{"id":5122,"date":"2015-05-17T22:01:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T03:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2015-05-17T22:01:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T03:01:19","slug":"civilized-scholar-fnm-report-number-one-in-which-the-civilized-scholar-is-not-at-all-ferocious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/?p=5122","title":{"rendered":"Civilized Scholar FNM Report Number One, in Which the Civilized Scholar is Not at All Ferocious"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Refocus-Fate-Reforged-MtG-Art\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Friday night after FNM and I\u2019ve just 0-3\u2019d, which, as a returning player, can be disheartening, but I choose to remain upbeat. I went 0-2 in matches one and two and 1-2 in my third match. It\u2019s as close to the worst I could have done without actually doing the worst. I will definitely attribute some of this to pilot error and poor sideboarding (not bring in my two Rending Volley<\/a>s against mono-white\u2026WHY?). But my deck also performed poorly. It wasn\u2019t bad in that it was playing bad cards (except for Temur Charm, but we\u2019ll get to that), rather, it was bad because it lacked focus.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my list:<\/p>\n

Noncreature Spells:<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Lightning Strike<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Crater\u2019s Claws<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Roast<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Outpost Siege<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Frontier Siege<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Temur Charm<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Bow of Nylea<\/a><\/p>\n

Creatures:<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Elvish Mystic<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Courser of Kruphix<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Surrak Dragonclaw<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Dragonlord\u00a0Atarka<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Thunderbreak Regent<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Heir of the Wilds<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Savage Knuckleblade<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lands:<\/strong><\/p>\n

6 Mountain<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Island<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Thornwood Falls<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Frontier Bivouac<\/a><\/p>\n

6 Forest<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Temple of Abandon<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Temple of Mystery<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So yeah. What is this deck trying to do? It has some ramp in the Mystics and Coursers but Heir of the Wilds and the Surraks and Knuckleblades just want to beat down. The burn in the deck is fine, though I ended up taking out the Crater\u2019s Claws and Roasts for Arc Lightning<\/a>s and Wild Slash<\/a>es a lot since I played against two tokens decks. Frontier Siege is good but there isn\u2019t enough good stuff to ramp into in the deck. The best thing it did was make Crater\u2019s Claws lethal in the one game that I won, but since I never drew Dragonlord Atarka, it ended up being superfluous. Temur Charm is also the worst charm by far and I played four. I did effectively Mana Leak<\/a> an Elspeth with one but the card just doesn\u2019t provide enough value to justify its awkward casting cost. I also only played 23 lands, which might be low for a deck with four Coursers. But the largest problem really, and the reason I think I did so poorly was that this deck lacks a game plan. Which is a good lesson. Additionally, I think Temur is not exceptionally well-positioned in this standard environment. The blue\/gold cards just don\u2019t synergize well enough with the red and green to justify their inclusion, though if you were to double down on Temur and play Icefall Regent<\/a>s and Sarkhan Unbroken<\/a> with another Atarka, that would be a little better probably.<\/p>\n

However, a Red-Green version of this deck which cuts blue entirely, adds more burn, another Thunderbreak Regent and swaps out the Surraks and Heir of the Wilds for another Atarka\u00a0and 4 Sylvan Caryatid<\/a>s and adds Shaman of Forgotten Ways<\/a> in place of the Savage Knuckleblades would be a much better deck. This was not the deck I chose to player, however, and I got wrecked. But it was fun and a learning experience. If tonight had a lesson, it was HAVE A GAME PLAN. This can\u2019t really be stressed enough. Each of my opponents had focused decks. The first two rounds were straight-up make tokens, kill things, beat down. The deck in round three (which I can hopefully do a tech on in the future) was more out of left field but it still had a focus, this time it was Morphs and Manifests of various flavors.<\/p>\n

So on a lighter note and in the spirit of better deckbuilding, I conducted a short exit interview with each opponent and I have included a bonus Deck Tech on a particularly spicy brew I saw in action. (Note: Interview answers have been paraphrased for brevity.)<\/p>\n

My first round opponent was Logan Powell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q: What are you playing today?<\/p>\n

