Guest Column: All Naya All Weekend – Part 2

By Sebastian Parker

So here it is – the second part of my report on a weekend of magic:

When I left off last time I had just finished the PTQ in Birmingham with an extra lucky 5-2 record. After the tournament Ben and I got a lift to the train station from Stephen, the plan was to take the train to Reading and stay over at a friend’s house and hopefully get in some pizza , dominion and (much needed!) sleep before the three of us go to the Nationals qualifier on the Sunday. We had looked up the ticket prices on the web – about £12 from Birmingham to Reading, £25 from Reading back to Cambridge. Unfortunately , unkown to us, the price we had looked up was for advanced tickets only, so when Stephen had driven off and we had found a ticket booth we were confronted with a rather unfriendly ticket attendant who told us it would be more like £45 each just to get to Reading. God knows how much a ticket back to Cambridge would be. Now on occasion I’ll spend £100 on magic, but “dropping a hundy” on train tickets is not something I wanted to do (especially just to play Standard...) Ben was similarly disinterested in the price hike, so we rang up Stephen to see if we could get back in the car and get back to Cambridge. Fortunately for us there was a traffic jam and Stephen had only moved about 200m from the station in about 5 mins so we got back in the car to disappointedly head (slowly) back to Cambridge.

That evening Ben and I stayed at mine. We played a bit online, playing Jund in 2-mans is so definitely profitable – you win at least 50% of the mirror matches and you crush all the random tier 2 decks people play. It’s a nice change that there is one definite best deck and I don’t have to do a bunch of analysis to figure out which archetype to play. Ben and I had also been playing Trace of Abundance instead of Rampant Growth our list, which aside from protecting your mana against all the Spreading Seas and Goblin Ruinblasters post sideboard, is something that most UW control lists are incapable of answering when on a Raging Ravine. (They need to have Celestial Purge AND another instant speed removal, which they usually have spent on your creatures and it always feels good when they are spending a removal spell late game on what is sort of just a fertile ground). We finally went to bed around midnight.

I woke the next morning to see that Ben was already drafting, he’d drafted a nice WR aggro deck and beat up on a 3 colour allies deck and a WB deck before losing to a pretty sweet UB deck in the finals. * While this was going on, we started discussing our options for the Extended PTQ. We could easily sell a Maelstrom Pulse to pick up the burn deck, a friend of ours in Cambridge has Thopter-Depths we could borrow if we could contact him. Up popped a PM from Chris Bateman asking if we were PTQing, and we replied only if we can get a deck. Of course, Zoo online costs more than train tickets so we hadn’t considered it but Chris just happened to have it going spare. Of course we jumped at the chance to borrow a top tier deck.

*I’m glad that people are drafting 3 colour and white-black decks because those are two archetypes which are just gonna lose so many matches to their mana. You can’t afford to have mana problems in such a fast and aggressive draft format, the reason you play 18 lands isn’t just because of landfall – you have to hit ALL your early land drops to be in the game. Missing a land drop in the first 3 turns can often be fatal.

Here’s the deck we registered:

Lands (21)

4 Arid Mesa

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Marsh Flats

2 Stomping Ground

1 Ghost Quarter

1 Treetop Village

2 Forest

2 Plains

1 Mountain

1 Sacred Foundry

1 Temple Garden

1 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures (24)

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Qasali Pridemage

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Bloodbraid Elf

Other Spells (14)

4 Blood Moon

4 Path to Exile

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard (15)

2 Tormod's Crypt

1 Bojuka Bog

2 Ancient Grudge

3 Lightning Helix

2 Baneslayer Angel

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Ethersworn Canonist

Round 1: Hypnotoad playing Boros

The match vs. Boros can be pretty dicey if you don’t remove their creatures early and they get lots of burn . A Steppe Lynx can end up dealing 10 damage if they execute their game plan. Otherwise, you can just crush them with your beefier creatures and higher quality cards – nothing in their deck is close in power to a Bloodbraid Elf or a Tarmogoyf. Their creatures are also really, really bad at blocking so if they fall behind they die pretty fast. Fortunately for us, game 1 was one of those crushing ones where we got ahead fast and never looked back. Game 2 was closer due to his Refraction Trap being a nice 2 for 1, but our Baneslayer Angel was too much for him to handle.

After the match we find out that Chris, who lent us the deck, has been booted from the event due to connection problems and hence has lost his 25 tix entry fee. We tell him we’ll try to win some packs for him to recoup his loss.

Round 2: freyja playing Affinity with Thopter Foundry

This round is best summarised by paraphrasing Marco reviewing the game in the replays while helping us with sideboarding. The polite version is: ``what the hell was that affinity player doing round 2?’’. That’s right – this guy really had no idea. The matchup has been strongly in favour of Zoo since Path to Exile and Qasali Pridemage came out, let alone the pair of Ancient Grudges in the sideboard. Suffice to say, we steamrolled game 1 and then game 2 when our opponent’s board (editor: battlefield?) was 2 land, Frogmite, Ornithopter, Arcbound Ravager , Springleaf Drum. We Lighting Helixed the Ravager at his end of turn and he sacrificed a lot of stuff to make the Ravager a 4/4, leaving him with just a land and a Ravager. We untapped, played & equipped a Jitte to our Wild Nacatl and attacked. Our opponent blocked with Ravager and then instantly conceded – no idea why he went all in on the Ravager, or blocked but there you go...

Round 3: ryo00 playing UGr Scapeshift with Punishing Fire

Game 1 we see a Punishing Fire, a Sakura-Tribe Elder, a Remand and a Jace. That is not enough to stop a Zoo deck from dealing 20. Game 2 he gets an Engineered Explosives to wipe our board, but we get a huge ‘Goyf and 9 points of burn and finish him off before he’s in the game.

Round 4: Scakewalk playing DDT

When playing in premier events online, I cannot stress how much of an edge you get by ‘scouting’ your opponents in the replays. Knowing exactly what deck your opponent is playing is great and if you’re lucky enough that they played against the archetype you’re playing, you might even see their sideboard strategy. Of course, Ben and I had checked the replays every round so we knew what our opponents were playing. When we had to mulligan our 7 into a six of Treetop Village, Path to Exile, 4 lands we discussed the options for a while. This is usually a really terrible hand, but 5 cards hardly ever wins and we might just be kold to a 20/20 on 5 cards. So we cross our fingers and keep, sure enough we path his 20/20, draw creatures and end up winning.

Game 2 the replay has disappeared from MODO so I’m not sure what happened, but I think our opponent played only lands for the whole game although he may have transmuted a Muddle the Mixture the turn before he died.

Round 5: TomM playing DDT

It’s easy to see how a DDT player could get to the 4-0 bracket, but the way this guy played you wouldn’t believe he’d won 4 matches. Game 1 he Thoughtseized a Path to Exile so we just played a couple of dudes until we played a turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary to his board of River of Tears, Depths and when he played land, Vampire Hexmage we thought we had lost... But he just passed the turn and let us untap with an active Knight of the Reliquary. We attacked with our other guys and Ghost Quartered when he tried to combo and block. He had no action after that and shortly died to a large Knight.

Game 2 he had lots of removal but no way to win so each creature functioned as a burn spell and then our burn spells functioned as burn spells to finish him off.

Round 6: Shorsh playing Ultemecia

Buzzing to be 5-0 in matches and 10-0 in games, as soon as we got paired we went to check the replay. By this point, a number of people had started to follow our progress – Rob sent us a link to Gavin Verhey’s article and Marco sent us sideboarding tips. Even if we did think it was a great matchup for us, this guy stood no chance – game 1 he colour-screwed himself out of blue using Blood Moon, and we even had our own Blood Moon in case he managed to answer his own. Game 2 he mulled to 5, was manascrewed again and conceded when we cast Elspeth on turn 4.

We think we may be now locked into top8, since only us and Zygonn (who we later found out is Jon Loucks) were on 18 points.

Round 7: Jon Loucks (Zygonn) playing Jon Loucks’ Scapeshift Zoo

Game 1, we lose the roll and he plays a turn 1 Sejiri Steppe. Nice land. Our hand is slow, but we have Blood Moon, Jitte and Bloodbraid so it looks quite good for a Zoo mirror. But apparently this isn’t really a Zoo mirror because when we tap out on turn 3, he “rapeshifted” us with a 17/17 Plated Geopede and an 11/11 Knight of the Reliquary.

Since Marco won his PTQ in Paris, he had not been paying much attention to Extended and had not seen this deck before and neither of us had played the matchup before so we were stuck for sideboarding against it. We decide on a strategy of removing all his creatures so that he can’t Scapeshift for the win. We side out the Blood Moons since he’ll fetch basics and they don’t remove his guys and side in Baneslayers and Lightning Helixes.

