Last time I told you how I got back back into Magic, and formed a decent playgroup. Today I'll tell the tale of how the first showing of that Team went.
Except kind of not. You see I had just gone from "removed from the game entirely" to having a serious go at competitive play. I was obviously itching to play. I wanted to see how fit I was to even be playing in a real tournament. Fortunately the absolute Last PTQ Valencia Block tournament was the very next weekend in Columbus. I live in Akron, so it's only a couple hour's drive away! Huzzah! Unfortunately the short time span and other factors meant we had almost no time to test. So while we went to this event as Team McLoving for the first time, we were not benefiting from the advantage of having people to test with.
So I needed a deck. I spent an entire night cruising from site to site figuring out the metagame. I had never played TSP block before, and had to start from the beginning and watch the format evolve all in the space of a few hours. What I finally came to realize was that despite the dominance of Turbo Teachings by the end, it was in fact a quite open format. (Despite what you may think MaRo, that's what happens in Modular formats.) [Warning: I hate MaRo and I will bitch about him when he says something stupid like "When the format is to modular no one knows what decks to build."]
Eventually my head began to hurt, literally. I remember quite vividly because I almost never get headaches, and that night I did. So eventually I just called Joey to see if there was anything I was missing, or if he had any insights perhaps I had missed. We talked for a bit and then I decided to try something. I asked him simply "If you could only choose one card in your deck, what would it be?" He replies that it would be Damnation, which is no surprise because we had both already mentioned we would like to play a deck with the amazing board sweeper. I ask what he would choose if he could pick a second card. He replies Tarmogoyf. Seems sensible enough. The best two drop since Wild Mongrel certainly is powerful on his own. So from there we try to envision a B/G deck. We fill it with all the most powerful cards in both colors, and to our suprise...it sounds good. Really good. I can't recall really how the original draft looked, but it was very close to the final list we played. After about 20 minutes we had designed the following niche deck.
B/G Good Stuff
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Damnation
4 Korlash
4 Sudden Death
3 Harmonize
3 Tombstalker
4 Riftsweeper
4 Edge of Autumn
4 Call of the Herd
2 Extripate
4 Llanowar Reborn
2 Urborg
1 Urza's Factory
19 Basics
SB
4 Stupor
3 Krosan Grip
4 Mire Boa
4 [Name Withheld] (sorry, its still decently tech, and no one expects it)
I am not usually one to blatantly brag, but this deck was good. It was damn good. I had never seen a deck like it in all the coverage I saw, and it was beautifully honed to the meta. In fact the only cards I would change if I could would be a 4th Tombstalker, as he was amazing for me every time I cast him. (Joey says he'd want 2 Tendrils over 2 Extripates, but I think that had more to do with matchups as 'pates were great for me.)
So how did it turn out? We'll start with Matt. Matt didn't play this deck, as he had been testing G/W aggro. He lost in the first round, insisting that he blew it and could have won. Round 2 he beat some random Pickles list. Round round three won against a pretty good midrange deck in a close match. Finally round 4 he lost and dropped out to draft.
I had a similar experience. Round 1 I played a U/G Shifter list. The deck worked exactly how it was meant to. It felt amazing. Eveything he played I had an answer to. His turn 1 Visions met my turn two Sweeper with a Llanowar counter. That pretty much sums up the match actually. I was elated at the deck performance. Round two was heartbreaking. I was matched against Pickles splashing G. I killed then extripated a Shapeshifter, and the look of hope fleeing him in his eyes was priceless. Game two he pulls off a lock just in time, but it was a good game, so I wasn't to upset. Than we go to game three. I keep a great hand, and he mulls. I drop a Llanowar on one, and Urborg and Mire Boa turn two. Yeah, pretty damn good.Turn three I Stupor him, he shrugs it off and plays a morph. The next turn I cast a SECOND STUPOR. He has no answer this time. I kill his morph and swing, he has only a couple turn to live. He draws a card and plays a morph. I swing again. Last chance. He draws a card, and plays a morph. Thats right. He topdecks the pickles lock after double Stupor! I wanted to cry. :-(
The next round I sit down at my seat, and there he is. Matt. The guy I came with. Remember how he beat a good midrange deck in a close match? Yeah...that was me. Going into the PTQ Joey and I had said the worst two card for us to see are Mystic Enforcer and Stonecloaker. Matt had both.
After that I go to time with another U/G Shifter list and drop out at after a 2-2-1 record. No way I make Top 8 even winning out the next 2. Drafting was fun, and I pulled out a random win I had no right to with a jank deck against an insane deck produced by a row of noobs to my opponent's right.
So how about Joey. Well he did much better, as I expected. He got great matchups his first few rounds, even meeting with some random WW and RDW, which we already knew our deck trounced. In between rounds I would always get good news from Joey. Eventually he gets to 4-1. All he has to do is win one more for top 8. He is match against Cedric Phillips. Oh joy. :-(
Cedric is playing a Pickles deck with Urborg/Damnation in the board. Game one Cedric gets to Willbender a Sudden Death to Joey's Goyf to take control of the game, and win out from there. Game two Joey starts out with our awesome Urbog/Boa/Reborn draw from the board. I don't know if you've ever been on the receiving end of that, but it's not easy to get out from under. So they go to game three. Its an incredibly long and hard fought game. Cedric suspends a Visions, but as usual our deck has the answer, a sweeper takes it away, and gives Joey another threat. After a couple of blanks from Cedric, Joey claims he overextends to put lethal on board by playing out a Tombstalker. Cedric rips the Damnation. Yeah, that really sucks. Joey than dies to a Factory.
But it's ok, still just has to take the last match to have an outside chance at T8, but definitely take home some amatuer prize payout. He sits down to his final round, and is faced with a very familiar deck. It's the Mono Black Aggro deck he and I had been screwing around with on MODO for a couple of weeks. Well, at least he knew the matchup. ^_^; You can read Greg McCleery's account of this game here: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=7740
Greg's account would be much fuller than mine, as I was drafting at the time. If you don't want to hop over I'll just tell you than our deck performed admirably, but MBA's evasive threats, and our lack of Tendrils in the Main cost Joey the match.
So we were a bit let down. However we were also very encouraged by these results. In 20 minutes we had made a deck that was one topdeck away from a T8 showing in a format we had never played. We pegged the format, and I dare say in the hands of a rigorously practiced player our little niche deck could have won the tournament. So maybe there is some justification for my enthusiasm for Magic after all.
I'm going to States in a couple of days. We have another list that I am just about as confident in, and I can't wait to see how well it does. I'll be writing a tournament report. I'm going to submit it as an article, but if nothing else it will definitely appear here.
Feel free to talk to me at States if you see me. (Sorry for no Avatar, I hate the tiny requirement on this site.) I'll be a 6'2" fat kid in blue jeans and a red button up, with a shorter kid who looks like a lions mane took a ??? on his head. ^_^;
Also, feel free to add me on MTGO. Tobias Funke, or search fro Team Mildly Offensive.
-Josh
