“You have a [card]Kalonian Hydra[/card].”

I looked across the table at my opponent’s board state and felt a sinking feeling that had become all too familiar over the course of the tournament. Staring back at me was a [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] with three counters and the freshly cast Hydra. Much more than the [card]Loxodon Smiter[/card] and [card]Elvish Mystic[/card] duo that made up my team could handle.

Even though I held a 19-3 advantage in life total, the [card]Plains[/card] and [card]Rancor[/card] sitting in my hand weren’t going to help once my opponent untapped on his next turn. Knowing that he had access to removal, I couldn’t hope to just sit back and block until I pulled an answer. I needed to end game three then and there.

I looked back at my hand. Yep, still a [card]Plains[/card] and [card]Rancor[/card]. No matter how many times I checked, neither would change to the one card that could save me in that situation, so I drew for turn, silently pleading with my deck to produce one of the two [card]Ajani, Caller of the Pride[/card], it contained.

And there he was.

Once the dust had settled, my opponent admitted that I was, in fact, dead on his next turn. Talk about a lucky top deck.

Although it was only to finish with a 2-3 record, it was an exciting end to the tournament and the perfect place to start. I didn’t decide to lead with the final play of the night because it was a tale of my deck luckily grasping victory from the jaws of defeat, but rather it completely epitomizes everything that I had learned about my deck over the course of the event.

My list was very capable of quickly draining opponents’ life totals while keeping mine at a safe amount, but as soon as they established a board presence, my deck had an extremely difficult time sealing the deal. Plays similar to this had happened multiple times during previous matches, and unlike the one I described, I didn’t topdeck like a champ. They would quickly stabilize, and I’d soon see my chances slip away as my deck was picked apart.

Sometimes it was a single card like [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card], but even a battlefield clogged with small creatures could keep me off of landing a lethal blow. My deck has a problem with evasion, and in a deck that relies on its creatures to get the job done, it’s a problem that needs to be quickly corrected. Four copies of [card]Rancor[/card], two [card]Ajani, Caller of the Pride[/card], and two [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]s just weren’t enough.

As I stated in my first article, my deck was a loose build but had potential to go down different paths after trying it out at FNM.

I will make some changes to the deck later, but first I want to delve into my experience of taking this build to my local gaming store and looking through the eyes of a player who is just getting into playing Magic competitively.

Thursday Night Magic

I was leaving for vacation on that Friday so I decided to give the deck a try in the Thursday night Standard tournament that Wizard’s Tower in Ottawa, Ontario, holds every week. The event had 18 people signed up for it, which is considerably less than the 25 to 30 who are usually there for FNM, but with most of the top players in attendance, it was poised to be the perfect event to kick this series off.

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better tournament to pilot that deck for the first time. With a 2-3 record, I was able to see what the deck needed to do to win, but more importantly, I was able to pick up on its weaknesses with three match losses.

If it had been my first time playing Magic in a competitive environment, the smaller size of the tournament would have worked well because I could keep track of people and what they were playing. When first joining the tournament scene, that’s invaluable information.

Along with getting a feel for the tournament atmosphere, the first time going to a Magic event is also about learning the style and seriousness of play. For example, while playing casually against friends you can usually take back a misplayed land or misjudged attack, but stuff like that usually doesn’t fly at FNM or higher level events.

Taking a second to scan your hand and the board before laying that land or tapping that creature is a good habit to get into early on. While mistakes are unlikely to affect you that turn, they can lead to things as simple as not having the right mana to play a certain creature on your next turn. Those mistakes can easily cost you games.

When I first started playing competitively, I found I was so busy trying to focus on the larger picture of a game that I ended up missing minor details that would end up costing me. It happens and it’s something that you grow out of as a Magic player. As soon as you make a mistake or two that you can’t take back, you make sure you don’t make the same mistake again.

Another thing that you might notice when you first start attending events is how closely guarded information is during a match. When you’re playing against your friends, you generally know what their decks do, and they have a very good idea of what to expect from you. That isn’t the case in a tournament.

It’s a good idea to remember that your opponent doesn’t know what your deck is capable of, so keep them guessing as long as possible. A good example is when you should play a creature during your turn. Say you have a creature that you want to attack with the following turn, but it won’t have any immediate effect on the game. Wait to play it during your second main phase, leaving your mana untapped during combat. Sure, a friend may know that your deck doesn’t pack any instant effect tricks when you’re attacking, but your opponent might second-guess their blocks.

Forcing your opponent to make uneducated decisions can be just as lethal as that 6/6 you’re planning to play. If they know that you’re tapped out and can’t do anything, they are free to make the best decision for them. However, if you’re attacking with five mana open, they have to take that into consideration and hope they are making the right call.

Those were the kind of games I was trying to play when I added [card]Rootborn Defenses[/card] to my deck. Ultimately, the card wasn’t as useful as I had hoped, but it still made some opponents take a second look if they really wanted to make a double block or attack into me when I had mana open.

