On Friday afternoon, exhaustion was quite visible on my face. I'd spent most of the week studying for my Biochem exam on the upcoming Monday so I'd have enough time to make the Tampa trip. This exam was pretty rough since it drew a lot of foundation from Chemistry II that I haven't taken in almost 5 years, so the preparation time needed for me to reach where everyone else was in the class was pretty substantial. After carpooling with Evan to Tampa, we met up with our good friend, CJ and played basketball with him and his roommate to unwind. Afterwards, we met up with Justin and started grinding some Modern testing. Fortunately, Felicea let CJ borrow her Mono-Red Goblin deck and CJ was fostering and talking to it like it was his own child. After some discussion and revision to sideboards, we hit the hay in anticipation for the event the next day.
Since the tournaments were a few weeks ago, a lot of the details are really blurry, so I'll just briefly summarize both events.
Summary of $700 Armada Games Tournament (44 players):
Round 2: Mono Red Affinity; Enrique Albizu (2-0)
In G1, we both hit a huge stalemate with a bunch of ground robots on my opponent's side of the board and a fortress of walls on my own, opponent could only safely swing at me with a singleton Blinkmoth Nexus. In a final combat phase, he sent in an alpha strike that represented lethal damage even with blockers courtesy of his Arcbound Ravager. I made the appropriate blocks and I passed priority to him. After a couple minutes of consideration, he made some Arcbound Ravager activations to try and bait out a removal spell. With a little bluffing, I successfully convinced him that I had a removal spell in hand that deterred him from making the all in by sacrificing his Ravager and he took me down to just 2 life. Fortunately, my last two cards in hand were the combo pieces I needed to win the game on the next turn. I guess playing 4 colors makes bluffing easy..
Round 3: Eggs; Stephen Poindexter (---)
In this Round, I was interestingly paired against Stephen. Earlier in the day, Stephen decided that wasn't going to play in the tournament and save his money for the Tampa PTQ the next day. I really wanted him to play because I knew he had a good chance of doing well and he drove out all that way just to be at the venue. I looked in my wallet and only saw $50.. I gave Stephen $25 and knew I had just enough for the PTQ the next day in a worst case scenario. Who needs dinner??
Although I did feel bad about it, I did ask Stephen for his concession in this Round since I paid for his buy-in earlier. After a minute or two of discussion between us trying to determine if he would be able to win out into Top 8 with this one loss or not, he decided to give me the win and we took a nice 50min break. During the break, we had the pleasure to talk to Michael Fortino about a plethora of rules questions and Stephen gave me some pointers about playing against Eggs since there were one or two other people in the room piloting the deck and I had little experience against it. We discussed some sideboard options and I kind of realized the Eggs timings were similar to R/G Tron matchup, so I decided to play my deck similarly if the opportunity arose.
Round 4: Eggs; Hugo Santana (2-0)And so it did..
Since I already knew my opponent was piloting Eggs from watching some of his matches earlier, I had the benefit of taking slightly more aggressive mulligans than I normally would in G1 of a series. I kept a hand that had a mild amount of disruption including Deceiver Exarch to lock my opponent out of mana for a turn where I thought he would attempt to combo. After a bit of back and forth, Hugo eventually died to a natural combo kill from a top-decked Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Strangely enough, Hugo's loss in G2 started before we decided to mulligan or not. After G1, you could visibly tell he was on the tilt. He kept blinking his eyes to stay focused and he started to sweat a lot more. I don't really know why exactly, but the loss in G1 really shook up his confidence. He took a mulligan to 6 and kept a 1-land hand. After missing land 2 on turns 2 and 3, he gave the concession to my creature army backed up by a Birthing Pod.
Rounds 5 and 6: ---
In most tournaments, an X-0-2 record is almost guaranteed to make Top 8 and most players don't elect to play the last two Rounds once they are undefeated, so they don't jeopardize their standing in the Top 8. Furthermore, I was the 2nd seed at this point, so there was a very small margin that I wouldn't be able to Top 8 with 2 simple intentional draws. I spent the next couple hours sitting back and enjoying the down time. I watched Evan go through round after round with a X-1-1 record trying to seal up a Top 8 slot. Eventually, in G3 of the 6th round, he got there. Evan and I have been playing Magic for a while and I give him a lot of shit. I'll be honest, I'm tough on the kid. I was really proud of him once he got the win and there was no way to wipe the smile off our faces after we both placed in the Top 8. On Stephen's side of the story, he walked away with an X-2 record and since a lot of people dropped for the tournament, we were REALLY hoping he could sneak in, but it didn't seem likely.
Me: 3rd Place at 4-0-2
Evan: 5th Place at 4-1-1
Stephen: 9th Place at 4-2
When we got back home, that really sweet feeling of triumph was almost overwhelming. Evan was extremely blissful and even I was pretty excited. Fortunately for me, I won back the money I paid for the tournament and even the money I used to sponsor Stephen for the event. Unfortunately, the PTQ the next day would yield different results..
