Mono White Bomberman at MissouriMTG's Charity 6k (9th place, 6-1-1)

Hello everyone! I wanted to drop a little tournament report for MissouriMTG’s Legacy 5k on Saturday, Mar 30th. As usual, this was a great tourney and turnout, drawing 170 players to Moonbase Market in St. Louis, Missouri. I highly encourage any legacy aficionado to give one of these tourney’s a try! Now to the juicy details:

So first off, this was my first time playing mono-white Bomberman at anything other than an FNM. I played Imperial Bomberman (aka 4-color Human Bomberman) in Vegas for side events last year and went 3-0 in both. Therefore, my sideboard was tailored to the venue, more than my play experience. I wanted to make sure I had enough combo answers because my last three tournaments at this venue were chock full of fast combo, Reanimator and Show and Tell. I thought 4 options to board in alongside Chalice of the Void would be enough. As it turned out, the room was largely fair decks. I also wanted minimum 4 graveyard answers and I like Containment Priest’s versatility so 3/1 split it is. I decided Cast Out was a versatile answer and I wanted something to answer a Sanctum Prelate and it helps vs Show and Tell and against opposing Chalice of the Voids. My full deck list is as follows:


4 Cavern of Souls
2 Karakas
3 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Den

4 Mox Opal
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Walking Ballista
4 Monastery Mentor
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Lodestone Bauble

Sideboard:
3 Containment Priest
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Cast Out


Brief round summary for each round included below:

Round 1 (0-0) Goblins vs Reddit and MTGtheSource’s own OlafForkbeard:
1. I was pretty sure I remembered him as the Goblins player from the last tourney and that he was very experienced. He wins die roll, goes mountain > pass and confirms my suspicions. My opening hand had a nice assortment of mana and I was gonna get a Chalice of the Void on 1 and a T2 Karn, Scion of Urza and he drops Goblin Cratermaker on T2. I get a token and eventually another Karn, Scion of Urza, pressure him and get there with the combo a bit later.
2. G2 I kept a hand with nothing but lands and 2 Walking Ballista’s and I can go T1 Walking Ballista on 2 and it got there against the lackey and the resulting board. 2-0 Win good guys.

Round 2 (1-0) vs Matt on Eldrazi Post (congrats on the top 8 Matt!)
1. I win the die roll and drop an Ancient Den and a petal, and I’ll have a T2 Karn, Scion of Urza to drop a 4/4. Opponent goes Chalice of the Void on 0 and then Spyglass on Karn, Scion of Urza (yes that order). He follows up with a Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher and I pick em up.
2. This game was winnable. I brought in Ensnaring Bridge, Cast Out and Seal of Cleansings, but the entire game I only drew mana, a Seal and a Bridge. I ended the game with 3 lands and an opal in play and 4 more lands and another opal in hand. Bridge came down but I couldn’t do anything with the time I bought. 0-2 Loss.

Round 3 (1-1) vs Maverick
1. Opponent plays forest and passes, weird. I don’t remember a lot of specifics with this matchup except for he went for a Jitte plan against my Monastery Mentors, and I combo’d him behind an army of tokens.
2. I boarded in Cast Out, Seal, and Sanctum Prelate here. I don’t think that was totally right. OP wasn’t very familiar with my deck and admitted his sideboarding was questionable. He dropped a t2 sylvan library and went very deep on it, I believe he saw 12 unique cards throughout the game. I was on the Karn, Scion of Urza plan for awhile making tokens, he Plowed two of them. He also had double Thalia but Walking Ballista handled that. He thought Teeg would stop Walking Ballista and I took advantage. Combo kill, 2-1.

