First Place at GPT Atlanta with BW Tokens!

It started out as one of those days.

You know the type. It’s that day when you sit there in your car, half an hour early for the event, scrambling to find a couple of sideboard cards because watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother seemed so much more important last night. The clock is ticking, you don’t have any money on you, your gas tank is dry, and you haven’t eaten breakfast.

I find the two Revoke Existence that I wanted, finally, after flipping through about a thousand assorted commons and uncommons. That’s another thing I should do when I’ve got more than twenty minutes to spare. Apparently, having a life makes doing other important things – like Magic - inconvenient.

I get into the shop, which is already filling up. I spot a few of the regulars that I know, and start chatting. Alex is on Tokens today, which is unusual. Alex is one of the better players in the store. He won a thousand dollar tournament about a month and a half ago – plus winning States earlier in the year. He’s probably the biggest worry in the room. I wonder if he feels the same way about me – I don’t have any big wins like that to my name. Lance – who I’m 2-0 against in recent play - is on Esper Control It’s a worse matchup than his previous Delver, but nothing that I wouldn’t be reasonable against. I also spot Bernard, who made Top 8 in the GPT that I took 2^nd place in. A bunch of other reasonable players round out the field of 14. Certainly not a big tournament, but not a soft one either.

 I make a change to my maindeck on speculation after I pick up a second Angel of Jubilation. The card looks insanely good in BW Tokens. I finish my deck list and turn it in with my entry fee.

We’re about to start when the door opens up, admitting Justin and Mike.

Someone chimes in. “There’s the Ringers.”

Justin is good. He’s been on a three week winning spree at FNM’s – not dropping a match yet with RG. I’ve heard tell that Sword of War and Peace is a pretty good card on turn 2. He Top-4’d the GPT, though I never had to play against him. RG is a tough matchup for me. Him being at the tournament worries me a bit.

Mike isn’t much better. He plays one deck, and plays it relentlessly well. Once upon a time, it was Valakut, and he racked up win after win with it before it rotated. He switched to Delver and never looked back. He’s been in the Top-8 situation more times than I can remember, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him misplay. He’s also notoriously against splitting prize. It’s all or nothing, in his books. He’s here to win.

As for me, I haven’t eaten in nearly 18 hours because I’m an idiot, and I got around 5 hours of sleep last night, which isn’t enough for me. It’s going to be a long day.

Round 1 – Justin with RG Aggro

The pairings are called, and I’m matched against Lance, but there’s a repair and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m hoping to get an easy match in the first round so I can go grab some food. Unfortunately, it’s not to be, and I draw the short straw. Round 1: Your Worst Matchup, Piloted by one of the Best Players in the Store.

In game one, our life totals go in opposite directions. His upwards in small chucks, and mine down in significantly larger ones. I never get him below 20. I guess keeping Anthem-Anthem-Hero and lands isn’t the best idea against an aggressive deck. If he’d been a little slower, I could have attacked with the Hero and activated Vault to bump me back up to near-20, but he kills me on his fifth turn.

Game two doesn’t go much better, except I actually case a few spells. After I forget that Wolvir Avenger is a card and lose a token for no reason, I promptly pass a turn without casting a spell, ignoring the active Huntmaster. I deserve to lose this game just as much as I do the first – and I do in short order.

I walk over to the judge afterwards, shaking my head.

“Time on the round?”

“Forty minutes left.”

Well, at least I’ve got plenty of time to eat.

“I’m going to go take a walk,” I inform the judge. I go and get some McDonalds. Maybe I should eat healthier, but at this point, I’m tired, I’m hungry, I have a headache, and I just want some fries.

I dislike losing. I’m sure most people can sympathize with that, but something that I hate way more is not playing my best. Looking back, the first hand was absolutely a mulligan. When your first play can run directly into their Primeval Titan, you probably shouldn’t keep that. The second game was winnable if I’d actually played it smart and not walked into every trick in the RG aggro playbook. I played the match poorly, but I am not a poor player. That game was NOT me. I sat down, watched a match play out while I ate my burgers, took two Excedrin for the headache, and refocused. Four rounds, top 8. I’m still in this.

0-1 (0-2 in games)

Round 2 – Morbid Werewolves

I disliked this guy. He sat down, took one look at me and bitterly spat out “I really hope you’re not on Delver. That card is bullshit.” I shrug. I guess he went against UW in the first round and it went poorly. I’m not of the opinion that Delver is this monolithic institution – it’s beatable like almost anything else if you’re willing to tune your deck to do it.

I’m on the play without any one-drops, and he starts off with a Young Wolf. Werewolves never seemed like a spectacular deck to me, but I know it’s quick and aggressive and can steal wins if you play into a bad Moonmist. I play an anthem and he follows it up with a Vexing Devil.

