When we last left our hero (that’s me!) he was 3-1 going into round 5 of the legacy event. Round five paired me up against a fellow named Jared. Jared was a pretty nice kid and having a good time-he was 3-1 just like me and had his eyes set in the exact same place as me, the top 8. He won the die roll and ended up going first. Turns out Jared was playing a deck similar to mine-merfolk! This one was blue white though, and he landed a Sygg, River Guide which won him game one. I led off game two and raced him, so it went to game three. The decisive play in the match was two turns before I swung for lethal, Jared attacked with islandwalk (go Lord of Atlantis helping out both players!), then played a Merrow Reejerey. Had he played the lord then swung with his two creatures, he would have killed me the turn before I killed him. Sometimes, you just misplay.
At 4-1, I was feeling pretty confidant on finally hitting a piece of power. Then I played against James. I’ve met James several times before, the first being at the Chicago Grand Prix, where he put up a good record (I think similar to mine, I don’t remember). James was playing Dredge, which is essentially a game one loss for me, so we sideboarded and I saw my Dredge hate in game two, but not three. Suffice to say, I was dejected losing to an annoying combo deck and being shut out of the top 8, but James is a good player so I can’t be too sore about it.
With two rounds left, I still had a shot at good prizes (dual lands, baby!) so I tried to keep my cool for the last rounds. Round seven paired me up against Damon, a player who I also met at the GP. I won the roll and proceeded to beat with a slow merfolk draw while he did absolutely nothing. I thought he was mana screwed, but when I got him down to near lethal, he played an Orim’s Chant and combo killed me for exact via Tendrils of Agony. Yay Storm.
Side note for the non-players: “storm” decks revolve around the mechanic storm, which plays a spell then copies it for each spell played this turn. So, if you play 5 spells in a turn, then play a storm spell, that spell gets copied 5 times, so you end up with the original and 5 copies. Storm decks essentially play a bunch of spells to increase both the amount of mana in one’s mana pool and the amount of spells played in a turn so they can play a big spell with storm and get a lot of copies of it to just win.
It was at this point, on the verge of being shut out of the top 16 that I began to give up hope. Of course I kept playing, but I almost gave in to the depression of falling just so short of my dreams. After the most recent tournament I played in (where I went 0-1, then 4-1, then 5-4 losing some of the closest games of Magic I’d ever played), I needed a win in order to regain my confidence. So I cleared my mind and focused, determined to not lose to shitty playing and only to luck. I got a semi-aggressive draw again with next to no countermagic (a must when merfolk is matched against storm combo, as they can kill you turn one if you don’t have counterspells). I kept applying pressure until he was low again, and that’s when he went for the combo.
This was when I made the best play I made all day, and perhaps the least intuitive play I’ve made in Magic. So, here’s the board (or battlefield, I guess…*sigh*): He’s got one flooded strand (a.k.a. a fetchland) and an island, and I’ve got some critters, some lands, and two wastelands. He goes, “during my upkeep, I’ll play mystical tutor (which costs 1 blue mana) and search for an infernal tutor and put it on top of my library.” I knew if he got to draw that card, I’d lose, since I had no countermagic and he’d be able to search for the card he needed in his deck to combo out. He’s about to move to the draw step, and I’m scrambling to find SOMETHING I can do about it-I really can’t lose to another combo deck when I’m this close. I go through every mana denial strategy I can think of, since that’s how merfolk can beat storm decks.
It’s at this point I look at the board and realize I can win, or at least improve my chances. I stop him from drawing the top card and say “during your draw step, before you draw, I’ll sacrifice wasteland and target your fetchland.” That’s right-his fetchland. The sheer idiocy is part of the brilliance of this play. If you don’t play Magic, you can skip the next paragraph, cause this is for the true players of the game.
