Last weekend I won a Gaea’s Cradle in a tournament with the last deck I wrote about, Rog/Thras. Since that article thoroughly covered how the deck works, I’ll skip straight to the game play. I did follow some of my own advice, I cut Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Faerie Mastermind for Haywire Mite and Twinshot Sniper. I still don’t really like Worldly Tutor and I’ve loved having channel cards.
This event wasn’t very well advertised–someone who works for the store that was holding it is in my local cEDH discord. We only found out about it a day before the event and only because he posted about it, so despite the fact that it was only $20 entry and the prize was a Gaea’s Cradle, there were only 16 players. This meant we had four even pods, which was nice, and that it was 3 rounds of swiss and then a top 4 pod. With 3 rounds, anyone with two wins would definitely be in the top 4 and there’d still be some amount of space left for other players.
One thing you have to understand about cEDH tournaments is that they’re pretty weird and very high variance. If there aren’t an even multiple of 4 players, then things get complicated. Byes, sometimes as many as three per round, are given out. Since only a quarter of people playing win and so few wins are needed to advance, byes are extremely powerful. Also, because so few wins are needed and very few rounds are played, a lot comes down to arbitrary tie breakers and the games themselves are super swingy. Basically, cEDH tournaments feel much higher variance than regular one-on-one tournaments in my experience. I mention this as a disclaimer, because while I did win the tournament and I do think my deck is great, I also think a huge amount of luck was involved.
Flame of Anor by Yigit Koroglu
Round One
My first round was sweet because my deck gave me probably the coolest draw I’ve had with it so far.
I was in seat two, going behind Tymna the Weaver/Kraum, Ludevics Opus (Blue Farm) and before Slicer, Hired Muscle in third seat and Zur the Enchanter in fourth seat.
Here was my one-land opener:
- Mana Crypt
- Relic of Legends
- Springleaf Drum
- Force of Vigor
- Flame of Anor
- One card I don’t remember
Blue Farm opened on land+Mystic Remora. I usually like to try to not feed Mystic Remora on turn one if they don’t have a second mana source, because they often can’t afford to keep it too long. If the table plays slow for a bit, it lets me get set up to Thrasios, Triton Hero anyway. But with only one land, I don’t really have the option to play slow here, and with Slicer going after me, I figure they’re probably going to draw a bunch of cards anyway. I play land, Mana Crypt, Relic of Legends, Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh, Thrasios, Triton Hero, but don’t bother playing the Springleaf Drum. Predictably, Slicer plays some mana artifacts and a turn one Slicer (back side) and attacks Blue Farm to flip it.
Zur plays land and a Mana Vault and attacks the Blue Farm player with Slicer since they’ve drawn so many cards. The Blue Farm player predictably lets Mystic Remora die, plays some cards which don’t really matter, and hits me with Slicer. I attack Blue Farm with Slicer and pass without playing a card. An advantage of feeding Blue Farm at this table is that it made them the clear threat for Slicer, so the turn 1 Remora effectively killed them, which gave me a little time. My opening hand had Flame of Anor and Force of Vigor, so I was pretty well set up to compete against Slicer once the Blue Farm player was out of the game.
On Slicer’s turn they equipped Slicer with Beamtown Beatstick and killed the Blue Farm player. When they passed I hard cast Force of Negation to kill Slicer and Mana Vault from the Zur player.
The Zur, the Enchanter player played Zur anyway, I don’t remember exactly how (it might have involved a Jeweled Lotus), and passed. I think on my turn I drew Eternal Witness, returned a fetch land, and played it to get a second land and passed with Flame of Anor up, or maybe this turn I played a Dockside Extortionist and made four Treasures. That happened somewhere early in this game. Slicer replayed Slicer and I used Flame of Anor to kill it and Zur, and the Slicer player left it in the graveyard. Zur was low on cards at this point–I think they might have also used a Chrome Mox in casting Zur and either this turn or the next turn they also cast a Vampiric Tutor and they played a Heliod, Sun-Crowned.
