Tag: chifley

  • Glistener Elf Disqualified in Cheating Scandal

    Pro Tour competitor Glistener Elf has been disqualified after testing positive to performance enhancing pump-spells.

    Officials first become suspicious after they noticed heightened power and recklessness, a common side-effect of illegal pump-spells. An on-the-spot drug test was performed, and Glistener Elf’s maindeck sample confirmed the presence of Berserk, a banned steroidal pump-spell. This was enough evidence to warrant an immediate disqualification.

    Following this, an investigation was launched, which uncovered footage from GP Omaha that showed a fifty-foot tall Glistener Elf encased in savage vegetation and leaking a viscous black liquid all over the feature match area. Glistener Elf’s sideboard sample, taken and stored after the top 8 at GP Omaha, was tested and found to contain elevated Invigorate-levels – consistent with illegal alternate-cost enhancement effects. This raised serious questions about the validity of the Phyrexian elf’s second place finish.

    berzerk

    Calls for Glistener Elf to be banned have been around for a long time, dating back to the controversial Pro Tour Top 8 that the Elf earned on the back of an earlier alternate-casting substance called Blazing Shoal. While technically legal at the time, Blazing Shoal was quickly added to the prohibited substances list and the stigma of having knowingly used a zero-mana power-booster has cast a pall over Glistener Elf’s results ever since. Melira, Sylvok Outcast, spokesperson for the Mirran Pro Tour Organisation and vocal critic of Glistener Elf, has publicly said that allowing Phyrexians to compete on the Pro Tour “has tainted our great game and was obviously a misstep”.

    This scandal, coming so soon on the heels of Deceiver Exarch’s recent cheating incident (the so-called Artifactgate), is yet another blow to Wizards of the Coast’s flagging public perception. WotC released a statement about the suspension of Glistener Elf: “We here at Wizards of the Coast take cheating incredibly seriously, and for engaging in egregious, repeated, and pre-meditated rules violations at the highest level of play Glistener Elf has been given an 18 month suspension and will not be fined. WotC looks forward to seeing Glistener Elf back on the GP Circuit in 4th quarter 2017, and we hope they enjoy the many MtGO (Magic: the Gathering Online) events they participate in during their suspension.”

    Glistener Elf declined to comment for this article.

  • Modern Masters 2015 Counterfeiting Concerns

    We have heard concerns about Modern Masters 2015 Edition boosters appearing on the market from counterfeit sources. As always, we recommend purchasing your Magic products from a trusted source, such as a WPN location. However, in light of the claims that these new counterfeits are indistinguishable from the real thing, we would like you to be assured that the Modern Masters 2015 boosters contain several new measures to help verify the authenticity of your cards.

    We take the security, safety and quality testing of our products extremely seriously, so we’d like to let you know how you can identify and avoid these fakes without fail, through a series of tests.

    Firstly, make sure that the rare and mythic cards in your Modern Masters 2015 boosters all contain the unique holofoil stamp – this recent addition to the card frame has proven to be difficult to duplicate.

    Secondly, check to see if the edges of the cards are scuffed up – genuine Modern Masters 2015 boosters will cause minor damage to the edge of your cards, which many counterfeiters neglect to replicate.

    Thirdly, take a look at the packaging itself – if you are unable to perfectly reseal the booster, then you’ve probably got your hands on a counterfeit booster. All official Modern Masters 2015 boosters are fully re-sealable for reuse. Unscrupulous profiteers don’t care for the environment as we do, and so their packaging is one-use-only.

    Next, measure the border of the cards – the width of the black edge. Compare the measurements to see if they all match up. If they do, then unfortunately you’ve been duped. Modern Magic 2015 cards produced by WotC all have a distinctive uneven border, which makes the cards notoriously difficult to copy.

    Another key indicator of a counterfeit Booster is the presence of 15 cards, including a rare or mythic. Many Modern Masters 2015 boosters have had their rare slot removed from the pack, so if you’ve only got 14 cards then you know they cannot be forgeries.

    Lastly, if all else has failed and you still can’t be completely sure that the MM15 pack you’ve purchased is legitimate, remember that all WotC Official Modern Masters 2015 boosters contain a foil Rusted Relic for anti-fraud purposes – If the Relic isn’t there, you’ve got a fake rare!

    Happy cracking!

  • Cambridge PTQ Report

    Saturday morning rolls around and I’m up bright and early to catch a train to Cambridge to play in a PTQ. With that delightful introduction out of the way, let’s take a look at my decklist:

    I got this list from Charlie Grover, and it is apparently a list that he and some other English players were running in standard at Nats. The deck is a pretty simple hybridisation of the Sovereigns/Conscription package out of Mythic with the Fauna Shaman/Vengevine/Bloodbraid Elf interaction from Naya. They go together quite well, because all the acceleration in the mythic deck comes in the form of creatures (Hierarchs, Birds, Cobras, Knights) which don’t get in the way of using Bloodbraid Elf to guarantee Vengevine triggers – while at the same time, the Fauna Shaman functions as extra copies of the Sovereigns whenever that plan would be appropriate.

    The manabase is quite strong, because although it is a four-colour deck, we only have 3 blue spells and 4 red spells, and the vast majority of our lands tap for the green that is most important, while access to white is pretty easy too – although it might be correct to go to a 3 Hierarch/3 Birds split as the extra red source was needed a couple of times, probably more than the extra damage from the Hierarch would be relevant.

    That Briarhorn probably looks really weird, too. Originally that slot was Cloudthresher, but we found that surprising faeries with a thresher was really difficult when it required an extra green mana (Fauna Shaman activation), and there was an interesting interaction that came up in testing that made us determined to include a flash creature: basically, decks with cryptic (mostly wargate) would be tapping our team to stay alive for an extra turn, but if we had cast a cheap creature in our mainphase we could respond to the cryptic by activating a Fauna Shaman and finding the Briarhorn – Then we could let the cryptic resolve, and flash the Briarhorn to return any Vengevines in the bin so that we’d actually get an attack that turn. Briarhorn just happened to be the best cheap flash option; we couldn’t support Vendilion Clique because getting double blue was quite difficult. In hindsight, the Briarhorn was too cute and situational, and should have been something else.

