New Years Standard Tournament Battlegrounds – Top 4 - 4cc Sphinx Control Report

It’s always nice building a deck and believing in it, feeling unique to build and play something original. But when you play in tournaments and realize that your deck is indeed very good then all your efforts and testing seem worth it. So this top 4 on the deck's first major tournament made me really REALLY happy.

After some testing I decided to bring the following 75:

4cc Sphinx Control by Orgios

Creatures:

4 Spreading Seas

4 Borderland Ranger

3 Rhox War Monk

4 Sphinx Summoner

3 Sharrum The hedgemon

2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

1 Ethersworn Adjudicator

3 Veldaken Outlander

Other Spells

3 Day of Judgement

4 Esper Charm

2 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Bant Charm

Mana Base:

2 Misty Rain Forest

2 Verdant Catacombs

2 Marsh Flats

3 Seaside Citadel

3 Arcane Sanctum

4 Forest

2 Islands

3 Swamp

2 Plains

2 Terramorphic Expanse

Sideboard

4 Capture Sunlight

3 Luminarch Ascencion
1 Maelstrom Pulse

1 Rhox War Monk

2 Path to exile

2 Negate

2 Soul Manipulation

Spreading seas turned out to be a bad choice since most of the time it was just draw one and never came when needed… I can’t say the same for Vedalken Outlander who was an all star and a good metagame choice. Let’s see how the games worked out.

Turn One Spread them – Draw

I was prepared for that matchup, the strategy is simple have some lands as bait for their spreading seas , always have mana for borderland ranger, keep a fetch land until you have the mana for Adjudicator or maelstrom Pulse and beat them since your deck can respond really well to their threats and their mana denial wont usually work on you. That’s how it rolled game 1.

G2 : Didn’t draw a lot of lands and only one borderland ranger so demolish and spreading seas did the job for my opponent L

1-1 on time

0-0-1

Turn two – Boros

Game one he had a nice hand as opposed to my slow one, I didn’t draw Vadalken Outlander or Rhox War Monk and lost easily.

Games Two and Three: Have you seen the hate I have for this deck in the side??

Both games he took me down to 8 and finished the games at about 30 life since Captured Sunlight and Rhox War Monk did a wonderful job on their own. On a side note I didn’t cast any Vedalken Outlanders in this match (they just wouldn’t come).

2-1

1-0-1

Turn Three-5cc Rock

My opponent played some sort of home brew rock with Lotus Cobra-Sedraxis Specter- Bloodbraid Elf etc. Game one he had me on the ropes but I managed to pull out of it with Day of Judgement and Rhox War Monk. Borderland Ranger gave me all the lands I needed and Sphinx Summoner all the Cards I needed. An Adjudicator sitting beside Summoner,  Rhox War Monk and Borderland ranger were on the battlefield when my opponent played Bloodbraid Elf into Tidehollow Sculler, he saw two Sharrums , one Summoner and a Sphinx of the steel Wind and conceded.

Second game was pretty much the same with the exception of both of us being mana flooded ( I ended the game with 17 lands and so did my opponent!!) . I stabilized at three but he had no answer for the awesome, the amazing…Adjudicator!!! who took it by himself by attacking and destroying at the same time.

2-0

2-0-1

Turn  4 – Jund

The matchup I was most prepared for! I mulligan to 6 but Vedalken Outlander kept me alive game one long enough for me to be able to hard cast Sphinx of the steel wind for which he of course had no answer.

G2 was more tricky, Mulligan to 6 (again!).I discarded Sphinx of the steel Wind to his blighting and then I got Thought Hemmorhaged for my Sharrums…. On the field I was pushing damage with two Vedalken Outlanders, He was at four when he cast Malakir bloodwitch to go to 5, luckily I had Day of Judgment, an all out attack got him to 3 (DoJ) and then Borderland Ranger, he cast Broodmate Dragon and I Rhox war Monk, half the dragon got Bant Charmed and I had to topdeck Path to Exile to win!! J not bad…

2-0

3-0-1

Turn 5 – Runeflare Trap

This time a completely different matchup, luckily for me I had vedalken outlander to keep Jace in check and Bant Charms for his Runeflares… I discarded Sphinx of the steel wind and brought her Back turn Six with Sharrum… He couldn’t deal with Akroma and lost two turns after.

G2 I’m at three lands at his end of turn I pop Misty rainforest, then he casts Archive Trap and Twincast, I negate Archive trap and that made things simple, a maelstrom pulse on his Font of Mythos just sealed the deal!

2-0

4-0-1

Turn 6 – Mono white ID

Since we were both in the top 8 there was no need for us to play.

4-0-2 and TOP 8 (undefeated!!!) which made me really happy to say the least.

Quarter Finals – Mono Red with a splash of white

Game 1 he mulliganed down to 5 cards, I cast rhox war monk for which he had no answer, he had a burst lightning but I wouldn’t block his goblin guide and killed his few blockers.

G2 it was my turn to mulligan to 5. He had a good hand with Hellspark Elemental and Hells thunder, but my few cards carried all the answers… Borderland Ranger for Lands, path to exile , Bant Charm, Esper Charm for his shrine… I even got all the way with Summoner Sharrum and Sphinx of the Steel Wind!!

2-0

SemiFinals- Monoblack Control

I already knew this was probably the worst matchup, 4 Mind Sludge later I lost two games. I got to get more negate in there…

I ended up at places 3-4 on my deck’s first appearance, not bad at all, wouldn’t you say?