Invitation Only

Any retailer will tell you that the biggest battle they face is retention of customers. Acquisition is all well and good, but if you can’t retain what you
already have, you can’t grow. With a business like gaming, it becomes even more important to retain a loyal customer base since the invested players spend
more. Midgard Gaming, my local store, has come up with a great way to encourage players to be at the store and playing in events as often as possible: the
Midgard Invitational.

Players earn points for placing well in tournaments across multiple formats: Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Limited. The top three from each format plus the
next four highest overall point-getters in each season (which runs from Prerelease to the last FNM before the next Prerelease) qualify for a free
tournament with a complex structure that changes from season to season. I’ve been lucky enough to qualify for quite a few of these, but this past Midgard
Invitational was my best performance to date. Since I had to build a Constructed deck for each format, I thought it would be a good idea to write about
each one and the matchups I had.

Draft

The tournament was double elimination, starting with three rounds of Draft. My pod had two other strong drafters including the guy who qualified by being
the top-ranked Limited player, so the path would not be an easy one. Being seated to the left of that player certainly wouldn’t hurt my chances though, as
I knew I would be able to rely on signals.

My first pack wasn’t particularly exciting, but I took Gleam of Authority over Ojutai Interceptors based on something I had heard on the Pro Tour Dragons
of Tarkir coverage. Knowing that someone downstream from me heavily favoured G/R, I passed a Stampeding Elk-Herd pick two for an Enduring Victory, which
was probably wrong, but by the sixth pick I had not taken a single non-white card.

Then the Dragons started coming. Savage Ventmaw was somehow passed to me at pick six, giving me some flexibility as to direction. I didn’t pick up anything
great in red for the rest of the pack (Tail Slash being the highlight), but pack 2 gave me the tough choice between Dragonlord Atarka and Roast. I took the
mythic and ended up getting paid off by a second pick Roast followed by a fifth pick Harbinger of the Hunt, and at this point, I was worried that
G/R was wide open and I was too late to commit. Still, I thought I could play R/W and splash the green for the late drops, or possibly G/W and splash for
removal.

Pack 3 was insane. I opened Monastery Mentor, and as I am not in the habit of passing twenty dollar bills that are in my color, so I took it. I had a few
spells anyway, so it wasn’t a horrible choice. I took Wild Slash second and then had to do a double-take when I saw a third pick Elite Scaleguard.
My how the format has shifted! I would later pick up a fourth Dragon as well as Crucible of the Spirit Dragon (having taken Haven of the Spirit Dragon late
in pack 2) and a couple of Blossoming Sands. I found out at the end of the draft that the guy passing to me in pack 3 actually hate-drafted the second
Elite Scaleguard. Even without that game-breaking bomb, I was still pretty happy with my deck.

The first round of Draft saw me paired against Andrew, a guy who hates Draft and admits to being bad at it. His deck wasn’t bad, and he took game 2 on the
back of my misplay (deathtouch plus trample is really good, kids), but he couldn’t deal with Monastery Mentor plus Center Soul and removal in game 3. Round
2 paired me with my friend and playtest teammate Mike, who folded in two games because Dragons are good. Finally, I faced Roger, the Limited Torpedo and
the guy who had fed me my deck. When two people who know how to read signals are sitting next to each other in a draft, they both tend to get good decks.
Generally, when Roger and I play we get one good game and two games of mana issues, and this time would be no different. Game 3 was the good one, at least,
and was won by me getting Gleam of Authority to stick on a Student of Ojutai, which joined an Elite Scaleguard and a Dromoka Captain. Roger’s combo of
Surrak, the Hunt Caller and Ambuscade Shaman was very powerful, but it could not overcome a 12/14 Student of Ojutai and his friends. I’m not sure what
does.

So, being one of two undefeated people at the end of the Draft portion, I’m feeling pretty good about my play thus far. I’d never played a double
elimination event before, but apparently, at this point the worst I could do was third. Onward, then, to Constructed!

Constructed

The format for the Constructed rounds was a funky one: best of five, with the first three games being Standard-Modern-Legacy pre-board in that order. The
loser of game 3 would get to choose play/draw or choose the format for game 4, with the winner choosing the other. Game 5 followed the same pattern.

The format seemed on the surface to favor good game 1 decks. However, if you run into one bad matchup, you’re into sideboard territory and then your good
game 1 deck loses a lot of power. I expected a ton of Twin and Burn in Modern, and Miracles or Temur Delver in Legacy. Standard could be anything, and even
though I play it more than the other formats, I was less confident of my ability to win in it. I am the anti-Brad Nelson I guess, given that I was most
comfortable in Legacy. More than any other format, Legacy rewards your knowledge of the format and very few of the qualified players have played it much.

