15 players battled it out over 4 rounds at Battlestation, Toowoomba in the first of two events to be held on successive Tuesday nights in July. This event was non-proxy, although there were still a lot of MH2 cards present, especially in the winning decks. In terms of deck archetypes in the room, my rough count was as follows:
2x Jund Midrange, 2x Oracle (Bug and Esper), 2x 4c aggro (Legends and Lurrus delirium), 2x blue moon (one tinker & show and tell), RUG Tempo, RB Aggro (Double mox no proxy!), another UR tolarian artifact deck, Elves, UG miracle grow, UW Aggro and a 4c lands deck.
Results
At the end of the night, we had the following standings (decklists below):
4-0: RUG Tempo
3-1: 4c Lurrus Delirium Aggro; UR Tink and Show (+moon); We Can be Heroes (4c Legends aggro) and the ever reliable Jund Midrange.
All of these decks are fairly unique, but I absolutely love Ben’s 4c Lurrus Delirium Aggro – I think it’s just a sweet brew leveraging some good new MH2 cards, including 4x 1 drops, Bloodbraid Marauder (which I did not know was a card) and Dauthi Voidwalker. He’s 3-1d with this deck the last two times out, so I think the deck has legs.
The UR Moon Tink and Show is also an amazing deck, putting a t1 Blightsteel onto the battlefield against Committee Member Kokey on the play. I really like decks that have multiple lines of attack, as you have no idea when sitting down whether they will draw the moon half of their combo side.
My run: I was fairly lucky to get the 4-0, beating:
Round 1: Tim on Jund (2-1) – I was quite lucky to win game 1 with Tim flooding out, to then turn around and get out valued in game 2 by a resolved W&6 and Chandra ToD. On the play in game 3 I was able to get there with fliers. Any time you beat midrange with tempo you’ve got to thank your lucky stars, and this game was no exception. Expressive Iteration all 3 games was just amazing, really propelling me forward.
Round 2: Hugh on RB Aggro (2-0): Game 1 I was able to stabilise with a tarmo-wall, eventually taking the game over with big threats. Game 2, I was able to force the blood moon (very lucky force draw as I play no basics!), then windmill slam an oko onto a clear board after Hugh’s wheel of fortune. Just too much value, while maintaining a force of negation for the price of progress he’d held the whole time. I remember my game 2 keep was Lightning bolt, chain lightning, tarfire, flame slash and spell snare, and thinking “this is either going to work out really well or not at all” – turns out it was fine.
I was very lucky in this matchup that Hugh didn’t draw either his mox jet or mox ruby.
Round 3: Griff on Tink and Show (2-1): Game 1 was a slugfest, including getting blown out turn 3 by a maindeck Red Blast & Daze for my Oko & Daze. There are so many counterspells in this deck, they just kept coming. The slugfest ended with me having a tarmogoyf on board and neither of us having any cards in hand, and Griff unable to find an answer in time. In game 2, I was able to get the board before the back to basics came down really slowing me down, and a few too many lands drawn for Griff while under board pressure.
Round 4: The end boss David Ellis on 4c aggro (2-0), game 1 I just out valued him and went over the top, and game 2 I kept a risky low land hand, but was able to eventually out value him with a Dragon’s Rage Channeler surveilling and then swinging. Sometimes a delver/channeler just goes the whole way.
Beating aggro twice in one night is a rarity for me, but sometimes the games and top decks just break your way.
In terms of the deck, it was good – the scooze main deck should have been a Ragavan, but my copy has not arrived yet and I could not source one in time. I might sneak 2 basics into my deck also, if only to give me a little bit of protection against more blood moons than I was expecting my expectation is that I’ll cut the Underground Sea and one of the canopy lands for an island and a forest, or maybe 2 islands to ensure I can cast the whale and regent.
The new MH2 cards were fantastic, I feel if I get 3 good surveils with Dragon’s Rage Channeler, I’m probably winning the game. Murktide Regent is also just a really big beater that dodges a lot of removal. In 7ph I find tasigur a great defensive option, as it just blocks the ground but can have trouble turning the corner while being chumped. Murktide Regent does not suffer from the same fate – and while there were a lot of cute triggers suggested with it when it was initially spoiled (exiling your GY or Paradigm Shifting), sometimes being a 5/5 or bigger with evasion for UU is enough. I am looking forward to adding Ragavan next week, as I think it has the potential to provide snow-balling advantage, like deathrite shaman.
I feel like the RUG creatures just have such good synergy at the moment, with DRC and Delver being twinsies, DRC and Peezy having a good synergy, and DRC and sprite dragon triggering off basically everything in the deck. Arcanist and Whale are great bash brothers for card advantage, but then Murktide Regent and Tarmogoyf being similarly used in the build to either wall or turn the corner. Add to that there’s the must answer one drops of Hexdrinker, DRS and soon Ragavan, as well as the flexibility of Bonecrusher and borrower and I can honestly say I just love the entire creature suite of this deck.
I’ve been searching for a while for the best Dreadhorde Arcanist and Peezy deck, and I think with RUG Tempo I’ve found it. It’s proxy 7ph next Tuesday, but I think I’ll continue on with RUG.
| Player’s Standing | Player’s Name | Player’s Deck List Link |
|---|---|---|
| 4-0 | JoshD | RUG Tempo |
| 3-1 | Ben Neilsen | 4C Lurrus Aggro |
| 3-1 | Griffin Goodwin | UR Tink and Show |
| 3-1 | David Ellis | 4C Legendary Aggro |
| 3-1 | Tim Holmes | Jund Midrange |
