GP Melbourne 2016: Round 3

Welcome back folks.

When we last left our intrepid hero he was 1-1 going into round three after a killer second round which included a 25 minute game one. Having picked up a round I was ready to go and feeling over the moon. My next opponent would be Jeremy Kajfes. I had run into Jeremy a few times in the past but did not have him pinned down on any particular deck. Going into the round I had no idea I was playing against the bogeyman of Vintage; Dredge. I have done poorly against Dredge in past tournaments. Whilst I have been generally fortunate in testing with most of my decks I have lost at least one round to the deck in nearly all of my major tournaments.

Joshua Butler  - URb Painter

Jeremy Kajfes – Dredge

All was revealed when on the play Jeremy announced a Serum Powder and I took a quick check of my hand which included a Painters Servant, a Grindstone, and two lands. I saw my opportunity to possibly steal a game if I could draw some acceleration or perhaps he had a slow draw.  I felt that my deck was quite weak to dredge (even more than blue decks in general) due to the lack of Vampiric Tutor and to a lesser extent Mystical Tutor. This would mean that unless I drew Tinker or Demonic Tutor in my opening hand, my main combo would have to do.

Luckily for me he did indeed have a slow draw. He found the Bazaar in his opening hand but did not have any dredgers. I did play a turn one Grindstone and a turn two Painters Servant. On his third turn after once again failing to find any card with the word Dredge on it he managed to Nature’s Claim the Grindstone. Lo and behold my next draw was the land I would have needed to combo out but alas I had no Grindstone. Instead I followed this up with hitting his Bazaar with a Pyroblast with the help of my Painter’s Servant which meant that Jeremy was in top deck mode.

(Lachlan) "Pyroblast your Bazaar." Just a regular old Vintage match. pic.twitter.com/qwIOh2Ppxx

— Magic Judges (@MagicJudges) March 5, 2016

 Jeremy did find the dredger the next turn and I also drew my second copy of the Grindstone and he was not able to deal the 13 points of damage required to kill me and I simply milled his entire library the following turn which was enough to earn me the concession.

This game I had been incredibly lucky. I was lucky that my seven included a combo kill, lucky that my opponent stumbled on finding a dredger, and lucky that I drew the only other copy of my Grindstone the turn after one was destroyed. I had fully expected to lose this game, as one often does game 1 against dredge, and hurriedly began to sideboard.

My sideboard going into game 2 was:

Removed:

 

Added:

This was a pretty self explanatory sideboard. I had chosen Leylines and Grafdigger’s cage to be my general Dredge answers as I was running a full complement of Forces, Missteps and a Misdirection which gave me great hope at being able to fight off Jeremy’s anti-hate cards. I had originally had Yixlid Jailers in place of the Cages but felt that my Oath matchup needed some work so I took the overall weaker Grafdigger’s Cage rather than the stronger Jailer to the event.

Game two was an interesting game in which the balance of power seemed to tip back and forth between Jeremy and me, always teetering on the edge of the precipice which would end the game in our favour.

Once again both Jeremy and I kept our sevens and I opened with the Leyline. I had an early line to Tinker which I took but Jeremy was able to remove my Leyline with a second removal spell after I had countered the first. I Strip Mined his first Bazaar of Baghdad but he had a second.  I still had a Grafdigger’s Cage in play but with no more permission to stop a potential Ingot Chewer or Nature’s Claim. Jeremy put some dredgers in his yard and removed my Cage with a Nature’s Claim spell. Feeling flustered I cast a Yawgmoth’s Will just to get back the Strip Mine and cast a Tinker (sacrificing my Painter’s Servant) to put Blightsteel Colossus into play. I was feeling good that I had removed two Bazaars and he that had only a single draw step to find something relevant against my Bightsteel.

It was not to be my game however as Jeremy played Bazaar of Baghdad #3 the following turn and summoned enough creatures to make my Blightseel irrelevant to the outcome of the game. He did block with only a single creature which put him to 9 poison counters but his last turn just exploded with an army of hasty 2/2s killing me in short order.

