Goblins in the MTG Arena Open

In my last article about Historic and the various tribal decks, I mentioned that I didn't think Goblins had the tools needed to actually win games. Well, Muxus, Goblin Grandee was the card they were missing. With the release of Jumpstart on Arena, Muxus Goblin decks have been everywhere in Historic. 

I picked it up and immediately got the last 8 wins in a row to make Mythic. It wasn't just the high win rate or turn 3 and turn 4 kills. The real kicker for me was seeing the games that Muxus would win out of nowhere that no other card was capable of. Sure, you need to roll high on your top six cards to win them, but he gives you the chance. The fail rate of occasionally having a bad Muxus was more than compensated for by the times you killed them from 30 life and a dozen Zombie tokens.

I never really though I would play anything other than Goblins for the Arena Open, since even the decks going all out to beat Goblins could still lose to a turn 3 Muxus. I mostly worked on this list with Will Lowry and Jose Pineda, with some input from Drew Iafrate early on and Collin Rountree at the end of the process.

The Deck

Most Goblin decks are going to have a few things in common. 4 Prospector, Wily Goblin, and Goblin Instigator to enable the early Muxus, 4 Muxus for the payoff, and 4 Goblin Chieftain as the best way to kill immediately when Muxus resolves. 

One card that surprised me early on and continued to impress until I played all 4 was Krenko Mob Boss. The real combo of the deck is Chieftain plus Krenko. Muxus is just the best way to cast those two cards at the same time. The interaction between Conspicious Snoop and Krenko lets you win some otherwise unwinnable games, and enables turn 3 and turn 4 kills without Muxus. Maximizing Goblin Warchief to make sure Krenko has haste was the next logical step. 

I always wanted at least 24 lands. You win a lot of games by casting Muxus for the full price after your first wave or early Muxus is answered. When you have 5 lands in play and a Muxus in hand, land is by far the best possible drawstep. Phyrexian Tower lets you play Muxus a full turn earlier without Prospector or Warchief, and the curve of Warchief into Tower lets you cast Muxus turn 4 without any other cards. Because you can announce Muxus for 3RR with Warchief in play and sacrifice Warchief to Tower to pay for Muxus, the cost reduction is already "locked in". This is an important interaction to remember. 

The last spot was 4 Goblin Matron. This card lets you set up Muxus on turn 4 by either fetching the Grandee himself, or fetching a Prospector to act as a Ritual. Additionally, when you resolve Muxus and have a board full of goblins, Matron can go fetch another Muxus or a Krenko to make sure you have enough to actually kill the opponent. Being able to tutor for specific sideboard cards like Goblin Cratermaker, Goblin Trashmaster, Gempalm Incinerator, or Gobln Chainwhirler was not that relevant but occasionally came up.

Here is the final maindeck I settled on:

4 Skirk Prospector

4 Goblin Instigator

4 Wily Goblin

4 Conspicuous Snoop

4 Goblin Warchief

4 Goblin Matron

4 Goblin Chieftain

4 Krenko, Mob Boss

4 Muxus, Goblin Grandee

2 Phyrexian Tower

2 Castle Embereth

20 Mountain

The real story is in the cards I chose not to play. Fanatical Firebrand was nice to have as another one drop, but only actually good in the mirror as a way to kill Skirk Prospector. Goblin Chainwhirler was also nice to have in spots, but the metagame being hateful to goblins meant there weren't a lot of non-goblin decks you actually wanted it against. Goblin Ringleader was nice to refill your hand if they had an answer to the first Muxus, but was too clunky to cast. Maindeck Gempalm Incinerator was a consideration, but the card you most wanted to kill was Hushbringer and you can't use Matron to tutor up Incinerator with it in play. Siege Gang Commander almost made the cut as a one of, since sometimes you can search it up or hit it off Muxus and kill the opponent even if they have a Magmaquake on your turn, but it didn't come up enough in testing to be better than the next best card (probably an Instigator or a Matron.)

The Metagame

Matchups against sorcery speed sweepers in control decks and general midrange decks felt almost unloseable. Quickly the metagame shifted away from those decks to decks that can actually beat goblins. Here are some matchups and how I saw them going into the weekend:

Temur Rec (With or Without Field)

I don't think Field of the Dead does much to help the matchup against you. It's already a bad matchup for Goblins thanks to instant speed sweepers like Magmaquake and Flame Sweep. I'll discuss ways we tried to beat this deck later, but this was the big concern going into the event.

Mono Blue Flash / Tempo / UW Fliers

Counterspells are very good against Muxus. Here, the Goblin deck can win by playing first and getting enough pressure to force the issue, or by hitting Krenko of a Snoop and putting the game away early. It gets a lot better after sideboard for Goblins with Gempalm Incinerator and other cards, so it was mainly a best of one concern.

