 3 for Phoenix i MJ it, untap and slam Spark Trooper, followed up by Warleaders Helix on the next 2 turns. This was never really a game.
Game 3 was similar to game 2 except i don't hit as much removal and he top decks 3 fanatic of mogis in a row. C'est la vie.

R3 vs Bg Devotion 2-0
This was my good friend and testing buddy, so i knew his deck really well, and knew that the match-up can be completely unwinnable if he draws all his answers, luckily he didn't.
Game 1 he gets mana screwed and i destroy him,
Sideboard: -4 Boros Charm -1 Searing Blood +2 Chained to the Rocks, +1 Banishing light, +2 Chandra (Chained and Banishing are not nearly as good here because of
Abrupt Decay but i had to remove his damn demon so in they went)
Game 2 i have an answer for his t2 rat, one for his t3 LBZ, one for his t4 Demon and skullcrack for his t6 Grey Merchant, during this time my Chandra's Phoenix had been slowly chipping him down. He never saw deacy

R4 vs BW Midrange 2-1
I had dreaded this match-up all day. This guy is one of the best players in the store and BW being packed with hard to answer lifegain dudes made me really unhappy to face him.
Game 1 i never see a white source and die to pack rat.
Sideboard: -1 Searing Blood -2 Boros Charm, +3 Mizzium Martars. (I had no idea how to board here and probably did it all wrong)
Game 2 he does a whole lot of nothing (except for removing stuff) for the first 4 turns, then plays a Blood Baron t5. T6 he duresses me, i skullcrack in responce, and show him a hand of Skullcrack, Warleaders Helix and magma jet and 2x Phoenix (Which i had just pulled
out of the GY), he takes skullcrack and attack with baron. I EoT Magma Jet him, hoping to see Mortars in the top 2, I do not and bottom both. My turn, topdeck..... Mortars. I beat him from there as he doesn't find anymore threats before he is dead.
Game 3 he is low on land and is using Underworld Connections to dig for them, when he finally finds the 2nd white for ghost dad i have skullcrack in hand and 2 Phoenix on the table with him on 6 life.

Overall experience, I need to become better, at sideboarding and at playing my hand. But the deck is simply amazing, I feel like there is always an out to win a game, I haven't played with Eidolon, but i cannot imagine playing this list without YP$, that little guy is good. Also, i should make room for Reprisal and Fated Conflagration in SB, i needed both more than once.

Turn/Burn is such an underpowered card to splash for >_>
.

It would also allow us to play Keranos out of the board (taking the slot that assemble used to hold). He provides (almost) the same kind of inevitability and is indestructible. Could be good, could be terrible, I'm inclined to think the latter but i just wanted to mention it.

Could this work in RB? Erebos seems really good in burn due to the not gaining life thing and drawing cards when you run out of gas. And Rakdos' Return could really do a number on some of the slower decks. Furthermore Dreadbore succeeds in taking out troublesome walkers as well as creatures.