    The sideboard, as is so common when I play constructed, is almost all based on theory and doesn’t have much testing to back it up. The Pridemages and Deglamers are obviously for enchantments and artifacts – the Deglamer in particular is for Wurmcoil, the Finks are for Jund, Red, possibly Naya, the Paths are also for Jund and maybe Faeries, the Stags for Faeries, and the Wall mostly for Jund.

    Anyway, with the decklist behind us, let’s take a look at the PTQ: we get 78 players, including quite a few of the better English players, and after your typical tournament delay we get started.

    Round 1 – Guy Southcott w/ Faeries

    The first game quickly becomes a race as he has Scion, Vendilion and then Mistbind while I’ve got Knight of the Reliquary and various beaters – the key turn comes when he has to Cryptic Command to stay alive and kill me next turn, tapping my team and bouncing my Raging Ravine, but I’m able to activate the Ravine then find Sejiri Steppe with the Knight to give it protection from blue and fizzle the Command.

    I board out the Sovereigns and the Conscriptions as I feel it is hard too hard to land them against faeries, as well as the Baneslayer, the Teeg and the Briarhorn, and possibly a Lotus Cobra as well – when I’m taking out the entire Conscription package, I don’t feel like I have as much to accelerate into. I put in some combination of Pridemages, Stags, Deglamers and exactly one Path.

    Game two he doesn’t have a very good start at all and isn’t doing much, and when he goes for the turn five MutavaultMistbind, I’ve obviously drawn the singelton Path I’ve brought in. Various creatures clean up.

    Round 2 – Will Dunn w/ Merfolk

    Game one I’ve got the nutty Hierarch, Cobra, Knight opening, which means I end turn three with a massive army on the board. I start using Fauna Shaman to turn Vengevines into Bloodbraid Elfs, and although I miss that I can Shaman for Sovereigns and protect it from Path with a Sejiri Steppe thus giving him two extra turns, I’ve still got enough to easily overwhelm him./

    I don’t exactly remember how I sideboarded against him, but I know that I brought in the Stags, and I’m guessing I cut the Qasali Pridemage and the Briarhorn.

    The second game he has Coralhelm Commander, Merrow Reejerey and Merfolk Sovereign. I try to set up a lethal conscription for the next turn, but he is able to level up the Commander, animate a Mutavault, and use the Merfolk Sovereign’s ability get me for lethal.

    Game three and I develop my board with mana accelerants and a Fauna Shaman; when he uses his Rejeerey to tap a blocker and doesn’t leave any mana open during my turn I’m able to use the Shaman to find Sovereigns, which puts me easily far enough ahead – I was quite fortunate in that none of my cascades in the first two games had revealed either Sovereigns or Eldrazi Conscription, so Will couldn’t have known that I had the mythic package in my 75.

    Round 3 – Stephen Murray w/ Naya

    Game one I end quickly with an early Sovereigns, and I don’t have much of a sideboard for him – I take out the Teeg and the Pridemage and bring in a pair of Paths, before quickly losing game two after his mulligan has some Figures of Destiny and a Bloodbraid Elf while my double-mulligan kind of has nothing.

    Game three I once again assembled a lethal Sovereigns before I was in much danger from his team.

    Round 4 – John-Joseph Wilks w/ Tempered Steel

    Game one he has a Thoughtseize and a Tidehollow Sculler to slow me down, but he is failing to find a third land to cast his various anthem effects, and I have enough time to assemble a team and bash him in while he can’t attack with much except a Court Homunculus.

    I take out the Teeg, Baneslayer, Briarhorn, and one copy each of Sovereigns and Conscription to bring in the Pridemages and the Deglamers.

    Game two has him again with some slight mana problems and plinking away with some dorks, before a Fauna Shaman finds a Sovereigns and takes the game away.

    Round 5 – Joseph Jackson w/ Jund

    Game one I’ve got a reasonably sized team, but he gets a Fauna Shaman active and I make a crucial mistake – I use the Shaman to find a Sovereigns and put him on 2, but then he untaps, plays a forest, activates the Shaman again discarding Demigod to find a third Demigod, and lethal me. If I’d just used the Fauna Shaman to find Baneslayer, I wouldn’t have died that turn and finding the Sovereigns next turn would have been good enough for lethal.

    Against Jund, my main concern is the Demigods; aside from those we found it quite hard for Jund to beat us, so I take out the entire Conscription package as well as Teeg, Briarhorn and Pridemage, and bring in 3 Paths, 1 Wall, and 4 Kitchen Finks.

    Game two he has a Thoughtseize for my Fauna Shaman, but I rattle a string of hits off the top of my deck and he has to have a removal spell for all of them: Shaman, Shaman, Baneslayer, and despite being able to kill them all, a Stirring Wildwood combines with a pair of Hierarchs to bring his life total down low, before a raw drawn Sejiri Steppe squeaks through the last 3 points.

    Game three I don’t remember particularly well, but I’ve got a pair of Path to Exiles so I’m not going to lose to the Demigods, and various attacking creatures are hard for him to block profitably since I’ve got the exalted triggers again. Sejiri Steppe is again played from hand for the final points, although I had this one anyway.

    Round 6, Round 7

    Two intentional draws.

    Top Eight

    Top 8 contains me, two Jund, a Faeries, a Tempered Steel, a Naya, a Mythic and a UW Control. The only deck I’m explicitly scared of is the UW Control, which is both a really bad match-up for me and piloted by Dan Gardner, who if you haven’t heard is pretty good at this Magic game we play. Luckily, he is top of swiss and I’m second, so we’re in opposite halves and I get to play:

    Quarterfinals – Carrie Oliver w/ Tempered Steel

    Game one I lead with Hierarch and I get a fright when she leads with Windbrisk Heights; I briefly think I’m playing against GW-trap which is a probably a poor match-up for me – I say probably, because I certainly didn’t bother testing against it. Luckily a turn two Steel Overseer means she is just playing Tempered Steel, and I get a turn four Sovereigns, on the play, which is easily fast enough against her slow draw.

