Category Archives: magic

magic

Find a buyer for your kidney now…

magic, MtG, news

Yesterday WotC in their live stream on Twitch (and later put up on YouTube) made an announcement that sent fanboys (like myself I’m a fanboy for sure) in an uproar, well after they recovered from the initial shock.

Let’s take a step back a little before tackling the announcement, it is related, honest.

Not long ago, and not long after Guilds of Ravnica came out WotC released what at the time would be their most expensive MtG product to date Guilds of Ravnica Mythic Edition. This was a booster box of Guilds of Ravnica boosters, but instead of 36 packs you got 24. You also got 8 masterpiece boosters, which contained 1 of 8 foil masterpieces (this time full art Planeswalkers) in them along with the other cards. You were able to pick up all this “goodness” for $250.

This special edition was only available from the Hasbro website (later as a pick up from Grand Prix’s organised by Channel Fireball) and for those living in the US. Now the Hasbro is known for being a bit flaky, and not able to handle more than 1 customer on it at a time. To say there were issues with ordering would be an understatement.

Fast forward a couple of weeks or more to this Friday/weekend, and all of a sudden as a “gift” to compensate those disappointed, and with hurt feelings in the US from the debacle that was ordering this exclusive premium product, Ultimate Box Topper boosters started to drop through letterboxes. Naturally photos of these foil full art masterpieces started to hit social media, and buzz started to build up, questions forming. WotC promised all would be revealed on Monday.
See I told you we’d get back to the point of this post. And the amazing thing is I wasn’t too bitter and twisted, or sarcastic. Oh now I realise why WotC don’t think I’m a MtG content creator. Plus I’m not the correct demographic that they want to push. They already have the bald, overweight, bearded slot filled (although my beard is way way better).

Anyway back to the announcement.

So yesterday all was revealed. Well the 40 masterpieces and their regular versions (which I think over the weekend we had seen the majority of from various postings) anyway. WotC also shared how you can get these beautiful looking cards.

Come 7th December they will be releasing Ultimate Masters, which is possibly the last Masters set for a while (they used the politician weasel words “foreseeable future“ which is their get out clause, small print).

Inside each Ultimate Masters booster box (24 boosters) will be an Ultimate Box Topper (a single masterpiece card) all for the bargain price of $336. Can you guess what caused the fanboys to be shocked? That works out to be about $14 a booster. So here in the UK we will be looking at a booster box coming in around the £300+ mark. This is their most expensive MtG product to date by a large margin.

These booster boxes will only be available from your FLGS/LGS, however in the US there will be blister packs consisting of 3 booster packs from the likes of Walmart for $35. A little cheaper option of buying packs for the chosen US citizens (damn the rest of us for not living there, we deserve being mistreated and ignored by WotC), but you don’t get the Box Topper!

Apparently the preview season of the rest of the 254 card set will be over the 2 days before Thanksgiving. Which meant nothing to everyone outside of the US. The chat asked when that was, but it took awhile for some-one on the chat to give a date, the presenters kept on repeating the information that meant diddly squat to non-US folks. This is getting to be really annoying with WotC with their US centric stuff. It’s as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist, and we should be grateful for the scraps they deem we are allowed. Anyway the days with the previews are around the 19th November. Expect more fanboy outrage at that time. When we see the rest of the set, it will tell us just how special this last (for the “foreseeable future“ ) Master set hurrah is. And also give an idea about how this expensive draft experience might be.

What was funny about the live stream was the end of the stream when they opened up a booster box of Ultimate Masters, and opened up the Ultimate Box Topper. The card was warped inside the pack! Talk about an own goal. WotC have been taking a lot of crap over recent years over card quality, and done very little about it, even failing to acknowledge it (well until a couple of articles a few months ago). They are charging a very high premium for this product, and they can’t get the card quality right?

