Now, disclaimer, I had no intention of actually going to
Los Angeles, but the owner of the shop is a great guy that cares about growing
the community and providing the best experience to the players. To that end, he
was trying to get 75 people in the store, to help them qualify for running PTQs
and other major events. As a prospective grinder-to-be, I’m more than happy to
help them out with this. Making the tournament free sure didn’t hurt.
We hit 75 people by the skin of our teeth, and so that’s
another Achievement Unlocked for Ron’s. Congratulations to the store for
running a quality event – including nearly two cases in prizes. The top 4
walked out of the store with 2 booster boxes each, plus other prizes down to 16th
place. If you’re ever in the middle-NJ area, seriously consider giving Ron’s a shot.
Heebs and I arrived a couple of minutes early for the
tournament. I was on a pretty standard B/W tokens list. In the car on the way
there, I had a brief moment of panic and texted Heebs the following.
“Hey, could you bring your Champions of the Parish?”
I’d been running without them so far, preferring to have
a beefier top end, but the more I thought about the format’s evolution, the
more I was convinced that playing a virtual Wild Nacatl couldn’t possibly be
the wrong choice. Worst case, it provided an early blocker that would help me
stall for the Lingering Souls + Multiple Anthem endgame.
I’ll go more in depth as to the specific choices as they
come up in matches, but here’s the list that I played.
As for Heebs, he decided to be the only true man in the
room and sleeved up a Goblins-themed RDW that had been testing very well. We’ll
get back to that.
We get the word that we’ll be playing 7 rounds, followed
by a Top 8. The first round begins and I sit down with more than a little bit
of nerves grinding at me.
I’m going to be honest here. I had been on a tear –
getting a Top 4 finish at a GPT and a SCG IQ Top 8 within a week of each other,
winning the fairly cutthroat DKA Game Day, not to mention finishing in the Top
8 split at my DKA prerelease, and winning a couple of FNM events. I feel like
my Magic game has never been stronger. However, since all of that a couple of
months ago, I haven’t been able to post a winning record for anything. Part of
that could be deck choice – I’ve been running a Naya aggro list that just didn’t
have enough power to punch through to a deck with midgame presence, but it had
translated over to limited as well, and I generally wasn’t happy. This
tournament was going to be my first time back on Tokens in a couple months –
and I admittedly hadn’t tested this version at all.
Round 1 – UB Zombies
This match starts out as well as I could possibly hope –
I win the die roll and start out with the Champion > Gather draw. His single
Gravecrawler matches up extremely poorly against it, and his Geralf’s Messenger
meets an Oblivion Ring, clearing the board and letting me beat in for a ton of
damage once I get an anthem on the board. Champion deals more than 12 damage by
itself. I feel immediately vindicated by my choice to include him in the deck.
As we’re shuffling up for game two after a fairly quick
scoop, Heebs walks over.
“How’s your match going?”
“Oh,” he said, looking a little confused. “It’s over. I
won.”
“Goblins, right. What’d you play?
Blue/Black Zombies.”
“2-0?”
“Yep.”
My opponent looked worried at that. We shuffled up and he
took game 2 after I mulliganed and ate a couple of bad removal spells. Game
three sees him stick on two mana and he just can’t cast anything quickly enough
– I win the race handily.
1-0 (2-0
in games)
Round 2 – UW Delver
Game one goes to me off his mulligan, despite the turn
one delver flip on the play. He can’t quite muster any real offence once I get
an intangible virtue and a few flyers online. I’m very careful to double-block
so he can’t use his vapor snags to get 2 for 1’s everywhere. Eventually, I drop
a Hero of Bladehold and a single unimpeded swing tilts the game in my favor.
I’m going through my sideboard and seeing nothing useful,
so after a moment’s consideration, I took some advice from Patrick Sullivan –
master of Legacy (and other types of) Burn. “My favorite sideboard plan with
Burn is to just present my original sixty.”
I hand the deck over to him and he crooks an eye at me.
“No sideboard?”
“Not exactly a matchup that I have much against.”
“You’re probably pretty favored.”
That may be true, but my mulligan to five dooms me before
the game even starts. He crushes me with a turn one Delver flip (How does that
keep happening?), backed up by enough Mana Leak action to keep me locked down
until I’m virtually out of threats.
Heebs walks over.
“How’s it going?”
“I beat some Green/White thing.”
“What was he playing?”
“Just good things. Hero. Thrun. Some planeswalkers.”
“Township Tokens?”
“Oh yea. He had one of those.”
“Nice. Goblins getting there?”
“Yep.”
Heebs walks away so I can start my third game (Look ma!
Still no sideboard!) and my opponent leans over to me, glancing at Heebs across
the shop.
“Is he really playing Goblins?”
“Yea, it’s pretty sweet.”
“I am scared shitless of that deck. I don’t think I can
do anything about it.”
I laughed.
“Seriously! What can I do? Vapor Snag a Goblin Chieftan?
That seems terrible.”
Game three goes my way after a turn 2 Honor of the Pure buffs
my Champion and I’m able to grind out through a Sword of War and Peace with
Vault of the Archangel.
2-0 (4-1
in games)
Round 3 – Esper Control
The guy sits down and rolls out one of those playmats.
You know, the one that proudly reads “GP Somewhere Far Away.” He’s got a bunch
of Top 8 pins from everything, and he shuffles like a Vegas pro.
“Doing well so far?”
“Not bad,” he shrugs. “You?”
I shrug. Seems like things are working out pretty well.
Deck running well?”
“So far.”
