By Levi Hinz
Here’s my report from the PTQ, a thriller with highs and lows, with hero’s and villians. And Magic cards. Mostly just Magic cards.
I started out with some very casual testing, about a month before the event. Mostly I’d just have a few games with whatever decks Dave and Cameron had lying around. Mono red, random Teferi builds, whatever goes. As time drew closer, I started proxying up various decks myself, based on what I’d seen so far.
I went searching the net for various decks as well. Karsten’s articles on MTG.com were helpful, if for no reason but to point me to Modo.
Now, I didnt actually own any cards to test with on Modo, so I started watching replays of all the Top 8′s. Sort of like testing, but mostly like hiring a DVD for the night. I learned a few things from this, the most important being that I knew so very little.
One deck that stood out at first was monoblack. In about 3 events, it had made 5 or 6 appearances in the Top 8. Seemed good. Also, the U/B decks with Korlash were running rampant, though I didn’t watch them too closely, as the only thing worse than watching U/B mirror is playing U/B mirror. There were also a few G/W decks here and there, but no solid performances. I built the U/B deck, but the list I had didn’t really perform all that well.
Then came the GP. The best thing that can ever happen for lowly Brisbane scrubs such as myself is to have a GP somewhere in the world right before the PTQ. Especially in my case, who can’t really build decks for nuts (I’m more of a tuner than a creator.) The GP brought to the table quite a few powerful decks, but mostly it validated G/W and U/B Korlash. I modified my U/B Korlash list to match that of Paul Cheon, and threw together a G/W build.
After a Sunday morning of testing with Cameron, I decided that I had absolutely no clue what to play. G/W seemed good, U/B seemed good. Cameron was going to do more testing on Monday, so I basically left it to him to tell me what I should play on Monday night.
At first Cameron told me I was to play a mono blue aggro deck, but he lost me at Sage of Epityr. He was obviously joking. When he finally got to the point, he said we should play the best list of Teferi/Korlash, and just outplay people. Sounds like a fair assessment. Once the deck gets to a certain point, it can’t actually lose.
I tested a few more times in that week with my flatmate Ben, but I also had a lot of non-magic things on that week (stupid life getting in the way of Magic.) On the Saturday before the event, I did some testing with Will, Dan, and Roy. Mostly I just threw U/B against whatever they had to offer, but it seemed the best I could get was 50% against some decks, and worse against others. I really wasn’t impressed with the decks power at all.
I also decided that Cameron’s plan of “running Teferi and outplaying everyone” wasn’t for me, as I was actually a complete noob who makes heaps of mistakes. Better for me to play a simpler deck.
So, given that I was so disillusioned with U/B, I decided, at 6pm the night before the PTQ, to switch decks.
I built a GW deck based on the GP winning deck. I really didn’t like the Riftsweepers, which were terrible in testing against anything but red, so I swapped them for Thornweald Archers. Ben, a guy who hasn’t played magic in years but was just getting back into it, had been hassling me to add them for weeks, but I only added them after I saw them in the sideboards of other GW decks in the GP coverage. Guess I should have listened all along.
After putting that deck together, Ben started telling me about the reanimator idea he had been having and about how good all these cards go together, like Ressurection and Krosan Cloudscraper.
Lets point something out first: Ben has been bouncing crazy idea’s off me, non-stop, for about 3 or 4 weeks. Armed with nothing but text versions of the spoiler for all 3 sets, he hit me with Reanimator, Token decks, Dragonstorm, B/G with Urborg and Mire Boa, Deathtouch, Barren Glory, Land Destruction, U/R suspend, etc, etc. He took great joy in tormenting with thousands and thousands of questions. On a few occasions I tried his idea’s out, like GoblinStorm, but none really impressed me.
So anyway, the night before the tournament, instead of doing last minute serious testing and getting an early night, we built a reanimator deck. Our first try was U/W, which went something like-
Ressurection
Body Double
Magus of the Disk
Careful Consideration
Akroma
Numot
It turned out to be way too slow against the might of G/W. So as Ben went off to a party, I talked to a friend online who gave me some pro’s decklist for reanimator. It was U/B/g with Goyf and Bridge From Below, but I didn’t have any spare, so we made it U/B/w with Damnation and Isolation. We played a few games against G/W and it managed to win just under half of those, so we figured we’d stumbled onto a good thing. I stuck with trusty old G/W though.
