By Chris Davies

I've been meaning to an article for Twincast for many many months. I've written a few articles in draft form but never got round to sending them in. I've always found the opening paragraph the hardest to write... so here goes.

Hi, I'm Chris Davies and you've probably never heard of me. Well maybe that’s not true anymore. It would have been true if I'd written 6 months ago but it seems I've met so many more people in the last 6 months that might actually remember me. I'm 24 years old, happily married and have a beautiful 2 year old son. I picked up my first magic card during Invasion, at Uni, never found people to play with and quit. I played Magic Online from Onslaught (skipping Kami block of course) and then finally started playing paper magic again at the release event for Planar Chaos. Since then I've been trying to get better at the game.

I won't give you the story about how I got where I got, but I will give you the story of qualifying for Nationals. Last year I only got the chance to make one attempt, in Manchester, with a deck borrowed off a friend with no little testing. Epic Failure.

This year I knew I was going to do everything I could to Qualify. I headed to Manchester on the 28th March with my favourite deck - Boat Brew*.

Boat Brew - C.Davies (Manchester Nats Qualifier - 28/03/09)

Land
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Rugged Prairie
4 Battlefield Forge
3 Windbrisk Heights
5 Plains
3 Island

Creatures
4 Figure of Destiny
2 Mogg Fanatic
1 Flamekin Harbinger
3 Knight of the White Orchard
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Mirror Entity
3 Ranger of Eos
3 Reveillark
4 Siege Gang Commander

Spells
3 Path to Exile
3 Mind Stone
4 Spectral Procession
3 Ajani Vengeant

Sideboard:
2 Celestrial Purge
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Austere Command
2 Ajani Goldmane
2 Wrath of God
1 Banefire

So... Manchester Qualifier, 50 odd players, 6 slots at Nationals up for grabs, 6 rounds to play out. Here we go with a very quick run down

Round 1 - Bryan Connolly - Bant Aggro
I play like an idiot this round, probably far too excited about having a good deck and somehow I manage to play Boat Brew as a control deck. I do know that the key to this match was me keeping a Battlefield forge in hand as I swing with Reveillark knowing that he has snakeform for it. I have to make him think I'm keeping Path in hand so that he doesn't make things very bad for me. I win this round, but probably shouldn't have with the way I played.

1-0

Round 2 - Daniel Shaw - Protection.dec
This game I play much tighter but my opponents deck is incredibly frustrating. I see Stillmoon Cavaliers, Burrrenton Forge-Tender, Voice of All. I keep the pressure there and force a stalemate where neither of us can attack, eventually I Flamekin Harbinger up a Mirror Entity to seal the game. I love the my Mirror Entity as tech, it wins so many unwinable matchs out of nowhere.

2-0

Round 3 - Nick Doropoulos - B/W Tokens
I remember this match more clearly than all the others. I had seen Nick play the previous week at the "Win a Box" tournament in Lincoln (which he won). I had spent the week looking for some secret tech to make the match-up better for me against B/W Tokens and I found exactly the card I needed... Austere Command.

The game went badly for Nick, he got stuck on two land and when I managed to Turn 3 fulminator mage his only coloured source (a tapped Windbrisk) and then play out a Reveilark a couple of turns later to return the fulminator and blow up his other land its a very quick game.

The second game was much more epic. Nick has a strong start and manages to get 2 bitterblossoms and a glorious anthem out. I manage to throw out some spirits of my own and while on 5 mana with Austere command in my hand I make my play. He swings in with 2 Faeries and 3 Spirits, I know if I can cast command next turn I can pull this out. I make my blocks letting him hit me down to about 6 life, path to exile my own spirit to give me my 6th land. Next turn I blow up the world and he doesn't find gas while I power out siege-gangs and reveillark. Wow, I was on a high after this.

3-0

So at the half way stage I'm feeling good. I know that 4-1-1 will get me in so I only need to win my next match if I want to ID in.

Round 4 - Tomas Kasinski - 5 Colour Control
Oh no, I pretty much auto-lose to 5cc. I play this round through but its not even close most of the time. My mood goes from amazing high to depressive low in the space of one round. Now I have to win out if I want to get through, not good times.

Round 5 - Adam Pocock - 5 Colour Control (Again)
As soon as I see the first vivid land played I groan. I look to my right to see two decks that I could have won against easily, but no, I have 5cc again. I put up a good fight but I'm on complete tilt by now and my chances of qualifying fly off on the wings of a Broodmate Dragon.

Round 6 - Andrew Devine - Dark Bant
Dark Bant isn't a terrible match-up for me, but I may as well have been playing against LSV for all the good it would do. I was on complete tilt, and punted the match without even putting up a fight.

I spent the 4 hour car journey back to Lincolnshire discussing with my travelling companions (Mark & James) what I could do to improve the 5cc match-up. One of my other good friends Matt Light had qualified that day (for which I was very happy for him) and after a lot of discussion there was only one answer to what I could do with Boat Brew....

Jump ship...

Join me next time for Part 2 of "Jumping Ship - Nationals Qualifiers" to hear what happened on my next attempt at Qualifying.

*A quick note on Boat Brew. I have been playing R/W Tokens since last summer, I had the deck before it was even called Boat Brew. I know the deck inside out, outside in, front to back and back to front. Its a shame that I couldn't qualify with it in Manchester.
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