by Dave Crewe
I should be pretty happy with how well I’ve done with Magic over the last few years. I have a solid-to-good rating, and have performed pretty well at most PTQs and GPs over that period. And yet over the last few years, as my time spent on the game decreases, I feel my relevance as a player slipping away. It’s an odd thing to say, but at one point in my life, being one of the best Magic players around was pretty important to me.
I’m hardly going to lose sleep over it now, but nonetheless I feel like over the last couple of years I’ve become that player who used to be pretty good, but hasn’t really done anything worth talking about. My Magic resumé consists of a host of solid finishes and few-to-no exceptional ones. You look at the current premier Queensland players and it’s a different story.
Levi? Has attended two Pro Tours, and comes second in practically every local event when he’s not winning States.
Cameron? Was a Mimeofacture away from National Champion and has attended both Worlds and a Pro Tour.
Basam? Not one, but two Grand Prix top eights, including a Japanese GP which is hardly an achievement to be sniffed at.
Ken Suto? Dude opens amazing sealed pools.
I don’t really have a comparable list of accomplishments. A string of solid GP finishes. A States win back when iPods were new and exciting technology. And I seem to be able to top eight every single local PTQ…and then immediately lose in the quarterfinals. So with a new PTQ on the horizon, I wanted to change that. I wanted to prove I was still relevant, rather than just “pretty good, I guess.â€
Problem was, I just started full-time teaching this year. It’s a great job, and I really enjoy it, but unfortunately full time teaching is a hefty workload, not really allowing for the hours upon hours of testing time that I like to bring to a competitive constructed event such as this. Working through matchups, tweaking with sideboards were not really on the agenda. As a matter of fact, I had no time for testing.
So after much frantic card-borrowing (thanks to Aaron Nicoll, Sam Atkinson, Stu O’Rourke and even Ross Schafer who shipped a couple cards up from Canberra), I turned up to the tournament with the following, completely untested decklist:
Singleton Faeries
4 Vendilion Clique
3 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Mana Leak
1 Disrupting Shoal
1 Cryptic Command
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Sower of Temptation
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Chrome Mox
1 Seat of the Synod
4 Mutavault
3 Riptide Laboratory
3 Snow-covered Island
8 Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 River of Tears
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
Sideboard:
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Stifle
2 Future Sight
2 Curse of Chains
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Disrupting Shoal
1 Academy Ruins
I’m sure a few of you are crinkling your brow reading this decklist, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to go ahead and defend this as a correct choice by any means, since it is the product of, as I mentioned, zero hours of testing. The reason I chose Faeries in the first place was because:
a) It’s a reactive deck, so testing is less critical.
b) I played Next Level Blue to top eight in the last season, and the two decks share a lot of strategies.
The mana-base and key cards are pretty uncontroversial, but some other choices…
The decklist was born from reading a bunch of articles, and pretty much liking every diverse take on Faeries.
Sam Black arguing that Chrome Mox was necessary to keep up to speed with the field? Seems correct.
Patrick Chapin running maindeck Threads of Disloyalty and Disrupting Shoal, and arguing that Chrome Mox is unnecessary? Man, that makes a lot of sense. Shoal seems like such a blowout.
But I do really like Cryptic Command too…
So I figured some random one-ofs would solve the problem. After all, mise well just draw that one-of Chrome Mox or Disrupting Shoal when it was going to be awesome, right? If I wasn’t going to test, getting lucky seemed like a viable alternative plan. In seriousness the one-ofs are pretty respectable in this deck, as when they’re not useful you can just Clique them away or pitch them to Thirst. By no means would I recommend this decklist though!
Anyway, enough about the deck. I hardly have detailed sideboarding plans or matchup data to give you. On to the tournament!
It was a big turnout, with somewhere in the vicinity of eighty-four players arriving at the Bridge Club to battle for the flight to Honolulu. Technically I wasn’t really one of them, as school commitments meant I wasn’t going to be able to attend even if I won. As such I was wearing my “scooping hat†on the day (sorry Cameron, it was only a figurative hat. And there’s only one of them). There were also some unfamiliar faces for a Brisbane PTQ, with some Ipswich players, ex-National Champ Steve Aplin and John-Paul Kelly from Canberra making the trip. Oh, and even Corey Hill, surprisingly.
Round One saw me paired against Dion Moore. (TEPS)
I hate playing decks like Faeries when you have no idea what your opponent is playing. I guessed Dion would be on some kind of Rock-ish deck – maybe Loam? – and kept a slow-ish hand with a Thirst for Knowledge, Ancestral Vision, Jitte and Venser. He opened with Island, Ponder. Frown. This hand is not really optimized for TEPS. Especially when he kept all three cards on top of his deck.
I suspend my Ancestral and then we immediately had some drama, when Dion went to draw for his turn and then realised he hadn’t actually drawn the card off Ponder! A judge, none other than local tournament organiser Mike Puccini, was called over to sort the situation out. The initial ruling was that he didn’t get the card, but after some consultation with Jason he decided that he got the card, which seemed correct to me. He played another Ponder and shuffled, remembering to draw this time, and suspended one Lotus Bloom on turns two and a second on turn three.
