Summer Classic III cEDH Tournament Report

A guest write-up by Fearthainne

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in the Summer Classic III cEDH tournament in Minneapolis July 18^th and 19^th. I finished 127^th out of 206 with a record of 1-4-1, running Obeka, Brute Chronologist as my commander.

For my personal Magic history, I began dabbling in Magic in the mid 2000s. In rural MN, there were no card stores or “official” places to play, so everything was 60-card non-standard done at friends’ houses or at lunch at school. I was in college when the idea of Elder Dragon Highlander came out, and the bulk of my experience since has been in casual Commander with a healthy helping of limited via pre-releases. While the interest in true competitive Magic has always been there, it’s only in recent years that it’s actualized into an active attempt at growth in the forms of cEDH and Modern.

I had grand ambitions and a only vague notion of what was in store at the tournament. I had heard of the original Summer Classic about the time that I was first venturing into cEDH. At that time, the appeal was in traveling with friends and playing my high-power Kozelik, the Great Distortion deck, of which I was very proud and determined to count as cEDH. It had infinite combos, after all, and could win on turn 1 with the perfect hand! …It would not have gone well for me.

For better or worse, it would take 2 more years before I could dedicate the time and money into actually organizing a trip. During that time, local events at Level Up in Superior, Elite Sports and Collectibles and Collector’s Connection in Duluth, and Treasure Chest Games in Cloquet as well as informal gatherings gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of the format. Nevertheless, having only competed in a couple of local tournaments with borrowed decks, the tournament ahead was both daunting and exciting.

Coming in, I certainly felt the amateur for a variety of reasons:

I lacked “Big” tournament experience or experience with anything outside of the local meta (see what I did there?).
My deck consisted entirely of print-at-home proxies. While legal for the tournament and functional, ultimately my deck was proxied because it had to be. I only owned about 70% of the cards in the deck. Of course, not everyone has piles of dual lands and LEDs lying around, there are a number of competitive staples that I simply don’t own, and acquiring the kind of high-quality proxies that are indistinguishable when sleeved wasn’t in the budget or timeframe. I feel it is important to note here – there is NOTHING wrong with proxy decks, especially at cEDH levels. Magic isn’t and shouldn’t be a pay-to-win game where your budget determines your win ratio. However, it is tough to not feel like the “we got cEDH at home” side of the meme when the three others in your pod have $10k decks and limited edition signed foils while you’re sitting there with cardstock you cut out the day before.
My brain is not a 30+k card encyclopedia. I love magic. I’ve been playing and collecting for almost 20 years, and invested who knows how many hours into deck tinkering, organizing my collection, drooling over cards, etc. If you’re reading this, you know. But I don’t know every card, and even the ones I DO know can get crossed in my brain. Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation are in my deck, but that doesn’t mean I won’t get their names or mana costs mixed up. I couldn’t tell you what colors Taiga taps for. It can feel alienating being in group conversations where people rattle off combo lines or names of cards that you don’t recognize, and funnily enough, cards are a frequent topic of conversation at card tournaments.

Insecurities and pragmatic temperance be damned, I was still excited to be there. I was excited to play my deck. I was even more excited to WIN with my deck. Heck, I was even excited to lose with my deck, because that’s how I get better. I was excited to be a part of a community of people who shared my passion.

And hey, winning a Time Twister would be pretty freakin’ sweet, too.

MY DECK was one that started off as a joke. It was called, “This Is a Really Bad Idea,” crammed with as many weird, niche ways to make an opponent lose (which is different than me winning) as I could fit in there, and was mostly played for chaos and laughs. While it Definitely wasn’t cEDH, it was also too mean to run in any lower brackets. Turning it into something competitive took a great deal of time and thought. I knew it Could be done, and for reasons I’ll get into in the next section I believed it was worth doing, but How was the key. Fortunately, I was able to reach out to trusted friends/mentors in the community who offered advice while making sure that the decisions I made were my own. To me, cutting cards is always the hardest part of building a deck. Removing the cards that were fun but unhelpful was the easy part, but that left me with cards that were Good, but other options may be Better. Ultimately, I had to choose whether to go with a turbo or control build. I chose control since it fits my playstyle and I perceive control as more consistent than turbo. Removing haste enablers in favor of flash enablers freed up a few slots, and slower, expensive pieces like Smokestack or Jace went out for interaction/card advantage pieces like Opposition Agent, Dauthi Voidwalker, and Notion Thief. Overall, the number sorceries went down, the number of instants and creatures with flash went up, and the average expected cost of cards in the deck went down. The most daring element was leaning into artifacts; as part of this, both Necropotence and Ad Nauseum were cut for Bolas’s Citadel with the plan of using Goblin Welder to fish it out of my graveyard rather than paying its mana cost. Goblin Engineer being able to grab either Isochron Scepter or Grinding Station also made it a worthwhile addition.

Obeka, Brute Chronologist costs 1UBR, and is a 3/4 ogre wizard with the tap ability of, “The player whose turn it is may end the turn.” The benefit of ending your turn is that it exiles all spells and abilities the stack. This includes “at the beginning of your next end step” triggers if timed right. In addition to having a unique win line, she also makes a potent bargaining chip – having her on the table untapped means that none of my opponents need to worry about someone comboing off on their turn, and she doesn’t pose a threat by herself. She doesn’t even have haste, so she doesn’t draw hate. To me, these factors are what made her a viable cEDH commander. The win line unique to Obeka is combining Isochron Scepter and Final Fortune to take infinite turns without the annoying drawback of losing the game. Other win lines were Thassa’s Oracle + Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation, and Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze or Grinding Station.

TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE – The tournament was broken into 2 days. Day one, check-in began at 9am. Location wise, we were in one large hall of the Minneapolis Convention Center. The bulk of the room was taken up by reasonably comfortable chairs and felt-draped tables, with the periphery occupied by vendors, media tables for streaming, and officials’ tables with tvs displaying timers. There was a player meeting at 9:45 with assigned seating to take stock of who was missing. One player I spoke to came from Florida for the tournament, and there was a group of 8 that had driven up from Missouri. This ticked both my excitement and nerves up a notch. Of 206 registered, only 2 didn’t show meaning day one had 204 players – the largest cEDH tournament in Minnesota history. Judges were introduced, ground rules covered. People were excited, calling out hello to the judges and asking clarification on certain ground rules. Most were plain – 80-minute rounds, 20 minutes max overtime, how to ask for a judge, how to appeal a ruling, etc. There were 6 rounds of Swiss day one, then a cut to the top 40. Day two was single elimination, with the top 8 getting a bye in the first round. Winning your round won you 5 points, regardless of which seat you were in. 0 points for losing, and 1 point for everyone at the table in the event of a draw, INCLUDING anyone who had already lost. That got the crowd murmuring, but it wasn’t a debate so the complaints died down and we were ready to start!

THE TOURNAMENT

Round 1, LOST – Seat 1, Me, mull to 5. Seat 2, Rog/Si, mull to 4. Seat 3, Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, mull to 4. Seat 4, Ral, kept starting 7.

I was able to stop a turn 2 push from Ral with Chain of Vapor in response to a Ral trigger before he could draw or be flipped. Turn 3 Rog/Sai played Vexing Bauble and tapped out for Necropotence, paying 30 life. Ral, however, was able to replay his commander, dig out, Hexing Squelcher, and play right through the Vexing Bauble to win with Bonus Round + Jeska’s Will for infinite mana, then Reiterate (with buyback) + Lava Dart. I had Force of Will and Mental Misstep in hand but was tapped out and couldn’t cast them with Vexing Bauble in play. I’d considered using Misstep on the bauble, but we were all hoping the bauble would stop Ral’s ult from going off. Grenzo got as far as casting Grenzo but had no other interaction at the table.

Round 2, LOST – Seat 1, Sissay, kept 7. Seat 2, Rog/Tymna, mulled to 4. Seat 3, Aang, At The Crossroads, mulled to 4. Seat 4, me, mull to 6.

This one I misplayed hard and should have won. I put Gemstone Caverns in as a pre-game, then play Underground Sea and Lotus Petal to get Rhystic Study out on turn 1. Turn 2 Rog/Tymna topdeck Ad Nauseum and go down to 4 life but aren’t able to push for the win that turn. From Rhystic I now have Thassa’s Oracle and Demonic Consultation in hand, and draw Cavern of Souls for turn. I play Cavern of Souls, naming Wizards. I know I have the win line in hand, but I worry about Demonic Consultation being countered. I have Final Fortune in hand, and decide I want to take an extra turn for the sake of getting an extra draw and playing a land so I can interact if needed. I tap the Underground Sea to play Sol Ring. I then realize that Final Fortune is RR, and I only have one red available. And, now that Underground Sea is tapped, I don’t have the colors I need to play both parts of the combo. I swear and try to set myself up for next turn, but none of us were able to stop Rog/Tymna from winning on turn 3. I was kicking myself hard for that one, but felt better upon hearing how many other experienced players were making misplays of their own. I’ll touch on that more later.

Round 3, LOST – Seat 1, Kinnan. Seat 2, Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Seat 3, me. Seat 4 Rog/Si.

At this point in the day, my documentation of mulligans and turn numbers broke down as my mind was swimming with the events of previous games and everything going on around me. Despite that, this round was fun. The first one to push for a win was Atraxa (maybe turn 3?) as he uses the Wishclaw Talisman to tutor for a card, giving the talisman to Rog/Si, then casts Thassa’s Oracle. I Pyroblast Thoracle, and he ends his turn. I’m out of interaction and just try to advance my board state. Rog/Si uses the talisman, giving it to me, and casts his own Thoracle, holding priority on the cast trigger to cast Tainted Pact. Tainted Pact resolves, and Rog/Si goes down to two cards in their library. Thoracle still hasn’t resolved, but neither Kinnan nor I have interaction to stop it. Atraxa casts Demonic Consultation, naming Pact of Negation to stop the win. He finds it 6^th from the bottom and counters Thoracle. Rog/Si has two cards left in his library, Atraxa has 5. Kinnan advances board state, and I’m looking at Wishclaw under my control and my own Thoracle in hand. I’m excited, right until Atraxa overloads Cyclonic Rift. The next few turns are Kinnan and I trying to rebuild our boards while Rog/Si decks themselves and Atraxa starts punching Kinnan with Atraxa, which I appreciated. I DID have a fun play in there that we later found out was illegal – with Goblin Engineer in play, I cast Mox Diamond. The card text says “When Mox Diamond comes into play, choose and discard a land card or sacrifice Mox Diamond.” I (and the table) interpret this as Mox Diamond enters the battlefield and creates a trigger. In response to the trigger, I used Goblin Engineer to sacrifice Mox Diamond and pull a different artifact from my graveyard. The table was impressed, play goes on. It comes down to Kinnan having board state but 7 life and one card in hand. Atraxa is technically still in the game but top decking with one card left in his library and no board state. I have Orcish Bowmasters in play, 4 mana available, and Reanimate and Wheel of Fortune in hand. I contemplate using Reanimate on Atraxa’s Thoracle to try and draw out a counterspell but decide to keep the mana available in case of mana tithe/similar. I cast Wheel, Kinnan casts Flusterstorm. I’m 1 mana short of being able to pay for the copy. It’s at this point I call a judge over. The thought was to use Goblin Engineer to pull Mox Diamond from the graveyard, tap it in response to the entry trigger before it sacrifices itself, and use that mana to pay for Flusterstorm, but the judge found the ruling that states, “If you don’t discard a land card, Mox Diamond never enters. It won’t trigger abilities that look for something entering, and you won’t get the opportunity to tap it for mana.” Oops! Reading the card does NOT always explain the card, at least when there’s errata and oracle text. Kinnan combos off on his turn for the win. Rog/Si has me sign his Mox Diamond and has Atraxa sign his Demonic Consultation (proxies), which I thought was a really neat idea. Everyone at the table was cool, and that helped me to calm down a bit as well.

