I would love to start by telling you that I had this great plan envisioning victory through some sort of meditation-induced state, where peace of mind and personal karma would carry me through the challenges of the day. That, however, would be a flaming pile of crap. What I did have was Magic Workstation, Apprentice, and a bunch of alone time with my computer. (Magic Online really dropped the ball on this one. The inability to deliver Mirrodin online until eight weeks after the real-life Prerelease is inexcusable.)

Personally, after losing to the eventual winner in the top 8 last year, I had to go this year.

When I initially considered the metagame, I wanted to run G/B. The thought being that Troll Ascetic was tough for mono-Black, Oversold Cemetery a nice way to bring back Ravenous Baloths against Goblins, and turn 3 Persecute was the strongest play in Standard. This never came together, though; Magic Online's lack of Mirrodin cards and the fact that everyone is still playing old Type 2 online (Wake wrecks G/B, by the way), I never got the playtesting in that I wanted. And hell, if I wasn't going to playtest G/B, I might as well test what I had: W/u Control.

Here's how it ended up looking:

Main Deck
3 Akroma's Vengeance
2 Wing Shards
4 Wrath of God
2 Oblivion Stone
4 Weathered Wayfarer
3 Decree of Justice
4 Exalted Angel
3 Eternal Dragon
3 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Mana Leak
3 Rewind
4 Cloudpost
4 Flooded Strand
10 Plains
7 Islands

Sideboard:
2 Ivory Mask
2 Stifle
2 Scrabbling Claws
3 Scared Ground
4 Karma
2 Circle of Protection: Red

A Quick Explanation Of Cloudpost
What the hell? Yeah, I went a little rogue here. I figure if they're going to give me Wayfarer, Cloudpost, Decree of Justice, and Rewind in the same five sets, I was sure as hell going to play them. I chose not to run Temple of the False God because I felt the biggest benefit of Temple was turn 5 Vengeance. But wait! Multiple Cloudposts can fire off a turn 4 Vengeance! (Not reliably, but I was playing the gamble.) Plus I had Jens to ramp up to six mana on turn 5, so I played the card with the biggest upside: The one that can say,"Tap: add 4 colorless mana to your mana pool"

Having done virtually no actual playtesting, I ran my sideboard based on what matchups I expected:

Goblins
With nine ways to kill all the men on the board, this matchup was going to be about attrition. If I have enough life after a Wrath of God, I knew I would win. Exalted Angel and Wing Shards would help, but the addition of Circle of Protection: Red out of the sideboard should shore up the victory.

Mono-Black Control
This is the deck that I expected to be the best, so I hated it as much as I could. Four Karmas to kill, Stifle to stop their Oblivion Stones, and Ivory Mask to avoid Mind Sludge and Consume Spirit.

Artifact Affinity
I took all of thirty seconds to decide that I didn't need to worry about Artifact Affinity. Akroma's Vengeance = autowin.

Aside: I would like to bring to the attention of all future columnists that the Affinity mechanic is not limited to Artifacts. If you take the moment to read the text, Wizards could print a card with Affinity for creatures/Islands/enchantments, hell just about anything they want. Just as the cost to"imprint" something is different from card to card, I expect the Affinity mechanic to shift to other options as well. Therefore it is Artifact Affinity deck, not just Affinity.

(For reasons of efficiency, I'm going to continue to assume the word"Affinity" means Artifact Affinity until Wizards prints a reason to make me distinguish between the two. Therefore, it is still just the Affinity deck. - Knut)

Goblin Bidding
Pretty much the same as regular Goblins, but with Scrabbling Claws. Sure this is a slow answer, however one or 2 activations can cripple the Patriarch's Bidding.

W/x Control
Scrabbling Claws for their Eternal Dragons, Stifle for the various Decrees.

Land Destruction
Umm... twenty-five land, four Wayfarers, three Dragons, three Simulacrums, four Mana Leaks, and three Sacred Grounds after sideboard made me feel pretty secure about this matchup.

Two hundred and twenty people showed, meaning nine rounds of Swiss would be played.

Round 1: U/B Artifact Affinity-Minds Desire-Tendrils of Agony
Game 1 is basically me doing nothing, and him doing nothing for about ten turns. Suddenly at the end of my turn he draws six cards with Thirst for Knowledge, and untaps. Then he goes off.

