It’s been a while since I’ve written a text article, in part because I find videos more enjoyable to do but also more conducive to explaining my thought process.  However, it’s spoiler time for Mirrodin Besieged, and I’ve got a doozy of a preview card for you today.  Of course, I’m not going to give it to you right away – there has to be some lead up, a crescendo if you will, before I reveal the card.

Today’s card is a simple card – one that may not seem like such a great card until you actually realize how vastly superior it can be to current alternatives in both Standard and Extended constructed.  I’m not trying to defend something like Argent Sphinx, or some other card that will be relegated to gather dust in many trade binders.  No, today’s card is something powerful – something that the top tier decks will grab a hold of and latch onto.

Today’s card is one which many players have been clamouring for.  With the rise of blue-black control in standard after worlds, and the resurgence of both faeries and jund in extended, many people have been realizing that there isn’t a “perfect” removal spell to play.

Smother and Disfigure are fine, but they don’t deal with game-ending threats.

Grasp of Darkness is also decent, but not all decks can easily cast it, and -4/-4 sometimes isn’t enough.

Doom Blade is the de facto Terror replacement, but suffers from the inability to dispatch something like a Grave Titan.

My preview card today shores up all of these weaknesses in current black removal spells without an increase in cost.  It’s easier to cast than Grasp of Darkness yet able to destroy a whole subset of creatures that Doom Blade cannot.

One facet of this card I greatly appreciated when I first saw it was the unity that the name, effect, art and even flavour text had – they really made sense together.

Having flesh is increasingly a liability on Mirrodin – (Flavour text from Go For the Throat)

In case you still haven’t guessed what my card does, I’ll give you one last clue.  Mark Rosewater recently said that Terror was in the Scars of Mirrodin design file for some time, until set size constraints forced it to get removed.  The logic behind Terror’s inclusion was that in an artifact-based set such as the first Mirrodin, players would actually pick Shatter over Terror in a draft.  I can almost guarantee that Go For the Throat is what was added to the limited format in that same vein.

Ready?  Ladies and Gentlemen, feast your eyes on Go For the Throat!

This is a black spot removal spell at its finest.  Although black does not normally get the ability to destroy other black creatures, this card creates a flavourful reason why black can now kill a Grave Titan.  After all, slitting someone’s throat only works if they need to breathe in the first place, right?

I fully expect black players to eschew Doom Blade, Smother and Grasp of Darkness for a few copies of this new spell.  No longer will a single Grave Titan or Creepting Tar Pit go unanswered while a Doom Blade rots in the opponent’s hand.

The presence of this removal spell now poses a new question to blue-black players.  What finishers do we want?  Many decks no longer use 3 of the black titan due to fears of opposing Memoricides, or if they do they sideboard them out for more diversified threats.  The ability to kill a titan in the mirror makes the all-titan plan even less appealing.

One card that I think we may see more of is Sphinx of Jwar Isle, a card which has not been seen in competitive standard in quite some time.  Grave Titan was attractive not only because of his obscene power level, but because he was very hard to deal with, especially in the mirror.  Time will tell if the presence of this powerful new removal spell will change the way players build their black decks.

Go for the throat is evidently a powerful card, and while it will not be in the same pack as Shatter, artifact-heavy Mirrodin Besieged may see this card often get sideboarded out in limited games.

Obviously this card will make a fine inclusion to any Commander deck or Cube, and it will be one of the premier removal spells for all its time in standard (that is, presuming that some heavy artifact-creature deck does’t take the metagame by storm).

This card is a very potent removal spell, and I can say with relative certainty that we’ll be going for each others’ throats a great deal in the near future.

Remember that Mirrodin Besieged prerelease tournaments are taking place on January 29 and 30 at your local game store, or if you’re so lucky as to have a large regional prerelease, you’ll need to get info from your TO.

Unfortunately for many people (including myself), we cannot go to both prereleases, because the Masters Edition IV release championship is taking place that day – a free sealed event on MTGO for people who have top 8ed a qualifier, which awards really awesome prizes.  So unfortunately I must decide between going to the second prerelease (to try out the other faction) and playing MEIV.  Since the MEIV is free, I’ll be taking that one, but this really seems like a fail on the part of whoever scheduled the release championship.  Anyway, that’s my rant for this article.

We still have over a week more of spoiling cards, so I’m sure there will be something exciting for everyone.  We’ve seen Tezzeret, Servant of Bolas and the infect-tastic Blightsteel Colossus, as well as a fair few cards that I’m eager to play with.

As always, feel free to contact me with suggestions, comments, or questions via any of the following media.

zakATpower9pro.com

twitter.com/zturchan

youtube.com/zturchan

Cheers,

Zak

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year, and for my first set of videos for 2011 I’m happy to present a cube draft.  For those of you who don’t know, Evan Erwin has a great introduction to the cube at his site www.cubedrafting.com, which does a far better job of explaining this wonderful format than I ever could.

While Cube Draft is not an officially supported MTGO format, StarCityGames columnist and magic blogger Thea Steele has started using  www.tappedout.net as a way to start up a draft, and then the cards are exported to Magic Online where the games are played out.  I’d like to thank Thea for letting us use her cube, and for hosting this draft.

Enjoy!

Hello everyone, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you and yours.  If you’re not too busy feasting on the fine food and drink that accompanies this holiday season, I’ve uploaded another draft.

Enjoy,

Zak.

It’s been a long time getting here but I finally got around to exporting/editing some more pauper videos.  The deck used is found in the deck tech here.

And with that, I present to you, Thursday Night Magic – Pauper 2.

Happy Holidays,

Zak Turchansky

zak@power9pro.com or @zturchan on twitter.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of traveling across Canada to Toronto, a city I had never visited save the airport. I left Edmonton shortly after my first class on Friday, and met up with my uncle who was my traveling partner for the weekend. He had an old friend in Mississauga (A city adjacent to Toronto where the event was actually held) and we decided to go together.

Our flight was rather uneventful, and rather than make the 30-minute walk down from our hotel to the International Center, we decided to spend the evening relaxing after the 4 hour flight. Unfortunately this meant I didn’t get one of the sick Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon playmats they were giving out, but I was thankful for the rest.

In the morning, we bussed down to see the center filled with people. Already I could see that this event would be the largest I had ever been to, making the 100 person PTQs back in Alberta seem like an FNM.

Slightly bigger than a 100-man PTQ.

When the seatings were posted for deck construction, I was surprised to see that I only had 1 bye (from rating) when I should have had 3 (from winning a GPT). After a walk by the judges station, I found out that several other players had the same problem, and the judges assured me that everything would be sorted out after deck construction.

Before handing out product, we were informed that 1462 players had sat down to battle Scars of Mirrodin sealed deck. After registering and swapping sealed decks, this is what I was presented with:

2 Soul Parry Whitesuns Passage Kembas Skyguard Tempered Steel Glimmerpoint Stag Arrest Salvage Scout Fulgent DIstraction Lumengrid Drake Riddlesmith Screeching Silcaw Sky-Eel School Vault Skyward Bonds of Quicksilver Disperse Moriok Reaver Plague Stinger Relic Putresence Tainted Strike Blackcleave Goblin Bleak Coven Vampires 2 Blistergrub Flesh Allergy 2 Scoria Elemental Ferrovore 2 Barrage Ogre Assault Strobe 2 Flameborn Hellion Kuldotha Rebirth Hoard-Smelter Dragon Bloodshot Trainee Vulshok Heartstoker 2 Shatter 2 Blade-Tribe Berserkers Untamed Might Slice in Twain Acid Web Spider Blunt the Assault Carrion Call Cystbearer Ezuris Archers Alpha Tyrannax Molder Beast Iron Myr Livewire Lash Silver Myr Wall of Tanglecord Tumble Magnet Saberclaw Golem Golem Artisan Contagion Clasp Barbed Battlegear Sylvok Replica Darksteel Sentinel Memnite Origin Spellbomb Bladed Pinions Mox Opal Necropede Echo Circlet Darksteel Myr Accorders Shield Infiltration Lens Golden Urn Golems Heart Vector Asp 2 Flight Spellbomb Myr Propagator Grafted Exoskeleton Liquimetal Coating Strider Harness Panic Spellbomb Glimmerpost Copperline Gorge

“If I was in my local store and opened an Opal I would jump for joy, but I did not travel 1000 miles to open an Opal,” – Brad Nelson

While I can’t say I was as disappointed as Mr. Nelson who ended up losing in the finals of this event, I was much more excited at the prospect of winning games with Hoard-Smelter Dragon than I was at tapping my Mox Opal.

