Hi all! It’s been a while since I’ve written for the site. I was initially brought on as a writer to cover Epic TCG, but the game has unfortunately been in a state of decline. Honestly, it’s quite a shame, as the game was extremely fun and skill-intensive, but the company was not bringing in enough players or revenue to continue full-scale production, as the TCG business is a crowded and competitive one. The game is not completely dead, so when the next set comes out I’ll be sure to play it and write about it.

That said, I still am an avid fan of Magic, and was recently able to attend Grand Prix: DC (which was actually located in Chantilly, Virginia). Despite a few bad beats leading me to miss day 2, I would still like to chronicle my matches and share what I learned.

I made the eight hour drive from Troy, New York to the tournament site with my roommate Alec, his brother Bill, and Bill’s friend Adrian, who was judging at the event. Alec and I stayed at Bill’s place in Massachusetts on Thursday night in order to get some testing in. Despite Alec and Bill gaming until 4 AM, Bill was still undecided on a deck, and Alec was uncomfortable but settling with Mythic Conscription. I simply tested Devastating Red some more by running it through 2-man queues on Magic Online, as I was set on playing the deck once I found the right sideboard. I had tested Jund, Polymorph, and UW control, but I felt that Polymorph was too weak and Jund was not well positioned. I felt that UW control was the strongest deck if built and played optimally, but in a Grand Prix, a draw on day 1 is essentially the same as a loss, and a single draw would screw you over in an endless slew of control mirrors, not to mention the increased mental taxation.

We wanted to leave at 11AM on Friday morning in order to get down to the site on time. Unfortunately, unknown to Bill, roof work was scheduled for that morning, so we were unable to get much more than four hours of sleep before relentless pounding overhead kept us up.

The drive up was pretty uneventful, other than my first stop at a Wawa for lunch. I managed to get about an hour or two of sleep during the drive, which was less than I was hoping for but still something.

We arrived at the hotel around 8PM and quickly checked in. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a rooming issue. Bill had initially booked two hotel rooms, since he thought more of his friends were counting on us for a room, but they ended up backing out. Bill had then asked Alec to find replacement people, but they were all unable to come, so Bill ended up cancelling the second room. However, it turns out that two people Alec had called came through, so were stuck with six people and one room. It was far too late to get another room back at the same rate we had originally, so Alec’s friends Jim and Aaron ended up sleeping on the floor on Friday night.

When the room situation was sorted out and we arrived at the tournament site, we met up with our friend Jared who was there with a few other friends. We also met up with some more of Bill’s friends, and had enough to do a casual Rise draft. I drafted a pretty sick UW leveler deck with Training Grounds, Time of Heroes, and eight solid level-up creatures, but I was severely mana-screwed in all 3 games against Adrian’s defender deck in round two, so his Vent Sentinels got me.

Saturday morning we woke up around 8:30 AM and took a little bit longer to shower and eat than we wanted to, so we were a bit rushed to get to the site. Despite the Hampton Inn only being about five minutes from the tournament site, we headed in the wrong direction at first, since our navigator, Adrian, had left earlier to be with the judges. Jim and Aaron still had to register, but luckily they made it just in time. Unfortunately, there were no promo Umezawa’s Jittes left for them, as the main event drew over 1,900 players.

I had no byes for this event, as my rating was a bit short and the best I managed to get in a Trial was 2nd, meaning that Day 1 would be a 9-round grind. I was happy to be playing Mono-Red, as I was comfortable with the deck, but also because I was certain to have 20-30 minutes left after each round to relax, eat, etc.

Here is the list I registered:

I was very comfortable with the maindeck, but I wished that I had more time to work on the sideboard. Most Mono-Red decks were boarding terrible cards like Dragon’s Claw and Mark of Mutiny, which don’t actually do anything. The black allowed me to feel very comfortable with my Mythic matchup, as 7 cards that could kill Baneslayers, Kor Firewalkers, and Rhox War Monks made the matchup very easy. The 3 Duress were for the UW matchup. I did not have any time to test if this was actually good, but I figured that nabbing their Day of Judgment, or at least knowing if I could go for the Summons combo, should be pretty decent. The Ruinblasters were for the Jund matchup, which I assumed should be easy enough to win since Mono Red was initially created to beat Jund. I should have tested against Jund more than I did though, as it was actually much closer than I gave it credit for. The miser’s Earthquake was a last minute addition that I was very happy with, and I actually would have loved access to more, as I’ll describe later.

