Week 2

Brian Kelly 2 - 0 Wappla

Wappla: G1, I have a great hand but can never find a threat.

Brian is on the play. He Probes me T1 and T2, but my T1 Preordain hides Ancestral on the top of my library. I counter or destroy both Ojutai and Jace, and both our hands take a beating. I am slightly ahead on cards, and resolve Mystical Tutor, choosing Dig Through Time over Treasure Cruise. I Dig up Gush and Force, seeing Dack and Young Pyromancer as well. At this point, Brian has one card in hand, and 1 Monastery Mentor and 1 Jace left in his deck. Force answers both of them, Young Pyromancer answers Jace, and Dack is a value play. Gush finds a land and a Time Walk. I then Time Walk (a mistake), and draw another land. Brian untaps and resolves Jace. My next two cards are Pyromancers. I think choosing Dack and Gush may have been the right play, although it still is a losing one here.

G2, Brian has Library opener on the draw, followed by T3 or T4 Dragonlord Ojutai. He has probed me and has seen double Pyroblast, so he refrains from attacking until he can protect the noble hegemon. I have a hand with little action, but I am able to Force each of his Mentors, which we both know he has no need to fight over, and destroy the Ojutai. He lands a Jace and fateseals me up to ultimate. I can’t draw anything but fetchlands, and when I fetch in response to being Fatesealed, I still draw fetchlands. Without protection for my Pyroblast or Bolt, Jace threatens ultimate with 17ish cards left in Brian’s library, and I concede.

Despite playing four Delvers, I never had one in hand, let alone on the board, and I found Young Pyromancers only after I was spent. Unable to pursue the aggro role, I was forced to trade 2:1 with his larger threats. T2 Pyromancer and T1 Delver are fine plays, but playing a T14 Delver doesn’t compare to a T14 Jace. If Pyromancer can’t take advantage of the one advantage it has over Mentor– it’s casting cost– it is dramatically disadvantaged. Same goes for Delver relative to Ojutai.

White Lotus 2 - 1 James Saltsman

White Lotus: G1 I have a turn one island into preordain that sees fetch and mox pearl, I decide to keep both with a mana drain in hand and draw the mox which I immediately cast knowing he is on Workshops. He leads with turn one Trinisphere. Fortunately i have double island + mox which enables me to play around his trinisphere and counter a smokestack and a lodestone golem with mana drains. I end up messing up my drain turn (which costs me the game) by using one mana from his Lodestone Golem to pay for the dig instead of exiling time walk and then choosing mentor + plow instead of mentor + land with 2 coloress floating and mox pearl, since a sphere had joined the Trinisphere which I eclipsed from my thinking when debating what second card to choose other than the mentor. I never got back in that game as he assembled Crucible Waste lock vs my only 2 maindeck basics + 4 spheres of resistance. Lots of turns go by where I play a dual in order to cast a removal spell through the spheres or tap out for moxes but he assembles revoker naming Mox Pearl + tangle wire before I can play Sol ring and finally cast the mentor. GG

Board out all that non sense misstep pyroblast etc blue cannibalism and bring in LOTS of cards that can Destroy artifacts or answer threats.

G2 I keep a one lander (fetchland) with force of will. He of course opens with turn one lotus mox mox trinisphere Strip mine (my reaction on the in-game chat: “I thought they restricted that card”). Drawing upon my great mastery of Islanders magic, I use the Force of my Will upon his vile Circular diabolical Machine (Long story short: I point my fow at his trinisphere). I don’t draw a second land for a few turns and he resolves a karn which starts beating me down. I have Stp in hand but I refuse to fetch into his strip mine knowing that I have a gush in hand. When I finally draw the land its another fetch so I decide to get greedy and bank on him not strip mining my first fetched land in response to the second fetch activation which he does not do. I get to Gush into Dack fayden, steal his karn and win from there.

G3 Was truely impressive: a very long a grindy game with a lot of back and forths between both players. I mulled to 5 on the draw into Fow snapcaster chewer stp and bolt. He opens with turn one revoker naming dack. I am fortunate to draw a dual, he wastes. I get lucky again draw a fetch. he plays a golem that meets my Fow. A few turns later I draw Ruby that lets me start blowing up his stuff and I start by Bolting his freshly animated mFactory that cost him an ancient tomb activation. I decide to play conservatively and let the revoker take me down to 10 with a chewer in hand until I draw a second chewer. he lands a karn which I mistakenly do not plow sorcery speed when he has a Tangle wire to animate (mistake I of course realize when I look at his board after I clicked on End phase and he was in his Upkeep) he takes me down to two life. However I manage to land a dack fayden and stabilize I have Mentor in hand but I need white mana. For whatever reason my brain refuses to see the play dack steal his mox pearl to cast mentor after he wastelanded my second tundra so I have to wait until I draw another white source.Hhe finally finds the factory knowing that I am at 2 life for multiple turns in a row. I land a harwcast ingot chewer on his thorn with double island untapped for mana drain. I mana drain his dismember for my chewer. next turn find fetch cast mentor, however after gushing and delving I find bolt and Fire/Ice which are lethal once the chewer hits him.