The key play in this game though, was him missing his fourth land drop. An end of turn Venser on his double-counter Dreadship Reef allowed me to Mana Leak his first Lotus Bloom successfully, and Spellstutter Sprite the second. A counterspell after a couple rituals kept him off Desire mana. Unfortunately I had to play a second Venser to keep him off Desire mana after a second combo attempt and wasn’t left with much of a clock, but while I held two useless Jittes in hand he hadn’t drawn much either, and eventually succumbed to Mutavault (and an amusingly terrible Sower of Temptation) beatdown
I brought in Stifles and a Disrupting Shoal for random creature steal effects and a Jitte. It’s really not hard to find dead cards in this matchup; might have actually been correct to bring in Academy Ruins over the second Jitte. An opening hand Stifle, Ancestral Vision and a couple counterspells made me feel okay, but Gigadrowse is, I’m told, always an active threat in post-board games. Had a bit of dilemma when he cracked a turn two fetchland – whether to hold the Stifle for, you know, Mind’s Desire or to just hit the land. I decided with a Vision suspended I felt keeping him low on land was better, especially as it made Gigadrowse less effective.
As it turned out he still had a bunch of land, so the call may have been incorrect. A Vendilion Clique however revealed he was only holding a couple rituals and a Gigadrowse (which I flushed). I made a minor misplay by letting him resolve a Peer Through Depths (I had a Spell Snare in hand) that gave him a Volcanic Fallout, but a second Vendilion Clique ensured he didn’t draw any gas and it and my Mutavaults finished him off.
1-0
Round Two versus Stuart O’Rourke (RGW Slide)
Not an easy pairing in the second round, unfortunately. Stu joked that we should play “premiership rules†– I wouldn’t play any of the cards he’d lent me. I put him on Zoo (a suspicion reinforced by the Windswept Heath and Stomping Grounds he inadvertently flashed getting his deck out), and mulliganed away a four land, dubs Spell Snare and Vendilion Clique hand accordingly. My six-card hand was a little too slow for Zoo, but fortunately he turned his opening fetchland into a cycled Secluded Steppe and he was clearly playing Astral Slide, which made my turn one Ancestral Vision look a lot better.
The game dragged out for a while, but he proved completely unable to draw Life from the Loam, and without that source of card advantage (and with me resolving two Ancestral Visions), it wasn’t overly difficult to finish him off, despite encountering some difficulty with cycled Slice and Dice. A Vedalken Shackles and a zillion islands ensured he had few relevant spells in his deck. The game had taken almost half an hour to finish, so I was optimistic that with Slide’s slowness the worst result I could expect would be a draw.
I sided out Spell Snares (which have no relevant targets versus Slide) and some creature steal for Disrupting Shoal, Future Sights and Relics.
He had the early Life from the Loam in game one, and actually gave me a perfect window on turn three to Relic two Life from the Loams while he was tapped out…but unfortunately I didn’t draw the Relic until turn four, at which stage he had access to mana, so as long as he played smart he could cycle in response and keep a Loam. Long story short, the Relic did enough to slow the Loam down, I resolved a Future Sight and the game ended unfinished with me in pretty solid control.
One interesting story from the game though, from turn five of extra time. At this stage Stu was pretty much unable to win, as I was on 18, but he was digging for at least a shot with Seismic Assault. I Spellstutter Sprited his first attempt to Loam, and when he dredged it back and tried again I Vensered it just to leave him without enough mana. But I already had a Venser in play, and Stu was convinced from a ruling at the previous year’s New Zealand Nats that the legend rule meant Venser’s ability never triggered. Those wacky Kiwi judges… (For reference, the Venser ability still triggers)
2-0
Round Three versus Chris Worrell (Zoo)
I had no idea what Chris was playing, but pre-match banter let me know that he hadn’t tested his deck at all either; given he was on 2-0, this eliminated a few possibilities, notably Elves. In any case, I knew the deck would be extremely shiny. I won the roll and he opened with fetchland into Stomping Grounds, Wild Nacatl – making his deck choice pretty obvious. My hand wasn’t really optimized for this matchup, with no Explosives or creature steal effects in hand, so I knew it was going to be tight.
Fortunately for me his only turn two play was a pass (and an eventual end of turn Lightning Helix to the dome, which is about the least relevant turn two play he can muster). A turn three Woolly Thoctar met a counterspell, thankfully, while the Nacatl kept taking out my life total in chunks of three. Turn four I Spell Snared a Tarmogoyf, and finally on his turn five I made some effort to deal with the Thoctar, dropping a draw step Vendilion Clique that revealed a land, Path to Exile and another Woolly Thoctar. With a Jitte in hand, the Path had to go.
