Phoenixing through it all at the Regional Championship

Last week I wrote about deck selection, and this week I'm going to share the deck I decided to play at the Regional Championship in DC. I'm obviously writing this before the event, so I have no idea how it will go, but I've put in a lot of prep for this in the past few weeks. Obviously Worlds is my top priority, but I've also never played in an RC and I really want to do well in this tournament. I'm not qualified for any Pro Tours, I've never played in any, and this is one of my best shots in a long time to qualify for one. So let's do this.

First, let’s address Quint. I feel confident in my ability to play different decks in Magic, and know when something is well positioned and not without having a “style” or a pet deck. I think Quintorius combo is terribly positioned right now. Not only is aggro back in the format, but the control decks are now playing High Noons! I thought Quint had some promise early on in our testing before the Rakdos deck became a big player, but since then I’ve moved on from it.

A close reader of my deck selection post might have guessed that I was going with Phoenix for this event. When I wrote that post, I was feeling great about the choice, after having figured out how to play the RB aggro matchup that had been surging online in the past few weeks to at least a draw.

A week out from the RC, I'm feeling a little less confident. Phoenix has been almost absent from the online winners' metagame, so I now have at least a 5% fear that it may be being pushed out of the format and end up a bad choice. The rise of these High Noon decks has me worried, but there are a few reasons I'm sticking with the birds:

I've already put in a lot of time over the past few weeks getting much, much better with the deck than I was earlier in the year, and Phoenix is a deck that rewards playskill and familiarity heavily

Phoenix tends to be a deck that is good into wide open fields, and good against people who aren't fully locked in on beating it. I count the card High Noon as being locked in on beating Phoenix, but the UW decks only play 2 of them, and structurally it's a decent matchup otherwise, so this is a case of "hope you dodge".

I expect that people are somewhat likely to sleep on Phoenix for this event - Not in the sense of not being aware of it as a deck, but in the sense of not considering it the most important deck to beat.

I feel pretty comfortable with what I expect to be the the two most popular matchups (or at least 2 of the top 3): Rakdos Aggro and the Mirror.

Phoenix is just a really fucking good deck with a proactive plan, flexible interaction, and is resilient to many forms of hate.

All in all, I'm somewhat making this choice because I'm locked into the deck and have pivoted to Worlds preparation, but I also think there's a good chance it still ends up a good one. I won't be publishing this until after the event, because I'm going to be going through the matchups I most expect to face and my plans for them. Hopefully this is helpful for anyone interested in picking up the deck going forward after the RC!

First, here's the list I'm planning at this point to play:

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ZIYu3zm5-EGjIV8IParqog

Notable numbers:

2 Proft's eidetic memory (as opposed to 3 main, which a lot of Sanctum players are on)

I just feel like 2 is the perfect number for Profts. You want to draw it every game, but you never want to draw 2, and for a deck that sees this many cards, that's the right number.

1 Hall of Storm Giants

Drawing 2 of these is terrible, drawing 1 is often terrible, but it also is huge to have access to in some matchups

1 Brazen Borrower

I hate all of the 60th cards we could play in the deck, but I hate Borrower the least. It's servicable but unexciting in every matchup, and it gives me a lot more game against High Noon in game 1, so it's the clear best choice for a flex slot. I'll be boarding it out a lot.

No time walk combo

I hate the time walk combo and have never tested it. This might turn out to be a mistake, but I decided it wasn't worth my time when Profts solves so many of the same holes for the deck in a much less clunky way.

Otherwise this is a very stock list! We'll get into the sideboard cards in the matchups.

The Mirror

Phoenix is almost nonexistent online a week out of the tournament, but don't let that fool you - I still expect at least 15%, probably more of the field to be on it. The MTGO metagame develops faster than paper, and there are tons of players who have been playing Phoenix in paper forever.

