Highlander in Livingston, NJ

[kmzandrew]

I really enjoyed the 2hg highlander. I think it is much better as a 1 game match format than regular highlander. I made a number of tweaks to the stax deck I have been working on though to make it work better in a 2hg format. Here is what I played...

35 Lands
mishra's workshop
tabernacle at pendrell vale
library of alexandria
bazaar of baghdad
darksteel citadel
seat of the synod
ancient den
tree of tales
vault of whispers
great furnace
wasteland
city of traitors
ancient tomb
polluted delta
windswept heath
flooded strand
academy ruins
petrified field
rishadan port
tolaria west
island
plains
flagstones of trokair
maze of ith
glimmervoid
city of brass
hallowed fountain
breeding pool
adarkar wastes
underground sea
tundra
bayou
tropical island
savannah
scrubland

24 artifact
chrome mox
mox diamond
talisman of unity
talisman of progress
talisman of dominance
mind stone
felwar stone
grim monolith
worn powerstone
coalition relic
darksteel ignot
spectral searchlight
eye of ramos
thran dynamo
guilded lotus
smokestack
senseis top
sphinx of the steel wind
sharuum the hegemon
tangle wire
crucible of worlds
winter orb
crumbling sanctuary
engineered explosives

26 blue
propaganda
fabricate
force of will
land equilibrium
careful study
argivian restoration
stroke of genius
flux
intuition
rising waters
upheaval
time warp
capture of jinzhou
transmute artifact
reshape
time spiral
deep analysis
mind spring
thirst for knowledge
gifts ungiven
parralax tide
fact or fiction
tezzeret
recall
frantic search
savor the moment

6 white
armageddon
ravages of war
open the vaults
moat
ghostly prison
magus of the tabernacle

6 green
oath of druids
eternal witness
sylvan scrying
life from the loam
crop rotation
regrowth

2 black[/b
demonic tutor
tainted pact

1 gold
vindicate

The deck was a blast to play and it just did stupid things all day. Round one I had oath in my opener and I oathed into sharrum while Ben hit sundering titan. We then proceeded to attempt to take 3/4 extra turns, but were met with a concession via pact of negation and no mana to pay for it. Armageddon followed by land equilibrium was brutal too as it left me with a bunch of artifact mana and due to the wording on equilibrium Ben could still play lands. In our third round Ben got LoA and crucible wasteland going while I dropped parralax tide to slow them down until I got smokestack flagstones going. They never recovered.

[grizzledmage]

Results from last week's Highlander tournament at New World Manga...

I decided to try my RDttW deck; I've had it for a while but never played it here in a regular HL tournament, so what the heck.

Round 1, Andrew Weinberger playing 4-c control.

I suppose I might have had a chance if I hadn't mana flooded like crazy. As a result, I played lands; he played spells, and won. There's no excuse for a RDW to let a game go on long enough for him to play big spells like Shaarum Hegemon and Baneslayer Angel. At the end, I finally scooped when I was staring down two loaded barrels... with 3 cards, all lands, in my hand. (Second game, for fun, I won after a fairly long game.) [Andrew went on to win the tournament, with the only 4-0 record.]

Round 2, Chris Petitto playing multi-color enchantments, control, etc.

This time he got mana flooded, and while my deck decided to take a long time to get going, his mana flood gave me the time I needed; thank goodness for an early Goblin Patrol that kept whacking away at him, allowing me to get within range to use an uncounterable Banefire (he had Cancel in his hand) to seal the game.

Round 3, Jeff Mann playing scepter/chant lockdown control.

An early Blood Moon shut out most of his colored mana resources, and I attacked with sufficiently big creatures, and used some direct damage, to beat him down quickly. The Blood Moon definitely made it a one-sided game. (Second game, for fun, he won with complete lockdown.)

Round 4, Aaron playing GRW aggro

An early Loyal Sentry for him slows me down (mybad; I should have been more aggressive methinks) while he gets out Sarkhan Vol on turn 4; I can't deal it damage; he resolves the last ability pretty fast; GG. (Right at that point, I had a Flameblast Dragon in play; if I can topdeck Fireblast I can steal the victory but alas that's way too much to hope for.) (Second game, for fun, I won in about 4 turns.)

