This Pro Tour didn’t start off too great after being 0-3. Luckily, I woke up for round 4 and rattled off 9 straight before losing 1, winning two more, and losing the last round to make 27th place!

I Qualified for Pro Tour: San Juan by getting 12th at Grand Prix Houston 2 months ago. I did a lot of testing, and with the help of Adam Fox, Christopher Fennel, and Harrison Greenberg, came up with the Mono Green Eldrazi ramp deck that is very popular on MTGO now. We had the deck almost perfected when it got leaked on MTGO. This was a huge problem, because the reason to play the deck was the surprise factor. Since everyone knew our list and still had a week left to test, they were able to add it to their testing gambit and find a way to beat it. The easiest way was Tajuru Preserver, which was easily splashable in any blue, green, or black deck due to Verdant Catacombs and Misty Rainforest being in the format. All is Dust and the Annihilator keyword cause the opponent to sacrifice permanents and Tajuru Preserver stopped that.

So we were back to square one with 2 days left until the tournament. I was about to leave on my flight to San Juan when I called the testing group and asked if there was any cards they needed me to bring before I left. Their answer was as many Terastodon’s as I could get. That seemed awesome. Instead of ramping to 10 or 11 to play an Eldrazi, we could just get to 8 and blow up all their Eldrazi Temples, or keep them off White mana to prevent a Day of Judgment or Journey to Nowhere. With the addition of Summoning Trap, we had a deck…or so I thought.

This is the list we all ended up playing:

4 Overgrown Battlement

4 Wall of Omens

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

1 Pelakka Wurm

3 Avenger of Zendikar

4 Terastodon

4 Explore

3 Journey to Nowhere

3 Growth Spasm

3 Day of Judgment

4 Summoning Trap

6 Forest

5 Plains

3 Verdant Catacombs

4 Graypelt Refuge

4 Stirring Wildwood

3 Tectonic Edge

1 Marsh Flats

Sideboard:

4 Mold Shambler

4 Vengevine

2 Kor Skyfisher

1 Pelakka Wurm

3 Kor Firewalker

1 Journey to Nowhere

The problem with the deck is that it didn’t really do anything against a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, or even a Tectonic Edge. It’s also very reliant on Explore and Overgrown Battlement. You HAVE to mulligan any hand with out 1 of those unless you’re playing against an aggro deck. We all talked after each round of the tournament and had similar stories. “Got my Overgrown Battlement Flame Slashed and lost” or “He played a Jace and I got milled 6 turns later after he countered my 1 relevant spell”. We misread the metagame and thought there would be a lot more aggro deck. The deck did beat one the mono green eldrazi monument deck that came out at the PT.

To put it simply, Harrison and I had the best record with the deck at 5-5. The overall record with the deck was 14-16; not too good for a PT. Luckily I was able to 6-0 the limited portion and finish in 27th place, which was a godsend. Every match I played with the deck I felt I had to get lucky in order to win. I could usually steal 1 game out of a match, but winning 2 was near impossible. If you play Magic Online, or a local store is holding a block tournament, I would not suggest trying this deck. After the tournament, I feel the best block decks are Mono Green Eldrazi Monument/Beastmaster’s Ascention and UGR control.

Both drafts I ended up BG. I try and force green since it’s so powerful, and I feel so behind every time I play against a green deck. I usually end up RG and less often BG or GW Aura’s. Both drafts I ended up having the Mortician Beetle/Bloodthrone Vampire/Pawn of Ulamog combo deck. If you have Bloodthrone Vampire in play along with 1 or 2 of the other cards your creatures are so big it puts you’re opponent on an auto abyss. The first draft, I ended up with multiple pieces of the combo cards (Including a splashed Sarkhan the Mad!) but not a single removal spell. This would come back to haunt me in game 3 of the last round of day 1 that I needed to win to make day 2 when my opponent had Dawnglare Invoker in play. I didn’t have my Sarkhan to give him a dragon to give me a chance. He had 10 power in play along with a Battle-Rattle Shaman. On his mainphase, he tapped my team, and went straight to an attack. He tapped all his guys, and then realized he forgot about Battle-Rattle Shaman. He tried to give a guy +2/+0 but I called a judge. He messed up his story 10 minutes in, and I was able to untap and attack for roughly 60 damage and move into day 2. This is my 1st draft deck.

7 Forest

1 Mountain

9 Swamp

2 Bala Ged Scorpion

2 Bloodthrone Vampire

1 Bloodrite Invoker

1 Cadaver Imp

1 Dread Drone

1 Mortician Beetle

1 Mul Daya Channelers

2 Nest Invader

1 Nirkana Cutthroat

1 Null Champion

1 Ondu Giant

2 Pawn of Ulamog

2 Sporecap Spider

1 Essence Feed

1 Growth Spasm

1 Might of the Masses

1 Prey’s Vengeance

1 Sarkhan the Mad

My second draft deck, the 1st 3 rounds of day 2, was a little bit more of what the deck should look like. The rares I opened were 2 Corhelm Commanders and 1 Sphinx of Magosi. I took a Vendetta over the Corhelm Commander pack 1 and 2 and a Corpsehatch over the Sphinx of Magosi pack 3. Vendetta is a straight bomb in this set. I was super grateful for all the removal I got after I didn’t have a single one in my first deck. Another note from the draft is that I got passed the Consume the Meek pack 1 pick 2 after their was a common missing. I asked him when I ran into him what he took over it, and he told me Venerated Teacher. Pack 1 Pick 1 that seems a little greedy to me, because what if there is not many levelers in the packs? That guy did not make day 2.

Here is the 2nd draft list:

6 Forest

12 Swamp

2 Arrogant Bloodlord

2 Bala Ged Scorpion

1 Bloodthrone Vampire

1 Cadaver Imp

1 Dread Drone

1 Gloomhunter

1 Kozilek’s Predator

1 Mortician Beetle

1 Nirkana Revenant (7th pick!!)

1 Null Champion

1 Ondu Giant

1 Ulamog’s Crusher

1 Consume the Meek

1 Corpsehatch

1 Essence Feed

1 Growth Spasm

1 Induce Despair

1 Might of the Masses

2 Vendetta

Overall, I was very happy with my performance at the PT. I got my 10th Pro Point which qualifies me for US Nationals. Also, I qualified for PT Amsterdam with my Top 50 finish and made $1700 after a long weekend. Until next time, look forward to my bi-weekly article right here at thegameacademyonline.com Please feel free to leave any comments below =)

David Sharfman

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

I attended the SCG Open in Atlanta primarily with the intent of playing Legacy. Because I needed to enter four more events (and make at least one top 16), to qualify for the 50K, I decided that I’d play in standard even if I hated my deck.

Under some influence from John Cuvelier, I was fixed on running Open the Vaults. Since I don’t play a great deal of standard, I didn’t actually get to play test any games until the day before the event. About ten games later, I was done with the deck. Perhaps I just had no idea what I was doing, but I was getting crushed by outdated Mono-Red and Naya Allies, and I wasn’t doing so well against Jund either.

I tried weighing my other options, including chilling in the hotel all day and cube drafting, but decided that I should definitely play the event. I recalled Sam Riley talking about an insane Polymorph deck on our online discussion group. Moreover, Sam Riley had been trying to pawn off a few decks on our group in exchange for a cut of winnings. I decided to give him a call, and about ten hours later (less than twelve hours before the tournament), I had a 75-card copy of Riley’s UGW Polymorph ready to go. I played some practice games against Naya Allies, and it felt a bit over 50-50, though Mono-Red was still terrible. Whatever the case, the deck seemed pretty cool, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

4 Awakening Zone
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Deprive
2 Negate
3 Path To Exile
2 Iona, Shield Of Emeria
3 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Day Of Judgment
4 Polymorph
4 See Beyond

1 Forest
4 Island
4 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Seaside Citadel

Sideboard:
1 Realm Razer
4 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
1 Path To Exile
2 Silence
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
1 Progenitus
2 Day Of Judgment
1 Mountain

The Mountain and Realm Razer were supposed to be for control decks, but I never actually boarded them in as I’d rather just get Iona in nearly every situation.

—

Round 1 – Michael Chen – UW Control

I started with a double mull, but hit all my land drops, while Chen was stuck on two after keeping his six. I was able to apply pressure with Elspeth and eventually resolved a Polymorph with Deprive backup.

+2 Negate, +2 Silence, -1 Elspeth, -2 Day of Judgment, -1 Path to Exile

In game two, I kept six, and ran out a turn three Awakening Zone. Michael fired back with Jace, the Mindsculptor, but I called with Elspeth. After my Soldiers took down Jace, I played one of my own, and had a Deprive for Michael’s Baneslayer Angel. Several turns later, I dug into a Polymorph, and Michael scooped it up.

1-0

Round 2 – Kennen Haas – Bant Aggro

Kennen, a local player, brought a rogue Bant aggro deck featuring the very annoying River Boa. In game one, Kennen brought some heat with multiple Rhox War Monks, but I had Awakening Zone to soak up much of the damage. Eventually, Iona came down on white, and we were off to the races. An Elspeth eventually came down to throw off some of the math, and I was able to pick up game one.

+2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, -1 Elspeth, -1 Negate, -1 Awakening Zone

In game two, I was able to hold off Kennen’s offensive, including some River Boa beats, by holding all my Islands. On one of Kennen’s turns we had a counter war over a Garruk or something, then I untapped and played an upkeep Silence in response to my Awakening Zone trigger. With only two or three mana up, Kennen was helpless to my mainphase Polymorph into Iona on white. Kennen had a few turns to draw into an Into the Roil with counter backup, but despite several Explores and Ponders, was unable to get there.

2-0

Round 3 – Steve Smith – Mono White Control

Steve literally did nothing besides play a few Knight of the White Orchids and Everflowing Chalices. He was able to ramp into a lot of mana both games, which made me fear Into the Dust — so much so, that I boarded into Emrakul, figuring he’d have to be an idiot to not board out Day of Judgment, and Oblivion Ring would likely be played on my Planewalkers.

-2 Iona, -2 Day of Judgment, +1 Emrakul, +1 Negate, +1 Path to Exile, +1 Silence

3-0

Round 4 – Derek Davis – ?????

I have no recollection of this round, but my score sheet shows him gaining eight life at some point, so he must’ve been hitting me with Rhox War Monk and Baneslayer or an Elspeth’d Baneslayer.

4-0

Round 5 – August Benard Caras – WW/g

August was playing a pretty cool white weenie variant with Student of Warfare, Ranger of Eos and Stoneforger Mystic, with green for Knight of the Reliquary and Stirring Wildwood. He came out the gates quickly in game one, but I had Day od Judgment along with the typical ground clogging Elspeths and Awakening Zones for games two and three.

-2 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

5-0

Round 6 – Jeffrey Loveday – Naya Allies

I was able to steal a very close game one from Jeffrey with Iona on red, when he left only Ancient Ziggurat untapped on the end of turn five. I mulled to five in game two, and wound up land flooded, while in game three, Jeff had a very fast draw, and had time walked myself too many times with “comes into play tapped” lands.

-4 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Flashfreeze

5-1

(At this point Riley had been knocked out of top 8 contention at 4-2.)

Round 7 – Isaiah Ley – UG Polymorph

Game one was very epic, taking nearly the entire fifty minutes. I kept a four lander, but didn’t draw another spell until around turn seven. By then, the board was something like my Elspeth, Colonnade and Awakening Zone versus Jace, the Mindsculptor, Garruk (with three dudes, and four loyalty) and a polymorphed Iona (on White). I was able to attack Isaiah to to three with the Elspeth’d Colonnade, while he raced back with Iona. At three, Isaiah finally was able to deal with Elspeth, bouncing it with an Into the Roil. He attacked with Iona (dropping me to six), then Polymorphed the tapped Iona into an untapped one. On my turn, holding four lands and two Elspeth, I drew See Beyond. See Beyond hit another See Beyond, which hit a third See Beyond. By now, I had Deprive and Polymorph in hand. I went for Polymorph on Isaiah’s Iona, killing it and revealing his library. Based on this information, it appeared he had a Negate in hand. Since I was dead if I passed turn, I had no option but to tap out for Elspeth. To my surprise, it resolved, and some random token got in for the last three damage. Phew…

-2 Elspeth, -1 Iona, -2 Day of Judgment, +2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

Because there wasn’t much time left in the round, I boarded with the intention of locking Isaiah out of Polymorph, with no real intention of outright winning the game. Ironically, Isaiah, in desperation, tapped out for Garruk or something, and I was able to resolve Polymorph into Iona on blue.

6-1

Round 8 – David Sharfman – Jund

The match was featured on ggslive.com. See it here:
Video 1
Video 2

-1 Negate, -1 Jace, the Mindsculptor, -2 Deprive, -2 Iona, +1 Path to Exile, +1 Emrakul, +4 Flashfreeze

Game two is missing, but was fairly anticlimatic. Sharfman fired off a few Duresses early, but had very little pressure. Somewhat later, Sharfman tapped down for some threat, and got Emrakul’d.

Round 9 – David Yancey – Chapin Mono Red

The matchup was depressing. It was even close to close. David started game one, on the play, with double Goblin Guide. I tried to make some blockers with Elspeth, but they all met Searing Blaze. Game two was more of the same, with David leading out with Goblin Guide and a Dragonlord, with multiple Searing Blazes for Awakening Zone tokens and such.

-1 Jace, the Mindsculptor, -2 Negate, -4 Deprive, +4 Flashfreeze, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

Round 10 – Jason Byram – Naya Allies

Jason started with a mulligan, and was very quickly facing down an Iona on white. He was able to get in with a few allies, but his Bloodbraids kept hitting white spells, and I had plenty of tokens with which to chump. With the life totals 10-13, I attacked with Iona, then played Jace to bounce Bloodbraid. Bloodbraid came back down, and hit another white spell, at which point Jason scooped it up.

-4 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Flashfreeze

Jason started game two with a turn two Harabaz Druid, but with Day of Judgment in hand, I mentally took a victory lap. On his second turn, Jason ran out three other allies. None had haste, and I wound up clearing the board still at 20 life. Jason played a few more guys on the following turn, but I had a Path and Oblivion Ring. An Elspeth came down on the following turn, and had no problem racing with the few creatures Jason had left.

—–

I finished in 12th place, which is good enough to get the points I need to qualify for the $50K provided I play in at least one other Open.

