What happening ladies and gents! It’s time we get back into FNM and what better format to play then standard! “But Brad, isn’t Aetherworks Marvel banned?” Well yea, but I made some changes and ran it as is! This is what I decided to bring to the table tonight; Marvel-less Sultai. What I decided to do was drop the Marvels, duh, and brought in some copies of Verdurous Gearhulk, Winding Constrictor, and a new energy dump in Die Young.

Let’s get to the review!

Round 1; Win in 2 vs R/B Aggro

Started off with a really fast list tonight. My opponent was running a variety of small red creatures with haste, supported by black removal spells. Both games were very back and forth for the first few turns, trading Fatal Push for Fatal Push, and Unlicensed Disintegration for Die Young. But both games turn four came around and Verdurous Gearhulk brought my creatures out of Lightning Axe. The super big trampler did his job pretty decisively after that.

Round 2; Win in 2 vs W/G Tokens

My round two opponent was yet another young pup at Jack’s and his deck was madness. My opponent dropped an Anointed Procession on turn three with the help of Channeler Initiate, then proceeded to cast a variety of servo generating spells like Sram’s Expertise, and Servo Exhibition. He would then have a couple copies of artifact interaction cards like Toolcraft Exemplar, Oviya Pashiri, and Master Tinketeer. Game one my opponent managed to get in with Rhonas, a couple of times utilizing a buffed Exemplar to give permission for Rhonas to attack. That was until I brought back a copy of Rhonas for my opponent’s graveyard with Demon of Dark Schemes. Game two was a wee bit closer with my opponent gaining metric butt loads of life with Anointer Priest. But alas I still managed to take the game as my opponent kept animating a 5/5 land with Nissa, Vital Force, and I kept blocking with my Ishkanah, and reanimating her with Liliana, Death’s Majesty.

Round 3; Win in 3 vs W/B Lifelink

Game one I took and awfully dodgy hand and didn’t have a solid play until turn six in the form of Demon of Dark Schemes. All the while my opponent chipped away at my health with an awfully useful copy of Gifted Aetherborn. My opponent was up to 36 life by the time I established a board state. I was at four life at this point and I never dropped below the four. I was constantly generating energy and using it to reanimate my opponent’s Selfless Spirit. It all started when my opponent cast Fumigate and I brought back the Spirit the first time, effectively being a one sided board wipe. Later on in the game my opponent had a copy of Gisela, which I kept at bay with a Demon, and they cast Bruna. Once both were on the battlefield my opponent was threatening a meld and I was not having any of that nonsense. I reanimated my opponent’s Selfless Spirit one last time, sacrificed it, then cast Fatal Push targeting Gisela. Since revolt was active after the Spirit had left the battlefield, I was able to kill Gisela and take game one. Game two was quite lop sided. My opponent had their god hand and I took a one lander. Mistakes were made. Game three I flooded the board with early wheenies, and my opponent didn’t do much. On his turn five he attempted a Fumigate which was met promptly with a Censor, thus closing out the game on my turn.

Round 4; Win in 2 vs Mono-black Zombies

So what happens when a Pro Tour winning deck goes up against the nearly neutered Sultai Marvel? Marvel wins because zombies gets land starved. Game one my opponent had a drastic lack of creatures and drew into two copies of Liliana’s Mastery without the land to play them. Game two my opponent took a mulligan to six, but took a one land hand and didn’t hit a second land source until turn five. After we reported my opponent and I decided to do a ‘for funsies’ game. TLDR; he crushed me in the fun game. If his deck had cooperated with him they would have been super close games. My opponent told me after the game that he had taken first three weeks in a row, so luck was not on his side.

Conclusion

We took first this week ladies and germs! It seems WotC was granting me a boon in compensation for the ban of Aetherworks Marvel. We managed to get our mits on our second copy of the Aether Hub promo, and hopefully I can grab my third this coming Friday.

The Hour of Devastation will soon be upon us, and with that means sweet new cards for us to play with. Since prerelease is in two weeks, I will be doing a rare set review once the full set gets released by WotC. So stay tuned.