We start with a Qasali Pridemage, 2 Knight of the Reliquary and a Bloodbraid Elf. He Bolts the Qasali, Paths both the Knights and casts Ranger of Eos to fetch 2 Wild Nacatl. Our second Bloodbraid cascades into a Tarmogoyf so we are pretty even. Our opponent casts a Temporal Isolation on the ‘Goyf and casts a Vinelasher Kudzu – he’s definitely ahead. Our Lightning Helix goes straight for the Kudzu and we take some combat damage and trade off our Elves. Our second Helix has to hit a Wild Nacatl so we don’t die and our topdecked Nacatl trades for the Ranger. Our opponent seems to have been drawing land for the last couple of turns so now we’re both out of gas. Our next topdeck is... Qasali Pridemage to free our Lhurgoyf from limbo with exalted on the stack putting us ahead on the board. Our opponent topdecks nothing to compete with ‘Goyf and so we take the game.

Game 3 is fairly tense since winning will definitely lock us in to the top 8 whereas losing this round and the next might knock us out if our tiebreakers also take a nosedive. Jon Loucks gets off to a blistering start with turn 1 Steppe Lynx, turn 2 Geopede, turn 3 Vinelasher Kudzu. We Bolt the Steppe Lynx and play a couple of guys. On our turn 3 we decide that we are going to spend Path to Exile on one of his creatures before we untap next turn. We come to the conclusion that we should Path on our turn so that he doesn’t get a landfall trigger and get in for extra damage. We path the Vinelasher Kudzu and pass the turn. This turns out to be a mistake because our opponent plays a Sejiri Steppe to make his Plated Geopede unblockable and then casts Scapeshift for 5 lands including some Flagstones of Trokair, ending up with a 21/21 Geopede and lethal damage. Reviewing the play, we definitely could have played around Scapeshift by Pathing on his turn. We probably would have had to path the Geopede though so we would still have died to the huge Vinelasher Kudzu unless we topdecked a path.

Disappointed at our poor play and to not be necessarily locked in with a game win record of 13-2 with one round to play, Matteo messages us to say good luck, but Tom Harle is also playing for the top8 so not too much luck. (Tom Harle had an unlucky loss to some moron (editor: lols) in the Birmingham PTQ final the day before so we want him to make top8.)

Round 8: Bouncyer playing DDT

Game 1 he wins the die roll and we both keep our 7’s. We have a decent hand with Noble Heriarch, Path, Knight of the Reliquary, Qasali Pridemage and lands. He leads off with turn 1 Urborg, Thoughtseize taking our Path. We play land, Noble Heirarch. He plays Dark Depths, Vampire Hexmage and combos. We don’t topdeck the Path we need and lose to the 20/20.

Game 2 he gets a token, but we have the Path and then he doesn’t have enough removal for our guys and our burn spells finish him off.

Game 3 was a grind, where he managed to stave off our attack with Deathmarks and Smother until he got the Thopter combo down. We have Ancient Grudge to hold off the Thopter Foundry for a while but he transmutes for Academy Ruins and we don’t have enough pressure to kill him before Thopters take over the game.

Now disappointed at 6-2 (14-4) we are not necessarily in the top8, but our tiebreakers are great and we end up 5th in the swiss.

QF: Boom/Bust Zoo

Game 1 was a pretty interesting – we both built up a bit of a board and played out all our lands, trade creatures and removal and at the end of it we have a board of Noble Heirarch to his 3 Noble Hierarchs and Knight. He draws a Boom/Bust and Busts all the land, so we are in big trouble! Luckily we topdeck the Path to Exile for the Knight, while our opponent draws land. We draw a Treetop Village and our opponent gets another land. Next we get a mountain and a Bloodbraid Elf while our opponent continues to draw blanks. After a couple of turns, our opponent has to chump block with his Hierarchs and we actually win through a resolved Bust!

Game 2 was much less interesting as we just owned him with a Jitte. Only 2 matches away from a pro tour invite!

SF: Bouncyer (again) playing DDT

Game 1 he wins the roll and his hand contains Thoughtseize, Urborg, Dark Depths and Vampire Hexmage. Game 2, we get turn 1 Noble Hierarch, turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary, turn 3 Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blood Moon, which elicits a scoop. Game 3 we mulligan into a Path to Exile, creatures and lands. It’s looking good when he only has a turn 3 Dark Depths/Hexmage but he plays a Chrome Mox removing a Muddle the Mixture and we know the writing is on the wall. We attempt the Path, which gets countered, we draw a Bloodbraid Elf which doesn’t cascade into a path so we lose. Nothing you can do about nuts combo draws like those...

At the end of the tournament we’re at 7-3 (17-6) which isn’t bad at all. Bouncyer ends up beating Pro Tour: Hollywood Champion Charles Gindy (aka theKid) in the mirror match final. Ben ends up with a LOT of packs in his account, but he gives enough packs to Chris to cover the costs of being booted from the tournament and a couple of extras. After subtracting the cost of Ben entering the tournament, the profit is pretty low - only a few packs but the experience of coming so close to qualifying is a real buzz. Last year contained so many PTQ top8s for both me and Ben but we are both yet to get there and top8ing once more without victory is bittersweet. Next time!

After coming so close, me and Ben really had ‘the fire’ to play in the last PTQ tournament of the extended season in London the next weekend. After Matt Light had won in Birmingham with Boom/Bust Zoo we thought we would switch the Blood Moons out for those – even just using Boom as a Stone Rain is really good. On the Friday evening, Ben came round to put the finishing touches on the Zoo deck, we printed out decklists and had two copies of the same deck prepped and ready to go to London. Saturday 7.30am my radio alarm clock woke us up with “and the news here in Cambridge – there has been a fire at Cambridge train station and all train services have been suspended until at least 10am” Noooo! Gutted, we got up and played a couple of 8-4 Zendikar queues but it’s just not the same without the pro tour invite on the line...

Thanks for reading,

Sebastian Parker (RisingSun000 online)

Props:

• Marco, Rob and Chris for supporting us through the tournament with sideboarding, scouting and cards.

• Match replays for letting us make sweet mulligan decisions.

• Magic Online for giving us PTQs and drafts.

Slops:

• The unfriendly ticket attendant at Birmingham station and ticket prices being strangely variable.

• Bouncyer for comboing us out of the tournament...

• The arsonist who decided to sabotage our trip to the last PTQ of the season...

Guest Column: All Naya All Weekend – Part 1

by Sebastian Parker

It has been obvious for a while now that Grand Prix Brussels was going to be Jund Jund Jund, so I decided that instead of spending the money to travel to Europe and play a standard jund tournament for 1 day followed by an extended PTQ on Sunday when I inevitably lose 3 mirror matches, I was going to play an extended PTQ in Birmingham followed by a standard Nationals qualifier in Reading. Between the two tournaments my hope was to increase my rating by the 80 or so points needed to qualify for nationals, or straight up qualify on the Sunday. It was a nice idea, but the weekend didn't turn out as I had planned... Here's part 1:

As has become the norm before PTQ's Ben Scoones came round to mine the evening before for some last minute practice and online drafting. We spent a long time playing standard and building up decks for the two tournaments and before we knew it, it was 9.30pm and we hadn't had anything to eat. Ben suggested Domino's but I didn't want pizza so we compromised with a trip to a restaurant just down the road from where I live – Bella Italia. He ordered coke, I ordered diet coke and we sat there chatting about how Gavin Verhey is the only good starcitygames writer (editor's note: disagree) but the Ultemecia deck is pretty questionable. We ate our starters and ordered more cokes, but when our drinks came mine had a straw in it. Ben made a joke about the waitress thinking I was gay but we figured she probably just did it to indicate which one was diet and we carried on with the meal. When it came to ordering dessert, I didn't want one but Ben ordered a sundae and the waitress asked if we wanted two spoons! I guess two guys going to a candle-lit restaurant late on a Friday night does look a bit like a date so really the joke is on both of us...

Anyway, we got back to mine around 11pm and realized that drinking so much coke late at night is not a great idea so we stayed up chatting and playing various forms of magic till about 3am. As a result, I when we got up at 7am to get a lift to Birmingham I was totally exhausted and in no fit state to play. I did manage about an hour's sleep in the car but I still wasn't awake enough to play magic when I arrived at the tournament!

