Hey folks, I won a local RCQ playing Yorion Enigmatic Fires. Then I wrote almost 4,000 words about the deck and the day and I thought you might be curious to read them! Feel free to ask me any questions you like.
Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5521211#online
Deck Choice:
I don’t necessarily believe Enigmatic Fires is the best deck in the Pioneer format, but it is definitely the most fun deck for me to play. There are a lot of extremely powerful interactions in the deck and it does represent pretty much a free win for any deck that can’t remove enchantments, like Rakdos. The deck is almost entirely Explorer legal too (WoTC can we have Chained to the Rocks pls?) so I’ve had a lot of practice with the deck with easily over 300 matches online. That familiarity with the deck and its lines definitely paid off during the day, and I was able to find some pretty great winning moves that I probably wouldn’t have found without that experience.
Card Choices:
Okay, first off, that manabase will look very weird. I could write all day about the intricacies of the 5c Fires manabase, but suffice it to say that there’s a mix of “here’s the triomes and checklands I own / could borrow” and “actually some of these decisions might reflect specific choices I’ve made in deckbuilding.” The mana actually felt incredibly smooth though, there was only one game the entire tournament during which I had to make difficult choices regarding what I was able to cast due to mana constraints (and it was during the finals) which I would consider incredibly good for an 80 card, 5-colour deck in Pioneer.
When it comes to 1-of creatures, lists are fairly settled. My most notable decisions there are playing Gloomshrieker over Shigeki, Jukai Visionary (Gloomshrieker is the better tutor target) and playing Atraxa where some lists choose not to. I can’t believe I’m having to try and convince people to play Atraxa, but play Atraxa! She draws 3 cards and doesn’t afraid of anything.
For enchantments, I’m completely sold on Bitter Reunion as the card advantage spell of choice (over Omen of the Sea). The activated ability can be very relevant, especially to give Refliki of Kiki-Jiki hastiki to criki a tiki of aniki nonlegiki criki we contriki. There tends to be 3 spots left in the enchantments for some kind of removal spell, with popular choices including Oath of Chandra, Omen of the Forge, and Trial of Ambition. While I used to be a big fan of Trial, it does put considerable pressure on the manabase, so I decided to cut them. Omen can go upstairs, but 2 damage just isn’t enough in the format. I think Oath of Chandra is the best choice as 3 kills most early drops and doubling it with Elesh Norn or Yorion can kill most later game threats in the format. However, I didn’t own any Oath of Chandra in paper, and also wanted to respect Greasfang and Creativity, so I chose Touch the Spirit Realm which has a tonne of synergies with the deck as both an O-Ring and a Cloudshift (that can target your opponent’s creatures). However, I found I didn’t own 3 Touch the Spirit Realms, so I went for 2 and an Omen of the Sea. #justpaperthings
Rending Volleys and Radiant Flames are must-haves in the sideboard for me (WoTC can we pls have Radiant Flames in Arena?) for Spirits and Humans. Mystical Disputes are also very good against Spirits and are great for Control and Creativity too. Rest in Peace is a pretty good card for the meta generally, though if you’re not seeing much Greasefang then I don’t think they’re necessary (we have tools to beat other graveyard decks in the main, like Callous Bloodmage and a bunch of exile-based removal). I knew I would be seeing some Greasefang, so I wanted the RIPs. That just leaves a few slots for tutor targets. Koma is my choice for extra 7 drop in the side (over Dragonlord Atarka), Nimble Larcenist is great in any slower matchup. After getting to the venue, it seemed like there were a good number of Creativity and Lotus Field players, so I cut a Rending Volley for Reidane, God of the Worthy. In retrospect, I think I should have cut a Radiant Flames instead (early removal is so much more important in the aggressive matchups than Sweepers) but I was still happy with this meta call.
The decklist is heavily inspired by NJAMTG and the Enigmanifesto, and the sideboard guide as well as matchup tips therein was an incredibly useful resource for me and reduced the mental load of sideboarding massively (which is very useful for a deck that already has hundreds of interactions). I sent them $10 through PayPal for the help that this doc provided me.
The Day:
6 of us from the Patriot Games Sheffield massive traveled to Manchester to show them how Magic is played. Between us we represented Enigmatic Fires, Abzan Greasefang, MonoU Spirits, UW Spirits, Rakrifice Sacrifice, and Izzet Phoenix. I trusted all of these players to do well, and that definitely influenced my decision to run this deck in the first place (over what I would have otherwise played, MonoG Devotion) and also influenced my decision to run Touch the Spirit Realm. Having such a large group was amazing for morale and having people to chat with and decompress with between rounds, as well as having a very good understanding of what decks were being played in the room after only a couple of rounds.
It became very clear very quickly that the meta was aggressive. There were a lot of Spirits players, Control was almost nowhere to be seen, Mono Green was underrepresented, and even Rakdos Mid wasn’t making much of a showing with RakSac being more popular.
This did not bode well for me. There’s a reason our sideboard has 10 cards for MonoU Spirits and it’s not because we’re trying to make a good matchup better. Registering 5c Enigmatic Fires, I’d already decided I was happy to lose some games and just have a fun time, doing my best to cheer on the rest of my team, and seeing a bunch of Spirits players did nothing to raise my ambitions higher than that.
The Matches:
Round 1 - Sam on MonoU Spirits
Sam was one of the Sheffielders I’d brought in the car and is a good Spirits player, so I was very much prepared to lose Game 1 and have to battle it out in the sideboard games, still expecting to lose.
In Game 1, after managing to resolve a Fires by forcing a counterspell on a Chained to the Rocks and then using a Treasure from Fable of the Mirror Breaker to cast the Fires, I was fortunate enough to draw my Kenrith and Knight of Autumn, allowing me to cast Kenrith, cast Knight gaining 4, use Kenrith to give Refliki haste, copy Knight for another 4, then use Kenrith’s ability to gain 5. Gaining 13 life a turn is a great way to stem the bleeding, allowing me to quickly stabilize and crack back for the win.
