Well, it's time for a new post. I haven't been blogging lately because I haven't been playing. I became disillusioned with the competitive Magic scene and decided to take a little break. However, recent changes to the rating system have rejuvenated my desire to play, and hence, I decided to attend FNM at Knightfall Games last Friday. Because I was so unfamiliar with the current metagame, I decided to play my "default" deck, R/G Wolf Run, with some minor changes to the sideboard; most notably, I added 2 Grafdigger's Cage to deal with all the new creature with "undying." The Cage is also useful against Birthing Pod, Snapcaster Mage, Gravecrawler, and frankly, any card with "flashback."

Strangely, the FNM scene at Knightfall appears to have changed. Chris now has a case full of individual cards, and there were 20 people signed up for the tournament. He also had a full crew of "minions" tending the register and running the tournament. Jacob was nowhere in sight. Apparently these minions enjoy working for free as I don't see how Chris could possibly be paying all of them. Anyway, on to the tournament report!

The tournament started off easily enough for me. First round I got paired against David, who was running a mirror R/G Wolf Run deck with Huntmaster of the Fells. This card has apparently been all the rage in MTG, but I honestly don't see what all the hype is about. I'm not generally a fan of the card and I don't run any (even though I bought 3), but other players disagree. I've played David several times before; I have respect for him as a player, but I don't think I've ever lost to him. I had more titans than he did, and I won the match 2-0.

The following round isn't worth mentioning. I won the match 2-0.

In the third round I was paired against a new player, who I didn't know, running U/W humans. The first game was extremely close. My opponent got me down to 2 life, but Inkmoth Nexus is a powerful card when backed by Kessig Wolf Run and I was able to scrape out a victory. The following game, my opponent had to mulligan to 5 cards, and then he never drew a third land to play the 3 Geist of Saint Traft he had in his hand. I won the match 2-0.

In the fourth round I played Adam Brown, who was running his now typical G/W control deck. The deck is packed with Gideon Jura, Hero of Bladehold, and a host of mana accelerators like Birds of Paradise. For removal, Adam runs several copies of Oblivion Ring. I've played Adam's deck before and the matches are usually close, but this time I just couldn't draw the cards I needed. Adam had multiple copies of Gideon Jura in the first game, and I got land screwed in the second. The match ended 0-2, and Adam eventually won first place.

In the fifth and final round I played Ryan Engbrecht again; this time he was running U/B Zombies, which utilizes cards like Gravecrawler and Mortarpod. Ryan got land screwed in the first game, and in the second game I managed to draw one of my sideboarded copies of Grafdigger's Cage, which effectively shut down many of the cards in his deck. I won the match 2-0.

The shitty thing about this tournament (aside from losing to Adam and placing second), was the prize ceremony at the end. I won 6 packs, and noticing two new Tyranid models I wanted to purchase, asked that the packs be converted into store credit. I was told I could only receive $9 in store credit for the packs. I started to argue with the store owner, first, because $9 is a ridiculous prize when you pay $5 to enter and win second place (and there were 20 entries), and second, because there is no way those packs cost the store only $9. Stores pay roughly $2.50 per pack, which in my opinion, means I should have been awarded at least $15 in store credit. I brought my objections to the store owner, Chris, but it was after 12 AM and apparently Chris had already decided he did not want to allow credit conversion. I have already started to look for another store to play FNM at, specifically one where prizes can be fairly converted into store credit.

A final side note: I did use the credit to buy that Tyranid model, the new Tervigon, and have begun painting it accordingly. Pictures to follow soon. Until next time, readers!