(Editor's note: I trust Judah, and he's a fine deckbuilder. This deck looks completely psychotic as a four-color deck with tons of one-ofs, and if it were from anyone else I'd probably reject it as being more speculation than playtesting. That said, Judah has no reason to lie to me, and I believe that he has the wins he claims with this, making this an extremely intriguing choice. The question is, how much of the credit for those wins go to his playskill and how much of it is the deck? Playtest a little and decide for yourself - The Ferrett)

Greetings! I promised myself if I won prizes at Regionals I would write a report. Though I didn't make the Nationals Team, I want the recognition for building a unique deck that works well. Previously, I used this deck to achieve ninth place at Indiana States.

My metagame tech? Hibernation and Engineered Plague. When 55%+ of the field is green, Hibernation in the main is an elegant solution. Plague slows down Tog and basically owns theme decks that can do well (elves, clerics, zombies) along with taking out Nantuko Shades, Sparksmiths, and Merfolk Looters.

Here is my deck, entitled"Give a Reason For Life," after the Slayers' opening theme song. You can shorten the name to"Reason," if you like. It has no unfavorable matches, though Blue-Green and Tog are the toughest ones. Overall, it is 75% in tournament play at 47-15-1 over at least seven Friday Night Magics, States, Regionals, and a Type II money event. I have an inferior Magic Online version of this that isn't nearly as good because I don't have all the cards for it (needs Birds, Ravenous Baloths, Upheaval, Bane of the Living). Its something like 60% overall and occasionally wins eight-mans when I'm bored.

3 Birds of Paradise
2 Tainted Pact
2 Krosan Tusker
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Living Wish
3 Chainer's Edict
3 Circular Logic
2 Anurid Brushhopper
2 Engineered Plague
2 Hibernation
3 Ravenous Baloth
1 Bane of the Living
1 Worship
2 Deep Analysis
1 Genesis
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Exalted Angel
1 Silent Specter
1 Upheaval
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Stand
1 Underground River
1 Sungrass Prairie
1 Plains
2 Darkwater Catacombs
2 City of Brass
2 Swamp
3 Grand Coliseum
3 Island
5 Forest

Sideboard Wish targets:
1 Contested Cliffs
1 Wonder
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Psychatog
1 Genesis

2 Future Sight (vs. Control decks)
2 Krosan Reclamation
2 Naturalize (Often interchanged with Ray of Revelation; metagame call)
2 Compost
1 Upheaval (Vs. Control decks)

Do not change the land mixture! This is my land mix after months of testing. You should have less land trouble than most two-color decks thanks to the Birds and the ability to get missing colors with the fetch lands, Tainted Pacts, and Tuskers. Plus, you can Wish for Cliffs if you just need another land for something. Under no circumstance remove those cards.

Looking at the list, note the only card that has four-ofs is Wild Mongrel... He is the best creature in the environment for utility, period. Note the mixture of creatures is designed to survive and prosper in the early game until you can Wish for a solution (or draw one of the higher casting cost spells that win the game).

Vs. Mono Black
Genesis is key: Wish for him. Upheaval wins. Worship may win. Silent Specter, if it survives for a hit, wins. Side out Hibernations, one Bird, one Plague, one Analysis for Future Sights, Compost, Upheaval.

Mono-B is easy; you should win around 70% of all games and most matches. My loses to Mono-B are usually when I get Haunted Echoed multiple times, or Echoed after a Mind Sludge. (Keep in mind that Logic stops this from happening a lot.)

Vs. Red-Green...
Ravenous Baloths are key and Anurid Brushhopper is a Beast. Wake is good, since it makes your stuff big. Put in Psychatog and two Naturalizes for Silent Specter, Bane of the Living (making it a Wish target), and Upheaval. You should win about 65% games and matches. Going first makes a huge difference.

Vs. Blue-Green...
The toughest match. About a 50% win percentage; I maindecked Hibernation specifically for this match. If they don't get a first-turn Careful Study, you usually win thanks to control elements. The die roll (play or draw?) usually determines who wins the match. In go Reclamations, out go Wake and Specter.

