Magic 2010 Prerelease
Format: Sealed Deck – 6 packs of Magic 2010
Entry Fee: $23
Date:Friday, July 17th
Start Time: 7 PM

All players will receive a foil promo Ant Queen for entering! (While supplies last.)

Location:
Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Road
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Email: brothersgrimgames@gmail.com

Twenty-five combatants made their pilgrimage from afar to Selden for the chance to battle it out among their peers and win a full box at Brothers Grim on Saturday, and after the smoke cleared there could only be one champion. I have been called many things in my life; my given name, jobless, Ahab, the rattlesnake, the Marlboro Man, high school dropout, Mike “Seven Cliches In the First Sentence of His Article” Evans, etc. But on saturday I could call myself champ!

Now that I’ve completely been self-congratulating I can get down to business. Anyone who has played me since December knows I play decks with Spectral Procession and Windbrisk Heights. The combination of those two cards has been on the top-tier of Standard for as long as they’ve both been legal, and to me there is no better two card synergy in the format right now. For the longest time I’ve played Black/White Tokens (as opposed to “Tokin’” which is what Omar does) and the deck has been good to me. For this tournament I was told to expect red decks, and while Black/White Tokens isn’t terrible at all against red, playing a deck with Bitterblossom in it leads to me to be sweating in many a match against red. This led me to pay Green/White tokens which is not only a great deck that has my favorite two-card combo in Standard, but also coasts against red. I believe it also has even or better odds against most of the other decks in the format right now, with the exception being Blue/White Reveillark based decks and Swans. It also contains Overrun, a card that I believe is the best thing you can do off a Windbrisk Heights. Overrun can make games a complete blowout, break stalemates, or win games you are far behind. This is what I sleeved up:

Ethersworn Canonist in the board is for decks that rely on cascade for their card advantage. It makes Swans winnable, although still a really hard matchup. It also makes Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast bad versions of Boggart Ram-Gang and Lightning Blast respectively. Cloudthresher was for Faeries, Paladin En-Vec for 5-color Bloodbraid, Wrath Of God for Black/White Tokens, Pollen Lullaby for Black/White Tokens and the mirror, and Dauntless Escort for Black/Green Elves and anything I think indestructibility would help me for.

Round 1 vs Jund Aggro

In game one I kept a hand I probably shouldn’t have, two Treetop Villages, a Brushland, Two spectral procession, a Cloudgoat Ranger, and a Path to Exile. I never drew a second or third source of white mana despite getting to 5 lands, and he overran me with Anathemancer, Boggart Ram Gang, and Bloodbraid Elf. I sideboard in three Paladin En-Vec and an Ethersworn Canonist and out came four Qasali Pridemage. In games two and three I simply drew Paladin En-Vec and let my deck do what it normally does in the mean time, which is enough to win in this matchup.

1-0(2-1)

Round 2 vs Pat Albergo with Faeries

I’m pretty confident in my matchup against Faeries. If they don’t have Bitterblossom for the entirety of the game it’s hard for them to win. In game one he didn’t have a turn two Bitterblossom so I was feeling good at that point. He never did play one, and I simply played guys and Pathed any Mistbind Cliques I saw and won. I sideboarded 3 Cloudthresher for 2 Overrun and a Dauntless Escort. Overrun is really bad against decks with Cryptic Command in them. In game two he kept a hand with one land and a bunch of one-cost spells(I saw Peppersmoke and two Death Mark), and while he was able to stop me for a bit with those cards he drew his second land far too late.

2-0(4-1)

Round 3 vs John Madonia with 5-color Bloodbraid

I don’t like how my deck compares to this one in game one, but I’m really confident after sideboard. Game one I led off with a Treetop on turn one, a Treetop and Hierarch on turn two, a Forest and Hierarch on turn 3 activating treetop and attacking for five, and attacking for five with a treetop again on turn 4. I had him at ten life early without playing any of my big spells, and he had yet to play a spell, so I was feeling good. Then he started cascading and playing Cryptic Commands and I just lost miserably. I sided in 3 Ethersworn Canonist and 3 Paladin En-Vec, and sided out 4 Qasali Pridemage and 2 Overrun. Much like the first round simply playing one or more Paladin En-Vecs wins me the game unless they have an answer. Unfortunately he never drew his sideboarded Wraths and I won the next two games.

