It's strange how sometimes even when we are successful we still feel like we have failed. I can remember countless chess tournaments where despite the fact that I scored well, a loss in the final round would ruin my mood for the entire week. Last night was similar; I played in the usual Tuesday Standard tournament at Ancient Wonders, scoring 3 wins and 1 loss and taking second place, but despite this solid performance, I still feel like I lost.

Some background information may be necessary. I don't often purchase vintage Magic cards. They're expensive, and there are no local vintage tournaments, so you can't really use them. Nevertheless, I appreciate Vintage cards for their value and history and I have been known to buy one on occassion. This weekend was one of those occassions, as I purchased one copy of a Mishra's Workshop in decent condition. The Workshop is definitely one of the best lands in Magic, and probably one of the strongest cards in Magic overall. Unfortunately, the card costs quite a bit of scrilla---$250---and so I felt compelled afterwards to tighten my wallet a bit and not buy any Magic cards until my birthday in July. This meant that if I wanted any new cards, I'd have to win tournaments.

So I entered the tournament at Ancient Wonders really hoping to win. Usually, I don't care that much whether I win or lose (although obviously I prefer to win) and usually I'd be quite pleased with a second place result. This time however, I wanted to take down the whole thing. With that in mind, I ran R/G Wolf Run, my best deck.

In the first round I faced U/B aggro. My opponent was definitely a noob, as at one point he attempted to place Skinrender counters on my Thrun, the Last Troll. I won the match without much trouble, 2-0.
In the second round I faced Alec Baker, who was running the new U/G Infect deck. The deck combines cards like Spellskite, Inkmoth Nexus, Wild Defiance, Livewire Lash, and various instants to try and either deal lethal poison damage with an infect creature, or lethal life damage with a giant Spellskite. Alec's deck did not perform well and the match was over relatively quickly in my favor, 2-0. I made a comment afterwards about how the games seemed particularly one-sided and I felt bad afterwards. It was one of those moments where you realize you've made a comment that kind of makes you sound like a jerk. I didn't mean to brag----it was just objective evaluation of a match against a worthy opponent. Afterwards Alec and I played a couple fun games and I lost them both, so clearly the few games we played in this tournament were not indicative of his deck's strength. Neverthless, Alec did finish 1-3 (with the 1 win coming from a bye), so clearly his deck needs refinement. Personally, I don't think the deck is that good, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Round three was definitely the decisive match of the tournament. I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht who was running U/W Delver---widely considered the best deck in the format. Adam Brown, the other veteran of the tournament, had already lost to MonoGreen aggro the round before, so Ryan and I were the only undefeated players. I won the first game on the back of a Thrun, the Last Troll. Game 2 I had to mulligan down to 5 cards, so I lost that game in short order. I did however, make a sideboarding mistake. I sideboarded in 2 copies of Cavern of Souls and sideboarded out 2 copies of Glimmerpost. I realize now that against UW Delver I should still sideboard in the 2 copies of Cavern of Souls, but I should sideboard out 1 copy of Inkmoth Nexus and 1 Kessig Wolf Run instead. Anyways, I corrected the error in Game 3 but still lost to a twice cloned Restoration Angel. That card is pretty good against my deck.

Round 4 was fairly anti-climactic. I played against Ruben again, having just faced him at the Game Day tournament earlier in the week. Ruben was running R/W Humans (again), and having beaten that deck out of my last 5 tries, I now believe R/W Humans is terrible against my deck. Slagstorm, Whipflare, Bonfire of the Damned, and Galvanic Blasts are simply too much for R/W Humans to overcome. And by the time R/W casts a Hero of Bladehold, I usually have a Beast Within or a Titan. Ruben did get seriously land screwed in Game 2 though; he was stuck on two lands the entire game. Anyways, I won the match, 2-0.

So that's it. With a record of 3-1, I tied with Adam for second through third. Fortunately, my tiebreaks were best because I played Ryan, the eventual winner. Hope you enjoyed reading. See you Friday!