Norwegian Nationals have never been my tournament. First of all, I have to play Constructed, which always seems like too much work and too little fun. So usually, I end up with some random deck, perhaps having played it a couple of times before the tournament.

One thing we noticed last year at Nationals was that nobody in Oslo had really tested Standard that much. So we vowed to test more this year and break the format. However, when we started testing I quickly became demoralized that it seemed really hard to create a deck that beat both Tooth and Nail and Mono-Red, which we anticipated would be the top decks of the tournament. Our most promising prospect for a long time was a Green/Red deck with Thoughts of Ruin. Unfortunately, the deck was too inconsistent and wasn't really very good against anything. At one point, I had almost caved in and decided to play mono-Red myself.

Luckily, one day my teammate Tarjei posts this deck on ICQ:

4 Enduring Ideal
4 Pentad Prism
3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Talisman of Progress
4 Chrome Mox
2 Wrath of God
4 Serum Visions
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Form of the Dragon
1 Genju of the Realm
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
1 Ivory Mask
1 Zur's Weirding
3 Confiscate
21 Land.

At the Saviors prerelease in Trondheim, I opened an Enduring Ideal in the Top 8 draft and raredrafted it, showing it to all and declaring that I would play it at Nationals. However, as we discussed what such a deck would look like, we came to the conclusion that it would just be a worse version of Tooth - more prone to mana issues, less powerful in its win condition and so on.

This version, however, showed a lot more promise. We did about a hundred goldfish draws on Apprentice, and the first results showed that we would play Ideal on turn 4 or earlier about 60% of the time. The challenge was just: Would we usually win if we did that?

Against beatdown decks, it seemed simple. Ivory Mask + Form of the Dragon would be game against mono-Red. Meishin would be game against mono-White. Against Black decks, Form of the Dragon would probably be good enough in itself. Against Tooth, Zur's Weirding and Confiscate could stop them from assembling the Tron and thus lock them out of the game.

At this point, we felt like we had a deck that could be tuned to be good enough to beat the field, which we expected to be composed of mostly Tooth, Red decks and Black decks. After much tuning, we ended up with the following:

"Good Form"
4 Enduring Ideal
4 Pentad Prism
4 Seething Song
4 Talisman of Progress
4 Chrome Mox
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Form of the Dragon
1 Genju of the Realm
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
1 Ivory Mask
1 Zur's Weirding
3 Confiscate
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Shivan Reef
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Orobo, Palace in the Clouds
1 Uname (???)
3 Island

Sideboard:
3 Wrath of God
3 Sowing Salt
3 Mana Leak
3 Boiling Seas
3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

The biggest innovation was probably the Seething Songs. First of all, they sped up the deck immensely. Now, we had about a 70% ratio of turn 4 "kills", with about 1/4 of those being turn 3 kills. Even turn 2 kills weren't unheard of. The Sleights of Hand were also really good at increasing the consistency of the deck.

Since most of our testing took place before U.S. Nationals, we did most of our testing against Tooth and Nail and mono-Red. We tested about 50 each of pre- and postsideboarded games against the Tooth and Nail version Terry Soh played in the Invitational, and about the same against a various versions of mono-Red. We figured that mono-Red decks with a lot of creatures and burn (instead of land destruction) were our worst matchup, so we did more testing against that. Against Tooth, they generally have to have a quick Urzatron in order to win. If you get to cast Enduring Ideal, you can stop them from drawing what they need with Zur's Weirding, and perhaps also steal some Urza's lands with Confiscate. Note that they can't play Oblivion Stone without blowing it immediately, as you can just Confiscate it.

Against the aggressive decks, our testing pretty much confirmed our assumption that a 4^th-turn Enduring Ideal would mostly win the game. We didn't test too much against the blue decks at first, since they weren't that popular before U.S. Nationals. After that tournament, we tested a bit, but were worried to see that mono-Blue was such a bad matchup, even with Boseiju. This is partially because even if you resolve the Enduring Ideal, they can just counter subsequent copies while beating you down with a Stalking Stones or something. This is why we added the Boiling Seas (against mono-Blue) and Sowing Salt (against BlueTooth and Tooth and Nail).

Anyway, on to the tournament. Only 68 players showed up at the tournament, which was a pretty disappointing number, but not unexpected as lots of the serious players have quit lately. Three players played our deck: Tarjei Kvalø, Alexander Dahl and myself.

