[The cellar]

Theros: Beyond Death introduced a lot of powerful new cards to Highlander: Underworld Breach, the Titans Uro and Kroxa, Thassa’s Oracle, Klothys and many more.

One very unassuming and in my opinion severely underplayed card from the new set is Cling to Dust.

For just one black Mana you get to remove a card from a graveyard at instant speed and either gain 3 life or, even better, draw a card. While this doesn’t seem like much at first, you get to do it all over again in the mid to lategame thanks to the Escape mechanic. This possible card advantage should not be underestimated but is not the only reason to run the card.

The small downside in comparison to cards like Tormod’s Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb or even Bojuka Bog is that Cling to Dust only removes one card at a time. This downside is, in my opinion, neglectable when considering the biggest upside Cling has over all these cards: It is an Instant for just one mana and thus the opponent has little idea that it is coming. (Maybe this will change when more people catch on but even then it is still harder to play around than any permanent based grave removal)
Crypt, Relic and Spellbomb all need to be on the battlefield to be used. There is no denying that you will be able to delay the opponents game plan with the permanent based graveyard removal but it comes at the expense of giving the opponent the information as to what he has to play around. Exiling an opponents graveyard in response to a Snapcaster Mage or Reanimate that he willingly cast to get rid of your grave interaction is not quite the same blowout as if you happen to remove the targeted card with Cling to Dust.

On top of being instant speed, it also replaces itself for just one Mana (in comparison to the 2 of Relic or Spellbomb) or at the very least gives you 3 life. Sometimes a Healing Salve is all that is needed to outrace the opponent. (And removing a Hellspark Elemental or Hell's Thunder against Mono Red is a winning play right there!)

As for the use in different matchups of the card:

The cellar
If for some reason (Rest in Peace f.e.) both graveyards are entirely empty, the card is dead. Then again so are a bunch of other cards. I doubt that this will come up very often...

The Floor
Realistically Cling is at it’s worst against an opponent who doesn’t interact with their or your graveyard as main game plan.
Against these decks Cling will often just cycles for another card at the cost of B. That’s not great, but it isn’t too bad either and sometimes you get to win a race because you gained 3-6 life.

What's in the middle?
Because the graveyard is such an important resource and even though a lot of cards don’t work directly with it, there are a ton of relevant cards (Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, etc) that at least rely on the graveyard somewhat.
Against most decks, Cling will be able to deny the opponent card advantage or screw up important lines in their game plan (Whether it is a Flashback target or a land that is about to be returned to hand with Wrenn and Six, there are tons of interactions). Just a quick check of the most powerful cards from Theros: Beyond Death reveals 3 (4 if you count Klothys) cards that are graveyard centered. If you take a look at the decklists from our last local tournament you will come to notice that out of 23 decks only 1 (MonoWhite) didn't have any interaction with the graveyard at all.


The ceiling
While messing up lines of gameplay is already great, Cling is obviously best against dedicated graveyard strategies like Reanimator or Breach Storm where the instant speed lets you disrupt your opponent when they "go for it". Here it has the potential to throw the opponent several turns back.


And all of that for the very low cost of one black mana.
You should definitly be playing Cling to Dust.

[Preparing for the tournament]

Preparing for the tournament

After I took a more or less untested Bant Bogles list for a spin at our last local Highlander tournament in November I decided to approach the first tournament of the new decade more seriously.
The introduction of the Highlander Masters Series 2020 means that there is now more on the line than "just" winning one tournament because naturally I do want to qualify for the end-of-the-year finals and hopefully claim the titel. To qualify for the finals I do have to earn enough points over multiple events and so durdeling around with tier "just for fun" decks is only an option after I have secured one of the precious slots.

My default deck for winning tournaments, which has served my quite well in the past, taking the trophy a total of 4 times already, is my beloved 5C Taking Turns Academy.
Because the metagame had become more hostile for the deck I wanted to test a few of my other options as well, to see which deck would give me the best shot at claiming first place.
With the rise of Blue-based tempo decks and the resurgence of Blue Moon in Vienna I thought that my BG Delirium list might be the best pick to battle in the tournament.

