So after an exhausting, exhilarating, and very roller coaster Gottacon weekend, I’ve decided to write a tourney report on the weekend as a whole. I will say I have been to gotta con three years in a row, and this was the most fun I have had yet, so kudos to Evan, Nelson, and the rest of the mtg judge staff for really putting on a good weekend, and listening to my whining;)

PRELUDE the Week of Vic vs. Van Testing

I realized a little late in the year that IR really had failed my duties as captain, which resulted in starting the qualifier season quite a bit later then I wanted. This resulted in some scrambled tournaments, but I would like to thank the Vic player s for making the qualifiers fire. I will certainly take this experience and know to start the process earlier, and space them out a bit, so it’s not a clustereff of qualifiers week in and week out. Anyways,onwards to the testing process. I decided quite early that I wanted no part of a control deck in a new format. AS Paris and Dan have been successful aggro players, and Noel is a midrange kind of guy, I figured the 2 aggro, 1 titan deck, or 3 aggro decks was the way to go. Initial testing begun, and we quickly discovered something, the monogreen deck I had been brewing, and Noel had been testing, was definitely the real deal. It was slaughtering most decks we put it up against, and was over 50 percent against delver. So we had 1 deck decided, and with Dan C having played humans for what seems like an eternity, that was decided as well. This left our young talented Paris without a deck, and I have to say, I was very impressed with the amount of testing he did before settling in on Conley’s wolf run deck. This gave us our three decks that only had to be slightly adjusted, (I think noel’s or Paris’s deck had to cut a Green suns zenith) and everyone was pretty confident in their decks which was great. I was hoping realistically for the Standard team to contribute 4-5 points and they would likely have to claw for every win, with a new metagame, it can always be a little bit dicey. I felt like the strongest team was the draft team, which was needed, as I figured (incorrectly sort of) that the three strongest van players (Seb, Jeff Fung, Mani) would be drafting. And With Josh (Night Train) Lane on board for team sealed, I knew we would have a strong team, and the best decks would be built. SO I was quite satisfied with our team construction, and was happy with how Gottacon was shaping up.

Part 2 aka oh shit I still have to play type 2 at this thing.
So I honestly just didn’t realize that I had to play type 2 at all until we were testing at Paris’s house, and I realized I had no Dark ascension cards, and hadn’t played a standard deck other than mono red in 2 months. This lead to a pretty easy decision in terms of what to play at Gottacon. The decision: Monored with no Dark ascension cards!

4 X Stromkirk Noble 2 X goblin fire slinger 3 X grim lavamancer 2 X goblin fireslinger 4 X shrine of burning rage 3 X incinerate 4 X chandra S phoenix 2 X hero of oxid ridge 1 X sword of war and peace 15 X mountain 1 X kessig wolf run 4 X rootbound crag 2 X cooperline gorge P P SB 3 X dismember 3 X ancient grudge 3 X slagstorm 2 Z manabarbs 2 X Koth of the hammer 1 X sword of war and peace 2 X Traitorous blood

A very stock list, that has remained more or less the same for me for the last month or so. Mana Barbs was a last second add that won me a couple of games all by itself, and is certainly a card that I will play in the future. The main deck 4 drop slot is the only real question, and I decided that with sorin, and lingering souls running about, I wanted heroes’ main deck over koth.

I honestly don’t remember too much from the standard tourney, I played against Sean from Yj in round 1, and had three fairly grindy, standard monored vs. UW control games, where I lost game 1 after getting him to 1, then won g2 and g3 on the back of manabarbs and koth. I had a very interesting match against uw delver in Round 5, and a really crappy match against Paris in round 6. The shitty part of the tournament was taking a loss in round 4 to a very bad tempered steel player after drawing I kid you not, 9 Lands in a row (Ask Pete Zorn he saw it!) looking at my breakers, and knowing I had little to no chance to top 4. However, there was still some comedy to be had. Round 7 started at about 2:30 AM, where I got paired against a fellow from Nanaimo who was running BW tokens, with a red splash for from what I saw, was just for the flashback of rally the peasants. Anyways, This guy was pretty tilted as he ha d last his last round, which would have gotten him into the top 4. So we shuffle it up and start game one, where I then begin shuffling my cards in hand (the magic flick) This was not agreeable to my opponent, so he shouted “CAN YOU STOP THAT ITS REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING” I stared back baffled, as I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about. He then mumbled “forget it, I’m just really cranky”. I gave him a free pass as after all, it was 3 am. So I win game 1, and then get in a clutch 6 for 1 slagstorm in game 2. Then the following happened:
Opponent: Immolating soul eater: Go.
Me:….. Arc Trail immolating soul eater, 1 to it, two to you.
Opponent: In response fate shield my guy, name red
Me: I will galvanic blast it in response
Opponent: Ok I don’t take 2 from arc trail.
Me:.. Yes you do, its two separate targets
Opp: (mutters) asshole….
Me: Excuse me?!?!?! Judge!
Opp: fucking dick…
I am wondering if this is for real at this point…. So the judge comes over and politely explains that he does indeed take two damage. At which point my opponent mutters another expletive under his breath, and then declares the following:

IN RESPONSE PAY 6 LIFE WITH SOULEATER FATEFUL HOUR IS ACTIVATED I HAVE PROTECTION FROM RED I TAKE NO DAMAGE.

I then turn all my guys sideways trying to end the game as fat as I can so I can run away from the table without laughing. He then triumphantly Declares:

I TAKE NO DAMAGE I HAVE PROTECTION FROM RED:

You are right sir you are right.. He then untaps draws his card, realizes he is not playing obliterate, and scoops. Paris then says “cool fateful hour deck” to which my opponent quips: “ITS NOT A FATEFUL HOUR DECK, THAT IS JUST ONE OF MANY COMPLICATED INTERACTIONS THIS DECK HAPPENS TO HAVE” and gets up and leaves. I cannot hold it any longer, and burst out laughing for likely the next 15 minutes.

So yes, I 6-1d the tournament, and made 6th place. Turns out granddaddy josh also went 6-1 and got 5th. I won’t hash it out too much, but needless to say, neither of us were very happy about this, which indirectly lead to Nikos suggestion of a bottom 8 taking the 5-8th place finishers in each bracket (sealed and type 2) this was an awesome addition, and I thank Nelson, Niko and Evan for allowing it to happen.

I don’t have much to say about the sealed. I opened an ok RG splash black deck and went 6-2, which is exactly what I expected to do with the deck. I had some hilarious games against the one and only Pete Zorn, which were very fun in round 8. I got home at a much more reasonable hour of 1:30 am, and was ready for vic vs. van the next day!

After a slight detour to pick jonno up, I was ready to battle! I had only drafted dark ascension once before and even though I didn’t do well, I really liked it. After going over the standard decks again, I wished everyone luck and went to sit in my draft pod. I was very confident that we would do well in draft. Vancouver does have some great drafters, but my personal nemesis (Jeff fung, have never beaten that guy.,..) was not on the team, and with jonno and the Bert in tow, I felt like we had a great chance to put up 6 wins. The Draft went terrific for me, I was almost monored in pack 1, only grabbing an immerwolf, and a stromkirk captain as off color cards. I switched back and forth between black and green in pack 2, but after getting some good green 2 drops, and then opening a day break ranger in pack 3, I was solidly in RG werewolves. My deck was super-fast, with 2 waifs, a ton of two drops, and hellrider playing cleanup duty. Bert and jonno had both drafted gw, but berts was more ramp into fatties, while jonno had the little guys, with a cute blue splash for feeling of dread and moorland haunt.

I was paired against jordi jakura in round 1, and dropped a quick game 1 to Liliana and a lot of RB removal. G2 and G3 went much better, and I was able to draw fast starts, with a threaten to kill him one game, and hellrider in another. Jonno also won against manis spider deck, and the bert was ed to sebs 5 rare meatgrinder. Points went up on the board fast and furious, and it looked like we were doing quite well, holding an 8-4 lead fairly early. Unfortunately, Alberts deck did not treat him very well, and he ended up 0-3ing the draft. I was able to 3-0, and it was all up to jonno to get the (what I thought would be) the critical 6th point. Jonno split the first 2 games with seb, and looked to be in a bit of trouble in game 3, even causing me to walk over to nelson and remark (jonno’s not looking good in this game, we need to win a standard match) However after ripping increasing savagery to make his one lonely spirit token a huge beefcake, even after a sensory deprevation and a scarecrow, Jonno was able to beat Seb, and give the draft team a resounding 6-3 victory! The rest of the matches however, were not going great for team Victoria, as Vancouver claws back in it with a 5-4 win in sealed, and a 4-3 lead in standard, with two matches remaining. Paris unfortunately got a game loss for outside assistance (which while very lame, was fair, as the judges had given joshes opponent a game loss for drawing an extra card, and then had to mulligan to 5 in game 3. So everything was down to one match, Dan Connely’s WU humans, vs UW Delver, of course, the players split the first two games, and it was down to 1 game winner takes all. It was at this time of course, that my top 8 draft started, and I had to go draft, and couldn’t watch any of the game!!! I was a nervous wreck the entire time, until I heard a eruption of applause from the 30ish people that had gathered to watch the final game. I got a thumbs up from my team and let out a gigantic fist pump, and a high five with josh! V Those of you that know me know I am very competitive, and do not like losing, but this time I was just very happy for Paris, Dan, and all the other first time members of the team. It was nice to see everyone pumped up and genuinely happy to have won, even if the stakes were low. So Kudos again to ALL of team vic, I appreciate your hard work, and hope all of you will come out again next year to try for the three peat! The rest of the draft was a bit of a blur, but I did get a pretty spicy RU burning vengeance deck, and was able to split the finals with a mr josh layne, acquiring a graveborn deck in the process, which may be enough to push me back into highlander

Anyways, this article was long winded as it was, so I think I will stop it here. A genuine thanks to all that were involved in making Gottacon a successful weekend, At this rate who knows, maybe we can even get a ptq someday!

