For the first Regional Championships in November last year, we put together a team of about ten players across Australia and New Zealand whom we all felt were some of the best players in our region. We ended up having a fairly successful tournament, with David Mines coming in second place to just miss out on the Worlds invite, while Michael Russell finished ninth to clinch his first Pro Tour invite. 

Fortunately, we had a bunch of responses from people around the world. I decided to send a link to anyone who asked for it, and we ended up with a solid group of about twenty people – including some high-profile players such as Nick Price (Philippines), Dom Harvey (Canada), Raul Venturi (Italy) and Jae Seok Cho (South Korea).

Once the new year rolled around, I decided to start playing some standard on Magic Online, with the hope that I could find a deck I liked before Phyrexia: All Will be One was released and that the new set wouldn’t change the format too much. 

The first decks I tried were Azorius Soldiers and Izzet Ramp, but I quickly dismissed both of them. The former felt too weak against sweepers such as Brotherhood’s End, while the latter struggled against the aggressive creature decks and wasn’t even that favored against the midrange decks if they had Counterspells.

Next, I tried Mono Red Aggro, Grixis Midrange and Rakdos Midrange. I really liked the Mono Red deck, and I spent a lot of time working on it. My list was a lot more midrange than the stock version, with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Chandra, Dressed to Kill. I liked the deck because it had the ability to play aggressively off the back of Monastery Swiftspear and Kumano Faces Kakkazan, while also having a strong control plan (Reflection of Kiki-Jiki plus Bloodthirsty Adversary is a powerful combo).

Ultimately, though, I gave up on the deck, as I couldn’t get it to reliably beat Esper Legends and Rakdos Midrange.

This basically then left me with the Rakdos-based midrange decks. Of the two, I preferred straight Rakdos, as while I felt slightly behind in the pseudo-mirror without the Counterspells, I liked how much cleaner the mana was compared to Grixis. Against the creature decks, the smooth manabase meant you could reliably cast Cut Down on turn one and support Brotherhood’s End. 

Once Phyrexia: All Will be One was released, I switched my testing from Magic Online to in-person. Each week, I met up with my Auckland friends (William Li, Calum Gittins and Ivan Sanchez) and we would jam matchup-sets all evening. William and Calum are long-time teammates, while Ivan was someone that all of us had only recently met. Our close friend Slava decided not to come to the event, and Ivan was looking for a place to stay, so we offered him Slava’s place in the Airbnb. Since we were all staying together, it made sense for us to test together too. 

Ivan had only recently moved from Chile to New Zealand, but he had been tearing up the RCQ scene here in Auckland since then.

Once we started testing with him, it became clear why – he was a seriously good player. He was locked on playing Mono White Midrange for the Regional Championships, and he was highly knowledgeable and competent with the deck.

This benefitted us greatly, as the matchup was complicated to play from the Grixis side, and having such an adept testing partner helped us really learn how to play the matchup. By the end of it, although the common wisdom was that Mono White was an unfavorable matchup for Grixis, with our approach, I felt about even. This was a huge credit to Ivan for willing to spend all those hours just testing against Grixis, and I am really grateful for that. 

Most of our online collaborators were interested in playing Grixis too, which meant we had a lot of players working on the deck. On Wednesday, a few days before the Regional Championships, we had a team video call where we spent three hours discussing the decklist, the sideboard and how to approach each matchup. I will cover this in detail in my next article, but ultimately, the following was what I submitted (most of the team submitted either exactly the same decklist or only changed a few cards). 

Creatures

4 Bloodtithe Harvester

4 Corpse Appraiser

3 Reckoner Bankbuster

2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

1 Bladecoil Serpent

Enchantments

4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Instants

3 Abrade

3 Go for the Throat

2 Make Disappear

1 Negate

1 Cut Down

Sorceries

4 Invoke Despair

2 Brotherhood’s End

Lands

4 Haunted Ridge

4 Xander’s Lounge

4 Blackcleave Cliffs

3 Darkslick Shores

3 Sulfurous Springs

2 Shipwreck Marsh

2 Shivan Reef

2 Swamp

1 Stormcarved Coast

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

Sideboard

3 Cut Down

2 Disdainful Stroke

2 Negate

2 Razorlash Transmogrant

1 Brotherhood’s End

1 Soul Transfer

1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

1 Whack

1 Bladecoil Serpent

1 Obliterating Bolt

In the morning, I submitted my decklist on MTG Melee. My flight was in the afternoon, and I was arriving in Melbourne at 6pm – just one hour before decklists were due. Therefore, to be safe, I submitted my list before I left. At the airport, there was a long line at customs, and so Calum and I talked through our decklist.

