Azorius Oculus 2x RCQ Wins TRIPLE Tournament Report
Prez Kuhnke deep dives into a 19-5 run over three RCQs with UW Oculus!

Hey, Magic spikes!
Do you like violence? Do you like tempo Magic? Do you like unconventionally tilting red players? If you answered no to any of the above, get off this tab and go to work or something.
For everyone else, welcome to another RCQ tournament report! This one, in particular, is unlike any that I've written before as I'll be covering three RCQs instead of just one in light of a hot 19-5 run I had recently that included three straight finals appearances and both Regional Championship invites for Minneapolis and Hartford. The first of the three will be covered in thorough detail with my usual sideboarding and gameplay philosophy, with more brief details to follow in the next two.
Standard has been a fun puzzle to solve for most grinders this RCQ season, doubly so for anyone who's just now getting into standard in its recent resurgence alongside the release of Magic Foundations. Love to see it! Throughout said season, we've seen decks rise and fall in popularity as the matchup spreads adjust early volatility. Now that we have a clearer idea of what's top tier and descending (see Kazi's tier list for his take around Christmas), my personal deck choice for this season is a deck that was at one point thought to be hovering tier 1, but took some heavy hits in popularity points these last two months, partly due to its poor win percentage against the recent establishment of all three red decks currently popular in standard.
THE DECK
UW Oculus
By Prez Kuhnke
Oculus?! But Prez, don't the red decks run right through this?! Well, they did for a while. On a personal note, I can only commit to one standard deck in paper at a time with a proper amount of testing due to nasty time constraints at work. Going through my initial testing runs to pick a deck to run for the season, I was close to committing to Mono White to put Golgari Midrange and Gruul Aggro through a grinder. About 80 matches later, I was satisfied with the reps and tried Azorius Oculus at the height of its popularity and decided I could maximize my performances with it best as the tempo-esque play patterns with running Phantom Interference, Into the Flood Maw, Picklock Prankster // Free the Fae, etc. already line up with my gameplay strengths in decision making and transformative sideboarding. I'm a tempo gamer at heart. Please refer to my first and second tournament reports on Bant Spirits (my pre-Logic Knot days) and my report playing Temur Rhinos for more details on that.
Right as I lock on this deck back when it was on the early shell of running Sleight of Hand, Three Steps Ahead, and Soul Partition instead of some of the tech you see in the above list, Oculus takes a nosedive. Our best matchup (Golgari Midrange) is less present than I expected and red (already hard) is EVERYWHERE locally here in SoCal. To make things even worse, Foundations then gave red Burst Lightning, Boltwave, and Boros Charm. Now Boros is live and we're dying even faster. In the immediate aftermath of this, there was a lot of losing and plenty more regret. But time is not on my side this season and my choice has been made.
Through a methodical process of sacrificing some win-percentage points against Domain and Mono White to keep up with the gravitating speed that Mono Red, Gruul, and now Boros are demanding from us, it became clear that the changes needed to be drastic. Keeping the three above cards in my list, going 4-1 in swiss at a recent event and still getting dunked on by Mono Red in Top 8 on the play twice sealed it. We started by trimming a 4th Into the Flood Maw and a 2nd Get Lost for some personal tech that's been showing up more in the broader scene recently—two Sheltered by Ghosts maindeck and eventually two more in the sideboard.
This set the tone for the changes I'd be making in early versions of UW Oculus. Yes, it invites possible two-for-one blowouts because it's an aura, considering Golgari Midrange and Dimir Tempo. Yes, it's suboptimal compared to clean removal in other matchups, considering Mono White and Domain. However, the lifelink paired with an Abhorrent Oculus or a gassed-up Haughty Djinn and the nagging ward 2 clause will more than compensate for any potential pitfalls that come with it. Sheltered may not be an all-star in every standard deck that plays white, but with the prospect of being paired with two giant three drops in Oculus and Djinn (or the 8/8 octopus from Kiora for extra credit), the lifelink is maxed out here more than any other deck can reasonably try. I also had the benefit of already playing Sheltered by Ghosts as some cutting-edge tech in Azorius Spirits to literally solo Rakdos Aggro and anything else low to the ground the weekend of Regional Championship D.C and a 10K shortly after. In UW Oculus, your threats are hitting for even more lifelink damage, and with careful play, you can take advantage of a sheltered creature being a lightning rod for removal if you have a Phantom Interference camping in hand or simply have a decisive plan to put yourself over the top the following turn imagining your opponent taps out to deal with your initial threat. Some of the newly rooted play patterns playing Sheltered by Ghosts, and knowing when to take it out, will be exhibited in my coming matches.
Accommodating this idea that we're answering the aggressive gravity of standard, we swapped the playset of Sleight of Hand for Founding the Third Path to be more proactive despite costing one more mana. Turn 2 Founding free casting Moment of Truth or Chart a Course will always make turn 3 hard card Abhorrent Oculus live. You can also accidentally mill a Helping Hand with a value creature camping with it to accelerate your plan out-of-hand. Next, we remove the Three Steps Ahead to play the new Kiora, the Rising Tide. Making an 8/8 is great, but this card is excellent at breathing new life into your hand if you're out of gas, need a reanimator target from the hand, or you're looting bad cards such as fighting through a Rest in Peace. Moment of Truth, although very synergistic, feels slow at times and less impactful than other cards doing a similar job, so we trimmed one to promote an Elspeth's Smite to the maindeck. Two in the main carry a nice amount of weight not just against red, but in the early turns against Dimir Tempo, Golgari Midrange, and the new Esper Pixie list roaming around, particularly all on the draw.
The only other comment I'll make on this build before diving into my matches is that the one Kutzil's Flanker is an oddball. Ideally, I would've liked a 2nd Faerie Mastermind, but had trouble coming across one recently in paper. Flanker is still a flash threat that gains you life and solos people casting a turn 5 Sunfall, so it'll do.
PROLOGUE
This event at Finch and Sparrow Games in Signal Hill, CA already looked like it would sport a tough field with several grinding players from two (friendly) rival Magic teams in Team Collector Legion (many of whom have pro tour/world championship experience) and Team KNG (Krazy Nick's Games) showing up, with me mostly on an island with my Logic Knot teammate Truong Nguyen. You may remember him from going 9-0 in day 1 at Regional Championship DC. But wait, there's more! Instead of what I thought would be a cap of 32 players like a normal RCQ, we instead get 62 in the building with six rounds of swiss.

