There are times where you have a fae-rly lousy but fun idea and roll with it, only to see someone else wearing the same dress to the ball.
For the second Sarpadian Summer Series (Sarpadia Rises), I played a deck with … well, almost no Sarpadian cards. Here’s FaerieQuake:
I picked Faeries in part because I just had the cards, and in part because I thought it was one of the worst tribes with the least support, so I would likely be the only person in the room with them. Then it turned out there were three of us, making Faeries and Goblins the most popular tribes that day.
What a world.
I basically tossed the deck together the Thursday before the tournament and got in a few games with it the night before, murdering Sligh and Goblins and taking a few close matches against some black decks and white weenie, but more importantly it’s stupidly fun to peck people to death with 1/1 green fliers and cast a one-sided Wrath of God.
I’ll spoil the results right here: I went 6-and-6 in games, but 2-and-3 in matchups. My buddy Wes played my White Weenie deck.
Round 1: Versus Micheal Moen, playing Swamp Tribal
Not a typo. He was one a black semi-Prison deck playing Kormus Bell, Cyclopean Tomb, and Bad Moon. Kormus Bell, for anyone who hasn’t bothered to look at a 4th edition copy, was errataed to make the swamps black creatures, even though the original printing specifically says that they’re colorless. (The Revised printing is agnostic on the subject.)
Unfortunately, his deck was very slow and he had limited hard removal. The first game he got in a couple hits with a Factory, but he made a serious miscalculation about his deck’s willingness to cough up land and played a Nether Void off a Mana Vault early on, which did 5 damage to him this game. I was well ahead on life and used Earthquake for 5 (which will give you an idea about how much land I drew this game) to finish things off. He did get three Icy Manipulators and a couple Terror the second game, but with nothing to back them up I eventually just overwhelmed the board with small fliers.
Michael was apparently very disappointed in his deck all day; he tossed it together and only played one or two games with it. He got runner-up for most creative deck, even though he left early.
Round 2: Nate Vernon, playing Mono Black Aggro
Nate’s the youngest old school player in the world, we’re pretty sure. He borrowed my 4-color Tax deck last time and loved it, so for this tournament, he bought a stack of black cards the night before the tournament and threw the deck together the morning of right before deck photos. I loaned him a Strip Mine (he was only playing one), a set of Factories, and some miscellaneous sideboard material like Disks and Glooms. I’ll spoil his results, too: He was the highest-placing unpowered deck, earning 4th place, and won a Demonic Tutor and Hyppie for his deck at the end. Spiffy!
Game 1 was fae-rly close, with us each playing out a few small creatures and him getting in with Hymn and The Rack. An early Will-o-the-Wisp threatened to annoy me to death, but I took it out when he tapped out to Mind Twist me. In the mid game he played out two Order of the Ebon Hand and a Black Knight (the Orders were hanging back so he didn’t lose them to an Emerald Dragonfly playing defense), and I cast Pyrokinesis to wreck his entire board.
Second game he kept a hand with Factories but no Swamps. It did not work out for him. I happened to draw my Strip Mine for his first Swamp a few turns later after he cast Dark Ritual for a Hypnotic Specter that I promptly murdered. I felt a little bad and reminded him that keeping one-land hands is a really bad idea in Old School since most of the decks are on four Strip Mine. We played a third game for fun and he got a Bad Moon and several fast creatures that are all better than mine, nailed my Earthquake with a Hymn, and ran me over, which, considering I was his only loss, I gather was much more like his deck’s performance for the remainder of the day!
Round 3: Jason Castonguay with R/u Atog
Jason’s one of the Baltimore players, and we’re the only players who shut out our first and second round opponents, so of course we get to play each other at table 1.
Jason’s Atog deck plays extra anti-aggro cards in Brass Man and Earthquake in the maindeck, which aren’t exactly good against me, so I do feel like I have a chance. He said he did feel a little bad bringing a Hatog deck to a room full of tribal, but it was the only deck he has together at the moment.
