Turning on a Dime

I played 2 games today against tournament decks. I was using tournament deck as well... League Elder, Taisa and Wawek. I guess I should be there to provide an avenue for people to test out their tourney decks eventhough I'm not in the tourney. I'm not going to mention names in this report, so as not to give away the strategies.

First game I played, I went second. My opponent flipped Harresh and then proceeded to steal an Uwamar with Bottled city. The Uwamar was played out together with a Xala and I was faced with an ugly buildup on a first turn. I flipped LE, declared Weave, drew the Uwamar and drew to 5. Got 2 weave paths, a channeler's gloves and a bungaloo. Ack, only 2 creatures. Not the best draws, I thought to myself... and then inspiration struck. Played Channeler's to discard the 2 creatures. Played Weave Path to get back first the Uwamar, then the Bungaloo. Uwamar on 5, Bungaloo on 2. Attacked the stolen Uwamar with the Bungaloo weaving to discard both creatures, and by using Flee added another 2e to the Uwamar... and I ended the turn with 13e on LE, and a 6e Uwamar sitting around. Drew 5 cards - yes 5 cards. Over the next few turns, I gradually chipped away the advantage with my creatures, until about turn 8 when I played Weave seed and caused massive damage and took out Harresh with the now attacking Uwamar, thanks to Rayje's Belt. Played out my entire hand again, drew 5 and had a group of creatures, mostly at 1e and 2e, out. He flipped Bulomp and proceeded to play out Pyder and then another 8 creatures. The zunggs took out a creature, and I was left with 5 creatures. He discarded his arboll to add one energy to all his creatures, and ended the turn. So, I had 5 creatures vs 8, including a giant 10e Pyder. A weave seed and a lot of energy manipulation during the attack left only 1 creature on his board. They Pyder was the first creature to go, after the attack by the 14e Uwamar. I then proceeded to play out another 4 creatures, at which point he conceeded. It's a sad day when Weave can out swarm Bograth.

The second game was against someone who claimed to have an unbeatable deck, and a deck that would not go beyond turn 9. Well, I used the same deck since I was lazy to switch, but was hoping for a quick game anyways - Weave is weak against lots of unbeatable decks. Unbeatable, though, his deck was not. Dark Twins was followed by a Chaos Furok and Agram's armor and he stole a creature. What's this with creature stealing? Aren't I glad that all my creatures are 3e and below, and unless they have another Weave creature, mostly useless. I booted in an Uwamar on my turn, belted it, weave seed it and took out the stolen creature, but it took me quite some time to find the equilibrium. Not drawing a channeler's gloves means that my hand was getting clogged up, and his entombs didn't help in that regard as well. There were a few turns where I had to rely on the defensive abilities of the weave creatures I had in play - Baby Furok and Speag being chief among them, although with a few well placed Essense of Narooms he stole quite a few of my Uwamars (ha ha ha - they can't attack) and Baby Furoks. I finally managed to take out Dark Twins by turn 10, which left LE virtually defenseless. Warrada, Simulacrum was flipped and that was the end of LE... after two of his turns. I did manage to take out the Weebo before I was defeated and sawgrass the Forest Hyren that he had. Serves him right for attacking. I drew a Tweave which would have saved me (I had Uwamar beads out, he had a 3e Wudge and a 3e Baby Furok that he stole), but he vaporised the beads and killed LE. That left him 1e on Warrada and a 3e Wudge. LE left me a hand of 3 creatures and a useless weave seed, and I flipped Taisa and proceeded to draw her 4 starting cards (Weave Seed starts for all Weave magi) and he conceded at this point. I didn't even get to use Wawek and his energize of 4!

What I like about my Weave deck is that it can be both defensive and offensive. With the right cards in play, the Weave swarm can do massive damage. Without the right cards, it can bide its time preventing energy with the Weave Hut (the second player played a Crushing on my 4e Speag at one point, which was saved by the Weave Hut) and gaining energy when the opponent attacks when Speag is in play. And when the right cards are in play - Weave Seed, Rayje's Belt, Weave Path, Warrior's Boots - it can turn on a dime and deal a huge load of damage that can even have the Dark Twins shaking in their boots. Just today it has outswarmed Bograth and gained more free energy than a Shadow Naroom deck. It's still weak against quite a number of decks - cheif among them decks with swarm control - Arderial and Cataclysm, Cald and Wilfire, Orothe and Boil.

This deck won't have been made possible without Dartax's swarming article, although it threw out all the conventions of his aggrensive weave article. It's just a fun little deck that will probably lose 9 times out of 10... unless playing uninspired decks as mal puts it.

While I'm on Weave, mal told me that they found a good combo with Cawh and Scyalla. Well, roadblock city ahead. Scyalla had an errata that prevents that Cawh combo. Sorry. I won't reveal what the combo is, but it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board guys. Still, a Weave Cawh deck running Karse, Scyalla and Kesia probably would be deadly. I should be glad that isn't tournament legal... but who knows what mal's twisted mind will come up with for his Cawh decks. I can't wait to see a Cald Cawh deck though... that would be cool.