Greetings kids! My dear friends at AZMagicPlayers asked me if I’d like to do a tournament report for them on our StarCityGames Open Series: Phoenix, and it sounded promising. I had a passable performance, but one for which I was very grateful, that is at least in the opportunity. StarCityGames was good enough to include us in their little tour and I know I wasn’t the only one worried the morning of the event when attendance looked a little light. But I was glad to say after Sunday’s conclusion that I think we hit it out of the park, and I think we gave them a reason to come back.
I included in my last tournament report for this site, of course, the intention of a few of us AZ guys, including my brother and myself, to show up in our Sunday best for the tournament. It made for some notably awesome photo opportunities at the event. I was stoked to see the sheer density of players from our great state that we put into that room. It was a good showing by all.
The tournament organizer forgot to include the number of people or swiss rounds before the start of the tournament, fueling our concerns for a low turnout. BUT we saw 170 table numbers, and they eventually announced Round 3 that we came up about right at 341 players for 9 rounds of Standard.
A little bit on my preparation for this tournament, as well as my (probably terrible) decklist. A little over a year ago I formed a team with a few specific goals with my boy Billy Gogol. In recent months, this team has become more serious, with other inclusions, as well as the luck of the draw that came with a team sponsorship from Manawerx, including my new favorite boss Eddie Caudill. This sponsorship afforded us many opportunities leading up to this tournament, for which I am very grateful. We did extensive playtesting at Manawerx as well as at Billy’s house leading up to this tournament, but a few key factors worth stressing: While playtesting at a store or in an apartment, we’re all friends here. We’re all looking out for one another. If you see someone making a bad play in playtesting, you don’t take the easy point and call it good: you want to playtest under what they’d call optimal conditions. Your opponent sees every line, gets every free card, and doesn’t make anything easy. That way when the situation comes up, you’ve already been there. Furthermore, correcting your play shouldn’t be a bad thing. It shouldn’t be an attack, and you should be very grateful for it. By no means is it a bad thing that someone is teaching you how to improve for future situations.
Our common bond, will to succeed, and polishing each other like stones had us well-oiled for the Open. The mindset going in was something I’d come accustomed to: do everything I can do play my best possible game of magic, and let the cards fall where they may. Sometimes I’ll get lucky and have my day, sometimes the cards won’t quite be there and I won’t. But I want to be doing everything I can to succeed the whole time, win or lose.
Tournament time drawing near and we were all dressed to kill, feeling good about our deck choices and our game. My decklist, and then we’ll get to some very exciting rounds, with what else, but Blue/Black control.
Sideboarding is always a fine art; this deck is no exception. I don’t have overly detailed sideboard notes or even rigid plans, because everything is a variable, adaptable to a situation, and it all requires a thought process as it’s happening. I always sideboard differently based on whether I’m going to be on the play or the draw. For example, every match I played I presented 2 or 3 different 60 card decks. Most of my choices are pretty standard, the only probably exception being Increasing Confusion, which to be honest, was so good for me it might be good enough to be main deck one of these days. Does nothing to help you stabilize, but there’s something to be said for a win condition that you can discard to Liliana or Alchemy, and will still just kill them.
Round 1 – David, U/B Heartless Summoning.
David was another Arizona player, which sucks, as I prefer to save reunions for later in the day. He was on the play, and I opened up on a mulligan for game 1. It looked to be a Blue/Black control mirror when he opened on Darkslick Shores, but my mulligan had a Think Twice so it was fine by me. Game one was our typical U/B Control game one, where when they’re not on a hyper aggressive strategy, you both sit there with some awkward cards in your hand, trading off, but I was able to make more land drops and play my game, milling him out eventually. Game two I actually won on the Snapcaster beatdown plan, which is pretty atypical for my list, but it definitely happens. Don’t forget to attack for two.
1-0
Round 2 – Joe, R/G Aggro
I first played Joe in the Legacy Open at the Invitational in Charlotte, and he’s a hell of a player, from the southwest so I’ve seen him around a few times since. The details of our feature match escape me, but I won the roll, but lost game one, always a disheartening feeling. The knowledge well in hand that even if you force a game three, you’ll be on the back foot, drawing first. I did, in fact force a game three, but had to mulligan, and remember being just short of stabilizing. All I remember for details of this match was my win in game two, which involved leveraging my cards and drawing really hot into some Snapcasters, as I had to do, to beat his 5+ activations of his Garruk, Primal Hunter. Involved some sick blocks, sicker trades to get around and kill the planeswalker. One of those games where you draw Ratchet Bomb after you don’t need it anymore, and thank your deck for being a cruel mistress.
