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Way back when I started organizing Magic tournaments that cut to a Top 8, my prizes would go down to ninth place. I would always give free entry into my next event to the player who finished with his face pressed against the glass. Ninth just feels like such a soul crusher that I wanted to give people a reason to play Magic another day. Players often find themselves frozen out by intentional draws or cruelly cut by crappy breakers - nothing quite like that first round opponent staying in and putting up an 0-5.

As the competitive landscape evolved and Tournament Organizers began posting tournament results on their websites the only solace a ninth place finisher could find in not making the elimination rounds was that at least their fiendish design of a deck could remain under the radar for one more week when you could unleash it on an unsuspecting metagame.

Sorry Albert Davis... this is not your lucky week.

By now you have probably seen the Top 8 lists from the Roanoke PTQ that was held by Star City Games this past weekend. (If not, I am sure Teddy CardGame will provide you with the necessary linkage right...about...here.)

If you take a look at the top of the standings after seven rounds the cut to a Top 8 was a clean one with all of the players at 5-1 or better making it into the Top 8 via the always controversial intentional draw - the top two players were able to draw twice from all appearances. There is a small pile-up of 5-2 players from 8^th to 15^th who all won their final round that was led by Albert Davis, whose only two losses on the day came at the hands of Top 8 competitors Morgan Douglass and Nathan Zimmerman - more on that shortly.

Normally, Albert's near-miss would have receded back into the PTQ pack without mention, but for this week's column I asked Ted to send me the deck lists so I could get an idea of what people were playing beyond the Top 8 decklists we have been inundated with for the past few weeks. The idea was to present the standings after the Swiss rounds with the player's names replaced with their deck archetype to create a snapshot of an average PTQ field.

I still went ahead and did that and you can find it down near the bottom of the column. I was struck by a couple of interesting deck lists, most notably the ninth place finishing list of Albert Davis.

Red Stick Wins
Albert Davis
9^th place - Roanoke, VA - 2/19/05

4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Magma Jet
4 Seal of Fire
4 Shock
4 Fire / Ice

2 Diabolic Edict
2 Cursed Scroll
4 Isochron Scepter

3 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Swamp
7 Mountain
1 Sulfurous Springs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Engineered Plague
4 Overload

I was immediately intrigued by this list which takes the framework of Red Deck Wins and jams a stick in the middle of it to stir things up. Out goes Volcanic Hammer, Blistering Firecat, and a couple of Cursed Scrolls and in come Fire / Ice, Diabolic Edict, and the stick to stick 'em on. Is your Red deck having a little trouble dealing with the Silver Knights in Temporary Solution? Might I suggest Edicting them away? [My game 1 against Albert started turn 1 Tutor for Worship, turn 2 Silver Knight, and I thought I was in fine position. Albert merely smiled, sacrificed his Bloodstained Mire to fetch a SWAMP, and Edicted me right out of that game. It was even less friendly in game 2 when he stuck Edict on the freaking Stick, making blocking impossible. - Knut, grumpy]

What about game one vs. Reanimator? You not only have Edict but Fire/Ice to tap that nasty Akroma turn after turn. I would wager that Albert cut back on the Scrolls after finding his and clogged with cards from an imprinted Fire/Ice on more than one occasion. With Fire/Ice the Scepter also becomes Rishadan Port 4 through 7 in this deck.

It seems like a nifty little deck that can hold its own against most of the field. Goblins have to deal with an unending supply of Edicts and Fire/Ice, combo decks have to cope with Wasteland, Port, and Iced lands every turn, and in the mirror the Scepters should be more than enough to tip the scales in the deck's favor.

Let's look at what decks Albert was paired against each round and see how he fared.

It looks like Albert's deck can handle the mirror pretty capably and Ted told me the deck owned him at the 3-0 table in round four. The deck's ability to retard the mana of Aluren and Welder gibes pretty well with the results that he posted. That U/W Desire match doesn't look so hot for him though... Of course the Desire match-up is pretty bad for RDW to begin with and unless you can catch the Desire player with their Sphere of Law down, there doesn't seem to much in the way of sideboarding that you can really do to turn that matchup around.

I toyed around with the idea of Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere, but it feels like they will hurt you more than the Desire player until they are ready to Cunning Wish for a way to bounce it EOT and go off on their next turn. Of course, there are just so many decks running around you can reasonably expect to get through any given tournament without facing any particular deck.