Just for reference, here's my decklist (which I credit the design of to Marco Orsini-Jones, except for the temporal isolations – which is some technology I found online, which I liked because they don't help your opponents when you have blood moon):

Main Deck:

Lands:

4 Arid Mesa
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Marsh Flats
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Stomping Grounds
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Treetop Village
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Mountain

Creatures:

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Qasali Pridgemage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Bloodbraid Elf

Spells:

4 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Temporal Isolation
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:

3 Baneslayer Angel
2 Path to Exile
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Oblivion Ring

Round 1: Lian Pizzey

I have seen Lian at tournaments for a long time and I know that he likes to play blue in extended, so I doubt that he's playing hypergenesis or dredge. I get a hand of noble hierarch, temple garden, arid mesa, double blood moon, double wild nacatl, which is great because I can get down a blood moon on turn 2 and hopefully get an easy win for game 1.
Lian wins the roll and opens with temple garden tapped. I draw a misty rain forest and say “snap” and play my own temple garden into noble hierarch. Turn 2, Lian plays a breeding pool untapped and removes a negate to chrome mox. My suspicions are revealed to be correct – he is playing blue! He passes the turn and casts vendilion clique in my upkeep, which I find odd since most people wait for the draw step but whatever... He takes a nacatl, I draw a knight of the reliquary and my draw for the turn yields a land. I play arid mesa and say “fetch basic plains”, dutifully put my plains into play and then look at the blood moon in my hand. I look at my board. Noble hierarch, temple garden, plains... no red mana... facepalm! I kick myself and then smile at how lucky I am that I have drawn a knight, which is still a strong turn 2 play.
Lian follows up with another dual land, path to exile on the knight and rhox war monk – making my board, hand and non-blood moon play look really mediocre. He beefs me with the clique and passes the turn. I have nothing better to do than play a blood moon and bolt his vendilion clique. Rhox war monk attacks me a couple of times while my nacatl hits back to keep his life in check. Eventually I draw a temporal isolation and a tarmogoyf and the game is looking like it has swung in my favor. Lian does manage a second war monk (see how effective my blood moons are?) but I draw into more large guys and he is forced to play defense, eventually a bloodbraid elf into another guy is too much for him and I win game 1.
I side out of blood moon, since Lian is playing both noble hierarch and chrome mox. I also side out one temporal isolation since he might have qasali pridemage. I side in 3 baneslayers and 2 path to exile.
In game 2 I have a nice curve of nacatl, qasali pridemage, knight, bloodbraid elf so I keep. Lian goes first and spends his turns not doing much. Lian Bant Charms my knight on his turn 4. My turn 4 I draw another knight and play a misty rainforest. I crack the fetchland and Lian marks the lifetotal change on his pad while I pick up my deck to search. Lian then looks up and alarmed that I am searching though my deck. He says, sorry I meant to respond to the sacrifice with aven mindcensor! I did play the whole thing rather fast, so it's not like he'd had loads of time to respond, and technically the lifetotal changes before he gets priority but we both agree it might have been prudent to say wait before marking the lifechange. I didn't find a land in the new top 4 cards of my deck so the mindcensor was pretty sick. I settle for casting the knight and I pass the turn. Lian improves his board with a rhox war monk. On my next turn I draw a second bloodbraid elf and I feel like I really need to cast an elf to get back in the game so I risk it, tapping a land for mana and sacrificing it to the knight. I pick up my deck to search, but then Lian reminds me that I can only search the top 4 cards and I get a warning from the judge (editor: that was me :D ).
The knight finds a fetchland so things are looking ok, but the fetchland finds nothing so I'm stuck with just 1 land and a noble hierarch. Next turn Lian plays another bant charm on my knight and I have no chance to get back in the game.
Game 3 I have a strong start with a noble heirarch followed by a quasali pridemage and a bolt on his heirarch. Bloodbraid elf into knight and Lian is looking really far behind. He casts aven mindcensor and then paths the knight. I find no basic land in the top 4 cards and he doesn't block with the mindcensor. He attacks with his mincensor and I attack him again with the bloodbraid and qasali and he casts another mindcensor which I bolt so my creatures can get through unhindered. Post combat I'm thinking “phew, got rid of that mindcensor – now I can search my whole deck” so I play a fetchland, crack it and pick up my deck. Immediately about 3 different people say wait! And I realise that even though I did kill a mindcensor, there is another one in play. It even attacked me last turn... I feel like such a dumbass while I receive my second warning (editor: me again) when the first round hasn't even finished. Anyway, I topdeck a baneslayer and the lands to cast it and even though Lian manages to engineered explosives for 2 to get rid of my tarmogoyf and a temporal isolation on his war monk, he doesn't have an answer to baneslayer so I end up winning the round. A lucky escape from a terribly played round, but another warning for anything means a game loss so I have to wake up. I buy a can of coke and go and find my round 2 opponent.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2: Stuart with Naya Burn

Last season I saw Stuart playing a version of naya zoo with giant growth and brute force. He won all the zoo mirrors because his creatures were constantly winning fights, but he lost to the control decks because pump spells are really bad when your opponent has removal and mana open...
I win the die roll, mulligan a no-land 7 into a double noble heirarch, tarmogoyf , blood moon, 2 land hand, which is pretty sweet against zoo I think. I start with fetching a basic forest and casting a heirarch. When he opens on a stomping ground into kird ape I am pretty stoked about mooning him out of the game, but take the time to ask him if he's playing the pump spell version he played last year. His response indicates that he's not, even if he tried to hide it and keep me guessing.
I get the turn 2 moon and I say “I hope your hand is dead”. It's decidedly not – he plays double kird ape and attacks for 1. The next turn he bolts my goyf and plays keldon marauders – it's like my moon has done nothing to his mana since every spell in his hand is mono-red. I draw only lands for the rest of the game and lose in very short order.
I side in baneslayers and a path for the moons, but game 2 is similarly fast as my life total does not last very long against my fetchlands, his keldon marauders and burn spells.

1-1 (2-3)

Round 3: Scapeshift

In the pregame chatter my opponent reveals that this is his first extended PTQ. I congratulate him on winning a round and welcome him to the world of tournament magic. It becomes quickly obvious that he's playing UGr scapeshift with his turn 2 sakura tribe elder serving as a speed bump for my quick beats. My deck doesn't have much burn and is slower than normal zoo decks so I'm a bit worried that this is a terrible matchup. For turns and turns my opponent is on 7+ mana and digging for a scapeshift but despite seeing about 30 cards of his deck, he doesn't manage to find a scapeshift so eventually my dudes get through for lethal.
I commiserate him on not finding a scapeshift in time, just to make sure he is actually playing it and he confirms a number of cards in his deck which I hadn't seen up to that point. I ask if he's playing punishing fire and he says no.
Game 2 he suspends a turn 1 search for tomorrow and I get a nacatl. Turn 2 I get a second nacatl while he plays peer through depths (finding another peer). Turn 3 he casts compulsive research and I get in for 6. Turn 4 he casts another peer through depths and suspends a search for tomorrow that he finds. I get in for another 6, putting him to 5. With lightning bolt in hand this game is looking pretty good for me. Turn 5 he casts Kitchen Finks and goes to 7. I bolt the finks and attack with both nacatls. He blocks one of the nacatls and goes to 6. I have lethal on the board, but I don't want him to have another kitchen finks to get back in the game so I cast a knight. He remands, drawing a peer through depths, which he casts, finding peer through depths, which he casts finding scapeshift. He reveals after casting the lethal scapeshift that his hand was remand and lands so if I just hadn't cast anything he was dead. I'm gutted that the knight ended winning him the game but I think I have to cast it there just because he could firespout or finks and have several turns to draw into scapeshift.
Game 3 I get a good start but he quickly stubbs it with a firespout. I bolt him in response to make goyf a 2/3 and then have to explain how when firespout resolves goyf is a 3/4 with 3 damage on it. He says that must be why goyf is so expensive but he follows up with consecutive kitchen finks so he's not too bothered about one goyf. I follow up with double knight of the reliquary and now I can really start eating up his creatures. On the critical turn I have a knight untapped and ready to fetch ghost quarter and he taps low for a search for tomorrow into a scapeshift. With scapeshift on the stack I leave the table basically to ask a judge which land I should ghost quarter to stop valakut. Judges aren't allowed to give strategic advice so I know I need to phrase my question as a question about the rules of the game (which essentially it is). The floor judge doesn't seem to know anything about magic cards at all, and has to look up knight, ghost quarter and valakut, stomping ground, mountain... After wasting 5 minutes I suggest we call over the head judge, who is slightly better but it still takes forever to answer what happens if I kill valakut with the triggers on the stack. (The answer is pretty much nothing) He refuses to answer my question about targetting a mountain with ghost quarter because the judge call has taken so long and he tells me to just sit down and play out the game. I think he does this because scapeshift is usually the win and if my opponent doesn't make a mistake then I have lost and I am just wasting time looking for a way to win a lost game. If I had been playing against someone who I knew, or someone I knew was a good player I would just scoop to the scapeshift but since it's his first extended PTQ and he has already made mistakes there is a significant chance my opponent will slip up. I feel slightly bad since he is sitting there twiddling his thumbs, just waiting with his (in all likelihood game winning) scapeshift on the stack. So with the head judge watching we play out the game. My life total is 16. My opponent fetches 3 steam vents, 2 stomping grounds, mountain, 2x valakut. With the valakut triggers on the stack I use knight to sacrifice a plains to fetch ghost quarter from my deck. I sacrifice the ghost quarter targetting a stomping grounds and my opponent fetches a basic island out of his deck. Now with only 5 mountains in play, the valakut triggers fizzle and my opponent scoops the game. Stephen has been watching the whole time and has a small rant about how there is only one good judge at the event (editor: me?) and tells me that I was a bit mean to not scoop to the scapeshift. I admit it was unusual not to scoop, but when your opponent is inexperienced you might as well take the chance at the win. My opponent was light hearted about the loss – we had been friendly the whole game and he realised it was his mistake for not knowing what ghost quarter does. We discussed the ways he could have won and he was eager to learn. We wished each other good luck for the rest of the tournament.

