"Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?"
---Plato
















I ventured to Ancient Wonders for the usual Standard tournament last Tuesday, hoping to break the losing streak I was currently entertaining. Only 10 players attended this week; far less than last week. I saw a lot of familiar faces, and had a good time testing my Modern decks over the course of the evening.

 

In round 1, I was paired against Jordan running G/W Aggro. Jordan got mana-screwed both games and had to mulligan to 5 cards accordingly, so there isn’t much of a match to report. He seemed to be trying out his own home brew, utilizing cards like Elspeth Tirel and Ring of Kalonia.

 

In round 2 I faced Steve Empey running U/B Tezzeret Control. Steve’s deck had cards like Ichor Wellspring, Mycosynth Wellspring, and of course, the new addition to this achetype, TradingPost. Personally, I feel like Steve's version of this deck is weaker than others I’ve seen recently, most notably, the versions utiling Grand Architechts and Myr Superion. Still, Steve's version has a strong late game if left alone for too long.

 

I won the first game with an unchecked Primeval Titan, but not without some interesting play along the way. There’s one decision which I’d like to describe: On turn fifteen-ish, Steve tapped out to cast a Wurmcoil Engine. I was at 20 life; he was at like 29, so on the following turn, I attacked him with Inkmoth Nexus, tapped out for Kessig Wolf Run, and delivered 8 poison counters. On Steve’s next turn, he attacked me with the Wurmcoil; my life went to 14; he went to 35. My next turn, Steve had 1 card in hand, and he had conspicuously left mana open for something (or so I thought). I refrained from attacking with the Inkmoth, instead attacking with the Titan and using Wolf Run. I thought Steve might have an answer to the Inkmoth, and that by not attacking, I was forcing him to leave mana open every turn for a Doom Blade or a Tragic Slip, or whatever it was in his hand. Was this decision correct?

 

Well, in hindsight, it wasn’t. I learned after the game, the card in Steve’s hand at the time was a Mycosynth Wellspring, and by not attacking for lethal poison, I gave him time to eventually draw a Ghost Quarter. Effectively what this means is: Steve bluffed me.

 

Poker players lose to bluffs all the time, and the question you always have to ask yourself afterwards is, given the information I had at the time, was my decision correct? In this particular case, that means asking, should I have attacked with my Inkmoth Nexus?

 

The following pieces of information are perhaps pertinent to answering this question: (1) as I currently run the deck, I have only 1 Inkmoth Nexus, and no other way of dealing poison damage. If my Inkmoth dies, my chance for a victory by poison disappears---and the previous 8 poison I delieverd would end up meaningless; Being unable to kill your opponent by poison seems especially pertinent when they are playing Wurmcoil Engine; (2) Earlier in the game, Steve used a Go for the Throat to kill a Titan. For obvious reasons, Go for the Throats can't kill Inkmoth Nexus.


In chess, we have a saying: “the threat is stronger than the execution.” In the words of an article I found online:

"A threat can be stronger than it's execution because once you have executed the threat the opponent no longer has the threat to worry about and can defend. In a way, if you  cause your opponent to have to always worry and calculate a threat after every move it can be psychologically difficult and frustrating, and lead to mistakes. If you hold a hostage for ransom, once you kill the hostage, your power has gone."

 

 

I am unsure if this concept described above applies to Magic like it does to Chess. After all, there are many rules of thumb that do not apply to both games. In chess, it is often wisest to play your strongest threat first. In Magic, the opposite seems true.

 

 

Regardless of the merit of my decision, I eventually won the match, 2-0.

 

In round 3, I played against PTQ winner Dillon Winter, running U/W Delver. Dillon was playing the version of the deck that basically transforms into U/W Midrange after sideboarding. As we were both undefeated, Dillon and I agreed to draw.


In round 4, I played against B/R Zombies, but a less consistent version than usual. I don't remember much from the match except that my opponent was running Sorin's Vengeance and I mana flooded in game 1. Nevertheless, I won the match 2-1.


At the end of the tournament, I was 3-0-1 and received first place after tiebreakers. George awarded me $20 of store credit, which I used to purchase a foil Unhinged Plains. Good times.


P.S.: Since drafting this post, I played in 2 additional tournaments, with terrible results in both. Zombies has been crushing my face recently....going to have to make changes to the deck with the SCG Open coming this weekend.