3-0(6-2)

Round 4 against Ralph Navarra with Putrid Elves

Another matchup in which I’m confident. To be honest I don’t remember what happened in game one, but I won. I sided out a Pridemage for a Dauntless Escort. In game two I dealt him about 80 damage over the course of the entire game, but his double Loxodon Warhammers and endless draws into men kept him alive. I kept playing 1/1′s and trading with his men in hopes he would run out and I could start dwindling his life. That didn’t happen and when he attacked with a 13/7 Cloudthresher with trample and Double Lifelink I lost. I put the 4th Pridemage back in for his Warhammers and took out the Escort I had sided in. I also don’t remember what happened in game 3, I was very tired, but I know I lost. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Profane Command.

3-1(6-4)

I drew the last round to get into the top 8.

3-1-1(6-4)

Top 8 against Pat Albergo playing Faeries

It was much like round 2. He either didn’t play Bitterblossom or had it destroyed by a Pridemage when he did, and I won.

4-1-1(8-4)

Top 4 against Robert Grippa playing BG Non-Elves

In game one I started off with a Windbrisk Heights and saw the wonderful Overrun in the top 4 cards, and was happy to put it under. I played a Hierarch on turn two, and a Spectral Procession on turn 3. He played a Kitchen Finks, and when I untapped and drew I Pathed the Finks, attacked, and flipped Overrun over for 15 big damage. He couldn’t recover from that and we went on to game two. I sideboarded the same way as I did against Ralph, -1 Pridemage +1 Escort, as Escort is good in this matchup and he could possibly not have the Warhammers that Ralph did. Game two involved him getting me down to twelve early with two big Putrid Leech attacks, but I had some token attacks of my own, and was also able to kill off the Leech. The deciding moment of the game saw me at 5 life, he was at 11, and I had him dead next turn. He had to win this turn or do something that wiped my board. He couldn’t, and I won. He showed me that he had a Profane Command, but he was exactly one mana short of Profaning me for 5 and winning.

5-1-1(10-4)

Top 2 against Ralph Navarra with Putrid Elves

We split the prize and decided to play for rating and the win. I once again don’t remember much about these games, I guess Ralph has that effect on me, but I won. I’m pretty sure he didn’t care much about playing and wanted to get the hell out of there.

Being the first time I played this deck I was pretty happy with how it performed and I’ll probably continue to play it. We chaos drafted afterward and George Newell opened a Dark Confidant and a Tarmogoyf in the packs that I gave him to draft with, while I opened such great cards as Breath of Fury and Scarblade Elite. I was tired and my draft deck was really bad, so after going 0-2 and losing to milling I called it a night.

I will leave you all with the most fun card from M10:

Hive Mind
5U
Enchantment
Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, each other player copies that spell. Each of those players may choose new targets for his or her copy.

Last night I completed a 30 hour on and off grind session on MTGO playing block constructed to get myself from 1 qualifier point to the required 15 to qualify for the champs this Saturday. After playing so many matches I was reminded of many of the things that were vital to my block decks success, and how many of these same things seemed to be completely lost on my opponents. I also realized that I had promised our favorite (level 2 yea!) Judge Paskoff that if I cashed I would write him a tournament report for Islandhome as thanks for borrowing some cards, and here we are.

My name is Jim Davis, and if you are reading this on this site you probably already know who I am. If you don’t know who I am, I am from New York, I top 8ed a Grand Prix once (and came in 9th on breakers in Chicago, ding!), and when I do anything else relevant I will let you know. Most recently I came in 33rd at Pro Tour Hawaii, going 9-1 in constructed with this:

Nothing too shocking. The idea was to play the best deck while also beating the best deck, which is usually a very powerful strategy for a focused format. It seemed that both at and after the Pro Tour there was a lot of complaining about how the format was a very poor one; Cascade was way too random, mulligans hurt much more than in other formats (mostly because of Blightning), and many of the cascade mirrors just came down to who played the last spell. While to an extent some of this is true, I believe that much of it was actually just complaining, and human nature is often to complain about bad situations instead of seeing what they can do to seize the power back into their own hands.

So how did I do this? The shocking revelation is that I chose to draw rather than play first. In fact, every single game in the constructed portion (save for game 3 round 16, which I will get to later) I was on the draw. This worked out very well because despite losing most of my die rolls in 10 rounds I was always exactly where I wanted to be as my opponents all chose to play.

Now, why draw? When I was first testing the deck Blightning was in the board, and it was simply devastating in the mirror. The deck has no card draw style card advantage, and needs its lands to get going, which means Blightning either stunted mana development brutally or spiked two big spells. This is huge because the way the deck is designed all of your spells have the card advantage built in, meaning most are in essence two spells in one. So if you discard two spells to Blightning you have discarded almost 4 spells of value.

