May 22 FNM 2026

I love this stupid game. I really do.

Its more than just the game play, which I have been utterly obsessed with for the past 15 years of my life, but the emotion it evokes. The feeling you get surrounding yourself with a group of friends regularly grinding in the dojo. Our sweaty little shop, L'expedition, trying to improve our skills collectively in this silly game that we play is transcendental. The laughs, the frustrations, the sick lines navigated while staring into the brink of utter death, it all cumulates into something greater than the sum of its parts. In short, it truly is the gathering. After waiting two weeks since the last FNM, I was very excited to get back together with the gang and fight for store prize, a SICK official Montreal Premodern stamped Island, but most importantly, immortality on the leaderboard.

quick update on my weapon of choice:

I've truly pigeonholed myself as the Rock guy, but its been exacerbated by the fact that my particular version of slow, durdle-y control Rock keeps putting up decent results in the hands of the two masters: BK Brian Kowal and Mysteryman21 online. In the evolution of this style, they were working on parallel paths, choosing a similar philosophy but varying on the card choices. Elders vs Tuskers, Phyrexian Furnaces vs Haunting Echoes (I realize they are not intended to fill the same role, don't @ me), Gigapedes and no Genesis.

Now we see a beautiful meld of the two styles entwine like twin dragons coiling around their enemies and receiving a second place finish at a recent MTGO challenge. I'll post the list below as I ran it back for this particular event.

Things of note.

• • The Bone shredder in the board is layover tech from LC. We have a particularly hard time facing down larger creatures like the angels (exalted and lightning), eternal dragon, etc. Things that are airborne and over-costed tend to be problematic against our strategy of sit there and do absolutely nothing for as long as possible. The shredder gets to tag most relevant things in this range (Notable exceptions being the mono black 4 drops + masticore), but also is an excellent body to use as therapy fodder. Obviously plays extremely well with Genesis. Previous readers of my work will know that I have a particular struggle against BW control and its there to attempt to mitigate some of these tensions.
• • Vigilantes can be slow as it does take a full five mana to get the effect and it may be jarring to see the full set of them main, but their affect on the board cannot be understated. Naturalize that attacks or blocks for 2 (and then 3 once its done the deed) is integral to our strategy. Our job is to get us to the part of the game where the mana cost is not as debilitating. Not every deck lets you get there, but it is a clear part of our plan. In conjunction with Treetop, its how we're going to close out most of our games and it insulates against tsabo's web. Premodern is said to be a naturalize format. It only makes sense to me to over index on the naturalize creature.
• • Baloth is in the board. At the end of the day it's just a dude who is reasonably costed and statted, but is nothing special. We often side it out to bring in more hate so the theory is that we side it in when its necessary and keep the hate flowing in game one.
• • One of the smothers could be a vendetta if you really want.
• • It should be noted that the greatest divergence from the BK style of this deck is the lack of Haunting Echoes. It would not be fair to say that the Furnaces are filling the same function because Echoes is not intended to be seen as graveyard interaction, rather than a win-condition of the deck. The idea is that you're supposed to use echoes to remove creatures or combo pieces to stop your opponent from actually winning the game. Its not there to beat up on AKs or to stop mild graveyard interaction, its to shut the door and give opponents no viable way of closing out the game. The furnaces, in contrast, are intended as interaction. You use them aggressively to target your opponents cards and keep them from accessing their synergies. They also cantrip, which is not irrelevant. Your win con revolves around winning through combat after out-valuing, not locking your opponent out.

My intention was to play Living Death, a sillier variant on the rock archetype, but when this dropped I knew I had to try it out. It would have been irresponsible of me not to.

Lets get into it, shall we?

Round 1 vs HFEB (Louis)

Jesus Filibuster Christ, man. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, but when I saw my round one paring was against the great Avatar Louis the Breakfast Bender (I keep making this joke, they haven't told me to eff off yet, so I think its alright), I felt a little discouraged. I have been watching them absolutely grind this deck into a sharp edged weapon and have lines that come from a place of understanding that transcends space-time. They see battlefield scroungers in dimensions and colours no human can comprehend. Feels like an uphill battle.

