In Round 3, I sat across the table from a guy named Ari. He exuded a lot of confidence going into this match from the way he was talking about his pool and his already impressive 2-0 performance didn't prove him wrong, so I had a feeling this Round would be tough. In Game 1, he opened with a Selesnya Guildgate and proceeded to commit creature after creature when I continued to miss land drops. Even though I kept up a strong defense with a Centaur Healer I was able to cast, his army of 2/2s would eventually overwhelm me with the support of a pair of Centaur tokens courtesy of Courser's Accord. I was holding Armada Wurm in hand when I finally stabilized around 8 life. and debated whether to cast it or not and reveal my bomb rare. Casting Armada Wurm would help me stabilize on the ground, but wouldn't help me develop an offensive to punch back because the ground was cluttered on his side of the board. After drawing into the 6th land, Ari jokingly said 'where's that Armada Wurm?' Clearly I couldn't disappoint him. I opted to cast the Wurm to buy a couple turns and hope to see a few more cards from my opponent's deck that might help in side-boarding. Also, revealing a bomb card might also bring him on the tilt and edge him into over preparing going into Game 2. After my opponent committed two Bird tokens to the battlefield from an end of turn Eyes in the Skies, I was quickly being clocked out. I alpha-striked with my team to see if there were any other tricks up his sleeve and after blocks, I conceded and we moved to Game 2. To prevent getting blown out again from my opponents' early-game aggression and evasive tokens, I brought in Trestle Troll again to hold down the fort to my life total so I had the option to stabilize if it was necessary. For Game 2, the match was a grinder as we went back and forth for small points of damage throughout the game while committing creature after creature to the board. Did I mention that Selesnya mirrors were grueling? I don't remember the finer details of this game, but I remember coming out on top from a Gatecreeper Vine/Launch Party interaction. Bananas. Game 3 was a little lack luster, but my opponent missed his 4th land and couldn't commit anything to the board that was larger than Loxodon Smiter, so the 4/4 went in for punch after punch. I eventually overwhelmed him and took a 2-1 victory. He clearly was very disappointed after this match, but he wished me well. We both had a game where we had to struggle with a resource famine, so in the end the match was determined by the Game 2 outcome. Ari would eventually place 10th in the tournament overall with an X-2 record.
Current Standing: 3-0
After this round, I went to go see how everyone else was doing. Emily and Javier 0-X dropped and along with Nick, they went to find food. Chris won a match, and Jules and Robert both got caught up in a loss a piece. The team stood at Jules, Robert, and Stephen all at 2-1, which is still good at this point. Since the games with Ari didn't take very long, I went to hunt down some complementary Jolly Ranchers and cold water. After responding to good luck texts from friends and family, Round 4 was being called.
I took the seat across a taller guy who was wearing a Denver Broncos jersey. I commented 'I used to like the Broncos' to the entertainment of the Top 8 table. Someone asked why and I mentioned that I was a Tim Tebow fan. This was met with dismay and contempt from the table that was just a second ago on my side. Haters. My opponent, Julian was not enjoying any of the hilarity and proceeded to be condescending and silent the entire match; my least favorite of people. Game 1 started atrociously. I took a mulligan to 5 on the play. Five. Cards. My hand had a Forest, Swamp, Keening Apparition, Korozda Monitor, and a Dreg Mangler. Well.. if a hand had to have 5 cards in it, I suppose this is what I'd want. I didn't have high hopes for this game, but figured if I could draw into any land, I had a Dreg Mangler to play defense, if I drew a green source/Forest, I'd have 3 draws to find a 4th land for the Korozda Monitor and if I drew into a white source Plains, I'd have both Dreg Mangler and Keening Apparition to hold the fort. The Scavenge ability on my two creatures would help recover some of the card advantage lost during the mulligans. My opponent opened with a turn 1 Rakdos Guildgate. I didn't make the same mistake as before and waited to see what the rest of his lands would reveal. I drew into a Plains; wow. I cast my turn 2 Keening Apparition and shipped. My opponent played a Plains and this threw me off. I wasn't entirely sure what his deck was, so I marked the Plains as potentially a 3rd splash for something like Trostani's Judgment or Arrest. Either way, this is a good indicator that the quality of removal in his deck is potentially very low, so I switched my strategy into a more aggressive approach. I cast my Dreg Mangler and swung with the team. He committed an Ogre Jailbreaker to the board that was promptly killed off with a Launch Party that I drew using my Dreg Mangler as fodder. I cast Korozda Monitor and swung in to bring my opponent down to 6. He then played his bomb rare, Desecration Demon. With my 5th land as the last card in my hand, I sat and thought the play over for a few minutes. In my mind, the play was to Scavenge my Dreg Mangler on the Korozda Monitor on the battlefield, then enter combat and sacrifice my Keening Apparition to the Desecration Demon to tap it and swing in and punch for damage. This play took over 5 minutes because I kept thinking Dreg Mangler Scavenged for 2 +1/+1 counters instead of 3. After looking in my graveyard to make sure I knew the Scavenge cost, I saw that the mangler was a 3/3. Oops. Even I forget to read the cards sometimes. I swung in and he conceded after making a snarky remark on 'how easy' that play was. In my head, I was thinking 'I just beat you on a mulligan to 5'. Jerk.
