Report Winner IPT Genoa: Tommaso Loss with Flicker Tron

Introduction

I'm Tommaso Loss, ciurlo on mtgo, of Lega Pauper Pisa.

This weekend I won IPT Pauper Focaccia, organized by Lega Pauper Genova.

Props to them for running such a smooth event, great for a first edition.

I played Flicker Tron, the first ever deck I built and played in Pauper, a while ago.

I wanted to play something that was unplayable before the banlist with glitters around, so it was either this or Altar Tron. Since Mystical Teachings is my favorite card, I tried Flicker first in the last league tournament, winning it.

The deck felt solid in a slower meta, so I decided to give it a go at the IPT.

Decklist

The list was from Pietrangelo Manco, a league mate, with a couple of tweaks.

Maindeck

Creatures:

• 4X Mulldrifter: main draw engine, in Tron you have lots of mana so it rarely feels clunky as sometimes is in Jeskai.
• 3X Mnemonic Wall: win-condition of the deck, playing three cause you always want to see at least one to lock the game up.
• 1X Murmuring Mystic: amazing card overall, you can get it back with pulse, a win-con by itself against most decks, and let's you combo kill when needed (infinite birds with Tron+2 Towers, 2 Walls, Flicker, Unwind and Weather the Storm).

Artifacts:

• 4X Expedition Map: consistently assembling a fast tron is the key cause currently it's unreasonable to keep up with most decks w/o tron mana.
• 4X Energy Refractor: the most important card in the deck.
• 1X Runaway Boulder: fancy card, provides utility by being a tutorable answer to basically all pauper creatures, it can be looped by flicker, and cycled when dead.

Sorceries:

• 3X Lorien Revealed: you almost never want to cycle it for an island, unless you really have to. Key to avoid flooding.

Instants:

• 1X Crop Rotation: must have against graveyard strategy, so that teachings can tutor Bojuka Bog, wouldn't play more cause it's terrible in multiples.
• 4X Impuse: best cantrip for tron, either gets action or tron lands
• 1X Ephemerate: mandatory
• 1X Ghostly Flicker: namesake card, I suggest playing 3 copies between this and Pulse of Murasa, to fight graveyard hate, I expected a lot of aggro so played 2 of the latter.
• 2X Pulse Of Murasa: as above
• 1X Prohibit: mainly used to protect key spells / counter pivotal creature like monarch/crypt rats
• 1X Unwind: the strongest counter tron has, lets you cheat on mana and even allow an infinite mana combo.
• 1X Exclude: meta-depended counter, best one against emblems and opposing Mnemonic Walls / Archeomancers
• 1X Breath Weapon: must have against aggressive creature based strategies
• 1X Weather The Storm: must have against burn, sometimes recycle itself as an uncounterable fog.
• 3X Moment's Peace: must have to slow down linear decks.
• 3X Mystical Teachings: perfect card to abuse mana advantage and fetch the answer needed against the opponent, either fogs, counters, loop pieces or another copy of itself in grindy/slow match-ups.

Lands:

• 12X Tron lands
• 2X Islands: Lorien, the second one is needed not to die horribly to wildfire
• 1X Molten Tributary: Lorien
• 1X Tanglet Isle: Lorien
• 1X Bojuka Bog: searchable graveyard hate
• 1X Remote Isle: turns the second/third map into a 5 mana draw 1
• 1X Cave of Temptation: mana fix, can be looped on mulldrifter to speed up the race or can turn mystinc into a 3/7, to dodge double bolt.
• 1X Conduit Pylons: surveil sometimes draws one card by binning teachings, or enables an early Pulse of Murasa. Might be correct to play two of these instead of Cave of Temptation.
• In any case I would play at least two of these untapped mana fixing lands, in order not to die to artifact hate on energy refractor post side.

Sideboard:

• 4X Pyroblast: mandatory
• 4X Hydroblast: mandatory
• 1X Ancient Grudge: mandatory
• 1X Stonehorn Dignitary: could be either this or the fourth Moment's Peace. Dignitary has the advantage of ignoring Flaring Pain. Peace is faster.
• 1X Exclude: second copy to fight emblems.
• 1X Dinrova Horror: maybe not needed, strong vs big mana strategies like the mirror and familiars, but a bit of a win-more.
• 1X Breath Weapon: second copy against aggro.
• 1X Weather the Storm: second copy against burn.
• 1X Kaervek's Torch: the only realistic plan against UB Terror, given it usually pays life for Snuff Out and Deep Analysis, the idea is to one-shot it with Pyroblast protection.

Tournament

R1: UB Terror - Bad

g1: Slow start on my side, normal on his, couldn't develop while also blocking his aggression.

g2: Strong start with tron + refractor, he resolved the monarch but had enough resources to fight through that.

g3: Monarch t4 led to an attrition war where I forced most of his counters (3 Counterspell and 2 Dispel) then after having exhausted all the fogs tried the Kaervek's Torch for lethal with pyroblast backup. He hadn't got any counters left.

