Your Average EDH Blog

EDH Recap - August 8th, 2012

So I think I’m going to start making a recap of my EDH nights (I play usually twice a week; on Wednesdays and Sundays, at my local card store)

So Wednesdays are the competitive night; the store puts on an EDH league and it’s $2 entry. It’s cheap, everyone who enters gets an awesome promo (this week I got a Game Day Mvunwoli Beast Tracker, which is one of the worst I’ve gotten so far and that’s saying something because the Tracker is actually strong in EDH), and there’s always an awesome experience to be had (for someone, at least)

How this goes is; the TO divides us evenly into 2 pods and the top two players from each pod play up in one final pod. So they shuffled us into two pods of 5, and the shenanigans begun.

Round 1 - Me (Edric, Spymaster of Trest) vs. Jeremy (The Mimeoplasm; Infect) vs. Clint (Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer) vs. Justin (Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief) vs. Charlotte (Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor)

So when I play at an EDH table, I play by matchup; I usually see what everyone else is playing and decide on the best deck for that particular situation. In this instance, I saw an abundance of blue and green and decided Edric was a good choice; few Wraths will come out of this table aside from the Drana player, who I can aggro out early and overwhelm late.

My start was quick enough; Turn 1 Merfolk Spy, turn 2 Jhessian Infiltrator, turn 3 Edric, turn 4 Wingcrafter, Soulbond it to Edric.

Of course Drana casts Barter in Blood and I lose my two ground guys.

What really pissed me off that game though was Clint; he not only cast Silklash Spider twice that game (after I cast Aether Adept to bounce it), but when I bounced it, he responded in turn with Tornado Elemental. Of course I have to play against the mono-green deck who draws 2 Hurricanes (one of which was repeatable), and here I am holding Scryb Ranger and Jace’s Phantasm while I count his land; he can cast the Spider and activate it for 1 if he draws a land. It was so depressing.

So at one point Jeremy casts Putrefax and hits Justin for 5 infect. Justin’s board was scary; he had a Sol Ring turn 1, cast Gauntlet of Power on black, had a Crystal Ball, Cabal Coffers, and Phyrexian Arena. He had no creatures, though, so was easy prey for my creatures to nibble on his life total. However, he cast Sangromancer and began to gain a bunch of life.

After I recast Edric was when the worst part happened, though. Jeremy casts Mimeoplasm, making it a copy of Putrefax with 5 +1/+1 counters on it. What does he do? He attacks ME. I’m forced to block with Edric and go to 9 poison (I actually only went to 8 but neglected Gauntlet of Power; whoops!).

What happens next, you ask? Clint casts Collective Voyage, and we all chip in, making it cast for 8. After Justin untaps for the next turn, he tutors and casts Temporal Extortion. The lowest life total at this point is 30, so nobody pays the cost. He casts a second mana doubler before this of course, and then casts Pestilence Demon with about 14 Swamps in play. He Pestilences for 3, killing about 12 creatures, and because of Sangromancer, his Time Walk is lethal to everyone. I just turn to Jeremy at this point and utter “Look at your life. Look at your choices.”

So because he killed us all simultaneously (the stack technically declared Clint second place on that because he had the highest life total next to Justin), we played it out again to see who joined him in the finals. I decided to stick with Edric,  but Charlotte decided to swap decks.

Round 2 - Clint (Molimo) vs. Charlotte (Mayael of the Anima) vs. Me (Edric) vs. Jeremy (Mimeoplasm)

This game was absolutely ridiculous. My biggest threat was Jeremy here because of the gross shenanigans he pulled in the last game, and I had Meekstone in my deck so I had Char and Clint under control. I had another aggressive start, and got Jeremy to about 28 life before I literally went bonkers.

My turn 1 was Boreal Druid and Memnite. Turn 2 I dropped Edric and drew a card. By turn 5, I’d attacked Jeremy for 9 down to 24 life. I cast Notorious Throng for its Prowl cost, untapped and cast Overrun. I outright killed Jeremy (he tried to offer me an alliance, but I quickly refused; if you play Infect in EDH you must die), and dealt Char 34 damage, dropping her to 6.

Char had a fast start with two mana rocks and a Cultivate, so she was able to plop out Gisela quickly, but I responded by casting Meekstone. Clint was having a rough time this game; he was stuck on 3 lands and a Scute Mob. Char untaps and casts Triumph of the Hordes, and suddenly, I’m in trouble.

