Finding My Grounding

How I Landed a PT Invite at RC Cincinnati

The Origin Story

Sometimes in Magic, things don’t always go as planned. This past weekend, I went 11-3-1 at RC Cincinnati, securing 22nd place and earning an invite to PT Amsterdam. I went into the event with a lot less reps on the deck than I would have liked to be comfortable, with no definitive sideboard plans, finals deadlines looming over me, and countless doubts about my deck choice in the days leading up to the event. My approach was to take the event seriously, but keep my expectations to a minimum, given the circumstances of the little prep time that I had. I remembered a conversation I had heard a while back on the Competitive Magic with the Karnies podcast where Javier Dominguez, Anthony Lee, and Andrea Mengucci talked about the mindset of playing tournaments on little sleep and less-than-ideal practice. The takeaway was to show up as best you can, since not every tournament will happen under perfect conditions, and I acknowledged that Cincinnati would be that sort of trip for me.

For the last few RCs, I’ve been staying and testing with members of Team Seedcore, a group with lots of strong players scattered across the country. The local players I was preparing with mostly recognized Landfall as one of the better choices, but most were either only going to the RC in DC or were uninterested in playing the deck out of preference. Late on Tuesday night, Andy, the only other player in my local group who was also on Landfall for Cincinnati asks on Discord: “anyone else looking to play GW landfall at Cinci?” to which I reacted with a non-committal thumbs up. Expecting most people to be in agreement, it seemed like the lists that splashed white were clearly ahead of Mono-Green, and certainly favored in the mirror, which was going to be a popular matchup. A minute later after Andy’s message, my faith was shaken. Another minute later, it shook again:

The Crisis

Both Neil and Liam are very strong players that have incredible minds for the game. Last RC in Milwaukee, Neil qualified for his first PT with Mono-Green and helped onboard a lot of Team Handshake onto the deck for PT SOS. Even though all the signs were pointing to playing GW, I knew Neil’s intuition on the deck was to be trusted. He has a write-up on his previous win with the deck you can find here. Meanwhile, Liam is a player who has a really good skill for deck selection. If GW were in fact clearly ahead of Mono-Green, this was a really clear signal that maybe it wasn’t so black and white. That night, I spoke with Andy for another two hours to talk about our GW list and our plans while sleeving up Erodes. I left home on Thursday with GW sleeved up, my Mono-Green cards in tow, and questions weighing heavy on my mind. Sometimes in Magic, things don’t always go as planned.

I leave my apartment for the airport three hours before my flight to Cincinnati. I get on the train with the plan to take the Airtrain to JFK. I ride a few stops, make my transfer and am reading articles on my phone for finals. Everything is fine. As soon as the subway car is about to the first station out of Manhattan, the train comes to a halt. For those unfamiliar with the New York Subway, this is a somewhat common occurrence and the train will usually start moving again after a few moments. A minute passes and we’re still sitting in place. A few more go by and it’s the same. I keep reading but start to develop concerns about the time. The train conductor announces that someone got injured at a station ahead of us and that all trains are being stopped—it’s not looking good anymore. We end up stuck in the tunnel for half an hour and I’m not even at the half-way point to the airport. Eventually, our train starts moving and I try to call for a ride for the remaining distance to the airport, which is still an hour away with traffic, but my phone service is down. Using a nearby hotel’s Wi-Fi, I eventually get to find a car that’ll take me and I sit tight. I get to the airport, receive the notification that my flight is boarding while I have to wait through a sluggish security line. After another 20 minutes of waiting, I frantically sprint to my gate but I’m still 5 minutes late. Luckily, I get booked onto the next flight out in 4 hours and am Cincinnati-bound, even if a touch later than I had hoped. Sometimes in life, things don’t always go as planned.

