Hello! After a number of weeks off from writing, it feels great to be back in the saddle again! For those of you who have continued to support my work and encouraged me to keep writing, welcome. And for players who have never heard of me before, let me quickly introduce myself.
My name is Gene Richtsmeier, and I am old. Well, at least I feel old, like butter scraped over too much bread. (Bad Lord of the Rings reference—I can’t help myself.) I am mostly a Legacy player from the Minneapolis, Minnesota area that enjoys playing Standard from time to time. I have a wife and a one-year-old daughter who I love to mention in my writing because they are my inspiration and encourage me to improve as a person and player. They give me perspective in life and have helped me understand what truly is important to me.
For my player background, I learned the game from an Eternal perspective playing in local Legacy tournaments. For the longest time, my major events were Legacy tournaments my local store would do for dual lands. I am fortunate to live in Minnesota, which has a very strong local Legacy scene. I can easily find a Legacy tournament multiple times during the week. I finally started to get my real taste of competitive Magic when StarCityGames.com began running 5Ks, which later became the Open Series.
Coming from an Eternal background gives me a different perspective when it comes to preparing for major tournaments and even makes me approach matches differently in Standard. I am very much an aggressive player; coming from a format where I have to play against cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor on regular basis, cards like Bonfire of the Damned and Thragtusk aren’t so bad.
This leads me to my deck of choice for the SCG Standard Open in St. Louis: Naya Blitz! I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to make it to the finals of that event. Losing in the finals wasn’t the perfect storybook ending I was hoping for, but overall I was very pleased with my deck choice.
My Deck & Card Choices
To start things off, let’s look at the version I chose to play.
Creatures (36)
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 4 Mayor of Avabruck
- 4 Lightning Mauler
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 4 Boros Elite
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Frontline Medic
- 4 Firefist Striker
Lands (21)
Spells (3)
The list I played for the most part is very standard; however, it’s the little things that make the big difference. I am not going to sit here and patronize you by saying that I have revolutionized the deck, but I can honestly tell you that if I hadn’t made the small changes to the deck, I would have been eliminated in round 5 of ten.
3 Madcap Skills and 4 Firefist Striker
Before I get too deep into these two card choices, I want you to look at the deck and tell me what you see. I know what many of you are thinking. You see a stupid aggro deck that any donkey can play that has zero blue spells! You know what I see? I see a deck that must win in Phase One of the game. I also see a deck that wins in Phase One of the game better than any Standard deck I have ever played in my life!
For those of you who don’t know what I mean when I refer to "Phase One," many Magic theorists consider Magic to have three phases of the game: Phase One is early, Phase Two mid, and Phase Three late. Phase One is the early game where a deck like Naya Blitz is at its very best. I’m not going to go to deep into phase theory. If this is a topic that interests you, I suggest going through article archives of great theory writers like Michael Flores because I won’t do the topic justice.
From the Naya Blitz player’s perspective, if your opponent starts to execute their game plan and you are not within killing distance, more often than not you will lose the game. That leads to my decision to run cards like Firefist Striker and Madcap Skills over cards like Searing Spear in the deck. Both Firefist Striker and Madcap Skills fulfill the same purpose, which is to ignore what your opponent is doing and keep on constant pressure. With very strong blockers like Boros Reckoner and Voice of Resurgence, casting a burn spell to kill them gives you little to zero value. You need a way to just go around them—literally. Madcap Skills and Firefist Striker do exactly that!
It’s important to understand when you play a deck like Naya Blitz that after turn 1 every turn you’re not attacking you’re slowly losing the game. Yes, there are times when you are setting up your battalion triggers and have to make smart attacks, but you need to bring the heat just about every single turn. That means creating combat situations that are favorable to you.
In a number of matches during the tournament, I was looking down at turn 2 Boros Reckoner or turn 2 Loxoden Smiter, and I never really cared. I even beat turn 2 Voice of Resurgence followed by turn 3 Boros Reckoner on more than one occasion. The reason why I was able win those games is because of my ability to apply pressure and never allow my opponent to establish their game plan because they were too busy trying to find a way to deal with my constant pressure. I rendered my opponent’s blockers useless early so I get to my endgame, which is continuously attacking with Frontline Medic.
21 Lands
Why 21 lands? Why more rather than less? If you’ve been to a SCG Standard Open as of late, you know ten rounds of Magic is becoming more and more common. I don’t want to have to mulligan any zero-land hands with the deck, and the extra land helps me with that. I also want the extra percentage point of drawing a land when I keep a one-land hand. I kept a lot of one-land hands during the tournament.
