So this report comes one week later due to my tiredness due to playing some team real this week. I'll give my original build, some amendments that came through out the tournament, give a short report, then give some impressions of the format I had.
(Edit: See Jacob's full pool here -G Editedit: apparently I am very bad at this and originally provided the url of this page.)
Original Build:
9 Forest
7 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Giant Growth
2 Blinding Mage
2 Sylvan Ranger
1 Doom Blade
1 Wild Griffin
1 Awakener Druid
1 Cultivate
1 Warlord's Axe
1 Assassinate
2 Cloud Crusader
1 Assault Griffin
1 Cudgel Troll
1 Giant Spider
1 Sorcerer's Strongbox
2 Greater Basilisk
1 Serra Angel
1 Angelic Arbiter
I figured the black splash was going to be better game 1 because I really care about fatties more than little dorks. Red would come in against black decks or planeswalkers protected by flyers or if I really needed the reach. Giant growth seemed better game 1 then naturalize or plummet if it seemed better. I had a lot of little dorks and flyers so cloak didn't seem nearly as good as the axe. Finally I cut the third basilisk for the spider to have a slightly better curve and have better races against flyers.
After a few rounds I figured out a couple of things about the deck.
1. Basilisk was insane. Against green decks it traded with all their fatties with minimal trample over and against other decks it stopped everything; especially black with their abundance of 2/2s, 3/2 and 4/2s.
2. Llanowar elves didn't do anything. I already had the rangers for fixing and to make land drops and I really just dreaded drawing irrelevant 1/1s.
3. Ranger was so awful, but necessary.
4. Blinding mage was beyond insane.
I boarded out one and then two elves for the third basilisk and the excommunicate. 17 lands were still fine due to the rangers.
Short Report:
Round 1: I won 2-1 vs GWR. He had Garruk, Fireball and a bunch of other guys. The games were close mostly due to me drawing a bunch of irrelevant 1/1s. Game 3 was interesting in we had a stalemate him with a garruk's companion with armored ascension on it, but only 3 plains so my crusader with equipment held it off. I eventually draw arbiter and he cant kill me with his glorious charge before I kill him.
Round 2: I won 2-0 vs UWr mill. He had double of jaces erasure and tomb scour, but I handled it pretty easily.
Round 3: I lost 0-2 vs a deck I feel like I was well set up to beat. He was BR and played a bunch of black 3/2s and 4/2s with gravedigger. Despite having 9 walls for his army in my deck, I mull to 6 both games and only draw a giant spider which he 2 for 1s himself to kill, but all I draw are crappy 1/1s. This was the round I figured Llanowar elves didn't actually do anything.
Round 4: I lost to my friend Andy 1-2. His deck was insane: green titan, hoardling dragon, brittled effagy, fireball, more green fatties, pyroclasm. I won a game which I aggroed him but lost to cards the other two.
Round 5: My breakers are good so I get in the 8 slot with a win here. My opponent was UW with a bunch of scronders and 8/8 flood guy, arbiter, mazeland, and day of judgment. I lose game 1 after overextending into his maze and blinding mage, and he punishs me with day and then plays floodguy afterwards. The next two I play around such cards and grind him out.
Top 8: I make it by less than a percentage point of breakers and get paired against RB DI removal. I win pretty easily by having threat heavy draws and one game troll takes it down and the other serra baits out his doom blade so arbiter goes all the way.
Top 4: This guy beat Andy with GWu flyers and tricks. I lose 0-2 after his Azure Drake allows him to have the upper hand on my flyers. Game 2 I boarded in cloak and put it on my awakened forest, but I am one turn too slow to the race. I possibly punt by not plummeting earlier, but his sword of vengance would have just been reequipped and I don't think it would have saved enough damage.
General Format Impressions:
1. Sylvan Ranger is so incredibly bad. The 1/1 is beyond irrelevant and I wished I had a rampant growth most times. I would play it if you need fixing, but I definitely could see myself cutting this from many decks and fixing has to be really bad to cut most times.
1a. If this fact ends up being true, then 5cG might be a really good draft archetype. If rangers are only playable if you need fixing then you should be able to get these late and thus have good card quality and fixing in such a deck.
2. Cultivate is really insane. Not surprising but I thought I would reiterate the point.
3. Two toughness fliers aren't as good as you think they are. Pegasus and the Griffin twins are going to be halted many times by Azure Drake, Giant Spider, Cloud Elemental, and Cloud Crusader. I think if you draft a skys archetype you are going to need pump spells to punch through these cards.
4. Naturalize is probably maindeckable. Between the uncommon equipment and the tons of rando enchantments, I think I always had a target.
5. Sorcerers Strongbox is fine. It plays well as both a 4 and 6 drop, and even if you fail the first time the activation cost is so cheap that on subsequent turns you can pop it and play whatever you draw anyways.
If your M11 experience was much different, then comment below. Have fun!
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