In Game 2, I was able to land a Fires and Enigmatic on Turn 4 after playing a bunch of removal early, picking up Tolsimir which cleaned up the board pretty quick with Yorion to double the trigger.
Result: A very surprising 2-0
Round 2 - Charlie on MonoU Spirits
High off a victory on an unfavoured matchup, seeing a Snow-Covered Island was simultaneously horrifying and exciting. Maybe I’d learned how to crack the matchup? Maybe I’d ran hot and was about to have my dreams crushed.
I can’t entirely remember what happened in the match, but I can see on my lifepad that my life total went from 4 > 8 > 12 > 16, so I’m assuming I managed to make some copies of Knight of Autumn again.
Game 2 the Spirits trounced me.
Game 3 my opponent mulliganed down to 5, had their Spirits removed, cast a couple of counters, but then only drew lands, leaving me to beat down with Yorion and a 4/3 Knight of Autumn. So Magic goes sometimes.
Result: A continually surprising 2-1. I’m 2-0 in matches.
Round 3 - Alfie on MonoB Zombies
Enigmatic Fires is generally very happy to see a deck that has no way of removing enchantments outside of discard spells, and this was no different. I was slightly surprised to see this relatively budget brew in the 2-0 bracket. Alfie said he’d so far beaten Greasefang and a BW Midrange deck, both of which surprised me. He finished the day 4-2 though so clearly there’s something cooking here.
Anyway, if there’s one thing a Zombie hates, it’s being exiled, and we did a lot of that to win 2-0 very safely.
Result: 2-0, I’m 3-0 in matches.
Round 4 - Andy on Izzet Creativity
Andy is a lovely man that I’ve seen at almost every RCQ I played in this season, and we’ve been paired together a couple times too. While I ultimately lost the match, I was not sad to lose to him at all as he’s a strong and friendly player, which truly is the best combo in Magic.
A slightly less good combo is Izzet Creativity, which I should have known he was on. While shuffling, he accidentally dropped a Stormcarved Coast, and I knew he knew better than to play Izzet Phoenix in Sheoldred’s Meta. In this matchup, the only card that matters in our deck is Leyline Binding (and Touch the Spirit Realm too) to break up the combo at Instant speed. I should have mulliganed aggressively for that in G1, but I chose to just keep a pretty decent hand as though I was blindly queuing into him. He combo’d off on Turn 5 like the deck wants to do and I felt very silly for my decisions.
In Game 2 I was able to land a Koma onto the battlefield, which shuts off his combo and is extremely difficult to remove, so I won.
In Game 3, he did manage to combo off but I got to channel the Touch the Spirit Realm to avoid taking damage, giving me an extra turn to find an answer. After a lot of deliberation on a Fable discard/draw trigger, the best I could get to stick was a Deputy of Detention on the Wurm, he revealed Fire Prophecy in his hand and I shook it (the hand, not the Prophecy).
Result: A sore 1-2, I’m 3-1 in matches.
Round 5 - Ray on MonoU Spirits
As we sat down, my opponent said to their friend “I really hope this guy’s not on Spirits”. My opening hand had 2 Chained to the Rocks, 2 Leyline Bindings, and the lands to cast those spells. I prayed that my opponent wasn’t on Control or Lotus Field and hoped for the best.
Then I proceeded to remove every threat they played and make an Atraxa on Turn 4.
I don’t remember Game 2 very clearly, but the lifepad shows that it went similarly.
After the games, my opponent said they absolutely hated playing against my deck and they always lose to it. I wonder if Spirits players are misunderstanding this matchup? Because it feels absolutely awful on my end, and yet I’ve now beaten it 3 times.
Result: I’m not sure whether or not it’s still surprising, but 2-0 to put me on 4-1 in matches.
At this point, the ID maths starts. After a lot of inevitably pointless discussion, as we sit down it becomes clear that the Top 6 can ID and lock themselves in, but that Tables 4 and 5 would have to fight for it.
Round 6 - Ben on Izzet Phoenix
Upsettingly for both of us, we’re on Table 4. Ben is another of the Sheffield massive, and is playing my Phoenix deck which he has borrowed from me. Ben first played this deck last week at WNM and has gone on an insane 4-1 streak playing one of the most complex (and not very well-positioned) decks in the format. Man’s just good at Magic and loves drawing 3 cards.
We have a little chat and Ben tells me he’s leaning towards conceding to me because he feels I have a better chance at going on to win the tournament and, being his first RCQ in years, he’s not in a great position to start gearing up for an RC in a format he’s barely played.
We decide to start playing our games anyway though and see how things go before we make any further decisions. I land an early Atraxa, which he is able to remove with a Galvanic Iteration and a Lightning Axe, but his draws haven’t been very kind and he has to Temporal Trespass with only a 2/4 Ledger Shredder on the board. I remove it and win.
We realise that if I win, I’ll be the top seed, giving me the ability to start on the play every round of the Top 8. That information pushes Ben to concede the match and save us both the bother of sideboarding.
Result: I’m 5-1 and locked as Top Seed of the Top 8. Out of the 6 of us from Sheffield, we’ve put 3 into the Top 8. That’s in a 50-player tournament. Sheffield showing the North how it’s done.
Out of the three of us, Ian isn’t interested in the invite to Athens because he’s at an Arctic Monkeys concert that night and Sheffield does revoke your citizenship if you decline to go to an Arctic Monkeys concert for any non-life-or-death reason. He is, however, interested in the £250 that goes to first place. The three of us agree to split all of our prizes evenly no matter what happens to give us the best chances of getting what we each want.
Top 8
Quarterfinals - Lewis on Abzan Greasefang
Unfortunately, Lewis is one of the 3 from Sheffield we’ve put into the Top 8 and isn’t Ian, so is looking for the invite too. Unfortunately for me, Greasefang is a pretty difficult matchup also.
At this point, we’ve mapped out the Top 8 and know these are the decks involved:
Enigmatic Fires Abzan Greasefang
RakSac x2
Creativity x2
UW Control
Humans
It’s not clear which of us would be better into the rest of the field, so there’s no clear concession decision. We also both want the invite, so we wouldn’t feel good choosing to pass it up when there’s no guarantee the other person will get it.