After the event, Riley and I discussed possible changes to the deck. I think the deck is pretty close to perfect, though I had some mana hiccups along the way. I think I’d try tweaking the mana base some, and probably try out Terramorphic Expanse, since it gives some more fixing without making Glacial Fortress terrible. Additionally, with Stark’s Planeswalker deck shaping up to be the ‘deck to beat,’ it’d probably serve well to add an addition Oblivion Ring in the main.
What’s particularly nice about the deck, is you have access to way more counterspells than any other deck in the format. I think that gives Polymorph a huge advantage in control matchups. The only real problematic matchup is mono-red aggro, but you’re likely not going to beat them with the Planeswalker deck either.

Also, I have no idea what the Progentius in the sideboard is for. Maybe someone reading this can tell me. Whatever the case, it’s getting the axe for now.

4 Awakening Zone
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Deprive
2 Negate
3 Path To Exile
2 Iona, Shield Of Emeria
3 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Day Of Judgment
4 Polymorph
4 See Beyond

1 Forest
4 Island
4 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Seaside Citadel

Sideboard:
1 Deprive
3 Celestial Purge
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
1 Path To Exile
2 Silence
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
2 Day Of Judgment

Speaking of Mono-Red, that deck seems utterly busted in this metagame. If I were to start testing for Grand Prix DC, or Regionals, I’d start with Taylor Raflowitz’s build with some minor updates. Taylor seems to be an actual master of the game, so I’m much more comfortable running something he’s been tweaking and testing with than some random net list.

Maindeck:
4 Ball Lightning
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
4 Hell’s Thunder
4 Plated Geopede
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Searing Blaze
3 Staggershock
3 Devastating Summons

13 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Teetering Peaks

Sideboard:
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Manabarbs
2 Unstable Footing
3 Earthquake
3 Quenchable Fire

It should have a pretty easy time taking down Polymorph and Planeswalkers, with a 50-50′ish Jund and Naya Allies matchups. I imagine Bant might be hard, and if the UW Control decks care enough, those matchups could be hard also, but UW Control has bigger fish to fry, since they pretty much get curb stomped by Polymorph and Planeswalkers.

For those curious, I scrubbed out of the Legacy with Life & Taxes. You can read more about that deck on my blog. I still feel it’s a pretty strong deck in the current metagame, but sometimes you just lose to Pernicious Deed.dec.

–

Keith McLaughlin

Day 2 of Grand Prix Houston

Round 10 Christian Flodstrom-Sconce // Next Level Blue w/Red for Blood Moon and Firespout

Game 1

He plays 2 Scalding Tarns, while I play a turn two Tarmogoyf after going to six cards. I have no clue what he’s playing, so I get dual lands instead of basics. I think he may be some sort of Hive Mind deck or something (you see where this is going). Sure enough, he cracks his fetches, untaps, casts a Blood Moon, and beats me down with some Trinket Mages and a Vendilion Clique after killing my Tarmogoyf.

I board out:

3 Lightning Helix

4 Path to Exile

1 Bant Charm

I board in:

3 Negate

4 Meddling Mage

1 Ranger of Eos

Game 2

I cast a turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary after negating a turn two Blood Moon from him. Sure enough, the knight is a huge problem for him as he has no way to kill it, and it goes the distance.

I leave the board the same.

Game 3

I mulligan to a hand with a Meddling Mage, Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf, Negate, and two lands. On his first turn, he plays a land, Chrome Mox, and plays Chalice for one. At this point, I’m amused because of the lack of one drops in my deck. On turn two I play a Meddling mage and name Threads of Disloyalty, because I don’t want him stealing my Tarmogoyf. The game ends with him playing Thirst for Knowledge, discarding two Threads of Disloyalty, and casting Jace, the Mindsculptor. He concedes shortly thereafter.

9-1

Round 11 Pete Pickard // Boros Deck Wins

Pete ended up squeezing into 8th place thanks to my tiebreakers ; )

Game 1

We both take turns playing and killing creatures, but he ends up drawing enough burn spells to finish me off. Not to mention, my opening hand of Stomping Ground, 3 Wild Nacatl ,2 Lightning Bolt and Kird Ape never draws another land. An uneventful game, but I actually like this matchup since I know that the deck has a hard time winning if you kill the one or two creatures they draw each game. Also, my list with 4 knight of the reliquary gives them problems since they only have 4 paths for my 4 goyfs and 4 knights that are too big.

I board out:

1 Lignting Helix

1 Bant Charm

1 Ranger of Eos

I board in:

3 Qasali Pridemage

Game 2

He goes down to four cards and I easily take this game on the back of my two Tarmogoyfs and Knight of the Reliquary.

Game 3

He plays a steppe lynx, and I path it. He plays geopede, and I play Nacatl and Bolt it. His helix kills my nacatl, and I play a knight, which he also paths. My next play involves me casting two tarmogoyfs. He uses two burn spells to kill one of my goyf’s, but I untap and play a 5/5 knight to match his lone geopede. At this point, I’m low on life because of my lands and the few burn spells he’s thrown at me. My hand consists of bant charm and lightning helix at 5 life, while he only has one card in hand. I attack and bring him to lethal in two turns. After his draw step, he has two cards in hand and passes the turn. After I untap, he throws six points of burn to my face, but I have the bant charm to stop one of them, and take the other one going down to two life. I still have the lightning helix in hand, an untapped sacred foundry, and an untapped knight with some other creatures. I attack with everything except the knight, and he’s dead next turn no matter what. He’s excited after drawing a burn spell on his turn, but my lightning helix keeps me alive in order to be able to attack next turn for the win. Very exciting game!

10-1

Round 12 David Daniel // Thopter Depths

Game 1

I keep a one land hand with all one drops, while he plays turn one sword, turn two he transmutes muddle, and turn three has the thopter foundry. I die shortly after.

I board out:

1 Forest

2 Path to Exile

3 Lightning Helix

4 Tarmogoyf

I board in:

3 Negate

4 Meddling Mage

1 Ranger of Eos

1 Bant Charm

1 Ghost Quarter

Game 2

He leaves in the hexmage//depths combo and kills me on turn 3 after drawing a thoughtseize to steal the path out of my hand.

This was the quickest match out of the tournament, and at this point I was pretty upset to lose so quickly to nut draws.

10-2

Round 13 Patrick Chapin // Grixis Control

Pat is a cool guy, and a well known pro. I know what he’s playing after watching one of his feature matches, and I know this has to be a bad matchup for me.

Game 1

I cast creatures, and he kills them one by one. Eventually, he casts two cruel ultimatums, knocking me completely out of the game. I end up drawing all four path to exiles after starting with only one in my hand.

I board out:

4 Path to Exile

3 Lightning Helix

3 Bant Charm

I board in:

3 Negate

4 Meddling Mage

1 Ranger of Eos

2 Elspeth, Knight Errant

Game 2

I start too quickly for his deck to handle, and get ahead by resolving a Ranger of Eos. It helped that he started this game off with his first three lands being Sunken Ruins.

Game 3

I have my usual start of animal, animal, animal, animal, and he gets stuck on only blue and black mana with four lands in play. He can cast his damnations and cryptic commands, but those can only stall. Cruel Ultimatum is what he needs to get the card advantage to beat me. There is a turn in the game where he taps out to do something and I cast two Meddling Mage’s on Damnation as well as cast 2 Nacatl’s that I searched out earlier with Ranger of Eos. He dies on the next turn. He was a nice guy to play against and we wished each other luck in the last few rounds.

11-2

Round 14 Adam Yurchick // Thepths

I’ve never played against Adam before, but I know he’s very good. I’m also playing for top 8 because if I win I’m guaranteed to draw in, whereas he (since I got paired down..AGAIN..) is 11-2-1 and has to win win to make it.

Game 1

He has a turn one Dark Confidant and I don’t have a one drop or removal. He ends up hitting all 4 confidants, and one turn even has 3 in play at 7 life. Of course he doesn’t die, and sets up Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek that turn at 4 life! It was even more awkward that the Dark Confidants revealed Dark Depths, Dark Depths, Thirst for Knowledge. Then the next turn reveal Dark Depths again, Tolaria West. How Lucky!

I board the same as every other Thepths matchup.

Game 2

It gets pretty close but he eventually puts me on top deck mode by killing my last guy. He plays Hexmage with a Depths in play and I draw the 1 ghost quarter and quickly cast it. He can’t make the token! How lucky. He plays another hexmage and starts beating me down. I finally draw a guy and pass. On his turn he hexmages the Dark Depths, I let the counters come off and ghost quarter, he thinks about calling a judge to ask if he hexmages again will he get it which I know he doesn’t. He decides not too and just reveals his hand of tolaria west(to search for Dark Depths) and Rite of Consumption to kill me out of the game and top 8 contention. :[

11-3

Round 15 Josh Utter-Leyton // Thepths

I know what he’s playing because he won a modo ptq the week before and wrote about it in an article for another MTG strategy site.

Game 1

I play some Cats and Goyfs and he sets up the thopter combo with 5 lands open, and 9 life. I attack with 1 Nacatl and 2 4/5 goyfs. He makes 3 guys and double blocks Nacatyl and puts 1 on a goyf?!? He takes 4 and goes to 5. EOT he has 2 lands open and tries to make a Thopter. In response, I throw a Helix and a Bolt at his face as he shakes his head. HOW LUCKY. He could have just blocked all 3 of my guys or not made tokens at EOT and I would have had no chance.

I board out 1 Forest 2 Path 3 Lightning Helix 4 Goyf for 3 Negate 4 Meddling Mage 1 Ranger 1 Bant Charm 1 Ghost Quarter

Game 2

He has the god draw and kills me in four turns.

Game 3

He turn 1 thoughtseizes me. (18) I play a Nacatyl. He plays a land and sword, I attack with Nacatl (15) and play a kird ape. He deathmarks my Nacatl. I attack with Kird Ape (13). He mainphase smothers. I play a Pridemage. He plays another draw spell. I attack with pridemage (10) he plays a land and a confidant. I bolt it. I attack with Pridemage. (7) He plays another Confidant. I draw Bolt and attack with Pridemage (4) I think for a while and eventually decide to lightning bolt his head (1!) since he has Dark Confidant in play. I end up making the right choice, as he untaps and reveals Sword of the Meek! Got there!

I’m really excited now. I got 12th place which is $600 and a slot at Pro Tour San Juan which I’ve been trying to get qualified for all season. Also, I had to be back in Orlando Monday morning, so if I made top 8 I’d have to leave. Getting 12th was the best possible situation! Tune in, where in a few weeks I will report on how I do in San Juan!

15 hours of driving is A LOT of driving. Last Friday, my parents left town for a week on a vacation to Jamaica. Little did they know that when they returned, their son would be 2K richer just from playing some “stupid” card game. I knew that I was going to the $500 FNM, the Star City events on Saturday and Sunday, but that was all I told them. You can read about those two events in my last article. Tuesday comes around, and I bring my trophy up to my local card shop and play in some drafts, when I overhear some of my friends talking about a Grand Prix coming up in Houston. I take interest, until I find out that the format is extended.

I hate the current extended format!

I’ve played every deck under the moon in at least 10 different events between PTQ’s, Saturday tournaments, and MTGO 8 mans. I had not found one I liked. Since my parents were out of town and I had nothing to do anyways I said what the hell and decided I would be partaking on this 15 hour adventure. I had no clue what I was going to play; I just knew I was going.

I borrowed a Dark Depths /Thopter Foundry deck and a Bant deck from my friends Jimmy and Melvin, and I also sleeved up a Boom/Bust zoo deck. Those are pretty much the triangle decks of the format. When I finally decided what I wanted to play, at least I would already have the cards!

Harrison kept on telling me to make a decision so he could get his friend a deck, but he obviously doesn’t know me if he’s asking that question. I’m known for sitting down at the player meeting with one deck and by the time they are coming around to collect lists, I change to a completely different deck. I’m not proud of being indecisive, but I like taking everything into account when I make my decision. This trip was nothing different.

Taylor R., James W. Harry G., and I all leave Orlando at 5 o’ clock, which is cutting it a little tight on time for Houston. Harry decides he doesn’t want to go 5 minutes into the trip, so we turn around, drop him back off with his car, get in my car, and get another 20 dollars a piece out of our wallets to cover the extra expenses. I take the first shift driving while I tell James to sleep so he can be awake for the next shift. My car is manual and Taylor doesn’t know how to drive stick so he definitely got the best deal. We get on the road, James’ cold gets worse, I get his cold, and Taylor sleeps practically the entire way. Somehow, I end up driving the entire trip.

Shoot me now.

We pull up at the hotel at 7:30 in the morning, get a room, take a shower, and have to go right to the tournament site, which is connected to our hotel. I bring my Boom//Bust zoo deck down with me since I’m running on zero sleep, and DDT takes too much thinking to play perfectly. I sit down with Pat Cox and Zach Efland to get my deck together. Pat’s playing the same Zoo deck he’s been playing all season with the exception of about 5 cards from the list he top 8′d Oakland with. Todd Anderson and Pat both tell me how you have to run good with Boom/Bust for it to work, and how they both don’t like how the deck has 7 situational cards being Boom/Bust and Blood Moon. Also, everyone is prepared for Blood Moon now, so even DDT has 5 basics in it. It kind of reminds me of Legacy, how people fetch for basics first just in case their opponent has Wasteland, in this case Blood Moon. I end up copying Pat Cox’s list, change 2 cards in the main, and move them to the sideboard. We basically have the same list, but I have +1 Knight of the Reliquary, -1 Loam Lion and switched the Bant Charm and Lightning Helix slots from main to board. (I have 3 Bant Charm 3 Lightning Helix main with 1 and 1 in board where he has 2 Bant Charm and 4 Lightning Helix main with 2 Bant Charm in the board). Overall, I was happy with the changes I made, considering how Bant Charm is awesome in every matchup whereas Lightning Helix gets boarded out a lot. I boarded in my 4th Bant Charm in every matchup with the exception of maybe one or two. Here’s what I ended up playing:

4 Kird Ape
3 Loam Lion
4 Wild Nacatl
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Ranger of Eos
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Helix
3 Bant Charm
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Stirring Wildwood

Sideboard:
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Ranger of Eos
3 Negate
4 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Bant Charm
1 Lightning Helix
1 Ghost Quarter

The only changes I’d make from this list are in the board. I would get rid of 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant for the fourth Ranger of Eos. Ranger was a blowout every time I cast it, where as Elspeth was just kind of meh. I might also take out the Ghost Quarter in the board because I never wanted to search with it with knight and DDT USUALLY (foreshadow) boards out the hexmage part of the deck for removal spells, so knight never lives anyways. I also never searched for the manland in any match; I only activated it if I drew it. Don’t get me wrong, Knight of the Reliquary is ridiculous; you just don’t want to waste a turn of attacking with your 5/5. The reason the Bojuka Bog is not in the sideboard is because against dredge, turn 4 activate knight is usually too late. In zoo decks with Noble Hierarch, it makes sense because you can do it turn 3, but in this list that is not the case. If dredge is popular in your area, cut the other elspeth and the Ghost Quarter for 2 Bojuka Bog so you can draw them if turn 4 activate knight is too slow. I pretty much conceded to dredge with this list which I am fine with for a GP because of how few of them there are.

