August 1st Friday Night Magic Recap

This past Friday at Dave and Adams, we had our largest Friday Night Magic yet with a whopping 146 players! Our 2 Champions had to work hard to earn their undefeated records as they each had to battle through over a hundred other participants to earn their first place standings. First up, we have Steven Browne, who sliced through the competition to earn a First Place title in our Standard event.

Steven earned his 4-0 record running the Mono-Black Devotion list seen here:

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Desecration Demon
4 Pack Rat
4 Lifebane Zombie

4 Thoughtseize
4 Underworld Connections
4 Bile Blight
4 Hero’s Downfall
1 Duress
1 Ultimate Price
1 Sign in Blood

21 Swamp
4 Mutavault

Sideboard:
3 Doom Blade
3 Duress
2 Pharika’s cure
2 Drown in Sorrow
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Perilous Vault
1 Liliana Vess
1 Whip of Erebos

The deck plays a ton of cards with Black mana intensive costs and uses Gray Merchant of Asphodel to take giant chucks of life away from the opponent.

Blaine: There’s not a ton you can change with Mono-Black Devotion but are there any changes you’d make to the list for next week?

Steven: Yes, I cut the Perilous Vault from the side for a Pithing Needle, and also cut a Bile Blight for another Ultimate Price. Bile Blight is good, but I needed more answers to Stormbreath and Polukranos. Perilous Vault was also drastically under-performing, and Pithing Needle will help with with control and more planeswalker oriented builds.

Blaine: So do you think you’re going to stick with this deck for standard or do you think you’ll change decks for events in the future?

Steven: I’ll definitely be sticking with this deck. I’ve played it since its inception, and it’s the deck I feel most comfortable with. Knowing your deck is a large portion of the games in this standard format currently.

Our Second champion, Jason Arnold battled his way through the tons of other players to become Champion of our Modern with his Mono-White Soul Sisters deck seen here:

Creature:
3x Soul’s Attendant
4x Soul Warden
2x Auriok Champion
2x Ranger of Eos
4x Martyr of Sands
4x Serra Ascendant
4x Ajani’s Pridemate
4x Squadron Hawk

Instant/Sorcery:
4x Spectral Procession
3x Path to Exile
3x Brave the Elements
1x Proclamation of Rebirth

Enchantment:
4x Honor of the Pure

Land:
3x Ghost Quarter
3x Flagstones of Trokair
12x Plains

Sideboard:
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of War and Peace
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
4x Eidolon of Rhetoric
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Relic of Progenetus
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x (something else that I cannot remember, and probably never used)

This deck uses Martyr of Sands, Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant to gain a ton of life while attacking the opponent with hordes of small creatures enhanced with honor of the pure or +1/+1 counters.

Blaine: This deck seems pretty annoying for aggressive strategies. What are your decks best and worst match-ups?

Jason: Good against almost anything that’s going to try to win by reducing my life total to zero… bad against infect and anything that can easily do 30+ damage before turn 4 or so… Also apparently very bad against Ensnaring Bridge…

Blaine: Were any cards better or worse than you thought and what changes would you make if you were to play this deck again?

Jason: The swords were all pretty much useless in the sideboard… I never felt like I needed them… I’d probably take them out for Celestial Flares, or something else to deal with fast attackers… I was also a little underwhelmed by Pridemate… but I don’t think I could realistically cut any of them, just because of the insanely high damage potential…

Blaine: Finally, do you think you’re going to stick with this deck or switch it out for another one this Friday?

Jason: I try to play a different deck every week… If I’m in Modern I have no idea what I’ll play… maybe boggles… if I’m in standard, I hope everyone is ready for Tribal Squids!! But in all seriousness, it most likely won’t be a deck I play terribly often.

Both of these players deserve a big congratulations for earning their 4-0 first place finishes this past Friday. This past Friday we had our largest event to date but we don’t want to stop there! If we are able to get 150 or more players this Friday, we will add even more prizes to the raffle and increase the prize payout of all 4-0 finishers! We hope to see all of you this Friday at 6:30 for another of our amazing Friday Night Magic Events and this Friday for our Standard Magic 2015 Game Day event Saturday at noon!