States Report: & U/w Primer

As you probably guessed by the title, I will be talking about Wu control today. This being probably my third or fourth article ever, I will try not to lose you guys. On the same note, I would appreciate any responses on the forums. Moving on, before the release of Lorwyn, or for that matter, the spoilers on MTGsalvation.com, I had been telling my playtesting partner that I would definitely be playing teachings.

Then…
Gaddock Teeg

As I read the card the second time, I could hear Mark Rosewater giving of an evil genius laugh saying, “Burn Baby, burn!!!” I guess R&D is really serious about making control worse, hence the burning. Now, I am not saying that teeg shuts down control, I just didn’t really feel like preparing for champs just to have it ended by one card at the wrong time. Gradually as more cards like Oblivion Ring and Ajani Goldmane were spoiled, I started contemplating a new version of solar flare. I started out with some initial lists, but they all had the same problem, the mana base. They would either take too much pain or be too unstable. I am sure that some variant will appear in the future, but the advantages of the third color just weren’t good enough.

Then the idea struck me, why can’t solar flare be a two color deck. The idea of solar flare is to play the best cards in the colors it plays. By playing two colors I can get the similar power with more consistency. After coming up with the idea, I quickly got together a decklist that looked like this.
4 Desert
1 Urza’s Factory
4 Adarkar Wastes
3 New Benalia
3 Nimbus Maze
5 Island
5 Plains

2 Razormane Masticore
1 Crovax
2 Aeon Chronicler
1 Triskalevus

4 Wrath of God
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Sacred Mesa
3 Foresee
2 Tidings
3 Coalition Relic
4 Condemn
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Mind Stone

Some of the card choices are odd, but it was a first draft of the deck. I began running it through a mini-gauntlet of Rg goyf, Gbw aggro and Gb rack. Typically when I come up with a new idea I like creating a deck or list of the decks that it has to either beat or have a chance against. Later in testing I added Wg kithkin and teachings to the old-fashioned gauntlet. The deck wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really have the umph that I was looking for. The Tidings were too often uncastable by teeg or showed up too late and were a win more card. The deck’s mana base was also shaky. After about two to three weeks of testing, I finally refined the deck to what I eventually brought to states.

2 Aeon Chronicler
3 Ajani Goldmane
2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
1 Purity

2 Coalition Relic
4 Condemn
4 Foresee
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Mind Stone
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Prismatic Lens
2 Sacred Mesa
2 Story Circle
4 Wrath of God

4 Adarkar Wastes
2 Calciform Pools
2 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Mouth of Ronom
3 Quicksand
2 Snow-Covered Island
4 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Tolaria West
1 Urza's Factory
3 Vivid Meadow

Sideboard
1 Academy Ruins
3 Detritivore
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Porphyry Nodes
4 Quagnoth
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Story Circle
1 Triskelavus

There are a lot of differences between the previous list and this list, but what I really changed was the mana base and the numbers in the maindeck along with adding a sideboard. The only non-repetitive add-in (like Prismatic Lens are like Mind Stones) were Loxodon Warhammer and Story Circles. For card evaluations, I am going to do something a little different, instead of just go through each card, I am going to divide it into categories which gives makes it easier for sideboarding.

Aggro cards
4 Condemn- This was an obvious add in for a white based control deck. I don’t think I would run any less because they deal with almost any creature including the hard to answer Treetop Village.
4 Wrath of God- Again, another card that gets the shoo in.
2 Story Circle- Originally I hadn’t thought of this, but upon browsing various forums, namely the Brainburst.com forums, I found this. It seemed to be the perfect answer to burn or creatures like Treetop Village or Troll Ascetic. It also has a tendency to make opponents play more creatures which gives you a better trade when Wrath of God shows up. It stinks against control most of the time, but otherwise is good.
1 Loxodon Warhammer- Again, I stole this idea from the internet. I found this particular idea when I saw a decklist that top 8ed three Premier Events on Magic Online. Although it was a solar flare deck from pre-rotation, I stilled decided to try out the singleton Loxodon Warhammer the deck had. I tested it and when I drew it, it was almost always amazing. About three days before states, I was talking to some of the playerss from team SLUT (The players from Salt Lake, Utah) that I know and they told me to take it out. I can say that after playing it for State Champs, I made the right choice in playing it. If it lands against aggro with a decent creature equipped, it just wins the game. Against control, it can keep you out of range as well. With lots of good life gain going out of the format, this becomes one of the best new options.
3 Quicksand- these used to be Deserts, but Deserts were really only good against Gr with Mogg War Marshall and fairy decks. Quicksands turned out to be much better as you only need to draw one in order to take out a two toughness creature, not to mention you don’t take damage.

