At 10:00 a.m. time on Sunday, March 26th (which is 9:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, March 25th, just so you know), I began playing in my first tournament since I moved to Malaysia on Valentine's Day. It's a bit harder to get around in Kuala Lumpur than it is back home, so I don't play nearly as much as I used to back in Davis. But I had missed Regionals last year because I didn't have a deck worth playing, and I was determined to do so this year. Also, I'm not a very good player. I'm okay, but I have a tendency to get blinded by cool plays occasionally, as will become evident from my report - and specifically, how I didn't make the top 8.

Now I started playing Magic a long time ago, when Unlimited was out. Then I stopped buying cards, and sold most of the ones I had right about when Ice Age came out. Back in those days, attending a DCI tournament was difficult. Heck, no one I knew even bothered getting a membership. I restarted a little over a year ago, but mostly I've played in the weekly local draft tournaments. Consequently, before Sunday, I'd never played in a sanctioned Constructed event of any sort. In fact, I've only played in four or five Constructed tournaments in my life, and one of those was a weird team format. So this would certainly be an interesting first for me in a lot of ways.

The KL Regionals were limited to 64 people. I think 63 played.

Now that I've bored you with the brief details of my life, I suppose I should get on with the decklist.

CrazyRedBeatdown(also known of Type 2 Sligh or I'M the beatdown)

Main:
4x Flailing Soldier
4x Downhill Charge
4x Raging Goblin
4x Flame Rift
4x Maniacal Rage
4x Giant Strength
3x Kris Mage
3x Shock
3x Seal of Fire
2x Rupture
2x Final Fortune
1x Goblin Spy
4x Mogg Sentry
18x Mountain

Sideboard:
1x Rath's Edge
1x Keldon Necropolis
1x Rupture
1x Seal of Fire
1x Shock
1x Kris Mage
3x Goblin Spy
2x Mercadia's Downfall
4x Scorching Lava

This build is wrong. The Final Fortunes should be Mercadia's Downfalls, the maindeck Ruptures should be the sideboard Seal and Shock, and the maindeck Goblin Spy should be the sideboard Kris Mage. And all of the Goblin Spies should be either Goblin Digging Teams or Laccolith Whelps; I'm thinking Whelps. The sideboard would have been different, with the Edge, Necropolis, and Rupture being Urza's Rages - except I don't own any Urza's Rages.

On the bright side, the "adjusted" deck (which should only include the extra creatures from the sideboard) has four rares (and relatively cheap one at that) and two uncommons, making it by far the most inexpensive deck I've seen. Heck, buying the whole thing from StarCity would only cost $33.80, with $20 of that being Mogg Sentries, which are replaceable with Goblin Digging Teams if you want to go cheap (which would bring the price down to $14.80, incidentally) - but the Sentrys are better, as they are very hard to kill, especially with a Maniacal Rage or Giant Strength. If you recall, there were a number of decks from States in the $100+ group, so I think it's safe to say this is the 99 cent shop of the T2 world.

Sideboarding for this deck is a bit different than for other decks. For example, you sideboard after almost every game, regardless of the opponent. Basically, if you will be going second in game 2 or 3, you replace the Flailing Soldiers with the four creatures in the sideboard. If you really need to, you can side out all the Ruptures and two lands, and two Downhill Charges for the six one-cost sideboard cards.

I feel that this deck consistently beats most of the other decks in the format. Also, no one has stuff to sideboard against it. I'm not sure about playing against Counter-Wrath. I think it might be best to simply stop casting stuff when they've got mana after the first turn they can Absorb, and side in all the instant stuff.

This deck is a bit different that most other current standard decks. How so? Well, for starters, when playing Fires, you want them to get the "Perfect Fires Draw." Why? Because most Fires players act like a fool when Fires hits play. They get all over-zealous and attack with their hasty Blastoderm. Against most decks, this is a good plan. Against this deck, it isn't. Here's what you want to do against fires:

Turn 1: Play a creature. Going second, Kris Mage is your best choice; going first, Flailing Soldier is what you want. On their first turn you want them to play a bird or elf. On their second turn, you want then to play Fires. Then you want to kill the bird or elf using Kris or a Shock or Seal, and hopefully, they won't sac Fires to save it. Then you smash face using you Giant Strength-ed Flailing Soldier or Raging Goblin or Kris Mage or whatever, eventually using either a Flame Rift or Downhill Charge to do the last few points of damage.