For Game 2, I brought in Slum Reaper and Aerial Predation and dropped an Avenging Arrow and Golgari Longlegs. Unfortunately, I was only able to see two spells from Game 1, so I didn't really know what I was fighting against. I initially thought his deck was a Jund deck splashing White for some undetermined removal spell. Slum Reaper is good enough against Rakdos since it helps keep their creature masses at a manageable level in the early-mid game. The predation was simply just another answer to Desecration Demon. After my opponent made his minor adjustments, we moved forward. He opened with a Selesnya Guildgate. Wait. What? Then a swamp, then a turn 3 Centaur Healer. I swear I didn't see him side board in or out that many cards. I was legitimately thrown off. I thought to myself 'what kind of deck is this?' I quickly found out that most of his deck was dedicated to a Selsnya shell and we both prepared a large midgame push. Eventually he pushed in for enough damage with a pair of Giant Growths and profitable blocks, so we moved on to Game 3. In side-boarding, I dropped the Slum Reaper and brought in Trestle Troll in case my opponent when for an early game aggression and it helps hold off the Desecration Demon in case he makes an unwelcome appearance. I elected to take the play and hoped I could draw into a strong curve and apply a ton of pressure early so my Scavenge cards could be the last bit of reach I needed to close out the game. The game started with damage swinging in both directions until I hit a critical mass of creatures that he couldn't safely swing into. I also relentlessly blitzed with my Scavenge creatures because I knew it would be unprofitable for him to block in most cases. There were several times where he clearly left 6 mana open and I knew a Trostani's Judgment was there, so I avoided Scavenging on certain turns when that was available to him. After he cast the removal spell, he then followed his play up with the deadly Desecration Demon and had only one card in hand, I made a gamble. Julian had been often leaving up a Golgari Guildgate for most of his turns, so I was predicting he had a Giant Growth. I wasn't certain, but I had avoided baiting it in the early turns so I could keep most of my creatures to play defense. Luckily my Seller of Songbirds Bird token wasn't affected if he had the pump spell. On my turn, I shot down his demon with one of my boarded in Aerial Predation and with Julian at just 4 life, I suited up my Bird with a Scavenged Drudge Beetle and cast Swift Justice on my Bird to swing for lethal. Holding my breath, I waited for a response. He paused for a good 30 seconds and then revealed the Giant Growth and conceded the match. I swear, I heard the metaphorical cheers from an audience of thousands. This win meant a lot since it was against a strong opponent with a very hard-to-read deck. Julian would eventually place 5th in the tournament with a 6-1-1 record and place 4th in the Top 8.
I left the table quickly because I needed to be away from any magic cards and just drink some cold water to keep my calm. Since most of the team were in games and the others were foraging for food, I kept in a corner and just chilled out. Jules would now stand at a 2-2 record, while Stephen and Robert were both at 3-1. Since my match with Julian took a while, the next round started quicker than I had I hoped. With no room to let my brain relax, I took out the side board cards and sat down for Round 5.