Until next time, stay salty my friends.

Helllooooooo again fellow nerds! It’s that special time of the week again, FNM review time! This week I attended my beloved LGS Jack’s on Queen, and can I say that it feels good to be in my home slinging spells again. The past couple fridays I have either been out of province or working, so being able to attend FNM was pretty awesome. This week I decided to jump back into the roil that is standard and slam some turn four Ulamogs with the help of the legendary artifact, Aetherworks Marvel.

My Sultai Marvel

So this is the deck I decided to run for FNM; Sultai Marvel. If you are familiar with other sultai marvel lists then you are aware that that are some cards in the list that are not normal. Firstly, Kozilek, the Great Distortion in the main board is a huge curve ball. Not only is he a twelve power/toughness beater, he also has menace, and his cast trigger allows me to draw to seven cards, which is amazing. In addition to the boss cast trigger, he has another ability that allows me to discard a card with converted mana cost X and counter a spell with converted mana cost X. It throws people way off of their game. Now the rest of the main board is quite similar to what you’d see in a stock marvel list. But it’s what is in the sideboard that I hold my SUPER SECRET SIDEBOARD TECH. Well, I guess it’s not going to be secret anymore…but that still doesn’t take away from the fact that this card can come in super clutch. Descend Upon the Sinful is a six drop white sorcery from Shadows over Innistrad that exiles all creatures, and if I have delirium I get a four power/toughnes angel with flying! I can technically cast it with Aether Hub and Servant of the Conduit, it feels the best when played during my opponent’s combat step via marvel.

Now onto the games!

Round 1; Win in 2 vs U/W Approach

I’ve always thought Approach of the Second Sun was a brilliantly well crafted card. I originally wanted to run it in an Aetherworks Marvel shell, but after playing against my opponent here I can see it fits very well in a blue and white control shell. Game one my opponent dropped a Gideon of the Trials on curve and immediately pumped out an emblem, now the dude could not lose the game as long as he controlled a Gideon walker. I stuck a copy of Woodweaver’s Puzzleknot, and managed to keep myself at a healthy life total while his Gideon went to beat town on my face. I survived long enough to marvel into Ulamog and exile Gideon and one of his lands. Two combat steps later my opponent was dead. Game two I decided on the face beat plan as I didn’t see marvel once. I small army of Servant of the Conduit and Rogue Refiner led the charge into my opponent’s face. About turn seven my opponent cast his first Approach of the Second Sun, and that’s when things got hairy. A turn prior to casting Approach he cast Fumigate, destroy my Servant and Refiner. He placed Approach seventh from the top and passed turn to me. I drew into another Rogue Refiner and his draw net me a second Servant, it was back to beat town for me! My opponent drew for his turn and passed to me. I drew for turn and glory be, it was my sideboard card, Censor! At the end of my turn my opponent cast Pull from Tomorrow drawing himself five cards. Doing mental math is not my strong suit, but I knew for a fact that Approach was now the top card of his library. At this point my opponent was giddy, like, school girl giddy that they were finally going to pull off a win with Approach. My opponent untapped their lands, drew their card and slammed Approach of the Second Sun. I responded with Censor; “Counter unless you pay one?” It was at this point that my opponent revealed a land from their hand and asked me if he could play it before this whole thing started. This is where having a judge at the store would come in handy…oh wait…THAT’S ME! I explained to my opponent that at a casual event like FNM rewinds would sometimes be considered, at the discretion of a judge, if no extra knowledge had already been gained at the time of the rewind. For example, if my opponent had said; “Cast approa…wait…JUDGE!” at this point I would have permitted a back up because nothing was actually cast and no extra knowledge had been gained. But in our situation it would have had a huge impact on the current state of the game, and two spells had already been cast. My opponent fully understood what I was trying to explain and graciously extended a hand in concession, as I had lethal on board.

