To set the scene a little bit, this was the first Grand Prix I had played in since August of the previous year and between then and now I had played 5 Magic events. In total.
So to get ready for this event I played somewhere between 15-20 leagues on magic online. Initially my testing was going tits up rather quickly. In the first half of my testing my best results were a pair of 3-2s with 6 or so 2-3s and a couple of 1-4s. Before this I’m not sure if I ever got results this bad with a deck before. Even with Death Shadow, which I went 2-2 with at local events.
And in histories past this might have sent me spiraling, but with the help of time apart from Magic and just enjoying games and being mesmerized by the variance/my play and now years of therapy (get into it) I found myself laughing at my own stupidity and my opponents top decks rather than needing to buy a new mouse at 3 am.
Deck choice for the tournament:
Temur-Urza
4 Mox Opal
Sideboard:
Round 1 & 2 = Byes
Don’t know how I still have byes. My roommate for the trip didn’t and he plays magic weekly. I only play at the “every so often event” that I can find time to squeeze in between school and work, but, well, here we are.
Round 3 (vs. UG Urza)
Game 1 : I mull to 5 but get Oko, Urza, and Emry. He trys to resolve 1 but doesn’t .
Game 2: He mulls to 5 and doesn’t have any of the 3 biggers and gets rekt.
3-0
Round 4 (vs. Eldrazi Tron)
Game 1: It’s not close
Game 2: He plays his game and eeks it out.
Game 3: It’s not close again.
4-0
Round 5 (vs. Tron)
Game 1: He mulligans to 3 on the draw and I started to feel bad for him until I realized what was up. In my experience there are few decks that, when played correctly, mulligan as much as Tron. My sorrow turned to confirmed fear after my opponent played turn 1 Tron piece… because I didn’t have a clock. But I had an Emry and he missed land drops so I’ll be fine right? Well 10 turns and god knows how many Mishra’s Bauble triggers later I was mounting a come back and… O-stone goes the dynamite. My opponent was at at 5… so close yet so far.
Game 2: Again he mulligan’d to 3. But this time I had a clock in Urza and the means with which to mess up his lands in Blood Moon.
Game 3: He mulligans but this time only to 4 or 5 and I’m on the draw. “Ruh roh”. Mine, Go. Land pass. Power Plant, Go. Land Pass. Tower, here it comes something I can’t beat oh no! Walking Ballista for 3… I accept. Land Go while holding up Archmage’s Charm. He attacks and attempts to pump, I go to steal Ballista, he shoots me for 3. I untap and cast Blood Moon and the following turn cast Urza into Oko.
5-0
Round 6: (vs BUG Shadow)
Game 1: I end up winning via Emery/ Engineered Explosives lock + Aether Spellbomb.
Game 2: He rips my hand to shreds, has a board presence, and oko on a higher loyalty. He attacks me down to 4. Now he’s at 3 with a tapped Deathshadow, a tapped Deathshadow-Elk, an elk’d food, 4 regular food, an Oko on 9+ loyalty, and 3 non basics and a swamp. I have an elk’d food, an Oko on 6, 1 food, a gilded goose, Blood Moon, a basic island and 2 or 3 non basic lands. And while I’m thinking of what I am gonna do/how soon i should concede he mumbles something about a mistake or something and then concedes. Folks there are gifts and then there are gifts.
6-0
Round 7 (vs. Humans)
Game 1: I win the die roll and have a turn 2 Oko and a Galvanic Blast for his Mantis Rider.
Game 2: He is stuck on 1 land for a majority of the game but has a Noble Hierarch and makes a game of it. I end up turning his Collector Ouphe into an elk so I can Engineered Explosives his FOUR 2-drops and from there it wasn’t fair.
7-0
Round 8 (Feature Match vs. Whurza)
I get a feature match vs the fantastic Jody Keith. I literally can’t say how much I like this guy’s class and style when it comes to being a Magic competitor. Not that I am a big fan of playing against somebody that much better than me.
Game 1: Oko does work aggressively and disrupting his combo by turning his Thopter Foundry into an elk.
Game 2: Both times I needed him to whiff for a turn so I could draw my Cryptic… his deck thought otherwise.
Game 3: Time gets called and I miss on a 5 outer and then a 2 outer. He was ahead but in a field of this size a draw isn’t a loss.
