Played the ladder series with Wintervoid's "Highway to Hell" finishing 5-3* (one loss was so blatantly my fault I played a makeup, where I flooded out after a bad keep).
Like I mentioned before, love the deck I felt like the tools where all there to be competitive in every game, and LRH was repeatedly great in a variety of applications, particularly in the tough control matchup.
Record: 5/7 (the two bad losses I'm counting as 1 since they were operator error)
Build: 5/5 I'd be tempted to make a land and/or a censor into
essence flux (or tbh a 4th LRH if we could), but that's ultimately picking nits.
Enjoyment: 5/5 In case no one could tell, I had fun with this deck. Loads.
LRH: 3/3 Fits great in the curve/mana base with loads of value off the ETBs, repeatedly were game-shifting, and encouraged a full spectrum of applications. Nice job. Could be a little inflated since I brewed with a lot of LRH done poorly (blinklerium I'll call it- way fun to play...virtually never wins, at least configured as I had it).
Total: 18/20
G1. Win vs. R33 Gruul Hasty BeatsImpulse on inciter, t2 Titi, impulse on voltaic brawler. They firecraft Titi exquisitely, but concede when I drop and plus Nahiri the following turn. I played it out and I guess he was probably right. He sneaks some damage in with
expedite and
might of the masses (just for 1 to offset a harnessed lightning) and eventually clears her with
Glorybringer, but not before she ults for
combustible gearhulk who closes it out.
G2. Win vs. R31 Selesnya TokensWe drop lands for a few turns, and I go Saheeli on three which he answers with
sacred cat. Saheeli gets to scrying and at his attack I've decided to let the cat do its thing but he
prepare // fights so I
fiery impulse it out. He leaves it in the yard with open W which I wonder about briefly but he reaches for
anointed procession next turn so there you go. I snag that with
spell queller and proceed to peck away with that and Saheeli. He is land-go which sends up my antenna but I've got a lot of options with queller, LRH, and some burn so I swing in anyway. Down comes Avacyn which gets sent on a
long road home with harnessed lightning and impulse in hand. He untaps with his now 5/5 but no longer indestructible angel and goes to fight queller pre-combat which ends just like you'd think. Saheeli ults for
Combustible Gearhulk (Torrential was already in hand, and I just dropped land 6) he takes the damage but that mills a
scatter to the winds which is bad news for
Aetherstorm Roc on his following turn. A swing with the gearhulks puts him to 5 and the cat comes back along with a zombie token but I commit the zombie for lethal.
G3. Loss vs. R35 4c control / TutelageWe do land-go for several turns while I hold up Scatter/Censor with me discarding impulses and cycling censor but I dawdle at 4 land while he drops his 6th. I blink first as I'm going to have to start discarding critters/counters so I drop a
reflector mage. Big mistake as it gets
grasp of darkness immediately and down comes
sphinx's tutelage while I'm tapped. The game drags out as he kills/counters my critters and his land lead lets him mix in Sorin and
Chandra, Torch of Defiance while I play catch-up.
I finally stick
Combustible Gearhulk with an assist from LRH to dodge a
solemn offering. I set to work on the walkers and manage to clear them out with help from
needle spire and Scatter and things are looking up since the bouncy gearhulk/
cloudblazer draw has let me mostly keep up with the walkers card advantage. But the fun ends as
Oath of Liliana comes down for Gearhulk and needle spire gets imprisoned in the moon. And tutelage is still just ticking away. I memory at 10 cards in library, and the cycle repeats trading critters for removal. Finally cloudblazer/titi stick with assist from LRH again but Chandra Torch and Sorin are both back. I flip Titi with Harness/Impulse and kill Chandra but he Sorin's into
cruel reality (ouch) putting me to 8 and he's at 25 (the other 5 was a
planar outburst he'd revealed in Sorin's first appearance). Titi takes out Sorin and I probably should've memoried now but I've got a fistful of critter fodder and I'm not ready for him to restock on removal again. Opt for a 2nd Titi to sac and leave up two censors which could maybe work if he plays something pre-reality. He doesn't but I censor anyway to keep him from playing anything else. 8 cards in library now and a few creatures in hand. I decide to drop some more reality fodder and roll the dice with Tutelage again since he hasn't played any draw beyond activation and saccing my flipped Titi to reality seems like game over at this point. First draw goes to 6 (yay!) but activation decks me. Still, honorable mention LRH, it played great in the matchup and I think this could've easily gone the other way if I'd just stayed disciplined in the beginning.
G4. Win vs. R37 RDWI mull to a kinda slow hand with a fist full of tap lands but manage to burn out the T2
bloodrage brawler at his attack step. In the meantime though he's gotten a
brazen scourge in with him. I scatter the follow up
Ahn-Crop Crasher to the winds, but the scourge gets in again. I drop a Cloudblazer and he draws me a
fiery impulse that I can use the following turn but he gets collectively defied and I get a bonus 3 to the face.
