"The League"

     Since I have moved to Chicago, I luckily found an awesome place to play Magic: The Gathering. Everyone is nice and surprisingly I haven't meet anyone who I don't like. I'm hoping that won't change anytime soon, but who knows. One of the event's they are putting on during October is "The League". The rules are pretty simple and it seems like it's going to be a load of fun. Basically, to start off, you start with 6 packs of Innistrad, build a 40 card deck with it and then play a 3 round tournament. Then, every Saturday throughout October, you buy one more pack of Innistrad and you can update your 40 card deck with that pack, but keeping the deck at 40. So, over the course of the month, your deck will get better and better (that is the plan anyway).
     You can also completely change your deck, but you are only allowed to use the cards from what you have opened. You can't add cards in from your collection, you have to keep the cards that you have opened separate from your personal collection. The only hard thing will be keeping everything separate from everything else, but it shouldn't be hard.

So far, my deck looks like this....

1x Thraban Sentry
1x Village Bell-Ringer
1x Mausoleum Gaurd
1x Chapel Geist
1x Geist-Honored Monk
1x Cloisered Youth
1x Abbey Griffin
1x Sefless Cather
1x Elder Cather
2x Pitchburn Devils
1x Crossway Vampire
1x Ashmouth Hound
1x Charmbreaker Devils
1x Village Ironsmith
1x Reckless Waif
1x Manor Gargoyle
Creatures=17

1x Midnight Haunting
1x Smite the Monsterous
1x Feeling of Dread
1x Harvest Pyre
2x Brimstone Volley
Instants=6

Mountains=8
Plains=9
Lands=17
Total=40



It seemed my red was a super solid color and it was the color that won me my games last Saturday. I ended up going 2-1 and I'm really hoping my next packs have more burn or removal. It seems that in this set, if you get good removal, your deck will do rather well. This set's best removal I think is Rebuke which destroys an attacking creature and Brimstone Volley, which deals 3 damage to creature or player. Brimstone Volley also had morbid (if a creature died this turn), in which that case, it will be dealing 5 damage. There is also Smite the Monsterous, although it is situational, in a sealed tournament, big bombs can win games, getting rid of those bombs will save you a loss.

Although the Pitchburn Devils are a five drop, they are usually a two-for-one in most cases, which always is a good thing. Getting two is pretty good and they usually helped out a lot once I got them out. Reckless Waif is also very good to get out turn one, usually if you have the play, she's transforming and you're swinging for 3 on turn two. One of the best cards I think is Manor Gargoyle. It's indestructible on the ground and you can make it a flyer whenever you want, just a very solid card all the way around.

So far the only problem I ran into was blue/black control. Some guy's pool was super stocked and he kept sending things back to my hand. Besides that, I seemed to be able to handle everything fairly well.

Next week I will update what I got in my first pack and if I am still playing the same deck. So long and see you next Monday!

Grant Casleton