GP Minneapolis Aftermath

GP Minneapolis Aftermath- a Tourney Report

We came, we saw, we went 11-4 and ended up in 66th place on tiebreakers (the tournament paid out to 64th place). I’m here to give you the basics of how the tournament went with a report, followed by an updated list with the changes I believe need to be made to improve this deck moving forward. Understand I only have sparse notes from this tournament, so the play by plays may have a few inaccuracies, but I believe they went the way I thought they would for the most part. Pro Players have their names in bold. Semi-Pro’s have their names italicized.

• Round 1 – Bye
• Round 2 – Bye
• Round 3 – Michael Strack (Mono-Black Eldrazi)
  • Game 1 We win the die roll and lead off into a basic plan of achieving a turn 4 dragon lord atarka. Many moves later, we win the game at 2 life having beaten a turn 4 reality smasher and a turn 3 thought-knot seer. Game was rough, but D-Lord atarka is a house.
  • Game 2 I have no notes, but I believe he was stuck on lands as my life total stayed at 20 straight through, and I have him going from 20 to 0 in one swingy turn.
• Round 4 – Joey Beam (G/W Tokens)
  • Game 1 we push through a turn 5 Atarka to kill his gideon and get to work from there. Like most of the G/W tokens lists going into this weekend, his deck was ill-equipped with removal for the Dragonlord, and we pushed through in 3 turns.
  • Game 2 he rolls the draw of turn 2 advocate, turn 3 advocate, turn 4 nissa, turn 5 avacyn. We lose hard.
  • Game 3 we have a back and forth, but Eldrazi Displacer locks him out of the game, and we get to flicker D-Lord Atarka a few times.
• Round 5 – Shaun McClaren (G/W Tokens)
  • First time against a pro of this caliber. Surprisingly I have no anxiety, just ready to see if I’m good enough to beat someone who can play this far above my level.
    • Game 1 we mull to 6 but win the game at 2 life on the back of world breakers and kozilek’s returns keeping us alive and kicking.
    • Game 2 we get steam-rolled by a curve of turn 2 lambholt pacifist, turn 3 nissa, turn 4 Surrak, Turn 5 Gideon.
    • Game 3 we smoke him with a turn 4 D-lord atarka and turn 5 Eldrazi Displacer + flicker. It isn’t close.
• Round 6 – Zach Kramer (Grixis Control)
  • Game 1 is close, and we lose with Dragonlord Atarka on the board and him dead in 1 swing. There is a judge issue regarding a kolaghan’s command (scroll down in the article to read fully) resolution, and I’m a little salty. Nice guy though, and I know he wasn’t trying to scum me, just a mistake that he wanted to correct, and I felt he shouldn’t have been able to.
  • Game 2 there is little in my notes, but suffice to say it wasn’t all that close. He pushes through my defense quickly, and D-Lord Silumgar + Chandra put it away for him. Sidenote, Jace is incredibly effective against us as we’re creature-light and it stalls for so many turns against us.
• Round 7 – Braden Branson (4-Color Rites)
  • Games 1 & 2 I mull to 6 and just obliterate this deck. The matchup is as excellent as I remember and I enjoyed blowing him out after my loss in the previous round.
• Round 8 – Luis Scott Vargas (Grixis Control)
  • Game 1 we mull to 6 and play a relatively close game in which Kalitas + removal eventually overcomes my world breaker chain.
  • Game 2 I board into the creature plan and run right over him. Note that he definitely boarded out the Kalitas and removal. We knew he was boarding it back in for game 3, but I figured it was correct to stick with the creature plan because it still scales well.
  • Game 3 was beautiful. I top decked like a champion to stay in a tough match with runner runner chandra’s (only left 2 in post-board), among other needed top decks. Ultimately I was outplayed and we lost, but this was probably my favorite match of the tourney because I knew I was playing against another opponent who outclassed me, and was ready by game 3 for our transition plan. Also fun to have a few pro’s watching our match.
• Round 9 – Ryan Hipp (Grixis Control)
  • Game 1 we mull to 6, but our sequencing has improved immensely with this match having played it twice already. slowly but surely we push through him in this match, and with some unfortunate dead top-decks from him, we win.
  • Game 2 we board into the creature plan as per usual, and he mulligans to 5. He stumbles and we do not, Tireless Tracker against little removal = wrecking ball.
• Round 10 – Chris Schmitt (Bant Company)
  • Game 1 we mull to 6 but this deck does what it’s supposed to against Collected Company decks and we wrath the board until we stabilize with D-Lord Atarka, and then we take over.
