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Friday June 19, 2009

My friend Amanda gives me a call and warns me that she is headed my way from Chicago. She declares that we are going out tonight in Indianapolis, and I don't have a choice in the matter. I was in the middle of a Magic Online Daily Event, with no plans of doing anything until my roommate forced me out to a campus bar later that evening. Looks like things have changed!

Lost in the top 4 of that Daily Event, by the way. Kithkin is just too good! But I digress...

Amanda arrives, and it's time for her, me, my friend Jordan, and my roommate and Grand Prix sealed deck ringer Zack Wolff to head down to Indy. On our drive down, we discuss such hot topics like how awesome sushi is, how fat Brian Six is, how I could hit a curveball off of Barry Zito given 100 tries, and how great the Backstreet Boys are. Seriously, look at their singles and try to point out a bad one:

As Long As You Love Me
I Want It That Way
Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
Quit Playing Games With My Heart (personal favorite)
Shape Of My Heart
The One
The Call

Lyrics? Awful. Dance Moves? Non-existent. Voices? Tremendous! Look, you can act like you don't like the Backstreet Boys, but each and every one of you listened to them on TRL when it was still on the air. Go ahead. Try to deny it. I can see right through each and every one of you.

Knight of Meadowgrain, Spectral Procession, Ajani Goldmane, Cloudgoat Ranger. Can anyone beat that start? I think not! But I digress...

The crew and I arrive at Sansui Japanesse. We meet up with the future of American magic, Nick Becvar, and get to smashing. Apparently Sansui Japanesse has some of the best sushi around downtown Indianapolis, but I was less than impressed. It was much more expensive than it had any right being, but I made the most out of a mediocre experience. Bad sushi, after all, is still sushi.

Turn 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart revealing... IT DOESN'T MATTER, YOU CAN'T WIN! But. I. Die. Gress.

During the sushi beatdowns, Becvar told us about a place called Howl At The Moon that was about 20 minutes away from where we were. A piano bar with a rowdy crowd, expensive drinks, and a $10 cover charge? Sign me up! We arrive, and the place is a riot. The girl to guy ratio was at least 3:1, the piano players were amazing, and they had 312 Urban Wheat Ale on tap. What more could I ask for? Six drinks later and I was screaming Ants Marching by the Dave Matthews Band at the top of my lungs. Quite the night!

Saturday June 20, 2009

6:00am. Everyone knows the feeling. The "I don't want to throw up, but it is impossible not to" feeling. Five minutes later, and the toilet and I are getting intimate. I head to Becvar's refrigerator and grab a Dasani. Three sips of water later, and I am fast asleep.

7:00am. I guess my body isn't a fan of Dasani. I didn't want to make a return visit to the toilet. I thought our relationship was over. I was wrong.

8:00am. Again? Really?

9:00am. Time to head out to the PTQ. I am feeling like death, but know I need to earn this qualification. Becvar and I stop at a Walgreens and I pick up some Tums and some extra-strength Alka Seltzer. Here's hoping this works.

9:20am. We arrive at the PTQ and Adrian Sullivan comments on how I look like hell. I explain to him what occurred last night, and he sympathizes with me. I'm sure he has been in my shoes before. Being the sweetheart that he is, he asks if there is anything he can do to help. I point to my box of Alka Seltzer and beg for a cup of water. While he is away, I slam two Tums down the hatch and hope they will cure whatever is wrong with me. I pop the Alka Seltzer into the water and watch the chemical reaction occur. It's always memorable because what comes next is so disgusting. Drinking it...

9:21am. Body didn't like that Alka Seltzer at all. I ask Sullivan to watch my deck, and I run out of the room as fast as I can. I scream at the top of my lungs "WHERE IS THE BATHROOM!?" and no one answers. I sprint around the corner, and out comes a yellow foamy mess all over the floor. Did I mention this PTQ was inside the downtown Hyatt?

9:40am. I am now on the hunt for some Windborn Muses. As I am being handed the fourth, I make a run for it again. Frantically, I find the closest garbage can and give it a piece of my mind.

10:00am. The players meeting begins:

Kithkin Featured by Cedric Phillips on 2009-06-28 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17666_Insider_Information_Kithkin_at_the_PTQ_Top_8.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Cloudgoat Ranger 4 Figure of Destiny 4 Goldmeadow Stalwart 4 Knight of Meadowgrain 4 Wizened Cenn Enchantments 4 Glorious Anthem Instants 4 Path to Exile	Planeswalkers 3 Ajani Goldmane Sorceries 4 Spectral Procession Basic Lands 16 Plains Lands 2 Mutavault 3 Rustic Clachan 4 Windbrisk Heights	Sideboard: 4 Paladin en-Vec 4 Windborn Muse 4 Unmake 3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

10:05am. Pairings go up for round 1. I warn my opponent that I may have to go take care of some business during our match, and if I do, please just roll with it. He obliges, and I am off to a resounding start. He is playing Faeries and I am playing terribly. I lose game 1 in pretty short order.

While sideboarding for game 2, I call over Becvar and the following conversation occurs:

"Subway. Club. Lettuce. Tomato. Onion. Mayo. Get whatever you want. Here is my credit card. Thank you."

Game 2 is underway and I give him the business. However, since give him the business isn't adequate for some forum people like DarkfnTemplar, I will give you a nice play by play this game so you can see my thinking process, and see what a great player does when times get tough.

Since I lost, I am on the play.

I look at an opening hand of Goldmeadow Stalwart, Knight of Meadowgrain, Wizened Cenn, Glorious Anthem, Plains, Plains, and Plains. I thought about mulliganing for a while, but decide keeping was the better option because this hand does exactly what I need it do in this matchup, which is be aggressive.

