“You’re going to do great,” my girlfriend told me as I
kissed her goodbye at the airport. “You’ve got Marshall’s deck, and you know
your stuff. You’ll be fine. See you on Sunday.”
My flight took off on time. The ground was
thirty-something thousand feet below us, and I was there on the flight, trying
to nap, tapping a pen gently against the notepad with my decklist scrawled
against it.
“Cut a land?” I mused. “No, Flood over screw. Maybe cut
one for Mishra’s? This Vault of the Archangel seems terrible. It’s a five-mana
land in legacy.” I looked back up at the creatures. “Bone Shredder? Six mana
for a 1/1 is so bad. I don’t know what Marshall was thinking. It answers Show
and Tell if they go for Emrakul, but it’s useless against Progenitus and
Griselbrand.”
I was nervous. Even though I had three free wins, I still
needed to go 4-2 in played rounds to make day 2. My preparations were bad, by
any account. Three rounds on Magic Workstation – two against stifle-naught and
one against affinity. I was 1-2 in those. I split games against Pop in testing
with Junk, but he decided not to play the deck, going with Maverick instead.
Was I bringing a pistol to a gun fight? There was a
reasonable chance. I’d hate to go 0-2 drop after flying down to Atlanta, but
would that be the worst case?
We land, and I grab dinner at a bar next to Pop’s gate
while I wait for him. It’s absolutely delicious. Peppercorn chicken quesadillas
and a local homebrew beer: Sweetwater 420.
If you get the chance, I strongly recommend Sweetwater beers – at least
in Atlanta.
Pop arrives, and we make for the hotel. The place is
marvelous – and I mean that literally. The hotel is a giant hollow rectangle
with a central column containing the glass elevators. The end result is a
cavernous hotel that appears to go on forever. The golden glow from the
interior lighting feels warm and accommodating.
Pop and I are both tired, so we hang out in the room
while I sleeve up my deck. I’m still not sure if I’m playing the 75 that
Marshall gave me, or if I’m switching things around. By 11pm, I’m in bed and I’ll
figure it out in the morning.
---
We’ve registered, and I went with Marshall’s 75,
unchanged. At least that way, I’ve got a safety valve if all the cards are
terrible. (Sorry Marshall!) There are 905 people competing in the main event,
which means 9 rounds. The judge informs us that X-2-1 or X-3 might even make
the split, depending on how things go during the tournament. That makes me feel
pretty good about my chances.
I wander around the hall, periodically checking in with
Pop over the first three rounds. He ends up at a 2-1 split, narrowly losing to
Dredge despite an otherwise reasonable matchup. I still think he wants a second
Bojuka Bog. Come to think of it, I probably want a Bog or two, at least in my
sideboard. Too bad that I’ve already turned in my decklist.
The fourth round is called, and I walk to my round –
about to play my first game of Legacy at Competitive REL.
Round 4 –
Andrew Bailey on RUG Delver
Andrew gets a slow start off the bat, playing a more
defensive game. I’ve watched a ton of Legacy over the last few months, so RUG
is a deck that I am very familiar with. I get a Vial out past his Dazes and
Spell Pierces, and use it to flash in two Serra Avengers. For his part, he’s
cast a Tarmagoyf and a Nimble Mongoose and started swinging. I drop some
health, then start coming in with the pair of Angels backed up with Vault of
the Archangel. With my health jumping up by six each turn, he scooped as soon
as I played a Mother of Runes.
Game two goes less well. I mulligan to six and keep a
hand with Karakas and two swamps, and his first Wasteland locks me off white. I
die a death to Insectile aberration with five removal spells in hand, all
requiring W.
Game three I also have to mulligan to six due to land
concerns. (Two hymn to tourach and no black sources makes for a horrible hand.)
But I find a Vial, Mom, Plains, Swamp, Thalia and Mirran Crusader. That seems
good enough to me. After drawing into an inquisition the hand goes insane and I
carve him up, never dropping below 17.
