Drafting with Wagz #8 - Beating Poison

By Wagz

Hi all, apparently I haven't done one of these in a while. Zendikar and Worldwake were truly awful draft formats but I'm not sure why I didn't bother with Rise. Probably because I was having too much fun drafting to spend time writing about it. Zendikar and Worldwake regularly beat be out of tickets and boosters on Magic Online because each time you have exactly a 1/8 chance of winning the draft and those odds are hard to beat. I bought enough tix to do a Rise of the Eldrazi prerelease and have ridden that investment, going infinite for a while. I drafted a lot of Rise and then M11 2-3 times a week before Scars of Mirrodin came along.

This draft format is hard!

But fun. So many options, lots of things to do with your mana on any given turn, and very skill intensive. With Zendikar draft, even the stupidest of opponents couldn't much up happening to have a 1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop draw but I've seen many opponents throw away games in Scars because there is so much to play around and so much to do.

My going infinite got me down to a mere 10 tix and a booster yesterday, however. I sold off a couple of Mythics I'd got during M11 (Gaea's Revenge has gone up in value ^^) to get me up to 20 and invested in the remaining 2 boosters to fire up an 8-4. Here's how it went:

  Pack 1 pick 1:




  My Pick:





I was obviously tempted by the rare but he's not very good in draft. The real options were Clasp, Red Trigon and Plague Stinger. These are all good in infect decks but the Clasp is good in any deck so I took it to keep my options here. I love drafting infect as much as the next man but when all 8 players are drafting it, as it seems to be on magic online at the moment, it doesn't often come off. I was, therefore, a little disheartened to be passing a Plague Stinger because this basically guarantees one of the two guys on your left will be in infect, sadface.


  Pack 1 pick 2:




  My Pick:





I guess I should have taken Glint Hawk Idol here but I was still living the infect dream and Cystbearer is really good. Plus he's fine in a G/X control deck, so fit in many of the same decks as Clasp. The other option is Sylvok Replica, who is really good but puts you mostly in the same Green control deck when you're passing this many infect guys.


  Pack 1 pick 3:




  My Pick:





*holds onto dream*


  Pack 1 pick 4:




  My Pick:





*gives up*. Arrest and the other white cards here are a clear sign that White is open on my right. I don't rate Auriok Edgewright at all but since it is the 4th white card it lowers the probability that there were more white cards in here before and so increases the likelihood that white is open. Slam down the Arrest (which I didn't see for a while because the foil Soliton was shiny).


  Pack 1 pick 5:




  My Pick:





Slice in Twain also should not be this late. Infect is clearly a dead end so I'm prepared to be a Green/X control deck at this point, probably Green-White although I'm not sure what that deck would look like.


  Pack 1 pick 6:




  My Pick:





Ooh, a rare! This will help with all my mana problems! Yes, that'll do.


  Pack 1 pick 7:




  My Pick:





I like the Wall a lot. At this point we notice a few blue cards have gone round, the Lumengrid Drake last pack and 2 Invisimancers. The Wall of Tanglecord will definitely go in any colour control deck though and moving in on a 2/1 for 3 isn't amazing. Obv I didn't notice the rare.


  Pack 1 pick 8:




  My Pick:





Nothing really here except the Trigon which is okay but not amazing. It costs a lot of mana but card advantage is card advantage and it's a better option than the rest of the pack.


  Pack 1 pick 9:




  My Pick:





Really had no good picks for the rest of the pack.


  Pack 1 pick 10:




  My Pick:





Oh, except this one was interesting. The Ezuri's Archers are a good sideboard card against Poison decks (well, Plague Stinger decks) but if I do end up control then I need some way to finish the game. The Hellion will be good if I can pick up removal. The Panic Spellbomb is also good but I prefer it when I'm definitely a lot of red, definitely not splashing that one.


  Pack 1 pick 11:




  My Pick:






  Pack 1 pick 12:




  My Pick:





O.o


  Pack 1 pick 13:




  My Pick:






  Pack 1 pick 14:




  My Pick:






  Pack 1 pick 15:




  My Pick:






  Pack 2 pick 1:




  My Pick:





I heard this guy was passable in a control deck so I drafted him to try him out. You should always try out rares that look okay to get a feel for them. That is to say I am now White based control because this guy is absurd.


  Pack 2 pick 2:




  My Pick:





White Myr will be very good with the Angel I've just taken. I'm itching for a couple of the other cards but this guy will always make my deck and always be very good. One thing to notice at this point is that infect wasn't an option, but also metalcraft isn't the way this deck is shaping either. I'm willing to be in the market for just good cards if they have a deck strategy at least - control. One way to get ahead here is to go in on fliers and stuff up the ground - this means I might actually go in for blue cards. Blue was open but we don't really have any blue cards yet. We do still have all those green cards, but I'm kind of okay to let them go if I'll get set up for the rest of the draft - at this point I'll be on the lookout for Blue being open from my left as well.


  Pack 2 pick 3:




  My Pick:





Revoke is a great control card and we pass on Invisimancer #17.


  Pack 2 pick 4:




  My Pick:





Sky-Eel School is a funny one. It's very good, but it never gets taken. That's because it's just a `good stuff' card. I think that blue mostly just wants to be a good stuff colour (well, it is the best colour in Magic) so we take it but accept that it might not be a signal. Trinket Mage also being in the pack, however, might be.


  Pack 2 pick 5:




  My Pick:





Control needs counter spells, but this will most likely just be a sideboard card.


  Pack 2 pick 6:




  My Pick:





Erm, so 4th pick and 6th pick Arrests presumably means I'm the only white drafter. Not sure why the packs have been relatively empty then but I happily take the #1 common removal spell.


  Pack 2 pick 7:




  My Pick:





Gotta love the fatties. I'm not a big fan of this guy but you need a way to win somehow and he essentially has unblockable because if they have no artifacts they probably have nothing on the table.


  Pack 2 pick 8:




  My Pick:





Definitely the only white drafter - screw my green cards!


  Pack 2 pick 9:




  My Pick:





Bad removal is still removal and it gets better when you have more good removal because you don't have to waste your good removal on their less good things.


  Pack 2 pick 10:




  My Pick:





The jury's still out on this one in draft as he's bad against infect but I need him in this deck.


  Pack 2 pick 11:




  My Pick:






  Pack 2 pick 12:




  My Pick:






  Pack 2 pick 13:




  My Pick:






  Pack 2 pick 14:




  My Pick:






  Pack 2 pick 15:




  My Pick:






  Pack 3 pick 1:




  My Pick:





This was a bit empty. Part of me wanted to take the Galvanic Blast to keep the green and red splash open but this seemed a bit greedy as I only really had a Shania Twain that I would want to splash in green. I take the mana Myr because I really need a few of those in this sort of deck. I've plenty of removal so I'm on the lookout for 1-2 more mana myr and a few more 4-5 drop fliers at this point, as well as anything else ridiculous the packs happen to offer me.


  Pack 3 pick 2:




  My Pick:





This guy is a great stalling mechanism in an empty pack. There's a stoic rebuttal here and there was one in the last pack so one will probably come back to me, which is nice.


  Pack 3 pick 3:




  My Pick:





Mana Myr - check!


  Pack 3 pick 4:




  My Pick:





Something ridiculous - check!


  Pack 3 pick 5:




  My Pick:





4-5 drop fliers - check! Getting into a decent shape here.


  Pack 3 pick 6:




  My Pick:





Didn't need it but wasn't going to play anything else except the remote possibility of Darksteel Myr. Turn to Slag deals with the only ways we have of winning though so I remove it.


  Pack 3 pick 7:




  My Pick:





The snapsail glider is decent but will mostly be a 2/2 in this deck. There's another 2/2 for 3 in this pack who interacts very favourably with 4 of our 2-drops (3 mana and the perilous Myr) so we take it for a bit of curve and synergy.


  Pack 3 pick 8:




  My Pick:





I take the Accorder's Shield in case I need to Shield up my ground creatures or fliers in fights but it's unlikely to be great for me.


  Pack 3 pick 9:




  My Pick:





Ding!


  Pack 3 pick 10:




  My Pick:





I take the Certarch in case I need him and the Liquimetal Coating from pick 6 comes back in pick 14 but I don't have enough artifacts here. I'm still missing a good flier so I'm a bit concerned but I do have plenty of removal and a good curve.