Mono Black Devotion

I don't think this deck is good, but Massacre Wurm can give you trouble if you don't remember to hold full control with Prospector in play. If Arena would actually give you priority in response, I doubt this deck would have the results that it does.

Mono Red Burn / Red Deck Wins

If you can hit land drops and resolve a Muxus and they don't have Ferocidon, you should be able to win. Your best draws are still easily disruptable and they have a fast enough clock that it turns out to be about 50/50 if they are playing correctly.

Jund / Rakdos Sacrifice

For a while, this was crushing me but eventually moved to the 4 Krenko plan and just tried to be more aggressive and less controlling and it got much better. I'd say its favorable, but it's going to depend on their sideboard choices.

Grayeyard Combo (Kethis and Breach)

Strictly a race, though sometimes they draw a one-of Urza's Ruinous Blast or something. 

Mono White Auras

Probably the worst matchup game one since Hushbringer is so strong, but you can still win with Snoop / Krenko / Chieftain shenanigans if their clock isn't fast enough.

UW Control / Bant Field of the Dead / Other Controlish types

Very favorable game one. Could be tough after sideboard but they are slow clock. Sometimes when the first two Muxus don't get the job done, the third or fourth does.

How to beat Temur Reclamation

We tried a lot of options, but the best success was with Chance for Glory and Chandra Awakened Inferno. 

Chance for Glory was good if they didn't know about it and you cast it in response to a sweeper on your turn (or when they tapped out in your end step for something and you think you can kill them). The card obviously requires some mana commitments, but with 8 dual lands and 4 Wily Goblin, it was castable when we needed it. My first run on day one actually played 2 Chance main but I didn't play against nearly enough Temur on day one to warrant it. I moved to the mono red version for the other two runs with goblins.

Chanda Awakened Inferno was only okay against Temur, but way better against the various Blue Flash decks and against control decks. Aether Gust isn't the best card agaisnt Muxus so many decks were playing Essence Scatter or Tale's End, which does nothing to stop Chandra. I even used here -X ability to exile an Uro from play and then win over the next few turns with emblem damage. 

Day one:

My first run I used RW Goblins with Chance for Glory. I went 4-3 with losses to decks that Chance wasn't good against. For the next two runs, I was on the list I shared above. Both went 4-3 as well. The amount of White Auras I was facing was too high, so I decided to switch to something else to try to make day two.

Accidentally played both Chainwhirler and Ferocidon in my burn list after switching off goblins from first 3 runs. Obviously get to 7 wins with it. #MTGArenaOpen pic.twitter.com/Lw0ac5xGgE

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) August 1, 2020

I got there with RDW that played both Chainwhirler and Ferocidon. I don't think it was actually a good plan and mainly did it by mistake, but whatever works.

Day two:

For day 2, I decided to play mono red Goblins with Chandra in the sideboard and no Chance for Glory. I also moved an Incinerator main to maybe help against all the white aura decks I saw. I started off 2-0 against White Auras, but then lost to Red Deck Wins when I was missing land drops in a close game one and game three. My final loss was against another White Auras deck when I mulligan to 5 game one and never had a chance against all his hate in game two.

2-2 today with goblins in day 2 of the #MTGArenaOpen. Beat MonoWhite Auras twice before losing to RDW and MonoWhiteAuras. I'll have a blog writeup with my thoughts on goblins later this week. pic.twitter.com/FZD2JqzjcR

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) August 2, 2020

I like the cards and sideboard choices I made, but maybe the metagame was too harsh to actually play Goblins. 

Thoughts on the Open in General

I think best of one is fine, but not great. The metagame for day two was much different than the metagame for the best of three ladder since most people (especially the white auras players) were running back the same deck. I still felt favored against the one-trick pony best of one decks, but you only get one shot day two. I really enjoyed preparing for the tournament, and had a good time playing in the event though. I would like to see one of these every month or so.

I'd have some thoughts on Historic, but they announced a bunch of bannings today including Wilderness Reclamation. I still think both Field of the Dead and Muxus need to be banned as well, but it is a start. I'm glad they are planning on reacting fast with everyone playing digitally these days. It might keep me playing MTG instead of playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds again.

Thanks,
Ty

MobstercoM

On Saturday, I played in the Old School MobstercoM event put on by Bryan Manolakos. Last year they did team unified constructed, but with the move to doing events online, team events weren't going to work logistically. I had hoped to maybe attend with some other Falling Stars, but now that it was online I was for sure going to play. 

