Introduction

To prepare for the 2020 Mythic Invitational, together with Sebastian Pozzo and Matias Leveratto we decide to ask some people to join forces and build a discord where we discuss decks/cards and share information.

The group ended up being:

We started the testing individually playing the deck that we each liked most and mostly sharing stuff in the discord channel to compare and try each other’s ideas.

As a group we ended up trying all these decks:

Initially, I started to play Rakdos Arcanist and I felt that the deck was really powerful and tricky to play/sideboard with. I was only worried about how many graveyard hates the people would decide to play.

From time to time I played Sultai in the ladder since without knowing my opponent decklist it was so hard to play post board with Rakdos.

Besides those two decks, I tried Goblins but I didn’t like that much and I ended up playing Rakdos with the hope that people will be more focused on beat Goblins and 《Collected Company》 decks (which implies more 《Grafdigger’s Cage》s than 《Leyline of the Void》, which are quite much easier to play against)

Why This Deck Is That Good?

The combination of 《Thoughtseize》 and 《Dreadhorde Arcanist》is very strong. It is really difficult for the opponents to have two solutions against the 1/3 in hand, and if they have two solutions you can play differently and take the threat.

There is a lot of ways to play multiple big impact spells in one single turn because they all cost one mana and 《Lurrus of the Dream-Den》 is very strong as well since you can trim all the removal spells from the opponent’s hand.

In the same way that Dredge operates very well, this deck can “draw” several instants/sorceries and creatures to bring back with 《Claim》 or 《Lurrus of the Dream-Den》, and Escape 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 with the just one 《Stitcher’s Supplier》. We call him the 《Ancestral Recall》 with legs.

Deck Tuning

Click to enlarge

At the beginning of the test (August 25), Matias starts to have very strong results with this version of the deck and it caught my attention.

I know he is a very strong pilot with this kind of deck and if I have enough time I could practice and play it well enough.

Companion 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den Deck 6 Swamp 6 Mountain 4 Blood Crypt 4 Dragonskull Summit 1 Castle Locthwain 1 Phyrexian Tower 4 Archfiend’s Vessel 4 Stitcher’s Supplier 4 Dreadhorde Arcanist 4 Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger 4 Claim the Firstborn 4 Thoughtseize 4 Village Rites 2 Innocent Blood 1 Collateral Damage 1 Spark Harvest 4 Claim /// Fame 1 Bedevil 1 Call of the Death-Dweller Sideboard 3 Duress 3 Abrade 2 Pack Rat 2 Cling to Dust 1 Innocent Blood 1 Liliana’s Defeat 1 Legion’s End 1 Angrath’s Rampage 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

How to Use It?

　1. Copy the whole text.

　2. Open the Deck menu on MTG Arena and click “Import”.

　3. If you succeeded, your deck will be there as an “Imported Deck”.

I tried some lists without 《Young Pyromancer》 and with 4 《Archfiend’s Vessel》, which was fantastic on game one but it makes the deck softer to graveyard hate and Sebastian convince me to choose a deck which plays a worse game 1 but has more tools to beat the hate game 2 and game 3 and I took out all 《Archfiend’s Vessel》s besides 1, which can be milled accidentally with 《Stitcher’s Supplier》 and represent 7 damage in the air with haste only for 3 mana and one card.

I played a lot of time with some 《Innocent Blood》 and it was very good, then I tried some 《Collateral Damage》 that worked in the same way, but in the end when I tried 《Spark Harvest》 I was sure that was correct because a lot of times you want to kill some specific threat and being able to do it with 1 mana or attacking with arcanist is very relevant.

There was some discussion on the manabase as well, and some cards like 《Cling to Dust》 against 《Uro》, or 《Pack Rat》 instead 《Hazoret the Fervent》 in the board to beat 《Rest in Peace》 and 《Leyline of the Void》, but in the end we decided to ignore 《Uro》 and kill them as many times as they Escape it and it worked pretty well.

Companion 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den (IKO) 226 Deck 8 Swamp (ANB) 116 3 Mountain (ANB) 114 4 Blood Crypt (RNA) 245 4 Dragonskull Summit (XLN) 252 1 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241 3 Fabled Passage (ELD) 244 4 Stitcher’s Supplier (M19) 121 1 Archfiend’s Vessel (M21) 88 4 Dreadhorde Arcanist (WAR) 125 4 Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger (THB) 221 4 Young Pyromancer (JMP) 372 1 Priest of Forgotten Gods (RNA) 83 4 Thoughtseize (AKR) 127 4 Village Rites (M21) 126 3 Claim the Firstborn (ELD) 118 2 Spark Harvest (WAR) 105 2 Bedevil (RNA) 157 4 Claim /// Fame (AKR) 229 Sideboard 3 Hazoret the Fervent (AKR) 159 3 Duress (M21) 96 1 Magma Spray (AKR) 164 1 Redcap Melee (ELD) 135 2 Abrade (AKR) 136 1 Angrath’s Rampage (WAR) 185 3 Witch’s Vengeance (ELD) 111 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den (IKO) 226

How to Use It?