Up until this point I was thinking he was playing a heavy counter version of Affinity, and he had simply drawn no threats. However, I quickly realize he is a Mind's Desire deck... whoops.

He Mind's Desires for six, plays all his free spells, looks at his possible mana, counts up to five, and slumps in his chair. He can't play the second Desire from his hand, which would probably win it for him. At this point I spaz, play Akroma's Vengeance with counter backup, and force him to scoop.

I should have played the Vengeance earlier, so I pay a little more attention to what's going on. I recognize that he's got seventy cards in the deck, and he confirms it... His logic being that with all the card drawing that he's running, he'll be fine. I don't think I agree with him, but a little more luck on his end and I would have lost that game, so I can't say much.

Game 2 is a little better for me, and by a little, I mean turn 5 he drops all his hand, and Tendrils of Agony for fourteen. I'm at six now, and he's at thirty-four. He was worried about Stifle (which I had), and I had tapped out returning Eternal Dragon, so I understand why he did it, but it lost him the game. I follow with Akroma's Vengeance on turn 6 but run into one of his many counterspells. We play counter-draw-go for a few turns, me cycling/returning/casting Dragon, him with more and more counters. Eventually he Asserts Authority on my Dragon, but soon Dragon number two and Exalted Angel number one resolve, sealing the deal.

1-0, 2-0

Round 2 U/G Pemmin's Aura/Wirewood Channeler
He's a young player. I never know what to expect from young players. He had to have won his first match, so he can't be that bad. We shuffle up, and find out.

Game 1 he comes out of the gates much faster than I do. Turn 1 elf, turn 2 elf, turn 3 Wirewood Channeler. Once I pick my jaw up off the floor, I play my fourth land and thank God for the Rewind in my hand. Turns out that I didn't really need it, though. He drops Day of the Dragons soon thereafter, making five dragon tokens, and passes it back. I Wrath, and end it with a dragon of my own a few turns later.

This guy made one mistake this game, and it was at the end. With five life, facing lethal damage next turn to my dragon, he played Pemmin's Aura. That's a lot of information to give away.

Game 2 he gets a similar start to game 1, but he was on the play, making my disruption much more difficult. Eventually I Wrath two guys away just to get kill the Wirewood Channeler, and he follows with another. Thankfully Exalted Angel shows up along with a string of counters before he can combo me out.

2-0, 4-0

Round 3 MWC
Game 1 starts nearly five minutes late, as my opponent is slow to show. The judge almost gave me the game (in fact, he should have given me the game), but saw the guy coming and held off. We shuffle up and get started.

We both make the appropriate land drops early on, then he plays Mobilization. It resolves and I have some problems. Soldier tokens knock me down to twelve before I Wrath. They keep coming back, though, and I drop to seven. I finally get the Vengeance I need and blow up the world. Too bad his Akroma, Angel of Ability Text, beats me in the head next turn. I have one turn to topdeck and here comes... Wrath of God off the top!! Bam! God's fury comes down and clears the board once more.

Too bad he has a second Akroma in his hand.

Game 2 starts with fifteen minutes to go in the round, as game 1 was really long. We shuffle quickly, sideboard and begin. (Or is that sideboard, then shuffle? Whatever we did, it was really quick.) I go first, and get a turn 3 morph. Unfortunately so does he. We spend two or three turns running into each other with Exalted Angels until I draw another one, drop it as a morph and keep four mana back. His Wrath of God gets countered by my Rewind, and I turn the morph face-up at the end of his turn. At this point my hand was Mana Leak, Mana Leak, Rewind, Rewind, Decree of Justice. I protect my board position and race his one Angel with my two for the win.

Game 3 makes it to extra turns and a draw. Sigh. I'm really not a fan of draws unless it's intentional. In retrospect, I should have called the head judge before game 1, but I held off. It's tough being a nice guy and getting kicked in the nuts for it.

2-0-1, 5-1-1

Round 4 G/B Cemetery
Game 1 I see Birds of Paradise, then Vine Trellis, and a Swamp. I was happy to see the deck I was originally going to play, but now had to worry about Persecute and Oversold Cemetery. This long game ends with me countering two Cemeteries, and Vengeancing a third away. He doesn't have Withered Wretch anywhere in his build, so naturally Eternal Dragon does the rest.

