Laura's Amonkhet League Report - Week 2
In the second league Tuesday, I had another pretty good day. My first opponent was a fairly new player running an aggressive Red/Black deck. Fortunately I won in 2 by having enough early game that I was able to trade off, and by the time turn 4 came around I
could start getting out my Colossapedes – they’re an amazing blocker, and they wear the Cartouche of Strength quite well.
My second match I lost 1-2, and it was one of those frustrating games where you know your deck would win most of the time, but for these two games you ended having to mulligan and then didn’t draw very well. I had played this same opponent in the opening tournament the previous Saturday in the first round, and he has definitely improved on the token synergy in his deck. He has at least one Temmet, the legendary Blue/White creature, and is definitely working his way into a sweet embalm deck.
My third game was also against someone I had played in the opening tournament - this time it was the mirror match in Green/Black. I drew much better this time, including some actual forests to cast my spells, so I ended up winning both of our games. They were both quite close though, and if I’d drawn less removal or less of my end-game creatures I could see it going the other way.
My last opponent was another U/W embalm deck, actually very close to the person I played against in the second round. It went to 3 rounds, and I definitely only won the third game because my opponent didn’t get to play Magic – he stalled out on lands and couldn’t recover fast enough. I had the fortune of watching them play against each other in the mirror match at the end of this Tuesday, and they ended up in such a board stall that this opponent ended up winning by my second round opponent decking himself! Neither have much card draw, so that tells you how long the games went.
Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed that my deck does very well against other “good-stuff” type decks, but it struggles a bit against some of the more synergistic decks; both the U/W Embalm and the B/R Minotaur-focused decks are tough matchups, and I’ve usually won by drawing well in very close games. I think that going forward I’m going to try and build more into the counter synergy, as heading into the last half of the league I don’t want to be passed by those trading (or opening) into more synergy-focused decks. In some sets “good stuff” is good enough, but I don’t think that’s the case for Amonkhet. I can win if I get off to a good start, or we’re top-decking and I have more end game, but it’s so close sometimes that any improvement will give you added win percentage.
-Laura