We quickly made the decision to swap the fourth Go for the Throat in our sideboard for an Obliterating Bolt, and I messaged Anthony Lee to buy some for us from the on-site vendors as I had left mine at home. Little did I know at the time how significant that decision would later be!

Once we arrived in Melbourne, we dropped our bags off at our Airbnb, then headed straight out for dinner at an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant. One of the best parts about travelling to Magic tournaments is the time you spend with friends, and we had a great time as we exchanged stories and shared our excitement for what was coming the next day.

Funnily enough, I was responsible for ordering the food, and I misunderstood how they were delivering the food out, so I kept thinking we had under-ordered and so started ramping up the amount. In the end, we had way too much food, and all of us were forcefully shoving it down in an attempt to not walk away with a table full of untouched food.

Jet lag is often an issue when travelling for a Magic tournament, but when playing tournaments in Australia, the time difference actually advantages the Kiwis. Australia is two hours behind us, which means that the time you have to wake up for the tournament (7am) is 9am back home. I woke up feeling refreshed, like I had gotten to sleep-in! A nice thirty-minute walk to the venue, followed by a quick players’ meeting, and we were ready to go! The tournament was 132 players, which meant eight rounds of Swiss on Day One, followed by Top 8 on Day Two. To get the Pro Tour invite, I would need to finish in the Top 12. 

As these Regional Championships are open decklist events, I got to review my opponent’s deck prior to the match. Upon going through their list , I genuinely did not know about half of my opponent’s cards, and he kindly pulled the cards out from his deck so I could read them. I can’t say I fully understand his deck even now, but the key cards were Oni-Cult Anvil and Ob Nixilis, the Adversary.

In game two, I had a solid start, but he was also able to set up Oni-Cult Anvil and kept producing chump blockers to slow down the game. I was really worried that if I didn’t win soon, I was going to lose the match 0-1. Thankfully, I played really quickly and my opponent didn’t try to stall (honestly, he easily could have gotten away with it if he wanted to), and I took down the second game in extra turns after time was called. 

Both tables next to me were Mono White Midrange mirrors, so I was expecting the worst as I exchanged decklists with my opponent. Thankfully, he was on Azorius Soldiers, a deck that is not slow and a great matchup for our version of Grixis with three Sheoldreds. I took down both games fairly quickly, which helped to restore a bit of confidence after the first round.

I was paired against a fellow Kiwi and friend, Oscar Gray, who was on Mogged’s version of Grixis with Planeswalkers such as Kaito Shizuki and Saheeli, Filigree Master in the sideboard. I felt confident, as I believed our list lined up well against this version of the mirror. 

I don’t really remember our games in detail, but I recall game one was fairly back-and-forth until I topdecked my way out of it before he did. Game two was fairly one-sided, showing the strength of Razorlash Transmogrant in the mirror. 

Game two and game three played out exactly how mirror goes when the starting player has a great hand, as he curved me out in game two while I did the same in game three.

I was paired against my teammate and friend, Chris Miller, who was playing the same list. Chris has been on an absolute tear recently, as he had Top 8’d the previous Regional Championships and gone to Pro Tour Philadelphia, and was now 4-0 here. 

Both games were very one-sided, as I had mana troubles. In the first game, I was stuck on four lands with triple Invoke Despair in hand, while in game two I never drew a blue source.

I had not played against an Atraxa, Grand Unifier deck ever (both in testing and in this tournament), so I was somewhat scared going into the match. However, I figured if I just countered the key cards, I should be okay.

Game two showed the power of Razorlash Transmogrant, as I played a turn three Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, then discarded both Transmogrants to the Fable the following turn. For the rest of the game, I had two Counterspells up, while beating my opponent down with a pair of 4/2 creatures. 

