|
 |
||
|
|
|||
 ONLINE STORE
SUBSCRIBERS
DRAFT UTILITY
DECKS
ARTICLES
FORUMS
CARD INFO
|
PT Berlin - 19th
AJ Sacher
11/6/2008  this article! - or -
My first Pro Tour, and I had a wicked cold the entire time. It was still a total blast! Congrats to the one and only LSV on finally breaking through. He deserved it more than anyone else in that room and played out of his mind in the top eight. Meanwhile, I finished a less impressive but still respectable 19th place, qualifying for PT Kyoto next season. I also got 7 more pro points under my belt bringing my season total to 14, leaving me one short of level 3. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up in Atlanta. Elves took the tournament by storm, and I was not at all prepared for it. I knew the deck existed and put Seal of Fire back in the deck, but I didn't know how fast and consistent it was, let alone how popular it would be. It will definitely be one of the defining decks of the new metagame. I have a feeling it will be a lot like dredge was last season. It was fast and consistent, but there was a lot of hate for it, but it was able to play through a lot of it anyway. Let's get to the list: If I were to play it again, I'd cut the Rise // Fall and two Oblivion Ring for 3 Mogg Fanatic, and the Isamaru, Hound of Konda for a third Seal of Fire. The sideboard would need some reworking as well. As for my tournament report section, I'm giving two warnings beforehand. One is that I am going to point out all of my opponents mistakes that I saw. I am in no way shape or form calling them bad at magic or saying they are bad players or anything of that sort. I am merely going to talk about the questionable plays because those are the ones that you, the reader, should be looking out for to avoid in your own game and exploit in your opponent's. The second warning is that my opponents mulligan a lot and I got pretty lucky. I don't want anyone to think I believe otherwise.
Round one against master mage Jan Ruess playing Elves Game one I have a Seal of Fire and then Sculler his Glimpse. He can't commit to the board until he draws Pendelhaven, but I have my second Seal of Fire and sit on a Lightning Helix until he dies. He mulls to 4 game two. Round two against American Ringer James Pirkey playing Zoo He receives a game loss for mis-registering. I lose the Helix war game 2, but game three he mulligans into a slow hand and my Dark Confidant lives for 2 turns which is enough. Round three against Japanese pro Chikara Nakajima playing elves. Game one he kills me on turn 2 or 3. Game two I have a Seal into Sculler with enough removal to back it up. Game three I get him to a point of chumping my Tarmogoyf every turn with no cards in hand after I Sculler him twice. He has 4 guys on board and I'm at 12. All match he would tap mana, play a spell, then look up at me to see if I had responses. This is how we progressed through the game with the language barrier as he spoke minimal English and I'm not nearly smart enough to know Japanese. He draws Chord of Calling and taps 6 lands, putting the spell on the table and looking up at me. I pause for a moment to ensure he was passing priority and he doesn't say anything so I say it resolves. As he reaches for his deck, I say that it is good for 3, at which point he says no, for more, and taps three guys to a Heritage Druid to up X to 6. I call a judge, I tell my side of the story, he tells his and they are identical so we both agree on what happened. The judge rules that the player can still pay costs to get the chord up to 6 and that he hadn't passed priority. I appealed and the head judge came over. When asked to tell our stories again, this time my opponent said that he never looked up, but instead put his hands on his head and examined the board thinking about how to tap for more. The head judge said he was not overturning the floor judge's ruling and I asked to speak to him away from the table along with the floor judge. I then said that the player's story had changed, and told the head judge that he had told the floor judge that we had made eye contact, and the floor judge nodded in agreement. I was asked to go back to the table while they talked it over. They still changed nothing and I died to a Predator Dragon. This ruling especially frustrated me because that exact ruling was made in a similar scenario at a very recent pro tour and the judging staff was going against their own policy. There was obviously nothing I could do and I picked up my first loss. Round four against sheer master Frenchman Antoine Ruel playing Elves Game one he destroyed me on turn 3 or 4 through removal. As we are sideboarding there was a Shivan Dragon on his box facing me. When he put the box down again