  Pack 3 pick 11:




  My Pick:






  Pack 3 pick 12:




  My Pick:






  Pack 3 pick 13:




  My Pick:






  Pack 3 pick 14:




  My Pick:






  Pack 3 pick 15:




  My Pick:








The rest of the packs don't give me anything to work with so I set about constructing my deck as:

Gold Myr
Copper Myr
Leaden Myr
Perilous Myr
Wall of Tanglecord
Riddlesmith
Contagion Clasp
2 Revoke Existence
Myr Galvaniser
Stoic Rebuttal
2 Arrest
Halt Order
Darkslick Drake
Bonds of Quicksilver
Trigon of Infestation
Sky-Eel School
Trigon of Thought
Sunblast Angel
Darksteel Sentinel
Volition Reins
Scrapdiver Serpent

I don't have replays of my matches but round 1 was against RB poison hybrid (not enough poison guys) and I shut him out on the ground before getting in with some fliers. I didn't even have my Angel this match but a 2-0 win in classic Magic™ fashion was enough.

My opp for round 2 didn't show up, leading me to believe that I'd accidentally clicked on the swiss queue and lost my first round. When I came to my senses I realised I'd been given a bye to the finals, very strange.

The finals was against UGB poison with not enough poison guys. This is the problem with poison at the moment - everyone's scrabbling for the guys and no-one gets enough playables. The best way to capitalise is as I did - solid cards and fliers. Since you have to trade a lot against poison, metalcraft decks struggle to hold onto metalcraft so you may as well play cards which are good anyway. Ways to stop the Plague Stingers are pretty key so Contagion Clasp-a-likes and slightly bigger fliers will blunt the assault very quickly (but don't play Blunt the Assault). When you have them unable to do anything you can pull ahead with your superior cards and card advantage mechanisms.

I now have 10 tix and 8 boosters in my account - guess I'll try to keep going infinite for a while.

Guest Article - A Newbie’s Story Part 1: Manchester Game Day

By Sam Fryman

Rob mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the blog that he wouldn’t mind having a guest writer, and I have dutifully volunteered. The superficial reason that I am writing is that a lot of magic articles are written by the winners, covering their good plays and any small (but often rare) mistakes they make. I am approaching this from the other angle: I am not a particularly good player, I make many mistakes, and I’m not helping by attempting to play one of the most difficult archetypes to master: UW Control.

(The real reason I’m writing is due to the vague hope that if I write down my mistakes I will actually remember them.)

Anyway, a quick background: I started playing around about the release of Rise. After several months casual pestering from Rob I joined in and, at his suggestion, bought the UW Worldwake Intro Pack. The only card I distinctively remember was the foil rare, the Archon of Redemption: a rubbish rare by all accounts, but I liked it... not least because I also picked up a Rite of Replication at some point and wanted the ability to gain 90 life. Aside from the odd deck – a borrowed Goblins deck, an extremely flawed RW lifegain, and possibly a white-knight-weenie - I’ve mostly stuck with UW Control.

Along the way I’ve borrowed heavily – Elspeth, Baneslayers, and Martial Coup spring to mind – and it has only been with the introduction of Scars and the loss of the Shards of Alara block that I’ve managed to get the cards.

Here’s the deck I took to the Manchester Game Day that Rob wrote about in his last post:

4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Mystifying Maze
4 Glacial Fortress
5 Plains
5 Island
4 Mana Leak
2 Stoic Rebuttal
4 Spreading Seas
3 Day of Judgement
3 Condemn
3 Journey to Nowhere
4 Wall of Omens
3 Baneslayer Angel
2 Frost Titan
1 Sun Titan
1 Sunblast Angel
3 Jace Beleren
1 Elspeth Tierl
1 Venser
Sideboard:
2 Negate
3 Celestial Purge
2 Revoke Existence
2 Spell Pierce
4 Flashfreeze
1 Sun Titan
1 Volition Reins


Overall, in my mind, quite a good deck. No Jace the Mind Sculptor because... well, for a start, I’m working on a budget. Plenty of anti-aggro, plenty of anti-ramp (especially Valakut), enough card draw... my main worry was the control mirrors, hence the extra Sun Titan in the sideboard (for bringing back Jace to kill my opponent’s Jace 2.0) and the Volition Reins for stealing anything nice, such as Gideon.

Round 1 I initially had a Bye, but then another player arrived and we started late. I recognised Kat from the Altrincham PTQ... and as she was sleeving up, recognised what I hoped was a fairly standard Eldrazi Ramp deck (editor's note: I was sat next to their match and she was sleeving up face-up..). I can’t remember it exactly but it went something like this: Kat played Game 1 and I think got a little mana screwed for a couple of turns (which wasn’t helped by a pair of Spreading Seas). A few small creatures and then a DOJ on my part later and she cast Ulamog (I think), which I successfully countered. A few turns of bashing with a Baneslayer (I managed to cast 2) and I was 1-0 up. We sideboarded for the second game, and within two turns heard time being called. Kat insisted we keep playing (extra time for being late). I cast a Baneslayer with no counter in hand (with the mana open for the bluff, obviously). Kat played Summoning Trap and I waited with baited breath for something big and stompy... but fortunately she drew nothing. I managed 3 turns of bashing with the Baneslayer before our 5 rounds were up and we called the game a draw. 1-1-0 for the Round (this is a win for Sam. Wagz).

Round 2 I played Elliot Coen and his copy of Rob’s deck (though with Dispels instead of Spell Pierce in the sideboard). I successfully countered a couple of things (and even killed his Jace with mine), but eventually lost Game 1 to bashings from Oracle of Mul Daya and Lotus Cobra. I sideboarded for Game 2, but stupidly didn’t counter his turn 2 Lotus Cobra and went down to Avenger of Zendikar, having failed to draw a Day of Judgement.

Round 3 was against Goblins. I kept a 2-land hand (Island and Tectonic Edge) with a mana leak and 2 wall of omens. He played, and cast Goblin Guide. I revealed Jace, which I drew and dropped a land before passing the Turn. A second Goblin Guide (though still only 1 mountain) and I was down another 4 life... revealing another Island and the Mystifying Maze. I eventually drew a Colonnade and fended off with my walls for a couple of turns but some extra goblins and lightning bolts wiped me out. We sideboarded and I won games 2 and 3 fairly quickly with Baneslayer Angels.

During playtesting with Alex Gershaw and Andy Pemberton I had constantly been tapping out (a bad move for control decks, apparently). I had been doing the same against the goblins, saving my Baneslayer for turn 7 instead of casting him on turn 5. Alex mused that I could safely cast the Baneslayer without much fear of repercussion.

Round 4 went up against an Elves deck. The first game I successfully countered an Elvish Archdruid and Joraga Warcaller but couldn’t counter an Eldrazi Monument and took millions of damage to the face. Game 2 started slightly better: I opened with a Revoke Existence for his Eldrazi Monument, but it then went downhill. I failed to draw a single blocker or DOJ. As a last ditch attempt I brought out Elspeth and her tokens, and immediately lost them all. My one last hope was to draw my Sunblast Angel... which didn’t happen, and I scooped for a very infuriated 2-0 loss.

Round 5 I faced Aaron Copping and his mono-black deck. Neither of us could make top 8 (though Aaron had the better chance). His deck had Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Mind Sludge as well as Liliana’s Specter. First game he brought out a Mimic Vat and Doom Bladed my Baneslayer, bashing me with Baneslayer tokens from the Vat. Second game he Mind Sludged me without a single counter in my hand, so I was forced to draw from the top. I did manage to get a Volition Reins on his Grave Titan, but that was about it. Overall an annoying loss, especially as I had been expecting Vampires or Infect, both decks I knew I could fairly easily beat.

Overall the day was slightly disappointing. I had expected to do better but had obviously underestimated one thing: my ability to make stupid plays. My deck had plenty of threats and solutions but not enough secure ways of drawing them.

I’d best make some changes then...

Tournament Report - Game Day *top 8*

By Wagz

Hi all! This weekend I attended a Game Day, the descendent of County Champs. Going into it I didn't realise how casual the event has become so brought a decent deck (RUG Control) and even did a bit of testing - this turned out to be overkill. We saw on Manascrew that the event started at 11 but the shop's own website claimed it began at midday. We erred on the side of caution and arrived at 10:30ish. Unfortunately for us the person running their FNM had told everyone it began at 1 so we cubed to kill some time. Here is the deck I played, given to me by Rob Catton:


4 Copperline Gorge
4 Raging Ravine
2 Halimar Depths
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Forest
4 Island
2 Mountain
4 Preordain
4 Explore
4 Lotus Cobra
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Frost Titan
2 Avenger of Zendikar
4 Mana Leak
1 Deprive
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Flame Slash
Sideboard:
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flashfreeze
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Pyroclasm
3 Obstinate Baloth

Round 1 I faced a serious-looking player with a poker shirt on. He was playing UB Control but I started off with t1 Preordain, t2 Explore, t3 Oracle of Mul Daya, t4 Jace the Mind Sculptor with 3 mana open. He had a Negate instead of the Mana Leak but I soon landed a Frost Titan. Game 2 I got heavily mana screwed (27 lands, 4 Preordain, 4 Explore....) but Game 3 played out in normal fashion and I took the win. We had to play quickly to get the round done before time was called and this was unusual for me because I'm a very fast player.

