On 1/30/22, two of the four addicts made a pilgrimage out to The Portal Comics and Gamings for a tournament. This was the first time that the two addicts were going to participate in a constructed tournament outside their pod, and the format would be premodern. For the uninitiated, premodern is an unsanctioned format that counts all sets printed between 4th Edition and Scourge. It has a very healthy and evolving meta even though all of the cards are old, and a thorough ban list to differentiate it from Legacy and Vintage.
I do not have the current decklist for what Keegan had brought, but he had brought a UG combo deck that wanted to use Exploration to turbo out an Illusions of Grandeur then Donate it to the opponent and force them to pay the cost. This is called ‘Trix’ and is a classic combo deck that has fallen out of the favor in the meta.
Here is the decklist that Alex brought to the tourny: Mono Black Beaters. The main board is identical to Mernard Quinacman’s from their Philippines Pod 15. Alex built out a different sideboard hoping to adapt to an unlimited proxy that he anticipated for the day.
The article will follow Alex’s games and try and talk through some of the decks he had faced. The links will be to the mtgdecks.com meta page for the deck.
Match 1
Deck against: UG Madness
Game 1
Winning the roll to go first, Alex started the game on the play. It was a very quick beatdown from him. His deck favors the play heavily, and he out tempoed the madness deck in the early game. He had an on curve Nantuko Shade and Hypnotic Specter, with backups for when they eventually died.
The madness deck he was against was a traditional UG madness, which means that it did not have the Survival of the Fittest and Squee, Goblin Nabob that many of the current meta decks do. The main beaters in this build were Basking Rootwalla and Wild Mongrel. Cards like Circular Logic help keep other decks at bay so his creatures can pump and bang in.
On the backend of the game Alex blocked a Rootwalla with a shade, trying to trim the threats and allowing his Hyppie to continually blow in for damage. This ended up being the fatal move for him. Alex got his opponent down to 1, with a Mesmeric Fiend up to block against a Rootwalla and Mongrel. His opponent top decked a Wonder, and was able to pitch it with Mongrel to give his creatures flying and pump his Rootwalla to kill Alex from 6 life. A truly devastating ending to a game he worked hard to control the tempo.
Game 2
Second game we saw his opponent on the play due to Alex believing it should alternate. His opening hand was 2 Swamps, 1 Dark Ritual, 1 Hyppie, 2 Duress, 1 Cabal Therapy. His opening turns went like this:
Turn 1: Swamp –> DR –> Hyppie
Turn 2: Swings with Hyppie, opponent pitches a Wonder and blows out Hyppie with pumped Wild Mongrel. Alex goes Swamp –> Mesmeric Fiend taking a Circular Logic
Turn 3: Swamp –> Duress taking Roar of the Worm –> Cabal Therapy taking Genesis –> Sacrifice Mesermic Fiend to Cabal Therapy away another creature –> Duress to take Circular Logic.
This emptied his hand, but also stripped his opponents hand. This left him laughing and his opponent sitting with absolute amazement in the sequencing and effects of his spells. Alex ended up losing due to his deck not being able to recover and find a Tormod’s Crypt to deal with the Wonder in the yard.
In the end Alex lost but was able to share some good laughs and geek out over his opponents deck and the love he has for madness.
Match 2
Deck against: Mono Black
Game 1
The second match saw Alex paired up against a mirror with a slightly different build. The deck was a pseudo “Suicide Black” build, but did not have key pieces like Phyrexian Arena and Carnophage. It was somewhere between his own tempo black hand hate deck and suicide black.
The first game we saw Alex get under his opponent thanks to two early Dauthi Horrors and a DR to bring out a a T1 Hyppie. He was able to get in on his opponent and beat him down to a point where his opponent scooped.
Game 2
Alex who is super new to side boarding made some poor decisions in hindsight like keeping in his Bad Moon against the mirror.
Essentially, Alex got forced into a beater match that turned out to be a grind fest due to him and his opponent being able to trade off shadow creatures. In the end he lost the point race to his opponent and decided to put all of his chips into a Nantuko Shade that did not end up being able to close the game for him. He had to scoop second game with impending doom on his doorstep.