I chose not to change the sideboard as I felt that I did not see any new or interesting features that would warrant the return of a Thoughtseize etc.

Game 3 I opened with the following cards after my mulligan.

On the play I saw that I would be able to have a Leyline in play and would be able to protect it so I kept. Jeremy exiled 20 cards or so finding a suitable hand. Within these 20 cards he exiled a number of important cards including multiple dredgers, two Bridge from Below, two Cabal Therapies, and a Narcomoeba. I played the Leyline and waited on casting the Ancestral Recall until after he played Bazaar of Baghdad for turn. Jeremy unfortunately was very light on answers for my Leyline as he dug deep through his deck to find additional answers after I had cast Force of Will of the first. A second Leyline came down on turn 4 but by turn 6 they had both been destroyed.

A freshly drawn Yawgmoth’s Will put one of the Leylines back into play and Jeremy was once again forced to exile multiple cards to dig through his library with Bazaar  to find an answer. I was low on threats myself and was not able to stop a Wispmare but having destroyed his only Bazaar just a turn earlier meant that once again he was drawing off the top rather than dredging. Jeremy did find another bazaar but had only a single activation before I was able to tutor for and play my fourth Leyline for the game. Leyline of the Void #5 quickly showed up and from there it was a simple matter of finding the Tinker before my opponent extended his hand in defeat.

It was a rough game 3 for Jeremy, having had to exile so many important cards early, and then having to exile even more must have hurt. Not to mention having your opponent play 5 Leyline of the Void (4 of which were hard cast) in a single game. I got lucky but I was able to beat my curse and was happy to move into round 4 with only a single loss.

GP Melbourne 2016: Round 2

Welcome back everybody.

As requested I have made an image of the decks used by my opponent and me for the round.

Joshua Butler - URb Painter

David Brotchie -  UR Tempo Standstill

Having just lost my first Round to Will Wong I was earnestly seeking a win. Standing in my way was another Brisbanite in the form of David Brotchie. David is famous for playing Landstill in every tournament he is able to. He has been successfully piloting this archetype for as long as I have known him; top 8’ing multiple events including the previous Melbourne GP where he defeated me in the final round in our “win and in”. He has been active on the TMD thread for the deck and is a very respectable player. There was no doubt in my mind that he would be on anything other than Landstill, the only question was which splash he had opted to make. I did ask him before our match but he was not forthcoming with the information.  As I settled in for the match I knew that this would be a tough fight.

As it happened, our first game was an incredibly long affair; taking up nearly 25 minutes of our precious 50 minutes. David unfortunately took a mulligan down to six cards and he was on the play which meant he could not get to his scry card until his second turn. The game started as you would expect with the only relevant fight early was his Lightning bolt on my Painter’s Servant eating a Mental Misstep. Despite me playing a Grindstone, he was able to land a Null Rod effectively shutting down my ability to combo out.

I had no solution in hand to the Null Rod and had to start pressuring his life total with my singleton Painters Servant. Before I had found the Pyroblast for the Null Rod he had found a second Rod and had started swinging back with the Faerie Conclave he had in play. Knowing that I had to keep David on his back foot I broke a Standstill immediately hoping that I would be able take advantage of the mana he had tapped down during his main phase.  Despite this influx of cards, David was not able to remove my Painter’s Servant. A crucial point at this point had me exile a Yawgmoth’s Will to a Force of Will just to stay in the game.

At only 5 life, after having done the math on the situation and seeing that David’s Faerie Conclave would win the damage race by a single turn I gave up hope of finding the right answers to the pair of Null Rods and turned my second Pyroblast to the Faerie Conclave to give me some time. This was where things started to go south for me.

