12th Place in Aethernity Cup with G/R Ramp

I played an EDH deck, in Standard, and actually got to Top 16. All while avoiding any Red Aggro matchup or even Jeskai. Boy was I so lucky.

Oh yea, I'm talking about Aethernity Cup, one could say it is the biggest unofficial Magic tournament in Indonesia held annually. Yesterday, a total of 116 people participated. I went there with G/R Ramp because if I had to play 7 rounds of Magic, I'll need a deck that's less taxing for my body.

Here is the deck that I brought:

Creature and Planeswalker (19) 4x Jaddi Offshoot 4x Hangarback Walker 2x Nissa, Vastwood Seer 2x Dragonlord Atarka 3x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger Planeswalker (4) 4x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Spell and Artifact (16) 2x Sylvan Scrying 4x Map the Wastes 3x Nissa's Pilgrimage 4x Explosive Vegetation 3x Hedron Archive	Land (25) 14x Forest 1x Mountain 4x Shrine of Forsaken Gods 4x Sanctum of Ugin 1x Blighted Woodland 1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon Sideboard (15) 4x Radiant Flames 1x Seismic Rupture 2x Winds of Qal Sisma 2x Orbs of Warding 1x Gaea's Revenge 1x Ruin Processor 1x Desolation Twin 1x Void Winnower 2x Rending Volley

I was very afraid with Red Aggro matchup so I build my deck to be more prepared against the Red menace. I went so far to put 4 Jaddi Offshoot and 2 Nissa in mainboard and cut one Ulamog. But even then, I'm not sure if it is even enough to beat them. Post-sideboard I prepared 4 Radiant Flames, 1 Seismic Rupture, and 2 Winds of Qal Sisma. If that still can't beat them then I don't know what can.

The rest of the sideboard is for midrange and control deck. I know that those decks will board in Infinite Obliteration and blindly call Ulamog only to find out that I only have one Ulamog in my deck. Basically what happened is I remove two of my Ulamog and replaced it with Desolation Twin and Void Winnower. It's so fun to see my opponent's face when that happened.

Orbs of Warding is tailor made for Esper Dragons. Duress, Despise, Transgress, Foul-Tongue? All dead. Utter-End is the only card in their deck that can remove it. And, while might be trivial, the card turned Ojutai from a 4-turn clock into 5-turn clock, effectively buying me more turn to find answer.

In short, the matchup in Aethernity Cup went out like this:

2-1 vs Sultai Red
2-1 vs Esper Red
2-1 vs Esper Dragons
1-2 vs Abzan Red
0-1 vs Esper Dragons (match went into time)
2-0 vs G/R Ramp
2-0 vs Abzan

Wow, I'm amazed, so many Red decks and none of them are the aggresive one. I'm so lucky.

There really isn't much to say about the matchup, because this deck doing absolutely the same thing in every game. Turn 3 Ramp into 5, turn 4 Ramp into 7, Turn 5 Ugin, then Ulamog, Ulamog, Ulamog, until the opponent conceded. A win means the exact scenario happened and a lose means my opponent has prevented me from fulfilling the scenario.

My first loss was against Dimas (who is going to Barcelona today to play in WMC, good luck to you!). He was playing Abzan Red and guess what he splashed Red for? Kolaghan, the Storm Fury! Yeah, that did caught me off my guard.

Basically, I was down to 4 life but already in a leading position with Void Winnower, Ugin, Orbs of Warding, and Hangarback Walker while dimas had only a Siege Rhino. I thought there is no way I could lose so I +2 the Ugin to hit face and said go. Well, next turn Dimas simply dashed Kolaghan and hit me for exactly 4. I was mind blown.

After the game, I made an excuse that there is no way I could predict he would have a Kolaghan in an Abzan deck. However, when I think about it again, my downfall has already begun when I thought that there is no way I can lose. If only I changed my mindset to thinking "what can possibly make me lose?" then I could easily found out Kolaghan. After all, Abzan Red with Kolaghan did won an SCG Open recently.

If I know that it is Kolaghan that I need to worry about, then I can Bolt my Hangarback with Ugin and create a Chump Blocker. My inability to think beyond what is seen defeats me. I have no excuse.

My second loss came from Jabba who played Esper Dragons. This is the matchup that went into time. Again, I had a leading board position with Void Winnower but couldn't win in time because Jabba keep casting Dragonlord Ojutai to chump block the Winnower.

Despite time problem, the Esper version that my opponent played is fully loaded with countermagics. Silumgar's Scorn, Clash of Wills, Scatter to the Wind, and Negate post-board, it's just wow! Void Winnower was actually the only threat I have ever resolved that was not immediately answered. Unfortunately, it was too late.

After my second loss, I was paired against a fellow Ramp player and I must say that Ramp mirror is probably the dumbest mirror ever next to Soul Sister and GW Devotion mirror. It is basicàlly a race toward Ulamog. First person to reach Ulamog will be able to deny opponent's mana and proceed to win by chaining Ulamog. I was lucky to win the roll dice on the first game and I was even luckier that my opponent didn't have an Ulamog when he reached ten mana in the second game.

One last thing I want to talk about is the second match when I played against Esper Red (which looked suspiciously like Jeskai Black with Ojutai). In this game, I won not by ramping into my big guns but with an army of Thopters. Yes, it happened. My opponent was probably playing too many discard spells (he actually played Duress, Despise, and Transgress against me) but forgot to have answer to Hangarback. It turns out that this deck does have an àlternate win condition.

I must say that I was very lucky to completely avoid the atarka red matchhup, but I also want to say that my sideboard plan against control matchup works wonder. Diversifying the threat makes Infinite Obliteration laughable and Orbs of Warding is just a giant middle finger to discard spells and Foul-Tongue (although I did forgot I had Orbs on the board when Jabba casted a Foul Tongue, lol). I can safely say that this is the way to go for playing Ramp deck in the future.

One card that I haven't talked a lot is Rending Volley. This card is really a bonker. It saved my life in every Esper matchup. Turns out that having a one-mana answer to Dragonlord Ojutai is really good. Moreover, the card is still serviceable in Abzan matchup since it killed Anafenza and Wingmate Roc. In the future, I probably want to put more of this card in my sideboard.

In the end, the 5-2 record only good enough to put me in 12th place, but that's acceptable. 

This month marks an anniversary for me and Magic. Yeah, I can't believe I have made it to this point in a year. Definitely, I want more. RPTQ on February 2016 will be my first big event next year and I'm very excited for that. If the leaked Kozilek is true than I have no doubt to keep on playing Ramp. The deck is just really good by itself and even better with proper sideboard.

So that's the story of my first Aethernity Cup. Until next time :)

P.S.: Aethernity Cup was actually held on the same place and the same time as Shadow Tournament. You know, the Yugioh Tournament I topped with Towers Turbo. For some reason, watching Yugioh tournament again doesn't make me missed it at all. Lol, maybe it's time to change the domain of this blog :v