Nationals Standard portion and Top 8 part 1

The preparation:
Let me start this out by saying that I did not know what deck to play. I was trying out all the decks from recently concluded Nationals from other countries and did not like any of them. Although practice was not an issue because we proxied these decks just to see how they play out, acquisition time for cards was running out. Stillmoon Cavaliers were soaring to Php 400 each, Hallowed Burials were nowhere to be found, Kithkin uncommons were selling like hotcakes, and the elves components like Regal Force and Primal Command were in very minimal quantities that it became impossible to get 4 of them.

I built a proxy Faeries and BR Iyanaga deck and played with our store tambays the whole week. The BR deck seemed really nice but I can't help but question a few card choices. This is when I talked to Ogie Jaro, our team's aggro specialist.

Ogie: "Isa lang naman tatandaan mo pag deck ng hapon e"
JT: "Ano?"
Ogie: "Wag ka na magtanong, sumunod ka nalang kasi tama na yung gawa nila"

So BR it is! Easy on the brain very little cards needed to complete. I was really gravitating towards the BR deck up until Lloyd Tan showed up Thursday and made short work of the deck with his homebrew RG deck that bore resemblance to Jund. He sent me back to the drawing board.

Edsel Alvarez sent me a text message Friday morning saying that he found Hallowed Burials and Cascade Bluffs lying around his house. Was that a sign? I called him up, picked up the cards, and built Shuuhei Nakamura's 5-color control deck. I changed a total of 6 cards in the deck. I took out the 3rd Cruel Ultimatum for a copy of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. For some reason, I also did not like having Broodmate Dragons in the deck and replaced all 3 with Baneslayer Angels. The last change that I made was to take out the Identity Crisis from the sideboard to make way for 2 Ethersworn Canonists.

My final list:

2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Exotic Orchard
3 Island
2 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Sunken Ruins
2 Vivid Crag
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Meadow

3 Baneslayer Angel
3 Mulldrifter
3 Plumeveil

2 Agony Warp
3 Broken Ambitions
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
4 Cryptic Command
1 Doom Blade
4 Esper Charm
1 Essence Scatter
3 Hallowed Burial
4 Volcanic Fallout

2 Deathmark
1 Essence Scatter
4 Great Sable Stag
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Liliana Vess
1 Pithing Needle
2 Puppeteer Clique
2 Runed Halo

My 1st opponent in standard was Mark Arriola who was playing a deck which I thought was 5-color control. In the 1st game, he dropped a Great Sable Stag on his 4th turn. I was thinking; "Maindeck Sable Stags in 5cc... why didn't I think of that? That was awesome.". The stag prompted me to play Hallowed Burial, a 1-for-1 exchange which I think made Mark very happy. As the game went on, I noticed that he was not playing 5cc, he was playing Jund control. My strategy became a lot simpler; use Esper Charms to make him discard, bait a creature for him to kill, and then use Cruel Ultimatums to get the creature back and make him discard more. Strategy worked like a charm and I won the match 2-0.

My next opponent was Mark Joven; a familiar face in the store and a veteran Faeries player. He dropped vivid land after vivid land during his turns which made me think; "What happened to the fae deck that you have been practicing for weeks?". His team apparently had a cardpool problem that prompted him to switch decks. His lack of practice playing the deck was obvious. You see, in control mirrors, the 1st player to make a move will most likely end up losing. It does not matter if you resolve a Cruel Ultimatum on that 1st move, if you make that 1st move, you will probably lose. Control players would prefer to discard a card on their end step rather than make a move 1st. With this in mind, we can conclude that not missing land drops is the key to this matchup. Mark was a bit unlucky during the 1st game as he missed one too many land drops. I was at 18 lands vs his that were only a little over 10. With the mana advantage, I was able to play non-evoked Mulldrifters which were able to go the distance. In the second game, the big turning point was when I decided to tap-out as bait so that he could play Cruel Ultimatum without fear of it being countered, and he did. Since he was now tapped out, I dropped a Nicol Bolas on the board which stayed there until my opponent scooped.

I found myself playing against a bad matchup in the 3rd round. It was Adan Mate, playing his own take of BR. His build was so quick that it made very short work of me in the 1st game. I could not even remember the sequence of plays that transpired, all I could remember was me praying that I draw my Baneslayer Angels. I managed to steal a win on the 2nd game using Mulldrifters (of all things). The 3rd game was once again very quick. The game ended with me at 3 life and having 7 mana and Cruel Ultimatum as my only spell. He was at a healthy life total with a Figure of Destiny in play and a card in hand. I had no choice but to play the ultimatum. His last card turned out to be a Flame Javelin that hit me in the dome when I tapped out.

2-1, quota reached and ready to draft.