The trophy deck

Sideboard

There is quite some sideboard material I guess I had to cut from the deck. I wanted to play at least a surveil land so I just went for the Savage Mansion. Initially I had the Hot Dog Cart and Stegron the Dinosaur man in my deck since I thought red would be the easiest splash since the deck already had the Spider Manifestation and Guy in the chair, which both ramp and tap for red mana if need be. Initially, I also had Ezekiel Sims, Spider-Tote, in my deck. But finally decided to cut both the stegron and Ezekiel to get some 2-drops in. This is the moment I decided to board in the second copy of Kraven’s Cats and the Merciless Enforcers. Providing me with a somewhat better early game against more aggressive decks. I started liking the Cats as well, since they can represent an attack for 4 when pumped.

I don’t think I wanted to splash any of the other RG or RB cards.

I decided against playing Rhino’s Rampage and Pumpkin Bombardement as I feel these actually don’t do much. Both are sorcery type, so no decent interaction here. I also think the Bombardement is rather high costed in my deck since I didn’t want to discard anything for Mayhem. Meaning, if you hard cast it, you play 3 (or discard a card) for 3 damage which you cant even direct to the face. I actually saw one of my opponents casting this to remove 1 of my creatures and I was pretty happy he paid the full cost for the removal. The Rampage is more like a decent sideboard card in my opinion, and I didn’t feel my creatures were that big, so I guess I think my creatures wouldn’t survive the combat in most cases.

Not sure if the Chameleon, Master of Disguise would be worth splashing. The Web Up would make an excellent addition to the deck, but I felt I didn’t want to splash it with potentially 2 sources of white. The Hot DOg Cart would provide me with an additional source, but, just playing this card to enable the Web Up didn’t feel strong either.

Another consideration could have been to play an additional surveil land. But on the other hand, it comes at the cost of an additional tapland. I think playing one might be enough. Considering that, I don’t really need one of the other colors early and, I would only surveil late game if needed, I don’t really want to draw into one of these early game. Getting the one late game should be sufficient to get the surveil going and it doesn’t punish my mana curve early.

Some other take-aways

Sandman, Shfting Scoundrel

Something to look out for when you have a Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel is that you might want to pick up a Vibrant Cityscope. Because if you want to cast the Sandman, you’ll need to target a land from your graveyard. Another posisbility would be to get some self-mill like the Venomized Cat that mills you for 2 when it enters. The latter not only helps you get a land in the graveyard, but helps you find Sandman himself.

Doc Okc’s Tentacles

When looking at the mana curve of your deck, I believe it should be seen as a 5-drop or even 6-drop. This card doesnt do anything on the early turns, If you have it in play on turn 5 on the other hand and you can follow it up with a decent 5 drop, then you have a nice threat on board. Playing Gwenom into this felt game winning! Casting it and paying the equipment cost of 5, will probably on be the case in your turn 6 and then you better have a creature on the board to equip it to. On the other hand I’m still not sure if I should like Doc Ock’s Tentacles or not…

Gwenom, Remorseless

Something I still need to think about. When I hit Morlun, Devourer of Spiders on top of the library, I decided not to play him in order to maximize the value from this card the next turn I would draw him. Nevertheless, my life total was already high, so I think it might have been better to get as much value from Gwenom here.

Removal in red

Whereas shock is great removal, I felt sorry for my opponent who had to use a shock and a hard casted Pumpkin Bombardement to get rid of one of my creatures. This turn really really made my doubt the efficiency of a card like Pumpkin Bombardement. I’ll gladly pass it if I have other removal

Kraven’s Cats

I gladly played 2 copies of Kraven’s Cats over other 2 mana value creatures in this deck as they got a buff from Spiderport. When they attack they can threaten the +2/2 pump. And given the presence of Vulture, Scheming Avenger in my deck, this got me an additional Villain synergie that allowed me to close some games.