David resolved a mid-counter war Ancestral Recall and followed it up with Crucible of Worlds, starting to squeeze my mana base by recurring Wasteland. I had not fetched my basics early (to keep up Pyroblast) so I had some time but before long I was down to only a single Island. All this time however I had been steadily beating him down, one damage at a time, with my Painters Servant. On only three life, David managed to land a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and a Standstill after bouncing my beater. I was forced to break the Standstill to replay the Painter and we David used the turn of summoning sickness to Brainstorm with Jace.

Thinking I was dead in the water I attacked around the Jace putting him to two. We spent a few turns between with a common theme of me playing the Painter and David bouncing it before Jace was at a single loyalty and David elected to Brainstorm which found the strip mine putting my mana at only a single land. I attacked David down to a single life point and with my final top deck, a fetchland putting me to only two life, cast my second Painter’s Servant.

David drew the card for turn, checked his options and with a second Brainstorm effect he extended his hand.

I was shocked, I thought there was no way that I had actually beat him from 19-0 (including Forces and Fetches). Even when packing up the cards I had to verbally ask him to ensure that I had indeed won the game. I was spent and perhaps he had found the Lightning Bolt for me, I was genuinely so surprised that I had managed to put out from under two Standstills, an Ancestral and a Jace that I had to shake my head a few times.

Trying to get over the shock of having won such a hard fought game one and preparing for game two I made the following changes to my deck:

Removed:

Added

A similar side board plan as the previous round with only the Mountain acting as a replacement for the Shattering Blow.

Game two did not follow a similar path to our first game.

After we both kept our seven cards I had Duressed his Force of Will and drawn 6 extra cards before he had played his third land thanks to an Ancestral and a Thirst for Knowledge on my first and second turns. I leveraged this advantage into a Tinker for Blightsteel Colossus on my third turn and despite David putting up some resistance in the form of a blocker to only put him at 8 poison counters he conceded shortly after. He did manage to counter two of my spells but I just had so many more cards at my disposal before he had his late game engines online that I was unlikely to lose from after the first turn or so.

Overall David played spectacularly and I thoroughly enjoyed our match. Our first game went for such a long time it was a pity that our second was so short. Now I had had my revenge from GP Melbourne 2013; I was at peace and ready to stomp into round 3.

GP Melbourne Vintage Event – Round 1

As I wrote a few days ago, going into GP Melbourne’s “Big Tix” Vintage event I had settled on playing a URb Painter list modelled after Andy Probasco’s list with which he made top 8 in a MTGO Vintage Premier event.

It was a tumultuous start to the tournament. The day started with my arrival at the tournament realising that I had left my decklist at home. I borrowed the last cards I needed and after rewriting the decklist I went about the room trying to work out how many players we had for the tournament.

Ten minutes before the event was scheduled to start I met with Nick Chmielewski who cheekily said that he would play if I were to write out his decklist for him. This took longer than expected however there was no cause for concern as the tournament did not actually start until 25 minutes after the scheduled start. The tournament had a disappointing 14 player turnout.This was especially painful as Melbourne’s last GP in 2013 had fully 50 players.

My first round opponent was Will Wong on his Marc Lenigra style circa 2012 style Grixis list. He was running the usual Confidant/Snapcaster/Jace draw engine which was supplemented with additional planeswalkers in Tezzeret and Dack Fayden.  I went into the match blind and kept a disruption heavy had leading with a Thoughseize on the play revealing the following cards:

I took the Dark Confidant  expecting to be able to win the counter war on his turn three Jace. He cast a blind Demonic Tutor on his first turn and passes back to me. As I had surmised earlier, I won the fight over his Jace on turn 3 and also countered his Voltaic Key the same turn which he cast with a Mana Crypt. Unfortunately for me, I did not have any counters remaining for his subsequent Tezzeret which found the Time Vault and took all the additional turns he wanted. Will took some damage from his Mana Crypt but was able to remove it to take game 1.

Boarding for Will I removed:

for

I reasoned that the 15^th land was a little superfluous as I was not expecting my opponent to pressure my mana base. I found myself cutting the first two of the Painter combo quite frequently throughout the day as a way of fitting in more control elements whilst still allowing the combo to remain in the deck.

