{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wrath of God, City of Brass, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}
When I left off two weeks ago, I was on version five of Rat’s Nest. I had fourteen tickets left and had already picked up four copies of Barter in Blood for the sideboard. (As I mentioned in the first part, I’m trying to get this deck to be good enough to play in a Standard Constructed tournament. That means I’ll need a sideboard.) While we were away, I found someone who had Oblivion Stones at four tickets each. Given how this deck handles artifacts and enchantments (i.e. it doesn’t), the O-Stones were a must. I picked up three (since I couldn’t afford four). That left me with two tickets. I figured the deck also needed something for the weenie swarms. I was able to trade one ticket to get four Hideous Laughters. That left me with one single ticket and a deck that looked like this:
Rat’s Nest, v.5.0
24 Lands
23 Swamp
1 Stalking Stones
24 Creatures
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Nezumi Graverobber
4 Skullsnatcher
4 Nezumi Ronin
4 Throat Slitter
2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
2 Patron of the Nezumi
12 Other Spells
4 Echoing Decay
2 Rend Flesh
3 Horobi’s Whisper
1 Stir the Grave
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
15 Sideboard
4 Barter in Blood
4 Hideous Laughter
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Hmmmmm…
The most popular suggestion by far was to add Aether Vials. (The most popular way to suggest this was via e-mail. I don’t know why people would rather not put stuff in the fora, but I like the fora better for this kind of thing because it allows more discussion. In the fora, people can comment on the suggestions and make other suggestions. In e-mails, it’s just me.) There were only two problems with this. First, only one person – one person – suggested what to take out of the deck. In tuning a deck, the most important part isn’t always what you’re putting in. Sometimes, it’s what you’re taking out. Second, I was down to one ticket. You can’t get Aether Vials for one ticket.
After perusing some of the suggestions and realizing that I’d never get Aether Vials for this deck, it seemed to be up to me to finish it out. First, though, I’d have to get in some games with version five.
Game 28 vs. Malavander playing Mono-Black: He conceded to me when I was at twenty life. I think it was the Jitte that came into play. If he wasn’t playing his own, he had no way to deal with it. (1-0)
Game 29 vs. ehbrah playing Mono-White Arcbound: I lost this because I’m stupid. With counters on my Jitte, I chose not to kill his 1/1 Arcbound Stinger and killed something else instead. The Stinger ended up dealing enough damage after he got a few more Modular counters on it to kill me. (1-1)
Game 30 vs. Grey-Render playing Mono-Blue: I’m not sure what kind of Mono-Blue this guy was playing because he conceded to me on turn four when I dropped a Jitte. I fully expected the thing to get countered. I guess he didn’t have any Mana Leaks, Rewinds, or Minamo’s Meddlings. (2-1)
Game 31 vs. Shaytalis playing Mono-White: Again, the Jitte proves its power. Decks with a lot of weenies can not stand up to the Jitte. They have to be able to kill the Jitte. (3-1)
Game 32 vs. Kalinder playing a Green/Blue Deck: My second-turn Nezumi Graverobber was Condescended when he only had Forests on his side of the board. Huh? Oh, right, he had an Orochi Leafcaller to filter for Blue. He ramped up to a Thorn Elemental. If you can’t kill that guy, he’s very bad. So, I swung with two Rats, pulled back the one that was unblocked, dropped Throatslitter in its place, and killed Thorny. Yes, we learned new math in this one:
Throatslitter > Thorn Elemental (if Throatslitter = unblocked). (4-1)
Something felt weird about these five games. There were two quick concessions. I got a fast Jitte in four of the five while my opponent had no way to deal with it. These are all nice occurrences, but, for some reason, it just didn’t feel right. I hadn’t seen the Jitte so quickly (it’s only one-thirtieth of the deck) in so many consecutive games. Still, I was going to change the deck.
