About 2 months before the event we had 6 people in two cars making the drive from upstate New York to Indy. Two weeks before, we were down to 4 in one car. 3 in a different car a week before and finally the night before we were going to leave, the third person backed out and my car fell apart. At this point I figured the weekend was a bust and was very disappointed. I had just won my first Jupiter Games event the weekend before and was feeling great about my deck choice. This was to be my first GP playing a real competitive deck and not the fun elves list I had brought to the last 3 GP’s.
Luckily the next morning, I remembered Dan Jordan had a car going to Indy and was looking for people a few days earlier. I called him about 9 am and 12pm and got no response. I figured he already left and didn’t get the calls. I randomly got a call around 3:15pm from Dan saying he wasn’t leaving til 6pm and he had room in his car/room. The weekend was salvaged and the trip was on again! After riding 14 hours in a car with a hotel break in the middle, I finally got to Indianapolis. Here is the list I ran, which is close to the one I played in vestal but the sideboard is a little different.
Maindeck:
Artifacts
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Creatures
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Scryb Ranger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Tarmogoyf
Instants
4 Swords to Plowshares
Legendary Artifacts
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Legendary Creatures
1 Gaddock Teeg
Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
Sorceries
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Basic Lands
3 Forest
2 Plains
Lands
4 Windswept Heath
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
3 Wasteland
Land Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
Legendary Lands
1 Karakas
Sideboard:
1 Thrun, the last troll
1 Sword of feast and famine
1 Thalia, Guardian of Threban
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Life from the Loam
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Manriki-gusari
2 Krosan Grip
1 Elpeth, Knight Errent
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Tower of the Magistrate
I initially copied Gerry T’s Punishing Maverick initially but cut the red cards after running it 2 Jupiter events ago. The mana base needed to support it was awful and not being able to sacrifice a grove to Knight led to some awkward board states since I was forced to sacrifice my only w/g source to get a maze or wasteland a few times during that event. I wanted to put a second Ooze in the main instead of the Tarmogoyf but they were forty dollars on site and I didn’t feel like paying the twenty dollar premium for it.
Here are my matchups for the event:
Round 1: Bye
(1-0)
Round 2: Jesse Hatfield, Time Spiral
Game 1: He is able to go off turn 4 after he Force of Will’s my green sun for 2
Game 2: I am able to land an early Aven Mindcensor followed up by a Canonist and attack with them to the win
Game 3: I get out turn 2 Teeg and Turn 3 Thalia and a Mother of Runes. I feel invincible at this point until he plays Wipe Away a turn or two later and I remember that this is a card. The next turn, which ends up being turn 0 of time, he starts to go off through Thalia with not much trouble. Lucky for me he whiffs on the second Time Spiral and concedes after some math realizing he can’t stop me from killing him in 3 turns.
(2-0. 2-1)
Round 3: Vince Accetturo, Maverick
Game 1: I Swords to Plowshares his Mother of runes and use Stoneforge mystic to get an early Jitte. After another stp on his Knight I maintain control with Jitte and kill him with that.
Game 2: After going with the early Jitte plan again he cast’s his Jitte to blow mine up and I cast a Stoneforge to get my Sword of Light and Shadow. He has Sword of Body and Mind out on his Scryb Ranger and hits me twice with it. I am able to take one more hit before it gets close and I am able to swing for lethal next turn thanks to the Sword of light and Shadow on my knight provided he doesn’t have Maze of Ith. I have an Aven Mindcensor in my hand and I debate on blocking with it or saving it to stop him from tutoring a maze with his active knight. He already has cradle and I think maybe he cut maze for cradle. This is probably a mistake but I play my Aven Mindcensor to block and give it protection from green with my Mother of Runes and block. He didn’t respond with knight so I assume I made the right decision and go to my turn. After I declare lethal attack he tries to activate knight and then realizes Mindcensor is in play. He fails to find maze in the top 4 and I get the win.
(3-0, 4-1)
Round 4: Kevin McKee, Nic Fit
Game 1: He starts to get his basic lands with Cabal Therapy and Veteran Explorer. Luckily I have 5 basic lands so this ramps me up as well. I am able to quickly equip my Sword of Light and Shadow to my Stoneforge mystic the turn after he deeded away my early board which includes a Jitte. After returning 2 creatures I was able to establish a superior board presence for the win.
