Saturday, 17th of March was a particularly busy day on the England Magic front, with a PTQ in Bradford, a Legacy GPT with block constructed stuck on the side in London, and a Sealed GPT in Birmingham. Though Baz and Tony decided they would take the more road-trip option and hop on the train down to the Legacy event (Baz’s one true love (after draft)), Marco and I felt that the Birmingham event would be both less of a hassle and more of an enjoyment for us (everyone knows limited owns constructed). It was sad that we couldn’t get more Bishop Gamers to join us on our journey to conquer Birmingham, but then again I was happy that this meant it was all the more likely that one of us would win it.
Having arrived, it seemed that a fair few of the Birmingham regulars had opted for 1 of the other two events, or perhaps preposterously decided that they had something better to do with their time than play cards with a load of fat sweaty men, as the only other player who we recognised and who we thought would have any serious intention of going to Sweden was Owen Pauling (and maybe Bill Johnson on his big break from judging).
Having got bored of / realised it was pointless testing extended decks, we watched a couple of Angelfire vs UW aggro T2 games, then sat down amongst the 20 players present to register our decks. Either through an alphabetical system or through luck, Marco and I were sat at the same table (with only 2 players per table !), and both proceeded to open fairly bomb-tastic pools, with such stars as double Verdant Embrace in my pool, and everyone’s favourite illegitimate black lovechild of Wrath of God, Damnation, in Marco’s pool. Before handing back my pool, I prayed a little; I prayed that my pool would go to a bad player, and I prayed that I would get back an equally bomby pool.
And that I did. From the very start it was clear that the pile of cards in front of me was a powerful pool indeed, and building wouldn’t be a particularly easy procedure. Though I could discard 2 colours straight away – black and green, as both were significantly lacking in any power or depth, the red, white and blue cards left were possibly the strongest set I’ve seen in a 2-booster sealed in a very long time. After 15 minutes of adding, taking away and rearranging, I decided that I’d have to risk a shaky manabase, as not including my array of bombs seemed simply too silly. Though I’ve lost the rest of my pool, I still have the deck itself:
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“One bomb, Two bomb, Three bomb Four.” By Matteo Orsini Jones |
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1 Torchling |
1 Dead/Gone 7 Mountain |
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And onto the tournament.
As Lee arrived he told me that this was his first tournament, and that he was only really playing magic because his friend had encouraged him to explore out of the world of professional model painting. This seemed a fair start to the tournament for me, and though it quickly became clear he was a new player from plays like mainphase Ashcoat Bear, Lee was a great guy and didn’t get particularly angry or upset when he encountered mana problems.
Lee threw his first hand away and kept a slightly risky 1-lander, only to later regret it as he missed his 2nd land drop on turn 2. Turn 3 and he managed to make a play, albeit slightly late, by suspending a Deepwalker with a blue mana off the top of his deck. I, however, wasn’t so much in the mood for hanging around, and suspended an ephemeron turn 2, made a Prismatic Lens and Benalish Cavalry turn 3, and a Lightning Angel off my Lens turn 4. By turn 6 it was all but over, and Lee could only scoop up all his 3 lands and shuffle up for the next game.
As in the First game, I started off by racing out of the blocks by suspending a Cloudskate turn 2 and Making a Zealot turn 3, which seemed good after Lee had played his Trespasser. Once again, Lee was having mana problems; this time with the colour of his lands, but a Prismatic Lens off the top let him drop his Sprite Noble. However, my deck stuck to true form by not allowing Lee the privilege of having cards in play, as I burned down the Noble with Dead//Gone, and bounced his lens with my Cloudskate to slow him down further. When I hardcast an Ephemeron a turn later with the aid of my own Prismatic Lens, the game was once again mine. Lee did try for a ‘last hope’ win by casting tromp on his Viscerid Deepwalker, until I kindly pointed out that Tromp was slightly better than he thought (wouldn’t be the first to misread Tromp *cough* Scott *cough*), but luckily for me even with the bonus on all creatures it wasn’t enough to make me start getting nervous.