I decided to drop the Stir the Grave. I had visions of reanimating a Patron of the Nezumi, but I can’t ever remember using it. If the deck uses something to bring back creatures, it should probably be Soulless Revival. I also wanted another Stalking Stones since they’re uncounterable. That means dropping a Swamp. I didn’t think it would hurt. Color had not been a problem at all. I wanted a third (and fourth?) Okiba-Gang Shinobi, but I didn’t want to drop any non-creature spells. After pondering top tier tourney decks, the presence of Cranial Extraction in Standard made me think that three Skullsnatchers would be fine. Finally, the same reasoning (along with flattening the mana curve) convinced me to drop the fourth Echoing Decay for a third Rend Flesh. This left version six looking like this:
Rat’s Nest, v.6.0
24 Lands
22 Swamp
2 Stalking Stones
25 Creatures
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Nezumi Graverobber
3 Skullsnatcher
4 Nezumi Ronin
4 Throat Slitter
3 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
3 Patron of the Nezumi
11 Other Spells
3 Echoing Decay
3 Rend Flesh
3 Horobi’s Whisper
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
Okay, that looks fairly Cranial Extraction-proof, I mean, as much as I’m willing to make it without making it a Highlander/Singleton deck. You can’t fear a card like Cranial Extraction too much, or the C.E. deck’s already won.
Game 33 vs. rich1977 playing Red/Green Something: He was obviously planning on playing defense early and offense late. His first non-land permanent was a Taproot Kami. So was his second. Luckily, Echoing Decay beats all Taproots when there’s only two Forests on the board. I dropped a turn-four Shinobi off of an attacking Skullsnatcher and emptied his hand. After that, I just had to kill whatever creature he topdecked. (1-0)
Game 34 vs. ALT3205 playing Mono-Red: Mono-Red scares me. They can kill every creature that I can drop (other than the Patron) with ease. Of course, I have two advantages. For one, with a Patron in hand, I can turn a Rat targeted by burn into a 6/6 Super-Rat. Second, a lot of people wait until we’re into the Declare Blockers Step to cast burn. At that point, I can Ninjutsu out a Ninja and pull back the targeted critter. This game showed me the need for a three-mana creature. He got two Zo-Zu, the Punishers, in the first five turns. I had no true three-mana creature to drop (the Nezumi Ronins never showed), although I could Ninjutsu out a Throat Slitter. Luckily, I killed both Zo-Zu before they hurt me. As for the three-mana Rat, I had been pondering dropping Nezumi Ronin. Now, that didn’t look so good. However, the Chittering Rats that a lot of forum hounds suggested started looking good. Anyway, I won this because I had more creature kill than he did. (2-0)
Game 35 vs. giant killer playing . . . Rat’s Nest Pre-Con?: His first play was a Nezumi Cutthroat followed by a Nezumi Bone-Reader. For some reason, with me at nine life and him still at a full twenty, he conceded when I dropped a Jitte. This didn’t make a lot of sense to me. He could have gotten his Jitte, too. Oh, well. (3-0)
Game 36 vs. Jieme playing Black/White: His strategy seemed to be to play with White Weenies and Black creature destruction. I killed a critter and quickly flipped my Graverobber. Then, after a Kabuto Moth hit his graveyard, I stole it for my own use. It ended with me at nineteen life and holding five cards. (4-0)
Game 37 vs bkrieg73 playing Blue/Artifact Lattice/March: One of the (many, many, many) differences me and a Pro Tour caliber player is that when a PTP-er sees something like a Mycosynth Lattice deck, post-Affinity bannings, s/he probably thinks, “Scrub. I own this guy.” Me, I think “This guy must have something very tricky up his sleeve. I gotta be careful.” He did. I wasn’t. He got out a Lattice and a Memnarch. The next turn, he then tapped out to play March of the Machines after having cast a card-drawing spell or two. It was too late at night for me to still be playing; I should have been asleep. Had I not clicked so quickly, I would have floated mana and killed Memnarch. That would have won me the game. He wouldn’t have attacked with his Lattice because I had enough power on board to block and kill it. Neither of us would have ever been able to cast another spell because lands wouldn’t stay in play thanks to the Lattice/March lock. I would have drawn him out because he had fewer cards in his deck thanks to his card-drawing. Of course, it was late, I was tired, and I did indeed click “OK” before I meant to. He won. I lost. (officially, 4-1; really 5-0)
