Tournament Report - PTQ Coventry

By Jim Marlow

Hey Everyone,

This weekend saw the penultimate (thank God) Standard constructed PTQ of the season for Austin, before London on the 5th of September, which i consider being unable to attend a bit of a blessing.

I was pretty set on playing faeries for the event, because i know faeries, i loved the deck that Wagz took to nationals, and i thought that with some minor changes it was the best deck to combat the u/w baneslayer deck, which, unfortunately, i wrongly assumed everyone would be playing.

This is the deck i took to the ptq for reference

4 x mistbind clique
4 x spellstutter sprite
4 x scion of oona
2 x shriekmaw

4 x bitterblossom

4 x broken ambitions
4 x cryptic command
3 x jace beleren

2 x firespout
4 x lightning bolt

4 x vivid creek
3 x vivid marsh
2 x reflecting pool
2 x cascade bluffs
2 x sunken ruins
4 x secluded glen
3 x mutavault
4 x island
1 x swamp

S/B

4 x anathemancer
2 x banefire
2 x sower of temptation
2 x deathmark
1 x shriekmaw
2 x firespout
2 x plumeveil

Overall i was really happy with the list, and i think any other day with some tighter play and a little bit of luck this could have easily gone the distance, despite a slight misevaluation of the metagame.

Round 1 - Nick playing ubr faeries

Its not great playing nick doroupolous at any stage of a tournament, because he is an incredibly tight player, and of course a close friend of the Leeds community.

Game 1 - I mull to 6 on the draw, but luckily Nick's 2 land bitterblossom hand begins to look increasingly bad when he fails to draw a 3rd land for 3 or 4 turns. By the time Nick has found more lands the damage has already been done, and now with a blossom of my own the game is soon over.

Game 2 - I bring in the anathemancers and banefire's for the shriekmaws, firespouts and 2 bolts. I was tempted to bring in the sowers for the other bolts, as i hear a lot of people say sower is good in the mirror, but i have never been a fan. I start on a fairly contentious mulligan, with 4 lands, 2 jace and an anathemancer. This was really tempting but i was pretty sure i could do better with 6, what do people think. Either way this game was a little closer than the last, but this time Nick found himself flooded, and having landed an anathemancer for 4, then bouncing and replaying for 7, a banefire was the only other spell i needed to resolve, which wasnt much trouble when i played it for lots.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - Ben Heath - g/w little kid

urgh, another Leeds player in the first 2 rounds, i always seem to be driving miles to these events and playing the same guys i play every week at WNM. Also, i thought i was a slight dog in this match if ben got good draws, because it only really takes the resolution of either 1 spectral procession or cloudgoat ranger to really swing the game in his favour.

Game 1 - I kept a pretty decent 7 with broken ambitions, which i know is important in the match for keeping of Ben of his key spells. After some trading of resources, including me firespouting away a great sable stag and 3 spirit tokens and then countering another threat i felt like i was doing okay. Sadly, i couldnt stop the cloudgoat renger, and then windbrisk heights revealed another spectral procession, and sadly that was about all she wrote.

Game 2 - I kept a triple ambitions hand on the play, with a firespout backup. I countered the onslaught on spells Ben tried to resolve and firespouted some other stuff away, eventually allowing me to play the bitterblossom from my opener, and then i had double scion to make sure the clock wasnt long enough for Ben to come back from.

Game 3 - Annoyingly, losing the dice roll meant ben got 2 games on the play, at least, which i knew was pretty relevant in this match for him at least, my only hope being that he didnt have sick draws. Luckily, his first play was a great sable stag, which is fine by me, i think. I have double bolt and a firespout with a reflecting pool, so im ok with some beats as long as i can draw a vivid of cascade bluffs eventually. Sadly, i never draw the red source, and a second sable stag as well as a finks and cloudgoat ranger put me slightly on the backfoot, to say the least. I have 2 turns to draw the red source i have needed all game, with ben with 1 card in hand. Sadly, the red never comes, and im done.