The first thing I (and many other players) do when looking at a sealed pool is to look at the rares. A powerful rare like the aforementioned Dragon can highly incentivize the playing of one colour over another. Unlike Magic Online, I can’t apply sorting filters to my sealed pool instantly, so I looked through my pool to find Copperline Gorge, Myr Propagator, Tempered Steel and Livewire Lash in addition to the dragon and mox. Of those, the only ones which really shone were the steel and the dragon, so I kept those red and white cards in mind as I persued the rest of my pool.

Looking at my white I only had a few spells that I would be happy to maindeck: Glimmerpoint Stag, Kembas Skyguard, Tempered Steel, and Arrest. While I’m sorely tempted by the Steel, I don’t think I’ll be able to play white unless I have a Gold Myr or some other fixing to consistently get double white on turn 3. In addition, I would need a sizable number of artifact creatures to boost up. While splashing the Arrest was a possibility, I moved white to the side.

In blue we have a few playable cards, the best of which is the Riddlesmith. Bonds of Quicksilver, Disperse, Sky-Eel School and Lumengrid Drake are all playable, but nothing spectacular.

Our black is pretty underwhelming as well. There are only a few poison cards and the non-poison cards don’t exactly get me excited. Flesh Allergy is fine, but it’s not splashable and there’s really nothing else I’d be able to back it up with. I had to start hoping that my red, green, and artifacts would be enough to carry this deck, as my pool wasn’t looking very promising.

Red looked like it could provide the makings of a base colour. We have some good removal in the form of double Shatter and a Galvanic Blast. We also have Bloodshot Trainee, a card which I think is being vastly underrated. If you get the guy online, he will win you the game. Simple. There are so many ways to get him going, most obviously equipment, but less obviously so Vulshok Heartstoker, Untamed Might and Trigon of Rage, two of which our pool has. I’m a fan of the Heartstoker, as it allows you to push through some extra damage in the early game, in addition to turning on the trainee. Barrage Ogre is a card that I haven’t had a ton of experience with, but the few results I have have been relatively positive. Finally, Blade-Tribe Berserkers is a card that’s been really good for me, as sometimes a Hill Giant just gets there, and the metalcraft bonus is extremely relevant when it triggers. Red definitely looked like it had the potential to be a main colour, and I moved on to green.

Green had some solid cards, namely Untamed Might,Slice in Twain, and Acid Web Spider, along with pseudo-green card Sylvok Replica. There is also the Alpha Tyrranax a card I personally underrated until very recently, as the only real answers to it are Turn to Slag and Arrest. Again our green doesn’t have enough depth to support an infect deck, so it looks like red, followed by green and white are our best colours.

Looking at the artifacts, we a fair bit of decent equipment in the form of Livewire Lash, Grafted Exoskeleton, Strider Harness, Barbed Battlegear and Bladed Pinions. I’m especially a huge fan of the battlegear, as it turns any creature into a fighting force. Unfortunately, you have to ensure that your deck had enough creatures with 2 or more toughness to make sure that you can equip it with any regularity. We have a couple of Myr, one of which is on-colour, as well as a Contagion Clasp. This was the first Clasp I had opened in a limited event, and I was suitably happy about it.

Here’s the list I ended up registering:

Iron Myr Saberclaw Golem Livewire Lash Tumble Magnet Silver Myr Golem Artisan Barbed Battlegear Contagion Clasp Sylvok Replica Liquimetal Coating Darksteel Sentinel Acid Web Spider Untamed Might Slice in Twain 2 Blade-Tribe Berserkers Galvanic Blast Bloodshot Trainee Barrage Ogre Vulshok Heartstoker 2 Shatter Hoard-Smelter Dragon Copperline Gorge 9 Mountain 7 Forest

A few notes about this deck.

1. It is built incorrectly. I realized after that I probably should have splashed the Arrest, as I didn’t have any answers to large, non-artifact bombs. As well, I might’ve liked Alpha Tyrannax mainboard, although that might have made my deck to top-heavy. I probably could’ve cut the Saberclaw Golem and/or a Blade-Tribe Berserkers for either of these options. Wall of Tanglecord was also a consideration.

2. Liquimetal Coating plays a role as an aggressive card here. This lets us turn all the artifact removal we have into Vindicate, and it also lets us get a great deal more value out of our Barrage Ogre. Although we can use it to turn on our 3 metalcraft spells, that wasn’t its intended primary function.

3. Barbed Battlegear only kills our 2 mana myr, and nothing else. Therefore it’s operating at pretty much max efficiency.

4. Bloodshot Trainee has 4 ways to get online including 2 equipment and 2 one-shot effects. I’ve found as long as you have 2 equipment for him, everything else is just gravy.

5. Although many players have advocated running 16 land in a for what with a bunch of myr to serve as acceleration, my testing group and I found out that you almost always still want 17 land, as an early Embersmith or Contagion Clasp can crush your dreams of making your 4th land drop. Patrick Chapin recently wrote an article about people cheating on their land bases by playing too few, and complaining about mana screws afterwords. With our slightly higher curve we want to make land drops consistently, so 17 land is definitely warranted.

Let’s get to the action, shall we?

Rounds 1-3

Chippy (front) and Steve Argyle (back) sign cards for players. Chippy's line was easily an hour long.

The problem with the byes was fixed, but the tournament organizers messed up everyone’s country. I was playing for the states and many other players were also playing for countries in which they did not reside. This never did end up getting fixed, and I can only hope that for events like worlds they get this straightened out. Anyway, I used my byes to get a ton of cards signed by artists Chippy (famous pieces include Lotus Cobra, Abyssal Persecutor and Doom Blade) and Steve Argyle (famous pieces include Slave of Bolas, Admonition Angel, and Chandra Ablaze). It was really great being able to meet and talk with them face-to-face, and I look forward to meeting more artists in the future.

3 – 0

Round 4: vs James

I came into this round relatively happy with my deck. Action starts early in the game with me Galvanic Blasting his myr after he missed a land drop to put him on 2 mountains for mana. I followed that up with a Liquimetal Coating and attempted to further exacerbate his mana screw by Shattering a land. Naturally, he drew runner-runner land and was back in it. I was beating in with a 5/5 Acid Web Spider thanks to Livewire Lash. He brings the beatdown with a metal army boosting up Ezuris Brigade to an 8/8. When he attacks I cast[ Untamed Might on my tapped spider to trigger the lash and Shock his Snapsail Glider, taking him off metalcraft. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough as shortly afterwards my opponent aimed a metalcrafted Galvanic Blast at me to finish me off.

In game 2 I bring in a couple plains and the Arrest, and we battle back and forth for a bit. I cast Contagion Clasp for the first time in my life to take out an Embersmith and keep augmenting my board presence. In the end, there’s a situation where he’s at 6 and I’m at 15. He has a Vulshok Replica and I had some relevant creature, I forgot to note down which. I debate my various lines of attack (I had some other relevant spell in my hand i could use to ensure the win next turn[/card], but I could run the option of attacking and winning with Untamed Might if he didn’t block. He fell for it and we were shuffling up for game 3.

A note on Untamed Might: everyone knows this card is insnae in the infect deck. However, some people claim that it’s not good in any other archetype. Those people are mistaken, as Untamed Might is a solid combat trick that can serve as removal for some of the bigger threats in the set. A combat trick that scales makes it also very possible to simply steal games from nowhere as I have done on multiple occasions. Seriously, the card is really good.

