Playing against the mirror highlighted the need to put Moonmist in the sideboard.  There were too many Huntmaster of the Fells out there and it was important that I didn't transform the ones my enemies had.  It was now a certainty that burn spells are coming back into the deck.  

     The list will probably look like this:

    

     Creatures: 27

     Wolfbitten Captive - 4

     Scorned Villager - 4

     Mayor of Avabruck - 4

     Daybreak Ranger - 4

     Instigator Gang - 3

     Huntmaster of the Fells - 4

     Wolfir Silverheart - 4

     Spells: 10

     Full Moon's Rise - 4

     Searing Spear - 3

     Pillar of Flame - 3

     Lands: 23

     Rootbound Crag - 4

     Kessig Wolf Run - 2

     Forest - 10

     Mountain - 7

     Tonight a security guard accosted us again as we played Magic in the food court of the mall.  We had ordered food and the place wasn't bustling so there really wasn't any reason for us to be told to leave.  I explained the situation to the guard who was flustered because he really couldn't defend himself since we were paying customers.

     Years ago, I wrote an article that resonated with a lot of Magic players about how the distributor of this game needs to do a better job of marketing it as something respectable.  By linking with well-known companies and rubbing elbows with mall owners perhaps Magic will be seen for what it is: a highly intellectual affair.  However, nothing has happened over the years and while the situation isn't worse, nor is it ideal for the growing community of players who want nothing more than to do their thing without being harassed by security guards on a power trip.

     I don't know what the distributor will do but I know that I can't rely on him/her for things to change.  I must win over the mall owners and the public who see us as in a highly negative light.  More importantly, my playgroup and the larger community must behave better so that we don't get lumped with the criminals and the lowlifes scattered around a mall.

     Magic is harder than poker and chess put together while paying its brightest practitioners less.  It needs to be portrayed as such and champions are needed for this gargantuan task.  I hope this article will wake the players' consciousness so that we can work together to bring respectability to the game we all love dearly.

     I only have three days before the 10k event at Regran.  I'd like to play something new otherwise I have no choice but to rearm my GR Werewolves.  Since I don't think that I'll be able to brew something powerful before then, it's time to rethink my approach, figuring out ways to beat Frites, Rakdos, Selesnya, UWR, and control strategies with my double-faced cards.

     Will this do it?

     Creatures: 23

     4 Wolfbitten Captive

     4 Mayor of Avabruck

     4 Scorned Villager

     4 Daybreak Ranger

     4 Huntmaster of the Fells

     3 Wolfir Silverheart

     Spells: 14

     4 Pillar of Flame

     4 Searing Spear

     2 Moonmist

     4 Full Moon's Rise

     Lands: 23

     2 Kessig Wolf Run

     4 Rootbound Crag

     10 Forest

     7 Mountain

I Didn't Strike Gold

     The night before the Gold Rush my Facebook status declared that I wouldn't join the tournament until my sideboard figured itself out. Since that didn't happen, I concluded that this wasn't the time for werewolves to shine. It just lacked...something. 

     On the day itself I showed up to cheer on my friends. It was like a reunion of sorts for a lot of us who hadn't seen each other for years. There were more than six hundred contestants and the Glorietta Five activity center was filled with cardslingers of all kinds. There were couples, high school teens, professional teams, and returnees to the game among the many in attendance. It was great to meet everyone again and we traded cards while they waited for the event to start. 

     Sure enough the pairings for the first round were posted and people began battling it out. I watched a match here and there, seeing how nervous most were as an indication of their serious intent to take down the whole thing. Matches became heated as the losses piled up and more people became dejected around the fourth round when three defeats guaranteed they wouldn't be coming back the next day to compete in the money rounds. I left at around that time confident that I had made the right decision not to play. Without a lot of practice and a deck that wasn't even close to being broken, I knew that there wasn't a decent chance of me winning fifty percent of my matches. The last idea I had for werewolves was to splash white or black for removal and disruption respectively but the mana-base was shaky and unfamiliar at best. Facing a sea of Rakdos, Selesnya, Bant, Junk, and Esper wasn't appealing to me, not with a red/green concoction made at the last minute. I preferred everything to be ready a day or two before a major tourney. 

     The second day of the Gold Rush was a bit of a letdown as the finals came down to one player conceding to the other. Both were pretty exhausted after thirteen rounds so it was understandable that they split the prize rather than dueling it out for another hour or two. Still, it would have been better if they had played the match. I wanted to find out if red-blue-white aggro would triumph over white-black-green reanimator. 

     It was six in the evening when we all trooped out of the Neutral Grounds Centris play area. We bade each other goodbye and vowed to meet at the next big tournament: Regran's 10k on the 29th. With two weeks to go, I just might finally decipher the shape and form of my werewolves.

"There's Gold in Them Cards!"