Unfortunately for me I took a mulligan down to 6 and kept a sketchy:

This hand is keepable and I do not think it was a mistake to keep it. I knew that I had more free countermagic than he did, had Thoughtseize on the play and could protect it from a Misstep or a Force. In the best case scenario I A) thoughtseize a threat, B) Pyroblast another, and C) draw a blue source to draw me back into the game. Whilst I managed to do both A and B, C came a little too late and I was stuck on just Ruby and Jet until turn 3. The turn after I found the blue source and was holding mana for an EoT Thirst he cast a Tezzeret the Seeker. I redblasted the Tezz and Misdirectioned the Force but he still had  a Jace which kept me threat light until it was able to ultimate and win him a important game 2.

I feel that this set of games is not representative of the matchup between the two decks. I had felt that I had the upper hand in any game where he did not lead with an early Confidant. In both games I was able to deny him this but lost to him having a higher density of game winning threats. Perhaps I was incorrect in my assessment of the matchup but I felt that the games we a lot closer than the 0-2 would suggest.

Overall it was two brief games that came down to the wire and were well played by Will. With a round one loss under my belt I headed for round two.

Masters has been announced

The dates have been announced and Next Level Games will once again be hosting Eternal MASTERS in 2016. From June 13, hundreds of Magic players will be descending on Dandenong for the largest Eternal weekend of the southern hemisphere. Since 2010, MASTERS has consistently held among the largest Legacy, Vintage, and Highlander events in the county.

Whilst I no longer run these events due to my health I take great pride in what this annual weekend has been able to achieve. Each year has been a improvement over the last and the movement to the Queens birthday weekend was inevitable with its rising popularity. I have managed to attend all of the events held in Dandenong and don't plan on shopping anytime soon. I hope to see the streaming facilities back as they were a fantastic addition last year. Who knows, you may even see me in front of the camera again if I can wrangle it. I thoroughly enjoy proving coverage for eternal Magic events and to have three in a row, all broadcast to the world is a great thing.

Unfortunately we do not have a final dates for these events but I will be letting you know as soon as we have that information. I suspect that we will once again have Vintage on the Saturday (as is tradition), with the Legacy and Highlander on the following days respectively. I must stress that this as only my assumption and we will know for sure closer to the event. We may even be able to organise a change from the usual FNM to something a little more in theme like we did last year.

One pleasant surprise that was not expected before this announcement was made is that the weekend of the event marks the release of Eternal MASTERS the supplementary Magic set. Naturally WotC stole our name and are running with it. I have no doubt that many packs of the new set will be cracked over the weekend in honour of the event.

I hope that I will see as many of you there as possible.  The more people we get the bigger and better the event is and the ledger next years is by proxy. If you have never attended a MASTERS before I can assure you that they have all been among my favourite tournaments ever. If you have any questions about the events or local facilities feel free to let me know in the comments.

What Catches My Eye

During my preparations for GP Melbourne 2016 I aired a suggestion to my friend and testing partner Graham King regarding potential decks for the event. My suggestion was to try and update a 2011 style Gush list for the current meta game. For those who were not playing at the time, Gush in mid 2011 was a monolithic institution. There was ‘a’ Gush list with and the decklists rarely varied by more than a few cards.  The idea was to abuse the GushBond engine to deliver a lethal Tendrils of Agony or Tinker into the newly printed Blighsteel Colossus. It was even powerful enough for Rich Shay to pilot his version through the Swiss portion of the Vintage World Championship undefeated.

The idea was promptly put into the ‘too hard basket’ but apparently I was not the only one with the idea.