Round 2 was against a Black splash Red Vampires deck. I made the critical play of not laying out turn 2 Cobra having lost the dice roll so when he tried to turn 4 Gatekeeper it I was able to crack my fetch land and Mana Leak his removal spell. I ground out something big and took the game. Game 2 was less good for me and his quick aggression allowed him to bring my life total all the way down. Time was called as we were shuffling and I began to get suspicious. We intentionally drew but I went over to the store owner to ask how long the rounds were. I got told they were 50 minutes but I checked my time-keeping device and it had been 1hr25mins since the 1st round had begun. We were thus granted an official time keeper for the rest of the day.

Round 3 I faced a mirror-match of sorts. He had a couple of Garruks, Primeval Titans and Cultivates but lacked the Cobras and Oracles to really go nuts. I later found out he had Destructive Forces but I think his more-fair version of the deck caused him problems in the mirror and I controlled the tempo of the games to win 2-1.

In round 4 I faced someone who looked at my deck during shuffling. I asked him not to and he apologised but there was no judge to call over. I told the store keeper afterwards in case there was a history but I'm not keen on being cheated, even at a casual event. He was playing a janky mono-black control deck, some kind of midrange Vampires thing. He sided in Duresses against me which are pretty bad for him but I had no answer to a Liliana Vess which kept me discarding the cards I couldn't cast off my 3 lands, very annoying.

The win-and-in round was against a GB Infect deck which was quite innovative. His previous loss was to Elliot Coen who was playing the same 75 as me and Catton and it might just be a bad match-up for him as I was able to control the games, soaking up 9 poison game 1 before making Avenger of Zendikar and his many massive minions and Jace-ing him out game 2.

I received my foil Tempered Steel for top 8-ing and began my quarter finals match against a very nervous-looking UW player. We had three closely-fought games but he out-Jaced me and countered the threats I could muster up. I think this might be a slightly rough match-up for me and he played it well so I wasn't too annoyed to lose it. The rest of Team Leeds had buggered off before this match so I got a magazine and took the train home.

Overall it was a slightly disappointing day due to the casual nature of the organisation but it was probably my own high expectations that were to blame. I think the deck needs a bit of tweaking in the sideboard as it needs some better threats against control decks (or better ways of landing them) and it has a problem with Elves but it seemed to make a good showing at the Star City Games Open mere hours later.

How was your Game Day?

Tournament Report & Sealed Deck Exercise - PTQ Chesham - 3rd

By Wagz

Hi all, sorry for the lack of recent content. Jim is still in a job that doesn't allow him much (if any) time to play Magic and I've been busy with things - if anyone wants to write guest accounts then they're more than welcome :D. In any event, we're a week or so into the start of the new PTQ season and the set seems very exciting. And more importantly, it seems very difficult. I lost in the quarters of last week's PTQ in Altrincham and this weekend I lost in the semis of the 112-person PTQ in Chesham. This tells me I need to learn how to draft the set properly, but I think I know what I'm doing in sealed. I'll give you my sealed pool below and then my decklist and explanation. I went 6-1 in matches, losing round 3 and getting paired against a 5-1 with terrible breakers in the last round, squeaking a win with tight play, unfortunate mistakes from my opponent and good topdecks. What would you do with the following: (copy the cardname into http://deckbox.org/mtg/cardnamehere for a picture)

White:
1 Auriok Edgewright
1 Auriok Sunchaser
1 Fulgent Disraction
2 Ghalma's Warden
1 Loxodon Wayfarer
1 Revoke Existence
1 Salvage Scout
1 Soul Parry
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Tempered Steel
1 True Conviction
1 Whitesun's Passage

Blue:
1 Bonds of Quicksilver
2 Darkslick Drake
1 Grand Architect
1 Neurok Invisimancer
2 Plated Seastrider
1 Screeching Silcaw
1 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Turn Aside
1 Twisted Image
1 Vault Skyward
1 Vedalken Certarch

Black:
1 Blackcleave Goblin
1 Bleak Coven Vampires
1 Blistergrub
1 Dross Hopper
1 Grasp of Darkness
1 Instill Infection
1 Moriok Reaver
1 Necrogen Scudder
1 Psychic Miasma

Red:
1 Bloodshot Trainee
1 Melt Terrain
1 Ogre Geargrabber
1 Oxidda Daredevil
2 Scoria Elemental
1 Turn to Slag
2 Vulshok Heartstoker

Green:
1 Acid Web Spider
1 Alpha Tyrranax
1 Bellowing Tanglewurm
2 Blunt the Assault
1 Carapace Forger
1 Cystbearer
1 Tangle Angler
1 Tel-Jilad Fallen
1 Withstand Death

Artifact:
1 Accorder's Shield
1 Bladed Pinions
1 Chrome Steed
1 Darksteel Myr
1 Echo Circlet
1 Flight Spellbomb
1 Gold Myr
1 Golden Urn
2 Golem Foundry
1 Grafted Exoskeleton
1 Iron Myr
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Moriok Replica
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Origin Spellbomb
2 Palladium Myr
1 Perilous Myr
1 Prototype Portal
1 Snapsail Glider
1 Strider Harness
1 Trigon of Corruption
2 Trigon of Infestation
2 Tumble Magnet
1 Vulshok Replica



Decklist:

1 Vedalken Certarch
2 Origin Spellbomb
1 Iron Myr
1 Gold Myr
1 Perilous Myr
1 Revoke Existence
1 Grand Architect
2 Palladium Myr
1 Snapsail Glider
2 Tumble Magnet
1 Tempered Steel
1 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Chrome Steed
2 Darkslick Drake
1 Grafted Exoskeleton
1 Prototype Portal
1 Bonds of Quicksilver
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Sunblast Angel
1 True Conviction
9 Island
8 Plains

Discussion:

I noticed that White and Blue were the only playable colours, so that was as good a place as any to start off with. I collected all the playables in those two colours but it seemed to add up to 84. I decided to just lay down the cards I would definitely be playing and this summed to 22 - a great start!

I deliberated over the last couple of cards, which were essentially the Bonds of Quicksilver and the Prototype Portal. I was also considering Trigon of Corruption and Flight Spellbomb. I went with the Bonds due to my lack of removal and it being a lot `faster' than the Trigon but I wasn't sure about the Prototype Portal due to lack of experience with the card. I had 2 Origin Spellbomb and 2 Tumble Magnet as really good combos but at worst I could stick guys under it. It turned out to be really good or really bad so the jury's still out but I might pass on it next time - I mostly played
mine because Ben Scoones (sat opposite me) was playing his.

I lost round 3 to Eduardo Saggygarlic's UW deck with infi Ghalma's Wardens. I didn't have the greatest draws but I was definitely playing a game, just losing. I found it easier to beat the massive bombs really - and the thing about this sealed format is that everybody has them. You _will_ play against Koth, Elspeth, Sunblast Angel etc EVERY ROUND (unless you're losing) so you MUST build your deck with these cards in mind. I sided in Bladed Pinions against Planeswalker decks, for example.

The top 8 draft didn't go so well for me, I began by attempting to force Infect but ended up in a kind of Green Black Rock deck with a bunch of card advantage but nothing really powerful. I'll write on draft when I actually figure out what I'm doing. I did 4 drafts on Modo since it came out on Wednesday and went 9-3 between them but real life is different, and PTQ drafts always require a 3-0.

See you in the top 8 of the next one - don't beat me!

Tournament Report - 15 Card Highlander Part 2 - the banning of Sadistic Sacrament

By Wagz

Hi all, as a follow-up to my previous article on 15-card I thought a lot more on the format and what the good cards were. We had a 15-card WNM on 29/09/10 and two of the decks I was interested in trying were Mono-Black control and Sti's Grixis deck with some improvements. After both decks were doing alright but having complementary weaknesses I amalgamated the two to create:

Inquisition of Kozilek
Lightning Bolt
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Liliana's Specter
Sadistic Sacrament
Consuming Vapors
Goblin Ruinblaster
Grave Titan
Crumbling Necropolis
Creeping Tar Pit
Lavaclaw Reaches
Dragonskull Summit
2 Swamp
Tectonic Edge
Sideboard:
Pithing Needle
Doom Blade
Leyline of Sanctity

The deck is full of 2-for-1's with the key card being Sadistic Sacrament as it is just a blow-out and will now be banned from the format if I'm organising it. I gave my list to Rob Catton and we both went in to battle in the 18-man event.