1-1
Round 3 – Harry, B/R Zombies
Harry opened up with a mulligan on the play, but got the draw everybody fears anyway. Turn 1 one drop, turn 2 one drop one drop. He made me find my maindeck batterskull, which was luckily enough to steal the game back from 5 life. Batterskull is the win condition I kind of wanted to dodge for game one, even though anyone worth their salt is going to assume u/b control is packing batterskull or something similar in their 75, I hate giving my opponent such obvious information for game two. After all, it doesn’t matter how bad they are, they’ll certainly look at their Shatter a little more carefully if you just beat them down with a Batterskull. Game 2 his draw was much more reasonable. I was on 12 life when I opened up on my actual preferred win condition for the matchup: Sorin Markov. Guy is a beast, he helped me to stabilize before he acted as actual kill your opponent.
2-1
Round 4 – Jon
Jon was a funny kid :) wound up he was from Havasu, few hours away. He remarked that I looked familiar, maybe he’d seen me around. I replied that I had, in fact, been around, so he most certainly could have seen me, at which point he asked the most awesome question I wound up hearing all tournament.
” Did you go to SCG Open:Vegas?”
My smirk must have betrayed the fact that I did, indeed, attend. Shortly after a couple of his homies came up, politely asking to speculate on the match after he broke the news that he might be outmatched. Among exchanging pleasantries, he asked if I was still on u/B, which I gave him. As what I’ll call a test of character, I asked him what he was playing, him only saying a brew. Nervous, cute. If he’s honest I’ll respect him for it :) but either way. I win the roll, and he mulls over his seven for a second, asking me, would you keep one land and two Gravecrawlerss. Him being on the draw, I told him that it did, in fact, sound like a snapkeep to me. He didn’t tell me that his land was a Seachrome Coast, or that his deck was going to look an awfully lot like…
U/W Delver.
He starts off slow with a Ponder, and I’m able to set up my hand a little bit, using removal in an efficient and timely fashion. His friends cracked up a little bit, as I casually informed my opponent of his slight misplay while resolving my Forbidden Alchemy. He’d cast Snapcaster Mage as Ambush Viper in response, and I just told him he should have let it resolve first. His friends seemed to call him a donkey even before this fact, but I think my helpful gesture may have only served to put the kid on tilt. His friends were less than silent about their read on the situation, that I was so confident in my own game that I was giving him pointers while it was going on. Which is only partially true, to be fair, that’s just kind of how I play Magic. I became a champion without the help of a single gameloss. Without rules-lawyering or sticking my opponent once in the tournament. I don’t give things away during my matches, like takebacks (often…), and I wouldn’t encourage you to, either, but it is a fallacy that a sad number of us believe, that being a good magician means a better ability to scream ‘judge!’ or rules-lawyer your opponent.
The maindeck Batterskull once again pulled me back from what could have been dire straights for game one. Game two was much closer. His resolved Sword of War and Peace was complicating things endlessly, but I ate it with a Karn. I ended the game by milling him out, with one life, one card in my library, and 16 counters on my Karn.
3-1
Round 5 – Landon, U/B Infect
I won the roll, and this one also opened up looking like a mirror. Game one was typical ‘he draws an Inkmoth, so I don’t tap my lands and I only pick up two poison counters in the process of slamming a Batterskull and beating him to death with it. I can’t say I have a lot of experience with this matchup, but they have to play a bunch of creature removal in order to function in the format, and I was able to limit it’s usefulness again me way pay the point of where it mattered. Game two was closer, I picked up 6 infect counters, but I believe I ended the game with two Curse in play, neither one enchanting me.
