At the time, I didn't know what it would become; I just enjoyed building it. As its creator, I found myself in a precarious position over the next couple years; I became its leader.
What does it mean to be a leader?
The Tampa PTQ this season taught me one better. My cavalier attitude and hubris hurt my performance and I felt like I had disappointed the team. I couldn't just be a support player, I needed to push myself and the team towards success and the Tampa PTQ would be the last time I sat idly at a tournament this season. I made sure that I was prepared for PTQ Hollywood and we were not leaving South Florida without some top finishes. My expectations for the team were high and they needed to be high.
First, I'm going to quickly comment on the Modern format at large and what has changed in the course of this PTQ season. In the second part of the article, I'll talk about the changes I made to Kiki Pod since Maitland and how I did at the PTQ in Hollywood, Fl. Leh rollllll!
Since this past PTQ season is all about the Modern format, I suggest taking a quick skim over some of the older articles I wrote this past season if you're unfamiliar with the format.
PTQ Dragon's Maze: From Modern, with Love
PTQ Dragon's Maze: Maitland, Fl
PTQ Dragon's Maze: Tampa, Fl
The post-Gatecrash Modern format took a huge u-turn after the bannings of both Seething Song and Bloodbraid Elf earlier this season. The banning of Seething Song was the final nail in the coffin of Turn 3 wins in Modern and would consequentially slow the entire format down. Now, no strategy would have the ability to consistently create a turn 3 win. This subtle change gives a huge push to creature deck timings and boosted the prevalence of Tempo decks and decks relying on creatures to generate pressure. Why not use creatures in a metagame that doesn't use Wrath of God effects?
The Bloodbraid Elf banning finally made one type of card playable from being largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of the format: Counterspells. Since Bloodbraid Elf can generate two spells when it's cast (the first being Bloodbraid Elf itself and the 2nd being the spell our hasty Elf cascades into), having a timely Cryptic Command or a Remand just wasn't good enough for stopping your opponent's card advantage engine and you were easily swept aside. With Bloodbraid Elf out of the picture, we have the rise of Control decks through use of permission spells or countermagic.
Together, with the rise of Tempo and Control archetypes, we have a metagame that evolved around attrition.
An attrition-style format is geared around suppressing your opponent's threats using removal spells or countermagic while applying your own threats and trying to kill your opponent over time. Since the only all-in type strategies at this point are Infect, and Kiki Pod, point removal spells on your opponent's creatures while they're attempting to kill you can easily steal games away from these creature-based unfair strategies. Cards like Lightning Bolt, Electrolyze, and Lightning Helix also manage to punish decks that run any aggressive curve of creatures like RDW, R/G Aggro, Affinity, G/W Hate Bears, and midrange strategies that rely on abusing the staying power of early-game creatures. The ability to define the speed of your opponent gives you flexibility in defining your own deck's timings and buys enough time to cast powerful, mana-intensive spells like Cryptic Command, Batterskull, and Snapcaster Mage.What happened to unfair decks? Quite frankly, the unfair decks evolved. Decks that don't rely on creatures such as Eggs and R/G Tron get significantly better in a metagame designed around killing creatures and slowing the game down. Both Eggs and Tron strategies have inevitability with spells that will simply win the game when they resolve: Faith's Reward and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn respectively. This turns the format into a weird case of Rock, Paper, Scissors where there are creature decks, decks that prey on creature decks, and decks that have no creatures. In my opinion, this awkward triangle keeps the format extremely healthy since no one archetype can truly claim dominance since there is always an unfavorable matchup hiding somewhere and it's ready to take down a tournament if the metagame is unprepared for it (ex: GP San Diego 2013 won Nathan Holiday piloting Eggs). This is a nice change from the dominance of unfair decks that we saw at PTQ Maitland earlier this season.
Another big change in the Modern format are the prices of staple cards. Whether Modern is simply 'in season' right now or not, prices of chase cards have significantly increased and are starting to get out of reach for most players to facilitate themselves into the format. I do hope that Modern Masters accomplishes lowering these prices so newer players can begin playing Modern, but only time and card availability will really tell.