Tyler Woolley
Dubz1337 on Modo

A couple weeks before this we saw Victoria do well in another ptq over in van, with Jono and The Bert making their first ptq top 8’s, with Robin and Markus getting in there as well (I think) and Bert took it down. So Victoria was doing great in the magic scene again with sage having q’d last year, now bert, and some money finishes at gp tacoma. I however had stopped playing competitive decks at ptqs for a couple years, always taking some rogue deck took U/G time warps to that standard ptq bert won, yet somehow lost to a fog. I was more into ptqs and gps for the road trip and good times with friends more than the actual drive to win anymore.

I preordered a box of Zendikar mostly because of the fetches, I ended up with 1 which was pretty disappointing. There was a sealed ptq around now that all I did in it was be ty rob’s first loss so jono could finish him off in the last round. Jono and Josh made t8 which was pretty sweet again. I was still playing fnm’s and drafts a decent amount at this point not sure what I was originally playing, but Bert had been running a polymorph list on mtgo and doing fairly well with it. I ended up first trying it on mtgo, and running pretty hot with it. Ended up getting me quite a few free drafts and a few ptqs as well. Did well at fnm as well. Once worldwake had come out though, Jace had hurt the deck a lot and U/W was not a good matchup, but by playing 4 jace and khlani garden, the deck may have gotten a little stronger. Was a cool deck and I’d love to play something like it again (maybe mass poly this year who knows). Also got a little payback for my Zendikar Box being crappy, opened 2 Jace’s out of about 10 packs of Worldwake, which helped me have some for poly.

Was also getting pretty into the highlander scene for a while here, splitting with robin at gottacon and taking one yj tournament down, until josh realized he’d found his dream format and crushed everyone forever (only marginal exaggeration). The cost and time needed to put a successful deck together was too much for me and I lost interest.

The next big event I played in was the extended PTQ and with very little testing I decided to play living end, based on seeing it played on modo and I liked the idea of Phase 3, which is when you just play your big stupid cycling donks and beat down. This tournament saw Nelson fall just short of the promise land for the 4th time. I ended up going 5-2 in this tournament and thought there might still be some competitive life left in me after this.

It was around the time this ptq happened that I left my job because Money Mart is a terrible place to work. I stayed unemployed until mid June, so this caused me to scale back big time in magic. I traded to make poly into u/g poly (RIP dragon fodder) with emrakul once rise of the drunk-drazi came out. I played this set in two prereleases in limited and that was all. Played quite a few fnm’s during this time, but U/G poly just wasn’t quite as good against fnm level decks. I ended up missing playing in the standard ptq regionals and SCG 10k Seattle, which I wanted to play some competitive legacy in for the first time. On the plus side Nelson qualified for nationals, so that was cool. With my new job I really haven’t had a chance to play much magic, as I was usually working sunday and friday night and I am still really broke.

I wasn’t planning on going to gp portland, but when plans to go to PAX 2010 fell through because of work, I decided this would be my fall roadtrip this year. This tournament ended up getting me excited about magic again, as have the scars of mirrodin previews. Making day 2 definitely stopped my original plan of just drinking and having a good plan until Sunday night, but I also got to play the reigning player of the year and US national champ, which was a cool experience. I do plan on posting the videos I made between arounds and after day1 and also make some more for my day 2 matches, but I decided to do this first (because I wrote it at work). I’m still super poor since I’m finishing my degree and the one course is hurting my work schedule, but I do want to somehow go to the next ptq, right before a planned trip to Mexico. So this cycle in magic interest was quicker than normal, going from playing the most on mtgo I ever have to barely playing at all, to wanting to get back into the game all in a year. Hopefully the next year keeps me in more, but we’ll have to wait and see. Good friends are my number one draw for Magic and I don’t think that will ever change.

cloud elemental

foresee

cancel

sleep

clone

maritime guard

scroll thief

aether adept

air servant

water servant

2 goblin piker

2 lava axe

fire servant

earth servant

prodigal pyromancer

act of treason

lightning bolt

fling

fireball

arc runner

juggernaut

9 islands

8 mountains

board hits: demolish, 2 goblin tunnelers, goblin balloon brigade, the second fling, vulshock berserker, volcanic strength, negate, and harbor servant.

I go into round 7 still quite nervous about getting knocked out. My pod included a lot of orange shirts, which at the time I thought signified all the best players in montreal, but then later in the weekend I was told the owner of face a face was just giving them away, so maybe it was less of a credential than I thought.

Round 7: Robert Anderson

I don’t think I mentioned that pairings are random in this format, but here I was in the draft facing the guy that cut me out of blue. He also had white, and all of his men flew. Occaisionally he would play a palace guard as a kind of tribute to bad cards, only to suit it up with armored ascension (of whch he had two). Game1 I managed to sort of stabilise the air, and then he used his safe passage as a kind of bad sleep, making a costly attack in order to get damage through, then countering my lethal swingback on my turn, and having enough guys left to get there on his second swing.

things don’t look good.

Game2 I manage to deal with an early dude, pressure a bit with terrible creatures, and then go fire servant–>lava axe.

Game3 he mulls to five but makes all four first land drops and is attacking with an armored guy on turn4. after flinging my arc runner at it, he makes a second griffin huge with the powerful aura. I deliberate for a while between my answers and then decide on fireball. He has a third flier that I have to answer, this time only a 2/3. I go to two before being able to attack for lethal with my islandwalking fatty. Quite the match.

We take it fairly easy that night, hitting up a pub for a few beers but not staying up too late. 3/4 of the bc players were still in contention (myself, business frodes, and stewart blaschek) and brandon fettback had decided he would play out the swiss and try for the top16 pro point.

No decklist game losses to get at the second player meeting, so the only reason I had to tilt out was my back being at the wall for so long. No problem, right?

Round8: Andrew Boa

hmm…

I have no memory of this match. sorry kids. I mean I can remember winning because I know I didn’t get knocked out this round. as for what actually happened, perhaps it will remain a mystery for all time. Andrew if you’re reading this, please click the link on the bottom to tell us your side of this riveting tale.

Round 9: Patrick Selk

Ok so did I mention earlier that this draft was a little weird, and that I saw some signals to go green? Did I mention there was a ninth pick acidic slime? how about 8th pick awakener druid? anyways here I finally was facing off against my pod’s green deck. Game1 I get rolled real bad, mulling to five and then not playing any spells.

Game2 there’s a very tough mull to six, where I keep 2 mountains, aether adept, scroll thief, volcanic strength, and _i think_ cancel (it was definitely another blue card and it definitely wasn’t a creature I could cast if I only drew one island). So to reiterate, this is a very tough mull to six. I feel like herder gets on my back here and we go back and forth about what the odds are on my 5 being great and the argument ends with both of us agreeing that neither of us have enough knowledge of statistics to really prove my point. I guess I keep there because my gut feeling tells me an average 5 is just the same hand with one less spell. The other possible argument is that scroll thief volcanic strength vs red/green is nuts, but that isn’t the argument I would use here to defend this keep.

So i drew the island on time and volcanic thief’d him right out of game 2.

Game3 its his turn to mull to five and not cast spells. I get through the limited portion of Canadian nats without a loss.

Forboding strikes me as I remember my record in constructed over the weekend :/j

Round 10: Yevgeni Altgauzen, Superfriends

Finally a wall of omens deck for me to beat up. I can’t remember if it’s game1 or 2 that I lose, but I do remember that a make this really weird, fairly irrelevant punt against ajani vengeant. I’m being super killed by aj and elspeth, and I have a conscription stuck in my hand and half of my lands in play. I draw a hierarch, and then tank a bit, deciding that with ajani at only seven, I’d like to allow yev the opportunity to helix the mana dude, delaying one sided armageddon by a turn or so. He isn’t even likely to make this play, so my attack with an 11/11 isn’t even really slowed down, and his attackers all fly, so blocking isn’t relevant. Catch my punt?

