by Andrew Morrison.
I thought some of you might like to hear about how Glasgow’s trial went on Sunday.
A week ago I was not planning to attend due to financial constraints, however in the afterglow of getting his new job, Jeremy was feeling even more generous than usual
(a frightening thought to be sure) and said he would pay my entry fee.
A few emails were exchanged on the edinburgh group, and it turns out the only other person going would be Adrain Fraser. Ed Ross would probably show up after Ptqing in manchester the previous day, but asking Bruno to pay £25 for a tourney seemed like the start of a bad joke. (I like slating other people when I’m not even paying for myself!)
I know a lot of people like to play along when reading sealed deck reports, so I’m going to include my card pool at this point. Unfortunately as I badly misbuilt it there will be no satisfaction for coming up with the right answers.
Dragon fodder
Thorn-thrash viashino
Goblin assault
Bloodpyre elemental
Magma spray
2 fiery fall
puppet conjurer
corrupted roots
rotting rats
yoke of the damned
undead leotau
drag down
dregscape zombie
absorb vis
viscera dragger
2 tukatongue thallid
druid of the anima
wild nacatl
might of alara
filigree fracture
soul’s might
spore burst
aven trailblazer
yoked plowbeast
gleam of resistance
court homunculus
guardians of akrasa
gustrider exuberant
constricting tendrils
faerie mechanist
scepter of insight
outrider of jess
sphinx’s herald
monstrous carabid
talon trooper
vedalkan outlander
double negative
qasali pridemage
valeron outlander
blitz helion
sigil of the nayan gods
violent outburst
hellkite hatchling
sangrite surge
waveskimmer aven
sigil captain
fight to the death
winged coatl
esper sojourners
soul manipulation
agony warp
vectis agents
countersquall
kederect creeper
sewn-eye drake
blood cultist
demonic dread
deny reality
grixis sojourners
skyclaw thrash
jhessian zombies
terminate
giant ambush beetle
arsenal thresher
vengeful rebirth
putrid leech
naya sojourners
naya hushblade
meglonoth
stun sniper
bone saw
minion reflecter
obelisk of bant
obelisk of esper
obelisk of alara
2 firewild borderpost
ancient ziggurat
rupture spire
arcane sanctum
seaside citadel
grixis panorama
……………..
………
….
..
We were initially given 20 minutes to check the correct cards had been registered, build a deck, and register it. After about 12 minutes Martin told everyone he was increasing the time limit, which gave us approximately 8-10 extra minutes. Although the reason given was that some of the new players were struggling, I myself was having difficulty and I consider myself almost a veteran of sealed deck environments. The checking of the cardpool and the registering of your own deck takes a good 5-6 minutes to do carefully. I usually like to spend at least 5 minutes considering solely the manabase and this would certainly not be possible in a 20 minute timeframe. Indeed after I finished my deck with 2 minutes of construction left I spotted another potentially strong deck within my cardpool. If I had had another 5 minutes I would certainly have laid out the new deck to see if it looked better than my original idea.
So here is the monstrosity I built:
Dregscape zombie
Stun sniper
Naya hushblade
Putrid leech
Goblin assault
Blood cultist
Viscera dragger
Sewn-eye drake
Bloodpyre elemental
Giant ambush beetle
Naya sojourners
Meglonoth
Jhessain zombies
Magma spray
Agony warp
Terminate
Soul manipulation
Drag down
2 fiery fall
vengeful rebirth
obelisk of alara
absorb vis
rupture spire
arcane sanctum
seaside citadel
grixis panorama
1 plains
1 island
2 forest
5 mountain
4 swamp
I suppose the idea was sort of 5 colour control, killing my opponents creatures until I draw into meglonoth or obelisk. I have no idea what I was thinking with goblin assault – the card is clearly very bad in this type of deck and after the 1st 2 rounds I sided it out after each game 1 for spore burst, which is a much more appropriate card enabling me to stall a little longer.
The MVP of this deck was surprisingly not obelisk (although it was very good) but stun sniper who kept me in a lot of games I would have had no chance in without the little tapper.
The more astute amongst you will have notice that my pool contained quite a strong grouping of naya cards which might have been made into a significantly more stable deck than the one which I registered. If anyone feels strongly enough, feel free to post an appropriate list.
