Regional Championship DC Tournament Report

2024-10-08

Preparation: How many of the keys would you be willing to try

I began my preparation for this event in earnest three weeks ago after finishing work on a timeless MACS event where I scrubbed out on day two working with the “SystemMagic” group as I have for the previous four RCs. Going into the event I mostly expected to play Phoenix with it being the most popular deck that did not get hit by bans and me having done infinite work on it in the past. However Sacrifice was also on my radar as something that might benefit from the popularity of RB Aggro and I had been impressed by the deck playing against it as Phoenix.

My first pass at rebuilding the deck had zero green sources with only one Ygra, added Kroxa, cut Leyline of the Void (as well as the board wipes which also restrict Jegantha), and played 23 lands. Over time some refinements were made with me concluding that I want access to Ygra somewhat more often and it becoming clear that Verges are very good but the persistent through line was just that I was winning a large amount both online and in internal testing.

For a while I thought the deck was just broken but as we got closer to the event RB metagame share declined at the same time as UW became more popular leaving me more conflicted. I did not trust myself enough to play UW and was not inspired by the work some of the team did on Enigmatic so remained on the fence between Phoenix and Sacrifice while continuing to grind out Sacrifice reps. I was ready to jump ship if I did poorly in an MTGO Super Qualifier the weekend before but my middling 3-2 with a loss to time with lethal on the stack did not clarify things and ultimately I effectively flipped a coin. So it goes. When Tristan joined our group in the last few days and put us onto the broken Artist’s Talent technology, I was already committed.

Day 0: Shoot whatever asks to be shot

I arrived in DC with 8 of the cards in my 75 and was punished for this when it came to light that one of the people I was borrowing from would not arrive until late on Friday. Luckily I was able to get a full 75 from Sam, the only other person on our team I had been able to rope into playing the deck. In round one of my first bullet I lost to Mono-G twice postboard after failing to effectively constrain their resources.

The situation in the first round of my second bullet seemed to better with my opponent mulling to five and me on a strong hand until Tibalt’s Trickery put Omniscience into play on turn two. Bad decks are still bad though and my opponents deck did not function in either of the postboard games. I did not lose another game in the remaining rounds and was able to hand back Sam’s deck to him in time for him to join a side event, retiring to my hotel to agonize over final slots and mapping. Staring at my screen until deck submission ends is mostly just a bad habit but in this instance I did make one swap, turning a fourth Chandra’s Defeat into Ob Nixilis inspired by the LCQ metagame confirming my suspicion that UW would be the most popular deck and RB would be less than 20%.

Day 1: I aim with my eye

I ate my usual breakfast of oatmeal and got beat up in a warmup match against Marceline reaffirming my commitment to the plan of dodging good Phoenix players. I paired into Phoenix in round one and my opponent did not have any Artist’s Talents or Annuls so I felt solid but ended up needing to get lucky to win with a Talent in game three after I kept 2X Fatal Push, RG Verge, Blackcleave Cliffs, Fable, Devil, Ygra OTP and got the Fable Spell Pierced. In the second round I faced one of the nightmare matchups, Quintorius. I stole game one by winning the dieroll and comboing on turn four but got comboed through discard in the midgame in game two. In game three I Thoughtsiezed my opponent on turn one to see Roaring Furnace, four lands, and Trumpeting Carnosaur. My own hand had no additional discard and a Bloodtithe Harvester so I felt that I am forced into taking the Furnace which seemed like it would get punished when my opponent made a treasure on turn two or three. Luckily instead of the turn five Carnosaur I was pretty cold to my opponent ended up casting a turn four Quintorius which I could Chandra’s Defeat buying me enough time to kill.

In round three I was feeling good when I saw my opponent was playing Mono-W Humans with Imposing Sovereign and I won the die roll. However I hard threw game one by trying to force combo with Ygra and mills at a second Cauldron Familiar instead of just passing because I could not remember exactly what interaction my opponent had and freaked out. I whiffed in something like 14 looks and took exactly lethal damage. Fortunately the matchup is good enough that I did not get punished for this and straightforwardly won the postboard games casting Molten Collapse with two targets multiple times. In round four I faced RB Aggro for the first time. I was happy to get this matchup but lost the die roll and got run over in game one before returning the favor in game two. The last game was much more competitive with my being stuck on two lands stopping me from easily winning the game and my opponent flooding on creatures. I cannot remember the exact boardstate but believe I made a mistake at one point casting a Duress that missed instead of developing more when I could have made a read that opponent did not have spells other than possibly Reckless Rage and Fatal Push. In any case I got lucky to fade a few drawsteps and eventually cleared the board with a Mayhem Devil.

