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Blog Entry: The Llanowar Corner #3 (The Richie Proffitt Memorial Tournament: Successes and Shortcomings) By Ben Watkins   Introduction: Well let’s kick off the third blog of the Llanowar Corner by remembering Richie Proffitt. I was not fortunate enough to have known Richie, but I was fortunate enough to be in a position to drive four hours to his memorial tournament. When I say that the turnout was unreal, and the atmosphere was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen at a tournament. It would be an understatement. There were 328 players that showed up for the tournament! There were only 240 at my Regional Competition this year! There were so many people who showed up to pay there respects, and just getting to be a part of the banner that everyone signed and presented to the family of Richie really tugged at my heart strings. So whether or not you knew Richie, we are all a tight crew, and remembering what he did for our community is the best thing we can do. With that being said lets get down to the business of slinging cardboard! Pre-Tournament Shenanigans: There are five us setting out for our adventure at noon on Saturday morning. Because of scheduling conflicts, we were not able to arrange to attend the tournament on Saturday. Adam Pannone, Adam Kawa, Ben Castillo with his girlfriend Karin, and I set out for Roanoke Virginia. It was a pretty uneventful drive up to Roanoke. We mainly just talked strategy the whole way, and what we thought was going to be good calls for the meta game. I was still riding my Zur band wagon and was convinced it was going to sweep the format. Once we arrived in Roanoke we, of course, had to find Starcity Games as the first priority. We found the building, and I had hopes of maybe entering an 8-man standard side event. When we arrived though, they had already cut to top 8, and box tournaments had stopped for the day. I found out my buddies Walker and Daniel (my two losses last weekend at the $500 tournament) were in the Top 8. After conversing for a while, saying my congratulatories, and giving Walker some advice on sideboard strategy, we decided to go find a hotel for the night and grab some dinner. We searched, for what seemed forever, for a hotel reasonably close to Starcity Games and reasonably priced. We stumbled on a little Econo-Hotel thing and set up camp. We grabbed dinner at a ribs place called Smoky Bones and hit up the ribs and Yuengling. After dinner we set out to do our pre-tournament testing. Ben and I were the only ones actually serious at that point in testing some match ups. The two Adams were just too tired to test and settled for registering their decks. Ben didn’t feel like his testing had gone well with other decks, so he defaulted to U/B Faeries(aka the dark side). It was a perfect chance for me to test my Zur deck against the all powerful Fae. Here’s my list for reference. Main Deck 3 Zur, the Enchanter 3 Doran, the Siege Tower 3 Harmonize 2 Slaughter Pact 4 Rune Snag 4 Cryptic Command 4 Wall of Roots 3 Glittering Wish 3 Oblivion Ring 3 Firespout 1 Story Circle 1 Sacred Mesa 1 Steel of the Godhead 1 Daybreak Coronet 4 Vivid Grove 4 Vivid Craig 4 Reflecting Pool 4 Yavimaya Coast 2 Grove of the Burnwillow 2 River of Tears 2 Mystic Gate 2 Sunken Ruins Sideboard 1 Steel of the Godhead 1 Firespout 1 Zur, the Enchanter 1 Doran, the Siege Tower 1 Mystic Snake 1 Dawnglow Infusion 1 Aura of Silence 1 Greater Auramancy 1 Declaration of Naught 1 Wheel of Sun and Moon 1 Tefferi’s Moat 4 ???????????????? I want to just start off by saying that I LOVE this deck! It’s a pure control deck at heart, and it’s just full of toolbox goodies. I tried everything from Vendalken Aethermage, to Mystical Teachings , to the Glittering Wish build that it currently is. It has been my little project for a while now, and I have tweaked it into this little beast. I got very frustrated with the mana, so I finally scrapped it and went with the stock Quick’n Toast land structure and modified from there. The only difference right now is that I cut the storage lands, because I don’t have anything to store mana for. I don’t have a giant Oona to work up for or a big blowout spell to win the game. Kitchen Finks got the axe because Doran is just better. The synergy is just so amazing in this deck, and you crush Elves 99% of the time. It was time though to test out the Faerie match up. After about 7 games with the deck, I had won 1 game. I played first every game and the only one I won was because Faeries stumbled. My deck had one glaring problem: Sower of Temptation . I couldn’t even get Zur to activate once because it was either bounced, stolen, or countered. After