Deck: Jund Wildfire

The Midrange Deck of Choice for this Season. Playing Grixis Affinity but with Chrysalis, Snuff Out, Hydra – and Basic Lands! What a gift. Plus a Sideboard that can knock down matches on its own. I only really want to dodge Kuldotha (or find my 10 side cards against it). Why not play Jund Glee all along for some Combo?! Why not play Jund Gardens for some Defile and Emblems?! …Hence steps a cracked up Refurb onto the scene and reveals themself as the the true Decklord. Aligned with some Wildfire Ramp to fully grind your Lembas /Fountains/Munitions. I play 3 Duress , 1 Munitions, 1 Fumes Main because I really don’t like relying on Krark/Toxin, and Duress feels just good against every Deck, including Kuldotha, Gruul, Dredge.

Round 1 U Fae 2-1

The Pairing made me dodge Kuldotha (puh), Dredge and Grixis in Round 1. Fae being one of my better matchups here. It feels a bit Timmy, but 4 Chrysalis, 4 Refurb, 2 Hydra, 4 Wipes, 4 Snuff Out, 3 Cast Down post board can really but a stop to being attacked by Ninjas and Faes.

Game 1 I have the perfect opener on the Draw: 2 Lands/Wildfire/ Lembas /Dispute/Chrysi/ Duress . I get the Wildfire, find my third land and then just none more for the first 5 turns. It felt like havin King, King in Poker and then face 4, 8, 6, 7, 10 on the table, with the opposite slaming the chips 0-1

Game 2 I have my post board machine humming, fueled with lands. I put down Chrysi and Refurb. He sticks to his Ninja Plan in hand as his out, but never gets to remove my 4 turn clock 1-1

Game 3 On the draw I have a slow, but decent opener. Luckily he taps out on turn 3 and i get to slam a Munitions on my turn. From there on the Breath Weapons in my hand get bored. They start to rebel, wanting to face the light of sun, just once more – but in vain. The Munitions just maws everything down. Ninjas get hard castet, decisions to tap out get regreted 2-1

Round 2 Izzet Skred 2-1

I was looking forward to this, because I liked the take on the list: No Augurs, but 3 Cast into the Fire 2 Breath Weapon Main. Plus like 12 Can Trips, 8 Bolts, 3 Spell Pierce – and the usual 4 Terror, 2 Emblem, 2 Mystic as Wincons. I cut Spellbombs postboard, cause I dont care about 5/5s – I wasn’t sure whether he would side in Relics tho. Best Card in my Deck is Blood Fountain plus the 2 Hunters post board. He has like a 1/10 chance to kill me with early Terrors and 9/10 Chance to kill me with Emblem or Mystic when they are snowballing.

Game 1 We have a mix of both. He has the early Terrors, puts me to 5, I dig for answers, find them, he untaps, admirals me. I have but 4 cards in hand, no creatures, eternal Emblem, haha. I had turn 1 Duress , saw 2 Counter, 1 Lorien – took the Lorien, only thinking about the late game. Maybe I should not let me get tempoed like that again in the future. I am glad we play without timer, because otherwise I would have scooped in that Admiral-moment. This way I gave us both the pleasure of seeing me run with Dispute-Fuel and all registers against an Emblem that drew him 10+ cards. 0-1 Game 2 He ponders for the second landdrop and misses. I relax. I Duress , take one more cantrip, leave him with 2 Spell Pierce , 2 Terror, Admiral, Preordain . I manage to play around both Spell Pierce and Terror, he eventually discards the Admiral to a Refurb, I show him the power of the Fountain and 100 game actions later it is 1-1 We have both warmed up… Game 3 We move into the Light of the Cameras. I now know that really only an early Admiral can get him out of my reach. I have the feeling he boarded out his Lightning Bolts, and has no Relics. This furhter tightens up the avenue we were fighting on before – Admiral or lose. Act 1 We straight fall into this really enjoyable pattern of him leaving open Red/Blue as his CiF mana from turn 2 on the play, and me starting to look at my Bridge in hand, eventually finding a Wildfire, then a second, then a third (!!) I play patiently, only Basics and Fetches, kinda fasting-cure play patterns. Turn 4 the heat is catching up on me. I have nothing but 3 basics in play. My hand iBridge, Forest, (and now the funny ones) Dispute, 3 Wildfire. (Only a Mage with a will stronger than mine could have found the patience to play the following „correct“ line: Play Forest, pass. Do Nothing, stand him to slam his stupid four drop, and if he does not: Untap, play Bridge as the fifth land, Wildfire it, he Cast into the Fire , I Dispute the Bridge in response, go on with Life, leave no value behind). Instead, of course, I forget all about my patience, slam the Bridge on turn four, run my Wildfire into his CiF-blow-out-thingy and swallow it.

