It all began with winning the first Team qualifier of the season with Ghost Dad, chronicled in this qualifier report. That event set into motion the journey to my first Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour. This narrative picks up where that one left off.

Winning the first qualifier of the season is indescribably wonderful. We are not plagued with early morning drives, expensive gas prices, entrances fees, borrowed cards, metagame shifts, and manascrew each and every weekend. We can actually do something besides play in a PTQ if we want to, like test for the Pro Tour!

By qualifying on our first try, we have literally an entire month extra to test. The problem is that Dissension hasn't even been spoiled yet!

Instead, we get organized. We compile a mailing list of playtesters and immediately the need arises for some way to catalog discussions instead of a gross game of email-tag. My brother, lover of the Goblin Grenade, installs rudimentary forum software on his webspace, and we lock it to the public.

So begins “preliminary” testing on Apprentice: just seven out of ten guilds for the time being, just to get a feel for the format. With Ravnica Block being very guild-centric in the first place, it wouldn't be completely unheard of to simply play three of the guilds with just one color split. The most obvious color to split is Black, with the “fast” Black deck getting Dark Confidant and the “slow” Black deck getting stuff like Skeletal Vampire, Helldozer, and whatever Dissension might offer. From this testing, I deduce the best card in the format is Farseek, much akin to Sakura-Tribe Elder from Kamigawa Block.

I personally begin working on the control guilds. With curves going through the stratosphere, it seems that every reactive deck wants Remand against every active deck. Not only does Remand keep threats off the table in the short term, it can also protect your Karoos for a turn. Getting one more use out of a Karoo is often just enough that losing it becomes a fair trade.

The weeks go by and we test and test and test. The Dissension spoiler leaks, with the most influential card on our testing being Simic Sky Swallower. No longer am I forced to mill people out or “recur” Cerulean Sphinx!

In no time at all after the Dissension spoiler, we have a metric ton of decks but not enough manpower to adequately test everything. We have a Dredge deck that abuses Bloodbond March and Skarrg'd Grave-Trolls. We have a Simic Control deck with Simic Sky Swallowers and Voidslimes, using Golgari Rot Farm-fueled Plague Boilers. We try Simic Aggro-Control, Boros Aggro, Azorius Aggro, Bororius Aggro, Gruul Midgame, Ghazi-Glare, and Niv-Mizzet Control with Gelectrodes. We try Searing Meditation, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Dream Leash, Mimeofracture, Arbiter, and Dovescape.

I could not imagine coordinating testing on this scale without some kind of threading. Ideas fly, decklists evolve, testing results get logged, and criticism is recorded all in a time-stamped history that persists.

With some builds coming to forefront, people's personal opinions now gravitate testing because of narrow opinions. For example, I inevitably stuff Bottled Cloisters into every non-Blue deck if it sits in my hands long enough. When we test our control decks against each other, they get slower and slower because of inbreeding. These control decks morph into hulking behemoths dependant on repeatable resource generation, like Firemane Angel, Skullmead Cauldron, Searing Meditation, Eidolons, The Church of Deals, and Muse Vessel. The slower and clunkier, the better. Then these “tuned,” glacially-slow control decks now get totally ape-smashed by our aggro decks, and we're back to square one.

As the final days leading up to Pro Tour: Charleston drop off the calendar, we are still undecided on what decks we should play! We have potentials fleshed out, but final decisions must be made about clashing manabases and sideboards.

What I'm trying to say is that we are all amateurs here. We don't have a global network of playtesters, a Chinese farm of WOW-playing children, or “friends in high places.” All we have is our local group, a couple teams from our PTQ experiences, a rudimentary message board, and high hopes. We aren't breakers of formats, Pro Tour Champions, or even the life of the party. Most of us don't have much money, either, and this isn't a weekend of freebies, plane ticket excluded.

Preordering 1 Booster Case of Dissension from StarCityGames.com: $443.99
Pre-booking 5 nights at the North Charleston Inn: $432.03

After winning that qualifier, I changed my diet to high protein and upped my miles-per-week at the gym, all in anticipation of a physically taxing experience. I have personally never committed so much to a Magic event in both time and money.

Waiting for the plane at the Atlanta airport, there is a large troop of tanned, athletic, high school-aged girls. The thing is that they don't all have the same build. Some are too petite to be softball players and others have the lower body belonging to volleyball players. Another possibility is they are simply a large group going to a beach house for the summer because some of them had equally tan guys with them and none of them appeared to be particularly poor. I couldn't figure out this little mystery before boarding the plane, where Greg and I take our seats next to none other than Aaron Forsythe.

Holy infinite card bannings, Aaron freakin' Forsythe is on my plane! And he's sitting exactly one seat to my left!

I relay this discovery to Greg, who also recognizes him. We sit down nonchalantly and I try to think of something in my stash of cards that Aaron Forsythe could sign that would actually mean something. “Mr. Forsythe, could you sign my Woodwraith Strangler please?” isn't going to evoke any good feelings for either party, though he'd probably oblige. So what card could it be?

Deranged Hermit? I only brought Ravnica Block cards.
Protean Hulk? Didn't bring any.
Dark Confidant? Not his design.
Supply / Demand? Too Rosewater.
Firemane Angel? Perfect!

See, Aaron Forsythe is a public R&D scapegoat that gets bludgeoned on the head for their mistakes. However, the man is so passionate about the game that if you bash him undeservedly, as I did in my PTQ Report that got me on his airplane in the first place, he'll rush to defend himself and his R&D brethren from said incorrect bashings.

Myth: Firemane Angel should be a Phoenix, therefore R&D made a concept error.
Reality: Firemane Angel was called “Phoenix Angel” in development, so it's not their fault. Allegedly, the “creative” Matt Cavotta digital-penciled all Angel and no Phoenix.

Halfway through the short flight, my two Firemane Angels are now Sharpied to Phoenixes, Richard Garfield-style. I will not transcribe the exact conversation out of respect, but we may or may not have discussed:

Burn versus Lifegain in Standard.
Creatures in the current Core Set that are too powerful.
The viability of Simic Aggro-Control in Ravnica Block Constructed.
Serra Avatar is at a perfect power level for 10th Edition.
The Pros and Cons of Simic Sky Swallower for Constructed Magic.