4-1
Round 6 – John Kassari, RUG Ramp
John is known (at least by me) as a Legacy champion (LA this year). He’s a nice guy and a competent player, I knew from past coverage that he had his own take on ramp, with Unsummons and Vapor Snags, as well as Ponders. Game one he was on the play, with a mulligan, but opened up with a Ponder, a Sphere of the Suns, and a Rampant Growth for huge numbers fast. I had the cards to interact, and took one hit for 12 damage off of his Primeval Titan, before stabilizing and locking up the game with Karn. Game two, he was able to ramp into a Karn during his ‘jam threats’ phase of the game, usually turns 5-8 on the typical ramp deck (at least the way my games go). I was on the Liliana plan to run him out of threats, and it was the turn that I stuck my Jace he was able to follow up with Karn to exile it. I cast Forbidden Alchemy, and found my Volition Reins. He had access to some card drawing at that point, but Karn came down on that turn as his only threat, meaning that now that i had it, I had time to +4 while he still didn’t have any pressure. I ended a game that Karn may or may not have been good enough(probably may) with Increasing Confusion.
Him to me: “You better top 8 this thing.”
5-1
Round 7 – Ryan, Frites
Frites is an interesting matchup. My gameplan usually involves tanking happily on my life total, and trying to stick a Curse of Death’s Hold, to shut off what feels like a third of their mana sources at any given time, to keep your Mana Leaks live. Also answers the Lingering Souls problem nicely(I played first)…and in his zeal to dig through a way to beat the curse, many Trackers Instincts, Mulches, and Faithless Lootings later, he’d softened up his deck for the mill plan quite nicely. Game two he sideboarded into creatures, with Thrun, Strangleroot Geist, and Huntmaster of the Fells. Sadly does not quite make up the nasty RG Aggro deck that beat me this tournament, and it was just clunky enough that although I think it might be the correct sideboard plan against me, I’d left in enough interactive cards to get him just fine. Time was turning into a concern if we had to go to game three, but I’d already discarded the Increasing Confusion, so when he cast a Faithless Looting that I knew would put him down to 21 cards, tapping out, I knew the game was over. I flashed back to leave him with one card in library, and he knew he couldn’t win in a turn, so that was match.
6-1
Round 8 – Joe, with Naya Pod.
Joe had to play down, while a couple of Arizona undefeateds, including my boy Chris Basco, drew in next to us. I told him I felt for him: That I’d have loved to be good enough to be able to draw in with him right there, but that I’d fallen short. Also that he’d almost certainly be in top 8 anyway(he was). Going into this match, I had not lost a sanctioned game to Naya Pod the 3 or 4 times I’ve played it, and liked my matchup just fine. He took a mulligan on the play, but opened up on an aggresive start with my favorite, Strangleroot Geist. He stuck a Huntmaster (I’d countered his Pod), and we were going to game two with me down. I could already tell that his pace was less than satisfactory, and that time might be an issue. I knew he was wanting the draw either way, and it’s quite a bit of leverage over an opponent when they need to win two games in the remaining time. I was prepared, if necessary, to call a judge over to the table to make sure the match finished in time. Game two he mulliganned again, but I did a lot better stabilizing. Countered his major threats, traded a Curse for some dorks and an Oblivion Ring, which is nice with this more, Superfriends build of U/B, because it opened up the door to win off the back of Sorin. Game three and time was continuing to be a factor, I made the decision of siding in my Increasing Confusion. It’s a niche card, but it’s possible it should be main. That said, as a sideboard card that I think it valuable in certain matchups, it pays to have access to a card with which you can ‘just win’ even on extra turns, or whatever. Game three and his third mulligan of the match. Also costs us time, but it’s a trade off for his cards. He opens up land-light, and I’m usually less than stoked, based on how much gas that means they have in their hand…but all I want to do is play terms and get value out of my slow cards. Build up and play a curse, tanking on my life total and keeping my Mana Leaks live long enough to spend all of them. Some quick match to count his library discretely, and I’m on my plan since I’ve drawn Increasing Confusion. I cast it for 7 of so from my hand, knocking him down to about 26 and giving him a turn to try and get something while I’m tapped out. This was the only time all tournament I cast the confusion for anything but zero from my hand, and it may have been a mistake, but I didn’t have a counter anyway, I wanted it in my graveyard for sure, and the only other option I might have had available with the mana(I can’t remember) is a flashback Alchemy. Regardless, he drew a Hero of Bladehold, which could legitimately represent lethal with his Gavony Township, so I had to draw something. I flashed back my Alchemy main phase, finding only a Phantasmal Image to copy the Hero, but that being the line, he determined there wasn’t even a good attack and, instead of using Gavony, just played another guy. I think I ripped Black Sun, continuing to make land drops, and hit him with an end of turn mill. Untap, flashback Increasing Confusion for lethal right in front of the judge and a few spectators, near the end of the round, including one Danny Smith:
“Is that that .25 cent card? What a master.”