In Game 1, Lewis manages to assemble his combo on Turn 4, but I have a Leyline Binding to stop it. He plays another Greasefang on Turn 5, and after a while I remember the Legend Rule, playing Yorion to flicker my own Leyline Binding, making him sacrifice one Greasefang and I exile the other. That’s enough of a hit to his plan that I run away with the rest of the game.
In Game 2, I’m able to stick an Elesh Norn but he assembles the combo and hits me down to 2. I use Enigmatic to get Tolsimir and wipe his board, except for the angels, and gain 12 life. The Angels continue to hit me down to 6 and I’m left with the difficult decision between either cycling a Triome to dig for a 2cmc enchantment that I can Enigmatic into an exile effect for the angels, or casting Yorion and blocking one angel to go down to 2, dead to a Witherbloom Command. I opt for the Yorion line, he has Witherbloom, we go to Game 3.
In Game 3, I keep a 2 lander with Enigmatic and Fires and a Bitter Renunion to find the other lands I need or hate for the Greasefang. I get T1 Thoughtseized and he takes the Reunion which is controversial but I think correct. I manage to just draw the lands that I need and land a Fires plus Enigmatic, getting an Elesh Norn and later a Tolsimir, while his Salvage only finds a Skysovereign which I just take the hit of and I snowball away with the game.
Sucks to knock out a friend, but we played some really fun and interesting games.
Semifinals - Ian on RakSac
With our prize split already agreed, for Ian and I the main decision is who we think has the best chance to win the tournament. The other semifinal match is RakSac vs Humans, which we’d expect RakSac to win. If that’s the case, I’m better off going into the finals as RakSac cannot remove Enchantments so it’s generally a good matchup, especially compared to the mirror which is inherently a bit more of a coinflip. Ian had already played and beaten that same opponent in the Swiss though and felt like he understood the mirror better than his opponent did, so it wasn’t completely cut and dry.
We started to play out our match. On Turn 3, Ian discards a Mayhem Devil to a Blood token, which initially I see as quite a positive for me. Of course I should have realised what that telegraphs, which is that he had 3 more in his hand. 3 Mayhem Devils is very strong as it turns out, and even though I manage to remove two with Skyclave Apparition and Tolsimir, by this point the damage is already done and I lose.
I’m not necessarily deterred though. I’ve played XCom. It’s very possible to miss a 90% shot and it’s very easy to lose a 90-10 matchup, doesn’t mean you’re any less favoured.
By the time we finish sideboarding, the other semifinals match has finished with Rakdos Sacrifice predictably coming out on top. Ian extends his hand and tells me to go get ‘em (after his best efforts to knock my confidence on the matchup).
Finals - Jeremy on Rakdos Sacrifice
I’m not entirely sure, but I think this might have been Jeremy’s first time in an RCQ Top 8. He’d had a very strong run; meanwhile this is the first time in 4 rounds that I hadn’t played against a friend. Even though I played out some of those games and this likely would have been the outcome, I do feel like a bit of a Nepo Baby coming into the match.
We take a quick snack break and I eat some of the best mango I’ve ever consumed. Tesco Meal Deal really coming in clutch there. Ian gives me a bit of advice on his perspective on the RakSac matchup, saying “When you have a Yorion turn, you win.”
In Game 1, I Chained to the Rocks a Bloodtithe Harvester, Leyline Binding a Mayhem Devil, then drop an Enigmatic, make an Atraxa, which finds another Binding to rebind the Devil. He hardcasts Eaten Alive to remove Atraxa, and next turn I play Yorion, he scoops. Ian pats me on the back.
In Game 2 I suffer the only manabase difficulty of the day. My 7 has only 2 lands and a lot of one-of creatures instead of impactful spells. My 6 has 2 lands, Chained to the Rocks, Rest in Peace, Radiant Flames, and a Bitter Reunion, but no white mana. I figure the Bitter Reunion will do enough to fix the mana, but he Thoughtseizes it away from me and follows up with a Bloodtithe Harvester. I play out my lands and he casts Go Blank on me. I discard a land and the Chained to the Rocks (a mistake, Rest in Peace should have gone over one of those cards), and I’m immediately punished by drawing Nylea’s Presence which could have cast the Chained. I have to Radiant Flames to stop the Bloodtithe Harvester from beating me down, but at this point he’s got the lands to animate Den of the Bugbear and there’s nothing I can do about it. We go to Game 3 and things get tense.
By Game 3, fatigue is definitely setting in, possibly also nerves. I start to think that Chained to the Rocks has the mana value restriction of Portable Hole (crossed wires from playing Arena, where we have to play Portable Hole instead of Chained, WoTC pls) and almost Chained to the Rocks an Unlucky Witness instead of Mayhem Devil. Fortunately, my opponent asks me what the Chained is targeting and that prompts me to remember that it can target the Devil.
I Chained 2 Devils and each time he sacrificed them to the Oven, but this allows me to cast Yorion and bounce my Chains to pick up new targets. Yorion is also bouncing a Nyleas’s Presence and a Bitter Reunion, so gets me a lot of value. I Glasspool Mimic my Yorion for another round of triggers, keeping the old Yorion and using the new Yorion’s trigger to flicker it, giving me a third round of triggers also. However, despite drawing 12 cards, I can’t find an Enigmatic or another creature to save my life and he’s able to whittle me down with a Hive of the Eye Tyrant and a Ramunap Ruins until I’m at 4. I manage to drop a Callous Bloodmage and make a Pest as a blocker and hopefully a source of life, while continually holding up a Leyline Binding in case he finds Bloody Betrayal for Yorion. 4 per turn from Yorion is enough to eventually get him down, and I close out the match with an attack all for 7 (Yorion, Callous Bloodmage, and 2 Pests from Touch the Spirit Realming the Bloodmage) when he’s at 6.
Fantastic games all around.