On to the report…

Round 1 & 2 **Awarded Bye**
I got lucky and my rating hit 1954 because of the legacy event, so I barely got that 2nd Bye.

Round 3 – Jeremy // Zoo Mirror

Game 1
We both play some cats, trade, then I play a goyf, it’s a 2/3 since there is a creature and a land in the yard. He plays helix on my goyf. What a great way to start this GP. Needless to say I win easily from there, even though he tries to mount an offense with a figure of destiny.

I board in:
1 Lightning Helix
2 Elspeth Knight-Errant
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Bant Charm

I board out:
2 Loam Lion
3 Kird Ape (2/3′s aren’t good in the mirror when they have 3/3 Wild Nacatls)
.
Game 2
We’re both stuck on lands casting dorks when he Path to Exiles one of my guys that’s beating him down. That gives me land #4 to cast a seemingly endless supply of rangers and elspeths.

3-0

Round 4 – Bobby // Boom Bust Zoo

Bobby’s a nice guy who I continued to talk to about my progress for the rest of the GP.

Game 1
Most of my games start with me playing random dorks so ill leave that part out in the future. It gets to the point where I have 5 guys against his 2 goyfs and 1 knight with 1 card in hand. I have 2 burn spells in my hand so I go all in, if he has a helix I’m dead, if he doesn’t then he’s dead. I take the chance and he doesn’t. I board the same as the last zoo mirror.

Game 2
He get’s stuck on 2 lands while I play guys; he’s never really in it. My goyf and pridemage go the distance. He plays a Blood Moon and I’m never really pressured to kill it with my pridemage.

4-0

Round 5 – Phillip Yam // Tribal Zoo

Game 1
We both play guys and trade early. Turn 4 he attacks with a Loam Lion, I elect to take it, and end up taking 12 due to double Might of Alara! I go to 7, and stay there for the rest of the game as he draws lands and I draw spells. I end the game with a Bant Charm in hand to counter a bolt, so his only real outs were consecutive Tribal Flames.

I board in:
1 Lightning Helix
2 Elspeth Knight-Errant
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Bant Charm

I board out:
2 Loam Lion
3 Kird Ape

Game 2
He keeps Loam Lion and 5 Lands after he mulls. My hand was awesome, involving Nacatl Goyf Burn Ranger and Lands. I make short work of him.

5-0
Round 6 – Mon Lee // Bant

Game 1
We go back and forth. He has War Monks and Goyfs and keeps getting around my guys with Path to Exile and Bant Charm. He puts Sword of Fire and Ice on a War Monk which I double block it with a Cat and the Stirring Wildwood. That leaves him with a goyf and 1 more War Monk. I draw a second removal spell and put the goyf on the bottom and path the War Monk. My animals deal the remaining 17 damage.

I board in:
2 Elspeth Knight-Errant
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Bant Charm

I board out:
3 Lightning Helix (all his guys were too big for me to kill with it, and on the draw it doesn’t kill noble hierarch quick enough)
2 Kird Ape

Game 2
I start way too fast for him. He doesn’t cast any guys on the first few turns, while I curve out with Nacatl, Goyf, and Knight. To deal with my threats, he plays path, Bant Charm, and Engineered Explosives. I then play Ranger of Eos and reload. Ranger was too much card advantage for his Bant deck to handle and I remain undefeated.

6-0

Round 7 – Dwayne St.Arnauld // Living End

This matchup is horrendous. Even with 9 cards in the board, it’s so easy for them to win.

Game 1
This game goes as planned. I play guys, he cycles and turn 4 Living Ends some Fulminator Mages, Deadshot Minotaurs, Street Wraiths, and Monstrous Carabids into play and I die quick and painfully.

I board in:
4 Meddling Mage
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Elspeth
3 Negate

I board out:
3 Bant Charm
4 Path to Exile
1 Lightning Helix
2 Knight of the Reliquary

Game 2
I play turn 1 Cat, he land goes, and I play Kird Ape and another cat. He shriekmaws my Kird Ape. That leaves me with 2 Cats, leading me to believe that he’s telegraphing Maelstrom Pulse. I play a Meddling Mage on Pulse since if he Living Ends, its just a wrath and he doesn’t get any guys other than Shriek back. He plays a Finks, I play another Mage on Living End and he fails to draw a Shriekmaw before my Rangers and Animals get him. First game I’ve ever beat Living End.

Game 3
He mulls into a 1 lander with 2 cyclers and 3 finks. I have a very quick start with turn one Nacatl and turn two Canonist with some more dorks. He draws land 2 but stalls a turn on a land which is exactly what I need. When he draws his 3rd land and plays finks, but the damage has already been dealt and I’m able to double Helix him out of the game, match, and undefeated bracket.

7-0

Round 8 – Matt Costa // DDT

This was a feature match covered here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gphou10/day1#11

I board in:
3 Negate
4 Meddling Mage
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bant Charm

I board out:
2 Loam Lion
3 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf

Tarmogoyf and Meddling Mage switch slots in this matchup as the 2 drop because goyf really isn’t that spectacular against them, whereas Meddling Mage can be very awkward for them to play against. Meddling Mage can be a very skill intensive card, so I suggest testing with him a bunch before playing with him at a big tournament.

I end up winning and advance to 8-0

I’m pretty excited at this point. All the pros keep coming up to me and asking how I’m doing which I’m very happy to tell them “yeah, I’m X-0.”

Round 9 – Jonathon Morse // DDT

Game 1
I mull to an awful hand with no little guys, Bant Charms, and a Ranger and somehow get there. Very awkward. I board the same as in the match the round before:

3 Negate
4 Meddling Mage
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bant Charm

I board out:
2 Loam Lion
3 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf

Game 2
He plays turn 1 Thopter Foundry off a Chrome Mox and Turn 2 Sword of the Meek. I have no Artifact Destruction and he kills me shortly after.

Game 3
I have another awkward mulligan. 2 lands 2 Meddling Mage and some rangers and negates. I play land go, and he plays land, Mox, Sword of the Meek go. I see where this game is going. I play a Meddling Mage on Thopter Foundry. He plays Dark Depths Hexmage, makes a 20/20 and says go. I have no Path or Bant Charm and I pick up my first loss. He shows me his hand after the game and he has the Thopter Foundry also. Pretty much the Nuts.

Zach Efland, Ben Stark, Faddy J, Matt Nass, Trevor, Taylor Raflowitz and 1 other guy that I don’t know go out for a filling dinner at Fogo de Chao. Yum. Taylor and I head back to the hotel room where I get my first few hours of sleep in the last 2 days. YEAHHHHH! Visit thegameacademyonline.com in a few days where I’ll go over my day 2 matchups and the rest of my top 12 finish.

Our Y3K Tournament is scheduled for 5/29/2010, details to be posted soon, so make sure to check back frequently. Until then, here are the decklists from “The Game Academy’s 2K Tournament” that happened on April 3rd, 2010. Thank you to all 115 players that showed up, we know for sure the next tournament will be much bigger! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for all the best feature matches and deck interviews from this tournament as well as upcoming tournaments. Enjoy!

Andrew Fredella – 1st place

Monsters: 20
[3] X-Saber Airbellum
[3] Ryko, Lightsworn Hunrer
[3] Gravekeeper’s Spy
[2] Super-Nimble Mega Hamster
[2] Cyber Dragon
[1] Caius the Shadow Monarch
[1] Gravekeeper’s Descendant
[1] Rescue Cat
[1] Summoner Monk
[1] Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
[1] Flamvell Magician
[1] Sangan

Spells: 14
[3] Pot of Avarice
[3] Book of Moon
[1] Nobleman of Extermination
[1] Brain Control
[1] Mind Control
[1] Cold Wave
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] My Body as a Shield
[1] Allure of Darkness

Traps: 6
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Solemn Judgment
[1] Trap Dustshoot

Extra deck: 15
[1] Chimeratech Fortress Dragon Dragon
[2] Stardust Dragon
[2] Arcanite Magician
[1] Mist Wurm
[1] Magical Android
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Dark End Dragon
[1] X-Saber Urbellum

Sidedeck: 15
[2] D.D. Crow
[1] Dust Tornado
[2] Thunder King Rai-Oh
[2] Starlight Road
[2] Phantom Dragon
[2] Light-Imprisoning Mirror
[2] Mirror of Oaths
[1] Proto-Cyber Dragon
[1] Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

Justin Parrish – 2nd Place

Monsters:
[1] Spirit Reaper
[1] Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind
[2] Krebons
[3] Caius the Shadow Monarch
[1] Plaguespreader Zombie
[1] Psychic Commander
[2] Goblin Zombie
[1] Mezuki
[3] Pyramid Turtle
[1] Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
[1] Dark Armed Dragon
[1] Zombie Master
[1] Shutendoji
[1] Sangan

Spells: 7
[2] Gold Sarcophagus
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Brain Control
[1] Allure of Darkness
[1] Emergency Teleport
[1] Heavy Storm

Traps: 14
[1] Torrential Tribute
[3] Divine Wrath
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Solemn Judgment
[3] Dimensional Prison
[2] Dust Tornado
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Trap Dustshoot

Extra Deck: 15
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Thought Ruler Archfiend
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] X-Saber Urbellum
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Doomkaiser Dragon
[1] Revived King Ha Des
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Magical Android
[1] Psychic Lifetrancer

Sidedeck: 15
[2] Breaker the Magical Warrior
[2] Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
[2] Legendary Jujitsu Master
[2] Nobleman of Crossout
[3] Mirror of Oaths
[2] Pulling the rug
[2] Trap Hole

Robert Leander – Top 4

Monsters: 22
[1] Dark Armed Dragon
[1] Flamvell Magician
[1] Summoner Monk
[1] Sangan
[1] Gravekeeper’s Descendant
[3] Gravekeeper’s Spy
[3] X-Saber Airbellum
[1] Rescue Cat
[3] Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
[2] Super-Nimble Mega Hamster
[2] Cyber Dragon
[2] Caius the Shadow Monarch
[1] Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells: 12
[3] Book of Moon
[2] Pot of Avarice
[1] Mind Control
[1] Brain Control
[1] My Body as a Shield
[1] Cold Wave
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Smashing Ground

Traps: 7
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[2] Dimensional Prison
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 15
[2] Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
[1] Mist Wurm
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] X-Saber Urbellum
[2] Arcanite Magician
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Magical Android

Sidedeck: 15
[2] D.D. Crow
[2] Mirror of Oaths
[2] Nobleman of Crossout
[2] Trap Hole
[1] Starlight Road
[2] Phantom Dragon
[2] Legendary Jujitsu Master
[2] Proto-Cyber Dragon

Hank Elliott – Top 4

Monsters: 24
[3] Celestia, Lightsworn Angel
[2] Judgment Dragon
[2] Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
[2] Honest
[2] Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
[2] Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid
[2] Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
[2] Flamvell Firedog
[2] Flamvell Magician
[1] Necro Gardna
[1] Plaguespreader Zombie
[1] Card Trooper
[1] Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
[1] Jain, Lightsworn Paladin

Spells: 12
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[3] Solar Recharge
[2] Rekindling
[2] Pot of Avarice
[1] Gold Sarcophagus
[1] Brain Control
[1] Charge of the Light Brigade

Traps: 4
[1] Beckoning Light
[1] Torrential Tribute
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole

Extra Deck: 15
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] X-Saber Urbellum
[1] Magical Android
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Arcanite Magician
[1] Tempest Magician
[1] Mist Wurm
[1] Thought Ruler Archfiend
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

Sidedeck: 15
[2] Trap Hole
[1] Cold Wave
[1] Starlight Road
[1] My Body as a Shield
[1] Giant Trunade
[1] Asura Priest
[2] Dust Tornado
[1] Consecrated Light
[2] Royal Decree
[1] Legendary Jujitsu Master
[1] Cyber Dragon
[1] Nobleman of Crossout

Yachir Amat – Top 8

Monsters: 17
[3] Gravekeeper’s Spy
[2] Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
[3] X-Saber Airbellum
[2] Cyber Dragon
[1] Caius the Shadow Monarch
[1] Sangan
[1] Morphing Jar
[1] Summoner Monk
[1] Gorz Emissary of Darkness
[1] Rescue Cat
[1] Gravekeeper’s Descendant

Spells: 12
[1] Brain Control
[1] Mind Control
[1] Cold Wave
[1] Giant Trunade
[2] Book of Moon
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] My Body as a Shield
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Pot of Avarice
[2] Smashing Ground

Traps: 12
[2] Compulsory Evacuation Device
[1] Dimensional Prison
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Trap Dustshoot
[2] Royal Oppression
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Solemn Judgment
[1] Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 13
[2] Arcanite Magicain
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[2] Magical Android
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[2] Colossal Fighter
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Mist Wurm

Side Deck: 15
[1] Nobleman of Crossout
[1] Dimensional Prison
[2] Legendary Jujitsu Master
[1] Lightning Vortex
[2] Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
[1] Soul Release
[2] Light-Imprisoning Mirror
[1] D.D. Crow
[1] Mirror of Oaths
[1] Widespread Dud
[1] Call of the Haunted
[1] Dust Tornado
[1] Pot of Avarice

Alex Bunts – Top 8

Monsters: 21
[1] Dark Armed Dragon
[1] Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
[1] Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind
[3] Blackwing – Sirocco the Dawn
[3] Blackwing – Shura the Blue Flame
[3] Blackwing – Bora the Spear
[3] Blackwing – Kulat the Moon Shadow
[2] Blackwing – Vayu the Emblem of Honor
[2] Blackwing – Blizzard the Far North
[2] Legendary Jujitsu Master

Spells: 8
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Brain Control
[1] Allure of Darkness
[2] Book of Moon
[2] Black Whirlwind

Traps: 11
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Solemn Judgment
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[2] Starlight Road
[2] Dimensional Prison
[2] Icarus Attack

Extra Deck: 15
[2] Blackwing Armor Master
[2] Blackwing Armed Wing
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Thought Ruler Archfiend
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Magical Android
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Blackwing – Silverwind the Ascendant
[1] Goyo Guardian