Round 1 I faced Andy Pemberton with a good WRg planeswalkers deck. I made Sad Sac early both games and removed his opportunity to cast spells. I felt extremely mean as you shouldn't win by resolving a 3 mana spell as your only spell.

Round 2 was against Chris Simpson. He had entered the event and then just after round 1 pairings went up came to me saying that he hadn't got a deck. He said he had a bunch of standard-legal cards and I said he had 5 minutes to put a deck together. Turned out he meant future standard as he had a GB poison deck. Luckily the poison creatures are all a bit tiny and after I dealt with them he didn't have any way of winning.

For round 3 I was paired against Rob Catton and we agreed to ID rather than mirror it out. I beat him in the for-funsies game so I vaguely regretted playing it out but we were pretty sure we had the best deck in the room and would easily both 4-0-1 anyway.

Round 4 I played Mick Edwards who was back to Leeds for a week to see people. He had a mono-white control deck which had Luminarch Ascension and Elspeth to trouble me. Sad Sac did its thing and Pithing Needle after boarding dealt with our 'Spethial friend. 4 counters is a lot to get on the Ascension and I let him have 3 before stabilising the board - manlands are good for this.

The final round was against Steve Tyson with Naya planeswalkers. Once more I beat him with Sad Sac, including one for the last 3 cards in his library - Ajani V, Elspeth and Garruk.

Rob and I both went 4-0-1 with this sick deck. Sadistic Sacrament is definitely too good for the format as an unconditional 3-mana 3-for-1 but I think the deck is still really good anyway, with lots of card advantage. Planeswalkers are also very strong in the format but a lot of the good planeswalkers are rotating out so we'll have to see how they work out in new standard 15-card. The deck moves into new Standard by replacing Crumbling Necropolis and a Swamp with the new Black dual lands (so good in 15-card) and the sideboard Pithing Needle for something; it really doesn't lose much, if anything. If your TO doesn't ban Sad Sac (and does run 15-card, probably a harder find) then I'd run this deck as it is by far the best deck. Thanks, as always, for reading.

BONUS! I just won a 4322 with the following:
1 Preordain
3 Tome Scour
2 Doom Blade
2 Jace's Erasure
2 Augury Owl
2 Maritime Guard
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
1 Assassinate
1 Call to Mind
1 Mind Rot
1 Aether Adept
3 Scroll Thief
2 Foresee
1 Azure Drake
1 Nether Horror
1 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Swamp
12 Island
Sideboard:
1 Cancel
2 Negate

Saying goodbye to Shards Block

By Wagz

*Sob*. I wish that it weren't so, but it is time for Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn and M10 to rotate out of Standard. Oh sure, Bloodbraid Elf and Blightning have made things pretty miserable over the last 12 months. Between Bloodbraid Standard and Zendikar Limited I've experienced some of the worst Magic™ formats I've ever seen.

But I love Multicolour!

There - I said it, and I'm not ashamed. If you've ever seen me Cube draft (my favourite format) you'll have seen some of the 7-colour monstrosities I've put together and won with.

As a result I had to say one last goodbye to some of my favourite cards (mostly from last year's Standard). This week at WNM I played the following:


4 Arcane Sanctum
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Island
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
2 Mountain
4 Rupture Spire
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Swamp
3 Ajani Vengeant
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Earthquake
4 Esper Charm
1 Ethersworn Adjudicator
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
3 Sedraxis Specter
2 Wall of Denial
4 Wall of Omens
Sideboard:
2 Celestial Purge
4 Luminarch Ascension
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Slave of Bolas
2 Thought Hemorrhage
3 Wall of Reverence

I won round 1 against White Weenie and round 2 against UW Control before losing round 3 to Green Eldrazi Ramp and round 4 to Aggro Vampires (Nantuko Husk version). A 2-2 record didn't quite do the deck justice but I had a lot of fun.

Round 1 I got to cast Cruel Ultimatum and Ultimate my Ajani in a single turn to leave my opponent with no hand and only 2 Honor of the Pure in play. Two turns later I Esper Charm 2 of his 3 cards away and Jace Ultimate him for a near-flawless victory.

Cruel Ultimatum, Planeswalker Ultimates, casting Eldrazi - these are the moments I play Magic™ for! I don't like Bloodbraid into guy getting 2 Vengevines back. I like casting cool spells - if I want infinite creatures I'll play Pokemon™ thx. Shards of Alara Block, I will miss you dearly. I cannot wait for the next multicolour block. Artifacts are pretty awesome too though ;)

Guest Article: Remember to have fun, by Mick Edwards

By Mick Edwards

People who know me will know that August was a month in which I took magic very seriously. Not only was Nationals on everyones mind, but i was qualified for Pro Tour Amsterdam. This meant I spent A LOT of time testing what I expected the new extended metagame to be (special thanks to people helping me test such as Rob Catton). In the end I think a slight bad judgement in the meta (I predicted all combo/punishing fire decks) made me play a weak deck and I didnt make day 2, finishing 4-4.

However, one common theme with this event (and all other large event I have been to) was the underlying sense of 'Magic is also really fun, remember?' and by that I mean Cube Drafting! Cube drafting for those that don't know is where a player basically makes their 'own set' using whatever cards they like. The initial Cubes were based around the most powerful cards available, and its quite nice to 'open a pack' to pick from Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Treachery, Recurring Nightmares, etc. However some people make their Cubes a bit different - e.g. Rob Wagner and Seb Parker both have cubes consisting of the most powerful extended (old extended) legal commons and uncommons. The thing about cube is its purpose. When I enter a PTQ I play to win, when I sit down against my opponent I often try to play like a machine designed for winning magic games. When I draft cube I play for fun, when I sit down I have a laugh!

Thinking back, some of the most fun I've had playing magic has been weird formats that are only really played for fun: Reject rare draft, Multiplayer Winston draft, elaborate mental magic pack wars style. So when I though about how I wanted to play more magic for fun purposes it saddened me when I realised that part of what makes these formats so fun is the people involved and I was going back to playing Magic Online. Thats when it hit me! Momir Basic: http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1067

Momir basic is THE random fun format, but its actually got more skill to it that it seems and the random factors of mana screw/flood are taken away.
I strongly encourage anyone who has a Magic online account to play this format as its pretty crazy. Here are some pro tips I have found:

• Never play an island unless you have an ability that needs it as Benthic Behemoth crops up a fair amount at 8.
• There are some good one drops but your chances of hitting them are low, some good ones I've hit include goblin chirurgeon and dragonmaster outcast.
• In general its proabably best not to make a 1 drop.
• Two drops are better than three drops, this may seem weird but a lot of mana elves/myr are at 2 as well as guildmages!
• Play more mountains I currently run 15 mountains in my Momir deck, when you make dragons you want them to breathe fire.

Finally I want to mention an idea I have had for building a cube of my own, hopefully creating an entirely different cube format. I want people to vote on what they think are the worst cards in each set for inclusion in my 'Worst Cube Ever'. Keep an eye on the Leeds Facebook site for more details, or begin the voting for M11 Cards here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7402096935&topic=13443

Tournament Report - 15 Card Highlander

By Wagz

Hi all, my exit from nationals was fairly swift this year after drawing terribly against a good matchup and facing 2 of the 5 pyromancer ascension decks in the room to go 1-3 into draft 1. A risky strategy and a loss later and I packed them up. This left me a lot of time to (immediately let off steam and) check out the side events. I borrowed a combo elves deck for the Vintage championship the next morning and after handily beating Dredge round 1 I faced 3 workshop decks who made turn 1 chalice of the void for 1 every game. After such tedium I decided I wanted to get involved with a much more fun format - 15 card Highlander.

The premise of it is similar to 100 card Highlander, your deck can have only 1 of any card which is not a basic land. However, you must have precisely 15 cards in your deck, a sideboard of 3 cards, and you don't lose the game to drawing from an empty library. It immediately became apparent that you will often draw nearly every card in your deck and if you have the right number of lands then your draws will be very smooth. Additionally, you want as many cards which interact with your opponent as possible - manlands are much better than other lands, preordain and ponder should only be played for a very particular reason or you are playing with a deck with less than 15 cards that do anything.

