Obviously, my teammates carried me and I collect my twenty – wait, *Wescoe check* – pride points for winning the draft. We game the rares, which include a Baneslayer Angel and Primeval Titan, and I obviously win every last one.

Monday, 2am
It’s game two (down a game, in case there was any doubt), but I’m in decent shape as I have assembled the mighty Wall of Frost plus Vulshok Berserker combo. My opponent asks me not to laugh, and casts a Leyline of Sanctity. I laugh, but not at him, and not at the Leyline, but at myself and the two Lava Axes I’m holding. The next turn my opponent asks me not to judge him, and casts a Merfolk Spy. I mock him endlessly. Well, not endlessly – the mocking ends the next turn when the Spy hits me and reveals the Merfolk Spy that I had just drawn, and refused to cast out of shame.

Monday, 1am
I can’t even begin to explain how a draft could be butchered so badly. I have fewer playables than Conrad Kolos has scruples, across more colors than the number of “Wescoe checks” on the weekend. As we lay out our decks, LSV and Kibler can only shake their heads in disgust, as if I were… awww rats, just used the two best ones.

Sunday, 8pm
Fogo de Chão, credit card gaming the bill. Obviously, my card is the first one out.

Sunday, 2pm
PV, as always, has it completely right. Win the last round of day one in a GP to squeak into day two at X-2, and you feel like PV in a candy shop where everything is free. Lose your last round, but still finish X-2, and you feel worse than PV a few hours later. Well, I won the tournament, but I lost my last round.

Sunday, 12pm
The finals was well covered; my focus here is more on the why than the what.

In game one, I had two real decisions, both concerning Knight of the Reliquary. The first was fetching a second Forest instead of an Island with Misty Rainforest the turn I cast Knight. Got that one right – needing a second Forest for use with Knight was far more likely than needing the second Island for a Jace. The second decision, what to get with my Knight the following turn, I got wrong. I fetched up a Stirring Wildwood, which did nothing in the game, and should have instead just gotten another Forest. The next turn I had to go get Sejiri Steppe, which left me without a Forest for Knight. Thanks to drawing a Lotus Cobra, that meant casting Sovereigns of Lost Alara a turn later and giving Anthony an extra draw step.

In game two Anthony had a turn one Goblin Guide, and I made the mistake of leading with Birds of Paradise instead of just playing Celestial Colonnade turn one. The odds of Birds living were slim to none, and by playing it turn one (and it dying) I had no plays on turn two, unable to cast my Celestial Purge until turn three, by which point the game was already basically over. If I had played correctly, my curve would have been turn two Purge, turn three Birds plus Purge, and I would have been in pretty decent shape.

Game three was pretty uneventful, but it does help showcase why I think my sideboard plan of boarding out all the Sovereigns, Conscriptions, and Jaces was optimal. Sovereigns has two strikes against it: it’s pretty hard for it to be castable in a relevant time frame when your mana creatures will rarely survive a turn, and it’s unnecessary. The clock you put on the Red player is highly relevant, that’s for sure, but Knight, Baloth, and Elspeth are all going to kill faster than Sovereigns as they can be cast so much sooner. Even in the absence of those cards, manlands can get the job done just fine. They make for a much slower clock than Sovereigns, but they don’t require you clunking up your draws with uncastable spells. Jace is in the same boat as Sovereigns, in that it is just as hard to cast without mana creatures, and doesn’t provide a necessary effect.

In the game, I Mana Leaked a Ball Lightning, Purged a Hellspark Elemental, and my mana critters soaked up some burn spells. From a very healthy 17 life, leisurely killing with just a Colonnade was more than good enough.

Interestingly, if the Red player knows that the Mythic player is boarding like this, it becomes correct for them to ignore mana creatures outside the first few turns, and just save Bolts and whatnot for going to the dome, since Mythic can’t actually do anything with the mana. And then in turn Mythic wants some Sovereigns back in the deck. But that’s not how Anthony was playing, nor was it reasonable for him to know how he “should” have been playing.

Game four was one of the more absurd games of Magic I have played. After a couple mulligans for me and more than a couple burn spells for Anthony, the board state was my Birds of Paradise and Forest, with Celestial Purge, Elspeth, and Lotus Cobra in hand, at 3 life, to Anthony’s five lands, 14 life, and two cards in hand. I just passed, not playing the Cobra, and on his turn Anthony cast Hellspark Elemental, Goblin Guide, and Smoldering Spires on my Birds. I Purged the Hellspark and fell to 1, and the next turn traded Cobra for Guide. If Anthony hadn’t burned the Spires to no effect the previous turn, it would have snuck the Guide through for lethal. Still, I was in a pretty rough spot, as even with the running lands I drew that let me cast Elspeth, I needed Anthony to draw lands and Ricochet Traps for four turns straight. When I did cast the Elspeth, I was aware that I was attacking for half of Anthony’s life total and aware that that meant I would be attacking for lethal the next turn, but I don’t think I had yet processed that not only was winning the game a possibility, that from that spot it was likely. When Anthony drew that fourth and final blank and offered the handshake, I was simply stunned.

Sunday, 11am
In game two of the semis, I had Elspeth, Jace, Cobra, and Hierarch in play, with Mana Leak, Eldrazi Conscription, and some other spells in hand. Conrad cast Primeval Titan and I had Mana Leak mana up, and I opted to let it resolve, which I believe was correct. I was in such a dominant position that the most likely way I could see losing the game was to Conrad multiple Summoning Trapping into multiple Eldrazi off of me Mana Leaking the Titan. If I let the Titan resolve, I could simply bounce it with Jace, and attack with Cobra, a manland, and an Elspeth pump to put Conrad to dead to a manland the following turn through even an All is Dust or Ulamog. As it turned out, the most likely way I could lose the game was me punting, which I did on my turn when I realized that with a fetchland I could kill that turn with Conscription, and Brainstormed with Jace to try to hit one. I whiffed, and then instead of having the game locked up, I now had a dead Jace while Conrad had a Titan in play and a Mystifying Maze and an endless supply of Tectonic Edges and Khalni Gardens to just about lock out my attacks. A hardcast Conscription a couple turns later ended up taking the game, but I may well have lost had Conrad been aggressively using Tectonic Edges to keep me off of 8 mana.

In the third game, I started with a Hierarch while Conrad had no plays his first two turns. On my second turn, my hand was Cobra, Jace, Elspeth, two fetchlands, and a Colonnade. That turn I made a “cute” play: I just played the Colonnade and passed. Here’s what’s going on with that play:

Conrad can’t keep a 7 card hand without a ramp spell, and he didn’t have one turn two, so he had to have Cultivate in hand. That was my thinking at any rate, and while apparently Conrad didn’t have a Cultivate in his opener, I don’t think that I’m the one who was “wrong” here.

If I play Cobra turn two, I play Elspeth turn three and Jace turn four. If I play nothing turn two, I play Cobra and Jace turn three, and presumably Elspeth turn four. The result is exchanging six damage for a Brainstorm (note that a Cobra attack without Elspeth was basically worth nothing thanks to Conrad’s plant token), and though six damage is preferable in the matchup, it’s fairly close, so the cost to not playing Cobra turn two was very small. The potential upside of a Time Walk due to Conrad not playing his Cultivate into my represented Mana Leak, meanwhile, was quite large.

I could have played the turn differently and still left Mana Leak mana up. I could have played Cobra and a fetchland. I could have played a Misty Rainforest instead of Colonnade, which would let me attack with Hierarch and have an extra mana the next turn. But neither of those plays scream Mana Leak as loudly as playing Colonnade and not attacking with Hierarch, and probably would have led to Conrad casting the Cultivate on his third turn.

The play ended up working out well for me, but not in the obvious way. Conrad drew the Cultivate for his turn, and elected not to cast it. Success! Well, sort of. I tapped out for Cobra plus Jace, and he simply cast the Cultivate on his fourth turn. Had he just cast the Cultivate turn three, he wouldn’t have had any plays on his fourth turn anyway, so while it didn’t cost me much to not play Cobra turn two, it actually cost Conrad nothing to not play Cultivate turn three. The reason the play worked out for me, though, was that it did convince Conrad I had a Mana Leak, and he attempted to play around it. This worked in my favor even though I drew into a pair of Leaks (and a Spell Pierce), as Conrad refused to cast any spell into a Leak. On his fifth turn, with six lands in play, he just made no plays rather than cast his Primeval Titan into Mana Leak. The next turn, he played an Everflowing Chalice for one and Fogged my attack, setting up his All Is Dust. He played it with three mana up for a Mana Leak, but he wasn’t getting through two counterspells, and that left him tapped out and dead on board. Notably, the Titan he didn’t want to trade for Leak was left stranded in his hand. Granted, I win that game no matter what Conrad does, but imagine if I didn’t have the Spell Pierce in addition to the two Leaks. Then by playing his Titan into Leak on turn five, Conrad ends up being able to resolve All is Dust through the single Leak, and is right back in the game.

Sunday, 10am
In game one of the quarterfinals, Gerard kept six lands Condemn, and the judges just called the match on the spot.

Saturday, 6pm

Saturday, 11am
Chapin is attacking me with a Sylvan Ranger and a Greater Basilisk. I have an untapped Stone Golem, and a tapped Gravedigger and Barony Vampire, with a gassy hand that includes double Act of Treason and Lightning Bolt. I’m at 11, he’s at 13. The previous round I talked with Ben Lunquist about the draft, and he clued me in on Chapin having Pyroclasm and Sleep in his deck.

I block, putting him most likely on Pyroclasm, but also wanting to protect my life total if he has Giant Growth or Sleep, since I have so much action in hand. If he has Giant Growth and I don’t block, for example, I fall to 7 and can’t let the Basilisk and Ranger through again, or I die to the the Giant Growth. He instead has Diminish. This clues me in to him also having Sleep: if he wanted to trade the Ranger and Diminish for the Stone Golem, he could have simply not attacked with it and not risked me not blocking. He wanted to get that damage through; he wanted me to not block. From Chapin’s perspective, the ideal scenario was me taking the attack, then killing the Golem by blocking with his post-combat Scroll Thief plus Diminish. Not blocking would have worked out much better for me due to my hand, but given the information I had at the time I think I made the correct decision in blocking. Chapin’s attack was not representing Diminish, and it was going to be hard for Chapin to win the game from that spot without Pyroclasm, so it was correct for me to play as if he had it, to some extent.

Saturday, 9am
“Draft. Shuffle the pack, and lay out six cards to your left.”

This is it. The moment of truth. Was I going to ride off into the sunset with the Princess, and not just any ordinary Princess, no, we’re talking Kristen Bell meets Zooey Deschanel with maybe just a little bit Chandra Nalaar, and a sunset too surreal to be natural and yet too perfect to be tainted, one that could only be described as magical? Or were my bones to be cast aside, joining the pile of so many others before me, and unlike the ones sitting so neatly in the pile in front of me, never to be reassembled?

“Pick up the cards.”

I’m not normally one to flip straight to the back of the pack to see what fortune has bestowed upon me, but in this case, the suspense got the best of me. My hands trembling, I slowly inched the back card upwards…

Goldenglow Moth

But it wasn’t a rare I was looking for. I continued flipping through the pack, taking a perhaps less dramatic peek at each card. And there it was, sitting inconspicuously in the middle of the pack, oblivious to the tension surrounding it.

Umezawa’s Jitte

Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket

Now, a casual observer may have seen me calmly make my pick, just like any other pick. Like it was a Jhessian Lookout. Like of course it was there, I knew it would be there.

But inside my head I grabbed that Act of Treason in both hands, held it high above my head, and ran the victory laps that would only become real a day later.

Friday, 5pm
Huh. This doesn’t feel like an 0-2 deck:

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1 Deathmark 3 Doom Blade 1 Assassinate 2 Mind Control 2 Sign in Blood 2 Foresee 3 Child of Night 2 Lilianas Specter 1 Royal Assassin 1 Aether Adept 1 Azure Drake 1 Gravedigger 1 Nightwing Shade 1 Grave Titan 10 Swamp 7 Island 1 Drowned Catacomb

Friday, 2pm
Draft Viewer

Friday, 10am
The beginning mirrors the end. Round one, game three. Mulligan to five. Take a Sovereigns hit down to 3. Peel a Sovereigns and attack for an exactly lethal 17. A fine tone to set for a tournament.

Before the tournament
This is it? The true moment of truth? It’s not the what that’s most important, or even the why. It’s the how. That would be the best takeaway I could offer.

But I’ve never been good at writing conclusions.

If I sound like I’m exaggerating I am. A little bit. You can’t win every game. But it’s important that you believe you can win and will win while you’re playing. If you play confidently you will play comfortably and you will play better and you will win more. Don’t trust me. Don’t take my word for it. I will explain.

I have to start at the beginning, and it starts with body language. A game of Magic is not a series of interactions between cards but a series of interactions between two players. It is a duel between two humans. In this duel there is luck and there is skill. The skill in Magic is intertwined with luck. Within the luck of the random draw there is hidden information. Within skill there is control over information and your opponent. Before you can learn how to control information you must learn how to get it. Before you can learn to control your opponent you must learn how to control information.

Getting Information (Reading your opponent)

Magic is easy if you know what your opponent is holding. There are two ways to figure this out. The first is rational deduction based on your opponent’s in game actions. The second is a little more fun. Consider this simplified scenario: It is the second turn and you have

Your opponent is playing a Zoo deck and there is a 45% chance that they have a Path to Exile. So there is a 55% chance that the coast is clear for you to win right now. But if you go for it and they have the Path to Exile you lose on the spot. If you wait and they have the Path to Exile, you will draw the Thoughtseize or Chalice of the Void to protect your combo and you will win with a 20/20. It’s a guessing game. What do you do?

The Objective Right Play

A computer isn’t going to be able to glean information from your opponent outside of how they play their cards. It’s not going to be able to get a “read” on your opponent. The information that its opponent has is hidden and there is no way to get it. So the computer is going to make a 20/20 100% of the time and win 55% of the time. This is playing the game objectively and, arguably, 100% correctly. But you still lose 45% of the time. This is how you can make a play that is “right,” and you can defend it afterwards, but it turns out to be “wrong.” This happens to us all the time. You can probably think of a time where you were playing an important match and didn’t play around a card. You thought about playing around the card, but you decided rationally and statistically that you shouldn’t. Then you lost to that card and your friends said, “It’s okay, you made the right play.” Well, you did make the right play, objectively at least.

The Subjective Right Play

You are not a computer. You are going to be able to glean some information from your opponent. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Imagine you are perfect at reading your opponent. Based on their body language, you always know what they have. You will make a 20/20 the 55% of the time they don’t have a Path to Exile, and you will wait the 45% of the time they do have a Path to Exile. You will win 100% of the time. This is always making the subjective right play. Is this possible? No. No one bats 1000. But the closer you get, the more matches you win.

How do I read my opponent?

Reading your opponent is not a science. At best it is a skill, at worst it is an art. I can’t offer you anything concrete but I can give you my own stories and theories. And I will speak in generalities.

Magic players focus, as they should, on their technical play. But they play the game emotionally and they project whether they think they are winning or losing.

How your opponent acts when he thinks he’s winning:

When your opponent thinks he is winning he is going to be acting confidently. He is going to be sitting up, he is going to be playing (relatively) quickly, he might be leaning towards you and he might be on the edge of his seat. His voice will be low and steady. He will be comfortable speaking. He might act excited or he might act calm. He will maintain a focus on the game. If your opponent is doing these things he has the metaphorical Path to Exile. You can ask your opponent “Do you have it?” and their answer won’t matter. Players don’t have momentary tics. They wear their cards on their sleeves as permeable moods.

How your opponent acts when he thinks he’s losing

When your opponent thinks he is losing he is going to be projecting negative emotions. He might act angry, irritable, depressed, or resigned to defeat. He might be taking a long time to make decisions. He might not be talking and if he is, he might sound nervous. He might sigh. He will slump in his chair. He will set his hand down and watch the next match. If your opponent is doing these things he will not have the metaphorical Path to Exile.

The Emphatic Draw

At the beginning of a crucial draw step (and this could be as early as the first turn), your opponent might jerk the card off the top of their deck in desperation. They will rip it with such veracity that it snaps against the top of their deck. This is the emphatic draw. What are they telling you? They are telling you that they NEED something. There are two times in Magic that you NEED something. The first is when you are about to die. If your opponent emphatic draws when they are about to die this doesn’t tell you much. The second is when you NEED a land. It’s a desperate feeling, keeping that two-lander, and here you are on your third draw stop STILL trying to draw it. YOINK! It’s a land. You try to mask your relief and make sure to shuffle it in your hand so your opponent doesn’t see that you just drew the land you played. And somehow they still know to vindicate your land instead of your creature. HAX!

Based on your opponent’s overall behavior you will be able to tell what cards they are holding and act accordingly. If you are being given information, use it. Punish your opponent. Pounce on them.

Controlling Information

You know that opponent we’ve been talking about who is giving away all kinds of information? The ugly truth is that to someone else, YOU are that opponent. And just like you can read them, they can read you. They do it intuitively. So cut it out. Stop giving away stuff for free. Don’t give up anything. You will be punished for it. Actually, you have two options for controlling information. You can play like a robot and give up none. OR… OR… and this is really sneaky. You can give your opponent the wrong information! We call this bluffing and playing dead.

