Even for someone as addicted to Magic as I am, a break is sometimes required. I have taken it easy over the past few weeks, concentrating on getting real life in order and being a better me. I had a business trip in the middle of that time, and played very little Magic over the course of it. Then game Grand Prix Toronto, again affording me little time to actually play the game but an amazing weekend of being around it and its players. I am not exaggerating when I say it was the best weekend I have had in a very long time.
The return to the drudgery of daily life did have the bright point of also returning me to FNM at Midgard Gaming. Having only played Modern for two weeks and not looked at any Standard lists for about the same length of time, I had absolutely no idea what to build come Thursday. Not that this is an unusual situation in which to find myself, but for some reason I just couldn’t be bothered looking online. Instead I hit up social media with my two possible choices: a [card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/card] deck or Junk Walkers. Overwhelmingly the Twittersphere wanted me to play Bruna.
Armed with a concept, I emailed audio editor extraordinaire and good friend Kyle (@kerrydan) to see if he had done any Brew-na goodness. I had some ideas but wanted to see where another brewer’s head was at. Most of his ideas were on the Esper front (and gave me some future thoughts…) but he did have a couple of techy ideas to slip in for this week.
Battle Plan
Bruna-related achievements were some of the first ones suggested to me. The card resonates a lot with Johnnies apparently, and it’s not hard to see why. If you manage to attack with her or even just block, that triggered ability is amazing. That she has vigilance and is a 5/5 as well are really just gravy.
Target 1: Go at least 2-2 with a [card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/card] Deck I had a few ways I could go with the deck, but [card]Ethereal Armor[/card] and Rancor were in all of them and seemed likely to give me a couple of free wins if I could get in with them early. Power level was important for a deck that could go .500 or better, so things like [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] and [card]Sigarda, Host of Herons[/card] were in my initial plans.
Target 2: Have 5 or more enchantments in play with [card]Sphere of Safety[/card] and/or Ethereal Armor [card]Ethereal Armor[/card] was always going to be in the deck, and [card]Sphere of Safety[/card] is what made me want to play the deck in the first place. [card]Ethereal Armor[/card] gets silly in multiples, especially if you are playing things like [card]Abundant Growth[/card] and [card]Detention Sphere[/card] along with it. Sphere is obviously less good if the tournament is full of control decks, but aggressive decks will not be able to do much about it which should buy me the time I need to set up and one-shot them. Which reminds me…
Target 3: One-shot an opponent I love open achievements like this because they let me go after them multiple times with different decks. It’s going to be a bit of a challenge in this one, but the ability to have Bruna steal any Rancors that my opponent might have plus any [card]Ethereal Armor[/card]s in my hand or yard might be enough to pull it out. I wish there were an aura that gave double strike.
Target 4: Deal 20 with a one-drop I initially came up with this for [card]Champion of the Parish[/card], but I’m thinking I’ll be playing [card]Avacyn’s Pilgrim[/card] in this deck and being able to suit it up early with some Armor or Rancors and then use [card]Detention Sphere[/card]s and [card]Oblivion Ring[/card]s to keep the board clear might just get me there.
Weapon Selection
With my targets in place, much of the deck was built. One piece of tech I was determined to include was [card]Divine Reckoning[/card], which had been mentioned to me by local player Chris “Goober” Parsons. As I was likely to only have one creature in play that I wanted to keep, and as that creature was likely a lot better than anything my opponent would have, the “drawback” of the card was negated a great deal.
Since I wanted to get Bruna in play as early as possible, ramp seemed necessary. [card]Avacyn’s Pilgrim[/card] was on the list as it also gave me a target for early enchantments, but I figured [card]Farseek[/card] would help too. Fixing in a three-colour deck is never a bad thing, and [card]Arbor Elf[/card] could not make me blue mana. [card]Abundant Growth[/card] not only filled the blue mana role but also drew me a card and powered up the [card]Ethereal Armor[/card], so it was a certainty.
[card]Detention Sphere[/card] and [card]Oblivion Ring[/card], in addition to being the most versatile removal spells in the format, are also enchantments. A natural inclusion then. I also wanted something to help me punch through, so I included a single [card]Tricks of the Trade[/card].
[card]Righteous Authority[/card] seemed like a really powerful way to finish the game, and would also help me draw some cards. If I was going to go that route, playing two of the best card in Standard ([card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]) seemed like a good idea that would keep me alive, fill my hand for Bruna and [card]Righteous Authority[/card] AND help me find answers.
My creature suite was the hardest to nail down. I knew Bruna and Pilgrim were in, but I was running out of slots for the others I wanted to include. To offset the inherent danger of playing Auras I wanted hexproof creatures to put them on, which left me 3 obvious choices: Geist, [card]Invisible Stalker[/card] and [card]Sigarda, Host of Herons[/card]. With counterspells being a thing again, [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] was a card I knew I wanted to run, which was a point in Sigarda’s favour. Stalker is obviously great when suited up but horrible otherwise, and although Geist is clearly a very powerful card I couldn’t find main-deck space for it. Here’s the list I ran:
[deck title=Bruna.dec by Chris Lansdell]
[Lands]
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple Garden
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Sunpetal Grove
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Forest
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Bruna, Light of Alabaster
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Rancor
4 Abundant Growth
3 Ethereal Armor
4 Farseek
4 Detention Sphere
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Divine Reckoning
1 Tricks of the Trade
1 Righteous Authority
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Ground Seal
2 Nevermore
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Divine Reckoning
2 Sphere of Safety
4 Thragtusk
1 Drogskol Reaver
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
The board was built to cover aggro and Bant control as well as graveyard shenanigans. I might have gone a little heavy on both fronts, but we’ll find out soon.
