I love SCG Invitationals. They are the tournaments I look forward to more than any other. Whenever someone tells me that they are qualified, I do my best to convince them that they need to go to every Invitational they can. If someone is not qualified, I try to convince them to go as many local Opens and IQs they can so that they can get qualified!
It is now quite apparent that SCG Invitationals love me back.
My preparation for this Invitational was quite different from the others. In the past, a few weeks of testing revealed a pair of decks that I at least felt comfortable with. No such luck this time.
Legacy
Let’s start with the easy format, at least for me. Ever since I picked up the Storm deck for the previous Invitational in Los Angeles, I’ve been in love with it. I’ve started to realize that there are some corner case scenarios where the deck doesn’t run like a well-oiled machine, but I couldn’t see myself playing any other deck. To make things even better, I absolutely love playing the deck, so I take nearly any opportunity to play it. This helps keep my skills sharp with the Storm deck. I made absolutely no changes from the deck I played in previous Opens. Here is what I played.
Lands (15)
Spells (45)
- 1 Tendrils of Agony
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Cabal Ritual
- 4 Duress
- 4 Dark Ritual
- 2 Cabal Therapy
- 4 Lotus Petal
- 4 Lion's Eye Diamond
- 4 Infernal Tutor
- 4 Ponder
- 1 Ad Nauseam
- 4 Preordain
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
- 1 Past in Flames
Sideboard
I hear plenty of excuses from people I respect when I try to convince them to play this deck. Man up. You are good enough to learn something. I don’t know anything before I learn it, and you probably don’t either. Storm in Legacy is amazing, and you will be rewarded for putting in the effort it takes to learn.
If you are interested in reading more about Ad Nauseam, I highly recommend the primer I wrote, which you can find here.
After starting 2-1 (with one bye) on day 1 in Legacy, a 4-0 run to begin day 2 put me in a great position to make the Top 8.
Standard
Preparing for Standard was miserable for me. I felt stuck in a cycle of needing a specific card in a certain situation every game or hoping my opponent didn’t have a certain card. I know that this is poor thinking, but I had a difficult time escaping this. I tried the following decks, each in succession:
Creatures (14)
Lands (25)
Spells (21)
This was the first deck I tried and easily the most frustrating. The good draws were tantalizing. Blind Obedience allowed your Geist of Saint Traft to get through, and this deck was often fantastic at racing. However, it was tough to get your draws to cooperate. This will be a recurring theme. I couldn’t reliably get through combat damage with this deck, and I was quite soft to Sphinx’s Revelation without a real way to fix it.
Creatures (7)
Lands (26)
Spells (24)
- 3 Dissipate
- 3 Think Twice
- 1 Forbidden Alchemy
- 1 Tragic Slip
- 1 Murder
- 4 Azorius Charm
- 3 Supreme Verdict
- 3 Detention Sphere
- 3 Sphinx's Revelation
- 1 Dimir Charm
- 1 Devour Flesh
Sideboard
I tried a few versions of this and truly thought I was going to play it for quite some time. I got a list from Adam TimeofNeed-ForEmrakul, played a few games, and immediately cut the Augur of Bolas. It pains me to say this, as Augur of Bolas is one of my favorite cards, but Augur of Bolas is currently a fairly bad card. All of the aggressive decks have tons of cards that this card is very poor against, and a 1/3 simply does not impact a game offensively enough to justify occasionally missing. Add the fact that you just want this to be a land a little too often and it was simply not playable in this deck. One of the things that truly surprised me about the results of this tournament was that many of the players in the Top 8 had Augur of Bolas in their decks.
On the bright side, I loved Obzedat, Ghost Council in this deck, and I’ll be working on decks with Obzedat in the near future. However, the rest of the deck was lacking. Far too often I would play Sphinx’s Revelation for three cards with no other cards in my hand and facing down a substantial amount of pressure. That is not a good place to be strategically since sometimes your draws are even worse (not enough lands, no Revelation, etc.).
