Friday
5:30pm - leave work, grab cards from home
6:00 - arrive at toys, borrow some cards, update deck
6:30 - start FNM
Saturday
12:30am - finish 6th and last round of FNM
12:45 - out to Kowloons (chinese restraunt) with the guys
2:00 - back at Toys, start 4-man draft
4:45 - finish in 1st, take a Thrun
5:00 - leave Toys, check decklists and new prices from worlds
5:30 - go to sleep
12:00pm - wake up
12:40 - arrive at Toys for High Stakes
7:00 - tournament ends (5 rounds, cut to top 8, top 4 split)
8:00 - out to Texas Roadhouse (steakhouse) with the guys
11:00 - get back home, lie down and watch TV
Sunday
12:30am - feel obligated to write tournament reports
12:35 - I finish trying this scentence
I'm going to jam all the tournament reports into one long post, so you can skip to whichever you want to read about (FNM, draft, High Stakes) by skipping to the titles.
FNM
I was running this Shape Anew deck, except I cut 1 Day of Judgement in the board for an Oust.
Round 1: MW Quest
This was a reallyu bad way to start off the day. Against mono-white quest, I lose the roll and then mulligan to 5. Neither of us had really enticing draws, and our game actually wound up going incredibly long. I had a Shape Anew in my hand all game, but never drew a Master's Call or Inkmoth Nexus to combo off with. Eventually, Mike found a Sword of Body and Mind to break the stall, and I was milled to death. Game 2 was much better though. My game notes show neither of us losing life, a big 7 next to Mike's life total (poison) and "T5 Shape". The game was quicker then the time I took to board. Unfortunately, game 3 was even faster when he goes off on turn 3 with Quest and my life totals go: 20 - 12 - 4. I was annoyed at game 1 when nothing was drawing well, and there was nothing I could really do about a turn 3 Quest, so I just figured it was a fluke and kept on going with high hopes.
1-2
0-1
Round 2: GW Quest
This round sucked. I'm not going to give it any pomp and circumstance. I feel like I got knocked out with a baseball bat and then got robbed. I had 2 condemn in my opener along a couple mana leaks, so I was safe whether I was against beatdown or control. Apparently 2 condemn isn't enough to deal with 2 condemns though, because he had a third that went to town, and brought friends with him. Game 2 wasn't any happier and my life dropped in 6 life increments while his went up in 3s (Oust). Here is the only word I wrote in my notes: Growl
0-2
0-2
Round 3: WR Metalcraft
I actually had the pair up this round, but I was against one of the 10 year olds who are regular FNMers, so that was negligable. Game 1 we both mulliganed down to 5 cards, but I was able to pull out a turn 5 combo to infect his brain. Game 2 neither of us mulliganed, but I was actually slower this game as I had a *ghasp* turn 6 combo!
This, along with every round during the FNM flew by very fast, but I found myself chilling a ton, and trying to trade with others, but over the course of time you dry up the local market and there's not much you're looking for that you haven't gone for yet.
2-0
1-2
Round 4: UB Control
As soon as I sat down across from John he said, "Hey, I'm getting picked up in a couple minutes, so I am going to have to leave during the round. Let's just play, and then I will scoop when I leave." That was cool with me, and we were able to get a single full game in. As is normal with control on control matches, neither of our life totals changed all game, it was just that after a while one person's board had slipt through the other's permission a little too much. There was one awesome serious of plays as I was preparing to go off that looked like this:
Me: Master's Call
Him: Mana leak (draw, go)
Me: Jace, TMS
Him: Jace, TMS (destroy both)
Me: Shape Anew
Him: Jace, TMS, unsummon Blightsteel
Me: Not of this World!
Him: GG
That's right! I actually got to use Not of this World to lock down a game! A we were shuffling and drawing our opening hands, he got the call from his dad and he had to leave, so I took the round.
1-0?
