longer.blue

Daily thoughts #12 Still in waiting for Lorwyn purgatory. My quest for today was to figure out the Lessons vs Landfall matchup. I will briefly talk about that, and then my general thoughts on Standard as format. I was surprised to see Landfall being a comfortable favorite against Lessons in Frank's winrate matrix from Spotlights. Wanted to figure out if that's right or wrong. Atlanta top 8 competitor @eswaff72 was kind enough to play me. We went 6-6 in games, 3-2 in matches for Lessons. I had some extra helps from Steam Vents. The matchup felt extremely close, and quite complicated. Overall, I'd rather play the Landfall side, but individual choices can swing the matchup. If I were to submit a Lessons decklist for a tournament tomorrow, I'd play 2 Wan Shi Tongs in sideboard. 🦉 Sideboarding has evolved as the matches progressed. Eli was boarding out Cub, which sounds strange but might be correct. My response was to trim more Shocks. My impression of Annul went up as the game progressed. I have recorded all the games, and will post them to Youtube later today. Lorwyn is only couple days away. Right now the format is kind of a rock-paper-scissors between UG Cub-Landfall-Lessons with Lessons having the highest expected winrate in this triangle (my opinion only, and I assume opinions will differ). I expect Bant Airbending and Reanimator to get heavy improvements from Lorwyn. Landfall is likely to get worse as it's not getting any shiny toys from Lorwyn. Lessons improve with Steam Vents and Spell Snare, but I heard the Reanimator matchup is bad. Cub stays the same although Black version improves with Overgrown Tomb (prolly still not enough to edge the Blue). Once Lorwyn comes out, my aim is to play with Bant + Reanimator against the all the tier 1 decks to see how they fare. Izzet Looting is something I also want to double check. Taking day off tomorrow to cube with the boys.