I force myself to relinquish my seat to Greg and move back to the window seat to force myself out of a state of fanboying. There is actually no person related to the game Magic, active or not, I would rather meet in person than Aaron Forsythe. Mike Flores? Please. Jon Finkel? Whatever. Kai Budde? Nein, danke. Political influence, raw talent, and massive earnings are all very impressive, but Aaron Forsythe has true power. Aaron Forsythe makes Magic cards with his mind! And one hand he wields a Nerf Gun, in the other hand a Ban Hammer. That's power.

Since Matt completed his flight setup later than Greg and I, he is sitting at the back of the plane away from both of us (and Aaron). When Matt finds out, his first instinct is to get his four foil Skullclamps signed by Aaron Forsythe.

Now, maybe he thinks that's funny or something, but both Greg and me stop him from making this slight. I don't think there is a worse possible card to ask the now Magic Lead Developer to immortalize with his name.

To me, this gesture identifies the single biggest mistake in modern Magic, throws it in R&D's face, and then demands a signature.

Flummoxed, Matt tries to identify some other card but draws a complete blank. Sometimes, I think Matt is only capable of irritating me.

I make suggestions such as Deranged Hermit, Greater Good, Sylvan Scrying, Gate to the Aether, Eternal Witness, Salvaging Station… Almost anything in Fifth Dawn would do, since Aaron Forsythe directly designed or broke those cards. Matt and Greg are stunned, and somehow think that knowing stuff like this is nerdier than the useless crap floating around in their own heads. Matt decides to finish this puzzle later.

Cab ride from the airport: $27.00

We arrive late at the hotel, which turns out adequate for our needs. When we speak of cards at the front desk, a couple there asks if we are poker players, but he have to dash that dream to bits. When I explain Magic to laypersons, especially an elderly layperson, I use the simple metaphor “Magic is like Chess with 10,000 different pieces.” This description usually leaves them speechless and it's not too far from the truth.

Everyone is relatively hungry and we have no obligations for the morrow until five. That means exploration time!

But Matt doesn't want to walk. Matt wants Pizza. I say that I don't want any pizza, nor do I want our room smelling like pizza all night. We might find something better/healthier/closer/cheaper. Greg sides with me, and we're off.

Matt sure can complain about a nice midnight walk, even with the motivation of hunger. He can also start flailing madly when the most convenient and cost-effective dinner location is a Waffle House across the street from the hotel. You'd think his parents were poisoned there.

Then it dawns on me why Matt Warner is such an unhealthy-looking 17-year old. He gets somewhere between zero and nil exercise, with junk food breaks in between. Matt doesn't carry his weight very well, so far as to earn the nickname “Sausage Fingers” when he handles Magic cards.

This sheds some light on another mystery about Matt: he doesn't seem to know the dimensions of his own physique. See, most people can walk around a room doing various mundane things while leaving their surroundings intact. Matt, however, notoriously flips over decks of cards, knocks over glasses of water, bangs into furniture, and breaks chairs all in his quest to get from the table to the bathroom and back again. It's quite a remarkable quirk, possibly a side effect of his refusal to move around very much.

If you stay for five nights at the Pro Tour, expect to learn a lot about your teammates, even if you didn't want to.

We find the Convention Center and double back to find a Super Wal*Mart in walking distance and stock up on some goodies.

We spend the day before the Pro Tour playtesting the final configurations of our decks. There's resleeving, deproxying, and defoiling, then we set off for the half-mile walk to the Charleston Convention Center for registration.

Matt relentlessly shoots down Greg's suggested team name of Sausage Biscuit. Greg claims ignorance to Matt's “Sausage Fingers” defense, claiming that we just ate at McDonald's and he had a delicious Sausage Biscuit. It wouldn't be the stupidest team name at the Pro Tour, that's for sure.

We arrive at the Charleston Convention Center and gamers are everywhere. All I can say at first glance is that Wizards pours the money into these things. There's tables with cloth, a sound system, a stage, curtains, lighting fixtures, giant posters, a feature match “pit” with scaffolding, and more! There's a fancy 5-archway you can walk through as a tribute to ten years of the Pro Tour. Though it doesn't lead anywhere (except the Pro Tour cake later in the weekend), it's very picturesque.

There's a Last Chance Qualifier beginning right as we enter, which explains why everyone at the dealers are buying cards for Standard.

Just for registering for Pro Tour: Charleston, we get 100 free sleeves, a pen, a draft set, and a T-shirt. We also get a taste of the fabulous Pro Player's Lounge, where they serve free food all weekend long, whether you're in contention or not. Seating is limited, but the food isn't!

With business and pleasure taken care of, we arrive at the Holiday Inn hotel room of team Witness the Thickness (Adam Fears, Phil Smith, Brett Anderson), a block away from the farside of the Charleston Convention Center. Last-minute testing is frantically underway. One Lance Loden, having driven from Montgomery with no sleep, continues to relentlessly playtest in a zombie-like stupor. Phil Smith can be seen lying in bed, doing nothing as usual.

The irritableness of Matt Warner comes to light in these last hours of playtesting when he ticks off both his teammates so much that we refuse to playtest with him. It's all for naught, though, since the night before the Pro Tour shouldn't be a critical playtesting period.

At one point on the forums, we were geared to play three Green decks, as Green is the best color in the format. We audibled out of a third Green deck, stranding the Breeding Pools and Watery Graves.

I can't remember in the last decade of Magic a format being so rare-heavy.

Pro Tour: Charleston
Charleston Convention Center

2006.6.16

U/R/W Phoenix Control Suggested by Greg Kelton on 2006-07-23 as a potential deck for Ravnica Block As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12330.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 2 Azorius Signet 2 Izzet Signet Creatures 4 Firemane Angel Instants 4 Electrolyze 4 Lightning Helix 3 Odds / Ends 4 Remand 2 Repeal 2 Swift Silence	Legendary Creatures 2 Isperia The Inscrutable 3 Niv-mizzet, The Firemind Sorceries 4 Compulsive Research 1 Invoke The Firemind Basic Lands 8 Island Lands 1 Azorius Chancery 2 Boros Garrison 4 Hallowed Fountain 1 Izzet Boilerworks 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Steam Vents	Sideboard: 2 Moratorium Stone 2 Muse Vessel 2 Gelectrode 3 Condemn 4 Overrule 2 Research / Development
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Rare Saturation: 44%

Greg's deck reprises his performance at our team PTQ with a Ravnica Block version of the Dutch Firemane Angel deck. This deck doesn't include the Muddle the Mixture package, instead opting for a larger threat base.

