Two weekends ago was the StarCityGames.com Open Series: Baltimore featuring the Invitational. I once again continued my streak of not making any money at the highest value tournament around. On the plus side, I got to really appreciate the other side of Magic: the social side.
I flew into Baltimore around 7:30 on Thursday night and was picked up by Ben Friedman, Reid Duke, and Gerard Fabiano. We drove to the local store, and Ben started to jam games against Reid. The classic U/W Delver against U/B Control matchup. There was an awesome game where Reid had himself with just two cards in his library, no cards in hand, and a Liliana of the Veil in play. Ben had a freshly cast Batterskull, his Jace, Memory Adapt having just been blown up by a Ratchet Bomb. What ended up happening was that Reid’s last two cards were Blue Sun’s Zenith and Black Sun’s Zenith. Each turn he would wipe Ben’s board and tick up Liliana. Eventually Ben decked himself, unable to answer either Zenith. Just watching that game made my head hurt!
After playing a few more games we went to pick up Jonathan Sukenik, one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. He’s also a proud member of Team B (although we’re team B+ with David Thomas included). On the way to get him we learned via Facebook that Sam Black was unfortunately not going to arrive until the morning. I guess now is a good time to mention that we all stayed at Ben Friedman house. A big thanks goes to Ben for housing us all and an even bigger thanks goes out to his parents for putting up with five additional people in the house for three nights. I think they were out of food by the time we left.
Friday morning we woke up bright and early and were on our way to SCG Open Series: Baltimore featuring the Invitational. These were the two decks I registered:
Creatures (15)
Lands (21)
Spells (24)
Creatures (3)
Lands (19)
Spells (38)
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Show and Tell
- 3 Grim Monolith
- 4 Force of Will
- 4 Intuition
- 4 Pact of Negation
- 4 Pact of the Titan
- 2 Slaughter Pact
- 1 Summoner's Pact
- 4 Ponder
- 4 Hive Mind
Sideboard
As far as Standard goes, this deck is really nice. Moving forward, I would cut the Jace in the board for a card that actually does something. I wouldn’t hate another Revoke Existence if people are starting to play Intangible Virtues alongside their Swords. The maindeck was a product of us realizing that there was going to be a lot of Delver going around. Right before the tournament, we cut two Dismembers and replaced them with two Gut Shots. The one Batterskull was our trump for the mirror and for random aggro decks like Zombies. It was also thanks to Jarvis Yu asking, "Why don’t you just run a Batterskull over a Pike?" Obviously, it was the greatest idea ever, and I even crushed Gerry Thompson in game 1 with Geist + Batterskull.
For Legacy, I learned that this isn’t where I want to be at an Invitational. The players are of much higher quality and can be reasonably expected to not just die to combo decks. Then again, my two losses with it came at the hands of decks with Cabal Therapy, so my results may be a bit skewed. I played a fourth Pact of the Titan over a second Summoner’s Pact because I expected Maverick to be heavily represented; Summoner’s Pact will almost never beat them by itself whereas Pact of the Titan is more likely to.
The Chalices in the board are typically set to one so that they can stop Surgical Extraction, Pyroblast, and Stifle. It also stops Angel’s Grace (which people aren’t really playing anyways) and all of the discard spells minus Hymn to Tourach. If I had to play another Legacy event tomorrow, I’m unsure if I would play Hive Mind or a deck like Maverick. It was very frustrating with Hive Mind when the draws just didn’t quite pan out and you were left dead one draw step short of winning. Although it is pretty exciting to have your opponent scoop up his lone land on turn 2 after you Show and Tell in an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
But enough about what I played; what exciting brew do I have for Standard now?
A Royale With Cheese
So the deck I have isn’t really a brew. It’s basically just a really tuned Frites list but with an awesome sideboard. It’s like what Frites would be called in the USA (get it? get it!?). Is this better than regular Frites? Obviously! Here’s the decklist:
Creatures (17)
- 1 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Inferno Titan
- 2 Wurmcoil Engine
- 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
After talking with Ari Lax, we both agreed that Inferno Titan is just infinitely better than Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Ok, infinitely better might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but Inferno Titan actually wins the game relatively quickly. Elesh Norn just wipes the board clean. Inferno Titan also does this, but he comes down a turn sooner (assuming you’re playing fair). I would definitely max out on Inferno Titans before I max out on Elesh Norn.
The Gavony Townships are the best lands in the deck. They make all of the small mana guys and the Lingering Souls tokens start to become very threatening really fast. Alternatively, I could see a Kessig Wolf Run making its way into the deck just to create awkward scenarios for your opponent. Shimmering Grotto is there so a wider range of hands are keepable. If they weren’t Grottos, they’d most likely be Darkslick Shores which is equally as bad at casting Faithless Looting and Birds of Paradise.
