This is my Nationals Qualifying report from Indianapolis (with a bonus PTQ report from the next day). I played Mythic, just like I’ve been doing twice a week ever since Zvi first gifted the world with the list. Saturday I went 6-0-2 in matches and 13-2 in games, qualifying in 3rd overall out of 180. Sunday I went 5-2 in matches and 11-6 in games with a massive hang-over, ending up 15th out of 128.
I’ve only been playing Magic since March of last year, and only playing Standard since Zendikar came out, so I don’t pretend that I’m any good at this, but I know this deck pretty well, and it’s so dominating that you don’t need to be great to destroy people with it. I’ll do the deck-list first – I feel that there are a lot of people running Mythic with bad manabases and sideboards right now, and I think I’ve made some good updates there. Then I’ll go onto the report – I didn’t take notes, but I remember almost all the key games and turns.
Maindeck:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Sejiri Steppe
5 Forest
2 Island
1 Plains
25 Lands
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dauntless Escort
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1 Rafiq of the Many
29 Creatures
3 Jace the Mind-Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Eldrazi Conscription
6 Spells
Sideboard:
4 Negate
3 Vines of the Vastwood
3 Rhox War Monk
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gideon Jura
1 Bojuka Bog
I started with Matt Sperling’s list (who started with Patrick Dickmann’s list, who I presume started with Zvi’s list, etc). I loved the deck, but it took way too many mulligans compared to the classic version, so I decided to tear apart the manabase and re-build it. The first step was getting back up to 13 lands that could give you a turn one Birds/Hierarch. After that, the increased number UU and WW spells in the conscription version meant I needed all of my duals to be U/W instead of G/W (one Stirring Wildwood stayed in because I needed a fifth man-land). The new manabase greatly increased the number of 6 and 7 card hands I could keep over the weekend.
In the sideboard, my new mana-base meant that early WW was too hard to hit early, so the Firewalkers went away, to be replaced by the old reliable War Monks. The Negates are obviously there for U/W, Superfriends, and Polymorph. The Vines are for Polymorph and Jund, Gideon came in for all kinds of match-ups, and the miser’s Bojuka Bog was there for Time Sieve/Open the Vaults. Pridemages are to fight the Sparkmage combo, and they were also there for the mirror.
I see a lot of lists with Oblivion Rings, Paths, and Mind Control/Vapor Snare in the board, and I think that’s a mistake – removal is unnecessary with Mythic – you have Jace and Gideon to get rid of creatures if you need to, but most of the time you just trample over their puny creatures/planeswalkers with giant conscripted dudes. The only creatures you need to worry about are the conscripted ones in the mirror, and Pridemage does a great job of neutralizing that threat while still being a good beater/exalted giver. I’d give a list of my SB plans for all the tier one decks, but I beat almost every tier one deck out there over the course of the two tournaments, so you’ll get to see the SBing as we go.
I kept 73 of the 75 from Saturday for the PTQ on Sunday – the first change was promoting Gideon to the main and dropping Rafiq. The second was adding a 4th Pridemage to the board to take up Gideon’s spot. I almost dropped the Bojuka Bog for a 4th War Monk, but I decided at the last moment to keep it in, and it ended up winning me a match.
A Weekend in Indy
Thursday before the tournament my main playing partner, Ian, decided that he wasn't up for a full weekend of Magic, so he audibled into going to the Chicago PTQ (I think he ended up 37th). I was set on playing two tournaments, though, so I headed down to Indy by myself Friday night. Fortunately, my friends Lee and Amber from college were willing to put me up in Indy, and they are excellent hosts. They don’t really understand Magic, but we had a good evening, drinking Leinies and Jameson and watching Brick.
I woke up early on Saturday, had a cup of coffee with them, and headed out. Lee made me promise to “Go beat some nerds”, and I told him I’d do my best. The drive over to the event site was un-eventful and featured a nice sound-track of Faye Wong – nothing like listening to a beautiful woman sing pop songs in a language you don’t understand to get you in the mood to sling spells. Once I’d found the site, I had almost an hour to spare, so I swung back out and picked up some Mickey D’s for breakfast.
Back at the site, I found the rest of the guys from Fantasy Games (the store in South Bend I play at) and registered my list. Steve begged me for my hash browns, so I tossed them over to him. This may have triggered some good karma for me, as Steve is approximately 10 times better than me at Magic, and I ended up getting paired up against him in the first round. I was going to need all the luck/karma I could get to avoid starting this off on the wrong foot.
