Laura's Amonkhet League Report - Week 1 (for real)
Step's Note: So, Laura got me this report, and I realized we'd had a miscommunication about the pacing of the articles. This should probably have gone up last week, but we have it now, and one more to come sometime over the weekend, so that we're all caught up. Okay. Cool. Let's Go!
Our first official league Tuesday started off with a bang – me against our very own Tams! She was running a red/black deck that’s very heavy on removal, with some good red creatures to beat you down. Fortunately in both games I managed to get some ramp going, and just curved right into some big beefy blockers that were hard to deal with. Once again the hexproof Scaled Behemoth was my MPV – in our first game he was suited up with the black cartouche and then the green cartouche, which let me kill two of her creatures (with lifelink for the second one) and then smash in with an 8/9 trample lifelink hexproof. It was so effective I felt a bit bad about it.
My next match was against an incredible aggressive red/white agro deck (I played him in the second game on Saturday as well) – I’d actually traded this opponent the Insult//Injury I’d opened in my tournament pack, so I knew what I had to look out for! I won in two, but both games were incredibly close – it was within a turn either way. As they did last time, his Ahn-Crop Crashers meant I had to play very defensive and leave multiple blockers behind so as to not die suddenly. It can be tough figuring out exactly how defensive to be while still winning the game, especially when you know your opponent has a lot of reach and multiple ways to hide the fact that he can kill you next turn.
My third opponent was also playing a red deck, as seems to be a theme for this week. In our first game I just tied down his creatures with my edifice of authority, built up a big enough board state, and then cast Destined//Lead to end the game. It was quick, and exactly what my deck is supposed to be doing. In our second game we ended up top-decking war, with our removal and creatures matching up so well that there was nothing on the board in the late game. My deck is so top-heavy that I feel favoured in most long-game scenarios, so I eventually top-decked one of my Hydras to finish things out.
My final opponent of the day was playing red/green, and this was my first match that went to three all day. My deck still felt very strong in the matchup, I just ended up not drawing enough lands to play more than a few spells in the game I lost. I have noticed that my deck has a ton of three-drops, which is great to get me off to a quick start with my Naga Vitalists, but unfortunately if I have a bunch of them in my hand I can only play one spell per turn until I hit 6 mana or draw another spell. I’m trying to adjust this balance with a few cycling cards and by changing my curve a bit, but since this is a sealed league there’s only so much improvement you can make at once.
So I ended up 4-0 for the first week, taking me to 6-2 overall. I feel like my deck is very strong, and the trades I made after the opening tournament (Destined//Lead, a second Cartouche of Strength, Quarry Hauler) all added significant power to my deck. Going forward I feel pretty solid about my removal so I ‘m going to focus more on curve concerns and making sure I have a few ways more to deal with flyers. The Scaled Behemoth is still my MVP, and I’m glad there aren’t more of them in our league pool!
