This is my 8^th Nationals, and with having won three times already I fancy my chances. But having played two tournaments in the last eight months I don't fancy my chances. All other good players have been doing Hardcore Ninja Training™ in the snow to prepare. I breathe in deeply. I harness my Chi.

SA Nationals was the first day 9^th Edition was legal, and one week after U.S. Nationals. So what did this mean to us?

Testing and other Nationals (France and USA) had told me that Blue Tron was Da Bomb™, and discussions with those "in the know" seemed to concur. With all the Sun Droplets and White Weenie everywhere, Red was not looking all that peachy. The departure of Plow Under and the advent of Uyo the Broken Prophet of Twincast meant Tooth(less) and Nail(less) was no longer a deck of choice in its basic incarnation. Mono-Blue was good, but really struggled with all the mana Blue Tron can pump out, it could not win the counter wars in much of my testing. So, we have lot of viable decks and a shifting metagame, I smelt opportunity and it made me hungry!

For those of you who insist playing Blue Tron I suggest pre-sideboarding the Meloku's as they are crazy good to sideboard in against almost all matchups, and also allow you to win your games in that measly 50 minute time limit.

So I had Da Rosa's deck all sleeved and decklisted, and well tested against most major decks. It seemed like a 65% + machup against any field, assuming no one else was playing Blue Tron, or packing in the hate. But therein lay the conundrum (yeah, I had to look it up to!) : People will play Blue Tron. People will pack in the hate.

Blue Tron matchup vs. Blue Tron is 50%, (adjusted for playskill) with a big chance of a timing out (bad), and it seemed all the White Weenie had retooled with Damping Matrix (bad), while the ever ubiquitous Red mages were sporting Genju of the Spires (bad) and Jinxed Choker (bad) maindeck (enough to overload Sun Droplets after boarding too). I could already imagine my ghastly 2-2-2 (bad) Constructed record posted on the standings, assuming I had not dropped (bad) by then...

What to do? What to do?

What would you do sportsfans?

...only three days to Nationals...

...what would Jon Finkel, or Mike Long do?

...they would play Tinker over Trinity or Turbo Stasis over Necrodeck - and beat the field into a fine liver pate!

Hmmnn... but Fabricate is no Tinker, and Hokori is no Stasis... what to do, what to do?

Then it hits me. I will take Tooth(less) and Nail(less) and pimp it up against Blue Tron. It needs to still beat WW thought, and Red and Rats. It must also have some game against Tooth(less) and Mono-Blue. Not so easy... not so easy.

In five minutes I come up with this decklist. It looks nothing like the Tooth or the Nail.

The Hate
4 Stone Rain (turns out good)
3 Creeping Mold (turns out excellent)
3 Sowing Salt (Not so great)

The NOS
4 Llanowar Elf
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder (Found to be better than Talismans for that extra blocking and less pain)
4 Chrome Mox

The Fat
3 Kodama of the North Tree (can't Shackles or Memnarch him)
1 Force of Nature (can't Shackles or Memnarch or Triskelion him plus cool things factor)
4 Troll Ascetic (cant Shackles or Memnarch him)
4 Genju of the Cedars (difficult to counter, can't Echoing Truth)
2 Iwamori of the Open Fist (too scared of Meloku and Memnarch to play more, side out vs. Blue Tron).
4 Arc-Slogger (best creature in Standard: period. But watch out for that Mindslaver!)

The other stuff
4 Karplusan Forest (Welcome back, boys)
2 Tendo Ice Bridge (Mountains are better)
4 Mountain
10 Forest

The Replacments
4 Pyroclasm
4 Razormane Masticore
4 Sun Droplet
3 Damping Matrix (Good, but too reactive)

I feel that the sideboard needed Naturalizes.

Overall comment: This deck does not play smoothly like Blue Tron or Tooth. It reminds me of U/G Madness - powerful but inconsistent. But early testing reveals its raw power. It goes 12-2 vs Blue Tron initially, but this may have been a slightly skewed result. I think the true matchup is closer to 70% in your favor. It seems to go 50%/50% vs. Red and beats Tooth(less) so I stop testing to concentrate on drafting. I feel confident, yet uneasy with my choice, I don't all that feel safe vs. Red or Mono-Blue but will take my chances anyway. I have come to beat the first tier and the second tier be damned!

Of the 160 players qualified, 119 register.

Match 1 - vs Blue Tron.
He draws a lot of counterspells in all three games, nullifying my LD. I am for some unknown reason very nervous and make some rather questionable plays.

In a three game nail-biter, he topdecks an Echoing Truth on his last living turn and bounces my Damping Matrix. He then has exactly ten mana to Mindslaver, and I have a Slogger in play, which proceeds to start hitting himself while decking me.

I also save him from a probable game loss by not calling a judge after he presents his deck with only 56 cards (Sowing Salted Urza's Mines).

0-1

Match 2
Play a scrub with a Honden deck. Lose game one and win next two with LD. Not feeling so confident anymore. I hate this game. I need sleep.

1-1

Match 3
Play a Mono-Blue deck splashing White for Engineered Explosives. Game one he has the game won when he fools himself into thinking that if he Explosives my two Genjus in response to me activating I don't get creatures. He also taps his Blinkmoth Nexus to use the Explosives. He was at seven and I attack for eight. Whew!

He wins the next game with two minutes on the clock.

I play a quick Iwamori and he plays a free Meloku and bounces my Iwamori. At the end of extra turn five I am on low life. Whew again.

