“IN SIXTH PLACE, JAMES MCLEOD!”

*polite clapping*

Now, while clapping, those people were thinking, “Who on earth is James McLeod, and why is he preceding Owen Turtenwald?”

Hi. I’m Lee McLeod (yes, I should get that fixed with the DCI). You probably haven’t heard of me. In fact, I’d be surprised if you had. I’ve never qualified for the Pro Tour, played in a GP, or Top 8’d any SCG Opens. However, I did manage to qualify for U.S. Nationals this year by playing Caw-Blade at Regionals and winning that. Then, I had several months to play around and try different decks before I had to settle on one for Nationals. 

At first, I just assumed it was going to be Caw-Blade, even though I didn’t particularly enjoy playing it. The deck, with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic, was just way too overpowered for any other deck to exist at the same level in the metagame. Then New Phyrexia got released, and Caw-Blade got leaps and bounds better with the introduction of Batterskull. So, of course, I dropped the deck immediately to play U/R Splinter Twin. 

Yes, despite Caw-Blade being the most dominant Standard deck of all-time, I immediately shoved the Stoneforge Mystics back into the binder so I could play a different game of Magic.

You see, I love combo decks. The first deck I started playing with competitively (at FNM) was a Heartbeat Maga deck. Back in Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard, Umezawa’s Jitte was one of the most prevalent (and most expensive) cards around, so I wanted to play a deck that could sidestep the costs of Jittes and the new Ravnica duals while still being competitive. Heartbeat Maga, with its mana base comprised of all basics to facilitate Early Harvest and its green rares like Heartbeat of Spring costing around $1-$2, fit my budget and was good enough to be competitive. So I built the deck and played with it. And the more I played with Heartbeat and experienced tutoring through my deck for combo pieces and burning people out from 20 with a giant Heartbeat of Spring-fueled Maga, Traitor to Mortals, the more I liked it. Since then, I’ve played combo decks in every Standard format where they’ve been viable and usually don’t participate when viable combo decks aren’t included in the metagame (read: the entire time Faeries was legal). 

So when New Phyrexia gave us Deceiver Exarch to buddy with Splinter Twin, I quickly forgot about Squadron Hawks and Stoneforge Mystics. And the U/R Twin deck was good right up until Jace, the Mind Sculptor got banned. After Jace, Splinter Twin struggled to find its pieces fast enough while staving off creatures before the new aggro deck of the format—Tempered Steel—killed them.

So, in that awkward stage of post-ban and pre-M12, I switched to Pyromancer Ascension, just for fun. I had played the deck last year back when it had Time Warp and Ponder and liked how Ascension paced the games to its own speed, rather than how Splinter Twin often had to sit back and wait until it had all the right answers to go off. Ascension performed well enough for FNM, though it sorely missed Ponder from its last heyday. 

A few weeks later, Ponder was spoiled for M12. It was then I knew that I was going to try and make Pyromancer Ascension work, to be viable enough to take to Nationals and then hopefully crush the tournament. After a couple of weeks of hectic testing with friends, I settled on a rough decklist that I was comfortable with:

Let’s talk some about card choices. Most should be pretty obvious, like the draw suite of cantrips and See Beyond, the four Into the Roil, and the dual burn spells. What’s more notable is what I didn’t include in the deck—things like Visions of Beyond, Tezzeret’s Gambit, Call to Mind, or Spell Pierce. I tested all of these cards at one point or another, and they weren’t what I was looking for.

Visions was always four or five cards short from being Ancestral Recall, even after I added the additional fetches and doesn’t have enough value as just a cantrip to warrant inclusion. Spell Pierce is decent, but I ended up removing them for Foresee (a card I strongly recommend you play if you are Ascending this weekend). Sometimes Spell Pierce is absolutely the best card you could ever want, but there are other times (usually more frequent) where it’s completely dead and you want to just die, and I didn’t want that kind of variance in a deck that tries its best to remove variance. Tezzeret’s Gambit is secretly terrible in Ascension. A lot of people think it’s good because it draws cards and can activate Ascension, but Gambit is only worthwhile in a very narrow set of instances:

1) You must have Ascension in play 

and

2a) it has a counter on it or 2b) you have another Gambit in the graveyard. 

