Team Modern Super League 2 continues next Tuesday at 9 PM Eastern (GMT -4) on twitch.tv/magic.
An exciting Week 6 has come and gone, bringing us to the halfway point in second edition of Team Modern Super League. ChannelFireball defeated Team Play Design this week 4-2 to advance to the quarterfinals, where they will face another 1-1 team. A second loss for Team Play Design means that the original Team Modern Super League champions have been eliminated.
The two teams traded early wins with the series, beginning at 1-1 after two rounds and 2-2 after four, forcing a miniature Best-of-3 matches to determine the winner. ChannelFireball rattled off two consecutive wins with both Grixis Urza Thopter Sword and Mardu Death’s Shadow to close things out in a 4-2 win.
The Results
Round 1: Andrew Baeckstrom (Mardu Death’s Shadow) defeats Michael Majors (Trash and Taxes) 2-1
Round 2: Luis Scott Vargas (Temur Snow) loses to Paul Cheon (Humans) 1-2
Round 3: Matt Nass (Devoted Amulet) loses to Andrew Brown (Mono-Red Phoenix) 0-2
Round 4: Sam Pardee (Eldrazi Tron) defeats Dan Musser (Grixis Urza Thopter Sword) 2-1
Round 5: Matt Nass (Grixis Urza Thopter Sword) defeats Michael Majors (Mardu Pyromancer) 2-1
Round 6: Andrew Baeckstrom (Mardu Death’s Shadow) defeats Andrew brown (Mono-Red Phoenix) 2-1
Game of the Week
(Skip to 36:42 if the embed doesn’t do so for you.)
This week’s featured Game is Round 1, Game 3 of the Baeckstrom (Mardu Death’s Shadow) vs Majors (Trash and Taxes) match.
The openers for both players really show how impactful these new Canopy lands are. Baeckstrom kept a pretty land-heavy hand, but with access to a fast Death’s Shadow plus a Silent Clearing Canopy land, the hand was pretty strong. Majors hand had the perfect amount of lands but could use some more action spells for the match up, so having a way to dig (via a Canopy land of his own in Sunbaked Canyon) without investing a lot of mana was perfect for his hand.
Baeckstrom opened up with a Thoughtseize to take one of the key components of Majors hand, Ranger Captain of Eos. On Turn 4, a benefit of Baeckstrom keeping a land-heavy hand was being able to play the powerful four-mana spell, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, on curve.
Majors’s Turn 5 is where it got really interesting. Majors ended up cracking a Clue at the end of Baeckstrom’s Turn 5, drawing into Goblin Engineer, and drawing into Phyrexian Revoker on his turn, naming Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. This really turned up the pressure on Baeckstrom to draw an answer and not get locked behind an Ensnaring Bridge.
For Baeckstrom’s turn, he drew a Street Wraith, allowing him to continue digging for an answer, which he ended up hitting in the form of Path to Exile. Now the safe line was getting rid of Goblin Engineer, which could tutor up an Ensnaring Bridge. But with some number crunching to see how many live artifact draws Majors had, Baeckstrom ended up taking the riskier line of removing Phyrexian Revoker instead, setting up lethal on his following turn.
Majors ended up missing on another artifact in two draws, including using his Canopy land, to find an artifact to lock out Baeckstrom. With the Round 1 win, ChannelFireball was in a good position to win the week.