Thoughts on Phoenix / PAX East

This past weekend I went to PAX East on a whim, (and also to catch up with old friends) and see what PAX was all about.

There was also a MCQ (and MCQQ) on the weekend that I played in.

You had to go 4-0 in a MCQQ, and I played the first Modern one at 11am on Thursday to a pretty easy 4-0 with the following list. (On Saturday, Emma also went 4-0 with the exact same 75, both of us only losing 1 game. I'm not aware of her precise matchups at the moment.)

Unfortuantely, the actual MCQ on Sunday didn't go so well for me. It was 42 players, cut to top 8 (sealed deck) wtih 4 rounds of Swiss. If you do the math, there'll be 5-6 3-0s, and 2-3 slots open for 3-1s. I lost round 1, which effectively KOed me.

2 Mountain
3 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal

2 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Thing in the Ice
4 Arclight Phoenix
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Crackling Drake

1 Lightning Axe
1 Flame Slash
1 Set Adrift
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Faithless Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Thought Scour
4 Opt
4 Serum Visions

Sideboard
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Shatterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Dragon's Claw
2 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Beacon Bolt
1 Keranos, God of the Storms
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Blood Moon

For me personally, my matchups were:
GriselShoal LWW
Grixis Control WW
Boros Burn WW
BG Midrange WW

I'd like to go into a slight rant about Phoenix.

People still consistently side in Rest in Peace / Leyline of the Void versus me, and it really is only a minor speedbump (especially with the way I had the sideboard configured).

It turns out Keranos and Jace are just generically good cards, _and_ Crackling Drake is still awesome versus RIP / Leyline (and is one of the primary reasons I keep two copies of the card in the deck).

Also people playing RIP and Leyline just offer the advantage to the Phoenix player of looting away all of their gy dependent cards (Ascension/Snapcaster).

Truth be told, most of my losses with Phoenix have come from opponents who is ready to jam aggressively (Burn / MonoR Phoenix / Humans) and has enough disruption (Thalia/Damping Sphere, etc) to prevent Phoenix from enacting its alternative gameplans.

There's still quite a few options about how to precisely build the deck, but here's the unshakable core IMHO:

Core:
18 Lands (you might reconfigure the above manabase if you want to splash Green or Black, but also I think a 6th Basic Land might be good)
4 Thing
4 Phoenix
4 Bolt
4 Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Scour
4 Opt (or Sleight of Hand)
4 Serum Visions

That leaves about 10 slots open, which can lead to some pretty drastic shifts if you want it to be.

Suppose you were only concerned about the mirror and decks where you need to go 'broken', you could construct your deck as follows:

Core plus:
4 Ascension
2 Burst Lightning
2 Axe
2 Surgical Extraction

This above plan was proposed to me by Brits who I believe played it in GP Bilbao to one 11-4 finish. The unfortunate part was the sideboard they suggested didn't address my concern with the overreliance on the graveyard, which I think is relatively easy to alleviate if you just side in some number of Drakes/PW, and the like.

Anti creature Phoenix:
2 Ascension
2 Gut Shot
1 Axe
1 Set Adrift
1 Flame Slash
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Crackling Drake

This configuration just ignores the fact that you'd play against any gy decks (which isn't a realistic proposition). But you should smash most creature decks, and indeed, the list I played above was close except 2 Gut Shot became 2 Surgical.

I've also played Mutagenic Growth in the past, but with 0 copies of Monastery Swiftspear, I don't think it's all that great anymore. It is good versus opposing Lightning Axe/Flame Slash, etc to protect your Things)

As for sideboard cards, I'm not completely convinced on the configuration I'd submit, but here's a list of cards I've considered:

Shattering Spree/Ancient Grudge (mostly worse than Shatterstorm)
Life Goes On (requires Breeding Pool)
Dragon's Claw (currently playing 2, could see playing 0)
Dispel (Excellent for its cost, would basically always play 2)
Spell Pierce (I think it's alright, but this is a slot that could go for Rejection or something similar)
Negate/Disdainful Stroke/Remand (costing two mana to hold up I think is a dealbreaker)
Keranos/Jace/Ral/Chandra (to me, all of these cards are relatively similar, so pick your favorite)
Ceremonious Rejection (if you really want to beat Tron)
Blood Moon (if you hate people)
Izzet Staticaster/Forked Bolt/Pyroclasm (kills small creatures while not clearing your own Phoenixes)
Anger of the Gods/Ravenous Trap (I think Anger is slightly superior due to its flexibility, but Trap is VERY good vs Dredge)
Beacon Bolt (terminate with flashback in this deck. It ignores RIP which is nice, although you do lose the jump-start)
Threads of Disloyalty (Allen convinced me this is a bad version of Beacon Bolt, and I think he's correct)
Entrancing Melody (Also a bad version of Beacon Bolt and Threads, albeit better versus BG)
Abrade (i think it's too low powere for its flexibility, but I could see playing 1)
Rending Volley/Flame Slash (If I expected a ton of mirrors, I'd probably register exactly 1 Volley)


Props:
Sara / Aaron for being such gracious hosts everytime I come to Boston for a tournament
Reid for allowing me to be a +1 at PAX
Autumn for being a great human
Emma for qualifying for MC Barcelona
Ramen + brewery (Sheehan's brewery) combo for dinner :)
Vegatarian burger tasting better than I thought it would

Slops:
Crowds
Rain+cold combo
Convention center food prices (i thought it would be bad, but i didn't realize it was as bad as it was...)