In every other instance—when you’re trying to find Ascension, when there are no counters on Ascension, when you have an active Ascension—it’s significantly worse than Foresee. Not to mention that it costs at least three mana, exposing yourself more to Spell Pierce and Mana Leak than if you are otherwise trying to dig and activate with See Beyond and Ponder. The two life also matters a non-insignificant amount of time, especially with all of these hyper-aggressive strategies on the loose.

Call to Mind is less cut and dry for me. I’m not sure if it’s worth its inclusion in the deck or not. On one hand, if you have Call to Mind, you can use your Lightning Bolts and Burst Lightnings with reckless abandon against aggro decks and never worry about running out of burn to kill them. But during testing, I never had a problem killing people after using even five-six burn spells against Tempered Steel or Mono Red, especially post-board once you can bring in Pyroclasms. And drawing a Call to Mind in the early or mid-game, before you have an active Ascension, is a beating because it costs so much mana. I feel that as long as you can budget your burn accordingly, you don’t need Call to Mind. Instead of sideboard Call to Mind, I relied on Consecrated Sphinxes to close games out if I managed to run out of burn. If you end up playing Call to Mind, I’d probably only play one in the main and be prepared to board it out often. 

On the sideboard, one of the most common questions I got both before and during the tournament is “Why aren’t you sideboarding in Deceiver Exarch?”

Well, there’s just really no reason to. Dedicated U/R Twin decks get to play cards like Shrine of Piercing Vision, Dispel, Jace Beleren, and other narrow or non-spell cards that Ascension can’t play or else be bogged down by them. So, if you end up boarding into Twin after starting on Ascension, you either have to fiddle with your maindeck to make it less consistent with Ascension (not a stellar plan for a deck with such good game ones), or else devote nearly every sideboard card to boarding in the Exarch combo. And to what end? As far as I can tell, you get a better matchup on Valakut, a deck that isn’t even terrible for Ascension in the first place (and is falling out of favor). The Exarch combo doesn’t even have the benefit of being more resilient than Pyromancer Ascension, as they lose to the same sideboard cards like Celestial Purge and Nature’s Claim. Instead, you can just complement your Ascension combo with a sideboard that supports matchups you need help in.

Spellskites and Sphinxes come in just about every matchup. Spellskite’s main function is to protect your Pyromancer Ascension from any sort of enchantment removal, nearly all of which hit artifacts as well, since Celestial Purge has fallen out of favor and Revoke Existence has been raised up (thanks, Tempered Steel!). Spellskite is also brutal against Twin decks, not letting them combo off until they can deal with it.

Consecrated Sphinx serves different roles in different matchups. Against Valakut, I usually bring in one game 2 on the off chance they’re boarding in Memoricides and manage to resolve one before I can resolve Ascension. Against Caw-Blade and U/B, it gives you a way to kill them while your Ascensions are being targeted, as well as refilling your hand to assemble the combo again. Against aggro decks, especially Tempered Steel, it acts as the instant stabilizer—holding off a majority of their creatures while giving you burn or counterspells to combat further creatures. 

Pyroclasms are so you don’t die to aggressive decks. Don’t be afraid to use Pyroclasms as one-for-ones; your only job in these matchups is to not die, not obtain card advantage by letting them to overcommit to the board. Similarly, Flashfreeze helps against red aggro decks and also Valakut. Mental Missteps are in the deck pretty much solely for U/B—you lose more games to Inquisition of Kozilek more than any other card in their 75. Misstep also helps against red decks like Goblins, and I’ve sideboarded it in against Caw-Blade to counter their Spell Pierces/Missteps. I’ve even boarded Missteps in against Twin combo to slow them down by countering their Ponders and protecting your own spells from Dispel.

Originally, I had the fourth Mental Misstep instead of the singleton Twisted Image in the sideboard, but put in Twisted Image as a concession to decks that would be playing Spellskites en-masse. However, I only brought it in once during the event, preemptively against Matt Nass’s Splinter Twin deck, expecting that he would bring in Spellskites.

If I played the deck again, I would just take out the Twisted Image and replace it with a Negate to give you a one hard counterspell against Caw-Blade and U/B Control. Two Spellskites is a problem, but since you can deal with one by itself quite easily, and Spellskite seems to be on the decline, I don’t think you want Twisted Image. 

NATIONALS—STANDARD PORTION 1

Nationals is separated into two days and two formats. The first day has four rounds of Standard, and a draft with three rounds. The second day has three rounds of draft, then four rounds of Standard. That meant for Friday, I had to start with Standard, a format I had practiced more but felt less confident in. 

