I decided to post on the main site as a kind of litmus test for whether or not the main site still exists. I still just want to keep this brief and (hopefully) easy to read.  Sadly i have no photos (blame Sol).

I left for this event reasonably early on Friday morning (March 2), and before getting on the boat I already had a story. Tyler and Noel live together and their place is very close to mine and on my way downtown. Naturally I wanted to drop off my bag at their place so as to not have to carry it with me while I pick up breakfast and american$. This all goes as planned and I meet up with Jonathan to accomplish the aforementioned while Noel and Tyler pick up Cole. We meet up at the Coho terminal with time to spare, but (of course) Tyler has forgotten to include my bag in the vehicle. His girlfriend is driving it down to us… but started off driving towards the Swartz bay ferry and after a few minutes is turboing to the maximum to try and get me my bag. It ends up being a close squeak but she comes through and I’m able to board the ferry for Port Angeles knowing I’ll have clean underwear and teeth the next morning. Thanks Chynna, I owe you one.

the ferry starts us off on the first of many ascension games that help pass the time between rounds and while waiting for anything during the weekend. I don’t remember who won but it was Tyler’s first time playing and he scored well and immediately understood the game and wanted to play again.

I took over driving Noel’s family’s minivan and we managed the trek to Tacoma without incident (it was my first time across the toll bridge, which I think is called tacoma Narrows). we find the venue, check the side events schedule, and then agree we need to eat, so I show everyone the one place I learned about from the 2009 GP Seattle: “the Harmon”.  This brew pub managed to stay just as delicious and still managed to keep their prices low (happy hour is all day except the dinner rush). This place was as much of a hit this time as it was when Kellan initially discovered it.

After lunch we played sealed grinders: cole went 3-1 for 9 packs, tyler went 4-1 for half a box, and I went 2-1 for no prize. Noel didn’t manage to chase the foils, going 0-2 drop, but at least opened Garruk.  ”chase the foils” was a casual sealed tournament where you prized in packs and fnm foils starting at 2 wins (4 round tourney) Jon watched our games and conversed amicably.

Finding the hotel took the usual amount of getting super duper lost, but we still managed it before the midnight lobby closure. I was pretty stoked that the five of us all managed to keep in good spirits while being tired/nervous/tilted. You know you’re set for a pretty rad weekend if you can drive the van into what’s obviously NOT the hotel district twice and everyone is still having a laugh. I actually managed to give up and go to a gas station to beg for help only to discover that my directions copied from the interwebs were  actually legit and that the hotel was within eyesight of the gas station. We built each other’s pools a bunch and Tyler got to round 2 in a modo draft.

The drive back to the venue met with the following hilarious hiccup: I get us onto the correct exit from the highway, but we had to drive past the unnecessarily large, lighted sign for the tacoma dome. The sign was advertising Nickelback and I immediately tilted, taking the wrong sub-exit and starting us up the hill for mount Ranier.

Attendance was somewhere over 1,100 and the organization went very smoothly. Props to Cascade Games and Wiz.

everyone had an ok pool except Jon, but he had two byes, and was both the player from our house with the best gameplay fundamentals and either the best at understanding the sealed format at the time or tied for the best with Tyler. The rest of us had one bye, and we all used it to go get coffee and  compare notes about optimal builds. I’m greenblack splashing white for lingering souls and the flashback on something else, but Jon points out that my white is just better than my green (or rather he gives me his opinion, which becomes my opinion after round3). we all try looking at a few version of jon’s deck and decide that even without any fix it’s worth boarding into the red splash for Charmbreaker Devils and the flashback on Bump in the Night.

Jon goes 8-1, killing 7 of his opponents with Bump. I do the synonymous disco dance move behind his round8 opponent (the day2 lock), but it probably looks like nothing without a partner.

Cole stays x-2 until round8, and manages to grab those groovy Planeswalker points in round9 to finish 6-3. He won every match in which his opponent did not cast Olivia Voldaren.

