Tournament Report

Tournament Report (RC):

Day 1

R1 – Dominic Harvey (MonoG) 2-1
Was happy to see MonoG as my first round but I was aware Dominic Harvey is a great player so I had to play tight. I got there with a pretty strong G1 start with an eventual farewell to secure the game. G2, I fell too far behind even after pulling T3 Lotus Field/Proctor Combo and got Damping Sphere + God Pharoah’s Statue. That completely stopped my ability to farewell the board. G3 was the nuts hand I ever got against MonoG. I had Turn 2 Strict Proctor into Turn 3 Lotus Field, while holding up Aether Gust x2. I Aether Gust his Kiora in the next two turns and eventually let it resolve. He eventually Storms the Festival and I Narset’s Reversal his Storm into another Lotus Field and Teferi, finishing the match there. Dominic definitely was the most experienced player I faced on MonoG and he was the only MonoG I played against that actually won a legitimate game off me.

R2 – Daryl Gnann (Enigmatic Fires) 2-0
This matchup is just miserable for Enigmatic. It is impossible for Enigmatic to beat this deck. To keep it short and sweet, I had the nuts combo both games and pushed my advantage with the excess mana advantage.

R3 – Asha Mills Emmett (Esper Control) 2-0
This matchup is a coinflip game 1, basically who draws the right half of the deck. Asha unfortunately mulled to five game 1 and I kept a strong seven with a lot of card advantage. Game 2 was also unfortunate as Asha started missing land drops and I eventually took advantage of that. The usual UW mirror situation, whoever has more mana is in the lead.

R4 – Ha Pham (Azorius Spirits) 1-2
Worst matchup ever and this was one of my buddies undefeated so far. I was able to steal game 2 since he kept a slow hand but was just overwhelmed on the draw game 3. Nothing much to say here but that I knew with Doomskar instead of Supreme Verdict, there is no chance for me to get a win.

R5 – Dan McDonald (MonoG) 2-0

Fairly straightforward against MonoG, slow down the board with Strict Proctor and look for the eventual farewell. I eventually Finale of Revelation for the win.

R6 – Daniel Lozinski (Rakdos Midrange) 2-1

Dream Trawler is THE card needed to beat Rakdos. Rakdos has very limited answers and cannot easily answer this card. Some lists don’t even have an answer to it. I pulled off a fairly straightforward win game 1 since it is favored for me, since Rakdos has much more dead removal cards in Game 1 than I do. Game 2 was extremely close and I was one turn from stabilizing. I was at 3 and I just played Dream Trawler with one card left in hand. He draws a Kroxa and kills me with escape. I then proceeded to win game 3 with another early Dream Trawler.

R7 – Samuel Tharmaratnam (MonoG) 2-1
I lost Game 1 after being stuck on 3 lands for 2 turns on the draw and couldn’t do anything about stompy beatdown. Game 2 and 3 was very straightforward with the sideboard counterspell and eventual farewells. The eventual Finale also seals the game.

R8 – Qail Shivji (MonoG) 2-0
Another MonoG matchup and at this point, I am ecstatic, I have had so much practice against this matchup that I know how to beat it with ease and unfortunately, my opponent was unable to do anything differently to stop the eventual Farewell/Finale.

Finishing the Day 1 on a great note at 7-1! Super pumped for the next day that I wasn’t able to sleep for the most part of the night and managed to get around 3 hours of sleep.

Day 2

R9 – Kyle Gellert (Rakdos Sacrifice) 2-0

This is a matchup that is really easy for me game 1 but gets incredibly difficult if my opponent manages to resolve an Ob Nixilis after side. Fortunately, the stars aligned in this match and I won game 1 with the eventual Farewell and Kyle did not see his Obs game 2.

