Second Again

This weekend brought with it another FNM tournament at Knightfall Games. Knightfall has definitely seen an increase in average attendance over the last few weeks---this week roughly 20 people showed up for the tournament. I once again brought my R/G Wolf Run deck, hoping to gain some revenge for the loss and second place finish I received at the hands of Adam Brown last week. Alas, it was not to be. I placed second once again. As a side note though, I did receive several compliments about the "bling" my deck contains.

In round two I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht, who was running Frites ( a version of this deck can be found here ). I lost the first game, even after Ryan mulliganed to 6 cards. I won the second and third games after sideboarding in multiple copies of Grafdigger's Cage. I've won two in a row against Ryan now; after the round he expressed his disconent and said I should attend another tournament on Sunday so he could get his revenge.

The next round I was paired against a U/W control deck. The first game, which I lost, took so long that there was barely any time for additional play. I ended up drawing the second game and thus losing the match 0-1-1.

Round 4 I faced David, who I've played many times before, but have never lost to. This time David was running Ryan's U/B Zombie deck ( a version can be found here ), and just as I beat the deck when Ryan was running it, I also beat it when David was running it.

In round 5 I faced off against Jonathan Chu, who I have played many times and never beaten. When Wizards of the Coast was still using the rating system, Jonathan was one of the highest rated players in Portland. This Friday he was running Naya Wolf Run, which is basically my deck but with Day of Judgment instead of Slagstorm and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite instead of Inferno Titan. I won the first game in an Inkmoth Nexus brawl, and I won the second game after Jon had to mulligan to four (!). This was definitely the crowning achievement of the tournament, and it was nice to learn some interesting rule interactions surrounding Mimic Vat along the way.

Even though I won the match against Jon, he placed above me on tiebreakers. My 4-1-0 score was only good enough for second place, though I did pull some cool cards out of my prize packs.