Smash cut to the night before National Qualifiers – My pet deck is basically a dog against RUG (Broken City Magic-er, Shawn Petsche, always has the Jace and the two-to-four Bolts) and I’m predicting there to be a fairly large showing of RUG at the qualifier. Feeling a little silly for continuing to push my own brew in the face of the fresh prince of Beleren, I unsleeve all my [card]Elite Vanguard[/card]s and lock in some [card]Everflowing Chalice[/card].

What happened?

I’m breaking the cardinal first rule of tournament magic – switching to a deck I’ve never played 18 hours before a big tournament – and breaking my cardinal first rule of life: never play anything that has anything to do with Mike Flores.

My opinion of the elder deckbuilder could be described as scepticism bordering on contempt. While I appreciate his accomplishments during WhateverTheHell Block in 199X during TeamWhoCares’ reign over American Magic, I find his commentary on today’s environment to be mostly conjecture and I refer you to the Eh Team Podcast Number (??) if you think otherwise. Now, don’t get me wrong – I have a big soft spot for the guy and I think his presence in American Magic and Magic in general has been crucial over the last 15 years, but we all can’t live on past glories forever. As someone once said, there can only be one Woody Allen. However, I would rather take my own life than play Valakut (the mountain that hurts you), so I referred to his article on Star City Games and started brewing. Here’s what he posted.

[deck title=Mono White Eldrazi by Mike Flores]
[Artifacts]
2 Contagion Clasp
4 Everflowing Chalice
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Tumble Magnet
Artifact Creatures
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Artifacts]
[Creatures]
4 Squadron Hawk
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Wall of Omens
[/Creatures]
[Legendary Creatures]
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
[/Legendary Creatures]
[Sorceries]
1 Day of Judgment
4 Survival Cache
[/Sorceries]
[Tribal Sorceries]
4 All Is Dust
[/Tribal Sorceries]
[Basic Lands]
9 Plains
[/Basic Lands]
[Lands]
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Tectonic Edge
[/Lands]
[Legendary Lands]
1 Eye of Ugin
[/Legendary Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Contagion Clasp
1 Tumble Magnet
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Celestial Purge
2 Day of Judgment
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

I played about 10 games with this deck, preparing for the worst, and I noticed a few things. First of all, it was actually really fun. Because the deck seeks to slow the game’s pace down to such a crawl that cards like [card]Survival Cache[/card] and [card]Kabira Crossroads[/card] actually matter, you get to narrow in on every aspect of the game and really take your time grinding it out and chipping away at your opponents. Secondly, it has such a late-game inevitability that you can really count on your topdecks being stellar, or at least cycling to you to a legitimate threat. But I noticed a few other things too. Bad things.

One of those things was that your opening hand tends to look like an Escherean lithograph. You just stare at it because it is an unbelievable circumflex of bullshit. You don’t know whether it’s a piece of art or an exploration of infinity. You stare at it and wonder how the hell we are going to go from “[card]Kabira Crossroads[/card], go.” to “Equip [card]Sword of Body and Mind[/card] AND [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] to Ulamog. Declare attacks?” There’s a real long time in the tank required to decide what hand to keep and what hand to ship. I kept hands with two [card]Walls of Omens[/card] and a Chalice and a Dust which never got there, and hands with 5 lands and two [card]Survival Cache[/card] that overperformed. The cards that matter in this deck aren’t the cards that normally matter in our average Standard environment. There’s no Jace. [card]Survival Cache[/card] is your Jace.

I also noticed that all of the creatures in the deck besides the big three colorless stompers actually are specifically included to DO NOTHING, or do nothing besides block. Unlike Caw-Blade variants, the Hawks in this deck aren’t really specifically concerned with doming your opponent with a sword, but more concerned with blocking and buying you time. The same thing goes with the [card]Wall of Omens[/card]. The [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s (in addition to her drawing you important mythic swords) are meant to be thrown under the nearest [card]Plated Geopede[/card]. I realized that the game plan of this deck was actually just to throw durdles under the bus until you cast an [card]All is Dust[/card]. And then, and only then, do you try to kill them with something. So I switched a few cards in and out of the main deck, tweaked it for my local meta and filled a few holes I thought needed filling with this game plan in mind. Here’s what I registered for my national qualifier.

[deck title=Mono White Eldrazi by Jared Maguire]
[Artifacts]
2 Contagion Clasp
4 Everflowing Chalice
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Tumble Magnet
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Artifacts]
[Creatures]
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Wall of Omens
[/Creatures]
[Legendary Creatures]
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
[/Legendary Creatures]
[Sorceries]
2 Day of Judgment
[/Sorceries]
[Tribal Sorceries]
3 All is Dust
[/Tribal Sorceries]
[Basic Lands]
9 Plains
[/Basic Lands]
[Lands]
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Tectonic Edge
[/Lands]
[Legendary Land]
1 Eye of Ugin
[/Legendary Land]
[Sideboard]
1 Mortarpod
1 All is Dust
1 Tumble Magnet
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Celestial Purge
2 Day of Judgment
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

I finished 5-2. I was in 8th place in Round 7 at 5-1 and I could have potentially drawn in to Top 8. My breakers were not the best however, and I was informed that since everyone else who had better breakers were probably drawing, if I played my last round and won I would be the only person at 18 points and end up in first place. I would also get a plaque with my name on it. I would become the local nerd chieftain. I prepared the Spartans for glory.