In game 3 I’m the beatdown as I one again equip Livewire Lash on a guy and start beating in. When he taps out for Turn to Slag to kill my lashed beater, I realize that I’ve got the game won. I cast Galvanic Blast at his face in response before my metalcraft goes offline, and use the Lash trigger to Shock him. I then untap and use Untamed Might on a myr to finish the game.

4 – 0

Round 5: vs Matt Nass

This was my first match against a pro so to speak, and I was a little nervous when facing down the Channel Fireball writer. We made some nice conversation before the round started and then we were off to the races.

Matt took the draw and came out strong by Contagion Clasping my turn 2 myr. His Golem Artisan was quickly dispatched by my Bloodshot Trainee (powered by Vulshok Heartstoker). He dropped double Darksteel Axe with no creatures to but them on, until the next turn where he dropped Myr Battlesphere. However, it wasn’t enough to stop a Golem Artisan from flying over and taking out the rest of his life.

In game 2, Matt leads with a Darksteel Axe, and follows up with a Glint Hawk Idol. I have a Sylvok Replica which I crack to kill the idol. Maty misses his third land drop for a few turns and I’m forced to run out an Acid-Web Spider without killing anything to keep up the beats. I resolve my Hoard-Smelter Dragon which starts to dominate the game from there. Matt showed me his hand afterwards which was full of goodies like Myr Battlesphere that very well might have beat me had he hit his land drops. However, I’m not one to turn down a win, and I thanked Matt for the games.

5 – 0

Round 6: vs Thomas

In the 6th round, I start off with a myr on turn 2, although I miss my 4th land drop. I Slice in Twain his Chrome Steed only for him to buy it back with a Razor Hippogriff. In order to deal with the flier, I used my Liquimetal Coating and Sylvok Replica in combination. However, he gets double Chrome Steed to resolve with metalcraft, and his 4/4s overwhelm me.

In game 3 we trade pretty evenly for a while and I stabilize behind a sideboarded Wall of Tanglecord equipped with both a Bladed Pinions and a [/card]Livewire Lash[/card]. However, my defense is decimated upon his casting a Carnifex Demon, which pretty much beats me out from there.

5 – 1

Round 7: vs Mitchell

Mitchell and I talk before our match and it turns out that he used to live in Edmonton too before moving to eastern Canada. Early on he Trinket Mages for Darksteel Axe, but I reply with my Bloodshot Trainee and equip it with my Livewire Lash. My machine-gun quickly decimates his board and pretty much carries the game.

Games 2 and 3 were very similar, but for him. Both games he got his Darksteel Axe via Trinket Mage and pumped up his own Bloodshot Trainee. Again, the 4 damage per turn just destroys every threat I can play, and I’m quickly scooping up my cards. As well, I mulliganned to 4 in game 3, which made it slightly harder to pull out a win.

5 – 2

Round 8: vs Samuel

In round 8, both my opponent and I need to win 2 more rounds to make day 2. I keep a slower hand than I would like (I should’ve mulliganned, I just hated the prospect of mulling in such a crucial match). While I’ve become better at taking mulligans in the past year or so, I think I still need to take more when I get hands that in all likelihood won’t win me the game.

Samuel leads off with a Riddlesmith and a Trinket Mage for Sylvok Lifestaff, while I try and mount a defense with with an equipped Blade-Tribe Berserkers. He has the Turn to Slag, and punishes my slow draw to the point where I can’t recover.

In game 3 I don’t have many notes, but what I do remember is going slightly on tilt after he cast a Darksteel Myr. Normally this isn’t a card I’m terribly afraid of but I was racking my brain to see what my deck had to deal with it and I came up with nothing. Was I going to lose this match because I couldn’t get through a Darksteel Myr? Of course, in hindsight I had Contagion Clasp, Golem Artisan and Hoard-Smelter Dragon as outs, as well as my sideboarded Arrest. However, he had enough removal to deal with my team and then cast a few relevant spells that shot me down.

Final Record: 5 – 3.

So there it is. I was out of the running for day 2, and my final standing was 273rd out of 1426. I chatted with a few friends and then headed back to my hotel room, ready for a day of drafting and legacy. I also took in the judge booth, which is an experimental feature where you get asked 3 rules questions, and get awarded prizes based on the number you got correct. Seeing as I’m set to take my level 1 Judge test this Sunday (wish me luck), I knew I had to ace the questions. Of course I did and walked away with a couple of foils and a pack for my troubles.

For those of you that haven’t attended a GP yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It was a fantastic experience except for the fact that our plane heading back got hit by lightning, causing us to return to the Toronto airport. What would’ve had me home at 11PM local time had me home at 4AM instead, with a class the next morning – yay.

This was my first major event and it really only whetted my appetite for more. The 2011 GP Schedule has been announced and I’d love to make it to Montreal for the GP there. I’m PTQing this weekend in Calgary, so I’ll have another report sometime up next week.

Major thanks go to my testing team at Wizard’s Comics who helped me prepare: Matt, Brian, Blaine, Stephen, Jim, and everyone else. Thanks so much. Thanks also to Skyfox Games who put on a great tournament considering the attendance, and for quickly fixing the hiccough with the byes. Thanks to the judges who did anadmirable job, who worked nonstop for most of the weekend. In talking to my friend Matt who judged, I discovered that they worked full days on both days, and I really appreciate all the work judges do.

As always, you can feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or article suggestions via email (zak-AT-power9pro.com), via twitter (www.twitter.com/zturchan), or in Magic Online (zturchan).

Cheers,

Zak

Hello everyone. I’m sorry that I haven’t written my GP Toronto report yet, as I was bombarded by midterms last week. In the meantime, I’ve finally uploaded some videos from Thursday Night Magic a few weeks ago. The format is Pauper, and I’m playing the blue-black teachings deck I talked about in the video deck tech.

Enjoy!.

Cheers,

Zak

Hello everyone! Recently I started playing a great deal of Pauper on MTGO, and I’ve prepared a few videos about this format. It’s a very fun and skill-intensive format that I enjoy immensely. This first video is a “Deck Tech” where I explain the deck and how it runs. Shortly I’ll post 2 sets of videos of me playing the deck, each from a Thursday Night Magic tournament. They should be up within a day or two.

Enjoy!

UB Teachings Deck Tech

For those of you that haven’t been keeping up, the following links might prove useful.

Part 1 – Standard
Part 2 – 2HG Draft
Part 3 – Team Trios (Legacy)
Part 4 – M11 Draft

So here we are. The final game. The final event. We’ve been competing with and against each other for almost 3 months, and we are now down to 5 players. The format? Star Eternities Map EDH. That’s pretty convoluted for players who aren’t familiar with all the great variant formats magic has to offer, so I’ll run down the rules.

Star
Star is a multiplayer format which is inspired by something we’re all very familiar with – the back of a magic card. Simply put, you play a free-for-all multiplayer game, but you don’t have to defeat very single other player. You need only defeat the players directly opposite from you to win. This does mean that 2 players can win at the same time (such as if they eliminate 1 enemy each and then their common enemy loses), and Matt (The TO) was kind enough to create different prize scenarios depending on how the game ended (i.e. how many winners and losers).

Eternities Map
A variant on Planechase, the Eternities map gives you a bit more control over what planes you walk to. I can’t really give a better explanation than this.

EDH
Since its inception by a group of judges many years ago, Elder Dragon Highlander has become one of the most popular magic variant formats. Players pick a legendary creature to be their “general” and can only play cards which contain mana symbols of their general’s colours. More information can be found here.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the players of the finals of the 2010 Wizard’s Comics Championship.

Zak
That’s me! I came in as the second seed from the Edmonton store, and I’ve been running pretty well in this tournament. For the EDH portion I played Zur, the Enchanter, one of the most-powerful generals in the format.

Buddy
Buddy was the 5th place seed from the Sherwood Park store and has teamed up with me twice in this event (2HG and trios). He was really miffed at the final format being such a wacky format, but he brought Progenitus to the table.

