I competed in the Winter Derby recently and finished in the top 16 with RUG Tempo.
I'm callling it RUG Tempo because instead of the normal 12 Bolt burn package, I'm playing some more creatures and instants like Scavenger Folk and Giant Growth to go with the three Counters. I dislike Chain Lightning, in Old School, especially in Swedish when there are fewer Orders to target. I find the Falling Star out of the sideboard to be plenty of anti-aggro to supplement the maindeck Lightning Bolts.
Things I liked about the deck:
Scavenger Folk - I think cutting a Shatter for the 3rd Folk is a no-brainer at this point.
Counterspell - A third Counterspell might be good enough to include. It helps against Bottle and is just a better card than Artifact Blast after sideboard.
Falling Star - This deck might actually want a third Star in the sideboard because of the lack of Chain Lightning. Its a bit awkward with only three Mox in the deck though.
Stone Rain / Ice Storm - Maybe should be two Ice Storm, but the different mana costs did come up. Both were solid.
Things I disliked:
Giant Growth - I'm not sure this card is worth it. You get some extra bluff equity, but I've only had it be great one time and below average every other time.
Shatter - In general its fine, but drawing two and having no targets is not ideal. Scavenger Folk much better.
Artifact Blast - two is too many for sure, but I still think one is worth playing
Sylvan Library - Nice to have, not worth a sideboard slot.
I also think this deck needs a Control Magic and a Tranquility in the sideboard. Playing a Fireball or Disintegrate might also be an option to make up for lack of reach from Chain Lightning without giving up the flexibility this version has. I've yet to seriously consider the black splash, but will probably give it a look when I play RUG again in the future. This deck would like an extra Mox and I don't think Fellwar does enough to be that substitute.
Batch One
Frantisek Vecernik - UWR Land Tax Serendib Djinn
Game one I mulligan to five. I Bolt his first Lion and play a Scavenger Folk. Turn three I have Timetwister and he Bolts the Folk so its about parity. I play two Kird Ape in the following turns to shut down his Factory and Lions. He has Land Tax but is flooding out. I hold off the ground with another Ape and swing with a Serendib Efreet in the air for enough turns to win. Game two he starts with Sol Ring. I play Factory, Lotus, and Serendib turn one. He plays Lions and Serendib Efreet turn two. I attack with my Dib on my turn two, he blocks with his. After combat, I play Factory Mox Ruby and Falling Star to clear his board. He's behind so he goes for the yolo Serendib Djinn. I decide to race with my Factory, Efreet, and Pixies but it is close. I end up winning the race at 5 life.
1-0
Nate Shue - UWR LDB
Game one I have turn one Library but he has turn two Serendib and turn three Serendib and I never find an answer to either. I try to race but he has Bolt and Psionic Blast to win. Game two he only draws Tundras and Factorys and my two Argothian Pixies do the full 20 damage I think. Game three I mulligan to five. He has turn one Library. I have turn one Library as well, but I'm two turns from activating it. I decide to go for it and do nothing for two turns. All he is doing is drawing off Library and developing mana so I'm not under significant pressure. After I get my Library going, I deploy a Kird Ape. He has Swords to Plowshares for my Serendib, but I have REB for his. Eventually he comes off Library to play multiple creatures, which I'm able to answer. He uses Braingeyser to get back into Library Range, but I haven't drawn additional threats besides the Ape, which at this point has him down to 10 life. He does find Mind Twist to empty my hand and turn off my Library. I get him down to 6 life with Factory and Ape beats. All he has is a Serendib for defense and is losing 1 life a turn. Despite his active Library, he can't find a way to stabilize and the bleeding is catching up to him. He goes for a desparation Wheel of Fortune, discarding two more Serendib and two Psionic Blast that were mostly dead due to his low life total. I find Psionic Blast off the Wheel to kill him.
2-0
Tim Atwood - Banding White Weenie
Game one I stop his ground assault with multiple Kird Ape, but flood out as he kills me with two Mesa Pegasus in the air. Game two I get a three for one with Falling Star and my Kird Ape beats get him low enough that I can burn him out after he finds City in a Bottle. Game three on the draw I keep a hand with Library, Falling Star, two Kird Ape, Lightning Bolt, Wheel of Fortune, and Psionic Blast. I think this hand is probably a mulligan, but decided to keep when he kept seven cards. His turn one is just Plains go. I draw with Library and discard Wheel, having found no other mana. He plays turn two White Knight. I activate Library again and only find Strip Mine. He plays Crusade and no other land. After taking three, I take a turn off of using Library to Strip his Plains and play a Sol Ring, still without any other mana. He doesn't have a follow up and attacks me down to 14. I find a Tropical Island off Library and Psionic Blast his White Knight. He has no plays. I find a Taiga and use Stone Rain on his only plains. All he can do is play Pendelhaven and pass. Eventually he has Factory and City in a Bottle for his turn. With my Library gone, I can only use Scavenger Folk to destroy the Bottle and play a Kird Ape. He plays a Pikemen, but I play Ape and Su-Chi. The next turn he has a White Knight. At this point though, I've found Time Walk and Falling Star to close the game out.