Game 1 is a complete and total slaughter. I don’t do a single point of damage to him and I still managed to die within a couple turns: First turn black vice, factory, and Ankh of Mishra, followed by a second factory and a second Ankh, every bolt imaginable for my creatures, and a ‘Tog for good measure. My notes for his game just say “ouch.” It was only a 5th turn kill but it felt like a second turn kill.
I sideboard in the good stuff and it’s a real game: he doesn’t have a crazy amount of fast mana, I draw a few bolts to keep the pressure off, and … oh, right, friggin’ Shatterstorm, which nailed four artifacts in the mid game. He’s forced into casting Time Twister when I’m at 7 life and he’s at 1. I get … no bolts in my new hand; he dumps three moxes and a black vice on the table and bolts my only living attacker, a Scryb Sprite. I topdeck a Chain Lightning like a champ.
Game 3 I lost even after casting Shatterstorm. It was another game with multiple Ankhs, fast mana, Factories, and a big ‘Tog to finish things off, though I think Brass Man got in the mix a bit this time, too.
I cast Shatterstorm twice against Tog, which I mark as a win in my book. Unfortunately the match slip disagrees. 2-1 in matches, 5-2 in games.
Round 4: Gregg Graham on Faeries (but really U/G Fliers)
Yes, it’s a Faeries mirror. In old school. We chat a bunch about how we both thought the tribe was terrible enough that no one else would play it. He’s got me beat by one faerie in his sideboard: a single copy of Rubinia, Soulsinger, who became a Faerie in the great creature type update.
Game 1 involves a little back and forth but I have timely removal for his dorks when he goes for a Giant Growth or Unstable, and his Efreet who shows up late doesn’t race my team. I got to Earthquake away two Pixies on his side and follow up with my own, and I don’t think he really recovered from that.
I take a very long time to sideboard, eventually deciding that I’m the control deck, so I put in the Blood Moons, the extra Factories, and the Shivan Dragon.
Game 2 he barfs almost his entire hand onto the board in the first turn or two thanks to some moxes and Black Lotus, suits a couple faeries up with Unstable Mutation, and goes to town. I have a blocker and a Giant Strength to try to stabilize, but he’s also got the Giant Strength, and I can’t draw a red land, Bird, or even Fire Sprite to save my life. I don’t do a single point of damage to him and I die a few turns later to a pair of Factories and a single flier with with 8 green lands on the table and three bolts, Shivan, and a Blood Moon in hand. Super painful, as I had all the tools to win this game but I was on the back foot from turn 1 and my mana base betrayed me.
Game 3 was one of “those games.” He has a Black Lotus and a first turn Serendib Effreet. I have a Red Elemental Blast but he has a Blue Elemental Blast. The next turn he suits up the Efreet with an Unstable Mutation and I start chucking blockers in front of it, trying to build up my mana to cast Shivan Dragon on the fourth turn off a bird and a sacrificed Dwarven Ruins, which I finally get to do. The Dragon’s bigger than his Efreet at this point, and he has three lands in play and two cards after his draw phase. One of them is Berzerk, which plows his Efreet through the dragon. The other is a second Efreet he casts the next turn. I die two attacks later.
I can back up a few turns, though, and see that there was another way to go. The turn I cast Shivan Dragon, I had Blood Moon, Tracker, and a Lightning Bolt in hand. He happened to draw his only Island, but I had a Blood Moon in my hand that I didn’t cast because casting it meant I lost one mana when the Dwarven Ruins turned into a mountain. I was dead to a Berzerk at that point, but I actually had three turns to draw another mana source to cast Shivan or extra blockers to ride out the Efreet getting steadily smaller. He had no basic forests in his deck, and he’s used his lotus, so his only way to cast a green spell at that point is if he draws his Mox Emerald, which also means he can never Giant Growth on the same turn he plays a green spell. With the dragon on Defense, I have time to draw Tracker and a Bolt take care of the second Efreet he drew, which sucks but it’s better than dying. In the actual game, I did draw the extra mana source the turn after I cast the dragon, but by then it was too late for me to do anything about it.
