PPTQ Win with 5-Color Dragonlord

It was Saturday night and I was in a bedrest because of flu. I watched Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar as to entertain me. At first, it was all about admiration. Watching Patrick Chapin, Brian Kibler, Jon Finkel, and other pro in camera, they looked really awesome. Then, it begins, the fire inside of me ignited, “I want to be there, in that feature match area, playing with them.”

Suddenly, I remember that there is going to be a PPTQ in Orange on Sunday. I was planning to go there, but because I was still having flu and Wildan can’t come, I thought of cancelling that plan. Watching the Pro Tour changed my mind. I began to tweak my deck, it was the 5-Color Dragonlord, played by Ali Aintrazi to 9th Place finish in SCG Atlanta. I have tested the deck in a short playtesting session with Wildan and I have all of the part, except for Jace, which is expensive as shit. So I replaced it with Den Protector.

However, the more I tested the deck, the more I realized that Den Protector actually makes the deck better. First of all, you are not forced to fetch for blue on second turn which can make you go straight to Abzan Color, preferrably with Smoldering Marsh for the Black or Cinder Glade for the Green, to cast Radiant Flames and Draconic Roar. Because of it, I can cast Abzan Charm on turn 3 and Siege Rhino on turn 4 easier. Second advantage is that I can increase the number of Basic Forest in the deck by cutting Flooded Strand and Basic Island. Because of this, I can put the second Nissa which Ali can’t do with his list. Lastly, Den Protector can bring back Rhino, whereas Jace can’t, so what’s the complaint again?

After some tweaking, here is what the decklist looked like:

Creature and Planeswalker (19) 2x Hangarback Walker 2x Nissa, Vastwood Seer 2x Catacomb Sifter 1x Anafenza, the Foremost 4x Siege Rhino 4x Den Protector 2x Dragonlord Dromoka 1x Dragonlord Atarka 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Spell (14) 2x Silkwrap 2x Draconic Roar 4x Radiant Flames 3x Abzan Charm 1x Utter End 2x Dig Through Time	Land (27) 3x Forest 1x Swamp 1x Plains 1x Mountain 4x Bloodstained Mire 3x Flooded Strand 3x Windswept Heath 2x Polluted Delta 1x Wooded Foothills 1x Smoldering Marsh 1x Prairie Stream 1x Canopy Vista 1x Sunken Hollow 1x Cinder Glade 2x Lumbering Falls 1x Shambling Vent
Sideboard (15) 3x Fiery Impulse 2x Transgress the Mind 2x Surge of Righteousness 1x Seismic Rupture 1x Sultai Charm	1x Virulent Plague 2x Exert Influence 1x Mob Rule 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon 1x Treasure Cruise

This deck is basically Abzan Control, the so-called best deck of the last format. We just replaced the Drown in Sorrow with Radiant Flames (which is better), Courser of Kruphix with Catacomb Sifter (which is worse), and Elspeth with Dromoka and Atarka (which is worse but hey, they are Dragons!). The playstyle is similar in that you tried to survive the mid-game with some 1 for 1 removal, lifegain with Rhino, and grinding with Den Protector, making sure you keep getting your land drop, then finish the game with some powerful finisher which in this case is Dromoka and Atarka.

Some addition I made to Ali’s list, besides second Nissa, is Silkwrap. I thought that the deck needs a better way to remove Hangarback Walker, and Silkwrap is also better against Atarka Red than Abzan Charm. I cut 1 Abzan Charm and 1 Draconic Roar to get the Silkwrap in. Anafenza also joined the mix to combat Aristocrats deck that could be rising after its amazing perfomance on camera.

My sideboard is mostly dedicated to fight Atarka Red because in the testing I lost 7 out of 8 game against that deck. Virulent Plague is used to counter some creative guy making a deck based on Tokens and in pinch it can even hit Aristocrats. Mob Rule is used to combat Ramp decks, which could be a very nightmarish matchup for this deck as this deck don’t have way to interact with Ulamog favorably. Other than that, it’s just some good stuff sideboard card, made possible by the 5-color manabase.

