BW Midrange for SCG Worcester

Hey guys, this weekend is SCG Worcester, featuring a Saturday Team Sealed Open and a Sunday Standard Open. I'll be playing in the latter, so I'm going to be building a deck. What follows is the process by which I came to my deck, which I think is pretty sweet and well positioned for the weekend. I started writing this on Wednesday morning, and spent the majority of the morning building, testing, and discussing it with friends. Here's the result - hope that it's interesting.

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It's Wednesday morning, just before noon. This weekend, I'll be working SCG Worcester. I'll be judging the Team Sealed on Saturday, but I was unable to get on staff for Sunday's standard. As a result, I'll be jamming a few games of Standard in the new format, and that means I need a deck. Last week, I promised that I'd run you guys through the process of building my deck, and deciding some of the more important choices.

I've been keeping up with some of the articles that have been spoiled, and there's a ton of decks that people have been tossing around. I think that, when building a deck, it's important to first define what we're expecting to see. That will let us tailor what we're doing to try and combat it as effectively as possible.

Burning Earth and Red Deck Wins

This is the definition of 'Format Warping'

We're coming off of a multicolored block, and multicolored cards are going to make up a significant portion
of the field. As a result, I definitely think that Red Deck Wins (or some red-based aggressive deck) running Burning Earth is one of the more solid choices. Burning Earth has been shaping the metagame. A ton of people are going to try and jam three colored decks, but ultimately, I feel like too many of them are going to auto-lose to Burning Earth for me to be comfortable running them. Some would argue that you could devote sideboard slots to combating the card, but I'm not a fan of that method against aggressive decks in particular. There's too many ways that you're dead anyway. If you draw yours and they don't, then you have a dead card against the creature threats. If they get Burning Earth and you don't, then you're just dead. If either you both draw, or neither draws, you're fine, but that gives us a lot of situations where our sideboard card isn't terribly useful. When we could also combat this by just building our deck in such a way that it doesn't fold to a commonly played enchantment, getting greedy with our lands feels like a losing proposition. Given all this, I'm leaning towards a two color list.

Drawing Cards for Fun and Profit

Also worth noting is that Control decks have lost significant ground, but not the core of what made their decks work. They still have a powerful suite of removal spells backed up by Sphinx's Revelation. They have a powerful cadre of planeswalkers – Both Jaces, Chandra, new Elspeth – that are sure to give anyone fits. Most of all, they have the most resilient finisher since Jace, The Mind Sculptor: Aetherling. I've seen countless people posting UW Control, UWR Control, and Esper Control lists, trying everything from recreating Flash to a new Ashiok-centric list.

A Look at What We've Lost

The hole that Innistrad left in the format is gigantic. Without Huntmaster, Geist of St. Traft, Olivia Voldaren, Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites Checklands, Kessig Wolf Run, two different Garruks, Snapcaster and most importantly Thragtusk, nearly every card in the format needs to be re-evaluated. Like it or not, Thragtusk was the heart of every midrange deck in the previous format, and without it, we're going to need to find another way to stabilize against aggro decks while still putting threats on the table to pressure Control.

Not Going to Miss This Guy

I'm a midrange player at heart. I don't have the wherewithal to battle to time every round with a control deck. I hate the lack of options that an aggressive deck gives me. While I'll prefer my lists to have a strong pro-active plan, I don't want them to be easily trumped by what the control decks are doing. If you'd like, you could describe it as 'Big Aggro' or something along those lines.

As the general archetype that has lost the most, I think that Midrange is also the area where the most effective brewing could come right now. Control and Aggro both have their paths laid out for them, but Midrange was set adrift on the currents and left to fend for itself.

For those that follow me, you also know that I adore Orzhov colors. I play it in Legacy, and I've been trying to make a grindy BW Midrange deck work in Modern. (No successes yet – more on that in a later article). While I may be insanely biased in this, I do think that there currently exist the tools in Standard to build an incredibly powerful BW deck, with a powerful pro-active plan that is difficult to deal with. Between the powerful cards we have access to from RTR Block, plus a couple of choice weapons from Theros, I think there's something here. I'm initially attracted to Elspeth, Obzedat, Blood Baron of Vizkopa, and the wide array of very versatile removal spells that are available to the colors.

First Tries

So, keeping in mind that I want to avoid losing directly to Burning Earth, while still being able to fight a three-color control deck and put up a healthy toe-to-toe fight with anything else that comes my way, I came up with this initial list:

Those of you who are paying attention will notice that there's only 56 cards in this list. I could think of a couple things to fit into those slots, but at this point, there's enough of a shell to start sending to people to figure out what they like and don't like about the list.

I can not state enough how valuable a testing team is when trying to come up with a list to take to a tournament. I also can't stress enough how important it is to have multiple groups like this – because they won't have the biases of the others. The groups that I spoke to had the following to say:

Group A:

Another Elspeth, and then 3 early removal spells. Probably another Doom Blade, another Devour Flesh, and maybe a 1-of Merciless Eviction.

Group B:

Add an Elspeth, a land, and probably more removal spells. Also, this deck seems like it needs more Desecration Demon.

Group C:

Your curve doesn't even start till turn 3. Try something earlier – like Tithe Drinker or Baleful Eidolon

Group D:

I tested this deck already. Alms Beast doesn't do what you want. Desecration Demon is also pretty bad in the list. Trying Archangel of Thune, and early results are good.

Group E:

I think you're just cold to RDW. They'll just run you over. 4 Cheap Removal spells, possibly cut Thoughtseizes for more, or play my UW Deck. Seriously. I'm not using it Sunday.

Of the five, we had an enormously divergent set of responses. I'd like to note that two of these people are regular SCG grinders, and the other three have been playing Magic since the Weatherlight Crew were regulars on the cards. Judges are prevalent among the list, but don't make up the majority of it. Suffice to say it's a decent cross section of people you'd talk to at an SCG Event.

First, something that multiples of them had to say – I do like the second Elspeth. It shores up our late game and makes us have a good amount more inevitability. I decided to go with the more removal spells option here. A couple of people talked about that, and I'm inclined to agree with them. I added in an extra Doom Blade and Devour Flesh. For the last card, I was torn on another removal spell, but since we're still testing, I opted for the one-off Merciless Eviction. If it ended up not playing dividends, we could always cut it for removal.

That gave us the following list to test with:

At this point, I've got a list, with no sideboard, and that's what I'm going to test with. This is the kind of deck that wants to at least have reasonable game 1's against the field. It's not like a control deck where Game 1 is your weakest, and it only gets better from there. Since the field is pretty wide open – with a number of styles of control, aggro, and midrange all being tested extensively – I feel like we're going to have a generalized sideboard to handle broad archetypes, rather than a focused one aimed at specific cards and game plans.

I test on Magic Workstation – partially because I don't have cards on Magic Online, partially because Theros isn't available on Magic Online, and partially because it's quick and easy. If given the chance, I'd be testing in real life with friends, but unfortunately, my friends have jobs and such – and I'm a little time crunched for this deck. Future iterations will go through a gauntlet of whatever does well at Worcester – in person.

Testing – Round 1

My first match is against a GW aggro deck that comes out the gate quickly. I'm shocked by how much life my deck goes through, between Read the Bones, Shocklands, and Thoughtseize, I do almost as much damage to myself as my opponent does in the first game, and he takes me down. Second game I play a lot more conservatively, and despite a mulligan to six cards, I win. Third game is a nail biter, where my Obzedat and Blood Baron come online just in time to take over the game. I take control at one life, and swing back up to 15 before he leaves the room. Not a clean win, but I noted some misplays and am confident that the sideboard will help the aggro match up a lot.

