TezzeREDRUM, revisited

What most of you don’t know is that I started writing for Red Site Wins after I did so for my own site, Stidjen’s Magic. I started writing before Mirrodin Besieged came out, so I was all over Tezzeret once he got spoiled. There was a bit of holding back, however, as I did not want to geek out over a card that could end up out of my price range. A four mana blue Planeswalker? Hold your horses, gentlemen! I did, however, end up with a playset shortly after the set was released and eventually ended up with one of my most favorite decks. Today, I am going to recap the entire journey up until the point where the deck resides today.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

“Let my sealed pool just be bomby, that’s all I’m asking.”

These were among my closing words from last week. They did prove to be correct, but that was about as much fun as I had last Saturday. I went to Eindhoven with Robert, to battle with an above-average group of players. For example, renowned pros Frank Karsten and Jeroen Remie visit each prerelease, while there is also a whole slew of up-and-comers and grinders there to slug it out. So while the competition would prove to be fierce as usual, and while my deck seemed above average as well, things all went downhill from here.

New Phyrexia, Old Decks

Hi all and welcome back to another installment of my writing attempts. This week I want to take a look at the New Phyrexia spoilers, a lot of cards which we’ll be seeing in flesh for the first time tomorrow. At least I am! However, my article today will not be a 1 to 175 card-by-card set review. Instead, I’d like to focus on the cards that got me excited, cards that can supplement old decks or cards that will inspire new ones. Strap your goggles on real tight, ’cause we’re diving straight in!

A deckbuilder’s diary

Saturday, April 16th

Today, my latest article went up. I haven’t tested the Glissa-deck yet, so I hope it can hold its own. As always, I’m curious for reader feedback and comments. Luckily, after some goldfishing I got the idea that the deck is much better than the first version. While goldfishing doesn’t give you an idea how interaction with an opponent goes, it does help playing the deck. You get to know some little interactions and just get the general feel of the deck. Plus, you can draw conclusions just by looking at how the deck plays. I came to the conclusion that 4 Golgari Rot Farms was too much, and I removed two of those for a Swamp and a Forest.

Tainted and touched by death

Welcome back here! Today’s decks are two decks you have already seen: Galvanotherapy and Sisters Of Life And Death. You see, after I finished my article last week, and even before I played against Rick the next day, the deck had already changed in a few slots. And after our games, it became even more clear that changes had to be made, much to my dismay.

Sisters of Life and Death

The moment I spotted Glissa, the Traitor on the visual spoiler, I was sold. My weakness for all things legendary combined with my instinctual inclination towards card-advantage to take over my thoughts. Glissa was going to be the latest in a long line of decks around legendary cards I’ve built and there was nothing in the world that was going to stop me, not even me. Today I’ll take you along on the journey from The Pile of Possibilities to sixty cards.

The crab that could(n’t)

Last summer I started working on a deck with Hedron Crab. I saw it posted on wizards.com – Landmill 2.0 – by Noel DeCordova and was enchanted, but as always, I wanted to give my own spin on it. The deck was already quirky as-is, but not enough for my taste. Also, it contained a card from Unhinged. Ugh. Then someone on MTGSalvation’s Casual forums posted a similar decklist and I just couldn’t resist anymore. Sadly, the Crabs couldn’t hold their own and neither did the deck. Today I tell the story of the little crab that couldn’t, and how I’m looking to ditch the n’t.

Four tidbits

Working on some new decks, it’s funny how I subconsciously started thinking about a lot of the flashier cards I mentioned two times during Mirrodin Besieged-previews. Maybe writing about it did this, maybe it was a natural course of events. There’s the Tezzeret-deck with the singleton Spine of Ish Sah. In more recent developments, I can now write about Shimmer Myr, Galvanoth and Glissa, the Traitor in the context about both new and familiar decks.

More treasures ahead

The Tezzeret-deck I discussed in my last blog post looked good on paper. The newest version of the deck wasn’t played with after I put it together after I played Rick. It still needed to prove itself in the ultimate test: playing against a human goldfish. That turned out to be my good friend Robert. He has a couple of decks that, while singleton, are usually on a level a bit above most of my decks. Therefore I knew my deck had to put up a fight. Luckily, it did.

TezzeREDRUM

The usual performance of a new deck isn’t very good. As I build decks using theoretical elimination and selection, topped of with a goldfish, I am usually confronted with the reality of real life play and non-domesticated opponents. That is a fancy way of saying the decks are off to a slow start and get pounded on before reaching a level I’m happy with. Either that, or the deck is discarded. This weekend I was pleasantly surprised when my Tezzeret-deck (that I built with Robert and that you can read about here) held it’s own pretty good against Rick’s new deck. Tezzeret was out to kill. Tezzeredrum was born.