Sunday the 30th 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 4th 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 4th 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
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