Tournament Report: WRGC Invitational - ISD Block Constructed

Sunday the 30^th of October. Wizard’s Retreat Invitational. Innistrad Block Constructed. Let’s do this.

I got up early to throw together the Innistrad cards I had lying around. I knew I wanted to go for some sort of G/W Tokens strategy, as Doomed Traveler is fast becoming my favourite card in the set and I’ve played a little bit of block with G/W tokens online. My dilemma occurred from having all these sweet Black cards I wanted to run as well, namely Sever the Bloodline, Bloodgift Demon and Bloodline Keeper//Lord of Lineage. A quick bash together and a few games goldfished and I had started to despair – I only had two Isolated Chapels and one Woodland Cemetery so it looked like my deck would just die to its own manabase more often than not. I stuck the workings of the deck into a fatpack, along with some spare basic land and some optional cards and headed down to my LGS.

Within about 5 minutes of walking in the door Jimmy Sharples has come to my rescue and handed me 2x Isolated Chapels and 3x Woodland Cemeteries. The deck I ended up running was:

Creatures (17)

4 Doomed Traveler

4 Mayor of Avabruck//Howlpack Alpha

3 Fiend Hunter

3 Geist-Honored Monk

2 Mausoleum Guard

1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch

Spells (19)

4 Sever the Bloodline

4 Intagible Virtue

3 Midnight Haunting

3 Parallel Lives

2 Rebuke

Lands (24)

4 Woodland Cemetery

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Gavony Township

6 Plains

5 Forest

1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)

3 Angelic Overseer

2 Bloodgift Demon

2 Curse of Death’s Hold

2 Elite Inquisitor

2 Paraselene

2 Urgent Exorcism

1 Divine Reckoning

1 Nevermore

The numbers were a little funky (should’ve definitely had a 4^th Midnight Haunting, but couldn’t find my copy) and the sideboard was very much a case of “what do I have that’s cool and with what I know of the field can I see myself bringing in?” Altar’s Reap was a last-minute-before-I-walk-out-the-door inclusion; I figured a little bit of card draw with the option of blanking someone’s removal and/or creating a flash blocker Spirit token or four might be good enough.

So, how did I go? (Usual disclaimer about this being done from memory and no notes, yadda yadda yadda…)

Round 1: Chris Entwistle – G/W Humans

I haven’t faced the Human deck before, but railbirded a practice game Chris had been running against another guy before the tournament. I knew he had Garruks, Champions, and some Token guys like me.

Game 1: We both drop some early guys, get in for a bit of damage, but I get there and Chris doesn’t. I feel like this was one of the ‘drop a Mayor of Avabruck, let him transform, play Parallel Lives, gg?” style of games.

Pretty sure I bring in the 2 Curse of Death’s Hold and maybe cut the Altar’s Reap. The Demons might have come in too, as apart from Spirits he’s lacking fliers (although can still tap them down if he keeps his Priests of Avacyn in).

Game 2: I’m not sure how this game played out, but I know I won. Pretty confident that Chris wasn’t really in the race for game 2.

1-0

Round 2: Chris Smith – B/W Tokens

Pre-game Chris comments on my small pile of tokens asking if I’m going to be making some Spirits, I say “yeah, and hopefully some of these too” flashing him a Wolf. Its midway through the match when I realize the giant pile of cards he has sitting next to him is his collection of tokens (including Saprolings, Cats and Soldiers!)

Game 1: We both drop Doomed Travelers and donk them into each other. I let his Spirit swing past mine then remove it with Fiend Hunter. Chris is missing land drops which lets me start whittling away at his life total. I know at one point Chris tries to stabilize with a Geist-Honored Monk and Midnight Haunting. Unfortunately for him Sever the Bloodline neuters that plan letting my team cruise over for the kill.

Curses come in, Rebukes I think are out. Maybe cut Alar’s Reap (not very good as surprise when Chris has used it in Game 1) for Demons too.

Game 2: I really felt for Chris on this one – it runs the opposite for him. He mulls to 6 then proceeds to draw nothing but land as my guys swing across the table and kill him

Chris had some interesting stuff – Skirsdag High Priest and Tribute to Hunger. About now was when I realized I should have been running Tributes over Rebukes, or maybe a 1-1 split. I also think that Mayor is a much stronger player than High Priest as left unmolested he’ll win the game for you on his own. The High Priest has a higher potential payoff, but requires much more set-up and guys. Chris and I play some friendly games afterwards and at one point he hold off playing Tribute till my turn to let my Mayor of Avabruck flip and gain a couple of extra life. He then realizes how bad a play this is, because I can now drop a Midnight Haunting in response and keep the Mayor alive, I let him take it back (I’d rather test against an optimal line of play) but think I win anyway.