I’m not perfect and don’t remember everything from my matches. Instead, I’ll try to give a general overview on the matchup as I come to it, tell you how I normally sideboard, and then give a little overview on how the round went. 

Round 1 vs. Michael Corley (Tempered Steel)

I actually like the Tempered Steel matchup quite a bit. You want to play defensively and use your burn spells to kill off their threats, while trying to draw and activate an Ascension. I usually don’t waste burn unless the card I’m killing significantly increases their clock, like Signal Pest, Steel Overseer, and Glint Hawk Idol. Typically, you can survive by killing only those three long enough to activate an Ascension and then not care how many burn spells you’re wasting on various Inkmoth Nexus, Vault Skirges, and Memnites.

Tempered Steel itself is somewhat problematic; your main hope is to Into the Roil it, kill whatever creatures are now small enough to burn, and then activate an Ascension before it comes down. As convoluted as that plan sounds, it’s not actually that difficult to achieve. Other than by killing you outright, Tempered Steel can’t stop you in game 1 in any way.

Once you stabilize against their initial swarm, you win, because Tempered Steel has no reach in the form of burn spells or the like. Just be careful with gratuitous use of Gitaxian Probe and fetchlands—I’ve won multiple games at just one life, so be careful you don’t put yourself in a position to be killed. 

Against Michael, I survived his initial onslaught and stabilized at one life. He hit me a few times with some Inkmoths before I found the burn for them, and I killed him with my life total at one and my poison status at nine. 

Sideboarding

OUT
-4 Mana Leak
-2 Foresee
-1 Misty Rainforest

IN
+3 Pyroclasm
+2 Spellskite
+2 Consecrated Sphinx

Mana Leaks are atrocious against Tempered Steel, so they go out. Foresee is too slow for something you usually have to tap out for. Misty Rainforest is cut because I need an extra slot, and drawing too many land isn’t desirable, even though you need it for the Consecrated Sphinxes you bring in.

I usually only bring in 2-3 Pyroclasm against Tempered Steel because of Glint Hawk Idol, and I assume they will bring in Kor Firewalkers. Kor Firewalker is also the primary reason I bring in Spellskite, though it doesn’t hurt that Spellskite can absorb a Revoke Existence in Ascension’s place.

Since they board out their Dispatches, Consecrated Sphinx is impossible for Tempered Steel to deal with once it comes down; it blocks all of their creatures even when powered up by Tempered Steel and draws you into more burn or Into the Roils. 

I win game 2, though I forget how. This might’ve been the game where I Gitaxian Probed him and see two Tempered Steel when he has only a single white source in play. According to my scorepad, I also win this game at one life. 

Round 2 vs. Gavin Verhey (Caw-Blade)

I had actually planned to meet Gavin the day before Nationals to hang out, but with Gen Con having no WiFi and myself having no smartphone, I was unable to get in touch with him. I knew Gavin from playing in a fair amount of his Overextended events on Magic Online, where I can usually be seen rocking some form of Pyromancer Ascension. So as soon as I sat down, Gavin asked “So, what’re the chances you’re playing Pyromancer Ascension?”

I replied back “Pretty good,” and mentally kicked myself for giving away a bit of information, but it probably doesn’t matter, since Gavin would put me on Ascension as soon as I Pondered on turn 1. I also hate giving dodgy answers like “We’ll see…” to someone who clearly has a good idea of what I’m playing; it makes me feel like I’m just lying to them.

I mulligan to six and Gavin mulligans to five, then easily crushes me. Most notable moment is when he taps out for a bunch of Squadron Hawks, going to one card in hand, then swings with a Hawk equipped with Sword of Feast and Famine. I have an Ascension on board with one counter, and my hand is Lightning Bolt and Mana Leak (with a copy in the graveyard). I immediately Lightning Bolt his equipped Hawk, and he casually flips over his last card—Mental Misstep. I get totally blown out, having to discard my Mana Leak, going to no cards in my hand, and hoping to topdeck a Ponder or Preordain to turn on Ascension and get me back in the game against his Squadron of Hawks. It doesn’t happen, and I die to a flock of birds. 