There is nothing singularly more powerful in the format than an uncontested Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. Nothing can race Niv-Mizzet, and very few cards offer such duality in card advantage and board control (a rival is Debtors' Knell). The only thing wrong with Niv-Mizzet is that he dies, which I call The Niv-Mizzet Problem™. Niv-Mizzet is a six mana Legendary creature that dies to the majority of removal spells in the format. That alone is enough to turn many deckbuilders away, but taking a calculated risk of when to drop Niv-Mizzet is what Blue should be about… if you just take some precautions.

Enter Isperia the Inscrutable. Isperia allows you to do two very important things: see if the coast is clear for Niv-Mizzet, and tutor up Niv-Mizzet. This sequence of events unfolds in a near-perfect ballet, solving The Niv-Mizzet Problem™ as if it were elementary algebra. Control decks do not want to get hit by Isperia if it means dealing with a Niv-Mizzet every turn, and aggro decks have huge problems attacking past a 3/6 flyer that tutors up Firemane Angels.

The sideboard Moratorium Stones address three giant problem cards for the deck: Nightmare Void, Firemane Angel, and Debtors' Knell.

WGB 7-drops Suggested by Matt Warner on 2006-07-23 as a potential deck for Ravnica Block As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12330.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 2 Golgari Signet Creatures 4 Angel Of Despair 4 Civic Wayfinder 2 Helldozer 4 Loxodon Hierarch 1 Skeletal Vampire Enchantments 2 Debtors' Knell	Instants 2 Congregation At Dawn 2 Ghostway 4 Mortify Sorceries 2 Crime / Punishment 4 Farseek 4 Rolling Spoil Basic Lands 4 Forest 2 Plains 3 Swamp Lands 4 Godless Shrine 1 Golgari Rot Farm 1 Orzhov Basilica 2 Overgrown Tomb 4 Temple Garden	Sideboard: 2 Carven Caryatid 3 Castigate 4 Caustic Rain 2 Culling Sun 2 Nightmare Void 2 Wit's End
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This deck needs no introduction, as it was insanely popular on MTGO just before Dissension.

While most people would call this a control deck, I think of it more as a Midgame (or Midrange) deck. Control decks, to me, operate on a threats-and-answers paradigm, neutralizing threats while drawing cards. Midgame decks, instead, specialize in powerful, singular, expensive threats and ways to make them better – in this case, mana superiority and Congregation at Dawn. Other decks I classify as Midgame decks include Secret Force, Ghazi-Glare, Greater Gifts, and most anything that plays Wildfire. You can read more about this (and contribute!) here.

Grakdos Suggested by Kenneth Nagle on 2006-07-23 as a potential deck for Ravnica Block As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12330.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Burning-tree Shaman 4 Dark Confidant 4 Elves Of Deep Shadow 4 Giant Solifuge 2 Silhana Ledgewalker 4 Vinelasher Kudzu Enchantments 4 Moldervine Cloak 4 Seal Of Fire	Instants 4 Char 2 Hit / Run Sorceries 2 Demonfire Basic Lands 4 Forest 4 Mountain Lands 4 Blood Crypt 2 Overgrown Tomb 4 Rakdos Carnarium 4 Stomping Ground	Sideboard: 3 Gristleback 3 Rain Of Gore 2 Hit / Run 3 Parallectric Feedback 4 Putrefy
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Rare Saturation: 51%
Average Bob Pain: 1.6333 life

My deck is a suicide aggro deck, basically a collection of the best aggressive cards we weren't using. The burn in Ravnica block is Extended-quality, making it unfeasible not to run an aggro deck with burn, preferably including Lightning Helix. In lieu of Lightning Helix, I'm playing Hit / Run, one of the cards in the high-quality Split Card cycle.

That's right, ladies and gentleman, Dark Confidant + Hit / Run is a Pro Tour-quality combo. I like to think that Bob enthusiastically offers up Hit at a discount three life, but Neil Reeves won't let you forget about the five life of Run.

While playing both maximum Dark Confidant and potentially maximum Hit / Run in the same deck seems like disynergy on paper, that's not truly the case when you play the games. Several things must happen before a Bob plus Hit / Run becomes a bombo. You must:

Play a Dark Confidant.
Have that Dark Confidant survive.
Flip a 2/60 (3.333%), losing eight life.
Have that eight life actually matter.

Most good players instinctively kill Dark Confidant on sight, anyway, so you often don't even have to worry about it.

In all the testing I did with this deck, I only flipped Hit / Run four times. Two times I lost the game directly, and the other two times I still won. By playing Hit, I won games by blowing up Signets, Caryatids, Hierarchs, and Simic Sky Swallowers. The Run half can kill when the board stalls out and you're staring at a Caryatids, Hierarchs, and a Selesnya Guildmage. My maximum Run damage thus far is thirty-six excess trample damage via multiple Solifuges (I still lost, though!). The Run half is facilitated by the fact that many players will not block my Dark Confidants when my life total is low, often making a Run-powered alpha strike lethal.

The short answer is that Dark Confidant wins games, Hit wins games, and at times Run can even win games, so the ends justify the odds.

Of not-too-minor importance is the fact that I'm a slow player in need of a fast deck, and I would be tapping basic Forests at my first Pro Tour.

If you can't tell from our deck selections, we were in what I call an “interim deck-building phase.” The first phase is building decks with good cards. This is an obvious and easy method for building decks – just put in every good card you can find, follow a curve, throw in a manabase, and you're ready.

The next step is to identify flaws in the decks and compensate for them with “bad” cards. Examples here include emphasizing land destruction with Helldozer and discovering Isperia the Inscrutable.

The final stage is to streamline everything, which is where the notorious three-ofs begin to surface. Examples of this include the Black hiccup in casting Helldozer in W/G/B due to the loss of two Overgrown Tombs, Grakdos's need to trim a Moldervine Cloak due to a shortage of targets, and sideboarding strategies in general. We never truly reached this stage even the night before Pro Tour: Charleston began.

