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Ah, Regionals. That magical time of year, where everyone scrambles for last minute tech and try frantically to trade for that last card for their decks. For those who thrive for competition, Regionals has always been a lot of fun, and this year was no different. Going into this event I had done a lot of testing online with three different decks; Mike Flores’ Boros Weenie deck, Ghost Husk, and Zoo. The Boros deck was proving to be very strong in testing, and I ran it to a ridiculous 53-8 record online before I started testing with Ghost Husk. I was finding that Paladin en-Vec kicked a lot of ass in testing; most people weren’t prepared to deal with him, or the “burn you out” backup strategy.
After testing with Ghost Husk, The Boros and Zoo decks were my top two picks going into this event. My reasoning was simple: I knew going in to the tournament that I was working the night before, so I wanted a deck that I could autopilot with and that didn’t have any hard decisions involved (this is foreshadowing, by the way). I did not want to think. Then a few weeks before the event, my buddy Jason had called me out of the blue and said, “Mark! I have the Regionals weekend off, so I can play! Build me a deck!” Now, Jason is a good enough Magic player, but he rarely (if ever) plays in any real tournament. He would have no clue what the Standard metagame would look like, so I would have to build him a deck that plays itself. Combine that with the fact that Jason is a long-time fan of White Weenie decks, so I decided to send him with Mike Flores’ Boros deck.
Now, I was down to Ghost Husk or Zoo. I has a fairly decent build of Zoo, with the transformational board to Glare of Subdual, but I didn’t really like how the deck would be eaten alive by its own mana base every third game or so; and that’s not even counting the games where Blood Moon would randomly destroy me. I was iffy on the decision to play Zoo. On the other hand was Ghost Husk. Now, Ghost Husk did have a lot of things going for it. It had the combo kill out of nowhere, with Promise of Bunrei and Nantuko Husk. It had Ghost Council of Orzhova and Dark Confidant, two of the strongest creatures in the format, and most importantly, it was running Pithing Needle. Why is this important? For one stupid, simple reason: I traded for/ bought my Needles a year ago and had never used them and it was bugging me that I had spent my money and trade on cards that sat in my binder.
Hey, I said it was a stupid reason.
Ghost Husk was obviously a fine choice for Regionals, but something about it was just bothering me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a fairly solid deck and had game against everything (and it was running those damn Needles!) So what was bothering me about the deck? The weekend before the Regionals, at a last-minute playtesting session, I realized what it was.
The decks I was considering just weren’t rogue enough.
I have been known in my area as a rogue deck builder for a very, very long time now. If there’s a deck that would somehow shunt the metagame, I would play it. I played Balancing Tings into metagames that were completely wrong. I ran Burning Wake (with Crush of Wurms!) to a Top 4 finish at a Regionals several years ago. And into a field of Affinity and Tooth and Nail, I played a self-made Mono-Blue Control deck, with Mahamoti Djinn as the kill condition. It is the weird decks with really odd card choices that inspire me to play.
So the week before the Regionals, I was joking with my friends that I would run Battle of Wits and qualify with it. They laughed at me, thinking there was no way I had the balls to run Battle of Wits when I was so serious about qualifying for Nationals. Little did they know how deadly serious I was...
That’s about as off the wall as you can get. There are a couple of odd choices in there, but for the most part, if you’re building a Battle of Wits, most of the choices are pretty obvious. Lots of tutor effects, a metric ton of card drawing, and a butt-load of removal. Oh, and Battle of Wits, of course. (There may be some counterspells in here too, but since I barely ever drew them, I’m going to assume I wasn’t running them). My MVPs for the weekend were Faith’s Fetters (which should surprise no one), Enduring Ideal (again, no surprise) and Sift (which surprised me).
Battle of Wits was a lot of fun to play (though not so much fun to shuffle). I enjoyed playing it mostly because every hand was different; the deck never played the same twice. It’s surprisingly resilient against most decks in Standard, and best of all: how does someone sideboard against it?
As for my friends, they all decided to go with a wide variety of decks, ranging from the aforementioned Boros Weenie deck, to Heezy Street, Wafo-Tapa control, a homemade Rakdos beatdown deck, B/W Orzhov control, and a rogue UG creation piloted by the provincial champion.
