Last weekend was an exercise in polar opposites.
No, not that kind of polar, although now that you mention it, I am getting pretty damn sick of all this snow.
Rather, I speak of Regionals weekend in lovely Oaks, Pennsylvania. Saturday was Standard for the Regional Championships, and Sunday was both a Legacy event
for 40 dual lands and a Modern Elite IQ.
Regionals was much larger than I expected it to be, weighing in around a hefty 350 players and nine rounds. I finished a mediocre 6-2-1, good for a top 32,
playing perhaps the slowest deck in the format in the methodical U/W Control.
Sunday’s Modern Elite IQ was smaller than I expected it to be, as competing alongside the Legacy for 40 duals event saw both events even out at around 75
players and seven rounds. I didn’t lose a match in the event, double drawing into top 8 and taking it down with perhaps the fastest and brutally efficient
deck in the format in Burn.
Two very different days, with two very different results.
Standard Saturday
While I’ve been a bit less enamored with U/W Control since the release of Fate Reforged, the deck is still certainly fine, and I didn’t have much time to
come up with something better. The format gained a lot of new, powerful cards like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and U/W Control
really didn’t gain much of anything. Still, we rode on.
Creatures (1)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (27)
Spells (29)
The deck really hasn’t changed that much, with the exception of Soulfire Grand Master in the board, who has been quite good.
In the event I took an unfortunate loss to W/U Heroic round 4, where I mulliganed to a poor six-card hand in game 1:
My opponent had won the die roll and commented that he hadn’t won a roll all day… “not that it matters too much for me.” I took this tidbit of information
as him saying he was playing a slower deck, where Disdainful Stroke will be fantastic. Making land drops is very important, and being up on cards is also
important. I was on the draw with a Temple of Enlightenment, and I decided to keep.
When he led with turn 1 Temple of Enlightenment, I felt pretty smart. I drew a land on my turn and played it safe by playing Tranquil Cove first to get a
better idea of what I wanted to scry for.
When he played a Plains the next turn and cast Battlewise Hoplite, I felt pretty dumb. W/U Heroic is a fast, synergistic deck, and the only spell in my
hand was actually blank against them in game 1, as they have no targets.
Yuck.
My first spell would be a Jace’s Ingenuity on turn 5, and not surprisingly I lost that one. Game 2 saw another mulligan to a weak hand, and I had my first
loss of the event.
The W/U Heroic matchup still perplexes me a bit. Early in the format I would beat it handily, to the point of thinking that it was a pretty good matchup.
Then after the Players’ Championship and SCG Columbus, and losing to it quite a few times in the hands of good players, I was pretty convinced it was
actually a bad matchup. Now I’m somewhere in the middle. I unfortunately cut a Glare of Heresy before the event for another Last Breath in the board in
preparation for the R/W Aggro deck, which is one of my best sideboard cards against W/U Heroic.
Round seven saw me against a Sultai Control deck, and we had an absolutely absurd game 1. In it, my opponent was able to resolve a pair of Ugin, the Spirit
Dragon, a Garruk, Apex Predator, numerous copies of Tasigar and Courser of Kruphix, and a pair of Dig Through Time. Somehow I was still able to fight
through all of it and win a 45-minute game 1 with one card left in my deck.
For game 2, I would take a mulligan and keep a two-land hand with a Soulfire Grand Master and a few Disdainful Strokes and Dissolves. By turn 8, I still
had only a Plains and Island in play, and I had been hit by two Rashaka’s Secrets. Still, I had a few Disdainful Strokes and played on, somehow surviving
to take control of the game with very little time left. My opponent was able to resolve a Garruk, Apex Predator just before time ran out, and I really
didn’t think there was a way I could lose the game.
I had a Fated Retribution in hand, just in case anything went wrong, and a very comfortable life total backed up by a few leftover Elspeth tokens. On turn
1 of extra turns, I played a Temple of Enlightenment and thoughtlessly left a Radiant Fountain on top of my deck, figuring extra life seems fine, and I
couldn’t really lose anyway and would be taking the match 1-0-1. There was only one problem.
I had no idea what Garruk, Apex Predator’s ultimate did.
My opponent ultimated Garruk on turn 5 of extra turns and had a Disdainful Stroke for my Fated Retribution, and I promptly died and was forced to take a
draw as we had no time for game 3. My next card down was a Jace’s Ingenuity, which would have found me an answer to Garruk and completely sealed up the
game.
Very frustrated with myself for throwing that one away, I would lose my next round to good guy Eli Kassis who was also playing a version of Sultai Control.
After winning a fairly convincing game 1, I would mulligan twice in game 2 and then keep a somewhat awkward hand in game 3 which saw me fall to the huge
variety of threats in his deck.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe Sultai Control is the way to go.
All the Whip of Erebos and Siege Rhino decks that U/W Control would just feast on seem to be making an exit from the format, and they are being replaced
with very threat-dense Sultai Control decks and very fast R/W Aggro decks packing full sets of Stormbreath Dragons. Neither of these scenarios is great for
us unfortunately.
Standard is confusing. On to Modern, where things get simple!
Modern Sunday
While Saturday was quite the long day of nine rounds of grueling control play, Sunday would be quite different. I would be the one with time to
get good between rounds, and boy did I eat well.
Creatures (14)
Lands (20)
Spells (26)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Lava Spike
- 3 Lightning Helix
- 4 Rift Bolt
- 2 Shard Volley
- 3 Searing Blaze
- 2 Skullcrack
- 4 Boros Charm
Sideboard
Essentially just Lee Shi Tian’s deck from Pro Tour Fate Reforged, with a bit of Seth Manfield’s sideboard, we were just gonna light ’em up and light ’em up
good.
“UP-stairs!”
The deck was awesome, and I pretty much breezed through the event without losing a match. Modern is a very awkward format, and with everyone playing so
many fetchlands and Ravnica dual lands, most decks end up starting at around 15-16 life. That’s almost two free spells, and Burn is extremely
well-positioned to take full advantage.
Fairly similar to Legacy Burn, Modern Burn has a fantastic creature suite backed up by some of the most efficient burn spells in the game. One of the only
major losses from Legacy is Price of Progress, but in Modern, everyone basically starts the game paying the price if they wish to cast their spells in a
reasonable timeframe.
I played against a nice variety of decks in the event, ranging from various Abzan Midrange decks, Jeskai Control, G/B Infect, U/R Twin, Esper Control, and
Scapeshift. The U/R Twin deck and both control decks gave me a bit of trouble, but the other matchups were pretty breezy. It just felt like the decks I was
playing against really just didn’t have the tools necessary to deal with my fundamental strategy.
While I was definitely a bit scared of hate cards like Kor Firewalker and friends, the only real resistance I faced from sideboards was a few Timely
Reinforcements in the semi-finals from Gerard’s odd Esper Control deck. It does seem very likely there will be an uptick in sideboard hate, as this deck is
most definitely the real deal, so that is something to watch out for in the future.
Assuming decks don’t go overboard on hate, I highly recommend this deck for future Modern events, as it is very good.
SCG Houston
Next stop on the train is SCG Houston, where it’s back to Standard and the Open Series grind. Make sure you tune into the coverage to see what I’m playing,
because right now, I really have no idea!