Conflux Pre-release Pool and Analysis

Conflux pre-release sealed pool (6 – 0)

My deck and pool for the Conflux pre-release are broken down below. I originally started out in Jund colors with an aggressive build that touched blue for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and the activation of Dragonsoul Knight. After round one, I switched out the green for the more exciting white cards, trading out tricks like Resounding Roar and Might of Alara and fast beaters like Wild Nacatl and Cylian Elf for more powerful cards like Path to Exile and Empyrial Archangel.

The tournament was six rounds. Here’s what I remember.

Round 1 (Dave)
We both had aggressive R/G decks. He was base-Naya and started both games with Wild Nacatl, Knotvine Mystic, and Knight of the Reliquary I believe. In game one, I just matched his early threats with removal and dropped some decent blockers, including Spore Tokens and Dragonsoul Knight. Then Dragonsoul Knight came online when I hit domain with us both stalled out at 12 life. I won from there in two quick swings. In game two, I happily traded creatures in combat with him until the board was clear and we were both mostly out of cards. I had one card left though in the form of Matca Rioters. I was able to drop it as a 5/5 and take him down from 17 life in a few quick swings (with help from another 2/2 I played after the rioters).

Round 2 (Travis)
Travis is a good player who has taken the game seriously at times (finished 2nd at States one year) but was not putting a lot of time into Magic at this point (me neither, by the way). He was playing a base G/W/U Bant/Naya deck with a lot of exalted and large creatures. Cards I remember from his deck: Jungle Weaver, Drumhunter, Waveskimmer Aven, Sighted-Caste Sorcerer, Fatestitcher, Kederekt Leviathan, Godtoucher, Vagrant Plowbeasts, Qasali Ambusher, etc.

He won the first game by getting out a Jungle Weaver and a Drumhunter. My plan was probably flawed – I had one piece of removal which I wanted to save to combine with a blocker to remove the Jungle Weaver since I could not see myself winning unless I removed it quickly. I was just hoping the higher quality of cards in my deck would make up for all the extra cards he was drawing off Drumhunter (which it probably didn’t). He amassed the perfect attack weapon by dropping Godtoucher, Fatestitcher, and a couple of exalted guys to make his Jungle Weaver completely dominant on the attack. I was reminded of Fatestitcher’s untap ability when I dropped Broodmate Dragon and tried to race – Jungle Weaver untapped and ate one of the dragons and it was not looking so good. Somehow I did stall things out enough that I got him down to 6 with me at 5. He then earned major style points by discarding Kederekt Leviathan (due to drawing so many cards with Drumhunter). I could not find a way to deal six and had to scoop things up facing the fact that he could unearth the next turn and get in for 5 with the leviathan.

I don’t remember much of game two though I believe we traded blows early (our life totals dropped in 3 and 4 point chunks) – him with a Sighted-Caste Sorcerer and me with Knight of the Skyward Eye and Paragon of the Amesha until were were at 12 (him) and 10 (me). Then our life totals went to 5 (him) and 15 (me) so I assume I hit domain and he didn’t draw anything to stop my 5/5 flier for the next turn and scooped. This reminds me – I made another big error in the first game. At one point, I used Path to Exile on an early blocker because I was stuck on land and facing a growing army. I went for a mountain (I think, it was definitely a basic corresponding to one of my three base colors) so I could cast something in my hand. I remember thinking at the time that it would have been better to go for a Forest (a splash color at this point) to turn on my Dragonsoul Knight. I did not do this because I thought it was too greedy of a play, but considering the machinery Travis assembled that game a 7/5 flying, first strike trampler might have been the only way I could win. Any way, at this point, the super-pump knights have won two of the first four games I played (and probably should have won 3).