How to act when you’re winning
Say it’s a Zendikar block draft and you are holding a Summoner’s Bane or an Arrow Volley trap and it’s that crucial fourth or fifth turn that could determine if you win or not. You want your opponent to think you have nothing and play around nothing. How do you do this? By projecting the body language of a losing position you give your opponent the (false) information that you have nothing. Act frustrated. Sit back in your chair. Act disinterested. Put your hand down on the table, cross your arms, and watch the next match. Your opponent will be busy thinking about how sorry they feel for you then BAM they are down three cards to an Arrow Volley Trap.

How to act when you’re losing

Say you won the last game with that Summoner’s Bane or Arrow Volley Trap. It’s game three and you kept 5 lands, Makindi Shieldmate, and Sphinx of Jwar Isles. This is a reasonable keep. Somehow, it is the fourth turn and you have drawn 4 more lands. This is reason for frustration. Don’t get mad and don’t give up. Don’t count those nine lands and two spells (already did). You CAN win this game. You WILL win this game. You only need to a buy a couple turns for your bomb to take the game over. How? Your opponent knows you have Summoner’s Bane and Arrow Volley Trap. Sell it. On your fourth turn, flip through all the lands in your hand. Look at them as if they were spells. Consider which one you might play as if they all cost four mana. Come close to playing that spell. Really think about it. No. Not now. Pass the turn. Pass the turn verbally and confidently. Lean towards your opponent and flip through the cards in your hand. Keep flipping. Keep coming back to one card. The moment, and I mean the MOMENT, your opponent reaches for his lands, reach for that card in your hand. Hold that card tight like it is precious to you. Don’t overact if you don’t have to. But believe it’s a Summoner’s Bane. Your opponent might hesitate, and he might play conservatively. He might pass the turn. Why not? At this point, it’s rational of him. You can’t keep up four mana all game, especially if you’re losing 2 life a turn to a couple of bears. And maybe you just bought yourself the two turns you needed to win the game off of your Sphinx. If you can control information, you can control your opponent.

Another thought: players are trained to distrust their opponents for good reason. Your opponent is never going to help you. And your opponent knows this. So if you want your opponent to wait on his Vampire Hexmage, stare at it as you pass the turn. Make it obvious that you want him to use it. If you do want him to use it, pass the turn quietly without trying to draw any attention to that Vampire Hexmage. Guide your opponent around the battlefield with your eyes. Tell them what you want them to do with a look or the absence of a look. This is reverse psychology in action.

How you hold your cards

Go get an opening hand of seven cards. I’ll wait.

You’re playing a match against a real opponent. Now put a card into play as if it were a creature. You looked at the card, you looked at your lands and tapped them, and you put it onto the battlefield. How did you grip the card? If you are like me, and if you are right handed, you either gripped the card by the top right corner or by the side in the middle. You probably snapped the card as you put it down, either using that top right corner the top middle.

Now play a card as if you were Doom Bladeing a Frost Titan. First you look at your card. You raise it. Then you lower it and lock eyes with the Titan. You hold that glance a moment. Then you look at your lands, then you tap your mana. Then you go to play the spell while looking at the Titan. This time you might have held the card differently. You might have held it by the bottom right corner. This made it easier for you to extend your arm towards the Frost Titan so you could physically touch it with your Doom Blade. This is how we use targeted removal.

Now, imagine you are Lava Axeing your opponent who is at ten life. You look at your card, you like at your score sheet, you look at your opponent, you look back at your card, you look at your lands. You tap them, and you Lava Axe them. This time, you might have held the card as if you were Doom Bladeing that Frost Titan. You also might have first gripped the card in the top left corner, extending your arm fully towards your opponent, now gripping the card between two fingers at the bottom right corner, thumb up, pointing it right at their face like you’re holding a gun.

You’re lucky if your opponent does all these things, and even if he does you might not notice. Even if you notice, it might not matter. It will only give you information if your opponent decides not to Doom Blade right now or decides not to Lava Axe right now. It only matters if your opponent changes his mind. So change your mind. Control your opponent by controlling their information. Glance at their creatures like you’re ready to pull the trigger. Make them wait on that Armored Ascension. Make them think you have cards you don’t.

If you are playing Jund and you want your opponent to make a bad block, act like you’re going to Lightning Bolt them at the end of their turn. Go down the checklist and do all the things you would do if you actually had the Lightning Bolt before changing your mind and deciding to wait. Look at the card. Look at your score sheet. Be sly about it. Trust that your opponent will follow your eyes. Look at your opponent. Look back at your card. You might have sold it already and if you go too far you might give it away. But if your opponent thinks you’re bad, you can’t mess up. Telegraph it if you have to. Tap your Savage Lands, look at your opponent, and grip your card in the top left corner. Then change your mind. Untap your land and start your turn. Your opponent might make a terrible chump block when he is at five life, and that chump block might win you the game.

Want to know the greatest Magic-related compliment I have received in my life? I don’t care- I’m going to tell you. My friend Bo told me, “When I play against you I can never tell if I’m winning or not.” Nothing he said could have made me prouder. I wish it was true all the time, but my control is limited. Let me tell you a story about me. I hate losing. Maybe more than I like winning. If I finish a tournament by losing, I’m unsatisfied. Unless I win a PTQ, unless I win a Grand Prix, unless I win a Pro Tour, I am not satisfied. Well, earlier this year I was blessed enough to top 8 a grand prix with Living End. Here I am, tooting my own horn again. But this is important. I haven’t played in many Grands Prix. I don’t expect to play in more than one a year ever unless something changes radically. So, I can’t expect to win a Grand Prix. I got the closest I will probably ever get in that tournament, and I came up short. I had a chance to hold that trophy, and the opportunity slipped into eternity. I wanted that reality. I may never have a chance for a similar reality. So I revisit the last game of that match all the time. I remember all of my important losses. Never my triumphs.

The game was simple. Simple enough that I can tell you in its entirety. I was on the play, playing Living End, against Adam Yurchick playing Dark Depths. He had Urborg, Vampire Hexmage, and Dark Depths by his second turn. Before he could kill me with his 20/20 I had an opportunity to get to three mana and play Violent Outburst. I didn’t have it, and I lost. Did I play this game perfectly? It was a mere three turns, and my plays might have been “objectively right”. Maybe I should have mulliganed. But if I didn’t, there is still something that I could have done. It wasn’t a given that Adam even made that 20/20. He said later that he thought I didn’t have it. He was right. There is something I could have done. I could have SOLD Violent Outburst. I could have MADE him wait. I tried. But the look of defeat on my face was unmistakable. I know it looking back. I really tried to sell that Violent Outburst but I couldn’t. I didn’t believe it. I had an opportunity to control Adam’s information and to control him. If I had, maybe I would have been a Grand Prix champion. The stakes are great here. This is serious.

Making your opponent suck at Magic

I thought about leaving this section out but I need to learn to not care about what people think about me. For those of you who are sensitive, you will hate me. But this stuff is real, so I’m going to write about it. The truth hurts. For the men in the room, follow me.

There are two ways to control your opponent. You can control their information or control their emotions directly.

Let’s take a walk back to when I was fifteen. You’ll be able to relate. Somehow, I am in the finals of a Nationals Grinder. I have qualified for the JSS, but nothing this “real.” Nationals is the big time. It is a big match, and I know I can win it. I have the cutting edge technology for this tournament: the white weenie deck with Hokori, Dust Drinker and Damping Matrix. My opponent is playing Tooth and Nail. One of us is waking up early to play in Nationals. One of us is watching from the other side of the ropes. Right now, nothing else matters. Sitting to my left is my brother Elliott and to my right is Mike Thompson. These are the players whose opinions I respect the most. They are the best players I know. And I know if I make a mistake they will know immediately. They will want to say something to help me, but they can’t. So it’s game three and I’m starting to feel the pressure of eyes. You know the feeling. I’m slowing down. I’m getting nervous. I’m not comfortable or calm anymore. I’m in a fog. I’m thinking about the crowd. I’m thinking about what they’re thinking about. I’m losing my focus. The game starts, and I’m on the play and I’m so nervous that I play a Plains and pass the turn, stranding the Savannah Lions in my hand. It wasn’t even a “mistake.” It was a rookie freaking out. It was someone losing the ability to throw to first base and breaking some old woman’s nose in the crowd. I see it immediately, and Elliott and Mike see it, but they can’t react. I have to keep playing the game. Two damage becomes four damage becomes six damage becomes eight damage. I watch. But the game isn’t over. On the pivotal turn of the game I am in position to kill my opponent on my next turn. I just have to stop him for one more turn. He has Urza’s Tower, Urza’s Power Plant, and three forests. He is going to complete the tron next turn and be in position to Oblivion Stone or Tooth and Nail back into the game. Except I am holding some cards. A Damping Matrix and an Orb of Dreams. The Orb of Dreams is a sideboard singleton. It isn’t good. It’s cute, and I know it, but this is before I know how to grind games and refine decks. I play with the cards I want to play with. The obvious play is for me to play Orb of Dreams. It prevents him from using both Oblivion Stone and from having the mana for Tooth and Nail. But I go into the tank. I am so f***ng nervous. I can feel the weight of the eyes. I think forever. I think about what Elliott and Mike are thinking about. I wonder what they would do. I come back to the match. And somehow I play the Orb of Dreams. But I almost didn’t, and that would have been a mistake that would have haunted me forever.

This is called playing scared. Being rattled. You have experienced this before. It can happen to anyone, no matter how good you are. It’s a terrible feeling, and it happens to us through external factors. If we learn how it happens to us, why can’t we make it happen to our opponents?When I’m winning the most of my matches it’s because I’m making my opponents play the worst Magic of their life. It sounds dirty. Maybe it is. But it works.

So how does someone end up playing scared? It happens when someone is outside of their comfort zone. If you make your opponent uncomfortable he will play worse.

Listen to my pre-match ritual from my last couple tournaments. I do this as a way to not have to fight through the crowd to see my pairings but it has other consequences. While the pairings are going up I’m getting pumped. I’m thinking about what my record will be after I win this round. I’m turning my swag up (like it). I’m getting in the mindset that I am simply better than my opponent and it doesn’t matter what they do. I wait for the crowd to die down around the pairings so I can comfortably find my seating. I take my time to my table where my opponent is already shuffling his deck. Time is ticking and I can see him looking around, hoping I don’t show up. Sucks for him. He is let down the moment he sees me and I interrupt his shuffling by announcing his name, then my name, and shaking his hand as I stand above him. Then I sit and bring my deck out and shuffle as he waits. I make him wait. I do this so I don’t feel rushed pre match. But it sets the tone for the match in my favor. Or maybe it doesn’t. I can’t say for sure.

If you think your opponent is playing slowly or is trying to peek at your deck, call them out. Call a judge on them. It’s important to do this early not just to manage the clock or uphold the rules, but to make your opponent uncomfortable. They will play worse. They will start to feel the eyes. If they want to talk, be dead silent. If they want to be silent, talk to them. When they start to slow down, speed up so they notice the contrast. They will begin to struggle. If your opponent makes a mistake, ask them about it. Point it out to them. Rub it in, but do it subtly. You can make your opponent play scared. You can rattle them. Your name doesn’t need to carry an aura in order to do it.

You can do this while being courteous and you can do this without making enemies. You play the matches to win, and you make friends in between rounds. If you feel bad about trying to make your opponent uncomfortable, that’s fine. Don’t do it.

At Grand Prix Seattle I played against one Ari Lax. He called a judge on me for slow play about four turns into the game. I was playing slowly and I had to change my pace with the judge watching. Suddenly I was playing outside of my comfort zone and making all kinds of mistakes. I made tactical mistakes and mind-numbing operational mistakes such as Deny Reality into Rain of Tears targeting the same land and Primal Command targeting Mutavault. It was frustrating. If not for him calling a judge on me I would have played comfortably and I might have won the match. But you know what? That was the first time I met him and he is now a friend. I don’t care. He won the match and I don’t hate him.

Some people are really good at this. Gabe Walls is. He almost did it to me at San Juan. His banter was constant. I can’t even put a finger on what he was doing but it took me out of my comfort zone. I have enough experience that I haven’t felt the eyes in a long time, but it was really close with him. I’d like to go back and watch the match if I could. He did little things. He ignored me pre-match and bantered with the coverage reporter. He called out my plays. And he had a “name.” The name carries weight, and I believe that it is part of how players like Finkel became dominant. I don’t want to take anything from these players’ skill. They were/are the absolute best, but if your name is Luis Scott-Vargas by the time you sit down your opponent could already shaking.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to write this article. I put everything into this. Really poured my heart and soul into it. You can probably tell just by reading it. I think this stuff is sooooo important haha. Wow, look how absurd my writing style is becoming. And why not? If it’s readable and it makes sense, go for it. Grammar is convention. We can change convention.

Anyways, take this stuff and apply it to tournament Magic. Read your opponent, control their information, and control them. It is as important as “technical” play. It will win you games and matches even when you draw terribly.
As for me, Amsterdam is coming up. LOOK FOR ME!

<3 Travis

US Nationals has never been an event that I’ve done well at, though I’ve only played in it three times with the first two being during my “developmental” years. The saying “third time’s the charm” apparently rang true for me, and as a result I was able to propel myself to the top of the standings after the Swiss rounds and be only a few matches away from claiming my spot on the national team with a fellow teammate. Ultimately I failed to make it past the last hurdle as I lost my semi-final match and then the third-place playoff shortly thereafter. As easy as it would be to stop reading now since the ending of my story is known, you’d be missing all the juicy details that made the trip worth telling.

After getting back from Grand Prix: Columbus, I immediately immersed myself in preparing for Nationals. M11 was coming out on Magic Online in a few days, which would allow me to start practicing with the new format. Understanding M11 was going to be an important hurdle to overcome because it would be the majority of Magic being played at the next four events that I was going to. I played in about two dozen 8-4 drafts and got the hang of the format pretty quickly, though I wasn’t winning as much as I’d liked.

There were two constructed formats that I had to also research and practice in addition to M11 limited; they were Standard and Extended. The Pro Tour was going to be Extended and thus more important because there would be more at stake there in terms of money and Pro Points compared to Standard and US Nationals. I had figured that the Standard metagame would figure itself out with the results from the numerous foreign Nationals and that it wouldn’t be as useful to pay as much attention to. Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and China were having their Nationals before the United States and would be likely to be the sources of whatever decks were going to show up at the tournament in addition to decks from Magic League, Magic Online, and a super secret forum that I’m not supposed to talk about.

I had been scouring the Daily Events from Magic Online for interesting lists and had found a few; the most unique was a list that revolved around abusing Fauna Shaman and Hedron Crab with Renegade Doppelganger, Vengevine, and Extractor Demon. I had originally seen the list in early August but hadn’t given it much thought afterwards because I was too busy thinking about testing for Extended. Testing has always been a difficult process for me because I have generally sided with watching games rather than playing them and that has been a hindrance of my success at a certain level (I’m sure).

There were some people coming into town to test with us. Pat Chapin, Matt Sperling, and Zaiem Beg were flying in for a few days each for various reasons and were enjoying the hospitality of Tom Martell and Josh Utter-Leyton (Wrapter). We managed to coordinate some testing sessions, though those sometimes got derailed by Vintage and M11 drafting. Still, the sessions had good value as we were able to collaborate and run our decks against each other.

Going into the week of Nationals I began really grinding matches online. I had been informed that FFfreak (Brad Nelson) had also been working with the Renegade Doppelganger deck (hereafter known as Dredgevine) and was thinking about playing it. I got his list and started to play on a secret account and only in Standard 2-mans to not attract too much attention. I had incredible success with the deck (at least initially) and then started to lose a lot more as the percentages began to even out. I began to hate the mana in the deck and the weakness that it had to cards like Cunning Sparkmage and Linvala, Keeper of Silence. For reference, here’s the deck that I was battling with:

Dredgevine v1.0:

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1 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Enclave Cryptologist 4 Merfolk Looter 4 Hedron Crab 4 Fauna Shaman 2 Fatestitcher 4 Extractor Demon 4 Vengevine 4 Renegade Doppelganger 1 Sedraxis Alchemist 1 Sylvan Ranger 3 Drowned Catacomb 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Scalding Tarn 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Forest 4 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard 1 Sedraxis Alchemist 3 Unified Will 1 Naturalize 4 Obstinate Baloth 3 Deathmark 1 Back to Nature 1 Naturalize 1 Forest

I found that despite the deck’s ability to have insane openings involving attacking with four Vengevines on turn two, that wasn’t enough to compensate for the frailty of its creatures against the other Noble Hierarch decks. Dredgevine had a hard time racing Mythic which was also a problem. The phrase “Good from far but far from good” applied to Dredgevine as its numerous problems became more and more apparent. Ultimately I decided to scrap the deck for more tested archetypes.

