Season 11 Week 7 Player Showcase
It’s the final week of division play at the VML and players are scrambling to make the playoffs. This week, we are showcasing some of the matches between competitors, especially those needing to win this week to get into playoffs.
Nora Martin
Nora is 4-2 in Division 9, playing in her 6th season. This week, she’s playing Bant Toxic against Samantha Murphy’s Domain Control.
Why did you choose your deck this week?
I tend to be looking to metagame around what my opponent’s played previously, which was a little hard this week since my opponent had a bye two weeks ago. I decided to register Bant Toxic for its very good Domain matchup (which she played last week) and pray my opponent didn’t return to Boros Convoke, which she was on for a little bit.
What was your plan to win this week?
My plan is to resolve toxic creatures until my opponent can cast a sweeper, counter/march it and swing for lethal.
What goals did you have going into the VML?
My goal for the VML is always to make playoffs. I find the round robin week-to-week style tournament really interesting and it’s the part I’m most concerned with as a player, although obviously I’d love to go farther than that.
Have those goals changed throughout the tournament?
Currently no. My division is still very much anyone’s game even in week 7 since our top 4 have close records and are all playing against each other so I’m taking it one step at a time.
How did your match go?
G1 I open Mirrex, Seedcore, Crawling Chorus, Skrelv, Skrelv’s Hive, Fading Hope. This is a pretty easy keep, I need a colored source for my noncreatures but knowing I’m against domain there’s a lot of time to find it. I rip a few lands and a Chorus for 3 creatures on board turn 2, and Fading Hope OP’s Topiary Stomper to stop her from flipping Invasion of Zendikar and clear the way to get her high enough on poison that she can’t recover.
I bring out all Fading Hope but 1 Serum Snare for additional counterspells and Tocasia’s Welcome. G2 I mull a hand of 3x counterspells 4x lands and keep 3 lands, Rotpriest, Bring the Ending, and a Charge of the Mites. OP has a t2 Binding for my Priest and I end up playing a slower game after drawing a few more counters, eventually establishing a board of 2 Mites, a Chorus and a Hive. Eventually she stabilizes at 9 poison, keeping up with my Hive tokens with a Chrome-Host Seedshark. I topdeck a Serum Snare, and punt horribly! I forget that it only proliferates on <4 mv targets and bounce a Leyline Binding, effectively deleting the card. The game comes down to a wide attack for lethal that I can chump from OP into a Depopulate, but I have the counterspell and take the match on the crackback.
Samantha Murphy
Samantha is also 4-2 in Division 9. Both her and Nora are playing in their 6th season, with multiple playoff appearances in the past.
Why did you choose your deck this week?
I feel the most comfortable with Domain, it is a relatively scripted deck so I was less worried about prepping for the week. I thought Nora would bring Esper or UW Control and I think the deck is reasonable into Esper and good into Control.
What was your plan to win this week?
Based on the deck assumptions I threw the Lithomantic Barrages into the main and cut a lot of the sweepers into the sideboard, and I was hoping to play a streamlined g1 deck and be prepared with some sideboard choices if she strayed from those choices.
What goals did you have going into the VML?
My goal is to win every season of the VML I play. But my primary goal is to learn and improve above all else.
Have those goals changed throughout the tournament?
Not really, my overarching goal is to always improve and I am still alive to win and make the playoffs.
Sam Bogue
Sam Bogue is playing their 1st season in Division 10. Their record is 4-2 and this week they’re playing Mono Red vs Sarah England on Esper Midrange.
Why did you choose your deck this week?
I only owned 1 deck on Arena before this event started: Mono Red Aggro. I had enough Wild Cards by Week 4 to build a Splendid Reclamation deck, so now I had options! However, my opponent for this week, Sarah, was shown to have played a bit Bant Toxic during the league, which is a horrible matchup for Worldsoul Ramp.
What was your plan to win this week?
My only option was Mono Red Aggro, so I built a maindeck that has a few alterations to be better into Bant Toxic, with a sideboard plan that is heavily teched to beat Rakdos and Esper Midrange. Thankfully, Sarah decided to register Esper Midrange, so the strategy worked… kind of. Esper is still a poor matchup for Mono Red (the deck is NOT very good), but I’ll take what I can get!