Some may notice two cards that I did not include in my 75: most notably Blightning in the maindeck and Manabarbs in the sideboard. I believe I was correct to omit Blightning, as this deck packs a hard enough punch that Blightning is essentially just a 3 mana Lava Spike, since they won’t even have time to play the cards they discarded. I also can’t stand the thought of Goblin Guide and Blightning in the same deck. As far as Manabarbs, it is only really good against the control decks. Since I didn’t expect much Grixis, the only deck it would come in against is UW-based control decks. These decks pack enough life gain in the form of Baneslayer, Kor Firewalker, and Ajani Vengeant that I did not want to risk locking myself out of a game, especially when it costs 4 mana and there’s not much I would want to cut for it. I will discuss my generic sideboarding plans at the end, as well as what I would change about them.

Anyway, onto the rounds!

Round 1:

Round 1 I played against a young fellow named Ali piloting Jund. Game 1 involved me winning the roll and opening up a double Goblin Guide hand, which is extremely hard for Jund to come back from. However, he had enough Thrinaxes and Leeches, and I didn’t have much follow-up pressure, that he could have won the game. However, he decided to get aggressive with his Leech, putting himself to 6, and I was able to burn him out. In game two I was able to out-tempo him with the help of Goblin Ruinblaster, and he died before getting me below 15.

Matches (1-0) Games (2-0)

Round 2:

This round I played against a less young guy named Darrin, who I guessed was playing Mono-Red. This led me to keep my burn-heavy hand, and after leading with a Mountain I was proven correct when he mirrored my play and attacked with Goblin Guide. He got me to 12 with his Goblin Guide, but I was able to keep his other threats under control until I played Summons + Bushwhacker to get him from 18 to 6, and one more draw step was enough for him to scoop. In game 2, we traded threats and attacks, putting me at 5 life and him at 6, both with no burn or creatures left. I managed to topdeck a Kargan Dragonlord with 6 lands in play, which was enough to seal the match.

After the match, I commented at how random the mirror seemed, and that it mostly came down to who drew Devastating Summons (other than the die roll). I wasn’t entirely sure, but I seemed to gather that he might not even be playing Summons, which is certainly a mistake.

Matches (2-0) Games (4-0)

Round 3:

I was feeling pretty good at this point, not having dropped a game. This round I was paired against Will, also having had 0 byes. Unfortunately, this round is where things took their first turn for the worse for me. To start, I lost the roll, and then when he played a first-turn Hierarch I found myself looking at a hand without any 1-mana burn spells. On the draw against Naya or Mythic, it is very hard to win without killing their mana accelerant. On his turn two, he had the nut draw of Lotus Cobra into fetchland into 4/4 Knight of the Reliquary, and my hand full of 2-mana spells was much too slow to get back in the game.

After sideboarding for game two, we were randomly selected to be deck checked, which I found to be quite odd. I wasn’t at all worried, but when they came back they informed me that some of my sleeves were dinged or different on the top somehow, so I got a warning for marked cards. They let me play out the rest of the round with those sleeves, but unfortunately I had to buy overpriced new sleeves from the dealers afterwards.

In game two I boarded in my singleton Earthquake, as well as a bunch of black removal, pulling out the Goblin Guides. He managed to draw his lone Behemoth Sledge, which meant trouble when paired with all of his small critters. I didn’t have the best draw, but this is also the one game where I know I played terribly. I may have been somewhat distracted by the turn of events, but that is still no excuse for the way I wasted removal when I could have baited my Naya opponent into overextending into my Earthquake. Still, it is unlikely that I would have been able to pull the match out with such a creature-light draw. Despite the loss, it could have been worse, as Will seemed like a pretty nice guy.

Matches (2-1) Games (4-2)

Round 4:

Next up was Anthony playing UW control. He seemed like a bit of a poor sport, so I made sure to play tightly with regards to technical play. Game 1 the only notes I have are our life totals, where mine fell to 19 from a fetchland, and his gradually fell until I was able to burn him out through his turn 5 Baneslayer Angel. I boarded in 4 Doom Blades for his Baneslayers, as well as any Firewalkers he happened to have. I didn’t board more than 4 black removal spells, since most straight UW control decks tend to board Celestial Purge instead of Firewalker, since they play so many wrath effects.

In game two he was on the play, and his Elspeth combined with Baneslayer Angel was more than enough to demolish me when I couldn’t find an answer. I managed to learn that he was packing Celestial Purge and Negate.

