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For those who don't know who I am, let me introduce myself.
I'm Eric Hawkins and I have been playing Magic the Gathering since Revised. While I love to brew up crazy decks, I recently have been taking Magic much more seriously and have had to start playing the top tier decks in each format. As far as my play style, I usually play either combo or aggressive strategies.
After parting ways with Legion Supplies at the end of 2014 I felt like it was the perfect time to see how good I really was at Magic. I felt that I was a good Magic player, and I wanted to take a year to just play. To see how good I was, I need a proving ground and a goal.
There were a few ways to test this. I could have gone to the Grand Prix Circuit, PPTQs, or the SCG Circuit. I felt like the Grand Prix Circuit didn't have enough opportunities, and I would basically just have to spike one, which doesn't prove anything but that I got lucky once. PPTQs felt unfulfilling, in that if I were to win one I would have to wait until the RPTQ to play again, and if I missed I would have to wait three or so months to do qualify for the next RPTQ.
This left the SCG Circuit. The draw of the SCG circuit was the combination of local events through IQs, bigger showcase-style events like the Opens and Invitationals, and a way to measure my progression with the leaderboard. This would be my proving grounds, and making the Player's Championship would be my goal.
I won't go through everything that I did over this last year, but let's just say that even though I didn’t quite make my goal, it went great. How could it be great if I didn't make my goal? Because I accomplished a ton through the journey. I won both SCG Regionals in Minnesota, SCG Modern States, made countless IQ top 8's and even landed an SCG Open Finals appearance.
My cat Pretzel claiming the trophy as his own.
I also got to meet a bunch of new people who I am lucky enough to call friends. So I got to play Magic at a very high level all year, meet some great people, and I proved to myself that I can get to where I want to be with bit more work.
This year I will continue grinding the SCG Tour, and I will be making another run at the Player’s Championship. With the changes that SCG is making, this won't be an easy road. While there will be IQs locally, you will no longer get points for these events to help you on your journey. SCG Opens, Invitationals, Regionals, and States are the only way to get points towards the Player’s Championship. This means that if you want to qualify, you will have to see success on a larger stage.
Now some of you might be wondering if there's good expected value to making this run without IQs. I'd say there is. To illustrate this, let's take the Open in Cincinnati this weekend as an example. Round trip driving from Minneapolis is 1406 miles. My car, which kind of sucks, gets 23 mpg. That means the trip wil take about 62 gallons. Gas is currently around $2.00 per gallon, so we are looking at $124 round trip. I can usually find a hotel at around $50.00 per night, and we will be there for two nights, so that's another $100.00. Add an oil change for $30.00 and we are looking at about $254.00. I will be going with 2 other people, so that will cut the cost into thirds, making it about $85.00 a piece. Add the cost of entry and we're looking at $135.00. Of course, there is food and such, but that varies each time so I will just round to something like $200.00. $200.00 dollars is also the prize for getting top 32 of an Open. 10-5 and is usually the record that you need in order to make top 32. I believe that I can average 10-5 and top 32 most opens, and I'm confident that I will achieve stronger records periodically. This makes my EV even, and possibly positive. Now if I have to fly to an Open that will change the equation a bit, but you can usually find very cheap flights on Spirit and Frontier. Sometimes flying is even cheaper than driving.
Finally, you can't get to where you want to go without the help of those around you. So thanks to everyone that has helped me over the last year. Special thanks to Matthew Tickal for being my travel buddy and talking me out of some of my stupid choices. Or at least trying to. Also, huge thanks to my girlfriend Serena. She is always there listen to me and be supportive, even if she has no clue what I'm saying.
Here's to the future!
If you were looking for strategy or looking for what to play, that will be coming up in future articles. I love to talk basically anything Magic, so feel free to find me on Twitter @conanhawk.
Thanks for reading!
Overall, Stoneforge Abzan scraped by with a 37% win rate. This is slightly higher than Frank Karsten's reported 25% win rate in his own experience, but well within the expected range given the sample size of 30. Abzan saw Stoneforge Mystic in 70% of games, winning 38% of games with Stoneforge involvement and 33% of games with no Mystic whatsoever. This points to Mystic having a relatively insignificant impact, tending towards a small bump for the Abzan pilot. Even though Abzan enjoyed the coveted turn two Stoneforge in 62% of its total games, it lost more of those turn two games than it won (39% versus 61%). That said, almost half of Abzan's wins ultimately involved the one-two Mystic into Batterskull punch, underscoring the combo's power but forcing us to admit its limitations in the Affinity matchup.
Tasigur and Ooze are too slow for this matchup so we drop them for the Silences. Abzan never lacked for threats, clocks, or Sword-bearers in Game 1 and I don't expect this to be a problem in Games 2-3. We need ways to stop Affinity in the first four turns, not try to race them with vanilla beaters or prolong the game with 3-4 points of lifegain. Similarly, Liliana drops down to two copies to make room for Engineered Explosives, a much more reliable way to remove the nightmarish Etched Champion. Lily does this too but Explosives doesn't have to worry about sniping Champ through a sky full of Thopters, animating (Bl)Inkmoths, and Skirges.
comments. In those 30 Games 2-3 we had already practiced with Decay, the card worked perfectly in 74% of the time we drew it, and passably in another 13% (averaging 1.5 turns between when it was drawn and when it was cast). Admittedly, the remaining 13% of Decay games saw the spell fail miserably. This performance was significantly better than some critics argued, but not exactly where we wanted. Affinity was already facing an uphill battle in Games 2-3, and we didn't need an extra handful of losses because we needed to topdeck a Mox Opal to kill a Batterskull. Moreover, although we initially included Decay as a nod to countermagic in the UWx Stoneforge matchup, we hadn't appreciated Stony Silence's increased profile in a white-shifted metagame. All of these factors pointed us to switching cards, and we re-ran all tests to account for Wear // Tear's presence.