Game 1

This is the least interesting of our games. I surprise them with a turn 1 furnace, but they're able to stay calm in the face of adversity, sticking a survival and getting busy with it before I can really do anything. They didn't show me the hermit, but they placed a shifter onto the battlefield that I never found a solid answer for. Eventually, through my furnace and with a nantuko vigilante trigger on the stack, they were easily able to assemble devourer/trike and murder me for my insolence.

Sideboard

in: +3 Naturalize, +4 Engineered Plague
out: -3 Smother, -1 Genesis, -3 Wall of Blossoms

My sideboard plan here consists of having answers for the survival. I'm already running 8 discard spells and often the creatures on the board are going off. Smother has a small window to deal with a shifter, if at all. my larger plan is to keep them from getting their engine going and to try and stick plagues to keep them off their combo. Could use more work on this plan.

Game 2

This is a game that was hard fought. I was able to start with discard into a furnace and we found ourselves playing a slow game after I tore apart their hand. They put an uktabi orangutan on the field to force me to use my furnace. We kept throwing discard at each other, diminishing both of our game plans. Whenever they would stick a survival I would tag it with a vigilante or a deed. I slowly was able to clock them with a 2/2 vigilante and with help from their mana base put them into a pretty tough situation.

After some careful consideration Louis was able to determine an Hermit line they felt comfortable going for. My saving grace was twofold. I had a phyrexian furnace activation I could use and they tapped in such a way that they were at 4 and I had a vigilante and a treetop village.

They go for the druid in their upkeep, and put the stack such that there was an akroma at the bottom of their creature pile followed by tog, scrounger, karmic angel. They reclamation their unearths and in response I pick up their graveyard and try to puzzle out what their line is, exposing my unfamiliarity with the match up. I talk it out and eventually decide to snag the karmic guide forcing them to get the tog. What killed them however, was a few turns earlier they let a gemstone mine go which in this turn, forced them to tap a city of brass to execute this line, putting them at a lethal three life. I was informed after the match that I was thinking too hard about this. Just tag whatever they get with unearth and be done with it, duh. I was terrified of being caught in some loophole in the footnotes of the 50page HFEB bible, so I honestly just assumed I was dead regardless of what I did.

No board changes

Game 3

This one was an even wilder ride! I think we both mulled, I can't quite remember. The gist of my plan was that I had two black mana and a e plague and a furnace. I was hoping to draw into some green mana to cast a pernicious deed that I found, but it turns out that was not on the menu for a while. What instead happened was I managed to land a plague on a shifter that was in fact, a birds of paradise in the graveyard. I named bird and we played on. They were low on cards in hand after a few turns of not doing much and I blind cast cabal therapy naming shifter and hit. My next draws proceeded to look like the following:

That's a vigilante beside the plague on druid.

From there I was bringing the 2/2 ruckus until I found some green to cast wall of roots. I then converted that into my dust bowl to keep them off mana so they couldn't cast the Akroma in hand and eventually they conceded.

Phew. Was lucky to win round one. HFEB is a deck I feel rather soft to because I'm not as familiar with the lines. I definitely need more reps.

1-0

Round 2 vs Goblins (Steve)

Steve is a newcomer to our events. He was there with our extended teammate by way of Toronto, Oliver (more on him later) and as such he was new to our group. Excellent opponent, and very friendly person. I feel compelled to mention this, because I definitely revealed to him that I am an emotional player and how hyped I can get in an event.

Game 1

After cracking some jokes and chatting a bit, we keep our sevens with him on the play. I keep an arrogant, disrespectful hand of 2 duress, 1 cabal therapy, pernicious deed and 3 lands, with the thought of "oh I'll draw into my other pieces, this is fine eno-" Mountain. Lackey.

oh. so it's like that.

I cabal therapy naming siege-gang and miss, seeing a whole mess of warchiefs and ringleaders and piledrivers and all the other fun stuff. They hit me with the lackey, play the warchief and cast a piledriver.

Lets move on.

Sideboard

in: +4 Engineered Plague, +4 Ravenous Baloth, +2 Blastoderm, +2 Bone Shredder
out: -4 Duress, -3 Cabal Therapy, -2 Furnace, -3 Vigilante

The plan here is simple: if you don't attack, block or kill a goblin you're out. I kept a therapy in case I could snipe a siege-gang before lackey could cheat it in, or to maybe interact with ringleader draws. I kept a single vigilante because it's a body, but in this matchup the effect is not relevant and its likely the only targets for it would be my own plagues. Its more or less a grey ogre here.