[card]Advent of the Wurm[/card] also worked in a similar fashion. Once opponents had seen it once, they were much less likely to attack if they thought it could be thwarted by a 5/5 Wurm.
Okay, so now that we have an idea of what to expect when going to FNM (or TNM in my case), it’s time to start shaping up the deck. It’s interesting how differently you can view a deck before and after your first tournament playing it.

Deck Workshop

Going forward, I’ve set a project budget of $25 per week plus any tournament prizes. I don’t always have to spend it all every week and can bank it towards adding more expensive cards. This will allow me to shape the deck into a powerful list over time. I went over by $2 this week just to kick things off but after this article I will be strictly on budget. If you want me to try out any particular cards, please let me know in the comment section!

Now, what can I do this week to make the deck more consistent?

The Mana Base

The changes that I need to make were pretty apparent after Thursday night. The area needing the most important attention practically hit me in the face after I drew my first hand: the mana base.

[card]Plains[/card], [card]Plains[/card], [card]Avacyn’s Pilgrim[/card], [card]Elvish Mystic[/card], [card]Loxodon Smiter[/card], [card]Rancor[/card], [card]Wolfir Silverheart[/card]. If only one of those [card]Plains[/card] had been a green source, it would’ve made for a quick game one. Instead, I eventually had to mulligan down to four and ended up losing the game.

Now, who knows if having the full playset of [card]Temple Garden[/card]s would’ve actually made a difference in that particular situation? It’s important to give your deck every possible opportunity to succeed. That starts with having the necessary mana available.

If you can afford to, I’d suggest filling out your mana base right away, but if you are on a budget and want to have more fun that just buying lands you can do that over time.

I haven’t stayed true to my budget this week, but I still want to keep the spending low to highlight the process of developing a standard tournament deck. So I definitely want to fill out my dual lands but I want to save some money for spells because where is the fun in only buying lands?

Change number one: adding a [card]Temple Garden[/card] and taking out a [card]Plains[/card]. I want a better percentage of seeing green mana in my opening hand, which is why I’m not losing a [card]Forest[/card] for the shock land. When I buy a fourth, I will look further into which basic I should lose.

Evasion and Reach

Now that mana is taken care of, it’s time to tighten my deck and make it more focused. It had problems with evasion and creatures with controlling abilities. I mentioned [card]Olivia Voldaren[/card] before as a good example of a card that simply wins the game against this deck.

There is already a card in my deck that helps with both issues: [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]. Currently, it’s only a two-of, but I don’t want to run a full four in the main deck because I don’t really want to see it early and often. Three is a good number for now.

[card]Ajani, Caller of the Pride[/card], also worked wonders so I’d like to see him on a more regular basis. I’m also running the planeswalker as a two-of, and since it’s $5, I can buy one more while still adding something else.

With three [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]s and three Ajanis, evasion and bombs shouldn’t be as big of an issue. Now that those problems are hopefully resolved, I want to add another creature.

My games always seemed more favorable when I saw [card]Fiendslayer Paladin[/card], so I’d really like to add another. Seeing as I didn’t buy both the [card]Temple Garden[/card]s that I wanted to, picking up a second copy of my favourite Jedi look-a-like seems reasonable to me.

Now, what to get rid of?

Addition Through Subtraction

Earlier, I mentioned that [card]Rootborn Defenses[/card] wasn’t as effective as I wanted it to be. It’s still a good card against control decks but they aren’t very prevalent at the moment, so it can move to the sideboard. I already have one in the sideboard and moving a third [card]Oblivion Ring[/card] to the main deck means unless I want to lose something in my extra 15, I will have to stick with two.

These changes leave me with:

[deck title=G/W Beats]
[Creatures]
1 Armada Wurm
4 Avacyn’s Pilgirm
2 Elvish Mystic
2 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Imposing Sovereign
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Nearheath Pilgrim
4 Wolfir Silverheart
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Advent of the Wurm
3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Rancor
[/Spells]
[Lands]
9 Forest
2 Gavony Township
5 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Temple Garden
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Heroes’ Reunion
4 Knight of Glory
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Ranger’s Guile
3 Ray of Revelation
2 Rootborn Defenses
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

After focusing on how to improve your deck after its first run, hopefully I have shared some useful insights that you can take away while developing your own deck for FNM. If you’ve just started playing competitively, you’ve probably noticed a lot of the same builds being run. Those are generally called “netdecks” and I suggest that you stay away from running them at first. By developing and tuning your own deck you will have a better understanding of why certain cards are being used.

If you do like the idea of a certain deck and want to run it, you can always take the shell and adapt it to your style. Just because the pros aren’t running it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad card.

Thanks for reading more of this young article series! Next week, I will look at what FNMs have to offer other than playing magic such as tips and guidelines to trading at your local store. Until then, good luck at your events, and as always, if you have any thoughts about the article or ideas where to go with my deck please leave a comment!