The Clique traded with the Nacatl (I had a second Clique in hand), and then he went for a post-combat Woolly Thoctar to my two mana up. I have to say, knowing in hindsight that he had drawn a land off the Clique trigger, this seems wrong to me. Woolly Thoctar is very difficult for my deck to deal with game one, and he certainly had the time to play it next turn to avoid the Mana Leak…that I did have. So now both our boards were empty, and I was on 8.
I played another draw step Vendilion Clique and Chris tossed a foil Jitte and a Bloodstained Mire onto the table in frustration. The Jitte had to go. The Clique trigger gave him a 4/5 Tarmogoyf, which resolved. My Clique picked up Jitte and went to town. His next two draws were Kird Apes, but a couple of careful activations of the Jitte and Mutavault chumpblocks allowed me to win on a precarious 2 life – if he’d drawn a Helix or Path at any point I don’t think I could have won.
I reached into the sideboard and shuffled in Disrupting Shoal, Sower of Temptation, a couple Threads and a couple Curse of Chains, taking out slower cards like Shackles and Cryptic Command (and a Spell Snare or two, since now it seemed like letting Tarmogoyf resolve was a good thing for me). I contemplated bringing Stifles, but I didn’t have the space. I felt pretty confident, as Chris hadn’t seen Engineered Explosives game one and might not realise I was playing it.
Sure enough, his first couple of one-drops succumbed to Engineered Explosives on turn three. I had tapped out to give him a window to, in theory, resolve whatever he wanted. But I was holding Disrupting Shoal and a couple of three-cost spells, and hoped like hell he would try a Woolly Thoctar. Unfortunately he went for Ranger of Eos, fetching two Wild Nacatls, instead. Boo. I rebuilt quickly, with a Vendilion Clique picking up a Jitte to take down the Ranger, and instead of just dropping two Nacatls Chris also had a 3/4 Tarmogoyf to add to the team. A much better target for Threads of Disloyalty than a Nacatl!
The stolen Goyf traded for a Nacatl and a Mogg Fanatic – three-for-ones are always good, and a second Explosives cleaned up the surviving 3/3. From there the game was pretty straightforward, as a Thirst for Knowledge ensured I still had countermagic in hand, while his hand was empty. I made a silly error at one point when he drew and played a Woolly Thoctar and, excited that my Disrupting Shoal was going to do something, pitched Threads of Disloyalty to it to counter the fatty. Reasonable, except that with the three mana I had open, Spellstutter Sprite plus activate Mutavault was a much better play. Still it was hard for me to lose from that position, and I managed not to throw the match away.
3-0
I think that when I hit 3-0 in any given tournament, that’s when the tournament starts to get real for me. The first few matches there’s always more of a casual tone, but one I get to three rounds without a loss I start to take things a bit more seriously. 3-0 is a still a long way from a top eight score, but from the original 84 players, only around 10 or 11 were going to be on 3-0. Of course, starting to take things seriously often goes hand-in-hand with “getting nervous†and “making stupid plays,†so I endeavoured to avoid this pitfall. I was also hoping not to play against David Whitehouse, playing Dredge, as I felt I had a bad matchup there if he managed to sneak a dredge enabler past my Spell Snares.
Round Four versus Nick Chmielewski (Elves)
Finally, a matchup where I actually knew what my opponent was playing before the match started! Nick C had been searching for Elves cards on www.paper-gamer.com, and a few of his teammates seemed to be playing Elves, so I was pretty confident in classifying his deck as Elves.
I won the roll, then immediately had a tough decision looking at an opening hand of:
Riptide Laboratory
Chrome Mox
Spellstutter Sprite
Venser, Shaper Savant
Vendilion Clique
Mana Leak
Sower of Temptation
It seems dicey. But on the play, I could guarantee I could counter his turn one and two plays, and with only one more (coloured) land I could both play Vendilion Clique (hitting myself, if I needed to dig for land) and start to recur my Spellstutter Sprite. It was a risky keep, certainly, but it was worth it, I felt.
I removed Sower to the Mox (after some thought), and countered his turn one Nettle Sentinel, drew a land and then Mana Leaked his turn two Wirewood Hivemaster. A turn three draw step Vendilion Clique revealed him to be holding Elvish Visionary, Llanowar Elves, Summoner’s Pact, Heritage Druid and a Chord of Calling. The scariest card there was definitely Heritage Druid, so I shipped it to the bottom. He played the Wirewood Hivemaster he’d drawn, and I drew the land to Venser it back to his hand and bash him down to 13.
“I’m the aggro deck, apparently,†I commented. Nick could only agree – I can’t imagine this matchup normally plays out like this.
From there Nick didn’t really have any options. He gave himself a couple more draw steps to find relevant spells, then scooped up his cards. Go the one-of Chrome Mox!
I sideboarded in a Disrupting Shoal and a couple random steal effects (honestly can’t recall whether it was Threads, Sower or both) for the two Shackles and the fourth Vendilion Clique (as they have so many relevant cards it isn’t as critical). Game two I opened with what seemed like a very strong hand for the matchup:
Island
Hallowed Fountain
Ancestral Vision
Spell Snare
Mana Leak
Vendilion Clique
Engineered Explosives
Pretty much all relevant spells, including early counterspells and an Engineered Explosives. Maybe not the perfect hand (I’d trade the Vision for a Jitte) but pretty close.