In Conclusion a really nice, interactive, tight, suspenseful and enjoyable set of games. Even though I made a few mistakes because I was not sharp enough due to mental state and forgot to take a few key interactions into account when making some decisions.

James Saltsman: I concur with White Lotus’s excellent play-by-play. Great job. The match was epic indeed and the only thing more exciting was playing in it. It was a treat to those spectating as well. For me, the post-highlight of this match was from the masterful and adroit blue mage, Brian Kelly, who said I played perfectly. His comment counts as a win for me.

Tom Dixon 2 - 1 Stormanimagus

Tom Dixon: G1: I have Lotus and Jace but he has a lot of threats. He forces me to Verdict and I Standstill into a Pridemage into Factory in play and in hand. He draws 2 Wastes before I draw anything and forces me to play TNN, then has 2 KotR. Game 2 I am Landstill and grind it out. Game 3 I have Library and get 2 activations. He has a few guys but cant pressure because of Factory x2. I Balance and Jace, and from there control the game with Fateseal and Verdict.

Stormanimagus: Was truly a pleasure to play vs. Tom. I gave it a good fight, but at the end of the day the hate was right. 4 TNN, 3 verdict, 4 plow, 4 mb trap and waste effects was just too much to match in the post board games. Take note all you padawans who want to beat Stone-Cold Humans. There is a way.

Sean Ottaway 2 - 0 Dave Kaplan

Dave Kaplan: I kept back to back Library hands on the play, that went nowhere. Aggressively mulliganing into FoW/Karakas may have been right.

Sean Ottaway: G1: He’s on the play, starts off with a Probe into a Library and passes. I frown, as my hand is very all-in. I play a Mox and fetch a Trop, cast Oath. It resolves. His next turn he misses on land. I draw an Orchard, play it, cast a Preordain and see 2 Griselbrands. I’m basically forced to keep them both on top, draw one, and pass the turn. He misses on land again and that’s gg as I Oath for the Griselbrand on top.

G2: I side in 2 abrupt decay and 2 nature’s claim. I’m still not sure where I want to be on those, but I figure 6 answers to cage and a little insurance against a delver/pyromancer can’t be terrible. Dave once again starts off with a Library and passes. Thankfully no probe, so he doesn’t see my hand has no counters. I play two moxes and an orchard, cast a preordain, bottom a Jace and top a Ponder. Cast Oath, it resolves. I’m sure he has the Cage. Or multiple Cages. He takes his turn, doesn’t find an answer, and I Oath. Draw some cards, find Vault, also resolves. He never finds the Karakas (which I hadn’t noticed was in his list, but he showed me later) and that’s pretty much game as I go for the Key.

2-0, thanks to some great draws for myself and some not so great ones for him, sorry Dave! Hopefully we meet in a tournament soon (preferably the finals, where I’ll be okay with you having better luck)

Matthew Gottshall 2 - 0 MaximumCDawg

Matthew Gottshall: Just finished my match with MaximumCDawg. I won 2-0, game one he starts off with Hex Parasite, I let it resolve. I play island and Preordain. He then casts Demonic Consultation, I think for awhile with my hand full of counters, he is probably going for Depths, if I let it resolve I can counter Hexmage, but if he has Stage in hand I could just lose. I decide to let it resolve and sure enough he names Depths. The top 6 exile 2 Depths, a Hexmage and his only Stage, so I feel confident. he finds his Depths and puts it into hand. I Drain his Hexmage later on and Drain into Sphinx which draws me a ton of cards, including a Clique trigger on his as well as an Ancestral Recall targeting him. The combination of Clique and Sphinx forces a concession on his part.

Game two he started off once again with Parasite and I started off with Preordain. He plays a second Parasite and attempts to Twist my hand and it meets a Force. He then strips my Island and I am stuck on one mana for quite a few turns, while the Parasites are chipping away at my life total. I eventually get both Propaganda and Back to Basics out against him and he has no mana, he concedes once I cast Dig Through Time.

MaximumCDawg: Nope, that about sums it up! I conceded after the sanfu with Dig because it was going to take awhile to resolve, I needed to get to 3 mana to attempt a Toxic Deluge, and I was not going to have time to get there. My only mana source was Back to Basic’d, meaning I could only cast Deluge off Lotus, a land and a Ritual, or three lands; none of which could possibly resolve against a blue deck’s full grip.

I brought a super soaker to a tank fight. What can I say, I enjoy my weapons having bright orange tips.