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-1 Ouphe +1 Manglehorn because SaintDoom says so.

Most recent change before that was down to 2 Evolutions to fit a Bird in.

Now the cards closest to being cut are 2nd Forest, 3rd Path, all the Ouphes, and Manglehorn.

The cards that just barely didn't make the cut are 4th Horizon Canopy, 3rd Evolution, Kor Firewalker, and Chameleon Colossus.

Results

3-2 (6-5). Nothing special; I played poorly vs Burn. I still don't have a super-coherent plan for Eldrazi Tron.

XX Spirits Lifetime 4-2 vs Spirits

XX Burn Lifetime 13-11 vs Burn

OO Sultai Snow (T3, T4 Thrun) Not tracked.

OXO Eldrazi Tron (T3, T5) Lifetime 7-3 vs Eldrazi Tron

OO Mirror (T3, T6) Lifetime 4-1 vs Druid

Rounds!

Round 1 on the draw vs petator on Spirits

Spirits is hard; Queller is great against us. We have to win by opponents putting bad cards in their deck. Luckily, spirits players often do this. Here's hoping!

Lose Game 1

This is fine; Once Upon a Time speeds up the clock by a turn 33% of the time.

Nope, the Once Upon a Time is a land. Ah well. Opponent goes Wanderer into Wanderer into Wanderer and so I am dead.

-2 Evolution -1 Lunge -2 Finale (Queller) +3 Path +2 Veil (Unified Will)

Lose Game 2

Nope; not much here:

Nope:

Nope, definitely not:

Yup, good 4:

Bottom Arbor, Vines, Vizier.

On the play what would you take?

When you are on 4, you are not looking for the most consistent, highest expected value play. When you are on 4 and on the draw, you are looking for the most absurd upside play possible. It isn't close. Take the Druid.

Anyway I missed the land a couple times and opponent had double Path.

Sad times. Also opponent didn't board in cards from their terrible sideboard to dilute their gameplan. :(

Round 2 on the draw vs XhDun on Burn

Burn is unbelievably popular and really a close game for us. I wonder if I should have another card in the board for them -- burn is now more than 10% of my matches.

Lose Game 1

This is fine:

Opponent doesn't even have to waste any spells on our things (Searing Blaze doesn't count) and we die T4.

-2 Lunge -2 Vizier -2 Evolution

Lose Game 2

Yup!

I play this game perfectly, landing both Forgetenders, trading them for a Goblin Guide and an obvious Skullcrack, getting one back and trading it for a Blaze, then setting up the Path into Call for Shalai T7.

I got distracted and forgot to execute the plan. I literally just didn't cast the Call. Died the next turn to a Boros Charm that would have had no text if I had remembered.

Round 3 on the draw vs SaberLG on Sultai Snow

This is like a really hard control deck. Good thing we have 1 Thrun. Hopefully that is :matchupfixed: ...

Win Game 1

Being tempted by this is a common mistake. If you count the Once Upon a Times, this is still only a 2/3 chance to hit land 2 by turn 2.

This is much stronger; bottom bird:

T2 Druid; opponent Thought Scours me. This means they must be a Drown in the Loch deck I guess.

Anyway my Druid gets Pushed. I lunge and win T3.

+4 Veil +1 Lightcaster (Black control); -2 Evolution -2 Vizier (Black Control) -1 Once (Long Game)

-1 Bird +1 Thrun (Maybe super hard control)

Win Game 2

Hmm. I kept this. It's very powerful even though it isn't explosive.

I veiled a Push on Giver. A bunch of things died. This is the dumbest kind of magic, for me -- when the opponent's plan is to Push and rebuy Push and Opt and blah blah blah.

Anyway, we screw around a lot and then I play a T4 Thrun. That... that's pretty strong here.

And opponent is not up for it.

Round 4 on the draw vs ivanguille on Eldrazi Tron

This is harder than normal Tron because we have a lot of ways to beat T3 Karn Liberated.