You see, if you target a fetchland with a wasteland, your opponent can, in response, sacrifice the fetchland and search for a new land, thus canceling out the point of using said wasteland. However, the fetching process forces the player to shuffle his/her library…and in THIS situation, shuffled away the tutor that would have won him the game. In addition, since I had ANOTHER wasteland out, he couldn’t fetch for a black source, since flooded strand only searches for plains or islands, and he needed the mana at sorcery speed for his main phase (this was during his upkeep, mind you, and mana doesn’t flow to the main phase from the upkeep). If he searched for a nonbasic, I could have wasted that too.
So, he thought about his options, sighed, and fetched for a plains and drew his card for the turn. I earned the concession, and we went to game three. I played some dudes and beat face with the appropriate countermagic backup to prevent the sure to be backbreaking Ad Nauseum he tried to play. Epic game two + refusal to give up = 1 round away from top 16.
I thought to myself, how could round 8 be better than that last round? I clawed my way out of the both mental distress and game play states that almost prevented me from winning. As it turned out, round 8 was almost just as good as round 7. So round 8 I was paired up against a really good player who I’ve played against before-Dan. Dan and I both piloted Faeries to the top 8 of States last year, and I’ve seen him around a few times before, but he’s never really remembered me. Sadface for Anthony, but that’s OK-I think he’ll remember me the next time we meet…
So, we sit down for the last round, the decisive round for top 16. I shuffle up my cards and start to contemplate whether or not I’d make top 16 if I lost, since I’m interested in prize. Dan says to me, “I don’t think about that stuff-I play Magic to crush dreams.” He cited an example he was particularly enamored with; a kid at the tournament who wanted to go 8-0 and just dominate the tournament instead of doing the statistically smart thing and draw into the top 8 (keep in mind, you have the potential to win $2000 in the top 8). So, after citing that example about crushing dreams, Dan and I play some Magic. Turns out he’s playing blue/green/white CounterTop with Natural Order combo for Progentius. I play aether vial, sneak in a Tarmogoyf unexpectedly to block an annoying creature, and BEAT face. Like, trounce. He had to pitch Progentius to Force of Will and Natural Order for a Rhox War Monk during the course of the game. Satisfying for me, I must admit, since it was one of the better draws of my day. Game two I ended up with the nuts aggro draw with some standstills and beat the crap out of Dan’s deck. Like, I felt bad afterwards…it was kinda ugly. For you players, it was like the kind of game where you beat your opponent so bad and ruthlessly as the stars align in your favor and Lady Luck sits next to you just playing for you; the type of game where the opponent just leaves without saying anything. He desideboarded and did just that.
In any case, I hope he remembers me now-I feel like he might.
So, I did it. I ended up 13th out of 180 people or something, just what I needed. Ironically, my friend Tariq was piloting the same deck and ended up 12th because of breakers-he was decimal percentage points ahead of me. Ridiculous. We both ended up with a beta Taiga (it’s like $100), and called it a day.
And what happened to the “dream crusher,” who wanted to go 8-0? Well, he did. In the top 8, everyone wanted to split so that they could each get $600 and go home, but he was the only one who didn’t. He made it all the way to the finals, but lost and instead of making $600, he had to settle for $400. Eh, greedy players are greedy-I would have split and gone to dinner, personally. The top player ended up with a Black Lotus and another piece of power, if I remember correctly, whose total worth was in the $2000 range.
So, it was a successful tournament overall. Didn’t hit top 8, but at least I made prize. With the tournament over, I was already thinking about the next one-I heard rumors of foil playsets of highly playable standard cards as the prize for top 8 players in Edison, New Jersey, and I was already dreaming of shiny Baneslayers…find out next time if I got my hands on them or not.
by Anthony "Corta" Conta
J$'s Notes: Thanks again, Conta. Just a heads up to our readers, we've got one more article from Conta upcoming about the Philly Open in Edison. Then after that I'll be throwing down some knowledge about the TCG 5K that actually took place in Philadelphia this past weekend. Hope to see y'all back here, and leave comments. We love 'em!
Check us out at: http://sites.google.com/site/teamdamageonthestack
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