Jace, The Mind Sculptor:
“No One Walker Should Have All That Power… auhmm, hey-aye, auhmm, hey-aye, auhmm, hey-aye-aye-aye, hey-aye-aye-aye”
A recurring theme in my professional Magic career has been my tendency to find myself in unique circumstances filled with unique obstacles. While this does have the benefit of making it easier to recount the various goings-on of one tournament after another and still manage a passably interesting yarn, it comes with a price. When no one rocks the same path, it can be tough to figure out whom to ask for directions.
The year was 1997. I was competing in the first international Pro Tour, Pro Tour: Paris (where the “Paris” Mulligan rule we used to today was instituted). The format was Mirage-Visions Constructed. I was only 16 at the time, but had already earned a reputation from making Top 8 in the Junior Division of Pro Tour: Dallas with the Pro Tour’s first Mono-Red deck (Jay Schneider’s Sligh) and my penchant for Type 1 (the precursor to Vintage, as you surely know).
Preparing for the event, I had primarily been working on tuning a Cadaverous Bloom plus Squandered Resources deck with Eric “Danger” Taylor (who went on to finish a heartbreaking 65th, one slot out of the money). Initially, we were very excited at the prospect of playing such a powerful strategy in such a weak format, but word spread of the combo deck (which you have to remember was a new experience, as this was the first major combo deck in Pro Tour history). By the time Pro Tour: LA 2 rolled around (the Pro Tour before Paris), word was already spreading about what was possible, and rumors were circulating that R&D had created the deck in house and hid it there for players to find. It just seemed too obvious.
In the days before the event, I was unsure of what to play, imagining a world of endless mirror matches and hate decks. What could people possibly play besides Bloom? Every other deck seemed terrible with the exception of B/R Beatdown, which when tuned properly had an edge over the Bloom decks in much the same way that decks that claimed to beat Faeries last year generally didn’t.
In those days, the player party the day before the event included a question and answer session in which players could ask rules questions in public to the Head Judge to make sure that everyone was on the same page (especially with regards to “what would slide…”). Well, Pro Tour: Paris was thrown into a panic when a mischievous trickster asked “Can you cast Infernal Contract when you are already at 0 life?” Recall that in the “Old Days” you did not die from being at 0 life until the end of a phase. As a result, Infernal Contract at 0 life was a bit of a free roll. It wasn’t so bad that this question alerted everyone to the “Secret Combo Deck,” because truthfully, most already knew. The disturbing part was the mentioning of the card Infernal Contract, as that was actually the “Secret Missing Link” that only a couple dozen of us “In The Know” knew about, which was the difference between a merely decent deck and the first truly degenerate combo deck.
After the player meeting, Mike Long and I retreated to his hotel room to discuss strategy. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak. It was much like the situation at Pro Tour: Berlin, over a decade later, when the player dinner was abuzz with rumors of the Elfball deck that would eventually begin LSV’s rise to Pro Tour dominance. Long had been working primarily with David Mills, and had come up with the same two basic decks that EDT and I had concocted. We compared lists, with me preferring his Bloom list’s bullets, such as Three Wishes and Elven Cache, instead of a second Drain Life as was customary. Meanwhile he adopted some of the increased discard technology edt and I advocated in B/R.
Long had already settled on Bloom, determined to just play the “Broken Deck.” I was a young kid that had not yet learned that lesson, imagining seas of players all playing Bloom. As a result, I switched to B/R at the last minute, a move that has haunted me to this day. While the B/R deck was fine (in fact, early superstar Mark Justice reached the finals with it), I tasted the bitter fruit of a failure to make Day 2 for the first time.
I had been eliminated, but I was not alone. Brian Hacker often employed my services for team tournaments alongside (at times) Truc Bui and John Yoo (Jason Zila was too busy Top 8ing the Pro Tour, so I had to fill in for him for the weekend). Who invented the team draft? West Coast Check! Team drafting was (and still is) a rich part of our culture. These team tournaments were generally unsanctioned heads-up team draft tournaments with $20-$100 per person entry fees.
Aside Regarding Brian Hacker
Brian Hacker is not in the Magic Hall of Fame, or even on the ballot anymore, as a result of not getting the requisite minimum vote threshold and not being active. This is a shame, because while his resume is not as impressive as many on account of his relatively short Pro Tour career, his contributions to the game are off the charts. Even if we never induct him into the Hall of Fame, we owe it to future generations of gamers to share the history and origin of our traditions.
Hacker was charismatic and engaging, one of the game’s most popular personalities, but also a deckbuilding genius that pushed the game in bold new directions that language did not even exist to describe. He may be most famous for inventing “The Beatdown,” but that was hardly the extent of the contributions of the Hacker School of Magic. He didn’t just invent the term, he invented the concept of the modern beatdown deck, which he shared faithfully in his vast collection of early Magic articles from thedojo.com 12-15 years ago. Additionally, he “taught the world to draft.” You have to remember, those were dark days, long before Magic Online, let alone sites like StarCityGames.com and drafts taking place regularly in every store in the country.
Whereas today there are literally thousands and thousands of good drafters, in those days, there were maybe 40, and half of them learned from Hacker. The Southern California scene, driven by Hacker and his Team D!ckheads, were so completely dominant in draft that they put 5(!) in the Top 8 of Pro Tour: LA 2 (The Pro Tour just before Paris), which was the Mirage-Mirage-Visions Rochester draft format. Many players back in the day considered Rochester draft a more skill-intensive format than booster draft, and this was the game’s first Rochester draft Pro Tour.
Those were days when the “Accepted Wisdom” was to play 14 land in your draft deck, valuing Craw Wurms and fliers and not playing Grizzly Bears (“Blanks”) or “Bad Tricks” (such as Hope Charm). Hacker turned all this on its head. He advocated playing 16-18 land in your draft deck, and emphasized cheap creatures (and more of them than most people played) and tempo-oriented combat tricks. While most players might play a 2/4 with reach as their first play on turn 4, Hacker would lead out with “janky” creatures starting on turn 1, then when turn 4 rolled around instead of stopping the beatdown, he would just send all of his creatures in turn after turn, often sustaining terrible loss of card advantage, but ending the game before the opponent could take advantage of it. Instead of worrying about drawing more cards, Hacker taught us the value of being ahead on board. For instance, Inspiration was a popular card that would put you ahead by a card for four mana. Hacker suggested staying away from it, instead playing cards like the Charms which would often let you run all of your creatures into your opponents, then win a fight against a three-mana creature (or perhaps keep your own three-mana creature) for just one mana. In these situations, it wasn’t just that you were breaking even on cards and gaining two mana, you were also pushing in even more damage by turning all of your creatures sideways (“Administering a Beatdown”).
