Many of you will have heard of Apprentice, the entirely free manual client that allows you to play Magic over the net and isn't Magic: Online. Basically, it contains a complete database of cards, and has knowledge of the "existence" of various magic concepts, but not how they work. Thus you and your opponent enforce rules, just as you would in a normal game. It's available at http://www.dragonstudios.com.
Of more excitement, however, is what appears to be a newish download - Netdraft. This DoesExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin? - ie, allows multiple people to connect to a host client and run either booster or rochester draft, complete with optional time-limits and optional "smart-picks", based on colour and previous pick preferences for players who drop. Once the draft section is done, has minimal but functional deck-building ability, which saves out to Apprentice .dec format for playing. With the files on the site, provides support for all sets up to and including Mirrodin. I wonder if we can find a use for it?
StuartFraser and ChrisHowlett last night NetDraft?ed a Triple Mirrodin Rochester. The system worked, and the decks may well be played later in the holidays. CH might be up for a larger NetDraft?ed tournament sometime in early January, any takers?
Games 1 and 2 have been played. Game 1 was a walkover to SF, with his GWR deck beating down CH's UB mild affinity with no problems, after the latter double-mulliganned. Game 2 was much closer, as CH reanimated his MTG: Cobalt Golem twice after SF mulliganned once. The golem eventually beat down with a MTG: Fireshrieker, and would have dealt lethal damage the turn CH drew his last card. Decider was also close, but won by CH - MTG: Banshee's Blade proved a bomb once again, but Chris's MTG: Serum Tank resulted in him just drawing too many flying things for me to stop.
(PeterTaylor) Do either or you (or any other wikizen, for that matter) have the Win98 version of Apprentice? I've tried to download it from dragonstudios and the only mirror I could find via Google, but both timed out on me.
Given we now know Cambridge term dates (5th October, IIRC) are significantly after the prerelease dates, should we start to arrange a Cambridge Mirrodin prerelease? These things seem to take time... --CH
StuartFraser suspects that ChrisHowlett does not mean what he appears to be saying here. I would imagine that arranging a Cambridge prerelease would take considerable time, effort and a fair amount of money.
Hehe. AlexChurchill and TheInquisitor suspected the same :) I'm not qualified as a judge yet, you know. However, if you'd like to propose that Cambridge people coordinate meeting up at one of the prerelease locations (maybe one of the two in London?), then by all means let's discuss :) --AC
Ooops. No, I didn't mean that. I meant a prerelease-style event (as in, a booster draft, or sealed event) in Cambridge, as the prereleases are inconveniently timed. I certainly can't make London. Depending on cost and finances, and availability I might not make one at all - Glasgow is about my only option. But I don't want to lose out on the Artifacty goodness. Incidentally - you're idly considering judging as well, are you Alex?--CH
Ah, I see. Well, I'm certainly up for joining in such an endeavor, but aren't the first 3 weeks of Michaelmas term (evenings and weekends) normally insanely busy with societies and things? But if we can find some time, say some Saturday in late October, then I'd love to join in. And as for becoming a judge: well, I'd like to, and I scored well over 90% on both [Delphi tests]. But the problem is finding a Level 3 Judge in the UK to sponsor me, AFAICT. And it's only idle consideration, yes - I'm sure if I pursued it properly I could get it to happen, but it's not a giant priority to me :) --AC
See [here] for a list of all level 3 and above judges. There are several in England, and the organiser of the Edinburgh events appears to be one. --CH
I'm soooo interested in this set I volunteer to start organisation of it tomorrow night. Must try the Deplhi tests too. --CH
85.% and 80% respectively. Not too shabby, and the second one I made some silly mistakes on. Quite hard though. --CH, also bumping the draft draft arrangements.
Not too shabby at all, indeed - congrats. They're pretty tough. In the 80s is enough to get you to Level 2 judge happily :o) --AC
The event happened and was Fun, arrangement discussion folded to Revision 239 and previous. People are free to make report-stylee comments here. AC suggests people each add their most memorable moment here.
TheInquisitor wishes to add disparaging comments about such things as mana curves, having played a deck with 4 7-drops, a 6-drop, and 5 5-drops. The low-removal environment makes going Timmy rather fun... (And surprisingly effective - I drew to RH and beat AC, which was considered difficult when teams were being assigned...)
Well, AlexChurchill did very badly, but enjoyed himself. Most memorable moment was the time when the blue-white deck really got its engine going (thanks to 2 of our *3* MTG: Fabricates): every artifact coming into play gaining me 2 life from MTG: Leonin Elders and a counter onto my MTG: Serum Tank, which got moved by a MTG: Power Conduit onto the MTG: Triskelion ready to zap a target. Unfortunately this was in the 3-player game, and I didn't manage to do anywhere near so well in the 2-player games. Blue-white is all very well, but when you have no big creatures or creature-biggifiers (like those abundant MTG: Vulshok Gauntlets that everyone else had), and only 1 removal card (MTG: Arrest), it's hard to actually survive against an opponent with any big creatures or creature biggifiers.
PeterTaylor suspects that in this context "everyone else" means RH. My team scarcely had any equipment, and I'm pretty sure the Gauntlets didn't feature.
Heh, fair enough. I was pretty sure Colin had at least one, BICBW. I think I meant generic creature-biggifiers, be they in the form of Gauntlets, Bladewardens, Warhammers, or even Bonesplitters on Skyhunter Cubs or Dragon Blood. My creatures were small and stayed small. This is not a good characteristic of a deck. --AC
PeterTaylor doesn't think team sealed compared as well with other formats as expected (although this might be because he lost 2-0 twice!) There's still more luck in the card pool than in booster draft, and there's a large dollop of luck in the ordering of decks. The biggest issue, though, is that with so few people you only get two matches. It's the expected number in a booster draft, but you seem to spend more of your time on deck construction than playing.
Mmm, I agree. It did seem primarily luck-based, between the cardpool and the matchups. Playing Limited is always fun, but I think I prefer draft.
NeilRoques thought the event was enourmously good fun (and the Emma team won! Yay!) even I was playing an artifact hate deck against ... artifactless decks. "This is Mirrodin dammit! Play an artifact so I can blow it up!". CH's use of a MTG: Mindslayer (I think on SF) to, in SF's own turn, destroy every creature he possessed needs to be recorded for posterity. Thanks for organising the event Chris.
There are a fair few of these going on; most notably the Core Set launch and the Summer of Magic events.
Summer of Magic, Sunday 13th July
StuartFraser has just returned from London. That was....strange. We played Masques/Exodus?/Weatherlight? Sealed Deck. Thereby allowing me to put MTG: Empyrial Armor on an MTG: Soltari Visionary to win at least one game. Overall fun though, and rather funky to be playing with much older cards again.
Wow. Sounds highly cool, and rather bizarre. Wish I'd got to play :) --AC
8th Edition prerelease tournaments, 26th-27th July
(prior to the release of 8th Edition on 28th or 29th) Sealed deck using 8th; 8th does have some rather cool stuff in it, including MTG: Savannah Lions (yay!). White Weenie looks pretty good in Standard right now. (Utterly broken you mean. --Vitenka)
We can always organise our very own prerelease-like event... no foiled MTG: Rukh Egg, though --ColinLeung
Well, I'm thoroughly in favour of playing limited with whoever's available, during term time - and even beforehand. But the "new card face prerelease" isn't something that happens every year, and it'd be cool to be at one of them. Are you in the country and able to come, btw, Colin? If so, what would be most convenient for you: somewhere London-ish, or south coast, or midlands, or something else? --AlexChurchill
Somewhere else... I'm afraid I can only join you guys in spirit, being approx. a third of the world apart, however, I'll still be participating in this event in Hong Kong, good luck everybody. ColinLeung
On a really quite unrelated note, AlexChurchill notes that on the [European phone numbers page], some of the phone numbers for Bulgaria and Belarus (BY) are too large for whatever database WotC use to display all the digits. One imagines that when you want to know a 12-digit phone number, seeing "3.59089E+12" isn't very useful... ;)
Why on Earth are they using a numeric field to store telephone numbers?
So everybody, how did your prereleases went? -ColinLeung
AlexChurchill and StuartFraser travelled down to London from Cambridge, and played in a 15-person 8th Edition prerelease tournament. We won 5 boosters between us, coming 3rd and 8th IIRC. The person who came first had lots of Angels, from MTG: Blinding Angel on down. AlexChurchill's most memorable moment was playing against a person with an insane amount of white stall cards: 2xMTG: Pacifism, MTG: Master Decoy, MTG: Wall of Swords with MTG: Holy Armor, MTG: Sunweb (!), and more. He managed to completely lock me down, but couldn't get past my giant green creatures either. It came down to who would run out of cards first... and I had a 41 card deck, while he had 43. D'oh. In the end, on 2 life, with 0 cards in library, and no way to win before I deck myself, I decided to commit an interesting Asian-themed form of seppuku, by playing the Portal 3 Kingdoms card MTG: Ambition's Cost, and thus killing myself in two ways simultaneously. That match ended 1-0-1 - funnily enough, the next game didn't finish. :)
StuartFraser best remembers playing with his R/W weenies against an opponent's deck containing large numbers of enormous creatures, including an MTG: Shivan Dragon which would have utterly massacred me, but for my MTG: Ensnaring Bridge. I played out all manner of completely useless cards, in order to keep my hand size at four or lower, eventually killing my opponent with a mountainwalking MTG: Canyon Wildcat.
Mirrodin prerelease, 20th or 27th September
Sealed using Mirrodin.
So everybody, how's the pre-release? I've managed to go to one afterall and got a few really flashy, johnny-cards (Lots of johnny-cards in this set), unfortunately those are normally quite useless in a pre-release, causing me to end up with a rather mediocre ranking (halfwayish). -ColinLeung
PeterTaylor is very happy. He and Alex went down on Saturday. Peter recorded his first ever match victory in the sealed, going 1-2 before dropping, and entered two drafts. Noting that a certain colour was heavily under-drafted in the first (in which he went out in the first round - single-elimination), he drafted that colour quite heavily in the second, and faced Alex in the final, which Alex won in the decider. So first tournament prizes as well. Plus he picked up a quality rare and some good ones, as well as some fairly wacky cards. Looking forward to the Sneak Preview.
(PeterTaylor) Sneak Preview: went 1-1-1 in the Sealed, coming 8th out of 14: I had a really nice combo, which I got out about half the time, and which won the game every single time. Did better in the Draft, coming second.
Scourge prerelease, May 17th & 18th; Sneak Previews May 24th & 25th
Discussion folded to Revision 106 and prior. Reports may be forthcoming once exam stress is off.
Askern Standard tournament, April 13th.
StuartFraser got bored over the holidays and entered a standard tournament.
Well, I went, I saw, I abysmally failed to conquer, going 0-3 before dropping and drafting partly due to deck but mostly due to playing very badly. Standard is not, of course, really my thing, but I thought I'd have a go with a standard-legal variant on the monogreen deck I play causally with you lot; switching Elves & Birds, pulling out a few elves for 4 MTG: Wild Mongrels, and switching some bombs in/out at the high end of the mana curve.
Round 1 was against a black discard/removal deck. In Game 1 I drew quite well, but he drew better; my turn 2 Mongrel was smothered and he played a turn 5 MTG: Visara the Dreadful, and there isn't much that can be done about that. Game 2 another Mongrel was smothered, and Mutilates and Edicts just managed to keep him ahead of my beasts and swing for damage. Unfortunately for him, he ran out of removal when Kamahl appeared. An overrun swarm gave me the game. Game 3 followed much the same path as Game 2; it hinged on a single turn. With him on 10 life and me on 5 mana, I drew a Feral Throwback; the card beneath it was a Forest. In the turn before I could draw the forest, he duressed Silvos out of my hand...some fifteen minutes later, with endless discard and removal spells to keep my creatures dead, he got out Visara and swung for the win.
I'll have nightmares about Round 2 for weeks...my opponent was playing monored cycling-land destruction-MTG: Magnivore. There was no way he should have won this matchup. Game 1 was a damage trade; a Mongrel and a morphed MTG: Venomspout Brackus racing Rorix. For some unknown reason, at the crucial point I summoned Silvos rather than unmorphing the Brackus and killing Rorix....and lost the damage race to a Shock. Game 2 was never remotely close; although of all things, it was MTG: Brawn that killed him. Game 3 he managed to run into a glut of land destruction, and I drew all of my finishers at the start. And I nearly got him with a Mongrel then. Grr.
Round 3 I faced a Slivers-Coat of Arms deck. This one massacred me - the deck's owner didn't believe how well it was working. Twice; although admittedly I was more interested in the announced draft that was starting after than round, and wasn't really concentrating.
So the only matches I won all day were in casual between rounds. (I thought my draft deck was good; well, it was, but it lacked any bombs. My first-round opponent had Silvos, Voice of the Woods (and about 8 elves), Goblin Dynamo, Timberwatch Elf, and various others...I lost)
Vitenka restarts play
Went to a tourney this evening, going to another one on Sunday. This one was type2 constructed. I borrowed a few decks and played against a few more, both friendly and not.
I discovered a few more rules changes, and confirmed a few of my thoughts.
With apologies and sympathy to those of you who couldn't make it. Let's run some Mirrodin Limited in Cambridge when you get back.
Well, having done pretty well at avoiding any hint about anything Mirrodin-related beyond rumours of "the artifact set", it was jolly cool cracking open the first booster and going "Oh my goodness!" And having that repeatedly over the course of the day when I see new things - or reprints especially. Playing against my third round opponent: "Oh, they've brought MTG: Icy back?" In my second pack of the first booster draft: "Wow, MTG: Atog's back! Makes sense...!" Playing against the third round girl opponent again: "What the *heck* is that Scepter?! And you're putting some kind of MTG: Twiddle twist with Entwine into it... oookayyy... So yes, you would indeed be able to pay 1 to untap the Scepter while tapping one of my attackers." The fact that I had to be explaining the timing rules to her just added surreality to it :)
But, you know, I think on balance it's actually *more* fun to have the anticipation building up gradually. Either release at WotC's pace or at MTGNews's. It was cool to have such a surprise factor again, and I don't regret it, but I don't think I'll do it again next year.
So, yes. Myself and PeterTaylor played in the 4-round 32-person flights, and then in two booster drafts after that. Neither he nor I won anything from the first flight, despite me getting a wonderful 3-artifact combo to let me build my own MTG: Visara the Dreadful: putting one of my two Viridian Longbows on the same creature as a Sword of Kaldra works quite well, it would seem. Putting it on an MTG: Ornithopter just adds insult to injury ;) ;) I ended up going 2-2, 6 points. With everyone who got 9 points or more getting 8 boosters. Ah well.