After playing mirror style matches over and over (usually vs the standard Jund Cascade deck), Blightning made its way to into the maindeck, and I began to play with the idea of drawing first in the mirror to help combat this, which is something I do in limited sometimes when I have a reasonable amount of discard in my deck. Being on the draw does two very important things in the Blightning war. First it simply puts you up a card, which is naturally very good against discard, and of course it puts them down a card making your Blightnings better.

The other major feature of the cascade style mirrors is that it often seemed you would just play this attrition war back and forth, and due to the extreme power of the spells the person who cast the last one would usually win. The extra card from drawing first gave you the best shot and having the last spell. I also found that due to the power level of the spells and the advantage gained by cascading it was usually difficult to fall behind tempo wise as long as you played smart, which negated the disadvantage of going second. The last important reason for drawing was that it help to negate how devastating both mulligans and not finding your colors are in this format, and actually allowed me to cut a land which further helps in drawing spells in the late game. Notice how most the things that were solved by drawing first were the things people were complaining about in the first place?

The other revelation in testing was something I tend to do naturally; I throw around the term “to play for value” a lot, which to me means to get the maximum amount of value out of each of your spells. For example, after playing White/Blue Revilliark in Standard for a long time, I think the ratio of times I cast Mulldrifter as opposed to evoking it has to be at least 10:1. Besides the fact I enjoy paying 5 mana for a 2/2, Counsel of the Soratami is simply the pits, so why would I turn my awesome Mulldrifter into a stinky Counsel of the Soratami if I could help it?

This philosophy transferred very well to block with the cascade spells. People assume that because Bloodbraid Elf is a 3/2 haster, that running him out onto an empty board on turn 4 to bash has to be right, but lets look at the decklist. Assuming for simplicitys sake that I have no cards in my hand or graveyard, there are 8 spells I can hit that are proactive (Blightning and Sprouting Thrinax), and 11 spells that will be stone blanks to an empty board. If I don’t want to turn my awesome Mulldrifter into an underwhelming Counsel of the Soratami, why would I ever want to turn my Bloodbraid Elf into an overcosted, do nothing Vulshok Berserker? Yet time and time again both at the Pro Tour and on my Modo Block binge, people just run that guy out there, and then get upset when they hit a Maelstrom Pulse. Now I understand that many Jund lists were running Putrid Leech as well, meaning that to an empty board they prob have an above .500 average in hitting a proactive spell, but I personally don’t like flipping coins. The same philosophy applies to the other cascade spells as well.

Which leads me to another important point in the decklist, that every spell is either one of the most efficient removal spells possible (with many being able to negate the advantage of Sprouting Thrinax), or it generates some kind of card advantage. The cascade spells are so good at catching up that playing do nothing aggressive creatures like Putrid Leech does not further your game plan. Instead the idea is simply to live, and then cast powerful spell after powerful spell. The only card that is not efficient one of one removal or a card advantage spell is the baddest mofo in the whole format, Uril, the Miststalker. Because cascade has made all the formats Wrath effects unplayable, he is almost unstoppable. Immune to removal and a well costed 4 turn clock, many games simply went cast turn 5 Uril, and then blow things up with cascade spells for the next 4 turns while he wins the game singlehandedly. Another card in many of the Jund decks that simply is not very good (in this format) is Broodmate Dragon, who often times just provided an awesome Bituminous Blast target, and even if the Bituminous Blast only killed one dragon the other can’t deal with either Uril or an Enlisted Wurm by itself.

I won’t delve to deep into the other card choices, as pragmatically Shards of Alara block constructed is basically a dead format, but a few quick ones: Path to Exile was excellent over Terminate as it gives you a good answer to both Sprouting Thrinax and protection bears, the extra mana in this format is not very relevant, and costing only one mana was key for tempo. In the board, Elspeth and Fleshbag Marauders were an attempt to deal with Wall of Denial out of the Five Color decks, and Infest was stellar over more Jund Charms in the board as it kills protection bears. The Fleshbags were not very good but Elspeth was very good in the mirror and against Five Color.