Into the action:
Rnd 1 – Guy Southcott
A tough opponent to start the day (I use the term "start" loosely as at this point it’s well after 2 O’ Clock).
Early in game 1 I cycle absorb vis for a mountain (1 of the key colours in my deck) as I have a red spell I want to cast. However this decision comes back to haunt me as I never draw a green source. What could have been a close race between sewn-eye drake and scarland thrinax ends up being easily won by Guy as I finish the game with 2 green cards in hand.
Can’t remember too much about game 2 except that it wasn’t close, I got walloped again.
0-1 (games 0-2)
Rnd 2 – Adrian Fraser
Dylan had been nearby when I finished my match with Guy and was regaling the crowd with a story of how he had beaten Ade with a draw of bear, hackblade, removal, removal, removal. Guy – "So basically this is a story about how lucky you are." Everyone laughed ….. well, I laughed.
The point to this little aside, apart from trying to belittle Dylan every chance I get, is that I considered Ade’s deck might not be that bad despite losing the 1st round to a short order cook.
Game 1 was basically an atrocious mulligan decision. Here is the hand: swamp, swamp, dregscape zombie, 4 red spells. Hmm. My deck basically gave me what I deserved and served up another swamp on turn 4. The game didn’t last long.
Once again I can’t remember much about game 2, but my cute little score pad tells me that Ade finished the game on 21 life, so I’m guessing I didn’t put him under too much pressure.
0-2 (games 0-4)
I had thought that the tourney started with 17 players and so didn’t feel too bad at this point, as I had faith that Guy and Ade would pull up my tie breakers and 3-2 might squeeze into 8th. I discovered in between these rounds though, that we had started with 20 so 3-2 was looking less likely.
Rnd 3 – Ed Ross
That’s right folks my reward for going 0-2 is not some little kid who goes draw, untap, precombat all spells, but instead Scottish Magic’s greatest son who (on 1-1) has been paired down to me. My advantages, few as they were, were knowing the cards of this format a lot better and seeing Ed rebuild his deck between both rounds 1 and 2, and rounds 2 and 3.
Game 1 – Ed has on Okish start while I stall on lands and eventually get down stun sniper and blood cultist. He gets me to 4 and has a board of talon trooper, parasitic strix, windwright mage and a fresh filigree angel which has put him to 35. I now have 4 lands and a grip full of removal and just need time to cast it. At my EOT he calls to heel my stun sniper. I use cultist and sniper to take down windwright and draw a land off call to heel. As I spend some time thinking about what to discard, Ed says "So you’ve got something then."
Indeed I do when he attacks I use agony warp on angel and trooper to go to 1, now facing parasitic strip, angel and puppet conjuror. I use drag down and terminate to leave Ed with little board and slowly start to build mine. Quite nerve wracking as I knew it would take a while to kill him and being on 1 is a little uncomfortable, to the point that I did not immediately cast obelisk when I drew it as I had only 6 manna and wanted to leave 1 up for stun sniper in case of any shenanigans.
Game 2 was dominated by a bunch of creatures from Ed. It didn’t take him long to kill me.
Game 3 – We could hear someone shouting 4 minutes left on the round as we presented and my heart sank as I couldn’t imagine my deck going ultra beat down. However I’ve gotten out of tough spots before, so I believed I could still win.
I got down a fast sniper and dragger and started beating I had a plan to finish Ed as I had Vengeful rebirth in hand – the only problem was how to get something into the graveyard! Time was called and on T1 I used ambush beetle to take down aven trailblazer and get 4 in with sniper and dragger (Ed -12). On turn 3 I tapped the 1 blocker and got in for 7 putting Ed on 5 and made blood cultist. On turn 4 Ed plays volcanic fallout leaving me with dragger and beetle, himself with 2 blockers and on 3 life and me with a 3 casting cost spell in my graveyard which I use to vengeful rebirth on T5.
1-2 (games 2-5)
This was an incredibly satisfying victory as I hope you can imagine from what I’ve written.
Rnd 4 – Paul McLachlan
Paul was playing naya and in game 1 beat me with several large animals. I criticised his curve for being 4 drop, 5 drop, 6 drop, 6 drop. But then again I couldn’t beat this draw so what does that say about my deck?
