Magic the Gathering

Constructed

Trial and Error — Treefolk

By Sam Feeley ⋅ April 7, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Since its open­ing, the local game store in Gainesville, Florida has seen its share of sub­stan­tial FNMs. We have had as many as 34 play­ers show up for the best night of the week. Twenty-one brave souls, includ­ing myself, were fight­ing for the shiny Ten­drils of Agony this week. I brought an off­beat but still pow­er­ful (at least in test­ing) Treefolk list.

Round 1 vs. Paul Gra­bel (Rock)

This was a mir­ror match in terms of col­ors, but com­pletely dif­fer­ent when it comes to theme. Paul goes for a more well-rounded approach, rely­ing more on dis­card and removal than smash­ing face.

I start out by going to 17 and I Thought­seize Paul and hit Birds of Par­adise over Doran, the Siege Tower, Name­less Inver­sion, and Stu­por. I seem to have the game in hand with Doran, two Har­bin­gers, and a Birds, but good ol’ Damna­tion spoiled the fun. An Aven Rift­watcher and Doran later for Paul and I entered the “scoop” phase.

While side­board­ing I take out Pro­fane Com­mand and Shriek­maw for Mind Shat­ter and Root­grap­ple. I start game two with Har­bin­ger for Har­bin­ger for Doran and crack for six. Paul goes down to 12 to take out my Doran with his own Doran. I Thought­seize him and see Doran, Pro­fane Com­mand, Name­less Inver­sion, Stu­por, and Obliv­ion Ring. I take out Big D. We went back and forth with Tree­top Vil­lage and Doran hits, but I knew this one was over when he played Treefolk Har­bin­ger and got Crib Swap. With me at 5 life and no way to pre­vent lethal, I scooped.

Result: 0–2 loss, 0–1 overall

Round 2 vs. Andrew Day (Goblins)

Andrew is one of the more tena­cious play­ers at FNM, never suc­cumb­ing to what­ever might be the “top-tier” deck. Rather, he has played his build of Gob­lins for the past cou­ple of months now, and it has brought him mod­er­ate success.

I keep my open­ing hand and play Treefolk Har­bin­ger, fetch­ing another Har­bin­ger. He leads with Mogg Fanatic. Har­bin­ger #2 comes down and I get Doran, the Siege Tower. He unloads Mogg Fanatic and Sud­den Death on Doran, only to see another Big D come into play the next turn. He kills that one as well, but there’s noth­ing he can do about a Tree­top Vil­lage or two get­ting in there or six for three every turn.

I decided to try out With­ered Wretch and Root­grap­ple in place of Shriek­maw for game two. It worked out as Name­less Inver­sion and Thorn­tooth Witch cleared his board, then I acti­vated Wretch to remove Squee; Gob­lin Nabob from his yard. Andrew got me down to four with Prickly Bog­garts and my own mana base, but I didn’t take any more pain from mana to keep myself out of Tarfire range. I turn Chameleon Colos­sus and the Witch side­ways and get my first win of the night.

Result: 2–0 win, 1–1 overall

Round 3 vs. Knute Nathe (Project R)

Knute was the runner-up at 2006 Florida State Cham­pi­onships, and has the abil­ity to play any of the three major arche­types equally well. To this match he brings the Reveil­lark combo, which can see as many as four slots in the field any given week here in Gainesville.

I won the die roll and elected to play first. I kept my open­ing hand, and led with Treefolk Har­bin­ger, fetch­ing Doran. Fol­low­ing two more land drops I bring the Siege Tower. Once again I seem to have the game in hand, but Knute Con­demned my attack­ing Tim­ber Pro­tec­tor, bring me back up to 22. Unfor­tu­nately for Knute, he ran out of Momen­tary Blinks to gain life with Rift­wawtcher, and was only get­ting lands. After con­ced­ing game one he dis­cov­ered that all four ‘Larks were in the bot­tom ten cards of his deck.

My side­board is not specif­i­cally designed to take out just Project R, but the way my deck ended up look­ing this week, I had the dis­tinc­tion of sid­ing out thir­teen cards for game two. Spot removal comes out, Mind Shat­ter, Tormod’s Crypt, With­ered Wretch, two Root­grap­ple, and two Cloudthresher come in. Game two is not nearly as inter­est­ing as he attacks with Mulldrifter and Reveil­lark while I have to set­tle for only three or four dam­age a turn. He gets to Con­demn my Tim­ber Pro­tec­tor once more, and the fly­ers get there to tie the match.

Game three wasn’t even close. Thanks to a lack of dis­card, Knute goes off turn six, and he gets the lat­est in a series of qual­ity matches between the two of us.

Result: 1–2 loss, 1–2 overall

The After­math

After a tough loss and a seri­ous lack of energy, I packed it in for the night with a dis­ap­point­ing 1–2 record. For­tu­nately, I was awake enough to rec­og­nize what I must change for next week:

Bosk Ban­neret helps this deck’s curve in ways you wouldn’t believe. I also need some more pain-free white sources (thus a sec­ond Watch­tower), and Root­grap­ple doesn’t do much good in the Gainesville meta.

This is not to say I’m not going to play this deck again, but I must return to the lab to get it to work properly.

–Sammy Time

Sam Fee­ley is a Timmy-Spike and PTQ semi-regular orig­i­nally from Con­cord, Mass­a­chu­setts. He enjoys Magic, sports, cook­ing, and writ­ing. He maintains two blogs, Samurai Entertainment on news, games, and nonsense; and Samurai Sports, about interior decorating. And by interior decorating he means sports.

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