On Tuesday I played in the Standard Magic Tournament at Ancient Wonders. Before the tournament I was very unsure what I was going to play. As many of you know I have grown a bit tired of R/G Wolf Run, and also a bit uncertain regarding its future in the post-Avacyn environment. I decided before the tournament to try something different, and I ran a U/B Zombie list similar to the one recently suggested by Josh Silvestri (see this article). I hoped that no matter what result I achieved, the deck would be fun to play. Of course, I should have realized, losing is rarely fun. My deck scored 2 wins and 2 losses, placing 6th out of 13 participants.  I added a whopping 7 planeswalker points to my total. I consider this result below average for me, and I felt like U/B Zombies was weak in too many areas to try again. More on this below, but first, to the matches!

In round 1 I was paird against some noob (I've never seen him at AW before and his deck was all commons and unsleeved) running a terrible version of R/W humans. I won the match, 2-0

In round 2 I was paired against Adam Brown, running Esper Planeswalkers (aka W/U/B control). Despite possessing 4 copies of Cavern of Souls in my main deck, I never drew one, and Adam was able to counter all of my relevant creatures in the first game. He eventually slammed down a Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and won by simply making a lifelink token every turn. I think Tamiyo, the Moon Sage also did some work against me in the first game. In the next game, I ran into mana issues, drawing all three Caverns and finding myself unable to cast Geralf's Messenger or Blood Artist on the appropriate turns. I lost the match 0-2.

A note about U/B Zombies: I now realize that U/B Zombies is just bad against control decks when the control player is able to stabilize the game (duh). Therefore, because U/B has relatively few "fast hands," the deck does not have much reach against control (Silvestri is just wrong to suggest otherwise) decks. After all, if my opponent is able to slam down a Sorin (or a Garruk, Relentless) on turn 3 or 4, and I have no way of killing it on the subsequent turn, then all of a sudden I'm faced with a situation where the opponent is gaining life and/or blockers every turn (or, in the case of Garruk, the opponent has gained the ability to kill your creatures easily). In addition, if the game started slowly and you find yourself on turn 8 or 9 in a situation where your opponent has more than 10 life, then you are probably just losing. Finally, the deck tends to spend its hand quickly, which I always hate. For the preceding reasons, I do not think the U/B Zombies deck has much reach, and I don't intend to play it again. Okay, note over, now back to the tournament.

In round 3 I faced Alec Baker, who was running his usual Doran Pod. I haven't played Alec in a some time, but I was glad to see him back at a Magic tournament. Alec had made minor alterations to his Birthing Pod deck, adding in multiple copies of Restoration Angel. I am not sold on this card in Pod yet; in my opinion the 4 slot is already jam packed with goodies and Pod only seems to leave mana untapped (thereby benefitting from the Angel's flash ability) when it is already winning (the deck is usually casting a creature or two per turn). Strangely, my games against Alec were the most one-sided of the tournament, as nothing in his deck seemed to be able to deal with multiple copies of Blood Artist. Once the Blood Artists were out, I would simply attack with Gravecrawlers, and if the Gravecrawlers were blocked and killed, Alec would lose life and the Gravecrawlers would return from the graveyard. Killing Wave eventually finished the game. My deck seemed to function perfectly in this matchup (and sideboarding in multiple copies of Torpor Orb against Pod never hurts) and I won the match, 2-0.

In round 4 I faced Ryan Engbrech who was running RUG Aggro Control. Ryan's deck utilized cards like Bird of Paradise, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Strangleroot Geist, Green Sun's Zenith, Garruk, Relentless and Wolfrir Silverheart to attack quickly and remove blockers. Once again, U/B Zombies appeared unable to deal enough damage early, or to disrupt my opponent's plan of getting Tamiyo or Garruk out as early as possible. If I remember correctly, Ryan won this match 2-0.

And so readers, there you have it. A so-so tournament for the record books. I'm glad I tried something different, even if I think the result was ultimately disappointing. It was nice to play Black again. Until next time readers....