We were up until 2:30am testing the reanimator deck.
In the morning we picked up Cameron and Huxley.
Me: “Ready to crush?”
Cam: “Nup!”
Me: “I chickened out and switched decks.”
Cam: “Me too!”
I got to the event early to lend and borrow cards, and got ready to rock. Here was my list:
4 Forest
4 Plains
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Reborn
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Thornweald Archer
4 Serra Avenger
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Mystic Enforcer
3 Saffi Eriksdottir
3 Call of the Herd
4 Temporal Isolation
4 Griffin Guide
1 Chromatic Star
2 Thrill of the Hunt
4 Edge of Autumn
Sideboard:
4 Whirling Dervish
3 Cloudchaser Kestrel
3 Sunlance
2 Bound in Silence
2 Riftsweeper
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
Round 1
Aaron Tan – UW Blink, Venser, Cloudskate, Shapeshifter, Calciderm
Game 1 – I get a good aggro start but he slows me down with Venser and Riftwing Cloudskate. I put him on having a Blink, but stupidly attack with Avenger and 2/3 Tarmagoyf. Should have just been Avenger. He double blocks Goyf and Blinks his Venser. I thought for a moment and figured that Isolation is crap in the matchup, because he has blinks, so I Isolation his Cloudskate with damage on the stack. I was figuring that either he wastes the flashback on his blink if he’s smart (which lets the Cloudskate still deal combat damage), or keep my Goyf alive if he’s not that clever. Either way I’m getting probably the best use out of Isolation here. He mucks it up and doesn’t Blink with damage on the stack, so my Goyf lives. He doesn’t draw any more Blinks or interesting cards, so I run him over.
Game 2 – He stalls on 3 land. Finally draws a 4th land, but its Tolaria west, and I crush him next turn.
1-0
Round 2: Feature Match
Carl Davidson – Ub Teferi
Game 1 – I get a really good start and get him down to 4, but then he comes out with Tendrils, and many Delays on my spells. He has teferi in play, which holds an Isolation. I keep trying to beat him down, he keeps gaining life. He runs out of tendrils and I’m still trying to beat him down, but he kills my guys in other ways. He EVENTUALLY finds a way of killing me.
Game 2 – I get another good aggro start, with Saffi on board as the anti wrath, and Enforcer as the backup plan. I follow my basic plan against his type of deck, which is to only play Enforcer after his Damnation, because Damnation is the only way to kill it. The aggro is too quick for him this time.
Game 3 – I get many enforcers/saffi/griffin guides and overwhelm him. Even if he has Damnation, I still have lethal.
2-0
Round 3
Darryl McCarthey – RB Removal
Game 1 – I know what he’s playing but I keep a creature light hand anyway. He kills all my guys, and kills me with Plague Sliver and 3/1 shadow guy.
Game 2 – I board in Whirling Dervish and Crovax. He kills everything and I’m playing off the top, and he has factory. I rip Crovax, which seems really good in this situation. Unfortunately he just plays removal on him 3 or 4 times which makes me pay lots of life and his Factory tokens get through.
2-1
Round 4
Sam Atkinson – UB Korlash (the deck I was going to play)
Game 1 – He has an early wrath or two. I figure I have to bank on him not drawing another wrath and play every single guy I have left, including drawing 3 Call of the herd. He has Triskelevus recursion going so all I can do is keep on bashing through. He steals my Enforcer with Take Possession. He has Trisk with 2 counters and 1 mana. I attack with 3 guys, he makes a token, and I Isolation the Trisk. This was my critical mistake. He blocks with the token, goes to 5. Next turn he makes a token to chump block one guy with the extra blocker I let him have, blocks with his Enforcer to destroy another guy, and goes to 2. He sacs the new token to kill Trisk, and puts it on top of his library. I concede. If I had pacified the token and made him block with the trisk, he wouldn’t have had enough to recur it, and thus wouldn’t have had enough blockers.