3-0
Frederic Plats - MonoBlack Underworld Dreams
Game one I have Kird Ape and Scavenger Folk. He has Lotus and Mind Twist for my hand. My next draws are Serendib and Factory, so I think I might be able win. He has Maze of Ith and Juzam to stop my beats, and a Dreams to finish me off. Game two I mulligan to five. I play land go for first two turns but don't have a third land. He has Underworld Dreams turn three, which I Mana Drain. I draw land for turn and can cast two Serendib off the Drain mana. He has a Maze to slow the beats and a Black Knight. I get in some attacks and he plays a Hypnotic Specter. I have Falling Star to clear his board and keep attacking. Eventually, I get him to 13 life and I'm at 11 myself from the Seredibs. He has two Factory that haven't been able to attack because of the Seredib that gets untapped by Maze. So when I attack him, he declines to use Maze putting him at 7. On his turn he attacks with both Factories to put me to 7, and then goes for Time Walk. Unfortunately for him, he had to tap City of Brass to do this and I had two Lightning Bolt in hand. Game three I have turn one Pixies, but he has turn two Juzam. I attack into it, but he does not block. His turn he has Strip Mine for my Tropical, my only blue source. I decide I need to use my Psionic Blast now, and target him. This leaves us both at 13 life after he attacks. He plays Black Knight as follow up. I play a Chaos Orb but don't have the mana to activate. He Drain Life the Pixies for one and attacks for 7, putting me me to 6. I use Orb on the Juzam and pass. He attacks with Black Knight and Factory, but I Bolt the Factory. I'm at 4. I draw and play Kird Ape. He attacks with Knight and Factory again, I block Factory. Now I'm at 2 and he only has two Badlands plus Black Knight. I still have only Red and Green mana, and only three mana at that. I Falling Star his Knight and attack him to 11. He has no play. I draw Factory and play Su-Chi, attack him to 9. He draws Underground and plays Dreams. I go to 1 in my draw step but find another Factory so I can attack him for exactly 9 the turn before I die.
4-0
Batch Two
Sam Black - TaxTowerLibrary
Game one he chooses to draw. I mulligan two hands with mostly burn spells into a five card hand of Emerald, Library of Alexandria, Scavenger Folk, Volcanic, Tropical, putting Strip Mine and Taiga on the bottom. I play Emerald and Folk turn one. He plays Library turn one and I regret putting Strip on the bottom. Maybe I should have just waited to get my Library going before playing my Scavenger Folk? The rest of the game goes fairly to his plan. Eventually I try to set up a turn where I can Time Walk and play multiple creatures and hope to draw Regrowth, but he has Power Sink for the Time Walk. Game two I choose to draw. He has turn one Fellwar, but my turn one is Scavenger Folk and Kird Ape. He Chaos Orb the Folk, but my next turns are two Serendib Efreets. He has Drop of Honey, but I have Time Walk to win the race. Game three I'm on the play and start with turn one Pixies. He has turn one Tax. We play draw go for a few turns while Pixies gets in for 6. He plays Ivory Tower and I Mana Drain, but he has Counterspell. I plan on playing Timetwister, but I draw Serendib for the turn and play it instead. He then Mind Twist my three cards away. I still have 5 power of attack against his TaxTower, and I draw another Pixies to add to the clock. He has Serendib Djinn and the REB in my graveyard is mocking me. I do draw Wheel of Fortune, but only draw a bunch of Su-Chi and Counterspell and die to the Djinn in four turns.
4-1
Aaron Patten - The Library - video here
Game one I mulligan to six and he has Mind Twist for four turn one. I'm left with a land and Timetwister so I keep playing, btu he has three Factories and I never draw the mana for Twister. Game two I have turn one Sol Ring and Black Lotus. I don't have a threat though. He has turn one Demonic Tutor. WE play draw go for a while, but eventually I put Ape and Pixies into play. He goes for Ancestral Recall finally, but I've had Counterspell up the whole game. I have a lot of options but when he gets to 12 life I'm able to Psionic Blast, attack for 4, and Regrowth the Blast for the win. Game three he has turn one Ivory Tower, but I have turn one Library. I don't have other lands so I get aggressive, discarding to hand size a Wheel of Fortune. I do find Ruby and Factory and get a Kird Ape into play. When he gets to four mana he casts The AByss, but we didn't catch that the Fellwar Stone didn't tap for any mana. We back up, but I'm forced to play a colored land the next turn anyway to try to Shatter the Ivory Tower. He Counterspell and then resolves Abyss. I have Factory and my Library still drawing cards so I keep playing for long game. He doesn't have any follow up threats and I Regrowth Shatter to take out Tower. Eventually I find Strip Mine, which along with a Shatter on his Fellwar cuts of his white mana. This lets me attack with Factories and meanwhile I draw three Psionic Blast. I manage all this with UU open for Counterspell and he doesn't find white mana soon enough before I burn him out.