A great example of this is my video feature match versus John Milner. Game 1 I kept a one-land hand knowing if I ever drew a second land I would win the game. I missed a land drop, but I eventually hit the much-needed second land and chained Burning-Tree Emissarys on my Champion of Parish to win the game. Drawing five mana in a match isn’t necessarily a bad thing because you are able to set up Lightning Mauler / Frontline Medic attacks that your opponents are not expecting. I also found playing two two-drops a turn was relevant, especially when playing around mass removal.
The rest of the deck is fairly standard, but I do want to give quick shout out to Champion of the Parish. I was fortunate to win a game where I only played one land and four Champion of the Parishes on turns 1, 2, 3, and 4. Fortunately for me, my opponent bricked on draws, and I was able to take advantage of his misfortune, which is something Naya Blitz does better than anyone!
My Sideboard Thought Process
Boros Reckoner
This was my attempt to shut down decks that try to beat me with Blasphemous Act. I also frequently brought it in against other Naya Blitz decks to make them have awkward attacks when they don’t have Frontline Medic active.
Boros Charm
This card saved me on multiple occasions against Supreme Verdict and Bonfire of the Damned
Ray of Revelation
This was pretty much exclusively for the Bant Hexproof deck.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
I enjoy bringing in Thalia on the play against decks with Farseek to cause them to stumble on their acceleration. Any extra attack or any time she eats a removal spell just creates a better situation for the rest of your team.
Mizzium Mortars / Pillar of Flame
Extra removal spells against opposing aggro decks. Pillar is great against Voice of Resurgence and Zombie decks.
When Playing Naya Blitz
It’s important to understand if you choose to play Blitz that your early turn plays will often be the difference between winning and losing. This is important when making mulligan decisions. Don’t be afraid to keep one-land hands, especially when you have Burning-Tree Emissarys waiting and one-drops to cast. I often missed land drops throughout the tournament but could still cast my one-drops one turn at a time. Then, as soon as I hit that second land drop, I could easily close out the game.
Maintain focus, especially when looking at your creature order. When we are talking about one or two damage being the difference between winning and losing, you can’t afford to leave damage on the table. You obviously don’t want to miss evolve triggers and Champion counters, but you also need to set up Lightning Mauler turns properly. Creature evaluation is the key.
Take playing Firefist striker before Mayor of Avabruck. If your opponent uses their removal spell to deal with Firefist Striker, Mayor of Avabruck can then take over the game and create a faster clock. Properly evaluating creatures in each situation is very important. For example, playing Frontline Medic to protect your board from Bonfire of the Damned instead of playing more aggressive creatures that will represent more damage. Play your hand to the situation; don’t just play your hand.
Go all-in! My favorite thing to do with Naya Blitz is to shove my creatures to the middle of the table like a stack of poker chips. Each creature represents damage, which is really the only thing that matters. Let your opponents make bad blocks and give yourself all the outs you possibly can, even when you’re in a situation you know you can’t win. You would be surprised how often you can end up on top just by going all-in.
My Overall Tournament Experience
If you told me at the start of the day when the announcement was made that we would be playing ten rounds of Swiss then cut to the Top 8 that I would make it to the finals, I’m not sure I would have believed you. I have a number of great finishes on the Open Series, but I have lost many win-and-ins playing for Top 8 (mostly to combo decks in Legacy). It honestly was getting to the point that my friends were comparing me to Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter as the StarCityGames.com stepping-stone: play through me and you’re in.
Magic is just fun to me, so I try to take my losses well and just have fun with it. I will admit after winning my round 9 match that I felt relieved, but I also felt bad for my opponent, mostly because I have sat in his position many times before. The whole day I stayed pretty relaxed, never got too excited, and tried to stay focused. When you play Naya Blitz in a tournament, you have lots of free time in between rounds, so I stayed relaxed the best I could. Going into the later rounds and Top 8, I have to really thank my wife because I never felt more relaxed than when she sent me this message:
How could I lose after that?! I really did feel invincible going into the later rounds after seeing this message and didn’t have any nervous feelings whatsoever.
I have very much enjoyed this Standard format, and it was refreshing to not have to play against a Storm combo deck that kills me turn 1 and 2 during my win-and-in round (this happened to me again in St. Louis on Sunday!). Someday I’ll learn how to dodge that deck—or maybe I’ll actually just cave in and play Force of Will!
I should be going to Cedar Rapids for the Standard PTQ, so if you see me don’t hesitate to stop by and say hi.
Thanks for reading.
Gene Richtsmeier on Facebook