1-1 (3-2)


Round 3 - Kevin Blake - Merfolk

Kevin seemed like a nice guy, and i havent met him before so its always good to meet new chaps. Annoyingly however, he's playing merfolk, which is another matchup where i think im a slight dog, which is made a lot harder if he wins the die roll, and if he gets a sick draw.

Game 1 - He wins the die roll.....and gets a sick draw.

Game 2 - i spend the entire game trying to play around sygg, eventually allowing me to firespout his team. Sadly he drew the backup sygg, which again i start the long process of trying to get him to tap out so i can remove it. However, playing round sage's dousing i manage to niggle away with bitterblossom tokens and use scions and cryptics to shorten his clock. An end of turn mistbind clique which gets dismissed allows me to cryptic in order to get my mutavaults through for the winsies.

Game 3 - sadly i lose this one, another close game which could have gone either way. Kevin draws double sygg again, which he shows me afterwards, althought he only needed 1 to get the job done.


Well, 1-2 is a bit of an improvement on the last 2 ptq's i have been to. I am looking forward to coming back to Leeds, because it is no surprise to see the guys who play the most and take it seriously getting good results, so i cant wait to get back to Leeds for some serious play before the next ptq season....o wait its sealed.

Congratulations to Rob Catton and Mick Edwards for top 8'ing, i have heard that both sadly didnt make it past the quarters but congratulations nevertheless.

After the ptq me and rik did a m10 draft, which Rik 2-1'd, while i drafted an ok deck but managed to crap out spectacularly nevertheless. I should have drafted straight r/b, but dipped into white because its my favourite colour in m10 and i cant help myself when i get a flyer or two.

Also in the draft was the arrogant one, and now i know why they call him that.


Im back in leeds around the 15th of september, i might come up for the play the game, see the world thing at Fanboy on the 12th, but i dont know yet. Ill see everyone when i get back in Leeds.


See you all soon


Untill then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on this article, or anything related or unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any pictures, ideas or articles to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

A deck for PTQ Coventry

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

I hope everyone in Leeds is well, i was certainly excited by the 14? man strong turn out despite being out of term time in a predominately student based group on Wednesday, so who knows how many Team Leeds will be getting come September.

I am, as the title suggests, going to slog out some Standard constructed (ill just write T2 from now on as just writing these words makes me want to vomit), mostly in a bid to try and and get a better result than my last two PTQ's (consecutive 0-2 drop...olous, yay!)

Im pretty torn between 2 decks, a ubr faeries list, and combo elves. I am leaning towards fae because i love me some faeries and i hate combo so much, as i always feel like your just hoping your deck doesnt crap out every round.

I would imagine the simultaneous articles from LSV and MOJ on starcity and channelfireball will have every man and his dog playing the baneslayer deck this weekend, and i think faeries will beat it more consistently than elves will, i think. I would like to play the deck too, but when i played it i found myself pretty tight for mana, particularly if my knight of the white orchid got countered.

Here's the faeries list i would play, possibly with some minor adjustments.

4 x mistbind clique
4 x spellstutter sprite
4 x scion of oona
2 x vendilion clique

4 x bitterblossom

4 x broken ambitions
4 x cryptic command
2 x jace beleren

2 x firespout
4 x lightning bolt
1 x doom blade

2 x cascade bluffs
3 x crumbling necropolis
4 x island
4 x mutavault
2 x reflecting pool
4 x secluded glen
1 x swamp
2 x sunken ruins
3 x vivid creek

S/B

4 x anathemancer
2 x firespout
2 x banefire
1 x jace beleren
3 x thought hemorrhage
3 x deathmark


Im sure i will have tinkered with the list before next weekend, or more likely abandoned it altogether, but i will hopefully be bringing this to Leeds for this weeks standard event to see how it does.

See you all soon.