R10 – Xavier Biron (MonoG) 2-0

This is a friend that I know locally and always a pleasure to play against. I really do enjoy playing with people that demonstrate great sportsmanship and he is definitely one of them. Of course, I had the Lotus Field/Proctor combo game 1 into an eventual farewell and took over the game fairly easily. Game 2, he kept a hand without a turn 1 elf and I was able to take over the game by countering everything after.

R11- Liam Kane (Rakdos Sacrifice) 2-1

This was the hardest game I had all weekend, aside from the spirits matchups I do not count Spirits since it is incredibly unfavored for me. Liam Kane played exceptionally well and was aggressively chipping away at my life. I win game 1 fairly easily since he had a lot of dead removal cards in his hand, which is usually the case against Rakdos. Rakdos eventually runs out of gas and is stuck with Fatal Push/Claim in hand. Game 2, I play a Dream Trawler but die to a Mayhem Devil sacrifice for what I believe was 8 life before I was able to go back to my turn. He had gotten an early Ob Nixilis which chipped my life away before I was able to slam the Dream Trawler. Game 3, I was in a hard losing position for the majority of the match and eventually go to 1. I believe I had shown facial expressions of giving up since I thought there was no way I could win this game. I deluge into Discontinuity and back on my turn at 1, I draw a Dream Trawler. I cast Dream Trawler and fortunately enough, Liam didn’t draw anything significant to get me down from 1 life. I was then able to go from 1 to 6 to 14 with drawing off the top Discontinuity and seal the game from there but during that point, I was already accepting my loss. Liam played incredibly well and I was glad to see him in the top 8 once again since I had to draw nearly a perfect hand to come back from that.

R12 – Jin Kim (Rakdos Sacrifice) 2-0

This was an unfortunate round and I was one draw away from absolutely securing Top 8. I wasn’t able to concede to my opponent since if I was paired in the last round to someone that had to play and I lose, I was not guaranteed for top 8. I offered to draw but my opponent ultimately decided to play. I respected the decision and unfortunately, I had strong turns with farewell both games to seal the game. I don’t believe I had the Lotus Field Combo but I had Doomskars and Farewells to seal the deal as if I was playing traditional UW. The advantage in this match was that my opponent wasn’t running damping spheres in the side but my other two opponents were.

R13 – Derek Pite (Rakdos Midrange)
ID, Although this match didn’t matter for me if I win or lose, I was guaranteed first place with a draw and I would never want to be on the receiving end of a situation where my opponent, with nothing to lose, refuses to draw.

Top 8

QF – Kyle Gellert (Rakdos Sacrifice) 2-0

The rematch comes back and I decisively win game 1 with an eventual farewell that he could not come back from. G2, Kyle kept a hand with no pressure but a lot of hate. I have the eventual turn 3 Lotus Field/Discontinuity combo and he quickly plays Damping Sphere. Unfortunately, this also slowed him down which allowed me to naturally go to Turn 6 without much pressure on my life and eventually farewell the board.

SF – Derek Pite (Rakdos Midrange) 2-1
I was able to quickly see the mastery that Derek has with Rakdos. I win game 1 as usual against Rakdos by slowly getting card advantage while Derek is eventually stuck with dead removal in hand. Game 2 was very different, and when I lost, I was aware that Derek knew exactly how to attack my deck. He went for an early bankbuster and aggressively took down my life rather than trying to go for a grindy game. This is the only way to consistently beat me and he managed to go under me to beat me down very quickly with Bankbuster even after I boardwiped him. Game 3 was back and forth and I was once again getting my life chipped away aggressively by his creature and manlands. I had done an early foretell which was Behold the Multiverse but I believe Derek thought it was a Doomskar (since it is a playset in the 60), and so he was holding back his threats. By no means is this a misplay on Derek’s part as I did that intentionally myself to make it seem like I was waiting for him to commit to the board. I didn’t cast Behold from the Foretell for a while. Eventually, I was able to stabilize with luckily drawing 2x Dream Trawlers and 3x Discontinuities and finally casting Finale to secure the game.

