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HenWen (Exalted Darkness) defeats multeyemeteor (Celestial Light) 2-0

Pre-game

I have had terrible, terrible games against Celestial light using mindstorms.  If they manage to get a huge pridemate, I can't burn it easily and have to use a few spells to kill it, then they drop another fatty and I am out of burn.  I can try to race with one of my fatties but the lifegain negates racing and my fatties usually just get chastised.  With CL playing first, turn 1 soul warden, turn 2 pridemate is almost unbeatable absent mana leak.

So I looked towards my other deck, Exalted Darkness, which was mainly a counterpick against Grim Procession.  The nice thing about knowing what deck your opponent is playing is that you can plan ahead - so I threw all 3 doom blades in, instead of the inferior pacifism.

Game 1
I played first and drew 2 plains, 2 swamps, a aven squire and two unmakes with my first hand.  Its hard to complain about a little early pressure and excellent removal so I was happy to keep this hand.  Turn 2 I dropped my squire, and he dropped his pridemate.  I topdeck an assassin somewhere and drop him down.  The assassin deters the pridemate from attacking, but he casts a recumbent bliss on my squire.  I topdeck mortify and my squire is back in action.  The game proceeds slowly, eventually I get a cloak on my squire.  I plink away for two damage a turn for a long time, and he does not attack into my assassin.  I get no mercy as insurance for WSZ and wrath.  Once I get deathbringer liege and cloak him it is nearly over.  The game lasts a few more turns but it ends without his creatures attacking.  Basically multeye really needed swords, or wrath, and didn't draw either one.

Game 2
I have a much less optimal hand, a swamp, an evolving wilds, a duty-bound dead, a doom blade, an unmake, a battlegrace angel, and either a worship or more removal.  I goes first and drop the skeleton, multeye drops his warden.  Turn 2 I use my wilds and attack, he drops his pridemate.  Turn 3 I doom blade it.  He drops a serra ascendant in here somewhere and I top deck a worship, I decide to slow the game down so I do not attack with the skeleton.  He does not attack with the serra ascendant for some reason.  He gets another pridemate out, and although I have an unmake and a vindicate I decide to wait for worship to do its magic.  I block the pridemate with the skeletons and regen, this is the third or fourth turn where he could have attacked with ascendant but did not do so.  Eventually I cast battlegrace, and I do not use her to attack because I do not want her to get chastised.  Instead, I use the skeleton, which at 2/4 is not outracing the pridemate but is effective at slowing the game down and keeping him away from 30 life. 

I had been holding on to a sigil for a while and cast it at 6 mana, but it gets solemn offeringed.  Cue worship, this was the perfect time to cast it.  He swords my angel, leaving me with just a skeleton and worship on the board.  Fortunately this is all I need.  I just sit there and draw for a few turns.  Eventually I remove the big pridemate so I can chip away using the skeleton.  I tutor for a cloak, drop a deathbringer and have 2-3 removal in hand at this point plus 1-2 creatures in reserve, including a silent arbiter as insurance for white'sun's zenith.  This is all insurance for wrath.  The game proceeds very slowly, he has 15 land and I have 12-14.

multeye played well, but didn't draw the removal he needed, and I drew just the utility cards I needed to gain card advantage / shut down his offense while my exalted weenies whittled away at his life total. 

Dec 17, 2012 -- 10:32AM, Wizards_Sean wrote:

I've just updated the bracket again. Looks like I missed one or two victories last time I did so, so please double check my work. Thanks!

 

For the upper part of the bracket.

Drogo def. Somnbnch
dh50 def. knightmare
Drogo def. 4n0th1n9
Drogo def. dh50

Lower part:

multymeteor def. grunthex
henwen def. winterstorm
henwen def. multymeteor

Might be others I missed.

shoot me an email when you can sean, I'm ready to do this!

That really sucks Garet.  Shin is a very good player, I hate to see he has to withdraw.  I hope he can get up and running soon!

Not to spam you guys, but I updated my match report with videos. You get to see Henwen steamrolling my ass (not litteraly). Enjoy!