With our decklists complete and my first Pro Tour mere hours away, I lay on the floor and sleep not a wink.

We walk to the Charleston Convention Center, make some final purchases of cards, and I see several Magic celebrities for the first time. When I say “celebrities,” I really mean players I've read and seen online, as we are all just glorified nerds in our own niche.

Everyone is much smaller than they seem online. For example, Antonino De Rosa looks like a massive human in online coverage, but he's really not that large of a man. My teammates are large men. De Rosa is shorter and pudgier with a large head and big, bright eyes. By contrast, Kenji Tsumura is tiny guy less than a hundred pounds. Frank Karsten doesn't appear very “ginger,” and Terry Soh's face is devoid of tells at all times, so I'm not sure how you could read a “bluff” because he's always poker-faced.

Then there's some peculiar behavior that reminds me of high school. Ben Goodman introduces himself with something close to, “Hi, I'm Ben Goodman, maker of Ghost Dad. You know that deck Ghost Dad? I made that deck.” Gadiel Szleifer is a loud person demanding lots of attention.

The oddest behavior comes from Osyp Lebedowicz. Osyp has some inexplicable urge to look at the amount of money he is carrying. He will reach into his pocket, pull out a handful of $100 bills, look at them momentarily, then secret them back to his pocket. He will do this sporadically in plain view of everyone.

Now, if I have hundreds of dollars in cash in my pocket, I like to know it's still there from time to time, but I don't want to communicate to everyone around me that yes, I have hundreds of dollars in cash on me, please rob me. However, Osyp must feel differently. Osyp must feel it's important for people around him to know he has several $100 bills in his pocket. If this is true, then Osyp has successfully communicated this to me.

I personally don't treat Magic as a popularity contest.

We play a familiar team from the southeast, and I'm across from John Fredis with dedicated Gruul. He wins the die roll.

I Seal of Fire his Gruul Guildmage, then we trade Chars on each other's Burning-Tree Shamans. John gets a Mauler off a Seal of Fire, and I start racing with Bob and an Elf. The race quickly turns bad for me when John adds not one but two Rumbling Slums, and I'm forced to play a second Dark Confidant to survive his next attack phase. With me at 2 and him at 4, John keeps the Slums back and I fail to flip a miracle sequence to win with Demonfire or draw with Char.

Sideboarding:
+4 Putrefy
+3 Gristleback
-4 Giant Solifuge
-2 Hit / Run
-1 Silhana Ledgewalker

I keep the Dark Confidants in. The matchup is very bad for me, so I need some way to win, and a lucky Dark Confidant makes it possible for me to kill all his guys or outdraw him.

I keep a slow hand, but it has all my colors, double Burning-Tree Shaman, and a Moldervine Cloak. John starts with Frenzied Goblin into Scab-Clan Mauler, and then he Pures my Shaman. The game was over right there on his third turn, but I play it out and John has a Char to kill me in record time.

There is probably a worse matchup for me, but dedicated Gruul just smashes Rakdos. Little guys and self-pain don't help in the war against Skarrged Rumbles.

I note that John drew all basic lands in even amounts across both these games. Our Gruul build had four Gruul Turfs in it, which go a long way to making Gruul Guildmage, Skarrg, and Demonfire very powerful.

We lose the match in a sweep.

Game Record: 0-2
Match Record: 0-1

Not the best start to one's first ever Pro Tour. Since I lost so fast, I have the luxury of eating the most food at the Pro Player's Lounge.

I'm against Markus Petterson playing a RUG Simic Sky Swallower deck. He wins the die roll.

I keep a mediocre hand, with a Vinelasher Kudzu that connects twice before Carven Caryatid steps in the way. I commit more to the table while Markus uses double Compulsive Research and some Signets. He has a Savage Twister, then drops two Simic Sky Swallowers in succession, earning my concession.

Sideboarding:
-4 Seal of Fire
-1 Vinelasher Kudzu
+2 Hit / Run
+3 Parallectric Feedback

Having never truly worked out sideboard strategies, I totally improvise something on the spot.

I audibly hear Markus consult his teammates about his opening hand, fearing “land destruction,” so he mulligans.

I have a Burning-Tree Shaman, which gets Remanded, and Markus uses his turn 3 to Compulsive Research. I punish with back-to-back Solifuges, which he does have Twisters for. I add two Burning-Tree Shamans to attack past his Caryatid, and with my final card I Demonfire him for exactly his life total through his countermagic (thanks to Rakdos Carnarium.)

I fake like I board stuff. I probably had about one Parallectric Feedback too many in my deck, but oh well.

I have a Burning-Tree Shaman that hits, but Markus has a Signet and a Carven Caryatid. I make an active choice to not commit more things to the board, including none of my Bobs or Vinelasher Kudzus. Instead, I sit on my Parallectric Feedbacks and begin to use Hits at his end steps. Markus has two more Caryatids, and I can't seem to draw any more lands, so the Kudzus weren't going to do much anyway. I really wanted a couple of lands so I could deploy them while keeping Feedback mana up, but my deck wasn't really cooperating.

Markus, on the other hand, seems to have plenty of mana but not much to do with it. I'm probably telegraphing Feedback like crazy, but at least his SSS isn't on the table. Two more Hits, and we still sit. Finally my deck delivers me many lands in a row, and I begin deploying a Bob each turn. This forces Electrolyze, but the second Bob forces a Savage Twister for four, and Markus uses a Remand on my Feedback. My next Bob hits and sticks for three turns, while I slowly add Kudzus to attack past his two remaining Caryatids. Markus reaches ten mana to play SSS plus a Voidslime on my Feedback. The SSS hits me once. I play a Char to knock Markus to 8, and with some advice, he Voidslimes it.

This situation is a miniscule but game-altering reason to play Demonfire in your deck. The mere existence of Demonfire in my deck forced my opponent to counter this non-lethal Char.

A Kudzu gets past his Walls for three damage, but Markus simply swings and Invokes for a ton to kill me.

Then guess what? Surprise! We also lose the match.

