Hi everyone! My name is Ian Cowlin, but everyone calls me Icy (I.C.) for short. Pretty cool! Anyway, last weekend I played a Pro Tour Qualifier up in K.C. I had a brand new deck I was trying out. Here's the listing:

4 Aether Vial
4 Sneak Attack
2 Through the Breach
4 Reach Through Mists
4 Glacial Ray
4 Consuming Vortex
4 Phage, the Untouchable
4 Dismiss
4 Lifted By Clouds
1 Yamabushi's Flame
1 Myojin of Infinite Rage
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
1 Keiga, the Tidal Star
1 Raze

4 City of Brass
4 Shivan Reef
4 Caldera Lake
5 Mountains
4 Island

Side Board (The 15 cards you bring with you for your deck)
4 Hibernation
4 Perish
4 Sway of Illusion
3 Shatter

I call it Phage, the Unloseable because Phage is just amazing. I've got two things going on in the deck here. The first plan of attack is to slip Phage into play when they're done with their turn, and get a surprise win. For that I have Sneak Attack and Aether Vial usually. I also have splice spells from Champions of Kamigawa. These cards are pretty cool, because I do so many things with them. For example, I can play Glacial Ray on my opponent, then splice Through the Breach onto that. I then put Phage into play, play another Glacial Ray and then splice Lifted by Clouds onto that! They take 4 damage, and then I kill them. That's a cool turn, but there's an even better one later on in the tournament. But I'm not going to ruin the suspense.

The sideboard was kind of thrown together. To tell you the truth, I didn't even know what a sideboard was until Warren told me about it the night before. I figured if they were playing colors, I would bring in the 4 Sway and 4 Perish and if they were playing green I would not bring in the Sway and I would bring in the Hibernation and if they didn't have any colors and just artifacts like the affinity deck that beat me at the tournament at the comic shop I would put in 2 or 3 Shatters because I know that decks needs to have artifacts in play because otherwise the affinity doesn't work.

My buddy Warren "Warmin" Taylor drove me up to the site, and loaned me some cards too. He's a cool guy and did pretty well. Not as well as I did though.

When we get to the tournament, there are a lot of people standing and sitting in a really big room. This was my second tournament ever, and the first one was at this comic shop that closed down 6 months ago. I'm not ashamed to say I was a little scared. A lot of guys looked really tough, like they'd been playing for 4 years or something. But Warmin was cool, and I couldn't act like a sissy in front of my guy, so I acted cool too. And pretty soon, we got started.

My first round was against Slade (like the villain in Teen Titans!) Johnson

Well I got nervous all over again when I sat down across from Slade. He was reallllly big! But he shook my hand before we started and then we started. When I gave him my deck to cut, he started shuffling it! I didn't think this was allowed, so I told him he was wrong. He said it was ok to shuffle the other guy's deck, which was cool. I asked if I could grab his deck and Slade said I could. So I started looking at all the cards and moving them around. Slade seemed kinda pissed and said I could only shuffle face down.

Oh man! I apologized a lot and just gave the deck back to him. He was cool though and we started playing.

Game 1 I have the Aether Vial and the Phage in my hand, so it's pretty cool. Slade is playing a really weird deck that just plays walls and Sapphire Medallions. I've got the Raze on turn 2, after I played the Vial on turn 1. He plays a Fact or Fiction one turn, and I Dismiss it (Dismissed!). When my Vial gets up to 7 counters, I just say go, even though I could play Glacial Ray and Splice Glacial Ray for 4 damage to him.

Slade does this crazy thing where he plays Cloud of Faeries (I had to read them. They're pretty cool) and plays Snap on them and plays them again and gets a bunch of mana. He also wrote down how many spells he played, which at the time seemed kind of silly. But it makes sense when he plays the Scourge card Mind of Desire. I had thought about playing it myself as another way to get Phage in to play, but I like playing Phage at the end of their turn. He plays the Mind of Desire and flips like 20 cards into play. It was funny too, because there were 15 land and 2 more Walls and 2 more Cloud of Faeries and another Snap. Slade looked really pissed! He said go.