Sidedeck: 15
[1] Delta Crow – Anti Reverse
[1] Royal Oppression
[2] Skill Drain
[1] Giant Trunade
[1] Smashing Ground
[2] D.D. Crow
[2] Dust Tornado
[1] Icarus Attack
[1] The Selection
[1] My Body as a Shield
[1] System Down
[1] Ceasefire

Justin Katz – Top 8

Monsters: 20
[3] Deep Sea Diva
[2] Mystic Tomato
[2] Destiny Hero – Malicious
[1] Plaguespreader Zombie
[1] Dark Grepher
[1] Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind
[1] Destiny Hero – Doom Lord
[2] Caius the Shadow Monarch
[1] Destiny Hero – Dasher
[1] Spined Gillman
[1] Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
[1] Elemental Hero Stratos
[1] Dark Armed Dragon
[1] Crystal Seer
[1] Armageddon Knight

Spells: 14
[3] Miracle Fusion
[2] Book of Moon
[1] Brain Control
[1] Future Fusion
[1] Foolish Burial
[1] Destiny Draw
[1] Allure of Darkness
[1] Mystical Space Typhoon
[1] Giant Trunade
[1] Heavy Storm
[1] Reinforcement of the Army

Traps: 8
[2] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Solemn Judgment
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Trap Dustshoot
[1] Interdimensional Matter Transporter
[1] Starlight Road
[1] Mirror Force

Extra Deck: 15
[3] Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
[2] Stardust Dragon
[1] Black Rose Dragon
[1] Ancient Fairy Dragon
[1] Magical Android
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] Mist Wurm
[1] Ally of Justice Catastor
[1] Thought Ruler Archfiend
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Colossal Fighter

Sidedeck: 15
[2] Chain Disappearance
[2] Dust Tornado
[2] Mirror of Oaths
[2] Phantom Dragon
[2] Legendary Jujitsu Master
[2] D.D. Crow
[2] Pulling the Rug
[1] Lightning Vortex

Christian Cruz – Top 8

Monsters: 21
[1] Exploder Dragon
[3] Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
[2] The Dark Creator
[3] Phantom of Chaos
[1] Prime Material Dragon
[2] Sky Scourge Norleras
[1] Koaki Meiru Dragon
[3] Dark Horus
[3] Red Eyes Wyvern
[1] Dark Armed Dragon
[1] Morphing Jar

Spells: 19
[1] Allure of Darkness
[1] Card Destruction
[1] Upstart Goblin
[1] Dark World Dealings
[1] Gold Sarcophagus
[1] Monster Reincarnation
[1] Future Fusion
[1] Foolish Burial
[1] Super Rejuvenation
[1] My Body as a Shield
[2] Hand Destruction
[2] D.D.R. – Different Dimension Reincarnation
[3] Trade-In
[1] Giant Trunade
[1] Heavy Storm

Traps: 1
[1] Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 9
[2] Five Headed Dragon
[1] Goyo Guardian
[1] Colossal Fighter
[1] Iron Chain Dragon
[1] Trident Dragon
[1] Red Dragon Archfiend
[1] Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
[1] Stardust Dragon

Sidedeck: 15
[2] Infernal Dragon
[1] Magna Drago
[1] Clear Vice Dragon
[2] Deck Devastation Virus
[1] Brain Control
[1] Bottomless Trap Hole
[1] Torrential Tribute
[1] Mirror Force
[1] Lightning Vortex
[1] Dark Grepher
[2] Hidden Armory
[1] Upstart Goblin

Sunday, April 4th – Michael Brady reports on his recent Top 4 finish at the Legacy 5K in Orlando, FL.

For those of you who don’t already know me, a brief introduction is in order: I’m the long-haired dude perpetually clad in heavy metal t-shirts who you’ll find playing Magic in and around Tampa.

Hey, I said it’d be brief.

Anyway, at the beginning of 2010, I fully intended to take a bit of a break from competitive Magic after spending years on and off the PTQ circuit, but I was tempted away from this plan by a single event on the horizon: the SCG 5K weekend. “Not a big deal,” I figured, “I’ll return for one tournament, and then I’ll drop the game again to focus entirely on school and music.”

A likely story.

/sarcasm

So I began preparing for the weekend with a few of the locals (including fellow TGA writer Keith McLaughlin). I felt like I knew Standard fairly well, and was set on playing some sort of UW control list, as the idea of running into Jund mirrors all day sounded about as enjoyable as attempting to surgically remove my own tonsils. Legacy was a different animal entirely, as I had never played the format and knew nothing about it. Luckily, it just so happens to be Keith’s format du jour, so I was able to get caught-up fairly quickly. Of the decks he had available, nobody seemed interested in playing Merfolk, and I was more than happy with the idea of playing a deck that let me attack with dudes without rolling over to combo.

I was pretty busy with classes in the weeks prior to the event, so testing time was limited, but I managed to play in one Legacy tournament at The Game Academy (which they hold every Thursday night; hint, hint), and I ended up winning it, which left me fairly confident about my deck choice. I knew the deck had bad matchups against Zoo and Goblins, but I felt that next to no one would be running the gobbos, so I just focused the sideboard largely on giving me some chance against Zoo. I figured I wouldn’t run into either deck more than once, since the format is pretty diverse. There was no way that decision could ever come back to haunt me…right? (FORESHADOWING!!!)

The big day finally came, and we arrived at the tournament site, the Orange County Convention Center, after paying 11 dollars for parking (with no re-entry allowed). Ridiculous! C’mon guys, at least have the decency to put a gun in our faces if you’re going to mug us! Anyway, upon getting inside, I bought a couple of Martial Coups, borrowed a couple of Elspeths from John Cuvelier (a true gentleman if there ever was one), and registered this for the Standard portion:

4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Divination
4 Mind Spring
4 Martial Coup
3 Day of Judgment
4 Path to Exile
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Tectonic Edge
8 Plains
5 Island

Sideboard:
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Flashfreeze
3 Celestial Purge
4 Negate
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

At the player meeting, they announced that a whopping 439 people were competing, which meant 10(!!!) rounds of competition. Unreal…it was gonna be a looooooong day.

I started off well, going 3-0 against three consecutive Jund decks, before the wheels fell off and I took two straight losses. That put me out of contention, but I decided to play it out for rating. I finished a decidedly mediocre 6-4, but some of the information I gleaned just from playing was interesting. First of all, I played against Jund SEVEN FREAKIN’ TIMES! This format is dominated by that deck, and don’t you forget it. If you can’t beat Jund, don’t even bother showing up. I went 5-2 against it in spite of losing almost every game 1, which tells me that my maindeck had to be wrong, but my sideboard worked pretty well. My other win came against Vampires, and my other two losses were to Naya and a strange RG homebrew land destruction deck that pummeled me with mana acceleration into Goblin Ruinblaster, Acidic Slime, Mold Shambler, and Roiling Terrain. I should have won my match against Naya, but I punted bigtime in game 2. He stalled on 4 lands for a couple turns with Stirring Wildwood as his only green source; I could have Tectonic Edged it, but since I’m an idiot, I tapped out instead. He then proceeded to play Knight of the Reliquary and Dauntless Escort on successive turns, and I was just stone dead. He then deservedly ran me over in game 3.

If I could run it back, I would probably alter the maindeck to have 4 Spreading Seas and try running a split of Elspeth and Jace instead of the Divinations. The sideboard is fine overall, but I never boarded in the Negates all day; I would cut one for another Flashfreeze.

After underperforming in that strenuously long tourney, I was exhausted and a little upset. I didn’t tell anyone, but I was actually considering not playing in the Legacy event the next day. Luckily, after waking up, throwing on my Skeletonwitch t-shirt, and eating some breakfast, that silly notion was pushed completely out of my mind, and I was ready to game once again. The Tampa crew left the hotel and got robbed by the convention center again, and when we arrived, I registered this watery beast:

4 Cursecatcher

4 Silvergill Adept

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Merrow Reejerey

3 Merfolk Sovereign

3 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Aether Vial

4 Daze

4 Force of Will

4 Standstill

2 Umezawa’s Jitte

12 Island

4 Mutavault

4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

4 Submerge

2 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Relic of Progenitus

2 Back to Basics

2 Thada Adel, Acquisitor

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

A few days before the tournament, I had 3 open slots left in the maindeck and didn’t know what to do with them. Somebody brought up Spellstutter Sprite, and we all had a good laugh. Then I started thinking about it…and the more I thought, the better it seemed. Countering spells like Sensei’s Divining Top, Aether Vial, and Swords to Plowshares plus getting a flying guy that can pick up a Jitte or chump block a Tarmogoyf actually seemed pretty spicy…and that’s not even looking at the fact that it can counter 2 mana spells with a Mutavault activation! I only tested it a little, but I was certain it was sick, and the results over the course of the day would prove me right.

This time around, the event was a much more reasonable 7 rounds. I was (somewhat) well-rested, focused, and determined to do better than the prior day. What has two thumbs and refuses to leave the 5K empty-handed? THIS GUY!

Round 1 – Lee Steht (ANT)

I obviously recognized Lee from his GP win in the not-so-distant past, so I knew I was in for a good match. We both took a while to shuffle, and he joked about how it didn’t matter, since I was probably just playing ANT and would win in 60 seconds. When he led out with Ponder, I knew I’d been deceived; HE was the one running ANT! I played out some beaters and a Standstill, and he was forced into a position where he had no choice but to go for it. After playing a couple Lotus Petals and a Lion’s Eye Diamond, he cast an Infernal Tutor with one card in hand and looked at me questioningly. I knew what he was up to, but I wasn’t falling for it. I figured he had another Infernal Tutor in hand and was hoping that I was a bad player that would Force of Will the first copy so he could play the second one. Instead, I asked “Are you passing priority?” at which point he frowned and activated Lion’s Eye Diamond pitching the Infernal Tutor in his hand (I was right!). I then Forced the Tutor, following up a good play with an awful one. If I had let him search for Ad Nauseum and then Forced that, he would have had no outs at all. Instead, I gave him the opportunity to draw his Ad Nauseum, which is just terrible. Regardless, his next draw step didn’t yield the AN part of the ANT deck, and he packed it in.

SB:

Nothing; the maindeck is already pretty solid in this matchup.

Game 2 was far less eventful. He Duressed me a couple of times, grabbing a Standstill and a Daze, as I played creatures and another Standstill off the top. He cracked my Standstill with a Brainstorm, and I drew 3 and Spellstuttered it (so good!). After that, he sat around doing nothing relevant while I slapped him with fish.

1-0

Round 2 – Andrew Calderon (4-color Countertop)

I played a turn 1 Vial, and he dropped a Counterbalance. At that point, I pumped the fist; good matchup! Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have much offense going due to a lack of lords, and when he started drawing cards with Dark Confidant and plopped a couple of Tarmogoyfs into play, I couldn’t outrace him.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads

-2 Jitte, -1 Daze, -1 Standstill, -1 Spellstutter, -1 Merfolk Sovereign (obviously wasn’t sure what to take out, so I just shaved numbers)

Game 2, I just ran him over. Turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Silvergill Adept, Vial out Cursecatcher, turn 3 Wasteland you, Vial out Lord of Atlantis, play Standstill. Thanks for playing!

Game 3, however, was a bit of a shock. He Spell Pierced my turn 1 Vial, then Spell Snared my Silvergill Adept. At that point, he smiled at me and said “I think I got the exact hand I needed to beat you.” He was right. He once again played two Goyfs amid the countermagic, and that was the match. I guess that’s what I get for assuming I’d smash him, right?

1-1

Round 3 – Jonathon Rodriguez (Zoo)

My opponent this round won the die roll, but looked like hell warmed-over. He told me that he was pretty sick and didn’t really want to be there, which made me wonder why he bothered paying 30 bucks to enter in the first place…but hey, far be it for me to tell someone how to spend their money. Regardless, he opened on turn 1 Wild Nacatl, and I sighed; first a loss to a good matchup, and now a bad one to follow it. It was gonna take a lot of effort to not be out of top 8 contention after the 3^rd round! I thought for a little while on my turn, and realized that my best shot of winning would be to try and manascrew him, so I just Wastelanded his Taiga and crossed my fingers. He followed up with a Plateau and bashed for 3, and I dropped a Cursecatcher. He attacked for 3 more, played another Plateau, and…passed!

YES! I might get there after all!

He didn’t have a green source for 2 more turns as I played out guys, and that was the tempo I needed to get back in this game. But when he found it and played 2 Tarmogoyfs and a Qasali Pridemage, things started looking grim again. He swung with everything into my team, and I set up some double-blocks. He pointed a Lightning Bolt at my Lord of Atlantis to ruin my day, but I dropped a Spellstutter Sprite to stop those shenanigans (still good!). After a lot of careful blocking, I managed to get ahead on board, and just barely took game 1.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads, +1 Jitte, +1 Relic of Progenitus

-4 Standstill, -4 Daze (countering Goyfs is good, but not as good as not setting yourself back on tempo)

Game 2, he looked at his hand, laughed, and kept. I mulliganed into a hand with 2 Wastelands as the only lands and went into the tank. Again, I came to the conclusion that the mana-denial plan was the best one I could hope for, nodded firmly, and kept. He played a land and passed, and I Wastelanded it. Second verse, same as the first. Then on turn 3, he played another land, laughed, and said “This is the wrong hand to do that to, man! I kept a 7-lander!”

…

…what?!

I couldn’t believe it. He actually didn’t care at all about winning, and as a result kept a generally unkeepable hand that wrecked my entire gameplan! So sick…and when he played another land on turn 4 and a Grim Lavamancer, I sank in my chair.

Then he attacked his Lavamancer into my Silvergill Adept.

*fist pump*

A quick block later, and things were looking up! I kept playing out guys, Submerged a couple of Tarmogoyfs, and managed to 2-0 a terrible match thanks to careful play and my opponent’s indifference!

2-1

Round 4 – David Thomas (Reanimator)

I kept a counterless hand with a bunch of creatures and a Standstill, and he played a turn 1 Entomb on my endstep to get Iona. At that point, I knew I had to rip to have a shot, but I didn’t quite get there. After cracking a Standstill, I found a Force, but he Forced back, and Iona got Exhumed naming blue. I made a desperate attempt to race, but I couldn’t stop the legendary angel from swinging in 3 times to end me.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic

-2 Jitte, -1 Standstill, -1 Merfolk Sovereign

Game 2, my opponent mulliganed his opening 7, then drew 7 cards.

Judge!

A forced mulligan to 5 later, things were suddenly looking heavily in my favor. He stalled on 1 land for multiple turns while I turned guys sideways, and after casting a grand total of one spell (a Brainstorm, I think), he decided to move on to game 3.