2-0

Round 3: Daniel “Dandan” Mckay – RUG Snapcaster Vengeance

Game 1 I come out the gates with a couple of Doomed Travelers who Dan Geistflames for me. A couple of turns and a couple of Intagible Virtues later and he realizes his mistake and reaches for the sideboard.

I have so much in my maindeck which is terrible against his lack of creatures. Out comes Fiend Hunter, Rebuke, Sever the Bloodline and Altar’s Reap. In comes Paraselene, Nevermore, Urgent Exorcism. Think I brought in the Demons and a couple of Overseers as threats which didn’t just die to Geistflame.

Game 2 Dan plays much tighter, letting my Doomed Travelers do their (not very relevant) thing on the ground and countering/killing any real threat I try to land. At one point he drops Tree of Redemption and swaps his life total with it. It turns out that a 20-toughness Tree is pretty good at surviving Blasphemous Act. Not much I can do apart from get my face burned by a couple of active Burning Vengeances.

After seeing him bring in the Trees I probably should have considered bringing Sever the Bloodline back in, as I actually had no way to deal with them. Ah, hindsight!

Game 3 was awesome. I’m on the play and because Dan leads with a Hinterland Harbor I get to ‘safely’ drop my Mayor of Avabruck. He Geistflames it in his turn, so he doesn’t have counter mana open for my Nevermore naming Burning Vengeance. Turns out he has two in hand, draws straight into the third and has no way of removing it. Unfortunately, Dan proceeds to do the trick with the Tree again, counter/kill anything vaguely resembling a threat that I manage to draw (“I’ve only cast Dissipate 5 times this game…) and eventually kill me with Snapcaster beats and a Devil’s Play that he’s been holding since I cast Nevermore. Turns out I’d completely forgotten that card. At the end of the game I have 3 Anthems in play, my Nevermore, maybe a Parallel Lives and a whole heap of land doing nothing. Dan played really well and deserved the match win, we both really enjoyed the game.

2-1

Because there were very few of us playing (14?) there were some odd things going on with pairings. I find out that I’d been paired down against Dan, who last round was paired down against Jimmy and lost (apparently his deck rolls to Hexproof.dec). My next round my opponent gets paired down to me!

Round 4: Anthony Day – R/G Werewolves

Anthony’s the only 3-0 because of my loss to Dan and I have no idea what he’s playing.

Game 1: Anthony wins the die roll and chooses to play. I keep a bit of a slower hand and am really unhappy when he drops and taps a mountain for a Reckless Waif. A couple of turns later I’m chumping his Waif with my Mayor of Avabruck, Severing the bloodline of his 2 Howlpack Alphas, and picking up my cards for Game 2.

Absolutely no idea how I sideboarded here, except I know I managed to completely miss the Elite Inquisitors which would have been amazing.

Game 2: Anthony has red cards in hand and nothing but Forests in play. I beat him into the ground with tokens.

Game 3: I get a Mayor online with Parallel Lives support and take over the game – forcing him to block my wolves and use up his 2x Full Moon’s Rise to keep them alive in consecutive turns. Moonmist fogs for a turn but I win the attrition battle and grind out the match.

Anthony’s deck was hyper-aggressive due to the Reckless Waifs, and could steal a win out of nowhere with Brimstone Volley. I didn’t see any Prey Upons from him, which seems like an odd choice to me – Werewolves are almost always bigger than anything else on the field and being able to remove a blocker for 1 mana to get a hit in seems really powerful.

3-1

Round 5: Michael Day – B/R Vampires

Game 1 starts off with Michael Geistflaming my Mayor. He tries to connect with a Rakish Heir which gets ambushed by a pair of Spirits from Midnight Haunting. Parallel Lives and another Midnight Haunting give me a veritable army on my side of the board. Michael tries to stabilize with a Bloodline Keeper, so I tap the top of my deck and call the Intagible Virtue from the top for the win. I also had a Fiend Hunter in hand to remove his guy, but the called shot was too good to pass up.

I remember to bring in the Elite Inquisitors this time around and I think the Curses and maybe the Demons came in too. Altar’s Reap, a Monk and the Rebukes were out?

Game 2 we do some early trading and I start the beatdown with my army. A Falkenrath Noble from Michael threatens to make things difficult for my tokens, and a second one looks to take over the game until I Sever the Bloodline for the win.

