Achievement Unlocked - Winning at Life

Patrek squinted in the direction he had last seen the viashino pack. Nothing. The warriors had few predators, and if one was around that could so quickly and noiselessly handle a full pack he would have no chance. He spun around, frantically searching for some sign of…well, he wasn’t sure of what. Cautiously he picked his way towards the western slope when movement from the corner of his eye caused him to whip around, minai in a defensive position. What he had seen was…well, it had to be a mirage didn’t it? Surely there wasn’t a massive tail slowly whipping back and forth across the slope? Curiosity overwhelming common sense, Patrek inched forward. Yes, that was definitely a tail. And attached to it, over a ridge that was obscuring his view from above, was a Sphinx. A smiling Sphinx.

Lost for words, Patrek’s shock was shattered by an ululating cry as a viashino warrior leapt from the shadow of the tail, curved scimitar aimed squarely at Patrek’s heart. Instantly the young Zhalifin’s combat training kicked in, and his minai swung up to deflect the desperate attack. One viashino was no match for even a poorly-trained Zhalfirin soldier, let alone one with Patrek’s skills, but depseration and fear are powerful allies. As the reptilian bandit swung his blows became harder and more fierce, and Patrek had to focus completely on defence. First an arcing swing at his neck, a low cut towards his water flasks, a quick reverse swing hoping to take off his arm. Patrek parried and deflected and twisted, hoping the viashino would tire or slip or do SOMETHING to let him turn the momentum. He spun and ducked under a particularly wild slice and saw his opening, sending his blade straight for the viashino’s crude armor. He sliced the bindings, causing the lizard to stumble. His scimitar flew a yard away, and Patrek moved swiftly to put a boot on the viashino’s chest, blade pointed at his neck.

“HOLD.” The voice was deep, booming and LOUD. Oh so loud. Patrek froze, his minai a hair away from ending the life of the bandit. For his part the viashino was shivering. All the fight had clearly gone out of him.

“Welcome, Patrek of the Zhalfiri. I am known in your Zhalifirin tongue as Akh-Shesau. You shall not slay this one. You have proven yourself worthy. Come, and I shall reveal unto you that which you seek.” Patrek followed, trembling with excitement at the prospects of this [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card].

Weapon Selection

The revelation was, I guess, that sometimes heavily-played cards really are just that damn good. Yes, I played a [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] deck at FNM this week. I had been resisting it for a long time, despite owning two foil copies. I have this instinctual aversion to the cards that everyone else is using, and for the longest time Revelation was one of those cards. On the other hand, my love for [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card] is well-known, as is my more-than-love for Ghosty McJazzhands himself [card]Drogskol Reaver[/card]. But the 100 life achievement had been reached last season, so what possible use could I have for these cards now?

Enter [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card]. It didn’t take long for people to realize that there was a two-card combo with him/her and [card]Exquisite Blood[/card], and I knew I wanted to build around it. The combo requires you to activate the Guildmage’s second ability and then either gain life or have your opponent lose life. The [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] or Guildmage will then trigger, causing the other one to trigger…and so on.

I had seen a couple of people going the Junk route to allow them to play [card]Centaur Healer[/card], [card]Thragtusk[/card], [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] and [card]Farseek[/card]. While I won’t argue the power of those cards, I didn’t want the combo to be reliant on a [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] surviving (unlikely) or having the mana to cast another spell (expensive) after casting and activating the Guildmage. Dealing damage was still a possibility but decks right now are either running [card]Supreme Verdict[/card]s or a ton of guys. I knew from previous weeks that midrange decks hoping that a turn 4 [card]Thragtusk[/card] would be enough to survive the RG and Naya Aggro onslaughts were dreaming, no matter how much life gain they had.

Going the Esper route offered me both [card]Lingering Souls[/card] and [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card] on turn 3 to help me survive the early turns against blitz decks while I dug for [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] or [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card]. I also had a suite of 2-mana removal I could use in [card]Ultimate Price[/card], [card]Devour Flesh[/card] and [card]Azorius Charm[/card] in a pinch. Plus I could add [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] and [card]Drogskol Reaver[/card], which is a great way to make me want to play a deck.

