SUL Invitational 2024 - Tournament Report - Part 1 by Demian Coca

Published on Dec. 18, 2024

The 2024 SUL Finals are in the books, and it’s time to recap and reflect on what has been an incredible tournament and, honestly, a very intense year of Magic for the Swiss community. In this article, I’ll review all of my matches, with a particular focus on Limited and Modern, as I’m by no means a Legacy expert.

I had to split this article into two parts because it ended up being much longer than expected. I also have another article lined up, where I’ll detail my preparation process for the SUL Invitational and share my general approach to practicing competitive Magic. But for now, let’s dive into my experience on Day 1 of the 2024 SUL Invitational.

Off to a Good Start

Round 1, Modern Bye – 1-0

My tournament got off to a relaxed start, as I had a bye from my placement on the leaderboard for the first round of Modern. The field looked as our team had expected: lots of Boros Energy, some last-minute swaps to Belcher, a few Amulet Titan enthusiasts, and the rest spread across the usual meta. But more on Modern later—on to Draft!

Drafting Splinter Twin

Please keep in mind that I did my best to take notes during my draft, but it’s possible I don’t remember everything perfectly.

I was really excited for the Draft portion of the tournament. Limited is what brought me back to Magic, and I’ve considered myself more of a Limited player for a long time. I had done some preparation for the format, mostly by trying to keep up with a never-ending stream of messages, deck lists, and draft pick discussions in our team’s chat (shoutout to Pascal Grossmann and Filipe Sousa). I had completed about 20 drafts—some were serious testing, but many were played on my phone just to get more familiar with the cards.

Our pod was stacked, to say the least. To my left was my teammate Pascal, and to his left was my testing partner Filipe. Filipe was passing to Leo Thiémard, who was passing to, I believe, Daniel Hliva, passing to Christian Rothen, passing to Thomas Wiederkehr, passing to Noé Dumez, who was then passing back to me. Exciting!

Pack 1

But it wasn’t as exciting as my P1P1: Bloodthirsty Conqueror . I picked it already with a goal in mind: to cut Pascal off black if possible. The rest of the pack wasn’t as thrilling as my first pick. I was able to grab some decent black cards like Tragic Banshee and Burglar Rat , but I was unsure about my second color. At one point, I took an Involuntary Employment , thinking I might go into a BR sacrifice build if that was open. I also picked up some Goblin Surprise s, but nothing that actively pushed me into red. My thought was that just because I was getting passed red cards late, it wasn’t necessarily a signal—the cards weren’t that strong. Then, a late Dazzling Angel came around, and I took it, leaving me open to either BW or BR in P2, depending on what Pascal and Filipe would pass me.

Pack 2

Turned out they passed me exactly what I wanted: more black cards. And not just any black cards: Stab , Eaten Alive , and Hero's Downfall gave me a nice removal suite. Finally, the first of two Marauding Blight-Priest s showed up, making me live the dream of the infinite combo with Bloodthirsty Conqueror! I was also able to add a couple more white cards to my pile, which gave me a clear direction for P3.

Pack 3

P3 started with Tinybones, Bauble Burglar , a very nice addition to my pool, making me feel good about the late game. But then, the picks quickly dried up for both black and white cards. However, I was able to wheel another Blight-Priest, which made the combo look more realistic than I had initially thought. Vampire Soulcaller is not a card I was high on during preparation, but in this draft, I liked picking it up because it would let me reuse my combo pieces if they were destroyed.

I was very happy with my deck, especially considering that I shared a color with both players seated next to me. Lou Dumez to my right ended up in Sultai with a Quilled Greatwurm , and Pascal to my left had a reasonable GW deck featuring Scavenging Ooze and Spinner of Souls .

Deckbuilding

After the draft, the deck pretty much built itself. I left out Goldvein Pick which I only like in UW flyers and red aggressive decks. The Diregraf Ghoul is a trap in my opinion. Black doesn't have an archetype where you need a 1-mana 2/2. Juggernaut was a brief consideration but I felt like I already had enough 4+ mana threats and they were all better than the oldschool 5/3. Here’s my final deck and the sideboard:

This deck has good removal, good early plays, and a solid late game with Vampire Soulcaller , Squad Rallier , and Tinybones, Bauble Burglar making sure I wouldn’t run out of things to do. Plus, it had an infinite combo that so far no one knew about. Couldn’t have asked for more!