(As a side note, the current Standard format is possibly the most diverse and exciting format I’ve ever seen. It’s crazy how many viable decks there are; Wizards should be commended for putting together such a fun format).
The unfortunate thing about running Battle of Wits is the amount of thinking you have to do. Like I said before, I wanted to do as little thinking as possible at the Regionals, and Battle was unfortunately full of tough choices (especially every time you go for a tutor effect; what do I go for this time?). Nevertheless, I was more than up for the challenge.
Fast-forward to the day of the Regionals, and the amount of laughter caused by my foot and a half stack of cards definitely convinced me I had made the right choice (or that I’m crazy). People marvelled at the abnormally massive stack of cards all day, and many were heard to wonder at the cost and hassle of sleeving such a deck. After registering my deck (and it took a while to write it out), we were ready to play!
Fifty-six odd people equals six rounds.
Round 1 - versus UB Leyline of Singularity Deck
(To anyone I played that day, yes, I forgot your names. I’m awful with names. Sorry.)
This guy was playing all sorts of Hunted creatures (Horrors and Phantasms), plus Leyline of Singularity to nuke the tokens, and all sorts of transmute cards to tutor for the “combo” pieces. I’ll be honest, when we first started playing I had no clue what he was running for quite some time.
Game 1, I kept a hand of Repeal, Cruel Edict, Sift, and land. Depending on what he is playing, this is a pretty good hand. He goes first and runs a Dimir Infiltrator out there. Turn 2, I’m puzzled by the Infiltrator (it gets Edicted, but I’m still puzzled) and trying to figure out what on earth he could possibly be playing. When he drops a turn 3 Hunted Phantasm, I have him set on “Badplayer.dec.” Then he attempts to drop a Leyline of Singularity for the next turn and everything becomes clearer.
Unfortunately for him, I have Remand for the Leyline followed up with a backbreaking Cranial Extraction naming “Leyline of Singularity”. I Repeal the Phantasm and when he plays it again, I Fetters it and quickly beat him to death with my Goblin horde.
Battle of Wits, a beatdown deck, obv. Who knew?
I do not sideboard.
Game 2, I keep a hand of Meloku the Clouded Mirror, Enduring Ideal, Dimir Signet, Compulsive Research, and assorted land. I figure against the Leyline deck, this hand is slow, but fine. It’s not like he’s going to beat me down quickly, right?
So of course he starts off with a turn 0 Leyline, turn 2 Hunted Horror and a three 3 Phantasm. That’s pretty good! In fact, that’s his God hand. I put turn 2 Signet out to match this, and my turn 3 Compulsive Research nets me two land and Condemn (how lucky!). Since I have a White dual land untapped, I’m able to get rid of the Horror with Condemn that turn. The Phantasm smashes me and he transmutes Dimir Infiltrator for Cruel Edict to kill my freshly played Meloku. Another transmuted Infiltrator into Hunted Horror later, and I’m facing down a serious clock.
So here’s the board: he has Hunted Horror, Phantasm, two land untapped, and cards in his hand. I have just hit my seventh mana and of course, I’m going to play Enduring Ideal (and hope he has no counterspell). He does not have the counterspell, and now my options are:
Go for Form of the Dragon, simultaneously halting his attack in its tracks and putting him on a six-turn clock. The problem with this is if he has any sort of bounce spell, I lose this game outright.
Go for Confiscate and take the Hunted Horror, then Fetters the Phantasm. This is a bad option because if he has a bounce spell or draws a counterspell for the Epic copy, I still lose to the Phantasm.
Faith’s Fetters the Horror and hope he doesn’t draw a counter for the Epic Copy, then Fetters the Phantasm, then finally Battle of Wits for the win. This way is the slowest of the three options I considered, and any amount of countermagic screws it.
After some thought, I decide to go for the Form of the Dragon plan, as the only way for him to disrupt it is a bounce spell. Ironic story: his next few draws were a bunch of counterspells; had I gone for anything else, I would have lost. The card after I killed him was Boomerang. Whew! That was close.