     The annual Gold Rush tournament is this weekend and it behooves me to come up with a spicy werewolf brew for that particular event.  I aim to test the list below and tweak it right until the first round starts.  Here's hoping I'll strike gold with this:

     Creatures: 28
     Wolfbitten Captive - 4
     Scorned Villager - 4
     Mayor of Avabruck - 4
     Daybreak Ranger - 4
     Lambholt Elder - 2
     Immerwolf - 3
     Huntmaster of the Fells - 4
     Instigator Gang - 3

     Spells: 9
     Full Moon's Rise - 4
     Garruk Relentless - 1
     Increasing Savagery - 2
     Revenge of the Hunted - 2

     Lands: 23
     Forest - 11
     Mountain - 7
     Kessig Wolf Run - 2
     Rootbound Crag - 4

     Sideboard: 15
     Zealous Conscripts - 3
     Wolfir Silverheart - 3
     Garruk Relentless - 1
     Moonmist - 4
     Sundering Growth - 2
     Grafdigger's Cage - 2

     The idea behind this incarnation of werewolves is to play as many members of the tribe onto the battlefield, protect them with Full Moon's Rise, and then go for the alpha strike.  Naturally, a lot of damage will be incurred against other attack-based strategies but the pack can win in one massive assault so it doesn't matter if we win at one life or at twenty.  Revenge of the Hunted and Increasing Savagery are just some of the spells designed to support this strategy of swinging for lethal at the opportune time.

     Due to the proliferation of zombies and humans, I've returned Immerwolf so as to prevent the werewolves from reverting to their weaker form.  This usually happens when the opponent has cheap undead creatures to cast or two copies of Rancor in hand.  Lambholt Elder can also provide defense against Loxodon Smiters once it transforms into Silverpelt Werewolf and is terrific against red decks with its 4/5 stats.

     In the sideboard, Wolfir Silverheart can come in when the need to go over the top of smaller creatures is called for.  Zealous Conscript can steal planeswalkers about to go ultimate as well as potential blockers that might stymie the aforementioned alpha strike.  Another copy of Garruk Relentless is there for decks with Terminus and Sever the Bloodline while providing direct damage if necessary against other beatdown decks.  Moonmist is there to negate faster decks and buy enough time for the deck to implement its plan.  Sundering Growth answers Detention Sphere and possibly Runechanter's Pike.  Grafdigger's Cage is there to shut down reanimation strategies like Frites.

     The list is still pretty raw and I'll be testing the hell out of it beginning tomorrow.  It looks fun and has plenty of room for improvement.  I'd welcome any ideas and suggestions from my dear readers, if you have any.

     Thanks for reading peeps. :-)

Making Mistakes

     Last Saturday I entered the Gold Rush Trials, a six-round event that I was interested in primarily to test my new version of werewolves.  By new, I meant that the deck eschewed Giant Growth and Titanic Growth for Reckless Waif and Kruin Outlaw.  The result was a total fiasco.  Two wins, three losses and a draw weren't what I expected at all.

     I could blame the changing metagame.  There were more blue decks creeping around.  In my second match, I kept eating Terminus miracled in by the opponent which wiped my board completely, negating the Full Moon's Rise that I had managed to sneak in earlier to prevent him from casting Supreme Verdict and gaining an advantage in board position.  If he hadn't drawn Terminus off the top, then he would have been forced to wait for six mana and that would have been enough time to finish him off.  As it turned out, my werewolves traveled all the way to the bottom of my deck and planeswalkers of various stripes came out of the woodwork to stomp my face in. 

     But the fault really was mine.

     In the games I lost my decisions were less than stellar.  I didn't think things through and the situations I found myself in couldn't be solved by topdecking Reckless Waif and Kruin Outlaw.  So in addition to designing a deck that lacked power and synergy, I was not in the best mental shape.  For instance, the aforementioned opponent had a Sorin Markov in play and two vampire tokens blocking my soulbonded Wolfir Silverhearts.  I could have added a third creature to make sure that the vampire planeswalker would die but I didn't, scared as I was of losing to a mass removal spell.  But I did lose anyway because Sorin delayed me for so long that he drew the answers he needed and eventually turned things around.  I would have been better off attacking his life total and maybe changing his priorities by doing that.  The irony of it was that I had boasted to my friends before that I never attack planeswalkers with werewolves.  Sheesh.

     Thankfully by the fifth round I had composed myself such that was able to steal games.  Literally.  I stole a Jace, Architect of Thought to kill it.  Then to win, I took a Rakdos Keyrune to prevent him from blocking.  The card that helped me do it was Zealous Conscripts which I had not used before but which I now plan to keep in for as long as the metagame is peppered with blue decks.

     The final round was fantastic.  I lost game one and my opponent got cocky, thinking that my werewolf deck didn't have Huntmaster of the Fells.  Duh.  Boy, was he surprised when two copies showed up in game two and kept me alive long enough to overrun his position even as he gained scores of life points by blinking Thragtusk with Restoration Angel.  We drew in the decider as there wasn't any time left but I saw how scared he was to face me and that was a takeaway that I treasured.  At least, the deck wasn't that weak to lose to some random brew.

     Key observations:
     1.  I was right not to put in anti-graveyard cards in the sideboard as most reanimator strategies planned on beating down in succeeding games.
     2.  If the opponent had Terminus in his deck, it was important to combat it by not casting Huntmaster of the Fells unless I had a way to recover and kill a planeswalker that might pester me.
     3.  Instigator Gang needed to come back.

     *I didn't post the deck here because it sucked.