The format still required some creative deckbuilding. Participants had to build three Swedish legal decks that met unified construction requirements. You would play your decks randomly against your opponents corresponding list, no sideboards. Best of three. Also, you can play as many Savannah as you want in any deck. Even though Mano usually runs Atlantic rules for events, Swedish made sense. Last time, almost every team played a mono-black deck with 4x Hymn to Tourach as one of the three builds. That would certainly be the case again, so the Swedish rules were chosen to exclude Fallen Empires. However, the event still used EC/Atlantic reprint policy and damage on the stack, so maybe it would have been less confusing to just say "Atlantic Rules with no Fallen Empires". That may have saved me some trouble in round 3...

Brewing

I did most of my brewing with fellow Falling Star Simon Christie (aka mtgmisprint). There was concern about how many dead cards you could afford in your decks, since you didn't have opportunity to sideboard them out. If you were to find a way to play all creatureless decks, you could blank all the creature removal across all of your opponents lineup. Simon decided to take this route and build three different creatureless control decks. I kept this principal in mind when selecting my lists, making sure to minimize the amount of potential dead cards against creatureless decks in my lists that weren't also creatureless. By having at least one creatureless deck in the lineup, I'd hope to have an advantage against slower decks. The other decks I used generic answers like direct damage and Icy Manipulator to support a land destruction plan.

My Decks

Deck A (A is for Atog) is pretty standard powered Atog list. I moved the black power cards to deck C, but this may have been a mistake. Demonic Tutor isn't very good without stuff like Ancestral and Time Walk to fetch, and Mind Twist much better with fast mana like Mox and Sol Ring and Lotus. Shatter were the narrowest cards I played in any deck, and I wasn't impressed. Overall though, the deck was a machine and definitely lived up to it's reputation as the best deck in Old School (according to me).

Deck B (B is for Bant) is Land Tax / Ivory Tower control deck. Perhaps the Sylvan Library was unnecessary, but I'm a big fan of it with Ivory Tower. Sylvan could have helped the GB deck in the card advantage department. Millstone as the kill is very good with Sylvan though, letting you dig deeper when you are looking for key end game cards. I likely should have played more cards like Moat and Wrath of God and maybe fewer Swords to Plowshares.

Deck C (C is for Crap) is a BG Land Destruction deck. I recently acquired Sinkholes and wanted to put them to use, along with the Ice Storms I never play. I'm a big fan of decks with 8 elves from Standard and Modern, so I wanted to use some of the same philosophies here. It would be pretty easy to splash a third color if you wanted to, but I had everything I needed already so I didn't get greedy. The Triskelion was nice as a tutor target, and the Arena wasn't actually legal (oops!) so maybe it should have been the second Trike.

I'll do my best to recollect the individual records of decks. I wasn't keeping detailed notes since I was also playing the MTG Arena Open in between rounds (insert link to future blog post here).

A 5-1

B 4-2

C 3-2*

*would be 4-1 if the Arena game counted

The Games

R1 - David Craig - CAB

David is probably my favorite person I've met from playing Old School. We met at the Battle for the Alamo back in February, and have played several times on webcam since. It's good to start against a familiar face. My C deck mulligan and then he had turn one Library of Alexandria. Despite 8 LD spells in the deck, I didn't draw one soon enough and lost to the card advantage. My deck A had an extremely powerful draw and killed him with multiple Black Vice and Ankh thanks to getting to play first. Game three with the B decks was a grind. I countered his early Mirror Universe, but he was on some time of Enchantress combo. I get out Millstone and try to work on ending the game. He casts Timetwister, which I counter. I counter the Regrowth for Timetwister. I counter a Feldon's Cane. Eventually I've used all my countermagic trying to stop his Timetwister and I can't find a Recall to get them back. He gets another Recall and resolves the Twister. Post Twister, I have to be careful until I can find all my countermagic again, but I'm able to use Swords to Plowshares on Force of Nature and Yavimaya Enchantress to prevent dying. Eventually Sylvan plus Millstone finds me the goods and I lock up the game. I had to play super fast first thing in the morning. We both needed more caffeine after the match.

