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: Drafting Urza’s Saga – Part 1

By Ben Scoones

As some of you are probably aware, Urza’s Saga came out online about 2 weeks ago. I generally love older draft formats, regardless of quality, and to be honest just really enjoy playing with new cards, so I leapt at the chance to draft with such a powerful and iconic set. Having done about 20 drafts at this point, I feel in a good position to pass on my knowledge of how to draft Urza’s Saga, and how to profit from doing so.

White – Commons:
White has some pretty decent commons in this set. The top creatures are Pegasus Charger and Opal Gargoyle, as cards that are way above the curve for any set, and Sanctum Custodian, with the prevent two ability essentially halting any offence your opponent has. Even Monk Realist is solid in a set with such a high amount of enchantments. The removal is also fine, with Pacifism and Path of Peace. Interestingly, Path of Peace is actually the better removal spell, with a set so full of bounce and maindeck-able enchantment removal. However, what’s probably best about white are the Runes of Protection. If you manage to get a few of the key ones (black, red and green) then you’re going to have great trouble losing to those colours, just make sure you have a way to kill them.

Uncommons:

The incredible hosers continue with Absolute Grace, Absolute Law, Angel of Grace and Angel of Law. However, whilst the two Angels are worth a high pick, the two enchantments will often go round very late, so don’t pick them high. The creatures are reasonable, with Opal Acrolith being near impossible to kill with his 0 ability and is therefore one of the best creatures for white. In addition to this, you get some more solid tricks in Humble; the old ovinize, and Waylay which can potentially wipe their whole board. But the best by far is Serra’s Embrace, if you can resolve this then more often than not that’s game, as massive, vigilance angels tend to be.

Rares:

White’s rares are probably the main or only reason for going for the colour other than a very late Pacifism or Path of Peace. Elite Archers, Herald of Serra, Catastrophe, Glorious Anthem, Opal Archangel, Opal Titan and Worship all being bombs. The enchantments will not be as easy to activate due to their high mana cost, but are still well worth an early pick. One of the sleeper rares, which people greatly undervalue, is Soul Sculptor. This card is ridiculous, and can completely halt an opponent’s offence as well as blanking any non-mass removal spells they have in their hand, pick him very highly.

Overview:

White probably has the best card in the set for limited, Catastrophe, but the quality of the creatures (more specifically their power) makes it hard to win games without a bomb. Because of this, white is never a main colour if you can help it, but a support colour for some reasonable removal and tricks.




Blue – Commons:

Pendrell Drake and Catalogue are the two best blue commons, the flier is pretty big in a set full of 2/2s and is also a decent win condition, Catalogue is pretty much the only ‘card advantage’ available, so pick them up when possible. Going down, Veiled Serpent and Rescind are also high picks, Rescind being very good in this set because of both echo and the high density of enchantments. To finish off blue there is Rewind, Power Sink and Wizard Mentor. I generally try to get around 2 counter spells when I’m playing blue, with Power Sink being just a little better than Rewind. The Mentor is surprisingly good, being able to protect your few win conditions from removal as well as be a (near) permanent blocker. It’s worth noting the Hermetic Study, Horseshoe Crab combo is all in blue, Horseshoe Crab is not very good by himself, whereas the Hermetic Study is. Pick the Study highly and you should very likely see Crabs later on.

Uncommons:

Confiscate needs no explanation, you can steal a land to prevent them paying echo or manascrew them, steal their bomb, steal their blocker. It’s so versatile and the 6 mana price tag is really not that much in such a slow format. Fog Bank is a really good defender that allows you to reach your late game, pick him highly. Peregrine Drake, whilst he doesn’t have a huge body for his cost, being able to play him into say Pendrell Drake or leave up a counterspell is pretty huge. Zephid’s Embrace, like Serra’s Embrace, will win you the game if it’s resolved, and is pretty sweet on a Horseshoe Crab (especially if you get Hermetic Study as well ;). Sandbar Serpent is pretty good; he’s a massive beater for blue and can be cycled in a pinch if you’re looking for land. Veiled Apparition is not quite as good, it may only cost 1U, but you’ll rarely if ever cast it on turn 2, it’s a pretty good late game finisher though. Turnabout, like Exhaustion, is pretty marginal, and generally I wouldn’t play it, but in the right deck can be exactly what you need to win races.

Rares:

Morphling, one of the iconic cards of the set, is probably the best creature in the format. Impossible to answer, apart from by the best rare in the format, he’s an emphatic first pick. Stroke of Genius is similar, ridiculously bomby and you can even mill your opponent if it comes to that. Drifting Djinn, Zephid and Great Whale are all finishers of sterling quality. Sunder, similarly to Upheaval, can just end games, you need to be ahead at first, but that should be too hard with the amount of control blue has. Somnophore is a fine guy, he only beats for 2 but keeping their best creature tapped down is very powerful. Lastly, Barrin, Master Wizard and Gilded Wrake are in for their combo potential. Barrin, Master Wizard + Launch or Despondency means bounce all their creatures for only 4 mana per creature. Gilded Drake + Wizard Mentor means you permanently steal their creature for 5 mana.

Overview:

Blue is the second best colour in the set, losing out only to black. The cards are not necessarily of the highest power, but with some very synergistic commons, decent card advantage, evasion and of course some of the best finishers; it’s definitely a colour you want to be in if at all possible.

Black – Commons:

Black has by far the best selection of commons. It has spot removal, mass removal, evasion and power with almost every common being at least playable. Pestilence, Corrupt, Expunge, Despondency and Befoul are the removal suite. Pestilence is of course a bomb, capable of winning the game by itself, literally burning the opponent out on many occasions. The others are all obvious in quality, but Despondency is a card I see underrated an awful lot. This set has so few 3 or greater power creatures, so it’s basically a removal spell at worst. Add to this the fact that it returns to your hand once the creature is gone for whatever reason, and it’s an easy first pick. The creatures black has are also among the best in the set. Ravenous Skirge is ridiculous for a 3 drop, Hollow Dogs is a massive beater and Looming Shade is, once again, very powerful. Even the lower end creatures are still good, you have the Drudge Skeletons alternative, Unworthy Dead, Bog Raiders and Skittering Skirge. Skittering Skirge may look awful, but having played with it a few times, it’s certainly not. You can control the game whilst beating down for 3 each turn and force them to deal with it, or just wait to cast it until later on in the game. A last mention is Unnerve and Duress. This format is very slow with lots of powerful non-creature spells, making Duress at least a 1 of if you have it. Unnerve is similar, a great source of card advantage in a colour already swimming in it and a good way to knock the bombs out of their hand.