Game 2: He has a slow start and I get a turn 3 Elspeth that he Vindicates. He deed’s away my board and then gets many land draws where I draw two Knight of the Reliquaries and obviously win the match.
(4-0, 6-1)
Round 5: Jeff Rasmussen, Rug Delver
Game 1: I mulligan to 5 with a two lander and I am able to double wasteland him after he wasteland’s me and he gets stuck with no lands.
Game 2: I resolved a Turn 5 Thrun and that was enough to beat him.
(5-0, 8-1)
Round 6: Ari Lax, Dream Halls
Ari was playing a match next to me round 5 so I knew what he was running. I wasn’t excited about the matchup and thought this would be my first loss.
Game one: He casts turn 2 Show and tell and is at 17. I reveal Aven Mindcensor thinking he can’t win with conflux but he put Progenitus into play. I cast a second noble hierarch and a Stoneforge mystic for Light and Shadow and attack for 4. He goes 13 and I am at 19. He attacks with Progenitus and I go to 9. On my turn I equip the sword and go to 12 putting him to 7. He attacks me down to 2 and I green sun zenith for one to get the third Hierarch and attack him for 7 beating the turn 2 Progenitus.
Game 2: He goes for the turn 3 Show and tell on the play. He shuffles his two choices together and is unsure to play Progenitus or dream halls. I didn’t know which I would want to face but I drop Ethersworn Canonist knowing he can’t win that turn. I have Aven Mindcensor in hand and I want to cast it on my next turn to get him on a conflux or something. He passes and tries to end step intuition. I flash in the Mindcensor and he nets a ponder off of the Intuition. After a Beacon of Immortality on himself I kill him a few turns later.
(6-0, 10-1)
Round 7: Frank Rye, Bant Maverick
Game 1: I get turn 1 Mother of Runes, Turn 2 Mother of Runes Mother of Runes. You can imagine how this game went :-p.
Game 2:I have to mulligan to 5 here but draw into a great few turns. I get turn 4 Thrun and Turn 5 Elspeth and ride it with an exalted trigger to the win.
(7-0, 12-1
Round 8: Steve Rubin, U/W StoneBlade
Game 1: I have to mulligan to five and just get out resourced with swords and force of will.
Game 2: He resolves 6 Swords to plowshares hitting all 4 of my Knights. I concede at 46 life because I have nothing and he has an Elspeth emblem, a Jace and 2 tokens and about 8 lands.
(7-1, 12-3)
Round 9: Nathan Connor, Belcher (Yeah, Belcher)
I knew was going to be an awful round because for some reason I said I have 8 force of will’s in my deck and my opponent says that would be bad for me)
Game 1: Turn one: Misty rainforest pass, He plays Empty the warrens storm 5)
Game 2: Savannah, Birds of Paradise, He activates belcher for 51, awesome.
(7-2, 12-5) Day 1 total
Fun day 1 aside:
After returning to the hotel with Max tietze, Dan Jordan and Rion Marmulstein, while unloading our bags from the trunk a random dude comes up to us and asks us if we want to buy the Northface Jacket he was wearing for $165. Apparently he just bought it from Dick’s a couple of days ago. I assume this money was going to go for drug use, but why would anyone buy a jacket off of another person’s back. This was pretty weird and funny because Rion had just told us not even 24 hours previously about a random guy asking him if he wanted to buy a Sean John jacket off of his back the last time he was in Philadelphia.
Also, all 4 people in our hotel room day 2'd with a version of Maverick.
Day 2:
Round 10: Wayne Tam, Bant Maverick
I can’t remember much from this matchup but I remember getting Krosan grip and Thrun against him game 2. Its hard to remember 15 rounds they all seem to blur together haha.
(8-2, 14-5)
Round 11: Brandon Large, BUG Shoal and Tell
Game 1: He gets a turn 3 Show and Tell Progenitus and I can’t race it with my slow hand.
Game 2: He plays a turn 3 Blighted Agent which I play a turn 4 maze of ith. He casts a turn 4 show and tell for Progenitus. I want to green sun for a Scryb ranger to fly over but I sideboarded it out. I go and get a Knight of the reliquary but he has the Blighted Agent to block the turn before he kills me with Progenitus. I get my knight submerged so I dredge my Life from the loam to get back my Horizon Canopy hoping to draw a Swords to Plowshares with it. Stp is the 3rd card from the top and the 4th is not a Swords so I lose.