In booster draft I thought I'd have done amazingly, what with drafting a red-green deck with 2 MTG: Shatter, 2 Deconstruct, 4 Predator's Spite, some burn, and a range of thoroughly decent creatures... but somehow it all went wrong, and I was knocked out in the second round (winning 2 boosters). Peter went out first round of that draft, unfortunately.
However, he did demonstrate quite some savvy when we decided to stay around for another booster draft... He reckoned one particular colour had been hugely underdrafted in the first draft, and so drafted it in the second one. And did very well out of it. I thought my draft was going really quite badly until in the *third* booster I got an Isochron Scepter of my own. To go with my Terror and two copies of Raise the Alarm. And I proceeded to, um, end up facing Peter in the final, pretty much on the basis of that Scepter, either being some insane double-speed MTG: Kjeldoran Outpost, or my second "tap-to-destroy-a-creature" effect of the day (after my "build-your-own-Visaranithopter" earlier). My semi-final opponent died with about 4 nonblack nonartifact creatures held uselessly in hand. (The assorted artifact creatures he played having been either MTG: Arrested, destroyed with Altar's Light, or just traded with some of my little Myr which came back thanks to my Skeleton Shard.)
Peter and I agreed to split the 5/3 winnings 4/4 before starting. And then had a great fun match, right down to the wire. In the third game he got out that rather strong "you can't lose" Platinum Angel: so despite me having a Granite Shard (in a black-white deck) and a Viridian Longbow, even when I Timmed him down to 0 life he still didn't die. And a 4/4 Angel is a bit big to Tim. I also had the Skeleton Shard, at least two Myr, about three 1/1 Soldier tokens, and a Moriok Scavenger. I ended up killing the Angel by an elaborate scheme, key to which were three of my creatures, all 7 of my lands, and most vital of all, my MTG: Chromatic Sphere. (Left as an ExerciseForTheReader...) That was a fun match.
(PeterTaylor) Alex's _two_ artifact recursion cards stood him in good stead, but his MTG: Dead-Iron Sledge on a flying cat was also effective in stopping me attacking with a rather large MTG: Broodstar (excellent card).
Darksteel pre-release
PeterTaylor: I opened the TP of Mirrodin, looked at the rares, and saw MTG: Mindslaver and MTG: Platinum Angel - a reasonable start. (Plus MTG: Necrogen Mists, you pedants). The Darksteel rares were MTG: Pristine Angel, MTG: Eater of Days and MTG: Rebuking Ceremony. Looking simply at the number of cards, I was clearly going to be green/white, and I had some decent cards in both, so that made 5 bombs straight off (and 6 with the MTG: Loxodon Warhammer). I splashed black for removal. Surprisingly, I only played two equipment - the hammer and a MTG: Surestrike Trident. But where my luck was in with the card pool, it was out in the play. Lost the first game 0-2 after my opponent (David) mana-screwed me each game with MTG: Reap and Sow. Second game the decider ran out with me on 27 life and my opponent on 1 - I'd been playing to have more life, thinking that I would win. The third game I won - my opponent didn't have an especially good deck, although it went to three games, because in the second I played turn 4 MTG: Eater of Days, and on his third turn he found an MTG: Icy Manipulator to keep it under control. In the fourth MTG: Rebuking Ceremony cleared the way nicely, removing the MTG: Darksteel Forge which made his myr stunning blockers. The final match again went to a decider, and I was thoroughly mana-screwed, seeing only three land all game. In the sealed, I opened MTG: Darksteel Forge, and then Stuart passed me MTG: Eater of Days, so I was looking set up for an artifact creature deck. I'd already decided to go blue, so that MTG: Vedalken Engineer could power the Forge out early, and clearly no-one near me was blue because I was passed a MTG: Chromescale Drake and a MTG: Last Word. Picked up the massive Modular creature - MTG: Arcbound Overseer? - and a bit of library rearrangement to find my bombs quickly, but realised after the second pack that I had only 8 creatures, and I failed to get enough fliers to deal at all well with Anthony's deck in the first round. Did quite a bit of good trading at the end - a Dragon deck is now viable, I'm getting towards my life-gain deck, and I've got all kinds of things to consider putting in that Shared Fate deck.
AlexChurchill: I'd just add that the triple-Darksteel draft is silly and fun (as triple-small-set draft usually is). Cards like MTG: Echoing Truth are much stronger... ("return target nonland permanent, and all other permanents with the same name, to their owners' hands"). I drafted a bizarre approximation to a red-blue creatureless control deck, getting 3 counterspells, 2 artifact-killers (one Echoing), and four (!!!) MTG: Barbed Lightning (deal 3 damage to a creature or player for 2R, or both for 4R). My only creatures were big Golems and a terrifying MTG: Furnace Dragon who removes all artifacts from the game when he comes into play. The draft games went typical creatureless-control style: take some damage from early creatures, stabilise and remove them, hang around taking a little damage until a big finisher comes out, then win. Except for when I stalled on 2 land for 6 turns, got rushed by a weenie swarm, or both. So StuartFraser beat me to get into the final. Thus harming his reputation of doing appalingly in Limited ;) I was happy with the cards and trades I acquired, though. Lots of things for my WQ deck, assorted other decks including a MTG: Broodstar for my affinity deck, several generally fun cards, and foundations of one or two new decks including four MTG: Blanket of Night. Can anyone remember a card I acquired at the redraft of the triple-Invasion draft? You may be seeing a bit more of it soon! :)
StuartFraser: My sealed went about as well as it ever does; with very few playable non-artifact cards, several seven-mana bombs and little else. I finished well down on four points; although admittedly with a single extra mana (to make a flying Pentavite token) in the last round I would have been at seven points. I maintain that this result is enough to sustain my reputation for appalling performance in limited. The draft, as implied by AlexChurchill above, went pretty well. I opened an MTG: Oxidize and was passed an MTG: Fireball in the next pack; and was able to make a solid red-green weenie rush deck, with MTG: Tangle Golem the star of the show. Topdecking the fireball at an oppurtune moment got me past ChrisHowlett, and I made the most of my deck's speed and AlexChurchill's mana problems to reach the final. I would say that I got bad draws in my final round; whilst this is true, my opponent probably did have a slighlty better deck (mine was faster, but I didn't really have anything at the high end of the mana curve). Anyway, it was fun, I managed to acquire a couple of cards which I really did want to get hold of, and ChrisHowlett and I managed to produce a series of pterrifying puns in our first round match.
Requiem: MTG: Memnarch turned up in Sealed, along with a couple of blue bombs but nothing in between, so couldn't do blue. Several decent Equipments, lots of green and white weenies left me only one real option - weenie-Equipment with some backup. Backup turned up in the shape of MTG: Thought Prison and green removal; so far so good. First match was close; my opponent was playing affinity creatures, our decks were evenly matched, and I eventually lost due to a bad draw. Second match was Stuart - one-all, I was ahead in the decider when time was called. Third match was just annoying. My deck outmatched my opponent's by miles, but I was screwed for creatures in the second so it went to a third. He was on 3 life when they called 5 turns left - his next turn, he dropped Worldslayer, put it on something I couldn't block and destroyed everything apart from my MTG: Darksteel Brute (5/5 due to counters). Which in the 2 turns remaining, I could't get enough land to power. Grrrr. Final match I won, fairly uncompromisingly. My opponent (red-blue-black artifact) killed himself in the first trying to kill me with a direct-damage (MTG: Thought Prison, we love you), then in the second I got God's own draw and rushed him, pausing only to destroy the only card he played. So 5 points, then (1 short of a prize). And then there was the draft. I found MTG: Leonin Shikari and affinity golems, and started drafting white-red. But then someone to my right started drafting red, and I was left in practically mono-white. I took forests as a bluff tactic and to make affinity golems cheaper, and tried to weenie-rush again. Unfortunately, Alex was my first opponent. Big scary dragon removed my arcbound weenies from the game, and from then on it was a foregone conclusion. Ah, well. At least I _nearly_ got him when he had a bad draw. :mutter dragons mutter: On the bright side - my Some Assembly Required deck will now be really scary and Darksteel Ingots bring me one step closer to a 5cG deck.
Guide to Apocalypse - Darksteel Limited Strategy
This is an intriguing Limited format, and one about which surprisingly little has been written given its unique strategic challenges. Never fear, though: AlexChurchill and qqzm are here to address this gaping absence in the online Magic literature.
General principles: We'll assume that you're drafting with equal numbers of Apocalypse and Darksteel packs. The format does work better than some nay-sayers might expect. A three-enemy-colour deck likes having lots of artifacts in the deck to play if you don't draw the right colours of land. Into Apocalypse's multi-colour environment Darksteel provides the notable common manafixers MTG: Reap And Sow and MTG: Viridian Acolyte, significantly easier to use than his Apocalypse counterparts MTG: Necra Disciple and MTG: Ceta Disciple. Conversely, against Darksteel's Golems and Modular creatures Apocalypse provides the excellent anti-artifact spells MTG: Smash and MTG: Illusion/Reality. Land destruction like MTG: Dwarven Landslide and MTG: Reap And Sow is just as potent against multi-colour decks as it was in Invasion's heyday, of course. Remember that decks will have much fewer artifact creatures than the more conventional Mirrodin-Darksteel, and so Modular creatures are correspondingly weaker.
If half your cardpool is in Chinese, you may conclude as we did that an open draft format like Rochester is most sensible. In these circumstances, when colour choices are totally public knowledge, remember to pick Darksteel's strong artifacts which will fit into any deck a bit higher than correspondingly strong cards in colour.
Specific draft report: So, as has been implied, we rochestered three Chinese Apoc and three Darksteel. The result was predictably silly. Sometimes cards interacted more interestingly with those from their own set, unsurprisingly... although seeing MTG: Dead Ringers countered by MTG: Illusion/Reality is probably less jaw-dropping in this format than when restricted to Invasion-block cards simply because MTG: Illusion/Reality is much more playable here than then! qqzm confirmed his silliness by first-picking a MTG: Legacy Weapon and then drafting a terrifying amount of cards to power it, mostly from Darksteel! MTG: Reap And Sow, MTG: Viridian Acolyte, MTG: Vedalken Engineer (!!)... I quickly ended up in red-white (for a change), acquired some good white-black to make my three colours clear, and then took a MTG: Consume Strength ... (I decided I couldn't splash the fourth colour in the end. My lone MTG: Helionaut was still very useful, as a flyer who fixes mana in his spare time could be expected to be in Limited.) Very silly, jolly good fun, and we're looking forward lots to the In-Ps-Ap draft, and the triple-Ap too.
Grand Prix - Birmingham
Yes, StuartFraser is nuts. Actually, the format is Mirrodin-Darksteel sealed, and I could do with the cards, and I'm bored and feel like playing some magic. So I'm going. Besides, John Avon's going to be there, and I don't own enough signed-by-the-artist cards. I'm also intrigued to see what the atmosphere at a GP is going to be like.
Cool. CH would consider going, but it's miles from either of his locations.
It was indeed rather amusing; I think I'd go again (although no other UK Grands Prix this year) under the same circumstances. I went 3-3 (wins in rounds 1, 2 and 5) before dropping since there was no chance at making Day 2 after three game losses and I still had to drive home; which didn't sound appealing at night after eight rounds of MtG. A few more observations to follow when my mind is reordered. --SF
A few observations: Eep, 579 players is a lot. Although I'm sure there were more than that many people there. Took AVeryLongTime? to get everyone in, registered and ready to play.
Having to register Sealed Decks (and then not play with them) was a new experience, and for me a moderately irritating one. In registration, I opened an MTG: Platinum Angel and a foil MTG: Arcbound Ravager. Admittedly they didn't have all that much support, but given that normal Ravagers were being bought at £10, with a foil Ravager you've probably got your entry fee back straightaway. Obviously I didn't get that back.
The pack I did get provided a reasonable White-Black deck, which had as its main flaw its lack of ability to deal with flying creatures as its main strength some nice bomb rares.
First round was against a White-Red deck - an archetype I met rather often. I had four red cards in total and was not about to try it myself. Flying creatures came down at an alarming rate. Thankfully I had an MTG: Oblivion Stone, and even better I drew it. After the reset I was still losing, but by less; and then I discovered that MTG: Metal Fatigue is really rather good as well; leaving your opponent with nothing but tapped creatures is always useful in limited. My opponent was manascrewed in G2; so a 1-0 start.
It was to become an even more worrying start when I got MTG: Panoptic Mirror going with an imprinted MTG: Betrayal of Flesh in the first round of the next match. Untap, kill one of your creatures, draw...and I went 2-0 up with help from a Fireshrieker and a Whispersilk Cloak. Unfortunately by this stage I had progressed sufficiently to be playing against people who were good - although 13 1/1 tokens from an MTG: Myr Incubator might have been a bit much for people far better than me. As might a turn 1 skullclamp in round 2, which meant he'd drawn sufficient cards that he could follow up activation of the Stone with a Clockwork Dragon. Round 4 I got stomped by Affinity and flying stuff. Despite a spirited attempt to remove every 1/1 in the entire game with a single MTG: Screams from Within, which provided much amusement. Round 5 I had a better deck, my opponent had MTG: Platinum Angel (round 1) and MTG: Loxodon Warhammer (round 2). Thankfully, I had the removal for the Angel and sufficient ability to kill him before the hammer got silly. And in round six I met a guy who had what I would have liked my deck to have been, and which confirmed I was getting tired. With three losses I had no chance at Day 2; so it was time to go home.
Other notes - well, I met Scott Wills, John Avon, and a variety of pros (the tournament was very well attended by the professionals); due to a computer glitch, Kai Budde is English; John Avon thinks that MTG: Tree of Tales is the best art he's recently done, and that MTG: Winding Canyons is one of the most detailed pieces ever done for Magic, certainly the most detailed by him. I have a print of it now, which I definitely like muchly. Oh, and the NEC is big. And it was verily fun.
Sounds cool. I shall have to try a GP sometime. Given Budde was English, I shall have to check to see if you were German, as I couldn't find you on the player lists before. --CH
He plays out some weenies and equipments. I electrostatic bolt twice then drop a Darksteel Brute turn3 and march turn 4, making his equipment fall off. He plays out a Leonin Abunas and a Platinum Angel. I Starstorm for 5 on his end of turn, then drop Lattice on mine for the game. At the time I played the lattice, my Darksteel Brute was Pacified. I said the Pacifism now fell off and went to his graveyard (due to being a creature enchanting a creature), my opponent said it didn't. We called a judge and the head judge walked over and declared that it fell off and became a creature on his side. I didn't bother arguing as I'd won anyway. Game ended 15-0
Sideboarding: -3 Vex, + 3 Pyroclasm.