Round 1
My first round opponent was Atle Robertsen. While we were shuffling up, he flashed his sideboard to me, and I thought I saw a Karma. I immediately ran over to Are, the head judge to verify that the card was in fact not in 9^th. He told me it was not, and would check the deck list. In the mean time, we started playing. I won the coin flip, and my starting hand was two lands, Pentad Prism, Talisman, Thirst, Sleight of Hand, and Serum Visions. I opened with Serum Visions, then Talisman/Sleight, where I got my Enduring Ideal, and played it on turn 4. In the meantime, he had a couple of fliers out. I fetched Zur's Weirding, which immediately stopped him from drawing his Kami of Ancient Law. He hit me down to twelve, whereupon Meishin, the Mind's Cage nullified all his creatures. I confiscated two Sword of Fire And Ice to prevent him from doing any damage and burned him down with Form of the Dragon. After game one, Are came over. Turns out Atle hadn't even turned in his decklist! He got a game loss for the sideboard Karmas, and that was that.

After that quick first round, I went around and scouted the field. There were a lot of different decks, with mono-Red and BlueTooth seemingly being the most popular. Alex and Tarjei both won.

1-0.

Round 2
In the second round, I was worried to see that I had been paired up against mono-Blue. However, my opponent was an unknown who didn't know what I was playing, so I figured I still had a good shot. In the first game, I play out some mana while he plays lands. On my fourth turn I have Pentad Prism and a Talisman. On his fifth turn, he then taps down to one mana for Thieving Magpie. I then untap and play Enduring Ideal, fetching Zur's Weirding. At this point, he has only counterspells and lands in hand, so he can't really win. I let him have a Meloku, which he plays out and I Confiscate.

Alex wins also, but Tarjei loses to White Weenie. This version had a lot of enchantment removal, which can be painful. He even had Scour maindeck!

2-0

Round 3
I'm matched up with one of the better players from Oslo, Øyvind Andersen. He's playing mono-Red, a straightforward matchup. In the first game, I win the roll, but he plays turn 1 Slith Firewalker. Not really what I wanted to see. I have a good draw, with turn 1 Mox, Talisman and Sleight. On turn 2, I play another Talisman and Serum Visions. At this point, I can play Ideal on turn 4 if I get another land on either the card draw from Visions, the 2 scryed cards, or the next 2 draw steps. That obviously doesn't happen. However, Øyvind doesn't draw a lot of beats, so by my turn 5 I'm actually able to play the Ideal at 6 life, with him having lethal creatures on the other side of the board. This means that I have to fetch Form of the Dragon, as I had already imprinted the Meishin on the Mox (and I wouldn't have enough cards anyway). Unfortunately, he has the Shrapnel Blast for the game. The second game, I board in some Wraths for Zur's Weirding, Thirst and a Confiscate, and I get a hand with Mox, Prism, lands, and 2 cantrips, a great hand if I can only draw the Ideal. His draw isn't even that aggressive this turn, with only a second-turn Zo-Zu, so I have plenty of time. He Sowing Salts my Adarkar Wastes and chooses not to remove the others from the deck. He then plays an Arc-Slogger, which I Wrath away, all the while not drawing an Ideal. He has another Slogger with me at 10 life, and that's game.

Alex and Tarjei both win, leaving Tarjei and I at 2-1, and Alex at 3-0.

On to the Limited portion, in which I felt really confident. Before PT: London I had done maybe 30-40 drafts, and perhaps 10-20 after that. I was hoping to draft G/R or G/B, but wouldn't mind B/U or G/U. I didn't really like White, though. My table seemed like a decent one, with several faces I recognized, unfortunately including my teammate Tarjei.

In the first pack, I open Befoul in a poor pack. I then get passed a pack with the only playables being Glacial Ray and Soratami Rainshaper. Although I'm not too ecstatic about B/R, I think Ray is the easy pick here. At this point, I was thinking I might abandon the Black if a lot of Green came. The next booster had Blind With Anger and Frostwielder, clearly showing me that Red was open, and I was happy to grab the game-winning instant. Little did I know that Tarjei two to my right was G/R and had opened Kumano. Unfortunately, this booster also contained a Befoul, so I was worried that Rune on my left would go into Black. This is exactly what happened, and I got very few Black playables from Betrayers. Rune also dabbled in Red, which meant that he cut off some Red cards from me as well. In Saviors I got some good Black cards, but the Red quickly dried up, as apparently 3 of the 4 people to my right were Red. I ended up with the following:

Ashen-Skin Zubera
Akki Underling
Skullsnatcher
Kuro's Taken
Hand of Cruelty
Akki Drillmaster
Deathmask Nezumi
Akki Coalflinger
Toshiro Umezawa
Cursed Ronin
Initiate of Blood
Skullmane Baku
Frost Ogre
Ronin Cliffrider

Befoul
Rend Flesh
Waking Nightmare
Glacial Ray
2 First Volley
Blind with Anger
Death Denied

8 Mountain
9 Swamp

Round 4
I meet Rune Anjum, the guy to my right. He actually ended up B/U, but had Patron of the Akki, Frostwielder and 2 Akki Raiders in his sideboard. His deck was pretty bad, playing such hits as Minamo's Meddling and Oppressive Will, both of which he played against me in the first game. However, he is severely mana flooded, and I draw more than enough removal to kill the creatures he plays. In the second game I have a quick start with Team Akki (Underling and Coalflinger) and Toshiro. His team consists of Skullsnatcher, Moonbow Illusionist and Walker of Secret Ways. Yes, really. Ronin Cliffrider shows up and wraps up the game quickly.

3-1

Round 5
My fifth round opponent is Tommy Hammer. He has a really good G/R spirit deck with lots of soulshift, a horrible matchup for me. In the first game I have really no chance, as he plays fattie after fattie and beats me down. In the second game I get a turn 2 Hand of Cruelty, followed by Toshiro Umezawa and Akki Coalflinger. He struggles to keep up, but stabilizes somewhat with a combination of trades, Honden of Infinite Rage and Yamabushi's Storm. He starts drawing cards with Haru-Onna which ties up most of his mana, but also leaves me unable to attack. Tommy seemed a little greedy in this game, as he chose to keep drawing cards with the Onna rather than develop his board. I manage to deal with the Onna using my Ronin Cliffrider, then play Waking Nightmare to knock two creatures from his hand. I then manage to trade some more creatures, allowing Death Denied for four creatures to win me the game.

In the third game, I can't really get any offensive going, as he has the Briarknit Kami/Glitterfang combo. He also gets Haru-Onna and starts drawing cards like mad. Apparently, he draws mostly land, but his Briarknit is getting huge, and I can't attack. Again, I manage to kill Haru-Onna with my Cliffrider, and get a Kuro's Taken in play to stop his offensive. He manages to deal with the Taken using Frostling at one point and plays a Matsu-Tribe Decoy with my only creature being Ronin Cliffrider. He makes a crucial mistake at this point, though, as he trades the Decoy for my samurai in order to beat me down to 1 life.

I then use Death Denied to get back my Kuro's Taken and a host of other creatures, stabilizing the board. He continues to draw land, while I start trading creatures for damage. At one point, I have enough creatures in play to kill him exactly with an all-in attack. I agonize over whether I should wait for another creature to allow me to play around tricks, but he surprisingly just scoops!

4-1

Round 6
Tarjei is also 2-0 in the pod, so we meet in the finals. He is playing G/R as well, with Kumano and a long soulshift chain. In the first game, I get a fast start, but he quickly stabilizes with a number of fatties, including Gnarled Mass and the Scaled Hulk. He then plays Nightsoil Kami and attacks with the Gnarled Mass and the 6/6 Hulk. This allows me to use Blind With Anger to kill both fatties, and I also double-block Gnarly. I manage to flip Initiate of Blood and make some good trades, but his soulshift chain keeps him in the game. I finally draw Death Denied which gets me back all my guys and easily gives me the win. In the second game he gets a quick Kumano, and my only answer is a Kagemaro's Clutch, which leaves me with only two cards in hand. This allows Kumano to kill two creatures before he dies. Tarjei also has a Green Genju to lay down the beats. In the final game, Tarjei draws no Green mana, and I'm lucky to pull out the win in a horrible matchup.

Alex manages to win his final round as well, and our team is a combined 15-3 on the day. We get a nice Indian dinner and rent a movie to relax a bit for the second day.

