"The tyrannous and bloody deed is done,
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of."
---William Shakespeare, Richard III









I ventured to Guardian Games on Friday night in an attempt to win another Acidic Slime and hopefully some store credit, but alas, it was not to be. I scored only 2 wins and 1 draw in five rounds of play, which put me 14th place after the dust settled; a poor performance to say the least. I'm not sure if I have an explanation for this poor result as yet.

Certainly, this current version of R/G Wolf Run has some weaknesses---the sparcity of spot removal, for example. Although my deck runs two copies of Beast Within in the main, the lack of a "Doom Blade" like spell makes the deck vulnerable to creatures like Consecrated Sphinx, Restoration Angel, and Hero of Bladehold. The fact that all these creatures have toughness greater than three makes them immune to Slagtorm and Whipflare, thus making them extremely difficult for my deck to kill. For this reason, I have considered switching to a version of Wolf Run with white, so as to gain access to Day of Judgment (as well as other strong white cards. See a potential deck list here). The downside of this course of action is that I would lose access to some very nice cards at the moment, including Huntmaster of the Fells and Combust. The large number of colorless lands in Wolf Run precludes any attempt to run three full colors. Wolf Run's problems appear to be completely ingrained, but there is certainly room to experiment.

For the moment, I believe I have to attribute last night's poor result to bad matchups and bad luck. I played several fringe decks and mulliganed often, leading to situations where I was ill-prepared and at a disadvantage from the very first game.

In round 1 I played against Robert Schneider running Esper Control. Robert's deck appeared largely ineffective, as he ran neither enough removal nor enough countermagic, opting instead to run nearly full complements of Temporal Mastery and Lingering Souls. Although he was able to slam down a Liliana of the Veil on turn 3 of Game 2 (which is often a problem for my deck), I happened to have a Beast Within in my hand at the time, and so avoided just losing the game outright. I suppose my luck last night wasn't all bad. I won the match 2-0.

I round 2 I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht running Solar Flare. It amazes me how in a tournament of 28 players I still get paired against one of the three people I know at the tournament. Ryan offered a draw early and I accepted because I felt Solar Flare was a heavy favorite in this matchup. In my opinion, Solar Flare just has a better late game against Wolf Run, with recurring Ghost Quarters and Phantasmal Images to deal with Wolf Run's threats. In addition, Solar Flare's main creature, Sun Titan, is quite difficult for R/G Wolf Run to deal with.

If the situation was reversed, I might not have offered Ryan a draw. However, I remember a Modern tournament from a few months back where Ryan was playing R/W Boros and I was playing Martyr Hide and Seek. I knew my deck was a probably the favorite in the match, but I still drew with Ryan because, well,  $120 for first place is a lot of money.

Chess grandmasters intentionally draw eachother all the time. They do it for professional reasons: (1) Why waste energy trying to beat a friend and a difficult player? The grandmasters will intentionally draw and thereby save their energy for other, potentially more challenging matches; (2) Grandmasters play eachother all the time (they are constantly at the top of the brackets), and maybe one (or both) of them has prepared a surprise they don't want uncovered at this tournament; (3) If this is the final round, grandmasters will often just split the prize, thereby guaranteeing half the prize pool to each player. This is important for professional and practical reasons; chess grandmasters are often poor and can barely make rent; (4) If you deny a draw with a friend this time, perhaps he may deny you the draw next time, when you would really like one.

Although some of these considerations are pertinent only to chess, I think others correlate well to MTG. I will generally deny draw offers to non-friends in almost every situation where I think I'm favored, but if I'm unfavored I will generally accept without delay. I almost never offer draws, however, except if by doing so I guarantee myself first place. Nevertheless, I appreciated Ryan's draw offer here.

[I skip my third round here vs. Barbara Adam, running R/W Human. I won 2-0.]

My fourth round opponent was not so kind. Alec was out for blood, or something, because we sat down and immediately got to business. This makes sense, as Alec's competitive spirit is strikingly apparent from his debate history. Before describing this match however, I wish to make a small sidebar.

As anyone who is close to me knows, I am uncomfortable loaning people cards for two basic reasons: First, the cards are worth money, and there's no guarantee you'll get the same card back in the same condition. In these particular loans, the risk is apparently placed entirely on the creditor (to use legalese). Second, it is not in the creditor's best interest to make the loan; after all, the debtor is playing in the same tournament, and helping the debtor only reduces the creditor's chances of winning. Basically, anyone asking me to loan a card to them is asking: "Am I a good enough friend that you are willing to reduce your chances of winning this tournament and risk your valued property to do me a favor." In some situations I have declined the loan unless the debtor was willing to offer a percentage of any prize won.

Now we can return to the fourth round against Alec Baker. Alec asked before the tournament to borrow Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, three copies of Phantasmal Image, and one copy of Consecrated Sphinx. I already knew the RUG deck Alec was planning to play was favored against mine (I was involved in the playtesting), but I loaned Alec the cards anyway (doh!). Alec then proceeded to crush me with my own cards. In Game 1, he cast a turn six Consecrated Sphinx, which he then soulbonded with Wolfir Silverheart (please, add Silverheart to the list of creatures that are difficult for R/G Wolf Run to deal with because of the lack of spot removal) and attacked for eight. I've now named that Consecrated Sphinx "Traitor Fuck Sphinx" and placed him in my trade binder. I think Alec drew 6-8 cards off the sphinx before the game was finally over.

Game 2 was similarly one sided in Alec's favor, though I don't seem to remember specifics. I just remember never having any control of the game, and losing to a Zealous Conscripts. Thus, the match was over quickly, 0-2 in RUG's favor. It wasn't the most one-sided match in Alec-Ryan history, but it was close. In Wolf Run's defense, I had to mulligan to six cards in both games, never saw an effective ramp spell, and Alec was kind of on a tear last night. Fortune apparently favored him, and no one was capable of halting his progress until the final round.

In round five I played against B/R Zombies and lost handily, 0-2. Once again, I failed to draw a ramp spell after mulliganing to six cards, and my opponent drew two Geralf's Messengers both games. Those guys tend to hurt if you don't run sufficient copies of Pillar of Flame.

So, that was the tournament. It seems odd to me that R/G Wolf Run can post such bipolar results at times. Although in general I feel the deck is extremely consistent, I find many losses are often due to sideboard unpreparedness in a particular matchup. After all, if I had known Zombies was coming, I would have added Pillar of Flame or Red Sun's Zenith to the mainboard. I anticipated more U/W Delver than there actually was, and my sideboard was thus insufficiently diverse. Perhaps some changes are in order. Until next time, readers.