Return of the Jeskai: 3rd at the March 10k

Coverage article: TMR Modern R10k Tournaments in partnership with Outer Limits and Top Deck

THE BUILD UP

I had a torrid time finding a deck to play in Modern after winning the last 10k in February. I went x-2 at almost all the events I played at until the Tuesday before the event.

I played against Eldrazi decks soon after the February 10k (which was on the same weekend as the Pro Tour). I felt hopeless trying to beat it. The deck was super powerful, and in my view rather unstoppable in the right hands.

I didn’t want to play burn in an Eldrazi world. Up until the Exalted Games modern double box I experimented with a lot of W/U control decks. I had won the first 6K and I felt reasonably capable of piloting the deck.

When I played at the Exalted Games double box my build was running four maindeck Supreme Verdicts and Spreading Seas. I faced Keraan Chetty playing the Colourless Eldrazi build and he obliterated me in both games. I was very despondent after that. It felt like I was trying to race a VW Beetle against a Porsche 911.

For a brief time I considered not playing in the 10K at all and rather play Standard given that a lot of the cards would rotate soon. After that I considered playing robots. Problem is that I have no experience playing that deck. And despite its reputation as a deck that spits out its hand on turn 2, I know that the deck does require skill and experience to pilot optimally, particularly given all the hate that people have in their sideboards for it. After that I worked on an Abzan Liege aggro deck but it was 50/50 against Eldrazi and lost to everything else.

During the triple Grand Prix weekend I saw a Jeskai list that Aiden Frinsch piloted to an undefeated day 1 record in Melbourne. I really liked the list. I decided to give up on my Eldrazi matchup; and rather prepare to beat all the decks that players would bring to beat Eldrazi. I figured that there would be a lot more players trying to beat Eldrazi than those actually playing it in our metagame. I figured that a lot of players would not want to buy into a deck that everyone believed would receive a ban soon.

I took the Jeskai list (with an adjusted sideboard) to TNM at Greenstone. I went 4-0 beating an Eldrazi deck along the way. My opponent just mulliganed himself into oblivion, and drew terribly, so by no means did I feel I had a favourable matchup.

My toughest match that night was against a relatively new player who piloted a rogue Tron deck. For the next couple of days before the 10K I pondered on how to improve my Tron matchup. My deck was always going to be have a hard time beating Tron, but I wanted to give myself a fighting chance if I faced someone like Damain or Findley playing it. So I added two maindeck Spreading Seas. I also added the Geists to give the deck a fast clock against combo decks.

On the night before the tournament I settled on this list:

I did not include the Kiki-Jiki combo. I wanted people to worry that I was playing it, but my game-plan was to grind opponents out with burn spells and flying creatures.

THE DAY OF THE TOURNAMENT

Round 1

I was paired against an opponent playing storm. I faced Storm in my final match of the previous 10K. The big difference was that on that occasion I was running a set of Eidolon of the Great Revel. This time I had a slower clock and a single proper hate card in my sideboard. I lost the first round but won the second. In game three my opponent mulliganed down to four and I took the match.

Round 2

I faced Sean Martins who was on Soul-Sisters. This shouldn’t be a difficult matchup for Jeskai but I knew that winning game one was important because if I lost, it was unlikely that I would have enough time to win the next two games.

I lost the first game but proceeded to win a grindy second game. At the start of game 3 we were told we only had a couple of minutes left. I sided in Geists to try to race since I knew it would take too long for me to win with my normal game-plan. We ended up drawing. I felt I could have won the game if it went longer, but it could easily have gone the other way with bad draws.

Round 3

I faced an Eldrazi deck and won the match 2-1. My opponent made a few mistakes and was also rather unlucky with his draws.

Round 4

I played against David Cohen who was playing Goblins. I was pretty nerve-racked going into the match as I had no good anti-red cards in my sideboard. I lost game one very quickly despite being on the play. Game 2 I managed to obtain a good board presence with multiple Wall of Omens. David ran out of gas and I was able to take the game. Game 3 I got a bolt/Anger/Snapcaster hand and drew really well. David flooded and I took the game. I felt very lucky to have won that match as I was unprepared for any kind of aggressive red deck.