It seemed to me that an awful lot of luck, on both sides, played major parts in all these games.

2-2 record earns me 1 prize pack: Scute Mob yay...

[kmzandrew]

Here is my tourny report from last night.

Background info: I have been tweaking my deck quite a bit and hadn't completely decided on what was the best version so at about 5:00 PM I just throw in the final 5-10 cards. A few of the choices were quite poor. I had also gotten fairly little sleep the night before and as the tournament dragged on and I started to get tired I made quite a few mistakes.

Round 1 playing Ben with U/W control:
Some people think my deck will fold to a good control deck. I've always said this isn't the case as I don't run cards that are dead in any matchup. I really don't do much to interact with my opponents until I lock them up. I also play a ton of "bombs" that a control deck would need to answer. If I sneak any of them into play it is pretty much game over.
He wins the die roll. I open with LoA, activation, mox diamond (with gifts and other goodies in hand). He gets a land tax and tries to keep up with LoA while I am ramping up and tutoring. Some fairly irrelevant cards get played and I lock him up with slaver/academy ruins.

Round 2 playing Chris with U/W/B Enchantment control
He wins the die roll and has turn one LoA. Not to worry I had turn 2 elspeth and was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to handle that. I have turn one ancient tomb, grim monolith, coalition relic. He activated LoA and suspends ancestral vision turn 2. I drop elspeth and make a guy. He activates LoA and disenchants coalition relic. I drop fellwar stone and make another 1/1. LoA activation and vindicate on elspeth. I tap out to mind spring for 4. He drops bitterblossom and uses LoA. I drop a land and pass. Visions goes off. I gifts at his eot nabbing loam and friends. Either during this turn or the next one I make the first mistake that costs me the game. I forget to attack for 2 once. My next mistake is not countering ethersworm adjucator thinking I need the argivian restoration in my hand even though I have enough mana to use my witness and play sharuum. Around this point time is called. I decide to play for the win, but he drops zuran orb which means unless I hit capture on jingzhou I won't be able to kill him. The turn before he played zuran orb he was at 5 and I had obelisk of alara in play with mana to use it. Had I not missed the attack for 2 earlier he would have been at 3 and I could have burned him for 3 with obelisk. Anyway I screw mess up again by not wasting one of his lands and leaving him with the possibility of activating adjucator and untapping it to swing in. He goes for ice on my sharuum. My final mistake is not gaining 5 life with obelisk before casting FoW on his ice to keep myself alive. This left me at 2 with only a white source and ancient tomb for mana and him swinging for 3. Had I obelisked things would have been more interesting although a draw seemed inevitable.

Round 3 playing Rob with MBC
He has turn 0 leyline. Let me take a moment to say leyline of the void is fucking gay. It should be banned. If trinisphere is banned due to being unfun leyline should not only be banned, but they should confiscate all leyline's and burn them. Trinisphere is usually abused to be a type of lock component. It makes games end faster. Leyline does nothing except make games drag on. I will stop there, but I really could go on and on. Leyline just pisses me off in pretty much every format it is legal in.
Anyway the game was a draw because of leyline. Here is a quick rundown.
I open with turn one voltaic key, turn two grim monolith. Turn three sees me playing tezzeret, gilded lotus and demonic tutor. He kills tezzeret. Turn four I Capture of jingzhou, armageddon, drop a land and timetwister. My 7 cards are fairly awful. I hit FoF and dead cards like loam and mana. Turn 5 fact or fiction is awful too. All I find is oath. His bitterblossom means my oath isn't going to do much. I do finally draw something that isn't useless (obelisk of alara) and only need one more turn to win with it, but tops and finds pithing needle that turn. Tendrils of corruption gets him enough life to make sure bitterblossom doesn't kill him and time runs out.