Aggro/control cards
1 Purity- Purity doubled as a nigh unkillable (kill for good that is) threat against control and a giant flying beast that makes aggro cry. I initially ran two, but found that one was the correct number as there were other cards to run and there is always one in play, in your hand, or in your library.

2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero- Again, a card that serves dual purposes. It shrinks aggro armies and makes Sacred Mesa pegasi larger as well. The only downside is that it is not good against kithkin agro due to the pumping of all white creatures. Crovax Is also hard for control to answer apart from countering it or making you discard it to Haunting Hymn.

3 Oblivion Ring- Essentially a Vindicate for non-land permanents there was no way that I could afford to not play this. Against aggro it was straight up removal and against control could disrupt mana sources and remove other permanents from the game. The only down side was having to fight Oblivion Ring wars with other decks running it, i.e. Oblivion Ring your Oblivion Ring to bring back my Oblivion Ring which will remove your other Oblivion Ring… make sense of that without reading it twice.

3 Ajani Goldmane- When everyone was saying that the white planeswalker was bad, I was shaking my head. I just ordered a playset while they were dirt cheap. It is at least a 7 point life gain spell against aggro and if left unanswered can just win the game against aggro. Against control, it can easily live long after it resolves and both power Sacred Mesa and make avatar tokens. Unfortunately, most control these days run cryptic command which can bounce the avatar tokens.

2 Sacred Mesa- This is probably one of the best control cards in standard at the moment. It can stall aggro out pretty well and at the same time be a great win condition. If it resolves it can really give teachings decks fits as well. It is basically everything control looks for in a win condition.

Control
2 Aeon Chronicler- For a good while in playtesting this had been out of the decklist, but I found that I really needed it in order to be able to cast a draw spell or body against Gaddock Teeg aggro. It also doubled up as a 3+ card draw spell against control because most teachings decks don’t run pull from eternity any more. Did I also mention that Loxodon Warhammer makes him a beast.

4 Foresee- Compulsive Research isn’t in the format anymore and this deck still needed more draw power. Foresee is nice because of the scry 4 and it also costs only a single blue, which makes it easier on the mana base. I originally played around with Tidings, but it turned out Foresee was just better.

Other
3 Mind Stone/2 Prismatic Lens/2 Coalition Relic- Like the solar flare decks of the past, this deck wanted to have an acceleration spell turn two which is why I run five. Too bad that the mana fixing is not as good as in the past though. Coalition Relic is also too powerful not to play. The other advantage of using the combination of the three is that they offer late game draw power and also allow for more colors in the sideboard.

25 land mana base- There isn’t much too see here; the usual Urza’s factory andTtolaria West with Mouth of Ronom that many control decks play nowadays. Vivid Meadow is probably the oddest card here so it needs a little explaining. I originally had this as Boreal Shelfs, but most of the time I didn’t need the blue from them. After finding this, I just changed it to meadow which also allow the sideboard to take on more colors.

Matchups and sideboard
Aside from working on my play in general, in the last three constructed seasons (Extended, Block, and now Standard) I have devoted a lot more time to developing my sideboards. At least half, if not more of your games are going to be played sideboarded. Instead of just reposting the sideboard below and again talking about card selection, I think it is best to discuss matchups and the cards for that matchup. So…