I’m getting a little lost on the exact sequence, basically what happened was that Slicer let Slicer stay in the graveyard when I killed it with Flame of Anor, then played a Goblin Welder, which I answered with a hard cast Subtlety. On the following turn they replayed the Goblin Welder, and on my turn I copied the Goblin Welder with Machine God’s Effigy, but they had Scavenger Grounds, which would potentially mess up my ability to fight over their slicer with my Goblin Welder. On their turn they activated Goblin Welder for Slicer, so then I tried to weld it back out, but they had Deflecting Swat to keep it around and they hit me, then gave it to Zur who hit me with it with likelink from Heliod, Sun-Crowned.
On my turn I had drawn into a possible win with Dockside Extortionist and Barrin, Master Wizard and thought they didn’t have much, so I tried to go for it–I started with Phyrexian Metamorph to try to copy Dockside, and the Slicer player cast Pyrokinesis to kill good creatures in response. I tried to counter, and the Zur player had a Force of Will, which is apparently what they’d tutored for, which didn’t make sense to me because they had nothing going on, so I thought they’d get something to either answer existing threats or something to try to go for a win. So I made Phyrexian Metamorph another copy of Machine God’s Effigy as Goblin Welder to fight over Slicer and passed, which was a huge mistake. I had a Gilded Drake I could have cast, to steal Goblin Welder, but I didn’t think I needed to.
On Slicer’s turn, in combat, I try to weld out Slicer. They respond by exiling graveyards to fizzle my ability. I respond by welding again, they let that happen and weld it back into play, then after combat they equip again, then they pass it to Zur. I only have one untapped creature left, and die to the Slicer attack. I knew about the Scavenger Grounds, but forgot that after I dealt with Slicer in combat on their turn, there would still be another attack on the Zur player’s turn. So I died and Slicer won a game I’d been in control of the whole way, but messed up to let get away from me.
0-1
Machine God’s Effigy by Martin de Diego Sádaba
Round Two
I think I was seat 2 again, behind Urza, Lord High Artificer and ahead of Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Thrasios, Triton Hero/Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools.
I opened with a Training Grounds, which the other Thrasios player Mental Misstepped. I considered using Force of Will to push it through, but my remaining blue cards were Spellseeker and Snap, neither of which I wanted to exile. I also thought keeping it would likely mean my Thrasios would get killed, so I let it go. I think Atraxa opened on Elves of Deep Shadow, Thrasios/Tevesh on Mana Vault, and I think Urza had a turn 2 Urza. I played Rograkh and Thrasios, Atraxa cast Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, and Tevesh played The One Ring. I thought about it, but decided not to Force of Will, figuring I didn’t mind letting someone else become the main threat. Urza played Tangle Wire, which I was good with since I had my commanders to tap and not a lot of action.
I drew the second half of Devoted Druid/Machine God’s Effigy and knew what I was playing the game to. I cast Devoted Druid, someone confirmed I wasn’t playing White, and they let it resolve. Atraxa cast Tainted Pact, kept going until they exiled Eternal Scourge, made it clear that that had been their goal, and stopped on their next card which happened to be Jeweled Lotus. They untapped and cast Food Chain (there might have been another turn cycle in here where not much happened because of Tangle Wire). Everyone hesitated a bit and passed. I kinda got the read that one of them had a plan, and I figured if not, I was last to act on the Scourge that would follow. I could Force if I thought we really needed to to buy a turn, but I really wanted to hold my force to protect my Machine God’s Effigy. Atraxa cast Eternal Scourge, Urza Chain of Vapored the Food Chain in response, Atraxa Swan Songed, Urza Narset’s Reversaled the Food Chain, which answered the Food Chain and told me that I needed to be ready for a Chain of Vapor. Tevesh had missed the second land drop after playing The One Ring and had been tapping The One Ring in response to Tangle Wire, and just started playing rocks to start catching up. Urza played Winter Orb.
I knew I couldn’t win through Chain of Vapor unless the table didn’t see my combo coming, so I played Spellseeker to get Veil of Summer. If I had to try to stop an Atraxa win, that could protect my Force of Will, but I’d drawn Pyroblast and figured I could set up for a win the next turn backed by Force of Will, Veil of Summer, and Pyroblast if I wasn’t forced to use that.
