Top 8 at SCG: IQ with BW Tokens!

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning.

I'd just won a GPT for Atlanta, had a nice dinner with the girlfriend, and settled in for the night. As is becoming a perennial issue with me, I hated my sideboard from the day before. Despite my win, I was unhappy with my performance against RG aggro the day before. I felt like half of the slots in my sideboard weren’t going to do anything against any decks.

Worst, the tournament was about an hour away by car, and Facebook told me that it started at 1030. That meant that I’d want to be there by 10, which meant leaving before 9, getting up at 830. This was getting to be a production and I hadn’t even gone to bed the night before yet.

I turned off my alarm.

-----

It’s 8am and I’m wide awake. The room is warm – which happens when you both have a couple extra beers the night before and then pass out on top of each other. She’s up too, and she looks at the clock.

“Well, looks like you’re going to the tournament after all.”

Looks like.

I drive up to the shop, just before 10. I figure I’ve got half an hour to root through my commons and uncommons to find some better sideboard cards, plus rearrange the maindeck for a more general meta. The tournament is a Star City Games invitational.

And no one is there.

I pull out my smartphone, check the event on facebook. 1030am-8pm. Seems about right. I wait for five minutes and the store owner shows up.

“Hey,”

“Hey, isn’t there an event today?”

“Yea. Starts at noon.”

I check the phone again.

“It says 10:30.”

“That’s when we open. First pairings are noon.”

The girlfriend finds this amusing.

“Looks like you’ve got time for breakfast and sideboard.”

Looks like.

 I fiddle with the deck for a while, eating a pack of Pop-Tarts: strawberry, with frosting. Anyone who likes another flavor better is just wrong. I pull the Revoke Existences out of the deck. Sure, they’re versatile, but I’m not really using all the spots anyway, and I’d rather use twice as many spots on instant speed removal, if it comes down to that. I add in a couple of Divine Offerings and Ray of Revelation.

You’re still not running any green sources.

Oh right. Wouldn’t want to be an idiot and run a spell I couldn’t actually use. I pull out my phone again, searching for any white card in standard that references enchantments at instant speed. The list is not overwhelming, but I don’t want to mess with my mana base with only an hour or two before a tournament. That’s not the kind of audible that actually ever helps. I look over the cards on the list, not finding anything worth playing, and then I spot one.

“I’ll be right back.”
I rummage through commons, find some, and slot the cards into the deck and shake my head.
"Take a look at this," I tell the store owner.
"That card looks pretty bad."
"Yea, but I think it's right."

I register the following.

Some explanations:

First, I disliked the Angel of Jubilation yesterday. He’d done good work, but he’d never done something that Hero of Bladehold couldn’t have served, and there were definitely times where Hero would have done the job better. I dropped them out of the main deck, only to add them in as I looked around the room and saw a ton of Naya variants. Maybe being able to turn off Pod incidentally would be pretty good. I added one back in.

My earlier search for enchantment removal only turned up one servicible candidate in standard. Urgent Exorcism. This card has got to be terrible, but it serves its purpose. Instant speed enchantment destruction wins the Tokens mirror in ways that sorceries never can. Plus, it lets me have an instant speed answer to Drogskull Captain, which could be relevant if anyone actually played that card anymore. Spirits seems like such a good deck. Why don’t more people run it? Probably corrosive gale. Good thing no one runs that either. Both of those cards hurt me a ton.

The rest of the cards in the sideboard are justified with a  mix of “I guess that could be useful in this corner case” and “This is never going to actually help, but it looks reasonable.” I need sideboarding lessons. I’m god-awful at it. Good thing my game 1 strategy is solid.

Pairings go up, and we’re off to the races. 28 people in the room means 5 rounds, then top 8.

Round 1 vs Ben (Esper Control)

Always watch them shuffle. At a competitive event, you can learn a lot about a person by how they conduct themselves. Ben knew his deck, how it fit in his hands. He was comfortable playing. His mat was this custom-looking two-entwined-dragons thing.  On the other hand, he let me know his deck – flashing me the bottom of his stack of cards while he shuffled. Seachrome Coast, Liliana of the Veil. I couldn’t have gotten a better read on him if I’d seen his deck list. Kids, some advice, don't shuffle with the bottom of your deck pointing at your opponent. He will begin to keep hands that murder you.

We joked around about the die roll for a few minutes before the clock started and we drew our starting seven. I beat on him for a bit with a Doomed Traveler, but we can both tell that my offensive pressure if having trouble punching through his Lingering Souls stall tactics. He hits 5 mana his health on 10, then 6 with his health on 8. Then plays a Ratchet Bomb.

Boom.

I flashback my Lingering Souls and start to rebuild, but he's tapping his mana again. Sun Titan into Phantasmal Image into Ratchet Bomb.

Boom. Ouch.

I scoop shortly after that, and we’re off to the sideboards. I find one card there that seems helpful, and even that appears marginal. If he’s running O-rings, Shrine is probably not as good as I’d hope. Oh well.

Game two, he mulligans, and then keeps the second hand after agonizing over it a bit.

“Island, Thought Scour me, Go.”

He mills two lands.

