The Bant-chantments deck swept game two. After a long and grueling battle, it looked like Lord Windgrace was going to take it home for a second time, but a timely Bruna after everyone had pretty much used up most of their removal turned things around.
I threw everything I had at the Bruna, as did the other two opponents, but since they'd spent most of the game fighting me, they didn't have much to throw. So, news flash: Bruna is ridiculous! If she lives, at least.
Point standings are pretty damn close, though, with the Bant player being in the lead, but Aminatou in last place is only 2 points behind her! There's a lot of room to make up ground as no one has run away with things as of yet. This is all very good, so far.
Anyway, another game is over, so that means more cuts. We're doing another round of 5 swaps this time, but it will be 3 at a time from here on out.
Here are my swaps, one by one:
Charnelhoard Wurm ---> Omnath, Locus of Rage - Okay this one should seem pretty obvious. We all new Omnath was 100% going to make an appearance, and if it weren't for my love of Gitrog and my recognition of a need to draw more cards, Omnath would've probably made the first batch. As for the cut, I felt like Charnelhoard Wurm was a dud, and didn't really serve any purpose in this deck. It's an okay card, but we aren't looking for a seven-mana, just-okay utility creature. We want a bomb, and Omnath is definitely that.
Jund Panorama ---> Crucible of Worlds - I'm still trying to figure out how the hell I did this, but after last week's swaps after round one, I somehow miscalculated, ending up with 43 lands instead of the intended 41! If you remember, my ultimate goal was to get to 42, but the plan was to do so incrementally. Anyway, after realizing the error (though not how it happened!) I obviously now get to cut 1 land to get back down to 42, our target. I still want to improve the quality of our lands by adding in some actually good one, but I will save that for next round. Crucible, like Omnath, is one of the most obvious cards to add, but it really is quite necessary. I've spent two games now badly wishing I had a Crucible, and having it will make Windgrace's +2 oh so much better.
Reality Scramble ---> Hour of Devastation - I kept going back and forth on Reality Scramble. I initially wanted to cut it, but then realized I'd overlooked that it had Retrace which makes it make more sense in the deck. But then, I also realized that the only thing I ever really have a surplus of is lands (and even then, lands are often much less expendable than you'd expect), but targeting a land with this only ever gets you another land. Yuck. Anyway, after two games I just realized I really wanted Hour of Devastation quite badly. Didn't want to cut a creature for a creature sweeper, as the deck already kinda needs more creatures, not less. So, looking for an expendable, non-creature, with a similar CMC so as not to fuck up the curve too much leads me to Reality Scramble, and out it goes.
Grapple with the Past ---> Splendid Reclamation - Again, more relatively obvious stuff. Splendid Reclamation is just a huge effect we clearly want to have access to. Yes, we are also adding Crucible, so it may seem redundant but a) it's an effect we want badly enough to allow some redundancy, and b) a big one-shot effect like this has different applications from a slow, incremental effect. Just like how sometimes Phyrexian Arena is better than Stroke of Genius, but other times, the Stroke is the better card. And, Grapple is a truly terrible card, honestly. Milling three is just to small of an effect. At least with Grisly Salvage you mill five, and even that isn't a card I'm over the moon about.
Zendikar Incarnate ---> Oracle of Mul Daya - Oh boy another obvious card to add. Where's the creativity? Where's the spice? All I can tell you is, I actually was no where near sure I'd even add Oracle, as I generally just hate revealing all my draws! But in the end I decided it was worth trying out. I mean she seems clearly to belong in the deck and 99% of you would probably add her to yours. But, again, that downside of revealing what should be hidden information to my opponents is very significant, IMO. There's a non-zero chance she actually gets replaced later on, if I turn out to be right about that. But for now, she is being given a chance.
Well, those are my five swaps for week two. I'm happy with how the deck is taking shape so far, but going back to the topic of creative/spicy card choices for a minute... well, I wish I could do more on that front but there are a few factors that make it difficult. First is the league system that restricts the total number of swaps we can make. I do have some ideas that I have yet to see represented on EDHREC, but achieving those ideas within the confines of these restrictions is difficult. Plus, it just so happens I really, really like a lot of the obvious auto-include cards. Gitrog and Omnath are cards I dearly loved even before this deck existed so of course I'm going to jump at the chance to play them together. Finally, what few flex slots I have to play with I am probably going to want to use on some niche metagame stuff - due to the nature of the league, I always play this deck against the same three other decks, which means I have the opportunity to tune my deck for a very narrow and specific metagame. I don't want to go too far with this and run things that just shut someone's whole deck down, but I have a few fair but powerful cards in mind...
I think that about covers it for this week. Enjoy!
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