I was originally planning to wade through the data of tournament results from the PTQ season to do a sort of metagame analysis of Modern, much like I do for Legacy, every quarter. But last night, was a sort of special night.. mind you, not awesome special, like opening a “special” rarity in a VMA pack, but the slightly sad sort of special. Last night was the last stream I will get to host on our beloved Windows-98-looking V3 of MTGO. Sure, V3 wasn’t pretty, and it had its issues, and I’ve certainly complained about it on here in the past, but when all’s said and done, V3 got the job done of playing Magic, and it worked reasonably well with streaming software, so that was good enough for me. Because I can’t resist an opportunity to use bad references to early 2000s (if you try to tell me it’s called the “aughts,” I’ll punch you; that word is terrible) emo-ish stuff, like The Juliana Theory, and because of how perfectly the title worked, you’re getting an article about that, this week. And no, by “that,” I didn’t mean that you’re getting an article about TJT; you’re getting one last set of stream recaps.
Before we get started, I just want to take a moment to thank those of you that tune in and chat and laugh and cry as I stumble through Legacy with drunken misplay after drunken misplay. You guys make this fun for me to do, and your presence on the stream is appreciated! Because V4 is terrible for streaming, this could be the last batch for the immediate future, and possibly longer. I sure hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not, at least we went out in a blaze of glory, putting up back to back 4-0s! Our spotlight lists for this week are RUG Delver (because I can’t get enough of flipping those guys!) and BUG Control. We play against seven different archetypes (or six if you wanna lump Mono-G and UG 12-Post together), and none of them are mirrors, which I was pretty pleased with, as it’s always nice to have variety for the audience, rather than Dredge EVERY ROUND.
RUG Delver
Just Your Typical RUG Delver
| Creatures (12) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Nimble Mongoose 4 Tarmogoyf Spells (30) 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Spell Pierce 2 Spell Snare 3 Stifle 3 Gitaxian Probe 4 Ponder | Lands (18) 2 Flooded Strand 3 Misty Rainforest 3 Polluted Delta 3 Tropical Island 3 Volcanic Island 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Ancient Grudge 2 Flusterstorm 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Krosan Grip 1 Pithing Needle 1 Pyroblast 1 Red Elemental Blast 1 Rough 1 Spell Pierce 1 Submerge 1 Sulfur Elemental 1 Surgical Extraction 1 Sylvan Library 1 Vendilion Clique |
That sideboard is a thing of beauty. Fourteen different cards! (ok, fine, thirteen if you want to count the Blasts together.) Playing all those cantrips lets us play an absurd number of one-ofs in the sideboard and still have a reasonable shot at seeing all of them.
Round 1 — LED Dredge
Watch live video from efil4zaknupome on TwitchIn game one, I try the plan of keeping him off of his Looting/Studying to keep him from getting his dredge engine going. He is able to power through by presenting FOUR must-counter spells and not giving any fucks about Wasteland. I don’t really stand a chance in that kind of a fight, unless I can catch 3-4 of his Bridges by zapping my own Delver, but that play never materialized. Even with that, line, it’s still far from being an easy game. We have a bit more of a fighting chance, after board, with a couple graveyard-hate spells, and a couple flash creatures to give us more game against Bridge. Speaking of sideboarding, our opponent makes some bizarre sideboarding decisions, going up 66 cards. Here’s the tl;dw version of game two: find Cage, win. In the rubber game, we have to mull a land-heavy hand away, only to receive another one, but at least we have Brainstorm and Force, so it’s not the worst. A single Wasteland proves to be enough, as he never sees another land. Clique steals his only dredger when he goes on the draw-discard-dredge plan, and it’s pretty lights out from there. I had suspected this opponent of ghosting (watching my stream while playing me) earlier, due to a weird hit on a blind Therapy, but I later realize that he wasn’t. I just want to clear that up, as it would be terrible to have that reputation wrongfully bestowed upon you.