5-1
Dan Cowling - MonoGreen splashing White
Game one we trade Strip Mines and Scavenger Folk on some Factories. I have a Serendib to hold off his Dragonfly and Pixies, but I can't afford to attack. I eventually draw Ancestral and Regrowth to get ahead on cards and use two Psionic Blast to kick start the race. He has to chump with some of his flyers and I have Counterspell, Giant Growth, and a Lightning Bolt to ensure I win the race. Game two he has turn two City in a Bottle and Swords to Plowshares for my Scavenger Folk. I have three Lightning Bolt for his early creatures though. Once again, I find Ancestral Recall and Regrowth leading to two Su-Chi. He has Maze and Scavenger Folk, so I'm not doing any damage. Eventually I get my own Pixies to also get around his Factory and chip in for two damage. I draw a bunch of Arabian cards at this point. He is drawing only land for a while. He draws some 1/1s to go with Pendelhaven to stop my Pixies beatdown. After he plays a few more, I use Falling Star to take out three of them. I still only have him down to 7 life and no real end in sight. I draw Braingeyser to dig six card deep and discard my dead Arabian cards. A Time Walk and a Lightning Bolt let me win the game.
6-1
Michael Simpson - RUG Atog 12 Bolt
Game one I have Ancestral into Library of Alexandria. I also manage to Mana Drain one of his Atogs. I get him down to 14 with two Kird Ape before he plays some stabilizing creatures, but my hand is now two Bolts and two Psionic Blast and I burn him out. Game two he has turn one Vise. I have Sapphire and City of Brass to hold up Mana Drain, but he has no follow up play. I take 2 from the Vise for a few turns before getting down a Scavenger Folk, which gets Bolted. I manage to Mana Drain a Pixies on his turn and deploy a Su-Chi on mine. He has Atog which trades with Su-Chi along with Vise and Factory, plus my Bolt. I get some damage in with my Factories, finally catching up. He has Demonic Tutor and passes, so I use Regrowth on my Mana Drain and play an Ape. He tries to bait the Drain with BEB on the Ape, but I let it resolve and continue to beat down with Factories. He rips Mind Twist to take out the Drain and then resolve Ancestral, but mostly bricks. I topdeck Psionic Blast to finish him off when he's forced to Psionic Blast an attacking Factory.
7-1
I finished the batches in 6th seed.
Top 16
Nicolas Imwinkelried - DiscoTroll
This matchup looked to be extremely bad for me. He has three maindeck Control Magic and three maindeck Maze of Ith, along with the standard Disks and Trolls. His sideboard also includes two City in a Bottle and two Terror. I decide I'm going to have to get lucky to win. My sideboard plan will be mostly artifact removal and the land destruction package, hoping to keep him from getting to four mana. Game one I have Kird Ape into Pixies, but he has turn one Library and a Bolt for the Pixies. I don't draw the third land I need for Serendib even after cycling a Time Walk. He has a Troll to stop my Kird Ape attacks. I finally draw third land for Serendib, but now he has mana for Control Magic and regeneration. I do draw Black Lotus so I can double Bolt him down to 8 life and Wheel of Fortune. I don't draw much gas off Wheel, just a Bolt and Giant Growth to go with some extra Mox. He attacks me to 14 and plays a disk. I attack back, using Bolt to clear his Factory. He's now at 4 life from the Serendib and attacks me to 8. I draw Timetwister but he has Mana Drain. However, he's forced to use Disk without regeneration because of my Giant Growth. With the board clear, I topdeck a Kird Ape, but he has Braingeyser and Time Walk and deploys a Factory and a Troll which finish me off after a Fireball. Game two I mulligan to six and keep Ruby Sol Ring Ancestral Factory Artifact Blast and Blue Elemental Blast, bottoming a Taiga. I draw Kird Ape and Pixies for first few draws, and think I probably should have put the Sol Ring on the bottom. I never find blue mana though, and he plays two Trolls which kill me in short order.
I really enjoy playing in the Derby because the metagame seems more defined and competitive. I'm looking forward to the next one.
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