Second match is against a BWR list very similar to the one that GerryT has been peddling around. While his red cards are extremely powerful in game 1, in games two and three, his mana base fails him. Once drawing him a Come Into Play Tapped land when he needed one extra mana, and the other time just locking him off red. Another flaw in playing three color decks at the moment is that sometimes, your deck just kills you, and they don't even need a Burning Earth.

Final match with this version was against a UW Control deck. I played it pretty conservatively, but after a Thoughtseize took his only Sphinx's Revelation, and he couldn't find an instant-speed answer to Obzedat, he crumpled.

C-C-C-Changes

I was very happy with the first run of the deck, however, I did notice a few clunky bits. I disliked how Alms Beast didn't actually seem to do much. While the synergy with Erebos was pretty awesome, I'm only playing two of the God, and it seemed like my friend was correct – Alms Beast is never really the Abyss that I wanted. Most often, it ate a removal spell and we moved on.

I also wasn't very happy with how the deck preformed against the aggro match ups. While we won the matches against GW, I felt like a good draw could provide us issues if we're only relying on removal. (Voice of Resurgence, in particular, was fairly annoying to deal with.) I decided to make a couple of changes for the second iteration of testing, trying out some tech that a friend of mine has been working with.

Finally, I was hemorrhaging life the entire time, and I wanted to do something about that before making any huge changes. Removing one Read the Bones for more removal seemed like the best option.

Changes:

+3 Tithe Drinker

-3 Alms Beast

+1 Devour Flesh

-1 Read the Bones

Testing – Round 2

We're still working without a sideboard here, because I don't really have a good enough feel for what people are testing and working with. After those changes, I went back into the trenches for a couple more matches.

Boros:

Soldier of the Pantheon is extremely strong in this deck, and with the help of an Anthem, he takes Game 1. I was heartened by the fact that I was about a turn away from balancing out, but just couldn't get there quite quickly enough. In game two, I draw a ton of removal into a Blood Baron, and he can't handle it. Game three is much the same, except with an Obzedat instead. Didn't need to cast the Elspeth that I almost certainly would have sided out. Hammer of Purphoros strikes me as a very strong card here. It nearly won him the game after I'd firmly established control.

GW:

This went a lot like my first round did, except that he had a Scavenging Ooze and I played around it VERY poorly. He won in three, but I think I could have played significantly better and not time walked myself multiple times over the course of the match by playing into his responses.

Esper:

His lands ended up crushing him in the first game, and he never really got rolling the second after a mull to six. A turn five Obzedat ends up going the distance after he can't respond to it.

Esper:

The first two matches, we trade games – him narrowly losing the second, and me the first after a mulligan to five. The third match was one of the best games of Magic I've ever played and went all the way to turn 35. In an epic match dominated by a number of different cards, I feel like I really got a feel for the match up. He was leaning hard on Jace, Aetherling, Blood Baron, and Sphinx's Revelation, while I had Read the Bones, Obzedat, my own Blood Baron, and Elspeth.

Fittingly, the changes I made to the deck all came into play, with a Devour Flesh killing off his early blocker to allow a lot of early damage through via Tithe Drinker (responsible for over 20 points of life swing over the third game). Merciless Eviction ended the life of one of his Jace's, and the second Elspeth (after the first was Thoughtseized away) killed off two of his Blood Barons and made the three tokens that finished the job.

I couldn't be happier with the deck's performance in this game. The scry effects felt very relevant (both Read the Bones and Temple of Silence), the manabase never gave me significant trouble, and the late game felt powerful.

Given the strong showing, I'm going to work on a sideboard now. While I was playing these games, I noticed that I constantly wanted some more early blockers against the aggressive lists, though the removal seemed about right. On the other side of the coin, a little more card draw would have been very useful against control. Sin Collector was a card that I was considering for the main deck, if control was very prevalent, but I think we can make room for it in the side.

I've got a bunch of cards with varying use against varying decks here. I'm not specifically targeting any archetypes, but I made sure that I've got cards useful against a couple different types of aggro, as well as other midrange match ups (attrition based) and control match ups (resiliency based). This is honestly the part of the deck that is gonna undergo the greatest amount of change from week to week, especially this week, when we're in a Day 0 format with no established decks. Obviously, in the future, we're going to want to metagame a little bit more against some of the decks you're likely to see.

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That's it for me this week everyone. Tune in next Wednesday to see how the deck did (assuming that you don't see me on Coverage this week). How did you like the deck? Let me know in the comments - either here or on Reddit, Twitter, etc. Also, let me know what you thought about the article. It's quite a bit longer than my typical article, and I'm interested in hearing what you guys thought about it.

The only things certain in life...

I have not been a huge proponent of Modern. Since it came out, I've looked for just about every reason under the sun to not play it. I was invested into Standard. I was investing into Legacy. I didn't have time to play the decks that I had. I didn't know anyone else who played, or anywhere to play it.

Most importantly, the critical problem was the same one that I've had with dozens of other formats (especially certain eras of Standard). I just didn't like any of the decks.

Modern has always struck me as a format with a misguided principle. Wizards wanted it to be a haven for the best hits of Standard, but somehow managed to ban all of the decks that people would be most excited to duke it out with. There's plenty of argument to be had about the current ban list, what should be added to it, what should be removed, and I certainly have opinions on the topic (perhaps even opinions that I'll mention before Gatecrash's Ban and Restricted announcement is sent out) but that's a conversation for another day.

Today, the important thing is that I've found a deck in Modern, or at least an archetype. For those who have followed this blog for a while, I play a White/Black Aggro-Disruption deck in Legacy that's commonly known as Yards Pale Ale (a variation of Dead Guy Ale). It's a primarily spell-based deck backed up by a White-Weenie core. I love the deck. I think it is a magnificent creation. I couldn't be happier with it.

For those who have been reading for even longer, you may remember my Knights deck. The time was Caw-Blade era Standard, just when people were figuring out how good Stoneforge Mystic was in a deck with Swords, and adding Jace to it only made it stronger. This was before Dismember and Batterskull. The deck wasn't completely over the top yet – it was just strong – like Valakut.

Back in the day, I played a (in hindsight) awful brew built around Knight Exemplar. It utilized Student of Warfare, Hero of Bladehold, Mirran Crusader, and a couple of less pristine examples of awesomeness. See, I was remarkably bad at combat math – so I wanted all my creatures to either be First Strike, Indestructible, or better. Knights gave me a way to do all of them.

I added blue because it seemed like the only thing that would beat me was board wipes before I was established. Counterspells would fix that. Blue also gave me access to a number of clone effects for my exemplar, and preordain (a card I did not appreciate at the time, but now sorely miss.)

For being so rough, I loved that deck, and so when I saw that a White-Weenie strategy was doing well at a couple of events, with the nominal archetype name “Death and Taxes”, I was obviously interested.

Here is an example of a version of the deck that won two Daily Events on Magic Online on subsequent days. It gets to play a ton of cards that I'm excited to work with, and has a ton of lines of play that intrigue me.

Now, one of the major things that this list relies on is it's ability to land-lock an opponent. Between Mindcensor and Arbiter, they can seriously restrict the amount of searching that an opponent can do – turning off fetch lands and other search effects right as the game starts.

I'm not sure if I like this tactic, but it's certainly something to fool around with. Admittedly, it's a strong line of play, but I tend to like my games of magic to be interactive – and that normally means some level of letting them have the ability to cast spells. I'm sure that my more Spike minded friends will disagree, but there's a reason that the designers have scaled back on Land Destruction effects in recent years – it's not very fun to play against, and I like everyone at the table to have fun.