1-0-0 with Battle of Wits.
After this round, all of my friends are 1-0 (except Jason). That’s pretty good. Jason just finished a rough matchup against GB Chord, where he lost game 1 to multiple Hierarchs and Mortifys; won game 2 with Hidetsugu’s Second Rite out of nowhere; and then lost a heartbreaking game 3 when he had to mulligan to four because his only land (every time) was Boros Garrison.
What can you do?
Round 2 - versus Ben, GWB Chord of Calling Deck
Ben is playing the Chord of Calling deck that splashes black for Mortify, Angel of Despair, and foily Ghost Council. Ben is (unfortunately) a fairly good player, so I know I’m in for a fight. He also beat Jason last round, so I’m out to avenge my buddy’s loss.
Game 1, I keep a hand of Brainspoil, Wrath of God, Azorius Signet and land. I figure that if he is running any sort of creature deck, this hand is perfectly fine, and if he’s running any sort of slow deck, I’ll transmute Brainspoil for Battle of Wits and win on turn 4.
When he plays Selesnya Guildmage and Loxodon Hierarch, I Wrath him with glee. I then draw Dimir House Guard, which I transmute into Cranial Extraction. I take a careful look at his board; lots of land, some of which are Black dual lands, and Vitu-Ghazi. He has lots of cards in hand too, so I figure he must he stockpiling removal of some sort. Keeping my gameplan of “transmute for Battle of Wits” firmly in mind, I name Mortify so he can’t destroy the mighty enchantment once it’s in play.
His hand is Angel of Despair and double Chord of Calling. Well, that sucks. I rip the Mortifies out of his deck, but now I need a way to stop the Angel in and in his deck. At end of turn, he Chords for Ghost Council and I’m on the clock. With Vitu-Ghazi in play, he pretty much has an endless supply of guys to keep the Council in play. I draw Night of Souls’ Betrayal to stop that nonsense and attempt to Cruel Edict him. Ben thinks about this long and hard and Chords in response for a Selesnya Guildmage. He sacrifices the Guildmage to the Edict (instead of flickering out the Council) and I breathe a sigh of relief; I can now Brainspoil the damn Council.
Ben’s cool with that, though; his next two draws give him Loxodon Hierarch and Selesnya Guildmage, and with all the mana he has available now, that Guildmage is a huge threat and will kill me if I let it live. I have nothing in my hand, so I have to topdeck something good. I draw... Enduring Ideal.
Now the options at this point are pretty slim. I know that he’s holding an Angel of Despair, so I just can’t go for Form of the Dragon to stop his attackers, as he’ll just destroy the Form, I’ll be at five, and very quickly dead. I instead decide to go for Faith’s Fetters for the Guildmage. I’m hoping to bait him into playing the Angel to destroy the Fetters. I have more than enough life to survive one swing; then next turn I can use the Epic Copy to search for Confiscate, take the Angel and use it as a very large blocker. Then just win with a third Epic Copy for Battle of Wits.
Of course, to make all of this thinking a waste of time, Ben has a THIRD Chord of Calling for Angel of Despair to nuke the Fetters, and then kills me easily on his turn. He even double pumps the Guildmage to make sure I’m more than dead, which is a moot point since I’ve already scooped it up.
Stupid Angels.
Game 2 didn’t even count as a game, really. It took longer for me to shuffle and sideboard than it did to play. I board in four Persecutes for one Nightmare Void and three Spell Snare. This game I keep a slow-ass hand of double Clutch of the Undercity, Wrath of God, Final Judgment and land. I tap out turn 4 to play Night of Souls’ Betrayal, and Ben destroys me with Persecute on Blue, followed up with a second Persecute a turn later on White to completely rape my hand.
That’s pretty much how this game ended. I try to make a game out of it; I kill some guys here and there, but I’m so far behind at this point that it really doesn’t matter. Ben tries to play his way out of a win - not Mortifying my Night of Soul’s Betrayal in response to my Sickening Shoal for three on his Hierarch - but it doesn’t even matter after those two backbreaking Persecutes. I kill lots of guys, but he drops Yosei, the Morning Star, and my deck’s attempt at an answer is Rend Flesh. I lose horribly.
