TraxDaMax
07-08-2013, 12:39 PM
So,
first off I want to say, I don't actually brew often any more. Although
80% of my top 8's are always homebrews I cook up, I often just take the easy
route and see what everybody else is playing.
I had a tournament coming up, and lately I've only been trying to be doing
broken stuff like bash people for 22 on turn 1 with Griselkul,the Aeons Torn
or picking up my deck and Releasing the Ants on my opponents.
Now for this tournament, I was thinking about a couple of options.
The choices were these in no particular order:
Tin Fins, (B)RUG Delver, U/Wr control with Blood Moon, Lands, Elves, Omnitell.
Now, Elves got cut because my teammate wanted to play elves and had to borrow my Gaea's and Natural Order's, Lands got cut
because I played that last time at this same store and ran into a lot of combo that time.
Omnitell was a good choice if I was lazy, because I had that deck ready to go with a decklist even.
But something was telling me all of these options weren't the things I wanted to be playing.
I had decided that either I'm going to play something really broken, or I will be playing Deathrite Shaman.DEC.
I had been checking out Deathblade, and decided I would play it, untill I kind of had the feeling that the deck
is just a tad too fair. Perhaps, just not spicey enough and pretty linear. The fact that it is linear is a good
thing because consistency is great, but I just felt I could be doing cooler things.
Then I remembered Shardless Agent into Ancestral Vision being the nutterbutters and checked to see what those
decks looked like. I checked some decklists and thought, okay this is looking more like the crazy stuff I'm looking
for, but I really really dislike Tarmogoyf these days. A couple of years ago, I would run 12 Tarmogoyfs if you
would let me, but these days it seems like there are 1001 things to destroy one. I understand, if they don't you
usually just win off it, but you do so off a Batterskull too. So, I decided to take the best of both worlds and
created something I like to call BUG Blade. The deck is spicier then the name. Check it out.
Main (61)
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Notion Thief
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Creeping Tarpit
2 Wasteland
Side(15)
2 Flusterstorm
2 Duress
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Darkblast
2 Meekstone
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Perish
Eventually I went 4-2 with the deck, after making a very bad play in round 5. I should have won,
and go top 8, but lack of sleep, a hangover from saturday of which I still have a headache and
perhaps a tad of overconfidance slapped me in the face when I chose the wrong card with my Thoughtseize.
In short the most important things I remember:
Round 1: Dredge
Win the die roll
G1: I have a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and 3 Force of Wills that make sure he doesn't get a chance to dump anything in his graveyard.
I do stick on 1 land for 5 turns while he lays down 5 lands aka uberflooded for dredge.
G2: Nihil Spellbomb takes care of his early game untill I hit a Deathrite Shaman which takes care of the rest again.
2-0
Round 2: Junk
Win the die roll
G1-G2: I'm not sure exactly how they went, I only remember that we trade Deathrite's for Abrupt, discard here and there but
the main reason I won is Shardless Agent into Stoneforge Mystic in one game and Shardless Agent into Ancestral Vision in the other.
2-0
4-0 in games
Round 3: Elves (my buddy)
Win the die roll(again!)
G1: Stoneforge getting a Jitte is key.
G2: He gets flooded, I also Thoughtseize a couple of key cards out of his hand with the help of Snapcaster Mage.
I also get to land a Engineered Explosives for 1 and once Stoneforge gets Jitte again it's game over.
2-0
6-0 in games
Round 4: Jund
lose the die roll
G1: Hymn to Tourach hits two good cards of mine, although Stoneforge Mystic getting Jitte makes the game somewhat more interesting.
At a certain point we are both cardless, I have Jitte with 4 lands and Creeping Tarpit, and myself at 9 life and him at 9 with a Bloodbraid Elf in play.
I need to draw a land, but draw Thoughtseize and he draws another Bloodbraid Elf which cascades into a Dark Confidant.
G2: At a certain point I can get Batterskull equipped with Jitte and I'm at 29 life. His only card is Sensei's Divining Top, which eventually lets
him dig deep enough to find an Ancient Grudge for a major blowout. I get aggro'ed out pretty quick after a Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant enter the
battlefield on his side.