Closing Thoughts:
During the car journey back we discussed how this was a very strange meta for the tournament. MonoU Spirits was the most popular deck and that probably reflects its low cost. The store owner was very pleased to see 51 people turn up for an event, and that’s largely due to how accessible Pioneer is as a format. This had two huge effects for me. Firstly, the Spirits players that I played against had a lot less experience in the matchup than I had. That’s the benefit of playing an off-meta deck into a bunch of meta decks. Through experience and my opponents’ inexperience, I was able to find lines that flipped an unfavourable matchup 3 times in the same day. Secondly, the Spirits players were very weak to the Rakdos Sacrifice players, allowing them to get into the Top 8 where I could prey on them, efficiently rock-paper-scissoring the win into my hands.
While I played pretty tightly all day, and this was my third Top 8 of the season so I’d somewhat proven my ability to get there, there was also a lol of luck involved in my win as there is with any Magic tournament.
Having a team of 6 people was also an insane boon. I’ve worked hard to help build this community of competitive Magic players in Sheffield and even just having friends around for morale and (OUTSIDE OF MATCHES) advice is an incredible help. I’m sure there’s some conflicting opinions about how fair the team advantage is, but I think it’s only fitting that in Magic: the Gathering, working alongside people to improve as a player is a valid path to victory.

Hey folks, I won a local RCQ playing Yorion Enigmatic Fires. Then I wrote almost 4,000 words about the deck and the day and I thought you might be curious to read them! Feel free to ask me any questions you like.
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Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5521211#online
Deck Choice:
I don’t necessarily believe Enigmatic Fires is the best deck in the Pioneer format, but it is definitely the most fun deck for me to play. There are a lot of extremely powerful interactions in the deck and it does represent pretty much a free win for any deck that can’t remove enchantments, like Rakdos. The deck is almost entirely Explorer legal too (WoTC can we have Chained to the Rocks pls?) so I’ve had a lot of practice with the deck with easily over 300 matches online. That familiarity with the deck and its lines definitely paid off during the day, and I was able to find some pretty great winning moves that I probably wouldn’t have found without that experience.
Card Choices:
Okay, first off, that manabase will look very weird. I could write all day about the intricacies of the 5c Fires manabase, but suffice it to say that there’s a mix of “here’s the triomes and checklands I own / could borrow” and “actually some of these decisions might reflect specific choices I’ve made in deckbuilding.” The mana actually felt incredibly smooth though, there was only one game the entire tournament during which I had to make difficult choices regarding what I was able to cast due to mana constraints (and it was during the finals) which I would consider incredibly good for an 80 card, 5-colour deck in Pioneer.
When it comes to 1-of creatures, lists are fairly settled. My most notable decisions there are playing Gloomshrieker over Shigeki, Jukai Visionary (Gloomshrieker is the better tutor target) and playing Atraxa where some lists choose not to. I can’t believe I’m having to try and convince people to play Atraxa, but play Atraxa! She draws 3 cards and doesn’t afraid of anything.
For enchantments, I’m completely sold on Bitter Reunion as the card advantage spell of choice (over Omen of the Sea). The activated ability can be very relevant, especially to give Refliki of Kiki-Jiki hastiki to criki a tiki of aniki nonlegiki criki we contriki. There tends to be 3 spots left in the enchantments for some kind of removal spell, with popular choices including Oath of Chandra, Omen of the Forge, and Trial of Ambition. While I used to be a big fan of Trial, it does put considerable pressure on the manabase, so I decided to cut them. Omen can go upstairs, but 2 damage just isn’t enough in the format. I think Oath of Chandra is the best choice as 3 kills most early drops and doubling it with Elesh Norn or Yorion can kill most later game threats in the format. However, I didn’t own any Oath of Chandra in paper, and also wanted to respect Greasfang and Creativity, so I chose Touch the Spirit Realm which has a tonne of synergies with the deck as both an O-Ring and a Cloudshift (that can target your opponent’s creatures). However, I found I didn’t own 3 Touch the Spirit Realms, so I went for 2 and an Omen of the Sea. #justpaperthings
Rending Volleys and Radiant Flames are must-haves in the sideboard for me (WoTC can we pls have Radiant Flames in Arena?) for Spirits and Humans. Mystical Disputes are also very good against Spirits and are great for Control and Creativity too. Rest in Peace is a pretty good card for the meta generally, though if you’re not seeing much Greasefang then I don’t think they’re necessary (we have tools to beat other graveyard decks in the main, like Callous Bloodmage and a bunch of exile-based removal). I knew I would be seeing some Greasefang, so I wanted the RIPs. That just leaves a few slots for tutor targets. Koma is my choice for extra 7 drop in the side (over Dragonlord Atarka), Nimble Larcenist is great in any slower matchup. After getting to the venue, it seemed like there were a good number of Creativity and Lotus Field players, so I cut a Rending Volley for Reidane, God of the Worthy. In retrospect, I think I should have cut a Radiant Flames instead (early removal is so much more important in the aggressive matchups than Sweepers) but I was still happy with this meta call.
The decklist is heavily inspired by NJAMTG and the Enigmanifesto, and the sideboard guide as well as matchup tips therein was an incredibly useful resource for me and reduced the mental load of sideboarding massively (which is very useful for a deck that already has hundreds of interactions). I sent them $10 through PayPal for the help that this doc provided me.
The Day:
6 of us from the Patriot Games Sheffield massive traveled to Manchester to show them how Magic is played. Between us we represented Enigmatic Fires, Abzan Greasefang, MonoU Spirits, UW Spirits, Rakrifice Sacrifice, and Izzet Phoenix. I trusted all of these players to do well, and that definitely influenced my decision to run this deck in the first place (over what I would have otherwise played, MonoG Devotion) and also influenced my decision to run Touch the Spirit Realm. Having such a large group was amazing for morale and having people to chat with and decompress with between rounds, as well as having a very good understanding of what decks were being played in the room after only a couple of rounds.
It became very clear very quickly that the meta was aggressive. There were a lot of Spirits players, Control was almost nowhere to be seen, Mono Green was underrepresented, and even Rakdos Mid wasn’t making much of a showing with RakSac being more popular.