The Phoenix mirror is extremely skill intensive but also extremely swingy. It's also very hard to write hard and fast rules for. The easiest framing is which cards matter, and in my opinion it goes in this order:

Ledger Shredder (& by extension, Lightning Axe)

Treasure Cruise

Free the Fae

Proft's Eidetic Memory

Arclight Phoenix

Having multiple Phoenixes in the top half of your deck will certainly give you an advantage in the matchup, but much more important is sticking a Ledger Shredder and getting it above 5 toughness. This creates a threat that is extremely hard to remove (part of why a maindeck borrower gives us a little more game in game 1s). Proft's becomes another way to make an extremely big flying threat, so Phoenixes just get outclasses so quickly here and are often reduced to chump blocking.

Of course, this is a Treasure Cruise deck, and the player that resolves the most cruises will likely win the game unless they are at a significant board disadvantage. Resolving Free the Faes is almost as important as resolving cruises, as they are essentially 2-mana draw 3s (draw a card with selection, maybe bin a Phoenix, ritual for your cruises, draw a picklock prankster)

Spell Pierce and Lightning Axe are your role players trying to keep your opponent off of their best cards in game 1. Playing the early turns to navigate around them (or strategically accept losing to them) as well as possible is crucial. Most Phoenix mirrors are won or lost within the first 4 turns.

Postboard, we're mostly stock, but have a little spice.

In:

3 Mystical Dispute

1 Unliscensed Hearse

1 Dovin, Hand of Control

Out:

3 Fiery Impulse

1 Torch the Tower

1 Brazen Borrower

Mystical Dispute is the best board card for the mirror because it answers the 4 most important cards in the matchup above for 1 mana. I almost considered 4, but drawing multiples gets worse in a long game.

Unliscensed Hearse is great on turn 2, but also opens you to losing the Shredder game, which ultimately is more important, and is much worse (though still somewhat impactful) as the game goes on.

Dovin, Hand of Control is our spice! I credit my Worlds teammate cftsoc with this tech, though they have since moved on from it. I've tried it out in mirrors and been very impressed. Sticking a Dovin on anything close to a board at parity is almost game over in the mirror. Taxing all their spells is an irrecoverable tempo loss, it's just so easy to get far ahead. The card costs 3 whole mana and gets got by mystical dispute though, so I can't play too many of it.

RB Aggro

Sanctum's largest contingent has been on a tuned version of this Rakdos deck since early September, and a majority (or at least a plurality) of the team will be bringing this deck. We are higher on it than consensus, and I agree with this assessment. The Rakdos deck is powerful, proactive, resilient, and able to be built and played to withstand and overcome a lot of the traditional ways to beat an aggro deck. My roommate Mora will be playing RB at the event, and I expect them to do well!

The Phoenix-RB matchup is one that we Phoenix players were quite scared of in the first week of testing, as we struggled to beat it with traditional gameplay and lists. However, in the end we've come up with what we think is a very strong gameplan that will allow us to be at least 50% against even the best aggro pilots, and potentially better than that against weaker pilots.

The biggest way Phoenix can lose this matchup is by firing off its removal spells too early and allowing the Rakdos opponent to cast their pump spells freely. The goal of the Phoenix player should be to prevent Rakdos's "big turns" at almost all costs, leaving the pump spells dead in hand until Phoenix is able to produce a big enough board of blockers that Rakdos is forced to cast them into removal. Here are the notes from the testing session where I figured this out:

We clearly respect this matchup, but like most, it's one that really hinges on the skill of the Phoenix pilot. We're confident in our gameplan, especially with the sideboard tools we're bringing:

2 Anger of the Gods

2 Chandra's Defeat

2 Aether Gust

Out

2 Spell Pierce

3 Sleight of Hand

1 Brazen Borrower

The most important thing here is to have enough removal to survive the early game and set up your engine. We are willing to sacrifice some amount of consistency in our engine by cutting 3 sleights, because Rakdos generally has trouble disrupting your engine and pressuring you at the same time. If you get space to cast your Free the Faes and Proft's Eidetic Memories, you'll usually win.