Act 2 There is a bit more of mutual hand-fixing and when the dust settles he presents me a Mystic with 1 Blue up. I just know it is Dispel . He could have slammed it one turn earlier on a beautiful board, but didn’t. If he had Counterspell in hand, he could have just waited 2-3 turns more, no need to slam it now. But that’s what he did. I have Snuff Out , but I know it is useless, even bad right now. I decide to not play into it. I have to draw this Dispel out of his hand first, either with Disputes, Duress or another Snuff/ Cast Down of course. So again I decide for the patient line, trying to not fall into his nanana-no-relevant-spell-for-you-blue-mage-stuff. And again the heat is catching up on me when he untaps and casts Preordain . I am „ceratin“ that he will find another Counter, I fall off my patience and I hail-marie my Snuff Out into his Mystic, into the expected Dispel – leaving him with 2 Cards in Hand, a Mystic and 2 Birds.

Act 3 I have free play. Finally, hell yea! He only has a Mystic and 2 Birds, what could happen right? I start drawing gazillions of cards, immeadiately finding 2 kill spells, throw one at the Mystic, it even resolves! I am in heaven. Now i just need to peel 1-2 creatures off the top and we are ready to close this one. He apparently has nothing. Spell Pierce on a Flashback-Eviscerators is about the highlight of this phase of the game. We pass back and forth. I draw 4 cards a turn, play my lands, rubbing my hands waiting for those juicy Chrysi/Hydra/Hunters. What I find are more Snuff Outs instead. Great. He does nothing but attack me for 2 in the air. I go down 13-11-9-7-5. Yey. I hard cast kill one of them with Snuff Out . Yey yey!

Act 4 I find 2 Chrysis finally. As a last resort, he finally finds and slams his Admiral in return, draws one. I untap, remove the Admiral, no brainer, I need to take Monarch now and keep it, no extra cards for him. 2 Chrysi versus 1 Bird and 2 Cards in hand. One last Breather and I remove the second Bird with a precious (!) second hard cast Snuff Out . Yey yey yey!! Take the Emblem, never look back. Onto the Finals 2-1

Round 3 Dredge 0-2

Another one I have been looking for. Pre-board I don’t see much chance but to keep him in check with 2 Spellbombs, Cast Down on Troll if he Exhumes, hope for the best of Chrysalis draws to put on pressure. Post Board it should be an EDH-like slugfest with both of us on 50 Life and slamming some 10/11 vs 5/7 and 6/5 in Combat.

Game 1 is a cool one. I actually have Turn 1 Spellbomb, he no Exhume , both regular development, I have a sweet Munitions. I let him hardcast a Giant and Spellbomb on the Trigger as to not go to low on Life. Both decisions maybe not optimal, but I see Game 1 as a Warm up to learn the patterns and then really fight it out in Game 2, 3 with my 4 Weathers. I try to play as tight as possible, have a good feeling of the lairs of the matchup now. With only 1 Spellbomb in my Deck and no pressure on my side the game eventually falls 0-1

Game 2 I get my Sweepers and Weather in, take out Refurb and Fountain. If I stabilise the Board and get to 30ish Life, I should be able to force him to commit to Graveyard and then make the Spellsbombs count, or let Hunter pay him dividend for sitting it out. The game sadly turns out different. I mull to 5, which is really no biggie for Wildfire. I develop my regular gameplan, he Exhumes an early Ent. It’s not pretty, but really the most answerable threat he could get off Exhume . I find Chrysi, so I get more time and potentially the answer for this whole board. He Exhumes a Troll. It’s not pretty you know, but Exhume on a 6/5 with no etb is really just turning my Cast Down from mediocre to incredible. I Duress him and see he has Gnawto the Bone/Ancient Grude/ 2 Lands. His Graveyard is 5 cards. This is as good as it gets for me. I just need a Chrysalis or Cast Down and then we are basically topdecking against each other! But variance is this sweet tooth in Magic and then you get these games, where you get to look at 15 cards of your deck to find 1 but not 2 juicy hits, you find 2 Wildfire but no Bridge at all, lol, so you cantrip them by at least removing their red sources (which ironically they have 3 of in the game anyways), you Dispute into 3 Lands, to then top deck another two, and then when desperation and disbelief is finally kicking in, you even block („the small guy“) Generous Ent with your („wait, how many toughness does this thing give itself again?!“) Writhing Chrysalis , you feel cheated by the gods, such things you know, how could this happen to me, I am on camera, Mummy and Wifey are watching, I want to go out fighting, not like this!! But then you realize: your opponent might have „got lucky“ with their 2 Exhumes, 2 Cyclers, no Enablers Hand, but maybe they realized this line of play all along, or just put their bets on it in this game vs a mull to 5. No matter 0-2 Well played and well deserved! Gratulations to the Stinkweed Imp of Leipzig!