Game 1
Sean – Elenda | Keegan: Obuun | vs. | Ryan – Phylath | Alex: Jhoira
First game of the night we see a couple of reoffenders in the command zone. Jhoira is the newest face, but one we are still very familiar with. Keegan couldn’t get a good hand to save his life and ended up having to mully to 5, while Ryan took his free mulligan. Keegan and Sean (shocker) won the die roll to go on the play.
The game from the jump went fucking hard. Keegan and Sean both hit a turn one Sol Ring. Sean was not happy with just that and decided to follow up with Spawning Pit as well. Alex then follows up with his own Sol Ring, Ryan unfortunately missed the memo. He also had a cheeky Ichor Wellspring to draw himself a nice card. Turn two was no less eventful, with Keegan slamming a Scute Swarm down and Alex following up with at T2 Jhoira.
The game ended up being over by turn 5. After some landfall from Keegan, and a bit of setup from Sean, Alex decided to cut the first game very short. Alex, after cantripping a couple of artifacts the turns prior. cast a Whir of Invention with am improvise of 2. He snatched out an Iscochron Scepter, which imprinted a Dramatic Reversal under it. The Death Star followed right after, and Alex had 3 recurrable mana to continually cast reversal due to no interaction up for Sean and Keegan. Won the game on the spot with the life lazer.
God hand for Alex brought a swift T5 win for Alex and Ryan. (Alex’s first win since 2/1/22 lmfao)
Game 2
Sean – Atla | Keegan – Locust God | vs. | Ryan – Alela | Alex – Kami
This was an interesting pairing of decks to say the least. Alela is a force, while Kami can add counter support. Atla is a force, while so is Locust God that can also provide counter support. Ryan had a Shandalar mulligan, and he ended up taking that plus his free. Sean had a shandy as well and took that. Keegan ended up feeding off of the others and took 2 shandy’s and his free mulligan. Again, Keegan and Sean won the die roll to go first.
The game started at a moderate pace, with a later-early game Sol Ring or two showing up. Ryan on his own was able to turbo out some rocks, but an early game Aura Shards from Sean kept Alela in check for a floor of 3/4 of the game. It was a fucking clinic of what Aura Shards can do. That was not the only clinic of the game though, for Jace’s Archivist hit the board early and stayed there to the end. Aura Shards kept Alela subdued, while Jace’s Archivist kept both Alex and Ryan unable to setup a gameplan with a new hand each turn. Wild that a 1 mana wheel is good.
The game continued, with both Alex and Ryan casting an unkicked Cyclonic Rift, both times they were swiftly countered from Keegan. Alex tried another piece of bounce on it, but it was countered as well. Very very late game Ryan was able to get an Aura of Silence down to deal with it, but by then the damage was more than done. The Shards also helped keep Kami oppressed by blowing up the key mill enchantments that he needed. Truthfully, Kami was unable to win the game due to Atla having multiple cards to shuffle in from the yard, and Locust God having quite a few shuffle yard into deck spells.
The game was a grindy bastard all the way through, but for once it wasn’t ALL Alela doing stax. late game we did see a Frozen Aether and an Authority of Consuls come out of the yard thanks to Resurgent Belief. But the true grind came from a portaled Realm Razer. This put Alex and Ryan at a huge resource disadvantage due to all of their rocks being blown up by the Shards. But they did not have a quick finish lined up, for Alex had copied a Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, as well as stolen a Worldspine Wurm. Sean was able to portal out a Blazing Archon to negate attacks, while Keegan made locusts and kraken’s thanks to an early game Ominous Seas.
Slowly but surely the game was beginning to close out, with Keegan beating in for more damage than Authority could gain, with that disappearing thanks to removal from Sean. One sketchy moment came from Sean slamming down a Magus of the Tabernacle on cast. He wanted to clear Alex’s board due to him not being able to get through, but it ended up eating all of Keegan’s locusts. Alex and Ryan ran out of chumpers and ended up getting overran by the swam of locusts.
Game 3
Sean – Kykar | Keegan – Kami | vs. | Ryan – Uril | Alex – Ur-Dragon
Final game of the night was one for the mathematicians. Kykar (aka “mathmatical nightmare” -KB) is going out to pasture after this quarter, so this was his farewell game. Keegan took a mulligan, and in an odd turn of events Alex and Ryan went first.
From the jump, Kykar was popping. Hitting early mana rocks, and hitting a solid mana base as well. And well, it would be fair to say that he hit support for the game plan of the deck. Early game we saw an Anointed Procession, Harmonic Prodigy, and a Veyran, Voice of Duality out. Which all of our smooth brained power put together calculated he was making 8 spirits per spell. Which he did promptly and ended up passing a turn with 27 spirits up. Last game of the night, plus a million different triggers, had Sean calculating how stuff worked a bit wrong, but truly it was the decks fault not his.
While Kykar was building, Ryan was trying to build his board up, but was getting controlled from the two counter mages across from him. Alex was in the same boat, was getting milled into oblivion while missing mana. But Ryan was able to draw counter bait from Keegan in order to punch through a Single Combat and wipe all of the spirits off of Sean’s board. Shortly after this Keegan kicked a Maddening Cacophony, eating half of some big stacks of decks (author note: This card is such a pain in the taint irl. Much better for Arena).
A handful of turns later, after many counters and cantrips, Sean casts a Finale of Promise for 10, which he targets Ponder and Teferi’s Protection. Not understanding how it worked with the card, he ended up with a bunch of spirits and had to concede to the protection. This ended up being a ‘task failed successfully’ moment since Ryan the next turn had infinite combats available with Aggravated Assault + Bear Umbra. Alex on the other hand, snapped off a Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth, plus an ultimatum to get everything but instants and sorceries from his yard. The mill plan almost backfired, but the following turn Sean and Keegan had a grip full of counters and was able to shut down all interaction. Sean got out well over 30 spirits and a Goblin Bombardment and burned Ryan and Alex to the ground.