I could talk about Daily Events meta, random decks, latest techs, etc, and give a poor impression of “Pauper’s Random Writer #68″.

Instead, I’m going to talk about how I ended up playing WW and suddenly made tons of tix and never spent a dime on MODO ever since.

(For those of you insterested only in WW tech, you can find all the information you want in the primer which should be posted soon. Buzzkills.)

You see, I’ve lofty amitions for Magic. In order to achieve them, I need some capital. I spent last few days of June and entirety of July playing NMS Limited. I was doing well, but even then, I was barely breaking even. I drafted so much that I memorised NPH common run by accident and I know most of the MBS common run too (SoM is harder, because there are more cards, but it sucks and rarely makes a difference to read signals at that point so WHATEVER).

By the end of June, I ended up spending too much $s, and was owing 50$ to a friend. Suffice to say, things could’ve been better.

I had around 60 tix in my account. I had two choices before me: I could pay my friend, or I could play and make more tix. Obviously, being the responsible person I am, I chose the latter (Hey, the dude was rarely ever online, and he asked to get it by when Innistrad was released so YEAH).

Since limited games paid out so little, I needed to play a constructed format. Even Standard decks were too expensive for my tastes, and LSV’s (god damn that man) videos made UR Cloud look like a sweet deck to play in a bad format. So I went out on a limb and bought Cloud.

And I lost all the tix I’ve had.

(Side note here: UR Cloud is an awful deck that I won’t ever play again).

So yeah, at that point, I was in square 1, only with no tix and with a deck that served me no good. Once I’d sell all the cards, I’d have something around 20 tix so I could 1) Buy 30 tix online and pay my friend or 2) Buy a new deck and grind away.

I think we all know what option I chose.

Of all the decks (that were cheap), WW seemed like the sweetest. I’ll talk about what makes WW the powerhouse it is in my primer.

This is the first list I came up with after browsing various WW decks:

21 Plains
3 Benevolent Bodyguard
3 Icatian Javelineers
3 Lone Missionary
3 Aven Riftwatcher
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Guardian of the Guildpact
4 Razor Golem

4 Bonesplitter
4 Journey to Nowhere
1 Prismatic Strands

Sideboard:
2 Circle of Protection: Black
2 Crimson Acolyte
2 Divine Offering
3 Holy Light
2 Prismatic Strands
4 Standard Bearer

A funny thing happened to me after I’ve picked up the deck -I started to win with it. My first Daily Event with the deck was a 3-1 after abour 57 (give or take a few) failures with Cloud, and then a 4-0, and another 3-1, and on, and on. Random people started whispering me in game, asking me for SB advice, telling me why Order of Leitbur was good (My verdict: It’s good, but underwhelming), saying they were rooting for me because I was running their favorite deck, etc, etc.

My level of popularity wasn’t exactly comparable to that of Jon Finkel, but it was close enough.

But it was a whole new world for me. People were running my list in 3-1/4-0 results. People were coming to me for advice. Really, I did know I was good, but this all felt really strange to me. I was new to MODO and expected my skills to be tested harshly, not to become a small-time WW hero. I had to contain myself and don’t let myself be spoiled with all the sudden attention that was coming to me -I was merely welcome to the grinders’ club now, nothing more.

Random insert, 9th of July 2011:
Me: Lol
Me: I’ve 18 qps
Glux: nais
Me: I think I’ll go for 45 qps for mocs
Glux: LOOL
Glux: you could maybe get 2 byes
Glux: 3 is impossible
Me: I made 18 in 6 days
Me: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Glux: YOU NEED TO GET OUT

So I was going to get 45 qps for MOCS, playing Pauper.

(If you have no idea what qp or MOCS means, google it, geez.)

Once I’d over 100 tix in my account after paying my friend, I started a most retarded project (Aside from aiming for 45 qps, which was retarded enough). My deck was serving me well, so I wanted to foil out my deck entirely to honor its blessings on me (Good job, idiot).

In RL Magic, I never was one for foils, but I guess we all dig them at a level. Since WW non-foil costs something like 2,86 tix, foiling it out would be cheap and it would look cool and make my opponent jelly.

This whole project was a fiasco.

1. Finding foils of some cards is just impossible. People have problems finding Standard Bearers and Prismatic Strands already, good luck finding them in foil.

