Cast a Shadow

Modern Argy

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1st Place at WNM 6-2-0 —May 24, 2017

This is the first time I've won a tournament in a while.

I have put a lot of thought into this deck lately, and have changed it back to how it was after the last rotation. I had changed it to face off against a couple of decks that are rarely played, and that weakened it.

I chose to play this tonight, anticipating that there would be some yuuya-wantanabes-temur-marvel-2-pt-akh and 1-black-zombies decks played, as the meta at our WNM is full of competitive players.

That was absolutely the right choice, as this deck was well-matched against most of my Opponents.

0-2 Control

This is a tough match up for this deck, and I got handily taken care of in Game 1.

A lot of my cards don't do much against the Torrential Gearhulk which hit the field on Turn 6.

I Sided badly, tossing Fatal Push.

That meant that I was left with only Murder to address the lone Wandering Fumarole, which attacked me until I was on 0 life.

I have updated my Sideboard notes to reflect what I should have changed my deck to.

2-0 Angelic High

This is my partner's deck, and we've played enough against each other to know that mine is stronger.

The matches were very uneven with me killing all his stuff, then hitting him with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and a Shambling Vent.

At one stage during one of our games he had two Always Watching and one Cast Out on the field, that was locking down my Ob Nixilis Reignited.

I played Cataclysmic Gearhulk and he chose to sac both the Always Watchings.

Since I now had a 4/5 with Vigilance, that meant that any other Creatures he brought out were unlikely to pose much of a threat.

2-0 1-mardu-vehicles

I got rid of a crewed Heart of Kiran right away with Fatal Push, then it was all downhill for my Opponent from there.

I was just able to slowly get rid of all his threats, then hit him with Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip until he was dead.

I tried not to look too closely as he was Sideboarding, as he had all his cards spread on the table in front of him. I couldn't help catching a glimpse of some lands.

I considered taking a punt and Siding in some cards that could act as Counter spell fodder, but in the end I decided not to Sideboard until the third game, once I'd seen what he had.

I also know that the Mainboard version of this deck is very strong.

In the second game I was having a bad draw. I was stuck on four lands for the longest time, despite casting four Harsh Scrutinies in a row.

Luckily I had Grasp of Darkness ready for Heart of Kiran, then Murder to dispatch Aethersphere Harvester.

I was able to hold on until I got out Ob Nixilis, which let me kill a Creature, and get some serious draw happening.

I was also able to get a Sorin, Grim Nemesis on the field to help get more cards in my hand.

I had an Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip out, but he had gone very wide. He had been able to bring my life down to 7. This meant that the Anguished Unmaking I had in hand was less tempting to cast.

I needed a bit of lifelink. I surveyed the field. I had Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and two Shambling Vents.

He had two Scrapheap Scroungers, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and two Thraben Inspectors.

I animated one of my Shambling Vents and attacked with it and Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip.

He blocked with Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and gleefully informed me that my Shambling Vent would die without gaining me any life, as Thalia had First Strike.

I said OK, and passed Turn.

At the start of his Upkeep I told him that Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip would now Transform into Avacyn, the Purifier  ^Flip, all his Creatures would be Exiled due to Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and I would get five 2/2 Zombies.

He conceded the match.

2-0 Control

Unbeknownst to me, I was now in the final.

This deck was unusual to see played on a Wednesday night. It seemed to be what was left of the deck that used to utilise Reflector Mage.

I was able to out-control it in the first game, whittling down all its Creatures and Counter spells until I had Ob Nixilis Reignited and Sorin, Grim Nemesis out.

My Opponent scooped. I was surprised because, as I pointed out to him, I didn't have any real win conditions on the field.

I had Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip in hand but he had two Declaration in Stone, so I didn't want to cast her. I know this because I had looked at his hand earlier with Harsh Scrutiny. That also meant he could have dispatched any Vampire Knights that Sorin made, with just one Declaration in Stone.

He said that he really didn't have any solid way to stop Ob Nixilis making his Emblem.

I thought about my Sideboard carefully. I was pretty sure that he would take out any spells like Essence Scatter, as it was clear that I didn't need my Creatures to win. In their stead I thought he would use Negate, against my Planeswalkers.

Well then, I thought, why don't I put in more Planeswalkers to run him out of Counter spells?

I took out three Anguished Unmaking, and put in Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

In hindsight I should have left those in and taken out Yahenni's Expertise. It's not as though I had needed a board wipe in the first game.

Anguished Unmaking would have let me dispatch the Gideon he got out.

I got a lot of hand disruption cards in hand early in the game.

I was able to leverage a Mausoleum Wanderer and a Spell Queller out of his hand.

He grabbed another Harsh Scrutiny with a second Spell Queller.

Next turn he was able to play Gideon, and made a 2/2 Knight.

I drew a Gideon myself next turn and also made a 2/2 Knight.

I'm not sure why he made his next play, as it was a bit of a game changer. He attacked my Gideon with both his Gideon, and his Knight. I chump blocked his Gideon, and lost two loyalty counters.

Next go I attacked and killed his Gideon with mine. His only blocker was tapped. I had Murder in hand, so I knew I could kill his lone Creature next go.

I started to notice that he had been sitting on four lands for a long time.

I kept attacking him with my Gideon each turn, and he kept just taking the damage.

I got another Harsh Scrutiny in hand, and cast it. He now had five lands on the field, two of which he tapped to Negate my spell.

I said to him, "You don't want me to see what you have in hand, but I want to," and I cast Transgress the Mind.

He had picked up an Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, and was finally sitting on five lands, but now two of them were tapped.

That was basically the end of the game. He told me he had been counting on Avacyn  ^Flip to help him stay in it.

I just kept hitting him with Gideon until I got him down to no life.

No more living for you.

If anyone gets that reference I will be mightily impressed.

As soon as our game finished everyone got overly excited, telling my Opponent that I had won.

I think they were all a bit dumbfounded.

The night ended in a four-way tie. I had the highest per game win percentage, which netted me first place. Been a while since I topped the board.

MVP of the night was Harsh Scrutiny.

It let me fix my draw, get knowledge of my Opponent's hand, and get rid of a threat.

It's a great card, and I'm surprised that more people aren't playing it.

I will be playing a tweaked version of this deck at Frontier on Sunday.

Cast a Shadow [Frontier]

It's very different meta, so I'll be interested to see how it goes.