Rg Goyf- There are tons of version of this deck, but our version had a minor goblin theme and ran cards like Garruk Wildspeaker and Greater Gargadon with Siege-Gang Commanders. Originally this was unfavorable, but after refining the decklist, it posted a 5-3 record. This was in a large part due to fixing the mana base and adding Warhammers and Story Circles. Also it is important to know that those results are with the final list and that I didn’t include all the games against the deck. So although it seems like a small sample, which it is, there is more backing to saying it is a good matchup. During this match I was left wanting more protection against troll ascetics and treetop villages as well as more cheap removal after sideboarding, meaning cards like Porphyry Nodes and Story Circles. The hard part came in deciding what to cut for this matchup. Eventually I came up with this
-1 Mind Stone
-1 Foresee
-2 Coalition Relic
+3 Porphyry Nodes (I hate spelling that)
+1 Story Circle
The nodes deal with creatures and at the same time give either card advantage or tempo while Story Circle helps out with burn and hard-to-deal-with green creatures. I took out the card draw and mana spells because I am already lowering my curve and nodes compensate for the card advantage

Gb Tarmorack- Originally I thought this would be a lot bigger at states, but I was relieved to find otherwise. At least that was the case at Idaho States (Which is notorius for low attendance. We had 54 players this year). This matchup was bad pre-sideboard due to the nature of discard against control. I believe that it the deck had something like a 1-3 or 1-4 record. Seeing this, I fired up gatherer and quickly found Dodecapod and Quagnoth as cards to lessen discard’s impact. At first I ran Dodecapod, but then found that I just wanted to keep my hand size up so Quagnoth got the go. Same as before, here is the sideboarding.
-3 Ajani Goldmane
-1 Prismatic Lens (not mind stone because it can draw you a card)
-1 Purity
-1 Coalition relic
+4 Quagnoth
+1 Story Circle
+1 Oblivion Ring
The Ajani goes out because it is often just killed by The Rack or you aren’t able to defend it effectively. The Purity goes out because it is very easily killed and there is no burn to worry about. Quagnoth’s are obviously coming in and Oblivion Ring gives an answer to The Rack or any aggro threat. Finally the Story Circle deals with almost all of their creatures. They better hope they packed enchantment removal. The nodes don’t come in because they don’t run too many creatures and there is not much else to take out for them.

Wg aggro
The testing showed that the two important factors in game one are Gaddock Teeg and the die roll. Of the games with the final list, it went 3-2 going first and 2-3 going second. For this matchup I wanted just more removal that could take care of Gaddock Teeg and creatures in general, thus
-2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero (They just don’t work well against white creatures)
-1 Ajani Goldmane
-1 Prismatic Lens
-1 Coalition Relic
+3 Porphyry Nodes
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Story Circle
The Crovaxes go out because of white creatures and a goldmane goes out because you generally only need to have one and drop it after stabilizing in this matchup to win. There is no burn to take it out either. The nodes come in and so do the other anti-aggro cards.

Teachings
I hate to say it, but this matchup depends quite a bit on what modifications your opponent is running and their play skill. While playing this matchup the number one thing is knowing how to play around counters. For example wait to cast Mind Stone until the opponent is either tapped out or you have two mana after casting a spell or paying for Rune Snag. Try to make as many of their counterspells dead. The best thing is to run them out of Cryptic Commands (Which I did in three games I played during states) then force through Sacred Mesa. This will be a long game so try to keep up the pace and make sure your opponent does as well to have a good shot at finishing a second game. Here’s the sideboarding
-4 Condemn
-3 Wrath of God
-2 Story Circle
-1 Loxodon Warhammer
+4 Quagnoth
+3 Detritivore
+1 Academy Ruins
+1 Sacred Mesa
+1 Triskelavus

First thing, the nice thing about this, is that they won’t expect it unless they have seen your sideboard. If they boarded out Damnations then Quagnoths are game many times. Unfortunately, not many players do since they help immensely with keeping a Sacred Mesa army at bay. There is still one Wrath of God left to deal with an out of hand board and to add the 4th removal spell. The Detritivores really help to limit mana and adding more problem cards for them makes it hard to Extirpate all of them. I didn’t do much testing on this because there was no one that knew how to play the deck well besides me that I had access to. The two players that could were to busy with school or life to get testing in. I tested about 4 games solitaire and it just helped to get an understanding of what teachings is trying to do in standard (I played it in block to 10th at a PTQ, out of Top 8 on tiebreaks, and day two of Grand Prix-San Fransisco) rather than a win percantage.

