The new bracket is up! I’ve moved to Seattle, so I’ve lost the ability to play in person with my East Coast friends, but we’re keeping the tradition going playing online. If you’d like to get involved, email “shouldconfusion” at gmail.

Also, the rankings have been adjusted based on my latest scoring algorithm and the results from last year. Mythic Conscription is now the top seed. The newer decks, which are clearly strong due to power creep, will need to make it to at least the quarterfinals to break into the top 16 rankings, and due to the legacy effect of old decks having done well in many tournaments already, new, stronger decks (like Simic Food) will need several tournaments to prove their strength.

Don’t forget to check out all the results from past tournaments!

We’re retiring Spiral Blue, so the obvious question is… does it land at 4th best deck (all time) or knock Delver to 4th and take the 3rd spot? Here’s a highly unfair idea: one best-of-5 match to settle the decision.

G1

Spiral goes first. T1 Vault. T1 Delver. Delver flips right away. T4 float mana with existing vault, cast Vault #2, then cast Mind Over Matter (playing around Mana Leak). T5 Spiral has to pay to untap a Vault, and ends up at 7 life from all the Delver attacks and a Mana Vault damage. Turn 6 Time Spiral begins the chain that wins the game. Spiral Blue 1-0.

G2

T1 Delver, T1 Vault. Delver flips right away. On turn 3 Spiral has 3 islands, casts a 2nd Vault, and casts Time Spiral. A T4 Gitaxian Probe reveals 7 lands! WHIFF! But Delver has no additional threats, just an Abomination and an Invisible Stalker, and 3 Ponders. It comes down to top decks, as Spiral Blue will be dead in 2 turn. Nope. Nope. Delver steals a win! Delver 1-1. MVP: A Time Spiral whiff.

G3

Spiral goes first. Gitaxian Probe reveals Mind Over Matter, Time Spiral, Stroke of Genius, and Force Spike. Delver waits to play Delver of Secrets until turn 2. T2 Spiral finds a Vault, Delver comes down. T3 Delver flips right away. Delver hopes Spiral won’t find Island #4 and casts Runechanter’s Pike (playing around Force Spike) then Ponder (which resolves and finds Mana Leak, although now Delver is tapped out. Pretty please, no 4th island? T4 Spiral plays a 4th Island. Womp womp. Mind Over Matter comes down turn 4. Since shields are down, Spiral goes for it. Spiral untaps everything by discarding and casts Time Spiral. Intuition gets a Stroke. Stroke for 12. Vault #2. Meditate. Time Spiral floating 20 mana. Vault #3. Brainstorm. Brainstorm again. Meditate #2. Intuition for Stroke. Stroke to mill opponent for 50 cards. Bit of a risky line, but Spiral wins on Turn 4! Spiral 2-1.

G4

T1 Delver. T1 Vault. T3 Delver flips, Gitaxian Probe reveals Island #3, Force Spike, Mana Vault, Mind Over Matter, and 2 Stroke of Genius. Yikes. T3 Spiral plays the 2nd Vault, endstep Snapcaster. T4 Geist of St. Traft gets countered. Spiral doesn’t draw a 4th island. T5 A 2nd Geist gets counterspelled, but this prevents Spiral from casting Stroke. T6, Spiral is hoping to endstep a Stroke to draw more cards, but Sword, which would be lethal, needs to get countered, and does. Spiral goes down to 2 life, untaps, and… no 4th land! A desperation Stroke doesn’t help. Delver wins. Delver 2-2.

G5

Delver gets a hand with 3 Delver of Secrets. Spiral mulligans to 6. One Delver gets countered but the other 2 get cast. Still… they don’t flip for several turns. Meanwhile, Spiral has Mind Over Matter and Time Spiral in hand, but no mana vault. The Delvers finally flip on turn 5. Turn 6 Spiral tries a desperation Stroke to draw extra cards but Mana Leak counters it. On turn 7 the 2 abominations win the game. Delver 3-2. Delver defends its place at the 3rd best deck in the hall of fame.

