Welcome once again to my Magical Monday. For those in the know this last weekend was my LGS’s first Modern TCGplayer tournament, which was both my brain child and my first real opportunity to show off my deck design skills by winning a large event.

Unfortunately, i both failed to win which hurts. But the event was not the large event i was hoping it would be, which REALLY hurts. Release events for us are not big turnout events, but i guess they are large for our surrounding game shops as we only had 2-4 out of towners and a lot of our normal people decided that they would rather work then help make us the place to be for magic tournaments. Sigh…

* note, I have received some feedback letting me know that my word choice left something to be desired by those that had to work vs make it to the event. I want to be clear, i totally understand. Obligations are just so for a reason. I did not mean to make anyone feel like they are not supporting the LGS if they had prior obligations to attend work or whatever. I just wanted to say that people had to work and that that took away from the expected turnout.

I was able to draw into the top 4 being one of the two undefeated players. So that was nice.  But i made a deck registration error giving me my first game lost of the day and then in the simi finals to boot. Where i mulled to a solid 6, stumbled on lands for too long and just got beat to death by a 3/4 flyer. Thankfully, the gentleman that defeated me was able to win out so i can’t feel too bad, i did only drop one game it just happened to be a 2 for 1.

Let me be a lesson to you all kids. Someone will loose to mis-registering their deck. Don’t let it be you.

Okay now that the main event i was planing for is over i want to share my list and see if you all have suggestions.

A few quick notes, i felt that the best deck was delver so i wanted to beat that and i feel the best cards in the format are Thoughtsieze, Young Pyro, Lighting Bolt and Lingering Souls. With the best card draw being Bobs.  Yep see how Delever is the best deck… I know i often make no sense even to myself.

Mardu Delver…

4 Thoughtsieze
4 Lighting Bolt
2 Darkblast
4 Lighting Helix
2 Lingering Souls (This was my deck reg error, thought i cut 1 for Liliana but guess i didn’t and had 3 in my deck)
2 Crackling Doom

1 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Dark Confident
4 Young Pyromaster
3 Pack Rat
2 Butcher of the Horde

2 Seismic Assault
4 Liliana of the veil

Lands including 1 Mutavault 8 fetches 3 basics and a lot of shock lands. Other then the one game where i only had a fetch and a Mutavault my lands were not an issue.

Overall the deck ran like a charm. Each card won me a game and were nuts at different time. Sure Seismic Assault was a bit of a hedge for decks running Blood Moon or those games were i want to flood out or vs a deck with as much removal as i had. Crackling Doom was for Boggles and Affinity. Nothing says “F you too” as when they go all in and you Doom them.

If the tournament was tomorrow would i change anything? Well anything other then that registration error?

Not really. The deck just ran well until i was due to lose one, it is not the decks fault that i had to win both games and couldn’t. You can’t win every game.

Personally i feel that this deck gives you the best option to out play any deck. Has game one hedges vs every deck i could thing of other then Jeski combo. To win that you have to get lucky and Thoughtsieze the right card at the right time. Although Darkblast can catch a Jeski player with their pants down as well as Crackling Dooms. But it is a hard match up. If the deck lives though the loss of Cruse.

Well that was it. Next week i hope to have some new Standard lists ready for you all.

<3s