Round 4 Nick with slivers:
He curves out perfectly and I make a ton of stupid mistakes. The first is counting my mana wrong once, then crop rotationing for tabernacle even though it was really weak at that point and finally counting my mana wrong again thinking I still have ancient tomb instead of tabernacle. All of my stupidity means I have to ramp up my smokestack to 3 and more or less reset the game just to stay alive. I am left with just tabernacle when smokestack dies. I play a land and pass into his empty board. I have 2 non green lands, loam gifts and fow in hand. He doesn't have a land. I drop a land. He misses another land. I finally hit another land and gifts. He hits lands, but it is too late as I have sharuum into sphinx of the steel wind.

Final thoughts: The abyss is awful. Elspeth is pretty bad. Garruk is pretty good. Leyline of the void should be banned. Wildfire/burning of xinye needs more testing as it would have been awesome all day. I tested them against my white weenie deck before and they were bad as ww can somewhat ignore them and can recover quite well, but none of the decks played at this tournament would survive a wildfire. Oath might not be worth it. At times it is absolutely nuts and can end games faster than any other single card in the deck, but there are also times where it is very very very bad. Upheaval needs more testing as it was usually better than wildfire and if wildfire needs testing upheaval does too. Exploration was amazing. Exploration and garruk were by far the best additions with the abyss being the worst.

[grizzledmage]

This tournament had a very high AF (annoyance/frustration) factor for me, and when my personal AF factor gets too high I tend to make rash decisions…

I arrive with my re-tweaked mono B deck, and am feeling fairly good about it; it served me at 3-1 last time I brought it and the match it lost could have just as easily gone the other way. And this time I am confident that it is better than before (which I still am).

Tournament scheduled to begin at 5:30; it actually started at about 5:55; AF=1.

Round 1: Chris, playing WBU control and stuff

Opening hand has 6 mid- to late-game spells and one colorless mana source. I go to 6; trade in 4, and decide to keep what I have. He wins the die roll and plays first.

By turn three I have Oona's Prowler; he has Stormscape Familiar and a morphed creature out. Next turn he attacks and morphs up Exalted Angel. (He has exactly 4 lands in play, all basic, and 2 of them are Plains…nice.)  Next turn he plays Icy Manipulator, and for the next three turns he taps down my defender and attacks for 5 in the air. I am down to 5; he has something like 29. I am scrambling to get something, anything, going, like swampcycling Twisted Abomination to get more lands going; big deal; where is all my !#^$# removal anyway?!? AF=2

He plays Pooling Venom on my Leechridden Swamp, and that combos with Icy Manipulator and threatens to end me real fast. Luckily I draw Wasteland and I can now destroy my own land; how happy am I now. AF=3

Finally Faceless Butcher shows up and I remove his Angel; I am also able to destroy his Familiar, so the board seems to finally be almost stable although if he draws practically anything to deliver the last 2 he needs to kill me…

He plays Story Circle set to Black of course, and then Academy Rector. I manage Sorin Markov after a couple other creatures; I activate Sorin's 2nd ability to bring him to 10. He has Academy Rector in play; looks ominous. I look at the board and think and think and think. I decide that he has something nefarious in mind with the Rector but I cannot imagine what. I decide that I must be as aggressive as possible and hope to deal enough combat and Sorin damage to end things before much more can happen, because my life window is nearly all the way closed.  I attack with 1 creature, Nantuko Shade (I need 1 blocker, plus one more creature since he can still tap one down with his Manipulator). He blocks with the Rector, it dies, and its go-to-GY ability triggers…

He tutors for… Psychic Venom!!! and plays it on one of my swamps, then taps it with the Manipulator. Game over, AF=4.

Round 2: Russell playing Bant aggro.

(Prelude to this round… Russell takes a good 8-10 minutes pile shuffling, mana weaving, shuffling, etc etc, apologizing all the while. I finally say to him, no problem; if it goes to time then I'll have to slap you around a little. He looks at me; I reassure him that I'm just kidding.) AF still holding at 4.

He wins the die roll. My opening 7, no lands, no early spells. Next 6, no lands, no early spells. I trade 6 for 6; not terrible but not good; AF=5; I keep.