Round 2, Draft vs. Léo Thiémard – 2-0

My first match of the day was against Léo Thiémard, who played UW after probably getting too locked into his first pick, Kykar, Zephyr Awakener . While it’s a very strong card in the UW archetype, personally, I’d pick a lot of strong uncommons and even most strong commons over it just because it’s two colors. Splashing isn’t that easy in this format, and if you lock yourself into two colors this early, you’re going to lose a lot of powerful options in your draft.

In G1, he had a rather slow start while I assembled a board of double Marauding Blight-Priest and Dazzling Angel , plus Authority of the Consuls . By the time he started hitting me with his flyers, it was already too late—I managed to drain him out with my ETB triggers. G2 was quite a fight, though. I managed to break a double block with a Stab early on, feeling very ahead, until Kykar, Zephyr Awakener hit the battlefield. I wasn’t able to answer it since I had used my removal to push for an early advantage, and therefore the legendary flyer generated quite a bit of value. We went into the long game where I was very flooded but had a Squad Rallier going—which continuously missed. I was already writing off this game when I finally found the removal for Kykar. To my surprise, my opponent overthought the situation and, instead of saving his own Kykar with his bounce spell, bounced something else and flickered another thing for value. Following that mistake, I was able to get back into the game and my opponent conceded.

Round 3, Draft vs. Christian Rothen – 3-0

My Round 3 opponent was a tough one: Christian Rothen is one of the Swiss Limited players I respect the most. He was playing BG with a lot of synergies and high card quality. In G1, he dominated the board by deploying Infestation Sage s and continuously sacrificing them to Vampire Gourmand . It was clear to me that I would not win this game in a fair way, so I played to my out: the infinite combo. I was certain my opponent knew there was an infinite combo in the format, so I had to make sure not to be too obvious about it. I was able to deploy Marauding Blight-Priest quite early and had Bloodthirsty Conqueror in hand. I just needed to find the fifth land and make sure there was a way to deal damage right away once I played the Conqueror. Not an easy task against a deck full of sac-fodder! I was under a lot of pressure from his Vampire Gourmand and other creatures, so if I just stayed back and didn’t block with my Priest, I was sure Chris would become suspicious and probably realize that he should leave a blocker behind. Instead, I decided to attack with my Priest, offering a trade with one of his creatures even. I was quite sure that he would not take the offer, since at this point my Priest was quite useless and he was on a very high life total. The fact that I was attacking also meant he would have lethal in two turns. He took the damage, I played something irrelevant, then he took his turn, attacked with all his creatures, leaving no blockers back. I was barely alive but managed to topdeck the Swamp I only needed to play the Conqueror, attack with the Priest, and steal this very exciting game.

G2 was dominated by the sheer card quality Chris had in his deck. I managed to put up a fight but eventually died to a Scavenging Ooze and Sylvan Scavenging .

G3 was another grind-fest featuring another of his rares: Nine-Lives Familiar . He was able to block and sacrifice it for value for several turns until I finally found my Eaten Alive to get rid of it and turn the game in my favor.

Round 4, Draft vs. Noé Dumez – 4-0

My draft end boss was Noé Dumez on Sultai. I knew he had a late-game bomb in Quilled Greatwurm , so I was ready to hold my removal for that. In G1, he played an early Lathril, Blade of the Elves , but I managed to build a board so that it never got to attack me. The game dragged on, and I was able to deploy the Conqueror, which he managed to get rid of. Eventually, I found my Vampire Soulcaller to reassemble my combo and win. It felt great to have that mediocre card do exactly what it was meant to do in my deck. G2 I recall being very close. I had made some risky attacks with flyers, which resulted in me almost dying on the backswing, but ultimately, I managed to get over the finish line.

Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the tournament. Not only did I win my first three matches, but I had a lot of fun and probably played with the most exciting deck I’ve had in this format. There’s not much I would have done differently looking back, even though my teammates were vocal about Authority of the Consuls being a bad card. I was lucky to be able to pressure my opponents whenever I drew it, so the fact that their creatures entered tapped was a big deal. It was the 23rd card I added to the deck, but I wouldn’t replace it with anything else I had available to me.

