Winning ten Type I matches in a row at GenCon is a fun thing to do. Even though I dropped a few after that, I went home a very happy dude.

See, Type "Fun" is what it's all about for me in Magic: 5-Color is great, cause it lets you use many Type I cards and that ante thing is a kick (news flash - all of us playing in the 2002 5-Color Worlds gave back the ante after the game - how cool is that?) but laying moxes and coming back from no permanents and one card to win the game and match is the best!

Okay, so we've established that I'm a bit biased in favor of the format. It helps that I've done fairly well at it. Heck, I'm no Pro Player, I don't even have an 1800 rating (nicked it for a while in Limited a while back and almost hit it this year after GenCon.... but it's good to have goals, right?) However, I have done well at GenCon each of the three years I've attended.

How well? Well, I won the Thursday night tourney in 1999, skipped the Con in 2000, took third in 2001 (to perennial toughman Matt Smith on a crucial play error in the final match - great match, great guy to play), and this year won the Thursday night tourney again. Woo hoo!

7-0 in matches and 14-5 in games ain't too shabby for a Thursday evening's play.

What did I play? Zoo, of course! I love beating people with creatures. Here's my decklist with adjustments for the Origins metagame.

T1 Zoo Deck a la Lewis
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Force of Will
2 Psionic Blast
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Pyroblast
1 Regrowth
1 Emerald Charm
1 Disenchant
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will = 24 Utility

4 Blurred Mongoose
2 Serendib Efreet
4 Kird Ape
2 Gorilla Shaman = 12 Creatures

1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus = 4

4 City of Brass
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Savannah
4 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
1 Forest
1 Island = 21 land

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
1 Earthquake
1 Balance
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
2 Honorable Passage
2 Hydroblast
2 Meekstone
1 Zuran Orb

Some comments on the build and then I'll progress to the tourney report.

1. Emerald Charm - A great one-mana off-color surprise main deck - works well against Abyss, Nether Void, Back to Basics, Moat, or other annoying enchantments.

2. Pyroblast (of course) - Many players run blue, and when playing Stompy, Sligh, or Mono-black, it can relieve me of that Serendib of mine that's taking too much of a toll on my life total.

3. Blurred Mongoose - Hands down MVP - what a guy! Ignores the Counterspells, the Abyss, the Nether Void, the Cursed Scroll! Woo Hoo!

4. Yes, one Island and one Forest - With all the nonbasic land hate, it was worth it to have a bit of basic land. The forest switches out for a Library of Alexandria, sometimes, even though I normally only get a few pulls from the Library.

5. Yes, it's 61 cards - Hey, it works for me!

So, Thursday night rolls around and I'm nervous, but prepared.

Round 1 - Anthony Mueller playing Oath - swept 2-0
Nice guy, very confident, and his deck started to play, but never really got going. He got a large creature into play and I'd Bolt it, Incinerate it, block and Bolt, and continue to serve beats with the little creatures and Mishra's.

Round 2 - George Hogan playing Enchantress - won 2-1
His deck went off once and that was enough for me! Infinite loops can be a problem when my creatures and resources are more limited. But - here's the thing - this match was a wonderful example of why I love Type Fun: I kept a zero-land hand and won game and match!

Mox, Mox, Kird, Lotus, Twister (with Force of Will backup!), and I've got a creature and two mana on the board and a full hand. Taiga, Timewalk, oops, it's my turn! Bwahahahaha.... Gotta love it! Okay, so I have a few tricks of my own.

Round 3 - Ben Peli playing Control Black - won 2-0
I was a little nervous about this match, cause I don't usually see a lot of mono-black. Nether Void slows me down considerably and Juzam is killable... But it can be difficult to play around, too. He was playing a brace of the new 2/1 Shades... But they're eminently boltable when you tap out to cast them! I was able to run through this match largely due to my removal, though I don't think he saw much (if any)of his sideboard. I felt a good deal better about mono-black afterwards.

Round 4 - Joel Wood playing Keeper - won 2-1
This was a tough match. Joel is a good player (he won the Junior Super Series, the next day!) and his teammate Craig Olson, who I played Round 6, is also very good and plays a similar deck. I thought I'd built properly for this match up, but you never know till you play 'em.

Joel plays deliberately, and it cuts down his play mistakes greatly. I must admit I got to the point of encouraging him to play a bit more speedily as time was ticking away in what proved to be a fairly long Game 1. Craig was watching and remarked, "You must be very confident that you're going to win, since you seem so anxious to play more quickly so you can get in a Game 3." I think it might have either been designed to highlight my anxiety, or it might just have been a simple observation, I'm not really sure.

However, here's where I played my "Jedi Mind Trick" on young Joel.