There's plenty else we can do with a deck like this though. While Stoneforge Mystic's ban removes the ability to tutor up a Batterskull (or Jitte, were it unbanned), there are plenty of other options for a Death and Taxes shell to take advantage of. You could skew towards a trickier deck, featuring Flickerwisp and Stonecloaker to rebuy some of your effects, providing grinding value. Alternatively, adding a second color is definitely possible.

The current list, running a plethora of plains, provides players with a preciously pristine land base, not prone to removal. Adding a second color would make it more unstable, at the benefit of some flexibility.

I've seen some people discuss the addition of Green for some powerful options out of the GW Hate Bears list that Kibler has been using – Smiters, Leiges, Gaddock Teeg, etc. I've also seen Blue discussed, favoring a counterspell package to strengthen the deck against Combo and add in some draw and selection spells.

Something that I haven't seen is Black, taking a page out of my Legacy deck's book and running powerful creatures like Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler, backed up with black removal spells. This is likely the direction that I'm going to end up taking the deck, because the playstyle flows so nicely with the kind of gameplan that I enjoy.

As for those of you who are still skeptical on the Modern format, I'd implore you to at least look at the format, see past the field of Jund and into the deep seas of innovation behind it. Who knows, maybe we'll see a ban out of Jund – or an unban to break the format open again. Regardless, there's something for everyone in Modern, if you'll just look to find it.

I'd like to give one last quick word to THIS thread on Reddit – it provided the initial list that sparked my interest in Death and Taxes in Modern.

Until Thursday, may all your spells resolve.

Playing at Competitive REL – A Beginner's Guide

You've been playing at FNM's for a couple of months now, and you're starting to notice that you're winning more often than not. The same at your local shop's Tuesday standard.

You like your deck – no, actually, you love your deck. You built it yourself, and maybe it's not exactly a netdeck, but it has a solid game plan and you know how to pilot it against all the major decks in the format.

You're wondering if you should maybe take your game to the next level. You hear some guys at your shop talking about travel plans. You saunter over to them and ask them what they're talking about.

“Oh, dude, you didn't know? This weekend is the Grand Prix.”

“The Grand Prix?” you ask. You've heard some of the guys talk about how they went to Boston a few months ago, but you've never been to one. “What's that?”

“It's a huge tournament – usually more than a thousand people – over two days. There's one this weekend in Atlantic City! A bunch of us from the shop are going down there.”

“Wow, awesome.”

“One more thing – it's a competitive tournament, a little bit different from an FNM.”

“Oh?”

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It can be a little intimidating stepping into your first Competitive REL tournament. In fact, it can be downright terrifying. My first was a side event at Pro Tour Philadelphia (back when they were open to the public.) It was a big tournament for an iPad, and I got a game loss in my first game. Unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea that there was any difference between my local FNM and a tournament for $15,000. I assumed we were just playing Magic, and that was that.

The reality is a little different, and as a player who hates seeing people get screwed because they weren't aware of the difference, I'm going to be going into some detail about some of the things that you can expect at a Competitive event.

First off, what is Competitive REL? Because of the high prizes associated with them, some tournaments are run at a stricter level of rules enforcement than others. Notable events are the first day of a Grand Prix, TCGPlayer Max Events, Grand Prix Trials, Pro Tour Qualifiers, and Star City Games Opens, Invitational Qualifiers, and Invitationals

At these tournaments, there is some measure of high prizes at stake. It could be playmats, invites to other tournaments, byes, or large cash prizes. Regardless, because of the prizes being offered, the tournament is to be held in as skill-testing an environment as possible. That's where we hit the first major difference between Regular REL and Competitive REL.

During Regular REL tournaments, like FNM, the emphasis is on educating players. At Competitive REL, the emphasis is on an individual's play skill.

That might seem like a minor thing, but it really has a whole lot of implications. The most obvious way that you can see it is that at a Competitive REL tournament, there will be a judge who can hand out the penalties found in the Infraction Procedure Guide (or IPG, for short.) That's the document that all judges (and players, if they so choose) have access to, which tells about all the things that you can be penalized for at a Competitive tournament.

Some of these things are fairly simple. The IPG has a whole boatload of ways of saying simple things like “Don't Cheat”. Luckily, you're a good person, and you're not going to cheat. We don't have to worry about the vast majority of that section because it doesn't apply to you as long as you are being open and honest while playing.

That brings us to the first major rule that I'm going to give you if you've never played at Competitive REL. It's the first rule because I honestly believe that it is the most important.

Do not lie to the judge.

The judge does not exist to punish you. He exists to make sure that the game is being played by the rules, and to ensure an even playing field, and to make sure that everyone at the tournament is comfortable.

Sometimes, the judge will punish someone. That could very well mean anything from a verbal Caution (which means literally nothing as far as you playing the game goes) to a Disqualification (which is very bad.) For the record, receiving multiple instances of the same penalty does eventually lead to an upgrade in penalty to a more severe one. That said, lying to a tournament official is a one-way street to a disqualification. Period. End of Story. Just don't do it.

The IPG lists out a full treatment of everything you can get punished for. This is a good thing, because it means that judges can't just capriciously punish for anything, only things covered by the existing document. They can't 'go rogue' and just make things up. Please keep in mind that at larger events, you ALWAYS have the right to appeal a decision to the Head Judge of the tournament if you believe that your ruling was incorrect. For the majority of players in the majority of situations, none of that is important. In all my time playing competitively, I believe that I've received only a handful of warnings (and one game loss, as you'll see below).

How do you avoid such penalties? It's actually pretty simple. Play according to the rules, and be clear, open, and obvious about what you're doing. Below, I'm going to list what I consider to be the 5 most commonly given out errors and penalties, and how to avoid them:

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1) Tournament Error: Deck/Decklist Error

This one is the top of the list, and it isn't even close. In Round 2 of GP Boston-Worcester last year, over 100 of these were given out at the start of Round 4. This penalty refers to something fairly broad – there's a problem with your deck, or your decklist.

At Competitive REL, you will be responsible for filling out (either before the tournament begins for Constructed, or during deck constuction for a Limited Event) a deck list. Be very careful with this list, because as far as the tournament officials are concerned, that's what you're playing. In order to curb cheating and provide some measure of security for the integrity of the tournament, judges will be checking decks throughout the tournament. As long as what's in your deck matches what's on the sheet, there's likely to be no problem whatsoever. However, there's always a few things that can go wrong. Here's some of the common ways to earn yourself a Deck/Decklist Error:

-You made a last minute change to your deck, and forgot to update your decklist.

-You forgot to de-sideboard your deck after your last round

-You had a bunch of cards that aren't in your deck or sideboard in the same box as your deck and sideboard.

-You don't have at least 60 cards (or 40 for limited) in your main deck, and in Constructed tournaments, you have a number other than 0 or 15 in your sideboard.

-You are playing cards that aren't legal in the format that you are playing.

There are other ways to earn them, but those are what I'd consider the most common. The penalty for Deck/Decklist Error is usually a Game Loss – a steep penalty because the potential for abuse is so high. Be careful with this one, and when the judge tells everyone to take one last look over their decklists, I implore you to actually do it. Judges hate giving this one out, because it's usually so easily avoided.

My first infraction ever was a Deck/Decklist Problem. I didn't fill one out because I didn't know it was required. Whoops. By the time I was informed of this, round 1 was already well underway, and my opponent was happy to be cruising onto game 2.

