ASK THE JUDGE, 05/13/2005

FEATURE FRIDAY: Pro Tour Philadelphia and Crazy EDH Stacks

Let's cover the business end first. You will be completely uninterested in what I did while working Pro Tour Philadelphia. It involved mostly administrative work, arranging, preparing for, and performing Level 3 interviews. There's not much to say that wouldn't elicit a yawn from most of you. I will say thanks to Jaap Brouwer for all the work we did together over the weekend. Jaap is indeed the hardest working Judge at the Pro Tour.

We ate at an interesting place called Tangerine on Thursday night. It was just up Market Street from the hotel, about 10 blocks, so we walked. I'd call it a casual elegant place featuring Mediterranean- and French-influenced fare. The wine list was okay, so we ordered a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape off of it (much to the delight of Scott Larabee, who has declared the appellation "gooder than good") to go with a bottle of Chateau d'Agassac 2000 that I had brought specifically for the High-Level dinner. The d'Agassac is a great Cru Burgeois from the Haut Medoc that has more of a caramel flavor (without being sweet) than any red wine I've ever had. The meal was good but not spectacular, but the company of Scott, Gis Hoogendijk, Jaap Brouwer, Rune Horvik, John Carter, David Vogin, John Grant, and Mike Guptil was outstanding. We discussed some stuff that you'll be hearing about soon enough, but nothing earth-shattering. The DCI Judge program is humming along quite well, thank you.

On Friday morning, I was humbled by a wonderful gift from our own Chris Richter, who in celebration of me making Level 5, brought me a bottle of Cain Five Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2000. It's a wonderful bottle of wine, but it will almost be a shame to drink it; I'd love to keep it as a souvenir. My other favorite gift of the weekend was some salsicce secchi brought all the way from Italy by my dear friend Riccardo Tessitori, at the insistence of his wife, the lovely (and banned in all formats) Cristiana. The nearest I can describe it is sausage jerky soaked in olive oil. It was delicious, but not for the faint of heart or stomach.

The experiment with a new time structure for a Constructed PT was a success. We made the rounds 75 minutes, leading to far fewer draws (which were bad for the players, given the prize payout structure), and still getting us out by around 8pm both nights. Getting out that early allowed us to play much Elder Dragon Highlander (for which our friends Paul Morris and Cari Foreman have put up a page).

It was during one of those EDH games that Kennedy Compound Memorial Stack (so named because, as you'll see, Lord of Tresserhorn got passed around more than Marilyn Monroe) happened. To set the stage, we started as a five-player game: Gis, playing Chromium, Scott Larabee playing Lord of Tresserhorn, Duncan McGregor playing Jacques Le Vert, Rafael dei Svaldi (an excellent Judge from Brazil) playing Duncan's Cromat deck, and me, of course, playing Pheldagriff. On a side note, Tom Fowler, a fine DC area Judge and avid 5-color player, actually shook my hand when he saw me drop Pygmy Hippo on the table.

Duncan had already showed us much silliness the previous night by playing his annoy and confuse deck (for which WotC's Alan Comer joined us). It's a good thing there were some 20-odd levels of judges at the table, because once Sands of Time and the associated silliness hit the table (of course there was Humility), we needed to be rules gurus to figure it all out. That being said, if you're prepared for it, Sands of Time can actually be kind of interesting. It can give you basically a second untap if you put the beginning-of-upkeep triggers on the stack, then use your untapped things to play stuff.

Unfortunately for Duncan, we had had enough of his shenanigans the previous night. When he said (and I swear this is the first time I've ever heard this) "In response to you activating that card draw ability, I'll play Chains of Mephistopheles as an Instant" (via Vedalken Orrery), his fate was sealed. This play lead me to ask Duncan if he wondered why he doesn't have any friends.* Because this was in a game where Duncan had also played Endless Whispers as an Instant in response to a board-sweeper (which probably elicited the loudest reaction of the night from super-spectators Toby Elliot and Chris Richter), Scott followed that up by smacking him senseless with large men. Watching Toby and Chris circling the table and laughing hysterically every time someone drew a card was nearly as entertaining as the game itself.

When the stack from hell happened, we all had many permanents on the board. Earlier, Gis and I had played dueling Mind's Eyes (mine being a Copy Artifact of his), drawing silly numbers of cards. Rafael had just played on his turn Pernicious Deed, and had 11 mana up. I took my turn, Gis took his, and then it was to Scott. Obviously, everyone was antsy about the Deed.

Scott had Heartless Hidetsugu in play (which, for the benefit of my dear friend Molly Pool, I'll remind you also damages its controller), but was lower on life than everyone, so he was more using it as a deterrent than anything. He also had Flametongue Kavu and Recurring Nightmare in play, and a graveyard chock full of fatties. Activating Recurring Nightmare started the avalanche.

Scott targeted Clone in his graveyard with Recurring Nightmare's ability, sacrificing FTK. There were multiple Legendary creatures on the table at the time, including Rafael's Cromat, my Myojin of Cleansing Fire and Keiga, the Tide Star, and Gis' Merieke ri Berit. There was nervousness. Rafael thought for a minute, and decided to put Cromat on top of his library. We let that resolve, and then Gis asked for priority. He activated Merieke, to steal Keiga. I really wasn't particularly happy about that and I saw the writing on the table, so I decided to activate the Myojin ability.

Then the flurry started in true. Scott put a regeneration shield on LoT, which everyone let resolve. Gis then put Merieke in his Safe Haven, and promptly stole LoT with Callous Oppressor.** Both of these resolved, and I attempted to play Capsize with Buyback on my Myojin. Rafael said "screw it" (or its Portuguese equivalent) and blew the Deed for 11. Gis put a regeneration shield on LoT and then Cycled Undead Gladiator. I knew there wasn't any sense in waiting any longer, so I played Read the Runes for ten, sacrificing the permanents that were going to be destroyed by the Deed anyway. Gis resolved five triggers of Mind's Eye off of my draws.

The stack started resolving, with the Deed blowing up all the non-lands still in play, except for LoT, which of course used up one of its regeneration shields. At that point my Keiga (which Gis had never successfully stolen, since Merieke was hiding in the Safe Haven) triggered, and I became the third player during the resolution of this meta-stack to control Scott's General (after a brief visit back to Scott when Callous Oppressor was destroyed by Pernicious Deed). Capsize was naturally countered on resolution due to an invalid target, the Myojin ability went off eating up LoT's last remaining regeneration shield, and finally, Recurring Nightmare resolved. Clone came into play, and the only thing to copy was Lord of Tresserhorn, so they both went away.

When the dust cleared, 44 mana had been spent among the four players, and only land remained. I knew that I had to write it up, because it was a great example of how the stack works, with something starting it, and players getting priority back every time something resolves. Sometimes you can respond, sometimes you can let spells or abilities resolve and then do something. Thanks to Toby Elliot for writing a shorthand version of events so that I could share it with you all.

That I eventually killed everyone at that table with the two-fisted combo of Serra Avatar and Clone doesn't hold a candle to the craziest stack I've ever seen. If you've had a stack from beyond, write it up in the forums and tell us about it.

More EDH ensued on other nights, but that's a story for another day. In the meantime, remember that Orim's Chant is not a Counterspell.***

See you next week.

*I'm sure Duncan has friends. And friends don't let friends play Chains of Mephistopheles as an Instant.

**Remember, kids, "Legend" is no longer a creature type, so no longer as choice for Callous Oppressor.

***And, according to Scott, my alternate Pheldagriff deck "really sucks."