Uncommons:

Unfortunately, black is a little let down by its uncommons. Order of Yawgmoth is extremely powerful, along with Vile Requiem and Diabolic Servitude, all of which will easily win you the long game. After this the quality drops off a little (in comparison to the rest of the black at least). Crazed Skirge, Sanguine Guard, Skirge Familiar and Priest of Gix are the playable creatures, all fine, but nothing amazing. These guys may look impressive, but when there are things at commons that pretty happily block them all, all day long, then they become a lot less powerful. They would still always make your deck, but they’re not as good as in another set. Lastly, Victimize and Vampiric Embrace are two interesting cards. Victimize is clearly very powerful, but not always playable, especially in control where you only really have one or two good creatures. Vampiric Embrace is good in aggro, but generally unplayable in control. The +2/+2 and flying is good, but the ability is usually irrelevant, so unless you really need a finisher for control, it’s best left on the bench.

Rares:

Persecute is the best rare black card by far, it just wins the game on the spot assuming you have anything to follow up with. Destroying their hand of everything but their lands is clearly a powerful effect, and I’d pick this over anything. Dark Hatchling and Abyssal Horror provide the flying beef, with Hatchling being Angel of Despair–esque and Abyssal Horror providing some reasonable card advantage. Next up is Reprocess, it may not seem very powerful, but given how long the games tend to go in this format, sacrificing lands 7 – 11 and a Blood Vassal should win the game. Black rounds itself out with some large sized creatures with Witch Engine and the two Paladins, the Paladins also happening to be some more ridiculous hosers in the set.

Overview:

Black has a similar amount of bombs to the other colours, but given that a lot of these bombs are actually found in the common slot as opposed to the rare means that it’s by far the best colour to be drafting in this format. Not close.

Red – Commons:

The commons in red are extremely lacklustre. Barring Heat Ray and Arc Lightning, both of which are premium removal spells, the commons are entirely mediocre creatures. Viashino Outrider is the best of these, a 4/3 echo for 2R is pretty strong, unfortunately, seen as your other creatures are all so bad he’s going to get killed and you’ll be left with a sub par army. Probably the only other creature of relevance is Viashino Runner, a reasonable card, but again, he dies very easily whilst your other creatures will be held off by something as basic as a Horseshoe Crab.

Uncommons:

Red starts to improve going up to uncommon. Steam Blast and Jagged Lightning are extremely powerful forms of mass removal. The only downside is that because you’re red you’ll often be steam blasting away your own board. The creatures are also far better here, Vug Lizard, Shivan Raptor and Thundering Giant are not only hasty (other than the Lizard) but also have huge bodies that can bash through pretty much anything. Shiv’s Embrace, another member of the powerful 2CC cycle of enchantments does not disappoint. Turning your guy into an actual dragon tends to win games, and will do some in a speedy fashion. Lastly, Outmanoeuvre is potentially a very powerful card, it turns your useless dorks into 10 or so points of direct damage, be on the lookout for these if you’re unfortunate enough to be red.

Rares:

Shivan Hellkite, Fault Line, Crater Hellion, Wildfire, Lightning Dragon, Rumbling Crescendo. Red has more than its fair share of game winning bombs. All of them are obviously powerful aside from Rumbling Crescendo. It may look slow and quite bad, but after 6 or so turns completely locking your opponent out of the game generally leads to a win.

Overview:

There really aren’t that many compelling reasons to be red other than the bomb rares. If you happen to open one then I can see trying to go into red as a main colour. However, it’s not deep enough and you can’t get a high enough concentration of the better cards in the colour to be mono or even have it as your main colour.

Green – Commons:

Green is probably the 3rd best colour, it has creatures that are big, above the curve and a high density of them. Winding Wurm and Blanchwood Treefolk are the biggest guys in the set at common, pretty much crushing everything in their path. Acridian, Argothian Swine, Treetop Rangers and Gorilla Warrior are all strong creatures above the curve for their costs in this format. There are even some cards to accelerate you into these expensive beasts in Priest of Titania and Fertile Ground. There’s also the only trick in the entire format in Symbiosis, a very powerful pump spell that can also provide the final blow if necessary.

Uncommons:

Cradle Guard and Albino Troll are, ratio-wise, the best creatures in the format. If you manage to pay the echo cost, then it should be pretty simple from there to finish the game. Anaconda and Bull Hippo are also very powerful creatures, especially as most of your opponents will probably be playing either black or blue. There are some more random dorks to finish with the uncommons, but the real power is in the enchantments. There are several hidden enchantments like Hidden Guerrillas in green. Of them all, the only real playable uncommon one is Hidden Ancients, so steer clear of the others, just be aware of them for potential sideboard cards. As per usual, the enchantments are extremely powerful. Though they just tend to make one of your formidable creatures more formidable in green, they are still powerful and worthy of a high pick.

Rares:

Very little to say here, there are some fatties which are, once again, very good. Abundance however is an absolute bomb, if this stays in play for any reasonable amount of time you should have the game locked up. Midsummer Revel is another powerful enchantment that, eventually, will just win. Either of these two cards would probably be enough to move me into green.

Overview:

Unfortunately, there’s not too much you can really say about green. The creatures in the colour are far bigger than any of the other colours, so having a good curve can probably just get there. It has a couple of big weaknesses, as there’s only one trick and it gets completely destroyed by pestilence, but otherwise it’s a fine colour to have as either your dominant colour or simply mono.

