An unusual match between 2 decks that coexisted at the same time. Kithkin was clearly superior, and was just way too fast for the storm deck, especially on draws with no Lotus Bloom.
G1: Gassy Knoll keeps a risky hand, Kithkin gets two Knights of Meadowgrain into Elspeth. Knoll draws too many storm spells and not enough ramp. Knoll plays only one spell all game – Tarfire – which was nullified by a Rusty Clachan +1 counter. T6 win for Kithkin.
G2: Kept a hand with no Lotus Bloom. Drew too many storm spells, and a Pyromancer’s Swath I dare not play, and not enough enablers. In desperation I had to make 8 goblins, but lost to fliers. Kithkin 2-0.
G3: Still no Lotus Bloom. Overrun by weenies before I can get enough mana to do anything. Kithkin 3-0, even without Burrenton Forge Tenders showing up.

G1: Two dismembers protect Jace the Mind Sculptor. CawBlade eventually gets Batterskull equipped with 2 swords. Not close. CawBlade 1-0.
G2: A T2 Stoneblade Mystic. A T3 Domri. A T3 Batterskull. A boar fights and kills the germ, but then Hawks start multiplying. Domri falls to hawks. CawBlade gets stuck for a while at 4 lands, but eventually finds the fifth land and equips a hawk with Batterskull. A few turns later that bird also has two swords. Game Over. CawBlade 2-0.
G3: CawBlade takes a Scry mulligan. T2 Voice of Resurgence is answered by a Stoneblade Mystic. T3 Domri enable the Voice to kill the Mystic before it can do its thing. Hawks start appearing. T5 Loxodon Smiter. T6 Batterskull is hardcast. But Unflinching Courage on a Smiter allows the Smiter to fight the Germ and kill it. Batterskull switches to a hawk of course, but on T8 O-ring removes the Batterskull. But then Batterskull #2 comes down. T9 O-ring #2 saves the day, and Domri takes a win. CawBlade 2-1.
G4: An Avacyn’s Pilgrm gets mana leaked, and DOmri can’t find a third land for a while. T5 Batterskull is hardcast, but finally land #3 comes off the top allowing O-ring to get the Batterskull. Batterskull # 2 arrives, but the germ gets killed. Domri is able to keep killing the germs after Batterskull bounces and gets recast, but eventually a mystic searches for a sword with protection, and the rest is elementary. Equipped protection from red/white and green/black is preeeeeetty good against most decks. CawBlade 3-1.

I’m playing Red Aggro.
G1: Pummeler never finds a third land. Searing Blood clears the way weenies, and 2x Exquisite Firecraft finishes him off. Red Aggro wins 1-0.
G2: Three Searing Bloods make it hard for Pummeler to keep any creatures in play, even despite one Blossoming Defense. Rhonas watches helplessly as a Lightning Berserker finishes him off on Turn 7. Red Aggro 2-0.
G3: Finally, a close match. We get to a situation where he has lots of energy, Longtusk Cub, the Hydra, a Servant, and Chandra and he is at 7 life suspecting I have burn in hand (I’m bluffing with lands). I have Eidolon, 2 swiftspears, abbott, and firedancer satyr. Finally I draw some burn, but I don’t know if he has a bunch of Harnessed Lightnings in hand or what. He decides to attack with Longtusk Cub assuming I will block, fearing all his pump spells, but I let it through, he can’t kill me, and I top deck Exquisite Firecraft, burn his face and attack with prowess triggers. Red aggro wins, 3-0.

2000 Angry Hermit with Plow Under, Gaea’s Cradle, and Deranged Hermit, vs 2016 Flash and its subsequently-banned Reflector Mage. It seemed certain that when Hermit was on the play and got a turn 3 Plow Under, it would win, but how often would that actually happen?

G1: Hermit wins the roll, and gets Turn 3 Avalanche Riders into Turn 4 Plow Under into Turn 5 Skyshroud Poacher with plenty of time to get Deranged Hermit while the Flash deck rebuilt its mana base. Actually, the Flash deck got some blockers out and was starting to stabilize, but double Arc Lightning finished the deck off. Angry Hermit 1-0.

G2: A turn 3 Dec in Stone takes out 2 just-played Birds of Paradise, but that doesn’t stop the Hermit deck. Both decks are short on lands for a while and the game goes long. Rattlechains starts slowly whittling down the Hermit deck’s life total, with 2 Stasis Snares keeping things under control, but back to back Plow Unders give the Hermit deck an opening to play some spells without interference. By the time the Flash deck gets to 5 lands, the hermit deck has 4 squirrels, a hermit, poacher, masticore, and a BoP. Avacyn keeps the flash deck alive during one big attack, but the following turn a subsequent go-wide attack followed by Arc Lightning makes the difference. Hermit 2-0. “I like my odds,” I recall saying, up two games in a best-of-five. Ah, how I would eat those words.

