Welcome to another 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. Today, we’re covering April 30th’s Modern Showdown, the May 7th Facetofacegames.com Toronto 3k Modern Open, and the May 8th Legacy Showdown.
Let’s start off with the Modern Showdown! This event showed off a lot of the new face of Modern, with four [card]Thoughtseize[/card] decks in the playoffs, dueling with a slew of more-or-less linear strategies for the top spots.
Two quarterfinalists, Showdown mainstays Jerico Reguirre and Zane Pimiskern, both brought big mana decks to the scrum – Jerico preferring Bant Eldrazi, while Zane registered GW Tron. While ostensibly different, both decks share many traits: they play [card]Path to Exile[/card], which is highly effective against [card]Death’s Shadow[/card], they need to draw combinations of fast mana and expensive spells, and that this makes them weak to [card]Thoughtseize[/card], the current all-star of this format. These decks are powerful, but while the slow pace of the old BGx decks made them inevitable favourite to fight through disruption, this is very different in a metagame where the [card]Thoughtseize[/card] decks play one-mana 8/8s.
Peter De Vries put up another consistent finish in the Showdown series with his Modern deck of choice, Merfolk. Merfolk has gained a lot of edges recently due to the effectiveness of [card]Spreading Seas[/card] effects against [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] decks. Peter not only maindecks the full set, but sideboards four copies of [card]Sea’s Claim[/card] to add redundancy to the strategy. [card]Phantasmal Image[/card] has also gained a lot of equity as the creature quality of the format has skyrocketed.
Speaking of the boogeyman of the format, Jeremy Rubinoff brought Jund [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] to 5th place, a relentlessly powerful and surprisingly consistent deck. While many builds of this strategy are focused on the ability to grind out the opponent with a neverending stream of resilient threats, Jeremy’s Jund build instead is focused on playing a bunch of large creatures early and then punching through with [card]Temur Battle Rage[/card] and removal, which would allow him to steal wins against traditionally poor matchups. I also really like his sideboard [card]Bitterblossom[/card]!
Alexei Varakin put up another top 4 with his Affinity deck, unsurprisingly powerful in a format where the best deck is intentionally trying to put themselves to a low life total. An artifact-heavy strategy is a risk right now, however, due to the prevalence of [card]Kolaghan’s Command[/card] in the [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] decks, as well as the high [card]Lingering Souls[/card] count both played in those decks and played to beat it.
Our perennial villanous hero, Chris Ha, made it to yet another semifinals finish with his erstwhile Abzan deck. He still refuses to cut his singleton [card]Stirring Wildwood[/card] and [card]Gavony Township[/card], presumably due to a lack of foil replacements, but continues to prove me wrong by putting up high finish after high finish with the deck. The prevalence of [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] strategies continues to advantage decks like Chris’s, in a dichotomy explained extremely well by wise Toronto seer Keith Capstick in his recent BGx Bible article.
In the end, Jason Drossis was able to take down the finals with an Abzan Midrange deck, defeating x’s Esper [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] deck in a tight match. The Esper deck is quite powerful, akin to the old Esper [card]Monastery Mentor[/card] decks, but significantly faster, albeit less versatile. It highlights the sheer power level of adding a one-mana 8/8 to any non-controlling strategy by pairing the Horror with the oddly-resilient threats of [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], [card]Tasigur, the Golden Fang[/card], and [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. What this deck excels at is taking the commonly-played [card]Fatal Push[/card] and turning its strength at killing [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] against it by filling out the rest of the deck with cards that it’s a blank against. Versatile threats and powerful counterspells, [card]Thoughtseize[/card]s and [card]Path to Exile[/card]? Sign me up. However, Jason also brought [card]Path to Exile[/card] to the table, one of the few cards that can tangle with both [card]Death’s Shadow[/card], and [card]Tasigur, the Golden Fang[/card]. His Abzan deck plays many of the same cards, but is able to firmly take the control role in the matchup, giving him an advantage in what is essentially a midrange mirror. Personally, I’d like to see a build of this deck without [card]Noble Hierarch[/card], as while it speeds you up somewhat against linear strategies, a non-black-producing mana dork is not at its best in this format’s frequent midrange mirrors.