I began testing Jund and the various cards that were showing up as one/two-of’s in the various lists that I had seen. Cards that I needed to test with included Mitotic Slime, Slave of Bolas, Grave Titan, Siege-Gang Commander, Duress, Sarkhan the Mad, Broodmate Dragon, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Master of the Wild Hunt, just to name a few. Figuring out the best configuration for the expected metagame would be a time-consuming process, and time wasn’t exactly a commodity that I had a lot of. I expected that the metagame would involve a relatively flat distribution of the top decks. Noble Hierarch decks would be at the top. Naya and Mythic would be the most popular followed closely by Blue/White control, various Ramp decks, and Jund. After that there would be Pyromancer Ascension and Mono-Red decks.

Wednesday was the last day that I’d be in town to get cards from Channel Fireball’s physical store in San Jose, CA (Superstars), and so Luis and I traveled down there to pick up the last cards that we’d need to make whatever deck we were going to play. Despite the fact that the tournament was going to start in a few days, we still hadn’t decided what to play. Luis had been working with Pyromancer Ascension, though I wasn’t convinced that it was good. I was probably going to default to Jund, Mythic, or Naya but was still thinking of playing Dredgevine. In the end I picked up cards to play almost every deck in Standard (except for Blue/White and Pyromancer Ascension).

Luis and I were flying to Minneapolis on Thursday morning and had the fortune of being on a non-stop flight which meant that we’d get into town at a reasonable hour and allow us to have some time to get to the site, register, and durdle around for a while. We met up at the airport and were soon in the air to Minnesota. Unfortunately I was seated in front of a family of Germans and their rugrat children who were quite enthusiastic about flying. I had the impression that they were also starting a band to compete with Rammstein because they were using the back of my seat as a drum while screaming their Germanic vocals. In the meantime, Luis had been upgraded to first class (must, etc). Despite the constant reminder that I was in a day care center, I was able to put up with the distractions, and we were soon landing in Minneapolis.

I had looked up the weather forecast earlier in the week and it was supposed to be rather unpleasant. Thunderstorms were waiting along with Baltimore-like humidity. We never saw any of the rain despite the threats. The humidity was certainly present along with highs in the mid-eighties. This place certainly didn’t feel like Minneapolis that I had been to last November (where I also top-8’d). We took a taxi ride from the airport to downtown where the Hyatt and Convention Center were. After checking in we walked to the site to find other people and figure out what would be the best deck to play.

The Minneapolis Convention Center was quite large, and the hall that was being used as the site was several levels underground (hereafter known as the Dungeon) with no phone reception. There were groups of Magic players wandering around looking for the site, but fortunately I knew the way since the same location had been used for the last Grand Prix there. We found GerryT and Michael Jacob (MJ) lurking there and lured them out with the promise of food.

Downtown Minneapolis was quite large and bustling with endless streets of eateries with enough variety to satisfy almost everyone. We went to Brit’s Pub, a decent joint that I had gone to the year before. I was looking forward to enjoying some Old Speckled Hen in addition to a few other choice brews. All throughout the meal we were talking about Standard. Luis and Gerry were focused on Pyromancer Ascension while MJ was going to stick with his Fauna Shaman/Vengevine/Squadron Hawk version of Mythic. I ordered the Tandoori Chicken Wrap along with an Old Speckled Hen and a Leinenkugel Honey Weiss which was more than enough to satisfy me completely. Unfortunately our server never brought us waters (despite our repeated requests), which reduced his tip by a significant percentage.

We walked back to the site after dinner. My motivations were to find FFfreak and talk with him about the deck because I knew that the sideboard needed some work. One of the problems that I had had while playing online was sideboarding correctly; most of the time I had been trimming the edges and boarding out Fatestitchers. When I had finally made my way back down into the Dungeon, I found something was amiss. FFfreak had left the hall for a more private testing location. Fortunately I was able to get in contact with him via Steve Birklid (Alaska) and made my way back up towards civilization with Tom “The Boss” Ross. We made our way to an apartment complex that also rented rooms like a hotel (which was across the street from the Hyatt). Atop the high-rise on the thirty-fifth floor we found FFfreak testing with Steve Sadin, BDM, Corey Baumeister (FFfreakslittlebro), and their friend Brian. They had been testing cards for the Noble Hierarch matchups and had found that Sleep was quite effective. Other cards had also been brought up like Overrun (to combat Linvala).

At some point FFfreak went outside onto the deck to have a cigarette with The Boss, who was also halfway deep into a bottle of Captain Morgan’s; I went outside to find them at some point. When I went outside, I was greeted with an amazing view of downtown Minneapolis. There was so much to see in the night with the city’s lights glimmering in the distance. I also would have been able to watch the Twins play had another giant building not been in the way. Alas, not being able to watch the baseball game was probably a blessing in disguise because it kept my mind focused on the task at hand: making the Dredgevine sideboard good. We talked into the night and eventually I headed back to the Hyatt to get my deck ready and then get to sleep.

Our room only had one king-sized bed with four people staying in it and that meant that some people were going to be on the floor. Sleeping on the floor had never been a problem for me because I have always slept on my stomach and like a hard mattress; the floor made me feel at home (almost). However, there were still some problems. I’ve always been a light sleeper (mainly as a survival skill to keep Federales from sneaking up on me in the middle of the night) and as a result tend to wake up even at the slightest of noises. I’ve never been able to get a good night of sleep in rooms with multiple people because of snoring and the necessity to keep the AC unit on to keep the room’s temperature below sweltering (thank you body heat). I’ve tried using ear plugs to solve my problems but my ears are more sensitive than an emo teenager tripped up on life.

The night didn’t treat me well and I was awake for a lot of the night thinking about the Dredgevine deck. I don’t remember how much sleep I got. What I did know is that I didn’t get as much as the night before when I’d slept almost the entire night through. I didn’t want to relive my experience from GP: Columbus where I punted myself into oblivion, so I went to seek the Holy Grail; I needed some coffee. From my last visit to town, I knew of a few places where I could get an honest cup of Joe. There was a Midwest coffee chain called Caribou Coffee which was okay, Starbucks, and Panera. I opted for Panera because they also had bagels at reasonable prices. I bought a large coffee and two blueberry bagels knowing that I’d be set on food until dinner with the fare that I’d purchased.

I knew that the Dungeon was going to be quite cold because of the industrial-sized air conditioning units that had been used there at the Grand Prix were a stark contrast with the weather outside. However, I knew that being comfortable in the Dungeon was going to be more important than anything else and prepared myself with a Channel Fireball hoodie. I met up with FFfreak and told him about some potentially sick tech that I’d come up during the night that might solve the Hierarch matchup. I suggested playing four Lotus Cobras in the maindeck and three/four Linvala, Keeper of Silence in the sideboard to answer Cunning Sparkmage and opposing Linvala. Sure, splashing a double-White spell off of Lotus Cobra and Birds/Hierarchs MIGHT have been a bit off the deep end, but it was definitely something to consider (sometimes when you go deep into the tank, you don’t always come up with treasure). FFfreak didn’t want to change the list on such short notice without testing and opted to stay with the configuration that he’d tested with the night before; that was reasonable and I went with his plan as well.

Here’s the list that I registered:

Dredgevine v2.0:

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4 Birds of Paradise 3 Noble Hierarch 4 Hedron Crab 4 Enclave Cryptologist 4 Merfolk Looter 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Renegade Doppelganger 4 Extractor Demon 4 Vengevine 1 Sedraxis Alchemist 3 Drowned Catacomb 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Scalding Tarn 4 Verdant Catacombs 6 Forest 3 Island 2 Swamp Sideboard 3 Natures Claim 4 Obstinate Baloth 2 Pithing Needle 3 Sleep 3 Unified Will

The deck was interesting enough and the subject of a deck-tech video on the [O]fficial site. It can be found here.

There were 237 players in the tournament and after everyone had been seated for the player meeting for a few brief necessary announcements (and a laundry list of unnecessary ones), we were off to playing. The first day was broken up into two segments, four rounds of Standard followed by three rounds of M11 draft.

Round 1: Nathaniel Chafe, Naya

Game 1: I win the roll and open with a Hedron Crab that mills a Vengevine. I play a few fetchlands and still only have one Vengevine (and a few Extractor Demons) which comes back to join a Renegade Doppelganger and start beating down. Evil gets a Bloodbraid Elf to start attacking with the help of a Noble Hierarch, but I trade my Vengevine for it and start attacking over the top with the Doppelganger and Extractor Demons. Not even a Basilisk Collar on a Knight of the Reliquary is good enough to race.

Sideboard: -2 Enclave Cryptologist, -3 Birds of Paradise; +2 Pithing Needle, +3 Sleep.

Game 2: I summon a Fauna Shaman to find a few Vengevines and a Pithing Needle to preemptively stop Cunning Sparkmage. The Vengevines come back after a few turns of setting up, though Evil is able to stop my Fauna Shaman after a Bloodbraid Elf cascades into an Oblivion Ring. Evil has a Fauna Shaman of his own and uses it to find a Sovereigns of Lost Alara and kill me with a huge Birds of Paradise before I can kill him.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: I summon an early Crab and start milling myself and hit Vengevine and an Extractor Demon. I unearth the Demon and hit with it before summoning a [card]Merfolk Looter and Noble Hierarch to bring back the Vengevine. However, Evil summons a Linvala to shut down my creatures while all I can do is keep attacking with the Vengevine. Pithing Needle stops Cunning Sparkmage after it kills my Hierarch, but I have another one to keep the Vengevine hitting for five. Eventually Evil can’t attack and I draw into a Sleep to force through the last five damage.

Win 2-1
1-0

Round 2: Matthew Landstrom, Naya Allies

Game 1: Evil wins the roll and plays a Plains while I summon a Hedron Crab to start milling. Evil summons a Kazandu Blademaster and a Fauna Shaman which trades with the Fauna Shaman that I summon on my turn. Meanwhile, Evil is stuck on two lands and I unearth an Extractor Demon with a Renegade Doppelganger and hit in the air for ten damage. Evil summons two Kazandu Blademasters and I have to chump while I ramp up to six mana so I can summon the Extractor Demon in my hand and finish the job. My plan would work but Evil is able to kill me exactly after he summons two Hada Freeblades to pump his three Blademasters.

Sideboard: -4 Enclave Cryptologist; +3 Sleep, +1 Obstinate Baloth.

Game 2: I mulligan to six and fetch out some lands to summon a Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, which allow me to summon two Renegade Doppelgangers before summoning an Extractor Demon. Evil doesn’t have much except for an Oran-Rief Survivalist. The two Doppelgangers attack Evil down to eight life and the real Extractor Demon finishes him off in two turns.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: Evil has to mulligan to six but still has a Kazandu Blademaster for his turn-two play. I summon a Fauna Shaman on turn two and a Renegade Doppelganger on turn three. The Shaman trades for an Oran-Rief Survivalist after I discard a Vengevine to find my Sedraxis Alchemist to bounce the Blademaster (who is getting out of control). Evil summons a Linvala to stop any shenanigans. The Vengevine comes back (after I summon the Alchemist and a Birds of Paradise) and attacks along with the Doppelganger to bring Evil down to eleven. Linvala hits me and I’m down to eight life while I find my Obstinate Baloth and go back up to twelve. Some more Allies are recruited by Evil and suddenly he’s got two Hada Freeblades, which let him trade with my Vengevine and Obstinate Baloth. I’m down to four life and play Sleep to tap down Evil’s team while holding two creatures, one of which is a Doppelganger that will turn into a Vengevine and be able to kill Evil (he has no cards in hand). He draws and passes and I draw another Vengevine. I summon the Doppelganger and Vengevine getting back the other Vengevine and attack with the three of them, but Evil plays Violent Outburst before blockers and cascades into an Oran-Rief Survivalist. The one creature isn’t enough to save him because he is at seven.

Win 2-1
2-0

Round 3: George Blankenship, Jund

Game 1: I win the roll and Evil mulligans once. I summon a bunch of creatures but they are all killed immediately; Renegade Doppelganger dies to a Lightning Bolt and Fauna Shaman dies to a Maelstrom Pulse. I summon a Vengevine on turn four and it goes to work on Evil’s life total, taking him from twenty to sixteen to twelve before it’s killed. Meanwhile, I summon a Merfolk Looter and get hit by a Blightning (discarding nothing of interest). The Looter finds some Extractor Demons that allow me to finish Evil off in the air while holding creatures to get back my Vengevine with.

Sideboard: -4 Enclave Cryptologist; +4 Obstinate Baloth.

Game 2: Evil mulligans to five while I keep my hand. He has a steady stream of removal to kill my creatures despite a double-mulligan on the opposing side. I summon a Noble Hierarch but it’s killed by a Terminate. Okay, so maybe it was only my Hierarch that dies; its death wasn’t in vain as I am able to stick a Fauna Shaman and get a Vengevine with it. Evil is out of removal and has to start summoning creatures; he summons a Sprouting Thrinax and a Putrid Leech. I take a hit from the Leech and summon an Obstinate Baloth to stabilize. The Thrinax and Leech run into my Baloth and I block the 3/3, taking four damage from the Leech to go back down to sixteen. Afterwards, Evil uses Pyroclasm to rid the Battlefield of the Saproling tokens from his Thrinax along with my Fauna Shaman and Noble Hierarch. However, I use the Shaman one final time to find a Renegade Doppelganger who attacks as a Vengevine after I summon it along with a Merfolk Looter. Evil is unable to recover from my recurring Vengevine and dies.

Win 2-0
3-0

Round 4: Gregory Marques, Green/Red Eldrazi Ramp

My round is announced as a feature match and also covered on the [O]fficial site.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/usnat10/day1#10

Game 1: I win the roll and summon a Birds of Paradise followed by a Hedron Crab and Fauna Shaman; a fetchland along the way lets me mill six cards that don’t do anything in my graveyard. Evil is accelerating his board with a Rampant Growth while I mill more cards into my graveyard, this time including an Extractor Demon. I add a Renegade Doppelganger to my board and hit Evil down to ten with the Demon and Doppelganger on my next turn. My Fauna Shaman finds another Extractor Demon and I repeat my attack on my next turn to finish Evil off.

Sideboard: -2 Enclave Cryptologist, -1 Sedraxis Alchemist; +3 Unified Will.

Game 2: I summon a Birds of Paradise followed by a Renegade Doppelganger that takes the form of the Enclave Cryptologist that I summon on turn three. I Level up the Doppelganger and use it to loot one card deeper into my deck, but don’t find anything interesting. At this point Evil has played a few Rampant Growths and clears my board with an Earthquake, leaving only my Birds of Paradise alive. I summon a Noble Hierarch and get to work slowly with the Birds while playing some of the many fetchlands in my hand. Evil seems to have kept his hand based on the removal and ramp because he didn’t have a threat to play afterwards (he passed the turn with eleven mana). I draw into a Hedron Crab and mill nine cards with it including three Vengevines. The Vengevines join my Hedron Crab on the Battlefield after I summon another Noble Hierarch and get into the Red Zone. Evil chumps with an Overgrown Battlement and kills another with Lightning Bolt before removing the rest with an Earthquake on his turn. We go back to draw/go, but I’m able to recover sooner by finding a Fauna Shaman and Sedraxis Alchemist to get back my Vengevines and attack through some Khalni Garden tokens. Evil draws a Kozilek but doesn’t have enough mana left over to prevent taking any damage.

Win 2-0
4-0

Being undefeated through the first portion of Standard felt nice and I was happy that it was over. I was ready to get busy drafting and found myself in a moderately difficult pod with quite a few people that I knew.

Draft #1 (Pod 1):
Anthony Eason
Charles Gindy
Josh Utter-Leyton
Aaron Wilburn
Benjamin Lundquist
Korey McDuffie
Matthew Forner
David Ochoa

The draft pod was the feature pod and can be found on the Mothership: Draft Viewer.

The draft went well for me even though I was getting cut from Blue on my right. I stayed away from Red despite opening some nice cards because I didn’t want to be in a weak color compared to White, Black, and Blue. If I had to go back and build my deck again, I would have taken out the Ajani’s Pridemate for Alluring Siren, Negate, or Siege Mastodon because those cards would have done more than the almost-vanilla 2/2. My initial reasoning for including the Pridemate was to compliment the flyers in the deck along with the Inspired Charges. I wanted Inspired Charge to be lethal whenever I played it and that would be more likely to be the case if I had Grizzly Bears to do some of the early heavy lifting.

Deck:

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1 Infantry Veteran 1 Ajanis Pridemate 1 Augury Owl 2 Blinding Mage 2 Stormfront Pegasus 1 Cloud Elemental 1 Scroll Thief 1 Wild Griffin 1 Azure Drake 2 Cloud Crusader 1 Stone Golem 1 Vengeful Archon 1 Condemn 1 Preordain 1 Negate 1 Mighty Leap 1 Pacifism 2 Inspired Charge 1 Jaces Ingenuity 1 Terramorphic Expanse 6 Island 10 Plains Sideboard 1 Goldenglow Moth 2 Silvercoat Lion 1 Siege Mastodon 1 Holy Strength 1 Ajanis Mantra 2 Merfolk Spy 1 Alluring Siren 2 Jaces Erasure 1 Negate 1 Prodigal Pyromancer 1 Lava Axe 1 Ornithopter 1 Voltaic Key 1 Wall of Vines 1 Dryads Favor

Round 5: Charles Gindy

Game 1: I win the roll and choose to draw first. We both start playing flyers which is bad for me because I have Stormfront Pegasus staring down his Augury Owl. Evil summons a Child of Night and I answer back with a Scroll Thief. Evil answers back with a Scroll Thief of his own. The back-and-forth continues as I trump his Scroll Thief with a Blinding Mage. I’m pretty tight on mana but find a fourth with an Augury Owl and draw it after offensively tapping down his Scroll Thief. Then the wheels on the bus start to fall off as I’m hit with a barrage of card drawing and removal. Foresee follows Doom Blade, Fireball, another Foresee, and another Doom Blade. Suddenly I’m down to nothing in play with only a bit of business in my hand. I try to regroup with some more flyers like Wild Griffin, Azure Drake, and Cloud Crusader[/card], but they die to removal and counters. I try to go over the top with a Vengeful Archon that I draw, but it gets stolen with a Mind Control. I draw a Pacifism on my turn to “stop” the Archon but know that the game is likely over. Still, I have to try and go for the “W” and attack with the three creatures that I have and pump them with Inspired Charge. Evil doesn’t use the Archon (for two) and I realize that he thinks that he can’t use the ability. I am able to win on my next attack.

