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-