Round 1: Polymorph, Steve Walsh
I was actually really happy to be paired up against Steve here, despite the skill disadvantage and it sucking to have to play against your friends. This being only my second major event (previous experience was scrubbing out 1-3 at the StarCity 5K a couple months earlier), I was definitely feeling some nerves, but playing against someone I knew allowed me to relax and feel like I was just playing FNM again. I also knew pretty much his exact 75, as we’d been testing together in the last couple of weeks. In my mind, the match-up was basically a coin-flip, and winning the die roll would be huge. Luckily for me, I won the die-roll.
Game 1 – He mulliganed to five cards. I curved out with Sovereigns early and rolled over him. I love this deck.
Sideboard:
- 4 Baneslayer Angel (I side her out in any match up where I need Negate, as she's generally sub-par in those match ups)
- 4 Dauntless Escort
+ 4 Negate
+ 3 Vines of the Vastwood
+ 1 Gideon Jura (He might get to live the dream and kill Emrakul!)
Game 2 – We both kept 7 this time. I had a fast start again with Birds and Hierarch and dropped Jace on turn 3, hoping to keep him off his Jace. Unfortunately, he had the Negate. Two turns later, he attempted his Jace, but this time I had the Negate. The next turn I made a Sovereigns and swung with a conscripted bird, dropping him to 8 life. He untapped, cast Narcolepsy on the 10/11 Bird of Paradise, and then cast Polymorph on my Sovereigns. I flipped over half a dozen land, two Jace, and an Elspeth before I hit a Knight of the Reliquary. The Knight was a 4/4 and I had enough mana to activate my Colonnade, so that was game. We wished each other good luck and went off to check on how the rest of the Fantasy crew was doing.
Matches 1-0, Games 2-0.
Round 2: Naya Allies, Jesse James
This is going to be one of the last times in the report that you’ll see me remember someone’s name, but to be honest, a name like Jesse James is pretty memorable. He seemed like a very cool dude as we introduced ourselves to each other. I started to feel the nerves setting in again, but I looked him over and decided he looked like he was more nervous than me. That was pretty much the last time all day I felt nervous – the rest of the day I knew my deck was in the zone, and it didn’t seem like anyone was really prepared to get hit in the face for 12 damage or more.
Game 1 – I won the die roll and started out with a sick curve. Turn one Birds, turn 2 Cobra, turn 3 fetch-land Baneslayer, turn 4 fetch-land Sovereigns, swing with a 16/16 Angel. He looks down at his Oran-Rief Survivalist, he looks over at my Angel, he looks at his Survivalist, he scoops up his cards for game 2. This type of fast game one became kind of a theme for the weekend.
SB:
- 4 Escort
+ 3 War Monk
+ 1 Gideon
Game 2 – He started with Survivalist and followed with Battlesinger. I took a couple hits and had a 4/4 Knight out when I dropped Gideon and activated Gideon-fog. He made another Battlesinger and swung the team at Gideon, I blocked and killed the Survivalist with Knight, spinning up Steppe after blockers to give her pro-green. Gideon went to 4 from the Battlesingers. I untapped, put Gideon back to 6, and dropped a Baneslayer. He Bloodbraided into an Evangel naming white and swung with the team – I blocked the Elf with the Angel and Gideon bit the dust. When my Angel swung back next turn, she had gone over to the Eldrazi side and was a 16/16 exalted trampler. The 16 points of life gain put me out of alpha strike range and he didn’t find an answer for the conscription in his top card, so I was on to the next round. I think he still thought he was the beat down deck in this match-up, when he should have realized he was control and sided in any and all removal he had.
Matches 2-0, Games 4-0.
Round 3: Super Friends, ? Spencer
And here is where I start to lose the names. I know Spencer was his last name, but I don’t remember his first name. Again, another cool dude and good sport in general. In general, aside from the people playing Jund, almost everyone all weekend was a pretty good sport about getting smashed in the face for ridiculous amounts of damage, for which I am grateful. The Jund sample-size was only 3 opponents, but 2/3rds were quite bitter about it. Not sure if that says something about Jund players or not. (Frankly, I’m surprised anyone is still playing Jund these days, but please keep it up. Free wins are awesome.)
Game 1 – I’m on the play, open with Birds. He has a Colonnade. I follow with Cobra. He has another Colonnade. Turn 3, fetchland, Sovereigns, Cobra swings for 13. He looks at his next card and concedes before getting to cast a spell. He mentions that he hadn’t really tested against Mythic as he assumed he had a good match-up, and had no idea that it could come out that fast. At this point, I wasn’t sure if he was on U/W or Superfriends – fortunately my SBing strategy is the same for both.