the other side was facing me and had a Ranger of Eos facing me. I asked if I was supposed to be intimidated. “Yes, it's very scary.” Games two and three were lopsided. He took out most of his combo cards and brought in some Umezawa's Jitte which is a really inefficient game plan against me. Zoo is built to beat Jittes, so now he just has a bunch of 1/1s. While sideboarding for game three, he started freaking out because he thought I was wearing a shirt about him. Actually, it said “Goodbye cruel world” and my jacket was covering the C in cruel. Game three he had 3 guys, 3 lands and a Jitte. I just killed his guys and he drew 2 more lands, a Glimpse of Nature, and a Regal Force. He extended the hand and started talking to his brother in French. He said something about Jitte doing nothing and being frustrated with the loss, so I said I know what would cheer him up. I whipped out my sideboard and showed him the Ranger of Eos there. He gave me a little bow and a chuckle. It was a funny match and he's a really cool guy. Round five against another French pro, Guillaume Matignon playing Elves. I had Seals and he couldn't win through them. Game two I was killed turn 2. Game three I had turn one Wild Nacatl, turn two Wild Nacatl and Seal of Fire. I sat on Lightning Helix and Smother for the rest of the game. Round six against the one and only Marsh Usary playing a rogue Zoo build with Doran, the Siege Tower Game one we traded off cards for a while but when I had Dark Confidant he could only muster a Doran. I flip up a Helix and Smother the 5/5 and it was over. Game two we trade cards for a while, kill each other's Dark Confidants on time. The race is set up in a way that I win on the pivotal turn when he attacks for the win and I have Helix to survive and get him low enough that my crack-back is lethal. I was pretty proud of myself for manipulating the race in such a way only to be blown out by a sideboarded Mana Tithe. Game 3 he mulliganned and my Dark Confidant lived for 2 turns. He didn't have black mana. Round seven against the king of Brazil, Paulo Vitor Dama da Rosa playing Zoo. I make a comment about how we are both Faeries guys and we chat it up a bit. He's a really nice guy and very funny to boot. Game one I draw 2 Wild Nacatl, 2 Lightning Helix, a Tarmogoyf and a Smother for his. Game two I got savagely outplayed. He also cast a Ranger of Eos, which makes me more confident in my choice to play them. He also had Kitchen Finks though, which was a real beating in this game. Game three he mulligans to 4 or 5 and it was still a close game. My Dark Confidant got me down to about 7 when he had a Mogg Fanatic in play. I had a Jitte of his under my Sculler and knew his one card in hand is Ranger of Eos. I ran my Sculler into his Fanatic which traded and allowed my Tarmogoyf to get through. I then cast Fall on his now 2 card hand to lock it up with a Helix still in hand. It was still far too close for comfort when I started with a free Ancestral Recall.
Round eight against master of the universe and all who inhabit it, Tomoharu Saito playing elves. I shook his hand and asked if he remembered me from Denver. He assured me he did and laughed when I reminded him of how lucky I got due to his ridiculous mulligans. Game one he had a Wirewood Symbiote, a Llanowar Elves, and a Birchlore Rangers. He had an active Glimpse of Nature and passed the turn forgetting to bounce the Birchlore Rangers for a free bonus card. He easily killed me the next turn (turn 3) through a Lightning Helix. Game two I drew both of my Seal of Fires and he made a billion guys but I burned him out with double Tribal Flames. Game three he played a turn one Nettle Sentinel. I played a Wild Nacatl and did the pen trick and he attacked his 2/2 into mine. He was pretty disappointed when he realized what had happened, but he still easily killed me turn 3. I should have mulliganned my hand as it was very slow and lacking removal. This concluded day 1, leaving me with a record of 6-2 going into day two. Round nine against Jonathon Stromberg (although on my DCI history it says Bergstrom...) playing Tezzeret. Smashed me. Not even close. I misboarded and should have thrown back my hand game one. Round ten against Jarron Puszet playing Affinity. Game one I played a Sculler and his hand was triple Master of Etherium and a Cranial Plating. I was able to get him to 5 with domain and enough guys to block for 2 turns giving me 3 draws to hit a Tribal Flames and didn't get there. Game two I had a Lightning Helix, a Smother, and an Ancient Grudge. Game three he thought for a while and kept a one lander on the play with a Springleaf Drum. When he played an Arcbound Worker, I Seal of Fired it and he missed his land drop again. I