Artifacts – Uncommons:

There are no common artifacts in the set so we’re starting at uncommon this time. The Artifact cards are of very good quality in this set. Cathodian is a huge beater whose ability is now only upside, easily of 2nd or 3rd pick quality. Mobile Fort is similarly good, though not quite such a high pick due to the mana investment and the additional mana needed to cast him. Pit Trap is clearly a good removal spell of 3rd or 4th pick quality but its use varies depending on what colours you are and what type of deck you’re drafting. Worn Powerstone is definitely good, more so in control than aggro, but in either green, black or blue it’s a high pick, sometimes even worthy of a 1st pick. The last card, Urza’s Armour, has been a real surprise for me. When I first started drafting, I thought it was too expensive for a small effect, and close to unplayable. Having drafted the format more since then, it’s actually an extremely powerful card which you can potentially get quite late as it’s heavily underrated. Preventing 1 from all of your opponent’s attackers is huge, and you should always have enough time to cast it. Blanking a Pestilence is just gravy.

Rares:

Firstly, the bombs. Phyrexian Processor, Karn, Silver Golem, Chimeric Staff, Mishra’s Helix, Temporal Aperture, in that order, are good in any deck and all worthy of a first pick. All apart from Karn, Silver Golem, just dominate the game and even Karn is an impenetrable wall that is capable of smashing face. Smokestack is a powerful effect, and in an aggro deck, particularly green, it’s incredible. Just getting it down against a slow control deck will usually lock them out, and you can even start ramping it if you’re that far ahead. Grafted Skullcap is a card which goes very late, but in the late game, or in an aggro deck, drawing an extra card per turn is a very powerful effect, juts don’t put it in a control deck. Citanul Flute and Metrognome, whilst slow, are powerful sources of card advantage and should own any long game. Last but not least is Barrin’s Codex. It’s a very slow source of card advantage which you cannot access immediately. This makes it slightly more marginal than some of the other artifacts like Citanul Flute, but it shouldn’t be too hard to wait for 4 or 5 turns before activating it, and if you can afford to wait that long then the game should be in your hands.

Overview:

The artifacts in the set are all really good, as is the norm for any set. They tend to get underrated a little and come around later than they should, but by no means does this mean they’re bad. Just be glad people don’t know how good they are and snap them up for your mono brown deck.

Personally, I have a heavy preference towards black and blue, having drafted black 100% of the time and blue every time but twice. These two colours really are the best, they have the best overall quality and black simply has ridiculous bombs, at common no less. So, now that you know what colours to steer clear from and what to really go for i.e. black, go draft some Urza’s Saga!

Guest Column: Qualifying for Nats with Rob Catton

By Rob Catton

Hi everyone, this is the first article I've written for this blog, and hopefully it wont be the last! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Rob Catton, a Leeds WNM regular. I started playing Magic back in Morningtide (not too long ago!) and have played in multiple PTQs and GPTs since, with a single top 8 at Coventry last year.

A couple of weeks back, I ran Pat Chapin's UW control deck at the Newcastle nationals qualifier; the first of the season. I knew the deck to beat was Jund, and as such I knew my deck had to have a decent game, and a hopefully positive postboard matchup. With a few amendments to the sideboard, including the somewhat 'janky' Telemin Performance for the mirror, I was set. In the second last round, where I had to win out, me and my Polymorph opponent came to a stalemate after extra turns where he had me dead on board, with me having few outs. Completely forgetting there was another round after this, I caved in to his pressuring and gave him the 2-1 win. I was later informed that I could have still made it with a draw and a win.

Meh.

I decided to take a postive mindset after this disaster; my deck had performed pretty well up until the later stages of the tournament, where my concentration had took a turn for the worst, and I had effectively crapped out. This was later to be known as 'doing a Catton'.

Not happy with how slow my list was, I scoured the internet for a better list, more ideas. GP Brussels saved me here, as hiding in the undefeated decklists for day 1 was a neat UW list. This list was a mere 5-6 cards away from my prior list and I was comfortable with trying this out. For reference, here is the deck list.


3 Day of Judgement
2 Martial Coup
2 Mind Spring
1 Path To Exile
3 Cancel
2 Essence Scatter
2 Flashfreeze
4 Treasure Hunt

4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Celestial Collonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Halimar Depths
2 Island
5 Plains
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa

===
Sideboard:
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Negate
2 Flashfreeze
2 Celestial Purge
1 Mind Control
1 Perimeter Captain

After a lot of intensive testing against Jund, piloted by Rob Wagner, I was confident the matchup wasn't terrible, which therefore made the deck a lot more viable for the metagame, as the only decks I think I lose to are Mill and Time Sieve. But that is a small price to pay as those decks lose to Jund (despite all this editor's efforts).

Me, Andy Devine, Kier Teasdale and John Ingham drove up to Manchester early on the Saturday morning, sharing fruitful stories as ever; you who know Andy will know what I'm talking about (editor: 'fraid so :p)!


Round 1 : Esper Control


I haven't seen this guy around tournaments before and he says he has just recently started again, which makes sense; you never quit magic really. Game one takes quite a while, going back and forth as 3 of my Baneslayers get path'ed. Sadface. I end up taking the first, after a Treasure Hunt for 7 (!), and the help of my Celestial Collonnades and Jace keeping him from drawing anything relevent. We have about ten minutes left, and the option of playing defensively goes through my mind, to end up with the 1-0 win, but i dont think I have that option as he starts beating down with Creeping Tar Pits quite quickly. Unable to find a Tectonic Edge, despite Jace's best efforts, I decide I have to race him with my Collonnades too. I eventually get overwhelmed by his army of creatures which I can't Oblivion Ring. Game 3 goes to time and I'm relatively OK with the draw - it's not a loss!