So at the end of my turn I TAP my AEther Vial and put the Phage right into play. Then I play Reach Through Mists, and put a Consuming Vortex and Glacial Ray on it on his 2 Cloud of Faeries.

On my turn I play the flying card and put another Glacial Ray on another Faerie Cloud. Then I attack with Phage and kill him in-one-hit!

I don't add any cards to my deck because I beat him so badly in the first game.

Game 2 was really cool. Slade goes first and plays and Island. I play Raze on it. He plays another Island. I play a land and a Vial. Slade draws and says go!!! Slade discards 3 times and then I get Sneak Attack down. Then Slade draws another land puts a Wall into play. Well Phage comes right down and then I give it flying and then I play Consuming vortex on his Wall and then I WIN ROUND ONE.

1 Win, 0 Losses <---Very very cool

Warren won also, so we're totally winning the whole tournament and the Pro Tour. I'm so excited after I go outside I just kick some dude's bike.

The Second Round: Icy versus Clarice Simone
Clarice was a girl. Also, she was playing a goblins deck. She was very nice and pretty. I think her son was playing in the tournament too.

In the first game I got nothing. My opening hand was 2 lands, Raze, Myojin of Infinite Rage, Ryusei the Sandstorm Star, and 2 Dismiss. I figured I would Raze whatever she played first and then I would just go up to the dragon and the sword chick. Actually, the Raze went fine, but then Ms. Simone played the land that destroys my land, and then another one. She had a Mogg Fanatic and Jackal Pup also attacking me. I got up to 6 mana and played Ryusei, but she just had too many creatures and kept attacking, and then played 2 Volcanic Hammers on me. It was kinda cheap, but this is a tournament and all. And she seemed really sorry about the cheap win, so it was cool.

I added the Sways of Illusions and Perishes to my deck, since she had so many creatures. I was starting to shuffle, but Ms. Simone told me I had to take out the amount of cards I put in, which makes sense actually. Can't play too many cards in a deck. I took out the Reach Through Mists and 2 City of Brass and a Vial and a Sneak Attack.

The next game went great. My early Raze slowed her down and then I played a Sneak Attack as soon as I could. Clarice attacked me with everything and I took it. On my turn I Sneaked out Keiga and Phage and get her down to 15 and dead. Lady seemed quite impressed!

Unfortunately in the last game I got beaten up. I had 5 lands and 2 Dismiss in my draw, which I though was pretty good. But Clarice played a Jackal Pup and another one, and I just kept drawing lands! I actually had to cycle Dismiss for the card, but it didn't matter. Beaten down.

1 win and 1 loss

It wasn't all bad though. Warren won again! Lucky guy. The last round took a really long time so I just had time to bum a quick smoke and go back in.

Round the third against Ian McGrady
This was a really cool guy. You might think I think that because we have the same name, and it helps! But even if his name was Joe Ugly or Joe McUgly he would still be cool. He had this deckbox with a picture of the green mana tree on it, and his sleeves were blue and shiny. He also had these little miniature tiny wizard metal figurines as like a defense around his deck. Oh yeah, and a bunch of colored dice.

Ian was playing a mono-green beatdown deck with fast creatures, Rancor, and I think Giant Growth. It was pretty good, but I had tech sideboard.

Game One was a real slaughter...for him! He plays a ton of guys but I have the Sneaks Attacks. "Look Mom, a falling star!". "Make a wish honey..."

Wham Bam, he's at 15 with nada. I actually pay the 6 for Keiga, and finish the battle in the air. Last turn I play the Raze, then Sneak out Myojin thing and blow up all the lands just to rub salt in his wounds. ;)

I bring in 4 Perish and 4 Hibernation. Out goes the Raze, because he has too many elves and stuff. I think I ditched the Vials, 2 land, and maybe a Cloud Lifter. I figure if I kill everything he's got, there won't be too much blocking.

