I am going to start with why I play this deck: because playing magic is fun, and with it, I get to play more of the magic than my opponent does.

Current Decklist and Matchups: http://deckbox.org/sets/708863

GP Boston was the second GP (first with this iteration of the deck) that I had taken the deck to with the goal of day 2ing, so a better builder could take a serious look at the deck, rather than it continue to fade into the background of strange combo decks that sit at tier 3+ that are innumeral in modern. What is great about this particular combo deck, is that the matches it is good against, it is extremely good against (Other combo decks, slower aggro decks, all flavors of control), but the matches that it is poor against (Burn), it just cannot beat – which means in order to do well at a big event like this, one would need to have the luck to dodge the poor match ups.

How does this deck work: The goal of the deck Game 1 is to win off of Jace Beleren ultimating the opponent or Jace Beleren ultimating yourself in games 2-3 after siding Laboratory Maniac in from the sideboard. Using Elixir of Immortality for game 1 shows the opponent you use your graveyard, so they may side in graveyard hate in games 2-3, which means they have more dead cards to draw; it slows them down.

Onto the matches for event:

Round 1. RW Landfall 2-1-0



RW landfall can be a hard matchup, just because of the extremely explosive draws it can get and the match sometimes comes down to who won the die roll, which was not me.

Game 1: Losing the die roll, I kept a hand with a boomerang, cryptic, Jace, 2 lands, and a telling time – a pretty strong opener as long as I can hit a third land drop. While I was able to hit a third land drop, I died before my fourth turn to a lynx and Stormblood Berserker.

In:

+2 Spell Snare

+2 Trickbind

+1 Aetherize

Out:

-4 Remand

-1 Cryptic Command

Game 2: Much easier game on the play, was able to boomerang on the lynx two times in a row, keeping my health way out of burn range, and combo-ed off at 7 life left.

In:

+2 Spell Pierce

Out:

-2 Spell Snare

Game 3: Opponent kept a 1 land hand that had a Lynx after a Mulligan to 4, while I only had to mulligan to 5, but second turn howling mine gave him enough cards to get me to 3 life before I combo’d, winning the match

Overall: 1-0-0

Round 2. Death and Taxes 2-1-0



Losing the die roll again, I am on the draw for the Death and Taxes Matchup, which is not a very hard matchup.

Game 1: After a Mulligan to 6, and a serum vision seeing no Howling Mine/Jace gas, I slowly die to Leonin Arbiter after two Ghost Quarter/Strip Mines.

In:

+2 Trickbind

+1 Aetherize

+1 Laboratory Maniac

Out:

-4 Remand

Game 2: No one had to mulligan, and with me being on the play, I was able to stall out for quite a while, and after drawing both the Maniac and the Elixir, was able to survive 1 extra turn by blocking with the Maniac and gaining 5 life off of elixir to bring me to 2 life after the swing to win the game.

Game 3: An early howling mine let both of us always have something to do, and an early Kataki, War’s Wage from my opponent made sure I could not do much until I boomeranged it. I was able to chain Cryptic Commands to tap out my opponent long enough to combo out with 1 life left.

Overall: 2-0-0

Round 3. TarmoTwin



Probably the hardest matchup of all the blue combo decks, since the Tarmogoyfs allow for an extremely quick clock. Winning the first die roll of the day, I elected to play first.

Game 1: Longest game of the night, ended up taking 40+ minutes for me to win it, because I was never able to bounce all of my opponent’s untapped lands, so with the Jace Beleren draws, they always were able to get another counter off.

In:

+3 Gigadrowse

+2 Spell Pierce

+2 Spell Snare

+2 Swan Song

+2 Trickbind

+1 Aetherize

Out:

-4 Temporal Mastery

-4 Walk the Aeons

-4 Time Warp

Game 2: Knowing I could not combo off in the amount of time left in the match, I decided to go for control to try for a draw game 2. I guess it was the wrong call, as I ended up being killed by double goyfs, giving us after presenting decks, less than 1 minutes until time in the round was called.

Game 3: He could not kill me in 3 turns, I could not kill him in 3 turns. Ended up with a draw, and me getting punished for not having 3 byes.

Overall: 2-0-1

Round 4. UWR control



UWR control is probably the easiest matchup that there is for this deck, and I won the die roll.

Game 1: His tapped colonade was met with my Boomerang, then his tapped Steam Vents was met with a second Boomerang, giving him 3 tapped lands after he remanded my cryptic command and I was able to go off unmolested by counter magic.

In:

+3 Gigadrowse

+2 Spell Pierce

+2 Swan Song

+1 Spell Snare

Out:

-4 Remand

-2 Cryptic Command

Game 2: After a number of turns and me at 9 life, I gigadrowsed him on his upkeep in order to combo off next turn, and was met with bolt, snapcaster bolt, Helix and promptly lost.