1-1
0-0-1


Round 2: RW Jundkiller

My opponent complains about not being paired against Jund round 1 and losing to UW control. I mental fist-pump, and start the match. He gets a fairly good start going with Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Firewalker beating me down, but he cant dodge the DoJ, and I clean up easily with a Baneslayer Angel, helped along by a Cancel for his Path to Exile. I sideboard in 3 Kor Firewalkers as I saw some burn in game 1, and manage to draw all three (how lucky) against him. I beat him to death with a pair of them and Jace makes sure he draws lands every turn.

2-0
1-0-1

Round 3: UW tap-out control

I ask my opponent what his record is, and he tells me he's 2-0, which is surprising as I was paired down last round. I figure this is good for me as my tiebreakers will be better if I beat him. Anyway, the game starts as I would like - him doing nothing for ages and me having counterspells in hand. He Paths something like 3 of my Baneslayers and I slowly start to run out of gas. He goes for a huge Mind Spring, for 8 I believe, and my Essence Scatters in hand feel stupid. That just about ends game 1, as he Martial Coups my Martial Coup soldiers for 9 and I can't find an answer. I bring in 3 Negates and 2 Elspeth. I ponder over bringing in a Mind Control, but figure his Jaces can just bounce the creature back to his hand anyway. I feel like I'm about to win in this game, as I manage to win a counter war over my Mind Spring for 7. The 7 I drew were 6 land and an Everflowing Chalice... Wish I had a Treasure Hunt right there. He gets a little nervous about my 6 card hand to his 3 cards, but his Iona totally caught me off guard, and the Negate for my Jace sealed the game. Should have brought in that Mind Control.

0-2
1-1-1

By this point, Team Leeds are doing exceptionally well, with Andy Edwards on 3-0, and hardly anyone else with more than 1 loss.

Round 4: Naya Allies

I don't know what my opponent is playing, but I put him on allies because of the seemingly casual appearence of him... OK he flashed me an Oran-Rief Survivalist during shuffling. I feel good about this matchup as a Day of Judgement wrecks them and they have only a few outs to Baneslayer. Game one he gets the ball rolling with turn 2 Hada Freeblade turn 3 Akoum Battlesinger, but then walks right into my Wrath, even though I revealed it to him with my Treasure Hunt. Awkward (editor: love the 1-1-1 bracket). Baneslayer comes down a few turns later meaning he can't attack with his Bloodbraid and pals. He looks happy when I attack with my Angel, perhaps he had a sick turn to pump all his allies or suchlike. He wasn't happy to see the second Baneslayer. Game 2 was a little anti-climatic, as i got a turn 3 Jace and stopped him from drawing his third land.

2-0
2-1-1

Round 5: UW tap-out control

I know my opponent is playing UW tap-out as I saw one of his earlier games. I think this matchup varies on draws, as it is usually going to be decided on Celestial Collonnades or one of the X spells in the deck. His turn 2 Spreading Seas on my Collonnade was awkward, I kinda needed that blocker as he proceeded to later in the game beat me down with his Collonnade while ignoring my Jace. I went right down to 6 life from the Serra Angel beats, only to land my third Baneslayer unopposed. Needless to say, Baneslayer wins when it is unopposed. I end this game with 21 mana on the table, I drew all 4 of my Everflowing Chalices, and wonder if Banefire and a Mountain should be in my sideboard... Anyway, I learn from my past sideboarding against UW tap-out, and bring in the Mind Control. This game was pretty nuts, and in my favour. All I have written on the notepad is that I go to 19 from a fetchland, and he goes 20 to 12 to 0. Thats 2 attack steps ladies and gentlemen. I manage to land an early Jace again, as he taps out for a turn 3 Borderpost (hard cast). My Jace stops him from drawing any land, which was my plan in this matchup. I Tectonic Edge him off his second blue mana, and resolve an Elspeth, which is usually good enough. This leaves him a small window to resolve his Baneslayer, and from the look on his face it might be his last out, as the Knight of the White Orchid he got down earlier is just getting chumped every turn. I end the game with a Baneslayer of my own, and Mind control on his Baneslayer.

2-0
3-1-1

It's around about now I get a text from Fu, as is customary during events. "Ornithopter?" was all the text said. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what code Fu was talking in; Ornithopter is a 0/2. So the question was, am I 0-2? I send back "Goblin Deathraiders.. and a draw!" It's funny 'cos it's Fu (editor: :D).

Round 6: Naya (Andy Devine)

It's always going to happen, playing a fellow Leeds player. I think this is like the 6th time I've played Andy in a non-WNM sanctioned tournament. Anyway, got to treat it like any other matchup, and I get my game face on. Andy wins the die roll, and starts with a Raging Ravine, a good card vs control. I match his man-land with one of my own and pass the turn. He gets to land a Trace of Abundance here and I worry that will cause me trouble later in the game. See, a manland that gets incrementally larger every time it attacks and I can't Tectonic Edge it because it has shroud? Awkward. Anyway, I play an Everflowing Chalice for 1 and pass. He doesn't draw a land, characteristic of playing against me; Andy usually gets mana screwed. Anyway, he gets a Knight of the Reliquary down and gives the turn back to me. Oblivion Ring takes care of the Knight and Halimar Depths sorts out my next draws. The game goes quite long, and Andy starts attacking me with the Raging Ravine. It gets to a point where the only creature he has is the ravine, and I'm on 4 life. I can't play baneslayer and block, the Ravine will be a 6/6 by then. So I do some maths, and calculate that if I play Everflowing Chalice for 2 and chump block with my Celestial Collonnade, I will have 10 mana next turn for double Baneslayer. Unfortunatly, I don't factor in that I will lose a land in this process and end up with 9 mana! I have to turn to the Jace I have in play and Brainstorm up a Martial Coup, which buys me enough time to win this close game. I don't have many cards in my sideboard for Naya, but I decide that the Perimeter Captain, Perry Metre (ed: yays!), will match his Wild Nacatls quite nicely,and bring in just him. I land good ol' Perry turn 1 and he did a good job fending off the Cats and Bloodbraids that could potentially come my way. Again, Andy got the turn 2 Trace of Abundane on Raging Ravine, but you just can't race Baneslayer.