That’s right, dear reader, aj blows up at seven, not eight. I did the math while scooping and I was still dead as long as he played right.

Anyways I win one of those other first two games and then take game3 with a land light draw from my opp and a decent draw from my deck.

Round 11: Sammy Tharmaratnam, Jund

I see a mountain during shuffling, cementing my worst play error of the weekend (other than the decklist, and possibly even behind not telling a judge that I saw that mountain). Anyways here’s what I keep on the draw against a deck with mountains in it:

forest, tech edge, verdant catacombs, cobra, 3 sovereigns.

dirty, eh?

yeah I got super hypnotized by that cobra for some reason. Like this is already a mull to five and doesn’t even have a great plan. Early in the season Tyler Woolley told me his rule of thumb for mulligans with this deck was “keep hands with castable mana accelerants” and I’ve adopted that more or less, but this hand was definitely a ship.

So my snake gets fried and then I get junded on pretty hard. Game2 looks like it’s going to run my way for a bit, with 2 baloths coming down on my side, but Sam was able to kill my angel and I think also a sovereigns, so eventually the baloths just traded with a pile of goblin tokens and I had to sign away my top8 berth.

sigh.

oh well, I still had fun, and I could muster a respectable rank if I won my last round.

Round12: Foxtrot Rhodes, Mythic Conscription

Brandon Chreptyk and I had agreed on at least 70 of the same cards, so this was almost a perfect mirror. For a while there he was playing rafiq, but I talked him out of that. I think our main deck might have been idenitical, but I’m certain he ran with the second linvala in lieu of bosley.

I god draw him twice. This’ll probably sound super greasey, but I had it coming. My deck didn’t “do it’s thing” all weekend, and I found over the course of the various tournaments I played that about every 4th game offered you a prompt sovereigns with some kind of backup. Frodo was pretty steamed, but the match was way more comfortable than it would have been a round or two earlier, with the prospect of taking a room mate out of contention instead of just battling for rating and a pro point.

I watched the first and most important round of the top8, with the only disappiontment being frodo’s pal noah long losing to kyle duncan’s jund. Noah was piloting u/r/g destructive force, so I think that match must be at least ok, but he had kind of a heartbreaking game 1, keeping a 2land hand with three castable spells, a halimar depths and a snapland, and having to look 14 cards deep before hitting his third land. I think he could have won his game3 if he played it differently, but he got a little too addicted to mana leak and ended up getting jund all over his nice, new shoes.

The team ends up being Jassar Elarar, Vincent Thibeault, and Pascal Maynard. you may read about it here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/canat10/welcome

here’s my standard deck:
5 forest

2 island

2 plains

4 celestial colonnade

1 sunpetal grove

1 tectonic edge

1 very expensive arid mesa

2 sejiri steppe

4 misty rainforest

3 verdant catacomb

4 noble hierarch

4 birds of paradise

4 lotus cobra

3 mana leak

2 dauntless escort

4 knight of the reliquary

1 elspeth, knight errant

3 jace, the mind sculptor

4 baneslayer angel

4 sovereigns of lost alara

2 eldrazi conscription.

I think the easiest thing for me to do better at the next nats would be to play more standard in the weeks leading up to the tournament. In order to get that done I’m going to start a playtesting team that will meet thursday nights at yj. If you’re reading this you’re invited, but it will require some commitment. basically anyone trying to grind on the ptq should be comfortable with the kind of work I’m talking about. Talk to me or pm me on vicmagic to learn more. This is my first time organizing a magic team, so I’ll be learning as I go (expect the odd broken egg).

Nelson Salahub

post comments here:

http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/VicMagic/index.php?showtopic=1887&st=0&#last

good to see you again. I had a lovely time in eastern Canada, but yes, I am glad to be home. Strange though it may sound after returning from a magic-oriented trip, I’m fiending to get some games in. I only played 12 matches the whole weekend. that’s like the number of matches I normally get in before I’ve finished making coffee in any given week. Actually wait, that’s not true. I did get in two matches of Mirrodin block draft, going 1-1 (sorry team).

That’s probably enough preamble.

I left from Vancouver after visiting with some mainland friends and family on wednesday night. Noah sold me on a red-eye flight, which turned out ok. I didn’t sleep on the plane (though it was totally smooth), but then my room was ready as soon as I got there at 9am, so I slept half the day. I essesntially got to pay half for my room for the first two nights, so that was cool. Thursday I shopped a bit, found some new shoes, drafted at face a face, and visited the Dieu du Ciel pub, drinking a “deesse nocturne” or “goddess of the night”, which is a delicious stout that’s not too sweet.

Frodo arrived at the hotel just before I got home, which was lucky because although I left his name as an occupant the hotel was refusing him service until I got there. I guess we stack up discrimination against hobbits as a potential dis on french canadians.

In the morning Frodo and I got tourist trap breakfast and when we came back to the hotel Brandon Fettback was there. Our merry band complete, we ventured the 30 meters to the site.

While I was happy to just find out when I could register for the main event the brandons wanted to test all day and potentially cube or get into side events and such. I shopped more, discovering eventually that I’m too fat to shop in St. Denis :’( and then settling for a shirt from the bay and some new socks. I bought two bottles of wine and dropped on of them on the tile floor of the mall ten yards outside the liquor store, causing a scene. The manager was kind enough to replace the wine, but my new socks remain pink.

That evening brought me dinner with a family that I know in montreal. They fed me ReBar enchilladas and I got to hang out with their baby. That evening was a highlight of the trip. I return to the hotel at a reasonable hour and get in a good nights sleep before the

Main Event!

We get dressed and have some breakfast in plenty of time for the player meeting, but the fact that I wasn’t in a hurry just makes the next few sentences all the more embarrassing. We’re seated for the meeting and the HJ starts off by telling us we have 60 seconds to finish our decklists and have them ready. Ack! I hadn’t started my list yet, because I don’t like doing them in two sittings and there was a sideboard slot I was still mulling over. Get it together salahub. My defense is partly to blame MacPhee, since at all of his events he gives a 5minute warning for our lists. He also usually gives a 30minute and 15minute warning, whereas at nats it was just expected that you knew the start of the player meeting meant decklists ready. So obviously I scribble wildly from memory for a minute and hand Will Lockyear a list that includes every card in my deck except for my arid mesa.

In retrospect I should have played this one a lot cooler. I started to panic, and then when I told the closest floor judge my situation he responded with “you have no time”, which obviously allieved all of my panic and made me realize that the right play was just to calmly finish my list and do it right. Unless you were taking more than five minutes in that situation the judge would just wait on you. So I leave for pairings with this potential game loss hanging over my head, but I remain confident.

Round1: Andrew Boyce, Red Deck Wins

Game1 is kinda the usual. he kills my mana guys and I don’t land a baneslayer angel, so I lose. Game2 was neat. The one sideboard slot I was considering was what to play against the red leyline, which he started with. I ended up deciding on 1 oblivion ring and 1 qasali pridemage, both of which I drew. So then I rather ironically win this game where he has the tech against me, and then I lose game3 to him dealing like 40 damage my way off of ball lightnings and their ilk. I had a turn where I had to weigh the value of chumping with a 4/4 knight and no more gas in the tank. I do, and it ends up being correct, but he finds lethal before I find an angel. At least it was the top card of my library.

So I remain confident during even after being approached about what I’m sure is going to be a decklist related game loss at the beginning of

Round2: Andrew Routledge, Monoblack Control

Sure enough, there’s a one-of I’ve missed. I was actually somewhat relieved to get a game loss, just because this was my first event at 40K and I feared getting disqualification and whatnot.

Anyways I take “game2″ after jacing about 5 times and never getting sludged. in game3 he lands creatured every turn and I get eaten by insect shades. Props to gatekeeper of malakir for winning this game.

I’m managing not to tilt out too hard after getting a game loss and losing to the best player in the Yukon. And then there’s this strange phenomenon where I don’t tilt out, then feel really proud of myself for not tilting, and then feel even better. I had a kind of feedback loop of good vibes going while in the 0-2 bracket. It may be the most fun I’ve had losing yet.

Round3 Drew Ganske- Fauna Banaya

This is a pretty tight match which played less like a mirror than you would expect, just because I’m not fauna shamaning and he never drew/searched up sovereigns. I did expect he would have the powerful exalted creature after game1, but playign around it didn’t help me not getting vengevine/elspeth’d out. 0-3. sniff sniff.

Well I guess the true test of my good attitude was at hand. I overhear some other players saying that x-3 still makes top8, and this sounds about right with 111 players and 12 rounds, so I tighten my belt and steel myself for a long, uphill climb.