4-0 (2-1 in games)
Round 5 –
Dustin Flora on UR Delver
I’ve never even heard of this deck, except that Pop lost
to it the previous round. I assume that it works similarly to the standard
version, and just tries to go for the throat as quickly as possible. Round one
starts with him on a Goblin Guide who flips four lands for me. I’m not sure if
that’s a good thing or not.
We go back and forth for a while, with me having a
Batterskull live and him pulling together some ground forces – hoping that his
pair of Delvers flips and makes it a race. We’re both on 12 life. I play too
conservatively by trying to play and equip a Jitte over two turns, and he gets
the flip, barely able to get me by blocking the Jitte-equipped Batterskull and
suiciding his Lavamancer with his last two
cards in graveyard (after he topdecks a fetch land to enable it).
After the match, at my request, he told me that I’d
misplayed a bunch of turns earlier by not equipping my Stoneforge Mystic with
Batterskull, rather than bounce-replaying it. I told him I was watching for a
bolt, but he shook his head and explained that I’d seen his only card at that
point, and it was a land. I need to get better at actually using the knowledge
of their hand that I have.
Game two is a blowout. He has Sulfuric Vortex and Sulfur
Elemental that gets two Moms and a Thalia. The game didn’t go much past that.
4-1 (2-3 in games)
Round 6 –
Pascal Maynard on RUG Delver
Pascal sits down for our match and I say hello. We have a
little trouble communicating because he’s from Canada and has a pretty thick
accent (I’m sure he felt the same about me.) Nevertheless, he puts headphones
on and starts to shuffle.
Now, I’m not that guy to ask you to take them off. If
that’s how you’re comfortable playing, that’s alright, but it always rubs me
the wrong way to be playing against someone who thinks his music is more
important than communicating with his opponent. He may be a perfectly nice guy,
but wearing headphones makes me think he’s a bit of an ass at the time.
Game one stalls out with both of us high on life until I
drop a near-instant speed Batterskull. (Vial EOT > Mystic > Batterskull
on his turn.) He may have been able to fight out of that, but when I vial in
Mangara with a Karakas in play, he knows he’s done for. That lock is extremely
powerful, and I’m glad I was able to pull it off at least once this weekend.
Game two he comes out of the gate aggressively, but I’m
able to finally get a Jitte on a Mirran Crusader and wipe his board. He tries
to come back and finish me from 5 life, but with Jitte Counters protecting me,
I’m able to kill him past his Goyf and cards in hand.
5-1 (4-3 in games)
A judge walks over to take our slip, he looks at it and goes "Oh, which one of you is Andrew?" I raise my hand. Turns out that he read the article that I wrote on the WMCQ, and enjoyed it. So, woot. My amount of real-world people noticing me is rising, which inflates my ego more than is healthy for me.
On to a round that went less well!
A judge walks over to take our slip, he looks at it and goes "Oh, which one of you is Andrew?" I raise my hand. Turns out that he read the article that I wrote on the WMCQ, and enjoyed it. So, woot. My amount of real-world people noticing me is rising, which inflates my ego more than is healthy for me.
On to a round that went less well!
Round 7 – Joe
Rittiner on Counter Top
I know that this deck exists. That is about all that I
could tell you about it, and that it assumedly contains some kind of
counterspells and a Sensei’s Divining Top – or some other interaction with the
top of something.
I’ll be brief, I don’t have a shot either game. I throw a
bunch of spells into counters early in game one because I keep thinking that he
can’t possibly have another. By the time I find a vial, the game is already locked
up and I scoop.
I start game two with an awesome hand – two vials, and
plenty of gas. I figure that bypassing his counter wall should give me a good
chance of getting in for…
“Land, Pithing Needle on Vial.”
He had Counter-Top by turn 3. He Entreated the Angels twice. I didn’t win this round.
