I'm just hoping to get a bunch of 3's and a couple 6's so I can squeak a 3rd place finish.

I had very little brew time this week. Mailing in something entirely uninspired.

You Can't Win Spreadsheet!

who knew that giving everyone an abyssal persecutor could make matchup math so complicated

Golgari, I'm not seeing how you beat me.

Ed, I think you can pull out the draw against me - by using your Unstable Mutation on my Stormscape Apprentice (after you Bone Splinters away the demons). Apprentice won't be able to deal lethal to you before it dies, even when I deal 9 to you on T1 I won't be able to deal more than another 7 before the board gets cleared.

Hmm...I was a bit too focused on the intended use of the card (9/9 flying trampler on T1) to consider alternate ways of using it.

I might should look at some other games, too. But that's gonna cause all sorts of headaches for me...

Edit: So looking at my games with Zlehtnoba again, I'm not seeing me get 4-1. I don't remember what lines of play I saw the first time that guaranteed me a win. I do recall the idea of throwing my Lignified Demon at his Mayor to guarantee a tie when he's on the play, but now all I'm seeing is tied games both times. No worthwhile changes to other matches if I use Mutation on opposing creatures.

Well, I can Lignify your Demon on my turn two, after it dealt me 17 damage (or only 9, if I go first), and then I can block it with my Demon until yours dies. So you kill my Mayor with Splinters, and it's a draw.

Edit: Heh, I better block first with my Demon

So: chump, Lignify, draw.

Edacade, I don't see how I can get any more than 1 point against your deck. I can't cast Chainer's Edict until turn 4, and you can definitely kill me in four swings. (9 + 8 + 7 + 6 = 30, and I can only block 6 damage.)

My other option is casting Reanimate, but that makes me lose 4 life, and I think I die before your demon gets small enough for a trade.

Edit: An important factor for your deck is that as soon as I'm at negative life, you can cast Bone Splinters targeting your own Demon. (Targets are chosen before costs are paid.)

I forgot the Reanimate caused life loss.

Also, in regards to Bone Splinters: Costs are paid before the spell resolves, so it doesn't matter what I target if my opponent is at 0 or less life. They lose the game before the Bone Splinters can resolve.

Yeah, but you do need something to target. Some people don't realize that you're allowed to target the same creature that you sacrifice. That's all I was saying.

Oh, ok. Yeah, I'm aware of the oddity of casting spells that can target the creatures you sacrifice to pay costs. I've done it at FNM a few times and gotten into arguments about whether I could do it or not. The best way I can explain it to anybody is "It says 'target creature,' not 'target creature an opponent controls.' And targets are chosen before paying costs." I also like using Titan's Presence as an example of a card that wouldn't work right if it tried to define the parameters of the target before costs were paid. "with power X or less" as opposed to "if its power is X or less."

In attempting to erase a note, I hit the wrong button and erased something that caused the me vs me box to be filled in black (which is to say it become a white box). So I copied another black box and pasted it into the me vs me box. That was entertaining.

My match vs Zlen has given me headaches, but the best I can come out of it with is that my Unstable Mutation just takes too damn long to actually kill my Demon, and while I can get Z to 0 before he gets me to 0, when I play cautiously enough to ensure that he can't kill his Demon against mine, he's able to get me to 0 and Lignify his own demon before I can find a way to make my own demon die. But my confidence level that I haven't overlooked something is less than 100%.

Yes, I think that if you don't attack with your Demon, Mayor outraces Apprentice, and then I Lignify my Demon. The line where you attack is very tight, the way I see it is below:



It doesn't matter who goes first, since I must not Lignify your Demon. It can always get me to negative numbers before Demons trade (making my Demon go away in the process), after which it can die heroically on defense to ensure a draw.

The way I saw it, if I start out aggro like you have above:

T1: Mutation, attack, chump, 20-17
Z1: land, go
T2: attack, 20-9, Apprentice, go

Then on Z2 you don't play Mayor; you Lignify my Demon. You've already disposed of your own demon when you chumped, and by neutralizing mine so early you leave a lot of track for my Apprentice to cover before Wolves Gone Wild.

Z2: Lignify Demon (is now 3/7 Treefolk with a -1/-1 counter on it, so a 2/6).
T3: DemonTree goes to 1/5. DemonTree and apprentice swing. 20-7
Z3: Mayor
T4: DemonTree 0/4. Apprentice pings (20-6)
Z4: Mayor transforms, could attack but would be blocked by 0/4, Wolf1 pops out (20-6)
T5: DemonTree -1/3. Apprentice pings (20-5)
Z5: Mayor+Wolf attack, DemonTree blocks one and dies (17-5), Wolf2 pops out.
T6: Apprentice pings (17-4)
Z6: Mayor+Wolves attack (8-4), Wolf3 pops out.
T7: Apprentice pings (8-3)
Z7: Wolves rip my flesh.

I don't see how Golgari_Spy beats me. If I try to race, I lose (because of the 1/1 Guildmage), so I just never attack.

If Golgari_Spy attacks with Abyssal Persecutor, I trade, Reanimate my demon and win.
If Golgari_Spy waits for Greater Gargadon to come down, I cast Chainer's Edict to make him sacrifice the Shadow Guildmage. Then Golgari_Spy has to sacrifice the demon to the Gargadon (to get rid of the demon), and then I cast Chainer's Edict again and the Gargadon is sacrificed.

Now this is interesting. Thank you. I was actually thinking that my best play would be to not chump, but attack with my Demon. I can get one attack in, since you don't want to block, you drop me to negative while tapping my Demon, and then Wolves can probably alpha before your Demon is small enough to die on defense. But this line saves me the work of calculating that one out.

I'm kind of wondering if Golgari misread the Shadow Guildmage and missed the "you control" part of the bounce ability. Because if it could bounce an opponent's stuff then he would get a 6-0 win against both you and I.

Actually, I should go through the math, because it does take me a long time to cast Chainer's Edict twice.

If I'm casting it on two different turns, it takes 1 turn to play the land, plus 9 turns to gather mana, plus 2 turns of casting, so I can cast Chainer's Edict a second time on turn 12. But I don't think leaving Shadow Guildmage around really helps Golgari_Spy much, so I can just gather all 9 mana at once, then be ready to cast Chainer's Edict twice on turn 11.

With Abyssal Persecutor and Undiscovered Paradise to feed it, Greater Gargadon comes down on turn 9. With a chump block, I can survive until the fourth Gargadon swing, which happens on turn 12. I go to 11, then 2, then 1 (Guildmage sneaks in while I chump block).

So yeah, looks like I just barely cast Edict in time when I go second.