Ah the sweet taste of victory. Another Friday night in Portland; which means, another FNM tournament at Guardian Games. Last night I ran R/G Wolf Run again. I just love that deck, especially now that my deck has added two new foil Mirrodin Solemn Simulacrums, courtesy of my awesome girlfriend. :-)

The tournament started off easy. My first three opponents were basically noobies, and the rounds were forgettable. The real tournament started in the fourth and final round. I was paired against David Stroud, a regular at Guardian Games, and currently ranked 7th in Portland. The first game was insanely close. At one point, I made an atrocious play error: My opponent was at 18 life, I attacked with an Inferno Titan, dealing three directly to him (15); he declared no blockers and I let him take an additional six damage (9). I had mana to pump the Inferno Titan, but I didn't. After I said done, I realized that I had two Galvanic Blasts in my hand (with Metalcraft out), and if he was just at 8 life instead of 9 (for instance, if I had just pumped the Inferno Titan by 1) I would probably be able to kill him in the following turns. Instead, he cast an Oblivion Ring on my Inferno Titan, and I lost the game with my opponent at 1 life.

The next game I was much more fortunate. I played a Thrun, the Last Troll on turn 3 after casting Rampant Growth the preceding turn. David eventually cheated an Elesh Norn, the Last Cenobite into play with an Unburial Rites. Thrun turned into a 2/2 blocker with regenerate to keep Elesh at bay, until I had enough mana so that I could Wolf Run him up to a 7/2, with enough mana to regenerate; I started to attack with the Thrun. Eventually, David's life total got whittled down to the point where he had to block, and the Elesh died. He cast another Elesh on the subsequent turn! I attacked again; once again he had to block; and once again the Elesh died. The following turn, with David at 7-ish life and 2 poison, he cast a Phantasmal Image, killing my Thrun, and a Grave Titan. I was at 12 life, so I knew the Grave Titan and his zombie minions couldn't kill me next turn. I attacked with an Inkmoth Nexus, and pumped it to put David at 8 poison. The following turn, he attacked with the Grave Titan and zombie minions, but it wasn't enough damage to kill me. Despite digging through nearly 10 cards of his deck with Faithless Looting, Desperate Ravings, and Forbidden Alchemy, David could not find the remaining copy of Ancient Grudge in his deck (to kill the Inkmoth), and I won the game with poison damage.

The last game was less dramatic, but had some funny moments. I cast Green Sun's Zenith on turn 2 fetching a Birds of Paradise. On turn 3, I cast Solemn Simulacrum, and each turn thereafter I would attack with the Solemn Simulacrum and pump it up with Kessig Wolf Run. The idea was, I wanted David to use his removal spell to kill the Solemn Simulacrum, in which case I might get the extra card, and David would have one less removal spell for the Titans I had in my hand. Eventually, my plan proved successful and David was forced to Oblivion Ring the Solemn Simulacrum. The only catch was, by the time David killed the Solemn Simulacrum, I had already dealt 11 points of damage. So the next turn, I attacked with the Birds of Paradise, pumped it up about 7, and put him in extreme danger. He was unable to draw a removal spell on the subsequent turn, and I won the game without ever casting a Titan or a planeswalker. Death by Birds of Paradise.

A fun tournament. Until next time readers!