“And in eighth place, by 0.4% breakers we have Chris…”
“Yes!”
“Johnson.”
“Nooooo!!!”
As you may have heard, I drew myself into ninth place at the North Carolina Regionals this weekend. Going into the last round, my opponent and I knew that
one of us would be getting ninth with a draw, but I was well over a full percent ahead of him in tiebreaks, and my only loss had been to Nick Miller who
was X-0 double drawing into the Top 8.
I was on R/W Aggro and he was on Abzan Aggro, which I felt was about as close to a 50/50 matchup as you can have, and with the way the breakers looked (the
person one place ahead of me going into the round was less than 2% above me, so it was feasible for me to jump them), I felt like I was closer to 60 or 70
percent to get eighth place.
Unfortunately, I was jumped by almost two full percentage points- and got ninth. I made what I felt was the higher EV decision, but in the back of my
mind I kept telling myself that I should have just played. After the fact, I do actually wish that I would have played and given myself a 100% chance at
making it (even at a higher seed, which would have been great since the deck thrives on being on the play).
I would rather say that I played and lost my win and in over having drawn and gotten ninth even if I felt like it was the highest EV option. I think that I
undersold my ability to maneuver the matchup since I was so confident with the R/W deck. Next time, I’m going to get that flag to plant.
As far as the deck is concerned, I loved it. I spent all of last week streaming with it, even going so far as
to enticing our very own Mark Nestico to come hang out and talk like Reid Duke while I did so. I’ve made a decision that unless there is a de facto number
one deck in Standard, I’m just going to play whatever the best Stormbreath Dragon deck is, and right now that’s R/W. It seemed as if there were a lot of
people who enjoyed watching me play the deck on stream and reading Mark’s article about it last week, since there were roughly
a bajillion people playing the deck this weekend.
I was able to 4-0 the Daily we streamed on Wednesday night with this list:
Creatures (17)
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 2 Hushwing Gryff
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
- 2 Ashcloud Phoenix
- 4 Seeker of the Way
- 1 Soulfire Grand Master
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
This list was very close to what Mark had won his PTQ with. After talking with him a bit, in addition to going over how games would be playing out in my
head, we decided that Monastery Mentor wasn’t right for the deck and wanted to try Hushwing Gryff in the maindeck. We felt that Brimaz, King of Oreskos was
another consideration, but that the white count felt a little too low and we needed all of the Mountains that we already had to facilitate Chained to the
Rocks, which is really the main reason to play this type of deck.
Having Hushwing Gryff in the maindeck is awesome in theory. I really like being proactive against some of the problematic cards against this deck. Doomwake
Giant, Hornet Queen, and Siege Rhino. It is also a flash threat with evasion for three mana, so it’s never really a dead draw. Over the course of the Daily
Events we played, it was never really relevant, and I was siding it out a lot, so I decided that for the next night I wanted to try out something
different.
We added a couple copies of Wild Slash to the sideboard in place of the Hushwing Gryffs, and they overperformed every single time I drew and/or cast them,
so that was valuable learning. Wild Slash really gives us a chance when we’re on the draw in the mirror, which is just what I was looking for. Technically
we could use Magma Spray for that, but the fact that Wild Slash can go to the dome is extremely appealing. Magma Spray is better against exactly Ashcloud
Phoenix, but I don’t think that card is very good against us, and we should be cutting them in the mirror anyway. We also get the added benefit of a
ferocious Wild Slash turning off the damage prevention of Gods Willing, Feat of Resistance, Favored Hoplite’s heroic ability, and Kiora, the Crashing
Wave’s +1.
Before I go more in depth into the changes that I was making and want to make and why, I want to talk a bit about what this deck does to the metagame and
why it is so good.
First off, when you’re on the draw against this deck and they have a decent/good draw, it feels extremely hopeless to win. The threats are all so varied,
punish certain cards, and hit so hard that games can be over extremely quickly and there just isn’t much you can do about it.
Sometimes you have the answer for a Goblin Rabblemaster, but they have Hordeling Outburst. Sometimes you have to use your answer on a Seeker of the Way and
then they have Goblin Rabblemaster. Sometimes you’re banking on using a one, two, or three mana reactive spell and then recouping time with a Courser of
Kruphix or Siege Rhino, and we get to go threat into threat + Chained to the Rocks to put the game out of reach.
Then we get to play Outpost Siege, which is absolutely bonkers. Both modes are great, and I haven’t even thought about Chandra, Pyromaster ever since I
cast Outpost Siege the first time. To put it in perspective, I have a literal statue of Chandra in my dining room – that’s how much I love playing with
that card. Sorry hot stuff, but I’m all about that siege, no planeswalker.