Vs. Elves...
An easy win. Go main deck Hibernation, Plagues, and Worship! Changes: nothing. I've lost about two games in about fifteen against various elf decks.

Vs. Slide...
60% first game, 80% post-sideboard. Tainted Pact aggressively to get Upheaval... Then win. It is nice if Slide is kind enough to remove your attacking creatures before you do this.

Out: Worship, Hibernations, one Plague, Deep Analysis
In: Upheaval, Naturalizes, Future Sight.

Vs: Mono-red...
Engineered Plague on Goblins wins. Worship wins. This still said, you are only around 65%, especially if Sparky shows early. Ravenous Baloths are awesome here.

Vs. Mirari's Wake...
An aggro start is best. If you resolve a Future Sight, you win. This is around 55% first game (which is so low because of little maindecked enchantment removal), you have better odds after siding. Wake often loses games because going aggro with Anurid Brushhoppers, Wild Mongrels, and Ravenous Baloths puts up a lot of pressure, especially if you have Logic back up.

Vs. Tog...
50%. A good Tog player can beat you, but if Tog doesn't get the Psychatog or you Upheaval first, then the game is yours. Engineered Plague on Atogs is surprisingly good.

Vs. Beasts...
Your creatures are just as big as theirs are, but you have power cards from more colors, and a much better end game. About 65% of games in your favor... Though honestly I haven't hit Beasts much in tournaments.

Overall,"Reason" sums my philosophy of deck building nicely: Trade closer victory for field domination. It has no truly unfavorable matches, being fifty-fifty vs. the hard match ups of Tog and U/G, while it nicely destroys everything else the majority of the time. My only regret is not playing a third main deck Hibernation in place of Silent Specter; I would have won two lost games.

If you want to tinker with the deck yourself, the first cards to take out are Silent Specter, Deep Analysis, and Mirari's Wake. Adding more Wake and Upheavals main deck is a good call if you expect control... Upheaval after Wake and replay Wake has never lost me a game.

Do you usually get bored playing the same thing? This deck has so many quirks, it has kept me interested for months. You can easily convert it into four-color Tog by switching five cards, but four-color Tog isn't as good vs. blue/green, Sligh and Slide, which is why the Tog is only in the sideboard for now.

The Report
We traveled to Regionals the night before. I playtested against every deck my friends had, and won about 65% of all games (80% of matches) on the van on the five-hour drive up and in the hotel room.

Morning came too soon, and I didn't bring a jacket to shield myself against the biting wind. We set off to walk to Regionals from our hotel, and walked two miles to the Convention Center (home to Origins), where we discovered the tourney was located at the Veteran's Memorial about 1.5 miles away. Cab time!

The Veteran's Memorial contained overpriced food, lots of noise from seven hundred people, and we were treated to the wonderful omen of someone throwing up as we enter the building. Not an auspicious start for the day, and I try to maintain play focus. I tell the judging staff if I scrub out, I can work the remaining rounds if they need me.

Fast-forward through ninety minutes of anticipation...

Round #1 vs. Robert playing W/g/R Astral Slide
Game one: His deck was immediately revealed as Slide when he played a second-turn Forgotten Cave and followed it by cycling Renewed Faith. My opening consisted of an amazing three Birds of Paradise and a very early Ravenous Baloth, along with a hard-cast Genesis. He swiftly put out a Lightning Rift and two Astral Slides. I played Engineered Plague and named"Angels" so when the Exalted Angel showed, I was able to Living Wish for Contested Cliffs and kill it with the Ravenous Baloth without ever taking a hit from it.

He played a Wrath of God to kill my team and I Wished for a Nantuko Vigilante to kill his Lightning Rift. It looked like he had the game locked up to him, as he took me down to three with an active Nantuko Monastery (post-Wrath #2) the turn I cast Mirari's Wake. Next turn I used Upheaval with mana floating to hard-cast a Krosan Tusker. The Tusker took him down to five and he managed to stay alive by cycling Renewed Faith. Finally I won by countering his hard-cast Renewed Faith with Circular Logic.