Jason Drossis – Abzan – 1st
[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Grim Flayer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Cast Out
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Blooming Marsh
2 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Forest
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Collective Brutality
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Damnation
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Stony Silence
1 Blessed Alliance
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Tomas Hladik – Grixis Death’s Shadow – 2nd
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Death’s Shadow
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
4 Street Wraith
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Kolaghan’s Command
2 Stubborn Denial
3 Fatal Push
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Terminate
4 Thought Scour
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Watery Grave
2 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
1 Island
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Countersquall
2 Kozilek’s Return
1 Terminate
1 Painful Truths
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Fatal Push
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Chris Ha – Abzan – 3rd
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Shambling Vents
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Gavony Township
3 Blooming Marsh
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Damnation
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
2 Stony Silence
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Golgari Charm
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Alexei Varakin – Affinity – 4th
[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Etched Champion
1 Master of Etherium
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Steel Overseer
4 Vault Skirge
1 Spellskite
4 Signal Pest
4 Ornithopter
3 Memnite
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Thoughtcast
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Cranial Plating
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Mox Opal
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Inkmoth Nexus
[protected]
1 Island
3 Glimmervoid
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Whipflare
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spellskite
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Etched Champion
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Blood Moon
1 Master of Etherium
1 Illness in the Ranks
1 Wear // Tear
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jeremy Rubinoff – Jund Death’s Shadow – 5th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Death’s Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Grim Flayer
4 Street Wraith
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Mishra’s Bauble
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
2 Tarfire
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Kolaghan’s Command
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Temur Battle Rage
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Fatal Push
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Bitterblossom
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fulminator Mage
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jerico Reguirre – Bant Eldrazi – 6th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
1 Reflector Mage
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Drowner of Hope
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Path to Exile
2 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Batterskull
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Breeding Pool
3 Brushland
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Yavimaya Coast
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Nature’s Claim
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Celestial Purge
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Worship
1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Peter de Vries – Merfolk – 7th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Cursecatcher
2 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
3 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
1 Vapor Snag
[/Spells]
[Lands]
13 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
[/Lands]
[sideboard]
4 Sea’s Claim
4 Unified Will
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
Zane Pimiskern – GW Tron – 8th
[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Path to Exile
3 Oblivion Stone
1 Blessed Alliance
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Expedition Map
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ancient Stirrings
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Urza’s Tower
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Brushland
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Forest
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Grim Poppet
1 Pithing Needle
3 Warping Wail
2 Rest in Peace
3 Nature’s Claim
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Thragtusk
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Let’s fast forward a week – over 100 players turned out to another Facetofacegames.com Toronto Modern 3k Open, fighting for glory, a trophy, awesome playmats – oh, and over $3000 in prizes. Despite last week’s [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] dominance, no Rock-style decks were to be found in the playoffs here, and the only maindeck hand disruption was in its most natural home: 8-Rack!
Starting from the bottom, we have Chris Flink, whose [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] is as much a part of him as his patch-ridden leather jacket. As he wrote for us in his primer from the other week, Chris was looking to try [card]Gideon of the Trials[/card] as a split with [card]Phyrexian Unlife[/card] to be able to pressure cards like [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]. Chris is a man of his word, and put up a respectable finish with the new Planeswalker. Check out his great article for more details on his deck!
Zombies might have won the Pro Tour, but Daniel Dove played the OG Tribal deck, Elves, to a 7th place finish here! In the same way that the Zombies deck randomly pushes dozens of points of power onto the board, Elves is known to flood the board with little dorks at an unmatched rate. Daniel’s version plays the light black splash for [card]Shaman of the Pack[/card], a powerful burn spell, as well as a sweet sideboard [card]Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet[/card] to crush through [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] decks.
Jeremy Brain, our sixth place finisher, unsurprisingly insisted that I call his deck by its submitted name, something arbitrarily, nonsensically, moderately obscene. But it’s an 8-rack deck, so I’ll leave the death metal-lyric deck name stranded as an unread Facebook message. Jeremy’s build is well-tuned for the expected BGx metagame, with maindeck [card]Lingering Souls[/card] and sweet sideboard [card]Death’s Shadow[/card]s. The white splash also gives him access to the colour’s powerful sideboard cards in [card]Rest in Peace[/card] and [card]Stony Silence[/card].