Sideboard: -1 Ajani’s Pridemate, -1 Mighty Leap, -1 Inspired Charge, -1 Plains; +1 Negate, +1 Siege Mastodon, +1 Prodigal Pyromancer, +1 Mountain.

Game 2: Evil chooses to draw first and I have to mulligan once. I summon a Blinding Mage on turn two. Evil stops my beats on his turn four with a Howling Banshee followed by an Azure Drake and a Nightwing Shade. I summon some flyers to trade with the Banshee, but Evil gets it back with a Gravedigger and puts me even closer to death. All the while, Foresee is putting Evil further ahead and I’m soon overwhelmed by his flyers as my Blinding Mage is killed.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: I choose to draw first and it’s Evil’s turn to take a mulligan. I start out with an Infantry Veteran and get in a few attacks with it before Evil stalls out the board with an Azure Drake and Rotting Legion. Evil is playing the game defensively and I figure he’s sitting on a Negate and/or Mana Leak so I hold off from playing spells for a bit. He blinks first and taps down on Blue mana to cast a Foresee while I play Jace’s Ingenuity in response. I play into Mana Leak with an Azure Drake of my own and it resolves, which lets me play Vengeful Archon on my next turn. The Archon doesn’t die to Doom Blade and I’m able to untap with Negate in hand along with Pacifism and two lands in case Evil tries to flush my hand with Mind Rot. I put Pacifism on Evil’s Azure Drake which reduces the clock to two turns and lets me play around Diminish (though I haven’t seen it yet). I clock Evil in the air for nine and he concedes on his next turn.

Win 2-1
5-0

Round 6: Benjamin Lundquist

Game 1: Evil wins the roll and chooses to play first while I have to mulligan. We play out some creatures and my board is shut down by a Giant Spider. Spined Wurm quickly follows and gets in there while holding a Warlord’s Axe. I throw a bunch of creatures in front of the Spined Wurm in an attempt to lure out a combat trick/removal spell but Evil doesn’t budge so I have to use the Condemn in my hand to remove the Wurm before it kills all of my creatures. Evil gives the Axe to his Giant Spider and has Giant Growth on his following attack when I make a similar block. From there I’m unable to recover and die shortly thereafter.

Sideboard: -1 Ajani’s Pridemate, -1 Mighty Leap; +1 Negate, +1 Alluring Siren.

Game 2: I choose to play first and summon a Blinding Mage that gets one attack in before Evil is able to summon an Ember Hauler and Sylvan Ranger. The Ember Hauler gets in a few attacks before killing the Blinding Mage and I’m able to summon an Azure Drake and Alluring Siren. Evil has a Giant Spider, but I slowly pick off his smaller creatures with the Siren and kill his Spider with an offensive Inspired Charge. Flying beats from a Cloud Crusader and Stormfront Pegasus end the game a few turns later with Evil still being stuck on four lands.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: Evil chooses to play first and summons a Sylvan Ranger; I answer back by summoning a Blinding Mage. The Ranger goes to attack and I have to wonder if I’m being baited into trading my Mage for a Giant Growth or whether Evil is trying to mise some free damage. I decide to call and block the Ranger; Evil doesn’t have the Giant Growth and bins his man. The Blinding Mage gets some attacks in before being joined by a Cloud Crusader, which is then answered by Evil in the form of Spined Wurm. However, I’m not concerned about the Wurm at all because I have the Blinding Mage to tap it down every turn. Evil doesn’t have any follow-up for the Wurm as my Cloud Crusader gets to work on him; sixteen; fourteen; twelve. I summon an Azure Drake to join the party and Evil shows me the spell that he’d be sand-bagging: Destructive Force. I’ve been waiting for some trick and already have Negate at the front of my hand. Jace’s Ingenuity draws me into another Negate and Inspired Charge that I use to stop a Chandra’s Outrage and kill him.

Win 2-1
6-0

Round 7: Anthony Eason

My round is announced as a feature match again (because I’m awesome) and also covered on the [O]fficial site.

Game 1: I win the roll and choose to play first while Evil mulligans to six. Stormfront Pegasus is the first creature that I summon while Evil has a Goblin Piker that gets prevented from attacking by my Scroll Thief on the following turn. Evil finds a Fiery Hellhound but I’m ready with Pacifism to also allow my Thief to get in there and draw an extra card. Chandra’s Outrage kills the Thief, but continue deploying threats, this time in the form of Infantry Veteran and Blinding Mage. Evil summons a Hoarding Dragon which exiles a Juggernaut, but I’m able to get around the Dragon with my tapper. A second Chandra’s Outrage kills the Blinding Mage, but I have an Inspired Charge to finish Evil off.

Sideboard: -1 Ajani’s Pridemate, -1 Mighty Leap; +1 Siege Mastodon, +1 Negate.

Game 2: Evil chooses to play first but I have the first play of the game in the form of an Infantry Veteran. An Ember Hauler is hot on the heels of the Veteran and I find myself unable to attack with it but can still summon a Stormfront Pegasus. My hand is relatively weak at this point because I’ve drawn two lands in a row, so I immediately trade my Pegasus for the Ember Hauler when Evil attacks with it. A Brindle Boar replaces the fallen Goblin and I summon a Wild Griffin. Chandra’s Spitfire continues to clog up the board and I find the game slipping further and further out of my control. The Infantry Veteran is allowing me to attack through in the air, but I’m not drawing spells to keep up with Evil. A second Spitfire enters the fray along with a Fire Servant. Chandra’s Outrage seals the deal for Evil and we’re off to game three.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: Evil chooses to play first but I have the first play of the game again with an Infantry Veteran on turn one. The Veteran is able to get in for a point while I summon an Augury Owl and find that I’ve got an awkward situation with my mana. I have a bunch of expensive spells and the last land in my hand is a Terramorphic Expanse with a Plains, Preordain, and Jace’s Ingenuity on top of my deck. I decide to draw the land and keep both Blue spells on top, but shuffle them away after Evil summons a Brindle Boar so I can keep up. Evil summons a Giant Spider while I summon an Azure Drake. Then Evil summons a Juggernaut and gets a hit in with it before it trades with a Siege Mastodon. I use Negate to counter a Pyroclasm after Evil sacrifices his Brindle Boar. I start to accumulate more flyers and eventually start attacking through the Giant Spider until Evil finds his Hoarding Dragon. From then on it becomes more difficult to attack. We trade some more creatures and removal. My Blinding Mage dies to an Ember Hauler and my Azure Drake dies to a Plummet. I manage to get enough flyers to attack Evil down to three, but he draws Overwhelming Stampede to kill me the turn before I can kill him.

Lose 1-2
6-1

With the first day completed, we found ourselves with a lot of time left in the day. It was only 7:00 PM which meant that there was plenty of time to get dinner, draft, and whatnot. I went back to the room, showered, and got ready to go out. The change in temperature from the Dungeon compared to outside was quite extreme which made my hoodie sweatshirt quite excessive. After I changed into a nice collared shirt, I was ready to go.

Tom LaPille was going out with our group and he had suggested a Thai place nearby which instantly sold Luis since he’s all about Thaiing new things. However, I wasn’t sold on the idea and was browsing through the kiosk of restaurant advertisement slips in the lobby of the Hyatt. I had told people what I was doing and they acknowledged it, yet when I had turned to victoriously claim that I had found a suitable place for my palate to explore, the group had vanished. POOF! I looked all around the lobby and outside of the Hyatt, walking up and down Nicollet Mall but found no one. Dejected, I walked back to the Hyatt and made a call to Luis’s cell phone. They’d gone to the Thai place and were in the restaurant lounge which was around the corner and down a few blocks from the Hyatt. After walking to the joint, looking at the menu, and voicing my disappointment multiple times, I stormed out (as much as someone could imagine me doing so without making too much of a scene or even a minute expression of displeasure).

I walked back to the Hyatt and found that Steve Sadin, BDM, Nate Price, Patrick Chapin, his girlfriend Amanda, Dave Guskin, and Greg Marques (I think) were all waiting to go out to eat. They’d made a reservation at Ichiban Japanese Steak House (across the street) and were leaving in a few minutes. We talked about how the day had gone, and after learning of my lack of dinner plans, invited me to come along (after I rudely asked if I could go). Ichiban is similar to Benihana and offers teppanyaki style Japanese cooking. Not bringing my camera along for the show was one of the few regrets that I had about the trip. There was juggling, fire, singing, sake, lobster, fillet, and shrimp involved in the perfect intermingling of food and entertainment. I was quite satisfied.

After we had finished I had wanted to go back to Brit’s Pub and get a few rounds with Steve Sadin, but we’d had too much to eat to make room for any after-dinner plans and parted ways. On the way back to the hotel, I stumbled upon Tom Martel, Matt Sperling, Paul Rietzl, Dave Williams, and Brian Kibler also coming back from dinner. They invited me to come play Ascension, but I declined because it was getting late and I wanted to get catch some of the sleep that had eluded me from the night before.

I had a plan this time for getting better sleep than the last night. After the sweltering heat from the night before, I turned the temperature down to sixty degrees and found a lighter blanket to use which worked wonders. I still woke up a few times despite the changes I had made but was able to get more sleep than the previous night. I got restless in the morning and woke up at 6:00 AM. After waiting in bed, thinking about what I wanted to do for the second draft, dinner, Extended, and various other things, I decided to get up and head over to Panera to get my non-dinner food for the day. Luckily for me, Panera was open early on Saturday so I was still able to get my coffee and blueberry bagels.

The second day had the same formatting as the first with the only difference being that the draft was first. I was in Pod 1 again and found many familiar faces from the previous draft. We weren’t the feature pod for coverage this time, though I didn’t understand why (who wouldn’t want to watch me draft given the opportunity?). Anyways, back to the story…

Draft #2 (Pod 1):
Anthony Eason
Tommy Kolowith
Aaron Wilburn
Brandon Ayers
David Ochoa
Fredrick Chang
Robert Graves
Charles Gindy

I opened up Brittle Effigy with the next best card being Howling Banshee by a fair margin which meant that the person I was feeding (Robert Graves) would likely go into Black. I was fine with everything until I got my second pick where the only good card was a Corrupt. Charles Gindy was to my right and I knew that he liked Blue (liking Blue in M11 eh… go figure) and so I decided to stick with Black because it was one of the better colors. I went in pretty early on an Act of Treason and started to construct the deck. I opened an Ancient Hellkite and Howling Banshee in pack two and passed the dragon without much thought. Red wasn’t the color that I wanted to be heavy in and I needed to cut Black off from my right to ensure my pack three would still yield what it did in the first pack. I ended up with a nearly mono-Black deck but it was light on the combo pieces (Act of Treason, Bloodthrone Vampire, Viscera Seer, and Reassembling Skeleton).

Deck:

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1 Viscera Seer 1 Bloodthrone Vampire 2 Child of Night 1 Reassembling Skeleton 1 Barony Vampire 1 Lilianas Specter 1 Gravedigger 1 Howling Banshee 1 Juggernaut 1 Nether Horror 1 Rotting Legion 1 Brittle Effigy 1 Lightning Bolt 2 Sign in Blood 2 Act of Treason 1 Assassinate 1 Quag Sickness 1 Warlords Axe 1 Necrotic Plague 1 Corrupt 5 Mountain 12 Swamp

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2 Bog Raiders 2 Unholy Strength 1 Lilianas Caress 1 Blood Tithe 1 Leyline of the Void 1 Goblin Tunneler 1 Arc Runner 1 Volcanic Strength 1 Shivs Embrace 2 Voltaic Key 1 Jinxed Idol 1 Wall of Vines 1 Autumns Veil 2 Fog 1 Hornet Sting

The biggest decision that I had to make was between Jinxed Idol and Warlord’s Axe. I knew many people would simply slam the Idol without much thought, but the choice was much closer than people would give it credit for. The deck was light on creatures (twelve) and didn’t have much to do in the late game which was one of the reasons why I chose the Axe. Without Reassembling Skeleton, I wouldn’t be able to throw away creatures to force them to take damage or sacrifice creatures of their own. I was aware that Jinxed Idol would combo with Act of Treason, but it wouldn’t be as easy as Bloodthrone Vampire and Viscera Seer because I’d need to control the Idol at the time I played Act of Treason. If I didn’t control the Idol, then the opponent would sacrifice whatever I was trying to steal and I’d end up with the Idol and not a good way to give it back. In the end, this type of trading would foster the desire to use Act of Treason prematurely simply to maintain a favorable board position instead of using it as removal for important creatures.

Round 8: Aaron Wilburn

Game 1: I win the roll and choose to play first. I summon a Child of Night and Nether Horror, but Evil answers with a Roc Egg which hatches into a 3/3 flying Bird token after blocking my Nether Horror. I draw some cards with Sign in Blood but don’t find much that can get through the Knight Exemplar that Evil summons on his next turn. Evil is White/Red and splashing Blue for multiple Foresee. After playing a few Foresee, he wipes the board with Day of Judgment and follows it up with a Stormfront Pegasus and Silvercoat Lion. I find nothing except land to go with my Corrupt (good for eight) and Act of Treason and decide to concede rather than showing him my pseudo Fireball.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 2: Playing against Day of Judgment and two Foresee makes me reconsider my role in the matchup and I decide to draw first. I keep a two-lander but stumble and get beat down by a Silvercoat Lion that I have to use a Lightning Bolt on after Evil uses one on my Child of Night. I have a Brittle Effigy also, but refuse to use it on something that I can deal with via trading in combat. I draw some cards with Sign in Blood, but don’t find any land and have to discard once while stuck on three mana sources. Evil isn’t doing much either except playing single threats that I manage to deal with. I find a land to summon my Gravedigger and get back Child of Night so I can stabilize and get a bit of breathing room, but Evil is ready with Day of Judgment and Mystifying Maze to prevent me from doing anything. I have to burn the Brittle Effigy and Evil slams down the Ancient Hellkite that I had opened in pack two. However, I am ready with Corrupt and exactly six Swamps. Evil summons a Sun Titan and gets back a Pacifism to put on one of my guys which put me in a difficult spot because I am so low on life and he has a stocked graveyard due to the game going on for so long. I still have some tricks up my sleeve and use Act of Treason plus the Quag Sickness in my graveyard to kill the Titan. Necrotic Plague and Reassembling Skeleton clear the board. After everything is gone I am able to summon a Rotting Legion along with the Skeleton to defend the fort along with a Viscera Seer and filter through my deck until Evil has only two cards left in his deck. At that point I use Sign in Blood to make him draw his deck and he loses on his next turn.

Sideboard: -1 Warlord’s Axe; +1 Jinxed Idol.

Game 3: Evil chooses to play first and I keep another two-lander on the draw that doesn’t get there. I have a Child of Night that gets a hit in before dying. This game isn’t as out of control as the last one and I wipe the board with Necrotic Plague and Reassembling Skeleton to buy time. I set up a turn where I use Act of Treason and Jinxed Idol to put Evil on a clock. He’s low on creatures and takes four damage before tapping out to summon a Berserkers of Blood Ridge. I’m holding Corrupt in my hand and draw Lightning Bolt to deal nine damage to him while having the Idol and Reassembling Skeleton to finish him off during his upkeep.

Win 2-1
7-1

Round 9: Brandon Ayers

Game 1: Evil wins the roll and chooses to play first but has to mulligan to six. He summons a Llanowar Elves and beats me down for a few turns while I assemble my Bloodthrone Vampire/Reassembling Skeleton combo. My Child of Night trades with his Garruk’s Companion along the way. Evil summons a Sacred Wolf and follows it up with a Yavimaya Wurm but I steal the 6/4 with Act of Treason and bash for a trillion. Evil concedes on sixteen life.

Sideboard: -1 Warlord’s Axe; +1 Volcanic Strength.

Game 2: Evil chooses to play first again and decides to mulligan once before keeping his hand. I summon a Child of Night that runs into a Grizzly Bears. After that, I summon a Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodthrone Vampire (again) while Evil summons a Juggernaut and forges a Whispersilk Cloak. I have an Assassinate in hand, but that won’t help against the Whispersilk Cloak, so I decide to steal the Juggernaut with Act of Treason and put Evil on the defensive. Evil concedes.

