This past weekend I was fortunate to qualify for the Arena Championship playing a different take on Boros Energy in Historic.
(Scroll down for an exportable decklist.)
(On day 1 I played a Phelia over the Suncleanser, but cut Phelia for day 2 since it wasn't doing much and its sizing isn't good for attacking the mirror. I also wanted to cut the Static Prison due to our lack of energy sources and how Suncleanser wrecks it, but I couldn't figure out what to cut it for.)
I hadn't been enjoying the American RCQ/RC system, so awhile back I decided to stop engaging with that system (for at least the time being) and instead cash in my limited spare time on the Arena Championship Qualifiers. These events are very difficult to spike, but they are also extremely convenient for a Magic tournament, letting players play matches on demand. Over the past seven months or so that I've been playing these events, I've been winning at a high clip but floundering on day 2, where the competition is very tough. I managed to make two day 2s under the prior system (requiring 7-1 or 7-0 on day 1), before winning a combined two matches on day 2 between those two weekends, to squander great odds at an Arena Championship via a "leaderboard invite." Fortunately, recently Wizards of the Coast changed the tournament structure to allow 7-2 to also qualify for the second day, which encouraged me to keep engaging with the system despite its difficulty.
More important to my decision to keep playing these events was that I found a great group of players to prep with. Starting with the Alchemy qualifier in March, I've been preparing for these events with Lukas Honnay, Tim Schaufert, Jitse Goutbeek, and Kevin Mittertreiner for each weekend, and a number of other great folks who have joined on for one or more qualifiers. This group has the best vibes of any Magic squad I've been a part of, due to everyone being supportive, kind, and great communicators.
I did not prep as much for this qualifier as I had for the past few, because I wasn't sure I'd even be able to play in it. Complicating matters was that the event fell on a weekend during which I'd be on a family vacation to Las Vegas. Having been raised in a family of Grateful Dead fanatics (known as "Deadheads"), I and six other members of my family converged on the Sphere in Las Vegas this past week to take in three Dead and Company shows. This meant that playing this event would require the following schedule:
- Get home from Thursday night concert at 1am (Pacific Time)
- Wake up at 6am, drink a coffee, speedrun the qualifier play-in to finish by 9am to hang out with my family
- Get home from Friday night concert at 1am
- Wake up at 6am, drink a coffee, speedrun day 1 of the qualifier to finish by 9am to hang out with my family
- Get home from Saturday night concert at 1am
- Wake up at 6am, drink two coffees, speedrun day 2 of the qualifier to finish by 9am to rush to airport for flight home
I would highly recommend seeing a Dead and Company show at the Sphere, but I would not recommend the above schedule. I would also highly recommend our Historic deck. Prior to prepping for this event I hadn't played Historic in many months, but it quickly became clear that Boros Energy was broken and going to be at least half of the field. The rest of the field mostly consisted of Jeskai Energy Control and a smattering of combo decks like Yawgmoth, Charbelcher, and Shifting Woodland. Boros Energy seemed too good not to play--it is truly a broken deck, probably at Caw-Blade/Oko levels. Within Boros Energy, there were two major sub-archetypes: Lurrus and Jegantha. We didn't like the Lurrus builds because they were often playing a lot of bad cards like Soul Warden and, even though the deck could be built without these cards (and indeed some players managed to build Lurrus decks with sacrifice synergies and other solid cards in those slots), playing so many 1- and 2-drop threats made the deck very weak to Wrath of the Skies.
We quickly gravitated to the Jegantha builds with Fable and Phlage because they were less one-dimensional and went bigger for an advantage in the "mirror." Still, a lot of games came down to an early Guide of Souls/Ocelot Pride start snowballing out of control, at which point Fable and Phlage were too slow. The key breakthroughs were as follows (many came from Tim or Lukas, but everybody contributed):
--Amped Raptor was an unreliable play without excess energy because you could hit a 3-drop (or a dead removal spell), and had a poor body in the mirror, which isn't about attacking and blocking but very much about Goblin Bombardment. Also, cutting Raptor allowed us to cut the weakest land, Aether Hub, and barely rely on energy at all, to the point where opposing Suncleansers (one of the most popular sideboard cards for the mirror) were ineffective against us.
--Impetuous Lootmonger, on the other hand, is great in the mirror, has two toughness against Goblin Bombardment and, together with the next card mentioned, lets us play 4 Bombardment and loot away the extra copies.
--Seasoned Pyromancer is similar to Fable, except it works much better with Bombardment and catches you up when you're behind on board. It meant giving up Jegantha, but it's worth it. And sometimes you have zero cards in hand and it's better than Fable in those spots.
--Because the mirror is so snowbally, having a bunch of 1-mana removal, particularly on the draw, is critical. Our build has an amazing late-game, it just needs to get there. Being on the draw in the mirror meant boarding in 1-mana removal and cutting Ocelots, which are bad when you're not pressing the advantage.
I went 7-0 in the "mirror," by which I mean RW-base Goblin Bombardment decks. That includes Lurrus builds, Jegantha builds, Mardu builds, and sacrifice builds. I went 1-1 versus Strict Proctor Jeskai, which seemed like a tough matchup because Proctor itself is naturally very strong against our deck. I went 1-0 against Charbelcher (tough matchup, I got lucky, see below), 1-0 against Shifting Woodland (I think this is a good matchup because we have a bunch of graveyard hate), and 3-1 against Jeskai Control (I think this matchup is solid because we have a big sideboard for it and we can grind them out if we stop them from escaping Phlage via either Surgical Extraction or Thraben Charm).
