PTQ Gatecrash: Tampa - Robert W.

Party the night before? Check. Have to wake up early? Check. Wanting to go to sleep for 10hrs of Magic? Double check. The life of a Tournament goer. Or at least for me anyways. As many of you already know, PTQ Gatecrash in Tampa occurred a few weeks ago. I was pretty stoked about attending the event, mainly to meet some more of the casual netters (who were all awesome by the way), but also to play some fun games of Magic and have a great day.

The event was sealed, not my favorite format by a long shot. I feel that it's just too luck based to be considered that competitive, but boy was I wrong on that one! Watching someone win with dudes and a single Teleportal every match without any rares or mythic rares in his deck is pretty amazing to see.

With 151 people in attendance, I ended up making Top 16 (16th place exactly!) after 8 rouds of swiss. It was a long and grueling day of combat tricking my way to victory. here's the pool of cards I had to work with:

Green (10):
Golgari Decoy
Axebane Stag
Death's Presence
Korozda Monitor
Deadbridge Goliath
Rubbleback Rhino
Drudge Beetle
Giant Growth
Savage Surge
Towering Indrik

White (11):
Ethereal Armor
Avenging Arrow
Security Blockade
Sphere of Safety
Azorius Justiciar
Seller of Songbirds
Keening Apparition
Sunspire Griffin
Eyes in the Skies
Concordia Pegasus
Angel of Serenity

Black (13):
2x Launch Party (one of them was foil ;D)
Catacomb Slug
Cremate
2x Drainpipe Vermin
Mind Rot
2x Sewer Shambler
Shrieking Affliction
3x Stab Wound

Red (13):
2x Pursuit of Flight
Viashino Racketeer
Survey the Wreckage
Racecourse Fury
Minotaur Aggressor
Gore-House Chainwalker
Electrickery
Bloodfray Giant
Bellows Lizard
Batterhorn
2x Annihilating Fire

Blue (7):
Syncopate
Downsize
Dispel
Crosstown Courier
2x Chronic Flooding
Blustersquall (Foil ;D)

Multicolored (20):
Dramatic Rescue
Heroes' Reunion
Slitherhead
Frostburn Weird
Blistercoil Weird
Izzet Charm
2x Goblin Electromancer
Counterflux
Search Warrant
Skull Rend
Rakdos Shred-Freak
Sundering Growth
Golgari Longlegs
Dreg Mangler
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Common Bond
2x Grizly Salvage
Armada Wurm

Lands/Artifacts (4):
2x Azorius Guildgate
Transguild Promenade
Izzet Keyrune

After flipping through all the cards and taking out the bombs I had to work with, I was ecstatic I already paid for my entry fee by opening both Armada Wurm and Angel of Serenity, but also 3x Stab Wounds? This pool was nuts!

I could have gone a few different directions while making my deck. Angel was an auto-include as she just flat out wins games when she hits the board. The WWW in the casting cost makes it a little rough for making a multi-colored deck, but having the Transguild Promenade and Guildgates would help right? Wrong. My blue was crap, flat out. I didn't want to go red because of all the RR (double red) spells that would end up in the deck and the lack of fixing that I had. black had some awesome removal options, but no creatures, so I went straight to Green. Armada Wurm was an auto-include was were a majority of the other White and Green creatures. After about 15min of putting together all the cards I wanted to play with, I ended up registering this deck:

Creatures (13):
Angel of Serenity
Azorious Justiciar
Seller of Songbirds
Keening Apparition
Sunspire Griffin
Concordia Pegasus
Rubbleback Rhino
Drudge Beetle
Towering Indrik
Golgari Longlegs
Dredge Mangler
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Armada Wurm

Spells (10)
2x Grisly Salvage
Eyes in the Skies
Giant Growth
Savage Surge
Shrieking Affliction
2x Stab Wound
Launch Party
Common Bond

Land (17):
Transguild Promenade
3x Swamp
6x Forest
7x Plains

Looks pretty good, right? Now some of you may be wondering 'Why didn't I play Deadbridge Goliath?' or '2 Stab Wounds over 3?'

To answer the first question, I'm stupid. While sorting my cards, I wasn't sure which of my Green and Black cards were my secondary and tertiary splashes. I set the Goliath aside in one of my corner piles while sorting the cards because of the GG (double Green) in its casting cost. He must have been lost or shuffled in with the rest of my cards and I forgot to register him in my list as a result. I ended up side-boarding him in every single game after Round 1. As for the Stab Wounds, I wanted to have a 2-1 split with Launch Party. I was afraid of having anything with 3 or more toughness getting Stab Wounded, so I figured using Launch Party to get rid of them would help me get some serious value.