Tevesh played an Orcish Bowmaster to kill some of Atraxa’s mana, and after Atraxa had burned all their treasures and with the Winter Orb, they didn’t have enough mana to try for a win again.
At the end of their turn, Urza asked if I thought they should Chain of Vapor The One Ring before the Tevesh player could draw four of five more cards. Since they were started to get a lot of mana in play, I said it couldn’t hurt, since I didn’t want to seem too invested given how great getting Chain of Vapor out of their hand was for me. They decided to do it.
Tevesh cast Pattern of Rebirth on their Orc Army. They didn’t have a sacrifice outlet in play, but they had enough mana where they could try to cast Tevesh. I thought about whether I needed to stop Pattern of Rebirth and they said they weren’t going for a win this turn, they just wanted to develop and get a good blocker. I figured it was threatening, but if they did try something, I’d probably get another chance to interact with a spell and let it resolve, and they passed. Urza didn’t do anything important and on my turn I went for my Machine God’s Effigy win. I cast Machine God’s Effigy, and they all leaned in to read it. I said it’s a sweet card because it lets me copy Orcish Bowmasters and get a copy that can’t be shot by Bowmaster. They read it and discussed. Someone suggested that it would probably kill the Bowmaster, which the Atraxa player said they were good with, but the Tevesh player didn’t like that–I stepped in with an offer–if you let this resolve, I won’t kill your Bowmaster. This seemed like a plausible offer, since then we’d have two Orcish Bowmasters to potentially fight over Atraxa’s mana creatures. They let it resolve, I confirmed it was entering and announced copying Devoted Druid and made infinite mana. Orcish Bowmasters makes trying to win with Thrasios slightly awkward, but I had resolved Veil of Summer so it couldn’t shoot me, and picked up my deck.
I don’t think I needed the misdirection to win there–I doubt the table could fight through my three counterspells, but I like to stay sharp/practice looking for edges where I can find them.
1-1
Seedborn Muse by Adam Rex
Round Three
In the third match I was 4th seat behind a different Blue Farm player, Magda, Brazen Outlaw, and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. I kept a pretty slow hand with Mental Misstep, Muddle the Mixture, and Mindbreak Trap–in fourth seat I want to try to and not die early and get to the late game, mostly letting other people fight each other in the early game. I played Thrasios on turn 2 and didn’t play Rograk because I was worried that Magda would make someone else play a sweeper and there was no reason to let Rograkh die. I didn’t do anything on turn 3, on turn 4 I passed around the table and activated Thrasios before my turn revealing Deflecting Swat. Magda opened with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and had built up some dwarves, but was playing pretty conservatively with them. Blue Farm had a Rhystic Study, and I think both Blue Farm and Sisay had Esper Sentinels. Nothing high stakes had happened so far.
On my fifth turn I cast Seedborn Muse with Mental Misstep and Deflecting Swat to protect it. After a lot of consideration, notably including by Magda, who had 4 untapped Dwarves and no treasure, it resolved. They let me pass and untap with the Blue Farm player. In their end step I activated Thrasios, and they responded with Swords to Plowshares on my Seedborn Muse. I Mental Misstepped, Sisay Mental Misstepped back, I Deflecting Swatted the Swords to Plowshares to Magda, and Sisay cast Swan Song. After that resolved, Magda convoked Stoke the Flames to kill Sisay’s Ranger Captain of Eos and make 4 treasure. The Blue Farm player started to try to counter that, and I stopped them and explained that the Stoke the Flames didn’t matter, Magda was presenting a win at this point without casting any more spells. They had Metallic Mimic and 4 treasures, so they could attack with 1-3 of their dwarves, find Clock of Omens, make infinite treasure, and win the game. The Blue Farm player instead cast Demonic Consultation, thought for a long time about what might be able to save us, and named Orcish Bowmasters to kill the Metallic Mimic (Magda at this point was a 3/2 because of the mimic).
