Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to take a look back at Regionals 2009 — How I scrubbed right out, the awesome new decks revealed from all across the country, and how I redeemed myself by Top 8ing the PTQ the next day. Let’s go!
Regionals 2009
So this past weekend, all around the country, Magic players battled each other for first place and a Top 4 shot at Nationals. Last week we went through the metagame… Not covering each and every deck, but touching on most of them.
However, the decks that actually floated to the top of the heap didn’t necessarily match those metagame drawings. Or, better yet, they not only matched them but exceeded them in a few key areas. But before we get to the new hotness, what did I bring to Regionals 2009 in Atlanta? I slung this list, as featured last week in the show:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Mogg Fanatic
- 4 Boggart Ram-Gang
- 4 Figure of Destiny
- 4 Hellspark Elemental
- 3 Goblin Outlander
- 4 Anathemancer
Lands (23)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
A few notes on this deck: First, it’s just my style, as I noted. Just a wonderful synergy of aggro and burn. But there’s a downside to that: This, while not as narrow as TurboFog, is still a deck that is very much metagamed. Running Anathemancer is still a risk, as you are susceptible to decks that run a lot of basics… Now you think this wouldn’t be a big deal, this being Regionals and all. But the fates were in a laughing mood, and Round 1 I faced off against what had to be one of the only decks in the 9-round 300+ player room that played not a single nonbasic land. That’s right, not one. Mono Red burn, 19 Mountains, not so much as a single Ghitu Encampment.
Nice Gray Ogre.
So I lost the die roll and due to the tempo loss of going second he won while we were both in single digits in Game 3. Round 2 I played against B/W Tokens and smashed it as expected. Round 3 I play against… the mirror. Who, of course, wins the die roll, and of course, wins in a squeaker in game 3 due to the tempo gain made by winning said die roll. At 1-2, with no chance of making Top 8 and a whopping six more rounds of swiss to try and make Top 16, I decide to try my hand at side events. I mean, the deck is good, right?
Well… There go the fates again. Round 1 of this tournament I play against Mono Green Elves. Not Combo Elves courtesy of Uri Peleg, or G/B with Maelstrom Pulse, or even the crazy Primalcrux deck that Kyle Sanchez posted. Nope, straight up dudes, Nettle Sentinels, and Overrun. This deck should be no problem, right? I mean, c’mon 4 Magma Spray, 3 Volcanic Fallout, 3 Terror? What am I worried for? Of course, I don’t draw anything past a Magma Spray Game 1 and mulligan to 5 in Game 2.
With my attitude at an all time low, I got a phone call from my buddy Mike Ward on Saturday night, informing me that he had won Charlotte Regionals with David Irvine G/W Overrun list. He just smashed people with it all day. That was a feeling I wanted to have as well. It’s no great secret that the two best cards in the format are Spectral Procession and Windbrisk Heights, and it was time I stopped trying to beat these monsters and simply wield them myself. Why try to destroy Excalibur when you could pick it up and start swinging away?
And swing I did. Holy crap. What a feeling it is to be playing the best deck. Things, at times, seem righteously unfair. A few notes on this deck:
First, the play of Spectral Procession, Ajani Goldmane and activating his second ability, is pretty much the best play in Standard. Sure, the two best cards are Spectral Procession and Windbrisk Heights, but nothing comes close to that crushing. So many matches are determined by He Who Has The Goldmane, and I think it’s time a lot of B/W and G/W token decks respect that. It is the play that determines who wins the mirror, and it is the play that pushes you forward the most.
Also, Kitchen Finks is incredibly unfair when paired with Ajani Goldmane. Suddenly you have a 3/2 blocking wall that gains you two life every time it blocks. That’s pretty powerful right there. This combo means they have to overcommit to the board in order to overcome it, and that’s when you simply Wrath of God and continue to smash.
Treetop Village is the second best land in the format, right behind Windbrisk Heights. Having a double-striking Ape thanks to Rafiq, or an Exalted one thanks to Noble Hierarch, is No Joke. Trample is an incredibly important component to this card’s success, and Treetop Village will be seeing play until Magic 2010, when I would bet dollars to doughnuts that it does not appear in the new core set.
As for my matchups, I won a close three game match in Round 1 versus Merfolk to a player who had not one, not two, but all four Cryptic Commands in hand, leaving me incredibly embarrassed as I kept activating my Treetop Villages before I went to my combat step. Round 2 I smashed some Elemental homebrew that was running Flamekin Harbinger, Fulminator Mage, and some wacky choices like Leaf-Crowned Elder and Rage Forger. Round 3 I don’t recall a thing about except I won quickly. Round 4 I play a 71-card mirror and topdeck a timely Wrath of God and have a needed Path to Exile to allow my Treetop Village to crash in for the final three points of damage.
