Tales From The Grand Prix Charlotte Floor

Nahiri, the Harbinger looked to be all over the place this weekend, along with Scapeshift, R/G Valakut, and G/R Tron. More on those last three later, but for now let’s settle with the innovative control deck that I first saw in the digital hands of Jeff Hoogland. Peter Ingram piloted this list to the top of #SCGINDY a couple of weeks ago:

Indeed, our angry and explosion-ignoring Kor friend Nahiri, the Harbinger seems to be showing up all over the place right now, as she has seen play in Naya Midrange in Standard as well. Although the Standard deck has fallen out of favor (and because I haven’t got to the section for her yet in Standard…foreshadowing!), the Modern version is definitely something for which people need to be ready. In particular, what is your plan for beating the mirror match?

A couple of players here this weekend went to Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere as answers. While they will certainly take care of one opposing Nahiri, the second one could still be a problem. If there is a Game 3, you can almost guarantee that Wear // Tear is coming in out of the sideboard, and then your day is less exciting. One person decided to splash black, giving access to both Lingering Souls in the maindeck and Dreadbore out of the sideboard. Sure. That’s…that is one way you can go. I guess. Again, though, the deck runs four Nahiri and you are likely not siding in that many Dreadbores. I hope.

No, the most innovative answer I have seen is a seldom-played (in this format, at least) five-mana sorcery: Bribery. This tech was so hot on Friday that dealers sold Bribery in the morning at around $20, and by the time I left the venue on Friday night, it was sold out at $45.

Being able to reach in to the opponent’s deck and take the Emrakul, the Aeons Torn they are hoping to destroy you with is pretty great, I must say. So much so that I was even hearing rumblings of counter-tech and running Batterskull instead of Emrakul to avoid both Bribery and death by Nahiri’s -2.

But Can We Play Her in Standard?

Jadine Klomparens and company were the first people I saw attempting to go all-out with Nahiri, the Harbinger in Standard. Their midrange offering had a single Dragonlard Atarka at the top as a tutor target, and the deck led my good friend Ryan to the Top 8 of SCG Provincials. Riku Kumagai used this version to win GP Tokyo:

As we were discussing Nahiri’s prevalence in Modern, I mentioned that I had been trying to make a Mardu Reanimator deck with Nahiri work in Standard with the help of Mike, my brewing compadre and conscience. Although we don’t have Unburial Rites (yet…I am holding out hope), Standard does have two powerful reanimation spells in Necromantic Summons and Ever After. While the latter can bring back two huge threats from your graveyard, the former can also hit the opponent’s graveyard and, if we have spell mastery, put two counters on whatever we reanimate. Having those large threats in our deck also improves Nahiri’s ultimate as a pleasant side effect.

What does the rest of this deck look like? We definitely want Tormenting Voice as another discard outlet, and with all the discarding, it seems likely that we want Fiery Temper too. Drownyard Temple is a great addition, but we have to be careful not to overload on it because of the fact that we are already splashing white.

From Under the Floorboards and Avacyn’s Judgement are both excellent madness spells, but they are at their best when we can cast them at instant speed. I like Elusive Tormentor as a midrange creature that can provide that outlet, but perhaps a better option (or a complementary one) is Call the Bloodline. I am convinced that that card, a complete bomb in Limited, is just waiting to break out in Standard. It not only lets you discard for minimal investment, it also provides a way to clog up the ground against aggressive decks while also padding your life total somewhat.

What do we want to be reanimating? Dragonlord Kolaghan is hard to beat, especially with the ability to provide haste to your team. If we reanimate Kolaghan with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, we can get some serious work done right away. Emeria Shepherd is a personal favorite but belongs in a deck with more Plains than I think we can afford to run. Other options would include Void Winnower and Linvala, the Preserver, but the sad fact right now is that most of the big creatures either have on-cast triggers or are unimpressive without being built around.

We can build this as a controlling deck with Radiant Flames, Languish and Planar Outburst all available to us, but we could also go a more midrange route with the abovementioned Elusive Tormentor joining Sin Prodder, Declaration in Stone, and Corrupted Grafstone to get us on top in the middle turns. I am still tweaking this list, but the basis for a solid deck is there.

Two Great Combos That Combo Great Together

Long ago, beyond the mists of time, in a Modern format where both Dig Through Time and Splinter Twin were legal, I jammed two combos together that to my knowledge had not been together before. Adding three Splinter Twin and two Deceiver Exarch to a Primeval Titan version of Scapeshift left me with a deck whose Plan C was to put a Splinter Twin on a Primeval Titan. The deck was strong, it was fun, and it was unexpected.