I have trouble remembering the details of the early game… turn 2 I Demonic Tutor for Sensei's Divining Top; turn 3 I play Dusk Urchins; it attacks twice before he Pacifies it (with some Blue equivalent). Suffice to say that after a prolonged early and mid game, he has established clear board dominance. I have tried and failed twice to clear the board: once with Nevinyrral's Disk (he Naturalized it before it could untap) and once with Oblivion Stone (he wacked it with Qasali Pridemage).

He has Cascaded twice; once with Captured Sunlight (cascades into Jenara, Asura of War) and once with Enlisted Wurm (into an enchantment, can't remember name, but allows for damage prevention). Meanwhile he has Stoic Angel out; that by itself is giving me real headaches. On my side, I keep generating chump blockers with Bitterblossom, my Sorin Markov is drawing his attacks and enabling me to slow things down while I search for more board sweepers. He plays Elspeth, substantially increasing the pressure on me. At one point I dig with the Top and find, not a bomb, but Stillmoon Cavalier, which helps substantially as it makes a couple key blocks and also kills his Elspeth. He has also gotten a Wall of Reverence going; his life total gets up to about 36 or so while I am struggling to stay in two digits. AF drifts up to 6.

Finally I find something I can use: there, third card from top is Decree of Pain. But I have to suffer one more turn of his attacks as I have only 7 mana sources out. When I can finally hard cast it, I do.

A real bomb. It destroys all creatures (14!) in play, including the Dusk Urchins which has two â€"1/-1 counters on it… I draw 16 cards! And just as Time is called! 5 more turns!

He gets 3 more turns, I get 2. I now have enough resources (including 2 manlands, Mutavault and Mishra's Factory) to deal him well enough damage… if only he didn't have that <whatever> enchantment. By the end of the game, we are forced to a tie at something like 5 to 5; if I'd had 1 more attack that would almost certainly have been game (unless he happened to topdeck a WoG or something, of course). Now re-read that prelude…

Now at 0-1-1; AF=7.

Round 3:  Matt playing Esper sorta control.

Matt is 1-1, so I have been paired up. Again. Why does DCI Reporter hate me so much? AF=8. On the other hand, with all due respect to Matt who is a heck of a polite and nice young man, after I see the cards in his deck I fail to see how he could have won any games. Now that I don't need it, I get great opening hands (we played a second game as well for fun) and defeat him quite quickly, bringing me to 1-1-1.

Of the 7 HL events held here until today, I have gone 2-2 six times and 3-1 once. I figure that I have a fairly good shot at doing a second-personal-best showing, since I will almost certainly play someone with a1-1-1, 1-2, or 2-1 record and I feel well up to that.

Round 3 drags on seemingly forever, as 2 players are locked in a long and drawn-out game whose extra (overtime) five turns take an additional 15-20 minutes, and ends up in a tie anyway. Fer cryin' out loud it's 9 pm by now; AF=9.

Round 4 pairings finally go up, and I see that I am paired against Rob Cuellari. I like and respect Rob a lot, and he is actually one of the best sports I have ever met, but….

a. I believe he is 2-0-1; that means I have been paired up AGAIN; AF=10
b. He is a far better player than I and has a huge psych advantage; AF=11
c. He is ALSO playing MBC, so this means that I would need insane good luck, and he would have to have insane bad luck, for me to have a chance; AF=12.
d. A mirror match like this will likely take a long time, and I am already too tired and too annoyed; AF=13.

Anytime AF is >= 10, that's about it for me. I walk up to him and concede the match.

After I pack to leave, I go to Chris and, as is my practice, thank him for another tournament. He graciously gives me one of his "prize" packs (as store owner he can certainly do this, but it is nevertheless quite unexpected and generous).

The rare? Lullmage Mentor; goes for less than a quarter on the open market. AF=14.

[grizzledmage]

If you think that casual Highlander tournament playing in Livingston, NJ has faded away, think again. New World Manga has settled on the fourth Sunday of each month as the regular day for tournaments. It so happens that my schedule has made it impossible for me to attend in a long time, but I finally made it back for the April event. I
decided to go back to my "roots," bringing White Weenie with a couple of minor upgrades.

