DECK: Modern Big Naya, 2/15/19

The Modern metagame has became full of relatively linear and noninteractive aggressive decks like Humans, Spirits, Dredge and Phoenix, to the point that Baneslayer Angel has become a staple in UW decks. This led me to think: why not play Baneslayer Angel in a Green midrange shell? If the card is good, isn't ramping into it even better? Starting from one of my favorite decks played by the Naya God himself, I have arrived at the list below:

Maindeck

Sideboard

imgur link

While by no means revolutionary or top-tier, this archetype definitely has legs. It has performed well at the FNM level, producing frequent prize finishes. I took it to one medium event, SCG Regionals last November, and went 4-4 with many misplays. Doing OK playing cards I like is good enough for me.

The maindeck has been quite static (despite many 2- and 3-ofs, it seems to work) until re-examination this week. Elspeth, Knight-Errant was replaced with Ajani Vengeant, and Tireless Trackers were replaced with Huntmasters. Two Bolts became two Helixes. These moves were a concession to the wild popularity of Phoenix and Burn at my store in particular. Its been so long since I played Huntmaster that I still have English ones...

Furthermore, in the sideboard Blood Moons were replaced with Damping Spheres, and Bonfires were replaced with Flame Slash + Dromoka's Command. I am contemplating swapping Rest in Peace for Relic of Progenitus in future as well.

Here's how the FNM went:

Round 1: UW Midrange (W 2-1)
Round 2: Jund (W 2-0)
Round 3: Affinity (W 2-0)
Round 4: Mono-Red Phoenix (L 1-2)
Round 5: Valakut (we drew, but L 0-2 in games)

DECK: UW Delver, 12/28/18

Its been a while since I did one of these. Here is the UW Delver deck I played at a local event recently (4-0 - beat UWr Twin, TES, UR Delver, and 5C Humans).

Maindeck

Sideboard

imgur link

I first tried this archetype in some side events at Eternal Weekend and had a blast. Legacy players love to hate Delver/Stoneforge Mystic decks for some reason, but I've always liked them and this is my favorite iteration so far. Earlier this year I played a lot of UWr Delver, but it just hasn't felt the same since Probe got banned.

The list is pretty "stock", not deviating significantly from Owen's GP list except for some sideboard choices. The amount of graveyard hate he had seemed egregious, so I trimmed it down. The omission of a 2nd Back to Basics is based on my card availability, but I'm not sure two is even the correct number. Spell Snare is fantastic right now so I had to dedicate a slot for it.

More recently a Japanese player made top 8 of GP Shizuoka with this deck, but I dislike several of their choices, primarily 1) cutting the 4th Spell Pierce and 2) running zero Council's Judgment in the side. The full set of Spell Pierce is sooo good with Snapcaster, and the versatility of Judgement necessitates its inclusion despite its clunkiness by my estimation.

We Twitch Stream Now - twitch.tv/s3raphix

I've started streaming MTGO on Twitch:

twitch.tv/s3raphix

Stay a while and listen sometime.

Tournament Report: 10th @ SCG Classic with Punishing Maverick, 9/23/18

Miracles has reared its ugly head once again with a victory at GP Richmond. The deck was certain to become more popular as a result. Bad news for Maverick players. In order to have a fighting chance in this matchup, I needed to seriously re-evaluate some of my card choices. After consulting other Punishing Maverick and Miracles players, this is the list I arrived at for this year's SCG Legacy Open in Baltimore:

Punishing Maverick, 9/22/18
Creature Spells (21) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Noble Hierarch 1x Birds of Paradise 3x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Voice of Resurgence 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (16) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 3x Punishing Fire 2x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Batterskull
Lands (23) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 2x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Plateau 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Horizon Canopy	SB: 2x Choke SB: 2x Pyroblast SB: 2x Crop Rotation SB: 2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben SB: 1x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Council's Judgment SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant SB: 1x Nissa, Vital Force

• The 2nd Sylvan Library is one of the best cards against Miracles, and is fantastic right now with fewer Abrupt Decays, Leovolds, and Lightning Bolt-based Delver decks in the format than before. 

• Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has replaced Ethersworn Canonist as a threat that is also good against combo, but far superior against control.

