Hello Again,

today I want to present to you one of my favourite color combinations, blue and green. UG aggro-control was one of my first HL decks ever. Back then I didn’t have any duals, B2B was like 50 cent and Wild Mongrel was the best two drop ever. The Deck used cheap creatures and counterspells to protect them long enough until the win was secured. this used to work pretty well in the past, but UG went out of favour, it felt like other color combinations always got the good stuff. Times change and now the last two sets showed promising new cards that could help Simic become great again. Especially looking at Oko and Questing Beast together with dozens of new flash creatures and Once Upon a Time we got more than enough fire to start a new approach on the decktype.

So yeah I trashed together a Simic list and played yesterdays FNM with it, which went rather well and I finished 4-0. I will just go quickly trough the matches because I honestly can’t remember everything that happened, I hope you will excuse if there are some errors in it as I didn’t take any notes and just write this out of memory.

Round 1 vs Jeskai 2-0

I was playing vs a new player and I am very sorry that I forgot your name, if anyone can help I would gladly know who you are.

Anyway game 1 turn 1 I played a gitaxian probe and saw that he had kept a 2 lander with an Island already in play and a plains on his hand. He also had Miscalculation,Force Spike,Narset and a burst lightning. I remember playing Brineborn Cutthroat+Rancor on my turn 3 and my opponent didn’t find a red mana to kill him immediatly so I was able to ship the game home with counterbackup quickly enough.

Game 2 I had Gitaxian Probe again this time he had enough Lands, one of them Karakas,Dreadhorde arcanist, Path to Exile and Mana Leak. The game went rather slow with not much tapping on both sides, I slowly grinded down his Life with a scryb ranger and a Pteramander while he was attacking me for 1 with his Arcanist. He later player Path on one of my creatures and I was able to resolve a scavening ooze that exiled his path. He then countered one of my creatures with a Spell Queller but wasn’t able to attack or block with it as my Scryb Ranger was still on the board. I later resolved a Treasure cruise and found a Questing Beast that attacked him for lethal, his small creatures couldn’t block it.

Round 2 vs Abzhan Ramp 2-1

Round 2 I played versus Cedric who always comes up with a different,interesting Deck. Game 1 he started with a Noble Hierarch and turn 2 Sword of Fire and Ice which I had to Force. I then palyed a Sylvan Library and payed8 Life on the next turn hoping to find my fourth Land on turn 4 so I could Cast Garruk and Nightpack Ambusher later. I was down to 11 Life but had my Garruk on turn 4 which made me a beast for now. On Cedrics turn 4 he now already had 3 Mana dorks and used them to cast Elesh Norn, which had me on the brink of conceding. Lucky Me I found Oko as the thirds card from my Sylvan Library who turned Elesh Norn into Elesh Elk rather quickly, My Beast token had to chump block vs the 3/3 Elk +Noble Hierarch which wasn’t much of a Problem as I could resolve more creatures in time and Nighpack Ambusher, Garruk and Oko produced too many 3/3 creatures for Cedric to handle.

Game 2 I had an aggressive start and after Mana Draining a tireless Tracker I resolved Faerie Vandal into Gush and Nimble Obstructionist. 5 flying power beat im down to 4 until he could stabilize with a Shalai as I had drawn nothing but Lands until then we went on to game 3.

I think he had to mulligan to 5 in game 3 and I beat him up pretty bad with flying creatures and Questing Beast.

Round 3 vs Big Red

Round 3 I met Paul with his version of Big Red, I needed to be careful not to overextend as my creatures are very vulnerable to Big Reds burn everything spells. I can’t remember what happened in game 1 I probably had too many counterspells.

Game 2 he resolved an early Karn which found Rabblemaster and Legion Warboss, I was’t too excited as you can imagine. He later had a Glorybringer which I elked with Oko but he still could copy him with Saheeli and apparently the copy is still a Glorybringer which was little bit too much for me in this game.