In game three I pitched my opener for a 6 card hand containing my Summons and Bushwhacker combo. I got him to 14 through Lightning Bolts at the end of turn 2. On my turn 3, I decided to go for the Bushwhacker combo, sacrificing all three of my lands. Even though he had tapped out for Everflowing Chalice, meaning that he could potentially cast Day of Judgment next turn, this play helped me get him to just 4 life around Negate and possibly Deprive. Also, his second land was a Tectonic Edge, leading me to believe that he may not have a second white source. Even if he did have another white source as well as the Day of Judgment, I had a Lightning Bolt in hand, so I would just need to find another land and a source of damage before he could gain more life.

It was at this point of the game where he tried to shark me with rules lawyering. I tapped my three Mountains, and then cast Devastating Summons, putting my three lands in the yard. I then cast Goblin Bushwhacker with kicker, and he decided to raise his hand to call a judge on me for not announcing that I was floating mana. I pointed out that I had in fact tapped my three Mountains, and that it is incredibly obvious that I would not make such an incredible blunder. He was obviously tilting from his impending loss, and decided not to call a judge over. I talked to my judge friend Adrian afterwards, and he said that I was correct in my play, but that the judge probably would have just politely asked me to announce the floating of mana in the future just to avoid confusion.

As it turns out I was right about his mana predicament, and though he could Purge one of the Elementals, the other plus the Bushwhacker were enough to get him.

Matches (3-1) Games (6-3)

Round 5:

Next up was another mirror match, piloted by Charles Zhuang. In game one I managed to draw a ton of fetchlands, and simply kept them in play until I could drop a Geopede. He had to waste two burn spells on it, and was unable to deal with my remaining creatures. In game two I simply played Devastating Summons to make two 6/6 elementals, with no Bushwhacker. He had to double burn one of them, but he was completely out of resources to deal with the other one.

Since we had so much time left, Charles asked me to play some more games just for fun. I accepted after grabbing a hot dog, since we had so much time left. In our third game, he drew double Dragon’s Claw, which did quite a bit of work. I still think that Dragon’s Claw is a terrible card, since it doesn’t actually do anything. It does make the potential for the Summons/Bushwhacker combo less potent, but in the end it still comes down to who draws the last unanswered threat. I also found out that he wasn’t running Kiln Fiend, which I also think is a mistake, since it represents so much power, and serves as another Plated Geopede in some matchups (IE, a single creature that can deal the full 20 damage while the rest of your mana is spent burning blockers).

Matches (4-1) Games (8-3)

At 4-1, I only had to go 3-1 to make day 2. I knew that if I won this next round my chances were very good.

Round 6:

I was disappointed to lose the die roll against Brandon, a young and competent Jund player. In game one, I kept a hand that was poorly positioned against his double Leech draw. He also caught me off-guard with a game one Goblin Ruinblaster, which kept me off of more than 3 mana since I had drawn one of my eight nonbasics. His follow-up Siege-Gang Commander was too much for me to deal with.

In game two my Goblin Guide was nice enough to provide him with 3 extra lands, making it very easy for him to cast his Putrid Leech. I cracked a fetchland at the end of his second turn to play Searing Blaze on it. He chose to pay 2 life to keep it alive, and on my third turn I repeated the Lava Axe. I was able to get him to 2 life by using all the cards in my hand before he stabilized, and I managed to topdeck a Burst Lightning before he could kill me.

Game three saw me cast Searing Blaze on his turn two Leech again, which he allowed to die this time. On turn three, I had the Summons/Bushwhacker combo, putting him to 4 life. I was feeling good about this game, since my follow-up attack put him to 1 life, and I had a Lightning Bolt in hand. Unfortunately, despite my 4 additional draw steps, I was never able to find that land I needed, and his double Bloodbraid Elves put on enough pressure to kill me.

Matches (4-2) Games (9-5)

Round 7:

Next up was Adam playing the Plated Geopede version of Jund, which I was able to determine from his first turn Terramorphic Expanse into a Mountain. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get anything going through his removal, and the Geopede and Putrid Leech he played were enough to out-tempo me.

In game two all I needed was a Plated Geopede with 4 fetchlands and a hand full of creature removal.