4-1

The tournament was only 5 rounds of Swiss and I waited around for everyone else to finish their last round to find out how I went. I knew Dandan was at 4-1 as well, and depending on how Antony goes he could have got there too. Sam Weilly challenged me to some Standard, but it turned out I’d left my Puresteel deck at home. I decided to play my block deck against his Solar Flare build anyway. Weirdest situation was having his Phantasmal Image copy my Geist-Honored Monk - I swung in with the team and he Doom Blades a Spirit making my guy small enough to not trade with his Image, but trades all round otherwise. Post-damage the Image shrunk and died anyway but it was still fairly entertaining. I eventually manage to take one game off him with Bloodgift Demon beats; the turn before I can hit him for lethal with the Demon and an Angelic Overseer he drops Elesh Norn to shrink my team and bash in for a whole heap with a Snapcaster and something else. I return with a Sever the Bloodline on his Praetor for the win.

Results go up and because I only lost one game (to Dan) I win the tournament 75% to 72%! Excellent!

I think this deck is a solid choice in Block – Parallel Lives and Sever the Bloodline are great for edging out the mirror and there’s no better feeling than the play sequence of: T1 Doomed Traveler; T2 Mayor, bash for 2; T3 bash again, transform my Mayor, T4 Parallel Lives, gg? Mayor on Turn 2 more or less asks your opponent for the Geistflame/Dead Weight or they lose then and there.

Changes I would make are cutting one Altar’s Reap for a 4^th Midnight Haunting, and swapping one maindeck Geist-Honored Monk for a Bloodgift Demon. Paraselene was in the hope of hitting multiple Burning Vengeances, but 2x more Nevermore would probably just be better. The deck really wants a way to be able to gain some life to get out of burn range once you’ve stabilized so maybe a couple of Moment of Heroism or a Disciple of Griselbrand could be worth toying with. The Angelic Overseers never really did anything, and I never brought in Divine Reckoning – I’d really like to try Purify the Grave to help deal with graveyard shenanigans (although Dan was the only one of those I faced, there were at least 2 U/G dredge decks in the field). I could also easily see trying to fit a fourth Fiend Hunter in the main. The Rebukes should be just about anything else – I don’t know if I cast either of them all day. Tribute to Hunger would add a little bit of life-gain and do a pretty similar job. Those are my current thoughts anyway.

No idea when I’ll next be putting together a report – there’s nothing major coming up until the PTQ in Auckland at the end of the month, so that might be the one.

Peace, and please feel free to provide feedback/spread the word.

- PJ

Dooming Travelers since 2011

Tournament Report: Innistrad Game Day

A nice sunny day in Christchurch saw 27 players descend upon our LGS - the Wizard’s Retreat - for our first constructed tournament post-rotation. Having not played any Standard since Nationals in August (and absolutely nothing since Innistrad’s release) I decided to go with a deck I know quite well – Puresteel Paladin aka Voltron.

Full credit goes to Mike Lanigan (@mtgjedi on twitter) for the decklist, which I bastardized due to metagame calls (“3x Nihil Spellbomb in the board should fix all those graveyard decks!”), stupidity (“2x Day of Judgment? I’m sure I won’t need those…”) and forgetfulness (“I feel like I haven’t seen either of my Inkmoth Nexi all day… wait… they’re sitting in my Dragon Stompy Legacy deck as proxies?!?”).

The list I ended up running was as follows:

Creatures (16)

4 Vault Skirge

4 Doomed Traveler

4 Puresteel Paladin

2 Mentor of the Meek

2 Trinket Mage

Equipment (16)

3 Flayer Husk

4 Mortarpod

3 Sword of War and Peace

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

1 Blazing Torch

2 Batterskull

Spells (6)

4 Dispatch

1 Oblivion Ring

1 Mox Opal

Lands (22)

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Glacial Fortress

2 Moorland Haunt

11 Plains

1 Island

Sideboard (15)

2 Celestial Purge

2 Dissipate

2 Flashfreeze

2 Phyrexian Metamorph

2 Revoke Existence

3 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Indomitable Archangel

1 Etched Champion

2 of the Plains were supposed to be Inkmoth Nexuses, and the 2 Metamorphs were Phantasmal Images. I knew we had at least one Burning Vengeance combo deck in the room, hence the overload on graveyard hate. The Indomitable Archangel was a cute idea I wanted to try, and I figured at the least he was a flying 4/4 for four.