I had tested GW in the days leading up to the event, but a lot of my reps on the deck were during previous seasons with the Mono-Green version. There wasn’t a GW list that I really liked, always feeling like my sideboard plans were just okay, not great. I had toyed around with certain ideas, like having a copy of Spectacular Spider-Man instead of Restoration Magic to be a little more assertive, but the deck fundamentally lacked a density of threats that Mono-Green provided. I also felt like the GW deck was more susceptible to being disrupted and put on the backfoot due to a shakier manabase. While the benefits of having Erode against matchups like the mirror and Spellementals were clear, removing big creatures being an essential part of the plan, it came at the cost of having more consistent pressure. While Erode does help against plotted Slickshot Show-Offs in Prowess, I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t such a catch-all there since you never wanted to use it early. The plan to bring in Rest In Peace against Spellementals I felt was not desirable either, since the Icetills felt like one of the better cards in the matchup, which you were forced to board out due to the anti-synergy with the sideboard hate pieces. With Jeskai Revelation decks also picking up popularity, I was also worried about the deck’s ability to go into the late game, which are problems that Icetill Explorer, Esper Origins, and the extra copy of Ba Sing Se greatly smooth over. Even though I had just spent the other night figuring out what my GW list would look like, the ground underneath it did not feel at all stable.

That night in the house, I had a long conversation about our deck choice and strategy for the field with Neil and Sam Ng, the latter of whom was locked on Prowess. I voiced my hesitations with locking in GW, the debate between Erode and Meltstrider’s Resolve, and talked about what we expected the metagame to look like. GW lists simply had too many situational or underwhelming cards for my liking, Dyadrine and Bushwhack were flexible but diluted a lot of the inherent strengths of the deck. After having played Cub at the last two RCs, I wanted to register a deck with fewer polarized matchups and with a solid, consistent plan that was less susceptible to disruption. In the previous days, I had not been winning a lot with the deck but I realized I might have been mulliganing too aggressively, fishing for explosive starts with Elf or Cub. Neil shared the wisdom that Landfall is actually a slower deck than people initially think, reliant on assembling a critical mass of resources. In short, it seemed like the GW lists were giving up too much on the axis of what made the deck a strong, well-rounded choice in previous metas. While I recognized I was giving up some percentage in the mirror by not playing Erode, it did not seem like Mono-Green was clearly behind in the Izzet matchups that were bound to be popular. After the past weekend of the Spotlight and Japanese RC, it seemed like the meta was wide-open and not at all saturated with Prowess and Landfall like it was at the PT. It seemed like Mono-Green had all the answers to my doubts about the deck. Eventually, Liam joins in and we debate whether we want to play Edge Rovers or Dragon Snipers in the sideboard as our silver bullets against Prowess. Both Liam and I are team Edge Rover on the principle that a 2/2 was a more respectable card and could both block and attack better, but Neil is firmly team Sniper. After splitting hairs, we end up calling it a night, divided on our 1-drops of choice. I end up diverging from Neil’s choice by registering Edge Rover, but luckily I don’t stray too far.

Day 0

The first day of the con, my plan is to fire two bullets in LCQs and devote the rest of the day to finishing my end of semester papers for graduate school.

Sealed Soup 0-1

I play in the first Sealed event of the day and register a decently strong soup deck that has an Emeritus of Ideation and Arcane Omens. Unfortunately, I get paired into a soup mirror that has Together As One both games and I get rolled.

After getting knocked out of the first round of the Sealed LCQ, I rush to find the soonest LCQ I can join. I just barely missed the window on joining a second Sealed, so I took the opportunity to join the standard event starting in 15 minutes—except I still have GW Landfall sleeved. I spend the next 15 minutes scouring Discord to find Liam’s latest posted Mono-Green list and copy 72/75 of the cards, ending up barely getting all my cards together in time.

I played my first round against UG Cub, an unfavorable matchup but he gets a little unlucky finding Rhythm and I get to steal the match. In the second round I’m paired into a Dimir Excruciator player and their deck doesn’t really come together in either game. Postboard, a Ba Sing Se is able to fight through a Deadly Cover-Up and I find myself at 2-0. The third round, my opponent is on 4C Elementals, a deck that seems structurally favored against us. Similar to the Spellementals matchup, Landfall needs to play around Sunderflock and fight through Ashling, which we don’t have many answers to. They play an uncontested Roaming Throne and ride it to victory both games, stopping me from ever developing a board presence. The tournament ends with a 2-1 for me, but it doesn’t feel disastrous. While I would’ve liked to make a deeper run, I felt reasonably proficient handling aspects of my technical play and remembering my triggers, which were my main concerns. With a little less than 4 hours to go until deck submission, I lock in my deck with no changes from the LCQ and take the rest of the day off to do schoolwork.

