Standard Junk Reanimator and MOCS Season 7

Season 7 of the Magic Online Championship Series is in full swing. I have met my first seasonal goal of 15 Qualifier Points and am working on my second goal of 30 QPs. Once I reach 30 I will then try my hardest to reach 35 before the season ends.

I’m currently at 17 QPs. The path to those meager 17 points has been a long and storied one with many ups and downs, highs and lows. The majority of the points have come from Standard.  This season I put down the fiery sword of Red/Green Aggro to pick up the cold blade of power that is Junk Rites.  No feelings, just Mulching and Salvaging my way to huge Angels and Thragtusks.

Junk Reanimator is one of the top decks in Standard on Magic Online currently. There’s not much you can do that is more powerful than Angel of Serenity as it nullifies almost every other creature in the format. I cannot count the number of times I have fallen behind against an aggro deck only to ramp to 7 mana or get a lucky Unburial Rites and I am immediately winning the game.

The main reason that I switched is probably the 500th time I got stomped by Junk Rites while I was playing R/G Aggro. Sure, Red/Green has some fast starts that can’t really be stopped, but if the Junk deck has even a decent hand it wins 95% of the time, especially post-board. Those are some hard stats to ignore and what ultimately caused me to switch.

Thanks to my luck, I usually only get to play against durdly control decks (Esper, Grixis, UW, Bant, etc, etc).  I would love to play against aggro every round of every tournament. But you need a way to beat those control decks, too.  Here is the list I am currently running:

Some interesting choices to note:

Fiend Hunter / Sin Collector instead of Lingering Souls.

I feel that Lingering Souls is incredibly ineffective against R/G Aggro, Naya Blitz, and Naya Aggro. A 1/1 creature is just too small.  Even a Sin Collector that doesn’t remove a spell is a better blocker as a 2/1.  The spirit tokens from Lingering Souls just tend to chump block, which doesn’t remove threats from their board or advance your own.  Fiend Hunter is great against aggro decks. Whether he resets a Stromkirk Noble or Experiment One, or just holds off a Flinthoof Boar or random 2/2, he really shines. Sin Collector also shines against control decks.

4 copies of Restoration Angel

One of the most powerful things you can do in Standard is to Resto a Thragtusk. It just creates so many guys and life that it’s hard for most opponents to overcome.  Even against control this is underestimated and has great benefits.

Acidic Slime

I’m still on the fence about Acidic Slime… But I must admit there are some games against control decks where their mana sputters or you come out fast and you start blowing up their lands.

Gaze of Granite in the Sideboard

I think that this guy is going to come out. There really isn’t much room to board this card in against any matchup. I suppose it would be good against a Selesnya populate deck, but that’s about it. I’ve heard it argued as good against Aristocrats, but Blood Artist makes that plan look foolish.  I think I want to cut these two for Putrefy or something that is instant-speed. Tragic Slip perhaps. Still thinking about this one.

With a couple of weeks left to go in the season, I am over halfway to my goal. My focus is on Standard and Draft, with a few Sealed Deck or RTR Block tournaments peppered in there.  Wish me luck!

MOCS Preliminary – Modern Masters Sealed

When I realized that the format of the MOCS Preliminary & Championship tournaments was Modern Masters Sealed, I tried to find some articles on the topic. My searching turned up a scant few results, and the articles I did find were mostly reminiscing about past formats. I can do that on my own, but it didn’t really help me prepare for the MM Sealed format. Hopefully this entry sheds some light on the format and helps those going to GP Vegas next weekend!

When the time for the preliminary came around, I had little idea of how it would go.  I thought to myself, “just open some broken rare and draw it every game.”

The Pool

This pool felt like it was all over the place with the only real power card being the Sword of Fire & Ice.

The Deck

My strategy was to search up some Rebels (Amrou Scout, Blightspeaker) and generate board position via some flying rebels (Deepcavern Imp) or the tapper (Rathi Trapper) or the white fear rebels (Amrou Seekers).

The problem with this strategy is that it largely ignored what my opponent would be doing. I had little idea of how fast the format was or what size the creatures were. Given this lack of information, I probably should have gone in a different direction. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Here we go!

The Tournament

Round 1 vs. U/W Artifact Guy

In game one we trade damage back and forth with fliers and removal. He bounced a few of our guys on the final turn and swung in for lethal.

