Bus49mtg recently won AliasV's big Super Spiffy Tournament II using his own brew with Bant Ramp! Part of the Team Aether streaming team we got to sit down and talk to him about the deck, mtg, and life in general. Bus whose real name is David streams on Twitch.tv on a regular basis as part of Team Aether and wants to connect with you as a fellow streamer or twitch viewer. You can find him and the rest of our team on our discord server discord.aetherhub.com

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Country of residence: USA

Introduction



My name is David Buskirk (probably better known as Bus49) and I am 24 years old. I was born, raised and still live in Sheridan, WY, USA. Sheridan is a small town of only about 18,000 people. Since I was 13 I have dealt with anxiety and depression, I struggled in school and often missed class. I eventually became a high school dropout at age 16, getting my GED shortly after. Despite getting my GED I decided to go back to High School in hopes to have

some notable experiences such as go to school activities like the prom and play in sports (football, basketball, wrestling). I was a very competitive person growing up. The first card games I ever played were Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, starting as young as age 7. Other hobbies I have include playing the popular football game title Madden and watching films.





When did you start playing Magic the Gathering?



Growing up in a town of 18,000 people the magic scene was relatively small. When a local group of great people decided to start running Magic tournaments at our local library a close friend of mine convinced me to buy a deck and show up to one of the tournaments. I was 12 years old at the time. Much to my surprise, the premade commander deck I got at Walmart was not legal in the standard format. I played casually until I was about 15 which is when I started taking Magic more seriously, I watched Magics premier events and learned almost everything I know from watching players like Reid Duke, Brian Kibler, Eric Froehlich, Paul Rietzl, among many others. While watching those events I would imagine myself at the event and would often dream of an opportunity to showcase my skills to the world.

A couple of local friends noticed how much I was improving and wanted to go out of there way to teach me to play even better. So they sat me down and held me accountable for every play. Before too long I was the local person who had won almost a full years worth of FNMs consecutively. When I felt comfortable enough I gathered some friends with similar aspirations of making it big in MTG and traveled all around Wyoming, Montana, and even Colorado. I made my first PTQ Top 8 at age 16 and made it to the finals before losing. Out of the 4 PTQs I played that year I placed top eight in three of them. I was discouraged after making it so close to being able to realize the dream of being on the pro tour.

At age 17 I went to my first Grand Prix which was in Denver, CO. I didn't have any friends going or money for a hotel but I had managed to get enough money to be able to pay for the entry and my deck. So off I went to Denver with the intent of sleeping in my car for the weekend, when I got there I had realized that sleeping in my car at -15F wasn't a good idea. But I had blankets. I had lied to my parents and said I was going with friends and had a hotel room. So for the weekend at the Grand Prix, I slept in -15F weather and missed out on day 2. Which I blame on only 2 hours of sleep the previous night. After that, I stopped traveling until I was 21. In the meantime, I started playing the Modern Format on Magic Online and was consistently winning games. Often getting 5-0 trophies.

I found Jund Deaths Shadow before it was popular and brought it to nine 5-0 trophies on Magic Online. That year Sam Black, one of my magic idols, mentioned me in an article and chose Deaths Shadow for a Grand Prix where he Top 8d. So in a way, you could say I brought Deaths Shadow to relevance. My close friend convinced me to go to Grand Prix Vegas when I was 21. I tested harder for that event than any other, playing around 400 games with Deaths Shadow variants.



I missed out on day 2 again misplaying multiple times and having severe anxiety issues. I decided to quit magic after that event as it was making me depressed and I was always falling short. Shortly after I quit I became very isolated and lost most of my friends in the process. When the friend who had convinced me to play magic as a 12-year-old told me that he would lend me a deck and to play at an event locally, I couldn't turn it down. I went and didn't do good but in the tournament, I realized that Magic was still fun and that it makes me happy. I went back to work on getting myself better than I was before. Determined that this time I am going to get on the Mythic Championship. Strategizing in ways I hadn't before paid off when this past weekend I won the Super Spiffy Tournament II.





What are some hobbies you like to do when you’re not live on Twitch?



When I'm not live on Twitch I usually am strategizing, building decks, watching films and occasionally playing Madden on Xbox.





Video footage of the deck in action:

Final match Bus49 vs backagain

Semi finals Bus49 vs lukas261997





How was the Super Spiffy Tournament? What made you choose the Bant Ramp Deck?