ROUND 1 - WIN 2-1 VS Selesnya Angels (1-0)
How fitting that my first match of the event is at table 1 against a regular on my reports in Team KNG member Guillermo Sida, who qualified with me in the Temur Rhinos report last year. And with a rogue deck too.
I'm on the play, but I have to mulligan to five. The hand turns out to be a banger with a turn 2 Founding the Third Path into Chart a Course, discarding an Abhorrent Oculus, into turn 2 Helping Hand to Monster Reborn my Oculus back with Phantom Interference and Into the Flood Maw backup. Guillermo leads off with a Giada, Font of Hope, dreaming of getting a buffed up Resplendent Angel or Archangel of Tithes, but the tempo we've gained already from Oculus plus a slew of 2/2's and disruption plentiful quickly proves to be too much and we get under him to take game 1.
+2 Monastery Mentor
+2 Exorcise
+2 Sheltered by Ghosts
-2 Haughty Djinn
-2 Recommission
-2 Elspeth's Smite
Here, we can discuss a common sideboarding pattern we see in UW Oculus. Not including the emergency button in Restless Anchorage, we have ten creatures in our deck that can reasonably carry us home. Most of them will bank on graveyard synergy game 1. Post-board, our opponent will hate out our graveyard with Rest in Peace, Ghost Vacuum, Tranquil Frillback, or even Leyline of the Void if they can. We'll also see more spot removal, which will significantly hurt if Oculus or Djinn get sniped down early and our hand isn't resilient, particularly against exile spells. With this in mind, we have to diversify, which means backing off the graveyard plan if some of our better cards can become liabilities. Kiora, the Rising Tide helps ease the punishment looting away inactive Helping Hands or Abhorrent Oculus', but we'll need more than that. We trim two Haughty Djinns and Recommissions in place of two Monastery Mentors to fight through graveyard hate and significantly weaken their 1-for-1 removal if we can generate multiple tokens. To pair with it, two Exorcises to exile anything problematic, including said grave hate. Another reason I double down on the Sheltered by Ghosts in this matchup since Guillermo will likely be casting one big creature spell at a time. We don't sideboard like this against decks that don't pack grave hate. It's okay to stay on plan against red decks, Dimir Tempo/Bounce, or the rare mirror match. For everything else, we're begging to get blown out if we're not responsible enough to respect our opponent's plan to kick us down early. Monastery Mentor and Exorcise are my dynamic duo to this approach.
Game 2 on the draw starts fine, but sadly I was stuck with three lands for the majority of the game while Guillermo snowballs threats with Giada, Font of Hope into a Resplendent Angel that I couldn't answer in time. I see a late Rest in Peace shoot my graveyard and by the time I draw an Exorcise and a fourth land, there are too many threats, and my Oculus buffed by a Sheltered by Ghosts was only able to carry me for two combat trades with life totals bouncing up and down for both of us. Resplendent Angel successfully solo'd me.
Game 3 is interesting. I'm proactive and able to show an early Haughty Djinn followed by an Abhorrent Oculus built from a turn 2 Third Path free casting a Moment of Truth. Sadly Guillermo quickly answers both with an Exorcise and Get Lost of his own, but he's not doing much else. I reanimate the Oculus, only to see it blown up again and then have the door shut with another late Rest in Peace. Thankfully, it's Monastery Mentor to the rescue with my own late interaction left in my hand to punch in over two turns with a fresh cast Sheltered by Ghosts and a Get Lost for later. At this point, we just smash face and get there. He eventually tries for a Resplendent Angel, but I'm able to push through with eight damage with Mentor, manifest dread creatures, and a monk token after removing it with a Get Lost. With him now low at five, I swing for lethal next turn and take the match after all trades are done.
ROUND 2 - LOSS 0-2 VS Dimir Tempo (1-1)
This matchup is 50-50, with game 1 feeling favorable and a majority of my losses in game 1 coming from a turn 3 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares going unanswered, which Oculus folds to hard unless we're fortunate enough to have a Get Lost and claw back while down tempo and usually a card. Sadly that's exactly what happens here. I got rocked in this one.
I'm on the draw for game 1, and although casting Founding the Third Path into a Free the Fae is normally fine and comes with some nice development in late turns, my opponent starts with the streamlined turn 1 Spyglass Siren, turn 2 Faerie Mastermind (Chart a Course hates this card), into turn 3 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares with Go for the Throat and Anoint with Affliction both ready to keep me down. Without Into the Flood Maw or Elspeth's Smite to slow this down, it's a lost cause. We win this matchup by blockading combat early with the above answers or a timely Phantom Interference and bulldozing with our threats on our own time before our opponent can passively generate value on offense with an early Kaito or Preacher of the Schism. I tried to get some counterplay to address Kaito, but my opponent had a slew of removal for everything I had and there's nothing to be done.
+1 Faerie Mastermind
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Monastery Mentor
+1 Sheltered by Ghosts
-3 Chart a Course
-1 Moment of Truth
Sideboarding is tricky for this matchup and I'm still figuring it out to an extent, but the idea was to have more threats to run through the removal and add a Sheltered by Ghosts to win a tempo edge on the play. But in game 2 with a loose hand that has some nice potential buildup and two Sheltered by Ghosts that just needed some help in later turns, my opponent hits me with a turn 1 Duress that rips out my only cantrip spell in Moment of Truth with the rest of my hand now sitting passively. Turns out Duress is a pretty good Magic card. I draw an ugly pocket of lands and my opponent easily gets there with a hardcasted Kaito and Enduring Curiosity.
Although this is the most convincing loss I've ever been handed in this matchup, it happens to all of us, and outside of taking these as a learning experience, I can't afford to dwell on past losses when there are four more rounds of swiss left to play. If anyone reading this has trouble with self-doubt in moments like this, understand that every game, match, and event is a new opportunity to do right by your cumulative experiences. You may even play your best Magic when your back is against the wall when you can be excited for what can go right (like, say, a come-from-behind hot streak) rather than projecting what can go wrong. My first RCQ win came from the last one of the season where I took a rare pubstomping loss in a favorable matchup round 1 and stormed back needing to win seven straight to snag the invite for RC Atlanta. Sometimes the added early pressure is what makes it fun.
