Written by Vodka_7up on June 24, 2007
Hi, my name is Alex Neufeldt, I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada,
basically the middle of no where. As the title suggests, this is a regionals
report. Mine occured in Regina, with an attendance of roughly 30 people.
Yeah you read that properly, thirty. Not one hundred, not sixty, or two
hundred and fifty five, just thirty,meaning a nice five round tournament.
Since this was my first regionals I had no idea what was going to be played. Thankfully a few friends told me that aggro was to be expected, which led me
to think, what decks beat aggro but also have a chance against the combo
threat? I couldn't come up with anything for a while, until one day I was
dragged to FNM and given Solar Flare to play. Now Flare is fine vs most
aggro decks (see below), but it's lacking some penach when facing down
Dragonstorm. The solution? Why naturally I replaced the main deck Delays
with Trickbind. Yeah, I'll let that set in for a bit. Done? Anyways here's
what I played that fateful day known as June 9th.
Decklist
So basically this is your standard Solar Flare deck with a few tweaks. 
First off you'll notice the heavy black commitment in Damnation over Wrath
of God. The decks owner (Jesse Spears) did this to help make a stable turn
three or four power play, being either a Persecute or Damnation, more
consistent. Originally there were two Body Doubles, but I decided to make
the split with Zombify for three reasons. The first was to diversify the color ration. The second was that Zombify is quicker and easier to cast then Body Double. Third was that I had a bad experience in a control mirror where I thought Body Double was a draw spell and not a "deal six and win" spell.
The mana base has been tweaked to combat maindeck Magus of the Moon and
Blood Moon. It's also a lot less painful than the heavy dual/pain land
verson, and cheap too. But if you're looking to find a cheap Solar Flare
deck, I suggest you hunt down the one from German Nats with Dreamscape Artist
and a ton of basics (oh the synergy!). Orzhova, the Church of Deals is my
win land of choice over Urza's Facotry for two reasons, it gains me life and
it's cheaper to activate. All in all the mana base is fine, though you
might want to up the blue count a little (see below).
Now to discuss the three Trickbind. I brought them in to give myself a
chance against Dragonstorm, since losing game one is never a good strategy.
I figured I could bring them in since my match ups against the rest of my
FNM field were very good to begin with. During playtesting and tournaments,
I found Trickbind to be a versatile answer to many things that I previously
could not stop, for example the unsuspending of a Detritivore or Aeon
Chronicler, Rift Bolt or Scab Clan Mauler's Bloodthrist, Morph Triggers, and
the obvious Storm or Bogardan Hellkite triggers. Trickbinds are also
uncounterable, meaning when you try to put an end to someone's shenanigan's,
you do it. Which brings me to my next point, Trickbind is effectively a
Counterspell concerning it's targets, unlike Remand or Delay that don't
actually get rid of the spell, and both of which are truly horrible against
Aeon Chronicler and Detritivore.
The maindeck is very self explanatory, so I'll do a card by card of the
sideboard.
3 Peace of Mind
Originally this was Circle of Protection Red, but then I found out two good
players where going to bring Ignite Memories to regionals, so in a haze of
sleep deprivation and sickness I decided to run Peace of Mind as a foil to
both the Ignite decks and aggro. I like Peace of Mind over Circle of
Protection Red for two reasons, the first is I don't need to keep my mana up
all the time, and second it remedies the damage done by non-red creatures.
4 Leyline of the Void
Why play the Crypt when you can play the Void? My little experience at PTQ
Winnipeg taught me that when I lost to Loam while playing Aggro Flow with
Crypts. Oh the humanity! Anyways this was to deal with any Dredge decks,
and anything else that uses the graveyard, like some Korlash decks and
Firemane Control (remember the freaks come out to play at regionals).
4 Last Gasp
Zoo and Gruul like to win with creatures, cheap creatures, which calls for
cheap removal, lots of it, and thus we enter the reverse Giant Growth.