Going into round five I briefly exchanged words with Isaac remarking that as long as I dodge UW and Enigmatic I am feeling. Of course I immediately paired into Dan on UW. I mulled to five in game one which to be fair does happen a fair amount in the matchups where your removal is dead. The game was surprisingly competitive with me casting multiple Fables and one of them resolving but I was probably never really in it and eventually conceded to a revealed hand. The other two games are a blur as I was very worried about clock but I had aggressive hands supported by discard and somehow made things work. Notably after game three some spectators of our match pointed out that Dan had gained life but missed making fish with Beza which easily might have mattered. In round six I faced UW Spirits with Curious Obsession and the new white auras. By virtue of my opponent missing a Lightshield Array trigger we played a very close racing game that left me feeling like there must have been something I could have done differently but unsure on what it would have been. I won game two just killing everything and we went into game three where my turn one Thoughtsieze revealed one creature, 3X Sheltered by Ghosts, and a land. Naturally I took the creature but I had also mulliganed to six with a mediocre hand. On turn three or four opponent flashed in a creature in my endstep but did not try to put Sheltereds on it and we played a weird passing game for a while. I had a close decision about timing of when to cast a Deadly Dispute and ended up thinking I am behind enough that I need to pass and get value against a Sheltered by Ghosts. This turned into my Dispute being Spell Quellered and though I was able to promptly recast it I eventually lost the game by having one less game object in play than needed leaving me pretty frustrated.

In round seven I played against RW Midrange. I won game one despite mulling to five with a multi Talent draw and my opponent not being able to answer all of them. In game two I probably punted keeping 3X RG Verge, Devil, Familiar, Duress, Deadly Dispute on seven. I was trying to calculate my odds of hitting a black land but then realized that Fable is also an out and kept. The matchup is quite slow meaning that even if you only hit on turn three it can be fine but it’s probably still plus EV to mulligan and in game I never hit and died. Game three was sadly not very competitive with me never resolving a card advantage piece and getting ground out. I did attempt to channel Takenuma into an onboard Rest in Peace thinking that this works with Picklock Prankster but at that point the game was already over. At this point I was feeling a bit disappointed but in general never really have issues with mental prior to being eliminated from an event and had a lot of confidence in the deck still.

In round eight I pair into Coveted Falcon Nine Lives. I have a strong draw but can only put eight counters on Nine Lives before Solemnity comes down and the game slows down a lot. Notably I am still able to make progress by blinking Familiar and my opponent misses being able to clear my Ovens with a Blast Zone they’ve had in play since turn two so I am able to get them down to four before being put under Lockdown and eventually dying to Falcon into Cleansing Nova. I draw Ob Nixilis on turn three in the next game to run away with things and have a more mediocre draw in game three but disrupt the opponent enough that they never combo me. Going into the last round of the day I pair into another weird deck, Rona. In game one opponent deals five plus damage to themselves and just never really gets anywhere. In game two things are much closer as I am stuck on two lands despite getting a bunch of looks from Dispute but am mostly able to kill my opponents creatures. Eventually though a Treasure Cruise gets resolved and I start falling behind taking a lot of damage from Duelists of the Mind. At three life facing a a flipped Rona with one counter on it from Proft I chump block with a 2/2 shaman and a Bloodtithe Harvester putting two triggers on the stack against my hand of Harvester, Fable, 2X TS. TS is the first hit and opponent chooses to cast it going to 6, taking my second Thoughtsieze. The second trigger hits Bloodtithe and we go to my turn where I draw Familiar and discard both cards to Fable drawing Claim plus another Familiar for exact lethal combined with the Witch’s Oven I already had in play.

I use the 40 minute walk back to my hotel to try and mentally reset but find it hard to stop thinking back to RC Dallas a year ago where I also played Sacrifice and had a strong showing on day one only to crumble on day two. That combined with some back pain makes it hard for me to fall asleep and I get probably only seven hours of sleep.

Day 2: Нас будет ждать драккар на рейде и янтарный пирс Валгаллы

Once again I eat oatmeal and lose a warmup match to Marceline to start the day. The first actual match of the day goes as smoothly as I could ask for though as I pair into RB Aggro, win the die roll in game one, and draw a large amount of removal in game two. In round 11 I pair into another nightmare matchup, Lotus Field. I get stomped in game one after losing the die roll but postboard my discard lines up well and opponent does not draw out of it. I had given a lot of consideration to playing at least the first Damping Sphere for this matchup which buys you a lot of equity but had ended up deciding against it in favor of just giving up on the matchup so felt extremely lucky to squeak by here.