1-0

R2 - Sammy Haghour - BCA

Game one I get to Land Tax quite a bit, but I'm not drawing any action spells. I resolve a Braingeyser but I'm at 2 life facing a Serra Angel. I brick again and use Recall to get back Braingeyser and an STP for the Angel. He has a follow up Angel that he had been holding after seeing me discard a Wrath of God earlier. I don't draw an answer and have to decide between casting Braingeyser for 5 and hoping to draw an STP or to use the Balance in my hand and discard down to 2 cards (counterspell and geyser) as well as sacrificing about 4 lands. I decide to play it safe and Balance. He chooses to use his own Swords to Plowshares on his Angel to force me to discard down to one card, but I use Counterspell on my own Balance to avoid that fate and win easily with Braingeyser and a full grip. Game two we both play Bayous. I have Icy and Royal for a Fungalsaur but he Crumbles the Icy. I get out an Erhnam and some mana Elves. He has a Whirling Dervish and an Erhnam. I use a Sinkhole and Ice Storm on his black mana. Eventually I attack with Erhnam which he blocks with his own. This lets me use Triskelion to kill his Djinn and Dervish. He finally draws second black for Pestilence, which is threatening to kill most of my team. I start being aggressive towards his life total. He kills my Ernie with a Terror I think and I lose the rest of my team to Pestilence. I decide I can afford to keep Pestilence in play because he is at two life and play another elf. He plays an Ernie and now I'm in trouble. I have to continue to Icy his Icy, but at any moment that could be over. He has Sylvan and finding what he needs. He gives my Elf forestwalk and attacks with Ernie leaving back Bayou and Factory. I tap his Icy at end of turn, and draw Pendelhaven. I immediately play it and he learns that you can't respond to land drops. I attack with the elf which puts him to 1 life and he can't activate Pestilence anymore and has to give my elf forestwalk again which kills him.

2-0

R3 - Andy Baquero - BAC

His B deck has a bunch of Savannah in a WW shell with Sylvan and Giant Growth. I try to Land Tax and Tower, but it's not enough. I Mana Drain something, but then don't use my mana correctly and take mana burn and die. I have turn 1 Library of Alexandria in game two and it helps me win even through a Nevinyrral's Disk for 7 of my permanents. Game 3 is super epic. I have early Erhnam and Sengir, but he has Rukh Egg and Ali from Cairo. He's stalling with Maze of Ith and eventually casts Lightning Bolt on his egg to get a Rukh. I draw some LD spells for the Maze and start racing, but he has a second Ali. I draw Arena which lets me start fighting his Ali or he can choose to lose his Rukh to my Djinn. Eventually he tries to Fireball my Sengir and I use Arena in response, forcing him to trade with the Rukh. Arena picks of the last Ali and I win the game.... 

....except Arena isn't legal in Swedish! Oops! We decide to give him the win and I'm forced to play Arena as a Savannah the rest of the event. I wasn't the only one confused on some of the rules. There was early confusion about if mana burn was in effect, as well as another player playing Rainbow Vale (I had Vale in my early Land Tax builds but realized it wasn't legal early on. Didn't help me figure out the Arena problem though.)

2-1

R4 - Øyvin Skattum Vesteng - ACB

I don't remember much about our game one. I think I killed with multiple Serendibs and his Juzam wasn't fast enough for my burn. Game two was much more interesting. I mulligan to five and play turn one elf. He uses Swords on the elf and then casts Winds of Change, hoping to screw me further. I play some more land and eventually an Erhnam. He has Land Tax and uses Strip Mine on himself to turn it on. I'm trying to kill him as fast as possible, but take a turn off to use Ice Storm on a Plateau to maybe cut him off of red mana and prevent Land's Edge. He has Mountain and Land's Edge anyway. On the last turn I attack him down to 2 life but don't have a land to kill him. I use Sinkhole on my own City of Brass to prevent him from using Tax one last time. He ends up with 14 points of damage with Lands Edge, but I'm at 15 life because of the Swords to Plowshares on turn one. Truly an epic finish.

3-1

R5 - Jeff Dehnhardt - CBA

Game one he plays the first Erhnam, but that means mine gets to do damage first. Icy and Ernie and Segnir race his lonely Djinn and I win. Game two he has Counterspell for my turn two Sylvan and then some Merfolk of the Pearl Trident. I'm Land Taxing but I can't find a way to stop the beats after he Spell Blasts my Ivory Tower. Eventually he has two Lord of Atlantis and I draw more lands and lose. Game three I keep an iffy hand that was Mox Emerald, Time Walk, Volcanic, Volcanic, Mountain, Shatter, Black Vice. I draw a bunch of mana and I'm never really in the game. I think I'm supposed to mulligan hands like this. The deck is too good to lose this way.

3-2

R6 - Dakota Martinez - BAC

His B deck is RG beats. I take a bunch from a Berserk Giant Growth Scryb Sprite before casting Wrath of God. I'm at 5 life but I Strip Mine his only Mountain and we play draw go for a while. I eventually find a Tower and he is on a short clock. I have removal for his fatties like Juggernaut and Erhnam but I'm still wary of being burned out. Eventually I get a second Tower and some more cards in hand and lock up the game with some Counterspells. My Atog deck puts enough pressure on him with Serendibs early and then I finish him with some Lightning Bolts.

