Sometimes it Hurts to be a Gamer

Today I played in a Standard Friday Night Magic tournament at Guardian Games. Usually I play FNM at Knightfall, but having learned that very few people intended to show up at Knightfall I decided to carpool with a friend to Guardian. As I've said before, the field is stronger at Guardian, but the prizes are slightly better because you can win store credit and trade for singles.

Going into this tournament I had a ridiculous streak going. I had won something like 11 games in a row with Wolf Run. I was hoping to extend this streak, but it was not to be.

I won my first round against a deck I don't remember. The action didn't start until second round.

In the second round I played against Aaron Henner running U/W Haunted Humans. I have a lot of respect for Aaron. He's a level 1 Judge and a regular at several tournaments around town. He's currently ranked 4th in Portland. The games between us were extremely close. I won the first game (he had to mulligan down to 5); he won the second (Hero of Bladehold is really good when you have 2 Honor of the Pure out). Game 3 came down to the wire. It was amazing; he played a Gideon's Lawkeeper, a Leonin Relic-Warder, and Mirran Crusader on turns 1, 2, and 3. I played a Thrun, and then I Slagstormed and killed every creature my opponent had. I thought the 3-for-1 was quite nice, and that the game was probably over. Instead, my opponent dropped a Moorland Haunt and a Doomed Traveler and suddenly I had to face the fact that he would have chump blockers against my Thrun for like 8 turns. I prayed for a Wolf Run. I pleaded with my deck to provide one, but none came. The game was getting close; the spirits were *dinking* me to death. I was at 1 life; he was at 2. I drew a slagstorm and killed us both. Draw.

Round 3 was also not worthy of mention. I won and moved on to the final round. A win would place me at 3-0-1 and in clear second. More importantly, my streak of undefeated games would continue.

I played against a mono-Black infect deck. He won the first game; I won the second. In game three a critical position arose. He had 8 swamps untapped. I had just played a Primeval Titan and had both an Inkmoth Nexus and a Kessig Wolf Run out and all the mana to deal either lethal poison damage or lethal life damage next turn. My opponent had a Phyrexian Crusader out. He had three cards in hand, but it was clear whether he had a Virulent Wound in his hand to kill my nexus or not. What did seem clear, is that he had no real way to kill the Titan. He attacked. Like an idiot, I blocked. The Primeval Titan got two -1/-1 counters, and the Phyrexian Crusader died. My opponent tapped 6 lands, and cast Black Sun's Zenith for four, killing the titan and leaving himself 2 mana open for the Virulent Wound the following turn.

I never should have blocked. I asked after the game, "were you dead if I hadn't blocked?" He answered, "Yeah. I would have had to Black Sun for 6 to stay alive, tapping out in the process, and you would have killed me with the Inkmoth Nexus and the Kessig Wolf Run next turn."

What followed was the painful feeling you get in your chest when you realize that you lost because of your own stupidity and play error. Instead of placing second and winning prizing money, I fell out of the running and won nothing. Hopefully I'll learn something from this experience, but for now I feel like I just didn't play attentively enough to recognize the critical moment when it arrived. Until next time readers....