7-1
Round 9 – Cory
I offered the draw, and he considered it, asked me, and took it. I’m not sure if he looked at his standings or not, but I was definetely comfortable with the draw, sitting in 5th place. I do believe he missed top 8, however.
7-1-1
Top 8: Yurien Seyssel, R/G Aggro
Yuri was ranked higher in the swiss, earning him the ‘die roll’ for our match. This is the first tournament I’ve played where I had to interact with this rule, and it’s definetely fair, but definetely bought me a distinct disadvantage going in. He was nice, slightly nervous under the camera. His red green aggro list looked nasty as hell from where I was sitting looking over his decklist. He complimented mine as well, said it looked fine tuned, but I knew there was nothing deceiving about the look of his equipment and planeswalker heavy creature list, with Manabarbs in the sideboard. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
I won’t go over too much detail of the match, the video feed is available now if you’d like to see the play by play. I kind of struggled to make land drops in game one, even though he mulliganed, and although my keep may have been greedy in hindsight, I think when you look at matchups like that where you feel like you’re the underdog on deck, you need to take things into account when you mulligan, like what does my hand need to look like, eventually, for me to beat him this game? How lucky do I need to get anyway, for example. How hot do I already need to run :p.
The only interesting thing that happened all match that probably wasn’t captured by the cameras that I remember thinking that he took juuuussst a little bit too long to figure out he had lethal with his attack past my Batterskull + galvanic blast. In fact he had it a couple different ways, if he just blasts the creature I block, so I took it as kind of a slowroll and might have put him on edge with my reaction. But in hindsight I think we were both good-intentioned, he fought a hard match and definetely had a nice list for the deck. I might have to steal it.
I was pleased to have made top 8 despite having my ambitions set a little bit higher. The team performed well, won a grip of cash from SCG, and definetely had fun hanging out with the best AZ has to offer all day, also managing to put several competitors into the elimination rounds.
Legacy Portion:
I’m definitely more of a Standard than a Legacy player, but I’ve played Legacy in competitive level tournaments about 5 times now, and am at least starting to learn the basics of the format. Repetitive lines, like when to play around Stifle/Daze, when to play my land first, and which land will have the biggest upside based on the information I have. Legacy is definitely quite difficult for a Standard player to learn, but it’s been fun learning.
I’ve been on U/R Delver in legacy, since it’s what I have cards for, and it’s not godawful. My list, for reference.
| Creatures (14) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Grim Lavamancer 2 Vendilion Clique Spells (27) 4 Brainstorm 2 Fire/Ice 3 Force of Will 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Mana Leak 4 Chain Lightning 4 Gitaxian Probe 3 Ponder Lands (19) 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Wooded Foothills 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Wasteland 4 Volcanic Island 2 Mountain 2 Island | Sideboard (15) 1 Dismember 3 Blood Moon 1 Gut Shot 4 Pyroblast 2 Smash to Smithireens 1 Submerge 3 Surgical Extraction |
The talk in the room was about Dredge, which I think is a fine matchup. As stated above, I’m no Legacy player, but I’m learning. This deck feels nice, like a later game version of a dedicated burn deck. Cards that hose archetypes altogether, like Grim Lavamancer, or Wasteland. I don’t think Legacy is easy any way you slice it until you have a ton of practice, because the bottom line of anything is that it takes familiarity. But I would definitely play something like this again. My only personal inclusion wound up being the Mana Leaks over something like Spell Snare or Daze. I found myself having trouble with cards like Elspeth and Jace, and wanted the Leak to combat them, and it’s nearly as good as a hard counter in many situations anyway. Would run again.
Legacy was gonna be an 8 rounder, just over the cutoff at 138 players.