As for the tournament itself, I started out very well, going 5-0 in matches and 10-0 in games in the first constructed portion:

I had a relatively easy time as I played against four Jund/Cascade mirrors and one Five Color Control Deck. I lost my first four die rolls, but at table one in round 5 I won and chose to draw to the confused look of my opponent. Game one contained the coolest play of the tournament, as my opponent has some lands, a Sprouting Thrinax that has been problematic, and 1 card in hand. I decide I want to Bituminous Blast it, and I recall a play my boy Jay Imperiale had made earlier in the day he told me about. So I say go, stop him on his draw step, and Bituminous Blast the Thrinax. I hit Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning, and look like God’s gift to Magic.

You can follow the draft here: http://gatherer.wizards.com/magic/draftools/draftviewer.asp?draftid=6_5_2009

Put simply, this draft was a shitshow. I first picked Knight of the Skyward Eye for a few reasons: I have had success with Green/White aggro in this format and the card is a spectacular 2 drop which is very important for the deck, and also the Angelic Benediction would likely wheel. In retrospect perhaps the Esper Battlemage is a more reasonable first pick. Pick 2 is questionable but I know everyone hates Bant (myself included) so maybe I can capitalize. Pick 3 is where everything goes to hell. A third pick Vein Drinker is quite a surprise, and I figured someone is trying to tell me something. From here on out things got crazy, I made a few picks I was unhappy with, and somehow ended up with a an average Grixis deck and a sub par 1-2 record. It wasn’t until I got back to our hotel room that I saw what was really happening on the draft viewer. The guy to my right took Branching Bolt over Rhox War Monk, which is certainly right, but then his pick 2 he has the choice between Vein Drinker and another Rhox War Monk, and for reasons unknown to me he passes the bomb rare that puts him in 3 colors to go straight into 4 colors after passing a War Monk already. This changed the entire complexion of the draft, and left me struggling to put it together, which I was not able to.

Sadly I was the only player in our room to make day 2 as Max Tiezte, Jay and Mike Bianco all failed to make the cut. Me and Jay did a MTGO draft in our hotel room to try to get me back on track which we lost in the finals to some timely Titanic Ultimatums, and I was feeling a little better. Then, things went worse. Basically I just had yet another bad draft. I misinterpreted some signals and ended up with a poor White/Blue splash Green deck. Despite the fact that having 2 Esper Stormblades and 3 Talon Troopers should lead to at least a few curve out wins, I picked up a total of zero shattering my chances to top 8.

Once we got back to constructed I got back into my groove:

This time around it was not as flawless, As I went to 3 games versus Michael Jacob’s Five Color Control deck and Taylor Webb’s Five Color control deck. I had a fairly easy mirror versus Carlo Mazzurco, and another easy match vs Shouta Yokoyama’s Green/White deck where Infest was out of this world, but the real heartbreaker was round 16.

Brian Boss was playing a somewhat outdated Bloodhall Ooze/Jund Hackblade Jund aggro deck, and Game 1 despite my mulligan I won fairly easily. During the game he mentioned his constructed record was poor and that’s what he gets for bringing a month old decklist. I deduce that he is playing the old 6 Borderpost version of the deck (despite him not playing any), and decide to board out my Blightnings and bring in the Vithian Renegades to both block his early crappy guys, and to hopefully Avalanche Riders as well which seems like quite a blowout. Game 2 I stumble for a bit and lose to a few back to back Anathamancers. Apparently what I did not realize is that he boards out the hackblades and Oozes in an attempt to match the power of my spells, and this plays right into my decks strengths. He also played 0 Borderposts that game as well. I don’t really catch on to this and decide I am going to play first for the first time in 10 rounds because I just need to live to turn on my powerful spells. And this is where everything that goes wrong that made me draw first in the first place decides to go wrong. I mulligan, he Blightnings me once or twice, and just draw a few worthless Renegades that have no value and die. I should have realized how he had boarded, boarded my standard mirror plan, and chosen to draw.

33rd place, 5 Pro Points and $1300 is nice, but if I had been a little more attentive I could have picked up a respectable top 16 finish, 8 points and $5000, which is a very bittersweet ending to an overall good weekend. I think the most important lesson in all of this is the answer is usually is there, you just have to look for it. If your just going to complain, bemoan bad formats, luck or what have you and cop out, your never going to get anywhere. Also a shoutout to all the guys in my room, Calcano for letting me borrow a Uril on site when they were $25, and Owen Turtenwald for providing me with the early skeleton of the deck.