Now that we've talked a little about the Modern metagame, here's a quick look at my final list of Kiki Pod that I took to PTQ Hollywood:
4 Color Kiki Pod - Hollywood
4x Birds of Paradise
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Wall of Roots
1x Wall of Omens
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Spellskite
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Kitchen Finks
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Deceiver Exarch
3x Restoration Angel
1x Murderous Redcap
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1x Zealous Conscripts
Spells (6):
4x Birthing Pod
2x Chord of Calling
Lands (23):3x Misty Rainforest
2x Arid Mesa
2x Gavony Township
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Copperline Gorge
1x Stomping Ground
1x Steam Vents
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
1x Rugged Prairie
1x Forest
1x Mountain
Sideboard (15):
2x Path to Exile
2x Negate
2x Sowing Salt
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Obstinate Baloth
1x Aven Mindcensor
2x Chalice of the Void
1x Izzet Charm
1x Spellskite
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
The deck underwent some subtle changes since I piloted Pod during PTQ Dragon's Maze: Maitland, Fl. I found that making changes to this deck was really difficult since the deck's mana curve is very fragile and any small change to the mana curve can easily offset your Birthing Pod chain timings. Although on paper it doesn't look extremely different from the Maitland list, I spent most of the season playing around with the numbers and experimenting with new cards.
For my mana base, I finally upgraded my Avacyn's Pilgrims to Noble Hierarchs after that horrible loss to Blood Moon at the last Tampa PTQ. I also downgraded to just 5 fetch lands instead of 6 since the extra life loss was really detrimental in the aggro matchups and 4 fetch lands didn't quite provide enough mana fixing in the early game to cast everything I needed to. I also upgraded to 1x Fire-Lit Thicket over the 2nd Rugged Prairie to support the 2nd Chord of Calling I put in the main deck. I experimented with a Razorverge Thicket for additional fixing; however the fringe circumstances when it enters the battlefield tapped around turns 4 and 5 were enough to discourage me from running more than just the 2x Copperline Gorge and I settled for upgrading to 4x Grove of the Burnwillows.
Another weapon to the format's copious amount of Lightning Bolts, Abrupt Decays, and Dismembers was Kitchen Finks. This life-gaining ouphe's persistence allows you to often 2-for-1 your opponent's removal spells, creatures, and kills Geist of Saint Traft with both of its bodies. It also gains life and trades with a creature in the aggro matchups and is a huge enabler with Birthing Pod on the board. I didn't want a full 4x since the creature doesn't chain into a combo easily, but it's interaction with Restoration Angel through Birthing Pod can often bury an aggro player, so I really wanted to fit in a 3rd copy.
The sideboard of my deck underwent the largest uhaul. The first change was cutting the 3rd Path to Exile. In the matchups that I wanted a removal spell such as R/G Aggro, Infect, and U/R Twin I felt really reluctant to remove cards in the main, since the deck already has silver bullets for those matchups. Furthermore, I cut all 3x Chalice of the Void initially, but ended up putting 2 copies back in for the fringe circumstances against Infect, Affinity, and Soul Sisters. Chalice of the Void set on 1 charge counter is really painful for me since my mana accelerators are mainly 1 mana and it nullifies a lot of my spells as well, so bringing in a full 3 copies of them is generally poor. Dispel was upgraded to Negate in order to counter Karn Liberated from R/G Tron when they have Tron activated on the play, Scapeshift, Splinter Twin, Liliana of the Veil, etc. Dispel is also less necessary since U/R Storm is no longer common and having the counterspell as early as turn 2 wasn't a priority. Obstinate Baloth was a nod at Jund and their discard engines in addition to R/G Aggro and their ability to punish my small army of creatures and my 4 color mana base. Izzet Charm is simply efficient at killing Deathrite Shaman when I need to rely heavily on Kitchen Finks, killing almost every creature in Affinity, disrupting Tron timings, and keeping my creatures alive against U/W/R Midrange in the early game. The 2nd Spellskite in the board was another nod at U/W/R Midrange being a real problem for my deck and most of their removal deals 3 damage, so Spellskite can often eat two of their cards. And finally Thrun, the Last Troll is a huge silver bullet against U/W/R Midrange and Control since none of their removal can touch it, Wrath of God sees little to no play, clocks your opponent faster than Vendilion Clique, and can kill Batterskull, Snapcaster Mage, and Celstial Colonnade in combat. If I'm planning to beat the U/W/R deck variants, I'll need this troll to make it happen.
In testing, I also experimented with Lotus Cobra, Vendilion Clique, Domri Rade, a 2nd Izzet Staticaster, Harmonic Sliver, Blind Obedience, and a 2nd Qasali Pridemage, but I won't focus too much on those results.
