Last week I heard from my friend, North American Premodern Champion, and PSS co-anchor Flint Espil that he was going to go to a big Premodern tournament in Los Angeles, California. Sounds like the bug is catching all over the place! I went to the tournament organizer's website to see just what was up with this upcoming event. I mean it's not like you're very likely to be able to recoup travel costs to any Premodern tournament [especially one all the way across these United States], but knowing is half the battle, right?

Well, before I could even find the Premodern details, I saw -- what the?!? -- the smiling face of my very own padawan.

Roman Fusco had won a Limited RCQ. He would be going to Atlanta!

https://twitter.com/roman_fusco/status/1573909002865373184

I was of course overjoyed for Roman. Prior to the pandemic this column spoke often about his PPTQ hits and Grand Prix near-misses. And of course he was not just my apprentice but podcast partner; sometimes collaborator on Barbarian Class.

The first big tournament back, Roman made Top 8 in Las Vegas... Just a hair under a year ago. Weirdly, Top 3 (???) earned qualifications to the Mythic Championship. Not even Top 4. So neither Roman nor my Hot Dog State University teammate Etai Kurtzman got invites despite winning more-or-less the same number of matches as the Top, ahem, three.

Well, God bless Huey Jensen!

First time Roman had a chance to go for the new path to high level competitive play, he did it!

And the second time?

Roman wouldn't let me find out by accident this time. Young Fusco called me from the store, still heady from a victory lap.

https://twitter.com/roman_fusco/status/1576765500004085766

He did it. He did it. Twice. Back-to-back RCQ wins! Who is this guy? Raphael Levy?

Two Regional Championship Qualifier swings, and two wins. But the second time he did it with a sixty seventy-five card deck. So this column is going to get to write about it! Like the title says, these are...

The Top 8 Questions (and Answers!) with Two-Time RCQ-winner, Roman Fusco

Here's the deck he used to do the deed:

I'd say this looks -- at least a bit -- like some of the black mid-range and control builds we looked at the first week of Dominaria United Standard coverage. But instead of me saying anything let's let the champ chat for once, shall we?

1. MichaelJ: Dude, that looks like a lot of basic Mountains... was that right-slash "are there any things you would change about the deck"?

ROMAN FUSCO:

Yes, four Mountains is too many and should've been two or three. I actually built this deck pretty quickly the night before the event.

I had looked at MisplacedGinger's Rakdos Sacrifice Standard Challenge winning list and copied the mana base pretty much card-for-card. His deck having Voltage Surge is probably why there were so many Mountains.

If I'd change anything, I think my sideboard was too chock full of five drops, even though they were for different matchups. The four copies of Invoke Despair was overkill (we'll get to that in a bit); I never really brought in Ob Nixilis. Unlicensed Hearse is also a little overkill when you have Graveyard Trespasser, but I was wary of the various reanimator decks in the format.

The main deck, however, is very clean. I don't think I'd change the spells, but with the amount of Reckoner Bankbuster I played against in game one, Abrade is a serious consideration.

2. MJF: You already told me you don't think this is the best deck. So why did you play it?

RF:

When Dominaria United spoilers were coming out I was pretty confident there would be a [Standard] deck that mirrored its Pioneer counterpart. The reason why I built this list is that I wanted to mimic how powerful the Pioneer version of this deck was... So a lot of my card choices are influenced by that.

I think there were a lot of lists for decks like Esper, Grixis, etc. that had a lot of differing numbers between cards, and I wanted to play something similar but more streamlined.

I figured a base of Bloodtithe Harvester, Graveyard Trespasser, Tenacious Underdog, Liliana of the Veil, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, The Meathook Massacre, and Reckoner Bankbuster was a solid place to start and I couldn't go too wrong.

I also wanted more consistent mana: I was worrisome of playing a deck with tons of pain lands, especially at a paper RCQ where you usually see more aggressive decks compared to online metagames.

3. MJF: On the subject of the best deck, what do you think is the best currently and why?

RF:

I think the best deck in the format is probably some version of Grixis / Esper. These decks just have access to the best cards in the format. I think in my Top 8 six of the eight decks were black-based mid-range.

4. MJF: There is a lot of controversy around Liliana of the Veil in Standard right now. Was she awesome or awful?

RF:

Liliana was good... But there was a reason I only played two copies.

I think Liliana can be pretty crucial setting up turns where you can "Edict" away big threats. For example, against Mono-Blue, Liliana was fantastic. I had a chance to Cut Down a Delver of Secrets and then follow up with Liliana to kill a Haughty Djinn that I didn't have a ton of answers for. Also against Mono-Blue I ran my opponent out of cards and had Liliana at 4 Loyalty. I basically had them locked out of the game because I was able to Edict their next creature; but if they drew a draw spell or counter magic it was just dead to Liliana [+1]. I think having two copies felt like the right number. You have so many three drops already that you don't want to be flooded on them.

Overall, the copies I played consistently got the job done. I would stray from running more than three.

5. MJF: Talk to me about 2 + 2 Invoke Despair. I feel like that is one of the cards I'd want to draw in almost every matchup, over and over again. Why am I wrong?

RF:

So Invoke was actually not as backbreaking as I thought it would be, although I did board in the extra copies in a few key matchups.

I think the issue is versus Grixis and Esper you can get got pretty hard by Spell Pierce and Make Disappear.

Invoke was insane against the Jeskai Control player I played in the Swiss. My main concern was having a way to profitably kill Fable [of the Mirror Breaker].

I think if there were fewer Blue-Black-based decks in the room I'd be higher on this card. I will say, though, in the finals I had a pretty clutch turn where my Grixis opponent tapped out and my Invoke dealt four damage and drew me two cards... pretty crucial in a match where I'm clearly the beatdown.