Rounding out our quarterfinalists is Matthew Camazola, whose Abzan Company deck features the maindeck [card]Melira, Sylvok Outcast[/card] combo alongside the [card]Archangel of Thune[/card]/[card]Spike Feeder[/card] combo in the sideboard to beat graveyard hate. Access to all these powerful combos in a [card]Chord of Calling[/card] deck is very significant in a creature-dominant format, where getting to stall out the board with a full playset of [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] that also enable your combo is downright awesome. Matthew also plays maindeck [card]Orzhov Pontiff[/card], an indispensible card as [card]Lingering Souls[/card] counts creep up steadily, and [card]Tireless Tracker[/card], the Best Card in History.
Moving on to the top 4, we have yet another [card]Collected Company[/card] deck of yet another flavour, with Franco Pascalini’s Bant [card]Retreat to Coralhelm[/card] deck. This deck is reminiscent of its Standard cousin, with [card]Spell Queller[/card]s and [card]Tireless Tracker[/card]s galore flooding the board and disrupting the opponent. Much like most other [card]Collected Company[/card] decks in Modern, this list features a combo – this time [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] and [card]Retreat to Coralhelm[/card], which lets you blaze through all the lands in your deck, ending with [card]Kessig Wolf Run[/card] to trample through for a ton of damage. Sweet! This deck also has one of the best sideboards in Modern, with access to countermagic as well as white’s best hate cards.
In third place, we have our second [card]Gideon of the Trials[/card] deck in Quinn O’Grady’s UW Control. This deck preys on the creature-centric nature of the format by playing a ton of [card]Supreme Verdict[/card]s and [card]Cryptic Command[/card]s to defend a massive suite of planeswalkers, eventually going well over the top of the rest of the format. I’ve been a big fan of these control decks cutting the traditional counterspell suite of [card]Remand[/card], [card]Mana Leak[/card], and [card]Spell Snare[/card], as threat diversity in Modern is at an all-time high, and so many of these cards are just not as powerful at answering them as they used to be.
Grand Prix Richmond 2014 Champion Brian “[card]Hallowed Fountain[/card] and [card]Fire-Lit Thicket[/card] in the Same Deck” Liu has been absent from competitive Magic for a while, but decided to remind everyone of his odd mastery of the Modern format by achieving a finals berth at this Open with exactly zero playables in his deck. When you’re as powerful a Planeswalker as Brian, you don’t actually need any cards that do anything ([card]Gideon’s Intervention[/card]) to win every match. Brian brought his old faithful, 4-colour Kiki Chord, to rumble, and included tons of spicy technology in his deck for our viewing pleasure. Maindeck [card]Glen Elendra Archmage[/card], his signature card, provides an option for a hard lock against lots of combo decks, while being powerful against control decks as well as Jund strategies. Brian also played the [card]Nahiri, the Harbinger[/card] package, adding a different dynamic to the deck – a combo that doesn’t fold to removal. Being able to loot away redundant lands is always great, and tutoring up [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] is, unsurprisingly, quite powerful. This is a solid strategy in a strange midrange deck.
Zack Brooks, however, won the entire tournament with, in my humble and definitely-not-biased opinion, the clear favourite for most awesome deck. Blue Moon variants have had a lot of continued success in this tournament series, starting with Caleb Keung’s win with [card]Torrential Gearhulk[/card] in February. Zack’s been calling his deck [card]Splinter Twin[/card] for a while, thanks to its two-card combo of [card]Through the Breach[/card] and [card]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/card] in a blue control shell. Maindeck [card]Blood Moon[/card] is at an all-time high strength thanks to the colour-heavy [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] decks, and it’s not like [card]Cryptic Command[/card] and [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] stopped being sweet.