　1. Copy the whole text.

　2. Open the Deck menu on MTG Arena and click “Import”.

　3. If you succeeded, your deck will be there as an “Imported Deck”.

Tournament Report

I’ll talk now about the tournament itself:

Click to enlarge

Swiss Round (Day1~2)

You can find all the decklists here.

Here is a summary of how many graveyard hates each of my opponents had:

Round	Opponent	Graveyard Hate
Round1	Jan	3 《Leyline of the Void》
Round2	Victor	3 《Grafdigger’s Cage》
Round3	Ronald	4 《Leyline of the Void》
Round4	Isaak	–
Round5	Brad	2 《Grafdigger’s Cage》
Round6	Noah	2 《Scrabbling Claws》
Round7	Ivan	2 《Scavenging Ooze》
Round8	Yimin	3 《Cling to Dust》
Round9	Grzegorz	3 《Scavenging Ooze》 1 《Klothys, God of Destiny》
Round10	Chris	–
Round11	David	1 《Scavenging Ooze》 1 《Soul-Guide Lantern》
Round12	Christopher	1 《Scavenging Ooze》 1 《Grafdigger’s Cage》 1 《Tormod’s Crypt》
Round13	Seth	1 《Grafdigger’s Cage》
Round14	Gabriel	1 《Scavenging Ooze》 2 《Leyline of the Void》

I lost only 6 games in the whole swiss, which was a fantastic score, I ended up 6 points ahead from the 2nd player, the deck performed incredible well, but I must admit that I only faced 3 players with 《Leyline of the Void》s and they never draw it in their openings, so they couldn’t stop the value from this deck.

This is the final standings, which implies that I have the option to be on the play every single match in the top 8, which is very important in fast formats like this.

I had two very good games against Noah and Grzegorz that wasn’t on coverage that I would love to see again.

Against Noah, in game one I had no creatures in play and just a 《Young Pyromancer》 in hand with only 1 life, against 《Goblin Warchief》 and 3 more 1/1 goblins, and I topdecked a 《Claim/Fame》, which allows me to cast it on 《Dreadhorde Arcanist》, bring it back, give it haste and attack to kill the 《Goblin Warchief》 with a 《Bedevil》, creating 3 tokens in the process, and then wining the game a few turns after that.

Against Grzegorz I was about to die against an active 《Klothys, God of Destiny》 on game 2, and I filter an attack with a 《Young Pyromancer》 which allows me to attack in the last turn with everything and make him down to 9, to triple cast 《Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger》 with 2 in hand and 1 extra with 《Lurrus of the Dream-Den》 and kill him exactly. (He has 《Woe Strider》 so lifelink didn’t work in combat and I was at 2 lives against the 《Klothys》)

Top 8 (Day3~4)

Saturday was a super exciting day as well, I beat Seth after a super greedy keep, with a mediocre hand, but then winning in the comeback and keeping the dream alive (video link).

I kept this hand in game 1

Against Grzegorz I played a super close game 1, and then due to the emotion of the comeback after a kind off missed 《Collected Company》 (I recommend to watch this game if you don’t remember it very well), I attacked with all in a spot that I never thought about a topdecked card from his side.

I should leave the 《Stitcher’s Supplier》 back to block just in case. Luckily for me, I won the following two games to advance again and this time it was against a very scary deck.

In the upper final against Nassif I had so many lines that I could win if I choose differently (video link). It was frustrating to make a small mistake that allows him to win game 2 because playing as well as he did had a cost, he spends a lot of time and if he loses that game he couldn’t win fast enough game 3. But as I said on Twitter, he played better than me on that match and he won a game after a moment in where a lot of players would concede to save time for another game.

And finally, another revenge against Seth (video link). Luck wasn’t on my side that day, I had a very good matchup since he didn’t have more than 1 《Grafdigger’s Cage》 in the sideboard (which also stops 《Uro》 and cost him one game in the top 8) but he played very well and when an excellent player draws properly, there is no way to stop it.

I played and lost against both finalists, and ended up in 3rd place, which qualified me to the Grand Finals and motivates me even more for the upcoming season. I’m very happy for the chance to compete in such a high level tournament and I’ll give my best to win the Grand Finals and start the new season even more hyped!

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, thanks Hareruya for having me, and I wish for more love between each other and that everything in the world improves.

Keep tuning that I’ll adding one extra day to stream in English!

Luis Salvatto(Twitter / Instagram / Twitch)