I know I won’t be buying a booster box of this. I didn’t Iconic Masters, or 25th Anniversary Masters. I think I bought a booster or two maximum of each. And I may buy a booster from this set. But in reality I’m hoping that these reprints will drop the price of the handful of cards I’m interested in. I will then do as I did with the other sets, target buy the cards I’m interested in. It’s cheaper and I get the cards I want.

I think this set will sell well, people will be hoping to get the sweet expensive masterpieces (not great odds by the way). This short, shock and awe marketing campaign of WotC may just work in their favour. It was for once a great bit of marketing with the compensation (give them free money) Ultimate Box Toppers being sent out, generate buzz and goodwill? Win win. This short time between announcement and delivery is not giving the angry mobs too much time to swell their ranks and put people off, or those that pre-ordered time to change their minds.

You will notice I’m not complaining about the price. For me it’s expensive, for a lot of people it will be also. That’s fine. It’s the opportunity to buy if I had the money, is what I’m about. That’s why the Mythic Edition (and its compensation) along with the SDCC Planeswalkers niggled me to say the least. That US only pisses me off big time. But that is a rant for another day, because WotC are not the only ones guilty of this.

You can read the full WotC announcement with masterpiece card pictures HERE.

UPDATE: £320 is the pre-order price at my FLGS for this.

Etrata – not all new art is an improvement

magic, MtG

Last week I wrote about how my ninja deck I’m brewing was also going to have assassins, they kinda fitted together thematically.

One of the cards definitely being used was Etrata, the Silencer from Guilds of Ravnica. With the release of the Guild Packs on Friday the card got reprinted with new art.


I hate the new art, it doesn’t say assassin to me, it says dinner party. Don’t get me wrong, the art is nice. Just not as good as the original, nor evocative. For me the original art oozes vampire, assassin, creature of the night. I look at the picture and think I don’t want to meddle with them, I sure hope they aren’t after me. The new art just says to me they are waiting to be seated at a table at a restaurant.

I really don’t know what WotC thought they were doing. If I was going to commission another piece of art for this card, the brief would not allow what we have been given. I’d want it to be more visceral, showing Etrata in action maybe. Although there have been a couple of cards in the set that show similar already such as Never Happened.

I just don’t get how the new art is assassin. Sorry guys at WotC think you failed this time with the art.

Ravnica Weekend – Next Weekend

D&D, magic, MtG, news

Next weekend is Ravnica Weekend at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole, and many others.

But what does this mean?

Well just over a week later, around the 20th November WotC are releasing their MtG and D&D crossover product Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. So on Ravnica Weekend my FLGS is running a preview adventure from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica.

Plus along side this D&D/MtG taster/preview stores can run “four-pack Booster Drafts with Guilds of Ravnica and award participants with a Ravnica foil basic land. They can also host casual Guild Kit battles with the Ravnica Guild Kits.” My FLGS is holding just the draft after the D&D/MtG taster/preview. There is also the potential for a Standard Showdown happening for those that don’t want to take part in the D&D stuff. But that’s not guaranteed. Sadly no Guild Kit battles at my FLGS, but that’s because they sold out of the stock they got in.

I’m hoping this animated GIF by WotC works. It should show the promo foil basic lands you get for taking part in the booster draft.

There are also 10 Guild prints to be used to support the drafting.


WotC through their WPN program are tracking by the looks of it the participation for both types of event for the weekend. Which I can see why. They want to know how successful this new format is, and if it’s worth doing again. It’s nice to see them try different things.

So you can see it’s a very busy weekend for MtG, more so than normal.

Potential Fun Combo For My Token Spamming

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

The Magic Historian (a YouTuber) did a change to his usual style of video about MtG and started a “community/crowd sourced” deck building project around a deck idea he had. There were a couple of rules about building the deck but that’s unimportant.

What is important is the card he said that had to be used (Island Sanctuary), the card he used to play with it back in the day (Mystic Decree) and the card he suggested people might consider (Sandwurm Convergence).

Apart from Mystic Decree (wrong colour) the other 2 cards are Selesnya colours (white and green), and would fit in nicely into my Trostani token spam deck.

