I got lucky Saturday morning. The post arrived with copies of the core 2 cards for the mono blue mill I needed. Which meant I was able to put together an initial build of my take on the whole mono blue mill deck thing.

I’d found it easier to get the 60 cards to make the main deck, than I did getting down to the 15 to make the sideboard. So I decided I’d throw a sideboard together at The Hobbit Hole.

At The Hobbit Hole I bought some sleeves for the new deck, and a couple of extra copies of Surge Mare and Howling Golem. There was a Pokemon tournament going on when I arrived. Kar-Fai was participating in that instead of the Standard Showdown today. Don’t blame him, there was a booster box of Pokemon cards up for grabs as the first prize.

After sleeving my new deck an opportunity to take it out for a test drive presented itself. A young lad keen to play some magic before Standard Showdown wanted a game. I was curious to how the deck would do, so we shuffled our decks.

Friendly Game 1 – William

I was unsure how my deck was going to work. Obviously I knew my game plan. But would it actually get time to do it’s thing? Williams deck seemed to present no real danger. My pieces fell into place, and then it was just a matter of executing the plan. I milled William out.

The deck had worked. But to be fair, and I’m not being mean on William but his deck wasn’t a real test. William is learning, his deck building skills are still in their infancy. Mine aren’t much further along the path. But I knew I’d be facing tougher, more powerful decks in the Standard Showdown. However there was enough here to make the decision for me that I’d give the deck an outing in the Standard Showdown.

Result: Win

I decided to play William again but this time with my Golgari deck. I thought it was important he got an idea of the sort of decks he’d be up against power wise.

Friendly Game 2 – William

This was a by the numbers game for the deck. I didn’t hit any of my removal spells. But with two Steel Leaf Champions and a Vicious Conquistador out I didn’t really need to. The only “removal” I did hit was a Ravenous Chupacabra.

Result: Win

I left William and Michael (re)building William a deck.

Dean arrived and had a couple of cards for me that were going into the ninja/assassin commander deck. I’d traded an Assassin’s Trophy with him the previous week. I was pretty happy with the trade. The deck I’m building is a slow build, just ticking away in the background.

Andy had joined in the deck building effort for William. I hope William was listening and learning from the advice he was being given. But he did have a better deck to play with.

Right it was showtime, the first round pairings were called out.

Round 1 – Rebecca

I’d never played Rebecca before, I believe this was the first time she’d been to the store with her partner. She wasn’t a standard player either and like me thrown a deck together for today.

Our first game although I started milling Rebecca, I had no real answer for her 1/1 flyer that was getting pumped every now and again. And that was the one doing all the damage. I eventually bled out to that damn flyer.

Game two was a different story. I milled Rebecca out. She had cards in hand that it turned out afterwards she didn’t have the mana to cast. A little mana screwed.

The deciding game went to time. We didn’t need the five turns. When time was called, we had reached a point in the game that either of us could win it on our next turn. Rebecca needed to do five points of damage to me to win with that cursed flier, and I only had three cards to mill, that would happen when I started my next turn. Luckily for me, but sadly for Rebecca on her turn she could only get to dealing four points of damage to me. I was alive to start my turn and win.

I had won by the skin of my teeth.

Result: Win 2-1

Round 2 – Alfie

I’d played Alfie before but with the Golgari deck. After a little banter to lighten the mood and make it a bit more fun for Alfie, we started duelling.

Our first game went the same way as my first round first game. I was killing but not fast enough, and just got my butt kicked by creatures.

Game two went my way with the mill getting me a win. Alfie didn’t enjoy that experience much seeing his good cards going into the graveyard.

Game three the decider went my way also. It could easily have been a mill win or a creature smash win. I went for the creature smash for a change! It had to be done, because although that’s an option with the 16 creatures in the deck, it’s not the main win condition for the deck. They are mainly there to keep me alive long enough to get the win condition. So I don’t imagine with this deck that it will get many wins this way.

Result: Win 2-1

Friendly Game 3 – Kar-Fai

The Pokemon tournament had ended with Kar-Fai coming in second place, just missing out on the big prize again.

So to fill time between my next and final round we played our blue decks against each other. Kar-Fai had thrown some of his blue cards together to make a deck (his words).

There was some back and forth between the two decks. Kar-Fai had that unblockable 1/1 merfolk out. Which was annoying. But in the end mill ruled the day.

Result: Win

Round 3 – Dean

Time to face Alfie’s uncle.

I knew this deck, it’s a fast Golgari aggro deck. My Golgari deck has beaten it. But would this new deck?

The simple answer is no. My meagre collection of creatures thrown out as a defensive shield did little to stop the onslaught. I did mill away some of his big nasty creatures like both of his Ghaltas. But in the end it was little consolation to being wiped out.

So the uncle had avenged the nephew.

Result: Loss 2-0

I think there was only one player who went 3-0 and won. Three ended up 1-2, with the rest having a 2-1 record. So that meant the WotC software would once again be applying the rules and deciding positions based on how well opponents had done. Which meant my position wouldn’t be too high. The two people I’d beaten had finished 9th and 8th.

Final position: 6th out of 10 with a 2-1 record.

I only got a participation pack this week, missing out on a Showdown booster.

Afterwards we had a five player game of Commander with the Planeschase cards. I was playing my Death and Taxes deck. There was a nice combo between one planes that forced a player to discard their hand and draw a new hand equal in size to the one they just discarded in their end step, and a creature of mine. My creature had an ability that said an opponent lost a life each time they drew a card. Which was funny. I think over twenty points of damage was done before my creature was removed.

In the end we ran out of time because once again apparently John wanted to eat, and spend time with his family! So there was no winner.

For those interested, or can’t remember what I wrote but for some inexplicable reason want to read more of my words, you can read my thoughts on putting the deck together in my post earlier in the week HERE.

For those that did go off and read my previous post on this deck I’ll apologise for repeating this disclaimer for those that didn’t.

“I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.“

So I suppose you want to know what cards make up the deck and sideboard I used yesterday.

Creatures:16
2 Diamond Mare
4 Surge Mare
4 Vodalian Arcanist
2 Howling Golem
3 Homarid Explorer
1 Fleet Swallower

Spells:22
4 Opt
4 Blink of an Eye
4 Drowned Secrets
4 Psychic Corrosion
4 Secrets of the Golden City
2 Kumena’s Awakening

Lands:22
20 Island
2 Memorial to Genius

Sideboard:15
1 Windreader Sphinx
2 Fountain of Renewal
4 Essence Scatter
1 Millstone
4 Cancel
2 Patient Rebuilding
1 River’s Rebuke

In a change from tradition I’m presenting the deck’d apps graphs and pricing now instead of before.

Wow that’s a lot of 2 drops. I like the AMC, that means I can be casting at least a couple of spells a turn from turn 5 onwards. Which is what I want to be doing once Drowned Secrets is out.

I’m gobsmacked by how cheap the deck is to put together if I ever needed to build it again from scratch.

The deck was fun to play, well for me. So I’m glad I built it and played it.