Amonkhet Standard

As I said in a previous post (http://hiveoffunandsilliny.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/i-was-out-damn-it.html?zx=d5b0ffc2c2a63d20),  I want to collect a set of Amonkhet. I've done quite well on the main set, though the Invocations are proving to be problematic. As the recent Game Day was coming up, i needed a handful of cards, including the Game Day promos. This left me with two choices; play in the event or trade for them. This would potentially become problematic as one of them is a highly Standard-playable dragon.

As you can see, the full-art, foil promo is better art. I'll also need it for my Dragon collection. This lead to me sitting down on the Saturday night to deck build for the next day's Game Day at Antics.

I've not had a Standard-legal deck in about a year. Not really had any interest in the format in that time, especially since Kaladesh hit none of my flavour buttons. So I started my deck-building by going through my collection and pulling out any interesting Standard-legal cards in Black and Green.

Why these two colours? They are my favourite to play as a combination, and no matter the format usually lead to a Midrange Rock-style deck. It has become a deck of decent solo creatures, disruption, removal and incremental advantage. It's a style of deck I play often, my Modern weapon of choice being Jund. This came from reading the old Five-With-Flores articles, where one about Midrange lead me to learn that it fit my playstyle, and I haven't looked back.

That procedure left me with roughly a Fat Pack (Bundle for you new kids) box full of cards I thought might be playable/interesting/fun. A little more sifting/cutting lead to actually having to make decisions.

• How much land do I want?
• Do I want an Energy package?
• Do I invest heavily in Delirium?
• Do I go more aggro or control?

Here is the answer I can up with

Main Deck

4 x Sylvan Advocate

4 x Tireless Tracker

2 x Verdurous Gearhulk

1 x Ishkanah, Grafwidow

2 x Noxious Gearhulk

1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

2 x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

1 x Liliana, the Last Hope

2 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

2 x Liliana, Death's Majesty

4 x Oath of Nissa

2 x Traverse the Ulvenwald

4 x Grasp of Darkness

2 x Transgress the Mind

2 x Ruinous Path

1 x Never (to) Return

4 x Hissing Quagmire

4 x Blooming Marsh

3 x Evolving Wilds

1 x Blighted Fen

6 x Swamp

6 x Forest

Sideboard

1 x Manglehorn

2 x Gonti, Lord of Luxury

1 x Ishkanah, Grafwidow

2 x Transgress the Mind

2 x Pick the Brain

1 x Dispossess

3 x Appetite for the Unnatural

3 x Flaying Tendrils

This is what I settled on by the time I went to bed. I had a slightly different build, but jamming some games on Forge told me I probably needed some more early removal, which meant switching in the Grasp of Darkness'ss. A few more games told me that weakness had been shored up, but I needed to get to bed rather than get more games in.

Some of the choices will look strange. I settled on 24 land out of habit. One of the Basic Lands should probably be another Evolving Wilds, but I could only find three. The Blighted Fen is a pet card. I'll always try and run one while it's in Standard. It's also a potential out to cards like Ulamog.

The 1 Liliana, the Last Hope is because that's all I currently own. It's too good a card to not use, and should potentially be a higher number, but I'm not going to trade for one or more just for this deck. 12 pieces of removal (including Planeswalker abilities and Gearhulks) felt about right. I suspect that's one of those things one gets a feel for as one plays the game more and more.

The Sideboard was a little haphazard. I knew the "popular" decks in the format were Mardu Vehicles and Aetherworks Marvel. However, I had no idea how popular they would be locally. So the board is attempted answers to those decks, and some other cards, again based on what I had immediately available.

The deck ended up being pretty straightforward G/B Rock, with a small Delirium package. Not enough to go all in, but enough to power up some cards in the late game/get to that board state sooner. Ulamog is a surprise card to push over the top, should the game go long enough. The double exile should be enough, even if he then gets Cast Out, or faces similar removal.

So, How did I do?

The event was 4 rounds with a Top 4 cut. My interest was in making the Top 8, as that's how you won the Dragon. Trueheart Duelist was the participation promo, so that was easy to achieve. With 12 Players, a record of 2-2 (6 points) should Top 8. That meant I could afford 2 losses and still make my goal. Not that I particularly wanted any losses, but it was nice to know an average record would still get me the card.

I thought no more of it and settled down to play my first match. It went great. 2-0 and didn't touch my Sideboard. That's not just the first match, that would be repeated every round during the Swiss. I faced a variety of decks, none of which appeared to be typical builds of any archetype I've read about. The games came down to drawing enough removal, having Planeswalkers stick and beating down with the creatures. So, basically, what the deck is supposed to do.