We shake hands, but I tell Gregg it would have been nice to actually die to a Faerie!
Round 5: Dave Long on Construct Reanimator
Dave’s playing an unpowered All Hollow’s Eve list with a zillion robots and Vampires. He uses Bazaar to fill up his grave and Mana Vault to power out 6-drops early. We let him call the deck Tribal Constructs but I don’t think he was on robots as a theme in any way — Tetravus and Triskellion are both just good creatures to reanimate.
This felt like a fair fight against a deck that is just plain good at beating up on 1/1s, and we both commented afterward that it was a fun match. Triskellion is super bad news for me, but Trikes that come back after spending their counters are really dire. Game 1 he does his thing, stalling with a Vampire, Trike, and Terror, and gets a small All-Hollow’s Eve off to put the game away.
Game 2 I got to cast Shatterstorm after All Hollow’s Eve for 3 Tetravus and two Trikes after many turns where he murders everything in sight. He did get to clear away some critters with a Trike but Cockatrice is too big to shoot, and he let me bring back a ton of creatures with the Eve. Two attacks later he falls to the swarm.
Game 3 I get him down to five life before a critical turn where he has removal for a bird and a Strip Mine for my City of Brass to take me off red mana. I draw a Blood Moon, which of course I can’t cast now, and he’s able to find an All Hollow’s Even off his unmolested Bazaar then get four more creatures in his grave over the next couple turns. I don’t draw bolts (depsite being a long game, his life total changes indicate that I didn’t draw any) and I don’t have the mana to cast Shatterstorm, so there’s no hope for me when he fills the board with 4/4s.
I finish in the middle of the pack, with the best record among the losing records (wooo …). The deck was fun to play when I wasn’t getting rolled by powered starts. I pick up a Pendelhaven from the Caligraphy pile and a Stone Calendar from the community-donated prizes. The Pendelhaven I know I can use, but the Stone Calendar is likely to sit in the old binder as a trophy.
Most creative deck went to a player from Philadelphia who brought Tribal Archers. It was a 5-color deck sporting Elvish Archers, Tetsuo Umezawa, and a couple others along with cards that force opponents to attack (such as Siren’s Song) and then punished them for doing so (with Umezawa and cards like Desert). He didn’t have a great finish, but we thought the deck was truly one-of-a-kind and he clearly put a lot of thought into being thematic and for pulling off an incredibly rare tribe.
Best Tribal went to Orcs. The dude who played it had played back in 1994 but was new to Old School. He played literally every Orc in the format, along with the cards that mention orcs. He played Orcish Spy with Millstone. He got to use Orcish Captain against someone else’s orc during one match. Most importantly he had a ton of fun. The competition was stiff, too, as almost half the room was tribal.
Other cool decks: Nick Batista, who laser etched the trophy for the event, played a Hurricane Florence themed deck with Merfolk, Hurricanes, Floods, and tons of thematic cards. Another player brought something called “The Inquisition,” which had cards like Army of Allah, Witch Hunter, King Suleiman, and lots of other goofy things.
Retrospective on the deck: I’ve removed two of the Emerald Dragonflies and replaced them with one of the Factories from the sideboard and a baby dwagon. I brought in the Shivan a lot, and it was fun to cast him, but I think a 6-drop is not really where this deck wants to be. I think the deck is a little smoother and has a better range of threats with this change. I haven’t made any other serious changes to the deck, though I’ve tested out a few other sideboard cards.
Props:
Pyrotechnics. I only cast it twice during the tournament, but both times it was a 3-for-1.
Nathan, for loaning me two Blood Moons.
The other Nate (Vernon), for blowing through most of field not just of players with more experience but using a deck he had no experience with.
Slops:
Earthquake, or possibly my opponents for not playing more tribal decks. I built my deck around them but sideboarded them out in four of my five matches.
Baltimore Old School MTG 