MexiCAW!!!!!!

I know some of you call it Naya, after the Shard from Alara... but I wish to dedicate this deck to our brothers south of the borders.... to the red, the white, and the Green...  IT IS MexiCAW!!!!

Land:

4x Arid Mesa
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Raging Ravine
4x Razorverge Thicket
3x Forest
2x Mountain
2x Plains
1x Misty Rainforest

Critters:
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Fauna Shaman
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Cunning Sparkmage
4x Vengevine
1x Acidic Slime
1x Goblin Ruinblaster
1x Manic Vandal
1x Hero of Oxid Ridge

Spells:
4x Lightning Bolt

Equipment:
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Sword of Body and Mind
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Bonehoard

So the basic idea with this deck is the continue to abuse the Squadron Hawk/Stoneforge Mystic package with all sorts of equipment but also give you some additional reach with Fauna Shaman/Vengevine package.  It's like "You got peanut butter on my chocolate" "No, you got chocolate on my peanut butter"(see this).  Blending these two flavors together just comes together so easily.

You want an opening hand with this deck to be pretty aggressive, but anything containing a Stoneforge Mystic or Fauna Shaman seems more then acceptable.  With Stoneforge Mystic you will be wanting to get up a Basilisk Collar if you have a Sparkmage and the rest of the time SoFaF, if you do not.  With Fauna Shaman, you will want to start getting your pieces together for some serious crushing.  What you get will really depend on the board state.  If you are just set up to do some awesomeness, grab venge's and go for it.  If you need to catch up, Stoneforge and Sparkmage seem like perfect answers. 

Doesn't this just sounds like last years standard?  Except with a more amazing equipment?  Nothing too creative here, just rehashing old ideas with new cards. 

Here are some sideboard considerations:

Goblin Ruinblaster
Might as well fill up.  You are going to need to deal with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle some how post board.  This seems like the cheapest answer without going to crazy with Tectonic Edges.  Fetchable with Fauna Shaman.

Obstinate Baloth
This guy is a house against red decks.  Need life and a blocker?  Here you go!

Crush
Crush is becoming one of my favorite sideboard cards for red.  It is really cheap and can do some crazy things against your opponents.  Ideal against Caw-Blade and Tezzy style decks.

Elspeth Tirel
I am love'n this lady.  Sometimes you just need to get rid of the game state.  You are lined up with dudes to block and they are in the same situation.  She fixes that.  She says, lets gain a bunch of life and start over.  But you run Vengevines!  So its Squadron Hawk into to Squadron Hawk for an amazing amount of damage. 

Ratchet Bomb
If you are concerned with a lot of Kuldotha Red, and you should be, this is the card for you.  Get rid of those tokens and 0 drops.  With the release of the Event decks, these will be played by many a player at FNM.

Thrun, the Last Troll
"Don't Leak Me Bro!"  Yea this guy solves that issue.  No need for concern of mana leak.

Kor Firewalker
Another solution to red if you are seriously concerned about it.  Throw either sword on him, and hes pro 3 colors dude.  Yea, he can be pro-RUG

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
There seems to be this deck that plays Pyromancer Ascension and Archive Trap.  Yea, that deck is not very good, but play this as a 1 of, and you are auto immune to that deck.  Seriously.... Mill strategy is just bad when there are auto one of solutions to them. 

Hopefully you have fun and enjoy your FNM!  Tell me how it goes if you run this.

Have an Android Phone?

Then you need:  MTG Deck Forge by Lagdroid

It is one of the most amazing MTG apps I have on my droid phone.  Everyone who has a space phone seems to have the life counter apps and such, but this app goes one step further.  It's a full deck builder suite of tools: Deck Builder, Gold fishing, Price Checker, Life Counter, and much more.  Now this app isn't the most intuitive off the bat, and I recommend reading the walk through and watching the videos.  Also, if you have any questions about the app, the dev has replied very quickly to my emails. 

Deck Building:
Basically you can build decks in this app save them to various formats to email or share.  This is the best feature.  I have a google group that we share deck lists and ideas for various formats and this app has let me brew up some decks amazingly fast.  It was a lot quicker then when I was using google docs spreadsheet to share with these guys.  You can set up your preference so that it auto adds 4 to the deck when you search up a card.

Gold Fishing
After making a deck, it allows you to gold fish some hands and check to see how the deck flows.  It keeps track of what turn you play a card and lets you see how a game will proceed. 

Price Checker
When it's time to trade, the phones come out nowadays.  What I hate most is how long this process takes when people check multiple sites.  This app rips data from 3 sources (more to come I hear) at real time and displays all the editions, prices and source.  It is as quick as typing in a card and waiting for the response. 

Card Search
Full high res image, oracle and original text, editions, and price.

Gatherer Like Functions:
I hate the new wizards gatherer.  It isn't as good as it used to be.  This is almost better then gatherer, it only needs sort by CMC for the output. 

While all this is great, this app still has a bit to go.  While it was well worth the $2.50 on the market that I paid, it still needs a bit of refinement. (its $5 now on the market)

The Bad:
Life Counter-  Has to be one of the worst I've seen.  Luckily, there are a ton of free apps that do this better.

# of Decks-  I've noticed with the more decks you save, the slower the app runs.  I keep my lists around 20 or so and I don't seem to have much of a slow down.  Go over that?  You will see significant lag (on my Droid X).