Round 5

I knew winning Round 5 would likely be enough to ID into the top 8 in the last round. I faced Renier Rousseau playing Melira-Collected Company. I knew my deck was slightly favoured if I didn’t make mistakes. I can’t remember the details, but I know I won 2-0 by bolting Birds and countering every Collected Company that Renier cast (except for one where he whiffed).

Round 6

I was then paired with Damain. Damain had amazing tie-breakers and we agreed to ID. I was locked for top 8 and when the other 4-1 players played it out instead of ID-ing (which would have carried a risk of not making it) it secured Damain’s spot.

In my previous Top 8 matches at the previous 10K I got to start all my matches on the play. My ID with Damain had secured my Top 8 spot but it also put me at the bottom of the seeding (7th).

Quarter Final

My quarter-finals match is one of my favorite in recent memory. Jason Ward is always a formidable opponent and in our history of official matches he has beaten me more often than I him. Jason was on Griselbrand.

I had seen that Jason was playing Griselbrand during the course of the tournament. In the pause before the quarter-finals match I ask my team mates: Robert Wild, Andrew Wright and Alon Chalmers to help me understand the mechanics of the deck. Luckily I had also played a few practice matches against Jason playing the deck at Top Deck a few weeks before.

My match with Jason is on YouTube with commentary by David Boers and John Wood. I think I played well overall, but I made a bad mistake when I cracked my fetchland for and Island instead of a Steam Vents. My limited experience playing against his deck left me in fear of a Blood Moon, but as a result couldn’t bolt Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. I think I cracked the fetchland in my turn because I knew that with a Simian Spirit Guide Jason could go off on turn 2 in response to me cracking a fetchland (as I wouldn’t have mana for Spell Snare when his Goryo’s Vengeance went on the stack.

I ended up getting rid of Jace two turns later, but it was an obstacle I could have easily avoided. After the match we were informed that when I had Remanded the Goryo’s Vengeance that Jason had played from the Graveyard, the card should have gone back to his hand. We had treated it the same as if the card in the Graveyard was flashed back, but a careful reading of Jace’s text indicates that the card would be exiled if it would go to the Graveyard. Remanding the card does not send it to the Graveyard. I honestly don’t know if I would have won that game if we had correctly understood the card (even the commentators seemed to believe that the card would be exiled the way we had played it). I did draw a lot of counter magic that game and I probably would have sequenced the counter magic differently.

Semi Final

My semi-final match was against Miguel de Sousa who was on Living End. He appeared to have nerves of steel. I knew that this would be a very tough match for me to win.

I made a bad mistake game 1: I was on five open mana and Miguel tried to go off. I had no counter magic in hand but I was holding an Electrolyze. As I agreed to allow him to go off I realized my mistake. After conceding I checked the top card and it was a Remand.

I won game 2 despite making a mistake with fetching my lands.

Game 3 Miguel went off on turn 4 without me being able to stop him. He was on the play so he tried to go off at the end my turn three. I counter it leaving me on one mana on his turn 4. When he goes off on his turn I was holding three counterspells that I couldn’t cast. No Supreme Verdict. GG.

Miguel played flawlessly all three games. There was nothing I could do in game three, but if I had not made that stupid mistake in game 1, I may have had a shot at winning game 1 and maybe the match. Miguel kept his cool and played better than me. He deserved to win the match.

CONCLUSION

I was happy with finishing third. My target for this tournament was making Top 8 and the four points I picked up has probably qualified me for the Top 16 tournament at the end of the year.

I want to thank Wesley Lambrecht, Renier Rousseau and Jarcque Henning of The Magic Revival for taking the initiative in creating these events for us and for Grant and Outer Limits for having hosted them. The new RPTQ system has taken away a huge chunk of our opportunity for competitive play. I believe that having having regular big competitive events is a prerequisite to having players doing well in future on the international stage.

It’s also great to see that Top Deck will be doing coverage of the events in future. I believe that coverage of our bigger tournaments has been something that has been sorely lacking in Johannesburg.

I also hope that one of the Iron Man events at Icon will also be a modern 10K league tournament. The attendance for Magic events at Icon last year were rather dismal and it would be great to see a good turnout this year.

I am looking forward to the April 10K tournament. I haven’t decided what I’ll play yet. I will do my best to take top prize, but I know there are a lot of you that are more than capable of stopping me.

Until we meet again. Good game.