In game 3, Travis came out fast with some small guys and I played out Vithian Stinger and used it trade my guys for his at my advantage (a 2/2 for a 3/3, etc). Somehow I dropped all the way to 5 life doing this, while the stinger did at least 6 damage to Travis on its own. Then Travis dropped a Vagrant Plowbeasts at 9 life (he got that low from an early Darklit Gargoyle that boarded in for game three to try to get past all his big ground guys – it hit him twice down to 14 and the stinger did the other 5 down to 9). I remember almost cycling a Resounding Thunder on it before noting he had one land up for regeneration. I untapped and my plan was to cycle Resounding Thunder during combat so that regeneration would remove the plowbeasts from combat and hope that I could draw into something good enough to win over the plowbeasts with my draw step plus the cycle – ideally Spore Burst plus something that could attack. Instead I drew for the turn and it was Predator Dragon. I quickly did the math and saw that if I shot him with the stinger, devoured, swung for 6 and unearthed the stinger I would do 8 leaving him at one and me dead to his plowbeasts (I believe I had 8 lands and so could hard cast the Resounding Thunder for 3 damage). So I swung with the dragon for 4, blocked the plowbeasts with the stinger and shot Travis down to 4 and he scooped, unable to deal with the Predator Dragon (even if he had, I could have cycled Resounding Thunder once I untapped). That game was one of the times I got a bit lucky on the day – the only way to go undefeated, I believe. If Travis had drawn some kind of removal for my stinger, he would have won the match.

By the way, after game one, I boarded in Fatestitcher and Grixis Slavedriver for Canyon Minotaur and Goblin Outlander (I think) because I thought those cards gave me a better chance to win a long game with lots of ground creatures.

Round 3 (Paul)
This guy seemed like a capable enough player but I had trouble interacting with him, just one of those guys I don’t see eye to eye on in terms how Magic is played. He had a tight R/G domain deck – multiple Exploding Borders plus other fixers – most of my opponents hit domain at least one game out of every match and he definitely hit it every game. He had mostly small R/G beaters for creatures – Nacatls, Druid of the Anima, Wooly Thoctar, stuff like that. In game one, I traded creatures and removal spells for his early creatures and then let Broodmate Dragon do the winning as his life total went 20, 12, 4, 0.

Game two was funny. I only managed to take him down to 16. I believe we were trading creatures and removal. My lifetotal went 20,15,10,0 as he went Exploding Borders for 5, Exploding Borders for 5, Banefire for 10.

Game three was another Dragonsoul Knight game as his life total went 20, 18, 14, 10, 0 – get in with some early beats and then power it up for the big finish. I definitely drew Drag Down several times against him over the match since he asked me afterwards how many I had in the deck – it was a good answer to his early Wooly Thoctars (I was lucky on land draws here).

Round 4 (Chester)
Chester is a solid local player, often in the top eight of PTQs, Regionals, and States. He’s not that much fun to play against or talk to though. I believe the first time I met him was at Limited State Champs when he beat me in the Swiss (my first loss). My friend was then paired with him in the last round where Chester was in with a draw (might have even been in with a loss at that point). He convinced my friend to draw because he wanted to eat before the top eight. Sadly, my friend finished ninth on breakers and missed the top eight (while I just embarrassed myself drafting a terrible R/W deck).

Chester’s deck today was an unexciting Naya deck with Wild Nacatl, Druid of the Anima (which he pronounced Ah-nee-ma) and Oblivion Ring being the cards I remember. His draw was too fast for me game one. I don’t remember much – he had an Oblivion Ring, Wild Nacatl, and probably some other little guys. My life total went 20, 17, 11, 5, 2, 0. After the game, I boarded in Filigree Fracture for his Oblivion Ring – not sure this was the correct play but I just felt like it.

At the beginning of the match, Chester would always just wave at my deck when I presented it for cutting and I would do the same back to him. At the start of game two, I already had my hand on his deck when he waved at mine, so I said something like, “well, since I’ve gone this far, I’ll just go ahead and cut it.” He draw seven and shuffled them back. I cut him again. He drew six and shuffled them back. I cut him and he kept five. The details after that are not too important. I believe we played in such a way that he thought he had stabilized and then I dropped Broodmate Dragon. His life total went 14, 6, 0 from there.

For game three, he cut my deck and I mulliganed but I kept my six card hand despite his second cut. I don’t remember too much of this one though I think it was close – my life total dropped to 5 before it was over. He played an early Oblivion Ring on my Dragonsoul Knight and I happily Filigree Fractured it on his end of turn after I hit domain. His life total went 18, 11, 4, 0 from there. Note that this still doesn’t mean I should be playing Filigree Fracture against his deck.

Round 5 (Kevin)
Kevin was a pretty young guy with good technical ability sporting a solid Esper deck highlighted by Tower Gargoyle, Manaforce Mace, Fleshformer, Metallurgeon, and other synergistic support cards (including a Martial Coup which he showed me but never played).