In game two we reached a board stall with fliers staring each other down. He played his entire hand out on the board, but I had a lot in reserve after trading some creatures.

For game three I had Kitchen Finks with Sword of Fire and Ice. Yeah, easily won that one.

1-0

Round 2 vs. RUG Fatties

Game 1 he drew ALL the fat. I drew none of my removal. *shrug*

Game 2 I come out of the gates fast but he has the phat again. Test of Faith saves our flier against his Glen Elendra Archmage and eventually I get there with Flickerwisp.

Game 3 I discover that I am even lucky to have come close to winning a game. In addition to all of the phat, he also has all of the Ramp. Kodama’s Reach ramps him into fatties while suspend counters tick off of his 5/5. Oh, then he removes my guy, Eternal Witness’s back the removal, then I concede facing like… 16 power on his side, 0 creatures on my side, and only one of my colors of mana. 😦

1-1

Round 3 vs. G/R Fatties

Game 1 has me holding down the fort with a Rathi Trapper while I eventually get some removal for his fatties. Luckily he doesn’t have removal for the Trapper and we get there.

Game 2… Wait a second… This fatties theme seems to be working for the other guys. Even when I felt like I was in that last game, I was still on the edge of losing. Without my powerful removal, I’d have been a sitting duck… hmm…

Time to switch decks!!!!!!!!

I sideboard into a Green/Red BEAST of a deck. I realize that I should have probably gone with this deck. I swear I didn’t get 20 minutes for deckbuilding, though, it seemed to go by so fast. Ah well. Green/Red fatties it is!

Okay, so now Game 2: We play fatties, he plays fatties. Our fatties are better. We smash. Rawr.

2-1

Overall, this pool seemed incredibly hard to build in a wee 20 minutes. It has multiple angles and they are all interesting. Giants/Rebels/Fatties… Tough call. Here is what I ended up sideboarding into the rest of the tournament:

Round 4 vs. UWR Faeries Guy

Game 1 he runs out Vedalken Shackles and luckily enough, steals my only creature. Sigh.

Game 2 he plays some Faeries, but I have boarded into Super Red/Green and just beat him down.

Game 3 He does his usual shenanigans, but leaves me some openings for fatties! He has to remove them when I attack, letting me play more fatties after combat. He eventually gets overwhelmed. Luckily he gave me a land off of Path to Exile and I used Search for Tomorrow to exactly cast Countryside Crusher and Masked Admirers (after getting it back from the GY).

3-1

Round 5 vs. another Green-based fatties deck.

We trade games 1 and 2, so it all comes down to game 3. We trade creatures back and forth and just when we’re both out of gas… his last card is (Green Kamigawa Dragon)!!

3-2 UGH

Given that I needed to go 5-1 or 6-0 to gain the QPs for the season finals, my last round was purely for the promo card. I try to have fun with the last round, shifting the deck around quite a bit and trying out different things. I end up winning the last one to wind up at 4-2 overall. Man. So close!!!

In the End

Ultimately, I realize that I just completely screwed up building this sealed deck.  I should have done an extensive analysis of the format and the cards I would be playing against. I would have realized that the creatures are either large or small and tricky. Either way the creatures are relatively difficult to deal with. Had I known more about the format beforehand, I would have built the deck like this:

For those of you going to GP Las Vegas, I hope you take extreme care with this format, for it is dark and full of terrors.  Make sure that you focus during the deckbuilding portion and don’t waste any time. Immediately sort the cards and work out different decks.

Keep in mind that fatties are the rule of the sealed format. The small creatures really don’t live up to the power level of the big guys. Even cards that seem amazing like Epochrasite are really only mediocre. Unless you have really powerful synergies among those cards. Here are some things I noticed working well:

Thallids with Pump spells (Echoing Courage, Incremental Growth) and Tappers (Sandsower).

Rebels with the Rebel-Pacifism (Bound in Silence) and Rathi Trappers. I wouldn’t pursue this strategy without at least 2 copies of Bound in Silence.

Giants. They’re all big and most have good effects. Hammerheim Deadeye is particularly good at getting rid of pesky fliers.  Thundercloud Shaman is pretty amazing as well.

Affinity isn’t really possible unless you have a TON of artifacts.

The removal in the format is somewhat limited, so creatures pretty much rule the day. The likelihood that you will get blown-out by some crazy mythic (Dragons, Swords, etc) is fairly high. I hope everyone has fun with the format in Vegas!