Junior Super Series Championship

Round 1 Feature Match

Jacob Dunning vs Jay Elarar

Dunning is playing a Necro deck complete with some metagame decisions - it uses Black Knight in addition to Skittering Skirge as well as main-deck Persecutes. He is up against some serious opposition this round, facing Jay Elarar - the Canadian player who won the 14 and under JSS division last year.

Jay is among many competitors who elected to try out a combo deck today. His mono-blue deck wins using Stroke of Genius to deck the opponent. It is more fragile than the infamous Academy decks of a few months ago, but Jay believes the deck to be solid enough to carry him into the Top 8.

Dunning did not really get to play in the first game. He cast a Black Knight followed by a Skittering Skirge, but was unable to do much else stuck at two lands. In the meantime Elarar played Mind Over Matter, pitched some cards to generate sufficient mana with Mana Vault and Islands and went on to cast all four of his Meditates. Finally Elarar found the card he was looking for - Urza's Blueprints. In combination with Mind Over Matter, Blueprints allowed him to cycle through his deck until the right card was found.

Elarar cycled through his deck, drawing the entire deck via Blueprints, Meditates and a Stroke for 14. He used a Feldon's Cane to reshuffle and went on to cast Stroke targeting himself and drawing 24 cards. This let Elarar generate enough mana to finally deck his opponent.

Dunning got a perfect opening hand in the second game. He cast Urza's Bauble and Duress, removing Elarar's Mind Over Matter. He cast a turn two Skittering Skirge and a turn three Necropotence. Another Duress got an Urza's Blueprints, but Elarar drew a Counterspell in time to stop Persecute.

A turn later Dunning cast another Duress and Elarar attempted to counter it with Rebound. Unfortunately for him, Duress isn't a legal target for Rebound because of its wording. Forced to take two points of mana burn and still lose a card to Duress, Elarar conceded the game.

Dunning pulled off yet another first turn Duress in the final game, removing a Stroke of Genius. Elarar cast Mana Vault and a Scroll Rack, so Dunning Ritualed out a Nevinyrral's Disk to remove them.

If Dunning were allowed to go through his library choosing a card each turn, he could not have had more perfect draws. Multiple Duresses, Persecutes and Yawgmoths Wills were cast while a Skittering Skirge ate away at Elarar's life total. Eventually a pair of Corrupts ended the game.

Dunning 2 - Elarar 1