For those that have never played the deck before, your plan is to dump a big monster into the graveyard and then cast Unburial Rites on it to cheat it into play a turn or two sooner. What will usually end up happening is that you’ll be stalling using Lingering Souls, and then you’ll cast a big monster. If the big guy gets countered, you can just rebuy it with Rites. If it doesn’t get countered, congratulations, you’re probably winning!
A big part of this deck is that it can ignore graveyard hate and just play big monsters a few turns earlier thanks to mana guys. It can also just play a few Lingering Souls and clock people that way. There’s also a plan C, which is to use Gavony Township to overwhelm your opponent. But what if we want a plan D? That’s when we move to the sideboard.
Plan D from Outer Space
What do Delver decks not like to see? Grim Lavamancer, Huntmaster of the Fells, Thrun, the Last Troll, and Lingering Souls. Not to mention Inferno Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Oh, what’s that? We’re playing all of them? Would you like to concede now or after I smash you? Let’s just say that attacking from this aggressive angle really throws Delver players for a loop. Assuming you win game 1, which you are very capable of winning, this plan will often take the opponents by surprise. No one expects a turn 1 Grim Lavamancer in this format.
Delver players will often bring in Dissipate, Negate, and Phantasmal Image. Occasionally Celestial Purge and Surgical Extraction will leave the bench depending on how much room they have. By overloading on threats, all of these counterspells become useless. The reason this strategy is amazing against them is because you’re attacking from a lot of different angles. Not only is there still the cheat an Elesh Norn into play strategy, but there’s also the R/G beatdown backed up by Lingering Souls plan.
This is especially effective in Frites because Faithless Looting is one helluva card-filtering spell. All of those Mulches that were good for your plan game 1? Now you can safely discard those to Looting and have fuel for the fire; the fire being Grim Lavamancer of course. Huntmaster of the Fells also requires an immediate answer or he’ll start picking apart their board. The Wolf token and two life are also very good against Delver, creating two blockers for a potential Geist of Saint Traft or going out of range of Spirit tokens from a Moorland Haunt.
And if Huntmaster ever flips? Well, there goes their board. It’s also incredibly easy to flip him back with all of the one-drops in the deck. Oh, and Thrun? Being uncounterable and having hexproof sure make him a good plan against a deck with multiple Mana Leaks and Vapor Snags.
I’m sure there’s a question on your mind after seeing this. "Aren’t you giving up a lot of sideboard slots for this plan?" Well, truth be told, Frites sideboards are terrible. The only good card in every Frites sideboard is Ancient Grudge; every other card is very wonky and out of place. Granted, I have one Sever the Bloodline, but that’s more to answer Zombies. Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger are very annoying cards to deal with.
If I didn’t have this plan, I would probably have cards like Ray of Revelation and maybe a few Sword of War and Peace or Sword of Feast and Famine. Personally, I would rather be able to switch to a R/G dude plan with an awesome Reanimator plan to compliment it then casting a Sword that I hope sticks to my mana guy that I have to pray lives long enough to connect with it. No thank you.
As far as boarding goes, I typically shave Unburial Rites, Mulch, and Tracker’s Instincts. You’re no longer all-in on the Rites plan, so putting cards into your graveyard ASAP isn’t the best plan. Instead, there’s enough threat density to not have to dig for it. Ancient Grudge is for the decks with equipment and a few are also fine to bring in against Birthing Pod, although your late game is probably a little bit better than theirs depending on the build.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for you guys this time. I suppose I’ll end with a props and slops since I have yet to try my hand at that one. Until next time!
Props
- Ben Friedman for letting us crash at his place.
- Joe Bernal, David Thomas, and Brian Braun-Duin for an awesome dinner.
- Jonathan Sukenik (and David Thomas) for being on Team B/B+.
- Caleb Durward for making me laugh almost every time we interact.
- Everyone who loaned me cards; it was a big help!
- StarCityGames.com for running another awesome tournament.
- Gerard Fabiano for the awesome stories (as usual).
- Geist of Saint Traft + Batterskull for being BFFs.
- All of my opponents for being really friendly and good-natured.
- Ali Aintrazi for inviting me to test his Cube. It was such a blast.
Slops
- Myself for probably forgetting to give props to someone.
- Chipotle: still not a fan.
- Baltimore: that place is scary.
- Delver of Secrets for refusing to flip until turn 6 almost every time.
You can reach me at…
krazykirby AT gmail DOT com
@krazykirby4 on Twitter
krazykirby4 on Magic Online