Akron Blackblades Weekly Meetup Recap Feb 12 2026

In an effort to try and 1) get better at Premodern Magic, and 2) get back into the habit of somewhat more regularly blogging my thoughts I figured that I could continue to think about my weekly/quarterly premodern matches at my local shop. My goal is to use these blog entries to think about Premodern magic as a local meta, a wider game, and to focus on how to finely tune my primary deck of choice to be the best it can be.

 

The Deck:

So the deck that I've been running competitively since November 2024 has been Premodern Tin Fins. The deck is an all in combo deck designed to put 2 Krosan Cloudscrapers and 1 Sutured Ghoul into the graveyard and then Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance the Sutured Ghoul into play to swing for lethal. It's a deck with a large explosive potential able to get wins on Turn 1 - 3 before the opponent can get fully setup. I am not the architect of the deck, that is Nick Balzano (BLZ in the PM Reanimator Discord), who won the Duress Crew Fall Regional 2024, which introduced me to this deck. You can find an image of my deck and the current decklist below

 

Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/NSlfo-X3O0i9Z0Xc3zLdXA

 

 

Matches & Recap 

• Round 1: Bye (rip)
• Round 2: WLL vs Sligh
• I got a quick turn 2 win in game 1. Game 2 I had to mull to 5 to get lands and spells, and even then nothing fast, nothing great. Turn 4 he killed me from 12 on his end step with my intuition on the stack to get the Shallow Grave to win on my next turn, kind of impressive lol. Game 3 I had another mulligan to 5, and then he chunked me to from 15 to 5, then on my end step 5 to 3 and then 3 to dead. Rough games, but variance is going to do that. Little did I know at this point it was going to be the theme of the night.
• Sideboard: -1 Portent / -1 Cabal Ritual; +2 Null Rod
• Round 3: LL vs Psychatog 
• I had to mulligan to 5 game 1, and I couldn't get anything going, he countered my Intution to get my combo piece and I was kind of just floundering. In an effort to do something, I morphed a cloudscraper, he swung with Tog, I blocked, he killed the morph. Next turn I shallow grave the Cloudscraper to try and chunk him for something, took him from 19 to 6, and then I realized he had Tog math on my end step so I scooped went to game 2. Didn't mulligan, but I should have since this was my Psychatog deck my opponent was borrowing and I couldn't remember if my build has Tormod's Crypt in it. I didn't get a Null Rod, I Buried Alive on Turn 3, he top decks the Tormod's Crypt.
• Sideboard: -1 Portent / -1 Cabal Ritual; +2 Null Rod
• Round 4: LWL vs Moneyball Black
• Game 1 I mulligan to 4, he proceeds to eat my hand and wasteland my Ancient Tomb, nothing I can do, I scoop before he can chunk me out for damage. Game 2 I mulligan to 5, he still eats my hand and my graveyard with a Phyrexian Furnace, but I get a Null Rod down, get a Buried Alive, I'm sitting on 3 lands, and I'm in top deck mode, get a Corpse Dance and snag a win. Game 3, Rats, black knights, and a duress keeps me from doing much of anything before my life is too low to combo off.
• Sideboard: -1 Portent / -1 Corpse Dance; +2 Null Rod

Thoughts & Feelings

 

The first thing is that I can't control the variance and there will be these nights like this. This is something that will always be in Magic the Gathering, by design. Unlike my game on Saturday, there isn't really a point during the games where I made a play mistake and lost myself the game. Round 3 might be the notable exception when I got my Intuition countered, I learned from that and in Game 2 managed to remember to Intuition in response to cracking the fetchland instead of giving him the chance to fetch and get the counterspell.

 

One of the things that I am thinking of doing is changing the sideboard. I think taking the Corpse Dance out of the sideboard for a third Null Rod. There were times in Rounds 3 and 4 that I wanted the Null Rod, had an intuition and other combo pieces in hand, but didn't feel comfortable without the Null Rod. A third Null Rod allows me to use an early Intuition (turns 1 - 2) to grab the Null Rod, I can set up that protection for my Graveyard. It's a very telegraphed play, but doing so on their endstep and then playing it on my turn can help my protect the combo.

 

I am also curious about how I can improve these match recaps. Obviously remembering mulligans, sideboard, and pivotal points of the match are important, but in terms of getting better, I almost need to note what did I mulligan away, what did I keep, so that I can go back and remember why I kept it.