1-1-1

Feel depressed. All the Blue Tron decks seem to be on 3-0.

Only 9 wins will get me in to Top 8. Sigh.

I go 5-1 in the drafts, losing only to a consecutive screw-flood.

6-2-1

I need to 3-0 in Constructed. Hmmn!

Match 10 Andrew Klein
I win my first dice roll of the tournament. I play against Tooth and Nail splashing Black for Cranial Extractions in the sideboard. I cast a turn 2 Sowing Salt on a Tron piece, but Divining Top gives him a ton of mana and shuffles and he plays out the big bad Tooth and Nail on about turn 7. Damn.

He transforms after boarding and my bigger monsters plus some Molds on his boarded Jittes (a rather vicious maneuver) clinch it for me.

Match 11
WW with Jitte. A quick Slogger in game one as he soon scoops. In game two I block a Jitte'd Hound with an Arc-Slogger forgetting he has just cast Glorious Anthem prior to attack. I lose the Slogger to the Jitte's -1/-1 effect and draw only land after that. I also side back in my Molds for Jittes. I am a scrub and deserve to lose. Game three Pyroclasm and Masticore make his strategy look really silly, which it probably is.

7-2-1

Match 12 Winslow Wilton
I play against WW with Matrix with a lot of hate for Blue Tron including a sideboard packing Viridian Shamans and no Jittes! I lose game one, as expected, and crush him with sideboard cards in next two games. I nearly lose to a sided in Wrath of God, but draw into more creatures. He finishes ninth but a teammate drops to get him in the Top 8, I finish first in the standings as a lot of players managed to triple ID in. I will play him again in the quarters.

Quarterfinals - Winslow Wilton
I phone my travel agent and book a ticket to Japan.

Once again I lose the first game to a quick rush. I have a Slogger, but not enough stuff to imprint on my three Moxes and get him out quickly.

I then sideboard but miss a card in a pile of sleeves. The table judge checks the sleeves and there is some poor communication between me and the judge about exactly what is in that pile. I present a 59-card deck and a half an hour judge deliberation about my fate ensues. Finally I get to sideboard again with no penalty, which is probably fair, as I felt judge had represented to me there were no cards in the sleeves. Anyway. The sideboards comes through again for some medieval style action on his critters and I take the match 3-1. He is not all that happy.

Semifinals - Russel Tanchel
He is playing Blue Tron but has swapped his Talismans and Moxes for Oblivion Stones and extra bounce and a Mana Leak plus some Islands. Should help my LD strategy right? Wrong!

He draws all his counters in all of his opening hands. In all games. Bastard! I don't think I destroyed one of his key lands! Crazy cow stuff. Today's lesson kids is: don't playtest at home because real matches never work out the same way at all. And don't do drugs either.

Game one I he double mulligans, so I win eventually (and only just).

Game two is a Monster™ game. He has only one Meloku in the board (error, error, error!) and must have been the last card in his deck after shuffling as he scryes and Thirsts like a hundred times before he gets it out. He has countered seven of my cards (he has eight counters) He attacks me once and I will be dead next turn. He is on 4 life and I have seven mana. I have one Slogger in the trash already. I slap the deck and yell "Give me a Slogger!" I draw a Slogger and put it on the Stack. There is a long pause for that counter. It hits play with a solid 4/5 like thunk sound. The crowd groans and laughs. I rule.

Game three I lose because I play Force of Nature with only one Forest and three Kaplusans. I then stupidly block his attacking Solemn Simulacrum and he draws into a Triskelion to block the Force, leaving me at 9. He then Shifting Borders my only Forest and bounces the Force after I take eight and so I am at one. I have only Green cards in hand and Karplusans in play. He attacks for one with a Jushi. How sad.

Game four a Kodama goes uncountered and get him down to two before he Oblivion Stones it away. I just play Slogger and he taps two Blue mana to cast Two Scoops of Chocolate Ice Scream.

Finals - Werner Cloete
He is playing the same deck as Winslow from the quarterfinals. No Jitte means the matchup is probably 110%/-10% in my favor after boarding. The trash talk is flowing freely.

Game one he comes out fast. I have mana but no solution. It worked once before so I try again. I slap the deck and yell "Give me a Slogger!" The crowd just roars as I slap it down he loses all his creatures and we go to game two. I really rule.

Game two I fake a bad hand. I have a Karplusan, an Elf, an Elder and a Pyroclasm. A definite keep if I can get him to drop all his creatures.

"Keep it" he dares me as I consider the mulligan.
"Please keep it?" he tries next.
"I would keep it!" is his last try.
"That's probably why you're number 2!" I laugh aloud, as I keep.

He plays out his creatures, I Pyroclasm and finish up with Kodoma and Masticore.

Game three I also have Pyroclasm but he has three 2/2s this time and casts Glorious Anthem. I just Mold the Anthem and Pyroclasm the next turn. I follow up with Kodama and Slogger while holding back two Masticores.

Game over dude, insert coin!

So I take the trophy (a full sized real Nagi-Nata) and my fourth National Championship!

Props:
Marco (last year's champ) and Steve (poker player extraordinaire) for being the meanest, ugliest teammates I can find and helping me design and test the deck. Team Scrub Terrorist Division for giving us honorary team status for the event and letting us in their VIP area. Steve for passing me an insane deck in the draft. And of course you for reading!

Slops:
There are no slops. Not even half slops. Bye-bye now sportsfans!