The last one was a nail-biter. I drew a hand of Island, Wasteland, Mutavault, Mutavault, Crypt, Relic, and Vial. I hate keeping hands with a bunch of disruption and no creatures against combo, but this seemed solid. I had Mutavault to get a little damage in, and the Vial would ensure that I could play any business I drew without having to stop attacking with my lands. I led off with Vial and Crypt, then played Relic next turn, and he Mystical Tutored for Show and Tell. Well, there goes most of my disruption. I sacrificed Relic just to draw a card, and ended up drawing into some attackers and a FoW. He Mystical Tutored again for a FoW of his own, and I started worrying. If he drew into a blue card or a monster with the other in his hand, then I was screwed, but he would have to rip. After he drew his Force and passed with 3 cards in hand, I attacked to leave him dead on board the next turn. He slowly drew his card and cast Show and Tell, and when I Forced it, he revealed a hand of FoW, Blazing Archon, and land. Whew!

3-1

Round 5 – Tyler Wilkerson (Dredge)

I came to the table this round to find a guy wearing a Metallica shirt as my opponent. He smiled at my Skeletonwitch shirt, and we had a fun little discussion about the current state of thrash metal while shuffling up. He won the die roll, opted to play first, kept his opening hand, and passed the turn without doing anything.

Uh…what?

His play made more sense when he discarded Golgari Grave Troll on his next end step, but it made me wonder why he didn’t choose to draw first if that was his plan (and it seemed like a pretty poor plan regardless). Anyway, I played a turn 1 Vial and a turn 2 Jitte with a hand that was rather devoid of threats, and when he had 3 Bridge From Belows and 2 Ichorids in his graveyard after his first couple of dredges, his plan didn’t look quite as bad. I started swinging with a Jitte’d up Mutavault to get some counters going, and on the next turn, he dredged a Narcomoeba and a Cabal Therapy after bringing an Ichorid into play. He sacced the moeba to flashback Therapy, and he named Force of Will. I revealed my FoWless hand, and then felt very stupid, as I had forgotten that I had Standstill in play. I went back and drew 3 cards, but I had let the Therapy resolve and allowed him to get 3 zombies, so I couldn’t Vial out the Spellstutter Sprite I drew off the Standstill to counter the Therapy, preventing him from seeing my hand, and then using Jitte to kill my Sprite to remove his Bridges. Soooooo bad…

Luckily, having active Jitte against Dredge is pretty good. I killed the Sprite before his Ichorid left play to smoke his Bridges and proceeded to play more dudes and use Jitte counters to kill the Ichorids he attacked with every turn. When he dredged his last Bridge and I used Jitte to kill another 1-toughness creature on my side of the board, he had nothing left.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic, +1 Jitte

-4 Standstill, -1 Daze

For game 2, he chose to draw first, letting me know that he was on the same plan as game 1. It worked out very similarly for him, only this time I had graveyard removal as well. He flashbacked an Ancient Grudge targeting my Tormod’s Crypt, and I removed his yard in response, then played another Crypt the next turn as I plopped fish down alongside it. It didn’t take long to put the match away after that.

4-1

Round 6 – Christopher Velasquez (Aggro Loam)

This was announced as a feature match, but though we were at the feature match tables, we were neither videotaped, nor had any written coverage. Strange…

Game 1, I just had the blowout draw again. I played turn 1 Vial, and he played land, Mox Diamond, Dark Confidant, which I Force of Willed. Turn 2 Adept revealing Cursecatcher, Vial in Cursecatcher. Turn 3 Vial in a Lord, Wasteland your Bayou, and play Standstill. He had no real chance of catching back up after that.

SB:

+4 Submerge, +2 Threads, +2 Relic

-3 Spellstutter, -2 Jitte, -2 Daze, -1 Standstill

Game 2 was slower, but he had very little action. He sat there cycling lands for the first couple of turns, and when he played a Tarmogoyf, I stole it with Threads. He got it back with Nature’s Claim, then played a Knight of the Reliquary, and I Submerged the Goyf and swung with a bunch of creatures. He didn’t draw a Firespout or Seismic Assault to deal with my board of fishies on the next turn, and that was that.

5-1

I checked the standings, and quickly realized that none of the 5-1s would be able to draw in. Time to duke it out!

Round 7 – Zach Efland (43 Land)

This one was an actual feature match that got covered on the SCG site. Bill Stark did a pretty good job with the match coverage, so I’m just going to go over a couple of things.

First of all, having Force of Will in both of my opening hands was crucial. I actually mulliganed an otherwise solid hand in game 2 because it didn’t have a Force. If Lands resolves a turn 1 Exploration or Manabond against you, you’re probably done unless they’re short on Maze of Iths or Tabernacle, and even then, you have to get pretty lucky.

Secondly, Spellstutter again proved its worth in game 1. After Zach Intuitioned for 3 Manabonds and played the one that I gave him, he seemed pretty confident that he had the game in the bag. When I dropped the Sprite in response, the look on his face was priceless. He just sat there staring at the board in stunned silence for about 10-15 seconds.

Finally, the judge call: for those who can’t be bothered to look it up, in game 2, Zach had The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale in play, and passed the turn to me. I had 2 lands, 3 creatures in play, and an Aether Vial. I untapped, added a counter to the Vial, and then went to tap mana for Tabernacle, at which point Zach stopped me and told me that I had to sacrifice all my creatures. I was obviously as flabbergasted by this as he was by the Spellstutter Sprite play in game 1 (if not moreso) as he explained that since the active player’s abilities (in this case, mine) stack first, they also resolve last. So since I was allowing the Vial’s ability to resolve first, I was forgoing payment on my creatures, and was thus forced to sacrifice them all. Obviously, I wasn’t just going to take his word for it, so I called a judge. The judge upheld Zach’s interpretation of the rules, but considering the gravity of the situation (if Zach is correct, I pretty much just lose), I appealed. The head judge, Peter Jahn, then began to explain that Zach was correct, but got pulled aside by judge Ben McDole. I found out later that some of my friends were working to make sure that I didn’t get screwed by an improper ruling; my buddy Yocaliz was watching the match, and was well aware of the proper wording on Tabernacle (Zach’s was in Italian), which he brought to Ben’s attention. As it turns out, Tabernacle gives the ability to each individual creature, so since I control the creatures, I control the triggers, and can stack them however I want. The head judge subsequently overturned the ruling, I got to keep 2 of my 3 creatures, and I ended up taking the game and the match. Many thanks go out to both Ben and Yocaliz, as without them, there’s a very real possibility that I wouldn’t have finished in the money.

I’d also like to quickly address what happened in that game from an ethical standpoint. Several of my friends who were watching the game felt that what Zach did was a scummy move, and that he got what he had coming to him. I’m simply going to say this: Zach was completely in his right to do what he did, as he was enforcing the rules of the game (as he thought they worked, anyway). Would I have done the same thing if I was in his position? No, as I think it’s excessively nitpicky and borders on rules lawyering. In short, I don’t agree with what he did, but he had the right to do it.

SB:

+ 2 Crypt, +2 Relic, +2 Back To Basics

-2 Jitte, -4 Daze

From there, it was on to top 8, where I ran into a very familiar face…

Quarterfinals – John Cuvelier (Reanimator)

It was unfortunate that I had to face John in the first round of the top 8, but such is Magic. We were talking prior to our match, and he seemed to feel that while our respective odds in postboard games depended greatly on how much graveyard hate I was bringing in, game 1 was about 80-20 in his favor. While I think game 1 is pretty favorable for him, those numbers seemed heavily exaggerated, and I was looking forward to trying to prove him wrong.

Game 1 ended up going very strangely. John won the die roll, and started by playing Polluted Delta and passing. I untapped, played a land and passed, and on my end step, he popped the fetch for an Underground Sea and cast Entomb. I quickly picked up my Island to Daze, and felt like a huge donkey when he Dazed back. Clearly, I should have floated a mana before Dazing, but instead I punted badly and felt like I had probably just thrown the game. He searched out an Iona, untapped, and passed without playing anything. At this point, I went deep into the tank. After drawing for the turn, my hand was Wasteland, 3 Islands, Jitte, Merrow Reejerey, and Force of Will. He obviously didn’t have Reanimate or a second land, so I figured my only way to win was to keep him off of Exhume mana and hope to draw into some action. I Wastelanded his Sea, and he cast Mystical Tutor to search up Dark Ritual in response. He took his turn and obviously did nothing, so I had to try to mount an offense before he drew into land. Cursecatcher came off the top, and that was pretty much the best draw I could hope for. From there, he just kept missing on land as I Jitted up the little guy and started dropping lords. On his last possible turn, he found a land and played the Ritual, but he didn’t have a counter when I Force of Willed it, and he scooped.

SB:

+2 Crypt, +2 Relic

-2 Jitte, -1 Standstill, -1 Merfolk Sovereign

Game 2 was also pretty awkward for him. After casting Careful Study on turn 1, he sat there thinking for quite a while, which led me to comment “So, hand full of monsters, or hand with no monsters?” It turned out to be the latter, as he pitched a land and a Reanimate, and I instantly knew that I was in great shape this game. I played out a Vial and a Tormod’s Crypt as he continued to try and dig for action, but found none. It became obvious fairly quickly that his only possible out was Show And Tell, so I started Wasteing his lands in an effort to make my Cursecatchers and Dazes more damaging, but it didn’t actually matter, as he just had nothing all game.

We finished pretty quickly, so I watched the match next to me between David Sharfman’s Goblins and Lewis Laskin’s Bant. I was hoping that Sharfman wouldn’t win, as Goblins is a horrific matchup for me, but the goblin horde took it down. As I moved onto the semis, I was starting to regret my earlier decision to not make any room in the board for that deck…

Semifinals – David Sharfman (Goblins)

I was slightly nervous going into this (for good reason), so I reacted the way I always do when I’m a little ill at ease: by making a bunch of really terrible jokes. Sharfman inquired as to what my Skeletonwitch shirt meant, to which I replied “It’s a skeleton and a witch; what’s not to get?” I think my sense of humor was completely lost on him, which was definitely to his benefit.

Game 1 was a true nail-biter, with slow starts from each of us. He went first, and neither of us had a play until his turn 2 Piledriver, which I Dazed. On his following turn, he cycled a Gempalm Incinerator in his mainphase just to dig for a 3^rd land, which he hit. When I untapped and dropped Standstill onto an empty board with a Mutavault on my side and no relevant lands on his, I started to think I actually had a pretty decent chance of winning this one. It wasn’t to be, though. I started to get a Jitte active, but he eventually got all 3 of his remaining Piledrivers into play and had Wastelands for every Mutavault I played. The Piledrivers’ protection from blue prevented me from accumulating any Jitte counters, as I was never able to find a Merfolk Sovereign or Spellstutter Sprite to evade them. After he stabilized at 2 life, I went from 14 to dead in a single hit when he turned his pro-blue gobbos sideways.

SB:

+1 Jitte, +2 Thada Adel

-3 Standstill (this was almost definitely wrong; I was trying to bring in more creatures for Standstills that I thought were generally bad against such an aggressive matchup, but after talking with people, we agreed that with my configuration, I had to just hope to get lucky, and thus should have left in the Standstills)

Game 2 was the complete opposite of game 1. I played turn 1 Vial, he played turn 1 Lackey, and I dropped a Lord of Atlantis instead of a Silvergill Adept to block. He played another Lackey and passed back, and I untapped, played Merrow Reejerey, and bashed with Vial on 2. When he attacked with both Lackeys, I Vialed out the Adept and hoped he didn’t have any burn. I had no such luck; he had Pyrokinesis to fry my blockers, and I had to hope that the last card in his hand wasn’t anything too explosive.

Siege-Gang Commander? Yeah, that sounds like the definition of explosive.

He killed my Lord, and I tried to mount a feeble defense with a Spellstutter Sprite and a Mutavault, but it just wasn’t happening. He untapped and ripped ANOTHER Siege-Gang off the top, and I didn’t have a prayer after that.

All-in-all, I definitely can’t complain. 3^rd place in the Legacy event, 400 bucks, and qualifying for the 50K in Richmond at the end of the year is pretty good for a guy playing a format he didn’t know at all 3 weeks prior, right?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I feel that Merfolk is an excellent deck with a lot of game against most of the field, and would run it again tomorrow if given the chance. I wouldn’t change a thing about the main; the Spellstutters in particular were, as I mentioned earlier, a great last-minute addition. The sideboard could have been better thought-out, though. Personally, I would change the configuration thusly:

4 Submerge

2 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Relic of Progenitus

3 Propaganda

2 Winter Orb

The Thada Adels were originally in the board for the mirror and random Stoneforge Mystic decks to take their equipment. This was alright in testing, but I never boarded them in (except for the semifinal, which was a mistake). I feel that the Legacy metagame is too wide-open to gun for individual decks, for the most part, so it feels like better value to cut narrow cards for ones that have applications in a wider variety of matches. So in the current list, I’m cutting the Thada Adels, the Jitte, and the Back To Basics for Propagandas and Winter Orbs. Propaganda is excellent in the mirror and against Goblins, and I definitely wish I had it against Sharfman. It’s also decent against Zoo, though they’re still generally going to be happy to pay 2 to hit you with their Goyfs, so it’s not nearly as effective as it is in other matches. And while Winter Orb isn’t as backbreaking against 43 Land as Back To Basics is, it too is a lot more versatile. Legacy is still a breeding ground for rogue strategies, and some of them have done very well, such as the Mono-Blue control deck that made top 16 in Orlando or the Mono-black deck that made top 8 in Indianapolis. Winter Orb seems quite good against both decks, as well as being solid against Landstill (also top 8ed Indianapolis) and Countertop. It’ll obviously require more testing, but I feel that it’s excellent in theory.

At this point, it seems unlikely that I’ll play in any more SCG Open events until the invitational in December. The Atlanta event is the weekend before finals, and the rest are a bit too far away for me to realistically consider right now, but I’m sure I’ll see all you Floridians around the PTQ circuit in the coming months! So much for quitting…

Finally, from what I understand, you kids are big on the whole “props and slops” deal at the end of tourney reports, so I guess I’ll keep with tradition.

Props

Keith McLaughlin: For lending me most of two decks for the weekend, and for generally being a master (in more ways than one).

Paul Hyden: For lending me cash so I didn’t have to get wrecked by the convention center’s ridiculous ATM fees.

John Cuvelier: For lending me the Elspeths and being an all-around good man. You’ll get there soon enough, Endboss!

Lian Martin: For getting food for all of us both days, and for putting up with a bunch of guys with the foul mouths and dirty minds of a bunch of 14 year olds.