On Friday afternoon, Felicea, Evan, and I hit the road and headed over to the hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. Unlike PTQ Gatecrash: Ft. Lauderdale, Fl last season, we had everything structured. There would be no 'staying up all night derp derp' like last time. We needed to get rest this time and be in mental and physical shape for doing well at this event. Fortunately, we kept the night really calm, grabbed a small dinner and stayed in the hotel for the most part. Eventually the other caravan got into town and everyone mostly playtested and worked on sideboards. We had a real cohesive system working that I really liked. I think next time we'll have a serious playtesting session a week before the event so people can actually make decisions based off of what cards exist rather than what cards we had on hand; something I'll keep in mind for next season.
The next morning, I woke up a few hours earlier since I couldn't really sleep the night before. I walked around the hotel complex for a bit and grabbed breakfast and ate in the company of friendly strangers. It was almost like a bit of meditation for me, since being alone and simply enjoying nature helps me relax. I met up with the rest of the team as they woke up and we made for the venue. When we got to the store, we quickly wrote up our decklists and met up with players from all around before hitting the player meeting and entering Round 1.
Summary of my rounds at PTQ Dragon's Maze: Hollywood, Fl (113 players):
(2-1)
I was paired up against Daniel, who was really friendly and from first sight seemed like he was a little inexperienced. After a little bit of small talk, I found out that this was his first or second PTQ, so I wished him the best of luck and we began the gauntlet. In G1, he opened up with a turn 2 Soul's Attendant and in my head I was like 'aww yes.' I've never played against the matchup before, but his life total is completely irrelevant to me killing him. >:D He also opened up with a Martyr of Sands and not much else. I had a Birthing Pod in play with some creatures and was preparing to get my combo quickly. I kept thinking to myself 'that was way too easy.' Then I realized, that my combo doesn't actually work with that Soul's Attendant on the board. If I make an arbitrarily large amount of Deceiver Exarchs with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, he gains one life for each one that enters the battlefield and my Exarchs can only deal one damage each. Oops. I had to spend an extra turn using Birthing Pod to get Izzet Staticaster so I could deal with the problem. Then he laid down an Elspeth, Knight Errant and suited up his Martyr of Sands with +3/+3 and Flying until end of turn to threaten a two-turn clock. I decided to shoot the Martyr in response to the suit-up with the Izzet Staticaster hoping he would use the Martyr's activated ability to show me his hand since the only card that could interrupt my combo would be Path to Exile. He got baited and revealed a second Martyr of Sands and an Immortal Servitude as the last couple cards in his hand. Coast is clear! On my turn, I used the Izzet Staticaster on my mainphase and shot the Soul's Attendant and then went for the combo kill. In G2, I kept a lackluster hand with a boarded in Chalice of the Void that I was hoping would lock him out of the game. He laid a Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant on the board before I could lay the chalice down. Then he cast an Ajani's Pridemate... ugh. Soon, the Pridemate became huge and I laid down a Kitchen Finks and a Phantasmal Image as a copy of finks to stabilize. Then, he cast another Ajani's Pridemate and soon he had a pair of giant monstrosities. I top decked into a Gavony Towship and started stabilizing with my persist creatures as he continued to go into the red zone. Eventually, my life total increased, his life total increased, and neither of us were really getting ahead on board. He finally broke that stalemate with Elspeth, Knight Errant and gave his huge Pridemate Flying to snipe me from the skies. In G3, I kept a really risky keep of Deceiver Exarch and Restoration Angel with not much else. I was really hoping that I could draw into a pod or some sort of win condition. My opponent went a few turns without playing any threats until he laid a Soul Warden on the table.. and then I lucked out super hard; I drew Izzet Staticaster.
From this point on, the Izzet Staticaster ate his army of frail 1 toughness creatures and with no removal spell kill off the Izzet mage, I amassed a sizable army of creatures on my side of the board to force my opponent's concession.
After the Round 1, our entire team was 8-1 and I was SUPER excited that I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. From the devastation that was our 2-7 after Round 1 at Maitland, this was a major upgrade. I couldn't believe how far we've come in the Modern format; we had to take some of the top finishes today.