(I had been considering a 4-color Reanimator deck I've been laboring over recently, but the recent banning of Survival [and I'd gone to fairly extreme measures to obtain one only a couple of months ago, just for that deck... aaagggghhhhh....] helped me to decide against it.)

Round 1: Gershon, packing a RDW (borrowed from me, actually). I don't mind telling you I was a tad nervous, too... But I got pretty lucky with good creatures coming out right away, and his (my!!) deck stalled, so the game was actually over kind of quick.

Round 2: Russell, playing BU control. I came out of the gate pretty quickly, and dealt him about 15 damage over the next 4-5 turns. He was finally able to get some control elements going (Rhystic Deluge, Scepter of Dominance, etc) to slow me down. Then the game went longer while I tried to push past his wall of control and he sought for some kind of win condition, but I was finally able to push through the final few points of damage.

Round 3: Chris (store owner), playing WUB control, Auras, etc. Although he was able to get some worthwhile creatures out (Hypnotic Specter, Nantuko Husk, Solemn Simulacrum, etc.) I was able to get past him with a Shadow creature (Soltari Priest), a pro-Black creature (White Shield Crusader), and tap down blockers/attackers with a timely Goldmeadow Harrier. A Bonsplitter accelerated the damage, and frankly his deck kind of stalled out just when he needed some answers.

Round 4: Sam, playing WU control. Sam has a very good control deck and he's a careful player; the best way to win against such a situation is to play very fast aggro. Unfortunately, my deck - although it didn't play poorly per se â€" didn't roll out quickly enough to do what it needed. I was able to get him down to 10 but it took too long, and by then he'd set up too many control elements and had too many mana resources. Critical plays: (a) he countered my Wilt-Leaf
Liege which right there might have won the game for me, (b) Pithing Needled my Elspeth, and (c) kept taking creatures with Vedalken Shackles; all while I had trouble drawing additional creatures (kind of annoying, with 41 of them in the deck). Oh yeah, a Wrath of God was a big pothole in my roadway also.

A fair game, nevertheless, giving him the 4-0 he needed to put him in first place for the night.

In the meantime I am not unsatisfied with my 3-1 record. Another fun evening of Highlander!

[Ravager Sam]

Round 4: Sam, playing WU control. Sam has a very good control deck and he's a careful player; the best way to win against such a situation is to play very fast aggro. Unfortunately, my deck - although it didn't play poorly per se â€" didn't roll out quickly enough to do what it needed. I was able to get him down to 10 but it took too long, and by then he'd set up too many control elements and had too many mana resources. Critical plays: (a) he countered my Wilt-Leaf
Liege which right there might have won the game for me, (b) Pithing Needled my Elspeth, and (c) kept taking creatures with Vedalken Shackles; all while I had trouble drawing additional creatures (kind of annoying, with 41 of them in the deck). Oh yeah, a Wrath of God was a big pothole in my roadway also.

Hey Grizzledmage! Although you managed an early wasteland, the pressure you brought, as you mentioned, just wasn't enough to counteract my game plan. I feel that cryptic command countering the liege was a turning point in the game because I was able to time walk you and then bribery next turn (target exalted angel). From that point you did manage to aggro out enough, but I had WoG + Shackles to wipe the board and make sure stuff didn't really come back. Elspeth did help you, until it was shut down after a little bit. Jace Beleren -> Jace the Mind Sculptor -> Future Sight ultimately enabled me to drown you in card advantage and set up, in 2 turns, a 2 turn clock, that consisted of Teferi + Man-O-War + Kitchen Finks + V.Clique + V. Shackles target of some shadow creature. It was definitely a great game - I need to figure out how to make my deck operate faster because it takes me SO long to stabilize.

Perhaps I'll see you at the end of this month

[grizzledmage]

Hey there!

Yep. I also have a control HL deck but run it in UB; I was thinking about trying to put a UW together as well. I was actually glad you chose the Exalted Angel; I was afraid you'd take Still-Moon Cavalier (which is INSANE against a mono-white deck). In fact, I did bring that BU deck to an event like a year ago, and played Bribery AGAINST a WW deck... I chose the Cavalier, and it basically won the game for me. (The fact that I had Urborg in play as well made it that much sweeter...)