When testing for a tournament, discussing HL related topics or just Magic stuff in general, Markus is my go-to guy. He is not only one of my best friends and nicest guys there is and brewing and tuning decks with him is one of the best ways to spend time but he is also very smart at evaluating cards and decks as well as finding interesting new builds. So when he introduced a new combo brew at one of our Highlander sessions, about 1 1/2 weeks before the tournament I was intrigued.
The list did not only feature my beloved Tolarian Academy (although only in a supporting role) and format all star Oath of Druids, but also the newly released card Underworld Breach.
The combo involved Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond and Brain Freeze. LED would be used to generate mana while Brain Freeze would first fuel your engine and then function as a win condition.
Plan B of the deck was to get out Oath of Druids, milling your entire library, putting Underworld Breach on top of your deck with Memory's Journey and then winning from there.

Even when playing the first few times with the deck it quickly became apparent that the core combo had immense potential so I picked up the deck and started tuning it. I cut the Oath of Druids because I felt it was too easily disrupted and didn't really function as a backup plan because it was using the same resource as the main game plan. Once I cut Oath there wasn't really a point in running green anymore and even though the deck could certainly profit from Veil of Summer I feel like the improved consistency in the mana base more than makes up for that. Because you basically never won through a regular storm kill I cut the expensive Tendrils of Agony as well. I still wanted to have a backup plan for when my graveyard was under attack and as we were already playing Tainted Pact I put Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in the deck. This change, in my opinion, is what really put the deck over the top.
During our final testing session before the tournament the Breach deck performed very well even against what I thought would be one of the toughest matchups, Grixis Tempo. After losing only 2 games against Markus who had major influence in creating the deck and thus knew the ins and outs of the deck (as opposed to a random opponent at the event itself) I was certain that we had found the right core to win the tournament.

You can find the list I submitted here:

https://deckstats.net/decks/70231/1554066-hauser-matthias-breach-combo-w/de

The tournament

23 players showed up for the tournament at SpielRaum. The number of new Highlander players in Vienna is still growing and I am convinced that we haven't reached our full potential yet.

Round 1 was very unexciting for me as I got a Bye. I used the time to check out what the metagame looked like. As expected, there were a lot of blue based decks and I was happy with my last minute inclusion of Thought Erasure.
1-0

In Round 2 I was paired against Thomas Fabian on 4C Blood. Although this was Thomas' first Highlander tournament he knows how to play midrange decks very well as he is a regular player at our Modern tournaments.
While Thomas went first and had a decent start with Birds of Paradise into threat in game 1 I managed to cast an Intuition off of a Mox Diamond at the end of his third turn, finding Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond and Sevinne's Reclamation. Thanks to Wheel of Fortune I was able to keep the fuel flowing and won on my turn 3.
Game 2 on a mulligan to 6 I kept a hand with 2 Lands, Wishclaw Talisman, UB Talisman, Ponder and Treasure Cruise. Thomas, who was on a mulligan as well, went turn 1 Elf into turn 2 Dark Confidant. My Ponder found Demonic Consultation and when my Thoughtseize revealed that there was no interaction to be expected of Thomas, I went for a turn 4 win with Thassa's Oracle that I had tutored for with Wishclaw Talisman.
2-0

Round 3 I sat down across from Joachim who was playing 5C Scapeshift. He is usually on a 4C version but went to try out all colours this time. In game 1 Joachim leads with tapped Land into turn 2 ramp for untapped Plains. I have a very strong opening hand with turn 1 Wishclaw Talisman and when my drawstep yields LED I combo on turn 2 thanks to the Brain Freeze in my hand. Game 2 Joachim starts with Thoughtseize for my Wishclaw Talisman and follows that up with a Teferi, Time Raveler to bounce back my Dimir Signet. Thanks to the plus ability of the Planeswalker he is able to flash in another discard spell after my draw phase to take away my Dig Through Time and the Intuition I can resolve that sets up my win for the next turn is one turn too late as he kills me with Scapeshift. In Game 3 my Gitaxian Probe reveals that Joachim has yet another Thoughtseize lined up for turn 1 but this time I can put my Wishclaw Talisman onto the battlefield beforehand thanks to a Mox Diamond. We both resolve discard spells the following turns and we play "draw-land-go" for a few turns. At a point where Joachim knows the content of my hand (LED and Mystical Dispute) he decided that he has to start pressuring me somehow because his soft counters don't protect him any longer and runs his Titania into my counterspell. This sets him up to potentially resolve some more threats next turn. Unfortunately for him, the top of my deck offers me a Ponder that finds a Tainted Pact. I generously grant Joachim my Wishclaw Talisman and a few seconds later Thassa's Oracle grants me the matchwin.
3-0