Current Standing: 4-0
For Round 5, I was paired up against a guy named Mark. I've seen him around Coolstuff Games in Orlando, so we had some friendly conversation about our store and the people we traveled with to Tampa before the game began. Mark opened with a very aggressive start of an army of Sunspire Griffin, Vassal Soul, and an Azorius Keyrune along with some detain cards. My opening was similar, but all my creatures lacked flight; my life total was in jeopardy. To top things off, I could sense that a few people were standing behind me watching the game including Emily. No pressure.
I looked at my hand and with a pair of Golgari Longlegs and a ton of mana available. Since he had a lot of creatures on the battlefield and very few cards in hand, I knew Supreme Verdict would probably be out of the question. The only plausible way to fight all of his evasive creatures is to swing relentlessly on the ground. Creatures with evasion are strictly better than ones that can't fly, so I needed to present unprofitable combat trades in every attack phase so he would elect to take the damage to keep his high-quality army. Eventually his total would fall to just 10 life, all while staring down a pair of Golgari Longlegs. This mid-game pressure put him in a very uncomfortable position where he would have to start chump blocking to survive and he just had one card in hand. He went for the all-in strategy by animating his Azorius Keyrune and sending in an alpha-strike at me in the air and cast Chorus of Might on one of his flying creatures. Baited.
With just 2 mana up, I revealed the Druid's Deliverance in my hand. He responded with 'Fog?' I'm pretty sure a grin escaped from my face, but I couldn't help it. Staring down at least 15 power on the ground and no cards in his grip, he packed up and we moved to Game 2. While shuffling, he muttered 'didn't even Populate.' I was dying of laughter on the inside, but did my best to hide it. I don't remember Game 2 that much, but I made the obvious side board choices you can see on the score sheet and went for an early game aggression that knocked him out with ease. *Quick aside: Early game aggression works really well against the tempo deck because their creatures are usually very small, but have really good abilities like Flying or Detain. If you commit to early aggression, they usually can't Detain all of your creatures and are pressured into making poor blocks in order to stay alive in the mid-game, which puts them in an uncomfortable spot and forces them into risky plays; Game 1 being a good example. Mark would eventually finish 20th overall in the tournament with a 5-3 record.
I got up and started to shake a little. How is all of this possible? Emily handed me a burrito that she had leftover when everyone went to grab lunch and I scarfed it down. I don't even think I paid back whoever bought that burrito. Oops. Afterwards, I went to call my mom and tell her how everything was going. As one of my biggest supporters and inspirations in life, it was the best thing I could think of at the time. After a small chat, I went back inside and enjoyed watching the rest of the team play some Commander and struggle to keep the life totals in order. After a brief break, and Robert and Stephen both at 4-1, we entered the next round strong.
Current Standing: 5-0; 2nd Place
I was paired up against a guy named Michael who is an Armada Games regular and was very friendly. We both joked around about how we were both almost a shoe-in for the Top 8 and were genuinely having a good time. It was a very good-mannered match overall and I hope to play against Michael again. My opponent opened up with a very slow noncommittal start with creatures sprinkled in here and there and a few removal spells without making any huge pushes in the early or the mid-game. This was a huge signal; he must have a few bombs up his sleeve. After the thought crossed my mind, she landed on the battlefield. Angel of Serenity. After wiping out my army, the angel cleaned up the rest of my life total very easily. Looking into the sideboard, I didn't have too many options other than to blitz him before he had the opportunity to cast the angel. I brought in Trestle Troll to block some of the Flying creatures he played in the early game so I could overextend without worry. I also brought in an Aerial Predation and Soul Tithe for backup. Game 2 went similarly. With Towering Indrik and Hussar Patrol keeping him alive, my creatures couldn't punch in quick enough and the Angel of Serenity brought smite and justice upon the battlefield again. Even though I had the predation to kill her this time and Armada Wurm to clog up the ground a little, the exiling my 3 creatures did enough damage so the rest of his army had the opening he needed to swing into the pair of 5/5 wurms and clean up the rest of my life total. I was a little disappointed after hitting an 0-2 speed bump, but Michael said 'don't worry, I'll see you in the Top 8.' Those were some encouraging words that I wouldn't forget. Michael would eventually finish 2nd place in the tournament with a 6-0-2 record and 3rd place in the Top 8.