Report time! Due to my lack of note-taking this is all done from memory. I may have got some of the situations a bit fuzzy with regards to what game they happened in and the order of things, but these all definitely happened!

Round 1: David Harragan running G/W Tokens

Ah… tokens. Wrath seems like it’d be good right now. Oops.

Game 1: David drops a Blade Splicer - who promptly dies to a Mortarpod – and a completely surplus Shrine of Loyal Legions ensuring his win, even as his Golem token beats me down with augmented power from Intagible Virtue.

I think I board in Revoke Existence for Shrine and Golems. Not sure what went out. At this point I’m kicking myself for cutting the Days that were in the original list.

Game 2: is more of the same; crushed by a Golem token, while David proceeds to never tap out for the rest of the game. Afterwards he flashes me a hand containing 3x Naturalize. Yeah… that seems bad for my deck.

0-1

About now I decided to go and grab a coffee from the local mall.

Round 2: Bye

Excellent - a bye! And all I had to do to earn it was lose the first round...

1-1

Round 3: Keith Stokes with UB Control

I'd tested the deck very briefly against a UB deck the night before at FNM and despite getting manascrewed most of my testing games (which in hindisght was due to my missing Inkmoth Nexi... 20 lands really isn't enough!) I still managed to win a couple of games.

Game 1: I drop some guys who get in there for some early damage. Keith wipes the board a turn later than he should and I come back with a Paladin wearing a sword. His Grave Titan tries to help out, but pro-black and some spirits in the air combined with a mortarpod seal the deal.

Not sure if I brought in Revoke Existence and maybe Celestial Purge for his Wurmcoils/Grave Titans. Pretty sure I brought in at least one Spellbomb to try and reduce his Snapcaster usefulness. Definitely brought in the 2 Phyrexian Metamorphs to try and copy his fatties.

Game 2: is more of the same; little guys wearing pants bashing in early. I get an active Paladin and start shifting Mortarpod around to kill his Spellskite that’s preventing me getting through with a Sworded guy. Keith tries to redirect my equip to Spellskite and we get into a brief discussion about the legality of that. I tell him that Equipping can only target a creature you control, so he can’t re-direct the ability. I’m not entirely sure what Keith thought he would gain even if it did work like that, as I was equipping for free anyway. I kill the Skite and swing in for a bunch of damage. Keith taps out for a last-ditch effort: Consecrated Sphinx. It sticks, draws him a couple of cards then gets Dispatched while my team cruise in for the kill.

I saw absolutely no removal in the second game from Keith, who at one point activated his Nephalia Drownyard to mill me. I'm sure it would've been better to hit himself in the hope that he ends up with something that he can Snapcaster back, but I wasn't going to complain.

2-1

Round 4: Xavier Mclean with Mono-Black Infect

I have no idea what deck X-man is playing (he's been out of the loop even longer than I have and has borrowed a deck from a friend). We have some nice casual banter about how the tournament's going while shuffling up and he complains about how Vampires (or was it Werewolves?) just rolled him because his Victim of Night's were useless. Hilariously enough, I'm probably one of the few match-ups where they're actually better than Doom Blade because he can kill my Germ tokens with them!

Game 1: I keep a hand with a bit of early action and we trade one-for-one early on (Mortarpod’s pretty sweet at popping all his 1-toughness guys). I make a bad call of dropping 2 Doomed Travellers to up my clock, when I have a Mentor of the Meek in hand. Xavier catches some of my stupid and swings an Inkmoth Nexus at me when I have mana up, an untapped Moorland Haunt and a guy in the yard. The stupid continues when I try to block one of his Phyrexian Crusaders with a white creature wearing a Sword of Feast and Famine (“I don’t think that does what you think it does…”). I drop some germs to buy some time (“Hah! They’re not white!”) I Dispatch his hasted Skittles, but eventually succumb to his Contagion Clasp grinding me out a turn or two before I can finish him off.

Celestial Purge and Etched Champion definitely come in, Lifestaff, 3x Sword of War and Peace and 2x(?) Batterskull go out. Metamorphs are in to help against Skittles and to lessen the impact of his Phyrexian Crusaders. Revoke Existence is in for Lashwrithes and Clasps.

Game 2: Another close one; I drop a guy, he kills it with Clasp. I O-Ring his Clasp and he looks at me a little funny (I don’t have any poison yet). Fairly certain I win this game due to Xavier trying to equip Lashwrithe to a couple of 1-toughness flying dorks and having them popped with Mortarpod; half-retail for the first and the full 4-life for the second gave me a nice edge in the race.