Game Record: 1-3
Match Record: 0-2

Despite being in the 0-2 bracket, this round begins with a swarm of judges performing The First Ever Pro Tour Team Trios Deck-Check on us. There are no problems, but my sleeves need to be replaced before the next round.

Resleeving your deck: $5.00

I'm paired against Tim Kincaid and his Firemane Angel control deck. I think I'd rather fight the Rumbling Slums and Skarrgs, personally. I lose the die roll.

I throw all my gas in Tim's face, even managing to Demonfire a Firemane Angel just before he kills me at a precarious 41 life.

Sideboarding:
+3 Rain of Gore
+2 Hit / Run
-4 Moldervine Cloak
-1 Seal of Fire

Tim tells me to bring in my Rain of Gores and he'll try to answer them. What I didn't know at the time is how accurately that one sentence describes the post-board matchup.

I keep a manascrewed hand solely because it has a turn 2 Rain of Gore. Tim takes bad Helix to off Bob, and I stumble for bit, merely Charring his face. A Hit takes his Signet, and I finally find a Green source to get my hand online. The problem is that Tim found his answer: Transmute Muddle the Mixture into Hide / Seek.

With Rain of Gore gone and Tim at 7 life, my Burning-Tree Shamans and Kudzus all eat Fetters and Helixes until Tim is at 28 life! My Hit on Firemane Angel and second Rain of Gore come way too late and I die. Tim seemed to think that Rain of Gore forces him to lose two life to his Firemane Angel, but remind him that the lifegain is optional. Matt took particular offense to this, but with ten life and no board against an opponent at thirty, with two Firemanes and enough land to recur them, I felt I wasn't hurting my chances.

And wouldn't you know it, we lost this match, too!

Game Record: 1-4
Match Record: 0-3

I'm against Chad Clair and his W/G/B deck, and I ask him why isn't his team name is Peanut Butter Jelly? After some confusion, team Peanut Belly Jelly found out the judges butchered their name in addition to being in the 0-3 bracket. I tell them the judges messed up our team name, too. We are team Sausage Biscuit (for laughs).

I win the die roll.

I lead with Elves of Deep Shadow and put a Cloak on her. This eats a Putrefy, but I have a Solifuge. Chad puts Carven Caryatid, out but I Hit her out of the way. Rolling Spoil wrecks me and Congregation at Dawn for triple Hierarch puts the game out of reach.

Sideboarding:
-2 Moldervine Cloak
+2 Hit / Run

I go easy on the sideboarding because the Feedbacks really messed up how I could play the game.

I lead with Bob into Kudzu while Chad has an excruciatingly slow start with Orzhov Basilica. I flip a Hit / Run, taking eight damage! I tell my team, “I just Bobbed Hit / Run,” frown and pause, then add, “but I still win!” Solifuge and Hit crush Chad's glacial draw.

Chad double mulligans and I keep. My draw is pretty bad, but it's not slower than a double mulligan. Facing down Kudzus and a Solifuge, Chad's only play of the game is to pump out one Vitu-Ghazi token before dieing.

Game Record: 3-4
Match Record: 1-3

With any hope for prize money on the line, we are paired against Masashi Oiso's team. I'm against Shingo Adachi's who wins the multiple Japanese “dice” roll. The next sequence of events turned out to be the most riveting hour during the entire weekend.

I have never met a Japanese Magic player before, nor have I ever played a match against one. My gut feeling is that I'm fixing to be owned by “suboptimal” (but what extensive playtesting has proven to be optimal) cards.

We open with dueling Dark Confidants, but mine eats a Hit! Whatever doubts I may have had about playing both Dark Confidant and Hit / Run has just been vindicated by Japanese Pros. Adachi's B/R/U deck can't even cast the Run half!

Flipping the Hit / Run puts him suddenly at eleven life. His card advantage enables him to keep my board clear, so I make the choice to race him with his own Bob and burn. A Fall whiffs on my lands, but I die to Bob attacks and a Demonfire while he is still at a healthy seven life.

Sideboarding:
-4 Char
-2 Hit / Run
-1 Moldervine Cloak
+4 Putrefy
+3 Gristleback

I make some pretty random changes. The reasoning is that I plan win with Dark Confidant, much like he did last game. All his guys are tiny so I don't want the extra pain from Char when Putrefy will do.

I keep a land heavy hand but it has removal. Adachi begins with a Dark Confidant and a Terry Soh that both die. I drop a Kudzu and bloodthirst into a Gristleback, but both of them die to Hit / Run (yummy Gristleback!). We enter a draw-go situation and it becomes alarmingly apparent that none of my creatures are going to live. Adachi has stockpiled a metric ton of removal, so much so that he Wrecking Balls one of my many Carnariums as I draw nothing.

It then dawns on me how his deck wins. His deck is full of card advantage creatures such as Dark Confidant, Terry Soh, and Lyzolda along with support spells like Rise/Fall, Hit/Run, and Wrecking Ball. In our matchup, he is the control and I am the beatdown. The problem is that I sideboarded out of the beatdown, so now I literally cannot win.

I try to make a game of it, killing a Lyzolda here and a Bob there while my creatures die horrible deaths, but soon enough a Terry Soh sticks. Next comes Rise to bounce Terry Soh and retrieve Lyzolda, and I die very quickly holding useless Moldervine Cloaks.

After I de-sideboard, I turn my attention to the Matt versus Oiso match beside me. It's WGB 7-drops against the RUG Savage Twister plus SSS plus Voidslime deck with zero Mortify targets. They are at the point in the game where Matt begins slamming 7-drops into Oiso's counterspells. Usually if one of them sticks for more than a turn, it's game over.

Matt plays Congregation at Dawn for Helldozer, Angel of Despair, Angel of Despair, and plays the Helldozer, which gets Savage Twistered. I count Matt's land to get my math straight because of bouncelands. Then I count Oiso's mana. Then I look a little further back and see Oiso draw a card, and I'm stunned.

I can see his hand. I can see Masashi Oiso's hand, card-for-card.

That's not possible. He's a Japanese Pro. They're amazing technical players. They don't do such amateurish things as hold their cards in plain view of their opponent.

But this tournament is different. This is the first Team Constructed Pro Tour, something new. The technical skills are slightly different. You have to keep your hand invisible to three people, not one, because there's open communication.

