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