Game one was very tough. He got out the suite of cards outlined above with four basic land types – giving him an equipped Gargoyle as a 7/7 flier which he could regenerate. I had several creatures on the board as well so things were complicated and I do not remember all the details. I had Paragon of the Amesha. The life totals this game can tell you a lot about how things went down. He was on the play and knocked me to 19 with his Metallurgeon on turn three before I played Paragon of the Amesha. On turn five he swung with his Tower Gargoyle and dropped me to 15. On my turn five, I cringed at the sight of the Manaforce Mace and Fleshformer he had played and swung back with a powered up Paragon of the Amesha, swapping our life totals with me now at 20 and him at 15. He swung back for 9 dropping me to 11 which I’m not so sure was the correct play for him in hindsight. My crackback made things 16-10 in my favor. He equipped the Fleshformer and swung to even things up at 10-10 and then tried to equip his Gargoyle again for blocks. Here I used Drag Down to kill his gargoyle (circumventing his regeneration capabilities) and swung in with the paragon, eating some 3 toughness flier he had played to make things 15-8 in my favor. He cracked back to make things 8-8 but was forced to scoop to my impending attack (I had some last trick / extra attackers, I don’t remember which). By the way, if he had ever ripped one of the three green sources he said he had in his deck to turn on his Fleshformer I would have been toast – once again I got pretty lucky on my way to 6-0.

I wish I could remember what he said during game two. Maybe it was on turn four when I didn’t have a fourth land type he said I didn’t have a good draw this time. I just laughed and said that my draw was pretty spicy. Things started off slow as I believe I fiddle with an Armillary Sphere while he didn’t do very much before I dropped Broodmate Dragon. This took him from 18 to 10 but I believe he neutralized it. Still, I soon dropped Nicol Bolas and forced the concession as his attackers became my blockers. I had a Predator Dragon in my hand but it was unnecessary.

This was the first time I actually got to play Bolas. I had drawn it one other time in Round 1 I think but I won before I could play eight lands. By the way, Empyrial Archangel made one appearance earlier as well – it forced a concession in a game I was already going to win. I forget when it happened but my opponent was dead to one of the super pump knights the next turn and scooped when he saw the archangel. He said he had outs to the knight but that there was nothing he could have drawn to deal with the angel.

Round 6 (Brad)
Unfortunately for Brad, he was paired up against me since there were only three 5-0 players. It was the second round in a row that he had been paired up – the round before he had beaten another undefeated player. His loss had come against the other undefeated player with Nicol Bolas, who was paired against the undefeated Esper deck in the last round. Once again I think I was lucky to avoid getting paired against either of those players in the last round, especially the Esper player who apparently finished the tournament 12-0 in games. At this point, my opponent and everyone else around the top tables knows I have Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in my deck (though they don’t necessarily appreciate how much more than that I have or the fact that so far I have only one game of one match with Nicol Bolas over the course of the day).

Game one was…interesting. Brad’s deck was a Naya domain deck with Dragonsoul Knight, Battlegrace Angel and Aven Windreaders being some of the more prominent cards. I don’t remember too many other specifics though I do know he had the faster deck and had some smaller guys that I don’t remember exactly. Game one, he got me down to seven life before I dropped Nicol Bolas on him. He had the better board position and did not scoop immediately. I messed up here and tried to take one of his creatures, leading him to respond by giving his guys shroud with Aven Windreaders. Oops. I had enough defenders to survive a couple more turns though and managed to blow up his only island, deactivating his windreaders, with Bolas the next turn before I started stealing his creatures. He scooped at 20 life, having never taken a single point of damage.