Game 2

This was more typical of how the matchup plays out, but it was still a slog. People who get turn one lackey'd and tell you how braindead the deck is were not watching my opponent attempt to grind his way out of three engineered plagues and almost succeeding!

We had a long back and forth, as my weakness of not being able to close a game quickly prolonged this affair way longer than it needed to be. Part of this was just being unable to find a threat for forever. Eventually I did find a Baloth and was able to put a clock on them before they could completely clean up my board with naturalizes. They did manage to ringlead 3 separate times and have a ton of resources throughout the match. It was a genuine sweat.

No board changes

Game 3

Oh man.

I keep a hand that has 2 smothers and a deed, 2 swamp, a treetop and something else. I think a wall.

They lead mountain, pass.

I let my guard down. I think to myself "no. that couldn't happen. Not to me."

I lay a treetop village onto the battlefield and pass.

The hubris. The folly.

They IMMDIATELY snap off a wasteland and cast a lackey.

I have a visceral "Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck what have I done?!?!?!?!?!?!" crash-out moment that could be heard in neighboring establishments. My reaction so intense my headphones almost go flying off my head as I'm gesticulating wildly unable to contain my simultaneous laughter and sorrow. Ryan, you dummy.

What happened next was almost biblical.

lackey begets siege-gang, which begets piledriver, which begets warchief, which begets my concession.

1-1

Round 3 vs Root Maze Stasis (Simon)

Simon is a real gem and a boon to our community. He likes to bring the spice and keeps things fresh and exciting. He's been talking about this stasis variant for a little while now so I was excited, but nervous to see it in action.

Game 1

This was sadly not terribly exciting. He mulls to 5 and is unable to get much going after I take what's in his hand with duress. We move on rather quickly.

Sideboard

in: -3 smother, -2 wall of blossoms, -2 furnace
out: +3 naturalize, +3 engineered plague

The premise here is that I want to bring in more removal for their on board nonsense, but I'm also aware that their plan involves instill energy on a birds of paradise, so I wanted to be able to just put a complete halt on that. Plague seemed like a more efficient answer. I could see just cutting the blossoms completely and finding and leaving a smother in as another answer. Feels kinda dead otherwise.

Game 2

They mulled to 5 again, which was sad. They go turn one root maze off of a gemstone mine. I played a swamp and passed. They cast birds and play an island. I have had a couple game actions to mull this over. I cast cabal therapy with 3 cards in their hand. Look into his eyes and say "crop rotation". The look of sadness that overcame him told me I hit as he showed me a hand with rotation, a stasis and a land. From there they weren't able to put up much of a fight as I was able to set up the rest of my board, plague away their now, 2 birds and start getting to work with vigilante.

2-1

Round 4 vs Mono U Dreadnought (Hugo)

In the 4th round, playing for whatever store credit I can get my hands on, I get paired up against the homie Hugo. He and I have a running bit where we take turns beating each other and at this point have a 50% win rate against each other over the last couple months. I was able to take down the last two FNM matches against him with goblins and zoo, but he got me previously with nought and moneyball.

Hugo has been grinding online and has reaped the rewards of placing on the trophy leader board so I know they're honing in on their dreadnought craft. I feel always like I have a better Dreadnought match up than I probably do, but it's gotta be close and I definitely feel comfortable playing against the shrimp so I feel optimistic about my odds.

Game 1

Game one goes just about how you'd expect. I'm able to fend off an early nought with cabal therapy and work my way to sticking a vigilante. I don't realize how close it was. I had known about a counterspell and baited it with a pernicious deed, but didn't realize in the turn cycle they saw another one. They let the vigilante go thinking they could manage it over the course of the next few turns, but was unable to and I was able to pressure with treetop villages before they could get another dreadnought down and have it be relevant.