Matt
Matt was actually the 10th place Sherwood Park seed but because of scheduling conflicts with the top 8 he got a berth into the championship passed down to him. He’d never played EDH before today, and chose to use Sen Triplets as his general.

Jim
Another EDH novice, Jim is my normal 2HG partner and has got through this event by the skin of his teeth, being on the cusp of elimination in pretty much every event, although he came in as the third-place seed from the Edmonton store. He didn’t think he would be advancing to the finals, and thus didn’t have an EDH deck prepared. I knew something like this would happen, so I was happy to lend him Doran, the Siege Tower for the finals.

Adam
Adam is a player whose strength lies in limited, but he is trying to break into constructed. He’s a fine player who chose to bring Jenara, Asura of War to the table. He was the 7th place seed from the Edmonton store.

We started out on the Pools of Becoming plane, where I rolled chaos, excited to get some huge advantage from the top 3 planes. Of course I whiffed and hit Stronghold Furnace, Fields of Summer, and Sanctum of Serra. I was all the more upset when Buddy also got a chaos roll on that same plane, and all the more relieved when he whiffed as well.

Jim resolved a Skullclamp and then tried to roll a planeswalk symbol to get over to Goldmeadow so he could harvest his goats for cards. Luckily he didn’t get it and Adam quickly walked in the other direction to Horizon Boughs. I rolled a chaos and got to triple-Rampant Growth.

Buddy cast a Diabolic Tutor to get something mysterious on his turn, and Adam resolved an Ant Queen, which had insane synergy with Horizon Boughs, letting him make multiple ants on each player’s turn.

I cast my Zur, the Enchanter and pass the turn, while Matt casts Mystical Teachings for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. On his turn he cast Enlightened Tutor for Wound Reflection and brought out an Erayo, Soratami Ascendant. This was the starts of Matt’s offence, and we knew that we would need to find away to other break the potential lockdown from Erayo, and the massive life loss induced by the Reflection.

When play passed back to Adam, he started bashing in with his army of ants. I attacked with Zur, and fetched Vanishing, to make the number of ways he could be dealt with extremely small. Buddy gets rid of the potential troublesome Erayo with a Comet Storm, and Jim planeswalks to Celestine Reef. Matt plays a morph face down, and then flips it up to reveal Vesuvan Shapeshifter, which is pretty much one of the few ways that could possibly kill my Zur. Adam proceeds to roll chaos 3 times in a row, eliciting laughter from the rest of us, until he finally planewalks to Undercity Reaches and draws 13 cards from his ants.

On my turn, I draw an Eldrazi Conscription, which I could have played by fetching Arcanum Wings, had my Zur survived.

The game takes an interesting turn when play passes back to Buddy, who’s done nothing but tutor a few times and play a few removal spells. He casts a Hive Mind and it resolves, as the blue mages at the table are either tapped out or don’t have countermagic in hand.

I’m ready to scoop it up to a Pact when something even worse happens. Buddy casts Shahrazad. I’ve never seen the card in person before, and quickly understood the implications of what was about to happen. 5 Shahrazads meant 5 subgames, each of which could take an hour or more. Not to mention that in the regular game buddy had ways to rebuy the game-creating sorcery, and he could even do it from inside the subgame with a Burning Wish.

This cause a great ruckus and we all stood up and took a break while we decided what to do. Those of us that take public transit couldn’t really afford to stay at the store for 5 hours, and when Matt (The TO) called the store owner, he impressed upon us that we would not be able to stay very late, as the store was already closed for the day.

With the Shahrazads on the stack, Adam declared his concession, as he had school the next day and had to get home sooner rather than later. Here I realized my opportunity, as I also declared my concession. Both of us conceding meant that Jim would get the win, and it was a win we could share in. Him winning would be like me winning, as we’ve helped each other out in order to make sure we both got this far: lending cards, talking strategies, brewing decks, and if I had to surrender that last game, I was glad Jim would get the win.

When this fact was realized, Matt also scooped, meaning that both Buddy and Jim would win. However, there was a tiebreaker that needed to be made, and so Jim and Buddy sat down to play 1 game of MiniMaster to decide the Wizard’s Comics Championship.

So before I continue, time for another rules segment!

MiniMaster a.k.a. Pack Wars
MiniMaster is a format where each player uses one sealed pack of Magic. The players open the packs without looking at the pack and take out the token/tip card. They then shuffle in 3 of each basic land to comprise a 30 card deck, and play 1 game with 15 life apiece. Some player like to use this as a way of gambling packs, where the winner takes the contents of both packs.

This MiniMaster game was rather unexciting, as Jim had never played it before and to say he mulliganed aggressively would be an understatement. He went to 3 or 4 looking for an early creature drop, whereas most players never mulligan in MiniMaster, and keep any hand with a mix of lands and spells, regardless of colour.

Jim’s mulligans did him in, as Buddy cast 2 creatures early on and that was enough to take him all the way. For his troubles, Buddy received a large amount of store credit, as well as a year’s VIP membership to Wizard’s Comics, meaning that for any large tournaments (Prerelease, Launch Party, GPT, etc.), he would receive free entry. I got a fair bit of store credit and an intro pack for my troubles, and a fair bit of enjoyment out of the day.

To end this series, I feel like I must address Buddy’s last play that preemptively ended the game. Buddy was so dead-set against the format of EDH that he built his deck to prove a point – that we shouldn’t have played EDH for the finals. However, he did it in a way that left a sour taste in pretty much everyone’s mouth.

From Dragonhighlander.net, the official EDH Source:
[EDH] is founded (and dependant) on a social contract, otherwise known as a gentleman’s agreement. Unsporting conduct (whether extreme or simply “being a jerk”) should not be tolerated by players.

Now the question here is whether or not the Shahrazad-Hive Mind constitutes unsporting conduct. Now neither card is banned in EDH and is such a legal play, and I have to admit that Buddy played a deck designed to fulfill a very particular purpose. Had Buddy cast something like a Pact of the Titan, causing everyone else to lose the game, I would have been a great deal less upset. That is a combo which remains entirely within the dimensions of the game, and is a legitimate (although abrupt) way to win that is very decisive.

However, the Shahrazad way to win is different. This combo breaks the bounds of the game. Real-life commitments now become a factor into how a game of Magic is played out. Obviously this is sometimes unavoidable if a player has to leave due to other obligations, health problems, etc. However, playing the Shahrazad combo is this scenario has fairly large implications. The store owner gets an angry call from the security company if anyone is still in the store past a certain hour, and those players who have school and jobs to attend to need to be able to go to bed at a decent hour to perform at their best. If this was a Saturday night and we were planning on playing Magic until all hours of the morning with relatively little at stake, that would be different. Unfortunately, this was 5pm on a Sunday, and anyone who has played 5 player EDH knows that those games aren’t exactly quick.

The end result of this combination of real-life time constraints and obligations and in-game effects results in players involuntarily conceding the game. Did I want to play this game to completion? Of course, it was a championship that I (and many others) had spent 3 months qualifying for and 2 days playing, and we had to concede in the finals. When I came home that night and my family asked me how I had done I couldn’t say “I lost fair and square to a player who outplayed me”. No, I said “I conceded in the finals so that I would get home before midnight”.

So now, we return to the original question. Was this unsportsmanlike play on Buddy’s part? I have to say yes, as instead of outright winning the game (which he could have done with a Pact), he chose to put everyone else in an uncomfortable position and get people to concede to him. There is a difference between being competitive and “being a jerk”, although many players treat the two as being synonymous. It is my belief that opting for a game plan with the sole intention of inconveniencing the rest of the table falls under the “unsportsmanlike” label, and that last game was one of the few negative experiences I’ve had in a game of Magic.

If you’re reading this Buddy, don’t take this as an attack against your person. You’re a fine player whom I respect, but I do think that you could have been more considerate when choosing the Shahrazad kill instead of a Pact.