2 Urza's Factory
I did not have anytime, or opponents, to test against Dranlu so I ad hoc’ed
in some uncouterable win conditions that lose to Skeletal Vampire. Yeah I'm
not so sure about them, I'll need some feed back.
1 Trickbind and 1 Condemn
Just to up consistency of having either or in games 2 and 3.
Now to the juicy five round tournament.
Round One vs Troy with Mono Korlash Aggro
Troy's deck loses to one of it's greatest tools, Persecte, on turn 3, twice.
Nice draw lucksack. Since I can't kill someone immediately off a
Persecute he gets some struggling time, a few beats in with some Ravenous
Rats or Plagues Rusulka's, but eventually the Damnation or Angel comes. I
don't even have problems dealing with a Korlash since my deck is chock full
of removal for it. Despite my hot draws I think the match up is still good
since discard isn't particularly hot against me and I'm prepared to deal
with 20 odd creatures in a deck.
1-0,2-0
Round Two vs Gruul featuring Kavu Predator + Burning Willows
Game One: It's your standard gruul desperately tries to race me before the
horrible wrath of Damnation or Persecute. Thankfully Fergus is lacking in
the quality land or creature department, as a Burrow is his only red source
and gives me way to much life. I manage to relieve him of not only all his
creatures, but burn as well through the classic one two combo of Persecute
followed by Damnation. Afterwards on a much humorous note I Trickbinded two
Rift Bolts while he was holding Scab Clan Mauler. The lowest I got was 11
life, Burning Willows gained me four life this game.
Game Two: Enter Magus of the Moon. The misconception about Magus is that
it's a valid sideboard answer to decks like mine, but sadly my creature
removal can answer it, also I run 8 basics and 6 signets. Anyways my opener
had dimir signet, swamp, island, compulsive, and I drew into Damnnation,
thankfully Fergus overextended. This game was won on the back of Akroma.
Fergus double mulliganed this game, the lowest I came to was 8 but finished
at 12 due to a Condemn on Aeon Chronicler.
2-0,4-0
Round Three vs Zoo
Game One: I had to mulligan, but I lucked with a turn 5 Akroma via
Compulsive and Zombify, good times. I finished at 9 life. Unfortunately
for Warren he really needs to win game one in order to take this match.
Game Two: Enter Peace of Mind, at the cost of Trickbinds, I also brought in
the Last Gasp's and Condemn while taking out some Persecutes. I removed
Persecute for two reasons, one he has a three color deck so I might whiff or
only hit two cards, second I felt the Peace of Mind did more to stop burn
and creatures damage. This game was won with Angel of Despair with Church
and Peace of Mind racing. The lowest I came was 6 life but ended at a
comfortable 13, yeah I discarded a lot of excess lands.
3-0,6-0
Found Four vs Firemane Control Ran Yang
I drew this round to ensure top eight, also I initially felt it was a bad
match. The main reason for this was he had "a lot" of counters, unkillable
win conditions and was a slow player so we might time out. After some
pondering I came to the conclusion that the match up wasn't as terrible as I
thought, early counters like Rune Snag and Remand could be played around by
developing my mana, Persecute could remove troublesome Helix's and Wrath's,
and my win conditions where bigger than his. Game two I would have sided -2
Damnation -3 Trickbind -1 Orzhova, The Church of Deals -1 Plains +4 Leyline
+2 Urza's Factory +1 Condemn. But alas bad player me walked away from a
possible 1-0.
3-0-1,6-0
Round Five vs Kody Kemp G/W Traditional Glare
This was my dilema, I see a 14 year old kid piloting an relic Glare deck and
think to myself I really should play, go 2-0 like I have against every other
aggro deck, come in first and get a butt load of boosters and plack. So I
cockly decided to play this out and go for the gold instead of settling on a
nice third or fifth.
Game One: I win the roll and Kody mulligans once, good start. Sadly I get
beat down by Selesnya Guildmage and friends while casting a Persecute
instead of Damnation. There's no excuse for keeping a hand without
Damnation or two card drawing spells, I apologize to you the reader for
this.