My first attempt at a deck was as follows:

Halimar Depths
Island
2 Mountain
Scalding Tarn
Ponder
Preordain
Tome Scour
Hedron Crab
Elixir of Immortality
Lightning Bolt
Flame Slash
Relic of Progenitus
Howling Mine
Mana Leak

The deck was a bit degenerate - it had Tome Scour and Hedron Crab to immediately mill away the opponent's deck and Mana Leak, Flame Slash and Lightning Bolt to deal with the threats they try to play. Ponder and Preordain are basically Demonic Tutor in the deck to find the answers it needs. Having eliminated the opponents threats it can set up its own graveyard to be rid of the mill spells, then the mana leak and later the ponder, preordain and flame slash so that using the howling mine it can use its 4 mana-producing lands to draw lightning bolt and elixir of immortality every turn, dealing the opponent 3 and taking 5.

I ran to tell Jason Howlett, Tim Willoughby and Rich Hagon about my deck and soon enough Tome Scour, Hedron Crab and Elixir of Immortality formed the banned list. Mark Glenister suggested they add Mind Funeral as well and we were all set to play a much fairer format. Since my deck was banned, Seb Parker and I audibled to a deck built by Mick Edwards:


Ancient Ziggurat
Seaside Citadel
Stirring Wildwood
2 Forest
Birds of Paradise
Noble Hierarch
Qasali Pridemage
Garruk's Companion
Jenara, Asura of War
Rhox War Monk
Leatherback Baloth
Rafiq of the Many
Vines of Vastwood
Oblivion Ring
Sideboard:
Path to Exile
White Leyline
Elspeth, Knight-Errant

We weren't quite sure what to prepare for in the board and took a gamble with the Elspeth but the other 2 cards seemed pretty good. We have a nice array of abilities on our creatures and some which are really hard to answer so hopefully we'd always have something to do to beat our opponent.

Round 1 I play against a mono-black deck with some nice vampires. He gets Guul Draz Assassin down turn 1 every game but I always use my removal spell on it. My mana guys are fuel for his Gatekeeper of Malakir and after boarding my other removal spell takes care of his Grave Titan. He has Reassembling Skeleton and Malakir Bloodwitch which threaten to stem my beats but the Garruk's Companion's Trample is super relevant. He has a Royal Assassin but it was too slow and my Vines of Vastwood would provide 1 turn of safety if I need it. I take the match due to Trample and Rafiq.

Round 2 was against a Burn deck and it becomes immediately obvious that if I can set up Rhox War Monk and Vines of Vastwood then I probably win because he only has so much damage he can deal and spending 2 cards twice to deal with a War Monk plus the 3 life I gain is likely to negate his entire deck. My Path over my O-Ring in boarding kills a Ball Lightning or a Hell's Thunder which significantly reduces the damage he can deal. I win the match.

Round 3 comes and I am paired against Seb Parker in the mirror. We agree a prize split and he wins the roll and then game 1. I mull to 5 game 2 after drawing only Forests for mana and so lose that one as well, the deck is 4-0 at this point though.

In round 4 my opponent is Stuart Wright and I knew he had a Grixis Titans deck he was brewing up. It is a good idea as they are the most powerful creatures you can hardcast in the format, but you immediately have to play a lot of lands to cast them so you lose some card advantage straight away when you draw all those lands. I make a few punty errors like trampling over a 2/1 for 1 with my 3/2 and not tapping a noble hierarch for green mana when it gets pyroclasmed so I am unable to save my Rafiq from a Lightning Bolt. Despite my retardedness I take the match as my deck has too many threats for him to answer and I am able to throw away excess mana to his Blightning and Liliana's Specter.

My final opponent had a cool Naya Destructive Force deck which abused Garruk, Sun Titan and Dauntless Escort to be really one-sided. Unfortunately for him I, as Seb had the round before me, figured out that I had 1 4-mana spell and 7 mana sources in my deck so if I only played out half my mana before the Force I would easily negate it. Plus my Oblivion Ring would deal with the Sun Titan and I could attack the Garruk with an evasive creature so his card quality was then worse than mine.

I ended up going 4-1 and Seb went undefeated with the same deck, so we took 1st and 2nd places in the 20-odd man event. It was a really excellent format as every card counts and you have to save cards for very particular roles. There is very little variance to decks so you should only play as many lands as you need and having cards which do more than 1 thing will significantly increase the amount of play you have. I'm probably going to run the format as the 5th Wednesday event next month in Leeds and might even show up to WNM with a few decks for people to pick up between rounds and have a go. Give it a try - it's very rewarding!

Tournament Report - Win a Mox Pearl in Fanboy3

By Wagz

Hi all! I come fresh from another foray into Lejacy Magic at the always-fun Fanboy3 in Manchester. 37 players came with their favourite deck sleeved up, resulting in 6 rounds before top 8. The prizes? A very good looking Mox Pearl to the winner, with store credit to the top 4 and 5 boosters for each of the losing quarter finalists. Legacy has undergone a lot of changes recently with the StarCityGames Open Series forcing people to make better decks than the classic Team America Control, Goblins and so on. The buzz was that the format would be Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins and New Horizons this weekend, so I picked a deck which would be good against those 4 and forsaked my usual protection against silly combo decks, since with a 9 round tournament I might only have to face it once or twice and I can afford one loss in the swiss easily. I brewed up the following, borrowing many cards from the always-excellent Rik Powell:


4 Goblin Guide
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Helix
4 Price of Progress
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Plateau
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Raging Ravine
1 Karakas
3 Arid Mesa
4 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Stirring Wildwood
3 Krosan Grip

Which is similar to my Madrid deck but has subbed the Mindbreak Traps for the mirror tech of Baneslayers :D. The Karakas was a last-minute addition I borrowed from Matt Light in lieu of the presence of many Emrakuls in the room.

Round 1 vs Phil Smith with Bridge-Naught

His deck is one of the new Emrakul ones. It is based on the old Stifle-Naught decks which used Stifle to cheat Phyrexian Dreadnaught into play. Using Mosswort Bridge they can hide away a good card and with the Dreadnaught in play and trigger on the stack can activate the Bridge to cast something good. They also have Show and Tell to directly cheat stuff into play. I have only a few answers for this sort of deck but I have a lot of aggression so it might not be too terrible. Game 1 he chose to not counter my Knight of the Reliquary as he wasn't sure if Zoo was playing Karakas still (most don't) so when he Show and Telled Emrakul into play I was able to tutor up my land to bounce the Spaghetti Monster. Game 2 he countered my Knight but I'd already drawn the Karakas. In any event his countering my Knight put enough card types into graveyards to power up my Goyfs for a lethal attack so it was Catch 22 really.

1-0

Round 2 vs Tomas Sukaitis with Bant

Tom brought Bant but had given up on Counterbalance-Top for a straightforward aggro-control version of the deck. My Baneslayers came in for this creature mirror and it was mostly back and forth with life totals only he has War Monks. Game 1 I played around Stifle (quite common in current Bant Decks) only to get blown out by Wasteland (far less common). Game 3 had an unusual situation: on 4 life with a Jitte versus War Monk and Qasali Pridemage I rip a Baneslayer Angel. He rips Noble Hierarch and the Exalted means I actually have to chump block :o.

1-1

Round 3 vs Thomas Robinson with Goblins

I may be mixing up rounds 3 and 4 here as I don't have any notes to go on but I definitely played these 2 matches. Goblins is a good matchup for Zoo as they lean fairly heavily on turn 1 Goblin Lackey (how lackey!) or Aether Vial, but Lackey is a 1/1 versus my 21 1 mana answers and Vial doesn't affect the board very quickly. I draw a bit of gash while he nuts off a Ringleader but his deck is set up to do that so fair enough. Game 2 I establish control of the board but only draw 3 creatures the entire game, 2 Guides and a Nacatl - Jitte helps a lot with this. Game 3 he didn't have a very explosive start and played out 2 Vials in the first two turns before Edicting me when I had a Nacatl and a Pridemage in play. I sacced the Nacatl as I was fairly sure his hand had something like Goblin Warchief, Ringleader, Siege-Gang so I kept the Pridemage to kill his 2 counter vial in his next upkeep with the trigger on the stack. This turned out to Time Walk him just enough for my guys and burn to get in before he could develope a board presence.

2-1

Round 4 vs Jason Christie with Enchantress

Another good matchup for Zoo. I was lucky enough to know what my opponents were playing every round today - having good friends at tournaments has a lot of benefits and you should always help out the people you know if you can because they often return the favour. I kept my hand despite being slow because it had a Qasali Pridemage in. I got some damage in and kept him off the right cards until he raw-dogged a Moat when he was going to tutor for it with the Sterling Grove he had in play. I'd rather he'd tutored for it as I'd been sandbagging my Pridemage in hand. I ran it out to kill the Grove as he had a card which prevented players from casting spells and activating abilities in opponents turns and had to hope to draw another Pridemage to win. Luckily I did and was able to attack in in time. My hand for game 2 had no 1 drop or 2 drop again but 2 Krosan Grips so I kept. My draws were Wild Nacatl, Gaddock Teeg, Qasali Pridemage, Qasali Pridemage; proving that it is, in fact, very nice being me.