War Report
It was good to be back. While putting my deck together and testing it out, I regaled the guys with tales of GP Toronto. Most of the local players have never ventured to one, so I take every opportunity I can get to let them know how awesome it is to just be in attendance at one. A combination of exams and Christmas was having an effect on attendance, so we only had four rounds on the night. Still, the players who did show up were good ones.
Round 1 – Mike White with BR Aggro
Before the event started I had lent Mike 2 [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card]s. “Watch now,” I said to one of the Twinjas, “I’ll get paired against Mike and he will topdeck one of them to beat me in the deciding game. Mark it down.” I hate it when I get these things right.
I was relatively sure there was no way I could win game 1 in this matchup. It would need some really good Sphere/ORing draws and a fast clock on my part to do so, and when he opened with double [card]Knight of Infamy[/card] I was about ready to scoop. You know what can’t remove Knight of Infamy? [card]Detention Sphere[/card] and ORing.
Game 2 Mike had a slower start but, as would be a pattern all night, I kept drawing ETB tapped lands and none of my shocks. I had brought int [card]Thragtusk[/card]s but never drew them, and Sphere never showed either. I was on the verge of stabilizing and had resolved a Bruna when the Hellkite made its grand borrowed entrance and Thundermawed all over my face.
0-1
Round 2 – Tyler Beckett with Junk Tokens
Sadly I don’t remember much about this matchup, except that I never had a [card]Detention Sphere[/card] for his tokens and that I never game close to winning a game. I was having fun though, because the deck was fun. This was the only time I would land [card]Sphere of Safety[/card] all night, and it almost immediately ate an [card]Oblivion Ring[/card].
The best part of the evening would come between rounds 2 and 3 when I threw together a Legacy deck and played some games with Lawrence. Getting to show off my swagtastic judge foils and play with powerful cards was a real thrill and made me want to get into the format more. And I wasn’t even using a real deck!
0-2
Round 3 – Jonathan Smith with UW Flash
I was a little more confident in this matchup, since I had Cavern to resolve Bruna and his removal was not a major problem. Of course I forgot that tempo decks only need to buy a turn or two in order to actually kill you, and that’s what he did. I did manage to attack with Bruna, and Jonathan was kind enough to let her trigger resolve before casting the [card]Unsummon[/card], but that was about it for highlights.
One thing that consistently happened was that people read Bruna and were surprised at just how much her ability did. It triggers on attacking AND blocking, it can steal auras AND she has vigilance. Sadly she dies to [card]Dreadbore[/card] and can be bounced or Azorius Charmed just as well as any other creature.
0-3
Round 4 – Brennon Woolridge with Rakdos Rakdos
Brennon is really good with this deck, which is basically Joe Bernal’s list. It’s faster than the RB Aggro decks that did well at GP San Antonio, which did not augur well for me. Indeed I got rolled in game 1 before I could do much of anything.
Game 2 saw a dream start for me, letting me put [card]Abundant Growth[/card] on a Cavern and enchant a Pilgrim with Rancor and [card]Ethereal Armor[/card] early on. The great thing about [card]Gravecrawler[/card] is that it can’t actually block, and Pilgrim went all the way. DING!
Game 3 wasn’t really a game, as I played running [card]Thragtusk[/card]s on turns 4 and 5 and Brennon couldn’t find enough threats to answer the first-striking one.
1-3
Aftershocks
Boy did I build this wrong. Goober was playing something similar and went 3-1, with only 22 lands and no [card]Farseek[/card]s. Looking back I went too heavy on the top end and could easily have forsaken the ramp for more threats. Colour was never a problem, and I could have played [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] in that spot quite easily. [card]Divine Reckoning[/card] worked pretty well when I cast it, and the threat of flashing it back made people think twice a couple of times. Literally, not casting the spell [card]Think Twice[/card].
Bruna is very powerful but she might as well read “Target player discards a removal spell” because she just isn’t attacking. She’s likely to win the game if she ever does though, so I guess NOT playing her would be kind of stupid. [card]Tricks of the Trade[/card] was a wasted slot, it could easily have been another [card]Divine Reckoning[/card] or even a maindeck Reaver.
One thing this deck managed to do that a lot of others haven’t done is to let me have fun while losing. That was, after all, the reason I started doing this series: to have fun at FNM first and to win second. I had so much fun that I think I will try a slightly different Bruna strategy next week, with many of the same achievements.
Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who came up to me at GP Toronto to let me know they read the articles and enjoy them. It means a great deal to me that people enjoy what I have to say. See you next week!
Chris is a deck brewer, podcaster and lover of bacon. He’s recently realised he isn’t completely terrible at this game.