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By Michael Gross
Dec 13, 2022
This past Saturday Misty Mountain Games in Madison, WI hosted the Midwest Premodern Championship. The event was also a fundraiser for Briar Patch Youth Services and ended up raising over $1000! The raffle included a sweet Christmas sweater as well as 3x different Premodern decks (Madness, Sligh, and Balancing Tings) and a foil Captain Sisay (pictures and attributions available here).
38 players battled it out for the title of 2022 Midwest Premodern Champion, and simultaneously showcase the best decks in Premodern. Unsurprisingly Parfait and Mono-U Stiflenought put up good results with both decks featured twice in the top 8 (Mono-U Stiflenought placing both copies into top 4 and ultimately taking home the trophy). Standings for all 4-2 or better records and their decks is available here). Congratulations to Will Hirst on the victory. And props to our Mill City reps placing 3rd (Jon) and 9th (Aaron), missing out on tiebreakers.
With the ending out of the way let's start at the beginning. Given the myriad holiday commitments Mill City was able to field a team of 5 to road-trip to this inaugural event. As is common this far north the forecast included snow during our drive down, but that didn't deter us (and unsurprisingly there were occassional flurries but significantly less than predicted). We stopped for breakfast at Mandy's Cafe & Deli in Tomah which was to largely sustain us for the next 12 hours (and would recommend for anyone traveling through in search of sustenance). We arrived with about 20 minutes to borrow cards, register decks (in one case reassemble one for an audible), and greet friends. I'm playing a fairly unimaginative Angry Tradewind Survival (ATS) but with 3x Opposition main to compliment the Tradewind Riders and get extra value out of the Deranged Hermit. Let's f*in go!
Round 1 vs Will Hirst (1-2). As you know Will went on to win the whole thing with Mono-U Stiflenought, and as fast as ATS can ramp it's hard to compete with a 2-card 2-mana combo backed by free counterspells. Game 1 was fairly straight-forward - I failed to stick a Survival, Tradewind, or Opposition and racing with Fyndhorn Elves vs an eventual Dreadnought is not a one I'll ever win. Game 2 I brought in half my board (3x Mana Leak, 3x Naturalize, and 1x Seal of Cleansing for 3x Opposition, 1x Genesis, 1x Wall of Roots, 1x Masticore, and 1x Spike Feeder). Mana Leak is as good as a hard counter in this matchup and after a couple counter battles over Vision Charms and Naturalizes I was able to bounce a resolved Dreadnought after one hit while beating down with an elf and establishing board control. Game 3 I was not able to run him out of counterspells and a quick Dreadnought closed it out. 0-1
Round 2 vs Lester Smerling (1-2). Nothing like a bad matchup (also on Mono-U Stiflenought) vs a great player (Lester went on to finish 4th) to start the day. Game 1 was fairly by the book with an early Dreadnought. I had a critical mass of walls to require 3 attacks from the Dreadnought, but the extra turn didn't end up helping. Game 2 I went with the same sideboard strategy as round 1. I'm not sure that pulling Opposition is the right choice as there aren't a lot of options for removing it once it hits play, but I wanted to be able to interact earlier and didn't feel I'd have a chance to win a counterspell battle when I've already invested 4 mana into. It worked out as I was able to keep a Dreadnought from sticking while pinging away with a couple elves. Game 3 was over quick with an early Dreadnought. It's at this point that I start to re-evaluate my strategy of playing my "threats" (Survival, Tradewind, Opposition) as early as possible to deplete their countermagic and instead mulligan more aggressively into a Naturalize and/or Mana Leak and slow-roll my plays to potentially have a chance at winning the stack on the first attempt. 0-2 but without a side event to enter I might as well play some more games right? It is after-all the whole reason for getting up at 4:30 and day-tripping to Madison.
