Here is the deck I've been working on lately. It's kind of like what you would get if Mythic Bant and Next Level Bant got together and decided to be best friends, but they don't want to hang out with Jace, the Mind Sculpter anymore because they're sick of his arrogant attitude, they'd rather hang out with that new girl, Ms. Fiona Shaman because she always brings something fun to the party. It's straight-up midrange, which I seem to gravitate towards a lot, and because it lacks Bloodbraid Elf it can't recur Vengevines as reliably as Naya Shaman, but I'm hoping its protective elements and variety of paths to victory make Bant Shaman a reasonable alternative. Behold:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Vengevine
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1 Eldrazi Conscription
4 Path to Exile
4 Mana Leak
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
5 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Tectonic Edge (too greedy?)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Celestial Colonnade
Sideboard is in progress, but definitely includes Flashfreeze and Obstinate Baloth.
This started out as more of a toolbox deck, now the only one-ofs for Fauna Shaman to find are the Sovereigns and the plan B Baneslayer Angel (like when I have Eldrazi Conscription in hand already or really need the life gain). I tutor for Sovereigns so often maybe I should just give Mythic a try, but 6 drops are an icky thing to clog up your hand and it's nice to be able instead to dig it out when I'm ready to pull the trigger, do other things when I'm not. Since I'm not all-in on the Mythic plan, it's also less devastating to lose my early mana dorks (but it's still a freakin' annoying loss of tempo and a large part of the reason I run counter magic in this deck.) Obviously Cunning Sparkmage + Basilisk Collar is still bad for me, but I'll deal.
I might cut a Path to Exile for another Fauna Shaman target, or even a Jace, the Mindsculpter (if I can acquire one). I kept getting blown out by Baneslayer Angels I couldn't answer when I played in the PTQ with only three copies, but that may have been a bad sample. I might run a single Ranger of Eos or Kor Skyfisher that I can tutor for when I have a Vengevine or two in the yard and don't want to wait to draw a second creature to bring them back. Maybe Jace is better though because I can brainstorm for the fuel I need and the bounce ability kind of makes up for the shortage of removal.
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I was closing some browser tabs today and I still had the DCI ratings page open from weeks ago, so I logged in to take a look at my match history, as I like to do from time to time to verify all this time playing and thinking about Magic is actually improving me as a player. I was disappointed but not surprised to see that my recent mediocre performances have dropped me from my 1900+ spike to an 1837 Total rating, but it's still a pretty damn decent number. All these fluctuations of rating are kind of hard to analyze though, and I was curious about where I am in terms of win-loss percentage. I know that rating is more accurate because it's weighted to take into account whether you've been playing against people at the top of their game or just pwning some n00bs, but this is simpler. I tallied up the wins and losses, ignored ties and byes, and divided the time into one-year chunks starting from the first time I played a game of magic at the end of June 2008. Here's what I learned:
1) Wow, I play a lot of sanctioned Magic!
2) Wow, I was terrible when I started playing! Case in point: out of my first 17 sanctioned matches (Friday Night Magic and Eventide Prerelease), I had a 0-12-5 record...and I was happy about those draws!
3) Practice makes perfect, but very very slowly. At least I'm getting better.
Year One: I won 39% of the time, putting me at decidedly below average, but what do you expect from a beginner? The main thing holding me back was lack of knowledge. I was playing for a few months before I realized I could actually respond to triggered abilities (like Champion) because they go on the stack. These were also the dark ages of mana burn and combat damage stacking, so it was a little harder to pick up the game than it is now. The other issue was a reluctance to spend the money on the best cards when I didn't yet have the winning record to prove the investment would be worth it. If I had jumped in all the way instead of testing the waters for a long time, I'm sure it would be different story. I didn't run anything even resembling a netdeck for several months, and that was a 5-Color Control list with a semi-budget manabase and a few Ponders to help me find my colors. I didn't understand how crippling my warped manabase was, just that I was mulliganing a lot and sometimes having trouble casting spells on time. I still did fine against the other randoms, but lost in the mirror a lot to the good players at FNM. I also ran a stock Kithkin build (with a few tricks in the sideboard) the whole summer after M10 came out, so I did quite a bit of winning at the end of this look-back period to make up for all the growing pains in the beginning.
Year Two: 50:50, so I moved to exactly average. A spike at the beginning because I was getting pretty good with Kithkin at that point, a drop with the resurgence of aggro-hating control decks, a bigger drop when Lorwyn block rotated and I was left without a real deck. I stubbornly refused to play Jund for a while and was working so much overtime all winter, I never had the energy to put together anything really stunning. Things turned around again spring/early summer as I figured out how to draft well and resumed playing "real" decks. There's a straight month where I was at 80% just playing local Friday Night Magics, for what it's worth.
Year Three (the previous 6 weeks): 62%, nice. And not an FNM in there, solid Competitive REL events all the way.
I'm pleased with these results, but am I satisfied? NO. No one hits 100% of the time, but if you look at any 8 round PTQ, you need 6-2 (with good breakers) or better to make top 8, then you have to win all three of those rounds for the blue envelope, so that's about 80%. That's what I need to shoot for every PTQ this season, even when I open a weak pool. I especially need to work on M11 draft. I'm going 1-1 or 2-1 a lot, and I need to be able to 3-0 when it counts. Overall, my goal for this year is to win at least 70% of my matches, but I'll be playing to win every time.
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