He had Counter-Top by turn 3. He Entreated the Angels twice. I didn’t win this round.
5-2 (4-5 in games)
Being 5-2 feels much less alright than being 5-1. All of
a sudden, I’m fighting for my life in the tournament. There’s two rounds left,
and I need to win both of them to make Day 2. Going into this tournament, I’d
told myself that Day 2 means the whole thing was an unmitigated success. Making
Day 2 of your first GP is a great
accomplishment, and I was aiming for it. Just two rounds left.
Round 8 – Bryan
Elliot on Junk Control
Bryan’s deck is interesting. He’s running all kinds of Discard
as well as a Stoneforge Package, but he’s also missing any other kind of
threats. Despite carving my hand up with Thoughtseizes, I’m able to beat him on
board presence in a slow grindy game that wasn’t as close as it looked.
In game two, he mulligans, and while he’s reshuffling, I
look over at the game next to us. Both players are laughing hysterically and
pointing at the field. The result? Both players are mono-mountains, with a pair
of Pyrostatic Pillars and a pair of Sulfuric Vortexes in play.
“Jesus…” someone whispers. “You guys aren’t gonna be
casting many spells, are you?”
Back to my game. I keep a loose seven with no white
source, but two AEther Vial. He thoughtseizes me and takes one, but the other
resolves. He seems very tired, and is almost lazily drawing his cards, and
probably not playing ideally under any circumstances. We go back and forth for a while, but
eventually, I equip a Manriki-Gusari to Thalia and start to kill off his
equipment (a Jitte and a Batterskull). He’s bringing them back with Academy
Ruins, but he can’t possibly keep up without his draw step. I kill him in
another long grindy game.
6-2 (6-5 in games)
After the match, Pop comments that I was playing kind of
tilt-y. I missed a few on-board things, and was tapping a Marsh Flats for mana.
It was a legal play because of Urborg, but he had a feeling that I wasn’t
intending to do that, so he wanted to mention it to me. I try to get my head
back in the game. Only one round to go, but it’s after 9pm now, and so that
proves a little difficult.
Round 9 – He Who
Will Not Be Named with Elves
A word on this
round before I begin. Despite giving the names of all the other people I played
against in all the previous rounds, I’ve decided to omit his name from this
one, because while I think he was an ass, I’m not a fan of public shaming.
The first game goes quickly. I swords his Symbiote early
to stop him from going off as effectively, and he scoops as soon as I get a
Jitte Equipped to Mirran Crusader.
The second game goes much longer. I look like I have
control, swinging for 3 per turn with a Jitte equipped on 2 counters. He doesn’t
seem to have much, then, almost out of nowhere, he goes off. I’m hoping that I
can get out of it with a well timed vial for the last two points that I’ll
need, but when he Living Wishes for an Emrakul, I know I’m pretty much done and
I pack it in.
I mulligan to six in game three, which already has me
feeling horrible. He gets a quick start, but not on his combo plan. A Hymn and
some other discard takes him down to just a Verdant Catacombs in hand, and he
topdecks a Joraga Warcaller, giving all his elves +2/+2. He starts to beat me
down, getting me to 6 before the board stalls out. We’re both topdecking, me using
discard aggressively to keep him away
from increasing his board presence.
Before I go into this, I’d like to point out that we’re
both playing very quickly because there’s less than five minutes in the match.
A draw gets neither of us into the Top 8, so we both want to finish the match.
We’ve been pretty friendly up till this point.
I vial in a Stoneforge Mystic on his end step and touch
my lands to untap, reach for my deck.
“You missed your trigger.”
Ladies and gentleman, tilt mode engage.
