I decided to play in the July 31^st PTQ in Brighton after my friend Chris Senhouse of Countersliver fame said he was going to be testing some Block Constructed. I hadn't played Magic at all since Regionals, but still had Affinity cards on Magic Online from the Regionals testing I had done. I decided to play Osyp Lebedowicz's exact list from Grand Prix: Orlando. I'm not much for building new decks and testing all their matchups. For reference here is the list I played.

Osyp Lebedowicz
Vial Affinity
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Great Furnace
1 Glimmervoid

4 Myr Enforcer
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Frogmite
2 Atog
2 Myr Retriever

4 Aether Vial
4 Cranial Plating
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Thoughtcast

Sideboard
4 Tree of Tales
3 Oxidize
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Shrapnel Blast
1 Atog
1 Glimmervoid

I played about 100 practice matches on MTGO the week before the PTQ to get familiar with the deck and the format. About midway through the week, and after I had won the vast majority of my practice matches, I announced to anyone that would hear me that I was going to win the PTQ. Much like Rasheed Wallace in the recent NBA playoffs, I was guaranteeing the win ahead of time. I figured that based on the field and the quality of the deck, I had to be an overwhelming favorite to win.

The day of the PTQ, Senhouse picked me up in the morning to give me a ride to the PTQ. I don't quite know why he did this because I live about a 25-minute walk from the event site. Once I got there, I borrowed whatever cards I needed from different people and filled out a decklist and registered for the tournament. After assembling all the cards I needed, I proclaimed my eminent victory in the tournament. The pairings went up in my first PTQ over two years.

Round 1 Brian R. Lazzar
Brian was playing a typical U/G list. Not much of note happens this match, Affinity is a favorite and I won 2-0.

1-0

Round 2 Chris Reed
Chris was a middle schooler from Brockton, MA. He was playing W/R equipment and had poor draws both games.

2-0

Round 3 Joseph V Semmelrock
I believe this guy was playing Big Red and I easily won 2-0. He said it was the first time he's lost to Affinity in a lot of testing. I had found Big Red to be a noticeable underdog in the matchup and Darksteel Citadel made it very difficult for them to even get on the land destruction plan.

3-0

Round 4 Chris S Jarmak
No idea what happened this round, it was over a month ago that I actually played this match.

4-0

Round 5 Simon M Wechsler
This guy had just beaten Brian Lynch's U/G deck by topdecking in game 3. He was playing Affinity, so I am in good shape to win this match. Game 1 he drew four Arcbound Ravagers, which is absurd. I still managed to win, after he repeatedly made attacks where he would lose three creatures and do about three damage. Game 2 he plays and has turn 1 Oxidize, turn 3 Viridian Shaman on my lands, which manages to screw me.

Let me now mention how bad a play destroying lands is. In the mirror match you need to be able to destroy things like Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating, which most people play four of. You typically don't have eight removal spells, so you need to be frugal with them. Now most people play about twenty lands, so you don't usually have good odds of destroying all their lands with your six removal spells. If they mulligan, then they might be land light and this play can sometimes work. However, if they are on the draw and didn't mulligan, this play is wrong. Unfortunately for me, it was more than enough for Simon to win game 2.

Game 3 Simon mulligans and things are going along very well for me. I take a little early damage but stabilize and attack him down to four life with an overwhelming board position. At the end of my turn, Simon Shrapnel Blasts me with a Disciple out. At this point, I realize that he has another one in his hand and I am about to lose. I am amazed that he left in or maybe boarded in Shrapnel Blast in the mirror match. The card could not be worse in the matchup. Of course, this doesn't stop me from losing to it.

4-1

Round 6 Todd S Derbyshire
Todd was playing Affinity and I win this match 2-1 without much of note happening. Game 2 I lost to the turn 1 Oxidize, turn 3 Shaman plan again.

5-1

Round 7 Zack C Hall I
I couldn't draw into the top 8 because my tiebreakers are something awful despite a 4-0 start. Zack is playing mono-Green Tooth and Nail. Game 1 I dropped three Myr Enforcers on turn 3 and then topdeck my fourth on turn 4 and crush him. Game 2 I got a slow start, and he won with turn 1 Oxidize, turn 3 Viridian Shaman. I came through in the clutch and won game 3 to get into the top 8.

6-1

Top 8 Philip Chieng
Philip was playing U/G. I knew this before the match because when the table judge came to check our sideboards before game 1, she left his whole list on the table for me to look at. I thanked her and offered to buy her a beer for doing me the favor, but she thinks I'm hitting on her or something and gave me a look like"what a giant scumbag this kid is." The funny thing was that while Darwin Kastle was hitting on her later, she seemed to enjoy it. Strange, but true. Philip had poor draws both games and I won without much effort. At this point, no one else was even close to being done in the top 8 so I went next door, got some chips, ate them, came back, and people were still playing.