This round was painful for everyone since I heard that both Robert and Stephen suffered a loss and both now sat at 4-2. This next round would be a tough one because a win would be an almost guaranteed Top 8, while a loss was almost a guaranteed 'not Top 8'. The guy sitting across from me in a few minutes would be in the same position and basically gunning with everything he's got to make it. If there was a stressful match, Round 7 was it.
Current Standing 5-1; 5th Place
I sat across the table from a guy named Dustin. We had a little discussion on where we were from and how all the travelling went. He was a friendly guy from Tallahassee who had the chance to play while his fiancé was away. Serendipitous. We shuffled up and presented our decks to cut when all of a sudden.. DENIED. A pair of judges came by and asked us for our decks and sideboard to be deck checked. You know that feeling when you're playing a videogame and all of a sudden it starts to lag? That's what being deck checked is like. You're in the zone and all of a sudden if just comes to an abrupt halt and you realize you haven't eaten all day. Or called your family. We sat in our chairs for an excruciatingly long 8 minutes. In that time, I went to get a drink of water and had a small conversation with CJ and sat back down and twiddled my thumbs. I knew I was getting psyched out a little, but only if I could keep my cool longer for this 50min round. JUST 50 MORE! When we got our decks back, all of the cards were neatly organized. I said to Dustin 'shuffle for 8 minutes?' and he agreed. Excellent. I planned this so that we could sit longer and endure this sort of festering while we were in the vicinity of two other flanking matches going on and couldn't necessarily start the game. I don't really know how to explain what I was trying to do nor can I justify that it has any real effect, but simply, I wanted to test my opponent's patience. In Game 1, I saw that he was playing Rakdos and thought it was really refreshing not to play against mirror match. About time. He opened with a pair of early creatures that were promptly stopped by my giant Loxodon Smiter. Unfortunately, none of the Rakdos creatures can be that huge that early and not even the mightly Lobber Crew has stats to defend against this beater. I took some early hits while I took to the red zone. I eventually stopped attacking and cast a Korozda Monitor and held on the fort. My opponent was amassing a large army full of rather small creatures. He was over committing to the board, but what for? I was expecting a Dynacharge or an Island followed by Teleportal. I needed to apply some mid-game pressure and soon. I suited up my Korozda Monitor with a Knightly Valor and swung with my Loxodon Smiter and monitor into the red zone with my opponent at 7. He thought over combat for a few minutes, then placed a 1/1 in front of my monitor and said 'I take 4 from the smiter?'
What?
He looked at the monitor, the battlefield, his life total, then his hand and silently picked up his cards and we moved to Game 2. Did.. that just happen? SUCCESS! Although it wasn't obvious at first, all that waiting and the pressure of this game was getting to my opponent too. He was on the tilt and I knew I could take advantage. I went into Game 2 with the intentions of doing a mid-game push and kept the list the same since my deck is already well equipped to take advantage of turns 4-6 with 2 copies of Golgari Longlegs and Armada Wurm, which is larger than most of the creatures the Rakdos deck can muster on those turns.
*Another quick aside: Against Rakdos, a mid-game push is really strong because the strategy plays a lot like Zerg from Starcraft II. What does this mean? Rakdos can create a very aggressive early game and can be very powerful in large numbers. Rakdos also has a nice suite of high-quality late game spells like Carnival Hellsteed, Chaos Imps, and Explosive Impact. What about in the middle of their curve? Rakdos is usually squandering removal spells in order to push for more damage or survive into the late game. Around turns 4-7 are their most vulnerable turns because they lack high-quality spells around 4-5 mana. Setting your push to the mid game allows you to commit some creatures early to make trades if necessary or to eat up your opponents' removal spells while you bide time to cast larger creatures that should have no problem pushing through for large chunks of your opponent's life total.
Putting this theory to the test and without a good memory of what strictly happened, Dustin's life total quickly fell to 0 in Game 2 and he conceded the match. !!! Dustin would eventually place 19th overall in the tournament with a 5-3 record.
After the match, I ran over to tell everyone and was really excited. I needed to know the math for the next match and see if I could draw into the Top 8 for my final round. After talking to a judge (apparently they're not supposed to help you, but I had no idea how the tie-breakers and such worked), I think I could confidently draw into the Top 8. I was getting tired and I really needed a break, so I decided to lobby for the draw.
