I went to the Teams PTQ on April 8th with Owling Mine (the largest PTQ in North Carolina's history!) and my team, Biscuits and Gravy, finished 7th. I personally went 6-1 with the deck, rattling off six straight wins until it crapped out on me in the last round, and even then the opening hands were great, I just didn't get a win condition when I needed it. It was very consistent, and did a very good job of presenting a strong deck against the combo/control elements that we knew would be 2/3rds of the matchups while not overlapping with other great decks in the format for my teammates to run. For the record, I played 5 control and 2 aggro matchups, almost exactly the 2/3rds ratio.
Here's the list I ran at the PTQ (I was the B slot)
I feel that running these versions of Owl with white splashed into them are a mistake. It only runs 22 lands, and mana consistency and damage from your lands is already a bad problem against the aggro matchups. Knowing that, in teams, there would be a limited amount of aggro matchups, and feeling that we had the seating arrangements nailed (and we did), I simply think running the more consistent and deadly U/R version is key. If this were Regionals I'd reevaluate my decision.
Matchups:
1) Heartbeat - Anyone who plays this match up knows it's winnable, but you really need to be sitting on a combination of Remands and Boomerangs when they're ready to combo out, to hold them off long enough to do enough damage, or simply get a ton of tempo early so they can't ramp up their mana. First game I simply never got the Remands when I needed it, tapped out, and lost. Second game I play first and Boomerang his one land for three straight turns (2 Boomerang, 1 Eye of Nowhere), and then drop a Kami of the Crescent Moon and a Pithing Needle naming Drift of Phantasms, which he scooped to immediately. A Pithing Needle on Drift of Phantasms simply slows their deck down far too much for them to beat Owling Mine. People forget that transmute is an activated ability since it's hardly ever used in a deck, but it's an easy way to win these games. The third game came down to him knowing I had a Remand and correctly suspected the 2 Sudden Impacts in my hand. This kept him from even attempting his combo and he couldn't play Heartbeat of Spring because I'd just double Sudden Impact for the win with mana left over for counters. Attempts to ramp up his mana the old fashioned way gives me the opportunity to Exhaustion him for two turns and safely do the impacts one by one. SB: -2 Evacuation, +2 Pithing Needle. Personally: 1-0, Team 0-1
2) B/W - I don't know if he was running Green, and it could have just been a B/W Knell deck, it never really got that far. We had the odd occurrence of one player on each team getting the team a game loss to start out due to errors on their deck lists, so we actually only played one game apiece. It would have been an easy win regardless. These B/W decks simply can't keep up with the tempo with Boomerangs on Orzhov Basilica and their big six-mana threats. I saw one Kagemaro, which was promptly remanded and Owl did the rest. SB: none due to circumstance, but there's no need to SB anything but -2 Sudden Impact, +2 Gaze of Adamaro as these decks will have Cranial Extraction somewhere maindeck or SB. Personally: 2-0, Team: 1-1.
3) Greater Gifts (I think): I say 'I think' because I did see Blue mana, but I never saw a Gifts Ungiven. This is probably because his hand was so full it was never necessary to do so. Generally, I think this is a bad matchup for an Owling Mine player if the opponent plays it correctly, but my opponent did not. In this matchup, the Greater Gifts player needs to accelerate out to at least ten mana, and perhaps twelve, so that they can lay their threat and Greater Good in the same turn while limiting the options I'd have to countering what he's trying to do. At ten-plus lands, I'm forced to have either a Remand or Boomerang to return Greater Good or the Yosei he's casting. With less than ten, you open up options for the Owl player, as now your plans can be stopped with Eye of Nowhere, Evacuation (lay Greater Good first, then creature, and I can't use Evacuation before you can sacrifice it), and Exhaustion. In all honesty, this is a 40-60 match up for an Owl player if the opponent plays it this way, but 90-10 if they do not. SB: -2 Sudden Impact, +2 Gaze of Adamaro. In retrospect, I made the mistake of not siding in my Pithing Needles in this matchup, but I expected him to do what my teammate was doing and side out the Greater Goods game 2 for a more traditional Gifts combo deck. He did not. Personally: 3-0, Team 2-1.
