Last saturday was the Belgian Qualifier for the European #Premodern Masters. I brought UR Counterburn with #Standstill to the event… and got my a** whooped for a 2–4 finish.
Despite the result, it was a great event. Big thanks to the organiser — everything ran smoothly and I still had a lot of fun.
The Deck
UR Counterburn with Standstill. The idea is simple: control the board with counters and burn, generate advantage with Standstill, and eventually close the game with Mishra’s Factory or burn.
At least, that’s the plan.
The Matches
Round 1 — Goblins (0–2)
Two very quick games. I felt I had answers to the threats, but the goblins just kept coming and eventually overwhelmed me.
Round 2 — Gravestorm (2–0)
This felt like a good matchup. My plan was simply to bounce or counter the expensive enchantments of my opponent. They are also not lethal if they resolve so I have a lot of time.
Both games ended with Mishra’s Factory beatdown, which was pretty satisfying.
Round 3 — Psychatog (0–2)
I expected this to be favourable, but in hindsight it felt very complicated. Once Psychatog resolved, it was very difficult to keep up with the card advantage from Gush and the rest.
In game 2 I countered a first Armageddon, only to get hit by a second one shortly after. That pretty much sealed it. I durdled a little bit more as I could always burn my opponent at 7 but this myth never realised. Haha.
Round 4 — Turbo Elves (0–2)
Another matchup that felt good on paper. My Fires can often be huge 2-for-1s against all those 1/1 tree huggers, but I didn’t see any burn spell ... across two games and just got run over.
Game 2 might also be on me. I’m not sure if I should have mulliganed harder. I had a Pyroclasm in hand but felt safe for one more turn.
Big mistake.
Round 5 — Burn (2–1)
Very tight games.
I lost game 1 to Cursed Scroll, but game 2 I managed to stabilise, attack with Factories, and finish with a lethal Fire on the burn stack. He flooded a lot so I guess I was a little lucky there.
Game 3 ended with a Fireball for X=7. That felt really nice.
Round 6 — TRIX (0–2)
This is a nasty combo deck.
In game 1 I thought I had the upper hand and saved my counters for the key moment, but I lost the counter war. I kept playing because I thought bounce might still give me an out.
Game 2 my opponent found four AKs and eventually resolved Morphling. I expected threats in the sideboard but with the Saphires all his spells were cheap and he won the counterwar even though I had Pyroblasts!
Kudos to him — it was still a fun match. My opponent told me it was an omage to Kai Budde and he won the brewers cup with it. I'm happy for him.
Final Thoughts
I always go through phases where I want to play control, but it’s a very difficult archetype and quite punishing.
You need to play fast and constantly evaluate your opponent’s threats. That’s already difficult in a format you don’t know well enough.
You also don’t really get free wins. You have to counter everything your opponent does and still find a way to actually kill them. That’s the hard part.
Premodern feels a bit less snowbally than other formats, but it’s still very unforgiving. Draw the wrong cards in the wrong order and you might never recover.
White is probably better than red here. Wraths deal with creature swarms much better than red does, and Psychatog is also extremely difficult to remove with burn.
All in all, it’s probably better for me to stick to decks that pilot themselves a bit more naturally — like aggro — or decks that simply have an “I win” button untill I feel I've mastered a format like some pros can but I know myself and like to vary. So no harm there!
Final record: 2–4.
Way less than I expected, but not really a surprise either.
Still, I had a lot of fun, the tournament was well organised, and I’ll definitely play Premodern again.