Jake Beardsley Wins Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings
Jake Beardsley, piloting Rakdos Evoke, defeated Christian Calcano and his Mono-Green Tron deck three games to two in the finals to win Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings.
It was quite the weekend for Beardsley—not only did he become a Pro Tour champion at his very first Pro Tour, but it was also his birthday weekend.
He played the most popular deck at the tournament, Rakdos Evoke, which made up nearly 20% of the field. The deck sometimes play out like a midrange deck but its best starts are those of a combo deck, combining “pitch” evoke creatures like Fury and Grief with either Undying Malice or Feign Death to get two enters the battlefield triggers from his evoke creatures and a giant threat…all on Turn 1.
Beardsley faced Calcano in the finals, who is a long time veteran of the Pro Tour circuit and made his first Top 8 at Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings with Mono-Green Tron. Tron is focused on assembly the three Urza lands—Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, and Urza’s Tower—as early as possible to make a ton of mana to play expensive, game-ending threats like Karn Liberated and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
The finals was a back and forth affair. In Game 1, Calcano was able to assemble Tron plus Karn, the Great Creator to take over the game. Beardsley roared back in Game 2 by playing Dauthi Voidwalker on Turn 2, then using Thoughtseize on Turn 3 to force Calcano to discard Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which was exiled by Beardsley’s Dauthi Voidwalker, allowing Beardsley to sacrifice the Voidwalker and cast Ulamog for the Turn 3 win.
Game 3 saw Calcano mulligan to five cards, while Beardsley started with a Turn 1 Fury plus Feign Death to begin attacking for eight damage a turn…which quickly overwhelmed Calcano’s much slower start.
That set up a decisive Game 4 in which Beardsley managed to play a Turn 2 Blood Moon thanks to a Treasure token off of a Turn 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer,, shutting off Calcano’s Tron lands. But Calcano fought his way back and stabilized at five life behind an Ensnaring Bridge. Beardsley had a potential six damage in his hand between Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger and Lightning Bolt—but he needed Calcano to either play out his last card to ensure Kroxa would deal three damage or for that card to be a land. On Calcano’s turn, he agonized as to weather to play out his last card—a Chromatic Star—and eventually chose to keep it in hand. Beardsley then played the Kroxa, Calcano discarded the Chromatic Star to take no damage, and then Calcano proceeded to win the game a force Game 5.
After such an intense Game 4, Game 5 turned out to be much shorter and far less stressful. Beardsley had a Turn 1 Grief plus Undying Malice to strip Calcano of any relevant plays, then proceeded to beat Calcano down to win the game, match, and Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings.
Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings Top 8 Modern Decks
Modern Rakdos Evoke by Jake Beardsley (1st Place)
Modern Mono-Green Tron by Christian Calcano (2nd Place)
Modern Amulet Titan by Dom Harvey (3rd-4th Place)
Modern Mono-Green Tron by Simon Nielsen (3rd-4th Place)
Modern Temur Rhinos by Kai Budde (5th-8th Place)
Modern Temur Rhinos by Marco Del Pivo (5th-8th)
Modern Mono-Green Tron by Javier Dominguez (5th-8th Place)
Modern Temur Rhinos by Stefano Vinci (5th-8th Place)
Source: Hipsters of the Coast