Game Two: I get a third-turn Anurid Brushhopper and just start swinging. He cycles Renewed Faith, a Krosan Tusker, and about five lands to activate his two Nantuko Monasteries with Threshold. A Wild Mongrel joins my Anurid Brushhopper, and I Living Wish for Wonder and send in the air, making his play of not attacking with the Nantukos bad. He did play an Angel, but I hit him with Chainer's Edict and that was that. When he tried to Wrath, I Logiced and killed him next turn by dumping my hand to Wild Mongrel since he had no remaining white mana to use a Renewed Faith with.

Round 2...Playing Stasch Kuras, who I rode up with (0.06% chance of this happening in a field of 674)
Game one: I know Stasch is using Red/Green, since he borrowed my Gigapedes. I get a fairly early Worship, but I never actually go below five thanks to Hibernation (and an Edict) to stop his Elephant Guided Phantom Centaur and Wild Mongrel. I wish for Contested Cliffs and use my Anurid Brushhopper to kill three Call of the Herd tokens, laying fairly constant beats on my part with Anurid Brushhopper and Wild Mongrel.

Game two: He has lots of early pressure, and goes to eighteen from fetch lands and takes one hit from my Ravenous Baloth before his Wild Mongrels and Call tokens makes my attacking him silly. He uses several Violent Eruptions to make me sacrifice my first Ravenous Baloth and kill my Wild Mongrels while attacking with Call of the Herd/Basking Rootwallas. My second Ravenous Baloth stops the pain for a turn while he waits to draw burn, since he couldn't actually kill me in a rush and would lose one of his two creatures (go Edicts!). His flashbacked Call is halted by my Psychatog. Next turn I Living Wish for Wonder, send, and remove my graveyard and hand to do exactly fourteen damage in the air.

Round 3... Tom L playing Blue Green madness
He wins the roll and Careful Studies on turn 1 for Roar of the Wurm and Wonder. Turn 2 Wild Mongrel. Turn 3, Quiet Speculation for Ray of Revelation and two Deep Analyses. Discard Basking Rootwalla, discard Roar of the Wurm to attacking Wild Mongrel. Turn 4, flash back Roar of the Wurm. Turn five, Logic my spell, and win before turn 6.

Game two is epic. His first-turn Careful Study is for Basking Rootwalla and Roar of the Wurm. On the fifth turn he has Basking Rootwalla, Wild Mongrel, Arrogant Wurm, Merfolk Looter, and Roar of the Wurm in play. My end-of-turn Hibernation (Logicing his Logic) takes out the token and buys me tempo, and I actually swing with my Wild Mongrel and Edict his Looter the next turn, bringing him to eleven. Then his team comes back, he flashes Deep Analysis, and uses Speculation for two Roar of the Wurms and an Analysis.

I block the first Roar of the Wurm and kill it with two Wild Mongrels and an Anurid Brushhopper, leaving the Wild Mongrel with Stupefying Touch on it alive. He has Wonder in the grave now, and I don't, and he allows me to play a morph while he flashes his last Roar of the Wurm (he is at eight and I am at fourteen, so he can't be too aggro). I attack with my Morph and Bear, and he blocks with his Arrogant Wurm and a fresh Roar.

I morph Bane of the Living for four and everything dies.

He has no Roar of the Wurms left in his deck, then he tops Wild Mongrel before I can muster offense. After one turn of beats, he swings and dumps eight cards (six of them land) to his Wild Mongrel with double-Circular Logic back up. I lose.

Sorry for the choppy description, but that game was tense, with both of us in clear positions of power at times and I went from my notes. At this point, I am 2-1.

