I decided to attend the Conflux release event last Saturday, Feb 7 at Neutral Grounds Galleria. As usual, I still had to go to work first so I didn’t make it in time for the first 32-man flight and had to wait for NG to restock on product for the second flight. Unfortunately, they were short on SoA boosters, so we would be playing sealed with 6 boosters of Conflux. Yes, six. Expect domain?
I registered a mediocre pool and got passed one of roughly the same quality level. Here’s my deck:
- 5 Plains
- 1 Swamp
- 2 Mountain
- 6 Forest
- 2 Rupture Spire
- 1 Unstable Frontier
- 2 Gleam of Resistance
- 1 Lapse of Certainty
- 1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
- 1 Brackwater Elemental
- 1 Constricting Tendrils
- 2 Frontline Sage
- 1 Grixis Illusionist
- 1 Inkwell Leviathan
- 1 Traumatic Visions
- 1 Worldly Counsel
- 2 Absorb Vis
- 1 Corrupted Roots
- 1 Grixis Slavedriver
- 1 Infectious Horror
- 2 Pestilent Kathari
- 2 Rotting Rats
- 1 Yoke of the Damned
- 1 Hellspark Elemental
- 2 Kranioceros
- 1 Maniacal Rage
- 1 Molten Frame
- 1 Quenchable Fire
- 2 Toxic Iguanar
- 1 Wandering Goblins
- 1 Gluttonous Slime
- 1 Nacatl Savage
- 2 Scattershot Archer
- 1 Spore Burst
- 1 Tukatongue Thallid
- 1 Elder Mastery
- 1 Fusion Elemental
- 1 Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer
- 1 Hellkite Hatchling
- 1 Rhox Bodyguard
- 1 Sphinx Summoner
- 1 Suicidal Charge
- 1 Vectis Agents
- 2 Vedalken Outlander
- 1 Armillary Sphere
- 1 Font of Mythos
- 3 Mana Cylix
- 2 Manaforce Mace
- 1 Reliquary Tower
As you can note, I used only 1 out of 6 of my rares. People at nearby tables were exclaiming how they got so many bombs they were using 5 out of 6 rares. Well, whatever, that’s how sealed deck goes. For my build, I was trying to go for early starts with 2- and 3-drops and just use the removal to take them out of the way and go aggro before any of my opponent’s bombs could come online. I wish I could’ve fitted in the 2nd Armillary Sphere and the 2 Gleam of Resistance, but I didn’t want to have to cut more creatures.
I won rounds one and two. The last game in round two was a real squeaker, where I managed to pull through despite my opponent’s pool having Volcanic Fallout, Martial Coup and Banefire.
Things went downhill from there. I lost both games of round 3 with my opponent having Nicol Bolas in play with the requisite loyalty to go postal on me. In round four I played really sloppily making a few miscounts of power/toughness and wasting some Drag Downs in the process. However, I had really bad draws in both games of round four; even I had played tightly I probably would still have lost.
It’s easy to blame the deck, but there were so many issues during deck construction that I’m pretty sure a much better build exists. I don’t know whether I should have maindecked the 2 Scattershot Archers, they would have been pretty bad in rounds 1-3 but awesome in round 4. Looking at my pool now it might be possible to work in blue, losing green in the process. Blue gives me fliers, card draw and protection from red, but I guess it would have been more of a late game deck and I didn’t really want my games to go long.
Looking at the upcoming NG events, most are for extended so I guess I will still not be playing much Magic in February. Gives me time to think of a deck I want to play.
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