Took an early beating from an Auriok with a Bonesplitter. Played out March turn 4 and Lattice turn 6 for the game. Game ended 6-0
1-0 on matches
Round 2) Affinity Game 1 I played turn 2 Pendant, turn 3 Ingot then topdecked March turn 4 and played it leaving him with 1 Arcbound, an Ornithopter and a Frogmite in play. His turn 4 he played a Glimmervoid and passed turn. I Starstormed his creatures and Glimmervoid died at end of turn. He scooped. Game ended 16-20 scoop
Game 2 I mulliganed a hand of 1 island and 6 red spells into 1 island and 5 red spells into 5 spells into 4 spells including March. Never saw a land. Game ended 0-20
Game 3: turn 4 March of the Machines - Scoop. Game ended 11-20 scoop
2-0 on matches
Round 2 was very quick and it was now lunchtime so I headed round the corner for a bag of chips. On the way back I was sick and felt bad for the next 2 hours, during which I made some ridiculous play errors...
Round 3) Tooth and Nail Board situation: I had 8 mana including 2 ingots, and also a pendant on the table. He had 13 mana including 3 cloudposts and no non-land permanents. Normally in the situation I hope to topdeck Obliterate. However I didn't need to. It was in my hand. I just didn't play it for some unknown reason. Next turn he Tooth and Nailed for double Colossus. Game ended 0-20
Game 2 I played turn 4 Bribery for Colossus, turn 5 Bribery for Duplicant. He Tooth and Nailed for Leonin Abunas + Platinum Angel. I got him down to -4 then stalled until I found Obliterate for the win. Game ended 12- -4
I played turn 4 March and at the end of my turn 5 I had 5 mana on the table with Lattice and a land in hand. He Tooth and Nailed on his turn 6. 1 turn later or 1 Vex and I'd have won...
2-1 on matches
Round 4) Mono Red Goblins Game 1 he got a very fast draw and I got no removal. Game ended 0-20
Sideboarding: -3 Annul, -1 Vex, +4 Pyroclasm.
Game 2 I had played turn 2 Pendant, turn 3 Ingot, turn 4 March. I had Starstorm and Lattice in hand. All I needed to do was Starstorm on the end of his turn 5, then Lattice on my turn 6. I played Lattice first. I was on 11 life. His Sharpshooter hit me for 11. Game ended 0-20
2-2 on Matches
Between rounds 4 and 5 I started to feel better and managed to eat an apple which helped a lot. I started playing sensibly again which was nice.
Round 5) UW Control Game 1 we both sit and do nothing for a while. I play a Lattice with no March and he thinks for a while before Rewinding it. I Vex the Rewind. He Mana Leaks the Lattice. Mycosynth Lattice hits my graveyard. He plays an Eternal Dragon and starts beating me around the head with it. He is 1 turn away from succeeding when I pull Obliterate. Game ended 5-0
Round 6) WR Slide Game 1 He gets out 2 Lightning Rifts while I have no Annuls and not enough mana for Vex. Game ended 0-19
Sideboarding: None. I wanted to bring in Echoing Truth, but didn't want to remove anything.
Game 2 I annul his Astral Slide, and Electrostatic Bolt a morph (can you guess what it was? :) ). I get out March and 2 indestructibles and beat him down before he Rifts me to death. Game ended 8-0
Game 3 He gets out Slide and Rift. I obliterate with an Ingot, Pendant and March on the table and a land and an Ingot in hand. Game ended 10-5 scoop
4-2 on matches
Round 7) Mono Black Cemetary Cloud Game 1 I was about to die when I pulled a land that let me Obliterate. He was a turn away from dying when he pulled the land he needed to Consume Spirit away my last 3 life. Game ended 0-8
Game 2 I had March out, 5 mana on the board and a land and Lattice in hand. He Mind Sludged my entire hand away.
4-3 on Matches
All in all I had a good day (despite being ill) and met some nice people including a guy who has previously played at Worlds (my round 7 opponent). I finished 32nd winning 2 boosters. I was disappointed not to have faced more Affinity (By far my best matchup). I only saw it once despite the fact that it made up 40% of the field and 50% of the top 12.
Well, after arriving a bit later than planned, partly due to shenanigans on the tube, and partly due to feeling guilt at forcing someone else from my halls to get up at the same time as me, I ended up in a different flight to most of the people from IC, and all the people from Cambridge. Go figure. This flight had a paltry 8 people in when I reached it, and didn't seem to be filling fast, so to pass the time my friend and I played in a Booster Draft. After my first three picks consisted of MTG: Etched Oracle, I was already quite set in my deck type :):) I proceeded to get a fairly insane deck, with plenty of green mana fix, a couple of prisms, some of the other good sunburst (including triple MTG: Skyreach Manta) and a pair of MTG: Tel-Jilad Justice just to help things along... I steamrolled the first two rounds, with 5/5 flyers and 4/4 card drawers hitting the decks on turns 3 and 4 with disturbing regularity. Third round, I was having to play as fast as possible, due to my flight starting in minutes... his powerful control deck, with some ridiculous amount of MTG: Vulshok Sorceror (It was ridiculous, it was at least 6 or 7 - no-one else was taking them...) and a fair smattering of MTG: Condescend put an end to my plans before they even started. In the main event (which was starting about an hour after the previous flight, putting death to any hopes of taking part in the Team Sealed) I had a pretty solid blue-red affinity build, but I was lacking in removal and bombs. First game, I was paired against someone at their first event, who still managed to steamroll me in one game with a blistering amount of green fat stuff, but I dispatched in the next two. Next round, I was up against the eventual winner, with a very powerful blue deck. First game I managed a ridiculous win involving a couple of artifact lands, a couple of baubles, MTG: Spikeshot Goblin and 2 sets (one of them from MTG: Sculpting Steel) of MTG: Cranial Plating...About all I can remember at this stage is him dropping a MTG: Crystal Shard, me being thankful that I had MTG: Shatter in hand, then getting mildly miffed when he played MTG: Acquire to get the MTG: Sculpting Steel that I had shown him the previous game for a second shard :( After losing that one, I was paired against a fairly new player, but who had a blisteringly fast RG deck - think lots of MTG: Spark Elemental actually proving to be very effective indeed... Spikeshot took the first game for me. The second game went very long, as the entire board clogged up. I had some big blue fliers getting boosted for all my artifacts, one of them for its equipment, and one of them just because... (okay, I did have one bomb) when he went into a turn where he very precisely lowered me to 5 life involving the sacrifice of many creatures to my blocks, making me wonder just what he's doing... when he goes MTG: Shrapnel Blast! After this game, we have less than 5 minutes left, and since a draw means neither of us get prizes, I drop to him. Later on, he comes to see me, tells me he won, and gives me 2 of the 6 prize boosters, so it all worked out alright =) I went on to do another draft after that, but I don't really want to remember it - I was pretty tired by this stage... I seemed to misread multiple signals throughout the draft, as I continually wasn't seeing anything good in the colours I had chosen. I ended up with a pretty mediocre UG deck that lost in the first round to some very fast green monstrosity. And that was the end of my magic-playing on that day. My hot cards for the day: MTG: Skyreach Manta - absolutely ridiculous. Came out as a 4/4 or 5/5 on turn 3 for me a number of times, aided by a MTG: Pentad Prism (which is also rather good). Those games didn't tend to last very long :) MTG: Last Hope - This was listed in the spoiler as costing 1B, and I still thought it would be quite playable. At 1 mana, it kills some of the really irritating creatures, including silly mana starts with Myr, Sylvok and in MDF, Vedalken Engineers, and helps to sort out your mana or whatever you need for the next 2 turns. The scry mechanic gets a pretty big thumbs-up from me, just for general efficiency - none of the cards with it are exactly overcosted for the effect anyway, so it's always a nice bonus. MTG: Cranial Plating is just rather silly. There's a reason why creatures with the ability are 0/1s for 4 mana... I saw it on a Spikeshot Goblin and that won the game in very quick fashion, but anything evasive will work nicely as well. MTG: Thought Courier - It may be a reprint, but it's still good at fixing draws and powering through land clumps :) Both of the Baubles are very nice as well, and I would probably play as many of them as I could (within reason) I didn't get to pull many shenanigans with MTG: Leonin Squire, MTG: Trinket Mage or MTG: Auriok Salvagers, but I'd imagine they'd do fine for that as well. All in all, a good day well spent!
Didn't have so long to wait for our flight to fill up this time, although it took ages for tables to be sorted out and product distributed. I had a lot of equipment, including two rares (MTG: Worldslayer and MTG: Helm of Kaldra), but not a single white creature which specifically liked equipment. Being deep in blue and green, I went with an artifact-light UG beatdown deck. I lost the first match 2-0 - MTG: Skullcage was quite effective against me in both games; the first was won by a 3/3 MTG: Skyshroud Manta with an additional +3/+3 from MTG: Opaline Bracers; the second by a MTG: Magma Giant which swept my creatures away, although I'd have won it if playing well - I could have played a MTG: Thought Courier before my final attack and used the Helm to give it haste for the 1 point of damage required to kill my opponent. The second match I won 2-0, comfortably ahead in both games, getting good use from a MTG: Somber Hoverguard, a MTG: Battered Golem, and the Helm in the first game, and delayed from victory by beatdown in the second only by a MTG: Domineer which filched my MTG: Arachnoid - once I drew MTG: Tel-Jilad Justice to kill the flier-blocker, I went through in the air. Incidentally, my opponent had lost his first match to someone just back from the Pro Tour, which knowledge should please Chris. The third match went to a decider. In the first game I was mana-flooded, and unable to handle a MTG: Myr Enforcer with the MTG: Sword of Kaldra, especially as a MTG: Granite Shard was keeping me busy. In the second game my opponent was mana-screwed, and didn't inflict a single point of damage; the only play I noted was a third turn MTG: Viridian Shaman to smash his MTG: Lightning Greaves. In the third, he was mana-flooded, and I beat him down while taking only one point of damage. Even though we signed up about 11, it was now about 4, and team sealed was on the cards. Chris had gone 2-0-1, and wanted to stay in the flight, but was still up for team. I dropped from the flight, ready to build three decks with Senji while Chris finished his flight. We then waited at least 40 minutes for flight and team, getting worried that they might start in the wrong order. As it turned out, however, when things finally got underway, Chris had a good head-start on the team, and joined us about 15 minutes into deck construction. Our team sealed pot contained MTG: Bringer of the Blue Dawn, MTG: Vedalken Archmage, MTG: Oblivion Stone, MTG: Isochron Scepter, MTG: Empyrial Plate. There was a clear sunburst deck with the Bringer, which Chris built. There was a clear Scepter deck, which I built - I had about 10 instants to put on it, including 2 MTG: Shatter, MTG: Terror, MTG: Raise the Alarm, MTG: Dream's Grip, MTG: Lose Hope, MTG: Serum Visions, MTG: Awe Strike. I swiped the MTG: Bottle Gnomes, MTG: Leonin Elder and a few other cheap creatures to stall, and had a handful of white/artifact beatdown 5 or 6 drop creatures for the win condition. Senji built black/green aggro. The first match was against another Cambridge team - three guys from TrinityCollege whom I recognised. First game, I held a one-land hand with Scepter and Shatter, and drew a swamp straight off. Turns out my opponent was playing mono-black affinity, and he went down hard, whilst I finished the game on 21 life thanks to the Elder. Second game, I held a one-land hand with Scepter and three options to put on it. Drew a Shatter, but no second land. In the decider, I held a three-land hand with Scepter and Shatter, but I was beaten down by a MTG: Moriok Scavenger and a MTG: Fleshgrafter. Chris was doing insane things with the blue Bringer, the Archmage and the MTG: Empyrial Plate, but Senji ran into trouble against the white Bringer, so we lost the match 1-2. Second match was against a team two of whom had only been playing for a fortnight. I don't know how TheThirdPlayer found time to build all three decks. My opponent was playing UG beatdown. She smashed my face in in the first game, using (unsure of name - uncommon artifact which taps to tap target artifact) to keep my mainly artifact creatures from blocking. In the second match I pulled out Terror-on-a-stick, and the MTG: Vulshok Beserker finished the job. In the decider, my opponent realised far too late that she should have countered my turn 2 Terror-on-a-stick with MTG: Condescend, and had to make up with MTG: Deconstruct on turn 5 (taking 3 mana burn for the privilege - not entirely bad, although somewhat irritating). My memory doesn't serve, but looking at the consecutive 4-point drops in her life total, I suspect the Beserker did the job again. Senji again went down, and Chris and his opponent only managed two games in the time, so we were 0-1-1; I ran downstairs, found that there were three places in a draft, ran up to tell the others to drop, ran down to fill in our names, had to be reminded by someone that I'd left my binder upstairs and to describe its contents accurately enough to convince a judge it was mine - good thing I rearranged a couple of the pages earlier in the week to group my money rares. I drafted green/blue/sunburst, getting three MTG: Opaline Bracers, three MTG: Tyrannax, two MTG: Thought Courier, MTG: Lunar Avenger, MTG: Etched Oracle, two MTG: Channel the Suns, MTG: Sylvok Explorer, rare-drafting a MTG: Beacon of Tomorrows. My build was UG again, although I ran three swamps for ease of sideboarding in MTG: Lose Hope. The first match I won 2-0 - my opponent should have won the second game, but was playing badly because he wanted to finish and leave. The highlight was a five-point Heliosphere to finish him in the second game. Now, I finished deck construction at 21:45, and finished the first match around 22:10. I then had to wait until about 23:05 for the second match. I raced through it, taking few notes except that the Avenger and a 5-point Heliosphere were again influential, finishing 2-0 at 23:25. There was no way I had time for the final, so I dropped and we ran for the tube. Didn't manage to do much trading, although I picked up about half a dozen of the older-set rares I wanted through various trades. I also have a white Bringer, from my prize boosters, and a blue Bringer and an Archmage from redrafting the team pot. It's a fun set, and I had a good time, although I wish there had been more time. Next time I probably won't play team - it's a nice format, but I'd rather get a couple of drafts in. Impressions of the mechanics - scry is good, and most if not all of the scry cards are playable in limited. (MTG: Eyes of the Watcher being situational, of course. Would have been beautiful in the Scepter deck...). Sunburst is a powerful mechanic, and quite deep - a lot of the drafters were after it, but there was still enough that I was usually still getting decent picks around 11th. I expect there'll be a few sunburst decks at GE in a couple of weeks, although I'm not sure it's fast enough to be serious against Affinity in tournaments. The cog theme is quite nice, and I've already replaced the Fabricates in my mono-blue deck with MTG: Trinket Mage - same cost, still fetches artifact lands, but has a 2/2 body. 'tenka, let me know if this report's too short.
