Oh God we've been rude!

It's been a while (you don't say) but we've been busy! We are testing, a lot, and we'll have the story to tell longer and better once it settles down, I guess. The basics have been simple enough. Build what you think is good, play. Does it win? good, now find another angle, build and play that, and then battle against itself and each other. What's the weaknesses? Do we see any emerging "simply better" play styles or decks?

In the beginning, g/w lost to wrath. Still true, but it's quite savage when it's full tilt.
Blue white miracles is still and will always be a thing, but then again "randomly, off the top" will also be, and sometimes that fails to show up.
What have I done?

After my silly performance at the GPT in Gosford (I got a good article outta horrid player behaviour) I took it apart and we looked at the day. I fear I'm repeating myself, so I'll just summarise that I thought double up Chandra/Slaughter Games would be a great deck to try out.

And it was. I took it to FNM, lost round 1 against control (HOW!?) and then won the next three rounds against varying aggro/tribal decks. Fun, all round, but when you go Slaughter Games it's fun. When you drop Chandra, ping a dork and stabilise, then double Slaughter Games the next turn it's even more fun, but your opponent's quickly get the idea that your deck isn't sporting, well not really even though the card exists, and plays rather more of a "stop hitting yourself" kind of game.

One opponent, on Golgari 'fun stuff' (by fun stuff I mean cards the player just liked and enjoyed, so they played that), commented that it wasn't really fun to apart his own cards, seeing I used Mindclaw Shaman to cast his Jarad's Orders (failing to find the second creature, so I just fished out that nice 2/2 Goblin), then when he cast his Demon of 6/6 tap down I stole it with my topdecked Nicol Bolas. Anything left in the deck I stole away completely with Slaughter Games, so he felt rather like he didn't enjoy losing to his own stuff. He was an awful good sport though, not getting irate when going after Tamiyo and missing, when he used Death-Rite Shaman to "kill her off", only to be informed about the redirect damage rules not working for "life loss", only damage.

That was week 1. Week 2 went far worse, when match 1 I was against the very same opponent, and he'd listened to ALL my advice and had a much more formidable deck. I didn't get my awesome starts, he didn't get his demon at me too quickly, and we end up drawing the round.

I'm paired up and lose when my opponent simply rips me a new one with green white monsters, Angels and Ajani. Slaughter Games, thou art too slow!

Round 3 I'm against my mate who I offer to sign the slip before the match is started. He's playing a silly 1/1 attackers deck, with Lily as pump, only her pump occurs once before she needs to refill. Chandra against these "little creatures" deck is really good, especially as a PW hidden behind the Hover Barrier, she clicks up to her ultimate (and beyond, not point losing her) quite regularly, especially when you've had the chance to Slaughter Games and know exactly how to play around their hand contents/what they might play.

Round 4 I'm trounced by Spirits that aren't targetable, and Mizzium Mortars that are too slow. 7 mana to nuke the board? Didn't really happen, and turn 2 Invisible Stalker beats turn 3 Slaughter Games anyway.

So off that FNM I decided to retire the idea, figuring it was a better Modern deck. Not that decks aren't that quick, but I think of the deck fondly, but mostly as a "cute filler" that fills a space not considered by the more popular/winning decks.

Don't get me wrong -- being able to hit with Slaughter Games is such a gain on information I'm entertaining running it for games 1, but games 1 only. Games 2/3 sure they've sideboarded, but 45 cards at the least must remain the same, plus you'll recognise the deck, then know the match up. Who knows? The idea, while great and powerful, is still too inconsistent. When I had nothing in hand but the Slaughter Games, or when they had double removal for Hover Barriers #1 and #2 it was just curtains after some more "umming" and "ahhing" from me.

So I conversed with James and Ammy, and decided that the team would all play different decks. Rather than an agreed upon "best deck" we'd all play our own brand of deck, allowing our prefered play style to offer up extra skill, allowing us to perform our best, rather than to let the deck's do the main load of work.

So considering that I'm returning to the blue/white/red build from the GPT. Yes, that means two weeks of "wasted" testing, on Slaughter Games and not "Murdoch Control", but that's OK by me. It meant I tried something, got out there, and saw that it worked and then didn't. It also doesn't change what I'm taking with me to NZ, which is all the Standard cards that I own. All together we'll have the meat of the cards that we all need, allowing us to build on the spot whatever's desired. Maybe not perfectly, but James/Ammy are arriving a few days before me, so getting the cards we need (1 Tamiyo, please!) won't prove too hard.

In the mean time, I'm going to write an article about all the current mechanics in Standard, how they work and how to fight them. Hopefully food for thought for all the people attending, or to help with deck building ideas.

Who knows, I may end up running Slaughter Games at the GP anyway!
Fox out.