Sideboard

in: +3 naturalize
out: -2 phyrexian furnace, -1 dust bowl

I make a mistake here because I forgot about the AKs which are relevant targets for the furnaces. They barely came up over the course of the match though, so they weren't on my mind. I've felt somewhat comfortable shaving a dust bowl vs this version of nought because they aren't playing factories. In previous iterations of the build I've cut two, so I'm not getting as flooded with the 27 lands count. Since I'm naturally at 26 now I figured 25 is still fine.

Thinking about the furnaces, I would probably shave wall of blossoms instead because they are the next lowest impact card. There could be an argument for shaving a tusker, but I'm loathe to give up one of my divinations. Everything else is important for the match up.

I also don't bring in baloths or blastos because my view of the matchup is to prevent their 4 dreadnoughts from killing me. Once I can accomplish that, I use my treetops and my vigilantes to strike them down. 3/x tribal is perfectly serviceable.

Game 2

I thought I had shaken off all of my big punts for the evening, but it turns out that's not the case.

I mull to five and after much deliberation, I keep a hand that consists of cabal therapy, wall of blossoms, 3 lands and I had put back a Krosan Tusker and a land.

I thought that I didn't want to be stuck on two land and wanted to rely on my wall of blossoms to draw me more action, rather than be greedy about it.

I had a clear, thought-out gameplan. They would play their island and do whatever they needed to do, portent their orbs or whatever, and I would lead on therapy for dreadnought. I would follow that with the wall of blossoms to re-therapy and make it to turn 3 with breathing room to figure out how I was going to recover from my mulligan.

They island, portent (typical 🙄) and choose not to shuffle. I draw a duress and something goes funny in my brain.

I manage to convince myself to cast the duress because I was sure that the dreadnought was hidden in the portent pile waiting for my cabal therapy to whiff. So I decided that duress would take their enabler and I could catch the dreadnought without action.

So to recap.

Plan A: sound, reasonable action, giving myself the most protection against the one thing that kills me.

Plan B: working with hypothetical information to try and cleverly out maneuver my opponent who may or my not be trying to 4d chess this shrimp onto the battlefield.

Duress sees: lands, impulse, stifle, dreadnought, vision charm. The latter of which I dejectedly take.

Shit.

The dreadnought comes down immediately on turn two. I play my wall of blossoms, even more frustrated because the whole purpose of the wall was to be fodder to tear their hand apart and I'm still looking at this cabal therapy in my hand.

I don't find an out and we move on.

No board changes. Again, completely not registering that it may be relevant to manage AKs.

Game 3

Game three was more of a game. I don't remember much of the early goings. They led with peak and saw my three pieces of interaction. After some sculpting on their part and casting some walls and cycling tusker on my part, eventually they were able to cast one and protect it over multiple turns.

I had 2 smothers and a deed to their 2 stifles and 2 charms. It's possible there was a window to finagle my interaction through, but it felt unlikely. I didn't know how many responses they had. I cast a smother in their upkeep at a time when I didn't have two black on the battlefield so they were able to space their vision charms out. I didn't find a 4th answer though so I'm not sure it would have mattered as I wasn't getting through the stifle. I don't think I played my very best right at the end, but there wasn't a whole lot I could have done given the hindsight of their interaction.

2-2

And that's it!

The rocks 50% win rate remains undefeated.

As always, we at Montreal Premodern put on a banger of an event. We had 18 wizards come out to vie for the covered l'île de Montréal, but only one could stand at its peak.

Contrats to Oliver, our Toronto Branch Representative who was in town from the previous week's F2F event in Ottawa, taking it down with enchantress (boo).

Also special shout out to him because he hooked me up with this gorgeous Japanese Plaguebearer for a homie price.

I also want to call out our beloved crew member Dmitri, who maxed out his wife-credit card to come out and do battle with us. We have plenty of members of our community who are invaluable for group morale, but aren't able to make it to our events due to life commitments. A bunch of us are getting older, other responsibilities, you know how it is. It always means a lot to see them when we can.

For those reading this not in the crew, if you've made it this far, check us out! You can keep up to date with what's happening on our website, plus our social media links, which I'll have below. We run bi-weekly events which I promote in the main Premodern Facebook group and the Main Premodern Discord. If you happen to be in Montreal and want to come to a play a friendly and competitive premodern event, feel free to reach out to us!

Until the next 2-2

Ryan [rfg on MTGO]