Eh? Why would I be worrying about how long your report is? --Vitenka (My entire equivalent report would be, cheap flyers still rule in limited games. Bottle gnomes are the best creatures ever, especially with equipment and spike goblin plus that green 'damaged cards grow' works exactly as advertised. --Vitenka
ChrisHowlett: Afraid my report will be a little shorter - I didn't make nearly enough good notes. Sealed started out looking pretty good - the Mirrodin pack contained MTG: Empyrial Plate and MTG: Vedalken Archmage. Fifth Dawn rares were the slightly odd MTG: Summoner's Egg, the curious and eventually cut MTG: All Sun's Dawn, and the frankly bomb-like MTG: Mephidross Vampire. A nice set of commons and uncommons of the Sunburst and mana-fixing type led to me thinking 5-colour-wise, but I eventually reckoned I couldn't get quite enough consistency. Cutting the White and Red (a little difficult, as MTG: Magma Jet was speaking to me) I suddenly discovered I had 5 minutes deck construction left. Eeep. There followed the mos hurried deck building I've ever done, but thankfully I had a solid mana curve, with a pair of MTG: Pentad Prism and MTG: Wayfarer's Bubble, and a similar number of MTG: Sylvok Explorers, plus an MTG: Iron Myr accelerating me into such delights as MTG: Etched Oracle, the rather good MTG: Skyreach Manta and MTG: Sawtooth Thresher. Just in case another finisher was needed, MTG: Fangren Pathcutter sat in at 6 for tramply goodness (is that a cycle of 4CC creatures with creature-spanning effects?), and MTG: One Dozen Eyes for creaturey goodness. A G-U-B mana base with a single Mountain and Plains rounded the deck off. Round 1 was basically a walkover - my opponent apparently had 54 cards and 15 land... I steamrolled him 2-0, finishing up with ODE and the vampire respectively. I got good experience with the deck however, including learning how consistent it surprisingly was - plus how sick Empyrial Plate and Ved Archmage are, particularly when you play artifacts for about 6 consecutive turns after the Archmage comes out. Second up, I'm facing Senji. Game 1 goes my way, with Sunburst going off well, and the manta at full power. Game 2 I play a Vampire, only to have it MTG: Heliophialed the next turn for 5. Senji Pulled off some decent removal and got through with his Sunburst for the win. Game 3, and my sideboarded flyers help hold of his. Curiously, there's a mirror of 2, as Senji plays the Vampire, and I phial it next turn... I finally get through for the win. Round 3, we stall quite impressively. I sneak through game 1 for the win, MTG: Skyreach Manta proving rather effective once again. Game 2 goes until end of time, and it looks like I might get the win one game to nil, having 10 life being nibbled by an unblockable MTG: Neurok Spy, but only 3 turns to survive. Unfortunately, my opponent pulls MTG: Vicious Betrayal, and punches through forcing a draw. So prizes all come down to round 4. I win game 1 pretty handily, the deck going off as intended; and game 2 is easily going my way when they announce deck-building for the Team event. My opponent reckons he's got only about a 20% chance of winning game 2, so very graciously offers to concede. I finish up on 10 points in second place overall, for 6 boosters. Team event - I end up with a basic copy of my individual deck, including the Plate and Archmage, but now it's even sillier due to 3 MTG: Sawtooth Threshers, and a MTG: Bringer of the Blue Dawn. Against the Trinitarians I lose game one, but really motor in 2 and 3, with the Bringer hitting the table on turns 4 and 3 respectively (Forest, go. Island, Pentad Prism, go. Swamp, Blue Bringer). Plate and Bringer is sick. Match two is very close. My opponent has been built a deck with MTG: Scythe of the Wretched and MTG: Spikeshot Goblin, which is a painful combo. Add in a MTG: Furnace Whelp and an MTG: Energy Chamber we both misread as not restricting to artifact creatures, and I'm in trouble. Still, a good attack with my 1/1 sunbursted fully to 6/6 into a 5/5 whelp bearing the scythe left my opponent with a vanilla 1/1 wearing the scythe and a dead dragon. I eventually flew through for the win, Spikey being unable to ping to 5. I lost game two in a very similar situation, but the thought time meant there was no time for the 3rd. Dropping to the draft, I fail to pick up that PeterTaylor, to my right, is drafting Sunburst and try it myself. I make a couple of bad pick-decisions, and crash and burn round 1. Notable acquisitions of the day: Well, Empyrial Plate and Ved Archmage are pretty good to open. From the team pot, I pick up MTG: Oblivion Stone (my second), MTG: Isochron Scepter, and the final part of the Station combo (silly, and hard to achieve, but my inner Jonny couldn't resist). I opened a blue Bringer in draft, and had a kid trade me another for MTG: Forgotten Ancient. MTG: Crucible of Worlds showed up in my prizes, along with a foil MTG: Suncrusher. Trading also saw a foil MTG: Doomed Necromancer go for a foil MTG: Stifle; and three chinese Apoc boosters got me a MTG: Cetavolver, MTG: Anavolver and - joy of joys - MTG: Pernicious Deed. All in all, quite worthwhile. Incidentally, I like Fifth Dawn. And if anyone has a BFM, I think I have a use for it.
Ri-ight. This was interesting. Fifth Dawn is a fun set. My Mirrodin pack was weak; there were cards pointing at U Affinity, but not enough powerful, playable artifacts to back this up. The Fifth Dawn was fairly strong, with Bringer of the White Dawn, various Sunburst stuff and support for it, relatively good G and U, so Gwu Sunburst deck it was. This worked fairly well, with enough mana fixing that I generally had Sunburst by the time I had the 6 mana I heeded to play most of my Sunburst cards. As it turned out, I really wasn't fast enough to take full advantage of the fairly bomb-like effect of pulling out big evasion creatures with Sunburst. Grr. Oh - and my luck was incredibly bad. In the 'does this deck work?' hands I did during deckbuilding, I got my MTG: Bringer Of The White Dawn out reliably on turn 6 or 7, followed by a storm of 5/5 fliers and 6/6 -> 10/10 creatures, while holding removal. In the actual games, I never saw my removal, and only got to play the Bringer once (it got zotted the same turn). I had to mulligan my first hand in every match-up. Grr. First match was against a BR deck running Platinum Angel and many flying creatures, but few answers - mana screw first game, then MTG: Plasma Elemental won me the second. Third one, I had a slow draw - the deck was a bit too luck-dependent. Stalled him on the life race at 4, but he managed to get enough damage past eventually. Grr. Second match was against an URW weenie deck (FSVO weenie). I was simply too slow - manaflood in both games despite the deck only running 13 land. >_< Third match was against someone who clearly hadn't played limited before. His deck was UWG, 60 cards and he had the wrong balance of land - he played some really strong cards including various of the sunburst creatures, but didn't have enough evasion or removal. Walked over him despite bad draws both times. Fourth match was against a BuR? sunburst deck - much like my own in approach. But he had more evasion, and although I could try pretty hard, I couldn't win the life race. At which point, I couldn't win any boosters any more (and neither could Stuart), so we went off and did a draft. The draft was fun. I caught Stuart's signal in R, but not in G, but managed to draft decent G anyway. Two MTG: Pentad Prism came my way (well, more did, but there were more immediately useful cards in the packs), so I went into Sunburst; a MTG: Mycosynth Golem came my way, so I deepened that artifact drafting into Affinity. Got some good G, and passable U and W, so went for UGW. Then looked again at what I'd drafted, and decided that 3-colour Sunburst isn't half bad, especially with MTG: Pentad Prism and a couple of other mana-fixers. Ended up with 8 nonartifacts out of 24 spells; 3 x MTG: Stasis Cocoon was the only removal I saw while combat tricks included the limited-superb MTG: Baton Of Courage. The deck turned out to be very fast, which was nice. First match was against a BG Sunburst deck, rather similar to the one I'd played in sealed but with B replacing G. It was just plain slower than mine, using many of the same cards but had fewer combat tricks and a sunburst of 5 rather than 3. First game I just outpaced him; our large sunburst creatures sat and stared at one another while my fliers nibbled him to death. Second game was a bad draw for me - and a series of bad plays led to me having to concede on 14 - 6 up. Third game was God's own draw - opening hand of 2 MTG: Pentad Prism, the 1/1 unblockable and MTG: Arcbound Wanderer. Turn 4 was the Wanderer, turn 5 the unblockable; eventually he was forced to kill the Wanderer, its tokens went to the unblockable and the next turn it got through for the win. Second match was against a just plain weird deck. GUw, focuses on (a) MTG: Beacon of Immortality, (b) decking the opponent by use of MTG: Etched Oracle, and (c) MTG: Tangle Asp. First game I got a decent draw and just outpaced him with fliers and various combat tricks. Second game, he played the Beacon on 20 life and that was that, really... third game I had the worst draw ever - 4 land hand, draw Forest, Forest, Stasis Cocoon, Stasis Cocoon, Stasis Cocoon. Bah. Needless to say, it was ugly and I lost. So, overall - Fifth Dawn good. Sunburst good - 3 colour or more should run it. MTG: Pentad Prism is lovely. Have W Bringer. Have the makings of an artifact-only deck (not sure whether to call it 5C or 0C). I even won 2 boosters.
Once the organisational delays and overcrowding were got past and I finally got my sweaty hands on some cards in the Individual Sealed, my deck practically built itself. My cardpool was 12 good, solid cards in G, U, and B; 9 good, solid cards in W and R. No big splashy dragons; my biggest creature was a MTG: Moss Kami. The obvious deck was a creature-heavy GU, with a lot of green snakes and blue moonfolk. Two of the blue removal spell, some combat tricks and a bit of countermagic rounded off a deck where no element was particularly massive but the whole came together quite nicely. This took me five minutes to decide, including opening the packs and counting the cards. So I set about building another deck for sideboard; there were enough good W and B creatures to make a WB deck that was slightly faster than the GU deck but not as powerful in the later game. I also put together 20 cards of R that I could swap for the U to increase the tempo of the deck or for the G to increase the control element. Yes, I spent 5 minutes building my deck and 40 minutes organising my sideboard, and got a bit of a funny look from the land station when I asked for eight of each land, please. First matchup was against a GR deck that was supposedly beatdown; it was short and slightly dirty, and I didn't go below 18 life. Second matchup was against a GB Spirit and Arcane deck, with some fine fatties; he lost one game by sacrificing all his creatures to a spell I then countered, and the other due to lack of evasion.
At which point, sadly, I had to drop in order to play Team Sealed. Ah, well. We got a good mix of cards in Team; W and B Shrines, General's Kabuto, Yosei, the Snake lord and a bunch of fat Spirits. I built another GU deck, with moonfolk and flying Spirits for evasion and snakes and fat Spirits for beatdown. It wasn't as good as my individual deck, but it ran along the same lines. First matchup was against a fairly controlling B deck, with a multitude of Ogres and Demons; I won the first game easily thanks to the Snake lord and Might of Cedars, but he won the second game easily thanks to pumping a Feared creature. The third game went to the wire but I eventually lost with the opponent on 5 life. Second matchup was against a novice player who had apparently been given no deck construction help by his teammates. Once again, I didn't go below 18 life.
And then I had to drop once again, in order to get home. That's right - in roughly 10 hours of prerelease, I got four matches done, and two of those were against novice opponents. Ah, well; them's the breaks.
I was doing other stuff earlier, so only came along in time for Team Sealed. With Requiem and StuartFraser I formed The Committee. Our cardpool had fairly strong black, with plenty of discard and some synergy with white (Requiem mentioned the Shrines - 2 black, 1 white). Being the evil black discard player that I am I opted to build that deck, although in the end the only discard which made it main-deck was the two Shrines. The Shrines were definitely in. MTG: Ghostly Prison, while not removal, was close to it and definitely worth playing. MTG: Devouring Greed was an obvious finisher. Then it was a case of removal versus creatures. I ended up only playing 7 of my removal cards, leaving MTG: Pull Under, one MTG: Befoul and MTG: Quiet Purity in the sideboard; this left space for 12 creatures. MTG: Yosei, The Morning Star was clearly in. I had MTG: Takeno, Samurai General as well, but I had to choose between him and a handful of weenies or a Soulshift chain, and I opted for the latter. I still had a couple of weenies, including two MTG: Kami of the Ancient Law for additional removal, but I also had a fliers along the mana curve - MTG: Lantern Kami, MTG: Kabuto Moth, 2x MTG: Gibbering Kami, MTG: Hundred-Talon Kami, MTG: Kami of Lunacy and Yosei.
The first matchup was against a white-blue deck with pretty good blockers - the prot-spirits-and-arcane, the training-counter guy (who was curiously underused - I'm not sure my opponent was aware that multiple instances of Bushido are cumulative), two MTG: Cage of Hands, which he found regularly, MTG: Pious Kitsune for lifegain. In the first game I got two shrines out early, was on 30 life when he bounced the white one, and by then was drawing into my removal and chipping away with my fliers. He didn't deal me any damage, but the game took ages and I wondered whether we'd have time to finish the second. Second game he had turn-1 MTG: Kitsune Diviner, turn-2 MTG: Kitsune Diviner and turn 4 or 5 the wretched Cage. By saccing Kami of the Ancient Law (great things to recurse with Soulshift) I managed to keep some creatures unencumbered long enough to get him to 12 life, and then in the fourth turn of extra time threw MTG: Devouring Greed at him, saccing five Spirits.
The second matchup was against a very bad mono-black player. He had MTG: Nezumi Shortfang second turn every game and never once used his ability! I lost the first game due to being massively mana-flooded (at one point he cast MTG: Distress and I revealed a hand of four land and MTG: Honden of Night's Reach - the second being on the table); won the second with Yosei, lost the third due to being massively mana-flooded (again, holding land caused him to waste a MTG: Distress making me discard a Swamp (which AlexChurchill notes is actually illegal by MTG: Distress's wording)) and unable to throw blockers in front of his shade-like Ronin.
