Snow-Covered BEEFCAKE Meetup Tournament Report
By MichaelJ
I played BEEFCAKE at the 2/27/25 Brooklyn Meetup. I know I had talked about playing b-g Pitless Rack, but Phyrexia on the Spike Colony Discord talked about wanting to play BEEFCAKE at an upcoming tournament. And I was like âHey, the man is paying to be on this Discord⊠The least I can do is play a deck I actually took the time to make⊠You know, for science.â
I was initially super excited about BEEFCAKE. Excited enough that I bought a g-d fourth City of Traitors to make it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DE-Zfq0JHuo (note from the editor… embeds aren’t working idk how to fix but not gonna do it right now!)
Iâve owned the same three copies of City of Traitors for 26 years (used them to qualify for the 1999 National Championship), but never got around to getting the fourth until earlier this year.
Promo Code: FLORES
Anyway, I tested with Bryan G, Andy Levine, and SWB last weekend. I had never put in a single rep with BEEFCAKE before that playtest session.
Initially I was super excited and impressed by BEEFCAKE. My first four games were all turn four kills. But SWB won all four. Yowza thatâs bad.
He switched from playing a Mono-Blue Storm Hunting Pack combo deck to his âAggro Parfaitâ a la Rich Shay (what everyone else would call TerraGeddon) to be a little kinder to BEEFCAKE⊠So we wouldnât just be two ships passing one another in the night.
Turns out SWB had the additional tech of Exalted Angel. Exalted Angel is unbeatable for BEEFCAKE. It makes a lot of sense. BEEFCAKE just makes 3/3s or 4/4s or 4/5s or sometimes a 5/5⊠But none of those race even one [flying] Exalted Angel. He can just chump block with the rest of his deck and the Angel will win the game in four or five turns every time. But he doesnât just chump⊠âAggro Parfaitâ has Swords to Plowshares and Terravore, which both line up gloriously against what BEEFCAKE is trying to do.
BEEFCAKE ended a long day as one of the worst decks Iâve ever tested. I might have won two games on the day? The crowning disappointment was Andy on BEEFCAKE, letting me play the Lodestone Bauble âSpiceâ combo deck [my first time ever]. Lodestone Bauble won.
That said, SWB had the brainstorm of cutting Wasteland.
âYour problem,â he surmised, âis that you have too many un-keep-able hands. What if you just replaced Wasteland with Forest? Would you be able to keep more hands?â
I was already going to play the deck for Phyrexia / science so I decided to take SWBâs advice. The man never loses! Heâs probably got something right going on between his ears. I added Snow-Covered Forest to mark the ex-Wastelands, so Iâd know when they came up versus my regular mana base.
I gave Lanny Sam Black Enchantress so took all the Hidden Gibbons out of the BEEFCAKE sideboard. Anyway I didnât anticipate much blue. I sided a fourth Phyreixan Furnace and some Tranquil Domains instead; because those would be good against the popular Enchantress decks (including stupid Lanny obv); and a Tsaboâs Web because that seemed like it would be effective against some decks that are strong v. BEEFCAKE and also something nice to tap with Tangle Wire.
Anyway, here is my deck:
âSnow-Covered BEEFCAKEâ
4 Tangle Wire
4 Winter Orb
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wild Growth
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Call of the Herd
4 Blastoderm
4 Erhnam Djinn
4 Ravenous Baloth
2 Masticore
2 Kavu Titan
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Forest
3 Snow-Covered Forest
Sb:
4 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Tsaboâs Web
4 Naturalize
4 Tempting Wurm
2 Tranquil Domain
Four Rounds. Many dumplings. No beer (for me); lots of beer (for other Magicians).
Round 1: Matt with Pitless Rack
I figured this would be a bad matchup for BEEFCAKE but Matt removed his Dystopias from his sideboard.
Game One I had a fast Blastoderm start but he played a turn two Ravenous Rats. Wow awful. He can just make me have a Lava Axe with this deck. I drew a lot of Call of the Herd and exactly enough Tangle Wires to get in cleanly though. No shade on Matt or his deck choice; dealer just had BEEFCAKE in this one.
