One moon sets, and another rises.

On Friday night I played a 5 round Standard tournament at Knightfall Games. There were just over 20 participants; the participation was high due to the prerelease event scheduled to take place later that night. I did not attend the prerelease, mostly because I dislike the idea of playing Magic from 12AM to 4AM in a room full of unwashed men, but I heard it was pretty fun.

The FNM went fairly well. I ran my usual R/G Wolf Run deck, and I scored 4 wins and 1 loss to tie for first through third (there were no undefeated players). Of course, my tiebreakers were the worst of the three tied players, and I received third on tiebreaks. I don't know why that always happens to me.

A note about R/G Wolf Run: Although I have expressed some boredom with the deck lately, only one week remains untill the new set rotates into Standard. It seems a waste of effort to try anything new at this point. This next "season" though, I think I would like to try something new. Now on to this tournament. 

The first round was actually the defining round. I was paired against Adam Brown, who played W/G aggro control in hopes of getting an FNM Dismember. Adam has had a lot of success with W/G in the current "season," and I think he considers it his strongest deck. He uses Birds of Paradise, Blade Splicer, Hero of Bladehold, Gideon Jura, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, as well as Gavony Township and Oblivion Ring to create a deck with a lot of midrange potential. The match was quickly tied 1-1 and had to be decided by a third game. Although the third game was extremely close, Adam was able to resolve an Elesh Norn, which prevented my Inkmoth Nexii from activating and dealing lethal poison damage. Elesh also diminshed my Primeval Titan to 4/4, which made it impossible to block Elesh without losing the Titan. Adam slowly chipped my life away, and although there were three remaining copies of Beast Within in my deck, I could not draw one to kill Elesh and win the game. Adam won the match, 2-1.

I suppose I should mention, that although Adam won this match, he did not win the war. He placed 4th in the tournament, just behind me. Adam lost in round 4 to B/W tokens and intentional drew the fifth and final round to guarantee his receipt of a Dismember.

After losing the first round, I was paired against a "noob" red green deck, which did not run Titans, and I won the match easily, 2-0.

In round three, I was paired against a new player, who was running a fairly standard B/W Tokens deck. These games were actually pretty close, but a resolved Inferno Titan was able to stay on board, ruining any chance of my opponent gaining momentum, and I won the match 2-1.

In round four I faced a "noob" green white deck quite unlike Adam's version (for example, this opponent did not run Oblivion Ring), and I won the match easily, 2-0.

Round 5 was interesting, as I once again had to face Ish. Ish is a player with whom I have had some disagreements in the past, as catalogued in previous entries. This time, Ish was running Tempered Steel, a deck he has played a lot in the past. Now, usually I consider my deck a favorite to win this matchup, in particular because Ancient Grudge is an incredible card. However, I have faced so few Tempered Steel decks lately, that I reduced the number of Ancient Grudges in my sideboard to 2. Nevertheless, I recently added 2 copies of Naturalize (which also works on Oblivion Ring, Manabarbs, and oh yeah, Tempered Steel), so I was still well-prepared for this matchup. My maindeck also contains 4 copies of Slagstorm, which is fairly active against Tempered Steel (although Slagstorm does fail to kill  Glink Hawk Idol, Inkmoth Nexus, or Etched Champion). I should also mention that my usual anti-aggro card, Whipflare, is completely inactive against Tempered Steel, and I was lucky not to draw the card in game 1. The games were close and we went to a third game to decide the match. Strangely, the card that proved most troublesome for Ish was Karn Liberated, because he could actually exile an Etched Champion. Although the third game was ridiculously close, I ended up winning with an unblocked Inferno Titan, who I pumped the good 'ol fashion way--avoiding Spellskite---to deal 14 points of damage.

So again, I placed third and received a Dismember for being in the top 4. I also got 5 packs, which I converted to $9 of store credit. Don't ask me how 5 packs = $9 because I just don't know.

Once more into the breach, dear friends.

Oh, Descartes. You were such a badass.

Well it wasn't pretty. On Tuesday night I attended a Grand Prix Tour qualifier at Ancient Wonders. The nice thing about Grand Prix qualifiers is that the Planeswalker points are tripled, much like an FNM. In other words, each win at a GPT counts as three wins at a normal tournament. Unfortunately, to receive the points you first have to win the match, and I apparently couldn't win a match to save my deck.

I once again wielded R/G Wolf Run, which was probably a mistake. Although the deck has brought me success in the past, I have recently grown tired of it, and I am in need of a change. After filling out my decklist, the pairings were posted. I was not surprised to find that out of the 20 possible opponents, I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht, who was running U/B/W Solar Flare. Solar Flare was a deck that was popular about 6 months ago, when Innistrad just came out, and the deck has slowly fallen out of favor since. Ryan and I intentionally drew---apparently neither of us felt the taste for battle this particular tournament.