The List

As stated before, my list took Liam’s list as its starting point and swapped a few cards around. The differences in the maindeck were the inclusion of the 4th Escape Tunnel over the first copy of Demolition Field and a Cavern of Souls over the 14th Forest. For the sideboard, I felt that the Pawpatch Formation did not feel particularly amazing since I felt it to be weak in multiples as a situational card, so I opted for a 3rd copy of Surrak over it since I expected various interactive Izzet decks to be a popular matchup for the weekend. In retrospect, what I missed is that even if Pawpatch is somewhat situational, Landfall is just a deck that doesn’t have good card flow, so you sort of need to just have higher quantities of the cards you want to draw in order to reliably have access to them. Something I felt this weekend was that the deck would struggle against Prowess players that were able to put in an uncontested Slickshot Show-Off or have multiple in play, which made me recognize that 2 copies of Pawpatch was necessary. For similar reasons, I also came around to Dragon Sniper being a better reach blocker than Edge Rover, and I would have wanted to board it against matchups like UW Momo and possibly High Noon if I had access to it. The upsides it provides is simply that Dragon Sniper guarantees trading for a resource of theirs, either a creature or eating a removal spell, whereas the only creature from Prowess that Edge Rover is safely able to block is usually limited only to Slickshot. Dragon Sniper also wears a Meltstrider’s Resolve better than Edge Rover. If the meta goes back to a spot where Disenchant effects are desirable, I could see Scrapshooter making a comeback as another reach creature that has some splash damage against decks like Lessons.

The changes I would make to the list going forward are playing a 3rd Meltstrider’s Resolve for the maindeck Surrak, playing Dragon Snipers instead of Edge Rovers, and cutting down to 2 copies of Surrak in the 75 to make room for the 2nd Pawpatch Formation in the sideboard. There is some consideration to playing a copy of Demolition Field in order to answer Petrified Hamlet, if you expect control to be popular, although I would trim on Cavern or Forest before cutting any of the Escape Tunnels.

Regarding the list’s options for graveyard hate, the main decks that you want to attack the graveyard against are Spellementals, Dimir Excruciator, and Sultai Reanimator. Many of the GW lists play copies of Keen-Eyed Curator or Rest in Peace as answers to these strategies. The issues with these plans is that Keen-Eyed being a creature means that it is susceptible to many of the answers these decks already want to play against Landfall, those being sweepers and targeted removal. The mana-hungry nature of the card also means we are less poised to take advantage of its sizing than the Cub decks that have a lot of excess mana. Against a deck like Spellementals, you are not at liberty to spend one mana to exile the cards they play, especially since their 2-drop spells like Prismari Charm and Traumatic Critique can sometimes put more spells into the graveyard than the mana spent to cast them. The issues with Rest In Peace are twofold. First, it disincentivizes our Icetill plan, which is one of the stronger angles of attack against Spellementals and any sweeper effect. Second, it is a card that I don’t want to have in multiples since Landfall relies on threat density and cards like Soul-Guide Lantern can at least be cycled later on to dig for more pressure.

The deck’s strength is in both its explosiveness and its high levels of resiliency and consistency. Into an open field, it’s hard to think of a better deck choice with good plans in most every matchup and access to one of the strongest late game of any deck in Standard.

Day 1

Round 1 - Simic Cub 2-1

As we got paired, I immediately recognized my round one opponent as the same player I faced the day before in the first round of a Standard LCQ, where I won 2-0 with the same 75. The previous day he had some fast openers with Badgermole Cub but failed to find a Nature’s Rhythm in either game to close out, letting me assemble a big attack with Mightform Harmonizers. I had played Cub at the previous two RCs, so I had more familiarity with the matchup from his side than mine, but I knew I had to prioritize keeping fast hands that had lots of aggression since the Cub player has inevitability once they amass a big enough board and can cast/rhythm for Craterhoof Behemoth. These games played mostly in similar fashion to the day before, but in a post-board game he was able to land a Marang River Regent coupled with a Mockingbird to bounce a Sazh’s Chocobo and Mossborn Hydra two consecutive turns, which is a tempo swing Landfall usually cannot come back from. Having started the day winning a bad matchup was a relief.