My opponent was very quiet the whole round, so it was pretty much business as usual. In G1, he opened with a barrage of creatures. I cast an Izzet Staticaster to try and strip his army away, but he had a Galvanic Blast with Metalcraft live to knock out my Wizard right before landing an Etched Champion on the board. With the support of a Cranial Plating and no Qasali Pridemage in sight, his huge beater prompted my concession. In G2, my opponent was stuck on only a few resources and tapped out on his turn 5, which allowed me to go for the Birthing Pod chain kill off of a Murderous Redcap the following turn. In G3, my opponent took the play and kept a really greedy hand with little action on his turn 1. I kept a hand that had natural combo in hand and knew I just had to survive to Turn 4 to cast a lethal Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. My opponent attempted to cast an extremely powerful Cranial Plating but was met swiftly by an Izzet Charm from my board. My opponent then tapped out for a Steel Overseer and a Spellskite which he presumably brought in from the board to stop my combo. I cast Deceiver Exarch and then main-phased Kiki off of a top-decked land and attempted to combo. He then attempted to redirect with Spellskite, but the second mode of Deceiver Exarch says 'Untap target permanent you control' so my opponent's Spellskite is not a legal target for redirection. Unable to stop the combo, my opponent scooped up his cards.
After the round, I had a good amount of time to walk around and see how the rest of the team was doing. The round was proving to be painful for a lot of us as loss after loss was being reported in. I sat down and watched Felicea's match against U/W/R Midrange and it was looking really ugly. Eventually that match ended and I found myself pitted against the same foe in Round 3.
In G1, I kept a greedy hand with two mana accelerants, a pair of 2 drops and one land. Unfortunately, my opponent had a pair of Lightning Bolts that punished my risky hand and kept me off mana for most of the game, giving him enough time to use burn spells and Snapcaster Mage tempo to kill me. In G2, I played a Noble Hierarch on turn 1 and baited his removal spell with a turn 2 Kitchen Finks. Luckily, he took the bait and I was able to keep my Noble Hierarch alive long enough to land a turn 3 Thrun, the Last Troll from the board. Using the exalted trigger from the Hierarch, I was punching in for 5 damage a turn that my opponent could do nothing about. His Vendilion Clique and Snapcaster Mage couldn't create enough tempo to swing back and we moved to G3. In the clutch G3, I opened up with a Birds of Paradise that evaded an early death and a turn 2 Birthing Pod. Soon, his barrage of removal spells would keep me off early creatures to sacrifice with my artifact. Eventually, my opponent would land a Vendilion Clique to strip away my Murderous Redcap that I was hoping to use to kill him next turn and he started taking to the red zone. Eventually, my life total was so low that a pair of burn spells were enough to seal my fate and I gave the concession.
In this Round, I was paired against Ian that I'd seen around a few times in Orlando at the Coolstuff stores. I remembered that Ian used to play Goryo's Vengeance Reanimator at some of the Modern FNMs in Orlando, but I wasn't sure if he changed up his deck since then. In G1, I kept a hand saturated with mana accelerators and a single copy of Chord of Calling. I figured the hand would be prepared almost anything he'd be able to throw at me since Chord can fetch almost any answer to most decks in the format. After saturating the board with a bunch of 1/1 mana accelerators and a Wall of Roots, I shipped the turn. On his Turn 3, he went for the combo and discarded an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn via Wild Guess with the Emrakul graveyard trigger on the stack, he cast Goryo's Vengeance and brought his giant Eldrazi back from the dead to the battlefield. When my opponent attempted to enter combat, I cast a Chord of Calling using its Convoke ability to tap some of my mana creatures and search my library for a creature with a converted mana cost of 2 and hunted a Phantasmal Image to Legend Rule-kill his Emrakul. After stunting his combo, I used a Gavony Township to strengthen my army of creatures and swing to close out the game. With one last trick up his sleeve and only 6 life to spare, my opponent finally reached 5 mana and cast a Through the Breach attempting to lay down a Griselbrand to swing 7 points of Lifelink damage to stabilize and draw into more gas. With only one card left in my hand, I had one of my very few outs, Deceiver Exarch to thwart the Griselbrand from attacking and his tapped monstrosity was unable to attack; Griselbrand's newfound pacifism prompted the concession.
In G2, my opponent took a mulligan to 5 and seemed really disappointed with his hand. I kept a hand with lands and a Negate that I brought in from the board. When my opponent attempted to combo kill me by cheating Emrakul into play again on turn 3, he messed up by tapping his lands incorrectly and offered the concession. Weird round, but a win nonetheless.