played two one drops and he missed another land drop so I Ancient Grudged his land. When he found another on the following turn, I flashed it back. Round eleven against the one and only Frank Karsten playing elves. Not close at all. Turn 2 and turn 3 kills. Round twelve against Marcello Calvetto playing zoo. When shuffling he flipped up a Wild Nacatl, so when I lost the roll I was able to keep a really slow hand that would be horrible against anything but the mirror. It was something like double Lightning Helix, Smother, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Blood Crypt, Windswept Heath. We won that one. Game two I had double Lightning Helix again and my second Dark Confidant lived for 2 flips. Round thirteen against Ben Jackson playing zoo. He recognized me from my articles and we talked a bit about where we were from. We had plenty of time to chat since he mulliganned to 5 and I went to 6. I had an extra guy and won off of him. Game two I believe he mulled again and had a Tarmogoyf. He Oblivion Ringed it and played his own. I Oblivion Ringed his Oblivion Ring then Smother his Goyf. He Oblivion Rings it again and I Kami of Ancient Law it to get my Tarmogoyf back and play another. Round fourteen against Australian mage Brandon Lau playing elves. Game one I am able to get on board fast and use Scullers and removal to keep him from winning. Game two he goes off really early. Game three he mulliganned to four and that was that. Round fifteen against the Innovator himself, Patrick Chapin, playing 5 color Gifts-->Loam control I introduce myself and he says he recognizes me. I mention that we have quite a few mutual friends and that it's probably just that he's seen me around them a lot. Game one I get a fast start. He blows me up a bunch with Engineered Explosives and casts Gifts Ungiven into Loam for Academy Ruins. I had him down to 7 with a Tribal Flames in hand and plenty of mana so all I needed was a burn spell off the top. I kept playing one guy at a time so he had to waste his turns killing them. Eventually he does something else like play a guy and I draw a Lightning Helix to finish him off. For game two, I misboarded horribly and got smashed by lots of Kitchen Finks before he cast Gifts Ungiven and I concede a few turns later. Game three I had to re-sideboard and came out blisteringly fast with a Wild Nacatl, a Tarmogoyf, and a Kird Ape plus a Lightning Helix. He has nothing to do but tap out to Engineered Explosives for one, and I have tons of burn in hand. Round sixteen against master mage Marcio Carvalho playing some rock variant He offered me a draw but I asked to play it out because a win puts me into the top sixteen which would give me my eighth pro point of the tournament which would be my fifteenth pro point of the season locking me up for pro club level three. He says he doesn't mind either way, and was a really cool guy about the whole situation. Game one he absolutely destroyed me. Game two I barely squeek out a win with a really solid draw and because he drew lots of land. He also made a questionable attack, but he's obviously a far better player than me so I'm sure he had fine reasoning for it. In the last games I had seen Kitchen Finks, Loxodon Hierarch, Smother, Putrefy, and Umezawa's Jitte. I re-offered the draw due to being a massive underdog and he accepted. The extra money and pro point is worth not making level three because I was probably losing that match up anyway, especially with him on the play, and I still have Grand Prix Atlanta to get that last pro point. Now for my excessive list of name drops. Thanks to Nick Becvar for getting me cards, Ben Lundquist for tech, Gerry Thompson for cards and tech, Brandon Scheel for cards and laughs, Owen Turtenwald, Rashad Miller, and Michael Bernat for being awesome to stay with, and everyone who helped me along the way to get to the tour such as Aaron Hauptman, Zach Gray, Greg Weiss, and all of Purn Co. plus many more. Also, a congrats to LSV and the Super Team for taking it down and Rashad Miller for his very impressive finish. No props to the judging staff of this tournament, however, as I'm still bitter about round 3. Thanks for reading, as always any questions or comments are welcome in the forums. I plan to write regularly again now that I'm finally moved in and settled in my new place, so look for an article after states weekend about the hits and misses of the format. See you then! -AJ Sacher 
No portion of this web site may be used in any way without expressed written consent. All rights reserved. Magic the Gathering and it's respective properties are copyright Wizards of the Coast. Privacy Policy |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Price Guides / Spoilers