2) Game Rule Violation

A Game Rule Violation is a general catchall category for an issue that takes place during the game, but doesn't fall into any of the other categories. Generally, it means that you did something that you shouldn't have done. At the moment, the most common one of these that comes to mind is putting a creature into the graveyard after it's been killed by a Pillar of Flame. There isn't much to say about this one except that you should make sure that you are doing your best to adhere to the text on cards.

3) Missed Trigger

Everyone take a deep breath, because I know that you've heard tons about this one. You've heard things about lapsing and nonlapsing triggers. You've heard tons about people getting disqualified for ignoring triggers, and abilities that don't happen when they should.

Relax. Take a deep breath. This one isn't that tricky.

First off, some info, and the largest change between Regular and Competitive REL. At Competitive REL, you are required to demonstrate awareness of each one of your triggers. If you (or your opponent) do not, then the trigger is considered missed, and a judge should be called.

Full stop.

When a judge is called, a couple of things will happen. First, the judge will establish if the trigger was actually missed. A trigger is considered missed if the player who's trigger it was has taken an action after the trigger would have resolved without indicating that they were aware of the trigger. Second, the judge will ask the opponent of the player if they would like to place the ability on the stack. (The answer will generally be no. Do I want my opponent to gain 2 life and a 2/2 wolf token – no, no I do not.) As far as the game goes, that's the end of it.

Then, based on if the ability is detrimental to the player, they may get a warning, but that's not generally something that players will need to worry about.

The penalty for a missed trigger is usually nothing, but is occasionally a Warning, however, you likely won't get your trigger unless it hurts you in some way. Failing to activate a trigger deliberately and pretending you missed it, by the way, is cheating, so don't do that.

If you have any more questions about missed triggers, I strongly suggest you read Level 5 Judge Toby Elliot's Blog on the Topic. It can be found HERE. There is additional commentary HERE as well.

4) Looking At Extra Cards

This one is actually remarkably common. Have you ever been shuffling your opponent's deck and accidentally spilled it all over the table? You looked at some extra cards. Ever try to draw a card and the top one flipped over onto the table? Looking at extra cards.

It generally takes place whenever someone looks at (but doesn't draw!) extra cards.

To avoid this one, just simply be deliberate with your actions. Be sure you've only picked up one card. Shuffle gently (but thoroughly!) with your opponent's deck. Doing this is a Warning.

5) Drawing Extra Cards

On the other hand, if instead of just looking at extra cards, you actually draw extra cards into your hand (indicated by the cards making contact with the rest of your hand) we've entered into a different penalty altogether. Drawing Extra Cards is one of the most extreme infractions that can be committed, because of how much potential for abuse there is, and how little an opponent could potentially do to stop it. Worse, because there's no easy fix, drawing extra cards is almost always a Game Loss.

There are some exceptions that you could look up, but those are extreme corner cases, and it's best to just simply be extra careful any time that you're drawing cards – this goes for drawing for turn, drawing dozens of cards in a single turn off a Glimpse of Nature, or casting a Sphinx's Revelation for a whole bunch. Count the cards before putting them into your hand, and we won't have an issue.

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There are a number of other infractions that can be given out for a variety of things, the vast majority won't actually apply in almost any situation. If you want to take a look at the entire list, the entire IPG is available for your perusal HERE.

I'd also like to point to a pair of articles that Jackie Lee, a notable professional player, has written on the topic of Competitive REL and Judges – Here and Here. They are both well-written, well-informed articles that I recommend to anyone looking to break into the competitive scene.

I want to take a couple of paragraphs at the end of this article to ease some concerns as well. If you're looking into starting at a Competitive tournament, you should consider the judge an ally. We exist to help you at all times, and make sure that the tournament is a fun experience for all. If someone at the venue, even another player or tournament official, is giving you a problem, please, speak to a judge about it. Likewise, if you are unsure of an interaction, or you think something has gone wrong in your game, call a judge. They will be more than happy to help you sort it out.

If, at any point, in any tournament, you ever need the assistance of a Judge, just raise your hand high (some of us have trouble seeing through all the spell-slinging, so clearer is better), and yell loudly “Judge!” One of us black-shirted folks will be by shortly to sort things out.

With that, may all your spells resolve, and good luck at any future events you take part in.

Back In The Saddle - Esper Tokens for GP Atlantic City

It's been a while since I've addressed Standard in one of my blogs, and this upcoming weekend seems to provide me with the perfect time to talk about it. Since becoming a judge, my opportunities to play competitive magic have declined pretty significantly. It's not that I enjoy it less, it's just that opportunities to judge seem to keep cropping up, and I have only so many weekends that I can fill with Magic. Couple that with the holidays, and I haven't been at a Competitive REL tournament since November – and that wasn't even Standard. (It was a Legacy Tournament – which I am happy to report I Top 8'd, with much the same BW list that I've been running for some time now.)

Since the last time I'd checked in, Standard has changed a bunch. The last couple of FNM's that I'd gone to had been decidedly during the era of Jund. It was everywhere, and I was of the opinion that my former tokens list couldn't compete on the same level as it. Something needed to be done.

Luckily for me, the format shifted, then shifted again. Despite not playing, I still followed the scene, checking in with some of my favorite authors and noting the results from Star City Opens and GP's. I have to say, from the look of things, it seems dynamic and interesting, but I still can't quite muster the same level of enthusiasm that I had during the Scars-Innistrad Standard. Perhaps having a 'bad guy' in the format spurs me on to more deck building than normal. Maybe the relatively small subset of cards that sees play in every deck is irking me. I hadn't been able to really pinpoint what it was until recently.

When I sat down to write my New Years Resolutions, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have a couple dedicated to Magic. I'd slacked off on quite a few projects – my Shard War decks, Illyria, and I'd been sitting on my hands regarding advancing as a judge. Most of all, I didn't have any decks (except my Legacy deck) that I really wanted to play all that much. I vowed to change that before the end of the year.

For those who have been reading this blog for the last few months, you know that I fell in love with BW Tokens, lovingly updating it week by week, and having a reasonable amount of success with it. I felt like I understood the deck on a fundamental level, and all it's match-ups. Unfortunately, the rotation was not kind to my poor spirit tokens.

People had been telling me for months before the rotation that the deck was strong, but would be much better once Ratchet Bomb and Elesh Norn were gone. Interestingly, none of those people kept saying it after Detention Sphere was printed, and that was only the start of the issue. Olivia becoming highly played provided a roadblock. Still, I could fight through those things. After all, the titans were gone, and the caliber of board wipe that remained in standard was a far cry from Ratchet Bomb and Sun Titan.

That said, Tokens was not without casualties. Specifically, two of our hardest hitting cards went by the wayside. Hero of Bladehold and Honor of the Pure both provided huge offensive boosts to my squad that were proving difficult to replace without serious reworks to the deck.

 

The inspiration for the update actually came from my friend (and deck building prodigy) Marshall. He'd been working on a Spirits tribal list for a while (and was actually working on a list extremely similar to John Finkel's Pro Tour Honolulu list as Finkel was winning with it). After the success of the deck, it was poorly positioned for a while, with the whole format devolving into creature mirrors between R/G, Naya, Pod decks, and Angel Delver. It also had some issues with an unstable mana base if you tried to add the black splash for Lingering Souls. With the rotation, Marshall felt it was time to give it another shot.

