The day actually started out great. I stepped out of my house, breathing in the aroma of a damp, cool morning that reminded me of oh-so-many childhood mornings back in the woods of South Carolina. I stopped… I never stop to take these things in anymore. Family. Job. Traffic. Everything moves so quickly these days.
I stopped. I closed my eyes. I let my olfactory nerves guide me on a brief, fleeting trip into the past. I was at peace.
This was going to be a good day.
This was my day.
That was the last time I was happy on Saturday, March 16th, 2013.
Sure, plenty of StarCityGames.com Opens end in mediocrity—4-2 starts into 4-3 and drop. Sure, lots of people try out new decks, are generally happy with them, but could see changing some things around. These things happen; these things we will get into.
I’m going to also interweave the events of the day to hopefully explain why my mind wasn’t completely "in the game." This will help put my result in context, as looking back there were things I missed that I could have easily caught had my mind not been so frazzled. Hopefully, this will help give slightly more credence to the list I played than my results justify, as I feel it was actually excellent. I’ll definitely play this until I’m given a good reason not to for the foreseeable future.
For reference, here’s the list that I took with me to StarCityGames.com Standard Open: Washington DC:
Creatures (24)
- 2 Clone
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 2 Snapcaster Mage
- 3 Strangleroot Geist
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thragtusk
- 2 Prime Speaker Zegana
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
I’ll go over the changes at the end. However, to give a quick explanation of the list:
It started with the Four-Color Flicker deck from my last article. You aim to just be doing more powerful things than your opponent in the late game since your Flickers and Angels allow you to draw tons of cards off of Prime Speaker Zegana. Sphinx’s Revelation is great late game because you’ll have ample amounts of mana to let it help you take over the game, drawing you into plenty of gas and at least one other way to generate more cards in hand. The split was because I liked having both the Prime Speakers to Blink and the Revelations to flash back with Snapcaster Mage. I registered the list as "Four-Color Greed" because I wanted to be doing more greedy things than my opponent.
After playing with the deck some, I always hated seeing Ghostly Flicker early but always loved seeing it late, so I cut it down to one. Bonfire was just terrible with the amount of cards I was drawing, whereas playing Mizzium Mortars over Searing Spear allowed me to up my "action" spells and maintain the ability to kill early problematic guys while still having the late-game blowout ability.
Mortars overperformed all day, as the ability to ramp one out allowed me to blowout plenty of opponents. The difference you get with Mortars is that you can sculpt a game state where it simply wins you the game. It let me beat a resolved Assemble the Legion singlehandedly (though I had to squeak through a couple points of damage to get to where the Mortars was actually lethal).
Clone is another card that raised some eyebrows. With the amount of value creatures in my deck and being played by opponents, it always has a use. Even copying an opposing Strangleroot Geist is awesome. The interaction with Restoration Angel is awesome as well, as I generally will Blink the Clone to copy Restoration Angel before I Blink my Thragtusk or Huntmaster since flying is awesome.
Realistically, the main purpose of Clone is Olivia Voldaren (and, to a lesser extent, Geist of Saint Traft and Sigarda, Host of Herons). One of my early losses was to an Olivia Voldaren that I couldn’t answer in time, both giving myself some validation for including Clones while also making me regret not adding more answers to the deck.
The mana base may look a bit all over the place, but there was definitely thought put into it, I assure you. The "check lands" all come into play untapped when a Stomping Ground is in play. Farseek will always make sure you have at least one Stomping Ground in play, as you need both triple green and triple red. Each other shockland which isn’t a Forest is there as a one-of to give you the option of smoothing out your mana in specific situations. My mana base was very smooth all day, and I was quite pleased with it. I could be talked into cutting a Kessig Wolf Run for another colored source, though, as that’s a decision I wavered on for quite some time.
Lastly, when searching with Farseek, here’s how I prioritized: first red, first blue, white, second green, second red, second blue, third green, third red (obviously, you already have the first green or you couldn’t cast Farseek). I literally would count the colored sources between hand and board and then go through a "triage" of sorts; if I had no white sources at all, I made sure I was getting a white source (as I only need one), then go through the rest of the triage to see what I was missing, and that’s the land I’d get.