Game 38 vs. FinkishOne playing Ogres & Demons: Did that stop me? Of course, not! For you, the faithful readers, I plowed on through my fuzzy-brained tiredness and played a few more games, thanks to two cans of Diet Cherry-Vanilla Dr. Pepper. (That stuff is off the hook, boy-eeee!) I am nothing if not committed. Hmmmm . . . “dedicated” would probably be a better word. No, wait, committed is right. Must get sleep soon. Where was I? Oh, yeah, Game 38. I don’t know if he just got a bad draw or if his deck suffered from the same problem that many of the Demon/Ogre decks do, namely The “What Are Your Turn 1 and 2 Plays” Problem. I got a Skullsnatcher on turn 2. He got nothing until turn three and turn four Bloodthirsty Ogres. Both were done in by a single Echoing Decay. After that, it was all Rats. (5-1)
Game 39 vs. Dmuse playing Snakes: This game was another testament to the power of the great uncommon Nezumi Graverobber. He conceded on turn seven when I blew up his Seshiro with a flipped Graverobber on the board. I guess he didn’t want to get beat by his own Seshiro. “Who’s your daddy,” indeed! (6-1)
Game 40 vs. FinkishOne (again): As I’ve said, I don’t like rematches, but he deserved one. I figured his deck had just punked out on him. Nope. Rat’s Nest just ate him up again. (7-1)
“Officially,” then, I was 7-1 with version six. Really, though, it was 8-0, baby. Now, it’s bed time. G’night.
“The Next Night . . .”
At this point, I was very confident with the deck. I try not to mess with success. (I hate that mindless business platitude that “Change is Good.” Not always. Good changes, of course, are good. Not all change is good, though. For example, Enron changed from being a multi-billion-dollar corporation to being a worthless corporation. Was that good? Having an arm amputated is a change. Is that good?) There were just two things I wanted to do for the next few games. First, I dropped the Nezumi Ronins for Chittering Rats. (I had gotten four of those in my initial one-ticket-for-32-commons trade as well as four Distresses.) As many folks pointed out, if bringing back Ravenous Rats off of Ninjutsu is good, so is bringing back Chittering Rats. (Ditto for Nekrataal, but I had plenty of removal at that point.) Next, I had to figure out what to do for that last sideboard slot. I also had to agree with the people who mentioned how bad Mono-Blue Control (a.k.a. MUC) would be for Rat’s Nest because of Vedalken Shackles. I made the final sideboard slot into Distress.
Rat’s Nest, v.7.0
24 Lands
22 Swamp
2 Stalking Stones
25 Creatures
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Nezumi Graverobber
3 Skullsnatcher
4 Chittering Rats
4 Throat Slitter
3 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
3 Patron of the Nezumi
11 Other Spells
3 Echoing Decay
3 Rend Flesh
3 Horobi’s Whisper
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
15 Sideboard
4 Barter in Blood
4 Hideous Laughter
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Distress
My plan was to play ten more games in the Casual Room before making any final changes and heading to the Tournament Practice room for some best-two-of-three matches. One thing that I noticed in this next set of games was how Umezawa’s Jitte is no longer considered “casual” even though its impact on the real-world tourney scene is just starting to be felt. (Check out the results from French Regionals. Should be to the right and up a little.) This was interesting to me because everyone has their own idea of what “casual” means on MTGO. To me, it means no decks that are already proven tourney decks and no abuse of cards that are foundations for such decks (e.g. Tooth and Nail). It’s all very much like p0rnography: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. For example, if I see Kokusho, that doesn’t bother me. Hey, he drafted a Kokusho once. If I see Cranial Extraction on turn 3 thanks to Birds of Paradise, the C.E. gets Regrowth-ed by Eternal Witness, and I then see Kokusho, that’s not casual even if the deck isn’t exactly like any of the G/B Control decks that have won tourneys.