This left me facing down the Top 4 having already achieved my goal. The semi-final and final went the same way, facing someone I had already faced in the Swiss. My deck continued to do it's job and I was victorious.

This meant I also won this snazzy playmat.

I've since played the deck in an FNM to similar results. One game loss and a final round that ended in a time out. Actually did some sideboarding that day though. This has lead me to want to make some changes to the Sideboard

1 Appetite for the Unnatural becomes 1 Manglehorn

1 Appetite for the Unnatural becomes 1 Dispossess

1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow becomes 1 Never (to) Return

To be honest, this is another of those "feeling" things, where I'm having trouble explaining my reasoning. I think I want the Appetite for the Unnaturals swapped out, as a second Manglehorn is probably better in the Mardu Vehicles match-up and the second Dispossess is better against Aetherworks Marvel and Dynavolt Tower. Ishkanah, Grafwidow is coming out because I don't actually see a reason to side it in, so a second Never (to) Return replaces it, giving me extra removal if wanted and a hedge against any emergent Graveyard strategy.

I'll be playing this deck at FNMs for a while, unless other games distract me. It's a great time slot to play the Star Wars LCG. I've got a sweet Lothal Spectres deck to test and hone down from 12 Objective Sets. But it's nice to have a Standard deck I enjoy playing again, after so long. It will be interesting to see what Hour of Devastation brings, especially as I will want a set of that to compliment the Amonkhet set.

Speaking of, as of writing this, I still need two cards. Hopefully I'll be able to track them down/trade for them soon. Then on with the chore of trying to get more of the Invocations.

A Couple of Experimental Squads

So as the X-Wing meta shifts away from Aces, and since I've recently been catching up on purchases (I may have been a couple of waves behind) I've decided to build some lists experimenting with a couple of ships.

Scum Experiment

• Dengar
• Punishing One
• Unhinged Astromech
• Recon Specialist
• Adaptability

Here is the Main Attacker of the list. His job is to put in most of the work damage wise. Recon Spec should give him a focus for his attack and a spare one for his retaliation . If he falls then the squad will struggle, but the other two should help prevent that.

• 4-LOM
• Veteran Instincts
• Zuckuss
• Mist Hunter
• Tractor Beam
• Collision Detector

A decent Secondary Attacker, he also offers Stress and Tractor based control elements. He is able to help put in work on the damage side of things, with the option of moving opposing ships via Tractor Tokens. I even have the option of using adaptability to make him and Dengar the same Pilot Skill, so that the Tractor Beam can be used before Dengar fires.
His ability to give away his stress is also very useful.

• Unkar Plutt
• EMP Device
• Spacetug Tractor Array

And here is the truly experimental part. While he offers little in the way of offence (2 dice is merely okay),  His ability to block and give out Tractor tokens, alongside the Array to do it as an action should mess up with the opponents positioning and agility. The EMP Device is there as a "Just in Case", should a turn of Ion based control be needed.

This list was built to try out the Quadjumper as a blocker, so needed some muscle to put with it. The upgrades on Dengar were largely thrown together, so there is probably the most wriggle room on that ship to make changes. 4-LOM is fine as is, so it's a case of learning to block with Plutt and getting the optimal version of Dengar with the points left.


Rebel Experiment

• Horton Salm
• Twin Laser Turret
• R2 Astromech

Firstly, a solid damage dealer. Susceptible to focus fire, you keep him out of the fight at Range 3 and use his ability to keep up a steady stream of damage. Simple, efficient, to the point.

• Lieutenant Blount
• Veteran Instincts
• Adv. Homing Missiles

Another simple ship. His job is to choose a priority target, get a target lock and then give them a face up damage card. After that, he can block and add some shots. His missiles always hit, so hopefully the opposing damage deck will be unforgiving.

• Bodhi Rook
• Pivot Wing
• Dash Rendar
• Tactician
• Collision Detector

The first experimental ship. My theory with the U-Wing is it is simply an X-Wing with more health and upgrade space. It's even similar in points and the title gives it the same agility! Bodhi's ability helps Blount get the target lock on the right target. Tactician gives a little control to the list too. Dash is there to deal with the larger base size.

• Captain Rex
• Sabine's Masterpiece
• "Chopper"
• Dead Man's Switch

The other experimental ship. Rex's job is to block, grant Suppressing Fire and then do some damage when the opponent finally decides they've had enough of his existence. Hopefully, by being ignorable in the early game, his Suppressing Fire helps mitigate some damage.


