Magic Game Day Report

Last Satuday I played in my local store's Magic Game Day Tournament for Zendikar in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Our store is called Gryfalia's Aerie, it's recently relocated and is pretty sweet now, you should swing by if you are near. We had a tournament attendance of 31 people and it would be 5 rounds of Swiss with a cut to top 8. The top 8 would receive the Emeria Angel promos, split a box and get a stack of random foil promos obviously with more loot going to the higher finishers.

I am not crazy about the current standard format, as I love myself a good control deck or at least something with some form of card advantage. Playtesting and tournament reports, however, have proven that aggro is the strategy of the times and I have put trying to tweak a control deck on the back-burner, much less find one that doesn't get rolled by Jund. The only Standard tourny I played in before this was an FNM where I took a stock-ish Jund list, and I hated it pretty much, going 2-1-1. I will say that Jund's nut draws are very reminiscent of Faeries, where you can have your opponent locked out by turn 4, however I prefer to not play decks that have huge targets painted on their foreheads. I had an evening of playtesting with a mono-red burn deck against Jund and some other decks a few nights before game day and I found the deck to be fun at least. While I said earlier that I don't love aggro, I have been known to sleeve up some fast decks from time to time and in the current environment, being the better aggro is a sound strategy

This is the Mono-Red deck I registered for the tournament.

The Tea Party as suggested by Pete Steadman
4x Goblin Guide
4x Plated Geopede
4x Hellspark Elemental
4x Ball Lightning
4x Hell's Thunder
4x Elemental Appeal
4x Earthquake
4x Burst Lightning
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Arid Mesa
4x Teetering Peaks
12x Mountain
Sideboard
4x Goblin Ruinblaster
3x Act of Treason
3x Volcanic Fallout
3x Banefire
2x Chandra Nalaar

If you are goldfishing this deck, it has a reliable turn 4 kill. I had a friend playing a similar deck that won on turn 3 in the tournament, so this is a pretty quick deck. It went like this.
T1: Goblin Guide, swing for 2 (18 life)
T2: 2 more Goblin Guides, swing for 6 (12 life)
T3: Teetering Peaks, swing for 8, double bolt for 6 (-2 life)

Obviously, that is an insane draw, but you would be surprised how quick this deck is, especially if a Ball Lightning or Elemental Appeal connects
The sideboard is a mess and I would be okay to cut or change everything excluding the Ruinblasters, who come in for almost every matchup except Vampires or the mirror. I never used Fallout, and may put Unstable Footing in its place. While that card may sound like garbage, there are a surprising amount of Turbo-Fog decks in my area and it could be pretty good just to get a Ball Lightning through or finish the game. I also, think Earthquake is the worst card in the main, thinking it would be sick against Jund, but the fact it deals you damage makes it much worse. Anyways, I saw a sea of Jund players and felt pretty good, as I think that the Jund matchup is slightly in my favor although still pretty close.
Here were my pairings

Round 1 B/W Homebrew
This was a crazy Luminarch Ascension/Fog deck that really had me worried game 1. I get him down to about 7 life with a big Elemental Appeal turn and then he gets an Ascension active a few turns later which I'm pretty sure is game. He makes two angels at the end of my turn, attacks for 8 and then for some reason decides to play spells instead of keeping mana up for Angel tokens. He plays a Scepter of Dominance, taps one of my lands at upkeep, I Unearth a Hellspark and attack with a Baby Geopede for 4 damage (he's at 3 now)and he has no white mana to make any angels this turn. On his next turn he brings me down to 4 with Angel tokens. On my turn I attack, he taps out to make angels and I kick Burst Lightning for lethal. Had he played defensively with his Ascension, there should have been no way I could have won.
Game 2 is less eventful as I just keep chaining Ball Lightning effects and he eventually runs out of Fog effects.
1-0 in matches, 2-0 in games.

Round 2 vs. Crypt Combo
This pairing sucks as I am playing one of my friends who is playing a Crypt of Agadeem combo deck and we both know that his RDW matchup is awful. For those of you who haven't hear of this rogue deck, John Treviranus actually explains the deck here:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=8583

but my friend has done a lot to make the deck his own. The idea is to draw into a Crypt of Agadeem with the tons of Black and Black/x multicolored cycling cards from Alara block. Then, when you have one or more crypts and many black creatures in your yard, you fire off Consume Spirits and Banefires for lethal. He had actually taken down a Box Tourney the previous weekend so its shockingly good despite looking like a pile when you see the decklist.
Game one I mull to four on the play and still run him over. My hand was 3 land and a Ball Lightning and I draw nothing but gas. Game two he squeaks out a win as I just can't kill him fast enough before he plays his post SB Platinum Angel (I'll talk about this later). Game 3 is more traditional as I just throw burn at his face and blow up his Crypts with Goblin Ruinblaster.
2-0 in matches, 4-1 in games.