Sideboarding

OUT
-1 Burst Lightning
-2 Foresee
-3 Mana Leak

IN
+2 Consecrated Sphinx
+2 Mental Misstep
+2 Spellskite

Since there are so many ways Caw-Blade can be built, I haven’t really figured out a definitive board plan for it. It really depends on what is seen game 1 and what you think they’ll board in game 2. I know I definitely want Sphinxes, but everything else is questionable. Do I need Missteps for their Spell Pierces and own Missteps? Is Spellskite to try to get around Oblivion Ring just worse than the raw power of Foresee? Most games I win off Caw-Blade pre-board come from a resolved Foresee, so I resolve to try that more in postboard games to see how it goes.

I don’t remember game 2 very well. I remember mulliganing to five and then dying without putting up much of a fight. Gavin and I wish each other luck and go our separate ways. 

Round 3 vs. Brendan O’Donnel (RUG Pod w/ Twin Combo)

I really, really like any matchup where my opponent is playing Birthing Pod. It’s one of the few (only?) matchups where Into the Roil is commonly the best card you can draw, since you can bounce Birthing Pod in response to them playing a large creature or vice versa to set them far behind on tempo. Early game, you get to kill their Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves to stop them from putting out an early Birthing Pod. From there on, you can sit back and assemble your combo, stopping every once in a while to bounce Birthing Pod or kill their four-drops before they can tutor up an Acidic Slime to kill Ascension. I haven’t tested against Chapin’s Exarchless deck yet, which I’m sure more people will switch to going forward, but I’m going to go so far as to say that as long as you’re playing Ascension, you have little to fear from Birthing Pod decks. 

I win game 1 pretty easily, even getting to bounce his only creature in response to Phantasmal Image to destroy both his Image and his momentum. 

Sideboarding

OUT:
-2 Foresee
-2 Mana Leak

IN
+2 Consecrated Sphinx
+2 Spellskite

Foresee generally comes out for Consecrated Sphinx, though I think a new boarding plan I may try is just +2 Spellskite for the Foresee. I don’t want to give their Phantasmal Images a target in Consecrated Sphinx. Then again, it seldom matters what they do once you have Consecrated Sphinx out. Spellskite comes in to protect Ascension against Nature’s Claim and Acidic Slimes.

Game 2, my opponent keeps a sketchy hand, which I get to see when I Gitaxian Probe him around turn 2. All blue spells and no blue sources. He hits a blue too late in the game to matter, and I manage to activate an Ascension and kill him with it while all he has going for him is an attack-happy Vengevine.

Round 4 vs. J.T. Henricks (Valakut)

My opponent exclaims “Hey, don’t I know you?” as soon as I take my place. I have literally never seen this person in my life before, so I say as much. He says “Have I seen you from anywhere? You just have a familiar name and face.” I explain to him that I’m a nobody from a small town without any big-event finishes, so we don’t know each other. He drops it after that, but is still very friendly. This is actually one of my favorite matches in the entire tournament, if only because of how much banter and conversation we had while we were playing. 

The Valakut matchup is not extremely good. You need to activate Ascension before they can successfully resolve a Titan. If you can do that, most games will come down to how quick they can manually kill you with Valakut. The main strength of Ascension in this matchup is actually pretending to be Twin. Throwing out Ponders and Preordains along with Mountains will make your opponent think you are on Splinter Twin because it’s a far more popular deck than Pyromancer Ascension. This forces the Valakut player to “race” you, throwing out Titans as soon as possible in the hopes that you just don’t have the Exarch combo ready when the correct play against Ascension is to just wait until Valakut gets to nine mana so you can pretty much guarantee a Titan resolution through Mana Leak. 

J.T. manages to win game one after a Terastodon destroys my Mountains and active Ascension. While I trade with the Terastodon a turn later with my Elephant tokens, I don’t draw anything relevant from there on out and die to a Titan a few turns later. 

Sideboard

OUT:
-4 Into the Roil
-1 Burst Lightning
-1 Foresee/(-2 Foresee)

IN:
+3 Flashfreeze
+2 Spellskite
+1 Consecrated Sphinx/(+2 Consecrated Sphinx)

A lot of Valakut decks are bringing in Swamp and Memoricide now, so I usually hedge against it and bring in a singleton Sphinx game 2. If I see it game 2, I bring in the second Sphinx. When you sideboard, be sure to pick up your sideboard and shuffle it into your deck, then take out 15 cards. You should do this against everyone to minimize the amount of information you give away, but against Valakut it makes them nervous that you’re switching to the Twin combo, which is still a nightmare matchup for them, so they may be pressed to sideboard in Combusts or Dismembers, just in case.