In addition to all of his contributions to Limited theory and early article writing (he didn’t just write articles, he and Truc Bui were early supporters of the Dojo and helped get it off its feet), Hacker also taught the Pro Tour how to team draft (being one of the pioneers of the format existing at all). If you have ever been in one of the heads-up team tournaments that are so popular at Magic events, you have Brian Hacker to thank. On top of this, he was a master deck builder, not only pioneering the new field of beatdown, but also with combo decks, including what many regard as one of the most brilliant combo decks of Pro Tour: Rome (The Academy Pro Tour). Hacker’s was the only Academy deck I know of that went so far as to include Yawgmoth’s Wills, though his “mere” Top 16 finish has many forgetting just how much he had broken it. At another event he invented Humility plus Orim’s Prayer, unleashing a new sort of lock deck on the game.
Finally, Hacker was an ambassador for the game. Known for his brightly colored hair and charming personality, Hacker helped remove the stigma some found came with an intellectual pursuit such as Magic. I am damn proud to play Magic, and never hide my love for this game and this culture. Brian Hacker taught me that and I am eternally thankful. Playing Magic is really freaking cool, haters be damned. He taught me that if you love something, who cares if other people think it is cool or not? Be cool yourself, and whatever you do will be cool.
Brian Hacker may be off the ballot, but we should never forget all he brought to this game. Thank you Hacker.
End Aside
So I had been eliminated, and was tasked with the enviable job of filling in for Jason Zila in the decadence that tended to follow Team D!ckhead, as well as the debauchery. After a successful day of heads-up team drafting on Saturday, we decided to take our winnings out on the town and celebrate (plus Hacker had put up another Top 16, so Zila wasn’t the only big winner). First stop the D!ckhead suite, a seedy “by-the-hour” hotel near the Red Light District (or what amounted to one). Hacker’s preparation is second only to Brian Kibler, though one could argue a slightly larger percentage of time is allocated to “Hair Management,” as Hacker often would re-dye his brilliant blue or dazzling purple hair before a wild night out.
Out first stop was a discotheque in a rather edgy part of town. Riding the line between a rave and a dance club, I was mesmerized by the sights and sounds of this new world…
(Note to the reader: Regardless of what you may have heard about me, I was not always as worldly a fellow as I am accused of being these days. As an innocent and somewhat naive 16 year-old lad, I had certainly never been to a rave, or a dance club, and the experience seemed several leagues beyond a school dance, my closest comparison at the time. Additionally, I certainly did not drink alcohol, so do not confuse these stories with the tales of debauchery laid out like so many Heezys in years to come…)
The discotheque blew my young mind. The sounds were hypnotic, rhythmic electronica seducing me with majik not common on this plane. I met a beautiful girl, Gisele, on the dance floor, who captivated me like my own personal Lady Gaga. The question of whether I could have even walked away was a mute one, as there could never be the desire. This was bliss. I was without a care in the world, dancing without judgment or reservation, moving in sync with this mademoiselle of incomparable fairness. She spoke no English, but her body said everything that needed to be said. She slipped away from a moment to use the ladies room. It was then that Hacker tapped my shoulder.
“Hey, we’re taking off.”
“WHAT!?! This place is awesome. The music is incredible, and look at these girls!”
“They are all 16.”
“So what? I am 16 too.”
I entertained briefly the notion of staying, but without money, the ability to speak French, or a passport (yeah, awkward), I thought better than to leave the posse and departed, never to see Gisele again. This is not the story of that girl, though. No, in fact it is not even the story of the gay discotheque we “upgraded” to next. I tried protesting that there were no 23 year old girls at this club either, but to no avail, and besides, this still isn’t that story.
No, this is actually the story of how I tried to leave, only to discover that one of the “costs” of losing your passport is that you can’t just up and leave the country. This is that relatively unique experience that provided a character-building obstacle that would stay with me later in life. You see, I had lost my passport, had no money, no ID, and not a lick of French beyond “Oui” and “Putain” (pew-tAÃ’).
I had flown in with edt, but his only words upon departure were: “Have fun in France. I am going back to America.”
Had it really come to this? I had contacted my parents who were sending me a replacement, but it would take a week to arrive. How was I to survive? I wandered back to the main hotel and came across Brian Weissman (of The Deck fame) and Eric Tam (A Canadian from the old school whose deckbuilding style is probably most akin to Gerard Fabiano, never being afraid to meld “eccentric technology” with popular archetypes) who had both decided to stay in Paris a week to sightsee. I was in luck! I hitched my wagon to their caravan and was much more secure in my situation. Tam had some business to attend elsewhere in Paris, so Weissman and I were deposited in a hotel room. Tam left us there with instructions to wait for him to return. He is Canadian, but what’s the worst that could happen?
Weissman and I had been discussing Type 1, when Jason Zila wandered in out of nowhere and collapsed on one of the beds without a word. He dropped the only thing he was holding, a Mir-Vis constructed B/U/R tempo deck with which he had just made Top 8 (and awkwardly enough, he had been late to the Top 8, on account of getting lost in the Paris subway system for hours).
Weissman picked up Zila’s deck and handed it to me. He was armed with Jason Gordon’s U/W Floodgate Control deck, and we set to work in a timeless exhibition that would have been extraordinarily compelling, had we only the means to record the moment and preserve it for the antiquities. The battle raged, back and forth, back and forth, though the chips were stacked in Weissman’s favor. He beat on me, unleashing beating after beating (assuming we count discarding Mangara’s Blessing to my Stupor as a beating). It was brutal! How could a man do this to another man?
Suddenly out of nowhere, Jon Finkel stumbles in unexpected and unannounced. He is obviously deliriously tired and mumbling jibberish. He drops his deck and crawls into bed with Zila. Finkel was unconscious before he hit the pillow, and Zila was similarly impossible to mistake for conscious himself, but this did not stop Zila from rolling over and cuddling with Finkel. Zila wrapped his arms around one of Finkel’s. Finkel (presumably reflexively) wrapped his bear hug arms around Zila’s Lindsay Lohan frame, fitting together like… well, to borrow from an artist of yesteryear, they fit together like Legos.
What does this have to do with anything? Honestly, I am not really sure, beyond that this is documentation that I am batsh** crazy. This was supposed to be a brief story about the sorts of unique obstacles I encounter (which means the losing the passport part was probably supposed to be the focus). I guess the whole point is to set up the inevitable plane troubles you know are coming like an eviction notice after heading out on a three-month Magic road trip without bothering to pay rent or make any arrangements before you go.
Modern Day
Mostly modern day, as we are still back in time to 36 hours before U.S. National’ this year. At the time, I happened to be in Northern California breaking it with Luis Scott-Vargas, David Ochoa, Josh Utter-Leyton, Matt Nass, and esteemed international Playboy Tom Martell. After a week of kicking on the West Coast, I was betting it was time to check out. I was set to depart from the Oakland airport Thursday (tomorrow, from the perspective of that Patrick) so I tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, sliding up nice and snug in the Wrapter Resort. I was thrilled at the opportunity to wake up at 7am and get ready to go to the airport 6 hours early (Wrapter had an earlier flight than I, and from a different airport).
