First two games

So, I got two games in. I don't think I'll be able to play Friday -- some prior plans -- so I wanted to play Wednesday.

First, the bad news -- in both games, my mana was terrible and I did nothing. When I was goldfishing the deck, I found I couldn't get WUBRG on turn 5 consistently, but was assembling some shenanigansy game-ender by turn 8ish usually. That -- that didn't happen tonight.

The first game -- Scion, Karador and Horde of Notions -- ended with me getting blown out because I fetched a Tropical Island rather than a Tundra. That's a little too tight for me, all things considered.

The highlight of the game was Haakon + Crib Swap. It's very awesome, and I'm going to need a better way to turn it on more reliably. Allen suggested Chameleon Colossus, but I brushed him off. I was wrong. It's both a dragon and a knight, so it's actually pretty good, and it's easy to cast to boot. (Thanks Allen! Sorry for blowing you off.)

The second game I drew tons of narrow options and didn't really have ways to leverage my good cards -- like Survival -- to any real benefit. In other words, I need some neat-o creatures to exploit, and some better ways to exploit my graveyard. Genesis is right out because it costs a billion mana; Karador seems pretty boss, though.

Both games, Goryo's Vengeance just sat in my hand, but that's partly because I'm terrible. Necromancy is probably (the obviously?) better card, but I'm stupid.

The second game was kind of a waste of time anyway -- Horde had a turn 2 Survival that turned into a turn 4 Sun Titan. The two dominated the game; Survival dug up answers (Mystic Snake and Venser) and proceeded to steal everything with a Gilded Drake and Sun Titan activations. No one drew any point removal, and the Day of Judgment was countered by a Draining Whelk. Waste of an hour, all things considered. (No offense to anyone in the game. It's just that we all knew it was a crap shoot to draw enough hate to beat Horde, and we all whiffed.)

So, cards I played twice: Haakon, Ancient Grudge, Crib Swap, Survival.

First off, the mana base needs to be better. I need it to be auto-pilot, for the most part; I don't like having to make decisions for what I need now against what I might need later, with my backup being Eternal Witness or other recursion. A better player could probably skitter along with what I've got now, but it's seriously not flexible enough. I really need better access to on-color mana, and that means more fetches and perhaps two or three on-the-nose shock lands. Watery Grave, Overgrown Tomb, Breeding Pool and Godless Shrine, along with Misty Rainforest, Marsh Flats and Verdant Catacomb would probably cover it. (The trade-out would be three swamps, two forests and two plains.)

Second off, there's too much cute crap in the deck. Too many sac outlets, too many pointless cards. I'll need a creature that destroys artifacts or enchantments on resolution, and a cantrip knight (like Court Hussar, cheers!) would be completely welcome. I suspect that Conspiracy will die a horrible death in the future, but I haven't resolved it twice. In fact, none of the cards I've played will be cut -- I love them all!

So, a short list of cards I'm eyeing for inclusion: Necormancy, Court Hussar, Uktabi Orangutan, Viridian Zealot, Ethersworn Adjuticator (yurp, over the top), Chameleon Colossus. On the card draw / tutor front, Intuition and Fact or Fiction seem like they'd be solid; Beseech the Queen and Necrologia may be solid too.