2-0
4-1-1

Round 7: RB Burn

This is it, final round; win and in. My opponent seems calm about the match, but I think it's more because he doesn't mind either way, win or lose. He also flashes me a Hellspark Elemental during shuffling, and I feel good about this; I have 9 cards to bring in! Game one I lose to a very quick draw, Turn 1 Goblin Guide, T2 Hellspark Elemental, T3 Ball Lightning, T4 and T5 Hell's Thunder. I bring in 4 Kor Firewalker, 1 Perimeter Captain, 2 Flashfreeze, and 2 Celestial Purge. I ditch all the slow cards, like Day of Judgement, Martial Coup, Essence Scatters and 2 of the OblivionRrings. I mulligan to 6 in game 2 and keep a somewhat dodgy hand of Misty Rainforest, Tectonic Edge, Treasure Hunt, Baneslayer Angel, Flashfreeze, Everflowing Chalice. Luckily, my Treasure Hunting was good on turn 2, finding me 3 white lands and a Perry Metre. The Perimeter Captain blanks my opponent's Goblin Guide and he has no plays for a while, allowing me to land double Baneslayer. He plays an unkicked Goblin Ruinblaster, despite having the mana to kick it. After I block, he happily plays Searing Blaze on my Baneslayer that blocked. I announce I'll take the 3 damage from the searing blaze and he looks confused as to why my Baneslayer is still alive; first strike? Game 3, my opening hand looks pretty sweet, with Perry Metre staring back at me yet again. He ends up only playing Goblin Guide, as my turn 3 Jace stops him from drawing his third land, and I end up ultimating him with 3 counter spells in backup.

2-1
5-1-1

And that's it! After a lot of pats on the back and collecting my £25 store credit prize, I've qualified for Great British Nationals. I feel pretty good about this and that my work in testing has paid off.


Props

To Kier for driving all the way there and refusing payment for doing so!
Andy Edwards to playing despite being on crutches.
To the +80 points I'll get to my rating.
The staff at Fanboy3, Manchester.

Slops

Nothing (editor: how lame, he'll learn)

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.

Grand Prix Madrid - *30th place* Part II

By Wagz

Part I of this report can be found here

When we left off at the end of part I, I had gone 7-2 in matches and 12-7 in games in the biggest Grand Prix of all time (even bigger than Beyonce's). This is obviously a good thing ™ and I was very happy. I got to bed quite late and had to get up at 7 to get to the venue in time for the player meeting. Some of the other players I was with came along too for the Vintage and PTQ side events but my eyes were on the main event. During the player meeting I looked through my sleeves and noticed a few of them had developed small splits so I changed those while listening to some Germans mocking their previous day's opponents.

Match 10: Steewen Boettger with Zoo

He had a more traditional build which meant his first turn Nacatl made my double Goblin Guide hand less good than it would be in most matchups. After removing each others guys and getting down to topdecks I am on 8 and he is on 27, not optimal. However, my topdeck is Elspeth which matches whatever he draws each turn and allows me to draw more cards. When on 12 counters I Ultimate her and I'm in a winning position. My opponent tries to burn me out but I have a Lightning Helix to 'counter' one of his and we're off to game 2. I mull to 5 which is kinda bad for me because when we're done trading 1-for-1 he'll still be 2 cards up which will be creatures on the board. Surely enough he beats me down and we move to game 3. Being on the play is also nice in the mirror because you get to cast your guys first, which tends to mean they get bigger first. My Nacatl is matched by his but mine is a 3/3 to swing in. My turn 2 Lavamancer stops his coming down and he leaves his Nacatl back on defence. Turn 3 I Helix his Nacatl and swing, Pathing his Knight of the Reliquary then dropping my turn 4 Elspeth which draws the concession, yay.

8-2, 14-8

Match 11: Enrique Garcia-baquero Rivas with Merfolk

During the last round and subsequent wander-round I found out that Rik had lost his wallet the previous night which is never fun :(. He missed the first round of the Vintage tournament too, poor guy. My luck seemed to be improving though as I drew Merfolk, aka Bye. Game 1 he got a couple of Silvergill Adepts down but I was easily able to play around Daze as he was on the play. I landed a Tarmogoyf and killed his lords to easily take the game. Game 2 was much of the same only I went down to 7 life. Only 5 of that damage was dealt by my opponent as I had to lean reasonably hard on a Horizon Canopy but I got to kill all his lords, then his mutavaults and then watch as he drew nothing, getting a cheeky peek along the way with trips Goblin Guide, GG indeed! In this game he used Mind Harness on my Wild Nacatl and immediately called a judge. I figured he was wondering if he got a 3/3, no dice my friend - you really want to save those for the Tarmogoyfs.

9-2, 16-8

Match 12: Rafael Truchado with Bant

A strange deck, some counterbalance+top deck but with Trinket Mage, Engineered Explosives, Jace and Goyfs. Game 1 goes on a while as he keeps removing all my creatures (I hate it when they do that). Eventually he is on 11 and I am on 30. I Price of Progress twice while I still have time so he is on 3 and I am on 13. My Grim Lavamancer gets him to 1 but he kills it with an Explosives. He has a Trinket Mage and a Goyf from his draws while I have nothing in play now. He has one card in hand, Counterbalance but no Top, is tapped out and has just attacked me to 6. Facing lethal on board and having no cards in hand I untap my 3 duals, 1 mountain and Horizon Canopy and draw.. Qasali Pridemage. He shows me a Force of Will on top of his library and I take my opportunity for greatness. I crack the canopy to draw a card, leaving Plateau untapped - it's a Lightning Bolt. Sick topdeck to take the victory, thank-you very much. Game 2 would be similar except he couldn't deal with the steady stream of cheap efficient beaters and Gaddock Teeg plus 2 Cats knock him to dead.