G1

Bant Company keeps a 2 land hand with 3 Spell Quellers, casts a Selfless Spirit and doesn’t find a third land until turn 6. Spiral Blue, on the other hand, casts intuition on turn 3, a Mana vault on turn 4 and Mind Over Matter on turn 5. In response to an endstep Spell Queller, Spiral Blue casts another Intuition – for Stroke of Genius, which is a bit risky since it only leaves one left in the main deck. A Turn 7 Brainstorm meets another Spell Queller, so instead Spiral Blue casts the Stroke of Genius to draw 11 cards. Then, a Time Spiral finds 2 more Strokes for the win. Spiral Blue 1-0.

G2

T1 Mana Vault from Spiral Blue. T2 Duskwatch Recruiter from Bant. T3, Spiral Blue plays around Spell Queller by tapping the Mana Vault to help cast Intuition, leaving 2 islands untapped. Spell Queller in response gets countered by Counterspell. Then Spiral Blue casts a 2nd Mana Vault with the floating colorless mana. T4 Mind Over Matter leads to a Turn 5 Time Spiral, a Brainstorm with counterspell backup to overcome another Spell Queller, a 2nd Time Spiral, Meditate, Stroke of Genius drawing 27 cards, then Stroke of Genius the opponent for a turn 5 win. Spiral Blue 2-0.

G3

Bant mulligans to 6. Spiral Blue has T1 Mana Vault again, into a turn 4 Mind Over Matter. Immediately after the Mind Over Matter resolves, Spiral Blue starts to discard cards to make mana so Bant casts Dromoka’s Command to destroy the Mind Over Matter, which surprisingly works! So Spiral Blue just discards most of his hand for mana and casts Time Spiral, then Brainstorm, then Intuition naming Mind Over Matter. Turn 5, the Mind Over Matter is back, but since Spiral Blue is at 9 life, he decides to go for it. Strokes himself for 10 cards, Casts a Mana Vault and a Meditate, and finds another Stroke for another turn 5 win. Spiral Blue takes first place. 3-0.

Our normal rule is that a deck has to take 1st place twice to get retired to the Hall of Fame, but the prospect of running a whole tournament again with Spiral Blue seemed too obnoxious, so we’re retiring it to the Hall of Fame now. The only question is whether it should bump Delver to become the “3rd best ever,” or go onto the list after Delver and become the 4th best? To determine that, we’ll have to stage a special match of Spiral Blue versus UW Delver. Stay tuned.

G1

Jund went first. A turn 2 Scavening Ooze (“Scooze”) presented quite a worry for Rally’s gameplan of returning cards from the graveyard. Rally had tiny Jace. A T3 Rabblemaster was bounced by a T3 Reflector Mage, which also held off the ooze. T4 Polukranos was bounced when Rally cast an elf, then Sidisi’s Faithful exploited it (poor elf). T5 Scavenging Ooze devours some graveyard to become a 4/4, and attacks Rally down to 13 life. Rabblemaster returns. Rally does the exact same play, cast an elf, then exploit it with a new Sidisi’s Familiar. Also, tiny Jace, transforms and adds a -2/-0 condition to a goblin. Turn 6 Scooze returns and immediately becomes a 4/4 again. Rally adds Grim Haruspex and gives a -2 to the Scooze. T7 Jund casts Domri and kills off the Haruspex who was forced to fight the Scooze. Reflector Mage and Rabblemaster kill each other, but Jace stays alive. Then Rally casts Nantuko Husk and a Catacomb Sifter. Jace is at 8 loyalty and there are 2 Sidisi’s Familiars. T8 Scooze become a 6/6. A mana elf and a sylvan caryatid join the team. But the Husk keeps the Scooze from attacking. On Rally’s turn, Collected Company from Rally kind of whiffs, only finding an elf. But using Jace’s ability, and sac’ing a scion for mana, Rally gets to cast Collected Company a 2nd time, this time finding an elf and a reflector mage, which bounces the Scooze. T9 Jund isn’t allows to play Scooze yet, so instead plays Mizzium Mortars with Overload to kill all creatures except the Husk, but this allows Rally to sacrifice creatures in response and get lots of scry triggers, finding a Rally the Ancestors. Rally wins on its turn, by cast Zulaport, then attacking with Husk and casting Rally the Ancestors (thanks to Scooze being stuck in Jund’s hand) to crash in for lots of damage. Zulaport Cutthroat triggers take care of the rest.

