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Showdown Recap: March 12 – Frontier

Welcome to another weekly Showdown Recap, where we take a look at what happened at Face to Face Games Toronto’s weekly Sunday Showdown, a series of 1k events feeding into the Ultimate Showdown 5k Invitational. This week, we dove right back into Frontier, after a 2k Bonus Showdown a few weeks ago!

That event featured a plethora of familiar faces, but also a healthy serving of [card]Dig through Time[/card] fighting against various aggro strategies. A mere three weeks later, the winning metagame has changed completely. While some decks like [card]Hardened Scales[/card] continued to post results, there were a staggering zero copies of [card]Dig through Time[/card] or [card]Torrential Gearhulk[/card] in the top 8, with only one deck bringing [card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/card] to the table. What happened to shut the entire colour blue out of this tournament so effectively? Let’s take a look…

Let’s start with one of our outliers: Ivan Pienaar brought a deck that dominated a Standard season, but has been surprisingly absent in Frontier top 8s – until now! His Bant [card]Collected Company[/card] deck featured many of the hard-hitters of days present, past, and banned, from [card]Tireless Tracker[/card] to [card]Lambholt Pacifist[/card] and [card]Reflector Mage[/card]. His list specifically is a bit of a hybrid between the [card]Thalia’s Lieutenant[/card]/[card]Thraben Inspector[/card] versions of the deck we saw in the latter half of the deck’s Standard lifetime and the original [card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/card] build with more staying power. Of course, we couldn’t miss out on Aether Revolt’s most flavourful and powerful addition to the deck, another powerful 3-drop in [card]Renegade Rallier[/card]. This card is downright absurd with [card]Collected Company[/card], and in a format with fetchlands, it’s poised to do lots of work in the coming months.

Dylan Harkness brought one of the more quietly powerful decks in the format to the tournament – Grixis [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card]. This deck takes the concept of the Scissors decks that were popular at Pro Tour Origins, specifically using the powerful artifact synergies found in Origins, and adds a ton of utility and power from Kaladesh. [card]Unlicensed Disintegration[/card] is as absurd here as it is in Standard, and this deck actually gets to play [card]Tezzeret’s Touch[/card]! A set of [card]Implement of Combustion[/card] ensures safety from any [card]Saheeli Rai[/card] combos, and [card]Metallic Rebuke[/card] out of the sideboard gives the deck solid interaction. Keep an eye on this deck! Despite it not posting results, it’s very powerful, and much like Affinity in Modern, shines strongest when it’s out of the spotlight and players cut artifact removal.

Matt Mealing maintained two trends this week: finishing in the top 8 of every Frontier Showdown, and doing so with increasingly confusing Abzan decks. When people think Abzan, they think [card]Siege Rhino[/card], but Matt clearly has some kind of blood feud with that card. He refuses to play it. However, he’s clearly doing it right, since he’s the most consistent finisher in this series, by far. This week, his innovative deck featured [card]Sylvan Advocate[/card] as his two-drop of choice, alongside the typical comprehensive suite of [card]Rally the Ancestors[/card] hate cards – expanded this week for the powerful [card]Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet[/card]. Having a wide variety of these powerful mid-to-late-game cards is stellar alongside [card]Whisperwood Elemental[/card], another sleeper card featured in his deck. Typically, Matt takes a more aggressive route, but he decided for this week to play a ton of removal spells, with full sets of [card]Declaration in Stone[/card], [card]Fatal Push[/card], and [card]Abzan Charm[/card] in his maindeck.

This week’s big winner, however, was without a doubt big, controlling Jund decks. Matt Cherkas and Matt Murday both brought Jund Delirium to the table, a powerful strategy based on Standard’s pre-banning BG Delirium decks. These decks are focused on filling the graveyard with at least four card types to turn on both powerful roadblocks like [card]Ishkanah, Grafwidow[/card] and utility cards like [card]Traverse the Ulvenwald[/card] – with the end goal of jamming the unbelievably powerful [card]Emrakul, the Promised End[/card]. This strategy gets a lot of help in Frontier, with fetchlands and [card]Satyr Wayfinder[/card] smoothing out the games dramatically, and [card]Kolaghan’s Command[/card] providing an unreasonable amount of gasoline. Speaking of gas, Jerico Reguirre took a decidedly grindier plan with his Jund deck, playing a huge [card]Seasons Past[/card] strategy with only three creatures in the maindeck! This deck gets to play a staggering amount of card advantage between [card]Read the Bones[/card] and [card]Painful Truths[/card], uses [card]Collective Brutality[/card] and removal to turn that advantage into game presence, then uses the [card]Nissa’s Renewal[/card]/[card]Dark Petition[/card]/[card]Seasons Past[/card] engine to lock up the game. If that’s not dreamy, I don’t know what is.

Did I call Jund a winner? Just kidding, the red wasn’t necessary. Andrew Oyen has been playing [card]Hardened Scales[/card] in this format forever, and both him and the eventual winner, Quinn Gregg, brought the deck to another set of top finishes, showing that Aether Revolt’s addition of [card]Winding Constrictor[/card] makes the deck no slouch. As is expected with a linear strategy such as this one, both decks were mostly similar, with Quinn choosing to play the more powerful [card]Greenwheel Liberator[/card] over Andrew’s safer [card]Narnam Renegade[/card].