This draft format has been very much "back to basics." As a core set, it rewards drafters for having strong fundamentals and for drafting the hard way. Figuring out what colors are open is important because if you end up in the wrong lane, your card quality will be significantly worse. Knowledge of the format and, therefore, preparation was still very important, even if it’s a rather “simple” set. As an example, I saw some players who got punished for going into green for reasons that were not enough. In my opinion, to draft green in Foundations, you either need un-splashable bombs or the whole table needs to push you toward it—which is still not a great place to be. Black was my favorite color, as Orzhov, Dimir, and Rakdos are all great, and Golgari can also be strong if you have the sacrifice stuff and some green rares.

Legacy – Mission: Try to Get Out Alive

This portion of the tournament report is going to be rather short, since I’m by no means a Legacy expert. It was the format I was least prepared for. Most of my preparation came from talking to friends and team members who are more knowledgeable about the format. I had played only 2 leagues with my deck prior to the tournament. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to prepare more, so my deck choice was pretty clear: UB Reanimator.

Round 5, Legacy vs. Jari Rentsch, UB Reanimator – 5-0

I was quite sure I’d play some mirrors but decided to play the stock Reanimator version nonetheless over the Dimir Tempo or even Dimir Delver lists. I was never in much danger in these two games, though—everything went my way.

In G1, I was ahead on resources, but Jari managed to surveil an Archon of Cruelty into his graveyard at the end of my turn. Luckily, he didn’t have a reanimation spell, and I drew mine the next turn, so I got to take his Archon for the win. I boarded out both of my big reanimation targets and the Entomb s to rely more on a midrange plan with Barrowgoyf and Psychic Frog . My opponent quickly deployed two Ghost Vacuum s, but my threats were several Frogs, which he was not able to handle in time. He played a Barrowgoyf , which forced me to have enough cards in my graveyard to give my Frog flying, but he also had to respect a potential reanimation spell on his creatures, so he was never able to empty my grave completely. Eventually, he had to trade his Goyf for mine, and I was able to win with my Frog.

Round 6, Legacy vs. Luca Fessia, Nadu – 5-1

First team kill of the tournament. Luca had joined team Birdwatch a few weeks before the tournament, but we never actually tested together, which meant I didn’t know what to expect. In G1, I was able to reanimate an Archon quickly, and he didn’t have any Swords to Plowshares .

G2, I made several mistakes, including a punt where I forgot that Veil of Summer gave hexproof from black. In this match, my lack of preparation showed. I'm quite sure that if I knew the Legacy Nadu deck better, I would have been able to take some better desicions. We both didn’t play our best matches, but Luca managed to beat me in a fair way with his 3/4 Flyer in G2 and combo off in G3. If you want to rewatch this match, you can find it on Twitch at around 06:44:00 of the SUL Invitational stream.

Round 7: Tobias Grütter, UB Delver – 5-2

Tobias played Dimir Tempo, featuring good old Delver of Secrets // Insectile Aberration . A matchup which I would have liked to avoid. He quickly destroyed me in two games, proving UB Reanimator’s weakness to the midrange/tempo plan.

Round 8: Eloi Benvenuti, UB Tempo – 6-2

Eloi also played Dimir Tempo, but no Delvers this time. I knew I had to win this round to be in a good position for day 2. G1 was very similar to the games I played the round before—I lost. The following game was a very long grind. Eloi played a copy of Emperor of Bones , which proved to be quite strong against my Reanimator plan. Eventually, I was able to pull ahead and reanimate an Archon. I don’t recall what happened in G3; at this point, I was already quite tired and forgot to take notes. But I also managed to win that one and finish day 1 with a very satisfying 6-2 record.

I knew that Legacy was going to be tough for me. I obviously know how to play Magic in general, and I have some experience with UB Tempo/Reanimator decks, but still, I felt like an underdog in almost all my Legacy matches just because I don’t know the format as well. That being said, apart from the Nadu match, I think I played reasonably well, and 2-2 wasn’t the worst outcome. I was exhausted and happy to go home for at least a couple of hours. Day two was Modern, which I felt very confident in. I already had my eyes on that top 8 spot and was excited to play the next few rounds.

Thanks for reading! As always, let me know what you think, if you liked this format of a tournament report, or if you have any questions, you can find me in various MTG-related Whatsapp groups or on X @MaclovioMTG.

Stay tuned for part 2!



Photos by Jonas Rudin.