Draft

Air Servant put me in blue immediately, and although there was an early giant spider available, I manage to avoid green (the dubz had warned me that I needed to be able to draft other decks) in favour of plentiful burn spells and pyromancers, sleeving up a deck I felt good about.

cloud elemental

merfolk sovereign

2 maritime guard

aether adept

canyon minotaur

2 prodigal pyromancer

stone golem

scroll thief

air servant

fiery hellhound

hoarding dragon

ice cage

mana leak

unsummon

cancel

jace’s ingenuity

shiv’s embrace

preordain

chandr’s outragee

warlord’s axe

lightning bolt

9 island

8 mountain

board hits: merfolk spy (oh yeah!), armored cancrix, manic vandal (yeah i should’ve probably manned up and maindecked this), demolish, redirect, volcanic strength, chandra’s spitfire, goblin balloon brigade.

Round4: Jeff Major

This guy had a “mana deprived” tee shirt on, so we talked about that site a bit. It turns out he posts quite a bit. He was playing three color bombs with little fixing and solid playables such as mind rot and lilliana’s specter. I managed to hold the upper hand in game1 but in game 2 he cast baneslayer angel, leaving me only two turns to draw an out, and failing. In game3 I figured out that he shouldn’t have been playing black, as his mana worries cost him the match.

I won a match!

Round 5: Dave Clarke

He’s green white with overrun, but failing to draw overrun or otherwise put a ton of pressure on me basically turns this into an unfair matchup in my favour, since I can afford to get beat up a little and then deal with his important guys. In both games I stabilise and fly over.

Still in it! I start to feel like this run could actually happen.

Round6: Joseph Bunyan

He is black/green rock with rise from the grave, an assortment of great creatures, assassinate, doom blade, cultivate, and basically every good card in those colors. Game1 is over in the blink of an eye and I do my best to stay focused and rally. no boarding.

In game2 I manage to gain control early and fly in. he shows me a crystal ball or a whispersilk cloak and I board in the vandal for the axe.

Game3 I’m getting beaten down by some cheap black dudes and then a whispersilk cloak. I plant my back foot and he lays down a spined wurm with me at ten. On his next turn he suits up and brings me to five, then plays reassembling skeleton. my board is a golem, a thief, and a fresh pyromancer. he is at thirteen. I have an embrace in hand but my only out is the vandal. I don’t draw it on my draw step.

he has doom blade mana but i have cancel. After tanking a minute I decide that my only out is the manic vandal on top of my deck. I ping the skeleton and ship with the thief and the golem. I draw… Vandal! although most of us would cry “what luck!” I feel a little more deserving of this miracle topdeck, if only because I was clever enough to discern that it keeps me in the game and that no other line of play does. I’ve scooped a lot of games where there was a situation like this, so even if for many of you it was just an insane topdeck, for me it was something of a breakthrough in piloting skill. He doomblades the vandal and I cancel, there’s no second removal ftw and I am able to fly in with a suited up guy, pump, and ping to the dome for my last needed point. I win my draft.

Draft 2

This was super weird. I opened the 7mana dragon AND fire elemental AND another decent red card, so I just took a cloud elemental and hoped to keep out of red. I took a second blue card and then got a little tricked with the next two picks as I attempted to assemble a second colour while blue dried out. 3rd was the 7mana white flier and 4th was a garruk’s packleader. So then the rest of my pack1 is dirt but I at least cut all the blue so that pays off down the road. Pack2 I get the blue I wanted… and also a second pick bolt from an otehrwise loose pack and a really late pyromancer. So now I’m dubiously back into blue/red and nervous that I’ve had some success with an archetype and I’m forcing myself into it in the middle of pack2. Perhaps I’ve stumbled upon a nuts color combo or more likely I just get super lucky in the remainder of this draft, opening a fireball, getting passed an air servant, and peiceing together enough pseudo-playables to form a deck.

Unfortunately the list and following match result, along with my journey through day2 will have to wait until a bit later tonight (or tomorrow if I’m super lazy), because I have to go pick up my mom from the airport.

Thanks for reading!

discuss with link below:

http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/VicMagic/index.php?showtopic=1887

This trip was tempered somewhat with a cold that most of the yellowjacket staffers are still fighting through (get well, Ed). I was able to at least get myself into bed at 1am due to my medium-strength resolve to live healthily and get well. All I did for the first half of my allotted sleep time was lie in bed and think through sideboarding strategies. I even got up at 2:30 and made my 60th maindeck cardchoice. Luckily I only had to wade through the normal haze of mental fog in the morning. It seemed as though my body was rewarding me on effort this term.

6am saw Tyler Woolley into my car, and 6:15 saw Connor Hayward. With no snags we arrived comfortably in time to meet our 7am ferry reservation, and we were quickly devouring breakfast and hashing out the last 3 slots in our sideboards. Between the ferry and the car ride to the event I managed to convince my colleagues that we didn’t need 10 cards in the sb for red (wrong!). Tyler and Connor played 2 luminarch ascensions and I played a planeswalker and an oblivion ring. In lieu of getting those ascensions back I could really go for the $8, by the way.

Mythic Bant

1 Tectonic Edge 1 Sejiri Steppe 1 Glacial Fortress 1 Sunpetal Grove 2 Island 2 Plains 4 Forest 3 Verdant Catacombs 1 Arid Mesa 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Stirring Wildwood 3 Celestial Colonnade 2 Eldrazi Conscription 4 Baneslayer Angel 4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara 3 Jace, the mind sculptor 3 Negate 4 Knight of the Reliquary 3 Dauntless Escort 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch P P SB 1 Negate 2 Spell Pierce 4 Kor Firewalker 3 Path to Exile 2 Vapor Snare 1 Oblivion Ring 1 Gideon Jura 1 Rhox War Monk

Round1 brought me a Victoria on Victoria matchup, which I knew was pretty likely given that we were at least 14/130. My opponent was Brandon Parkes, and we knew each other’s lists.

He won the roll and opened with Hastemaru. My t1 noble hierarch was blazed searingly, and my t3 birds of paradise wasn’t enough to resist the devasting bushwack crew that had previously been Brandon’s lands. I wasn’t technically dead on turn3, but thanks to Goblin Guide I had no need to untap and find out what my last card was going to be.
Dead before my 3rd turn. Maybe I was going to have time for Wreck Beach.
I kept my five after Brandon kept his 7. This time he gave me a little more time to manoever my accelerants into position, but it turned out he was just showing off, as he was able to win after I tapped for baneslayer by playing snapland (pumping two geodudes), devastating summons +bushwacker= attack for 15, exactly lethal including lifelink.
So…. that was cool. Brandon’s a nice guy, with luck he would draw like that all day and then go play in Nats.
0-1

Round2 I played against a bearded man named Daniel who kept a pen in his mouth at all times. I kinda felt like I was fighting to win an interview at a posh university.
We both kept our sixes and he led with a lavclaw reaches. I’m going to get burned out again! The dream’s over :’(
I played a manland also and then he played one too. my t2 brought a snake to the table and………. it didn’t die
on the following two turns he cast everflowing chalice and then took 15 from my snake and scooped.
In game2 I learned that he was playing r/w/b control but fortunately I had three counterspells and was able to get threats onto the table that would kill him without costing me so much mana that I couln’t say no to his relevant four drops.
1-1

Round3 I played Gaetan. Man, If I thought getting called salad-tub in elementary school was bad, this kid must have had it the worst. Maybe _he_ was the bully.

Anyways he obviously led off with Goblin guide and played destating summons when I tapped out for jace, killing me softly with his words.
Games2 and 3 he made the interesting play of sacrificing all his lands without having enough damage on the board to kill me. I manage to throw down enough chumps to buy enough time for a baneslayer angel, and then it’s curtains for the red player. This match was extremely tight. In g2 I was only ever at 4, but in g3 I fell to a single lifepoint and was chumping with knights of the reliquary. I almost lost to missing a life gain trigger from kor firewalker.
2-1

Round4 paired me with Steven “DJ Steve” Liu, with whom I had playtested a little bit. He’s also from Victoria and is good friends with my roommate Chris.
I was the first person to beat him at flipping coins that morning, and I think it made the difference. I thought I was going to lose g1 after tapping out for baneslayer on turn4 (he has some dudes on the table that know how to party and some smoldering spires in his deck). I didn’t.
G2 was pretty hilarious. Steve cast a goblin guide every turn.
G3 he had to double mull and I didn’t. His draw was solid but whenever a “philosophy of fire” deck mulls to five you have to gas out pretty hard in order to lose. I had no such ambition.
3-1

I got feature matched in round5 against Enrique. I was feeling the pressure at this point. My lifetime feature match record in Vancouver so far was 0-1 and I was also going to be watched closely while playing an elimination round.
His opening plains led me to think he was blue/white control. I had heard rumours that many good vancouver players chose this deck, and while it’s not a bad matchup by any means I feel that it’s powerful enough to command respect. I had also only heard good things about my opponent, so I was relieved that on turn 2 he resolved a fieldmist borderpost and not a spreading seas. The time sieve match is even better.
It was a feature so I kinda wish it had taken longer, but how mad can you be when you totally roll someone? G1 he didn’t really do anything, and g2 I managed to get mah ground clouds on with negate backup, winning both games promptly. Next door Frodo shit talked Mani pretty hard and then had to eat, well, you know.
4-1