Glaswegian prerelease, this one. On a somewhat different scale to the London ones, we have 14 players, making for 4 rounds of play. To avoid people bringing cards from the day before, we're both registering and reselecting our card-lists. My chunk contains MTG: Masako the Humorless (inst speed 2/1. Your tapped creatures may block), MTG: Sensei Golden-Tail (2/1, 1W,T: Give target creature Bushido 1, and it's a Samurai), MTG: Hikari, Twilight Guardian (flying, slide on Arcanes) and MTG: The Unspeakable, along with MTG: Soulblast and a MTG: Honden of Seeing Winds; I envy the person who gets this set back. Oh well, hand it in. Pick a set of cards. It's the one I just gave in!
Deck-building actually quite hard - I've got sood stuff in all colours. Green is weakest and gets cut early. I ended up with a W-U-R construction, almost evenly split. I've got some Samurai and samurai spells, some Spirits and arcanes, and some good Splices to hang off them, and a smidge of direct damage and control. It's a bit of a fudge, but it might just hang together.
My individual game reports are a little sketchy, but here goes. Round 1: I'm playing the eventual 4-0 winner, so losing is no big surprise. Game one I lost to a 4/4 flying first-striking white creature (equipped), while I'm missing a U for bounce and counterspells. Game 2 I lose to several MTG: Kami of Ancient Law, and sufficient spot-removal to get rid of my blockers. Round 2: A little bit adjusted - to take account of a poor mana-base and a reappraisal of some cards (plus noting that the MTG: Boomerang "reprint" is Sorcery-speed, dammit - the deck performs rather well. Game 1 I beat down with a small and growing army of R and W Samurai. Game 2 I do the same, but with MTG: Mothrider Samurai and Golden-Tail. To be fair, my opponent was colour-hindered in both games (had 3 of 4 in his deck). Round 3: The deck worked as expected both games, with my Samurai pecking away for the win, while MTG: Blessed Breath kept it all alive with a little spot prot. Round 4: A close one. I lost game 1 heavily, but after much clinging-on-by-fingernails, to the rather fat Greenness that Kamigawa offers. A 5/5 Trample for 2GG is evil. A bit of controlling sideboarding, including MTG: Kitsune Riftwalker for the 5/5 and some more counters, sees game 2 go my way using flying spirits and samurai, backed up by protection and bounce. Game 3 I draw a hand with 2 Islands and no small or blue cards, so mulliganned. The next hand was a little mana-heavy and also devoid of cheap stuff, but playable, so I hung onto it. Alas, I just kept drawing land and useless spells. My first non-land play was turn 5, buy which time the creature died messily and I followed 2 turns later.
Unfortunately, reporting errors meant that I went down as having a 1-0-3 record, rather than 2-0-2, but I enjoyed myself anyway. I like Kamigawa a lot, more than Mirrodin certainly (although 5D is still fun...). Glad I'm starting earning during this block. Oh, and after the prerelease, we joined the other folk using the venue and played Texas hold 'em. Which was fun.
Ooh, I forgot fun plays. Each is for the look of surprise and (sometimes) confusion on the opponents face - when playing MTG: Masako in combat for the first time in each match (and I did manage it each match); when protecting one of my creatures from death by playing MTG: Glacial Ray, and only splicing MTG: Blessed Breath on - in particular one case where my opponent had taken two turns pumping MTG: Hankyu to 4, only to have 1 white mana stop him; when protecting one Legendary Kami by casting MTG: Blessed Breath on another creature, and sliding it out.
By the time my Sealed started I knew it was unlikely I'd finish before Team Sealed started, which was rather irritating. My Sealed pool was okay but not outstanding: decent amounts of removal in both red and black, but precisely 2 playable creatures in each. I went green-black with a splash of red. I don't remember much from the Sealed play, except that MTG: Initiate of Blood proved much less fun and useful than I'd expected: his condition isn't that easy to meet, and even when he flips the main usefulness of that is just his 4/4 size. I did have fun with my three MTG: Pull Unders, often casting them with a MTG: Soulless Revival or MTG: Glacial Ray spliced on if I had eight mana at the time.
ChrisHowlett saw someone get good use from him. Once he'd flipped (I didn't see how), he had him comboing with the Kami that pings on arcane spells. So, 1R,T would happily see him deal 7 damage to up to 2 creatures - repeatedly if he had something to splice it too. Would also be good with MTG: Honden of Infinite Rage. Which is a point. I have said honden, and the White and Blue ones, and a MTG: Raka Sanctuary. I'll happily take the Initiate off your hands at some point, if I get round to making a "Shrine" deck, as it were.
I dropped at 1-1 to play with GreenOpal and his friend "Dark" Dom as team Dark Green Fish. Dividing the pool into three decks was a fascinating and great fun exercise. GreenOpal got the green-black graveyard-triggers Spirit deck in predictable fashion (his *five* MTG: Gibbering Kami apparently served him in good stead); Dom and I decided to split our decent red between a white-red Samurai deck (MTG: Konda's Banner with three-and-a-half legendary creatures to attach it to, including MTG: Godo who tutors it into play, as well as MTG: Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep to give any of them first strike) and a blue-red controlly Arcane deck which I ended up piloting. My conclusion? I *love* Splice. MTG: Glacial Ray is my favourite common in the set. I was playing two- and three-for-one spells all the time, splicing together my two Rays, three copies of MTG: Consuming Vortex, together with MTG: Reach through Mists and MTG: Peer through Depths (every noncreature card in the deck bar one was an instant), and stalling and countering their spells until I found my victory conditions of MTG: Jade Idol, one of two MTG: Earthshakers (very effective, but often killed my stuff too) or the absolutely game-ending MTG: Meloku the Clouded Mirror.
But I still had a great time. I'm planning on rebuilding my Team Sealed UR Splice deck into a casual constructed form (and would be interested in trading for a single MTG: The Unspeakable as I'll probably be running 4of at least two of his support cards). I *love* the flavour of Kamigawa and the way it plays in Limited... although it has several themes that can feel unfair at times, they all have common countermeasures in multiple colours. Thanks to all who I spent time with for contributing to a great day :)
First match was against a young kid who had played in a few of these prereleases before and presumably knew what he was doing. First game he produced more and bigger creatures than me while I sat with too many funky effects in hand, though I got good use out of my various splice/arcane tricks (using Blessed Breath to flip bushi tenderfoot, yeah!). He accidentally took out one of his own creatures by playing a spirit with an MTG: Earthshaker in play, though, and forgot about bushi tenderfoot's bushido 2 when he attacked with the earthshaker too, but he was still on 17 when I untapped for the last time on 1 life. "You still look as if you have an answer to this," he says, and I MTG: Dance of Shadows 'd with spliced Kodama's Might on tenderfoot + a MTG: Scuttling Death to hit him for 21 unblockable... (Sweet!! :) --AC) Second game my hand had 5 life and Jugan, the Rising Star; I drew a sixth within the first five turns and though he had a few small things out it looked fairly certain when my dragon hit the table. I still needed another Dance of Shadows to win though, as de dropped a Yosei himself.
Second match was against Zoltan Radnai of TrinityCollege; also playing green/black/white, with lots of Spirits. Soulshift was working very well for him, he was repeatedly able to retrieve creatures costing the right amount, for more than I could get rid of. In the second game, he'd subbed out all his white and some green for a bunch of red, and I had Kokusho out and MTG: Devouring Greed in hand, for what would have been 9 points of drain (!!) but he hit me with a Glacial Ray first. Neither game was particularly close....third match I fell victim to MTG: Kiku, Nights Flower in the first game - all my creatures had at least as much power as toughness, and giving them +2/+2 wouldn't have helped! - but put up more of a fight in the second, MTG: Rend Flesh-ing Kiku when she appeared again before being beaten down by too much green stuff. I seemed to have a lack of any creatures between 1 or 2 toughness and the two dragons...
My opponent dropped out before the 4th match, so I eventually entered a draft....I decided beforehand to go for (some subset of) white, blue, and red, which probably helped in the end. First booster I picked an MTG: Kitsune Blademaster despite staring at an MTG: Tides of War which I would have liked to pick for casual; that went all the way round the table and I still didn't pick it the 2nd time around either!! In the second round of drafting, third pick or so was an MTG: Hair-Strung Koto and so I decided after that to go for creatures creatures creatures, however big or small...and my 1st-pick rare in the third round was an MTG: Azami, Lady of Scrolls, so I went for a bit of a Wizard deck as well. Deckbuilding...didn't have as many samurai as I wanted, and in the end I had to leave out a MTG: Bushi Tenderfoot as I had absolutely no way of flipping him (!), but managed 18 creatures in URW, with some other notable cards...
First round opponent was playing a UW deck which I outnumbered greatly at first and hit him for a fair bit of damage, but his MTG: Kabuto Moth proved an excellent blocker, and we reached a kind-of stalemate with him having a number of big (3/3ish) flyers against a good number of 1/1s-2/2s on my part and a MTG: Ben-Ben, Akki Hermit (and 4 mountains). I don't think he was playing very well (perhaps the Carlsberg he was drinking?!), or else he was fearing combat tricks, as he had a number of opportunities to kill my MTG: Kitsune Blademaster but repeatedly blocked on his MTG: Kabuto Moth and tapped itself to make it 2/4. I had my MTG: Hair-strung Koto in hand, but didn't want to play it for fear it would provoke an attack from him; eventually after some removal/bounce I played it, and we had all kinds of fun with that and his MTG: Sensei's Divining Top and MTG: Soratami Cloudskater in his next upkeep before I managed to put the top in his graveyard. He didn't really realize how strong a card it was though until I milled him for 7 at the end of his next turn, and then he only had 5 cards left in his library...but that was a long game!! The second game I got out an MTG: Blood Rites, which turned out to be much stronger than I had realized, and there was only one possible outcome.
Second-round opponent was playing a black splash-green deck with lots of spirits, and some "whenever you play a spirit" effects, but with a combination of blood rites and the white shrine, against some drain life from him, I ended up on over 20 life. Second game I sideboarded in a spirit counterspell or two and managed to keep most of his stuff off the board, beating him down in a rather mundane fashion with a number of red samurai (including several MTG: Battle-mad Ronin, which seemed quite effective).
We had four minutes left to play the final, so I suggested one of us concede so we could share winners+runner-up prizes equally between us rather than both just getting a runner-up. This met with an immediate "I'm not conceding" - but turns out he was just concerned about his DCI rating, and I really didn't care about mine. 4 boosters each it was...including a second MTG: General's Kabuto, and a MTG: Through the Breach, yikes! So AL had a good day in the end - lots of trading, a starter, 10 boosters and a prerelease card for twenty pounds that day. We just won't mention the WC :-!. Thanks to all who went, especially to AC for being vastly more organised than I was, phoning me directions from the train station, bringing jelly babies, lending me money when I couldn't find a cash machine (or one that worked, anyway!), and so on :)
(Just briefly at the moment - may be fleshed out later)
I went through the entire day having the same record as Alex, pretty much... Individual sealed didn't go very well - I lost first round, and despite winning the second I felt it was better to drop than try to win both the remaining rounds. Entered a draft, where I drafted what could have been a mono-white deck, were it not for the presence of multiple MTG: Barrel Down Sokenzans. Won the first round 2-0, lost the second 1-2, for a prize of 2 boosters.
Then entered team sealed (after a very, very long wait) with Alex and GreenOpal (under the name Green Fire Fish). We opened a frankly ludicrous card pool, details of which to follow. We won 3-0 in the first 2-1 in the second, 2-0-1 in the third; but I had to run for a train after wining my match in the fourth, at which point that round was 1-1 with Alex still playing. Would GreenOpal or AlexChurchill care to say how we did?
They were going to run out of time so agreed to a split. --qqzm
Yes, 8 each. It seems they gave us 12 boosters each for the winning team, and 4 boosters each to the others, so everyone left with 8. (Chris, I have 8 boosters and an extra prerelease card for you.) --AC
Randomly looking on TheGamesClub[website], it seems that "officially" we came second. It also seems that we got 3 T-Shirts... Did we? --CH
Not AFAIK. They'll probably give us them if we ask. I'll try to remember to ping GreenOpal. It also seems that qqzm and AlanLawrence are recorded as having MoonShadow on their team...?! --AC
Hmm, yes. That's a little bizarre. JOOI, why is GreenOpal a good person to ping? It occurs that (if TheGamesClub is forewarned) you may be able to collect them when you go to the Standard tournament. --CH
I was thinking because GO is at university at London; but yes, your point about the Standard tournament is an excellent one, and would make sense :) --AC
The team that you agreed to split with is listed as third. I'm not sure who the random 1st team is. --qqzm
Since it was a 32-person 4-round contest, I assume they're the other team who also won all four of their matches, and who we would have played in the fifth round if there'd been one. --AC
This was my first such event and I enjoyed it. Quite apart from anything else, there were a good few people I knew, including those I expected to (Some of the organisers and competitors through being an occasional visitor of the playtesting group of Friday evening magic, various Cambridge types, although Alex was the only one I knew sufficiently in person to recognise), and a few that I didn't expect who I knew through random board-game connections.
In the actual events, I took part in the individual sealed, where I got a couple of MTG: Razorjaw Oni, and reasonably length white and black, and so proceeded to build a medium black-white creature deck. I annoyingly drew the first game on time, lost the second to mana issues and a better constructed mirrorish deck played by qqzm, and then won the last two having sorted out the mana problems. I then hung around until team sealed. Our card pool had some good cards, but no particularly outstanding synergies amongst them. I ended up playing the black-red creature swing to win deck, with the two matches I had playing it being slower than the similar decks I ended up matched up against, despite shuffling in quicker creatures as the matches progressed.
You did get stuck with double black cards and only one black mana. When I had the deck I got very fast starts, even faster than expected. One game I dropped 3 MTG: Raving Oni-Slave on turns 2, 3, 4. I went down to 5 just through their drawback but they smashed so much face on the way. The legendary land that gives you a 5/5 flying demon also shone through for me one game. Played it turn 5, end of his turn 5 sac all lands, then...win!--qqzm
That said, when we swapped decks, it seemed fine for my qqzm, so maybe I was just playing ineptly. For the last match I was playing the mono-white, and after being mana flooded for the first game, swapped out a couple of lands to win the second two. I really like the cheap white sweep +1/+1 as a combat trick, although I suspect I'm just drawn to it because I like the design.
Then we dropped, I ran, and I actually caught the last train to Windsor, which I invariably miss after these sorts of occasions due to hanging on those few minutes too long.