Game 2 was again a slaughter...for him! I played Perish not once, not twice, but thrice! Ian² looked actually sick. It was cool; I had never physically illified someone playing Magic before. The third Perish got 3 Wild Mongrels, 2 Dosan, the Falling Leaf, and an Uktabi Efreet. A Hibernation was in there too, but it was just kicking him when he was down. Me and the other Ian shook hands (told you he was cool) and that was match. Dragon power!

2 and then 1

Round 4 was I think the tightest series of games I played all day. It was against a fella whose name I just don't recall, so I'll call him Coolio.

-My Opponent
Anyways, he was playing the Re-animate deck. The deck puts an Akroma, Wrathing Angel or Rorix Blade Wing in the graveyard, and then resurrects it, although ironically not with Resurrect!

The First game was a battle. Rorix the Blade Wing comes out like on turn 4. Luckily I have the Glacial Ray + the Yamabushi's Flame! Out of the game bitch! He casted Reanimate twice, so I just started splicing Ray to his face a few times. It was enough, although Akroma Wrath Angel came out on the final turn. So close...

Game 2 got a little testy. Akroma was Exhumed into play on turn 3 and smacked me. I consuming Vortexed it and did a ray to his facial. He Carefully Studies it into the graveyard, and plays it again. And I do the same the same thing as well. I get Sneak Attack down, but I'm missing the Phage for the final kill. He Exhumes Akroma again! But this time I'm a'ready.

I play Reach Through Mists and splice 3! Glacial Rays on it, all aimed at miss Angelic Beatdown machine. Coolio gets all in a huff, saying Ray is red and she's pro-red yadda blah blah. I explain very simply Splice makes it one card, which is blue in this case. Rule 502.40c dumbass. The judge comes over and agrees with me. Who the #$%@ doesn't know the rules? The judge sticks around to watch the rest of the game.

It's a short viewing cause I draw Phage next turn and Sneak Attack it into play and kill him. I offer the hand shake but pull it back at the last second to slick my hair back. Super Psych!

3 and a 1! OMFG I'm winning it all baby!

Round 5-Dick
I really don't want to talk about this round. Dick wasn't obviously his real name. I think it was Richard, but he was just such an ass the whole time. Judge this, no take-back that, a real unfun time. And yes, I lost. Uncool.

3-2 Sub-cool, but at least me and Warren have the same record. One round left...

Round 6: against the guy who I played in round 6: Dave
Dave was a nice fellow. Perhaps he was really cool or really not, but I just obiteriefied him soooo badly I didn't really have time to hear his amaaaaazing life story, ya know?

In the first match, I come out strong with an early Raze. Dave struggles a bit, so when he taps out to do nothing, I splice TTB on RTM, drawing a card and killing him. A good turn!

Dave is playing nearly all artifacts, so in come the shatters. And shatters I do. Shatter an artifact (!) land, shatter another one, Raze another one, and suddenly my Vial is at 7... I don't think I need to explain what happens next.

I tapped the Vial at the end of the turn and put a mighty Phage into play. I give it flying on my turn and attack. Dave slicks me out though and double Vertigos it. Out of left field, I tell you what! So next turn I do it again and then he's dead to killed. Great Game.

4 wins and 2 losses, same as Warmin' Warren! How cool! Guess who ended up 9^th? Guess who ended up 10^th? Yep! Best finish I've had in ever. Got some packs too, and me and Warren ended up warrin' for em.

Door openers! Loved everyone I played except the one. Everyone was super cool.

Dick, you sir are pig food. Win at any costs eh?

Much love to everyone who read this far! Good luck at every tournament. I want to write more, so any tips or helps in that regard. E-Mail me!

CoolCowlin@hotmail.com

Everyone stay cool! Icy signing off.