Yocaliz Germosen and Ben McDole: For bringing the correct wording on Tabernacle to the head judge’s attention and saving me from almost-certain defeat.

Gindy and Sharfman: For keeping both 1^st place trophies in Florida.

Skeletonwitch: For playing totally sweet thrash metal and making awesome shirts.

Slops

The Orange County Convention Center: For taking every opportunity possible to relieve everyone who attended the event of their hard-earned money via 11 dollar parking and 6 dollar hot dogs. They probably would have charged for oxygen if they could have gotten away with it.

Jund: For making me hate Standard. This is gonna be a fuuuuuuun PTQ season…

I’d been looking forward to this past weekend for a few months. I knew that there was a weekend of magic tournaments coming to Orlando which is not uncommon, but three tournaments in 3 days? I’m down. First, my local card shop was holding a $500 FNM. There is a lot of people that strongly dislike this current standard because of a certain black, green, and red deck filled with card advantage and two for ones. It is quite annoying playing against the deck because cascade can be so random, but why not just play the deck yourself? Obviously the mirror is awful, and whoever draws more Sprouting Thrinax or the most Blightnings usually wins, but thus is a mirror. I played Jund for a few months, got bored of winning and spent the last month trying out all the other decks in the format. After playing in many FNMs and mid-week tournaments, I found myself right back where I started, playing Jund. Maybe it’s wrong to enjoy hearing my opponents whining and complaining after they get smashed, but they really can’t complain because they have the same opportunity to play this super powerful deck.

The first tournament of the weekend was the $500 FNM. I chose to play open the vaults because a friend of mine, Gerry Thompson recommended it to me on MODO. It’s nice to have Bligntning cast against you and enjoy it. Here’s the list I played:

4 Wall of Denial
4 Architects of Will
4 Glassdusk Hulk
4 Sphinx of Lost Truths
3 Filigree Angel

3 Courier’s Capsule
2 Fieldmist Borderpost
1 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Open the Vaults
1 Sanguine Bond
2 Everflowing Chalice
1 Day of Judgment
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Spreading Seas

4 Terramorphic Expanse
7 Island
2 Swamp
4 Plains

Sideboard is your local metagame dependent but some combination of:
Flashfreeze, Doomblade, more Day of Judgments, Celestial Purge, Perimeter Captain, Tidehollow Sculler, Duress.

Things didn’t go so well, and I ended up dropping at 3-2-1. I think the deck is awesome, but the metagame I expected was not what it ended up being. I thought it would be the normal Jund filled environment I play in week in and week out, but boy was I wrong. I played against 2 UW ally decks, 1 Spread Em’ deck (my draw because we just sat there even though I would have won the match given 10 more minutes) 1 Mono Red deck (which is winnable if you draw Wall of Denial), a Jund w/W concoction, and 1 Jund deck. I would definitely suggest playing this deck if you know that you’ll be playing against Jund a lot, and not suggest playing it in a field filled with vampires due to Mind Sludge forcing you to top deck a Open the Vaults in a short period of time due to their fast clock.

I didn’t think I was playing OTV (open the vaults) for the 5K. Actually, I really had no clue what I wanted to play. Obviously, Jund is the audible in such a big tournament since you can just get there some times.

Saturday rolls around and I meet up with Adam Chernoff at the standard 5K, and we go over his Jund list. It seems very good so I end up playing it card for card. It was definitely a very good list, and I don’t blame my losses on the deck. Here’s the list:

4 Putrid Leech
4 Great Sable Stag
4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate
4 Blightning
3 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
3 Swamp
3 Mountain

I think when building a Jund deck for such a large tournament, where you know you’ll be playing against a lot of different decks, you want to keep your deck as consistent as possible. Notice in this list that there is no 2 of Broodmate Dragons, no 2 Rampant Growths/Explore/Trace of Abundance. I think that along with the 4 Great Sable Stag’s in the main (which is awesome against a lot of different decks) is what sold me. I hate Broodmate Dragon in this deck. I’d much rather have a lower curve that makes it so I don’t get blown out by Goblin Ruinblaster or Tectonic Edge.

I ended up dead at 3-2. I played against 3 Red Deck Wins splash black, 1 White Weenie (Cedric Phillips list which the Jund deck just can’t beat), and 1 other random deck. I lost to White Weenie, and my other loss came at the hands of the red deck.

I hung around and rooted on my friends John Dean and Taylor Raflowitz, who ended up finishing 3rd and 2nd. Congrats to Charles Gindy for winning the whole thing.

My friend Mike Letsch helped me build my Goblin deck for the Legacy portion of the event on Sunday. I had played in 2 legacy tournaments prior, and that was a few years ago. So basically I didn’t know anything about legacy other than what I had read in fellow writer Keith McLaughlin’s articles, and known from playing in those 2 events. I know about Daze, and FoW, and swords which are all good against my Goblin Deck. This is the list I ended up playing:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftan
4 Goblin Matron
1 Stingscourger
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Earwig Squad

4 AEther Vial
3 Warren Wierding

3 Bloodstained Mire (should be 4)
3 Scalding Tarn (should be 2)
6 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Badlands
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

Sideboard
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Price of Progress
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Blood Moon
1 Boartusk Liege
2 Tormod’s Crypt

This deck performed very well all day. I also played very well, but blame most of my wins on mulligan decisions. Against an unknown deck, I always mulligan a hand without Goblin Lackey, AEther Vial, or 2 Goblin Piledrivers and a Warchief/Chieftan. The format is so diverse that a hand without those cards usually means you’ll lose. Onto the report…

Round 1 Johnathan Goanos – Mono Red Goblins

Game 1:

I play Vial and pass, while he plays wasteland and passes. On my second turn, I play a Goblin Piledriver, and he simply plays a Mutavault. From the little legacy I know, I assume he’s playing Merfolk, because Goblins doesn’t normally play Mutavault. On the following turn, my Vial goes to 2. I end up playing a Goblin Matron to search for another Goblin Piledriver since it’s so important to have multiples of him in play against Merfolk because of his protection from blue. When my opponent finally draws his third land, he plays his own Goblin Matron and searches for Mogg War Marshall, making my previous play absolutely terrible.  I EOT put my Goblin Piledriver into play via my Aether Vial, and cast Goblin Chieftain on my turn. At this point, the game is basically over.

I board in 3 Pyrokinesis and the Boartusk Liege, and take out 3 Warren Wierding and the Earwig Squad.

Game 2:

He thinks for a while and keeps, while I mulligan an awesome hand against any other deck with Aether Vial, Goblin Piledriver, 2 Goblin Ringleaders, and 3 lands. This hand can’t possibly beat a turn 1 Goblin Lackey, and it’s the main reason I chose to mulligan. My six card hand is much better and exactly what I needed in the form of 2 Mountains, Goblin Lackey, Gempalm Incinerator, Siege-Gang Commander, and Goblin Ringleader. On his first turn, he played a Goblin Lackey, and I did the same. After his draw step, it was apparent that he didn’t have a second land, and from then on, the game was mine. He was pretty upset, and chose not to attack, instead saying “GO”. If he had attacked with his Goblin Lackey, I would have been forced to block with mine, and the game would have been much more difficult from there. Instead, I draw a card for my turn, and cycle my Gempalm Incinerator to kill his 1/1, resulting in a turn two Siege-Gang Commander for me. That’s game!

Round 2 Matthew Cross- 43 Lands
I’d never played this matchup before but know it’s supposed to be strongly in his favor.

Game 1:

He casts Exploration, while I simply play a Goblin Lackey. He then cycles Tolaria West to search out Maze of Ith, and then casts Life from the Loam to get back his Tolaria West. At this point, I decide to concede the game to save time. His deck takes the full 50 minutes to win, and I need to win at least one game in order to have a chance at a draw.

I board in 3 Blood Moon, 3 Price of Progress, and 2 Tormod’s Crypt for 3 Warren Weirding, 4 Gempalm Incinator, and 1 Goblin Chieftain

Game 2:

I Blood Moon him out of the game.
Game 3:

We sit there with me having an Aether Vial while he has no Life from the Loam. I’m stuck on 1 land, but he fails to draw any real action for at least eight turns. Eventually, I draw a Blood Moon and kill him on the following turn with Goblin Warchief, Goblin Chieftain, and two Goblin Piledrivers.
Round 3 Robert “Wu” Tang – 43 Lands w/ Red for Gamble

Game 1:

I know what he’s playing, so I know that I need a turn one Goblin Lackey in order to have any chance game one. I mulligan to five, but my draw is the absolute nuts if he doesn’t have a Maze of Ith or Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. My hand is Goblin Lackey, Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Piledriver, a Mountain, and X. He fails to draw Maze of Ith or the Tabernacle, and the game is quickly over on turn four.

I board in 3 Blood Moon, 3 Price of Progress, and 2 Tormod’s Crypt for 3 Warren Weirding, 4 Gempalm Incinator, and 1 Goblin Chieftain

Game 2:

We get mid-round deck checked and have to re-sideboard. Apparently, he boarded in Ancient Grudge instead of Ray of Revelation. On turn three, I cast a Blood Moon, and in response to my Blood Moon, he sacrifices a fetch land to get the one basic forest out of his deck. While looking through his deck, he comes to realize that he can’t actually win because of the mistake he made, and can only stall the game. At this point, he respectfully concedes.

Round 4 Charles Chandler- Mono Black splash Tarmogoyf

Game 1:

He casts Thoughtseize against me twice this game, and shortly thereafter plays a Tombstalker. I end up ripping a Warren Weirding from the top of my deck, and my Goblin swarm overwhelms him.

I board in 1 Boartusk Liege (in case of Engineered Plague) and board out 1 Siege-Gang Commander (didn’t seem too good against so much discard)

Game 2:

He plays turn one Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter on the play and I die shortly after under so much discard along with his Nantuko Shade.

Game 3:

I have a turn one Aether Vial, but he has his Hypnotic Specter on the first turn to match. I continue to play Goblins, and use Rishadan Port to lock down one of his two lands. We get to the point where he is in single digit life points, and I have nothing in hand, but I have a Goblin Piledriver and a Goblin Warchief in play against his lone Hypnotic Specter. With him still being short on lands, he has no other choice but to keep passing the turn. I continue to draw Goblins, and there is a point in the match where he calls the judge over after I won’t let him take back one of his plays. He lies to the judge, and instead of arguing, I say “whatever” and continue playing. Eventually, his misplay ends up costing him the game.

BTW, I HATE when people lie.

Round 5 Omar Hamid- Bant Natural Order Counter Top

Game 1:

This game is very close. After dealing with each other’s threats, we reach a stalemate with me at 1 life, a few goblins in play, and a Siege Gang Commander. He has a Rhox War Monk, Tarmogoyf, Counterbalance, a bunch of lands, and is at a healthy 17 life. Eventually, I resolve a Goblin Ringleader, reveal 4 Goblins, and he concedes.

I sideboard in 3 Pyrokinesis to deal with his Rhox War Monks and 1 Boartusk Liege because he has firespout in his board. I shave some goblins (meaning taking out 1 or 2 of each) because I really didn’t know what to take out. Just being honest.

Game 2:

We start the game with 15 minutes left, and he’s stuck on a Plains, Forest, and Island in play. My Rishadan Port is tapping one of his colors down each turn, and I manage to play around Firespout to take the match.

At this point I’m 5-0 and double draw into Top 8 with AJ Sacher and Julian De Los Santos. There was 1 match that decided if I made it or not, and they ended up drawing which locked me into 8th place.

Quarterfinals Lewis Laskin Bant Fish w/Stoneforge Mystic
Game 1:

He has double Swords to Plowshares and an Aether Vial with two counters, along with Tarmogoyf and Stoneforge Mystic. The Stoneforge Mystic allowed him to get a Sword of Fire and Ice, and he takes the game in under five minutes.
I sideboard in 3 Pyrokinesis and take out 2 Goblin Chieftan and the Earwig Squad. I usually board out Goblin Chieftains against decks that the size of my creatures doesn’t matter.
Game 2:

He has a lot of counters and removal but only draws a Spellstutter Sprite as his creature along with two Mutavaults, both of which I wasteland. I eventually draw and play more Goblins, and take the game with my creatures.
Game 3:

Much like game two, he is again low on creatures. He only draws a Jotun grunt and Spellstutter Sprite in the early turns and gets severely Mana flooded while I cast Goblin Ringleaders to keep my hand full. With five lands in play, he casts a Stoneforge Mystic and tries to equip his Spellstutter Sprite. I cast Pyrokinesis to kill both of his creatures, and take both the game and the match.

Semifinals Michael Brady- Merfolk
Game 1:

He mulls to 5 but has a turn two Standstill which I break for a Goblin Chieftain, undoing his mulligan. We both play creatures, but he gets an active Jitte against my Goblin Chieftain and double Goblin Piledriver. Luckily, my Goblin Piledrivers make it so that he can’t get more counters on his Jitte because of their protection from blue, and the Goblin Chieftain I played on turn three gives them both three toughness. Eventually, I resolve a third Goblin Piledriver, and at 14 life, my 5/2’s take game 1.
I board in 3 Pyrokinesis and 1 Boartusk Liege and take out 1 Earwig Squad 2 Goblin Warchief and 1 Stingscourger.
Game 2:

This game goes by pretty quickly as I have a turn one Goblin Lackey followed by turn two Aether Vial, and my Pyrokinesis to kill his blockers on turn three allows me to put Siege Gang Commander into play via my Goblin Lackey. After I rip my second Siege Gang Commander on the following turn and kill off some of his blockers, he concedes.
Finals Zack Wilson Aggro Loam
We decide to prize split, even though he didn’t want to at first because it’s a “good matchup” for him.
Game 1:

I have a turn one Goblin Lackey on the play, which he can’t deal with unless he has his own turn one Devastating Dreams. My Goblin Lackey puts a Goblin Matron into play on turn two, and I search for a Goblin Ringleader. Goblin Ringleader comes into play and I end up putting four Goblins in my hand. He’s land screwed and is forced to play his cycle lands instead of using them for card advantage with the Life from the Loam in his hand. I Earwig Squad him on turn three and remove all his Devastating Dreams from his deck. After I search through his deck, I know what is in his hand, and what to play around. Despite having a Seismic Assault, he dies in short order to my Goblin Horde.
I board in 3 Price of Progress and 2 Tormod’s Crypt. Price of Progress is the best possible sideboard card against his deck and he knows it. I shave some goblins, including Goblin Chieftain, Stingscourger, and Gempalm Incinerators
Game 2:

He talks about keeping a “fundamentally decent enough hand that makes you think, well, it just might get there” and eventually just chooses to mulligan. I have a turn one Goblin Lackey again, and put a free Goblin Ringleader into play. He plays a Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to try and slow me down, but it just wasn’t happening today. I play a Tormod’s Crypt and battle! He resolves a Countryside Crusher, but I have Warren Weirding to kill it and attack again. He plays Burning Wish to get a Devastating Dreams, but has only one other card in his hand. I choose to let my Goblin Ringleader go to the graveyard, and cast a Goblin Warchief. I decide to put Earwig Squad into play for free off my Goblin Lackey since he can’t Devastating Dreams it away even after he draws another card. He has to cast the Devastating Dreams anyway, and my Earwig Squad gets him!
David Sharfman is your StarCityGames Legacy Open champion in Orlando!