ROUND 3 - WIN 2-0 VS Mono Red (2-1)
We have a clear path to winning against the red decks. Reanimate or perish. With Elspeth's Smite and Into the Flood Maw as our one-mana anchors, we have to strictly beeline for a quick reanimator turn with a turn 2 Chart a Course (or turn 3 Kiora, the Rising Tide) into reanimator spell or find our creatures blind from the top four of the library off a Free the Fae, then hold the line until we get there. The two maindeck Sheltered by Ghosts will go online faster this way as well. Founding the Third Path is an excellent proactive kickstarter for both variations. Any other approach is too simply too slow, to the point where I'm willing to mulligan more aggressively to stay on plan. Banking on tempo Magic with Phantom Interference (unless we have nothing else) feels suboptimal for interacting especially on the draw and Moment of Truth is less efficient under aggro pressure than Chart and Free for what we're doing. Free gets you one more card in the graveyard and lets you see one more card off the top, while Chart picks creatures out of the hand and Moment doesn't. Funny how Moment of Truth is a bridge between the two in a way, but it's still the card I'm least excited about here between the three.
Our plan rewards us here in game 1 on the draw. Thankfully also having an Elspeth's Smite to take out a turn 1 Hired Claw, I go turn 2 Founding the Third Path into a Free the Fae, milling away an Abhorrent Oculus in the process, then Monster Reborn-ing it back with a Helping Hand from my starting seven and immediately exiling a Screaming Nemesis by sliding a Sheltered by Ghosts onto the Oculus with my other two mana and bringing up a manifest dread blocker on my opponent's upkeep. The 2/2's are nice if we're racing, but I'm much more excited to have them as blockers to preserve my life total and check the opponent for a Monstrous Rage. I'm still getting clocked hard with my opponent having the Rage and still having a decent board, putting me from 11 to 5. However, with Abhorrent Oculus already being an absolute unit as a 5/5 flying blocker maker, now having six power and lifelink, we've maximized our gains with Sheltered by Ghosts and despite the rest of my hand being somewhat passive, two combats with the big eye immediately shut down any counterplay.
+3 Temporary Lockdown
+2 Sheltered by Ghosts
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-3 Moment of Truth
-3 Phantom Interference
-1 Haughty Djinn
We get better post-board. The impact our new cards have in place of Moment of Truth and Phantom Interference as anchors for our reanimator approach will do great work. Faerie Mastermind and Kutzil's Flanker are flash threats that we can stick a quick Sheltered by Ghosts onto since our opponents will be tapping out often and very likely not calculator for combat transforming with the lifelink with what they don't see during their own turn. Keep in mind that the red decks will be more reactive with packing Lithomantic Barrage and Gruul also having Pawpatch Formation, but that also means fewer spells going to our face to make room for this. To play around a potentially back-breaking Lithomantic Barrage, consider prioritizing a Recommission onto Abhorrent Oculus instead of mana efficiency with Helping Hand to make Oculus an immediate untapped blocker and a 6/6 to put it out of Barrage range.
Game 2 isn't as explosive on my end, but I have an Elspeth's Smite and Into the Flood Maw to buy me time and while the hand doesn't curve out as we dreamed, a turn 3 Kiora, the Rising Tide followed by a turn 4 Sheltered by Ghosts is enough to solo our opponent for four lifelink damage at a time going from 11 to 15 until we're ready to hardcast an Abhorrent Oculus with some 2/2 blockers on the way despite our opponent going surprisingly wide again. Lithomantic Barrage snipes the Oculus eventually, but another Sheltered by Ghosts on a 2/2 now makes the total crackback with lifelink at 7 to bring my opponent from 10 to 3. I'm tapped out at 22 life and although my opponent has an impressive hailmary with a few Monstrous Rage targets, his team can only max out at 19 damage to put me to 3 and I take the match to stay alive.
ROUND 4 - WIN 2-1 VS Gruul Aggro (3-1)
Gutcheck time. My opponent is Mythic Championship II winner Eli Loveman from Team Collector Legion.
Following the same approach as our previous match, my hand is very strong with a Founding the Third Path, Chart a Course, Sheltered by Ghosts, Helping Hand, and three lands. Any three-mana creature puts us over the top. I've also won the die roll and was lucky to see Eli mulligan to five. Sure enough, we go turn 2 Founding into Chart, seeing a Haughty Djinn. Turn 3 reanimated beefed up Djinn enchanted by Sheltered by Ghosts quickly creates an insurmountable threat.
+3 Temporary Lockdown
+2 Sheltered by Ghosts
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-3 Moment of Truth
-3 Phantom Interference
-1 Haughty Djinn
Game 2 is...well...not great. Solid hand on plan, but no turn 1 interaction and I don't have a Temporary Lockdown to even consider staying alive as Eli fights back with turn 1 Heartfire Hero into turn 2 Manifold Mouse, clocking me with a 2/2 double striking hero. I develop with a Founding the Third Path into a Free the Fae as Eli domes me with an Emberheart Challenger and Monstrous Rage onto the double striking Heartfire Hero to immediately put me from 16 down to 1 with a Rockface Village still threatening hasty lethal. We don't beat that unanswered.
Very similar to game 1, however, I'm able to safely answer early and get a turn 3 Djinn online (hardcasting this time, I believe) as a blocker, and taking advantage of a slow start with a few one mana creatures by looting some cards to fill up the graveyard before sealing it again with a turn 4 Sheltered by Ghosts to solo mostly anything that comes our way.
ROUND 5 - WIN 2-0 VS Orzhov Pixie-Viper (4-1)
Another interesting deck from our opponent in our second-to-last round of swiss. (Comparable list here, not my opponent's exact 75.) With a similar shell to Esper Pixie, the deck looks to combine cheap interaction and enchantments to unlock big payoffs with Rottenmouth Viper, Zoraline, Cosmos Caller, and Braids, Arisen Nightmare. Spoiler alert, I see none of those game 1.
