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 out 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.