I have a similar package in my Horrors from the Deep deck with Archetype of Imagination and Stormtide Leviathan.


I could see Mystic Decree being a sweet addition to that deck.

What I like about the combo of Sandwurm Convergence and Island Sanctuary is it fits in with the token spam strategy and gives me that bit of protection, breathing space to find maybe a solution to a problem on the board, develop my game plan.

It really was fortuitous coming across that video yesterday. The timing couldn’t have been better. There will be a version 2 of the Trostani deck, there are some cards in the Selesnya Guild deck that would be at home in the deck too. So there will be some reviewing going on, cards having to justify their place in the deck. But that’s also true for the Horrors of the Deep deck too. I have a handful of cards that are shouting for a place in the deck.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner II

Game day, magic, MtG

After a weeks break I returned to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole to take part in my second ever Standard Showdown.

In between events Magic Madhouse and the Royal Mail had let me down by losing my order of a playset of Find//Finality. Everything else I ordered on the same day and after has turned up no problem. But this, a card actually important to my deck and needed, not a sign of them.

To add to my deck problems I was due to pick up a second Vivien Reid Planeswalker. But there was no one home when I called. So I was going to have to cobble together my sideboard.

Luck really was not on my side because there were no copies of Find//Finality in the store folders.

While waiting for the Standard Showdown to start, John the store owner and I took part in that age old tradition of swapping money for goods. In this case I picked up my pre-order of one each of the new Guild decks, 6 booster packs (3 Guilds of Ravnica, 1 Dominaria, 1 Shadows Over Innistrad and 1 Hour of Devestation), and I got the stores last Guild deck (Golgari). I used the really beautiful basic lands from the Golgari guild deck to replace the ones in my deck.


Todays Standard Showdown had 8 players taking part. Which meant that there would be 3 rounds of MtG.

The pairings for the first round were announced…

Round 1

The gods of pseudo random selection gave me a repeat of my opening round of my first Standard Showdown. Would history repeat itself? Would Michael once again defeat me?

Sadly for Michael my deck hit its stride and worked as intended. I hit my land drops, I used my removal to control the board state.Vivien Reid even made it out and I got to use her a couple of times.

Michael’s deck was a mono white life gain deck. That if I didn’t have as much removal as I did would have been a serious problem for me. So despite him gaining life, which was annoying, I was still able to swing in and do more damage than he was able to gain life.

I even managed to get Carnage Tyrant and Ghalta out in the games.

Final Score: Win 2-0

Round 2

This round gave me a match up that was a first for me. This was the first time I’d been opposite Ben in a tournament. Ben was playing Izzet (Blue/Red). I’d seen his deck in action against John’s Golgari deck in the previous Standard Showdown I’d attended. Then it had totally destroyed John’s deck.

Our first game was close, but in the end there wasn’t much he could do against a Carnage Tyrant and it’s mates. I think in that game I took 12 damage from Risk Factor. I wasn’t going to let Ben get that card draw and the advantage it would give him.

Our second game after some sideboarding by Ben, I think I put in an extra Ghalta and the Silent Gravestone, was a lot more comfortable a win for me.

Final Score: Win 2-0

Round 3

The final round was between Kar-Fai and myself for what was being billed by Kar-Fai the battle for top spot. Kar-Fai had been tracking wins/losses by folks, and his calculations had given him the conclusion he had reached. Me I was just shocked I’d won 2 games.

Our first game was trading blows, my Golgari hitting his I think mono red. I don’t remember a second colour. But once again I was able to control the board. I even was able to stop his Flame of Keld saga hitting it’s 3rd level with an Assassin’s Trophy.

The second game was a different story. I had to mulligan down to 5 cards to get a land! So I was already starting at a disadvantage. I did well to hang on in really for as long as I did. I was using a lot of removal to do that. Even using a Vraska’s Contempt to remove Kar-Fai’s Rekindling Phoenix. I was maybe 2 turns from being able to stand a chance of turning the game around when I lost.