If anyone has any ideas to improve this deck, I'd love to hear them.

Enough of the overview of the deck. I'll explain the rest in the report.

I arrived about an hour early to the Comics Corner Tournament Center in Damasara Jaya, which is in one of the Districts in KL, hoping to get the last two Mogg Sentries I needed for my deck. I did, for a Teferi's Moat and about $1.25. I wrote down my decklist (from memory, as I happen to believe that if you can't list your deck in Constructed without looking at it, you need to play it more), and chatted with some of the guys I knew.

Round 1: We got started at about 11, with me at table 6 playing against Tan Chin Han. Tan had an interesting tennis shirt on, and had the distinction of being the only person there who brought their girlfriend. He was playing Nether-Go with a whole bunch of ACC counters.

Game 1: I go first. He dies at two land on my fourth turn, having discarded on his third turn. I don't think it would have helped, though, as I had what amounted to an almost-God draw for my deck. Turn 1 Flailing Soldier, Turn 2 and 3 Giant Strength, and turn 4 Downhill Charge for the kill.

Game 2: I lose this because of two things; I never draw a fifth land to kill him with my Rath's edge, and I played said Edge before I had the land to use it, and it got Dustbowled. Oops. Basically, I Flame Rifted three times, then he killed me with a Nether Spirit and a Misdirected Scorching Lava while at one life.

Game 3: I kept a five-land hand. Big mistake, and have decided ever since to mulligan if I get more than four lands. I draw as many lands as cards in this game, which is bad when you only need three to cast everything in your deck and need a fast draw to kill them before they can get their engine going. Again I died to a Misdirected Scorch, after getting beat down by a Nether Spirit.

0-1 (1-2 in games)

0-2

Hmm...I lose in the first round. Not the best start. Maybe my deck isn't as good as I thought. Oh well. I figured I'd play it out anyway.

Round 2: I had dropped down to table 20 or so this round, playing against Kenny Kuan. I didn't realize it at the time, but Kenny is a friend of one of the guys I'd been playing with a bit since I got here. He was playing a B/U control deck with lots of discard.

Game 1: He goes first; I Rift twice and he kills me with Rats and a few other things. Oh well.

Game 2: I play a creature, then another, then Giant Strength one of them, and he dies shortly thereafter.

Game 3: I keep a one-land hand. I play a Mogg Sentry; he plays a Nightscape Familiar which I Shock, missing my land drop on turn 2. He misses his land drop on turn 3, and plays another Familiar. I Shock that. He never gets another land, nor does he play any more spells. I never get another land either, but I cast something every turn of the entire game, which lasted nine turns.

1-1 (3-3 in games)

Round 3: This was the deck I faced that I like the most, but liked playing against the least. I met Mohd Afiq at table 17 and found him to be playing a strange Rising Waters/bounce deck with stuff like Squeeze and Sunken Hope.

Game 1: He went first, I won. The only card he played was Rising Waters. Waters alone does nothing to my deck. Plus, I already had a Mogg Sentry with two Giant Strengths on it.

Game 2: He gets Sunken Hope (and I only one creature in hand) out before I can kill him. Then Squeeze, making my Flame Rifts hard to cast, then Waters. Now I started tossing cards at him with a Kris Mage, but eventually he Chilled and dropped an Idol, making my death quick.

Game 3: My turns went something like this: Raging Goblin, Raging Goblin, shock your Gulf Squid, Downhill Charge, Downhill Charge, get everything bounced by a Waterspout Elemental, recast three creatures, attack, Seal and Shock on my bonus turn. Go me.

2-1 (5-4 in games)

Round 4: My opponent this round was Joe Toh at table 16, who was playing Skies. I wasn't sure how I'd do against skies. Well, as it turns out....

Game 1: I mulligan a hand with one too few lands (read: none), into a five-land hand, which I mulligan into a three Flailing Soldier, two Mountain draw. I go first. I play a Soldier, then I play two Soldiers. He kills one of the Soldiers and I play a Kris. He's beating me down slowly with two Spiketails. Somehow he kills the lot of my creatures (bounce and counter, I think), but I'd already hit him pretty bad. Eventually, I draw into a Flame Rift, a Seal, and a Shock when he's at seven, and I burn him out.

