Wow, I Suck at Magic

I think the adjective that best describes this weekend, and indeed all of the tournaments I’ve been to in Michigan, is frustrating.

First, I had a lot of trouble deciding what deck I wanted to play. I was limited to 10 proxies, so I could build just about anything I wanted except for Bazaar Stax and Ichorid. At the same time, I wanted to play something with which I was familiar, which I felt limited me to either Ze SS or Belcher. If I decided to get away from those, my choices would be between GAT and Merchant Scroll TPS, the decks I’ve played against most often most recently.

On Saturday night, Elizabeth and I went to Oberlin, ate some good Chinese food (including some really good chive pancakes), and saw “Knocked Up.” The movie was okay. I think the concept was good, but the execution was terrible, so it was nowhere near as good as everyone had said it was.

Also, is it just me, or is the idea of accidental pregnancy terribly frightening?

Anyway, since I didn’t get the chance (or take the time) to put together either GAT or MSTPS, I effectively limited myself once again to Ze SS and Belcher. I put together an appropriate sideboard for SS and sort of almost halfway decided to play that, tentatively.

Here’s the list I made:

1x Black Lotus
5x Moxes
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
1x Swamp
1x Island
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand

1x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Echoing Truth
1x Repeal
2x Extirpate
4x Duress
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle

3x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
4x Dark Confidant
4x Dimir Cutpurse

1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Brainstorm

Sideboard

4x Leyline of the Void
3x Threads of Disloyalty
2x Swords of Fire and Ice
2x Arcane Laboratory
2x Energy Flux
1x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Engineered Explosives

The basic idea was to make SS good against Gro-a-Tog, which I expected to be rampant. Engineered Explosives and Extirpate both proved to be strong in testing, and I figured Threads of Disloyalty would be a really good play on someone’s pre-grown Dryad. At the same time, I wanted to have game against the Workshops that always seem to show up in Michigan (Flux and Hurkyl’s) and against the Ichorid and Flash that I thought would be popular (Leylines). Plus, it turns out that Arcane Lab is good on its own against storm combo, in addition to being a combo with a previously flipped Erayos.

So yeah. That’s what I did.

Then I went to bed.

I didn’t sleep very well, though, which is good because I had my alarm set wrong and would have woken up at 8 p.m. instead of 8 a.m. if I had slept well. I showered and got packed and Josh “The Late JC” Chapple and I ate breakfast at my house before getting on the road toward the northwest and eventual tournament glory in Michigan.

We stopped to pick up Geoff in Toledo (well, Sylvania) on the way.

Actually it was lucky we did that because it meant we would take Rte. 23 up instead of 275 like normal. When Trogdon called us from breakfast to tell us that I-275 was closed before the RIW exit, therefore, we had no idea.

Of course when we relayed the message to Twaun, Guhstin, and Brain in the other car, they chose to ignore us completely and, lo and behold, ran into a closed exit.

That’ll show ‘em.

So the tournament started a little late as we waited for them, but we finally got to shuffle up for actual games of actual Magic.

Round One – Christ (with a short ‘I’) – UGoyf Fish

Christ was a friendly and sympathetic opponent from Windsor, Canada, and his list was really cool. It was UG Threshold or Worse Than Fish but with Tarmogoyfs in place of the Werebears. He has a good chance to trounce me anyway, but I played like a complete donkey all round. I’m glad Christ was so patient with me.

In game one I Stifled his first Fetch, but he had creatures and I didn’t. Looter il-Kor kept gas in the tank for him and by the time two Goyfs dropped, I was a dead man. It also didn’t help that I forgot to reveal a card (the card I drew was Mox Pearl) to Dark Confidant and the judge got called over.

I have some issue with how the situation was handled by the judge, though. My hand at the time (after drawing the Pearl naturally) was Force, Stifle, and Mox Pearl. Since my opponent said he hadn’t seen which card was the one I drew, the judge declared that the one I had drawn was Force of Will and would have been revealed. So I took five damage. Since I was still down a card, though, and hadn’t even started my mainphase, why couldn’t I just reveal the next card to Bob and continue (it was another Bob).

Whatever. I was well on my way to dying anyway, and the five life wouldn’t have helped.

Much.

In game two, my opponent mulliganed to five and kept a hand with Black Lotus, Brainstorm, and Mishra’s Factory to build on. He plays the Brainstorm and a Serendib Efreet with his available mana, but his Brainstorm evidently missed the second land. I Vamped for an Echoing truth to send the Efreet back to his hand and had double Cutpurse Working on him in another few turns. He scooped to those guys and the Wasteland I played on his Factory.