Sarven McLinton made equal 4^th position in a Swiss + 1 tournament with the following spicy list:

Sarven McLinton – Gush Control

4 Misty Rainforest

1 Polluted Delta

1 Flooded Strand

2 Underground Sea

2 Tropical island

3 Island

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Library of Alexandria

1 Black Lotus

1 Sol Ring

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Pearl

1 Time Vault

1 Voltaic Key

1 Fastbond

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Blightsteel Colossus

1 Snapcaster Mage

1 Trygon Predator

4 Force of Will

2 Mana Drain

2 Mental Misstep

2 Flusterstorm

4 Gush

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Dig Through Time

1 Brainstorm

1 Ponder

2 Preordain

1 Merchant Scroll

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Time Walk

1 Tinker

1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Steel Sabotage

Sideboard:

2 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Grafdigger’s Cage

1 Ravenous Trap

1 Yixlid Jailer

2 Trygon Predator

2 Nature’s Claim

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Forest

1 Notion Thief

1 Mental Misstep

1 Abrupt Decay

1 Illness in the Ranks

There is a lot I love about this list. It really is a blast back from 2011. In a world where the combat step has become such a battlefield it is refreshing to see someone want to just go over the top. I am not sure who Sarven faced in his rounds but he only dropped two so there must be something right in the list.

The first thing I noticed about this list is the absence of Red. Quite often these Gush lists would splash Red for Ancient Grudge and Empty the Warrens as well as opening up the sideboard at the cost of weakening the mana base. In a tournament where Illness in the ranks and co. are seeing play Illness in the Ranks really loses some of it’s lustre. Without red he has room for fully four basics in the 75 which is rare to see and gives quite a leg up against the Wasteland decks. He also has the extra land in Library of Alexandria and full acceleration which leaves him with a very solid mana base.

Whilst I can get behind the loss of red there are some decisions that do not sit well with me. For one, Sarven has too many win conditions. For a deck which ideally is seeing 20+ cards in a game should not need Tinker + Tendrils + Jace + Time Vault; leaving aside the question of Jace for the moment, I would not select more than two of the other options. Cutting the Time Vault and the Voltaic Key would allow him to run the missing Preordains which would smoothen out the deck as a whole both pre and mid combo. Snapcaster over Regrowth is another head scratcher as Regrowth can find a second land or a spent Fastbond/Gush making it the clear better choice in this deck over the wizard.

If I were to pilot a variant of this list I would be looking at something along the lines of:

Joshua Butler – Gush

4 Misty Rainforest

3 Polluted Delta

2 Underground Sea

2 Tropical Island

3 Island

1 Tolarian Academy

1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Sol Ring

1 Fastbond

2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

1 Blightsteel Colossus

4 Force of Will

4 Mental Misstep

2 Flusterstorm

4 Gush

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Dig Through Time

1 Brainstorm

1 Ponder

4 Preordain

1 Merchant Scroll

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Time Walk

1 Tinker

1 Tendrils of Agony

2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Regrowth

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void

3 Yixlid Jailer

2 Trygon Predator

2 Nature’s Claim

1 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Forest

1 Abrupt Decay

1 Illness in the Ranks

Overall I feel that this version would be a little more consistent. The addition of the Preordains and the streamlining of both the main deck and side board mean there will be less variation of hands and mana. I also chose to use Strip Mine as the 16^th land as I feel it would be more useful in the Dredge and Shop matchups  than the Library in the mirror. Considering we plan to end the game earlier than most, I felt that this was not too much of a concession.

With a full set of both Misstep and Force, the more traditional dredge hate of Leyline and Jailer seemed more fitting than the various cards in the previous list.

The Vryn’s Prodigy is a testing slot that allows the deck to be a little more consistent when mana hungry and lets us drop the Drains in favour of additional Missteps which are a concession to the Pyroblast heavy meta game. Unfortunately I think this is the reason I would be hesitant pilot this deck in a tournament. There are simply too many red blast effects in the meta for this to truly flourish. It may be as consistent as the current crop of Dark Petition storm lists but fold to additional hate. Either way it was a good thought experiment and you should probably keep an eye out for this deck in the future as it may be poised for a come back.