Win 2-0
8-1

I finished this match really quickly and had a lot of time left over to watch the match that would have the other eventual 2-0. I was happy to find that the deck that I would be playing against next round was that of Robert Graves (the guy I was feeding in the draft). His deck was Black/Green with Doom Blade, Corrupt, and a lot of random fatties. I felt that the matchup was quite favorable because Act of Treason was quite good against Green. Additionally, I had very few targets for Doom Blade (only Juggernaut) as well as two Bog Raiders to landwalk all over him. I fully expected to 3-0 the pod and be in a great position to make top-8. However, when the round pairings were put up, I found that I had been paired against a different person who was in the same point bracket as Robert (since the point bracket takes precedence which I had forgotten). Instead of having my dream matchup, I got paired against a different deck, though it was an opportunity for revenge…

Round 10: Anthony Eason

Game 1: I win the roll and choose to draw first, but I am forced to take a mulligan. My decision to draw first turns out to be a bad one as Evil is quick out of the gates with a Stormfront Pegasus. The Pegasus hits me a few times and I help Evil out by using Sign in Blood so I can draw a few cards. I stall the board up with Necrotic Plague and Reassembling Skeleton but Evil is still summoning creatures so I kill his Stormfront Pegasus with a Lightning Bolt instead of waiting to kill it with the Plague to slow him down. The board gets cleared and Evil uses Lava Axe to bring me to two life. However, I’ve got plenty of creatures to summon while Evil has very few. I summon a Juggernaut and attack with it along with Evil’s Assault Griffin after stealing it with Act of Treason. The Griffin gets sacrificed to the Viscera Seer that I summon after combat after I summon a Rotting Legion. I have four attackers and a Sign in Blood to Evil’s three blockers and go for the suicide. Evil doesn’t have a trick and my attack takes him to two with Sign in Blood dealing the final blow.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 2: Evil chooses to play first and I have to mulligan once again. My hand is another two-lander on the draw, though both lands are Mountains. I draw a Swamp on my first turn and that allows me to summon a Viscera Seer. Evil summons a Stormfront Pegasus on his next turn but doesn’t want to trade as I attack my Seer into it. The Pegasus begins attacking and is joined a few turns later by an Assault Griffin. The pair of flyers hit me once before I draw an Act of Treason to slow down the beats. I keep missing land drops but finally start to draw out of it, though I still only have one Swamp and three Mountains. I summon a Nether Horror, Bloodthrone Vampire, and Barony Vampire and am able to kill of Evil’s creatures Stormfront Pegasus with a Lightning Bolt. I am down to five life and draw a Child of Night which gives Evil a turn to draw Lava Axe before I start gaining life. I get out of range and win shortly afterwards.

Win 2-0
9-1

At this point the tournament had reached the final stretch and the finish line was in sight. There were only four rounds separating the top-8 from everyone else and I was at the top of the standings along with one other person: Robert Graves. I knew that we’d be paired against each other in the next round and that he was playing Naya, my most common match-up and the one that I didn’t want to play against. With my fate known, I soldiered on and went to the feature match area once the pairings were announced.

Round 11: Robert Graves, Naya

My round is announced as a feature match and also covered on the [O]fficial site.

Game 1: Evil wins the roll and chooses to play first, but has to take a mulligan as payment for his fortune. He starts off with an Arid Mesa while I have a Misty Rainforest that lets me summon a Noble Hierarch. Evil fetches out a Plains and plays a Misty Rainforest of his own while I summon a Fauna Shaman and attack with the Hierarch. Evil plays another fetchland and passes again while I summon a Hedron Crab and mill myself for six cards with a fetchland. Evil summons a Vengevine and hits me for four, but his attack is too slow compared to my game plan. I use the Fauna Shaman to find a Vengevine and mill two more Vengevines along with an Extractor Demon on my turn with the Verdant Catacombs that I play. Evil holds back with his Vengevine and summons a Knight of the Reliquary, but it’s too late. My Vengevine becomes an Extractor Demon which becomes a Renegade Doppelganger on my turn. I summon my Doppelganger along with a Birds of Paradise and get my Vengevines back and send them, the Doppelganger, and an unearthed Demon at Evil; he concedes.

Sideboard: -2 Enclave Cryptologist, -3 Birds of Paradise; +2 Pithing Needle, +3 Sleep.

Game 2: This time I have to mulligan and Evil keeps his hand. Evil has some action this time with a Fauna Shaman on turn two while I summon a Merfolk Looter. The Shaman beats my face in and Evil reinforces his board with a Knight of the Reliquary. I don’t have much going on on my side of the Battlefield compared to what Evil has and have to use my Merfolk Looter, summon a Hedron Crab, and mill myself with it (finding only an Extractor Demon). Evil summons a Cunning Sparkmage and kills my Looter after bashing me with the Knight to thirteen. I draw a Pithing Needle on my turn and Evil uses his Fauna Shaman in response to get an Inferno Titan. I could name Knight of the Reliquary to prevent Evil from summoning the Inferno Titan since he only has four lands in play, but my board presence is weak and I wouldn’t be able to end the game before he draws into a land. I name Cunning Sparkmage and hope that Evil doesn’t draw a land next turn. Evil doesn’t draw a land, but unfortunately for me already had one in his hand to summon the Inferno Titan and crush whatever hopes I had of winning the game.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: Neither of us takes a mulligan for the final game. I have nothing on my first turn while Evil accelerates with a Birds of Paradise. I summon a Fauna Shaman on my turn while Evil summons a Cunning Sparkmage. I summon another Fauna Shaman but Evil shuts them down by summoning a Linvala, Keeper of Silence. However, I’m still able to get a use out of one before she comes into play; I discard an Extractor Demon to find a Vengevine. The Vengevine comes into play on my turn and I begin bashing with it. Evil continues to attack with Linvala but doesn’t have much else. I take the opportunity to unearth my Demon and swing with everything, forcing Evil to make some sacrificial blocks that will allow me to mill myself even more with the Demon. My attack puts Evil down to eight and I summon a third Fauna Shaman afterwards. Evil finds a Fauna Shaman of his own and I send my entire team in to attack again. Evil loses his Birds of Paradise and Fauna Shaman while keeping his Cunning Sparkmage and Linvala, going to five. Afterwards I summon a Hedron Crab and use a fetchland to mill myself for six which puts another Extractor Demon into my graveyard. Evil passes and is forced to chump with Linvala on my next attack. Evil concedes after not drawing another spell.

Win 2-1:
10-1

Round 12: Gerard Fabiano, Blue/White Control

Game 1: Evil wins the roll and I have to mulligan once, but I still have a decent hand. I summon a Fauna Shaman on turn two after drawing the necessary Green source to do so. However I get set back a lot when Evil stops my Shaman by putting a Spreading Seas on my Forest. I find another Misty Rainforest and crack it immediately to play around Path to Exile, but Evil has another Spreading Seas to put on the Forest. I respond by searching for a Vengevine but can’t do anything except summon a Merfolk Looter to continue searching for cards. The Merfolk Looter is exiled by an Oblivion Ring and Evil follows his play up with summoning a Baneslayer Angel on his next turn. I brick again on my draw and watch as Elspeth comes into play. I die on my next turn.

Sideboard: -2 Birds of Paradise, -1 Enclave Cryptologist; +3 Unified Will.

Game 2: I summon a Noble Hierarch followed by a Fauna Shaman on turn two while Evil summons a Meddling Mage naming Fauna Shaman. I summon a Vengevine and start attacking with it while Evil summons another Meddling Mage naming Merfolk Looter. I’m racing better than Evil is because my Vengevine is hitting for five thanks to my Hierarch and sit back on my Fauna Shaman which is searching up more Vengevines. Evil is at nine life and summons a Baneslayer Angel after attacking with his two Mages. At this point I discard my Vengevine to get a Renegade Doppelganger so I can bounce Evil’s Baneslayer Angel with the Sedraxis Alchemist that I drew on my last turn. Evil concedes.

Sideboard: nothing.

Game 3: Evil and I both mulligan once each and he plays Preordain putting both cards on the bottom. I summon a Noble Hierarch on my turn and he misses his second land drop. I summon a Fauna Shaman while Evil still has nothing. I summon a Hedron Crab and mill an Extractor Demon while using my Fauna Shaman to cycle through Vengevines and unearth the Demons while sitting on Unified Will. Evil finds land and starts casting spells, none of which I care about until he summons a Baneslayer Angel which I counter with Unified Will. Afterwards, I get my Vengevines back after playing a Renegade Doppelganger and attack for lethal.

Win 2-1
11-1

At this point I’m a lock for top-8 even with two loses and the only player at 11-1; Wrapter is also a lock at 10-2 if he can draw twice which wasn’t going to be a problem.

Round 13: John Kolos, Mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp

Intentional Draw 0-0-1
11-1-1

FFfreak won his last round which meant that he would also be a lock for top-8 if he could secure a draw in the last round. Going into the last round, I figured that FFfreak would be in eighth place which meant that I would have to play against him in the first round of top-8. I was paired against Wrapter in this round and knew that if I conceded to him, he would either be in first or second place in the standings after the Swiss. Either way one of us was going to have to play against Brad, but if I conceded, Wrapter and I wouldn’t meet until the finals. The play seemed like a no-brainer.

Round 14: Josh Utter-Leyton, Mythic

Concede 0-2
11-2-1

The last match results trickled in from the round and afterwards we found out what the brackets for top-8 looked like.

1 David Ochoa
8 Brad Nelson
———-
4 Tim Sussino
5 Anthony Eason
——————–
2 Josh Utter-Leyton
7 Gerard Fabiano
———-
3 Eric Froehlich
6 John Kolos

There was still a lot of work to do and I was running on empty as were the rest of my friends. We decided to take a break and get some food to eat before going back to the Hyatt to test the matchups for the top-8. After taking some photos and filling out the bios for the event coverage, we were free of our obligations and headed out to Nicollet Mall. There were still a few places that I wanted to go to, namely the Indian place that had taken up so much of my concentration finding the night before and caused me to be lead astray from my group.

I didn’t remember exactly where the place was except that it was “to the left” or something like that. After wandering around for a bit, the group (Ben Stark [BenS], Tom Raney, LSV, Brad and his friend Brian, Matt Nass, and another local guy) decided to try Buca di Beppo because we couldn’t find the Indian place. We tried to get a table, but the wait was more than thirty minutes and we demanded instant gratification (at least I did).

I STILL HAD ALL THESE places that I wanted to try and asked if people wanted to go to Brit’s Pub again, however that suggestion got shot down right quick (though I still think they were being a bit harsh); the place wasn’t bad. I suppose pub food wasn’t what people wanted on a trip like this; they had a good selection of beer though. After the pub got No-Sir’d, we walked over to McCormick & Schmick’s but found a similar situation with the wait. Apparently all of Minneapolis had decided that today was a good time to go out for dinner. There was also this place called Hell’s Kitchen (no relation to the show) that I’d heard good things about, though I can’t remember for the life of me where or who I heard those things from.

People were starting to get legitimately impatient and so we walked across the street to this place called Zelo. The restaurant specialized in Italian and Seafood and was able to seat us in ten minutes (which was the amount of time that it took me to go and come back from Hell’s Kitchen after waiting in line to ask how long the waiting line was. I ordered a dish with a local fish called Walleye which was good. I had a good time at dinner up until I had to pay for the entire meal (I heart variance).

Brad and I agreed not to test the mirror for our Top-8 match and focus more on the Top-4 and potential finals; the mirror seemed roll dependant and I agreed. Besides, I could just test anyway and lie about it. We went back to our respective hotels and began grinding; I had set up in the lobby at the Hyatt. We figured that the Pyromancer deck in the other bracket was favored against mono-Red and began testing against that. The matchup was a lot closer than we thought it was initially, and that Inferno Titan was going to be a problem if the Ascension deck could use its eight burn spells and counters to stall long enough. We tested for a few hours and went back to the room to test more after a lot of people showed up which was distracting. There was this group of kids who were waiting to go out to eat and didn’t understand a thing about Magic, though they seemed excited to see us playing because it reminded them of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! We tested up in the room until 1:00 AM at which point we went to sleep in anticipation of the day to come.

We had to be in the Dungeon at 9:30 AM which gave us a lot of time to sleep in. As usual, I was the first person up and made my way to Panera to buy some coffee and a bagel. This time however, I only bought one because I had some bigger plans for the day regarding food. Today was the day that we were supposed to go to Fogo de Chao. Everyone should be familiar with the awesomeness that is the churrascaria experience. Unlimited meats of the highest quality, roasted to perfection with the perfect ratio of salt to delicious. Yada yada yada. Anyways, back to the dilemma at hand. Being a Magic player, it is and has always been necessary for me to get maximum value out of a situation, and Fogo was no different. If I didn’t eat my fill, it would be like conceding a matchup that was impossible to lose. I wouldn’t want to go to a buffet on a full stomach and Fogo was the ultimate. However, there was a problem. On the one hand I needed enough sustenance to get me through the day but I also needed to conserve my appetite. Furthermore, I’d cut down significantly on the food that I eat (because I’m a fatty) which has reduced my appetite and would last almost an entire day on one bagel and coffee. In the end I decided to get one bagel only.

The Top-8 matches were covered with a lot of detail by Wizards’ Event Coverage and I’m going to refer you to those. Also, I don’t get paid by the word here so I mise well use some free help.

Top Eight: Brad Nelson, Dredgevine

Match Coverage

My match against Brad was close and played out quite similarly to how I thought it would. I’m glad he had as much success (roughly) with the deck that I did.

Win 3-2

Top Four: Anthony Eason, Mono-Red

Match Coverage

I knew that this matchup was going to be difficult to win and also would rely heavily on winning the die roll. Ultimately I wished I had been able to summon my Obstinate Baloths, but the situation never arose where I had both a Baloth in hand and the mana to play it.

Lose 1-3

Third-place Playoff: John Kolos, Mono-Green Eldrazi Ramp

Match Coverage

In two of the games that I lost, it felt like I had been robbed after setting up a favorable gamestate.

Lose 1-3

After losing the third-place playoff I was consoled by my friends; they seemed to take it much harder than I did (although that’s probably because I don’t have feelings and am an emotionless cyborg sent from the future to … well, that’s another “story”). The reservation for Fogo wasn’t for a few hours which left me enough time to go back to the Hyatt and clean up. It’d been a long day and I needed to shave off my playoff head. After I was ready, we went back to the site because there was still a lot of time go burn through before 7:00 PM. We battled a bit of Extended (and when I say “we battled”, that’s more like “I watched them play”) and Vintage because Vintage has always been awesome. Eventually we got tired of waiting and called Fogo to tell them that we were heading down there early and that they had better be ready for us. Fogo was about as amazing as I had remembered it to be and I was more than full by the time that we had left. As we reached the Hyatt I said I was going to the room to sleep, said a few goodbyes, and made my way up to the comfy bed awaiting me.

Monday came around and there was still infinite work to do. I had a non-stop flight back to the San Francisco Bay Area and had to make the preparations for leaving to go to Gothenburg on Wednesday, type this novel of a report, and finish up other assorted tasks. Delta was apparently having a special for nursing mothers for the flight back because I was surrounded by screaming infants. Thankfully I had been sleep-deprived enough over the previous few days to the point of being able to still nod away into a restful slumber. We arrived back in San Francisco not a minute too soon.

Unfortunately the playlist of misadventures that I was willing to recount to you has run its course and will send you back to reading the articles based on my winning Swiss queue drafts that I cherry pick to bolster my ego. Ahhh yes, the life of a pro. Until next time….

It was only a few weeks ago when Cunning Sparkmage ruled the day and in large part Naya decks had supplanted Mythic locally here in Northern California. Combo decks like Pyromancer Ascension had just started to take off and it was interesting to see a combo deck that not only destroyed the Control deck of the format, but slaughtered most other decks. Still while I was busy being impressed by Ascension the metagame diversified yet again and all sorts of decks started coming to the forefront. Suddenly Titan decks of all sorts were becoming the flavor of the month, not just Primeval powered Valakut decks, leading to Destructive Force and Frost Titan getting some love and smashing midrange strategies. This in turn altered the metagame again and took away more of the cards that were good against Mythic. Repeat the many statements made about the ever changing metagame and the variety of Standard.

While a number of strategies may overlap in some respects on the metagame clock, how they accomplish these strategies are often worlds apart. Throughout the Nationals tournaments from this weekend we saw how many decks both on the radar and off it successfully made their mark.

Mythic
1^st place at U.S. Nationals as played by Josh Utter-Leyton

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4 Celestial Colonnade 5 Forest 2 Island 1 Marsh Flats 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Plains 1 Sejiri Steppe 3 Stirring Wildwood 3 Verdant Catacombs 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara 2 Eldrazi Conscription 3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 2 Explore 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Mana Leak Sideboard 1 Bojuka Bog 4 Celestial Purge 2 Jace S Ingenuity 4 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 2 Obstinate Baloth 2 Spell Pierce

Oddly enough I wasn’t surprised by the addition of Explore to Mythic as I harkened back to a conversation I had with Mythic guru Tom Raney. The subject had been about adding yet another accelerant to Mythic or at least having one in the deck that wasn’t so vulnerable to removal. We both noted how Explore basically accomplished the goal, but was just at the wrong spot on the curve for the deck. Seeing it being put to good use was a nice thought as the lousy three-drops that usually clog Mythic up were removed from the deck and Explore took its rightful place in there.

