"If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms."
----William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure












"Stupid netdecks," I thought to myself, as I placed my 4-color wolf run deck back into its deckbox. I had just lost to some patzer running Carrie Oliver's monogreen beatdown list (a version of the list can be seen here). I couldn't help but think about the total lack of originality displayed by my opponent. Of course, I quickly realized the hyprocrisy of what I was thinking. I myself have been guilty of netdecking on more than one occasion. A few weeks ago, for example, I was running a card-for-card copy of Alex Binek's R/G Wolf Run list. And yet, the fact that I just lost 0-2 against a deck my opponent spent no thought to create somehow made the loss more painful.

As many of you know, I am preparing for the Bar Exam in July. As such, my Magic exploits have been put on hold (blog updates may be less frequent this month). Nevertheless, I have allowed myself to attend Guardian Games on Tuesday nights because the tournaments are only three rounds and finish quickly. I went this last Tuesday.


In the first round, I played against the Monogreen list described above. I lost the first game to a first turn Bird of Paradise later equipped with a second turn Sword of War and Peace. I think he miracled a Revenge of the Hunted for the win. I lost the second game to two very large Dungrove Elders. The match ended quickly in my opponent's favor, 0-2. I'm not sure if my deck is weak against the monogreen deck, or if I just drew badly; more testing is necessary.

In round two I played against Esper Control with some unusual goodies like Divination, and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Both games I managed to put a Cavern of Souls into play just before casting my Titans, and my opponent never seemed to have enough removal. In Game 2 I casted a 5th turn Karn Liberated which went totally unchecked. I won the match 2-0.

In round three I smashed Nayapod. Early aggression was held at bay with Whipflare and Day of Judgment. Eventually I slammed down a Primeval Titan, which my opponent stole with Zealous Conscripts. The theft wasn't lethal because I fetched two Glimmerposts on the previous turn. I won  using Kessig Wolf Run a few turns later. My opponent lost game 2 because he had to mulligan down to 4 cards and got land screwed.

My record of 2-1 was sufficient for third place after tiebreaks. I used the credit to pick up some small stuff. Until next time readers!