-Jim Davis
jimdownside on MTGO
jimdownside azzit hotmail dizzot com

Bonus: My most recent decklist from my MTGO binge. I cut one Rupture Spire for a Swamp to help a little versus Anathamancer main, but the more relevant changes were to the sideboard: Vengeful Rebirth was good in the mirror and vs Five Color Control but is not really needed and Fleshbag Maruaders sucked. Naya Charm is a more verstile answer to the huge stalled boards Wall of Denial creates in the Five Color matchup, and the 4th Vithian Renegades is a response to the growing popularity of Esper.

As far as playing or drawing first, I believe game 1 against an unknown opponent you should choose to draw. Drawing is strictly superior against Jund aggro, Jund control, the mirror, five color control, and basically any deck that is cascading or playing Blightning, which is most of the field. Against Esper, Green/White, or some Naya Aggro decks playing first is better, because their only chance to win lies in winning a fast tempo game before your powerful spells come online. Despite this, on the numbers alone it is better to draw game 1 against an unknown opponent because these decks are far less than 50% of the field, and simply play first if given the choice in the remaining games.

Magic 2010 Launch Party
Format: Sealed Deck – 6 packs of Magic 2010
Entry Fee: $25
Date:Saturday, July 18th
Start Time: Noon

All players will receive a foil promo Ant Queen for entering! (While supplies last.)

Location:
Comic Book Depot
2847 Jerusalem Avenue
Wantagh, NY 11793
Phone: 516-221-9337
Email: comdepot@optonline.net

Magic 2010 Prerelease
Format: Sealed Deck – 6 packs of Magic 2010
Entry Fee: $29
Date:Saturday, July 11th and Sunday, July 12th
Start Time: Noon

All players will receive a foil promo Vampire Noctornus for entering! (While supplies last.)

Location:
Comic Book Depot
2847 Jerusalem Avenue
Wantagh, NY 11793
Phone: 516-221-9337
Email: comdepot@optonline.net

This weekend I found myself on a road trip to Boston with my good friends Ralph Navarra, Rob Grippa and Kenneth J. Tillotson. Like 358 other Standard Magic players from within a 300 mile radius, we had aspirations of winning up to $2,000.

I brought my Regionals deck, known as Mystery Meat. I’m extremely comfortable with the deck and certain draws are impossible to lose with. The final cut of the decklist looked like this:

Snakeform proved to be my best card all day, winning me completely unwinnable games. In testing on Friday night, Ralph and I both realized that Chameleon Colossus and Stillmoon Cavalier were problems for this deck. Only two cards solved the problem of both: Sower of Temptation and Snakeform. Sower’s UU casting cost kept me from boarding three of her, and her vulnerability can be scary. In theory, Sower would usually be brought in during the same matchups as Cloudthresher (barring Faeries), so they are counter-productive – another reason I only wanted one in the board. Snakeform is a huge kick in the teeth because of the instant speed.

So that’s what I played. Ralph ran Putrid Elves, maindecking Thoughtseize over Llanowar Elves. Ralph’s claim is that Putrid Leech on turn 2 is just as good as Tarmogoyf was in its Standard. While that may seem like an outrageous claim, I watched Ralph and other random players deal 12-20 damage a game with those guys. Rob went with his own twist on Naya Ramp, packing some obscure cards that only he sees fit, such as Martial Coup. Ken played Jund Ramp. He doesn’t have his own collection, so between me, Ralph and Rob we had to build his deck… which meant we needed to buy/trade for extra Cloudthreshers, Garruks, Twilight Mires, Llanowar Wastes, and Thoughtseizes, since all of our decks were using about 8-12 copies of those cards.

My matchups for the day were pretty diverse. Round 1 I faced a GW tokens deck. I kept a solid hand game 1 but lost to his insane draw of 2x Kitchen Finks, 2x Wilt-Leaf Leige. I didn’t have a Maelstrom Pulse to stay in this game and I quickly conceded game 1. Out go Tidehollow Scullers, in come 3x Snakeform and 1x Sower of Temptation (I assume he’s playing Colossus, even though I didn’t see it). Game 2 I had a stellar opening, some combination of Birds, Doran and Leige. He almost got back in the game with a Behemoth Sledge, but I ripped a Maelstrom Pulse before it got out of hand. In game 3 I learned that he’s playing some sort of “budget” GW tokens, as I saw cards like Cliffrunner Behemoth and the 2/2 protection from black guy from Conflux. He got out an early Behemoth Sledge and multiple copies of Kitchen Finks, but Snakeform won this match for me. I had to Snakeform his equipped creature twice and block with Wooly Thoctars to stay in this game. Eventually he was overrun with giant exalted Rhox War Monks.

