QLD: Toowoomba 7-Point Fortnightly Highlander (14 Players) 12/01/2021 | Deck Lists & Tournament Report

Josh Daven Port – “I played BUG oracle to a 4-0 at Battlestation Toowoomba.

On the Deck: My deck is a fairly standard BUG Thoracle deck. Unlike the BEMB boys, I’m not playing mental note/thoughtscour to fuel the whale and cling, instead just having the two GY matters spells in Tasigur and Questing Beast. Some people disagree with playing Questing Beast in this deck, I think it’s fine. I’m playing BUG because I enjoy being a part time mid-range deck, and I think Oko and Uro are good value for 1 point total, especially backed up by Questing Beast. I think both grixis and esper thoracle are fine also, and it’s more a preference thing than anything else.
I’ve done fairly well with BUG thoracle over the medium term. I was playing it on webcam at the start of COVID, but got destroyed by hard control (I tend to struggle against control with this deck generally, they’ve just got too many answers and too much card draw). I also think the deck is very mana hungry – I’ve lost many games to a wasteland and a clock.
Toowoomba’s meta is a bit strange at the moment, where it used to be all fair midrange, it now seems to me to be mostly decks that feast on midrange. BUG oracle is a good deck for this meta because the thoracle combo, while points heavy, is cards light. I can control whatever nonsense my opponents are trying to play, while either assembling my combo or beating them down.

Matches: My matches for the night were:
Round 1, win 2-1 vs Allan on UW Aggro. Alan is a local player getting a start in highlander. His UW deck had all sorts of synergies and all sorts of cards I had never seen before. I was lucky enough to get there with the thoracle combo in games 1 and 3. Actually, Allan game 1 had a Gideon of the Trials emblem (main deck) which I got lucky drawing a questing beast to deal with. Allan was playing Unsettled Mariner from Modern Horizons, which was causing all sorts of issues for my more controlling hand in game 2.

Round 2, win 2-0 vs CJ on 4c Lands – CJ has been playing lands in highlander for a long time, and I’m never sure which way his deck is going to try to kill me. I ran the combo out in game 1 while he was flooding out, and a questing beast got there in game 2, while countering anything he could do to stop it.

Round 3, win 2-1 vs Ryan on 5c ramp/elves – Ryan is usually one of the round 3 or round 4 bosses to defeat in Toowoomba on his ramp deck. I ran out the combo in game 1, died to combat damage (and opposition agent wasteland!) in game 2, and got incredibly lucky to beat him in game 3 after a blood moon came down and screwed us both. I managed to get there through my own beaters. I think that to go 4-0 you need to get out of jail once or twice, and this final game with the blood moon in play was me getting lucky more than skill.

Round 4, Win 2-0 against Cameron on Big Red – Cameron went 4-0 last week, so meeting him a the 3-0 table had me concerned.
Game 1, Cameron won the roll and got a t2 legion warboss beating down, which I was able to fatal push on my t2. Cameron followed up with Robber of the Rich, nabbing my Oko (!), which he cast on the following turn. He also napped my Force of Will, which I had to play around with my gifts ungiven.
Game 2, Cameron got Eidolon of the Great Revel into play followed by rampaging ferocidon , which I did not have an answer for. I did get a Tasigur & Jace Wielder down, to stall out while figuring out what to do, as the answers were not coming. I ended on like 13 life, with clique, blue blast, and demonic consultation and ponder in hand, after already having +1’d the Jace (drawing the consultation). I looked at his hand with the clique (taking 3!), saw it was all clear (no red blasts etc) and jammed the consultation followed by ponder for the win, taking my eidolon damage each time.”