Persecute sucks.
1-1-0 with Battle of Wits.
That was unfortunate. It’s ironic that I was annihilated in the third game by the exact same card that I boarded in. After this round, Darby, with Heezy Street, is the only one of my buddies that is undefeated. At this point I know that I have to do a lot of winning to hit the Top 8 and qualify for Nationals. A tough job, but I’m up for it!
Round 3 - versus R/W Boros White Weenie
This man is playing the same deck I gave Jason, almost card for card. The biggest changes between his build and mine are the two Rakdos Pit Dragons he has somehow squeezed. I’m pretty sure I don’t like the idea of Pit Dragon in Boros Weenie (too slow), but whatever.
Game 1, I keep a hand of Sickening Shoal, Sift, Orzhov Signet, Faith’s Fetters, and land. At this point in time I have no clue what he is playing, so I keep. Looking back at this, I got really lucky here, because two of the lands in this hand I kept were bouncelands, making this hand super slow (especially against his deck). He is also on the play, which makes things even worse for me, though I don’t know it yet.
He goes first and leads with Battlefield Forge, Isamaru. That sucks. At this point I’m cursing myself for having kept the slowest hand ever. I draw Condemn. Hey, that’s pretty good, especially since it goes with the Hallowed Fountain, which is my only non-bounce land. I drop the Fountain untapped and Condemn the Hound when he swings in. My opponent frowns and drops Boros Garrison as his second land. Hey, that’s great for me too! Now, he only has the Garrison in play and no pressure on me whatsoever. I’m feeling much better about the way this game is going. I had expected to be run over in a few turns.
My second draw is also pretty good: a Caves of Koilos. Now I play the Signet and pass the turn, luckily not needing to drop one of the bouncelands. He drops a Paladin en-Vec and passes. I draw a basic Island, which allows me to Faith’s Fetters his Paladin and again avoid wasting a turn dropping one of those bouncelands. He drops a Kami of Ancient Law, and passes with two mana up. I figure he’s going to Lightning Helix me at end of turn, which I’m cool with since I’m at 22. I again draw a basic land on my turn, and cast Sift.
Into Ivory Mask, Last Gasp, and Enduring Ideal.
How
Lucky.
I discard a bounceland, play an Azorius Chancery, and pass the turn. Predictably, he Helixes me for three at end of turn. On his turn he plays Umezawa’s Jitte, equips the Kami and walks right into my Sickening Shoal for two (removing Last Gasp). At this point he is justifiably frustrated and again, has to pass the turn to me with no real threats on board. On my turn I drop Ivory Mask, and he visibly wilts in his seat. I wonder to myself how many burn spells he is holding. He takes his turn, slumps even further in his seat and says go. I play Enduring Ideal for Battle of Wits, and he packs it in for game 2. His hand was packed full of Chars and Flames of the Blood Hand.
Whoooo!! I didn’t think that was possible to get any more lucky draws after a game like that.
For game 2, I board out Form of the Dragon for Genju of the Realm (keeping my life total at five is a bad idea when playing against a deck with so much burn), and four Bottle Gnomes for three Night of Souls’ Betrayal and one Eradicate (they’re too slow).
I elect to keep a hand of Hideous Laughter, Azorius Signet, Tidings and land. I figured that with the Signet, this hand gives me the option of turn 3 Hideous Laughter, which is pretty good against him. His first few turns were Savannah Lions, Hand of Honor, and Paladin en-Vec, so that third turn Laughter wrecks his board. Visibly frustrated again, he plays a turn 4 Rakdos Pit Dragon.
Pit Dragon? In Boros White Weenie?
I was somewhat concerned by the Pit Dragon. He had very few cards in hand at that point (likely all burn spells), so getting Hellbent should be fairly easy for him. Once Hellbent, the Dragon will take huge chunks out of my already shaky life total.