We head out early, and I was blessed by a ride in the Wraptermobile, while Zaeim (the third in our motley crew) continued to slumber uninterrupted like Magic since 6th Edition. An automobile ride later, and I am pushed out as Josh slows to nearly 15 miles per hour. From here, it is time to take a train to the plane that will allegedly take me to Minneapolis. So far, so good, and I arrive at the airport with a mere 4 hours to spare. At this point, probably the biggest obstacle was just waiting 4 hours at an airport after sleeping a mere 4 hours without the aid of caffeine. Life had been too easy lately, so two weeks prior I had decided to quit caffeine cold turkey for fun. I am certainly not swearing off caffeine for life or anything, but combating fatigue this summer has me determined to take drastic measures if necessary.
Was I surprised to be physically still in withdrawal after two weeks? Honestly… a little. I knew I was “physically addicted” to caffeine, but didn’t quite fully appreciate the extent. The “quitting severe caffeine addiction” game is actually very similar to the having a vice tightening around your head during a hangover, but all day every day. Was I ever tempted to drink some caffeine and make the pain go away? It depends on what you mean. I certainly thought about it over and over, literally fantasizing about drinking Mountain Dew or Coke. My eyes were drawn to each and every gas station, ever McDonalds, every pop machine. I had dreams on two different nights in which I was drinking soda. I realize quitting smoking has to be 20 times worse, so I empathize. At the end of the day we are still talking about illusions. I know that at the moment I actually don’t want caffeine, and any signal in my brain suggesting that I do is just an illusion. It was helpful to realize that My Will determines what I want, and that things my brain suggests that are contrary to my will are merely illusions, masquerading as things that my brain tries to trick me into wanting. That is why, when asked, I suggest that it is certainly painful to play the game I am at the moment, but hard? It isn’t hard at all. It takes only will.
“Do or do not, there is no try.”
Yoda
The unspoken added context is that it refers only to things that you have control over. For instance, you clean your room or you do not, there is no try. It is not a command to be attached to a specific outcome. If you want to win the lottery, you would be well served to realize that it may take a lot more will than merely buying a ticket. If you are “trying to sleep,” it is an action you may not have absolute control over yet, but you do have control over if you lay down, if you close your eyes, and so on. If you want an outcome enough to do what it takes to get it, then do what it takes to get it, though it is perfectly reasonable to adjust your idea of what it is you want as you learn what it will take to have it. It is easy to get tripped up on “what it takes,” but as long as you remember what it is you are actually doing, you’ll be alright. This is the classic problem with lying, cheating, stealing, and killing. In a short view, it may seem to be what it takes to get what it is you think you want, but from a longer view it becomes painfully clear that it actually costs much more than it gains. Outside of negative consequences from “external” forces, the universal response tends to be along the lines of destroying the value of whatever it is that was acquired by ill-gotten gains. Now, occasionally there will be situations where one is doing these things and believes themselves in the right, such as escaping kidnappers. Most of the time, though, confusion makes them more alluring than they should be.
One last thought on caffeine: I don’t have to avoid drinking caffeine. It is just an experiment I am trying at the moment. I have a variety of different games going on at once, and at times one must prioritize. I love drinking caffeine! The sweet nectar of the gods will meet my tongue once again, be sure of that. I just want to not drink caffeine long enough to not be tired anymore. The primary reason I am even taking this break is to help get better rested for Pro Tour: Amsterdam. When Pro Tour: Amsterdam rolls around, if I want to drink caffeine at that event, I certainly will. From a short view, I am playing the “taking a break from caffeine” game, but scrolling out a little shows it is just a subgame of the “winning Pro Tour: Amsterdam” game. In Super Mario Bros, it is generally a better strategy to dodge monsters or enemy fireballs; however, if your real goal is winning a speed race against someone, it can actually be useful at some points to get hit on purpose so as to temporarily be able to run through monsters.
So I am still in Oakland, and as the hours pass, the delays start coming in. My connection is through Salt Lake City, a city famous for their Mormons and perhaps even more famous for their Jack Lewis Stanton. They seem to be incurring the wrath of Zeus at the moment, with a storm so bad I am told that there is no way I will make my connecting flight, and that the next plane I can get on out of Salt Lake City won’t be until the next day. This is obviously an issue to me, as I fully intend on showing up to round 1 at 9am.
I reason with various airline staff until I am put on a shuttle across town to San Francisco where I will board a plane to Los Angeles. From there, I will hang out a while, then board a plane to Minneapolis, hopefully arriving by midnight. Sounds good. Let’s do it. I end up at LAX without too much fanfare, but they have issues of their own with security lines that are out of control (as Paul Rietzl and Matt Sperling can attest to). I board the plane, but we seem to be having issues with the engine, which didn’t want to start. Many on the plane were slightly discontented to hear what sounded like an attempt to start a lawnmower without gasoline. After half an hour of maintenance, we are told that the air conditioning isn’t working either, which requires even more work, but eventually we are off like a herd of turtles.
As Minneapolis drew nearer, we were told stories of never-ending delays on account of the near apocalyptic storm consuming the city in a fashion rivaled only by The Nothing. As I tend to avoid the currency of hyperbole, I will instead just say that “ominous” was probably a fair description of the approaching storm.
Landing around 1:30am, I am left taking a $740 cab instead of the $0.06 cent train that is normally available (my original flight was to arrive at 7:30pm). Entering the hotel was easy enough, and passing for Matt Sperling at the front desk was a piece of cake. I just mentally pictured myself as Louis C.K. doing an impression of a surfer doing an impression of Mark Herberholz doing an impression of LSV (and dropped a couple of Beta Ancestrals out of my wallet while looking for the ID I didn’t have). I could have tried running the Paul impersonation, but I didn’t have as much practice.
After knocking out another night with half the sleep that felt appropriate (so much for The Plan), I mosey over to the tournament site to register. Yeah, this is actually a tournament report about U.S. National’s! Crazy, huh? I had decided to play an Esper Control deck:
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (21)
Spells (32)
- 2 Plains
- 4 Island
- 4 Mana Leak
- 1 Flashfreeze
- 1 Cancel
- 1 Negate
- 4 Esper Charm
- 2 Relic of Progenitus
- 1 Martial Coup
- 2 Path to Exile
- 1 Identity Crisis
- 2 Doom Blade
- 2 Day of Judgment
- 2 Jace's Ingenuity
- 3 Preordain
Sideboard
The deck is reasonable, but nothing special. Standard is so mind-numbingly balanced, it defies any sort of reasonable desire to “break it.” I had been testing quite a bit for both Amsterdam and Nationals, but was finding that Standard seemed much more about the playing of the games than the deck choice, meaning I was certainly fighting an uphill battle. If I were to play it again, I would choose the same deck, as I was definitely happy with how it performed.
I am not a big fan of U/W at the moment, as I feel it has a few key weaknesses, most notably Planeswalkers, Pyromancer’s Ascension, and Fauna Shaman. I’m attempting to shore these weaknesses up with the addition of Black, though I gotta give props to Gerard Fabiano for making Top 8 with his clever take on U/W, which does a remarkable job of sidestepping some of these issues a bit.