The other thing that frustrated me about this deck was that I would often spend the wrong card to deal with the wrong threat. For example, my opponent played a Huntmaster of the Fells, and I had Detention Sphere and Dimir Charm to deal with it. If I chose Detention Sphere, Garruk, Primal Hunter would ruin my day. If I chose Dimir Charm to kill the Huntmaster, Rakdos would come back as if he never left. And I had little information from which to base my decision on given that my opponent hadn’t really had the opportunity to play the card he had.
Then it hit me. I was suffering from a shortage of information. I was trying to take away my opponents’ capacity to do things without knowing what they were capable of. I missed Gitaxian Probe. Storm was my haven, but I needed to know what my opponent was up to in Standard as well. If only there were a way to get better information in Standard…
Why I Played Jund
1) Liliana of the Veil (and Slaughter Games to a lesser extent). These let me operate with better information on a game-to-game basis. This is exactly the type of card I wanted. Historically, I have hated Rock-style decks because they are filled with generic threats, generic answers, and mana and need to draw them in the right order. Standard Jund is no different, but at least Liliana of the Veil helps you get use from dead draws.
Furthermore, my opponents operated with fewer cards in their hands, leaving me less information to deduce. I feel like I’m a much stronger Magic player the closer to perfect information I can get. I know that everyone gets better with perfect information, but I feel like I take advantage of perfect information quite well. At least the converse is true. I am a much weaker player when I’m largely guessing, and I’m not great at reading people or extracting information from minimal clues. Liliana of the Veil definitely helps me play to my strengths.
2) Rakdos’s Return and Slaughter Games. Liliana of the Veil is the stronger card in general for reducing your opponent’s options, but Rakdos’s Return and Slaughter Games can make the game easier to navigate as well.
3) Good in topdeck wars. Many of the cards in Jund are capable of winning a game by themselves. This is a great place to be when your primary goal is to get games to the point where your opponent (and usually yourself as well) are both playing off the top. Olivia Voldaren is the poster Vampire for this, but Garruk, Primal Hunter is no slouch either.
4) Reid Duke. Much of my success as a Magic player has come on the heels of absorbing some of the fantastic information available on this very website. Michael Jacob inspired me to play RUG to a Standard Open win. I tapped into Richard Feldman Dredge knowledge to win a Legacy Open. For this tournament, I was lost in Standard, so I picked Jund largely because there was the most amount of information available on Jund. I cannot thank Reid Duke enough, and if you don’t read his articles and watch his videos, you are doing yourself a disservice. Because "Good Guy Reid Duke" isn’t just a moniker, Reid himself was able to answer some questions I had about the deck.
As for the list I actually played:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (25)
Spells (15)
The biggest thing that stands out is the complete lack of Bonfire of the Damned. I don’t like playing cards that I don’t want in my hand. It’s a very difficult card to sculpt a game plan with as well. Finally, there is a far more stable card that serves much of the same function. Mizzium Mortars was fantastic for me—a card that ranged from effective spot removal spell to complete board wipe.
Outside of that, I would have liked another spot removal spell or two, as I was short a card or two against Naya Blitz and the rest of the aggressive decks in the format. My matches against these decks were definitely the closest I had on the weekend, and I felt somewhat fortunate to escape my three beatdown matchups (Naya Humans, Jund Aggro, and R/G) with a 2-1 record. I would probably move the Ground Seals to the sideboard since Unburial Rites has taken a back seat as a dominant deck.
I would also support Curse of Death’s Hold in the sideboard to combat The Aristocrats deck that has become quite popular.
Going forward, I think I’m a Jund convert. The deck can do what you want to do with plenty of customization possible. I prefer simplifying the threats, as the best threats are generally just stronger than the other cards. For me, Huntmaster of the Fells; Olivia Voldaren; Thragtusk; and Garruk, Primal Hunter all offer very powerful options while requiring quite a bit of diversity from potential answers. If you want to kill Olivia, bring your spot removal. Those won’t work on the others, however. Reckless aggression might be good against Garruk, Primal Hunter, but it’s pretty poor against the creatures.
