I played the Mardu Knights again last Friday in the Standard FNM event at Pro Reis Place after failing to completely assemble the Rakdos Sacrifice deck that I initially intended to pilot. There were about eighteen players in attendance that night and I expected there will still be Mono-Red Aggro decks which is my bad matchup.
In that sense, I made some slight changes in the deck into which I updated the spot removals in the main deck. I unintentionally placed one-ofs of the spells and here is the new list: one copy each of Angrath’s Rampage, Legion’s End, Mortify and Noxious Grasp. I also added one Judith, Scourge Diva as my fourth Midnight Reaper.
My first two matchups were against Gruul Aggro and Esper Doom which I probably got my quick and somewhat uncontested wins. I was able to outrace in damage the Gruul aggro deck while killing their ideal creatures with the grasp and the paragon’s deathtouch. The Esper Doom was pretty slow and I just play around the Kaya’s Wrath and was able to deal lethal before he stabilized. Mortify was very useful in this game as I was able to deal with the Doom Foretold at end of turn and before it got its trigger in my upkeep. A turn-two Duress was also able to take away the Cry of Carnarium which is very devastating to my board if resolved.
My next two rounds were composed of a concession from my Teammate and an intentional draw with the other player with the 3-0 record. I then finished in first place after the Swiss as the two 2-0 records in my first two matches got me ahead in the OMW% (Overall Match Wins Percentage). I was also lucky to dodge the four Mono-Red players wherein the last one that I drew the match with was one of them.
****MTG Iloilo Tournament Results****
Friday Night Magic (November 8, 2019)
Top 6:
1st, Mark Ian (Mardu Knights)
2nd, Nonoy (Mono Red Aggro)
3rd, Mark T (Esper Doom)
4th, John Dee (Gruul Aggro)
5th, Ralph H. (Mono Red Aggro)
6th, Tonton (Esper Doom)
18 players, 4 rounds game play.
I might play the deck again this week and with another new update which I still have to sleeve later on. The new build will have similarities to the one on the Mythic Championship Qualifiers and hopefully, its strategy will work in the local metagame.
That is a wrap for now. Until the next blog post.