Magic the Gathering

Tournament Reports

2nd Place at Grand Prix Denver — Part 2

If you missed it you can read last week’s write up about the first half of the tour­na­ment. For part 2, I thought I’d take a more in depth look at the match ups.

At this point in the Tour­ney I found out that I had already qual­i­fied to take some cash home (no less than $250). Antonino and Billy P. both told me I needed to go 4–1-1 to make the Top 16 to get the invi­ta­tion to Berlin and I simul­ta­ne­ously found out that I needed to fin­ish 5–0-1 to make the Top 8. To be hon­est, I had really become numb over day 2s and such. Lots of peo­ple were clearly ner­vous. Any of you who think you can han­dle a day 2 and NOT get ner­vous, let’s see you make day 2 first.

I need to give a lit­tle shout out to Den­ver, the city, quite beau­ti­ful and… quite bor­ing. It’s prob­a­bly a good place for quiet, coun­try liv­ing. A lit­tle bit of action, here or there, but not enough for a city slicker like me. As I pre­fer places like Hawaii, Cal­i­for­nia, New York, Las Vegas and Florida.

Round 10 Merfolk

I wasn’t too famil­iar with the lat­est Block ver­sion of the deck and I have to admit it took me some time to adjust to the cards in it.

• Sil­vergill Adept and Stony­brook Ban­neret die to my Pep­persmokes
• Sygg & Mer­row Reejerey is a chal­lenge but I can take with Name­less Inver­sion, Shriek­maw
• Cryp­tic Com­mand, Sage’s Dous­ing, Chameleon Colos­sus are my prob­lem cards

It’s Game Time!

I mul­li­gan. He plays an Augury Adept, I acti­vate Mutavault and Pep­persmoke. He plays Ban­neret I acti­vate Mutavault and Pep­persmoke. His Sage’s Dous­ing does me in as I lose with no threats. Game 1 goes to him and I antic­i­pate the com­ing of the Cloudthresher.

Game 2 I mul­li­gan and (thank­fully) he mul­li­gans I open with a Thought­seize and he kept a below aver­age hand. I come in with a Spell­stut­ter, Scion, Mist­bind Clique attack to win this one. I’m at 14 life.

Game 3 He mul­li­gans so I choose to ditch for a more aggres­sive hand, which I do. I open with Spell­stut­ter, Scion, Cryp­tic, Cryp­tic, Mist­bind. Game 3, I win at 5.

Through­out this match, I blocked with Mutavault and Pep­persmoked before damage.

8–2 Match :: 16–5 Games

Round 11

While shuf­fling, I split one of my sleeves, I pulled the card and I split that too. Try­ing to be dis­crete I turn it over and it was a MUTAVAULT!!! ARGH!!! I lit­er­ally split the card like William Tell an Apple. Sheesh! As if $80 for Still­moon Cav­a­liers wasn’t enough, I split another $30.

He asked me what I played last round and I said some janky Mer­folk deck. He said how did you do I said, “well, I just flew over” ;)

I won the die roll, he mul­li­gans. Open­ing, I Thought­seize he shows me MERFOLK, although I took his Reveilark!!! Haha I tried to retract all the trash I spilled ear­lier by say­ing “no offense” he just smirked. He plays a T2 Adept and I end his turn with a acti­vated Mutavault and a Pep­persmoke. Know­ing what he showed me, I being to attack with Mutavaults. Pup­peteer Clique uses his Mulldrifter to net me 2 dam­age and 2 cards. Then, I Name­less Inver­sion the Clique on his turn to take the Reveilark. I end at 9.

Game 2

I open with T3 and T4 Bit­terblos­soms. I also even­tu­ally draw all 4 Pep­persmokes and use them here and there. He evokes Cloudthresher on two con­sec­u­tive turns to wipe my board. I don’t have any Cryp­tic Com­mands this game, but Con­sign to Dreams buys me 2 turns on his Chameleon Colos­sus. He lays Colos­sus on the turn when he’s at 6 I have 2 Faerie tokens I rip the Pup­peteer Clique. Next thing you know, I have 2 ‘Thresh­ers’ and he dies with me at 3 life.

9–2 Match :: 18–5 Games

Round 12 Kithkin

This was an inter­est­ing match vs Kithkin. This gen­tle­man played me twice at GP Indi­anapo­lis, once in the Grinder and once in the GP, BOTH times he beat me.

Look at this matchup:

1. Mono WHITE – Still­moons have had a GREAT time defend­ing my team
2. Pep­persmokes – weaken his crea­tures along with draw­ing me much needed cards
3. With me armed with 4x Pep­persmoke, 4x Name­less Inver­sion, 1x Shriek­maw it’s imper­a­tive that I keep Kithkin from attack­ing with the Heath in play.