SB:
-4 Baneslayer
+4 Negate
Game 2 – This one went quite a bit longer, and featured multiple instances of Day of Judgement killing Dauntless Escort. I continually had to find my way around his Walls to get my attacks in, as I didn’t want to go for the conscription without Knight/Escort/Negate back-up of some sort. Here’s the short version:
He plays Elspeth. I kill her.
He plays Jace. I kill him.
He plays Gideon. I kill him.
He plays another Gideon. I kill that one too.
He runs out of planeswalkers. I kill him.
Matches 3-0, Games 6-0
Round 4: U/G Rogue deck, ??
This was by far the worst round of the tournament for me. My opponent was, quite frankly, terrible. I don’t mean to say anything bad about him as a person, but as a Magic player, he was terrible. At one point he blocked my conscripted Bird with his un-conscripted bird, not realizing that conscription gives trample. He then attempted to reverse his decision after he already put his Bird in the graveyard. He also had to call a judge to confirm that if he bounced my bird with his Jace, the conscription would go to the graveyard. (Did he think that it would stay attached to the bird in my hand? So confusing.)
I am horribly embarrassed to admit that I lost the first game to him. I went on tilt when I drew my second Conscription with only 6 mana available and no Jace, and then proceeded to make 4 consecutive terrible misplays to give him the game, instead of playing to my outs like you’re supposed to. Fortunately, I refused to stay on tilt and shook it off for game 2 (in which I rolled him quickly). Unfortunately, the first game had taken over 30 minutes, and I didn’t call a judge over to watch him for slow play. I don’t believe he was doing it maliciously, but each of his turns took over a minute as he attempted to puzzle out the game state, and I was unable to kill him in extra turns in the 3rd game. Afterwards, some onlookers suggested a different sequence of plays in the extra turns that would probably have gotten me there. Overall a horrible round, but at least I managed to squeeze most of my terrible punts into this one match instead of spreading them out throughout the day.
Matches 3-0-1, Games 7-1
Round 5: Bant homebrew of some sort, ??
This match was notable for a few different things. The first notable thing was that his deck was damp when I picked it up to shuffle it. I looked over at him, and he explained that his hands sweat profusely. Disgusting! I shuffled as quickly as I could with the minimum of touching and handed his deck back. When he handed my deck back I was horrified to realize that it was now slightly damp as well, and smelled faintly of sweat. It took two rounds for my deck to stop smelling, which was extremely disgusting. A nice enough guy, and I’m assuming that the amount his hands sweat isn’t something he can control, but that is still just plain sick.
Game 1: I curved out and cast turn 3 Sovereigns on the play. He conceded after playing nothing but a Seaside Citadel, a Plains, and a Wall of Omens. Once again, I killed my opponent before I could fully puzzle out his deck. I guessed control of some sort due to the Wall of Omens and did the Baneslayer/Negate swap.
As we’re shuffling up for game 2, we get hit with a mid-round deck check, which is annoying. We attempt small talk and discover we have nothing in common. Both of our decks come back fine (although mine still faintly smells).
Game 2: This was the other notable event for this match – I set my weekend record for damage in this one. He opened with a land. I opened with a bird. He had another land and a Wall of Omens. I had a cobra. He had a second Wall of Omens. I had a Rafiq and swung in with the birds for two. He had a land and no other plays. I dropped fetch-land into Sovereigns and Rafiq came over as a 15/15 with double strike and trample to hit him in the face for 30. I never did figure out exactly what his deck was, though he told me afterwards it had Summoning Traps and other shenanigans.
Matches 4-0-1, Games 9-1
Round 6: Mirror match, Phil (or Ralph?) ?
Phil was one of the coolest guys I played against all weekend, and has apparently been around for a while. He also top 8ed, and was judging at the PTQ the next day. We established that we were both pretty terrible at Magic while shuffling up, shook hands, and were off.
Game 1 – He won the die roll. I had a one-lander that was dynamite if I drew a land, so I tried it. Of course, I didn’t draw a secon land until turn 4 or so and he rolled me, including turn 3 Jace and a mainboard deprive for my too-late Sovereigns.
SB:
- 4 Escort
+ 4 Pridemage
Game 2 – On the play, I curved out perfectly and destroyed him on turn 4 or 5.
