Duskmourn Store Champs/Player’s Championship Qualifier 11 Recap
Duskmourn: House of Horrors seems to have done quite the number on the Standard metagame! A room that was once dominated by the aggressive red creatures of Bloomburrow have now been pushed aside in favor of more controlling, tempo-based strategies like blue/black or blue/white. In fact, it was one of these blue/black tempo decks in the hands of now 3-time Qualifier Winner, Christopher Brackley that took home the win! This is a deck that has existed for quite some time in Standard, as it is very easily tuned to attack whatever metagame you expect to find. Let’s take a look at Chris Brackley’s winning Dimir Midrange deck, as well as the other decks in our Top 4.
Christopher Brackley – Dimir Midrange (1st)
Mark MacGregor – Gruul Aggro (2nd)
Justin Hockney – Dimir Midrange (3rd-4th)
Tijler de Jong – Zur Domain (3rd-4th)
As always, I got to follow up with Chris Brackley after his 3rd Player’s Championship Qualifier win and asked him some questions about his tournament as well as his level of success in the game.
T: At the last Standard event you played, you Top 8’d with a Rakdos Midrange deck. What made you switch over to this Dimir version?
C: I thought it’d be fun to try UB instead. The two lists share a bunch of cards, so it was easy to just swap red for blue. They both seem to do okay against most decks, so I had fun.
T: Do you have a favourite moment or a play you made from the tournament that really stuck out to you?
C: Cracking the new Ghost Vacuum for four creatures in the mirror-match was pretty great. Going to 1 against red decks multiple times was a close second.
T: So, you’ve won 3 of these events now, in multiple formats. What’s the biggest piece of advice you could give someone trying to improve at the game and achieve that kind of success?
C: Magic is like one of those mazes you get on your menu. The trick isn’t starting from the ‘end’, it’s starting at the ‘start’ AND the ‘end’ at the same time. You come together in the midgame. Just have fun with the game and don’t be afraid to make misplays. Taking good risks is one of the best things you can do. The maze thing was serious though.
Wise words from Christopher Brackley! Congratulations to Chris and the rest of our Top 4! There are still 2 more chances to qualify for our end of year Player’s Championship! Join us on October 26th for Modern and November 23rd for Pioneer! Even if you don’t win, you can earn one of our at-large invites and qualify through our Leaderboard!
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Written By: Travis Benedict Pro Tour Competitor, Cat Lover |