Game Two: My memory is hazing, but I think I take out only one Trickbind
and a few other cards to bring in Last Gasps. The reason was that I'll
probably need to Trickbind Glare of Subdual at some point to sneak in the
damage. I start off by mulliganing to five and missing my third turn land
drop. I still manage to get out a Court Hussar and into a Damnation, but
sadly the second wave is waiting in Kody's hand. Two Yavimaya Dryad's come
out, one of them gives me a Forest and at this point I'm EXTREMELY confused.
Angel of Despair comes down and I contemplate to myself, should I hit my
new Forest, or target a Dryad and Condemn the other. I choose the Dryad,
which may have been the wrong decision. Regardless I Condemned the second
Dryad and got overwhelmed by Selesyna Guildmage and friends, again.
3-1-1, 6-2
At this point I was a little worried about my prospects since there where a
few 4-1's, as well as 3-0-2's, and apparently two or three 3-1-1's.
Naturally the places and prizes where called out in descending order, with
there was a huge delay in seventh cause Troy was outside with his thumb up
his ass, so I had to wait until 8th was called. Naturally it was me.
Now I'd like to share some thoughts I have concerning my match against Kody.
As was evident during my match against Kody I had become over confident or
cocky from my previous success and his less than intimidating demeanor. I
was also confident that my "new" deck would certainly wipe the floor with
his archaic aggro deck. That doesn't even make sense considering Solar
Flare is just as old as Glare, but still the thought was there. In addition
to me not respecting my opponent I also failed to realize how his deck was
different from the standard aggro deck, sure Persecute and Damnation were
crippling to it, but I usually need both to beat down Glare, just like Gruul
and Zoo. During my testing on Magic Workstation I learned that Mono Green
Aggro decks suck, for some reason I grouped Glare in that category. The
main differences between Glare and other aggro decks is lack burn, superior
creatures, and higher threat density. What did this mean for me? That Kody
could easily recover from a Damnation with quality creatures like Call of
the Herd, Selesnya Guildmage, among others, and that he'd have no shortage
of them since he ran over thirty in the main deck. Instead of trying to
beat me quickly with small weak creatures he opted to use bigger slower
creatures that would eventually get the job done while I scrambled for a
second Damnation or Angel. The last factor to my defeat was my physical
condition, for some ungodly reason my cold or allergies decided to get
dramatically worse the morning of the tournament, sadly not a whole lot I
could do about it. Maybe if I could have gotten my hands on some fruit
before hand things might have shaped up, but naturally the farmers market
didn't have fruit. In conclusion never underestimate your opponent, never
arbitrarily categorize a deck, and for the love of God come to a tournament
healthy.
As for the deck I think it's great against an open or aggro dominated meta,
it's also a blast to play. It has the potential to do some dumb stuff on
turns three to five while representing a respectable late game. Your
toughest match ups are Dranlu and Dragon Storm, since Dranlu can stop you at
every turn and Dragonstorm is down right nuts, but thankfully that's what
the maindeck Trickbinds are for. The deck takes a lot of practice to get
comfortable and effective with, but once you're there playing it becomes
intuitive. Just keep in mind how your opponent wins, what's importanted in
the match up, how many creatures and other stuff they're running and you
should do well.
On another note, due to qualifying for Nationals I've decided I have to not
only tighten my constructed game but I desperately need to shore up my
drafting abilities. If anyone has any advance on how to accomplish this
please email me at i_gotz_no_eyes@hotmail.com or post as a comment. Also I
could use some advice on block constructed for PTQ Valencia. Thanks for
reading, till next time.
Type the text here
Metzel on 2007-06-24 07:29 MDT err...if you ever trickbinded a bloodthirst you were lucky... bloodthirst is static nad trickbind does not stop that rule 500ish or something
by
Koen on 2007-06-24 08:22 MDT Congratulations!