These are the lists I'll be trying out on Thursdays for a while, and tuning them until I am happy they are optimised, or they have proven to be wildly unviable.

A Plea for Content

I'm just about managing to do a post once a week on this Blog, and multiple posts if I miss a week. I'm even getting better at adding photos to break up the wall of text that my writing style throws at the screen. This is a symptom of my reading preference. I enjoy reading, so a lot of text doesn't bother me when I encounter it elsewhere, as long as it is saying something interesting. However, I recognise that adding pictures breaks things up a bit and makes the post look better. So I'm going to do it more often.

You're Welcome :)

 What I am struggling with is topics. What do people want to read?

Anyone who knows me can ask tactical advice or gaming opinion, and they know I will either tell them I don't know anything on their topic or I will tell them EVERYTHING. If I know (or believe I know) about a topic, then I can be quite vocal and willing to lecture. But only when prodded.

They may never shut up once you do

 

It's a personal thing. I'm not one for sharing information unsolicited, or much in the way of self-promotion, but once asked I'll do my best to answer a question. It's something I need to work on, especially as I push more into Events Management. And it's fairly useless being a Fount of All Knowledge with a blog if you don't say things. 

So, am asking you; my reader base. What do you want to read? You probably know by now what games I run events for, and what games I personally play. Maybe something from this list

• Battle/Game Reports
• Tournament Reports (as a Player)
• Tournament Reports (as a Judge/TO)
• Deck/Army/Squad Techs
• Strategy Advice
• Tactical Advice
• Theory crafting
• Spotlights on Board Games I've played
• Opinion Pieces on News
• Rants 

These are some of the things I could and should be posting about. It comes down to what you guys want. Do you have a burning tactical question you want my advice on? Ask me here, there may be others that want to know the same thing.

As an example, I had been asked to write about Deployment for Genestealer Cult Armies in 40K. Before I was able to start researching and writing a piece, Games Workshop announced 8th was going to feature a lot of changes to the game. This has caused me to hold off for the moment, as any advice I give may no longer be sound after the rules change. And said change is rapidly approaching.


So, TL:DR - 

Send me questions, topic ideas and anything else you want to see from this blog.

Amonkhet Prereleases

To kickstart my attempt at collecting Amonkhet, I decided to attend the first prereleases I'd been to in a year.

I haven't really played much Magic in the past couple of years. I haven't really felt like playing the themes in Standard. I did a little bit of playing before GP Manchester and played the Oath of Gatewatch prerelease simply because I was visiting a friend. I also played the occasional Modern FNM.

So, i guess the question is; How did it go?

Saturday

I could tell it had been a while once I had opened my boosters. It feels like very little in the set is "vanilla" which means every card needs to be read and evaluated. Even though I had paid some attention in Spoiler Season, this felt quite daunting. So I rapidly settled on something that had caught my eye.

I had opened this card in foil, alongside a suite of Black Zombies, White Zombies, some removal, both on-colour Monuments and Embalmer's Tools. This lead me to disregard the other colours, although 2 of my on-colour split cards had Green Aftermath halves.

I struggled to cut the deck down though. Ended up running 47 cards.

1 x Fan Bearer
1 x Sacred Cat
1 x Time To Reflect
1 x Festering Mummy
1 x Embalmer's Tools
1 x Trial of Ambition
2 x Doomed Dissenter
1 x Destined to Lead
1 x Impeccable Timing
1 x Prepare to Fight
1 x In Oketra's Name
1 x Glory-Bound Initiate
1 x Anointer Priest
1 x Binding Mummy
1 x Bontu's Monument
1 x Oketra's Monument
1 x Those Who Serve
1 x Unwavering Initiate
1 x Cartouche Of Ambition
1 x Cursed Minotaur
1 x Lord Of The Accursed
1 x Painful Lesson
1 x Wander In Death
1 x Wasteland Scorpion
1 x Sparring Mummy
1 x Final Reward
1 x Painted Bluffs
1 x Sunscorched Desert
1 x Forest
7 x Swamp
9 x Plains

The result? A mess. The deck (and my pool) had no real bombs. I was relying on the Zombie synergies, and often had to try and mill an opponent out with the Embalmer's Tools. I probably should have cut down to 40 cards and had a tighter deck.