Game 3: on the play, I was able to boomerang him once and the Gigadrowse at 12 life was strong enough to go off.

Overall: 3-0-1

Round 5. UR Delver



This is by far the hardest blue deck matchup, just because of the sheer number of counter spells the deck runs, and this match was no exception, especially with the lost die roll.

Game 1: Was able to get down 2 howling mines, but that just let the Delver player draw enough answers to beat me down with his Turn 1 and Turn 2 delvers.

In:

+2 Spell Pierce

+3 Gigadrowse

+2 Swan Song

+1 Spell Snare

Game 2: Gigadrowse two turns in a row saved me from getting beat to death by a delver and clique, as well as tapped him out enough for me to go off while at 7 life, just out of range of the bolt and snapcaster in his hand, luckly my opponent never drew a Counterflux.

Game 3: With two howling mines and my opponent keeping 2 mana up with good use of a Spellstutter and a Fetchland, I was forced to go off at 3 life on turn 8 with 7 lands out (I had tech edged one of his lands). I ended up drawing a spell snare and a Walk the Aeons, and the snare countered the remand on the walk. After which I wiffed on drawing another turn effect. It was a mistake to tech edge one of his lands, because if I had not I would have had enough mana to keep Walking if I had drawn a turn effect or a land, which ended up costing me the game.

Overall: 3-1-1

Round 6. Scapeshift



Can be a difficult matchup, but usually is not very bad, as they end up searching for lands on the early turns and I have free reign to cast my Howling Mines.

Game 1: Opponent had no idea what I was playing after a second turn boomerang on his tapped breeding pool. I was able to force him to tap out with a cryptic and go off on my 5th turn.

In:

+2 Gigadrowse

+2 Swan Song

+2 Trickbind

+2 spell snare

Out:

-4 Remand

-4 Cryptic Command

Game 2: Opponent brought in Ancient Grudge, and I ended up running out of gas before he did, leaving me to scoop so we could have enough time for game 3 after 10 turns.

Game 3: Getting my first blind miracle from Temporal Mastery, I combo’d off after my opponent tapped out to cast Search for tomorrow, which was met with a Swam Song.

Overall: 4-1-1

Round 7. UWR Geist



Usually a fairly easy matchup, as I can force them to interact on the their turn rather than on my turn. Ended up losing the die roll

Game 1: After my turn 2 howling mine was met with a turn 3 Geist, I was beat down with it twice, ignoring the Jace I played, then ending me on his 5th turn with a lightning bolt after remanding my cryptic to slow down the Geist.

In:

+3 Gigadrowse

+2 Swan Song

+2 Spell Pierce

+1 Aetherize

Out:

-4 Remand

-4 Cryptic Command

Game 2: Being on the play but having no boomerangs, I was forced to play fair magic with a turn 2 howling mine and a turn 3 Jace and plussed so it would not get bolted. I ended up having no turn 5 play, but a Gigadrowse or tapping out to try to resolve a turn effect, so I felt like I could get there but passing the turn into a Clique which stripped the my only Time Warp proved otherwise, until I drew a Time Warp off of the clique. I tapped him out on his 5th turn and proceeded to go off, but ended up not drawing a land in the 6 draws I had, which left me to die against clique and bolts. That game was another one that was costed by Tec Edging an opponent’s land, but I feel that was another corner case of Tectonic Edge punishing me.

Overall: 4-2-1 Drop

Wrap up: 4-2-1 Drop is pretty bad, sometimes the cards are just not in your favor, but like most combo decks, you just need that 1 extra turn to go off, which all of my losses ended up being that close. I ended up dodging Affinity, and Tron completely, so I am not sure if the Recalls would have been good enough to let me win versus Affinity, and I do not know of the 1 of Tectonic Edge would have helped out against either flavor of Tron, so those should stay. Trickbind was a little lackluster, as I never had to use it to buy that 1 extra turn vs Twin combos, nor vs any cascade decks, so it is a little early to tell if that is worth a spot. The howling mines are good, but players kept asking if I should be running Dictate of Kruphix in its place, and maybe they are correct, because at least Dictate cannot be spell snared, nor can it be ancient grudged – and it lets me play even more as a

If I was a little more lucky I feel like I could have gotten to day 2, but it was not in the cards this time. I will continue to test this deck some more and try to work out a more optimal list. At the end of round 6, I had met someone who was playing a blue red version of this deck for Blood Moons that was 5-1-0 at the time, which may be worth testing out. I really hope he made day 2, so that a better brewer would pick this deck up and find the optimal list.

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