Individual flight: Opened the Champions starter first. Saw MTG: Hideous Laughter, MTG: Rend Flesh and MTG: Rend: Spirit. Decided then I was playing black for certain. Also got MTG: Yosei and MTG: Kabuto Moth so was fairly certain of my second colour. Saviours added a few more white flyers, the black 2 mana regen bushido 1 guy and 2 of the 4/3 green guy that gets +3/+3 if you have more cards in hand than your opponent, so I splashed green for those 2. My first round opponent was incredibly slow. We ended up drawing 1 each as he just managed to take away my last point of life in his final extra turn of game 2. As it turned out, due to the flat prize structure they are now using, a loss is better than a draw. I'd have been better off conceeding and agreeing to split any extra boosters. I went on to win the next 3 matches to finish 3rd on ten points, and get paid out for 9 :(.
Team Sealed: We opened a pretty good pool. The presence of the red and black hondens led us to make a fast black/red beats deck. It was possibly a mistake, but we piled all of our removal into the deck with a load of fast red and black creatures (including 3 MTG: Raving Oni-Slave), and the legendary land that gets you a 5/5 flying demon. The second deck we went mono-white with 2 or 3 MTG: Cage of Hands and a number of weenie flyers. A pretty soplid deck, but mothing spectacular as I recall. I didn't play the deck, so I'll leave it to AL to expand. Deck 3 we went Blue/Green? for MTG: Meloku the Clouded Mirror and MTG: Time of Need to search for him. This left us with very, very little removal in the deck. The rest of the deck was mainly 4 and 5 mana blue flyers, a MTG: Sakura-Tribe Elder and MTG: Sakura-Tribe Scout. Due to the high mana curve, we ran 18 lands. I played 2 matches with it and had to mulligan to 6 twice through lack of land. I only managed to get Meloku out once and had to use him to chump to even survive the turn by then. Both matches were against blue/red decks that burned out my flyers and played their own copies. Went 0-2, 1-2 with the blue/green. Then 2-0 and 2-0 on a further 2 casual games as the first games were so quick with the black/red deck.
I played in a flight, where almost every creature in my GB deck had Soulshift. Went 1/1 so I'd need two more wins to get prizes, and wanted to try triple-Saviors draft, so Chris and I dropped and drafted.
The aforementioned ludicrous team pool yielded a monowhite weenie deck with about 20 creatures, 15 of three or less mana, all either flying or with a least two power, mostly both. Three MTG: Moonwing Moth and MTG: Nagao continued the ridiculousness, and two MTG: Plow through Reito served as finisher even more often than as trick... I believe that deck never lost a game. There was a GB soulshift deck with serious black removal, high-power green and black creatures, MTG: Kagemaro and MTG: Sekki, Seasons' Guide; and there was a blue-red splice/spiritcraft deck with serious red removal, high-power blue flyers, and a foil MTG: Kumano. I piloted the white face-smashing flyers most of the time, but I took the more subtle blue-red up against the other 3-0 team, where our team's GB got manascrewed, the monoW continued to smash aerial face, and I was 1-1 and playing the crucial final game of the tournament when time was called. I had a plan to play MTG: Earthshaker one turn, and next turn splice a MTG: Glacial Ray onto a MTG: Consuming Vortex to clear his side of the board... but he managed to MTG: Swallowing Plague Kumano and gain 4 life, securing the draw. We agreed to split prizes (me: "Are we allowed to do that?" Judge: "Under the rules? No. In practice? I'll come back in 5 minutes."), and a d20 roll gave the Green Firefish the top spot.
Most memorable play for me: during my flight, I had a MTG: Scuttling Death in my graveyard, a MTG: Thief of Hope, MTG: Kami of the Hunt and a MTG: Promised Kannushi in play. He attacked with a MTG: Moss Kami and a 1/1 flyer, and I was thinking I'd let the Kannushi die so I could get back the Scuttling Death. However, he channelled a MTG: Shinen of Life's Roar to make all my creatures block the Moss Kami! So after damage was on the stack, I cast MTG: Kodama's Might on the Thief of Hope to save it; the Kami of the Hunt's trigger saved it; the Kannushi died and got me back the Scuttler I'd wanted; their damage killed the Moss Kami; and I sucked one life from him to counter the one damage his flier would have done me!
This was my first such event as well, and as might be imagined I did quite incredibly badly. I opened my cards in my flight to find a couple of very good cards, namely MTG: Masumaro, First to Live and MTG: Neverending Torment. However, I decided to go green/red since that seemed to be where my most reliable cards were. Well, either I seriously went wrong building the deck or I was just monsterously unlucky, since I didn't draw a single cheap creature in any of the game I played. After deciding that my deck was too slow to really work (which probably wan't true; I probably was just unlucky) I dropped out and spent most of the rest of the day trading cards. I got some pretty nice ones too, including two copies of MTG: Mirari. I was quite amazed that my foil copy of MTG: Sickening Shoal was apparently worth more than the Mirari, but I was hardly complaining. I also managed to stock up quite a lot on Kaldra artefacts, and a few other things, including a couple of MTG: Thran Golem for £1 each, and the same for two copies of MTG: Hanna's Custody.
All in all it was a very good day that I really enjoyed, despite my dismal performance. It was also nice to actually meet some of the people I've been communicating with on the wiki for what seems like a very long time now.
English Nationals 2005 Regional Qualifiers
At the Peterborough event, I scrubbed out (0-2 drop).
At London, there were 89 players => top 11 get places at Nationals. I placed 7th and Alex 13th. I'll post more details tomorrow. --qqzm
Cool! So you're going to the Nationals? Funky! --CH, impressed
The tournament started at 11. I was home in time for lunch. :( In the 5 games I played, I only saw Kiki once and only had 2 red mana. Some serious deck re-thinking had to be done. I decided that given the only red card maindeck was Kiki, that I'd remove him and change to a mono-green aggro deck. After playtesting the new deck a bit with Alex, I decided that it would be really easy to splash another colour in it. I still couldn't choose between black for MTG: Rend Flesh, Red for MTG: Fireball, blue for MTG: Meloku the Clouded Mirror or white for MTG: Worship. The night before the London qualifiers, I arrived upon the following decklist:
There were 89 players, which equates to 11 places at Nationals.
Round 1: Mono Green Aggro Game 1, I won the toss and chose to play. Turn 1: I laid a forest and a bop. Him: Okina. Turn 2: Forest, Troll. Him: Nexus, Sakura-Tribe. Turn 3: I swung with the Troll. He blocked on the Sakura-Tribe, then sacced to go search out a forest. I played a Viridian Zealot and a Rushwood Dryad. His turn 3 he played another Tribe Elder. Turn 4: I drop a forest and play Sword of Light and Shadow. I was about to attach it to the Dryad when he scooped.
I didn't sideboard anything in or out. My maindeck is pretty teched out for the mirror already with 4 Rushwood Dryads and 5 ways of removing annoying equipment.
Game 2. We each got out early trolls. I dropped a Sword of Light and Shadow onto my bop. It swung 3 times before a Zealot ate the sword. The recurring Sakura-Tribe helped me survive the 2 Plow Unders he hit me with. I got back up to 5 mana and then returned the favour with a Plow Under of my own. Next turn I made a ridiculous mistake. The Plow Under was the only card in my graveyard. I played Eternal Witness then passed turn without returning the Plow to hand. Duh. Next turn Meloku came out to play and created 2 buddies during his eot step. He's on 11, I'm at 19 (thanks to 9 life gained from sols). I swing with Meloku, 2 tokens and a bop. He blocks my bop on his bop. Might of Oaks targets Meloku for the win.
1-0 on matches, 2-0 on games.
Round 2: UW Control This was the only deck I played against all day that I wasn't expecting to see. I don't remember much of game 1. I was on 20 and he was on 18 when he scooped. I'm guessing he was mana screwed but I can't say for certain.
I sideboarded in 1 Eternal Witness, 3 Arashi and 4 AEther Vial. I couldn't find room for Dosan. I took out 4 Rushwood Dryad, 2 Sword of Light and Shadow and 2 of something else.
Game 2 I get turn 1 bop, turn 2 troll. He drops a Circle of Protection Green! I play a Viridian Shaman with nothing to target just to try and draw a counter. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't bite. I follow with the Zealot and he removes its soul. Next turn I play Meloku, who is also countered. He tapped out and I topdeck a second Meloku. I created 1 token that turn, then 3 more the next. He then dropped a Pristine Angel into play, but by now he's at 7 and is tapped out, so I created enough tokens to get 7 damage through and won the next turn.
2-0 on matches, 4-0 on games.
Round 3: WW Game 1: I got a Jitte. He didn't. I won.
I sideboarded in 3 Arashi and 3 Creeping Mould, taking out 4 Rushwood Dryad and I forget what else.
Game 2: He got a Jitte. I didn't. He won. Game 3 was a bit more interesting. I played turn 1 bop, turn 2 troll. He played turn 1 Suntail Hawk, turn 2 Leonin Skyhunter, turn 3 another small flyer. Turn 4 I channelled Arashi for 2 to wipe his board. Turn 5 he was still at 2 land, so I Creeping Moulded one of them. He draws a plains and Raises the alarm. We traded damage from my troll and his soldiers for a turn. He is now at 10 and I at 5. He dropped a Sword of Fire and Ice and attached it to a soldier, then swung with both his tokens. I chumped the equipped token on a Witness. Next turn I swing with the Troll (he has no blockers). Might of Oaks finished it.
3-0 on matches, 6-1 on games.
Round 4: MUC Game 1: I kept a questionable hand: 2 forest, 1 Viridian Shaman, 1 Eternal Witness, 2 Troll Ascetic, 1 Plow Under. By the time I saw a third mana it was all over.
I sideboarded the same way I did against UW control in round 2.
Game 2: I keep another dubious hand of Forest, bop, Troll, Troll, Troll, Plow Under, Meloku. I play turn 1 forest, bop. Turn 2 I draw a bop and play it. He Condescended it for X=1. So I paid the 1. :) Turn 3 I topdecked a forest, and he countered my troll. Turn 4 my Plow Under made him wish he'd saved it. Next turn I played another troll followed by Meloku. He kills my Meloku by playing his own. I respond by creating a token. I hit him twice with a Sword of Fire and Ice-weilding Troll and he's gone.
Game 3: I played a turn 1 Aether Vial. Turn 2 I played nothing. Turn 3 I dropped a Sakura-Tribe into play with the Vial on his eot. Turns 4 and 5 see a pair of Trolls sneak into play the game way. The trolls beat him down to 11 before he dropped and popped an Oblivion Stone. I regenerated one of the trolls. Next turn he played Meloku and created 1 token to block my troll. I played a sword and stuck it on the troll. He played a Vedalken Shackles and left 3 mana open. On my turn I channelled Arashi for X=4. He responded by bouncing 3 land to make 3 Meloku tokens. Then arashi resolved and killed them all. He died the next turn a very unhappy chap.
4-0 on matches, 8-2 on games.
Round 5: Tooth and Nail. Game 1 I have a pretty much God draw in this matchup. Turn 3 Rushwood, Turn 4 Sword of fire and ice on the Rushwood, turn 5 plow under, turn 6 plow under, turn 7 eternal witness returning plow under. Then he scooped.
I sideboarded in 3 Creeping Mould for 3 Meloku.
Game 2 is even better. Turn 2 Rushwood. Turn 4 sword of fire and ice, attach and swing. Turn 5 plow, turn 6 plow.
5-0 on matches, 10-2 on games.
With 2 rounds left to play, I can now draw into the top 8. Alex was then at 4-1. Due to something weird happening (like somebody who was matched down in an earlier round losing), there are 3 people on 5-0 (I would have expected 4). So 2 of us were matched against each other, and the other one was matched down. I was the unlucky one, and even more bizarrely was against Alex round 6. If we drew then I was certainly in. If Alex won then we each had a reasonable chance of being able to draw in, so I conceded to him.
After 6 rounds there were 2 people on 16 points, then 7 of us on 15, so 6 of us would be able to draw in and the seventh would have to play one of the two people on 13. Alex was the unlucky one. My opponent and I agreed to an intentional draw. Alex's opponent needed a win to qualify so they had to play. Alex lost and missed out on a place at Nationals on tie-breakers.
In the end I finished 7th winning 12 boosters and a spot at Nationals. Alex got 6 boosters for his 13th place finish. All in all, it was a fun day, but very long and very tiring.
On a related point, when are you next around Cambridge, Chris? I need to return your Okina to you. Thanks very much for the loan by the way :). In the end I didn't use it in London, but it was only removed about 2 days before the tournament.
Probably not for the foreseeable future. Or at least, I won't be around for a significant length of time for the foreseeable future - I'm up for Chel's graduation on Friday, but we're going to Scotland immediately afterwards. However, I believe Alex is coming to Enfield on the 16th, so it could probably travel with him. Along with a T-Shirt, if you managed to acquire them? --CH
Weird? Yes. Inconsistent? Nowhere near as much as all the one-offs and wonky manabase would seem. Unexpected at the tournament? Almost totally. Effective? Five match wins out of seven suggest it is.