“I’ll take the four, thanks.”

“Fine by me,” he responds with a smile. “Hunger of the Howlpack?”

The 4/4 young wolf crashes in, taking me to 12 on turn 2.

“That’s a pretty solid line.” I comment as I mark my rapidly dwindling life total.

I pass my next turn, and he taps the Young Wolf like his life depended on it. I flash in a couple spirits via Midnight Haunting and double block. He balks, looks at his hand, and nods. The Wolf dies, and he tries to put it back in play.

“Doesn’t undie.” I note. “It had counters on it.”

“Oh, really?” I think he genuinely didn’t know.

The game ends with me playing a Hero, followed by two Honor of the Pure and an attack.

“That card is bullshit,” he says.

“It is pretty good,” I admit I’m feeling a little dumb about removing one from my main board for an Angel. Angel would have been little better than a 4 mana 3/3 in that situation.

He gets the same opening in the second game, but an O-ring solves that problem. He plays six creatures that all eventually fall to tokens and repeated Vault of the Archangel activations. He makes a bunch of bad attacks into deathtouch effects. Eventually, I play a Hero that closes out the game.

“I can’t find a Moonmist to save my life, and I didn’t draw any creatures!”

“Good games.” I don’t really have anything more to say to that. Like I said, I didn’t really like this guy.

1-1 (2-2 in games)

Round 3 – Bernard on UW Delver

I’m feeling much better with a win under my belt, and food in my gut. The wonders of modern medicine have cured my headache, and the adrenaline is flowing, which is mitigating the worst of the fatigue. Bernard is a solid Delver player, and I’d generally count on him to not make many play mistakes. Thankfully, I’m doing great against Delver recently, so I’m feeling confident as we shuffle.

I’ve got the Champion into Honor draw, which normally seems really good. Putting early pressure onto Delver is a great way to slow them down a bit. They’ll pay mana for their Gitaxian Probes and just generally be less dangerous.

Of course, that’s all assuming that they don’t play and flip a pair of Delvers in the first three turns. Sometimes you just get there regardless of anything else.

Game two is even less one sided, but in the opposite direction. Champion into Gather into Intangible Virtue has him at 10 on turn 3, with blockers available for the Geist of St. Traft that he plays. He tries to balance out with a Timely Reinforcements, but a Lingering Souls off the top puts too much P/T on the field for him to stop – plus, my tokens are just all bigger than his.

Game three is closer than I’d like, and mostly revolves around him beating me with a Runechanter’s Pike on a Geist while I flew over him. Vault of the Archangel is a champion again as I gain 14 life over two turns to stay alive on 5 when I kill him.

2-1 (4-3 in games)

I’m able to draw the fourth round, because Justin is still undefeated and helps my breakers out a ton. This makes me very happy, because my opponent was Alex, and the tokens mirror is something out of hell. It all comes down to who has more Anthems, and how you leverage that to your advantage. With two main deck Angels, and one vault more than him, I should have the edge in the mirror, but it’s still not something I want to do.

Luckily, a clean draw lets me watch an awesome BW Control brew fight into the top 8 in a spectacular set.

Round 5 Quarterfinals: Esper Delver

Esper Delver is slightly different from the UW version. He’s got a bunch of tokens instead of an invisible stalker package, but he’s much more effective at clogging the board and waiting for a Sword to kill me with.

Game one starts slowly for both of us, with a non-flipped delver beating on me for three turns before I manage to get tokens and anthems running. I O-ring his Sword of War and Peace, and eventually, vigilant fliers take the day.

Game two is scary. He manages to beat me down to 2 before I stabilize in the air. Being that low against someone playing Gut Shot, Vapor Snag, and Snapcaster is always nerve wracking. You want to push for lethal as fast as possible because every draw you give them could kill you. On the other hand, you can’t go all-in because a single flashed in creature, or a vapor snag to remove a blocker, could leave you dead. You run the numbers, and in the end, either he has it or he doesn’t. This time, he didn’t.

3-1-1 (6-3 in games)

Round 6 Semifinals: Justin with RG Aggro Redux

I hope it won’t sound like bragging to say that the top 4 was a stacked set of people. Justin and I paired off, and the other table was Alex and Mike. That is a brutal set of opponents no matter how you cut it – and Mike’s presence means that there would be no splitting of prizes.

I wanted this win more than any in the tournament. He’d beaten me when I wasn’t at my best, and I wanted to prove that I was just as good as he was. I wanted to prove that my deck wasn’t some janky thing he could just walk over.