Game 3 Xavier jokes about how he could keep his hand and just give me the win (think it was a 1-lander or something). I keep a hand with some guys and removal and feel in control for the whole game.

Lashwrithe is obscenely good in the Mono-black deck as it turns any of their guys into very fast clocks. It’s also really important to remember that they’ve always got the chance to rip a hasty Skittles off the top, so ideally you want to save a Dispatch/Purge to deal with it. Xavier was using Virulent Wound, which – considering the large number of 1-toughness guys running around at the moment – seems like a really solid call.

3-1

Round 5: Mo Nicholson with White Weenie (splashing blue for Geist of Saint Traft)

Mo and I take about 20 seconds before deciding to ID, then have to call a judge over to ask how we actually go about doing it! We decide to have a couple of friendly games to kill the time and I beat him 2-0. It turns out that Angelic Destiny isn’t so good when the guy enchanted with it gets exiled from the game, and copying your opponent’s Hero of Bladehold is really good when you have a token sub-theme.

3-1-1 and Cut to top 8!

About now I’m incredibly stoked. Considering how the day had started this is the best result I could hope for. Looking around the top 8 we have two White Weenie decks, David and his GW Tokens, a 4-colour Pod deck, 1 Mono-red, me with Puresteel and a couple of decks I can’t recall/didn’t see.

Quarterfinals: Daniel Liberona with Mono-red

Game 1: Daniel and I play cat and mouse with him attacking me with Chandra’s Phoenix, Stormblood Berserkers and Stromkirk Nobles and me trying to keep the damage down without killing any of his guys to give him Lavamancer fodder. Daniel nearly uses his Berserker to kill both my Doomed Traveller and the Germ that’s blocking him, then realizes how bad that would be for him (I’ve got a Moorland Haunt in play, but no creatures in the yard). I find a Lifestaff which helps stem the bleeding, but he finishes me off before I can take complete control.

In – Revoke Existence for Shrine, Celestial Purge, Etched Champion and Flashfreeze. Out 2x Sword of Feast and Famine, Blazing Torch and some other stuff.

Game 2: I keep a hand with a Lifestaff, Pod, Celestial Purge and some other stuff. We trade 1-for-1 early on, and I exile his Curse of Stalked Prey to stop the Lavamancer(!) beatdown. Daniel proceeds to rip nothing but land while I draw action and put the game away.

Game 3: Don’t really recall this apart from Daniel again ripping lots of land while I smash him down. He flicks through his library at the end of the game and there are 3 Manic Vandals hanging out vaguely near the top. Glad I never saw them!

Daniel’s deck was running a proliferation sub-theme – Stromkirk Noble, Stormblood Berserker and Shrine. Don’t recall if I saw any Koths, and I know I never saw any Heroes (which I’m pretty sure destroy my deck if they get to swing).

4-1-1

Semifinals: Matthew ‘Mo’ Nicholson with White Weenie

After our friendly games I wasn’t the matchup Mo wanted to see. He takes game 2 off me, but makes a couple of mistakes over the match like swinging a guy into a Batterskull Germ wearing a Sword of War and Peace (Me: “Uh… ok… kill your guy, gain 6 life?” Mo: “Wait, that thing has vigilance?” Bystander: “Yeah, it really does everything!” I end up bringing in Revoke Existence for the Destinies, Phyrexian Metamorph for Geists and Etched Champion because it blanks his deck. I cut a Batterskull, the 2 Swords of Feast and Famine and the Lifestaff. Game Three involves a turn where he double destinies and swings at me, I take it like a champ, Dispatch his guys on my turn and smash back with a Sworded guy.

Grand Abolisher is a major annoyance for the Puresteel deck as it means you can’t respond to Champion of the Parish triggers with Mortarpod or having them cast an anthem effect. The games seemed to revolve around me taking a control role and chumping their guys while hopefully smashing them with a Sworded guy.

5-1-1

Finals: John Seaton with 4-Colour Pod

John and I are good friends and did a fair bit of testing for Nats together. I’d railbirded one of his games earlier and had seen what made his Not-Quite-Bant-Pod deck so cool – splashing black for Skinrender and Unburial Rites. He also had a Sheoldred at the top of his chain because he didn’t have an Elesh Norn handy and couldn’t be bothered trying to track one down. This was probably the best possible news for me as Elesh Norn pretty much just wrecks my deck. The last time John and I faced each other in a Top 8 match was M11 Game Day where he crushed my homebrewed UR Frost Titan/Destructive Force deck with Turboland. I was ready for revenge!