1-0, 2-1 in games.

Round 2 I was facing Doran. I made several mistakes every game against this guy. I won game 1 because I drew exactly what I needed every time. He opened up with Treefolk Harbingers and Doran and Maelstrom Pulse and had Paths for all my threats. But my Doran matched his, making his Harbingers useless later on. I ended up winning when his Harbingers just started chumping Wooly Thoctars. Game 2 I kept a rock solid hand. It was something like land, land, Hierarch, Rhox War Monk, Bloodbraid Elf and two other cards. I drew land the rest of the game and Bloodbraid Elf cascaded into a Bird of Paradise. Not much to that game, I just got rocked. Game 3 is where I made two giant mistakes in one turn, but fortunately, my deck is just better than his and I was able to come back. The board looks something like my Dauntless Escort, Bloodbraid Elf and a couple Birds to his two Treefolk Harbingers and a Doran. I have a choice this turn of playing Maelstrom Pulse or Wilt-Leaf Leige and I decide to play Pulse. Not only do I do that, but the greedy card advantage whore that I am decides to Pulse the Harbingers. Had I Pulsed Doran, I would render the Harbingers useless anyhow. So after that, I just brain farted and thought I had a Wilt-Leaf Leige in play and swung my Dauntless Escort directly into Doran and it just dies. He has a hand full of mediocre cards at this point, such as Qasali Pridemage. I end up winning anyway because my Wilt-Leaf Leige that I cast on the very next turn was too much for him to handle.

2-0, 4-2 in games.

Round 3 I faced a Jund Ramp deck. This deck is a pretty easy matchup as long as they don’t draw every copy of Chameleon Colossus. I open up with a Sculler and he reveals Volcanic Fallout, Civic Wayfinder and TWO Chameleon Colossus. I have no choice but to take the Fallout, even though Colossus is going to kill me. Since I was on the play and he seemed to be playing Wayfinder over Fertile Ground, I got two Wilt-Leaf Leiges out against him (not at the same time) and I swung them into Colossus and he traded both times. Had he just taken the damage from Leige and let his Colossus survive to get big, he probably would have won the game. Game 2 he kept a hand with only green sources and no fixers, on the play. His Treetop Village couldn’t hold up the fort and I quickly won game 2.

3-0, 6-2 in games.

Round 4 I played against Long Island’s own Jim Davis. I had a hunch he was playing Faeries because he’d been rocking UB control since the times of Mystical Teachings. When he won the die roll and began the game with a Ghitu Encampment I discovered I was wrong. Blightning didn’t seem to be Jim’s style, so I figured this was Swans. I don’t remember much of game 1 – Swans is my toughest game 1 matchup, so I considered the game a wash. I do remember taking a lot of pain from my lands and not having a Bird or Hierarch and he only had to Assault me like three times for the win. Game 2 I boarded in 4 Thoughtseize and 4 Meddling Mage. Game 2 was significantly easier for me. A deck that only played 18-20 spells gets seriously crushed by Thoughtseize. I ripped a cascade spell from his hand (probably Bloodbraid) and then Meddling Maged Seismic Assault and he couldn’t really recover. Meddling Mage seems to be the best answer to Swans, better than Pithing Needle. If they Bituminous Blast or Deny Reality the Mage and cascade into Assault, they still can’t play it because the cascade has to resolve before the spell removing Meddling Mage. Game 3 was a lot closer. I didn’t have a Meddling Mage but I had Thoughtseize and Sculler which slowed him down. Eventually he Bloodbraided into a Countryside Crusher. On my next turn I swung with a Doran and a Tidehollow Sculler, both ramped up with Wilt-Leaf Leige. He chose to block Sculler with Crusher to get his cascade spell back and block Doran with Bloodbraid, leaving him with no board, no spells in hand other than Deny Reality and a Doran getting ready to smash his face. I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I think he just played a tapped land and said go. I got a giant swing in and next turn he Denies Reality to my creature and cascades into something that doesn’t help (that seems to happen with the deck a lot after it sideboards). I was still two turns from killing him so he got another chance to cascade and it fell short again when he hit Volcanic Fallout.

4-0, 8-3 in games.