Round 4... Anthony Justice blue-green madness (he wins the roll)
Games one and two... Anthony has opening hands that involve first-turn Careful Studies, Wonder/Island, and Roar of the Wurm/Basking Rootwalla respectively. Since he played first in game one, turn 3 Arrogant Wurm is too much too quick with me having no flyers and him having Logic. I might have been able to pull off game two if he didn't draw three Circular Logics in his first fifteen cards, countering Hibernation, Ravenous Baloth, and Krosan Reclamation on his Wonder.

Blue/Green is my toughest match; I can win if they don't have a first-turn play (And how often does that happen? Not enough - The Ferrett), but in both U/G matches my opponent's mana was untroubled and their draws were nuts. 2-2

At this point I can't help but reflect upon a phrase from the book I am reading in between rounds: Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. While hardly the literary pinnacle that academia touts, it is brilliant with certain turns of phrase, like this one from page 200:

"...for the first time in life, he experienced the worst kind of misfortune - one that was irretrievable, and caused by his own fault."

Looking back at my U/G matches, I can't help but muse upon the appropriateness of this phrase at a Magic tournament while scrubbing out. Surely, I could have won those matches if I had only made a different decision somewhere? At least I tell myself that.

Round 5... Paul playing Mono Black control
Game one, he draws three Edicts in his opening hand, but that's okay; I have a fourth-turn Ravenous Baloth (which meets an Edict) and a fifth-turn hard-cast Genesis (which meets the other Edict). I swiftly get to seven mana needed to recur Ravenous Baloth, with no pain. He kills about seven to ten Ravenous Baloths with Edicts, both normal and flashed (he does draw #4) and Mutilates, and I sac them in response every time. In between, he Corrupts me a couple times for seven and then nine damage.

Finally, despite him having an Undead Gladiator/Cabal Coffers for better draws and using a Skeletal Scrying for four, he runs out of gas. Ravenous Baloth wins. He had Mirari in play at the end, too.

Game two... Both Compost and Future Sight get in play, and he is slightly mana screwed. After I played about eleven extra cards with Sight, he is dead.

It is possible for mono-black to play around Compost by careful regulation of the game tempo; it is not possible for them to do the same thing against Future Sight.

Round 6... Brian, Playing White/Green Glory Swift Attack
Game one... I play creatures; he plays creatures. He has Glory; I have Worship. We both have Anurid Brushhopper and Ravenous Baloths, though he has Call token and Elves to match my Birds and Wild Mongrels. I Logic his Wished-for Nantuko Vigilante, then Wish for Wonder and win.

Game two... He plays first and gets a fifth-turn kill. My start is somewhat slow; I have third-turn Anurid Brushhopper, but he gets turn 1 elf, turn 2 Anurid Brushhopper, turn 3 Ravenous Baloth. Glory was pitched on my turn so as not interfere with his tempo, making my Anurid Brushhopper useless as a blocker.

Game three... I mulligan and keep a hand of five lands and Krosan Reclamation. I draw another Darkwater Catacombs, then a Hibernation, which takes cares of a Call token. He pauses the hurting briefly to morph an Exalted Angel, allowing me to get Worship and Future Sight (revealing land) on the table. Angel brings me down to two, and him to thirty-something. Finally after using a top of library Deep Analysis off of Future Sight on myself, the top card of my library is a Wild Mongrel!

My first creature that game is fifteen cards deep... Go, Worship!

Using my insane card advantage from Future Sight, I swiftly build up my own team - which he responds to by playing his own Worship. Thanks to Mirari's Wake, my Ravenous Baloths are 5/5, and over the course of a few turns they bring him to single digits. Both of us are looking for answers to the other's Worship, but I have Future Sight and Wake and can play six cards a turn, barring land clumps. With about twenty-five cards left in my library and two Logics in hand, I kill his Worship and win.

Round Seven (4-2 at this point) vs. Justin playing atypical Red/Green
Game one... I lose the roll and have no turn 1 or turn 2 plays. He draws three Violent Eruptions.