The third and final game. The decider. This time Kar-Fai had to mulligan down to 5 cards. It’s not nice having to do that. I know I had to do it in the previous game. So I was feeling a little bit confident, and for the first time in the match up going first.

I think a combination of the card disadvantage, not removing my Llanowar Elf (although to be fair it would have slowed me down by a turn or two, because I had a second in hand) were too much of an advantage to over come. Not removing the Llanowar Elf meant my Steel Leaf Champion was out and doing damage. From there it was downhill for Kar-Fai. I was controlling the board, hitting him for 5 with Steel Leaf. His Flame of Keld saga went fully told, and had very little impact on the game because he had an empty battlefield, and only doubled an etb trigger so I took 4 damage that turn instead of 2.

I’d won! I’d gone 3 rounds undefeated. Wow! I was totally gobsmacked.

Final Score: Win 2-1

The WotC software did its calculations and I indeed had won this Standard Showdown. At last I’ve won when it matters! So that’s a Standard Showdown and a Prerelease I’ve won.

Winning meant I got 1 Standard Showdown pack, and 3 booster packs (1 participation pack, 2 for winning). As you can see a shiny Niv-Mizzet, and shiny swamp were in my Standard Showdown pack. I’m happy with that.


From a pure monetary value point of view I think these Standard Showdowns are good value for the entry fee of £5. Today there were 6 Standard Showdown booster packs up for grabs. So taking John out of the equation, only 1 unlucky person didn’t get one. But everyone got a participation booster. Plus 3 rounds of friendly competitive MtG. Naturally I ended up well into the black this week. But I did last time thanks to pulling an Assassin’s Trophy in my participation pack.

My playmat for the day was a recent acquisition from eBay that was a steal (With postage just under £8.)


Afterwards we played a 5 player game of Commander. I played with the Trostani token spam deck. I didn’t get any of the cards to double the tokens created. But I did flicker Trostani out a few times, and stumbled upon another tactic of the deck!

I’d put Ledev Champion in for his token generating abilities, a mana sink basically. I hadn’t really thought much of his other ability. Well until this game that is. There was that “if you gain life you lose it instead” bs enchantment out, I was accruing 1/1 soldier tokens with lifelink thanks to the flickering. But not really in my interest to attack because they were 2/2 with the +1/+1 ability of Trostani boosting them. But I could tap them to pump up Ledev Champion and swing in with a single big creature, maybe do lethal. I’ll have to look into giving him trample or making him unblockable.

I didn’t win the game of Commander. But the deck was working as planned, and I found another win condition for it. And I had fun.

What a great afternoon of MtG.

So for the one or two out there remotely interested in the tweaks I’ve made to the deck for this week, here I present my deck list for this second Standard Showdown.

The big change was putting Ritual of Soot in the main 60. Space for them was made by moving Mastermind’s Acquisition to the sideboard. I’ve also found space in the main 60 for Vivien Reid to start.

In the deck list below I’ve put the cards in bold that will get replaced once I get copies of Find//Finality. I’m going to have to think long and hard how the second copy of Vivien Reid fits in.

Creatures:26

4 Llanowar Elves
2 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
3 Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Nullhide Ferox
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:13

4 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Never Happened
2 Ritual of Soot
4 Vraska’s Contempt
1 Vivien Reid

Lands:21

6 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
4 Golgari Guildgate (a)
1 Overgrown Tomb
7 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:15

2 Skittering Heartstopper
1 Dire Fleet Poisoner
2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Demon of Catastrophes
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Status // Statue
2 Mastermind’s Acquisition
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

Drafting Dream Eater

Commander, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Dream Eater from Guilds of Ravnica…
I kinda like the card. I can see it fitting into my Muldrotha Commander deck. That deck wants cards in the graveyard, and surveil was built for that deck. So being able to look at 4 cards, arrange them in any order and put back on top of the library, or put them into the graveyard is huge.

For 6 CMC there seems to be a lot of value when casting it. Firstly it has Flash, so you get to play it like an instant.