Game 3 I had memory Lapse and Snapcaster which countered his Pia and Kiran two times slowing him down enough for me to resolve a Nighpack Ambusher that got protected for Pia and Kirans Wrath with a cycled Nimble Obstructionist. Then he just produced tokens with counterbackup that slowly ate up his board and his Life.

Round 4 vs Abzhan Ramp

In the final Round I was facing Hendrik who goes top 8 every time he attends a tournament and every time with ramp.

I began game 1 with a Delver of Secrets while Hendrik had a deathrite shaman. My delver didn’t flip but I had a turn 2 Tarmogoyf and a Rancor in hand which wasn’t too shabby either. Hendrik tapped out for a Kodamas Reach, my Delver didn’t flip again but I got a frantic search which allowed me to discard B2B and create a 6/5 trample goyf that attacked with my delver for 7 damage on turn 3, all while having 2 mana open for Mana Leak. Hendrik palyed a demonic which I let him resolve I then countered the following Kitchen finks. My Delver still was a 1/1 which was mildly annoying at this point still another attack brought him down to 4 as he had already fetched. On His turn he resolved a Primeval Titan who searched for Dark Depths, My goyf was already a 7/6 now so I just needed my Delver to flip for the win. He didn`t flip, instead I found Wasteland! Nice, he had to trade his titan with my goyf and I could handle his still tapped Thespian Stage. Finally my delver found a spell and game 1 was over.

Game 2Hendrik takes a mulligan to 6, however he resolves a Knight of the Reliquary and plays Gaeas Craddle from his hand. He digs up Gavony township and boosts his Elve Army with it. I concede and we proceed to game 3.

Hendrik now takes a mulligan to 5 and plays a Sword of feast and famine turn 2 which gets eaten by my Reclamaton Sage, I later resolve Jace and he finds too many answers, Hooting Mandrills and Questing Beast for the win.

So a nice FNM experience for me, I like the deck and the new exciting cards, don’t really miss True-Name Nemesis at all. Here is a link to the List, Enjoy.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/05-10-19-uVk-simic-flash/?cb=1570269447

Hello everybody,

It has been some time since my first Blogpost and I apologise for that. I have been busy with a few other projects lately and barely find time to even play at tournaments. Also I made a Magic Arena Account and got a bit too distracted by that aswell.

Anyway I attended last weekends Atarka Cup at the Anderer Spiele Laden in Berlin. 13 Players attended most of them, like usual, palyed blue based decks but there were also a few aggro builds like RDW and Rakdos. I decided to play scapeshift, a boring but efficient tournament deck in my opinon.

I was a bit early and did a few games with my work in progress Big Red Deck versus Benjamins Rakdos Aggro.Thank you Benjamin for beeing so kind to help me improving my deck . The List is 90% done and I hope to bring you a Decktech on it during the week. I can already spoil you that Scroll of Fate is a powerhouse, get your copies now.

So let us dig in right into round 1 versus Jan with 4c Tempo:

Jan is the only HL player I know who occasionally lets his opponent start a game, I guess he values cards in hand more than tempo advantage which is notably interesting since he plays a tempo oriented deck. In Game 1 I just put lands onto the battlefield until turn 4 or 5 when I cast skyshroud claim into demonic for scapeshift. He was down to 18 already and had only removal and no counters in his hand so that was game 1.

Game 2 he let me start again and build up some pressure with low cost creatures which sadly for him also have low power stats. So he was to slow to prevent me from killing him with scapeshift again. I remember he even had to use vindicate on one of my lands hoping I wouldn`t find another one to get lethal. Again bad luck for him getting stuck with small creatures and no counters.

Round 2 I faced Benjamin again with his Rakdos Aggro.

A small advantage for me because I already knew what he was playing. His deck is very, very aggressive and has lots of hasty 3 and 4 drops which are arguably stronger than most of the stuff tempo decks have to offer. A difficult Matchup and both games had me on the brink of death hadn`t I been able to find lifegain creatures to get a few additional turns to combo off. In Game 2 I got 9 additional life and still got beaten down to 1 before I could paly a lethal scapeshift. His Rakdos build really is no joke.

