Pioneer League 5-0
Everyone likes a nice 5-0 league on MTGO. Especially when it is your first league after putting a deck together, and you are on the draw first every match! Inspired by an AspiringSpike deck, some changes were made for my personal preferences as well as some budget alternatives.
See the decklist here.
Deck Overview
So this list was something I saw online, and since I enjoy playing BG midrange in Modern, I figured I could give it a spin. I was enticed by Invoke Despair and the black core of Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Graveyard Trespasser, along with the impactful Questing Beast. I could include more words about why Questing Beast is so good, but the card already has enough on its own. The key elements are coming down fast after a wrath, cleaning up planeswalkers, and dodging The Wandering Emperor.
Tireless Tracker and Vraska, Golgari Queen provide a good late-game engine and give you something to do with all your lands. The original list had 26 lands, but I felt like that was too many, so I went down to 24.5 (Hagra Mauling). Having a higher land count works well with the four main-deck Trackers, and Mauling serves double-duty as a removal spell for the creature matchups like Winota.
I cut Boseiju, as it was a little worse than a second forest (not fetchable off Fabled Passage and not a black source for Invoke), and trimmed a creature land. You could play all three Hive Of The Eye Tyrant, but I like Hissing Quagmire as it is both your colors, helps cast your Questing Beasts, and can block bigger creatures like a flipped Thing In The Ice. I played two in the league since they are 0.15 tix each instead of 15.5.
Cutting a land gave me an extra slot which let me play two Abrupt Decay and two Assassin's Trophy, instead of playing three of only one of them. Trophy is a good catch-all, and you’d be surprised how many decks won’t have a basic to fetch, or you’re killing a creature/utility land and aren’t ramping them anyway. Decay punches pretty hard against the spirits and Narset decks, and even various ward abilities like Graveyard Trespasser. It may be correct to play three Decay, one Trophy, and have the 2nd Trophy in the side, but Trophy plays well, hitting things you may have normally targeted with Boseiju. In this instance, giving them a basic is better than a non-basic.
Last but not least are Grim Flayer and Liliana, The Last Hope. Flayer is not fantastic and occasionally hard to cast on curve (the main downside of playing quagmire over hive). Still, I like it better than any of the other two-mana creatures I considered playing. Even casting Tenacious Underdog for its blitz cost and then sacrificing it to Vraska’s plus two to draw two cards and only lose one life is not as good in some matchups where you would rather clear three pieces of junk off the top. This spot is flexible if something better comes along. Liliana loves killing mana dorks and works well with Grim Flayer, helping with delirium or turning Flayer’s trash into treasure.
Sideboard
The sideboard is passable but can use some refining:
2 Duress
Swap for push when facing control or combo.
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
Should be Unlicensed Hearse, but I didn’t want to pay for them online. Bring them in whenever graveyards matter.
1 Abrupt Decay
Extra removal, very effective against spirits, although watch out for Aether Gust.
3 Damping Sphere
For Lotus Field combo, and maybe one in against Arclight Phoenix if you’re feeling spicy. This should probably be two Necromentia or something similar since Lotus decks have no issue destroying Sphere with a Boseiju.
2 Go Blank
A Mind Rot that exiles is a clean two-for-one that incidentally hates on graveyards. This makes it better than Push against control, good in the grindy midrange matchups, and might help against Phoenix. This can even clean out the hands of ramp/devotion players who play out their dorks and get a ton of mana only to have their finisher removed.
1 Sarulf, Realm Eater
A “fun-of” that I am carrying over from the Fight Rigging decks as a busted card against the sacrifice strategies that also plays well against creature decks as sweeper #3.
2 Crippling Fear
Hey, a bunch of our creatures are humans, isn’t that convenient? This deck needs a few sweepers for the decks like Winota, where one-for-one removal isn’t enough.
2 Kalitas, Traitor Of Ghet
More sacrifice hate. Kalitas is better than Questing Beast in the midrange mirrors and a big stabilizer against aggro.
Matches
MATCH #1:
Game one was a mull to six, facing Ketria Triome into Satyr Wayfinder, milling land, Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger, and Cavalier Of Thorns... very bizarre. They followed up with an Elvish Rejuvenator, so I pushed the Wayfinder and played Graveyard Trespasser, a fantastic creature if they were doing graveyard shenanigans. With a tapped land and pass from my opponent, I went to combat still unsure of what was going on and walked right into an Elder Deep-Fiend!
I was not expecting Emerge to be a deck, but Rejuvenator into turn four Deep-Fiend is pretty cool. A couple more Wayfinders insulated them from Invoke Despair, and they started chaining World Breakers until I lost.
Sideboard
In: +2 Go Blank
Out: -2 Abrupt Decay
Seemed like a pseudo-ramp deck that I could just overpower now that I know what’s going on.
Game two was a comprehensive win. Grim Flayer came down and started beating as Lili kept their emerge fodder off the board. Hagra Mauling on a World Breaker sealed the deal.
Game three was very similar. Hand disruption slowed them down, Lili killed their fodder, trophy killed a Cavalier, and Invoke dealing six sealed the deal.
MATCH #2:
Game one featured turn-one Thoughtseize revealing they were on Mono-Green Devotion. Turn-two Flayer into turn-three Tracker meant they conceded, despite casting Storm the Festival on turn five.
Sideboard
In: +2 Go Blank, +2 Duress, +2 Damping Sphere
Out: -4 Fatal Push, -2 Abrupt Decay
Sphere was a weird one. I wasn’t as familiar with their deck and was anticipating Nissa, Who Shakes the World, and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
Game two had not just turn-one Thoughtseize but turn-two Thoughtseize as well, both taking a Karn, the Great Creator. They then ripped third Karn off the top, and I lost to a Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, while missing a second green source for Questing Beast or fifth land for Invoke Despair.