Game 1: We both drop some early guys and then I crash in for a heap with a guy wearing a Sword of War and Peace. He searches up a Wurmcoil Engine in an attempt to stabilize while on 2 life, saying: “If you show me the direct damage I’ll scoop.” I don’t have a Mortarpod in play or in hand, so start digging with Mentor of the Meek and Paladin. Four mana available and my two options are drop another Sword of War and Peace, suit something up and I should still be able to crash through for enough to kill him (I hadn’t done all the math) or go for the style-kill. I cast my Trinket Mage and ask John: “What 1-mana equipment can I search for to kill you?” He can’t think of anything, so I drop the Blazing Torch on the table. We both have a good laugh and shuffle up for game two.

Out: 2x Sword of War and Peace (in hindsight, this is totally and utterly wrong, as the Pod deck usually has a lot of cards in hand and not a lot of early action), Sylvok Lifestaff and Blazing Torch (even though it was such an awesome play!). In Revoke Existence for his Pods/Wurmcoils, Phyrexian Metamorph to copy his good-stuff and Flashfreeze.

Game 2: John drops an early Venser the Sojourner. I try to stop him from going ultimate but this just allows John time to run out a pod and start working on value. Skinrender slows my assault and eventually he gets the emblem. I continue playing for a bit, but quickly realize that I really haven’t got a chance of beating him.

Game 3: John goes to 6 cards and keeps. I drop some early guys followed by a Sword of War and Peace while he builds up his land-count. I swing in for 10, John draws his next card and extends his hand. Keeping a 5-lander with all his colours and Venser, while not drawing any action lead to an easy victory!

6-1-1 and Game Day Champion!

Barring FNM this was the first tournament I’ve won, and the first Constructed Tournament in Christchurch that I’ve felt really comfortable with (ignoring my first round!) It’s been nearly 2 years since I’ve come back to the game of Magic and over that time I feel like my play-skill has significantly improved and I feel less of a draw to playing “cute” decks. This deck seemed like a really solid choice, and if I was running it again I’d make the following changes:

• Cut the 2 Dissipates for 1 more Flashfreeze and 1 more Celestial Purge. I never boarded them in, and couldn’t conceive of a match-up where I’d want to. 3 mana is 1 mana to much to be keeping open, and UU isn’t that easy to hit. I never faced Wolf-run so I’m not entirely sure how good the Flashfreezes are, but they’re certainly the best answer this deck has to Dungrove Elder.
• Cut 2 of the Nihil Spellbombs for 2 Day of Judgment. I’d possibly consider Divine Reckoning in this slot instead, because you’d usually be happy to keep one of your guys alive (hint: it’s the deck’s namesake!) and you’d only really be bringing them in against Token decks anyway.
• Cut the Indomitable Archangel for 1 more Etched Champion. Etched Champion is just so good at blanking some strategies. I never really found myself wanting the Archangel, and apparent from my first round where David brought in Naturalizes against me, I don’t recall anyone bringing in targeted artifact-hate. If Creeping Corrosion starts seeing play again (unlikely with the decline of Tempered Steel) I’d consider something like Hero of Bladehold or Mirran Crusader in this slot instead.

I never found myself missing the Inkmoth Nexuses – there wasn’t any occasion that I can recall where I wanted Metalcraft and was lacking it, or where I think a poison win would have been easier. Maybe if we get another infinite-life combo seeing play they might be necessary, it also is probably worth trying a couple of Ghost Quarters in that slot instead. Doomed Traveller is awesome. Just trust me on this (and all the pros that are currently playing him, I guess!). Two Moorland Haunts seems to be the right number – I could see maybe going up to a 3^rd, but you never want more than one in play. I know I never mentioned Vault Skirge, but he really does everything this deck wants; helps against aggro with his Lifelink, is an evasive threat for Sword-wearing, turns on Metalcraft and when he finally dies provides a body in the yard for Haunt. Mentor was another card that – while it didn’t blow me away – was just a solid play for grinding out some card advantage. I think I used the Metamorphs to legend-rule one card in the entire tournament (Skittles maybe?) and I can’t see the Phantasmal Images with their drawback being better in this slot… you can’t equip them, and the Metamorphs help towards Metalcraft while also giving you the option of copying a Sword already in play. Batterskull looks like it should be too expensive for a deck running 22-land, but I was always happy with them.

Right, that’s enough for now; tune in to read about how I did the following day at the Wizard’s Retreat Invitational (ISD Block Constructed)!