Round 4, DRAW – Seat 1, Tayam. Seat 2, Blue Farm (Tymna/Crom). Seat 3, me. Seat 4, Kinnan.

This table had an interesting dynamic. The Tayam player said when we sat down that we shouldn’t start drawing/resolving mulligans until after the timer had started. Both Blue Farm and I pushed back on this point, as it had been explicitly permitted in previous rounds. He simply repeated his assertion, and we chose to ignore him and do it anyway. The timer started about 5 seconds later which made it all moot, but it set the tone. Tayam directed the table, pointing out combos and making direct statements like, “If you can counter this, you need to.” While he was rarely wrong in his assessments, his directions also served his own purposes. And, notably, his justifications took time.

I had one chance in here to win; I had Underworld Breach in play and cast Entomb to put Brain Freeze in the graveyard. Blue Farm cast silence, I cast Mental Misstep, he casts Pyroblast, I cast Flusterstorm. The table asked to put the cards in a stack in order of the stack and talked, then had me pick targets. I counted the amount of mana Blue Farm had available and put “1 targeting Pyroblast, the rest targeting Entomb.” What I MEANT was the thing STOPPING Entomb (Silence), but the table held me to what I said and I did not push back. It was pointed out to me by a friend after the match that a judge may have ruled in my favor (intent vs wording), and if I’m ever in that position again I will, but it WAS my mistake and I hope to never make that one again. A draw earned me my first point in the tournament, and the circulating rumor was that 11 points put you in the bubble to potentially make top 40.

Round 5, WIN – Seat 1, Heliod, the Radiant Dawn (a.k.a. Wheeliod). Seat 2, me. Seat 3, Tymna/Thrasios. Seat 4, Etali, Primal Conqueror.

This one felt GREAT. Turn 1, mana rocks into Goblin Engineer, putting the Isochron Scepter in the graveyard. More ramp on turn 2, with Sensei’s Divining Top showing me Final Fortune in the top three cards. I keep it in my library and draw interaction pieces instead until I’m ready to combo. Turn 3 I play Obeka. Etali comes out on their turn 3, I tap Sensei’s top to draw Final Fortune and lose the top instead of my win con. Wheeliod is policing the table and building a terrifying board state but hasn’t won yet and is low on cards in hand. Turn 4 I use Goblin Engineer to pull Isochron Scepter from the grave, imprinting Final Fortune. I tap the scepter and cast the copy of Final Fortune. Wheeliod casts Commandeer on Final Fortune, exiling two cards from his hand. I don’t have a direct counter for Commandeer, so I cast Mystical Tutor, hold priority, cast Mental Misstep targeting the tutor, hold priority, and cast Redirect Lightning changing the target of Commandeer to Mental Misstep. Before that resolves, Wheeliod flashes in Phyrexian Metamorph as a copy of Etali. The only relevant thing he hits is his own Gilded Drake, which he casts targeting Obeka. I choose to let that resolve. The stack resolves in order, he gets Obeka, I get Final Fortune, and he no longer has cards in hand. I go to my extra turn and cast Sundial of the Infinite from my hand and take a continuous stream of turns until I Pyroblast Heliod and win with an uncounterable Thoracle combo.

Round 6, LOST* – Seat 1, Vivi. Seat 2, Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Seat 3, me. Seat 4, Rog/Thras

Another memorable round. Vivi was presenting the largest threat on the board, right up until Atraxa cast Necropotence. I will say, we lost a LOT of time with that spell. Which I get it, it’s complicated. There was also Silence in effect. We called a judge over, who gave a ruling about Silence. The table appealed that ruling, and the head judge came over and overruled the previous ruling. Then there were a LOT of questions and discussion about Necropotence. I think the judges came over three or four times on that turn, and eventually just sat by our table. We got an 11 minute time extension, and most if not all of that was taken up by Atraxa deciding how to resolve Necropotence. Adrenaline was high by this point and I put in some noise-cancelling earbuds to help bring my heartrate down, which was legal as long as I didn’t have any music playing. The other two at the table were also calm and polite during all of this. Eventually Atraxa realized he’d made an error and ended his turn without reacting to any of the exile triggers. Play passes through turns back to Vivi, who finishes off Atraxa and plays Warrior’s Oath. I’m able to counter a piece of his combo, and he loses at his end step after bouncing Rog/Thras’ Seedborn Muse. I advance my board state and draw more interaction but have no win line in hand. On Rog’s turn, I’m able to flash in Opposition Agent to stop him from grabbing Talon Gates of Madara with Crop Rotation, which shuts off his win line. He starts to say, “If I were to buy you a collector pack-“ before the judge warns him to not finish that thought. He passes the turn back to me, and time in the round is called.