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

With Pro Tour San Diego in the books, we’ve come to find ourselves, yet again, in an uphill battle against the dreaded Jund. Although only three copies of Jund made the final tables at PT:SD, two of them wound up face-to-face in the finals. With results like this, it’s no suprise to see so many players proclaiming Jund as the “best” deck in the format. But is this actually the case?

The people running PT:SD were kind enough to supply the decklists for every participant in the entire PT (aside from a few dozen lists that were omitted, presumably on accident). Although, I had to go through each decklist by hand to determine all the archetypes, once I had those, along with the match results, I wrote some code to perform some analysis. Before I get into the details, let me first introduce the archetypes (omitting those that were played by less than five players).

——————–
(380 decks recorded in total)

Jund — 95 players (79 w/Leech, 16 w/out)
The BGR aggro deck, centered around Blightning, Sprouting Thrinax, Broodmate Dragon and Maelstrom Pulse. A very large number of cards in the deck are capable of generating card advantage, whether that be through the cascade mechanic, discard-effects, Planeswalkers, or otherwise. Because of it’s large numbers, I’ve divided Jund into versions with and without Putrid Leech.

WW — 42 players
People used to joke that white weenie was an archetype defined by the ability to get as many creatures in play as fast as possible so they could all die to Wrath of God. Now with the printing of Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Firewalker, in addition to the already fine arsenal of Steppe Lynx, Elspeth and Path to Exile, WW has become a real fine choice in standard.

Vamps — 30 players
Oh Edward! Wizards has obviously pushed Vampires to be a contender with Vampire Nighthawk, Gatekeeper of Malakir and Vampire Nocturnus. Worldwake gives the deck another weapon in the form of Kalastria Highborn. Mind Sludge seems to be optional in this deck, although it’s hard to imagine losing a game when one resolves.

URW — 30 players
The control deck revolving around bad counter-spells, Ajani Vengeant and Earthquake, typically using Sphinx of Jwar Isle for the kill. LSV and others briefly promoted this deck prior to the release of Worldwake.

MonoRed — 19 players
Ball Lightning and Lightning Bolt! Is this 1997? Deadguy red is back. There’s no Fireblast or Cursed Scroll shenanigans, but Goblin Guide and Searing Blaze are still fairly powerful.

Junk — 19 players
PT Junk was a popular archetype in Extended after the printing of Pernicious Deed and Vindicate in Apocalyspe. The GWB deck’s strategy was to play the best removal, disruption and creatures. Today, many of the best creatures are still in green and white. Add Maelstrom Pulse to the mix, and you have the 2010 version of Junk.

UWControl — 18 players
With their new Worldwake tools, many swapped out their Ajani Vengeants and Earthquakes from URW, and replaced them with Treasure Hunts and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Pat Chapin’s nearly-creatureless UW Control deck is kept distinct from this category.

BossNaya — 14 players
The latest creation from ChannelFireball, this GRW Naya list tries to imitate Jund, by generating as much card advantage as possible, without actually playing blue spells. Along with the usual Bloodbraid Elf and Ranger of Eos, Boss Naya runs Stirring Wildwood, Raging Ravine and Sejiri Steppe to turn Knight of the Reliquary into a card advantage engine. The presence of Stoneforge Mystic, and sideboarded Cunning Sparkmages gives the deck easy access to the brutal Sparkmage + Basilisk Combo.

Bant — 12 players
This, like Junk, simply takes a couple of cards and shuffles them into a stack of green and white dudes. In this case, the cards of interest are Jace, the Mindsculptor and Rhox War Monk.

SummoningTrap — 8 players
Basically a Bant deck in the early game, but with 4x Summoning Trap and 4x Iona, Shield of Emeria. Iona is lights-out for many of the decks in the field, while Summoning Trap is a very brutal trick against decks trying to resolve Double Negatives and Essence Scatters.

Time Sieve — 7 players
Time Sieve uses card drawing engines to put tons of artifacts in play, then sacrificing them to take extra turns with Time Sieve. Time Warps and Fog-effects along with spells like Howling Mine and Jace Beleren fuel the deck, until it builds up to a huge Open the Vaults. Tezzeret is typically the kill spell.

Grixis — 7 players
Similar to URW, but ixnay the Ajani Vengeants, Baneslayer Angels and Path to Exiles in favor of Cruel Ultimatum, Blightning and Terminate.

Eldrazi — 7 players
Eldrazi green is the prototypical mono-green aggro deck. The deck relies on getting several guys into play, and powering them through with Garruk Wildspeaker’s ultimate or Eldrazi Monument.

BigNaya — 6 players
Many players brought a more-midrange GRW aggro deck featuring multiple copies of Acidic Slime, Baneslayer Angels and a singleton Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, all powered out by Lotus Cobra and Trace of Abundance.

BantControl — 6 players
This UGW mid-range aggro/control deck mixes some of the best mana accelerators (Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise) to power out Garruk Wildspeaker and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, while playing strong defensive creatures (Calcite Snapper and Rhox War Monk) to protect them.

Valakut — 5 players
Valakut picked up some steam at the beginning of Zendikar standard, before falling off the radar for the most part. It tries to abuse Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle by running as many Mountains as possible along with Khalni-Heart Expedition, Harrow, Explore and Rampant Growth.

Mythic — 5 players
Yet another Bant deck. This version has been promoted by one Zvi Mowshowitz. It attempts to outclass other decks by always having the biggest, most-lethal creature, either on it’s own merit, or via Finest Hour or Rafiq of the Many.

Jacerator — 5 players
Similar to Time Sieve, this deck uses Howling Mines and Jace Beleren in conjunction with Time Warps and Fogs as fuel. In this archetype, the card drawing the opponent is doing is eventually turned against him/her, typically via Archive Trap.

Boros — 5 players
Boros plays the most aggressive creatures in red and white, such as Steppe Lynx, Goblin Guide and Elite Vanguard. Ranger of Eos fetching Goblin Bushwhacker is typically the selling point of the deck, being able to go from an empty board to nine-to-the-face in a single turn.

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Phew. That’s a lot of archetypes. Although a Pro Tour may not be the best place to make a metagame prediction for your local SCG 5K or FNM, it’s certainly worth taking a look. With 95 players running Jund, that’s 25% of the entire metagame. Coming in a distant second was White Weenie with only 11%, with Vamps and URW in third at 8% a piece.

When going into a tournament, the important number is likely not the percentage of *players* pilotting a particular deck, but rather how many matches will be played with each deck in total. For example, if you’re in a tournament where there are ten players running Deck X (out of 100 players total), but nine of those players are out of the tournament by round three, then counting X as 10% of the metagame is clearly a mistake.
Rather, we should add up every match played by X, and divide by the total number of matches played in the entire tournament. Here are those numbers for the top 15 decks.

———————
Matches % Deckname
503 0.216810 LeechJund
287 0.123707 WW
181 0.078017 URW
173 0.074569 Vamps
117 0.050431 Junk
114 0.049138 MonoRed
92 0.039655 BossNaya
86 0.037069 NoLeechJund
81 0.034914 UWControl
72 0.031034 Bant
50 0.021552 SummoningTrap
38 0.016379 Sieve
38 0.016379 Grixis
37 0.015948 BantControl
36 0.015517 BigNaya
34 0.014655 Mythic
34 0.014655 Boros
33 0.014224 GWKnightfall
31 0.013362 Valakut
28 0.012069 Eldrazi
———————–

Here we see, that while the numbers for some of the decks clearly reflect the popularity of each deck, we also see some big movers. GWKnightfall wasn’t even mentioned previously, as it was only piloted by three players (1.05%), but the deck managed to play in 1.4% of all matches. That’s a rather large move, considering the scarcity of the deck. BossNaya made an even bigger jump, from 37% to nearly 40%, while Eldrazi players clearly didn’t fare too well, only playing in 12% of all matches, despite being run by almost 16% of the participants. We would expect that these numbers be noticable in the match win percentages for each archetype, and that turns out to, in fact, be the case.

———————
(25 match minimum)
WinPCT W-L Deck
0.785714 22-6 ChapinUW
0.678571 57-27 BossNaya
0.676471 23-11 Mythic
0.617647 21-13 Boros
0.591837 145-100 WW
0.545455 18-15 GWKnightfall
0.531017 214-189 LeechJund
0.522124 59-54 Junk
0.509091 56-54 MonoRed
0.490566 78-81 Vamps
0.486111 35-37 Bant
0.483871 15-16 Valakut
0.480000 24-26 SummoningTrap
0.472222 17-19 BigNaya
0.464286 39-45 NoLeechJund
0.432432 16-21 BantControl
0.411765 14-20 Grixis
0.396450 67-102 URW
0.346154 9-17 Eldrazi
0.333333 12-24 Sieve
0.306667 23-52 UWControl
———————–

First, we find that Eldrazi in fact put up some pitiful numbers, while BossNaya and GWKnightfall fared particularly well, but that’s all beside the point. If you want to know how often you will play a particular match up, it doesn’t make sense to calculate what percentage of players are piloting that deck, but rather how many matches are played with it — in the case of PT:SD, you’d be far more likely to play against GWKnightfall and BossNaya than one might first expect.

Second, a very humorous result is that while ChapinUW put up the best match win percent by a huge margin, all other UW Control strategies combined put up the worst! I guess those Calcite Snappers and Wall of Denials aren’t so great when Day of Judgment kills them all. URW also appeared to be an extremely weak strategy, only winning 39.6% of it’s matches.

Third, for quite some time people couldn’t decide whether Putrid Leech belonged in Jund lists. The mistake some players make, is to think it’s an auto-include, because a 4/4 for 2 is obviously quite good. I don’t think that’s the true dilemma. Rather, it’s the constraint it’s mana cost puts on the deck. With so many lands that come into play tapped, along with an already shaky mana base, having BG up on turn two isn’t guaranteed. However, it apparently happens often enough, as the Jund lists with Leech fared much better than those which cut the Leech (53% wins versus 46%). This, perhaps, emphasizes the utility of this sort of analysis. Simply trying to play games with the Leech and no-Leech versions, one would have to play twenty matches to just begin to detect a difference of 5%. Given the variance in Magic, to make a confident stance that the no-Leech version is
inferior would likely take upwards of 50 to 100 matches. Well, here it is for free. Run the Leech.

Fourth, UWChapin, BossNaya and Mythic are clearly the front-runners to take the format, with each winning over 65% of it’s matches. To put that in perspective, in my analysis of the Legacy portion of SCG 5K Richmond (coming soon), not a single deck won 65% of it’s matches. Those are truly fantastic numbers.

Fifth, many archetypes which have been thought to be particularly strong, MonoRed, Junk, Vamps and Bant are actually quite mediocre, all within 3% of 50-50. You may as well be running SummoningTrap or Valakut, if you want to run these decks.

And most importantly, according to these statistics, Jund is clearly NOT the best deck. In fact, it’s performance was rather mediocre (besides winning the whole event), with a win percentage 6% lower than WW, 8% lower than Boros, and 12% lower than the 65% threshold.

That’s right. Jund isn’t the best deck***. In fact, it’s far from it. Now, perhaps, many of the lists played in PT:SD were inferior, but seriously, how difficult is it to build Jund. The biggest decision to be made (aside from Leech), is whether to run 26 or 27 lands. That’s hardly pivotal. Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we are talking about a Pro Tour here. None of the Jund players are running Grizzly Bears, Vampire Aristocrat, or anything else that is obviously bad. If you want to win playing Jund, clearly the most important thing to do is to practice your cascades, because unless you’re Bloodbraids are hitting Blightnings every time, you’re looking to win ~53% of your matches.

(*** Disclaimer: Jund still might be the *strongest* deck, with it’s win percentage pulled down by mirror-matches, but going into a tournament one doesn’t care _who_ he (or she) wins/loses against. Keep in mind, that if a deck wins 65% of it’s matches, and Jund is 25% of the field, that deck is likely doing quite well against Jund.)

For the finale, I present to you, the match-up grid from PT:SD:

Along the top row and left-most column are archetypes, and in each intersecting cell, we have the win-loss data for that particular matchup. The table should be read such that LeechJund is (24-9) against Vamps.

As expected, the decks that put up the best win-percetages, with the exception of one, put up strong numbers against Jund. WW (45-22), ChapinUW (3-1), Boros (5-1) and Mythic (6-2). The exception, BossNaya, still put up decent numbers against LeechJund (10-11) — making this matchup comparable to the Jund-Jund mirror, except in this case, BossNaya is clearly stronger against the rest of the metagame, winning 46 of it’s remaining 63 matches.

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That’s all I’ve got for standard. I’m really not a big fan of the format, to be honest — clearly I’m a Legacy player. I’ve already got my next article in the works, which will be analysis similar to this, except for Legacy SCG 5K Richmond. If you don’t hear from me again before the 27th, I’d like to wish all of you “good luck” in SCG 5K Orlando, and I hope that these numbers prove to be helpful. Feel free to leave questions/comments here, or hit me up on facebook.

Keith McLaughlin

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

Since the last time you’ve all heard from me, I made some significant changes to the Life deck, now incorporating Black in the main deck, replacing Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle with Thoughtseize and Tidehollow Sculler. I’m a big fan of the new changes, as being able to know exactly what your opponent can do to stop you from going-off is extremely valuable information. That’s not to mention some of the cute tricks you can do with a Tidehollow Sculler with Vial [1] or Diamond Valley [2]. Additionally, Doran becomes much easier to cast, and we can now easily support multiple copies in the main deck, greatly strengthening the deck against strategies that can win without having to deal damage, i.e. Grindstone, Academy Ruins [3] and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

[1] Using Vial to make a Tidehollow on an opponent’s draw step allows you to deny the opponent their top deck for a turn.
[2] Put Tidehollow’s ability on the stack, then sacrifice him to Valley to permanently exile a card from your opponent’s hand.
[3] The presence of Academy Ruins in 38-Land allows them to easily deck the Life player.