0-2
6-2 in games
Round 5: Elves (My other buddy)
win the die roll
G1: I crush him with Stoneforge Mystic getting Jitte. This is really a huge reason why this > Tarmogoyf. Elves don't care about Tarmogoyf as much
as a murder machine like Jitte.
G2: Cabal Therapy of him for Force of Will reveals that I don't have a counterspell and he Natural Order's into Behemoth for the win
G3: I make the big mistake here, which costs me top 8.
I have 2 thoughtseize, and with the second instead of taking his Natural Order, I take a Birchlore Ranger which reveals to me that if he
draws a land he'll be able to use the mana from Birchlore to cast NO. So I gambled on him not being able to cast NO for a couple of turns, while
I had Stoneforge Mystic turn 3 to get Jitte, but he drew a Gaea's Cradle off the top which instantly got him the mana for NO into Behemoth.
So, that was a game well tossed by me. Luckily it was one of our team, so granting him top8.
1-2
7-4 in games
Round 6: U/Wr Miracles
lose the die roll
G1: His Moat, Counterbalance/Top and Blood Moon do a lot of work keeping him at 10life untill we both pretty much run out of gas, and I draw a jace which gets to -12.
G2: My Deathrite Shaman's basicly take him down, ignoring the castlewalls Moat provides for my opponent.
2-0
9-4 in games
End result 4-2, 2 people with 12 points get to go to top8, and I just miss out at 9th place. Serves me right for going out and partying I guess :)
If you are looking for a fair deck, with many interactions, and a couple insane ones at that, this is definately a deck to look at.
I built it the day before the tournament and had 0 games with it before.
Throughout the day I had a white mana issue once. But to me, the minor splash is totally worth it.
Notion Thief would be the first cut obviously if I wanted to go to 60 cards, but it's a personal flavour I just wanted to have.
The 2 Inquisition of Kozilek used to be 2 Baleful Strix, but I decided eventually that 3 Thoughtseize and 4 Force of Will as my only disruption/counter
seemed a tad too little so cut the birds and added the semi thoughtseize's 4 and 5.
Anyways, if anybody has questions/remarks I'd be glad to hear them!
first off I want to say, I don't actually brew often any more. Although
80% of my top 8's are always homebrews I cook up, I often just take the easy
route and see what everybody else is playing.
I had a tournament coming up, and lately I've only been trying to be doing
broken stuff like bash people for 22 on turn 1 with Griselkul,the Aeons Torn
or picking up my deck and Releasing the Ants on my opponents.
Now for this tournament, I was thinking about a couple of options.
The choices were these in no particular order:
Tin Fins, (B)RUG Delver, U/Wr control with Blood Moon, Lands, Elves, Omnitell.
Now, Elves got cut because my teammate wanted to play elves and had to borrow my Gaea's and Natural Order's, Lands got cut
because I played that last time at this same store and ran into a lot of combo that time.
Omnitell was a good choice if I was lazy, because I had that deck ready to go with a decklist even.
But something was telling me all of these options weren't the things I wanted to be playing.
I had decided that either I'm going to play something really broken, or I will be playing Deathrite Shaman.DEC.
I had been checking out Deathblade, and decided I would play it, untill I kind of had the feeling that the deck
is just a tad too fair. Perhaps, just not spicey enough and pretty linear. The fact that it is linear is a good
thing because consistency is great, but I just felt I could be doing cooler things.
Then I remembered Shardless Agent into Ancestral Vision being the nutterbutters and checked to see what those
decks looked like. I checked some decklists and thought, okay this is looking more like the crazy stuff I'm looking
for, but I really really dislike Tarmogoyf these days. A couple of years ago, I would run 12 Tarmogoyfs if you
would let me, but these days it seems like there are 1001 things to destroy one. I understand, if they don't you
usually just win off it, but you do so off a Batterskull too. So, I decided to take the best of both worlds and
created something I like to call BUG Blade. The deck is spicier then the name. Check it out.
Main (61)
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Notion Thief
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Creeping Tarpit
2 Wasteland
Side(15)
2 Flusterstorm
2 Duress
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Darkblast
2 Meekstone
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Perish
Eventually I went 4-2 with the deck, after making a very bad play in round 5. I should have won,
and go top 8, but lack of sleep, a hangover from saturday of which I still have a headache and
perhaps a tad of overconfidance slapped me in the face when I chose the wrong card with my Thoughtseize.