It’s a flying 4/3, which isn’t too shabby. But the card can be taken out by single hit removal like a lightning bolt. Which kinda is a negative.

Finally there is the surveil 4 that I’ve already talked about. Which to me is it’s big advantage. Flash out on the end step before your turn, allows you to make sure you are hopefully drawing the right card for the turn and putting useful stuff in the graveyard.

Not sure yet which card will get replaced by Dream Eater in the Muldrotha deck. But I do have a couple of “upgrades” I’m thinking about adding to the deck. So I can look at them at the same time I’m evaluating cards against Dream Eater. A deck is never finished…

Ninjas meet Assassins

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

One of my planned Commander deck ideas is a ninja themed deck with Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow from Commander 2018 as it’s Commander.

I think it’s accepted that there are not enough (good) ninjas to make a deck with. Which has been a bit of a brake on the brewing of the deck.

But then I had a moment of clarity when I saw the card Etrata, the Silencer.


Assassins are like ninjas! How about if I make the deck a ninjas and assassins deck?

Thematically it works. Or it does in my little make believe world.

It means I can’t use tribal boosters, or if I do it will be to boost a subset of the creature base. Unless I run Arcane Adaptation to make them all one creature type. The half way solution could be to run a mix of general boosts and tribal ones.

But that’s the updated plan for the ninja deck, or ninjas and assassins deck. What assassins should I put in the deck?

Goblins Tribal Commander Deck

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building


Wow lucky sufferers, back to back Commander decks. This one and yesterday’s deck Trostani were played yesterday (ok as a 1 v 1 Commander games). Not a great test for them, but at least I could see if they were able to their thing.

“I’ll put my usual disclaimer here about my decks. 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 proxy in expensive cards and produce them when I play. It helps keep costs down. I can’t afford multiple copies of expensive cards to put in decks. Commander is a casual format about having fun. And that is the ethos I hope I have when brewing the decks.”

So with that copy and paste disclaimer out of the way, for your reading delight I present…


I kind of fell into this deck. There have been one or two nice new goblin cards in recent sets, along with a reprint or two. Plus they were in one of the last but one duel decks to be released. So I had a good base to start building this deck from. Plus the cards I didn’t have (mainly some goblin lords needed to pump up the goblins) were rather cheap.

Because I’m staying mono red I’m able to reuse a few of the cards from my Etali mono red Commander deck. So for me I’m getting a lot of value from that deck.

For this deck I decided to go with Squee, the Immortal as my Commander. Although I may try it with different Commanders to see if it makes a difference. But I like that although Squee doesn’t combo or do anything for other goblins, he is impossible to get rid of. Plus he has no Commander tax, so he can be used for cards that require a goblin/creature to be sacrificed over and over again.

This is a tribal deck, so naturally we have the odd tribal card in the deck to pump up our goblins on top of any anthem effects we get from our goblin lords. Of which there are a few.

There are a handful of cards that also generate goblin tokens. This deck doesn’t specifically aim to go wide. But it doesn’t hurt to have the option to increase the number of goblins on the battlefield.

There is a removal suite for this deck, both targeted and mass removal. There are cards that improve our card draw in the deck, but this is a weakness of red, and the 3 or 4 present hopefully help. I have one card in the deck that acts as graveyard hate, I may tweak that with adding one more. But I’m happy with the 3 or 4 cards in their to get round hexproof targets.

So the overall plan is to beef up the goblins, and swing in for the win. I’m hoping at a minimum the goblins will be getting a +2/+2 boost. Which would help them avoid one or two of my own cards aimed at keeping the board clear of spammy tokens.

Lets look at the graphics produced by the Decked app for this deck.


Pretty chuffed the AMC just scrapes in under 3. I think this is a pretty cheap deck, although for some reason it wasn’t able to price some cards. So it’s a little more costly than the price shown.

Ok the bit you’re interested in the actual cards that make up the deck.

