The past couple weeks weren’t very successful for the MTGO Hero, and it was becoming increasingly important to find a successful strategy with the current deck or move on to new options. Humans have been far less effective with the increasing number of Restoration Angels in the format. With my mounting losses, my funds have been dwindling rapidly. I needed to look closely at my budget and determine my best course of action based on my current situation.

State of the Union

Hero of Bladehold had easily been replaced by Riders of Gavony, and there was no longer any room for her in my deck. It was the only card of significant value that I had no plans of using in the future. I was dismayed to find that the bot prices for Hero of Bladehold promos had fallen to around 6.50 tickets. They had lost nearly 2 tickets in value from when I had purchased the three I was planning to sell.

I was definitely going to take a greater loss if I sold to the bots, so I posted an ad in the Magic Online classifieds for 6 tickets in hopes that I could cut my losses. After a few hours without a buyer, I dropped the price to 5 tickets each. A short while later, I was able to add 15 tickets to my funds from the sale of the Heroes, which increased my bankroll to 35.17 tickets. The additional wealth eased the pain a bit, but if I didn’t start winning again soon, it wouldn’t last long.

Back to the Basics

After nearly going undefeated in the Daily Event three weeks ago, I had continued tweaking my deck with mixed results. Even the Tournament Practice room was becoming more of a challenge. The question was whether it was my modifications or the constantly changing metagame that was hurting my win percentage.

Finding solutions to the current meta trends were becoming increasingly difficult. More and more, I was being blown out by a flashed Restoration Angel targeting a Blade Splicer or endless board wipes leading to a lock down courtesy of Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Of course, Tamiyo wouldn’t be truly happy if Gideon Jura didn’t unfailingly join the party.

Things were looking grim for the MTGO Hero Human deck. Suggestions had been made to add the Restoration Angel/Blade Splicer package to my deck, but with the increase in popularity, those cards had become far out of my reach. At the time of this article, they were both going for just over 8 tickets a piece.

I felt that it may be time to look in an entirely different direction for my deck. Humans seemed to be losing their aggressive edge. I seriously considered selling off the Human deck and looking into a few other budget decks I had been considering, but I wanted to give my struggling army one last shot.

I was going to take the successful MTGOHero3.0 build of my Humans deck, which had led me to 3–1 in a Daily Event, and give it one more shot. If I could once again make a strong showing against the current meta, I would march on with the Human strategy. If not, it was time to look at more viable options.

Taking into account the decks I had faced in the practice rooms lately, I did modify a couple cards, but I kept my tweaking to a minimum. Here is the build that I decided on:

"MTGOHero3.0b.dek"

• Creatures (33)
• 3 Loyal Cathar
• 3 Riders of Gavony
• 4 Champion of the Parish
• 4 Doomed Traveler
• 4 Elite Vanguard
• 4 Fiend Hunter
• 4 Gideon's Lawkeeper
• 4 Mirran Crusader
• 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

• Spells (4)
• 4 Honor of the Pure

• Lands (23)
• 17 Plains
• 2 Moorland Haunt
• 4 Glacial Fortress

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Celestial Purge
• 2 Corrosive Gale
• 3 Faith's Shield
• 3 Leonin Relic-Warder
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 3 Oblivion Ring

Buy This Deck

I wanted to add the additional Loyal Cathar because of the increase in board wipes—and the Riders of Gavony because they are my MVP as of late.

I had the deck, and now it was time to see what I could do with it. It was time for another Daily Event.

Standard 4-RND (Event #3974615)

Round 1 vs. W/U Delver

I played a second Champion followed by a Gideon's Lawkeeper. My opponent played a second Delver and used Dismember on my larger Champion. I was able to successfully cast Honor of the Pure, but his twin transformed Delvers were punishing me in the air. I was locking one of them down with the Lawkeeper, but a Vapor Snag put an end to that. At the end of my turn, my Lawkeeper was bounced back to my hand, and my opponent was able to swing in for the win.

Game record: 0–1

Sideboard:

+2 Corrosive Gale

+3 Faith's Shield

+3 Leonin Relic-Warder

−3 Riders of Gavony

−4 Mirran Crusader

−1 Loyal Cathar

Game 2 – Once again, my turn-one Champion was matched by a turn-one Delver. Unfortunately, this time, my opponent’s Gut Shot sent my Champion to an early grave. I played Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in hopes of slowing him down. Once again he played a second Delver, but this time, I had a Fiend Hunter to remove it. I continued playing creatures, and my opponent wasn’t able to keep up. Faith's Shield on my Fiend Hunter protected me from a late-game Vapor Snag, and his Dungeon Geists arrived at the party too late to protect him.