There are a ton of other decks to test and all kinds of versions of each deck so I decided to take the sane approach for a 2-3 person team and test a limited amount of matchups that best represented what would be popular and harder for this deck.
Since this article is already pretty long, I have decided to break it down into a two article series. In the next article I will give an overview of the tournament itself and how it went in general.

As for the tournament itself, like always, I woke up at about 7:30 AM and got myself together. After eating breakfast and stopping quickly at a coffee shop I was off to the tournament site. I was surprised/disappointed that the tournament organizer hadn’t been able to get the larger room that we usually have for premier events. Instead there was a rug show and we had to play in a room about half as small. For those that don’t live in Idaho, our events almost always start about an hour after they are supposed to. Play started at about 11:15. Just over 50 players showed up so I expected nothing less than a top 8 or be out on tiebreaks unless I played multiple top players in the swiss.



Round 1- Wild Pair

As I check the pairings I find that I am paired against Ashton at the lower tables. He plays at the local shop. When he sat down he groaned because the last 3-4 times we had played he had lost. I had seen him registering his deck but only saw Whitemane Lions and Rune Snags so I was guessing an aggro deck; I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Game 1

I kept a decent hand after mulling to six. After seeing him play turn one Birds of Paradise and turn two Coalition Relic I had no idea what he was playing. When he finally tapped out to play Wild Pair I knew I would be in for a rough time since I couldn’t draw my Oblivion Ring. I proceeded to play around and fight all four of the Mystic Snakes in his deck that were fetched by Whitemane Lion. I did resolve a Story Circle for blue though in all the madness of Counterspell creatures and bounce spells. The critical play came when he end of turn casted Dust Elemental with two Wild Pair in play, returned it first, then searched for a Numot, the Devastater and an Intet, the Dreamer. He attacked and I cast Condemn on Numot. He in response case Whitemane Lion, and in response to all three triggers, I cast another Condemn on Numot. He then played Venser on Condemn so I replayed it. It finally resolved and I cast my third Condemn on intet. I believe that is how it played out, but I do remember there being a Dust Elemental returning at least one dragon to his hand. In the end he conceded after he ran out of threats.

Sideboarding

-1 Loxodon Warhammer

-1 Crovax Ascendant Hero

+1 Oblivion Ring

+1 Story Circle

The sideboarding just adds the fourth oblivion ring for wild pair and story circle for his dragons. I am fairly sure that is what I boarded out.

Game 2

He didn’t have much action this game and I basically resolved a Sacred Mesa and rode it to victory. There is not much to write on this game, due in part that I don’t remember it as well as the first game.

2-0, record 1-0



Round 2- UB Control w/o mystical teachings

Game 1

I remember seeing my opponent around but don’t know him very well. We both keep our initial seven and start a game that we would never finish. So much happened in this matchup that it is hard to give a good game review. For a good part of the game he was fighting Sacred Mesas and finally did a bounce and counter sequence. Near the end of the game I had exhausted all his Rune Snags, all his Cryptic Commands, and two or three Fairy Trickeries. When time was called I was on 1 life. The turn before I had decided to use my life total to kill another factory token by double blocking it with sacred mesa tokens instead of taking none but letting it live. I managed to stall out the game for the five turns necessary by using Quicksands to take out Shriekmaws and the rest of my tokens. It was unfortunate that we didn’t get to sideboard because I had some fairly mean stuff like Quagnoth and Detritivore in my sideboard.