G3: Reflector Mage sends back a Rofellos and seriously interrupts the mana ramping. Gideon comes down turn 4 and makes a knight. Already, the Hermit deck is at 15 life. It plays poacher. Turn 5 no blocks to keep poacher alive so the Hermit deck takes a hit from Gideon and co. and goes to 6 life, but the Hermit player now has Gaea’s Cradle. All this time, the UW Flash deck has played a land each turn. On turn 6 (with 6 lands) the Flash deck attacks into a suddenly appearing Hermit and squirrels, and the Hermit deck goes to 1 life. Then Hermit gets another hermit and has a horde of 3/3 squirrels, so Gideon makes an emblem and disappears – because a 2nd Gideon is in hand, so Gideon returns. The emblem is key, as the 3/3 squirrels are now facing several cards with 4 toughness instead of 3. Plow Under buys some time and a 3rd Deranged Hermit creates even more blockers, but being at 1 life makes things tricky. On turn 8 the Flash deck gets a Selfless Spirit which is ominous for an opponent at 1 life, but an attack with 5 4/4 squirrels and a few others forces the block, so Spirit goes down. Then, the critical topdeck saves the day: Declaration in Stone. 5 Squirrels turn into statues. The game goes long, but Gideon is still around gaining value. The Hermit deck reassembles a smaller army, but Fumigate destroys them, and the Flash deck finally, about 6 turns later, is able to do that 1 last point of damage. UW Flash 1-2. Staying Alive…

G4: A mulligan to 6. A Treetop Village. A Turn 3 Blastoderm. Turn 4 Gaea’s Cradle and a 2nd Blastoderm. And here’s the crucial mistake: to put pressure on the Flash deck’s life total, I don’t send everyone at Gideon, figuring the life points are just as good as killing Gideon since I’m the beatdown. But Avacyn flashes in and keeps Gideon alive at 1 loyalty. The Flash deck stabilizes at 5 life and the Blastoderms fade away. I play Poacher. It gets killed by Dec in Stone. I play Hermit. It gets killed by Dec in Stone #2. Dec in Stone #2! Ouch. After that, I get flooded and lose quickly. Hermit 2-2.

G5: Both players get bad hands. Flash mulligans to 6. Hermit mulligans to 5. (Remember, we are playing with the old scry mulligan still.) Neither player has much action. 2 Birds of Paradise vs. a Thraben Inspector. The Inspector starts attacking – for 6 turns!!! The Flash player’s hand is full of counterspells. Once the Hermit player has enough mana to try for two spells in a turn, it plays Masticore into Spell Queller, followed by Hermit… into Void Shatter. The next turn an Arc Lightning gets countered by Negate. Westvale Abbey enters the board and starts making dudes. The Spell Queller starts attacking. 3 Blastoderms are no good against the Westvale tokens, and later a Blessed Alliances forces one Blastoderm to sacrifice itself, after the birds have chump blocked, and gradually, oh so gradually, the Hermit deck gets knocked out of the tournament thanks to Spell Queller attacking for 6 turns. A long slow death for Hermit. UW Flash wins, 3-2.

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.

One of our new friends from Reddit played out this match. Thanks for the report! Here’s what he said:

So we played the darkblade vs necro match, I uploaded a video to youtube at https://youtu.be/ReS4vIjXZGo. Necro wins a very close 3-2, with the decisive turn simply being Darkblade not drawing a fifth land in game 5 to drop and equip SoFaF in the face of a swarm of aggro. Darkblade’s opening hands were as follows:

GAME 1 preordain plains darkslick shores jace the mind sculptor stoneforge mystic preordain

GAME 2 glacial creeping jace stoneforge darkslick jace duress

GAME 3 creeping go for the vampire dismember arid mesa squadron creeping

GAME 4 marsh flats batterskull stoneforge inquisition seachrome emeria angel swamp

GAME 5 sword of feast and famine duress stoneforge mystic emeria angel creeping tar pit go for the throat plains

It’s a very close but swingy matchup where necro has turn 1 plays that can jump way ahead, but has a hard time dealing with the Stoneforge package. I think I made a couple of small play errors, missing a Factory pump and misplaying a Contagion in game 4, and I tried several different sideboard plans, eventually settling on keeping Drain Life rather than the color-hate that mostly didn’t get anywhere useful. My roommate commented that her deck was running too many taplands, and the lack of Day of Judgment was very noticeable, as Necro is very much the aggro deck here. She also says she knows why they stopped printing random discard now.