My hand is a little weird on the play game 1 with two surveil lands, two Oculus, Haughty Djinn, Helping Hand, and Chart a Course. The reanimator plan will be alive and well early if I'm playing against red again, but the follow-up could be anything depending on what I draw next. Could even be slow if I draw no more lands and the opponent answers me early.
That said, with no disrespect intended to my opponent, I wish you could've seen the astonishingly horrified look on his face as he casts turn 1 Hopeless Nightmare and I gladly discard an Abhorrent Oculus into a turn 2 Helping Hand.

It gets worse. With the first Oculus unanswered, turn 3 I draw a second Helping Hand and cheat out the 2nd Oculus after looting it away with pre-combat Chart a Course. Immediately unlosable.

+2 Exorcise
+2 Monastery Mentor
+2 Temporary Lockdown
+1 Sheltered by Ghosts
-2 Haughty Djinn
-2 Recommission
-2 Phantom Interference
-1 Moment of Truth
Problem is, I didn't see much else in game 1 aside from a Nurturing Pixie and Novice Inspector, so I need to guess some. If I were to expect something like Optimistic Scavenger or Deep-Cavern Bat if it's mostly cheap creatures, I want a few Temporary Lockdowns. The easier assumption was that Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void are possibly live options, so by the rule of thumb, we swap doubles of Haughty Djinn and Recommission for Monastery Mentor and Exorcise to fight through it. In hindsight weeks later seeing the list now, I would've wanted Faerie Mastermind and Kutzil's Flanker to have more threats instead of Temporary Lockdown.
My opponent stays on plan in game 2 with cards like Bandit's Talent and Nurturing Pixie but doesn't have anything imminently threatening me aside from a Zoraline, Cosmos Caller, which I shoot down quickly with a Founding the Third Path into freecasting Get Lost. There's no reanimator spell for a little while, but without seeing the Rottenmouth Viper, the rest of the game is mostly uneventful as I overwhelm the opponent with a hardcasted Abhorrent Oculus and Monastery Mentor, neither of which my opponent can answer effectively on time before snowballing.
At this point, both myself and my teammate Truong are 4-1, but there are still a lot of X-1's alive, with about twelve or thirteen players overall still above the cut. Like many of our RCQs this season, we're not even close to a clean cut for Top 8 and everyone except for the four players at 4-0-1 have to play. Brutal.

ROUND 6 - WIN 2-1 VS Selesnya Tokens (5-1)
Interesting matchup spread in this RCQ so far.
Not to be confused with Mono-White control splashing green, my opponent built a surprisingly effective homebrew that comes with a creature spread including Sharp-Eyed Rookie, Seraphic Steed, Bristlebud Farmer, and Sandstorm Salvager in addition to some of the more familiar cards like Caretaker's Talent, Carrot Cake, etc. accelerated by Llanowar Elves. It's a midrange-esque approach that happens to have a lot of answers to aggro decks and packs good blockers.
I'm on the play in a slow paced game 1. I saw glimpses of my opponent's deck across from me in the previous round, but still had vague expectations. While I'm developing for future turns simply looting with Free the Fae and Moment of Truth early, my opponent leads off with a turn 2 Sharp-Eyed Rookie followed by Sandstorm Salvager, getting a few combats at me before I'm able to eventually hardcast an Abhorrent Oculus. Surprisingly, my opponent didn't have an immediate removal spell for it and instead jammed the Bristlebud Farmer. I get to untap for my turn, but if Oculus is removed, I'm now somehow worse off despite having a few 2/2's with no exciting creatures underneath. With an Into the Flood Maw sitting in hand, I decided the best course of action was to play out a 0/4 Haughty Djinn and bounce my opponent's Farmer to slow him down so that whatever equalizer he's setting up for can't race my simple plan of getting there with the big eye. I'm now missing land drops, so Haughty Djinn will also secretly be an anchor for me to try double-spelling. Turns out my opponent just never had answers for the Oculus or Djinn and after recasting Farmer and going from 15 to 4 on my next combat with help from Djinn, he scoops it up and now intuition has to take us into post-boarding game 2.
+3 Temporary Lockdown
+2 Exorcise
+2 Monastery Mentor
+1 Faerie Mastermind
+1 Sheltered by Ghosts
-3 Phantom Interference
-2 Recommission
-2 Haughty Djinn
-2 Moment of Truth
In hindsight, this was overboarding. Two each of Exorcise, Monastery Mentor, and Temporary Lockdown would have been fine.
Game 2 goes south fast with my opponent leading off with a turn 1 Llanowar Elves into turn 2 Rest in Peace. I cast Chart a Course to look for something to deal with the early grave hate and loot away a Helping Hand and find a Get Lost to later answer it. My opponent develops more with a Sharp-Eyed Rookie and Seraphic Steed. In what I thought would be an equalizing position after Founding the Third Path, free casting Free the Fae, and loading up for a hardcasted Oculus on the way with a Phantom Interference sitting in my hand ready to counter whatever my opponent plays next before I start fighting back, my opponent throws a gut puncher at me in a Thrun, Breaker of Silence. Conveniently uncounterable and immune to my Exorcise in hand while my life total is already at 15 starting down two other creatures. Oculus isn't enough after my opponent shows an Exorcise of their own and I'm forced into bad blocks, then eventual death.
-1 Temporary Lockdown
+1 Phantom Interference
I'm on the play this time, and although my opponent starts with another early Llanowar Elves and Rest in Peace, we're okay this time as my hand has other threats in and Monastery Mentor, with Kiora, the Rising Tide also in hand to loot away bad situational cards. Things get weird though, as I start getting mana flooded aside from this and my opponent fails to find a third land. With my opponent having a possibly problematic Sharp-Eyed Rookie if they can get going, I trade it off in combat with Kiora and slowly answer his one-by-one small threats with a Monastery Mentor, but I now only have lands and a super dead Oculus in hand, and that Rest in Peace across from me is hurting. Somehow though, we're winning. After my opponent eventually shows me a Sandstorm Salvager that I can't answer right away, I breathe a sign of relief as I topdeck an Exorcise to finally exile the Rest in Peace and get a monk token as a bonus with Monastery Mentor on board, also unlocking a Founding the Third Path I drew earlier.