2-2
Round 5: MG Eldrazi Ramp
I am actually really bad at remembering what happened in my games, which is why I can imagine no is reading this statement right now, because you just want to skim through, see the matchups and how I did, then carry on. But game 1 I have no notes for except "win". Ok? Must have been a good game. Game 2 was a grinder though. My condems had pushed him up to 34 life, while I was beat down to 12. I did have an active Jace most of the game though, and I was brainstorming every turn to put together the combo, but I was slowed down because I was floating a Blightsteel Colossus on the top with no Preordains in sight (Preordain makes Brainstorm awesome, like fetch lands do). Eventually I did combo off, with 10 lands in play, and I took the game from there. R&D almost had me there, I was almost affected by the raise in CMC from 11 to 12. Phew! Thankfully that never happened!
2-0
3-2
Round 6: ?????
Round 6 pairings went up, and the only thing that I can say is that the guy must have left and not officially dropped from the event because he was no where to be found.... That's cool?
4-2
After the tournament 8 of us decided to hang out and go to Kowloons, a Chinese food place on Route 1. To say that shenanagry went down would be a bit of an understatement. To start off, there's 8 Magic players chilling together, so drafting jokes start getting thrown around (I may need to ask the waiter for help if i am stuck between 2 cards in a pack). Then they decide to place us on a large circular table. Exactly like the ones the pros will draft on. What's that in the middle? There was a mini-table in the middle that rotated so you could pass something across the table without causing any weird problems. So now we have this wicked cool way to pass packs and identify you are done with your pick so packs never get backed up? That's even better! Unfortunately we never actually wound up drafting. I'm pretty sure the lady who came up to me drunk as a skunk and tried to high-5 me, but completely missed and just started laughing would make a scene about it by just being there. I don't even think we had any packs on us...
Anyways, we all got small dishes because it was really just a midnight snack type hang out session. I opted for boneless ribs because I'm actually not a fan of chinese food (Lo Main, Crab Rangoon, etc) and that is as american as I could get. Over the course of conversation, a couple guys started talking smack to eachother about having a "hots-off". Basically who can eat hotter and spicier food without wimping out. Cue screams of pain and laughter from the other side of the bar. Turns out we weren't the only ones who wanted to go or the hots-off. Another group of people went for it to, going for the most extreme thing the restraunt had. I think it was cumin or curry extract, but Death in a Bottle is far more appropriate. 3 of us 8 were the brave souls/talking smack to eachother and had just a drop of Death on a piece of food. Well, 2 got a drop and BOD got a dollop. "It can't be that bad" said BOD. Those would have been fantastic last words to print on his tombstone. As they quickly discovered, there were no daisys in that dollop, just searing burning pain that would make hell seem like a nice wintery resort that you could have ice artisticly frozen across your windows when you wake up.
In almost no time, all 3 were visibly sweating increbly hard and demanding their water be constantly refilled because they couldn't stop drinking it. Water isn't working, Mythbusters said milk works, so now glasses of milk are getting brought out (th speed that they came out makes me think the waiter had this whole torture planned out). After a dramatic 10-15 minutes of water/milk chugging by 3 and laughing until you get cramps from the other 5, we tried to calm down and pretend like that never happened. Yeah. Right. Every 30 seconds comments on how painful that was were passed around. Soon 1 guy went off to the bathroom! Yeah! We got a puker!
"Guys, I'm lactose intolerant, but that hot sauce was worse"
As it turns out, the real champion came from that first group of guys, one of them decided that 1 drop was for the lightweights and put a whole 'nother drop on. I didn't know if he was drunk or if his tounge had swolen to the point of complete incomprehensibility (probably both), but he was saying something and I just smiled and nodded. He showed off his half-gallon bottle of milk, and we just had to applaud him.