board the match up didn’t feel like as much of a struggle, but Sower was still just a thorn in my side. After getting frustrated with the deck, and still not knowing what to put as the final 4 sideboard slots, I picked up my tried and true Reviellark Blink deck. Here’s the list for Reference: Main Deck: 4 Reviellark 4 Sower of Temptation 4 Mulldrifter 4 Riftwing Cloudskate 3 Venser, Shaper Savant 4 Mindstone 3 Momentary Blink 4 Rune Snag 2 Remove Soul 2 Pact of Negation 4 Faerie Conclave 2 Mystic Gate 4 Adarkar Wastes 8 Islands 6 Plains Sideboard: 4 Aven Riftwatcher 3 Wispmare 3 Condemn 2 Stonecloaker 3 Wrath of God After only three games with this deck against Faeries, I knew I was playing this deck at the tournament. I have played this deck for so long, and I have tweaked it so much. Reviellark redemption is upon us! After testing, we head to bed and at about 12:30 in the morning, I get a knock on my door. It’s Ben asking if we have any bugs in our bed. I look at him a little weird and tell him I do not have bugs in my bed and what was with the weird question this late when we are trying to rest up for tomorrow. He then explains his room is completely Infest ed with tiny bed bugs. I journey to the room to indeed find the grossest Infest ation of bugs I think I have ever seen in my life! We find a manger, who is anything but helpful, and he offers to move Ben and Karin to a new room. Ben is absolutely livid at this point and proceeds to take his frustration out on the manager. We take photos of the bugs and then help move Ben and Karin to a different room. I think it’s safe to say that the Better Business Bureau will be receiving a call from Ben on this matter. We wake up bright and early on Sunday morning and head to the event. We stop for coffee and bagels, and we all talk about how we have the right tech for today and everyone else is wrong. Karin does not have a deck for the tournament, so I begin to piece together what is left of my B/G Elf deck to let her pilot that. My main deck is intact for the most part, but the sideboard is scattered between Kawa’s B/R Token’s deck and various other builds of decks. We piece something together and we are ready to start our tournament! Round 1 Erik Lundblad (U/W/g Reviellark Combo) Game 1 I sit down and shuffle my cards while pulling out my Easy Button. I have received many comments and e-mails asking why I bring an Easy Button to tournaments because it seems tacky and makes me seem like a poor sport. Its purpose actually serves quite the opposite. I bring the Easy Button to help remind me and the players around me that we are human, and magic is just a game. If an opponent makes a good play I want them to hit the easy button, and we can both share a good laugh. It breaks the ice with people you’ve never met before and insures that they are going to remember who you are long after the tournament has ended. Anyways, my opponent is shuffling his cards while playing with my easy button. Unfortunately for him, he slips a card while shuffling and reveals a Reviellark. I don’t like knowing what my opponent is playing before hand because it feels unfair. I reveal that I too am playing Reviellark, and we get underway. He builds his mana while I attempt to build mine and disrupt his. I only run 6 plains in my deck, but I manage to draw all six and no blue sources. My first play is a Reviellark that meets his Rune Snag and from there I proceed to battle his efforts to go off. It all Boil s down to him just drawing his deck out and combo’ing on my turn. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , +2 Stonecloaker Game 2 goes a bit better for me. I get a good tempo start and basically keep him off his key spells with counter magic. He lays down morphs, which turn out to be Willbender and Vesuva n Shapeshifter . I use Sower of Temptation to take his Vesuva n Shapeshifter and pull Willbender shenanigans of my own. Another morph comes down and I have a team of fliers. The morph gets blinked and it reveals: Brine Elemental !? He boarded the pickles lock against me! NICE! I have lethal on the board, and I’m at 18. He alpha strikes me, leaving only Birds of Paradise to block. I take the 10 damage and on my turn Sower his Bird to swing for the win. He tries to Snag my Sower, but Pact of Negation seals the deal. Game 3 was a blowout because I never let him get off of three lands. I had turn 3 Venser, Blink, flashback Blink, Stonecloaker returning Venser, then bounce yet another land, and once I hard cast a Riftwing Cloudskate he was to far behind to ever get back in the game. Erik was a very good sport in his loss and I continued to follow up on his and his girlfriend’s progress throughout the day. Round 2 