Round 5 I faced some French dude playing Swans. He didn’t stand a chance either game. I Scullered a cascade spell from his hand leaving him with only a Swan in his hand, but I was holding a Pulse, so it didn’t matter. He may have cast a Seismic Assault later that game, but it was too late. Rhox War Monk and Wooly Thoctar take two lands each to kill, and that’s too many if you don’t have the engine going. Game 2 I boarded the same as I did for Jim Davis. Out came some beefy creatures and in came the disruption. I went -4 Putrid Leech, -2 Rhox War Monk, -1 Wooly Thoctar, -1 Doran for +4 Thoughtseize and +4 Meddling Mage. Ralph thinks I should take out Wilt-Leaf Leige and keep in some Putrid Leeches, but I think the Leeches clog up the 2-drop slot because you have to cast Sculler and Meddling Mage as soon as possible. The disruption package went to town on this guy and he didn’t stand a chance at all in game 2. He went on to win $500 in the top 4

5-0 in matches, 10-3 in games.

Next round I fought a long and hard 3 games against BW tokens. Game 1 he Scullered my Maelstrom Pulse and then my Wilt-Leaf Leige while Kitchen Finks + Ajani counters ran me over. Game 2 I got the dream opening of Hierarch, War Monk, Bloodbraid into something big and Cloudthresher backup for flying tokens. I didn’t need to cast the Cloudthresher. In game 3 I made a play error and it might have cost me the game. He plays a Windbrisk Heights and says go. I play a mana dude and say go. He plays a Plains and passes the turn. I’m thinking several different things at this point. He might not have black mana. If he does, he certainly isn’t holding Bitterblossom. He’s PROBABLY going to play a Spectral Procession next turn. If he doesn’t have Procession, he probably wouldn’t have kept a hand with no black mana. So on my turn I cast Doran to apply pressure. On turn 3 he drops a Fetid Heath and casts Bitterblossom. My first guess was right, he had no black mana last turn. Here’s where I blow the game. I can Pulse his Bitterblossom, but I have an enormous amount of pressure in my hand. My logic is that Bitterblossom is going to help me win this game because this turn I’m going to cast a Bloodbraid Elf and next turn I’m going to cast Wilt-Leaf Leige. From that reasoning I decided that saving Pulse for the inevitable Spectral Procession was a better idea. I Bloodbraid into a Dauntless Escort and swing in. He Paths Doran away and takes 3 damage. Next turn he doesn’t play Procession, he plays Paladin En-Vec. I play Wilt-Leaf Leige and swing with Bloodbraid and Escort. He blocks the Bloodbraid with Paladin and blocks Escort with Bitterblossom Token. He paths my Leige before damage and kills my Bloodbraid. Now I’m in big trouble. Next turn he cast the Spectral Procession and eventually knocked me out with Zealous Persecution that was under the Windbrisk Heights. If I Pulsed the Bitterblossom on turn 3 like I was supposed to, I would have had an easier time in this game. The Paladin En Vec and double Path to Exile might have been enough to keep him ahead, but it was definitely wrong of me to keep that Bitterblossom active.

5-1, 11-5 in games

Round 7 I was facing Faeries. This used to be a good matchup, especially during game 1 and even more now because I am running Putrid Leech (serious beating). However, my opponent was very good at drawing exactly what he needed, including two Agony Warps in a row (after revealing his hand via Sculler) going 2-for-1. That and his two Cryptic Commands won the game for him. I board in my Cloudthreshers. At my next tournament with this deck, I’m going to play 4 ‘Threshers in my board instead of 3. In this game he Deathmarked my first two threats and I couldn’t recover. I was completely blown out. Deathmark seems to have made its way into every Faeries sideboard, where it was only shooting about 50% a few weeks ago. My opponent said he’d start Deathmark if he could.

5-2, 11-7 in games.