A: Mardu Token Dragons. (He had Thunderbreak Regents, I believe.)<\/p>\n

Q: What is the sweetest thing about your deck?<\/p>\n

A: Being able to throw Butcher of the Horde<\/a> at people.<\/p>\n

Q: What is your favorite card in Standard?<\/p>\n

A: Goblin Rabblemaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What card are you most unhappy to see your opponent play?<\/p>\n

A: Dragonlord Ojutai<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Second round I played against Leah Hicks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q: What are you playing today?<\/p>\n

A: Mono-Red.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the sweetest thing about your deck?<\/p>\n

A: The synergy between goblin tokens and Stoke the Flames<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What is your favorite card in Standard?<\/p>\n

A: Stormbreath Dragon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What card are you most unhappy to see your opponent play?<\/p>\n

A: Drown in Sorrow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, my third round opponent was Joseph Tignor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q: What are you playing today?<\/p>\n

A: Mono-White Manifest.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the sweetest thing about your deck?<\/p>\n

A: Manifesting then unmorphing Master of Pearls<\/a> (AKA Master P).<\/p>\n

Q: What is your favorite card in Standard?<\/p>\n

A: Meteorite<\/a>, because of its flavor text.<\/p>\n

Q: What card are you most unhappy to see your opponent play?<\/p>\n

A: Jeskai Ascendancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, I have a brief Deck Tech with one Harlan Firer<\/strong> which I knew I had to do after seeing him play the deck.<\/p>\n

So first here\u2019s the list:<\/p>\n

Creatures:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 Shaman of Forgotten Ways<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Sylvan Caryatid<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Rattleclaw Mystic<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Elvish Mystic<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Courser of Kruphix<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Dragonlord Dromoka<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Dragonlord Atarka<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Dragonlord Ojutai<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Whisperwood Elemental<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Noncreature Spells:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 Xenagos, the Reveler<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lands:<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Frontier Bivouac<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Temple of Plenty<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Haven of the Spirit Dragon<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Windswept Heath<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Wooded Foothills<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Mountain<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Plains<\/a><\/p>\n

5 Forest<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you couldn\u2019t tell from looking at it, what this deck is trying to do is jam a Dragon into play as soon as possible and then continue jamming until your opponent dies.<\/p>\n

This is an example of a deck with a game plan. It begins with the \u2018mana dorks\u2019 like the Shamans, Mystics, and Caryatids who accelerate you either into one of your dragons or into the Whisperwood Elemental who can manifest your dragons. You have the four Haven of the Spirit Dragons making removal pretty bad. You also have the glorious mana curve of Elvish Mystic into Sylvan Caryatid into Dragonlord Ojutai into Dragonlord Dromoka into Dragonlord Atarka into Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Though they\u2019re probably way dead by the time you get to Ugin. It\u2019s a sweet deck, for sure. Harlan said it\u2019s the first time he\u2019s played a non-Jeskai deck in Standard in a long time, meaning, presumably, that he thought the deck was so good that he was willing to move away from an archetype and style with which he was very comfortable.<\/p>\n

I asked him the same questions I asked my opponents.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the sweetest thing about your deck?<\/p>\n

A: Actually being able to cast Dromoka fives times in one game.<\/p>\n

Q: What is your favorite card in Standard?<\/p>\n

A: Mantis Rider<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: What card are you most unhappy to see your opponent play?<\/p>\n

A: Dragonlord Ojutai or Foundry Street Denizen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All in all, even though I got eviscerated, I had a ton of fun and learned something important. I saw some pretty cool brews that I didn\u2019t get time to cover but might in the future. I will hopefully be able to do a Deck Tech for each FNM report, provided that there is a spicy enough build each Friday. If you have a sweet deck you\u2019d like to see featured\u2026build it, play it, I might see it. Until then\u2026<\/p>\n

Stay Sweet, Friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Friday night after FNM and I\u2019ve just 0-3\u2019d, which, as a returning player, can be disheartening, but I choose to remain upbeat. I went 0-2 in matches one and two and 1-2 in my third match. It\u2019s as close … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7904,"featured_media":5124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,4],"tags":[238,189,239,236],"class_list":["post-5122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-decklists","tag-civilized-scholar","tag-fnm","tag-harlan","tag-zach","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5149,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions\/5149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}