That pretty much wraps this article series up. I’m going to have some videos posted soon, and I’ve already made my travel arrangements for GP Toronto. If any of you guys are going to be there, find me (I’ll be in the bright orange Power 9 Pro T-Shirt) and say hi.

Cheers,

Zak

For those of you who missed them, Parts 1, 2, and 3 are found here, here, and here. As well, this article’s lateness is due to the fact that I lost my notebook, and only found it yesterday.

The penultimate event of the day was a standard M11 Booster Draft. We had 9 players after the trios portion so one person would receive a bye. My draft went really well, one of the best I had ever done. Unfortunately the DCI rules prohibit taking notes during a draft, so there are only a few things I remember about the draft.

The first is that I opened a weak first pack, but was able to take a Gravedigger, a card I’ve always been fond of. I think that black is one of the best colours in M11, because of all the playables it provides, and the fact that a lot of the black cards you open reward playing lots of black. Because I know that most people will try and force blue-white control or aggro, I’m more than happy to pick black cards early and cut the person to my left off. Unfortunately, the player to my right was Brian, and the last time we drafted with me on his left, I picked 3 black cards in the first 3 picks, and then got cut off and ended up with a marginal deck. Praying that the same thing didn’t happen again, I was happy to see a fair few black cards come my way, while I passed a very good red-green signal to Adam on my left. After the first 2 packs I was pretty solidly in blue-black, my favourite colour combination.

In pack 3 I performed my ritual of looking at the rare first, and then looking at the rest of the pack from the front. When I saw the rare was a Chandra Nalaar, I hoped and prayed for one card to be in the pack so that I would feel at ease about passing it to the red drafter on my left. Sure enough, the last uncommon in the pack was a Mind Control, which I happily took over the planeswalker. The next pack showed me an Ancient Hellkite, which I unfortunately passed, and I cringed at the thought of the bomb-heavy red deck I was passing. After all was said and done, I ended up with a solid blue-black control deck.

Zak’s Draft Deck
1 Lilianas Specter
2 Sign in Blood
2 Gravedigger
1 Mind Rot
1 Rotting Legion
1 Child of Night
1 Barony Vampire
1 Assassinate
1 Foresee
1 Aether Adept
2 Mana Leak
1 Sleep
1 Ice Cage
1 Scroll Thief
2 Water Servant
1 Mind Control
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Jaces Ingenuity
1 Unsummon
1 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Island
8 Swamp

Notable sideboard cards included a Duress and triple Negate.

This deck is a pretty standard control deck with a very quality late-game consisting of card-advantage spells like Gravedigger, Foresee, and Jaces Ingenuity. We also have a high creature quality with the likes of double Water Servant, Lilianas Specter, and Child of Night. I think this was one of the best drafts of M11 I’ve ever done, in that I signalled well and got rewarded for it with one of my favourite archetypes. Unfortunately I don’t have very much hard removal, but the deck should be able to pull through.

Round 1

The first round of draft has me paired against Brian, whom I had already lost to in the Standard and 2HG portions, and I was determined to not let him get me 3 times in a row. I had heard him say that his deck was trash earlier, so I had no what to expect (he’s beaten me before with “trash”. I win the die roll and elect to play last, and Brian kick-starts things with a first-turn Serra Ascendant. I’m a little suspicious of this and am genuinely worried when he plays a turn 2 Child of Night to follow it up. What if he just plays nothing but lifegain and my lack of hard removal does me in? However, this is not Two-Headed Giant and I have at least a few turns to deal with the ascendant before it becomes a problem. I play my own Child and ship the turn back to Brian. We trade vampires and he casts a Viscera Seer. Without Act of Treason in his deck, I have to assume he has a Reassembling Skeleton or Roc Egg to use with it. I cast a Water Servant which effectively holds his small creatures back. He casts Reassembling Skeletons next turn, and I Gravedigger my Child. He casts a Cloud Crusader which I bounce with an Aether Adept. At this point I was able to still keep attacking because of the fact that if he reanimated his Skeletons, he wouldn’t be able to cast the spells he needed. He brought down a Lilianas Specter discarding one of my extra land, and I Mind Rot him down to one card. He replays his Crusader, which I Unsummon back to his hand, and that lets me push through for enough damage with Water Servant and friends to take the first game.

In game 2 Brian opts to draw first, and goes turn 1 Viscera Seer, turn 2 Bloodthrone Vampire. I cast Lilianas Specter forcing him to pitch a Mind Rot. He attempts to Celestial Purge my flier, which gets Mana Leaked, and then we each add to our armies with little interaction for a few turns. I bring out my Barony Vampire and Harbor Serpent and he brings out his own Specter and Assault Griffin. We’re topdecking and I rip a Jaces Ingenuity, but he slams down a second Assault Griffin and an Ajanis Pridemate. His fliers overwhelm me and I can’t muster an aerial defence.

In game 3, I once again take the draw, casting an early Aether Adept targeting his Palace Guard. I bring out a Water Servant while he casts Assault Griffin and a Cloud Crusader. I Mind Control the first-striker, creating a stalemate on the board, and he casts Diabolic Tutor. Brian breaks the stalemate by ripping a Ajani Goldmane and pumping his team. He casts Celestial Purge on my Barony Vampire, and I Gravedigger my Aether Adept that had dies previously. My Cloud Crusader is then able to get in and kill the Ajani, although Brian’s army is still a couple sizes bigger than mine. I lay down a Harbor Serpent and he brings out a Child of Night. I add to my stream of big guys a second Water Servant, and then Brian makes an attack whereby he has me dead next turn, with a Palace Guard[/card[ left back to block my team. However, I ripped an [card]Unsummon, and was able to kill Brian just in time.

1 – 0

Round 2

In the second round, I was up against Blaine. He started off with a Sign in Blood, and I resolved an early Lilianas Specter. He passed his next turn which allowed me to ]Foresee for some advantage. He brought out a Nightwing Shade, and I cast my own five-drop in the form of Rotting Legion. Blaine cast Quag Sickness to weaken, and eventually kill my Legion, and then a Volcanic Strength to pump his flier. However, that was the nail in his coffin, as I Mind Controlled his huge, mountainwalking Shade which started dominating the game, until Blaine drew a Corrupt for my threat. He then cast Rise from the Grave on my Legion, which I was only too happy to bounce back to my hand with an Aether Adept. He then proceeded to draw lands for a few turns while my adept finished him off.

In the second game, Blaine draws first, and I cast Sign in Blood on turn two. I then Mana Leak his turn 3 Fiery Hellhound. I play a Water Servant, which gets Doom Bladed. I cast a Rotting Legion, which becomes a 2/3 due to a bout of Quag Sickness[card]. He then brings out a [card]Nether Horror, while I Gravedigger back my Servant. He trades the horror for my sickened Legion, as he’s low on swamps. I replay the Servant and he brings out a Bog Raiders. My Servant simply outraces the raiders, and I keep on attacking for the win. After the match, Blaine shows me a Combust that he couldn’t play because I had enough Islands to pump up my servant’s toughness.

2 – 0

With the necessary wins out of the way, I’m able to double-draw my way in to the finals.

2 – 0 – 2

Record on the Tournament:

6 – 3 – 4

Now it’s time for a 5-way EDH battle between the 5 finalists: Buddy, Matt, Adam, Myself, and Jim. That game takes a surprising twist, but you’ll have to wait for a day or two before you find out who came out on top.

As always, feel free to contact me via email (zak-AT-power9pro.com), or via twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan.

Cheers,

Zak

Parts 1 and 2 of this article can be found here and here.

The second day of the Wizard’s Championships took place at the Edmonton location, where I play, as well as occasionally judge/TO. It felt good not to have to get up an extra half hour early and carpool outside the city limits, so I was well rested for the day.

The first format of the day was Team Trios constructed, with formats to include Standard, Extended, and Legacy. For those of you unfamiliar with the rules for this format, I’ll give you a rundown.