Game two... I have it stabilized, with myself at three and he is stalled at three land, though he uses four land destruction spells on me that don't matter, killing a City of Brass (good riddance), a Grand Coliseum, and a Forest (he finally got smart). I still have six land in play. The turn before I would win, he gets his fourth land, and attacks with his 1/1 Wild Mongrel (thanks to Engineered Plague) and uses Might of Oaks to force me to sac my Ravenous Baloth. I don't draw anything but more land, and he wins in four turns.

I couldn't help but feeling if only I had focused a bit more, I would have won.

Round Eight (4-3) vs. Chris playing Red/Green
Game Two: Chris gets a game loss for a missing card after they take fifteen minutes to deckcheck us. He wins the roll and has a dual Guided Phantom Centaur on his fifth turn (my fourth). I don't draw a Hibernation, and if I Edict the two Elephants, he will still kill me thanks to my single blocker. I lose.

Game Three: I stabilize at twelve with Logics, Edicts, and Ravenous Baloths. Engineered Plague kills off something too. He is playing Patchwork Gnomes for an additional madness outlet (he uses both Fiery Tempers and Violent Eruptions), so I use my sideboard Naturalize on them. My Ravenous Baloths carry the game, since he elected to use his Fiery Tempers on me rather than hitting my creatures.

Round Nine (5-3) vs. Mono Black
Game one: He mulligans four times.

Game two: I play Future Sight and Compost, as well as Engineered Plague naming"Shade." He eats my graveyard with Withered Wretch, but it doesn't matter.

Round Ten (6-3) vs. Black/Green Oversold with Husks (not sure if this was the combo version) played by Glen
Aside: Glen uses the pile shuffling method and only the pile shuffling method. Since a savvy opponent can stack his deck this way, I shuffle his deck every time he does this. This means shuffling time per game is five minutes. Glen also shows up three minutes after time has started.

Game one: He gets Oversold Cemetery recursion and Smothers and Edicts my defense. I can't get my second green for my Ravenous Baloths or enough land to recur my Edicts, instead drawing all three Islands one Underground River, and one Forest.

Game Two: I get Future Sight in play turn 5, and he takes three minutes to read what it does. I kill him on the tenth turn after Wishing for Wonder.

Game Three: He has a fast start with Basking Rootwalla, Phantom Centaur, Ravenous Baloth. He is surprised I could sac my Ravenous Baloth to Faceless Butcher while it was still on the stack as a spell, forcing him to choose his own creature when it came into play. This took three minutes. I get Future Sight down, but having seen only four non-land cards, I am forced to defensibly Upheaval. He uses Cabal Therapy to get rid of my Future Sight. After the Upheaval, I drew the Edicts and Logics for his recast creatures, and he discarded too many lands and is sort of screwed. I Naturalize all his Cemeteries when he plays them. I draw my second Future Sight, and we have a two-minute discussion about him being unable to Cabal Therapy to make me"discard" the top card of my library, which was an Exalted Angel. The Angel gets Smothered while it is still a morph. I spend seven slow turns stabilizing with Worship on the table, and finally kill his team with Bane of the Living and replay mine.

Then time is called; I had no idea of the clock since I couldn't see it. I can't kill him in the time left since he gained life with multiple Ravenous Baloths. During time (keep in mind that I have one turn left still) with a judge present I finally convince to concede to me (after he had scooped his side of the table) in exchange for half my prize. My tiebreaks were higher, otherwise I would have made the same argument to concede to him for a split. 6-2-1 won't get anything, but 7-3 gets nine packs.

Woo... Finish 7-3 and win four packs after the"split."

This left me annoyed, since he basically stalled away at least fifteen minutes of time during the match with slow shuffling, arriving late, and not understanding how game mechanics worked. I needed only one more turn to kill him...

...But that and a quarter will get me a gumball.

I think he played for the draw on purpose, but then gradually realized getting something at the end was better than nothing at all.

This match wasn't really a fun way to end my day. But it didn't end like that... We had to jump our van when we got back to the hotel since the inside door light never was turned off.

Thus ends my ill-omened Regionals experience. Would I do it again? You bet.

Judah Alt, Signing off