I’m Back Baby! — How I Got 6th At The Zendikar Rising Championship

Why hello there!

My name is Brad Nelson. I’m a member of the Magic Pro League and I recently finished in 6th place at the Zendikar Rising Championship. To prepare for this tournament, I joined forces with the one and only Cedric Phillips. Sadly he did not make Day 2 with our pristine deck choices, but I was lucky enough to carry them all the way to the Sunday stage before losing to our other testing partner Andrea Mengucci. Cedric was so pleased with my finish that he asked little ol’ me to do a write up about my tournament experience and who can say no to that?

My tournament preparation started about eight days before decklists were due. This was due to a calamity of errors which resulted in me thinking the tournament was on December 11-13, and not 4-6. It really threw a wrench into my plans as all of my previous testing partners had already locked in other plans which left me on a solo mission for preparations this time around.

Why Mono-Green Food In Zendikar Rising Standard?

Given the short time period to prepare, I decided to simply lock in my trusty Nissa.dec for Historic. Not only do I genuinely love playing midrange decks, but I also think they’re typically the best choices to make (especially in open decklist tournaments when it’s much easier to navigate the games and sideboarding when you’re the one casting interaction and powerful green cards). That meant most of my focus could be on Zendikar Rising Standard which I’ve been known to be fairly good at.

Around this time, the SCG Tour Online was running large Standard tournaments on MTGMelee. The metagame and win percentage data that was coming out of these tournaments really helped me formulate plans for where the metagame was going. At the time, Temur Adventures was doing very well at beating up on the other green decks but with each passing tournament, decks like Dimir Control, Dimir Rogues, and Esper Doom Foretold were popping up in popularity and win percentage.

I knew I didn’t want to play Temur Adventures, even though it did seem quite good on the Arena ladder. The issue I had with the deck is that it’s easily targeted. The deck is powerful, don’t get me wrong, but it was exploitable against any deck trying to control it. To make matters worse, a card like Negate was even great against the deck thanks to all the Adventure sides of the cards running into them.

If a blue deck wanted to beat Temur Adventures, it could.

Around this time I started a conversation with Cedric and Andrea started one with me. Randomly enough all three of us had succumbed to the temptations of Four-Color Midrange in Historic so we decided to start a group chat and talk shop. I expressed all of my ideas in Standard and they lined up with those that Andrea had who had been liking Esper Doom Foretold. I decided to give that deck a spin while also working on my new favorite deck — Mono-Green Food.

It felt like the build of Esper Doom Foretold Andrea and Tian Fa Mun had was more well-tuned than my Mono-Green Food list, but the metagame I was predicting suited the latter more so in the end I submitted Mono-Green Food. Here were my predictions;

• Temur Adventures would be underrepresented relative to its high numbers on the SCG Tour Online circuit.
• Dimir Rogues would be the sleeper choice of many top-level players.
• Mono-Green Food would have more pilots than Gruul Adventures.
• Both Esper Doom Foretold and Dimir Control would be popular.

This way of thinking told me I could play a build of Mono-Green Food, inspired by Sandoiche, that focused mostly on the mirror and blue matchups. I’d still be able to lean on the deck’s inherent strengths against Gruul Adventures and was willing to completely scoop the abysmal Temur Adventures matchup. This allowed me to afford more slots for cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Witch’s Oven which were both fantastic cards in their respective matchups.

The best card you have against Dimir Rogues, Dimir Control, and Esper Doom Foretold is Witch’s Oven. It’s just so important to not get your Feasting Troll Kings exiled and also the games tend to go long so turning your soon-to-be-dead creatures into Food goes a long way in the late-game when it’s time to draw a ton of cards with a Trail of Crumbs. 

Here’s the Mono-Green Food deck that Cedric and I submitted for the Zendikar Rising Championship:

Like always, I was right on the money in some ways and wrong in others. My Ugin plan worked like gangbusters against Andrea when I played against him and his Esper Doom Foretold deck, but got a beating of a lifetime from Autumn Burchett when she decided that shields just weren’t her thing. In the end, I went 5-3 in Standard, which isn’t a terrible record but one I’m disappointed in because I know I made some deckbuilding mistakes along the way.

