Positive EV - Elementals in Sao Paulo

Today I’ll talk the latest Grand Prix in which I played — Sao Paolo. I will take a closer look at my decklist, and follow it up with a tournament report.

Last week I promised that I wouldn’t run cards I didn’t like in this tournament. After I did some testing on the several layovers on the way to Sao Paolo, I couldn’t build a Five-Color Control list, which was good enough to consider not playing it at the Grand Prix. When I finally arrived in Sao Paolo 3 days after I left Hawaii, I still had no clue what I was going to play. At the site I proxied up an Elemental deck to play a few games against Matej Zatklkej, with Elves. The results were really promising, as the only game he won was a turn 4 kill supported by Garruk Wildspeaker. More important than those results was this: I was having a lot of fun. I decided that I would play Elementals at the GP. Even though the Swans matchup is not winnable game 1… But I didn’t expect many of those at the GP, thanks to the Top 8 of GP: Seattle.

After hours of playing MTGO on the very same day, this is the list I decided to run at the tournament. Thanks to Matej Zatklkej, Martin Juza and Igor Nariz, who loaned me the deck the day before the tournament, and Jonathan Melamed, who let us stay with him in Rio and organized a huge amount of our trip to the GP.

Elementals

Manuel Bucher

Test deck on 06-21-2009

Standard

Creatures (37)

Lands (21)

Spells (2)

Sideboard

The sideboard options are very limited for this deck. Your lands only allow you to cast Elemental Spells or Creatures consistently. A lot of sideboard cards where only theory, as the matchups didn’t appear on Magic Online. I will now take a closer look at the cards that might seem to make little sense in an Elemental deck.

Springleaf Drum

As you have several one mana 1/1s with which you don’t want to chump block immediately, or not at all, the Springleaf Drum is almost always better than a land, as it accelerates you, starting from turn 3. There is only one in the deck, as the second one is really bad.

Soul Warden plus Ranger of Eos
Soul Warden is really good at fighting against Bitterblossom, and a Cloudthresher is often good enough to win the game. Ranger of Eos allows you to fetch up a pair of Soul Wardens if you are behind on the board so you get enough time to catch up, or for two Vampiric Tutors which should always win a game when you stabilized. A mix is the right choice more often than not.

Shields of Velis Vel
This card is here to fight your opponent’s Zealous Persecution. I did board it in several times during the tournament, but the situation sadly never came up. I still believe in the card, but it definitely needs some more testing.

Tar Fiend
Another card I only included as it’s good in theory. It should help against decks that are more controlling than Fae, to punish them if they let you untap with an Incandescent Soulstoke. Remember that you can force them to discard their hand in their draw step, when their only interaction is killing your guys in response, unless they let you resolve the Soulstoke trigger.

Sadly, the deck was so much fun to play that I forgot I should go to bed. Instead, I played some more matches with the deck. This led to me playing really, really badly in the first day of the tournament. I lost a lot of games because I wasn’t able to concentrate in what I am doing, and this did cost me the match in the fifth round. I am not able to remember a lot of situations from the first day of the tournament, so I will focus my report on the second day.

Round 4 against Vinicius Nery, BW Token, 2-0
Round 5 against Paulo Martinello, Elves (this is a feature match), 1-2
Round 6 against Maximiliano Gonzalez C, Blightning Aggro, 2-1
Round 7 against Raphael Levy, Doran (this is a feature match), 1-2
Round 8 against JoÃ£o Paulo L Araujo, Green/Red Paragon Elves, 2-1
Round 9 against Saulo Dantas, BW Token, 2-1

I am pretty sure that I played well in the fourth round of the tournament, but after that I played pretty poorly. This needed to change if I wanted to have a successful second day. I went to bed as soon as possible, and tried to not think about what happened the previous day.

Round 10 against Eloi U Pattaro, Sanity Grinding, 2-1

Game 1: I keep a rather slow hand on the draw featuring a turn 3 Mulldrifter and a turn 4 Ranger of Eos. This is not exactly the hand you want to have in the Grinding match up, so I lost game 1 without being able to fight.

Game 2: I start the game with some early Flamekin Harbingers and Soul Wardens. I tried to play around countermagic as well as possible until he surprised me with a turn 6 Oona, Queen of the Fae. I have a Pithing Needle to shut it down, but I was still under a lot of pressure, especially after he played a Sower of Temptation with Incandescent Soulstoke as its target. Eventually I figured out that he did run out of countermagic, and I resolve several evoked Reveillarks. The huge amount of card advantage eventually wins me the game, as he didn’t play either Howling Mine or Jace Beleren.

Game 3: While he plays an early Jace Beleren, I manage to resolve Springleaf Drum, Flamekin Harbinger (searching for Eyes of the Wisent) and Bloom Tender. When I try to play the Eyes of the Wisent, he Cryptic Commands it, leaving me with a window to resolve Glen Elendra Archmage. The Archmage trades for a counterspell and a Boomerang while I build up my board. When I eventually resolved a Needle for his Jace Beleren with 13 counters, he runs out of gas and gets flooded.

Round 11 against Leonardo Siqueira, Elves, 2-0

Game 1: I win the die roll and play a Bloom Tender on my second turn, which stays alive. This delivers me such a tempo boost that I can play Reveillarks and Cloudthreshers while he is playing Vanquishers and Civic Wayfinders.