“Plains, Champion, Go.”

“Thought Scour me.” He mills a third land and a Sun Titan. “Go.”

My eyebrows perk up.

“No second land?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. Seems pretty dumb now.”

Nevertheless, he makes it a fight with a pair of Ratchet Bombs. I’m trying to kill him before he gets back into the game, but he nevertheless gets to 5 mana staring down lethal on my next turn. He taps the deck. “Just a land…” he whispers. I know what’s coming. Ratchet Bomb in the yard, Sun Titan in hand, and me with half a dozen tokens on the field. He lands the Sun Titan and he stabilizes at 5 life.

He draws the card, flips the Seachrome Coast, tapped, and sighs. Game Three.

He’s not in this one. I kill him on turn 5 despite a Lingering Souls as defense. The Champion beats keep coming, and he’s sided out his spot removal. One of the best parts about BW Tokens is the diversity of threats. With Champions and Heros, they need to have spot removal, or you can just run them over. However, that same spot removal is lackluster at best against the 2-for-1 token generation that the rest of the deck is built on. It’s a problem, and I’m not sure what the solution is. Luckily, I’m playing the problem, so I don’t have to deal with it.

1-0   (2-1 in games)

Round 2 – Kevin Stenborg with UW Delver

I went against Kevin last time I was at an Invitational. He was playing RB Vampires and I beat him 2-0, but the games were closer than I’d like, primarily because of Shrine. I’d talked to him earlier, and I knew he was on Delver. I also knew he was dreading the Tokens matchup.

As soon as I walk over to the table, he sees me and hangs his head. Sorry man.

“Let’s try some shenanigans,” he says while he cuts my deck, eight different ways, then takes the top seven cards and puts them on the bottom. “Got any shuffle effects?”

“Nope,” I respond – forgetting about my evolving wilds. “We’ll have to check what they were at the end of the game.

The end of the game is pretty soon after that. My scorepad reads “20-18-11-4-Win”. I don’t know what the sequence of play was, but I never took a point of damage. No idea what it could have been except a not-close game.

The bottom 7 was 2 Champions, 2 Gathers, a Hero, a Lingering Souls, and a Midnight Haunting. No lands. Guess those shenanigans hurt a bit. I sideboard in some Timely Reinforcements, taking out Doomed Travelers.

He does better the second game, but after I Oblivion Ring the first Delver, he’s got second Delver that refuses to flip for 6 turns. I end the game on 9 life, having never played a flyer. Sometimes, that’s the breaks.

2-0   (4-1 in games)

Round 3 – Mario with RB Zombies

When he plays the Diregraf Goul on turn 1, I’m estatic.

“What?” he asks.

“I actually have sideboard cards against you! That never happens!”

He looks a little confused, but we play on.

The first game doesn’t go his way. I start faster than him and he’s on the defensive right away. As a tip, if you’re playing a RB aggressive tribal deck, being on the defensive is NOT a good thing. You should avoid that if possible in the future.

As a second tip, if you’re against a Tokens player, and he has a board presence and a Vault of the Archangel running, you’re probably not coming back. I gained 8 life, then 7 life, ending at 25 when I finish off the first game.

I pull out my Oblivion Rings and bring in the Celestial Purges. I need to maintain some board presence, so I don’t want to side out threats for additional removal, but upgrading the removal I have seems just fine.

This game really slams home how unfair the lifelink on Vault is. I cast 3 spells the whole game – Champion of the Parish, Intangible Virtue, and Lingering Souls (once, not flashback.) He on the other hand, amassed a slew of zombies and a Phyrexian Obliterator. With vigilance, evasion, and lifelink, what should have been a blowout turned into a gentle race that ended with me comfortably two turns from death.

3-0   (6-1 in games)

Round 4 & 5

Because of the relatively high number of draws, followed by a relatively high number of pair-downs losing in previous rounds, the top 4 undefeated people were safe to double draw into the Top 8. I took my time to go and get some Subway and creep on a friend of mine who was playing a GWr Ramp Deck focused around Sigarda and other cool nonsense like that. He ended up at a disappointing 3-2 for the day, but missed the top 8.

3-0-2 (6-1 in games)

Round 6 – Kamikaze

 I’d read about this deck online. It uses Blood Artist and zombies to set up a Killing Wave for a pseudo-combo finish. It’s apparently been making some waves, but I’d never actually played against it in practice. Just judging from what I saw in these games, I think it’s the real deal, but I’d have to play against it more. I suspect it might be a deck with a favorable matchup against us, but we can probably board to kill it effectively.

He starts game one with a Gravecrawler, and I’m already generally pleased because I’ve got a ton of tokens to clog the board up with. Late game favors us immensely in the Zombie matchup, but all that fades when he casts Blood Artist on turn 2.

“What’s that do?” I ask, motioning at the card.

“Whenever a creature dies, I gain one, you lose one.”

“Seems decent,” I respond.

And the game goes on. A few turns later, he’s attacking with a Geralf’s Messenger, which I block and kill with a token.

“I’ll gain two, you lose two, then you lose two more from Geralf’s coming back?”

I look down at the table, then at the Blood Artist. “Each creature? Not just yours?”