Round 2 - UW Momo 2-1

This was a matchup I had not played against very much in testing, although I do think on paper it is somewhat favorable for Landfall, given that their removal for large threats is usually limited to a few copies of Erode. The scariest starts from them involve casting Daydream on Riddler on turn 2 with Momo, which is not something you have means of interacting with on the draw in Mono-Green. Both games I won from going for a big attack with Mightform Harmonizer and a fetch land to force them to have Erode (they only played 2), which is a play pattern that often forces them into unfavorable blocks due to our larger creature sizing. In games 2 and 3 their plan involves bringing in Clarion Conqueror which makes our Cubs a lot worse, as well as Lumbering Worldwagon. Usually it is unclear whether a player will bring in their copies of Rest In Peace for Landfall, but Esper Origins is slightly weaker here due to the existence of Seam Rip, so I feel fine cutting those entirely and trimming a few Icetill Explorers in the dark.

Round 3 - Boros Burn 2-1

Again, a matchup I had not anticipated playing at the RC. This list looked mostly like Mono-Red lists of previous standard formats that ran Hired Claw and Emberheart Challenger but paired it with a Slickshot Show-Off and burn spell package. Generally, Slickshot is quite a strong card against Landfall and we do not have many ways of gaining life outside of a few copies of Esper Origins, which made me somewhat fearful going in. Against these pure aggro matchups, you’re usually forced into playing like a control/twin deck where once your opponent gives you an opening, you can turn your defenses into a kill with the help of Mightform Harmonizer. Prior to the tournament, I was rather reluctant to register multiple copies of Pawpatch Formation, but in the games they presented multiple Slickshots, I knew I had made a mistake by registering only one.

Round 4 - GW Landfall 0-2

The days leading up to the tournament, I was deciding between registering Mono-Green and the PT-winning Landfall list that splashed white. I knew if I wanted to do well in the tournament, I would have to play a handful of matches against the mirror, where the presence of Erode makes a big difference. In these games, I certainly felt that happen. Having lost the die roll, I kept strong hands both games that put myself in the position to kill on turn 5, but they were able to have Mightform+Erode both times to kill me before I ever had the window. Of course, doubts of my deck choice began to set in at this point, but I trusted in my team’s intuition that the deck would do better into the field at large and kept my head up for the next round.

Round 5 - Izzet Prowess 0-2

I get paired into Devon Straub, a player whose name I recognized for his top finish at RC Portland earlier this year. Devon’s list ran no Eddymurk Crab in the maindeck, which was the most popular version ahead of the RC, replacing effects like Get Out for more direct damage. The combination of losing the die roll and their hand being just enough disruption made it so they were able to win with a Slickshot and Colorstorm Stallion, even though the latter is a card we generally do not have much issue blocking. Game 2 goes similarly but this time with their draw containing multiple birds and mine only having one removal spell. Prior to the RC, I did not have the time to test the matchup versus skilled Prowess players, especially on the Stallion version. Sometimes a crucial loss in a tournament can be beneficial since it can be a learning opportunity for future rounds. Both losses felt like matches where I didn’t have many other moves, where I was forced to use all my cards to keep up, but sometimes that’s how rounds go.

Round 6 - Izzet Prowess 2-0

Next round, I play a Prowess variant again, this time with Elusive Otters and Eddymurk Crabs.

A brief aside: leading up to the event, I had many discussions with my friend Neil about ranges of keeps for the deck and my reticence in keeping hands with no plays until turn 3. Contrary to the common wisdom of a lot of Landfall guides out there, he was very reluctant to mulligan with the deck, due to the philosophy of it being a critical mass deck—you need a density of lands and spells in order to function, so you don’t actually want to mulligan aggressively for 1 and 2 drops that just get answered by a removal spell. By picturing starting hands as 9 or 10-card hands after a few draw steps, you should be willing to expand the range of hands you are willing to keep.

On the play, I keep a hand with land drops, an Earthbender’s Ascension, Lumbering Worldwagon, and a 4-drop. This lets me have the option of playing around Get Out with my choice of 3-drops and will allow me to out-resource my opponent if they try and interact, which plays into their keep. I win games 1 and 2 handily. Even though they are able to get Crab + Sunderflock in Game 2 to reset my board, a big Worldwagon is enough to push for a win, breaking the spell of losses.

Round 7 - GW Landfall 2-0

Their list is fairly stock, copying the numbers from the list that did well at the PT, but not with Nathan Steuer’s suggestion of running more copies of Mossborn Hydra in the maindeck. I know that I’m still slightly behind in terms of how the deck is built, but am able to leverage a Chocobo on the play and have a timely Royal Treatment to protect my Hydra on the draw—with the Ward 1 on the Royal Role token allowing me to safely go for a double with Harmonizer, protected from Erode. Funnily, it seemed like my opponent was most likely picked up the deck after its PT win given that he tried to double block one of my Chocobos with an attached Meltstrider’s Resolve in game 1 and I point out they cannot.

