Editor’s Note: Today is the debut of The Industry Standard. This column is designed to get you more in touch with Open Series players who you might not be familiar with who have a fantastic finish in a Standard Open. When the Sundays on the Open Series move back to Legacy, we’ll have a Legacy version of this as well. Please enjoy!
Hello everyone! My name is Alex Mitchell, and welcome to the new column created by StarCityGames.com to give insight into the Open Series experience and talk about how people like me make it to the top tables. Today I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself and my Magic: The Gathering history and then talk about the important things like deck selection, card choices, Bant Hexproof moving forward, and a breakdown of my match versus former Player of the Year Owen Turtenwald.
First off, I’m currently a college student at my local community college and plan on transferring to SUNY Albany to obtain my four-year degree in either Criminal Justice or Psychology. I’ve been playing Magic for about two years, and around half of that has been competitive. My first large tournament was about a year ago at a 5K, and I managed to make Top 8 with my favorite deck ever: U/W Delver.
That’s right. The biggest villain of our previous Standard format took me to my first major tournament Top 8. [Editor’s Note: I’m disappointed in you Alex…]
Earning cash was great and only propelled me further into the competitive Magic scene. Since then, I’ve made Top 8 of many of local tournaments (many of which are a charity tournaments starring Jon Finkel) and other miscellaneous cash tournaments. Two weeks ago, I made Top 8 of a 100+ person Super Invitational Qualifier running none other than Bant Hexproof.
Although I lost in the quarterfinals to Mark Morrison running Turbo Fog—half the reason Render Silent is even in my sideboard now—this showed me that Bant Hexproof can mean business in the right metagame, so I was locked into playing it in the upcoming Open in Somerset, New Jersey.
Deck Overview
First, the decklist I made Top 4 with:
Creatures (20)
Lands (22)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
An overview of the additions and changes to the deck were summarized quite nicely by Patrick Chapin on Monday and can be found here.
With the addition of Dragon’s Maze, Bant Hexproof got some much-needed changes. Although it’s still questionable whether Loxodon Smiter should be in the deck or not, my replacement for it was Voice of Resurgence. I feel the matchup versus Naya Blitz is difficult, and I wanted a card that could block for days. Voice of Resurgence does just that.
The obvious other addition to the deck was Unflinching Courage, which is an easier to cast Gift of Orzhova. Being easier to cast is a much-needed upgrade because Bant Hexproof is a deck that often has to mulligan.
The only other upgrade to the deck was multiple copies of Render Silent in the sideboard, which I wanted as some extra counterspells with an upside that can punish any sort of Turbo Fog deck.
I tested the deck with my friends in a gauntlet of matchups we assumed were going to be at the Standard Open. I thought about playing U/W/R Flash with Aetherling main, but I figured I had too much practice with Bant Hexproof to switch decks since I had been playing it for the month leading up to the tournament.
The maindeck ended up being incredibly close to the one I played at the Super Invitational Qualifier a month ago, but I swapped out the Abundant Growths for more creatures. I felt confident going into the tournament and hoped I would avoid playing Naya Blitz for a majority of the day—which actually worked! However, my first opponent was playing Esper Control, a deck I didn’t want to play against either.
Tournament Recap
Round 1: Chirs Meiners with Esper Control
In the first game, I started off well, but he used one card to catch back up: Far // Away. Fortunately, Chris didn’t have much else, and I managed to pull out a win.
Bant Hexproof Newfound Secret: Unsummon + edict effect is very good against us!
After he cast Far // Away in game 1, I realized this match was going to be even tougher than I thought. Games 2 and 3, Chris cast Far // Away three times each game (one of them even involved a Snapcaster Mage to cast just Away).
Feeling tilted along with my other friends who lost their first match, I was expecting a short day.
Good thing I was wrong.
Round 4: Jeff Thomas with G/B/W Reanimator
My opponent in this round was playing some list of G/B/W Reanimator. I didn’t get to see a lot in game 1 since I got some damage in quick while he cast Grisly Salvage, Thragtusk, and died. I sideboarded in Ground Seals, Selesnya Charm, and I believe Nevermores (which I stopped doing after this round).
Game 2 I got crushed because Jeff had Centaur Healer into Thragtusk with a Vault of the Archangel. I was unable to race without an Unflinching Courage.
Game 3 was a rough one. Jeff landed an early Rhox Faithmender and gained ten life from a Thragtusk. I was low on enchantments but had a board of creatures including two Voice of Resurgences. When he attacked with Thragtusk, I blocked with both of my Voices to prevent a Restoration Angel in the future and received two 5/5 Elemental tokens in the process. These two Elementals became very tough to handle since in an attack step with a Geist of Saint Traft they were 6/6s!
Jeff had a good amount of damage and a Vault of the Archangel coming back at me, and I was facing lethal before I knew it. Luckily, a Selesnya Charm came off the top to exile a Thragtusk before damage won me a match that I was very behind in.