This round, I was paired against Matt Anderson – a great Sydney player who Top 16’d Pro Tour Kaladesh a few years ago. I knew that he would almost certainly be playing some kind of control deck, and when we swapped decklists, my heart sank. He was essentially playing Mono White Midrange splashing Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Memory Deluge and six counterspells. I couldn’t think of a worse matchup for my deck.

Game one was pretty crazy, as we traded resources aggressively, but he started to get ahead on cards with Memory Deluge. Thankfully, I drew three Invoke Despairs and had enough mana to play around Make Disappear.

Chipping in damage here and there, I managed to get him to one life, but he had firmly stabilized with The Eternal Wanderer in play and was making Samurai tokens every turn while having a full-stocked hand thanks to Atraxa.

At this point, I believed I only had two outs left in my deck – either the fourth Invoke Despair or the second Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

On the final turn before dying to the Samurai tokens, I topdecked the fourth Invoke Despair, slammed it down, and luckily he didn’t have a Negate (I had four extra mana, so I could pay for a pair of Make Disappears). It turned out Sheoldred would not have been enough, as he had his single copy of Vanish into Eternity in hand. 

As my opponent extended his hand, I was obviously delighted to have won the match to make the Top 8, but the most important match of the day being by far the easiest felt weirdly anti-climactic. Still, any uncertainty vanished pretty quickly as friends came to congratulate and hug me, while messages poured in from social media. 

The Top 8 announcement was exciting, as my teammates Chris Miller and Connor McGillivray also made it in, as did my friend Anthony Lee (who won the previous Regional Championships).

By the time it was all over, it was nearly 8pm, so we got some quick dinner at a great American barbecue restaurant nearby, before heading back to the Airbnb and staying up way too late jamming games of Pioneer (I went 6-2 against Mono Green Devotion with Mono White Humans 😛).

Photo Credit: ANZ MTG Super Series

As the Top 8 wasn’t starting until midday, I got to sleep in and enjoy the morning to myself while my friends headed to the venue early to compete in the Pioneer $5k event. In the quarter-finals, I was paired against my teammate Connor, who was playing the same Grixis deck and would be on the play. I personally felt that being on the play in the mirror was a big advantage, and while our team’s deck was built with the mirror-match in mind, I wasn’t going to have any edge here as he had the exact same list.

Since my main goal was to qualify for the Pro Tour and I had already achieved it, I felt calm about playing the Top 8 and sort of viewed it as a free-roll. 

Still, that didn’t stop us from trash talking each other before the Top 8 started!

To be totally honest, I don’t really remember how either game went, but I won the match pretty easily.

Before the match, I had discussed sideboarding with Anthony, and we decided that due to Razorlash Transmogrant, we now had to keep in Sheoldred, the Apocalypse on both the play and the draw in the mirror match (previously, I only kept them in on the play). This ended up mattering in game two, as my unanswered Sheoldred won me the game.

For the second time in this event, I was paired against Chris, and now had to play against a teammate on the same list in back-to-back rounds.

Chris is a stone-cold master with these types of midrange decks, and  he had yet to drop a match in the event, including a 6-0 record against Rakdos-based midrange decks in the tournament. 

Game one was very grindy, and we both traded resources until we were in topdeck mode. He ended up drawing out of it first, as he found a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse that I could not deal with. 

At this point, I just assumed my tournament was over. It was going to be difficult to win two games in a row against Chris, especially as I would be on the draw in game three if I were to win game two. As luck would have it though, my bad draws against Chris in round five were now returned to him, as he mulliganed and drew awkwardly in both games, and I was able to take down the match!

In game one, Ben was starting, and he curved out well. I didn’t have a way to deal with his Raffine, Scheming Seer, so he was getting a lot of value out of it. At that point, I had a Bladecoil Serpent in hand, and I knew that the only likely way I was going to win the game was to chip in for damage where I could, hoping that he attacked with too many creatures on a pivotal turn and I could “get” him with a big, hasty Bladecoil Serpent.

Unfortunately for me, though, Ben played well and kept only attacking with one or two creatures and leaving the rest behind to block. On the final turn before I was going to die, I played a Bladecoil Serpent as an 8/4 with trample and haste, but could only get him down to one life. 

For the final game, Ben was on the play, and I was really hoping that he did not have a fast draw involving Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I drew my opening hand, and it was Make Disappear, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and five lands.