At this point in the tournament, I am sitting at 6 points. Talk around mid-day had been that 11 points puts you in the bubble of possibly making the cut. A win in this round could get me into the top 40. I’m able to go through about 20 cards in my library with a combination of methods, but the only combo I had any part of was Final Fortune/Isochron Scepter, and infinite turns can’t win in overtime. Even with Intuition, I’m not able to get both pieces of a combo to win. Someone pointed out to me that had I shown him the combo, he may have conceded, but I didn’t think of it at the time, only that the combo itself wouldn’t win that turn. As we’re approaching the end of our overtime limit, I choose to use Bolas’ Citadel to spend my last 2 life casting Brainfreeze, giving him the win rather than drawing. He was a good guy, and I had the choice to have him advance or neither of us advance, so I chose him. The genuine shock on his face was worth it to me, as was his excitement and gratitude when he realized he had just made the top 40 at #38.

TOURNAMENT CONCLUSION – That was the end of the tournament for me. The next day I cheered on friends and former competitors as they either played in the final rounds or in the many other smaller events that were taking place that day. Friends and family ask, “How did it go?” and that’s a harder question to answer simply. I didn’t WIN, but in a format where you can lose the game before you ever play a card, is that so bad? Sometimes I made the right plays, sometimes I made mistakes, but I wasn’t alone in that and I (hopefully) have learned from them. By the end of the day I was starving, shaking from adrenaline and utterly spent, but I gained experience and grew as a player. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Also, the grand winner of the tournament was a 16 year old, whose pronouns were marked in TopDeck as “Ask me,” which is pretty darn cool for a number of reasons.

DECK LOOKBACKS – I’m really happy with how the deck played. In the six games I played, I saw three people play Necropotence and none of them won. Notably in the last game, if we’d had more time I would’ve been able to combo off with the Isochron Scepter and Final Fortune. While that’s not Entirely on how long it took to resolve Necro, it’s mostly because of how long it took to resolve Necro. Worth noting, my alternative of Bolas’s Citadel didn’t win me the game even with Sensei’s Divining Top in play, but seeing Necro whiff 3 times made me feel better about not running it. I’m pleased with the control build I have, as I was able to respond and pose a threat in each game. The biggest change I’d make would be to swap in Wishclaw Talisman for something, but I haven’t decided what yet. Even in 6 games, there are a number of cards that never saw play. I was highly impressed by Submerge, as I think I played it in 5 games and never once paid any mana for it. I’ll be playing this deck again this weekend, and look forward to seeing how it performs in the local meta.

Second TCG Modern RCQ Tournament Report and Post Mortem

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On Sunday 7-12-26 I played in an 8 person RCQ at Treasure Chest games in Cloquet. I went 2-1 playing Izzet Prowess https://deckbox.org/sets/3892325

The 75 – I am a big fan of the high level of consistency in this style of prowess deck. Almost every card being a 4 of just means that the games tend to play out very similar which obviously helps with the mental load of figuring out likelihood of drawing to outs and helps with mulligans if you are in a matchup that wants certain cards. There have been a few prowess lists going around lately using cards like Stormchasers Talent and Boomerang Basics but while the do help when the games go long I would rather just not let them get to the point where I would need a card like that. The one card that I tend to board out in most matches that I run into is Expressive Iteration. While it is the only card advantage card in the deck 2 mana is just a lot of mana, so if the games don’t go long then they are likely to just be stuck in my hand. I was thinking about this on the drive home but I have not yet figured out what I would play in it’s place since there is still a need for sorceries to reach delirium.

The Prep – Being completely honest I did not prep for this tournament at all. Not having any new players I was trying to help get into the format, or borrowing decks to anyone I didn’t really have a high level of motivation to push myself for this event and didn’t really want to drop the $50. Being honest I wasn’t even planning on playing the event I was just Ben’s only option for a ride, and I wanted to hang out with Sherrie who was judging the event due to it being her birthday. If there had been an even number of people I wouldn’t of played, but to make it an even 8 I decided to buy in.

The Tournament – We had a grand total of 8 people for the event which means it was 3 rounds single elimination. No match losses to give, and with such a high buy in made it pretty high stakes. We had 2 prowess, 1 merfolk, 1 grixis shadow, 1 dredge, 1 boros land destruction, 1 domain zoo, and 1 storm deck. I had no opinions on what I would get paired against, I don’t think prowess has any truly terrible matchups from what I have played and I can just steal a lot of games off the explosive nature of my deck even if the matchup is bad.

Round 1 – This round was honestly really funny. I was paired against Adam who was the other person playing prowess, and in the prior RCQ we both were the only people playing boros land destruction. I lost the roll and when he went Scalding Tarn fetch Steam Vents I automatically knew we were in a mirror, and when I told him that when I started my turn he also found it amusing. Great minds think alike I guess. Game one he missed his second land drop, and even after finding it he was still not able to recover since I had a aggressive start and was able to remove his threats. Game two I drew 7 lands which in general is not great for the deck, but in an aggro mirror obviously is even worse. Game 3 I was able to stick a Cori-Steel Cutter on 2 and make a token which just meant my pressure was to high. I was able to cast Preordain and Spell Pierce my own spell for the lethal prowess triggers and the token. Merfolk beat Land Destruction, Dredge beat Domain Zoo, and Shadow beat Storm.