Feeling lucky and like I stole the game, the tournament became real to me.
Quarterfinals: Connor Thompson with Jund Midrange
You can find the awesome coverage of this match by Glenn Jones here. I still don’t know how he can type in such detail so quickly with everything happening. Thanks Glenn!
The bottom line here is Jund Midrange is a matchup I’m favored in as long as they aren’t playing cards like Liliana of the Veil and Bonfire of the Damned. Connor also mulliganed an unfair amount of times in game 2, and I advanced to the Top 4 on Sunday.
Semifinals: Owen Turtenwald with Jund Midrange
Again, there’s great coverage of this match by Glenn here.
My friends and I all talked about the match and noted how although Jund is a favorable matchup, Owen’s list was easily the one that stood the best chance against my deck:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (19)
Game 1 is the only game I feel I could have made some plays differently. I jammed out Fencing Ace to try to get around Liliana of the Veil, but he only had one maindeck. It’s much more likely he uses any removal spell to kill Fencing Ace and semi Time Walk me. However, he just played an Olivia Voldaren early, and I suited up the Ace to try to get some damage in or offer a trade. This is the play I believe might have been wrong. If I’d held the Ethereal Armor to try to make an impact with Invisible Stalker, it might have made the difference.
The next notable thing in the match was my use of Simic Charm. If I had been thinking about Abrupt Decay, I would have held on to it to save my Unflinching Courage and race him straight up. However, I drew the Unflinching Courage after Simic Charm had been cast, so I thought I needed to bounce his Olivia so he would have to tap out for it on the following turn. I’m not sure which line of play was best and if any other player would have taken the hit and just recast Olivia instead of cycling and searching for Liliana of the Veil / Abrupt Decay (uncertain of which he was looking for or if he had the Abrupt Decay).
Games 2 and 3 were pretty straightforward, and I’m not sure there were many choices to be made. I could have mulliganed down to five for game 3, which proved to be a reasonable decision earlier in the tournament. However, my six was good as long as he didn’t do what he did:
Farseek into Farseek into having the overload available for Mizzium Mortars available on turn 4!
I tried to play around it the best I could by attacking with my team of two Avacyn’s Pilgrims and one Voice of Resurgence. He jammed Thragtusk on his turn 4, which left me between a rock and a hard place. I could jam out Invisible Stalker with Spectral Flight and start attacking, but then I’d be completely dead to the Mizzium Mortars I thought he had.
I decided to suit up my Voice of Resurgence and go over the Thragtusk to keep getting in damage. Owen had an Olivia Voldaren on turn 5 like a former Player of the Year does and pretty much locked it away. I asked him after the match if he had the Mizzium Mortars, and he said he did, so I believe I made the right line of play.
What’s your opinion? What should I have done differently?
The one thing I’m proud of is not feeling nervous on camera while playing against the 2011 Player of the Year. A year ago I was nervous at an FNM!
Moving forward with Bant Hexproof, I feel like Selesnya Charm is going better than Simic Charm in the main as long as long as Jund Midrange is popular and they play a minimum of nine creatures that can be killed by it (Thragtusk, Olivia Voldaren, and Sire of Insanity in varying numbers). I am also going to do some testing after my unnecessary number of finals this week (7!) to figure out if the deck wants Fencing Ace or Loxodon Smiter main. Fencing Ace was a hero for me all day Saturday and unfairly stole games, but I often sided it out because of how vulnerable it is to the removal in most decks.
The overall feeling of making Top 4 at the tournament is one I will never forget, and I can only hope to continue doing well. There are a number of SCG Tour® naments coming up in the near future close by, and you will definitely see me and my giraffe hat there. It supported me at the 5K a year ago, and now it has taken me this far, so I’ll stick with it.
The only advice I can give about what has taken me this far is the level of devotion I’ve put in and how it makes a huge difference. Watching SCGLive coverage, Pro Tour coverage, reading articles on a daily basis, and keeping up with “What’s Happening” on Daily MTG (as Brian Kibler recently said in his articles) to keep up with the Magic Online metagame has helped me a lot. The lesson this tournament taught me is to play it out, keep your head in it, and be healthy. Brad Nelson recently talked about how he’s changed his eating habits and how it’s affected his alertness and intelligence. I can vouch that drinking seven bottles of water instead of random energy drinks throughout the day is more useful than the unnecessary caffeine.
The tournament overall was run extremely well from my perspective. Being in such a large tournament and not having extremely late starting rounds was awesome, and we finished the first set of the Top 8 by around 10 PM. The StarCityGames.com Open Series experience is great because most of the people are personable and there are always side events firing off.
I really want to thank everyone who is reading this, especially Cedric Phillips for giving me this opportunity and reaching out on social media to find me. [Editor’s Note: You earned it Alex!] I hope to continue doing well, and maybe one day you’ll see me writing articles on SCG on a regular basis.
Feel free to leave comments about anything, as I would really appreciate other perspectives on the games with Owen Turtenwald.
Thanks again,