    I side out Teeg, Briarhorn, Baneslayer, 1 Sovereigns, 1 Conscription and bring in the Pridemages and the Deglamers.

    Game two I keep a hand that I should have mulliganed: 3 lands, Birds, and 3 Lotus Cobras. I draw land, land, land, Fauna Shaman, Qasali Pridemage, and I’m very quickly beaten down by a trio of Master of Etheriums and a Tempered Steel. That hand is basically me playing off the top of my deck, and if I miss on my removal and Fauna Shamans in the first couple of turns, I’m basically dead.

    During game two she had played Meddling Mage naming Sovereigns, so I side out the remaining two and the Conscription for the three Path to Exiles.

    Game three and I keep Razorverge Thicket, Island, Hierarch, Knight of the Reliquary, Knight of the Reliquary, Bloodbraid Elf, Vengevine. Again, perhaps I should have taken the mulligan, although I think this keep is a lot more defensible – as it happens, I draw another Bloodbraid Elf and another Vengevine instead of the land or the removal I need, and I die to the quick draw of turn 1 Memnite, Memnite, Ornithopter, turn 2 Tempered Steel.

    Ugh. So that’s another PTQ with a disappointing finish, although I do get another shot at Nagoya, next week in London. Whether or not I’ll play this deck again is up in the air: on the one hand, I feel like the deck is quite good, but I also feel like the metagame here is likely to be unfriendly towards it: Jund and Naya were both quite popular in Cambridge, and the cards people play to beat those decks tend to be good against this deck as well. However, if your local metagame is a bit friendly and you want to try something you might not have used before, give this deck a shot. It does have some wonderfully enjoyable moments where you sit back and look at VengevineBloodbraid Elf explosion and suprise Sovereigns, and think to yourself “my deck is unreal dumb.”

  • PTQ Gravesend Report *1st*

    Hey there again kids, and welcome to another PTQ report.

    This time we’re headed to Gravesend for the PTQ, with a similar cast of characters. The housemate Ray is again driving, so I’m again mising the lift and the best seat in the car. We arrive safe and sound despite typical GPS shenanigans, and immediately it is obvious that this PTQ is much smaller than the previous PTQ, in Chesham. While that PTQ was 112 players, this time around we’ve only managed to get 42. Yeah, that is an tiny number; the smallest PTQ I’ve had the pleasure of playing in. Couldn’t exactly say why it is so small, but running good starts early.

    So we get down to business, and after playing pokemon through the player’s meeting, we end up with the following sealed pool:

    So, decent looking pool. Some things jump out at me, and after I sort into several piles (Colours + colour-specific artifacts, infect cards, metalcrafty-artifacts, regular artifacts) I can quickly eliminate the infect deck this time – all told, I have a mere 8 cards which say ‘infect,’ and I certainly don’t have a mass of black removal that would tempt me to try building infect anyway, or some kind of hybrid deck.

    Beyond that, it is pretty clear that I am going to be playing red here, with multiple good removal spells, and I’m always going to run all of Darksteel Axe, Tumble Magnet, Golem Artisan and the Contagion Engine – as an aside, during the car trip the question was posed, what ‘card do you most want to see in your card pool?’ and my glib-but-serious response was ‘an engine.’ I don’t mind which, Wurmcoil Engine or Contagion Engine, but that’s the one card (out of two) I want to see most. And, well, here I am with a Contagion Engine. Must be nice.

    The other cards which are begging to be played are the trio of Chrome Steeds, so I lay them out along with the three Myr I’ve got, and take a look at the handful of other possible artifacts I’ve got: the replicas (although the Vulshok Replica is obviously already in the deck), the Clone Shell, the Memnite, the Mindslaver.

    Then I look at my second colour, which is probably going to be white: I’ve got the Arrest, the Glimmerpoint Stag
    and the Indomitable Archangel that are always going to make a white deck, as well as several other options. Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon and Grasp of Darkness is an option, but I feel like the white cards are just better – Skittles and the Angel are roughly comparable in that they’ll both probably kill in 3 hits; Skittles by himself and the Angel with help from my other monsters, and the two removal spells are also roughly equivalent. The dragon probably has the edge over the angel given it can regenerate, but the Glimmerpoint Stag is enough to make up my mind.

    I also toy with a blue/red deck, since in blue I’ve got 5 2-power evaders, but losing the removal spell and the big flyer don’t seem worth it, plus I end up playing an artifact or two less with the blue cards, which weakens the Chrome Steeds. In the end, I register this deck:

    The Grafted Exoskeleton is an option, but I’m not a fan of that card with no other source of infect. I understand the theory, since on nine of my creatures it is lethal in two attacks, but I don’t like the vulnerability to being blown out by a Shatter effect, and I don’t like the potential for it to be dead if I’m trying to kill them with damage. I also considered splashing the Sylvok Replica with a Forest and possibly the Horizon Spellbomb, but I wasn’t sure if it would ever be relevant, and I’m not a fan of the Spellbomb in non-green decks. Dispense Justice is another decent option; I think this card gets a bad rap despite being completely servicable, and is harder to play around than it looks – however, I’ve got a good removal suite and I’m hoping to be doing the attacking. However, I do side the Dispense in a couple of times.

    There are some questionable inclusions, too, and I’m completely willing to believe that I misbuilt here. I’m still not sure where I stand on Abuna Acolyte, it seems like it should be good, but it is a non-artifact that doesn’t attack and doesn’t kill anything, so I’m a bit wary of it, and I’m actually not a big fan of Clone Shell despite playing it here. The Neurok Replica might be a bit loose, too, but I wanted to play as many artifacts as I could justify, what with the three Steeds. I could also afford to shave a land, but I wanted to make sure I was able to cast the multiple 4-drops I’ve got.

    So then, let’s play some magic.