As long as you’re careful with your Farseeks, the mana isn’t nearly as greedy as people seemed to think it was. Remember, even though you need triple red to overload Mortars, you don’t need it to cast the front end (so you don’t have to get to triple red immediately), and there’s only one Garruk, Primal Hunter in the entire 75. You need to get to those color requirements, but only eventually, not immediately.
Also, nine times out of ten, Snapcaster Mage makes a great Solemn Simulacrum on turn 3. This deck needs a lot of mana!
As for the tournament itself:
After having my brief moment, I set out on my 30-minute drive from my house to the tournament site. Nothing spectacular happened on the way, though my GPS did take me on a different route than usual (yes, I live in this area, but I rarely actually go into downtown Washington, DC). I later found out that a marathon was going on, and I presume my GPS "understood" that the route was closed off and directed me around it.
This would have a snowball effect on my day that, looking back, would have been easily avoided if I’d been able to recalibrate myself when I arrived at the opposite side of the convention center. Due to the fact that I arrived at an unfamiliar side of the center, I actually thought it was at a different site than usual. This wasn’t a huge issue, but I thought that I wouldn’t be able to park in the parking lot that I usually park in for DC events (which, again, would have a pretty huge impact on my morning since I didn’t bring cash because I assumed I’d park in that lot, which requires you to pay afterwards).
So I arrived at the site at around 9:10, give or take five minutes, and started looking for parking. In addition to the aforementioned marathon going on, there was also a huge health drive going on in conjunction with the Open at the convention center, making parking extremely scarce. All parking garages were shut off as well, so I started to realize that I’d be walking quite a bit if I wanted to park any time soon.
At the first lot I came to, the guy told me I had to leave my keys with him (in a shady gravel lot); after the customary "no thanks" and subsequent cussing by the parking attendant (again, customary in DC), I pulled off in search of another lot.
The next one I came to (ten minutes later) was twenty bucks, all day parking. I asked if I had to pay before or after. "You pay now" was the response I was met with.
Damn it! Ok, guess I had to look for an ATM.
As I pulled off in search for an ATM (told you my lack of cash would have an impact), I started slowly realizing that there was actually a chance I may miss the start of the tournament. As I was looking, I approached a light that was green. Right as I was reaching the intersection, the light changed to yellow. This apparently was the "I’m going, screw everyone else" signal for the guy waiting to turn left. As I slammed on my brakes, my blood pressure shot sky high like a teapot that’s just hit the boiling point. I was already getting frustrated by the parking situation, and now I’d narrowly avoided T-boning this guy.
Oh, and in the process, the boxes of cards I’d brought with me were now on the floor, including my deckbox and a couple of smaller 300-count boxes with stuff I thought people might need to borrow. All on the floor, all out of their boxes.
I finally found an ATM and got parked, but at this point it was 9:55. I called my friend Rob Beard and asked if he could sign me up, which they thankfully allowed as I was running to the site. I got in the door and started walking towards Rob, who had a deck registration sheet and pen ready for me so I could quickly scribble down my list. Along the way, I was stopped by another friend, JC, who asked about the cards he’d let me borrow the night before at FNM that he said he absolutely needed the next day for the Open.
Yeah, the same cards which were in a huge pile on my car’s floor that I didn’t have time to round up and bring in, being as late as I was. Now, a friend was out cards that he lent me (him and his girlfriend, actually). Not only was my blood pressure sky high and my stress level out of this world, but now I felt like a terrible person for not bringing his stuff in (by this point it was after 10; walking back out to my car would have been too late for him to get the cards and have them for the tournament). I handed him some money and told him to buy whatever he needed, adding "loss of money for no reason" to my morning.
At this point, the tournament hadn’t even started yet and I was having a horrible morning. Heck, my blood pressure is going up just typing all that out again, reliving the excitement. All this caused by nothing more than coming in from a different direction than usual and thinking I was somehow at a different tournament site than usual. Butterfly effect indeed.