Until then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on this article, or on anything related or unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, pictures, articles or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

Guest Column: Nationals with Mick #4th

By Mick Edwards

Editors Introduction: Presented here is the first of a two-part article by Mick Edwards on his very successful run at Nats, coming in 4th and getting his place in Worlds - well done Mick!

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Despite two days of solid play testing with Rob and Jim, I was very worried as we left for Nationals on Wednesday as I wasn’t too happy with my deck. I much preferred the ‘Fae splash red’ list that Rob was taking, but had neither the cards nor the experience to play that.

My worries only increased as the bus was delayed, we had to rush to the venue and quickly fill in deck lists. To see my constructed deck list, check out the Wizards website (netdecker - editor). Soon enough I found myself in round one.

Round One – 5 Colour Control

The first game was over very quickly as my deck shifted into aggro mode. On the play I managed to get a turn 3 4/4 Figure of Destiny. So while other spells were drawn, countered and killed, my Figure manage to reduce his life total to 2 before it was dealt with; luckily for me I had the uncounterable 2 damage spell in hand.

Game 2 – After boarding my deck became much more control oriented and I spent the early game protecting planeswalkers rather than attacking. I was able to use Elspeth’s ultimate which was very handy and by the time he started casting Cruel Ultimatum, I had him at a low life total and Call the Skybreaker in my Graveyard. In desperation he tried to Firespout + Fallout my Elemental fliers away, but I reminded him they were indestructible and he scooped.

Round Two – 5 Colour Blood

My second round opponent was running a very interesting 5 colour Bloodbraid list, including both Doran and Reveilark. I ended up on the wrong side of multiple Anathemancers since my deck contains a large amount of non-basic lands. Getting stuck on 3 mana didn’t help, as although I cast 3 Kitchen Finks to help the stall (until I could cast my Hallowed Burial) he swarmed past them making several creatures per turn (Bloodbraid Elf is pretty good!).

Round Three – Turbo Fog

Game 1 – I initially thought my opponent was playing Time Sieve combo, since we had heard the traders had sold a lot of Time Sieve the previous day. When I eventually discovered it was the old Turbo Fog build I realised it made little difference as my game plan against both is to aim plenty of ‘High Boltage’ (Danger! Danger!.. playtest with us next year for more of this - Editor) at them before they draw enough counters/fogs.

Game 2 – By the time I had reduced him to 1 life he had played enough Runed Halos, Pithing Needles and Burrenton Forge Tenders to render my deck pretty harmless. I considered playing it out to see if he ran out of fog effects but noticing only 15 minutes were left in the round decided to move to Game 3 where I would have a better chance.

Between games I sideboarded in two Austere Command that I should have put in for Game 2 – sometimes it’s hard to look at Austere Command and not read ‘Wrath of God for 2 extra mana’.

Game 3 – Similar to Game 2, only this time I drew more creatures rather than burn spells, and he was at a higher life total by the time he had ‘protection from target deck’. Luckily I managed to get him to tap out leaving me free to blow up about 4 Runed Halos, 2 Pithing Needle and 3 Borderposts. With Ajani Vengeant on 7 counters I was also able to blow up all his lands, leaving a Burrenton Forge-Tender staring down my hordes of Figures and Finks (the Forge-Tender did not win this battle).

---Draft Time---

I was fairly pleased with 2 wins out of 3 in the standard portion and eager to open some amazing bomb in Shards-Conflux-Reborn Draft.

Turns out I didn’t get a bomb in Shards but picked the solid removal spell ‘Agony Warp’ and after second pick Blood Cultist, third pick Fire-Fiend Ogre I found myself solidly in Grixis, a shard I usually prefer to avoid.

With the Conflux booster I opened Goblin Razerunners, a card I get passed very often but consider to be one of the best bombs in the format. A second pick Rupture Spire, third pick Armillary Sphere over removal sorted out my mana a little. Things really got interesting when eighth pick I received Esper Cormorants! Unless I am very much mistaken, the 3/3 flier is one of the best commons in Conflux, so imagine my surprise when I was also able to pick one ninth pick as well! Clearly no-one at the table was drafting Esper.