Round 3 was vs Florian who playes Jeskai Tempo.

Another Tempo Deck with interesting creature choices like Burning Prophet. Which is ,according to him, a powerhouse even outside a War of the Spark draft. In game 1 I kept a 3 land Hand but without green, I wasn´t able to find a green land until turn 7 so I kinda threw that game away. Game 2 Flo kept a 2 Land hand and I just played lands until I got lots of tokens with field of the dead and Vesuva plus scape in Hand. Game 3 both of us had a decent starting 7 and the game was really longer than expected, I was extremely lucky though and played first treasure cruise and later dig trough time which found scape and mana drain. There was no way for him to beat that even with 3 creatures and Monarch on his side. GGs thought, always nice to play with Flo.

Round 4 vs Luca and Izzet Midrange

Luca is a Veteran like me and likes to play weird cards aswell as I do. I figured whoever draws less of his situational pet cards would win. In game 1 he slowed me down with b2b but I was able to handle it 2 turns later with decay, I played collective brutality to see his and with no counters and tried to green sun zenith a primeval Titan for the win a trn later but the card he drew was Mana leak so that was a lost game 1 for me. Game 2 he curved out while I was stuck with Reanimate(**** this card) on my Hand. I even assisted him by playing gitaxian probe on turn 1(noob move) so his direfleet daredevil was a viable play on turn 2. Mind you all, dont play your cantrips too early without need, only bad things can and will happen. After I lost we made an additional 2 games which I won, too bad they didn`t count anymore. GGs to Luca for putting Izzet on my map again, and thanks for playing 2 more games with me to at least even it out.

So finally the good part, have a Decklist:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/scapeshift-2019-2/

stay tuned for Big Red and have a nice Week

Hello and Welcome to my new Blog,

My Name is Christoph, seasoned Highlander player from Berlin, friendly neighbour and all around pretty likeable guy if you agree with my opinion.

So yeah, jokes aside, we are going to talk about Highlander changes, new editions and interesting new cards here and we are starting today:

The London Mulligan will be adopted for Highlander with the release of M20 on the 12.07.19.

How will this change the Format?

My guess is that Card Selection will get alot better and the Format will be a bit slower again so Control and Combo will get more time to find their solutions to close out a game.

How do we respond to that?

Card selection and card draw gets better…hm.. Control gets better..

Perfect time to built a fast aggro deck of course:

And we are using and abusing my new favourite Magic Card, Dreadhorde Arcanist. How do we get the most value out of this sweet 1/3 creature? The color combination that got the most out of the last 3 recent sets to my mind is Jund. Cards like Hexdrinker,Seasoned Pyromancer,Wren and Six,Rotting Regisaur and so on. Notably we get a decent amount of 1-drops in Jund now to get our numbers right for a playable aggro deck. We get strong and efficient mid-and lategame techs with cheap walkers and finale of Promise which is horribly broken in Highlander, especially played in a Jund shell.

So let’s have a look at the List:http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/10-07-19-jund-aggro/

As you can see the Manacurve ends at cmc3 so we are not playing around here. Gameplan is simple: Curve out till turn 3 then use removal and burn to force damage through. If that fails, we have Walkers as alternative winconditions aswell as a few tricks to suprise our opponents.

Cards like Riding the Dilu Horse and Atarkas Command synergize extremely well with Dreadhorde arcanist which can be game changing in a single attack.We have Managorger Hydra to deal with RDW easily once it gets to 2 counters. Crop rotation finds Wasteland for Wren and seix aswell as the occasional EOT Manland. Cindervines helps versus control and is suprisingly good against RDW aswell, I feel like more Decks should play this card. But the best card by far would be Finale of Promise, recasting 2 spells from our grave will end the game unless we made a horrible mistake. This card is so often a better snapcaster mage it is just insane.

So yeah i had fun playing the Deck so and it showed good results vs RDW, Jeskai and Abzan Ramp so far. After I have been able to play my first tournament with it there will be an update post.

until next time then, bye