    Round 1 vs Andrew Kueh


    I’m pretty sure I won the roll and choose to draw; either way he went first, and when he takes a mulligan things look pretty for the home team. He is playing infect, but he is mana-screwed somewhat, and is using a Sylvok Lifestaff to avoid falling way behind. He isn’t able to mount any real offense, though, and I quickly punch him out with some dorks, aided ably by a Contagion Engine.
    Game two and he again elects to play, and this time he has a better start, getting some poison on me, and rebuying an Ichor Rats with a Corpse Cur. However, I get good value out of an Arc Trail and my creatures are good enough that I can beat him down all while playing around an Untamed Might or Virulent Strike.

    Round 2 Vs Jackie Ang


    I lose the roll here, and Jackie puts me on the play. Jackie has a fast start with a Lifesmith, some random dorks and a Darksteel Axe, gaining a bunch of life along the way. I assemble my defense with the Indomitable Archangel, Tumble Magnet and some dorks and begin attacking in the air, but Jackie has a Contagion Engine of his own to kill my team and put me further behind – I’m on 7 while he is on over 24, but not to worry: I have an Engine of my own! I don’t have any counters on the Tumble Magnet anymore, unfortunately, but I’ve got rid of his team, and a collection of assorted monsters, a spell or two, and when he misses with a last-ditch Cerebral Eruption, I get him down to dead.


    The second game starts awkwardly when I pile shuffle my deck and realise I’ve only got 39 cards. Super scrub, that’s me. Somehow I missed it when I piled before the first game, but I call a judge on myself now and what could be a gameloss (or dq if we try to just say nothing) is downgraded to a warning since I called it on myself – the lost card was a mountain, by the way. After that embarassing detour, game two actually starts. His turn one Spikeshot Elder is met with my Galvanic Blast, and he has to use Cerebral Eruption early on because I’ve got a Chrome Steed and friend menacing him. He mounts a decent offense with a pair of Darksteel Axes on a smattering of creatures, and he has a Rust Tick so my Contagion Engine and Tumble Magnet don’t do completely nasty things. However, I bait out untapping the Rust Tick by using all the counters on the Magnet; he suits the Tick up and I gladly trade off some random creature – then I untap and blink the Magnet with a Glimmerpoint Stag. In the end, I win because he is stuck on four lands with a bunch of fives in hand, and the Magnet plus Engine is tapping down his Myr each upkeep. Pretty lucky, since he apparently made a mistake on one turn by not using the Myr to cast a 5-drop pre-combat; I tapped the Myr in combat before going to the upkeep-tap plan and if he’d cast a 5 I’d have been tapping that instead, allowing him to cast the rest of his spells.

    Round 3 vs Eduardo Sajgalik


    Alright, confession time: I wasn’t super excited about playing in this PTQ, and it really hit me in this round. I’ve been in Europe since February and I was planning to go home early in January; if I win the PTQ I’m going to be in London for another month and then some, and the weather is really getting me down. On the other hand, I still want to play on the pro tour, so I should be playing in ptqs. Right here, though, I didn’t want to be playing magic.


    Game one I’m on the play, and I keep a hand I probably shouldn’t, before nasty stuff is done to me with Barrage Ogre, Neurok Replica and Nim Deathmantle.


    Game two I choose to draw, and again keep a hand that is a bit sketchy, and get punished pretty quickly. It didn’t help that my opponent is quite good at magic, and had a good deck, but with my mindset I almost certainly wasn’t going to win this round. Stupid, isn’t it?

    Round 4 vs Andrew Buchanan


    Game one, and I’m still not feeling like playing magic, and I again make a poor keep and do a bunch of nothing while getting my face smashed in. If he’d had regular creatures instead of a hasty Kuldotha Phoenix, my Contagion Engine might have got me back into it, but that’s no excuse. Three games in a row without dealing a single point of damage, and in hindsight I’m extremely embarrassed about my attitude.


    Game two, and this time I have a hand which is a legitimate keep, and while I’m still not keen on playing magic, I’m not playing like a retard. Perhaps the key moment is when he Trinket Mages for a Chimeric Mass before making it with X = 4, but I’ve got the Glimmerpoint Stag for the straight two-for-one, before assorted beasties take it home.


    Game three, and I snap out of my funk and decide that, hey, I’m here to play magic, stop being a donk, and actually focus. I wanted to win two weeks ago, and I still want to win now. I’m on the draw in this game, but I’ve got a fast offense with Chrome Steed and Indomitable Archangel, and while he has Chimeric Mass and a pair of Sylvok Lifestaffs, his mana is tight and he can’t leverage them very well at all. I’ve put him on the Kuldotha Phoenix based on his annoyance at not finding a sixth mana-source, and general disappointment with his Chimeric Mass, so I’m making sure not to just die to the hasty flier, but in the end I kill him from 12 by Arresting his blocker, sending in a 4/4 with a Darksteel Axe, the Vulshok Replica, and throwing the Replica for the final three points.

    Round 5 vs Mark Laily


    So here we are, win this and we can ID again, and I’m actually focused on my magic now.


    Game one he wins the roll and puts me on the play, but then proceeds to mulligan three times, while I’ve got the sick turn 3 Indomitable Archangel, turn 4 Chrome Steed, turn 5 Tumble Magnet, turn 6 Contagion Engine – in other words, I continue to run really good.


    Game two, and my recollection is pretty hazy, but I’ve again got some large creatures and he is stuck for mana – he has an Archangel of his own, but I still bash him down really quickly.

    Round 6 vs Jack Ho


    ID into top 8.

    The top 8 seems okay for a tiny PTQ, Jack Ho and myself are both repeating in the top 8 from last time in Chesham, and joining us are two of my swiss opponents, Andrew Buchanan and Eduardo, as well as Stephen Murray (forums user Jecht Murray), all strong players – the other three aren’t known to me and could just be ringers, or could be secret masters.
    The draft starts out very weirdly when after we’ve been seated and while the judge is getting the packs, one of the unknowns decides to make an announcement: “Hey guys, I’ve never drafted this before, so I want you all to know that I’m going to be forcing poison.” Um. Pretty sure you can’t do that there, but nothing much is said, and we get drafting.