Game 2: I mulligan again. I play a Kris, then I Maniacal Rage it, He plays an Airship, which I burn away. I beat him down on the ground while his Troublesome Spirit is hitting me in the air. Basically, he tried to race with my deck. He came close, but a last minute Downhill Charge saved the day.

3-1 (7-4 in games)

Round 5: Well, I'm back at table 6, where I started the tournament, and I'm playing Woon Khim Wai, the guy I got my last minute Mogg Sentries off of. He's playing Counter-Rebels. I wasn't sure how to play it. Either killing off the Sergeant or the Falcon was the best move, but I wasn't sure which.

Game 1: He mulligans and goes first. I play a Sentry, then Giant Strength it three times. He blocked it once, then died.

Game 2: I play a Raging Goblin, then Maniacal Rage it, and beat him down to nine. He gets out the Lin Sivvi team, then Dominates my Goblin. I died.

Game 3: I played a bunch of creatures and shocked everything he searched for. Not much to tell. I think he played a Sergeant and a Brainstorm... And I think that's ALL he played.

4-1 (9-5 in games)

Now I'm 4-1 in a six-round tournament, currently in 8th. I have a moral dilemma facing me - and it wasn't whether or not to ID, though that came up too. See, this is Regionals, the qualifying tournament for Nationals. The Malaysian Nationals. I'm not eligible for Nationals here, since I'm American, and if I do make top 8, the 9th place person would probably be rather upset (and rightly so) with me. But I decided to play anyway, figuring I could have them drop me before the top eight is announced if I made it, or just play it out. Either way, it would be irrelevant if I lost.

Round 6: I'm seated at table 5 against Alex Chia Yee Chan, with the guy I lost to in round 1 sitting next to me at table 6. I think Alex was playing a Red Zone deck, but I didn't see that much of it, so I'm not sure.

As a side note, it is very hot in Malaysia typically - so it wasn't a surprise that it was very hot in the tournament area. Well, in some of the tournament area. Specifically, the tables where the people still in contention were playing. It was actually rather cool in the back where the high number tables were and the air conditioner was, and it also helped that there weren't twenty people standing around watching. I've played basketball in the middle of the day here, but I think I sweated more in the last round of this tournament than I did then, and it wasn't from the pressure. Basically, all I'm asking is you put the people who will have spectator where it's cooler. Heck, the best tables in the room were empty, due to people dropping.

Game 1: I do the usual Raging Goblin, GS, MR, thing for a bit, then play a Kris Mage with a Maniacal Rage. He Cloaks an elf and waits to block. I attack with a 3/3 Kris and a 5/5 Goblin when he's at five. Now evidently he doesn't realize that he dies before he gains life off the Cloak, because he blocked my Kris. Not that it would have mattered, as I would have used my Downhill Charge had he blocked differently, killing him anyway.

Game 2: I play a Raging Goblin and a Kris, which he 'Quakes away, then I play a Sentry, which he tries to Quake away. I foolishly swing my Sentry with two Rages into a Blastoderm, allowing him to kill me with a Burst. Oh well.

Game 3: I make what is probably the stupidest play of the tournament. I play Final Fortune. Basically, he had been discarding for about three turns, stuck on four lands. I had a 3/3 Sentry that was slowly killing him, as well as two Seals in play and a Shock in my hand. In my hand were two Downhill Charges and a Final Fortune. I had five mountains in play; he was at twelve and had two lands untapped. I cast Final Fortune, attack and downhill charge twice... And he Reprisals my Sentry. I lose. Oh well. It's probably a good thing I didn't win.

So I finish up 4-2 (10-7 in games), 13th place overall, which could have easily been 5-1 if I hadn't screwed up. And the two people I lost to make top 8 - I think. I'm not sure if the first guy who beat me won his last match. Either way, he was in contention going into the last round. I got three packs, which contained a Meddling Mage, Orim's Chant, and Forgotten City - pretty solid for three packs and also a pretty good deal, since I paid about four bucks to enter. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to smash any fires deck.

I think that this deck is quite good, and you should consider trying it. If you like it, I strongly recommend playing it a lot between now and Regionals, as practice helps a lot.

Nick Blas.