I had to admit, Standard is still unexplored even with Avacyn Restored in almost a month legal in the format. The decks continue to revolve on how to beat the current meta, and Delver is still the best deck choice. It is still the pseudo-Caw blade era though not as powerful. As for myself, I’ll just choose the deck that fits my gameplay though I’m open to experiment some archetypes.

Preparation for the Event

Basically I do not know what to input on this part. It is either I am already tired of current meta or I am lacking cards to test. I’d to admit, we paid the price to the lack of budget preparation for Avacyn Restored. The sought after mythics now (Bonfire and Entreat) cost about thrice its preorder price. Anyhow, I don’t want to play the blame game so I had to stick with what we have in the card pool.

I was choosing to test Naya Pod again despite its failure in the last WCQ, but we needed to build other archetypes so the deck was deconstructed. We tried the usual Tier 1 decks but I got curious when Master Oli told me about a list he was doing success in Magic League. The list was a Blue Black Tezzeret control archetype which he said that fits perfectly against the current metagame.

The Deck

Here is the list he was mentioning:

Maindeck
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Treasure Mage
2 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Black Sun’s Zenith
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mimic Vat
2 Mycosynth Wellspring
3 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Pristine Talisman
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Tragic Slip

4 Buried Ruin
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
4 Phyrexia’s Core
5 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Bloodline Keeper
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
3 Distress
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Spellskite
1 Tragic Slip
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Tezzeret artifacts is quite unpopular these days so I am guessing the hate would be that less. The list features a funky late game with Spine of Ish Sah and Phyrexia’s core, and was one of my dream combos in the Scars of Mirrodin block.

The playstyle maybe a bit tricky so I gave it some testing on that Friday’s FNM. The result was a convincing 3-0-1. The matchups were: won against Zombies, RG Aggro and Big Red, and drew with Delver. The deck lived up the hype of being good on the meta. We got some spare time afterwards so we tested versus Delver. At times, the deck malfunctions which naturally lead to its loss, but the removals were efficient. This is aside from dealing with St. Traft. Hexproof is the deck’s weakness but I didn’t bother to change the main list.

Here is the final list I ran on the Gameday (the sideboards are the adjusted parts):

Maindeck
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Treasure Mage
2 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Black Sun’s Zenith
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mimic Vat
2 Mycosynth Wellspring
3 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Pristine Talisman
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Tragic Slip

4 Buried Ruin
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
4 Phyrexia’s Core
5 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Bloodline Keeper
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Dismember
3 Distress
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Spellskite
1 Tragic Slip
1 Wurmcoil Engine

The Game Day

It appears like a usual Saturday tourney, though most known players are absent. We gathered about eighteen participants at the start of Round 1 and it was a five-rounder preliminaries. Here is a summary of my match results:

Round 1 vs UW Venser Control – Drew

Round 2 vs BW Tokens – Won

Round 3 vs BW Tokens – Won

Round 4 vs Delver – Won

Round 5 vs Delver – Intentionally Drew for the Top 8.

I faced just three archetypes in these rounds and Delver was still my main concern as they can rush you early while you are still setting up with wellsprings and talismans. Matchup with control can be exhausting so the setup would be an early Tezzeret to get with the beatdown with 5/5 critters, which is easily said than done.

The quarterfinal was against Ramon playing WU Humans. I guess I got lucky on this matchup as he didn’t had Thalia on both games which could’ve devastated me. He got a fast start on Game Two but I was able to hold off the board with the combination of Ratchet Bombs and a 5/5 from Tezzeret. Wurmcoil Engine soon hit the board and it was over.

Semis was versus Eric with Delver. Finally, I had to deal with this menace, or so I thought. Game One was an early control on my part, making sure he would not hit his main critters. The problem, though, was that I was getting flooded. Terribly flooded would be the exact term. I was just laughing later on as he was able to setup a Batterskull with Snapcaster Mage and beat down my 30+ life.

Game Two was worse, he flipped a turn two Delver into Dissipate and I got stuck on three lands. Adding the insult was the Spectral Flight. You know the drill, dead a few turns later.

So yeah, I got third and three boosters. Make sense.

The Deck Changes

Tragic slip is terribly tragic in times when you can’t activate Morbid so I switched it to a second Go For the Throat and also removed it on the sideboard. A third Metamorph is also needed. I am not in particular familiar with the in-and-outs against delver (I slightly blame Oli for not giving me the guide though. Lol) so I am thinking a right combination of removals in terms of mana cost. Also, I think I lack sideboard versus control I’d add a fourth Distress. Here is the new sideboard would look like:

3 Bloodline Keeper
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Dismember
4 Distress
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Spellskite
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Overall, I’d still suggest this archetype for future tournaments though I tell you to practice the deck A LOT. That is, both pre-board and post-board as the boarding combination is different for each matchup. Also, have a lot of patience in setting up your board against control, like ramping to the Mana Leak mana.

I guess that’s about it. Until next post!