After talking to judges later, I think it would have been
possible for me to have called them and gotten it ruled as out of order
sequencing, or a player communication error, or something on those lines. If
that happens, I win the game as soon as I attack, because I can trade one of my
creatures for three of his, and keep Jitte on the field. He would have no hand,
and the game is over. I’m gone enough that I don’t call the judge to try and
get the trigger and we keep playing/
Over the next five turns, his demeanor changes from
polite and friendly to aggressive and curt. He asks me what my play is three
times over four turns – despite the complex board state. Due to a zealous
persecution in hand, I have lethal in hand if I can manage to clear his Joraga
Warcaller and then Persecute him to wipe his board. As I’m writing this, I realize
exactly how bad my tilt is because I never did that on his end step.
I missed two Dark Confidant triggers, and get a pair of warnings
from the judge. My opponent is pushing me to play quicker, and I’m getting
sloppier by the second. He’s clearly trying to make me screw up so he can get
the win. I’ve got control of the game, and with five more minutes, I could have
won handily. Without misplays, I likely already would have. As is, I’ve still
got significant control of the board. He has three forests, a symbiote, and a
pair of mana dorks, plus no hand, and the Warcaller on 2.
Time is called, and we draw. He doesn’t extend the hand,
but crosses his hands on his chest and frowns. “Well, one of us could concede.
I think I have better tiebreaks. Will you concede to me?”
“I will not,” I respond. I was winning the third game at
time, and this is my first GP. He’s already top 8’d a few of them, and top 16’d
a couple more. This is old hat for him. Frankly, this means more to me than
him. “Will you concede to me?”
“Absolutely not.” He packs up his cards, signs the slip
without another word, and walks away.
6-2-1 (7-6-1 in games)
Final Ranking: 140th of 905. 129 advanced at 7-2 or
better.
I would have made it if I had won that last round.
For those who know him, Pop’s ending record was 5-4
I think it was rude of him to ask for the concession
there. If the match had remained friendly until the end, it would have been
reasonable, but with tempers flaring on both sides, there was no way that he
could have thought I’d have given it to him. I could have won it in a dozen
different ways, but I didn’t, and it eats away at me that I had that chance.
Like I said, it’s different when you know it’s your fault. I shouldn’t have let
him tilt me. I shouldn’t have missed all those things. I should have just
played good tight Magic
And with that, GP Atlanta was over.
-----
Pop and I go to dinner at Durangos, and the food is
great. I’m a little pissed off because of that last match, but I’m mostly over
it by morning. The deck preformed well, taking me inches away from day two,
more on the flaws of my skill than anything else. I think that in the hands of a better player,
with some minor tweaks, this deck could do great things. I’m actively looking
to acquire the cards for it now.
The next day, we meandered around the hotel site for a
bit, and played in a Standard Win-A-Box. Pop and I got 1st and 2nd
(with him winning an extremely tight game 3 after digging 9 cards deep for a
Day of Judgment to win, with lethal on my side of the board, for the fifth time
that game). We split the box +3 packs (with him getting the odd pack). With
that, we headed for the airport, grabbed some Chili’s and opened the box (which
was surprisingly good) and bidded each other farewell.
This weekend, I’ll be attending the M13 prerelease, so on
Thursday we’ll be getting a listing of my top cards in each color. The
following weekend is Connecticon in Hartford, CT. I’m planning on attending and
playing in a couple of big events, but the nature of those events remains to be
seen. I’ll no doubt report on them later.
On this blog, we’ve been doing incredibly the last few
months, and I have all of you to thank for that. I’m going to be switching the
schedule up a little bit. Tournament reports will be on Tuesdays. Putting them
on Thursday just meant that I was waiting nearly a full week before actually
talking about things that were quickly becoming irrelevant. Tuesday should make
them a little more timely. As a result, the Deckbuilding 101 posts will be
moved to Thursdays to compensate.
If you have any other requests for content, something you’d
like to see, or expand upon, please, let me know. My reddit box is always open
(andrewrula) as is my twitter (@ajrula) and the comments on this site itself. I answer just about everything that hits my desk directly, so don't be shy!
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
-Andrew
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