10-2, 18-8

Match 13: Angelo Cadei with ANT

The bogeyman. Not Angelo, ANT. I mull in game 1 and beat him down a little bit and then he waves his hands around a little bit, draws half his deck and kills me. I consider calling a judge but I've seen people do this before and apparently it's alright. I sideboard in my Mindbreak Traps, Teegs and the Canonist, taking out my Paths, Swords and Jitte because cards which are super-relevant are much better than cards which do absolutely nothing (I should write more strategy articles). Game 2 I make Wild Nacatl, Ethersworn Canonist, Goblin Guide + Lightning Bolt with Mindbreak backup and he can't do anything, nice draws. Game 3 I bash him down a lot and Lightning Helix myself up to 22. He's not drawn all that well and starts tanking a lot after I've attacked him 4 times. He uses Angel's grace in response to my lethal Lightning Bolt but can't combo off next turn from 1 life because Ad Nauseum just doesn't work that way.

11-2, 20-8

Match 14: Amaiur Gonzalez Monreal with Merfolk

Another Merfolk matchup where I mull to less than optimal. My 5 is facing his 5 with me on the play but he gets some lords quickly and even my Grim Lavamancer can't save me because I can't power him up enough. Game 2 I do the usual Daze dance and get 2 Wild Nacatls and a Tarmogoyf in play, taking damage only off a fetch and a Horizon Canopy. Game 3 he has sideboarded a lot of cards in and out and mulls once. Unless he knows something I don't I'm pretty sure Merfolk has a lot of cheap counters in its board which are actually quite ineffective against me. I get a quick Tarmogoyf down and he counters my other stuff with Spellstutter Sprites, cute. Basically he was hoping to get and protect a quick clock but I had cheap fatties so he didn't really stand a chance.

12-2, 22-9

Match 15: Jan Sudmann with Dredge

I was now up to table 16 but we'd been called for a (fake) feature match. This was my first ever feature match so I was a little nervous until I sat down and realised it was just a game like any other. I keep my decent hand but he mulls down to 5. He has an elaborate shuffling technique and a stack of empty sleeves so I figure he's probably dredge. Sure enough he turn 1 Unmasks himself to get a Dredge card in the bin and the race is on. My turn 1 Nacatl is joined by a turn 2 Tarmogoyf but he hits 3 Narcomoebas pretty quickly. With his two Ichorids he is able to start flashing back his spells and making guys to his 2 Bridges - nice draw. I am stuck on 2 land and probably punt by not pathing his last guy end of turn in the hope of drawing a burn spell. I did it so that I could always path the next thing that comes along. Sure enough I draw a Lightning Helix and proceed to get Iona locked with Zombie blockers, damn. Game 2 he mulls to 5 again but I keep a 2-hate hand with some aggression and I swing him to zero before he can do anything serious. I wish him luck in mulling 4 more times but he only manages to do it 3 times. He plays a City of Brass, casts Breakthrough for 0, draws 4 and discards his 6 cards. I Ravenous Trap him and he extends the hand, nice match. I got to lean over and thank LSV for the Tezz deck I won the PTQ with recently which is nice because I can be a little fanboyish sometimes.

13-2, 24-10

Match 16: David Do Anh with ANT

After my previous match I was chatting with Rich Hagon and he informs me that I wasn't actually at table 16 because tables 1-10 had been removed. The standings go up and I'm in 8th place with 2 rounds to go. It looks like the winner of this round will be able to ID but the loser will have to get lucky in the next one with tie-breaks and winning. I play against David Do Anh who I met for the first time in the morning at the tube station with Gavin Goh. He seems a nice guy and I wasn't sure knowing what he was playing was going to be any kind of advantage. I get turn 1 Grim Lavamancer, turn 2 Qasali Pridemage but on his turn 3 he starts going off and there's nothing I can do when he finds everything while still on 8 life. I tried to tilt him when he announced a second Lion's Eye Diamond by saccing my Pridemage to kill the first but he had enough mana to put Ad Nauseum on the stack and sac the targetted LED. Wasn't sure if his lack of rules knowledge would confuse him into not going off correctly but it's worth a try at this level. Game 2 I keep a few guys, Canonist and Mindbreak Trap. He thoughtseizes away the Canonist and later duresses the Trap but doesn't have enough gas to go off. I beat him down to 6 and EOT Price of Progress him for 2 when I have another Price in hand and 2 Pridemages in play. I untap and attack with my two guys for lethal. He tries to Mystical Tutor for a Slaughter Pact, Brainstorm into the Pact and kill a guy but I drew the Mindbreak Trap to counter it ;).

Game 3 I mulligan and have a hand with no answers but some aggression. I really really need both in this matchup but it's unlikely that a random 5 will be any better so I keep it in the vain hope that it'll be enough. End of my turn 2 he cracks a Scalding Tarn and announces that he'll use the blue mana he's fetching to cast a Mystical Tutor. He finds an Ad Nauseum and puts it on top, untaps draws and casts 2 Lotus Petals. At this point I notice that he didn't actually find a land with the Tarn. I figure it hasn't made any different to any decisions because he was always going to draw the same card but I called a Judge anyway to resolve the situation - mise get free wins? Martin Juza, who was watching, called me a cheat because I had noticed straight away apparently, and wouldn't accept my insistence that I really hadn't noticed until just then. If he'd noticed then perhaps he should have called a judge maybe? I think it's a bit off to call someone a cheat when you're not following the rules yourself. The judge undoes the sequence of plays so my opponent finds a land, gives my opponent a Warning for Game Rule Violation and gives me one for "being a bit slow". I didn't bother to appeal the ludicrous Warning because it wouldn't matter anyway, but I don't like that judge much now. My opponent untapped and went off but there was a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. I wished him luck in the top 8 anyway and headed off to my friends. I was actually a bit gutted that I'd not made top 8 despite having been extremely happy to just make Day 2 but I tried to shrug it off quickly because I was still exceeding my expectations.