4) Owling Mine - Yes, I had to play the mirror, and luckily my opponent made lethal mistakes I hope the people reading this can learn from. Game 1 he went first, but made the mistake of playing a Howling Mine turn 2. Maybe he saw Steam Vents and thought “Magnivore,” and if he did that's where he went wrong. I proceeded to use his card drawing to my advantage and laid down Ebony Owl Netsukes while he was tapped down. He'd bounce the Owls, but I'd bounce his lands and play the Owls again. Gigadrowse on lands along with some Exhaustions sealed the deal. So what's the lesson? Don't lay down the card drawing first in the mirror, or you die. Second game, if I remember correctly, he sided out his Ebony Owl Netsukes and Howling Mines for Gaze of Adamaro, Twincast, and Genju of the Falls. I basically got land hosed, but got to see what he had sided in. What's the lesson from this game? NEVER side in Genjus against a deck with seven or eight maindecked Boomerang effects! It's just not a valid strategy. He kept the same sideboard game 3 and I slaughtered him. Funny matchup, but basically, don't lay down the card drawing first if you can help it. SB: -2 Evacuation, -1 Sleight of Hand, +3 Twincast. Personally: 4-0, Team: 3-1.
5) WW — Wow, I sure didn't expect this match up at a 4-1 table, and people may want to re-evaluate WW for the teams format as it allows you to still run Gruul as a second aggro deck. This match up is worse than Gruul game 1. The reason is that everything is a one or two drop, with no mixed mana issues to get in the way of them dropping everything in their hand. Evacuation? Okay, I'll drop the five creatures back next turn. At least with Gruul, if you survive long enough to Evacuation, you're slowing them down for a couple turns and their hand will take a couple turns to empty out due to all the difficult mana costs. Games 2 and 3 came down to the extremely anti-aggro sideboard. SB: +3 Threads of Disloyalty, +3 Pyroclasm, +2 Evacuation, -2 Ebony Owl Netsuke, -4 Remands, -2 Gigadrowse. Gigadrowse won't do much because they can still drop guys with one or two lands so it doesn't get you a Time Walk like it does against almost every other deck. Owl... you're lucky if you get them to have seven cards anyway. Luckily, I got Threads of Disloyalty early both games, and then later Pyroclasms and Evacuations to finish him off with Sudden Impacts. Regardless, it took a combination of Ebony Owl Netsuke and Sudden Impacts to win, in one game 3 impacts just to do enough. You can't really go beatdown against this deck with their own creatures unless they get mana screwed, and that doesn't happen often. Personally: 5-0, Team: 4-1.
6) B/W Nantuko Promise - B/W aggro decks aren't a bad matchup, and I really don't understand why people think it is. Sure you can get overrun, but you have enough ways to stall their assault that you can get your mana and kill conditions in place. They generally lack the mana to lay down more than one or two threats per turn, and this allows their hand to stay at seven the entire time. Rarely do they have any way to get their hand size under seven, except for Mortify, so Owl does a lot of the work and then Sudden Impact finishes the job. Exhaustion with Ebony Owl Netsuke on the board is a huge advantage against this deck, as they can't do anything to avoid it. Post-board it only gets better, as Pyroclasm can eliminate everything but the Nantuko Husk (assuming they're not desperate enough to play it by itself). I personally think that it would be a mistake to board in the Pithing Needles against this deck, as there are other ways to trigger the Promise of Bunrei and they do nothing else to affect board position. SB: -3 Remand, +3 Pyroclasm. Personally: 6-0, Team: 5-1.
7) Izzetron - Okay, we should win this nine times out of ten, but when you're drawing four cards a turn for five turns and you don't see an Ebony Owl Netsuke, it's hard to win. Exhaustion isn't nearly as good in this matchup, as their Izzet Signets will untap regardless, and with Tron they can usually still cast big threats like Meloku the Clouded Mirror and Keiga, the Tide Star. My match wasn't very representative of the matchup, so I won't waste your time whining about my bad luck. Personally: 6-1, Team: 5-2.
This tournament was a huge success, and everyone was having a blast. The fact that, if you dropped a match due to mana screw or similar circumstances, you could still win, was a great feeling, and a lot of people I know left without that bitter taste in their mouths. You know that taste; the one you have after States or Regionals when the deck just let you down at a crucial time. There was a lot of sportsmanship and people looking at each others' decks after their matches were over, talking about strategy and decisions they made going into this new format. It was a great social experience. Also, stick around at the table when you've finished your match, as after the tournament we could tell a difference, looking back, at how nervous people played when their teammates left and literally told them “you're on your own,” compared to us always sitting there watching the play of our last teammate. Daniel almost always finished last in our matches, and he said it definitely helped to have us there even if we were telling him to do the wrong things and he ignored our advice.
Now go have fun with the Owling Mine deck at your local Teams PTQ and have a blast!
Scott Rogers
HRRNighthawk on MODO and MOTL
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