    Things begin well when I open a Sword of Body and Mind, and a second pick Plague Stinger over Glint Hawk and Glint Hawk Idol is okay, possibly. I think ideally I want to be in poison, but pick three is mediocre and I grab an underwhelming Kemba’s Skyguard. Fourth pick is a Carrion Call, and I round out the pack with, well, not much of consequence except for an Untamed Might, a Revoke Existance and some random dorks. Going into pack two, and I’ve got a couple of infect cards, a couple of white cards, the mythic Sword, and not much else. I first pick a Plague Stinger, and take another pick two to make a trio, but the poison dries up and I realise that I’m not going to be draft poison, and that my deck isn’t looking so flash right now. A late-ish Sylvok Replica tempts me into green, and an Engulfing Slagwurm is exactly the kind of card that my mediocre deck is looking for: able to win games on its own, making up for my criminal lack of synergy. Pack three starts well with a Chimeric Mass, but mostly we fill out our deck with cards that are neither metalcraft nor infect.

    In the end I’m battling with this collection of cards, which seems better than the last top 8, at least:

    There really aren’t many options available to me here, either. I want 17 lands because of the Wurm, the Mass and the Might, and the only other cards I could be maindecking are Salvage Scout, Culling Dais or Loxodon Wayfarer, none of which seem better than what I’ve got in there.

    Quarterfinal vs Sean McVally

    He wins the die roll and elects to play, and plays a first turn Accorder’s Shield – my immediate thought is that he is one of those bad players who plays the Shield (or Mox Opal) before it can do anything, but then he plays a Glint Hawk. He has another Glint Hawk the next turn, and starts the beats, but I trade a Glint Hawk Idol for one of them while developing my board with a Carapace Forger, Sunspear Shikari and a Sylvok Lifestaff – but he has the Shield on his remaining Glint Hawk and so I can’t actually attack with my lifelinking, first-striking Shikari, all the while taking two a turn.


    I drop Molder Beast and Golem Artisan, but he gets a Grafted Exoskeleton onto a Bloodshot Trainee and murders my Golem. Revoke Existence deals with that, and the Molder Beast swings in, but Turn to Slag deals with it and the Lifestaff as well. I attack my two 2/2s into his 2/5 vigilance, and after he picks off the Carapace Forger, I cast and use Sylvok Replica to kill the Accorder’s Shield, taking down the Hawk in the process.


    He plays a Kemba, Kha Regent and gets in for two, then a third Glint Hawk, bouncing an irrelevant Golem Foundry, but has to trade it for the Sunspear Shikari since he’s only at five – and then I drop the Engulfing Slagwurm. He plays and blocks with a Vulshok Replica, and domes me down to 5, before untapping, and attacking me down to 3 – then casting Cerebral Eruption. I flip a Clone Shell and he wins, but attacking me first is really bad on his part since it just means he auto-loses if the Eruption misses.

    Game two starts of in a similar fashion to the first, as he again has Glint Hawk x 2, bouncing the Accorder’s Shield, but this time I’ve got a sideboard Wing Puncture in response to the equip, before equipping Sword of Body and Mind and connecting. He attemps to Turn to Slag, but the creature carrrying the sword is conveniently an Auriok Replica, which I sacrifice choosing his remaining Hawk – he promptly attacks with the Hawk for zero damage.


    I then put the sword on a wolf token, followed by a Molder Beast, and mill him out. I forget to take notes on his deck after milling him, though.

    Game three is looking a lot better for me when he doesn’t have a turn one Glint Hawk, while I’ve got Leonin Shikari with a Sylvok Lifestaff – he has a Shatter for the Lifestaff, but doesn’t have an answer for the Sword of Body and Mind that comes next, as well as the Molder Beast. He was also manascrewed, and did strange things like not tapping his Myr for mana before bouncing it with a Glint Hawk, which meant he couldn’t recast it that turn. I’m running really good, clearly.

    Semifinals vs Stephen Murray

    Game one and Stephen is on the play, opening with Copper Myr into Tangle Angler, while I’m going to the skies with Glint Hawk Idol and Kemba’s Skyguard – although the Angler combines with Trigon of Rage to eat the Skyguard – and a Trigon of Corruption is going to stop the Idol from taking him out alone. Luckily, I draw my Sword of Body and Mind and the Idol connects despite picking up a -1/-1 counter. I can’t attack with it again, though, so I just play and equip an Abuna Acolyte. We’re in a bit of a stalemate here as I can’t attack through his creatures and the Trigon is keeping my Idol grounded, while Stephen can’t really damage me.


    However, Stephen makes an ill-advised attack when my gang-block forces him to use the Trigon on his turn to keep his Tangle Angler alive, and so I can get in another time with the Idol on my turn, leaving him with a miniscule library, and the difficult task of dealing me 22 damage in a short time, all the while making sure I don’t get third attack in with my Sword. Some large creatures on my side of the table and he can’t get through, and mills out – and this time I take advantage of the Sword’s mill to take note of his entire deck, bar 3 unknowns.

    Game two, and Stephen again has the turn three Angler, while I’m again going to the skies, this time with Glint Hawk Idol and Snapsail Glider – a plan which doesn’t last long when he assembles a Wall of Tanglecord, followed by a… Wall of Tanglecord. My Molder Beast is matched by a Trigon of Corruption and a Perilous Myr, and Stephen can start grinding me out – but I draw my seventh mana-source and summon the Engulfing Slagwurm, which bumps into him and his creatures a couple of times, before I put 9 mana into a Chimeric Mass. I kill the Trigon pre-combat with a Sylvok Replica so he can’t put a counter on the Mass; forcing him to trade both Grasp of Darknes and Alpha Tyrannax for the Mass rather than just the Grasp, and the Wurm combines with a Golem Artisan to take me to the final.