The addition of Hallowed Fountain did wonders for the land base, allowing him to cut into a third color for more than just a narrow splash. After seeing his list, utilizing Drogskol Captain, I realized that it had a remarkable resemblance to my tokens list, and decided to modify it:

As usual, I began with an existing deck. A lot of my card choices seem to mirror the briefly seen Esper Flash lists that were thrown around for a week or two. I'd played the Esper lists (as well as the UWr version) casually for a couple of test games before dismissing them. I didn't like how many turns I was spending just cycling through cards, and I didn't like how low my threat density was. With a the core of the tokens deck still intact (Midnight Haunting + Lingering Souls + Intangible Virtue), I felt that there was definitely a deck still there, and I searched for a way to intensify that.

In the meantime, on the back burner, I had a playset of Restoration Angels that I love fiercely. I wanted them to see more play, I just needed a deck to slot them into.

Once I decided to add blue to the deck in earnest, the question became “What can I gain?” Snapcaster seemed an obvious choice, but in testing, I found that the deck was already mana-hungry enough, and didn't often produce too many good targets for the Wizard. I cut down to two copies from four. Augur of Bolas, despite the occasional flub, served as a much better two drop for my Flash Tokens. Plus, it provided a great body to flicker with Restoration Angel. The breakthrough came later, with Favorable winds providing the redundant anthems that I'd always wanted.

Once I had favorable winds, all the formerly aggressive draws were out. I didn't want to lead Champion of the Parish into Gather the Townsfolk. There was too much spot removal in the format, and I couldn't follow it up as strongly without Honor of the Pure to provide consistency. On the other hand, I did have a powerful engine that allowed my flyers – token or not – to trump similar plays by other decks. My Restoration Angels could block (and kill!) opposing ones, and with spot removal on the rise, my swarms had never been more effective. Once I'd decided on the flyer emphasis, it naturally brought my curve a little higher – towards the 4 and 5 mana range. Geist Honored Monk started seeming like a great creature to play – with Restoration Angel being able to hit it for added value. A few counters, and a smattering of removal spells (or at least, what I could find given the color constraints) rounded out the list.

The final card was a single copy of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. He was too slow for my previous list, but here, he seems just right. All of his abilities are relevant, and he comes at a point in the game when each could be the correct thing to do. I'm considering adding a second if I can get a hand on one.

The end result (sans sideboard) is this:

The deck has one main issue, right now: the insanely aggressive decks. Not the midrange-y zombies lists, which tries to kill you with 4 and 5 drops. Those we can deploy a wall of Spirits to block effectively. I'm talking more in the terms of Naya Humans, Mono-red, and things in that vein. Thalia still provides a major roadblock for the deck – serving to give a one sided cost bump to almost literally every card in the deck. I'm still working on a solution to some of those, but I'm confident in my ability to work it out in time for this weekend. While I don't love it the way I loved BW Tokens, it's at least a deck that I can feel comfortable playing for a long day. I've already got a room at Atlantic City with two of my good friends, as well as my girlfriend, and I'm planning on seeing if I can grind my way through 9 rounds to a 7-2 record, and a berth in Day 2.

What do you think about my list? Do you see any glaring omissions in it? Anything that you think could be improved, or significantly changed for the better? Feel free to leave a comment. Going to be at Grand Prix Atlantic City? Drop me a line if you want to catch up. I'm more than happy to chat with anyone.

May all your (and my) spells resolve.

Defending Against Cheating

This past weekend featured the first World Magic Cup, and the presentation was great. If you missed the coverage, I’d wholeheartedly encourage you to head over to the Wizards twitch.tv page (www.twitch.tv/magicprotour) and check out a couple of the matches. It’s a great tournament, with strong coverage segments, and the usual great casting team from Wizards.

That said, since the tournament ended, there have been some allegations thrown around. Some people, analyzing the video, think that a member of the Puerto Rican team cheated in the finals (and who knows how many other matches off-camera).  The video in question can be found here: Was Jorge Iraman Trying To Stack His Deck at the World Magic Cup?

Now, I’m positive that the DCI is investigating this at the moment – that is, after all, their job. So I’m not here to pass judgment or blame or even say if I think he actually did cheat or not. But one thing that this event does highlight is that players need to be careful. At competitive events with cash (or plane flights, or trophies) on the line, people will cheat, and we need to be prepared for it.

Today, we’re going to go into a couple of different ways that someone can try to cheat you, and some easy remedies for it. Note that I’m specifically talking about ‘things that will get him disqualified if a judge is watching.” This is not meant to address someone trying to Jedi-Mind-Trick you into using Esper Charm on yourself. Slimy play is an entirely different thing from cheating.

The methods that a cheater will use vary greatly. Go watch a few magicians (the ‘real’ kind, not the ones playing MtG – the guys who make stuff disappear, or manage to pull a royal flush out of a falling deck of cards [Source: Reddit, thanks /u/SlimGrim]) and you’ll see that their acts are likely very different. Same goes with MtG cheaters – the ways that they can cheat are as numerous as the stars, and there’s absolutely no way that you can be trained to identify and stop all of them.

A quick aside here on what you should do if you notice someone cheating. Immediately raise your hand and call for a judge. Ask to speak to him away from your opponent. The judge is trained in being able to investigate these situations. He will make inquiries into the situation and, if unsure, discuss things with the head judge (if the event is large enough to merit multiple judges). They will come to a conclusion and everyone can abide by it – one way or another. It is not your job to execute a punishment. It is not your job to determine guilt. Your job, as a player, is merely to bring the matter to the attention of a judge if you believe that something suspicious is going on.

Good, now that we’ve covered that, the first major ways that people are going to cheat happen before the game even starts. Our cheater sits down at the end of the last round and carefully stacks his deck to be perfectly spell-spell-land-spell-spell-land all the way through. This devious player is now guaranteed two or three lands in his opening hand, with a third land on the way quickly if he doesn’t have it. Of course, we all know that he has to shuffle before he actually presents, so he makes a great show of cutting the deck a few times in front of you before passing it over. You cut the deck and begin play. He doesn’t mulligan, because his deck is still stacked.

However did that happen?

This is called mana weaving, and it’s one of the oldest cheats in the book. By mana weaving, you make your spell-land density uniform across your deck. This is not randomized. It is important to know the difference between a completely randomized set and something that it uniformly distributed. In this case, they’ll even look similar to the naked eye. The couple of cuts that have gone into the deck will make minor inconsistencies in the perfect weave, but the vast majority of the deck will still be prearranged.

Similar things can happen with a variety of other cheats. Subtly moving a card to the bottom of the deck, then manipulating your shuffle to bring it to the top is not only possible, but extremely easy. Doing the same so that the card ends up in the middle of the deck, slightly off-kilter to encourage you to cut directly to the card, is also possible. It’s even possible to do this while nominally rifle shuffling the deck. There are dozens of variations on these cheats, but they all boil down to the same thing – deck stacking.

How can we stop things like this? Simple, actually. The number one defense against deck stacking, mana weaving, and any kind of nonsense is twofold, and actually required by the rules of Competitive REL tournaments.

He must present his deck to you to shuffle. You, as a cheating-conscious player, should pick up his deck and shuffle it. I don’t mean cut it. I mean shuffle. You are well within your rights to randomize the deck however you find sufficient as long as you don’t damage the cards. (I’d like to take an aside here and remind you to be gentle with your opponent’s deck. We’d like to think that our cards are important to us, and could even be worth a fair bit of cash. No reason to cause damage here. Just be a little gentle with them.)

Cheaters practice at what they do. There’s a good chance that you won’t notice it if they shuffle in a slightly shady manner. However, but shuffling the deck thoroughly – every time, even after he just searches the bottom five cards for a land off his T1 Evolving Wilds – will prevent any kind of weaving or searching or ordering of his deck.

Realize that – you can completely blunt an angle of cheating by playing fairly! That’s awesome.