One thing that is difficult for G/B is mass removal. Unless it runs multiple Callers of the Claw, one Wrath can turn the game.

Game 2 sees him with two Silklash Spiders in play by turn 5 and a Persecute turn 6. Ouch. I go to pitch my hand of Vengeance, Angel, Eternal Dragon, Wrath of God... But he names Blue. Wow, lucky me! I cycle the Dragon end of turn, untap, and Akroma's Vengeance pretty much seals the deal. His third Silklash Spider is quickly trumped by a platoon of soldier tokens.

3-0-1, 7-1-1

One thing to note here: Weathered Wayfarer hasn't shown up to do anything yet, and I was deck-checked in round 4, so I know he's still in there!

Round 5 Mono-Black Zombies
Game 1 is great for him. I don't know what else to say about the triple-Rotlung Reanimator draw. The real kicker was when he Terrored my Wayfarer to get a ton more zombies. Oblivion Stone saved me for one turn, but he just tossed Consume Spirit at my head to end it.

Time for the MBC sideboard: 4 Karma, 2 Stifle, 2 Ivory Mask.

Game 2 is all about Karma and counterspells. I can't do anything about his turn 2 Cabal Interrogator, and even less about his turn 3 Withered Wretch. Those are the only cards he gets in play all game. I hide my Karma from Interrogator for a couple turns, and drop it on turn 4. He's now forced to race. This lets me draw cards, specifically counter magic. I say no to three straight spells, and watch Karma deal him twenty.

Game 3 is all about Ivory Mask and how it lost me the game. Basically I sat behind Mask, and since he couldn't Consume Spirit me, he hit my men. Consume Spirits killed my two Simulacrums while he beat with Withered Wretch and Rotlung. I'm without Wraths, but do get a late morph. He uses his third Consume Spirit to kill her and his two men kill me.

The crazy thing about this game was that if I hadn't gotten the Mask, he would have hit me with one of the three Consume Spirits, allowing the Exalted to stay on the board and win me the game. Them's the breaks, I guess.

3-1-1, 8-3-1

I would have to win out to make Top 8

Round 6 W/u/r Control, r for Pyroclasm/Pyrite Spellbomb
Game 1: A turn 1 Wayfarer is blasted by Pyrite Spellbomb and I'm thinking Goblins, until he plays a Plains, then an Island, and now I'm all messed up. Eventually, I determine he's W/U control with some Red, and play appropriately. I assume (correctly) that Spellbomb and Pyroclasm were his only red cards in his maindeck. As the game goes on, three Cloudposts make his Mana Leaks worthless, and he is without double Blue mana for Rewind (yep - the mana base did him in). The game degenerates into Eternal Dragon wars, but I manage to Mana Leak his twice and swing for the win.

Game 2 is a little easier. I don't have much to side, but bring in some Scrabbling Claws and the Stifles. I hold back on a turn 1 Claws, which is the right play, because he cycles a Dragon turn 3 due to mana issues. I drop and pop his Dragon, draw the card from the Claws, and continue on the game. His mana issues plague him until it's too late. I punch through with a mass of 1/1 soldier tokens for the win.

4-1-1, 10-3-1

Round 7 W/U-Control
Game 1: Ahh, yes, the mirror. I lose game one.

Huh? Well, the short version is that he gets two hard-cast Decrees of Silence into play. That's serious hate. And seriously bad for me. He cycles a Decree of Justice for twelve and swings twice.

Game 2: My Decree for eight is much better than his when I have Stifle. Scrabbling Claws shuts down two of his Dragons, and I take game 2 of the amazingly boring mirror match with eight minutes to go.

Game 3: Here's the game where Wayfarer actually showed up and did something. I had eight minutes to win. Even less after shuffling. Turn 1 Wayfarer is followed by Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Plains, cycle Decree, Smack!, cycle Decree, Smack, game, set, match, and I still had time left.

This was the amazing win, and couldn't have been better because if I had gotten a draw, Top 8 would have been out of the picture.

5-1-1, 12-4-1

Round 8 Proteus-Charbelcher
Game 1: This guy was playing at the top tables all day long, and actually lost to my round nine opponent before facing me. The other funny thing is that I beat this guy round one at last year's States, so we have a little history. This game starts with me having double Weathered Wayfarer. I attack with one, and he plays Raise the Alarm for the block. I know his deck immediately. I hold my counters back for the Proteus Staff, knowing that letting him stack his library is much worse than just letting the random Goblin Charbelcher into play. I counter two Staffs, and the one early Wayfarer allows a late Decree of Justice for sixteen soldiers.