Facetofacegames.com Toronto Modern Open – May 6th
Zack Brooks – UR Through the Breach – 1st
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Snapcaster Mage
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Through the Breach
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
2 Vedalken Shackles
3 Blood Moon
2 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
1 Electrolyze
1 Harvest Pyre
1 Logic Knot
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Mountain
8 Island
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Sulfur Falls
3 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Flame Slash
1 Batterskull
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Flashfreeze
1 Inferno Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Dispel
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Brian Liu – Kiki-Chord – 2nd
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Wall of Roots
1 Spellskite
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Courser of Kruphix
3 Eternal Witness
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Restoration Angel
2 Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
3 Chord of Calling
2 Path to Exile
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Gavony Township
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Plains
1 Forest
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Stony Silence
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
2 Worship
1 Kataki, War’s Wage
3 Unified Will
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Path to Exile
2 Fiery Justice
1 Gideon’s Intervention
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Quinn O’Grady – UW Control – 3rd
[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
1 Gideon of the Trials
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Cryptic Command
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Gideon Jura
1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
4 Serum Visions
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Path to Exile
2 Negate
1 Shadow of Doubt
4 Spreading Seas
2 Detention Sphere
[/Spells]
[Lands]
5 Island
3 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Glacial Fortress
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Dispel
4 Timely Reinforcements
3 Spell Queller
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Wrath of God
1 Condemn
1 Rule of Law
2 Stony Silence
1 Rest in Peace
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Franco Pascalini – Bant Company – 4th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Spell Queller
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Reflector Mage
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Negate
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Izzet Staticaster
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Stony Silence
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Matthew Camazola – Melira Company – 5th
[deck]
[Creatures]
1 Spellskite
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Wall of Roots
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Viscera Seer
1 Murderous Redcap
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Gavony Township
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Forest
3 Temple Garden
3 Razorverge Thicket
4 Windswept Heath
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Spike Feeder
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Sin Collector
3 Path to Exile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Stony Silence
1 Qasali Pridemage
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jeremy Brain – 8-Rack – 6th
[deck]
[Spells]
2 Collective Brutality
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Funeral Charm
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Lingering Souls
4 Raven’s Crime
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Smallpox
4 The Rack
2 Thoughtseize
3 Wrench Mind
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Godless Shrine
2 Fetid Heath
6 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Death’s Shadow
2 Disenchant
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Extirpate
1 Fragmentize
2 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Daniel Dove – Elves – 7th
[deck]
[Creatures]
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Dwynen’s Elite
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Lead the Stampede
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pendelhaven
1 Llanowar Wastes
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Gilt-leaf Palace
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Cavern of Souls
5 Forest
[/Lands]
[sideboard]
2 Essence Warden
1 Spellskite
1 Elvish Champion
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Beast Within
1 Choke
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Dwynen, Gilt-leaf Daen
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Leyline of Vitality
2 Fracturing Gust
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
Chris Flink – Ad Nauseam – 8th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Angel’s Grace
2 Phyrexian Unlife
2 Gideon of the Trials
2 Pact of Negation
1 Glorious End
4 Lotus Bloom
3 Pentad Prism
1 Desperate Ritual
1 Lightning Storm
4 Serum Visions
3 Sleight of Hand
3 Spoils of the Vault
1 Mystical Teachings
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Island
2 Plains
4 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Deceit
2 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolaria West
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Thoughtseize
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing Truth
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Disenchant
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Last, but not least, we have ourselves a Legacy Showdown! This is our first major Legacy event since the banning of [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], devastating the “best deck”, Miracles. The player response to this was mixed, bordering on positive, but the stellar turnout at this Showdown speaks to the popularity of such a decision.
Jason Drossis and Andrew Gordon both brought [card]Food Chain[/card] decks to the table. These decks gained popularity thanks to their viability against Miracles, but Jason and Andrew both proved that the deck has chops against the rest of the format as well! The ability to be a grindy midrange deck with disruptive elements as well as a combo certainly plays well, as a versatile deck like this is sweet in a somewhat unknown metagame. It turns out [card]Leovold, Emissary of Trest[/card] and [card]Force of Will[/card] are still good!