Friday morning at 6am, I had no idea what I would be playing in Standard. I had sketched out a white devotion deck in my mind, splashing green for both
versions of Dromoka as well as her Command. The combination of Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Mastery of the Unseen appealed to me greatly, and playing
Brimaz is always a draw to any deck. I had the cards for CVM’s G/R Dragons deck from Syracuse, but I figured most people would be prepared for it by now.
It only took two rounds of Standard on the coverage of the Pro Tour for my mind to change completely. Stephen Madden made me fall in love.

It might not be immediately clear why one match impressed me so much, especially since the deck has been around since Pro Tour Journey Into Nyx. Here was a
guy most people had never heard of, playing a deck most people had never seen before, beating one of the best players on the planet. And it looked fun! I
threw together what I assumed to be the list based on the brief deck tech video and gave it to my son to test while I played the white deck. We both had
the same record, but I could tell from watching him play that some of his losses were due to inexperience. I tweaked it a little and it felt very good, so
my Standard list at least was set:

G/b Devotion

Chris Lansdell

Test deck on 05-05-2015

Standard

Creatures (30)

Lands (21)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

Although the Deathmists were good for me, they might be better out of the sideboard for the grindier matchups. I did not miss the extra Voyaging Satyrs at
all, so it’s possible going forward that we might want to try Servant of the Scale or more Avatar of the Resolute in that spot. One thing I did enjoy
thoroughly was the ability to recur Chord of Calling with Den Protector, which was just silly. Besides, I had most of it in foil.

Anyone who had played me in Legacy at the store knew I would be on Death and Taxes for that portion. I know the deck, it’s a good deck, and it would be
able to hold its own in most matchups. I expected both Burn and Infect to show up, so I biased my sideboard a little to deal with those unfavourable
matches. That left me weaker to Miracles, but I was not worried about my ability to win that one against inexperienced pilots. And hey, it’s almost
completely foiled.

Death and Taxes

Chris Lansdell

Test deck on 05-05-2015

Legacy

Creatures (25)

Lands (23)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

That left Modern. I had made a list of players and the decks I expected them to be on, and the only ones that appeared more than once were Burn and Twin. I
only know of one deck that has a good matchup against both of those decks, and that’s my old favorite: Soul Sisters. Although local Twin aficionado Andrew
(who happens to himself be a twin) disagrees loudly about the Twin versus Sisters matchup, I have always considered it to be in Sisters’ favour. With no
access to Sulfuric Vortex, Burn, of course, cannot normally handle a deck that is on 30 life by turn 3. And that’s in game 1, before the Firewalkers come
out to play.

There are many flavors of the Sisters deck, and initially I thought I would play the B/W version so I could show off the judge foil Dark Confidants. That
version kind of loses some points against Burn though, so instead I opted for the Norin the Wary version which, if nothing else, will make the word
“trigger” seem like it isn’t a word by the end of the day. Although most Norin Sisters lists will run four Genesis Chamber, I did not want to go that route
in a field that would likely have multiple Splinter Twin decks. I replaced two of them with Auriok Champion, both to give me more lifegain options and to
protect against Electrolyze and other spells that Twin can use to clear out my Sisters before going off.

R/W Soul Sisters

Chris Lansdell

Test deck on 05-05-2015

Modern

Creatures (25)

Lands (21)

Spells (14)

Sideboard

The draft had weeded out some of the decks about which I was most worried: Tron and Jeskai Control in Modern, Infect and Lands in Legacy. My first
Constructed round against Lawrence was always going to be rough given that he’s probably the best player in the store and definitely the best player in the
tournament. He was on Sultai Reanimator in Standard, and his early acceleration combined with a milled Torrent Elemental (that got exiled to Murderous Cut
an Eidolon of Blossoms) to put a quick end to the first game. Removal-heavy decks can be trouble for the Fallen Devotion list if they draw that half of
their deck, and Lawrence managed to do just that.

Lawrence likes to pick up funky lists sometimes, as well as being something of a brewer. His Modern deck was definitely one of those two things, a sweet
Abzan Aristocrats list that started the game with the following sequence.

Me: Plains, Soul Warden, go.

Lawrence: Crack fetch to seventeen, get Temple Garden, Young Wolf.

Me: Uhh Lawrence, I don’t know if you realize this, but you have a Young Wolf in your deck.

