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| Making my girlfriend question my sexuality since we met. |
The fourth player is
yet to be decided. There are quite a few people vying for the title. Patrick Chapin, inparticular, is foregoing the Star City Invitational - arguably the highest EV event in Magic - for a chance to qualify. Competition should be stiff, but the winner will be the final member of the US National Team.
And it very well might be me.
Sure, I don't have a huge tournament win under my belt, but
I've been putting up reasonable results for a few months now. I am confident in
my deck, and in what it is capable of doing on a regular basis. I think that WB
Tokens has legitimately reached its final configuration, barring a significant
change in the metagame in the next few weeks. (June 20th, mark your
calenders, folks!) Because Tokens hasn’t been seen at the top tables, I’ll have
a reasonable advantage for the first few turns of each game, where I can
reasonably play at being a Humans deck, or even a Panda Control deck if I have
a slower start.
Here's the version that I'll be playing on Saturday:
The addition of the pair of spot removal is a nod towards
the Delver matchup. Delver has the advantage in the early game if they can
blind flip a delver – but an instant speed removal spell ends that advantage,
while also being able to take out a Blade Splicer, Restoration Angel, or any of
the other relevant threats in the format except Wurmcoil Engine and Hexproof
dudes that I'm hoping to block or race anyway.
The sideboard is designed with the knowledge that the majority
of the top tables will most likely be Delver, or some version of UW Midrange.
They're too good, and too popular, for the majority of the winning tables to be
anything else. If you're expecting to win at a tournament like this, you're
going to need to answer Delver first and foremost. Beyond that, there are a
number of tier two decks that I would consider to be big threats at any point
in the tournament. The new style of Wolf-Run deck is still a major threat, with
Glimmerposts and Caverns to give it a wider range of answers to the possible
angles of attack, looks to be a reasonable contender. Likewise, the Zombie deck
with Blood Artists has been putting up significant results (as in, it's
actually placing periodically through the sea of Seachrome Coasts.) Finally,
Esper Control has been showing its good matchup by crushing Delver at the top
tables. While it has a worse matchup against literally anything that isn't a
Delver deck, that single good matchup might be enough at the moment.
To that end, I've decided to skew the sideboard pretty
strongly against those decks. When I was at Edison, I really liked my sideboard
options against the Zombie deck and Delver. Both felt powerful situationally,
while maintaining the majority of what made Tokens a good choice. My games
against Delver were all reasonably close, and the additional removal should be
able to tilt that matchup, especially if they continue the trend of dropping
swords from their maindeck to improve the mirror.
Against Control, I want to either be able to come out of the
gate fast and apply strong pressure, then follow up with a finishing blow. Hero
of Bladehold is ideal here, as it's one of the best creatures to play directly
after a board wipe, but Shrine of Loyal Legions is the real star. They're
forced to deal with the card or it will kill them, effectively at instant
speed, and with any number of Intangible Virtues in play, there's a good chance
that it will happen before they can find the necessary Oblivion Ring. The goal
here is to split my threats between actual permanents, tokens, and non-creature
spells, to tax all of Control's possible avenues and find out which is most
vulnerable.
I'd like to take a quick aside here and shout out to a
couple of the local players from Redcap's Corner, in Philadelphia.
Specifically, Kyle, whom I played against at FNM two weeks ago. He served me my
first and only loss of the night (3-1) while playing a UW Gideon/Taimyo control
deck. It's not something I've had a ton of experience playing against with
Tokens at this point, so the practice was well needed. I'd be glad for a
rematch in the future!
The plan against Wolf Run is admittedly my weakest. I'm told
that Tokens is favored against it, as long as we can buy the first board wipe
early, but barring a 4 toughness flyer, I don't know how much additional
pressure I could muster. Part of me wants a Sword of War and Peace here, but
I'd rather not rely on a spell that requires another creature in play,
especially one that plays directly into an Ancient Grudge sideboard plan.
Instead, I think my plan is to overload on larger threats, ignoring the smaller
ones and aiming to kill them with flyers while racing. This is similar to the
attrition style battles that I've had against Primeval Titan decks in the past
– when I played Puresteel Paladin against Valakut before Zendikar's rotation.
Wolf Run is a different animal, but lifelink and deathtouch are no less potent
than they ever were. What worries me more are the Naya variants that are also
running Elesh Norn. She has an unparalleled ability to put games away, and I'm
always worried about any deck that can put a perpetual board wipe out against
me.
There are a few other decks that I plan to be on the lookout
for. Mono-green won a Qualifier recently, putting up a strong showing through Dungrove
Elder beats. I love the card, so any time it puts up any type of notable result;
it perks my eyebrows a bit. I'm also interested in Chapin's Raka miracles deck
– especially since he'll be playing at the same tournament. I'd love to be able
to meet him – his articles have been a big source of inspiration for me.
It's time to head to bed, with the knowledge that I'm as
prepared as I can be. I've got my hotel reserved. For cost purposes, I'll be
staying over on Saturday night into Sunday. Since the Top 8 will be held on the
second day of play, I'll need to be in the area overnight in case I happen to
qualify. If I don't, however, there is a PTQ and a couple of GPT's on Sunday
being held in the same location, so I'll be able to get my fill of grinding for
Planeswalker Points and Blue Envelopes. Now, the only thing to do is make a
point of getting sleep and rest for the next two days before I need to leave.
At this point, the best thing that I can do for my chances of victory is to
show up healthy, alert, and well-rested. I won’t be attending FNM this week
because of that, opting to go to bed early instead, so that I can be up before
7am to make sure I’m there with plenty of time to spare for registration and writing a deck list.
If you're interested in following my tournament results
before next Thursday, I'll be live-tweeting my match results as they happen.
Follow me @ajrula, and I hope to see and hear from some of you this weekend. If you'd like to
meet up before/during/after matches, toss me a comment here, or a message on
any social media platform (Twitter/Reddit/etc).
-----
Next Tuesday, we'll be addressing something that impacts
every Magic player - mulligan decisions! We'll provide some real examples from
various decks I encounter this weekend, and we'll get to decide how you think
they should have gone. On Thursday, a double-sized Tournament report for the
WMCQ and PTQ Weekend at College Park.
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