I believe I could safely wager that a majority of the working class begin its work week already wishing the next weekend would hurry and arrive. I found myself wishing that very thing last week. However, I doubt that most of those workers would have shared my desire to spend that weekend grinding match after match with a sub-par deck on Magic Online.

The things we do for the love of the game.

Rebuilding

• Every game that I saw Honor of the Pure, I was happy. The games in which I didn’t see it, I was significantly less happy. Boosting the strength of tokens and putting more important creatures out of the range of many burn spells is significant. A single Honor keeps most of my Humans from being wiped by Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and that alone can give me time to find much needed removal.
• If I was in a top-deck situation without a board position, it was pretty much game over for me. My single threats were rarely enough on their own late game, and were always met with one answer or another. If Avacyn Restored was released already, I could possibly consider Angel of Glory's Rise as a viable late-game threat, but until then, I needed an alternative.
• I can’t deny the importance of life-gain. No, that doesn’t mean I am picking up a play set of Angel's Mercy! What it means is that there are aggressive decks that are very difficult to outrace. Without any real reach, my deck needs a way to buy time. It pains me to admit there were several times when I was relieved when I top-decked my Butcher's Cleaver. It’s no Sword of War and Peace, but considering it’s more than seven hundred times cheaper, I’ll take it. Oh and by the way: On a Mirran Crusader, it is still pretty insane.
• I really don’t like dropping my valuable Hero of Bladehold just to have it immediately bounced or even worse: killed. That also goes for my Mirran Crusader, Champion of the Parish, or other creatures depending on the board state. Having my Fiend Hunter killed to release my opponent’s Elesh Norn and wipe my board really wrecks my day. To make a long story short, I don’t like my creatures to die untimely deaths.

• 1 Honor of the Pure to make me happy. Cost: 0.96 tickets
• 1 Increasing Devotion for my late-game finisher or to regain a board position. Cost: 0.40 tickets
• 1 Timely Reinforcements for my sideboard. I wanted to test one in the deck before I bought any more. It meets both the need to rebuild a board position and to buy time with decent life gain. Cost: 0.15 tickets. With an Honor of the Pure or two in play, this card becomes a significant threat on its own.
• 2 Apostle's Blessing for a little well-timed protection. Cost: 0.04 tickets each

The total cost of my latest purchases came to 1.59 tickets and left me with 48 tickets and .83 bot credits.

I added the new cards, and after some additional tweaking, I decided on this deck configuration:

"MTGOHero1.0.dek"

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Doomed Traveler
• 2 Loyal Cathar
• 3 Hero of Bladehold
• 4 Champion of the Parish
• 4 Fiend Hunter
• 4 Mirran Crusader
• 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

• Spells (15)
• 2 Apostle's Blessing
• 1 Increasing Devotion
• 4 Gather the Townsfolk
• 3 Honor of the Pure
• 3 Oblivion Ring
• 2 Butcher's Cleaver

• Lands (23)
• 23 Plains

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Bonds of Faith
• 2 Celestial Purge
• 4 Leonin Relic-Warder
• 2 Loyal Cathar
• 3 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Timely Reinforcements

Buy This Deck

I felt much more comfortable with this version of the deck even though it was clearly far from perfect. I headed into the tournament practice room with a little more confidence, but I wanted to practice with it a few times before joining an actual event. Finally, it seemed I had found a deck capable of winning as I faced a variety of decks and earned four wins out of six matches played. The only deck I still hadn’t managed to take down was W/U Delver, but regardless of that, it was time to take off the training wheels and join a daily event.

Standard 4-RND (Event #3845145)

Round 1 versus Jund Splashing White

Meanwhile, I saw his graveyard fill up with Unburial Rites and Karn Liberated. With an empty board and a Mirran Crusader still in hand, I dropped two Honor of the Pure. The last thing I wanted was for my Crusader to die to a second Whipflare, so I played it safe. He played a second Liliana and painfully forced me to discard my Crusader. Much to my relief, I drew and played Gather the Townsfolk.

