Coming off a week’s worth of vacation meant that I needed to get back in the ring for some much needed training. I wanted to get in some serious playtesting since my batteries were once again fully charged. I joined the Tournament Practice room to beat down some opponents with my Elves—and I ended up receiving a series of beatings instead.

I certainly didn’t want to be facing infect decks if I wasn’t prepared for them, but I needed to know whether they had really become such a major threat. Infect had been played in the practice rooms many times before, but it was rarely played in Daily Events. I decided to do some research and find out for sure.

It turned out that infect had taken Top 8 spots in StarCityGames Invitational Qualifiers as well as in TCGplayer Open events. MTGO-Stats.com also showed that mono-green infect had gone 4–0 in Magic Online Daily Events several times, and it had been going 3–1 on a regular basis. It seemed that I would need to be prepared to face it in Daily Events after all.

Finding an Antidote

Looking over other Elf decks didn’t give me much hope, but some of them did run a copy of Melira, Sylvok Outcast. Melira would be the perfect card against infect as long as they didn’t have any removal in hand. The fact that I could Green Sun's Zenith for her made her even more appealing.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but I was limited on my options. I went to buy a copy and was shocked to find her being sold for 2.80 tickets, which was two to three times the cost of her paper counterpart. I went ahead and bought a copy, which left me with 16.01 tickets. It was going to need to be enough—I wasn’t about to spend any more of my precious tickets attempting to be prepared for one deck in the meta.

After adding the card to my sideboard, here is what my deck looked like:

"ElfHero1.1.dek”"

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 3 Copperhorn Scout
• 4 Arbor Elf
• 4 Dungrove Elder
• 4 Elvish Archdruid
• 4 Elvish Visionary
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 3 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

• Spells (10)
• 2 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Genesis Wave
• 4 Rancor

• Lands (20)
• 20 Forest

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Blunt the Assault
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 1 Viridian Corrupter
• 3 Ground Seal
• 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 4 Ezuri's Archers
• 3 Witchbane Orb

Buy This Deck

I had my cards and had done a bit of testing—although admittedly not enough—and was ready to enter another Daily Event.

Standard 4-RND (Event #4245789)

Round 1 vs. B/U/G Pod

My opponent played a Thragtusk followed by a Phantasmal Image, copying the Thragtusk. He then played a Birthing Pod, which he used to sacrifice his copied Image, and he imprinted the Image on the Mimic Vat. From there, it was a fun-filled adventure during which he continued copying and sacrificing Images for such fun cards as Deadeye Navigator and Disciple of Bolas.

In the meantime, I had built up quite a large army myself, which included an Elvish Archdruid and two Adaptive Automatons pumping my Elves. Even with my opponents increasing life total, I could have won the game at any time if I had drawn a Craterhoof Behemoth or Green Sun's Zenith. I didn’t expect the lucky draw, but it was my only hope of breaking through his growing defenses.

My opponent finally decided to kill off my Elvish Archdruid so that he could attack into my slightly weakened army with his 3/3 Beast tokens. The next turn, I drew Green Sun's Zenith, but without the Archdruid, I wasn’t able to cast it. Killing the Archdruid ended up being the nail in my coffin.

Game record: 0–1

+1 Viridian Corrupter

+1 Champion of Lambholt

−1 Copperhorn Scout

−1 Genesis Wave

Game 2 – My opponent was removal-heavy and killed off my early mana accelerators, but I was finally able to land an Arbor Elf and an Elvish Archdruid.

My opponent then used Birthing Pod to sacrifice his Geralf's Messenger for a Skinrender to kill my Archdruid. He followed that up with another Messenger, which was once again sacrificed to Birthing Pod for another Skinrender to kill off my Arbor Elf.

The Genesis Wave in my hand went unplayed as I was never able to recover after that.

Game record: 0–2

Match record: 0–1

This match was brutal and left me on the verge of tilt. I didn’t feel that I played badly, but that I was completely outgunned. I took some time in between rounds to grab a drink and try to relax.

My opponent’s deck may not have been very fun for me to play against; however, I had to give him credit that it was a solid deck and that he had completely owned me with it. I did my best to shake it off so that I could attempt to have a better second round.

Round 2 vs. B/R Zombies

Game record: 0–1

Sideboard:

+2 Blunt the Assault

−2 Genesis Wave

Game 2 – This game was a real battle, as both my opponent and I had built a large army. He had cloned my Wolfir Silverheart, which was preventing me from attacking. He was able to sacrifice his Gravecrawler to his Mortarpod each turn and was slowly taking down my life total.

My opponent’s turn came. He needed to draw another Blood Artist or a Brimstone Volley in order to win. He drew his card, paid 2 mana, and played his second Blood Artist. Good game.

Game record: 0–2

Match record: 0–2

You win some, and you lose some. Both my opponents played very solid games and deserved their wins. I had a good Game 2, and that was about it, and even that game I lost. It wasn’t my day, but I intended to make the most of it by reviewing both rounds and looking for my areas of opportunity. Learning from my mistakes was all I could hope to gain from that event.

Wrapping Up

It’s a really good thing that I had spent so much time worrying about mono-green infect when I was preparing for the week’s event. That was such a great help against Zombies!

Vacations are a wonderful thing, but apparently not when it comes to improving my skills at Magic. I wouldn’t say that my lack of testing over the last week was the reason for my epic failure, but it definitely didn’t help me any. Rather than feeling fresh and revitalized, I felt more disoriented and unprepared.

I have never done so poorly in an event. Not only did I not win a match, but I couldn’t even steal a single game. I already know that I can’t afford to throw money away, and yet I feel that that is exactly what I did.

It is very important that I grind out as many practice matches as I can over the course of the next week. I need to become comfortable with my deck again and have a firm grasp of the meta before I enter another event. I know what’s at stake, and I intend to put forth every effort to get the job done in the future.

My vacation may be over, but my uphill climb is just beginning.

Until next week,

– Tangent was here . . .