Round 2 — Sneak and Show
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He jams his combo down our throat on turn three with help from Boseiju. The only thing we maybe could have done differently to give us a better chance would have been to not run the early ‘goyf into his Force (that we did not know that he had one turn after a Gitaxian Probe), and drop the ‘goyf into play off of his Show and Tell, but that might not have actually made a significant difference. It’s possible that we may have been able to have him scared to block a four-power ‘goyf due to a possible Lightning Bolt. I’m not going to get too down on myself, though, because sometimes in game one (see round one), the combo deck just has it all and you can’t stop them. We get him in game two with an insane amount of countermagic, an early Mongoose, and a swan that he was kind enough to give us. A quick lesson, here: in a counter war, you may instinctively just throw your countermagic at their countermagic, but on the Swan Song, depending on how conditional your countermagic is, you may have a chance to let their Swan Song resolve to counter your counter, then use your next counter on the original spell you were fighting over. Ok, I used the word “counter,” there, a lot, but I guess that’s what a counter war (and that game) felt like! We screw him in game three by Dazing his Brainstorm when he kept a one-lander. I say this out loud in the stream, but it bears repeating, if you are keeping a one-lander with one cantrip, and you REALLY need your cantrip to resolve, you should probably cast it before I take my turn. I was shitting bricks for a brief moment when he had Boseiju and was threatening to Show again. And then he DID Show! Boy was I scared! Fortunately, it was just Sneak Attack vs my Pithing Needle. Game, (set.. no, there are no sets in Magic) match.
Round 3 — Mono-Green 12-Post
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Miracles has brought me to loathe this archetype, even though I think I’m pretty close to 50% lifetime in the matchup, but with Delver (and Wasteland), it’s another story. The combination of a Waste to his Cloudpost, a Bolt to his Arbor, and some fast pressure put this one away. Game two is like the first one. Early pressure and land destruction. We also see quite a few sideboard cards in this game and are quite fortunate to have Spell Snare for his turn two Sacred Ground. Sylvan Library works overtime in this game, as we end up paying ourselves down to five life for enough card advantage to bury him. I love Library against decks that try to kill you in one fell swoop.
Round 4 — UG 12-Post
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More Prime Times and Locuses (Locii?) and Eldrazi, oh my! This time, there’s some blue involved, which makes it a bit harder. Repeal proves to be insane, being able to bounce (and reset) Delver AND draw a card for a single mana. It turns out that Unsummon attached to cantrip for no extra mana payment is busted as all hell! Despite having to battle through THREE of those Unsummontrips along with Needle on Wasteland (they are one of the few/only archetypes that will maindeck Needle; Wasteland is THAT devastating that they have to), we take game one. I give myself the kiss of death during ‘boarding by saying out loud, “we’ll try this… I mean, we won the first game, sooo,” implying that I don’t have to be perfect in game two because there’s always game three. I then proceed to throw the game away by skipping to combat too quickly upon topdecking a crucial Wasteland (for Glacial Chasm). My error gives him enough time to get a Prime Time and win. Game three is an interesting battle with many decision points to navigate. Even once it looks like I have him shut down via mana-denial, I have the clock to contend with, but I manage to sink a buzzer-beater.
BUG Control
For our second Daily of the evening, I dropped a poll on my viewers to determine my deck. BUG Control edged out the competition, so that was what I brought to battle. Here’s the exact list:
BUG Control
| Planeswalkers (6) 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 Liliana of the Veil Creatures (12) 3 Baleful Strix 4 Deathrite Shaman 1 Snapcaster Mage 4 True-Name Nemesis Spells (19) 3 Abrupt Decay 4 Brainstorm 2 Dismember 3 Force of Will 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Maelstrom Pulse 4 Thoughtseize | Lands (23) 1 Bayou 3 Creeping Tar Pit 1 Island 3 Misty Rainforest 4 Polluted Delta 1 Swamp 1 Tropical Island 3 Underground Sea 3 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Dread of Night 1 Flusterstorm 1 Force of Will 1 Golgari Charm 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 2 Hymn to Tourach 1 Marsh Casualties 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Spell Pierce 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Umezama’s Jitte |
One of the viewers noted, at some point, that he doesn’t really like True-Name without equipment. While I would be inclined to agree, he’s actually incredibly important on the defensive in this list. Being able to brick-wall most of the threats in the format with Strix and True-Name to protect our ‘walkers is pretty big game. I’m not really going to talk much about these matches, but just leave them below for your viewing pleasure. The Deathblade and Miracles matches were both close and do a great job of showing the battle-power of this deck. Dredge isn’t so bad, thanks to maindeck Deathrite, and ‘Belcher is.. well.. ‘Belcher 😛
Round 1 — LED Dredge
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Round 2 — Esper Deathblade
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Round 3 — Miracles
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Round 4 — ‘Belcher
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Update: Bad news, everyone! Looks like I’m a liar! One day after saying, “bye-bye, no more streams,” I streamed on V4. Yup. It is possible, despite everyone saying it’s impossible. It has its flaws and limitations, but it worked for the most part (though the client itself cost me two match losses, due to its general shittiness/my inability to properly use it). Anyways, I may do them a bit less frequently (especially this week, with a Modern GP looming) but I will still be streaming at twitch.tv/efil4zaknupome.