Round 3 vs. Mono-White
This matchup I'm paired against a local guy who almost always plays mono-white, which is pretty much the nightmare matchup. Not only that, but his brother in law, who I playtest with, tells him to maindeck Celestial Purge and White Knights for the metagame. Awesome. Uphill Battle time. Game one I get him to 8 then he plays a Baneslayer. Then he plays another Baneslayer. The only way I can deal with that card pre-board is with two burn spells, so I definitely can't deal with them in multiples.
Game 2, I get him to 8 when he has 8 mana available. He plays a ninth land and taps out next turn to play Iona and while she is on the stack I have exactly 8 damage in burn for his dome. Game 3 he has Path, Purge, Purge, Purge for my first 4 plays. One of the Purges is for a Chandra Nalaar, which is still one of my only outs to Baneslayer even post board, so I know things are looking grim. He is at almost full life when he drops a Baneslayer. I get one Act of Treason on her, hoping to draw a Banefire or a Chandra to take her out, but it doesn't come quickly enough as the Baneslayer beats tend to be fast and merciless.
2-1 in matches, 5-3 in games

Round 4 vs Jund
This is a pretty good example of how the RDW vs. Jund matchup goes when it is in the red deck's favor. Game one he has a turn 2 leech, I play a Hellspark next turn with Red mana up, he blocks, pumps his leech which I Burst Lightning in response and he ends up taking 5 damage. Next turn he plays another leech, I play a Ball Lightning, Teetering Peaks it, and he again blocks with his leach and pumps it (I guess he would have taken 6 either way). He plays a thrinax next turn, but I fly over it with Hell's Thunder and just throw burn at his face to finish. Game 2 is almost as awesome, as I have the turn two Geopede, turn three fetch into Ball Lightning, swing for eleven play. It isn't more than another turn or two before I can just burn him out.
3-1 in matches, 7-3 in games.

Round 5 vs Jund
At this point I'm third in the standings and am paired against the only undefeated player, who I play at the shop with pretty regularly. We draw in, as it is pretty unlikely that I'll get knocked out of top 8.
3-1-1 in matches, 7-3-2 in games

TOP 8
Quarters vs Crypt Combo
This is against my same friend who I played earlier and he isn't ecstatic about getting paired against me first round of the top 8. It is pretty similar to our swiss matchup. I run him over game 1. Game 2 he stabilizes all the way back up to 20 by chaining Consume Spirits and then Banefires me out. Game 3 I have a two lander, double Goblin Guide hand. I draw the third Goblin Guide and deal him like 10 damage before hitting my third land. When I finally get my third land drop, I throw Bolts and Burst Lightning at him at his end of turn and he is tapped out on my turn for the Hell's Thunder I have been holding to fly over his Vampire Hexmage.
4-1-1 in matches, 9-3-2 in games

Semi Finals vs Jund
This is against the guy I ID'ed with to get into top 8. I win the die roll and mull into a hand with 2 Burn Spells, Hell's Thunder and 3 lands. Probably not the best hand against Jund, but I would hate to mull lower against a deck that plays Blightning. Unfortunately, the Jund player had a strong start, and I could not get him to low enough life before he started cascading spells to beat me down with. Game 2, he has an insane draw to my horrible mull to 6 (two Ball Lightning-effects and 4 land thinking that with fetches I'll thin out my lands and draw more spells). Too bad for me, I continue to topdeck land, he has instant speed removal for all 2 of my Ball Lightnings and when he beats me down to 8, the only spell I have is Earthquake, which takes me down to 4 life to kill all of his guys. However, he Jund Charms one of his dudes to give it counters and one of his other creatures is a Thrinax, so I'm screwed with or without 'Quaking.
Final Results: 4-2-1 in matches, 9-5-2 in games

Pretty good finish for a deck I barely tested, I ended up with a good stack of promo cards and one of my packs had a Verdant Catacombs in it, so it was definitely worth my while. Our top 8 distribution ended up being like this.
1. Vampires
2 Jund that beat me in the Semi's
3. Me with RDW
4. Jund
5. Crypt Combo
6. Jund
7. Mono White
8. Spanish Inquisition (RW control if ya' don't know)

All in all a pretty representative metagame sampling, with Jund still being the dominant deck. Surprisingly, Vampires took down the tournament. I have noticed that locally Vampires does pretty well, as it has a good way of dealing with many of the random decks that you encounter when playing smaller events. I am not crazy about it, but I think it will be a factor to take into account in playtesting. The version that took down our tourney had Ob Nixilis, who seemed to be more of house against Jund than the Bloodwitch. As for myself, I now know why RDW has been jokingly called Red Deck Loses in the Semi-Finals before. I still think the deck is okay, it is very comparable to the popular Bushwhacker deck in terms of speed without the zany draws or mana issues. I am going back to the drawing board after this tourney though, as I don't have a major standard event for a while and there have been murmurs that either an Esper Control deck or UWR Control deck is viable, so I'm going to be spending some time throwing those at the gauntlet in preparation for the SCG St. Louis 10K Weekend in December. Other than that I will be playing in GP Minneapolis and a few sealed PTQs, my shop is going to be running Extended tourneys (my favorite format) and I will also try to get some Legacy in for the same 10K in St. Louis. Hopefully I will write something soon, probably after GP Minneapolis, before getting into the Extended PTQ season where I want to be writing regularly. Until next time I will leave you with this funny scenario that happened with my friend Matt who was playing Crypt Combo:

So Matt is trying to figure out a way to beat Jund post board (he has a 100% win against Jund game 1 in something like 30 games). He figures that they will always board out their pulses, so he just needs to buy time to get an active Crypt and start Fireballing/Draining Life for the win. He decides Platinum Angel is the card since most decks can't kill it after boarding out their creature kill/pulses and with him bringing in Negates and swerves. In the swiss he is in game 2 against a Jund player (he won game 1 obv.) with a Platinum Angel out and Swerve mana up. When I begin watching he is at -60 life. The Jund player just keeps swinging and swinging hoping to draw into double bolt. Each time the Jund player attempts to double bolt, it either gets Swerved or Negated. Eventually, Matt draws Earthquake, followed by Consume Spirit to finish up the game at -288 life thanks to Big Platz. Probably the funniest thing I've seen in Magic in some time.

Until next time...I'll be showing people a thing or two about priority and the stack.

Pete