Game 2 I manage to counter his Memoricide and subsequent Titan, then I resolve an Ascension, activate it, and easily win from there. Game 3, I counter his early acceleration and a Titan, but he manages to Memoricide me and names Burst Lightning. His face falls when he realizes that there are only three in my deck, and I kill him with Bolts a couple of turns later.

NATIONALS—DRAFT PORTIONS 

With Standard done for the day, it was time to draft. Since this article is primarily about Pyromancer Ascension and drafts aren’t re-creatable, I’ll just skim over them. Suffice to say that I went 5-1 total, going 2-1 with a U/B aggro deck and then 3-0 the next day with an B/R Bloodthirst deck. The loss came from throwing away an enchanted Child of Night for literally no reason, then dying when I couldn’t race a couple Cudgel Trolls. Back to Standard!

NATIONALS—STANDARD PORTION 2

Round 11 vs. Matt Petrov (Tempered Steel)

Fresh from a 3-0 draft and unwilling to go back to Standard, I sit across from an opponent and introduce myself. He greets me and we start shuffling. Normally, this wouldn’t be worth noting, but Matt would pick up his deck, split it into two parts, then riffle shuffle the two parts towards me. That meant that I could see the bottom card of his deck as he was shuffling: Shuffle, shuffle, Steel Overseer. Shuffle, shuffle, Porcelain Legionnaire. Shuffle, shuffle, Glint Hawk Idol.

So when I opened (on the draw) on a decent hand of double Mana Leak, Scalding Tarn, Island, Mountain, Pyromancer Ascension, Ponder, I immediately shuffled it away. Mana Leak is terrible against Tempered Steel, especially on the draw. I wanted a hand that consisted of at least two burn spells and an Ascension or some way to find it. I don’t remember exactly what I kept on my six, but I know it contained both Burst Lightning and Lightning Bolt and a couple of lands, which was good enough for me.

One interesting thing about Matt’s deck is that he was playing Arid Mesas to fetch Mountains so that he could cast Arc Trail. It didn’t matter much against me, but it’s a pretty neat card for the aggro mirror for Tempered Steel to splash for (if you’re into that sort of thing). I stabilize game 1 at eight life and activate Ascension, at which point Matt promptly concedes. 

Sideboarding is the same as above. This game is significantly closer, as he gets to stick a Tempered Steel while I don’t have an answer for it, and he beats me down to four with Glint Hawk Idol and throws down a Shrine of Loyal Legions. I get to halt his attacks by casting a Consecrated Sphinx; then we stare at each other for a couple of turns while he builds up counters. He cracks the Shrine at two, and I bounce his Tempered Steel, Pyroclasm away his tokens, and (on the next turn, after he passes), play another Consecrated Sphinx. I find another Ascension and cast it when Matt decides he’s had enough and concedes. 

Oh, and here’s an embarrassing tidbit I feel I have to mention. During one of the games, probably game 1, I cast See Beyond while flooded and drew double Scalding Tarn. Somewhat discouraged, I immediately shuffled both Scalding Tarns back in, stopped when I realized what I did, and called a judge on myself. I received a warning for—I’m not sure what the technical term is, but I definitely screwed up resolving See Beyond. My opponent jokingly told me that he wouldn’t mind if I shuffled in more extra cards with subsequent See Beyonds. Then I crushed him. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR TAUNTING ME FOR BEING A SCRUB.

Round 12 vs. Aaron McCaslin (Valakut)

My opponent leads off with Evolving Wilds on the play and I smile. I actually like playing against Valakut in person—I get to pretend for all I’m worth that I’m playing Splinter Twin, and everyone believes me because who on earth would play Pyromancer Ascension, after all?

It’s especially helpful when I Foresee in the late game after fighting off his Titans to find Ascension and keep all four on top(!), then see his next card from Oracle of Mul Daya: Acidic Slime. I look down at my board and see that it’s a bunch of Islands and two Mountains. I state “Dang, I’m a terrible Magic player. Outsmarted myself and put Foresee cards back in the wrong order.” So next turn when I do nothing, he slams Acidic Slime and gets my second Mountain to stop me from casting Splinter Twin, saying “Well, it’s not really gonna do anything else.” I untap, cast an Ascension, quickly activate it with cards I got from Foresee, and from there the game is a cakewalk. 

Sideboarding is the same as the Valakut above. Against Valakut though, you at least should grin like a madman as you shuffle your entire sideboard into your maindeck (before taking out fifteen cards). That way they feel bad if they don’t slip a couple of Combusts in for game 2. 