He used Liliana’s sac ability to force me to sac a token, and I killed her with the remaining token. His Black Sun's Zenith wiped my board once again. My Hero of Bladehold was poorly met by his Olivia Voldaren. The Hero pumped by two Honor of the Pure and followed up with Increasing Devotion put the game away.

1–0

Sideboard:

+3 Nihil Spellbomb

+2 Loyal Cathar

+2 Celestial Purge

−3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

−2 Fiend Hunter

−1 Mirran Crusader

−1 Hero of Bladehold

My Nihil Spellbomb removed his growing graveyard threats, but that mattered little considering he had the mana to hard-cast Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. My Doomed Traveler was killed, as was his Spirit. Thankfully, the Loyal Cathar was being pumped by Honor of the Pure and was able to survive the Elesh Norn. My O-Ring removed the threat, and the rejuvenated Cathar attacked for 6, leaving my opponent at 3 life. He dropped Liliana and forced me to sacrifice the Cathar, but the Unhallowed Cathar returned with Cleaver in hand to seal the deal.

2–0

Match record: 1–0

What did I learn?

• I am very thankful that I only saw one of the bombs that must have been buried in my opponent’s deck.
• I already knew that Lingering Souls is one of the most annoying cards against my deck, and that trend continued.
• Nihil Spellbomb seemed to be very devastating to my opponent’s deck.

Round 2 versus W/U Delver Splashing Black

0–1

Sideboard:

+1 Timely Reinforcements

+2 Leonin Relic-Warder

−1 Apostle's Blessing

−2 Loyal Cathar

Game 2 – I kept a hand consisting of Thalia, Fiend Hunter, Gather the Townsfolk, and four Plains. That may not have been a great move considering the land just kept coming. An early Thalia slowed my opponent down and allowed me to begin cutting into his life total.

He passed his turn, and when I came in for another attack, he was ready with Vapor Snag for my Fiend Hunter. With his Drogskol Captain freed from exile, he was able to profitably block my remaining forces. Another Lingering Souls along with its flashback gave him an unstoppable army of flyers. Apparently drawing lands seven out of eight turns is a bad thing—who knew?

0–2

Match record: 1–1

What did I learn?

• I was mana-screwed in one game and flooded in the other, but this is a matchup that would worry me even under the best circumstances.
• Yes, Lingering Souls is still annoying. If I can’t answer this card, it is going to be a real problem.
• I need to be more aggressive with my mulligans.

Round 3 versus Naya Pod

0–1

Sideboard:

+3 Bonds of Faith

−2 Apostle's Blessing

−1 Loyal Cathar

Game 2 – This wasn’t much of a game. Honor of the Pure pumped Thalia, and Doomed Traveler beat my opponent down. Thalia used a Butcher's Cleaver to finish the job. A lucky win is still a win!

1–1

1–2

Match record: 1–2

What did I learn?

• Mana flooding in so many of my games has made me consider dropping to twenty-two lands.
• Games 2 and 3 were determined more by chance than anything. It seemed that this match could have gone either way.

Wrapping Up

After losing in Round 3, I decided to drop from the tournament, as I was no longer eligible for prizes. I had several things to think about and decided to ask for suggestions from the MTG community. I analyzed the feedback I received along with my own observations and came to these conclusions:

• I definitely need to add a second color if I want to continue on my current Human tribal path. With the release of Avacyn Restored, it will be possible to add red at a relatively low cost, and I could easily make my deck into a solid Boros build. Unfortunately, the release is still a week away, and that means I will not be able to make that change in time for my next tournament.
• If I want to continue with mono-white, it might be a better strategy to switch to a primarily-token build. I like this idea less than the idea of turning my deck into an aggressive Boros deck, but it would be fairly inexpensive to construct.
• The end goal of building a Tier 1 Standard deck doesn’t limit me to only playing Standard. I have heard several suggestions that I turn my deck into a Block Constructed deck. That would allow me to sell some of my more expensive cards and work my way into a Boros deck for the Innistrad block.

Losing the tournament was a setback, but it forced me to look into previously unexplored options. Now I have some interesting ideas to ponder as I grind my way toward the Avacyn Restored Magic Online release. Drastic changes may be necessary to achieve my goals, but no one ever said this would be easy.

Until next time,

–Tangent was here . . .