Really, deep at heart, I'm a White Weenie player. But I'd been trying to break myself of the habit and had been playing CounterHammer a lot lately. I'd playtested both with my team and some with Team CMU lately. Discussions about the deck with Erik Lauer were much appreciated--we went over the deck card-by-card, I played it, and then we talked about what was wrong with it (mostly, the win percentage vs. Sligh and White Weenie were bad). He made more changes, and I liked 'em. Then the deck showed up on MindRipper as CounterPhoenix. Oh well. I played it one card different, see the listing below.
Game 1: I get a lot of Islands and no Mountains. I think he thought I was playing mono-blue control, and he tried to rush me. He took a few points of City/painland damage and had three Slivers beating on me, including a Hibernation Sliver, when I blew a Disk, still holding lots of burn. He took 6 to recover all of them, and then I finally drew a Mountain. He starts to replay Slivers, and I just burn him out.
Game 2: This game was all about the Hibernation Sliver. He kept playing them, and I kept having to burn them, which was about the same as burning Joe, but there was a card economy problem with that strategy. He finally got a Winged out, which killed the Earthquake in my hand, too. It was a close race, but he finally won it at 6 life.
Game 3: I go first, and have a Mountain, a Pyroblast, and a Wasteland in my hand. I know CounterSliver runs light on land and will rely on an early Portent to hunt for it, so I took the draw I had. I drop the Mountain. He drops a Gemstone and Portents. I Blast it. Next turn I Waste the Gemstone--I think I have him and hope to win by mana-hosing him. Turns out he was Portenting to not get land because he had four land in his opening draw. Oops. He gets out another Hibernation Sliver and a Volrath's Stronghold, which I know will be bad news until I can draw another Wasteland. So I kill the Hibernation and Dissipate it when he re-casts it. At the time, I was at 15. Next, he dropped a Crystalline. Damn. The only way I can kill it is with a Quake or a Disk, and the Quake won't work if he gets a Winged out. All I draw is burn, so I start torching Joe while the sliver beats on me. I finally draw a Quake, but he counters it. The Sliver beats me down to 1, but I have enough burn to kill Joe, so I try to burn him out. He's at 2 and I have a Shock for the win, but he has a counter. Ugh. Close game.
Matches 0-1, games 1-2.
Game 1: Pretty much a textbook game according to the above formula. He Funeral Charms me three times early, and I pitch two Phoenix and a Mountain. Not quite what he wanted to get out of that. His Lobotomy attempt gets countered, as does anything really problematic. I get Whispers going and that was it.
Game 2: I take an opening draw with one Mountain and one Island, which is a draw I'll usually take. I draw another Mountain, and I can't counter anything. He Agonizes me on turn 4. Ouch. Later he Lobotomizes me for Whispers, very harsh. I lose to a few big Drains.
Game 3: A really interesting game. He gets a Gnome and a Man of Steel out and starts beating, but I Quake them both away. I had sided in Wastelands to stop the Bottle Gnome Ancestral, and had two in my hand and no targets. I held on to them because I was getting other land. He drops an Undiscovered, and I waste it. He groans, and Necros for a bunch of cards and discards three Lobotomies. I get Whispers recursion going and cast all four Dismisses, so I have card parity without paying all that life. He gets out a Stronghold Taskmaster and Gnomes. I Hammer the Master and get that recursion going as well. He sacs the Gnomes to keep himself alive, and drops more. I keep burning him, and finally burn him out. Good game.
Matches 1-1, games 3-3.
Game 1: I don't get the kind of draw I need and die to Jackal Pups, Ball Lightning, and Fireblast. Wow, that took so much skill...
Game 2: I go first, and the first four cards on my draw: Shock, Hydroblast, Shock, Hydroblast. God draw vs. Sligh, right? Except that my next three cards are Phoenix, Reflecting Pool, and Dissipate. Ugh. I know he plays Wastelands, and if my next card is not a Mountain or an Island, I'm dead, so I Paris. I get land and a Counter, a Disk, and an Incinerate. I go Island. He goes Pup. I go Mountain, Incinerate the Pup. He goes Pup. I go Island, done. I take a Pup hit and counter the Ball. I take another Pup hit and then Incinerate that. I counter the Orcs. He Incinerates me, then Scrolls me for Ball Lightning. Then I take the Ball. I lay the Disk. He Incinerates me and Fireblasts me. Wonderful.
Matches 1-2, games 3-5.
I decide not to scrub out because I still like the deck against a lot of the field and I don't feel like playing the Cursed Scroll/Bullwhip/Ensnaring Bridge lottery--I mean, the Tempest/Stronghold booster drafts.