4-2

R7 - Thomas Sutherland Borja - ABC

I have turn 1 Library of Alexandria and start using Lightning Bolt on his Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise. After four turns, he casts Armageddon hoping to stop the Library. I'm too far ahead and I'm able to deploy more lands afterwards while he has none. Game two he's able to use Dark Ritual to play Sengir and Juzam while stopping me from using Land Tax. I use Balance to clear the board, but he has Hypnotic Specter. I get to Tax once, and I'm trying to find an answer to Hyppie. Specter hits me twice discarding a Wrath of God and Tropical Island, but I still have enough mana left to Recall for Balance and we're in topdeck mode. I get a Tower out and start building up my hand. Eventually I'm at over 50 life with multiple towers and a Sylvan Library. He has a few Nevinyrral's Disks, but I have the Disenchant each time. Eventually I use Millstone to win the game.

5-2

Aftermath

I finished in 15th place, the worst of all the 15 point players. Simon also finished 5-2 and got 10th place. 

Overall I had a great time playing the event. Webcam Magic isn't ideal, but I still felt drained by the end of the day (double queuing the Arena Open probably helped). I got to meet a lot of new people, but it was mainly my opponents. I didn't get to meet the people at the event that I didn't play against like I would have at a real life event. I did enjoy playing everything in one day and not over several weeks like some other events going on. The event was very well run and the concept was a huge success. I think both Simon and I did well by understanding the strength of creatureless strategies in a no sideboard environment. I learned some more about building Old School decks and got to pick up some cool versions of cards in preparation to add to my collection.

Props:

Mano for putting this on

The rest of the people that helped Mano do this, read his stuff or listen to his podcast All Tings Considered to find out more

All my opponents, especially those that let me Millstone them. I tried to play as fast as possible

Arena (the card) for being awesome!

Slops

Me for not mulliganing in round 5

Arena (the card) for not being legal in Swedish. Why? Its so awesome! I'll keep playing it when I can.

Savannah - you really didn't impress even when people could play 20. Be better.

Tribal Aggro in Historic

Today, Wizards of the Coast announced the next Arena Open will be using the Historic format:

On August 1st we're holding the next Arena Open, and the format is..... Historic! Bring your best Historic deck and compete for some sweet rewards (like $2,000). pic.twitter.com/xFyhOKURGU

— MTG Arena (@MTG_Arena) July 9, 2020

I've actually spent the last few weeks playing a bunch of Historic, so this is exciting to me. I always love a good tribal deck, and I've played many different tribes over the years, most recently Elves and Merfolk. In my past, I've played Spirits and first got my start playing Goblins back in Onslaught block. I want to give a quick overview of the various tribal aggro decks I've tried or played against.

Merfolk

This is my latest iteration, but by no means perfect. I tried an 80 card Yorion version when companions were still original power level, but 80 card aggro is not the place to be. I think the core is Speaker, Biomancer, Mistbinder, Reejerey, Trickster, and Adept. I'm not sure about the rest. Deeproot Elite has been very good, but is probably worse the better the opponents decks are. You can combo off with Kumena and Reejerey, but I'm not sure how many you actually want to play. The real issue is the mana. There are a lot of cards you would like to play like countermagic and my MVP from standard Sleep, but 4 Ziggurat and 4 Territory make casting non-creatures difficult. I've seen versions with 4 Mist-Cloaked Herald, which is probably pretty great with Deeproot Elite, but I never liked it in Standard. Watertrap Weaver has been overperforming.

Vampires

This has been my strongest Historic deck. When I first put it together, I won my first 15 matches or so. I've cooled off since then, and it's definitely not the best deck in the format. It struggles against Gruul, but was surprisingly good vs UG Nexus. Silversmote Ghoul is the real deal with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. The removal options are unexciting despite how many you have, I haven't found one that I want to play in the main deck. There isn't a good answer to Embercleave and a lot of the plan against Gruul was to block, so that is why it's been unfavorable. I recently added the last 4 one-drops in Skymarch Aspirant to be a bit more aggressive, but I've yet to achieve city's blessing. Legion Landing would be nice, but once again the mana issue comes up. Playing enough non-Territory white sources to support really cuts into the black and will lower consistency overall.

Humans

I haven't actually played any games with Humans, but I've seen some lists that had success and I've played against it a few times. I'm skeptical about the amount of lords, so I put the Icon in this 3 color only version. Playing Red for Judith is probably better than Icon. I think also lacking on interaction. Deputy of Detention is widely played, but it's not a human. I guess that doesn't matter for Judith. I've no idea if Whisper Squad is playable. I do think Hero of Precinct One has potential in some builds. 