Earlier I promised a snapshot in standings from of the entire field. I have taken the standings file and replaced player's names with the deck they played. I tried to be as broad as possible with archetypes. I made a distinction between Tog decks drawing the line between Cunning Wish decks with only Tog as their kill mechanism and Gro-a-Tog variants. Rock decks were all thrown into the same rubble heap with the exception of one that owed more to the MaceyRock decks that I talked about last week. There were a surprising number of Opposition decks and I culled two versions from the herd and dubbed them Stroke the Squirrel, and I'll have more to say about that deck in just a minute.

As you can see, the field is even crazier when you step back and take in everything. There are close to twenty different deck archetypes within the Top 32 players. The most popular deck by far is RDW with eleven students of the Paskins school in attendance (I am counting Red Stick among this number). Combined with Goblins and Ponza, just about the only thing you can pack sideboard hate against with any confidence are Mountains. Sphere of Law just makes sense, but just about any other sideboard is something of a crap shoot.

I mentioned Stroke the Squirrel (hey, if you have another name for the deck feel free to address it in the forums) and it is another nifty deck that caught my eye, although it did not fare as well as RSW. The deck was apparently designed by Derrick Sheets for GP: Boston and packs an infinite mana combo in addition to Squirrel Opposition goodness.

Stroke the Squirrel
J. Sawyer Lucy
35^th Place - Roanoke, VA - 2/19/05

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Sunscape Familiar
3 Eternal Witness
3 Deranged Hermit
2 Masticore

3 Opposition
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Cunning Wish
3 Living Wish
3 Snap

4 Brushland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Forest
3 Gaea's Cradle
1 Plains
4 Yavimaya Coast

Sideboard:
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Snap
1 Meddling Mage
3 Naturalize
3 Absolute Law
1 Stifle
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gilded Drake
1 Ambassador Laquatus

Basically, the deck can make infinite mana with Gaea's Cradle, Eternal Witness, and Snap provided you have enough creatures in play so that you can tap your Cradle for more mana than it costs to play the Witness. Sunscape Familiar is like Dark Ritual for this deck, adding a creature for your Cradle and reducing the cost of both the Snap and the Witness. As long as you can net a mana off of the Cradle, you can return your Witness with Snap, untap a Blue source and your Cradle and replay the Witness targeting the Snap that is conveniently located in your bin. You need either a Living or Cunning Wish to fetch either Ambassador Laquatus or Stroke of Genius to dump all your extra mana and deck your opponent.

My Extended deck of choice has long been an Intruder Alarm/Tradewind Rider deck that basically accomplished the same goal with mana creatures, so this immediately caught my eye. In fact, I might go dust it off and see what the last few sets offer it. And why not? It seems like this is the best time to play your favorite deck or outlandish creation and that anything is possible.

Speaking of anything is possible, have you seen the winning decklist from Des Moines, Iowa this week? It features the last "broken" card in Extended -- Academy Rector. Drunk out of her mind on bottle of wine that Tinker, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Recruiter, Oath of Druids, Frantic Search, and Academy Rector set aside for the last survivor, the Rector-powered an unlikely looking deck to victory with none of the usual ghoulish suspects.

Rector Control
Gabe DeLaCerda
1st Place - Des Moines, Iowa - 2/19

4 Forbidden Orchard
2 City of Brass
2 Dromar's Cavern
4 Underground River
3 Adarkar Wastes
2 High Market
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 City of Traitors

2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Academy Rector
3 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Bringer of the Black Dawn

1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Vampiric Tutor
2 Form of the Dragon
1 Humility
1 Ivory Mask
2 Scroll Rack
4 Show and Tell

Sideboard:
3 Armageddon
2 Sphere of Law
2 Energy Flux
1 Engineered Plague
1 Humility
1 Powerstone Minefield
4 Meddling Mage
1 Pernicious Deed

Add this deck to the ever-mounting legion of decks you could face at next week's PTQ. In case you didn't already have enough to contend with from the Goblins, Jackal Pups, Storm, Mongrels, White Weenies, Welders, Arcbound Ravagers, Scepters, Angels, and Squirrels, you suddenly have to worry about your opponent transforming into a flying 5/5 that prevents you from attacking on the ground.

Next week: Who knows? Could be anything!