After a game of Magic, what do you typically do. Do you grab a bite to eat with your buddies? Would you rather call a friend to brag or tell them how poorly you did? Do you analyze what you could have done better or done differently? When I finish a match at a FNM I always go outside, have a smoke, and mill over what I had done and what I could have changed.

I guess you could call me a Nuts and Bolts player. I am always looking for ways to improve my deck. I will play a deck for two or three months and make numerous changes before I am completely satisfied with it. I could care less how I fare in the standings. If you beat me, I will find a way to make sure you don't the next week. Which brings up an extremely important lesson. How does one metagame at a FNM?

***DING***

School is in session kiddos so listen up and pay attention! I am going to give you a quick lesson on how to metagame your local FNM. But before we begin, who can tell me exactly what is metagaming? You? How about you....no one?! Preposterous! I thought you did your homework!!!

Homework is exactly what metagaming is in a nutshell. Metagaming is the ability to take in information from the last FNM you entered, and tune your deck around it. I'm talking play styles, deck types, what was the most common deck, what was the most uncommon deck, what decks were at the final table. When you learn to take in all the information you can from a FNM, you have the next weeks match at your mercy.

First let us take a small look at the core group of people. When you start to become a regular at a FNM event, you will start to see the same faces over and over. You learn their play style, what colors they love to run, and any tell tale signs of 'bs'. You also learn to know who is on a booster pack budget and those who have the means to buy any card they know will make their deck win. After a few weeks these things will start to stand out and you will slowly start to pick up on who does what, and how you can metagame against them.

The deck break down is the second priority on my metagame list. How many players played what kind of deck. Let's take my last article for example.

One thing that we have to consider before we use this particular breakdown was that Dissension was made tourney legal on May 20th so metagaming will be a bit more difficult this time around. Let's work with what we have though and I can elaborate a bit on using play style to metagame.

Notice that we had four Green/White decks which all made it to the final table. This tells me that people will most likely see that the winning deck was token producing, and had fast creatures. So naturally this tells me that there will be at least one deck using a similar strategy. Now since two of those decks took first and second, I can almost guarantee that they will be using the same decks. Right there is a possibility of three creature token decks.

There were two Black White decks. Mine, and my daughter's boyfriend. For three weeks we have been the only Black White and with the release of Dissension I don't think there will be anymore this week.

Combo decks are always a bit harder to metagame against than your typical stomp or control deck. You never know if someone will show up with one, and you never know what it is going to be until you play it. Since there were two combo decks, I can safely assume that one will come back because it did fairly well.

I have strong feelings that there will be no Red Blue decks at this upcoming FNM. They have slowly started to fade away and have, in my opinion, started to lose their luster. Granted the Izzetron deck recently made a strong representation at a large scale event, but a lot of people at the casual level do not have the cards available to them to put that deck together.

So far we have covered every deck type with the exception of one. I was saving the Red Green decks for last for a specific reason which I had mentioned above. Were we paying attention? Play style. Using someones play style as a metagame is an invaluable tool that you can use and even down right exploit. Let's take the seven Red Green decks that made an appearance for example. Red Green loves to throw out quick weenies and finish with either a monster fattie or some serious direct damage. People who play constant Red Green have a quick beat down play style. With the introduction of Dissension, chances are that they are going to run either Black Red, or Green Blue to continue running a beat down play style. The person who loves to run control decks is quite possibly going to switch to Blue White. The one guy that loves to burn things to death is most likely running Red Black.

What we just covered is just a small portion on how one can metagame at his/her local FNM tourney. What is the biggest lesson here? DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Class Dismissed!

***DING***

Now on to the deck changes that I have made for this week. I tried not to change too much from my deck because I am getting down to the point to where there will be nothing left to change if I continue at this rate. My last deck had the following:

Here is my new deck with the slight changes.

I didn't change too much from the last time I used this deck. I did make the deck a bit more controlling by utilizing the Ghost Council, another Wrath of God, Nekrataal, and Castigate. I changed out the sideboard completely to accommodate my needing more sacrifice creatures. Now that we have gone through the changes, onto the nightly matches!

Match 1, Game 1
I couldn't have asked for an easier first round. With matches announced, I get the bye! And since a bye nets you as many points as a 2-0 win, I couldn't be happier!
I take this cake walk match 2-0...

Match 2, Game 1
The same kid that I had met at the final table who beat me down with his lion and one Watch Wolf by turn three. He was running a Red Black deck that ran around fast creatures and utilizing the ability of Lyzolda, the Blood Witch(score one for the metagame!). The match started out quickly with me getting two Savannah Lions on the board which were quickly followed by his two Kill-Suit Cultist. By turn four I have the Ghost Council of Orzhova in place making it quite difficult for him to hit me for any combat damage. Noticing that he is slowly building an army of creatures, I sacrifice a lion to the Ghost Council and drop a Wrath of God. He quickly answers and pops two Seal of Fire and kills my Ghost Council after I end my turn. With the board clear he starts to hit me with spell damage. Shock followed by a nasty Demonfire ends the game in his favor.
0-1