On the flip side, I had at least once been accused of playing a “netdeck” because I had a flipped Graverobber putting stuff into play. I believe his exact words were “Nice netdeck, you !” (MTGO is very sensitive.) All I could say was “Thanks! I made it myself!” I didn’t want people to just concede upon seeing the Jitte. I needed full games. This could have been a problem except that I was almost done in the Casual Decks room.
Game 41 vs. MSEinstein playing Red/White Beats: He got a first-turn Akki Avalanchers while I missed my third-turn land. Again, Rat’s Nest just showed how resilient it was. On turn 4, I got a Chittering Rats while holding a Throat Slitter. He swung with his Avalanchers. I figured he wouldn’t sac a land to it given that he only had two at the time, but I didn’t want to risk it. Throat Slitter would take care of him soon enough. After combat, he dropped a Plains and a Lantern Kami, which was not expected. I swung with the Rats, he didn’t block, and the Throat Slitter came out to kill the Avalanchers. The next turn, he dropped the Brothers Yamazaki. I swung with the Throat Slitter on my turn. With damage on the stack, out came the Patron on the Nezumi. People had been asking how much damage had been done by the Patron’s triggered ability and how much by the fact that he was a 6/6 freak of nature. In this game, my opponent lost four life to the Patron’s triggered ability. (1-0)
Game 42 vs. tysmith626 playing Mono-Red: Even though he was playing mono-Red, I was at twenty life when it ended. This game was all about Chittering and Ravenous Rats. Replaying either thanks to Ninjutsu is Da Bomb, especially when the Okiba-Gang Shinobi is involved. That’s just a lot of hand destruction. (2-0)
Game 43 vs. Shoujin playing Mono-Black Beats: My entire note on this one is “Graverobber flipped on T3 is nice.” (3-0)
Game 44 vs. Tsupa playing Blue/Green: He Condescended something early after I had to mulligan to five. For some reason, he did not swing his Eternal Witness, which had gotten back the Condescend, into my Skullsnatcher. Instead, on his fourth turn, he hardcast a Ninja of the Deep Hours. I resolved a Jitte, and he conceded. (4-0)
Game 45 vs. plankofwood playing Green/Black: I quickly emptied his hand, thanks to Chittering and Ravenous Rats, and flipped a Nezumi Graverobber. Then, when I had only five lands on board, he cast Ravenous Rats. I dropped a Patron of the Nezumi into my graveyard and reanimated it at the end of his turn. (5-0)
Game 46 vs. HappyHaunt playing Green/Black Control: This was another of those decks people don’t want to see in the casual room. Eternal Witness. Viridian Zealot. Kokusho. Not very casual. On the flip side, it too him until turn 11 to kill me. (5-1)
Game 47 vs. Sweeperhold playing Black/White Beats: He never got much going. It looked as if the White was for the weenies while the Black was for creature kill. My creature kill worked better on his White creatures than his did on my Black ones. (6-1)
Game 48 vs. MM Magician playing Mono-Green Fecundity Beats: Not to beat a dead horse, but here’s another deck that didn’t belong in the casual room. His first three plays were: Fecundity; Beacon of Creation; and Fecundity. Ring any bells? Of course, I had fun with the game anyway and, as usual, didn’t say anything to him. I’m going to have to beat these decks in the tourney room, right? So, no need to complain about it. Still, it seemed kind of heavy-handed for the casual room. Of course, I had Echoing Decay. Man, if the card drawing on Fecundity was mandatory, I’d have drawn him out. At least it took him until turn thirteen to kill me. I felt pretty good about that. I’m pretty sure it would have gone longer had I gotten a Nezumi Graverobber. His Eternal Witnesses (he had three out or in the graveyard by game’s end) kept bringing stuff back. In addition, had I seen a second Echoing Decay, it would have been game thanks to the Patron on the Nezumi being on board. As it was, the Patron had sucked about eight life off of him anyway. When he won, he was at six. (6-2)
Game 49 vs. clwirth77 playing Mono-Green Beats: I think he was playing a modified Eight Edition pre-constructed deck because I saw nothing but commons and uncommons like Spined Wurm, Grizzly Bears, and Towering Baloth. I refused to drop the Jitte or the Patron and instead decided to battle him budget on budget. Rat’s Nest won thanks to creature removal. (7-2)
Game 50 vs. kuberr playing Red/Blue Combo: I don’t know exactly what the combo was. I do know that he mulliganned to seven thanks to Serum Powder. I dropped Ravenous Rats on the second turn and Chittering Rats on the third turn. During fourth-turn combat, I Ninjutsu-ed out a Shinobi. With his hand empty, he conceded. (8-2)
I think that fifty games is plenty. Don’t you? There are a ton of different ways that I could have taken the deck. I didn’t have a chance to try Aether Vial or Ornithopter. Maybe we could have gone with a one-drop creature like Maggot Carrier to help power out Ninjas. I would surely like to see what this can do bringing back Nekrataals, too. As it is, I’ve played fifty games, and this version seems solid.