I lost. But how often do you get the chance to win it all? I assume that no one wants to read another bollocks tournament report where I insist that I “Almost got there,” so I’ll just say the deck is better than I thought and I had some rough matchups. I mean, how does Mono White Eldrazi beat Mono Green Eldrazi? Here’s what I noticed over the course of the day:

-[card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] is a goddamn government trained killing machine. Once it picks up a sword, you’re there. You can actually feel the eyes of your opponents rolling into the back of their heads as you infect them with a mono white deck. If you manage to resolve a [card]Contagion Clasp[/card], things get bettter.

-[card]Contagion Clasp[/card] is a legitimate threat and it kills legitimate threats. It’s weird.

Here’s what you are likely to kill:
[card]Steppe Lynx[/card]
[card]Plated Geopede[/card]
[card]Cunning Sparkmage[/card]
[card]Spikeshot Elder[/card]
[card]Memnite[/card]
[card]Signal Pest[/card]
[card]Lotus Cobra[/card]
[card]Squadron Hawk[/card]
[card]Joraga Treespeaker[/card] (on the play)
[card]Birds of Paradise[/card]
[card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card]
Most of the cards in Red/Black Vampires

You should be happy with that.

-[card]Tumble Magnet[/card] is actually the mega nut. Yep, we’re there. We are at the point in constructed magic where this card matters. It taps down Titans. It taps down flying things with swords. It clears blockers so flying things with swords can attack. It taps down other [card]Tumble Magnet[/card]s. MAGNET YOUR MAGNET?

-[card]Survival Cache[/card] is ALMOST as good as Flores makes it out to be. He calls it the “White Divination.” I don’t know who the hell really wants to cast a [card]Divination[/card] anyway, I mean, there was a point during the reign of the Superfriends deck last season where divination was good, but I don’t know anymore. The relevant thing is that is also gains you four life. It’s just a card you have to cast in order to feel it’s power.

-Kozilek is as good as Ulamog. This deck really wants it card advantage, and drawing four cards is pretty important. Often you’ll be stuck at Kozilek or [card]Eye of Ugin[/card] activation mana, and you’ll need to resolve him in order to get the chalices or the plains to cast Ulamog. Many of my friends suggested just to play two Ulamogs, but Kozilek definitely has a spot in this deck.

-[card]Wall of Omens[/card] actually doesn’t suck anymore. Well, one [card]Wall of Omens[/card] still sucks. But MULTIPLE [card]Walls of Omens[/card] are pretty hard for your opponent to fight through. It’s the old way to play control – you just build walls and [card]Tumble Magnet[/card]s and force your opponent to commit to the board and then you blow them out with a sweeper. If they don’t commit, you peck away at them with tiny flying creatures. Everyone wins. Well, you win.

-Cards like [card]Day of Judgment[/card] and [card]All is Dust[/card] get better the more cards like [card]Wall of Omens[/card] and [card]Tumble Magnet[/card] that you play. If you don’t play any [card]Wall of Omens[/card] or [card]Tumble Magnet[/card]s, you can tell me that wrath effects are bad – but if you do, they aren’t.

-[card]Baneslayer Angel[/card] sucks. I’m sorry to say it, but she’s just useless right now. Yeah, I hear people saying she’s good against Caw-Blade, but if things are going well for that deck (and they often do), she’ll just get bounced by big daddy. She also just dies too much to all the wrath in this deck.

Here is what I would play if I played the deck again (and I’m planning to for my next qualifier).

[deck title=Updated Mono White Eldrazi by Jared Maguire]
[Creatures]
4 Wall of Omens
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Contagion Clasp
4 Squadron Hawk
[/Creatures]
[Sorceries]
4 Survival Cache
[/Sorceries]
[Artifacts]
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Tumble Magnet
1 Precursor Golem
[/Artifacts]
[Tribal Sorceries]
4 All is Dust
[/Tribal Sorceries]
[Legendary Creatures]
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
[/Legendary Creatures]
[Basic Lands]
10 Plains
[/Basic Lands]
[Lands]
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Tectonic Edge
[/Lands]
[Legendary Lands]
1 Eye of Ugin
[/Legendary Lands]
[Sideboard]
4 Kor Firewalker
4 Day of Judgement
2 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Divine Offering
2 Precursor Golem
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

I can recommend this deck to anyone with some time to kill and an itch to play some haymaker Magic. While this deck is certainly the slowest, widest, most laborious boatload of cards I’ve shuffled up in a while, it also certainly packs a punch. With a little more tweaking, I’m sure I can get this pile to Tier 1. We’ll see if Flores has still got it.