Definitely the hero of this tournament!

I was able to beat Adam in round 2 only because I drew the singleton copy of....Batterskull!







Today I played in another Standard tournament at Ancient Wonders, finishing 2-0-1 and tying for first place. The tournout tonight was rather small; only 8 players showed up; but the tournament did have pretty good competition. Ryan Engbrecht, Adam Brown, Tony Adamson, Jared, and Brad were all present. I ran my usual R/G Wolf Run, even though I knew it might be a bad choice, because I just didn't have time to think of a playable aternative before the tournament (I am currently playtesting alternative ideas).

The tournament started off well for me as I was able to beat Brad running Naya Pod. Naya Pod generally has a bad matchup against R/G Wolf Run, as its creatures are vulnerable to Slagstorm and Whipflare. I lost game 2 to a serious mana flood, but I won games 1 and 3 on the back of Primeval Titans, a timely Blasphemous Act, and Garruk, Primal Hunter.

Round 2 was perhaps the most rewarding round of the tournament. I was able to beat Adam Brown, who was running R/W Humans. Adam had a slight win streak going, having beaten me several times in a row (twice with G/W Aggro and once with Esper Friends), so it felt good to finally break the streak and take one back. The first game Adam mana flooded, and a quick Primeval Titan won the game easily. Game 2 took much longer, as I was constantly afraid any creature I cast would be stolen by Zealous Conscripts (I hate this card!). Adam was able to do a significant amount of damage early on with a Champion of the Parish that just seemed to keep getting bigger (at one point reaching 9/9!). Eventually however, a Thrun, the Last Troll was able to act as a blocker, and when the Thrun was equipped with a Batterskull, the game was basically over (Conscripts were useless). I won the match, 2-0, but not without the usual Adam insinuation about how I could have played better, killed him faster, etc. etc.

In round three I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht, and we intentionally drew, though we decided to play the match out for fun. Ryan was running Bant aggro, which I recently condemned as kind of a crappy deck. I was wondering if Ryan would make me eat my words. I ended up winning the match 2-1, though the games were reasonably close when neither player had to mulligan.

So there it is. Another tournament in the bag. I was given $12 for my trouble, which I used to acquire another Sigarda, Host of Herons. Until next time, readers.