In game 2 I choose to draw and Paul came out with a more aggressive start. Stun sniper helped me stabilise the board and I managed to kill Paul whilst on 3 life. He did make a decision in the middle of this game to use fiery fall to finish off a meglonoth rather than kill the sniper. As he was significantly ahead on life at this point I think it may have been possible to race with aerie mystics, but I’m not certain.
Game 3 saw an early valeron outlander from Paul beating for 2 a turn whilst we traded off other resources. I made 4 saprolings and was happy to put 2 in the way of the pro-black man, thinking even he has a trick I still have 2 more to double block again the next turn. Paul stops attacking and I can’t attack him because I have just cultist, big beetle, and 2 saprolings. We play draw go for a few turns, then my deck serves up the obelisk to which Paul simply concedes.
2-2 (games 4-6)
Looking at the standings I think I will be playing for 9th or 10th place based on tiebreakers.
Rnd 5 – Martin Cairns
These games weren’t that close. Game 1 I got an excellent draw with answers and tempo to Martin’s mana light draw.
Game 2 saw Martin putting up a courageous fight (the man is spirited to be sure) against the obelisk. When I 1st drew it Guy, who had been watching after id-ing into the top 8, couldn’t contain a guffaw. I dropped it and Martin whilst upset, didn’t seem as depressed as the average player when facing down the monolith. He used his 1 turn of respite from my sniper (tap out for obelisk) to attack with spellbound dragon (I was on 20 but still a little worried about something like absorb vis being discarded. Actually it was etherium abomination which was quite scary. I decided to use obelisk as a pump spell in my turn and martin EOT killed my sniper – eeks! I was actually in a little danger. From here I used the obelisk more carefully (this slowed the game down considerably as Martin had a wall of denial) and by the end had managed to use all 5 abilities in this 1 game. As bravely as Martin fought, the obelisk is the very definition of inevitability.
3-2 (games 6-6)
At this point I was feeling very relaxed and quite cheerful as I genuinely believed I could not make top 8. I was thinking about watching some of the draft before leaving and also about how well Ade would do. If he won his QF I would have to travel home alone or face a very late night! (I can be even more selfish than this you know!)
Then from the other side of the room I started to hear a conversation about someone dropping from the top 8 and my nerves started to come flooding back. Was this for sure? Would I even be in with 1 drop? Etc. It turns out Leo (who some of you may know for getting us magic slobs together for outdoor activities like footie) had had enough for the day and was not interested in drafting.
In the end I placed 9th which was good enough with Leo dropping out and I got to draft. The top 8 was:
Ade
Guy
Billy Logan (AKA Not as handsome as Jimmy Love)
Charlie (Wow expert in his 1st solo magic draft)
Dougie (Friendly shop regular who I had not met before)
Dylan "Is it because I is" Black?
Thin kid with shop t-shirt (Sorry I don’t know your name) –lost in qf to Dougie
Me
The seatings had Dylan feeding me and Billy to my right. I cautioned Dylan at the start of the draft to remain stable to keep me happy, sat down and hoped for some good shards signals.
I opened akrasan squire and naya battlemage. However good you think squire is, chances are he’s better. Absolutely spectacular in the excellent w/x aggro decks of the format I was plenty happy to pick him 1st. Dylan passed me a pack with the rare missing and sigiled paldin and knight of the skyward eye. I know some people are put off by ww in the cost, but I thought the 1st striker was the perfect compliment to my squire. I’m not sure this order is correct but I think the rest of shards went like this:
P3 fatestitcher
P4 sigil blessing
P5 executioner’s capsule over crumbling necropolis
P6+7 soul’s fire and deft duelist.
Other stuff – cancel, guardians of akrasa, jhessian lookout, etherium sculptor
Pack 2 sees me open a game breaking bomb in extractor demon. So far my deck looks like a uw aggro deck (even if it is a little thin) and the demon would require a shift into full blown esper. With no fixers in my pile it breaks my heart, but I must pass the demon (which I’ve won many games of limited with and lost many to) and pick the more prosaic vedalkan outlander. I don’t remember this booster very clearly but I do remember having to pick between my 2nd esper cormornats and a sludge strider and the sludge strider then tabling.
Things I picked up: 4 esper cormorants, 2 gleam of resistance, sludge strider, brackwater, zombie outlander, voices from the void.