For the Super Spiffy Tournament, I gathered a few friends who I had met through streaming and tested for a good 2 weeks leading up to the event. I started on Nexus, and after testing it I realized I wasn't having fun at all with it. So I started looking elsewhere. As a long-time midrange player, I got very excited when I discovered Risen Reef . I built a Sultai Elemental deck shortly after that. Tested it for about a week. And was sold on Elementals being the best for me in the tournament. I took a day to strategize and build Bant since after testing I noticed the fundamental flaws of the Sultai list I was playing and the White cards helped shore up the bad matchups and fix the fundamental flaws I was noticing. Which was that late-game I ran out of gas too often, Oketra helps solve since when the opponent has a massive amount of answers it almost always comes back to 3 from the top. which in turn helps the deck have more longevity against decks with lots of interaction. I tested Bant for 2 days before the event and was 100% sold on it.





Anything you would change in the deck after playing in the Tournament?



I was overall happy with my card choices, However, I found Shifting Ceratops to be overperforming. If I were to make any changes to the deck it would be to add a second Ceratops. Maybe in place of Time Wipe .

The deck has some interesting inclusions, did you feel you managed to surprise your opponents with some of your choices?

The decklists were public in the event, which means my opponents could see my deck before playing me. I do feel that my choices during deckbuilding gave me an advantage over many people who had not been prepared to deal with things like God-Eternal Oketra or the sideboard Ceratops going into the event.





How do you like M20 so far?



I have loved M20 and I believe it was a very well designed set. Risen Reef and Cavalier of Thorns are possibly my 2 favorite cards in this standard format. I love playing green midrange decks and the Elementals breathe new life into green midrange strategies. I have yet to play with many of the new cards but in the coming weeks leading up to the Arena MCQ in August, I plan to test some things like Chandra, Acolyte of Flame , Kethis, the Hidden Hand and Kykar, Wind's Fury .





Limited or Constructed?



I have always been more of a constructed player than a Limited player, but I do enjoy playing Limited sometimes.

Do you play any older formats?



I used to play Modern and EDH a lot, but the current state of Modern is not very fun. I want Birthing Pod back!

What decks look interesting to you in M20?



Besides the Elementals deck, I played I find the Feather decks interesting and I have some very cool ideas for decks that are not currently made that I will be working on in the coming weeks on stream!

What can the viewers expect from your Twitch streams?



I stream mostly competitive, and I brew a lot but I brew with the intention of making a brew competitive. I often play viewers decklists and also battle against the viewers on stream.





Your deck received some criticism from twitch chat and from some of your opponents, Is there anything you would like to say to the people that criticized your deck choices?



Yeah, go to Hades. Jokes aside, I appreciate all constructed criticism. Criticism keeps me honest and helps me in a lot of ways. The most common criticism I got leading up to the tournament was the decision to not play Mass Manipulation or Flood of Tears . The reason for not playing Mass Manipulation is that for the most part, the decks that I wanted Mass Manipulation against in the past were green midrange decks. Green got Veil of Summer in M20 which is a very solid sideboard card. Flood of Tears has been hyped by the Arena Decklists podcast among others, my reason for not playing it is that in testing, I often cast it as a reactive card to keep myself from dying. In the situations when you are behind on board and don't have Omniscience , Flood of Tears is not very good. Also, Nissa's lands don't get bounced. Instead of Opting for Flood or Manipulation I opted for God-Eternal Oketra and Finale of Glory as my Midrange

bombs of choice. Both are more consistently good cards and improves many of the matchups that can be problematic.

Was there any game that stood out from the rest?

There was one game that I got the curve out of Turn 1 Llanowar Elves , Turn 2 Leafkin Druid , Turn 3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World , Turn 4 Hydroid Krasis , Turn 5 Finale of Glory for 10+ while on the play

Anything you want to add?

I would like to talk about how great Team Aether has been to me and thank everyone involved. From the moment I became Affiliate on Twitch and joined Team Aether I have had many people reach out to me and make me feel like this team is somewhere I belong. MythicMikaela, thecorgibutts, MTG_Arena_META, and AdamantMTG among others have gone out of there way to make me feel like a valued member of Team Aether.

Lastly, AliasV takes the Champions deck for a spin in this Youtube Video