Titan's strength at the attack step puts me to 7. Ouch. Land, cloudblazer (who snags an Avacyn!), impulse clears up the board and gets me to 9. He firecrafts me down to 5. I swing and leave mana up for Avacyn/Commit. I end step Avacyn as he passes with 2 cards in hand and drop
eldrazi displacer to hopefully diffuse shenanigans and leave commit up. He
hijacks displacer with two mana open and I probably should've committed, but I don't die to
fling and I'm curious so I let it happen. He casts
infectious bloodlust and after considering for a bit I commit my displacer to untrack the bloodlust train (in retrospect I probably should've just committed the bloodlust since displacer would've been able to deal with it fine). Either way, Avacyn closed it out from there.
G5. Loss vs R38 GBc rampThis one's a sad tale. The faint of heart should skip to G6.
I keep a no-red hand with scatter and double queller and the mana to play them which isn't ideal, but should work out. I go W U, and he drops a mana dork turn 2 and I think "ok, this should be mostly straightforward." Get so excited in fact that when I top
sulfur falls to hit my red I slam it down before realizing that instead of island (which is sitting smugly in hand) I'd dropped
glacial fortress the turn before so scatter/queller remain off. So
From Beyond resolves. Crap. If I keep my head here, nothing's too out of hand but I do no such thing and hate-queller to eat a token at his next attack even though he's got a load of mana open. It gets pushed post-combat with a follow up
Thought-Knot Seer who proceeds to thought-see how knot well I've played this whole thing (and snag a cloudblazer). I'm way past calm, patient control at this point and kinda blank out - suffice it to say it gets worse with
bristling hydra, Kalitas, and ultimately Ulamog all resolving while Scatter remains in hand. I can't recall exactly how it unfolded but I'm impressed by in a sortuv twisted way. Incidentally, I miss all with the 2nd queller as well since I stacked up queller+harnessed lightning to kill the thought knot. I'm not saying this would've been a W since I would've had some pretty high value targets sitting under quellers in the best case and for people keeping count that's 5 things I would've liked to counter and just 3 counters, but there's a big difference between 3/5 and 0/5, so it's clearly Not the Deck's Fault here. Operator error followed by grotesque tilt.
G6. Win vs. R34 RB vampsHe goes t2
Olivia's Bloodsworn that gets an impulse eot. T3
bloodmad vampire that gets a
reflector mage.
Heir of Falkenrath next. I pass back holding queller or LRH open.
Asylum visitor comes down, but I let it go since worst case I'll trade the reflector there. Hard cast bloodmad vampire gets the queller. I untap, draw another impulse and pass back, partially out of curiosity since he's been so conservative with Heir's discard (he could've either EoT'd bloodmad, or madnessed youths and gotten in another attack, and he'd stared at reflector mage with a red open for a long time when he dropped heir but decided against all of these). Probably should've just burned the Heir while he was tapped though. Pre-combat Heir madnesses incorrigible youths, and here comes the swing. No block with queller, reflector mage blocks the visitor and goes on a LRH, and now that spell mastery is on incorrigible youths gets the impulse. Eot reflector mage comes back and bounces the Heir (since he can block the visitor now - although maybe it was better to deny the discard outlet). I suspect I made that more complicated than it needed to be, but it felt pretty fine anyway. Land off the top lets me cast Nahiri which I use to exile the visitor and he conceeds.
G7. Win vs. R34 Abzan humansT2 I drop Titi, he responds with
Hanweir Militia that gets reflector mage'd. He comes back with Thalia and she gets impulsed so I can drop my non-basic leaving
scatter to the winds up and reflector swings in for 2. A follow up Thalia gets the scatter and opponent concedes. Played it out, and it took several more turns, but everything either gets bounced, countered, or chumps a reflector mage and eventually Titi flips. The AI tries to unmake (or maybe this was on a queller - in any case nothing was unmade) but that is commit'd and now he's chumping Titi while reflector and queller chip away and when he re-draws unmaking he's too low to use it.
G5.1. Loss vs. R34 BW zombiesFelt bad about the game 5, so I thought I'd give it a make-up spin. I mull a 1 lander into a 5 lander with censor and cloudblazer. Probably should've gone to 6. The censor does catch a baby lily, but I see three spells in the next 8 draws (Titi eats a
never // return, and censor #2 which cycled into harnessed lightning that gets used immediately on his
lord of the accursed) and it's basically over by then even though he's been playing very cagey around my wide open blue mana. Another
harnessed lightning off the top lets me delay a turn by getting rid of his
wayward servant in response to
dark salvation on the cloudblazer, and LRH comes a turn too late and I don't have nothing to send nowhere but a meaningless zombie token.