In game three my seven card hand was Scalding Tarn, Goblin Guide, Bushwhacker, and four 2-mana spells. I chose to pitch this for a hand that unfortunately contained 2 Goblin Ruinblasters. I elected to keep this instead of going to 5, where even with a nice hand I would lose to a single Blightning. If he had a slow start my Ruinblasters should be able to do the job. Unfortunately, his draw was solid, and my hand was too slow to have enough impact. In hindsight, I think I should have boarded out at least some of the Ruinblasters while on the draw.

Matches (4-3) Games (10-7)

I was very disheartened to go from 4-1 to being out of contention for day 2. I decided to stay in the tournament, since I still had friends playing, and I was confident enough in my deck that I thought I could pick up some more rating, as well as valuable experience.

Round 8:

Now that I was in the bracket with players who were out of contention, the competition was a little less fierce. My opponent, Bruce, was an older man who seemed to be there more for the fun of it than anything else. After shuffling and cutting, he held up his deck to me, revealing the bottom card and asking if it was right side up. I found this odd (and I wasn’t sure if it was legal, but decided it wasn’t a big enough deal to matter). Unfortunately for him, the revealed card was Sprouting Thrinax, meaning I knew he was Jund. He also neglected to shuffle my deck upon presentation, which I knew was not technically correct, but I went with it since he was clearly just playing for fun, and I knew that my deck was sufficiently randomized.

The games were easy enough, as I won the roll and killed him on turn 4 with the combo in game 1, and got him with an average draw and a Ruinblaster followed by burn in game 2.

Matches (5-3) Games (12-7)

Round 9:

Round 9 I was feeling confident against Norman playing Naya Allies. Despite his good start in game 1, including a Talus Paladin that I did not have a Bolt for, I managed to kill him while I was at 3 life. He certainly should have won this game, but I used some facial expressions and card movements to bluff him into blocking my Geopede with his Kabira Evangel, which would have left me helpless to his unblockable damage on the following turn. (I knew that I was dead on board, since he accidently dropped his last card in hand which was an Ally to trigger the Protection from Red ability).

I felt fairly well positioned to win the match, since I was boarding in the full seven Black removal spells as well as the Earthquake. I believe that I took out the Goblin Guides and the Burst Lightnings, though it may have been Searing Blaze on the draw. I expected him to be able to gain life with Firewalkers and Ondu Cleric, so I was going to use my stronger creatures to get there while overloading on removal. This is the same strategy that I used to destroy Allies when I used to play Jund. The Black removal would take care of any growing Ally that got out of hand, as well as being plenty of outs to potential Firewalkers.
In game 2 things were going according to plan, but then he plopped down a Firewalker, so my offence was halted until I finally drew one of my sideboard cards. I managed to get very far ahead, and had the next removal spell ready for his second Firewalker. I had him at no cards in hand and just four lands, but he topdecked a Ranger of Eos, getting him two Hada Freeblades. He had to chump block a bit, and eventually I attacked him down to just 5 life with a commanding board position. I was at 14 life and he had just 5 power on the board, but he managed to topdeck again, this time Bloodbraid Elf into Akoum Battlesinger, which happened to give him 14 power on the board to kill me. It is possible that if I was more familiar against this deck I could have left back a blocker in anticipation of such a play, but that sequence of events of so unlikely that I couldn’t really blame myself.

In game three we were playing fair: he would play guys and I would kill them. He stuck an Ondu Cleric which I didn’t bother to deal with, as my plan was to stick a massive Dragonlord while keeping myself alive against his threats. Unfortunately, he managed to draw exactly the 4 lands he needed again, and then draw spells the rest of the game. I was at 3 life and forced to leave my creatures on defense, since his Ondu Cleric kept him at 11. Eventually, he was behind again with no cards in hand, as I had started attacking with a Geopede. Of course, he managed to topdeck a Bloodbraid Elf, this time cascading into a Kor Firewalker. Unfortunately, I had had to waste my Deathmark on a 5/5 Kazandu Blademaster, so I had only a little bit of time to find an answer to the Firewalker (or find a way to kill him). Unfortunately, his deck served him well, and he drew yet another Bloodbraid Elf, which was enough to snatch the match from me.

Matches (5-4) Games (13-9)

Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed to lose that last match. 6-3 feels so much better than 5-4, even if neither makes day 2. I felt that I was a bit more unfortunate than fortunate on the day. However, even though I felt that my play was mostly strong, my weakness was in sideboarding. I didn’t learn until too late that Goblin Ruinblaster should come out on the draw against Jund. I think it also would have been correct to sideboard out the Bushwhacker/Summons combo more often, as this allows room for all the sideboard cards against the G/W/x decks where I play pseudo-control with just 1 or 2 strong creatures necessary to win the game.