This did not bode well for me. There’s a reason our sideboard has 10 cards for MonoU Spirits and it’s not because we’re trying to make a good matchup better. Registering 5c Enigmatic Fires, I’d already decided I was happy to lose some games and just have a fun time, doing my best to cheer on the rest of my team, and seeing a bunch of Spirits players did nothing to raise my ambitions higher than that.
The Matches:
Round 1 - Sam on MonoU Spirits
Sam was one of the Sheffielders I’d brought in the car and is a good Spirits player, so I was very much prepared to lose Game 1 and have to battle it out in the sideboard games, still expecting to lose.
In Game 1, after managing to resolve a Fires by forcing a counterspell on a Chained to the Rocks and then using a Treasure from Fable of the Mirror Breaker to cast the Fires, I was fortunate enough to draw my Kenrith and Knight of Autumn, allowing me to cast Kenrith, cast Knight gaining 4, use Kenrith to give Refliki haste, copy Knight for another 4, then use Kenrith’s ability to gain 5. Gaining 13 life a turn is a great way to stem the bleeding, allowing me to quickly stabilize and crack back for the win.
In Game 2, I was able to land a Fires and Enigmatic on Turn 4 after playing a bunch of removal early, picking up Tolsimir which cleaned up the board pretty quick with Yorion to double the trigger.
Result: A very surprising 2-0
Round 2 - Charlie on MonoU Spirits
High off a victory on an unfavoured matchup, seeing a Snow-Covered Island was simultaneously horrifying and exciting. Maybe I’d learned how to crack the matchup? Maybe I’d ran hot and was about to have my dreams crushed.
I can’t entirely remember what happened in the match, but I can see on my lifepad that my life total went from 4 > 8 > 12 > 16, so I’m assuming I managed to make some copies of Knight of Autumn again.
Game 2 the Spirits trounced me.
Game 3 my opponent mulliganed down to 5, had their Spirits removed, cast a couple of counters, but then only drew lands, leaving me to beat down with Yorion and a 4/3 Knight of Autumn. So Magic goes sometimes.
Result: A continually surprising 2-1. I’m 2-0 in matches.
Round 3 - Alfie on MonoB Zombies
Enigmatic Fires is generally very happy to see a deck that has no way of removing enchantments outside of discard spells, and this was no different. I was slightly surprised to see this relatively budget brew in the 2-0 bracket. Alfie said he’d so far beaten Greasefang and a BW Midrange deck, both of which surprised me. He finished the day 4-2 though so clearly there’s something cooking here.
Anyway, if there’s one thing a Zombie hates, it’s being exiled, and we did a lot of that to win 2-0 very safely.
Result: 2-0, I’m 3-0 in matches.
Round 4 - Andy on Izzet Creativity
Andy is a lovely man that I’ve seen at almost every RCQ I played in this season, and we’ve been paired together a couple times too. While I ultimately lost the match, I was not sad to lose to him at all as he’s a strong and friendly player, which truly is the best combo in Magic.
A slightly less good combo is Izzet Creativity, which I should have known he was on. While shuffling, he accidentally dropped a Stormcarved Coast, and I knew he knew better than to play Izzet Phoenix in Sheoldred’s Meta. In this matchup, the only card that matters in our deck is Leyline Binding (and Touch the Spirit Realm too) to break up the combo at Instant speed. I should have mulliganed aggressively for that in G1, but I chose to just keep a pretty decent hand as though I was blindly queuing into him. He combo’d off on Turn 5 like the deck wants to do and I felt very silly for my decisions.
In Game 2 I was able to land a Koma onto the battlefield, which shuts off his combo and is extremely difficult to remove, so I won.
In Game 3, he did manage to combo off but I got to channel the Touch the Spirit Realm to avoid taking damage, giving me an extra turn to find an answer. After a lot of deliberation on a Fable discard/draw trigger, the best I could get to stick was a Deputy of Detention on the Wurm, he revealed Fire Prophecy in his hand and I shook it (the hand, not the Prophecy).
Result: A sore 1-2, I’m 3-1 in matches.
Round 5 - Ray on MonoU Spirits
As we sat down, my opponent said to their friend “I really hope this guy’s not on Spirits”. My opening hand had 2 Chained to the Rocks, 2 Leyline Bindings, and the lands to cast those spells. I prayed that my opponent wasn’t on Control or Lotus Field and hoped for the best.
Then I proceeded to remove every threat they played and make an Atraxa on Turn 4.
I don’t remember Game 2 very clearly, but the lifepad shows that it went similarly.
After the games, my opponent said they absolutely hated playing against my deck and they always lose to it. I wonder if Spirits players are misunderstanding this matchup? Because it feels absolutely awful on my end, and yet I’ve now beaten it 3 times.
Result: I’m not sure whether or not it’s still surprising, but 2-0 to put me on 4-1 in matches.
At this point, the ID maths starts. After a lot of inevitably pointless discussion, as we sit down it becomes clear that the Top 6 can ID and lock themselves in, but that Tables 4 and 5 would have to fight for it.
Round 6 - Ben on Izzet Phoenix
Upsettingly for both of us, we’re on Table 4. Ben is another of the Sheffield massive, and is playing my Phoenix deck which he has borrowed from me. Ben first played this deck last week at WNM and has gone on an insane 4-1 streak playing one of the most complex (and not very well-positioned) decks in the format. Man’s just good at Magic and loves drawing 3 cards.
We have a little chat and Ben tells me he’s leaning towards conceding to me because he feels I have a better chance at going on to win the tournament and, being his first RCQ in years, he’s not in a great position to start gearing up for an RC in a format he’s barely played.
We decide to start playing our games anyway though and see how things go before we make any further decisions. I land an early Atraxa, which he is able to remove with a Galvanic Iteration and a Lightning Axe, but his draws haven’t been very kind and he has to Temporal Trespass with only a 2/4 Ledger Shredder on the board. I remove it and win.
We realise that if I win, I’ll be the top seed, giving me the ability to start on the play every round of the Top 8. That information pushes Ben to concede the match and save us both the bother of sideboarding.