Non-Intuitive- It takes a bit to get used to, very hard for new people using the app to get comfortable using it.  I've heard some people return the app after 15 mins because they can't figure it out. 

But over all, this app gets a rating of A- because it does everything I need it to do but needs refinement. 

There is another app that you can get also its called Magic TG Tracker.  Its free (but with ads) and has a paid non-ad version.  Works about the same, less functionality but way more intuitive.

FNM Results and Meta - Running Standard BUG

Walking into the tournament this FNM I know that I would see a vast increase in the number of players running Squadron Hawk and Stoneforge Mystic.  Just looking at the drastic price jump of Stoneforge Mystic in most shops from $10 to $20 a pop over this last week, it had to be the case.  (Quick side note-  Stoneforge Mystic is going to be an insane bomb for some time to come, especially when the white/red sword comes out, pick them up if you can get a good trade or cheaper than 20).  This is why I was leaning towards Massacre Wurm as a potential bomb against these players.  All worked out.... almost.

Here is the final list that I ran:

4x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Island
3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Tectonic Edge

4x Lotus Cobra
2x Frost Titan
3x Massacre Wurm

4x Mana Leak
1x Go for the Throat
2x Disfigure
2x Spell Pierce
1x Doom Blade

4x Preordain
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Explore
1x Praetor's Counsel

4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Garruk Wildspeaker

SIDEBOARD
3x Flashfreeze
2x Grave Titan
4x Spreading Seas
2x Tectonic Edge
2x Black Sun's Zenith
2x Memoricide

About my list:
I really liked the RUG list that did well at San Jose that ran 2 Garruks, I feel they are much more effective then Oracles of Mul Daya at the moment.  He does everything you want him to, makes dude, untaps lands, makes your creeping tar pits RIDICULOUS!

Match-Ups:

Match 1 B/R Vamps:
Game 1 we battled it out, I got out a Massacre Wurm and Praetors Council.  Things were over quickly after that.  Game 2 I resolved Jace and Garruk for the win.... or so I think.  As I dug with Jace to get a better clear for his board, my Garruk made blockers for his army.  Sadly, all I received was more Jace and more Garruk and land and failed to beat his scrying/bladed vamps.  Game 3 was over before it started.  Creeping Tar Pit into Island into Darkslick Shore.  As much as I tried to dig, I just couldn't get there.

Match 0-1
Games 1-2

Match 2 Mono Black Control
I played this kid who was playing a mono black artifact based deck.  The theme didn't seem well put together and his games only hinged on if he was able to resolve and equip a Sword of Feast and Famine.  One of the games he did, the other two he didn't.  With a bit more thought, he may be able to put something more cohesive together.
Match 1-1
Games 3-3

Match 3 Mono White Myr
This match was against a new player that put some precons together and made a somewhat cohesive deck.  Game 1 he was able to resolve a Myr Battlesphere and it was over for me.  As I tried to ramp, I just couldn't get there quick enough with a Massacre Wurm.  I brought the hammer down on games 2 and 3 for punishment.  His card quality just wasn't good enough.   This was his first constructed tourney, so I post game we worked on some decks and deck ideas for his next go around.

Match 2-1
Games 5-4

Match 4 Boros
Game one he resolves a t1 Stepped Lynx that pretty much got there for my opponent.  Turn 2 I Inquisitioned a Stoneforge Mystic out of his hand and Disfigure his resolved Geopede.  I stumbled on my land for a few turns and can't find an answer to the t1 Stepped Lynx.  Game 2 was just a worrying as game 1.  I proceed to make my land drops up to 5, and for whatever reason I can't get the 6th (which also has to be black for my Massacre Wurm).  In that time searching, I was able to resolve 3 Jace's and a could removal spells that kept me alive.  Then came the beatings.  His field of 2x Squadron Hawks, Plated Geopede, 2x Stepped Lynx, gets thrown to the grave for 10 damage to the dome with a Massacre Wurm.  Next turn he slams down Stoneforge Mystic getting Sword of Feast and Famine and 2x Squadron Hawks.  Little does he know, my next turn is MASSACRE WURM #2.  Play of the night for this deck.  Game 3 was a bit of a battle again, it all came down to in the end stealing my Lotus Cobra to remove my resolved Jace.  If that didn't occur, I had the straight up nuts in my had if I untaped.

Match 2-2
Games 6-6
Even Breaks.

Moral of the story: 
Needs more development.  At least I was able to get a better feel for the meta at my local shop.  I believe that Massacre Wurm is an absolute beast, especially since squadron hawks, stoneforge mystics and mirrian crusaders seem to be so prevalent.  At no time in the night did I want Grave Titan over Massacre Wurm. 

Next Steps:
-1 Praetors Councel (always wanted something else)
-2 Frost Titans (just never good)
-1 Explore (light on green sources)
-1 Doom Blade
-2 Spell Peirce

+2 Wurmcoil Engine
+1 Go for the Throat
+2 Spreading Seas ( I was boarding them most of the time)
+1 Black Sun Zenith
+1 Liliana Vess (Want to experiment a bit with BUG Plainswalkers)

Hopefully you guys enjoy my FNM Tourney Report.  Stay tuned for more as I believe we have a draft on Monday and Standard on Wednesday.