In Alara Reborn I opened Behemoth Sledge. I made the decision that since I already had mana fixing (and double Cormorants) I would attempt to splash the green-white bomb in my blue-black-red deck.

Also in the pack I managed to get a fourth or fifth pick Terminate, double blue-black Borderpost and triple Sewn-Eye Drake.

Round 4 – Naya

This guy had a lot of very powerful bombs that demanded good answers:

He played Ajani Vengeant and Helixed one of my creatures – I responded with Sewn-Eye Drake!

He killed my team with Martial Coup and made 9 Soliders – I responded with Sewn-Eye Drake (equipped with silly hammer)!

He tried to win – I responded with Sewn-Eye Drake!

Round 5 – Grixis

My Behemoth Sledge got stuck in my hand every game, but my very solid Grixis deck won anyway!

Afterwards my opponent was quick to point out how much of a fool I was for ruining my mana base and running ‘bad’ cards like Obelisk of Jund to fit in the Sledge (I've splashed 3 colours for Finest Hour before, it's worth it - Editor).

Round 6

I felt a bit dirty after this round as in both games I landed an early Behemoth Sledge and both games became very unwinnable for my opponent very quickly. Still, I felt it justified my gamble to play the sledge.

--- Draft 2---

A lot of this draft is mentioned in the official coverage, especially the bit where I opened the Battlegrace Angel! Here are a few other interesting bits:

· I got passed a second pick Feral Hydra.

· I picked Couriers Capsule and

Rhox War Monk intending to go Bant.

· I could have picked 4 Aven Squire, but

chose a Ember Weaver over one of them.

· I got a 13^th pick Filigree Fracture in a

pack of ‘land, Fillagree Fracture, Sludge Strider’.

· I decided Twinclaws was a better

pick for my deck than Knight of New Alara.

· I picked Glory of Warfare over Intimidation Bolt.

· I tabled a Stun Sniper!

I left the draft table with a huge grin on my face as I was very pleased with my second draft deck and was certain it would go 3-0.

I was almost proved wrong very soon though:

Round 7 – Bant

My opponent had managed to get third and fourth pick Knight of New Alara! With no removal to speak of, when he put both of them ‘onto the battlefield’ things started to look grim. He also had double Lorescale Coatl in play which were approximately 20/20 each! Waveskimmer Aven particularly gained benefit from the Knights becoming an 8/10 flying exalted creature!

Luckily in the other two games I was aggressive enough with my very efficient two-drops and bombs to be able to leave day on a 5-1 record, leaving me fifth in the standings at that point. To celebrate we went to an Italian Restaurant and got rained on a lot.

---Day Two Coming Soon---

Mick

It was a good Day One (and was very very rainy when we left). Could Mick improve on fifth? Wait for the Day Two report to find out :D

Legacy (+ GP: Brighton) Report and Play of the Week #1

By Wagz

Hi guys. Jim's asked me to write a report on the Legacy event and GP Brighton. I don't have much to write on the second of these so I've included the first play of the week as a counterpoint to punt of the week.

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Grand Prix: Brighton

M10 sealed was the format for this and it is widely accepted as a fairly bad sealed format. The best core set sealed, but bad regardless. The fundamental reason for this is that the creatures aren't generally good enough, there are no real sources of card advantage and some huge bomb will get you there a lot of the time, more than normal. It is also decided by 2 uncommons, which due to the decreased number of cards in the set, occur quite a lot - Overrun and Fireball. If you don't have these or have an answer for these then you're likely to be in trouble.