Oh yeah, the tournament! I forgot for a second that this was an actual Magic: The Gathering article.
For round 1, I sat down across from a guy I was familiar with, having seen him around in the same circles that I usually run in. He’s a cool guy, and I briefly explained how my morning had been going up to this point. He sympathized, but only partially, as he wasn’t sympathetic enough to not nut draw me with multiple Burning-Tree Emissarys in game 1 with his Gruul Aggro deck. Hilariously enough, if I’d been on the play, I would have been able to recover, as my Restoration Angel ate his Stromkirk Noble, putting me at three on turn 4. He used Searing Spear to finish me off with three Thragtusks in hand.
Game 2, I had the option of playing a turn 2 Strangleroot Geist against his turn 1 Stromkirk Noble or a turn 2 Izzet Staticaster; I chose the Geist, thinking he might play another (and being pretty assured that the first wouldn’t grow). This was terrible against a deck with Rancor and possibly Pillar of Flame, but somehow it worked out, as he played another Noble for the blowout without attacking with the first. I would have been able to think about all of this, but my mind was completely blown up at this point. I easily won that game, and then we moved to the third, where he again nut drew me with one-drop into Emissary-Mauler for six on turn 2 into Ash Zealot + one-drop and Flinthoof Boar with haste.
I seriously considered dropping, wanting to just go home at this point. I fought the urge and took the opportunity with the 30 spare minutes to walk back out to my car, putting my travel mug into the car and taking note of the mess in my floorboard.
In round 2, I played against a deck that I wasn’t sure if it was Prime Speaker Bant with Kessig Wolf Runs or just Wolf Run Bant. Turns out it was just a readjusted Wolf Run Bant list, and I won in two fairly uneventful games when he tapped out against me, assuming the best I could do was Sphinx’s Revelation for three, and I tapped out for Garruk, Primal Hunter. In game 2, he Detention Sphered a Thragtusk at one point and I had the Acidic Slime, but I chose to blow up a land instead, which ended up being huge because his follow up was Sphinx’s Revelation for three. I think I played well in this round, and at this point, I thought that my luck had turned and my day was looking up.
I sat down for round 3 against a local player, Sean Park, who was on Jund and knew my list. No surprises for either of us. I shuffled up for game 1, presented, and drew my seven one card at a time. Lands, Farseek, Huntmaster, Thragtusk. This could be a mull to six and be stellar! The last card would just be icing on the cake baby!
Wait, that’s not in my deck. At least, not in the main…
Of course, I called a judge and immediately start deboarding in anticipation of my upcoming game 1 (but really game 2) game, dejected and disappointed. I never do this stuff! My head was so far from in the game that apparently I wasn’t even deboarding at this point. Luckily, because I called the judge on myself before we started, it was just a warning, and we split the first two games when our decks respectively did their thing. In game 3, I had Negate up on turn 2 for Liliana (he didn’t cast it) and then left up the mana all game for either Liliana or Rakdos’s Return, only to get blown out by Olivia Voldaren. No matter, I had four Mizzium Mortars and two Clones for it! Neither showed up, and I was officially dead for this particular tournament.
Again, the urge to drop was strong, but I fought it because I did want to play the deck to see what needed to be fixed. I made a mental note to include at least one, possibly two, Detention Spheres for both Liliana (which beat me in game 1) and Olivia in the Jund matchup.
Nothing too extreme had happened in a couple of hours, though the two losses were definitely weighing on me. Again, I tried to just calm down, take some deep breaths, and take it one round at a time.
Murphy and his law got bored apparently, though.
As I sat down for round 4, I pile shuffled my deck as I do every round; the first time around, I came up one card short. I counted my sideboard: fifteen cards. I thought that maybe a card was stuck to another. I did it again. 59. Again. 59.
I checked my box again—not there. I called a judge and let him know what was going on. He gave me the obligatory options of replacing it or adding a basic land, and I ask for an opportunity to see what it was before I made my decision. It wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact that I borrow a lot of cards.
Arbor Elf? Nope, have all four.
Farseek? Nope, there they are.