Jonathan Bode (Fury Stokens) Round 2 I got to play against the fury that is the Stokens deck. Game 1 I get a Reviellark out on turn 5 and the following turn he proceeds to sack all his lands to Gargadon and swing with all his Tokens and a Husk. I have no options because if I block the Gargadon he will sack everything to Husk and kill me, but if I block the Husk I simply take Token and Gargadon damage for lethal. I scope up my cards. Sideboard -2 Pact of Negation , +2 Wrath of God Game 2 is close but ultimately he has more creatures on the board, and he gets me to zero quicker than I can get him. Round 3 Kimball Polanik (U/G/R/W Juniper Combo) Kimball was definitely one of my favorite matches of the day. He had the sense of humor that you want to see in an opponent. We joked around the majority of the game, and his friend sitting next to him got in on the joking as well. It wasn’t long before all three of us were cutting up at a loud level and almost forgot we were actually in a match. Game 1 I suspended a Cloudskate and started my Blink game. He quickly realized what I was playing and knew he was in a bad match up. That did not stop him however from playing a tight game and giving it his all. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , +2 Stonecloaker Game 2 I struggle a lot with his double treetops. I don’t know why these things were getting to me so much because my strategy loves to see tapped lands. But for some reason I just couldn’t get what I needed to deal with them. He finished me off with Murderous Redcap shenanigans. Game 3 I’m on the play, so I try to come out as blistering fast as possible. I bounce lands and counter spells until I draw a Sower. I use the Sower to take his Wall of Roots . We all shared a good laugh in the fact that I was taking his Wall, but the fact of the matter was that I was bouncing lands and so his mana was even further crippled. I also used is wall to keep anymore Treetop beats at bay. Eventually the fliers prevailed and I walked away victorious. Kimball and I talked for a while afterwards and checked up on each other throughout the tournament. It’s players like this that make the game so enjoyable. Round 4 Wayne Baker (G/B Elves) Wayne was an older player and you could tell he knew his way around a magic table. He opened up with a Llanowar Elf off a Guilt-Leaf Palace, so I did a mental fist pump as I started to build my mana base. He laid a Treetop Village and Vanquish er, and I did yet another mental fist pump. I ran a Sower out there even though he had revealed a Nameless Inversion and then rebuilt with a Reviellark. I evoked Mulldrifter the following turn and then blink came down on the Reviellark giving me an Overwhelm ing lead. A few turns later we were on to Game 2. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul s, -2 Pact of Negation , -2 Riftwing Cloudskate , +3 Wrath of God , +3 Condemn My main deck is built to just Annihilate Elves and Wrath out of the side is really just overkill. I don’t like Cloudskate or Remove Soul though on the draw because they are too slow, but I do like a late game Cloudskate , so I leave two in. Since I’m on the draw the Wrath is just in case I get behind. Game 2 though he sees turn 2 Troll Ascetic and turn 3 Troll Ascetic , and although I put up a decent fight, I never see Wrath and my deck does require targeting. For game 3 I would normally board my Wraths out against Elves on the play, but this one runs Troll, so I decide I’d rather not punt this one simply because I cannot target them. Game three basically came down to me stealing his Colossus and using it to block his troll for the rest of the game. He saw a great deal of removal, but I saw a great deal of counter magic. After the match Wayne and I talked about card shops and how he owned one where Richie used to play. One of my dreams is to one day own a shop of some kind, and his Words of Wisdom on the subject made the 4 hour drive worthwhile, even if what he said was the only thing I took from the tournament. Round 5 Peter Smutko (G/R aggro) By this point in the tournament Pannone has dropped and is watching my match from behind me. He decides to take notes, so I have a full breakdown on this match. Peter was one of the most animated opponents I had all day. He and my Round 3 opponent were definitely my favorite. After some fun with the easy button we started the match. I keep a sketchy hand with no white sources and a Reviellark in hand. This comes back to bite me in the butt because he gets an explosive start and just absolutely chews up my Sowers and my life total. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , -2 Pact of Negation , -1 Riftwing Cloudskate , +3 Condemn , +2 Aven Riftwatcher I think this match up is slightly better than my G/B Elf match up simply because they run a lot of burn that I can Cancel out with Riftwatcher, and they just don’t swarm like a an Elf player. Venser is worth his weight in gold in this match up because you can wait for a Crusher or Predator to get big and then just blast it away. Game 2 I keep a hand with 2 Condemn s, but again with no white mana. I finally get frustrated when I’m staring down a Tarmogoyf and Kavu Predator , so I pop two Mindstone and grab a Plains. I deal with the Tarmogoyf first with one of the Condemn s because I don’t know if he has a way to blast me with life gain and make a big Predator. I was hoping he had some way to Fiery Justice me or something and then I’d hit the Predator with Condemn and have gained a bunch of life. However on the next turn he does no such thing accept swing and I Condemn the Predator while he Rebuild s with a Crusher. I drop a Sower and use a Momentary Blink to Cancel out 2 Tarfire s and a Rune Snag to counter a Flame Javelin . He gets beat in the face with his own Crusher FTW! Sideboard -2 Riftwing Cloudskate , +2 Aven Riftwatcher Having seen the Kavu Predator in game 2 and assuming that he is playing Zvi Moshowitz’s build, a normal player would board out Riftwatcher and possibly Sower. I did the exact opposite because I just had a feeling in my gut he was bringing in Faerie Macabre . He would have to take out burn or creatures to do this diluting his threat base. If he boarded out creatures I would then Negate his burn with Riftwatchers and blink, and if he boarded out burn I would simply steal his creatures. Game 3 prove just that as we are both land light and he is creature heavy. I start my Sower game with him and he sends practically all his burn at my 2 Sowers. He has 2 Goyfs and a Predator. I Condemn a Goyf and then use Venser to bounce the second Goyf and trade with the Predator. After the Predator is removed I use a Riftwatcher to just gain some life and chump the Goyf while I evoke the Reviellark. Sure enough, he uses Macabre to remove my 2 Sowers. I felt up against the ropes without my Sowers, but luck would have it, I drew one off the top and stole his freshly played Crusher. He was at nine and only one blocker. I crushed 2 lands and then drew a Venser to remove his blocker and swing for exactly lethal with a Sower, Riftwatcher, and the Crusher. After the game we laughed about the plays during the match. “Who doesn’t board out Sower against R/G aggro!?” he says with a big grin on his face. “How many burn spells did I get with Momentary Blink ?” I replied. We hit the easy button again and checked up on each other throughout the tournament. Definitely a good match! Round 6 Ri Char d Oaks (G/R Aggro) Ri Char d was a really nice guy and said he was one of the ones who taught Ritchie how to play magic. Unfortunately for him he had to mulligan to 5 in game 1 and the power of my Reviellark, Mulldrifter , and Venser just kept him from ever getting back in the game. I know my strategy is to bounce lands and draw cards, but I do not get any satisfaction by winning that way if someone has to mulligan that far down. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , -2 Pact of Negation , +4 Aven Riftwatcher I know he is playing R/G aggro, but I have only seen a Country Side Crusher and do not feel that boarding in Condemn is the right call just yet. I take the safe bet by boarding in the Riftwatcher because I don’t want to just get burnt out by a Red Deck Wins who only splashes Green for say Tarmogoyf . Game 2 was a heartbreaker because Ri Char d had to mulligan to 5 once again. He is obviously frustrated to be stuck at two lands and a Birds of Paradise , and he gets even more frustrated when I Sower the Bird. He eventually scopes when my mana base has 7 mana producers including his Bird and 6 points of fling power. We start talking after the match, and he begins to tell me he had no idea how to attack my deck. I look at his sideboard and offer my advice as far card choices. He said he had ridden Magus of the Moon all day and was just hosing people with it. I explained how I had built my deck with that card in mind and he said he noticed the lack of non basics. We shared some more magic ideas before shaking hands and parting ways. I checked back up on him once more that day and found out he hadn’t had to mulligan so far down in any of his remaining match ups. Round 7 Mason Vines (Reviellark Combo) Mason was 7-0-1 so I had been paired up. After a few turns of him doing nothing in game one other than play lands, he finally evoked a Mulldrifter and I immediately pegged him on Reviellark. I love my match up against this deck because I just play a better tempo game. My Cloudskate comes in off suspend, and I begin a blink game. A few turns later an army of fliers finishes the life total. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , +2 Stonecloaker Having faced 2 Reviellark players at this point, I was really wishing my 4rth Riftwatcher was a 3 rd Stonecloaker because that card is just bananas in this match up. Sure enough in game two I land a Venser after he evokes a Mulldrifter . He plays Body Double copying the Mulldrifter , Next turn I swing and he is willing to trade Body Double for Venser. Stonecloaker says no to my Venser dying and I remove the Mulldrifter from the game. I now have 3 power of flying goodness and then Venser comes down in his upkeep to hit yet another land. He plays a Reviellark in desperation to Rebuild and I Sower that as quickly as possible. With his back against the Ropes he starts trying to build something out of what he has left, and even resorts to using Pact of Negation to counter my hard cast Cloudskate so he doesn’t end up even further behind. However, tapping out on your own turn and not being able to play spells doesn’t get you very far and eventually my fliers take over. He extends his hand and asks if I even play Reviellark. I nod and he reveals a Faerie Macabre from his hand. I realized I had won both games without ever seeing a single Reviellark of my own and only took two damage throughout the entire match. We then started to have a conversation on how AMAZING Pact of Negation had been for both of us all day. He had upped his number to 3 in the main deck. I told him my only loss was to Stokens, and he gave yet another reason as to why I should be running Crovax in the board. I have never liked that card against Faeries because it seemed too clunky for a tempo deck, but I would definitely consider it for the Stokens deck. Mason won out from that point on and made Top 8. We continued to talk the rest of the tournament at the top tables. Round 8 Chris Wallace (Faeries) At the end of round 7 I could definitely feel the toll that the tournament was taking on me. I felt very tired and was very nervous on top of that because I knew one more win would allow me to ID into the top 8, but one more loss meant I was battling to stay in the top 16 with a hope of maybe getting into top 8 on REALLY good tiebreakers. I sit down across from Chris and introduce myself. I knew he was playing Faeries because I had watched the end of his last match. This match up is about 50/50, but if I had to say who has the advantage, I would say the Faerie player is slightly favored. I wanted to keep him off 4 lands, but I just didn’t have the start for it. I played a war of Attrition and he played around my counters like a pro, so I knew I was going to need some tricks for this guy. I caught his Mistbind Clique with a Venser by bouncing his only Champion target which was a Mutavault , but luck would have it, he had a Clique for the next turn as well. I then Sowered the Clique on my turn to try to take an advantage, but he played Cryptic Command on his turn bouncing the Clique to his hand (this is actually an AMAZING play). I now have an amazing play position that I absolutely throw away. He has a Bitterblossom in play with one token. When he plays Mistbind again I can simply use Blink to steal it while he’s tapped out. For some reason I decide to swing with Sower while he has a Pendalhaven on the board. Of course the Sower dies and I get Cliqued the following turn. This was the turning point of the game as I was too far behind to catch up to Bitterblossom and his Clique. My Fatigue is starting to affect my ability to avoid play mistakes. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , -1 Plains, +3 Wispmare I board out a land here as all my cards are good against Faeries, and I just want to pop a Bitterblossom . I figured boarding out a land would not hurt me, but I was sadly mistaken. We got deck checked between game 1 and 2 which has never happened to me before. We got our decks back and shuffled them up again. I draw seven cards and I have an amazing tempo hand of turn 2 Mindstone, turn 3 Venser, turn 4 Cloudskate , and turn 5 Blink with flashback while being on the play. Only problem is; no lands. I mull to 6 and still; no lands. Mull to five and still; no land. I’m thoroughly Bewilder ed at this point because I have 25 lands in the main deck even having boarding 1 out. I think about going to four and after finally deciding I have to because I’m on the play, I look at the top 5 cards of my library, and there were still no lands. I mull to 4 and keep a hand of Rune Snag , land, Venser, and Reviellark. I hit a second land and counter his turn 2 Bitterblossom . I draw a