My deck is know looking like uw splash b, though it looks less aggro due to the preponderance of 4 drops (already at 6). My plan for reborn is to pick up as many 2 and 3 casting cost things as possible in order to balance my curve.
P1 mistvein borderpost – I probably wanted 1 in my deck, but this is a very unsatisfying pick 1.
To cut a long story short (Too Late!) I got 2 2drops in reborn - thopter foundry (excellent but not a true 2 drop), and mask of riddles (playable but not on the splash).
What I did get was some more 4 drops – 2x arsenal thresher, messenger falcons and a couple of 5 drops – 2x glassdust hulk. I actually started to seethe in the middle of this pack, I was so angry at not seeing any cheap spells. However, champion that I am, I was able to hold it together and come up with a plan. I started to pick up deny realitys so I would be able to win back tempo during games. I ended up with 3 and with all my 4 drops I considered that they would probably be quite good.
Still furious from pack 3, I ran off to put my deck together. I didn’t calm down any when I saw it laid out in front of me – 9 4 drops!
Here is what I put together. (I realised towards the end of deck construction that etherium sculptor seemed quite good, cheapening a lot of my expensive spells so it was the 23rd card replacing the 3rd deny reality.)
Akrasan squire
Sigiled paladin
Deft duelist
Vedalkan outlander
Etherium sculptor
Brackwater elemental
Fatestitcher
Sludge strider
2 Arsenal thresher
4 Esper cormorants
Messenger falcons
2 Glassdust hulk
Executioners capsule
2 Gleam of resistance
Thopter foundry
2 Deny reality
Mistvein borderpost
2 swamp
6 island
8 plains
Significant SB:
Deny reality
Zombie outlander
Cancel
Spell snip
Guardians of akrasa
Voices from the void
Paul watching me put my deck together and putting up with my bitching, consoled me, saying that there were basically 7 mediocre decks and 1 excellent deck, so I still had a chance.
QF – Charlie
I have never met this guy before but I had heard people say that although inexperienced at magic, was a natural gamer and so reasonably skilled. Unfortunately for Charlie his inexperience showed through the manabase he built. 4 colours with 4 red sources, both games he wasn’t able to cast a single red spell, and although he made plenty of quality creatures, his dead cards meant my flyers and hulks were able to take it home.
I then went to watch games 2 and 3 of Guy vs Dylan. Game 2 Guy seemed in complete control with architects of will, esper battlemage, and a pro-bear.
Game 3 Guy had to mull to 5 and although he recovered to a position of superiority Dylan topdecked one of his many bombs: karrthus, tyrant of jund.
Having now seen most of Dylan’s deck I exhorted Adrian to take his revenge in the semi because I didn’t think I could take down this interesting new archetype, Bomb.deck (Elspeth, behemoth sledge, karrthus, hellkite overlord, blood tyrant).
SF – Dougie
I was very happy at the start of game 1 as I was able to curve out squire, 2 drop, cormorants, glassdust hulk. He was racing with rhox brute and beacon behemoth. I felt good though as the totals were 11 -1 in my favour. He attacked with both guys and I double chumped. He shrugged and said PS martial coup. OOOOOOOOOOOOOO MYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ARGGGGGGGGGGGH! (Slight mental misplay here which didn’t affect the game. The previous turn Dougie had given his guy vigilance and this turn he hadn’t. It didn’t occur to me think about what he was planning. In any case I didn’t let any damage through, so was still on 11.) Unfortunately my hand is gleam of resistance and my board is lands. EOT I cycle to thin my deck and increase my chances of hitting a finisher. It works and I play cormorants. Dougie alphas and immediately casts violent outburst. I’m very nervous as I know he has colossal might. My nervousness increase as flips over about 8- 10 cards hitting nothing (maybe he only has pump spells at 2cc!). Eventually he hits trace of abundance and I sigh, relieved, announce no blocks and mentally relax. He has the might anyway and I’m dead. Mentally screaming I reach for my sideboard and locate my 2 counterspells. I replace 1 gleam with cancel, but can’t find anything to take out for spell snip (deny reality seemed great against his big men).