3-1

Round 5 vs Alex Shoemark with Iggy-Pop

This is not a good matchup for me as I have to have one of my Teegs or Canonists to win, but at least if he's leaning on Ill-Gotten Gains rather than Ad Nauseam my sideboard graveyard hate has room to do something. Game 1 I mull a hand without Teeg into another one without Teeg but some aggression. I cast 2 spells before I lose (Goblin Guide and Lightning Helix) and start sideboarding. Games 2 and 3 I get a hate bear and some aggression plus a Tormod's Crypt so I am able to put him under pressure. Luckily for me his draws are terrible and I sneak the victory. Game 3 his keep was because he had Lotus Petal, Crystal Vein and Dark Confidant, which seems fair but he failed to draw any more lands. I'm not convinced Bob comes in against Zoo because he just gives me extra Lightning Bolts on my opponent but perhaps his testing revealed that he wanted more cards more than he wanted his life total - I think Bob is more for mirror matches. Ah well, no complaints as I can ID into the top 8 with Matt Light in round 6.

4-1-1, 4th after the Swiss

Quarterfinals vs Matt Light with Hypergenesis

Matt is playing another one of those Emrakul decks, only using Hypergenesis alongside Show and Tell to put Kul and the gang into play. I literally have only my main deck Karakas and my sideboard Ethersworn Canonist to interact and sure enough Matt kills me with gigantic monsters. 1 at a time, a la Reanimator I can deal with but 5 or 6 at once is too much. He kept a dog of a hand game 2, with 1 land, a cascade spell and 5 monsters on the draw, but he only needs 2 mana sources to plain win the game, against a deck with Goblin Guide, up a game and in a match where he is the heavy favourite so I think it's defensible.

Lose in the Quarters

I pack wars my 5 M11 boosters and manage to get a Fauna Shaman and am fairly happy with top 8 when I hadn't played Legacy in a while and couldn't list peoples' decklists by heart any more. I've got a new version of Zoo brewed up with a bit more metagaming involved but I'm saving it for Rik or myself to run in the Legacy event at Nats in a few weeks time - probably not me, I'll be busy being National Champion obv.

Deck Tech: RGu Aggro

By Wagz

Hi all, been a while! Sorry if this looks like filler content, but that's almost precisely what it is :). Here's the list for the deck I played at last week's PTQ to reasonable success, RG aggro splashing Jace:

4 Raging Ravine

4 Rootbound Crag

4 Misty Rainforest

3 Scalding Tarn

4 Forest

3 Mountain

2 Island

3 Noble Hierarch

3 Birds of Paradise

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Fauna Shaman

1 Nest Invader

1 Sylvan Ranger

2 Cunning Sparkmage

4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Vengevine

2 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Eldrazi Monument

Sideboard:
2 Chandra Nalaar

2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

1 Clone

3 Combust

4 Obstinate Baloth

2 Cunning Sparkmage

1 Into the Roil


I went 4-2-1 on the day, IDing the last round for prizes and my 2 losses coming to horrid draws and a mull to 5, although likely some of my wins were lucky and I'm not remembering them. The field was choc-a-block full of Shaman decks and UW decks and this was definitely a good call for that field. I'm not sure how it'll cope with Titan Force decks but I'd recommend you try it out at your local FNM.

Sorry we haven't been updating much recently, Jim has been very busy and I'm an ancillary writer at best so you'd better enjoy what you're given for now. I'll have an update after a win-a-mox Lejacy tournament in Manchester this weekend where I'll be whipping out my old faithful, Zoo. Then I could be a bit quiet until after Nats, but at least I'll have a winners report for you all then.

Player of the Year Race Update 15/07/10 - 1 Month to go

By Wagz

Hi all! We're now entering the final stages of the player of the year race and things are pretty hot. The winner after WNM on 11/08 will receive a trophy for their efforts but we won't be organising a top 8 anything because it looks like it will be hard to get all 8 people in one place. Currently the top 8 is:

46 - Andy Devine
44 - Rob Catton
43 - Mick Edwards
38 - John Ingham
33 - Andy Edwards, Chris Vincent
29 - Rob Wagner, Andy Bodle

with Steve Tyson, Stephen Porritt and Andy Pemberton all snapping on the heels. Mick has left university so is unlikely to get any more points but Rob and Andy are definitely going to make a close race. My excuse is that I only played 7 WNMs since December (but I won 4 of those), so I'll try to make Pro Level 2 and then I can play in every event next year :D. Anyway, the winner will receive their trophy at nats but no more updates to the online spreadsheet will be made until then to keep it exciting.

*Live* Coverage of the Team Leeds M11 Prerelease

By Rob Wagner

ROUND 1; Andrew Pemberton vs Paul Wray

Andy comes from a local house of Magic players who throw excellent Cube Drafts and Paul Wray is a long-time playtest partner of Craig Stevenson's. Paul wins the roll and gets things started with a Blinding Mage off his Plains and Mountain. Andy has fetched up a Swamp and a subsequent Forest casts him a Child of the Night. 3rd land but no spell from Paul is suspcious but Andy can only match this with a Reassembling Skeleton. The Skeleton looks like a good limited card to me so we'll see how he gets on through the day. Paul draws a Palace Guard on defence but only has a Mountain untapped so no tapping for him. The Mage gets in for 1 but Andy Assassinates it before casting a Brittle Effigy, two good removal spells. Siege Mastodon comes down for Paul, acting as a massive road block. Not one that Andy is worried about though as he summons a Spined Wurm to begin the beats. Act of Treason steals the Wurm and the Skeleton jumps in the way. A Stormfront Pegasus joins the offensive and the Spined Wurm cracks back, making it 16-15 in Andy's favour. A second Assassinate kills the Siege Mastodon and things aren't looking so hot for Paul now. A second Blinding Mage looks to help out but the Skeleton reassembles end of turn. Doom Blade takes out the Wurm as it tries to attack and things are looking a lot more even again.



Barony Vampire becomes the biggest creature on the table, on Andy's side, but the Pegasus' evasion looks to be winning it at the moment. Stone Golem provides more beef for Andy but Paul's Mage is going to keep it tapped for now. Elite Vanguard and a swing for 2 with Paul's flier keep up the pressure but Andy still has the Effigy to blow any time he so chooses. Vampire and Vanguard trade but Andy has topdecked his Grave Titan and the crowd is going wild. 2 more from the Pegasus, Blinding Mage taps down the Grave Titan on attacks but now the Stone Golem is free to swing in with his 2 Zombie friends. One Zombie gets blocked by the Palace Guards but Paul takes 6, going to 9. The Goblin Tunneler he made the previous turn can allow a guy to get in unblocked but things are looking bad on the defence here. Pegasus again forces his way in, digging Andy down to a mere 6 life but at the end of the turn the Blinding Mage finds himself exiled by the Effigy. Palace Guard is a mass chump-blocker for the turn and after the Pegasus swings for 2 a drawn land allows Paul to make Hoarding Dragon and Fling it at Andy's face for exactly lethal damage, good game!

Paul 1 - 0 Andy

For Game 2 Paul mulligans a Swamp, Mountain, 5 White Spells hand after Andy has kept his 7. His 6 is a lot better though and he matches a turn 2 Child of the Night with his trusty Stormfront Pegasus. Andy assembles his Skeleton for the first time and gets in for 2 with Lifelink. Paul cancels out the life total then makes a threatening looking Warlord's Axe. Deathmark takes care of the Pegasus before Andy Signs his name in Blood to get ahead on cards. Just an Elite Vanguard for Paul which trades with the lifelinker. A 3/2 comes in for Andy who bemoans his lack of a 5th land. Paul summons a Siege Mastodon and Andy draws his Terramorphic Expanse and casts a Gargoyle Sentinel, your reporter's tip for a very solid limited card (and one which some people weren't putting in their decks). Vulshok Berserker comes into play and immediately enters the Red Zone with the Mastodon. The Skeleon takes one for the team and Andy takes his 3. Assassinate takes care of the Mastodon and the Gargoyle trades with the Berserker. Skeleton comes back tapped end of turn in time to swing with the Barony Vampire. A second Reassembling Skeleton makes its presence felt and Paul is unlikely to get through on the ground. Seeing this he makes a Cloud Crusader, possibly the top White draft common creature. Effigy takes care of it however and after an attack, Paul draws nothing and scoops them up.