We don't have as many ways to beat T3 All Is Dust and T2 Thought-Knot Seer is bad for us too.

Win Game 1

Yessss

This is an interesting Once Upon a Time.

Against Tron when on the draw, the question is how you are going to beat T3 Karn.

This hand, with a Lunge and a third land, can do it -- but only with this Vizier.

Opponent does not play T3 Karn; they play T3 Thought-Knot Seer.... but this hand is unbelievably redundant. They agree:

+3 Path +1 Manglehorn (??) +1 Caterpillar -1 Bird -2 Lunge (TKS) -2 Evolution (usually do this)

Lose Game 2

This is garbo:

I'm tempted into keeping this. It does things. I bottom a Noble.

But it doesn't really do very many things.

Anyway I topdeck a Giver and play it out into obvious T2 TKS, which takes my path. This is a really bad punt. If opponent goes T1 Temple, they have it. Just assume they have it. Hold up the path.

Opponent orders blockers very wrong though, so opponent tries to punt back.

On my T5, a Blast Zone clears two Givers and a Noble, and I go to 7. I can't set up any reasonable defenses against the Smasher, and I die T6.

Started out behind due to bad keep and then played T1 poorly too. I deserve this loss by a lot.

Win Game 3

This is fine, I think? The Vines is fine on the play; T3 Druid with protection is good. We are hoping to dodge All Is Dusts anyway.

Opponent has T1 Cage. So we are not in a hurry since Finale is not Vizier after all -- play Giver and wait and hope.

We end up here, where I can't get the Vizier because my Viziers are both Finales.

This is strong, but it isn't as strong of a position as it looks -- opponent plays All Is Dust and presumably Karn can do something useful if they hit tron. Luckily all they can muster is Karn, the Great Creator with 0 mana up, so they just plus on nothing.

I draw Vizier T5, which sounds lucky, but come on, it's not that lucky. There were 9.333 of them in the deck. Also we were killing Karn with the Vines of Vastwood if we didn't draw the win.

Win T5.

Round 5 on the draw vs MrZarukai on Druid!

Zarukai is an A+ Discord Citizen.

But the mirror is so toxic. Luckily the more all-in version usually wins it. Unfortunately the person who wins the die roll usually wins it.

This time those aren't the same person, so let's see how it goes.

Game 1

Yes; if we are breaking serve it looks like this:

Opponent mulligans to 4 and has a Stoneforge Mystic on 2. We got there. Win T3.

This is a race: -2 Lunge (Is this correct?) -1 Giver (???) +3 Path (I am at least pretty sure about this part), let's go.

Win Game 2

Nope:

Yup; make them have it:

Once Upon a Time is a Ranger-Captain. Uhoh.

They brick the T3, but so do I -- no WW for Ranger-Captain for the T3.

They know it is coming, so they T4 Revoker on Druid. Bahahahaha. I Ranger-Captain for the Ballista.

We end up in a really interesting Ballista situation:

Opponent gets Ballista down on 1 from the position at left. With their Giver in play, that means I can't clear the Revoker with just a Ballista on 2: If I play ballista on 2 and ping revoker, they don't have to tap giver -- they can respond by pinging my ballista with their ballista. Then if I try to ping Revoker again, the Giver saves it, but I can't let the ping resolve because my Ballista will be down to 1 by then. So my planned Ballista on 2 just can't kill the revoker.

So I Evolution my tired Druid away, and opponent sees the Shalai coming and pings away my Vizier. I'd like to note that the opponent is extremely on top of things. Then I pass the turn, opponent bricks some more, and I get to win with Ballista on 2 to kill the Revoker through Giver, Lunge the Vizier, attack with Shalai. Win T6.

This mirror match is normally unbelievably awful, but the Revoker definitely made it strange. :D

3-2 (6-5)

Very happy to 3-2 after playing so poorly at the beginning of the league.

Will consider adding another card for Burn since it is so common. It would be nice if there was a card for both Burn and Shadow.

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