Result: I’m 5-1 and locked as Top Seed of the Top 8. Out of the 6 of us from Sheffield, we’ve put 3 into the Top 8. That’s in a 50-player tournament. Sheffield showing the North how it’s done.
Out of the three of us, Ian isn’t interested in the invite to Athens because he’s at an Arctic Monkeys concert that night and Sheffield does revoke your citizenship if you decline to go to an Arctic Monkeys concert for any non-life-or-death reason. He is, however, interested in the £250 that goes to first place. The three of us agree to split all of our prizes evenly no matter what happens to give us the best chances of getting what we each want.
Top 8
Quarterfinals - Lewis on Abzan Greasefang
Unfortunately, Lewis is one of the 3 from Sheffield we’ve put into the Top 8 and isn’t Ian, so is looking for the invite too. Unfortunately for me, Greasefang is a pretty difficult matchup also.
At this point, we’ve mapped out the Top 8 and know these are the decks involved:
Enigmatic Fires Abzan Greasefang
RakSac x2
Creativity x2
UW Control
Humans
It’s not clear which of us would be better into the rest of the field, so there’s no clear concession decision. We also both want the invite, so we wouldn’t feel good choosing to pass it up when there’s no guarantee the other person will get it.
In Game 1, Lewis manages to assemble his combo on Turn 4, but I have a Leyline Binding to stop it. He plays another Greasefang on Turn 5, and after a while I remember the Legend Rule, playing Yorion to flicker my own Leyline Binding, making him sacrifice one Greasefang and I exile the other. That’s enough of a hit to his plan that I run away with the rest of the game.
In Game 2, I’m able to stick an Elesh Norn but he assembles the combo and hits me down to 2. I use Enigmatic to get Tolsimir and wipe his board, except for the angels, and gain 12 life. The Angels continue to hit me down to 6 and I’m left with the difficult decision between either cycling a Triome to dig for a 2cmc enchantment that I can Enigmatic into an exile effect for the angels, or casting Yorion and blocking one angel to go down to 2, dead to a Witherbloom Command. I opt for the Yorion line, he has Witherbloom, we go to Game 3.
In Game 3, I keep a 2 lander with Enigmatic and Fires and a Bitter Renunion to find the other lands I need or hate for the Greasefang. I get T1 Thoughtseized and he takes the Reunion which is controversial but I think correct. I manage to just draw the lands that I need and land a Fires plus Enigmatic, getting an Elesh Norn and later a Tolsimir, while his Salvage only finds a Skysovereign which I just take the hit of and I snowball away with the game.
Sucks to knock out a friend, but we played some really fun and interesting games.
Semifinals - Ian on RakSac
With our prize split already agreed, for Ian and I the main decision is who we think has the best chance to win the tournament. The other semifinal match is RakSac vs Humans, which we’d expect RakSac to win. If that’s the case, I’m better off going into the finals as RakSac cannot remove Enchantments so it’s generally a good matchup, especially compared to the mirror which is inherently a bit more of a coinflip. Ian had already played and beaten that same opponent in the Swiss though and felt like he understood the mirror better than his opponent did, so it wasn’t completely cut and dry.
We started to play out our match. On Turn 3, Ian discards a Mayhem Devil to a Blood token, which initially I see as quite a positive for me. Of course I should have realised what that telegraphs, which is that he had 3 more in his hand. 3 Mayhem Devils is very strong as it turns out, and even though I manage to remove two with Skyclave Apparition and Tolsimir, by this point the damage is already done and I lose.
I’m not necessarily deterred though. I’ve played XCom. It’s very possible to miss a 90% shot and it’s very easy to lose a 90-10 matchup, doesn’t mean you’re any less favoured.
By the time we finish sideboarding, the other semifinals match has finished with Rakdos Sacrifice predictably coming out on top. Ian extends his hand and tells me to go get ‘em (after his best efforts to knock my confidence on the matchup).
Finals - Jeremy on Rakdos Sacrifice
I’m not entirely sure, but I think this might have been Jeremy’s first time in an RCQ Top 8. He’d had a very strong run; meanwhile this is the first time in 4 rounds that I hadn’t played against a friend. Even though I played out some of those games and this likely would have been the outcome, I do feel like a bit of a Nepo Baby coming into the match.
We take a quick snack break and I eat some of the best mango I’ve ever consumed. Tesco Meal Deal really coming in clutch there. Ian gives me a bit of advice on his perspective on the RakSac matchup, saying “When you have a Yorion turn, you win.”
In Game 1, I Chained to the Rocks a Bloodtithe Harvester, Leyline Binding a Mayhem Devil, then drop an Enigmatic, make an Atraxa, which finds another Binding to rebind the Devil. He hardcasts Eaten Alive to remove Atraxa, and next turn I play Yorion, he scoops. Ian pats me on the back.
In Game 2 I suffer the only manabase difficulty of the day. My 7 has only 2 lands and a lot of one-of creatures instead of impactful spells. My 6 has 2 lands, Chained to the Rocks, Rest in Peace, Radiant Flames, and a Bitter Reunion, but no white mana. I figure the Bitter Reunion will do enough to fix the mana, but he Thoughtseizes it away from me and follows up with a Bloodtithe Harvester. I play out my lands and he casts Go Blank on me. I discard a land and the Chained to the Rocks (a mistake, Rest in Peace should have gone over one of those cards), and I’m immediately punished by drawing Nylea’s Presence which could have cast the Chained. I have to Radiant Flames to stop the Bloodtithe Harvester from beating me down, but at this point he’s got the lands to animate Den of the Bugbear and there’s nothing I can do about it. We go to Game 3 and things get tense.
By Game 3, fatigue is definitely setting in, possibly also nerves. I start to think that Chained to the Rocks has the mana value restriction of Portable Hole (crossed wires from playing Arena, where we have to play Portable Hole instead of Chained, WoTC pls) and almost Chained to the Rocks an Unlucky Witness instead of Mayhem Devil. Fortunately, my opponent asks me what the Chained is targeting and that prompts me to remember that it can target the Devil.