    Final vs Eduardo Sajgalik

    Yup, that’s the guy who beat me in the swiss, and he had an easy quarterfinals since the fool who announced he was going to force infect got DQ’d for doing so, giving Eduardo the win. That said I don’t want to take anything away from Eduardo, since he’s drafted a very nice r/w metalcraft deck with multiple Shatters, Rusted Relics, smiths, along with a Hoard-Smelter Dragon at the top of the curve. Me, though, I’m a miser.

    Game one, and I get to play, while he takes a mulligan. He has a decent start with a pair of Glint Hawk Idols, but he is triggering them with Sylvok Lifestaff and Accorder’s Shield, not the most efficient use of mana. Meanwhile, I get down a Kemba’s Skyguard and Sunspear Shikari, pick off an Idol with Sieze the Initiative, before going big with a Molder Beast and putting him down to 12. He taps out for the Hoard-Smelter Dragon, but I’ve got the Untamed Might when he blocks, and he is too far behind to come back.

    Game two, his early plays include a Myrsmith and an Embersmith, but my offense is comprised of Sunspear Shikari, Snaspsail Glider and Sylvok Lifestaff, so his smiths aren’t terribly effective. He Shatters my Sylvok Lifestaff instead of my Glider, which I’m not sure about, and I get him down to 8. He has a Razor Hippogriff, but I’ve got Golem Artisan along with the Glider and a Clone Shell (imprinting a blank), and, in an anticlimax, he just can’t beat the Golem.

    Wow. I’ve won a PTQ.

    And, frankly, I’m really not sure what to take away from this PTQ; I know that my attitude in a couple of rounds was very poor, but when I was focused I was playing good magic (although obviously not perfect) – and some number of my wins could have been losses if my opponents hadn’t made mistakes, even though I was undeniably lucky all tournament long. I’m also not sure what to take away from the draft; I’m fairly sure I was just wrong with my picks early on, but I think I did a decent job of recognizing that what I was doing wasn’t working, and drafting the only deck I could, really. I guess the biggest lesson I learned from this PTQ was that you’ve got to play in tournaments to win tournaments. Sounds stupid, but it is worth remembering.

    Anway, thanks for reading, and see you in Paris, hopefully :)

  • Chesham PTQ Tournament Report

    Hi there, boys and girls!

    Welcome to my tourny report, in which I recount the details of my ptq failure. Hooray! Unable to run modo on my netbook, my prep has been limited to physical drafts, reading articles and… watching other people play modo. Feels good.

    Arrival at the ptq was courtesy of my housemate, Ray, who drove a car to Chesham, other occupants occupied the car. There were no memorable moments during an early morning car trip, obviously. Don’t expect any humour here.

    Get to the venue, give Grover a hug as is my wont, settle down to get my sealed pool. 112 players, larger than I’m used to but not huge by any means. Here is the collection of cardboard that ended up in my hands.

    So the first thing I notice about this pool is the Wurmcoil Engine, that there is a spicy little card. Then I do what I do, which is split the pool into 9 piles: 5 colours with colour-dependent artifacts, artifacts-that-care-about-artifacts, generic artifacts, the infect cards, and lands. Expect, well, this pool as no lands, and no artifacts that care about how many other artifacts I have, with the exception of Glint Hawk Idol – which I put in the white pile most of the time anyway. Oh I guess Throne of Geth also counts, but that’s a silly technicality because it goes in the poison deck, not the metalcraft deck. Technicalities count O_O

    So yeah, the metalcraft deck doesn’t seem to exist, as I have 4 cards with the word metalcraft on them, only one of which I want to play. The poison deck looks decent though, a reasonable number of infect guys, some strong equipment. Lacking a fraction in removal, but we can deal with that. This is the infect deck I lay out:

    Other cards that I considered in this build, but didn’t run:
    Accorder’s Shield and Bladed Pinions, which I dismissed because I didn’t want to run a 5th piece of equipment and the other options just seemed better because they boosted power. It might have been better to run the Shield over a Lifestaff or the Lash, though, I don’t know. I’m not a fan of the Pinions, though.
    Vector Asp: Even when I want more poison creatures, I’m not a playing this guy. I always seem like I have stuff to do with my mana, and a 1/1 infect isn’t even that exciting if I could afford to pay for his ability all the time.
    Horizon Spellbomb: I’m not a fan of this outside of deck’s with a splash – it seems like so much mana just to get a card + plus a land, and I don’t care about the artifact. Maybe I’m supposed to run it and a mountain to squeeze the Shatter in, but I still don’t like having a Horizon Spellbomb in my deck.
    Fume spitter #2: Sometimes this guy seems really good, so maybe we want the second. I’m not convinced that the second one is better than any of the other cards though.

    I also laid out this blue/white concoction, which had some more choices available to it:

    Here we could have been playing a few cards differently; the Battlegear can be run in this deck since it doesn’t just frag half my dudes, and the Abuna Acolyte might be good enough – I actually haven’t had a chance to play with this guy yet, or against it much, so I don’t have a firm evaluation. It seems like it should be good, but I keep on passing it or letting it waste away on the pine. I think it is just the combination of not being an artifact and not being a good attacker that sours me to the Acolyte. Auriok Edgewright is another option in this deck, but we don’t have a great deal of artifacts and he doesn’t even excite me that much when he does turn on. I’m also a fan of Seize the Initiative, but the same isn’t-an-artifact-can’t-attack makes me leave it out so often.

    In the end, I registered the infect deck but kept the Blue/white deck sleeved to side into, since I wasn’t sure which deck was best. In hindsight I think the infect deck was the wrong choice, but at the time I was kind of uneasy about playing a non-infect non-poison deck, and I felt like being on the infect plan game 1 would be a bit stronger. I expected more opponents to choose draw, and I think their maindecks are going to be worse against poison than against non-poison. That and the lowish number of creatures in the blue/white deck swayed my mind.

    Oh and obviously the poison deck had the awesome Tel-Jilad Fallen + Equipment combo, so we wanted to play that :P

    Now on to some actual matches, although bear with me as my memory is pretty bad and I don’t really have much incentive to remember these games, either.

