PTQ Indianapolis

-greg

Brenna and I packed up this weekend and drove down south to slug it out at the Indianapolis PTQ. The drive from chicago is 3 or 4 hours, so only four of us from Team Barnabus were there: Me, Brenna, CJ, and Luciano. The event was in a pretty strange motel/mall thing with a bank and Starbucks in the lobby, and there was a conference for people hoping to go to the NFL right next to our nerdfest - sadly, the potential for hilarity fizzled on the stack.

I was expecting to see a lot of Faeries and Jund decks, and little to no Swans, so Brenna and I chose and changed our decks accordingly. She went mono-white Kithkin with En Vecs and Unmakes in the side, and I decided pick B/W Tokens back up. I practiced a lot this week with Jund ramp, but its best matchups were still only about 50/50. I also tried a Dark Lark deck with Fulminators and Redcaps a little, but it proved to be totally awful against literally every deck that can be built in Standard - even 60islands.dec**.

Before we sleeved up our final 75's, I meandered around taking some last-minute intel. I felt a little relieved, as almost every person I saw was counting Putrid Leeches and Bloodbraid Elves; The sort of person who lays all their cards face up right before a tournament is not the sort of player I am worried about, so I was confident that all my playtesting in the matchup would pan out. There were also a lot more U/W Lark players than I was expecting, which was a dumb call on my part because it's been popping up in top 8's and on MWS quite a bit. We wrote our lists down, made fun of Adrian Sullivan* a little (backwards hat, kum-n-go shirt), I rolled out my favorite playmat ***, and we were off.


Round 1: Jund Cascade

Game 1, he hits the sweet shit with Leech into Ram Gang. I stall with Finks, and when he hits two Leeches and a Ram-Gang, I Wrath. He topdecks a Bloodbraid into Pulse to take out my Spirit Token defense, and I lose a close one. I board out the Scullers because of their inability to stay on the board, and put in my single Celestial Purge and three Forge-Tenders.
Game 2, I keep my opening hand of Forge Tender, Wrath, Path to Exile, Cloudgoat, with good lands. He curves out perfectly again, but I have all the spot removal and board sweepers to hold him off until I can start dropping Finks and Ajanis. He is obviously agitated, as my life climbs back from 2 to 14, and I crush him in just a couple of big swings. These are the games that make you want to play BW Tokens forever.
Game 3 goes perfectly for me, and he gets land-screwed. He Jund Charmed for counters instead of Pyroclasm and I pathed his investment. Nothing else happened, and Finks with Ajani got there.

1-0


Round 2: U/W Lark

Game 1 my opponent plays massive card draw, digging in vain for some way to win. I had the turn two Bitterblossom, and ended up pathing his Sower EOT to Ajani/Finks smash FTW after about ten minutes. I wrote down "how does this deck win" in my notes.
Game 2 is close, but he manages to lock the board down. My life is 6 to his 4, and he drops a Lark I can't kill.
Game 3 is the same crap, with him playing Meddling Mages and coutering what he can. Tokens takes off well, but his control has the board locked down, and he stabilizes extremely well at 2 life (to my 24) and a full grip of 7. I have no card in hand, nothing on the board but lands, and he taps out to play lark. I topdeck Murderous Redcap like a total noob for the final points.

2-0.

Round 3: That 5CC deck with Obelisks and Planeswalkers that's been going around.

The first two games were pretty boring. Game 1 his deck did what it was supposed to do, and I didn't draw lands. Game 2 we traded places, and I rushed tokens FTW. Game 3 I totally punted by attacking with a persisted redcap into a Meddling Mage. Yeah, way to go, dork, you just lost your last blocker for nothing. He ended up doing exactly the last 4 points with that mage and Obelisk in our fifth extension turn, which I could've stopped with one blocker, turning a disappointing draw into a well-deserved loss.

2-1.

