2016 Rally vs 2017 UR Control.

G1: T2 Zulaport Cutthroat meets a Magma Spray, which is so good against Rally because it exiles it. Same exact thing happens turn 3. An attacking elf is no concern and eventually a Gearhulk arrives during an end step. Rally’s next creature gets an essence scatter, an attempted Zulaport Cutthroat #3 sees another Gearhulk which flashes back the essence scatter, and from there Commit plus 2 Negates prevents Rally from having any impact. A dominant win. 1-0 UR Control.

G2: An elf resolves. A Husk gets scattered. Jace (the creature) gets Magma Sprayed. Soon we are at 9 mana and it’s Gearhulk, end of turn again. Zulaport? Magma Spray. Collected Company? Disallow. Rally the Ancestors? Disallow. A Gearhulk and 2 Fumaroles crash in for the final victory. 2-0 UR Control.

So at this point it seemed like Rally just couldn’t get anything to resolve and the matchup looked very one-sided. Glimmer of Genius was very good in G1 and G2, and all the counterspells made it hard to resolve a Collected Company or Rally the Ancestors, turning the Rally deck into a boring creature deck. But Rally, true to its namesake, staged an amazing comeback.

G3: Duress steals a Magma Spray. A resolved end of turn Co-Co gets a Nantuko Husk onto the board, but it dies to a Harnessed Lightning. Despise steals a Gearhulk a turn before it could get played. (Nice!) Another Co-Co finds a Jace, but it gets Magma Sprayed. Another Husk gets countered. An elf resolves and attacks for several turns as the game goes long, which is presumably to the Control deck’s advantage, but the Control deck isn’t finding draw spells and is running out of cards. A Husk resolves. A Gearhulk kills an attacking Husk. Dragonmaster Outcast arrives for the Control deck, with plenty of lands in play but Murderous Cut ruins that plan, and a Jace flips which helps kill the Gearhulk. The Jace starts generating value and the Control deck is down to one card. Rally the Ancestors for the win meets a dispel, but the dispel is dispelled and Rally takes the match. 2-1 UR Control.

G4: UR Control plays Dragonmaster Outcast #1 and #2 on turns 1 and 2 in the hopes of protecting them until the 6th land arrives. But the lands are slow to come and 2 Nantuko Husks resolve. The control deck finally starts drawing counterspells and stops Zulaport #1 and #2, as well as a Collected COmpany, but is taking damage from the Husks all along. At 4 life the Rally player gets another Collected Company which collects 2 Catacomb Sifters, and that’s enough to go wide: 5 creatures into 3 blockers forces the Dragonmasters to block and die and leave UR Control at 1 life. The next turn death was inevitable. 2-2 all tied up.

G5: The crucial decider. UR gets a weird hand with a Dragonmaster a Magma Spray and 2 negates. Decides to keep hoping Rally plays cautiously like before. UR puts out a Dragonmaster. Unfortunately Rally gets a quick start with Catacomb Sifter into Nantuko Husk – uh oh, the control deck has no relevant creature counters! UR has to waste a Magma Spray just to get it into the graveyard for later and keep the Husk smaller. An elf resolves. Zulaport #1 resolves. Zulaport #2 resolves. At 6 lands the Control player has to block with a Fumarole which puts the land count back to 5, so no Dragon on upkeep. Rally gets Grim Haruspex. Next turn a Gearhulk flashes in and kills a Zulaport (the flashed back Magma Spray forces Rally to sac it to a Husk) so Haruspex draws cards with UR now at 7 life and still no Dragon. Too many threats on the board, life total too low. The Negates were useless. The Control deck succumbs. 3-2 Rally takes the match.

There was definitely some luck in this result. Crucial was the Game 3 Despise (he only sided in ONE!) that stole a Gearhulk. Also, the Rally player learned during the match that it was ideal to have other creatures in play before playing a Nantuko Husk (because the control deck can only do 2 or 3 damage usually) and a Nantuko Husk in play before a Zulaport (to protect Zulaport from getting exiled by Magma Spray). This sequence is hard to arrange, but when it works, it works very well.

The other analysis is that card advantage decided almost every game. Glimmer of Genius helped UR win G1 and G2. Flipped Jace helped Rally win G3. Collected Company decided G4 and Grim Haruspex was good in Game 5 (although that game was probably already spiraling out of control at that point).

This is one of the only times I can remember that a deck came back from being down 2 games and won, and aside from G3, it wasn’t all about powerful sideboard cards. Rally just got good hands and sequenced everything correctly. The Control deck struggled, had the wring kinds of counters, and ran out of cards.