“Yep.”

“That card seems nuts.”

“He’s pretty good.” He admits.

I draw for my turn, it’s a Swamp. I’ve got 8 power and toughness in the air, and he’s on 13. If I attack, he’ll be dead in two turns. I have four lands in play. I have a Vault of the Archangel and the Swamp in hand. Then, then unthinkable happens.

“Land for turn,” I declare, dropping the Swamp.

Yep, you read that right.

I stare at the Swamp, willing for it to be the Vault of the Archangel that would let me gain 8 life and be well out of reach of any kind of nonsense. Sadly, my psychic powers haven’t progressed to that level quite yet, and it remains a basic land. I attack for 8 and pass my turn.

He checks his life pad. “You’re at 9?”

“Yep.”

“Blood Artist, Killing Wave on 0?”

“Okay…”

“I’ll sacrifice everything. You take 10. I’ll gain 10?”

“…..huh. So I’m dead?”

“Looks like.”

Looks like.

I couldn’t tell you why I did it. I’d planned the Vault. I’d even not played it early, to goad him into trying to race when I secretly had 8 life more than he thought I did. The game was over – I just needed to actually remember how to play my own cards.

I win the second game with a quick start off a Champion, despite another misplay involving not blocking with a mortarpod, then sacrificing it directly after combat. Taking 4 damage for no reason is the best way to lose games, but thankfully, he draws dead and I beat him.

Game three, I look at my hand. Two Honor of the Pure, a Champion of the Parish, a Hero of Bladehold, a Plains, and two Lingering Souls. Plenty of gas, and a Champion to boot! Oh, it’s a one lander? I’m on the draw. Everything will be fine.

“Land, Diregraf, go.”

I draw. Another Hero. No problem.

“Land, Champion, go.”

“Land, Gravecrawler, Tragic Slip, beat for two?”

Oh no. I draw. Midnight Haunting.

“Pass.”

“Really?”

I look down at my hand and sigh. “Yep.”

“Sometimes your deck doesn’t get there man.”

“Looks like.”

He was wrong. Not about what he said – sometimes your deck just doesn’t get there. That’s true. But I’m willing to say that it’s happening a lot less than you think it does. You’re failing your deck far more than it fails you, and this was an iconic example of it. I’m not the world’s best player. I don’t think I overreach in saying that I’m good, and that I’ll find most of the lines of play that I should be taking, but every so often, I’ll have a match like this. No matter what I do, it seems like I make the wrong play, or the play that runs right into something I knew was there, or don’t take the obvious line like “Block with Mortarpod, Sacrifice before damage to kill your Blood Artist,” or “Don’t keep the terrible one-land hand.”

Unsurprisingly, he crushed me in the rest of that game with a very mediocre draw. I never got him below 20, and never hit my third land. I screwed that match up horribly, and I knew it. What I didn’t know was why.

I still managed to Top 8 the tournament, which was nice. I earned my second Top 8 pin from IQ’s, and I’ll certainly be participating in them again – I’d love to earn an invite to the Invitational one way or another. Still, I can’t help but think that I was *right there*. I win that round, and I’ve got one more against a miracle-y control deck that I think I could beat if I just didn’t overextend too hard. Top 2 drew, and that was that.

And you misplayed and missed it.

Take that, brain. Play better next time. Maybe you’ll learn something here.

As for you, reader, maybe you’ll learn something here too. When you’re in a game, if you remember this, slow down. Think. Look at the cards in your hand and actually use your brain. Look for the line you missed. Don’t just drop your lands like they’re not the important things in your deck. Don’t nod and say “Yep,” when your opponent does something, unless you’re sure you don’t actually want to block with that Mortarpod.

-----

I’ve gotten some questions about a few cards over the last week or so, and I’d like to touch on them.

The Fours

Hero of Bladehold, Angel of Jubilation, and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad made up a trio of cards that are all extremely awkward in Tokens for one reason or another.

Sorin is slow, giving us either a 1/1 useless creature on turn 4, or half an anthem that I’d usually pay half as much for (and get twice the value, if not more.) He can grind out a ton of value against  UB Control – if you can slip him past counterspells – but otherwise, he seems nearly useless to me. I would not play him.

Angel of Jubilation has a lot of promise, and I say that because I think she’ll be great once we get our next rotation and lose Hero of Bladehold. She pumps our team, and she turns off a couple of critical spells (all of which are from the Mirrodin block, ironically, but hey, who knows what’s coming.) Plus, she’s a reasonable threat all on her own that gets bonuses from half our anthems. Seems great, and she is, when you’re winning. When you’re ahead, casting an Angel closes out the game – often giving them one less draw than they’d otherwise have. Plus, she’s very reasonable against removal, often having an immediate effect on the board even if they have sorcery speed removal (and a lot of the instant speed stuff won’t hit her.) There’s only one reason she’s not a 3-4 of in my deck.

