So here's a real shocker: I went to a T2 tournament and went 3-2. Ahh, Friday Night Magic, home of randomness. I played my own personal creation taken from my UBC Con-Troll deck. Here's the list with report and analysis to follow:

4 Vine Trellis
4 River Boa
2 Albino Troll
1 Devout Witness
3 Yavimaya Elder
2 Morphling
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Power Sink
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Stroke of Genius
2 Blaze
1 Desert Twister
1 Worship
2 Treachery
4 Treetop Village
4 City of Brass
1 Mountain
1 Plain
7 Forest
7 Island

SB
4 Annul
3 Mana Short
1 Quash
4 Hibernation
1 Treachery
2 Misdirection

Essentially, put out creatures that are hard to kill so you don't have to waste counters defending them, counter key plays or momentum shifts, and play chess until you get out Superman or a random Blaze for 8. Heavily sideboarded for Accelerated blue, Bargain and random stuff that I was sure to see.

Round 1 Bargain, Tom

What the hell?!? This is supposed to be a fun, casual environment! He drops a foil Peat Bog and I saw him play a lot of Top 8 Bargain in UBC qualifiers, so I am naturally worried. I play a City of Brass. He drops an Island and a Grim Monolith?!? Donate-Crypt? A couple turns later, I have River Boa on the board with a counter ready and mana to cast it when he casts Show and Tell, I think that I'll just counter Donate or drop stuff in the Graveyard and say ok. He drops Bargain. Oops. Eventually, he gets the Skirge engine going and Feasts on my soul five times in a row. In go 4 Annuls and a Quash. Against his version, I have to stop the Delusions of Mediocrity and disrupt his mana generation. I Sink for two when he has 5 available mana, I counter his Monoliths, etc, and get a couple of hits in. He Perishes away my Boa, Elder and fresh cast Troll, so he has no pressure. He gets out Bargain and starts to draw, cast, draw, cast, draw, cast Ritual-QUASH! He just looks at me, looks at his hand, back and forth a couple of times…“Dark Ritual in response…” He stalls from there as he has only one Monolith left in his deck. I am so proud of myself. Granted, he stalled due to bad construction, but I strategized correctly and won the third game as well due to stopping the mana accelerators.

Round 2 Pattern.dec, Peter

I worked for a good six weeks on UBC Pattern and couldn't make it work. This guy made a great deck that transitioned well to T2, especially a random field like tonight's. He has no basic lands, 4 Birds, 4 Trellis, Plaguelord, Phyrexian Ghouls (very good in his deck) a couple Rectors, Thornie, Multani, Contamination, Confiscate, Worship, Opposition, Villages, etc. He beats me in two great games, due to superior deck construction (Confiscate my Morphling while I am tapped out due to Opposition, and Contamination with multiple Trellis to continue to play Patterns with, fetching Plaguelord followed by Thornie. I was happy to lose to him (as happy as losing can make you), as we had a good match and played fun decks. Hope to see you next week, Peter.

Round 3 Food Chain.drek, Ben (? Wouldn't really talk to me)

Short and excruciatingly painful for him. First game, he puts out third turn Food Chain by dropping Thran Quarry with no creatures in play. I let him Stone Rain himself at end of turn, play my second Island with two other land and Vine Trellis in play, holding a counter rather than playing a Morphling. He fails to play a land, gets his Vine Trellis countered, and Morphling comes into play next turn, only to be speed bumped by a Dragoons. Second game he gets out second turn Scald that doesn't effect the way I play one iota. Fourth turn Morphling joins River Boa and Elder to go all the way, with a 2 point Blaze to finish him a turn earlier. I could have played a fifth turn Morphling too, but I believe in winning and losing gracefully. I guess he didn't feel the same way, because he wouldn't even look at me after the game.

Round 4 U/G Exploration, Jose

I had watched his third round game, as he was playing a local“pro” and losing to Accelerated Blue due to not understanding cards like Cursed Totem (He was the one who played it, c'mon! And he paid three for it. Who mana burns?) and Misdirection (also in his deck! And he got wrecked by it!). He thinks he is amazing, and even had the gall to lie to Gabe Higa (a local pro there) that he was on the Tour in LA! Jose is like 17-20 years old, and still acting like he's in the 4th grade. Unfortunately, I know it will be a tough match due to his Dominates and Treacheries, and lose game one to drawing into double Village that prevents me from developing fast enough to deal with Palinchron. In go 4 Annuls for Masticore and Exploration and 2 Misdirection. *Glaring mistake here: Mana Short anyone?* I get a better draw here and should have won, but due to the 8k rating, get screwed on the following two plays. He attempts to Creeping Mold my Treetop Village, I Misdirect it onto the Treachery he took my River Boa with. He starts yelling that it can't target that, yada, yada, yada. I call the judge. Jose still won't agree with me. I don't want to win on a technicality, but this guy is a sandy butthole and I don't want to play with him. He is arguing with me and the judge, and I ask the judge to give him a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct or failure to agree on reality, as he is using foul language. The judge declines any of my offers, and kills Jose's Treachery, to which Jose mutters something nasty. He topdecks Palinchron after Gushing and rolls me. In the second game, he has 9 lands including Treetop Village. He Misdirects one of my spells, tapping 8 lands in his excitement. I declare my attack with my Village as he has tapped all his creatures, so he burns to death. No, he starts yelling that he was activating his Village, which he didn't declare. I call the judge. Jose's cards are all skewed at angles between 45 and 90 degrees, except for his Village and an Island. Mine are at 90-degree angles to show being tapped, except for the Village, which hasn't tapped yet as I haven't declared attackers as he died to mana burn. I tell the judge that either he is misrepresenting his cards, or that he burned to death. The judge agrees with me and doesn't even give him a warning. I lose. This was a pretty bad way to end my top 4 hopes.

5th Round

I scared my opponent with the dazzling rhetoric from my previous game so badly he went home. Ok, whatever.

In hindsight, I should have played my Ponza deck with 4 Scalds, 3 Boils, 4 Vandals and 3 Cursed Totems in the SB. Mmmmm, Blue hate. The Con-Troll deck did what it was supposed to and, I was very pleased with it's overall performance, but it's slow draws are too slow for the environment, I think. Of course, fourth turn Morphling is pretty good when it joins a River Boa.

Oh well, who need a foil Terror anyway?

Good luck and have fun,
Erik Berg
galtwish@hotmail.com