Match result: 2-0
Matches so far: 1-0
Round 2 pairings up and I noticed that this time I was paired against a player with a little more experience, and in fact one of the only players in the room with a little experience (basing this on the fact that I didn’t recognise most of them, apologies to any pros I missed).
Luckily I was on the same table as the previous round, and so I could delay moving my huge pile of coats / bags / card sleeves for another round, and sit down for the start of the game. Well, after the 5 minutes of frowning, shuffling and redrawing while I threw away my first two hands, then settled for a rather creature-light hand of Mountain, Mountain, Plains, Dead//Gone, Orcish Cannonade.
Though I was on the play, my inherent lack of creatures made for a rather slow start, but nevertheless Marco failed to apply any real pressure until a 5th turn Serra Sphinx. I debated muchly whether I wanted to Gone it, just to give me the extra few turns to draw a removal, but decided to wait – and this apparently paid off as I drew my third mountain of the game.
At this point I figured that unless the Sphinx died there was no way I would win at my current rate of poor topdecking and with Marco’s already apparent card advantage, so I decided to Cannonade the Sphinx, and deal it the final Deadly blow with Dead. Marco, however, had come prepared; he merely grinned and cast Whitemane Lion to scoop up the 4/4 bomb, which in turn prompted me to scoop up the cards and move grumbling on to the next game.
Game 2 and I decided to stick to true form, throwing away my initial landless hand. However, the second 6-carder was slightly (muchly) better, as I raced into a 3rd turn Lightning Angel off of a Prismatic Lens, and beat for 3. Next turn it was time to drop an Undying Rage on my Angel and beat for twice the amount, and passed the turn, knowing that my 1 untapped land and Whitemane in hand wouldn’t prove much use if Marco had the removal there and then. Sadly, Marco did have the removal there and then, and didn’t hesitate to use it on the 5/6 flyer. Happily, the removal was a Utopia Vow, giving me the second mana to be able to show Marco how devastating a Whitemane Lions is when game-winning flyers are involved.
Whitemane Lions 2, Removal 0
Game 3 and at last we both started on a level playing field, with 7 card apiece. However, my deck decided to, as in the second, show its true colours, with a second turn suspended Cloudskate, third turn Lens, and fourth turn Lightning Angel. Though Marco tried his best to keep up, the fun I started having with Momentary Blinks on turn 5 meant all he could do was pack up the cards ad admit his inferiority to his younger brother.
Match result: 2-1
Matches so far: 2-0
Round 3 pairings up and I saw I could no longer delay moving my bags, so went over to table 6, only to find that Marco was now sitting at this table, and so looking after our mountain of possessions could be down to him. I grabbed my deck and tournament notes and made my way over to table 1 and sat down in front of my opponent, starting off the round with an apology: ‘Sorry I just need to find a blank page to make notes, I might write a report’, ‘Oh right, what site?’ ‘Mtgtwincast, it’s a… (start plug)’, ‘Oh right yeah, I know the site, I asked Tony to Set up the Bristol Magic section for me’. Tis always nice to meet fellow Twincasters.
Game 1 started with me on the play, my first creature being a Dreamscape Artist which, sensing a 3-colour deck, Stephen rapidly sent to the bin with half of Dead//Gone at the end of my turn, then dropped a 2-headed sliver in his turn. My turn 3 play was a Zealot, which, considering my opponent had just dropped a 1/1, was already looking promising to start the card advantage rolling on my side.
Stephen, however, seemed to have forgotten what the zealot did and dropped a Skycutter then passed the turn. When I redirected the 1 damage onto the goblin he picked up my Zealot, read it and sighed – though next turn he had even more cause for sighing as he failed to make a 4th land.
