Monday 27 July 2009

Punt of the Week #3

By Ben Scoones

Hey everyone, this is Ben Scoones from Cambridge. Some of you probably know me already or we've met briefly at a PTQ. I've been told by Wagz that you like to read about punts, so here's one that happened the other day.

It's a Shadowmoor sealed event, as I'm pretty bored of ACR draft and prep for nats so feel like playing an actual fun format. It's round 2, game 1 and the (relevant) board state is the following:

Me: Wickerbough Elder (with counter still on), 1 untapped Forest, Duergar Assailant.

My opponent: An attacking Duergar Mine Captain (untapped after his ability was activated) equipped with Scourge of the Nobilis (so it's a 5/3). He also has Bloodmark Mentor and 3 white mana untapped.

I assume that he has some form of trick, most likely a Fire at Will (having tapped his mana specifically to leave WWW). So, before blocking I remove the -1/-1 counter from my Wickerbough Elder to destroy the Scourge of the Nobilis, making his Duergar Mine Captain a 3/1 first striker. I then block with the Wickerbough thinking if he has fire at will he stacks damage, kills my guy and then I kill his with the duergar assailant (this is online btw, for those of you questioning why damage is still stacking). Instead of making this play however, he decides to Fire at Will my Wickerbough Elder before damage. Rather than letting my Elder die, I shoot his Mine Captain with my Assailant. The end result of this is that his guy dies, he's wasted a very good trick, lost a Scourge of the Nobilis and all it's cost me is my Duergar Assailant and my guy getting +1/+1. As if this wasn't enough, following his rather poor play he decides to concede the entire match! Sure, why not, I'll take that win.

3 comments:

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  2. I love the punt series. I wanna hear more of them :D

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  3. autobiography coming soon Rob,

    Also, nice to hear from you Ben.

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