After the deck is ready, I contacted Albert from Orange to borrow some cards I was lacking. Luckily, he has all I need, so I was ready to go.

On the next moring, I woke up late as usual, but still managed to get to Orange just 30 minutes before the PPTQ started. I got all the card that I need from Albert and began to sleeve it up. But then, I forgot one important thing, which was a basic Forest, and Albert was like, “Lol, seriously?” Anyway, the deck was completed and I got paired with my first opponent.

My first matchup was against some Rogue Eldrazi Processor deck which used 4 Infinite Obliteration in main deck to exile my card and then process it with Wasteland Strangler and Blight Herder. If I was playing Esper Control that only has few win conditions, this could be a nightmarish matchup, but since my deck has a lot of variety of threat, I beat the deck pretty convincingly.

Second matchup was against a See the Unwritten ramp deck. This is my absolute worst matchup in the tournament. My opponent played first and was able to perfectly curve out a turn 2 Rattleclaw Mystic into turn 3 Frontier Siege into turn 4 See the Unwritten into Greenwarden of Murasa, into another See the Unwritten and my deck was just not able to catch up. I boarded in Transgress the Mind only to see that my opponent has 2 See the Unwritten in his hand. I never drew my Mob Rule, but even if I did, I would not be able to cast it because my opponent has a Void Winnower staring at me.

Nope, you can't even

Third matchup was against an Abzan Megamorph, which is a G/W Megamorph splashing black for Rhino. Turn 1 Warden of the First Tree was expected and I have my Silkwrap ready for it. Once I halt his aggression with the help of Radiant Flames, I managed to stabilize with Rhino and close the game with Dromoka and Ugin. Nevertheless, this is the kind of matchup my deck was prepared for.

Fourth matchup was against 5-Color Bring to Light. It was supposed to be a close matchup but my opponent outplayed me really hard. Add in the fact that I was overextended into Crux of Fate and that I fetched into 3 life, I really was not deserved to win that game.

Fifth and last matchup in swiss round is against none other than Atarka Red. My Bane of existence. I thought, oh well, as long as this player is not as good as Wildan, then I would still have a chance. I didn’t lose 7 out of 8 games against Wildan for nothing. I learned that the most important thing to beat the current Atarka Red is to kill all of their creatures and making all of their pump spell useless. I even go as far as playing Radiant Flames on turn 3 eventhough my opponent only has one creature. Because I know that if I don’t, I will get Become Immense-Battle Rage Combo’d. So after I killed all of his creatures, I expected my opponent to get mana-flooded and he did! So I take the chance by stabilizing with Rhino and finish the game with Dragonlord Dromoka.

In the end, I won 3-2 in swiss and get into top 8, barely, at 8th rank. My opponent in the Quarterfinal is yet another Atarka Red and he was no slouch either. He hit me hard and fast with turn 1 Swiftspear into turn 2 Swiftspear into turn 3 Titan’s Strentgh, dropping me to 8 life total. Luckily, he got stucked with one land and was not able to deploy more threat so turn 3 Radiant Flames and turn 4 Siege Rhino closed out the game for good. At this point, I was like, did I just beat Atarka Red twice in a row? I did! What a wonderful surprise. The short playtesting session was really worth it.

Going to semifinal, I was matched up against CJ, who played Esper Dragons. Now, this is where the real game begins, I thought. I know that I’m pretty favored against Esper because my deck has a lot of threat from the 2-drop until 8-drop and complemented with 3 Manlands (in which 2 of them has hexproof). As long as I can keep on deploying my threat, my opponent will eventually running out of removal and I can win by topdecking another threat, flipping Den Protector, or attacking with the Manlands.

In game 1, my game goes exactly like what I planned. I kept on deploying threats, resolving 3 Rhinos, hitting him with Lumbering Falls, and dropping him to 1 life. Unfortunately, that was when I stumbled by running out of threat before my opponent running out of removal. At that point, the table was turned, my opponent was able to gain life with Foul-Tongue Invocation, and win on the back of Ojutai and Young Silumgar.