Hmm... maybe I shouldn't be telling you all this...

Also, when I did try playing the Liege, I was in fact afraid of a counterspell, but I was very focused on trying to get in and pound away as much as possible before you could complete your development... ah well...

Will def try to be there this month, but we'll see.

Hey - how a summary of your other matches?

[Ravager Sam]

I did consider a different creature, but you had such a developed board that I needed the biggest thing that would have the fastest impact.  Exalted angel serves to effectively grind your offensive to a standstill because you can no longer make a profitable attack.  If I chose the cavalier, it wouldn't have the same effect.

General overview, at least what I remember:

R1 - B/W Aggro: He has an early Gerrard's Verdict followed up with a levelup creature and some other things. His only white source is Caves of Koilos for many turns, and it denies him access to most of what is in his hand.  I find a Kor Haven and eventually stabilize, despite falling to a low life total. T1 Library of Alexandria is incontrovertibly busted; I secured victory with a Mana Drain + Stick.

R2 - U/R Control: I built my friend this deck and it had the same exact blue core as mine, except it used red cards instead of white cards. I undoubtedly prefer the list with white because of the way they compliment each other (the ally color thing helps out too with the new manland + increased fixing). He's never really in this game because I keep him on the back foot with a t2 scepter he is forced to daze and then follow that up with a gifts ungiven (wasteland, crucible, glen elendra archmage, venser) - I had riptide laboratory in hand - and he's never able to resolve anything again.
IDK why my computer hates this forum software but im going to make a double post because this isn't working once it filled this txtbox once

[Ravager Sam]

Yeah, for some reason, when I fill the initial box, everything just goes nuts on me. Anyway:

R3 - UBG Control: I stabilize at dangerously low life after an awkward game occurs. He beats me over ~5 turns with mishra's factory and I'm just drawing dead. Eventually, I stick an elspeth, but he has both Mishra's and Urza's Factories. I topdeck a tezz and immediately go for a needle. When the needle is killed, I kill Tezz by getting Shackles and shutting off his plans. Faerie Conclave + Crucible gets me the win, along with elspeth that had >10 counters on it by the time the game was over. It was a really close match that went to time and 5 turns. I made an oversight in this match, that was pointed out to me afterwards, because instead of making tokens with elspeth, I could have just made everything indestructible (including faerie conclave) and then swung over for the win. This wasn't THAT simple because I knew he had a diabolic edict, but the point stands nonetheless.

After seeing how nuts he is, I'm definitely adding Gideon to the deck.

[grizzledmage]

After seeing how nuts he is, I'm definitely adding Gideon to the deck.

Yeah; I finally obtained my first one last weekend at a "rare-backdraft" after a casual sealed event that I was fortunate to do well in... In he goes!

[Ravager Sam]

I called them up and they said highlander was LAST week.

Dumb...

[grizzledmage]

Missed the May event, but here's what happened last night (13 players in attendance).

After much soul-searching, I decided to try my 4-color reanimator deck (list below), despite the recent banning of Survival of the Fittest. I’d agonized over what card to put in that slot, and ended up with Debtor’s Knell, but I am still not happy with that choice. Turns out to have been moot for the tournament, however, as that card/slot never saw daylight throughout the event.

Anyway, got off to a rocky start with Round 1, as the TO/Judge read off the initial pairings which did not include me. I spoke up; he seemed confused and said, uh, I entered your name I guess you have a bye? I asked if I was in the list of players and he said no. Thank goodness for store owner (and event participant) Chris who said, “Give me the bye; Oliver hasn’t waited all this time for a bye, and re-do the player list.”

Well the rocky start kind of continued, as I was paired against nice guy and good player Justin who was playing a pretty straightforward mono-Blue control deck. I was able to reanimate a single creature (Sphinx of the Steel Wind) and managed to deal a little damage (got him down to 9, although he helped with some painland-like effects) but he was able to bounce the Sphinx and then established a permission lockdown, winning with his flashed-in Teferi and Guile. If I’d been able to get either a Shroud creature or Iona going instead of the Sphinx… but such was not (literally) in the cards. GG anyway!

