Hello hello! Welcome once again to Arena Adventures, the series where I climb up the Arena ladder and take you along with me. In the last edition of this series, I climbed back up to Platinum 3 after building a brand new deck. This time around, I’ll try my hand at the “Standard Event,” a more competitive mini-tournament. Let’s get started!
Gonna Be Some Changes Made
Before we crack into the tournament, there’s a few changes I’m making to the deck. For those of you who are new here, I’m currently rocking with a mono-white Hare Apparent deck, with an emphasis on lifegain.
Cards Coming Out
Out: 2x Dewdrop Cure
This is a good card. It can reanimate most every creature in this deck, but I think it’s a little incongruous with the overall game plan. Apart from my opponent’s removal, I’m not often putting cards into my graveyard. If I’m going to have any reanimation spells in this decklist, I want them to be a little bit more efficient (more on that later).
Out: 2x Planar Disruption and 1x Sheltered by Ghosts
Planar Disruption is, unfortunately, not a great removal spell. It can’t deal with creatures like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and can just be removed by an opponent’s Disenchant to nullify the card entirely. I think I’d like more permanent removal, so this card is out. The same logic applies to Sheltered by Ghosts. It’s not permanent removal, and even though it gives one of my creatures lifelink and ward , it just puts a target on the back of that creature. This card is out too.
Out: 2x Plains
I just want to add some utility lands, to add some “oomph” to the deck’s late game plays.
Out: 2x Aven Interrupter
I really like this card, and I’m sad to see it go. Much like the aforementioned Planar Disruption and Sheltered by Ghosts, it doesn’t permanently get rid of my opponent’s threats. Even though it delays them from winning the game, it doesn’t put a hard stop on their plan. So, the Bird is no longer the word. It’s also out of this deck.
Out: 1x Lifecreed Duo
This card fits into our game plan well, and it’s a flying creature (which I’m always a fan of). But it’s out to make room for some other good stuff in the deck.
Cards Going In
In: 1x Raise the Past
This is the more efficient reanimation I spoke about earlier. For just one more mana than Dewdrop Cure, this card can put basically every single creature from my graveyard onto the battlefield. This card seems extremely powerful, and I’m happy to have a copy of it in the list.
In: 1x Exemplar of Light and 1x Essence Channeler
These cards both get bigger when we gain life. That’s great in this deck, as I’ve had several games where I reach a triple-digit life total. Having some payoffs for that lifegain is certainly welcome, and both of these cards fill that role well.
In: 2x Cat Collector
This is another payoff for the life gain this deck can generate, in the form of 1/1 creatures instead of +1/+1 counters. I’m less confident about this card’s power, so it may get taken out of the deck later.
In: 2x Hidden Courtyard
This utility land enters the battlefield tapped, but can sacrifice itself to grab a free spell from our deck later in the game. I view lands like this as a sort of “insurance policy,” should I run out of cards as the game goes on.
In: 1x Unwanted Remake and 1x Cut Short
These are the permanent removal spells I wanted. Unwanted Remake is extremely efficient at just one mana, even if it does have the drawback of providing my opponent with a 2/2 creature. Cut Short can be similarly efficient, with the convoke keyword making it able to be cast for a total of zero mana. Both of these spells should, in theory at least, help keep my opponent’s biggest, baddest creatures from staying on the board too long.
I also played a few games with Wojek Investigator before deciding to cut it. It’s certainly a cool card, but one that seems more powerful in multiplayer formats.
With all of those changes made, let’s jump into a Standard Event!
Tournament Time
I was up against a mono-white lifegain deck during the first match of the event. Unfortunately, they just drew more removal than I had copies of Hare Apparent, and they won after a long game.
I then played two matches against aggressive mono-red decks, winning both of them. The first game was over quite quickly; I gained enough life that my opponent just conceded the game. The second was much closer, though, and I had to battle my way back after having my life total reduced to just four.
Then, sadly, I dropped two games in a row and was disqualified from the event. The first match I lost here was against a blue, green, and black deck that sought to reanimate big scary things from their graveyard. They landed not one, not two, but three whole copies of Omniscience on the battlefield just a few turns into the game. I had no hope. The second loss, again, came against a stronger mono-white life gain deck.
My time in the Standard Event was over, so I climbed back up to Platinum 4 (the ranked ladder resets every month), and played against a lot of other Hare Apparent decks along the way. I also realized that the deck, in its current state, had some flaws in it that I wanted to correct.
I decided that I wanted to jump into the Standard Event again, but I made a few small changes to my deck before doing so:
Out: 1x Exemplar of Light and 2x Cat Collector
These are good cards, but not good enough for what I want to be doing. Exemplar of Light is similar to Essence Channeler with a little bit of card draw tacked on, but it costs too much mana. And Cat Collector‘s once-per-turn restriction makes it less powerful than I thought it would be.
In: 1x Parting Gust, 1x Fortune, Loyal Steed, 1x Soulstone Sanctuary
These additions are meant to give the deck a little more flexibility. Parting Gust can either act as another copy of Hare Apparent or a nice removal spell, Fortune, Loyal Steed can provide another Hare Apparent trigger each turn and give some card selection through its scry ability, and Soulstone Sanctuary is a land that can be a creature in a pinch.
Here’s the full decklist:
With those final tweaks, it’s game time!
Tournament Time Two: Electric Boogaloo
The first game I played was an easy win against what I’m pretty sure was the red-blue starter deck provided to every Arena player, without even a single change made to it. It wasn’t able to put up much of a fight.
Then, I lost two games in a row to nearly identical red-white burn lists. These decks sought to reduce my life total as quickly as possible with Lightning Helix and Burst Lightning, which I could normally handle with life gain, but each of these decks ran Screaming Nemesis. This creature provides me with a choice: either don’t block it and take three damage every single turn, or block it and be unable to gain life for the rest of the game. I was unable to take the heat, and lost badly in both games.
I sadly lost my last game too, to a black control deck with lots of removal spells and discard effects. My opponent landed an early pair of Deep-Cavern Bats, destroyed every creature I landed on the board, and won the game handily.
Odds // Ends
After a few iterations and some bad losses in Standard Events, I don’t think this deck will work as well as I want it to. But, I have a fun plan for next time: I’m going to take an unmodified starter deck and try to use that to break into the Diamond portion of the Arena ladder. See you all next time!
To follow the Arena Adventures journey from the beginning, start here.