G2

A turn 3 Polukranos from Jund. A Catacomb Sifter from Rally. T4 Xenagos. A Scion blocks Polukranos. T5 attacks bring Rally to 14. Endstep Collected Company into tiny Jace and Reflector Mage which bounces the Polukranos, but not before it goes monstrous to kill Jace. Then Rally plays Jace #2. T6 Polukranos returns and goes monstrous to kill the 2nd Jace. Rally casts Husk and Zulaport. T7 attacks from Jund take out a blocking Mage. T8 attacks bring Rally to 5 life, Jund at 17. During endstep, the Rally player knows he can play back to back Rally the Ancestors, but it won’t be enough to do 17 damage. An endstep Rally the Ancestors, sac’ing creatures brings Jund to 10 life. Rally untaps, draws Rally #2 (which he knew was there) and casts it, and with an elf draw card trigger on the stack, sacs some more creatures to get more scry triggers – and finds the crucial Zulaport #2. Zulaport #2 and more sacrifices helps finish off Jund. Rally 2-0.

G3

T1 Despise discards a Scavenging Ooze. T3 Rabblemaster from Jund. Rally plays tiny Jace. T4 Domri kills Jace and goblins crash in bringing Rally to 12. Ayli buys some time for Rally, but Rally can’t keep up and dies on Turn 7.

G4

Rally goes first this game. A Turn 4 Reflector Mage bounces a Rabblemaster. Jund plays Polukranos. A Turn 5 attack meets Collected Company which finds Ayli and an Arashin Cleric from the sideboard. Ayli blocks to kill Polukranos, who goes monstrous to kill and elf. T6 STormbreath Dragon puts Rally to 14 life. It turns into a race, but an endstep Rally on Turn 8 into another Rally on Turn 9 finished off Jund.

Rally takes 3rd place!

The other semifinal for the 2019 tournament looked like an easy win for Spiral Blue, although there were some troublesome cards in the Monsters sideboard. In reality it was a little trickier than expected for Spiral Blue…

G1

A turn 2 Domri resolves. A T3 Rabblemaster gets countered, but a T4 Xenagos resolves. T5 there is a mana elf and 2 Satyrs attacking, and Domri has ticked up to Ultimate loyalty. Spiral Blue fires off 2 Time Spirals in desperation, but can’t find Mind Over Matter. T6 Domri ultimates and gives everyone doublestrike. Monsters wins. Monsters 1-0.

G2

Spiral Blue gets Mind Over Matter out on turn 4, with 2 Mana Vaults already in play. T5 Blue starts digging for Stroke of Genius with brainstorms, to no avail. T6 Blue plays 2 Meditates, has to cast intuition for Stroke, which means there’s only one stroke left in the library, but the Stroke draws lots of cards and finds the last remaining Stroke, which then wins the game. Spiral Blue 1-1.

G3

Blue has to mulligan to 6. Monsters gets a T3 Rabblemaster countered, but a T4 Rabblemaster resolves. A T5 bloodrushed Ghor-Clan puts Blue to 9, and a T6 bloodrushed Ghor-Clan #2 wins the game. Spiral Blue 1-2.

G4

An elf gets countered. Wasteland from Spiral Blue destroys a Stomping Ground, Monsters’ only green source. Monsters adds Mutavault. Blue adds Mana vault. T3 Monsters topdecks an Overgrown Tomb to stay in the game, and casts an elf. T4 Polukranos gets countered. T5 Blue casts Mind Over Matter and says go. A T6 Mistcutter Hydra from Monsters is too little too late, as a T6 Time Spiral finds Stroke the Genius for 25 cards, and Spiral Blue has everything it needs to win. Spiral Blue 2-2.

