Eye on BNG: Pillar of War

Pillar of War is one of those cards that whenever I see in a draft or a sealed, that I always try to shove into my deck. The reasoning being twofold.

The first thing is that this card is a colorless 3/3 3 drop. The only drawback is that it's a defender, however, it's better than almost every defender in Standard. Other than Returned Phalanx which is useless in anything other than a B/U deck, Pillar is the only defender with more than 2 power for less than 7 CMC. Not only can it defend, but it can also clear some board space for you with it's 3 power.

The real enticing thing about this card is it's power. Whilst enchanted, which especially BNG seems to focus on, it can cast away it's defender status and attack. In a best case scenario you can play PoW on turn 3 and then enchant it on turn 4 and attack with a buffed PoW. It immediately turns into a force to be reckoned with and as an uncommon, chances are that you'll see it in limited formats.

Tales From Sealed

I ran my first sealed event on MTGO. It was a sealed Theros, costing me 2 Theros booster, 2 Born boosters and 2 tix. It took about half an hour for queue to pop after signing up for it and it lasted about 2 hours to run through the 3 matches. 

So, I pull Kiora, The Crashing Wave and even though in hindsight, I probably could have put together a beast red/black deck, I opted for Green/Blue built around Kiora based on the fact that it was a Planeswalker.  

The matches themselves weren't important so I'll just say that I did exactly the same as I did in my last draft except I swept my last match. I went 1-2 in matches (winning a Theros booster), and 3-4 in games. Instead I want to focus on the two things I leaned.

1. You can't build a deck around a Planeswalker and just throw their colors together. 

I basically saw that I drew Kiora and threw every blue and black card into my deck. My deck had no strategy to it and the times I did get Kiora out there, she got taken out by two turns in. My deck was a midrange control, but not even really. It was just thrown together cards. My lesson? Look for card synergy. 

2. Take your time

I lost a game because I missed a spell removal because I was impatient and pressing "next" really fast. I'm going to be honest, I probably would have still lost the match, but it was disheartening that I messed up because of a stupid mistake. 

Overall, I'm happy I won a match  and got something out of it, and I sold Kiora for 15 tix, so I basically got my entry back, but I'm a little frustrated. I definitely need to study some MTG meta an I'm upset that I wasted an opportunity to build a decent deck instead of trying to force a blue/green.  I even pulled the red/black dual land!

Theros Draft

So I did my first Theros Swiss draft event on MTGO and I'm not going to lie, it went better than I thought it would.  

I snagged an Erebos, God of the Damned along with Archtype of Finality (all creature gain death touch) so immediately went to work on a black devotion deck. Then I saw Prognostic Sphinx and immediately tried to force blue into my deck because I read online that B/U is good. This was my mistake. 

In match 1 I went 1-1 against a red deck with a splash of green. I was actually shocked because I wasn't expecting to win a single game. The rubber match was a wipe though, he played Purphoros, God of the Forge and that was it. Had it not been for Purphoros, I feel like I could have beaten him. Even my first loss to him was because of a missed block. Live and learn though. 

Match 2 was a route. This gentleman played a green/blue deck, heavy on the green. Whereas the first game I lost because of mistakes I made, this guy was just a better player and outplayed me. I think he won it all too. He didn't even have any bombs, he just synergized perfectly and wrecked me. I lost 0-2 and now hate centaurs. 

Going into match 3, I was just happy that I got one game win. I was matched against the only other 0-2 player so I felt a little more at ease. Game 1 took a long time because he was using a B/W deck and had life gain abilities but late game I managed start hitting him for more life then he was gaining.  Game 2 I got mana flooded and still didn't have a playable card by turn 5 so I conceded with 8 health left. Game 3 was insane and I did my deck's best combo. 

My oponent and I were evenly matched but he had a ton of creatures on the board. I pulled out Psychic Intrusion and forced him to exile Hythonia the cruel. I then payed Hythonia's cost putting it on my side. The next turn I went monstrous, destroying everyone on the field except for my indestructible Erebos. I then played a cheap creature. Next turn he plays some cheap creature. I play Rescue from the Underworld, sac my cheap creature and bring back my the 2/2 flyer with lifelink whose name I forgot. This bring my black devotion to 5, and Erebos can attack. Then he conceded. 

It was quite possibly the best play I could have done.  It also gave me my only match win, so in matches I went 1-2 and in games I went 3-5.

So, I took all the cards I drafted, and since I play a W/G deck online anyway, I sold them along with the Erebos, netting me 5 tix with which I bought a Theros booster. I also won an additional Theros booster for having 1 match win, so I was pleased with that. 

Now I have the itch for events, but they're so fucking expensive. I have enough to do either another Swiss draft or a 4 booster sealed event, which I'm currently leaning more towards since I feel like that'll give me a better grasp on deck building. 

Oh and an interesting note, the gentleman who lost to me was the only person to go 0-3. I was so happy that it wasn't me. 

Archangel, Theros, and BotG

I finally bought an Archangel of Thune for my online deck along with a bunch of other cards to replace some M13 cards which can't be used anymore. I didn't really lose anything deck shattering except for Angels Mercy, that healed me by 7. 

I'll also be browsing TappedOut and check out some black decks. 

While I wait for my order, I'm going to throw together some mono decks as just test out card combos on the newcomer ranking.