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (9)
Lands (25)
Spells (22)
The key to Gerard’s deck is that he is not actually trying to take control of every game. He has very high amount of mana disruption, with not only Spreading Seas AND Tectonic Edge, but the full package of Preordains, plus 5 Jaces to help look for more. Paul Rietzl asked me what it’s like to cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor (an experience in which he has yet to indulge). Playing Jace, the Mind Sculptor looks, sounds, and feels like power to me. If you are not yet on board with Preordain in all Standard Blue Control decks, here is an explanation of why you should be.
Gerard doesn’t bother with Path to Exile, Wall of Omens, or Day of Judgment, instead featuring tons of Planeswalkers, universal removal such as Into the Roil and Oblivion Ring, plenty of permission, and a lot of velocity to accentuate the themes he has focused on, such as the high density of powerful threats like Baneslayer Angel and Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Gerard’s deck is one of my favorites from the events, breathing new life into the dying archetype. Is he still weak to Fauna Shaman? No question, but rather than try to beat them on their terms, he just tries to ignore them and let them do their thing. Baneslayer Angel is actually secretly his answer to Fauna Shaman, since he aspires to use permission, mana denial, and card advantage to help keep an Angel on the table, which can singlehandedly do a fantastic job of holding off armies of Vengevines, especially when combined with Condemns and Into the Roils. If you like U/W, give Gerard’s build a run. Gerard is quietly a top deckbuilder that often flies exactly one level below the radar, and we would all do well to keep an eye on his often cutting edge designs.
So, Esper…
While most Esper pilots opt for Baneslayers and Grave Titans, I decided to move them to the sideboard, feeling their effectiveness was significantly greater there. First, obviously after board, players have less creature removal against me. Second, I really don’t want them against control, combo, or ramp decks. Finally, after sideboarding, many opponents would be able to combat my baseline control strategy, so being able to brute force games with powerful bombs was a nice pseudo-transformation.
Creeping Tar Pit adds a nice line of defense against Planeswalkers, especially since I wanted to avoid Oblivion Ring for this event. My reasoning behind removing O-Ring was that without game-winning creatures, it would be especially hard to play a tap-out game. Additionally, I suspected a large increase in War Priest of Thunes, Qasali Pridemages, Esper Charms, Into the Roils, and more as a result of ascension of the Pyromancer deck. Besides, with so many ramp decks, O-Ring would often be a very poor card for me.
Doom Blade is certainly not vital, but with so few Black creatures these days, I thought it more flexible than Condemn, especially since I planned on using Relic of Progenitus maindeck anyway. I did end up splitting the Doom Blade/Path to Exile numbers partially because you really do have to be able to kill Thrinax and Leech, but also because against many opponents where removal is bad, I like having the option to Path my own Wall of Omens for a quick surprise Identity Crisis or Martial Coup. Why not all Paths, then? Pathing early against a Noble Hierarch deck is just disastrous. You don’t want them to Fauna Shaman, but you don’t want to give them a Mox Emerald on turn 2 either.
Esper Charm was, of course, the primary reason I included Black. The ability to destroy Enchantments is at a premium right now, most notably because of Ascension, but having options is generally always nice. The ability to attack people’s hand is especially useful when combating ramp decks that are often mostly mana but end up with two game-winning threats in their hand around turn 5. Let’s be serious, though, at the end of the day, we are usually just drawing two and being happy about it. Not having to tap out is very powerful, and just makes our threats of permission that much more effective. Often you can just wait out a Blue/White deck, as they have few ways to punish you for “not doing anything” if they don’t have a Walker on the table. Sure they can Jace’s Ingenuity, but so can we. The difference is that with us, often, if they try to bait our counter we can just let it resolve, draw 2, then be better equipped for next turn, hopefully catching up at some point with a Wall, Doom Blade, or Day.
The Identity Crisis is a common miser’s card in such decks, and I think it is an especially appropriate time, given its effectiveness against Ramp decks. Often a single counterspell will “buy the time” to check them for ID. Assuming they don’t have any (and they never do) they are left drawing off the top. In situations like this, you will often be able to follow up with a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and merely need to “hold-on” long enough to ultimate them out. In situations like this, especially if you have a Counter in hand, it is best to get on the plan of Jace-ing them every turn, but rather than ship their bombs to the bottom, if you have a couple of Esper Charms, you may want to let them keep everything. When they draw air, they can keep it. When they draw a bomb like Primeval Titan, Esper Charm them during their draw step. We are not slaves to card advantage. If we would rather have a counterspell than two cards at random, why not use our Esper Charms as proactive Counters? We won’t always have Jace to tell us how to time it perfectly, but it is a regular part of our strategy and should always be kept in mind.
The only other notable inclusion is that of maindeck Relic of Progenitus. It is certainly a bit slow against some opponents, but it does add a nice element against Vengevine decks and Pyromancer’s Ascension. When it is bad, it just costs some mana, which is significant, but not the end of the world. When it is good…
Spoiler: I played against Dredgevine!
The sideboard features the boom-booms missing from the maindeck. They are primarily to be boarded in against Jund and Fauna Shaman decks. Jund tends to have fewer “dead” cards after sideboarding, and my game 1 match-up is pretty soft, as I shave lots of cards that are good against them like Wall of Omens and Elspeth, replacing them with fairly terrible ones such as Relic of Progenitus and Negate. After sideboarding, though, it is like night and day.
I generally do something along the lines of:
-1 Negate; -2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor; -1 Jace’s Ingenuity; -1 Martial Coup; -1 Doom Blade; -1 Identity Crisis; -2 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Grave Titan, +2 Baneslayer Angel, +2 Flashfreeze, +3 Oust
(Although really, the third Jace always finds his way back into my deck…)
The default strategy is to play the one-for-one game as best I can, staying ahead on tempo. Then around turn 5 or so, we Esper Charm their last two cards, then untap and drop a fatty. This line of play is very difficult for them to disrupt, and even Duresses, Ruinblasters, and Thought Hemorrhages are pretty ineffective.
Oust is super hot sideboard card right now, especially if you need help with Fauna Shaman match-ups. I originally was considering Deathmark, since all I really wanted to hit was Birds, Hierarchs, and Cobras, besides the Fauna Shamans. Wrapter suggested Oust instead. As a Bant player, he said that he generally doesn’t want to draw those cards two turns later and would rather they be dead. The life gain matters very little for me, and requiring White mana is nice since against those people I want to Day of Judgment anyway. Besides, why not have a little defense against random stuff like Vampires, Plated Geopede, or Hedron Crab? Looking back, I would for sure play all 4 Ousts again. They were vital to so many of my match-ups.
The Zealous Persecution is partially for “mising,” but really is a potent weapon for combating Bird/Hierarch/Cobra decks. I was talking to Brad Nelson about how to regain percentage against Bant (my worst match-up of mainstream decks). He mentioned that it was a particularly filthy toy in his chest, but he had yet to find the sandbox to stick it in. I tried it and loved it. The casting cost was not particularly difficult, since I was set up to Esper Charm anyway. The instant speed ability was the bigger factor on why I chose it over the easier-to-cast Shrivel, though it does come up once in a white that pumping my Colonnade lets me take down an Elsepth. I would have liked to play a second copy, but alas, 15 cards leaves us with only so much space.