In short the most important things I remember:
Round 1: Dredge
Win the die roll
G1: I have a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and 3 Force of Wills that make sure he doesn't get a chance to dump anything in his graveyard.
I do stick on 1 land for 5 turns while he lays down 5 lands aka uberflooded for dredge.
G2: Nihil Spellbomb takes care of his early game untill I hit a Deathrite Shaman which takes care of the rest again.
2-0
Round 2: Junk
Win the die roll
G1-G2: I'm not sure exactly how they went, I only remember that we trade Deathrite's for Abrupt, discard here and there but
the main reason I won is Shardless Agent into Stoneforge Mystic in one game and Shardless Agent into Ancestral Vision in the other.
2-0
4-0 in games
Round 3: Elves (my buddy)
Win the die roll(again!)
G1: Stoneforge getting a Jitte is key.
G2: He gets flooded, I also Thoughtseize a couple of key cards out of his hand with the help of Snapcaster Mage.
I also get to land a Engineered Explosives for 1 and once Stoneforge gets Jitte again it's game over.
2-0
6-0 in games
Round 4: Jund
lose the die roll
G1: Hymn to Tourach hits two good cards of mine, although Stoneforge Mystic getting Jitte makes the game somewhat more interesting.
At a certain point we are both cardless, I have Jitte with 4 lands and Creeping Tarpit, and myself at 9 life and him at 9 with a Bloodbraid Elf in play.
I need to draw a land, but draw Thoughtseize and he draws another Bloodbraid Elf which cascades into a Dark Confidant.
G2: At a certain point I can get Batterskull equipped with Jitte and I'm at 29 life. His only card is Sensei's Divining Top, which eventually lets
him dig deep enough to find an Ancient Grudge for a major blowout. I get aggro'ed out pretty quick after a Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant enter the
battlefield on his side.
0-2
6-2 in games
Round 5: Elves (My other buddy)
win the die roll
G1: I crush him with Stoneforge Mystic getting Jitte. This is really a huge reason why this > Tarmogoyf. Elves don't care about Tarmogoyf as much
as a murder machine like Jitte.
G2: Cabal Therapy of him for Force of Will reveals that I don't have a counterspell and he Natural Order's into Behemoth for the win
G3: I make the big mistake here, which costs me top 8.
I have 2 thoughtseize, and with the second instead of taking his Natural Order, I take a Birchlore Ranger which reveals to me that if he
draws a land he'll be able to use the mana from Birchlore to cast NO. So I gambled on him not being able to cast NO for a couple of turns, while
I had Stoneforge Mystic turn 3 to get Jitte, but he drew a Gaea's Cradle off the top which instantly got him the mana for NO into Behemoth.
So, that was a game well tossed by me. Luckily it was one of our team, so granting him top8.
1-2
7-4 in games
Round 6: U/Wr Miracles
lose the die roll
G1: His Moat, Counterbalance/Top and Blood Moon do a lot of work keeping him at 10life untill we both pretty much run out of gas, and I draw a jace which gets to -12.
G2: My Deathrite Shaman's basicly take him down, ignoring the castlewalls Moat provides for my opponent.
2-0
9-4 in games
End result 4-2, 2 people with 12 points get to go to top8, and I just miss out at 9th place. Serves me right for going out and partying I guess :)
If you are looking for a fair deck, with many interactions, and a couple insane ones at that, this is definately a deck to look at.
I built it the day before the tournament and had 0 games with it before.
Throughout the day I had a white mana issue once. But to me, the minor splash is totally worth it.
Notion Thief would be the first cut obviously if I wanted to go to 60 cards, but it's a personal flavour I just wanted to have.
The 2 Inquisition of Kozilek used to be 2 Baleful Strix, but I decided eventually that 3 Thoughtseize and 4 Force of Will as my only disruption/counter
seemed a tad too little so cut the birds and added the semi thoughtseize's 4 and 5.
Anyways, if anybody has questions/remarks I'd be glad to hear them!