2-1 (4-4)

Round 4: Bradley Barclay with singleton zoo

Bradley is a very solid Scottish player, who I have played once before at Nationals a couple of years ago. We met in the limited portion though, so I don't have a read yet on what he might be playing. It turns out he is playing a very strange version of zoo – game 1 I see a path, a bant charm, a negate, noble hierarch, wild nacatl, umezawa's jitte, tarmogoyf. He wins game 1 by having jitte and negate for my jitte and tarmogoyf advantage due to his removal. During sideboarding he flips over a card from his deck – wooly thoctar! I realise that both his fetchlands were different and that he fetched a steam vents and a temple garden so all of his lands were different. I come to the conclusion that due to the diversity of cards I saw (I saw no duplicates) he must be playing a singleton deck. I question him about it and he just laughs.
I start with misty rainforest into stomping ground for my noble hierarch and Bradley starts with stirring wildwood – another singleton! We trade dudes and removal until he gets ranger of eos for double wild nacatl. The singleton dream is shattered! I have a bloodbraid elf to match his ranger, but he casts another ranger. He has run out of wild nacatls though (he only had 3 in his deck) so he is forced to fetch his second noble heirarch of the game. My second bloodbraid elf also finds a hierarch, but this allows me to cast the two baneslayers in my hand. The baneslayers make short work of Bradley's life total and we're on to game 3.
In game 3 we both get fast starts and bash each other's life totals because exalted makes trading impossible. I get knights and goyfs but bradley has all the paths and bant charms so I end up with just a couple of 3 power guys and a knight in play against lots of his 3 power guys. He bashes in with his guys, losing 1 a turn in the process of diminishing my life total and he is holding back noble heirarchs for chump blocking – keeping his life total on 6. When he runs out of hierarchs, he leaves back just stirring wildwood and attacks with all his guys, removing my knight with a bant charm. I chump with my hierarch and I am at 2 life with an empty hand and 6 power of guys on the table to his board of all tapped creatures and a stirring wildwood with activation mana. Bradley could have played less aggressively at this point but I think he wanted me dead before I cast another baneslayer angel. I topdeck a path to exile so when I attack with my guys and he activates the wildwood I path it and he is dead. I feel good for winning, but it was just because I topdecked a path - another very lucky win.

3-1 (6-5)

Round 5: Tom playing All In Red

Now it is my turn to get unlucky. I lose the die roll and keep a hand with a turn 2 moon and some guys. Tom plays mountain, chrome mox removing simian spirit guide, desperate ritual, blood moon. My hand is blank – I have misty rainforest and noble heirarch but I need to draw one of my 2 forests to get into the game. Tom takes until about turn 10 to cast a deus, by which point I have a plains and temporal isolation so the game goes pretty long. Eventually he gets me with a demigod. I don't think it's very good to keep an all in red hand with just a blood moon and no threat but it paid off for Tom this time so whatever... I am a little peeved that since I had a turn 2 moon of my own I would have gone misty-> forest, noble heirarch on turn 1 and had no mana problems for the entire game and a very easy win.
I side out 4 blood moon and a jitte for path to exiles and baneslayers – if I cast a baneslayer his entire threat base is essentially blanked.
I'm on the play game 2 and I start with a wild nacatl into a qasali pridemage so I'm not getting blood mooned out this game. His turn 2 is spent on a Deus of Calamity, but I have temporal isolation so he's down to 11. Post combat I cast a knight. He casts a seething song to get a demigod of revenge and attacks me, but I am well ahead in this race and we're quickly on to game 3.

Tom makes a show of hesitating to keep, which makes me think either he has a really nutty hand and he's bad at poker or he's keeping a pretty marginal hand. I have plains, forest, noble heriarch, 2 qasali pridemage, wild nacatl, knight of the reliquary so I'm totally immune to blood moon. I think it's an ok keep, it's not lightning fast but it's not at all vulnerable to Tom's disruption.
Tom reveals his indecision with a turn 1 demigod of revenge, which he makes obvious is the only gas in his draw. I instantly regret not mulliganing to find a removal spell, but I'm stuck with racing so and hoping to get lucky with removal in the next 3 draw steps. I make sure my lands don't deal me 5 so that I can have the maximum number of draw steps to get to a temporal isolation but it doesn't happen and my turn 3 bloodbraid doesn't cascade into it either. A disappointing loss, but if I guess I deserve some bad luck after how lucky I've been to win 3 rounds.

3-2 (7-7)

Round 6: Nicholas Taylor with Living End

This round is pretty uninteresting as Nick's deck only manages to landcycle a couple of commons before my dudes just get there. During sideboarding I realise that I actually have an insane number of cards to board in this matchup – the 4 canonists and 3 graveyard hate, which is effectively 11 cards since each knight of the reliquary counts as a bojuka bog.
My opening hand contains a tormod's crypt, bojuka bog and ethersworn canonist so Nick is going to have to do a lot to win. I play the tormod's crypt and wild nacatl on turn 1, but Nick evokes a shriekmaw to kill it. He evokes a second shriekmaw to kill my tarmogoyf and he cycles a guy. Turn 3 I play canonist and bojuka bog away his shriekmaws. I am glad I saved the canonist till last, since he looks pretty unhappy and after 8 turns of occasional landcycling and not much else he reveals his hand of 5 cascade spells and concedes the game.

4-2 (9-7)

Round 7: Tomas Sukaitis playing ancestral visions/punishing fire/bloodbraid elf

I won the die roll and got a turn 1 noble heriarch but Tomas starts off with a Breeding pool untapped and suspends an ancestral vision and I get a noble heirarch into a turn 2 blood moon. I play out my creatures and he eventually uses a venser to bounce a knight and block a bloodbraid. I am slightly puzzled that he didn't bounce the blood moon because he ends up with no green mana for the rest of the game and plenty of cards in hand when his life total reaches zero. At the time I thought he must just have had useless blue cards, and I mistakenly assume that his deck doesn't care much about blood moon so I side it out for game 2 in favour of baneslayer angels.
It is now that I have a gruelling half hour of trying to stick a threat through his multiple grove of the burnwillows and punishing fires (which he – presumably deliberately - showed me none of game 1). Even my baneslayers are not immune and he eventually takes down every creature I play. Unfortunately he has no threats so I sit there waiting for lightning bolts to finish him off. I get a ghost quarter to off one of his groves, so now I can get a baneslayer. Eventually he gets a bloodbraid elf into ancestral visions but my life total is over 40 due to all his grove of the burnwillows activations. He casts a kitchen finks and starts beating down. I use up a temporal isolation on his finks, but he casts another one – his life total is escaping burn range. I topdeck my final baneslayer but he plays out a second grove to punishing fire it away and I am looking pretty dead. I spend two lightning bolts to his face to get him to 2, but my last bolt is not in the top few cards and I die.
I sideboard in some graveyard hate to get rid of the punishing fires, but there are only 5 minutes left on the round. Tomas mulligans and while he is shuffling tells me a story about a friend of his a while back who needed to draw into the top8 but his opponent needed to play. This friend mulliganed to zero so that the game wouldn't begin in time and was promptly disqualified from the PTQ for deliberate stalling. He is adamant that it is not good for either of us to draw the match – since we will end up with less prizes if we both 4-2-1. I don't think his deck can kill me very fast so I ask him if he just wants to concede, but he goes on a rant about staying above 1950 for the second bye at the next GP he's going to and he doesn't want to scoop.
On my turn 2 time is called and we have a bit more discussion about the concession. He says that I have no chance to win the game since his hand has so much control and the game is going to be a draw. I guess that he is probably telling the truth, but I decide to play it out just to make sure he's not bluffing. True enough he has plenty of removal and when he has bloodbraid and goyf it even looks like he might sneak in a win, but there are just not enough turns and I leave all my guys back to block and force the draw. He's a good sport, and decides that helping me to get ratings points for nationals is more important than his chance at losing his second bye (since he will still have a positive record at the end of the tournament) and he concedes me into the 5-2 bracket.