In this Round, I was paired up against a very friendly L2 judge. Since I've been thinking about taking the L1 test myself, I found this a great opportunity to pick his brain on the responsibilities of being a judge. It was a pretty awesome discussion and the match was extremely gentlemanly; I really enjoyed this one. In G1, he attempted to assemble Tron on Turn 4, but was met with a very prompt Deceiver Exarch to keep him off sufficient mana during his upkeep and a top decked Birthing Pod allowed me to chain kill him and move on to G2. In G2, my hand was a little lackluster but had a lot of creatures in it, so I decided to flood the board with creatures. My opponent did have a Pyroclasm, but cast it a little too early and only caught one mana accelerator off guard. I continued to flood the board and prayed that he didn't have another Pyroclasm. My opponent finally searched out his last tron piece and I braced for impact. I cast everything in my hand to put pressure on a Karn Liberated if he casts it and kept my fingers crossed that he didn't have an Oblivion Stone. After untapping his lands and thinking over his 5 cards in hand, he used an Expedition Map to find an Eye of Ugin and passed the turn. Whattttt? He had absolutely no action and I needed to press my advantage. With his Grove of the Burnwillows tapped, I made my move and cast a Birthing Pod and attempted to make my combo chain. He then revealed all his Nature's Claims in hand that he was unable to cast and extended the hand.
After this Round, Felicea, Jules, and myself were all 4-1 and Stephen was 4-0-1; we were all still live for Top 8 and we all just needed two more wins. TWO MORE!
In G1, we both faced an extremely heavy attrition game where I would cast a creature and my opponent would immediately remove it. He also shredded both of our hands with a Liliana of the Veil. Fortunately, my opponent kept drawing no action and eventually my creatures would kill Liliana and I finally drew into a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to seal my opponent's fate. In G2, I kept a hand with two lands and two mana accelerators, but my creatures were promptly killed and I drew into no lands for several turns. My hand took a beating from an Inquisition of Kozilek and a Thoughtseize, while my life total was being attacked by a Treetop Village and a 4/5 Tarmogoyf. My hand was full of 4 drop creatures and my field had a lone Noble Hierarch and 2 lands. I stayed in the game so I could see if he had any more unconventional cards that I could note for G3. When I was at 3 life, my opponent cast a Thoughtseize to see what my last few cards were before punching in for my last points of life. After revealing my hand of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Linvala, Keeper or Silence, Glen Elendra Archmage, and Obstinate Baloth:
Opponent: 'I'll take the baloth'
Me: 'Um..'
Opponent: 'Oh shit'
Well then..
I went to 7 life and got a free 4/4 on the battlefield. It was absolutely obvious that my opponent punted and he was visibly upset. He passed the turn and I finally drew my 3rd land enabling to cast the Glen Elendra Archmage in my hand. After blocks and a few turns later with no out, my opponent conceded and dropped from the tournament. I felt bad about the way the round ended, but shitty things happen sometimes; nothing I could do about it.
After this round, I felt super excited. I was 5-1 and I may or may not be in a position to draw in for the Top 8. I found Nick and Evan who were in a game and trading with some guys nearby. I was a little on edge because I was nervous for the next round, so I was hoping that trading would ease some of the tension. I ended up snagging these awesome goodies before going into Round 7.
Foilies everywhere!
Before this round, I was the 6th seed and my opponent was the 5th seed. Unfortunately, we had to play since there were a good number of people well-positioned to dethrone us, so it was a do or die moment. In G1, I misread his deck as Spirit Jund and my keep of one land and one mana accelerant into 3 two mana creatures on a mulligan to 6 was decimated by losing my early accelerator and missing multiple land drops. After G1, we got deck-checked by the judges and we both sat and simply watched some other games in progress. In G2, my opponent took a mulligan to 4 and I finally saw the Tribal Flames card that finally clued me in to what deck he was actually playing. I pushed my advantage and just swarmed the board with creatures. My opponent did a fantastic job of staying alive with a Deathrite Shaman on board and shutting off all of my Persist creatures. But the heavy mulligans from my opponent's side finally paid me dividends and I crushed him with a Birthing Pod chain that went unanswered. In G3, my opponent kept his hand of 7 and I took a mulligan of a risky hand into another risky hand. I decided to keep and was punished hard by my opponent's turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft off of a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman. Sheesh. I attempted to stabilize with Kitchen Finks, but his removal spell plus Elf shaman shut it down quickly and my life total quickly fell until I extended the hand and wished him luck in the Top 8.
