Player’s Championship Qualifier 6/Regional Championship Qualifier Recap
This past weekend was our final RCQ of the season, as well as our sixth Player’s Championship Qualifier. 25 skilled magicians battled it out for both invites, with a deck not so commonly encountered taking the win. When someone mentions Pioneer, you probably think of the big three decks of the format: UR Phoenix, RB Vampires, and Amalia Combo. But much like Reid Duke at ProTour Phyrexia: All Will Be One, Christopher Brackley defeated the usual suspects of Pioneer with his version of UR Creativity! While Reid chose the threats of Worldspine Wurm and Xenagos, God of Revels to deal a neat and tidy thirty damage to his opponents, Chris chose some interestingly unique threats to take him to victory. Let’s take a look at Chris’ list and the rest of our Top 8.
Christopher Brackley – UR Creativity (1st)
Nicholas Lawrence – UW Control (2nd)
Jessie Pozzolo – Abzan Elves (3rd-4th)
Matthew Bailey – 5 Colour Bring to Light (3rd-4th)
Josh Breau – Amalia Combo (5th-8th)
Zach Leblanc – Mono Red Prowess (5th-8th)
Les Bakker – GW Angels (5th-8th)
Liam Guyomard – Amalia Combo (5th-8th)
After five rounds of Swiss and three rounds in the Top 8, Chris Brackley is our champion! I had to ask Chris about his choice to play two copies of Titan of Industry and a single Atraxa, Grand Unifier over Worldspine Wurm and Xenagos, or Torrential Gearhulk. Here’s his answer, and what led him to choose the deck:
T: How did you decide on playing Creativity for this event?
C: I have fun playing the Creativity deck and it seems like a good pick against the local meta. Not a lot of people play it so it makes me happy if I can win with it, but I also wanted to play it so I could use all my funny tokens I drew.
T: What made you pick Titan of Industries and Atraxa as your creativity payoffs over the other options?
C: Atraxa/2 Titans isn’t as powerful or consistent as the other versions of Creativity, but the flexibility of getting to cast Creativity for 1, 2, or 3 makes it pretty consistent. If you only have Atraxa in the deck you can’t necessarily create a board state that’ll just win. Wurm/Xenagos requires two targets for Creativity so if you’re under a lot of pressure it can be tough. Atraxa/2 Titan plan has the least amount of deck building constraints for the shell of the deck so I could cut a higher cmc card like big score for example.
T: What tips would you give someone looking to pick up the deck and try it out?
C: Figuring out how to win when you can’t rely on Creativity and being able to recognize what your opponent can do to stop you is something to consider if you pick up the deck. There’s a lot of decisions to make in the deck so having a clear visualization of how you plan to win is invaluable.
Congratulations to Chris on getting his Player’s Championship invite, and the Top 4 for getting their invites to the Regional Championship in Calgary! Our next Player’s Championship Qualifier is just two weeks away on July 20th, where our players will be battling it out in the Modern format!
|
Written By: Travis Benedict Pro Tour Competitor, Cat Lover |