Game 3 – I opened a dynamite hand, but worried it might not be enough, especially since he kept his 7 too. The Mythic mirror is pretty much just a flat-out race to six mana. He played a land but no mana dork. I played a birds. He played another land and passed the turn. I was a bit confused, but went ahead and played a cobra and a hierarch. He finally made his first play on turn 3 with a Knight. My turn 3 play was a Sovereigns and swinging with a 14/13 Cobra. Good games.
We agreed afterwards that he should have mulliganed his hand. If any of you are picking up Mythic for the first time, here is one simple rule – always mulligan a hand that can’t play either first turn birds/hierarch or second turn Cobra. Always. A hand of two accelerators and 5 land is keepable in most match-ups as long as one of the lands is a man-land. This is also why I made the changes to the manabase that I did. If you’re playing Baneslayer Angel on turn 5, you’re basically conceding to any decent deck. If you have acceleration, you’re at least in the game, even if you’re only starting with 4 cards.
Matches 5-0-1, Games 11-2
Round 7: Jund, Charles ??
Game 1 – I’m slightly surprised to see my first Savage Lands of the day across the table. Neither of us really saw any Rise cards, and after having a few of my guys killed, I managed to stick a Knight. I followed her up with a Baneslayer and protected the Baneslayer with the Knight. By the time I ran out of Sejiri Steppes and he killed the Baneslayer, I had a Knight and an Escort on the board to his Geopede and Goblin token (I think? Memory is a little blurry here). I know I ended the first game by bouncing his Geopede with Jace and swinging for lethal.
SB:
-3 Jace
+3 Vines
Game 2 – The removal comes hot and heavy from the Jund side of the table. I lost a Cobra and a Knight to Consuming Vapors, and after a few turns, the situation was me with an untapped 6/6 Knight and Sovereigns in my hand, him with a Thrinax and Leech – I’m at 17, he’s at 20. He Bloodbraided, hitting a Maelstrom Pulse targeting my Knight, which I countered by fetching the Steppe to give her protection (putting me up to 5 lands in the yard). Since I was out of blockers, he swung with the team, pumping the Leech to put me at 7 and him at 18. I dropped my Sovereigns and swung back with an 18/18 Knight.
It’s kind of funny that the misplay that cost him the game was pumping his Leech when he was at 20.
He was extremely unhappy – apparently he was under the impression that Rise of the Eldrazi had not been released and Jund still had a favorable match-up against Mythic. From everything I have seen, that is no longer the case.
Matches 6-0-1, Games 13-2
At this point I’m on cloud nine, but I’m not 100% sure I can draw in. I know that the two 6-0s drew last round, so there are 3 of us at 6-0-1 and a bunch of people at 6-1. I’ve obviously never been in this circumstance before, so I pace around fretting while the guys reassure me that I’ll be able to draw in. The standings go up and I see that I’m at table 1 paired with one of the other 6-0-1s. I count the number of 6-1s just to make sure and confirm that I can draw in if my opponent is fine with it.
Round 8: Naya Homebrew, ??
My opponent was ready to battle it out for the first-place plaque. I informed him that I couldn’t care less about the plaque and he could have it if he wanted it, it had been a long day, and I would prefer to just shake hands and both go to Nationals without worrying about it anymore. He thought about it for a minute and agreed. It turned out that IDing kept us both out of the first place plaque, since one of the 7-1s got it, but I don’t think either of us cared in the end. I know I didn’t and I hope he didn’t.
I walked around and got congratulations from the rest of the Fantasy Games crew, had a victory smoke, and went back in to watch Rodney, one of the other guys from Fantasy who was 6-1 and battling for top 8 with a U/W Enchantress brew he had brewed up. He ended up losing a close one in 3, to a guy with the same exact 75 that I had just IDed with. I would recommend both of those lists to anyone looking for a good rogue brew – the Naya build (not the one Gavin posted on StarCity, but a Planeswalker/Vengevine brew with no removal maindeck and Day of Judgement in the board) put two people in Nationals, and Rodney’s Enchantress build was undefeated on the day except for two losses to the Naya build. He ended up in 16th and collected half a box for his troubles. If he's okay with it, I'll put his list up in a later post.
After the tournament, we all went out for a celebration dinner at a little deli on Broad Ripple called Fat Dan’s. It was an excellent choice, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys good sandwiches and good beer. We hung out for a few hours drinking, smoking, eating and generally having a good celebration. Apparently it has been decided that I look like a circus bear and will have to ride around on a tricycle at the next FNM. I am fine with this as long as I do not have to provide the tricycle.