In Round 4 I unfortunately get paired against Markus on his Grixis deck. My plan to meet him in the finals and draw with him for the shared tournament win didn't work out.
Game 1 is a drawn out battle where we trade resources early and Markus pressures me with a Brazen Borrower. At a key moment I decide to forego casting LED because Markus can respond with a Vendilion Clique to take out my Wheel of Fortune which is my only business spell at that point. I rather run the Wheel straight out, he responds with Vendilion Clique to remove my LED and my Karakas "kills" the Clique by sending it back to the now-to-be-discarded hand. Although Markus went on to resolve a Dig Through Time and hit me with both a Hymn and a Fall, I managed to win the following turn thanks to Sevinne's Reclamation getting back Underworld Breach.
I win a shorter, but not by any means less intense, game 2 after Markus fails to find any discard spells while my deck provides me an Inquisition of Kozilek at a critical point to break through his counter defense.
4-0

Markus and I are already joking with Stefan Klein, who is my Finals opponent on 4C Blood that I will probably lose to insane topdecks by Stefan even though the matchup is supposed to be very good for me, when Mr. Little indeed wins game 1 after hitting me with Tidehollow Sculler into Gerrard's Verdict. My deck doesn't let me down though and delivers as I win game 2 with a line that includes me using Wishclaw Talisman 3 times in one turn by bouncing it back to my hand with Chain of Vapor. While Stefan is forced to mulligan in the deciding game and can only come up with a Courser of Kruphix, I meet his turn 3 play with an end of turn Lim-Dul's Vault, that puts a Thassa's Oracle on top of my library. With the Oracle's ability on the stack I do ponder a moment but fail to come up with anything other to name than the classic "Abandon Hope" for the game winning Demonic Consultation.
5-0

I am very happy that the tuning and testing payed off and I could transition the positiv testing results to real tournament play. Although the competition was tough and a few of the games came down to the wire I think I played the most broken deck in the room and that gave me the edge over the field.

You can find all the decklists of the tournament here:

https://deckstats.net/decks/70231/f68261/?lng=de

After-tournament thoughts on the deck

Although the core of the deck is very powerful and Markus and I certainly managed to come up with a great decklist even though we didn't have that much time to prepare I still think there is room for improvement. Pact of Negation is a great card to protect you during the combo turn because you can play it for free out of the graveyard but Force of Will was just outright horrible and I never wanted to cast it. It feels like the deck needs less counterspells and more discard, as you can no longer protect yourself once you binned your whole hand with LED.
Tolarian Academy was good in one game as it provided 3 mana but was otherwise just a one mana land and even almost cost me one game because I didn't have any artifacts at all. I might try a version without it in the future.

I can only recommend to try out the deck yourselfs if you have any upcoming tournaments as I feel like this might be the most powerful thing you can be doing in all of Highlander right now!

Updated tournament summary:

* added "Additional Decklists" - Rank 9, 10, 21, 33

* added "Video Coverage"

Starting this year we will use a new schedule for Watchlist- and Banlist-Announcements:

- Watchlist Announcement Aug 1st 2020 / Feb 1st 2021
- Banlist Announcement May 1st 2020 / Nov 1st 2020

Council discussions around Christmas and New Year are sometimes difficult because of family business, to move the announcement-dates one month forward makes things easier. Additionally there won't be any "april fool day"-jokes anymore.

Hi,
Nils here. I Just saw this threat while looking for the Last mgm's decklists. If you want the state of the art scapeshift list, i would advocate for taking tobis 5c list from the Last mgm as a starting Point. The 5th color fixes the fundamental Problem of the Deck which was the number of Bad Mountains you Had to play (cinder glade, smoldering Marsh etc.) It is a list we worked on for a while now. Takeaway from the Last tournament would probably be to cut a Land and add a sylvan library. Otherwise i am pretty convinced that 5c ist the way to go regarding scapeshift.

