Well, I bit the bullet and bought this (and Karador) online. I played a little solitaire to get used to the interface again (I haven't played it since about a year before Arena was announced) and once I got my bearings again, with some good suggestions from pokken, I joined a game.
I will post a video below if anyone wants to watch it, but I will summarize it too
The game consisted of me,
Vial Smasher the Fierce &
Thrasios, Triton Hero,
Ghave, Guru of Spores, and
Winota, Joiner of Forces. Winota started out and I went second, followed by the Partners and then Ghave. Winota started with a Skullclamp and I just played a land. I mulliganed once and had 4 lands in hand with one of them being Diamond Valley. I kept it even though I really needed another white source, but it seemed like as decent enough hand anyway.
I didn't really do anything until turn 3 when, after drawing my second white source, I cast
Hallowed Spiritkeeper. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I didn't see the need to slow roll it.
In the mean time, the other players were establishing their board states but nothing too scary. Winota came down turn 4 but they had no non-humans at the time as the only thins they cast was a
Paladin en-Vec.
I just kept committing more to the board though I felt that casting Queen Marchesa wasn't the right play at the time. I might have been overly cautious as no one had more than 2 creatures yet and Winota wouldn't get a free one either. But, I just cast a
Falkenrath Noble and passed.
The next turn I cast a
Luminous Broodmoth and played
Diamond Valley and passed. The partners had Vial Smasher with Curiosity attached to it so Ghave blew it up (the only removal spell cast in the game I think; I never got to any of mine unfortunately).
Ghave kept slamming Saprolings and ended up getting a face down
Deep Forest Hermit which gave them a few saprolings when it turned face up. So, they and Winota were getting to be the threats. I took a shot at Winota but then had to change gears to go after Ghave for most of the rest of the game.
I was able to get down a
Recruiter of the Guard which did highlight one glaring omission:
False Prophet. I think I need to get that in here as I think he would have helped slow down the game. I got my sac outlet first though (which I would have done anyway) and got
Cartel Aristocrat. This was because I had the 2 mana to cast it and the protection likely would have been more valuable than Scrying from
Viscera Seer. I think I made the right call.
I ended up sacrificing the Recruiter which came back from Broodmoth and I picked up
Midnight Reaper. I also sacrificed Hallowed Spiritkeeper to get tokens. Both of these were in response to a
Chained to the Rocks from Winota trying to get my Broodmoth. I then sacrificed Broodmoth to Aristrocrat though I should have sacrificed it to my Diamond Valley; just an oversight but one that was ultimately irrelevant.
Winota started really taking off though had a few whiffs on her trigger so we were saved on that. I was still focused on Ghave though due to a
Mycoloth that would really start getting out of control after a few turns.
Around this time, I did have an opportunity to cast Queen Marchesa and I think it would have been fine. I likely would have lost the Monarch and Ghave would have taken it, but I likely would have been fine with that so people could just go after each other. I had fliers to get it back as needed. But, I held up my mana for the
Rally the Ancestors in my hand which I ended up not needing.
I did block weird one turn where Ghave attacked me and I should have blocked their 9/9 mycoloth with a token and instead I blocked one of the other tokens attacking me. I did block the other token with a spirit and Cartel Aristocrat so I could kill it.
At this time, I was actually wanting to get rid of Ghave solely because they had
Necrogenesis on the field which would have messed up my Rally. Luckily, they died off of a Vial Smasher trigger when they cast
Time Stretch. Unluckily, Vial Smasher just cast Time Stretch
I let it go instead of trying to dig for a Pyroblast or something. I also didn't count my board at the time and it turned out I had lethal. So, they took their two turns and on the first of the two they cast
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound which then allowed them to recast
Time Stretch. They did so, and then copied the trigger from Vial Smasher with
Strionic Resonator. I figured since they were tapped out (which they were before as well) I should probably try to kill them.
They were at 26 life and Winota was at 24. I had
Hallowed Spiritkeeper,
Falkenrath Noble,
Recruiter of the Guard,
Cartel Aristocrat,
Midnight Reaper, and
Zulaport Cutthroat on the field with
Luminous Broodmoth still in the graveyard.
I started sacrificing things and getting 2 "drain" triggers for each dying creature. I pointed the triggers from Noble at Vial Smasher and just let Cutthroat drain them both. I timed it so Spiritkeeper's trigger didn't resolve until I sacrificed everything so I got 6 Spirit tokens.
I then cast
Rally the Ancestors and got everything back. I sacrificed Spiritkeeper, Recruiter, Cutthroat, and Reaper to get triggers and get them back with Broodmoth. I ordered the triggers slightly weird at this point so I didn't get nearly the number of Spirits I should have gotten off Spiritkeeper (it didn't matter this time but still something to watch for).
All of this was enough to drain Vial Smasher for their 26 life and I still had enough to drain Winota for the remaining 13 life they had after the Cutthroat triggers knocked them down. They scooped before the triggers actually killed them though.
Overall, the deck performed fantastically for its first outing. I did miss
False Prophet and I don't think I really needed
Phyrexian Delver so I am going to swap them for now to see how well that might work out.
Otherwise, I am really pleased with the way it played and the only real disappointment is that I was a bit stingy with Queen Marchesa. Not sure if that is right or now but at least I know the deck functions without her
Click here to view game 1 in main post