I did learn a few things though.
Glory-Bound Initiate is pretty good, but it's size gets out-stripped pretty easily.
The Monuments look good, but rely on your ability to cast creature spells afterwards. Between running two and facing a few throughout the day, I felt they were more trap than good card. Maybe a more reliable deck would get better use out of them, but I didn't event feel bad facing them.
Aftermath cards seem really good. It was worth splashing the Green mana for both Fight and Lead. Destined, then Lead on a Wasteland Scorpion did a pretty good job of sweeping one opponents board. Attacking with the Glory-Bound Initiate, Exerting and then casting Prepare after blocks killed one creature and gained me 6 life, then Fight post-combat killed another creature and gained me 6 more life at the cost of the Initiate.

All in all, I had fun but didn't do very well. I did feel that I had learnt lessons that would be useful on the Sunday.

Sunday

Ready for a go again on the Sunday, my first booster showed me this guy

Followed shortly by this lady

Interesting. Two bombs, both in the same colour. Question was, can the rest of the pool support these two, or would I be forced to abandon them for other cards?

1 x Ruthless Sniper
1 x Horror Of The Broken Lands
3 x Wasteland Scorpion
1 x Liliana, Death's Majesty
2 x Soulstinger
1 x Cursed Minotaur
1 x Watchers Of The Dead
2 x Final Reward
1 x Cartouche Of Ambition
2 x Trial Of Ambition
1 x Archfiend Of Ifnir
1 x Nest Of Scarabs
1 x Splendid Agony
2 x Painful Lesson
1 x Scarab Feast
1 x Supernatural Stamina
1 x Destined to Lead
1 x Cradle Of The Accursed
1 x Grasping Dunes
1 x Evolving Wilds
1 x Painted Bluffs
1 x Forest
12 x Swamp

How did it do?


Fantastically. Went undefeated with this deck. It had a mix of Cycling Synergies and -1/-1 Counter Synergies.

Lessons
With enough Cycling in the deck, Ruthless Sniper lives up to his name, even allowing me to shrink a Seraph Of The Suns down to 1/1 the turn it entered the battlefield.
Similarly, the Archfiend is as good as it looks. It is truly a Bomb.
Destined to Lead was still worth the Green Splash.
Trial, followed by Cartouche is as good as Wizards intended.
Nest Of Scarabs isn't optional, which is awkward when you have been enchanted by Trespasser's Curse. Careful play saw me through though.
The utility lands are really useful
Only drew Liliana twice. First time I had 9 cards left in deck, so used her to reanimate something and won the game before deck size became a problem. Second time, I was so far ahead it wasn't worth casting her. My opponent was mana screwed and I was a couple of turns from winning, so all she would have done is made my opponent feel bad.

I'm loving the set. Really enjoyed playing the Sealed, even when I was losing. I can't wait to see what the Hour of Devastation brings.

The Results Are In

Belated posting, been busy with work and life. Let's get things back on track.

This past Sunday I held my third 40K Tournament. It did well, we got 12 players. The scenario was  Maelstrom of War: Tactical Escalation. Here are the results;

1. Jack Lambourne, Tzeentch Daemons. 3 wins, 46 points
2. Ian Atrill, Orks. 3 wins, 32 points
3. Mike Pooley, Necrons. 2 wins, 1 loss, 30 points
4. David Newby, Sisters of Battle. 2 wins, 1 loss, 26 points
5. Charlie Bennett, Ynnari. 2 wins, 1 loss, 25 points
6. Ron Gargett, Alpha Legion. 1 win, 1 loss, 1 draw, 17 points
7. Alfie Bennett, Homunculus Covens. 1 win, 2 losses, 34 points
8. Chris Tucker, Necrons. 1 win, 2 losses, 20 points
9. Josh, Space Wolves. 1 win, 2 losses, 26 points
10. Macaulay Uniack, Raven Guard. 1 win, 2 losses, 7 points
11. Les Harvey, Dark Angels. 2 losses, 1 draw, 19 points
12. Kyle Clements, Blood Angels. 3 losses, 27 points

There is a nice spread of armies, with only one repetition. Which is the pattern so far. All three events have had a duplicate faction. Interestingly they have been a different faction and different players each time.

Jack's Daemons have won back to back events. I believe part of this is there ability to swarm the table via Summoning and rapidly overwhelm opponents. Especially as they usually start the game outnumbering them. It's something a lot of forces can't deal with unless they are set up to deal with it, which may cost them against others. It was possibly a key to the success of the Orks as well. Mobs of boyz set up in trucks, an army of large-ish, fast moving units.