Rather than talking about any nice sideboard inclusions I’d rather focus on the card that finally got cut. Not having Rhox War Monk in the deck shows just how far the deck has come from the olden days where it was primarily a creature-focused midrange deck with a nice Combo-esque endgame. Because, really, what is Rhox War Monk good against? Not Wall of Omens, where it may be the only card in the deck Wall is actually going to be effective against. Not other Mythic decks, where the creatures to worry about are just bigger or have evasion. Not even Vengevine decks, where a huge percentage of the time they’ll be comfortable trading off Vengevines over and over again. The only match it was good in was Mono-Red, and even then it could be a burden due to the mana cost if the mana creatures died early.

In fact, the only other creature I’d like to see in the maindeck is possibly Linvala, Keeper of Silence to get ahead of the curve for the mirror and incoming influx of Dredge-uh-Vine decks coming into the metagame. Linvala is already good to great in the mirror, Dredge and Naya matches while not being the absolute worst in other areas.  Past that, I really have no real inclination to change anything in the list. It looks solid enough, and if you’re still worried about mana issues, you can slip in some Seaside Citadel a la Cedric Phillips over Stirring Wildwood to help the consistency.

Pyromorph
2^nd Place at German Nationals as played by Tobias Gräfensteiner

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3 Time Warp 4 See Beyond 4 Pyromancer Ascension 4 Preordain 4 Ponder 4 Mana Leak 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Into the Roil 3 Foresee 2 Call to Mind 4 Burst Lightning 4 Scalding Tarn 5 Mountain 3 Khalni Garden 10 Island Sideboard 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 3 Dispel 2 Flashfreeze 4 Polymorph 1 Progenitus 4 Spawning Breath

Personally I think Ascension is the best deck in the format even with an even Jund match and slightly unfavorable post-board match against Mythic. It simply dominates most decks unless it hits straight bricks for multiple turns and the amount of hate for the deck hasn’t gone up in line with the threat the deck poses.

I was one of the ones that weren’t sold on the Polymorph sideboard plan, largely because I didn’t see what matches it made better. Mythic smashed Poly and Pyro post-board so what good would combining them do? Same went for Jund, except the logic I used there was the absolute worst and I missed the boat entirely. My natural assumption for Jund was that they would bring in their usual SB cards and still do fine with less removal in the deck. What I failed to recognize is their post-board removal does approximately jack and poop against end-step Spawning Breath. Similarly, if they Duress or Thought Hemorrhage, they can no longer just auto-target your key card because now you have two of them in the deck. So at that point, not only have you weakened their board plan, you’ve forced them into a position where many Jund players will make their decks weaker by accident by trying the wrong kind of sideboard strategy.

This is why the Polymorph plan was miles better than I gave it credit for and one of the many reasons not to dismiss something out of hand. The Mythic thoughts may have been right, but I was quite far off with the thoughts about Jund when taking Poly into account. Past that, the list is right around the last one I had for the list with the exception of Foresee over any other card drawing option. While he stuck with the most powerful card drawing option that the deck had available, I still prefer Treasure Hunt or Divination simply because of the mana requirements. Foresee was a card I wanted to like but was only truly strong for me when I had Ascension online or the few games where I dumped all my resources on the table and was forced into topdeck mode. Still, it’s hard to argue with success in a slot that ultimately doesn’t really affect the bottom-line of the deck.

There isn’t much else to say on the topic of Pyromancer Ascension that hasn’t been said by others so I’ll leave it at that. It’s still a great deck and will continue to tally top eights until the rotation.

Soul Sisters
25^th place at U.S. Nationals as played by Gavin Verhey

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15 Plains 4 Kabira Crossroads 4 Tectonic Edge 4 Ajanis Pridemate 4 Kor Firewalker 4 Ranger of Eos 4 Serra Ascendant 4 Soul Warden 4 Souls Attendant 4 Brave the Elements 3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 2 Oblivion Ring 4 Survival Cache Sideboard 2 Celestial Purge 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 4 Luminarch Ascension 2 Oblivion Ring 3 Path to Exile 1 Sun Titan 1 War Priest of Thune

I like this deck if only because it’s trying to do something absurd that nobody was expecting. After trying it out for a bit, I confirmed my suspicions that a lot of its juice was based around abusing the lack of mass creature removal left in the format (and decline in Path to Exiles) and people’s misevaluation of threats. If you’ve never played against the deck before, it’s pretty easy to miss dealing with the key cards in the deck (the Wardens) since they aren’t the 14/14 smashing your face in. Additionally the deck plays just enough ‘good cards’ like Elspeth, Knight Errant and Brave the Elements that it can still end games that look out of reach for the WW player.

With the cat out of the bag, I can’t imagine people won’t be playing against this in some capacity both on and offline. You’ll be losing some points in that regard, but that might not be such a big deal, as many people are moving away from UW Control, which seems like the worst match-up for this deck other than Ascension. Yeah, nobody really seemed to talk about the Ascension match, but after playing it from both sides it seems pretty much impossible for the WW player unless they get a god draw or the Ascension player just keeps hitting bricks. Everything other than Pridemate just comes out too slow on the attack to beat the Ascension player and with many of them switching to 8 Bolts they can easily buy enough time to go off against early aggro.

Other than those annoyances, the deck seems reasonable against the rest of the field and has the most room to be tweaked with a splash of any deck currently available. I know I’ve already started messing with the potential Blue splash for Spell Pierce and Negate. See, even though I’m sure that sort of thing has been considered before settling on WW, because let’s face it nobody would willingly go Mono-White without a really good reason, the Polymorph board plan thing threw me enough that I want to check anyway. My word of warning to those who plan on crushing this deck with anything obvious like Cunning Sparkmage, Chain Reaction or Day of Judgment is to be very careful not to overvalue your answers. It doesn’t take a heck of a lot of innovation sideboard-wise to blank many of those cards, and if you value your hands based on those cards, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Many decks in this format have a reasonable game against this deck to begin with (once you understand the game plan) and shouldn’t be messed with too severely.

RDW
2^nd place at U.S. Nationals as played by Anthony Eason

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4 Arid Mesa 8 Mountain 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Smoldering Spires 4 Teetering Peaks 4 Ball Lightning 4 Goblin Guide 4 Hell S Thunder 4 Hellspark Elemental 4 Burst Lightning 4 Earthquake 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Searing Blaze 4 Staggershock Sideboard 4 Devastating Summons 2 Forked Bolt 4 Goblin Bushwhacker 2 Manabarbs 3 Ricochet Trap

An old favorite! One could be forgiven for wondering why I bother to visit this seemingly obvious deck for the umpteenth time. See, normally I wouldn’t give this deck a second glance, but the sideboard is truly a thing of beauty and gave me a good laugh after the panning Chapin took over the Summons combo. Seeing it here just reminds me of how good a quick burst of 10-12 damage really is against a variety of decks like Valakut with the bare minimum in ways of removing creatures from the board. Lightning Bolt may be fine at taking out Goblin Guide and Ball Lightning, but it is less so at stopping 5/4 hasted Tokens from running Ascension and Valakut decks over.

Ricochet Trap is another card that has popped up now and again, but usually just to annoy Control players. Now that there’s a perfectly valid Time Warp deck running around that actually beats Red instead of scooping to it, this seems like a fine time for the Trap to make a return. Remember that Red sideboards aren’t exactly netting tons of value for their pilots, so even if this board seems a little overly focused on those matches, this is optimizing the percentage points you’ll gain post-board. With the four Earthquakes maindeck along with the usual suite of burn, there isn’t a heck of a lot else he can do in the Hierarch matches anyway.

Dredge-uh-Vine
4^th place at U.S. Nationals as piloted by David Ochoa

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3 Drowned Catacomb 6 Forest 3 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Scalding Tarn 2 Swamp 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Enclave Cryptologist 4 Extractor Demon 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Hedron Crab 4 Merfolk Looter 3 Noble Hierarch 4 Renegade Doppelganger 1 Sedraxis Alchemist 4 Vengevine Sideboard 3 Natures Claim 4 Obstinate Baloth 2 Pithing Needle 3 Sleep 3 Unified Will

In another, “Man, I wish I had pushed this concept further,” we have Dredge-uh-Vine which helped catapult fellow CF writers David Ochoa and Brad Nelson to top eight finishes at U.S. Nationals. The problem with the original Dredgevine deck was simple; it wasn’t quite consistent or quick enough to justify its existence. It felt like the worst Naya deck ever created instead of a soulless killing machine sent to hunt down and destroy mustachio’d pigs…

Wait, that’s Angry Birds. My bad, back on topic… As I was saying, the problem with the Dredgevine deck was that you were at the complete mercy of your draws. Sure, Looters helped solve some problems, but they were slow and clunky and the next time my Cryptologist ate a Lightning Bolt it would be too soon. Cards like Bloodghast and multiples of Sedraxis Alchemist just made the deck clunkier than it should’ve been; they didn’t accomplish all that much, but it didn’t seem that Vengevine and Extractor Demon were strong enough to build around.

With the added consistency of Fauna Shaman and the increased speed from a multitude of mana accelerants making Renegade Doppleganger one of the best cards in the deck instead of a role-player, the new version of the deck hums along nicely. While still vulnerable to certain cards like Cunning Sparkmage and Pyroclasm, the sheer number of redundant parts makes that far less of an issue. Plus with the updated sideboard, cards like Unified Will and Pithing Needle can take care of those cards with nary a misstep.

However, not everything is sunshine and triple-stars with DV. As we saw in some of the coverage featuring the deck, it can be overpowered by other midrange staples like Summoning Trap and Valakut, since its slower hands kill at roughly the same speed at those decks, knocking it down to a die-roll. Additionally, with no way to interact with the opponent game one outside of killing them, it is at the mercy of any particularly strong starts. A quick Mythic draw can end the game before this deck even gets the graveyard flowing, Linvala mocks the entire concept of the deck, and the same goes with Ascension getting its namesake online and going to town. And of course it still has the same old issue with certain hate cards like Relic of Progenitus or the classic Vengevine enemy, Bojuka Bog as fetched by Knight of the Reliquary.

Despite the bashing in the last paragraph, I’m very excited to see this sort of linear have real success. Running this many Looters in a deck to not only power the main engine of the deck, but to smooth your draws to this extent reminds me of playing in a format with Sensei’s Divining Top or Brainstorm. Just like with Ascension, I think the key factor in these decks success is the sheer amount of filtering they can do in the early turns while so many other decks rely on pure luck for not bricking themselves right out of the game. In the end that’s the best you can really do, play a deck that gives you access to cards that let you dig out of trouble spots and play to your outs. It just so happens that those decks don’t necessarily have to feature Jace, the Mind Sculptor anymore.

Happy hunting to those of you playing Standards over these next couple of weekends; the format has finally hit the peak of variety you’ve all cried out for.

Josh Silvestri

Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom

Bonus Deck:

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2 Sphinx of Lost Truths 4 Vengevine 4 Squadron Hawk 4 Fauna Shaman 4 Lotus Cobra 2 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 3 Eldrazi Monument 4 Jace Beleren 4 Preordain 3 Plains 4 Island 7 Forest 2 Seaside Citadel 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Stirring Wildwood 4 Celestial Colonnade

Jane – “Well, only that he’s a foot taller, and he seems to be left-handed now…Frank, what are you trying to tell me? That Quentin has somehow found an exact double for Dr. Mainheimer and that tomorrow that double will give a fraudulent report to the President?”

Frank – “Why that’s brilliant. That’s a lot better than what I came up with.”

– Frank and Jane hash out the bad guys’ scheme inNaked Gun 2 ½

I originally had one idea for this week’s article, cleverly centered solely around a non-controversial discussion of what we can learn from current Hall of Fame members. However, your response to last week’s column was tremendous, and we’ve received a flood of replies to the online version of the Magic Strengths Survey (if you missed it last week, you can always click here to take the survey). Your abundant replies merged with the original idea for this week’s column, leading to what I’m actually going to talk about today.

Today’s goal – using tags to identify our strengths

Today I’m going to introduce a concept that I hope will be helpful to you and your friends, the idea of making a highly simplified “traits” list that highlights your strengths and checks in on your most notable weakness. The idea here is to build a fast, intuitive way that you and your friends can help each other get a handle on your most intuitive strengths. In the second part of today’s article, I’m going to invite all of you to help use the exact same method to help build the “language of Magic effectiveness” that we’re going to use in characterizing what makes good players good.

The problem – building our “character sheet”

I’ve brought up the problem of categorizing before. It boils down to this issue – do we try to set rigid categories in advance, or do we try to figure out a way to let them organically develop over time? This is last week’s problem of trying to make a computer that knows how to buy you a nice tie. Do we set the rules ahead of time, or try to wait and see what rules naturally arise?

The character, sheet, D&D edition

If you’ve ever played D&D, or any other pen-and-paper roleplaying game, or, say, World of Warcraft, you’re familiar with the idea of preset attributes.

We enter these games with a predefined group of characteristics, and then generate a character by determining how effective it is in each area. This has the convenience of giving you a conceptual framework to think about the character. As you’ll no doubt have gathered from from my articles, I’m a fan of conceptual frameworks.

But I’m not going to provide a pre-defined conceptual framework today.

However, I wanted to mention the idea because one of the results of all of the MEP work will be a kind of conceptual framework. Once you have names for relevant strengths, you can start to apply those names to understanding yourself and other players. This is very much what we see with Wizards and their market research concerning Magic. They didn’t just decide on the Timmy, Johnny, and Spike player profiles. Instead, these arose from their customer research. Now that they have them, though, they use them, and they can even build tests that will tell you which one you are.

So that’s in the future. For now, however, we have something different in mind.

The character sheet, FUDGE edition

The other approach is to build our framework as we go.

You’ve probably heard of D&D, but I’m going to guess most of you haven’t heard of Steffan O’Sullivan’s FUDGE system. It’s a pen-and-paper rule set that’s designed to be quick, easy, and intuitive. One of the most entertaining aspects of the system is that when you set up a game you can define your abilities, and then those abilities are rated using natural words instead of numbers.

Sadly, I don’t have the character sheet from an archaeologist I played a number of years ago in one of Bill Stoddard’s games, but I recall that she had at least the following three skills:

• Archaeology
• Guns
• Deity

You see, it was a superhero game in the vein of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and her deal was that she was an avatar of the Sumerian death goddess. Rather than trying to figure out how I was going to shoehorn “be a goddess” into a predefined set of attributes, we were able to actually make that into a skill.

In other words, we built the framework to suit the story.

Building a framework for discussing Magic

“Building a framework for discussing Magic” is pretty much the entire point of the MEP, with the caveat that it is focused specifically on discussing the traits that make players good at Magic. There are many, many other areas where we also would like to build frameworks, but right here, we’re all about what makes good players good.

One way we’re building that framework is from detailed analysis of your survey results. That’s great, but after you fill in the survey it’s pretty non-participatory, and you won’t get to see more analysis for a little while. In the meantime, we’d like to check in with a fast version that you can put into action today with some help from your friends.

We’re going to make some tags.

Pulling tags out of thin air

The inspiration for my deviation away from the original plan for this week’s article was when I started thinking about asking all of you to “tag” the traits of well-known players. I’m still going to ask you to do that (later). But just thinking about tagging traits put my mind in the territory of “tag clouds,” of the type you might have seen on certain blogs as a way of giving you quick access to certain content.

The idea behind one of these clouds is that it gives you a quick visualization of the content of a site, a book, a document, or whatever. For example, let’s take a look at what happens if we make a word cloud of cards that have appeared in decks played by Frank Karsten:

The input used to generate this cloud was all of the decks from Karsten’s Hall of Fame profile page, with the lands stripped out. A card’s name is bigger if there are more copies of the card across those lists.

Thus, the cloud tells us that Sensei’s Divining Top is the defining card of Frank’s deck inventory, whereas Skyshroud Poacher is a bit player (it’s over there on the right, hiding next to Farseek).

I ran a similar, rough analysis of the MEP Survey results so far, and learned that…

…”Jund” was mentioned 46 times, “Mythic” 18 times, “Naya” 17 times, and “Eldrazi” 11 times. I’m guessing these were answers to the “what deck would you PTQ with” question.

…”control” appears 84 times, followed by 53 instances of “aggro” and 38 instances of “combo.”

…”Legacy” showed up 31 times. I have no idea in what context, but it’s certainly more mentions than I expected. “Vintage” has appeared 16 times so far.

Perhaps most notably, “friends,” “friend,” “group,” “team,” “community,” and “network” combine to generate a whopping 238 appearances, suggesting that friends really are a big deal for all of you.

Now, I’m going to use results like these from your survey answers to help identify and characterize traits that make for good Magic players, but as I said, it’ll take a bit of time. In the meantime, we’re going to lean on this core concept of friendship to apply the tagging method to all of you, right now.

Tagging your friends

The basic exercise is simple. Take a Magic player you know, and write down six words that describe his or her traits as a player.

Specifically, you’re going to write down:

1) Five strengths
2) One weakness

We emphasize strength over weakness here because, as discussed previously, we gain a lot more out of playing to our strengths. That said, we want the one weakness because if there’s a critical hole in their game, they’re going to need to patch it.