Round 8 - 4-Color Tablet 2-1

My first and only match against the deck of the weekend (or the last two weekends, depending on how you look at it). In the days prior to the event, I am in conversations with Jason Ye (who judges events local to me in New York City) and I hear it say that the “4-Color Control” deck is a misnomer since it really is a ramp/midrange deck trying to cast multiple copies of Jeskai Revelation. In essence, people play too scared of the deck and approach it like a control deck by playing around counterspells, whereas you should really just jam into them every turn. Following this, I keep a threat heavy hand with the plan to makes land drops, play Earthbender’s on 3 and just jam Icetills until they run out of answers. After they answer the first, I jam the second one after having drawn Royal Treatment for the turn and make sure to leave up one green mana instead of playing an Escape Tunnel. On their main phase, they go for an Inevitable Defeat on my Icetill, and totally blanking on the Royal Treatment, I let it resolve after my brain shortcuts into thinking the interaction between the Ward 1 on the Royal Role and the text on Betrayal that the spell cannot be countered. Realizing my punt, I try my best to win but they cast a Jeskai Revelation and I scoop for time. Games 2 and 3 my plan is all about jamming, I get a bit lucky where they fail to find a Revelation in the top half of their deck game 3 and I sneak away with a victory, locking up my 6th win for Day 2.

Round 9 - UW High Noon 2-0

I’m a little less worried about this deck than I am Momo, since they tend to mount less aggression, except their list runs 3 copies of Avatar’s Wrath in the main, which makes me less sure. Luckily, instead of Erode their list is playing 2 copies of Get Lost, which is notably better for us, even though the extra land from Erode does sometimes lead to awkward spots for them. I keep a land-light hand game 1 off the strength of multiple Cubs, but they have a hand with multiple Floodpits Drowners, which stunts my development quite significantly. However, my Cubs are able to stay in play and I get to catch up with Earthbender’s Ascension and an Icetill to make land drops. They’re able to Wrath me one turn and follow up with an Aven Interrupter two turns later, but every turn I am able to assemble a board big enough to force them to deal with it. They cast kicked Consult to dig for Wrath but miss, letting me go for a Harmonizer attack and steal game 1. Game 2, I have a much more aggressive start with Chocobo on 1 into Surrak on 3, but they are able to put a Quantum Riddler into play to block my Surrak. On turn 5, I have an interesting decision: whether I Mightform to double on my Surrak to trade with Riddler or go for a more conservative line to double on a 4/5 Chocobo that they can chump block. I choose the aggressive line to trade Surrak and am able to close out the game with Ba Sing Se creating an army of earthbent lands to finish Day 1 at 7-2.

Day 2

Round 10 - UR Prowess 1-2

The first round of Day 2. Having won my last match versus Prowess, I felt better going in this time but lose the die roll again and get rolled both games. In game 2, I have the option of using Pawpatch on a Stormchaser’s Talent they go to bounce with Boomerang Basics, but end up holding it for a Slickshot. I play a Surrak and Meltstrider’s to kill the first Slickshot they play, they bounce it on their turn after playing another Slickshot, and I draw into a 2nd Melstrider’s to make the same play the following turn and develop an Elf. I build up a wide board that can live through a Slagstorm and manage to get game 2. Game 3, they’re back on the play and I mulligan a 7 with 5 lands, Meltstrider’s and Earthbender’s Ascension and end up keeping a 6 with a couple early plays but no removal. A pair of Slickshots is able to get the job done and I’m knocked down to X-3. Taking my one loss of the day, my back is against the wall but I chug along, just focusing on taking each match one-by-one.

Round 11- Izzet Spellementals 2-1

My first match against Spellementals all weekend, my opponent mentions that they’re also an avid legacy player and chose the deck due to its resemblance to Delver. As a seasoned Delver player myself, I can appreciate the analogies. Game 1, I am on the play with a hand that has Badgermole Cub and a Cavern of Souls. They play Island and pass. Sensing a possible Spell Snare, I play Cavern on Badger, and have it live a turn cycle to start ramping with Icetill. After transforming an Esper Origins, they have enough removal and pressure to get game 1. In game 2, they’re forced to mulligan to a 4 when I have Elf into Ascension on the play. Despite the heavy mulliganing, their hand lines up almost perfectly to mine, with an Annul to counter my Ascension and Prismari Charms to fill up their graveyard. However, I rip a 2nd Ascension and have enough action to push through, even though they put up quite the fight. I never see my Soul-Guide Lanterns so they are able to play a Hearth Elemental into a Sunderflock, which I manage to successfully fight through. Game 3, I keep a strong 7 and they are forced to mulligan down to 5 after not having drawing hands with functional mana. I lead on Elf, followed by a Surrak that runs away with the game.