Game record: 1–1

Sideboard:

+3 Oblivion Ring

−3 Leonin Relic-Warder

Eventually, my opponent stabilized and put up a fierce battle. There were several exchanges, and at one point, I attacked in with both Doomed Travelers just so that I could have the Spirit tokens for air support. He dropped a Cavern of Souls naming Angel as the creature type, which I suspected was a bluff since he had the mana to cast Restoration Angel the previous turn if he had wanted to. I was down to 4 life with my opponent at 3 when I drew a second Honor of the Pure and boosted my Spirit tokens. If he had the Angel, I would be dead either way, so I had no choice but to swing in. It turns out he didn’t have it. GG.

Game record: 2–1

Match record: 1–0

Wow! I was able to pull out a win against my nemesis. I knew I had been lucky, however, as my opponent never found his Restoration Angels.

Round 2 vs. W/U Midrange

Game 1 – I initially thought I was going to be up against Delver again, which I was dreading. It turned out I was wrong, but it was still going to be rough. This wasn’t much of a game in spite of it being such a tough matchup for me. I think the deck is very solid, but against aggressive decks, it may suffer a bit from not having the early game that Delver has. It did in this first game against me anyway. I went on the offensive early with two Champion of the Parish. By the time his Restoration Angel hit the board, I had a Gideon's Lawkeeper was on the board to help me keep it locked down. Riders of Gavony entered the battle to finish things off. I breathed a sigh of relief despite this game being fairly one-sided.

Game record: 1–0

+2 Corrosive Gale

+3 Faith's Shield

+3 Oblivion Ring

−3 Riders of Gavony

−4 Mirran Crusader

−1 Loyal Cathar

A mistake here was adding the Corrosive Gale. I should have assumed he wasn’t running Delver, and I therefore should never have sideboarded them in. They would be able to help with Angels if I was able to make it to 4 mana, but that doesn’t always happen with my deck. Also, there was a good chance of it being Mana Leaked if I had to tap out to cast it. A bad move on my part.

Game 2 – My opponent cleared my board with Gut Shots and Vapor Snags early and flashed in Snapcaster Mage so that he could Gut Shot another of my white weenies. I was able to draw into creatures, but I struggled to gain control. After a Restoration Angel began putting the pressure on, I used an Oblivion Ring to exile it. This gave my opponent the opportunity to play Tamiyo and begin to lock down my Loyal Cathar, which was my only threat at the time. I drew another Oblivion Ring to put on Tamiyo, and my opponent played Consecrated Sphinx. He followed it up with another Restoration Angel and a Geist of Saint Traft. Even my two Gideon's Lawkeepers couldn’t keep up with that. I was outgunned and went down quickly after that.

Game record: 1–1

Sideboard:

None

Game 3 – Just what you wanted to see in the opening hand of a creature-based aggro deck—a Doomed Traveler, two Faith's Shields, and four Plains. I ended up needing to mulligan to five cards after my first mulligan produced no lands. So instead of keeping my opening hand, I kept an even worse Elite Vanguard, Faith's Shield, and three-Plains hand. What little early pressure I was able to put on was quickly undone by my opponent’s Timely Reinforcements. He then added Geist of Saint Traft, which put on the assault. I drew into land after land and went down without much of a fight.

Game record: 1–2

Match record: 1–1

The shuffler didn’t do me any favors in Game 3, but that is a part of Magic. I had wanted to be as aggressive as possible by keeping out the higher-cost creatures, but that logic was an epic fail. It wouldn’t have made any difference in Game 3; however, it would have given me a greater opportunity to have them in Game 2.

Round 3 vs. W/U Midrange

After the first two matches, I wasn’t thrilled at all to see my opponent’s turn-one Seachrome Coast. This match isn’t really worth discussing because I was never really a part of it. It was similar to my Round 2 match except that this opponent had a much more solid version of the deck. His Angels were effective, and he was running Phantasmal Images to copy my Fiend Hunters with. To top it off, his Sun Titans came in to bring back Images and Snapcasters to completely blow me away.

Game record: 0–2

Match record: 1–2

Wrapping Up

The MTGO Hero deck’s days may be numbered with its ineffectiveness against the popular matchups that I’ve been playing lately. Sure, I was lucky and beat Delver in the first round, but how often would I be able to repeat that? I need consistency, and against the current meta, my deck is far from it.

I was seriously considering scrapping the deck for other options when, at the last minute, I heard Jonathon Medina discuss some interesting tech on the latest episode of The Eh Team podcast. I will give the Humans one last shot with a couple tweaks inspired by the FNM Hero himself, but that discussion is going to have to wait for next week.

Until then,

Tangent was here . . .