I ended the day with a 5-2 record, 66.7% win percentage and a 12th place finish out of 113 people. Just barely missing out on securing a spot in the Top 8 was painful; I really wanted to win this PTQ. Jules and I both were really disappointed and we both consoled each other; I even took a small spot on the floor behind some chairs and laid there for a minute. Although it was a bit tragic for the both us, there was a small silver lining: Stephen got there and secured a spot as the 8th seed! I was super happy for him and was excited to see how far he could get.
While Stephen was in the Quarter Finals of the Top 8, we ran into pro player and Pro Tour winner, Ben Stark and I totally gushed like a fanboy. Brandon and I even snagged a picture with him!
During the Quarter Finals, some misinterpretation along with a mistake that quickly escalated out of control, Stephen was DQ'd from the tournament. By no means was Stephen cheating or lying, it was an in-game mistake that went unnoticed for a while and was being misrepresented by several parties. Personally, I blame players' relative ignorance on how the Eggs deck works, but that's an argument for another day. Stephen earned his Top 8 and no one can take that away from him.
After the fiasco, Nick decided to collect some funds to buy some booster packs for Stephen and I decided to chip in and give half my winnings. I don't know exactly how to convey this in writing, but I felt like the moment where we all convened after the DQ was the highest apex of support our team has ever encountered. Even in our lowest of lows can we stick together to make sure our friends are taken care of and we continue to support each other.. Casual Net felt like a real team; a real family.
For now, I retire my Pod deck and tuck it snugly in its deck box until the next Modern event. I'll be the first to admit that Constructed isn't my strong suit, but I had a really fun time unraveling the complexity of the Modern format and identifying myself as a Kiki Pod player. I really enjoyed the deck and I felt that the difficult lines of play through Birthing Pod chains and deck construction made me grow as a Magic player.
If I had to make changes to the deck, I would look into trying to fit a 3rd Wall of Roots and potentially a 3rd Chord of Calling. The 3rd Wall of Roots would survive most removal in the format except Dismember (which only sees marginal play anyways), which gives the deck a bit more resiliency against the heavy attrition decks in the format. Furthermore, the Wall fuels an effective use of Chord of Calling which is good when you need to find the last piece to the combo or protect the combo with Spellskite. I don't recommend the 4th Chord or the 4th Wall because landing a Turn 2 Birthing Pod off of a 1 mana accelerant is a huge beating against decks that are largely non-interactive like R/G Tron, U/R Twin, and Eggs; so it's a small tug of war for which types of mana accelerators you're opting to run. The sideboard would probably require the most tending to since it's tailored specifically towards certain matchups. I would cut the Chalice of the Voids since it's usefulness was rather fringe. I'd also consider cutting the 2nd Negate since we already have Izzet Charm that is slightly more flexible and obtaining Red mana is not difficult. I also found that Path to Exile did nothing relevant in non U/R Twin matchups, so the removal spell might be worth trimming as well.
Cards to consider for the Sideboard:
More Obstinate Baloths
I do know that I'll be spending the next few weeks working on school stuffs and getting hyped for the CNG Limited Series this upcoming weekend, so I can finally return to my roots of Limited play. Woot woot! =D
As for PTQ 'Friends' next season, I honestly don't know what will happen; I haven't given it much thought. Playing in the past two seasons has been really taxing and it might be time for a break. I might sit out this season so I can rest up and enjoy playing more Casual Magic and enjoying time with my muggle friends. Regardless of my attendance, I feel like CNG has direction.
Who knows? I may even surprise myself and play Standard.
Until next time, Casual Net!
Revisiting my question earlier; being a leader is about guiding the group to accomplish amazing things. It's about cultivating everyone's strengths and helping people face their weaknesses. Not only is leadership about personal growth, it's about growth of the people around you. A leader wants everyone to do the best of their ability and expects everyone to do the best of their ability. Leaders put their selfishness aside to do what is necessary for the group. I don't consider myself the best leader possible, but I am trying to be.
'I want to be better; I want to do better.'
And as always, a special thanks to Team CNG.com. None of this would be possible without you.
Travis Comnick
Evan Forster
Jules Jeannin
Brandon Khors
Nick LoCastro
Stephen Poindexter
Javier Remy
Felicea Van
Check out the MTG Casual Net Archive and connect with us on Facebook!
-David J.