As this realization churns in my head, the game plays out thusly: Matt tries Angel of Despair, Oiso plays Remand. Oiso plays Electrolyze and Compulsive Research in search of a land, leaving up two mana for the Muddle the Mixture in his hand, his only counter.

This the crucial turn – Matt's choice of Angel of Despair or Wit's End. I see Oiso's answers are Muddle the Mixture for Wit's End and Savage Twister for Angel of Despair, which would tap him out. Do I tell my teammate?

It's an issue of conflict. On one side, I have a Shoulder Demon seething with desire to make Day 2 or even money at my first Pro Tour. Relaying the exact contents of Oiso's at all times to Matt would tip Oiso off so I would have to be discreet. I could hide this by simply telling Matt what to do with some kind of *wink* that would keep the subterfuge going.

On the other side, my Shoulder Angel doesn't feel entirely comfortable with this situation. Isn't it dishonest on some level? I mean, Japanese players are incredibly nice. They are all smiles and chuckles, especially to each other. I played my match without any help, why not just let Matt play his as well?

So, do I tell my teammate that play X likely wins the game and play Y likely doesn't?

That's a big, emphatic no. Instead, I sit quietly and watch Matt get outplayed by Masashi Oiso. With great satisfaction, I might add.

In truth, I wasn't completely silent. I did offer Matt, "I think you just lost." This was after the second Angel of Despair stuck and I saw Oiso had all the answers after Compulsive Research. Oiso takes ten damage from Angel of Despair in order to get up to ten mana for a Savage Twister plus Voidslime on Debtors' Knell that seals Matt's fate and the match.

Game Record: 3-6
Match Record: 1-4

Ironically, Matt asks Oiso to sign the playset of Angels of Despair in his deck. Oiso obliges with his usual mirth. I ask Matt, “So, two of those signed Angels are mine?”, referring to the two Angels of Despair of mine that now bear Oiso's kanji. Matt informs me that he will get me two different Angels and that these two Angels are now his.

Sometimes, I think Matt is only capable of being a dork.

In secret, I was routing for Tottori 1 6 1 to win the whole thing.

This begins the “fun” rounds since no one can make any money. We get paired against a French team made of young players. They tell us that coucon xie is a nice French greeting. I'm against Liking Saiyasely and his seemingly underpowered Simic Aggro-Control deck. I win the die roll.

I open with two Seals of Fire to kill his two Vinelasher Kudzus, and I'm sure happy I did. Liking follows with two Silkwing Scouts, but my own Kudzu and goth Elves run him over while he landfloods, and I finish him with my Goth elves into a large Hellbent Demonfire.

Sideboarding
-2 Hit / Run
+2 Putrefy

Nothing went too terribly wrong, so I don't sideboard too terribly much.

My manabase bites me and I'm forced to double mulligan, keeping a terrible hand with one land and some Bobs. I don't draw another land for six turns, and thus I die.

I'm forced to double mulligan again, keeping and getting manaflooded. I begin with some Elves, but Liking has two Kudzus that I have no answer for. The Kudzus grow enormous due to Farseeks and Silkwing Scouts and puts me into chumpblock mode just before I die.

Game Record: 4-8

I didn't realize until the third game just dangerous Vinelasher Kudzu was in his deck. His deck didn't seem to do very much except Vinelasher Kudzu, but those Kudzu would run over turn 3 Caryatids if I had them.

Greg is bogged down in the Firemane Control mirror match. If you didn't know, Firemane Control decks have a notoriously difficult time killing each other unless one player pulls very far ahead. A great strategy is to actually deck your opponent.

Greg really needed a miracle to win, and a miracle came. With both players high in the 40s for life, Greg's Niv-Mizzet wasn't going to do much but deck him. However, his opponent was very generous and began cooperating. First, he Mimeofractures out two Firemane Angels for Greg, which Greg happily Lightning Helixes into his own graveyard. With only six card in his library, his opponent aims a non-lethal Compulsive Research, and Greg happily draws his cards. A timely Repeal gets Greg in a large attack with Angels, Insperia, and Niv-Mizzet, and with a Condemned Firemane Angel as the last card in his library, Greg swings and aims an exactly lethal Invoke the Firemind for 21 at his opponent to win the game.

Unfortunately, we still lost the match!

Match Record: 1-5

Our final round is against another spiritually defeated team, but we sit down at the last table to play nonetheless. At least my teammates did; my opponent no showed, probably opting for ping-pong or pool instead. I lingered long enough for the tech game win, then did the same.

Game Record: 5-8

I return after food. Matt had lost, and Greg was into game 2. Greg makes what I consider a play mistake by casting a fast Firemane Angel, giving John a no-contest SSS. Greg's two Odds / Ends can't resolve in time and it's time for game 3.

Greg's hand is good for game 3, but John has a Nightmare Void and a couple of Rolling Spoils. A Moratorium Stone answers the Void while Greg plays a couple of Compulsive Researches to keep the lands flowing. With all the Helixes and some Electrolyzes in the board, Greg's deck is now empty of dead cards. After some debate, we settle on what exactly Greg should keep, which is two Niv-Mizzets, two Muse Vessels, and some other unimportant stuff. Greg goes aggro with Niv-Mizzets and a Muse Vessel, and those three die, but the last Must Vessel sticks and goes to town on John's land flooded draw. Had John not Putrefied the Signet, Greg would have had nothing useful and he still would have been land short for Angel recursion. Up more than a dozen cards thanks to Muse Vessel, Greg starts recurring Firemanes for the win.

Final Match Record: 2-5

Team Witness the Thickness makes day 2, but they can only afford two losses and still money. VS System pro Doug Tice earns warning after warning for drawing two cards on his turns, and he's mortified that he'll be disqualified because, in his own words, “I can't play this game [correctly].”

We spend time in the hotel pool discussing game balance of the WarCraft III custom map DotA-Allstars of all things. I make a Wal*Mart trip for some more apples and Diet Sprite and sleep, this time in a bed.

With no other obligations other than cheerleading for the home team, I show up two rounds late on Day 2. Team Witness the Thickness starts off at two losses and their moral is in the gutter due to a misplay. Given the choice between Simic Sky Swallower number two or a Skeletal Vampire, Phil elects for Simic Sky Swallower, which makes Bathe in Light lethal.

