I got in a game yesterday against
Ayara, First of Locthwain and
Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire. And, spoiler alert, I should have won but a significant misplay caused me to lose.
Things started off somewhat poorly in that I didn't have any blue mana to start with. But, I did have
Archaeomancer's Map which kept me going with lands, and I did eventually draw into blue mana so I got sort of lucky. Interestingly, Map did not ramp me at all since Vaevictus missed some land drops and I had gone before Ayara, but the 2 lands were still important.
I ended up casting a
Devastating Mastery right after I
Mana Drained a
Falkenrath Noble from Ayara. I had to counter it because their board was filled with tokens and Vaevictus and I had a couple creatures ourselves and I didn't want to get drained for so much.
So, I wrathed and dropped in
Death Baron and next turn I cast varina and
Diregraf Colossus to start building up my board. Vaevictus and Ayara still tried to keep me in check but I was able to weather through their onslaught on my board. What was becoming a problem was Falkenrath Noble that Ayara had gotten back and was draining me with every death.
Finally, I got a reasonable board state after casting
Zombie Apocalypse which got me Varina back along with a few other creatures. I swung out to draw some cards and gain some like and then did the same again a turn later. The draws I was getting were pretty bad though. The second time, I drew nine cards and got two zombies. I discarded both and then waiting for next turn.
Due to Ayara really pressuring us, and being at 40+ life still, Vaevictus went after them and got them down to 5 life. So, on my turn I saw I had
Wayward Servant in the yard with 3 other Zombies. So, I cast
Patriarch's Bidding to bring everything back. This brought Ayara down to 2 life but also gave them back their
Sidisi, Undead Vizier so they could tutor for something.
And me, being the stand up guy I am, let them know what was going to happen. I had a bunch of zombies, a
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born for a sac outlet, and a
Plague Belcher to drain them for 2 life. The problem was that I had to wait until their turn since they had
Falkenrath Noble so the triggers would work where Noble's would resolve before Belcher's, leaving them at 2 life throughout the process. Doing this in their turn meant mine would resolve first.
So, they searched for a while and finally found a card. I passed the turn and, in their upkeep, they cast
Sudden Spoiling Which then just lost me the game. I don't regret telling them how things would play out. I don't want to win because an opponent didn't understand the board state. And I would have won since I had enough to kill Vaevictus too.
What I do regret is getting so focused on the cool "I understand the way triggers work and I can kill you through a Noble by simply waiting for the right time" that I totally missed that I could have just killed them with Varina on my turn. See, I had 4 mana up which could create 2 zombies which then drained for 2 more to each opponent. That would have killed Ayara and I could have done the rest, still on my turn, to kill Vaevictus.
So, I had the win and the deck performed very well overall. But I just let it slip away from me because I got a bit of tunnel vision. It was a great play other than that.
Beyond that, I did get to
Epiphany at the Drownyard and cast it for X=4. So, I revealed 5 cards and revealed 2 lands, Sol Ring, Grimgrin, and Teferi's Protection. I have to say that I actually kind of liked the mind games with sorting the piles for myself as it really isn't that easy. Though, in this case the choice was basically "give me Grimgrin or Protection" and I figured they wouldn't want to give me protection so I just put a land with it and then a land and Sol Ring with Grimgrin. And I was right. It was not the best but it still got me something and Sol Ring was still important.
Also, I did have
Plumb the Forbidden in hand which would have done so much work (I wanted to attack with those 9 zombies and then draw a bunch off Plumb to discard a bunch of zombies) but Noble really hamstrung me in this game. Not only would I lose life from Plumb and Noble, but I also had
Midnight Reaper on the board making me lose life.
Varina was enough to really save me in the life department this game so I don't really have a need for more life gain. I wouldn't mind trying to find something that adds a bit more incidental life gain though just to give me more of a buffer later in the game.
I think Map actually did pretty well. Even without the ramp, it still ensured I hit land drops which wasn't bad. I never saw Sword of the Animist or Kindred Discovery. The deck performed fine without them so that is a point against needing them in the deck. Even if I had Discovery, I don't think there was a point in the game where it would have made sense to cast. At best, I could have gotten it down only to see Vaevictus blow it up instead of a Zombie, but the mana was tight, even after Sol Ring, and I don't think it would have helped me win the game. Depending on timing, it may have actually led to a loss. At least, one that wasn't quite as much my fault
The point on it above still stands that taking a turn off, or limiting the cards on board, isn't going to end well for this deck.