Current Standing: 6-1; 3rd Place
Round 8: I got paired against James who currently held 2nd place. I asked for the draw and he looked at me and said 'nah, I want to play.' Seriously? Then he said 'I'm just joking, lololool' What a jerk.. =D
After Round 8, Michael announced the names for the Top 8 and then.. in 4th place, my name was called. Oh man. The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming. I did it, I am so close to the Pro Tour invite. 'Only a few more coin flips to Montreal' -Stephen.
Final Standings in the Swiss: 4th seed going into the Top 8, 6-1-1 record, and a 71.43% win percentage.
Of 151 people, the Top 8. I made it. What was the Top 8 like?
Each of us got our own Top 8 Playmat for this specific PTQ with artwork by Kristy Dunn and won 24 booster packs of Return to Ravnica. The paperwork on top of the box is the release waiver for the publication of our images and contract from WotC in the event that we won the PTQ and how the travel reimbursement would work. After all the fine details were explained, the judges all circled around along with onlookers, spectators, and friends for support. The draft would soon begin.
The draft itself was very.. intense. Each pick was timed to about 45 seconds and incrementally decreased as the number of cards in each pack decreased. It's difficult to conceptualize everything that happened in one article, but I can break it down as best I can from the most important decisions I made.
Pack 1, Pick 1: The rare was Overgrown Tomb. Tempting, but I have more sense than to rare draft here. The strong playables were Frostburn Weird and Centaur Healer. Fortunately, I've had a lot of practice with both Izzet based Grixis (U/R/B) and Selesnya (often with a Black splash), so both cards jumped out at me. I felt more comfortable playing Selesnya and it's treated me well in the past, so I decided to take the healer. It's a strong playable and gaining 3 life is important in draft, since the games move quicker and the decks are generally more aggressive. Plus a 3/3 creature is a great-sized body to have in the early game.
Pack 1, Pick 2: The next pack didn't have too many exciting cards in it, but it did have a Trostani's Judgment that's a fine one of and could even be good if I can get enough token producers to Populate with. I believe the rare was missing from this pack, so there were no tells so far as to what the guy to my right may have picked.
Pack 1, Pick 3: This pack was.. famine. No. Green. Playables. What? The only Selsnya pick was a Seller of Songbirds. The pack was overall poor with the next best card being Izzet Charm. I'm not a fan of playing Izzet aggro because it's not my favorite style of play, but I couldn't ignore the sign, could I? This would be the most vital pick of the draft and I knew it. I could jump ship and see if Izzet was open (safer route) or stay hardcore to my all-in Selesnya strategy (more risky). Since I didn't see any strong playables in any guild so far, I was making this decision somewhat blind. The lack of good Selesnya cards in Pick 2 was somewhat tell that I should pick up the Izzet Charm. I ended up taking the Seller of Songbirds because I really wanted to famine Selesnya in Pack 1 and hopefully get rewarded in Pack 2 when the direction of the packs shifts from Left to Right. In hindsight, I think the charm was the correct choice, but during this draft I didn't want to see it. I had a lot of success with Selesnya during the day and played against the archetype so many times that I gave myself tunnel-vision and that's all I wanted to play when I was constructing this deck. The next picks would suffer from this decision.
Pack 1, Pick 4: The next pick had a few weaker Selesnya cards scattered in and a Savage Surge. The Pack also had a Sewer Shambler and a few other decent Blue cards, but nothing that I particularly was interested in. Simple pick here.
Pack 1, Pick 5: No Green or White playables. Harsh. This is when I absolutely knew that Selesnya was not open and it's derivatives (Golgari and Azorius) were also being taken up. There were a few decent red cards and a lone Slum Reaper and Sewer Shambler to respresent the Black. Unfortunately, I didn't see any strong Blue playables, so Bant was out of the question. The decision was to jump ship and take a decent red card and possibly jump ship on a new strategy or take a weaker Slum Reaper and stay on track with my current strategy. Like Pick 3, I had the tunnel vision that swayed me towards the G/W/b archetype and I took the reaper and went full steam ahead.