first or second. This trend has always been true of the Abzan-favored Games 2-3, and I was happy to see our testing honored that trajectory. The BGx representative just picks up so much added power from its sideboard. On the other side of the table, Affinity jams in whatever answers it can without also watering down its gameplan. The end result is always going to preference Abzan, and today was no exception. Thinking thematically, Siege Rhino and Lingering Souls were uncontested MVPs, followed closely by Mystic. There was also this Stony Silence that singlehandedly won games, but we'll focus more on that later. For now, here are the summary numbers for Affinity's Games 2-3.
also couldn't help but notice her shortcomings against Affinity's improved answers. Wear // Tear was a serious pain, slapping down a living weapon or a Sword in almost a third of Mystic games. Turn one Thoughtseize was also bad news for Stoneforge. Add in Whipflare on top of the rest (at its best, massacring Spirits and Kors; at its worst, just a Mystic-specific Terminate), and it's no wonder the lovely lady didn't always leave a big footprint on games. Was I ever sad to see her? Absolutely not, and you always got some value out of Mystic as long as you cast her. Was I always living the Stoneforge dream? No way: once Affinity tried interacting with her and her creations, their weaknesses became much clearer.
Games with 1+ Silence: 42% (21/50)
It's tempting to review these numbers and conclude Abzan's wins came from either Silence or Mystic because so many of its wins featured the combo. Both the data and the game notes show it wasn't that simple. As we saw above, Stoneforge had very little impact on Abzan's wins: the deck posted a 58% win rate with and without Mystic, and a 42% loss rate with and without Mystic. By contrast, Silence saw a 67% with- and 33% without- win rate, as compared with 52-48 in games where the enchantment never showed up at all. More qualitatively, Etched Champion, Inkmoth Nexus, and removal were all amply prepared to steal games from the tutored Germ. By contrast, Silence may not have directly addressed these win conditions (Champ and Inkmoth still work even if the rest of the Affinity board is frozen solid), but it unquestionably slammed the brakes on all the enablers that make these cards scary.
maindeck solutions to Batterskull that aggro exemplars like Burn, Zoo variants, or Merfolk lack. This might make Affinity seem like an odd choice for a matchup, but it is a necessary first step before additional tests can be conducted. As we've seen throughout the year and in pre-2015 metagames, Affinity is Modern's best aggro deck, a format pillar that sets the speed limit for many other strategies. If Mystic somehow warped the 50-50 Abzan vs. Affinity matchup, that would be sufficient evidence for me to oppose a Mystic unbanning. On the other hand, if Affinity could hold the line against Stoneforge Abzan, then we could safely move on to other decks knowing at least one aggro and midrange contest would be unchanged. Those later tests might prove the dangers of a Mystic unbanning, but at least we passed the first milestone. That's where we are now and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.
The five-mana casting cost stinks, and is by far the card's biggest barrier to Modern playability. Neither Grixis nor BGx, Modern's best grinding strategies, use anything in the maindeck over four mana. Twin slips Keranos into the sideboard and certain Scapeshift builds roll with Bring to Light, but otherwise there isn't a lot of precedent for successful five-mana cards. Ramp decks like Tron and Amulet Bloom are exceptions to this, but those are operating on an entirely different axis. Thankfully, I think we can mitigate Dwellers' cost with dorks and/or other accelerators, so we'll table the casting-cost issue for now. On the bright side, you can think of the Dwellers like a turn five Snapcaster that doesn't get hit by either early Inquisition of Kozileks or later Abrupt Decays.
Of course, the real reason to play Dark-Dwellers is its Snapcaster and a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy imitation. True, it's not quite the same (no flash like Tiago and a higher cost than Jace), but what can you expect of a red creature with no eyeballs? Jokes aside, I'm comfortable trading some of those qualities for a 4/4 body that ends the game on its own. As for the ability itself, given its cascade similarities, you can't blame Chapin and others for the Bloodbraid comparison. Although the Dwellers can't hit creatures or planeswalkers (Elf into Liliana still gives me nightmares), the selective recursion is very strong in a color with access to Kolaghan's Command and Anger of the Gods. The key is to get huge value out of the recurred card, unless we want to just play a red Gilt-Leaf Winnower.
With Oath, now you and the Dark-Dwellers can relive those Busted glory days. Play your dork on turn one and then follow with the turn two Boom and fetchland combo. When turn four comes around, you can drop the Goblins and re-cast Bust as Armageddon. Add some clocks and removal, maybe even the equally busted Blood Moon, and you have yourselves the trappings of a sweet land-smashing brew. I'm liking Naya colors for Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, both of which get us a turn ahead of the curve and the latter of which turns Dwellers into a 5/5 monster. Tarmogoyf fits into most Naya decks, especially those maindecking an enchantment, and who said fun brews needed to be budget? Jordan has already 
Naya Dark-Dwellers trades Zoo's aggro consistency for percentage points against big-mana decks like Tron and Amulet Bloom. Boom // Bust and Blood Moon also steal games against fair decks that fetch poorly, keep 1-2 landers, or are relying on low land-counts backed with cantrips. Maindeck lifegain and Commands hamstring Burn's racing potential, and combine with low-cost removal, lifegain, and land killers to turn off some Affinity's advantages. In Games 2-3, your maindeck welcomes 3-4 Molten Rains to further assault manabases against slower decks, or more anti-aggro bullets such as Fiery Justice and Feed the Clan. Don't forget Choke for blue decks too!