Round 1 pairings go up, and in fairly standard fashion I am matched up against that reclusive Zerg, deckbuilding genius Michael Jacob. He is running Bant with Squadron Hawk; Fauna Shaman; Vengevine; Jace, the Mind Sculptor… most of the usual suspects. One of our games is never really close on account of a slow mana draw by MJ when I deal with his accelerators. The other is fairly epic, and involves me using 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptors and having the first three die, leaving him so thoroughly plowed under by card advantage that the Relic of Progenitus plus Day of Judgment combo leaves him powerless. I was not thrilled to face Bant round 1, and MJ to boot, but fortunately I ran slightly above expectation and got there. It should be noted that the Mythic end of the spectrum is actually much worse for me than Next Level Bant end.
1-0
I was paired against another good friend of mine in the second round, Florida’s own Kitt Holland. Kitt piloted a very straightforward R/G Valakut deck, which is generally among my better match-ups. Our first game is a bit of a blow-out, as he keeps a hand with no Green mana and doesn’t get there soon enough, as I tap out for a turn 4 Jace from which he can never recover. Game 2 seems like it is going well for me, but I am Jacing into all air. I can’t find any counterspells, so while I am able to kill each Titan he plays, I quickly end up behind the barrel of two more Valakuts than I can Edge. I did not realize the direction the game was going, and shouldn’t have cracked my fetchland from 19, dropping me to 18. Two turns before I can finish him with my manlands, he uses Cultivate to 12 me in one turn, leaving him with a Mountain still in hand and the writing on the wall. I search for an Edge on my turn, but to no avail and we move to game 3.
Game 3 came down to him playing a Primeval Titan with two mana open, when I had 5 mana open. I Flashfreezed it and he shipped the turn. I Esper Charmed to draw 2, then untapped and checked him for ID. It turned out that he had Ricochet Trap and had been saving it for the next turn. His rationale was that he knew I had a lot of Counters and rather than waste his one Trap in a turn where I could counter twice, he would rather let his first Titan get countered so as to lull me into a false sense of security. Hopefully on my turn I would cast Jace and leave just two mana open, seeing as I now “know” that he doesn’t have a Ricochet Trap. This line of play is certainly defensible, especially since he did not know that I had Identity Crisis in my deck up until this point. It is also very fortunate that I managed to resist the allure of the pre-Identity Crisis Preordain…
2-0
My third round was a battle for the ages with Mike Gualtieri, a crafty Red mage hellbent on unleashing sparks of thunder in my general vicinity. I squeaked out the first game at 1 life, playing some of my best Magic of the day, plus I got more than a little lucky. For three turns in a row, I had to ship the turn tapped out, at 1 life, and him with a Hell’s Thunder in his Graveyard and four mana in play. I even have a Wall of Omens, so Searing Blaze kills me. Just try to name the cards he must have drawn to not beat me from this position! A Goblin Guide and a Kargan Dragonlord later, he finally drops a Teetering Peaks, but I think I do something along the lines of Identity Crisis his Graveyard away just in the nick of time. Game two I was quickly run over by Goblin Guide, into turn 2 double Goblin Guide. Game 3 was another nail biter (if you were the sort that bit nails), but a couple early Ousts bought me enough time to take over with a Jace that in turn bought me time (denying his top card whenever it was burn) to lock up the game with a Baneslayer Angel.
3-0
Eventual Nationals runner-up Anthony Eason was my final Constructed opponent of the day, also armed with Mono-R. I was light on mana in game 1 and couldn’t defend myself in time. Game 2 was among the most intense of the day, eventually reaching a position where I was at 3 life to his 19. He unearthed a Hellspark and played a Teetering Peaks, drawing my Path to Exile, leaving him with 6 land (4 of which were tapped) and a single card in hand with no more relevant graveyard.
I could tell he had a burn spell, so I didn’t want to tap out on his turn. I didn’t have a counterspell, but my hope was that he would wait long enough that I could draw into one. After I drew, I Esper Charmed myself, leaving plenty of mana untapped. My hope was that he could see I didn’t do it on his turn and that I must have a counter. To my great surprise he Burst Lightning without kicker’ed me. This play felt like I had just been surprised by a brick to my face at a backyard Bar-B-Que.
I checked my life total. Something had to be amiss. Why would he do this? I am at 3 and he has 6 mana. What is he trying to prove?! Were we about to have a failure to agree on reality situation? He can’t really be about to claim I am at 2, can he? What is this about? Why be a hero, here? Why now? I surveyed every zone, then moved to his life pad where I saw he had me at five. I double checked to be sure, but I was definitely at 3, not 5 and we discussed it for a moment. Taking a page out of the Saito playbook, he gave himself a little slap and lamented that if he lost this game, he would feel very stupid (and that he hoped I had a Counterspell so that he wouldn’t “have to”). I should have known when he Teetering Peaks’ed his Hellspark despite me being at 3, but I had no choice but to tighten up.
I drew my 2 cards then, still not having a counterspell, tapped out for a Jace to try to keep him off of burn for a turn, which worked, shipping a lethal spell to the bottom. He drew and shipped the turn, giving me the window to dig into Permission letting me lock up the game. Weeeee!
I was riding high, some would say invincible! Game 3 reached a critical juncture on turn 5 when I had a Baneslayer, a Negate, and a Flashfreeze among other cards. Do I play her or do I wait and Ingenuity at the end of the turn (or counter something)? I decided to wait, drawing mostly air. On my turn he has 4 cards and I have a Jace, the Mind Sculptor in hand, plus I now have 6 mana. I decide to drop the Jace, Sculpt his library and still have Negate or Flashfreeze up. Next turn, I will drop the Baneslayer with a Counterspell to protect and should have it made. I look at the top of his library and see he has another land, which I will let him keep.
On my end step, he Burst Lightnings me with kicker. This was where things went horribly wrong. Okay, so really, I probably should have just played the Baneslayer on turn 5 and if he had Combust + Ball Lightning I would be sad, but whatever. Regardless, here we were. I knew he had just three spells to work with and my life total was 12, so I figured it would be safe to Negate his Burst Lightning, as I certainly did not want to get bottle-necked on mana next turn when I go to play my Baneslayer. If I was at 8, then he could realistically not even have to kill my Baneslayer just going over the top to me.
On his turn, he revealed a hand of two Lightning Bolts and a Ball Lightning! I have no one to blame but myself, but there was no question this defeat was a cocktail comprised primarily of lemon juice, marmalade, orange peels, and three day old coffee with two olives. As bitter as defeat tasted, I wasn’t salty, but after the sweetness of our second game, discovering my fate had soured my day, a surprise of unsavory proportions (like discovering there are five tastes instead of four). Anthony was a perfect gentleman and a fierce competitor, so it was excellent to see him finish so well.
3-1
I sat down to the Day 1 draft pod feeding my good friend Brian Kowal. He knew of my penchant for Blue and decided to go with a G/W (splashing a Fireball), but to his surprise my draft went a little unexpectedly.