Round 2 – My next pairing was against Dredge. Obviously a rogue strategy in the current format and my sideboard isn’t really set up to be good against it which can make the deck very powerful. But I still the ability to just be very very fast. I won game 1 by just having a lot of threats, and a lot of prowess and prowess adjacent triggers the turn before he had blockers. Game two my draws weren’t great, weirdly enough drew to many sideboard cards in Consign to Memory and not enough threats to really put on pressure, and consign not being a proactive card meant I couldn’t use it to trigger damage. I ended up drawing the perfect 2 cards in a row of Mutagenic Growth and a second free spell in Surgical Extraction, which allowed me to attack for 18 damage in one turn, but he was able to flash back an Otherworldly Gaze and bin a Creeping Chill to survive which means I was dead on his turn. I must admit to being kind of a dick in this situation. I thought he just wasn’t aware that he was dead on board so when he was fiddling with his cards and actually making me fully surgical his card I thought he was just wasting time, completely forgetting the ability to trigger chill with surveil. I was going to wait until after the match to apologize for how I acted but I forgot due to another thing that happened and I did not apologize before he left. So while I do not expect him to read this, if he does, or if anyone who does read this wants to tell him: Lee, I apologize for acting like a dick. I have no excuse, you were playing correctly and I wasn’t. For game 3 it was another game where I drew to many sideboard cards, I ended the game with all 3 consign in my hand. But I also had multiple threats and was able to put on a lot of pressure. The turn I went for the win I extracted something from his yard which game me the ability to see that he had a Dismember in his hand. I went for an attack that was 1 point from lethal and finished with a lightning bolt after the combat damage was dealt. Dismember costing life meant that even if he had cast it he would of taken lethal damage from my second attacker. Shadow beat Merfolk in the other match.

After Round 2 – So now an interesting interaction happened. After we were done de-sideboarding Lee in a somewhat annoyed sounding tone asked me if I actually intended to play out the match with Ben. I asked him what he meant and he said that neither me or Ben even cared about the invite, I told him that this wasn’t true, Ben wanted to win the invite and actually go to L.A., he then said that I was probably just going to concede to him in that case since I didn’t even want to play in the first place. I told him that that was between me and Ben. Now obviously Lee wanted me to concede to him so he could play for the invite against Ben since I “didn’t want it anyways”. I do not think this matters. I have conceded to people in the past for things when I wanted them to get something like a Dungeon’s End Invitational Invite, or to help them make top 8 of the invitational. I even told Ben before the tournament started that if we got paired round 1 that I would concede to him since he actually cared about the invite and I would just play games of Modern with Sherrie. This does not mean in any way that I should of conceded to Lee. If I wanted to let people who wanted the invite play for it I should of conceded to my round 1 opponent, I already know he has been trying for an invite so he can play at the Regional Championship with his brother, which is a better reason then most to concede to someone. Just because someone wants the invite more then me does not mean they deserve to advance. If Lee wanted to play in the finals for the invite, then he should of beat me. It doesn’t matter if I plan to concede anyways. He did not win the match, he did not earn the right to play in the finals. I paid the same $50 he did, and if I play I always play to win.

Round 3 – Final round against Ben on Grixis Shadow. Kinda the perfect outcome since I was his ride. I also borrowed him the Death’s Shadows he was playing but for some reason he wouldn’t give them back when I asked for them before we started. Not very nice of him to withhold my own cards from me when I asked. I asked the judge about it and was threatened with physical violence by said judge. Guess I had to play it out. Game one I was heavily restricted in my threats due to two early Thoughtsieze and while was able to remove the first Moonshadow he played he then resolved 2 Death’s Shadow, and the next turn dealt 16 damage to win the first game. The only thing I remember about game two was he made me discard one of two copies of Mutagenic Growth I had in my hand, and I drew a third copy to get lethal damage on my turn. Game 3 Turn 1 Thoughtsieze into turn 2 Thoughtsieze means I had no threats to really put pressure on. He attacked me down to 3 while he was at 5 life, and played a Psychic Frog to have a blocker for my single Dragon Rage Channeler, I cast Mutagenic Growth in my upkeep to surveil for a removal spell and binned a land, and proceeded to draw a Slickshot Show-Off. Dead on board and can’t attack for lethal. GGs Ben.

Aftermath – Didn’t need to concede to Ben either way. The fact he beat me straight up is sweet, I’m sure he felt much better about that outcome then if I had just conceded to him. He has been saying since the Sealed RCQ that he wasn’t able to play in that he would like to win an invite to go to the one in L.A. so I am glad he was able to get there in the end. Hopefully he can get the time off work. After the tournament I ate cupcakes that Sherrie brought and played a couple games of modern with her for kicks.