And now for the good stuff. Tournament report! :D

Round 1: Rakdos Midrange

My first round opponent seemed to be a pretty nice older gentleman. We sat down, said our good lucks and set off to game one. He didn't really do much except play a couple dudes which I dispatched quickly. I was playing very cautiously because of a suspected Rakdos, Lord of Riots, so the game turned into a swing with one creature and leave the others back so none of his creatures can push for damage. My conservative strategy worked and we moved to the next game. Game 2 was long and grindy; we kept trading blows, but he eventually stabilized behind a Lobber Crew and a bunch of creatures with Defender and constantly pinged me to death to move the match to game 3. Since I knew his game plan, I made sure to keep a very aggressive hand. Going from a 2-3-4 CMC creature followed by curving out into Armada Wurm with Populate backup the following turn made quick work of him. 1-0

Round 2: 4-Color Good Stuff

I sat down and said my hellos as we shuffled up for the first match. I kept up a lot of pressure throughout the game and eventually over ran his defenders. Game 2 was pretty rough since I kept drawing into land I didn't need while he had multiple kill spells for my dudes. He quickly got me down to 0 for another Game 3. In this match, I got clever. I brought in a pair of Sewer Shamblers from the board to punch through with Swampwalk and quickly tempo-ed him out with 4 damage/turn. 2-0

Round 3: Bant (U/W/G) Control:

This fine young gentleman was my first loss of the day. Game one was long and grindy with him spamming removal spells until I ran out of gas and quickly losing afterwards. Game 2 was a little more interesting where I had game on board and he used a clutch Detention Sphere to commit to an alpha strike that swung for lethal. 2-1

Round 4: Grixis (U/R/B) Things

I don't remember too much from this round, but I do recall him being land screwed both games for a quick 2-0 victory. 3-1

Round 5: Jund (B/R/G) Amazingness

This was the highlight of my day hands down. It started off with us getting deck checked and we just sat around for about 10 minutes. In Game 1, he ended up finishing me off with a Guttersnipe and some Sorceries and Instants. Game 2 was a little rough, since he took a mulligan to 5 and couldn't keep up with my onslaught of creatures. Now, Game 3 is when it gets interesting. He takes the play and I take a mulligan down to 5 cards. My hand consists of a Swamp, Forest, Plains, Stab Wound, and one irrelevant card. He makes the first play throwing down a creature that I quickly kill with Stab Wound. After about 4 or so turns of me doing nothing, I have an Armada Wurm in hand with 5 lands in play. I Grisly Salvage into 3 lands and 2 creatures and opt to take the land to cast the Wurm next turn. After I pass, he has a board state containing Trestle Troll, Guttersnipe, Slitherhead, and Drudge Beetle and brings me down to three life the next turn. I slam down the Armada Wurm and grin at his startled face. I look at him in the eye and say "If you have an instant or sorcery in hand, I'll scoop right now." He responds with "I don't..." and doesn't rip one on the next turn. This is where I almost fell out of my chair. I ripped Angel of Serenity off the top, slammed her on the table and exiled his entire army. This guy looked distraught. I swung for 10 and passed. He drew his next card, set it down for a second, then picked up all his cards. THIS GAME WAS THE SINGLE MOST INTENSE GAME OF MAGIC I'VE EVER PLAYED!!! 4-1

At this point, I was going crazy. I ran to our group of casual netters playing EDH and retold the story of my victory like a billion times ('literally' -DJ). I could actually make Top 8! I couldn't even begin to believe how well I was doing. The celebration; however, was a little short..

Round 6: Izzet Aggro

In Game 1, I let my opponent's Frostburn Weird get in for too much damage while I was trying to get him down to a low enough life total to kill him. He ended up killing my only blocker and finished swung in for the last 4 points of lethal. Before Game 2 is when things get a little rough. I got deck checked again. To anyone who's never been deck checked before, they sort all your cards by color and land and give you back the pile of cards the same way. This organizes all the cards and disrupts all the 'randomness' of drawing certain cards. I shuffled 5-6 times and we went into Game 2. I kept a hand with four land, two creatures, and a Stab Wound with no Swamps. I drew into EVERY black card I had in my deck and couldn't play anything. Needless to say, he won that game. 4-2

I was dream crushed. so close to the Top 8 within my grasp and it was gut wrenchingly taken away from me. I could still make Top 16 though, so I continued on.

Round 7: Rakdos Aggro

This game was against a girl I've met before at coolstuff before, but I don't think she recognized me. her name was Nhi (I think that's spelled right?) and she's very fun to play against. She was the only person all day to actually converse with me during our games which was a nice change of pace. Game 1 begun with a turn 2 Gore-House Chainwalker on her side of the board and a prompt Stab Wound on my side. I eventually pushed in for enough damage to make a quick Game 1 sweep. In Game 2, I stumbled on lands and we quickly traded games to a final death match in Game 3. This game went a little slower than the other two, but I eventually created an overwhelming board state and swung for lethal. 5-2

Round 8: I don't even know

Since both Stephen and I were both X-2 so far, we both joked about having to play against each other. We got close to being paired last round so it was pretty much guaranteed we'd get paired this round. We talked about this before the round had started and decided that we'd either draw or let the other win so that one of us could get a spot in the Top 16. I apparently had better tie breakers, so he walked up and said 'you win.' We sat down and he dominated me in Game 1, so I'm actually very glad I didn't have to play against him.

Overall, the day was pretty amazing. David made Top 8, I made Top 16 with Stephen's help, and he got 29th. Everyone who played did awesome and I definitely can't wait to go to another PTQ. Thanks for reading and be sure to show some support for the next tournament we all go to!

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-Robert Williams