5-2 (10-8-1)

So I end up with another very lucky win – I didn't feel like I deserved the 5-2 since my only 'real' win was crushing living end with so many sideboard cards and the rest were lucky topdecked baneslayers or paths and my opponent not knowing what ghost quarter does. Also my game win % is insanely low for a 5-2. But I'll take the +50 ratings points since now I only need 30 more to qualify for nationals.

Part II will be about what I did on the Sunday and how a fire stopped me and Ben from tearing down the London PTQ last weekend.

Scapeshift in Extended

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

So Worldwake is pretty much known to the masses, i havent really had time to take in all the cards, as there have been a load spoiled recently, but after a few reads i will compile a list of my favourite ones, and those that i think are not that hot, for constructed or otherwise.

For now i thought i would let everyone know just where i am up to in Extended right now, before it gets overshadowed by the child-like excitement of a prerelease.

Scapeshift was the deck i took to the Nottingham PTQ, where the power of zero hours sleep allowed me the grace of a 1-3 record - (1-3 because i forgot to drop after round 3, so conceeded my 4th round to Kenny so i could cube). After the little of the PTQ i played in i had very few, but some thoughts on the performance of the deck and some changes i wanted to make before i next played it.



The Bad News -

If you the article(s) i did going into the PTQ i thought about taking out the oracle, because i had been finding him a bit underwhelming. He is actually not the easiest chap to cast on turn 2, and although he can lead to some busted games, i am actually not that hot for him. He is best in the mirror where its a race to go off, but then again, he can still be underwhelming here. Against zoo there are far better bodies, and against control decks you dont need the body. I think the majority of lists still playing him are playing him because he was being played before.

I wasnt convinced by the electrolyze either - i know exactly why it is in there, and i understand that its massively risky being cold to certain hate. Everyone seems to be mixing it up with magma jet, into the roil, echoing truth, repeal and infi variants of combinations of them all to basically hose teeg and meddling mage. To be honest, I will almost certainly be cutting my magma jet/electrolyze slot for something else, because i think the implications of using them are quite slim and even then there are other outs that i either have in my deck or can/will have brought in for these matchups.

Repeal was also a pretty bad call - i think i got a bit too focussed on t1 repeal a chrome mox or something, or being able to bounce chalice (which doesnt really hurt me anyway). Basically, echoing truth does everything repeal does except draw a card, most of the time for cheaper - and it also hoses dredge, which is randomly awesome.

Ancient grudge was pretty bad in the sideboard - i dont really know if i should be finding room to bring this in against thopter foundry, and still i dont really know how the match should work ( i think generally badly for me). I think that scapeshift should be pressuring tezz to assemble the combo or disrupt enough to stop yours, but there is very little room for you to do both. I think i may have come up with an idea to solve this but im not sure.

I think i should have also played the second breeding pool. I was worried about blood moon effects and only played 1, but on 2 separate occasions across 3 rounds found myself searching out basic forest and sat with cryptic command in hand doing nothing, sigh.



The Good News -

Gigadrowse was definately the truth - it provides a one shot window to go off, and is very good against any of the blue decks, although weakest against faeries - which is probably true of the deck in general.

Not playing ponder made me realise how awesome it was. Being tired made me assert how bad ponder was in the deck fairly strongly, but in both my lossesw there were at least 1-2 turn windows where scapeshift in hand or drawn was a won match. Ponder is the extra bit of manipulation the deck needs to be reliable, and you can control your draws more with the shuffle effects of the ramp spells, it was certainly missed in Nottingham.

Vendilion Clique may the droid i am looking for. Coiling oracle proved to be anywhere from meh to ok, but a friend offered me clique instead, which i needed little convincing to throw in other the snake. The ability to apply pressure is pretty crucial, and he is better in the mirror match than coiling oracle, the matchup where he was best.



The List

Please dont take this as the 75 i will play for the remainder by any means, but consider this the working list.

4 x vendilion clique
4 x wood elves
4 x sakura tribe eldar

4 x scapeshift
4 x peer through depths
3 x ponder
4 x search for tomorrow


4 x remand
3 x cryptic command
2 x echoing truth
1 x gigadrowse

4 x steam vents
4 x stomping ground
2 x breeding pool
2 x valakut the molten pinnacle
2 x mountain
2 x flooded grove
3 x forest
4 x island


S/B
4 x Firespout
3 x ravenous trap
2 x relic of progenitus
2 x gigadrowse

Sorry for the 11 card sideboard, trying to keep some of the other cards secret in case it turns out to be good tech, although this probably wont turn out to be the case.

Hopefully this will be good for a ticket to San Juan, but more importantly hopefully I will be good enough for a ticket to San Juan.


Until then,


See you all soon,


Jim

As always, feel free to post comments underneath. If you would like to contribute anything to the blog, email anything you want published to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk (for severe editing!)

Tournament Report - PTQ Nottingham *Winner winner chicken dinner*

By Wagz

Hi all, I have just had an excellent weekend and wish to shout about it. This Saturday was a PTQ in Nottingham to qualify for Pro Tour: San Juan, which is in Puerto Rico to save you googling it. I had resolved to make much more of an effort with PTQs and suchlike this year because last year I kept having things planned and managed to attend a grand total of 2 I think. This is obviously not giving myself the best chance at getting there so I decided to a) attend more and b) play good decks. By good decks I am most likely netdecking (unless I can think of a tremendous reason to not do so) with minor tweaks, but also trying to pick a deck which would be good or at least give me chances against a large proportion of the field (the expected opposition).

This qualifying season is Extended format and it looks like the big three decks are Zoo, Thopter Foundry and Scapeshift. I felt like Zoo and Scapeshift would be picked up by a lot of the better players and I should also be prepared for random matchups because there is nothing worse than losing to something terrible round 1 and then never getting anywhere. I picked Thopter Foundry because it is good against Zoo and random jank, has decent chances against Scapeshift (but likes the opponent to make mistakes) and if I picked it up early enough then I can get a good feel for the mirror. Control decks usually have godawful mirrors but I play pretty quickly and love casting blue cards - every spell should draw cards in my opinion.

I spent December on ebay slowly getting good deals for the cards in the deck LSV and Ochoa played at Worlds, figuring that while the deck might not end up like that it was a good place to start. After testing with others and a couple of practice tournaments I got comfortable with the flow of the deck and started to sleeve up when two things happened on Thursday: 1) LSV had a more up-to-date version in mtg.com's decks to beat section with (most importantly) an up-to-date sideboard, featuring many of the cards I was considering; and 2) I found out that I had broken a bone in my right (my good) hand. The first point meant I could have a great deck and had only to figure out sideboarding, which was easy because I had practiced the matchups already. The second point meant I couldn't shuffle well at all and had trouble keeping readable life totals. I decided that I had prepared so much that I wouldn't just duck out and everyone I know would be fine to shuffle their opponent's deck for them if they had a broken hand. I also decided to play in a GPT in Manchester on Sunday, because why not (more on this later)?

The 75 I sleeved up is the following:

Maindeck (60):
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ancient Den
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Mystic Gate
1 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1Tolaria West
1 Watery Grave
2 Trinket Mage
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
3 Chrome Mox
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Cryptic Command
1 Day of Judgment
2 Gifts Ungiven
3 Mana Leak
1 Muddle the Mixture
3 Path to Exile
4 Spell Snare
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Wrath of God


Sideboard (15):
1 Chalice of the Void
3 Cranial Extraction
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Negate
2 Pulse of the Fields
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Vendilion Clique


A pretty wonderful 75 with a bit more mana, counters and combo than the original with a bit of a dudes sideboard switch (definitely important to get the pressure on in some matchups).

Team Leeds managed to get 3 carfulls of players down, comprising 14 of the 78 competitors. There were also lots of people from other places I've got to know through playing Magic at various events - it's a good game for meeting people across the country if you want to. After registering and making sure my arm was alright for the judges (I'd messaged the head judge, David Lyford-Smith, in advance) the pairings were given out for round 1.

