Howdy folks! Boy, it’s been a while since I wrote an article for here. You see, I’ve been mostly in the background of things on the website these days, helping manage the people you see writing for this site now.
That being said, I wanted to take some time to talk about my part in the StarCityGames Cincinnati Team Open, playing alongside Scott Campbell (MTGPackFoils) and Jeremy Beardsley (StrictlyAverage).
Friday – Fun Prep and Legacy
Legacy is a format I greatly adore, and I spend a lot of time with it. Unsurprisingly, Legacy is the format I wanted to play for our team. At the same time, as you might have read in Scott’s article about how he played Dredge, I had a fair amount to do with that decision as well. As defacto “Team Captain” I made a call that involved playing a deck that I also played in the Modern seat because familiarity would help if I needed to assist Scott (Turns out Scott managed better than I could have hoped). I also somewhat identified that being on a Faithless Looting deck for Modern felt appropriate given the current climate of the format.
As for Legacy I decided to continually tune and play a variant of Nic Fit I call Scapewish, because I know the deck exceptionally well and deck knowledge is really powerful in the world of Legacy.
Not only did I tune Scapewish more, but I also developed a sideboard map for the deck, something to allow my brain some time to work a little better during the event without having to puzzle out a board plan.
The weekend of the event arrived after much prepping and playtesting. That Friday evening, Jeremy and Jon Medina and I attended my LGS (Epic Loot Games in Centerville, OH) FNM. I played four rounds of Legacy effectively going 4-0 (3-0-1 to split with a friend).
I played against – DnT (1-0… with a 50 minute Game 1), Grixis Delver (the all powerful wizard Lawrence Harmon), Eldrazi Post (Against Team Lotus Box member Collins Mullen) and played my last round for reps against a friend on Goblins.
I felt pretty happy with how the play went, and went into the event with my head held somewhat high.
Of course things never go that well at a large event.
Saturday – Legacy
My event went thusly as my own personal record for the team:
R1 – LED Dredge (LOSS 0-2) – I nearly had Game 1 of this match, as I was 1 land short of a lethal Scapeshift.
R2 – Grixis Delver (LOSS 0-2) – My opponent sat down and commented that I was on Nic Fit, and I immediately cursed my vocal nature on the deck. He had my number and got me good. I also mulled to 5 Game 2, so that didn’t help either.
R3 – Eldrazi (LOSS 1-2) – Game 3 was a little nuts and I probably misplayed but a Smasher and a 6/6 Endless One got me good.
R4 – Sneak and Show (LOSS 0-2) – This dude had no idea what I was playing (but was really super nice and we gave him and his team some tokens) and just did Sneak and Show things. I kept poor hands. I did have a cool interaction of taking him off SnT for a turn by casting Surgical Extraction on a Brainstorm.
R5 – Death and Taxes (WIN 2-0) – He felt sort of new to the deck, and I was able to just push ahead of all of his disruption.
R6 – Elves (LOSS 0-2) – As most people know, I hate the Elves matchup against Nic Fit with a sheer passion only dwarfed by my friend Arianna (quite possibly). So yeah, it basically seems like no matter how I approach this matchup, they always just topdeck the nut draw and get me.
At this point, the team and I were 1-4-1 (That draw still haunts me). So we ended up dropping from the main event and headed home, slathering our faces in Raising Canes (the ultimate scrub out food) before turning in for the night.
Regardless of how the main event went and how I felt afterwards, I do know that we did enter as a team and we did leave as a team. It felt really good to have Scott and Jeremy there to keep me afloat.
Sunday – Modern
The Sunday of the Open we rolled down to do some side events, with Scott partaking in the Modern Classic. I opted to switch gears a bit and play a little Modern. You might be surprised that I enjoy Modern, but I do play the format (somewhat out of necessity in my area, as it is highly popular where I live) and I enjoy Modern Dredge enough.
I ended up playing in a 4 round challenge, going 2-1-1 (beating the mirror, Burn, and losing to Mono-Red Phoenix) and won some packs. We ended up leaving the venue a little early and going home (Jeremy wasn’t feeling well and Scott had dropped from the Classic), but in all it was a fun weekend filled with friends and Magic. And of course, that evening Jeremy and I watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse so, win win, right?
Wrapping Up
That’s all I’ve got from my third of things. I don’t know if Jeremy will write something or not about the Standard side, but it would be a lot cooler if he did. (Editor’s note: hint hint) Regardless of how things went, these things sometimes happen and the best thing to do long term is take the failure and learn from it, and move on. I was thankful I was able to spend some time with Scott and Jeremy that weekend, moreso because I was hanging out with two dudes who got me, and that was more than enough for me.
Until next time, Space Cowboy!
Joseph is an avid player of eternal Magic formats, including Vintage and Legacy. As a Nic Fit player who will tell anyone who will listen about his deck, Joe spends his time analyzing and playing on Magic Online and various online platforms, while prepping for competitive events. To follow more Joe, check out his Twitter!