As many of the true innovators out there know, making drastic changes to a deck requires much time and effort; it’s not unusual for the theory behind certain card choices and strategies to prove itself invalid. Nevertheless, it’s important to learn as much as possible for such experiments. In the case with Life, we did not immediately think that Black was a stronger choice than Blue, rather it was the product of a failed experiment.

Due to the popularity of those troublesome strategies mentioned above, myself and some non-local players [4] decided it may be worthwhile to combine Life with Cephalid Breakfast [5], adding to the deck’s flexibility, while also adding a possible turn 2 nut-draw kill. This is exactly the same sort of reasoning used recently by Yurchick’s GP Oakland 2nd-place Thopter-Depths, and as far back as Kai Budde’s Oath of Trix, which combined the aggro-stomping Oath of Druids engine with the popular Illusions-Donate kill. As it turned out, two problems plagued our hybrid deck. First, the presence of Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul, 3x Narcomoeba, Dragon’s Breath and Lord of Extinction made the deck mulligan at least 80% more often. In many testing sessions, I’d be ecstatic to only mulligan to six, but even then, those hands would commonly include a Narcomoeba or the like, effectively making them five-card hands. Second, many games you’d be forced to choose whether to go for the cephalid kill or infinite life. The two are completely mutually-exclusive since the using the cephalid reduces your library to only a few cards at most. If the opponent had a Sensei’s Divining Top in play, there was some probability that there is a Swords to Plowshares just waiting on top of the library for the Ghoul to hit play, complicating the decision to some degree.

[4] Doug Azzano, in particular.
[5] The combo involves targetting Cephalid Illusionist a large number of times with Shuko, or Nomads en-Kor to deck oneself. Several Narcomoebas come into play, which are sacrificed to Dread Return targetting a very large Sutured Ghoul (removing Lord of Extinction or Terravore). Dragon’s Breath gives the Sutured Ghoul haste.
[6] Turn 1 Shuko or Nomads en-Kor, turn 2 Cephalid Illusionist.

Though we had a lot of problems with consistency, we found that a few of the matchups had vastly improved (at the expense of others). We were nearly beating Merfolk every game as we could determine the exact number of Stifles and FoW’s we needed to fight though before committing thanks to Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize.

After giving up on Cephalid-Life, it became clear that we could strengthen some matchups by making the blue-for-black swap, while also slightly shoring up our weak manabase [7]. Here is the list:

Dark Life
4 Aether Vial
4 Shuko
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
3 Task Force
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Doran the Siege Tower
4 Eladamri’s Call
4 Living Wish

3 Diamond Valley
2 Starlit Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
3 Plains
1 Forest

Sideboard
1 Diamond Valley
1 Nomads en-Kor
1 Daru Spiritualist
1 Doran the Siege Tower
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Progenitus [8]
3 Nature’s Claim
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Gaea’s Blessing

[7] We were already playing a couple sources of black mana in the main deck for Doran and sideboarded cards.
[8] To prevent being decked. Build up to a full hand, then discard Progenitus whenever you draw it.

I was prepped and ready to run a very similar list in a local tournament, but I figured it’d be more exciting if I wrote about something new. I convinced Nolan Blackwelder to switch decks with me prior to the tournament so I could talk, instead, about his interesting concoction, Bomberman [9].

[9] Nolan lost in the top 8 with the Life list, though he was winning both games prior to receiving a game-loss, and the unfortunate mistake of forgetting to board in the Progenitus against Stax.

Here is the list I piloted.

UWr Bomberman
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fire/Ice
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
2 Shattering Spree
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Meddling Mage
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

I don’t agree with all the card choices, but I decided to play the deck as-is. With around twenty players, the tournament structure was annouced to be four rounds, with a cut to the top-eight. Here we go:

Round 1, Robert Cone (U/G Natural Order)
Robert started on the play, and after a mulligan, ran out a Llanowar Elf on an Elvish Spirit Guide (no land). I untapped and played a Swords to Plowshares, practically ending the game on the spot. Robert found a City of Brass on the next turn and played a Concordant Crossroads, and on the following turn played a Birds of Paradise before passing. I ran out a Trinket Mage fetching Lion’s Eye Diamond and beat in for two. Robert didn’t do much on his following turn before passing back, where I resolved an Auriok Salvagers and generated infinite mana with Lion’s Eye Diamond [10], before drawing my deck with an Aether Spellbomb and going for the kill with Pyrite.

[10] Sacrifice the Lion’s Eye Diamond for three mana, then return it to your hand with Salvagers for two. Replay, rinse, repeat.

I sideboarded in the extra Painter’s Servants, Engineered Explosives and 2x Meddling Mage for the Tormod’s Crypt, Pithing Needle and 4x Accumulated Knowledge. This time Robert led off with a turn one Verdant Catacombs and City of Brass before playing a Vexing Shusher, while I played a Painter’s Servant. Robert resolved a main phase Mystical Tutor fetching Natural Order, and passed back before I ran out a Trinket Mage, fetching Grindstone. Robert, untapped and went for his Progenitus, I played out my 4th land drop along with the Grindstone. Robert scooped immediately, though I actually tried to stop him to ask if he had a second Progenitus in his deck. He hadn’t realized at the time, but Grinding into a Progenitus with Painter’s Servant ends the game in a draw, as the Progenitus keeps replacing itself only to be hit by the Grindstone again, creating an infinite loop [11].

[11] This is only the case because Progenitus’s ability is a replacement effect. If it were a triggered ability, the game would continue leaving the player with only Progenitus in his library.

Round 2, Todd Palmer (Merfolk)
I played first, but Todd started with an Aether Vial before getting first blood by beating in with a Mutavault. I played a Trinket Mage fetching Engineered Explosives. Todd attacked again with the Mutavault, but I opted against blocking, and Todd Vial’d a Lord of Atlantis into play to add a point of damage, before adding a second Mutavault. I untapped and used Engineered Explosives to dispatch the Lord, before attacking with Trinket Mage. Todd stayed aggressive by sending both his Mutavaults, sending me to 11 life. A turn later, Todd came in again with both Vaults, and I decided to throw the Mage in front of one, but Todd Vial’d a Merrow Reejerey to pump his Vault. I attempted a Swords to Plowshares, but he has Force of Will, sending me to 8 life. On my following turn, I cycled an Aether Spellbomb, but didn’t have much action, with only a Swords to Plowshares, a Lion’s Eye Diamond and a bunch of lands, and had to send the turn back. Todd ran out a Jitte, and hooked up his Reejerey, but I send it to the farm, and dropped to 3 from the Vaults. He passed the turn back, and I was all dead-on-board, until… I peeked at the top card of my library… Auriok Salvagers. I ran him out, into Todd’s two card hand, but he had no Force of Will. The Lion’s Eye Diamond hit the board next, and Todd scooped it up.

I sideboarded out all the copies of AK, the Tormod’s Crypt and the Intuitions for 2 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Engineered Explosives, a Pyroblast and 2 Painter’s Servant.

In game two, Todd started out with a Silvergill Adept, followed by a Lord of Atlantis and got in for a few points before an Stp dispatched the Lord. An Engineered Explosives on two was met by Force of Will, and a Mutavault joined Todd’s team. A Red Blast took out the Adept and a Trinket Mage hit play, but a Jitte came online for Todd, and the game ended soon after.

In game three, Todd led off with Wasteland and Pithing Needle on Grindstone. I had a Pithing Needle of my own, but opted to hit up his Wastelands. A Standstill came down, which was met by my Force of Will. Todd ran out an Aether Vial and a second Standstill along with a Force for my Counterspell. We passed the turn back and forth several times, with Vial moving up to three counters, but without ever putting a guy into play. Finally, a Rejeerey hit play along with a Mutavault, and I was forced to break the Standstill with a Swords to Plowshares. I tried a Painter’s Servant but Todd had another Force of Will. A Dust Bowl hit play, and I was started taking out the Mutavaults, while using various removal on Todd’s remaining creatures. This went on for several turns before time was called, with the board being my Pithing Needle and Academy Ruins against Todd’s Aether Vial, Pithing Needle and three turned-off Wastelands. On turn one of the final five, Todd peeled a Tormod’s Crypt but I put the Servant on top with Ruins in response, and followed with a turn two Trinket Mage fetching Grindstone and played an Explosives on one (to deal with the Pithing Needle on Stone). Todd could only add a Reejerey to his army on turn three, while I had enough mana up to Grind him out of cards on the fourth, forcing him to deck on the final turn. Phew!

With only four rounds before the cut, I was safe to draw into the top eight.

Quarterfinals
Natalie Scott (Dredge)
With Natalie on the play, the first spell she attempted was a turn two Putrid Imp. I went for the Force of Will, hoping to lock her out of discard outlets, but she had a Careful Study, discarding a few dredgers. On the following turn, I was able to counter a Breakthrough, but the damage had been done, and within three turns I was facing down six Bridge from Below tokens and a Bloodghast. I managed to peel an Engineered Explosives (which I called ahead of time, as it was my only out), and put an end to the tokens, but was already down to three life. The Bloodghasts cleaned things up fairly quickly.

I cut a Fire/Ice, three Swords to Plowshares, the AK’s, Intuitions and the Pithing Needle for 4 Red Blasts, 2 Tormod’s Crypt, 1 Relic of Progenitus, 2 Meddling Mage and 2 Painter’s Servants.

I elected to play, but my opening seven was just a bunch of Counterspells, Salvagers and lands. Without a winning gameplan here [12] I sent it back and received a similar six. The five wasn’t much better, and finally I wound up keeping the following four: Tormod’s Crypt, Red Blast, Painter’s Servant and Counterspell. Notice the lack of lands. Natalie came out the gates with a Pithing Needle on Crypt, followed by a turn two Tireless Tribe pitching Golgari-Grave Troll. She managed to dredge for three turns, without card drawing, her draw wasn’t very explosive. Not to mention, she didn’t hit a single Narcomoeba and only a single Bridge from Below. A Therapy came down, and missed on Trinket Mage. Finally, I peeled a second land, and ran out my Painter’s Servant naming blue. Natalie, still not hitting much action on her Dredges, continued to dig before passing back the turn, not realizing that her Pithing Needle was about to succumb to my Red Blast. And with that, the Red Blast knocked off the Needle and the Crypt took out her bin. A pair of Fire/Ices locked the land-light dredge deck out of blue mana for a couple turns before a Meddling Mage shut off Dread Return entirely. Natalie finally was able to hit a few Narcomoebas a few turns later, but it was too late. A Trinket Mage found Grindstone, and Natalie entered her scoop phase.

[12] I need to be able to lock her out of discard outlets, or have access to an early Tormod’s Crypt.

Being on the draw makes Counterspell much worse, so I cut two copies for a pair of Intuitions.

After such an epic game two, game three was quite anti-climactic. Natalie started with a Putrid Imp, to which I answered with a Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Natalie was in no position to try to dredge and was forced to just hardcast a bunch of crappy guys. Between a pair of Trinket Mages and seven self-inflicted damage points from a Coliseum and City of Brass, the game ended in a hurry.

Semifinals
Carrena (Stax)
I kept my opening hand, with a Painter’s Servant, Trinket Mage, Force of Will, Intuition and three lands, and was pretty sure this game would be easy. That was, until Carrena resolved a Trinisphere on turn two. I figured that since I was going for the Grindstone kill, I should save my FoW for something more important, like Armageddon. That was until I realized that I couldn’t cast Force without paying three mana! On the following turn, I burned the FoW on morphed Exalted Angel, as I simply didn’t have anything better to do. When I tapped down for a Trinket Mage on the following turn, Armageddon hit the stack, my lands hit the bin, and I packed it up.

I boarded out the narrow removal spells (StP and Fire/Ice) along with two Intuition and a Tormod’s Crypt for Relic of Progenitus, 2 Shattering Spree, the pair of Painter’s Servants, 2 Meddling Mages and 2 Engineered Explosives.

We played land-go for a few turns before Carrena attempted a Crucible of Worlds, which was met by Force of Will (as she had Wasteland). A turn later, she tried a Trinisphere, which resolved, but was met by my Shattering Spree. Unfortunately, this left me tapped out, giving Carrena an opening to resolve Choke. Within a few turns, Carrena added a Smokestack, and fairly soon I was completely out of land. I started to build back, and was able to resolve a Painter’s Servant, and could Trinket Mage for a Grindstone as soon as I drew a mountain to Red Blast the Choke. Unfortunately, Carrena found an Armageddon before I could pull that off, ending my presence in the top eight.

3-1

After playing in the short tournament, I feel like I got a pretty good feel of what the deck wants to do, and how to play it fairly well. I noticed that it typically felt it was easier to go for the Painter’s Grindstone kill than Salvagers combo, particular post-board, although on paper it seems that the latter should be easier to set up.

Here are a few comments on the deck:
1. The Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine felt especially bad, as one doesn’t typically have that kind of time to invest, and drawing three cards is not necessarily better than using the Intuition as a tutor. Honestly though, if I was able, I almost always pitched AK or Intuition to Force of Will when given the opportunity. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, but I don’t really think so.
2. I was very unhappy with the Tolaria West. I think it makes more sense if the deck had Pact of Negation. As is, I never found myself in a situation when I would rather transmute for a spell, than just play a land. That could also just mean that the deck is too land light.
3. The lack of Plateau put me in several situations where I had to choose between having access to red or white mana. The presence of Wasteland in the format, makes this come up more often than one might think.
4. Thirst for Knowledge seems very good in a deck with this many artifacts, particularly since most of those artifacts don’t mind being deposited directly into the graveyard.
5. Though Meddling Mage is a nice trick out of the sideboard, I think Counterbalance would be even stronger, and has the obvious synergy with the fetchable Sensei’s Divining Top.
6. There isn’t enough red mana in the deck to support Shattering Spree and I’m not sure if there is enough board space to worry about blowing up artifacts in a metagame that isn’t heavily shifted towards Stax.

And an updated list,

UWr Bomberman
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fire/Ice
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

2 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
2 Plateau
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Counterbalance
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to leave me some nice comments!

Keith McLaughlin

When: April 3rd, 2010

Where: Clarion Conference Center in Tampa, FL; Map + Directions

Entry Fee: $25

Prize Breakdown:

1st-$800

2nd-$400

3rd-4th-$200

5th-8th-$100

Tournament Details:

Advanced Format Deck Required

Begin registration @ 8 AM

Late registration @ 9:45 AM (if you register after this time, you will be charged a $30 entry fee)

Tournament begins @ 10:00 AM

Other side events will be run throughout the day

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