Round 9 in the Feature Match pit, I watch Tottori 1 6 1 against Kajiharu80. As friendly as Japanese players are to everyone, they are even friendlier to each other. Shingo's Rakdos splash Blue deck was up against a B/R/W Aggroish deck. Both players are more than happy to play Hit//Run with Dark Confidant in their deck! These games go back and forth, but at every opportunity, Shingo protects his Bob. He's happy to throw Terry Soh and Rakdos Guildmage and other sundry creatures at removal, but his last drop is Dark Confidant every time. Game 1 was interesting in that Bob flipped Hit / Run and Shingo tried to 'race' by not killing Bob, but three flipped lands sealed his fate. Another game, Shingo got Saito into to topdeck mode and had Giant Solifuge attacking. He got a Lyzolda off the top, and the Solifuge and a card had to do 19 before Lyzolda did 9. Shingo swings and his opponent takes the bait, blocking to ping and draw. Shingo triumphantly plays hasty Hellhole Rats postcombat and there's a friendly, "Gotcha!" moment as Crypt Champion hits the bin.

In Oiso's game, Shota Yasooka has a board of Arbiter and two Court Hussars beating down along with an empty Debtor's Knell. Oiso goes to Savage Twister, and there is an ensuing counter war involving Remand, Voidslime, and Error, and the Twister gets Remanded. Yasooka knells a short-lived Court Hussar, Compulsive Researches away Mortify (no targets) and Angel of Despair (to knell later) and swings. Oiso untaps, draws, then goes to tap a mess of lands and Yasooka bins his whole board far before the Savage Twister is even shown. That's friendly. No mulling around over to Repeal, or maybe I have a counter now, just, "you got it".

Around this time, I realize I can use the computer in the Pro Player's Lounge to email myself notes about these happenings. This is because I don't own a laptop, nor did I think to borrow one.

I watch Alex Lieberman against Steve Jarvis in a feature match. Alex is playing an WGB deck with Blind Hunters while Steve is running hardcore Land Destruction. Alex gets his first 6 mana sources Putrefied, Rolling Spoiled, and Wreck Havocked, and Steve announces triumphantly, “Good news guys… he has no land!”

While it's not so interesting that Alex Lieberman has no land and Steve Jarvis is pumping his fists, what is interesting is that Randy Buehler is watching all this unfold in person. I resist an urge to yell, “Nice format, Randy” from the scaffolding, because after pondering this jest a bit more, players casting 7-mana creatures by definition is a good format. While the innocuous Stone Rain would truly ruin everything, R&D had the clairvoyance to keep all the land destruction at four mana.

They draw go with nothing happening because of no threat to finish the crippled Lieberman. The lands finally come and Alex deploys a Signet and a bounceland, and a threat finally comes to kill him in the form of Skeletal Vampire. Alex barely misses his opportunity to Mortify the Vampire in response to the Bats and Steve holds him to it. Personally, I would not hold this obvious play that happens countless times in playtesting against my opponent; I would simply bin my Skeletal Vampire. Being nice is not the same as winning, though. Alex's hand was total gas and a proper Mortify could have easily won him the game. Alex is visibly disheartened and scoops a turn later in disgust.

Another spectator leans over to me and asks in a thick accent if I was watching Alex's game. I say yes I was. He asks why didn't Alex Mortify the Vampire in response to the Bats, and I offer, “Because he is American…?”

I stand on the scaffold to watch authors Jeroen Remie, Ruud Warmenhoven, and Terry Soh. I see Remie somehow has multiple Grave-Shell Scarabs in his WGB deck and Terry Soh is playing his invitational card in Rakdos with Keening Banshees in the board. Ruud is playing RUG Savage Twisters plus SSS, and has some Niv-Mizzets and Rumbling Slums in his board. Ruud is against a Supply / Demand deck. After his opponent Court Hussars, Ruud correctly surmises his opponent is manascrewed and Remands a Farseek, then Voidslimes the Farseek and a Civic Wayfinder with some interim Compulsive Researches and Electrolyzes.

At any point during all of this, Ruud's Niv-Mizzet could hit the table and dominate if only a second Red source would show up. Finally, with quad Simic Signet and a ton of land, Niv-Mizzet comes down and wipes away tokens, a Hierarch, two Selesnya Guildmages, and a Court Hussar with the help of Savage Twister. Niv-Mizzet never loses the race.

I again see Alex Lieberman in the feature match area. Kaji leads with turn 2 Simic Signet off two Forests and Alex is faced with the choice of turn 2 Orzhov Signet or Orzhov Basilica. He elects for the Basilica and it gets Rolling Spoiled from Kaji showing purely Simic colors. Poor Lieberman – he can't seem to dodge that LD. I'm not sure why he didn't put his Signet out there, but it sure did hurt him this game. His four-mana threats in double Blind Hunter were not nearly as powerful as Kaji's Simic Sky Swallower, and he died to a Clutch of the Undercity of all things.

For the final Round 14, I find out that Witness the Thickness is up against the team of Remie, Warmenhoven, and Soh. I relay my scouting info but I forget about their sideboards until after the round has already started. I expect Brett's Gruul to smash on Soh's Rakdos but it didn't happen, though Adam wins over Remie in a mirror match. In the deciding game, Phil gets an active Muse Vessel against Ruud and that pretty much forces Ruud to go aggro or lose. The Vessel is enough to get Phil the advantage to win. It is a somewhat vicarious victory, but in reality my fun was already killed the moment I realized I had to spend five days and nights plus play in a potentially 16 round tournament next to Matt Warner.

We finish in 146th place, almost at the bottom of the standings. Witness the Thickness makes 14th for $3,150. Remie, Soh, and Warmenhoven who finished out of the money.

We all head back to the hotel and decide to use our draft sets in a Backdraft (or Assdraft) – draft the worst deck possible and pass it to an opponent.

My no-creatures strategy is screwed by none other than Matt Warner on my right, who is absolutely giddy doing the same thing. I begin taking every Aura I can find, but Matt is cutting non-creatures and I'm forced to take guys like Mourning Thrull and Cytospawn Shambler in pack 2. I end up with an insane card pool because of too many splashable creatures to put Hyperbolt Grasp and Moldervine Cloaks onto. Matt's pool ends up with perhaps five creatures and he can't possibly contain himself as to how awesome he is. Perhaps he is under the tutelage of Gadiel?

