The results were pleasing, and I think if I'd played better throughout the event I'd have had an easier time of making it into the playoffs and pressing onward. The deck really only gave me awkward draws related to mana, which I think is my fault, too. Considering this, if I can make so many mistakes all night and still get to the second half of the tournament, then perhaps I've finally found a decent list. Or at least the start of one. I call it...
| MAINDECK | |
| Creatures | |
| 4 Akroan Crusader | |
| 4 Wojek Halberdiers | |
| 3 Foundry Street Denizen | |
| 3 Hopeful Eidolon | |
| 3 Minotaur Skullcleaver | |
| 3 Rakdos Shred-Freak | |
| 3 Viashino Firstblade | |
| 2 Auramancer | |
| Spells | |
| 3 Dragon Mantle | |
| 3 Gods Willing | |
| 3 Madcap Skills | |
| 3 Titan's Strength | |
| 2 Ethereal Armor | |
| 2 Prophetic Prism | |
| Lands | |
| 9 Mountain | |
| 6 Plains | |
| 4 Boros Guildgate | |
| 1 Unknown Shores | |
| SIDEBOARD |
| 3 Razortip Whip |
| 3 Keening Apparition |
| 3 Electrickery |
| 3 Chandra's Outrage |
| 3 Celestial Flare |
It took a little bit of experimentation to the get he numbers seeming right. I knew space would be tight and I would be sacrificing the consistency of Boros by lowering the creature count to make room for the Auras suite. So I ended up making the somewhat weird-looking choice to only go with two copies of Ethereal Armor even though these are the most powerful Aura on its face. What's the deal with that?
The thing is, I found Armor became a win-more card for when things were already working out here than in other Aura decks, where it's a pure backbone card. Also, Madcap Skills is just perfect as a three-of in Boros; this was not my innovation, so I did not want to touch it. The decision came down to the balance between Armor, Dragon Mantle, and Titan's Strength, two spells that have been doing well in aggressive Monored builds In the end, I went the more red route and ended up relying less on the optimal draws Armor wants and just ended up with draws to begin with. This helped me out tremendously in testing and in-tournament and I would still get the concessional Eidolin + Armor god draw.
I was also taking my new one-drop into consideration, taking a build-around me approach. Akroan Crusader can be a real nastyman, especially in an opening hand with any of of the buffs. Some of my testing matches before the tournament convinced me when I was able to swing for almost half my opponent's life total on the second turn. No joke, give the deck a test run and see how high you can get your second turn swing! You just need one of the other dudes and some buffs. More on these in later post since Boros is the Deck of the Week.
Above all, the real MPV of the deck is not any of its creatures or auras or pump spells. It's Gods Willing. No contest. More about this later in the Card of the Day since I haven't even mentioned the players who did even better than Boros.
The trophy honors went to Grociu's Monoblack control, giving the archetype its second win this season. All this talk about how mean, nasty, and prevalent Dimir Mill is has kind of overshadowed this beast. In fact, it seems Dimir Mill has failed to place at all! Are happy days here again? Or have we traded one awful control build for another?
Only time will tell, and there are plenty of contenders to knock Control off the throne developing. The rest of the players who had success after the Swiss had as wide a variety of decks as we've seen all season. Gwyned's new Turtle Power! deck based around Nivix Cyclops took second place and is the most refreshing entry to me, but there's even more variety this week, from new Simic strategies to trie-and-true Hexproof.
Looks like some changes are a-happenin'! We're already pretty much halfway through the season and the environment is still in far from solved. See you around the second half the season! Thanks for reading, good games, and good luck. Peace,
- C
One of the reasons Mill was built is that it has a real good (hmmm excellent) matchup vs MBC synergies. The more MBC we see, the more Mill will be played. If some builds can get around both archetypes then we'll have a well balanced and interesting Metagame...
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