I replied, "Yes, I certainly am, and I won't need much time to do it" with great conviction and certainty. Joel may well have believed me - as he looked up a bit surprised at the comment. Perhaps just the pressure of playing a bit more quickly rattled him some... And then sometimes, as I was to learn Saturday night, the deck just doesn't come out for you. It is Magic, after all, eh?

Well, suffice it to say that he won Game 1 and I swept through him in the next two with quick beats and more bolts than he had counters. He's a very good player, and I was glad to have won my first Keeper matchup.

Round 5 - Matt Graham playing Control Black - won 2-1
He starts laying swamps and I'm grinning, till I see the Nether Void. Then it comes to me - Blurred Mongoose can't be countered, so Nether Void just doesn't make a difference to my major creature beats. Woo hoo, baby! It took a little longer than the first mono-black matchup, and I dropped a game, but the result was the same. I'm not afraid of no Juzam Djinn.

Round 6 - Craig Olson playing Bloodmoon Keeper - won 2-1
Well, I think Craig started a bit nervous and was musing aloud about how he'd sideboard against me, after watching me play Joel, a bit earlier. (We'd also hung out and played last year, so we had a good time hanging out all night.) As it turned out, I don't think he sideboarded in the Blood Moons for Games 2 and 3. I think it hurt him more than it did me, but you never know.

This was another quintessential Type Fun moment! One game he gets a second-turn balance down to one land and one card. I think a moment and discard a great hand down to one card. He gets this smile on his face, taps for one blue mana, and plays Ancestral Recall... I just smiled and tapped for one red and play Pyroblast! I'd guessed that he'd hold either a Mystical Tutor or Ancestral Recall and kept the Pyroblast just in case. Of course, my deck recovers pretty easily from low resources, since I can run comfortably on just one or two mana, and I was able to pull out the match. Good guy, good player, and we weren't done - but I didn't know then that I'd be seeing him on Saturday, too.

Round 7 - Shawn Coyne playing Land Destruction - won 2-1
Here I was at the final round and what do I see but swamps - and I'm smiling! He's playing land destruction, though, and that wasn't comfortable, either. One game, however, I manage to drop several Moxes in the first few turns and I'm off to the races. Onee game he keeps my mana base low for long enough to get his big guys going, but the last game comes to me and I've won, again!

First place is good for a box of Odyssey, Torment, Judgment and I figure that paying $6 for $106 worth of product (and a whole boatload 'o' fun in seven rounds) is a pretty good night's haul.

Unfortunately, my late-night play on Saturday in the $250 tournament wasn't quite so good. I'd played the opening four rounds in the 5-Color World Championships, all morning (going 2-2 and missing the top 8 on tiebreakers - not bad for my first 5-Color Worlds!) and showed up for the 8 p.m. start to another six-round tourney. Whew....

It all started out pretty well, as I stormed through Stompy, Mono-black, and another Keeper. I was 3-0 in this tournament, 10-0 on Type I matches for the weekend, so far. Then I met Matt Smith, with a mono-blue deck, and he snapped my streak. It's 2 a.m. by this time, and I've slept a total of six or eight hours in three days (not a good idea if you want to be able to think about your play ....) and between his great play and my lack of consciousness, I couldn't keep it going. I drop to 3-1. Good games, but I'm starting to slide.

The next round I'm looking at another mono-blue and making bad play errors and I'm at 3-2. Of course, the last round I'm trying to pull out a 4-2 record and hoping to make final 8 on tie-breakers and who do I see but my buddy Craig Olson and his Bloodmoon Keeper. This time was not my best show and he pulls out the match to send me down the line at 3-3 for this tourney. Of course 10-3 on the weekend still made me pretty happy, and it was a memorable Magic weekend.

Metagame considerations - Mono-blue is my biggest worry and I'll have to do some more testing against it. They maindeck Back to Basics and a load of counters; of course Superman (Morphling) is a pain in my Zoo, so a couple of Diabolic Edicts in the board may be in order. I also didn't face any Sligh, this weekend (one of them won the Friday night T1 tourney) but I don't worry about them very much with Honorable Passage and Zuran Orb in the side. Deck MVP? The Goose, hands down - Blurred Mongoose was a major pain the tail to the blue mages.

Again, all in all a great weekend of playing Type 1 and 5-Color. Thanks to all the great players and traders I hung with, major thanks to my biggest critic and a great buddy (who keeps me on my toes) Clay, a.k.a. Rolling Mage, and, of course, Craig, Matt, and the dude from New York who traded me the wild alternate art anime land at 4 a.m.!

Peace out,
Brad Lewis
T1 Zoo Dude
Winner T1 GenCon Tourneys ('99 & '02)
A DC Area 5-Color Dude
2002 5-Color Worlds Competitor
Jhary@aol.com