I was sympathetic to the hobbit next round, but I still had to mangle him with my accelerated Zur-esque strategy. I had actually considered dropping after round5, but Enrique seemed like a nice enough guy and he asked me to keep his breakers in check, so I obliged. After beating Frodo’s Blue-White Control I decided to play out the rest of the tournament because even though I could safely get into Nats on rating if I dropped, I was interested in playing an upcoming ptq, so the invite was still valuable to me.
The only detail I remember of my 6th round match was negating a deprive in game1. It felt like force spiking tinker with a splash of lime.
5-1

At the beginning of round7 Tyler Woolley charged out of the building and yelled at me to go talk to the judges because I was ranked with only 12 victory points. Sure enough, a clerical error had robbed me of a win, and so the tournament had to wait on me, frodo, and a few others to potentially change places. It turns out there were an odd number of 15pointers, so Macphee just let me keep my pairing.
Sketchy pair-down guy’s name was Jarrett, and he was also playing blue/white control. He made some walls and took lethal damage from my snake. hmm. I mean my lotus cobra.
Game2 was much the same, with me being able to deal with his relevant spells thanks to having 6counters. We fought over an oblivion ring’s trigger a bit, but he didn’t really want to put in the effort and call a judge, so instead he just accepted my shorthand for correct timing and moved on… to his doom!
6-1
After standings were posted it became clear that I would be paried with Gavin Bennet in round8 and that an Intentional Draw would yield a top12 placement for each of us regardless of the rest of round8’s outcomes. We agreed to this plan. Then we played a few games for fun and since I lost I guess I’m kinda on the hook to Gavin for a pack now. Sorry Gavin, I guess I ran out of the building pretty quick there so I could catch the ferry.
6-1-1

I’m really glad I attended this tournament. It’s also great for me to be writing this article right away because many of you have wanted my stories and I still have the worst case of laryngitis. Thanks to everyone for your congratulations and support.
Come to Montreal with me!

Nelson

Maindeck (61) 1 Open the vaults 1 Telemin performance 4 Filligree sages 4 Spawnsire of ulamog 4 Khalni gem 4 Tezzeret the seeker 4 Training grounds 4 Everflowing chalice 4 Soul warden 4 Wall of omens 4 Mind spring 1 Not of this world 1 Lay bare 4 Glacial fortress 3 Celestial collonade 1 Segiri steppe 8 Island 4 Plains 1 Eldrazi temple Sideboard (15) 2 Emrakul, the aeons torn 1 Ulamog, the infinite gyre 1 Kozilek, butcher of truth 1 Not of this world 2 All is dust 1 Artisan of kozilek 4 Jace beleren 3 Jace the mind sculptor

The sideboard is very important since our win condition resides there:

Obviously The combo here involves spawnsire of ulamog and the sideboard. One training grounds can make it so it can cycle infinite spawn token, which combined with Soul Warden means infinite life. Also one training ground means Filigree sages can untap khalni gem for U, which means inifinite mana of any color. This allows us to play and activate spawnsire`s twenty mana ablility and eldrazi party them out. If you don`t draw spawnsire you can draw most of your deck with mind spring. Also with 2 training grounds, spawnsire of ulamog, can go infinite on his own and cause an eldrazi party.

Tezz is excellent as he get khalni gem or filligree sages and avoids countermagic for these combo pieces. He also sidesteps the jace war, as he is not a jace and can’t get jaceticated. He also ramps us hard into spawnsire.

Everflowing chalice is good so that you can consistently hit your third mana source.

Wall of omens is really efficient in this age of no ancestral recalls in standard. I remember when card drawing was good, now I pay twice the mana and get a third of the cards. The fact that it blocks is just icing on the cake.

Mind spring draws us our deck.

Lay bare was excellent in testing. We couldn’t figure out what to cut for it, so we made it our 61st. The ability to counter a bird of paradise and then peek to see what’s going on is excellent. We wanted to play peek but soon discovered that is was not legal, this seemed like an excellent sub.

Not of this world was not of this world in conjunction with Lay bare as you could figure out what you were going to counter for free the next turn. This card is making me very nostalgic as I love force of will, and this card is very similar as it is a counter spell and you can play it for free. In fact this card is better than force as you can counter abilities, like oblivion ring for instance which usually ruins emrakul gets blown out by this card. Normally, force of will would counter this card, putting it into the graveyard where it is easily accesible with open the vaults for instance, which we also play…

Open the vaults was a great way to get all our pieces in in one go if we’d been blightning’d or our stuff had been blown up. It was so good but we didn’t have room for any, so we just decided to make it our 61st card.

The manabase is fairly straightforward. We threw the collonades in because we figured sometimes we would be beating down with our sages enough to supplement our aerial assault. We would have played the fourth collonade but we didn’t have any money. The jaces were from a jace theme deck we were building, so they don’t count. The segiri steppe is there to make sure that emrakul can get cuz normally, he turns up a bit short, so this way he always gets in on the first swing.

Telemin performance is in there because in testing we were running into a lot of polymorph, so we figured we should have some maindeck plan against them.

The sideboard is more of a wishboard. Typically you just get an emrakul and an ulamog and win, but sometimes you wanna slowroll and play control for a while. The second emrakul is there for the polymorph matchup again so that we can get emrakulvantage.

The Jaces are a bit surprising. You may be wondering, why are they in the sideboard? The answer, is for the blue/white matchup. We try and get jacevantage by siding in up to and including, seven additional jaces.

After a good 8 hour sleep, I got up at 5am ready to rock the trunk of the slubabus. It was a fairly fast ride to the ferry, as I brought a 6 pack of Race Rocks with me and had a few in the trunk. We barely made it on the ferry, but 150 minutes later we were registering and ready to go. I was a little buzzed from that six pack in the trunk, but had no deck reg errors.
Round 1 (vs Blue/White Tapout)

As I saw them playing turn one celestial colonade (lost the roll), I knew we were in for a tough game 1. I Kept a hand of Island, Glacial Fortress, Soul Warden, Spawnsire and 3 Training Grounds. Unfortunately, I forgot to mulligan here as the third training grounds is a completely dead card. He played a fourth turn baneslayer and upon drawing no lands lost on turn 8.

SB: +4 Jace Beleren, +3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor -4 Tezzeret -1 Telemin Performance -2 Soul Warden

We wanted to make sure we had Jacevantage, as that’s all that matters in this matchup. Soul Warden isn’t very good, as we just want to combo win not gain infinite life, as they can still maybe jace us out.

Game 2 We start off with 2x island, glacial fortress, Everflowing Chalice, Training Grounds, 2x Jace Beleren. I knew on the play I would have harsh Jacevantage in this game. I played out my spells and drew cards off jace, he played jaces to kill my jaces, but with 7 Jaces, we all knew he was losing. I Eventually got a Jace the Mind Scultor to 13 Counters, when he tried to play oblivion ring, but luckily I had drawn the 61st card lay bare. I exiled his library and he only had 2 cards in hand and promptly scooped.

Game 3 on the draw we kept 2x island, plains, training grounds, everflowing chalice, Khalni Gem, Filigree Sages. Thats the stone nuts with this deck. We kept. T1 Grounds, T2 Chalice, T3 Gem, T4 Sages, Get infinite mana, draw our deck minus 5 cards with Mind Spring into spawnsire cast and activate him. We were still pretty drunk, so we just got one emrakul, took another turn and took him to 5 with only 3 lands. He untapped and played oblivion ring, but lucky for us, our last 4 cards didn’t have Not of This World, so we countered its triggered ability, and won.

1-0

Round 2 (vs Shuffle Starter)

My opponent was a 36 year old, who was new to the game and informed me he had beat a 13 year old playing jund last round. This matchup was fairly uneventful, as he kept only drawing swamps and white spells both games and he succumed to my Filigree Sages and Soul Warden beats quickly in both games.

Round 3 (vs U/R Kiln Fiend)

We had tested this matchup thoroughly in testing, t2 kiln fiend often turned into t4 win with this deck and as we were running no removal, it was hard to stop. This is part of the reason we put in wall of omens, as it is quite good against creature decks.

We win the roll and mull to 5. No lands is no fun for any deck. We keep island, sejiri steppe, khlani Gem, Tezzeret and everflowing chalice. I was glad for the everflowing chalice as it guaranteed a third mana source.

It was mana go for me. Eventually drew a wall of omens. It turns out that this card isn’t very good here, I totally thought it would be because it blocks and draws me my win condition. But he plays distortion strike which we didn’t think of for our testing. So needless to say, we died with a wall in play to their one dude.

Sb: There wasn’t room in our sideboard for anything in this matchup, and to be honest, we thought that we had tested enough to beat it anyway. I mean, the walls were supposed to be good. At this point I’m thinking we’re done for sure as we can’t stop him and he’s playing red, so I took a sip from my hip flask, thankfully there were no judges around.

