longer.blue

SCG Con Tourney Report RC Result: 5-3-1 M1: Bye M2: Boros Energy – 2-1 M3: Yawgmoth Combo – 2-0 M4: Broodscale – 2-1 M5: Amulet Titan – 0-2 M6: Broodscale – 1-2 M7: Broodscale – 1-1 M8: Abzan Devoted Combo – 2-1 M9: Jeskai Chant Control – 1-2 ReCQ Result: 2-1 M1: Bye M2: Boros Energy – 2-0 M3: Broodscale – 0-2 I competed in two different tourneys while at SCGCon. After failing to make Day 2 at the main event with a 5-3-1 record, I went and competed at the ReCQ for a 2-0 finish before being kicked out by my loss to Broodscale in the third round. This was my first RC and first season and I had been preparing for five months since Jeskai Blink got banned. I had prepped as much as I could and set my goal to be better than a quarter of the field. I overcame my goal by a mile and then some. This was an open decklist so I could refer to my opponent’s list whenever I wished. It honestly didn’t really affect my sideboarding decisions but it was nice to be able to mulligan specifically. I also wasn’t aware that you could look at a sideboard map you had between games as well so I was all memorization and honestly that got harder to refer to the longer the day went. Match 1: Bye? My opponent never showed up so I got a free win and then took pictures of my friends deep in the play for fun little snippets of them. Lol Match 2: Boros Energy. I feel pretty confident in this matchup. The ability to solitude Ephemerate and Goryo’s Atraxa is such a hard hill for the average Boros player to overcome. From told by my opponent, he doesn’t really enjoy magic but sticks with his friends. He had friendly banter throughout. G1: it’s a pretty decent back and forth. I Ephemerate Solitude my opponent until he gets to drop a main deck Blood Moon as I had non-basics. From there, he cleans up easily. Sideboard: In: 1x Purge, 1x Snare, 2x Wrath Out: 1x Consign, 1x Force of Negation, 2x Thoughtseize. The whole idea is light sideboarding, preserve the combo as much as possible and kick their teeth in as much as I can or put a giant Atraxa forward. G2: I keep a solid Solitude and Riddler hand. I purge early with a Godless and Island to remove Blood Moon after floating mana. They can’t keep up with my T3 Riddler and T4 flash in Solitude in response to my rebound trigger to remove two creatures. I get over the finish line pretty handily with two Riddlers and Solitudes. G3: This was a super fun luck moment for me. I keep a more combo-centric hand and manage to interact with their board to keep life high enough until the final turn where I’m at 3. I have a wrath in hand with 4 lands. I had enough to remove everything but Seasoned Pyromancer and was low life that I’d probably die to it. I had flashbacked Faithful Mending and didn’t find an Atraxa. So now was either a land or an Atraxa. I shuffle the deck. My opponent cuts. IT’S AN ATRAXA. I had kept this Goryo’s all game in hand and it paid off big time. My opponent even high-five’d. He conceded over a turn or two and I was in. Match 3: Yawgmoth Combo I was getting pretty easy matches the first two rounds so I was thankful for that. G1: Kept a more midrange hand that just naturally surveiled Atraxa and drew Goryo’s. I love free combo wins sometimes. Sideboard: In: 1x Celestial Purge, 1x Clarion Conquerer, 1x Nihil, 1x Spell Snare, 1x Surgical, 2x Wrath Out: 1x Consign, 3x Faithful, 1x Goryo, 1x Grisel, 1x Teferi. Idea generally is similar to Boros, they just have a few more routes that allow them to be a bit sneaky. G2: Opponent mulled to 5 I believe and I kept an interactive hand with Riddler to refill. Surveiled a Clarion after my opponent had GSZ for Grist, kill Solitude and played Clarion to lock them out of the game. Pretty nice. Rough time for my opponent. Off to a good start at 3-0. Match 4: Mono-Green Broodscale. This is where the tourney got hard. This was my first match of the day that my deck could struggle against. It was gonna be a hard one but after having prepped and watching Nick Deriu’s video on the matchup, I felt I know what I had to go for. G1: I mull to 6 this hand. It wasn’t the most spectacular hand with a solitude and riddler and some other pieces. Not phenomenal as a hand. I lost that game pretty handily when I couldn’t do much else. Sideboard: In: 3x Consign, 1x Nihil, 1x Spell Snare, 1x Surgical, 2x Wrath Out: 4x Ephemerate, 1x Faithful, 1x Goryo, 1x Grisel, 1x Teferi. In this matchup, post games are usually grindfests where you wanna try and just kick your opponent in the teeth and keep kicking them when they get back up again. It’s a hard matchup