What goals did you have going into the VML?
This is my first VML Season so I had no idea what the tournament structure was like. I just showed up with my Kumanos and a dream. I knew that the previous year, the VML awarded 2 Pro Tour Invites at the end of the year Championships, but I genuinely had no idea if that still existed until I was already halfway through the league. I’m just here to play some matches of Magic the Gathering. I’m definitely enjoying myself, although the open-decklist league structure is not something I’m used to, it’s definitely a fresh play experience!
How did your match go?
I was on the play in game 1, and I had a creature light hand. That’s generally not what you want versus Esper, as you want to play to the board as quickly as possible. Thankfully, Sarah was stuck on 2 lands, AND didn’t have blue mana, so I was able to be a bit slower in this game. I decided to use the Disguise ability on my Fugitive Codebreaker, as the Ward 2 would make it so it should be able to survive a while longer, and allow me to use it to draw 3 cards sometime down the line, which I was able to, and I found the Play with Fire for the win.
I boarded out a lot of the burn spells and 3 mana cards, and boarded into Lithomantic Barrages, Obliterating Bolts, but most importantly, 4 copies of Urabrask’s Forge. Aside from Loran, Esper Midrange generally has issues dealing with an early Forge. This is exactly what happened in game 2, Sarah cast a Deep-Cavern bat on turn 2, hoping to take my Forge to make sure that I didn’t slam it on 3 and start generating huge creatures. Unfortunately for her, my hand contained 2 Forges! She took one of them, I played the other one, and that decided the game. The game lasted for 5 or 6 more turns, but with the Forge pumping out huge trampling creatures, there wasn’t a lot Sarah could do about it besides use Go For the Throats on a creature that was going to be sacrificed at the end of turn anyway. Those plays allowed me to use a Charming Scoundrel to draw a card (if you have no cards in play and choose the “Discard a Card, then Draw a Card” mode, it’s just an Elvish Visionary with Haste) into a Fugitive Codebreaker, allowing me to attack in for lethal.
Rah
Rah is 6-0, and is playing against BLMMM, who is also 6-0. While both players are guaranteed to make playoffs there are a lot of stakes in the match. The winner will get a bye into top 32, and will be a higher seed, allowing them to be on the play. Rah is on Esper Midrange while BLMMM is on Sultai Slogurk.
Why did you choose your deck this week?
I picked Esper because I felt it would be a bit unwise to change what has been a winning strategy thus far. What I chose to do was slant it towards being more reactive after I set the pace of the match.
What is your plan to win this week?
My plan to beat BLMMM was simple; control the pace of the match and respond to their threats. Their deck proved dangerous in testing once it got going, and getting rid of their threats was proven to be the most effective strategy.
What goals did you have going into the VML?
My goal going into the VML was to get some League experience while waiting on my doctor’s appointments to get my knees fixed. My self-confidence was pretty low so I didn’t expect to do well at all.
Have those goals changed throughout the tournament?
Yea my goals have changed with how much of a success this has been. I’m hoping to start streaming on Twitch and use whatever prize money I win to set that up. I’m hoping this can help my ultimate goal, to move out of the South and provide my partners with the support they need.
BLMMM
Why did you choose your deck this week?
So I proposed to Rah to register the same Esper Midrange decklist to see who’s the best player with this archetype as we’ve both been playing this deck and managed to have results with it but they preferred to keep up the secret of what they will be playing. Guess what? Still Esper Midrange haha. We’ve discussed about what other decks we could have played and Reanimator was an option from both sides. So I managed to get to a 60 cards version of cftsoc’s Sultai Combo list and from what I’ve tested it’s good against Esper Mid.
What is your plan to win this week?
My plan is to wait for them to tap out and casually kill them with the slime or with infinite Jace.
What goals did you have going into the VML?
My goal for the VML is to get to top8 to qualify myself for my local RC in Europe and to do better than my previous participations.
Have those goals changed throughout the tournament?
Nah but I’ve been realizing as long as I won my matches that this could get real.
Wrap Up
And that’s all for this week! Join me next week as I talk to some of the 48 competitors in the playoffs!