Round 4 (2-1) vs David on Death & Taxes
1. Opponent was a pretty cool dude from Cincinnati. We discuss some stuff before the match begins and he mentions how he’s relatively new to legacy and his last tourney he was trounced by Bomberman. I assumed he saw a token or something when I was shuffling. Oh well. I win the die roll and just lead Plains pass. Opponent plays a Plains of his own and drops a vial. I untap, draw Salvagers and have the combo kill. God Hand.
2. I deliberated a bit on boarding here. For those of you new to the deck, this is a matchup in which you want to board out Chalice of the Void, as a Flickerwisp on Chalice of the Void here is very tough to overcome. I brought in the two Sanctum Prelates to name 1 to cover Swords to Plowshares. Also brought in Two Seals and that was it. This game was the Karn, Scion of Urza plan for a while but I had the combo sitting in my hand. Opponent was porting me down and I made a construct. At this point, he had a Stoneforge (on construct), a Vial on 3 a Port and 3 Plains. He passes. I untap, he taps down Ancient Tomb. I proceed and make another construct and they are now 5/5’s. I attack hoping to bait him into tapping his mana or using his vial and he bites. He puts Batterskull in and activates Vial. My eyes double in size. Block one construct, bounce the other. Both die. Not a bad play, but now I have the combo and he has no options. GG. 3-1.

Round 5 (3-1) vs Ryan on Burn
1. This was a close match, I actually won game one through an Eidolon of the Great Revel because I was able to get a quick Karn, Scion of Urza and push through a ton of damage and had a Chalice of the Void on 1 to prevent a bunch of damage. I was at 1 life after double Price of Progress.
2. I sideboarded in 2 Seal of Cleansing (answers Eidolon of the Great Revel and Pyrostatic Pillar) and 2 Sanctum Sanctum Prelates here and shaved down on non-vitals like baubles. I Mulliganed a bit and was again on the Karn, Scion of Urza plan but didn’t see any damage prevention and he smashed my Chalice of the Void on one and a construct and killed me quick.
3. Game three I had a t1 Chalice of the Void on the play, opponent passes. Then I untapped and dropped a Sanctum Sanctum Prelate on 2 and my opponent never found an answer before Karn, Scion of Urza-structs got there.

Round 6 (4-1) vs Charles on Depths
1. This was the slow depths, not the turbo variant. I saw a Sylvan Scrying early off a bauble and had a decent idea of what I was dealing with. OP was slow rolling and I nearly got there when I got 13 prowess damage in off one swing getting him down to 1 but he had Crop Rotation EOT and won.
2. Lots to board in here. I bring in Sanctum Prelate (this is becoming a pattern), Cast Out’s and I kind of figured between those, my Karakas and Chalice of the Voids I was good. This game was a quick combo kill, he took a Chalice of the Void on a Thoughtseize and I drew well from two baubles. I believe this was a t3 combo.
3. This game was a doozy. I decided to bring in two Seal of Cleansing’s also because of Pithing Needle. The game was rolling slowly. Opponent is on three lands and drops a Vampire Hexmage with Depths, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and leaving a G untapped. I had a Karakas so I know something is up. I go ahead and drop a Walking Ballista and force his hand by shooting the Vampire Hexmage and he must go for the Merit Lage. He uses Crop Rotation to find Ghost Quarter and targets Karakas. I float a white mana – at this point I have 3 lands. I fetch my plains and now can cast my Cast Out but there is a dilemma. I have the combo in hand but when I untap I’ll only have 3 mana. I can hit his Pithing Needle and hope to draw a land and win on the spot OR I can hit the Lage and extend the game. I only have a Sanctum Prelate and a land in hand after this. I’m curious about your opinions here on what you would do, feel free to comment your opinion here. I go ahead and extend the game and target the Merit Lage token and was rewarded. I untap and drop Sanctum Prelate on 1, and proceed to further draw into two Chalice of the Voids (both go on 2 for Vampire Hexmage and Abrupt Decay protection) and into 2 Ensnaring Bridges. I can’t attack because he can make another 20/20 so I know I must draw another Cast Out or Karakas and eventually get it and win.