I tried the next Daily Event with Brimaz, King of Oreskos in the deck over Hushwing Gryff, and it felt awesome. There were a handful of times that I wasn’t
able to cast him on turn 3, but I think most of the time I would have been casting Goblin Rabblemaster or Hordeling Outburst instead. The times that it was
relevant though, it was much better than Hushwing Gryff.
I was convinced, and the night before the event, I posted these ideas on Twitter and Facebook to try and get
some feedback.
For the event, I thought that having a bit of a transitional sideboard that allowed us to turn into a control deck was where we wanted to be for the
mirror. Here’s the list that I played to the ninth place finish.
Creatures (17)
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
- 4 Goblin Rabblemaster
- 2 Ashcloud Phoenix
- 4 Seeker of the Way
- 1 Soulfire Grand Master
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
I loved the Brimaz, King of Oreskos in the maindeck, and I really didn’t miss Valorous Stance that much, but the sideboard felt like hot garbage. I tried
boarding into the control deck on the draw in the mirror and it was just terrible. Even if my end game was to try and play Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and lean
on it as a threat and a way to kill Stormbreath Dragon, it was just way too slow and didn’t impact the game enough, as they would just burn me out.
I respected Mark’s idea about wanting End Hostilities for the Green Devotion/Temur Ascendancy combo matchup, but I think that it’s probably not even
needed, and we can just lean on our efficient removal and getting two-for-one’s with Arc Lightning after sideboard. As a one-of, I liked Erase over Abzan
Advantage, since it lets us double-spell earlier, which is becoming more and more important in this format, especially with Outpost Siege fueling our card
advantage engine.
I decided to not have any copies of Valorous Stance, but I think that was a mistake. You want at least one somewhere in the 75 (likely the sideboard),
since it’s just such a good card against the Abzan decks.
Wild Slash continued to impress me, and I would even cut the fourth Lightning Strike for a second Wild Slash in the maindeck for the IQ on Sunday.
During the course of Regionals, I played against almost nine different decks, with the only repeats being the mirror. Thankfully I dodged U/B Control and
Gerard’s Sultai Control, as those are definitely the deck’s two worst matchups, but I’m finding the mirror to be pretty abysmal. The threats are all so
diverse and require different sets of answers that it’s tough to navigate the games, especially on the draw. Sometimes you just can’t play a turn 2 threat
on the draw for fear of Lightning Strike or Wild Slash into Goblin Rabblemaster, and if you keep up mana to answer Goblin Rabblemaster, they can just play
Hordeling Outburst and now we’re behind on tempo.
For the IQ on Sunday, I swapped the fourth Lightning Strike for a second Wild Slash in the main and played the following sideboard:
3 Arc Lightning
2 Monastery Mentor
2 Hushwing Gryff
1 Scouring Sands
1 Erase
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Wild Slash
1 Valorous Stance
2 Glare of Heresy
The idea was that on the draw, we are mostly taking out our Goblin Rabblemasters and bringing in more cards to interact with our opponent, and they all
work extremely well with Monastery Mentor. I thought that this might be a good plan in the mirror as well, and still do. It’s not something that we are
jamming on turn 3, and it also lets our Glare of Heresy un-chain an awesome threat in the mid/lategame. It does make their Glares a bit more live, but I
think that’s worth it.
Unfortunately. I got crushed by a G/B Nighthowler/Whip/Constellation deck, and then I lost to the mirror when I was out-tempoed in game 1 on the draw, and
then mana-screwed after a mulligan in game 2.
I think that moving forward I would want two or three Scouring Sands, as I think that’s the best card to help bridge the gap to the mid/lategame. We may
even want a third Outpost Siege or a Chandra, Pyromaster, since I think both of those are great in the mirror. Chandra has the benefit of being great
against Hordeling Outburst, but is very poor against Stormbreath Dragon.
I felt great playing this weekend. Due to putting in the time while streaming to learn the deck and the matchups and tweaking it to my liking, I felt more
comfortable with the deck than I had with any deck I’ve played in a while. I was eager to battle every round. I was able to identify where my mistakes were
and make adjustments accordingly. I really felt that fire this weekend that I have been lacking for some time, and I plan on continuing to do so.
This week I plan on streaming Modern to work on getting prepared for the Open Series in Baltimore (our first Modern Open!). I really enjoy playing the
Amulet combo deck, and with how much Burn is on MTGO, it might be a great choice at least for that metagame. However, I think that there’s going to be a
ton of Splinter Twin. I think that maybe a Jund Siege Rhino deck could be good. A lot of people have pointed out that the format seems a bit soft to Miss
Olivia Voldaren, and I do love me a good vampin’.
Make sure you check out my stream this week, and I’d love to hear some sweet Modern ideas now that we have an
established format from PT Fate Reforged.