Hero of Bladehold is insane. She’s a 3/4, which invalidates just about all the nonblack removal in the game. She gets benefits from both your anthems – her tokens take Intangible Virtue buffs – and she’s easier on the mana than Angel is (with one less white mana.) While she doesn’t have evasion, you generally don’t need it when you’re the most dangerous thing you can do with 4 mana since Jace the Mind Sculptor. Hero of Bladehold is the real deal, and you should all be playing her in your tokens deck – three of, if not four, depending on how many 4’s you want to play.

Blood Artist + Killing Wave

After seeing Kamikaze in action, I’ve got to say that I’m impressed. Blood Artist makes every combat into a miserable experience full of loathing. Zombies can just trade away creatures like they’re nothing, and laugh hysterically as you try to come back. The combo-finish with Killing Wave is just icing on the cake.

If only I had a deck that played tons of relatively disposable creatures that also happened to run black mana for Blood Artist and Killing Wave…

Wait.

Wait, I know this one.

This merits testing. Luckily, I have some people who play magic on tap, and I’ll be prodding them for test games in the near future.

Entreat the Angels

My conclusion on this card is simple. How much are you going to get out of it? Well, I took a look at my games this weekend and counted out how many of them went beyond 7 turns. The answer was virtually none of them. I say virtually because there was a game against control that went past that, but it was during a Ratchet Bomb lock, and so that doesn’t really count. Since my version of the deck doesn’t go late, nearly as a rule, we’ve got to look at this spell for its miracle cost alone, which seems much better. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think it has what we need. I think it misses the cut for the same reasons that Elspeth isn’t in the mainboard. This is a powerful linear strategy. Entreat plays well with the strategy, but isn’t ultimately aggressive enough for use here. Maybe if the deck slows down dramatically for some reason in the future, but as for now, don’t bother.

A Splash of Nature

Something I’ve been thinking about recently has been splashing green. I think that I could do it with little cost, and it would let me run Ray of Revelation in the sideboard, or naturalize. Both of these seem like much better options for the current metagame than Revoke Existence or Urgent Exorcism, but I’ll have to play with it to see. I suspect it won’t be possible to do this and Blood Artist/Killing Wave, and it may be true that neither is actually good enough to improve the main deck.

Thanks for reading everyone. Next Thursday, we’ll take a look at a new brew from AVR – something non-token-y for a change! If you’ve got any suggestions, please throw them in the comments, and I’ll be sure to see what I can do.

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!

Thursday Deck Tech: Goblins!

There comes a time in every mage’s life when they have to face a friend. For many, it comes early, at an 8-man FNM. For others, it happens during the deciding round of a GPT. Such was the situation a few weeks ago when Heebs and myself were battling through GPT Los Angeles at Ron’s Comic World. As we cleaved through the bracket, watching the number of people with our record dwindle, we knew it was inevitable. We were going to get paired. We were both just hoping that it wasn’t until round 6, when we could safely draw into the top 8.

As you know if you read last week’s column, it wasn’t to be. Heebs and I were paired up in Round 5, and my tokens deck stopped his onslaught as the only Red Deck Wins in the room. He dropped two more close rounds afterwards, and finished just outside the prizes at 4-3 overall.

On the other hand, his deck definitely hit on something important here. He hit on the same thing that Patrick Sullivan hit on when he Bolted his way to the top of the SCG Legacy Open: When other people were playing inbred metagame decks, and a 3/2 flyer was the biggest threat in the format, it was suddenly very reasonable to play a ton of burn spells and efficient creatures and get there by turning guys sideways.

Here’s his list, as he ran it that day.

Let’s take a look at some of the interesting departures from a ‘normal’ RDW in this deck, and why I think that they were critical to his level of success.

10 One Drops

Stormblood Berserker is so powerful that he actually forces you to skew your deck construction to accommodate the need to get in for damage on turn 2. To that end, Heebs opted for a slew of unorthodox one drops that each play a distinct and powerful role in the deck.

The least surprising choice comes in the form of Stromkirk Noble. With ‘effectively unblockable’ tagged on, the slith ability has always been a powerful one that lets him grow out of control quickly if unanswered. Blockers can be burned out of the way, leaving him to deal more and more damage every turn. Strangleroot Geist provides some issue, but with the addition of Pillar of Flame with AVR, I anticipate this to be much less of a problem.

Spikeshot Elder is another standby of modern RDW. Serving as a late game mana sync, the power-boosting effects in this deck make him a potent threat on his own.  Between Goblin Chieftain, Wardriver, and the sideboarded Sword of War and Peace, it’s not unreasonable to treat him as a consistent source of damage in the late game. He keeps the number to two because drawing multiples doesn’t get him anywhere.

Goblin Fireslinger is a choice that many weren’t sold on at first, but it does have a lot going for it. First, the damage is utterly unpreventable, and doesn’t involve combat. Fireslinger will continue his beats long after the opponent establishes some manner of board control. In that way, he serves as a pseudo-Shrine of Burning Rage, except that his damage is front loaded and doesn’t require you to hold up mana for fear of an Oblivion Ring. Sure, he’s more vulnerable to removal, but ultimately, you’re going to play so many threats over the course of the game that they’ll be hard pressed to keep up.