I found my way back to Lee and Amber’s place and did a little more celebratory drinking with some 12 year aged Jameson, finally passing out around 1:30 in the morning. I wasn’t sure if I was going to rest on my laurels or play the next day, but I had promised one of the guys he could borrow a few cards he was missing to build my deck if I didn’t play, so I knew I was heading back to the Marriott on Sunday.
Sunday morning I woke up with a pretty bad hang-over, but a little Irish coffee helped that out. Faye Wong again on the drive over and another greasy McDonald’s breakfast sealed the deal. I registered my list and got ready to battle again. My memory of the matches on this day is a little more fuzzy, as I started to get more and more tired and hung over as the day went along, but I managed to make it through.
Round 1: Time Sieve Combo, Brandon Rapp
For the second day in a row, I get paired against a friend in round one. We agree that this is pretty shitty. I silently thank God that I got nervous at the last minute and kept my Bojuka Bog in my sideboard, since I know he’s playing Time Sieve/Open the Vaults/Tezzeret combo.
Game 1 – I won the die roll and curved out pretty fast. I think it was the second conscription that killed him.
SB:
- 4 Baneslayer
- 4 Escort
- 1 Glacial Fortress
+ 4 Negate
+ 4 Pridemage
+ 1 Bojuka Bog
Game 2 – I got him down to 1, including a timely Negate on his Time Sieve to slow him down, but then he went off and chained 5 or 6 turns together. He ran out of juice before he could finish me, so he passed it back. I top-decked my side-boarded Bojuka Bog and wiped out his graveyard, including his Time Sieve. He made a game of it, but that pretty much ended it. 3 or 4 turns later I killed him with an Elspeth token. I commiserated with him on the rough start and we wished each other luck.
Matches 1-0, Games 2-0
Round 2: Jund, ??
Game 1 – I curved out and he conceded before he cast a single spell.
Game 2 – He mulled to 5 on the play, I kept an opening hand with two Vines, which let me attack with my Knights. I used both Vines keeping them alive. Two Knights and Sovereigns finish the job. The killing swing was a 21/21 Knight or something like that. This was my only Jund opponent who was a good sport; I wish I remembered anything about him.
Round 3: Superfriends, Chris Funk
Pretty cool opponent. Definitely a very tough match, all things considered. It was at about this point that I decided the overall skill level at the PTQ was a few calibers above what it had been the day before.
Game 1 – This was a long game – he got all of the Super Friends going, but I kept digging for answers and refusing to die. He finally hit me with Ajani’s ultimate and I conceded that one.
Game 2 – I got to 6 mana on turn 4 and cast Elspeth with Negate back-up. Turn six I cast Sovereigns with Negate back-up. He kept fighting for a couple turns, soaking 16 damage with double Wall of Denial, but he didn’t have an answer.
Game 3 – Long, drawn out back and forth affair. He managed to force in a Day of Judgement after dealing with my Escorts. I swung with a Colonnade and put him to 11. He made an Elspeth. My Colonnade put him to 7. He made a Wall of Omens. Colonnade put him to 3. He made a Wall of Denial (side note: very frustrating card to fight through – makes it tough to get in the incidental damage that makes your Conscripted guys lethal, soaks up half or more of the conscription damage – I highly recommend it for control decks looking to fight Mythic). I dropped a Knight, planning to give my Colonnade pro-white the next turn and swing through. He tapped out for a Gideon and activated Gideon-fog.
I untapped and ripped my Gideon off the top. Sometimes it hurts to be running so hot. Five mana legend-ruled Gideon, 3 mana activated Wildwood, Knight gave Wildwood pro-white, Wildwood killed him. Whew.
Matches 3-0, Games 6-1
Round 4: U/B homebrew?, Ryan Brown
I died horribly. I hit a bad batch of mulligans into hands that never developed, and he stomped me with Abyssal Persecutor, Jace, Nighthawk, Bloodwitch, Executioner's Capsule and Soul Manipulation. Neither game was close. I’m definitely curious to see what his list looks like when the top 8 gets posted (he was 7th or 8th) and do some testing with it. I don’t know for sure, but it felt like a bad match-up, which nothing else felt like all weekend. Mono-red is what I would classify as the other bad match-up, but I managed to dodge it both days. Anyway, U/B aggro/control stomped all over me, and I picked up my first match loss of the weekend.