Back in with the zealot and Stephen decided to Fury Charm his own Sliver to keep it alive, which suggested to me that he had some sort of Sliver theme going on in the deck and hence him using up a card to keep alive a 1/1, but I wasn’t to find out the next turn as once again he missed a land drop. When my Cloudskate came in off suspend to bounce his land, there was little Stephen could do, and when I Cannonaded the Needlepeak Spider he made to block, when the 4th land finally arrived, then dropped a Serra Avenger, the Sunlance he showed me in his hand no longer had much use…
Though I seem to have an inconsistency in my notes I’m pretty sure game 2 happened. The inconsistency is that I have the life totals relating to 3 games, but the game notes for only 2, but I’m fairly sure that I remember there being 3 games played. Another thing that I remember is that in one of the games Stephen’s deck decided to show me its true colours (red white black), by flipping every bomb possible, including a Sacred Mesa. I think it would suffice to say that after a rather brief struggle, I succumbed to a swarm of little white flying livestock.
Game 3, and this time it was my deck’s turn to show its true colours (white red blue… pff, it was funnier the first time), with an aggressive start of turn 2 Benalish Cavalry and turn 3 Outrider on the play. Stephen however, having a rather good deck himself, managed to stave off the constant beats and stabilize at 8 life, with a Rathi Trapper holding off my biggest man each turn. on the other hand, at this point Steve decided to drop an Ivory Giant on suspend, hoping to build a board position around it for a potentially devastating attack once the 3/4 hit play.
Unfortunately for him, though, it soon became apparent that this play was going to backfire as my Orcish Buzzadiers took him to 2 life, with Giant on 1 counter left. This meant that as the Giant came in, he would have to tap his own Trapper and hope to rip a removal off the top to deal with my Orc-Scout, but sadly this never happened. The best he could do was attack me to 14 (impressive I know), and offer the hand.
After the match Steve and I showed each other each others’ decks and each others’ bombs, each trying to outbomb the other, each pulling out another bomb to outclass the previous one, but I think I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that each of us had otherworldly decks. I told Steve that with his deck he would have top 8ed fairly comfortably, and the general consensus was that I was right.
Match Result: 2-1
Matches so far: 3-0
That’s me in top 8 I guess, not much point in reading the next few rounds.
And part of the reason for that is that the next round was ID’d with Alex Nicholas
And then the next was ID’d with Owen Pauling (we were both in top 8 anyway, and both had the same rating, so we figured that this way would prevent any annoying drops below 1900 for Owen just before the GP to result in 1 Bye instead of 2).
So straight into top 8 I guess.
Before the draft Marco and I joked about how we’d draft if we sat next to each other, but decided we weren’t going to sit next each other, and even if we did we wouldn’t be able to predict what the packs would give us. Turned out, to Marco’s frustration, that we were sat next to each other, though I still feel that sitting to the right of a good player who at least sends good signals is better than sitting to the right of a guy who sits there taking anything with big power/toughness.
Flaming noobs aside, the draft started and I opened a slightly unimpressive pack, with the 2 stand-out cards being a Tendrils and a Rift Bolt. Those of you that know me will also know that I stand firm in the belief that black is an absolute terrible colour in Time Spiral draft, and so I took the Rift Bolt, assuming the guy on my left would realise that Tendrils was the only real good card and draft black. My next pick came in the form of Orcish Cannonade, from another slightly unimpressive pack, and then the 3rd pick came from a pack that seemed to be lacking in any form of good cards at all, taking Benalish Cavalry, to set me on the path to a RW aggro deck. The rest of pack 1 provided me with Amrou Seekers, Basalt Gargoyle, a Thunder Totem, Icatian Crier and some other playables.
Pack 2, once again, failed to impress me with any ‘THANK TEH LORD’ cards, but the second pick sent a Desolation Giant flying straight into the pile of cards in front of me. Having just drafted the Wrath-on-legs, I figured taking another totem seemed techy, then followed this with a couple of Cloudchasers, A Thick-Skinned Goblin and Flamecore Elemental for ultimate techyness, and some other small men.