I was able to build and test my initial idea before FNM, which is very rare for me. It didn’t take long for me to realise that [card]Disciple of Bolas[/card] did not belong in the deck. No creature had power above 3, and there’s no way I’m sacrificing a Reaver to draw 3 cards and gain 3 life. The mana base also needed work, and the deck needed [card]Sorin, Lord of Innistrad[/card]. Hmm, seems like I have another love affair with a card. Sorin, Nighthawk and even [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card] would allow me to win the game just by attacking once I hit the combo, whether or not the opponent blocked. Here’s where my 75 ended up:

[deck title=”Exquisite Esper Midrange”]
[spells]
3 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Devour Flesh
2 Ultimate Price
3 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Underworld Connections
4 Lingering Souls
4 Rhox Faithmender
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Gideon, Champion of Justice
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
2 Exquisite Blood
2 Drogskol Reaver
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
[/spells]
[land]
4 Godless Shrine
4 Watery Grave
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Isolated Chapel
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Vault of the Archangel
2 Plains
1 Swamp
[/land]
[Sideboard]
3 Tragic Slip
4 Blind Obedience
2 Rest in Peace
2 Azorius Charm
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Chalice of Life
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

[card]Underworld Connections[/card] and Gideon were last-minute additions when I cut 2 [card]Orzhov Charm[/card] from the deck. I like that card but I like it better when you can use at least two of the modes on it. As it happened, both last-minute additions did work for me. I cut down on my combo pieces for two reasons: they aren’t very good on their own, and I was thinking I would draw enough cards to hit them when needed.

The sideboard is largely obvious, with the likely exception being [card]Chalice of Life[/card]. This card WRECKS control decks, and we’re pretty weak to them in game one due to having a lot of dead cards. On the play you can often slide it in under a counter, and they have to draw [card]Detention Sphere[/card] almost immediately or they just lose. It also works well with [card]Drogskol Reaver[/card] and [card]Underworld Connections[/card] in a pinch.

Battle Plan

A few achievements to aim for here, including one from last season.

Win with the [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card]/[card]Exquisite Blood[/card] Combo Our main reason for building and playing this deck, I really want to pull this one off. Most of the time I think I’m going to want to play [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] first, since it is a lot harder to remove, and hold the Guildmage until I am ready to go off. Of course I can also use him as a chump blocker in a pinch and hope to grind out a wing with the rest of my cards.

Kill someone with [card]Chalice of Death[/card] It’s only a sideboard card, but if the meta has completely changed and control decks are all the rage, this will be relatively easy to manage. Of course if I face nothing but aggro decks all night, I’m never taking it out of the sideboard…

Draw 10 cards in one turn This will require some [card]Drogskol Reaver[/card] shenanigans or a very big [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card], but I don’t see how I lose if I manage it. All the cards!

A little short on the achievements this week then, but I am really excited to get to playing the deck. If I have judged things correctly it should have enough early survival to beat aggro and enough late punch to take out control. Let’s see!

War Report

Being Good Friday, the store wasn’t exactly packed. I was late getting there as I had spent too long cooking and devouring some delicious homemade burgers with jalapeño, ginger, bacon and applewood smoked cheddar in them. I don’t understand it when people say they can’t cook; cooking is actually really easy. Take a bunch of stuff you like, combine it, if it tastes good do it again.

More people started streaming in, but the Standard tournament was stuck on 8 people. I was still fiddling with my sideboard when the familiar “pairings are up” cry came from the counter and we were underway.

Round 1 – Larry Bouzanne with Experiment Jund

Larry and I haven’t crossed paths often, but he’s one of the best players in town. His son Lawrence is also very good. I knew this would be a tough one, and that was even more true when I had to mull to 5 in game 1. Fortunately my 5 was four lands and Supreme Verdict. On turn 4 I was facing down lethal with two 3/3 [card]Experiment One[/card]s, a [card]Dreg Mangler[/card] and a [card]Rakdos Cackler[/card]. I had two Verdicts, a [card]Devour Flesh[/card] and a Sorin in hand at this point and was sure I would need to cast runner runner Verdict to survive. Lucky for me, Larry missed the regeneration on the Experiments and instead untapped to play a [card]Ghor-Clan Rampager[/card], allowing me to [card]Devour Flesh[/card] and flashback [card]Lingering Souls[/card] on my turn. A [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] for four drew me into another one which I cast for 8, and Larry was out of gas. I had him down to 4 and was still in dangerous territory when I drew Obzedat, cast it then cast the second one to drain the last of his life.