I get Phil's good-cards-with-no-mana-fixing pool and he gets my insane-bombs-and-few-creatures pool. My deck is every single White, Blue, and Green card I have. I have no creature kill, no combat tricks, no Signets, and no bouncelands, and I split all my colors 6-6-5. My deck includes three Grayscale Gharials and a Visions Skeins, but all my cards are splashable.

I get destroyed by Phil using my pool's combo of random creature plus Moldervine Cloak with removal backup. The second game I go down to random creature plus Hyperbolt Grasp. ‘Tis the season for incorrectly approaching formats.

In the next match, the rotation puts me against the ubiquitous Matt Warner. He color screws hard game 1, and I at least can cast my terrible spells for the win. Our removal-light decks basically stare at each other the next game while I peck away with a Transluminant token, but I eventually alpha strike after finally drawing all three of my colors.

After this match, I reiterate to Matt, “I have never played a game of Magic against you that I enjoyed.” This is an epiphany I had some months ago and it still holds true. When you play a ton of Magic, you can assign an economic utility to the activity, as you can with anything else you do in your spare time. With Matt, that value falls below zero. Somehow Matt just sucks all the fun out of the game. We're playing Backdraft, of all formats! But there Matt is – sitting across from me, squinting his eyes, pursing his lips, juggling numbers, and playing his very best to attack past my army of Grayscale Gharials while I'm just asking my deck for a Forest (as always) to end the game already. It's important for Matt to win because, in theory, winning at Magic will raise everyone's respect for his intellectual abilities, a supremely important goal for him. In reality, he succeeds in utter annoyance. And he's my teammate.

In the deciding match, I'm against Adam's four-color no-Islands deck.

I keep in the three Grayscale Gharial. Seriously, this is Backdraft!

Adam gets a Backdraft nut draw of Forest, Utopia Sprawl, Trumpeter, Veteran Armorer, Flame-Kin Zealot, and I'm dead on the board by turn 7. In the next two games, I finally draw my Cerulean Sphinx and dominate the table with it. At one point, Adam combat tricks away the Sphinx, and cuts me right to it!

Adam next shows me the Basic Land game, a game where you draw off a deck with all basic lands where:

Everything is free.
Forest is Giant Growth or a 3/3.
Mountain is a Lightning Bolt or a 2/2 with haste.
Swamp is a Terror or a 2/1 with fear.
Island is a Counterspell or s 2/2 with flying.
Plains is a Healing Salve or a 2/2 with vigilance.

It's fast and interesting, but Forest is slightly overpowered.

The next day consists mainly of free food, the pool, and watching the Top 4 on the Jumbotron next to Randy Buehler and Brian-David Marshal. Everything seemed to play out exactly as it should have. Maybe the metamorphic Gadiel should have gotten a Savage Twister, but you can't win them all. I truly don't understand the Faith's Fetters on the Sunforgered Bird of Paradise by Shota Yasooka, though. I believe Yasooka was trying to race with his two Angels of Despair and wanted to take away the Sunforger's +4/+0 bonus from the equation, seeing 3WR Lightning Helixes as a slow clock. This logic seems sound in the short term, but as it turns out Edel had enough extra mana to keep the Sunforger active while adding a Guildmage and a Hierarch to the table despite some tricks from Yasooka. In the end, he was only a single life point shy of at least a draw. I would have just blocked with Angel of Despair on the last turn to enable Trial, but a Bathe in Light would still make the game unwinnable even if it buys a turn.

I suppose R&D's caution with Sunforger-able cards has merit given their track record with repeatable card-advantage equipment.

We see a preview of Dreamblade, a new miniatures game by Wizards whose designers play way too much Magic. I mean, its one thing to have half the keyword abilities in the game be transposed Magic cards (Enrage, Regenerate, etc), but my first impression of Dreamblade is “Magic cards on a chessboard.” Cards like Ancient Silverback and Sandstone Warrior are directly portable to Dreamblade as-is. There are races, colors, power, toughness, activated abilities (requiring “blades” instead of mana), and every creature has the Sakura-Tribe Springcaller ability. Hopefully, there are more complex maps than a five-by-five grid where you try to get to the center.

The thing I initially like most about Dreamblade is that it tries to make momentum a pendulum. If your creatures get blown up in Dreamblade, you get extra “mana' during your next turn to summon creatures. Too often in games, someone gets ahead and that advantage just crushes the other player, evident in games with no randomness like Chess or Stratego. There should be more than just randomness as a mechanism for a comeback victory. In VS System, the power level jump at each drop makes it possible for a player to barely survive a turn and then come back from behind. In Magic, if you are losing, you might draw a Wrath off the top, but if you don't, maybe you drew a land and can take another hit, so a big spell off the top can turn the tables.

The best use of momentum (in my opinion) is the two-player mode of Tetris 2 for the Super Nintendo. In the two-player mode of Tetris 2, if you are losing, your grid fills up and it gets hectic near the top. However, a huge grid gives a losing player the potential for a massive chain reaction that clears their grid and vomits tons of pieces on the opponent. There is a similar mechanic at work in Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move / Snood. Dreamblade feels like it kinda works like this, but it might be nice if the “mana” bonus was variable.

While Dreamblade is probably a fun game on some level, it just strikes me as unoriginal. Members of Magic R&D have recently alluded to Hasbro telecoms that praise them as “geniuses.” In my experience, only corporate fat cats have the power to organize such a thing, and the only reason for such a large company-wide commendation would be because it's a regular yearly event or Magic R&D has the impressed the fat cats with something. That something can only be profit. Magic: The Gathering must be making an absurd amount of money right now (I'm looking at you, MTGO).

Soon the Dreamblade demo ends, and Magic at the Convention Center appears to be closing down for good.

We dine at the local Chinese place near our hotel, and at one point there must have been six Pro Tour winners eating Chinese food there at the same time. Ruels, Tsumura, Siron… you name him, he was there. Apparently Chinese is the food choice of mental champions (…within walking distance).

We hit the lobby and we are treated with the highlight of the day. There are two sultry latino ladies ch