Pack 3 opened and I decided that with only 2 removal spells (not including desolation giant) so far, taking Dead//Gone seemed a plan. Though not as much of a plan as the Dust Elemental that stared up at me from the pile of cards in my hands. Much like the Giant, big Dusty flew kicking and screaming as a second pick into My pool, and made me glad that I’d clearly chosen the right colours and sent the right signals. Speaking of Desolation Giant, these two work really well together! Other picks from Planar Chaos included Riftmarked Knight, Benalish Commander and Shade of Trokair (yay for suspend!).
And here’s the deck:
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“Where the hell were my Stingscourgers and Whitemanes!” By Matteo Orsini Jones |
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1 Basalt Gargoyle |
1 Riftmarked Knight 10 Plains |
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Nick seemed to be a player who doesn’t really play for the chance to go on the pro tour, but more to enjoy himself. He was friends with Owen, and I remember watching his last round of Swiss in which his opponent, upon realising they couldn’t win in the last turn of time Tromped and attacked with a flyer. Nick decided he would block this with Aetherflame wall, until somebody pointed out that it blocked shadow, not flying. Nick then decided to block with a ground-man, until once again somebody pointed out “Nick, that doesn’t have flying either”. “Oh, I guess I’ll block with my Dragon Whelp then”. This caused his rather confused opponent to extend their hand and accept their 1-0 defeat in a rather, if nothing else, odd final round (in the previous game nick had decided to cast Sulphurous Blast for the draw to move them into the third game).
Game 1 and the first play came from me with a suspended Riftmarked Knight on the play, to which Nick quickly responded with a Flashbear as I passed the turn. Next came a Kestrel from me, with a red mana open, allowing me to Dead the Zombie Warchief that was to come down on Nick’s side during his 4th turn, before he started abusing its abilities. A totem and Kestrel from me on turn 5, and then an even more productive turn 6 involving a Knight joining the fray, a crier hitting the table and 6 1/1s running out of their warrens to grab a piece of the action, and Nick was quickly overwhelmed by the aggro aggro beats (no relation to reggae reggae sauce).
Game 2 and I started off rather more rapidly than in the previous game, with a turn 1 suspended Shade, turn 2 Cavalry and turn 3 Riftmarked Knight. At this point Nick Johnson, who was judging, came over and I told him “you shoulda come over a minute earlier, woulda seen my deck curving out to perfection”, to which he replied with “So your ultimate curve involves 1 creature being in play on turn 3?”. Nick’s lonely buzzadiers struggled to keep up in the damage race, and by the time a Pyrohemia hit the table on Nick’s side he’d taken too much damage and I had too many plains for him to be able to deal with my board and stay alive, so off into the semi-finals I was.
In between round I watched Owen get beaten by Robin Lubarr and his GWr deck, and Marco getting beaten by Stephen Woodward and his UW sliver sub-theme aggro deck, also with a red splash (though I didn’t see what this was for straight away, later turned out he was heavy white with a blue splash for Teferi’s Moat and the like, and red for Pyrohemia and Lightning Axe…).
From watching parts of his game against Owen, all I could remember was seeing Saltfield Recluse (which Owen could have killed but didn’t, possibly throwing the game away), some green X/4s (spider, Woodreaders), and a Firemaw Kavu or 2. I won the roll and started off with a turn 3 Amrou Seekers, to pass the turn and find out that the 6 card hand Robin Had kept decided that 2 lands would be quite enough, and instead of playing a land he decided to suspend a Search for Tomorrow.
A flamecore Elemental and Tectonic Fiend from me pushed Robin against the ropes, and when I cast Dead on his Needlepeak Spider in response to him trying to double Thrill of the hunt it on my Flamecore, the game was mine in under 5 minutes.
