Power 9 Pro – Magic The Gathering Accessories – Tournament Discussion – Deck Analysis

I know it’s a week late, but I’m sure you all had fun at last week’s Alara Reborn Prerelease. I got to my sealed pool and was amazed by all the juicy Naya goodness that awaited me. I had both Spell and Spearbreaker Behemoths, as well as a total of eight removal spells. Needless to say, I was pumped, and in the pre-tournament testing, everything seemed to work out fine. With a steady flow of fatties and a surprise performance by Exuberant Firestoker, I was finishing my test games in record time.

My Dragon's Egg and sealed pool (in pack form).

Alas, fate has a way of giving us cards we would rather not have been dealt. In round 1 I was up against Remkes, a local player who specializes in limited, and when I asked him how his pool was before we started, the only answer I got was “Extremely overpowered.” Keeping my cool, I drew my opening seven and was pleased to see my Spellbreaker Behemoth staring me in the face, in addition to a Magma Spray, a Resounding Thunder and a Gorger Wurm.

Unfortunately, while I started off strong, Remkes had an Oblivion Ring for my Behemoth and a surprise Ethersworn Shieldmage to take down my fatties, and my removal was used up. He kept playing Esper threats and eventually landed a Nemesis of Reason that threatened to take my entire deck out. Luckily, Remkes milled me of my Spearbreaker Behemoth, and I was able to use Vengeful Rebirth to both destroy his giant milling machine and play an indestructible threat. It didn’t last long though, because another Oblivion Ring resolved for Remkes, and I had no defense to stop his Etherium army.

Shuffling up for game 2 I failed to pay attention to my opponent’s sideboarding (as I now know I should) while I was performing my own. While I was siding in the likes of Naturalize and its kin, Remkes had (unbeknownst to me) simply switched decks. This was more than a transformational sideboard, because there were no overlapping cards in either deck. With a fattie, a removal spell, and Naturalize in my hand, I thought I was in good shape.

Unfortunately, Remkes came out of the gates with Dragon Fodder and Sprouting Thrinax. These were promptly followed by a Lightning Reaver that was essentially unblockable. Having used my removal spell earlier, the continuos damage from the reaver spelled out my demise as I stared at the useless Naturalize in my hand.

With my first loss of the day under my belt, I went up against Mike, a player who usually only plays EDH and limited. I don’t remember as many of the details of this match, but I remember losing in three games. With such a terrific pool I was disappointed, but I perked up when a call was made for people to drop out for a triple Alara Reborn Draft (which officially now tops triple Eventide as the wackiest draft format ever). I have always preferred draft to sealed, and with two losses to my name, I signed up.

Now one thing I hadn’t considered was the sheer impossibility to send signals in a draft where everything is multicoloured, so it was agreed upon to basically rare-draft until we figured out what we were doing.

I had an idea in my third pick (after taking Sovereigns of Lost Alara and Fight to the Death in my first two picks), and whether or not it was a Stroke of Genius or just a plain stroke that made me do it was unsure at the time, but I started joking around how I was picking really bad cards very high up. What nobody realized was that these cards were all cascade cards, most notably Deny Reality, Stormcallers Boon, and Kathari Remnant. I thought that since I might never get to try this format again, why not do something totally crazy. I picked up a Maelstrom Pulse as my rare for my second pack, with the intent of splashing it off a borderpost in my deck, or just simply cascading into it.

Halfway through the second path, I called over Marcel (who has played on the Pro Tour and is one of the best Edmonton players) and showed him all the cascade I had drafted so far. He laughed and said “Combo!”, and watched the rest of my draft. I also picked up a nice suite of the Shard-Blades, which work very nicely with all the borderposts and other cards I might cascade into.

When I made my deck, I decided to stick to only Esper colours, which gave me a total of 4 Deny Reality, 3 Stormcallers Boon, 3 Kathari Remnant and 2 Ardent Plea for a total of 12 on-colour cascade spells. Coupled with these were around 5 or 6 Shard-Blades, as well as a smattering of other cards to fill our the curve. To be honest, I had no idea how the deck would do, and I was doubtful that I would win a game.

Round 1 I went up against Attila, who unfortunately got mana-screwed both games. I was able to pull of some cascade shenanigans, and won on the back of an alpha strike with a bunch of my pumped up Shard-blades. Game two was very similar, so I didn’t really know how good the cascade deck was at the moment.

When people began to hear how the cascade deck had won a match, they came over to watch round 2 against Zach, or as we call him around the store, Zach the greater, whereas I am Zak the lesser, but it’s all in fun. It was amazing how fast a turn 2 Ethercaste Knight into turn 3 Ardent Plea into turn 4 Kathari Remnant can improve your board position. The clincher in both games was Deny Reality, which I would play as soon as I could to clear the way for my attackers, in addition to landing another one to three extra cards worth of advantage on my side. Again, the deck won 2-0, and Zach was admonished by Lane (another experienced local player) for losing to “that deck”.

In the finals of the draft, I was pitted against Dennis, who was playing a very controlling deck. This worked out great for me as I was able to resolve a series of cascade spells before he managed to play any real threat. When he did start to resolve some late-game threats, I was able to play all 4 of my Deny Reality cards on his blockers. Also, I learned that Sovereigns of Lost Alara can help me shuffle all the cards that were too expensive to cascade into back into my deck, even if I didn’t have an aura to search for. Again, the cascade deck went undefeated, and I won first prize in the triple-ARB draft.

Well, I’ve got an hour before my second Launch Party (I hosted one on Friday before my FNM), so I’ll finish this article by saying that Cascade is an amazing mechanic. This afternoon I intend to try my hand at building a constructed variant of the deck, but only time and testing will see if it will work out.

Tags: alara reborn, cascade, draft, magic, sealed

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