Bant Cascade Goes 3-1

A quick recap before I forget things!

The deck is very similar to the previous post, except that I substituted out an Explore for a Time Stretch.  I think that was a fine choice.  Explore just doesn't always get the job done.

Main Deck:
14 Creatures:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Coiling Oracle
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Enlisted Wurm

18 Non-Creature Spells:
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Beacon of Tomorrows
4 Unexpected Results
3 Glittering Wish
1 Time Stretch
1 Explore
1 Rude Awakening

28 Land:
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
6 Island
14 Forest

Sideboard:
2 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
1 Stormcaller's Boon
1 Enlisted Wurm
2 Urban Evolution
2 Time Stretch  (I sided these in against the Tron matchups.)
4 Search for Tomorrows
... some other things  (I should really get a third Rashmi)


Round 1, I faced up against Tron and lost, 1-2.  The best play happened when he Emrakul'ed, then made me cast Beacon of Tomorrows targeting him.  Ugh.  I am glad I managed to pull off a game win, but I immediately wished I had been playing Shuffleupagus.  Thankfully the other rounds went better.

Round 2, I played against a Darksteel-themed Tron.  It had a bunch of indestructible things, combined with Worldslayers and some other janky combos.  It was actually pretty cool, and I very nearly lost the first game by getting pushed into a Door to Nothingness.  Thankfully I didn't let my oppponent untap after playing it.

In Round 3 I faced UG Energy.  I won the first game handily, but the second game was very close.  He played Aetherworks Marvel, and was able to activate it two or three times due to Woodweaver's Puzzleknots and Bristling Hydra, with which he started to play huge bombs.  On his last activation, he played out Kozilek, the Great Distortion.  Thankfully, I got the super lucky plays and succeeded to take around 10 turns in a row.  In one turn I cast Beacon of Tomorrows, with Rashmi in play and Unexpected Results on top of my library (with Courser of Kruphix to see the top).  Unexpected Results hits another Beacon. Shuffle again, get a land.  Play the land with Courser and then have 8 untapped land left to cast a third Beacon.

Time got called and my opponent wanted me to play it out.  I stacked up enough free turns that I was going to use all five of them.  Unfortunately, my opponent had around 35 life and lots of big fat blockers.  I wasn't just stalling, I was actively trying to put all the pieces together.  After a few more turns, I had lands galore, Glittering Wished for Stormcaller's Boon, and had drawn Rude Awakening.  On extra turn 2, I had enough to swing for the win.

My luck continued into Round 4 against storemaster Marc's Dredge.  In game 1, I managed to play three Captured Sunlights on turns 3, 4, and 5, stalling enough for me to start playing chained Beacons.  In game 2, he caught me pretty quick.  In game 3, we both had a slow start, but his was slower, and I pulled off enough life gain to get it moving.  I also got really lucky and twice hit Enlisted Wurm off of Rashmi's trigger from Beacon of Tomorrows.

This is the first time I've taken the deck to a winning record!  Definitely worth it, but I do feel really dirty when I start to play solitaire for a while.  I think it's time to get that Dimir Shuffleupagus to work.  It should be great against Dredge and I've got Bribery against Tron.

Local Modern Tourneys with Rakdos Shuffleupagus and Bant Cascade

In recent months, I've made it to a few Modern tournaments.  First I took this Bant Cascade deck:

14 Creatures:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Coiling Oracle
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Enlisted Wurm

18 Non-Creature Spells:
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Beacon of Tomorrows
4 Unexpected Results
3 Glittering Wish
2 Explore
1 Rude Awakening

28 Land:
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
6 Island
14 Forest

Sideboard:
2 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
1 Stormcaller's Boon
1 Enlisted Wurm
2 Urban Evolution
and some other unimportant cards...

This deck is so much fun to play with.  If the opponent doesn't handle Rashmi, then you start to feel some double cascade effects happening.  Courses of Kruphix sets up your library so you can predict some great cascade plays. 

I bet there are better cards than the Explores.  Perhaps some Merfolk Looters.  Perhaps a copy or two of Future Sight belongs in there.

I saw a lot of dredge that night, and I split those matches.  (I don't remember my overall record, but I do think I went to time nearly every round except the first where I lost 1-2 to infect.)

I thought that Anger of the Gods would be real good in that meta, so the next week I brought a Rakdos build of Shuffleupagus.  Here's that deck:

4 Creatures:
4 Maralen of the Mornsong

30 Other Spells:
4 Psychogenic Probe
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Rakdos Signet
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Terminate
4 Bitter Ordeal
3 Eradicate
3 Surgical Extraction

26 Land:
4 Smoldering Marsh  (I'm not sure why these were in here.  They probably shouldn't have been.  Never tripped me up, luckily.)
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Ghost Quarter
11 Swamp
3 Mountain

The best match with this deck was definitely the first, against a cool guy whose name was Ben, if I recall correctly.  He was playing a mountain of a Mono-Black Control deck with Megrim + tricks and, awesomely, Teferi's Puzzle Box.  That card does not pair well with Maralen, as we quickly learned.  Our hands immediately disappeared on our turn, and we just had to play with the single card Maralen granted us.  Ben was clearly someone enjoying the game and our match was a blast.

I won that match, lost to a white weenie deck that I couldn't keep up with, and drew against Azorius Control.  I don't recall what happened to me in the final round, which means I probably lost.