1. Players form a team will face one other member from another team in a best 2/3 match. Whichever team wins 2 out of the 3 matches across the different formats wins the round.
2. There is no combined decklist for multi-format trios. Simply put, if the extended player has 4 Lord of Atlantis in their deck, the legacy p\layer can also have 4 copies. This is different from trios where the format is the same for all 3 members, where each team may only use 4 copies of a card combined in all decks and sideboards.
3. The Extended match takes place in the middle of the table.
4. Players are allowed to talk and assist each other in the middle of a game, including asking for assistance from your team.

As I said in my previous article, I was playing Legacy, and my teammates Buddy and Matt were playing Standard and Extended, respectively. I really only have 2 decks for legacy, mostly because of the fact I only started magic around 4 years ago (although it’s hard to believe it’s actually been that long), and don’t have an extensive collection of older cards, although I do have a fair few.

For the last 4 months I’ve been working on building Fish in Legacy (Hint: I love Merfolk in pretty much every format), and I’ve got almost all the cards I need. So after arranging to borrow a Force of Will and a couple Standstills from Matt, I came up with the following decklist, although I wasn’t able to procure an Underground Sea, so I made do with Watery Graves.

Here Fishy, Fishy (Legacy)

4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Coralhelm Commander 4 Aether Vial 4 Daze 4 Force of Will 4 Standstill 1 Kira, Great Glass Spinner 2 Umezawas Jitte 4 Cursecatcher 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Wasteland 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Mutavault 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Watery Grave 6 Island

Sideboard

4 Blue Elemental Blast 3 Perish 3 Submerge 1 Spell Pierce 4 Engineered Plague

There were 4 teams, and because of card availability I figured that I would be able to put a decent read on what the other players were playing.

Blaine was the only one on his team with a legacy deck, so I knew he would be playing Natural Order Aggro Elves. Hence the maindeck Jittes and sideboard Submerges instead of something more traditional like Spell Pierce. The Perishes and Engineered Plagues would obviously be amazing.

Brian was the “captain” of his team, and had Legacy Goblins built. The Plagues, Jittes, and Blue Elemental Blasts were a nod to this.

The third team (comprised entirely of players from Sherwood Park), was a mystery. That shop doesn’t run monthly Legacy like the Edmonton location does, so I didn’t know if they had the card pool, let alone a deck they were likely to play. However, I thought I had a decnet chance at winning at least one of my rounds needed to advance.

For the rest of my team, Buddy elected to play Jund. It’s a deck he’s comfortable with and has played a fair bit, and often experience with a deck can make up for it not being “the best deck”. Matt played a variation of Paul Reitzl’s white weenie, with maindeck Knight of Meadowgrains instead of Ethersworn Canonists, which were relegated to the sideboard.

Round 1

In round one we’re paired against the team of Blaine, Jim and Adam. Blaine (as expected) was playing NO Elves, Jim was playing extended Pyromancer Ascension and Adam was rocking Valakut Titan Ramp.

I draw my opening 7 and see double Aether Vial, double Standstill, Daze, Wasteland and a fetchland. I show my hand to Matt as his opponent was still shuffling. His remark was something along the lines of “You’re missing that one thing, but otherwise it’s good”, ‘that something’ obviously being creatures. I’m on the draw, keep and get a turn 1 Aether Vial while Blaine had a turn 1 Quirion Ranger and started beating in. He has no turn 2 or 3 play while I resolve a Standstill which he breaks next turn with an Elvish Archdruid, drawing me into some gas, and then I Daze it. I’m content to play another and Standstill and pass, Vialing in a Silvergill Adpet at the end of his turn. Blaine Wastelands my Mutavault and I’m happy to Vial in a Merrow Reejerey next turn. Blaine casts a Living Wish for Gaea’s Herald (no doubt trying to protect something like a huge Joraga Warcaller, but I draw a Force of Will of the Standstill and Blaine has no more action and my menfolk overwhelm him.

I board in 4 Engineered Plague, 3 Perish, and 2 Submerge on the draw, boarding out Cursecatcher, Kira, Great Glass Spinner[card], and [card]Daze. While some could argue that I should keep Daze in to counter an early Natural Order, I expect him to board the combo out, and with the all the powerful spells I’m bringing in, I should be able to overwhelm him pretty easily.

Blaine starts off much faster in the second game, with a first turn Llanowar Elves, and a turn 2 Quirion Ranger. When he tries to resolve a Priest of Titania, I Force of Will it, and he then casts a Thorn of Amethyst, while Wastelanding a Watery Grave. Although I play another land next turn, I can’t Perish because of the thorn. However, I can cast a Coralhelm Commander and a Merrow Reejerey, while he further stifles my chance at resolving Perish with another Thorn. I Wasteland his Gaeas Cradle, and then cast another Reejerey and Commander, each time tapping some potential blockers. I pay 2 mana for a “free” Submerge and
force him to draw dead to my huge team.

Buddy won his standard match, while Jim came back after getting horrendously mana screwed and defeating Matt in a third game.

1 – 0 (Team) 1 – 0 (Individual)

Because only 1 team would be eliminated, we drew in the next round so we could all get breakfast. I know this makes for an uninteresting article, but it was the most practical thing to do.

1 – 0 – 1 (Team) 1 – 0 – 1 (Individual)

Record on the Tournament: 4 – 3 – 2

After all the trios matches were finished, the team of 3 Sherwood Park players were eliminated, and of the 9 contestants remaining, only 2 were from Sherwood Park (Matt and Buddy). We’re informed that the next round will be normal M11 draft, no gimmicks. This is the format that I was most worried about, as I haven’t had a very good track record for this format, although I’ve drafted a fair bit.

So I was apprehensive, but ready to draft as best as I could. You’ll have to wait for the next update to learn how the draft went.

As always, you can contact me via email at zak-AT-power9pro.com, or through twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan.

Cheers,

Zak

For those of you who missed part 1 of this article, you can read about the standard portion here.

The second event of the championship was a Two-Headed Giant Draft. For those of you unfamiliar with the 2HG format, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the rules.

1. Players are seated in teams of 2, each team consisting of an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ player. The A player makes all final decisions and can veto the actions of his partner. Who gets which role is usually decided before the event starts, and usually is the more experienced player.
2. Players share turns, as well as a combined life total of 30. The only other thing players share is information. Permanents, mana, and other objects are treated as normal.
3. Combat is performed as a team, and you attack the other team, not a player, unless an effect requires you to make that distinction (such as Ulamogs Crusher or Hypnotic Specter). The defending team blocks as a team, and can combine blocks as they wish.
4. Each player may take a free mulligan, but both players on a team must decide on their mulligans at the same time.
5. If one player loses the game, the team loses the game.

Two-Headed Giant is a great format in that it allows for several awesome interactions that simply don’t happen in normal Magic. For example, the card Breath of Malfegor in Alara block 2HG was insane, dealing 10 damage at instant speed for 5 mana. Not quite as bomby is the M11 superstar Blood Tithe which generates a 12 point life swing for 4 mana, and do I need to mention how broken Serra Ascendant is in this format?

I’m actually going to take a bit of time and address this 1 mana monstrosity, because it shows how a design that’s fine in most formats can be downright degenerate in others, which I believe is an example of poor design. Simply put, a team with Serra Ascendant in their pool will mulligan aggressively to it, with the help of the free mulligan. The other deck will play countermagic, and with Negate, Mana Leak and Cancel at common, it’s not exactly hard to come by out of 6 or 8 packs (draft/sealed respectively) . This means that the only way to defeat this card without fear is to aggressively mulligan into your Deathmark. What if you didn’t open one? That’s too bad. If you’re on the play you can get off a turn 2 Doom Blade, but on the draw you’re going to get wrecked if the blue mage has countermagic.