However the hand didn’t play quite as well as I’d hoped. As he was on the play he managed to get a couple of one drops into play, although a threatening Wirewood Hivemaster met a Spell Snare. But all I was drawing was more spells – including a now fairly irrelevant second Spell Snare. On turn four I was still stuck on two land and was facing down a handful of one-drops that I needed to do something about.
I made a minor misplay here, I think, by choosing to just pass the turn. Mana Leak couldn’t even counter one-drops here thanks to Heritage Druid, so it makes more sense to either suspend Ancestral Vision or cast Explosives for one and just leave Spell Snare mana up. Certainly, that gives him a window to resolve Chord of Calling, but as it stood I don’t think I could actually beat that card, so better just to hope he doesn’t have it.
As it turned out I still hadn’t drawn a land by turn five, so I decided to just hope he was holding nothing, and both suspended the Vision and played Explosives for one. He Chorded up a Viridian Shaman, cast a Mirror Entity, and left me in an unwinnable position with only two land in play. Onto game three…
Game three I once again had an opening hand with Chrome Mox and Spellstutter Sprite, this time with an Explosives as well. Mise… I removed Disrupting Shoal to Mox and he started the game with a Nettle Sentinel. I let it resolve, hoping he’d walk another couple one-drops into the Explosives – a decision I had to make in a split second to not make it obvious I was holding the sweeper. Sure enough he followed up with Birchlore Rangers, another one-drop and then a Elvish Visionary, which I countered (thanks to Mutavault) to keep him from exploding onto the board.
Explosives cleaned up his team, but he recovered admirably, playing a Wirewood Symbiote and an Umezawa’s Jitte – a reasonable backup plan, to be sure. I had Sower of Temptation to grab the Symbiote, to keep him off active Jitte for a turn at least. He responded by dropping a Harmonic Sliver that killed my Chrome Mox and left me with a suddenly perilous mana base of Island and two Mutavaults. I untapped and drew my own Jitte, and was about to legend rule his when I paused for a moment, and considered the board position a little more closely.
Turns out Mutavaults are Elves…
Instead of dropping Jitte, and risking getting wrecked by him dropping a second Jitte, I just suspended an Ancestral and passed the turn. Nick swung into my Mutavault, pumped his Sliver with Pendelhaven, then was surprised to find that I could quite easily pop the Mutavault back to my hand and stop the Jitte from triggering. There was a tense couple of turns where the Mutavault bouncing meant I couldn’t keep more than one Island up, but fortunately Nick didn’t have enough gas to get past his own Symbiote’s trickery, and once the Vision resolved I had more than enough control to not really have a chance of losing. Soon after, he was taken down by my flying hordes.
4-0
Round Five I was paired against Basam Tabet (Zoo)
…not really the pairing I was really hoping for, as Basam is the highest rated “local†player and a force to be reckoned with. My last two pairings against him have both been in Limited events; he took me out in the finals of the Conflux sneak peek thanks to his Ajani Vengeant, and before then he defeated me in round five of the last PTQ thanks to Broodmate Dragon. I commented that it was obviously my turn to win, and we got into it.
Basam had an uncharacteristically slow start, with no one-drop. His Squire – sorry, Tarmogoyf – was Spell Snared, but unfortunately I had no answer for his turn three Woolly Thoctar. For a lot of decks this is not really an issue, but Faeries has huge problems with the card. He added a couple of one-drops to the board to support the 5/4. A Venser traded for a Mogg Fanatic and kept the Thoctar for connecting for a turn. I drew into a Sower and tried to get back into the game that way, but Basam had the Lightning Helix.
I was in a perilous position, and while Explosives and Cryptic Command bought me some time (still stuck on 4 land), I eventually moved to chump block mode on 5 life, suspending an Ancestral Vision and casting a Vendilion Clique. Ultimately this proved fatal, as he had the Lightning Helix to swing through for the win. In hindsight, this was a pretty significant misplay. With a Spellstutter Sprite in hand and a Mutavault in play, it was clearly better to activate Mutavault when he attacked, as then Sprite would counter either Helix or Path and get to chump block. I guess that’s what you get for not testing, I suppose. No guarantees it would have won me the game though, as the Thoctar was still a significant threat.
I sided in the same cards I did against Chris, but sided out all my Spell Snares, as I put Basam on the “take out all your Tarmogoyfs†sideboard plan. Risky, and maybe incorrect, as you still have targets in Helix and Jitte, but I thought it was worth a shot.
Game two ended up being quite a long game. There was a lot of back-and-forth in the early turns: Threads of Disloyalty took out both his Kird Ape and a Mogg Fanatic (Basam not realising that without a Forest, my Kird Ape was only a meagre 1/1), and a Curse of Chains helped keep his early attackers contained. For a couple of turns Basam had an active Jitte on a Tarmogoyf (yeah, siding out Spell Snare wasn’t so hot), but thanks to Mutavault and Riptide Laboratory I was able to get things under control.