7-1

Top 4 Robert A Koenig
Robert was playing R/G Freshmaker. Game 1 I destroyed him and things looked good. Game 2 he mulliganed and got off to a slow start while the board stalled with neither player looking very good. At one point, he announced Oxidize and while he was deciding on a target I said,"God you're going to kill my Retriever now, whatever!" which tricked him into killing my Myr Retriever so I get a Frogmite back. I started laughing at him and the spectators were chuckling and this flustered the guy. I started to pull away with the game and was announcing his plays for him and speculating as to what he might have in his hand, winning shortly thereafter.

8-1

Top 2
I had to wait like thirty minutes for the semifinals to end, so I just sat around doing nothing while I was waiting. The semifinal was Kevin B Correia vs. Brian Lynch, and I was hoping that Lynch would win so I could give him the slot. I really had no desire to ever go to Columbus again, to test for a Pro Tour where the cards don't exist on MTGO, to play in a PT, take a slot from someone who wants to go, or play any more that day. Sure enough, Lynch losses and I tell Kevin,"I'm Monty Hall, let's make a deal." He seemed really happy to win the slot and go to his first PT. I figure that an 8-1 performance might be good enough for me to Q on rating, because I had a 1970 rating going into the tourney. An interesting note is that Kevin was also playing Osyp's exact decklist as well. So I ended up doing very well for my first PTQ in about 28 months.

The ratings update went through and I was 2001, which put me about thirty points short of qualifying. There was one last PTQ in Rhode Island before the ratings update, but I unfortunately had Red Sox tickets. I hadn't planned on going to the PTQ until my ex-girlfriend refused to give me the tickets to the game. That changed all my plans for the weekend, and I tried to get a ride from a few different people. I eventually got one from my friends Dave Edgars and Ben Caless.

During the week, my friend Alex Buck asked me about what deck he should play at the PTQ. I told him to play Affinity and he said he was going to write some lists up. I told him to write up a list that looked just like Eugene Harvey's list and play that. I had planned on simply copying the highest finishing Affinity deck from Worlds. Maybe it was fate, but Eugene Harvey went 6-0 at Worlds and I had a decklist. Here is the list:

1 Glimmervoid
4 Tree of Tales
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Great Furnace
4 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Arcbound Worker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Atog
2 Myr Retriever

3 Cranial Plating
4 Thoughtcast
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Aether Vial

Sideboard
4 Oxidize
4 Viridian Shaman
3 Moriok Rigger
1 Myr Retriever
1 Glimmervoid
2 Terror

As every PTQ report starts, I didn't get enough sleep the night before. I didn't have all the cards I needed, but everything worked out in the morning. Dave and Ben met me in the morning at Alewife and we drove down to Rhode Island. I got all the cards I needed from different people. By my calculations, I needed to go about 5-0 or 6-0 to qualify on rating.

Round 1 John Phillips
John is playing Affinity and game 1 I drew two Disciples of the Vault to his none. Game 2 he drew three Relic Barriers and things looked very bad for me. He taps my Ravager and Enforcer and sends with his Enforcer, Frogmite, Arcbound Worker, and Arcbound Ravager. I have Worker, Frogmite, and Disciple able to block. I count all of his permanents, and he was one damage short of killing me if I block the Enforcer and Frogmite, because he is tapped out. I did the math out four times just to be sure I couldn't lose. I made the right blocks and he realized his mistake and scooped it up.

1-0

Round 2 Mathew Bettencourt
Matt was a local T1 player who hasn't really played in PTQs much. He was playing Affinity and I easily beat him after he made a few simple mistakes. In game 1 I thought I needed to topdeck to win and drew Cranial Plating. Afterwards I realized that I had lethal on the board anyway.

2-0

Round 3 Greg Kelly
Greg was playing an awful Affinity list. He had zero Myr Enforcers and four Shrapnel Blasts main. Game 1 he misses a few points with Disciple and on his last turn, and passed it to me without attacking. I reason that if he had a Shrapnel Blast in his hand, he would have killed on his turn, so I attack and put lethal damage on the stack. He double Shrapnel Blasts me out. Game 2 I get a double Disciple draw and manage to win after he misses a few attacks. He leaves in Cranial Plating after boarding, which is a mistake as well. Game 3 I mulliganed into some garbage hand that doesn't matter because his draw is the following:

Turn 1 Vault of Whispers, Aether Vial

Turn 2 Vault of Whispers, Cranial Plating, 2 Frogmites, Vial out a Disciple

Greg said something like"good match" and I blew up. I told him how he made countless mistakes on top of having a bad decklist. Some people that know him say he is good, but I can't believe it after he made such bad plays and played a bad list. My hopes of qualifying on rating were gone at this point.

2-1

Round 4 Some Little Kid
Ben Caless had played against this kid the previous round. While we were outside smoking cigs, Ben was laughing about how his opponent was playing Big Red without Arc-Sloggers! Arc Slogger-less Red is a bye and I'm still not quite sure how he was supposed to win.

3-1

Round 5 Jono Morowski
Jono was playing U/G, which I think is a good matchup for me. Game 1 I run him over easily. Game 2 I make a few mistakes but Atog + Moriok Rigger is far too overwhelming for U/G.