Game 1: The first whole bunch of turns are "land, go." I realize what he's playing and figure the way to win is to try to Dissipate the Blessings. I win the counter war over the first Dissipate, but he gets of a 14-point Wisdom before that. I get him back down to 18 with a Phoenix, but then he gets out the Rainbow. He figures out the way to win is to Dissipate the Phoenix, so he kills it and then wins the counter war over that. He starts hitting me with the Rainbow and manages two Wisdoms back to 41--my library is almost gone anyway so I concede.
Game 2: I decide that the correct tactic is to try to force him to play more reactively to keep his hand size down. I start to rush him, and Waste lands that don't cause pain whenever I get the chance. I beat/burn him down to 2, but he finally gets off a Wisdom and gets to 10. I'm undaunted. He gets the Rainbow out to block the Phoenix and wins the counter war over the second (getting it Dissipated). I get a bunch of burn through and get him down to 1. He gets a Wisdom through, back to 9. I Shock him and start to recurse the Hammer, and he concedes--we're running out of time.
Game 3: He looks like he doesn't like his draw. He drops an Island and a Vec Townships and misses his third-turn land drop. Hmm. He Impulses and looks distraught. I tap down to only one Blue open to Impulse, but I'm holding a Disrupt. He Blessings--I assume it's just for the card, so I know he's in trouble. I Disrupt it. I counter his next Impulse. Next turn I drop a Phoenix, and he's still on two land. Next turn I draw a Wasteland. I Waste his Vec Township, and he concedes.
Matches 2-2, games 5-6. I avenge my teammate. Onlookers at the tables next to us had a lot of commentary on this one, including "waaay too many counters out there."
I'm a nightmare matchup for Bloom, I think. I recently spent about an hour watching Erik Lauer play my deck against Randy Buehler playing Bloom. Erik sided in the Quicksands and I didn't get it, at first. Now I get it. After sideboarding, CounterPhoenix has 31 land and 14 permission, plus two Disks, 5 damage sources, and 8 library manipulation/card drawing.
Game 1: I let him Tutor a couple times, but counter the Abeyances and Natural Balances in between Incinerating him a couple times. He's at 10 from City/painland damage and my smaller burn, and I draw a Quake. I get to 13 land, leave a couple Islands open, and Quake for the game.
Game 2: I get a lot of land, a Disk, and some permission in the opening draw, so I keep it. I let him have the Squandered and counter the first Abeyance, and then the Natural Balance. I'm out of permission and drawing all land. On turn five I had all land, a Pyro, and a Disk. I left one Mountain up to Pyro the Prosperity and laid the Disk. He went off that turn, of course, and did it without the Prosperity. Two Contracts and a Meditate. I miscounted his cards when he Meditated--I should have Blasted it. Oops.
Game 3: I'm more patient with the Disk this time, and get out a Shard and start to beat him up. I have good permission, and counter a couple Abeyances to prevent him from going off safely. The Phoenix (and a Contract) does the job. A teammate of mine was waiting for us to finish, and told me the Abeyances were just to draw out permission, he had the other three Squandered and the Drain in his hand, but nothing else.
Matches 3-2, games 7-7.
Game 1: He drops a Shadow Guildmage, and I Shock it. He drops a black pump knight, and I Shock that. He drops another pump knight, and I Incinerate that, too. He then drops a Cloudchaser Eagle (main deck? WTF?), then another. I draw a Quake. Hmm, not quite optimal. I get a Phoenix out, which holds off the Eagles for the most part, until he Edicts me before attacking. I finally draw some burn and cook the Eagles, then apply with the Phoenix. Whispers get going, and he Incinerates me twice in response, putting me down to 2. Dangerous, but from there on in I'm in complete control, locking him up with huge card advantage. I get out Phoenix number two and beat him down.
Game 2: He drops a swarm of early stuff, has down two Guildmages, a Black Knight, and a pump knight. I finally get out a Phoenix, and pyroclasm with it. He Passages the damage to the Black Knight and puts one Guildmage back on top of his library. I drop a Disk and blow them both away. He again Kindles and Incinerates me down to 2, but I again have a Phoenix out and Whisper my hand full of permission, then get Hammer recursion going. He concedes at 6 life.
Matches 4-2, games 9-7. I'm hoping that I can go 7-2 and at least be close to being in it.
Game 1: I don't remember exactly how it went--I think I countered various pieces of the combo and burned him out after he Contracted once from 16 down to 8.
Game 2: The reason I don't remember much of the first game is that this game had in it my Play of the Day. I have down two Islands and a Mountain, he misses his third-turn land drop and says "go." During his discard, I have two Whispers in my hand so I decide to spend one, leaving me with one Island open. In response, he taps out to Meditate. In my hand: Disrupt. OK, so now I draw two cards and take two turns? Not bad... Needless to say, not a good game for him. I get a Disk out and untapped, he starts goofing around and Prosperities for four--I get more counters, discard both Phoenix. I get Whispers going. He Contracts to 9, and concedes when I Hammer him.
