FNM

yesterday Isialo and i went to FNM and had a great time. I brewed up my own little concoction and wasnt quite sure if it was up to the challenge of competitive play. I was pretty confident in how to play it and was doing quite well with it against Xay and Vipat's Tier 1 decks. so without further ado, here's my deck list, you saw it here first (i checked online and so far i could not find any decks that looked like it.)

Jund Spikes (named by Mai Kao)

1 lox warhammer
2 souls fire
4 maelstrom pulse
3 bituminous blast
4 bloodbraid elf
3 putrid leech
4 devoted druids
4 quillspike
4 nantucko husk
3 murderous redcap
4 kitchen finks

1 reflecting pool
2 mosswort bridge
2 vivid marsh
4 savage land
1 twilight mire
1 fire-lit thicket
4 swamps
2 mountains
7 forests

It's a hybrid deck. I combined the quillspike combo with some awesome jund cascade cards for some brutal beatings. I remember reading an article once on MTG.com about transformer decks where you play a deck that looks like one other deck but performs and plays completely different. So i decided to meld the quillspike deck with a jund aggro deck, if you want to see how this puppy did, continue reading...

Match 1 - Sam Boss? Bant Reveillark

game one- he mulls down to 5 and loses a long game of attrition. i dont really see much of his deck aside from tons of removal though and so i dont side in anything.
game two- my turn to mull to 5 and lose a long drawn out game again. tons of removal from him, but finally something that i can side against...reveillark! I side in 3 jund charms and out comes one of each from the combo.
game three - i wait for him to tap out and then play the combo for the win with souls fire dealing tons of damage to the face. MEOWW! (2-1, 1-0)

Match 2 - Shane - lightning reaver haste deck

i take 2 of three. i should have swept but i ran across some bad mana fixing second game. i'm also able to combo out on him in this game, but this time by attacking. This little kid was a jerk so i was glad to smash his face in. later on i find out that he is the worst ranked player in illinois AND the surrounding three states! what a distinction...if you cant be the best why not be the worst. imagine how a loss to this kid would have effected my DCI? (4-2, 2-0)

Match 3 - Isiah Xiong - Bant aggro

we didnt want to play each other, but because i lost one game the worst ranked player in the midwest i was pared down and played against Ikes who was 1-1 at the time. I reminded him that this wasnt a casual game anymore and we both went to work. These games all went into the later rounds and we both fought hard against each other. ultimately, the match was decided by my card advantage of cascade. once bant runs out of steam, its top deck mode, but one bloodbraid or bituminous and youre back in business. Ike's is fun to play against and brings out the best in his opponents. (6-3, 3-0) off to the finals.

Match 4 - Brandon Boss - naya aggro

first game his fatties are too big for me, but i'm able to almost stabilize, but just as i do, he fallouts for my last two life. I'm on my heals now b/c i lost my first match of the finals...gotta win out!
game two - i side in three terrors in place of one of each from my combo. i almost side out bituminous but decide against it. i get an early devoted druid and he gets a turn 3 woolly thoctar, on turn four he attacks and it is met by a one turn early BITUMINOUS BLAST! he looks shocked. the blast cascades into a finks. he plays other creatures only to be terrored, maelstrom pulsed or redcapped. My finks goes the distance.
game three - he plays out 3 early trace of abundances and some early fatties, but they are met by terror and bituminous blast into redcap. OUCH! he removes my creatures but because he's in top deck mode, i just plop down one creature at a time and see if he can handle it. every creature he plays i have a removal spell for and i slowly but surely knock him all the way down to zero life.
he's a good player, just not playing the optimal version of his deck. (8-4, 4-0)

Yay!!! I win FNM and get a shiny murderous redcap (cool) and six packs (definitely worth the 4 dollar entry fee). all in all, i never felt like my deck let me down. the reason i like this deck was because people just dont know how to play against it. they'll try to pithing needle the spike but then have to worry about the husk. they'll runed halo the spike or husk, but then have no way of dealing with the persist guys and maelstrom pulse. This deck has tons of removal and tons of outs which is why i like it so much. I'm thinking of changing the sideboard to transform this deck completely to Jund aggro in the second match after they have swapped in hosers for the combo, bloodbraid into ramgang! try to negate that! Thanks Ike for taking me, had lots of fun and it doesnt hurt to win either. MN here i come!

josh out.

Back home!

We won't be as regularly updating on this page. Now that we're back home, we'll be mostly updating on Xanga since that's where most people read regularly anywho.

Things we can't wait to catch up on:

• Food!
• Books & movies!
• Worship music
• Who's growing up (i.e. the kids we thought were kids are like, jrs and srs in high school??!)
• Hanging out like regular times with friends
• Just spending time with the parents