Mindstone a turn later and it gets Rune Snag ged. Still stuck on 2 lands, he plays Consign to Dream on my upkeep. Knowing I have no conceivable way of getting back into this game I extend my hand and wish him the best of luck in the Top 8. I guess statistics were just not on my side this round. Round 9 Jonathan Taylor (Kithkin) This round was just the absolute heartbreaker of the tournament. I was upset at the last round, but I still wanted to post a solid finish. I lose the die roll and he gets a turn 1 Stalwart and turn 2 Wizen Cenn. He goes for Knight of Meadowgrain that meets a Remove Soul . He begins taking 5 point chunks out of me, but I play Venser to disrupt him and it meets Mana Tithe . I am now at 2 life and he only has two lands. He plays a Harrier before he attacks, and I get a mental fist pump because I have a second Venser to trade with the Stalwart and leave the Cenn stranded in his hand. I now begin to accumulate a Mulldrifter army. His only play is to tap down a blocker with Harrier and then swing with it to put me at 1. I win the game a few turns later with 3 Mulldrifter s and a Reviellark in play. Sideboard -2 Remove Soul , -2 Pact of Negation , -4 Riftwing Cloudskate , +3 Wrath of God , +3 Condemn , +2 Wispmare I peg him on Oblivion Ring and Militia’s Pride, so I bring in Wispmare . After the match I find out he runs neither, but I still think the Wispmare is better than Cloudskate in this match up just based on speed. Game 2 I never really felt like I was in it. He just exploded with creatures and got Thistledown Liege and ultimately Mirrorweave d for a ton. Man I wish I still had Magus of the Moat or Windborn Muse ! Game 3 is the one I’ve been playing in my mind over and over again trying to figure out why I was so dumb. I’ll give the end play of the game as it’s all that matters. I am staring down a Cloudgoat Ranger , Thistledown Liege , and a card under a Windbrisk Heights . I have three islands in play and I have top decked a Wrath the turn early which I am upset I cannot cast. I have a Sower in hand which I have desperately wanted to cast. I am at 13 life and convinced the card under the Heights is Mirrorweave . I untap for the turn and draw Mystic Gate . I now have 4 lands and can use all cards in my hand. For some reason I assess the situation, but do not realize I can cast Wrath of God . I can Sower his Liege and pray there is no Mirrorweave under the Heights and untap to just go crazy on him as his Liege pumps all my guys. He untaps, and plays Knight of Meadow Grain and Goldmeadow Harrier . He swings and activates the Heights revealing Mirrorweave for the win. I immediately look at my hand for answers and see Wrath of God . I flash the card and he asks if it was the card on the top of my library. I say no it was in my hand and I don’t know why I didn’t play it. He looks confused and says, “yea I don’t know why u didn’t play it either.” He reveals the top 4 cards of his library to reveal lands and Sunlance . I reveal a Reviellark as the next card and nothing but gas. Had I Wrathed his board, he would Rebuild with Knight and Harrier. I would Sower the Knight and then play Reviellark. He would eventually draw Sunlance , but I had 2 blinks in hand. I WOULD HAVE WON THAT GAME HANDS DOWN!!!! I don’t want to be a bad sport so I shake his hand and we hang out the rest of the tournament. I would rather walk away with a friend then pitch a fit that would ultimately not fix anything and have people think I’m some kind of jerk. I make 28 th place and Jonathan finishes 10 th . Mason makes Top 8 as well as Wallace so a win there could very well have put me in the top 8 if not 9 th place. SAD PANDA!!!!!! The Aftermath Although I walked away with only an unlimited Time Vault and 28 th place I had to look at it on the brightside. I had my Reviellark redemption, put up a strong day, made a lot of new friends, and ultimately had fun. As we waited for prize to be distributed I meet up with Evan Erwin and talked to him about his day. His camera had broken halfway through the day and he wasn’t sure if he could get the data back or not. We offered any help we could provide and began talking about both The Llanowar Corner and how he and Tom Lapille got their start. I got invaluable information from him on the subject and ultimately a lot of good encouragement. For those of you who have not met Evan Erwin in person he is just as nice as you imagine and then some. To do the things he does for our game definitely deserves our support. Keep up the good work Evan! Changes To start off, I want to say how much I loved playing this deck this weekend. The first change, however, is definitely Remove Soul . For those of you not keeping track, I boarded