Game two was…even more interesting. He got out a Battlegrace Angel and Rhox War Monk and was able to gain massive amounts of life. I was not doing too badly though as I believe Aven Trailblazer was protecting me nicely as a 2/5 or 2/6 flier. Still, he definitely broke 40. I had a Broodmate Dragon which was able to trade down for one of his big attackers and help keep me alive. He also had a Dragonsoul Knight, but once again luck was on my side as he was missing one color for activating it. So I was under some pressure but I had defenders that were keeping me alive as long as he didn’t draw any good removal. I recall being at six lands with Nicol Bolas in my hand when I calmly played Sanctum Gargoyle picking up Armillary Sphere from my graveyard. The life totals were something like 40-9 in his favor when I dropped Bolas and blew up one of his lands. I forget now if I needed to blow up the land to deactivate windreaders again or just to protect Bolas or to deny him the possibility of getting Dragonsoul Knight active the next turn with a proper land draw. In any case, I remember he attacked Bolas but only got him down to 1 loyalty while I traded some guys to my advantage on blocks. I blew up another land and then started taking his guys. I remember he said something like “why you playing so thoughtfully? the game’s over” as I chose my blocks and Bolas activations carefully. I think he was on tilt a bit since he had lost the first game to Bolas and apparently lost both games to the planeswalker in the other match he had dropped as well. When I played Bolas, I thought the game was actually pretty tight and I can’t say now but I’m not so sure he couldn’t have won the game if he had played differently (though I was playing pretty tight to deny him his outs) but I don’t think his mindset allowed him to look for these options once he saw the planeswalker appear for the fourth time on the opposite side of the table. Once again he scooped without dropping below 20 life (though maybe it was more legitimate this time as it was getting to the point where all the creatures were on my side of the table).

I felt bad for him after the match since the loss dropped him to 4-2 which meant he finished without prize. I wanted to give him some of my box as a consolation prized but he left before prizes were given out. I considered telling him I would give him something if he stayed but our interactions had been slightly awkward and I didn’t want to be like “hey, hang out here for the next twenty to thirty minutes while we wait for prizes and I’ll give you a few packs.” Oh well, maybe the next time I see him….

So that was how the tournament went. Conflux pre-release format is crazy – the playables are pretty deep and the mana fixing strong enough to open up most of the card pool to any given deck. Furthermore you get six packs so the options are even greater. I ended up with eight rares (two foils), though on balance I also had a foil forest in one pack. There were so many options it would be difficult to build the deck correctly. It had the tools for many different strategies.

I believe I went with approximately the ideal build. I did go undefeated with it. However, there were several games where my opponents were a removal spell or a ripped land away from winning. I also was low on life a few times when I won with my bombs. I’d be surprised if more skilled players could not have played my opponents decks in those situations in ways that would have made up the small differences between winning and losing.

My strategy with the pool was to maximize my most powerful cards which I identified as Dragonsoul Knight, Paragon of the Amesha, Broodmate Dragon, Predator Dragon, Empyrial Archangel, and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. The suite of six cheap removals spells was also quite powerful. To this end, I played Goblin Fodder and Spore Burst as ways to both boost Predator Dragon and survive long enough to cast it or the other bombs. Likewise, I considered Goblin Outlander and Aven Trailblazer to be cheap creatures I could play early that would also be good blockers. That was the nice thing about the deck – so many of the cards, Aven Trailblazer for insance, both furthered the goal of surviving to the late game and were useful at winning in the late game. Vithian Stinger was good at picking off a lot of the early aggressive and utility creatures but could also be good at doing the last chunk of life total if the late game was a creature stall. Hissing Iguanar was good at trading with almost any other early creature, while also helping win the game in a creature stall. There are so many x/1 and x/2’s that the two super pump knights were very good at deterring early attackers until I drew into domain and could go on the offensive with them. Knight of the Skyward Eye could trade early or late as needed. Canyon Minotaur was just filling out the curve to make sure I didn’t get run over. Sanctum Gargoyle was great as it could get back two of the most important cards in the deck – Armillary Sphere if I needed a second activation to hit domain or one of my eight drops or Executioner’s Capsule to give me yet another removal spell. And that’s basically the deck!

Looking over it now, the cards I rarely drew were Canyon Minotaur, Hissing Iguanar, and Goblin Outlander. The change I feel most confident about is that Canyon Minotaur should have been Wall of Reverence. I am an aggro player at heart, but this deck is much better at the late game than most sealed decks and Wall of Reverence does a much better job of getting to the late game than Canyon Minotaur. I did not have much mana troubles throughout the day but still I cringe a little bit in suggesting that the second most likely change would be to put Fatestitcher in, probably for the iguanar. Removal is just so good in the format.

All the blue cards still look pretty enticing to me – 2x Worldly Council would certainly have helped in hitting bombs and the proper mana (if I were base blue and could actually cast it at least). Scepter of Insight would have given me inevitability. I don’t know if that would have been a better path though. Those cards are kind of slow and looking over the rest my deck is already full of cards that serve important functions – I wouldn’t cut Sanctum Gargoyle for a generic 3/3 flier at the same cost or Aven Trailblazer for an unearthable 2/2 flier. This is just one of those pools I could probably tweak and playtest for days and not lose interest.