R2: BG Gardens - Good

g1: He resolved a monarch without pressure, I assembled tron and out-valued the emblem, quickly locking up the game.

g2: Another Initiative-less drawn from him, this time I had counter for monarch, so the game ended quickly.

Record: 2-0

R3: MonoRed Kuldotha - Even

g1: Luckily I had the Proibith for Goblin Bushwhacker to stop his t3 almost lethal, then Teachings for Breath Weapon + Teaching for Weather the Storm afterwards closed the game.

g2: Really close game where I lost because I first tutored for Weather The Storm, thinking I would've killed all his board next turn with Breath Weapon. I was not expecting Goblin Sledder which basically halved my weapon, leaving his samurai alive. Then a top-decked bolt sealed the deal.

g3: Here my opponent flooded, I had a slow start but with a lot of lifegain between Pulse Of Murasa and Weather The Storm. Thus easily stabilizing and resolving some Mulldrifters to close the game.

Record: 3-0

R4: Goblin Combo - Bad

g1: He played Mesmeric Fiend t2 with the combo ready in hand, but luckily I had both Weapon and Runaway Boulder. Normally I would've think twice about keeping such hand, but he was Alessandro Morino so I expected him to be on Moggwarts.

Thus he had to slow a bit down to find a way to play around removal. I had time to develop my own resources and get to a state where I had Ghostly Flicker on Mnemonic Wall + Bojuka, to which he scooped.

g2: Another slow start from him, with a dispute on wellspring that wasn't able to find all the pieces in time. I assembled tron and when he went for it I had double hydro for the two First Day Of Class.

Record: 4-0

R5: Walls Combo - Really Bad

g1: Probably the worst match-up of the deck, piloted by a LPP friend Luca Cini, he did what the deck does when there is close to no early interaction, that is combo killing me on t4.

g2: Same as above.

Record: 4-1

R6: Grixis Affinity - Good

g1: Aggressive start from him, with Myr Enforcer + Gearseeker turn 3. I had resources to keep them at bay for a couple of turns, he didn't find any Galvanic Blast to deal the last 3 damage before I found lifegain.

g2: Mulliganed to five, he had a lot of interaction to hinder my early development with Negates and Pyroblasts, plus a couple of creatures to pressure.

g3: I assembled a T3 tron plus Energy Refractor. Since he had no red mana I decided to gamble playing also a Murmuring Mystic, knowing that if he hadn't got both Great Furnace/Dispute + Pyroblast I would've been ahead. He had tapped red source so the game turned into a tower defense where I just protected the Mystic and attacked with fliers.

Record: 5-1

R7: UB Fae - Good

I had a high tournament rating whereas my opponent not so much, so we had to play the win-and-in.

g1: He had t3 Ninja of the Deep Hours into t4 a second ninja, nightmare scenario. I also kept a slow hand without early tron access. I passed on t5 saying that I want to do something in upkeep, he casted in my end step a Spellstutter Sprite. I guess the idea was to counter my Moment's Peace with a second Stutter. By doing so he went tapped out, I had Breath Weapon so killed all creatures, thus gaining tons of time to stabilize and then pull ahead.

g2: Long draw-go game, dominated by Mystical Teachings, when I started casting Mulldrifter I had enough Pyroblast and Exclude to win the counterwar.

Record: 6-1

Top8: Altar Tron - Good

g1: Opened the perfect 7 with tron, Energy Refractor, Mnemonic Wall and Ephemerate. I just needed some kind of interaction spell which I drew shortly after, locking up the game.

g2: He mulliganed to 5, I countered the first couple of spells to stop him from assembling his tron, when he did it was too late.

Top4: Cawgates - Good

g1: Very long attrition game, I flooded a lot with 19/20 lands in total between board hand and graveyard. The key turn was one where he did not activate basilisk gate because the creature were lethal thus I could pseudo fog them with a Weather The Storm for one. The one turn allowed me to draw some action, which resolved since he had already spent all his counters.

He conceded the match.

No second game but this is how I would've sided

Final: Jeskai Ephemerate - Bad

g1: He had cleansing turn 2 plus Archeomancer, Ephemerate and double Counterspell, I managed to break the loop once with Breath Weapon but he followed with a second Archeomancer so I gave up.

g2: I had the perfect start and lot of interaction, he tried to color screw me by exiling refractors but I had enough colored source to interact with his spell, after a couple of turn he acted to avoid discarding, we had a counterwar which I won thanks to the mana advantage.

Then played Mnemonic Wall and the game was over.

g3: Mulligan to 6 from both, kept a really risky one-lander with map and impulse, two pyros and refractor, since going to 5 otp was almost certainly worse. He played his counters aggressively on my Mystical Teachings, and tried again to remove Refractors. Slowing down the game that much favors tron, as I slowly managed to get ahead of the resource game, and he conceded on a resolved exclude on Augur of Bolas with 0 cards remaining.

Props to him, Manuel of Lega Pauper Versilia, for picking up the deck quite recently and doing this good.

Conclusions

Overall, I played against 10 different decks and had a lot of fun.

In end teachings for… Paupergeddon Pisa!