Round 12 - GW Landfall 2-0

Having learned my lessons from the previous day, I knew the person on the play would be a massive favorite, which I was lucky enough to have been. When sitting down, my opponent mentioned to me this was the first time they played a Landfall mirror match all weekend, which makes me smell blood. I keep a hand with Turn 1 Elf into Esper Origins on 2, flashback Origins on 3 and they have a multiple Escape Tunnel draw with Chocobos that is just too slow for the matchup. Game 2 they draw very well with a turn 1 Chocobo, turn 2 Cub, into turn 3 Hydra, but I’m able to play a turn 1 elf, setting my development ahead of them, so that I’m able to play Mossborn Hydra plus Meltstrider’s the turn after they play their Hydra to effectively win the game. The next turn, a second Hydra seals the deal.

Round 13 - Sultai Reanimator 2-0

This was not a matchup I had any reps against, mostly thinking that it would not be heavily represented at the RC. Earlier builds I had tested Keen-Eyed Curator and I was higher on the card than most people I talked to, but ultimately decided not to register any. I noticed their list had a couple new cards, Dina’s Guidance being the biggest upgrade, a single card which allows them to find Superior Spider-Man and their reanimation target of choice. Noticing that they were not on any sweepers in the main, I keep a hand that has Elf, 2 Cubs, and a Ba Sing Se and play out most of my hand by turn 2. They put an Overlord of the Balemurk into play, followed by a Oblivious Bookworm to block my 2/2s, but I’m able to start making lands into 4/4s with multiple copies of Ba Sing Se to just play a small-ball aggro game. Game 2, I get to bring in 3 Soul-Guide Lanterns and cards like Surrak, but have to be wary of sweepers, including a potential Urgent Necropsy. I improvise my sideboard plan a little, unsure of how many Cubs and Lumbering Worldwagons I want to keep in, but ultimately choose to go for a slower plan and hope to be more resilient to sweepers. Game 2 I have a hand full of 3’s, so I develop a Worldwagon but am still stuck to only playing one creature a turn. The turn after, I’m able to play a Surrak and get in an attack with Worldwagon to get enough lands under me, but on their turn they have a Wistfulness to force me to redevelop my board. I play an Icetill and make a few extra land drops and a turn cycle goes by only adding an Overlord and passing with 3 or 4 mana open without them removing Icetill, making me pretty certain they don’t have a removal spell. Another turn of theirs goes by after only adding an Overlord but missing on Spider-Man, passing with 4 or 5 unused mana. At first, I think it’s something like Urgent Necropsy, but it feels like they would have used any removal if they had any. On their next turn, they tap low going digging with Overlord and playing a few 2/3s. With only 1 mana up for Requiting Hex, I warp Harmonizer and go for the kill. We shake hands and I have a win and in for the PT after rattling four in a row.

Round 14 - Izzet Spellementals 2-0

Even though my mindset was to approach every match on its own, I couldn’t help but feel the nerves kicking in during the downtime I had before my win-and-in match. I had been in this spot several times before and things never quite broke my way. For the next half hour before Round 14, I tried writing my papers for school but the words just weren’t coming. I anxiously wait for the round to get paired, and when it does, I see that I’m paired up against Spellementals again. The pilot’s name is Jarvis Yu.