G5

Blue has a T1 Mana Vault. Monsters has T2 Scavenging Ooze. The scooze gets bigger when subsequent creatures get countered. But Blue has intuition end step of Turn 4, and casts Mind Over Matter on turn 5. Says go. During upkeep, Blue taps down the Monsters only black source, just in case Monsters topdecks a sideboard card, and Monsters can only attack Blue down to 5. Blue goes off on Turn 6 with Time Spiral into Stroke for 19 cards, then a second Stroke for a zillion. Spiral Blue wins. 3-2.

Rally is capable of explosive wins out of nowhere, but Bant Company has better threats, and it has fliers which Rally can’t block. Who will win?

M1

Bant wins the die roll while Rally has to mulligan to 5. Bant casts Tireless Tracker T3. On T4 Rally tries to play Reflector Mage, but Spell Queller interferes. T5 Tracker and Queller attack Rally down to 10 (Thanks to some fetch land damage). Rally plays Catacomb Sifter, and Bant sacs two clues. T6 an attacking Tracker is now a 5/4. A scion blocks it. Rally takes a turn, stuck on 3 lands, plays baby Jace and a Sidisi’s Faithful which sacs itself and bounces the Tracker to try and buy some time, but end step Collected Company from Bant brings out a Spell Queller #2 and a Sylvan Advocate… AND Bant also gets to sac another clue. T7 Bant attacks with 2 Quellers and a giant Advocate. The advocate is blocked by a Catacomb Sifter. On Rally’s turn Jace flips and gives one Queller -2/-0 for next turn, and Rally finally finds a 4th land, but passes the turn with no creatures. Bant attacks with 2 creatures, and Rally can only muster an extremely disappointing Rally the Ancestors for X=2 that only gets back one creature. It’s not enough. Bant 1-0.

M2

Rally has to mulligan again, this time to 6. Rally is already at 18 life from fetch lands when Bant plays a T2 selfless spirit. T3 Bant adds a Sylvan Advocate and on T4 Nissa. Meanwhile Rally plays an Elf, then a Catacomb Sifter T4, then another Sifter T5. Bant plays a 2nd Advocate and a 2nd Selfless Spirit. T6 Rally bounces a Spirit with a Mage. Bant, now on 6 lands, attacks with 2 Advocates and a Selfless Spirit. A Triple block on an Advocate results in an Advocate and a Sifter dying, and the other Advocate is chumped by a Scion. Bant casts a Duskwatch. But Rally is at 8 life and Bant is at 20. T7 Ayli enters the battlefield, offering both deathtouch and the ability to sacrifice creatures to gain life. Sidisi’s Faithful bounces a Selfless Spirit. On Bant’s turn 7, a 7th land flips Nissa who starts drawing extra cards. 2 Selfless Spirits return, and a baby Jace also arrives. T8 Rally finds a Husk, finally, but Bant has Ref Mage for the Husk and attacks Rally down to 3 with the Selfless Spirits (and help from fetch lands). Rally jumps back up to 7 life by sacrificing a creature to Ayli. On T9 all Rally can do is play an elf and say go. An end step activation from Duskwatch finds a Ref Mage. On Bant’s turn, the Mage bounces Ayli. Rally sacs a creature to go to 10. Bant’s Jace flips, gives a Sifter -2/-0, and Bant attacks with 5 creatures. Rally chump blocks a bunch and goes down to 4. Bant adds even more gas: a Tracker, and another Duckwatch. Tapped out, says go. Rally plays a Husk, and has to pass. When Bant attacks next, Rally the Ancestors adds 8 blockers to the Battlefield, and bounces both Selfless Spirits (although one sacrifices itself to give indestructible.) Rally has no way to gain life, but he does block all incoming damage and gets lots of scry triggers from all the creatures that get sacrificed to the Husk before damage. He puts his best card on top. Rally gets a turn and can only play 2 Zulaport Cutthroats (too late! They got drawn from the Elves that returned to play) and Ayli. During endstep Bant flashes in Avacyn. Then on Bant’s turn Nissa goes ultimate and even though all six 6/6 attackers are blocked, there’s 19 more damage from other attackers. So many creatures on Bant’s side. Bant Company 2-0.