My first pick of the draft was the age-old Fireball versus Crystal Ball pick, a pick that I think is clearly Fireball, regardless of Crystal Ball’s “Blue-ness.” I actually think Crystal Ball is not Blue in this case, because my main concern at the beginning of a M11 draft is not passing Blue cards in pack 1 to try to cut the color. A Crystal Ball doesn’t get someone into Blue, whereas passing an Azure Drake often does.
I still have aspirations of drafting a base Blue deck at this point and second pick a Cancel over a Blinding Mage with multiple bad Red cards in the pack. I want Kowal into White anyway, so I ship. My third pick is a Chandra’s Outrage and I am seeing that Red is surely going to be a major component of my deck. The fourth pick I probably blunder, having a choice between Preordain and Fire Servant. Mentally, I was still a Blue deck and I knew that I had passed no good Blue at all, so even if I was being cut to my right (which I clearly was and hard), I could reasonably expect a decent amount of Blue in pack 2, probably at least 3 people’s worth. I love a Preordain more than most anyway, but there is no question I was kicking myself later. It is not just that Fire Servant worked out better in the deck I ended up with, it is that when the Fire Servant pick is better, it is WAY better. When the Preordain pick is better, it doesn’t even matter that much.
My fifth pick offers me another Fire Servant, but I take Juggernaut, “playing it safe.” Obviously later I would rather have had the Fire Servant, but I think this pick is a lot more defensible. I spent the rest of the pack picking up random Red cards, but still figured I was R/U (in retrospect I should have taken Goblin Piker over the Earth Servant that is sitting in my sideboard). Pack two I opened another Fireball, so far so good. As expected, I am shipped DI Blue, and presumably partially due to the two Fire Servants I had shipped, I saw much less Red. I ended up with a Jace’s Ingenuity, Azure Drake, Cancel, Flashfreeze, Negate, Unsummon, and Preordain, so my Blue was certainly not embarrassing, but getting passed a Cyclops Gladiator had me gravitating towards Red.
My third pack didn’t offer much when I opened it, but I did get passed another Cyclops Gladiator and a Chandra’s Outrage, and I easily put together enough playables, though I would have been much better off if I was -1 Juggernaut, -1 Shiv’s Embrace, -2 Arc Runner, -1 Fling, +2 Goblin Piker, +2 Fire Servant, +1 Mountain. I didn’t draft the Arc Runners highly, but I could have gotten the Fire Servants instead of Preordain and Juggernaut, plus I could have gotten Goblin Pikers instead of Shiv’s Embrace and Earth Servant. Fling loses some value without the Arc Runners and I was a little mana shy, leaving me sideboarding in a Mountain against every opponent. I was also somewhat surprised to find that whereas Shiv’s Embrace was a game-breaker in Urza block draft, it was actually very unexciting for me and I often boarded it out.
Mono-R Draft deck by Patrick Chapin
1 Goblin Balloon Brigade
1 Goblin Tunneler
2 Arc Runner
2 Fiery Hellhound
2 Chandra’s Spitfire
2 Vulshok Berserker
2 Cyclops Gladiator
1 Juggernaut
2 Fireball
2 Fling
1 Shiv’s Embrace
2 Chandra’s Outrage
3 Lava Axe
17 Mountain
My first match is featured against Brian Kowal with G/W/r. I have rarely seen him so happy as when he proudly “won” the randomization method allowing him to choose to draw against me. By turn 4 when I dropped my fourth Mountain and a Cyclops Gladiator, he lamented his “good fortune,” wishing he had played first.
Game 2 ended with two Fireballs, with the most interesting part be the turn I “went for it,” I tanked trying to figure out what to play around. It was then I realize just how little life-gain/damage prevention there is in M11. Outside of Safe Passage, what am I playing around from a G/W/r deck? Hunter’s Feast?
4-1
Round 6, Brandon Ayers had drafted a nearly Mono-Black deck. I dropped the first game keeping a two land six-card hand, but not getting there. Game 2, I quickly run over him. Game 3, I was hit by a Liliana’s Specter on turn 3 when I still had three land in hand. I discard one (leaving me with 4), but didn’t draw a fifth land until turn 8, instead drawing Axe after Axe. I am not sure if I could have reasonably discarded a spell there, but hindsight is 20/20. I think that I did make the right play and this was just a time where it didn’t pay off, but I certainly could have changed the outcome if I had discarded a spell, so it is certainly possible this was a mistake. This is an example of results orientation being useful. It is not that I made the wrong play because it didn’t work out and it would have if I made the other play. It is that I lost and could have changed the outcome with the other play, so I should at least consider that maybe I was wrong. Considering the possibility that I was wrong is not the same as overcompensating for new information (such as the results of the latest tournament or playtest session).
4-2
My 7th round against Brian Siu was mostly about my Cyclops Gladiators and Fireballs winning the race against his White based flying aggro deck. Sorry, no cool stories here, though it was Brian Siu that knocked me out of contention of Grand Prix: Philadelphia (the one Gerard won with B/G/W Junk/Rock) which helped end of one of the hottest streaks of my life and send me spiraling hopelessly downward like Patrick Sullivan, Timothy Aten, and Jeff Cunningham in a rowboat being flushed down a cosmic toilet bowl convergence of a universe of depression and one of apathy, chanting rub-a-dub-dub.
5-2
Night 2 was rather uneventful, as I mostly tried to play catch-up for the sleep I did not sleep the previous two nights. My draft pod was sure to be interesting enough the next day. Sure enough, we were the featured draft, meaning at some point you will be able to witness step-by-step what is probably not the most embarrassing draft I have ever done, though certainly not without at least several complete blunders that will leave you questioning my good judgment, such as my suspicious lack of a Mitotic Slime.
U/G/r Draft by Patrick Chapin
1 Maritime Guard
3 Aether Adept
2 Scroll Thief
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Air Servant
1 Diminish
1 Unsummon
1 Preordain
1 Ice Cage
1 Cancel
1 Sleep
1 Mind Control
1 Jace’s Ingenuity
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Prized Unicorn
1 Greater Basilisk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Plummet
1 Pyroclasm
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
1 Terramorphic Expanse
9 Island
6 Forest
1 Mountain
The most interesting cards in my sideboard were Doom Blade, Unsummon, Berserker of Blood Ridge and three more Maritime Guards. I had a few mediocre Red filler cards, as I started out Blue, picked up a Pyroclasm (which I knew would be amazing with all of my three toughness creatures), then I proceeded to run the pack 2 switch into Green when Wrapter passed me a Primeval Titan. Woo-hoo, cashed the event! In all seriousness, obviously it was not a rare draft, as it is actually just the celestial stoneblade, but I certainly could have picked up a little more Green if I had tried earlier.
I had cut Blue flawlessly in pack 1, meaning pack 2 was where I was going to get paid. I was passed the Primeval Titan, but from there was basically Mono-U for the pack. I just kept snatching Aether Adepts, Sleep, and fliers. It was a thing of beauty. Matthew Forner, the guy to Wrapter’s left, realized that things had gone horribly wrong when Wrapter passed him a Mind Control in pack 3. He had thought for sure Wrapter had to have the most insane Blue deck after pack 2, so when we faced each other in round 8, he fully expected the match-up to be a tough one for his B/W aggro deck full of 2/1 fliers that are poor at blocking.
