"'Because they were suited!' That is the worst bullsh** explanation I have ever heard. Davis you are the biggest luck sack ever, and the worst poker player I have ever seen play. I can't believe my trips just lost to a pocket five, and ten. Who calls a pre-flop raise, then calls an all in while still needing a card on the river? What the hell is that! You are truly horrible."

The nights before Magic tournaments are always better than the tournament itself. There is nothing better than hanging out with the guys and playing some cards. I used to be better at Magic, but now I have more fun. I look back five years ago and see myself surrounded by the same basic group of guys. We still drive up the night before the tourney. We still drink, but one thing has changed. Instead of playing Magic the night before, we play poker. It is true that sometimes we hit up a club, or a bar, but we never playtest the night before the tourney anymore. Never.

Flash forward to the next day to find three members of the crew in the top eight. Unfortunately, I am not one of them, as Greater Harvester took me out twice in the tourney, banishing me to the X-2 bracket where dreams are broken. I decided to watch the top 8 and take a few notes. What ensued was the worst Magic I have ever witnessed in my life, leaving me with one question: Where have all the good players gone?

Below are the top five Magic quotes for the day.

5)"I will Electrostatic Bolt you. Well in response, I will Electrostatic Bolt you, well then I will cast Fiery Gambit." Can people no longer read? There are things in Magic called sorceries and instants. You can not play a sorcery as an instant.

4)"I will drop Engineered Explosives for sunburst two. Then sacrifice it to kill your Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Platings." I quickly nudge the judge and shake my head. He stares at the board and then replies,"Oh yeah, your Engineered Explosives has summoning sickness due to March of the Machines. You can't use it until next turn."

3)"I can't believe you Duplicanted my Tornado Elemental. I have never lost when I Tooth and Nailed, but I am at six and you can just have Duplicant deal damage as though it weren't blocked. There is nothing I can do to stop that. Guess I'll just scoop." That's right folks, Duplicant has become Clone. Didn't you read the Errata?

2)"I never thought about putting Cloudpost in Tooth and Nail. They truly speed it up. I will have to think about how to fit those into my deck." Normally this would just qualify as a scrub, but a 5-1 scrub?

1)"Next time I will take out my Tooth and Nails and all my big stuff. That way I don't have to worry about Condescend." Yet another wonderful quote heard from the top 8.

And the bonus quote is,"Why can't I cast my Eternal Witness? Doesn't Cloudpost automatically give you a mana when it comes into play? I mean it is tapped so shouldn't it give you a mana?" If there had been a hint of sarcasm in this quote I would have busted out laughing. Instead, I was left pondering why do I play this game? Is this guy really better than I am?

Next up I would like to take a look at some of the better plays of the day. These all came from the final round of Swiss, or the top 8.

6) A Tooth player looks at their hand of Forest, Forest, Tooth, Tooth, Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, and Reap and Sow. This player is going first and is playing against Big Red. They decided to keep this lovely hand and proceed to draw land, Troll Ascetic, Troll Ascetic, and a wonderful Troll Ascetic. They proceed to win and make top eight. Isn't it fabulous that Magic rewards skill rather than luck?

5) This play is from the fabulous top 8. An Affinity player looks at his hand, and then the table. His opponent is at ten. He is holding a Grab the Reins and a Frogmite. He has two Disciples of the Vault, a Frogmite, and Lightning Greaves in play. Yes, Lightning Grieves. His opponent has just cast Platinum Angel. He stares at the board for about three minutes. He cast Grab the Reins targeting the Platinum Angel. The surprise of having it resolve versus a tapped out Tooth player must have excited him so that he forgot to cast the Frogmite. He swings for eight, then stares at the board a little while longer and scoops his cards.

4) This next play is from yet another fabulous top 8 player. He swings with his pair of Pristine Angels. His opponent tries to kill one. In response, he casts Echoing Truth and says,"Well they are better in my hand than dead." He then proceeds to actually pick the Angels up and places them in his hand. You would think that someone actually playing Pristine Angel as their kill card would spend at least three minutes to have someone properly explain to them how the card works.

3) This play comes from our quotes, but appears here as it happened in a top 8 match."Why can't I cast my Eternal Witness? Doesn't Cloudpost automatically give you a mana when it comes into play? I mean it is tapped, so shouldn't it give you a mana?" I could see this happening in a PTQ, but in the top 8? Also, there were no cards in the player's graveyard, and their opponent had zero creatures in play. Both players were at twenty. There was no reason to try a cheat. Conclusion either: I need to learn how to play this game, or what the hell? Maybe Eternal Witness is just a ten-turn clock.

2) A Tooth and Nail player is starring down an Arc-Slogger, Solemn Simulacrum, and another creature while his opponent has a single Red mana available. He top decks a Tooth and Nail while holding Mephidross Vampire, Platinum Angel times two, and an Eternal Witness. He proceeds to cast Tooth and Nail entwined. He has six mana remaining, and gets the two perfect creatures; Triskelion, and Abunas. He then proceeds to drop Mephidross and Triskelion. What is he doing? He doesn't have White mana to cast Abunas. He should drop Abunas and the Vampire. Then cast Trike. The Tooth player activates Trike, and proceeds to wipe out the entire Red player's team. Granted there was nothing the Red player could do to stop that, but why didn't he kill the Trike? In response to one of the activations, mister Arc Slogger could have done a fine job in mowing down the pesky artifact creature.

Also, why should he have even been allowed to target the Triskelion? Why was Abunas not in play? This Tooth and Nail play was brought to you by yet another top 8 player.