My sealed pool put me in trouble. I basically had 2 Rampant Growth to get me to big creatures, but if my opponent had anything interesting then I was in trouble. With two byes I needed 5-2 to get to day 2. I won my first two matches by turning creatures sideways but I lost to Overrun, Master of the Wild Hunt and Whispersilk Cloak to drop at 4-3. Matt Kitchen was the only Leeds player carrying on after this if I recall correctly and ended the day at 5-4. I won't be unhappy when Zendikar comes along.

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Legacy

After bombing out of the Grand Prix, a few Team Leeds plucky hopefuls borrowed decks off Rik to enter the Legacy side event. Having played Faeries for days I tried testing the Counterbalance deck but lost to Zoo over and over again so brough the creature menagerie to the tables. This tournament included such great players as Antti Malin and Jim Marlow so it was going to be tough to get there.

I faced Stax in round 1 but my guys got me there and the burn finished him off when he got a Humility down. Goblins fell to me next before I beat a BW discard based deck. A Doran deck got the better of me but two successive Counterbalance decks (landing Choke against these is a killing) gave me the wins needed to ID into the top 8. I was pretty happy at this point but didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know what the good or bad matchups were so I was just playing the situation I had - probably a good attitude to have in competitions as I felt very relaxed the whole time.

In the quarters I faced the guy I ID'd with using Merfolk. He let me land several creatures in play which was unfortunate for him my guys are much bigger than his (well, Grim Lavamancer means his Lords don't stop that fact). I won this match pretty quickly and wandered the venue for some food before the semis. After the match, the judge commented to my opponent that he'd kept pretty bad hands. I thought this was a bit unprofessional but my opponent seemed fine with it and it was his first Legacy event - Legacy events are pretty easy to top-X if you've not done one before. This was my second event and I top 4'd both so I should probably stop playing soon before I figure out what goes on.

In the semi finals I played against a spanish guy using Standard GW Elves combo. This was a surprisingly well positioned deck for the tournament since the control decks don't have the right counters for it and the Burrenton Forge-Tenders shut down my stuff a little bit. I couldn't get enough damage through against him but if I owned Ethersworn Canonists instead of Gaddock Teegs then the story might have been different. I landed Grim Lavamancers but you just can't get enough cards in the graveyard to deal with all the guys they play.

I walked away with 9 boosters but it would have been nice to get to the final and win the iPod. Maybe next time, eh?

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Play of the week #1

After making this one I had to take a minute off before sideboarding for game 3. After the match I ran around telling people. It's a bit of a doozy. Here's the situation:

Opp on 12, you on 14, plenty of lands in play on both sides (9ish easy). I have a Tidehollow Strix and he has a 3/2 ground guy plus a Maelstrom Nexus. I attack him to 10 and pass the turn.

He plays Magister Sphinx, cascading into Igneous Pouncer. The Sphinx's trigger puts me to 10 and he attacks me to 2. Ouch.

I untap and use Soul's Fire to deathtouch kill his Sphinx (had to explain that rule), attack him to 8.

He makes a Borderpost, perhaps not realising it counts as a spell for the Maelstrom Nexus. It cascades into Wretched Banquet, targeting my Strix. Here's the silliness. I cast Agony Warp, giving the 5/1 -0/-3 and the 3/2 -3/-0. This leaves him with just a 0/2 in play. The Wretched Banquet is countered on resolution due to my guy not being tied for the lowest power. He makes a Grixis Slavedriver (I had to stop him Cascading here) and passes the turn.

I untap and attack with my little man that can, the Tidehollow Strix, taking him to 6. I tap 8 of my lands and cycle the Resounding Thunder I'd been sandbagging to take the game for exactly lethal. Re-diculous. I've got there with just a Strix for 21 damage before but this was more satisfying.

Tournament Report - Nationals LCQ standard

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

The TLM blog repot on the past week's festivities begins sadly with my failure to grind into nationals last wednesday with 5 colour control. Im afraid that after a promising 3-0 start i ended up dropping at the slightly dissapointing 4-3, which was a huge shame. This is another example of me getting getting a good start of stringing wins together then for some reasons proceeding to lose a succession of rounds, which is a bit worrying as i need to work on capitalising the promising starts which i can produce at magic events.