 Round 2; Win in 2 vs Aggro G/W Ramp

So my round two opponent was a wee bloke. No sleeves, no playmat, but a guy after my own heart. His deck was ramp super hard and spit out the biggest, beefiest green and white creatures since zendikar and I was loving it. Game one ended very abruptly when I stuck a marvel on turn four and spun into an Ulamog, and it was at this point my opponent got a look in his eye, a look I remember getting the first time I saw something really awesome, wonder. He lit up like a christmas tree, “Dude that card is wicked awesome!” he shouted as he instinctively reached across the table and peeled the eldrazi titan out of my hand. “I want four of these!” he laughed as he handed it back to me. Then I realized something, this kid just got mega cheesed. I dropped an eldrazi titan on turn four and ended the game, and the kid was happy? I think that is what a lot of people forget about this game. IT’S A GAME! He didn’t care whether he won or lost, he was having a blast playing magic, and I think that is the kind of mindset I need to get myself back into. While were shuffling our decks for game two he leaned across the table and asked, “When do you think the Pro Tour is coming to Toronto?”. I gave him a sort of stunned look and gave him the most honest answer I could, “I have no idea.” “Ok, well once it does, I’m going to be there, and I’m going to win.” I swear this kid was straight out of an anime. The sheer tenacity of this young player was astounding, and it sure showed up in our second game. Buddy managed to assemble a small fighting force of three Aerial Responders and proceeded to go ape on my face. After some back and forth attacks he was at twenty-nine life and I was sitting at ten, but the tables were about to turn. I drew into Yahenni’s Expertise wiping his board, and mine, while dropping a lone Rogue Refiner to hold down the fort. My opponent still had one long three power, four toughness flier that managed to swing over my Refiner and take me to seven. Once again the top deck gods were in my corner and Demon of Dark Schemes came flying off of the top rope. Now, with a five power/toughness flier out I was able to stabilize, utilizing his ability to grab some Aerial Responders from my opponent’s graveyard and bring them to fight for my cause. Well played little dude, well played.

Round 3; Loss in 3 vs B/W Zombies

I knew this day would come. I knew sooner or later I would be staring down a horde of undead with nothing but a machine and an eldrazi titan by my side. Game one was textbook. Turn one Attune, turn two Servant, turn three Refiner, turn four Marvel into Ulamog. I could not have written it better. Game two was entirely my game to lose. I decided to keep a one land hand because I had two copies of attune, a puzzleknot, a marvel, and some other cards. I was able to tutor for two more lands thanks to the Attunes, but I never drew land number four for marvel. My opponent got double Lord of the Accursed and even Yahenni’s Expertise would not have pulled me back. Game three was so close. Long story short I lost, once again at the mercy of my deck drawing two copies of Ulamog and the one Kozilek in the deck. I needed a fourth untapped land to Marvel into something, but alas I only had a tapped land. My draw on the turn I passed into death was a Demon of Dark Schemes, but my opponent had two lord abilities out so that wasn’t going to do much. After I passed my opponent drowned me in zombies. I decided to look at the top card of my library just to punish myself, and low and behold it was a forest. My opponent asked, “If the demon wasn’t on top, and you had that land, spin the marvel and see what would have been.” So I put the land next to my lands, put the marvel from my hand into play, and peeled the top six cards of my library into sight of both of us, guess what I found. LAND, LAND, LAND, LAND, LAND, and the sixth and final card, Descend Upon the Sinful. I face palmed so hard. Had I survived for one more turn, everything was going to be gone and I would have maybe had a chance at winning the game. But all in all, it’s always great games against this opponent. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

Conclusion

We went 2-1. Both of our wins were in two and our loss was in three so it wasn’t too bad. I managed to place third which put me in prize contention but locked me out of Aether Hub promo territory, as it only goes to the top two. BUT ONCE AGAIN LADY LUCK WAS SMILING DOWN UPON ME! GUESS WHO THE COMPUTER RANDOMLY GENERATED FOR THE RANDOM PROMO WIN. This guy.

I will hopefully attend FNM in two weeks as I am locked to work this coming week. I am trying to pump out more content, and I am making a promise now to put out at least one article a week. Whether it be a budget deck tech, a planeswalker profile, a spoiler review or just a typical FNM report, there will be something for you to read.