Round 5 I play another mirror and I win another close one in three games. This fella makes the Top 8 as well. Round 6 I smash B/W Tokens by playing around Zealous Persecution, simply playing my Wilt-Leaf Liege before playing my Spectral Procession, then flipping up the Overrun to seal the deal in both games.
At 6-0, I could safely draw in to the Top 8 with fellow StarCityGames writer Todd Anderson. Looking at the Top 8 decks – Bant, Jund, three G/W Tokens and three B/W Tokens, I was feeling good. I had won the mirror match twice already, was incredibly confident in my B/W matchup, and the other two were toss-ups. Of course I face Bant, whom I hadn’t played or even discussed sideboarding plans. And this is where I failed. By removing three Qasali Pridemage from my deck for Elspeth, Wrath of God, and Path to Exile, I was making Finest Hour an almost unstoppable force against me. This was a huge, huge mistake and I took the worthless Elspeths out of the deck for Game 3, but my lack of Path to Exile made his doublestriking double combat stepping Jhessian Infiltrator the end of my PTQ experience.
What can I say? It stung. It simply shows you that playtesting is the key to doing well in an event like a PTQ, and I simply didn’t have time for it. I went as far as I could with the matchups I was familiar with, but a simple playtesting session would’ve perhaps given me a plane ticket to Austin.
So what if you’re not up for G/W or B/W? What is out there? Look at this insane deck that actually won Atlanta Regionals, also known as the largest Regionals in the country. Say hello to Countryside Dreamcrusher:
Creatures (20)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (12)
Now THAT is a deck right there. It goes in a completely different direction than every other deck in the format, and does so by giving you absurd openings and absurd late game states. Let’s begin by focusing on the two creatures that drive this monster: Countryside Crusher and Knight of the Reliquary. These two are like chocolate and peanut butter, each making the other more than the sum of their parts. Bloodbraid Elf finds both of them, as well as Kitchen Finks, Volcanic Fallout, and the singleton Behemoth Sledge that gives your huge Crushers and Reliquaries the Trample they need to seal the deal against DI Bitterblossom tokens.
A singleton Worm Harvest is also intriguing, and speaking with the pilot he told me how many games its incremental advantage would simply destroy people. When your late game has run out, Worm Harvest is there to keep you going. Talk about turning a token metagame on its ear, how about your “dead draws” are like their own super-powered Spectral Processions? Another piece of mad technology is the Incendiary Command in the sideboard. Not seen since the likes of Burnt Toast, this massive beating is a blowout versus tokens any way you slice it. Destroying their Windbrisk Heights and Wrathing their board is about as sweet as it gets. Another fascinating entry is Enlisted Wurm, a monster that is sided in against Five-Color Control as a creature that not only must be dealt with soon – as the only creature capable of stopping it in their deck is Wall of Reverence – it gives you yet another free spell, such as, I dunno, Ajani freakin’ Vengeant that they must deal with as well.
This brings me to a point about Cascade in general and a decklist from Kyle Sanchez. Let’s take a look at Kyle’s Cascade Control deck:
Creatures (16)
Lands (25)
Spells (20)
This fascinating entry shows you the versatility of the mechanic. It also highlights the power of Cascade. It blows my mind when trying to explain the goodness of Captured Sunlight to players. “It doesn’t do anything,” they say. Yes, it does. If it flips over a Kitchen Finks, you just paid Loxodon Hierarch mana for a 3/2 that gained you two additional life and will Persist for two more after that. Now that’s a kick ass deal. And what if you “just” flip up Maelstrom Pulse? Oh, I’m sorry, I just took away the aggressive clock you put me on and I destroyed either your best permanent or your wave of token monsters. Seems kinda good.
Now this deck isn’t perfect, nor is it supposed to be. Rather, for me, it showcases how powerful Cascade is and the mindset players need to have when playing it. Riddle me this: If you played Enlisted Wurm and flipped over, say, Ajani Vengeant, how much mana was the Wurm, and how much mana was the Vengeant? Did you really pay six mana for a 5/5, or did you pay four mana for a Planeswalker and two for a 5/5? At which point do these costs become “fair”…? You could say the same about Captured Sunlight flipping over Naya Charm. How much went into each spell, and how much are you getting out of both? What if you just flipped up Path to Exile? Would that be three mana to gain 4 life and another to remove a creature from the game? All in one spell? Is this bad, good, or not good enough?
