By Jim Marlow
Hey guys,
This weekend saw the GameCon return to Manchester for another hugely successful 3 days of gaming fun, including some awesome magic events.
Sadly, monetary constraints meant i couldn't make the saturday, which saw (i think) 3 members of Team Leeds make the top 8 of a GPT for Paris, with Mick Edwards winning the whole thing...can anyone beat him.
Good luck if you go to Paris though Mick, with those 3 byes you only need to win another 12 or so rounds and you might get another pro point, yay lvl 3!
So Rob, Martin, Fu, Mick, Colin and myself went back to Manchester for the PTQ on the Sunday, which was also a zendikar sealed event, with around 60 players in the mix for the flights to San Diego.
The pool i opened was pretty poo, luckily i got passed a semi-decent one, which was a quite aggressive r/g number. The guy who passed me it said he hated the pool...but he was in the GPT later, so bah.
The deck i played featured double plated geopede along with a u/r fetchland, harrow and some other decent creatures, along with a spire barrage, burst lightning and punishing fire to make up a decent removal suite.
Round 1 - Ross Silcock - 5 colour (i think)
Ross is a good guy, and all round unlucky player from Manchester, and i had a real laugh in this round.
Sadly, i won this round through Ross having some massively uncharacteristic bad luck. His multicoloured deck did not serve him the lands he needed, and although he cleary had some mana fixing, his manabase seemed ambitious, and despite his bombs getting there in game 1, games 2 and 3 my aggressive draw didn't help his colour screw.
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 - Sam Stokes - b/w
Game 1 - this was a bit of a raping sadly, i think i won on turn 5 with a double geopede and fetchland draw my notepad reads his life total to be; 20, 17, 7, 1.....
Game 2 - i got a slightly less aggresive draw (only 1 geopede before turn 3), and despite Sam playing Day of judgement to clear a pretty full board, i had burn and backup guys in hand to finish him off. His friend said he could have wrathed earlier, but to be honest im not sure it woudl have helped. Apparently he was colour screwed for a couple turns, and both games i got him on a pretty quick clock.
The only loss of life i had in both games was from scalding tarn....but both games i played my refuge later to finish on 20, phew
2-0 (3-1)
Round 3 - Richard Parker - g/b/r
Richard is a really good limited player, so obviously this wasn't going to be easy.
Both of our decks featured a swath of removal so it seemed to be based on whoever had a guy left after the board was repeatedly ravaged on both sides.
Game 1 - The game stalled somewhat when we both got flooded, and the board, after numerous trades with turntimber basalisks (he had 2, i had 1) was both of us having a nissa's chosen equipped with a blazing torch, which didn't seem like a massively profitable attack for either of us. I think i eventually burst lightninged the chosen to start gettin in, and i have a feeling i eventually found my terra stomper to get ther.
Game 2 - I got the beats in early, and once again Richards bigger suite of removal than mine meant none of my guys got in too often, by finding both basalisks again and the torch slinger. Eventually i had a guy and shatterskull giant to richards basalisk. Richard magma rifts my giant, which i respond to by primal bellowing my guy for 5 or 6 i think, he then plays a land and gets my giant to block, but then kickers a vines of vastwood....which still means they trade. Richard realised the huge punt he has made and gets pretty angry at himself (mick and rob who played him in the next two rounds heard the story from him). I play another dork. Richard plays goblin runeblaster, (my hand is harrow and fetchland) i harrow in reponse for 2 mountains, knowing my only probable out is spire barrage if richard has another guy. I rip the spire barrage, so get in with both dorks, getting 2 damage through and putting Richard to 5, play and crack the fetchland for a mountain and spire barrage for exactsies!!! bam!
This felt pretty good.
3-0 (5-1)
Round 4 - Guy (u/g)
Game 1 - Guy played turn 1 kraken hatchling, which basically stalled my board enough for his turns 2 and 3 terns to get there..blurgh. i know this is who the deck is meant to work but his deck didnt feel superior so im still confident.