13-3, 25-12

Match 17: Rafael Del Riego with UGRW control

We were potentially playing for top 8 but with the 4 tables above us playing Feature Matches it was far more likely we were playing for 9th place. He seemed to be playing a slightly janky UGRW deck with Jaces, Vendilion Cliques, Bolts, Swords and Goyfs. Plenty of good cards but a bit Rock-ish with a bad manabase - 4 colours _and_ Wasteland? Needless to say he always had the counterspells and removal spells for my stuff and I couldn't fight through so I lost the match.

13-4, 25-14

My last opponent finished 9th but had better tie-breaks than I would have. I ended up in 30th place which is perfectly respectible but slightly lower than it could have been. I won myself a tidy $400 which more than paid for the trip and I'd had an excellent weekend. I'd had an on-off friendly rivalry with Matt Light the whole weekend and having been streaks ahead of him the whole way he pipped me by 1 place on tie-breaks right at the very end, curse you Matt :p!

Seb and I joined up with Matt Light and his mates for an 8-man random boosters draft then took a train back into town (chatting with Sam Black along the way) before Cube Drafting which I took down with a solid WG monsters+equipment+anthems deck after everyone was extolling the power of the blue cards in the cube. Overall it had been a very good weekend and I'd recommend my deck heavily to anyone looking to play Legacy Zoo. Maybe I'll win the next Grand Prix I go to, but I've Day 2'd 2 of the 3 so far and top 32'd one now, on with the Pro Tour :D

Props:

• Rik for lending me cards
• Rik, Colin and Seb for being good friends and travel buddies
• Richard Bland for making top 4
• Matt Light & crew for providing draft entertainment
• All the British players for being there for Legacy
• The judges who structured the weekend after being overloaded with players

Slops:

• The judges who didn't expect 2000+ players and got overloaded with players
• Luton Airport for being a bit faily
• Madrid Airport for being really expensive
• Whoever stole Rik's Wallet
• Martin Juza for calling me a cheat + the judge who agreed
• Me for not top-8ing :p

Grand Prix Madrid - *30th Place* Part I

By Wagz

I am calling this Part I with the vague ambition of writing Part II but it was a very long weekend. It started on Thursday evening when I travelled down to Stevenage to get picked up by Rik Powell and Colin Ward to stay the night and get a bit of testing in. Not for my deck, mind, because I was pretty happy with mine, but we had a Dark Depths list which needed a bit of tuning. The next day we headed to Luton Airport where we went inside and met up with our flight partner Seb Parker. Having done so the fire alarm immediately went off and we all had to evacuate the building

Airport fail #1.

We were eventually let back in and headed through the gates before settling down for a beer before the flight because we're English. En route to the bar, we noticed on the screen that the flight had been cancelled

Airport fail #2.

We went to the information kiosk and they were as surprised as we were since they are usually informed about this sort of thing. They phoned someone up and apparently it was just a little typo or something, weird. We went and had our beer but with all the delays we had to drink it relatively quickly before going through to the plane. We get in the plane and are taken through the pre-flight monotony. We get onto the runway and start speeding up. Then we didn't really take off. Then we slowed down a bit and turned off the runway. An announcement comes over the tannoy to the tune of "As many of you may have realised we did not just take off. We noticed another plane attempting to land on the runway so we got off as quickly as possible. We apologise for the delay but please don't panic, we'll try again in a few minutes"

Airport fail #3.

We did eventually take off and have a safe flight. I tested my deck against Seb's ANT list and it didn't seem too bad. Oh yeah, I'm playing Zoo. ANT isn't a great matchup but I removed the sideboard cards against the decks I beat anyway to make room for the combo-beating cards and it didn't seem too bad in the end. We land and meet some of Rik's London-Legacy friends so head off the tubes towards our hostels. We meet up with Fu in town and have some dinner before going to bed. Fu had some cool tech from the trader's stalls so I amended my sideboard a little bit to include one of Mick Edwards' 3 favourite cards. Here's what I played:

4 Goblin Guide

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Qasali Pridemage

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Path to Exile

2 Swords to Plowshares

3 Lightning Helix

1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Price of Progress

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

3 Basic Lands

3 RW, 2 GR, 1 GW Duals

8 Fetchlands

3 Horizon Canopies

Sideboard:

2 Gaddock Teeg

1 Ethersworn Canonist

4 Mindbreak Trap

2 Ravenous Trap

2 Tormod's Crypt

1 Umezawa's Jitte

2 Krosan Grip

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

Having got to bed at 1 we get up at 6:30 to get ready and head off for registration. Turns out they weren't expecting anything like the numbers of players at the event, despite everyone's predictions of 2000-odd. You can read about this in articles by good players which you have to pay for but there were 2227 players in total (according to thedci.com) and they must have been expecting half that many. The player meeting was delayed by a long time and I wasn't handed my Umezawa's Free-tte until I requested it at the judge station. After a bite for lunch and my two byes I returned to the venue to begin my first round at about 2pm, more than 7 hours after I woke up.

Round 3: Vampires with Dark Depths

You will have to excuse me throughout these reports about lack of detail because it was 2 long days with little sleep and many rounds. I played against this deck in my first round, presumably still in the 'noobs with bad decks and wins' section of the tournament. I make a few guys and he has a couple of Gatekeeper of Malakirs which are exceedingly annoying for a Zoo deck. He eventually draws the Dark Depths combo off his Dark Confidant but his guys are more than enough for me to scoop anyway. Game 2 and 3 I pretty much just make some guys and swing a bit. He stumbled on stuff but I got a quick beatdown and had the removals for his guys. Always nice to win the first one because it puts you in a good mental place for the rest of it.

3-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 4: Counter-Top

I get a quick couple of guys down but I think he gets a blocker because I didn't gain Swords life and he didn't lose attack life. I must have eventually got rid of his stuff because my Wild Nacatl got in for the winz after a bit. Game 2 He swords' my first couple of guys and lands a couple of his own. Qasali Pridemage was a bit too much for me to deal with and I was forced into bad trades after I couldn't land any bigger creatures. Game 3 he swords my first Goyf but I get a couple of Grim Lavamancers down for some slow damage before eventually getting a Qasali Pridemage and then an Elspeth to make my guys fly over and he can't deal with a 4 mana Planeswalker - cheers Fu!

