I took a revamped bomberman list to deal me in games on Saturday and had a great time. I ended only 3-2 with a pair of hard luck losses in round 1 and 2. But I thought the deck performed very well and is very well positioned overall in the meta (rounds 1 and 2 were more that my opponents decks performed too and a single decision in game 2 of round 2 cost me that win).
I'm loving the deck the more I play it. In the past 1 1/2 years I've taken it to many tournaments with a handful of top 8's. My lists have been U/w/r u/w/b, u/w/b/r and most recently as of Friday I'm U/W and liking how that plays out. Here is the list I played:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Mana Vault
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Monastery Mentor
1 snapcaster mage
1 Auriok Salvagers
2 Trinket Mage
1 Walking Ballista
4 Paradoxical Outcome
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm
4 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Balance
3 Thoughtcast
1 Time Walk
Round 1 vs Joel Lim on shops
I dont get off to the most auspicious of starts mulliganing a 1 mana hand to 6, then a 0 mana hand to 5 and keeping a sketchy 5 on the play. Joel leads with a turn 1 sphere. Ok, 5 cards, 3 mana sources including fetches to guard against waste. Turn 2 lodestone golem. I scooped.
Game 2 I'm on the play. I keep a sketchy hand with Island, mana crypt, trinket mage, jace, force, outcome and senei's divining top I lead with island, crypt trinket mage and get mox sapphire and play top. He doesn't have much going on his turn 1. Turn 2 I draw a land. Play paradoxical on mox, crypt, top and trinket mage in response to drawing from the top. My first 2 draws are black lotus, monastery mentor. The rest doesn't matter but I get an emerald in there too. I play lotus, sac for W, play mentor. Drop emerald, sapphire, crypt, top. Play trinket mage, get another mox and hold it. Joel looks at my turn 2 board state and scoops. On to game 3.
Game 3 I mulligan to 6. Land, mox ruby, mox pearl, outcome and some other stuff but no FoW. He leads with workshop into inspector. Plays lotus for U and phyrexian metamorph's the inspector then drops chalice at 0. Ugh. I play land go for 3 turns. On my 3rd turn I'm facing down lethal on his untap. I drop my 3rd land, fragmentize his chalice, play mox, mox time walk. Time walk turn I get a I think a crypt on board, outcome to dig for any answer (energy flux???) and draw mana vault, land, land, sol ring. He was hellbent so any answer at all gives me another turn and a large card advantage.
Round 2 vs josh barkon on u/b outcome tendrils.
Game 1 I have an opening hand with 2 lands including library, artifact mana and balance, FoW and a thought cast. I have a tough choice as I can go for the card advantage from library or go to wreck him with balance. I play library, he presents something on his turn 1 I FoW so I'm off library. Play my other land, play balance down to 1 and wreck us both. I draw into a thoughtcast which helps me recover. Narset comes out and the card advantage starts to roll in. I resolve an outcome for 4 late game. roll this into another one. Roll that into a 3rd one. I have ballista and lotus in hand, 9 cards left in my library and 1 of them is salvagers. I show josh the other outcome and all the countermagic and he scoops. On to game 2
Game 2 is sooo frustrating and so fun at the same time. He leads with a voltaic key on his turn. My turn 1 I play black lotus, mox pearl, tolarian academy. Tap academy for UU, tap pearl and lotus for WWWW. I now have a decision. Pay WWUU and keep WW up to recur lotus, play the dig through time in my hand and potentially just win. Or pay WWWW and keep UU up for the mana drain my hand. If he has a force and stops my salvagers on turn 1 I've got a long hole to dig out of. I go for the safe play. He doesn't have a force. UU goes bye bye. He untaps, does something to get a lotus, I think an outcome, plays lotus, demonic for time vault and plays it with 2 mana still around to activate combo.
I show him my hand and the dig, look at the top 7 and it includes a trinket mage. NOOOOO. First turn kill missed!
Game 3 I get another early aggressive start with some artifact mana. His turn 2 he tinkers. I FoW and he forces back so tinker resolves. He gets BSC. I untap, praradoxical for 3 just trying to dig and draw 3 mana sources. 2 more down was my hurkyls. 3 very good games against Josh
round 3 vs Dan Sollazzo on g/w creature based deck though I have no idea what he is on
I open with a round 2 lotus into salvagers and get a 'Huh, wasn't expecting that.' Get the trinket mage 2 turns later and that's game. Game 2 I get an early salvagers and am thankful for his big butt. That 4 toughness worked wonders. The game progresses and slowly beat him down with salvagers and a walking ballista that I keep casting at 1. I'm at lethal next turn and he plays hunt master of the fells. I attack into it and he double blocks my salvagers. I add a counter to ballista and ping his huntmaster and salvagers kills his wolf. End of his turn I recur ballista and replay it on my turn with 2 counters leaving xW up. He gets another huntmaster and we repeat. He bolts the ballista, ancient grudges it. Throws so many resources at it, but salvagers means he's just throwing away cards and I eventually wear him down.
Round 4 vs Jason Beaupre on W/R/u creature control
These games go fast. I get a first turn library on the draw both games along with an early mentor and just enough counter magic to keep him off anything threatening. In my 2 opening hands against him totaling 14 cards I think I had 9 total restricted cards, maybe 10? Makes for a rough set.
Round 5 vs Josh Lalo on U/w/b planeswalkers
I've played Josh twice before and he's 2-0'd me both times, once on a win and in for top 8 and once in a top 8 match. We have a good chat before the match figuring the winner has an outside shot at top 8 (as it turns out, it didn't matter because of a tie the previous round instead of loss gave more people than we realized a shot at 10 points locking us out.
We sit down and play both on u based control decks.
Game 1 is draw/go for like 5 turns and I'm sitting with a narset, mana drain, FoW and flusterstorm and growing base of lands, but no artifacts for a PO. We have a mini counter war over something he wanted to do which I win. On my turn I play narset. Activate and get a thoughtcast and pass. He draws and passes. He's on 2 cards and doesn't seem to have gotten any action since we dumped our hands 2 turns ago. So I -2 narset to rebound my thoughcast. Play it, draw 2 and pass t he turn. Next 2 I get 2 more free cards. From there its just + to narset and card advantage from a PO and the win.
We start game 2. My opening hand is not explosive but has a lot of control in it so I keep it knowing he's on a similar deck. He plays library and passes. I play land mox, pass. He draws, draws with library.....and moves to end step to discard.
This happens for 5 turns or so and I figure he's got a ton of counter magic in there. I do get a top misstepped. He finally drops a mox which then runs into the 1 sideboard card I brought in - fragmentize (he plays white with few artifacts so I had him on stony silence in the side). It doesn't get countered. So I go for a narset which resolves. Next turn I go for a teferi which resolves. He finally plays a volanic and I draw my lone strip mine. Ugh, I felt bad, but that doesn't stop me. 4 turns after playing narset she' at 9 counters. I ultimate her meaning he cannot play any spells but creature spells. Which means he could play his lone mentor but can't defend it. Josh extends his hand and scoops.
Overall I'm very happy with the deck. The only change I may make at the moment is removing grim monolith which opens up a slot for basically anything I want. Could consider a probe, a second snap caster or a baby jace there.