Either way, these questions will continue. How about a Cascade deck that abuses both the mechanic and the best card with the mechanic on it? Check out Cascade Swans that Top 8’d Chicago Regionals:
Creatures (8)
Lands (42)
Spells (10)
Notice anything special about it? Other than running a million lands, it only runs one spell that costs less than 4: Seismic Assault, aka the card that makes this combo so deadly in the first place. Sure you could say the deck “folds to Path to Exile,” but if they don’t have it, don’t you Just Win? With as much card draw at your disposal once Seismic hits with a Swans of Bryn Argoll in play, you’ll be many, many cards up before that Swan is removed from the game anyway. Sam Black recently wrote about how to continue working with the deck, as it suffers from the strange problem of having difficulty sideboarding… anything. Any card is either going to muck up the combo or muck up the Cascading going on. Pithing Needle naming Seismic Assault is basically your butt, so you need to have answers to it. However, not everyone packs Pithing Needle in the first place, so are you willing to take the chance they just don’t have it?
Moving on, why don’t we take a look at some of the more ‘out there’ decks that did very well last weekend? Check out Thousand-Year Transmuter from High Point, North Carolina Regionals:
Creatures (24)
- 2 Grim Poppet
- 4 Etherium Sculptor
- 3 Master of Etherium
- 3 Sharuum the Hegemon
- 3 Esperzoa
- 4 Master Transmuter
- 3 Sphinx Summoner
- 2 Filigree Angel
Lands (23)
Spells (13)
Sideboard
This deck is basically insane. It has combos and interactions that no deck in Standard has, and it abuses both Thousand-Year Elixir and Master Transmuter like no other deck ever has. With Thousand-Year Elixir in play, you can drop Master Transmuter, use it immediately to play Sphinx Summoner, which finds Sharuum the Hegemon. Next turn, you’ll be able to do basically whatever you want with your permanents, as they’re all artifacts, and get back your best one by simply playing and using Transmuter immediately. This is a deck that definitely does not want to see a Qasali Pridemage, but every other deck seems to have quite the problem with stopping Master Transmuter from going insane. Just an incredibly cool and innovative deck.
How about this Top 8 deck from St. Louis: 4-Color Ramp Control?
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (21)
Spells (24)
Sideboard
Mycoid Shepherd, which you may recall was my Alara Reborn spoiler, is finally getting some action and we have a full boat of Spectral Procession-hating Cloudthreshers to go along with it. This deck uses Trace of Abundance instead of Fertile Ground in order to keep its Treetop Villages Shrouded from pesky Path to Exiles, and runs a full boat of Rhox War Monks, Bant Charms, and Cryptic Commands. Yowza.
Moving on, how about that ‘other’ Hideaway land, you know, the one that no one’s been paying attention to? Let’s show some love for Mosswort Bridge, featured in this deck that garnered first place in Massachusetts:
Creatures (29)
- 3 Cloudthresher
- 4 Gaddock Teeg
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
- 2 Steward of Valeron
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Qasali Pridemage
- 4 Dauntless Escort
Lands (24)
Spells (7)
The main detraction from Mosswort Bridge is in its wording: You can’t play the free spell if they Path to Exile the creature pushing you over the 10 power threshold while the effect is on the stack. Sure you’ll get to activate it, but the spell will remain hidden until you activate it again and hopefully they don’t have the Path to Exile again. But that sounds like The Fear to me, and it didn’t stop no less than three decks making Top 8 as a result using this powerful land.
Lastly I want to look at some Red/Black Control that made Top 8 in Salt Lake City:
Creatures (20)
Lands (25)
Spells (15)
Sideboard
Can you say 4x Soul Snuffers main? Wow! Me and Chris Woltereck were discussing this card on Saturday, and how ol’ Snuffy just demolishes tokens or nullifies Ajani Goldmane activations. Another hot maindeck card is Puppeteer Clique, a card that is bad in only a few matchups, and a complete blowout in others. Nice Cloudgoat Ranger you have in your graveyard there. Broodmate Dragon in your graveyard, Five-Color Control? Don’t mind if I do.
Either way, the Standard format is shaping up to be one of the most exciting and varied in recent memory. While B/W Tokens looms large, and comprises a whopping 1/4 of the Top 8 field, it is nowhere near as bad as our Faeries-infested block metagame from last year, and there are plenty of wonderful innovations and cards that are being ignored even after this past weekend’s Regionals festivities. We’ve got a whole host of Standard PTQs firing up soon which I suggest you take advantage of, along with both the Atlanta $5K and Boston $10K, the latter of which I’ll be covering and hope to see some insane Legacy goodness battling it out for five G’s on Sunday.
Until next time Magic players, this is Evan Erwin. Tapping the cards… so you don’t have to.
Evan “misterorange” Erwin
twitter dot com slash misterorange
eerwin +at+ gmail +dot+ com
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