Game 2: He mulligans to five but has two Thoughtseizes and a spot removal spell to keep my board honest. While he draws several more spot removal spells to empty my board, I draw several lands. A Horde of Notions shows up in time, and he doesn’t have anything to match it.

Round 12 against Diego Ostrovich, GW Token, 2-1

I lose game one to an early Overrun, but win a very close game 2 and game 3, with Incandescent Soulstoke as the main actor in both. Sadly, they didn’t post the feature match, while I don’t recall the very complex situations from games 2 and 3. Instead of the feature match, they posted a deck tech on the deck, which can be found here.

Round 13 against Jonathan L Melamed, Elves, 2-1

Game 1: My second turn Smokebraider stays alive, and his Thoughtseize doesn’t have a big impact to the game, as I have a very threat-heavy hand. When I reach five mana on the fourth turn, I start casting Reveillarks and Horde of Notions, and he can’t keep up.

Game 2: His first play is a third turn Terror to kill the mana guy I played on my second turn. I skip my third turn to draw two cards with Mulldrifter, and he builds up some pressure with Chameleon Colossus. I can’t stabilize the board against his Mutavault and Chameleon Colossus, and die some turns later.

Game 3: I keep an opening hand including Soul Warden, 2 Smokebraider and 2 Bloom Tender along with two lands. I keep this hand because it nullifies both an early Thoughtseize and a turn 2 spot removal spell. He mulligans to six and doesn’t have the Thoughtseize. He kills my second turn mana guy, but doesn’t have a removal for the Bloom Tender on the next turn. I eventually draw Mulldrifter into gas (including Horde of Notions), and win the game pretty quickly.

Round 14 against Juan Veliz, Kithkin/B, 0-2

Game 1: I have a pretty good opening hand, and I have to decide what I am fetching with my first turn Flamekin Harbinger after he played a Windbrisk Heights. I eventually decide to search for Mulldrifter, with Cloudthresher as the other possibility. I follow up his Knight of Meadowgrain with a Smokebraider, and he resolves back to back Spectral Procession. I don’t have an answer to the six Spirits, which are supported by Glorious Anthem, and I die.

I sideboard as I would against BW Tokens, as I thought he was playing that… Until…

Game 2: He plays a first turn Goldmeadow Stalwart revealing Wizened Cenn. He kills my second turn mana guy with a Zealous Persecution, and builds more pressure on the next two turns with Wizened Cenn and Spectral Procession. Even though I have a very good draw and can follow up his Procession with a Horde of Notions and a Reveillark thanks to Bloom Tender, he has a Path to Exile for the Reveillark and attacks with his whole team. Before blockers he plays another Path to Exile for the Horde of Notions, and another Zealous Persecution, which leaves me no possible blocks to survive.

Round 15 against William Silva De Carval, Reveillark, 2-0

Game 1: I mulligan to five playing first while he is fine with his opening six. My second turn Smokebraider survives, and I can start drawing cards with the Mulldrifter I searched for in my first turn. While he played some Kitchen Finks and Glen Elendra Archmages, I can build up my board with Incandescent Soulstoke and some more mana guys. We both establish a big board, with him having a Reveillark and Wall of Reverence, through which I can’t really attack. I have Soul Warden, Incandescent Soulstoke, and several mana guys. I eventually draw Horde of Notions, with which I am able to kill all his non-basic lands in a short time, and all his creatures afterwards thanks to Nameless Inversion. Even though he is able to Wrath of God twice, I can return two Reveillarks in response, which returned a Flamekin Harbinger for Horde of Notions and a pair of Bloom Tenders.

Game 2: I kill one of his lands with an early Fulminator Mage. After I play an Incandescent Soulstoke, he plays a Sower of Temptation, choosing from either the Soulstoke or a Smokebraider. He decides to gain control of the Smokebraider and attacks with both his guys on the next turn. A Sneak Attacked Mulldrifter takes care of the Sower of Temptation, and he plays a Reveillark. He plays Spitting Image on the Reveillark the next turn, but I force the discard of his whole hand with Tar Fiend the next turn to keep the Spitting Image in control. He doesn’t draw a land, and I can start killing his non-basic lands thanks to Horde of Notions the turn after. Even though he had a Wrath of God some turns later, he could never really stabilize, as I could flash in a Cloudthresher the very same turn.

…

I finish the tournament with a 12-3 record, which was good enough for 10th place, but sadly not for Top 8. I did learn a lot about this deck over the weekend, including its strengths and weaknesses, and the closest deck I’ve played to this so far is the Relic-Control deck in Time Spiral Block Constructed. Even though one of the decks is creature-based and the other one is spell-based, the similarity of how those decks work is surprisingly high. Both decks have a very good Tutor and Card Advantage engine, which makes the deck able to fight a large variety of threats. I will definitely spend some time working on the deck and deliver you a complete matchup analysis next week. If I could enter a tournament right now, this is what I would play.

New Elementals

Manuel Bucher

Test deck on 06-21-2009

Standard

Creatures (36)

Lands (22)

Spells (2)

Sideboard

I have to admit that the deck is probably not the best possible deck for Standard, but I believe that it is really good. This is by far the most fun deck I’ve played in a long while, and if you are bored of the current Standard format and you want to try an alternative deck, this is very enjoyable and competitive at the same time.

Thanks for reading!

Manuel B