M3

Rally keeps 7 this time, and starts playing fetch lands. Bant gets another turn 2 Selfless Spirit. Rally plays an elf on T3. Bant has nothing on T3 and cannot find a blue source. Rally can actually attack with the elf on T4, and casts baby Jace and a 4th fetch land. On Bant’s turn 4, since Dispel might be in from the sideboard and Rally has no untapped blue, Bant casts CoCo during the main step and finds 2 Spell Quellers. The triggers get wasted but it is great that they are fliers and they would’ve cost blue mana if drawn, which Bant does not have. T5 Rally’s baby Jace flips and starts doing -2 on a Selfless Spirit. But on Bant’s T5 Gideon briefly appears, then leaves (makes an emblem) and the three flying creatures take Rally down to 5 life. T6 2 Reflector Mages buy some time, bouncing creatures, and Jace -2’s the other one. Bant can only attack for 1. T7 Rally brings Bant down to 11 life, but an end-step Spell Queller means the next turn is attack for 4, and Rally, never having found CoCo, has nothing. Bant Company 3-0.

Weird hands for Rally. Rally was drawing really good this entire tournament, with incredibly lucky come from behind wins, but this match lady luck turned sour. Bant Company advances to the final to take on Spiral Blue and Rally will fight Jund Monsters for 3rd place.

I’ll call this Blood vs Blue. Thinking about this match beforehand, Blood has lots of dead cards in the main deck. Bloodbraid Elf could be great at getting around counterspells, but only if it digs up another creature. However, post-sideboard Blood brings in lots of good stuff, including thoughtseize and x1 thought hemorrhage which seems really good. Blue has wasteland in sideboard though, which also is pretty good. I think Blood is probably favored post-sideboard, and Blue is favored pre-sideboard.

G1:

Though Blue mulligans to 6, Blood has to mulligan to 4 cards and is not feeling optimistic until Blue fails to play a third land. Blood tries to play threats, which keep getting countered, but Blue gets stuck on 2 lands for several turns. On turn 6 Blood is able to cast 2 Putrid leeches in the same turn, and the 2nd one sticks. Blue finally starts finding lands. But the manascrew is key here, because Blood is able to start attacking and just leave behind mana for Cryptic Command. A turn 9 Mind Over Matter gets countered by Cryptic Command and that’s game over on turn 10. Thrilled to win on a mulligan to 4, Blood now feeling quite optimistic! MVP: mana screw + Cryptic Command. Bloodbraid 1-0.

G2:

3 early threats from Blood get countered by three consecutive Counterspells. Blue uses intuition to get a Mana Vault. Blood has lots of mana and no threats, tries a Broodmate Dragon, which also gets countered. Time Spiral on the next turn resolves with Blood tapped out, and Blue finds the Mind Over Matter to combo off and win. MVP: Lots of islands. Bloodbraid 1-1.

G3: (post-sideboard)

Turn 1 Thoughtseize grabs an intuition. Blood plays 5 lands in a row then casts a Bloodbraid Elf. Although the elf gets countered, a wimpy Anathemancer makes it onto the battlefield. It takes a long time, but the Anathemancer keeps attacking, and eventually Blue has to try for Mind Over Matter without counterspell backup. Cryptic Command stops the spell and secures the victory. MVP: Thoughtseize + Cryptic Command. Bloodbraid 2-1.

G4:

Turn 3 and Turn 4 intuition find the combo pieces. A turn 5 Mind Over Matter leads to a turn 6 combo win. MVP: Intuition. Bloodbraid 2-2.

G5:

Blood goes first and risks a turn 2 Leech, but force spike counters it. Turn 3 and 4 gets Sygg and an Anathemancer onto the battlefield, while Blue finds a Mana Vault. Blood resolves a Leech and a Blightning (Blue let this resolve, even though Blue had a counterspell) and Blue has to discard two cards but then during end step casts intuition to find Mind Over Matter. Plays M.o.M. (turn 5.) On turn 6, Blood has Cryptic Command but Mind Over Matter is already in play, Blue is tapped out, with a tapped Mana Crypt, and 3 cards. Blood casts Cryptic Command to bounce the Mind Over Matter before Blue can untap, and Blue considers discarding 2 cards to untap lands for counterspell, but that would leave him hellbent and needing a perfect topdeck. So instead, the MoM gets bounced, and Blue goes to 6 life, with lethal next turn. Blue discards a card to untap Mana Vault instead. On Blue’s turn 6, Blue plays MoM again, discards 2 cards to untap an island and untap the Crypt, and with 1 colorless floating casts Mediate, last card in hand. Blue draws 4 cards, one of which is Stroke of Genius!!! He casts that Stroke to draw 6 and finds another Stroke! He draws 10 more cards. He gets the combo and wins. MVP: Meditate. Spiral Blue 3-2.