End of May sees a repeat of this event, while we await 8th Editions release and the discussion into how to move forward with these events once that has happened.

Thanks to everyone that came, I hope that they all enjoyed it and I'll be sending out the survey shortly

I Was Out, Damn It!!!!!

I haven't played much Magic the Gathering in recent months. My playgroup never have the time to get together for EDH and the Standard has been less than inspirational. It's not the power level or staleness concerns that the Internet appears to have with Standard, but simply a lack of caring on my part. I was on the verge of quitting Magic, keeping eternal format decks but moving away from any cards that aren't useful for them.

Then this happened

Those are Maelstrom Pulse and Vindicate, being cast by Egyptian Gods.

Egyptian Gods!!!!!
Well, that's certainly a thing. Amonkhet is filled with ancient Egyptian flavouring. And I'm finding it all amazing. There are mechanics like Embalm to turn your creatures into Mummies, cards for the Gods, the return of Cycling. Plus....

The return of Nicol Bolas. He created the plane, uses it as a base of operations and is venerated as the God-Pharaoh. He will get a new Planeswalker card in either this set or it's follow up Hour of Devastation. It's got me excited for Magic again.
So much so that I'm going to collect a set. Like an actual, one of each card, stored in a display folder set. All the artwork so far is gorgeous. Means getting hold of the promos too, which will mean entering the Game Day and trying to top 8 (it helps that the top 8 promo is a Dragon). I'm undecided about applying this to the inevitable playmats and sleeves. It also means doing the same for the second set.

There are 2 problems with this plan:

1) Top 8ing Game Day is going to require a Standard Deck, and a decent one at that. It's not an FNM where I can play anything. My most recent deck was based on the Nissa Planeswalker deck, and so while being fun wasn't super-competitive or tuned. 

2)  The Invocations. The 2 pieces of artwork I've shown above are from the Masterpieces, not the main set. They come in a fancy card frame with foiling. Not only are the roughly 1 per 11 billion boosters, but this time they are sought after cards like Force of Will and Wrath of God. The cheapest is $40 pre-order. They are going to be a massive challenge and may require buying rather than trading.

Still, I want to do it. The set looks fantastic so far and we aren't even fully through the first week of spoilers as I type this.


So Fuck You, WOTC! I was out, and you pulled me back in. 

Second 40k Starter Event Report

I'm typing this up during the event, so it's probably going to be a little disjointed.

We had 10 players again, so maximum turn out. Some different players and some players playing different armies. Only one repetition, and both of those are different styles.

• Khorne Daemonkin, mono-daemons with Flesh Hounds, Bloodletters and a Skullcannon
• Blood Angels infantry, with Terminator support
• Blood Angels, 4 Dreadnoughts with some infantry support
• Sisters of Battle, with Saint Celestine and 2 Exorcists
• Tzeentch Daemons, Flamers galore
• Skitarii, Rangers and a Dunecrawler
• World Eaters, Berzerkers and Raptors
• Raven Guard, Shrike leading Assault Marines, Scouts and Sternguard
• Crimson Slaughter with a Vindicator
• Saim-Hann Elder, with Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent.

As I type this, round one is coming near to an end. Everyone is playing the mission, no-one has come here just to try and table people. It's part of the intent of the event. I've limited the guest list to ensure a good atmosphere. Some players aren't great at facing newer players and that rapidly turns things toxic. That then leads to players not wanting to return to future events or even losing interest in the game. Definitely something I want to avoid.

Second round has led to an interesting match up. The Blood Angels players are facing off, with the more experienced one giving advice to the newer player. The latter played Harlequins last time and recently obtained the Blood Angels army. I'm hoping that he gets some good advice.

I'm considering asking at the end if any of the players want me to feature their army on the blog. It'll be interesting to hear the whys behind some of the builds and their intended tactics, alongside how they felt the games went.

Via summoning, the Tzeentch army managed to practically table the World Eaters. Far too many Flamer templates and not enough successful saves.

Final round I was unable to get pictures because a player dropped. This meant I got to play a match! I'll talk about the list I'm trialling in a future post. I won on behalf of the player that went, but as is my custom the player I beat got the win as if he faced the bye.

Everyone seemed happy with the event, the winner played the Tzeentch Daemon list, facing off against the Sisters of Battle in the final round. I've sent out the same questionnaire as last time, and nearly had a full set of responses already. I'm really enjoying running these, and I'm looking forward to the next one where we pump up the points, lift some restrictions and move onto Maelstrom missions,