(Unliscensed Hearse is the one exception to this, and I'm more scared of this card out of Rakdos than out fo any other matchup - But still, if you can land a ledger shredder and control their board, Hearse is very beatable)

Anger of the Gods is a devastating tool, especially against lists relying on Claim//Fame to recur their threats. Chandra's Defeats are the best possible 9th-10th 1-mana removal spells to deter pump, and Aether Gust is a card that's mostly in the board for the combo matchups, but is also serviceable here, especially against Hazoret the Fervent.

UW Control

Here's the new player, the boogeyman that will make the RC rounds go way over time and terrorize Phoenix players with High Noons. So what's our plan?

The key is realizing that High Noon is probably the only card we're legitimately scared of out of UW (at least in game 1). Narset is annoying but you can attack it. Wandering Emperor exiles Phoenixes but you cna play around it and punish them. The reason they need to run High Noon is that it's a tough matchup for them otherwise. Phoenix is a deck full of threats that are easier to get onto the board and a more efficient card draw engine.

I won't lie, my main gameplan is for my UW opponents to have slightly awkward draws. This is a deck full of expensive cards and situational answers, and I'm betting on my deck being more consistent. I tend to cast my threats into countermagic until I stick 1-2, then wait until my opponent is forced to answer them before deploying more.

Of course, we do have a gameplan for High Noon. The first thing is to get on board before it resolves, so that you can play a board presence-focused game that requires them to have all the right single spells to stabilize.

Barring that, we do have an advantage in that Phoenix is a deck that is great at casting 2 spells per turn cycle under a High Noon. Those spells might not be the most impactful, but they should allow us to shape a hand that can break out from under it. This is where the maindeck Brazen Borrower helps the most, giving us two ways (that + Otawara) to bounce the HN on end step and take a big turn before they can redeploy it.

Out of the sideboard, we get more tools:

In:

2 Fable of the Mirror Breaker

1 Negate

1 Pithing Needle

1 Unliscensed Hearse (extra threat, resilient to wraths)

1-3 Mystical Dispute depending on vibes

Out:

3 Fiery Impulse

2-4 Lightning Axe depending on vibes (Yorion)

0-1 torch the tower depending on vibes (Narset/Wemp)

Jund Sac

This is very much the "tier 1.5" deck of the format, and I expect it will show up in some significant numbers at the RC. The matchup isn't great, but it isn't terrible, and for the most part I've found it to be frustratingly uninteractive and goldfish-y.

You are the aggro in this matchup, because the card Scavenger's Talent will win the game for your opponent if left unchecked too long, and you... don't really have a way to check it beyond getting incredibly lucky with a Spell Pierce. Fortunately, the rest of the matchup fundamentals are pretty good for you. They can't block in the air, aren't great at gaining life, and can't pressure you on the ground effectively enough assuming you deal with their Mayhem Devils. I think being scared of their "fair" plan is a mistake here - you need to try to race them, not control them.

Postboard, the games can get grindier and weirder. They typically bring in a lot of interaction to try and disrupt your gameplan at the expense of making theirs slower, which I'm not sure is right, but players love casting Thoughtseize, so here we are. Try and make sure you have tools for scrappy games, and maybe some answers for Ygra if you have space. Board out your removal, because their ability to pressure on the ground will get even less scary.

Pithing Needle is our silver bullet here that is worth playing at least one of, and I'd play more of if this was one of the matchups I cared about. It turns off talent on its own, and that is something eminently worth doing. It can also deal with a Witch's Oven in a pinch.

In:

1 Pithing Needle

1 Unlicensed Hearse

2 Fable of the Mirror Breaker

0-2 Aether Gust depending on vibes (Ygra count)

Out:

3 Fiery Impulse

0-1 Torch the Tower depending on vibes

0-4 Lightning Axe depending on vibes (Mayhem Devil count)

Rakdos Midrange/Rakdos Transmog

A lot of people are going to bring some form of soupy Rakdos piles to fight against the aggro decks and because they just enjoy playing them. These matchups have been around pioneer for a while, but I'll talk about them a little bit. Basically, your main gameplan is quite good against them, because traditional removal spells and midrange threats don't go well into Phoenixes and Treasure Cruises. They'll probably be packing some discard and exile to try and accommodate for this, but as long as you can keep your engine churning, you'll probably be fine.