0-0-1 (we agreed to a 1-1-1 tie to improve tiebreaks though), record 1-0-1



Round 3- Gb Elves

Game 1

I kept my initial seven that were comprised of at least one Oblivion Ring and one Wrath of God. In this game, I kept her stalled for a while but cast Wrath a little too early. She (yes, I was playing girl) kept on laying creatures and the game basically came down to her having four or five 1/1 tokens (due to a Crovax Ascendant Hero I had played), an Imperius Perfect, Wren Run Packmaster, and Garruk Wildspeaker. I was fortunate that she forgot about garruk for about three turns as it gave me some breathing room and gave me ample time to kill it with a Sacred Mesa token equipped with the Loxodon Warhammer I had drawn. I called the head judge and asked for a ruling as to whether or not I would gain life for dealing damage to a planeswalker and he confirmed that I would. Sometime in the game I had also played an Ajani Goldmane which she miraculously left untouched. This allowed me to pump out an avatar token and equip Warhammer to it. Soon after she attacked with three 1/1 wolves and a 1/1 elf token. After briefly double checking that the elf didn’t have any other abilities I blocked with the avatar token which was a 20/20 at the time. This boosted my life total up to 43 and in doing so the avatar token as well. On my turn I just swung in with my avatar token and two 2/2 pegasi. She didn’t have enough toughness to stall my 45/42 trample lifelink avatar token so it went to game 2.

-1 Foresee

-1 Mind Stone

-1 Ajani Goldmane

+3 Porphyry Nodes

The sideboarding for this was simple. I had seen that she had Extirpate in her sideboard because her sideboard was face up when she sat down at the table so I was a little worried.

Game 2

I kept a decent hand and soon found out that she was mana screwed at one land



Aside: Just a thing about mulligans, there are very few circumstances that I would keep a one land hand. You would need to most of the time draw at least two lands to get in the game. If you are on the draw, there is about a 40-45% chance of drawing a land on the first draw (at least in this deck) and a chance of 20-35% of drawing two lands in a row. Not very good odds. Basically, don’t keep one land hands unless you can live with drawing one land in the next 2-4 turns.



Now back to the game. She cast a topdecked Llanowar Elves turn two and I cast a Porphyry Nodes to keep her mana down along with her tempo. This game went quick because by the time she drew land it was already too late due to my Sacred Mesa.

2-0, record:2-0-1



Round 4- Rg Goyf

Game 1-

I keep a marginal hand that has action on turn three in form of Oblivion Ring and some other things. After dropping a Mountain and a Mogg Fanatic he passes the turn. Then I realize this will be a little harder. The next turn he drops a Kavu Predator letting me gain a life with Grove of the Nurnwillows and attacks me back down to twenty. I Oblivion Ring his Kavu Predator the next turn and he Incinerates me and casts another Predator. I clear the board with Wrath and he casts a Garruk and untaps two lands to play a huge Tarmogoyf. He manages to get me down to 3 with no threats on the board. He is unable to draw the last burn spell he needs and I stabilize with life gain.

Sideboard

-1 Mind Stone

-1 Foresee

-1 Coalition Relic

+3 Porphyry Nodes

I am fairly sure that’s how I boarded but it may be a card or two off. I do know I boarded the nodes for sure though.

Game 2

I find myself with an interesting hand to start the game off. I have four lands, one prismatic lens, one coalition relic, and one oblivion ring. In the end I decide to ship it back. I find myself with a better hand after mulliganing and we start game 2. He opens with a suspened Rift Bolt. He plays a second turn Seal of Primordium while I continue to develop my board position. After a brief fight over a threat the game gets interesting. He taps out to cast a Mana Barbs on turn 4. This would be a problem for me if it weren’t for the fact that I was holding the one Purity in my deck. He then attacks with Treetop Village which I take one to Condemn. My life total is now 10. He passes the turn and I go down to 3 taking a pain from Adarkar Wastes and Mana Barbs to cast Purity. He had two cards in hand, so I figured they would have to be Rift Bolts or Incinerates and that he would also have to top another one. He drew and just sacrificed Seal of Primordium targeting his Mana Barbs. After I attacked he just conceded and showed me two the last two cards in his hand, Mana Barbs.

2-0, record: 3-0-1



Aside: After seeing what happened to him that game, and also seeing him sideboard, it just served to confirm what I had thought before, sideboarding can dilute your deck. There aren’t too many times when you want to be taking more than about five cards out for sideboarding, especially in aggro and control unless it serves a similar role. Decks often don’t function the same way after such a large change.



Round 5 UB creature-based control

Standings were posted before the round so I was able to find out who I was playing even before the pairings went up. I quickly asked my teammates if they knew what my opponent was playing and they told me a UB control deck with stuff like Sower of Temptations and Deserts.

