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