My opponent topdecks another Rest in Peace.
Now I need to bank on Monastery Mentor or I'm dead lost when my opponent starts hitting land drops. Drawing a Faerie Mastermind is a good start, but the advantage will take some time. Somewhere along the line here, my opponent makes a subtly fatal mistake. Finally hitting another land and casting another random small creature, my opponent points a Get Lost my direction, but blowing up Mastermind instead of Mentor to deny me card advantage with it's activated ability. Understandable, but many of my draws are still live with Mentor in a deck full of cantrips and the map tokens will now help me get there in both draws and combat. Sure enough, my next draw is a Chart a Course into a Sheltered by Ghosts to exile his biggest creature (with multiple token and prowess triggers) and start pushing forward in combat. My opponent now goes to 10 and is unable to come back from another round of prowess triggers from my mini-monk army. During post-match discussions, we conclude that killing Mentor instead was the correct play, but I'm slightly better in this endgame regardless. Stressful game 3 for sure.
Truong won his win-and-in too! After all of the blood, sweat, and disproportionate amount of tears after back-to-back Rest in Peace games, we're in. Playing an extra match rewards you with being a top 4 seed to be on the play in the quarterfinals 99% of the time, and I'm super excited entering Top 8...
TOP 8

...as the 5th seed...
...yup. Miraculously still not on the play in the quarterfinals. Two 4-0-1's played it out for the 1st seed and 2nd through 5th go to the 5-1's, whereas I had the worst tiebreakers. Outstanding.
In a twist, Truong and I are now playing against two members of Team KNG. Don't you just love a good esports rivalry? The other seven decide they want to split prizing evenly in Top 8, and Seyhak asks if I'm down to make it unanimous. I say no to splitting and the boys are big mad. Whatever. We ball. 🏀
QUARTERFINALS - WIN 2-1 VS Domain
Likely my toughest matchup, BUT WE STILL BALL! 🏀🏀🏀 (With some luck.)
Although Phantom Interference shines here for the timely Overlord of the Mistmoors and Sunfall, we have many bad cards in game 1 compared to our opponent having monumental haymakers that don't care what value we generate from an Abhorrent Oculus or big graveyard payoffs. As someone who qualified on Domain last year, I don't think the deck is as well positioned as it was then, but the top-end is still insane once they get to the five mana range.
I mulligan to six, but Jesus goes to five. Kickstarting with a Founding the Third Path into Moment of Truth trying to find a Phantom Interference, I get one and my graveyard is ready for action later. Jesus plays an Up the Beanstalk and Leyline Binding on an early Haughty Djinn with some compensation for the two mulligans. I then jam a Helping Hand to cheat out an Abhorrent Oculus and pair it with another Haughty Djinn. He cycles a Herd Migration and I'm getting the feeling that he doesn't have a Sunfall, so I counter a Get Lost targeting Oculus with my hand now sitting proactive with another Oculus and even a Restless Anchorage if I get boardwiped. I do some cheap looting with Haughty Djinn online and have a big combat putting him from 23 down to 8. Spot removal doesn't prevent lethal anymore and Jesus doesn't have the Sunfall to prolong the game as we take a rare game 1 W.
+4 Negate
+2 Exorcise
+2 Monastery Mentor
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-2 Elspeth's Smite
-2 Into the Flood Maw
-2 Recommission
-2 Sheltered by Ghosts
-1 Moment of Truth
-1 Founding the Third Path
I have to board in ten cards for this matchup. Going to the opposite route of discarding flexibility against the red decks, we need to lean into it here with a good grip of counterspells and flash threats so that Sunfall doesn't come with a death certificate, also taking into account that Domain can still play Rest in Peace. Elspeth's Smite and Into the Flood Maw are obviously bad for what Domain brings to the table and we need clean interaction with Exorcise over maximized punishments here in particular off Sheltered by Ghosts. We're still mostly on our normal game, but our interaction is transformed post-board to better deal with what our opponent wants in our answer-or-die turns before we can turn the corner.
If you have doubts, bear with me on a bizarre analogy and imagine a situation I had recently on New Year's weekend. You're working retail and it's getting busy. Domain players, in the context of this matchup (respectfully), are like the annoying chuds that will prey on you to break their $100 bill for ~$20 orders. ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶p̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶e̶.̶ You ask them if they have literally any other bills or have any cards. They of course lie and say no, and your boss forces you to make it happen. Two more gross boomer chuds come in doing the same thing and your $20's and $10's are evaporated. Now you pay a heavier price playing from behind having to make do with all of your $5's and $1's in mass quantities. In coins, run out of quarters, and you have to run through handfuls of dimes and nickels and bleed your register dry of everything else even faster because that's not what the dimes and nickels are there for. Chaos ensues, the sea levels rise, Bitcoin goes to zero, and life sucks.
Cards like Overlord of the Mistmoors, Sunfall, and Zur, Eternal Schemer are the theoretical $100 bill haymakers coming in succession to put you behind quickly, but now you're well prepared in "$20's" if necessary post-board to accommodate the rest of the deck, especially when double-spelling, provided you hit your land drops. Make no mistake, though. This matchup is still tricky.
I find some nice counterplay in game 2 with a Faerie Mastermind equalizing card draw after a turn 2 Up the Beanstalk from Jesus and a turn 3 Kiora, the Rising Tide to help streamline my hand better, but sadly this time Jesus has a powerful response in casting an Impending Overlord of the Hauntwoods, followed by Impending Overlord of the Mistmoors to clog the field. I'm able to cast Helping Hand to bring out an Oculus around turn 4, but after presenting a well-timed Zur, Eternal Schemer to get his Overlords online faster. Jesus proves that his curve is too strong this time and we're going to game 3. A good start falling just short of a great one by the opposition. Jesus is a very capable player that isn't going away quietly.