Round 4: Teh Fae

Game 1 was close, with me getting him down to two life before he locked everything down and somehow dealt 14 damage after a cryptic tap-down. Awesome, wow, Faeries is so cool. Game 2, I kept a two-lander, and never found a third or any black for the Persecution. Not that it mattered, as I saw two Mistbind Cliques in a row, and that was that.

2-2

Round5: MOAR FERRIES

I was considering dropping now, but chances were good I could still end up in packs, and besides, the room was already paid up for the night. Game 1, things went well enough, but Scions of Oona sealed the deal in his favor. Game 2, we both drew way too many lands, and literally nothing happened for six turns except for six swings with a single Scion. I finally dropped a dude and ended this excellent example of why Magic is such a joke sometimes. Game three was how Fae vs BW is supposed to go, and I ZP'd his dudes, and bashed with an increasingly huge army of faceless fliers.

3-2

Round 6: Faeires. Again.

This games were a little more involved than the last ones I'd played, involved enough that I couldn't really take a lot of notes. I finally came out of the fog that round 3 put me in, and held his butterfly army down with Zealous Persecution. The matchup is already one I feel like is in the favor of a good Tokens player, but a smart ZP can make or break a game. Game 2, I purged his Bitterblossom during my upkeep in response to a Mistbind, and that left me open to setup my field, which felt good. I did try to path a Scion with another Scion on the field, and so all my good plays up til then meant nothing. Whatever, I won, so Faeries an suck it.

4-2.

Round 7: Dark Bant

This was a deck I wasn't really expecting, and so I was worried I wouldn't be able to get through it. Turns out I was right.

Game 1, he got me down to twelve with a double-striking Treetop, but I held him down long enough to drive a shit-load of tokens in an 18-point alpha strike.
Game 2 was ugly, and I couldn't hang. He got a god draw, and shot up to 30+ life, and I struggled to even keep blockers on the field.
Game 3 was a lot closer, but you can't wrath a Tree-top. Scullers proved to be totally worthless with a Wrath in hand. Need two cards? Here you go!

4-3-SCRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUB

Notes on the day:

Black/White Tokens is still my favorite deck in today's Standard, and I can't see anything knocking it out of contention until M10 rolls around. Its matchup against Faeries is good to great, depending on the pilots on either side, and it has enough early hand disruption to contend with control (with a little luck, of course) and all the Pyroclasm-type spells floating around. Its weakness is sweepers and out-the-gate aggro, but it packs enough spot-removal and cheap creatures to be resilient enough to come back from or prevent almost anything.

Then again, we'll see what happens with M10. Anyway, 'til next time, remember to sleeve up before you play - you don't want to get your deck dirty.


* I see Adrian Sullivan at every event I go to, and he's starting to look at me in this weird way, like he recognizes me but he's not sure why. It's because Team Barnabus goes to every event within driving distance of the greater Chicago area, dudes, we are EVERYWHERE.

** Technically, this is a vintage deck. Oh well.

*** My favorite playmat is the best playmat known to man. It's all white, except for small black letters at the end facing my opponent. It says "suck it nerd."

JUND RAMP

-Greg

Even though I'm a firm believer in the power of Black/White Tokens, I've been messing around with a Jund Ramp deck lately - and it has been SMASHING almost everything in the field. We've taken to calling it the Brood-Mot Dragon Deck, in memory of Glen's historic mispronunciation of Broodmate at FNM. Here's my current list:

Smashing:
4 Anathemancer
4 Broodmate Dragon
3 Chameleon Colossus
1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund (ed. LOL - Brenna)

Ramping:
4 Fertile Ground
3 Rampant Growth
3 Garruk Wildspeaker

Removing:
4 Terminate
3 Lavalanche
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Volcanic Fallout
2 Banefire

Tapping:
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Treetop Village
3 Savage Lands
2 Firelit Thicket
2 Twilight Mire
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
2 Forest

Sideboard:
4 Guttural Response
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Thought Hemorrhage
2 Cloudthresher
2 Loxodon Warhammer