I was so confused, I missed my lifegain trigger. The deck ended up being based around Viscera Seer, Cartel Aristocrat, Abzan Ascendancy, and Anafenza,
Kin-Tree Spirit. Luckily, I saw what he was trying to do and I got rid of Anafenza as soon as she showed up, allowing my 40-plus life and two Serra
Ascendants to secure the win. I knew in Legacy he was playing G/U Enchantress, a deck that wins by ~~boring you to death~~
bouncing all your permanents with Words of Wind and attacking with Cloud of Faeries for the kill. Because it uses Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth to trigger
the Enchantress effects, Thalia isn’t great against the deck. You can slow it down with Phyrexian Revoker naming their key cards, but you then need to kill
them before they find Seal of Removal or Seal of Primordium. The matchup is likely in Enchantress’s favour, but I think it’s close. Despite my early
Revoker, Lawrence was able to find the Seals he needed to combo off. That left me with the choice of deck for game 4, so naturally I chose Modern as I had
won game 2 with it. This time though, Lawrence found Blood Artists, which I hadn’t seen in the previous game and which are surprisingly good against Soul
Sisters, as he killed me from fifteen with one attack and a bunch of sacrifices.

The loss put me in some weird bracket where I had to wait for all the X-1s to beat each other up until there was only one other one left. The one that
emerged was Matt, known to all as Smurf, a very skilled player in Standard. Fortunately, he’s inexperienced in Modern and even less experienced in Legacy.
The match played out as expected: He won Standard, I won both the other formats. He was on mill in Modern, and I have no idea if that’s a good matchup or
not, so I just cast Ajani’s Pridemates and tried to win without cracking a fetch (for fear of Archive Trap). I managed it with about fifteen cards left in
the library. In Legacy, he made the classic and expected mistake of picking Miracles, normally a rough matchup for Death and Taxes, but much easier when
the pilot doesn’t know the deck or the format very well.

That left two people standing: me and Lawrence. Beating him once in one format in a regular match is hard enough. Beating him twice over three formats when
he gets to choose the format at least twice seemed impossible, especially when he had beaten me in this format earlier in the day. Games aren’t played in
theory though, and I was darn sure not conceding. I wanted my name on that plaque! The first match started well, with me able to combo off in Standard and
kill him despite lifegain and no trample or Den Protectors. I lost Modern due to seeing zero Sisters, but I was able to win Legacy thanks to being able to
slow him down enough. Lawrence went back to Standard for game 4, which saw me once again able to combo off through three blockers, including two Courser of
Kruphix (Den Protector is the truth, kids).

So I got there once. However, I was exhausted from the effort of concentrating against some great players, and he had played a match less than me. I
quickly went down two games, including misplaying in Modern by not saving removal for his Anafenza. I was able to win Legacy, but Lawrence went right back
to it, figuring that after sideboard he had a stronger matchup. I fought hard, but his extra Seals and surprise Jace, the Mind Sculptor got him there
before I could find the protection I needed for my Revokers.

Lessons Learned

I need to play way more Magic. FNM is fine and all, but by the end of our eleven-hour day, I was wiped. Not something that good players have to deal with,
I imagine.

The Standard deck was fabulous, but I can see some changes going forward. Deathmist Raptor should be in the sideboard for the grindier Abzan and Sultai
matches. Instead I want to try Collected Company and a single Arbor Colossus. Company seems sweet as in instant-speed way to recover from a sweeper or
potentially find two triggers for Strength from the Fallen. Colossus helps you punch through in the games you don’t draw Strength, as well as giving a
little protection against all those annoying Dragons.

The Modern deck is my baby. It was the first list I truly loved in the format and the one I go back to when I need to play something good. This particular
75 is a bit scattered and was tweaked for a burn-heavy metagame, but the core is solid. When playing a deck with conditional and unconditional removal I
need to think more about when to use which spell. I also shouldn’t be spending it on creatures that just attack for damage when I know a combo is coming.
Oh and keeping hands that can’t gain life seems particularly bad.

I’ve been playing something very close to that Legacy 75 for a while. The Arbiter is a recent addition and probably terrible. I won’t be playing it again.
The fourth Mother of Runes likely needs to be in that spot, if not another threat. The Paths in the sideboard are purely a concession to the terrible
Infect matchup which I expected to face.

Second place in that tournament is no shame, though I remain winless in “major” event finals. There must be some mental piece of my game that can be
improved to help me close the deal on one of these someday. Getting over that last hurdle always seems to be impossible, and I am very interested in
theories as to why.

Thanks for stopping by, folks! The three lists in this article are all great fun, and I think they’re powerful enough to be considered for any tournament
you are playing in. Stephen Madden’s deck, in particular, is a masterpiece that can win out of nowhere.

Until next time…brew on!