Goblins

I've only played against Goblins and I've beaten it every time. Conspicuous Snoop is good and Chainwhirler still dominates some matchups, but the rest of the deck looked real bad. I'm not sure what your top end is supposed to look like. Ringleader and Matron are to costly without Vial to cheat them in. No Piledriver or cheap lord or similar card makes it hard to actually kill with a swarm. Maybe Icon of Ancestry is the answer? I don't have a list to share, just wanted to express my skepticism.

Elves

I don't think you can play this with only 4 Llanowar Elves. Pelt Collector just isn't the same, you end up being a worse version of Gruul. Imperious Perfect is a card you get that Pioneer version doesn't have, but overall you are down too many cards to keep up with the high powered tier one Historic decks.

Soldiers / Knights

I don't know if there are enough payoffs in either tribe, but there are a lot of cards with these types. Maybe someone else can come up with something good, but I think they usually are better off focusing on Humans. 

Other Tribes

Cats and Dogs get a push with M21, but I don't think there are enough cards existing yet. Maybe by this time next year. Dinosaurs can't really compete with the stronger Gruul cards from Eldraine. 

That's all I have for now. I'm excited about the Arena Open, and I'm going to keep working on Historic until then. 

-Ty

Jeskai Planeswalkers at Players Tour Online

This past weekend I played in the online Players Tour on MTG Arena. I went 1-5 before dropping. This was a strange event for many reasons, and I'm glad to be done with it. There isn't any more professional level Magic on my schedule for the year, and it remains to be seen what it will look like next year.

Preparation

Because this tournament was Standard only, preparation was a lot more focused than usual. As soon as the banning and companion rule change were announced, the team started working. Unfortunately, there was a four day lag on Arena before they went into effect. Normally, you would want to try out the various brews on ladder before subjecting teammates to playing against them with gauntlet decks. For the first few days it was hard to know what to even do.

The first thing we tested were variations on Yorion decks like Bant and Jeskai. Eventually it was determined that Yorion was not worth the loss of consistency. The UWx mirrors were all about Teferi and Elspeth Conquer's Death, so playing 80 cards meant you had these cards far less frequently. Bant had a big edge over other UWx decks because of Growth Spiral and Uro, so it was the main front runner for midrange/control.

The Temur Reclamation deck was obviously very strong, and a lot of time was spent trying to find decks with good plans to beat it. Jund Sacrifice was very strong against every deck we played except Temur Reclamation. Eventually the Cavalcade Red deck was published and we thought that might be the way to beat Temur, but it was weak to prepared sideboards and also very weak against Mayhem Devil.

At this point I expected a Rock/Paper/Scissors meta-game of Temur > Jund > Red > Temur, with various UWx decks being 45%-55% vs everything. I found that against Temur with Bant, I'd be able to establish a Teferi and Narset lock, but struggled wining the game before they could break out of it. Shark Typhoon was the key card in the match-up for both sides, and there didn't seem to be a good way to trump the other.

I tried Sarkhan the Masterless as a thought to take advantage of the planewalkers that were effectively just sitting around on the battlefield. I had some success initially closing out games way faster and sometimes out of nowhere. The Royal Scions and Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis pumping power provided extra boost at killing fast. 

I originally had main deck Tithe Taker with Legion Warboss to help pressure against Temur. Eventually I realized how strong Gideon Blackblade was with Shatter the Sky as well as getting around Teferi and Mystical Dispute. It was an additional target for the increasingly impressive Royal Scions. The deck was still skewed towards late game plans with a small fish plan with Tithe Taker, but it was inconsistent at applying early pressure. The idea is to get a creature in play to pressure the opponent which lets you resolve planeswalkers without losing tempo and then kill them with Sarkhan when the shields are down. Against aggro, the plan was to play creature or Birth of Meletis to protect your planeswalkers and use sweepers to clear the board. I had good Red matchup, and a reasonable Jund matchup after sideboard.

About midweek the results of LCQs showed that Sultai was on the rise. In the games I played against the deck I didn't feel like I could ever win. Casualties of War was too strong and undoing all the board presence, and the land destruction was actually devastating. Because I didn't have Growth Spiral or Uro, I had to play 27 land and hope to draw the right amount. This generally wasn't a problem if I could get to 5 mana, but Casualties a turn or two early would be more than enough to stunt my development. 