We then reached a slow-as-molasses end game, where he managed to take me down to a precarious two life (worrying when he’s sided in Volcanic Fallout), but Mutavaults, Riptide Laboratories and various Wizards ensured his creatures weren’t able to get through. His Jitte was eventually dealt with through a combination of Venser and Vendilion Clique. Finally I managed to resolve an Ancestral Vision, which gave me a Jitte to equip to my Mutavault. Shortly afterwards I drew a Spellstutter Sprite, and with a Mutavault and a Riptide Laboratory it didn’t take long for him to recognise the game was over.
There was only five minutes left in the round however. We both tried to play for a result, but ultimately I just had too many counterspells/Curse of Chains for him to apply much pressure, but had to expend too many resources staying on a high life total to finish the game in my favour. I think that we both briefly contemplating conceding to ensure one of us was a lock for top eight, but in the end it seemed better for us both to have a legitimate shot.
4-0-1
At this stage there was only one undefeated player in the tournament: Canberra representative JP Kelly. Myself, Basam, Anthony Sanderson and some guy called Tim Burke (playing Elves, I think?) were all sitting at four wins and a draw.
Round Six I was paired up versus John-Paul Kelly
If I was writing this tournament as a narrative this would be the tense match where our plucky protagonist has to battle his way through a challenging and gruelling match to eventually earn his way into the top eight – either that, or take a loss and be forced to play for the top eight in the last round. As it turned out though, real life doesn’t always make for an exciting story.
My first thought sitting down was that I needed a win here, and JP could afford a loss and still comfortably make top eight. As such I just threw the question out there – would he like to concede? I wasn’t overly optimistic but it couldn’t hurt to ask. JP pondered for a moment (by which I mean thinking, not examining the top three cards of his library) and then agreed. I don’t think I would have got the concession here as any random, but the fact that we knew one another and that he knew I wouldn’t be attending Honolulu made the decision easier for him, I think.
5-0-1
Analysing this on the surface it doesn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense. For JP, he was a lock for top eight with a draw or a win – a loss and an unfortunate pairing meant he might miss out, even with excellent resistance. For me, clearly a free win was nice, but with it came the unspoken obligation to scoop to JP if we encountered one another in the elimination rounds. Now obviously I didn’t have to do this, and clearly didn’t offer to do so (as collusion is bad times, kiddies), but it’s the polite thing to do if I’m not planning on going and he’s ensured my spot in the top eight. After all, you don’t want to get a reputation for being a jerk – see Jarron Puzset, who thinks that someone is just being nice when they concede to him in the finals of a PTQ.
The real advantage though, came in the fact that we didn’t have to stress about playing for a whole match – mental freshness is a big advantage in tournaments such as these. Also it didn’t hurt my choice that Tezzeret was supposed to be a bad matchup for Faeries, and JP seemed quite practiced at the deck. We played a quick sideboarded game for fun (I crushed him thanks to his mana screw and a quick Vendilion Clique from me) and then went and had a break.
After round six, there were 3 players on 16: myself, Basam and Sanderson. Beyond that were five players on 15 points (5-1). In theory that would be the top eight right there; everyone IDs and there’s your eight. But two players, including Levi, were on 13 points (4-1-1) and both had fairly solid resistance, meaning they would certainly be paired and the winner would almost certainly make the top eight.
Round Seven saw me “play†against Corey Hill (Elves) who had a high enough resistance to ID.
5-0-2
The relevant tables in round seven were as follows:
Table 1: Basam and Sanderson, who ID’d, obviously
Table 2: Myself and Corey
Table 3: JP and Tim Collings (both on 15 points)
Table 4: Aaron Nicoll and Luke Bagnall (both on 15 points)
Table 5: Levi and Tim Burke (Ipswich guy playing Elves) (both on 13 points)
With table 1 and 2 drawing, and table 5 obviously needing to play, it basically meant that at least one of tables 3 and 4 needed to play – and if both played, a 5-2 could potentially make top eight (probably one of the losers from table 3 or 4). Aaron and JP both had strong resistance and wanted to draw: Luke ultimately agreed, but Tim wasn’t confident about his resistance so chose t o play against JP.
I felt a little bad here, as from this situation if JP lost the match he had no chance of making top eight (ignoring the unlikely scenario of table 5, an Elves mirror, ending in a draw). It would be pretty terrible t have someone scoop you into the top eight then miss the elimination rounds themselves.
John-Paul vs Tim Collings (Tezzeret vs BGW Slide)
JP and Tim’s first game was quite epic. Tim always seemed to almost get there, but ultimately couldn’t really deal with the recursion offered by Academy Ruins, particularly when paired with targets like Ensnaring Bridge, Executioner’s Capsule, Engineered Explosives and so on. It didn’t help that a Chalice for 2 locked Tim off Life from the Loam and Tarmogoyf, and ultimately a Chalice for 5 earned the concession (shutting down both Punishment for 3 and Crime) – JP was almost out of win conditions, but in any case Tim would deck before him due to Academy Ruins.
