Talking Shrimp Stew with the Mono U Crew
PLUS: Italian Nationals recap, Wizards releases a "Premodern Masters" set, Eternal Weekend and Midwest Champs this weekend
Welcome to the second issue of BANDING! We already have a beefy newsletter this time around so I’ll keep the introduction short but expect a personal year-end recap in next issue! I won’t continue to bombard you with these buttons but since I’m trying to get this thing off the ground… share BANDING with a friend and/or subscribe below:
Also, you can find me on Twitter or YouTube (though I really need to upload some videos of my run with TaxNought…
Attack of the Mono Blue Shrimp
It’s no secret that the Mono U Stiflenought has quickly become to talk of the Premodern community, taking down several high profile events and local meetups alike. The Premodcast also recently released an episode covering the deck. I wanted to pick the brains of three of the most influential players exploring this deck so I sent a few questions over to Álvaro Galindo, Sven Lutz, and Tom Metelsky!
Banding: How did you get into Premodern?
Tom: I saw Roland Chang post a photo on Twitter with his UG Madness deck. I was hooked immediately. Nostalgia and competitive gameplay is exactly what I was looking for.
Álvaro: I don’t really remember how I got into Premodern. All I knew was that I had to build a gauntlet to play some old decks with my friends. And now I’m here.
Sven: I read an article about the format in 2018 and was hooked. Told my friends right away and we played a couple amazing matches with Psychatogs and Pernicious Deeds.
What’s the origin story of this deck? I’ve seen Mono U Stiflenought lists in the past but they typically were more controlling with Standstill like Manos Kokkinis’s list or more heavy on mana denial like Roland Chang’s list.
Sven: I was curious about the deck in early 2022. Mono U was often considered the worst variant of the archetype back then. I tried tuning it to focus more on free spells with a clean manabase, cutting control elements like the mentioned Standstill. After a couple games of testing I took the deck to the Spring Fling where it finished in Top 4 (losing to Tom, btw). Álvaro, Tom and I later started working on the deck very tightly, resulting in the refined shell that we are using now.
Álvaro: I got my Dreadnoughts back in July and started looking for “the best” build to play a tournament in Santiago. Even though I had the idea that UR was solid, I ended up working on a build Sven shared with me. As a Pauper player, I wanted to replicate the Xerox concept in Mono U Faes and ended up with a deck with a small land count (only Islands), with many cheap cantrips to improve draws and remove lands.
Tom: I always thought UB was the best version. However, I quickly discovered how strong Mono U was and the raw consistency vs. other variants splashing for a second color. Splashing for a second color can hinder your Gush & Foil game plan. There are actually a lot more reasons why Mono U is the best version, but it is too many to go over.
What’s your current list? Are there any flex slots available? Any cards you’re looking to try out or matchups you’re trying to solve?
Tom: My current list looks like this. Flex Slots: Flash of Insight & Deep Analysis. I think Deep Analysis needs one copy in the main deck and one in the sideboard.
Álvaro: Exactly as Tom’s list, but with two Null Rods because they help against Parfait, which is more common these days.
Sven: Here is my list. Yes, there are many slots that are “set into stone” and should never be changed, at the same time, there are a couple ways to adapt the deck to your metagame/playstyle/liking. I think Álvaro and Tom are right in cutting Long-Term Plans and adding Deep Analysis/Flash of Insight, I just fell in love with the card for no good reason. This is what I would consider the core of the deck btw.
How do we beat this deck? What opposing decks and sideboard cards do you fear?
Álvaro: Not sure if I want to answer this lol
Tom: TBD.
Sven: 👀
Are there any common mistakes you see opponents do while playing against Mono U Stiflenought?
Álvaro: Not playing around Daze is a huge mistake. Sometimes they want to kill the Dreadnought as soon as possible, while there are some scenarios in which is better to wait to have an extra mana to pay for that.
Sven: I agree. Also, Dreadnought doesn’t one-shot you — if it helps your plan/raises your chances, you can often wait a turn/take one hit with whatever you’re planning to do and setup your reaction.