Our team crushed day 1 to a degree I had never seen before in one of these events. Kevin, Lukas, and Matt Saypoff (another player on our team and my childhood buddy) went 7-0, while Tim ended up 5-3 after a 5-0 start. I started 5-0 also (literally our entire group started 5-0) but had to squeak into day 2 at 7-2, beating Daniel Brodie (fake-news) on a Lurrus Boros deck with sacrifice synergies in the final round. I had a nut-draw in game 3 after making a lot of tough judgment calls and losing game 2.
I knew going into day 2 things were going to be chaotic. My lack of sleep was catching up with me and my entire family was leaving for the airport at 9am to fly home. I was extremely fortunate that I did not drop a single game until the final round, and that the final round was against Belcher, a fast matchup. If more matches went to game 3, or I lost a round, I don't think I would have finished in time.
Whether due to lack or sleep, or rushing to finish my matches, or something else, I made multiple big blunders on day 2. In round 2 I was paired against former MPL player Lucas Esper Berthoud (bertu) on Jegantha Boros. In game 2, I was well ahead on board, but Lucas would be able to swing the game if he escaped a Phlage. I activated Ajani's 0 ability and targeted a Guide of Souls rather than a token, which put Lucas on five cards in the graveyard to almost escape Phlage. Fortunately for me Lucas did not topdeck a Vista or cheap piece of interaction to go directly to his graveyard, and I won despite my mistake.
In the final round I was paired against Charbelcher. I think this has to be a very hard matchup because we do not have much of a sideboard versus them (really just two Disruptor Flutes) and they goldfish faster than us. I barely managed to win game 1 by racing, then game 2 I got Charbelcher'd, and then game 3 began at about 8:25am, with plans to meet my family in the hotel lobby at 8:50 and the potential to need to play another match if I lost. I had a fantastic draw of pressure and a Flute. But I made an error, casting a turn 3 Flute, which was earlier than I needed to cast it, instead of casting the front side of Phlage to Helix my opponent. I was unfamiliar with the Belcher deck and didn't know how quickly it would be able to combo. It turned out they were at least two turns away still, so I should have used my mana better and Helixed the opponent. Instead, a couple turns later I ended up in the following spot: I have an army of creatures, my opponent has three Eldrazi Spawns, and I have a Flute in play, naming Charbelcher. I alpha strike my opponent, they chump with three Spawns, sacrifice one and use a leftover red mana to Abrade my Flute, and they fall to 1 life. I believe that if I had timed my Flute better, they would never have had the chance to Abrade it before losing to lethal damage. As things stood, though, I passed the turn to my opponent, at one life and five mana. They cast Gamble for an Irencrag Feat and then we had a coinflip to determine which of us would qualify for the Arena Championship.
The coinflip: a 2/4 chance of my opponent discarding either Belcher or the Feat. They discarded the Feat, they emoted "Good Game," I attacked for lethal, and I ran down to the lobby to meet my family.
In the end, of the five of us who played the deck, Matt and I both got to six wins and qualified for the Arena Championship, while Lukas and Kevin got to four wins and (per the new rules) get to skip straight to day 2 in the next qualifier. We won 87% of our day 1 matches and 80% of our day 2 matches. I believe we won over 90% of our mirror matches. We couldn't believe how well we performed. And it was immensely satisfying to see our effort and team camaraderie get rewarded.
Mirror SB Guide:
OTP: -3 Galvanic Discharge-1 Static Prison +2 Portable Hole +2 Prismatic Ending, and versus Jegantha Boros also -1 Galvanic Discharge +1 Tajic, Legion's Valor
OTD: -4 Ocelot Pride -1 Static Prison +2 Portable Hole +2 Prismatic Ending +1 Tajic, Legion's Valor (maybe also -1 Galvanic Discharge +1 Tajic, Legion's Valor against Jegantha Boros)
Jeskai Control SB Guide:
-4 Galvanic Discharge -2 Portable Hole -1 Static Prison -2 Goblin Bombardment
+2 Karlach, Raging Tiefling +3 Tajic, Legion's Valor +2 Thraben Charm +2 Surgical Extraction
[versus Proctor, I was keeping in the 4 Discharges and not bringing in Karlachs or Surgicals]
Exportable Decklist:
Deck
1 Witch Enchanter (MH3) 239
4 Ajani, Nacatl Pariah (MH3) 237
4 Impetuous Lootmonger (Y24) 12
2 Arena of Glory (MH3) 215
4 Sunbaked Canyon (MH1) 247
4 Seasoned Pyromancer (MH1) 145
4 Inspiring Vantage (OTJ) 269
4 Galvanic Discharge (MH3) 122
4 Guide of Souls (MH3) 29
2 Mountain (KTK) 256
4 Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury (MH3) 197
2 Plains (KTK) 250
4 Goblin Bombardment (WOT) 43
4 Sacred Foundry (GRN) 254
4 Ocelot Pride (MH3) 38
4 Prismatic Vista (SPG) 38
1 Suncleanser (M19) 39
2 Portable Hole (AFR) 33
1 Needleverge Pathway (ZNR) 263
1 Static Prison (MH3) 44
Sideboard
1 Karlach, Raging Tiefling (HBG) 14
2 Surgical Extraction (OTP) 19
2 Portable Hole (AFR) 33
2 Thraben Charm (MH3) 45
1 Karlach, Raging Tiefling (HBG) 14
3 Tajic, Legion's Valor (Y24) 28
2 Disruptor Flute (MH3) 209
2 Prismatic Ending (SPG) 40