Round 1 vs Seb Parker (Zoo)

An annoying pairing, to be sure, because Seb is a friend who plays in Cambridge and we're going to Grand Prix: Madrid together at the end of February (with another couple of friends). I know he's playing Zoo, which is a good matchup, but he is also a good player. Game 1 he makes a Wild Nacatl straight away and with another quick guy and some burn back-up I was dead before I could get going. I sideboard:

-1 Tormod's Crypt, -2 Cryptic Command, -1 Pithing Needle, -2 Gifts Ungiven
+2 Vendilion Clique, +1 Engineered Explosives, +3 Kitchen Finks

He doesn't draw as well game 2 and after I deal with some guys he tries to burn me out. I land a Kitchen Finks to go to 12 against his basically empty hand and he concedes to go to game 3. We each keep dodgy hands - he has a lot of land and I have 1 with 4 1 mana spells on the draw. I get to spell snare a few key cards (Teeg, Goyf) and when I finally get to 3 mana to start casting Kitchen Finks he has drawn a lot of land. After drawing all those lands he drew his Steppe Lynxes but I had a recurring Engineered Explosives lock with 3 different colours so it was simply a matter of time before I got there.

1-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 2 vs Dom ? (Thopter Foundry)

I didn't know at the time but this guy had just beaten Fu in a mirror match. Fu was running the old version of the deck so I couldn't take the results to heart if I did know what was going on. I played a Misty Rainforest on turn 1 and he played a tapped Hallowed Fountain. This told me two things: we were mirror matching and he didn't have a Spell Snare in hand. The mirror is often about comboing quicker, or lockinh the combo with Pithing Needle and winning with a slow Trinket Mage or Tezzeret Ultimate. Thusly I made turn 2 Thopter Foundry and was not surprised when he did the same. I hadn't drawn a Sword by now so I played Trinket Mage and fetched up the Needle. I landed it after a brief counter war and was getting in happily for 2 a turn. He conceded on 8 because I had outmana'd him so dealing with the needle wouldn't matter. He was playing a version of the deck with Life from the Loam, which seems pretty good as it is tutorable with Muddle, helps get Swords in the bin and keeps getting your Academy Ruins back, an important card to be sure. With this in mind I didn't take out the usual Tormod's Crypt and elected for

-1 Wrath of God, -1 Day of Judgment, -3 Path to Exile, -1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Negate, + 2 Vendilion Clique, +2 Cranial Extraction

Game 2 is another non-starter really as I have a hand with half the combo, Tezzeret, some card draw and some counters and land, whereas he had no land to speak of. He managed to EOT discard a Sword but I got in a counter war over a Chrome Mox, leaving me free to resolve Tezz and just win with my huge mana advantage. I felt a bit lucky this round because he seems better prepared for the mirror but didn't draw lands. Still, there's a good prize on the line so it's not a good idea to feel guilty - if they stumble then you kick them while they're down.

2-0, 4-1

Round 3 vs Bruno Panara (Scapeshift)

Looks like my read on the format was a good one then. Bruno is a very good player from Edinburgh but I believe he originates in Italy. Scapeshift combo is not a great matchup for me as game 1 I have 10 dead cards and I have to pick my moment for counter wars over relevant spells. Game 1 is quite a long one. He doesn't draw too many lands if I remember correctly, while I manage to assemble my combo. He plays a Valakut which I am able to Ghost Quarter and I hope he is only playing 2 when he combos off because I am able to get out of range with the Foundry.

-3 Path to Exile, -1 Pithing Needle, -1 Tormod's Crypt, -1 Day of Judgment, -1 Wrath of God, -1 Vedalken Shackles, -2 Engineered Explosives
+3 Cranial Extraction, +2 Vendilion Clique, +2 Negate, +3 Kitchen Finks

Game 2 I get my combo going pretty quickly and get out of range while he never draws a Scapeshift. The thing about Scapeshift is that if you can reach a certain life total then they can't harm you. They need 7 lands to deal you 18, 8 lands to deal you 36, and each subsequent land adds 6 to that total. This means you can just stay ahead of them as the game progresses if you have some life gain in the deck, such as Foundry or Martyr. I contemplated playing Martyr myself but it doesn't seem to have the raw power of Thopter Control and can have difficulties closing games.

3-0, 6-1

Round 4 vs Craig Stevenson (Zoo)

Another friend, teh sux. I hate playing friends because it's always a bit awkward when someone wins and you go back to your other friends for them to ask you how it went. It's still fun to whine about how lucky they got: I feel like I am deservedly on the bad end of a bad beat story. I win the very large dice roll and fan out Misty Rainforest, Mystic Gate, Scalding Tarn, Chrome Mox, Cryptic Command, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek. Time to be the aggro player then :D. I fetch an Island and Mox-Cryptic for a turn 1 Sword of the Meek. Craig takes 3 making a Wild Nacatl. I play Mystic Gate and Thopter Foundry and wish him luck as I have drawn Day of Judgment. He plays a Qasali Pridemage and bashes in for 3 so I make a thopter end of turn (it feels better to race than stop some damage when I can gain so much life). I drew and fetched another Island, briefly considered my options and decided that if he had another Pridemage then I wasn't going to win the race with 4 guys so I got in for 2 and cleared the board. 1 card in hand, combo on board, end my turn 3. He doesn't draw a good answer and scooped them up - sorry Craig.

I board the same as round 1 and Craig has to mull to 5. I don't remember much of this game but the +2's on my life total pad indicate that I got a couple of Kitchen Finks down and I remember ending up with a couple of thopters from a Foundry with no Sword.

4-0, 8-1

Round 5 vs Tom Harle (Dredge)

Round 5 is the awkward one where you can win then ID in or lose and have to win the next one. I'm not sure I'm well-equipped to fight Dredge as I have little graveyard removal and no kind of quick clock. Sure enough he starts going off quite fast and although I have an explosives to deal with some tokens I can't stop the Narcomoeba beatdown without giving him lots of 2/2 Zombies. I did manage to Path him into his third land when it became apparent he was about to Dread Return Iona but a Mana Leak saw that off.

-3 Mana Leak, -1 Vedalken Shackles, -1 Spell Snare, -2 Cryptic Command
+2 Negate, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +3 Cranial Extraction, +1 Engineered Explosives

I substitute some dead cards for some less dead cards but am unable to stop the Zombie horde. I am probably sideboarding this wrongly but it doesn't look like I have a tremendous angle of attack to the game regardless. Tom's always a good player to play against because win or lose he's happy and friendly.

4-1, 8-3

Round 6 vs Matt Light (Rubin Zoo)

This was now the crucial round as it was likely the top 8 after this round would be able to ID in. Matt's a local player but I've seen him around at a bunch of events; he's the guy from the trade a One with Nothing for an entire deck at Nats story. I knew he was playing Rubin Zoo from scouting around (it's easy at events like this to figure out what a lot of people are playing after a few rounds) which is my best match-up, so I'd better not blow it. I counter a few threats because his are more expensive than normal Zoo and I get a Tezzeret down. I think about getting my combo but figure he's bound to have a Bolt sandbagged and my best action is to fetch out Vedalken Shackles. Sure enough he has a Lightning Helix to finish off my Planeswalker but is basically kold to Shackles as I can steal all his guys and make them fight each other for my pleasure. I use an otherwise-useless Tormod's Crypt to make a 7/7 Knight of the Reliquary stealable, counter his Bolt on it but can't stop him Pathing his own guy. When I reach enough Islands to steal Baneslayers he scoops them up.

-1 Tormod's Crypt, -1 Pithing Needle, -1 Spell Snare
+2 Vendilion Clique, +1 Engineered Explosives

He comes out fast with some Noble Hierarchs and a Kataki but I get another quick Vedalken Shackles and slowly control the game. I spend a lot of time sitting behind a stolen Goyf and have counters when attempts to Bant Charm the Shackles with his own Counter back-up. He lands a Gaddock Teeg when I tap out to fetch an Engineered Explosives but when I Path Teeglesworth he concedes to the inevitable.

5-1, 10-3

Round 7 vs Stephen McIntosh (Dark Depths)

Another Cambridge player and one I knew from when I used to play there (when I was even more terrible).

-1 Hunger, -1 Hour
+1 Chilli Beef with Rice, +1 Nachos

The whole top 8 could safely ID in so we used this opportunity to get some dinner and relax before the top 8 started.

5-1-1, 10-3

Quarter Finals vs Jim (Thopter Foundry)

Not my Jim, although my Jim did know him, do they have a club? Maybe it has a gym. Anyway, the top 8 was 2 Zoo, 2 Scapeshift, 2 Thopter Foundry, Dredge and Dark Depths. I finished 4th in the swiss and faced the 5th placed Mirror match, yay. Game 1 took a very long time with some Trinket Mage beats and a small amount of comboing on both sides before the board was wiped, I stuck a Pithing Needle on his Academy Ruins and we were both in topdeck mode. I made the mistake of playing out all my lands (mana advantage is usually good in control mirrors) before I drew Thirst for Knowledge and worked out why I might want extra cards in hand. I was able to filter through my deck first and found the combo again. He got a Gifts and received a Tezzeret in the deal but I had a counter for the sword of the Meek and he had no Artifact to keep comboing with when I went off.