Game 1, I manage to win mostly from Primeval Titan and Sleep, though it should be noted that I never played the Mountain I was holding, so he had no reason to suspect my Red splash. Game 2 sees me a bit flooded. I probably punted this game, despite the flood. At some point in the game, I Preordained a Pyroclasm to the bottom when he had no creatures that would currently die from it and I had two. I should have had the foresight to realize that I could eventually sculpt the game into a position where I could actually cash in big from it, especially since he didn’t know I had Red. To be fair, I wasn’t flooded at this point, but I did ship a great spell to the bottom. This one isn’t just hindsight, it was definitely a mistake.
Fortunately, I got to play first game 3 and just crushed him with a turn 3 Scroll Thief, followed by another Scroll Thief plus Unsummon, Then another Aether Adept, and finally a Mind Control.
6-2
Round 9 I faced eventual champion, Josh “Wrapter” Utter-Leyton. Our feature match ended with his B/R Bloodthrone Vampire, Act of Treason, Fling, Reassembling Skeletons, Viscera Seer deck “combo-ing off” against me. I made a couple of key mistakes in this match, most notably being a bit ambitious with my Unsummon early just to get damage in (not even a Scroll Thief hit). This cost me eventually, as I was an Unsummon away from being able to finish him with Primeval Titan before he could “combo.” I also blew a Cancel on a Sorcerer’s Strongbox early on, but Josh agreed afterward that it was the logical play for me to make at the time. I did save an Unsummon to counter his Act of Treason, but a second would have given me the time I needed, though I lost two straight, so who knows what game 3 would have brought?
6-3
Round 10 against Brian Boss was one of the most exciting games I have been a part of in a long time. He was playing a B/G beatdown deck with an above average amount of card advantage and removal. I win the first with a combination of Scroll Thief hits and Primeval Titan, but drop the second when his Acidic Slime destroyed my Mind Control.
In the deciding game, we are both facing elimination. I study my opening hand:
Mountain, Forest, Plummet, Preordain, Scroll Thief, Unsummon, Mind Control
With nine Islands, a Terramorphic Expanse, and Sylvan Ranger, I decide to keep it. Turn 2, no land. Turn 3, no land. To make matters worse, he is on a Llanowar Elf beatdown draw. I finally get there turn 4, but am really behind on board. I play with precision, totally focused on what it will take to give myself the chance to actually come back. I realize that there is no way I can possibly catch up without Pyroclasm, so I am going to shape the game in such a way so as to give myself the most looks at it. I am at a key turn where I could Preordain and hope for the Pyroclasm or, if he has no removal at all, I can chump with all my guys, drop to two, and see one card deeper. I decide to wait. Sure enough, he doesn’t have the removal spell, and he ships the turn. I draw, then Preordain. Neither of the top two is Pyroclasm, so cool, calm, I move them to the bottom, then look to friends…
… Of course, I am alone in the middle of the pit of despair, so there is no one to lend support. I close my eyes and silently imagine the form of Gabriel Nassif. “I believe in the Heart of the Cards…”
I peel the top card towards me, and in not altogether unbelievable state of reality, I find my Pyroclasm staring back at me. I Pyroclasm, ship the turn, and begin my comeback. His top card? A Steel Overseer. Now the details of my comeback are not so important, but take it from me, I played around everything, while giving myself the fastest clock I reasonably could (which turned out to be six turns). Also, take it from me, I realize that for five turns straight he did not draw Liliana Vess, Acidic Slime, Giant Growth, Howling Banshee, Diabolic Tutor, Corrupt, or one of his two Sign in Bloods. In fact, he drew land for five straight turns after that Steel Overseer. Still, sometimes the games in which you get the luckiest are the ones you remember as being most exciting. People that would seek to remove the luck from Magic would do well to remember that it is this same luck that helps make Magic so much more fun than many other games with the variance in a different place. Few actually want to play heads-up accounting for fun, so why make Magic into that? It’s a card game…
7-3
I can’t ask for much more than to escape the Limited portion still in contention, so I sat down across from Arthur Reynolds in round 11, playing a non-mainstream BUG beatdown deck with Vengevine; Putrid Leech; Sea Gate Oracle; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Maelstrom Pulse; Birds; Hierarchs; Fauna Shaman; and Mana Leak. I had not tested against such a deck, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the same reasons I am soft to Bant make me soft to Reynold’s deck. Game 1 was not close, with a turn 2 Leech beating down on me, and a stream of Vengevines beginning on turn 4. Sideboarding seemed promising, but my first four land were 3 Marsh Flats and a Creeping Tar Pit, leaving me struggling to get going. Eventually we reach a place where I had Jace, the Mind Sculptor on two loyalty, Creeping Tar Pit, Mana Leak, and a Preordain, but only 6 mana and only 2 life. I am facing a Putrid Leech and a Vengevine, with another Vengevine on top of his library, a mystery card in his hand, and six mana. What to do?
Bouncing the Leech is no good, as it ensures he will be able to lead with Vengevine #2 and make it stick. I can bounce the Vengevine, then Leak the one he plays, and hope his mystery card is not an untapped land, or a creature that costs two or less, or a Mana Leak. Then I can chump block his Leech and hopefully find a Baneslayer or Grave Titan next turn. The alternative line of play is to lead with Preordain and look for a Day of Judgment, Baneslayer, or Wall of Omens. Additionally, there are plenty of possible combinations of cheap spells that would make it possible to stabilize with a Jace Brainstorm. If I do hit right, my hope is to be able to stabilize the board, then fateseal my opponent’s Vengevine (that I know about from Oust). The cost to this plan is, of course, that if I don’t find action on top of my library, I am dead to the board. I look at top two, shipping a pair of Esper Charms to the bottom. With me at five mana and having already played a land for the turn, my top card… Grave Titan. At this point, I had no choice but to Brainstorm and hope my next three were some hot ones.
Path to Exile (Doing it!). Jace, the Mind Sculptor. And… another Grave Titan.
You could feel the writhing agony of my dreams shattering, like a drop of hope being eviscerated by a bullet.
7-4
While the fourth cut may be the deepest, and I was now out of contention, there was still work to do. My round twelve opponent, Craig Edwards was a very cool guy that impressed me with his extremely tight technical play, as I truly do believe that I would have defeated at least 19 out of 20 opponents in similar situations. I could tell he was very well versed with his deck, as he resolved every complex stack optimally, always making the tightest possible use of his Ricochet Traps, Twincasts, and Spell Pierces. Early on I hoped he was Ascension, one of my best match-ups. I knew I was in for a rocky road when he dropped a Howling Mine on turn 3 and I did not have a Counter.