When we sat down for our match, I mention to Jarvis that I was a big fan of his Youtube/stream several years ago when it was more frequent, since it helped me get into Legacy around the time of the pandemic. Sitting next to us is another Legacy ringer, adamwasmo, so between us we have the Standard equivalents of Delver, Death & Taxes, and Lands(?). I’m lucky to win the die roll and keep a strong 7. Jarvis also keeps a strong hand that puts down an early Hearth Elemental and is able to Sunderflock me, but not before I develop a Worldwagon and Icetill to get a bunch of lands in play. We get into a bit of a racing scenario where he is pressuring my life total with a pair of Hearth Elementals and leave up Eddymurk Crab for my next attack, but on my draw step I see the one-of Royal Treatment, which allows me to go ultra tall on a Worldwagon and fight through the Crab’s tapping ability and an additional 10 points of toughness to get in for a kill. One game win away from the PT, at this point I’m a bundle of nerves and wing my sideboarding a little. Following a conversation with Liam, I was back and forth on the strength of Mossborn Hydra on the draw given the presence of 4 Prismari Charms as a potential bounce spell. Despite this, I ended up cutting 2 Esper Origins to make room for them, which dilutes the strength of the Icetill package.

As we shuffle up for game 2, Adam’s match next to us clears up and I notice one of my friends local to me, Jason Qiu, sits down to spectate my match. In our game 2, I have an aggressive start with a turn 1 Chocobo, some fetches, Icetill and a Soul-Guide Lantern. Jarvis has a Sear for my Chocobo on turn 2 to save some damage, which means I’m able to safely resolve my Soul-Guide and cut him off from developing his Elementals. I’m able to maintain pressure, which eventually lets my Icetill stay in play for a couple of turns. Each turn, I’m churning through my deck by holding priority on my fetches to dig for the Esper Origins, milling 4 a turn but never seeing any. We both are amusing over how unlucky it looks, but this whole time I’m forgetting the exact count I left in. Surely, I’ll see one in 8 looks. The entire time this is going on, all my draw steps are lands, but thankfully I hit multiple copies of Ba Sing Se to assemble a board. Due to the Ba Sing Se threatening big attacks, Jarvis is forced to hold back his creatures, so every turn I’m pecking in for a few points of chip damage with Escape Tunnel, eventually bringing him down to 6 life or so. After failing to mill it with so many looks, on one of my last draw steps it shows up as a moment of poetic justice. Even though a Sunderflock comes down, I’m able to rebuild quite quickly and continue applying pressure. On my last turn, I have about 12 lands and an Icetill in play and draw Soul-Guide Lantern for the turn, which I play somewhere along the way. I think for a little and am pretty sure I have Jarvis dead if I just make my Earthbent lands unblockable. Sure enough, it works out and we shake hands, locking up my first PT. Jason congratulates me and I breathe a huge sigh of relief—reeling from the shock and total disbelief of having made it. Just as soon as Jason hypes me up he does a complete 180 and goes on to scold me, Asian-dad style, by pointing out I should have cracked the Soul-Guide Lantern first to shut off a potential Eddymurk Crab. Never punished, as they say.

Round 15 - Intentional Draw 0-0

I look down at my phone, see that I’m at 33 match points, paired into someone else sitting pretty at 33 and we shake hands. It’s a clean cut and we both draw into Top 32 for our first PTs. Sometimes things just end up working out, even if they don’t go as planned.

Gratitude

There’s a lot of people who were instrumental to my journey in Magic, but there are a few that stand out to whom I owe this success to.

Thanks to Aidan Garton, my roommate and frequent testing buddy, for lending me most of the deck and being a great support from the sidelines. Thanks to Neil Estrada and Liam Etelson for the insights on the deck and the logistical support at every RC—I couldn’t have asked for better Landfall coaches. Thanks to Andy Liu for the late-night discussions and doing the heavy lifting with prep, even if we did end up going separate ways in deck selection. I’m sure you’ll be making the PT in no time—with green cards, of course. Thanks to Jason Qiu for being my hype man/critic when I crossed the finish line. Thanks to Michael Flores for telling me I should play Landfall at the RC during that one ECL Sealed RCQ months ago—I should have listened to your advice a lot sooner. Thanks to Lawrence Lo for being my competitive magic day one, encouraging me to compete and for introducing me to the Team Seedcore network.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I know this is a lot longer than the average tournament report, but I hope you found my stories and ramblings helpful, whether you’re looking to play Mono-Green Landfall or against it at your upcoming RC/Standard tournament. I am also looking to join a testing team for the PT. Now that summer is here, I have a lot of time on my hands to do a lot of heavy lifting and prep work. Historically, I have had strong showings in high level Limited tournaments, which I attribute to a familiarity with the intricate dynamics of pod draft. If you have any questions about Landfall or know of any leads, please get in touch! My socials are @digitalsl0th on X, leovoldbloom on Bluesky, and dustbreather on Discord.