The transmog version is a bit scarier to play against, because they have a "put Atraxa into play" button that you have to worry about, but I think it's still structurally a good matchup. Their combo cards make them less consistent and are punishable with your removal and bounce spells. You need to keep more removal in against them is the main difference.

In:

2 Fable of the Mirror Breaker

0-2 Anger of the Gods depending on their threat suite (lots of bonecrushers and graveyard tresspassers mainly)

Out:

1 Torch the Tower

0-3 Fiery Impulse

Big Green

The last category of decks I want to cover is more broad, but a lot of the random decks people will bring to this event fall under this category I think. Your approach won't be exactly the same for each, so an exact in/out is tough to give here, but I do want to cover them structurally.

This category covers decks like:

Lumra/Analyst Piles

Lotus Field Combo

Quintorius Combo

Mono Green Devotion

Your gameplan in each of these matchups is pretty similar. They have big green spells that go over the top of yours, so you need to prevent them from casting them while presenting a fast clock. Delver, baby!

Try and keep a hand with either Proft's and Picklock, or ideally a Ledger Shredder. Removal is of varying utility here. It's great against the Lumra piles to deal with their landfall creatures and analysts, medium against Mono Green, Pretty bad but still possible to use against Quint, and unplayable against Lotus.

This is the main purpose of the Aether Gusts in the board. They give you a robust counterspell suite along with the disputes and the negate. Some lists run an additional Disdainful Stroke in the board, but I think dispute is almost as good at covering this base, so while I'd like access to one, it's cuttable and I wanted the slot for other things.

Lumra in:

2 Gust

0-3 Dispute depending on vibes/presence of Yorion

Lumra out:

2 Spell Pierce (unless they're heavily reliant on Bring to Light or some other combo thing)

1 Brazen Borrower

0-3 Sleight of Hand

Lotus in:

3 Dispute

1 Negate

2 Gust

2 Fable

Lotus out:

8 Removal Spells

Mono Green in:

2 Gust

0-3 Dispute depending on vibes

Mono green out:

2-3 Fiery Impulse

0-2 Lightning Axe

Quint In:

2 Gust

3 Dispute

1 Negate

1 Needle

1 Fable

Quint out:

8 Removal Spells

A Note on Artist's Talent

After I started writing this article, some of the Sanctum folks working on Phoenix have come around to Artist's Talent as a high impact card in a variety of matchups. It's weak anywhere you need time to set up, but if you can survive after casting it, it's pretty much exactly what Phoenix wants. It makes your treasure cruises free and allows you to sculpt the ideal hand effortlessly.

I don't have the time to test this card extensively, but I trust my teammates, and it's reasonably likely I'll end up swapping one of the Sleights of Hand in the maindeck for a Talent, a card that plays a similar role, is a little bit clunkier, but a lot more powerful. Gotta have some spice!

Final Thoughts

Of course, there are plenty of other decks that will show up at the RC. Angels, Greasefang, Convoke, Spirits -- there are lots of random decks people play in pioneer. I could dive into each of these matchups, but in general I think I have at least a 50% shot in all of them (yes, including Angels).

I'm not incredibly confident with my choice of Phoenix. I think most of the highest played decks are roughly even matchups, and trying to go 12-3 or whatever record will be necessary to make the PT is going to be a tough task under those conditions. However, the main reason I'm going with Phoenix is that there's no other deck that I feel much better about - I feel like I understand every matchup, understand what my own deck wants to accomplish, and have the tools and plans to try and disrupt the same thing from my opponents.

At the end of the day, that's all you can ask for for most tournaments. I've done the work, now it's time to shift into winning mode and execute.

Good luck to all at the RC, but even better luck to all of the Sanctum gamers! ❤️