The Elephant in the Room – So now something that I don’t know the best way to approach but I want to say something. Obviously this RCQ had a much lower turn out then the previous one. I’m sure part of this is due to the heat, it was 95 degrees and the AC wasn’t the greatest which isn’t really the fault of the store. The new location will have more space and a working AC so that will be much nicer once they finish moving. The other reason why some people didn’t show up is multiple people went to another Modern format RCQ in Rice Lake. A long drive when there is one so much closer but the buy in at that tournament was only $20, which if you are carpooling means it is much cheaper to play for what is probably the same prizing. I have been thinking for a while that the high cost of the local RCQs would limit the number of people who would be willing to try and play in them, it’s much to high for a casual player to reasonably consider playing, and even for the more competitive minded who want the invite the “expected value” just isn’t there at such a high cost and low prize payout. When even the local players who want there to be more events like this decide that it’s better to drive an hour and a half rather then support the local store I think it says something that I hope people are willing to learn from. There are going to be other stores holding RCQ events in the Twin Ports area in the next coming months so it will be interesting to see what their price point ends up being and what kind of turn out is had as a result. I do not intend for this to be disparaging against Treasure Chest Games, I like the owners, I like the store, I am extremely grateful towards them for being willing to even hold tournaments of a competitive nature. I had been missing playing at a competitive level, and it is giving me the chance to help the community grow and help others get better at the game which I haven’t been able to do for years. But I don’t want them to get discouraged at low turn out and stop doing them, and I think that the cost will affect turn out.

Final Thoughts – A lot of potential drama in this tournament report but I have never been one to avoid saying what I think needs to be said. I do not intent to insult anyone with what I wrote but that doesn’t mean people won’t take things personally. I enjoyed the tournament, and had fun playing. GGs again to Ben, you crushed it. Also Happy Birthday Sherrie 😀

First TCG Modern RCQ Tournament Report and Post Mortem

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On Sunday 6-28-26 I played in a 17 person RCQ at Treasure Chest Games in Cloquet. I went 2-3 playing Boros Land Destruction https://deckbox.org/sets/3893485

73/75 – I wasn’t the only one playing Boros LD at the event and the other player did make top 8 playing a different built utilizing Karn the Great Creator and tempo cards like reprieve but I do personally have confidence in my build in the meta that was at the event. The extra spot removal, the 4x Wrath of the Skies, even the 2/2 Flying First Strike body on the White Orchid Phantom were relevant to both closing out games and having the extra land destruction available. Outside of the 4 drops the deck is very very consistent with all the 4 ofs and the overlapping of effects. The biggest mistake was the two eldrazi titans in my sideboard. Just on evaluation I do not thing the deck can ever reasonably beat mill, and I expected to see some of that deck at the tournament. Both mill players that I play against regularly were at the event but neither played mill but I stand by my choice to have the titans since I think both were reasonably likely to play the deck. In hindsight knowing what they ended up playing I would of played 2 copies of Wear//Tear instead.

Preparation – My preparation for the tournament was admittedly minimal. I don’t have the extreme competitive drive that I used to nor do I know if I could of actually made it to either of the Regional Championship options that this would of qualified me for but obviously that isn’t going to prevent me from trying to play to the best of my ability at the event itself. I only played 6 total matches with the deck before hand going undefeated but still dropping games. I feel like I learned a decent bit in those games about how the deck should be played and what to focus on but still would of been better to get more reps in I am sure. Most of my time related to getting ready for the tournament was spent trying to help two other people I was borrowing decks to who had no real experience in Modern try to get as prepared as possible for what was effectively jumping into the deep end for their first experience. I borrowed Jonas a controlling variation on Eldrazi Tron that they were able to at least play at one FNM to get a few games in, and I borrowed Claire Ruby Storm which they were unfortunately unable to get any play experience with but they did a lot of solo practice and we talked theory a lot which I enjoyed a lot personally.

The Tournament – The tournament had 17 players as mentioned. I don’t know the full deck breakdown and I can’t find it posted anywhere as of yet but from memory I think there were 4 tron decks, 2 Boros Energy, 2 Goryo’s, 2 Boros Land Destruction,2 Ruby Storm, 1 Death’s Shadow, 1 Merfolk, 1 Simic Ritual, 1 Vengevine, 1 Red Belcher. My hope was to dodge merfolk and Belcher and hope that my sideboard would carry me if I got paired against storm.

Round 1- My round 1 was against Logan on a green based Eldrazi tron hoping to take advantage of sowing mycospawn against the other tron decks. He unfortunately didn’t even know a deck like mine existed in the format and obviously my deck is designed to prey on decks like his. He seemed to take the ridiculousness of the matchup in stride. 2-0

Round 2 – Round 2 was against David also on a tron variant. He at least knew my deck existed but obviously even knowing what I was doing there isn’t really any recourse to be taken. He played out game 1 but conceded game 2 quickly once the writing was on the wall. 2-0

Round 3 – My first challenging matchup against Russ on Simic Ritual round 3. I won a very grindy game 1 after I was able to wrath of the skies and take out 3 birthing ritual which limited his engine greatly. I sideboarded poorly going into game 2 and 3. I trimmed on 1 wrath of the skies, 2 of each red land destruction spell, and a couple of spot removal spells and brought in 4 res tin peace and 3 vexing bauble. I think what I brought in was correct but I think I should of cut all of the red land destruction spells. Once I am trimming down on them like that it is very hard to truly lock him out, plus his main deck Endurance means he can keep putting his lands back into his deck to find again. If I had kept in all my removal I would of been able to just go hard control against him and possibly won game 2 or 3. I fittingly lost with an unstable (due to Harbinger of the Tides) in my hand where if it had been the wrath I boarded out maybe I could of stabilized. 1-2