Round 7 (5-1) vs Chris on Burn
1. I recognized this player but couldn’t remember his deck. He wins the die roll and dispatches me quickly with no Chalice of the Void. I was on the Karn, Scion of Urza plan this game but a turn slower than my last matchup with burn.
2. Sideboarding plan the was the same and this hand was a T1 Monastery Mentor with 2 tokens. I He just suspends a rift bolt and I follow with a Karn, Scion of Urza. He just drops a Eidolon of the Great Revel and I pay 2 life to pump the team and Aggro him out.
3. Game three on the draw, I again have t1 Chalice of the Void and he goes t2 Eidolon of the Great Revel, so I have time to deploy Sanctum Prelate on 2. It is worth noting this opponent was playing Skewer the Critics and Rift Bolt and had more answers than my last burn opponent. Luckily, he couldn’t find anything to do and I got there by pressuring him with attacks. He had to block with his Eidolon of the Great Revel at one point or couldn’t cast any new spells then I pinged with Walking Walking Ballista after combat. Burn is a tightrope, but I think Sanctum Prelate makes it winnable for sure.

Round 8 (6-1) vs Scott on U/W Miracles
First off, I am the only player at 18 points who can’t draw in and pre-match I know this. Sitting at 9th. I’m pretty tilted at this considering I haven’t eaten or anything all day and have been running hot. Okay, whatever -- I’ll earn it. On the Plus side, I get to be on camera and there isn’t a ton of competitive REL gameplay of Bomberman online. Opponent came in from Cincinnati with my D&T opponent and we genuinely enjoy the matchup. I’ll let the VOD speak for itself here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/403532129?t=07h40m55s 7:40:55 in.

•I should clarify that a few choices from G1 that seemed questionable were made based on what I saw from Baubles.
•My opponent actually let me make infinite mana in the early stage of game one so I recovered my whole graveyard. He made a mistake here obviously. I chose to put Chalice of the Void on 1 here but strongly considered on 5. I still believe 1 was correct even though I never drew Cavern. I just win game one if I draw a Cavern.
•In hindsight, I mismanaged the hell out of my Karn, Scion of Urza’s in Game 1. I should have just ticked them up and rode the card advantage train. I haven’t played this matchup a lot, so this was a mistake I won’t make again.
•I put Chalice of the Voids on 1 and 2 but I should have put it on 1 and 3. This allows him to win with Monastery Mentor and have Council’s Judgment for Chalice of the Void on 1. Huge mistake. I didn’t deserve top 8 with that.
•G2 I made similar mistakes, but knew a draw doesn’t do anything for either of us so I try to win as quickly as possible. Ended up getting a quick lethal set up with Walking Ballista’s while he was low and cards and that felt good.
•G3 started as turns was called so I boarded to essentially have all my combo pieces and anything with a power/toughness in.
•Is it right to board in Ethersworn Canonist against them or not relevant enough?

To close, I ended up still in 9th place. A lot of my friends were asking me why I didn’t ask my opponent to concede, and that was for a few reasons. First off and most important, his entire crew of friends were very nice people. Additionally, they got up at 3 a.m. to drive to the event and were going to drive home. I felt that after the games we played and knowing how much they put into coming to the event, it was disrespectful to ask. Also, I was rather nervous as a judge sat right next to me almost the whole g2 and g3 and I didn’t want to word anything incorrectly. All in all, I was very satisifed with my play, and I am excited to play the deck again. Unfortunately, my opportunities to play are very scarce and it may not be until the next tourney like this in the summer! If anyone wants to talk Bomberman, please feel free to hit me up or comment below. Thanks!

Congratz again Manroe, It's a really nice run.

Is there anything that you'd like to change in the deck ?

Eh, playing it out is more fun than asking for a concession anyway. I showed up to play Legacy, ya know? Regardless of outcome, I just really want to jam games.

Great job. Happy to lose to you R1.

Ethersworn Cannonist is a decent card to bring in against any deck playing Snapcaster Mage, so if you had some dead cards in the Miracles matchup, then sure. Miracles often wants to chain cantrips, and it also weakens their ability to pressure you with their own Monastery Mentor.

@mauro: No, I felt like the main deck was very solid and streamlined as constructed. I don't really know if anything needs changed with the SB either. The 75 may just be about right.

@olaf: Thanks for the kind words, it was a fun match! The game we played afterwards was a lot of fun.

@Hanni: Good point about the snapcaster mage, I didn't think about that too much in the moment.