• Pyroblasts have joined Choke as general anti-Blue cards.

• Council's Judgment has replaced Fiery Justice due to its ability to reliably answer Jace, or Back to Basics/Counterbalance if necessary.

• Nissa, Vital Force has joined Elspeth as another high-impact, resilient threat. Nissa might be one of the best threats against Miracles: she hits fast and hard, and can buy back troublesome cards like Library and Choke.

Conveniently, most of this technology lines up well against Grixis Control and Sneak & Show, two other prominent decks. The cost of these modifications is that we have given up ground against Death & Taxes, Elves, Reanimator, Shadow, and Storm.

My Saturday did not go very well.

Round 1: Grixis Control (1-2)
Round 2: UWR Mentor (0-2)
Round 3: A.N.T. (0-2)
Round 4: No show!
Round 5: RUG Landstill (2-0)
Round 6: UB Shadow (2-1)
Round 7: Miracles (2-1)
Round 8: UB Shadow (1-2)

After the first three rounds, my tournament was the poster child of "things gone wrong". I had some mopey draws against Grixis. I mis-identified what turned out to be a Mentor aggro deck as Miracles. My Storm opponent cantripped into a kill after a seemingly poor Ad Nauseam down to 1 life. The only highlight of the day was triumphing over actual Miracles.

Nevertheless, I decided to play the same 75 in the Classic on Sunday, believing it was still a good place to be. Around 120 players showed up for the event so was 7 rounds. Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Sneak & Show (2-0)
Round 2: Omni-Tell (2-1)
Round 3: Eldrazi Post (2-1)
Round 4: Eldrazi Aggro (2-1)
Round 5: UW Delver (2-0)
Round 6: ID
Round 7: BR Griselbrand (0-2)

Final Record: 5-1-1, 10th place

Unfortunately I was paired down in the final round and had to play what turned out to be a bad matchup. So it goes.

Interestingly, despite the prevalence of Miracles it failed to place in the top 32 of the Open or the top 16 of the Classic. We'll see how well Miracles fares in the weeks leading up to Eternal Weekend in what is likely a meta well prepared for it. For now, I will more or less stick with my current configuration and see where things end up.

Props to Mark and TK for putting Punishing Maverick on the map in day 2 of the Open - playing Dire Fleet Daredevil in their decks no less!!

Maverick in GP Richmond Side Events

Unfortunately, I couldn't take the time off work to compete in the main event at GP Richmond. Nonetheless, I went up to Richmond to hang out and jam some Legacy side events.

It was natural to start with Punishing Maverick, as I hadn't played it since the banning of Deathrite Shaman.

Punishing Maverick, 9/1/18
Creature Spells (21) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Noble Hierarch 1x Birds of Paradise 3x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Voice of Resurgence 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (15) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 3x Punishing Fire 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Batterskull
Lands (24) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 2x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Plateau 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Horizon Canopy 1x Maze of Ith	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 2x Choke SB: 2x Crop Rotation SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Fiery Justice SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Wear / Tear SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Event 1, Saturday Double-Up
Lands 2-1
Grixis Control 2-0
UWR Delver 2-1

Event 2, Sunday Double-Up
Lands 2-1
Moon Stompy 2-0
Eldrazi 2-1

Apparently winning with Punishing Maverick is too easy, so I decided to play a last event on hardmode with GW Maverick. My list was inspired by Julian Knab's recent MTGO 5-0:

GW Maverick, 9/2/18
Creature Spells (25) 4x Mother of Runes 4x Noble Hierarch 3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 3x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Voice of Resurgence 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 4x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Sigarda, Host of Herons	Noncreature Spells (13) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Batterskull
Lands (22) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 4x Savannah 2x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland 1x Horizon Canopy 1x Gaea's Cradle	SB: 3x Surgical Extraction SB: 2x Choke SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Scavenging Ooze SB: 1x Oblivion Ring SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Always Watching

This deck was put together in a hurry and wasn't exactly optimized. There should have been another fetchland instead of the 3rd Mystic, with Sword of Light and Shadow instead of Batterskull. Also, Phyrexian Revoker in the sideboard should have been an Elspeth or Armageddon (I forgot my Armageddons at home, doh!).