Oh, and I also knocked over the top few cards of my library.

“Are you going to call me on this one?”

“I think I have to.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

This time, the judge just shuffled my deck and explained the process to me. Nothing would happen unless I did it again and he suspected I was using the knocks to gain an advantage.

What a mess.

Anyway, game three was more like game one except I misplayed. He led with Looter il-Kor again, while I searched for answers. I Forced a Tarmogoyf despite having a Threads of Disloyalty in hand, and when he played Serendib Efreet I had no answers. I knew he had the Efreets, so I should have saved the counter for that and used the Threads on the threat they could answer. It was a misplay I didn’t live long to consider further.

Also, I played Engineered Explosives for zero instead of two or three. The whole match was one big mistake after another, not the way I wanted to start the day.

Round 2 – Twaun – 7/10

Anthony and I are friends; we have fun. But I have a historically terrible record against him in tournaments because the games are too casual. I never put the effort or thought into the games that I should because I’d rather have fun banter than win.

So in game one I kept a terrible hand that has Mox Sapphire, Black Lotus, and Wasteland for mana. Anthony could have shut me down right there with a Chalice for zero, but he saved it to play for two instead (which is actually not all that good against me—I lose Confidants, Echoing Truth, and Demonic Tutor). I played out my hand, trying to think of how I could get Erayo into play and flipped this turn. My Brainstorm revealed nothing, and I continued finding only Wastelands for mana. I got Erayo on board and attacking in the midst of Wastelanding him four times for two Workshops, a Tolarian Academy, and a Volcanic Island. But his Pentavus got Welded back into play and killed me in short time.

In the second game I had to mulligan anyway but saw none of my sideboard answers (namely Energy Fluxes). He got Welder into play again and followed it up with Triskelion. The Trike emptied itself of counters killing first one Confidant, then another, and I Stifled its suicide shot to keep it in play and Twaun’s graveyard free of artifacts. It didn’t matter though as my draws were weak and silly and I played the entire game on the ropes before dying.

The one highlight was when Twaun was trying to discard his Mox Pearl and wanted so badly for me to take it with Duress that he emptied his hand by Forcing my Duress and Red Elemental Blasting his own Force. I Forced his REB in response, so Duress did not resolve.

Did I say highlight? I meant lowlight. I hate Magic.

Welp, I guess I’m done with this tournament. When does the Mox Pearl side event start?

Round – The Late JC – 1-Land Belcher

Josh and I rode up to the tournament together and I designed his deck. I know how degenerate and fast his deck can be, so he’s still a threat, but every card in SS is good against Belcher. Between games one and two, I sided in three cards—the Swords of Fire and Ice and an Engineered Explosives—only because Tormod’s Crypt, Repeal, and the fourth Wasteland are weaker.

I opened game one with a Dark Confidant but no Force of Will in hand. He responded with LED, Welder, and a spare Mox. I Vampiric Tutored during my upkeep for an Engineered Explosives and cleared the zero-drops from the board to neutralize the threat. Bob provided me with plenty of answers, then, and Cutpurse joined him to carry home the win.

We both mulligan going into game two, Josh going to five and me to six. We played draw-go for a little bit, but my draws were better as I got to Ancestral Recall. Then I Duressed his Belcher, played Erayo, Extirpated his Belcher, and played Dimir Cutpurse to flip Erayo and really put the game away.

So overall my record was 1-2, or 3-4 if you’re counting games.

So was I right? Is that frustrating or what?

I mean, I totally blame myself. My deck was still good, I swear, but I made horrible choices playing it. I could have easily put away game three in round one, and I certainly should have mulliganed at least once against Twaun in round two.

Josh Chapple was just the unfortunate victim of pairings and vengeance. Give him a few more tournaments with the deck, though, and he’ll be quite a threat.

You might not believe me, but I really feel like SS is a good deck right now. It can play a lot of answers to a lot of different strategies, and its draw and tutoring power are such that it can get to those answers quickly and efficiently. I feel that if I had played against any of the numerous combo decks (Gush or otherwise) at the tournament, my whole day would have been much different.

As it was, I opened against two unfamiliar decks and didn’t even give myself a chance to win. Totally, utterly, completely my fault.

After a day like that, I’ve just gotta get my Belch on.

Look out later this week for an even more ridiculous tournament report.