The real question is, how will it do against proven decks? Tomorrow (which is the next paragraph for you), I’ll be heading to the Tournament Practice room to find out.
“On the Final Day . . .”
Match 51 vs. ancient evil playing Crystal Witness with Mindslaver: Oh, joy. Guess what? Ted got to see this one. I was so embarrassed. You know what? Mindslaver recursion with Crystal Shard and Eternal Witness is ugly. I had no way to stop it. Nezumi Graverobber, where were you? I was, however, smart enough to board out the Patrons in anticipation of Bribery. At least I got that right. When he cast his Briberies, he took Chittering Rats. Hey, he had to get something. (0-1)
Match 52 vs. Goblin Goon playing R/G Something: I really don’t know exactly what this was because in both games he conceded early to discard/hand destruction (Ravenous Rats and Chittering Rats). I didn’t sideboard because I had no idea what exactly he was playing. It didn’t matter. (1-1)
Match 53 vs. Rockerbob playing Mono-Green Fecundity/Beacon of Creation: I don’t know if this is the latest “secret tech” to hit the streets, though I’d find that hard to believe considering how many of those decks I’ve faced in real life before they dropped of the radar a few months ago. Anyway, game one was long and drawn out. I had to mulligan to five, and I hate that. I abhor it. I know it’s going to happen once in a while, even in a twenty-four-land deck. What I’ve noticed, though, is that, when it starts happening on a certain night, it keeps happening.
Having no creature removal, he had no way to get rid of my Nezumi Graverobber. That meant the Graverobber could prevent all of those silly Eternal Witness tricks. That was fine as it regarded Rude Awakening and Rampant Growth. Beacon of Creation doesn’t hit the ‘yard, though, unless it’s countered. Main deck Echoing Decay was huge for me, but it also drew him a ton of cards. (Again, I wish they’d make that ability mandatory so that I could draw guys out.) I got him down to three but couldn’t close it out.
For game two, I brought in the four Hideous Laughters and dropped the three Rend Fleshes and a Horobi’s Whisper. My theory was simple. He had very few non-token creatures that I needed to kill via spells. In fact, all I had seen were Eternal Witness and Sakura-Tribe Elder. What I needed was something to instantly kill a lot of creatures. That meant bringing in the Hideous Laughters. I also brought in the Distresses for the other two Horobi’s Whispers and two Skullsnatchers knowing that hammering his hand, taking Awakening or Beacon, would be key.
I didn’t bring in the Oblivion Stone because I didn’t care about killing the Fecundity. I know that seems counterintuitive. After all, the Fecundity was drawing him cards, getting him to Beacon and Awakening more quickly. However, it drew cards for me, too. Besides, only Beacon of Creation and Rude Awakening were actual problems. Both would be taken care of via Hideous Laughter and Echoing Decay. (Either one on Rude Awakening in essentially “game over, man!”) Heck, even Jitte counters could kill some tokens. With a total of nine of those in my deck plus drawing with the Fecundity, I figured I’d be okay, especially since the Patron gives me a way to sacrifice my own creatures and draw cards. As long as he didn’t bring in life gain, I could win on constant beats after removing potential blockers. (I also envisioned him casting some huge Awakening or Beacon in response to which I’d cast the Patron out. I’d follow that with Echoing Decay, killing him with life loss from the Patron. A boy can dream, can’t he?)