Round 1, Tooth and Nail I lose this match badly, never seeing an MTG: Enduring Ideal. Game 1 I take a couple of hits from an MTG: Eternal Witness down to 13 life before I MTG: Wrath of God, and then he casts MTG: Rude Awakening for precisely 14 damage. I sideboard in my MTG: Sacred Ground against MTG: Sundering Titan, and draw one in my opening hand. Figuring I don't need to play it until he hits 9 mana for an entwined Tooth I play other things for my first few turns, and then he hardcasts one from 8 mana. I never recover from this critical mistake. 0-2 games, 0-1 matches
Round 2, R-G Spiritcraft This was a fun deck and fun games. Game 1 he hit me with a MTG: Lava Spike splicing on MTG: Glacial Ray for 5, then sacced a MTG: Hana Kami to do the same again! Thankfully I stabilise and get the Ideal cast. He killed one enchantment with a MTG: Wear Away, but I was getting one every turn. I think I beat him with Hondens. I sideboard in CoP Red and an Ivory Mask. Game 2 he drops turn 2 and 3 MTG: Soilshaper, then turn 4 casts MTG: Kodama's Might on one of them to animate two lands and attack for 10! A MTG: Ghostly Prison slows him down, a CoP Red makes his two MTG: Glitterfang just recurring Spiritcraft triggers, and a red Honden deals with the MTG: Soilshapers. However, I now realise how scary MTG: Wear Away is. Splice it onto a MTG: Kodama's Might. Splice it onto a MTG: Glacial Ray. Cast it. Sac a MTG: Hana Kami to get it back, and cast it. Let me kill an MTG: Elder Pine of Jukai, which soulshifts into a MTG: Hana Kami which sacs to get back MTG: Wear Away, and cast it. I think he killed at least 5 of my enchantments with that one card. The CoP Red was one of the first to go; thankfully my MTG: Sensei's Divining Top found me another one. I'd also hardcast both red and white Hondens, so he killed the white one before my new CoP... at which point the almighty Top finds a third. He'd cast MTG: Sowing Salt on my Cities of Brass, though, which left me no way to cast the MTG: Confiscate in my hand. Another MTG: Sowing Salt removes my MTG: Cloudposts, probably doing me a favour, as I still hadn't seen an Ideal. Eventually with my library down to about 20 cards or less, I find and cast the big Epic spell, but by this point he's used Glitterfangs to flip a MTG: Budoka Pupil into a 4/3 trampler with two counters on it, I'm on 5 life, and I know he still has MTG: Wear Away in hand. What enchantment could I possibly fetch to keep me alive when he can destroy it before he untaps? Answer: MTG: Confiscate on MTG: Ichiga (the flipped MTG: Budoka Pupil). Although he does destroy the Confiscate, I pull the counters off Ichiga in response! So when he attacks, he only deals me 4 damage, and I'm on 1 life. With the MTG: Wear Away finally gone from his hand, I can get myself a MTG: Genju of the Realm in my next upkeep, and breathe... except that he draws a MTG: Hana Kami, pops it for MTG: Wear Away, and destroys the Genju. But activating it in response leaves me with an 8/12 Forest as a blocker, so Ichiga doesn't attack... which means when I get my third and final MTG: Confiscate the following upkeep, Ichiga is untapped and able to block, before finally attacking his owner to give me the match. 2-2 games, 1-1 matches
Round 3, White Weenie with Splash A fun guy who's wearing a spoof "Tragic: the Obsessing" T-shirt and insists on setting up his little plastic animals to watch the game. We play fast and friendly. He gets off to an aggressive start with an MTG: Isamaru, a MTG: Samurai of the Pale Curtain and more, but I get faster: turn 1 MTG: Cloudpost, turn 2 Forest and MTG: Sylvan Scrying for a Cloudpost, turn 3 play it and cast MTG: Kodama's Reach for two plains, turn 4 MTG: Enduring Ideal. I initially fetch a MTG: Ghostly Prison to slow things down. I'd noticed he had an odd manabase with MTG: City of Brass, MTG: Tendo Ice Bridge and MTG: Mirrodin's Core: I now see why, as he casts a maindeck MTG: Naturalize on my Prison! I take the alternate route of a MTG: Honden of Cleansing Fire, but he MTG: Naturalizes that as well, in his White Weenie deck, and keeps swinging on the attack. But the MTG: Genju of the Realm sorts him out with three quick swings. I sideboard in MTG: Story Circle and some Naturalize of my own, assuming he's got some scary Equipment. Game 2 he gets a fast draw again, but I have a hardcast MTG: Ghostly Prison and MTG: Wrath of God after he's put three creatures on the board. I'm able to Ideal fairly quickly, but things don't go so straightforward this time. I have to pull out MTG: Meishin because he's dealing me too much damage, which resorts me to a victory via red Honden pings, were it not for a well-placed MTG: Naturalize on his part. I pull out the Hondens in quick succession and start killing his creatures, so he plays a MTG: Glorious Anthem to pump them up... so I promptly MTG: Confiscate the Anthem :) I'm gaining six life a turn (as well as three 2/2 Spirits), but he gets some lifegain of his own via MTG: Auriok Champion, which has protection from red-honden. After he gains three life each of my upkeeps, I decide I'm fed up with that and confiscate the Champion too, incidentally letting me gain 9 life each upkeep. He finds another Champion, but I overwhelm him with 2/2 Spirits and a MTG: Genju of the Realm, giving me the match. Afterwards, he shows me the other reason for green in his deck: MTG: Might of Oaks. Particularly nice on a flying double-striker :) 4-2 games, 2-1 matches
A few people have been watching my deck now, mostly in surprise, a few in recognition ("Oh, I saw something like that on the internet! Except it was using MTG: Seismic Assault and MTG: Trade Routes." I'd seen and rejected this idea.) A judge comments that I have the advantage of surprise in that few people will be prepared for the deck, which is true enough, although almost everyone I play all day has some maindeck Naturalize effects. But nonetheless, the rogue effect is one of the reasons I like the deck :)
Round 4, Mono-Green Aggro I remember very little about this match. MTG: Umezawa's Jitte came out a lot, but I also MTG: Confiscated it quite a bit, and he used MTG: Viridian Zealots to blow up the Jitte rather than the Confiscate. He played things like MTG: Beacon of Creation, but my Ghostly Prison, Wrath, Final Judgment, Confiscate, and sideboarded Naturalize and Story Circle do their job well and Genju and Hondens finish it in two games. 6-2 games, 3-1 matches...
Round 5, Mono-Blue Control A powerful hand that could have been a turn 4 or 5 Ideal instead has its landsearch spells MTG: Condescended and MTG: Hindered. I reach 5WW while being pecked by a MTG: Thieving Magpie, but don't try it until I can eventually Scrying for MTG: Boseiju. I use that to force through the Ideal. He's able to MTG: Echoing Truth a couple of enchantments to leave them stuck in my hand, and he actually counters a couple of the upkeep Epic copies of the Ideal. He doesn't dare play MTG: Meloku beause he's seen I've got MTG: Confiscate, and so I manage to win fairly easily. I sideboard in MTG: Naturalize against his MTG: Oblivion Stones, and on a whim also the MTG: Story Circle to shut down his Magpies. Game 2 is much closer. I remember a great play on his part when I tried to cast some enchantment, probably a Honden, tapping all my non-pain land and leaving MTG: Boseiju and two MTG: City of Brass untapped. He cast MTG: Mana Leak! I *could* have paid 3 mana, but only at the cost of 4 life! So I grudgingly let it be countered... An early Magpie on his part leads to MTG: Keiga, the Tide Star on turn 6, who smacks me in the head a couple of times. He tries to end-of-turn activate a MTG: Stalking Stones, which I let happen and then immediately MTG: Naturalize it. Finally I Ideal, but at low enough life that the tapped Keiga and Magpie will kill me if I let them. I Confiscate his new other Magpie which is untapped, and chump blocks for a turn, but that doesn't really achieve anything, so I have to pull out the MTG: Story Circle set to blue (now I have some untapped mana). He plays and activates another MTG: Stalking Stones (colourless!), so I MTG: ConfiscateMTG: Keiga as an effective blocker. He plays an MTG: Oblivion Stone, so I confiscate the Stone as well. He tries to MTG: Boomerang this MTG: Confiscate, and so I'm forced to use his Stone to blow everything up before I can get counters on my Story Circle. But it works out quite well, because the Stalking Stones are unaffected by the Stone due to being nonland, and so when MTG: Keiga 's graveyard trigger goes on the stack for me since I controlled it, the Stones are the only legal target... and he can't even MTG: Echoing Truth them because that also says "nonland"! Time is up on the round by this point, but the game's only going one way with me attacking him with his own Stones so he concedes. 8-2 games, 4-1 matches.
Round 6, Green-splashBlue Aggro (qqzm) As qqzm mentioned above, we got paired with each other, and decided the best chance for both of us was for him to concede to me, leaving us both on 5-1 and able to draw into the Top 11. Except I get paired with someone who can't afford to draw, and so I have to play...
Round 7, Green-splashBlack Aggro In the pregame banter I mention that I'm not that fussed about Nationals, and he says "Wow, maybe I've been going about this all wrong... I've been travelling all around the country desperately trying get in to Nationals!" But I'm not completely uninterested, and so when our decks get taken away for deck checks, we glance at each other a little nervously and he says "I didn't need any more tension!" But he gets even more, because in this vital final round, he's up against a deck he's never seen before. His jaw drops at my first turn MTG: Cloudpost, and he's thoroughly flustered by my third turn City of Brass and red Honden.
He's playing a finely honed mono-green aggro build with the tiniest black splash: one Swamp and four MTG: Cranial Extraction. The first few turns see a MTG: Troll Ascetic face up against red and white Hondens, and a MTG: Viridian Zealot takes out the white one. Then he casts MTG: Cranial Extraction, but is clearly on the verge of panic, because he has *no* *idea* what to name! I hear him muttering to himself, "I didn't playtest against this!! Okay, calm down. It's clearly some kind of rogue Hondens deck. The black one doesn't worry me too much, but I don't like any of the others... maybe I should name... but what if he doesn't have any? Okay, go with what you've seen. I name MTG: Honden of Cleansing Fire." I can't resist smiling as I pass him my deck saying, "Okay, you may search my library. There are no more of them in there though." He sees the MTG: Enduring Ideal and has to stop to read it, but doesn't seem to really realise what it does. Unfortunately he's able to use MTG: Plow Under effectively, and although a MTG: Wrath of God keeps me alive for a bit, I get beaten up by MTG: Troll Ascetic wielding a MTG: Sword of Fire and Ice and a MTG: Beacon of Creation token with MTG: Blanchwood Armor.
I've lost a game, for the first time since Round 1, and I realise that everything's resting on this next game. If I can win it then there won't be time for a third to finish and I'll draw into the Top 11; but if I lose then it's all over... I sideboard in MTG: Naturalize and a MTG: Story Circle, finding it very hard to choose what to take out. Normally it'd be the expensive spells like MTG: Final Judgment, but that's so effective against MTG: Eternal Witness... I also put in one MTG: Ivory Mask.
However, in Game 2 he gets a Turn 4 MTG: Cranial Extraction and names "Wrath of God, because it's just so good against my deck!" At first I was glad he didn't say MTG: Enduring Ideal, but his call was probably correct... It was well timed too, because as it happened I'd just used MTG: Sensei's Divining Top to put a Wrath on top of my library. I cast a couple of enchantments which drew his Zealot, and I finally find the second MTG: Cloudpost I need to cast the MTG: Enduring Ideal in my hand... but before it untaps, he casts MTG: Plow Under on a Plains and a Cloudpost. I think for a moment, and realise that I want to put the Cloudpost on top so I draw it first and it has a chance to untap, so I can cast the Ideal when I draw through them both. But somehow, I make an awful mistake and put them the other way round: I draw the Plains first. It's an incredibly costly mistake, as I realise with a sinking feeling when he casts MTG: Eternal Witness next turn to get back the MTG: Plow Under. I draw and play a Cloudpost, frustratedly look at the Ideal in hand and the 5WW on the table with two of it tapped, and pass him his turn. And then follow TWO successive MTG: Plow Unders, setting me back immeasurably. He says "Now let's start to play properly" and casts a MTG: Beacon of Creation, a MTG: Kodama of the North Tree, another MTG: Beacon of Creation and a MTG: Blanchwood Armor on an Insect. I'm able to Naturalize the Armor, but take too much damage: I'm down to 2 life by the time I can cast the Ideal. I look through my deck, but no one enchantment will keep me alive: a Confiscate or MTG: Genju of the Realm would deal with the Kodama, and a MTG: Ghostly Prison or MTG: Meishin would deal with the 12 Insect tokens, but I only have time for one or the other. I fetch Meishin, and with my best poker face, pass his turn. It very nearly works: he almost doesn't attack. You could cut the tension with a knife as he looks at the table, at the cards in his hand, at this weird Legendary Enchantment he's probably never seen before. After an agonizing delay he asks, "How much life are you on?" I answer clearly and truthfully "2". Another long pause. "And how many cards in your hand?" "Two." Another long pause. "I... attack you with the Kodama." And so he gets his wish, winning one of the top 11 places and an invite to Nationals.
10-3 games, 5-2 matches; 13th place out of 88, 6 boosters prize.
It's a pity I didn't get to go along with qqzm to the next round. But that was never really my aim. I wanted to try a constructed tournament, take along a rogue deck and cause some raised eyebrows, maybe win a few boosters, and principally have lots of fun. And I most definitely achieved all of those. :)
I wasn't sure I'd make it, but I'm glad I did because it was a really good evening. 16 people signed up, conveniently, and I was in a pod with AL (sitting to my left) and Qqzm. Rares were redrafted for prizes.
My first pick was a MTG: Dark Banishing, and my second a MTG: Mana Leak, so I was pretty sure I wanted to stick in those colours - my favourite for Constructed, but not a combination I've drafted often. I picked up a second Banishing quite late - around 10th pick - and a bit of draw and more countermagic, although I was low on creatures. In the second pack I tried to rectify that, and also picked up an MTG: Underground River. There was a shot at another in the third, but I hoped it would come round again and was disappointed. I did, however, acquire a MTG: Hypnotic Specter (which I never drew in a match). I finished with two each of MTG: Dark Banishing, MTG: Mana Leak and MTG: Remove Soul plus MTG: Nekrataal for removal, plus two MTG: Sift and a MTG: Sorotami's Counsel for draw. For evasion creatures I had two MTG: Razortooth Rats, a MTG: Wind Drake and two MTG: Azure Drake. In the sideboard were two MTG: Kraken's Eye, which I actually put in for two matches against blue mages to good effect, gaining 7 life against Alan and 8 life against my third round opponent.
The counter and removal proved very strong, and to my surprise I went 2-0 2-0 2-0, only dropping below 10 life once. I must acknowledge having good luck: none of my hands even tempted me to mulligan, and even when I was stuck on 2 land until turn 7 I had enough countermagic to keep my opponent's side of the table free of all but land.
Forgive me if my memory is a little hazy. I played 12 rounds over two days, and you weren't allowed to make any notes during games so I may forget details of many games...
Round 1: Wesley (1799 constructed rating) Mono Blue Control (Non Urza) Game 1: I play first turn Birds, second turn troll, third turn Jitte + Equip. He has nothing but MTG: Jushi Apprentice on the board. He concedes. Sideboarding: -4 Rushwood Dryad, +4 AEther Vial. Game 2: Turn 1 AEther Vial, turn 2 Jitte, Turn 3 Sword of Fire and Ice, Turn 4 Aether Vial out a Troll and attch both equipment to it. Turn 5 swing for 7 and a card. He drew for his turn 6 then conceded. 1-0 on matches, 2-0 on games.