it out in 7 of my 9 rounds!!!!!! I put it there to give me early game potential. I ran 4 Rune Snag s, 2 Remove Soul s to give me 6 good answers to early threats. The problem with the Remove Soul s is that I generally only saw them in the late game because I was only running 2. In the late game they were dead to threats that had already resolved were as a late Rune Snag could still catch a game winning spell. After talking to Chris Wallace about Consign to Dream he made some really good arguments. Consign to Dream is a card I absolutely love in Shadowmoor Draft, and it’s one I wanted to utilize in Type II. Chris didn’t like Bottle Gnomes in his Faerie deck, and Consign to Dream gave him a reasonably good tempo spell against green and red cards typically Chameleon Colossus . He could also play it at instant speed as opposed to sorcery speed with the Gnomes. I rolled this idea in my head a little when I realized that I could once again run Unsummon . Unsummon was a card I ran in my earliest builds of Reviellark and absolutely fell in love with. I don’t know why the card eventually got cut from my deck, but I think it basically Boil ed down to me wanting to try new and different things. Unsummon gives me a way to impact the board both early and late game, while buying some tempo. It also allows me to protect my Sowers, pop my Reviellark, or get an extra mile out of a 187 effect, all for just one blue mana. The other problem I was having with the deck was the 4 Aven Riftwatcher s in the Sideboard. I absolutely LOVE this card, but as far as getting use out of it this weekend, I really didn’t get any. I saw ZERO red deck wins floating around the tournament which is where that card shined. He never stuck around long enough in the matches I did play him to get the evasive damage, and I never once brought him back with Reviellark. I wanted some kind of life gain in my board for burn heavy decks, but I wanted something to stick around as well. I came to the conclusion that Kitchen Finks was ideal for this, and it was also my pick for best card in Shadowmoor. I went as far as to buy 4 foils of it on EBay for a dollar a piece the day after the prerelease. It doesn’t synergize with Reviellark like I want it to but neither does Stonecloaker . It gives me a good permanent beater that synergizes with Momentary Blink and Unsummon . I can give myself even more game against Decks like Elves because they just won’t be able to keep up with me. It can trade, beat, and gain life! GRAVY! I was very impressed with Condemn all weekend long. However, if I am running Unsummon now, I can’t help but feel the redundancy of running six one mana spells that remove creatures. I know I will feel naked without Condemn , but I will cut them for now and if I feel like I need them again, I can always put them back in. I now present to you my most up to date Reviellark build: Main Deck: 4 Reviellark 4 Sower of Temptation 4 Mulldrifter 4 Riftwing Cloudskate 3 Venser, Shaper Savant 4 Mindstone 3 Momentary Blink 4 Rune Snag 2 Unsummon 2 Pact of Negation 4 Faerie Conclave 2 Mystic Gate 4 Adarkar Wastes 8 Islands 6 Plains Sideboard: 3 Kitchen Finks 3 Wispmare 2 Consign to Dream 2 Stonecloaker 3 Wrath of God 2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero I still don’t know how I feel about Crovax in the board, but seeing as how my two losses (that were actually losses, not me messing up) came from Stokens and Faeries, Crovax helps with both these match ups. I was nothing but impressed with Pact of Negation and Mason agreed so much he recommended 3. I thought 2 gave me a Pact late game and never in multiples, so I’m going to stick with just 2 for now. Conclusion I want to thank everyone I played this weekend for being so awesome. I didn’t have a single opponent this weekend that I did not have fun playing against, and I hope that you continue doing what you do best which is play awesome games of magic. I want to send out my support to Richie’s family and how proud I was to have participated in his memorial tournament. Thanks also go out to Evan Erwin and Wayne Baker for your invaluable advice and Words of Wisdom . This week I am not doing anything tournament wise except maybe FNM. It being the 4 th of July it’s still up in the air. I am, however, modifying the Zur deck, but Bernie Smith piloted a VERY similar build as mine. If you want to check out his article to get some advice on the deck I’d highly recommend it. I am also going to explore some into the Merfolk realm, as I think that it can be the best deck in the format if it can be tuned to the same level that Faeries has. So look for my blog next week when I bring some modified Zur builds and a new spin on Merfolk. Peace out!