Round 3 vs Jim Kindler (2-0). Finally, a different combo deck. Jim was playing a really cool Chance Encounter/Frenetic Efreet (it was a new combo to me a least). Game 1 his only real action was a Silver Knight and between my walls and active Survival I was able to start bouncing his lands and close it out. Game 2 I believe I brought in the Spore Frog and second Deranged Hermit thinking he was on a RWU aggro strategy. This game he got the Efreet as well as a Lightning Angel that did some damage, but I eventually got Opposition online, followed by a Masticore and then Tradewind to clean up the board. I have a likely unhealthy love for combo decks of all sorts and will probably end up building something like this before too long - having to keep Chance Encounter safe until your upkeep may be challenging but the shell and even Efreet are pretty good on their own so the opportunity cost feels minimal. 1-2
Round 4 vs Ryan DuBois (2-0). And now for something completely different. Ryan was playing a Mono-B Discard/control deck utilizing Duress, Cabal Therapy, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, and The Rack. Game 1 I mis-sequence my land drops, playing a Yavimaya Coast first but no 1-drop leaving it vulnerable to Wasteland, which is exactly what happened. I had a Forest in my hand but it took a missed land-drop on turn 3 before I drew the second land for Survival, which he was able to Duress away as I stumbled. Maybe this will be the lesson that finally cements my learning to consider every play, regardless of how inconsequential it seems at the moment. I am able to recover and stick a Survival later, getting Anger into the graveyard and Squee active, but not before he's applying pressure with a pair of The Rack forcing me to slow my expansion. But as is the beauty of the toolbox Survival approach I'm able to get a Quirion Ranger to get an extra bounce out of the active Tradewind and increase my hand-size to play around The Rack. Eventually I'm able to lock out his lands and play an angry Deranged Hermit. Game 2 I bring in the 3x Naturalize and 1x Seal of Cleansing in place of (if I recall correctly) 3x Opposition and 1x Spike Feeder. This time he starts with early pressure from a Mishra's Factory but after a couple hits I draw into the Seal of Cleansing. He has some hand-disruption and plays out a pair of The Racks again. This time I'm just above betting hammered from The Racks right away and with Survival/Squee (and an ungodly number of Elves and Birds) I'm able to again use Quirion Ranger to get more activations out of my Tradewind and occasionally bounce and re-play a Wall of Blossoms to keep my hand above 3 and lock him out again. 2-2.
Round 5 vs Aaron Dicks (0-2). Aaron is another great player, and another one piloting Mono-U Stiflenought. Not only do Aaron and I regularly play in Minneapolis, we drove down together - such is life. As much as you don't want to face teammates in the swiss I find it fun and challenging to play friends in a "competitive" setting. The games are over so quick we didn't even pause to take a picture so we played a 3rd game for the camera. That one was also over in short order and I never dealt a single point of damage over those 3 games. 2-3
Round 6 vs Sean Lillibridge (2-0). Sean is another Mill City local (with 5 of the 38 competitors coming from Minneapolis it's going to happen - but I'm still always surprised by it). He's playing U/G Madness so my bounce risks just fueling his Mongrel and Aquamoeba activations. Game 1 he gets me to 2 life before I'm able to tap down all his creatures each turn, and then start bouncing lands until continuing would be futile. Game 2 I brought in the second Deranged Hermit in place of the Orangutan to go wider for chump blocking or luck into the classic Hermit/Opposition. This game played out much the same as the first except I stabilize at 6 life before taking over the board. 3-3
And that concludes the swiss rounds. I finish exactly average at 19th place out of 38 and vow to start a campaign to ban Dreadnought (jk - it's obviously strong but I needed the laugh after going 0-3 against it on the day, it turns out that ignoring the deck was not the correct metagame decision). Our friend and Mill City comrade (and pilot of the other car we all came down in) Jon made top 8 so we stifle our hunger and cheer him on (while Aaron provides co-commentary for the feature match). A rough loss in the semi-finals knocks Jon out and we say our goodbyes and head out for dinner where we'll stream the final match. We end up at a near-by sports bar (Buffalo Wild Wings) which seems a fitting place to watch and cheer for the crowning of the Midwest Premodern Champion. And then it's a 4-hour drive back to Minneapolis. It was a great day with good friends and competition, and one hell of a tournament! There's nothing quite like road-tripping to a Magic tournament.
Props:
Brian Kowal and the staff at Misty Mountain Games. The event was a blast and was run incredibly smoothly and efficiently.
Competitors. Everyone I played and even interacted with were friendly and wonderful and I look forward to seeing them in the future (although please don't be offended if I've forgotten your name, or mine).
Mill City crew. Great company and travel companions as well as a challenging playtest group.
Jon for representing us in the top 4!
Aaron for the ride (thanks again!). He's also got a great write-up of the event in the Mill City Old School Facebook Group (from which I stole the pictures as it hadn't occurred to me at the time).
Slops:
T-Mobile for claiming I had service but refusing to fulfill requests or stream smoothly in random spots of Madison.
Getting old. 20 hours of travel and competitive magic is a lot more exhausting than 20 years ago. But the fun and enthusiasm is as high as ever.
Next time I will make notes after each match so I can add specific commentary and play around my failing memory (see getting old above). As well as take my own pictures.
Thanks!
Mike
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