You never really know just how much you miss someone or something until its gone.
It’s been almost two months since I left Roanoke, and in that time I’ve only played in one physical Magic event, Modern States, where I did extremely
poorly due to being woefully unprepared and playing a deck that I was unfamiliar with.
This last weekend I started the first leg of my two week trip of hitting the Opens in St. Louis and Dallas and participated in #SCGSTL. I had a blast! That
being said, I’m old, and I miss my bed, girlfriend, and dogs.
Last week I wrote about my upcoming trip and the
Legacy decks that I was considering. I was able to put the Reanimator list together on Magic Online and play a bit, but after making many
mistakes and getting crushed over and over again by Infect, I got grumpy and scared and decided to just go with Shardless Sultai.
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (20)
I was playing for Top 8 in the last round at 10-2-2 against Joe Lossett on Miracles, and with both of our decks being known for games dragging out, I was
hoping to avoid a draw. Unfortunately, even though I conceded game 1 while I still had some play available, game 2 took longer than I had hoped for me to
actually close out the game and we started game 3 in turns.
With a record of 10-2-3 I was still able to place 11th, which is good for eight Open Series points and a healthy $350 payday, but I definitely have some
reservations about the deck and think it’s highly unlikely that I decide to play it in the upcoming Legacy Grand Prix in Seattle.
I very rarely ever have even one unintentional draw in any given event, and to walk away from this one with three left me pretty disgusted. One was to the
mirror where I was absurdly far ahead in game 1 but let the game slip away by taking a higher percentage line and bricking while my opponent drew perfectly
for multiple turns, which took almost 40 whole minutes. When the final turn played out in turns, the gamestate was practically even, with neither player
being advantaged, and as we agreed upon before the game starting, we drew since neither player was ahead enough for the other player to concede. Looking
back on it, it’s likely that I should have just conceded in that spot to try and avoid playing against other slow players or other Shardless Sultai decks.
My second draw came against a Maverick player on camera. Afterwards, I felt like I should have had a judge watch us for slow play, but that’s always the
case after an unintentional draw. I also had a pretty bad taste in my mouth getting the draw when my opponent was dead on board and couldn’t stop it, but
turn 5 was his.
There is no point complaining about things you can’t control though, so what I can control is playing faster, urging my opponent to play faster, and deck
choice – so let’s focus on those aspects!
Takeaways from #SCGSTL
The Legacy format is in a much different place than it was with Dig Through Time being legal. It really felt like everything has slowed down a bit, and
games were much more interactive. I talked a bit about it here in the deck tech that I recorded in the Sideboard with
Ken Crocker, but the absence of Dig Through Time has not only made cards like Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach better as ways to interact with your
opponents now, but it also lets cards like Deathrite Shaman actually matter again. Games aren’t “over” by turn 3 or 4 now, and you can lean on the tempo
advantage that Deathrite Shaman gives you a bit better now that our opponents can’t just draw out of the situation they are in with Dig Through Time.
Shardless Sultai is a very good deck, and I actually felt like I was favored in almost all of my matches, but all of the games are insanely grindy, which
leads to two things: fatigue and mistakes.
I could actually feel myself getting tired over the course of the event, and in the effort to not make mistakes, I was taking more and more time to check
my lines and decisions to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, which caused the matches to go longer than normal. I think if I were to ever play this deck
again, I would want even more practice and would be super aggressive about playing swiftly and making sure that my opponent also played at a reasonable
pace.
Most games with Shardless Sultai will involve the following:
– Shuffling. Lots and lots of shuffling. We aren’t really running more fetchlands than other decks, but it felt like I was shuffling a whole bunch.
– Weathering the early storm from Delver decks and trading/picking away at their resources until you start to take over and try to turn the corner.
– Drawing a million cards with Ancestral Visions, Brainstorm, and Jace (both the Mind Sculptor and Vryn’s Prodigy).
– Having more resources than you need and still sometimes losing because you don’t have sticky threats and can’t really close fast enough.
Sadly, these were all things that I experienced as the norm while playing Shardless, but I think that they can be addressed by working on having swift
mechanics, shortcutting, and communicating with your opponent.
In addition to gaining some insight on Shardless Sultai, I feel like I gained some pretty valuable insight on the format as a whole.
Snapcaster Mage is Insane Again
Since we aren’t just filling our graveyards all willy-nilly with cheap interactive spells to delve away to Dig Through Time, we get to take advantage of
Snapcaster Mage again. Getting to rebuy our cheap removal spells is great, but it’s also a good way to combat the discard that’s becoming popular. Being
extra copies of Brainstorm is really nice, and every time I would Thoughtseize or Hymn my opponent and they would flash in a Snapcaster Mage in response to
cast a Brainstorm or something from their graveyard, it always felt like my discard spell lost a little bit of its punch.
I think that a standard U/W Stoneblade deck could potentially be good again. With a set of Swords to Plowshares in the maindeck with Path to Exile in the
sideboard along with your Snapcaster Mages, I could see this archetype being great. You could even go the Shaheen Soorani way and play Esper if you really
wanted to.