Round 4 – I got to play against Jan on Merfolk round 4. Outside of maybe mono R belcher this was easily my worst matchup in the room in my opinion. To many islands to go with the normal game plan of running them out of resources, a lot of temp style counterspells to make my removal very hard to get what I want to with it. I also have zero sideboard cards to bring in. Was able to stall a bit game 1, grinded out a win game 2 off the back of White Orchid Phantom having first strike, and got fully ran over game 3. This was also the matchup where I learned how important Field of Ruin and Demolition Field are for my mana fixing. I was regularly having problems with my mana with no ability to used them to get basics and it cost me heavily in my ability to interact on curve with their creatures. Was a good match though and Jan is always great to talk to about stuff. Even though they make me feel old by bringing up the old days. 1-2

Round 5 – Round 5 I got paired against my own deck in Jonas on Tron. This match I got in my own head after going two winds into two loses. Game 1 my opening 7 had 2 lands only one of which could produce white, and a lot of white cards. I immediately thought “so this is how it’s going to be” and kept when I absolutely should of mulliganed. No reason to keep a sketchy hand when I know I have a good matchup. It was just my mental game slipping. Jonas had a very slow set up before they were able to get treats going. I missed my third land drop for 4 or 5 turns before starting to get the ball rolling. They said they were playing very defensively and trying to make as much mana as possible as opposed to playing out threats so I was able to make the game closer then I would of expected getting them down to 6 life before they stuck and Ugin. I checked the clock and noticed we only had 14 minutes left in the round so I conceded shortly after to try and win 2 games as fast as I could. Game 2 I made a very greedy play and was punished heavily. I had the ability to break up the assembly of tron on my turn 3 before they actually had it online but decided to leave up 3 mana to flash in an aven mindcensor with the idea being if they played an eldrazi I had a path to exile so I could stabilize easily and have an almost full lock and a clock. They played natural tron on turn 3 and cast an Ugin. Since I wasn’t able to find an Erode in time it essentially locked up the game. We went to time (inaccurately since we had a time extension due to a deck check) but I had no way of winning the game either way. Had we had more time I would of likely played less greedy and stuck to the normal game plan but with only 10ish minutes to try and win 2 games with a very slow deck I feel like I had to be greedy. Honestly I should of just conceded turn 4 game 1 and saved a lot of time. All of this being said I take nothing away from Jonas. They played how they felt they needed to to have a chance of winning after their experience in the matchup from the FNM two nights prior and I think they played well. 0-2

Aftermath – Two wins and three losses was obviously not enough to make top 8 but Jonas was able to make top 8 after winning our match which is sweet. Claire got 9th on breakers only losing out by .2% which for someone who had never played modern before let alone Ruby storm is awesome. As someone who focuses much less on my own wins now adays and cares much more about growing the community and teaching others to get better at the game seeing both people I was invested in doing so well was honestly better then making top 8. Claire likely would of made top 8 if someone else wasn’t conceded to so they could make it in instead which is unfortunate but is just part of tournament magic. I am glad I was able to help two other people expand their experiences in this game that I am so invested in.

Final Thoughts – I feel good about the tournament over all. I enjoyed my deck, the other deck I considered playing would of been prowess due to a lot of experience with that style of deck and having a decent win percentage with it but I think the reactions to me playing the land destruction deck have much better story equity then me just playing aggro. Could of made better choices but it’s good that I know I made those mistakes and can thus learn from them. Thanks to TCG for hosting the event. Congrats to Adam for winning, he is a great player and will definitely use the invite which is nice.

Commander is not a good introduction.

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It is a very common thing to read online or to hear at a LGS that when someone shows an interest in trying out MtG that they should try out Commander/EDH, I think this is a terrible idea in practice and decided I wanted to write about why.

Blinded by preference – Commander is a lot of peoples favorite format and for a good reason. It is the only format outside of true 60 card kitchen table casual where you can effectively just do whatever you want. Minus a relatively small ban list, you can play any card and play almost any style of deck or strategy. The immense card pool allows for people to do things that they just can’t do in any other format and truly make a deck their own. There is a reason a lot of people complain about net-decking when they bring a brew to FNM or similar and just get rolled. They don’t get the chance to truly express themselves in the game due to more competitive formats being exactly that, more competitive.

It is also the only format that encourages the social aspect of MtG in the game itself, politics are an innate part of multiplayer games and non-cEDH Commander puts them front and center. Alliances, bargaining, and betrayal are such a big part of the game just because it is a multiplayer format. It is also a lot easier to just play for fun without even trying to win than it is in something like Standard FNM because there is a decent chance you will still get to do something cool your deck is meant to do even if you lose. Commander also has the added bonus of it not feeling as bad when you lose because you aren’t losing alone, there are 2 other people who lost with you which does take a lot of the sting out of things on a psychological level that you just don’t get in 1v1 formats.

All of these are reasons why so many people enjoy Commander, and for a lot of people it is the only format that they play, but these very reasons are why it is also bad for teaching a new player or trying to use it to attract a new player base.

Information overload – There is just too much going on in a commander game. A commander deck can be expected to have anywhere from 60-100 unique cards in it depending on how many colors/basics a player chooses to run. While this is obviously counting the mana base the sheer number of lands/mana rocks that have been printed means that you can’t just ignore the mana sources someone plays because you never know when there might be an onboard trick or something that can mess with a play someone was trying to make. Multiply this by a full pod and you are expecting a new player to keep track of potentially a hundred of game pieces with thousands of potential interactions. For a seasoned player this isn’t a big deal, we have learned the heuristics to parse what is important or not important through experience. Expecting a new player to just be able to handle all of this shows a lack of understanding or remembering what it means to be new to the game. A result of this excess of information is it will almost always lead to the new player being very passive at the table. They don’t know what to do or when they should do it, and all it takes is one attempt to make a play or interact getting blown out by something to make them become even more unwilling to do things for risk of feeling like they are making a mistake. There is a very good reason why the new player decks WotC used to give to stores were mono colored with only 30 cards and duplicates of a lot of them. It minimizes the number of game pieces they need to learn and find out how they interact with each other. This allows a new player to learn the basics of the game very easily, and after they are done learning they would get to keep both new player decks to then shuffle together and have a proper 60 card deck to play against other decks like it.