Of course, that option is no longer open to us. The fact that the Scapeshift engine is fairly flexible and wins primarily with lands allows us to slide other things in there without diluting that deck’s plan. Things like the Tron engine. A player in Charlotte was doing that in the Trials, and it looked amazing. I wasn’t able to get the full decklist, but it ran both Chandra, Flamecaller and Nahiri, the Harbinger along with Oath of Nissa and Prismatic Omen. Aside from the Urza lands and Valakut, the Molten Pinncale, every land I saw tapped for green mana to enable the typical land searching we would expect in both decks.

If I had read this article before seeing the deck in action, I would be skeptical too. Trust me, the deck is explosive. A turn 1 Oath of Nissa led to a turn 2 Prismatic Omen, a turn 3 suspended Search for Tomorrow, and a turn 4 Scapeshift fetching up two Urza’s Tower, an Urza’s Power Plant, and an Urza’s Mine. Then they cast Nahiri, the Harbinger and Chandra, Flamecaller. On the same turn. Go ahead and reread Oath of Nissa, because I definitely had to. Oh, and he won Game 2 with the typical Scapeshift-Valakut combo.

Brains Required…Jar Optional?

I am far from the first person to talk about this I’m sure, but the judge staff was abuzz on Day 1 with talk of a player at the top tables with a Brain in a Jar combo deck that played Boom // Bust, Breaking // Entering, and Beck // Call in the same deck. Now, for most judges, a powerful deck will not get them talking as quickly as a fun or quirky rules interaction, and almost every round, someone got called to this player’s table to explain that yes, you really can cast Bust if your Brain in a Jar has two counters on it. It got even more confusing when we had to explain that yes, you can also fuse Beck // Call or Breaking // Entering.

The rules around split cards are confusing and not worded clearly, but trust me when I say this works. The interaction was the topic of judge chats all weekend, while I was trying to piece together a deck into which we could cram all these cards. I am, sad to say, nowhere near anything coherent. Given the exhaustion caused by Saturday’s long day, well, that is hardly a surprise. I will say that getting that much effect so early in the game for such little investment is almost certainly good enough to build around, and once I have a shell I will gladly share.

That shell will almost definitely contain Supreme Verdict, as an instant-speed uncounterable Wrath effect is too good to pass up. Maybe we want something powerful like Rakdos’s Return, some discard or cantrip effects like Thoughtseize and Serum Visions, or powerful removal like Dreadbore that is just slightly too slow to be good at sorcery speed. Too gimmicky? Too bad without Brain in a Jar? Perhaps, but it’s fun as heck, and you get to make the judges work, which is always a plus.

A Little Perspective

When people are competing for a $10,000 first prize and spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on decks, practice, travel, hotel, and more, it can be very easy to lose sight of the fact that many people at a Grand Prix are there to have fun. Some of them will register for and play in the main event because why not? Maybe they will win a bunch and be able to keep going. If not, they will just play side events.

On Sunday I was blessed with the role of head judge for a Two-Headed Giant Sealed Spectacular. This event was capped at four rounds and was held at Regular REL, basically the most relaxed level we have. Players in these events generally are there with friends, sometimes partners or parents, and they are looking to have fun. Maybe this was all they wanted to do for their tournament experience. Maybe they dropped out of a more competitive event and wanted to do something for fun, something to take them off tilt. Whatever the reason, they are likely coming to the event looking for a reason to smile.

Many judges see side events as a demotion, a thing to be sad about being “lumped with” instead of the more glamorous main event assignment. I used to have that feeling too. Now, although I still love working on the main event on Sundays, I look forward to running the occasional fun tournament to end my weekend. This was no exception, and I was able to engage my more performance-oriented skills to help the 100-plus players have a good time.

What really drove the whole thing home for me was the team of a father and his daughter at their first ever event playing together for probably the first time outside their local gaming store. In Round 3, they were 0-2, and as they played the last of the three extra turns after time was called, they gave each other a high five and a hug. They were so happy to have even drawn a game that it was cause for celebration. That right there, my friends, is pure Magic at its finest: a family bonding together, playing together and succeeding together, but also defining their own success. I could not think of a better way to end my weekend.

On that note, my friends, I am catching some sleep before my flight. As always, thanks for stopping by, and until next time…

Brew On!