Before there was Angelic Destiny there was Divine Transformation.

According to Wikipedia:
"Power creep is the gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content. The phenomenon may be caused by a number of different factors and, in extreme cases, can be damaging to the longevity of the game in which it takes place."

Just something to think about....



Another Tuesday has come and gone, which means, another MTG tournament to report. I packed up my cards for the usual forray to Ancient Wonders, hoping to bring home another first place in Standard. Although I brought a couple brew decks to mess around with, I decided once again to run with Jund Wolf Run. The deck only has a few months left; I still think it is incredibly powerful, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted to win and forget about my result the preceding Tuesday.

There were some potent players in attendance: Ryan Engbrecht, (ranked 11th this season), Dillon Winter (recent PTQ winner, and ranked 35th), Filipp Abildayev (ranked 36th), Steve Empey (ranked 49th) and of course, yours truly (ranked 69th). Brian Weller-Gordon (recent PTQ winner, and ranked 36th) also showed up, but he didn't play.

Despite the high number of good players, it also felt like at least half the players were new players running home brew type decks. For example, in round 1, I played against a mono-black deck running Exquisite Blood and Sorin's Vengeance. The coolest part of the deck was remembering the relationship between damage and loss of life: See Rule 119.3a ("Damage dealt to a player by a source without infect causes that player to lost that much life"). Other than that, the deck was kind of bad.

In round 2 I played against a mono green infect deck with no Dismembers or removal of any kind in the sideboard. I fetched Melira, Sylvok Outcast with Green Sun Zenith on turn 3 and the game was basically over.

The tournament didn't actually start until round 3. I was paired against Filipp Abildayev running U/W Delver. As I've mentioned before, my record against U/W Delver is becoming ridiculous---I've now won something like 7 straight matches. U/W Delver just seems to have a terrible matchup against this version of Wolf Run, as the 4 Whipflares and 4 Cavern of Souls just go to town. I would like to say two things about this matchup however:

First, I find the Delver deck that uses Runechanter's Pike far more threatening that versions without it. Very often, I will be in situations where I must constantly be on the lookout for a possible end of turn Restoration Angel followed by a Runechanter's Pike equip and an attack for umpteen damage. I have been sideboarding in two copies of Ancient Grudge whenever I see Delver just because of this threat. Knowing this, perhaps the wise Delver player would just board the Pike's out...

Second, I would like to reiterate how unfair and powerful I think the card Gitaxian Probe is. It basically allows you to see what your opponent is up to for free, and in a match vs. a strong competitor I think it can offer an enormous strategic advantage. Honestly, in chess it would be like having a device that lets you listen to the opposing player's thoughts. If there's one reason to play U/W Delver, it's because Delver is so good, but if there's a second reason, it's Gitaxian Probe. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little here, but I just hate the card that much.

I won both games against Filipp in standard fashion. I took some early damage until I could safely cast Whipflare to kill his creatures. I eventually played a Cavern of Souls and a Primeval Titan, fetching two Glimmerposts and gaining back the life I had just lost. The game was basically over after that, since Vapor Snag is little help when the Titan is just recastable each turn.

In the final round I was paired against Ryan Engbrecht running Bant Pod. We decided to draw the match and split the prize. We played the games for funsies and I won, 2-0. This leads me to believe that maybe my deck has a better matchup against Bant Pod than I initially imagined, and that maybe my poor performance against the deck at the PTQ was merely a fluke. More testing is necessary to reach a solid conclusion.

I took home $22 for my trouble, roughly quadrupling my entry fee. Woot! As usual, Ancient Wonders allows you to compile your store credit, so I merely added it to the bank in hopes of eventually acquiring some Sneak Attacks for the Legacy tournament in September.

All in all, a successful tournament! Thanks for reading.