1st at Magic Game Day: Dark Ascension

As you may have heard in my last post, Magic Game Day was this past weekend, and I was out to win the top prize – the Thraban Heretic playmat. I had a deck that I was confident with, and had enough play with it that I knew I could do well. After passing up the last minute idea of driving to GP Baltimore (waking up at 5am to drive there seemed like a bad idea after I laid down to go to bed at 2am), I figured I wanted a full day of Magic nonetheless, and set out to find Game Day events.

This was the deck I planned on playing. I’d made some minor changes since the GPT, figuring that extra removal in the board would be more useful than Stony Silence, and deciding to shift more towards midnight haunting over Gather the Townsfolk, which had been unimpressive thusfar.

I checked Redcap’s Corner first, my current primary store, which always has killer events with remarkably good prize payout. Unlike a lot of places, they pay out the entire entry fee in store credit. A $5  eight man standard pays out 40 dollars in credit, usually concentrated to the top 2 (25 and 15, usually). I wanted to play there because it’s my normal shop, and I’m trying to become more and more of a regular there. The competition is stiff – everyone, for the most part, having a firm grasp of the rules, and tier 1 decks are the rule, rather than the exception. Unfortunately, their game day started at 5pm. I’d woken up around 10, and didn’t want to wait 7 hours to play magic.

My search continued, and I found a quaint little shop in NJ, where I traveled about 20 minutes (it would have been less, had I not gotten lost in the bowels of NJ, where there are two Haddon Avenues, which intersect, in Collingswood Township – next to Haddon Township. Who designed this place?!) I played three rounds out there before deciding to drop and head on over to Redcap’s. The rounds went as follows.

Top Deck Games

Round 1: RG Aggro (2-0)

This deck was actually pretty interesting. He was playing a 1-drop aggro deck focusing on Torch Fiend and Young Wolf. He came out the gate pretty quickly, but I figured I could stabilize around 10 life and then crush him back with vigilant tokens. Then he cast Instigator Gang off of an Infernal Plunge, and without a spell to cast on my own turn, I was facing down a dangerous squad of wolves that were threatening lethal in short order.

As always, my deck bailed me out, with a gather the townsfolk off the top to pair with the one I had in my hand. Four mana later, I had an army of 2/2 vigilant creatures, and a gavony township on the field, threatening a pump the following turn. I stabilize on 4 life and manage to claw my way back in to take down game one.

Game two, I keep a hand with a dork and two blade splicers, backed up with intangible virtue. He was never in it, and I put the game away.

Round 2: Frites (1-2)

I’d seen this guy laying out his deck before the match, so I knew he was on some multicolored ranimator plan. After the turn 1 faithless looting, he mentioned that he’d seen the list from the Pro Tour and just copied it. Great. Like I mentioned last time, I knew that Reanimator plans were going to be a weak point for me. Elesh Norn stops the deck cold – and when he tosses her into the yard on t5, I know I’m in trouble. My draw wasn’t quite aggressive enough, and he stabilizes on 6 life to kill me.

Game two goes my way though. An aggressive dork into intangible virtue, then hero and gavony, provided the t5 kill that I needed to race him out.

Unfortunately, game three saw him pitch Elesh Norn and Unburial Rites on t1 to a faithless looting. By turn 4, the Grand Cenobite was sitting on the field and ended any game plan I’d hoped to have.

Round 3: Wannabe Wolf-Run (2-0)

My opponent for this round was newer at the game than most, and had won his second round mostly by having the nut draw. He was on a Wolf Run Variant – and I use the term variant to be kind. No Slagstorms, only two Green Sun’s Zeniths, and a pair of Primeval Titans just made his deck completely inconsistent and unable to mount any defense. I took him down without issue in two games that were never close.

After the third round, it was after 4pm, and I realized I wouldn’t be able to stay if I wanted to catch the Redcap tournament. I dropped, wishing everyone luck, and got to Redcap just in time for pairings.

Redcap's Corner

Round 1: UW Control? (2-0)

I’m going to be honest – I don’t know what this guy was playing. All I know is that he cast 4 ponders over two games, shuffling all of them, and a pair of spellskites that died to Blade Splicers without any real issue. Round was over before match slips were out, and I got to watch a pretty awesome match between Mono Red and UW Humans that was going on next to me. Both players seemed to have a really great handle on their decks. Humans ended up edging out the victory through an unanswered Sword in game 3

Round 2: Anthem Spirits (2-1)

Creature mirrors usually go to the deck with more anthems, and this guy had twelve of them. Four captains, four phantasmal image, plus a playset of honor of the pure made him have some absurd draws possible. He blows me out of the water by resolving T2 Honor, T3, 4, and 5 Captains, and I just couldn’t keep up with the Hexproof Flyers.