This was exactly the type of hand that would immediately lose to a turn two Thalia, but if Ben didn’t have one, then it would be okay, as I could counter his turn three play (Raffine, Scheming Seer or Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor), and then resolve a Fable.

Ultimately, it is not a good hand, but I decided to keep it. 

Now, I can’t confirm the story for sure, but my understanding from what I heard after the game is that he actually had a Raffine, Scheming Seer in hand that he could have cast before attacking, but instead he opted for the post-combat Kaito line, which didn’t work because of his own Thalia.

Once the Kaito play was reversed by the judge, I think he should have still cast Raffine in the second main-phase if he had one, but he opted to pass the turn instead. At the time, this made me think he had a Spell Pierce in hand.

On my turn, I drew an Abrade, played my third land, and passed the turn. Now I felt like I was in an okay position, as I could counter whatever his next play was, or Abrade his Thalia (baiting out the possible Spell Pierce to resolve Fable) if he chooses to pass the turn again without casting anything.

On his fourth turn, he once again attacked with Thalia and then tried to resolve the Kaito, but this time I could counter it. I then untapped, played my fourth land, and resolved a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. 

The board was now fairly even – he had a Thalia in play and I had a Goblin token and a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. However, my hand was just lands and an Abrade, while I felt that he must have had some good cards in his. On his fifth turn, he spent a lot of time thinking, before attacking with Thalia and passing the turn without playing a fifth land.

This made me think of two things – either he was debating whether to play Raffine and try to draw a land with connive to hold up Spell Pierce through his Thalia, or he drew an Ertai Resurrected. Personally, I think if he had the Raffine, he should have just played it, but nonetheless, this was the line he took.

From this point forward, I don’t fully recall how the game played out, but I remember pitching two lands to the Fable and drawing into two spells. For a few turns, Ben drew for his turn, attacked with Thalia, and passed the turn. This made me guess that his hand must have had both Spell Pierce and Go for the Throat, as his deck’s curve is low enough that being stuck on four lands shouldn’t prevent him from casting most of his spells.

I also think that he shouldn’t have been attacking with Thalia, as I then got to swing back with my Goblin token and accrue treasure tokens, which helped alleviate the Thalia tax. Eventually, I was able to flip to a Reflection of Kiki-Jiki and play a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse with Make Disappear for his removal spell.

He did in fact have the Go for the Throat, which I countered, and then on his upkeep, he cast the Ertai Resurrected to kill my Sheoldred, before drawing for his turn.

At the time, I made a show of how frustrating that play was for me, but I expected it and was fine with it, as it meant he had tapped out for his turn without dealing with my Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. I then played Bloodtithe Harvester and Corpse Appraiser, and eventually overwhelmed him, as I could either kill his creatures or dig through my library every turn. 

Photo Credit: ANZ MTG Super Series

Needless to say, this tournament has now dramatically changed my plans for the rest of the year. I had just started a new job two weeks ago, and I have had to now explain to them that I’ll need at least seven weeks off this year, as I also have to go to Belgium at the end of the year for my partner’s sister’s wedding (thankfully, my work was understanding!). Although it was completely unexpected, I am really excited about the opportunity to participate in these two amazing tournaments. 

I also want to thank my partner, Roisin, who has been extremely supportive and understanding all throughout both the preparation and the tournament. While I was gone for the week, she looked after our dog, Bess, and tinkered away at the garden. I came home, and it was in a significantly better state than when I had left! It’s clear who has the skills and talent in the household!

I hope you enjoyed this article as I went over my Regional Championships experience! In my next article, I will be covering in-depth the deck I played – Grixis Midrange. There are a number of major standard tournaments coming up, both in paper and online, so definitely check that out if you are planning to compete in one of these events some time soon! 

Till next time!

Zen Takahashi

@mtgzen on Twitter

Zen Takahashi is a seasoned writer and mainstay on the Three for One Trading writing team. He is an avid Eternal player from Auckland, New Zealand and enjoys competing in local Legacy events and playing Old School over webcam with friends.

Previously, he was a Silver Pro for multiple years and his results included five Grand Prix Top 8s, a 27th place at Pro Tour Amonkhet, three consecutive online Regional PTQ wins, and he co-created the Modern Dredge deck.

Nowadays though, he primarily plays Legacy, his favorite format, but he also branches out into Pioneer and Modern.