7-2 at the 5K, Adventurous Lists and Luck

It’s been an up and down past couple of weeks on and off the ladder here at camp Sheerin. Since the release of Kaldheim two weeks ago I’ve dabbled in different variations of Adventures thanks to Darkbore Pathway. At first I tried to make an Abzan Adventures list with Kaya, the Inexorable and Binding the Old Gods work.

The deck was fun for sure, especially early in the season. It has every tool you need to give yourself a fair matchup against any deck. And it’s probably one of the most removal-heavy midrange decks I’ve ever played. Ultimately though, it was tough to get the mana base consistent, and it simply lacks the raw power and speed that you get with Gruul and Naya. In case you’re interested though, here’s the list:

Hovering around Platinum 1 and 2, I switched back to Gruul to get over the first hump and into Diamond. At that point it was still fairly early in the season, and I started putting together some other non-Yorion builds. I put together a Rakdos Midrange deck that was similarly as grindy as the Abzan list, but leveraging Goldspan Dragon and Ugin as top-end. The deck did not fare well against aggro in testing, so I scrapped the idea and went back to playing Abzan (not sharing because I wouldn’t let my readers torture themselves trying to make a truly bad deck work).

On Friday the 5th I still wasn’t settled on a list, though I knew I’d need to lock in for SCG Satellite #3 that night. It wasn’t until about 45 minutes before the first round that I decided to get REAL adventurous. I wanted a Golgari-based Adventures list, but wanted to splash red for The Akroan War and Bonecrusher Giant. So I threw together Jund Adventures, played one game with it and registered it.

Now, let’s be clear - I wholeheartedly do not recommend playing untested lists at competitive events. It’s a disastrous idea if your goal is to do well. That said, my goal in playing this satellite was to have fun and get a better feel for how the format might shape out. Surprisingly enough though, the deck fared much better than expected.

Round 1 - Temur Ramp - Loss 1-2

• Opp hit all four Ultimatum in game 1. In game 2 I drew particularly poorly and opp was able to run away with it.

Round 2 - Naya Adventures - W 2-1

Round 3 - Sultai Control - Win 2-0

• Highlight here was using The Akroan War to take the opponent’s Koma, Cosmos Serpent. In game 2 we both mulled to 5, but I managed to resolve Vivien and proceed to cast a ton of creatures.

Round 4 - Mardu Midrange - Win 2-0

Round 5 - Sultai Control - Win 2-0

Round 6 - Mono-White Control Loss 1-2

• Hoping to get the 5 wins to lock qualification for the Strixhaven Qualifier Weekend in March, I lost a very grindy matchup. The mono white control list is impressive, though probably not as powerful as what these Sultai lists are doing.

Though I was a bit disappointed I didn’t reach 5 wins, going 4-2 with an untested deck at a competitive event was more than I could ask for, if not impressive. Game ball went to Vivien and The Akroan War for coming through multiple times throughout the night. I was locked in for Sunday and knew I’d have some decisions to make on a decklist. While Jund fared decently, I wasn’t entirely confident it would get me anywhere for the 5K Qualifier.

Sunday, 12/7

I ultimately decided to go back to Gruul after having some success with it on the ladder the day before. I wasn’t sold on the Naya lists, so I sided with the archetype I was most familiar with. Additionally, after a week of testing different variations of black-based Adventures, I realized that the card I missed the most from them was Brushfire Elemental. The card is still gas, even in a Stomp format. I also wanted to get in on the Goldspan Dragon action, which is difficult to manage in a three-color Adventures deck. Here’s the list I registered.

Some quick, yet rough back story - on Saturday the 6th my wife and I took our 12 year-old best friend Bricks to the vet for a follow up on a bad rash he developed, and after this visit we were told that it was potentially cancer. They ran some tests and said we’d get the results on Sunday or Monday.

Without getting into too much detail, Rachel and I were pretty torn up, to say the least. I knew that playing the tournament would help me take my mind off of it and possibly bring some normalcy. But by the same token, I wasn’t as focused as I normally would be on doing well at the tournament. So I registered my list, sat down, and played the best Magic I could, for as long as I could.

A Lazy Sunday

Bricks was zonked out on pain meds, so he spent the day up on the bed with Rachel. After losing the first round, I wheeled my chair into the bedroom and setup my laptop on the bed so I could spend the day with them while wrapping up the tournament. I definitely didn’t expect to play much past the first round, but as it would turn out, I ended up going the long haul.

Round 1 - Rakdos Midrange - Loss 1-2

Round 2 - Mono-Red Aggro - Win 2-0

Round 3 - Rakdos Midrange - Win 2-1

Round 4 - Dimir Rogues - Win 2-0

Round 5 - Gruul Adventures - Loss 0-2

Round 6 - Abzan Doom Foretold - Win 2-1

Round 7 - Temur Ramp - Win 2-0

Round 8 - Rakdos Midrange - Win 2-1

Round 9 - Sultai Ramp - Win 2-1

So much for playing a couple rounds. I finished 7-2, good enough for 33rd, and netting me a boatload of gems and qualification for the Strixhaven Qualifier Weekend in March. Go figure - the qualifier I don’t earn a bye for is the one where I get my best results.

There’s not much to say about the matchups. Aggressive decks are typically pretty good in the first weeks of a new format, and Goldspan Dragon is the real deal. It pairs really well with Embercleave, and hasty creatures can be awfully strong in a midrange-dominated format. There were one or two matches in which my opponents ran into some poor draws, but it’s rare to have a winning day in which your opponents draw optimally in every match. Simply put, you always need a little luck to go on these runs.

The new addition I was least impressed by was Masked Vandal. The cost is nice, but the body is far too irrelevant and we want unconditional artifact/enchantment removal.

I think I had all of 10 minutes - if that - to enjoy the 7-2 finish, because immediately after the tournament we got the call from the vet confirming what we had feared: Bricks has cancer. We spoke to an oncologist on Monday and were eager to start moving forward with next steps. Luckily, they had an appointment time for Tuesday that just opened up due to a cancellation, so we were able to get him in.

Bricks’s lymphoma diagnosis was confirmed, but fortunately we were able to get him started on an advanced chemotherapy treatment on Wednesday. Though the oncologist didn’t make any guarantees, she is optimistic that Bricks will do well on the treatment. And so far, so good. He drinks a ton of water and pees dozens of times a day, but otherwise he hasn’t lost a step. After his first treatment we went on a 40+ minute walk (he actually RAN for some of it), and since then he’s remained the playful, begging-for-food and belly rubs dog we’ve known and loved since 2008.

An up and down week+ for sure, but everyone deserves a little luck. Especially Bricks. And I couldn’t be more grateful for him.

Thanks for reading.