If you’ve been following the coverage of the Magic World Championships this year, you are no doubt aware that day one went somewhat better for me than I expected yesterday. I managed to end the day at 5-1. Not only that, I did it with a Sunforger Control deck.
Oh ho-ho-ho, you’d probably call it Fungis-Fire, but I simply refuse to call it that. The other name we have for the deck is the Japanese translation: Tenyudai.
Anyhow, I chose this deck because it has obvious strength against aggro decks, plus the threat of Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree against control decks just has to be golden. I added the deck to my playtest gauntlet because, as I mentioned yesterday, I was completely dissatisfied with every other available deck in Standard. I was happily surprised to find that Tenyudai did win.
It did, in fact, rocksors the socksors, yo. Etc.
I started with this list from the last chance qualifier for PT LA:
Corey Paxton – Top 8 – Fungus Fire
Last Chance Qualifier
4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
4 Temple Garden
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
4 Forest
2 Plains
2 Mountain
3 Godo, Bandit Warlord
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Kodama’s Reach
4 Wrath of God
3 Sunforger
3 Faith’s Fetters
2 Seed Spark
4 Lightning Helix
4 Yamabushi’s Flame
1 Char
1 Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang
2 Pyroclasm
1 Tenza, Godo’s Maul
1 Hidetsugu’s Second Rite
1 Otherworldly Journey
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
Sideboard:
2 Tempest of Light
1 Devouring Light
1 Otherworldly Journey
1 Seed Spark
4 Adamaro, First to Desire
4 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm
There were many things about this list I just totally didn’t like. For starters, the deck only has eight Green sources. It also ran not-so-stellar hits like Otherworldly Journey and Tenza, Godo’s Maul. There were other changes I wanted to make, such as adding Shock to kill all manner of weenies (and Jushi Apprentice). I also wanted to replace Kodama’s Reach with Farseek to enable a more consistent turn three Wrath of God.
Most importantly, I wanted access to four Sensei’s Divining Top, which is utterly disgusting in this deck. Further testing showed that Seed Spark was only slightly shy of insane, while Faith’s Fetters was only needed against R/W. This led me to the following list:
4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
4 Temple Garden
3 Sacred Foundry
4 Karplusan Forest
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Mountain
3 Godo, Bandit Warlord
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Shock
3 Farseek
4 Wrath of God
3 Sunforger
4 Seed Spark
4 Lightning Helix
2 Yamabushi’s Flame
1 Char
1 Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang
1 Hidetsugu’s Second Rite
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
Sideboard:
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Swamp
3 Life from the Loam
2 Rending Vines
3 Faith’s Fetters
4 Cranial Extraction
The U/B Control matchup revolves totally around Pithing Needle, and your ability to kill it. I originally just had three Rending Vines in the sideboard to battle that deck, but I added Boseiju, Who Shelters All at the last minute.
The Cranial Extractions in the board to take care of this deck’s worst match up — Heartbeat Combo. I was worried that I had no chance against that deck, but Luke (Third place, New Zealand Nationals — see yesterday) told me that he had tested Heartbeat online a whole heap, and knew that Extraction was the crushing blow I needed to battle that deck. The Life from the Loams were there just in case I came across a Wildfire deck, or summink.
Anyhoo, here’s who I played.
Round One: Lau, Sam Lie Kang [SGP]
Sam was playing Green/Black aggro. The only real threat he had was Hypnotic Specter, and I was prepared for it thanks to Shock. I quickly took the match in two uneventful games thanks to my one Jitte.
1-0
Round Two: Alvarado, Saul [PAN]
This was my first U/B Control match, so I was keen to see if I was right about my metagame call. Sure enough, Pithing Needle shut down Vitu-Ghazi very early, and I lost quickly since I drew nothing to remove it. However, I clawed back to win games 2 and 3. I destroyed Saul with Sunforger in the second game. He got savaged by the Vitu-Ghazi in last game, after he named Sunforger with his lone Pithing Needle.