Game 2 again sees me getting a fast start, eventually beating in with 2 esper cormorants to try and finish him off. I don’t have any black mana and am stuck with capsule and deny reality in hand. I draw cancel so at least I’ll be able to use my mana and Dougie should be dead before he gets to coup mana.
He attacks me with his 4/4 then makes maelstrom pulse on cormorants. The spectators gasp at this, and then go wild when I counter his spell (in my head at least the dallas cowboys cheerleaders were dancing around celebrating).
Game 3 We both mull to 6 and Dougie’s "I’ll keep this just for the time saving" prompts me to keep 6 rather than going to 5. We are both land light, but I draw out of it 1st and am able to quickly beat him to death.
In a worrying turn of events Ade had been watching my Semi since halfway through game 1 (which was itself quite short). Turns out he destroyed Dylan in 2 quick games.
Hmm.
Final – Adrian Fraser
In my head I went through the decks I had seen and calculated that Ade was probably BR aggro. It’s a great deck and I had seen a couple of shambling remains floating about during conflux. I was very worried as shambling remains is a very tough card to beat and if he had any goblin outlanders I would be in trouble.
The 1st game of the final was the best game I played all day. I knew I wanted to have vedalkan outlander in my opener and that capsule was probably not too good against him. I lose the die roll and this was my opener: Swamp, swamp, plains, plains, capsule, sludge strider, deft duelist. I would keep this against most opponents in most situations. Did I have the courage to trust my analysis of the draft and really believe Ade was BR aggro?
…………
……….
……..
…..
No – keep.
T1 swamp, go
T1 plains, go
T2 forest, putrid leech, go
T2 swamp, go
T3 land, attack, pump (16-18), putrid leech#2 (yikes!), go
T3 island, deft duelist, go
T4 attack (I thought for quite a while here, considering how useful my duelist would be in a race), block, double pump (12-14), vithian stinger, go
T4 land, arsenal thresher (5/5), go
T5 land, bloodbraid elf, cacade into feral hydra (phew!), attack, block elf with thresher, double pump (4-10), go
T5 land, deny reality on a leech, cascade into brackwater, (think for ages then take my life in my hands), attack with arsenal thresher (4-5), go, stinger tims me (3-5)
T6 goblin outlander, go
T6 sludge strider, go, stinger tims me (2-5)
T7 scavenger drake, go
T7 land, cormorants, drain for 1 (3-4), go, stinger tims me (2-4)
T8 putrid leech, triland, go
T8 attack with cormorants, scavenger drake blocks and dies, capsule, drain for 1
(3-3),sigiled paladin, go, stinger tims me (2-3), capsule the stinger, drain for 1 (3-2)
T9 kathari bomber, go
T9 land, glass dust hulk, drain for 1 (4-1), (think for ages) attack with everyone, paladin gets through.
1-0
It is hard to describe the tension involved in this game - from the desire and intensity on both sides to Ade’s fast start to the nerve shredding endgame, it was phenomenal.
I sided out capsule for zombie outlander.
Unfortunately game 2 did no live up to game 1’s promise.
Ade mulls to 6 as I think over my hand: Plains, akrasan squire, glassdust hulk, vedalkan outlander, deft duelist, etherium scultor, esper cormorants. I like the hand it has a lot of action – keep. At 1st I thought you have 3 draws to find a land, but thinking it over, it’s actually 4 draws as when you cycle on T2 you can’t play anything until T3 anyway. 3 down is an island and I curve out. Ade’s draw is slow and when I deny reality his only blocker (leech) and attack for 11 the game is essentially over.
We are both dissapointed at game 2 (though I suspect Ade a little more than me).
A great day and I don’t even mind walking home at 12.30 due to the lack of buses late at night.
Props-
Ade for helping give edinburgh 100% representation in the final.
Martin and Joao for continuing to run good glasgow tournies.
Jeremy for buying me some byes.
Billy for giving a hungry man some chicken.
Dougie for giving me a lift to queen st after I had knocked him out in the SF.
Slops
20 minutes for deck construction.
Billy for not buttoning the top button of his shirt (NB – I stole this joke).
Dylan for being a rare-drafting ho (and thinking helkite overlord is a signal).
The woman announcer on the train on the way home (must have been 100 db!)
SUPER PROP
Leo for making the 2nd half of the story happen – I love you man.
(signup for Leo’s footie days in glasgow is floating about)
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