Game two Tim managed to muster enough pressure with his sideboarded Thoughtseizes to eventually win, but time was called just as they shuffled up for the third game, so the draw that JP was hoping for ultimately eventuated unintentionally. Numbers were crunched and the top eight ended up being:
1. Basam Tabet (Zoo)
2. David Crewe (Faeries)
3. Anthony Sanderson (Faeries)
4. Corey Hill (Elves)
5. John-Paul Kelly (Tezzeret)
6. Aaron Nicoll (Elves)
7. Levi Hinz (Elves)
8. Tim Collings (BGW Slide)
I felt pretty bad for Luke Bagnall missing out on resistance after intentionally drawing, mostly because at the Time Spiral block PTQ he’d done the same thing with me – ID’d in the last round and came ninth. Clearly, luck does not favour Luke when it comes to resistance.
The round one pairings were the standard 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7 etc deal, and fortunately I wasn’t going to paired against JP until the finals if we both won our matches, avoiding having to decide if I needed to scoop or not. Unfortunately, I was paired against friend and former flatmate Levi in the quarters, which led to a tough decision – scoop or not to scoop?
I reached a decision pretty quickly – I would play it out. There were a lot of factors involved with this decision: self-interest (because I wouldn’t necessarily get anything even if Levi won it, and scooping to Cameron in the quarterfinals last year hardly worked out for me), my thoughts for Levi’s prospects (while I thought he would be okay in the semis, particularly if Sanderson won, I didn’t like his chances versus Tezzeret), and that JP was also a friend, and I had an obligation there as well to try and repay the concession. I think Levi was a bit disappointed that I was going to play it out, but at least it was win-win for me: I was happy with either a loss or a win.
Quarterfinals: Levi Hinz (Elves)
I will announce in advance that my recollection of this match is less reliable than the swiss matches, due to not taking notes during the game. Game one he resolved a turn one Nettle Sentinel after I suspended Ancestral Vision, and his next play was Spellstuttered. I had a lucky break on turn three however: with my only counterspell in hand a Spell Snare, his Birchlore Rangers (with a Nettle in play) threatened to explode onto the table. Fortunately his next play was Elvish Visionary, and he didn’t have the third land to keep going. From there I was able to get Jitte active, and after a few turns of attempting to find an answer Levi was forced to concede.
For a couple of turns while Jitte was active (as I had to tap out on a couple of occasions) I left Disrupting Shoal + Ancestral Vision up, to hopefully ensure he couldn’t Summoner’s Pact for Viridian Shaman. As I discovered after the match, he had actually been holding two Summoner’s Pacts (so my Shoal was by-and-large useless), but had cut the maindeck Viridian Shaman from his list. I sideboarded in my Shoal and a couple steal effects, taking out Shackles.
I kept a two-land hand containing both Engineered Explosives and Spellstutter Sprite in game two. Levi opened with a Thoughtseize that eventually took the Explosives – I think it’s a legitimately difficult choice between the artifact and Spellstutter Sprite in this matchup. He thereafter resolved a Nettle Sentinel and a Wirewood Symbiote. Fortunately I had a string of good luck in this game. I drew the third land I needed immediately, and on a number of occasions Levi would look down at the cards he knew in my hand, recognize I only had one unknown spell, and run his Scryb Ranger into the Spell Snare, or Heritage Druid into the Mana Leak I had just drawn.
However, despite my good draws, we were still at an impasse in the midgame, as I waited for an Ancestral Vision to tick down and Levi struggled to combo off. A Dosan, the Falling Leaf threatened to lock me out of the game. I only had Venser and Vendilion Clique when he played the spell, so I Vensered it back to his hand and then played a draw step Vendilion Clique to try and eliminate the threat.
With Vendilion Clique on the stack, and the Spellstutter Sprite plus Clique threatening to act as a serious beatdown force, Levi decided to respond by tapping out for a Chord of Calling for two. This resolved, as I was only holding Sower of Temptation now, and he fetched a Scryb Ranger that made my flyers less effective. He revealed a hand of:
Thoughtseize
Dosan, the Falling Leaf
Regal Force
Nettle Sentinel
Deciding which card to take here is a difficult choice. Dosan is certainly the biggest threat, locking out any counterspells I draw, but at this particular stage of the game he didn’t have combo pieces (his board position was, at this stage, two land, Wirewood Symbiote, Birchlore Rangers, Nettle Sentinel and a fresh Scryb Ranger). Then again, it would only take a one-drop and a Glimpse of Nature off the top to change that very quickly. The other option is to take Thoughtseize, which guarantees I can cast Sower of Temptation (either for Dosan or Symbiote) on the following turn, and hopefully kill him with beatdown before he can find combo pieces.