My notes on the matches are a little hazt because i am usually to engrossed to make any solid notes, especially when losing (maybe this is a reason for losing and not because im losing....), and its proved hard to decipher what i mean by scribbled words a week of intense magic playing later where almost all recolection of the tournament has left my minute brain.

Here is the list which i ran for the LCQ, following a hugely successful and solid 2 day testing period before the event.

2 x broodmate dragon
1 x baneslayer angel
3 x plumeveil
2 x mulldrifter

4 x cryptic command
3 x broken ambitions
2 x negate
4 x esper charm

2 x ajani vengeant
1 x jace beleren
3 x cruel ultimatum
1 x obelisk of alara

2 x volcanic fallout
2 x firespout
2 x hallowed burial

4 x vivid creek
3 x vivid marsh
2 x vivid meadow
2 x vivid crag
4 x reflecting pool
3 x sunken ruins
2 x mystic gate
2 x cascade bluffs
1 x exotic orchid
3 x island

S/B

3 x runed halo
2 x identity crisis
2 x jace beleren
2 x firespout
2 x volcanic fallout
4 x great sable stag


The list i ran was totally solid, with the only minor alterations i would make being that i would run all 3 baneslayers as finishers, because it's just sick, and i would run a 3rd hallowed burial in the board over a firespout, as well as reintroducing a couple of thought hemorrhage's into the board, which i was undecided on the night before (although as it happened the choice to leave them out was irrelevent)

Here's my sideboard plan for the list

Vs 5cc

Out
2 x volcanic fallou
3 x plumeveil
2 x broodmate dragon
2 x firespout

In
2 x jace beleren
2 x identity crisis
4 x great sable stag
1 x runed halo


Vs UB Fae

Out
2 x hallowed burial
1 x cruel ultimatum
2 x firespout
2 x broodmate dragon
1 x obelisk of alara

In
4 x great sable stag
2 x jace beleren
2 x volcanic fallout


Vs Kithkin / combo elves

Out
1 x obelisk of alara
2 x cruel ultimatum
1 x broken ambitions

In
2 x volcanic fallout
2 x firespout


Vs Jund / Blightning

Out
2 x negate
1 x jace beleren
2 x cruel ultimatum

In
2 x firespout
3 x runed halo


Round 1 - Chris - Doran

Game 1 - I lose the die roll and go to 6, which is exacerbated by a turn 1 thoughtseize from my opponant, which strips the esper charm from my hand, the only other spell im holding being cruel ultimatum (loose keep amirite?), i draw an esper charm to draw some more and manage to find a hallowed burial for chris' doran and chameleon colossus, which is nice. Chris finds more gas but i have my turn 7 cruel waiting, and thats a pretty lucky win from a bad spot.

Game 2 - turn 1 thoughtseize rips a hallowed burial this time, and another turn 3 doran hits me for 6 with a heirarch on board. More gas and no immediate answer makes this game a quick blowout for my opponant, crap

Game 3 - Chris again finds action with doran, and gets in for 5 putting me to 15. My sable stag seems like a sweet answer, although the chameleon colossus is annoying. My plumeveil envokes a pump leaving me able to cast ajani to keep the colossus tapped with stag on defense......no maelstrom pulse draw means im pretty safe here. Eventually chris finds more creatures but right on cue i can firespout and helix meaning my cruel ultimatum leaves Chris cardless, creatureless....and very shortly thereafter....lifeless!

Round 2 - Lewis - 5cc

Sadly i cant remember a lot from this match because lewis is a pretty awesome guy, who beat me last year with RDW in this very competition. Sadly all this chat means i didnt really write anything about the match down, although i basically got on top via superior card draw, made lands which resulted in the resolution of cruel ultimatums....something which sadly evaded me for the many 5 colour mirrors which followed.