Right before the second round, the judge approached me and told me there was a problem with my decklist. Apparently I wrote down my sideboard wrong, and had forgotten to write in two cards. For my clerical error, I was penalized with an immediate game loss in round 2. In other words, my next opponent would only have to win one of the following two games to win the match. Unfortunately, my opponent was playing U/B Control, one of my deck's worst matchups, and I lost the match 0-2.

In round three, I was paired against Charlie running R/G Wolf Run. His version was slightly different from mine, in that it ran more copies of Huntmaster of the Fells (I run none) and less copies of Inferno Titan. My version has yet to lose in this "mirror match," and I quickly won, 2-0.

Round four was probably the most disappointing of the tournament. I was paired against Steve Empey, who I have played before with mixed results. This time, Steve was playing B/W tokens, utilizing cards such as Sphere of the Suns, Grave Titan, Elspeth, and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. The match needed a third game to decide it. I ended up mulliganing (on the draw) a hand with 2 Karn, Liberated, 1 Sphere of the Suns, 1 Mountain, 1 Kessig Wolf Run, 1 Inferno Titan, and 1 Beast Within. I wasn't sure if mulliganing this hand was the right decision, and I'm still not sure. I was forced to keep the next hand, which was 5 lands and a Beast Within, so I guess in hindsight I can say I should have kept the first hand; but....you can't really reason like that. I lost the third game quickly, as I saw no ramp spells and was unable to cast a Titan until turn 6, which my opponent simply killed with his Oblivion Ring. 1-2.

Having gone 1-2-1 over four rounds and basically realizing I had no chance to finish in the top 8, or receive any prize, I withdrew from the tournament. I asked Adam Brown to do me a favor and give Ryan a ride home so I could leave early. A rather poor tournament, and one that I'm trying quickly to forget. See you next time....

Back at Ancient Wonders

On Tuesday night I played in the usual Standard Magic tournament at Ancient Wonders. I haven't played at AW in over 3 months, mostly due to my class schedule this semester. I am proud to say I returned with a bang, going undefeated in four rounds to take clear first place. I once again ran R/G Wolf Run, with a few alterations to the sideboard after my experiences on Sunday.

The first round of the tournament I played against Will Wilding running Vampires. Will's version of the deck was different from other versions I've faced because Will runs multiple copies of Falkengrath Aristocrat. In my opinion, Falkengrath Aristocrat is just bad in the current metagame, with so many copies of Gut Shot and Tragic Slip in the mix. I lost game 2, but ended up winning the match without too much trouble due to multiple copies of Slagstorm, 2-1.

In the second round, I once again faced Ryan Engbrecht (the third time this week!), though this time he was running R/G aggro instead of Naya Pod. Ryan's draws were shit (again), and these games were fairly one-sided. Ryan seems to have bad luck against me, and I now have a small win streak going against him. I won the match, 2-0. There was one moment in this match where I learned something. In game 1, I went first and played a Copperline Gorge. Ryan went second and played a Birds of Paradise, and after he said "done," I paused for a bit to consider whether to cast Galvanic Blast on the Bird. This revealed to Ryan I had the Galvanic Blast in my hand, and he made some comment about it. I ended up casting the Galvanic. From now on, I should attempt to "bluff" having a Galvanic in my hand as much as possible, pausing at the end of the first turn even if I don't have it.

In round 3 I played against Steve Empey running B/G Birthing Pod. Steve's deck utilizes creatures like Glissa, the Traitor, Strangleroot Geist, Gravecrawler, and Geralf's Messenger to deal as much early damage as possible. Although our games never went long, I imagine he also includes creatures like Massacre Wurm, Wurmcoil Engine, and Sheoldred, Whispering One.This deck reminds me of Alec's version of Birthing Pod, although I think the absence of Blade Splicer and white in general makes Steve's version strictly inferior. After all, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is pretty damn good in Pod. Nevertheless, Steve did beat Alec with this deck the round before, and I just learned Steve also won this week's FNM at Knightfall Games running this deck, so who knows?

Anyways, as I said before the games did not take long. In game 1, Steve was able to do 16 points of damage before I could stabilize. At 4 life, I resolved a Primeval Titan and fetched enough lands to kill Steve with Kessig Wolf Run on the subsequent turn. He was unable to do 4 points of damage as I had already fetched enough Inkmoth Nexii to block any attackers. Game 2 was much more one-sided, as I resolved Inferno Titan on turn 4 and was able to eliminate any early agression. I won the match, 2-0.