However Levi surprised me a little here, by thinking for a while, then just playing his Nettle Sentinel (thanks to Ranger hijinks) and passing the turn without a Thoughtseize to be seen. My first thought was that this was strictly incorrect – while it is possible I’m bluffing a land (after all, I do that a lot) in Faeries it’s more likely that I’m holding something of relevance. In considering the board position I thought it may have been because he wanted his Nettles both untapped at the start of his next turn, to allow another one-drop to give him Regal Force mana, but this doesn’t really make sense both because he could have both Nettles untapped (use Ranger to untap Birchlore, bouncing land. Replay land, tap two Elves for Black mana to Thoughtseize me, use Forest to cast Nettle, untapping the other Nettle), and if he wanted to go for Regal Force next turn he wouldn’t have the mana to cast a Thoughtseize beforehand.
Ultimately I think he was just trying to maximise his resources by not Thoughtseizing when he put me on holding land, which is understandable given he was now on the back-foot, but ultimately incorrect I feel. The lack of Thoughtseize let me cast Sower on his Symbiote, and suddenly I had a beatdown force – Symbiote allowed me to activate both my Mutavaults, send them into combat, then post-combat bounce one and replay it to untap the other, keeping mana up for countermagic. His next turn Thoughtseize hit the Spellstutter Sprite I’d just drawn, and soon he was forced to chump block my Mutavaults. Without a critical mass of Elves he didn’t really have a game plan left, and conceded soon after.
6-0-2
I felt a little bad for both beating a friend and drawing so well in game two, but that’s Magic I suppose – Levi has certainly had his share of luck in PTQ top eights in the past.
The other quarterfinal matches finished around the same time. Corey had not lasted long against the mighty force that was Tezzeret, facing down a turn one Chalice for one in game one and similar hate in game two. Basam had taken apart Tim Collings’ Slide deck in an unfavourable matchup, while Aaron had won a tight match against Anthony Sanderson. Sanderson is certainly one of the –if not the – up-and-coming constructed players of Brisbane, but from watching his match against Levi I think a little bit more testing with Faeries would have helped, as he was making minor misplays all over the place. Then again, I suppose with my zero testing I shouldn’t really talk! Still, I would not be surprised to see Sanderson win the next constructed PTQ, especially as it’ll be Standard!
My semifinal matchup was versus Aaron, and we went outside to chill for a moment before starting the untimed match (great idea, by the way!).
Semifinals: Aaron Nicoll (Elves)
Again, apologies if I’m rusty on any details here, was more focused on the match that taking readable notes. The only reason I would hesitate in calling Anthony Sanderson the next big thing in Brisbane magic was my opponent right here. While Aaron may not quite boast the FNM dominance Anthony has displayed of late, he’s still a formidable constructed opponent. And Aaron is an excellent limited player, while Anthony seems to largely stick to sixty card decks. In any case, both players have a successful Magic career ahead of them if they stick with the game. Both Aaron and I were planning on scooping in the finals, so fundamentally this was “our finals.â€
My opening hand was low on countermagic but had access to early flyers, Ancestral Vision and Umezawa’s Jitte, and I decided that I would just go for the “establish Jitte and destroy him†plan. In hindsight this was a poor decision; I should have realised from my experiences during the day that Faeries had inevitability in most matchups (outside of Loam-based decks) once it survived the early turns, as so few extended decks had reliable sources of card advantage – Elves in particular. As such it was a hand I should have mulliganed.
As it turned out, Aaron mulliganed to six, and when I decided to tap out on turn two for Jitte rather than represent countermagic, he exploded his hand onto the board with Nettle Sentinels and Birchlore Rangers, threatening an 8-point attack – and stymieing any hopes I may have of getting Mutavault going with Jitte thanks to Wirewood Symbiote. I struggled to try and get back into the game with a Vendilion Clique, but ultimately he had too much pressure on the board and I didn’t managed to find the Engineered Explosives that might have let me back into the game. I did try to play into it though, trading with Saproling tokens or two-drops where possible.
I did my usual Elves sideboarding, and found an unfortunate hand staring back at me from my opening seven cards. It was one of those sort of hands you flash at your opponent with an amused grin before shoving back into your deck – three Ancestral Visions and a couple higher cost spells, with only a Mutavault for mana. The six cards were no less helpful, with only a Riptide Lab for mana this time. Finally I kept a third hand with only a colourless land for mana – a Mutavault. This time at least the hand had some relevant spells, including a Spellstutter Sprite and an Engineered Explosives.
Around about this point, Basam asked how our game was going. “Well, I’m up a game and my opponent just mulliganed to five, so…†replied Aaron.
It was an understandable response. My chances of winning here were pretty much nonexistent. My five-card hand wasn’t even good – I couldn’t cast any spells off a Mutavault, and even drawing an Island didn’t turn on any relevant spells – no Explosives, no Jitte to pull me into the game. Aaron kept his opening seven confidently. He met my Mutavault with a Llanowar Elves, and when I could only pass turn two without a land drop Aaron committed another 6 points of power to the board on turn two – two Nettle Sentinels, a Birchlore Rangers, and an Essence Warden (or something along these lines – I know for certain no Symbiote was involved).