The night before decklists were due, I was about to switch to Jund Sacrifice. I had worked out a sideboard and plan with Collin Rountree that I liked. He played it and ended up going 4-5, losing the last round to not make day 2. After getting the Jund plan together, I went back into the lab with Will Lowry to give one last look at Jeskai. We came up with this:

I'm probably the only one playing a lot of these cards in the #mtg RPT tomorrow. Here's what I registered: pic.twitter.com/oP7g8F9unt

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) June 13, 2020

I wanted to try Sprite Dragon, and Will came up with Ajani's Pridemate to combo with Gideon and Interplanar Beacon. Now the deck had a more aggressive plan that didn't require sacrificing much lategame power. It did require some manabase concessions, but with 27 lands you can get the numbers right pretty easily. Some of the more controlling cards like Birth of Meletis and extra sweepers had to be cut, but you can make up for them with the power of the new two drops.

I knew some cards would be tough to beat. Storm's Wrath was scary, as was Questing Beast. But most scary was Nissa, especially coming out a turn or two earlier than normal.

Standard

Standard isn't good right now. I had a lot of fun playing on ladder while working on the event, but the metagame of the best of the best was not fun. Growth Spiral and Uro make the early game completely irrelevant. Everyone is playing a ramp deck, but instead of actual ramp strategies they have combo kills. The cycling triomes are the best lands you can play, and since you have to play Spiral and Uro, you can only play Temur or Sultai, or mono colored deck. 

The Jeskai deck was starting from a disadvantage against the field by not playing Spiral and Uro. It tries to make up for that with the strong two-drop plan, but can't afford to aggressively mulligan for them. The cards still line up well enough against Temur that I felt confident in that matchup, but I was still worried about Sultai.

The Tournament

I wasn't looking forward to playing the event on Arena. I'm not a big fan of playing high stakes event online. For whatever reason I can't get myself in the same head space to focus like it really matters. Also the lack of in-client tournament support was worrisome. 

I didn't have any technical issues, but I kept seeing stories from people who did. For the most part, the CFB process was reasonable, but there was no good way to back things up when something went wrong. As nice as it is to prevent cheating and provide equal time allotment with chess clocks, the percentage of the time errors occur is still too high from my estimation. 

Posting my notes from the matches below.

R1 - Sultai - 3x Nissa

I win game one with some solid tempo. Game two he has turn four Nissa on the play and I can't protect my planeswalkers. Game three I keep three spells four lands and then draw six land in a row .

0-1

R2 - Sultai - 2x Nissa

Game one I lose to Spiral into Casualties twice. Game two I never find a third land.
0-2

R3 - UG Mutate Ramp with 4x Nissa
Game one he plays Nissa on turn three on the play. Game two I lose to Nissa again.
0-3

R4 - Bant with 4x Nissa

I lose game one when I miss land drops and he plays Nissa turn five. I win game two despite missing my 4th land drop twice. My various grizzle bears got the job done. Game three is more attrition, but I end up sticking a Narset and his hand is just three Uro at that point and he can't get out of the lock.
1-3

R5 - RW Cycling
Game one he plays Fox into Fox on the play and I don't draw Shatter. Game two I'm able to keep the board clear and win with Sarkhan. Game three I punt when I don't use Elspeth to gain 5 life after casting Shatter the Sky. He untaps and plays Stinger and has enough cycling pings plus Zenith to kill me from 13 life before I can use Clarion with Sarkhan.
1-4

R6 - Temur Reclamation
Game one I play Pridemate into Gideon with two Beacon triggers and he dies on turn 5. Games two and three both go very long and I'm ahead but lose my planeswalkers to Nightpack Ambusher I can't really answer effectively as Aether Gust only delayed the problem.
1-5 Drop

I knew Nissa would be bad for me but misjudged how many people would play it. Sultai was the second most played deck and I should have played something stronger, preferably with Growth Spiral.

If you want to try the deck out, I'd recommend playing some Narset of the Ancient Way. I tried her and she was reasonable but ended up being cut to make room for more The Royal Scions. Scions was very impressive but usually the weakest card and sided out a lot. I think Pridemate is reasonable and Sprite Dragon is the weaker of the two because of the effect on the mana base. Sprite Dragon and Sarkhan is nice though.

What I missed

Besides missing on my metagame read, I missed a bunch of other things. I missed the ritual of finding cards and sleeving my deck. I missed traveling to a new place and sampling the local food and beer. I missed the time spent in between rounds playing whatever games to keep us entertained. I missed drafting. I missed the feeling that the tournaments usually give, that they matter for something. I missed being able to prepare and play with my friend Austin Burshavich #freeaustin. I missed the Pro Tour.