2. A week later I ended up losing as much as I’d won, so I had to sell my foil deck a lot cheaper than I’d bought it for. Ouch.

And it’s a retard’s job to find full-art Zendikar foils. Sure, you find them at some speciality bots, but they only sell them in batches of 2/4 and then never update. So frogging retarded.

Around 13th/14th, mirror was all the buzz. I would often face 1 and regularly 2 WW decks in a given DE. It was fun in the beginning because there’s a lot of room for error / opportunity to outplay an opponent so I was winning more often than I was losing. But there’s something very annoying about the mirror:  The games go LONG. It’s just a very grindy matchup so games drag on and on. It’s common to find out that the last match of the round that’s keeping everyone waiting is a WW mirror.

(And then again, every once in a whole, your opponent would play 1st, 2nd Bonesplitter, play a Squadron Hawk, and just win. Literally. And it would piss me off everytime.)

((And no – I never won like that. Whenever I won, it was pure skill. Whenever I lost, it was “OMFG he draws his Squadron Hawk on turn 12, lucky bastard”. Alright?))

I was constantly changing my list with little tweaks almost on a daily basis, but I eventually sat down and remade it like this:

21 Plains
3 Benevolent Bodyguard
3 Icatian Javelineers
3 Lone Missionary
1 Shade of Trokair
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Squadron Hawk
3 Guardian of the Guildpact
4 Razor Golem

4 Bonesplitter
4 Journey to Nowhere
2 Prismatic Strands

Sideboard:
2 Circle of Protection: Black
2 Crimson Acolyte
2 Divine Offering
2 Serrated Arrows
3 Shade of Trokair
4 Standard Bearer

That list adressed a few issues: First, I never really sided in Holy Light, so it was eating up SB space. Second, aside from Crimson Acolytes, I had nothing to side in against UR Cloud, and nothing to side against MUC period. Both were gaining strength in WW heavy meta and I needed to do something.

Finally, I was siding in Prismatic Strands in the sb in almost every single matchup so I decided to just MD the second copy.

The list was a success -for 2 whole days, before I started seeings Serrated Arrows in the mirror. And in MBC. And in UR Cloud, maindeck.

It would be an understatement to say that the meta was getting very, very hostile for WW to thrive in. I was still getting some 3-1 results, but had no 4-0s for a few days, and the previously stimulating mirror was getting tedious and brain grinding. I was around sub-100 tix, which was a bad sign, and with the 45 qps as my goal, it was very stressing to feel like time was running out.

I was talking to NecroSavant, who was having problems of his own with Grixis Storm and was losing a lot of tix. We both were desperate, and I knew that if I wanted to have a shot at 45 qps, I needed to switch my deck. Our daily conversations would look something like this:

Me/Him: I hate WW/Storm
Mw:Him: I don’t know what to play anymore
Him/Me: Yeah, same here

On the 15th of July, I tried out Infect. I bought the deck, lost 2-2 in a daily with it, and went 19-12 in 2 mans. Surely, this wasn’t a deck for me. My win % was lower than what I had with WW and the deck was too volatile for my tastes. So for 3 days, I kept on slinging WW, only to not cash a single DE. Everywhere I looked there were Serrated Arrows, Mirror, or both. I was psychologically down. I’d lost hope that I’d get those 45 qps or place in a daily ever again. I could kill a small child for a 3-1 finish.

And I finally made the change:

Me: Yo
Me: I’ve found my deck
NecroSavant: What is it?
Me: Storm. :VV:V
NecroSavant: get out

And the change was great, I went back to winning some pax with it, and eventually came second place on the PE. I’m still playing Storm and it’s serving me well.

So there is it.

I hope you liked my story. Getting to 45 QPs last month was a madman’s quest but it was a lot of fun and I had a great time playing WW and having it fund me a ton of drafts and such to get me prepared for MOCS / Nationals. WW will always have a special place for me, even if I’m unlikely to pick it up again.

APPENDIX: My MOCS Report:

Step 1: Open Flameblast Drag00n, Grave Tits
Step 2: Bye for 3 rounds
Step 3: Mulligan to 4 both games, start with 3-1
Step 4: Derp Derp Grave Tits 4-1
Step 5: Herp Herp Drag00n 5-1
Step 6: Lose connection to internet.

…

Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.

Nighthavk
Nighthavk_ on MODO
kedi98ATgmailDOTcom

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Classic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.