Second round against John, playing mono white… but not exactly WW. I’ve played John before; he is a super affable guy and probably comparable to me in MtG skills, and when I saw mono-W I was afraid that he would overrun me quickly, but then it came out that he was playing a converted EDH deck which admittedly was kind of a strike against him, as regular Highlander and EDH have sufficiently different dynamics that such a changeover is not so simple. I got an early Intuition, dumping Inkwell Leviathan and Simic Sky Swallower to the GY (he let me keep Iona in my hand; good choice!), followed by a Makeshift Mannequin for the Leviathan. He was able to WoG within a turn or two, however. I then played Compulsive Research (I think), allowing me to put Iona in the GY and then animated her with Life/Death, happy to take the 9 life loss because it completely shut his game down.

Third round against young girl Nicole, playing a fairly nondescript B/U deck. Not much of a contest; although Nicole is an enthusiastic new and young player, her skills are largely undeveloped so far (although she did win one of the first 2 rounds). She dealt some early damage with unremarkable creatures (Welkin Tern and Surrakar Marauder… in all fairness, though, I get the feeling that her deck may well have been constrained by a shallow card pool). I cleared her board with a Wrath of God and then followed up with Fact or Fiction which allowed me to put Empyrial Archangel in to my GY and I got it into play with Zombify. She couldn’t get past the Archangel (although she would have been happy to Mind Control it!), and the game ended.

2-1 earned me a prize booster pack… hoping for a Gideon I selected a RotE pack, but no such luck!

Deck list here. Some changes since I posted this some months ago on this forum's Deck Clinic area...

// Lands (36)
    1 Mutavault
    1 Faerie Conclave
    1 Treetop Village
    1 Arcane Sanctum
    1 Seaside Citadel
    1 Dust Bowl
    1 Mishra's Factory
    1 Terramorphic Expanse
    1 Vivid Creek
    1 Wasteland
    4 Swamp
    3 Plains
    2 Forest
    3 Island
    1 Vivid Meadow
    1 Vivid Marsh
    1 Vivid Grove
    1 Temple Garden
    1 Marsh Flats
    1 Misty Rainforest
    1 Verdant Catacombs
    1 Hallowed Fountain
    1 Watery Grave
    1 Overgrown Tomb
    1 Godless Shrine
    1 Tropical Island
    1 Bayou
    1 Terminal Moraine

// Creatures (23), some fatties and some utility
    1 Karmic Guide
    1 Inkwell Leviathan
    1 Bonded Fetch
    1 Mulldrifter
    1 Hellkite Overlord
    1 Eternal Dragon
    1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
    1 Woodfall Primus
    1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
    1 Teneb, the Harvester
    1 Angel of Despair
    1 Iridescent Angel
    1 Empyrial Archangel
    1 Simic Sky Swallower
    1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
    1 Trygon Predator
    1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
    1 Eternal Witness
    1 Thought Courier
    1 Merfolk Looter
    1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
    1 Blazing Archon
    1 Body Double

// Spells (41)
    1 Zombify
    1 Exhume
    1 Beacon of Unrest
    1 Careful Consideration
    1 Life/Death
    1 Miraculous Recovery
    1 Makeshift Mannequin
    1 Breath of Life
    1 Stitch Together
    1 Echoing Truth
    1 Into the Roil
    1 Oblivion Ring
    1 Oblivion Stone
    1 Phyrexian Furnace
    1 Darksteel Ingot
    1 Sensei's Divining Top
    1 Mortify
    1 Putrefy
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Day of Judgment
    1 Chainer's Edict
    1 Wrath of God
    1 Swords to Plowshares
    1 Thirst for Knowledge
    1 Fact or Fiction
    1 Compulsive Research
    1 Krosan Grip
    1 Gifts Ungiven
    1 Intuition
    1 Life from the Loam
    1 Worldly Tutor
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Impulse
    1 Damnation
    1 Quicksilver Amulet
    1 Vindicate
    1 Vigor Mortis
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Liliana Vess
    1 Debtors' Knell
    1 Betrayal of Flesh