Match 2, Game 2
This game started much the same as last but I quickly used Mortify and Pillory of the Sleepless to slow him down. I Castigate his Avatar of Discord because I can't really afford for him to have a five damage flyer out. I didn't really have to worry about doing too much damage this game because he was getting owned by his two Dark Confidant. He was cursing them the moment he pulled a five mana card. With my manabase increasing I knew that if I pulled any number of high mana cards I would have no problem dropping them...and I did. Dropping Kokusho, the Evening Star in answer to his second Avatar of Discord made him think twice before swinging. He discarded his last two cards which gave his cards the Hellbent ability and he went for the kill. Blocking the Avatar with Kokusho I gained five life and he lost five which put me ahead in the life category. I topdecked my next Kokusho, dropped him, then mortified him to give me the win and tying the match one game a piece.
1-1

Match 2, Game 3
This game was much like the last with both of us going back and forth. He finally got smart and killed his own Dark Confidant after he started getting low in life total. I had dropped him down to two by swinging with Kokusho then using Mortify to drop him into the graveyard. With me being at six life I am not too comfortable that I have this match in hand. He pulls the mother of all topdecks to win the match when he pops his Seal of Fire to hit me for two, Shock for two, then sacrificed his Lyzolda the Blood Witch to herself to deal the final two damage to me ending the match. There is not much that I could have done to stop this. I was pleased with the way he won the match and I was extremely happy with the way my deck played.
1-2

Match 3, Game 1
This particular kid ran a fairly successful Green White token deck (whoop there's another metagame point). In the first game he started his token production and throwing out tough beaters like Watchwolf. After being dropped for nine in one turn I decided that it was time to drop the Wrath of God to clear the board. After bringing the Wrath, I drop out Ghost Council, followed shortly there after by two Savannah Lions. The match didn't last too much longer because he got nothing but mana for the next 4 turns.
1-0

Match 3, Game 2
This game went in my favor so well that I actually felt bad. After using Pillory and Mortify on his Watchwolf and Selesnya Evangel I had an open board dropping a Kokusho. The clencher was the simple swing for five with Kokusho, then Mortify to drop him into the graveyard netting five more damage. Game, set, match.
2-0

Match 4, Game 1
This was the most challenging match of the night. I am paired with THE player at this local FNM. This guy for two months straight went to the final tables and didn't go home with anything less than first place. He has been to a few regional tournaments with top 8 finishes and is on a sponsored team. I jump at the chance to play him because one, I can learn so much from playing him and two I love to make him think! He's a fast paced player and when I slow the match down to my speed, he gets flustered. I love it.

He is playing a Heartbeat deck(WHAT!? a combo deck? Way to go metagame!) . By turn three I had the game in hand when I used Castigate twice in a row and happened to get rid of two Early Harvest (thank you Lessons Learned from Friday Night Life vol.1). After two more turns he gives me the game when his life total drops below 10.
1-0

Match 4, Game 2
After he sideboards, he owns me. Hands down using cards like Kodama's Reach and Sakura Tribe Elder to pump up a Vinelasher Kudzu is just wrong. I get beat like a red headed step child and pick up my cards by turn six.
1-1

Match 4, Game 3
This game is where the most fun happened. I had slowed him down to my pace by using Mortify, Pillory of the Sleepless, and Nekrataal to get rid of those blasted Kudzu's. I am one mana away from dropping an Angel of Despair on his head and he does something completely unexpected. During his turn he drops a Bottle Cloister removing his hand from the game. He laughs and says, "Castigate my cards now!" My first thought was that if I get one more mana, I'm going to drop you on your head by throwing out the Angel, and getting rid of your Bottle Cloister to remove your entire hand from the game. Knowing exactly what the play is I need a single mana of either color to win. I place my hand on top of my library, take a deep breath, close my eyes and draw a card.....Castigate. I pass turn and he brings his hand from outside of the game. He was holding an Early Harvest and an Invoke the Firemind and that's all she wrote.
1-2

With an overall record of 2-2 and a game record of 6-4 I didn't make it to the finals. I was however way more pleased with my deck than I think I ever could have been. My deck did what I wanted it to do. Against extremely difficult matches, it came down to the draw. There was no strategy involved, no unfair advantage was had, it all came down to who was able to topdeck what and I am completely satisfied with that. With the way that this deck played I am pleased to say that I am calling it finalized.

The metagame for this week was near perfect with one oversight on my part. I ran into every deck that I thought I was going to run into plus one extra. The deck breakdown was like this. Top Four : Gruul Beats (Red Green), Heartbeat Combo, Rakdos Aggro (Red Black) and the unexpected player, Ghost Husk. I should have known that this would have shown its ugly head since it did so well at regionals. The remaining decks were two Black White, one Green White, one Black Red, and one Green Red. That's right, no Red Blue...score another for the Metagame.

Through the four matches and remembering what I had learned from prior weeks, I feel as if I didn't make any noticable play mistakes. Each match went exactly the way I had hoped with my only losses going to the luck of the draw. This could also be in part by my playing this particular deck over a three month period and making necessary changes. I think the biggest lesson learned from this week is that metagaming a FNM is easy to do once you know how. Watching what other people play, how people play it, and what decks win are the biggest factors in metagaming your FNM.

In the next edition of Friday Night Life we are going to explore a new deck and its potential over a series of weeks. I have already put together a rendition of Ghost Husk that took me to a fourth place finish about a week ago. Keep in mind that I don't buy the specific cards for a deck that I'm making. I make due with what I have. With only a few slots to fill in this deck, I'm very curious to see how it will work when I start making changes to it.

Always remember that at your local FNM your number one goal is to have fun, meet people, and learn!
-FNG

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