2-1 AFK Games 10/25/2018 (Pauper)

TOURNAMENT REPORT

It was not a great showing. I made a last minute swap of vault skirge and mulldrifter in the mb, and threw a radical idea in the sb to try it out.

R1 - Goblins 2-0
This was against a player we convinced to play at the last minute so we could have a proper ladder instead of single elimination. This deck has enough removal that goblins just doesn't have anything worthwhile to bring to the table. Won handily both games

R2 - MBC 0-2
This was a huge surprise for me. I generally felt that I had a great control matchup, but I couldn't seem to make anything work ever here. I got him down to below 5 in both games, but he was able to stabilize. Looking back, I think cutting the 4th lightning axe from the sideboard and the 2 mulldrifter from the main board over time has really weakened my game against other midrange/control strategies as I've tried to get my deck lower to the ground to have a more decent matchup against tron if I ever face it.

R3 - Bye
This was a boring tournament, and because things are weird with low numbers of players, I walked out in second place.

9/23/2018
After playing the deck with the addition of kird ape, I think I like Looter a lot more than I did before. The cards I feel least good about are firebolt, mulldrifter, and possibly Faerie Macabre. I'm actually not sure about the sideboard in general. I think I might be able to go down 1 Tranquility and 1 Faerie Macabre. There are a lot of matchups where I don't feel like I need to sideboard much, but swapping out electrickery would be super helpful to get gone. Cards I'm considering are things like mana leak, dispel, force spike, mutagenic growth, goblin heelcutter, lightning axe, nature's claim, hydroblast, pyroblast etc.

9/25/2018
It looks like I'll be able to get to a tournament this Thursday, so we'll see how this iteration does there. I'm cutting mulldrifter, either for a 3rd copy of looter il-kor or a copy of obsessive search. I'm leaning towards search right now. I still don't have a great replacement for firebolt, and I'm not super sure what else to put in my sideboard. I could see some bounce spells, I really like jilt and vapor snag, or mana leak.

9/27/2018
Not going to play the deck today but I did swap seal of fire with firebolt to see how that goes. I'm also cleaning up my sideboard a touch by running only 3 artifact and enchantment specific hate cards, and running a singleton broken bond, and dropping my gy hate. I need to find a good card to help me with my tron matchup. Maybe just good old stone rain?

=|| Sideboard changes ||=
-1 ancient grudge
-1 tranquility
-2 faerie macabre
+1 Broken Bond or Nature's Claim
+1 Goblin Heelcutter (maybe +2)
+2 Jilt (maybe +1 Kird Ape)
(Maybe +1 Arrogant Wurm?)

I have 3 slots to play with to better my matchups against tron and UB control. I know against both of these mathups I have to get lower to the ground and hit harder too, so I'm going to try goblin heelcutter as another solid finisher to help me close out games. jilt can run interference with flickering to a degree, and can help against gurmag angler, but it's very, very possible that it should just be pyroblast to push through counterspells. It's also possible that I should just run more copies of kird ape and go g/r madness against these decks, looking to just pound through as fast as possible on the ground too.

10/23/2018
Good lord I haven't actually had a chance to play magic in a while. Going back to firebolt, and giving myself access to pyroblast and vault skirge for when I need to get faster or push creatures through. I'm also thinking about running a singleton wild mongrel over mulldrifter in the main board or in the sideboard over vault skirge. I really don't like wild mongrel in multiples because it's just such severe card disadvantage, but as an engine card, I think it could be useful, and a way to help me power out hooting mandrils a bit better. I still don't think i'd ever want to see more than 1 in any game though, but as a singleton I think it could be really powerful.