I Chained 2 Devils and each time he sacrificed them to the Oven, but this allows me to cast Yorion and bounce my Chains to pick up new targets. Yorion is also bouncing a Nyleas’s Presence and a Bitter Reunion, so gets me a lot of value. I Glasspool Mimic my Yorion for another round of triggers, keeping the old Yorion and using the new Yorion’s trigger to flicker it, giving me a third round of triggers also. However, despite drawing 12 cards, I can’t find an Enigmatic or another creature to save my life and he’s able to whittle me down with a Hive of the Eye Tyrant and a Ramunap Ruins until I’m at 4. I manage to drop a Callous Bloodmage and make a Pest as a blocker and hopefully a source of life, while continually holding up a Leyline Binding in case he finds Bloody Betrayal for Yorion. 4 per turn from Yorion is enough to eventually get him down, and I close out the match with an attack all for 7 (Yorion, Callous Bloodmage, and 2 Pests from Touch the Spirit Realming the Bloodmage) when he’s at 6.
Fantastic games all around.
Closing Thoughts:
During the car journey back we discussed how this was a very strange meta for the tournament. MonoU Spirits was the most popular deck and that probably reflects its low cost. The store owner was very pleased to see 51 people turn up for an event, and that’s largely due to how accessible Pioneer is as a format. This had two huge effects for me. Firstly, the Spirits players that I played against had a lot less experience in the matchup than I had. That’s the benefit of playing an off-meta deck into a bunch of meta decks. Through experience and my opponents’ inexperience, I was able to find lines that flipped an unfavourable matchup 3 times in the same day. Secondly, the Spirits players were very weak to the Rakdos Sacrifice players, allowing them to get into the Top 8 where I could prey on them, efficiently rock-paper-scissoring the win into my hands.
While I played pretty tightly all day, and this was my third Top 8 of the season so I’d somewhat proven my ability to get there, there was also a lol of luck involved in my win as there is with any Magic tournament.
Having a team of 6 people was also an insane boon. I’ve worked hard to help build this community of competitive Magic players in Sheffield and even just having friends around for morale and (OUTSIDE OF MATCHES) advice is an incredible help. I’m sure there’s some conflicting opinions about how fair the team advantage is, but I think it’s only fitting that in Magic: the Gathering, working alongside people to improve as a player is a valid path to victory.

The texture looks and nose look like this. The color is also the same along with the leg shape. The eyes are the same too.
It has similar ear length to this.
The bottom of the paws are like this one.
The tail, ears, and paw bottoms are all the same color. There is no mouth.
My late grandmother got me this beanbag stuffed dog when I was a little girl from a craft store like 20 years ago. It got lost in multiple moves and I desperately miss it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey guy's so like a month ago I got hacked, and after I saw that recently a lot of youtubers, including Linus Tech Tips got hacked too I said maybe I should raise it here as we have big chunk of money stored on our computer.
TL;DR- don't use "Remember me on this device", especially now when you can just scan a QR code, and don't download shit on the internet. Anti virus is your help, not your shining knight.
It went like that- One day I sit in my office, and see that my small YouTube channel got comments from random people internationally, and when I logged in I saw I apparently host live streams of free cheats for different games.
I changed my password and logged out all devices, but it was so weird to me that no 2FA was triggered. I got scared and thought changing the password was enough.
Then I'm at work (Where steam is blocked, so I couldn't access it from my PC xD) I see that my x case was sold at the steam market. After 2-3 cases I thought oh maybe I listed cases after I got them in game, but then I saw more and more and understood that I'm f ed. Basically they sold lots of different stuff, some cheap holos (3-5$) and souvenir cases, Dreams cases and some 1-5$ skins I had, but I was on it so I changed my password and it stopped quickly.
Their way was to sell those items quickly, just for 1-2$ even if they're worth 5x that, then they bought some shitty trading cards that go for 0.1$ at 5$ and this is how they transferred the money to their account. Luckily I managed to stop them after losing only like 20-25$, and they couldn't touch the expensive stuff as they don't have access to my phone- but that was my concern, how can they sell stuff and do all of that without access to my phone?
That's where the hack comes in place- couple of days before that I downloaded some files for my video editing hobby, and apparently one of them was infected. When you download and execute the file on your PC the bad actor has an "invisible browser" running on your PC, and it uses your cookies- every site where you click "Remember me on this device and skip 2FA authentication". This way he just has access to your web browser and he logs in automatically to your google account, steam, amazon etc.
That's why I didn't receive any message from steam or google regarding 2FA, and I guess the items he sold were ones that didn't require steam confirmation for some reason. They did all of it fast, in 5-10m I sold 150 items and send them already like 10-15$. When they tried to hack my amazon account they spammed me with emails - I got subscribed to maybe 100-200 different sites mailing list, this way probably they thought I will be flooded with notifications and won't see the mails that are important, Amazon, steam etc.
The downloaded files aren't scanned by anti-virus because they will be huge - 700 MB for example. This malware is called YTStealer or RedStealer, and it's using your cookies.
Luckily for me the hacker was stupid and although he knew my time zone he still acted on the same time each day...He could've just done it at night and I would've been fucked.

So, How do I stay safe?

1. Assume you gonna get hacked- don't use "Remember me on this device" or "Skip 2FA on this device". Better to spend 1-2 more minutes each time then to face this shit.
2. DONT DOWNLOAD SHIT ON THE INTERNET, the bad actors will target youtubers and gamers- so you can find the malicious files in pirated content and games, Video editing stuff- softwares, effects, content packs etc, mails with fake contracts and PDF files which will be huge and might come from legit addresses too! (PDF file shouldn't be 1GB in size)
3. Run Windows deep scans every once in a while, all of them.
4. Use storage units- Whatever you don't need to use- leave it inside a storage unit. They can't touch what's there because they will need to run the game for that and you will get notification for them trying to enter.
5. Use strong passwords, example for that would be: "[email protected]?!etFo7um" . use 15+ characters, different symbols signs and words, not your pet and mom's name.

I work in the cyber security field and still got hacked, so don't think that it won't happen to you :)
Feel free to contact me with any question.