I go deep into the tank and decide instead of just passing on turn 1, I will play a land and Goldmeadow Stalwart, revealing Knight of Meadowgrain. My rationale is that since I have decided to take the role of the aggressor, I should probably play my creatures when given the opportunity.

My opponent plays a tapped Secluded Glen and passes the turn. Seeing an opening, I decide that my next logical step is to draw a card for my turn and see how it affects my decision. I draw a Path to Exile and know that if he plays a creature, I have a great answer to it. My next decision is to attack. I am pretty sure attacking is correct, because I want to get my opponent down to zero life as quickly as possible, though some players may disagree. Luckily my opponent didn't have anything, and took two damage, putting him down to 18. My next decision was a tough one. I could play Knight of Meadowgrain, or I could play Wizened Cenn. I decide that Knight of Meadowgrain is better because a 2/2 first strike with lifelink is pretty good at this stage of the game. Better yet, I can cast the Wizened Cenn next turn and give both of my creatures +1/+1, which would deal my opponent more damage over the course of the game.

My opponent plays a Sunken Ruins and a Bitterblossom. Quite the powerful card he played there, and I feel like I am in serious trouble. At this point, I consider Path to Exiling my own creature. I am considering this because thinning my deck of a land can help me draw more spells so that I can stop the mega threat that is Bitterblossom. The only way for me to overwhelm Bitterblossom is to draw more creatures, and mathematically, with one less land in my deck, this will help that to occur. However, I decide against it, as I can just Path to Exile the creatures that Bitterblossom makes and keep attacking him.

On my turn I untap, and go to my upkeep. I go through my upkeep and draw a card. My draw step is irrelevant because I won the game by playing more creatures and attacking. Writing irrelevant crap like this isn't interesting to anyone, and I will never do it again. No one cares that I went turn 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, turn 2 Knight of Meadowgrain, killed his Mistbind Clique with Path to Exile to blow him out, and played more creatures and attacked him with those too. Okay?

Now back to our regularly scheduled program!

Game 3 begins, and the eagle has landed in the form of a Subway Club. As I present my deck, I take a bite of the sandwich. As I attempt to swallow the sandwich, my stomach has other ideas and it's a trip back to the garbage can. Unbelievable! After the deed is done, I notify a judge that we are going to need a time extension because I have just decimated another garbage can. He agrees, and I manage to take down game 3 rather quickly.

I'd like to take this moment to thank my opponent for not doing anything shady, and just being an all around good guy. This match wasn't one of my proudest moments, but it sure as hell is memorable, and I felt this story had to be told. After the match, I take down three inches of my Subway Club and crash on the floor.

11:15am. Round 2 is up. I give my opponent the pre-match warning again, and he obliges as well. Game 1 he beats the crap out of me with Rip-Clan Crasher, and I play no spells. Games 2 and 3 are fairly simple, as I draw the sick combination of lands and spells and he draws, you guessed it, Rip-Clan Crasher. After this round, I pass out on the floor again. In between my napping, I hear the Head Judge announce there is going to be a thirty minute lunch break. Yes! More time to sleep!

12:45pm. I wake up right before round 3. I stand up and feel like I'm on top of the world. People ask me if I am okay, and I exclaim, "I feel great! Time for me win a PTQ!"

I go on to win rounds 3, 4, and 5 in pretty uneventful fashion. Round 6 I am against the one, the only, big Reuben Bressler playing G/B Elves. These games were pretty different for me, because the one thing that never happens actually did.

Game 1 I kept a one-lander with two Goldmeadow Stalwarts, Figure of Destiny, Knight of Meadowgrain, Wizened Cenn, and Spectral Procession. I keep these one-landers because the game is over if I draw another land within the next two turns, and I have some plays in the meantime. Well, I drew another land. Actually, I drew two more that game. They were both Mutavaults...

The same thing ended up happening game 3 as well. My third land was a Mutavault, and I could never cast Spectral Procession. AwKwArD!

I won round 7 against B/W Tokens, and then beat a Red deck playing for Top 8. The Top 8 was three Kithkin decks, two B/W Tokens, U/W Reveillark, G/B Elves, and a Faerie deck. My Top 8 match was a mirror match against a gentleman from RIW Hobbes whose name escapes me. Anyway, he destroyed me in approximately 36 seconds, and just like that I was out of the tournament.

As you may have seen above, my sideboard was a little different from last week. I tried Windborn Muse over Stillmoon Cavalier because I had been playing against a lot of G/W Tokens on Magic Online. Turns out no one played that deck at this PTQ, and I rarely boarded it in. I think the card is good, but not sure if it is better than Stillmoon Cavalier.

Elspeth, Knight-Errant was something I was trying to handle U/W Reveillark and Five Color Control in case I ran into it. Militia's Pride had been underperforming recently, so I decided to give something new a try. However, I never played against either deck, and therefore never boarded it in. It could have been three Progentius and been as useful.

A lot of people have been asking me for sideboarding tips, and what cards to take out in certain matchups. Like many people reading this article, I am trying to earn a qualification through a PTQ. Every week, I give you, my opponents, my newest Kithkin decklist. I share this information willingly with you. The only advantage I have over my opponents is that I know how to sideboard correctly in each matchup, while they may not. That is the reason I never tell anyone how to sideboard with Kithkin. Once I win a PTQ with Kithkin, I will gladly explain how to sideboard in each matchup and what cards are important from your opponent. Honestly, it isn't that difficult to figure out.

And that is the story of how not to win a PTQ.

Cedric Phillips

caphilli@purdue.edu