Round 1 – Bryan, Burning Bridges
His deck was super cool. I probed him game one(with him on the play, with a mountain, so I paid mana) and saw what looked like a little kid mono red burn deck (by the way, he was an intimidated little kid), topped off with EnsnaringBridge. I felt like it was 10 years ago at FNM all over again, and I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for myself as he pummeled me whilst I remained locked under his bridge, unable to kill him. He drew Cursed Scroll I couldn’t counter, and finished me off. By game 2 I was rooting for him. Somebody mentioned my feature match from yesterday, and he really enthusiastically shook my hand and congratulated me on my finish. Unfortunately, he boarded in a bunch of questionable cards that took away from his primary gameplan of Kill me, and I boarded in Smash to Smithireens so I wasn’t drawing dead, so I won a close match. If I’d been playing his deck, I’d have crushed me. Props to Bryan though, cool kid.
1-0
Round 2 – Ryan, Maverick
He looks familiar but has to remind me of the match we played before, but I immediately remembered when he mentioned that we’d punted back and forth to one another in my last PTQ, and I’d come out on top. BUT we’d both made it pretty clear during that first encounter that despite some suboptimal plays, we both know our stuff okay. I like my Maverick matchup with this list a lot…their scariest cards that I can’t trade off with for cheap tend to be ideal targets for Mana Leak (namely Elspeth). Game 2 had him getting manascrewed with Maze of Ith in play, and sitting on a Rhox War Monk I knew about stranded in his hand. It was pretty much all I was keeping him off of while I played a mostly tight game to kill him efficiently. My dear friend Patrick walked up just in time to see me drop a few percentages by playing into the Scryb Ranger that he’d had exactly one turn to draw, but at that point the game was still heavily in my favor. It is the mark of a friend though that he came up and gave me his professional opinion in correcting my play, in a match against a color screwed opponent that I’d already won. I loved it, because I don’t want to stop learning at this point.
2-0
Round 3 – Andrew, Junk
Andrew is yet another Arizona player. Aparently not so different from myself, not really a Legacy player but finds himself sitting at 2-0. His deck seemed brew-like, even to me, black green white with access to Stoneforge Mystic, Knight of the Reliquary, Lingering Souls and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Game 1 was a little bit of a battle while I tried frantically to gain some information about his deck: Legacy is a great skilltester for this. It’s quite possible there wasn’t another deck in the room like Andrews, and the ability to adapt and overcome is absolutely critical. Game 1 I determined that it didn’t look like he had many outs to a Blood Moon, so that became my primary plan for game 2. He had Vindicate and a Maelstrom Pulse, but showed no signs of the basics to cast them. Game 2 he had a Sensei’s Divining Top, got one of his spells Mana Leaked (I believe, if not Hymn), then waited til the end of his third turn, when I tapped mana, for a Surgical on the Mana Leak. The defeat was on his face from the moment he saw the mana + Blood Moon in my hand, and the match was over turns later.
3-0
Round 4 – Sherwin Pu, RUG
I’ve had a winning record against RUG, but this was definately a tough, matchup for both of us. Also a fake (off camera) feature match. Despite feeling favored, it is a predictable nightmare trying to force relevant spells through some combination of Force, Daze, Spell Pierce, and Spell Snare(red blast post board), along with the Ponders and Brainstorms to go find them. The thoughts of a completely uneducated legacy player like myself: Goyf sucks right now. In this match, I always won the delver fight(but often still meant neither of us could keep one in play), and game 1, he drew no Nimble Mongoose, so I coasted. Game 2 was close, he drew 2 Mongoose, and the only plan I had time to pull off, as I’d drawn too many Pyroblasts against his Mongoose, was to try and race, since the only guys I’d drawn into were Grim Lavamancer. It had been a long setup game, so I had some food in the yard. Any other creature(snapcaster or clique) would have afforded me improbable trading opportunities that could have won me the game, but opportunities nonetheless. He started at 18 while we were racing, and by the time I had to chumpblock with my Lavamancers, I binned 2 of my Pyroblasts in hand, targeting his lands, to get an extra Lavamancer activation and knock him down to the ‘topdeck runner runner’ maybe get there, but I missed. I think he had countermagic up anyway. Game 3, on the play I brought in Blood Moon to try for that plan, but I didn’t have time to fetch an Island, and had to cast Blood Moon against a 1/1 Mongoose. As the game went on, I had no blue mana and his Mongoose eventually buffed, he earned a close victory. I wished him luck.