Creatures:32

1 Fanatical Firebrand
1 Goblin Banneret
1 Goblin Glory Chaser
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Dark-Dweller Oracle
1 Ember Hauler
1 Goblin Instigator
1 Goblin Trailblazer
1 Goblin Wardriver
1 Metallic Mimic
1 Warren Instigator
1 Adaptive Automaton
1 Boggart Brute
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chainwhirler
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Goblin Warchief
1 Guttersnipe
1 Squee, the Immortal
1 Treasure Nabber
1 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Zo-Zu the Punisher
1 Battle-Rattle Shaman
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Trashmaster
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Volley Veteran
1 Battle Squadron
1 Siege-Gang Commander

Spells:35

1 Blazing Volley
1 By Force
1 Fall of the Titans
1 Glaring Spotlight
1 Goblin Grenade
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Mutiny
1 Sol Ring
1 Sudden Demise
1 Traveler’s Amulet
1 Abrade
1 Crook of Condemnation
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Krenko’s Command
1 Lightning Strike
1 Pyroclasm
1 Chaos Warp
1 Herald’s Horn
1 Hordeling Outburst
1 Risk Factor
1 Aether Flash
1 Goblin Barrage
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Melt Terrain
1 Nevinyrral’s Disk
1 Radiating Lightning
1 Vance’s Blasting Cannons
1 Cleaver Riot
1 Fiery Intervention
1 Hour of Devastation
1 Vanquisher’s Banner
1 Caged Sun
1 Obelisk of Urd
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Star of Extinction

Lands:33

1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Detection Tower
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Madblind Mountain
24 Mountain
1 Ramunap Ruins
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Shivan Gorge
1 Sunscorched Desert
1 Temple of the False God

Trostani Token Spam Commander Deck

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

“I’ll put my usual disclaimer here about my decks. 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 proxy in expensive cards and produce them when I play. It helps keep costs down. I can’t afford multiple copies of expensive cards to put in decks. Commander is a casual format about having fun. And that is the ethos I hope I have when brewing the decks.”

Well here it is my Trostani – Selesnya (green/white) token spam deck, that was inspired by the card Divine Visitation. But before we go and look at the boring stuff, let’s just take a moment to take in the absolutely stunning art for the Commander.


I’ve managed to find just the art on the internet and here it is, Chase Stone’s incredible card art of Trostani Discordant.

The core tactic of this deck is to create lots of tokens, which we can hopefully can do with the likes of Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, Parallel Lives and Primal Vigor. Which if we are lucky can then turn into 4/4 Angel tokens when they trigger Divine Visitation.

There are blink/flicker effect cards in the deck to allow me to trigger that etb of Trostani, or any other creature I have with an etb I can miss use! If I can get Panharmonicon out and do all this, that etb triggers twice.

So I’d say this deck apart from being all about spamming out tokens, is a little combo like too. With the combo like behaviour being all around the generation of tokens.

Naturally there are also cards for generating tokens. The nice thing is there are a lot of mana abilities that can be used to generate tokens on creatures and lands.

I don’t have too many anthem effects, so that could be considered a weakness. So if we don’t have our inspiration for this deck out, the tokens generated at best will only get a +1/+1 from our Commander. I think iirc The Immortal Sun and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite are my only other anthems. So they are potentially a bit vulnerable to the likes of a Goblin Chainwhirler or similar effect.

There is also a feeble attempt at tutoring with a couple of cards, along with card draw. Although a few of the non basic lands are cycle lands.

Finally there is plan B. Not much of a plan B. But still it’s a plan. And that is Approach of the Second Sun.

Let’s look at the graphics from the decked app.

I’m happy with the AMC, 4 or under is my target. So nicely under. But bloody hell when did some of these cards get so expensive? I will say this every time we look at that b.s. number that is apparently generated by prices on Card Kingdom. How are people meant to play this game? I for sure on the one or two cards I bought in specially for this deck did not pay anywhere near the prices listed above.