WARNING: As I’ve said before, I believe that sideboarding is the weakest part of my game. I bring in too much or not enough or just take the wrong stuff out. If you disagree with my moves, you’re probably right.
Game two was all mine. A second-turn Distress followed by a Ravenous Rats and Chittering Rats, and he lost the connection. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt (plus I wanted to get in a full match), so I left the game up, waiting for him to pop back on. In the meantime, I played a casual game using an R/G KBC deck. When he came back on about twenty minutes later, I ended it with Chittering Rats-Wearing-the-Jitte beatdown, backed up by Hideous Laughter. (You can have the Rats survive the Laughter by using a counter to make it a 4/4 until the end of the turn. Cool, no?)
Oh, lookie at this! I had to mulligan to five again in game three. (This would be my last match of the night.) I saw one Echoing Decay, no Graverobbers, and no Hideous Laughters in the entire game. Ravenous Rats was useless since he just brought back stuff with the Eternal Witness. This game was much longer that it needed to be, though. I think he was toying with me to teach me a lesson of some sort. I’m not very smart. Thus, I learned nothing from it. (1-2)
Match 54 vs. Prairie_dogger playing Mono-Red: I got frustrated early. I kept a two-land hand and, of course, was stuck on two lands for several turns as he beat with his Red weenies. I finally got stabilized thanks to Echoing Decay. When I got out a Patron of the Nezumi wearing a Jitte, he conceded.
I took out a single copy of Rend Flesh, Horobi’s Whisper, and Skullsnatcher for three Hideous Laughters. Given his rush of creatures, all of which had toughness of two or less, I wanted to be able to decimate his side of the board. I could save one of my small creatures (or two with enough mana) if I had a Jitte with counters.
Of course, none of it mattered in game two. I mulliganned to six, and he hammered me horribly.
Game three was all Rats, though. His only non-land permanent all game was a Hearth Kami. I got two Chittering Rats followed by a Shinobi when he didn’t block an attacking Rats. (I’m sure he was saving the Kami to kill a Jitte.) With him in topdeck mode and me hammering away, it was no contest. (2-2)
Match 55 vs. Ryan Rodriguez playing U/B Ninjas: This was quite a quick match. He conceded when I flipped my Graverobber on turn 3. I didn’t make any sideboard changes because (a) I didn’t know exactly what he was doing and (b) I didn’t really feel like any changes were needed. I could easily control his creatures, and I was sure that the Patron would be bigger than anything he brought in. Sure enough, he ended up losing two life just from the Patron’s triggered ability. Have I mentioned how much I like the Patron? (3-2)
Match 56 vs. wangkaixin playing Tooth and Nail: Here’s the short version on this one. His deck was all foil. Foil lands. Foil Kiki-Jiki. Foil Platinum Angel. Foil Sundering Titan. Foil Eternal Witness. Can you guess how this ended? The fact that it took three games made me feel good.
In game one, I got a Skullsnatcher and a flipped Graverobber quickly. He was at six when he T&N-ed for his foil Kiki-Jiki and a foil Sundering Titan. Of course, he did the tricks that left me almost landless. However, I had kept a Rend Flesh, blew up his “real” Titan, and, with no land on board, I was able to swing the next turn for the final six.
I know that the only way that I win this is by hitting his hand with discard (i.e. Distress must come in) as well as having a way to make him get rid of his Darksteel Colossus (i.e. Barter in Blood must come in). I brought in those eight cards for the two Jittes, three Patrons (too slow though potentially great with Kiki-Jiki tokens going bye-bye), and two Throat Slitters. I also needed a way to prevent Silly Witness Tricks™ (i.e. pray for Nezumi Graverobber).
