2023 June Monthly

The inaugural Montreal Premodern meetup is in the books, and what a night it was. Nine brave souls descended to L’Adversaire for a night of Magic and beers, which felt a lot like a family reunion (and in my case, actually was). The meta consisted of 2 Landstill decks, 2 Sligh, MUD, Stasis, Monored Goblins, Hermit FEB, and my weapon of choice: Dracoblast.

Heading in, I had one goal: Ritual out Arenas, Hippies, and Negators. David Daniel was kind enough to provide his list of LobsterCon side-event glory, which I tweaked ever so sligh(t)ly.

My round one opponent was a newcomer to Premodern, Greg. He initially planned to borrow Karl’s Sligh deck, but promptly switched when he saw Mark’s blinged-out MUD deck.

Greg led with a turn 1 Ancient Tomb and Mindstone. Off the bat, I accomplished my goal by Ritualing out an Arena. He followed up with a Metalworker and a missed land drop. I Terminated the construct and passed back. He played a second Metalworker and missed a second land drop. I played a late-to-the-party Lavamancer and prepared for the worst. Grep tapped the Metalworker to reveal 6 foiled artifacts (valued at 1.5 times the price of my car) and played every single one: Dynamo, Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, Powder Keg, Smokestack, and a Sphere of Resistance. Unfortunately for him, he ticked the Keg all the way up to three, thinking he could blow up the Arena, sparing my Lavamancer. Over the next couple of turns, I was able to break through using a combination of Hippy attacks, Lavamancer activations, burn spells, and the grace of the gods of fair Magic.

I boarded out the combo and brought in Overloads and Negators. Game 2 was short lived as I died to a combination of 2 Black Vises and attacks from Factories, which I watched from behind the bars of Winter Orb, Sphere of Resistance, and Tangle Wire. In game 3, I played a turn one Lavamancer and Ritualed out a turn 2 Negator, drawing an audible “Oh!” from Greg. We went to turns with a staredown between my Negator and his 2 Factories. In turn number three, with Greg at 6 life, I attacked with Negator. He tapped his Ancient Tomb, going down to 4, and animated the Factories. I passed priority, and he proceeded to double block and have each Factory pump itself. I Overloaded one, sacrificed 3 tapped lands to Negator, and sent a Bolt to the dome for the win.

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Phyrexian Negator
2B
Creature — Phyrexian Horror

5/5

Trample

Whenever Phyrexian Negator is
dealt damage, sacrifice that many
permanents.

"They exist to cease"
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In round two, I kept a hand of double Bolt, Terminate, and lands, expecting to play the control against an aggro deck, as my opponent, Max Burger, offered to loan out a 10 Land Stompy deck. Max played no creatures and proceeded to unceremoniously Shock, Bolt, Incinerate, Vortex, and Fireblast my face. At first, I assumed he was on a creatureless burn deck, but he did crack a Bauble. In between games, he and Michael Biron (also on Sligh) chatted away about how well the deck did at Lobstercon, with about a 20% showing and two top 16 finishes. I might have mentioned I had something to do with that :) I boarded out 3 Arenas and brought in a Wretch and 2 Overloads. I opened on a fetch and passed, and was delighted to see Max crack a fetch of his own to play a Pup. I bolted the Pup and brought him to the desired life total of 16. Two turns later, I played Dreams at the end of his turn, and Erratic Explosion on. After reading what both of those cards did, I got my second “Oh!”

In game 3, I punted hard. I had Swamp, Mountain, Mire, Ritual, Duress, Dreams and Wretch in my opening hand. For some bizarre reason, I played Swamp to Duress his Fireblast, and accidently played Mountain instead of the fetch. When I proceeded to combo off on turn two, I realized I couldn’t win because the fetch would shuffle my Draco away! I blame the beer I nearly chugged in anticipation for driving home after the next round. Max let me take it back, so I stacked, Bolt, Erratic, Draco. The true winner of the match was friendship :)

For the final round, I faced a pillar of the Premodern community: Deckbuilder extraordinaire, archbishop to the gods of fair Magic, and all-around awesome guy: Remi Ouellette. One of the highlights of the night had been to watch Remi win the Landstill mirror in style, casting not one but two Decrees of Justice on the hidden mode: Angels!

In game one, on the play, I knew I had my work cut out for me. He Plowed my turn one Ritualed Hippie (at least I accomplished what I set out to do). I played a turn 2 Lavamancer, and he responded with Standstill. The next few turns were a game of chicken, as I attacked with Lavamancer and my 2 Factories. The highlight for me was Remi cracking his own Landstill Disenchant a Factory. Landstill drew me into double Duress, and the cards I had discarded kept Lavamancer fed. The game ended when I cast Dreams to get a single Bolt.

Unfortunately, I lost the next two games due to a combination of poor sideboarding decisions on my part, a double mulligan in game two, and not being greedy enough on the draw in game three. And probably because Remi is one heck of an opponent... As Remi posted, game three ended with me giving up after he cast his third Fact or Fiction in a row, while I was hellbent.

Congratulations on the win, Remi, and huge shoutout to Karl, Mark, and Max for organizing!