As for the removal spells, diversifying removal spells is important for the same reasons I gave about my threat selection. Different cards require different answers. If I am going to draw two answers, I want them to be different. If I am going to draw two threats, I want them to be the same. It can be strange logic at times, but I feel like it puts me on the appropriate level with how games play out.
The exact mix of removal spells doesn’t really matter too much until the actual games when you have the wrong one. However, it’s very difficult to predict the types of threats your opponents will play in any given game. This just goes to further my desire for better information.
The lessons I learned from Reid and my own theory was enough to give myself a 5-2 (intentional Draw in Round 16) record with a deck I had very little confidence in. Â
10 Fun Facts about the Weekend
1) 10K champion Lauren Nolen failed to get the Big 2’s Invitational off the ground. After so much hype, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. However, there were no four-hour detours or "unexpected" curbs. I’ll count this as an improvement over the last Atlanta Invitational for the 10K champion.
2) During my only loss in Legacy in the Swiss, I completely botched game 3. I resolved Ad Nauseams but did not go deep enough. I stopped without enough mana to combo off the following turn. Even worse, I had sided in my Carpet of Flowers for game 3 without siding in my Tropical Island. As it turns out, Carpet of Flowers was part of the cards I discarded since I couldn’t cast it. Ooooops. Thankfully, I kept atrocious mistakes to a minimum in the rest of the rounds.
3) In a feature match against Caleb Durward, I missed a fantastic troll opportunity. I "sequenced" some things out of order and didn’t put a dice on my Gemstone Mine until I wanted to use it. Caleb tried to get me and say that I don’t get counters (I do), but technically I didn’t need the mana at all. The cool play from me would’ve been to appeal to get the counters on the Mine and then simply not use it. Oh well. 🙂
4) I had the pleasure of meeting one Raphael Bell this weekend. If you have not had the pleasure of meeting this fine gentlemen in the flesh, you are missing out. I was able to do an interview with him that I think is awesome, and I can’t wait until it goes up. I’ve never seen anyone happier to win a box. Get BODIED.
5) I met Raphael and plenty of other awesome Georgia people at karaoke the night before the tournament. After belting out a solid rendition of Kings of Leon – Use Somebody, I was ready to go for the next day. I always enjoy some non-Magical activities before a weekend of Magic.
6) I treasure every chance I get to see Dave Spears. He’s one of my favorite people, and he hooked us up with a place to stay for the weekend.
7) The same goes for Anthony Avitollo. I would love to see both of these fine Magicians more often.
8) My match against Phillip Lorren was fairly fantastic. After firing off a Rakdos’s Return, Phillip was able get me to one life before I stabilized. One of my Beast tokens also got Phillip to one before it was dealt with. A Boros Reckoner was matched by a miracled Murder. He drew what looked to be a dead Witchbane Orb until I drew a Staff of Nin with him at one life! The game finally ended when Phillip drew a Restoration Angel while I drew two blanks for my turn.
9) The quarterfinals was brutal for me. Thankfully, I can just link to Glenn Jones‘ report. Basically, matches like these are why I don’t put much stock into how good or bad a matchup is. The games must be played. In short, I was very close to winning all three games I lost, but Ross’ excellent draws combined with my poor draws complicated things immensely. I drew running lands in game 2 when any spell would do, while drawing back-to-back Infernal Tutors combined with a topdecked Cabal Therapy sealed my fate in game 3.
Game 4 was the game I could have played better. Drew Levin suggested that I could have just played out both of my Lion Eye Diamonds and left Infernal Tutor on top, protecting myself from a Cabal Therapy I knew Ross had (from Gitaxian Probe). Ross had passed on the opportunity to Cabal Therapy immediately in game 2 and did not name a mana source in the dark. However, he varied his play this time and named Lion’s Eye Diamond with his Therapy on turn 1, and the disaster scenario happened. If I had played better, I would’ve been crestfallen as the card that Ross drew for his first turn was Mindbreak Trap, which would’ve crushed me. As it was, I wasn’t able to assemble enough mana to go off once again through his Therapy and Trap without my Lion’s Eye Diamonds.
I can’t wait for the next Invitational!