I draw land and have a whole lot of nothing in my hand, so I cast Tidings. I draw Last Gasp, Faith’s Fetters, Enduring Ideal, and a Plains. If he doesn’t obliterate me with burn on his turn, get Hellbent and kill me outright with the Dragon, then this is pretty good. He grimaces at the card he draws and plays out a second Pit Dragon followed by a bounceland. No Hellbent for you! I take three from the Dragon; then Fetters one and Last Gasp the other.
He decides to go with Plan B and unloads his hand of Lightning Helix and Char at my head. I go to ten and cast Enduring Ideal for Ivory Mask on my turn. He draws and looks positively murderous at the card he drew. I use the Epic Copy to get Battle of Wits, and again he packs it in.
The card in his hand was Hidetsugu’s Second Rite.
I was at ten.
Whew! Dodged a bullet there!
2-1-0 with Battle of Wits
Round 4 - versus UWG control
All I know going into this round is that he’s playing UWG control. I’m fine with that; Battle has more card drawing, more counterspells and far more threats than any control deck. If he’s playing creatures as his kill conditions, I have more ways to kill them than he has ways to protect them. Going in, if truth be told, I was planning to deck him.
Game 1, I keep a hand of Fellwar Stone, Cranial Extraction, Diabolic Tutor, and land. I attempt to Extract, him but it gets Remanded three times before I finally get it through. At this point I have seen nothing from him but lots of land (including Vitu-Ghazi, which I’m somewhat worried about as I have only a few ways to stop it.) I have no clue at this point what particular cards he’s playing, other than Remand and Wrath of God. I name Voidslime, because the less hard counters he has, the better.
I look at his hand, and he has Wrath of God, Windreaver, land and Simic Sky Swallower. I look through his deck, and see lots of control cards, but no Voidslimes. Swing and a miss. “I couldn’t find them for today,” he says, laughing at my near miss. I Diabolic Tutor for Enduring Ideal, and pass. He taps out to play the Sky Swallower the next turn, giving me the perfect opportunity to play Enduring Ideal for Confiscate to take the Sky Swallower. A heated argument ensues, as he has no idea that I can put Confiscate into play enchanting the untargetable monster. The ruling goes in my favor, and he is forced to Wrath his own guy. I use the Epic copy to get Faith’s Fetters for Vitu-Ghazi. He drops Windreaver. On my turn, I ask him if it’s okay to put the Epic copy on the stack; he thinks about it for a minute, then realizes that if I have another Fetters/Confiscate for the Windreaver, there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. He sullenly puts the Windreaver back in his hand; I go for Battle of Wits and win a turn later.
For the second game, I board in four Persecutes and four Muddle the Mixtures for one Eradicate, three Rend Flesh and four Condemn. (This is my anti-control board.) This game, I bury him under a ton of card advantage; at one point, I Gifts Ungiven for Sift, Compulsive Research, Tidings, and Consult the Necrosages. He stalls on four land, and attempts to play Jester’s Cap a bunch of times. I put it back in his hand with Clutch of the Undercity three times, and once with Repeal, then just Enduring Ideal for Faith’s Fetters the final time he plays it. One Epic copy for Battle of Wits later, and this match is over.
3-1-0 with Battle of Wits
At this point, I’m ecstatic with the performance of Battle. If I can get one more win, I can draw in to the Top 8. I’m living the dream!
Round 5 — versus Matthew, with Ghost Husk
Matthew is the type of player who plays whatever deck he feels is the best deck in the format, so as I’m shuffling up my massive pile, I’m thinking he’s likely playing either Heartbeat or Ghost Husk. I’m not sure he’s a strong enough player to be 3-1 with Heartbeat, so as I slide the humongous stack of Battle over to him, I’m reasonably certain that he’s running Ghost Husk.
Then he does something unthinkable.
He pile-shuffles Battle of Wits.
Who in their right mind, after watching me shuffle the hell out of it, would pile-shuffle a 256-card deck?!
So we sat there for several minutes as he shuffled, and then he had to double-mulligan game 1. Sweet justice. He stalls on two land, and I promptly cast Cranial Extraction for Promise of Bunrei. The most offense he has this game is a Pithing Needle on Sensei’s Divining Top, and I end the game by beating down with Meloku and pals. This game is the quickest one I play all day, and the sweetest.