I board in all my Naturalizes and cross my fingers. Luckily, I get there. My flyers are able to overcome his after I blow him out by Naturalizing his Honor of the Pure after blockers and killing two Captains off. After the game, he admitted to only having been playing for three or four months, so he was still having trouble playing around things. Honestly though, he played extraordinarily well for someone who had only started with Innistrad.

Game three was tough, with me throwing chump blockers in the air to hold the line against his increasingly powerful air force. All the while, Blade Splicers, keeping pace with his Lords, got in for devastating hit after devastating hit, eventually forcing him to chump with a Lord, which died and put him behind in the race. He never recovered, and I took a narrow victory the turn before he would have killed me. After the game, he pointed out that he’d been locked off of Black mana, and couldn’t have flashbacked either of the lingering souls in his yard. Had he seen a single black source in any of the last four turns, I’d have died on the spot. Talk about close matches.

Round 3: UW Haunted Humans (2-1)

This matchup is a mental nightmare. All three of our games went to complicated board stalls that involved phantasmal imaged Hero of Bladeholds and Gavony Triggers, Equipped Geists of St. Traft, Vigilant Golems pounding through, Ratchet Bombs, and Planeswalkers going ultimate. All three rounds were nightmares of board state, and I actually stopped taking notes so that I wouldn’t inadvertently miss anything. The last game came down to me on two life, and swinging to kill him from 6 to end the match in my favor.

Round 4: Tempered Steel (0-2)

I’m going to be honest, I didn’t expect to see this deck around anymore. I’ve always hated it, and I’ve never been able to play well against it. I don’t know if it’s just been bad luck, but it seems like every time I go against it, since the Caw-Blade days, it’s ended on turn 4 with multiple Tempered Steel in play.

Without going too much into detail, he lands a t2 Tempered Steel in game 1, to go with his 3 creatures, and crushes me. Game two goes even less well. All said and done, he landed 5 of the eponymous enchantment in two games, and I never saw any removal. Match lasted all of ten minutes.

At this point, we cut to top 4, which consisted of me, the Mono-Red player I’d watched in round 1, Tempered Steel Guy, and the UW Humans deck (which rallied to 3-1 as well). I’m matched against Mono-Red.

Top 4: Red Deck Wins (2-1)

Game one ends up being a lot closer than I wanted it to be. Starting the last turn, he has a Shrine on 6, with me at 11. He galvanic blasts me on upkeep, taking me to 9 and the Shrine to 8 after the upkeep trigger. He looks at the card he draws, then at the five mana he has in play. He tanks for a little while, and then extends the hand. Phew.

Game two goes better for him. I can’t find flyers and he beats me over the head with a Phoenix carrying a Sword. You know the game went poorly when he ended on 29 health.

Round three, on the other hand, goes even worse for him. I curve out perfectly, and find the O-ring for his Phoenix. He gets locked down without his recurring threat and I kill him while still on 10. He’s pretty happy, having been part of the Spirit player’s group, who only started at the Innistrad prerelease. Top four after less than half a year’s play is awesome. Good for him.

Finals vs UW Humans. (2-0)

I’d like to tell a story of an epic rematch here, but to be honest, he was never in it. He mulliganed both games, and I drew pretty well, putting him down in less than fifteen minutes of play, most of which was spent shuffling his deck.  It was a pretty lackluster finals after all the fighting that I had to do to get there, but I suppose that happens sometimes.

For my troubles, I was awarded 30 bucks in store credit, which went to round out my playset of Knights of the Reliquary. (Building GW Aggro for Modern – it’s going to be pretty awesome!) In addition, I got the playmat, which I’ve been staring at dreamily since I got it.

Sometimes, things just work out the way you want them to.

Next weekend, I’ll be skipping FNM to do some extreme testing at Marshall’s house. We’re going to see if we can’t work out a Havengul Lich deck, either combo or control, or whatnot – we haven’t decided yet. I’ll be sure to report results back when I have them. He’s planning on playing in his shop’s belated game day, while I’ll most likely be headed to the Star City Games Qualifier in Doylestown. I’ll be sure to post a new deck list when I’ve got the results from there. Preliminary plan includes finding a way to stop graveyard based strategies from reanimating Elesh Norn in my face, and finding an actual workable sideboard plan against Wolf Run Ramp.