1) The next play comes from a quarterfinal match. The matchup is Tooth versus Affinity. The Tooth player cast a turn 1 Wayfarer's Bauble. On his turn 2, he uses the Bauble during his main phase. Later in the match he has zero cards in his hand, and proceeds to draw and play a Forest. Has the art of bluffing become lost in Magic? Should a Blue player cast Accumulated Knowledge during his main phase because he does not have a Counterspell? What is going on in Magic? The Tooth player's opponent had a Ravager in play with double Vault of the Whispers. He could have untapped, laid two Disciples, and swung for lethal with no fear, as the Tooth player was tapped out. When did we all forget about things called instants?

0) The final bonus play is complex and involves two of the top 8 players in the fifth round of Swiss. The setting is game two of Blue/Green, versus Blue/Green/White. The UGW player is up one game to zero with seven minutes left in the round. He currently has an Eternal Witness in play. His opponent has the new Merfolk Looter, Thought Courier. He is holding Last Word times two, Condescend, and a Rude Awakening. All he has to do is survive the next six minutes and he wins the match 1-0. His opponent has three times Last Word, and one times Condescend in his graveyard, while having four cards in his hand. Both players have access to fourteen mana.

There are two possible decisions for the UGW player to make. First, he can continue to beat down with his Eternal Witness, and try to either win off the Witness (his opponent is down to eight life), or stall for the 1-0 victory. The only card that his opponent can kill him with is Rude Awakening, and none have been cast this game. His opponent at best has three Rude Awakenings, a Last Word, and three Condescends. If the UGW player chooses to play for the 1-0 victory, all he has to do is Last Word the first two Rude Awakenings, and hope to draw a second Condescend, or an Eternal Witness before his opponent can draw his third Rude Awakening.

The second option is to cast Rude Awakening, and bet that his opponent does not have the last of his Last Words in hand. He can counter any Condescend with Last Word. If he cast Rude Awakening, and his opponents hand consists of Rude Awakening, Last Word number four, and Condescend number two, the UGW player will lose.

What follows is the most bizarre play ever. The UGW player casts Rude Awakening. The UG player uses the Courier to draw a card and discard a Forest. This leaves him with four cards in hand. He then casts the spell he drew.

A quick aside: always shuffle your hand after drawing a card in a key moment during the game. Do not draw, discard a card you did not draw, and then cast the card drawn.

That spell happens to be Condescend for seven. The UGW player stares at the board for a long while, and then passes the turn. The problem now is that he cannot double Last Word and Condescend. He can only Condescend for one and cast Last Word. He chose to half ass the two possible plays - he neither failed to go for the win nor tried to draw out the match for the win. The worst that could have happened if his Rude Awakening had been countered is that he would have a draw. He would have bet that his opponent did not have two of his remaining four counterspells in hand. Now, he proceeds to lose.

The UG player cast Rude Awakening without entwining it. This leaves him with six available mana. A Last Word on this spell would do nothing. A Condescend for one would leave the mana tapped. Then a Last Word would have to be cast. To make a long story short, the UG player was holding two Rude Awakenings and an Eternal Witness. There was no possible out for the UGW player. He lost the game, and tied the match.

This weekend was a blast, but has rocked my fundamental knowledge of the game. I watched players time and time again sacrifice all of their permanents, and swing with all their counters on a Ravager. Every time, they were playing a Green deck that did not have eight Oxidizes and Tel-Jilad Justice in their graveyards. Their opponents were not tapped out. Time and time again, I watched players with empty hands draw and lay a land. I myself drew ten lands in a row after a Death Cloud as I watched a Viridian Shaman bring me my death over eight turns. I spent ten minutes with an assistant judge going over why an opponent could not put a counter on Aether Vial and put a Moriok Rigger into play before sacrificing the Vial to Molder Slug.

When people ask me what is wrong with American Magic, I must respond with the fact that we do not know how to read, we do not know how to bluff, and we do not know the rules to the game. The current format allows players regardless of skill to win. Am I great at Magic? No. But I do know that there are spells called instants, that tapping out against Ravager is a bad idea, and that not holding a card in your hand can sometimes be suicide. But then I have watched bad players win constantly because they either lack fear or knowledge. They cast Rude Awakening in the UG mirror by tapping out on turn 8 when their opponent has yet to play a single counterspell. It doesn't get countered and they win. Are they insightful innovative players, and I am just a overly cautious, old school, horrible player? Who is right, and who is wrong is an answer I am searching for, but they are in the top eight and I am not.

As the weekend came to a close, I was happy about one thing. I did not have to go home and commit suicide, as the best player in the top 8 did actually win. Congratulations Sean, and good luck in Columbus. I will still never know about that Leveler game, but for now I will let it slide. While I think your card selections were quite the pile, you knew how to play you deck. Knowing how to play your deck is the single most important thing in any Magic format. It also helped that you understood there were these things called instants, you informed your opponents that Cloudpost do not provide mana when they come into play, and I am happy that you did not lose to an Affinity deck running Pyrite Spellbombs.

In closing, why are American Magic players on the decline? Simple - they have no competition. There are few up and coming players. My skills at Magic haven't changed in the last six years, but now I finish 5-2 or in the top 8 instead of 3-4. I look around and watch the top eight, and wonder who is right? Are they horrible players, or do I not comprehend the game anymore? I wonder where Jon Becker, John Shuler, John Sorrentino, John Slaughter, and all of the other great John's of Virginian Magic have gone? [Tragically Sorrentino has shuffled off this mortal coil, but the rest are still around. - Knut] Where are the Doctors, Lawyers, and College Professors that use to sling spells? Why must I play eight rounds versus thirty-five year old pizza delivery drivers who live in their mom's basement? Where is Jamie Wakefield? Where are my boxers, and where have all the good players gone?

Till next time may you call Matt Scott with a suited ten and five.

Happy Beatings,

JD