So not only did he have enough power to kill me in three swings if he kept drawing Green spells, he also had the mana to Summoner’s Pact up a Regal Force and cast it with one more land, or could Chord of Calling up a Mirror Entity and just destroy me. There was some consolation in that all of his guys were one-drops and no Wirewood Symbiote was involved, meaning if I could somehow get both Explosives and the mana to activate it I could get back into the game – a big “if.†My next draw step was no help – neither an Explosives nor a second land, so all I could do was pass. Aaron bashed me down to 13 and played a Thoughtseize to rip some irrelevant spell out of my hand. He also revealed that Cameron’s prediction of me untapping, dropping land, Mox and sacrificing Explosives for one was all of those cards away from happening.
I finally drew a blue land on turn four, but sadly the best thing it let me do was activate my Mutavault to block. I did that, eating a random 1-drop, and then noted with surprise that Aaron’s only other play was to play a land and pass the turn, his Nettle Sentinels still tapped. I began to have a glimmer of hope… but then again, I was on seven life, and he had six points of power in play still after losing a guy to my Mutavault.
My next draw was like an answered prayer – Engineered Explosives. It was still potentially vulnerable to a Viridian Shaman or similar, but I really had no option other than to play it for one and hope that he didn’t have the resources to deal with it.
Not only did Aaron did not have an answer to the Engineered Explosives, he didn’t even have a green spell to untap his pair of Sentinels! So his attack only took me to five, and he played a land and passed the turn with a sigh. It was right at this moment that I realised I might actually win this game. Another land on the following turn allowed me to pass the turn with mana up to pop Explosives – but when Aaron was once again bereft of a Green spell, I cast an end of turn Thirst for Knowledge and suddenly had control of the game.
After the Explosives, Aaron attempted to fight his way back into the game with a Summoner’s Pact (with an impressive – or unimpressive from his perspective – seven lands in play) but was left with few exciting options as:
- Pact can’t fetch Mirror Entity.
- He had sided out his Regal Force.
- He knew for a fact that I was holding Spell Snare
Eventually he settled on the very unexciting Wirewood Symbiote, which I promptly stole with Sower of Temptation (for the third time this tournament!). From here I had a better board position, access to countermagic, and when I drew Riptide Laboratory there wasn’t really any set of draws that would win Aaron the game. It was still a little hard to believe, given how terrible my hand had been, but I suppose mulliganing to a bad five is about as likely as someone drawing a bunch of lands in a row.
Game three Aaron only had a one land hand, but used to go for the “pray he doesn’t have Explosives†play again, this time with a couple Wirewood Symbiotes to back up his two Nettle Sentinels (if he’d had a Symbiote in game two I would have zero chance) – all told, eight power in play on turn two. While I didn’t have the Explosives, I did have a Spellstutter Sprite that countered his Summoner’s Pact, then promptly picked up Jitte and picked off his mana elves. With only one land this game, and his mana elves kept in check by Jitte, Aaron was unable to cast the Viridian Shaman in his hand and as such didn’t really have a chance. He put up a good attempt, with resource-burning plays like Glimpse of Nature just to untap his Nettle Sentinels and attack, but Elves really can’t expect to beat an active Jitte. So with that, I was into the finals.
7-0-2
With our match completed, we observed Basam and JP’s match. Basam had just attacked JP to 7, and played out a Wild Nacatl to go with his Ranger of Eos and other Nacatl. Basam was holding two Lightning Helix – and JP knew this – so the Sunbeam Spellbomb that JP had recurred on the previous turn wasn’t going to help him. Furthermore, Basam was holding not one, but two Ancient Grudges, which meant the Ensnaring Bridge and Vedalken Shackles in JP’s hand weren’t going to help him. Looking at this board position, I couldn’t really see how I wouldn’t be scooping to Basam shortly.
But Magic is a game of changing tides, and that’s certainly what happened here. JP peeled a Thirst for Knowledge that then gave him access to Trinket Mage and Engineered Explosives, clearing away the Nacatl. Helix ensured that Basam took JP to 4, but JP soon recovered with Damnation, then a Chalice for 2, and finally began recurring Sunbeam Spellbomb again. It took a while from there for JP to win, but it was clear from Basam’s slumped shoulders that the game was over. Two ridiculous comebacks in one semifinal…
I scooped to JP, and that was that. It was a shame, I suppose, to send another constructed PTQ title to an “import†or “invader,†but John-Paul is a good guy and will hopefully do Australia proud in Honolulu. I still have a handful of stories to share from the tournament, involving mysterious Sensei’s Divining Tops and my thoughts on the (now largely irrelevant) Extended format, but I think this article has gone for long enough, and this is as good a place as any to end it.
Overall I’m very happy with how I did in the tournament considering my complete lack of testing, and while it’s a shame I couldn’t battle for the flight, being ranked 3rd in Australia for Total rating is some consolation. See you all at the prerelease/sneak peek, and thanks for reading!
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