I played a game online against
Ezuri, Renegade Leader,
Selvala, Explorer Returned, and
Reaper King. I mulliganed the first hand because there wasn't much going on in it but the second hand wasn't much better. I was hoping
Callous Bloodmage might help get me out of a bind and it sort of did but not by enough.
Ezuri did Ezuri things and just flooded with Elves. They ended up with
Priest of Titania, Ezuri, and
Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun on the board. Selvala was going mostly pillowfort and Reaper King had their commander and
Panharmonicon on the field. I had a chance to cast
Windgrace's Judgment but since I only had 5 lands, one of which was a
Bazaar of Baghdad, I chose to wait on it and let Reaper King sort of clean up Ezuri's board.
They did end up getting a Scarecrow next turn and blew up the Cradle and my
Phyrexian Tower. Since Ezuri still had their commander and Priest of Titania, I felt this was a weird play and really cut me out of the game since I never got my second green or white to do much else. I did have Path which I used to exile Priest and I did have Solitude in hand which I could have used to save me from an alpha strike later but I was so far behind, and I was targeted hard by Ezuri, that I didn't really feel like continuing the game.
Reaper King did end up winning the next turn since Selvala conceded and Ezuri did as well. I know the right play at one point was to cast Judgment to get rid of Reaper King and probably Ezuri (maybe Priest if Ezuri wasn't out yet) but I really did overestimate the Reaper King player in terms of them reigning in Ezuri. To their credit, they did end up winning so it is hard to get too salty about the play (though I would say that Tower wasn't even the best target on my board, let alone on the board in general). But, in reality it was just a bad keep on my part and an overreliance on my opponents. I had been digging for a wrath but never got to one which I know would have changed things up quite a bit.
As for cards, Knight of the Reliquary and Crop Rotation showed up and felt like dead cards. Granted, the game was super quick (I died on turn 6) but I just ended up discarding both to Bazaar. Entomb is also starting to feel weird as I don't have cards that just work from the yard on their own so it is always a dead card early on. I am not saying I want to cut it (yet) but it does have issues when the game is just getting started.
Callous Bloodmage didn't do much beyond draw me a card so I am not sure if the versatility is worth the extra mana compared to a Wall. I think so but that opinion might change.
The second game I played went much better. It was against
Tasigur, the Golden Fang,
Grumgully, the Generous, and
Averna, the Chaos Bloom.
I ended up slow rolling (perhaps a bit too much) some of my removal since Grumgully was going after Averna pretty hard. They did attack me once or twice but left Tasigur alone for the most part. I never really got any ramp but did get Yavimaya Elder to help get land drops. I also had
Qasali Pridemage to deal with any artifacts or enchantments that we needed to deal with. I ended up just cracking it to blow up a
Greater Good that Tasigur took from me off
Villainous Wealth. This was after they cast
Bane of Progress off of it so I figured I would just block and sac.
Part of the reason for this is because I needed to get back
Necrotic Sliver to blow up their
Cabal Coffers (again) since they got my
Sun Titan. I then cast
Solitude to exile Sun Titan though I should have waited as Averna had a
Blasphemous Act that cleared the board anyway. This became important as Averna got Coffers back again with
Regrowth this time and then cast
Finale of Devastation for a
Sepulchral Primordial to swing out and kill me. Averna scooped but I am not sure they were dead on board. And Grumgully scooped as soon as Tasigur got Cabal Coffers off their Crop Rotation which was a really early scoop since they were otherwise tapped out. If they stuck around, they might have been able to help? They did have 0 cards in hand so they might have scooped to the B Act later anyway.
But if I saved Solitude to see what Averna would do, I could have had it to exile the Primordial that would have come at me and then been able to control the rest of the game via
Chainer, Dementia Master. Especially since I would have had Solitude to keep exiling creatures (I would have needed to get to a sac outlet to truly loop it though).
Overall a much better game though. I noticed Entomb had the same problem in this game as the last one in that it sat in my hand the entire game as it started in my opener. I never had anything worth getting though I did actually get Karador down, and I could have gotten Chainer down, so I likely could have done a fair amount with it. It is one of those cards that works really well to get me out of jams but I was also effectively playing with a 6 card hand all game.
Greater Good is another card that I have talked about cutting and I might finally pull the trigger on that soon. I would like to get back up to 39 lands since I have had a few situations (including game 1 here) where I struggle on mana. Part of this is exacerbated by the fact that I have a couple lands that produce no mana and and couple others that only produce colorless. I also should find a replacement for Yavimaya Elder that is actually ramp. Maybe I could go back to
Dawntreader Elk or even
Diligent Farmhand. I might look into
Springbloom Druid as well since that at least ramps (and fixes) at 3 mana.
I haven't played in a long time and I think it shows with some of my poor choices but I also think I did reasonably well in the second game anyway. But I do think there are a few middling cards in the list that might make sense to try to beef up a little. Grist is a reasonable option being discussed but I think I really want to figure out a way to beef up the early game rather than add more power. Both games showed a struggle and/or limited actions being taken during the early game. Adding Wall of Omens back in probably helps or perhaps even other smaller creatures just to gum up the board a bit. Or perhaps even adding another wrath to simply "reset" at the right time and start to go off. The new white Wrath looks pretty sweet and seems like a good option for a lot of deck, including this one. I will see what else Innistrad brings and maybe reevaluate some other card choices.