4-1

Round 6 David Shields
David is Jono's barn and is playing G/R Tooth. I won this match 2-0 pretty easily, as he never really got anything going in either game.

5-1

At this point I could have drawn into the Top 8 because I had decent tiebreakers. Unfortunately I was paired up with someone who couldn't draw so all of my tiebreaker math was done in vain.

Round 7 Angelo Santiago
Angelo was playing a pretty standard G/R Tooth deck. Game 1 I won the die roll and got a very quick start, with double Cranial Plating for the win. Angelo said he had made some mistake this game, but I didn't what it was since I couldn't see his hand.

Game 2 I kept a two-land hand with a lot of important spells like Atog, Rigger, and Disciple in it. I stalled at two lands while Angelo had a very quick start. I had two turns to draw a land and Atog him out. I cracked one Chromatic Sphere and don't find a land. The last turn I drew no land, crack another Chromatic Sphere and still don't find a land, so I lose. Game 3, he drew a few Oxidizes to keep him in the early game. I manage to Shaman a Talisman of Impulse to slow him down. He dropped a Triskelion on the table by accident, so that I knew his only card for the last few turns of the game. I managed to win with Atog and Rigger before the Triskelion came into play in what was my closest match of the day.

6-1

I made top 8 with the seeding something like:

1. Brian Lynch - U/G
2. Kid - Big Red
3. Me - Affinity
4. Greg Kelly - Affinity
5. U/G
6. Mike Chamberlain - G/R Tooth
7. Kid - U/G
8. Dave Edgars - B/G Control

Top 8 Mike Chamberlain G/R Tooth
Game 1 I took a mulligan and got a very strong start. I had turn 1 Disciple, turn 2 Ravager, turn 3 Ravager and three Frogmites to empty my hand. I attacked into his Eternal Witness with my Ravager and instead of sacrificing two lands to keep my Ravager alive, I sacrificed it to my other Ravager. This play is horrid and sets me up nicely for my next misplay. On Mike's turn he Oxidized my second Ravager with four mana up. I can sack my three lands and put the counters on one of my Frogmites so I can kill him on my turn. This play isn't every good, but I make it anyway only to have him play a second Witness and kill my 9/9 Frogmite. I promptly lose after this with no land left after he drew another Witness.

Game 2 I kept a very awkward starting hand and he Oxidizes my first land. I eventually start to develop a board, but his removal is keeping me at around two artifacts and a Glimmervoid in play. I have some light pressure on, but he has plenty of time to set up. On turn 6 he Reap and Sows my Blinkmoth Nexus and gets out a Cloudpost. I didn't have any mana up to activate the Blinkmoth and sacrifice it to my Atog. On my turn I play my second Glimmervoid and attack him down to about nine life, then cast a Thoughtcast, tapping out. He Reap and Sows my second Glimmervoid to set up a Tooth the next turn. I draw an artifact land and a Frogmite. He only had Cloudpost untapped, so I am able to do exactly lethal with my Atog for the win the turn before he can Tooth me out.

Game 3 Mike takes a mulligan this game and looks upset at his hand, which is always a good sign. My draw is phenomenal with a Vial, Atog, three lands, and Rigger. Mike only draws three Cloudposts this game and I run him over. I even drew Shaman and Terror to be able to break up the combo if he got it out.

7-1

Brian Lynch and Greg Kelly both win their matches. Kelly planned to drop and get Lynch in the finals because he didn't want to go to the PT and give up his amateur status. Lynch knows that I would scoop to him in the finals again this time, so he has more riding on my semifinal match than I did. I eventually got paired up with the Big Red deck.

Top 4 No idea what the kid's name is
Game 1 I mulliganed and got a one-land hand and lose eight turns later, having only drawn one other land. I sided in my Atog and Riggers and feel good about my post-sideboard game against Big Red. Game 2 I put him on the Atog Rigger plan and he has no possible way to win. The same thing happens in game 3.

8-1

I gave Brian Lynch the slot in the finals and he was thrilled. His girlfriend Melissa Detora qualified the previous week with the same deck, and he was desperate to qualify with her. I'm glad to have given the slot away again and put up a win at my second PTQ back. I think my rating is good enough to qualify now, but we'll have to see. Its amazing that with a 1970 rating going into the two PTQs and putting up great numbers like 16-2, I'm not even a good chance to qualify. We'll see on the 15^th of September.

Props
+Dave Edgars for making top 8 and giving me a ride to and from the PTQ
+Ben Caless, Chris Morgan, Brian Lynch, Daniel Connolly for giving me cigarettes between rounds
+Chris Senhouse for giving me a ride
+All the people who lent me cards. Some of you left before the end of the tournament so if you want give me you addresses and I'll mail the cards back to you or something

Slops
- Eric the judge for being terrible

Joseph Kambourakis
Joseph_Kambourakis@hotmail.com
Mouthorjoe on AIM