Game 3
The third game was very anticlimatic. Alex kept a terrible hand that did not move fast enough, but had lands at the least. He had a Dauthi Slayer that he could have blocked another with but decided to get into a point race instead. He got face fucked by his opponents when they slapped a Sinister Strength on and beat him down. Alex lost the game and the match.
Current record: 0-2
Match 3
Deck against: UG Madness
Game 1
The third match was again UG Madness, but this time his opponent had the new tech of Anger, Squee, and Survival.
First game had Alex on the play and he was able to slide in under his opponent. He beat down fast with a T1 Hyppie, followed up by a T2 Mesmeric Fiend which exiled a Wonder. Due to that, his opponent was not able to go over the top and deal with his hand hate and shadow beaters that showed up later.
Alex was able to take a quick game 1 due to good tempo play and on curve Fiend to gank the only wincon in his opponents hand.
Game 2
Post board Alex had confidence with a board in of 3 Tormod Crypt’s and 3 Engineered Plagues. Unfortunately for him, he did not get off to a fast enough start on the draw.
His opponent got out a super fast Survival with 2 Basking Rootwalla’s and 2 Wild Mongrels. These ended up beating into Alex’s board too fast, and he was not able to deal with an early Wonder in the grave yard either.
UG Madness being on the play blew him out and forced him into a game 3.
Game 3
The final game we saw Alex keep 1 swamp, 2 Duress, and a Phyrexian Negator. Both of the Duress came up blanks, forced a T1 and 2 fire off due to not getting land drops on time.
Eventually the Negator made an appearance, as which was prefaced by a Bad Moon. The Negator eventually swung in, and soaked up 4 Damage from a Rootwalla and a pumped Aquamoeba. This forced Alex to sacrifice all his lands, a Priest of Gix, and the Bad Moon. This left him with just a Fiend and the Negator.
This also left him on a deadlock with his opponent. His opponent flooded and did not dare to swing in, and Alex missed land drops with a Smother in hand to deal with the Wild Mongrel on the other side of the board. Eventually his opponent hit the creatures and beat Alex down, forcing a concession of the game and the match.
Current record: 0-3
Match 4
Deck Against: RB Zombies
Game 1
Again Alex rolled to be on the play, and it was a very quick game for him. He came out with a T1 hyppie that was able to get fantastic beats for him. Paired with 2 Dauthi Slayers he was able to get the beat down and hand hate combo that the deck is looking for. His mono black deck cares not for it’s life total in most matchups, so goal is to go sideways. It was a handful of turns before his opponent was dead
Game 2
Alex’s opponent was big on the graveyard and recursion, so he boarded in his 3 Crypts and 3 Plague Engineers to deal with the zombie tribal. Again he had a T1 Hyppie, but his opponent was ready post board and did a Firestorm for 2 knocking it out. Luckily Alex had a Crypt opening hand and was able to threaten that on the board early. Once the yard saw a handful of reanimatable creatures he popped it and cleared it away.
He drew into another Crypt which he dropped with a threat, as well as a couple of Shadow creatures and another Hyppie. His opponent again had a Firestorm, but Alex had the Crypt to clean up the discard. His opponent was able to get out an early Zombie Infestation, but the pressure Alex put on forced his opponent to pitch his hand to the yard and then exile with the Firestorms.
Alex ended the game with 3 Mishra’s Factories on the board, and spent most of the game on a hardcore beatdown plan with them. He did get a late game Engineered Plague which kept the zombies from Infestation under the damage range to kill his factories. A Smother or two wiped out threats from his opponent, and he was able to get the win with a pure factory beat down.
Final Record: 1-3
Keegan Notes
I do not have the notes for Keegan, but his deck went up against more top tier meta, which is what Alex had tuned his sideboard for. Keegan saw Survival Elves, The Rock, RB Zombies, and then a home brewed Esper Control deck which sounded fantastic. He was just under Alex at 0-4, but gave many of his matchups a run for their money at least.
Conclusion
Overall the addicts did poorly in record, but at least they had a blast doing so. Their opponents for the most part were very cool dudes, and I can note that mine were super friendly and interactive as people. That is something I fear when playing at a shop and it was true there for sure. We are not premodern experts, but I do hope to start playing in leagues very soon. I love the format and the options it offers, as well as the pace of the games. I look forward to the next tourny that the portal will host.