Game 1

I mulled a one lander then drew a hand of a condemn, oblivion ring, another spell, a prismatic lens, mind stone, and land. In the end I decided to keep this despite what I said earlier. However, it was not a decision that was not thought through. I did the math in my head to back it up. Since I had one land in my hand, hence twenty four in the deck, and two draws to get a land I figured there would be about a 70% chance of hitting the land I needed. I got this number from figuring that there is about a 40-45% chance of hitting one of 24 cards out of a 54 deck then square the difference of that and 100% for the odds of not getting a land which turns out to be about 25-30%. Then I had to think about what I could improve to by mulliganing, assuming that I hit my land. The answer was not much, since I would draw about the same amount of mana sources. The odds played out exactly how I had planned and I drew my land on the second draw. I cast Mind Stone which he countered and a Prismatic Lens the turn after which he also countered. I also played the land I had drawn. I was able to get back in the game since he had a very slow start. He played out two Sower of Temptations which fought over Purity. With the help of a Loxodon Warhammer, the Sowers were able to get me to low life. I was able to pull it out by using both of my Mouth of Ronoms to kill his Sowers and force a Sacred Mesa through for the win. With about ten minutes on the clock we shuffled up for game two.

-2 story circle

-1 purity

+3 quagnoth

After looking back, I am very unsatisfied at how I sideboarded. Since there were ten minutes on the clock I knew my opponent would be trying to get a quick win. All I needed to do was stall him out and force a draw (Not by cheating of course). Here is what I should have done.

-2 aeon chronicler

-1 purity

-2 crovax ascendant hero

-1 loxodon warhammer

-1 mind stone

+3 porphyry nodes

+2 quagnoth

+1 story circle

+1 oblivion ring

This way I don’t let my opponent back in with Sower on my creatures. It also lessens the chances that he will resolve a threat that can win the game and keep it on the board. Anyway, this is how the game played out

Game 2

I mulligan a one land Urza’s Factory hand and keep my second. Throughout most of the game my opponent keeps on trying to rush me. I just keep a decent pace due to a very unpleasant past experience in which something much worse than a match deciding mistake happened; I have since decided only to play superfast when I truly need to. He plays a turn four Sower of Temptations which I Wrath. He then plays a second one and I Oblivion Ring it. I believe this was a mistake as it opened him up to Cryptic Command end of turn with counter backup afterwards.. I had another Wrath of God in hand that I should have used. The real mistake came when I suspended an Aeon Chronicler for 1 only to have it take by a Sower of Temptations end of turn because Oblivion Ring was bounced by the aforementioned Cryptic Command. I managed to find a Quagnoth but it only delayed the inevitable as my Chronic under his control was a 5/5. My last ditch Wrath of God was countered. As we were shuffling for game three time was called so the match ended in a draw. This is what I call an error in execution a game plan. I knew I wanted to stall out, but I didn’t take the right actions to insure that.

1-1-1, Record 3-0-2



Round 6- Gb removal.dec (not really, but that’s what I like to call it)

For this round I was playing someone that I knew from a city about an hour and a half from the tournament site. I had looked at his deck two rounds before so I knew it would be easy because his deck was geared very much towards aggro, something that I was not. It seems that every time I have seen him at states he is playing rock with a bit of removal, hence the name of removal.dec. His record was 3-2 so I asked him if he would concede but he told me that if he was going to concede, it would not be until at least after the we played it out. I couldn’t argue with that, it’s how I would do it. Then at least about 50% of the time the person who is asking you will win and you don’t have to make the decision on conceding or not.

Game 1

From the life totals it looks like he did not even deal one point of damage to me. He played a turn one Thoughtseize but I don’t remember what he took. Soon after I played a Story Circle naming green and after about a turn more he just scooped.

-1 Prismatic Lens

-1 Loxodon Warhammer

-1 Ajani Goldmane

+3 Porphyry Nodes

Again the sideboarding was fairly straight forward. The Warhammer went out because of his removal and the Ajani instead of Foresee because I knew he had Stupors. In his sideboard.

