Classic Daily Events were finally moved back to Saturday evenings (in North America) after languishing at the poor weekend afternoon slots when since Daily Events returned to MTGO. Thus far, we’ve fired the last 3 events, which is a great sign that the current time slot is perfectly situated to fire events regularly. While there is now only one Classic event each week, it actually makes things easier to fire when players know there is only one shot at getting to play in a Daily that week.
I managed to jump into the Classic DE on January 18th with my Null Rod Workshop deck that I’ve had moderate success with (runner-up finish in QT #4 of the first season of the Classic Quarter League). The deck is almost exactly the same 75 I sleeved up last spring, but here is the decklist I used on the 18th, with the only difference being 1 fewer Crucible of Worlds in the board and a Ratchet Bomb in its place.
Null Rod Shop by enderfall
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I didn’t make a formal deck tech since most people are familiar with this deck already. I should also point out that the voice recording was done after the recording of the video. I was feeling a little under the weather that evening and couldn’t focus clearly on providing audio during the event. Thus, there may be some instances where the audio doesn’t line-up perfectly with what I was thinking at the time, though I did my best to fairly evaluate my decisions as best I could remember.
Without further ado, here are the 4 rounds of video:
These videos represent a wide range of typical decks in the current Classic metagame. The matchups were Affinity, Oath, and Delver, with a “rogue” TPS deck in Round 2. The matchups against Oath and Delver illustrate their inherent strategic advantages over Workshop decks, but over my deck in particular.
Going forward, I would recommend this deck to others. It is one of the most dominant decks in Classic, even if I didn’t end up taking down this particular tournament. I have already made a couple changes to the deck that were probably long overdue. I’ve been so unimpressed with Buried Ruin that I swapped in another Rishadan Port in its place. In theory, Ruin is a great card in the mirror match and/or long, grindy games, but it is so slow that it rarely presents itself as a useful option in any match. Port will generally be better overall.
Another consideration I’m weighing is adding some number of Triskelions and/or more Ratchet Bombs to the sideboard. Trike is great against creature decks and is a useful card to side in when taking out the mostly useless Null Rods in those matchups. Delver decks in particular are hard for Workshop to deal with. Removing a flying creature that can be active as soon as Turn 2 is a real problem. Steel Hellkite is a great option, but sometimes it’s hard to get to the point where you can cast one before it’s too late. Trike can ping away a Delver in a pinch, but Ratchet Bomb might be simply better. Bomb can immediately waste away multiple flipped Delvers as soon as it hits the battlefield, and can also remove troublesome non-creature permanents like Oath of Druids.
If the DEs continue to fire, I hope to bring a steady flow of Classic videos in addition to my regular written content. I’ll try to showcase some different decks each time out as well. If you have any constructive comments regarding the videos posted above, or would like to share any decks you would like to see me pilot in the future, please feel free to contact me on Twitter or the comment section below!
Also, this is the last week to sign up for QT #1 of the Classic League 2014. Top 8-ing either this QT, or the next one that starts in April, will earn you a spot in the Final Classic Invitational in June. Registration is due by 11:59 pm EDT (UTC -5) on Saturday Feb 1st. To register, go to www.gatherling.com and find “2014 CQ League Season 1 QT 1” on your Player CP page. If you have any questions regarding the league, please check out the information post over at ClassicQuarter.com.
enderfall
Clan Magic Eternal
Follow me on Twitter @enderfall