Game three was similar to game two, but instead of drawing something to do on turn three, they instead played dorks into Lili and conceded after Go Blank emptied their hand with Questing Beast in play.
MATCH #3:
Game one had me staring at a turn two Shakedown Heavy, thanks to Llanowar Elves. Luckily, turn-three fight rigging didn’t hit Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter, and a 12-turn game ensued. I carefully navigated a comeback, stabilizing at one life before eventually working up to a Vraska emblem victory. This win was carried by Tireless Tracker, not only drawing cards off clues but also triggering revolt for Fatal Push.
Sideboard
In: +1 Abrupt Decay, +2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, +2 Crippling Fear
Out: -2 Thoughtseize, -3 Questing Beast
Bringing Fear in was a mistake, as it only hits the dorks, Trespassers, and Werewolf Pack Leaders, so Go Blank would have been correct.
Game two they beat me down as I held Crippling Fear in hand, staring at a bunch of six-toughness creatures such as Nullhide Ferox. Seeing Ferox made me change my evaluation of Go Blank, but three Questing Beasts came back in with one Sarulf for the two Crippling Fear and two Thoughtseizes.
Game three featured an interesting choice by my opponent when they cast the front side of Valki, God of Lies and took Graveyard Trespasser instead of Sarulf. When I attacked with Grim Flayer to trade, Flayer still trampled one damage over Valki's one-toughness which meant I still got to look at the top three, and Sarulf got a +1/+1 counter.
Another questionable play followed with them losing a Polukranos, Unchained to a Fatal Push that they could have taken with a Thoughtseize, which promptly got eaten by a Trespasser as I also killed their Vivien, Arkbow Ranger. Later on, they attacked with an 11/10 Rotting Regisaur, which opened them up for on-board lethal. We take those.
MATCH #4:
Game one featured Izzet mana casting a turn two Ledger Shredder that then ate a turn two Decay. I assumed they were on Arclight Phoenix, but a Sprite Dragon meant they were Izzet prowess. No third land from my opponent left the dragon open to Lili, and a shrunken Stormwing Entity could not hold back triple Trespassers.
Sideboard
In: +1 Abrupt Decay, +2 Soul-Guide Lantern, +2 Crippling Fear, +2 Go Blank
Out: -4 Thoughtseize, -2 Tireless Tracker,-1 Questing Beast
Even though I saw Sprite Dragon and Stormwing, I still brought in graveyard hate in case there were any Phoenixes around, and to hurt their delve spells.
Game two was tense, with Trespassers gaining me just enough life as I kept killing their threats, meaning they needed to chain three spells together with three cards in hand for Stormwing to prowess up to lethal. They went Ledger Shredder, Consider, discarding Spell Pierce with connive, binning a Treasure cruise with the Consider, followed by a second Consider, and by now, I’m thinking there’s no way they miss…
But they bin a THIRD Consider since they were out of blue mana, and, with one mountain and two cards in hand, all they needed was a red spell, or blue land blue spell, or anything... except a Monastery Swiftspear! Phew, that was a close one, but there I was at 4-0.
MATCH #5:
At this point, I’m hoping to dodge a tried and true tier one meta deck for the 5-0, having played one homebrew Emerge deck (that did take a game from me) and three tier-two-ish decks in Green Devotion, BG fight rigging, and UR prowess.
Game one was tough. A sketchy hand that I went for on the draw didn’t end up paying off. Would you have kept this six-card hand looking for one land in two draws in your 25 land deck? Or would you have gone to five?
I did draw the land but didn’t draw too well after that. Esper-colored lands and trading a Supreme Verdict as a one-for-one with Grim Flayer screams that they have all gas in hand.
I kept playing out Flayers and eventually hit four lands, but they did the control thing with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and won pretty convincingly.
Down a game against control, fighting for the 5-0…
Sideboard
In: +2 Duress, +2 Go Blank
Out: -4 Fatal Push
At least they’re Esper, so there may be some play in an non-netdecked list.
Game two proved that idea correct. Thoughtseize showed why it’s one of the best cards in the format, protecting my Grim Flayer from removal, and I got to showcase the Abrupt Decay/ward interaction.
Ward says counter unless the opponent pays the cost, and since Decay can’t be countered, you don’t have to pay. Turn four Kalitas ate an Invoke Despair, and they conceded with Vanishing Verses in hand.
Game three had us both Throughtseizing and taking cards that would have otherwise resulted in a two-for-one, but we were both also stuck on two lands. My opponent drew lands three and four as I drew hand disruption spells two and three. I then cast my pair of Liliana, the Last Hopes into their Vanishing Verses, securing myself a two-for-one by using Lili's minus two and returning creatures. I wish there was more to the game after the starting tension, but my opponent didn’t have anything to deal with my flipped Trespasser, and with tons of gas in hand, I said you know what, it’s time to start pointing spells at them. The first one stuck!
I guess sometimes they don’t have it! Ending the league 5-0 against control in the same fashion I won match one, with Invoke Despair pointed at my opponent, wrapped it up nicely, and I couldn’t wait to share.
Conclusion
Not a perfect league for sure, but it shows that you can hold your own if you know your deck and pilot it right. I’ll be making adjustments and constantly reconsidering some of the picks, but the core will stay the same because it’s fun, and I like it.
Oh, and I also got my first MTGO 5-0 trophy with it. That’s pretty cool too.