Tom: Countering the wrong spells.
Are there certain meta games or matchups that you think the UB or UW lists would be preferable to Mono U? Or do you think that Mono U is the best positioned of the variants?
Tom: I would say, if you knew the entire room was on combo, maybe you could switch to UB. Other than that, no. Mono U is the best version and its actually not close.
Álvaro: I agree with Tom in the sense that Duress can help against combo, but at the same time, Mono U can adapt to these matchups anyway.
Sven: I don’t see a meta that would make me add another color. Generally speaking Mono U is very well rounded.
You three are some of the most well-known players and innovators of this deck. Do you all collaborate on it? Give us a peek inside the crew’s process.
Sven: Actually, working on the deck and becoming friends in the process was one of my favorite experiences in premodern so far. It’s been so much fun!
Tom: The Mono U Crew is the name we gave our group. We started discussing the deck about two months ago. We talk about the list daily. Huge shout out to Álvaro and Sven for putting in the work and building this monster.
Álvaro: We talk about it every day, our results, how the meta is adapting (or not) and how the general consensus about Mono U has been changing since we started working on it. It is like a support group haha
Italian Nationals
The 109-player Italian Nationals took place in Bologna on November 26 and was won by Alessandro Teneggi with Angry Hermit. I was also among the many guest commentators, jumping in for Round 4 between Enchantress and Mono U Stiflenought. You can catch the replay of the event on Twitch.
The rest of the Top 8 (including a second Angry Hermit deck; the deck had a 100% conversion rate to the Top 8 in the tournament):
Enchantress by Federico Rocchi — Clean list, love the Circle of Protection: Green for Phantom Nishoba, The Rock, UG Madness
Sligh by Nicolò Barovier — Love the full set of Lava Dart in the main for bigger competitions like this.
Sligh by Matteo Cirigliano — Another full set of Lava Dart main! And a Mountain in the sideboard!?
Angry Hermit by Fabrizio Leuzzi — Gotta love the Tempting Wurm sideboard
UW Stiflenought by Giorgio Venditti — Another Alexi's Cloak sighting! And Mother of Runes is missing in action.
Elves by Pablo Suárez Fernández — This player looks familiar…
The Rock by Matteo Carducci — Living Wish variants are always so neat to me. The Haunting Echoes in the main is also likely to catch a few players unaware.
Angry Hermit is a fascinating deck to me. The community was abuzz after Flint Espil won the 2022 North American Championships with it (episode 31 of Monster of the Week where he discusses the deck is still one of my favorite deck techs of all time) but never really took over a meaningful chunk of the meta as one would have expected after such a performance. My high-level takeaway from this is:
Angry Hermit is stronger than its meta share would suggest
It’s a hard deck to play and unforgiving to mistakes (e.g., forget to stack the Sutured Ghoul on top and might just lose)
You need to mulligan aggressively and some people aren’t comfortable with that (e.g., sometimes you will mull to oblivion and that’s just a fact of life)
When the deck works the game is over pretty fast and some people don’t like that style of play (e.g., Premodern is a mix of casual and competitive players)
That said, now that the deck has taken down two 100+ tournaments in a year you can probably be expecting more people taking a second look, especially at higher stakes events.
Bonus tournament reports:
Results
Season 4 of Magic Online Society’s MTGO Premodern Championships concluded with Fpawlusz winning on UW Stiflenought (catch his replay here). Deck lists for the Top 8 can be found here.
The first league of Season 5 had 36 players and was won by Olle Råde on Survival Elves, Top 8 lists here.
PSS4 competitor Cristian Wisner took down the 22-player Argentina Premodern Championship on Parfait Oath, defeating UW Tide Control. This tournament was invite-only based on a series of qualifying tournaments throughout the year. Enjoy some photos of the event here and here, or watch the replay here.
The 4th Buenos Aires Premodern Open was won by Fede Kleiner on Mono U Stiflenought. Deck lists and videos can be found here!
