By Mark Pinder

One of my favourite pastimes when creating a deck is seeing what “Pimped” cards I can fit into a deck, “Pimped” usually means a different version of a card e.g. Textless or foreign, on some occasions I might even go for “Bling” which are “Foil” cards. If I am really feeling the love of a magic card it may well be “Pimped Bling” which is commonly a foil foreign card. This is my continuing quest to find a competitve all "Pimped out" deck.

With rotation the deck lost plenty of its strengths e.g. Runed Halo, Plumeveil, Kitchen Finks and Stillmoon Cavalier but the good news was in would come Day of Judgment for a start J closely followed by Luminarch Ascension which was the first card I bought I play set of from the new set.

The new deck has settled as follows :-

19        Plains

2          Gargoyle Castle

3          Emeria, the Sky Castle

4          Baneslayer Angel

3          Captain of the Watch

4          Knight of the White Orchid

4          Wall of Reverence

1          Elspeth, Knight Errant

4          Day of Judgment

4          Path to Exile

1          Planar Cleansing

3          Harms Way

3          Luminarch Ascension

2          Oblivion Ring

3          Conquerer’s Pledge

Qty      Sideboard

3          Honor of the Pure

3          Celestial Purge

3          Ethersworn Cannonist

1          Iona, Shield of Emeria

1          Felidar Sovereign

4          Elite Vanguard

The sideboard has the option to go aggro should their be little time for Game 3, a concept I’m now looking to abandon after greater testing in the new format.

Josh is out for revenge tonight after our last battle was in Manchester a few weeks ago in the GPT, Josh is keen to avoid the nightmare of that day of multiple mulligans.

Game One is a slow start for Josh but for me it is a turn two Luminarch Ascension. So at this point it is protect my life points at all costs to trigger the enchantment at all costs. As quickly as Josh knows drops a creature I am either removing it, chump blocking it or using Harms Way to shift the damage back at his creatures. Four turns later we have the counters on the ascension and six mana, Josh scoops once the three Angel’s hit play.

Game Two and Josh has hit guys out of the traps and I’m in trouble as I cannot stop the damage to power up the Luminarch Ascension. At six life comes the second Day of Judgement to the second Conqueror’s Pledge on my opponents side. Then it is my turn to bring out the soldiers followed up by a Captain of the Watch. The scoop is quick in coming.

Tom is the local pro, he was 62^nd in Grand Prix Barcelona and almost made day two in Rotterdam earlier in the year. He is a fierce competitor and the player you usually have to beat if you want to win the event.

Game One is a close affair with Tom’s guys coming for me but I have Walls of Reverence to stem the blood loss, the win comes from finally holding Tom off for four turns so Luminarch Ascension gets its fourth counter. At this point Tom doesn’t have an answer and scoops as I put the five 4/4 flyers into play.

Game Two, Toms deck is moving at pace like it is supposed to and in double quick time I’ve lost with Baneslayer’s unable to stay on the field and Thornlings battering me.

Game Three and I am immediately on the back foot with time expiring Tom is coming out fast and plays his Ajani Vengeant turn four, immediately it goes to burn off my Knight of the White Orchid which is on defensive duties, luckily I have the harms way and redirect the damage back to Ajani. That’s a bullet dodged and I hang on for the draw.

Little Andy is not so little anymore, he is now a college student and he’s getting pretty good at the game winning a couple of recent FNM’s with his Bloodbraid Elf into Woolly Thoctor tricks.

Game One is really going well for me as I hit 30 life and seem to be controlling the board and then the wheels come off as Bloodbraid Elve’s start doing their naughty stuff powered by Knights of New Alara. In a couple of turns suddenly I’m dead and wondering where it all went wrong. Bloodbraid Elf into Oblivion Ring twice to knock out both Luminarch Ascensions was not fun to be on the receiving end of when they were both on 3 counters ! Things had been going so well with Elspeth pumping up my Knight of the White Orchid and Andy being a turn away from his ghastly demise.

Game Two and this time I am very wary of what Andy’s new build can do with the recently acquired Knights of New Alara (note to self – occasionally visit the general Tuesday gaming night as you may spot the metagame shift),  and in four turns I am down to six life but Day of Judgment to the rescue. I play a Wall of Reverence and then two more  to hide behind going back to 21 life as my Luminarch Ascension begins it’s quest for four counters which it does quite quickly.

Game Three and this was known as the “If Only” game, If only I had put Felidar Sovereign in main deck. All that could be heard was gasps as my turn four play was Wall of Reverence and my turn five play was Baneslayer Angel. I finished the game on 81 life gaining 15 a turn when the second Wall of Reverence was played. Andy though never drew an answer to the Baneslayer Angel.

Round Four    Ken Smith 

Well this is all to play for, Tom has Michael Wentworth Shields on table one. Michael is on 9 points, Tom and myself 7 points. Michael has yet to win an event but personal pride has me hoping Tom wins as I may be able to scrape the Tournament on tie breakers. I’m playing Ken who had been unbeaten until he lost to Michael in the last round. Ken is an improving player with an ever improving card collection on resources. I know Ken’s deck all too well and its given me no end of problems in the past

Game One seems to take an age as whilst Ken gets some early threats I’m holding the board well, I stabilise at 1 life and Oblivion Ring Sarkan Vol before he wrecks my day. My board position then begins to creep up, Conquerer’s pledge twice and I allow Ken to come in pretty much unblocked. Then I drop the Captain of the Watch and swing with the team, Ken has his blockers set and has worked out it is 14 damage coming through which will put him on two, before he can record the totals I am “Hold that, I am not prepared to resolve damage yet.”. I cast Harms Way redirecting two of one of his creatures damage back to himself and I’ve won game one. It’s been an epic battle though.

Game Two

Ken gets off to the fast start and my life drops to 11, then I drop the Baneslayer Angel, next turn she swings and I’m back to 16, Ken is twitching as he doesn’t know how to deal with one Baneslayer Angel so how will he react when I drop the second one ? Yes, two Baneslayer Angel’s in play and the game is wrapped up very quickly.

Tom has beaten Michael so it’s all down to tie breakers now.

 Final Standings

It’s a win on tie breakers and I’m happy, the deck though could still use some tweaking and maybe a trip onto Ebay, or maybe I’ll just buy some cards from the traders when in Paris.

This is the build I would take into battle if I was to play FNM today. The deck has a lot of game and has beaten Jund before but would it fare well on a bigger stage, only time will tell.

19        Plains

2          Gargoyle Castle

3          Emeria, the Sky Castle

4          Baneslayer Angel

3          Captain of the Watch

4          Knight of the White Orchid

4          Wall of Reverence

1          Iona, Shield of Emeria

1          Felidar Soveriegn

1          Elspeth, Knight Errant

4          Day of Judgment

4          Path to Exile

4          Harms Way

4          Luminarch Ascension

2          Oblivion Ring

Qty      Sideboard

3          Kor Sanctifiers

3          Celestial Purge

3          Ethersworn Cannonist

3          Conquerers Pledge

3          Brave the Elements

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