Laura's Amonkhet League Report - Week 3
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another League report! We just had our third week of Tuesdays, which means we’re more than halfway there. Week four (next week) is just going to be a make-up week for anyone who isn’t caught up, which means that the rest of us get to try out new things, and bring a sub-optimal deck to change things up a bit. Then we just have weeks five and six left, then the final tournament! I’m getting very excited as we head into the final stretch, and I have almost locked myself into top eight already.
For this week though, my first match was against a very interesting Blue/Black cycling deck. It’s the first one I’ve seen all league to my recollection, and I had chatted with the player before-hand about the direction he’s trying to trade into. He said he didn’t think the deck was complete yet, and I’d have to agree with him. I don’t think he has enough early game for the format, and while his late game is great (Archfiend of Ifnir) it’s not enough if he doesn’t draw into it. Game one had me on the play with a turn two Hapatra, which basically locked him out of the game and had me winning easily. Game two was closer, and by the end we were both top decking. Once again my deck proved to be superior in this situation, and I top-decked one of my Honored Hydras to power through his defenses.
Match two was against a very counter synergy-based Black/Green deck – it had a lot of the same cards I was running but with even more focus on Hapatra (he had two copies of her!). He was running two copies of Wander in Death to make sure he always had the option of playing her. His deck, honestly, was a very good version and we had three very close games. In game one I managed to play out a Greater Sandwurm, which his many 1/1 deathtouch snakes weren’t able to block at all. Game two he completely swarmed
me, again with the snake tokens. It makes blocking (and attacking) very hard when you’re trading a real creature for a token that he can make more of very easily. Game three wasn’t much of a game, as my opponent wasn’t really able to play spells due to mana issues. I was happy to have won the match, especially since I felt that if we had played more games he may have had a better chance to win overall. It really made me think about moving my deck into more of a counter-synergy direction, although I don’t know if anyone would be willing to trade me a second Hapatra like someone did him!
Round three was against a very interesting Red/Black deck piloted by a new player to our store. He’s running Trespasser’s Curse, which is normally a pretty bad card, but his deck also has a Glorybringer and a Hazoret the Fervent to actually win the game! His curse, when played on turn two, actually did enough damage to me that I ended up losing the game from a top-decked Glorybringer later on. That was true for both games, so I ended up losing in two to an odd but powerful deck.
Unfortunately my deck doesn’t have much that it can do about enchantments – I only have artifact hate in my sideboard – so I’m not sure there’s much I could have done. I needed to play my creatures since that’s the entire point of my deck, and I don’t feel holding back any more than I did was correct. It will be interesting to see if I can play against this deck again and find out if there’s another way to match it.
My final round was against the aggressive Black/Red deck I played in Week two. I ended up winning in three, because I think my deck has enough early game to battle well against this type of aggressive strategy, but he did manage to take a game with a hasty Ahn-Crop Crasher. That card is just straight value, especially in a beat-down deck that’s just trying to win with big Minotaurs exerted for menace or increased power.
Overall I’ve been very impressed with Red as a color, although the Red/Black decks in general seem a bit week compared to the other combinations. While it’s usually a playable pair, and it probably is in the format as well, I think it’s just not as aggressive as it wants to be (like Red/White), and not as late-game as the other decks, so it’s in a weird spot where it needs to draw well to win. We’ll see how things shake out at the end of the league, but I think Red/Black may be a trap.
-Laura
