This report is really late, since I attended the PTQ three weeks ago. In some article I read it said that you shouldn't write about the ride up unless it was significant. Well, I think what happened to me was significant, even though to most people it won't mean anything.

I think I'll start from the beginning.

I was really excited when I found out that New Orleans was going to have two qualifiers - one was even a two-slot! I don't have a car and I don't know anyone else here that plays, so I had to take the bus. I figured I would go to the two-slot, because if I had to ride the bus to go to the one-slot and I got second place, I would be pretty mad.

I started thinking about IBC about two months before Worlds. It's mostly been a bunch of theorizing about decks and the metagame, because I didn't have anyone to playtest with in my old town. You could say,"What about Apprentice?" Well, I could have done that... If I didn't hate playing online so much. I don't know; it just doesn't feel like I'm playing the game. Anyways, I started out testing Go-mar and a U/W/R aggro deck I found early in the season. I never gave much thought to The Solution because I thought it would be dead in the new IBC, I disliked R/G because I didn't like it (and because it lost to Domain and Go-mar; the few games I did play with Domain I wasn't happy with it because I would always get mana screwed).

Fast forward to about three weeks before the PTQ. I call my friend who I'm supposed to go to the PTQ with, and he says he can't go because he is grounded. I'm get pissed, because I feel like should just give up Magic because I rarely get to play in tournaments. A week later I call my mom and find out she won't be working the weekend of the PTQ, so I decide that I'll go even if my friend can't go.

It's now a week before the PTQ, and I throw all of my theory out of the window. I decide I would either play New Solution or DavePrice.dec. With Kai's win in London I thought about Dark Domain, but I figured Domain still gives me problems with mana screw. I figured DD would be big - and since I was leaning towards New Solution, I figured I wouldn't have too much trouble in that matchup. I was gonna play the version Zvi posted on The Sideboard just with three Disrupts main.

I knew my bus ride*** was gonna be a long one. It would only be a four-hour drive from school to my house... But for some reason it was gonna take twenty-three hours to get down there and eleven to get back to school. When I buy my ticket I find out why it takes so long to get there, there was a thirteen-hour layover in Jackson, Mississippi. I'm like,"Man, this trip better be worth it." I get to the Jackson bus station without much trouble. Everything starts after about seven hours into the thirteen. At first I walk outside for a second and some bum asks me for a little money to get him something to eat, so I give him like $3, then some guy asks me to buy a"gold" chain from him for $50; I say"no" then he says,"C'mon, you know I need that weed money." At least he was being honest with me and didn't try to feed me all kinds of BS. Then another guy asks me for money. He tries to guilt me into by saying how he hasn't eaten in two weeks and all kinds of other bull, so I give him $5 to shut up and just leave me the hell alone. Later that night - okay, this is where the relevance of the trip comes in - he starts talking to me again, trying to give me advice on life and stuff, I'm just thinking,"Yeah, I really want some advice from this bum." Then he says that I'm gonna be blessed for helping him out, and I was like hells yea, maybe I'll win this thing now. The thing he said gave me a little hope - also, I found a TV chair that stayed on and I was like,"Damn, I'm gonna win the PTQ and I found this chair - must be my lucky day."

Let's fast forward to the day of the PTQ.

I get there about fifteen minutes before registration ends. I'm thinking that's plenty of time, since I only need one card to finish New Solution, so I find some of my friends from Slidell. I walk over there and there'll all like,"Oh my God! I thought you were dead." I was like,"That's what I was thinking about y'all." I haven't seen them since January, so it was really nice seeing them again.

Somewhere between the time I walked on site and talked with my friends, I decided to go with the LiquidTempo deck and abandon the New Solution. I scrounge up the rest of the cards I needed and finish my registration sheet.

This is what I played:
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Shivan Reef
4 Shivan Oasis
2 Flametongue Kavu
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
4 Blurred Mongoose
4 Kavu Titan
4 Repulse
3 Exclude
3 Prophetic Bolt
4 Urza's Rage
4 Fire/Ice
4 Mystic Snake
6 Forest
6 Island

Sideboard:
2 Flametongue Kavu
4 Jungle Barrier
3 Penumbra Bobcat
3 Gainsay
3 Tranquility

Before I get to the actual tournament, I wanna talk about Blurred Mongoose. Mr. Rizzo may have his 1/1 sexual chocolate beatstick, but the Goose is soooooooo much better - often I would just drop him on turn 2 and he would deal all twenty points of damage. At the end of the day, I was claiming how the Goose was gonna be my new love slave. Mystic Snake sucked the whole day; he was hardly ever worth playing. There's no use trying to counter stuff with him, because you always lose the counter war. I didn't draw Flametongue Kavu too much, but when I did play him he was huge. Kavu Titan isn't that good when you play control... And that's all I played that day.

Round 1: Bobby Dauzat, playing a U/W/B Arena deck

Game 1: He plays a couple taplands and a Spectral Lynx - too bad I have better and more critters than he does. I thought he was Go-mar, as I took out two Flametongues and put in two Gainsays, but I figured I wouldn't need them because I beat him so easy the first game.

Game 2: On the third turn he dropped a Phyrexian Arena and I couldn't handle all of the card advantage he was gaining. He killed me with a bunch of Death Grasps.

Game 3: I start to get nervous, because I don't want to start the day off with a loss. He drops another early Arena, and I get him to around twelve, but I have to keep casting creatures because he has Lynxes out and he would keep countering and Death Grasping stuff. He ended the game above twenty life.

Games 1-2 matches 0-1

I was not gonna let a first-round loss get me down - since I'm blessed and all, I shouldn't be losing, dammit. Oh well, 5-1-1 should make it.