Other events… Santiago, Chile had their biggest tournament yet with 31 players and was won by Álvaro Galindo on Mono U Stiflenought (someone should interview him)… Essen, Germany with 23 players… Darmstadt, Germany with five rounds of Swiss… Italian Premodern Discord event…
Premodern Masters?
Earlier this week Wizards of the Coast unleashed the full spoiler for Dominaria Remastered (image gallery, variant image gallery). The set is stacked with cards from the Premodern era, so much so I’ve been dubbing it Premodern Masters. A few highlights of this set:
More accessible old frame foils: Previously, cards like Wrath of God, Wild Growth, and Birds of Paradise were only available in old frame foil in 7th Edition, which were quite pricy. DMR reprints these with the 7th Edition art and old frame!
Foils of cards previously only available in old frame non-foil: Certain cards like Sylvan Library, Exploration, Elvish Spirit Guide, Mishra’s Factory, Sneak Attack, Worldly Tutor, and Triskelion are now available with new art, old frame foil. Other cards now available in old frame foil but keeping the old art are Helm of Awakening, Mind Stone, Turnabout, and Gamble.
New art on old frame cards: A few notable cards are now available with new arts in old frame, including Fact or Fiction, Impulse, Enlightened Tutor, Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Frantic Search, Stroke of Genius, Chainer’s Edict, Duress, Fireblast, Goblin Matron, Jester’s Cap, Ornithopter, Legacy Weapon, Tormod’s Crypt, and Siege-Gang Commander.
Also… my infamous Angel McAngelface deck gets one step closer to completion with the full-art Gemstone Mine printing.
Community Content
The HispanoTOP event was announced, featuring eight stellar players with three decks each competing in a league (similar to the PSS or EPIC). The preview video is in Spanish and dives into each of the players and their deck selection.
Premodern MTGO has begun uploading videos of his league playing my Raging Glaciers (Mono Red Control) deck! Thanks for trying out the deck.
The Top 16 of the European bracket of the Super Gauntlet has been finalized and you’re able to fill out a bracket to see if you can predict the winner. Selections have to be filled in today before the matches begin.
Now THIS is a sweet Premodern trophy… good reminder for the winner to have some humility. Will be given to the winner of Alicante's (Spain) League on December 17th and will likely be streamed too.
Jeff White writes about “A Very Sped Thanksgiving” and his deck choice of Mono U Stiflenought. Good deck!
Ty Thomason wrote up about his Naya Zoo deck in the recent Middle School league through Romancing the Stones. In case you missed it, the semifinals and finals took place recently. I always love crawling through the results of these leagues for inspiration for Premodern deckbuilding.
More Middle School as Stephen recounts his winning run at the Middle School Meltdown in Tennessee with Parfait Oath.
Upcoming Happenings
The Magic Online Society announced a free to play championship for 2023 on MTGO. For more details head here.
[United States, Dec. 9–11] Eternal Weekend in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is firing three-round Premodern challenges with three on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday. View the schedule here. Also, I hear that Philly Old Style is hosting a meetup at Yards at 1pm on Sunday for Old School and Premodern…
[United States, Dec. 10] Misty Mountain Games in Madison, Wisconsin is hosting the Midwest Premodern Championship on December 10th with the winner receiving an amazing looking prize that I’m dubbing the “Engineered Plaque”. The event will be streamed on Cloudgoat Ranger’s Twitch. The tournament will also be raising funds for Briarpatch Youth Services and is also raffling a complete Balancing Tings deck (tickets here, ignore that it says back order). Details for the tournament can be found here.
[Germany, Jan. 14] The German Nationals will take place in Maintal near Frankfurt. Pre-registration and details available here.
[United States, Feb. 11] Registration for the tournament in Seattle hosted by the Emerald City Trolls has opened up! The event is soft capped at 24 so be sure to pre-register if interested in attending. There will also be a charity raffle to benefit Mary’s Place, an organization that aids unhoused children, women, and families. More information can be found here.
Have some Premodern streams or events in your local area coming up? Give me a heads up and I’ll try to include it in here next time.
They sure don't make them like they used to.