    Round 1 Vs Raymond Wat

    aka My housemate who drove me here. The perfect start :headesk:

    I win the roll and elect to play, obviously. Did you really need me to tell you that? I get down some early poison guys and get Ray up to 7 poison counters relatively quickly, but he assembles Mimic Vat + Sylvok Replica and starts eating my stuff. He’s only about to bash me down to 15, though, before I get him with an end of turn Carrion Call, untap Blackcleave and swing with the team for the game.

    Game 2 I side into the blue/white deck since I’m already disenchanted with the poison list, plus I expect Ray to bring in some silly low-drops in an effort to increase his game against poison – while hopefully I’ll fly over for the win. Evidently something similar to that happens, as his life total appears to have dropped to zero. How lucky! I know I cast a Wurmcoil Engine at some point, but it was to earn the concession.

    Round 2 Vs Ed Payne

    I remember like, next to nothing about this round. First game he appears to have won the roll, elected to play (so much for my theory about opponents choosing to draw game one), and then he gets poisoned out while plinking me for one a turn.

    Game 2 I again side into the other deck, and quickly munch him with some 2-power flyers while he is manascrewed. Mise well :-/

    Round 3 Vs Richard Parker

    I win the roll and get the Sylvok Lifestaff -> Plague Stinger draw, which gets him to six poison pretty quickly. However, he has a Sky-Eel School so I decline to attack in the air in the hopes of forcing him to trade it for a ground-pounder, allowing me to get pack in there with the stinger. A pair of surprise Darksteel Sentinels eat my ground force, a removal spell takes out the Stinger, and I die in short fashion. Would have been interesting if I had forced the trade with my Stinger and his Eel when I had the chance since he would have taken much longer to kill me if he hadn’t still had the flier.

    Game 2 I elect not to side into the u/w deck, since I felt like the infect guys were better against the Sentinels, and the 2/2 fliers a tad unexciting against the 3/3 flier I saw. I do however take out the Perilous Myrs for a Lifesmith and the Accorder’s Shield, since I didn’t see anything worth killing with the Myrs, and they would be really hard to get killed anyway since he looked like he would be able to kill in the air. The game itself was an extremely protracted affair in which I got him up to 6 poison counters with early dudes, but he then gummed up the board with a Grand Architect making his creatures pretty big. He had a scary Invisimancer and Lumengrid Drake beatdown going, but I had Lifesmith and Lifestaff, and according to my lifepad I gained a total of 36 life via these two – which made the race really difficult for him. I had Throne of Geth to get him up to nine poison, but he had the Volition Reins to kill it, so I was forced to get him with a bunch of 1/1s I made with Trigon of Infestation (had three extra charge counters from the Throne) while gaining life by sending Lifestaff carrying insects on suicide missions – before I went with the end of turn Carrion Call, untap Grafted Exoskeleton + Equip to Lifesmith, swarm past for the last point of poison play.

    Coming into game three, it looked like time was going to be tight, so I sided into the blue/white deck since it seemed like the only one that could win quickly, additionally dropping the Trigon of Thought for the Barbed Battlegear. I did indeed have a fast draw, and was beating down with a Glint Hawk Idol that kept on picking up a Lifestaff and then dropping it, while conveniently stranding his Skinrender in hand. I had a disperse and volition reins, and I think I would have won a long game, but I went aggro with the reins, taking a 2/2 flier – which he skin-rendered. Fine by me, I guess, but he then had a sky-eel school as time was called, and I couldn’t get past it + chump-blocker before time expired. Awkward.

    Round 4 Vs Robert Bulton

    We start things off with my opponent winning the roll and again choosing to play. Poop. I don’t have a great start and he is gumming up the boarding with Wall of Tanglecord, Auriok Edgewright, Accorder’s Shield. I use my Wurmcoil Engine to kill some guys so that I can then get some poison going, and start to proliferate him with the Throne of Geth from 5 counters – but he draws the Revoke Existence. He then gets some evaders and I’m pretty clearly going to lose at some point since his defense is solid and I can’t ever block his guys, so I just scoop early-ish since I’m in the draw-bracket now. I know my opponent is slow, so I want as much time as possible.

    This game also involved the Play Of The Day in which my opponent equipped his Blistergrub with his Infiltration Lens… I guess he was worried I’d sacrifice all my swamps then block his guy O_O Or maybe he was just terrible. (He was just terrible).

    For the second game I switch into blue/white deck, since by now I’m convinced it is better, and I call a judge over to watch for slow-play. No more draws. He isn’t doing much, and I’ve got a Wurmcoil Engine and a Argent Sphinx bashing his face in – I ‘play around’ dispense justice by attacking with extra creatures, which I’ve now been told doesn’t work, obviously. He can just trade with the random extra creatures, then dispense my good guy(s) away at the end of combat. However, him being… not very good… my mistake doesn’t matter.

    In game three, I’ve again got the Argent Sphinx and some friends, while he is suck on one land. We’re running good I guess.

    Round 5 Vs Benjamin Twitchen

    I again get an opponent who chooses to play, although this one is made immediately obvious when he runs out a turn one Vector Asp. Poison mirror it is! He has removal for my first poison guy, but I’ve got a Perilous Myr gumming things up a bit and he can never afford to waste mana giving his guy poison in the first few turns. He has Heavy Arbalest equipped and running, but I get a couple of Tel-Jilad Fallen, and he doesn’t have any non-artfacts, so it takes him a couple of turns to kill them with non-artifact creatures – they each get in for one hit, although the second one shouldn’t have connected in my opinion, and should have instead been traded for a Contagious Nim. Then, with me at 5 poison and him at 6, he attacks for the ‘win’ instead of playing a bit more conservative with the arbalest, and loses to Carrion Call, chump block one creature, equip the left-over insect with Lifestaff and Lasher, get in. He definitely should have attacked for 2 poison less than the win and then equipped the Arbalest to an untapped infector. I’m starting to see the advantage of being in the draw bracket.

    Game two, same old story – I sideboard into the u/w deck. I have Wurmcoil while he is mana-screwed, and I have the Halt Order for his Rust Tick. Must be nice? It is nice.