-1 Tormod's Crypt, -1 Wrath of God, -1 Day of Judgment, -3 Path to Exile
+2 Negate, +2 Vendilion Clique, +2 Cranial Extraction

With not long left my best chances were locking up the game for us both. I had an early combo but only got 1 guy out of my Sword before it was Extirpated, drat. He lands a Trinket Mage and I a Vendilion Clique followed by a second Thopter. I kill his Tezzeret, losing my Clique to his Thopter and trade my two tokens for his Trinket Mage, leaving the board clear. I resolve a Tezzeret and fetch up Pithing Needle naming Thopter Foundry to stop any more comboing and he scoops rather than wait out the few minutes we had remaining.

6-1-1, 12-3

Semi Finals vs Bruno Panara (Again)

He assures me he won't be so unlucky this time and he's figured out how to sideboard. By this point we had been moved into the bar area and there was a more jovial atmosphere to proceedings. I mull g1 and keep an okay but probably too slow hand. I get my combo going but am only able to reach 25 when he 36's me - told you one had to get out of range!

Same sideboarding as before, 10 dead cards out for 10 live ones. I get my combo (important, since I am actually the aggressor in this matchup) and am able to gain enough life to be out of range before he finds a Scapeshift he can adequately defend. Game 3 for the marbles then. This is a very interesting game as I manage to defend a cranial Extraction to strip away his Scapeshifts. An early Vendilion Clique stripped him of a Cloudthresher but the Cranial revealed a Rude Awakening in his hand. At the end of my turn he tapped out to Cryptic Bounce a land and draw a card and I seized the opportunity to Clique away the Awakening, legend ruling that creature to just leave me with a Kitchen Finks. He goes for a Peer through Depths which I Negate and I Negate his Negate, leaving me handless with my Finks and Thopter Combo to his 1 life and land in hand. I wish him luck and he slams Vendilion Clique down, believing it to be not enough to save him. He forgot to try Cliquing away his land but I think the top of his library was blanks when he looked afterwards. As I write this I realise I might be confusing the games with one another, but Rich Hagon was on hand to take a good match report so hopefully he'll write it up himself at some point and I can see all my mistakes again.

7-1-1, 14-4

Finals vs Richard Bland (Scapeshift)

Scapeshift again?!? At least my read on the format was accurate enough, having played 3 Zoo, 3 Scapeshift, 2 Thopter Foundry and 1 Dredge deck. My memories of this match are a bit hazy, but in game 1 he made an early Kitchen Finks, an unusual maindeck choice for Scapeshift. I got my combo and was soon able to block and kill the Finks and attack for some. He had a Firespout but I just made more guys and gained more life and I was able to attack him for lethals. This was it, 1 game win away from the Pro Tour!

Same old trusty sideboarding, didn't even need the reminder sheet for this one ;). Game 2 I kept a slow one with too many expensive spells. He Vendilion Cliques me and lets me keep, bashes in for 3 a few times but combos the win before I can recover, Sad Face.

We shuffle up for game 3. I say we; due to my broken hand I had had Andy Edwards, Jim Marlow and Neil Rigby offering to shuffle for me throughout the top 8 - stirling work guys, very appreciated. My 7 has a guy, some land and some counters so I keep it. Richard doesn't like his 7 so goes to 6. He looks long and hard about this and when I ask if it's Valakut and 5 mountains, he says that it's close but only 4. His next 5 are no good either but he keeps the 4. I know the game is mine for the taking now but my guy is a Trinket Mage and I don't want to get beat by a Vendilion Clique when my back is turned so I take it slowly and play my Mage when I have counter mana up. He only gets me an Artifact Land but I'm able to land a Kitchen Finks. A Vendilion Clique in his draw step gets countered but I have too much pressure on now and he can't get there in time.

8-1-1 16-5-1

There it was, I'd done it! My first PTQ win, and I was very happy. I think everyone around could see that it was special to me because they were all congratulating me. The judges had made a special Blue envelope with a note of congratulations and a foil lucky charm to take with me, which was lovely. Guess I'm off to Puerto Rico then :D

Extendedable Youth - a Tournament Report

By Wagz

With the PTQ season coming up a few of us got together last weekend for a proxies-allowed Extended tournament to aid our preparation and help filter out the good decks. I brought LSV’s Tezzeret deck to battle and the mix of players would hopefully ensure we had a lot of variety but not too much Rogue (because playtesting against these decks is basically useless).

Round 1 I faced Martin, who was playing Dredge. Not sure how good a matchup this is because Dredge has the nuts most game 1s and then games 2 and 3 depend on the opponent’s hate. I lost game 1 after a couple of misplays but that’s why we’re here - to practice. Game 2 I kept a hand with Meddling Mage, Spell Snare, Path to Exile, Thirst for Knowledge and Engineered Explosives in but only 1 land – Mystic Gate. I kept it because any 1 coloured mana source and I’ve won already with Mage naming Dread Return and Protection to go the distance. Predictably I drew all spells but it was an interesting keep. I dread the return of this matchup because it’s not really like playing Magic™.

Round 2 was against Danny with Affinity, also known as “a real deck”. Game 1 I stabilized on 3 life before Thoptering off but game 2 I couldn’t get there in time and his little robots beat mine. He did draw all 4 Master of Etheriums though, tough breaks. This is the one matchup where you’d want more Wraths over Engineered Explosives, but you have lots of card draw to fetch them up and EE for 2 kills Ravager and Plating, two very key cards. Game 3 I kept a 2 land and mox hand but didn’t draw a third land. I used my 3 mana to make Vedalken Shackles and stole his Blinkmoth Nexus when he activated it to swing the next turn, upping my mana count to Blue Mox, Hallowed Fountain, Island and Nexus. This gave me enough mana to chain Cryptic Commands while at 4 life, hoping to find a White mana source to cast the Wrath in hand. I saw a Hallowed Fountain and wasted his team before getting a Baneslayer to smash in for 4 turns with all the skill required to do that.

Round 3 was a relatively bad match-up, Scapeshift (piloted by Andy Edwards). Game 1 I got my combo going but 23 life isn’t enough when they just 36 you in one turn, thanks for playing. Luckily games 2 and 3 I was able to counter the right spells at the right time and pulled it through to win. Sorry for not discussing this matchup more but it is one I prepared specific sideboard tech for and don’t wanna splash it all across the internets.

Round 4 I sat opposite Kier, with Deathcloud Rock, aka Tarmogoyf and cards. I think this is a good matchup for me but don’t know for sure. Game 1 I took a small amount of damage but got the Roflthopters going and protected the combo. Game 2 he landed a couple of guys and although I was battling to begin with, tapping out for my last card – Baneslayer Angel – and having it Putrefied put me on topdeck mode. My subsequent lands didn’t get anywhere against a creature on board. I’m pretty sure he still had all those though ;). Game 3 was a bit more back and forth but he didn’t have an answer for Vedalken Shackles and then he really didn’t have one for Baneslayer until it was too late.

3-1 felt pretty good for the deck, including that loss to manascrew against Dredge (which still could have gone either way if I could have cast my spells and there was always game 3 to lose). I’m tweaking it slightly for the PTQs but it’s nice to feel comfortable piloting a good deck rather than some homebrew again (loved my Realm Razer Zoo deck for Nats Qualifiers last year). I’m going to take PTQing more seriously this year, but as a result I might play even more random decks at WNM to make up for it (I’ve played combo since Zendikar came out, can’t stand swinging with dudes until necessary). For those into results and statistics, here’s the full breakdown of the results:

Round 1
Playa	Deck	Score	Playa	“Deck”
John	(Sullivan Burn)	2-0	Rob C	(Living End)
Steve	(Landfall Zoo)	1-2	Kenny	(Kiki-Jiki)
Andy E	(Scapeshift)	2-0	Kier	(Deathcloud)
Paul	(All-in Red)	2-1	Danny	(Affinity)
Craig	(Domain Zoo)	2-1	Andy D	(Living End)
Rob W	(Tezzeret)	0-2	Martin	(Dredge)

Round 2
John	2-1	Martin
Paul	0-2	Craig
Kenny	0-2	Andy E
Rob W	2-1	Danny
Steve	0-2	Andy D
Rob C	2-1	Kier

Round 3
John	1-2	Craig
Andy E	1-2	Rob W
Martin	0-2	Kenny
Paul	2-0	Andy D
Rob C	2-0	Danny
Steve	0-2	Kier

Round 4
Craig	2-1	Rob C
John	2-1	Andy E
Kenny	2-0	Paul
Rob W	2-1	Kier
Steve	1-2	Danny
Andy D	0-2	Martin

Final Standings
Place	Name	Deck	Pts	OMW%	GW% (calculated manually, good times)
1	Craig	Domain Zoo	12
2	John	Sullivan Burn	9	0.625
3	Kenny	Kik-Jiki Combo	9	0.458
4	Rob W	Tezzeret	9	0.417
5	Andy E	Scapeshift	6	0.646	0.75
6	Martin	Dredge	6	0.646	0.556
7	Rob C	Living End	6	0.604	0.5
8	Paul	All-in Red	6	0.604	0.444
9	Andy D	Living End	3	0.583
10	Kier	Deathcloud	3	0.4
11	Danny	Affinity	3	0.333
12	Steve	Landfall Zoo	0

Guest Column: Worlds Day 3 with Mick

By Mick Edwards

Since so much happened at worlds I have decided to only write about the games on day 3 as it was one of the better days for me (and not just because I won more games on day 3).

