Let me tell you of my first-ever Magic tournament experience... And the mistakes I made.

There were about thirty-five people at the tournament, all jammed into the back of a small card store at the local mall. Some of the people seemed to have interesting hairstyles, but for the most part they seemed like nice people. The packs are passed out (one tournament pack of Odyssey and three packs of Judgment) and we have forty minutes to create our decks.

I open the Odyssey pack first, fly through the commons and uncommons, and look at the rares. The first rare I see looking up at me is a beautiful Iridescent Angel. I think that card is really good; I should definitely use it. At the same time a kid at the same table as me starts yelling,"You win! No, seriously, use that and you win!" adding to my excitement. Another rare from the odyssey pack is an Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor. By now I have just about decided that I am going to play blue/white and win with the Angel.

Wow; looking back, I was quite dumb. First off, I flew through the commons and uncommons even though they're the cards that will make up the structure of the deck. In all, I had forty-five non-land cards to look at and I'd decided what I was playing after looking at only three of them. If you're not one who's quick with math that's only 6.66% of my total Odyssey card pool. Even more pathetic was the fact that I really only concentrated on the Iridescent Angel, of which I only had one. I assumed that I would have enough time to pull it each game and would always win with it.

Another thing that I did which wasn't so bright was to decide the colors I would play before I even looked at the other half of my cards.

I was now excited thinking that I could go all the way with an overpowered Iridescent Angel deck! I opened the Judgment packs. Let's see.... Shaman's Trance, not that useful.... Phantom Nishoba, seems okay but it costs seven and has a green mana... Ernham Djinn? Why would I want to give their stuff forestwalk? And anyways, I'm not using green. Three colors is too much without pain or dual lands.

Incredibly, even in a paragraph that short I made several mistakes. Once again, I skipped through everything except for rares but this time it hurt me more because I didn't read the cards so sometimes I would use them wrong. Ernham Djinn is awesome in sealed deck. Why would I want to give one of my opponents' creatures forestwalk? Let's see... Maybe I wanted to walk all over them with my turn 4 4/5 while they hit me with an unblockable Harvest Druid - or god forbid, a Dwarven Scorcher for one? Phantom Nishoba seems okay and the casting cost is high... I think I was high. What was I thinking?

Let's compare Phantom Nishoba to my beloved Iridescent Angel. Both have converted casting costs of seven, yet I didn't think twice about Iridescent Angel. The angel has protection from all colors and flying so its damage will always go through. The phantom has trample and three more power and toughness - so even if it is blocked by a, 3/3 the same amount of damage will got through and it will become a 6/6, which still isn't bad. Plus, for every damage he deals I gain a life making him an Armadillo Cloaked 5/5. When the force of the Phantom begins to dwindle, so will the creatures available for your opponent - so even if the phantom dies, you can kill them with everything else that you're packing. Even if the Phantom died, I would have gained twenty-eight life and definitely be in a position to win.

And yet there is yet another mistake I was making: I thought three colors was too much without pain or dual lands. That may be true in other tournaments, but since most people were playing three colors, my deck couldn't be that much slower than any of theirs. With three colors, I could have played the Nishoba and the Angel at the same time!

I made my deck and it looked like this.
8x Island
8x Plains
1x Abandoned Outpost
1x Cephalid Coliseum

2x Suntail Hawk
2x Lead Astray

Shelter
Mystic Visionary
Trained Pronghorn
Valor
Benevolent Bodyguard
Cease-Fire
Hallowed Healer
Patrol Hound
Guided Strike
Shieldmage Advocate
Battle Screech
Angelic Wall
Battlewise Aven
Chastise (It feels so good to say"I'll Chastise that")

2x Defy Gravity
Touch of Invisibility
Peek
Mental Note
Wormfang Drake
Web of Inertia
Cephalid Looter
Wonder
Rites of Refusal
Standstill

Patchwork Gnomes

When I played this deck, some unexpected synergies began. Many cards required threshold and my deck was packed full of cantrips to fill up the graveyard and possibly allow me to discard Valor and/or Wonder. A combo also emerged between Web of Inertia (which says your opponent must remove a card from their graveyard before they can attack) and Shieldmage Advocate (which can remove cards from your opponent's graveyard to prevent damage). Together, these cards occasionally locked down opponents allowing me to win.

The outcomes of the matches aren't so important to the message of the article, so I'll be brief. Match one the first game he's mana screwed and I get the Angel. In the second, I get him with the aforementioned Shieldmage/Web combo.

Second match, I lose a half-hour game where I survived a Wayward Angel only to succumb to a Mirari's Wake. Second game, I fly all over him. We never finish the third game.

Match number three, I get mana screwed in both games getting only three land after seeing twenty-six cards. The guy I was playing was named Nate. After the match, we had a lot of time so he asked to compare decks. According to him I used too few land and creatures; I believe him, because he seems very confident with his suggestions. He then asks to look at all the other cards I pulled. He thinks my deck is okay, but starts going wild when he sees what I got for green. Apparently this guy is really smart and says I could have swept every match had I used green.

It pains me to write it, but here are the good green cards that I pulled.

Moment's Peace
Giant Warthog
Rites of Spring
Skyshooter
Battlefield Scrounger
Anurid Barkripper
Phantom Tiger

And the bombs:
Werebear
Tunneler Wurm
Exoskeletal Armor
Roar of the Wurm
Thaumatog
Ernham Djinn

...and of course, Phantom Nishoba.

Suddenly I realize how I threw out all chance I had of winning the prize by getting tunnel vision from my Iridescent Angel. In case anyone cares, I won my fourth match with my Web of Inertia against a guy who had only played for two weeks; I felt proud of myself. So I finished 2-1-1 and came in eleventh out of about thirty five - woo hoo!

"But we could have won," says the other half of my brain. Then the other half counters with,"Still, I bet you thought it was cool that one time we got out Iridescent Angel and won, cause ya know, they couldn't block it. We could have won."

I think you get the picture: Deck made for one card = Bad.

By Brad Mish
Ninth grader