I know that seems disarmingly simple, so I’ll address a couple quick questions you may have.

Why are my friends rating me? Can’t I rate myself?

No, you can’t.

Well, you can, but you suck at it. We all do. First of all, the worse we are at something, the less likely we are to realize it. Second of all, as I’ve touched on before, if we’re really good at something, we tend to think it’s “so easy that anyone could do it.” So, essentially, you’re going to write down five things you suck at, but don’t realize it, and then write in a weakness that may or may not be correct.

Instead, let’s get some perspective and let our friends give us a hand.

Why is it one word? I could write an essay about how good my pal Bob is at mulliganing!

Well, your unhealthy obsession with Bob aside, we want single words because this kind of answer forces you to focus on what matters. Also, it means you’re handing Bob there a list of things he, too, can focus on, instead of a love letter about his ability to know when to keep dicey hands.

This sucks. Bob clearly has more than five strengths, so why can’t I write more?

Bob may be an awesome gamer, but we just want you to write his top five because he will get by far the most gain out of focusing on his top strengths…and because you’re not the only one handing him one of these lists. If everyone just goes crazy and writes down a bunch of traits, Bob’s going to end up with a laundry list instead of a usable set of answers.

A practical exercise and an experiment – tagging the Hall

Check this out:

Yeah, I’m picking on Frank today. Given his first trait, he felt like an appropriate example. So, here’s my reasoning for each trait.

Frank is clearly analytical. He top eighted Worlds 2008 with an “aggregate Faeries” list that he generated by taking the statistical average of a wide pool of winning Faeries and playing that – because he didn’t have time to test. Seriously, that’s his “rush job” approach. Craziness.

He’s careful in his play style. Watch him in the quarterfinals at Worlds 2005 and see how he manages to avoid rushing any plays, and can take home a win in a truly careful manner.

When I call him an adopter, I mean that Frank is really good at spotting the “good” tech early on. Although he’s credited as the innovator of Vial Affinity, Frank points to Julien Nuijten as the man with the idea…but Frank recognized its value and ran with it to a GP top eight.

Frank is famously tenacious, making it to ninth place at PT Yokohama 2007 despite spending all of day two in a vomit-themed haze.

Finally, Frank is patient, keeping his wits together through a marathon forty-five minute game one in the quarters of Worlds 2005…

…which lasted that long because Frank is incredibly slow.

So there we go. The goal here is to kick out a nice, punchy little set of words that you think describe the player, whether they’re one of your friends (for the exercise I outlined above) or a Hall of Famer (for today’s experiment!). Notice that I’m not stuck on using adjectives, nouns, or any particular part of speech. Just throw in whichever words feel natural and feel like the best fit for the person you’re describing.

The experiment – tag the Hall!

We’re going to close out today with another opportunity for all of us to participate in building the language of “good Magic.” In a moment, I’m going to give you a link to a survey, which asks you to do a very easy thing – describe the current members of the Hall of Fame.

For each one, the survey asks you to label them with up to five one-word strengths and a single weakness.

Of course, you may not be familiar with some of the Hall of Fame members, so you can skip as many as you want. If you only feel comfortable writing in some strengths for Mike Turian and Kai Budde and you want to give everyone else a pass, go for it.

Similarly, if you can only think of two words to describe Zvi Mowshowitz, that’s cool, too.

The goal here is to use players who are (1) well-known and (2) good at the game as a basis for collecting useful descriptive language about the game. The results from this quick survey will then be used to help understand all the wonderful information we’ve collected in the original MEP Survey.

Ready to go? Cool.

Click here to take the survey

It pays to be nice

Remember how some variation of “friends” was the top performing word in our aggregated survey results? I think we want to keep that in mind as we play with, test with, and rate the other members of our gaming groups, and our community. If you’re going to do the tagging exercise, this is your chance to push your teammates into positive territory. Don’t be the lone jackass who brings the group down by taking this opportunity to hide behind a shield of irony and insult your friends. Give positive, get positive.

I’ll look forward to hearing about how this exercise has worked in your groups, and I’m looking forward to how you evaluate the Hall of Famers in the survey. This wil be the last survey for a while, as you all have buried me in a wave of enthusiastic survey responses.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy rooting for team ChannelFireball at PT Amsterdam. Who do you think is going to take it down? Which decks will dominate? Which strengths will prevail? Let me know in the comments.

For constructed, I originally looked to Ascension. If a lot of people think a combo deck is good, it is usually safe to say I will like it even more. However, I didn’t really find Ascension particularly strong, because there are many frustrating games with the deck. Some of the time, I wouldn’t find the Ascension even after looking at a lot of cards. Another portion of the time, I would find the Ascension, get it active, and then simply miss on drawing a gas spell to get the engine going. Post-board games are also frustrating as you can’t dilute your deck too much and most decks have some sideboard hate. While none of these factors cost you a whole lot, the combination leads to a lackluster deck choice. As much as I love combo, sometimes there simply isn’t a combo deck that’s good enough.

The next place I looked to was Mythic. This was a lot more promising. My perennial roommate at tournaments, Tom Raney, has done better with Mythic than just about anybody (3/3 PTQ top 8s including a win, top 32 GP Manilla). Wrapter (as you probably know by now) was also working on Mythic. While Mythic is generally thought of as an explosive aggro deck, it really has many combo elements. This inspired Wrapter to try to turn Mythic into a combo deck. Since the default combo deck in Standard wasn’t good enough, I thought that this was a very attractive strategy.

Essentially Mythic has a lot of the same elements as Turboland, except they are all cheaper. Rampant Growth and Explore become Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch. Avenger of Zendikar becomes Sovereigns of Lost Alara. Jace, the Mind Sculptor stays. Time Warp becomes… Time Warp? Ponder becomes… Ponder? This is where the unconventional part comes in: in the Mythic list I played at Nationals, both Time Warp and Ponder were included. Ironically, I was simply playing a Sovereigns combo deck, which turned out to be a better Turboland deck.
The one disadvantage compared to normal Turboland for this deck is vulnerability to Wrath of God and spot removal. Turboland would often play no targets for removal or at most play Lotus Cobra. The thing is, removal really isn’t that popular in this metagame. GW light removal decks are popular, Ramp only plays Lightning Bolts, UW cut its Wraths for the most part and uses Condemn (which isn’t effective against this deck), and Ascension has been cutting Burst Lightnings and just playing Bolts. Thus, this was a combo deck that was good enough. Here is what Tom and I played to a combined 8-4 record:

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Acceleration 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Lotus Cobra 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Time Warp Combo 4 Sovereigns of Lost Alara 2 Eldrazi Conscription Card Draw 4 Ponder 2 Preordain 2 Jace Beleren 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Lands 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Verdant Catacombs 1 Scalding Tarn 4 Celestial Colonnade 1 Sejiri Steppe 1 Plains 3 Island 5 Forest 2 Sunpetal Grove Sideboard 2 Spell Pierce 2 Dispel 2 Jace Beleren 4 Mana Leak 4 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 1 Bojuka Bog

Most of the choices in the above list should be pretty clear once you think of it as a faster Turboland deck. The manabase isn’t built to grind with lots of Stirring Wildwoods, but instead has more untapped lands like Sunpetal Grove. In addition, by cutting Gideon Jura, Elspeth, and Baneslayer Angel, the White simply becomes a splash for Knight of the Reliquary and Sovereigns. This means you can get away with having your only non-creature White sources being 4 Celestial Colonnade, 2 Sunpetal Grove, 1 Sejiri Steppe, and 1 Plains. By playing more Islands instead of White sources, Jace Beleren becomes a very realistic turn 2 play. Thus, I split 2 and 2 between big Jace and little Jace rather than playing 4 big Jace.

Sovereigns combo usually casts Sovereigns on turn 4, but does it on Turn 3 a much bigger portion of the time than you would expect. Here are some draws that hopefully don’t seem that unlikely, but still lead to a turn 3 Sovereigns: (Bird means Bird/Noble, you should assume I’m playing a generic untapped land if not specified, Time Warp turns count as turn 3a and 3b, and any time you see tapland, it can also be replaced with Ponder or Preordain and an untapped land).
Turn 1 Bird, Turn 2 Tapland, Cobra. Turn 3 Fetch, Sovereigns.
Turn 1 Bird, Turn 2 Cobra Tapland, Turn 3a Time Warp, Turn 3b Sovereigns (for every Ponder or Preordain you add to this one, you also need a fetch to make up the mana).
Turn 1 Bird, Turn 2 Knight, Turn 3a Time Warp, Turn 3b Tapland Time Warp, Turn 3c Sovereigns (this one is nice because it leaves you attacking with a huge Knight)
Turn 1 Tapland, Turn 2 Cobra, Turn 3a Fetch, Time Warp, Turn 3b Fetch Sovereigns.
Turn 1 Tapland, Turn 2 Cobra, Turn 3a Cobra, Fetch, Time Warp, Turn 3b Sovereigns or Fetch, Conscription

With two Eldrazi Conscriptions in your deck, any of these starts are basically unbeatable unless your opponent disrupts your acceleration early (which as I said earlier doesn’t happen as much in this format). This means that in some large percentage of games, you are going to get these unbeatable draws. Both Tom and I had a few matches where we simply got turn 3 Conscription out both games. The clock often had only ticked for 10 minutes before the match was over. While obviously these wins aren’t really where skill is going to come into play, there is nothing wrong with getting free wins every once in a while. Here is how I think about it: about once a match, you will get a free win with a nut draw. All you have to do is win one of the two “real” games and the match is yours.

The downside of playing the combo-y version of Mythic is that the sideboard is a lot lousier than normal Mythic’s because you can’t free up slots by playing Mana Leak main and you aren’t great at casting Linvala, Keeper of Silence. The one part of the sideboard I do like is the one mana counters. Dispel and Spell Pierce are instrumental for forcing through a Sovereigns or planeswalker against Blue White. You already have a mana advantage against Blue White with your accelerants, and having cheaper counters than them just pushes you miles ahead. While the sideboard for this deck isn’t as powerful as normal Mythic’s, I think it is worth the cost because the game ones with this deck are a lot better than the game ones of normal Mythic. I would definitely recommend this spin on Mythic for future Standard tournaments.

While I did o.k. in the standard portion, draft was where the tournament went particularly well for me. I came in really liking the Black Red sacrifice archetype discussed in my last article, and didn’t really find Blue quite as insane as everyone else. I thought that, in general, people underrated aggressive archetypes, so I liked the base White aggro deck as well.

In the first draft, I first picked Squadron Hawk over Armored Ascension in a weak pack. I unfortunately never saw another Squadron Hawk the rest of the draft, but still managed to start fine. I saw hints that Green was open, but didn’t really jump into Green until I opened a Garruk Wildspeaker. I ended up with a very solid Green White aggressive deck. Besides the awkward one Hawk without buddies, I also had two Garruks Companions without many other green cards. I played a pretty even split of mana even though I was light on Green cards to support the Companions, which worked fine. I played the Hawk simply as a 1/1 flier for two since my deck was so aggressive. I 3-0′d the draft by simply beating people down and backing it up with Inspired Charge.

In the second draft, I first picked a Blinding Mage over a Foresee. I think a lot of pros would not make this pick since people value Blue and specifically Foresee so highly, but I really think this format is faster than people think. I would rather punish people for playing a card that costs four and has no board impact than play one myself. Awkwardly, after passing Foresee, pack one put me solidly in Blue White. I then got two more early Blinding Mages in pack two. From that point on, I took every Scroll Thief in sight. I was able to get cheaper, more situational removal like Ice Cage late which was a great follow-up to a turn three Thief. In the draft games, I usually had one game a match where Scroll Thief dominated. I would simply open with turn 2 Blinding Mage, turn 3 Thief, and then use my spells to make sure to hit with Thief for the next few turns. It almost felt like playing Mythic! Unfortunately, I mulliganed in both of the games in which I didn’t get a Scroll Thief draw and lost a match against the other 2-0 deck.

The one thing these two decks had in common was Infantry Veteran. This card is simply a house. In both drafts, I managed to table Veterans and ended up with four in the first draft and three in the second. With the first deck, the Veterans made blocking miserable for my opponent and pushed through damage. They later got pumped a little themselves by Inspired Charge.

In the second, the Veteran allowed Scroll Thief to attack as a 2/4. This meant that in order to prevent me from drawing a card a turn, the opponent would have to put up multiple creatures that could fight a 2/4. This is not easy to do against a triple Blinding Mage/double Pacifism/double Ice Cage deck. I could often prevent all of my opponent’s creatures from blocking, but when I only had to prevent creatures that could fight a 2/4 from blocking, it didn’t even seem fair. Infantry Veteran is the most underrated card in M11: I definitely owe a lot of my success in the draft portion to the little soldier that could.

In the end, I didn’t get my desired result from Nationals. However, I still played a lot of Magic and learned a lot about Standard, and more importantly, M11 limited. I’m very excited for the upcoming M11 Grand Prix and the draft portion of Amsterdam; I’m definitely looking forward to draft more of this format.

The Railbird Hall of Fame

I’m really sick of HOF articles at this point. The first one or two articles were a decent read, to catch up on historical trends and forgotten heroes, and Teddy K’s article was sweet, but other than that, I’ve been skimming pretty heavily. Here’s a forgotten criterion for entry into the HOF: “no one had to make an argument for this person, their career spoke for itself.” Anyways, who cares.

Instead, I’d like to discuss my idea and ballot for the Railbird Hall of Fame. Railbirding means participating as an observer. The term has its origin in horse racing, the sport of kings (and degenerates), and came to Magic by way of poker. In Magic, the Railbird is somewhat of an ignored species. We all know who we want to show up and watch us, who makes the events more fun, and who has a smile on their face after watching you win round 3, even though they themselves went 0-2 drop. Even though we have a sense of these things, we don’t stop to thank the Railbirds for their dedicated service. The Railbird Hall of Fame seeks to change all of that.

Many sports halls of fame have wings dedicated to writers or broadcasters, the ‘birds of the sport. Observing, commenting, enhancing the experience, these writers and broadcasters deserve recognition, and many sports give it to them.

Here is my 2010 Ballot for the RHOF:

1. Tim Aten

This picture from GenCon 2010 is so powerful that it almost earned Tim Landale (pictured to the left, just behind AJ Sacher in the foreground) an honorable mention. The focal point, however, is Railbirding Legend Tim Aten.

Just this year, Aten showed up at Grand Prix Columbus, but didn’t even bother to register for the tournament, as detailed in his brilliant report here. But here’s the thing, it’s not just 2010, with the above picture from GenCon and the GP Columbus ‘birding and report. He’s been doing this his whole Magic career, and I assume his entire life. Railbirds like Aten aren’t made, they’re hatched. He’s never left a site early in frustration; even when he does play and scrubs out, he sticks around and entertains.

One more picture from the Aten archives:

Look at the guy in the Michael Vick jersey (weeks after Vick’s fall from grace) sitting to the right of this Catch Phrase game. Many people are spectating. How many of them are seated, directly in the middle of the game, looking over the shoulder of not one, but two of the players? One. That one man deserves to lead the inaugural class of inductees into the Railbirding Hall of Fame.

2. Megan Holland

In a certain sense, Megan carries the torch for a category of Railbirds: the rare group of wives and girlfriends who not only put up with Magic, but express an interest, learn the game, and even become familiar with and close to our “Magic friends.” Early trailblazers like Bob Maher’s wife Courtney paved the way for Megan and her baked goods, which have fed PT Champions and PTQ Grinders alike. With that important recognition given, it’s unfair to Megan to describe her merely as just a “Magic wife”; she is her own member of the community.

If you can look at this picture for more than 2 seconds without being creeped out and Googling “Gerry Thompson sex offender registry” (I often can’t), look for Megan in the background. Once again, the best ‘birds find the best rail, right next to the action and within arms reach if a pat on the back to console the loser of a feature match is necessary.

Here again we see the same thing: proximity and focus. She isn’t texting, she isn’t following Kitt (her husband) around and annoying him, she is watching Gindy attempt to beat a master. She knows the game, and she knows how to ‘bird it.

Finally, picture seeing this after losing to someone round 5:

The frustration from the fact that you somehow just lost to someone named “Calosso” just melts away as you peel back that paper wrapper.

3. Cassius Weathersby

Every ballot includes that one player you grew up with, the slugger you covered for 12 years as a beat writer, the guy who isn’t nationally “in the discussion” but would be if everyone knew what you know. Cassius Weathersby, III is that pick for me. He’s a no-brainer for me, but for you, he probably needs an introduction.

Like Tim Aten, discussed above, Cassius is a good Magic player, much much better than most, but he often chooses not to play tournaments, even those tournaments he attends. He’s traveled to PTQs and GPs near and far just to ‘bird, and he makes every single one of them more fun for his friends who did decide to play. He’s also rarely in a bad mood. Cassius is the flag-bearer for me in two important categories: 1) the road trip, and 2) the inside joke. Regarding the road trip, if Cassius is in your car, a 6 hour drive can seem like 3, and sometimes you don’t even want it to end. One of the reasons is category 2, inside jokes. Remember that time 2 months ago when you thought the girl at the Taco Bell drive through was cute, and you started to say something but then backed out and made an ass of yourself? Well, Cassius remembers. In fact, he intends to quote it word for word next time HE pulls up to the drive through with you in the passenger seat. If you think of something clever, Cassius is ready with the second and third versions of the joke that are even funnier and keep the laughs going.