Game one started slow for both of us, with the first major action being a turn 3 Huntmaster from him, and a Honor of the Pure powered Lingering Souls from him. He flips his huntmaster to kill one token, but I come back with a second honor and the flashback on the souls, shrinking his huntmaster down and giving me a huge flying armada that kills him over three turns of Vault-augmented attacks.

Game two can be summed up with “Double Sword.” There’s not much that I can do against that. If he draws one, I can usually race it, or have the removal for it. The second makes it nearly impossible to handle.

Mike looks over at our match, having beaten Alex in the unfavorable tokens matchup.

“Justin, you gonna lose your streak?”

“Tokens are pretty good man.” He shoots back.

Mike shrugs towards Alex. “Doesn’t seem too bad.”

“We’ll see about that.” I chime in. “It’s a bad matchup for you.”

“Seems fine,” Mike says.

“We’ll see.”

In game three, I overload the ground with one of those nut draws you only read about. Champion into Gather into Champion and Gather into Hero of Bladehold. He tanks for a while before extending the hand.

4-1-1 (8-4 in games)

Round 6: Mike on UW Delver

After beating the much more difficult RG matchup, I honestly felt pretty relieved. I was 4-0 in competitive play against Delver with this list. Tokens are just so absurdly good against it. Every spell they cast seems less powerful than what you’re doing natively, unless they have multiple swords or something else nutty like that. Barring that, they need to either win with a trick – snapcasts and snags on end step to push through damage – or a fast delver and a ton of counter magic.

Game one isn’t close. I crush him with a double Champion draw. He never touches me because his Geist can never attack without dying.

Game two is close, but eventually, an equipped sword goes the distance and I don’t draw enough power to keep my head above water with Vault. Beating with a 2/2 lifelink deathtouch is nice, but not when it costs you 5 mana every turn and you don’t have any other plays.

The third game comes uncomfortably close. While Delver might be a good matchup for Tokens, it’s also an extremely good deck when piloted by a competent player, and Mike certainly qualifies. I end up with six vigilant flyers staring him down, while I’m on 10.

He taps his deck. “So, draw an equipment for the win, or anything else and I die.”

“Pass turn,” I say. He draws, looks at the card, sets it down, and then goes into the tank.

He thinks, and thinks. Long moments.

“Pass turn.” His voice is even. I’m on ten. He has nine power on the board. He’s at one. I don’t think there’s any outs, but my brain is frantic now. I’m checking for everything. I even look to see if he’s got green mana for a fog effect. (Ironically, he does have the green mana off a Hinterland Harbor, for Ray of Revelation flashback, which I personally really like in his deck.)

I untap, upkeep, draw. Survey the board, sandbag a land and go to combat. No effects. Swing. Effects before blocks? Effects before damage?

He flips the Seachrome Coast and extends the hand.

I won.

That’s never happened before.

5-1-1 (10-5 in games)

I’m a pretty nice guy at tournaments. I banter with my opponents, I joke around when we’re rolling to see who goes first. We’re all here to have fun, even if the game is very serious on both sides of the table. It’s nice to be able to smile and laugh. An extension of that is that I’ll almost always offer a split in Top 8 and above. Some people think that’s weak – and that you should always play to win, but frankly, unless the top spot gets something special, I’ve never seen the point to that at FNM level.

I’ve gotten plenty of good finishes, but never first place.

Aftermath

Being a GPT, the prize included just over half a box for me (which turned out to be pretty good) and three byes for GP Atlanta – a fourteen hour drive from me.

I text people, letting them know that I’d won, and the congratulatory texts started rolling in. At the time, I’d figured that the big win here was the Planeswalker Points – 5 wins and a draw was over 50 points towards the byes that I want for GP Philadelphia in the fall. Between this and the GPT Top 4 from Ron’s Comic World, I was nearly halfway to my first bye at the GP I really cared about.

I get a text from Marshall:

“So, going to learn legacy?”

“Fourteen hour drive for legacy? I don’t even have a deck.”

Then a text shows up from George:

“Congrats. We going to Atlanta?”

Gears start turning. I get a text from Pop:

“Sick! So we’re going right?”

The jury is still out on the final verdict, but the more I think about it, the more that a 14 hour drive doesn’t seem THAT bad. I could learn legacy, put a deck together, but if I’m going to do it, it can’t be alone. I’m going to talk to a few of my friends and see how we could work this out, what decks we could field among us. I’m currently qualified for the World Cup Qualifier, which happens to include a GPT for Atlanta on Sunday alongside a PTQ, which should take some of the sharks out of the water.

This could happen, and that’s pretty exciting.

The next day, I went to a StarcityGames Invitiational Qualifier, but that’s a story for Thursday. Check back then to find out how I did!