Nils sent his Bant Fields list: https://deckstats.net/decks/113590/1519478-bant-field-european-highlander

We had also a Scapeshift list in the final match of the Mind Game Mages tournament. You can find it here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1537.msg14992#new

[Mind Game Mages Berlin 11/01/2020]

Mind Game Mages Berlin 11/01/2020


Decklists Top 8:

Rank 1: Nils R. - Grixis Tempo
https://deckstats.net/decks/113590/1517932-grixis-tempo/de

Rank 2: Tobias W. - 5C Scapeshift
https://deckstats.net/deck-20761031-8cf8f4928a71d2508d325bc2440e2b6d.html

Rank 3: Karl-Florian P. - 4C Reanimator
https://deckstats.net/deck-20761398-2ba351ed21fc11e180fbb8dc1c0a458e.html

Rank 4: Thomas H. - Mono U Tempo
https://deckstats.net/deck-20760549-8536afaa2049e906148b6b16e1e3f1b5.html

Rank 5: Hendrik S. - Gwb Ramp
https://deckstats.net/deck-20760997-af6c30174df87a9bee5ddcbc041748e7.html

Rank 6: Yannic O. - Izzet Control
https://deckstats.net/deck-20760784-48a89d60ac32e79bd0c5d84d6c7c4751.html

Rank 7: Richard K. - 4C (w/o U) Blood
https://deckstats.net/deck-20760600-583d609255b9367532a1255f5d39b6cb.html

Rank 8: Jacob K. - Temur Tempo
https://deckstats.net/deck-20760894-5db7b46adb1cae9d9549a792dc572205.html


Final Standings:




Top 8:

QF

Karl- Florian (4C Reanimator) vs. Jacob (Temur Tempo)
Nils (Grixis Tempo)  vs. Hendrik (Gwb Ramp)
Thomas (Mono U Tempo)  vs. Yannic (Izzet Control)
Tobias (5C Scapeshift)  vs. Richard (4C (w/o U) Blood)

SF

Karl- Florian (4C Reanimator) vs. Nils (Grixis Tempo)
Thomas (Mono U Tempo) vs. Tobias (5C Scapeshift)

F

Nils (Grixis Tempo)  vs. Tobias (5C Scapeshift)

Winner: Nils (Grixis Tempo)


Meta Breakdown:




Archtype Breakdown:






Additional Decklists:

Rank 9: Niclas E. - Mono B Aggro
https://deckstats.net/deck-20766298-3a99f4b1f8d2ad90eae4f064fb0a492c.html

Rank 10: Dominik B. - Bant Midrange
https://deckstats.net/deck-20416763-3b9029f19c4a9b443ea413610614f29b.html

Rank 21: Carsten K. - TPS (5C Storm)
https://deckstats.net/deck-20762391-f79e939bf076bf97b307e3343b9cd532.html

Rank 33: Tim W. - Izzet Artifact Tempo
https://deckstats.net/deck-20761844-085d9e37c8542193a467e884bb8fb4f3.html


Video Coverage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnx50kQn0go&list=PL-Oj9PuhYKKpNX9CaugwMPeI65S_ufbky




Leave me a comment if you are interested in another decklist.

Patience, guys. Tomorrow is the Mind Game Mages tournament in Berlin and I am pretty sure Nils will be there and play his Scapeshift deck (Result thread ~ sunday/ monday). If not I ask him to upload and post it here.

In October 2019 Berlin guy Nils won three FNMs with his Scapeshift (Field of the Damned) built.
Not sure if there is his decklist somewhere available.

Hi there, is it possible to get the decklist from Nils and upload or post it somewhere please?

Thx in advance

Thanks for your opinion.
Actually I was thinking kind of the same things:

I am flirting with Temur and Bant in a Tempo/Midrange Build.
I am unsure that Midrange is the place to be against mostly Tempo and Control Strategies. You might have game against everythin but it is always more like a coin flip.

Are there any opinions on what archetypes are good vs Elfball or Goblin-Highlander (Swarm with Tokens, Combo into Craterhoof etc or addition Goblins burn opponent out respectively flood board out of nowwhere and attack/Sac for lethal)?

I think a more controlling build would be a good option. Am I wrong?