On the play again, a feel a bit better because of my hip flask. I keep glacial fortress, island, plains, Tezz, Gem, training grounds, soul warden. I then proceed to draw all the rest of my soul wardens and gas him out because I totally gained like 10 life. We eventually combo him out when he can’t draw anything but lands. This is when the deck really shines, when our opponent can’t kill us quickly enough and mulls to four, this is the power of this deck.

Game three he mulls to five on the play. I feel confident, as I have a turn four win in hand, 2x island, plains, training grounds, everflowing chalice, filligree sages, khalni gem. This hand is crazy good. Races everything. He says land go, I begin assembling my combo, he goes land fiend go, I continue to assemble my board. He goes land, distortion strike, distortion strike, distortion strike, you lose? I scooped right there. I have no outs to this situation, even my wall of omens doesn’t do it.

After I signed the match slip, I realised he had cheated me! He didn’t even have the three blue mana to cast those distortion strikes! I mean, I should have won! It was soo frustrating, I couldn’t believe how stupid I was so I took another sip from my hip flask and went to find a judge. The judge was a total jerk though, telling me that it was too late and not giving me the match. He was convinced I was somewhat dead anyway. I honestly don’t get that guy’s math. I was taking 9 then 9 off the rebound, then I was gonna win for sure! SOOOOO mad. On top of that, he said he smelt alcohol on my breath. I had only had a six pack and like half a flask, that’s like, not very much. I told him to get out of my face or call the cops, then I got a warning. Stupid tournament rules.

Round 4 vs. Wool-tron (mythic bant)

This was a harsh matchup as we both knew a loss here was pretty bad for our Nationals Qualifying Hopes. One of us had to lose, and it was way too early to draw (although in retrospect, Jace decks drew a lot, and we had harsh Jacevantage).

I got the dragon auto-win, he got the squiggly-fish auto-lose; and kept the nuts combo hand. T4 involved us casting emrakul, ulamog and all is dust from our sideboard while he was tapped out.

In order to pre-empt Wooley`s tilt-a-win strategy, I immediately say how I could have totally combo`d him out a turn sooner if chrome mox was in the format. Naturally after I won frown town battle, we felt cofident for game 2.

SB: -3 Soul Warden -1 Telemin Performance, -1 Not of this World, -2 Tezzeret –Open the Vaults +4 Jace Beleren +3 jace, The Mind Sculptor

I knew wooley was playing 3 jaces, and knew jacevantage was key again.

On the draw, I had to mull to 5 and kept 2x island, glacial fortress, Filigree Sages, Training grounds. Dubzee played out t1 noble hierach. I drew spawnsire of ulamog and played island training grounds. Wool-sauce played t2 knight of the reliquary. I drew t2 everflowing chalice and cast it for 1. Woll-Bot then cast birds x2 and attacked for 3 with knight. I drew a Khalni Gem and played it. Wooley then played ground clouds (sovereigns of lost alara) and attacked for 16 with eldrazi conscription with knight. I drew spawnsire cast filigree sages, and proceed to have inifinite mana, casting spawnsire, and then ulamog, emrakul and all is dust from my sideboard, which won the game.

I was feeling good after the win, putting me at 3-1 at the half way point, which is where I wanted to be halfway through the 132 man 8 round tournament. I felt sorry for wooley, who really wanted to go to nationals badly, but he succumed to the power of this amazing combo.

Rd 5 (vs Jund)

I keep a pretty good island, plains, colonnade, chalice, tezzeret, not of this world, khalni Gem. He hits turn two rampant growth, turn three elf into pulse hitting my chalice. At this point I`m just playing draw go and watching him jund me out hard. Next turn he hits me with raging ravine and I draw a wall of omens, turns out this thing is good sometimes even though it doesn`t stop kiln fiend like I was sure it did. I`m just digging at this point, played a mind spring for 3 hitting no real action, another tezz another chalice and a land. I only need training grounds now to win but I only have two more draw steps to hit it. I get blightning`d a bit and then telemin performance him hitting elf. My opponent had to call a judge because he was sure the elf cascaded. The elf wasn`t that good, but at least I got to trade it for his and got an extra draw step out of my wall. Or at least that`s what I thought. But I guess lightning bolt does damage too eh? HAHAHAHA, who saw that coming?

SB: I were already pre-boarded against jund with our open the vaults which is quite good against blightning and maelstrom pulse. Thankfully I don’t have any planeswalkers which pulse is also quite good against. This is mostly because tezz just ends up dead immediately because I always just tutor for a 4, even when all I need is the sage. Just to make sure the pulses are dead.

I keep a six card card hand of plains, island, fortress, chalice, sages and training grounds. He keeps his seven.

I play island, grounds. He’s doing the jund and playing comes into play tapped lands. I draw tezz, play chalice, then next turn draw gem play sage. He untaps and blightnings me, harsh. So I untap and draw a colonnade, great, things that don’t do anything, perfect. Next turn, he elfs into pulse killing my sages, even better. At this point, I really need to draw my 61st card. This turn it’s wall of O-mans. My opponent let out some sort of dispairing cry of, “ohhhhh man! Not that one!” I rip another land. Not really what I’m hoping for but I guess those are the breaks. He plays siege gang, now I’m really close to dead. I untap and draw a spawnsire and pass. He plays another elf, hits a bolt, attacks me hitting me for 8, doing 11 damage for the turn, I’m dead on his upkeep. I really need my 61st card. I untap, slam it down. OPEN THE VAULTS BAAAAAABYYYY!!!!! YEAAAAAAAHHH!!!! I proceed to rape his board, and his life total, winning the game, and all the glory. That 61st card was perfect, so glad I included it.

Game 3 on the draw we kept island, plains, glacial fortress, training grounds, everflowing chalice, Khalni Gem, Filigree Sages. That’s the stone nuts with this deck. We kept. T1 Grounds, T2 Chalice, T3 Gem, T4 Sages, Get infinite mana, draw our deck minus 5 cards with Mind Spring into spawnsire cast and activate him. We had lost our buzz here, so we did it right again and promptly killed him on the extra turn with a combination of ulamog, spawnsire, emrakul, and all is dust, despite him playing 2 bb elves into bolts.
Round 6 vs. Corey “welkin tern” Wilkenning (naya allies)

Corey’s deck is very slow, I took a look at the cards in it earlier and didn’t see anything bigger than a 2/3 and a 3/2. Seems like my wall of oh-mans will be very good here.

I didn’t play any zen block limited so I was in for a surprise. Not sure how many of you have seen these allies? Like, wow! They’re like, slivers, but on crack with machine guns.

I lost the roll, and I kept island, plains, glacial fortress, training grounds, everflowing chalice, Khalni Gem, Filigree Sages. That’s the stone nuts with this deck. He unfortunately, won the roll, so I lost. Turn one freeblade, turn two battlesinger… turn three battlesinger freeblade… still you lose.

Game two. I just wanted to get drunk at this point, so despite turn 2 wall of o mans, i scooped to his second battlesinger again and went a had a few rum and cokes out of nelson’s trunk (aka my home).

At 4-2 I knew it would be up to tie breaks to see if I made it in.

Round 7 (vs UWr Planewalkers)

Game 1 he just harsh planeswalker’d me out, bouncing my filigree sages twice with jace, while killing me Gideon style.

SB: +3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor +4 Jace Beleren -4 Tezzeret -3 Soul Warden

Game 2 on the play I kept Celestial Colonnade, island , glacial fortress, everflowing chalice, filigree sages, Khalni Gem, Training Grounds. We kept this hand and ended up having infinite mana on t5, vs their 2 planewalkers, but with celestial colonnade, we were able to kill their planeswalkers and then filigree sages and celestial colonnade eventually got there.

Game 3 Was a long game. Fast forward, he has Gideon in play with us having to attack it, we have 6 lands, everflowing chalice for 1, khalni gem and double training grounds in play, with just a spawnsire of ulamog in hand. Draw for the turn ITS THE 61st CARD, ELDRAZI TEMPLE!!!!!, cast spawnsire with a mana up, then make infinite tokens and mana and go off, kill all their shit and win the match!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Round 8 (vs UG Polymorph)

I knew from testing that this deck could go off a turn earlier than us, but with that right card, if they hit iona, i could win despite iona.

I won the die roll and the match. Double emrakul in the sideboard, finally came through here, as the first one killed his emrakul and the second one allowed me 2 turns to win.

I ended up at 6-2 and was just waiting on tiebreaks to see if I got in to top 12 to play in Montreal. Turns out Kiln Fiend guy went 0-3 after playing me and then got dq’d and I still ended up 13th. SUPER FROWN TOWN! Oh well, this deck brought me very close, but I’m glad my good buddy and old roommate Nelson Salahub made top 8 and Corey who was my second loss, also took it down. Good job guys and good luck at NATS!!!!!!