Here is the deck list…

Creatures:24

1 Haazda Marshal
1 Rhys the Redeemed
1 Conclave Guildmage
1 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
1 Shanna, Sisay’s Legacy
1 District Guide
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Flickerwisp
1 Ledev Champion
1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
1 Baird, Steward of Argive
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Conclave Cavalier
1 Felidar Guardian
1 Leonin Warleader
1 Sumala Woodshaper
1 Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Trostani Discordant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Silent Sentinel
1 Trostani’s Summoner

Spells:43

1 Authority of the Consuls
1 Cloudshift
1 Demotion
1 Flower // Flourish
1 Land Tax
1 Legion’s Landing
1 Sol Ring
1 Assure // Assemble
1 Dawn of Hope
1 Dowsing Dagger
1 Martial Coup
1 Momentary Blink
1 Quest for Renewal
1 Saproling Migration
1 Acrobatic Maneuver
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Commander’s Sphere
1 History of Benalia
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 March of the Multitudes
1 Selesnya Locket
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Sprouting Renewal
1 Teferi’s Protection
1 Anointed Procession
1 Circuitous Route
1 Crush Contraband
1 Panharmonicon
1 Parallel Lives
1 Second Harvest
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Wrath of God
1 Conjurer’s Closet
1 Divine Visitation
1 Doubling Season
1 Fumigate
1 Primal Vigor
1 Vivien Reid
1 Bounty of Might
1 Hour of Revelation
1 Planar Bridge
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Approach of the Second Sun

Lands:33

1 Blossoming Sands
1 Bountiful Promenade
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Desert of the True
1 Drifting Meadow
1 Field of Ruin
7 Forest
1 Foundry of the Consuls
1 Krosan Verge
8 Plains
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Selesnya Guildgate (a)
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Shefet Dunes
1 Survivors’ Encampment
1 Temple Garden
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tranquil Expanse
1 Vivid Meadow
1 Warped Landscape

My First Ever Standard Showdown!

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Wow was Saturday afternoon really my first Standard Showdown?

But what is Standard Showdown? It’s a weekly event where players turn up with their constructed standard decks and compete over a series of rounds for a special showdown booster pack. It costs a fiver at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole to enter, and at a minimum you get a regular booster pack for participating.

The previous weekend I had given my Golgari Stompy deck a test run against, as it would happen another Golgari deck. And it did ok in that match up. But how would it do against the meta at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole?

I’d spent the morning waiting for the post person to deliver our letters. I was hoping some cards for the new Commander deck might turn up. If there was time later I was hoping to give the new deck a play. I had alternatives I could play in the deck if they didn’t turn up. I left it to the absolute last minute possible before leaving. But no sign of the post person.

Round 1

I was up against Michael nephew of Kar-Fai. And both taking part in this Standard Showdown. Michael has infect in one of his Commander decks. That should tell you all you need to know about him! Michael was playing mono green.

Game 1 – “mana screwed: not having enough mana” I had none. That’s despite mulliganing down to 5 cards. I went with 5 cards and no lands, risking I would draw into one quickly. It was the wrong call. I got no lands at all until it was too late and I was going to die. This happens from time to time in the game, no point getting upset over it. Kar-Fai was suffering from being mana screwed too. However he had a couple of lands, just not enough. I could have done a lot with a couple of lands, I was jealous.

Game 2 – I took a lot of early damage. But managed to stabilise at 1 life! Even went back up to 3 after a Vraska’s Contempt! If Michael had been playing red I might have been worried about being lightning bolted to defeat. But he was mono green. Which allowed me to turn the tables and take the win.

Game 3 – The deciding game. A bit more balanced but Michael took the win.

Final score: Loss 1-2

Afterwards while waiting for the next round Michael and I had a Friendly game with our decks. This time it played exactly as designed and swept me to the victory!

Round 2

In this round I was up against Dean and his white (can’t remember if he was playing another colour) token spam deck.

I lost both games, I just had no answer for the token spamming and the pumping up of them. I was able to remove an enchantment in a game to delay the inevitable but it was in reality a token (yes I went there) gesture.