Game 2 – I get a good aggro draw, but he looks like he’s gaining control. But I just keep on bashing and he doesn’t do anything.
Game 3 – After a few beats and a few tendrils, time is called, and he’s on 18. I drop the Enforcer early and hope he doesn’t have damnation. He does, and its a draw.
2-1-1
Round 5: Feature Match
Nick C – GWu
Game 1 – He mulligans to a 5 card, 1 lander. The only play he makes is Saffi to kill my Saffi.
Game 2 – My draw is slightly better aggro than his, but he has removal. I beat him down, he beats me down. He tries to Psionic Blast my Avenger, but I have Thrill of the Hunt, so he takes 4 from Avenger, 2 from blast, and 1 from painland. He doesn’t recover.
3-1-1
Round 6
John Tong – GWr
He’s playing a GW deck which some splash additions, some which worried me (Stormbind), some which made me think it would be a walk in the park (Weatherseed Totem).
Game 1 – My Thornweald archers cause him much grief, and I draw more isolations than him.
Game 2 – He gets quick aggro, I play Saffi turn two, give him a +1+1, then Griffin Guide him turn 3. We start to race. I five him, He fives me. He plays a guy, I isolate it. We both were on 5 life now, with isolation on all 3 of his guys. I attack, he Isolation’s my Saffi, and correctly blocks with his guy, a 3/3 elephant with Griffin Guide and Isolation. I stupidly sacrifice Saffi with damage on the stack, killing both guys, and giving both of us a 2/2, instead of sacrificing any other time and just giving me a 2/2. I also forgot to move a +1/+1 counter to my 2/2. I then played a Mystic enforcer, which I also forgot to move a +1/+1 counter to. Fortunately my deck was my saving grace, delivering more guys than his, and I overwhelm him.
4-1-1
And the Top 8 is:
1 McCarthy, Darryl
2 Graham, Chris
3 Suto, Ken
4 Crane, Daniel
5 Hinz, Levi B
6 Crewe, David
7 Atkinson, Sam
8 Lie, Sunny S
Quarterfinals
Daniel Crane – UBwrg Relic
During round 1, I picked this guy to win the event. He’s a good player, playing what I think is the most powerful deck. I saw it online and talked to a few people about it, but decided it was probably too complicated to learn in a hurry, and I didn’t have the 1000 rares needed for it.
Game 1 – I play lots of guys, and his draw is TERRIBLE and he has no removal.
Game 2 – He has a couple of damnations for my early threats, including Saffi. I then have multiple Mystic Enforcers (I’ve drawn 3.) He has a Tarmagoyf which has hit me, and Bogardan Hellkite. I swing with two Enforcers, he blocks with Hellkite and with damage on, he Blinks the Hellkite. one Enforcer down. I drop the 2nd one. He’s on 8.
Next turn I draw Kestrel, which is important if he draws Take Possession. I attack again, and he blocks with Hellkite, then Tendrils the Hellkite (huh?). He gains some and loses some, I think he goes to 10. I pass without playing Kestrel.
He plays Take Possession on my 7/7 tapped Enforcer.
I play Kestrel, get my Enforcer back, and hit him to 4. He doesn’t draw anything and concedes.
He later tells me that he was playing around the Isolation, which would have killed him if he tried for the blink on the hellkite. But if I didn’t have it, he could have Blinked the Hellkite, burned me for 5, and then Tendrils the blocker out of the way and attacked me for the win. It was clever of him to forsee losing to Isolation, however I’m not sure whether he could have won at all if I did have it. If you absolutely can’t win if they have a certain card, you have to just pretend that they don’t have it.
In his defense, he might still have won the game if I didn’t have Kestrel, so the play wasn’t a horrible one.