Round 3 - Peter Rodway - Kithkin

Kithkin is a pretty good match for my deck and this was a nice surprise after the mirror the last match. No mulligans from me and 10 wrath effects post board made this round a pretty simple affair. I later saw peter win a feature match against Neil Rigby so i dont think for one second that i faced a bad opponant, so i think i could have dodged a potential bullet by winning this round.

Round's 4 and 5!!!! two subsequent 5 colour mirrors....


These two rounds were both losses for me, basically through a combination of bad mulligan decisions (debatable really, but certainly still one of my flaws as a player) and, certainly in the 5th round a bad reaction to the round 4 loss having felt unbeatable in the first 3 rounds even though i was behind in some of the matches.

In round 5 i had to mull to 4 in the first game, keeping a hand of just cascade bluffs and 3 spells, including cruel ultimatum. I made land drops on turns 3 and 4, and a draw spell. From here, i managed to resolve a turn 7 cruel ultimatum and lose the match....as turns 6 and 7 broodmates made it difficult. I find out my opponant kept a 5 land and broodmate dragon 6 as his opener, urgh!

More mulligans in game 2, but this time my opponant had gas and i didnt have a chance......


In round 6 i beat another kithkin deck before losing my 3rd out of 4 mirrors in round 7 and dropping from the tournament.


Overall i was hugely disappointed because my modifications to other decklists around was meant to ensure i had an edge in the mirror but sacrificed some percentage against random aggro decks such as jund and kithkin by not packing spot removal. It was really annoying to lose 3 mirrors, as i was well on top of my deck but i was forced to mulligan and missed important lands drops when the top of my deck offered little help.


So that was it, all hopes of nationals dashed by the deck i came to beat, ironically. Overall i think i probably didnt recognise that as much maindeck hate for 5 colour you put into your own build, the matches are still very much decided by drawing more cards and playing more lands. In one 5 colour mirror i kept a game 1 hand of double plumeveil, firespout, hallowed burial and 3 lands. If i was playing any other deck than 5 colour control im in fantastic shape here i am basically a huge favourite.....luckily for me my opponant makes turn 1 vivid, i miss my 5th land and lose the game, the BEST!

overall, if you expect 5 colour, dont play 5 colour yourself, just beat it with another deck.

Hope you enjoyed this, more stuff to follow.


See you all soon


Until then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on this article, or on anything related or unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, pictures, articles or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

A Post Nats/GP update from Team Leeds

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

As the millions of readers of the blog will no doubt be aware already, the recent lack of articles is due to Me, Wagz and Mick's trip to Brighton for the British Nationals and the Grand Prix that followed.

Im sure many of you will have heard already or will soon find out that everyone that went from Leeds had a certain degree of success, and i'm sure i speak for all when i say that even those who fell slightly short of expectations had an awesome time down in Brighton. My only regret is that more of Team Leeds couldnt make it down, and if anyone is yet to experiance the comradary and atmosphere that comes with large magic events then i would thoroughly recommend that you do your best to get to one in the near future, they never fail to dissapoint.

Obviously there is a lot to report on the blog so between Wagz, Mick and myself i hope we can cover the entirity of the events of the week.

I will be starting with my (failed) attempt at grinding into Nats, and will also report on a Shards block sealed event which i was lucky enough to top 8, Mick will obviously be retelling us his story of nats and im hoping Wagz will be so kind to report on the legacy tournament which he did well in, as well as giving a report on the Grand Prix.

So thats what to expect over the next week or two, in between the usual stream of rubbish that we strive to publish for your benefit, hopefully the three of us can do the events of the week proud and allow those of you who couldnt attend just what you missed.

Look out for the start of these articles tomorrow, and i will be seeing the rest of Team Leeds soon when i return to Leeds for a few days in August for some exams.


P.S - for those of you who care....

You're the best around,
Nothings gonna ever keep you down.

now we know.


See you all soon


Until then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on this article, or on anything related or unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, pictures, articles or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk