It must be Fate (Reforged) to get so lucky! Plus my first ever FNM.

So this past weekend saw the release of Fate Reforged, and I had a booster box of it on order since late December, which I got to crack this weekend with great excitement. In my last couple of posts i have discussed cards I was on the lookout for, namely Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, and so I was keen to see if I could get lucky and crack one or the other of those. To cut a less than exciting story short, I was lucky enough to crack them both! This set me up nicely for the rest of the box, and I wracked up further luck by getting 2 fetch lands ( Polluted Delta and Wooded Foothills) and a foiled Tasigur, the Golden Fanged. All in all, along with the other rares and mythics as well as some pretty sweet uncommons I got a decent haul from my box, and it has set me up nicely for the coming weeks, giving me plenty of fuel to build new Commander decks around (I got 4 of the 5 new clan Khans, and 4 of the 5 Legendary dragons) so I will be trying to brew some interesting new lists using some of these.

One of the things I was looking out for in addition to the headline grabbing new rares and mythics were some  new cards which I think would work nicely in a hyper aggressive mono-red list that I took along to my first ever FNM a couple of weeks back. This deck was built around the idea of playing nothing more expensive than a 2 drop creature and getting in for the 20 points of damage before the midrange decks and control decks that are dominating the current Standard meta get chance to build up. I built my initial list, focussing on Monastery Swiftspear and Akroan Crusader, along with Satyr Hoplite and a whole bunch of instants and sorceries with lost casting costs that target the two Heroic creatures. To round out the list, there were a pair of Act of Treason to steel my opponents big blockers, and Tormented Voice to give me some card draw. To complement the draw and the Heroic, as well as provide some place to dump mana, and give me more punch, I had a pair of Dragon Mantle. When I had finished pulling it together I realised this was built totally from common and Uncommon cards, more by accident than design. However I gamely took it along for my first ever FNM, fulfilling a New Year's resolution in the process, and proceeded to go 1-3 over the evening. Not the greatest ever record, but certainly not the worst I could have done. I played an Abzan midrange that walloped me very quickly when really I should have mulliganed my opening hand in game one, for my first match, which I lost 2-0. The second match was a mirror and was a narrow 2-1 defeat in which all three games finished with the winning player on 3 life or less: not bad considering I was playing a plainly superior version of my deck! The third match was a dream, playing a neat looking Jeskai combo deck, and beating it comfortably 2-0. I went into the last match hoping I might be able to go 2-2, but went up against a mono-Green monsters deck that my opponent openly admitted was bad against aggro game one... and lost game 1! I got serious mana flood, and lost to Polukranos, the World eater. My opponent quickly sided in 11 cards against me and proceeded to beat me down rather efficiently in game 2 to give him a 2-0 victory, and put me at the end of my first ever FNM. I am certainly going to be back at the first chance I get, but I need to improve my list.

Along with FNM I organised an MtG day with my playgroup, running at my house (with the agreement of my ever supportive wife, thank you for that!). Unfortunately a couple of them were not able to make the day, but I did manage to hook in some of my players, and we proceeded to test out a whole bunch of the Commander lists I have built, as well as a couple of great 60 card lists one of my players, Ian, has designed. It was  great to be able to really knuckle down and spend a whole day messing about with cards, and I am hoping I can do it again soon. One thing we might aim for next time, assuming we can find enough players for it, will be playing Kingdom with our Commander decks. I found this thanks to the Commander's HQ podcast, so big thanks to them, and I would recommend that show to anyone who is into Commander, as it's a real good listen, and gives some nice advice about deck building too.