In the second draft, I open a pack with Scuttling Death, Befoul and Kitsune Blademaster. Not wanting White, I pick the Scuttles. I then get passed another Scuttling Death with a Nezumi Cutthroat, picking the Scuttles again. I then get a Kami of Fire's Roar and Cage of Hands. Having already passed the Blademaster, I choose to go into Red, hoping it will be open from the right. I then get a choice of Scuttling Death/Befoul, this time choosing the Befoul for some removal. I get a late Hearth Kami and a Brutal Deceiver, confirming that Red is wide open. My deck is looking really good at this point, with a nice spirit theme. It was unfortunate, though, that I had to pass all those Black goodies. This came back to haunt me in Betrayers, as I got next to no good Black, but the Red really flowed, my deck picking up 3 Blademane Bakus, Fumiko Lowblood and a Torrent of Stone. My Saviors booster is really poor, the best card being Death Denied, which I quickly take. I'm then passed O-Naginata, a bomb in my deck with the multiple Bakus and Scuttling Deaths. My decks is rounded out with 2 Kuro's Taken. My deck ends up very aggressive, but somewhat lacking in three-drops.

This is what I played:

3 Blademane Baku
2 Kuro's Taken
1 Skullsnatcher
1 Hearth Kami
1 Brutal Deceiver
1 Fumiko Lowblood
1 Kami of Fire's Roar
1 Kami of Empty Graves
1 Frost Ogre
2 Scuttling Death
1 Ashen Monstrosity

1 Death Denied
1 Befoul
1 Torrent of Stone
1 First Volley
1 Kiku's Shadow
1 Waking Nightmare
1 Exile into Darkness

9 Swamp
9 Mountain

Round 7
I'm playing Nikolas Nygaard, a very good, younger player from Oslo. He is playing Black/White. In both games, he stumbles a bit with his mana, allowing my fast deck to run over him. He almost manages to stabilize in the first game, but Fumiko Lowblood threatens to dominate the game. He kills it, but its Death is Denied, thus Nikolas's is not.

6-1.

Round 8
Alex apparently has a terrible deck, but miraculously manages to pull out a win anyway, so we meet in the second round of the draft. His deck is a slowish G/U/r monstrosity, and in game one he has a hard time stabilizing against my fast creatures. He almost manages to do so with Hankyu, but Fumiko shows up to leave him no hope of victory. In the second game, his Sakura-Tribe Elders are really good at stopping my early beats, and he gets a Soratami Mindsweeper into play that starts milling me, while his Kashi-Tribe Warriors (!) and Mindsweeper hold the fort. Soratami Mindsweeper mills a Kami of Fire's Roar though, and with my Death Denied I'm able to get that back along with some other spirits, and do exactly enough damage on my last turn to kill him.

7-1, one more win and I can draw in to the Top 8.

Round 9
In the final round I meet Anders Weydahl, a cocky youngster (hey, I'll be 30 soon, I can use that term!). His deck was decidedly mediocre, with three Raging Oni-Slaves heading up the beats. The first game was pretty close. He played a second turn Oni-Slave, which I immediately killed with Kiku's Shadow, putting him at 14. He then played a Nezumi Cutthroat and a Moonbow Illusionist, as well as a Genju of the Falls. I had only a Blademane Baku to race with, so he was quickly catching up from the life deficit. One turn, he attacks with all his creatures, and I kill his Genju with Torrent of Stone and put a counter on the Blademane. Next turn I attack for one and play Scuttling Death. Scuttles trades with both of his creatures. He doesn't attack with the Genju, opting instead to play a second Oni-Slave. I then rip my Ashen Monstrosity, which he has no answer for, and win. In the second game he is mana-screwed, having only 2 lands. He plays 2^nd and 3^rd turn Oni-Slaves, but my hand is 2 Kuro's Taken, Blademane Baku and Befoul. Soon he has no creatures, is at 8, and has only one land. The game is over quickly from there.

8-1

Round 10
After 6-0 in Limited, I am secure in the Top 8. Alex wins also, and we are sure to meet in the next round of Constructed, as we were the only players with 24 points. However, DCI Reporter thought otherwise, and paired us both down. Apparently, there was some mixup with the Limited and Standard portions, and DCI reporter must have thought we had already played. This was quickly corrected by the judges, and we drew.