If I played this deck again I`d add a maindeck emrakul probably for one of the soul warden`s as we didn`t use that combo very much.

The ensuing avalanche of chaos resulted in everyone successfully getting into their cars and arriving at the ferry terminal in time for the 7am sailing. This came as a surprise. If my roommates had only been a little bit less loud, annoying, and (above all) still drunk it might have even been a pleasant surprise.

The ferry ride provided sustenance and enough time for our contingent to finish fleshing out our decks and write down our lists. I made my decisions about my sideboard, on which I had been waffling considerably (and with syrup). My list follows:

Lands (24) 1 Academy Ruins 4 Dark Depths 1 Dimir Aqueduct 4 River of Tears 4 Sunken Ruins 2 Swamp 3 Tolaria West 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Island Creatures (8) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Vampire Hexmage Spells (28) 4 Chrome Mox 1 Compulsive Research 1 Duress 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Echoing Truth 4 Muddle the Mixture 1 Repeal 1 Slaughter Pact 1 Smother 2 Sword of the Meek 4 Thirst for Knowledge 3 Thopter Foundry 4 Thoughtseize Sideboard (15) 2 Chalice of the Void 1 Darkblast 3 Deathmark 3 Leyline of the Void 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 2 Phyrexian Arena 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 2 Culling Scales

I decided on Thepths because Kellan had asked me to play it against him on mws while he tested several rogue lists. After playing 10 games with the deck I decided it would provide me with the right balance of control and playskill challenges. My original choice for this season was Ben Stark’s u/g Scapeshift. In late January I stopped playing it because of radical metagame shifts. Ironically it’s back on top now and performing admirably.

I was lucky enough to get to drive Adam’s Hyundai Genesis to the event, since I knew the way and navigate best at the wheel. That was fun.  All three cars made it from the ferry to event on time: Adam, Kellan, Darryl, and I, Josh, Woolley, Will, Ryan, Joel, and Jeremy, and Dave, Connor, Max, and Max’s Mom.

…

nope, not making any jokes there. I guess I’m surprised too. We were met by comrades Miller, Markus, and Greg, who had all spent the night in Vancouver.

This qualifier for the upcoming pro tour of Magic: the Gathering, which unfolds this spring in the United States Protectorate of Puerto Rico, took place on March 6^th, 2010. Around 130 players entered the event. My rough calculations and survey of the player base present led me to estimate that 12 of them had played extended since last February.

Speculation and observation about the field by my colleagues led to no consensus. One player saw a lot of burn, another spied a lot of elves, and a third felt zoo would be very popular. That all seemed like good enough news to me, but trying to figure out what your opponents are likely playing based on what decks are visibly being tested before round 1 is not a method of research I ascribe to or endorse.

A quick round of psyching each other up and Victoria was ready to take down this PTQ.

Round 1: Colin, Tezzerator.

If you scrolled down to this part of the article I don’t blame you for finding my writing style boring or longwinded, but you may have missed the extended metaphor I opened with to tell you how tired I was prior to the event. This is basically my only viable excuse (besides being terrible) for the way this match played out.

Game 1 he has answers for the 20/20, but I could have dealt with them had I played correctly. Ghost quarter punished me for not sacrificing Hexmage on my turn when I had no reason to wait, and Cryptic Command could have been thoughtseized away instead of countering vampire #2. He gets thopters and I get to sideboard in some arenas and maybe a scales. I’ll appologise now for remembering my sideboarding almost not at all during this entire tournament.

Game2 I come very close to losing to his flying aggro but he punts to let me get back in the game, and then win. I also made several mistakes this game.

Game3 goes to time and has a cluster of players watching the extra turns. Again he makes a mistake from a dominant position that I manage to capitalize on, and then win at the last possible combat step. Colin is a very pleasant fellow with whom I enjoyed playing Magic. He followed my endeavors throughout the tournament and offered me kind support whenever possible.

I hire Connor to slap me on the face really hard, then I drink a coffee that I still owe Adam for , take a few deep breaths, and read the pairings.

Round 2: Chris Broom, All In Red

I win the oh-so-important die roll and thoughtseize away a magus of the moon. He manages to play the enchantment with the same text several turns later, but I both drew naturally into all four basics and had thoptersword online by the time the moon hit play. In some chalices and culling scales.

Game2 he has no turn1 action and I thoughtseize away his goal card. It was a bit closer but again I managed to assemble thoptersword and he doesn’t find any disruption before his life totals bagels.

Chris is a very amicable fellow from Mission who was conned into playing the PTQ by a friend of his. He seemed happy to be playing and was very polite and sportsmanlike.

Round 3: Tyler Woolley, Poxet Rocket (the Rock [get it?])

#$%^. I guess the downside of crushing a tournament as a group is facing each other during the crucial early rounds. There were (I think) less Vic vs. Vic pairings than average give the number of Victoria players against the number of players total. From my point of view, I was very happy to not have to play Kellan, because it can be a very dicey matchup. Of course Tyler is no pushover, so I anticipated a hard battle. In testing I was %40 or so, but since that session gatekeeper of malakir had polymorphed into tombstalker, so on paper at least that helped me.

Tyler proposed a pact before the match. Regardless of mulligans, savage topdecks, perfect 10 models walking behind one of us, or Dave Herder claiming one of us was the underdog, neither of us would bitch or complain about the result. I agreed without hesitation.

Twice in a row I landed a 20power guy with another guy in play. Tyler’s draws were ok but he lacked sufficient hand attack or extirpates to keep me off of Summoning a victory-sized Avatar.

We get Lunch.

Round 4: Drew Christensen, Living End

Drew and I had honestly told each other what decks we were playing earlier in the day, so I knew I what I was up against. The pressure really started to turn up for me at this point because for the first time I was playing against a tough matchup, a good player, and a player from outside my crew. To be fair, Drew is a pretty standup guy, so I might have felt just as good losing to him as Woolley, but I guess I would have felt that losing to Woolley was a bit more like winning than losing to Drew would have been.

Game1 was extremely tight. I kept thopter foundry, sword, lands, and thoughtseize. If you thought those last two sentences were contradictory, I recommend playing living end. I took a violent outburst but left drew with two fulminator mages, land, and cyclers. I was fortunate enough to have drawn a swamp and an island, so my mana was protected, if not able to increase very often. Drew filled up his yard while I built a little-blue-dude factory. He finds a cascade spell, and we end up with a board that involves my two non-creature artifacts and two basic lands, and his 4 dudes (double mage, street wraith and jungle weaver [how cool is this deck?]) and some lands of his. I’m at 22 and he’s at 11 when the cascade resolves (I had made some guys pre-end). This leads to a very interesting, basically fair race scenario where the relevant draws on his side are mostly Night of Soul’s Betrayal and Ingot Chewer, and on my side chrome mox, the other basics, and (potentially) another copy of thopter foundry. Drew didn’t ever draw the Chewer, and I found out after the match that he had failed to include NoSB in his 75. Through careful chumping and peeling more lands than my opp had fulminator mages, I got there. Drew could have made it last a bit longer by staying home more with jungle weavers (a second was hard cast), but he expected to draw into a Chewer to end the race. I would make a similar play that would turn out poorly in the finals.

Game2 I went for it immediately and he didn’t have the Violent Outburst. Magic isn’t always fair. My sideboarding probably included bringing in Chalices and Leylines. I probably took out combo pieces and removal.

Drew really is a cool guy. If he was choked that I drew well he didn’t show it by acting out, and I had a great time playing cards with him. He admitted that he had tested somewhat less than he had wanted to, and was unsure if his list was optimal.

Round 5: Jonathon Loucks, Zooshift

Hey, I got a feature match! During my match against Drew (at 3-0), I was legitimately starting to wonder when Macphee/Will/Max/Feature  Match Gods/People of Vancouver would start to recognize me and hook up the fame. Desire of the recognition and respect of my peers isn’t something I’d call a laudable quality, but it’s nevertheless one of mine.

Game1 is even more awkward than my game1 against Drew. I mull to 4 keeping bob, hexy, urborg, tolaria west. Jon opened with a 2/2 Wild Nacatl, then turn2 Vesuva to blow up my urborg.

wtf.

I get a little googley eyed at this point and start complimenting him on his sweet rogue card choices (this continues throughout the day). Meanwhile I get beatup by a cat a bit and draw one or two from bob before he gets bolted, and neither of us draw a third land. I get close to doing something useful and handling his board, but he draws up to his third land in play faster than me and team one drop giant cat scratches my couch.

…

By that I mean I lost game1.

Game2 was sweet. I think if I had played against his deck before ever I would have won, but instead I completely misunderstood his line of play and took 19 from a geopede on turn 4. This was possible because of the scapeshift that he cast (could have made him discard it) and the flagstones of trokair in his deck (should have known they existed).