Oh…of course it’s Thragtusk. Why would it cost less than fifteen bucks?! It’s not like I hadn’t spent plenty of extra money already today or anything…
Again, the urge to drop was extremely strong, and the words "I drop" were literally on the tip of my tongue. However, I realized that since the Tusks were actually mine and I needed a playset anyway, if I truly had lost it, I’d need another anyway, so I walked over to the sales booth and purchased another.
We shuffled up and began game 1, with my opponent having the turn 1 Champion of the Parish and my hand being on the slow side. I thought I was done for.
A judge taps me on the shoulder. "Could you count your deck, Mr. Martin?" Of course, I know why he’s there. I just wished he’d shown up two minutes prior.
It turned out that when Sean Park stole my Thragtusk with Olivia Voldaren in game 3 (with the exact same sleeves as I had), he really stole it (obviously, this is just a play on words, as I know Sean and it wasn’t purposeful at all). Now, I was down fifteen bucks, though, and down pretty far in my game.
My opponent got me to two, then five, then three (through various Thragtusk and Huntmaster life gaining shenanigans on my side), while he got up to 39 with Nearheath Pilgrim, but I stopped myself for a second, collected my thoughts, and slowly ground my way back into the game, taking it down. In game 2, Peddler/Staticaster showed up, and while the game went on for a couple of extra turns, I ended up winning rather easily on the back of my more powerful cards.
(Props to the sales manager at the booth who was sympathetic and actually refunded my money when I explained the situation!)
After this round, I was feeling good about my deck again, knowing I needed to add some number of Spheres and understanding that sometimes the Burning-Tree decks were just going to have the nuts against you. I asked Rob to come with me on a walk out to my car so I could grab some of the cup-o-soup I brought for lunch.
When we got there, I went to unlock my doors (I have keyless entry).
Nothing.
Oh crap, did I lose my keys?!
No, they were in my pocket…
I went to the driver side. No response.
I removed the physical key from the keyless remote, unlocking the door the old-fashioned way. No beeping as usual, no lights…
No battery.
My car was now dead on top of everything else. I’d never had issues with the battery before, and everything was working just fine when I went out after round 1 to put my mug back in my car. My lights turn off automatically, so I had no idea what happened.
I could drop and try to figure out a way home. But since Rob lives literally two blocks from my house, I knew that the situation wasn’t so dire that I needed to scramble on the spot. My car was in a closed lot, and I had plenty of friends on site to ask for a jump. So I decided to not drop, to ask friends for a jump if and when they leave, and to just leave when they do.
I played out the next two rounds, winning against Naya and U/W/R Flash fairly easily (the latter being the match where I Mortared against Assemble the Legion). At 4-2, I started considering my chances of making Top 16 if I won out. When I sat down for round 7, my opponent was another local player by the name of Chris Minor. He was playing a slightly more aggressive version of The Aristocrats, and we knew each other’s list from the night before.
We got deck checked before game 1. When they came back, we heard, "We have good news and bad news; the good news is for one of you," and I just knew that, again, I’d done something wrong. Turns out, though, that Chris accidentally wrote down "3 Lingering Souls" instead of three Tragic Slips, making it a total of seven Lingering Souls registered. We shuffled up for game 2 with Chris declaring me the winner already. I told him that with the way my day was going to not be so sure.
In the first actual played game, Chris curved from Skirsdag High Priest to Cartel Aristocrat to Gather the Townsfolk, making a 5/5 at the end of turn (and making another every turn after that through various means). As we shuffled up for game 2, I brought in my Staticasters, which seemed amazing, along with Rest in Peace, which would shut down morbid for both Tragic Slip and High Priest and also his Blood Artist shenanigans.
We traded blows in the early game, and it came down to a topdeck fight. He drew two Falkenrath Aristocrats; I drew lands.
At 4-3, the urge to drop became too much, and I checked the box, finally tapping out.
At a time like this, I just wanted to go home. But I couldn’t!