Whereas the Ascension match-up is relatively easy (and one I practiced a great deal), my deck is certainly particularly vulnerable to Howling Mine decks, especially with my lack of Oblivion Rings or Into the Roils. The flood of cards makes my card advantage nearly meaningless, especially when I draw so many blanks. Even after sideboarding, I am stuck with lots of bad cards, like Baneslayers.
He finishes me game 1 easily after building up a critical mass needed to start taking extra turns. From there it is academic as he sets up a lethal Runeflare Trap barrage. Game 2 I had Leak up to protect me from a turn 2 Howling Mine, but he patiently waited until turn 3 and forced it through with a Ricochet Trap. To make matters more embarrassing, I drew two cards for my turn, then Preordained, and still did not find a fourth land. Awkward. From there it was just a matter of time before he could bottleneck me on mana. During the final showdown, he activated several Temple Bells during my draw phase then proceeding to begin a stack that involved me casting 3 Negates and 2 Flashfreezes, but I wasn’t even close to being able to live through his assault.
While I did miss a key land drop, I am pretty sure the match-up is miserable for me. I did start to wonder if perhaps there was a chance that the match-up was possibly a total lock for me, though. I had seen most of his deck, and it appeared that he could only win with Runeflare Traps. Maybe I was suppose to totally turtle up and just sitting with a hand of 4 Negates and 3 Flashfreezes, playing a land every turn and discarding. Then we he goes to kill me, I just focus on the Runeflare Traps. How could he beat me if I used this strategy? In the end, I decided against it, though, as it was just too likely that he had another kill card or that he would be able to beat me anyway.
I talked to him about it afterwards, and he showed me the way the game would have played out. He eventually would sculpt the perfect hand, go to kill me on my draw step, then lose the fight, but I would be tapped out and he would have lots of Howling Mines and Bells, and his last card would be Time Warp. Then on his turn he was draw DI, take another turn, and draw even more, the whole time filling my hand back to a large size, but this time tapped out. From here, it would be academic to Runeflare me out again. Besides, even if that failed, it turned out he had a single little Jace, anyway (which I would not have been able to beat).
7-5
My thirteenth opponent, Gabriel Carleton-Barnes, actually did have Pyromancer’s Ascension, so this match-up was much less painful. I picked the first game up easily after sticking a turn 4 Jace. Game 2, I anticipated the creature plan and still had removal in, so I wasn’t overly concerned about the turn 2 Kiln Fiend. Unfortunately, Gabriel played another on turn 3, and another on turn 4, and I was unable to stop the last one, which quickly killed me in a single hit.
Game 3 was a strange one in which I took six from a Kiln Fiend, one at a time. I guess he was stuck drawing lots of Counterspells and couldn’t progress the game much. I had a Path to Exile the whole time, but I thought it better to save it, rather than blow it at the first opportunity I had. In the end, I think it was definitely the right play and eventually Jace’s Ingenuity gave me the power to force through a Jace, the Mind Sculptor to take over the game.
8-5
My last round of the tournament was against Peter Ingram, and begin in an unusual fashion. I double mulliganed and didn’t know what he was playing, but kept a one-land hand with a Relic of Progenitus against his double mulligan. Much to my good cheer, I discovered he was on Dredgevine, so I managed to win despite not playing my second land until turn 4 (on turn 3, I Preordained and missed). His draw was pretty wretched, so don’t think this was any mean feat, or anything.
Game 2 we both came out blazing, but my Jace and Baneslayer managed to hold off his ever-growing army. It was a complex game that I could not do justice to with a description, but the end result was that I played around Spell Pierce plus Eldrazi Monument (which he had in his deck, and he was looting three times a turn). Eventually, I assemble the combination of Day of Judgment + Relic of Progenitus, then drop a Baneslayer to protect my Jace, and that’s game. I didn’t test the match-up a lot, but I am pretty sure it’s really good for me.
9-5
Seeing as I am have already used up September AND October’s word quota, I guess I do not really have time to get into the hilarity of Karaoke night, once we all joined the Dave Guskin caravan. He lead us to a promised land, a land that would allegedly involve 30 gamers busting out heartfelt renditions of ballads such as Meat Loaf’s “Anything for Love.” To our overwhelming shock, we discovered that we were 60 gamers deep in a karaoke bar containing almost 300 singers. Brian Kibler, Zac Hill, Dave Guskin, Tom LaPille, Tom Martell, Steve Sadin, Nate Price, Sam Black, Ben Rasmussen, Tim Flores, Steve and Lindsey Port, Jason Ness, Lissa Jensen, Amanda Bornhofer, and of course Zvi Mowshowitz himself helped raise the energy at the bar to unprecedented levels, including the most powerful “Weird Al” Yankovich “White and Nerdy” rendition I have ever seen, and Kibler’s show-stopping, “Ice, Ice Baby” (Vanilla Ice).
We dominated the bar much the same way Brad Nelson would dominate a 4-3-2-2 on a Merry-go-round against four small children, two kittens, and a ham sandwich. By the end of the night, the crowd of hundreds were chanting “ZVI, ZVI, ZVI, ZVI, ZVI, ZVI, ZVI, ZVI!” From there, an after-party sprouted up at Tim Flores’ (and GerryT’s) place, much to the chagrin of a very sleepy John Penick. A night to remember, to be sure. The times were wild and crazy, the hilarity bottomless, and the vibe super positive. I am blessed to have had a chance to roll with such an awesome posse.
Next Stop… Pro Tour: Amsterdam!
Props
Brian Hacker- For inventing Props and Slops.
Josh “Wrapter” Utter-Leyton- The champ is here!
Michael Flores- Our podcast on YoMtgTaps! is going to be epic!
Joey and Big Head Joe of YoMtgTaps- See above!
Tom Ross– Lending me the Soul Sister’s deck he played in National’s to spar against Flores’s Ascension deck.
Brian Kibler– Show-stopping in multiple formats.
Matt Sperling and Paul Rietzl– Being awesome to room with.
The Bartender who thought he was “getting me” by “Ice-ing” me- Thanks Bra!
Amanda- So much less, it’s not even funny.
LSV, Wrapter, Ochoa, and Martrell- Thanks for hosting me in Cali!
Dave Guskin- Whenever you want to cause pirate mischief, you have only to say the word. You go hard!
Patrick Sullivan– This is pretty much a given, right? Your move, playa!
Slops
Me- Opting out of the game at Fogo de Chao when Kibler was in (How much better of odds do you need?)
Jeff Cunningham– When will he return?! His spirit haunts me.
The guy that dropped an industrial sized box of detergent in the fountain- Okay, sure, it was funny to look, but you didn’t exactly clean up after yourself!
Calosso Fuentes- Who lies about their deck to someone they know? Did you think you wouldn’t have “em” Spread? (Still, hugs, though!)
People that sell Apple Juice for $4 a serving- What do you think happens to people like you after you die? I am obviously not talking the people just doing their job at the register.
Gadiel and Goodman- Couldn’t even bother to cross the street to play in the event? Obv great to see you guys, but you are making it too easy on heads by showing up and bashing ’em.
Everyone waiting for MTGO results to do the 1.X testing for them- Maybe this should be a props, because I sure am happy about this tomfoolery!
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”