Quinn’s win qualifies them directly for the Ultimate Showdown, while Matt Mealing’s repeated consistent finishes pushes them ahead in the standings this week, pushing just ahead of Chris Ha. Expect him to start pushing back furiously in coming weeks! Join us next week for a special 2k Modern Masters 2017 Sealed Double Showdown, and don’t forget about Saturday’s Facetofacegames.com Toronto 3k Modern Open! We’re also running Modern Masters 2017 drafts all weekend at the store and at the Open – check out details here.

Quinn Gregg – BG Hardened Scales – 1st

[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
2 Greenwheel Liberator
4 Walking Ballista
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Winding Constrictor
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Elvish Mystic
[/Creatures]

[Spells]
4 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4 Hardened Scales
4 Fatal Push
1 Murderous Cut
[/Spells]

[Lands]
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
1 Cinder Glade
1 Smoldering Marsh
2 Swamp
4 Forest
[/Lands]

[Sideboard]
4 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Duress
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Natural State
2 Den Protector
1 Murderous Cut
1 Minister of Pain
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Matt Cherkas – Jund Delirium – 2nd

[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Emrakul, the Promised End
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Walking Ballista
2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Vessel of Nascency
4 Fatal Push
2 Grasp of Darkness
1 Unlicensed Disintegration
2 Kolaghan’s Command
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Languish
3 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Cinder Glade
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mountain
2 Smoldering Marsh
2 Swamp
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Unlicensed Disintegration
3 Transgress the Mind
1 Distended Mindbender
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Radiant Flames
1 To The Slaughter
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Phyrexian Revoker
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Matt Mealing – Abzan Midrange – 3rd

[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Warden of the First Tree
4 Sylvan Advocate
3 Hushwing Gryff
3 Anafenza, the Foremost
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Whisperwood Elemental
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Fatal Push
4 Declaration in Stone
4 Abzan Charm
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Murderous Cut
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Hissing Quagmire
4 Blooming Marsh
1 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Shambling Vent
1 Canopy Vista
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Dromoka’s Command
2 Fumigate
1 Hushwing Gryff
3 Duress
1 Collective Brutality
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Den Protector
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Andrew Oyen – BG Hardened Scales – 4th

[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Avatar of the Resolute
3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Walking Ballista
4 Winding Constrictor
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Elvish Mystic
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Hardened Scales
4 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Bone Splinters
1 Murderous Cut
2 Fatal Push
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Cinder Glade
2 Windswept Heath
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Blooming Marsh
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Blossoming Defense
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Fatal Push
4 Smuggler’s Copter
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Dylan Harkness – Grixis Ensoul Artifact – 5th

[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Maverick Thopterist
2 Pia Nalaar
1 Thopter Engineer
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Ornithopter
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Shrapnel Blast
2 Tezzeret’s Touch
3 Aethersphere Harvester
4 Ensoul Artifact
4 Implement of Combustion
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Spire of Industry
4 Aether Hub
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Spirebluff Canal
1 Shivan Reef
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Roast
1 Unlicensed Disintegration
3 Lightning Strike
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
3 Metallic Rebuke
1 Rending Volley
1 Dispel
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Ivan Pienaar – Bant Company – 6th

[deck]
[Creatures]
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Lambholt Pacifist
3 Thraben Inspector
4 Reflector Mage
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Renegade Rallier
4 Thalia’s Lieutenant
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
4 Dromoka’s Command
4 Collected Company
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Canopy Vista
3 Forest
1 Island
3 Plains
2 Prairie Stream
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Lantern Scout
2 Spell Queller
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Dispel
2 Valorous Stance
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Jerico Reguirre – Jund Seasons Past – 7th

[deck]
[Creatures]
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Dragonlord Atarka
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Collective Brutality
3 Fatal Push
3 Transgress the Mind
1 Lost Legacy
2 Painful Truths
4 Read the Bones
3 Ruinous Path
1 To the Slaughter
2 Languish
2 Crux of Fate
3 Dark Petition
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Nissa’s Renewal
2 Seasons Past
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Blighted Fen
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cinder Glade
4 Forest
2 Hissing Quagmire
1 Mountain
2 Smoldering MArsh
6 Swamp
4 Wooded Foothills
[/Lands]
[sideboard]
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Duress
1 Naturalize
3 Essence Extraction
1 Stain the Mind
2 Lost Legacy
2 Virulent Plague
1 Crux of Fate
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Matt Murday – Jund Delirium – 8th

[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Walking Ballista
4 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Den Protector
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Languish
3 Vessel of Nascency
2 Grasp of Darkness
2 Kolaghan’s Command
4 Fatal Push
2 Unlicensed Disintegration
3 Liliana, the Last Hope
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Smoldering Marsh
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Cinder Glade
2 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Transgress the Mind
2 To the Slaughter
1 Languish
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Lost Legacy
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

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