It’s been a week since the Spring Invitational (well at the time of writing. It’s now been three weeks :O), and my first ever Premier event since joining the competitive scene here in Switzerland. While many people saw what happened on the day itself, I wanted to share my journey leading up to it, because it was a pretty wild one.

Scalesman Through and Through

The SUL Spring Invitational couldn’t have come at a better time. At the end of March, there was a B&R announcement, with Breach finally being “sent to the Underworld”, thereby removing what was the best deck in the format for the better part of three months. A week later, the new set, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, became legal. Two elements that are perfect for throwing the metagame up into the air. For some, this meant that they had to pick a new deck if they were playing Breach. However for me, this should have been a day of rejoicing. That was until testing began.

First, a little introduction. If you play modern on Wednesdays with me at Goodgames Bern, you would know that I am very much a Scalesman through and through. Ever since I started playing modern here in the final quarter of 2024, I have not played anything else but Hardened Scales, with some degree of success. It’s been my deck of choice for three years now. The play patterns are very interesting, the tricks are cool, it is both very hard to play and to play against, plus there is a lot of math involved. These components combine to make this deck always exciting to play, and you learn new layers to this deck every time you do. Perfection!

So, when Breach got banned, you could imagine my elation. People would start unsleeving their Stony Silence s and Collector Ouphe s, Eldrazi would finally stop playing Karn, the Great Creator I could finally play with my robots again. Life is good. Or so I thought...

Day 0 (Thursday): Shedding my Scales

On the Thursday of the tournament week, I met up with a fellow Scales player to do some online testing. As we expected Energy to be one of the most popular decks represented on Sunday, I decided we should play a bunch of Energy matches to figure out the matchup. Before the Ring ban, Scales had quite a favourable matchup against Energy. So, I was feeling quite confident with it. We played some games, just to see what the matchup is now like. However, the more we played, the more I realised I had trouble beating Energy. As we ended the session, panic started to set in. The deck that I have loved so much, was super confident with, and was going to be my main weapon of choice, especially as the modern RCQs are about to start, suddenly feels blunt in the face of the cats that keep on multiplying, backed up by a massive Elder Giant behind.

Day 1 (Friday): Flipping the Switch

The next day, I met up for some testing with my teammates and other friends I’ve made at GGB: Léo, Mike, Philippe, and Xavier. Everyone was pretty much set on the deck they would bring on Sunday, except for Léo, who was still deciding what to play in such a short space of time after Breach was banned. They all tested against matchups they wanted to check. Meanwhile, I started to have a deck selection crisis. The one thought on my mind was that I needed to understand better how the Energy deck works. So I played the deck against what people were bringing on Sunday. The more I played it, the more I became very impressed with the deck. I couldn’t stop winning with it. The turns were so explosive, the topdecks so impactful, and ultimately, the individual card quality was so high, I just thought: what if I just played this deck instead? Well, the issue was that I’ve never played this deck before, which meant two things:

1. I will not be the best Energy player in the room. As many in the competitive scene would tell you, picking “the best deck” to play in an event having no practice is a terrible idea. You lose an edge compared to the other Energy players, and you haven’t practiced all the important matchups. Furthermore, other people would have played this matchup before and would have a plan against it. Immediately, you’re on the backfoot and that is never a good feeling.
2. There is not enough time to tune it. While the core of the deck is powerful, it is still important to optimize your decklist for the tournament you are playing in. It could prove the difference, especially in matchups you’re expecting to face. Without the time to figure it out, I would have to copypasta some list on goldfish, trust that it was good, and just roll with it.

As we departed to our respective homes after testing that night, I was still undecided on what to do: Should I play a deck that I am incredibly familiar with, but will probably not do well; or should I take a chance and switch at the very last minute to another deck, which I could potentially be successful with, but is very much a known quantity in the field? That night, Léo dug out an old article that was relevant to my situation. I read and reread the article a few times, noting what was applicable in my situation. As I laid in bed, I had decided it was time to call an audible and play Energy for two reasons:

1. Scales vs Energy would be about 50% for me; but the mirror would be 50% anyway. However, if Energy players decided to randomly leave their Stony Silence in, it would be less than 50%.
2. We predicted Titan to be the one of two most popular decks in the room, mostly because the former Breach players were probably Titan players before. Scales is notoriously bad into Titan. That is not to say Energy is that great either, but at least Blood Moon is kind of a plan you can have. I did not have a good enough plan for Titan with Scales.

And with that, the decision was made.

Day 2 (Saturday): Charging Up

It is now Saturday, the eve of the tournament. I have just decided to switch to a deck I am completely unfamiliar with. What next? The short answer is: ALL THE THINGS.

1. I joined the energy discord and started bombarding people with questions to improve my understanding of the deck: How do you play X and Y matchup, what are the points of note, should I play Fable or Spyro, and so on. In this regard, I would like to thank the kind soul who volunteered to DM me with their sb guide, which gave me a good starting base to work from.
2. I looked at lists on goldfish to see what possible builds there could be. I knew going into this that the metagame was reshaping itself with new cards and potentially new archetypes, so I just needed a sense of what cards people were playing, especially in the sideboard, so I could make my own decisions.
3. I asked around for cards I could potentially play.
4. When we came back from our family day out, I jammed a couple of leagues on mtgo just to get a better feel of the deck.