Having played against the card myself, I can vouch that it makes magic just plain not fun. I know that for some people, magic isn’t fun, but that’s not the type of player I am. I’ve said repeatedly that while I’m a competitive player, I’ll quit Magic as soon as I can’t enjoy myself playing it in any way. I’ve been on the receiving end of a turn 1 Serra, and have taken 18 points of damage (a 36 life point swing) before I could get a removal spell. By that time, the game was too far out of reach that our team just died. While Jacob van Lunen and Chris Lachmann may have stormed a Pro Tour by winning their matches in 5 minutes, they did so with a strategy that nobody respected, and I give the props for that. In a modern-day Time Spiral block 2HG draft, everyone would try and go slivers, or at least hate them higher than normal. When you can have a 5 minute game jut my opening one rare, I don’t enjoy it as much.

My 2HG partner contacted Wizards customer service and was informed that Serra Ascendant was never tested in 2HG limited. It was tested in EDH (a non-sanctioned format) and 2HG constructed (another format that sees almost zero play), but never in 2HG limited. There are only 5 formats available for TOs to run at FNM (Standard, Draft, Sealed, 2HG Standard and 2HG Sealed), and that you would test a card in an unsanctioned (albeit popular and fun) format like EDH and not in a format played at FNMs (where many players are introduced to the game) seems lazy. Serra Ascendant has dominated every M11 2HG tournament I’ve played in (3-4) and it not only makes the players who play against it feel bad, but the players who open it often feel a hint of remorse because of the fact that the card is just so powerful. What would have been the solution to this card? Making it mythic would’ve been a good start, as the card certainly feels mythic to me, although with 2 cycles of mythic in M11 there isn’t a ton of room for any more. I don’t know how I would reword the text of it to make it still good in standard but not broken in 2HG, but that’s why I’m not a developer. Anyway, that’s my mid-article rant. I’m sorry if I come across as whiny, but the fact of the matter is this card is absurdly powerful in one of my favourite formats.

Onto the tournament report! I was paired with Buddy, a player form the Sherwood Park store who’s quite good. Going into the draft portion we were informed that only nonverbal signals would be allowed, i.e. you can’t talk to your teammates. Because I’m unfamiliar with Buddy’s drafting style, I didn’t know what colours he favoured, etc. For those of you who don’t know, you draft 6 packs and pick 2 cards at a time from each pack. The only real disagreement we had was in the last pack with 4 cards left in it, one of which was a Time Reversal. Having played Time Reversal in 2HG limited before (a format with which Buddy was not as experienced), I wanted to take it, because it’s a solid card. Not great, but if you can play it at the right time it can be very solid. Buddy was having none of it, and since we couldn’t talk we passed it.

Our decks turned out pretty solid. Buddy got a white-black deck with double Serra Angel, double Doom Blade, and the all-important Blood Tithe. I had a blue-green deck with Stormtide Leviathan (another card that’s sick in 2HG) and Overwhelming Stampede (a card that’s slightly worse in 2HG). I also had double Scroll Thief and double Dryads Favor. now I know you’re all going to say I’m crazy for playing this last-pick enchantment, but hear me out. Landwalk abilities are extremely important in 2HG, because if either of your opponents has the right type of land, your creature is unblockable. Your opponents will almost always play at least 4 out of the 5 basic land types, and usually one will splash for something else. Nighthaze was a card I always wanted one of in my Rise of the Eldrazi 2HG decks, and River Boa was undeniably powerful in Zendikar-Worldwake. While not quite as awesome as Volcanic Strength, Dryad’s favour is a card I’m not ashamed to sleeve up in 2HG limited, one of the few formats where that card will see any play.

Round 1

In round 1 we faced off against Attila and Blaine, two of my friends from the Edmonton Wizard’s location. They start out quickly with a turn 2 Augury Owl and Garruks Companion. Buddy is able to play one of our 2 War Priest of Thunes, hoping to trade with the Companion, but a Volcanic Strength from the other team makes trading impossible, and we take 6 damage on turn 3. Luckily, I try to Aether Adept the enchanted companion, which meets a Cancel and Buddy is forced to lay his second War Priest to destroy the enchantment. While this was one of the few times that a landwalk ability in 2HG was actually irrelevant, it’s always nice to get some value out of a card like the priest. The next turn results in us successfully trading the priest for the companion, and Attila casts a Duress, only able to take my Dryads Favor.

On the next turn Buddy casts a Lilianas Specter, another card which is much that much better in 2HG. We happily trade it with their Augury Owl, only to cast Rise from the Grave next turn forcing them to discard again, while I add to our flying force with an Air Servant. They bring out a Scared Pegasus which holds our specter back, but we keep bringing the Air Servant beats. The eventually draw into a Fireball for my elemental, and I get my Stormtide Leviathan Cancelled, putting everyone more or less in topdeck mode.

My next draw is a much-needed Jaces Ingenuity, which nets me a Cancel for their Giant Spider, and we manage to kill them with fliers and card advantage in a few more turns.

1 – 0

Round 2
Round 2 has us facing Matt and Brian, a team (like ours) made of 2 people from different stores. Unfortunately, I must’ve gotten distracted and/or depressed by how badly we lost as my notes are very sparse. I have them playing a turn 2 Garruks Companion and a number of Infantery Veterans which broke through our sparse defences, as our team suffered from mana screw pretty hard. My life sheet from this game has us getting hit 7 times before dying, while we dealt a total 1 damage to them. Fun stuff.

1 – 1

In round 3, we take an intentional draw to ensure our continuation into day 2.

Final Record: 1 – 1 – 1
Final Record on the day: 3 – 3 – 1

After the elimination of the last place team, Matt (the TO, not my second-round opponent) calls up the top 2 teams from the 2HG rounds. With 12 players left, the next day will start with team Trios constructed, with the formats being Legacy, Extended, and Standard. The top 4 players are to draft their teammates form the remaining players, and Matt (my second-round opponent) uses his first pick to take me on his team. I was surprised by this, as Matt doesn’t know me extremely well, as we only see each other from time to time, but I was definitely happy to be on a team with him, as I have a lot of respect for him as a player. Our third teammate is my 2HG partner Buddy, and we decide that Buddy will play Standard (pretty much the only constructed format he plays regularly), Matt will play Extended, and I’ll play Legacy, as not only do I have a tier 1 deck pretty much built, but I have a relatively solid knowledge of the metagame and interactions, although I am by no means an expert. It’s also a format that I enjoy immensely, and I wish that the barrier to entry was lower so that our monthly Legacy tournaments would have more entrants.

That’s it for part 2, part 3 should be up soon, provided that school doesn’t throw a curveball at me. I’m in my first year of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, and I’m still getting used to university life.

Remember you can always email me at zak-AT-power9pro.com with any comments, questions, or article suggestions, or you can find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/zturchan.

Cheers,

Zak

Throughout the past 3 months, I (and several other Edmonton players) have been racking up points in an effort to qualify for the Wizards Comics Championship Series. Wizards Comics is my local came store of choice where I play and occasion judge and/or TO, and they also have a store in the neighbouring town of Sherwood Park. At the beginning of June, the staff announced the championship series which would gather the 8 best players from each store, and have them compete, for free, in a multitude of different formats.

The point structure worked as follows.

For each tournament at a given store that one attended, they would receive 1 point.
For each 3rd place won, a player received an additional point.
For each 2nd place won, a player received 3 extra points.
For each win of a tournament, a player received 5 more points.

Note that players couldn’t amalgamate points from both stores, so players would generally stick to whichever store was closest. Here are the final standings for my store.

56 Attila

53 Zak

46 Jim 

45 Brian Bo

36 Blaine

28 Blake 

26 Adam 

21 Aaron

Aaron didn’t show up, and Marcel, the 9th place seed was at GP Portland (where he won a PTQ for Paris), so Stephen, a player who’s returned to the game with a vengeance, took the last seed for our store.

For this day, we weren’t told much, except to bring a Standard deck, as well as sleeves for a draft. I sleeved up a variation on Gerry Thompson’s BantVine list, a blue-white-green take on the dredgevine concept where one uses Hedron Crab to mill themselves of their Vengevines, and uses cheap creatures to reanimate them. Gerry T’s list originally played 2 Lotus Cobra and 1 Meddling Mage mainboard, but I replaced them with 3 Renegade Doppelgangers. This change allowed me to, in effect, give my Fauna Shamans and Knight of the Reliquarys haste, weakening the effectiveness of my opponent’s removal spells. They’re also fine when a bunch of Vengevines come back.
Here’s the list I ended up playing.