Now I’m completely out of contention for top 8, but two more wins and I can still make some cash (9th-16th gets $100), so I’m staying in. I am facing Reveillark. This is a very scary matchup. If they survive to cast their first Wrath succesfully I usually can’t recover unless I answer it with an amazing Bloodbraid Elf. The matchup history held true, as he mulliganed game 1 and crushed me. Sowers, Paths and Wraths making my head spin. I brought in my ENTIRE SIDEBOARD. I brought in Cloudthreshers to combat Sowers and late game Wraths. I brought in Meddling Mages for his big spells. I brought in Snakeforms to make evoking Reveillark useless and Thoughtseize to rip his Cryptic Commands. I even brought in Sower of Tempation because he’s playing Stillmoon Cavalier. I took out 4 Noble Hierarchs, 4 Putrid Leech, 4 Rhox War Monk, 2 Leige and 1 Doran… keeping my big threats as 1 Doran and 3 Wooly Thoctar. I drew like 5 disruption spells where I was able to Sculler+Thoughtseize+3xMeddling Mage (naming Cryptic Command, Wrath of God and Negate [so I can cast Pulse if I need to]) and he had no way out at all. Game 3 started pretty much the same way. I have two blind Meddling Mages on Cryptic Command and Wrath of God. I Bloodbraided into a Bird, which kind of suck. His only play all game has been a Mind Stone and an evoked Mulldrifter. I Thoughtseize him to reveal 2x Cryptic Command and 2x Wrath of God – my blind Meddling Mages were direct hits! I cast Wooly Thoctar so I’m lethal next turn unless he draws something amazing, leaving me with nothing but a Cloudthresher in my hand. What does he draw? Austere Command. Now he has two Wraths and a Cryptic Command in his hand and I am left with nothing but an uncastable Cloudthresher and the top of my library. He proceeded to draw Glen Elandra Archmage, Reveillark and more Cryptic Commands. I lost game 3 knocking me completely out of contention.

Rob criticized my play. “A good player would have named ‘Austere Command’ with that second Meddling Mage,” he said.

5-3, 12-9 in games

5-3 is not good at all, but being 5-0 in the beginning definitely gave me an adrenaline rush. Rob, Ralph and Ken were all knocked out early by some bad beats. We convinced Ken to start Karthus, Jund Tyrant in his Jund Ramp deck and in round 1 he faced the mirror. Game 3 he has out 6 lands and Karthus in hand. His opponent has out a Colossus and a newly cast Broodmate Dragon. Ken ripped a come-into-play-tapped land…like the deck was mocking him.

Sunday we just played some side events, relatively succesfully. 8-man drafts, 8-man winabox standard, GP trials, etc…

So overall, not a great weekend for Magic. No big winners from our circle. Boston also fails at many things, but we made the most of it and still had fun. For starters, they don’t seem to know what bowling is. This blew my mind. In a bar they were watching this bowling variant known as “Candlepin Bowling” and when I asked around about how it compares to (what we know as) “regular bowling” they didn’t know what I was talking about. The bartender mentioned that he might have seen it somewhere before but gestured at the size of the ball being roughly the size of a bean-bag-chair…so his memory wasn’t very vivid.

Boston also failed at alcohol. I had to pay $10 for a Bailey’s on the rocks. Then I wanted an Irish Car Bomb and he COULDN’T MAKE ONE. I’m in one of the largest Irish communities in the nation and I can’t enjoy an Irish Car Bomb…what the hell? We had to get shots of Soco&Lime instead…what a bunch of girls.

Boston also fails at cell phone reception, and clean water. When we got to the hotel (the Holiday Inn hosting the tournament) they gave us cases of water for brushing our teeth and washing our faces because their running water tested postive for E.Coli. It was doused in chlorine, so taking a shower and swimming in the pool was OK, but brushing your teeth with bottled water is just sad.

In any case, we had a lot of fun. We sort of crashed a half-assed wedding reception and made friends with a lawyer who lied to us about his name. He was like mid-forties and was the only person from the wedding that wasn’t talking smack about the idiots from New York. Rob got the dirtiest look I’d ever seen from the pizza delivery girl. She wasn’t even that cute – but anyone looks good next to 400 hungry Magic players. Rob yells “Hey girly, what’re you doing later?” and she just turned around with a face of utter disgust. If she just let Rob tell a good joke or two, flash that charming smile of his, she’d have been swept off her feet…what a judgemental chick.

Anyway, here are some quick things I learned about the format:

Snakeform is a great trick
Deathmark is a great card
Chameleon Colossus is good again
Cryptic Command is still the best card in the format
The Swans mirror is still not worth the headache
Decks just keep adding colors:
-decks that used to be 2 colors are now 3 (ex. Jund Elves)
-decks that used to be 3 colors are now 4 or 5 (ex. Jund+Naya Ramp)
-this makes Anathemancer even better than it already was
Jund Aggro (Elves) is the scariest deck in the format

…and a bonus for those of you that haven’t heard yet:
Incinerate is leaving us, but Lightning Bolt is coming back

So, maybe I’ll see you all this Saturday if I decide to play the Grim Box Tournament instead of FNM draft (a weekend of Magic might be a little too much for me three weekends in a row, so I’m only devoting one day).

Good Luck,
Have Fun,
Innace