Tribal Subthemes

A hidden benefit of both Spikeshot Elder and Fireslinger is that they share a creature type, and do so with eight other creatures in the deck. While Heebs isn’t running subpar cards to keep to a theme, the spine of Goblins supports the whole deck and gives the otherwise wimpy red creatures a strong backbone that they can leverage for additional speed and power.

Who Has Time for Shrines?

When we were testing, we started to realize something. While Shrine was a house in any game that devolved into the super-late game, often contributing upwards of ten damage, it was also a liability. Much of the time, we couldn’t put enough pressure on with an active shrine because of the fear of being blown out by Oblivion Ring or  Ancient Grudge. We always needed to have the Shrine ready to go. Worse, they were terrible in a number of matchups. Against Delver, they would win the game by themselves – eventually – but surviving until turn 8-9 almost guaranteed a win anyway as Delver petered out of tricks designed to fight a very specific format. Ultimately, Shrine was always too slow. The game was either over before it was needed, or was never given enough time to take over

Removing Shrines opened up spots that we could use to help other matchups, and more importantly, let loose the floodgates without throttling the deck.

Top End Titans

While RDW hasn’t traditionally played Titans of any sort, Heebs did add in two of the premiere 4-drops in the format. Koth has proven himself against Control time and again, providing 4 hasty damage that could only be dealt with at instant speed. While his ultimate is rarely relevant, occasionally, you can win the game solely on the back of turning your mountains into Gut Shots.

The other four we’re playing, and significantly more powerful at that, is Hellrider. If you’ve never played with Hellrider in an aggressive deck, do yourself a favor and do it, because it feels like Cheating – Opponent Violation. Some poor control player is sitting there, watching your field of 1/1’s, mentally calculating that he doesn’t need to cast Day of Judgment yet – he’s still on 15! You can’t deal more than 6 with your three measley creatures. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a wild Hellrider appears.

“Alright, maybe 9 damage. Oh, he has a triggered ability. 12 then. That’s getting pretty scary.”

Then you realize that he can top deck virtually half his deck and murder you on the spot, Day of Judgment or not. That’s terrifying.

Things get even more ridiculous when there’s two of them.

Torch Tossing For Fun and Profit

When we were wrapping up the last few cards, Heebs noticed a recurring theme in his previous games.

“It feels like the only thing I lose to is Wurmcoil Engine and Sword of War and Peace.”

He needed an answer to artifacts, but in a deck as aggressive as this, we didn’t want to splash green for ancient grudge – weakening Koth and decreasing the density of threats in the deck. We needed a mono red answer that was aggressively costed, but could also handle an artifact in a pinch. Manic Vandal fit the bill, but his cost seemed a bit high for the aggressive curve we wanted. Torch Fiend provided everything we needed at the same reasonable cost. We slotted a couple of Vandals into the sideboard for good measure though.

Fight Everything with Fire

One constant for burn decks nowadays is a burn package. The metagame at the time was heavily favoring aggressive decks – between RG aggro, Delver, Zombies and Humans making up the majority of the field. Fun fact, almost every creature in all of those decks gets crushed by Arc Trail. As opposed to many recent Red Decks, the burn package here is for blocker-denial, pushing through your attackers until it’s safe to throw it at their head – not an all in burn-you-out plan. Incinerate makes an appearance as a more efficient alternative to Brimstone Volley. The extra one mana actually does matter a lot.

Moving Forward

This list was refined over a ton of testing, and it performed extremely well over the course of the day. The games he lost were close. I can’t speak for some of his earlier opponents, but I know that my survival in game two involved me gaining upwards of forty life to outpace his attacks. I ended below ten. This deck has a remarkable to abuse any deck not running board wipes, and it’s fast enough to burn through those that have them.

I spoke to Heebs about changes that he’s planning on making to the deck, and he tentatively decided on the following.

+2 Goblin Grenade, -2 Incinerate

I’ll just quote Heebs on this one: “The biggest problem I had was Hero of Bladehold, flat out. Goblin Grenade makes it possible to kiss that bitch goodbye. My 2nd biggest problem was leaving my opponent on 5 or less life with nothing to seal the deal. Guess what fixes that?”

+2 Grim Lavamancer, -2 Koth of the Hammer

While I don’t have a quote here, I will note that Koth was consistently lackluster in any non-control matchup. Especially with the number of flyers in the format, it’s relatively difficult to keep him alive through any focused assault. Grim Lavamancers provide extra gas for the deck’s reach, a more consistent Stormblood Berserker, and (with the addition of Goblin Grenades) ammunition for his flame-hurling ways should be plentiful.

Some other cards he’s considering are Bonfire of the Damned (in the sideboard against other creature decks, because it not only breaks open the stalemate, but also acts as burn to the face simultaneously.) When asked about Vexing Devil, the hard truth was simple – four damage was good, but it’s not worth the loss of board presence that you suffer because of it. I would err away from playing him in Standard – though I think he clearly has a home in Legacy Burn.

Other options for the deck include splashing for another color now that Koth is gone. Green seems an obvious option, for Kessig Wolf Run primarily, and possibly Wild Hunger (which seems absurd in conjunction with Spikeshot Elder).