People are complex – It is very easy to play games with your friends. You know them, you know how they think, they are predictable. It’s possible that a friend group could teach another friend how to play commander with no issues because they all know each other. This does not apply to someone who is trying to learn the game on their own, or who is venturing outside of their circle to try and see what games with other people are like. You hear stories from every LGS and player about the time they sat down to a Commander game and there was someone who was new and playing a precon or the equivalent and someone else at the table decided to pull out a prison deck, or a fast combo deck and make the experience miserable for everyone but themselves. I have long pushed against prison decks in Commander for that very reason, you are either preventing someone from playing or punishing them for playing which is just a terrible experience. For a more enfranchised player they will either swap to a different deck that has a better chance, or even choose to just stop playing games with that person. A new player is much more likely to just not come back again.

Nowhere to go – It is very difficult for someone to go from playing exclusively commander to almost any other format. For someone who starts their MtG journey playing a format like Standard they will end up with a lot of cards that they aren’t necessarily using in a deck. Extra cards beyond the play set, cards that don’t fit in their deck, cards in other colors. It is very easy for someone to build a Commander deck with even a small collection. It might not be the most powerful, but it will still be a deck. You cannot do this the other way around. Converting a commander deck to a deck in any 60 card format just doesn’t work due to needing 1-4 of any card as opposed to only 1. This starts the new player at a disadvantage from the get go. What if they don’t really like commander? What if they want to try a new format to see what the experience is like? The pipeline is practically one directional and it is very hard to change once you start down that path specifically.

No good answers – Now we come to the real question, what is a better way to teach someone? Unfortunately there isn’t any that are perfect. Commander isn’t good because of all the reasons I have listed. Standard isn’t that great because it is potentially a big investment into something the person doesn’t even know they will enjoy. Anyone who recommends a 60 card format older than standard is clearly just biased for whatever format they like the most because none of them are a good new player experience. I have heard a few times that a prerelease is a good new player experience but I disagree heavily. While it is fine for a more casual player who has played for a little while asking a new player to build a deck from effectively scratch will almost always go poorly. Numerous times I have heard someone comment that they are new to magic or it is their first prerelease and they just don’t know how to build a functioning deck. Notice I did not say good, I said functioning. No one wants their new player experience to be filled with mana problems which are all to common when someone builds a limited deck for the first time. Draft is even worse then the other options because now you are forcing them to make decisions about every card in a limited amount of time. Even with drafts being untimed they will still feel a lot of pressure when the packs start pilling up next to them when they are trying to make decisions.

My recommendation – Fortunately WotC has actually put out one really good product to help both game stores and friends try to teach someone how to play MtG, Jumpstart. So much of what you hear about Jumpstart online is how bad the product is for value. How the packs aren’t worth opening because you never get cards worth anything unlike the first Jumpstart which had the potential for really cool or expensive cards, it even added a legacy playable card in Muxus. But these people are missing the point of the Jumpstart sets. They aren’t meant to be opened for value they are meant to give you the experience of playing a game of limited without needing to do a full sealed pool or getting enough people for a draft, and as a result they are great for new players. You get 2 random packs that you combine to make a 40 card deck, the cards are mostly simple minus the potential for 1 cool splashy rare which actively adds to the new player experience because who doesn’t love seeing their new rare help them win the game? The main downside to the original Jumpstart set was it was missing a way to convert the cards into a true format due to the cards not all being legal in standard but the new Jumpstart sets fixed this by being built around specific sets. They are also coming out with Foundations Jumpstart packs which will be perfect for a new player experience. If I was a store owner or manager I would make sure that I always have packs of those available as a way to get new players into the game to replace the new player decks. This will also assumedly give the new players exclusively cards that they can play in Standard which is a good way to potentially get them to play in something like FNM. (Edit: Foundations Jumpstart will contain cards that are not legal in Standard, I consider this to be a negative and potentially confusing to a new player) Obviously this isn’t perfect, there is still a chance of them bringing a pile of cards that just isn’t strong enough to really win, but that is where an actual positive community comes in to try and give them pointers, or borrow them a deck until they can finish or build their own.

Conclusion – I greatly enjoy Magic. It is my favorite card game. I don’t know if there is a single format I don’t like playing, there are just people I don’t like playing with. I care a lot about trying to grow the community and get new players because I understand that people don’t play Magic forever. They move away, they have kids, they just fall out of love with the game. That is why the new player experience is so important to me and getting someone into the game “the correct way” is so important to me. What doesn’t grow dies, and you can’t grow without new players. I have nothing against Commander, I actively enjoy the format with friends or like minded people. But there are too many people who see Commander as the only way to play the game and it is just not a good viewpoint to have and is potentially costing the game more players when it is pushed on new people instead of something that is just easier to handle when you are new. I think everyone who plays Magic should try Commander once they are no longer considered a new player, but I don’t think it should be the first thing a new player tries.

– John