David “Bus49” Buskirk defeated Mohamed “BackAgain” Kandil 2-1 to win AliasV’s Super Spiffy Tournament II on Sunday afternoon. Kandil and Buskirk finished third and fourth, respectively, at the end of eight rounds of swiss and fought their way through opposite sides of a traditional Top 8 single-elimination bracket to meet in the finals. (You can watch the Top 8 on AliasV’s Twitch channel.)
The Top 8 Bracket of the Super Spiffy Tournament II.
Buskirk played a new take on the Bant Ramp deck that first appeared in War of the Spark. The deck leverages multiple cards to produce a lot of mana very quickly, like Llanowar Elves, Incubation Druid, and Nissa, Who Shakes the World, and then uses that mana to cast powerful spells like Finale of Glory and Hydroid Krasis for massive values of X.
Buskirk added a strong Elemental sub theme to the deck, featuring some of the most powerful Elemental creatures from Core Set 2020. The addition Risen Reef gives the deck a card advantage engine that ramp decks typically lack, allowing the deck to draw cards or put lands into play when casting Elementals like Leafkin Druid and Cavalier of Thorns—both of which also help ramp.
David ''Bus49'' Buskirk's Standard Bant Ramp
| Creatures (25) 4 Llanowar Elves 2 Incubation Druid 4 Leafkin Druid 4 Risen Reef 2 Voracious Hydra 4 Hydroid Krasis 2 God-Eternal Oketra 3 Cavalier of Thorns Spells (1) 1 Finale of Glory Enchantments (2) 2 Prison Realm Planeswalkers (7) 3 Teferi, Time Raveler 4 Nissa, Who Shakes the World | Lands (25) 4 Forest 2 Glacial Fortress 3 Sunpetal Grove 3 Hinterland Harbor 4 Hallowed Fountain 4 Temple Garden 4 Breeding Pool 1 Temple of Mastery Sideboard (15) 3 Baffling End 2 Aether Gust 3 Negate 2 Thrashing Brontodon 1 Deputy of Detention 2 Ixalan’s Binding 1 Shifting Ceratops 1 Time Wipe |
Kandil, on the other hand, brought a Simic Nexus deck with two Core Set 2020 cards in the maindeck—three copies of Drawn from Dreams and two copies of Temple of Mastery. The deck’s goal is to cast Nexus of Fate as early and often as possible, using Growth Spiral and Wilderness Reclamation to ramp, Root Snare to stay alive, and Tamiyo, Collector of Tales and Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin to help find Nexus every turn, effectively allowing the deck to take infinite turns.
Mohamed ''BackAgain'' Kandil's Standard Simic Nexus
| Spells (20) 4 Opt 1 Blink of an Eye 4 Root Snare 4 Growth Spiral 3 Drawn from Dreams 4 Nexus of Fate Enchantments (7) 3 Search for Azcanta 4 Wilderness Reclamation Planeswalkers (7) 2 Narset, Parter of Veils 4 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World | Lands (25) 5 Island 2 Memorial to Genius 4 Forest 4 Breeding Pool 4 Hinterland Harbor 2 Temple of Mystery 3 Blast Zone 1 Mobilized District Sideboard (15) 4 Veil of Summer 4 Aether Gust 2 Blink of an Eye 1 Callous Dismissal 2 Narset, Parter of Veils 1 Biogenic Ooze 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World |
The rest of the Top 8 included two copies of Esper Hero, one Esper Control deck, one Jeskai Control deck, one Temur Elementals deck, and one Mono-Red deck.
In Game 1 of the finals, Kandil assembled two Wilderness Reclamations, an Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, Narset, Parter of Veils, and Tamiyo, Collector of Tales to take infinite turns and lock Buskirk out of the game.
After sideboarding, Buskirk was able even up the match by winning Game 2 on the back of early pressure in the form Llanowar Elves and Cavalier of Thorns and two Negates to counter Kandil’s key combo pieces. The deciding Game 3 played out in a similar manner, with Buskirk applying both pressure and disruption in the form of Thrashing Brontodon and Deputy of Detention. Kandil had a one-turn window to find a Nexus of Fate with Tamiyo, Collector of Tales to try and go off while Buskirk was tapped out, but he was unable to do so, allowing Buskirk to take the game, match, and tournament.
The players in the Top 8 of the Super Spiffy Tournament II were awarded a wide variety of prizes from the tournament’s 10 sponsors: Aetherhub, CFB Events, CompLexity Gaming, Elgato, Flipside Gaming, Face to Face Games, Hipsters of the Coast, Inked Gaming, Spikes Academy, and TCGPlayer.
Super Spiffy Tournament II prizes