Got some notes from today's testing. I'll spare everyone the notes from the Abzan Weenie's matchup, because that deck proved itself to be a steaming pile. Either that, or it has zero way to win against 2 mana burn spells in general.
Searing Blood and
Monastery Swiftspear means that he can never attack while I have 2 mana open, or he risks losing 2 creatures and I spend 1 card. The Abzan Midrange guy had classes all day, and then had to go to work so I didn't get to test against that.
Anyway, here's some scribblings relating to the matchup vs RUG:
His decklist:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kaiju-shenanigans/
Halfway during testing, he decided that he hated the
Temur Charm, and replaced them with [card]Stubborn
Denial[/card]. He's also running 2 Kiora instead of just 1, since he doesn't have a Sarkhan. And there are 2
Mana Confluence somewhere in there, he really needs to update the decklist on there or something.
My decklist is posted in this thread, above.
The turn 2
Savage Knuckleblade is real, and it pretty scary. The good news is that I did actually beat it in a race, thanks to
Deflecting Palm, and some lucky draws set up by
Magma Jet. The amount of life lost from lands is pretty good for our burn deck.
Burning out the
Elvish Mystic, if you are on the play, is extremely important. No surprises there.
Icy Blast is extremely annoying, but at least you can convoke a
Stoke the Flames in response to diminish the value.
The mana base for my list worked much better than
expected. If I didn't have all 3 colors available on turn 3, I generally got them by turn 5, and playing a
Mantis Rider on turn 5 is still a solid play if you still have a burn spell in hand. I will say though, moving forward, I will be testing 2
Mana Confluence in place of 2 Mountains. I really like not having any CIPT lands, and this deck really needs all it's mana available at all times.
Individual card notes:
Monastery Swiftspear is fucking awesome. Punishes other aggro strategies for attack into it with mana open, and can give a very aggressive start against decks that stumble with CIPT lands and not having the colors they need.
Sylvan Caryatid still bricks it for a while, but it kind of does that to most early drops anyway. This hasn't come up in testing yet, but being able to attack into a
Courser of Kruphix with 2 mana open is pretty sweet
too.
Goblin Rabblemaster, I'm sorry I even doubted you. If they don't have the removal spell, then it gets out of hand quickly. It's also worth noting that he's super easy to cast, when all you need is 1 red source and anything else. When they do remove him, that just clears the way for another high impact creature. He also trades pretty favorably with the big creatures in the format.
Mantis Rider, absolutely bonkers, as expected. Great offense, great defense. Attack for 3, and then he's there to block any pesky 1 drops that stuck around, or just chump block so you can survive for the untap and burn finish.
Magma Jet is still sweet, especially given my lack of Scry. May bump it up to 4.
Lightning Strike almost always just went to the face, or eliminated a Kiora every now and then.
Searing Blood, awesome, run 4.
[card]
Deflecting Palm[/card], this over-performed for sure. I'm almost 100% on going up to 3 in the main. It got me out of a bunch of tough spots that no other card would have been able to do. All you really need to do is target a 3 power creature with it to get the value out of it. Great at screwing up combat math and letting you survive 1 more turn to win the game.
Jeskai Charm is pretty fucking sweet. The Lifelink mode is way more useful than I expected, especially if you have a Swiftspear or some Goblin tokens attacking. Definitely performed for me. Didn't use the bounce effect too often, but it was useful when I needed it. 4 damage for 3 mana is pretty nice too, when you need to top deck the killing blow.
Stoke the Flames, still great, run 4. Convoke to save your goblins, kill a Knuckleblade, kill a Courser, kill a planeswalker, etc. Great spell.
Mindswipe, underperformed. I don't think I had it
actually counter anything today, and one time I had both in my opening hand and it ruined me. Probably good in the hyper-late game, but it pretty much didn't do shit for me. 100% on removing both.
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker, pretty sweet. Mostly used the removal mode, and forced my opponent to commit damage to him instead of my life total.
Stormbreath Dragon, 1 is fine. He's still pretty solid, and dodges a lot of the current removal in the format. Late game mana sink if you flood, strong solo finisher.
Moving forward:
Removing the 2
Mindswipe, since they didn't do dick all day. Options to fill those slots include another
Deflecting Palm, more
Magma Jet, or 2
Turn to Frog. My testing partners today seemed to like the idea of
Turn to Frog as removal, blocking the attacking
frog, or dropping a flyer to the ground to push in some flying damage. A lot of my games today involved scenarios where one player was forced into the path of racing, and cards that let you live for another turn or 2 are super solid.
Tips from my judge buddy: Don't forget to call a judge any time your opponent forgets to show you a Morph creature when it leaves the battlefield. If it goes to his hand before showing it to you, then that's grounds for a game loss. Also, you do not have to declare Prowess triggers when you cast spells, only when they become relevant, such as when damage is dealt. Expect blowouts early on in tournaments, due to people forgetting that creatures are bigger than they look. The Prowess trigger is derived information, based on you casting a spell earlier in the turn.
