Classic League 2013 is a player-run Classic tournament series, hosted by Classic Quarter (and run by Unlocking the Vault author enderfall), sponsored by MTGO Academy and MTGO Traders, and made possible through generous prize donations from Wizards of the Coast and a multitude of dedicated Classic fans. As you can read about on ClassicQuarter, the 2013 Classic League is broken into two qualifier tournaments, from which successful players will be invited to an invitational this year on December 21st, 2013. (In addition, all players who finish 4-0 in a Classic Daily Event before the invitational will receive an invite, and players who finish 3-1 in such an event will be invited to a last-chance qualifier tournament.) Below are the Swiss rounds of the first qualifier tournament from the perspective of me, PlanetWalls. Because the tournament is now over, all my rounds are available below.
Feel free to ask any questions about the format, the tournament structure, etc., in the comments. You can see all the decklists represented in the tournament on Gatherling.
In this tournament, I played a deck based around Zur the Enchanter and flexible 1- and 2-drop creatures. Check out my decklist below, and then you can check out my matches.
PlanetWalls' From Zuro to Hero
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NOTE: If you’d prefer to watch all the below videos in sequence, check out the playlist on MTGO Academy’s Youtube channel.
You can find me on Twitter @ajgoldman or @MTGOAcademy.
diplomatic immunity seems better to me than a shielding plax, because it survives an abrupt decay.
The decks that can run Abrupt Decay usually aren’t the decks that you worry about killing a key Zur. Shielding Plax is really for Affinity because they bring in Dismembers after sideboarding. It also draws you a card, so you can search for Shielding Plax on the second attack after the first attack finds Solitary Confinement. This decreases the odds that they can kill your Zur and also that you don’t run out of cards to fuel Confinement. Your point is well-taken, though. Greater Auramancy is another interesting option.
This was a very fun watch! Your etiquette and decision making was commendable. Looking forward to the next couple of matches.
I like it. Daybreak Coronet would be cute, but is pretty useless without Zur. Same goes for Rites of Flourishing, which I would think of as a more reliable Snake Umbra – but I get that Snake Umbra is sometimes even nice on an Hierarch.
Nevermore or Declaration of Naught might be sideboard material – dunno.
Looks fun!
definitely want to see more rounds with this deck.
Neat format, funky deck. I don’t think zur is actually good in the format, but it is an interesting direction.
Not surprised brainstorming wasn’t doing much for you since you play and account for the presence of the card pretty badly. Should you be looking to improve, this could be a direction.
Always nice to see some content of this format.
In your match with Montolio, obviously g1 was a lost cause, but I feel like you should have won g2. Why fetch Trop there? Especially since you already noted that you wanted to play around Wasteland? Was it just absent-mindedness? I feel like you should always try and go for basics against Shops; if you had fetched Forest and Island, you could have landed Trygon and probably won the game from there. (You also could have potentially gone for Back to Basics plus Aura of Silence, which would have been pretty devastating to him.)
Hi E-,
It was definitely a mistake, and probably absent-mindedness on some level, but my thought was that I needed to Brainstorm. The mistake was the assumption that he would’ve shown a Wasteland by the time he threw out a Sphere effect. But he made the right play in holding it back, and it fooled me. Had I not had a Brainstorm in hand, I would’ve waited to crack my lands until my turn, when I would’ve had to look for a Trop Island (to play Trygon — Heath can’t search for an Island), but I would’ve been secure from Waste and should’ve started bashing. So no guarantee I would’ve won (because Duplicant could’ve happened), but I would’ve been in a good position, which I threw away from missing the possibility of Wasteland in the moment and feeling like I needed to Brainstorm when I didn’t.