Game 3 turns out to be one of those gritty bangers where we're glad we don't have the 50-minute time limit. Without going into all of the many details of this beautiful mess, my counterspell representation keeps Domain in check until we both get deep into our land drops, where thankfully with Up the Beanstalk and Rest in Peace out of the way, we get into a chaotic boardstate where Jesus eventually squeaks in a Zur, Eternal Schemer, with the green and white Overlords both ready to punch me again, only this time, I've looted and reanimated an Abhorrent Oculus, Haughty Djinn, and a Monastery Mentor with some counterplay prepared with a handful of manifest dread creatures (with a second Djinn hidden) and future monk tokens on standby. I'm holding on for dear life to my two Negates holding in hand as we get to a point where either of us could die to crackback with me having multiple monk tokens backed by my usual suspect creatures, while Jesus is about to punch me with deathtouch lifelink goliaths backed by Zur. We're taking about five minutes each to map out our potential combats. He points a Get Lost at the Oculus and gets one big combat in with both overlords and some insect tokens held back as blockers to put himself 11 back up to 22 from the lifelink. I trade some of my staples and take some hits to go to 10, but my crackback is insane after a sudden epiphany. Jesus doesn't have many cards left in hand and I no longer need the continuity of Negate, as a Sunfall or Split Up leaves Jesus in a losing endgame with me having an Abhorrent Oculus and Kiora, the Rising Tide for next turn. Now willing to tap out, I go Founding the Third Path on chapter 3 immediately grabbing a Get Lost from the graveyard to shoot down Zur. Now lifelink and deathtouch are both off the table.
Important to note, casting Founding the Third Path into another spell gives Monastery Mentor two prowess/token triggers instead of one. My crackback combat going wide with the tokens and some manifest dread creatures domes Jesus for 15 damage to go to 7.

Jesus doesn't attack, and after he runs out the last of his hand with a Leyline Binding on Monastery Mentor, the final nail in the coffin is another Founding the Third Path freecasting Exorcise to exile a blocker, and the team has just enough to put him to zero no matter how he blocks. Great match.
TOP 4
This time I'm willing to split in Top 4, we each get about $275. With this event being a two-slotter, I'm now on the draw playing for the Minneapolis invite against Eric Kearns, the number one seed at 5-0-1 who has been absolutely shredding people on Gruul all day. Excellent player and a good guy.
SEMIFINALS - WIN 2-0 VS Gruul Aggro
Eric starts solidly with a Hired Claw and Manifold Mouse, but our go-to play pattern quickly shuts the deck down again. Turn 2 Chart a Course discarding Abhorrent Oculus, turn 3 Helping Hand bring back Oculus, immediately enchant with Sheltered by Ghosts, and win in my next combat. Gruul can't deal with this in game 1.
+3 Temporary Lockdown
+2 Sheltered by Ghosts
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-3 Moment of Truth
-3 Phantom Interference
-1 Haughty Djinn
Being born and raised in northern Wisconsin near Minneapolis and a game away from the invite, I couldn't help but think of all the family and acquaintances I haven't seen since I left. I wanted this opportunity to go and I couldn't hide my stirring emotions much anymore.
Eric has an interesting start on a mulligan to six with a turn 1 Hired Claw into two Innkeeper's Talents. In response to the second Talent to slow him down a bit, I bounce one with Into the Flood Maw and give him a fish in case he wants to commit his full next turn to recast Talent just so I can hit land drops and slam the door on him again. I cast a Founding the Third Path freecasting Free the Fae to prepare hardcasting Oculus, then off the surveil trigger off a Meticulous Archive, I see a Temporary Lockdown sitting on top. The finish line is in sight.
Next turn we slam it after Eric runs out the 2nd Talent, and although he doesn't have a Pawpatch Formation for Lockdown, he does have a Lithomantic Barrage for the turn 5 Oculus. With the board clear though, I eventually find a Helping Hand for the big eye, and when I go to manifest dread, the creature I set face down is a second Oculus, sealing the deal for the invite at long last.
FINALS - WIN 2-0 VS Golgari Midrange
Seyhak Uy from Team Collector Legion wins the other invite and he doesn't care much for the lanyard the way I do, so we do a slight prizing renegotiation to where I can have the lanyard for my collection and we can move on with our weekend. Very cool.
Golgari Midrange has felt favorable from my experiences, especially in game 1. Cut Down, Mosswood Dreadknight, and Sentinel of the Nameless City are mostly non-factors even when paired with their wealth of removal and we don't necessarily have any poor cards in the maindeck for this matchup. If Seyhak and I were to play it out, here's how I would have boarded.
+2 Exorcise
+2 Monastery Mentor
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-2 Recommission
-2 Haughty Djinn
-1 Sheltered by Ghosts
Simple diversifying again. Cards to watch out for are Vivien Reid, Tranquil Frillback, and possibly Liliana of the Veil (especially on the draw).
After some R&R in Long Beach before heading home, we're ready to shoot for the 2nd qualification next week. Going to RC Hartford two weeks after RC Minneapolis would be fun.
These next two brief tournament reports originally weren't supposed to be a part of this article. However, upon making the finals again twice since this tournament, I wanted to share some details from both events to reinforce the results. I would never intend to come off as hyperbolic from one good event and present this as "hurrhurr just play Oculus good deck unga bunga". Details in gameplay and sideboarding from both events below are mostly redundant in comparison to the Finch & Sparrow RCQ, so I'll only be sharing thoughts here in brief stints.
WEEK 2
One week after winning the Minneapolis invite, with much less pressure already having one in hand, we begin the quest for the Hartford invite in Anaheim with many of the same players we saw the previous week. There are no changes to the 75 for now, but there have been tempting ideas with Authority of the Consuls and Split Up. This event was nearly 32 players with five rounds of swiss in a one-slotter.
ROUND 1: 👎👍👍 VS Mono Red (1-0)
ROUND 2: 👍👍 VS Golgari Midrange (2-0)
ROUND 3: 👍👎👎 VS Gruul Aggro (2-1)
ROUND 4: 👎👍👍 VS Azorius Omniscience (3-1)
ROUND 5: ID VS Azorius Omniscience (3-1-1)
8th seed for Top 8.