With Gisela, she most certainly can kill me. I had attacked Clint during my last turn with my 1/1’s because they couldn’t damage Char, but I kept a Faerie token up because I was not about to lose to whatever shenanigans I knew Char was capable of, and you don’t leave a Gisela unchecked. VERY thankfully, I managed to flash in Scryb Ranger, and she cursed at herself, saying that she should have went all-out at me. (For those who may argue; Gisela must assign damage before it doubles, so she dealt 2-2-8, not 1-1-10. Though that is an interesting rules question now that I think about it; comment if you wish to discuss)

Her creatures didn’t untap. At 6 life, and with 3 2/2’s in play, I pecked at her life total until it was no more. To add pressure, I added my Lorescale Coatl to the mix. But she could only produce one blocker, and that sealed the deal. I had moved on to the final pod for the first time in my 6 weeks of playing. I usually am the player who dies to Time Walks; I’m glad I picked up that Throng today, it pulled its weight for sure. :3

Round 3 - Tyler (Darien, King of Kjeldor) vs. Me (Talrand, Sky Summoner) vs. Laura (Kemba, Kha Regent) vs. Justin (Drana)

I’d decided this was a Talrand game; I needed to answer the nonsense all these decks could muster.

Once again, Justin had an explosive start; turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Everflowing Chalice for 2 met my Steel Sabotage, but I was lucky enough to plop Mystic Remora down turn 1 and drew 3 cards off of it for early and effective card advantage. A turn 4 Talrand easily met a Life’s Finale from Justin, which nabbed three of the deck’s 4 remaining creatures; he settled on Guile, Jin-Gitaxias, and Tidespout Tyrant, leaving the Stormtide Leviathan alone.

My turn 5 was Gauntlet of Power, and after that I hit turn 6 Talrand which stuck for a few turns, netting me four Drake tokens in the process. I resolved Mind Unbound soon after, and it went downhill for my opponents after that.

Laura’s deck is traditionally slow and grindy, so she had spent most of her time tutoring and casting her Equipment. Turn 3 Kemba met an Essence Scatter which severely slowed her down, and she was stuck on four land for the longest time, slowing her down further.

Justin was able to cast spells effectively enough, but couldn’t find a mana doubler until Nirkana Revenant came down a few turns later. He cast Massacre Wurm, but neglected Gauntlet of Power, which was a crucial mistake for him, because he literally killed nothing with it (Andrew had an Honor of the Pure to make his creatures dodge the Massacre Wurm’s wrath). He had spent most of the rest of his time durdling with artifacts, but a highlight is when he tapped out to cast Sensei’s Divining Top and Andrew responded by targeting it and his Extraplanar Lens with Return to Dust. Justin mistook the Top’s second ability to cost 1 mana, so allowed it to be exiled.

My Mind Unbound drew me into my Proteus Staff, which I used to turn one of my Drake tokens into Stormtide Leviathan, which kept Andrew’s army at bay. (An earlier counterspell had dealt with Darien’s first cast, making it hard for him to get going) In addition, my flow of counterspells kept Justin off Drana; he seriously cast it five times during the course of the game, and by the fifth time around he was literally dead because my Drake tokens had spent the entire game attacking him. I had convinced Andrew to attack him for lethal on the following turn, and after that Mind Unbound nabbed me Caged Sun, Propaganda and Tamiyo, and I knew right then the game was over. With no flying enablers on Laura’s board and Andrew having to cast creature spells to keep up with the Eldrazi Monument he cast to deal me 21 damage, he couldn’t attack me. The Sphinx-Bone Wand / Capsize combination I drew thereafter sealed the deal; by the time I killed Andrew, I had 13 Drake tokens, an active Talrand, 12 mana open with 7 cards in hand, 9 counters on the Bone Wand, 6 on the Mind Unbound, 7 on Tamiyo, and an active Capsize. She literally had no chance, and conceded thereafter.

I’m happy with how the night went. Edric had a very successful field test (and the addition of a Japanese Notorious Throng makes me one happy guy :D), and Talrand pulled his weight and more tonight.

I won two packs in the exchange, opening a Gilded Lotus and an Elvish Archdruid. Not too bad.

So that’s my first EDH coverage text post! I hope you enjoyed it!