Round 2: Charles, Suicide Black I was not expecting this deck at all. Game 2: I stalled at 3 land, which was enough for me to drop a troll and birds but I was sitting with Meloku and 2x Plow Under in hand. I drew a witness and used it to get back Sakura-Tribe Elder to get my fifth mana, but by then I'd taken too much damage from fear creatures carrying MTG: O-Naginata! Sideboarding: -4 Rushwood Dryad, +4 Creeping Mould Game 2: I kept a hand of 2 forest, 2x Viridian Zealot, Troll Ascetic, Eternal Witness, Plow Under. Never saw a third mana. MTG: Ebon Drake with MTG: O-Naginata beat me face in. 1-1 on matches, 2-2 on games.
Round 3: Sean (1828 constructed rating) Tooth and Nail Game 1: An early Rushwood Dryad picked up a Sword of Fire and Ice and beat face. Sideboarding: -3 Viridian Zealot, -1 Troll Ascetic, +4 Creeping Mould Game 2: A turn 2 Troll Ascetic and a turn 3 Umezawa's Jitte had him down to 9 when he got off a tooth. He dug out Kiki and Viridian Shaman, then dropped Colossus + Witness into play, returning the tooth to his hand. Next turn he cast tooth again, dropping the Kiki and Shaman. I responded by removing the last counter on the Jitte (The other 1 had killed off the witness) to gain 2 life before it died. I died to 22 trampling damage a turn shortly after. Game 3: Turn 1 birds, turn 2 Sword of Light and Shadow, turn 3 attach the equipment to the birds and swing. He hits twice before the sword is removed by a Shaman. The next two turns I drop a rushwood dryad each turn and swing until he's dead. 2-1 on matches, 4-3 on games.
I finished the first contructed portion of the event on 2-1. On to the first of two drafts... I opened a pack containing MTG: Rend Spirit. I follow up with a second or third pick MTG: Gutwrencher Oni, then a fourth pick MTG: Befoul. I don't know what else was in that pack but it must have been good. I am now firmly in black and start to drift into white towards the end of this pack. In the Betrayers pack I picked up a fairly late MTG: Neko-Te, which is a card I seem to rate a lot higher than many people, but it did win me 2 games by itself. (The only two games in which I saw it, in fact). I was even more surprised in the third pack to get a seventh pick MTG: Kagemaro's Clutch!
Round 4: Ben White/? I can't remember much of this match at all. Game 1: I was mana screwed and lost pretty badly. Game 2: I lost 6 life to my own Raving Oni-Slave, but got him down to 2 life before he managed to stall. I managed to get up enough creatures to attack for the win the following turn so he swung with everything, knocking me down to 3. My counter-attack finished him. Game 3: I got my first of three warnings. this one was for forgetting to pay the upkeep cost for MTG: Skull Collector. I remembered pretty much immediately, but had already picked up the card from my library. It really made no difference as I had Skull Collector and Gnat Miser on the table. Hmm let me think which one do I bounce? Never mind. It was a close game. I ninjisued in an Okiba-Gang Shinobi to make him discard half his hand, then he got a big blocker out to stop my rat ninja. We both went down to 6 life then I finished him in ways I can't remember. Draft 1: 1-0 on matches, 2-1 on games. Total: 3-1 on matches, 6-4 on games.
Round 5: Another Ben (1900 limited rating) R/W Game 1: I mulliganed a hand of 6 land and a sickening shoal. I then kept a hand of 2 swamp, gnat miser and 3 white spells. I draw lots of swamps, but no plains. He drops a frost ogre and eats me quickly. Game 2: I mulligan a hand of 2 Swamp, Kagemaro's Clutch, Gutwrencher Oni, Sickening Shoal, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Befoul. I get a similar hand with 1 less land and mulligan again into 2 plains, 3 black spells which I keep. I draw a Spiritual Visit turn 2, then a swamp turn 3. It's a really close game. I managed to get him down to 8 with me on 12. I had a Gutwrencher Oni and a Takenuma Bleeder to his frost Ogre. He attacks and I don't block. Blazing Shoal kills me. Draft 1: 1-1 on matches, 2-3 on games. Total: 3-2 on matches, 6-6 on games.
Round 6: Mark (Pro player who has been National Champion in the past) I don't remember much about this actual match. In game 1 I played a Gutwrencher Oni when I had Blood Speaker in my graveyard. I forgot the trigger. At the end of the match my opponent told me I'd forgotten it. Several hours later I realised I should have called a judge at this point. I should have received a warning for forgetting the trigger, but my opponent knew I had forgotten and didn't remind me (it's not optional), so he would have received a match loss at the minimum, and maybe even a disqualification. He won game 1 fairly closely. Game 2 I got my second warning, this time for forgetting the upkeep on Gutwrencher Oni. I didn't even lift the card far enough to see it. I lost the game but I don't remember how. Draft 1: 1-2 on matches, 2-5 on games. Total: 3-3 on matches, 6-8 on games.
On to the second draft... Opening a MTG: Rend Flesh puts me into black again. I again follow with an Gutwrencher Oni. Later on I pick up a Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Takenuma Bleeder, Raving Oni-Slave, Horobi's Whisper and another Kagemaro's Clutch. Pretty similar to draft 1. My second colour this time around was green. Shinen of Life's Roar and Okina Nightwatch were very nice additions from the last pack.
Round 7: David B/G Game 1: I go down to 3 before I manage to stabilise the board, partly due to a Raving Oni-Slave. I drop a Gutwrencher Oni and Okina Nightwatch and slowly build up until Shinen of Life's Roar lets me swing for 21. Game 2: We both lose 3 life to my turn 2 Raving Oni-Slave. I then lose another 3 when he removes it. I drop a Takenuma Bleeder. We both build up. Shinen of Life's Roar wins me another game. Draft 2: 1-0 on matches, 2-0 on games. Total: 4-3 on matches, 8-8 on games.
End of day 1.
Round 8: Larry R/W I went down game one having only done 2 damage. I can't remember why. Game 2: I got out hired muscle which I thought would be really useful against him. I declared an attack with the hired muscle when he had a 2/3 blocker. I had a total of 4 green and black mana available. I was hoping to make him think I had a combat trick such as MTG: Roar of Jukai. He fell for it and declared no blockers. Okiba-Gang Shinobi came into play tapped and attacking. He discarded half his hand. The hired muscle came back out again. We both built up. I got a Gutwrencher Oni, which unfortunately kept my Okina Nightwatch small for a while until I found a Raving-Oni Slave. He got out a MTG: Ronin Cavekeeper. Next turn he put MTG: Tenza, Godo’s Maul on it then attacked me. MTG: Rend Flesh killed it and got me 1 counter on the muscle. Next turn Arashi got me the second counter. The extra 2 power meant more than the fear as it allowed me to again use the Shinen to get lethal damage through. Game 3: He went down to 12 and me to 16 before we got locked up again. He had 1 damage prevention on the table. I used Shinen to get though 15 damage through including 3 pumps of a cursed ronin. Draft 2: 2-0 on matches, 4-1 on games. Total: 5-3 on matches, 10-9 on games.
Round 9: Charles (The same guy from round 2) R/U/G Game 1 was very close. I took him down to 7 before he stabilised with MTG: freed from the real and MTG: Mystic Restraints on my big guys. His very early MTG: Honden of Infinite Rage pecked me down with the help of some small flyers. He gets me to 3 and I get him to 2. I attacked him for 5 and he had to block with his 2 flyers and lose them to stay alive. The honden took me down to 2. He drew a creature, but one blocker would not be enough so he conceded. Game 2: I played a turn 1 Gnat Miser. Turn 4 he still had no blockers and I attacked, then ninjisued in Okiba-Gang. Next turn he dropped a big blocker. On my turn I played MTG: Rend Flesh on his blocker, then hit him for another 3 life and 2 cards. I replayed the Gnat Miser. Next turn he gets another big blocker which I enchant with MTG: Kagemaro's Clutch and then swing for 4 damage and his last 2 cards. He draws land. I hit him again and play Hired Muscle. Next turn he pulls land again. I drop him to 2 and play MTG: Gutwrencher Oni. He draws and plays a 1/2 flyer but it doesn't save him. Draft 2: 3-0 on matches, 6-1 on games. Total: 6-3 on matches, 12-9 on games.
End of the second draft, back to constructed for the last 3 rounds...
Round 10: Paul (1913 constructed rating) Mono Red Burn (He was on the National team last year, so he must have finished in 2nd or 3rd place in 2004) Game 1: I get turn 2 Troll, turn 3 Troll. He burns me down to 10 with MTG: magma jet and 2 goes with MTG: Pulse of the Forge before my trolls chomp him. Sideboarding: -3 Plow Under, +3 COP: Red Game 2: I get turn 2 troll again, followed by turn 3 Might of Oaks, putting him at ten. I swing again with the trolls to put him at 7 and play a Viridian Zealot. Next turn they both swing and take him to 7. Meanwhile he played MTG: Pithing Needle for Viridian Zealot and again for Umezawa's Jitte. He hit me with pulse 3 times and volcanic hammer twice which put me down to 2 life. I had 5 mana on the table, and a land in hand. He had no cards in hand. I drew eternal witness. 1 more mana would let me witness the might back and swing for the win. I swung for 5 and then played the witness for the might. He topdecked magma jet. I cried. Game 3: Turn 2 I play Sakura-Tribe, then sac it on his eot for a plains so I can play COP: Red turn 3 (Go last minute sideboard changes!). Turn 4 Troll Ascetic eats him for a turn or two. I Plow Under him then cast Meloku. He cast MTG: Flamebreak which stopped the troll beats. He's now at 6. I swing with Meloku and two tokens, then Might of Oaks Meloku (I should have chosen a token on hindsight). He MTG: Shrapnel Blasted Melokuin response and went down to 4. Next turn I drews Sword of Fire and Ice, which I played then handed to a token and swung for the win. 7-3 on matches, 14-10 on games.
Round 11: Stuart (2056 constructed rating) GU Aggro/Control? Game 1: He gets to 5 mana first and Plow Unders me for my only two lands. I drew one back and played sakura-tribe. He MTG: Revived his Plow Under. I drew the second land and played another elder. He plow undered me again. I sacced both elders to get back to 3 mana and shuffle. I get up to 5 myself and Plow Under him. Next turn witness gets back plow under. I plow under again and swing for 2. I plow under again and swing for 2. I plow under again and swing for 2. He conceded. Sideboarding: None Game 2: I play a turn 1 birds, turn 2 Sword of Light and Shadow. Turn 3 I attach the equipment to the birds and swing. Turn 4 I swing again. He gets out Meloku. I play a Rushwood Dryad. Next turn I move the sword to the dryad and swing. He uses Meloku to bounce his 2 forests then trades 2 critters for my dryad. I play a troll. Next turn he plows me. The turn after he played MTG: Uyo, Silent Prophet. The turn after that he plowed again and copied it twice with Uyo. I conceded. Game 3: Turn 1 birds, turn 2 Rushwood Dryad, turn 3 Jitte. turn 4 the dryad picks up the Jitte and swings. I play another dryad. Turn 5 I knock him to 2. He drew a card then conceded. 8-3 on matches, 16-11 on games.
Going into the last round there are now 5 of us on 24 points. 4 will be matched against one another and be able to draw in to the top 8, and the fifth will be paired down and have to play. Guess who that was?
Round 12: Sam (1928 constructed rating) UrzaBlue? UrzaBlue? is by far my worst matchup. My opponent was the only person at the top tables that I saw playing it. Incidentally his parents live in Cambridge. He was up this week for his Dad's birthday so dropped into The Druids for a draft on Tuesday. PeterTaylor beat him in the final of our draft :) /me now wonders what PeterTaylor's limited rating is. The draft will have had a really low K-value, but Sam's limited rating was over 2100 at the time, so you should have picked up a fair few points.
Hmm, that made me curious about [mine] (nothing special). Should I be worried that I can remember my DCI number without any trouble at all? --CH
The draft had a K-value of 16 so you must have gotten 15 out of that one match. Much congratulations are in order for beating the best limited player in the country. --qqzm
One of the tables above is is playing instead of IDing in (I don't know why), so we're now the second highest table who are actually playing. All the top tables have a judge each, and there's a number of people standing around watching. Before the start of game 1, whilst shuffling his deck I dropped a MTG: Mana Leak and got my third warning. It really didn't matter as I'd seen him play, and even written down on my score pad what deck he was playing but hey. Game 1: I kept a questionable hand of 2 land, Jitte, Troll, Viridian Zealot and 2 others. I never saw land 3. The Zealot was mana leaked. Memnarch stole my Jitte and I didn't even get a lousy T-shirt. Sideboarding: -4 Rushwood Dryad, +4 AEther Vial. Game 2: My turn 2 Vial was countered. Turn 3 I got a troll through. Turn 4 the troll picked up a Jitte. Memnarch took it again. I stalled at 4 mana with 2 Plow Unders in hand.
The more I think about it, the more I think that my memory was failing me about this match. Something is not quite right about that report but I can't quite put my finger on it. It just seems different to what happened, especially the first game, but I can't remember how it was different. If that makes any sense at all. Never mind.
8-4 on matches, 16-13 on games.
In the end I finished in 15th place, winning me 15 boosters. I'm very, very pleased with that. It's far better than I ever expected to do. I opened one draft set after I got back to Cambridge and pulled an MTG: Isamaru, Hound of Konda and a MTG: Pithing Needle, which is nice.
The Top 8: 1st Richard Moore 2nd Mark Knight 3rd Sam Gomersall 4th Neil Rigby
5th-8th (not in order) Michael Overstreet Dave Getheral Nick West Dan Paskins
Wow. Many congrats, and thanks for a detailed and interesting report. A number of fascinating plays there... I love the GU player dealing with a MTG: Rushwood Dryad by using MTG: Meloku to bounce all his forests! Fun to see how things go with the top players :) Well done that man. Was there indeed sanctioned 2HG play as a side event? --AC
Thanks. There was no multiplayer action going on. According to mtg.com, the first sanctioned 2hg event will be a $5000 tournament at GenCon? on the 18th, so it can't even have been the US Nationals that was being referred to. Weird. On the subject of sanctioned 2hg, the faq (and the floor rules) states that sideboards won't be allowed. There's no official word yet on how this will affect the wishes from Judgement. Will you be allowed to wish from collection? Will they change the no sideboard rule? Or will they make 3 amazing cards (and 2 pretty pants ones) effectively worse than Mudhole? I was really looking forward to trying my MTG: Hunting Grounds deck out, maybe partnered with some sort of UB or UW dedicated control deck. Unfortunately, it won't be half as good without the MTG: Living Wish. --qqzm
![[Home]](/img/text_logo.jpg){kind=logo}
MagicTheGathering/EventsAndReportsArchive