Game 2

He plays a turn one Thoughtseize and the turn after plays two Thoughtseizes. Over the course of the next turns he played the last thoughtseize as well. I somehow was able to draw out of it with the help of mind stone and foresee, kill all his creatures and get a threat to finish the game. After the game he told me he probably would have conceded anyway.

2-0, record, 4-0-2

At this point I was fairly happy about making the top 8 the second year in the row and was hoping to get deeper in the tournament this time. After a brief wait the, top 8 got underway.



Quarterfinals- UB not sans mystical teachings

My opponent for this round would be against a friend. I had played him once before at a JSS (not MSS, it was a JSS back then) in the finals and won. Back then he was playing GW Glare and I was playing Greater Gifts. I guess the tutor decks were switched this time.

Game 1

Since he had not seen my deck in action, I decided that I would act like I had several counterspells even though I didn’t. I was probably able to buy several turns from an inevitable Haunting Hymn backed by Cryptic Command and Pact of Negation in the process. After that he cast end of turn Teferi and Triskalevus that swung twice. When damage was on the stack to bring me to four, he extirpated my Sacred Cesa to take a look at my deck. I decided that it would be best not to concede because I had Wrath of God to clear the board. When I played it on my turn, it resolved after trike brought me to one because of the tokens. He then played EOT Grim Harvest for Triskelavus and killed me on his turn.

-4 Condemn

-3 Wrath of God

-1 Loxodon Warhammer

-2 Story Circle

+4 Quagnoth

+3 Detritivore

+1 Sacred Mesa

+1 Academy Ruins

+1 Triskelavus

Game 2

My starting hand was comprised of about six mana sources so after a little of deliberation I decided to keep. I drew an Aeon Chronicler which drew me into Detritivore which I suspended soon after. He played Teferi that I couldn’t deal with before my creatures would have come into play. I eventually cast oblivion ring on it. We both laughed as we made jokes of the removed from game zone.



After a lot of playing around counters the board position funneled down into two critical turns. Rahim, my opponent, had three cards in hand, Teferi in play, and was at 1 with nine mana sources. I had twelve mana sources including an Urza’s Factory, Quicksand, and Mouth of Tonom and an Urza’s Factory token. I was also at 8 and had an Oblivion Ring, Crovax, Ascendant Hero and Sacred Mesa in hand. He attacked with a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and I decided to take it going down to five. At the end of the turn I created a factory token. On my turn I declared my attack phase and the factory tokens as attackers. He then flashed in a Triskelavus and Slaughter Pacted a token. I decided to Mouth of Ronom the Triskelavus making him create two tokens and block the factory token with one. This put me at six lands untapped and at 5. The exchange left him with a slaughter pact upkeep to pay, Teferi, and a triskalevite token. I had to decide between casting Sacred Mesa or Oblivion Ring first to survive. When I cast Oblivion Ring he cast Pact of Negation on it. As I surveyed the board, I also noticed I had tapped my Quicksand. This left me dead on the board even if though I had a resolved Sacred Mesa because of the four damage from his creatures and a sac of the token. This is a mistake that has been bugging me since. After analyzing the situation thoroughly and thinking of every possible outcome on what he could have done with Pact of Negation, I figured out that had I played the Sacred Mesa first, I would have won the game. He would have not been able to kill me and I could have played Crovax, Ascendant hero the turn after to prevent Grim Harvest on Triskelavus from killing me. In the end, it was a play mistake, but it is not one I could have obviously prevented. I gave him the chance to draw the exact combination of four cards to win the game (Slaughter Pact, Pact of Negation, Triskelavus, his 3rd Cryptic Command (to bounce my Oblivion Ring), and Triskelavus.) by playing Oblivion Ring first, For most people, they would complain about his luck, but I am more upset about my mistake. At the very best, I know for next time and even if I had won, I would have to win game three as well.

0-2, Final Record 4-1-2

Overall states was a good tournament that certainly taught me many things. Of course, I will learn from the 2-3 mistakes that I made that I explained. That is probably the only light side to making a mistake in a tournament, you will probably never do the same mistake again. I hope that you guys have enjoyed the article and will put it to good use. With a PTQ coming up, don’t be surprised if you see another article from me in the near future.
 
Pedro Rodriguez