Cassius is the ULTIMATE comedic railbird. Gary Talim (one time Pro Tour Top 8 Competitor and the ORIGINAL Gary/Gerry T) once was playing for top 8 in a Zendikar limited PTQ.  Gary is at 3 life in game 3. He plays a Stonework Puma onto an empty board.  It gets Mark of Mutinied for the win.  Cassius immediately, from the rail, says at full volume in a robust falsetto, “Shoulda played around it!” I still can’t discuss this event without laughing, and it’s a recurring joke.

When it came to light that James Gates is religious, Cassius was ready when the time was right with, “Should have PRAYED around it,” and I laughed uncontrollably.

He comes up with songs like “Jungle Weaver” (to the tune of Jungle Fever) and even auto-tuned a song about Magic using the T-Pain App that no one but him could have pulled off.

Cassius earns his living as a respiratory therapist, working with and supervising patients. He’s chosen to be a medical Railbird of sorts. He doesn’t prescribe anything or perform surgery, but he’s working with you and can be just as important. I thought that was worth mentioning.

That’s it for my ballot. See folks, if you can’t immediately spot 5 candidates who stand out, then you shouldn’t vote for 5 people. I’ve restricted this very important first ballot to those who deserve to be inducted in the initial ceremony.

Impulsive vs. Deliberate

Now for the “strategy” half of the article, where I’ll discuss one of the most important differences between 17-year-old Matt Sperling, and the now 27-year-old me who is actually good at Magic.

You walk into a seedy bar off the strip in Vegas, and you go up to the first patron you see and shout “You’re a piece of sh**.” I’m now going to ask you to imagine the reactions of different hypothetical patrons receiving this insult. First, picture Nicky Santoro, Joe Pesci’s character in Casino. Next, picture Sam “Ace” Rothstein, DeNiro’s character from the same film. If you haven’t seen the movie Casino, instead first picture Rasheed Wallace, and then picture Phil Jackson. If you aren’t familiar with either Casino or the NBA, picture someone who has reasonable tastes in movies or entertainment and then picture them picturing the above examples.

If those who are impulsive and brash, and others who are calculating and reserved, sit on opposite ends of a continuum, characters such as those described above make it fairly easy to imagine the extremes along this continuum. Somewhere in the middle we likely find ourselves. Personally, I’m more Nicky than Ace, though I don’t routinely physically assault or murder those who frustrate me. What this means for my Magic game is that I make most of the decisions impulsively without really consciously considering alternatives. When I was younger (8-10 years ago), I was a full-blown Magic: The Gathering version of Nicky Santoro. I hardly thought deliberately about even the mulligan decision. If it looked good, I kept. If it looked bad, I would mulligan. The fact that I won PTQs back then is a testament to the power of human automaticity with enough repetition. Nowadays I always make myself deliberately consider not just my first instinct, but also the alternative decision (mulligan or keep) when deciding whether to mulligan. My phrasing here is important: I make myself consider the alternatives. It still isn’t all that natural for me. There are benefits to my generally impulsive style. As an example, I played Counterbalance-Top in a 16 round Grand Prix recently, and only went to extra turns once (and the game ended on turn 3 of those extra turns). Some people, pros even, won’t play Counterbalance-Top; they can’t handle the swings (they fear numerous unintentional draws).

Let’s take an example of someone closer to the Sam Rothstein end of the spectrum: former Pro Tour luminary (and current casual trading luminary) Chris Benafel. A skeptic familiar with the history of the PT’s first reaction might be that Chris played slowly in order to stall or put himself in a position to stall if he needed to later on. Two responses: 1) obv, and 2) I’ve played a lot of unsanctioned, untimed Magic with Chris Benafel on my team (doing something that rhymes with “Funny Draft” but is more serious) and Chris takes forever to finish a match even when you eliminate the incentive for stalling. He’s essentially very deliberate about nearly every decision he can spot. He takes forever, but plays well (and tilts the opponent along way).

In terms of developing a maximally productive play style, Matt Sperling has a lot to learn from Chris Benafel, and Chris Benafel has a lot to learn from Matt Sperling. Perhaps you can learn from both. The fact that rounds of Magic are timed means that there is a limited amount of deliberation you can allocate among the hundreds of decisions you have to make in a match. This means that in addition to working on your general level of impulsiveness vs. deliberateness, you’ll need to dive into the specifics of when you should be acting deliberately, and how much to deliberate.

In general, as you deliberate, you reduce the intuitive “sense” about what to do, and in exchange, you (hopefully) receive a logical reason or set of logical reasons why one choice is the best choice. Just keep in mind the tradeoff; there’s a reason that on multiple choice tests your first instinct after reading the question and answers should be accorded some extra weight if later on two answers both seem plausible.

The process of answering questions such as “Who’s the beatdown?” and “Does he have a counterspell in hand?” should be intuitively driven, with a little boost from deliberately considering the possibilities. Personally, I only occasionally actively consider who is the beatdown and who is the control player, and yet I play differently based on who I feel is which position. Playing a lot is the only way to develop this sense.

When it comes to something like mulliganing or figuring out which 5-drop will kill the opponent faster, additional active thought can be helpful.

What I advise that you do is to take stock of which decisions you actively deliberate on, and which you make automatically. As a first step, if you find that you deliberate almost all the time or almost never, you’ll know you need to strike a better balance. Second, think about whether it would be better to just trust your instinct about who was “winning the race” rather than trying to calculate who is the beatdown. Are you consistently correct when you do calculate? How often does your deliberation yield a different result than your intuition? If either of these questions is “not very often,” just trust your instincts. On the other side of the coin, if you’re like I was, you’ll be able to spot impulsive decisions that are costly. That “snap keep” of a risky 7 card hand, those times you don’t even figure out if an alpha strike would be lethal. For me, I construct mental signposts in a way, little things to look for that tell me “slow down, think about things.” One of those signposts is “if each player has several creatures, consider attackers carefully.” This reminder might sound silly, but I really have a tendency to act, even on a complex board, without careful enough deliberation.

For “slow” players, it isn’t that you need to trust your first instinct every time and act impulsively to improve (and start finishing round after round without going into extra time). It might just be that you deliberate too long when you “go into the tank.” I wouldn’t waste my time giving the advice “come up with the right answer faster.” Everyone knows that is optimal, and everyone knows it takes practice and maybe a little “talent” to become really good at it. What I’m suggesting is different. Even with the same analytical skills you have now, just trusting your first, second, and third intuitions about a situation will speed up your game while likely not decreasing you level of play by much. I see too many players not trusting themselves and waffling back and forth on a decision without a sense of determination and purpose. Here’s an aid I would use to picture why you shouldn’t “tank” too long: decisions are like women – Owen Turtenwald has never hooked up with a good one, and also, you don’t want to always say the first thing that comes to mind, but if you aren’t spontaneous and your actions appear “forced,” it’s actually worse than just being impulsive and occasionally insulting/forward. OK, that might not have made much sense, but if I delete it I have to delete that beat against Owen so just reread it a few times then give up.

Confidence is an important part of deliberation. A lack of confidence is what leads to a lengthy tank session. An opponent at GP Columbus told me something about my game very close to “even when you’re revealing blind off Counterbalance, you seem so confident you’re going to counter the spell.” In reality, I have no idea whether the spell will be countered by a blind Counterbalance, I’m just a dick who thinks he’s good at Magic (not really but that’s what it looks like at least). Confidence helps me make decisions quickly, listen to my instincts, and not give away information. When a player lacks confidence, you can spot all their decisions during a game. There are reasons Cabal Therapy in the hands of a trained professional plays like Thoughtseize. One of those reasons is that players reveal their “decision points” (meaning the times during the game when they are contemplating their options) by deliberating, and based on when you observe those decision points, you can deduce (or get a feel) for what cards they are holding. Sometimes it’s a conscious “What was he thinking about doing with just 1 mana open?” and sometimes it’s an intuitive sense that the opponent chose not to kill your creature, rather than was unable to kill it. By playing intuitively and with confidence, your decision points are less visible to the opponent. Of course, it’s also helpful to mix in some fake deliberation, of the same duration as your real deliberation. The reason mixing a lot of fake deliberation in with your real deliberation is a sub-optimal strategy (relative to concealing all or most of your deliberation in the first place) is that the rounds barely have enough time for all your real deliberations, let alone real + feigned.

Over time, with practice, what must be deliberate becomes what we are able to do automatically. Think about how much thought it takes you to start your car and drive to work, whereas when you first learned, everything took deliberation. Yet even as things are automatic, you still need to train yourself about when to stop and think, such as when you feel the urge to text someone, or you might miss your freeway exit if you don’t think about when it is. Maybe you’re just learning to drive, or maybe you keep missing that exit because you just “autopilot” home when you mean to go somewhere else. Either way, be patient, you’ll figure it out.

-Matt Sperling
mtg_law_etc on Twitter.

That thrill from opening Magic packs has never died for me. I once played sealed deck using an entire box of Fallen Empires, and even that was cool every time I opened a pack. I was helping a girlfriend prepare for a Fallen Empires Sealed Box tournament. Sales of Fallen Empires had died and Rob Dougherty, owner of the local game store (and future Hall of Famer,) had decided that it was a creative way to use some of it up. Imagine building a sealed deck from an entire box of M11, how awesome would that be?

Unfortunately, I was going to be away at a bigger tournament, but my girlfriend Michelle viewed this as a fun opportunity. She even had a couple boxes of Fallen Empires that she didn’t have a use for (who did really?) so we could play-test for it. Fallen Empires was a small enough set that the contents of every box were about the same. If you wanted to build a deck that consisted entirely of Hymn to Tourach and Order of the Ebon Hand, that was always an option. We tried them all. Thallids, Goblins/Goblin Grenades, White Weenie, if you could make a deck out of it, we tried it and tested it against the others.

What we discovered surprised us. First, the only good removal in the set was Hand of Justice, Dwarven Catapult, Goblin Grenade and Aeolipile. We ended up playing all of them except for Goblin Grenade. Partly as a result, all of the creatures we played were White. The other reason was Combat Medic, a card that completely shut down all the removal except for Hand of Justice, of which every box seemed to have exactly one. Conveniently, the rest of the deck consisted of Order of Leitbur, which couldn’t be blocked by anything in the Hymn decks. Not surprisingly, the day of the event came and Michelle crushed all of her opponents.

I really enjoyed the surprise of discovering the winning archetype for that format. Unfortunately, after doing it once, there weren’t any more surprises to be found in a box of Fallen Empires. Part of it was the card pool was so big; part of it was that Fallen Empires didn’t have lots of variety. In M11 sealed deck, I’ve had lots of surprises. This week’s two card pools were a good example.

One of the best things about writing this column is having a good excuse to crack 12 extra packs each week. Here are the first six packs:

Artifact:

Black:

Red:

Green:

White:

Blue:

Land:

The excitement I felt opening the packs quickly faded as I inspected my new treasures. This is not a strong card pool. The two things I’m usually hoping for when I open a sealed pool are bombs and removal, things this card pool is missing. The top cards in this pool are:

Sun Titan is definitely a bomb, but I don’t really consider the others to be super-exciting. No Serra Angel, Air Servant, Fireball or even any bomb rares, besides the Titan. The removal situation is even worse: Fling and Quag Sickness, that’s pretty much it. When I have a card pool with these problems, I usually try to make a fast aggressive deck and try to win before my opponent’s bombs and removal take over the game.

The good news is that the White is very good for this plan. Not only do you get lots of good cards for an aggressive deck, you get to play with your one true bomb, Sun Titan. The two colors that seem to combine best with the White are the Red and the Blue.

The problem with the Green is that it’s too shallow. Unless you count the Brindle Boars, it only has nine decent playables and except for Cudgel Troll and Giant Growth, none of them are particularly exciting. While you could play three colors, that will slow your deck down and with a weak card pool like this, that’s usually doom. You should play three colors when you want to fit more bombs and removal into your deck, that isn’t an option here.

The issues with the Black are that it’s shallow and that it’s very color intensive, which is an awful combination. If your best cards are going to require multiple black mana early, than you want lots of black playables. That way most of your mana base can be Swamps and you can just splash another color. While some of the most powerful cards in your mana pool are in Black, none of them are good enough to justify ignoring Black’s drawbacks.

The Red has some cool internal synergy. The Goblin Chieftain goes nicely with the three Goblin Pikers. The Prodigal Pyromancer is good on its own, but terrific with Chandra’s Spitfire. Thunder Strike is also a nice addition to a Red/White rush deck. The problem with the Red it that is that its only burn/removal is Fling and the “strength” of it is a bunch of vanilla 2/1s. A Giant Spider backed up by a Giant Growth or an Azure Drake backed up by Diminish would shut down the whole deck, never mind Pyroclasm.

I think Blue has to be the way to go. While you’re still vulnerable to cards like Pyroclasm and Prodigal Pyromancer, at least you can Scrye into counter-magic to stop them with. The Blue delivers what it is supposed to deliver: Flying, Scrying and permission. Your curve is low enough to put enough pressure on most decks that they can’t play around your Mana Leaks and Mighty Leaps. If they do slip a problem creature through your counters, at least you can use Excommunicate or Unsummon it to give yourself another shot at it.

Blue/White Aggro

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2 Elite Vanguard Infantry Veteran Blinding Mage White Knight 2 Stormfront Pegasus 3 Mighty Leap Excommunicate Sun Titan Unsummon 3 Mana Leak 2 Augury Owl Maritime Guard Cloud Elemental Cancel Azure Drake Foresee Terramorphic Expanse 7 Island 9 Plains

My second card pool was a pleasant surprise. Among other things, when you’re excitedly cracking packs, it’s pretty cool to open not one, but two Obstinate Baloths. I’m definitely playing Green. It’s amazing what a difference a couple Rares can make. Normally Green is my least favorite color in M11. This is in part because it doesn’t have removal and in part because it usually has an awkward mana curve. The most exciting cards in Green generally cost five or more, leaving you quite vulnerable in the early game, especially lacking removal. Not only does this Green pool have three amazing four drops, the two Baloths and the Troll, but the life-gaining from the Baloths compensates for an opponent’s early rush. Now, if only we could pair it with a color that had removal and some good two and three drops. Here’s what I had to work with:

Artifact:

Green:

White:

Red:

Blue:

Black:

Somehow I have another card pool without Red removal, and this time I don’t even have many good early creatures either, so Red/Green is out. The power level of the Black is pretty high. Unfortunately it doesn’t pair well with the Green. Its curve is high, like the Green. It’s color intensive, like the Green. Its turn two plays, Sign in Blood, don’t help you buy time to get to the late game. If they were a couple Child of Night instead, it might be a different story.

The color I would really like to play is Blue. The Blue has seven excellent cards: Mind Control, two Aether Adepts, Azure Drake, Water Servant, Clone and Diminish. Sadly there are only seven and none of them are two drops. While I could try to build a three color deck using one White for two drops, the mana would be unworkable. Early White, double Blue for almost everything and double Green for almost everything.

There is a great deck to be built here without having a horrible mana base or a horrible mana curve. Here is where my surprise came in: I played Green/White. Usually if I’m not playing some combination involving Red, Blue or Black with lots of removal and fliers, I think my deck is awful. This is a pleasant surprise; I think this deck is fantastic.

While playing Green/White successfully in sealed is rare for me, this wouldn’t be the first time. At the Urza’s Destiny Prerelease in Boston, I played a Green/White deck that was all creatures except for a Pacifism. My creatures were mostly huge Green monsters and I had two Plated Spiders, so I didn’t just lose when playing against a deck with some fast flying. The quality of my creatures was so high, that not only did I go 7-0, but I was probably the only person at the top tables without either a Phyrexian Processor or a Masticore. (I did have a Masticore on Day 2!) There are two keys to Green/White, getting to five mana with a reasonable life total and then dropping a huge threat every turn until your opponent is ground into dust. This card pool is perfect for that.

For one thing, how can we ignore the serendipity of having two Ajani’s Pridemate and two Obstinate Baloth? Also, maindecking two Plummet shores up what could be a major weakness of a Green/White deck: an opponent with good flyers. In addition to benefiting from White’s two drops, Green also loves its combat tricks and Armored Ascension. Have I mentioned how much Cudgel Trolls like to fly? Safe Passage and Triskelion are the perfect finishing touches for a deck like this.

Green/White Smash

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Squadron Hawk 2 Ajanis Pridemate Blinding Mage White Knight Stormfront Pegasus Mighty Leap Safe Passage Inspired Charge Armored Ascension Assault Griffin Siege Mastodon 2 Plummet Cultivate 2 Obstinate Baloth Cudgel Troll Greater Basilisk Garruks Packleader Spined Wurm Yavimaya Wurm Triskelion 9 Plains 8 Forest

Like last week, the disparity between the power levels of the two card pools made play-testing interesting. The surprise here was that the Green/White deck was the dominant one. This is what I love about cracking packs and building sealed decks, the surprises. Join me next week as I take a closer look at individual cards and archetypes in sealed deck.

PART TWO

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