In round 4 I faced Benny Gonzalez running U/W Venser. Benny's deck was unusual because it ran no counterspell magic of any kind. The first game took forever, and basically came down to a 2-turn sequence where both players took like 15 minutes to decide what to do. There were simply too many card interactions. Benny had Venser, the Sojourner, Mimic Vat (with Primeval Titan exiled), Phyrexian Metamorph, and Spellskite, and I was doing my best to kill him with either Primeval Titan or Inkmoth Nexus. At the end of his turn, I was able to cast Beast Within on his Mimic Vat, and then Galvanic Blast his Spellskite (with metalcraft). This freed up a Wolf Run activation which won me game 1. Game two was more one-sided, as Benny boarded in copies of Grafdigger's Cage, which just seems useless against my deck. Yes, it does shut down Green Sun's Zenith, and yes, it does sort of shut down Ancient Grudge, but it just ended up being a useless card. I won the match 2-0.

To conclude, my deck went 8-1 to take clear first and brought home the $30 credit prize. I was happy with the deck's performance as I only had to mulligan once the whole evening and I generally found ramp in each match. Thanks for reading!

On Sunday I played in the regular Sunday Magic Standard tournament at Guardian Games. The turnout was decent, with roughly 20 players showing up to play, including high "ranked" players such as Aaron Henner and Henry Freedman.

I once again ran R/G Wolf Run, with minor sideboard alterations to deal with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Before the tournament, I spent some time considering whether I should run Birds of Paradise or Gut Shot in my sideboard. Both are effective at eliminating the potential ramp disruption that Thalia causes when she hits the table on turn 2. I decided to run the Birds, but in hindsight, I think Gut Shot was better. Gut Shot is not only useful against Thalia, but also against Delver of Secrets.

In the first round, I was paired against Glissa control. My opponent was mana screwed the first game and I won easily. The second game, he had sufficient mana, but he was never able to place a threat on the board. He was unable to counter any of my Titans; at one point I cast Galvanic Blast on a Spellskite when I had metalcraft, and ended up killing him with a Slagstorm several turns later. I won the match 2-0.

After the first round, I mentioned to Ryan Engbrecht that the tournament seemed to have a lot of players running B/W Tokens---I saw at least 3 such decks. For a moment, I wished I had placed copies of Ratchet Bomb in my sideboard.

In the second round, I was paired against Natty Leof running Frites. Although some Wolf Run decks are weak against Frites, my version runs sufficient copies of Beast Within so that I can kill any fat creature they eventually summon. I'm also running sweeper spells like Slagstorm and Whipflare to disrupt the mana-providing creatures Frites players utilize to quickly cast their spells. Galvanic blast is also disruptive. What this means is that Frites players are often too slow to cast their Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Usually, by the time they are able to cast the Elesh I have already cast a Titan, and the game is basically in my favor.
There was one aspect of this second round worth mentioning. At one point, Natty had a wolf token and 4 spirit tokens, which he had obtained in past turns by casting Huntmaster of the Fells and Lingering Souls. I attacked with my Primeval Titan, fetching two lands, and Natty blocked with all of the tokens. In response, I cast Beast Within on the wolf token, allowing my Titan to live, killing every spirit Natty owned, and even doing 2 points of trample damage to Natty in the process. This little "trick" has actually happened numerous times in the past, and happened again later in the tournament. I won the match, 2-0.

Round 3 proved to be the most difficult round of the tournament. I was paired against Henry Freedman, who used to be a top rated player in Portland. Henry was running U/W Delver equip, widely considered to be one of the strongest decks in the format, so this match was going to be difficult. I won the first game easily, on the back of Thrun, the Last Troll, but that meant Henry was on the play in game 2. He mulliganed so that he could get a first turn delver, which did some damage before I was able to kill it, and he eventually killed me with a Geist of Saint Traft backed by Vapor Snag. In game 3 I missed several land drops and lost because, with only 8 mana, I was unable to cast an Inferno Titan around mana leak. I lost the match 1-2.

In round 4 I was paired against DJ, who was running U/W Humans with Loyal Cathar. I lost the first game because I was an idiot and didn't read the cards properly. I didn't realize that Loyal Cathar comes back after being killed with sorcery-style wrath effects. Duh. Nevertheless, after sideboarding in multiple copies of Whipflare I was able to effectively kill DJ's creatures. Inferno Titans also helped immensely. I ended up winning the next 2 games and subsequently saving myself a lot of grief since if I had lost, I would have been extremely upset with myself for not paying closer attention. I won the match 2-1.

Strangely enough, in round 5 I was paired against Ryan again, who was once again running Naya Pod. I don't really have much to say about this match. Ryan was basically mana screwed in both games and his deck never really got rolling. I won the match 2-0.

In summary, I ended this tournament 4-1 and was awarded 6 packs for my trouble. That prize was reduced to 4.5 packs because I ended up splitting with Ryan in the last round. I used the credit to obtain another foil Copperline Gorge to further trick out my deck, and a nice foil copy of Stony Silence.