The previous night I had built a Zoo list using blood moons and molten rain with Mark Glenister. But afterwards a friend of mine on the Norwegian team convinced me I would be playing zoo for the wrong reasons and I should go with the deck I had been testing instead of the one I had just made up. So here is the decklist I played:

4 River of Tears

2 Swamp

1 Island

1 Dark Depths

3 Sunken Ruins

3 Tolaria West

2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Watery Grave

2 Underground River

1 Ghost Quarter

4 Chrome Mox

4 Thoughtseize

3 Dark Confidant

1 Vampire Hexmage

1 Time Seive (thanks Rob)

1 Shred Memory

1 Echoing Truth

2 Repeal

3 Engineered Explosives

3 Chalice of the Void

4 Muddle the Mixture

3 Beseech the Queen

4 Thopter Foundry

4 Sword of the Meek

---Side---

3 Damnation

3 Ravenous Trap

1 Ghost Quarter

1 Tormod’s Crypt

2 Hurkyl’s Recall

1 Pithing Needle

2 Threads of Disloyalty

1 Doom Blade

1 Yixlid Jailor

But before the extended started there were 2 rounds of team event. Ironically the 2 teams we played against were the 2 teams I had been testing with at the hotel and so we mostly knew each others decks before hand.

Round 3: Norway

This game resulted in a draw due to the Zoo vs Martyr game going to time. And Fortunately the Norwegian captain had a turn where he played standstill followed immediately by Aether Vial instead of the other way around (he was playing legacy merfolk).

More interestingly the whole round got disrupted by everyone having to fill out forms to join the Italian sports federation in order to get paid for the event.

Round 4: Isreal

I can’t remember any of these games particularly well as I think we all won these pretty fast going 3-0 across the team.

So from the Team rounds Great Britain had gone 3-0-1 which was pretty good to balance out the less than impressive individual records. Onto Extended:

Round 1: Hypergenesis

Game 1:I managed to assemble the combo fairly fast here but the turn after this he cascaded into hypergenesis with enough in hand to win the game.

Game 2: I flukily got both Hexmage and Dark Depths in my opening hand and made a turn 2 20/20 on the play, that was enough to win that game.

Game 3: This game seemed like it was back and forth a lot but really I was never too worried. From early on I had chalice set to 0 but when he eventually destroyed it with krosan grip and combed off I was ready with the Damnation to undo his combo and a tutor to get a second Chalice. He managed to combo off a second time but I had a second Damnation by this time so I was I no hurry to combo off too fast and eventually won with thopters.

1-0

Round 2: WU Thopter Combo

My opponent here was a guy on the Australian Team and I had previously leant him a Chalice of the Void so I figured he was playing some sort of control deck. The ‘mirror’ turned out to be one of the most fun games of magic I’d played in a long time and the 1^st game lasted nearly 50 minutes.

Game 1:

His deck was a slower more control version so although I was able to assemble my combo first, when he assembled his combo he was able to get more land in play to better use it. At one point he even cast gifts ungiven for 4 land when he was at 8 land already! In trying to get an edge I tried various things, from using explosives to blow up both our combos to casting chalice so neither of us could replay the combo should we draw it again (I drew the thopter foundry the next turn, at this point both our academy ruins were in the graveyard).

Eventually the chalice got removed and we both replayed the combo. I then tutored up time sieve and waited until it could not be countered to go infinite to take the game (thanks again Rob).

Game 2:

He assembled his combo very fast, but not before time was called and I used Echoing Truth and Hurkyl’s Recall to survive long enough to force a drawn game but a won round.

2-0

Round 3: UR Control

Game 1: He gets an early blood moon which locks me out of the game.

Game 2: He again gets an early blood moon, but this time it’s too late as I’ve already played my thopter foundry and I combo off through it (he gets me a warning as I accidently try to imprint time sieve on a chrome mox)

Game 3: I keep a hand with an island and a mox and some black spells thinking it will be good as I can play around blood moon. Then he goes turn 1 mox into chalice for 0, then turn 2 blood moon! I eventually draw my swamp to explosives for 3 and kill his blood moon but the next turn he drops a chalice for 2 to stop me from playing my combo (Afterwards I felt stupid for not saving my explosives to kill his chalices but with 2 chalices at 0 and a blood moon in play there is no way for me to actually do that). I go for another win condition: manually removing dark depths counters, and the turn I get a 20/20 he plays Venser for the win.

2-1

Round 4: Hypergenesis

Game 1: I play chalice for 0 and he can’t deal with it so casts nothing all game.

Game 2: He combos off on turn 2... But I’m almost glad as my hand contains foundry, sword and time sieve and enough land (inc. Acad ruins) to go infinite should I draw a land in my next 3 draws. However, he puts 2 Angel of Despair into play so I concede rather than show him my tech.

Game 3: He mulligans and keeps a 1 land hand which kills my chalice for 0 with Ingot Chewer, but I tutor up a second chalice before he finds his second land and I win soon after.

3-1

Round 4: Martyr

I don’t remember much about this round except he was playing a weird martyr build and he won 1 game because he had double castigate to remove my combo. In another game I managed to get my combo just in time as he had exactly lethal plus path and I was able to make 1 thopter... leaving me at 1 life when he cast path. I then untapped and made about 5 thopters and gain 5 life to win a few turns later.

4-1

Round 5: Zoo

Game 1: I have the worst draw in the world against zoo as I draw 3 thoughtseize in a row (one gets imprinted on a mox) and he draws pridemage to play in between my thoughtseizes. Despite this I manage to combo off when he is tapped out to make a few blockers, but he uses punishing fire combo to clear them out of the way so he can swing in for the win.

Game 2: I use chrome mox to make a turn 1 sword of the meek as a decoy as I have hexmage + dark depths in hand. He makes turn 2 kataki and I make a 20/20 the following turn. He plays path from the top of his library (how lucky) and then begins playing meddling mages. After he has played 2 meddling mage both naming thopter foundry I kill them both with engineered explosives... so he sets his next mage to explosives when I academy ruins it to my hand. I have echoing truth ready but not enough mana to cast that + explosives + activate and he wins the next turn as he had been beating in for a long time.

4-2

I felt both games against zoo were very unlucky draws for me and very lucky draws for him (he told me the path was off the top.) I really enjoyed playing the deck and was very glad I didn’t play zoo instead as most of my match-ups would have been a lot tougher for zoo.

Mick

Forthcoming PtG,StW Qualifier (Extended)

By Wagz

This Saturday Fanboy3 in Manchester will host a Play the Game, See the World Qualifier. This is a qualifying tournament for a particular side-event at Worlds. The player(s) who qualifies get to go to Worlds and attempt to grind in through this side event, if I'm correct. The format for the qualifier is Extended, which should be very interesting for 2 reasons:

1) Extended has been out of season since March, and

2) This format is relevant for one tournament since Zendikar is a-coming.

With this in mind, I'm not sure how much it will pay to try to read the metagame so I think a good deck for the tournament will be something that doesn't care what your opponent is playing. Here's what I'm currently toying with:

4 Spark Elemental

4 Mogg Fanatic

4 Keldon Marauders

4 Ball Lightning

4 Rift Bolt

4 Lava Spike

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Shrapnel Blast

4 Incinerate

4 Flames of the Blood Hand

3 Blinkmoth Nexus

3 Darksteel Citadel

4 Great Furnace

10 Mountain

With a currently undecided Sideboard. Ball Lightning and Lightning Bolt may well have rejuvenated this deck to the point of playability. Also, not having to worry about what my opponent is doing is certainly an advantage!! Anyway, wish me luck.

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Extra: Screenshot from the final of a ME3 draft sent in by Ben Scoones. Won that game apparently.