Magic: Core 2013 Gameday
Jon and I set out this past weekend to find a fun place to play not only a FNM, but also for this set’s Gameday (featuring a Nicol Bolas Champion playmat). I had played my current standard deck a few times before and felt fairly confident in my choice: Standard Elves. Here was my decklist:
Lands:
10x Forest
1x Mountain
4x Copperline Gorge
3x Rootbound Crag
3x Cavern of Souls
1x Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures:
4x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4x Elvish Archdruid
4x Arbor Elf
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Elvish Visionary
2x Viridian Emissary
1x Viridian Corrupter
1x Copperhorn Scout
1x Ezuri’s Archers
1x Yeva, Nature’s Herald
1x Soul of the Harvest
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
Spells:
3x Fervor
1x Bonfire of the Damned
2x Genesis Wave
4x Green Sun’s Zenith
Sideboard:
2x Mental Misstep
2x Creeping Renaissance
2x Ground Seal
1x Silklash Spider
1x Ezuri’s Archers
1x Wolfir Silverheart
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1x Acidic Slime
1x Sword of Body and Mind
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of War and Peace
Results:
Well, at FNM standard, the deck performed very well against both aggro and control decks.
- Match 1
featured a 2-0 victory against a deck playing combo Heartless Summoning, with Myr Superion and control spells such as Black Sun’s Zenith and Go For the Throat. The tempo of both of those games was unmatched, with my Green Sun’s Zenith being able to pull out multiple combo’s with Fervor on the board and Archdruid’s/Ezuri in my library.
- Match 2
I ended up losing 2-1, against one of the oddest 5 color decks I’ve seen yet. This deck sported everything from Thragtusk, Restoration Angel, Huntsmaster of the Fells, Bonfire of the Damned with board clears on Day of Judgement. Despite his ability to be able to continuously mana fix for spells from 5 colors, I feel that the standard Elves deck still held strong. I wish I had some better Green Sun targets by the end of it, but I was overtaken by dual restoration angels and Huntsmaster.
- Match 3
was a freebie, as my opponent decided to drop after round pairings, and Match 4 was a blowout. swinging for 50 on turn 5 in game one, and similarly ramped on turn 7 in game 2 against a Slime and Hydra aggro deck. Still managed to top 8 and claim a weekly prize out of the prize pool, but it seems like the Sideboard will be even a larger area of focus over the next two weeks.
Moving on to the Game Day this month, the elves held strong first round against a powerful .net delver deck, sporting restoration angels (2-1 win). Games 2 was a blowout, leading me up to our feature match against my friend and rival Jonathon S. The elves deck put up quite the struggle, despite being flooded out after turn 2 in both games, but Jon’s deck claimed the prize and victory. Running Pod for Geralf’s Messenger into Restoration Angel with Blood Artists on the board, he had some great combo and great topdecking draws pulling heavy black creature removal spells (to my lands). We’ll continue to cover featured matches in the future, but feel free to give us your feedback.
-Justin T-
