My Nationals Qualifier Experience

For several reasons I'm not going to write a detailed tournament report for the Nats Qualifiers, mostly due to the fact that the matches I played either were too 1 sided to really be relevant or too complicated to be described accurately.  Instead, I will discuss the Caw-Blade list I used to win the local qualifier last Sunday, provide some stories from the weekend, and give my thoughts on the current Standard.

Caw | The Rusty Machete

9 Creatures:  
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Squadron Hawks
1 Sun Titan

24 Spells:  
4 Preordain
3 Oust
3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
4 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Jace Beleren
3 Gideon Jura
1 Into the Roil
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Mortarpod

27 Lands:  
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Plains
4 Island

15 Sideboard:  
4 Flashfreeze
3 Kor Firewalker
2 Condemn
1 Day of Judgement
1 Divine Offering
1 Jace Beleren
1 Celestial Purge
1 Twisted Image
1 Sun Titan

A quick rundown of the notable aspects of my list:

2 Sword:
While you usually don't have to worry about people interacting with the Sword in game 1's, a lot of people have adopted ways to beat equipped creatures, such as Tumble Magnet or various chump blockers.  Getting the second sword lets you have 2 different guys they have to deal with, which is significantly better than 1.  It also gives you insurance in case they somehow get rid of the first sword, and as an added benefit increases the chances to randomly just draw a sword alongside some hawks.

3 Oust in the maindeck:
While condemn is significantly better in the mirror and vs. creatures you need to get rid of permanently, Oust is much better against creatures you otherwise have no good way to deal with, such as Overgrown Battlement or other mana creatures, and can remove a blocker to let you get in a sword hit.  It also lets you control their draws, especially in combination with a Jace that can fateseal away the creature if needed.

4 Tectonic Edge, 2 Inkmoth Nexus:
Against most other decks in the format, you are well positioned to get ahead early with your 2 drops and then pull further and further ahead as the game progresses.  Having 6 lands that can further pressure your opponent is pretty huge, and I favor Tec Edge as the effect it has can be unfairly crippling at times, especially once you get them the 2nd or 3rd time.  I also played against Primeval Titan decks 5 times over the weekend, and having 4 Tec Edge definitely helped there.  I also believe Tec Edge is better in the mirror since you can keep your Mana Leak/Spell Pierces important while dealing with opposing man-lands.

2 Spell Pierce: While I can understand why Kai cut the card, it is quite good in the mirror since it allows you to stick game ending threats through their counters, and also allows you to curve out with 2 drops while still stopping Jace or Gideon.  I would not recommend cutting Pierce, but I also wouldn't suggest playing more than 2, since it will sit dead in your hand later in the game (though Jace can let you get rid of dead copies later)

1 Sun Titan, 1 Jace Beleren in both the maindeck and sideboard:  
The 5th Jace maindeck (and 6th in the board), are awesome at winning fights against other Jace decks.  A fair number of longer games can simply be decided by who draws more Jace, making Beleren pretty key.  Sun Titan goes along with this, as bringing back a mini Jace can lock out their Jaces for as long as the Titan is in play, making it even more difficult to answer your 6/6.  I played the second Sun Titan in the board where other people choose Volition Reins, as while they are both powerful, game winning cards in certain scenarios, I felt that the Titan would be better than Reins more often than not, and I was definitely correct in that regard. An argument can be made for Reins in that having access to one of each 6 mana bomb allows you to potentially find whichever one is going to be better, since a lot of games go long enough that you get to draw through the majority of your deck, but 100% of the time I drew a Titan when playing the deck I felt that it was better than Reins at that time.

0 Tumble Magnet anywhere: Yes, the magnet can answer Swords, Titans, man-lands, tap blockers, and more.  Yes, it is free to activate.  However, 3 uses isn't quite enough for this card to be worth it.  In the games that go long, once the Magnet runs out it is a complete blank, and you're going to end up wishing you had something that actually killed the problem card instead of just stalled, and in scenarios where you win before the magnet runs out you were probably going to win anyway if the magnet was something else.  Here, giving up a lot of power for the versatility of Tumbling isn't really worth it.

1 Day of Judgement in the board: While the card is bad against the majority of decks you can expect to play against, having access to 1 gives you an out to cards like Avenger of Zendikar, various creature heavy decks, and lets you win some games you have to other way to win.  Only 1 is really needed since most of the time Gideon can accomplish the same thing only better, but sometimes you just need to get rid of everything.  Kai played an Elspeth Tirel instead, which he claimed was very good, and that's something to possibly look into since it does a lot of the same things but can also just be a creature factory, but I would definitely recommend some sort of board sweeper in the deck.

Lastly, the Twisted Image was copied from Kai.  It never did anything for me in any of the matches I brought it in, but there are times when it can be a blowout, and I still think its probably better than whatever else you would play in that slot (likely another removal spell such as the 4th Oust or 2nd Day of Judgement).



As for the actual tournaments, I top 4'd the Saturday qualifier in Flint, losing a mirror match in which my opponent had the actual nuts all 3 games (though I won one where I also had the nuts but was on the play).  Even still, I misplayed slightly in game 3 which ended up costing me the match, and I was pretty certain that I could take down the event on Sunday with a little more sleep and a little more practice.