If you fear Dragonstorm, Castigate maindeck is a lot better. It's proactive, so you don't have to keep mana open all the time. Also remember they have Gigadrowse, then you'd need 2x Trickbind.
It's also a lot better vs. the other decks and especially control. Trickbind is a very narrow card. Remand in example can delay your opponent for a turn, which brings you closer to taking over with a fatty. At worst it just cantrips.
by
Ashmatan on 2007-06-24 08:34 MDT Pownd by Glare...LOL And you said it right the first time. You underestimated his PLAY by his SIZE (in a nutshell). No need for the tangent about how you were sick or had allergies or whatever. It sound like you were making excuses for yourself, kinda sounds like whining, and is very boring to the reader. But congratz on your high-stakes, 30 person, 5 rd., 8th place FNM tourney.
by
nasa on 2007-06-24 09:33 MDT metzel he didnt trickbind bloodthirst
he trickbinded the rift bolt, so the maulers wouldnt come in bloodthirsted
by
Ro on 2007-06-24 10:49 MDT wow you sucked for not winning that. Also: rly rly rly bad deck.
You'll get pwned at nationals, congrats though.
by
Vodka_7up on 2007-06-24 10:58 MDT To Ashmatan: I felt that me being physically ill might have been a factor in losing round 5, but it by no means was the soul reason, as you pointed out. If it did come across as whining, I didn't intend for that, in fact that whole paragraph is meant for me to rag on myself. Is there anyone I could have given that info without making it sound boring?
To Koen: Thanks :) Now about Trickbind vs Dragonstorm, you're right about me needing two trickbinds IF they gigadrowse me, usually if they have the turn 4 or 5 combo odds are they won't have the giga to seal the deal. I certainly like Castigate against dragonstorm, though it just hits one card in there hand, where as Trickbind usually foils the efforts of a couple of rituals, storage counters, and Dragonstorm. So it's 1 to 3 card advantage in Trickbind's favor. Oddly I never had problems keeping the two or more mana up with Solar Flare, since it is a big mana deck with a fair amount of 2-4 casting stuff, and the deck doesn't mind sitting back keeping 5-6 open while developing it's mana, I'd rather do that then get DSed for four and lose. And who knowns, sometimes they won't giga you game one and just walk into the main deck hate, which is the hope. Well that's how I look at it.
As for Remand, you're 100% right on it being superior vs control, and if I was taking this to a control heavy meta I'd definitely include them so I might have a chance against Dranlu. Oh man I can only imagine how bad I'd own my friends Angelfire deck if I ran this.
by
Avata on 2007-06-24 12:20 MDT Saskatoon FTW.
by
Strangla on 2007-06-24 13:36 MDT You will DIE at NATS that deck is one of the worst lists i have seen be happy you won at all
59 Monutains+1 Fireball can PWN that shat
by
BattleofWits on 2007-06-24 13:59 MDT Line breaks didn't make this annoying to read at all
by
Fanboy on 2007-06-24 14:08 MDT Isn't this just solar flare with no main board castigates?
Also Shadow of Doubt is more useful in this meta than Trickbind...it also cantrips.
by
Alex_leut on 2007-06-24 14:11 MDT Um, may I ask why the formatting is screwed?
by
R3wind on 2007-06-24 14:37 MDT I do find it stange that you lost to glare. I hear disenchant is a great SB card. Good luck at Nats. Rep for the magic-league peeps.
by
TEPI on 2007-06-24 16:31 MDT dude decks that don't have black have to fear dstorm and play trickbind.. u just go for the discard obv.. persecute is not bad md and u play 4... why bother mding trickbind??... bad deck, worse plays, worst player...
by
ShadowS on 2007-06-24 21:30 MDT Did he.. just blame a farmers market?
by
EddDydoo on 2007-06-25 12:10 MDT i cant even belive that town has regionals
and i gatta say that is the worst solar flare list ever!