For the game-2, I upped my number of threat by adding the second Ugin on the mix and Treasure Cruise to win card advantage battle. Most importantly, Transgress the Mind! The card works wonder, getting me the information and taking Ob Nixilis before it can start gaining card advantages. Once I know all of my opponent’s spell, I can deploy my threat one by one until he got overwhelmed.

In game 3, the same thing happened again. Den Protector did a lot of work in this game, returning all of my countered threats, until my opponent went topdecking. This time, it was decided that my opponent ran out of removal before I ran out of threats. From that moment, a resolved Treasure Cruise was making sure that my opponent will never catch me up in terms of card advantage.

So I went to final and I told myself, if I win, then this will be my first step on resolving my dream of playing in the Pro Tour. My opponent in the final was Adit who played Abzan Control. Basically a mirror match, so I expected a lot of Siege Rhino bouncing against each other. The matchup in game 1 is just horrible because whereas I have 4 Radiant Flames and 2 Draconic Roar, my opponent has Planeswalkers and Ruinous Path. At some point, I was forced to cast Draconic Roar and Radiant Flames just to kill a Rhino. Making unfavorable trade like that against Abzan Control is just a recipe for disaster and I died soon after that.

In game 2, the matchup became more comfortable after I boarded out all of the Radiant Flames and Draconic Roar to make way for Exert Influence, Transgress the Mind, Sultai Charm, Treasure Cruise, and the second Ugin. Again, Transgress the Mind works wonder in game 2, exiling Gideon right from turn 2 and getting the information that I need to deploy my threats. One more thing, I casted more Rhino than my opponent in game 2 so that’s definitely a significant edge for me to win game 2.

Game 3 is probably my most epic game. Exert Influence overperformed, seriously. Stealing unflipped Den Protector, stealing Rhino, the card is really the bane of Abzan Control. By keep making 2 for 1 trade, I managed to force my opponent into topdecking, then close out the game by curving Dragonlord Atarka into Ugin. The Dragonlord was handled but the Ugin wasn’t. I managed to activated Ugin’s ultimate ability and put my opponent really far behind in terms of card advantage. After some few turn trying to survive, the card advantage started to overwhelm him and he offered a handshake.

So that’s it the story. I got my first PPTQ win and invite into RPTQ. I told myself again, this is only the first step, don’t get too full of yourself, it’s gonna be a long road before I can live in the dream. One important thing that I got by winning the PPTQ is that it reignited my confidence in going into a Magic Tournament. I have went to like 8-10 Magic tournament and never win anything. This win abolished my disbelief that I’d never be a winner at anything and encourage me to do better to get another win.

I really thanked Cockatrice for this one. That piece of software really helped me out to playtest the deck. The trickiest part of playing the deck is in the first to third turn where you have to fetch into the right mana at the right time. Without ever testing it in Cockatrice, I’d never be able to perfectly sequence my land drop and my fetch. I also thanked Wildan for the short playtesting session where he senselessly beat me with his Atarka Red. Without that experience, I would not be able to get into Top 8 in the first place. Last but not least, I thanked Albert for borrowing me the card that I need on last minute. I won’t be able to participate in the tournament without it.

Now that I have taken my first step into my dream, the next step will be preparation for RPTQ. Basically, the money, the passport, the health, and the skill. There are a lot of things that I need to do to prepare all of it, but I hope that I’ll be able to make it in time. Godspeed.

PPTQ Orange 18/10/2015 Report:
2-0 Vs Eldrazi Processor

1-2 Vs See the Unwritten Ramp

2-0 vs Abzan Megamorph

0-2 vs 5-Color Bring to Light

2-0 vs Atarka Red

2-0 vs Atarka Red in Quarterfinal

2-1 vs Esper Dragons in Semifinal

2-1 vs Abzan Control in Final