  • Game 2 he mulls to 6, but has a tempo draw we cannot push through. We also kept a risky 6 with only 1 land, but double traverse and a kozilek’s return. We have roughly 5 turns to draw a 4th land and ramp into our 7 drops to end this game. We never do.
  • Game 3 he mulls to 6 again, and we stabilize the board at 11 life. He then proceeds to top deck 2 collected companies (the second of which has nets double sylvan advocate on 6 lands), and then a bounding krasis to tap my only remaining world breaker (post reflector mage) to prevent me from having the one additional turn to replay a world breaker and flash back kozilek’s return to crush him.
  • Additionally, the Judge in this match decides that Dromoka’s Command can prevent the damage of a flashed back Kozilek’s Return. See below for more details.
• Round 11 – Todd something (B/W Control)
  • Game 1 we see good old Reality Smasher in the main. It goes to work, but Dragonlord atarka takes it down. The find enough removal to keep me at bay til a Chandra comes out and ends it.
  • Game 2 I have almost no notes, but I know he lost rather quickly, so I’m assuming he either stumbled on lands, or we worldbreakered him out of them all.
• Round 12 – Donnie Peck (B/W Control)
  • Game 1 we rock out a bunch of world breakers but cannot close, and so he takes it down with the help of the planes walking super friends
  • Game 2 we board into the man plan, and he gets blown out hard when he duresses to find only creatures, then has no play til turn 4 gideon. I do miss my first attack with tireless tracker accidentally, and he almost stabilizes at the 4 life he would’ve lost from that attack. First giant mistake of the tourney.
  • Game 3 we take down on the back of him stumbling on 3 land for a few turns while sylvan advocate grows and atarka joins the turn he casts gideon to end it quickly.
• Round 13 – Aleksa Telarov (G/R Goggles Ramp)
  • Game 1 we put a D-Lord Atarka and double world breaker on the field but have only stabilized at 4 life. He top decks a magmatic insight to go with his land in hand and plays them to find his 2nd fall of the titans to win one turn prior to lethal. Ugh.
  • Game 2 we mull to 6 and keep a risky hand that has plenty of ramp but not action on top. We draw a displacer and put him to 14 before he pulls the atarka into chandra game plan to end me in 2 turns. Had my out for one turn with a top-deck ulamog, but ultimately it just wasn’t meant to be.
• Round 14 – Emory something (G/W Tokens)
  • Game 1 he knocks me down to 9 before I unleash the Chandra + Atarka plan to seal things up in a hurry.
  • Game 2 we get run the hell over by a curve out of turn 2 lamholt pacifist into turn 3 dromoka’s to kill my adovcate, into turn 4 Surrak, into turn 5 Gideon. Alrighty then.
  • Game 3 he gets a single hit in with advocate before we stabilize, and get a D-Lord Atarka into play. He decides to wait one turn on the removal so as to play another gideon, and we play eldrazi displacer with mana open to flicker. The last turn of the game he’s at 8 life with 2 sylvan advocates (6 lands), and mana open to play archangel avacyn. I have 9 mana (3 colorless sources) untapped and an eldrazi displacer + dragon lord atarka. I swing with atarka, he flashes in avacyn. Indestructible trigger on the stack I flicker atarka 3 times to wipe his board. He has almost nothing in hand. He looks at me funny then asks why I didn’t just flicker the avacyn so it couldn’t block. I audibly facepalm, and he laughs and scoops up his cards in concession as he hasn’t drawn any action. Second giant mistake of the tourney for me. One more round, time to tighten up.
• Round 15 – Jonathan Bentley (G/W Tokens)
  • Game 1 I mull to 6, but he cuts me into a Hedron Archive to play a turn 4 Atarka. I quickly take over from there as it kills his turn 4 gideon on the play and he has no removal main for it.
  • Game 2 I mull to 5 and get run over by Surrak and the curve out action. (Sensing the pattern here yet?)
  • Game 3 I keep a solid 7 and we play the longest single game of my tournament. I’d wager this went about 20+ turns. In the end, traverse the ulvenwald to get displacer + atarka is the death knell, and we’ll note that this game was ridiculously close and won on the back of extremely tight play, and the fact that I would’ve won a lot earlier if he hadn’t drawn 3 declaration in stones and 3 other removal spells to keep literally all my creatures off the board. He’s quite salty at the end, so I quietly pack up and head out. Sure enough, 66th place so no money. Well…Damn it.