Event 3, Sunday Regular
Esperblade 2-1
Aggro Loam 2-0
Miracles 1-2

This event went slightly worse. Notably, I won a game against Loam with Always Watching and Sigarda equipped with Sword of Fire and Ice. My round 3 pairing against Miracles made the "bug" in my sideboard super punishing.

In total, I won 1,200 tickets which I turned into over $200 in cash. A chunk of this cash was exchanged for signatures by Christopher Moeller. I visited his booth about four times on Sunday because I kept discovering cards he had illustrated!

Some conclusions reached over the weekend:

• Reanimator seems to be on the downtick (especially with the presence of maindeck copies of Reanimate in the Death's Shadow decks) and Lands is still a fantastic matchup (haven't lost a sanctioned match against Lands since Jan 2017). Therefore, I think the 2nd Surgical and 2nd Ooze aren't needed in the 75 of Punishing Maverick.
• I suspected Voice of Resurgence would get way worse in the new meta, but there is enough Grixis and Delver that its still fine.
• Maze of Ith is not worth running without Ramunap Excavator or Loam.
• Owen Turtenwald's UW Delver deck looks sweet. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to try it though.
• The side event structure at GPs has gotten way worse than it was in the past. The $20 events are horrible EV unless you go 3-0, and while the $35 ones are better in that regard, spending $20-35 to play only three rounds of Magic is off-putting.
• Mama J's is good (get the fried catfish), but not worth a 1 hour+ wait if you're hungry.

We Modern Now

Unfortunately, there are no weekly Legacy events here in Jacksonville. Despite buying some Legacy cards on MTGO, I prefer paper Magic to MTGO enough that I'm willing to play Modern FNM. Here are some of the decks I've been playing:

UW Midrange, 7/27/18
Creature Spells (16) 4x Wall of Omens 4x Kitchen Finks 2x Vendilion Clique 4x Restoration Angel 1x Dragonlord Ojutai 1x Lyra Dawnbringer	Noncreature Spells (19) 4x Spell Snare 4x Path to Exile 2x Remand 1x Negate 1x Blessed Alliance 2x Detention Sphere 3x Cryptic Command 2x Supreme Verdict
Lands (25) 4x Flooded Strand 2x Hallowed Fountain 3x Island 3x Plains 4x Celestial Colonnade 3x Mystic Gate 1x Eiganjo Castle 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge 4x Field of Ruin	SB: 2x Damping Sphere SB: 2x Rest in Peace SB: 2x Stony Silence SB: 2x Runed Halo SB: 2x Dispel SB: 2x Disenchant SB: 1x Celestial Purge SB: 1x Negate SB: 1x Supreme Verdict

UW Midrange has become one of my favorite Modern archetypes. The manabase and sideboard cards are great, and the Resto/Finks/Wall team does SO much work. This take is heavily based on Yuuya Watanabe's list from Worlds in 2015. UW has been quite successful in Modern recently in the form of hard control builds with Terminus, but I find that style much less appealing.

Zoo, 8/15/18
Creature Spells (27) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Wild Nacatl 4x Tarmogoyf 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 4x Knight of the Reliquary 3x Loxodon Smiter 4x Bloodbraid Elf	Noncreature Spells (11) 4x Path to Exile 4x Lightning Bolt 2x Lightning Helix 1x Domri Rade
Lands (22) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Wooded Foothills 2x Arid Mesa 1x Temple Garden 2x Stomping Ground 2x Sacred Foundry 2x Forest 1x Plains 1x Horizon Canopy 1x Stirring Wildwood 1x Ghost Quarter 1x Kessig Wolf Run	SB: 3x Molten Rain SB: 2x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 2x Fiery Justice SB: 2x Kitchen Finks SB: 2x Stony Silence SB: 2x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Ancient Grudge SB: 1x Sword of Light and Shadow

I always find myself coming back to Big Zoo in Modern. It just plays efficient, reasonably powerful cards and is capable presenting a quick clock, which are valuable attributes in this format. The unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf was great news for Zoo, but it has yet to put up many strong results. I think the deck isn't played very much as its on the more expensive side and isn't perceived as being good.