Finals – Theo Jacques-Griffin 1-2

Spirits matchup once again that is heavily not in my favor. Theo was able to secure a 2-0 victory against Rakdos Sacrifice and I was already surprised since I know Rakdos Sacrifice is favored in that matchup. Unfortunately, I believe Liam flooded both games.

Off to my match, I am on the play but I wasn’t able to answer a T1 Wanderer into Obsession. G2, I bring in my bad but only counterspells in this matchup, Dovin’s Veto. I get an early Proctor to slow down the game and eventually push my spells to resolve with Veto back up while he is stuck on 3 lands. G3, he has T1 sailor into curious obsession and I am unable to come back from that strong start once again.

All in all, it was a great tournament and I could not be happier. This was a deck that I had begun experimenting right after the Pioneer RC last year, after not performing very well with traditional UW. I quickly found out that my winrate was absurdly high through my practice on MTGO and at my local LGS. I eventually tuned the list to what I was comfortable playing and had to keep this deck lowkey until I was able to play a Pioneer RC once again. However, most of my friends in my close MTG circle already knew my decklist but most of them were convinced that only I could win with this deck and that it wasn’t noob-friendly at all. My friends Richard, Sebastien and Alexandre were, however very confident that I would Top 8 once again and even pre-emptively called it before the RC as they understood the time and effort I put in making and mastering this deck.

I will now be preparing for Modern, which is my main format and I will likely be on Narset Day’s Undoing, with Blood Moon. I am continuing to tune my list but I showed a lot of promise after 5-0ing an RCQ in SCG Richmond. I was able to secure my invite for Dreamhack Atlanta which is something I wanted after realizing the Canadian RC PT invites were going to be halved after Cycle 4.

Tournament Report (Friday F2F Super Qualifier):

I lost every game 1 (except in the last match) and die roll this tournament but was able to secure my victories after side in all matches.

R1 – Greasefang (2-1)

Game 1, I get nastily T3 Greasefang/Parhelion and quickly lose the game. Game 2s and 3, he has a much slower start and I draw my Lanterns to slow him down into eventual Farewells.

R2 – Lotus Field (2-1)

Game 1, I knew this matchup was unwinnable and I eventually get combo’d out Turn 4 or Turn 5. I however, hid the fact that I was on Lotus Field myself and took advantage. Game 2, my opponent casts Sylvan Scrying on the draw to which I respond with a Narset’s Reversal. I get my Thespian’s Stage which eventually allows me to get the head start in mana and cast a Thought Distortion to wipe his hand. Game 3, I keep a hand with all the necessary counterspells and he eventually is unable to cast anything. I slowly get a card advantage engine going with Deluge and seal the game from there.

R3 – Gruul Vehicles (2-1)

I get vroom vroom by T2 Stormseeker and I do not have Doomskar in hand. I quickly lose that. Game 2 and 3, I quickly got the Lotus Field combo and consistently wiped the board to what was pretty much easier games compared to G1.

R4 – Greasefang (2-1)

I lose game 1 of course again to an eventual Parhelion. I wasn’t able to stall long enough to Farewell and lost before T5. Game 2, he keeps a slow hand and I stabilize very quickly with my mana ramp. G3, I drew back to back nuts, I saw all my Lanterns and RiP to secure the game decisively from the start.

R5 – Rakdos (2-1)

I win game 1 pretty decisively. I luckily get T4 Dream Trawler but lose game 2 to the quick beatdown with Bloodtithe Harvester. Game 3, I keep a 2 lander with one of them being Lotus Field. It was an incredibly risky keep but I had Strict Proctor, Teferi, Deluge and all that good stuff to win me the game if I drew a land off the top. I drew another land off the top and secured the game from there with my massive mana advantage.

I think the main disadvantage was that it was closed decklist so I often ended up losing game 1s with unoptimal hands. Though after side, I was able to consistently win these games.