Some other methods of cheating are a little more insidious and require us to actually pay attention to things. Periodically keep track of the opponent’s number of cards in hand – ask him if need be, and write the information down on your life pad. If it seems like he has more than he should, look back and make sure. If he has drawn an extra card at some point, call a judge – that’s a game loss for a good reason. For all you know, he could’ve subtly moved a Batterskull back to his hand after you Cliqued it away.

There’s one more kind of cheating that I’ve heard about – but admittedly never experienced myself. It’s most endemic at small store FNM’s, especially involving players that don’t necessarily have the best grasp of the rules, or if there’s no official judge present. It usually involves one player bullying the others into accepting ‘his ruling’. Often this player is just lying because he thinks he can get away with it and win the tournament as a result, but sometimes it’s accidental. As always, your best weapon is simply knowledge – know the game you are playing. I’m not saying that you need to be Judge-level-knowledgeable (though that certainly helps) but if you have a smart phone, there are plenty of apps that let you look up a rule if there’s a dispute. (I’d like to publically call out MTGJudge from the iTunes App Store on this one, because it is a *spectacular* resource that also provides a card lookup.) Don’t be afraid to bring the question to an outside party. Remember – your opponent has a vested interest in you losing! Don’t trust that his ruling is correct.

In conclusion, know your rules, and be willing to look them up if you’re uncertain. Shuffle your opponent’s deck. Make sure that you are clear in your declarations and actions during the game, and you’ll find that a healthy amount of cheating just isn’t possible against you anymore.

Personally, that’s worth the extra thirty seconds of shuffling to me. I bet the Taiwanese national team feels the same way, and are extremely happy that they didn’t just leave that Etched Champion on the top.

Also, congratulations to the Taiwanese team. They played some great magic throughout the weekend and provided quite a bit of quality entertainment for me and my friends. I’m already looking forward to the next segment of the year – complete with 2 GP’s, a couple of Star City Games events, and countless other opportunities for me personally– not to mention judging and some other projects I’m working on.

It’s a good time for Magic, cheaters or not. Let’s make the best of it.

Till Next Time,
Andrew

[Editor's Note: It has been brought to my attention that Mike Flores has written a few articles on this topic as well. Please find links to them if you'd like some additional reading:
The Miser's Guide To Savage Cheats
How To Cheat

Thanks to /u/0rangeSoda on Reddit for the tip! Enjoy!]

Bye Bye Bye - Why Planeswalker Points Are Important

Hey man! I haven't seen you around here in ages.

Yea, I've been pretty busy traveling.

So, you coming to Sunday drafts now?

Absolutely. I’m grinding for points. Didn’t you hear? There’s a GP in Philadelphia in October. Got to be ready.

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As some of you may know, this coming Sunday represents the end of the second Planeswalker Points season. For some of us, that makes this week a flurry of furious playing and grinding, with the hopes of gathering those last few points. For others, the entire idea of planeswalker points seems alien and obtuse.

Why are we seeking planeswalker points like they’re some finite resource? Why do some of us keep track of the number with post-its and bookmark the page in our browser to make sure that everything is up to date?

There’s a couple reasons for it, honestly, and to start, I’d like to tell you my story.

A few months ago, I decided that I was interested in joining the Magic Competitive Scene. Previously, this meant going to GP’s and PTQ’s, hoping to qualify and make it to the Pro Tour. Unfortunately, my level of skill at that point was nowhere near where it would need to be to have a chance at either of those events. I wasn’t thinking clearly about what I’d need to do to succeed. I was flush with success with a Top 8 at a 75 person GPT, and I thought I was one of the best players ever. Seriously. I actually thought that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really have anything to work towards. There weren’t any GP’s in the area, so I just shrugged it  off and kept playing in GPT’s and SCG:IQ’s. The story could have ended here.

Then there was an announcement. A special tournament – held three places across America. The World Magic Cup Qualifier. All jokes about qualifying for a qualifier aside, I knew that this was an event I wanted to participate in – and it was fairly local: just past Baltimore, maybe a two hour drive. I checked the requirements and found that I needed 300 Planeswalker Points to get an invitation.

I fired up the handy website and took a look. The system is pretty simple – three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss, and then multiplied by the kind of event it was.

FNM – 7 points

FNM – 4 points

FNM – 7 points

This looked like it was going to take a while.

GPT Baltimore – 66 points.

Wait, what? Sixty six? Well, I suppose that the event was seven rounds of Swiss, where I went 6-1, and you get some points for participation…

 If you’re looking to grind points, events with a multiplier are where it’s at. There’s just no competition. You could win 9 rounds of FNM, and it’s likely worth less than winning three at a GPT – or just a little bit more than two at a PTQ. A single win at a GP is worth more than two flawless Friday victories at your local game shop.

But why do we want these points? Even ignoring the primal urge – present in every nerd – to make numbers go upwards. (Seriously, take a look at every RPG ever. That’s all we’re doing) Surely there are rewards for earning all these points! Well, luckily for us, there are – and the rewards are significant. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers to know for the current system.

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Byes:

By gaining planeswalker points in the current system, you can earn Byes at Grand Prix events. A bye is a free win in one of the early rounds, and any player can have up to three. Having them is an enormous advantage, and for many, these are the primary benefit of Planeswalker Points. These points accrue over the course of a season. The most recent season ran from April 2, 2012 – August 19, 2012. The next season, which begins on Monday, runs from August 20, 2012 – December 16, 2012. If you earn byes during a season, they will apply for the duration of that season and for the next one as well.

                -One Bye: 400 points

                -Two Byes: 750 points

                -Three Byes: 1500 points

Invitation to the World Magic Cup Qualifier:

 Where Grand Prix Byes count based on a single season, the World Magic Cup Qualifier tracks points over an entire year. The most recent World Magic Cup Qualifier season began on April 2, 2012, and will end on March 17, 2013. To be invited, you need to reach a threshold based on your country. These range from the USA – where you’d need 500 points within the year, to small countries like Peru, where the cutoff is a mere 100 points. You can find the list of thresholds HERE.

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For those of you wondering if a Bye is even worth anything to you, it’s a fairly simple question. If you are going to a GP, the bye is absolutely worth it. Compared to the FNM’s and other events that you’ve gone to, GP’s can be more likened to a marathon. With two days of play and thousands of dollars of prize on the line, you need to be at your best to have a chance, and that means giving yourself advantages before you walk in the door.

A normal GP plays 9 rounds on Day 1. To advance, you need to be 7-2 or better. Going 7-2 in a tournament is no mean feat, and even a single bad mulligan could spell the end of your tournament aspirations. With three byes under your belt, you mitigate that to a paltry 4-2 to make the second day of play (and put yourself in contention for a reasonable cash payout!) In addition, the three byes have the related side effect of making your tiebreakers markedly higher than those without byes. Because people playing since round one will have their tie breaks calculated off all their opponents, they account for the person who started off 0-1, 1-1, and 2-1. Your worst tiebreaker player is the person you hit in the fourth match, who (assuming you win) will be 3-1 at that point. This could buy you the crucial percentage points that elevate you into the “I won something!” arena.

This coming season, for example, I’m planning on attending two GP’s – one in Boston, and one in Philadelphia. Each Bye I earn puts me that much closer to Day 2. Because I played in GP Atlanta, as well as a number of other events, I’ve earned over 900 points, easily enough for my second bye, but still a far cry away from my third. With the addition of a second GP to my personal schedule in this coming season, it would be a reasonable thing for me to expect getting a third bye in the coming season. As my play gets more precise, I expect to earn more points for any given tournament. GP Atlanta earned me a cool 200 points, and I didn’t even make Day 2. If I had, it easily could have been a 350-400 point weekend.  I certainly wouldn’t have been as close as I was if not for the three byes I had.

