SA: Dragon’s Lair Adelaide (14 Players) 07/11/2020 | Deck Lists & Tournament Report

Tournament Report by the Winner: Steve Lowe (Abzan “Junk” Midrange)
Some of this report is honestly going to be borrowed from the previous (see Raj’s win with Junk last week!), as I was far too lazy getting a deck together for this event and Rajdeep Tokhi was kind enough to lend me his deck for me to play (the list is identical to his win at Good Games on 31st Oct). In a 14 player event, I didn’t have the highest of hopes as I had only once very briefly looked over the decklist, but had never actually picked up Abzan. It all seemed pretty straight-forward, as I’ve played midrange in some form or another since I came back to the game in Alara block, though my usual flavor would be to cut white and play red.

The Metagame
The whole room was filled with a diverse range of Control, Midrange, Tempo, Ramp, and Aggro decks, with a little splash of hybrid combo decks. The Top 8 consisted of the first four archetypes, but they represented a full gamut of colours. There were 3 Midrange decks (BUG, GWB, and UBRG), 2 Control decks (UW and UB), 2 Ramp or hybrid Ramp-Combo decks (Elves! and Grixis Artifacts), and 1 Tempo deck (GUW).

Overall quite a few Companions were in sideboards, specifically Yorion Sky Nomad, and Lutri the Spellchaser… with all 3 Companion decks making Top 8 too!

The Matchups
In the first round I was against Naya midrange, which was a back and forth race, mostly won due to Seige Rhino having trample in the end. Restoration was also very important in this matchup, flickering said rhino for a huge life swing to actually secure the 2-1 win.

Round two was against a more typical RUG list, again, siege rhino did work here, as did Titania in game 1. Game two was very close, with what i am told is a newer addition in Scryb Ranger coming in clutch. Knowing my opponent has Submerge, and only a Tarmogoyf to block with, I tap Mother of runes to give my own Tarmogoyf protection from green, then in response to the Submerge, flash in Scryb Ranger to bounce a forest and untap the Mother and giving that Tarmogoyf protection from blue to attack for lethal.

Round three was against another Abzan list, though vastly different, with various creature combos. The first game had me in the driver’s seat with me being clueless as to what my opponent’s game plan was. I found out when my opponent slams a Walking Ballista with a Heliod, Sun-Crowned already in play and just like that I was dead. Games two and three really showed the power of Birthing Pod. Game three especially. Getting to pod out a Voice of Resurgence, get Renegade Rallier to get back the Voice was amazing, then getting both the Rhino and Questing Beast to seal the deal.

The finals had me against Bant midrange, which felt like a good matchup. This match was very much the Questing Beast show, smacking my opponent around while they spun their wheels casting Ancestral Recall after Ancestral Recall. It took far too long to find an answer to the Beast. By the time they could, I had managed to level a Hexdrinker all the way to end the game. Game two had my opponent stuck on lands, and I had a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to make life miserable. There was also a Choke later on and a Birthing Pod to find a Siege Rhino to end the game.

Conclusion
All in all, it was a very good time playing this deck, with Birthing pod being ridiculous. Another MVP in many of the matches today was the Elspeth, Knight Errant in the sideboard, making the clock against my opponents very fast. Obviously, Questing Beast was absolutely nuts as well as Skyclave Apparition. In conclusion, I would recommend this list, it secrifices a lot of powerful individual cards for very synergistic strategies very capable of overcoming even the most powerful strategies. That said though, I cannot wait to put my own Jund list back together. My bias knows no bounds.

– by Steve Lowe