I guess the wheels fall off everyone sometime. Luckily,
not this round for me. I crush him in two games. In the second, he throws
everything and the kitchen sink at me. Recurring a ratchet bomb off a Sun
Titan, resolving an Elesh Norn, but it doesn’t help. Both games are won off the
back of removing his Oblivion Ring to free an anthem and alpha strike.
It’s around this point that I realize one of the issues
with my sideboard – it hasn’t been significantly updated since this deck was
Junk Tokens (B/W/G). As a result, the Ray of Revelation in the sideboard have
no green mana to fuel their flashback. Man, did I feel stupid realizing that. I
hoped it wouldn’t be relevant.
My opponent sighs after the round and smiles at me while
extending the hand. “You know, I played in PT Honolulu. I guess today’s just
not my day.”
Firs t off, nice guy. Shook my hand, looked me in the
eye, and genuinely didn’t complain about his loss. Also gave me the biggest ego
boost of the day.
I walk over to Heebs. He smiles, announces “Delver, 2-0.
Goblins rule.”
“I beat a Pro Tour player.”
The day appears to be going pretty well so far.
3-0 (6-1
in games)
Round 4: UW Delver
I’m paired against Lance, who’s from a shop that I play
at on occasion. He’s a very solid mechanical player, but I decide to be daring with
my sideboarding choices, actually choosing to sideboard this time. I realize
that the only way he’s going to beat me is with a turn 1 delver flip, so I side
in insurance against that eventuality. I’m paid back with Timely Reinforcements
for full value in games 2 and 3. The games are close, but I edge him out in
game 3 because Vault of the Archangel is incredible.
Heebs goes against an Esper Control player and wins 2-1.
As I'm walking past a couple of people, I hear someone lamenting their loss.
"I'm going to need to win out from here to even have a chance."
"Look at the bright side man, at least you can't go against that Red Deck."
There was only one mono-red deck at the tournament. Goblins striking the fear into people's hearts all over the place.
As I'm walking past a couple of people, I hear someone lamenting their loss.
"I'm going to need to win out from here to even have a chance."
"Look at the bright side man, at least you can't go against that Red Deck."
There was only one mono-red deck at the tournament. Goblins striking the fear into people's hearts all over the place.
4-0 (8-2
in games). Heebs has the same record.
Round 5: Heebs with Goblins
It was bound to happen eventually. It's just a shame that it happened now. One round later, and we probably would have been able to shake hands and safely draw into top-8. We’re seriously considering drawing here anyway to give both of
us two chances at a win-and-in, but I think we screwed up the math and decided
to end up playing it out. As is, a win here locks one of us for Top 8.
Both games go more or less the same, and it regrettably
isn’t close. His Goblin deck preys on a ton of decks that have fairly fragile
early games. Being cute with a delver, or a single creature defending you,
works in the majority of cases, but being able to go Goblin Chieftan >
Hellrider is petrifying. It’s significantly less impressive when there’s a
veritable wall of vigilant flyers on the other side, which periodically have
lifelink.
Timely Reinforcements makes it a lot worse in game 2, and
I win despite the resolved Sword of War and Peace on his side of the feel.
5-0 (10-2
in games)
Round 6 and 7:
I draw both of these rounds to lock myself for top 8. I
was going to play round 7 to try and mess with the numbers a little more and
give Heebs a better chance after he lost his round 6 match, but unfortunately
for him, we end up with an awkward break that only guarantees my spot if I
draw. Hopefully, in a perfect world, we’ll stop having double-draw situations
soon. Regardless, Heebs ends up losing his 7th round to a Hero of Bladehold +
Geist of St. Traft + Honor of the Pure swing.
Quick: Calculate how much damage that is! The math got pretty amusing.
Quick: Calculate how much damage that is! The math got pretty amusing.
5-0-2 (10-2 in games)
Top 8: BR Zombies
Two people decline the ‘one box per person’ split, which
was unfortunate. I’m already tired and I’d rather be getting to our friend’s
house. There’s dinner waiting there, and frankly, I don’t want to end up losing
once and going home with 9 packs to show for it.
“Blackcleave Cliffs, Gravecrawler, go.”
Red/Black Zombies. God damnit. I like this deck.
I get beaten down to 5 life, holding my breath and hoping
that he doesn’t have Brimstone Volleys in his list. I end up forcing him to
sacrifice his whole team to save a Falkenrath Aristocrat, which I eventually
Oblivion Ring, but he’s still got me on a significant clock once he plays a
Highborn Ghoul. A well-timed second Oblivion Ring stalls the turn I need for my
flyers to get the job done.
Game two is even closer. I go to two life before Vault of
the Archangel comes online. I lean on it heavily, gaining 8 per turn and still
only barely keeping my head above water. He dealt over 60 damage to me that
game and I ended up winning on 13 life. Some lands are just awesome.
He shook my hand and we were informed that there would be
a Top 4 split - the dissenters had either changed their mind or lost.
I walked out with two boxes – one mixed foreign cards,
the other English Innistrad. I had a blast with the event, and I'll absolutely be going to further events that are run here. Here's hoping that they get the ability to run PTQ's and such, because I'd be more than happy to give them my money.
Final Result:
6-0-2 (12-2 in games)
I am glad that you had a great experience at the store and hope to do more events in the near future. As for the PTQ scene we will wait and see what WoTC does. Thank you, Chris Heard Ron's Comic World
ReplyDeleteCan't wait! I'll have my eyes pealed to your Facebook and I hope to hear about more events soon. I'll make sure that I shout them out on here.
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