Game 2 and Robin once again suspended his Search for Tomorrow, and this time I started the beats turn 2 with a Thick-skinned Goblin, following it up with a comment of “When I have the echo men this guy decides to hide away, and then he turns up and doesn’t bring his echo friends with him!”. A Saltfied Recluse from Robin prompted me to play a Doomsayers over the Riftmarked Knight I was planning on, just to be able to continue pushing the beats with my Thick-Skinned Goblin. The Knight did enter suspension on turn 4, and then a Ghost Tactician joined the team turn 5. At this point I commented “you know I’m actually quite worried here, because my opponent doesn’t seem to be playing anything”, to which Robin replied with ‘don’t worry, I’ll play something now’, and dropped his second creature of the game in the form of a Kickered Pouncing Wurm.
I took a few beats off this, confident that I could attack back for lethal quicker than he could, even after he dropped a defensive Kickered Woodreaders, while I gradually built up my board position and attacked with Tactician’d creatures (happily trading my goblin for his Woodreaders to be able to hit him for 9). However, when Robin then dropped an Akroma, seemingly for the win, I managed to block down to 2 life and swing back for exactly lethal the following turn, even with my mistake of blocking his 6/6 Wurm with a 2/2 totem, rather than with Doomsayers and tapping his Recluse before damage resolved (as Marco swiftly pointed out after the game).
Yay! Finals!
Before the start of the match, I cheekily asked my opponent, a Brummy regular who is often there for the ‘lesser’ tournaments, such as Prereleases, as well as the big ones, whether he was planning to go to Stockholm. His reply was “No, not at all, you?”, and my reply to that was “Well, if I get the byes I might go, *nudge nudge wink wink*”
On the play again (!), I started rather slowly with a totem into a Ghost Tactician, which didn’t even survive to the end of the turn as Ian sent it straight from the Cradle to Grave, then dropped his own 5-drop (off a lens) in the form of a Clockwork Hydra. My reply to this was a Tectonic Fiend, and after Ian managed to Dark Withering this the board stalled out somewhat. However, when Jaya decided to show up on the opposing side of the board, I decided that the best plan would be to cast the Desolation Giant I’d been holding onto for a little while. With this and the Totem I had in play, and with Ian’s failure to draw an answer, I quickly managed to squeeze in the final 6 points of damage I needed.
2nd Game I threw away my first hand, and to add insult to injury Ian suspended a turn 1 Mindstab on the play, giving me the options of either playing everything I had, or not playing anything at all to give me more choice when the ‘stab resolved.
Sadly, though the first option would have been my first choice, being a RW aggro-ish deck, I failed to see a 3rd land, and when I did see it I didn’t see the WW I needed to cast half the spells in my hand, and so a Kestrel, a Riftmarked knight and a Gaze of Justice hit the bin turn 5. Ian dropped a Brain Gorgers, giving me mot much choice on whether it resolved, though I was able to Cannonade it and, of course, draw a second plains. A 3/3 Primal Plasma joined the mayhem for Ian, who was then followed by Jaya, which was then (once again), followed by Desolation Giant, which once again left me with a Thunder Totem (or maybe I’m just reading the notes from the same game here). However, this time I had something even more abusive than last game, and when Ian blocked my Giant with a Flowstone Channeler, stacked damage and reduced my Giant’s defense, big ol’ Dusty came down, returning the Giant, Dusty himself and a Kestrel, leaving me with a beatstick Totem, and leaving Ian in the situation of: “play creatures if you want, but they’re all gon’ die!”. Funnily enough, I won that game.
And I failed to drop ANY games in the entire top 8! The byes were mine, and now I had to actually consider whether I wanted to go to Stockholm (which I hadn’t really thought about before the tournament).
And finally, I never like to end a story without a moral, so today the moral shall be in the form of an ancient Chinese proverb:
“Man who gets Jaya, gets to finals. Man who gets Desolation Giant and Dust Elemental, wins finals.”
Signing off,
Matteo “the only RW drafter in the village” Orsini Jones
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