Summary of the Tampa PTQ (along with noteworthy mistakes):
Round 1: U/R Twin; David Maddox (0-2)
In G1, I didn't read what strategy my opponent was playing until the game was more than over. In G2, I tapped my mana incorrectly in some cases, which inherently advertised when I had Path to Exile in my hand and when I didn't, I missed one of my combat phases, and I didn't use my hate cards correctly and was outraced.
Round 2: Mono Blue Merfolk; Allie Smith (2-1)
In G1, I kept a mediocre hand and had unrealistic expectations. In G2, I eventually won by removing all her Merfolk using Path to Exile and Izzet Staticaster before she could create a critical mass of Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Tridents or Merrow Reejerey. In G3, she drew into a ton of her sideboard removal and a turned a pair of Aether Vials online but didn't draw into any of her creatures and didn't apply any pressure, so I could combo at my leisure.
Round 3: U/G Infect; Bryan Nikla (1-2)
In G1, 2-for-1'd his two early Noble Hierarch with an Izzet Staticaster and the rest of his army was quickly decimated. In G2, I cast an early Chalice of the Void for 1 before casting the pair of 1 CMC spells in my hand and regretted it immediately after casting the artifact. He ground me out of the game with a Pendelhaven and Infect creatures. In G3, I kept a risky hand that had a single copy of Spellskite. In hindsight, I should have took a mulligan since I brought in roughly 9-10 cards from my sideboard against my Infect opponent and easily could have a 6 card hand with two stronger hate cards in it.
Round 4: Red Deck Wins; Stephen Theriault (1-2)
In G1, my opponent cast Skullcrack in response to my saving grace Kitchen Finks and I was quickly buried. In G2, I tapped mana incorrectly, but scratched out a win with a standard Birthing Pod chain when my opponent was tapped out. G3 was a grinder for both of us since my opponent had a Torpor Orb, Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon on board and I had a Chalice of the Void for 1 and a Wall of Omens on my side of the board. I had a single Avacyn's Pilgrim on board that didn't tap for Green nor Blue....
My non-Noble Hierarch budget card, Avacyn's Pilgrim couldn't cast any of the three Blue cards in my hand and I died when I couldn't draw into any cards to generate non-Red colors.
Round 5: U/W Flash; Clint McGovern (1-2)
My opponent was clearly on the tilt and he was pretty angry at his performance that day. G1 fell very quickly to a simple Birthing Pod chain that he wasn't aware of. I kept really unusual hands in G2 and G3 because of greed and was punished hard by my own deck.
Round 6: B/W Tokens; Evan Forster (0-2)
In this Round, Evan and I were paired up because of our abysmal performance. Ironically, Michaelle Solorzano (the guy I lost to in Ocoee and Ft. Lauderdale) was having an even worse day at a 0-5 record. Ouch. We had a very friendly match full of jokes and nonsense until Stephen walked through the door with.... gasp:
The V2 of the Casual Net Shirt!! In my personal opinion, I think it looks SUPER sharp. I might have to buy more of them now.. >_> (check out my Player Profile at the bottom of the article to see the shirt!)
I eventually decided to drop so I could conduct some last minute trades and sell some cards to vendors for monies before we headed home for the day (I did end up snagging a Volcanic Island and a foil Garruk Relentless, which were nice consolation prizes). I concluded the PTQ with an abysmal 1-5 finish out of the 117 person event. To be honest, I was (and still am) extremely disappointed in myself. Normally, I can be content with defeat. When PTQ Gatecrash: Tallahassee didn't go very well for the team, I walked away knowing that I did my best with the very little preparation that I had. I feel like I didn't prepare enough for this PTQ and I made a lot of incorrect assessments about my deck from unfamiliarity and lack of focus.
Although it stings, defeat teaches us a lot of things; it reminds us of who we are. It reminds us that tomorrow is another day. It reminds us that we tried and we can take admiration in our trials. It reminds us of those who stuck by us in defeat and of the people we love and those who love us. It reminds us that we are inherently flawed; that we always must strive to do good against all peril. It reminds us that there's always more work to do. It reminds us that people need our support and that we need others' guidance. It reminds us to stand tall even when we feel like we can't rise. It reminds us of the person we used to be and the person we strive to be. It reminds us of our purpose.
After watching the Pro Tour Montreal coverage this past weekend, I feel a little more revitalized in my resolve. Over the past few months, I've allowed irrelevant things to wiggle their way into my priorities and forgot about my dream of going to the Pro Tour. Although I started the PTQ Dragon's Maze season with the mindset of simply participating to support the team, the competitive side of me woke from its slumber; I'm competing in Ft. Lauderdale to win.
I'd like to thank the following people for coming out to the event over the weekend and to everyone else who continues to support Casual Net:
Justin Ashori
CJ Brown
Andres Curiel
Evan Forster
Chris Hogg
Jules Jeannin
Brandon Kohrs
Stephen Poindexter
Kevin Stoiber
Robert Williams
John Wyly
'What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger and stronger willed.'
EDIT: Congratulations to Ed, Brandon, and Jules each for nabbing a Top 32 finish. Good job, gentlemen. =]
-David J. (check out David's Player Profile!)
Just remembered we played in tampa! Great match we had.
ReplyDeleteEDIT: just realized im listed as playing BUG infect, only run blue and green :D
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