This was not a very skill-intensive matchup. 4 of the 5 games ended on turn 6. The decks piloted themselves, it was just a question of who got good hands. Although both decks play Sylvan Caryatid, a Mana Elf, Temple of Abandon, and Polukranos, the similarities end there. Green Devotion is more of a ramp deck, trying to cast backbreaking 6 and 7 mana spells. Jund Monsters is more of a midrange goodstuff deck and a little faster. I’ll call the decks Jund and Devotion. Here’s how it went down:

G1

Jund, on the play, gets a turn 3 Polukranos out. On turn 4 it goes monstrous to kill one of Devotion’s two mana dorks only to get surprised by Boon Satyr in response! The Polukranos (and the mana dork) die. On turn 5 Jund plays Stormbreath Dragon, but Devotion casts See the Unwritten and finds Dragonlord Atarka and Surrak (which gives it haste). The Stormbreath dies, Jund takes 12 damage from attacks, and loses on turn 6. MVPs: Boon Satyr & See the Unwritten. Devotion 1-0.

G2

Jund gets a Rabblemaster out, and Devotion plays turn 3 Polukranos, but attacks in with Courser of Kruphix which turns out to be a regretful decision when Jund, on turn 4, casts Dreadbore to kill the Polukranos, casts a 2nd Rabblemaster, and comes crashing in for 6 damage. On turn 5, Xenagos joins the field, and Jund attacks with 2 rabblemasters, four goblin tokens, 1 satyr token, and an elf. Devotion is able to block and kill one Rabblemaster, but on Turn 6 Stormbreath joins the fray and it’s just too much go-wide damage. MVP: Dreadbore & Ghor-Clan. Jund Monsters 1-1.

G3

Devotion gets a turn 3 Polukranos but Jund has Dreadbore. An attacking goblin token gets pumped by the Ghor-Clan and takes out a Courser. A sad turn 4 “land, go” is answered by a Stormbreath Dragon, and devotion takes 10 damage. See the Unwritten finds Dragonlord Atarka and it looks like a comeback is in the works, but Jund has Dreadbore #2 for the Atarka. 2 more attacks from the Stormbreath and that’s game, again on turn 6. MVP: Dreadbore. Jund 2-1.

G4:

Both decks mulligan to 6. This game is the only game that goes long, although it wasn’t close. Jund gets a Scavenging Ooze, and Devotion gets Arbor Colossus on turn 4, and Atarka on Turn 5. Vraska kills Atarka, and the game slows down as Devotion has to kill Vraska, and then a Xenagos. But along the way Devotion also finds another Arbor Colossus, a Rattleclaw, and a Courser. It’s too much. Nykthos is making tons of mana with two Arbor Colossus out, and the Arbor Colossuses become monstrous 9/9 creatures. It takes a while to get through chump blockers but the board state is hilariously unbalanced. The win comes on turn 10. MVP: Arbor Colossus. Devotion 2-2.

G5

The decider is quick and dirty as Jund get turn 2 Bow of Nylea then turn 3 Polukranos. The monstrous Polukranos on turn 4 is bigger than Devotion’s Polukranos, and it continues to threaten to get larger thanks to the bow. Devotion will be able to play Atarka on turn 6, but only if he doesn’t lose any creatures (he needs the mana symbols for Nykthos) so he takes 3 attacks from the Polukranos without blocking, but on the third attack Ghor-Clan pumps up the hydra even more for the win, predictably on turn 6. Jund Monsters 3-2.