Round 2: Victor Tacorchick, playing Nomar

Game 1: This is a friend and I didn't want to knock a friend out so early... But I had to in order to move on. I drop early creatures backed with Repulses. Luckily, he didn't play any Absorbs during that game, because I probably would have lost the race. I thought he was playing New Solution just with too much black, but it turned out to be a version of Nomar.

Game 2: It's faster than the first game and not as close. For some reason, a lot of my opponents didn't have the smoothest mana draws.

Games 3-2 Matches 1-1

Round 3: Chad Averett, playing B/R/g

Game 1: This is the only match I didn't face a control deck. He complains how he can't seem to get his green mana. He does manage to Terminate on consecutive turns, and when he can't get a fifth mana he casts Skizziks without kicker on consecutive turns - too bad they were all bounced or countered.

Game 2: He complains some more about the lack of green mana. I lay some more creatures and he gets a few hits in every now and then, but my cards just turn up better than his.

Games 5-2 Matches 2-1

At this point I'm feeling a little bit of retribution after my first-round loss. It's not much, but being 2-1 makes me feel better.

Round 4: Matthew Champagne, mirror match

Game 1: Even though I've never played the mirror, much less any games at all, I figured in order to win the mirror one of has to play control while the other plays aggro and tries to keep tempo. Well, I'm much more comfortable playing control, and I didn't feel this deck was aggro enough for me to play that side of the coin. It's hard to be control when you're starting out a land behind, and I die to some beats that I couldn't stop. I get nervous, because if I drop the next game I'm out of the top 8.

Game 2: Fire/Ice sets up a bunch of creatures I get to counter with Exclude and Mystic Snake. When he runs out of creatures to play, I just unload my hand and beat.

Game 3: See game 2.

Games 7-3 Matches 3-1

Round 5: David Watson, playing a teched New Solution

Game 1: I guess he figured red was gonna be big again, so he decided to put Harsh Judgements and Crimson Acolytes in the main deck. He kind of surprised me with the main deck Harsh Judgement, but it wasn't enough to stop me and I won with better men on the table.

Game 2: I die to a bunch of Mages and Knights; it wasn't a whole lot of fun.

Game 3: The score sheet suggests this game was a little more one-sided, than I perceived it to be but I was still very nervous because it doesn't take much in IBC to swing board position dramatically. He drops a few creatures, but my Mongoose is the sexiest thing ever to be printed and I stomp him. I'm so nervous towards the end of the game, I almost drop the two Rages in my hand. The situation came up where I needed him to block a certain way in order for me to Rage him out. Luckily, he blocked like I thought he would and it allowed me to kill him. For some reason, he kept naming"Mystic Snake" with his Meddling Mage the whole match.

Games 9-4 Matches 4-1

Round 6: Brian Ong, playing Trenches

Game 1: This is another friend, but I was more confident in round 2, 'cuz Trenches is a pretty hard matchup. The first game I was beating down with my hard-to-see sex slave... But he played a Trenches and that stopped the attacks. It wouldn't be so bad if the Goose had a two toughness, but I guess that would have made him better. I try casting other creatures, but all of them are countered.

Games 2 and 3 are nailbiters, but it mostly involved me dropping my blurred sexual fiend and beating for twenty. In game three I sideboarded out a Tranquility and put in another Exclude because of Lightning Angels, but that was about it.

Games 11-5 Matches 5-1

After this round I felt bad for Brian, because he seemed to want to make top 8; I guess he was already defeated since I was blessed. Even though I was feeling bad for Brian, I had the biggest grin on my face - because I was now in my first top 8!

Round 7: Wade Maraj, playing Trenches

We ID. Yeah!!! I'm in the top 8.

Top 8 goes something like:

1 R/G
2 Trenches
3 Something
4 Dark Domain
5 I think another Trenches
6 Don't know
7 Me with Liquid Tempo
8 Don't know

I think 6 or 8 was a U/W/B deck, but I don't know for sure. There also might have been one of those R/G CetaStorm decks... But like I said, I'm not real sure.

After the top 8 is announced. I overhear someone say how he hasn't seen so many randoms in a top 8 before. That made me mad as hell; it's like the top 8 isn't going to be good because they're not in it.

Top 8

Wade Maraj, playing Trenches

Game 1: I'm thinking I actually have a chance in this game, as I drop an early Goose and start attacking immediately... But he plays aggressively and drops an early Trenches, and I know I'm gone when I'm Raging and Repulsing tokens. Fire/Ice has the potential to be really good in this matchup, and I want to play eight just to make sure I draw one.

Game 2: I make what I believe is a mistake by not Icing a land on his third turn, and everything just slips from there on. I try some kicked Titans throughout the match, but he was playing Prohibit main deck and it just sucks to pay five mana for it when it still has a casting cost of two.

Well, that ends my top 8. I had a lot of fun, and I gained 46 points with a 5-2-1 finish, so I guess it wasn't that bad of a day. I even made top 8 on my first try! I had a lot of fun and I got to see friends that I haven't seen in forever. I feel I would have had a much better chance in the top 8 if I was playing the New Solution. Liquid Tempo just can't handle Trenches or Domain - oh, well.

If anyone goes to Mississippi State University and plays Magic, write me an email; maybe we can play sometime. I could really use some people to play against and maybe a ride to PT: New Orleans. Also, I'll offer some money to anyone who will let me and my friend sleep on your floor. I would prefer if you were staying at the Days Inn.

And another thing - if any of the Slidell people I know read this, write me; and maybe my friend and I could sleep on your floor. If not, write anyways.

Tony Morris
reydelmundo83@hotmail.com