Peter De Vries (and Jason Drossis, for that matter), recorded back-to-back Showdown top 8 finishes these past two weeks, and Peter even played the same deck in each format! His Legacy Merfolk deck is quite sweet as well, featuring maindeck copies of [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] and [card]Venser, Shaper Savant[/card] as well as the ever-powerful [card]Chalice of the Void[/card]. I’m a big fan of [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card] in the sideboard as well, as even though its primary target, [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], is no longer around, it’s still a very effective piece of disruption.
The rest of our quarterfinalists, Jason Arsenault and Austin Tully, both brought [card]Goblin Charbelcher[/card] to the tournament – a surprising beneficiary of the Miracles ban. Storm-style decks like this one struggled a lot against a deck featuring both [card]Counterbalance[/card] and [card]Force of Will[/card], but with it gone, a fast-and-furious deck like Belcher suddenly becomes more viable, if still volatile.
Another big winner is [card]Delver of Secrets[/card], hated out by high quantities of [card]Terminus[/card] and [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] fighting against [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] decks. Kevin Fang brought a Sultai Delver deck reminiscent of the Team America decks of old, featuring a full playset of [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] alongside other powerful disruption like [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] and four [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]s. Having access to powerful disruption alongside undercosted threats is pretty much the formula that makes Modern [card]Death’s Shadow[/card] such a beast, and this deck features the same elements alongside even more disruption and consistency. This is something to look out for in the coming weeks.
Our other semifinalist, Jon Fine, played a black Eldrazi deck, one of the few decks that was able to rumble with [card]Counterbalance[/card]. However, [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] gains a lot of real estate when [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] is viable, and it’s not like turn 2 [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card] into turn 3 [card]Reality Smasher[/card] suddenly got bad.
However, it sure looks like Daniel Goetschel had the deck for this tournament, playing his [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] to another Showdown win. Powerful cards like [card]Price of Progress[/card] and [card]Bedlam Reveler[/card] backed up by the consistent blue counterspells and cantrips are very serious. For the same reasons that [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] is good, Daniel’s sideboard [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] are tremendous in this Storm combo-heavy new format. I, for one, am excited to see the resurgence of combo and Delver decks in Legacy. Also of note, only one round in this tournament went to time. The Top ban was great!
Legacy Showdown
Daniel Goetschel – UR Delver – 1st
[deck]
[Creatures]
3 Stormchaser Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Bedlam Reveler
1 Snapcaster Mage
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Price of Progress
[/Spells]
[Lands]
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Flusterstorm
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Rough // Tumble
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Andrew Gordon – Food Chain – 2nd
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
4 Walking Ballista
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Eternal Scourge
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Food Chain
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Hydroblast
1 Fatal Push
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Engineered Plague
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Golgari Charm
2 Relic of Progenitus
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jon Fine – Eldrazi – 3rd
Unfortunately, we lost Jon’s sideboard.
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Endless One
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
1 Oblivion Sower
2 Simian Spirit Guide
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Warping Wail
1 Spatial Contortion
2 Dismember
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
[/Spells]
[Lands]
3 Mishra’s Factory
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Eye of Ugin
1 Karakas
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
[/Lands]
[/deck]
Kevin Fang – Sultai Delver – 4th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Tombstalker
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Fatal Push
4 Abrupt Decay
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Golgari Charm
1 Dread of Night
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Pithing Needle
3 Fatal Push
1 Sylvan Library
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jason Arsenault – Belcher – 5th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Pyretic Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Rite of Flame
3 Chrome Mox
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Burning Wish
3 Manamorphose
3 Empty the Warrens
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Taiga
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Reverent Silence
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Austin Tully – Belcher – 6th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Rite of Flame
4 Land Grant
4 Chrome Mox
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Burning Wish
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lotus Petal
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Manamorphose
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Taiga
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroblast
2 Guttural Response
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Reverent Silence
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Telemin Performance
1 Diminishing Returns
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Peter de Vries – Merfolk – 7th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of Atlantis
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
2 Daze
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
[/Spells]
[Lands]
12 Island
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Dismember
1 Grip of Phyresis
1 Misdirection
4 Wasteland
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
Jason Drossis – Food Chain – 8th
[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Eternal Scourge
3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Walking Ballista
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Force of Will
1 Murderous Cut
4 Food Chain
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
1 Golgari Charm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]