On Sunday, I started out with a loss to Valakut in which I got mana screwed game 1 and he ripped back to back Primeval Titans to kill me in game 2.  While Valakut is a favorable matchup, I would definitely not ignore it as a deck, since it is still capable of just completely overpowering any other deck.  I followed up with a draw vs. UW Venser control due to an extremely long game 2 that I probably should have conceded earlier to give me time to win game 3.  As is, I was essentially 2 turns short of killing him in the final game, so I was sitting at 0-1-1 needing to win out and get lucky to top 8.  Kai came very close to convincing me to drop and go bowling with him and some of his Lansing friends, and I am not going to deny that I was fairly tilted and had all but given up my hopes of qualifying.

Never give up, trust your instincts.

The words of Kurtis (aka Peppy Hare) repeated in my head.  I knew that I had the right deck to win the event, and less than an hour before the tournament started I was feeling extremely confident.  I didn't have much time between round 2 and 3 due to going to time, so I figured I may as well play out round 3, and keep going from there.

In round 3, I got paired against UB control.  In game 1, he played some discard spells, but my opening hand had multiple 2 drops so I still got to pressure him.  At one point, I stuck a Gideon after he tapped out to play Jace+counter my counter.  On his next turn, he played duress and took a Jace, seeing that I had Into the Roil and nothing else of note in hand.  He then played a Precursor Golem and promptly got blown out.  I won easily from there and didn't really feel like dropping.

I lost 1 game in the rest of the event, making it in at 8th place (though there was a straight cut so at least my tiebreakers weren't an issue).  In the top 8, I beat Valakut mostly due to awkward draws on his part.  I had to wait a while for the semifinals to start due to a fairly intense match between Brian Chung and Kenta, knowing that I was in exactly the same scenario as Saturday.  Once again, the top 4 was 4 Caw-Blade decks, and I would have to win 2 mirror matches to earn my qualification.
Thankfully, the mirror match is remarkably skill intensive, and between the semis and the finals I won 3 games that I definitely felt like I shouldn't have.  Game 1 of the semis was especially motivating for me, since I was on the play but my opponent had the complete nuts while I only had a mediocre draw.  After a few crucial mistakes from my opponent combined with me using every Jace in my deck to dig for an answer, I took down game 1 while the other semifinal was in the middle of Game 3.  In the finals, Kenta mulled to 5 in Game 1, and soon I was 1 game away from qualifying.  Of course, I started on 5 cards in Game 2, but had a Squadron Hawk to buy me enough time to get into the late game planeswalker fight.  Kenta was able to stick a Sun Titan, but I had one of my own, and we were both able to get back mini-Jaces, which traded for a turn (though he was ahead since he got to actually use his Jace while I didn't).  Then, I slammed the second Sun Titan after the first one got condemned and was able to trade away everything but end up with a Jace in play, and from there I slowly creeped ahead before finally earning the concession.

Qualifying for Nats was a pretty awesome experience, especially after falling 1 match short at regionals.  As Kai mentioned, our car both days was 100% to top 8, as well as taking 1st in both events.  As for the standard format right now, I'll let the results speak for themselves.


Saturday: 33 Players in event, 10 Caw-Blade players.  4 Caw-Blade in top 8, 4 in top 4.
Sunday: 10 Caw-Blade players in event (sorry, I don't know how many total people were there), 5 in top 8, 4 in top 4.
Every Star City Games Open since GP Dallas has had a top 8 that has been over half Caw, and all of them as well as the GP were won by the UW menace.

These kinds of numbers exceed anything that was accomplished by Faeries or Jund at the height of their dominance (though the increased number of large tournaments, as well as the fact that a lot of top players purposely chose not to play Jund, is mostly the cause of this).

Thankfully, New Phyrexia is about to be released, which could theoretically shift things slightly, but I feel that the introduction of the new RW sword, as well as Batterskull, will only make the Stoneforge Mystic decks better, and Jace is still as powerful as ever.  If you are planning on playing standard in the near future, I have a few suggestions for you.
1. Play UW Caw.  It is the best deck
2. Get fairly comfortable playing the deck.  It is certainly one of the more difficult decks to play in standard right now, and the mirror match is especially skill-intensive.  Kenta for instance was playing in his first event with the deck, and by the end of the day was fairly tired and made a few crucial mistakes in game 2 that allowed me to win.
3. Do something unexpected.  There is a lot of room to make small changes to decks right now, and a lot of people are working hard to beat stock UW Caw.  While I wouldn't recommend being Kurtis and trying to play some completely rogue deck, unexpected cards in your deck can lead to a lot of free wins when your opponent simply was not prepared to deal with something like the 2nd Sun Titan.


Lastly, I want to discuss briefly the topic of banning cards in standard.  As this article is already fairly long, I will save the full explanation for later in the week, but for now I'll just mention that I believe Stoneforge Mystic should probably be banned (I find it unlikely that it will be, but it should).  Removing Stoneforge from the current standard still allows for Jace control decks to be a reasonable part of the format, and opens up room for a lot of other decks to become viable options.  For as long as I've been playing standard competitively, the only other card I've felt has been worthy of a ban is Bloodbraid Elf, and while Stoneforge may not be as un-fun as the elf, its complete dominance over the standard format has in my mind made it worth of being banned.

Until next time, keep grinding and remember: Never give up, trust your instincts.