This is more or less how GP Atlanta felt with three free wins..

This coming season, I’d encourage you to set yourself a goal – be it your first bye, in case you attend a GP early next year (the schedule should be announced soon!) or qualification for the World Magic Cup Qualifiers, or whatever you decide. Set yourself a goal, and then set out to attain it!

[Editor's Note: The Planeswalker Point website can be found HERE.]

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I hope that you guys enjoyed this look at the planeswalker point system, and what we can get out of it as a competitive player. Next post comes in Thursday, where I’ll talk a little bit about what I see in the format going forward.

A Respectable 6-3 at Star City Games: Washington DC

It’s interesting how things happen sometimes. You write something, yell up and down about the new thing that’s going to change it all, and then, forty eight hours later, you’re scrambling to put a deck together – your third in two days.

How did this happen?

Last weekend was the Star City Games: Washington DC event. By random luck, I was able to attend, because my job wanted me to go to Washington DC from Sunday till Tuesday. It meant that I wouldn’t be able to play in the Legacy Open on Sunday, but I was mostly alright with that, since my Legacy deck is still broadly ‘under construction’ – missing a Karakas, Urborg, four Wastelands, and three Bobs. (Plus some other assorted cards that have since been filled). That’s not exactly a small list, but still, we’re getting closer.

So, Standard Open was going to be my best bet – with hopes that I would make Top 8 and secure an invitation to one of the two remaining invitational’s of the year. That was the goal. To accomplish that, I’d most likely have to go x-1 or better, with the potential of a draw in the last round.

To this goal, I wrote an article about my Naya Aggro deck, which can be found Here. The decklist I ended up building to play in the event was as follows:

There was a lot of power in this deck, and it has the potential to run away with games that it was clearly losing. Hero of Bladehold and Gavony Township provide a strong top-end, and four Caverns give the deck a lot of game against Delver Style decks. With Restoration Angel to back up any assault, and Bonfire for the occasional blowout, the deck was strong.

And I hated it.

I played some test games with it, but it constantly felt like I was mulliganing into oblivion. I was never able to find the lands that I wanted, a dork, and some reasonable sequence of plays that didn’t depend entirely on “and then I’ll draw all the cards I need.” I found myself playing out my hand quickly against other similar aggro decks and lacking a way to go over the top to win, instead getting into a board stall and knowing that I really didn’t have many (if any) outs.

I called up Marshall on Thursday, after posting my counterpoint about Bonfire. A lot of the points that I’d made were festering in my mind – countermagic WAS strong against that kind of deck. Tokens did have a lot of recurring threats that made it viable against Naya style decks. Delver was still a flying Wild Nacatl for U that needed to be dealt with.

What if I merged the two decks?

I drove to Marshall’s that night and we spent the better part of four hours piecing together the deck that I’d be taking down to DC. Late night audibles rarely work, because you end up with little familiarity with the deck and not enough practice. I ignored this because I figured that it was just tokens with a support package instead of a Humans package. It looked strong. Plus, I got to sideboard Day of Judgment and go to town with that as tech against Naya and the Elf deck that BW is completely incapable of beating.

This deck looked like it had everything. A strong early game with Delver/Snapcaster/Vapor Snag, it had the late game with Anthems and Lingering Souls. We were able to find a mana base that worked (partially by being very careful to avoid double-colored spells), and enough removal to punch through the biggest offenders in the format. We were positive we were on to something here.

Unfortunately, we finished the deck at Dark O’Clock and didn’t have time to test it. I couldn’t go to FNM on Friday to test it because I was busy sleeping – since my train to DC left at 5am. Still, I felt confident that I’d be able to do well with the deck. I slept a healthy amount before the tournament, and we were ready to go.

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It’s 10:05. The tournament was scheduled to start five minutes ago, but there’s still a line out the door. I’m staring across the board at two Rancors on a Blighted Agent.

“This deck is pretty bad,” I admit – referring to mine, not the UG Infect deck that’s been tossing me around like a ragdoll for the last hour.

“It’s probably a bad matchup for you. Don’t worry.” That’s my friend Mark. I’ve seen him at a bunch of events, and he offered to play a few rounds to get each of us used to our decks. It isn’t going well. I’ve managed to squeak out a single win – he’s got more than half a dozen under his belt.

“It’s not that your deck is good,” I explain. “Well, I mean, it is. You’re really explosive, but my deck isn’t flowing the way it should. The mana feels fine, but I just don’t feel like I’m going to have the power to punch through and actually get a kill.”

“So, what’re you thinking?”

“I’ve still got all the cards that I’d need for BW Tokens…” I say, hesitantly. I could also audible to Delver – since I have that almost built as well, but that doesn’t put me in any better shape.

“I don’t think that’s smart.” Mark answers, and we keep playing. “Maybe you’re just getting bad hands.”

Five minutes later, one of Mark’s friends comes by and reports. “I’m seeing a ton of control decks in the field today – and a lot of Delver too. A lot of Pod, but not a lot of Naya Aggro or Humans.”

Mark taps some creature, probably an Ichorclaw Myr. “Four infect at you?” I try to remove it, and he casts apostle’s blessing in response. Two Wild Defiance Triggers go on the stack and I scoop it up.

“Last call for registration!” goes the shout. I take one last look at the deck and make the call.

“Help me unsleeve this.”

It’s 10:25 and I’m frantically writing on a deck registration sheet, putting back together a deck that I’d played in more than a dozen tournaments. If there wasn’t much Naya in the room, and the read was right, Tokens would cut through the control decks and the Delver decks – all I needed to do was dodge the Naya decks.

Round 1 – Chris with Bant Pod

Chanting “Not Naya” while I shuffled, my opponent leads with Razorverge Thicket into Birds of Paradise – because why not. Luckily for me, I’ve got the fast start, and he’s not really playing Naya at all. He’s on Bant Pod – a deck that I know exists, but not much more than that. I remember the older Bant Pod lists – flicker an acidic slime a bunch of times with Venser and lock you out of the game, or get a Stonehorn lock. I imagine that this deck plays out much the same.

Luckily, I have the Champion > Gather > Anthem > Anthem draw, and he goes down on turn five. Before he’s able to set anything up.

I play game two much more conservatively – unsure if he’s running Day of Judgment in his list. He almost gets a stonehorn lock on me, but I’ve got removal for the Venser to keep me on the right side of the matchup. I end up killing him while I’m on 31 life.

1-0   (2-0 in games)

Round 2 – Steve with Mono Black Control

Game one is agonizing. I get my beatdown on, dropping him down to three life over the opening turns of the game with a fairly aggressive start. I’m still on 20, and feeling great. He topdecks a Mutilate to wipe my board, but I’ve got a Gather the Townsfolk in reserve. This unfortunately does nothing when he drops a Wurmcoil Engine, and I quickly drop to two life as he beats me down with it (and removes my human tokens). He goes back up over twenty before I find a Gather the Townsfolk and a Hero of Bladehold to stop him. I’m poised to gain 20+ life the next turn and kill him off a vault of the archangel swing, but he topdecks a second mutilate and kills me with the Wurmcoil Tokens.

Ouch.

Luckily for me, his good luck breaks and he mulligans in the second game. Despite him activating mindslaver twice on me, he can’t quite get a lock on the game and I kill him through two pristine talismans that gained him 16 life over the course of the game.