4-0, 4-2

Round 5: Combo Elves

Not the Standard version I lost to the last time I played Legacy, this guy had Natural Order + Progenitus which pretty much beat me up in games 2 and 3 after I crushed his 3 mulls in game 1. Go me! I used my Lightning Helices wisely to Time Walk against Progenitus beats but it's not quite enough when they can also make loads of chump blockers and are immune to Price of Progress. My one hope game 3 was for him to forget to pay for his Pact after he didn't put a counter on top, but during his upkeep he tapped and I conceded.

4-1, 5-4 :(

Round 6: Dutch? Stax

I don't know the names of the different Staxes but he was trying to beat me with Baneslayers. He had Armageddons, Trinispheres, Tabernacle and Crucibles but no Smokestack or Tangle Wire. Game 1 he goes for a Magus of the Tabernacle and Armageddony stuff but I have a Swords for his guy. My Qasali Pridemages go the distance. During this game I think he played a Karakas but it was an Italian one so I had to ask LSV on the table next to me if I could please read his (he was playing Enchantress) and after reading it confirmed that the oracle text said it could bounce only Legendary Creatures. Woo judge skills! Game 2 my opening hand was a little awkward because I had double Horizon Canopy which I needed to take a bunch of damage from to cast my spells. This isn't so bad against Stax though because they don't actually kill you until you're really dead anyway. His is a bit worse though as he takes 10 damage off an Ancient Tomb. He slowly locks me down while assembling Trinisphere, Crucible + Wasteland, double Ghostly Prison and stuff. He Oblivion Rings my Grim Lavamancer before making 2 Baneslayers which I send to the Exile zone. I don't know a stock list but I don't expect any more than 1 more Angel from him so I have some time to take his last 5 life. I have to keep the lands I draw in hand because I have 3 basics in play but really want 4 mana to either pay for 2 Prisons or play a Pridemage + Activate it. I did eventually get the Pridemage and killed the Ring on my Lavamancer so I could untap, 2 him with the guy and 3 him with a Lightning Bolt for good ole' exactsies.

5-1, 7-4

Round 7: Merfolk

Game 1 we shuffle up and I enjoy the shuffling so much that I mull 7 spells, 6 spells, 5 lands, 4 spells into 2 Lavamancers and a Lightning Bolt. If I draw a Mountain then this has a chance against creature decks so I keep it. Having won the dice roll I just pass the turn. He makes Island and Aether Vial. I draw another Lavamancer and when he starts making guys I just scoop to save time because this match is unwinnable without the ability to cast spells. I get to sideboard for game 2 and he doesn't, which is only a small advantage because Zoo smashes Merfolk all day every day anyway. Game 2 I get a Lavamancer down and that's pretty much game because he can't land enough lords if I get double use out of Lightning Bolts. Game 3 I have 2 Lavamancers in my opening hand and simply play around Daze to start my onslaught. He has a cute techy Spellstutter Sprite but I don't think it's that good against me because even if it gets value out of countering a Wild Nacatl it's a 1/1 that's not going anywhere. So yeah I get down a couple of Wild Nacatls and a Goblin Guide and there's not much he can do, so I get to win-and-in.

6-1, 9-5

Round 8: Staxless Stax I think

This was against Irish judge+player Mark McGovern. He won a PTQ for San Juan as well so we chatted about looking forward to it briefly. Just before this round Seb and I were chatting with the Orsini-Jones' and Dan Gardner and they were playing a game which involved finding Stelios Kargotis, ever-present greek/english judge. He moves pretty quickly and is quite small so is quite hard to find in a room of 2000 people. As we're shuffling up Stelios walks past our game so I pat him on the shoulder (easy to do while sat down) and say hi, turn to Matteo 2 seats away and announce my having won the game. Matteo ignored me a little bit I think, but maybe that was just game face. Mark doesn't really have a great start game 1. He gets down a Chalice for 1 and a Tabernacle but my Qasali Pridemage allows me to cast 2 Goblin Guides and a Price of Progress is more than enough to get him. Game 2 he uses Ancient Tomb to make a turn 1 Chalice for 1, essentially making me discard 4 cards. I make a land and he makes turn 2 Elspeth off a Mox Diamond. Does not suck to be him. Unlucky for Mark though it doesn't suck to be me either. I cast a Tarmogoyf off my basic plains and forest (crucible + wasteland makes non-basics risky business). He flies a soldier over for 4 looking to race me but lucky for me I know about Chalice so I cast 1-mana spells into it to Battlegrowth my Goyf. After a couple of swings the Elspeth is dead and another Goyf really puts the hurt on. He has another Elspeth but I aggro in and eventually a Price of Progress is enough for the win. I am in Day 2, feeling pretty happy :D

7-1, 11-5

Round 9: Steppe Lynx Zoo

My deck isn't really built as well for the mirror in some sense because Goblin Guide just doesn't block anything and it dies to Lavamancer. I knew this in advance because the GG is GG against the slower decks so hopefully my Elspeths would get there because she owns the mirror. I don't remember the match too well as I was very tired but he got a board presence together and destroyed mine in games 2 and 3 after I did the same to him in game 1. That's pretty much how the mirror match goes though.

7-2, 12-7

Very tired Seb and I set off back to the hostel for a sleep. We soon bumped into the usual English Legacy crowd so Seb got some dinner with them while I went to sleep. It was an awesome day and I was happy to make Day 2, my second from 3 Grand Prixs. Joining me were Richard Bland, Matt Light, Jason Christie and a few more (hard to keep track of so many people) and I know Rich Hagon was impressed at the quantity of British players getting so far in the tournament. I guess this concludes Part I of my report because if I write the rest now then this will be a very long report indeed. Thanks for sticking with me and reading all this (or slops if you skipped ahead to this sentence) and big Props to all the British players at the tournament who were all very friendly and good fun.