Necro 3-2, in an essentially even matchup; probably loses to the more refined banning-era cawblade.

A nerfed version of the most degenerate deck ever vs. a very scary red deck that has taken 1st place once in the past? Our prediction was that too much needs to go right for Spiral Blue, and Atarka Red will just put too much pressure on the life total.

Well, once again, we were wrong! The difficulty in predicting which deck will win is one of the things I find fun about these tournaments. Atarka Red had some pretty bad luck with starting hands, and Spiral Blue had Force Spike and, after sideboarding, the nightmare anti-red card: Chill. It did go to game five though. Here’s how it played out.

Game one: Swiftspear? No, force spike. Dragon Fodder? No – counterspell. Swiftspear #2? It resolves. Spiral Blue plays intuition to get a copy of Mind Over Matter. Hordeling Outburst resolves. A resolved Atarka’s Command finishes the game. Postgame discussion: might have been incorrect to counter Dragon Fodder, cards like Atarka’s Command are way worse. 1-0 Atarka Red.

Game two: Atarka Red saw a one land hand with Zurgo and lots of two mana spells. Fearing a force spike then no land draws, decides to mulligan to 6 and is horribly, horribly punished with no land after no land hands, usually with 3 mana spells to boot. Eventually stops at 2 cards, that’s how bad it was. Drew lands, actually! But no creatures. Yeah, lost that game. Which was key because after sideboarding the matchup gets a lot harder. 1-1.

Game three: Post sideboard. Atarka Red gets Zurgo out, but then has no follow up, really slow hand. Wild Slash to the face, then Dragon Fodder which gets countered, then Dragon fodder #2 which resolves, threatening lethal next turn but… Spiral blue goes off and wins on turn 6. 2-1 Spiral Blue.

Game four. Swiftspear and Dragon Fodder get on board before Spiral Blue plays the dreaded CHILL. But it doesn’t matter, Atarka Red gets to 4 lands. Spiral blue struggles to assemble the combo pieces. An end step Atarka’s Command for three damage (necessary because of chill and potential counterspells) sets up a turn 6 lethal attack thanks to another prowess trigger. A win DESPITE chill getting played. This is huge! Although next game Spiral blue goes first. Uh-oh. 2-2.

Game five: The most feared scenario happens. Turn 1 force spike. Turn 2 Chill. Then a couple turns later, chill #2. Then a couple turns later, chill #3. The red deck never resolves a spell. 3-2 Spiral Blue.

Sometimes a random new unranked challenger makes it through only to play a ranked deck from the same year metagame. So, would it be a close match? Turns out… no.

G1: Superfriends has no blockers so has to play Day of Judgment but Bant still has lots of cards. Gideon buys some time for Superfriends. Baneslayer meets a Path to Exile. Eventually Bant gets a Sphinx and a Scute Mob, which get through thanks to Jace bouncing Gideon. Bant 1-0.

G2: Lots of 0/4 and 1/3 creatures make for a slow development on both sides and several Spreading Seas create a hassle for Bant who has no white mana. Bant tries Jace but O-ring takes him out. Superfriends plays Elspeth and Jace. That Jace also meets an O-ring from Bant but the Elspeth stays and is joined by Gideon. After a Day of Judgment clears a messy board, Gideon becomes a flying creature with +3/+3 and that settles things. THAT felt like a Superfriends deck! 1-1.

G3: Lots of sideboarding. Bant takes out all the wall creatures and gets counterspells. Bant jumps out to a quick start with a turn 3 Ranger of Eos, then a Scute Mob with Negate backup. Day of Judgment gets countered. Superfriends has one window of opportunity to do a second Day of Judgment but gets greedy and waits, only to have Bant draw another Negate on the next turn. Sphinx of Jwar Isle (shroud!) enters with Negate backup. DoJ #2 gets countered. Superfriends tries Gideon to buy time but even that meets an O-ring. Bant 2-1.

G4: Superfriends decides to keep Spreading Seas since it was so good in game 2 but it is useless in this game. Baneslayer #1 gets countered. Baneslayer #2 gets bounced three times by a Jace. Superfriends tries to play Jace but it is countered. Superfriends tries to O-ring an opposing Jace but… yep, countered. Bant uses Bant Charm on Baneslayer #2. Too many counters! Drew three of the four counterspells from the sideboard, which was pretty lucky. Anyway, after all that interference there were lots of attackers and Superfriends fell to the onslaught. Bant 3-1.