3-1
(Oh right, he won, for the record)
Round 5 – Nathan, High Tide
Nathan had his combo what looked pretty well-oiled in terms of doing it mechanically, which is why it was still scary how long it took. I lost a close game 1, trying to refresh myself in the process on the combo, to know how to best interact and see exactly what he had in his deck. I don’t know how much of it was standard High Tide or not, but I remember wanting Smash in playtesting games, against Candelabra and Defense Grid. Game 2 I had the Smash for his Defense Grid and won pretty easily, assembling the permission and pressure necessary to prevent any lethal combo. Game 3 I deserved to lose…I autopiloted through a Force of Will on his Defense Grid, which he may or may not have been able to fight over, by just being a Standard player, used to having my lands tapped, and pushing F2 every time my opponent plays something. I didn’t have the Smash, and I assembled a decent gameplan post-Grid, getting every form of Island onto the battlefields as I could (probably decent standard practice against High Tide), and using the extra mana to interact with his combo. Unfortunately, with my doubly Mana Leak, they would have been a lot more effective against the actual High Tide than the spells afterwards, and he got me fair and square. I saw a Surgical this game as well, so if I’d managed to counter a High Tide, and surgical on my own turn, it could have been a much different outcome. Here’s to not making that mistake again.
3-2
Round 6 – Bel, R/U Burn
I took some Goblin Guide beats this game, and gave it credit for a mirror, but I think in reality he was a much more dedicated Burn deck, with Barbarian Ring, Fireblast, Daze, Price of Progress, and the like. I got suspicious in game 1 when I fetched up some Volcanics despite Wasteland thinking we might wear each other out, but it soon became evident I needed to play around Price. I got Lavamancer advantage and maintained it, drawing out my suspicion, and he eventually started racing to the face with burn, coming up just short. I won game 1 at uno life. Game 2, he played a Pyrostatic Pillar against me and things got interesting. I’d seen his hand and knew he had access to 2 fireblasts, so my Vendilion Clique didn’t even take one against his 3 remaining mountains (I think I’d wastelanded him). We were both racing his Pillar, with me drawing awesome stars like Snapcaster Mage and Gitaxian Probe, that are super good under a Pillar. I was racing with Clique, and on the turn I bit it down to 4 we both exchanged looks. He became suddenly more aware that I might have the counter to punish his fireblast, me being fully aware that I did not. I didn’t draw the counter either, but at 4 life myself I drew a Lightning Bolt, and attacked him down to 3. He drew a blank, and cast the Fireblast, knowing it was the deciding moment of the game, and I bolted him in response.
4-2
Round 7 – Brendan, Zombies
I saw next to him earlier and heard all kind of compliments on his deck, well deserved. Aparently he’s usually a coverage guy, but got the weekend off, to play his tricked out B/R/W zombies, featuring Carrion Feeder, Bloodghast, Lingering Souls, Cabal Therapy, Goblin Bombardment, and Geralf’s Messanger. He won the die roll and absolutely demolished me game 1. I looked for opportunities to get value out of Fire, but to know real abail as he opened up on Carrion Feeder and Bloodghast to grow a gigantic monster. With Lingering Souls to block I was done for. Game 2 he mulligans, and I still have a banshee of a problem trying to race his aggro deck. I’m used to closer midrange decks like maverick where the 4 life off of fetchlands or a probe here or there, or force of will doesn’t matter, but just like in standard, there are fewer things less forgiving than a Geralf’s Messanger. I narrowly win the race, at 1 life, requiring the use of some Jedi Mindtricks, namely: What is the difference between Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt? If your first and only response is that Chain Lightning is a sorcery speed Lightning Bolt (which I think is more people than would care to admit it), then you might be subject to the same sort of tight play to steal a game as I did in this game. Casually binning my Chain Lightning as I directed it to his target, there were multiple times where he could have accessed two red in response, but chose not to. Game 3 was another nailbiter, and one going deep into the round. During a close game, there was a minor disagreement over the resolution of his surgical extraction, targeting my Delver of Secrets. It wasn’t anything major, and I think both of our intentions were about board, but in the end I had 3 remaining delvers in my deck when I was one burnspell as an out. To make things MORE exciting my childhood hero Patrick Sullivan, master of the Mountain, has once again found his way to the conclusion of my match (one way or another). I can only smirk at my opponent, remarking the irony, that he would just LOVE for me to draw one of my remaining Delvers this turn. I drew into brainstorm, into ponder (sacrificing a fetchland first), Ponder shuffles, and Chain Lightning for the win. He was a real cool guy, even played the next round because I convinced him the tiebreakers might help me (I think they did).