Game 1 He comes out in typ­i­cal Kithkin form Stal­wart, Cenn, Knight of Mead­ow­grain.

Side­note: When I was younger, I tried to develop a style of play that was as ver­sa­tile as pos­si­ble. Mean­ing, I could play slow or I could play fast, depen­dent upon my oppo­nent. This “Tango” is some­thing I believe most play­ers do NOT have a clue on. In the mil­i­tary, the most extreme sit­u­a­tions or cir­cum­stances are sim­u­lated to make sure a sol­dier will suc­ceed in his task in “real life” sit­u­a­tions. IF, you can some­how inter­rupt a person’s abil­ity to process infor­ma­tion, you can most cer­tainly take advan­tage. You can learn more about ideas like this in “The Art of War” – I want to also plug a poten­tial Hall of Famer that I feel was almost as good as me in this phi­los­o­phy, Mike Long. A very good Magic player, but also a MASTER at the mind games. Unfor­tu­nately, Long pos­sessed the knack to be shady as well, cheat­ing (if I may). None the less, Mike Long changed the way rules were processed in tour­na­ment play. Also, he forced Judges to estab­lish much more thor­ough forms of delib­er­a­tion and judge­ment. If we didn’t have a guy like Mike Long, we might as well be play­ing Chess.

Back to the action, I cast Inver­sion on Cenn, then the Knight. I Mutavault/Pep­persmoke the Stal­wart. He Pro­ces­sions, and with 2 Mutavaults in play I acti­vate them both and then cast Spell­stut­ter?!?! Yeah I know. I stop myself and say “slow down man, maybe you can’t go that fast” then I Mist­bind. I Mist­bind again. He lays Ajani. I tap his guys and draw with Cryp­tic. I kill Ajani with a Mist­bind, fol­lowed with a Scion. I Tap his guys again for the win. I’m at 6.

This game was fin­ished in 5 min­utes. Notice, I real­ize where I make my mis­take. I adjust and get ready for battle.

Game 2 was just as fast. He starts out just as fast as game one. How­ever, an inter­est­ing turn….

He says – Land Stall­wart Go

I say – Mutavault Go

He says – Attack 2, Land Knight Go

I say – Secluded Glen Go

He says – Attack for 4, Land Pro­ces­sion Go.

I say – At The END of your turn Pep­persmoke a token. (He draws a card)

I say – JUDGE.

This all hap­pened within 2 min­utes. I think me doing some­thing at the end of his turn threw his rhythm off and thought I was doing it dur­ing my turn. Either way, I attribute this men­tal mis­take to my abil­ity to adjust to his speed. Had I been a slow, more delib­er­ate player, he might not have made that mis­take as he would have adjusted to my speed. As the judge came over, my oppo­nent scooped. The judge asked me what I needed, I said I just wanted the judge to sign the results slip. Yes, I could have asked for the Judge’s warn­ing and the inevitable Game Loss for my oppo­nent, but I choose to just sign.

10–2 Match :: 20–5 Games

Round 13 Faeries

Ok, so I see the match-up and I’m pit­ted against the mighty Paulo Vitor Doma da Rosa! I know he’s play­ing Faeries. I also know that his team aggres­sively mul­li­gans for the almighty Bit­terblos­som. ESPECIALLY in the mir­ror match!

Game 1 I mul­li­gan, then he dou­ble mul­li­gans. He starts it off with just a swamp. I drop a Secluded Glen and Thought­seize. He’s got Scion and Spell­stut­ter (I take Spell­stut­ter). Turn 2 I Bit­terblos­som and go to town. He does begin to draw some stuff and makes this a bit closer than I want it to, I end this game at 1 life. Whew!

Game 2 He mul­li­gans to 5 again. Unfor­tu­nately, I don’t have the Thought­seize to take advan­tage. How­ever, Turn 1 He Thought­seizes me tak­ing my Bit­terblos­som. I com­mence to beati him with my Mutavault. On turn 4 I draw another Bit­terblos­som and it goes down­hill for him there. 16 life.

He was rel­a­tively gra­cious about the loss. I apol­o­gized and he said, “You are not sorry. If you are sorry you can drop”. I reply with, “Well, I’m not sorry about win­ning, but I am sorry that I can’t beat you on more fair terms. It’s not like I can brag to my friends about beat­ing you with 5 cards both games.” He agreed with that part, I really wasn’t try­ing to be a snob.

11–2 Match :: 22–5 Games

Round 14 Kithkin

Not much to say here, I Thought­seize and see a Wilt Leaf Leige x2 Mir­ror­weave, Cloud­goat Ranger x2 (I take one of the Rangers). Thank­fully, I play Blos­som on turn 4 and Mist­bind a token turn 5. On 3 con­sec­u­tive turns I cast Scions and he scoops. 12 life.