Our third game is a classic Tokens vs Control matchup, with me always having more gas to stop his attempts to regain control. I slow roll every token maker, buying a board wipe from him every turn until he eventually runs out. Even his pair of pristine talismans can’t keep him up through two anthems and any creatures.

2-0   (4-1 in games)

Round 3 – Robert with GW Elves

Let me just go on record and say that I don’t know why this deck isn’t bigger. In game one, I remove his turn 2 Archdruid, and still die on turn 5 to a swing for 45 damage off a Craterhoof Behemoth that he green sun zenithed for. Shockingly, I almost survived. Almost doesn’t count.

I have no notes for game two. It went more poorly than game one.

2-1 (4-3 in games)

Round 4 – Brad Nelson on BW Zombie Pod

I read the pairings and I’m on fire. Brad Nelson, player of the year for 2010. This is the first game I’ve ever had against a player of his caliber, and I’m nervous as all hell. I sit down, and try to make some small talk – he seems pretty quiet. Understandable, since he’s already picked up a loss. We present our decks and I move to cut his, but my hand slips and flips a card.

Geralf’s Messenger.

Both of our hands shoot into the air and I get a warning for Looking At Extra Cards.

I apologize, and he nods. “It’s alright, just sucks because it’s a pretty big tell.”

That’s pretty fair, I think. I hope that he doesn’t think I did it deliberately, because I can see how it could be interpreted like that. Brad is one of my favorite writers, and I’d hate to think he had a negative opinion of me because of a mistake like that.

I’d like to tell you guys that I drew a hand that was marginal against Zombies and kept it because I was doing the honorable thing. Truthfully though, the hand was just all gas. He gets some quick hits in with a nighthawk before I land two heroes. He answers the first, but the second gets a combat step with Vault of the Archangel and start beating in for 24 point life swings. He goes down and we sideboard.

I love my zombies sideboard in this deck – it’s one of my favorite parts about playing it. To this day, I’ve only lost to zombies once with Tokens, and that was due almost entirely to a gigantic misplay on my part.

Today kept up that trend, and despite him getting the Restoration Angel/Geralf’s Messenger combo going, I beat him down and win the round.

3-1 (6-3 in games)

Round 5 – Gavin with RG Pod

I don’t have a lot of experience against this deck, and I keep a slower hand. He doesn’t seem interested in playniog that game, and crushes me in a quick game one.

Game two, he mulligans and we both stall out on the ground, unable to make a profitable move. The game comes down to me being able to draw flyers, and him never finding a bonfire to miracle.

Game three, I pull off a miracle’d Entreat the Angels for 1 on turn 4, and the angel went the distance to beat him down for the win.

4-1 (8-4 in games)

Round 6 – Andrew with Esper…well…

The round starts, and I win Game 1 without any real idea what he’s playing except Esper colors. He cast a lingering souls, a ponder, and a mana leak – which effectively means he could be any Esper archetype ever. He boards in a bunch of cards, but I’m hesitant, and end up presenting my original 60.

I think I actually stand by this decision. My sideboard cards for the Esper matchups are pretty weak overall, and I’d rather not dilute my deck with dead cards if I guess wrong. Unfortunately, I have a quick draw and he has the answers for it, stalling me out until his plan becomes obvious – as he copies a bunch of Sun Titans with the least fair clone creature ever printed.

To be honest, I’m positive that I could have won this one. I made a bad removal early on, sacrificing a creature to kill his doomed traveler clone – thinking that it would be sacrificed and not give him the token. This is 100% absurd – the only reason I thought it was because my opponent a few tournaments ago had missed his trigger, not because it doesn’t happen.

I got him to 1, and he killed me with triplicate Sun Titan attacks and Dead Weight and such. It was unpleasant.

Game three, I was forced to mulligan, and I couldn’t put out enough pressure. He stabilized at 8 life, and I never got to touch him again.

4-2 (8-6 in games)

Round 7 – Naya Pod

And here we go, folks. The matchup I feat more than anything – Naya. Cocked and ready to go with a quartet of Bonfires, we squared off. I lose the first game after he gains a ton of life off a Thragtusk to change the math on our race. Both of us sideboard, and we’re off into game two.

Game two was the best match of magic that I have played in a long time. I have a slower start, with a slew of anthems. After losing my board in the late game to a catastrophic Bonfire, he beats me down to 4 life – with him still on 20. Things look grim, but I topdeck a Gather the Townsfolk, putting 20 power and toughness onto the board with a vault – but one mana shy of using it. He had a single flyer – a restoration angel that dropped me to  1 life. I attack, and he first-strikes down one token, eating eight damage, and losing only a little bit of his ground force while we trade off creatures. I gain sixteen, going to seventeen and having more than lethal on the board. He draws, and finds no help, playing another Blade Splicer and hitting me for three in the air, I go to fourteen. I draw for the turn, attack, and pass after destroying a few more of his guys.

He topdecks a bonfire, and hitsme for five with it, wiping my board. The crowd (because we’ve drawn a crowd at this point) goes wild, and he turns his guys sideways for the win.

I drop Midnight Haunting, blocking his angel and a splicer token to go to six, and then counter swing to kill him the following turn.

 Game three was sadly a little anticlimactic, with him mulling to six and stumbling on lands. He still made a fight of it, but I manage to get an Angel of Jubilation out to turn off his Pod, and without the mana advantage, the threat of a bonfire was minimal. I killed him with a Pod rotting in hand, and a Bonfire that could never have killed anything.

5-2 (10-7 in games)

Round 8 – Ian on RG Aggro

In our first game, I manage to get the tempo advantage on him once I’ve got an anthem set up, and I run him over pretty handily. Our second game isn’t close, with him getting a turn 2 sword of war and peace and crushing me.

Our third game goes much the way of the first, with Vault fo the Archangel sealing the game once I get ahead. Ian reveals after the match that he runs four Sword of War and Peace main, as well as four bonfires that he never saw a miracle of. I was probably lucky to get out of this one.

6-2 (12-8 in games)

Round 9 – Russo with RG Aggro

I know Russo – he plays at the shop I used to go to all the time back in NY. He’s on RG Aggro, and while I’d love to say they were both close games, decided by the skill of both players, he crushed me in both with T2 Sword, and T2 Sword. I really don’t know if there’s a good answer to that card in white that doesn’t open you up to an insane blowout if they don’t have it.

6-3 (12-10 in games)

Aftermath

While the tournament was 10 rounds long, a quick look at the standings after the ninth round revealed that there was no way that I could make the top 64. It was unfortunate, and crushing, because up until then, I felt like I was doing fairly well in the tournament.

My losses were against Elves (which is a bad matchup – I’ll need to Sideboard some Day of Judgment in the future. The loss to Esper was avoidable – I think – if I had remembered my Phantasmal Image interaction better and not flubbed the second game.

The games against Russo were probably not winnable – as he had the nut draw in both games, but without Sword in the picture, I can’t imagine that he has a terribly good match against me. Both games were winnable if I had a turn or two to breathe, so maybe Gut Shot would have been all I needed to take the lead there.

Altogether, for the longest tournament I’ve ever played in (10 rounds is monumental, and kudos to the judges for keeping it running so smoothly) it went reasonably. I would have liked to have finished x-2, but then again, so would everyone else in the room. Next time, I will.

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This weekend, I’ll be attending (and judging) the Top Deck Games Summer Open. If you’re interested in going to GP Boston, this represents a great tournament with a robust prize, in addition to some spectacular side events that range from Standard Win-A-Box to Ravnica/Dissention/Guildpact drafts. You should absolutely come on down and check it out.

The facebook event can be found Here. I'll be one of the guys in the Judge Blacks.