Feel free to ask any questions you've got about the deck, comments, or things you'd like to see in the future.

Till Next Time-

Junk Tokens for Dark Ascension Standard

With every new set, we get new weapons, new tools to work with. With each set, the same patterns – we build up our collections, crack our packs, and trade for what we think is the next best thing. We all know – some of us more accurately than others – that we’re on to something powerful. Many of us will cobble together those decks, keeping a careful eye on the professional scene all the while.

Delver is strong.
Spirits are rising.
Huntmaster of the Fells is on the upswing.
Dungrove Elder is back, with friends.
Sword of War and Peace is where you want to be right now.

One by one, we find our decks. We choose the weapons we’ll do battle with. Some test, others work on pure theory, still more iterate on the decks that came before. The professionals go to war – Grand Prix, Star City Open, Pro Tour. Results pour in.

And then, the event for the rest of us. Game Day.

That would be this weekend, for those of you who don’t know. Magic Game Day: Dark Ascension is this weekend, 25 February 2012, and the prizes are greater than normal. Of course, there’s the usual full-art promos (and a nice one at that!). Foil promos and packs for those who rank highly. This time around, a new prize for the champion: a Playmat.

Now, I’m not a pro. I mean, I wouldn’t mind playing at a higher level than the one that I am currently playing at, but I’ve never played in a main event of a Grand Prix. I’ve never done a Star City Open. I’ve never done anything but side events at the Pro Tour. That said, for once, I think I’ve got a deck that can compete on the highest levels and win. I think that with good play, I could win that playmat.

And I want to do it.

Maybe it’s my inner Spike coming out, but I’ve got the bug. A month ago, when I was just hashing out details and slowly collecting cards, watching the metagame shift in tournament reports, I would never have imagined feeling confident about winning a tournament. Now, a month later, I feel like the only limiting factor on my deck is my ability to play it perfectly. Things have happened in the meantime. A third place finish at a Grand Prix Trial with over 80 players has encouraged me. They way my deck is playing has bolstered that confidence. I look at the other decks in the format and can safely say that there isn’t another deck that I’d rather be playing.

What deck is it that’s got me aiming for the top prize?

  

This deck has some legs. If you’ve been following things since Dark Ascension was spoiled, you’ll have no doubt seen the tokens lists popping up. Sorin and Lingering Souls have electrified players with their easy-to-build archetype that combines raw power with evasive flyers and enough gas to weather the worst that a control deck can bring against them. Nevertheless, despite the initial hype, token decks have notoriously underperformed. It could have been the existence of Ratchet Bomb in multiple sideboards that caused the trouble. Maybe it was people’s reluctance to buy Sorin at his initial price. Perhaps the problem was just that people were looking to the wrong places. Tokens was a turn too slow, and not quite powerful to make the splash that some people hoped for.

This deck is not the Black/White tokens that has lost again and again to Delver and Spirits.

The Core:

The core of the deck is simple, use your powerful token generators, in concert with multiple anthem effects and light permission, to attack with multiple mid-sized creatures around turn 4-6. To this end, we have a large number of token generators (Lingering Souls, Midnight Haunting, Blade Splicer, Gather the Townsfolk) that each put multiple bodies onto the field immediately. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Intangible Virtue (as well as Honor of the Pure in the sideboard) provide those creatures with massive bonuses, making their evasive attacks even harder to stop. Vigilance is key here – the ability to attack without fear of a counter-swing wins games outright. This deck maintains all the power that the normal B/W lists provide and more. Gavony Township makes every creature in the deck into a game ending threat.

The deck has an amazing resilience that allows it to fight through even multiple sweepers, flashing back Lingering Souls with multiple anthems on the field allows the deck to repopulate it’s threats almost immediately while managing to avoid overextending into the next one.

The Twist:

The addition of green provides the BW tokens deck with a number of additional options, all of which are strong enough to warrant it’s addition to the deck. Adding six mana dorks allows us to accelerate on the play into a 3 drop like Blade Splicer that will immediately put more controlling decks on the back foot. They’ll have to use reactive answers, rather than proactive counterspells, and as a result, will be tapped down on your turn more often. Landing a larger threat immediately also provides trouble for the aggro decks of the format, who can find their Zombie or Delver based assault stymied by a 3/3 first strike on the second turn.