While it may be underrepresented recently, the metagame is bent very much right now towards fighting itself. That makes it an ideal time for a powerful linear strategy like Goblins/RDW to take the field by storm.


Next week, we'll take a look at a spicy new brew for AVR. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, I'd be happy to answer them either here - or in the Reddit thread for the post. Feel free to chime in if you think there's a deck you'd like me to look at, and I'd be more than happy to analyze and suggest possible avenues to explore.

The Sound of Wings

Innistrad is not a kind world.

Once, the Cathars, holy knights in the service of Avacyn the Archangel, roamed the countryside, giving blessings to the faithful, strengthening wards, and holding back the darkness. Now, it is all they can do to draw breath. The wards diminish, children are stolen from their beds,  and the shadows encroach upon all they held dear. Even mighty Avacyn, Archangel of Hope, and her countless winged flights of angels have fled or worse.

For those who live on Innistrad, the twilight world has gotten yet darker.

“Run, Stephen!” screamed his partner. The voice was a high frantic cry, brought of desperation. “Run!!”

Stephen was already gone, sprinting through the underbrush at breakneck speed. His heart pounded in his chest, moving as quickly as his thoughts. They had been out too far. Two villagers murdered in the last fortnight, and the previous night, a child missing. How could they have done anything else? Stephan had led the pair into the woods – searching for the young boy. His companion was a cathar in training, fresh from the Elgauld grounds. His name was Enval.

Screams pierced the dusk and Stephen checked his thoughts:  His name had been Enval. The snarls and howls of the pack left no doubt in his mind that Enval’s remains would never be recovered. So young.

Avacyn save us. He whispered the prayer as he darted between two bushes and onto a well-worn path. Avacyn save me! They had passed the border post nearly an hour earlier – into the Kessig Wilds. Neither of them had given any thought to turning back – there was a child to save! How could they have done anything else!

Enval’s screams died off, and moments later, the pack caught up to him. It was subtle at first: a flicker in the brush, visible only through the corner of his eye. Then an idle growl from his left. Stephen’s muscles burned, threatening to give way, but fear kept them moving, and a small miracle kept his footing sure as he careened through the forest.

Anything but the wolves, he prayed. Oh Avacyn, I don’t want to be killed. He remembered the descriptions of werewolf attacks that he’d learned about – how to recognize the signs of someone killed by one of the Cursed, how to know if you were dealing with Krallenhorde or Monodren.  How to tell if someone had been turned. Which parts of the body were safe to bury when the desiccated corpses were found.

Not like that. Not like this. He felt frenzied tears rushing down his face as the pack closed in around him.

Innistrad is not a kind world.

Then, he heard it. A single strong beat – like a bird’s wings but deeper, stronger. He’d heard tell of the sound before – during his training. They said that in years past, when Angels flew into battle alongside man, that the thrum of their wings provided a natural drumbeat for marching. There! There it was again, the deep, rumbling sound of enormous wings flapping against the cooling night air.

The wolves seemed to balk for an instant, and Stephen kept on the path as quickly as he could. In the woods, there was a chance that the holy being couldn’t even see him. He needed to make for the field – once he was in the open, the angel would surely see him. He might be able to go home – he might be able to live to see another day!

That kernel of hope took hold in Stephen’s chest as he ran. The wolves tightened their noose, but even as they did, he realized that they wouldn’t be able to stop him before the tree line. The wings beat louder now, closer. His savior, no doubt, flying just overhead. The wolves’ howls echoed, high-pitched, over the basso beat of the wings, an unholy symphony. The meaning was unmistakable: Follow him. Kill the man.

He burst from the trees and onto the open plains. The wolves were only half a dozen steps behind him.

“Avacyn!” he screamed with a breath he didn’t realize that he’d been holding. Every one of his limbs felt like molten steel. The wing beats grew closer and closer. He ran, and he listened, and he hoped. Eyes closed with panic, he tripped over an errant stone.

And then he felt the wind from the creature as it landed, heavy upon the ground. He heard the wolves all around him, frenzied with their kill.

And then, silence.

Stephan looked up at the source of the wing beats and felt every ounce of composure he’d cultivated over his life melt away. He felt the dread terror in his veins bleed away to icy resignation. Even the werewolves around him stared in fear, falling to their knees as they realized, as Stephan did, that Angels were not the only beings on Innistrad that flew.

The dragon’s wings unfurled majestically, dozens of feet wide. Its skin seemed to be made of some infernal metal, and its eyes burnt with shadow and flame. It opened its mouth and let out a roar that shook the whole plain. Like an earthquake made manifest, he felt the shock deep in his bones, rumbling there. Stephen closed his eyes against what he knew was his end. He felt the heat rise as the dragon called on ancient magics. Its mouth snapped open and a torrent of flame poured out, engulfing the wolves and Stephen alike.

The only mercy afforded him was that he only felt the flames for a few searing moments before his life was scorched from his flesh. The dragon roared in triumph.

Innistrad is not a kind place.

2nd at GPT Los Angeles with BW Tokens

Hey everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve done a tournament report around here, but I have had a pretty significant tournament since then. Two weekends ago, for the last week of INN-DKA Standard before the release of Avacyn Restored, I traveled with my friend Heebs to Ron’s Comic World where they were holding a Grand Prix Trial for GP Los Angeles.