A mana hungry deck with lands that enter tapped against a deck that can potentially empty its whole hand turn one? That doesn’t seem like a fair match. But don’t underestimate the power of cheap removal and cascade spells! Here’s what happened:

Game 1: Two Arcbound Ravagers and a Disciple by Turn 4 vs lands that enter tapped makes this game a quick and ugly win for Affinity. The disciple gets killed by a Lightning Bolt but it’s too little too late. Affinity 1-0.

Game 2:
Affinity plays Disciple plus 2 Ornithopters and Welding Jar.
Disciple #2 joins the field, although there is no Ravager in sight. Frogmite too.
5CB is able to play Bloodbraid Elf on turn 4 and gets a Putrid Leech. Affinity finally draws Cranial Plating and equips it to an Ornithopter. and gets in a nice attack.
On turn 5 Affinity has lethal and goes for it by attacking with everything, even the Disciples, but Bituminous Blast into Lightning Bolt is a drastic reversal of fate, which also ends in all the Disciples getting killed. 5CB can now start attacking, while disrupting Affinity with another Bituminous Blast and 2 Cryptic Commands, which prevent the Ravager who finally shows up from being a threat. On the final turn, after 5CB having stabilized at 3 life, Cruel Ultimatum even resolves. It’s possible a more conservative line here, withholding a Disciple until a Ravager showed up would’ve led to a win, but playing conservatively with Affinity is not an obvious choice, and pre-sideboard there are no Infests yet, so it was probably correct, although risky. The risk backfired. 1-1.

Game 3:
Affinity has literally nothing to add from the sideboard, so the deck stays unchanged. 5CB adds Path to Exile and Infest. But, uh-oh, 5CB sees only 1 land in the first two hands, has to keep another one land hand after the mulligan to 5, but then starts to have hope with Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt doing some good work to prolong the game. But a Frogmite with modular counters AND Cranial Plating ends the game on turn 5. Affinity 2-1.

Game 4:
This one was close. 5CB gets out Putrid Leech which blocks an Arcbound Worker, (the token goes on a Nexus) but Affinity had 2 Disciples and 2 Frogmites. The Leech gets bigger to survive Infest, and that kills the 2 Disciples and 2 Frogmites, but leaves a Nexus with a counter (from when the Worker died the previous turn). After that, Affinity gets flooded. Affinity eventually finds a Ravager and a 3/2 flier, but with 5CB at 5 life, the Leech gets big and Volcanic Fallout kills the Nexus and the other flier while they are attacking. Now 5CB is at 1 life with a Putrid Leech facing a 3/3 Ravager, but 5CB gets the sick topdeck rip: the one-of Broodmate Dragon. Ravager attacks, Leech chump-blocks, and 5CB gets to Bituminous Blast into another Leech. Knowing that blocking is assured, the 2 Dragons can attack for two straight turns, and that’s enough. 5CB wins with 1 life left. Record: 2-2.

Game 5:
On turn 2 Affinity has an Ornithopter, a Ravager, one tapped artifact land and a tapped Nexus, and 5CB miraculously has two untapped lands that can both make red mana. Double Lightning bolt gets the Orni and the Ravager and leaves Affinity with just a Nexus. But Cranial Plating on the next turn keeps things interesting. 5CB starts playing cheap threats (Kitchen Finks, then Sygg plus Leech) and the Turn 4 Sygg is amazing because it draws a card. 5CB just has so much more removal (Volcanic Fallout, Path, and Doom Blade) and Affinity loses with no black mana sources, two Disciples in hand, 3 Platings in play and no creatures. 5-Color Blood Advances 3-2!

This might have been a closer match if Shrine Red had more creatures, since Temurge has Kozilek’s Return which can clear the board, but Shrine Red usually only had one creature in play backed up with burn spells and Shrine of Burning Rage, the deck’s namesake. In game 1 there was some hope for Temurge, who stabilized at 2 life with Elder Deep Fiend (which recurred Kozilek’s return, the 3rd Kozilek’s return that game.) But Shrine Red drew Arc Trail off the top to win. Game 2 Shrine Red kept a no creature hand but was rewarded with Goblin Guide off the top turn 1, which made a huge difference. Removal spells and Teetering Peaks kept the pressure on, and Hero of Oxid Ridge finished off the opponent by turn 7. Game 3 a risky one-land keep turned into a punt for the Shrine deck, with no 2nd land until turn 7, so Temurge was able to win that one thanks to Chandra, but Game 4 involved two Shrines, and when they were sacrificed they did 12 damage. Shrine Red advances 3-1.