My match against Golgari Midrange was interesting in game 1, with both of us going about four or five land drops without committing any creatures, which is favorable for me with instant speed proactivity in Free the Fae and Moment of Truth. After many trades of creatures and removal, my opponent has a massive maindeck Scavenging Ooze going unanswered and threatening to run out a Virtue of Persistence but has no cards left in hand. I eventually hardcast an Oculus and have plenty of chumpblockers sitting at only 7 life with the board getting clogged with creatures. The funny finish to this game was manifest dreading a Haughty Djinn that turned out to be an 18/4 with only three cards left in my library when I snuck in for lethal. This game probably went for about thirty minutes. Game 2 is much simpler as I outvalue my opponent's removal with an early loot and reanimate on Oculus and a Kiora, the Rising Tide getting me an 8/8.
My win-and-in match was against my Logic Knot teammate Ben Ejnes on Azorius Omniscience Combo. He insists in jest that I'm playing the worse blue-white reanimating deck of the two. I quickly lose game 1 mistakenly keeping a hand of creatures and a Recommission, but no action, thinking I was afforded more time on the play and Ben mulling to 6. Immediately punished past the first Phantom Interference as I simply had nothing to offer on board.
+4 Negate
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
-2 Elspeth's Smite
-2 Sheltered by Ghosts
-1 Into the Flood Maw
In game 2, I'm able to push through with a Kiora, the Rising Tide, and an 8/8 the following turn from a nice turn 2 Founding the Third Path freecasting Free the Fae and counterspell backup with the benefit of being on the play and Ben still needing to develop to get an Omniscience in the graveyard.
Game 3 is more of the same except with a funny interaction from Kutzil's Flanker accidentally being an amazing inclusion against this matchup. I'm slower in pressuring Ben's life total in this one, so by the time we both get to about six land drops, he tried to drop the hammer on my counterspells by casting a Grand Abolisher to go for the Abuelo's Awakening combo through a Negate that he knows about. Instead, I flash in Kutzil's Flanker in response to Ben casting the Grand Abolisher to exile his graveyard. He tries to counter it with a Confounding Riddle, where I now use the Negate. Ben is behind on board with 8 life and has to start all over getting the combo online, which is enough for me to get in for the game 3 W.
Four spots are left for Top 8 with six 3-1's alive, but my opponent and I have much better tiebreakers than the other four that have to play, so we take the intentional draw anyway to lock up the 7th and 8th seeds.
TOP 8, WEEK 2

(Full decklists can be found here.)
QUARTERFINALS: 👍👎👍 VS Mono Red (1st seed)
SEMIFINALS: 👎👍👍 VS Gruul Aggro (5th seed)
FINALS: 👎👎 VS Selesnya Control (2nd seed)
I said no to splitting in Top 8 again, where Wappa Hamada from Team Collector Legion says no to splitting in Top 4 and the finals with me. First time I've been a part of a pure no-split event.
Getting the win against 1st seed on Mono Red on the draw felt nice, bouncing his endgame blockers (buffed up Heartfire Hero and Screaming Nemesis) with two Into the Flood Maws to clear lethal in game 1 and sticking an 8/8 Octopus with a Sheltered by Ghosts to seal game 3.
I'm faced with with a familiar foe in Top 4. Eric Kearns on Gruul Aggro again. Temporary Lockdown and Sheltered by Ghosts felt amazing blockading combat as usual in games 2 and 3, but Eric gets me with a clever line in game 1. With me at 4 life and Eric having very little gas left in a close contest, he knows that I'm packing two maindeck Sheltered by Ghosts as well as other scary things with a loaded graveyard next turn. With me only having one mana open, he decided that he wants to close out the game immediately if I don't have an Into the Flood Maw by making use of a very passive Obliterating Bolt sitting in his hand. Bolting his own Screaming Nemesis for exactly lethal. Can't even be mad. That's funny.
I'm against a Mono White Control shell splashing green for Up the Beanstalk and Overlord of the Hauntwoods in the finals, a tough matchup. I'm able to put up a decent fight through possible Sunfall turns by consistently spewing out an Oculus, Djinn, and Kiora in succession to not get blown out in any one turn. Sadly, Wappa is ready with a nice wealth of spot removal and eventually adequate blockers from an Overlord of the Mistmoors.
+4 Negate
+2 Exorcise
+2 Monastery Mentor
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
+1 Faerie Mastermind
-2 Elspeth's Smite
-2 Into the Flood Maw
-2 Recommission
-2 Sheltered by Ghosts
-1 Moment of Truth
-1 Founding the Third Path
Same sideboarding philosophy as with playing against Domain, we have to be transformative and more flexible. Game 2 is better for me, with Wappa not having Up the Beanstalk early and I'm sitting comfortably with a proactive Founding the Third Path backed by Exorcise and Negate ready in case of Rest in Peace or something else crazy. I run some creatures out again, we trade cards, and right when I think I'm winning, Wappa draws an Up the Beanstalk and Sunfall to get back into it with his Overlord of the Hauntwoods coming alive. I have decent counterplay with a Monastery Mentor and monk tokens refueling my board with a greatly timed Faerie Mastermind drawing me a bunch of cards, by I'm eventually overwhelmed in Wappa's second wind and I lose in the finals of a one-slotter. Bummer, but was very satisfied with the run and prizing gained overall.
WEEK 3
Fresh off the back-to-back finals appearances, we return to the eastern Los Angeles area for a two-slotter with some added confidence and a new inclusion to the 75. For this last event, I tried Unsummon over Into the Flood Maw to bounce my key creatures in the face of spot removal. We also now have a cute line of bouncing one of the manifest dread 2/2s if I find something effective enough that I'd want to cast it instead of being a vanilla 2/2, like say a Helping Hand. Call it results-oriented, but there's rarely been times I've wanted the "gift a fish" clause of Flood Maw as the benefit of not playing Unsummon straight up. I'm joined in this event by three teammates: Ben Ejnes, and the father-daughter duo of Adam and Dana Fischer. We have 34 players for this RCQ, meaning six rounds of swiss.
ROUND 1: 👍👍 VS Gruul Aggro (1-0)
ROUND 2: 👎👎 VS Gruul Aggro (1-1)
ROUND 3: 👍👍 VS Gruul Aggro (2-1)
ROUND 4: 👍👍 VS Selesnya Tokens (3-1)
ROUND 5: 👍👍 VS Dimir Bounce (4-1)
ROUND 6: ID VS Gruul Aggro (4-1-1)
6th seed for Top 8.
Bad event. Didn't play against Gruul enough.