Final score: Loss 2-0


Round 3

Saw me claim my first win of the tournament by default with a bye! So I used that time wisely taking lots of photos. It was an interesting round because it saw 2 uncle against nephew games. Dean crushed his young nephew. Which wasn’t a surprise, we tease Dean about exploiting his nephews for promos etc. Kar-Fai got beat by his nephew Michael. What added to the defeat was the fact Michael’s deck was built for him by Kar-Fai.

Round 4

The final round of the Standard Showdown was the rematch of last weekends game against John the store owner. Would John get his revenge? I felt that things were lining up for that to be the case.

Game 1 – I ended up winning with 4 weenies ( 1/1 creatures). I just didn’t draw into any big creatures.

Game 2 – My deck just worked, John never really drew into any answers. So once again I had defeated John in the battle of our decks.

Final score: Win 2-0

One person I enjoy playing Magic against is Grant. It’s always fun, we seem evenly matched in the games we have played in the past. Sadly in this tournament my poor record meant we never got to play. So Grant kindly accept to play a friendly game with me afterwards. Grant for the record was playing a golgari token spam deck. Which had got him into the top 4!

Game 1 – This token strategy of Grant’s didn’t seem as aggressive as Dean’s. There just didn’t seem as many hitting the battlefield. Enough for me to manage and get through to get the win.

Game 2 – I decided to use the Never Happened in the 60, at the expense of a Chupacabra and a Poisoner. Mainly in the attempt to remove some of the token buffs or creation. It was the best option I had in slowing down the token strategy. I thought I’d give Vraska a chance, so with Mastermind’s Acquisition I went and got her. I got to use her ability a couple of times before falling to the token horde. She bought me a little time if nothing else.

Game 3 – The deciding game. This was a really tense game. It could have gone either way. This time I gave Vivien Reid an outing. Her card draw was really useful, she distracted Grant and bought me time. It’s a shame she is a £20 plus card on eBay. I’d consider a second copy for this deck. But not at that price. However Vivien was the difference that gave me the win.

Really enjoyed the 3 games with Grant. Plus this was a top 4 deck it’d just beat!

Final friendly score: Win 2-1

In the final standings I managed to miraculously end up in 8th out of 12/13. In the participation pack I pulled a 6th Assassin’s Trophy (got my 5th last weekend from the bundle packs I opened). So real happy with that.

Meta round up: some mono green stompy, golgari, token decks (White and Green), and red plus red/blue(?). Will this still be the meta next week? Will there be tweaks being made to cater for decks faced this week?

Potential tweaks for next Standard Showdown

Currently I have no answer to the token spam. John showed me Find//Finality, which is a board wipe (kinda), and should get rid of those pesky tokens. It really is a major weakness of my deck.


I already have a play set of Pilfering Imp already. I like the look of it. Plus it allows me to interrupt the opponents plans. Just need to think is it good enough to replace Skittering Heartstopper? Ritual of Soot is another potential board wipe to consider.

I really enjoyed my first Standard Showdown. It was interesting to see the decks that were making up the meta. Will the meta be similar next week? How much will it have shifted in response to this weeks decks?


This is the final version of the Golgari deck that I played with at The Standard Showdown and the previous weekend against John (the FLGS owner).

For those remotely interested the only real difference between this deck list and the original is that there are now 4 copies of Assassin’s Trophy and Vraska’s Contempt instead of 3 in the main deck, and Duress went to make space for those extra copies. Plus I finalised the sideboard, Tetzimoc, Primal Death was replaced by another Never Happened.

Creatures:29

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
4 Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Nullhide Ferox
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:10

4 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Mastermind’s Acquisition
4 Vraska’s Contempt

Lands:21

6 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
4 Golgari Guildgate (a)
1 Overgrown Tomb
7 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:15

2 Kitesail Freebooter
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Demon of Catastrophes
1 Vivien Reid
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
1 Silent Gravestone
2 Walk the Plank
2 Never Happened
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen
1 The Immortal Sun