2-0
Round Three: Dushkevich, Artem [RUS]
Artem was the one player who took a match win from me on day one. He was playing a deck I would consider a favorable match up — R/W – but the problem with R/W is that it can sometimes just randomly kill you, regardless of what you’re playing. I lost game one thanks to his fast start and my inability to find a Wrath of God – despite having Sensei’s Divining Top and two Sakura-Tribe Elders doing some digging. I won the game 2, but lost the third to burn. Artem drew five spells that deal four damage to target player, three of which were Flames of the Blood Hand. I didn’t stand a chance.
2-1
Round Four: Vasic, Zeljko [SVN]
Another U/B match, and I kept a stupid opening hand, which caused me a great deal of trouble. It had only one land, but contained two Divining Tops. I planned on using the first Top to dig for a land on my second turn, which I would in turn use to play the second top. Unfortunately, this plan doesn’t work so well when your opponent plays a first turn Pithing Needle naming Sensei’s Divining Top.
Thankfully, I lost game one without seeing Vitu-Ghazi, so I went into game two with Zeljko naming Divining Top — instead of naming the land that totally owns them if they don’t Needle it. That said, Zeljko tried to name “Needle” with his Needle. I told him that he didn’t want to name Needle, but he misunderstood me and thought I was complaining about him not using the full name of “Pithing Needle”. I then asked if he was sure he wanted to name Needle, and he said he did. I pointed out that Pithing Needle doesn’t have any activated abilities, and finally Zeljko realized that he actually wanted to name Divining Top instead.
To make a long story short, I never drew Vitu-Ghazi that game, but smashed him with Godo. I went on to win game three with a flurry of Saprolings. Mind you, it didn’t matter if he had tried to shut Vitu-Ghazi that last game with the Needle, because I had Seed Spark with Boseiju backup anyway.
3-1
Round Five: Arita, Ryuichi [JPN]
This round is what made this deck worthwhile. Ryuichi was playing a R/W/U control deck with contained Gifts Ungiven; Yosei the Morning Star; and Wrath of God. Midawy through the first game, Ryuichi tapped out for a Firemane Angel, while on 13 life. At the end of his turn, I checked the top three cards of my deck with my Top. There was a Sunforger up there, and a land, so I stacked it so I drew the Sunforger and left the land as my next draw. I attacked with my four Saprolings, and Ryuichi blocked one them and dropped to ten life. I put my thinking cap on and figured out that I was one mana off playing the Sunforger, equipping it and then activating it. I then remembered that I hadn’t played a land yet, and flipped the Top to grab that land I had left on top of my deck. I dropped Sunforger, and activated it, getting Hidetsus’s Second Rite. I thrust both fists in the air in celebration, but managed to stifle a shout of joy.
Ryuichi managed to take game two after I smashed him in the face for sixteen with Godo (in one turn, obviously). He pulled a Wrath with Yosei in play, and then played another Yosei which bashed me while I was tapped down. In game 3, Ryuichi appeared to be a touch mana screwed, but that was because I managed to Seed Spark and Rending Vines something like three or four of his mana artifacts. By the time he caught up to me on mana, it was too late for him to live..
After the match, I tracked down Randy Buehler and forced him to interview me for the Worlds Podcast. (Check into 9:15 of “2005 World Championships Day One: In The Books”)
4-1
Round Six: Rutar, Andrej [SVN]
Andrej was playing a R/W deck very similar to Artem’s deck from round 3. Thankfully, my draws weren’t as bad this time, and the games mostly played out in my favor. This means I burned and Wrathed guys, and then dropped a Godo and a free Jitte. Godo died pretty promptly, but I pumped out Vitu-Ghazi tokens until Andrej ran out of burn, and rode my 1/1s and my Jitte to a win.
5-1
So there you have it! I’m a lucky scrub and life is good.Tomorrow is draft, which will be fun, but likely very challenging. I think that the odds of me repeating today’s 5-1 are pretty low. But that’s cool, I’ll just take each round as it comes and we’ll see where I end up.
Good night everyone, see you tomorrow.
Ray
/(blisterguy)
//(Mysteriously 5-1 in Japan)