I don’t remember game 2 very well. I assume it went like every Valakut game 2—I countered his Titans and Memoricides (which he did side in, seems to be popular nowadays), and I activated Ascension and won the game. Unfortunately, Valakut doesn’t produce many interesting games. 

After I finished this round (or it may have been the last round), I watched David Ochoa and Christian Valenti next to me battle over Valenti’s pending-enchantment Exarch with flurries of Dispels, Mana Leaks, and Dismembers before the Exarch eventually died. Valenti, having no cards in hand and no nonland permanents, just scooped it up to Ochoa’s dominating board position, and Ochoa frowned at that.

Ochoa told Valenti afterwards that he shouldn’t’ve scooped immediately. Ochoa was holding nothing but lands, and Valenti had the chance to go running Deceiver Exarch into Splinter Twin right off the top, however unlikely that may be. Never giving up is a pretty admirable quality in Magic when so many players nowadays concede prematurely, and David Ochoa displayed this to the point of insanity in the finals against Ali Aintrazi, not conceding to Ali’s board of Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, and Karn Liberated while holding no cards of his own.  Anyway…

Round 13 vs. Haibing Hu (Caw-Blade)

Caw-Blade is a bit of an awkward matchup for Ascension, as there’s so many different ways to build it, not all of them bad for you. Sometimes you have to play around Spellskite, Oblivion Ring, and Spell Pierce, while other times you Gitaxian Probe them and see two Timely Reinforcements and a Dismember. I stand by game 1 being slightly favored for Pyromancer, depending on how many dead cards they draw, and games 2 and 3 being a little harder depending on how they build their sideboard. That being said, I was a little surprised when Haibing offered a draw to me. Apparently, I had been paired up against him, so while Haibing could draw in to Top 8, I could not, and we were forced to play it out.

Game 1 I cast a Gitaxian Probe around turn 2 to see what’s going on and see and Oblivion Ring and two Emeria Angels, and a Hawk. Then, a few turns later, I play into Pyromancer Ascension into Oblivion Ring like an idiot who doesn’t know what is coming.

But maybe Haibing gave me a little more credit than I deserved, because he played Emeria Angel before casting Oblivion Ring, allowing me to Mana Leak the latter and try to claw my way back into the game as Birds swarm me. I manage to activate Ascension and go through a TON of cards with Foresee and company over two turns to clear Haibing’s board consisting of a flock of six Bird tokens, a few Squadron Hawks, and two Emeria Angels. This left me at one life and one turn to kill Haibing before he activated his Colonnade and killed me. With Foresee, I managed to find and activate another Ascension with exactly enough burn to kill Haibing before I died the following turn. 

I boarded similarly to how I boarded in against Gavin above.

Of course, I lose the next two to various means. I kept some sketchy hands, and Haibing played very well and sent me off to play for Top 8. I congratulated Haibing for making Top 8, since I enjoyed playing against him, and went on my way. 

Round 14 vs. Matt Nass (U/R Splinter Twin)

Hearing I was paired against Matt Nass to play for Top 8 gave me at least a little advantage—I would’ve had to have to been living in a cave that had been concealed underneath a rock to not know Matt Nass was playing U/R Twin.

I did not test against the Twin matchup much, but from what I did test, I liked it. You usually find your combo of one card—Pyromancer Ascension—significantly quicker than they can find their multiple card combo, despite not being able to play Shrine of Piercing Vision. And once you have activated Ascension, you can dig for Mana Leak to protect it (picking up at least an Into the Roil on your way there). You can usually overwhelm whatever protection they have for Exarch on the grounds that all of your spells are copied generally before they can combo you off. To make things better, Gitaxian Probe is actually a free card—life total doesn’t matter that much against Twin, even if they have mainboard Grim Lavamancers like Matt did. 

Game 1 he starts off with a Grim Lavamancer, which is somewhat annoying but not something major to worry about. As he sets up Shrines and Ponders and goes about trying to find his combo, I find my Ascension much quicker and activate it. He never finds a Deceiver Exarch, and I kill him with a few burn spells. 