Dredge-uh-Vine (Bant version)

1 Aether Adept 4 Vengevine 3 Ranger of Eos 4 Knight of the Reliquary 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Noble Hierarch 2 Path to Exile 4 Hedron Crab 1 Enclave Cryptologist 3 Renegade Doppelganger 4 Fauna Shaman 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 5 Forest 2 Plains 2 Island 4 Verdant Catacombs 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Halimar Depths 1 Sejiri Steppe 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Celestial Colonnade 4 Ancient Ziggurat

And the sideboard:

3 Linvala, Keeper of Silence 1 Meddling Mage 1 Bojuka Bog 4 Unified Will 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Emeria Angel 1 Path to Exile 2 Pithing Needle 1 Qasali Pridemage

I chose this deck for 2 reasons. First, I expected a lot of blue-white, and Dredgevine typically has a solid matchup against them. Between scouting people at FNM and lending out Jaces, Colonnades and Elspeths to at least 3 different people, I had a good idea of the field. With this in mind I debated for a while on whether to play this version or one with Extractor Demon. However, the allure of Ranger of Eos and huge Knight of the Reliquarys swayed me to the bant list.

The second reason I played this deck was because it was an archetype I knew relatively well. I’ve played Dredgevine in almost all of its incarnations since its debut, and even though this was a newer take on it, I was familiar enough with the archetype to know what I was doing.

After I filled out my decklist, they announced that the first round pairings would be cross-store based on standings. For example, the number 1 seed from my location would play the number one seed from Sherwood Park, etc.

Round 1

I sat down across from Andrew, a solid player who’s also a great guy to play with. I had a hunch he’d be playing Grixis control, as that seems to have been his deck of choice at the last few tournaments I’ve played in with him.

I win the die roll and elect to go first, hoping for an explosive start of either a Hedron Crab or a mana accelerant. I get the latter, and start off with a turn 1 Noble Hierarch. He plays a Dragonskull Summit, tapped, and I reply by playing a Hedron Crab and starting to mill myself. He quickly casts Lightning Bolt on my crab, but then I augment my forces with a Fauna Shaman. She starts doing her thing, pitching a Vengevine and getting another, while I drop a Knight of the Reliquary.

After playing his 5th enters-the-battlefield-tapped land in a row, Andrew casts Jace, the Mind Sculptor and bounces my knight. I’m more than happy to replay it, and kill the planeswalker with my Fauna Shaman. He made the same play next turn, and I replied in an identical fashion, also dropping 2 small creatures to rebut a Vengevine and start hacking away at his life total. I continued to attack him while he played a removal spell to kill my 7/7 knight (one of the lands that made him so big was my only Sejiri Steppe), and he eventually slammed down a Grave Titan. I immediately used my Path to Exile to dispatch it and continued to attack with my Vengevines, forcing him to chump with a token. By the time he resolved a Cruel Ultimatum, he was at a low enough life total that my vengevines overwhelmed him.

Game 2 was a short affair with him getting stuck on 2 lands and me playing a pair of Noble Hierarchs and a Vengevine, which eventually went the distance, swinging in for 6 a turn.

1 – 0

Round 2

In round 2 many of us had to play against players from our own stores. I sat across from Brian, one of the best players in the area and a very good friend. I knew he was one of the many players battling with blue-white control, so I thought I should have an alright time with it.

I made a mistake in my first game where I kept lands, Fauna Shaman, Renegade Doppelganger and Vengevine. As soon as the word “keep” left my lips, I knew it was a mistake, especially on the draw. The problem with this hand is that if he counters or removes my Shaman, I just straight-up lose. If it does resolve and I manage to untag with it, my game will probably go well, but that’s a fatal assumption to make against blue white. I didn’t have a blue-producing land (that’s what I get for changing the spell configuration and not the manabase) so I slammed down the shaman which predictably got Mana Leaked. After that it was pretty much Brian goldfishing as he resolved a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and ticked it to 13 loyalty, with me unable to mount any sort of offense. When I managed to get a couple guys on the board, he used Gideon Jura to make sure I couldn’t attack Jace, and he milled me out.

I resolved to keep a better hand in game 2, and I was happy to play a first-turn Hedron Crab. Brian retaliated with an Oust, and I cast a Noble Hierarch. On his turn 2 he has a Meddling Mage, naming the Hedron Crab that I was about to draw. The game state didn’t evolve beyond there, as I drew 2 un-castable Hedron Crabs in a row, and Brian made matters worse by casting a Relic of Progenitus. The game was over quickly from there.

1 – 1

Round 3

I was now back to facing a player from the other store, this time Travis playing a variation on Jund with Magma Phoenix and Inferno Titan. I had watch Brian beat him in the first round, so I knew that I should be able to out-aggro him.

I won the roll and game blazing out of the gates with a turn 1 Hedron Crab and consecutive fetchlands. My turn 2 Fauna Shaman got Terminated, but I backed it up with a Knight of the Reliquary, which also died, this time to a Maelstrom Pulse. Travis made an early attack with his Raging Ravine that signalled to me that he didn’t have much gas left, and on the next turn I was able to Ranger of Eos some more creatures to reanimate a pair of Vengevines. Although he tried to mount a defines with Putrid Leech and Sarkhan the Mad, I kept swinging in for lethal until he just died.

In game 2 I get off a first turn Noble Hierarch, and reply to his Putrid Leech with a Knight of the Reliquary and a Fauna Shaman on consecutive turns. I tutor up my Meddling Mage and name Maelstrom Pulse. He manages to Jund Charm most of my board, and then Pulse my knight. However, I manage to cast another Vengevine which is able to go the distance as he doesn’t hit enough mana to play his more expensive threats.

2 – 1

Round 4

For the final round of standard, I’m facing Sean, the number 1 seed from the rival store. He’s playing Soul Sisters, a deck which I have never had the chance to play against. The one thing I knew going into the matchup was that the only way I can win is to keep milling him, as the Vengevine route will not be able to break through. I get the first turn Hedron Crab, and enjoy the look of surprise on Sean’s face when I announce “mill you”. I quickly get a Knight of the Reliquary online and have to fetch up my Sejiri Steppe to protect my crab from a Path to Exile. The milling continues as he taps out for a Ranger of Eos, fetching a pair of Serra Ascendants. I punt the game here because I have a Path to Exile in my hand. I looked through his graveyard and see that he has only 1 copy of Brave the Elements after milling 3/4 of his deck. For some reason, I think that I might have to path one of my own dudes to mill 3, but don’t realize that I straight-up die to him if he does have the Brave and his ascendants go unchecked. Sean untags, attacks, I path, he braves, I lose. Simple enough.

While sideboarding I overhear my friends Blaine and Jim talking. Blaine has one win, and Jim has 2 draws (his deck went to time a lot), and they’ve agreed to draw. I realize that not only can I boost Jim’s tiebreakers by losing this match (he played Sean earlier), but I can reduce Andrew’s in the same vein, as he is also in contention for elimination. I decide that I’ll concede even if I win, but we play it out. The match goes pretty quickly, with me not getting a Hedron Crab until much too late, and I pretty much die.

2 – 2

After the final standings are posted, Jim beats out Andrew by 5 percent, so I’m happy I lost the final game and that my friends are advancing. Those who were eliminated receive consolation prizes of intro packs and theme decks, and we’re off to the next format.

Matt (The TO) arranges everyone around a set of tables and numbers us off. We’re wondering what he’s doing, as we can’t really have a 14 man draft. He then announces: “Players with an odd number look to your right, players with an even number look to your left. This will be your partner for Two-Headed Giant Draft.”

I’m paired with Buddy, a local player who I’ve played with in the past, and I’m ready to try a brand-new format.

Expect Part 2 within the next day or two.

Cheers,

Zak