Game 2 - I keep 2 mountains and fetch, 2 red spells and 2 green spells. He plays turn 1 hedron crab, i draw a green spell., he then mills 2 forests and i draw 3 successive green spells and only find 1 forest about 3 or 4 turns later, by which time he plays jwar jwar sphinx, which is good enough.
After the games he tells me how he takes out his maindeck relic crush for the 5 mana forest walker.....good luck in the top 8.
3-1 (5-3)
Round 5 - Big cheats Steve.
Game 1 - I get pretty annoyed by generally a lot of shifty play, which isn't help by previous stories of this guys tendencies to do stuff which is a bit underhand. Throughout the game Steve is trying to pick up lands when he plays the wrong ones, he looks at his cards when shuffling. Eventually i call a judge when steve says go, no wait i attack for 3 first. The judge rules against me and i get on with it, but i draw pretty badly and lose.
Game 2 - Im pretty annoyed in general, im put off by watching for shady actions, of which there are many, and im not concentrating on the game. I sit on 4 lands and decline to harrow to unload my hand of 5 mana spells, so basically watch Steve beat me up with an emeria Angel.....im suhc a punter
This match really highlighted two things to me
1) i need a better knowledge of the rules and need to be more confident in calling a judge when something is wrong. I should have got a judge to watch the game straight away knowing i was playing this guy and should have spoken up about everything i thought was wrong, rather than let them playing at my mind and not concentrate on the game.
2) Point 2 was going to be something slanderous and rude; but whatever. i would say im above calling people names on the internet but i cant really say that having written most of this blog's articles. Im sure players who act in certain ways will eventually get caught and punished, and it is cetainly a learning curve to my need for an absolutely concise knowledge of the rules so that i can make sure this is the case.
3-2 (5-5) Bad times, probably out of top8 contention now, depending on results and my tiebreakers holding up, as i had previously been very near the top of the breakers.
btw, cheaty steve got his just desserts by comin 9th on tiebreakers.
Round 5 - Dylan Black
I played this guy before in Manchester in a draft after a PTQ, he drafted a sick deck and i beat him with a piece of crap.
Game 1 - I cant remember if we got flooded or screwed, but this was a real non game,. with one of my randon dorks getting there against Dylan's team.
Game 2 - I say i hope we have a proper game this time, which must have jinxed it, because both of us drew probably twice the number of lands to spells. I get some really insignificant beats in with a nissa's chosen, possibly a bladetusk boar or something else. Sadly Dylan goes and draws some kind of spell and stabalises with him on 8. I get in, leaving him on 8 and a couple of dudes left, with a burst lightning in hand (that i can kicker at least twice, i can do that for 8 damage right?). I figure i can get in with everythig, then make a pretty punty attack getting my guy killed for no reason but putting dylan to 5, oops. He taps his mass of land for a kickered conquerer's pledge....shitsticks, guess i better draw my spire barrage, which is worth at least 7 (8 mountains in deck), yay!
4-2 (7-5)
Overall the ptq was successful, my deck was fine, and on another day i may have squeezed into top 8 with it. I feel both my losses good have easily gone the other way, but certainly that is the case for one of my wins. Im just glad i am over my period of crapping out PTQ's. I think i am pretty good at zendikar sealed, and i am confident i can at least top 8 given another chance and a playable pool, as long as i dont gift a round to some dirty cheater.
In other news, some people stole 9 boosters of prize support from Rob, Mick of myself that we had shuffled together to do a classic multiplayer winston, which was a little annoying to say the least. We think we know who it was but with very little in terms to go by in terms of knowing what the cards were etc it was hard to prove anything. It was just a bit sad that they did it really, i know who the people are and one of them is friends with some of the better players in the country, so i am surprised at his attitude, but i played him in the Nats LCQ and i thought he was a tosser then so whatever.
Annoyingly, i cant make this Tuesday because i am going back home for a funeral, so i may have to build a constructed deck or something for next week.
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