Until next time, stay salty my friends.

Hello once again everyone! It’s everyone’s favourite day of the week, it’s Friday! What does Friday mean for us? Well it means venturing to Elmvale to Jack’s on Queen and playing some Magic. We’ve had our fill of playing Ad Nauseam for the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to show off my foil Cavern of Souls so we blew the dust off of the old Orzhov Eldrazi list. The only real big change of note is that I upped the number of Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard up from one copy to three, let’s get to it!

Round 1; Loss in 2 vs Boros Angels

 Isn’t that the scariest thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life? Well it was for me when my opponent managed to cast a copy of Bruna, the Fading Light, thus reanimating his Gisela, the Broken Blade, and upon his end step melding the two angels together to create Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. Now the issue with Brisela is that once you’ve got her out, your opponent can’t cast spells with CMC three or less, and in modern, that is all of my removal. My opponent was using a relatively unknown card to get some of his angels out early and swinging. Generator Servant is a card I’ve only ever seen played in modern once, and it was the same guy playing it, but instead of angel tribal it was dragons. Regardless, game two I got mowed down by a choir of Archangel of Tithes.

Round 2; Win in 2 vs Bogles

 Quick, when do bogles not have hexproof? When you pick them from your opponent’s hand of course. Game one my opponent drew into a lone Kor Spiritdancer which I dispatched quickly with a Fatal Push. I then drew into a copy of Blight Herder which I slammed and managed to process to generate some 1/1 scions. At this point my opponent had a Slippery Bogle enchanted with two copies of Ethereal Armour, and one copy of Favor of the Overbeing. I mega clutched Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger off of the top and exiled both Ethereal Armours, bringing the bogle from a 9/9 to a measly 3/3 with flying and vigilance. I managed to make it to my next turn and using the ability on Vault of the Archangel giving both Ulamog and my Blight Herder lifelink and deathtouch, which allowed me to stabilize and my opponent scooped. Game two I cast Devour Flesh making my opponent sacrifice his enchanted creature Gladecover Scout, and then casting Surgical Extraction to get rid of them all. I eventually managed to stick two copies of Reality Smasher and beat some mad face.

Round 3; Win in 3 vs Mardu Burn

It’s my boy playing the Mardu Burn again! Game one my opponent slapped me with a good old Bump in the Night flashback! Awe man I had literally just stuck my copy of Vault of the Archangel and was going to go off, but alas it wasn’t in the cards. I immediately knew what I needed to bring in from the sideboard, Leyline of Sanctity! Game two saw me mulligan to four, the hand I decided to keep was two Inquisition of Kozilek, a Ghost Quarter, and one copy of Leyline. Once I dropped Leyline my opponent didn’t play anything but lands for about five or six turns, which enabled me to pick his hand apart with the two Inquisitions. I actually drew into a second copy of GQ before any other land, so I had to use one to target the other and get a black source. Game three saw drop to eight life before casting Leyline. My only real worry at this point was an unknown number of Deflecting Palm, as all it would have taken was back to back Deflections as all I had was one Reality Smasher and copy of Thought-Knot Seer. I managed to swing one creature at a time until I had taken the game.

Conclusion

We went 2-1 in our eight player tournament, and managed to take second place. My sideboard cards really showed up when I needed them to tonight, and I treated the list by upgrading a Concealed Courtyard to foil.

As more and more cards for Amonkhet come out I am more and more interested to see where they take it. As it gets closer to release date, I will do a rare card review. Until next time, stay salty mine frands.

Buongiorno fellow nerds! Tis another typical week at the salt factory. I attended my LGS Jack’s on Queen as per usual. They ran both a Standard and Modern event, and as per my current feeling about standard I decided to play modern. This week I finally understood how to play Ad Nauseam.  This week I had the added benefit of having access to two copies of Pact of Negation which help me combo off when I have zero mana available. Let’s go!