7-0-1
Round 9 (vs. Burn)
Game 1: I was at 1 life for 9 consecutive turns. I couldn’t find a Goose/counterspell/Oko… I even had Emry+Bauble going. 🙁
Game 2: No Oko, no game 3.
7-1-1
After some much needed Tex-Mex and a good nights sleep I am ready for Day 2.
DAY 2
Round 10 (vs. Eldrazi Tron)
Game 1: I mulligan and he thought knot seers my oko, but then I draw experimental frenzy and bring the thunder
Game 2: He Thought-knots my Blood Moon. I get Oko going. He puts an end to that with Karn getting Pithing Needle then a 2nd Karn to lock me out. Also, I drew zero non land cards outside of my opener in a game that went something like 7 turns.
Game 3: I go ham and cheese Turn 2 Urza + Aetherspellbomb, Turn 3 Blood Moon.
8-1-1
Round 11 (vs. BUG Urza)
Game 1: I start off with quite a nutty draw. Turn 1 Goose, Mishra’s Bauble, Mox, Emry. Luckily for him, he Thoughtseizes my Oko, but my deck insists that I’ve been a good boy and deserve nice things so it rewards me with an Urza.
Game 2: Its a close game but he floods on Oko, which is an odd problem to have. I was too far ahead on board so he couldn’t deploy them profitably so I just run away with things.
9-1-1
Round 12 (vs. Allen Wu)
Now I don’t have a ton of history with Allen, but the little I do has been unpleasant. Not because he’s not a nice guy, rather the contrary. It’s just that, well, how should I put this. He won’t stop beating the shit out of me.
Game 1: My draw isn’t great, his is.
Game 2: My draw is great his isn’t nearly as good. He also waited to trophy my future sight until after I drew to which I revealed a veil of summer. So that went well.
Game 3: He’s crushing me pretty much from jump street and I am doing my best to keep my head above water. There comes an interesting moment in the game where I go to Mystic Sanctuary my Archmage’s Charm back hoping to get him to pop his Nihil Spellbomb for no value and play another emery in efforts to pull ahead as he was tapped out … but instead, he let me have it which made me realize that he likely had a Veil of Summer. So when situations came up through out the rest of the game I followed this read. And after he was done pistol whipping me, I asked if he had had one. So he showed his hand saying he had had it since turn 4. Small victories.
9-2-1
Round 13 (vs. Amulet Titan)
Game 1: Opponent gets a deck registration error. You hate to see it, but at the same time I am trying to win as many games as possible and ….. #awkward…
Game 2: He smushes me as his deck is supposed to.
Game 3: My opener is 2 land, Blood Moon, Astrolabe, Metallic Rebuke. Astrolabe sees no land. Draw step – no land. Sweat starts to pool on my brow. Counter first Azusa. Draw step – no land. God, why have you forsaken me! Go. Opponent plays Azusa #2 FML! then has no land – and says go. Wait what?! Draw Step … land! LAND HO! Blood Moon and an Oko later, that’s the ball game.
10-2-1
Round 14 (vs. Bant Stoneblade)
Game 1: This game took nearly 40 minutes. I wish this game had been played on MTGO to save time on shuffling since that was more of the match than I wished, but what you gonna do. There’s a point at which he takes my Emry with his Oko and I don’t bounce it because I was worried about decking. I should have thought about it more and realized, oh yeah, I Oko’d your equipment and they’ve since died. Whoops. Definitely the mistake of the tournament for me.
Game 2: I try to play as fast as I can so that maybe I don’t have to lose 0-1 in the match. Don’t worry my opponent’s deck says that won’t be a problem you’ll just lose 0-2.
10-3-1
Round 15 (vs. Infect)
Game 1:
- Opponent: Glistener Elf
- Me: Astrolabe
- Opponent:
Game 2: I Mooned him and the judge didn’t stop me. Man things really are different in Texas.
Game 3: I had Aether Spellbomb and Galvanic Blast ready for his Ink Moth Nexus and he laughed and showed me how much of everything he had. Womp womp.
10-4-1
I ended the tournament with $300 in the mail, so to speak, and 10% of an invite to a PT.
It was not what I was shooting for, but for a weekend of playing magic with friends + tasty meaty eats, I couldn’t have reasonably asked for more.
Tune in next time when I regale you with my tales of battle from my next clash. PT? GP Phoenix? We’ll have to wait and see.