At the end of the day, was I fully prepared? Absolutely not! But, at least I was in a better place than I was two days ago. This was where setting a realistic expectation came into play: I knew that this was such a late decision, that I can never expect to do well. So, I thought that if I could get at least three wins in the Swiss portion, I would be happy.

That evening, I finalised my list, and called my deck Kelloggs Frosties, utilizing the very fun legacy naming convention (Boros energy was not evocative enough!), and registered this.

There were four cards here from the new set that I registered.

1. Voice of Victory . I was highly skeptical of this card when I saw people putting it into their Energy lists. 2-mana 1/3? Come on, this is ridiculous. But you always have to be open to being wrong, otherwise you will never learn. By the end of Sunday, I was convinced that I was very wrong. This card does a great Adanto Vanguard impression while having a Grand Abolisher type of passive. What’s more, the 1/1 tokens it makes synergizes very well with other cards in the deck: It gives consistent triggers for Guide of Souls, which works well with Ocelot Pride , and even helps you get the city’s blessing. You can also sac them to Goblin Bombardment , and in Round 2 Game 2, it was the red permanent I needed for my flipped Ajani to shoot my Titan opponent for lethal, giving him no time to combo off. After the event, I was sure I wanted more copies of this, although exactly how many is still unclear to me.
2. Clarion Conqueror . I initially added this card because I didn’t want to randomly lose to Belcher, and I felt this was strictly better than Stony Silence . However, this card did absolutely nothing for me before the top 8. This was because I didn’t face any combo in the Swiss portions, apart from Amulet Titan, where this probably does not matter. But this card was good to shut off Blade of the Bloodchief , Agatha's Soul Cauldron , and Walking Ballista against Lou’s Broodscale deck in the quarter final, and Antoine’s entire Yawgmoth deck, prompting the remark: “I hate dragons”.
3. Dalkovan Encampment and Cori Mountain Monastery . I activated Encampment a few times against Lou in the quarter final to quicken the clock while he was looking for his combo pieces, and I wasn’t drawing anything good after resolving my Wrath. While I never activated Monastery, I felt like it would have served me well in the mirror. Are they good? Maybe. Are they worth cutting two fetchlands for? I’m not sure.

Day 3 (Sunday): Fake it till you make it

On the day of the tournament, I completed a very important pre-game action before setting off: kissing my wife and my little Emrakul goodbye in the morning before leaving our flat. I am pretty sure their presence and support carried me to the top 8 of the ELMQ in Fribourg two Saturdays ago, but without their presence this time, I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it.

Thankfully, I did. I cast my spells, remembered my triggers, and the deck essentially carried me to many victories. I won’t bore you with the gory details, as it’s not something you’ve not seen before from a fairly stock Energy deck (cast your spells, remember your triggers, sequence carefully, win the game), but my matchups were: [Swiss] Burn, Titan, Energy, and BW, and Broodscales (QF), Yawgmoth (SF), and Titan (F). I had a 100% game win rate in the Swiss portion, before two IDs into the top 8. In a top 8 that was stacked against Energy (2x Titan, 2x Yawgmoth, 1x Storm, 1x Assault Loam, 1x Broodscale), I got the one matchup I was hoping for in the quarters. My friends and teammates from Fribourg stayed back to watch the match, and gave me huge congratulations when I secured my SUL Championship spot. Looking back, I am pretty sure their support helped me get into the zone and play the supposedly flawless game they said I played.

The semi finals started off rough, and after losing game 1 and mulling to 5 in game 2, I surprised myself by taking down that game, and subsequently the match later, off the back of Clarion Conquerors, only to fall to my fellow GGB player, Julian in the finals. Congrats to him!

Conclusion

Given the run I went on, it is very easy to justify the audible away from my ol’ faithful and into what is considered one of the best decks in Modern right now. But it could have so easily gone wrong for me. Did I make the right choice? To me, that part remains unclear. In another world, I would have stuck with my guns, and achieved the same result anyway. In another world, I would have had a bad run with Energy and regretted my choice. We will never know. But in this world, I was definitely happy with my choice at the end of the day.

This result really means a lot to me as far as my competitive MTG achievements are concerned. So, I am very grateful to everyone who played a part in this success: my testing partners, especially Mike, who basically lent me the whole deck, and cooked us a delicious veggie bolognese on our evening of testing; my family for their support even when they couldn’t travel with me this time, Matteo for the last minute second copy of Clarion Conqueror, and the SBB train crew between Bern and Fribourg. Truly Magic is all about The Gathering, and hopefully next time, my testing partners will do well too, and I would be just as excited to help them get there.

Now that I’m qualified, time to play some jank. I’m gonna go dig up my playset of Hedron Alignment , and I’ll see you all at the SUL Championship later this year xD