Now, disclaimer, I had no intention of actually going to Los Angeles, but the owner of the shop is a great guy that cares about growing the community and providing the best experience to the players. To that end, he was trying to get 75 people in the store, to help them qualify for running PTQs and other major events. As a prospective grinder-to-be, I’m more than happy to help them out with this. Making the tournament free sure didn’t hurt.

We hit 75 people by the skin of our teeth, and so that’s another Achievement Unlocked for Ron’s. Congratulations to the store for running a quality event – including nearly two cases in prizes. The top 4 walked out of the store with 2 booster boxes each, plus other prizes down to 16th place. If you’re ever in the middle-NJ area, seriously consider giving Ron’s a shot.

Heebs and I arrived a couple of minutes early for the tournament. I was on a pretty standard B/W tokens list. In the car on the way there, I had a brief moment of panic and texted Heebs the following.

“Hey, could you bring your Champions of the Parish?”

I’d been running without them so far, preferring to have a beefier top end, but the more I thought about the format’s evolution, the more I was convinced that playing a virtual Wild Nacatl couldn’t possibly be the wrong choice. Worst case, it provided an early blocker that would help me stall for the Lingering Souls + Multiple Anthem endgame.

I’ll go more in depth as to the specific choices as they come up in matches, but here’s the list that I played.

As for Heebs, he decided to be the only true man in the room and sleeved up a Goblins-themed RDW that had been testing very well. We’ll get back to that.

We get the word that we’ll be playing 7 rounds, followed by a Top 8. The first round begins and I sit down with more than a little bit of nerves grinding at me.

I’m going to be honest here. I had been on a tear – getting a Top 4 finish at a GPT and a SCG IQ Top 8 within a week of each other, winning the fairly cutthroat DKA Game Day, not to mention finishing in the Top 8 split at my DKA prerelease, and winning a couple of FNM events. I feel like my Magic game has never been stronger. However, since all of that a couple of months ago, I haven’t been able to post a winning record for anything. Part of that could be deck choice – I’ve been running a Naya aggro list that just didn’t have enough power to punch through to a deck with midgame presence, but it had translated over to limited as well, and I generally wasn’t happy. This tournament was going to be my first time back on Tokens in a couple months – and I admittedly hadn’t tested this version at all.

Round 1 – UB Zombies

This match starts out as well as I could possibly hope – I win the die roll and start out with the Champion > Gather draw. His single Gravecrawler matches up extremely poorly against it, and his Geralf’s Messenger meets an Oblivion Ring, clearing the board and letting me beat in for a ton of damage once I get an anthem on the board. Champion deals more than 12 damage by itself. I feel immediately vindicated by my choice to include him in the deck.

As we’re shuffling up for game two after a fairly quick scoop, Heebs walks over.

“How’s your match going?”

“Oh,” he said, looking a little confused. “It’s over. I won.”

“Goblins, right. What’d you play?

Blue/Black Zombies.”

“2-0?”

“Yep.”

My opponent looked worried at that. We shuffled up and he took game 2 after I mulliganed and ate a couple of bad removal spells. Game three sees him stick on two mana and he just can’t cast anything quickly enough – I win the race handily.

1-0   (2-0 in games)

Round 2 – UW Delver

Game one goes to me off his mulligan, despite the turn one delver flip on the play. He can’t quite muster any real offence once I get an intangible virtue and a few flyers online. I’m very careful to double-block so he can’t use his vapor snags to get 2 for 1’s everywhere. Eventually, I drop a Hero of Bladehold and a single unimpeded swing tilts the game in my favor.

I’m going through my sideboard and seeing nothing useful, so after a moment’s consideration, I took some advice from Patrick Sullivan – master of Legacy (and other types of) Burn. “My favorite sideboard plan with Burn is to just present my original sixty.”

I hand the deck over to him and he crooks an eye at me.

“No sideboard?”

“Not exactly a matchup that I have much against.”

“You’re probably pretty favored.”

That may be true, but my mulligan to five dooms me before the game even starts. He crushes me with a turn one Delver flip (How does that keep happening?), backed up by enough Mana Leak action to keep me locked down until I’m virtually out of threats.

Heebs walks over.

“How’s it going?”

“I beat some Green/White thing.”

“What was he playing?”

“Just good things. Hero. Thrun. Some planeswalkers.”

“Township Tokens?”

“Oh yea. He had one of those.”

“Nice. Goblins getting there?”

“Yep.”

Heebs walks away so I can start my third game (Look ma! Still no sideboard!) and my opponent leans over to me, glancing at Heebs across the shop.

“Is he really playing Goblins?”

“Yea, it’s pretty sweet.”

“I am scared shitless of that deck. I don’t think I can do anything about it.”

I laughed.

“Seriously! What can I do? Vapor Snag a Goblin Chieftan? That seems terrible.”

Game three goes my way after a turn 2 Honor of the Pure buffs my Champion and I’m able to grind out through a Sword of War and Peace with Vault of the Archangel.