Matches 3-1, Games 6-3
After this round, I was really starting to bottom out and was thinking about dropping. Fortunately, Mr. Brown had been very quick in his dispatching of me, so I had half an hour to get some coffee, take a walk, and have a couple smokes to recharge a bit. My buddy Jason also managed to find a couple Motrin for me, which helped immensely.
Round 5: Planeswalker Naya(?), Derek Mong
This was the same Naya list that had put two copies in the top 8 the day before. I hadn’t pinned down the exact list yet, but I knew it would be an interesting match.
Game 1 – I was on the play and got two Cobras out early. I hard-cast a Conscription on one of them on turn 4 and swung in, actually triggering annihilator for once. He scooped and we went to game two. I SBed out the Escorts for Pridemages, which was a mistake because game two he dropped Day of Judgement on me. I went to a 2/2 split in game 3, since I didn’t know if he had access to the Sparkmage combo or not.
Game 3 he was stuck on 3 lands all game, which allowed me to fight my way past his removal and finish him, including at one point tapping for 8 mana, hard-casting a Conscription, and saying “8 mana, kill your Pridemage?” It sucked for him to lose to mana-screw, but I’m not giving back the game.
Matches 4-1, Games 8-4
Round 6: Jund, ??
Game 1 – It’s all starting to blur together at this point, but I’m pretty sure I killed him with a conscripted dude who was pro-red thanks to Knight. I think this was the match where I found the Sovereigns with a Jace-Storm and put them on top of my library. He did some bitching about how he would have had me dead the next turn. That’s why I try to not give people any more turns than I have to. Conscription helps me with my plan to limit their turns.
Game 2 – We both ripped a succession of insane cards. Pulse my Knight, Pulse my Escort, Bloodbraid into a pulse on my 2nd Knight (sac my 2nd Escort in response), Bloodbraid into a Doomblade on my Knight (pro-black in response), or something like that. He was making shocked fish noises as I continued to drop threats, muttering about how lucky I was. I enjoy putting Jund players on the receiving end of that feeling. (Besides, he was Bloodbraiding into Pulses – it’s not like he was getting bad draws. It’s not my fault my good draws are infinitely better than his good draws).
I made my 3rd Knight. He made a Siege Gang. I made a Sovereigns, used one Knight to give the other pro-red and swung for something like 17-20. Poor Jund. I’d like to officially note that I 6-0ed Jund on the weekend, and despite their claims to the contrary, I never felt like the games were close or that I was under any pressure. Siege Gang Commander is a pretty laughable five-drop when his tokens can’t chump block anymore.
Matches 5-1, Games 10-4.
Round 7: GerryT's Naya, Nick ?
I was a little bit shell-shocked sitting down. This weekend was my second major event, and I’d just top 8ed the day before and here I was playing for top 8 again. I was also exhausted and hung over, the coffee having faded. Still, I was determined to give it my best shot. Nick asked me if I was planning to go to Amsterdam if I won, I confirmed that I was, he confirmed that he was, and we settled in to duel it out.
Game 1 I mulled to 5, kept a one-lander with a bird, and got rolled before I could do anything.
Game 2 was interesting. I’m really foggy on the details, but I know I had a Pridemage out keeping his Sparkmages honest, and I know he had my Knight under an O-Ring for several turns. Eventually I popped my Pridemage on his end step and got my Knight back. I don’t remember why exactly I went for it, but it must have worked out because I won that game.
Game 3, I finally had an opponent run hotter than me. I had a slow start with a turn 4 Baneslayer (yes, that’s a slow start – play the deck if you don’t believe me), he O-Ringed it, I dropped another one, and he Bloodbraided into another O-Ring. I put up a fight, but it was pretty much over at that point.
Matches 5-2, Games 11-6
I hope he did well in the top 8 – I was exhausted, so I stuck around long enough to confirm that both the guys who beat me made top 8, collected my packs for 15th, and headed home.
If you’re planning on PTQing any time soon, I strongly recommend this deck. It gives you free wins on turn 3 on a regular basis, and it has tools to fight all of the hate. Jund is a cakewalk unless they completely overload on removal, control is tough but you are definitely favored, and I’m not aware of any obvious bad match-ups except mono-red, which is so inconsistent that you can probably still pick up wins against it. If Naya decks continue to main-deck Pridemages and Sparkmages (as they should), we may have to evolve our deck to match them, but until then, keep swinging for 20. If I was evolving the deck, I know the cards I’d be looking to take out are the Baneslayers. Strangely enough, a 5/5 with every ability except haste isn’t quite over-powered enough to merit auto-inclusion in this deck. Until I can find something better though, she’s staying in.
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