Game 2 was an indication of how important the dice roll was against aggro decks, as I died on his turn 4 with a [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] in hand. Even the turn 3 [card]Lingering Souls[/card] did nothing, being nullified by a [card]Searing Spear[/card] and a bloodrushed Rampager. Ouch.

Not to worry, we’d be on the play for game 3. My opener was unkeepable but I tanked hard on my 6, which contained [card]Lingering Souls[/card], Sorin and a [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card] but no Supreme Verdict. I decided to keep and was rewarded by drawing the Verdict before turn 4. The rest of the match is a little cloudy but I know it ended again with Obzedat bringing the pain. That card is just really good.

1-0

Round 2 – Michael Warr with Naya Blitz

Michael has been a nemesis for me recently, playing aggro decks while I was durdling around with midrange concoctions that simply couldn’t stand up to the speed of these decks. I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t one of the reasons I went this route. Game 1 was all about Obzedat, as [card]Searing Spear[/card] is just not going to deal with Big Daddy Obzy. Of course he was made even more obnoxious by the turn 4 [card]Rhox Faithmender[/card], and the 6-point [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] was just icing on the cake. Obzedrains would finish the game without much hassle.

Game 2 showed me the benefit of having [card]Tragic Slip[/card]s in the board as they took out [card]Champion of the Parish[/card] and [card]Mayor of Avabruck[/card] early on. I still needed a [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] to clean things up, and an [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] combined nicely with [card]Lingering Souls[/card] to keep ticking my life up, and even Gideon put in an appearance to threaten lethal if he wasn’t attacked down. Obzedat followed soon thereafter…and then I drew [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card]. Come on, don’t have the removal…please don’t have the removal…

He didn’t have the removal. Obzedat came back in my upkeep, I activated Guildmage with the drain trigger on the stack and we were smiling like a Cheshire cat. Having built a deck with Obzedat before and never used him, I was really feeling good about how important he was to this deck.

2-0

Round 3 – Justin Woolridge with Ghast Control

This was a heck of a match. Justin was playing a red-black controlling deck with [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card]s, [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card], [card]Crypt Ghast[/card], [card]Griselbrand[/card] and a suite of removal. Liliana was a card I had not expected to face, and it threatened to wreck me. I didn’t have much chance of getting more than one creature on the board that was able to get through his blockers. Fortunately I had 2 [card]Lingering Souls[/card] and a Sorin to put 12 power in play, enough to make sure I got rid of her. I managed to find an [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] but on its own it wasn’t going to do much…until he played [card]Griselbrand[/card]. He drew 7, I gained 7 life and he was not impressed. The extra life I would gain from [card]Griselbrand[/card] kept me alive long enough to find [card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/card], but Justin had [card]Gloom Surgeon[/card]s out to block my lifelinked attackers. I tanked for a bit, then realised I had this. Activate Guildmage, cast [card]Devour Flesh[/card] targeting myself, win game. [card]Underworld Connections[/card] was the key in this very long game, it drew me through a lot more of my deck in order to find the Guildmage.

Game 2 would go to time, but I had the win locked up with [card]Chalice of Life[/card] and [card]Exquisite Blood[/card] in play. It was only a matter of time until [card]Underworld Connections[/card] found me the Guildmage to win the match, so Justin conceded.

3-0

Wait…did I…does this mean…have I…

I mean sure, it was only 8 players, but you can only beat what’s put in front of you. It’s not like I played bad players either. I won, the deck did what I wanted it to do and it felt DAMN good.

Aftershocks

The deck ran really, really well all night. The main deck could have used a little more punch, something to close out a game a little faster than the two Obzedat in the event I didn’t hit the combo. Clearly the deck can handle aggro with sensible mulligans, though the control matchup remains untested. I can see UWR giving this deck some problems, but it’s not well-represented locally. If it is heavily played in your LGS, you might want to look at [card]Orzhov Charm[/card] over [card]Ultimate Price[/card] in the main deck.

Four [card]Blind Obedience[/card] in the board might have been too much. It’s really only good against haste creatures early on, although it might be OK against control decks. [card]Griselbrand[/card] might be OK as a replacement, also satisfying the need for another big bomb finisher. It’s hard to see anything too wrong with the deck as I’m still stoked about winning the thing. So before I get yelled at for gushing, I’ll leave it there. If you enjoyed the opening story, there’s more of it posted on my Tumblr here. Thanks for stopping by, and please do leave feedback and suggestions in the comments!