Noel and I stayed x-2 until round9, then both died. =/

my opp’s were all cool and I was lucky enough between my pool being solid and my draws/opp’s draws being fine for me. I noticed plenty of mistakes that I made so I feel like I really learned something from the event, and I had fun. Noel felt the same way. We checked out the side event schedule again and made plans for when to come back, then hit the Harmon.

jer and James from lrr joined us for the second round (of beers). graham also was in attendance at the event but opted out of drinks. It’s always cool seeing those guys and if you haven’t yet, go watch friday nights on their site.  they had all played the main event and gotten knocked out by rounds 5 or 6. They all had good pools but Jer’s was particularly full of bombs, which unfortunately led to him being super hopeful for a win, then being super bummed out after starting off 0-3. It seemed like the yj crew pep talks eventually raised his spirits back to acceptable levels and I believe he played out all the rounds of the swiss.

Sunday morning (which still basically feels like _this morning_ as I’m writing this on monday at noon) Jon surprised me by being awake and dressed before Tyler and I. I then surprised everyone by how still asleep I was when the following happened: leave my hotel room to take my bags to the van, say hi to one of my opps from day1. he says hi back, but I’ve never seen this person before in my life. Then I hit the remote unlock for the van and am upset when the trunk won’t open. Tyler claims that the van I’m trying to use doesn’t belong to us, but I protest with “are you sure?”.

He came back with ” it has Oregon plates!”

…

I was tired.

Jon sadly only manages to 1-2 both his draft pods, missing the money on his final match. He is disheartened, but not crushed, and as he regains his spirits over the day realizes that battling with magical cards for hundreds of dollars isn’t even something he enjoys. His goal had been to day2 his first grand prix, and he was still satisfied that he had done so.

Meanwhile the rest of us joined the sunday large sealed event, which, instead of being a ptq, was for…Caaaaaaaaaaa$h.  This led to just over 200 peeps signing up and an 8 round swiss with a cut to top8 redraft and single elim, $100 to 5-8, dunno about 2-3-4 (prolly $400/$200), and $700 for first. It also awarded Cardhaus challenge points, which (we presume) are going to work a lot like the scg open qualifier points and lead to an invite-only, bigger money tournament.

Tyler, Cole, and Noel all kinda died before or during round6 of this event, but I think Cole stayed in and possibly made prizes (down to 32 or 64).

noel straight up won a standard tournament with his r/g aggro wolfrun deck, earning a bunch of playmats and store credit at a different store.

Tyler…man. I need tyler to write his own report about his sunday afternoon. Let’s just say he played some magic cards and won some things. I think you should ask him about who and what.

After everyone’s tournaments were done we tried to patronize the Harmon one more time but got just barely shut down by the 9pm closing time, then found “the Rock test Kitchen” literally just behind the harmon, and they were happy to serve us delicious pizza and decent beer. Seated right next to us were a bunch of pros and Dmac, and although I offered him fifty american dollars to do it, Jon would not ask pchaps for a $7 draft set. (tyler better include the backstory about that one or my report is Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawful).

without a place to sleep for the night we discuss what to do during the drive back across the border. Riverrock allnighter is eventually thrown out due to tyler being too tired and Jon being super uninterested in Casinos always. Sage is the full useless, cryptically texting us that he’s on the fence about getting ambushed by a pile of smelly dudes. fair ’nuff. fortunely…

Justice is a hero. Mad props to this guy and his plucky attitude about his getting his one-room appartment flash-mobbed by beermodoleftoverpizzamesleepingonhisbed.  I think we broke even on modo but we had to bench our tenLarge (ghoultree). next time.

ride home was all good, although tyler and I didn’t beat raiden. All in All the trip was really fun and I would definitely do it again. grats to  all the other peeps we know who monied (that’s maybe just Seb?), and to tyler, jon, cole, and noel for playing awesome and having a great attitude this whole weekend.

-nellyville

oh yeah, also I top8ed that sunday sealed (olivia deserves min %25 credit), but then died IMMEDIATELY in the top8 to a rg deck that played a creature on every turn of both games. I won $100 of pure, straight CaaaasH, which both pays for all my entry fees and is also a first, and not something I was expecting. That was pretty rad.

now back to the forums with you.

http://z1.invisionfree.com/VicMagic/index.php?showtopic=2213&st=15&#entry22000046

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

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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!

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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.