So, there are two big Standard tournaments coming up to Dallas, which is driving distance for me. However, I can’t actually make it to the Star City Open, but I will definitely be making the trip up for GP Dallas. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much Standard around here lately, so I was happy to have Montag’s back to Type 2 for the second week in a row. Last week I played an Esperfriends deck (Jace, Tezz, Gideon, Venser) that was a lot of fun but just could not hang well enough with fast aggro like the current crop of Boros decks.
So, this week I went with LSV’s SparkBlade. Here’s the list:
[deck title=SparkBlade]
[Creatures]
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Cunning Sparkmage
[/Creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Gideon Jura
[/Planeswalkers]
[Spells]
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Preordain
1 Basilisk Collar
3 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
2 Arc Trail
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Tumble Magnet
[/Spells]
[Land]
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Island
1 Terramorphic Expanse
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Flashfreeze
2 Mana Leak
2 Pyroclasm
2 Twisted Image
1 Deprive
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Inferno Titan
1 Hammer of Ruin
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
It’s a really interesting deck, with no Day of Judgment main, instead relying on the Sparkmage-Collar combination for creature control.
Turnout at Montag’s was again somewhat disappointing, so four rounds of Swiss cutting to top 4.
Round 1: Daniel, playing Boros
I’d played Daniel numerous time before. Decent player always armed with a quality deck. He won the die roll and played a turn 2 Stoneforge off a Plains and a Scalding Tarn into a Mountain. I didn’t know if I was facing the mirror or Boros. His next play was a Mirran Crusader so that answered the question. However, I had a Collared Sparkmage, and then got into Gideon and took it, though it took a while to get there. Game 2 I don’t remember quite as well. He had trouble getting double white which let me get set up despite his early Goblin Guide. I think if an aggro deck is going to win this matchup, it has to win early.
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2: Andrew, playing Kuldotha Red
I’ve played Andrew once or twice before; nice guy. He kept a one-lander and generated a turn 1 Goblin Guide and a turn 2 Kuldotha Rebirth. However, I had a Bolt for the Guide, got a Sparkmage on my turn 3, and got Jace on turn 4 and bounced a token. The Sparkmage kept him off much, and the land screw made it impossible to recover. Game 2 I mulliganed down to 5, but recovered those lost cards when I managed to kill both an Ornithopter and a Signal Pest with Twisted Image. That actually got me ahead on cards, and I got Gideon to connect while wearing the Collar, which was a nice 12-point life swing, and that carried the game.
2-0 matches, 4-0 games
Round 3: Carlos, playing G/r Elves
Carlos is a regular and we’ve played many times. This is a pretty normal deck for Carlos. He had turn 1 Birds of Paradise and turn 2 Nissa’s Chosen followed by a Nissa Revane into another Chosen. I double Arc Trailed to kill Nissa and the Bird, but he followed that up with another Nissa, and I died to a swarm of Chosens. Game 2 I managed to get Jace on turn 4, Gideon on turn 5, and an Inferno Titan on turn 6, so that one went well. Game 3 I didn’t see early permission and he stuck a Chandra Nalaar, which is pretty effective against Squadron Hawks and the like. I never managed to get anything going after that, and Carlos took it. I did board in all four of the Flashfreezes, but the only one I drew in either of the games was after Chandra had already hit the board in game 3. Oh well.
2-1 matches, 5-2 games
Round 4: Loke, playing WW
This is a really bad matchup for Loke, and I managed a collared Sparkmage into one game and a Feast and Famine equipped Hawk with Jace out in the other game. These weren’t really competitive.
3-1 matches, 7-2 games
Semis: Joe, playing UW CawBlade
Joe and I play each other rather a lot, it seems. I won the die roll. On his turn 3 he tapped two for a Hawk, leaving a blue open. I tried a Jace, and he did have the Spell Pierce. He got a Stoneforge Mystic before I did, and Joe got ahead with the latest Sword. Game 2 I had my Sword of Body and Mind in my opening hand as well as a Stoneforge. I cast my Stoneforge on turn 2 and fetched the other Sword, which I put down with the Mystic’s activated ability. Joe took care of it with a Divine Offering, but I came back with the the blue-green blade. I got through with the equipped Mystic multiple times and milled out all of his relevant removal. Game 3 was an epic battle. Drawn out, slow playing around each other’s counters. The key for me was getting down a collared Sparkmage, and then a Jace. I only had two Hawks and the shaman, so I was killing him very, very slowly, but I started fatesealing with Jace to try to keep him off Day of Judgment, even though I had the other two Hawks in my hand, which I didn’t play out just in case. He got Elspeth, which took me a long time to kill. After that he got a Sword and kept drawing Colonnades, which meant I had to keep killing them rather than shooting Joe. I was, however, able to keep Joe off of Day, and eventually my three damage per turn got there, two turns before I would have been able to go ultimate with Jace anyway.
4-1 matches, 9-3 games
Carlos also made it to the finals, but it was getting late and since we had already played, we decided to split.
So, a small FNM isn’t exactly a huge test, but the deck is quite impressive. It has terrific game against aggro and I think the red definitely gives it the edge in the mirror. I have to say that I was pretty unimpressed with the Tumble Magnet when I drew it, and Gideon was always great. I think next time I play it I’d consider swapping the Magnet for either a third Gideon Jura or a Sun Titan. I might also even consider Chandra Nalaar in the sideboard for the mirror; it’s quite a problem. I liked the threat of Hammer of Ruin, though, and it’s more reusable than a Divine Offering. On the down side, the lack of Day makes it seem a bit soft to Elves, and I can’t imagine, without either Spreading Seas or Tectonic Edge, that it has a great matchup with Valakut, even with the Flashfreezes. So how viable it is in April for GP Dallas will depend on how the metagame shapes up.