I saw no Distresses in game two, though I did see a Ravenous Rats. I got him fairly low on life thanks to a Throat Slitter coming into play and killing a foil Platinum Angel. He was able to pull out of it when he got the final land he needed to cast the Tooth and Nail with Entwine. He said he had been holding the T&N. That meant that, had I seen Distress in the last three turns, I would have beaten a T&N deck 2-0. I didn’t. So, on to game three.
I mulliganned to six and saw no Ravenous Rats and no Distresses. If that happens, I can’t win. (3-3)
Match 57 vs. truazn707 playing G/W/u Control: His deck had Pristine Angels, Wrath of God, and Meloku, and I tore him up in game one. A second-turn Jitte, a third-turn Chittering Rats, and a fourth-turn Shinobi off of the Chittering Rats forced a concession.
Although I hadn’t seen it, I was pretty sure he had Plow Under. So, I brought in four Distresses for a Rend Flesh, a Whisper, a Skullsnatcher, and a Throat Slitter. He got a second-turn Kodama’s Reach thanks to Birds of Paradise. This lead to a fourth-turn Plow Under. Whee. I was able to get some creatures out, but he followed with not one, not two, not three, but four Wrath of Gods in a row. Yes, really. With my hand empty and no creatures on board, he was able to drop Pristine Angel and Meloku for the win.
It was obvious that my targeted, one-for-one removal was going to be fairly useless. Yes, I could kill Meloku (maybe), but she’d leave a bunch of 1/1 fliers behind. No way was Pristine Angel going down, though. I needed Barter in Blood. For those I took out the other two Rend Fleshes and the other two Horobi’s Whispers. I also brought in two Hideous Laughters for a Patron and a Skullsnatcher. That left me with only one Skullsnatcher in my deck. So, of course, my opening hand included not Distress but instead the lone Skullsnatcher. Joy.
He cast Iwamori on turn 4. I was able to drop the Patron off of it. This brought out Wrath of God on the next turn. Of course. Sure. Why shouldn’t he keep getting that stuff against me when I can’t find a Distress? I was able to kill off a Meloku with a Ninjutsu-ed out Throat Slitter. If only I had been able to come across a Graverobber. A couple of turns later he used Eternal Witness to bring the Meloku back. If not, I would have won. I was holding Barter in Blood when he got a Pristine Angel out. At that point, BiB was useless. He could just make tokens. Of course, I was also holding two Hideous Laughters. If I could have gotten to nine mana, I could have cast one and Spliced the other. Then again, early Distress would have been nice. Or Ravenous Rats. (3-4)
I decided it was time to end this experiment at seven matches for two reasons. First, I needed to get this to Ted to edit for Friday, and it was long enough as is. I wish I had time to play three more, but I didn’t. Second, and possibly most important, I was getting really freakin’ frustrated. I get very upset when my deck punks out on me. It’s one thing when your deck is overmatched as this one may be. It’s another thing, though, when you have answers in your deck, and they never show up. For example, did you see how many times I brought in Distress? Did you see how many I cast? One. And what’s up with the Graverobbers going AWOL? I got them all the time in the Casual room. In the room where Eternal Witness runs Rampant, though, they went into hiding. The final record for the deck in the Tourney Practice room was 4-3. In one deciding game, a Distress at any point would have won the match. In another, Graverobber would have done it. I should have been 5-2. “For the want of a nail . . .”
Yes, I know that my sideboarding is very suspect. I said so above. Maybe I bring in too much stuff. Maybe I take out the wrong stuff. Those last two matches, though, came down to two cards that I had four of in the deck but never saw. I know I should feel better about Rat’s Nest, but I don’t. I wanted this to be more consistent.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. I hope you enjoyed this extended foray into modifying a pre-constructed deck. I may never do it again.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com
P.S. Ted and I have decided that I’m not going to finish the story of Costin in this column. It’s tough to edit and doesn’t really have anything to do with Magic: The Gathering. Be looking for it in your local bookstore around 2011.