Sideboarding

OUT:
-4 Burst Lightning
(-4 Mana Leak)
(-2 Foresee)

IN:
+2 Spellskite
+2 Consecrated Sphinx
+3 Mental Misstep
(+1 Twisted Image)

The amount of Foresee and Mana Leaks depend on if I’m on the play or on the draw; I don’t like Mana Leaks on the draw, they’re just not as effective. I don’t like bringing in Flashfreeze against Splinter Twin because it only counters one card, and they usually have the answer to just any one random counterspell you play to answer their combo (if you have Ascension to copy it, generally any card will answer the Exarch). Instead, I bring in Spellskites to stop their combo preemptively, Sphinxes to give me a little more draw power, and Missteps to counter their Ponders and Preordains (slowing them down significantly) as well as Dispels (if I want to fight over anything). 

In game 2, I keep the nut hand against Splinter Twin—Scalding Tarn, Ponder, Pyromancer Ascension, Spellskite, Spellskite, See Beyond, and Gitaxian Probe. Only one land, but I’m on the draw with two cantrips in hand, and Splinter Twin is extremely hard pressed to beat two Spellskites in play—especially when I can peek at his hand with Probe and see if I can resolve Spellskite or not.

I manage to make my second land drop in time and start resolving Spellskites. Eventually a couple more land come, and a Pyromancer Ascension joins the Spellskites, and I spend a couple of cantrips over the following turns to activate it. Matt has a couple of Shrines of Piercing Vision at four when he makes his move—Into the Roil targeting a Spellskite. I respond to the Shrine put-a-counter-on triggers by Mana Leaking the Into the Roil (twice). Matt responds with Deceiver Exarch to put a fifth counter on each of his Shrines and untaps an Island.

He cracks the first Shrine and finds a Dispel for my first copy of Mana Leak. He cracks the second Shrine and finds a second Dispel, so Into the Roil resolves and bounces a Spellskite, and Matt has one card in hand. I’m tapped out. This means he needs to have a Splinter Twin and draw an Into the Roil for my last Spellskite (or vice versa) to win the game. He bricks, and then I win a few turns later being under no pressure from his combo with two Spellskites and an active Ascension out. 

I win! I’m going to Top 8 in my first Nationals! 

I located Ali Aintrazi, a friend and NC player I’d been checking up with during the tournament, and congratulated him on also making Top 8. Unfortunately, as the standings went up, we ended up being in 3rd and 6th and so would have to play in the quarterfinals. That meant both of the non-Caw-Blade decks would play in the finals, and either myself or Ali would have to knock the other out of contention for the trip to Worlds. 

Flash-forward to Sunday morning, and Ali and I are sitting at our match area, getting deck checked. We discuss how we’re definitely getting the video coverage this round because everyone and their brother has been watching Caw-Blade mirrors for a majority of a year now, and why wouldn’t people want to try something a little different instead of more of the same? So, we obviously don’t get featured over a Caw-Blade mirror. What can I say? I guess people just really love Luis Scott-Vargas. 

DailyMTG covered our match here, and they did a pretty good job, if it’s a bit sporadic at times. I was mostly happy with the way I played, though I feel I could’ve played Games 3 and 4 a bit better. I’m not sure exactly how; I just have the feeling that I could’ve used my draw spells with just the tiniest bit difference to make them more effective while budgeting out my counterspells for the cards that really matter.

Game 5 was practically unwinnable as soon as I probed him and saw Praetor’s Grasp and Memoricide sitting side-by-side. I basically had to hope Ali made some monumental mistake that game to let me back in it.

News flash: Ali is an insane player and doesn’t make many mistakes. It was kind of odd that he grabbed a Gitaxian Probe with the Praetor’s Grasp to me. I get that he wanted to resolve Memoricide, but I still feel like grabbing one of my Consecrated Sphinxes or a Mana Leak would’ve been better—Sphinx to increase his threat count to more than I can deal with and Mana Leak to protect his existing Titan and Sphinx from my own Mana Leaks. After Ali beat me in game 5, I told him that he better win the whole thing. At least he made good on that. :)

So that’s how Nationals went for me! Though I think Pyromancer Ascension loses a bit of playability in the short term, while it’s fresh on people’s minds, it’s still a very strong deck with the potential to blow people out of the water who aren’t prepared for it. Going forward, I definitely would exchange the Twisted Image in the sideboard for a Negate, but further changes will require testing to see how they bear out. 

If you want to contact me, you can reach me at any of these:

Gardevi on Magic Online
@Gardevi on Twitter

…and I’ll be reading the comments in the article itself!

Thanks for reading!
Lee McLeod