Team Modern Super League 2 continues next Tuesday at 9 PM Eastern (GMT -4) on twitch.tv/magic.
Mage Market defeated ChannelFireball 4-3 in an epic seven-match set Tuesday evening to advance to the semifinals of Team Modern Super League 2. Hardened Scales posted a 2-0 record, and on the other side of things, the mighty Hogaak struggled with a 0-2 record.
The Results
Round 1: Michael Bonde (Jund) lost to Sam Pardee (Coretapper) 0-2
Round 2: Andreas Petersen (Eldrazi Tron) defeated Matt Nass (Freed from the Real) 2-1
Round 3: Thomas Enevoldsen (Hardened Scales) defeated Andrew Baekstrom (Mardu Shadow) 2-1
Round 4: Andreas Petersen (Snakeshift) defeated Sam Pardee (Hogaak) 2-0
Round 5: Thomas Enevoldsen (Izzet Phoenix) lost to Matt Nass (Twiddle Storm) 1-2
Round 6: Michael Bonde (Jund) lost to Andrew Baekstrom (Mardu Shadow) 1-2
Round 7: Thomas Enevoldsen (Hardened Scales) defeated Sam Pardee (Hogaak) 2-0
Featured Game
Skip to 3:10:50 if the embed does not do so for you.
This week I want to zoom in on Game 3 of Round 6 between Michael Bonde on Jund and Andrew Baekstrom on Mardu Shadow. (You can find the decklists here.) It isn’t often that you get to see two fair strategies fight it out like we saw in this back and forth slugfest.
There was some gamesmanship right from the start when Baekstrom kept a hand with a discard spell to clear out any disruption from Bonde’s hand but Bonde kept a hand that is strong against discard spells with six lands! Bonde’s hand did contain a Barren Moor and a Nurturing Peatland as cards that are effectively cantrips, which made the hand even better.
In typical midrange mirror fashion, the early turns were full of trading threats for removal spells. Baekstrom made a heads up play to wait until Bonde’s turn to crack his Mishra’s Bauble to both protect whatever he drew from a potential discard spell and have the most available information to decide whether or not to fetch the card away before his draw step. Baekstrom found his fourth land in order to play a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on Turn 4, which proved to be quite the problem for Bonde as Gideon made a 2/2 before the turn went back to Bonde.
After Bonde passed the turn back holding up removal spells, Baekstrom decided to get aggressive with the Gideon, choosing to forgo making a knight in order to attack with Gideon before adding Death’s Shadow to the board while holding up Path to Exile, then Bonde cleaned the board of creatures at the end step with his removal spells. On his turn, Bonde returned serve by adding a haymaker of his own in Nissa, Vital Force, which was blunted by a Path to Exile on the Elemental.
The game continued to swing back and forth as players traded resources. Baekstrom attacked with the Gideon and deployed a Ranger-Captain of Eos and Death’s Shadow. Bonde found a tricky line where he was able to play Scavenging Ooze, eat a creature, animate the tapped Overgrown Tomb with Nissa to provide another Green source to survive if Baekstrom didn’t have a removal spell. Unfortunately for Bonde, Baekstrom got to untap, cast Tidehollow Sculler and force Bonde’s Fatal Push (paid with by the animated Overgrown Tomb), then Baekstrom followed up with a Path to Exile on the Scavenging Ooze, foricing Bonde to activate the Ooze with Nurturing Peatland.
Baekstrom followed that exchange up with a lethal attack with Ranger-Captain of Eos and Gideon and managed to close out the game and match!
Standings
Qualified for the Semifinals
2-0 Brothers Who Bash
2-0 Pamplemousse
2-1 Stream Team
2-1 Mage Market
Eliminated
1-2 ChannelFireball
1-2 Brew Crew
0-2 Play Design Team
0-2 Scary Pterrys
Schedule
Semifinals:
August 13
Stream Team vs Mage Market
August 20
Brothers Who Bash vs. Pamplemousse
Finals:
August 27
TBD
As always be sure to catch the week’s Team Modern Super League 2 decklists here every Tuesday morning, and be sure to watch the show on Twitch.tv/Magic Tuesdays at 9 PM EST. Can’t make the show? Don’t worry—you can always catch these recaps on Wednesday mornings right here at Hipsters of the Coast.
Thanks everyone for reading and be sure to let me know what you think on Twitter!