In come the Stifles for his Decree of Justice, and Ivory Mask.

Game 2: Ivory Mask stops Charbelcher, so it comes in, and lands on the board turn 4. He thinks for a while now that I'm tapped out, and drops Proteus Staff.

Damn. All he needs to win is stack some form of enchantment removal on top and get the Charbelcher to win it.

Too bad he's not running any such removal.

Instead he goes beatdown, and presumably stacks Decree of Justice, land, Decree number two, land, Decree number three, land, Decree number four, as for the next four turns he cycles them for men. Amazingly I get Stifle, Wrath, double Wing Shards, and Oblivion Stone to destroy all his win conditions and advance.

6-1-1, 14-4-1

Round 9 Frank playing R/b (Hurray! I remembered someone's name!!)
Frank is a great guy. He and I have had some great battles before, and of all my opponents, I have the most respect for him.

Game 1: Win and get Top 8, lose and go home. He's running Goblins with Oversold Cemetery, Dark Banishing, and Blistering Firecat. Recurring Firecat is scary. He opens out of the gate with Goblin Sledder, Goblin Piledriver, cycle Gempalm Incinerator to kill my Weathered Wayfarer, and Goblin Warchief as his first 4 turns. I Wrath. He starts restocking his board, hits me with a Firecat - and although I'm down to five, he's out of gas. The draw-go game is sealed after two counters and an Exalted Angel for me.

Game 2: I was down to four life. It took about twenty seconds to lose the first sixteen, so I was kinda worried. Somehow I managed to find eight mana available to both drop and pop Oblivion Stone. I stall with soldier tokens and counterspells, finally ripping an Exalted Angel off the top.

Nine rounds of Swiss was over and the Top 8 was mine!

7-1-1, 16-4-1

I make Top 8 as the 8th seed. Having the worst tiebreakers meant I had to play fellow Penn Stater, and Number One Seed, Mike Chilcot round one. Great, I love playing friends. Not.

I do have to say that the Top 8 was very festive and enjoyable to be around. Both with the number of players that stayed to watch the finals, and the Professional Events staff, everyone who stayed had a great time.

Top 8 lists can be found here.

Quarterfinals vs. Mike Chilcot - G/W
Game 1: Honestly, this is probably a bad matchup for Mike. His Rampant Growths and Solemn Simulacrums are not the equal of Wayfarer and Cloudposts for mine. Having some idea of what he's playing, I keep an opening hand with turn 1 Wayfarer, and proceed to search out Cloudposts. His best strategy is to get Plow Unders and gain tempo, which is exactly what he does. He proceeds to Plow Under my Islands pretty early on; however, I intentionally held back my fetchlands and cycle Eternal Dragon to flush those dead cards away. Besides, I still had an active Wayfarer to get the Islands back when I want them. A bunch of turns later, I cycle Decree of Justice for seventeen, swing with everything, and win.

Game 2: I mulligan to six and get another Wayfarer opening. I took out some creature control for Stifles and Claws, but they weren't much use. Wayfarer again gets all four 'Posts, Scrabbling Claws hits an Eternal Dragon, and I draw into Decree of Justice, thus ending a great run for Mike. Congrats, dude.

8-1-1, 18-4-1

Semifinals vs. G/R Land Destruction
Wow - LD made the Top 4. I love States!!

Game 1: My hand is land heavy, but I keep it. I drop Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Plains and a morph. He begins his land destruction while I hit him for two every turn. I eventually drop a second morph hitting for four, cycle a Decree for one and eventually unmorph when he's out of LD to win.

I still don't know what his win condition is, but side out a bunch of Wrath effects for Scrabbling Claws (at least it cycles), and Sacred Grounds.

Game 2 I have turn three Sacred Ground which slows him one turn while he Creeping Molds it. This makes all the difference. The extra turn gives me two active Rewinds and a Mana Leak. I counter a few LD spells, cycle decree for three, then drop a morph with four mana untapped for Rewind back up. He scoops when I unmorph the Angel.