In all seriousness, playing against the uprising Collector's Cage version of Selesnya Tokens in round 4 was a nice challenge (obviously a Temporary Lockdown matchup) where Monastery Mentor can hold down the city when snowballing a wall of monk tokens if the opponent goes wide. Dimir Bounce feels unlosable in game 1 from my brief experiences against it, with post-board feelings still being evaluated similarly to Dimir Tempo. In game 1, Bounce needs Go for the Throat or Floodpits Drowner plus activate to deal with an early Oculus or Djinn. Cut Down and Nowhere to Run are there for the smaller creature's aggression, which isn't what we're doing. It's an interesting matchup in that although the deck can be aggressive, Temporary Lockdown is secretly bad against Dimir Bounce, inviting negative value if hit with a This Town Ain't Big Enough or Tishana's Tidebinder.
TOP 8, WEEK 3

Oh my God, Dana's so wholesome. Not gonna lie, my heart melted a little bit here. 💙💛 Anyway, I've said no to splitting yet again in Top 8, so let's get this bread.
QUARTERFINALS: 👍👎👍 VS Dimir Bounce (3rd seed)
SEMIFINALS: 👍👍 VS Gruul Aggro (2nd seed)
FINALS: 👎👎 VS Azorius Omniscience (4th seed)
We have an unorthodox 90 minute timer for our playoff matches this time. That said, my quarterfinal match becomes an insane slugout in game 3 that pushed us to a whopping 72 minutes spent on our clock. Proactive early Oculus turns feel great against Dimir Bounce's poor situational removal selection in game 1 as already discussed despite being on the draw as the 6th seed.
+2 Monastery Mentor
+1 Faerie Mastermind
+1 Kutzil's Flanker
-2 Recommission
-1 Haughty Djinn
-1 Sheltered by Ghosts
My opponent takes game 2 off a turn 1 Stormchaser's Talent and turn 2 Fear of Isolation bouncing Talent with better better removal eventually clearing the way for my opponent to chip in with slowly escalating damage until his team is too wide for me to survive.
Game 3, on the play, devolved from a subtly tempo battle with me having a Faerie Mastermind drawing cards with my opponent trying to crash through with an Enduring Curiosity combat turn, into a clogged chaotic mess full of manifest dread creatures, monk tokens from an unanswered Monastery Mentor, repeatedly bounced enchantments like Hopeless Nightmare and Stormchaser's Talent, and combat tricks galore from both players. It was something akin to where you leave your two dogs alone in the living room peacefully for five minutes and return to them violently turning your furniture inside out and eating your plants.

Like the Domain match two weeks prior, we're taking about five minutes each thinking through our winning lines like a classical chess match with neither of us missing any land drops. I'm trying to milk my value off an Abhorrent Oculus making 2/2s and surprise blockers thanks to Monastery Mentor while my opponent, still having about four cards in hand, is looping Stormchaser's Talent's level two activation with This Town Ain't Big Enough and Hopeless Nightmare to deplete what's left of my hand. With my opponent perpetually threatening This Town Ain't Big Enough paired with Floodpits Drowner to invite me having a mental breakdown overextending my blockers in combat, we're finally able to get in through the fliers showing a second Oculus off the manifest dread from the first, paired with Faerie Mastermind and a 7/6 Haughty Djinn after my opponent finally cracks and miscounts their mana mapping our their last turn after a 70-minute banger. Without exaggerating, there had been about five combats in a row from each of us where we could've lost the game immediately with any single subtle mistake. We love matches like this and my opponent was a class act.
After taking the invite in Top 4, the dream is realized and we're double Q'd! My finals opponent and I decide to play a laid-back match for the lanyard. With my opponent on Azorius Omniscience Combo, he curves out nicely in both games getting Omniscience in the yard early, and has two copies of Abuelo's Awakening to fight through my first counterspell both games despite me having a proactive start putting him to 2 life in game 2. Gameplay is simple playing against this deck. Sometimes they get there early, sometimes I have the answers. My opponent built his deck well for the multiple red decks in the room, apparently maindecking Split Up and Day of Judgement; which gave him an edge against me as well.
CONCLUSION
Azorius Oculus had been poorly positioned for a while before overhauling the old core of the deck. As exciting as these recent results have been against high-quality players in a generally aggressive format, I'm aware that I'm deviating from a lot of the norms you'll find on MTGTop8 and can only recommend this 75 if you're somewhat familiar with some of the tempo-intricate play patterns of Oculus already, coming from about 170 matches on Arena myself up to this point. Or of course, if you're just tired of getting dunked on by the red decks and don't have the patience to pilot Mono White. The two Elspeth's Smites maindeck have felt great against a majority of the field and expect it to hold its weight well if Dimir and Golgari continue to hover at the top tables. Recently, I've seen lists playing Negate maindeck instead of Phantom Interference to pivot from a permission spell into a hard counter, which I'd considered throughout the month. I'm still not a fan of Soul Partition. Exiling and delaying a problematic nonland permanent hasn't helped my continuity as opposed to playing Get Lost to straight up destroy something. Kiora, the Rising Tide has overperformed recently as another deviation, looting me through a lot of otherwise losing post-board games improving my hand into all sorts of situational Magic. As appealing as making an 8/8 is on the surface, the underlying flexibility this card offers feels underrated.
Interestingly, the mana base is now typically showing 22 lands for a stock list instead of my 20. I would imagine that this is because players now want better chances of hitting land drops organically instead of needing to commit a Moment of Truth or Chart a Course early just to find lands. It's possible that I've avoided being punished like this by having the extra looter in Kiora, the Rising Tide, and embracing the early Chart a Course turns against the red matchups anyway in search of the early Helping Hand or Recommission. In a future event, I wouldn't mind trimming a counterspell for a 4th Floodfarm Verge.
With that said, the grind is over and I can ride off into the sunset with two months left in the season. I'm not active on Twitter/X or Reddit, so if you have any thoughts on the deck or want to converse sideboarding, feel free to shoot me a DM on Discord at PrezKoumori. Special thanks to my Logic Knot teammates for the continued moral support throughout the season and to you for joining me in spirit on this journey of playing the game that we love.
Good games everyone.
~ Prez Kuhnke
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