Deck:

Creatures in curve order
2
Dragon Fodder
Goblin Outlander
Knight of the Skyward Eye
3
Aven Trailblazer
Dragonsoul Knight
Hissing Iguanar
Paragon of the Amesha
Vithian Stinger
4
Canyon Minotaur
Sanctum Gargoyle
Spore Burst
6
Broodmate Dragon
Predator Dragon
8
Empyrial Archangel

Removal spells in curve order
1
Executioner’s Capsule
2x Path to Exile
3
2x Drag Down
Resounding Thunder
8
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

Mana spells
2
Armillary Sphere
3
Obelisk of Naya

Lands (Numbers on basic lands approximate)
1 Forest
1 Island
5 Mountain
1 Naya Panorama
4 Plains
1 Savage Lands
4 Swamp

Sideboard cards that I actually played at some point

The green package
Creatures
1
Wild Nacatl
2
Cylian Elf
Goblin Deathraiders (the green version was more aggressive)
3
2x Matca Riders
7
Jungle Weaver
Tricks
1
Might of Alara
2
Resounding Roar

Anti-Esper/Oblivion Ring
Filigree Fracture

Against more aggressive decks
Darklit Gargoyle

Against slow big creature decks
Fatestitcher
Grixis Slavedriver

Other cards I considered seriously
Valeron Outlander (for Goblin Outlander against non-white decks)
Quenchable Fire (against planeswalkers)
2x Wordly Counsel (for dead cards, to draw into more bombs)
Qasali Ambusher (a good blocker if I ever reconfigured with enough W/G)
Zombie Outlander (see Valeron Outlander)

Other cards I didn’t seriously consider but should have
Suicidal Charge (good apparently – maybe not in my deck’s style of stalling to win with a huge bomb. It would be better in an aggro deck that needs to get blockers out of the way).
Wall of Reverence (probably good at what I wanted to do – slow down the game until I get to my bombs. The game I lost to Banefire for 10 would probably have been a win with this card).

Also, blue had a nice suite of evasion and card draw headed by
Tidehollow Strix
Kathari Screecher
Esper Cormorants
Cloudheath Drake

Scepter of Insight
2x Worldly Counsel

Complete Pool

Black
2x Drag Down
Dreg Reaver
Executioner’s Capsule
Grixis Battlemage
Grixis Slavedriver
Nyxathid
Resounding Scream
2x Rotting Rats

Blue
Brackwater Elemental
Cancel
Cloudheath Drake
Cumber Stone
Fatestitcher
Kathari Screecher
Outrider of Jhess
Scepter of Insight
Tortoise Formation
Traumatic Visions
Unsummon
Vectis Silencers
2x Worldly Counsel

Green
Beacon Behemoth
Cylian Elf
Drumhunter
Filigree Fracture
Jungle Weaver
2x Matca Rioters
Might of Alara
Mosstodon
Ooze Garden
Resounding Roar
Soul’s Might
Spore Burst
Wild Nacatl

Red
Canyon Minotaur
Dragon Fodder
Dragonsoul Knight
Exuberant Firestoker
Hissing Iguanar
Maniacal Rage
Predator Dragon
Quenchable Fire
Resounding Thunder
2x Thunder-Thrash Elder
Toxic Iguanar
Viashino Skeleton
Vithian Stinger

White
Angel’s Herald
Asha’s Favor
Aven Trailblazer
Court Homunculus
Darklit Gargoyle
Knight of the Skyward Eye
Paragon of the Amesha
2x Path to Exile
Sanctum Gargoyle
Wall of Reverance

Artifact
Armillary Sphere
Bonesaw
Mana Cylix
Obelisk of Naya

Lands
Naya Panorama
Reliquary Tower
Savage Lands
Gold
G/W (Bant/Naya)
Qasali Ambusher
Valeron Outlander

U/B (Grixis/Esper)
Thoughtcutter Agent
Tidehollow Strix
Zombie Outlander

B/R (Grixis/Jund)
Goblin Deathraiders
Goblin Outlander
Suicidal Charge

W/U (Bant/Esper)
Esper Cormorants

W/U/B (Esper)
Windwright Mage

B/R/U (Grixis)
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

U/W/G (Bant)
Empyrial Archangel

B/R/G (Jund)
Broodmate Dragon