Round 11
At this point, Tarjei was 7-3, so he wanted us to play so that he might make the Top 8 with 8-4, much to the dismay of my next round opponent, Thomas Refsdal. He was playing mono-Red (of the kind that won Irish Nationals, with lots of burn). The first game, I win the flip, but he has a good draw with round 1 Firewalker. I mulligan into a mediocre draw with Ideal, Talisman and a Mox, but I can't draw any more acceleration, and turn 5 Enduring Ideal is too slow against a good Red draw. I sideboard in 3 Mana Leaks for a Genju, a Confiscate and a Zur's Weirding. In the second game, I play Chrome Mox, island, and Mana Leak his first-turn Hearth Kami. His next turn consists of attacking with a Blinkmoth Nexus, and I win handily with turn 4 Enduring Ideal, first getting Ivory Mask, then Form of the Dragon. In the decider, I have the nuts draw: Pentad Prism, Seething Song and Enduring Ideal, allowing for a third turn Ideal. He has the first turn Slith Firewalker, second turn Molten Rain, but that only slows me down a turn, and I win easily with a fourth turn Ideal.

Tarjei lost to a very weird mono-Blue milling deck with Isochron Scepter/Dampen Thought. Actually it turns out he would have won had not both he and his opponent missed the fact that if Genju of the Realm is bounced after it turns the land into a creature, the land is still a creature.

Round 12
Anyway, in the final round I meet another guy from Trondheim, Tore Skålevik, and I obviously draw with him. Alex draws with Nikolas Nygaard. Tarjei wins his last match, and ends up 8-4, leaving him in good shape for Top 8. However, the tiebreakers change a lot in the last round, bumping him down to 9^th unfortunately.

So before the Top 8, I was 1^st seed and Alex was 2^nd seed. Alex met Øystein Arneson in the quarters, with BlueTooth, while I met Tommy Hammer with Tooth and Nail. His version was better than usual against our deck, with sideboard Cranial Extractions.

Quarterfinals
In the first game, I have all the time in the world to draw an Enduring Ideal, but am unable to. Instead, my plan is to use my drawn Confiscates to keep him off the Tron, and then play Form of the Dragon. This works for a while, but he keeps entwining Reap and Sow to stay in it and keep me off three Red mana. Finally, he is able to play his signature sorcery, and surprisingly gets Kiki-Jiki and Darksteel Colossus. At this point, I have Form of the Dragon in hand, but only 2 Red mana, leaving me with tons of outs, including Ideal, any land providing Red mana, Seething Song, etc. If instead he had got Witness/Kiki-Jiki, I would have no outs! I draw nothing of value anyway, and lose. I think I might have won this game if I had gone for the quick Form instead of Confiscating first. It seemed too risky at the time, since I then auto lose to Tooth and Nail or Mindslaver if he gets the Tron.

In the second game, I have a good starting hand, with Mox, Pentad Prism, lands, Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand. Again, I don't get the Ideal, and have to settle for turn 3 Form of the Dragon. He has surprisingly sided in COP: Red, and removed his Mindslavers and Triskelion, leaving him with no way to win with a Form in play (except blowing it up with an Oblivion Stone). However, COP: Red keeps him alive long enough to do just that. He also Cranial Extracts my Ideals on turn 5, so I can't really deal with Tooth and Nail a while after. I felt that Tommy really sideboarded badly here - if he keeps his Triskelion in, I can't really play Form of the Dragon, since I just autolose to Tooth and Nail. Also, the COP doesn't really do anything, since if I play Ideal, I can just Confiscate it. Also, Genju gets around the COP.

Alex loses to a pretty big misplay against BlueTooth. His opponent has Triskelion in play, while Alex manages to resolve an Enduring Ideal. Instead of Confiscating the Trike, he gets Ivory Mask, which means that his opponent merely has to counter Ideal for three turns in order to win.

In conclusion, I was very happy with the deck and wouldn't change a card in the maindeck. I would probably cut the Wraths for COP: Red if I had known just how much Red there would be, as that card turns that match into a bye. Our deck dominated the swiss, picking only up 3 losses in 18 rounds of Standard. We felt really unlucky in the Top 8 though, feeling that we should have put at least one person on the team. I was happy that we tested as much as we did, and we will probably do so next year as well. One nice thing was that my 6-0 performance in Limited put my rating at 2057, which should be good enough to qualify me for some Limited PT next year. The question is just whether I'm going to sacrifice playing in all the prereleases and Grand Prix in order to qualify.

Nikolas Nygaard ends up winning the tournament with mono-Red, big congrats to him! The rest of the team is Eivind Nitter and Tommy Hammer. It's a decent team, certainly much better than last year's, and I hope they put in the time to do well at Worlds.