2-0   (4-1 in games)

Round 3 – Esper Control

The guy sits down and rolls out one of those playmats. You know, the one that proudly reads “GP Somewhere Far Away.” He’s got a bunch of Top 8 pins from everything, and he shuffles like a Vegas pro.

“Doing well so far?”

“Not bad,” he shrugs. “You?”

I shrug. Seems like things are working out pretty well. Deck running well?”

“So far.”

I guess the wheels fall off everyone sometime. Luckily, not this round for me. I crush him in two games. In the second, he throws everything and the kitchen sink at me. Recurring a ratchet bomb off a Sun Titan, resolving an Elesh Norn, but it doesn’t help. Both games are won off the back of removing his Oblivion Ring to free an anthem and alpha strike.

It’s around this point that I realize one of the issues with my sideboard – it hasn’t been significantly updated since this deck was Junk Tokens (B/W/G). As a result, the Ray of Revelation in the sideboard have no green mana to fuel their flashback. Man, did I feel stupid realizing that. I hoped it wouldn’t be relevant.

My opponent sighs after the round and smiles at me while extending the hand. “You know, I played in PT Honolulu. I guess today’s just not my day.”

Firs t off, nice guy. Shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and genuinely didn’t complain about his loss. Also gave me the biggest ego boost of the day.

I walk over to Heebs. He smiles, announces “Delver, 2-0. Goblins rule.”

“I beat a Pro Tour player.”

The day appears to be going pretty well so far.

3-0   (6-1 in games)

Round 4: UW Delver

I’m paired against Lance, who’s from a shop that I play at on occasion. He’s a very solid mechanical player, but I decide to be daring with my sideboarding choices, actually choosing to sideboard this time. I realize that the only way he’s going to beat me is with a turn 1 delver flip, so I side in insurance against that eventuality. I’m paid back with Timely Reinforcements for full value in games 2 and 3. The games are close, but I edge him out in game 3 because Vault of the Archangel is incredible.

Heebs goes against an Esper Control player and wins 2-1.

As I'm walking past a couple of people, I hear someone lamenting their loss.
"I'm going to need to win out from here to even have a chance."
"Look at the bright side man, at least you can't go against that Red Deck."
There was only one mono-red deck at the tournament. Goblins striking the fear into people's hearts all over the place.

4-0   (8-2 in games). Heebs has the same record.

Round 5: Heebs with Goblins

It was bound to happen eventually. It's just a shame that it happened now. One round later, and we probably would have been able to shake hands and safely draw into top-8. We’re seriously considering drawing here anyway to give both of us two chances at a win-and-in, but I think we screwed up the math and decided to end up playing it out. As is, a win here locks one of us for Top 8.

Both games go more or less the same, and it regrettably isn’t close. His Goblin deck preys on a ton of decks that have fairly fragile early games. Being cute with a delver, or a single creature defending you, works in the majority of cases, but being able to go Goblin Chieftan > Hellrider is petrifying. It’s significantly less impressive when there’s a veritable wall of vigilant flyers on the other side, which periodically have lifelink.

Timely Reinforcements makes it a lot worse in game 2, and I win despite the resolved Sword of War and Peace on his side of the feel.

5-0   (10-2 in games)

Round 6 and 7:

I draw both of these rounds to lock myself for top 8. I was going to play round 7 to try and mess with the numbers a little more and give Heebs a better chance after he lost his round 6 match, but unfortunately for him, we end up with an awkward break that only guarantees my spot if I draw. Hopefully, in a perfect world, we’ll stop having double-draw situations soon. Regardless, Heebs ends up losing his 7th round to a Hero of Bladehold + Geist of St. Traft + Honor of the Pure swing.

Quick: Calculate how much damage that is! The math got pretty amusing.

5-0-2 (10-2 in games)

Top 8: BR Zombies

Two people decline the ‘one box per person’ split, which was unfortunate. I’m already tired and I’d rather be getting to our friend’s house. There’s dinner waiting there, and frankly, I don’t want to end up losing once and going home with 9 packs to show for it.

“Blackcleave Cliffs, Gravecrawler, go.”

Red/Black Zombies. God damnit. I like this deck.

I get beaten down to 5 life, holding my breath and hoping that he doesn’t have Brimstone Volleys in his list. I end up forcing him to sacrifice his whole team to save a Falkenrath Aristocrat, which I eventually Oblivion Ring, but he’s still got me on a significant clock once he plays a Highborn Ghoul. A well-timed second Oblivion Ring stalls the turn I need for my flyers to get the job done.

Game two is even closer. I go to two life before Vault of the Archangel comes online. I lean on it heavily, gaining 8 per turn and still only barely keeping my head above water. He dealt over 60 damage to me that game and I ended up winning on 13 life. Some lands are just awesome.

He shHe

He shook my hand and we were informed that there would be a Top 4 split - the dissenters had either changed their mind or lost.

I walked out with two boxes – one mixed foreign cards, the other English Innistrad. I had a blast with the event, and I'll absolutely be going to further events that are run here. Here's hoping that they get the ability to run PTQ's and such, because I'd be more than happy to give them my money.

Final Result:  6-0-2 (12-2 in games)