While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh---but smile no more.

Edgar Allen Poe, "The Haunted Palace"






I played in three Magic tournaments this weekend: 2 Standard events at Guardian Games and 1 Modern tournament at Ancient Wonders. I did fairly well at all three events, though I failed to secure any first place finishes.

The weekend started with the usual FNM at Guardian Games. It's strange how few players are showing up for the usual FNM at GG. Perhaps the format has become stale, or perhaps it's the new opening of Time Vault Games, or perhaps Portland players are just preparing for the coming Modern season; for whatever reason, attendance at FNM events seems to have declined.

This last Friday was no different. The FNM at Guardian had less than 15 players. I ended up scoring 4-1 and placing second on tiebreaks, losing only to Zach Ledesma running U/W Flash in the penultimate round. I suspect Junk Angel has a poor matchup against U/W Flash: the infinite life combo can be broken easily by Unsummon, Geist of Saint Traft is difficult to deal with, and Feeling of Dread can quickly negate the life gained off a Thragtusk by tapping potential blockers. The matches were fairly one-sided in Zach's favor, and he won the match 2-0. I did have mana issues both games, so I'm not ready to make a judgment call about the strength of U/W Flash at this time.

The biggest mistake of the tournament was the prize I took home. My second place finish entitled me to $18 in store credit, which I supplemented with $2 of my own money to buy a foil Shivan Reef from Apocalypse. The card was marked as $20, but it wasn't until after I got home that I realized the price on the card hadn't been updated since May, 2010. The card is now worth only $8-9. Bummer. Note to self: check the price date on GG cards and ask for price updates if appropriate.

On Saturday I attended the Modern tournament at Ancient Wonders. I ran RUG Delver and scored 2-1, placing second on tiebreaks. I used my store credit to purchase a foil Restoration Angel, a prize any man can be happy with. There weren't any remarkable matches, but I've realized that RUG Delver just isn't my style of deck.

On Sunday I attended a Standard GPT at Guardian. I scored 3-2 placing sixth on tiebreaks. The tournament was again won by Zach Ledesma, which means his deck is technically undefeated in the last 10 matches (at least, the last 10 I've seen). Perhaps U/W Flash is better-positioned than I give it credit for. I think Natty Leof was running a similar deck at this tournament and he also did well (4-1). In more personal news, I once again lost to Aaron Henner, who I'm pretty sure I've played like 4-5 times without a single match win. Every MTG player just seems to have that one person who just has your number, and Aaron Henner seems to be that guy for me. Maybe it's because he's usually the only person on the chart who has a lower DCI #. Whatever the reason, this needs to stop.

Aaron was running Human Frites, a list that is becoming very popular. My biggest weapon in game 1 against this deck is trying to get the infinite life combo before any Nightshade Peddler--Izzet Staticaster shennanigans come online. Aaron went through about 45 cards before he finally found an Angel of Glory's Rise, but even with all that time, my deck couldn't find the mana to get the infinite life combo working. It turns out, Nightshade Peddler paired with a Huntmaster of the Fells can also be quite deadly. That's another interaction in Human Frites to look out for. After sideboard, my matchup against this deck becomes more favorable, but I again got land screwed, and thereafter lost the match 0-2. Sad times.

Honestly though, the most epic match of this tournament was the first match. I played against Adam Brown running G/W populate and the first game literally took the entire 50 minutes. When the match went to turns, Adam had about 20 creatures out, and since he was activating two Gavony Townships per turn, every creature he had in play had about 10-15 +1/+1 counters on it. Adam couldn't attack me though, because I had gained infinite life, so his plan was to simply wait until I decked myself. However, Adam had very few fliers, and the only thing keeping my Restoration Angels and Angel of Serenity(s) at bay was an untargetable Sigarda, Host of Herons with like 19 counters on it. On the very last turn possible, I cast an Unburial Rites, targeting Craterhoof Behemoth, giving all my creatures +14/+14. Then I cast Restoration Angel ,targeting the Craterhoof Behemoth, giving all my other creatures an additional +15/+15 (Craterhoof only received this latter bonus). Adam was at 78 life, but my 4 flyers attacked and dealt over 100 damage. It was fucking epic.

I guess that's a fitting end to this post. Junk Angel is now 49-17-2 in its current version, and 71-34-11 overall. Until next time....

The grind continues. There are only a few weeks left in the current Standard "season," with the release of Gatecrash just around the corner. People have basically stopped innovating, choosing instead to focus on the upcoming Modern PTQs. I played in a couple of Standard events this week, hoping to increase the win percentage of my Junk Angel deck before being forced to shelve it post-Gatecrash.

However, it was not to be. In the first round of the FNM at Guardian Games, I lost to Henry Freedman, who will forever be known on this blog as "formerly one of the strongest Magic players in Portland." Henry beat me in game three of our mirror-ish match, but mostly because I made a huge play mistake. Henry had two Deathrite Shamans and I had one, but Henry had tapped all of his lands on his turn. During my main phase, I cast Grisly Salvage, revealing Angel of Serenity, Unburial Rites, a land, and 2 other cards. I tapped 4 lands, flashed back the Unburial Rites, and targetted my Angel. Henry quickly tapped one Deathrite Shaman, removing the land in my graveyard to activate the other Deathrite Shaman, removing my Angel of Serenity. It wasn't until after I placed my Angel in the RFG pile and added two life to Henry's total that I realized I could have tapped my own Deathrite Shaman in response, removing the land from my own graveyard and depriving him of the needed mana. That's the second time I've made a play mistake with Deathrite Shaman that has (assumedly) cost me a match.

In round 2 of the FNM I played Oliver Garcia, running Omnidoor Thragfire, originally created by Travis Woo (see the published article here). I lost game one as I usually do against Omnidoor, but I won game two pretty quickly. In game 3, I managed to gain infinite life but still lost when he resolved Omniscience into Door to Nothingness and Temporal Mastery. Lame. :-P

So I dropped from the FNM. I probably should have stuck it out, gangam-style, whatever the fuck that means, but I was already feeling under the weather and the two close losses didn't help. I bought a foil Pact of Negation from the shop to make myself feel better.

I played again on Sunday with hopes of redeeming my FNM performance. I scored 2-1-1 after an unusual loss to Boros Humans. Although Junk Angel mulligans well, against aggro you have to be very careful what hands you keep. With 6 cards on the draw, I had Sunpetal Grove, Woodland Cemetery, Avacyn's Pilgrim, Grisly Salvage, Fiend Hunter, Angel of Serenity. This hand simply proved too slow without a play to make on turn 1, and only a Pilgrim turn 2.

I played against an Esper deck in a later round, run by Gabriel Carleton-Barnes. Gabrield's deck was based around Nepahlia Drownyard, Tamiyo the Moon Sage, etc. etc.---a deck very similar to Reid Duke's Dark Bant list (but without the green cards, of course). I won game two with two cards left in my library, and we only had a minute left for game 3, so we drew the match.

So, in all, it wasn't a winning weekend. Junk Angel is now 42-14-2 in its current version, and 64-31-11 overall. Until next time.