Matches 5-2, games 11-7. I was really glad it ended early so I could get some food. Between rounds, I found out that Worth Wollport was also 5-2, having just beaten a teammate with BloomDrain. This is the same teammate I avenged earlier, so I was hoping for another chance for payback.
Game 1: I took a draw with a lot of land and expensive permission. He won the roll, and went Mountain, Jackal Pup. Ugh, it's SRB. I don't remember exactly how it went, but I died very quickly.
Game 2: I get a better draw than the last game, even seeing a Hydroblast. He gets a little mana-hosed, so his start is slow, which helps. I kill off some weenies and counter a couple Balls, even getting a Disk off to kill a few more dudes. He's down to no cards and I still have a few. However, he finally runs me out of permission and top-decks a Boil. Ugh. My next card is, of course, a Hydro. Needless to say, that was pretty much game.
Matches 5-3, games 11-9. Bummer, bad draw. Not many SRB's left this late--I was sort of hoping they'd have been weeded out by the White decks and Wall decks by then. I saw numerous Wall decks around me during this round, which was frustrating, because CounterPhoenix is great vs. Wall decks.
Game 1: She won the roll (I won one roll all day) and, of course, dropped a first-turn Priest. Thanks. She also dropped a Monk, and I drop a Disk on Turn 4. She has the Disenchant and keeps beating me. I drop another Disk on turn 5, and this time she doesn't have the Disenchant. That's all I need, as I get control with counters and burn, then get Whispers going. Both Phoenix serve. Del Tithes a couple times, and tries to kill everything (including me) with a big Firestorm, but I counter and the Shards finish her off.
Game 2: Turn 1 Warrior en-Kor, turn 2 Priest, turn 3 en-Kor, turn 4 Monk. I don't remember what I had in hand--must not have been permission--besides a Disk. Even if I drop a Disk, she does 8 to me next turn and I die. Well, that was exciting.
Game 3: Turn 1 Nomad en-Kor. When she tries to drop a Priest, I counter. I burn the Nomad while I can. She gets a Freewind Falcon down, I'm out of permission. Not only can I not burn that, I can't Quicksand it, either. She armors it up, I counter, she Pyroblasts. Thanks for playing.
Matches 5-4, games 12-11.
Land (25) --------- 13 Island 8 Mountain 4 Reflecting Pool Creatures (2) ------------- 2 Shard Phoenix Spells (34) ----------- 4 Whispers of the Muse 4 Impulse 4 Counterspell 3 Dissipate 4 Dismiss 4 Shock 4 Incinerate 2 Earthquake 1 Hammer 4 Disk Sideboard --------- 3 Wasteland 3 Quicksand 3 Hydroblast 2 Disrupt 2 Pyroblast 2 Shatter
I had a few conversations with Erik Lauer before putting this together, which was before I saw it appear on MindRipper. There's one difference here, the Hammer, which also brings it up to 61 cards. I have mixed feelings about 61 cards--with 4 Whispers and 4 Impulse, though, it seems to be OK.
It playtests a little better vs. SRB than it played today. If you get a good draw and the SRB player gets an average one, you win. If you get an average or below-average draw, the SRB player will win with an average draw or a good one, i.e. if you both get average draws, you lose.White Weenie can also be a problem, in particular FreeWinds and Priests. En-Kor makes that even more of a problem, and the WW player generally has Disenchants for the Disks. But if you can get a Disk off or they don't see Pro Red creatures early, you can get board control and win.
It's solid if not spectacular vs. everything else I've seen in T2 right now. It plays like a control deck vs. aggressive decks, and like an aggressive deck vs. control decks, so it's a lot of fun to play.
The alert reader might notice that I bash SRB a lot, and yet this deck has a lot of burn. Well, OK, but the burn in this deck is primarily for creature control--this is not exactly Ball Lightning your opponent to death...
Most of our team did pretty well, too. Aaron played the Necro deck that I like a lot, and went 7-2 to finish 13th; Jake played a Living Death deck and finished 6-3; Tom played mono-White Weenie and finished 6-3; Scott and Chris played the R/G beatdown deck (some Slivers--Muscle and Spined) and did OK, but I don't remember their exact records because they went off and booster drafted before the last round started.
The Play of the Day for Jake was pretty good. He was playing against The Trap and had a ton of creatures Wrathed away. Jake then got off a huge Living Death and had a board full of creatures. The Trap player dropped a Pendrell Mists. Jake looked at the board, and decided not to pay for anything bu the two Goyfs, which then became 15/16, and attacked for 30. Ouch.
That's it, I'll see a bunch of y'all at the 3Rivers Game Fest!