5-2
Round 8 – Caleb, R/U burn
Caleb is an old homey. Probably not as comfortable in the (fake) feature match area as I am, but it is what it is. We’ve talked, and I think he might respect me more after our match than he did before, but I don’t take offense to that given the circumstances. I think he just learned a lot about how I play my game. His deck looked very similar to Bels, except that he had a Steam Vents in it… presumably because he couldn’t find a fourth Volcanic Island. I thought it was adorable, espescially when he had to return it to his hand for a Daze. I narrowly won game 1… Goblin Guide was initially in my deck when I started testing it, but in this matchup in particular it often netted me a card, did me a little bit of damage but inevitably traded off pretty early. I don’t know, it seems fine, but I don’t think I’d put it back in given the choice. He also gets blocked, which is kind of a beating. I knew I would have to sideboard out my Chain Lightnings after game 1… in the dark I would assume I could get them past him, but in the game he had to cast one against me and I seized the opportunity to send it back, so I knew he’d be wise to my shenanigans. Game 2 was VERY close, seeing my attempt to race under another Pyrostatic Pillar with a bunch of abysmal cards in my hand, surviving a Price of Progress via double Wastelandon my double Volcanic Island, taking 2 on resolution. Probably says something about my early game that I was that vulnerable, but I was definitely aware of the existence of Price of Progress, so I don’t think I passed up any obvious oppurtunities to fetch basics. Game 3 was as close as a red deck mirror gets. The final life total becore the game ended was 1 vs 1. I won the coinflip and came out on top. This matchup was very loseable, I don’t know how much Caleb plays Legacy, or how much he plays in feature matches(with a bunch of little Arizona kids watching us: Whatup Eddie Caudill?), but I think his lack of comfort in one of those areas probably affected his game. It was hard fought, but I feel like it easily could have been his.
Still my homie Caleb.
6-2
This mediocre performance was good for top 16, freezing in the shadow of my little brother for the day. But it’s not as bad as they make it out to be ;) Learning Legacy just by the curve of competitive tournaments, as I have thus far, has been a lot of fun. Today was an example of a time both of my losses were close, hard fought, a better draw step or a better play on my part away from victory, And many of my wins felt like I had no business getting them, like I had to rely on my opponent to make a mistake, but I definitely had to earn every one of them. It wasn’t easy for me OR for said opponents, but it was a lot of fun.
As a sidenote on my tournament weekend. included where one might normally find some props or slops or whatever for the tournament, I just want to touch a little bit on my game of Magic. It means different things to different people. For some, it borders on Judges: the Gathering, where being a rules lawyer or unsavory opponent has some appeal because ‘sorry, we’re playing for real money’. The most money I’ve ever played for is 40k, and frankly, even to a broke down fool like me, that number is not worth my integrity as a person. In Vegas, I became a champion without the help of any judges, any gamelosses or infractions by my opponent, and without doing anything but beating people straight up, the way it was meant to be in my game of Magic. In Phoenix, I played against a bunch of Arizonans. I wanted to see them succeed, but even against out of towners, I played mental and strategic lines that most tournament Magic players, even my teammates would question. It was not standard practice for me, but on multiple occasions I pointed out on board tricks, allowed some take-backs, and generally wanted to determine who was actually supposed to win the game. The reason I’m putting this at the end is because it’s not to embarass anyone, call anyone out. I played nothing but respectable gentlemen all weekend, a true honor since the majority of them were unfortunately from my native Arizona. That’s how I roll, and I think people who get overly involved in the tournament aspect, and the difference between stealing a game the real way and just taking every inch you can get by treating your fellow gamer with a lack of respect, really need to evaluate why they’re here. The number one goal is always gonna be fun… the trophy is cool, but I can’t imagine it looks near as good when you had to act like a scumbag to acquire it, and the money simply is not worth earning a reptation as ‘that jerk’.
Some serious props and thank you’s to Manawerx, helping my and my team perform as well as we did a variety of different ways. My little brother, and my team itself (getsome!), putting up some sweet finishes. All my Arizona peeps, specifically my boy Brian Gustafson, who got scumbagged pretty hard in the standard open. On his birthday. Sorry it couldn’t have been better buddy. Thank you for reading, it was an honor to be an AZMagicPlayer this weekend.
The_JFK