Magic: The Gathering

Ok, before anybody reading is all up in arms about the title of this entry, let me first just state that this is about the card game I play called “Magic: The Gathering”, and will mostly make sense to those who play the game. If not, you can read it if you’d like, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll understand the lingo much of the game. White Weenie has been a very common deck theme of the game since it first started back in 1993. I’ve been playing the game on and off (mostly on minus a five year hiatus) since 1996. I play my FNM (Friday Night Magic), at my local store in Hiawatha, Iowa named BattleZone Games (store site).

Since, I’ve been concentrating mostly on extend for this seasons PTQ format, most of my cards are spread out in a large variety of extended decks, leaving my standard decks missing cards all over the place. The one deck that I didn’t have any cards missing with the WW Quest deck recently assembled due me picking Sword of Body and Mind in a draft and that same draft winnings. I’ve been basically just short two of this single card to being able to put the deck together. It’s widely considered not “a real deck”, so I wasn’t about to be spending money on cards for this deck.

There wasn’t any PTQs this weekend nor for the foreseeable future due to the Mirrodin Besieged pre-release and release events coming up the next couple of weekends. Early February is pretty bleak for midwesterner PTQ grinders, unless you want to make the treak to Indy in Mid February. This dude will not be making that trip unfortunately. Due to this events, I was able to give the WW Quest a go Friday night after work and get some “crads” in as I like to call it.

A quick deck tech: This deck plays an Enchantment called Quest for the Holy Relic, some pieces of equipment and some really cheap creatures. You play out the enchantment, play some dudes, and toss a peice of equipment on the battlefield and make short work of your opponent.

Here’s a quick decklist of what I shuffled up and played Friday night:

18 Plains
2 Marsh Flats

4 Glint Hawk
4 Kor Outfitter
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Kor Duelist

2 Argentum Armor
4 Quest for the Holy Relic
2 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Emerge Unscathed

Sideboard
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Devout Lightcaster
3 Revoke Existence
2 Leonin Arbiter
1 Basilisk Collar
3 Journey to Nowhere

Here’s a quick rundown of my matches of the night. I obviously didn’t right down the play by play in my life total notes, so you’ll just get a quick synopsis of each match.

Round 1. Forest playing RDW.

Game 1 I lead off with a quick mulligan with a hand that didn’t actually do anything. This was the first time I played this fellow, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to expect, but I’ve seen him play RDW a while back. My 2nd hand wasn’t much better, but It contained a cheap fliers, so it was at least worth playing. He played a turn 2 Kargan Dragonlord, while I was just playing various small durdle creatures without the joys of having a quest to power up. A Koth of the Hammer joined the party and with no main deck removal, I was killed by a flying trampling monster. My opponent did misplay and chose not to fire breathe his dragon and just kill me there. In the end he got the same result with the win.

Board: -2 Duelist, -1 Mystic, -1 Argentum Armor, -2 Kor Outfitter. +3 Kor Firewalker, +1 Basilisk Collar, + 3 Journey To Nowhere.

To start off game two, I kept my seven which included two Quests, some land, but only 1 creature. I figured it’s probably worth keeping as a majority of my deck is just creatures. I did draw a few creatures, but the turn I was going to get my Quests active, I drew my singleton armor. My heart sank. The one card that would pretty much seal up the game for me I just drew, and thus I wouldn’t be able to search it up with the now two active quests. He was tapped out and his two Cunning Sparkmages he had were spent for the turn, so I was clear to pop the two quests and get two swords on a Squadron Hawk. After an attack he milled some cards and I got a couple of wolf tokens. He was able burn out a few of my creatures, and I had a choice either to chump block with my last wolf token or be forced to take some extra damage putting me dangerously close to burn range. I chose to take the damage because he didn’t have any more cards in his hand. It worked out fine, and I was able to double equip the wolf, attack, mill some more cards, and get a two more wolves.  Post combat, we played a Kor Firewalker and that was that.

After that Armor fiasco, I took out another Kor Outfitter and added my second Armor back in, Game three was very eventful, and I played two early Kor Firewalkers.

1-0.

Round 2. Matt R with Boros.

In game 1, I won the die roll and started blowing up his permanents on turn three with an active Quest searching for the Argentum Armor.

Board: -2 Duelist, -2 Emerged Unscathed, -2 Kor Outfitter. +3 Kor Firewalker, + 3 Journey To Nowhere.

With my opponent on the play, I had to keep a good hand because boros has the power to kill you just as fast as the quest deck can. He did have a good start, but I was able to get an active quest again by turn 3, and Kor Firewalker made attacks on his end a little hard to do. He died to an Ornithopter with the Armor. He did manage to get be down in the singled digits of life though, so it was kind of an actual game minus any sort of actual interaction with my opponent.

Finally, the deck did what it was suppose to do.

2-0.

Round 3. Evan with UW Control.

I knew my opponent would be playing some sort of control deck as he usually does. He went to time earlier in the night, and I knew his opponent was playing a control deck, so I put that match on a mirror match.

After some really awkward opening hands, I reluctantly kept do nothing Squadron Hawk hand. I played some hawks, and he got control with planeswalkers and I died in pretty quick fashion for a control deck by way of a Gideon Jura. He didn’t know I was playing quest because he never saw much of the deck besides some Squadron Hawks and made a comment as such.