Paul 1 - 1 Andy

The players wish one another luck for the decider and both keep their 7. Andy's turn 1 Llanowar Elves beats on turn 2 but a Palace Guard stops those shenanigans. Stone Golem faces Vulshok Berserker but a Fire Servant ("pretty good with Fling") threatens to break the deadlock. The Golem attacks into the Palace Guard and Vulshok Berserker, killing the Guard. Triskelion comes in and immediately kills the Fire Servant, leaving a not-so-threatening 1/1. The Berserker easily gets in for 3 and is joined by a Blinding Mage to help tap down those pesky blockers. Those blockers include Garruk's Packleader and Black Knight so the board has reached a small stalemate for the moment. Having seen these guys' decks I'm sure that will change. Andy's Greater Basilisk draws a card off the Packleader and the Packleader is tapped down, allowing Black Knight to get in for 2. Child of the Night also enters Andy's army but does not draw a card. Paul finds his Warlord's Axe, which usually allows you to trade your bad guys for their good guys. Paul only has his Berserker and Mage though so not much trading will be going on. Only the Basilisk is able to attack in now that the Berserker has picked up an Axe but Andy is still pushing Paul down, the life totals being 6 to 14. Paul has made a Goblin Tunneler but appears to have drawn his black spells before his black mana.

Oh wait, that's an Angelic Arbiter now. Pretty irrelevant, Paul says, but a 5/6 flier will still help get the defence on track. Sacred Wolf and Spined Wurm come in and draw cards for Andy. He can't attack but it likely won't matter at this point since he has an overwhelming army. Pegasus joins the defence but Paul can't attack for fear of a massive counterattack. Effigy exiles the Arbiter and then a Grave Titan comes in with 2/2's and a drawn card and it is surely over now. Andy swings with the team and Paul offers the hand.

Andy 2 - 1 Paul

ROUND 2; Andy Devine vs Nathan Edwards

Nathan is down from Scarborough and is an old-school player from 1995, playing with our very own John Ingham. Andy Devine is likely to win the Leeds Player of the Year Race but thinks he has a bad deck for today. Nathan wins the roll and sets things off with a turn 2 Augury Owl from his seemingly blue-black deck. Andy has a mountain and an island but no turn 2 play. Nathan's turn 3 Scroll Thief gets Lightning Bolted, can't let Ophidian get out of hand. Forest for Andy, or not as he picks it back up. No, it comes down again and casts Awakener Druid, making it a 4/5 creature. Nathan gets ahead on cards with a Foresee but just the Owl means he isn't high up on the attacking pecking order. Wall of Frost from Andy doesn't seem to do much at the moment but he gets in for the expected 5 damage. Nathan makes a Conundrum Sphinx, a very efficient beater who plays very well with the set's Scry mechanic. Andy sends only the 4/5 in, taking Nathan to 11. Andy then makes a second Forest and uses Sylvan Ranger to find a second Mountain. A second Augury Owl sets up Nathan's Sphinx to be very one-sided. Sure enough the Sphinx draws a Liliana's Specter and Andy's named Forest misses as he reveals Cultivate. The Specter comes in and forces Andy to discard his Diminish. Andy's Forest gets blocked and only the Ranger gets in but a post-combat Chandra's Outrage deals with the Sphinx in royal fasion.

Nathan's fliers continue to beat in, putting Andy at 10. He makes a Scroll Thief and a Crystal Ball, signalling an extremely card draw-centric deck. The Forest and Sylvan Ranger once more get in and Nathan pauses to consider Andy's tricks. Not falling for any of them he simply chumps the Forest with his 1/3 and now also faces a Garruk's Packmaster. Crystal Ball helps Nathan's draw step and he makes an Air Servant before serving for 2 with the Specter. Water Servant for Andy seems good and Ice Cage on the Air Servant serves as a very good answer, allowing Andy to swing in for a bunch. Nathan didn't draw anything of relevance and scooped them up.

Andy 1 - 0 Nathan

John Ingham and I were saying how we liked Water Servant as the players shuffled for game 2. He called it a "little Morphling" so I used the segue of "speaking of More Fling" to tell the story of how round 1 game 1 ended. Enough of my silliness for now, Nathan shuffles his 7 away, then his 6, but deems his 5 to be acceptable. The first play is a Cultivate by Andy but Nathan has the Flashfreeze at the ready. He makes an Augury Owl to try to draw into more gas but can't be happy to see Awakener Druid opposite him. He might be actually, as he has at Stabbing Pain ready to deal with the Druid, incidentally turning off the Treefolk. Foresee draws Nathan into even more gas and his Owl gets in for 1, not a bad mull to 5 at all. Andy discards a Berserker of Blood Ridge, clearly leaning on the Cultivate for his mana. Scroll Theif for Nathan look good but but Andy has found a Mountain and casts a Conundrum Sphinx of his own. Crystal Ball makes the Sphinx more one-sided for Nathan again and he draws a card where Andy misses, but Nathan still takes 4 from the attack. Juggernaut is yet more body for Andy so Nathan will need to do something with all these cards he's drawing. Royal Assasin clearly is something to do with those cards and he even has a Negate ready for Andy's Lightning Bolt, strong plays all round. Ice Cage really deals with the Assassin until Nathan can come up with a targetting ability. Sphinx draws Nathan an Augury Owl but deals him another 4. The Owl comes down alongside a Juggernaut on blocking duty but Sleep from Andy takes the game and the match.

Andy 2 - 0 Nathan



ROUND 3; Rob Catton vs Alex Gershaw

Alex is a relative newcomer to Leeds Magic but qualified for Nats after I made him play Time Sieve. Rob Catton is another high-runner in the Player of the Year race and is also qualified for Nats via his Blue White control deck. Alex makes 2 Islands and Rob matches it with one Island but breaks the trend with a Plains. Alex makes a turn 3 Cloud Elemental then a turn 4 Phantom Beast before attacking for 2. The Beast is thoroughly diminished by Rob and he returns fire with a very big Juggernaut. This immediately becomes Caged in Ice and Alex once more swings for 2. Augury Owl for Rob sets up his next draws, which include 2 Angels - very nice! Cloud Elemental #2 for Alex gives him some gas just before the first one runs into the Owl taking a Mighty Leap. Rob draws 3 with his Jace's Ingenuity, getting ahead in this blue mirror match. Alex decides against using the Mystifying Maze on the Augury Owl, electing to take 1 instead. His Cloud Elemental is winning that race anyway. Not any more, Angelic Arbiter is the first Angel for Rob, but Alex immediately Mind Controls it and attacks for 2.

Vengeful Archon is Angel number 2 for Rob, clearly hoping it stays on his side of the table. Aether Adept bounces the Vengeful Archon for a turn and allows Alex to swing in for some damage, which the Augury Owl takes the brunt of. Nothing from Alex might mean that Rob can start moving ahead but he chooses to make an Augury Owl rather than begin swinging (because of his own Arbiter). Alex plays his main deck Jace's Erasure as a way of punching through the deadlock but Rob's Air Servant looks like it will do the same job a lot better. Rob even draws an Excommunicate to free up his own Angelic Arbiter, which will get milled by the Erasure. He fails to attack though, probably thinking the effect still holds. It seems to be for naught though as he begins swinging the next turn. Maze takes some of the sting out of the Angel's tail but it's probably only a matter of time now. Howling Banshee for Alex brings both players' life totals down by 3, putting Rob on 5 and Alex on 10. Rob wins the flip on a previously-made Sorceror's Strongbox, bringing him 2 Islands and a Fireball. Alex chumps the Archon, neglecting to use his Maze (a bluff?) and dies to a post-combat Fireball.

Rob 1 - 0 Alex

Both keep their 7 for game 2 and Alex burns a Preordain, probably having kept a mildly speculative hand. The first real play is a Temple Bell for Alex on turn 3, clearly having played Time Sieve too much. The Temple Bell mills Rob twice as he is making lands but has little action. Turn 5 Stormfront Pegasus gives Rob some aggression but he is playing quite defensively. Captivating Vampire for Alex is unlikely to be stealing any creatures but one should always play one's rares in Sealed, even if they're Grey Ogres. Rob Excommunicates it regardless but Alex Bells it to hand at the end of the turn. Phantom Beast for Alex gets Mighty Leaped (i.e. killed) and Rob makes an Augury Owl, looking to set up his Bell draws. Rob had discarded his own Phantom Beast earlier, certainly a card I would sideboard out in the blue mirror. Nether Horror For Alex might bring him some offence as Rob has only made fliers so far, evading Alex's Wall of Frost. Rob gets ahead once more with a Jace's Ingenuity, drawing even more cards. He makes a Wall of Frost which actually does something and flies in for 3, reducing Alex to 13. Jace's Erasure looks to do a little bit more this game but Rob has very little respect for the Erasure and Cancels it. Alex has the Mana Leak, however, so it comes down. Rob gets in for another 3 and summons an Air Servant, which gets Doom Bladed. Alex Bells end of turn, turning up the mill. Alex has the Foresee, which Rob Mana Leaks to tap Alex's mana. He pays the 3, keeps all the cards on top and mills Rob for 2 more. Rob attacks in a little more but has the Fireball to Burn Alex to a crisp.