On Magda’s turn they attacked to make more treasure, sacrificed down to 2 treasures to find God-Pharaoh’s Statue, used Delayed Blast Fireball to sweep up the Orchish Bowmasters and Esper Sentinels and sacrificed Bloodfire Dwarf to finish off Thrasios, and passed with just Magda, God-Pharaoh’s Statue, Mox Amber, some lands, and 2 treasures. At this point the board was basically clear. We passed around the table doing a little under the God-Pharaoh’s Statue–I just played a Delighted Halfling, Magda was basically out of cards and no longer threatening. On Sisay’s next main phase they used Boseiju, Who Endures on the God-Pharaoh’s Statue–I don’t know why they didn’t wait until Madga’s end step, but that let me Imperial Recruiter for Spellseeker, for Finale of Devastation to try to start building toward a possible Eternal Witness–Snap–Gaea’s Cradle win. Mostly it was to get some resources around for whatever happened. The Blue Farm player developed some–they had a large hand, but Demonic Consultation had exiled Underworld Breach, Thassa’s Oracle, and most other realistic ways they could actually win a game, so they we’re really up to much. Magda was out of gas, and now the Sisay player was starting to build up to something. They took a complicated turn involving a Dockside Extortionist and Saheeli, the Gifted copying the Extortionist. We were confident that them playing and activating Sisay would be bad, but we didn’t know exactly how. When they copied the Dockside, Blue Farm almost used Chain of Vapor, but realized that bouncing Dockside isn’t a good solution. I suggested that they could, if they wanted, bounce their own mana rock and copy the chain to clear more of them to disable the Dockside, and they did that. At this point, we were getting low on time in the round, and most of us didn’t really see how we could win in the number of turn cycles we had left.
I drew Cloudstone Curio either the turn before or the turn after the Dockside turn from Sisay, whenever it was, I played it and it was countered. Sisay had another turn where they tried to find a win, got stopped by barely enough action, and we ran out of time.
1-1-1
Barrin, Master Wizard by Michael Sutfin
Round Four
At this point, only two people had 2+ wins, three of the four of us in my last pod were 1-1-1, and two of us made top 4 on breakers. I was one of them.
I was 3th in standings, so 3rd seat in the top four game. Slicer was first, a different Thrasios/Tevesh player than the one I’d already played was seat 2, and the Blue Farm player I’d just drawn with was seat 4. Slicer played Slicer and Whispersilk Cloak on turn one. They attacked, flipped it, and passed it to Tevesh. Tevesh had turn 1 land, Mox, Dream Stalker to pick up Slicer. I played a land and Rograkh. Blue Farm played a land, Mox, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Ragavan, and Kraum, discarded one card, and passed with the mana Vault still untapped.
Slicer replayed Slicer and attacked me because the others had 4+ toughness blockers. I chumped with Rograkh. Tevesh played a signet and maybe another card, I played Gilded Drake and took Kraum. On Blue Farm’s turn they drew and cast Timetwister when both them and Slicer were out of cards. They played some more mana and a Rhystic Study. Slicer played Blood Moon, which basically locked me out of the game. I had Mox Amber so I could get a blue because of Kraum, but Snap was my only castable spell.
The story of the rest of the game was basically the rest of us working together to slow Slicer down, but not really containing it. I had Barrin, Master Wizard in my hand, so I’d win if I found Dockside Extortionist, but otherwise I had no chance. Slicer eventually hit me with Ragavan and hit my Dockside Extortionist, and they chose to play it. Blue Farm was going to die to Slicer before their next turn so they played Final Fortune to hope to draw into a win. It failed, and at the end of their turn I bounced Dockside and then there were exactly enough artifacts and enchantments for a Barrin/Dockside loop for me. No one had an answer, and I won the game I couldn’t have won if Slicer had just left my Dockside in exile.
So was it, it was a small event with a good prize where I got pretty lucky. I like my deck a lot and I’m looking forward to trying it again in a larger tournament next week.
Sam Black (any) is a former professional Magic player, longtime Magic writer, host of the Drafting Archetypes podcast, and Twitch streamer. Sam is also a Commander Cube enthusiast, and you can find Sam’s cube list here. For anything else, find Sam on Twitter: @SamuelHBlack.