Liege Junk, 7/31/18
Creature Spells (27) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Birds of Paradise 4x Voice of Resurgence 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 4x Loxodon Smiter 4x Siege Rhino 3x Wilt-Leaf Liege	Noncreature Spells (10) 4x Path to Exile 2x Thoughtseize 4x Lingering Souls
Lands (23) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Verdant Catacombs 1x Marsh Flats 1x Temple Garden 1x Overgrown Tomb 1x Godless Shrine 3x Forest 1x Plains 1x Swamp 3x Razorverge Thicket 3x Gavony Township	SB: 2x Damping Sphere SB: 2x Rest in Peace SB: 2x Thoughtseize SB: 2x Stony Silence SB: 2x Gaddock Teeg SB: 2x Blessed Alliance SB: 1x Maelstrom Pulse SB: 1x Thrun, the Last Troll SB: 1x Sword of War and Peace

This deck has very polarized matchups and probably isn't very good overall.  However, I continue to play it solely due to the fact that Wilt-Leaf Liege is one of my favorite cards, and I don't really have another deck to play it in.

Bant Stoneblade Update & Top4 Tournament Report

"Not again..."

Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe are banned in Legacy. Its a brave new world now - or is it a brave old world? Many archetypes that were invalidated or suppressed by the presence of Deathrite Shaman now have a chance to shine again. One of my personal favorites, GSZ Bant Stoneblade, is one such archetype (Primer).

Although Bant experienced a renaissance throughout 2016 and 2017, it was in the form of Bant Deathblade, which eschewed the traditional GSZ package for a much more streamlined build including Deathrite Shaman, and other Black cards like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Zealous Persecution, Abrupt Decay, and Thoughtseize.

GSZ Bant was less consistent and had worse matchups than Bant Deathblade across nearly the entire field - I would argue that GSZ Bant was superior against Sneak & Show, Eldrazi Stompy, and Moon Stompy, but this wasn't a compelling enough incentive for it to be competitively played.

With Deathrite Shaman now out of the picture entirely, Bant has regained a monopoly on mana dorks + busted Blue cards which could make it a serious contender. With this in mind, I took the deck out to my local monthly Legacy event.

Bant Stoneblade, 7/15/18
Creature Spells (15) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 3x True-Name Nemesis 2x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (24) 3x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Brainstorm 2x Ponder 4x Force of Will 3x Daze 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (21) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Misty Rainforest 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Forest 1x Island 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland	SB: 2x Faerie Macabre SB: 2x Meddling Mage SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Swan Song SB: 1x Spell Pierce SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Detention Sphere SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Sylvan Library SB: 1x Sword of Fire and Ice SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

My list...well, hasn't changed much. The nature of the three "packages" (Force of Will, Stoneforge Mystic, and Green Sun's Zenith) leave very few maindeck flex slots. For those interested in minutiae, I'm playing a 2nd Ponder instead of a 22nd land to accommodate 4 Force of Will main.

In the sideboard, running Faerie Macabre instead of Surgical Extraction was a concession to Reanimator combined with the fact that there are no local Lands players (this is CRAZY to me as someone from the Northeast). But overall, nothing exciting here.

There were only 19 players at the event. Here's a meta breakdown:

• 4 Death & Taxes
• 2 UWx Miracles
• 2 Sneak & Show
• 1 Belcher
• 1 BR Griselbrand
• 1 Burn
• 1 Eldrazi
• 1 Elves
• 1 Eureka Tell
• 1 Grixis Control
• 1 Mono-red Sneak Attack
• 1 Punishing Sneak Nic-Fit
• 1 UWR Stoneblade

Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Eureka Tell (2-0)

Round 2: UWR Stoneblade (2-0) 

Round 3: Eldrazi (2-0)

Round 4: Sneak & Show (2-1)

Round 5: ID

Quarterfinal: Death & Taxes (2-0)

Semifinal: Burn (1-2)

I felt like I drew really well all day, so either the deck is well constructed, or I just got lucky. Round 2 my opponent got a game loss for a sideboarding error after we got deck checked.

Now that a number of tournament results are in, the top decks in the new meta appear to be Canadian Threshold, D&T, and Sneak & Show. These are all even to favorable matchups for Bant, so it could prove to be well-positioned moving forward.