to navigate but if you can get your threats and start to escalate, you can usually pull it. I had a decision moment of either having a second Snare or a surgical. I decided to keep surgical to have the ability to remove Emrakul whenever I wished. The deck is built off of abusing multiple axes so putting one dead in the water makes the matchup much simpler. I was right every time. Every time I got surgical in this match, Emrakul went bye bye and it was glorious. G2: This was a grindy hand. Frog. Interaction. I was ready. We played out over several turns as I played extremely patiently. Kept a frog kicking in and kept pushing. Eventually got to the point where I decided to kick it in gear and Riddler with Frog. Kept my consigns and went over the finish after surgical on Emrakul. G3: Not much to say about this one. Kind of a same verse as the first. Grindy hand. Kick the teeth in with wrath and surgical Emrakul and got over the finish line. What mattered more is I beat Broodscale. That did wonders for mental. It was a *hard* match but this showed to me I could still win. It would be a fight but I could do it. Match 5: Amulet Titan G1: Kept another six. Had a frog with force and riddler and Atraxa and solitude or faithful, can’t remember. I was in a spot where I could keep up decently. He dropped his first Amulet, I let it resolve as I don’t want to be just out resources and think when the second Amulet comes, it’s far more important. I solitude his first Primeval Titan and we get to the point if I get another turn or two I can lock the game out. He topdecks Primeval and I’m dead to Roiling Canopy and Yavimaya. Sideboard: In: 3x Consign to Memory, 1x Nihil, 1x Surgical, 2x Wrath Out: 4x, Ephemerate, 1x Goryo, 1x Grisel, 1x Teferi This gameplan is pretty much just to stop the combo, get the threat in play and run to victory. Classic control shell with the sideboard plan. G2: God I punted this game so hard. I kept an interactive hand with a Faithful, Consign, 2x Solitude (?), Nihil, not the perfect pieces but it could get me there. I’m slow going and they manage to get a Primeval before I solitude. I have a Riddler in warp now. They get Ghost Quarter out and another land. This is where I punt. I surveiled a Riddler from drawing a tap land. They Ghost Quarter my land. I forgot Ghost Quarter isn’t a fucking wasteland and don’t even search. Ghost Quarter being an allowed search, no one notices if I missed the effect. I missed it. So I’m at 4 lands with a solitude in hand and can’t hard cast Solitude for their Primeval. I consign their trigger. They give Titan haste with a land. I have to sacrifice my Nihil Spellbomb to maybe draw a white card. I don’t and I die. Lol. Lmao. Learn your card effects and don’t forget them. That’s the lesson there. I could have potentially won this game and gone for the next game. That smarts. I realize like a minute out of the game where a friend was watching and my opponent even reveals what they were thinking and I want to jump off a bridge. So yeah, 4-1 with a loss I didn’t need to guarantee to have. It’s okay. We got four more and I just need two wins. M6: Broodscale. I’m tired boss. And this is where I get sloppy in my procedures. I make like two different mistakes where I call the judge on myself. Accidentally look at one too many cards, accidentally fetch the wrong land. My opponent is especially patient and I’m glad I’m keeping myself honest in it. G1: Opp mulls to 5. Force. Consign. 2 Riddler. Some other cards. I have a fantastic hand and my opponent’s down resources. They kept a hand for the combo. I pull a win through the midrange route. I even had another Force that shut the door fully with my consign. Sideboard: Same sideboard. Survival’s a powerhouse. G2: We do a decent back and forth and get to a point where I see my opponent’s cards and my life. I get Atraxa through Goryo’s and put the pressure on, hoping to finish it early. I consign the Atraxa. I get another swing in and they drop a Sire of Seven Deaths. We stare for a turn or two as he can swing in and I can’t because of Sire’s first strike. He gets me. Nice. The Sire was one of in the deck too so good for him. G3: Saddest result of my life. Mull to 5. We had joked about it being my turn now after he mulled to 5. I just can’t keep up. Goryo’s can mull rooough even with Riddler. I try to get an Atraxa out to be able to keep up. He had like two cards in hand and I felt like I needed to risk to catch him. He K Command and I’m dead. That hurts. 4-2 now. The mountain looks higher now. I hope I can climb it.