(8-3, 14-7)
Round 12: Dan Lanthier, U/W StoneBlade
Game 1: I swords to plowshares his early Stoneforge and then destroy his Batterskull that he put into play off of a second Stoneforge with Qasali Pridemage. I resolve a turn 4 Knight and I am able to control the game from there.
Game 2: He Mulligans to 6 and I wasteland him turn 1 and he gets stuck on one land for a few turns and doesn’t recover.
(9-3, 16-7)
Round 13: Nick Patnode, Goblins
Game 1: I get turn 3 Jitte going and it starts to go well but he is able to destroy it with Tuktuk Scrapper and chains a few Ringleaders together and overwhelms me with dudes.
Game 2: It goes back and forth killing each other’s creatures and I land a JItte. After killing two of his guys my boardstate is Goyf, tapped Aven Mindcensor equipped with the Jitte with no counters and an active Mother of Runes. He is at 8 and around 10 goblins. He attacks with 7 of his 10 goblins and leaves 3 back to block. I start to declare blockers and think about where to block and he says that he messed up and could have killed me. I look at my life and count up the goblins and I was like oh yeah, I guess you are right. It comes back to me and I am at 2. I have 7 damage on board and I think to myself, man if can draw something blow up my Jitte I can win this. This is during my upkeep and I look at my hand that has been Krosan Grip from the opening hand. So I get a lucky win.
Game 3: We both have a loose start but after using Jitte for a few turns I gain board position. He destroys it and I am able to swing for lethal with a second Stoneforge into Sword of Fire and Ice.
(10-3,18-8 )
Round 14: Jonathan Thatch, Time Spiral
Game 1: I get a turn 2 Green Sun Zenith into Gaddock Teeg and a turn 3 Aven Mindsensor. I follow it up with a turn 4 Mother of runes and the game is over from there.
Game 2: My turn 2 Zenith for 2 meets a Force of Will. I follow it up with turn 3 Thalia, Turn 4 Mindcensor and Turn 5 Sword of Feast and Famine and Gaddock Teeg after the untap. He shows me his hand 2 turns later and concedes. He reveals the next 15 cards and there is no Time spiral or anything really so he wasn’t going to get there anyway.
(11-3, 20-8)
Round 15: Kyle Dembinski, Draw
After looking at the standings I am 24th so I decide to draw into top 32.
(11-3-1, 21-9-1)
I end up placing 28th and feel good about my first day 2.
Overall the deck ran great. I don’t remember getting mana flooded ever although there were a few times where I would have a no lander and mull into a 5 lander. This could happen to any deck so it’s not that surprising. The mvp for the event would definitely be Aven Mindcensor. I remember talking to a few people at Jupiter and reading on the forums that people were cutting this. Besides having a great ability it is a 2/1 flier that picks up equipment and usually isn’t blocked.
Thrun would probably be the next best card in the deck as hexproof is absurdly good. I would recommend the 4th Stoneforge as I won most of my matches with equipment. I think I only won about 15-20% of my games on the back of Knight of the Reliquary. Usually it was just my fliers or Stoneforge picking up equipment and getting in there.
If you add the total rounds from the Jupiter Games event to my gp total I went 18-4-2 in 2 weekends with the same mainboard 60. This deck is definitely something I would recommend to someone who isn’t sure what to play in the current legacy metagame.
After the GP the mainboard changes I have made are -1 Goyf, -1 Plains,-1Sword of Fire and Ice, +1 Ooze, +1 Wasteland, +1 Sword of Body and Mind. I realize now that I only really cared about the protection from blue part of fire and ice. Body andMind’s abilities are better for what I need it to do and protection from green is better than red since I just need to protect from lightning bolts.
The sideboard also now looks like this:
1 Thrun, the last troll
1 Thalia, Guardian of Threban
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Life from the Loam
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Choke
2 Krosan Grip
1 Elpeth, Knight Errent
1 Tower of the Magistrate
Thanks for the report. I'm curious about the Grafdigger's Cage in the board. It shuts off your GSZ's. Isn't Scavenging Ooze better?
if you read his report, he says he wanted a 2nd ooze but didn't want to pay $40 on-site
Yeah I am running the second ooze now. I put the cage in as another angle to hit reanimator/dredge if it stays in play they can't win. They do have ways to deal with it but its possible they can't, so I thought it was worth a slot over a second Tormod's crypt.
And 2nd Ooze was better or was Cage worth it?
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