Game 2 would have been more excit­ing had I not cast Turn 3 Cav­a­lier. He sat while I built up my defense. We both have a throng of guys on our respec­tive sides but I have the fly­ers and I’ve got the gall to attack with the unblock­able Cav­a­lier. With sev­eral answers in my hand I Alpha Strike for the kill. I’m at 5.

12–2 Match :: 24–5 Games

To be hon­est, up until this point, I wasn’t even pay­ing atten­tion to my record. I tried to keep myself focused on 1 round at a time and the day had flown by so fast. Antonino and Billy P con­grat­u­late me on my fin­ish and tell me that I may have to play. I tell them that I don’t care I’m just happy to fin­ish. After round 14, I am listed at 5^th! I really couldn’t believe it and I was start­ing to feel a bit nervous

Round 15 has me matched up with Antonino De Rosa which we inten­tion­ally draw. After the Swiss rounds Antonino is 3rd and I’m 5^th, gear­ing up for my GP Top 8. It’s funny, at this point it sets in and peo­ple have ques­tions. It is revealed that I have been around the Magic game for quite some time. One of the guys work­ing the event said I was in a GP top 8 when he was 11! The judg­ing staff and report­ing per­son­nel were all very nice. The head judge, who called me for pos­si­ble slow play ear­lier in the day, was very funny (although I didn’t always under­stand what he said – due to him being from Italy).

Details on the Top 8 can be viewed on Wizards.com. I will just sum­ma­rize my side of the duels.

Top 8 — Round 16 Doran aka the ‘Mr Miyagi’ round

While we’re shuf­fling our decks, I snatch a fly out of the air and both the match reporter (Riki Hayashi) and my oppo­nent are in awe! This might have been my edge.

Thought­seize is truly a fan­tas­tic equal­izer in vir­tu­ally every matchup. Although, my oppo­nent does mul­li­gan here, I Thought­seize him here and con­trol the entire game. Those of you who are try­ing to decide how many Thought­seize you should play or if you should play any at all, I would say MOST DEFINITELY play four. I fin­ish at 18.

Game 2 Con­spire to Dreams buys me a cou­ple of turns as he taps out to dou­ble up a Colossus’s dam­age. (Remem­ber Con­spire does return PERMANENTS which include Lands) He really didn’t draw any­thing. I’m at 14.

13–2-1 Match :: 26–5 Games

Top 4 — Round 17 Merfolk

My oppo­nent mul­li­gans. I pro­vide a 2^nd turn Thought­seize and in typ­i­cal fash­ion I Pep­persmoked both his Adept and Ban­neret and with a basi­cally 3 card advan­tage he doesn’t win.

Game 2 — I open with a Thought­seize and he’s got Thresher x2, Colos­sus, Land, Land, Cryp­tic Com­mand. I fig­ure I’ll bum rush him so I take his Com­mand. Turn 2 I throw down my Bit­terblos­som. He starts to clear my guys on Turn 7 and 10 with Cloudthresh­ers evoked. At this point, I’m hold­ing Cryp­tic, Cryp­tic, Pup­peteer and Spell­stut­ter. On his turn, with 7 mana avail­able, he casts Sower of Temp­ta­tion on 1 of my tokens (I have 1 tapped 1 untapped). I drop the Spell­stut­ter antic­i­pat­ing his Sage’s Dous­ing, which he has. On my turn, I go down to 7 (he’s at 11) I cast Pup­peteer Clique and gain both Cloudthresh­ers :)

14–3-1 Match :: 28–5 Games

Finals

My finals match is against the Chapin deck, which I like. Basi­cally, I win the first game rather quickly, but lose the next 2 due to land flood. Note that I also took out a land after game 1.

I end this week­end with a 14–3-1 Match Record 29–7 Game Record, $3000 and a totally drained men­tal state. Although WOTC didn’t men­tion it, I had NO byes for this event, I earned every win. Which, for me, made this fin­ish even more sweet.

As for the match-ups:

5–0 Faeries

5–0 Kithkin

3–0 Mer­folk

1–1 Doran

0–1-1 Chapin

0–1 RDW

The Chapin deck is strong! How­ever, it really does only have a 50/50 matchup vs faeries. Both decks are good!

I wanted to thank EVERYONE who has been there for me through­out these 14 years of Magic. I’ve achieved another dream of mine and pur­su­ing Worlds need­ing only 5 more Pro points in my next 3 events. Kansas, Atlanta and Berlin maybe…

Hope this helped!

Lee