By
Philip E Crouse
This past Sunday I decided to make a small twist to my UG Madness
deck. A friend let me borrow some Natural Orders and a Progenitus for
day. Also, I make a few other changes to my deck that can be seen here:
Lands: 21
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Wasteland
3x Breeding Pool
1x Tropical Island
2x Island
2x Forest
1x Taiga
Creatures: 18
4x Wild Mongrel
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Arrogant Wurm
2x Fauna Shaman
2x Civilized Scholar
1x Wonder
1x Progentius
Other Spells: 21
3x Natural order
4x Circular Logic
3x Daze
3x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
2x Spell Pierce
2x Deep Analysis
Sideboard: 15
2x Spell Pierce
3x Pithing Needle
1x Daze
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Krosan Grip
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Chill
1x Molten-Tail Masticore
As I said before, I added in the NO
combo in just to see how I liked it. As you will see, I never got the
combo off. So, I'm not sure how I feel about it. The combo player in me
loves the idea of just winning on turn four, but if I never even draw
any of the cards except one game, then I'm not sure. We'll just have to
test it for in the future, I guess.
Other Mainboard changes were
that I cut the Aquamoebas and replaced them with two Fauna Shamans and
two Civilized Scholar. I did not feel like Aquamoebas 3/1 body if I
discard a card was better then paying a green to search for Wonder and
discarding it to give my attackers flying. I only own two Fauna Shamans,
however. So, I went a little deeper to see if I could find a creature
that discards a card that might be better than Aquamoeba. (Meanwhile, I
order another Fauna Shaman online.) I needed two slots, and I remembered
I own two foil Civilized Scholars. They cannot be any worse than
Aquamoeba, right? A 5/1 flyer that let you draw a card is fun. Also,
that flavor. If anything else, I could just take him out after the
tournament and never think about flying him again.
Also, my Stifles are still not here. So, that's why they are still absent.:/
This
past week, I went through and gave serious thought to my Sideboard. I
need more protection from activated abilities. So, I put in three
Needles. Also, there are a lot of combo decks in my meta. Counter spells
it is. I plan on having 2 Daze main and 2 side, but with the lack one a
playset of Force of Wills, I still wanted a "free" counter. Yes, I am
aware that Daze is not as good as Force. I added Molten-Tail Masticore
because I wanted to try him out. I just really like the card for some
reason. Its one of those cards I've always wanted to play with, and I
wanted to give it a try.
With these changes in mind, here are the rounds I played.
Round 1:
Round one was against the guy that let me borrow his Natural Orders. He was playing Junk Depths
In game one, we started by just trading resources. We Wastelanded a
few lands and I Force of Will'd his Bob. Eventually, he drew stuff and
things, and he got me after I did not play a whole lot.
In the second game, he kept a bad hand with a lot of discard spells.
That seems awesome for me. After using a Civilized Scholar to discard a
Wonder, I attacked for five in the air. What a Wonder-ful combo. Yeah. I
flying army became too much for him once I got an Arrogant Worm in
play.
In the last game, I got a Pithing Needle in play naming Thespian's
Stage. But Abrupt Decay handled that, and a Knight of the Reliquary
activated was all it took with an active Dark Depths in play to end the
match
0-1
Round 2:
In the second round, I played against a Red Greed pile of cards Deck.
In the first game, I played a turn two Wild Mongrel that eventually
allowed me to cheat a couple Rootwallas in play that were pumped and
flying thanks to Wonder in my graveyard.
The second game kind of went the same way. The different was that I
was able to get an active Fauna Shaman to get Wonder to discard to
Civilized Scholar. After doing five in the air for a few turns, it was
game over.
1-1
Round 3:
The three round put me up against Tin Fins.
In the first game, I played a Breeding Pool tapped with a Daze in hand. He played around Daze and went off on his turn one.
In the second game, he tried to go off on turn one, but I had Force
of Will and double Daze in hand. I then attacked with my Rootwalla for a
couple turns before Wonder had to join the board (I didn't draw any
other creature). After he Chain of Vapor'd my Wonder back to my hand, I
managed to attack for lethal two turns later.
The third game started off with him going off and running into a
counter spell. He then tried two more times that game. I had him at one
two different types in the process. The last time I had him at one and
lethal on board he managed to go off and Tendril me for lethal with one
card left in his library.
1-2
Round 4:
The last round was against a WB Humans
deck, but not the one I played against last week. This guy says he's
been collecting for years, but just now has started playing. So, he's
still new to deckbuilding.
In the first game, he just did not draw anything, and for some
reason did not mulligan. After my Wild Mongrel and Rootwalla did some
attacking, the game was over.
In the second game, he managed to get some humans out and kill off
two of my guys. After I got a flying army in play, he could not really
do much.
2-2
I really like this deck. It makes for some fun games. I
still need to work on tuning the deck the what I want it to be.
Hopefully, I can still progress with this deck in the future, and get it
up to par.
There are some changes I am going to make to the deck.
First, I received my third Fauna Shaman in the mail. I'll be adding her
and taking out one Civilized Scholar. After thinking about it, I think I
want to keep one Scholar in the deck. I might stick with a 3/1 spit on
the two cards for the next few week and see how I like it. In the
Sideboard, I want to replace Crypt with Surgical Extraction. Against
combo and graveyard decks, I can just get something important instead of
waiting to remove a graveyard. In the last game against Tin Fins, I
drew a Tormod's Crypt, but he had the Chain of Vapor for it. He didn't
have an answer to Surgical, though.