by
DESTRUCTOR on 2007-06-25 13:00 MDT really bad decklist, congratz on making top-8 good luck at nats but i will advice you to reay think and test betther your decks to find the optimal list
you could use 3 castigate instead of 3 trickbind and have chances against DS, and maybe SB something like hide/seek
PD: there's no shame on netdecking when going to a important tournament
by
Metzel on 2007-06-25 13:15 MDT by nasa on 2007-06-24 10:33 CDT
metzel he didnt trickbind bloodthirst
he trickbinded the rift bolt, so the maulers wouldnt come in bloodthirsted
"I found Trickbind to be a versatile answer to many things that I previously
could not stop, for example the unsuspending of a Detritivore or Aeon
Chronicler, Rift Bolt or Scab Clan Mauler's Bloodthrist, Morph Triggers, and
the obvious Storm or Bogardan Hellkite triggers."
please read that first kthx
by
SpareSocks on 2007-06-25 16:26 MDT i
hope
all
of
your
Houses
Burn
DOWN
HAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHAAH
by
Vlada on 2007-06-25 19:10 MDT Its pathetic, that you mentioned coupple of times how afraid you were how many packs you will win...
lol noob
by
MistyFatDog on 2007-06-25 21:07 MDT i am not a fan of the people who are flamin lists without testing them. there are things that make lists better but just because it isnt a mainstream idea doesnt make it horrible and untouchable
by
Revik on 2007-06-25 21:11 MDT by MistyFatDog on 2007-06-25 23:07 EDT
i am not a fan of the people who are flamin lists without testing them. there are things that make lists better but just because it isnt a mainstream idea doesnt make it horrible and untouchable
Bad cards make bad decks, and he uses bad cards.
Flame away.
by
Shivan1 on 2007-06-26 20:19 MDT Horrible writing - did you finish 8th grade? Seriously this is garbage quality - hit F7 next time.
btw - i'm driving to canada for regionals next time - sounds like you can make top 8 if you have a pulse and a 60 card deck.
by
Vodka_7up on 2007-06-26 21:49 MDT To Alex_leut: i wrote and submitted this in notepad, even though word wrap was turned off it still came in fucked up
To babyface: have you actually played against DS with Flare?! if you can magically draw persecute every game and resolve it before they combo you out then something is horribly wrong with yourself or your test partner.
To ShadowS: No I am not blaming a farmers market, I just find it odd they didn't have fruit.
To DESTRUCTOR: Thanks for the positive advice. As for the no shame in netdecking, I know there isn't, I do it all the time. All I did this time was mod it for my playstyle and what I expected/hated.
To Metzel: Thanks for pointing that out.
To Vlada: Wow, I hope I get to play poker against you some day since you obviously don't care about winning something worth money. Sounds like you're the noob. FYI I mentioned it only once
To Revik: Want to ACTUALLY point out the bad cards?
To Shivan1: Unless you have any advice on how to improvement my writing abilities you probably should stfu. As for top 8ing in Canada, I'd love to see how you do in Toronto, moron.
by
Vlada on 2007-06-27 11:21 MDT Bad cards make bad decks, and he uses bad cards.
Flame away
lol :) <3
by
Ginksigerg on 2007-06-27 14:43 MDT man frigg u guys are harsh on this guy like common. at least he top 8'd his regionals unlike all of u guys holy crap. so he made some bad deck decisions in his building...to bad. it obvisally got a spot in nats. so i suggest u guys shut up
by
Ginksigerg on 2007-06-27 14:44 MDT u guys are all dicks
by
Thats_Game on 2007-06-27 16:38 MDT I think that what they are all pointing to is the fact that maybe this story did not deserve a tournament report as there were just so many reasons that made this a bad article... they just say it in a disrespectful way...
Not saying that I don't agree with them, but it IS a little aggrovating to have to deal with people. :/
by
mufl0n on 2007-06-28 06:42 MDT hahaha,tweaks,hahahah,so much failure
i feel sad for the 9th because your deck sucks so much
by
kmlinn on 2007-06-28 12:01 MDT ^^lmao