Rob 2 - 0 Alex

ROUND 4; Fu Sheng vs Mark Pinder

Fu is a native Malaysian at Leeds University and brother of a national team member. Mark comes from the Grimsby area and will be running his own Pre-release tomorrow. Fu said he wanted to draw but Mark definitely came to play. Whsipersilk Cloak from Mark was the first play and his turn 4 Giant Spider matched Fu's turn 3 Stormfront Pegasus very effectively. Fu's turn 4 Assault Griffin would normally be very good but he looks shut down at the moment. Greater Basilisk gives Mark something he can begin to swing with, Fu's Palace Guard not being enough to shut it down. The Griffin ate a Doom Blade from Mark and the Basilisk donned the Cloak, clocking Fu for 3. Stone Golem from Fu gives him some aggression, "oh joy" says Mark. Basilisk in once more and a second joins the team. Fu's Magma Phoenix is another guy on board but he still can't attack effectively. Acidic Slime destroys the Stone Golem post-combat but now Fu has a Serra Angel to take its place. Mark attacks with all 3 of his Deathtouch creatures, leaving Fu some difficult options. The Pegasus blocks the Slime, the Palace Guard puts itself in from of the uncloaked Basilisk and Fu takes 3, going to 8. Mark's Gravedigger gets back the Slime but he doesn't have the mana to replay it this turn. Angel vigilances in for Fu, before an Earth Servant (4/8) helps Fu's ground force. Just the Basilisks come in from Mark, the Earth Servant being backed up by a Lightning Bolt to finish off the Basilisk. An Elite Vanguard gives Mark yet another attacker, causing Fu to look for an answer. Not drawing Wall of Fire, Fu scoops up his cards and we move to game 2.

Mark 1 - 0 Fu

2 mulligans for Mark to start the match but his 5 seem alright for him. Fu kept 4 lands, 3 spells and is dismayed at having drawn 2 lands to begin with. His hand is responsive and has the Bolt to kill Mark's Garruk after it has made a Beast. Assault Griffin declares Fu's intention to race and with 2 more cards he is not in a bad position to do so. The Griffin flies in for 3 and then a Stone Golem comes in for Fu. The life totals are high but Mark will need to draw something relevant soon. The Golem is excommunicated (silly religious golems) and a Silvercoat Lion adds to Mark's beats. The Griffin once more gets in for 3 and the Golem gets replayed, only this time it is Pacifismed, seeing the error of its previously-religious ways. Fu brings an Excommunication of his own to deal with the Whitemane Lion and the Beast gets Pacifismed too. Fu explains that he is trying to stymie Mark's draws after Mark questions the play. Assault Griffin number 2 speeds it up for Fu but Mark has found his Incy-Wincy Spider and Fu can only wince himself. The Lion brings Fu to 5 and Mark makes a Yavimaya Wurm to beat Fu before his own life total of 8 is diminished. Fu finds his Sword of Vengeance off the top and equips one Griffin, attacking Mark to 3. Mark desperately sends in the team but Fu blocks the Lion with the 3/2 and the 6/4 with his 5/2 Akroma, taking 2 and going to 3. However it was a bluff and Mark has no defence to Fu's flier.

Mark 1 - 1 Fu

Mark mulligans again but Fu thinks long and hard. He elects to keep but doesn't look confident. Both players develope their mana and Mark makes the first move with turn 4 Garruk, this time untapping 2 lands for protection. Fu makes an Ember Hauler but Mark uses his extensive mana advantage to make a Yavimaya Wurm. Fu Pacifisms it and attacks Garruk to 3 counters but has no other plays. Mark makes a Greater Basilisk and the pain is really being brought to Fu now. The Basilisk gets Excommunicated and the Ember Hauler attacks then sacs to finish off Garruk. The Basilisk sees a second spawning and Fu matches with his Stone Golem, the life totals still very high. Giant Spider for Mark isn't as impressive as it has been and the ground is stalled. Both players continue to lay out lands and Mark uses his Excommunicate on his own Yavimaya Wurm and Fu Reverberates it to get rid of the Basilisk while he was at it. Mark makes a Cloak and doesn't block Fu's Stone Golem. Fu's Stormfront Pegasus is blanked by the Giant Spider but Mark lets the Stone Golem through, going to 12. Mark draws his Basilisk, attacks for 6 and makes the Basilisk, leaving up a single mana. Fu draws Shiv's Embrace and puts it on his Stone Golem. He attacks his Stone Golem and Pegasus into Mark's board, the Spider chump blocking the Golem and so taking Mark to 10. Mark's Wurm picks up the Cloak and he attacks Fu for 9 down to 5 life. Mark Plummets Fu's Golem, takes 2 from the Pegasus and Fu makes a post-combat Griffin. Mark's attack is Safe Passaged and when Fu doesn't draw a Lightning Bolt Mark takes the win.

Mark 2 - 1 Fu

ROUND 5; Craig Stevenson vs Andy Devine

Andy comes back from his round 2 showing with 2 more wins and facing him is former National Champion Craig Stevenson. An all-Hunslet final promises some violence here ;). Andy leads with a turn 2 Sylvan Ranger fixing his mana and passes turn 3 after playing a second Island. "Cancel mana up declares Craig" and right he is too. More lands from both players and the only action is the 1/1 beating down. Andy turn 5's a Cudgel Troll with regeneration mana up, a strong play against Craig's Red-Black deck. Craig Bolts it at the end of Andy's turn, allowing him to Deathmark it during his own. Craig makes a Sword of Vengeance with nothing to equip but when he gets something into play it will surely dominate. Andy makes an Awakener Druid, upgrading his tapped Forest so as to keep this "cancel mana up" and swings for 1 with the Ranger. During Andy's next turn Chandra's Outrage deals with the Druid and then the Forest by proxy, Craig taking 1 more from the Ranger, putting him at 15 to Andy's 18.

Craig summons a Stone Golem during his turn and at the end of that turn Andy casts Jace's Ingenuity to draw 3. It allowed him to draw is second Mountain to cast a Magma Phoenix and the Ranger stays at home for once. The Golem picks up Akroma's Sword and attacks Andy down to 12 (busted sword much) but Andy Ice Cages the Golem on his turn before attacking for 4. Cultivate for Andy draws him 2 more (and casts one for free), thinning his deck slightly. Brittle Effigy for Craig sneaks in and a re-equipped sword knocks off the Ice Cage, allowing another attack from the Golem. When Andy's Phoenix attempted an attack it became exiled due to the Effigy but a post-combat Water Serpent will do nicely too. Craig Vigilances in with the Golem and Andy chumps with the Sylvan Ranger. The Golem tramples over for 5 damage, putting Andy at 1 and asking a good draw step of him. 6 mana makes Inferno Titan for Craig but the sandbagged Cancel makes itself well-known. Andy draws a Juggernaut but cannot attack just yet. It's all for naught though as Craig Act of Treason's the Juggernaut to take the victory.

Craig 1 - 0 Andy

Both players take a mulligan to begin with and Andy goes down another one. Andy has Cancel mana up from turn 3 but neither player is doing anything too interactive with the battlefield for the moment beyond plagueing it with lands. Andy misses land #5 and Cancels Craig's Berserkers of Blood Ridge. Andy draws his 5th land and smacks down a Magma Phoenix. Doom Blade causes each player to take 3 damage and Craig follows it with a 3/2 ground pounder. Andy draws his Jace's Ingenunity and then another 3 cards, recovering from his mulligan. The next turn sees Conundrum Sphinx and Craig's "playing round a mana leak" Chandra's Outrage gets Flashfrozen. The 3/2 attacks into the Sphinx and a post-combat Ember Hauler finishes it off. Andy finally finds a Forest for foraging for a further one with his Sylvan Ranger. The rebought Phoenix comes in once more and Craig is on the back foot. Oh no he isn't, he's got Inferno Titan and kills the Ranger and a Garruk's Companion which Andy had made with his Green mana. Andy swings for 3 in the air then made an Acidic Slime (killing Swamp) and a Manic Vandal. Craig attacked, dealt 3 to the Phoenix which killed Andy's blockers and Craig pumped for the win.

Craig 2 - 0 Andy

Craig wins the Leeds Prerelease!