In round twelve I paired into Greasefang. The post-event data suggests this matchup is Sacrifice favored but I had not fared well in it online and had lost the only internal set of it that had happened so was feeling wary especially after losing the die roll. My opponent went to six and I said I will keep a hand of black land, 2X Oven, Familiar, Dispute, and some other irrelevant cards. Thinking about it more while my opponent was shuffling though I realized that this hand was awful and said I will mulligan instead which after a short judge call I was allowed to do. Opponent ended up going to five and I was able to always present removal for Greasefang to win the first game without much trouble. In game two I play Oven instead of Thoughtsiezing on turn one so I can have Deadly Dispute and Push up on turn two. Opponent plays an Overlord of the Balemurk that hits Esika’s Chariot so on turn two when I draw a second Thoughtsieze I pass to not lose to topdecked Greasefang but get hit by Liliana of the Veil and am never able to get out from under it with it. Unfortunately game three plays out in a similar fashion with me losing to getting ground out in large part by Liliana.

I now presumably had my back against the wall but am happy to say I was not thinking about that at all. During the entire event I had been using noise cancelling headphones and music to turn my brain off between rounds. As for nervousness during the actual games the only manifestation of it was feeling a slight fake need to use the bathroom. In any case, I was happy to see that my round thirteen pairing was RB Midrange, a matchup that for a long time had been one of the biggest reasons to play Sacrifice and was extremely favorable. In game one I won the die roll and went turn three Fable into discard zero cards, Claim the Firstborn opposing 2/2 Shaman, and completely snowball the game. In game two I mostly stabilized the board against an opposing Fable with Mayhem Devil but was unable to keep killing my opponents one off Aclazotz that eventually soloed me. My hand in game three was not particularly inspiring but solid with 3 lands, Talent, Mayhem Devil, Kroxa, and Fatal Push. I played and leveled Talent, played Mayhem Devil and my opponent passed back to me on turn three still having made zero plays. Here I decided to give up a lot of clock playing a second Mayhem Devil I had drawn choosing instead to level Talent again to play around a two off Extinction Event which my opponent had shown me in game two. Opponent played a Sheoldred which I Pushed off revolt from Kroxa and attacked putting him to to 9. Next turn he played an Archfiend of the Dross and passed again and I drew a Cauldron Familiar which I played together with Mayhem Devil for lethal.

In round fourteen I was happy to again get paired into RB Aggro and easily won game one after winning the die roll never falling below 15 life. In game two I mulliganed to a five of Familiar, Fable, 3X lands after seeing a seven with no lands and a six with the only spell being Familiar. unsurprisingly this was not good enough and I died on turn after tapping out for the Fable. In game three my hand was Cauldron Familiar, Oven, 2X lands, 2X Chandra’s Defeat, and Push and I though I basically could not lose. However after using all removal early on Slickshot Showoffs and Emberheart Challengers a Claim//Fame on Emberheart made the game competitive. I was not drawing any spells and deployed a Jegantha that somewhat stabilized the board. At this point my opponent was at 11 and I began attacking with Jegantha. I ate some damage on the backswing but at this point had gained enough life with Familiar loops over the course of the game to have a healthy buffer and when on the last turn of the game I drew a Mayhem Devil I did not even need it to have lethal with my board of two Familiars and Jegantha.

My breakers were good enough to potentially make it with a loss at this point but I did not see a need to test that theory and accepted a draw from my opponent in the final round to finish in 27th place.

Reflections: Having idiosyncratic interests that grow in complexity

I wouldn’t neccesarily say I was happy with this outcome though I certainly felt a sense of relief I hadn’t choked. The last time I was qualified for a major event was more than two years ago and in that time I had a large amount of near misses.

At the same time it feels somewhat anticlimactic to qualify in this way. I didn’t do it on MTGO and I could not confidently tell you have meaningfully improved over those two years (case in point a lot of the plays I made in this event). My preparation process for this event was also poor as it seemed clear than even if Sacrifice was “not priced in” it would not be the best choice and a stronger player than me should have switched first to UW and then to Artist’s Talent Phoenix.

Improved or not I feel a lot of gratitude towards the people I have worked with during those years since the end of online organized play. In addition to Stefan and Daniel who I mentioned in my first post about this event I have to credit the entire SystemMagic group who are solid players and great teammates, specifically Andrew who first looped me in for RC Dallas 2023, Corey and Table as people I have been working with for the MOCS circuit most recently, the handshake adjacent groups I have worked with for many of the MACS circuit events, in no particular order Levi, Slax, Hussar, Ginky, Tristan, Julian, and others I am forgetting, Logan and Walaoumpa who I talked about Sac with briefly last time it was a playable deck, Piper and Tristan who reached out expressing sympathy after I stone bubbled an RC, and LSD who told me after New Capenna that if I’ve qualified for 2 PTs I will eventually qualify for another.

I look forward to taking a heavy swing at PT 1 2024.