The deck I played with was based on the one in Melissa De Tora's article, "Bashing Face with Monogreen". She recommends a couple of changes to the original deck list, and I adopted some of hers (Kessig Wolf Run ftw) and put in some of my own. My final deck list looked like this:
| Creatures: 4 Arbor Elf 3 Dryad Militant 2 Ulvenwald Tracker 2 Primordial Hydra 4 Strangleroot Geist 4 Champion of Lambholt 4 Predator Ooze 3 Rubblebelt Raiders 4 Wolfir Silverheart | Spells: 2 Revenge of the Hunted 4 Rancor Planeswalkers: 1 Domri Rade | Land: 17 Forest 2 Kessig Wolf Run 4 Rootbound Crag | Sideboard: 3 Tormod's Crypt 2 Ranger's Guile 3 Plummet 3 Triumph of Ferocity 4 Acidic Slime |
Melissa recommended a bunch of Garruk Relentless for the sideboard, but I don't own any and I wasn't inclined to buy them, so instead I tossed in my one copy of Domri Rade, some Triumph of Ferocity for the hell of it, and went to town. In retrospect, I probably should have taken her advice on Giant Growth over Revenge of the Hunted, but it didn't matter, because the deck just crushed the opposition.
Matches 1, 2, and 3 were all won at a walk, with the deck winning on autopilot in 2 games each match. One opponent managed to get me to 14 life, and that was the worst trouble I had.
Match 4 got interesting. My opponent was playing Jund, and in game 1 he managed to drop me to 6 life while hiding behind (and occasionally attacking with) a Vampire Nighthawk, which eventually became a pair of them. He lifelinked his way to 26 life, and I whittled him back to 20 before managing to land a Wolfir Silverheart that paired with my Champion of Lambholt (which already had Rancor on it). Next turn, I swung in with the two of them plus (I think) a Predator Ooze with some counters on it for exactly 20. Champion of Lambholt wins games, folks!
In game 2, I stumbled a little bit on the curve, and my opponent had perfect removal, so he blew me out without taking a single point of damage.
In game 3, I again took some beats to the face early on, which damaged my confidence a bit. I dropped a Primordial Hydra, then drew on my next turn before doubling his counters. My opponent stopped me as I was about to fix him, and called it a missed trigger. I believe that FNM is played with "casual rules enforcement", but since I aspire to compete someday, I agreed that it was a missed trigger, though I saw victory slipping from my fingers. My next turn I remembered to double the counters during upkeep. Then he attacked with his Thragtusk and used his own Kessig Wolf Run to do just enough damage to kill my blocking Hydra. My opponent was betting I didn't have a Giant Growth (I didn't), saving enough mana to end his turn by casting Olivia Voldaren, which I triumphantly nuked with the Plummet I'd been holding since my opening hand. After that it was pretty much over, and I later found the guy and thanked him for the good game and for smacking me down on the missed trigger, since that's what makes you a better player.
I was extremely stressed out for Match 5, and mostly coasted for Game 1, which I won. My opponent was playing Naya Humans (I think), and in Game 2 managed to get a huge Champion of the Parish paired with a Silverblade Paladin, which wrecked me in short order. Going into Game 2, I was having difficulty doing combat math in my head from all the stress, and took too long to make some plays, which earned me a slow play warning from the judge. We started Game 3 with me taking a big 7-point hit on turn 2 with the Burning-Tree Emissary combo, but I managed to rally back with Strangleroot Geist, followed by a short stalemate while I assembled (once again) the Champion of Lambholt/Wolfir Silverheart combo and swung for unblockable lethality.
The major lesson learned is that I need a system for the Untap/Upkeep/Draw portion of my turn, to do it all in the correct order, and to make sure I hit every card that needs its Upkeep step managed (like Primordial Hydra). I also need to work on a methodical habit of identifying and announcing attack triggers, as with Predator Ooze and Rubblebelt Raiders. And I desperately need to start working on getting the combat math done in my head. I used to be able to do calculus in my head (back in high school), but now for some reason simple math is astoundingly hard, particularly when under stress in a match. Unfortunately, I have no one with whom to practice this on a regular basis, so I might be in a bit of trouble with that.
All in all though, it was a good run, and in an odd way I feel less stress about getting to 5-0 with one of my own brews, since I've proven I can get to 5-0 as a player. I've got a deck idea in mind for Monday's Brewer's Battle, and it seems to be doing OK in testing, so we'll see how well it pans out.
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