Back on top once again. Tonight I went undefeated at FNM, taking clear first place.

I decided to run R/G Wolf Run once again because the deck brought me so much success in the past. Although I had been debating all week whether or not to leave the Galvanic Blasts in the main deck I decided at the last minute to keep all 4 copies. My sideboard was altered however, to deal with the now prevalent early aggro strategies that have taken over the format due to Strangleroot Geist.

In the first round I played against a U/W control deck running the Venser / Dignitary combo. My opponent's deck really wasn't running enough countermagic for a control deck, and several Titan copies were able to seal the game and the match for me.

In round 2 I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht, who I consider one of the best players at the tournament. Ryan was running Naya Pod  again ( a decklist can be found here ), since he had so much success with it this week, scoring a first place win at Ancient Wonders on Tuesday and a near undefeated performance at Guardian Games on Sunday. Although I had to mulligan the first game, I was able to slam down timely copies of Slagstorm and Inferno Titan to regain card advantage and seal the victory. In the second game I was again forturnate to draw timely copies of Beast Within and Inferno Titan and the match ended in my favor 2-0. Ryan was never really able to get the Birthing Pod active.

In the third round I played David, who as has yet to beat me in a sanctioned game. David was able to run a R/G aggro deck ( a decklist can be found here ) after I loaned him several copies of Sword of War and Peace before the tournament. I wasn't happy to be playing against my own cards. The first game went in my favor, but the next game was incredibly close.  This matchup is really just about whether the aggro deck can do 20 points of damage before the Wolf Run deck can stabilize. At one point in the second game, I was at like 6 life, with FOUR Titans in hand, and David threw down a Manabarbs! This card is amazingly effective against my deck and David easily won game two. At the end of the game, Chris announced that only 5 minutes remained in the round and David and I agreed to a draw.

The final round, I was paired against Jonerick who was running B/W Tokens ( a decklist can be found here ). I really like this version of B/W tokens, and I was unsure before the game who was the favorite to win. Unfortunately, my opponent never found a third land in game one, and I won easily. In game 2, my opponent missed the second and third land drops, and I won the game after casting Primeval Titan and Inferno Titan.

This victory put me in clear first place, as there were no other undefeated players. Back on top once again! For my efforts I was awarded 8 packs, 4 of which were Dark Ascension, and 4 of which I took as credit for Avacyn Restored packs. I cracked a couple mythic rares out of the Dark Ascension packs, but nothing too exciting. Most importantly however, I was awarded the foil FNM Dismember card shown above. Fun times.

The Metagame Has Shifted

Time for another update. This blog entry will describe two tournaments, and the viccissitudes I faced in each. In both tournaments, I once again ran R/G Wolf Run, feeling strangely unsure of myself that perhaps my deck wasn't tuned to the current metagame. My suspicions were confirmed when (in the first tournament) I lost the first two rounds, and in the second tournament, I lost the first round. I ended the first tournament 2-2, which placed me somewhere in the middle of the pack, and I dropped out of the second tournament.

One of my losses was to some player I dont know running Vampires, and running it badly. An article was recently published on Blackborder.com (the article can be found here) describing how to build the deck, and I think he just net-decked the list. Normally, I would totally crush this type of deck, but I failed to draw Slagstorm in game 1 (which is essential to surviving these types of fast aggro decks), and in game 3 I had to mulligan down to 5 because of land issues. I was frustrated after losing this match to such a bad player, but the pain was later mitigated when Alec lost to the same player in round 2. Somehow, seeing other people suffer makes us feel better about our own suffering.

In round 2, I was paired against Abi who was running Ryan's U/B Zombie list. I've played against this deck twice already, winning both times, and I was confident I could win. Nevertheless, after several missed land drops and after Tragic Slip killed my Primeval Titan, I had little life left and died to a Geralf's Messenger. In game 3 I similarly could not find a Slagstorm and died to a bunch of black critters.

In round 3 I played John Blessing. I won the match 2-0.

I've forgotten who I faced in round 4.

Finally, a note about the most recent FNM. I was late to the tournament and so received a bye in round one. In round two however, I was paired against a new player running Naya Pod. I lost the first game, won the second, and then again, had to mulligan down to five cards to find some land. My opponent revealed after the game he had sideboarded out every copy of Birthing Pod, thereby making his deck a kind of aggro deck. I failed to draw a Slagstorm and a well timed Thalia, Guardian of Thraben sealed the victory for my opponent.

Since posting such terrible results at both of these tournaments, I've made modifications to my deck to try and cope with the current aggro based metagame. I added multiple copies of Huntmaster of the Fells and Whipflare in hopes of putting all these uber-aggressive creature strategies in the trash can where they belong. Until next time, readers!