Along the same vein, I feel like Dark Confidant could start being pretty good again. It felt like having efficient ways to generate ongoing card advantage
is the way to try and gain edges in the “new-old” Legacy. I saw a lot of Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, and Sylvan Library this weekend just wrecking
people.
Notice that a lot of the cards I mention here have a converted mana cost of two. Therefore, I think that Spell Snare could have some potential again. It
hits something in just about every matchup, and is always going to trade efficiently. It also makes Snapcaster Mage even better and gives you a good way to
fight opposing Snapcaster Mages.
Chalice of the Void Seems Like it Could Actually be Pretty Good
Chalice of the Void seems like it could actually be insane right now. Whether it be in a MUD shell or a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas shell, I actually think
that a Chalice deck could break out in Seattle. With the format getting more and more fair, I would probably lean more towards Tezzeret, since the
Thopter/Sword combo also seems quite good right now.
This might be a little counterintuitive since Abrupt Decay is also in a pretty good spot, but any deck with Abrupt Decay is going to have them quite
strained by our deck, and Thopter/Sword seems great against them anyway.
Storm and Infect are Awesome
If you got a chance to watch any of the coverage over the weekend, then hopefully you were able to watch Tom Ross or Eric Hawkins play their respective
decks on camera. You can truly tell that they are both masters of their craft, and watching them play their deck of choice was quite the treat for me over
the weekend. I only hope that people felt the same way about watching me play Jund Monsters back in the day as I do about watching these guys.
Granted, I really just jammed Stormbreath Dragon and people died, but still.
Both Storm and Infect, I feel, got better with the banning of Dig Through Time now that Omni-Tell is gone. With a combo that was just about as fast, with
equal disruption, but being far more resilient due to being able to play a full four copies of Dig Through Time, with Omni-Tell out of the equation, I feel
like these are the two unfair decks that need to be on everyone’s radar.
Discard is back to being awesome, which is great for Storm.
People are trying to play more fair decks now that they aren’t oppressed by the Dig Through Time monster, which is great for Storm and Infect.
There is a chance that I end up on one of those two decks for GP Seattle, but if that’s the case then I definitely need to start working on them now. They
are not easy decks to play, and as you can see from Tom’s list,
there is a lot of variation and a whole slew of singletons to learn the ins and outs of.
#SCGSTL is over now, and I will be spending the week here in my old Wichita, KS stomping grounds trying to get prepared for #SCGDFW next weekend. Modern
has never really been a format that I enjoy. The exception is the period of time that I picked up Amulet Bloom, hyped it, made it to the finals of the
Season Two Invitational with it, and then just kinda stopped playing Modern.
Blood Moon and Ghost Quarter were everywhere. It wasn’t safe for a Giant-lover such as me, but things might have changed a bit. Jund seems to be back on
the uptick, which hopefully starts to reduce the presence of Splinter Twin decks and will open up a window for Primeval Titan to come crashing through.
I have been working with DC Badboy, a.k.a. DC Heartthrob Jarvis Yu’s winning list from SCG States, and I think it is just great!
Creatures (6)
Lands (28)
Spells (26)
- 4 Summer Bloom
- 4 Sleight of Hand
- 4 Serum Visions
- 2 Pact of Negation
- 1 Slaughter Pact
- 4 Summoner's Pact
- 2 Hive Mind
- 4 Amulet of Vigor
- 1 Ancient Stirrings
Sideboard
I was a bit skeptical at first about Sleight of Hand and drastically reducing the numbers on Ancient Stirrings, but after playing with the revamped list
and hearing what Jarvis had to say about Summer Bloom or Azusa, Lost but Seeking being imperative every game, and Amulet of Vigor not, it does make some
sense and I’m sold.
Temple of Mystery has been gas, and I’ve always wanted to go up to 28 land in the deck, as I felt like the Simian Spirit Guide was just never really that
great. I do feel like I’d rather have a second Vesuva over the second Temple of Mystery, but that’s not the biggest change in the world.
I am interested in the Seal of Primordium in the sideboard. I have always liked it as a proactive way to combat Blood Moon and Splinter Twin, but when we
already have it on the battlefield they just won’t play their spell until they have a way to get rid of it. This isn’t all that bad for us, since giving us
time to assemble something is probably the worst thing you can do, but it also just makes our sideboard card not really do anything. Nature’s Claim, on the
other hand, definitely “gets em,” which is always pretty back-breaking.
I’m not too sure about cutting the Sigarda, Host of Herrons, and I always liked the second Cavern of Souls, but I can see not needing it. I think that we
still want access to a Chalice of the Void in the sideboard, but these are all just pretty minor tweaks.
In the end, I think that Amulet Bloom is poised for another good weekend at #SCGFW so make sure you tune into SCGLive with Cedric Phillips and Gerry
Thompson this weekend, where hopefully I will be on camera stomping some Primeval Titan-sized holes in people.
Before I go, I want to leave you with this list from the Modern Premier IQ this last weekend at #SCGSTL.
You’re welcome.
Creatures (22)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Tarmogoyf
- 4 Doran, the Siege Tower
- 3 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Spellskite
- 1 Gavony Ironwright
- 2 Siege Rhino
Lands (22)
Spells (16)