Hi, I accepted an opportunity to work at the ICU. I'm excited because med Surg has been burning me out recently and id love to do something a bit different. My coworkers have been telling me that I'd be miserable, even with a smaller patient assignment. I totally understand the patients are more acute and I have to be more zoned in on everything.
I feel like I will enjoy the ICU given that Im more of an analytical type and love to read up on a lot of nursing and clinical stuff about med side effects uses, etc. I also refresh myself on ACLS every month, go through the steps of RRT scenarios in my head time to time... I've managed a couple RRTs, but never coded a patient so I'm thinking I'll definitely encounter a moment in the ICU sooner or later.
I know everything is intense in the ICU,, but I hate medsurg to be honest. I'm just tired of all the non-medical stuff with my patients like, being assaulted (verbally and physically), patients just doing whatever they please, bed alarms going off 24/7... I know ICU is hard too, but I just want to stop feeling like I'm just watering plants for the patients thinking I'm making a difference and actually help more acute patients.
I'm not a great nurse by any means, but I feel like I have adequately figured out how to manage my time on shift and prioritize, and also point out things that are going wrong with my patients instead of pushing things under the rug, which my coworkers seem to do to me during shift handoff (which is my pet peeve).
How do I adequately prepare myself for the ICU?
Edit: been working medsurg for 1 years 6 mo**

On the way home from school, Kashiwagi Aki is kidnapped and finds herself in a world populated entirely by beastmen. She ends up in a pet store where the overzealous and impulsive wolfman Zinovy becomes infatuated with her and buys her on sight. Thus begins their strange and chaotic, albeit incredibly cute life. ... Read Kainushi Juujin to Pet Joshikousei - Chapter 21 - MangaPuma. Read more at https://mangapuma.com/kainushi-juujin-to-pet-joshikousei/chapter-21

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My SL scheduled me as closing manager on Sunday 4/16, which is Live Pet Inventory. The other leader there that day leaves at 3pm.
He also scheduled an “extra” associate from 5:30pm to 7:30pm that night because between the two of us we should be able to get inventory done by 7:30pm.
I am going to go argue with him tomorrow, but I honestly can’t remember how long it has taken in the past. We are a high volume store, so we have a lot of pets.
Help! I need to be prepared with a solid argument (besides the printout from OPEX saying I should NOT also be closing manager)

i purchased a clown pleco for my 40 gallon tank, and unfortunately it came with ich from the pet store without me knowing. i did not quarantine it which is a major mistake, especially coming from a big box store. i purchased API Super Ick Cure, which said to half dose for scaleless fish, such as a pleco. i have been reading that half dosages won’t do anything, but also read that people have just done the full dosage amount for the amount of gallons, and have had no issues with plecos and scaled fish. i had to remove the carbon from the filter as per instructions, and my water is become more and more cloudy the longer it has been out of there, but it also says to perform a water change 48 hours after the 2nd dosage, which will be 3 days from now, and i just know the cloudiness will become even worse. is API too strong for plecos, is something like Ich-X more recommended since it’s less harsh and i can dose it daily? also is it a good idea to perform a water change this early on and add more of the API cure? this is my first time having to treat an entire tank for ich so apologies if i sound a bit dumb about all of this🙃

i’m currently treating my tank for ich, which i unfortunately contracted from a fish i got from the pet store a few days back(yes i quarantined it but it did not show until i added it into my community tank). i’m using API Super Ick Cure, and the instructions say to remove the carbon filter, then treat with appropriate dosage of the medicine, and repeat after 48 hours. it has been a day or so, and the water is just getting foggier and foggier, but the instructions say to refresh the water 48 hours after the 2nd dosage, which is 3 days. is it okay to perform a partial water change this early on and add more of the medication, or is it required to keep this water in the tank, and then perform a change after the 4 days? this is my first time ever having to treat my fish for this, so apologies if i sound dumb🙃

This is a small story I wanted to share with you guys as I go through this time. Around 2 years ago before April I started to yearn for championship in a pet, a friend. I did lots of research on lots of pets and lots of ways to take care of them. Eventually I landed on Ferrets and Raccoons being the animals I would love to take care of, but in that process I had seen many people recommending a smaller pet, while not easier, to ease myself into the lifestyle of having those pets. I landed on hamsters after sooooo much research. I eventually went to a local pet store and found the only male in the store and bought him. His unique pattern and constant mad face drew me to him. I can’t tell you how many nights I spent playing with this guy to even just letting him sleep on my bed some mornings while I got ready for work. Well now it’s been 2 years since I got my first little guy. Now I have 2 others (Syrian) Maximilius and (Campbell) Ryan. Ps they all spell out my initials and this is by sudden accident ! They all have big cages and have good nutrition but Nickoli recently fell upon hard times. They believe he either has a tumor or a cyst like bump growing behind his eye making it pop out and infected. They said it seems like his neurological parts are going haywire so he can’t walk anymore. The Vet I took him too was concerned to put him under as he was afraid he’d never come back. He’s got 4 types of medication at his disposal and has my entire families love <3. I hope your hamsters are doing well :), enjoy every minute of their lives.

Hello, friends.
Anyone else here "lucky" enough to have both an autoimmune disorder and MBC?
I have had rheumatoid arthritis for eight years and was just diagnosed with IDC (++-) with at least two large tumors in my right breast, seemingly one involved node, and a small met to my pelvis. (All of this is based on imaging, MRI and ultrasound for breast/node, MRI for pelvis, PET CT for everything. Confirmed by biopsies). I have started Lupron last week and will be starting letrozole and kisqali this coming Friday. I am 45 and am (was?) pre menopausal. For the RA I take enbrel.
I have confirmed with both my MO and my rheumatologist that I can take these medicines together.
I am looking for any experiences I guess managing both am autoimmune disease (any one) and mbc. Are there any more of us out there?
I also (you may have guessed) have extremely high anxiety. I am working on getting this under control with medication and a really good cancer specific therapist. The cancer thing came out of the blue and I am de Novo as well so it's made the be anxiety worse.