Levi def Dan
Sunny def Darryl
Ken def Dave
Sam def Chris
SemiFinals
Sunny Lie – White Weenie (no suspend)
Game 1 – I run an early guy into Mana Tithe. I Isolate a couple of his guys and beat with some of mine. Then he Isolates a few guys. I get Enforcer down as my only creature to block a Calciderm, although it had hit me a couple of times. He attacks with Soltari Priest, and Calciderm doesn’t attack (Even though it will die next turn). He then drops another Calciderm. He’s on 15, I’m on 8. I have Call of the Herd and Griffin Guide in hand, he has 1 card. I’ve been putting him on having another Mana Tithe all game, which I’m pretty sure about. I Griffin Guide my Enforcer and bash for 8, and take 7 from his attack, going to 1. I bash again and spend 5 minutes convincing Sunny that 7 minus 8 is -1, and having a life total lower than 0 means you’re dead.
Game 2 – He does nothing on turn 2, so I do nothing as well to play around Tithe. He plays Nimbus, I play Goyf. I have a Terramorphic Expanse in the yard. He attacks, and I Thrill of the Hunt before blocks, it resolves, making Tarmagoyf a 3/5. I block. He plays and bounces Stonecloaker, removing my Thrill. Flanking resolves, my guy is now a 1/3, and it takes a lot of time and energy convincing Sunny that a 2/2 doesn’t kill a 1/3, and that Maths is Delicious.
Anyway, I play some Archers, he plays Avengers. I play Avengers. I Griffin Guide my Goyf, which trades with one avenger after he double blocks. I Saffi my Archers to hold off damage, which again results in a lengthy discussion with Sunny about how Saffi’s ability works. I Guide my Avenger to trade with another of his avengers after the double block. He Guides his Nimbus, which is bad news for me. I have 2 Enforcers in hand (and Threshold), but I only have 4 land and I’m playing around Mana Tithe. I couldn’t afford to run 1 Enforcer into Tithe as every turn I had to make a play that actually did something or fall behind, and I was on 1 life. I finally draw land number 5, play Enforcer and pass. He does nothing. I play Enforcer and pass. He does nothing. I attack with all guys and have Thrill of the Hunt to make sure its lethal, regardless of Isolation.
Ken def Sam
Levi def Sunny
Finals
Ken Suto – UWR good stuff.
A very tense 10 minutes passed, as we discussed all that is allowed to be discussed, with regards to prize splits. Ken can’t afford to go to PT but wants to win money. I want to go to PT, but can’t offer him anything.
Add the fact that Ken and I are basically mortal enemies. No joke. I think it started with a limited PTQ in which he wouldn’t I.D. with me, and ended up knocking me out of the Top 8. Now, that wouldn’t have phased me for long, because thems the breaks, but he was really rude to me during that match, and that didn’t really change over the next year or so. So it was basically a cycle of him being rude to me, and me bad-mouthing him to pretty much anyone who’d listen.
So suffice it to say, it was an experience. The ball was basically in his court. He could send me to the PT, not knowing if he would get anything for it, and knowing that he wasn’t going to go himself. 10 spectators and 1 silently pleading opponent, all leering over him awaiting his decision.
After private chats with Mike and I, and with Ken and Mike, Ken sits and thinks for a bit more, and then extends the hand.
“You’re going to the Pro Tour.”
We played one game and I crushed him, therefore legitimising my victory 
The good:
- Archers are gold. Thanks Ben.
- GW is sick. Soooo glad I didn’t play UB.
- Screwing up against my mate Sam, causing the draw, which ended up getting us both into Top 8 anyway.
- Darryl McCarthey, for playing a casual/rogue deck that crushed all aggro, and going 4-0-2 in the swiss.
- My play of the day against Sunny. In a really tense attack, the crowd were all silent…I made his Priest white with my Kestrel…then took 2.
- Ken Suto for conceding to me, despite our differences. Truly a noble gesture. Before this moment, I would have told you he wasn’t actually human. I have reason to change my oppinion of him now. Hopefully we can be ever so slightly harsh on each other in the future. Many thanks.
- 2nd PT, how nuts is that?
The bad:
- Me, for making plenty of stupid mistakes (but winning anyway).
- Sunny. Its a great displeasure to play him, every time. Crushing him was nice though.
- Sam, for getting a concession in the last round to make Top 8 (why do I never get the easy Top 8′s? )
- Me, for taking Cameron’s dream of going to Spain. He, however, took my dream of going to Japan, so its all fair.