Draft
So was that enough? Nah! All the best players at the store headed out, which left me and 3 others, who all wanted to draft. Sure, why not? Buy packs, open Beseiged, hi Thrun! Windmill slam 1st pick! I wound up drafting a RG Dinosaurs deck that splashed black for a Skinrender, Morbid Plunder, and Moriok Replica. My removal was low, with really just a Turn to Slag, but I had a very nice bomb in the form of Kuldotha Pheonix. Good in Limited, Bad in Contructed: that card won me many games all by itself thanks to the card advantage from its graveyard recursion! Card advantage wound up being my deck's theme. Between a Lead the Stampede, Morbid Plunder, and Moriok Replica I had a good amount of card draw. I may or may not have used all 3 in a row one game to crush my opponent with cards that all bashed for 4-6. Lead the Stampede got me 3 creatures including the Replica. I played replica, equipped with Sylvok Lifestaff, then popped the Replica to game 1 life and draw 2 cards. I cast Morbid Plunder and did it all over again!
To say the least I went 2-0 and took Thrun as my prize. There weren't any other notable picks (as is typical for draft after the first 2-3 players) but one guy just didnt feel like backdrafting, so I got a few extra rares and 2 foils to toss in the binder. I finally got home at 5am and was asleep 30 minutes later.
Jace or Case High Stakes
I woke up at noon, which is when the registration for the High Stakes was, but I had my deck already together, everything semi-packed, and I had a copy of the decklist form that Evan gave me after the draft. While I was showering I decided to make some changes to deck, notably cutting the Not of This World from the main and replacing them with Beleran, and using that slot in the board for Revoke Existance. I filled out the list and headed over to toys expecting to have no room to breathe because last month's High Stakes pulled in 70 people! However, potentially due to Magic Weekend in Paris, there were only 27 when the event started.
Round 1: Boros
This round started awesome! I was fully expecting a very uptight environment where everyone was dead-set on getting Jaces, but my opponent had 3 Unglued cards in front of him: Rock Lobster, Paper Tigers, and Scissors Lizard. Using those 3 card we played some rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go first. It was so cool, I just ordered the Rock-Paper-Scissors cards from Channel Fireball (0.10 each). Things weren't looking too good for the home team game 1 started with Adventuring Gear, Plated Geopede, Equip, Arid Mesa, hit for 9. Then I Shape Anewed on turn 5 only to have it sent on a Journey to Nowhere. As is expected I just lost from there. I came back game 2 though when his draw was slowed down by Terramorphic Expanses I got a turn 4 Shape Anew popping and infecting. Game 3 I got a turn 1 Perimeter Captiain out, which wound up saving me because I got a turn 5 Shape Anew and he told me he had Act of Treason in his hand. That would have sucked....
2-1
1-0
Round 2: GB Elves
This round I was against Zach, who I was honestly suprised to see in the winner's bracket. Regardless, I knew this was a very atypical deck when he went turn 1 Llanowar, turn 2 Quest for the Gemblades. I think he actually had 2 on board, but our creatures never did combat with eachother, so they were completely irrelivent. He knew I had Shape Anew coming, so he started amassing an army to block and then swing back with, but Blightsteel Colossus is indestructable, which works oh so nicely with the follow-up Day of Judgement. You and what army? Game 2 started with him dropping a turn 2 ratchet bomb, and just holding at 0 so he could blow up some tokens. But my deck decided to love me and offered up Inkmoth Nexus. There's abolutely nothing Elves can do against Blighty except race it, but 16 life and 0 are quite far apart.
For the rest of the day, Zach followed me around explaining how he would have won game 1 against me if I didn't counter his Ezuri becuase he would have regenerated his entire team with Elvish Archdruid, and then swung back for lethal thanks to his 2 Quest for the Gemblades, and how his quests were so tech. DUDE! You lost! Get over it! I lose all the time (0-7 in legacy over the course of FNM and high stakes, I just don't want to talk about it) and don't complain about a spell getting countered. That's why I run them!
