Game 1
Ryan: Walls | Keegan: Zur | Sean: Shrines (Nat 20) | Alex: Muldrotha
With the monthly slates cleared the Addicts rolled up to select their first decks of the final quarter. No new faces here, but Sean did snap off a natural 20 that he took the Shrines with, which was good to see cause we were pretty dry on Nat 20s. Both Ryan and Keegan took a free mulligan, and lo and behold Keegan rolled highest for the first turn.
Unfortunate for Ryan, the game started out very slow for the table. Ryan stayed mana screwed with the Walls for the duration of his life. Ryan did try to get out an Overgrown Battlement, but Keegan quickly snapped off a counter to keep his resource denial online. Ryan was able to get out a Mentor of the Meek, and I believe eventually Arcades, but he was on death’s doorstep by then. The lack of mana had him not able to pay for the Mentor anyways.
Alex throughout the game was missing black mana, and never was able to get Muldrotha online at all. It must have been that half of the table, but the god of mana was not very forgiving. He did next to nothing so there is not much to say for him.
Shrines had an average, but good start to be frank. This is a well known snowball deck, but can stumble if WUBRG is not assembled early. But with a nice upgraded mana base, Sean had all five colors by turn 5, as well as Sisay and a shrine or two. The deck does not have flashy starts to be fair, but it often deploys pieces that are huge once Sisay is online and tutoring. But the board presence is often deceptively empty due to it being solely enchantments. A big note is that Sean was able to get out a handful of enchantments early as well, which most notable out of them was an Enchantress’s Presence. He tried to get out a Sanctum Weaver as well, but Keegan shut that down with another counter. Trying to get an enchantment engine down with Keegan at the table is a tall order truthfully.
Zur though was finally piloted by someone not named Alex, so the deck was operating as it was intended to. It recently went through another iteration of changes, leaning slightly less out of counter play and more into closing pieces. And the deck reflected that to be frank. By nature of both the card and Keegan’s build/piloting, once Zur hit’s the field it is a “have it or not” commander. If Zur untaps and attacks unscathed, then he is guranteed to be untouchable by the end of combat. So you need to have removal (often multiple pieces to beat through counters) or Zur gonna be around forever. And no one had the removal, so Zur hung out all game.
First off the table was Ryan. Over a handful of turns Keegan was able to assemble a couple of protection and voltron pieces for Zur. He gave him indestructible and stuck Pariah (remember how Alex said this cards name when he first started lmfao?) on him to do have a damage lock out. Next came All that Glitters and Ethereal Armour to get the damage scaling. He eventually pulled out a Phyresis and beat into Ryan, killing him on the spot with infect. The life total was Keegan: 33, Sean: 33, Alex: 41 at the time of Ryan’s death.
Next in Zur’s sight was Shrines, who was able to get online and running. Keegan swung in uncontested on Sean, who activated Sisay and then snapped off a Teferi’s Protection to buy himself another turn. The turn after the same issue played out, and Sean tutored out a reach creature to buy himself another turn to dig for answers. But Keegan had attached a Steel of the Godhead to Zur, making him unblockable. Sean missed this tutor and died on the spot.
The last revolutionary that dared revolt against the Zur dictatorship was Muldrotha, and he refused to backdown. Activating a Fauna Shaman and getting a Spore Frog was his last remaining hope. The frog hit the field and sacrificed himself for the cause. The revolutions last hope was in this sporey little bastard, but the light in the darkness was quickly snuffed out by a tutored out Rest in Peace by the oppressor. Alex had no other answers, and died on the next attack.
Keegan takes the first game of the quarter while showcasing how to play Zur. And wanted it to be known “it was done without the attack lock”.
I wanted to note some good hijinx during the game between Ryan and Alex. Alex was able to get out an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. He tartged Ryan roughly six times, and only hit a creature card 3 times. Most his hits were lands, which had Ryan beyond hot as he mana screwed lol. The other interaction which was very funny was Alex activating a Fauna Shaman when Ryan had out a Meekstone. Locking the shaman under that was beyond hilarious when you consider the pitiful boards they out. Alex sat there thinking this.
Game 2
Ryan: Kami | Keegan: Korvold (Alex) | Sean: Atla | Alex: Korvold (Sean)
Next slate saw a Double Dragon lineup with both Korvolds, so sacrifice was on the menu tonight. There was a plethora of mulligans this game. Everyone took their free mully, while Keegan went down to six. Keegan again is on the play this game.
By nature of the decks, this game was fairly grindy throughout it all. Kami had the group drawing a lot of gas, which meant that everyone was hitting lands. This is important to note because jund can get very greedy in their builds and not hit lands. Alex’s Korvold is a land sac deck, and his old build was the definition of greed with only 34 lands in it. So hacing the extra draw was enormous to speed the game ahead.
Atla was the only deck that was struggling on lands, it had lots of them but was missing green mana. It was able to get an early Goblin Bombardment and a handful of other powerful artifacts/enchantments, but Alex was keeping them under wrap with a Thrashing Brontodon and a Goblin Cratermaker. Sean’s Korvold was doing Aura Shards the hard way.
Kami got beat down very early, primarily because Keegan was beating Ryan down to assert first place dominance. But truly, Kami needs to be dealt with like this normally because it has been doing far too much untouched. Alex on the other hand was setting up a very wide board. He was able to get out an Omnath, Locus of Rage and an Avenger of Zendikar. This plus some fetchlands had his board extremely wide, and Korvold had not hit the field yet. After a wide swing at Keegan, then a sacrifice to deal one and blow up an enchantment Keegan was knocked out.
Alex’s Korvold (getting confused yet) was looking decent, but Keegan and Alex talked post game and not aggressively dredging Life from the Loam had set Keegan back behind the curve for what he trying to get out. He also said that he had a lot of the enabler/engine pieces, but was missing a lot of the payoffs that the deck has outside of the commander.
Are you all wondering what is going on with Sean? No need to worry, he is just winning the game off the lottery. After killing Keegan, Alex was presenting lethal on Sean by a large creature margin. So Sean pops two eggs and gettttsss, Serra’s Emissary and Worldspine Wurm. So yeah, Alex just lost on that pretty much. He had no spot removal to deal with it and Sean popped some more eggs and got more nasty boys. Alex tilted off the edge of the world and Sean snapped off a Triumph of the Hordes to end it.
Atla hates Alex and lives solely to destroy him and everything he cares about.
Game 3
Ryan: Phylath | Keegan: Emmara | Sean: Walls | Alex: Torens
Final game of the night saw Alex vs. Ryan dual decks. Sean was incredibly saddened to get the statistically worst deck in the league. Just wait till you see his TERRIBLE turn 1 play. Sean, Keegan, and Alex took their free mullys, and in an odd turn of events Alex rolled highest to go first.
Sean hit a very rapid first turn. He went Command Tower –> Exploration –> Reliquary Tower –> Sol Ring. T1 4 mana. Very poor.
Honestly though there isn’t a load to speak of for this game. Alex won through the Heliod, Sun Crowned and Walking Ballista combo, which he had opening hand and had to delay due to mana issues. So yeah, it was a boring ass win from him.
This actually prompted him to completely rebuild the deck, which can be see on the decklists page. Away from combo and into humans / resource denial.