Jonathan is a well mannered man whose attributes include the rather terrifying combination of excellent playskill and a penchant for under-rated or high potential cards. I would rather not face him again, but we don’t always get what we wish for.

Round 6: Tom Rolling, Doran

I think it might be possible that losing to Jon Loukes actually helped my path to the top8, since 5-0-2 wasn’t a lock. Speaking of which; pairings are a real crap shoot. I’ve heard on numerous occasions from peers I thought were being too cynical, but after facing an inexperienced player in the 1-0 bracket, then facing a deck that had little answers to my supposed “best deck” strategy in the second last round while still in top8 contention I cannot argue against anyone claiming I got lucky on pairings.

Game1 I let him play out a bunch of dudes that don’t really matter, then stick thopter sword and run some table.

Game2 he plays two tidehollow scullers and things are looking bleak until I draw smother, then it’s business as usual with thopter/sword, feat. academy ruins to get there through bosley (qasali pridemage).

Tom was a warm, friendly guy.

Round 7: Jonathan Leung, Zoo

I don’t remember who won the die roll Game1, but I do recall I got to blow up an ape and a cat with Engineered Explosives for 1 just before Jon cast Gaddock Teeg. I’m not sure if anything else of note happened that game save that Marit Lage attacked and didn’t find a path to exile.

In Game2 a well placed meddling mage naming hexbabe kept me from victory (one mana shy), and I graciously accepted the role of scratching post.

In Game3 Jonathan admitted that he had barely tested before the tournament and that his peers told him damping matrix was good in this matchup. I manage to cull it, and with little or no pressure from his side, the thopters fly me into the top8.

Mr.Leung comported himself most satisfactorily, and I would happily play with him again in any context.

Thanks to those of you who cheered me on at this point, and thanks again for all of your wellwishes during the top8.

There was a bit of time off at this point, and Ryan Smith hooked me up with some French fries that I ate like Doug on the Production Blogs of Pure Pwnage. Prizes were handed out based on standings in the Swiss, and packs went to war.  As an interesting sidenote, every player who participated in this tournament received 6 packs. This handout was not part of the prize structure, but rather a free gift to all the players (It had something to do with Gambling Laws). Apparently in the past we used to get free T-shirts to satisfy these laws. Change is good.

Round 8: Jonathon Loucks, Zooshift

I felt a lot better about this match the second time around, with good reason. I think generally as a rogue player this is the sort of thing you hope to avoid (playing the same player twice). The concept of Jon’s deck wasn’t even really rogue, just under the radar, though, and I think the match is still fair if I’m aware of his list.

Game1 resulted in a W for me after some seized thoughts and a life-total sized pro-tour player card. My opponent was less than impressed, and informed me that there were fewer 20/20s in the world of warcraft tcg.

Game2 barely exists in my memory but I know involved some landfall dudes because my notes record me losing ten life at once. I probably got my Marit-Lage removed from the game, because there aren’t any single points of life gain to indicate thopters. Regardless I get rolled.

Game3 was the culmination of the most interesting match of my day. He gets some dudes and some lands but runs mostly out of gas by the time I get the thopters flying. He casts a scapeshift basically just to pump KoTR and play Vesuva to blow up Dark Depths. We go into a stall that I found out later could have been broken had I not a Dark Confidant in play. It turns out Jonathan was running a single sejiri steppe in his deck that allows him to swing through the thopter swarm if he draws a scapeshift. Very Clever. Though blissfully unaware of this strategic fulcrum I get there with my tokens (and wall of bob), and the crowd cheers my success.

Jonathan was courteous to a tea throughout both matches, and after grasping the extent of his skill I start getting a lil’ man crush and tell him that I’d love to test with him if ever the opportunity arose in the future.

Round 9: Brandon Chreptyk, r/g Scapeshift

My friends all bailed to catch the 9pm ferry, but luckily Frodo informed me that I was ok in his books, so I still felt welcome in the house of Vancouver. We chat jovially and I realize midway through game2 that his plan for victory probably involves me relaxing, getting comfortable, and making some pretty harsh mistakes. Of course I realized this by actually making the mistakes, but not all was lost.

Game1 I have to attack twice with the token because of kitchen finks, but Brandon fails to ramp thrice and combo out on his extra turn.

oooh! I failed to mention that HJ Max Knowlan decided we would both receive our opponent’s decklists pre-match because Frodo had (and took) the opportunity to watch my entire match after slaying my clanmate in less time than it takes a walrus to breath in a cheeseburger. Great job Connor. I’m as proud as I am stunned. Anyways, for some reason (I find out later it was card availability) Brandon has only ONE dead//gone in his board. One!

Game2 he obviously draws it after I thoughtseize. Alas, now is not the time to fathom myself unlucky. I manage to ease up as I had previously mention and lose the game by a small margin that could likely have been avoided by playing tight and staying awake.

Game3 ended on my turn3 and belongs to Marit Lage. Maybe this deck is broken after all.

Round 10: Peter Beckfield, Zoo

Well, here I am at the finals again. I feel good, I feel confident. A survey of my opponent’s decklist reveals he is playing Gavin’s recent top8ing zoo list with only 1 sejiri steppe in for the bojuka bog that previously occupied sideboard slot #15. I have tested against this deck thoroughly and although it packs much hate I found my results before the tournament were about %50.

Game1 I took a lot of pain from his guys and, I think, had to make the 20/20 twice, but I did eventually resolve my combat damage.

Game2 was a testament to my frustration with my sideboard. I brought in both double chalice and double scales, and drew a scales and two chalices. I ran out chalice for one early, but going second I was already underneath one pair of marisi’s claws, and they were rapidly depriving me of blood and time. I end up staring down a board of goyf, cat, cat, knight, and with nothing in hand but the 2^nd chalice, a mox, a land, and the scales and no board. I feel I deserved this game’s loss, and hope that I next time I will get in enough testing to master the sideboard. If you are considering discussing this article, this is one point where I would love to hear your feedback.

Speaking of sideboarding, if you’ve been annoyed that I didn’t think to keep track/couldn’t remember it, I have a treat for you. My deck is still together from the last game of the event:

Out: 1 hexmage, 1 dark depths, 1 dark confidant, 2 thoughtseize.

In: 3 deathmark, 1 culling scales, 1 phyrexian arena.

Game3 I go for it immediately and without hand attack. He has the path, and even throws a bolt at my hexmage my turn2 eot for reasons I still don’t understand. I rebuild with phyrexian arena, and he drops damping matrix. Neither of us have creatures.

So here’s the part of my tourney that I remember best I guess. Hopefully by sharing it with you my nightmares will abate and I’ll be able to get back on the horse and ride. We both have a nonland permament onboard each and draws lands for several turns. I get a little cocky after three such turns and feel that my arena will draw me into the pro tour. Meanwhile I cast and then attack with a hexmage or two and they get bant charmed or perhaps path’d.  I remove  four counters off of dark depths for lack of better things to do with my mana. Besides the extra lands I have a thopter foundry and perhaps also a sword in hand. He still has no creatures on turn8. I draw a thoughtseize and another land.

While I don’t have the muddle (which fetches truth) or the repeal in hand yet, I have decided that my plan is to bounce the matrix and make enough guys in one turn to win regardless of his replayed matrix (he is at 8 from lands and maybe a hexmage hit). I am at 16 (all from arena). I cast thoughtseize.

So, I figured out later that I must have been far more exhausted than I could even sense at the time. I certainly felt under pressure, but I was unaware that I my basic gaming abilities were starting to fall by the wayside. Normally my life total record would look like:

20

19

17

16

But what it actually looked like was:

19 20

17

18

16

So as I’m resolving this thoughtseize I see a 16 below an 18 and think I’ll land on 16 when my sorcery hits the bin. If you practice drunk you should play drunk and I guess for me if I want to win into the tour I should have some marathon sessions and practice super-tired.

Peter reveals double tribal flames, bant charm, and path. He has all three red sources. I take charm, because it interrupts my plan and I guess that I am dead only to the third flames before I find my action. I pass. Peter draws bolt. Peter takes a sunny vacation in the Caribbean.

I leave the venue with a local who’s name I forgot (sorry! thanks for the ride:D ), curse at volume outside the sky-train, and then meet up with my cousin Rob, friend Thomas, and Uncle Dave (who bought me my first starter). Three hours of casual multiplayer didn’t leave much room for mopery, so I get my attitude back together fairly quickly and then fall asleep on my uncle’s kitchen table.

Props:

Everyone who journeyed to the molten pinnacle of Burbany from the Academy at Johnson St. West, Great work team.

Dave Herder, for keeping rad notes during the tourney and bringing me savage luck.

Spiller and Ed, for running Game Day.

Everyone who lent me cards, especially Myers, Joel, and Will.

Josh, for being dragged along and letting me pick his brains.

MacPhee, Max K, and all the Judging and Tournament Staff. You guys seriously set the bar.

Connor.

Slops:

Me. figure it out, slub.

The same players who got props first. One time, play extended with me on Thursday night.