2-0
2-0
Round 3: UW Zenith
I was against Brendan, and was incredibly dissapointed with performance all game. I was countering the wrong spells and leaving myself far too open. Basically I did everything he would dream about while in Magical Christmasland... In other related news, White Sun Zenith is nuts!
0-2
2-1
Round 4: MB Vampires
This entire match felt like a Bye. Game 1 he got stuck on 3 lands in the form of 2 Tec Edge and a swamp. Everything in Vampires besides the 1 drops cost BB or BBB so he needed some savage rips. Insert 2 Spreading Seas and Tec Edge his Tec Edge and we're off to game 2. Interestingly for game 1, I never pulled the combo and wound up bashing him down to 2 life before I jace -12ed him. I kinda feel like I should have dug hard for the Shape Anew so I could go for the Mill-Damage-Poison trifeca, but he seemed pretty tilted so killing him 2 ways was already pissing him off. Game 2 was a little more interactive until I got stuck on 3 lands with 2 Myr in play and Shape Anew in hand. I wound up getting beat to 10 before drawing the Shape Anew and combo-ing off. I didn't want to ever chump with the other Myr token because I was afraid of Gatekeeper of Malikir.
2-0
3-1
Round 5: UW Control
UW Control Mirror Matches are REALLY LONG!!!! I lost game 1 because I was drawing 2 cards every turn thanks to Jaces and Preordains and I milled myself to death. I got both Blightsteel Journeyed, and then I got hit with a wave of Jaces and Tex Edges from him so I was left with no win conditions lift in the deck. Awkward.... Game 2 wasn't much better, but it came down to him with active Luminarch Ascension and 4 cats and me with Blightsteel. He just pays 6 mana to block Blightsteel and get left with a 1/1. That stinks...
0-2
3-2
It was a great night overall, but I honestly can say the best part wasn't the games, it was the epic trading scene that was going on. While I said earlier in this overly long post that after a while you get bored of trading with the same people because the pool of cards you want dries up, big events don't have that problem. While 27 people doesn't make a big event, 5 coming in from WPI is enough of a foreign invasion for my trading senses to start tingling. Trades were going off incredibly well all day! Here are some cards of note I acquired:
Foil Chinese Serra Ascendant
2 Full Art foil Day of Judgement
1 Buy-a-box promo Day of Judgement
Demonic Tutor (he valued at 6, really at 10)
Foil Massacre Wurm
German Red Elemental Blast (I just checked and it's a 0.30 common, I traded for it at 3...)
Prismatic Omen
Chinese Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
2 Phyrexian Revoker (1 foil)
2 Misty Rainforest
Watery Grave
3 Arid Mesa
1 Foil Signed-by-artist Rootbound Crag
Grave Titan
Abyssal Persecutor
but that's not what I was getting excited about all day. I had to trade with a guy 4 times due to the problems of trying to trade when the next round is starting to get this. Each time through he just picked up more cards he wanted, which ultimately built itself up to....
Playset of Japanese 6th Edition Enlightened Tutor!!!!
He valued it at $60, and I probably had $67 actually go into it, but it is worth it! Nevermind that I needed a set of Enlightened Tutor anyways (normally 11 each), but my inner card pimp had an orgasm when it saw them! As the guy who traded them to me blatently put it, "Oh you want to trade for those? Yeah, they're sexy."
So despite my not winning any prize from events all weekend, I am overly satisfied with what I did trading-wise. Trading up to Vengevine, then 1-for-1 for a Prime Time. Then move that for all sorts of value. How about picking up Stoneforge at 7, then moving it at 13 less than a minute later?
My:
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (56)
Foil Valakut (4)
His:
2x Misty Rainforest (24)
Grave Titan (22)
Abyssal Persecutor (14)
Speaking of that Tezzeret, I bought it from the store at $30 from the store during FNM. I knew it was 50, but the price that's posted is what you pay.
Anyways, that's all for now, until next time, stay classy!
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