This was one of the most thrilling matches I’ve played. There were several decisions that were tough calls, and whenever Demonic Consultation got cast, it was uncertain whether it would be joy or tears. Necro had Nevinyrral’s Disk versus a deck of mostly creatures, but cards like Selfless Spirit and Avacyn could completely void the powerful sweeper. Necro also had insanely disruptive cards like Strip Mine and Hymn to Tourach, but sometimes couldn’t close out a game fast enough before green creatures accumulated on the battlefield. Collected Company was a constant threat that added uncertainty to every decision. Here’s how it went down:

I’ll call the decks Bant vs Black.

M1: (Black mulligan to 6)

Right off the bat, during the end step for turn 1, Black casts Demonic Consultation naming Dark Ritual. This is a card that exiles cards from your library until you find the named card. Although there are 4 in the decklist, there are none in the top HALF of the deck. Once a Dark Ritual is finally located, there are only 24 cards left in the deck. Yikes!
Bant plays Duskwatch Recruiter, Black plays a turn 2 Nevinyrral’s Disk (thanks to Dark Ritual). The Duskwatch starts attacking. Black plays a Strip Mine and destroys a dual land but has no other plays, so the Duskwatch flips. Black finds a Mishra’s Factory but doesn’t want to trade, being stuck at 3 lands. Finally, at 7 life, Black is able to block with the Factory and cast Contagion to make the Duskwatch smaller. Black is now at 6 life. Bant just casts Ojutai’s Command and returns the Duskwatch to play. Bant’s returned Duskwatch dies again, then is replaced by a Selfless Spirit, but Drain Life takes care of the spirit. Lumbering Falls enters tapped and presents a possible threat, although the Disk is still on the battlefield. Several turns pass with no action. Eventually there are 2 Sylvan Advocates in play and Bant finds a 6th land, which forces the Disk to get used to clear the board. 2nd main, Bant plays the cards he’s been holding back: a Duskwatch, a Sylvan Advocate, and Tiny Jace. On Black’s turn (still at 6 life) Dark Ritual facilitates the casting of a new tapped Nev Disk and a pro-white Knight that can block for a turn, although the factory gets tapped. Tiny Jace flips on Bant’s turn, gives the Knight -2/-0. Bant sends in two attackers and Black blocks and is at 4. On Black’s turn, the Duskwatch flips to a 3/3, and Black plays Hymn to Tourach. Collected Company in response finds 2 Reflector Mages with no valid targets. Hymn discards another Collected Company and an Avacyn. Nev Disk kills everything except the flipped Jace planeswalker. On Bant’s next turn, Bant casts Tireless Tracker and plays a land, and is finally hellbent. Black casts a knight. Next turn, Jace gives the knight -2/-0 (and goes to 8 loyalty) but can’t attack yet. Black attacks Jace with a Dark Ritual in hand for surprise pump-ups to change combat math in case he blocks. Collected Company in response finds a Spell Queller and another green creature. Bant lets Jace take the hit and swings back with 3 attackers to win game one. Long game. Bant Company 1-0.

M2:

Necro keeps a 1 land hand with Dark Ritual and Hypnotic Specter. Will it work? T1 Hypnotic Specter. T2 Hyppie attacks and Collected Company gets discarded. Bant plays a Sylvan Advocate. Black finds a Mishras’s Factory for land #2, and the Hyppie forces a Reflector Mage to get discarded. The Sylvan Advocate attacks into a larger Mishra’s Factory, which is suspicious, and since black has only 2 land, Black lets it through. After that though, a different Reflector Mage shows up and bounces the Hypnotic Specter. Dark Ritual makes it possible to play Nev Disk (tapped). The Sylvan Advocate and and Reflector Mage attack and now both players are at 14 (Bant has a painland). Black Strip Mines one of Bant’s plains. Bant’s creatures attack again and Black decides to take 4 damage although he could’ve popped the disk. Bant passes the turn with no play and then Black pops the Disk at end of turn… this was the key decision in the game and meant Black took 4 extra damage that potentially could’ve been prevented. Black strip mines another plains, and attacks with Factory. Bant plays a tapped land. Black finally finds a 2nd swamp and plays Hypnotic Specter. Bant bounces it again with yet another Reflector Mage. Black finds Factory #2 (a 4th land) and casts a new Disk. The Reflector Mage attacks Black down to 8, then Bant adds Lumbering Falls, the scary man-land, tapped. Black recasts Hypnotic Specter, but Dromoka’s Command kills it by giving the Mage a counter and making them fight. The 3/4 Reflector Mage attacks in to get black to 5. Selfless Spirit joins the team. Drain Life kills the Spirit. The 3/4 Mage attacks black down to 2. Bant is at 10. Hymn to Tourach steals Dromoka’s Command and Tireless Tracker, and there is finally enough land that 1 factory can play defense with the threat of getting boosted to a 4/4 by another factory. Bant plays a different Tireless Tracker but the Mage can’t attack. Black adds a Knight. Bant can’t attack. Strip Mine destroys a Lumbering Falls. Tireless Tracker dies to a Drain Life and black goes up to 4 life. Black attacks with a pro-white knight, Collected Company in response finds a Selfless Spirit and a Spell Queller, but neither can block the knight. That leads to this scenario:

I don’t know if this was the best choice, but here’s what I chose. Knight pumps once and Bant goes to 6 life. Black plays Zuran Orb post combat, planning to not use the Disk. Bant attacks for lethal in the air but Black sacrifices lands to gain life and stabilizes at 2. Bant adds a Duskwatch. Knight attacks into the Duskwatch and uses first strike to kill it. Bant attacks again with 2 fliers and forces more land sacrifice to the Zuran Orb. Bant is at 5 and Black is at 2. Bant plays a tapped land, number 5. Knight attacks Bant down to 3 life but is down to only 4 lands: 2 swamps and 2 factories. He casts a 2nd knight. Bant begins his turn with 5 lands for the first time – attacks with everyone and Black is forced to block with 1 factory, then sacrifice 2 lands – he chooses to sacrifice the factories. (There is still a Nev Disk on the battlefield all this time, but Black is not using it because of Selfless Spirit.) After combat, Bant plays a Lumbering Falls tapped, then casts Avacyn, then sacrifices the Selfless Spirit. Black is tapped out. During Black’s upkeep, Black is forced to use Disk to kill Avacyn (and everything else) with Avacyn’s flip trigger on the stack threatening lethal. Everything dies, and there are no Factories anymore either. Black draws for turn worried about the Lumbering Falls on the other side of the board. He draws a Demonic Consultation, and searches for a Strip Mine to destroy it. The game goes into topdeck mode, Bant at 3, Black at 2. But Bant finds an Ojutai’s Command and returns a creature from the graveyard to attack for the win. Bant Company 2-0. Close game.

Game 3 is when we allow sideboarding in the best of 5, so Black brings in Terrors and Dystopias and more Contagions. Bant brings in counterspells and a bigger werewolf, Lambholt Pacifist.

G3: Time for a comeback…

Necro uses Dark Ritual to play Nev Disk turn 2. Bant casts Selfless Spirit. Terror kills the Spirit. Strip Mine destroys a Yavimaya Coast and Bant is stuck on 1 land for a bit. Hypnotic Specter appears. 2 attacks from the Hyppie discard 2 Spell Quellers. Black casts a Disk, while Bant finally finds land and casts a Sylvan Advocate. Dromoka’s Command (fight mode) kills the Hyppie, so Black uses the disk to kill the Sylvan, then casts another Disk. Now for the big decision, Black is at 19 life and has Demonic Consultation, but has only one Necropotence in his library. He decides to risk it, and names Necropotence. Necropotence was card #7. (If it had been card #6 he would have lost the match to self-mill.) Ridiculous! (Also, bad decision to leave only 1 copy in the deck!) He plays Necro, and gets 6 cards. Sylvan Advocate attacks, and Black is now at 11 with a full hand. Black plays Hymn to force discard of a Spell Queller and a Summary Dismissal (which can counter the Disk ability). Black draws 3 more from Necro, then uses the Disk. Bant has nothing, and few lands. Black plays 2 knights. Bant finds a land and eventually has 2 Sylvan Advocates, but terror takes care of one, Strip Mine destroys more blue sources, Dystopia destroys the other Advocate, and 2 knights and a factory finish off the opponent. (After which Black adds back a Necropotence for match 4) Bant Company 2-1.

G4: Black mulligans to 6.

Bant plays Duskwatch. Black plays Hymn to Tourach and gets a Spell Queller and a Sylvan Advocate. Duskwatch attacks. Black Strip Mines an Island. Bant uses the Duskwatch ability before losing the land and finds tiny Jace. Black plays Dystopia. Duskwatch gets sacrificed. Black keeps Dystopia in play and starts paying cumulative upkeep loss of life. Black casts Hypnotic Specter. Bant says go. Black pays 2 life to Dystopia, then attacks with the Hyppie and a Factory, and plays a knight. Bant plays Selfless Spirit. Black pays 3 life, goes to 12, and only attacks with the pro-white knight. Bant goes to 14. The Spirit gets sacrificed to Dystopia. Bant says go. Black lets the Dystopia go away and attacks Bant down to 6. Bant plays blockers but they get killed by spells and Black wins on turn 8. Bant Company 2-2.

G5:

Bant plays a plains and it gets Strip Mined. Bant has lots of land though and gets a Lambholt Pacifist out on turn 3. Hymn to Tourach gets Selfless Spirit and Sylvan Advocate. Bant plays a different Selfless Spirit. Black plays Dark Ritual into Nev Disk, and also Strip Mines a dual land. Bant attacks Black down to 18 and casts Nissa. Since Selfless Spirit is messing up the power of the Disk, Black casts Hypnotic Specter to keep the spirit from attacking, but is now tapped out and the worst case scenario occurs: Bant plays Dromoka’s command to kill the Hypnotic Specter (fight mode) and attacks in for 8 damage… Black is at 10 life. Black casts a knight and then has to double block the enormous Lambholt and take 2 more damage from Selfless Spirit. Bant decides to let it die. At 8 life, Black makes a risky decision… casts Necropotence, and draws 6 times, going to 2 life. But it works! He finds Demonic Consultation, which searches for Contagion, brings him to 1 life, and then he uses the Disk to kill Nissa with the Spirit trigger on the stack. Bant has no play. Black plays a new Disk. Black plays a knight. Then Bant finally finds action and plays a Sylvan Advocate. Dystopia kills it. The knight attacks but Collected Company in response finds a Selfless Spirit and a green creature. But Black has terror for the spirit, and then uses the disk to clear the board and plays a new knight. Staying alive… at 1 life. After another Collected Company, and another terror that kills a Spell Queller, the situation arises where Bant has Sylvan Advocate and 6 lands, Black has a knight, an unused Strip Mine, and no more threats left in the library (because of Demonic Consultation). With the only out being killing the Sylvan Advocate and hoping Bant draws nothing for 4 turns, Black names Demonic Consultation for the last terror in the library… and it’s the last card on the bottom. Black has no cards left. Necro loses!!! Bant Company advances 3-2.