Board: -2 Emerge Unscathed, -1 Kor Duelist, + 3 Revoke Existence.

I don’t have much of a board for this matchup, so I just got to go with what I have. I’m sure the Arbiters could be something different to make this matchup a little better. Anyway, I keep my seven with a Quest and some early dudes. I get an Armored dude, but he’s got the condemn for the attack. I probably should have just grabbed a sword, so it would have been much easier to connect with. We get into a largely drawn out affair of just playing draw go. I keep attacking with a few creatures, and I’m not over extending into a Day of Judgment. He’s gotta keep me off my sixth land because I’ll just armor up a random dude, and start blowing stuff up. He does this by keeping a plains tapped. I finally got him to counter spell, which allowed me to play a Kor Outfitter and get in with an armored up bird for lethal.]

There’s only about seven minutes on the clock, I knew I had to pretty rely on getting an active quest as soon as i can. I keep the stone nutters hand, and he thought about it, and kept. I put him on Spell Pierce because of the tank keep. He plays and land and ships the turn. I run out the quest and he does have the pierce. From here I just start dropping some guys and attacking. He misses a few land drops and this puts him on the ropes. He does get his fourth land so he can play a Jace, the Money Sculpter, and brain storm to look for answers. He does get a Gideon in play which puts a halt to my attacks on my opponent. We get to a point where I have a Kor Skyfisher, Glint Hawk and Memnite in play. I’m afraid at this point, he’ll use the assassinate ability of Gideon and drop a Frost Titan halting any aggressive moves, so I play a Kor Skyfisher from my hand. I then bounce my other Kor Skyfisher, replay it, return the Glint Hawk, replay it, return Memnite, and finally replaying it (nice vigilance right amirite?). This draws a big laugh from the crowd that had gathered to watch the match as we were the only remaining mages doing battle. After a few more turns, I was able to earn the “W”. I don’t need no stinkin’ quest!

3-0.

Round 4. Brian with BR Vampires.

I was curious how this match was going to play out. I’ve played BR vampires in the past, and got rolled by the WW Quest deck. Hopefully luck was going to be on my side. Game 1. I had the typical do nothing game, and died really fast after some Pulse Trackers and kicked Gatekeeper of Malakir.

Board: -2 Emerge Unscathed, -2 Kor Duelist, -2 Kor Outfitter, -2 Stoneforge Mystic, -1 Kor Skyfisher. +3 Kor Firewalker, +3 Devoted Lightcaster,  + 3 Journey to Nowhere.

In game two, I got an early Journey to Nowhere to stop a quick assault. I used a lightcaster to exile a Dark Tutelage. From there I just attack with the lightcaster and some hawks.

In game three, I had a first turn quest followed up with a zero drop and a glint hawk the following turn. He only had black mana at this point, so i was free to deploy the Glint Hawk with out fear of getting 2-for-1′d. I got the quest up to four by my third turn, but this is where the train falls off the tracks for our hero. For the next six or seven turns, I draw land; literally land every single turn. He only has one source of red at this point, and missed a few land drops himself. On my last turn I have an Argentum Armor and Sword in play, 9 lands in play, and a quest with four counters on it. A reveal of my top three cards on my library showed *gasp* three more land. ARE YOU JK SHUFFLER!?! I literally drew three spells all of game 3.

I ended up 3-1 which as good enough for seventh place netting me two points for the store’s “FNM Champs”. This deck is super inconsistent, but is a blast to play when everything goes according to plan. The Emerge Unscathed were really underwhelming for me all night, and the Kor Duelists just died when they were played. Perhaps there are four cards that could be replaced in another variation of the deck. The deck can be resilient to a control deck if you play it as such as highlighted in my UW matchup.

With the new mechanic “Living Weapon” due out with Mirrodin Besieged, this will help the deck be a little more resilient to hate cards. For example, I have a Glint Hawk and a Ornithopter in play with a Quest for the Holy Relic at five counters. Both of these creatures do not have summoning sickness. I crack the quest, and in response my opponent doom blades the hawk, and lightning bolts the thoper. Awesome. Now I just have an equipment in play doing nothing. Now with living weapon, I can get a 0/0 germ creature with this equipment attached. Look at the following beauty:

Let’s say your opponent also killed one other creature of yours, and in attacks you traded another creature with his. Your 0/0 germ will actually be a 5/5. Not too shabby. Oh, by the way, the equip costs are cheap too. It’s still going to be a gold fish deck in the end, but this will give you a little bit more reach in the late game. Let say you have a squadron hawk in your hand, and there are 10 creatures in the graveyard through mass removal, and attrition wars with your opponent. Bam! you have an 11/11, that’s probably going make your opponent “dead on board”.

Since I “don’t care” about standard at the moment, I plan on playing this deck when the opportunity shows itself in the future for FNM. It’s fun, and there isn’t a whole lot of thought required to play the deck. It will be exciting to see how much the Living Weapon equipments as well as any other new equipment in Mirrodin Besieged will bring to the table. They also recently spoiled a new Sword too, that could prove to be fairly useful in certain situations.