Strangely enough though, I think I would change more things about my list if I had to play the Zendikar Rising Championships all over again than I would preparing for this upcoming weekend. I guess that’s because Esper Doom Foretold should *now* be on the rise, and the best way to beat them is with Witch’s Ovens and Ugins. If Esper Doom Foretold doesn’t start showing up more, it would only be due to Dimir Rogue numbers skyrocketing which would mean I’d switch back to my trusty Gruul Adventures.

Here’s my updated Mono-Green Food list and a sideboard guide to go with it:

VS Gruul Adventures

Out (on the play):

In (on the play):

Out (on the draw):

In (on the draw):

Honestly, I’m not very confident in my plans for this matchup, but I don’t think that’s really my fault. It’s just so difficult to devise a great plan against Gruul Adventures when the way their deck plays out can be wildly different from game to game. I will say that the beat you down games happen less frequently so it’s alright to slow down and play your more powerful cards. Gilded Goose might seem like a card that you need to keep in, but most of the time it just gives them a great play on Turn 2 in the form of Stomp.  

VS Mono-Green Food

Out:

In:

I see a lot of opponents keeping in large swaths of Lovestruck Beats, and/or bringing in Scavenging Ooze. I think both of these things are a mistake. I get it — it’s nice to feel smart when you get them to block with their Feasting Troll King and then eat in the second main phase, but those games don’t come up that often. More often than not, one player either gets out on the battlefield way too quickly thanks to drawing more acceleration or the entire game is a war on card advantage.

If I’m forced to pick between Scavenging Ooze and one of the most powerful planeswalkers in all of existence, I’m going with the creator of Ghostfire every time.

VS Esper Doom Foretold

Out:

In:

Did any of you watch coverage of the Zendikar Rising Championship? Did any of you see other Mono-Green Food players get absolutely destroyed by Elspeth’s Nightmare? Yeah, don’t be like them. Be like me! Build your lists so they can take out all of their targets and also win the late-game thanks to cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. #Smart

VS Dimir Control

Out:

In:

Did any of you watch coverage of the Zendikar Rising Championship? Did any of you see other Mono-Green Food players get absolutely destroyed by Elspeth’s Nightmare? Yeah, don’t be like them. Be like me! Build your lists so they can take out all of their targets and also win the late-game thanks to cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. #Smart

VS Dimir Rogues

Out:

In:

It’s not really possible to bestow many words of wisdom for this matchup. Sometimes they have it all and when they do it’s very difficult to win. Sometimes they don’t and it’s much easier to win. Sadly there’s really no great way to make this matchup better for us besides switching to Gruul Adventures. If Dimir Rogues continues to climb in popularity, I’ll just have to switch decks. The matchup is close, but no matter what they’ll be favored.

VS Temur Adventures (Obosh)

Out:

In:

I’ve never won a match against this deck with Mono-Green Food in my life but here’s the way I move cards around in my deck during the matches.

VS Mono-Red Aggro

Out:

In:

I’ve never lost a match against this deck with Mono-Green Food in my life and here’s the way I move cards around in my deck during the matches.

Why Four-Color Midrange in Historic?

First, the decklist:

“When in doubt, Nissa them out”

Brad Nelson, preparing for every Historic tournament.

My decision making in Historic was not as calculated as it was in Standard. I just didn’t have the time to prescribe to the usual idea that I could actually determine the correct card choices in a Nissa midrange deck. Sure, I could go around in circles trying a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria here or a Tale’s End there, but in the end it would still be a lot of guesswork. Also, all it would take is a couple teams showing up with new decks I’ve never seen before to throw all my numbers out the window anyway.

Instead of dealing with that colossal headache, I decided to make my own rulebook and live with the consequences of it:

Rule #1: Don’t play four Fatal Push.

I really don’t understand why people choose to do this. Either you have to play way too much targeted removal in your deck to make room for Eliminate or you don’t get to play Eliminate which is actually decent in the mirrors.

Rule #2: All your removal can be cast off a single land untapped by Nissa.

