It was against Marchesa, the Black Rose, Winota, Joiner of Forces, and Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern. I was probably least worred about Tergrid since this deck has very few permanents.
I started off with a 3 land hand and Sol Ring. One of the lands was Command Beacon which made the mana awkward as I could cast Kykar with the mana I had even though I had 5 mana in hand.
So, I just started off with Purphoros, God of the Forge and hoped everything else would come together. Winota was doing a fair amount with building up tokens with Legion Warboss and I was basically just trying to get to another white source for Cleansing Nova.
Winota cast their general and hit a Geist-Honored Monk and a Drannith Magistrate and got Tergrid down to 12 on turn 4. Tergrid then cast a Mindslicer and Marchesa ended up wrathing since I couldn't get the right colored mana still. I had the chance to turn off Mindslicer with Mirrorweave but I felt that it was way better for everyone to have nothing in hand.
So, the game slowed to a crawl with Tergrid, along with their Geier Reach Sanitarium taking over a little bit. And, of course, they hit a Jace, Mirror Mage off me. It ended up working out in the end though.
My next turn I drew a Cyclonic Rift which I waited on. Tergrid activated their land again and got my Sensei's Divining Top (again, a good thing). They then attacked me with Hypnotic Specter since I was the only one with a card in hand so I got my Jace and Top. Jace was huge here. I Kicked him and, with Top, was able to draw 2 cards per turn with one always being a land so the Jace with 1 counter never lost that counter.
The main issue here is that I had Ancient Tomb and Fiery Islet eating away at my life total. And I was still really hosed on specific colors as I only had 5 lands. Top and Jace got me more though the next one was Reliquary Tower
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/10-sad-fb.png)
I did get a Sea of Clouds right after that though which helped. Winota cast a Silence and Winota, Joiner of Forces on their turn and, while I could counter Silence, I had nothing else to do after that so I let it go and hoped they whiffed on Winota. I was at 9 life at the time so this was a pretty huge turn.
They did whiff so I went to 5. Tergrid then attacked Marchesa luckily and I used [[Sphinx of Revelation to draw cards and get back to 7. It would have been more if I hadn't needed to spend 3 life to activate lands.
I then cast Kykar into a couple Talismans which drained Tergrid thanks to Purphoros. They were at 3 when my turn ended and I was back to 5. But, I had 3 blockers now so I could survive an attack from Winota if they whiff again. Which they did.
I was able to kill Tergrid with Opt into another spell to deal them 4 damage.
From there, I was able to mount enough of an offense and defense to kill Winota and Marchesa. I don't think I ever got myself back above 5 life though I had a Mystic Sanctuary that I was a turn away from being able to use to gain more life. Sword of the Animist was also important during this late stage of the game so I could get more lands and quit taking damage.
I think Jace was really the standout here. I am sure this is more situational but the fact that he basically single-handedly was able to bring me back into this game (I guess Top helped too
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/1-smile-fb.png)
The other thing worth pointing out was the mana base. It is very painful but I like the Horizon lands for allowing me to draw cards late in the game. I might need to rethink them. It also was disappointing to get all 3 of my colorless lands in the same game. Normally it isn't a big deal to have one or two, but it did make things tough to start with. I don't really know what to do about that though. I am thinking maybe Ancient Tomb isn't that great here since it doesn't really let me cast Kykar quicker (though it helps on subsequent casts) and it does a lot of damage to me which is not ideal. I might try to swap it for something else? I might think on this a little more and think on the Horizon lands just to see if maybe I don't really need them as they are costly in terms of life too.