A few friends mentioned they had jumper cables, including JC and Chris Minor. But both were playing out the rest of the day, along with Rob, so unless someone else had cables, I’d have to wait. Funnily enough, I had cables, but with my car being dead, I couldn’t get into the trunk. (What a horrible design flaw; I tried going through the backseat and all of the various methods for popping the trunk I have, and there was no keyhole for the key…)
I’m currently trying to eat better (having lost 27 pounds at this point and keeping it up), so spending an entire day at a convention center with nothing but healthy cups of soup to eat will leave you starving by the end of the day. I knew that the stress also helped burn through my caloric reserves, so I was feeling physically weak by the time JC and his girlfriend finally wrapped up round 10 and could come help. I finally got cranked up and drove home, not getting back until well after midnight but thankful the day had finally ended.
Back to actual Magic-related content, though. As for the deck, I was really pleased with it. Ramping into Mizzium Mortars is something a lot of decks have a hard time beating, especially when you’re dropping bombs along the way like Huntmaster of the Fells and Thragtusk. With cards like Restoration Angel and Ghostly Flicker, you can easily pass the turn with Huntmaster, flip it, and then Blink it. I usually do this during their upkeep after the flip, as I’m perpetually afraid of the top of my opponent’s deck from my time playing poker.
The deck can swap roles easily. While the Strangleroot Geists are there for aggro decks, providing you early defense, they can also be used to pressure your control opponents without fear. They can take out planeswalkers against unsuspecting opponents who assume you have no haste creatures as well. Your Mizzium Mortars can proactively take out a blocker at two mana or be used as a one-sided Wrath against your aggro opponent at six mana.
Clone can be another Strangleroot Geist or Thragtusk, a copy of Angel of Serenity to eat their Angel, or an Olivia Voldaren for a brief moment. Snapcaster Mage can come down and flash back a Sphinx’s Revelation against other midrange decks in the late game or can simply Doom Blade a Burning-Tree Emissary against aggro. These cards are so versatile and can play vastly different roles in different matchups, giving you plenty of room to outplay opponents, which I like a lot.
Oh, and Thragtusk, Huntmaster, Restoration Angel, and Farseek obviously make for a great core to build around.
Here’s where I’m at with the list right now. I think I finally have to give up on the Ghostly Flicker, as Resto Angel is just better if you can cast her. I had haymakers in the board in the form of Jace, Memory Adept and Assemble the Legion for the Jund and control matchups, but honestly, I have more than enough haymakers in the maindeck and could use those slots better. I still don’t know how much I want the Staticaster combo, but it performed well when I did draw the Staticaster, so I’m keeping it for now.
With that:
Creatures (24)
- 2 Clone
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 1 Snapcaster Mage
- 3 Strangleroot Geist
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thragtusk
- 2 Prime Speaker Zegana
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
This board gives up game against pretty much everything. I was worried about Prime Speaker Bant leading up to the event, but they really can’t do too much about the Staticaster combo and Clone answers their Angel pretty nicely. Rest in Peace makes you a better midrange deck than the Reanimator decks become, and Acidic Slime comes in against pretty much everything that isn’t aggressive, as you have seemingly infinite Clones and Restoration Angels to chain together once you get the Slime online.
Slime also answers Assemble the Legion, which is seeing a ton of play, as well as Underworld Connections, Staff of Nin, Detention Sphere, Kessig Wolf Run, Nephalia Drownyard, Gavony Township, anything out of Bant Auras… It’s quite versatile. Oh, and the deathtouch is also super relevant, especially with Kessig Wolf Run in the deck.
This article has gotten quite long, so I’m going to wrap it up. Looking back, I know of plenty of small errors I made in both game play and mulligan decisions, but my head was so far from in the game that I didn’t even notice at the time. Give this list a shot; your engine is strong, and you get to drop your hand on the table and then follow it up with Garruk, Prime Speaker, or Revelation to refill and do it all over again. You have the tools to beat all the decks out there, and you have the room to outplay your opponents. I’ll definitely be playing this deck for the foreseeable future and suggest you do the same. Just goldfish hands first to figure out the correct sequencing of lands with Farseek.
Oh, and don’t have the kind of day that I had. That’s not so good for your health…
Until next time, when hopefully my article has a much better story to tell!