For game 2, I board in Bottled Cloister for Eradicate. He comes out swinging this game with turn 1 Plagued Rusalka, turn 2 Dark Confidant, and turn 3 Promise of Bunrei. I trump this on turn 3 with Night of Souls’ Betrayal for his board, and that’s pretty much the end of this match. All the creatures he drew had one toughness. He attempts a Mindslicer (it gets rewound with Rewind) and Castigates me a few turns later to see Brainspoil, Battle of Wits, and Enduring Ideal. He packs it in pretty quickly after that.
4-1-0 with Battle of Wits.
That ended up being a surprisingly short match. After this round, the standings go up, and I’m in 9th place with the worst tiebreakers of the bunch. With one more round to go, I know that a draw will not get me into the Top 8. I need to win!
Round 6 — versus a BW Hand in Hand hybrid
I’m calling his deck a hybrid mostly because he had a lot of odd choices in there. He’s splashing Green; little do I know that it’s for Putrefy and various other things out of the board.
Game 1 he starts with Ravenous Rats, and I gladly pitch Eradicate, knowing it’s useless against him. He then runs Dark Confidant and Jitte out there; I have Fetters for the Jitte, Last Gasp for the Confidant, and trump the Rats with a huge Kagemaro. He stalls on one White land for a long time, with two cards in hand, and I thoughtfully help him out with Consult the Necrosages to empty his hand.
His hand was Ghost Council and Paladin en-Vec. That Paladin would have been pretty good; it could have blocked Kagemaro all day long.
His next draw was a Plains, of course.
He keeps playing out chump blockers, and I keep bashing with the big Demon. Eventually, I find Sift and draw into Cruel Edict for his last blocker. Kagemaro eats his face.
For game 2, again, I board in Bottled Cloister for Eradicate. And of course I draw the Cloister naturally (who needs Tutor effects?) and play it out on turn 4. I figure against Hand in Hand, this is a safe play. He smiles at my anti-discard tech, and casts Terashi’s Grasp.
Terashi’s Grasp?!
In Standard?!
[Battle of Wits?! At Regionals?! — Craig, amused.]
I attempt to make a game out of it after losing my hand; I Gifts Ungiven for Sift, Tidings, Compulsive Research, and Consult the Necrosages to refill my hand; I kill lots of guys that he plays, but at this point I’ve lost too much steam and he crushes me with a Paladin and Ghost Council holding a Jitte.
For game 3, I board the damn Cloister back out for Genju of the Realm. It all came down to this one game; the winner would qualify for the Canadian Nationals, the loser would go home.
He has so much disruption in this game. He hits me with a barrage of Rats, Castigates, and at one point, even a Cranial Extraction for Battle of Wits (ironically, I had the Diabolic Tutor in my hand to go get it the next turn.) His deck has come out to play, offering up a barrage of creatures that my removal just isn’t matching. At one point, I Final Judgment his board, and figure I’m safe. Of course, his last two cards are Dark Confidant and the Ghost Council. Then, the turn before he was going to kill me, the judge watching the match asks about a small pile of seemingly random cards my opponent has sitting off to the side.
Ghost Council, Plains, Mortify.
He stares at those cards for a stunned second, then scoops and offers his hand. Turns out that those cards had somehow been knocked out of his deck after game 2, and he had presented an illegal deck, three cards short.
That does suck, to have the win on board, and lose the whole match to an oversight. I’m stunned by this turn of events, but hey, I’ll take it. Battle of Wits needs all the help it can get.
5-1-0 with Battle of Wits!
The Top 8 was a blur. I do know that a man named Anthony Roach won the whole show with Firemane Angel Control, and Jason finished the day with a 4-2 record with Mike Flores’s Boros deck. My buddy Darby also qualified with Heezy Street, and I believe I finished in 4th place, but at that point it didn’t matter. I had qualified for Canadian Nationals, and I had done it with...
Battle
of
Wits!
Thanks to everyone for reading this; hopefully I can write another article in a few months that has the title “Hell Freezes Over Again — Battle Wins Canadian Nationals!”
Mark Macgregor
King_of_cheese@hotmail.com
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