ViashIANo – AZMagicplayers.com 1K (Top 8)

Game 1 – My opponent wins the roll and gets a turn 2 quest activation….

Game 2 – My opponent mulligans (YES!) and doesn’t see a quest all game. It takes double Grave Titan for him to conceed.

Game 3 – This game is one of my favorite games of the day. On the play he lands Quest, Memnite. I play Marsh Flats. He plays Glint Hawk, in response I crack the fetch for a swamp and disfigure, resulting in both creatures going to the bin. He then plays Ornithopter and passes. I play Lotus Cobra. He plays Kor Skyfisher bouncing the thopter and replaying it putting 5 counters on Quest for the Holy Relic. I play a fetch and crack it to play Acidic Slime. I told him I was casting it first to see if he would crack the quest in response but he knew the deck well so I targeted the thopter instead. End of turn he busted the quest and put Argentum Armor on the Skyfisher. I took the 8 damage and he blew up my cobra. I Doom Bladed the flier and took the game after amassing an army of Garruk tokens.

1-0

Round 2 – UW Caw Blade

Game 1 – This one took little effort as an unanswered turn 2 Fauna Shaman beats this deck.

Game 2 – This was when I made my biggest mistake all day. After he played a Jace, the Mind Sculptor I Inquisitioned him and found another Jace in hand. Since he had the other Jace I just went for his life total. BIG MISTAKE! By letting his Jace brainstorm every turn not only did he find the answers he needed to keep Jace alive he slowly condemned each Vengevine and Day of Judgmented each Grave Titan. I lost the game to a sworded up Stoneforge Mystic with 5 minutes left in the round.

Game 3 – Went to time but he stuck a Baneslayer so it wasn’t exactly going my way. We ended it in a tie.

1-0-1

Round 3 – UB Tezzeret Infect

Game 1 – I Inquisitioned his removal and stuck a turn 2 Fauna Shaman. From there Phyrexian Crusaders were forced to chump block an infinite stream of Vengevines. He stuck a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and made a 5/5 creature to help hold off the assault but fetching an Acidic Slime with the Shaman did the trick.

Game 2 – I inquisition his turn 1 play, and his turn 2 play. He vocalized his hate for the card and I smiled knowing I made a good choice. After he ran out of good topdecks my deck hit high gear and Baneslayer finished the job.

2-0-1

Round 4 – Quest WW

Game 1 – I turn 1 birds, turn 2 cobra landfall play second cobra, turn 3 fetchland with 4 mana floating playing Garruk untapping 2 land and playing 3 squadron hawks. Yeah sooooo I swung for 26 trample damage on turn 4. Take that Quest!

Game 2 – She topdecks a quest after dumping her hand in an attempt to race me with Memnites, and Glint Hawks. When I get to 10 life a Grave Titan puts her on the defensive and after a single swing she conceeds.

3-0-1

Round 5 – Esper Caw Blade

Game 1 – I keep a two land hand and dont see any more the rest of the game. I ended the game with a Fauna Shaman on the board and all 4 Vengevines in the yard. Oh well mana troubles are part of the game.

Game 2 – Double Vengevine do quick work and its off to game 3.

Game 3 – I keep a double Fauna Shaman hand and for good reason when he takes one with an inquisition. He doesn’t have the turn 2 Stoneforge so I run my Fauna Shaman out only to be nailed by a Mana Leak. A couple of turns later he starts swinging with his Tar Pit. As you can see I dont have many answers to his man land. So the game turns into a race and actually came down to me top decking a second Vengevine… I didn’t.

3-1-1

Round 6 – Tezzeret Infect

I am sitting in a position where I cannot draw, but a win puts me in top 8 so here I go.

Game 1 – He plays a turn 2 Necropede that is met with an end of turn Disfigure. I play Fauna Shaman and start the Vengevine engine. It doesn’t take long for him to realize Vengevines are lethal.

Game 2 – He hits Necropede that I block with Lotus Cobra putting a counter on my Fauna Shaman. I only get a couple of Vengevines out of my Shaman before it is met with a Contagion Clasp counter to finish it off. At the end of the game he is at 4 life with double Phyrexian Crusader and a freshly cast Skithryx staring down 3 Vengevines. He was forced to triple chump block leaving me with only 2 Vengevines that are 2/1s thanks to infect. He proliferates hoping that I dont have a way to recur my vines. SPOILER ALERT I did.

4-1-1 and top 8

Top 8 – RUG – Adam Prosak

There isn’t much to report, I consider ramp to be my worst match up. Both games he ramped ahead of me and played a titan. When I would try to cast something to catch up he would counter my attempt. Each game was a complete blowout.

Now I would like to go over some of my specific card choices and why I feel this deck is solid right now. First is Disfigure, this card was a pure metagame call. I know playing in every major local event that Arizona players love their aggro, and with Caw Blade being huge it is pretty good against them too. Next we have Inquisition of Kozilek, this little thing is THE BEST turn one play in standard right now. Regardless of on the play or draw being able to look at someones hand and take essential pieces from it are game winning. For example: Stoneforge Mystic, Bolt then play your Jace, any removal spell and play your fragile Fauna Shaman, or not incase they have multiple kill spells. The point I’m trying to make is, what if you saw someones hand before they even play a land and know how they are going to play out the game, what they are capable of and how you can play around that hand to beat them? Some people think Preordain is insane. I say Inquisition of Kozilek is bat s crazy. Well now we are talking one drops Birds of Paradise was amazing all day. Lately with the popularity of Lotus Cobra people are a little more reluctant to kill a little 0/1 that cant hurt them. It actually hurt them more than they know all tournament. This deck includes a lot of double color CC cards and Birds not only fixes that but lets me hit the fatties a turn earlier.

Now we come to the all star of the deck Fauna Shaman. Fauna Shaman is kind of like a mini planeswalker in the sense that every turn this card gets to activate its ability your opponent is that much more behind. I remember when this card first came out I heard an interview with Patrick Chapin. Patrick mentioned testing for extended vs Faeries that a turn 2 Shaman beat a turn 2 Bitterblossom. Recently I came across someone saying that Caw Blade was the new Faeries and a turn 2 Stoneforge allows the deck to beat down and control the game at the same time. Um I just put 2 and 2 together. Fauna Shaman allows me to find any answer for any deck. Need life? Obstinate Baloth. Need to bring back Vengevine? Kor Skyfisher. Need some blockers? Squadron Hawk. Need to kill some equipment? Acidic Slime. Everyone says Stoneforge I say Fauna Shaman!

I had a blast and thank you to Jason and Jeff for organizing a major tournament that you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to attend. It was my first major top 8 and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Thanks for reading.