Overall, having four copies was probably a bit overkill.

6. MJF: I was OBSESSED with getting Roadside Reliquary to work in Mono-Black for a while. Was it good in this deck?

RF:

Roadside Reliquary is honestly a card I forgot existed. Part of my inspiration for this deck came from looking at MisplacedGinger's Standard Challenge-winning Rakdos Sacrifice list.

I saw the Roadside Reliquary in his list and thought "why am I not just always playing this card in Rakdos?"

Roadside was pretty great! I think the two times I activated it in the tournament I drew two cards. You just have so many artifacts and enchantments in Blood tokens, Treasure tokens, Reckoner Bankbuster, Meathook Massacre, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, etc. It's pretty cool that Fable usually nets you both requirements for the "draw two" clause.

7. MJF: What is a cool or important interaction that readers should know this deck can do?

RF:

While this deck is pretty straightforward, there a few key interactions. Mainly how to manage Sheoldred when you have ways to draw cards. You can save Blood tokens or find ways to draw cards in certain scenarios. You don't actually have a ton of answers to kill opposing Sheoldreds, so sometimes you have to double up on Abrade + Bloodtithe Harvester or Meathook Massacre + Bloodtithe Harvester. Sometimes you just have to get the job done any which way you can. I actually never got a chance to kick Urborg Reposession, but you need to know when it's correct to wait or not. One mana to rebuy and cast Sheoldred on turn five is usually just good enough than waiting longer to re-cast the cards you get back.

8. MJF: What did you play against, how did those matchups go, and are they to expectation?

RF:

Round One: RW Aggro (2-0)

This matchup felt pretty unfair as The Meathook Massacre is just killer. I actually lost the roll and was under some serious pressure in game one. I think my opponent made some missteps in attacking that led to me having good blocks. I was able to flip a Fable of the Mirror Breaker and kind of "go-off" copying lifelinking vampire tokens from Sorin the Mirthless.

Invoke also let me kill off a flipped Wedding Announcement which was nice. Three Meathooks in combination with all the spot removal is pretty hard to beat in that matchup.

Round Two: Mono Blue Spells (2-1)

This matchup felt a little scary since my opponent tried to go under me with Delver of Secrets followed up by cheap Tolarian Terrors.

I actually approached this matchup very similar to how I used to approach Burn v. Infect in Modern. Basically the deck only really plays twelve-ish threats (Tolarian Terror, Haughty Djinn, Delver of Secrets) so you just have to focus on making sure no creatures stick around. Liliana was insane here as I mentioned earlier.

Round Three: Jeskai Control (2-0)

This was a pretty easy 2-0. I think my opponent had some mana issues both games but honestly the reason I won was because I had so many diverse threats.

Their deck's main way of catching up is by casting Temporal Firestorm, so as long as you play around it you shouldn't have any major issues. My issue with control decks in this format is that they usually don't have any crazy ways of going over the top.

I was put on the back foot in Game One by a Temporal Firestorm, but in Game Two all I had to do was just not play out all of my threats in my hand. By the time the first Firestorm hit, I had a ton of resources saved up to just put my opponent under the gun immediately.

Round Four - ID with Grixis Mid-range

Round Five - Grixis Mid-range (0-2)

My opponent Ivan wanted to play for play/draw decision in Top 8 (which I respect since we were both locked already). I honestly had no control over these games. I had mana issues in both games, only drawing one black source in Game One and only drawing black sources in Game Two, but this is probably due to the fact I played four Mountains instead of 2-3.

Grixis is also just a tough matchup (or so I thought at this point) because they can just out-card you with cards like Corpse Appraiser, which also hits your resources like Tenacious Underdogs or targets for Urborg Repossession. I just got buried in cards both games while I struggled to make impactful plays.

Quartefinals - Ivan again on Grixis (2-0)

One aspect about Rakdos I really like is how streamlined and aggressive your draws can be. I think Ivan lost to flood in Game One, but in Game Two one reason why I was able to put the pressure on was due to the fact he drew four pain lands.

When you're taking one damage, minimum, a turn to cast a spell it can be pretty brutal especially in long, grindy, matchups.

I was able to kill his Sheoldred while sticking mine around for a few turns. Graveyard Trespasser and Sheoldred taxing your opponent's life total while they also have to deal with tough mana is why I think I won this match (and the next!)

Semifinals (playing for a slot) - Grixis (2-1)

While I got trounced in Game One to having a slow draw to my opponent grinding me out fast, I think a mistake they made in the next two games was over-boarding on countermagic (Spell Pierce, Make Disappear, Negate).

I think in Game Two when I was on the play, I Pilfered them and saw three Counterspells while I had an active Sheoldred to their empty board. I just didn't have to do anything! I also had six mana at the time so I was able to cast two-cost spells while they had to let them resolve.

Game Three felt similar to my match v. Ivan where I was able to land an early Bloodtithe Harvester, which hit them twice. When they tapped out, I got to Drain for four more life with Invoke Despair, and then Graveyard Trespasser and Sheoldred did the rest.

I think my opponent made some mistakes with sideboarding and mis-managing my board state. It also helped to identify that I was the beatdown. I can't beat Grixis in the long game, but if you can put enough pressure early you can finish them off with incremental damage in addition to the damage they have to take off casting their spells. Besides Sheoldred, they have no way to gain life, so if you manage your resources correctly and don't let one stick on their side, you'll have a path to victory.

Well, with those eight questions (and more importantly, answers) I assume that you, too, are now prepared for your Quest for the Pro Tour. Or Regional Championship. Or whatever they're calling it.

I have actually personally stepped away from Arena for going on two months; a streak I broke today after talking to young Master Fusco on the telephone. My first deck back is going to be Rakdos of course! But I'll be cutting a basic Mountain or two.

LOVE

MIKE