Round 1; Win in 2 vs Mardu Burn

My first opponent of the evening is, I’d like to consider, a good friend of mine. Every game we play against each other is awesome. Game one I hit Phyrexian Unlife, and my opponent took me to zero life, and then brought me to three infect counters. For game two I sideboarded two copies of Blind Obedience and two copies of Vapor Snag. I managed to stick a Blind Obedience, but I was stuck on two lands. My opponent proceeds to blow my face off with burn spells and single copy of Goblin Guide. I had two lands, a Pentad Prism with two charge counters, and two Lotus Blooms in suspend with two suspend counters remaining. In my hand is Ad Naus, Pact of Negation, Simian Spirit Guide, and Phyrexian Unlife. I am at five life when I pass the turn to my opponent. “Pretty sure it’s over” he says confidently as he directs a Lightning Bolt at my face. With his lone Guide, and the bolt I was dead, however out of sheer persistence and the idea of not being able to pay for the Pact at my upkeep I decided to counter the Bolt. My opponent swung with his Goblin Guide and took me to three, and then passed back to me. Untap, upkeep, Pact trigger is placed on the stack. My opponent is about to scoop when it hits me. Put the suspend triggers on the stack, each Bloom ticks down to one. Discard the Spirit Guide and remove two counters from the Pentad Prism, tapping my only two lands for the remaining mana I needed to total five and pay for the Pact of Negation. Here in lies the issue; I am at three life, completely tapped out, and facing down a burn player with no cards in his hand. I pass the turn and he draws, he then proceeds to windmill slam a Monastery Swiftspear. BUT AHA! THANKS TO THE BLIND OBEDIENCE IT ENTERS THE BATTLEFIELD TAPPED! My opponent swings with his Goblin Guide taking me to one life, and then passes. I untap, upkeep, trigger Lotus Blooms and my opponent just utters “oh no”. I cast both of them and draw my card for turn. During my first main phase I sacrifice both blooms generating six black mana, I tap my lands for a blue and a white. I cast Phyrexian Unlife using the blue, white, and one of the black. I then use the remaining five black to cast Ad Nauseam and Lightning Storm my opponent to death.

Round 2; Win in 2 vs Death’s Shadow

My deck strongly favours the slower starting non-blue decks, and this is the kinda thing that I feed on. Game one and game two were both very similar in the sense that my opponent dropped a Tarmogoyf on turn two and proceeded to chip me away all the while I was establishing my combo. I didn’t really sideboard anything as this is a really decent match up for me. However during game one I did have to cast a few copies Angel’s Grace on my opponent’s turn to keep him from killing me, but I did manage to Lightning Storm my opponent to death.

Round 3; Win in 3 vs Bant Eldrazi

I’ve always wondered how this match up would go, and today I found out the hard way. I kept a decent hand, but apparently my opponent is playing a main board ace in the hole, Spellskite. I looked at it, thought about it, and scooped. My opponent was openly confused at my turn two scoop. The deck is stream lined for game one, the only win con in the list right away is Lightning Storm. I am also lacking the one of Slaughter Pact which the list requires. For sideboard I brought in Laboratory Maniac and Vapor Snag to push through Spellskite for the win. Game two I managed to Storm my opponent before the could stick Spellskite and game three I managed to win off of Laboratory Maniac. I am in desperate need of the Slaughter Pact, you know, to ensure that I don’t have to concede whenever my opponent casts a Spellskite.

Round 4; Loss in 2 vs Grixis Control

For every good run comes a straight up kick in the teeth. These games were quite reminiscent of the mono-blue fairies list that I ran into a couple of weeks ago. This deck was crippling. Remand, Mana Leak, and Cryptic Command, all being brought back by Snapcaster Mage ensured that I never cast Ad Nauseam once. Brutalllll.

Conclusion

We went 3-1 on Friday and managed to snag first! One of our prize packs contained a foil Fatal Push which is priced around 40 dollars Canadian. I managed to scrounge together enough trade credit to treat myself with a new foil Cavern of Souls. I am in love with this new art and the card went straight into the B/W Eldrazi list.

Until next time; keep slinging spells, tapping the cards and most importantly, stay salty my friends!