    Round 6 Vs Aston Ramsden

    I’m paired-up into a 5-0 now, since I’m the only 4-0-1 in the field. I now a little about this guy’s deck since he beat Grover in the previous round, and more importantly I know from Grover that he isn’t a very good player.

    Game 1, another opponent who chooses to play. I get some early poison in, but I’m slowed down because I have to waste a turn Slice in Twaining his Sword of Body and Mind – better than not having the Slice, though. I get him up to 6 poison, but he has Contagion Clasp for the Plague Stinger, then has it proliferating onto a Tumble Magnet to deal with the Plague Stinger again when I get it back with a Corpse Cur. This is slowing him down a bit, but he has an Auriok Edgewright with double-strike, which combined with the Tumble Magnet and a Barbed Battlegear means that I can’t attack with many guys without just losing on the attack back. The crucial moment of the game comes a bit later when he has a Molder Beast and a Sylvok Replica – he decided to put the Battlegear on the Beast, which is just wrong since I have a Livewire Lash on my Perilous Myr. Anyway, he attacks with his 9/2 trample, and I pretend to miscount how much damage I’ll take if he sacs the Replica, and block with just that Myr – thanks again to Charlie for letting me know that my opponent isn’t very good. Obviously he counts the damage himself, realizes it is lethal, and tries to kill me by sacrificing the Replica on the Livewire Lash – so I target my own Perilous Myr with Instill Infection, trigger the Lash killing the Molder Beast, Myr dies and kills the Auriok Edgewright, and I draw a card. I still don’t have much offense since I’d been forced to chump with some guys, but this buys me ample time to find a Throne of Geth and kill him with Proliferate.

    Game 2 and we again decide the blue/white deck is best – although my opponent doesn’t even touch his sideboard and I’m pretty sure the surprise value is completely meaningless. Either way, I have a mana-tight but really fast start with Myrsmith, Glint Hawk Idol, Lifestaff, and I’ve got Disperse and Auriok Replica in reserve so I’m not worried about much – although I forget to play around the Sunblast Angel which Grover told me about. Being a miser has its advantages, though, and he doesn’t draw it.

    Round 7 Vs Eugene Hwang

    ID into top 8 :)

    Top 8 Draft

    I take Embersmith pick 1 over Glint Hawk and Glint Hawk Idol, which I guess is correct but I feel like red just doesn’t do much in this format. Don’t know. Pick 2 I take Galvanic Blast over Arrest and Shatter, and I basically round out the pack with a bunch of unexciting creatures. Pack two I first pick Ezuri’s Brigade since I don’t really have a second colour and it is a nutty card, plus there wasn’t much me – but I get a gift Carnifex Demon pick 3 and just decide black is the way to go. The rest of that pack and the entirety of pack 3 can be summarized as Grasp of Darkness, Arc Trail and a bunch of mediocre creatures and a bit of equipment, mostly. Not a very exciting deck, but I don’t think anyone had an exciting deck.

    Here is the deck I registered:

    Yeah that is a lot of unexciting creatures that I’m planning to turn sideways, but I have some power-boosting equipment, a smattering of removal and a nice bomb.

    Cards in the sideboard which I didn’t play: Furnace Celebration; because I didn’t think I had enough sacrifice effects and because I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with this card in draft before where I’ve found it really hard to actually use effectively.
    Flameborn Hellion and Ogre Geargrabber, as some bigger guys to finish them off – but I felt like I would be better off trying to swarm with little guys holding equipment than I would by playing another six.

    Quarterfinals Vs Rob Wagner

    I’m off to a good start when I 1-in-36 him, topping his 11 with my 12. On the play I keep a hand with Sylvok Lifestaff, Perilous Myr, Iron Myr, Blade-Tribe Berserkers, Turn to Slag, Swamp, Mountain. I have the three artifacts in play on turn three, and if I hit my third land I can get the Berserkers out there and start going to town – I miss, though, and he has an instill infection for my Myr. I get my land after that, and run out a pair of Moriok Reavers in consecutive turns, but he has Slice in Twain, Skinrender, Moriok Reaver and then Asceticism, and even if I’d found my Carnifex Demon he had the Flesh Allergy for it.

    Game 2 and I board in a pair of Blistergrubs for the Turn to Slag and a Moriok Reaver – he showed me that he drew a second Asceticism as a joke in game 1, so I knew that the Turn to Slag was going to be pretty unexciting – and I hadn’t seen any equipment either. I’m on the play, and I punt by keeping a hand I should always always mulligan – 5 lands, two unexciting spells, and when five of my top seven are lands I’m gone. A carnifex demon at some point would have got there if he never drew flesh allergy, but I didn’t it and I’m out of the PTQ.

    I put the horrible mulligan decision down to tiredness, since I didn’t even realize I should have taken the mull until I’d gotten home and had a cup of tea. The entire trip home I was just so bummed out about drawing so many lands and losing like that, it took a clear head to spot my mistake.

    So yeah, 12 packs of Scars and some lessons are what I got out of that day, the most important lesson of which is, I think, make sure I can maintain focus in the top 8. The solution is more water during the day (had enough to eat) and probably a cup of coffee before the top 8 if I can manage it. So yeah, pretty disappointing PTQ on the whole; I’ll just have to win the next one :)

  • Four Dead in Expedition Tragedy

    ZENDIKAR – Jwari Shapeshifter, well known for boasting that “the best expedition would be an entire team of me,” set out on Tuesday with three fellow shapeshifters on a quest to find the Gravelord in an attempt to prove this boast.

    Tragedy struck the team of allies, when upon entering the battlefield, all four were placed into the graveyard as a state-based effect. Witnesses reported the Jwari looking around helplessly before immediately falling to the ground.

    “They all had Adventuring Gear, and they had the help of an Expedition Map, so it wasn’t like they came unprepared,” said a nearby Eternal Witness. “They just didn’t have a chance to respond.”

    On a lighter note, the Jwari Shapeshifters were successful in thier quest despite the personal setbacks – a 5/5 zombie giant calling himself “The Gravelord” has recently begun terrorizing a local village.