Props:
Zachary Kiihne for helping with the initial brew and Tithe Taker tech, even if I didn't end up playing it
Will Lowry for helping me tune my junky pile even if it didn't work out
The team for providing a real time reflection of the meta-game development. One of the stronger features of having such a large group

Slops:
WotC for cutting all the prize money
WotC for banning Austin #freeaustin
WotC for forcing us to play on Arena
WotC for killing the PT dream

Exploring my feelings about recent events

I still don't know exactly how I feel.

I normally like to have some coherent narrative or point to these posts. I treat them more as articles than journal entries. However, it is still a blog. This post is going to be mostly me trying to work out how I feel about the recent events in the world of MtG.

Losing What Was Promised

Thanks to Austin Bursavich, the announcement about changes to the upcoming RPT and other events was not a surprise. It was still a disappointment. It feels like an opportunistic move to kill the paper events I've been in love with for over 20 years. I could have understood an indefinite delay with a creation of a separate, online-only circuit to fill the time until we can return to the convention halls. Removing a significant amount of the previously advertised prize support is just a further slap in the face.

I understand that MTG Arena is the future, but I don't think that means we should cut ties with the past. Since Pro Tour 1 in New York almost 25 years ago, there has been a connected string of events that looks to be ending now. Despite the many rebrandings and changes to the structures, you could always finish in the top 50 or top 25 or whatever record you needed, and you would get to play the next event. Hopefully there is something in the future to keep this lineage going. 

Losing any kind of status that I may have currently hurts a bit. This has been by far my most successful run on the Professional level. I was qualified for the next PT and had 95% partial invite to the following one. I was confident I could play all three this year and hopefully more into the next year. I have nothing to show for any of it now except an online 15 round standard event with effectively GP level prizes. I've been close before. In 2012 I had a great run of GP success and had played in 3 out of 4 PTs. This was good enough to get me Silver level in the first year of its existence. Unfortunately, Silver benefits at the time were basically nothing. Later on, they would add a PT invitation to the Silver status, but I never got one. It could have been 5 out of 6 PTs. It could have been something. This could have been something, too. 

It was upsetting that there wouldn't be stocked Arena accounts. They gave everyone going to MCII early access to WAR events just last year, but somehow couldn't do it for this? The tin-foil hat people say they only withheld the accounts to appear like they were compromising on something after the expected backlash came. They probably are close to the truth.

I was hopeful after the announcement of the Arena Open. I was looking forward to actually having an event to prepare for. The PT announcement was also another event I could prepare for. Standard isn't at a great place, so that is frustrating, but at least it was something. I started playing my way through the format to get a feel.

Then they banned Austin.

Snitch or Die

It is hard for me to even put into words how brutal the action is. It seems without any warning they took the most extreme measure on an outsider in order to try to solve what is clearly an internal problem. Austin wasn't the only one with access to the "privileged" information. He was the one that shared it to a much broader audience, but it was already out there. No one with any real connection was surprised by what he was saying. 

The MPL response has been gross. They keep claiming that it wasn't a huge advantage the way Austin and others have said. That almost certainly implies that they think it is at least a slight advantage, and that they are okay with having a slight advantage. As if being one of the best players in the world with a salary to support full time Magic playing wasn't an advantage enough! Perhaps the NDA is keeping their true feelings at bay. I have much more respect for the MPL / Rivals members who haven't said anything, or at least haven't tried to minimize the negative actions of WotC.

I don't know what to do. I was ready to start playing again. I had purchased some gems for Arena to get some decks built, despite knowing I would have access to a full account. I wanted to get back into the thick of it. I spent a holiday weekend relaxing and having a good time, but my mood was ruined on Sunday night. 

I will try to get a refund for my Arena purchase. I don't know how hard to prepare for the upcoming RPT event. I'm still tempted to register 60 basics and collect my minimum prize for showing up. They've shown their cards. They are spineless and I don't know if I can support them in the future. 

How Do I Even Feel About Magic?

I have always loved Magic. For the longest time, I wasn't sure how much more I loved it than the average players, or average PTQ grinder. It was probably well above average. I'm clearly not the biggest fan, but likely in the top 1000 or so.

My office at home is decorated with my trophies and memorabilia from various Magic events. I own an excessive amount of Magic cards. I will always play the game at some level. Maybe in the future that is just Old School and related formats. 

The last Magic event I played was the RPT in Phoenix. It was one of the most satisfying events I've ever played. I remember getting dinner on Saturday night with two of my best friends and teammates Will Lowry and Collin Rountree. We all had a successful event on some level. We all made money in the tournament. We were all qualified for the next event. Our larger team had put 4 players in the top 8 and many more in the top 50. Our processed had worked. It wasn't my favorite trip, or my favorite tournament, or even my favorite after-event hangout experience. It was full of hope though, and that felt like the best thing ever at the time.

And now that hope is gone.