While the additional speed is useful, it also provides a number of other benefits. Adding green allows us the use of Gavony Township, which is one of the most influential lands in standard. When battles are being won by granular differences in power and toughness, a repeatable pump effect is invaluable, especially as early as turn four. Even more dangerous, the effect allows your mana dorks to take to the Red Zone and actually make a difference in combat. It is not uncommon to transform a Bird of Paradise, via Gavony Township, Sorin’s Emblem, and a Battle Cry into a credible threat once it’s outlived its use as a mana source.

With the addition of green, we also get access to an easily splash-able Garruk Relentless. With his token generation and spot removal capabilities, alongside his ability to create Deathtouch creatures (buffed by the rest of your effects) and even tutor for your answers in rare circumstances, he is a fearsome threat that can land as early as the third turn.

Weaknesses:

For all its strengths, this deck does still have a few glaring weaknesses. First, the lack of a strong removal package leaves it very vulnerable to a well constructed reanimator deck. A fast Elesh Norn leaves us with only two ‘outs’ in the whole deck, both sorcery speed and vulnerable to removal themselves. I would be unhappy to see my foe with Unburial Rites most of the time. The solution here is to apply pressure early and hard, forcing them to use their mana on answering your threats, rather than letting them go about their business and getting their finisher on the field as fast as possible.

Furthermore, while I haven’t tested the matchup extensively, I suspect that Wolf Run with Huntmaster and Slagstorm is a terrible matchup all around. Post board, their ability to bring in up to 6 sweepers, as well as value creatures that cause persistent problems for any kind of slowly gathering offence makes it a nightmare. As noted before, we have only a few answers to a Titan once resolved – and no permission to stop it from resolving at that. This matchup broadly comes down to a race, usually with tokens trying to throw evasive damage past a resolved titan for the last few points before a Kessig Wolf Run depleted your life faster than a resolved Splinter Twin.

Sideboard:

The sideboard for this deck is very much tailored for the current metagame, and as a result, is extremely prone to shifting suddenly and without notice. The board listed above was primarily prepared for the weekend of the 18th, when I attended a GPT. I expected the metagame to broadly mirror those of the professional circuit, and admittedly, was mostly correct. I plan on making some changes for the upcoming weekend at my local shop, since I expect the metagame there to be slightly lower caliber (sorry guys!) so that a strong, centralized strategy with answers to broad archetypes would have the best chance of doing well, rather than specific bullets for individual decks.

With that said, here's some of the justifications for the pieces that I played last weekend.

The pair of Hero of Bladehold shouldn't surprise anyone. The card is a beast, and only gets stronger with the support offered in this shell. I would have four main deck, except for Vapor Snag's place as the best removal spell in standard.

The solitary Thrun is my nod to the control match up, but it's also useful against Delver style decks where a 4/4 that can't be fooled or tricked is worth it's weight in gold. I'd play a second if I could, and I might make that change in the coming weeks.

Three naturalizes are useful in a number of match ups, from Tempered Steel to Sword Decks, to Pike decks, to Heartless Summoning decks. I wouldn't consider going below three.

Three Stony Silences were put in entirely to respect the power of Ratchet Bomb, however, it also comes in useful against a number of decks that rely on powerful artifacts. Infect, Sword, and Pike decks come directly to mind, but if you have a Wolf Run deck pinned on Ratchet Bombs, it will also turn off their Sphere of the Suns. Best off, it's a proactive answer to it, stopping them before the spell is even cast.

Elsepth Tirel was a relatively late addition to the list, and one I was very unsure of going into the GPT. I found myself not boarding her in for most of my match ups, but come the final round of Swiss, as soon as my opponent landed his turn 1 Diregraf Ghoul, I knew Elsepth would have her chance. I'll spare you the details and tell you that she single-handedly won every game I cast her in. She's absurd. Play her. Learn to love her.

The last four spots go to a quartet of Honor of the Pure. This was originally a plan to help deal with Wolf's Run decks of all flavors, but I found them extremely useful in the Spirits match ups. As those battles tend to favor whomever happens to have more anthem/lord effects, loading up on more seemed a good way to gain an edge in that match up. As of this writing, I haven't gotten to test it against Wolf's Run, but I suspect that match up is probably still pretty bad. Will consider more options against it - possibly bringing Nevermore in, but we'll see.

Conclusion:
I think that Junk Tokens is, at the moment, attacking the metagame in a unique and powerful manner. I'd strongly suggest suiting it up and taking it for a spin, see if you like it. It's certainly the type of deck that I'm loving, and I plan on iterating on it for a good long time.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments below. I'll be answering questions about the deck for the foreseeable future. Expect to see some tournament reports in the coming weeks as I report on the deck's progress.