9-1-1, 20-4-1

Finals vs. Fran - B/R Goblin Bidding
Wow - the finals. The PES guys bring out the product and the plaque, setting them near the play area. I look over to Fran and tell him that that's one big Goblin-Soldier token - he laughs, we shuffle, and start.

Game 1: Wayfarer gets two Cloudposts before Gempalm Incinerator kills him, but it's enough. Even though he's got an active Mindstone Crown (!), I have the Akroma's Vengeance to stop that nonsense.

He's playing without cards in hand after the Vengeance, but I have six - two of which were Rewinds in case he tops a Patriarch's Bidding. I cast two back-to-back Exalted Angels, and win.

Here comes Circle of Protection: Red, Scrabbling Claws, and Sacred Ground.

Game 2: He goes first and I keep a marginal hand with double-Wrath and no other plays. He plays a couple of men and starts swinging. Eventually, he hits four mana and Flashfires, knocking me down to one island. Crap. A couple turns later, he Flashfires again. Crap. I scoop.

Game 3 is the nuts. I take some beats and Wrath, forcing him into topdeck mode. He plays Siege-Gang Commander with enough mana to kill me if it resolves. Floating mana, I Rewind it, untap Cloudposts (yes, Cloudposts), and cycle a Decree for six. I then rip my Circle of Protection: Red (finally! we're fifteen turns into the deciding game of the match) and smash it down. With sixteen mana available for Circle and the second Decree of Justice in my hand, he scoops.

10-1-1, 22-5-1

And that's it. I'm the 2003 Pennsylvania State Champion.

In retrospect, I think everything went well. Affinity and Mono-Black were everywhere from what I saw. Wayfarer/Cloudposts didn't really win me any games until the Top 8 (better late than never), and the Wayfarers would be the first card on the cutting block if something better is released in the next two sets. Solemn Simulacrum was my dark horse favorite card of the tournament. He never does anything flashy, but was never a wasted card.

As for the Cloudpost/Temple debate in Type 2, I think I started some sort of W/u metagame shift. People are now talking about"Temple" screw and how they're going to run four Cloudposts in place of three Temples from now on in the normal builds of W/u. However, people are messing everything up. If you run three Simulacrums and four Wayfarers, then you run four Cloudposts. It's that simple. Either way, you must have the turn 5 Vengeance available to you, and if you don't run Temple, the only way to ensure that draw is with Jens + Wayfarers. If you feel that Thirst for Knowledge is superior to Wayfarer + Simulacrum, then run Temple. Two Temples and two Cloudposts produce the same mana folks, and it avoids you having the games with one 'Post on your side to your opponents three, so unless you have a way to tutor it up, play Temple.

Lastly, in the final round, a lot of people loudly commented that I wasn't returning my Eternal Dragons against Fran. I would like to speak my mind to these people, but StarCityGames is family entertainment. Assuming the board is clear, the Goblin Bidding matchup comes down to the Bidding, hasted men, and counterspells. Playing spells like Wing Shards, Mana Leak, and Rewind are difficult to do when you're tapped out. Sure, If I had ten or more mana I would bring the Dragon home - but at that point, Decree of Justice is probably game, and in game 3 I had it. Now go away.

That's all I have for now. Hope you enjoyed it.

-James Cady
nospamNIFFIWAN@HOTMAIL.COM
Take out the"nospam" to email.

Props:

• Justin. Hey dude, you were there. You saw it all. Thanks.
• Bryce for supplying about 60% of my deck, including four foil Cloudposts.
• Tim for supplying the rest of my deck, including foil Solemn.
• Professional Events. You guys ran a great tournament start to finish. Great Job.
• The Pennsylvania State men. Yeah, we took five of the Top 32, two Top 8, and the title in both 2001 and 2003. If anyone's in the PSU area, head to the HUB some night. Someone will be there.
• My Wife.

Slops:

• The old guy who nearly crashed into me on the way to the event who had to have been going about seventy in a twenty-five.
• Me, for not taking better notes at the event, not playtesting, and doing a so-so job remembering twenty-eight games worth of Magic...
• Magic Online. We still don't have Mirrodin.
• The DCI. Why aren't Goblin Recruiter and Tinker banned yet? Oh, that's a different article.
• Why isn't Solemn Simulacrum an Artifact Creature-Wizard?