Mythos of Nethroi is good, and in fact I have a copy in my updated list, but I really didn’t want the card in my deck for this weekend since I expected a lot of Jund/Rakdos Sacrifice.

Rule #3: Make sure you have at least three counterspells for the artifact decks.

Rule #4: Don’t play cards for the bad decks because you already play cards for the bad decks.

• Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• Thoughtseize
• Growth Spiral
• Uro, Who also Shakes the World

Now it’s not a great set of rules and I don’t actually suggest you live by them yourselves. It’s just that in tournaments like the Zendikar Rising Championship, it’s so easy to overthink things in a format like Historic, especially when you’re just playing the Nissa deck with a pile of ramp, draw, and removal. I just wanted to play generic answers for this one and lean on the inherently high level of power the deck already had.

Oh, I almost forgot the fifth rule…

Rule #5: Only prepare your list for the decks you expect to face.

I guess this is similar to the Rule #4 but unique enough to deserve some of its own typing time. When it comes to Nissa-based midrange decks in Historic, you really don’t have that much room to play with. You need enough removal to fight against the decks with creatures but also enough cards in your sideboard so you can replace all of your removal in matchups where it’s not important. This leaves very little wiggle room for fringe matchups. That’s why I ignore them and just focus on the decks I expect to play.

Right now the most expected decks in Historic are Sultai/Four-Color Midrange, Azorius Control, Mono-Red Goblins, and then Jund/Rakdos Sacrifice. Everything else is a step behind and not worth it to dedicate precious slots in our deck for. That’s why my next build of Four-Color Midrange looks like this now:

I’m not sold on the sideboard copies of Tocatli Honor Guard but in theory they do exactly what I want them to. They will have a high-impact on games against Goblins but also force the Goblin player to play reactionary cards to beat them. That right there helps you out even in games where you don’t draw them because it dilutes the strength of your opponents draw steps, Herald’s Horns, Goblin Ringleaders, and of course their Muxus, Goblin Grandee’s. Seems worth it to at least try out.

Another card I’m going to test is Thought Distortion. It’s expensive but it is effective! It also forces Azorius Control pilots to play a little more proactively which can allow us to punish them with our midrange gameplan. There will be games we don’t draw it, but I assure you it will be in the back of every opponent’s mind in open decklist tournaments. It also might be decent in mirrors but I haven’t gotten around to testing it yet to confirm.

Here’s a sideboard guide for this build of Four-Color Midrange.

VS Sultai/Four-Color Midrange

Out:

In:

There’s nine cards coming out and only eight cards coming in. That’s because I tend to play with 3 Thoughtseize and 4 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath on the play and switch the numbers on the draw.

VS Mono-Red Goblins

Out:

In:

I could see a world where more copies of Tocatli Honor Guard means you can actually afford to tap out for Hydroid Krasis, but it’s not something I’ve tested yet. Since I haven’t gotten in any practice with this updated list just yet, I’ll default to the way I sideboarded before which involved taking out all the copies of Hydroid Krasis since you never could really afford to tap out.

VS Jund Sacrifice w/ Korvold, Fae-Cursed King

Out:

In:

VS Jund Sacrifice w/ Collected Company

Out:

In:

Honestly, these matchups really come down to what their decks look like. Sometimes I’ll sideboard in multiple Negates and other times keep in more removal. It all depends on how they want to fight us. That said, do not think of yourself as the control player against Jund Sacrifice w/ Korvold. In reality, they have a ton of ways to gain card advantage which means it’s vital to take a proactive approach in the matchup, trying to get as many permanents on the battlefield as possible.

VS Azorius Control

Out:

In:

Game 1 is abysmal but I do believe we’re favored after sideboarding. Just make sure you don’t let Teferi, Hero of Dominaria resolve and are constantly finding ways to eek out card advantage. The games can go a very long time so stay patient.

That does it for me today! Thanks again Cedric “Testing Partner” Phillips for giving me this wonderful opportunity to write for Star City Games. I’ve been a fan of this website and the SCG Tour for a very long time now, and hope to get more opportunities like this in the very near future.