Last night I lent my werewolf deck to Mike, a friend who was coming back to play Magic after a long hiatus.  He played in a four-rounder and managed a 0-3-1 record.  His first round matchup was against a Jund werewolf deck piloted by none other than another good friend named Pong.  Mike lost when he played a Daybreak Ranger instead of letting his Scorned Villager to transform.  He could have done it without losing tempo because he had a Wolfir Avenger to flash in should Pong burn the Villager.  After that loss, Mike's confidence was shaken and he suffered two more losses before drawing with a Bant Control deck which I defeated a week ago.

     I brought up what happened to Mike as an eye-opener for me as a deck designer and for the future of werewolves.  As a designer, it was imperative that the cards in the deck be powerful and not just cute.  Watching Mike agonize over plays told me that he felt the cards in his hand were not effective at handling the threats he was facing.  This pointed to a flaw in the sideboard, too.  As a werewolf fanatic, the onus was on me to consider the changing landscape of Standard and incorporate new threats or answers.  For instance, with the rise of werewolves in our local game store, tech for the mirror became more important as when Pong used Sever the Bloodine in sideboarded games against Mike.

     All these served to warn me of complacency.  It was time to shake things up and to arrive at a better, strong werewolf deck.