I also felt a bit unfortunate to not get paired up against Mythic (Bant) at all, as this was the matchup I was most prepared for, and slaughtering in testing. I did win my Mono-Red mirrors though, so I probably can’t complain too much.

Before closing, I’d like to present the changes I’d make to the sideboard, as well as I how I would board against most of the major decks.




Against Jund:

(On the play):
+2 Goblin Ruinblaster
+2 Earthquake
-4 Burst Lightning

(On the draw):
+2 Earthquake
-2 Burst Lightning

The Earthquakes are for the very annoying Sprouting Thrinax. Ruinblaster is not as good as I thought it was, as it does not accomplish anything on the draw, and is much weaker against the Geopede Jund version, which runs more basic lands.

Against UW(x) Control:

This matchup is tricky, as there are many different versions.
I will almost always start with:
+4 Doom Blade
+ 3 Duress
-4 Searing Blaze

Searing Blaze rarely has targets other than an Elspeth token, which is pretty bad. If you find that they have access to 7 or more Baneslayers/Firewalkers, some Deathmarks come in. If they have access to countermagic, it may be worth it to board out the Summons combo, at least on the draw, though I haven’t tested this. I still have yet to cast Duress against them, but it seems solid. If you do not want to board out the combo, Burst Lightning is your weakest card after Searing Blaze, as it cannot kill Jace.

Against Mythic

+4 Doom Blade
+3 Deathmark
-4 Goblin Guide
-3 Burst Lightning (on the play) or -3 Searing Blaze (on the draw)

This matchup is where the 7 black removal spells shine, as you need to kill Firewalkers, Knight of the Reliquary (you must kill this before they untap with it), Baneslayers, and Rhox War Monk. This may sound like a lot, which is why it is important to use your 1-mana burn spells on their mana accelerants (Hierarch, Birds, and Lotus Cobra). Without the mana accel, they will struggle to keep up with the speed of your Kiln Fiends or Geopedes. If the game seems to be lost, a Kargan Dragonlord can single-handedly win it for you, as Baneslayer does not have protection from it, and they have little to no removal.
It may be correct to board out the Summons combo in this matchup, which lets you bring in Earthquake, but I have not tested this yet, and have had plenty of success anyway.

Against Naya:

I mistakenly assumed that this matchup would nearly identical to the mythic matchup. While it is true that you still need to kill their Noble Hierarchs and Lotus Cobras, they have a lot more resilience in Ranger of Eos and Bloodbraid Elf. This matchup is where I wanted more Earthquakes, as it helps keep them off abusing their Behemoth Sledge with random dorks that you can’t waste removal on. I believe that Goblin Guide comes out in this matchup too, as it gets outclassed much too fast. It is also important to be careful with Geopedes, as they have Cunning Sparkmage.

+3 Deathmark
+3 Earthquake
-4 Goblin Guide
-2 Kiln Fiend

This plan is largely experimental. The amount of black removal you want again depends on how many Firewalkers they play, though it’s also nice to have outs to Knight of the Reliquary. I suggest boarding out Kiln Fiends, since Earthquake (for 2 or more) is so important, and they have so many random small guys that can block it.

Since nobody in our car made day two of the tournament (Alec should not have played Mythic, and Bill got too many draws with his Emeria, the Sky Ruin control deck), we slept in on Sunday morning and meandered over to the tournaments site in time for Bill to play in the Legacy side event. We had to stay until 6 since Adrian was still judging, so Alec and I spent our time watching the end of the GP and perusing the dealer tables, since neither of us wanted to do an $18 draft. We also took an amusingly long adventure for food (despite the fact that we passed literally every possible food option on the way) that ended with us finding some delicious Sicilian pizza.

Overall, I still believe that Mono-Red with a Black sideboard is one of the strongest choices in Standard. There isn’t a single matchup where I feel like a complete dog, and even if your opponent has an amazing draw against you, you can still just nut-draw them and they die on turn 3 before casting anything. It’s arguably the most powerful deck, and definitely the fastest. I plan to continue playing it online, and if I keep getting the positive results I have been getting, or even better, I may write another article on it with revised sideboarding plans. Now that it’s summer and I have more time to play Magic Online, keep on the lookout for my upcoming Rise of the Eldrazi “Drafting with Mike” series.

Until next time!

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Is Mike spot on with his Sideboard plan, or is he all wet? Give him the word in the forums!

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