Game Two he got stuck on two mana and I had Tangle Wires. Again, nothing Matt could have done.
1-0 / 2-0
Round 2: Rich with Mono-Blue Tide
Rich was actually borrowing Andyâs Tide deck so I knew BEEFCAKE was in trouble. I think Andy won every game we tested of this matchup, mostly just âplaying with his foodâ ⊠BEEFCAKE has no reach and Tide has Chain of Vapor. Worse, I had given my Hidden Gibbons to Lannyâs deck.
Two key plays:
One of them I beat a Force Spike with an Elvish Spirit Guide. Which was a moral victory⊠That led to an actual victory. Itâs really hard for Tide to manage some of BEEFCAKEâs threats once they are already on the battlefield. Call of the Herd, sure (with Chains and Kegs) but Blastoderm has Shroud and a lot of the other fellows are just big and nom nom nom a blocking Mishraâs Factory.
The second Iâm sandbagging a City of Traitors the whole time. Rich enters the phase of the game that heâs going to take total control so lets in a Blastoderm hit, intending to chump it on its last attack. He has double Mishraâs Factory, so heâs going to be able to manage my sole Elephant token. I tap flash back, leaving up one mana, and Rich counters the Call of the Herd. I play the City of Traitors and deploy my freshly drawn last card: the third Tangle Wire of the game (one of them got bounced by Chain of Vapor so it was only the second physical Tangle Wire CARD though). He canât counter and the Blastoderm he was planning to chump Megatronâs into a lethal threat thanks to Shroud.
2-0 / 4-0
Feeling like I have the plot armor!
Then I get matched with the dastardly SWB, winner of four of the last five meetups! How much plot armor do you need to beat this juggernaut? More than my 2-0 / 4-0 record implied, unfortunately.
Round 3: SWB with âAggro Parfaitâ
I already wrote this match out for Instagram so Iâm just going to copy / paste that from this post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGn7qjBppZd/
Will do a longer writeup on the-group-formerly-known-as-non-idiots, but I thought you might appreciate this story.
I spent last Sunday testing at SWBâs house.
I was initially impressed by BEEFCAKE, but ultimately disappointed. I had never played a deck that had to mulligan so much due to its opening hand mana situation.
SWB suggested I remove the Wastelands and replace them with green sources. I chose Snow-Covered Forest, so I could track the delta better.
Anyway in our Meetup match last night, SWB mulliganâd into:
Mox Diamond
City of Traitors
Morph
I knew from testing that the Morph was an Exalted Angel. SWB knew from testing that BEEFCAKE can never beat a flipped Exalted Angel. Like, never. The deck just makes dudes that canât race a 4/5 flyer that gains 4 life a turn. Itâs un-possible.
I flashed him two Snow-Covered Forests in my hand. If one were a Wasteland, I might have got it.
The secret of Snow-Covered BEEFCAKE?
âThe long con.â
Anyway I went 3-1 in the meetup. 6-0 in games v. non-SWB opponents. Take that for what you will.
2-1 / 4-2
Round 4: Simon with Broccoli Soup
This one was not a challenge for the sheer size and shall-we-say-BEEFiness that is BEEFCAKE. Broccoli Soup is all tiny little Carnophage and Drinker of Sorrow who canât get though a 5/5 and also canât block⊠Small ball Zombies to BEEFCAKEâs Beastly Blastoderms and value 4/4s.
Simon made probably the only play he could have in the decider, running out a Tempting Wurm. A 5/5 is as big as anything in my deck right? I dropped 4 permanents including a Blastoderm, eliciting the scoop; presumably for dumplings.
3-1 / 6-2
Man BEEFCAKE seemed fantacular in games v. non-SWB opponents (6-0). But Neither I nor $1K champion Bill Ellis!! were able to unseat SWB and his relentless domination of the meetup metagame. 5 of the last 6! Mah gawd!
All in good fun! Great run Stephen đ
LOVE
MIKE