So here’s a quick breakdown of my rounds:

G/W Tokens – we went 4-0

B/W Control – we went 2-0

Grixis Control – we went 1-2

Bant Company – we went 0-1

4-Color Rites – we went 1-0

R/G Goggles Ramp – we went 0-1

Mono-Black Eldrazi – we went 1-0

Bright side, we know what we need to fix for, and we know what we got right going into the GP.

Updated List:

11 Forest

5 Wastes

2 Mountain

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Oath of Nissa

4 Traverse the Ulvenwald

4 Ruin in their Wake

4 Hedron Crawler

4 Kozilek’s Return

4 Explosive Vegetation

4 Hedron Archive

4 Chandra, Flamecaller

3 Worldbreaker

3 Dragonlord Atarka

Sb:

3 Eldrazi Displacer

1 Dragonlord Dromoka

1 Plains

2 Gaea’s Revenge

4 Tireless Tracker

4 Sylvan Advocate

The Gaea’s Revenge Argument – Our losses in the tournament were primarily to Grixis Control, and Gaea’s Revenge is damn near impossible to deal with for them if it comes out. Similarly, it is a nightmare for the R/G Goggles Ramp deck if they cannot immediately answer it (although remember D-Lord Atarka for them does still kill it, as does blocking with Worldbreaker). We took out Ulamog, because our hypothesis that it was necessary to deal with the control matchup was sorely mistaken. Ulamog is simply too high on the curve, and the current standard is far more tempo oriented than it used to be. The control decks are running cards like reality smasher off the board (or in the main), so we’re no longer trying to trump their answers with the top of our curve. Similarly, Secure the Wastes makes the Ulamog Plan look foolish. Gaea’s Revenge isn’t necessarily correct, but it’s the next card to try.

Basic notes from the GP:

1. Eldrazi Displacer against G/W Tokens was as ridiculous as I remembered. The match-up still is close, but displacer seriously screws up their day if you sequence it for later in the match.
2. Tireless Tracker and Sylvan Advocate screwed up the control players all day long. The card advantage combined with difficult to kill creatures forced them to use their removal on them, and consequently have far less for creatures such as world breaker and D-Lord Atarka. I like this creature-transform plan post-board as it won me all my B/W Control matches, and quite a few Grixis Control games.
3. I feel as though we came within one early loss (my round 6 loss to Grixis Control) of being in the Humans bracket, where I think this deck would’ve cleaned up. It’s a shame this didn’t happen, but I believe we were off by a couple cards in the match against Grixis via the board, and were certainly off when it came to sequencing against them. I earned those losses with my lack of testing against this archetype.
4. R/G Goggles Ramp seems like a solid deck, but I’m not a fan personally. We’re actually favored in this match, but it just didn’t happen for me, and again, a large piece of that was a lack of testing against this archetype (which I assumed to be dead going into the GP).
5. Bant Company remains a roller-coaster to play against. Sometimes they whiff on Collected Company, and sometimes they just go nuts with it. We play a steady plan against them, and force them to have quite a bit of luck to take us down. This match gets far better when they’re on the humans plan.
6. I feel I got screwed on 2 judge calls, so I’ll list them here for you to stipulate whether they were in fact correct.
   1. Judge Call #1 – Kozilek’s Return flashes back, and opponent Dromoka’s Commands to prevent the damage. I still don’t know if this works, but from my understanding it didn’t. The judge disagreed. Thoughts? This call was not appealed as I figured any judge would understand this, although it has been pointed out to me that perhaps he did not understand it was being flashed back for some reason (although I laid it on top of my world breaker and stated it was triggering from the grave, and that’s why I was unsure if it could be prevented).
   2. Judge Call #2 – Opponent chooses 2 modes on Kolaghan’s Command and returns the Goblin Dark Dwellers from his graveyard and shocks my Hedron Crawler. 5 seconds later he asks how many cards in hand and I reply with 1, he responds with, oh, then keep the Hedron Crawler and discard the card in hand (it was a Chandra, and a key reason why I lost that game). I call the judge and he states that since nothing had happened yet, it was like a chess player taking back their move with their hand still on the piece, so it was allowed. I feel as though this is incorrect and he should have been forced to keep the original two modes. Thoughts? This call I did appeal, and had it shot down by the head judge.
7. G/W Tokens Sequencing (one of the tougher matches to understand):
   1. Play out your creatures on curve, without care for their removal, forcing them to use their removal means they aren’t playing their other creatures/Gideon’s, etc… in the early game.
   2. Eldrazi Displacer is the only creature you hold back typically, and it’s because it is a 6-drop in this match. You want to play it with an activation up if at all possible. Now, if you have no other pressure, it can be correct to play, but remember this is a tempo game, and you need to keep the pressure off long enough for D-Lord Atarka to seal it up. Blinking Atarka with Displacer is still filthy and will happen in plenty of game’s. I have yet to untap with displacer and 6 mana and lose a game to G/W tokens.

Final Thoughts:

• Wall of Resurgence is becoming a possibility for a card to keep the reality smashers and aggro decks at bay while combing nicely with eldrazi displacer, and putting pressure on their planeswalkers. I will be testing this card out in the near future.
• I think this deck will be well positioned moving forward given the aggressive nature of this metagame. G/W Tokens just took down 2 GP’s, and as you can see, we are set up for them so long as you sequence correctly and play tight.
• As you may know, I’m Q’ed for the end of Summer RPTQ and as such won’t be playing anymore Pretq’s for a few months, so I’ll continue testing to help the community and seeing how this metagame evolves, and hopefully finding enough time to keep on writing.

Much Love, – Ginger