Pack 2, Pick 1: This pack was rough. Since I elected to fight for Selesnya cards, this pack would have to have a Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage, Eyes in the Skies, AND Wayfaring Temple. I really wanted to throw all these cards at the judges. Seriously? I ended up taking the guildmage because it's insane card advantage if you manage to stabilize, but I knew I'd be sending some awesome goodies to the other Selesnya players at the table (which I guess were 2 at this table and 2 Azorius players). The Temple is a little worse (but only marginally so) since it's easily chump-blocked in the Selesnya mirrors I was preparing to fight against.
Pack 3, Pick 1: I opened up a lackluster rare (I think it was Rest in Peace) and saw a Stab Wound in the pack with nothing else noteworthy. Stab Wound is easily one of the best commons in the set and is very good at pushing stalemates in your favor. Since I was already committed to the Black splash, this was an easy pick.
The rest of the draft was nuance with subtle picks here and there. I ended up picking up a ton of Izzet-themed cards that were largely unplayable, but I hoped would end up cutting the Rakdos deck that was splashing Blue. After reviewing my pool, I realized I had just enough playable cards to hit around 23-24 and I didn't have an opportunity to pick up side board cards because there were at least 2 other players picking up Selesnya cards. This deck didn't have a plan after boarding, which is a scary place to be. But, I couldn't look back. I had to use this list and fight with it.
The deck I ended up registering was this Selesnya with a splash of Black deck:
1x Deadbridge Goliath
1x Centaur Healer
2x Seller of Songbirds
1x Keening Apparition
1x Phantom General
1x Concordia Pegasus
1x Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
1x Slum Reaper
1x Fencing Ace
1x Trestle Troll
1x Korozda Monitor
Spells (11):
2x Eyes in the Skies
1x Trostani's Judgment
2x Savage Surge
1x Coursers' Accord
1x Chorus of Might
1x Stab Wound
1x Mind Rot
Lands:
5x Forests
4x Swamps
6x Plains
Match 1 in the Top 8: SelesnyaI was paired up against Julian again (that I faced in Round 4) who remarkably was the 5th seed in the Top 8. I was thinking to myself 'how did he get this far with that weird 4-Color deck?' He must have played it very well or was familiar enough with the archetype. This would be another struggle. Again, we opened against each other as a Selesnya mirror. In Game 1, we committed creature after creature to the board, trading small points of damage here and there. There were so many things occurring on the board we had to ask the judges to bring actual token cards.. multiple times! He then broke the stalemate by going for the alpha strike with one lone card left in his hand. After thinking over the combat for several minutes and finally declaring blocks, I knew there was no way I could play around either a Common Bond, Giant Growth, Selesnya Charm, nor a Chorus of Might. I simply had to hope he didn't have it. Unfortunately, his last card was that Chorus and we moved to Game 2. For Game 2, I took a mulligan to 6 and kept a hand that was lackluster but I elected to play and hoped that early game aggression would pressure him out. This would be more difficult to do in this deck without the Scavenge creatures in my list, so I had to play more carefully. My opponent cast a Centaur's Herald and sacrificed it early on his Turn 3; this is unusual. Uh-Oh. He then cast the monstrosity that would seal my fate: Growing Ranks.
Without a removal spell, I was victim to the Growing Ranks Populating his Centaur token into oblivion. He was gaining card advantage and board presence every turn and my cards were eventually no match. He finally obtained enough critical mass that he went for another gruesome alpha strike and I conceded the match. A huge wave of disappointment overcame me. I made it this far.. just to lose? I walked out of the grand ball room and lay on the floor. Luckily, I was joined by the team and we all enjoyed dinner late that night and talked about all of the gaming, trading, and hilarity that had happened that day.
It hit me as we were waiting outside to walk into the restaurant for 1/2 off appetizer happy hour..
We all won today. This event is the manifestation of all the hard work that everyone put into Casual Net and Magic over the past year and a half. As I looked at everyone laughing and talking over their battle scars of the day; I saw how Casual Net created this experience. A network of people joined by a common passion work together to help, nurture, and cultivate others' experiences as well as their own in this community created this camaraderie. In 2010, when I was first brainstorming up a Magic group for Facebook, I didn't think that idea would have come to fruition. I can't express how grateful I am that I've been able to meet all of you and have the opportunity to share these experiences with everyone. But.. enough gushing. There's more time for that later.
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-David J.
