Good god! An update! It definitely been quiet online, seeing as I decided to take a quiet break and focus on … well, being lazy. But the Magic scene here in Leeds is anything but quiet, You would think that with most of everyone going back for the easter break, it would quiet down a little. But no, if anything we are steadily growing with new people joining our Wednesday night tournaments. The draft last week was a good ten man affair, and as ten man pods go, the signs were relatively weird. My draft started with me opening up an Oona’s Prowler and getting passed a Sower of Temptation. Its really hard to improve on that sort of opener, and it opens up a route for me into either faeries or rogues.
I complimented those picks with a various degree of faeries, rogues, including Thieving Sprites and Boggart Loggers, and though colors ran out fast I managed to stay heavily in black/blue until pack 3. It did help that Deepthread Merrow and Paperfin Rascal were both solid rogues. 3 Latchkey faeries and a cloak and dagger were the highlights of my picks in the morningtide pack, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
For the third time that month, I began my first round against Rick Powell, this time playing a solid blue/white Kithkin deck, complemented with tricks, a cenn, pestermite and possibly a mulldrifter. He came out fast on the first game and I couldn’t beat it with a slower start, second game was taken through judicious use of removal, peppersmoking one guy, killing another with Eyeblight’s ending, and the third once again saw Kithkin jamming out of the gate. You gotta just hate those little buggers.
Round two saw a matchup against Andy Edwards, a very nice persona who plays a serious game, by first comparing wanderer’s twig to skullclamp, and saying it was half as good. Rogues played up against nearly mono-blue islandwalkers, with high paced walkers such as Inkfanthom Divers and Deepthreads as well as Bannerts to overwhelm me…who unfortunatly had to play islands.There was a splash of red for removal, which could be a tarfire or a more likely lash out. I had deepthreads of my own, and a vast array of 3/1 flyers coming in for prowl, allowing me to keep significant card advantage. Thieving sprite pays off here, as in game two one sprite swiped away Incindenary Command, which would have wiped my board and left his fatbottom merfolk alive.
Round Three was played against Wayne. His Red Elemental deck never really took off, despite multiple braiders and bannerts, he was often just overwhelmed with a mass array of Latchkey faeries. The end of the night saw me in third place, breaking past tie-breakers. Its a pity we were not at our usual venue, where a fourth round would have been possible.
So that was two weeks ago, The event was followed up with GPT: Brimingham, which I took part in. It was block constructed, and as such, I chose one of the slightly more aggressive decks in the already incredible aggressive environment. There were a number of Leeds players, Matt Lunt came in with Elves, while Rick had rogues. John turned up with Doran Smash and I came around with Kithkin.
Despite the number of prevailing rogue decks, there were others around, with Mannequin Control, Elemental Aggro, more elves, Revillark, and some kind of Colossus/Big Mana deck with Garruk and Fertile Ground. There were six rounds, unexpectedly, with about 20 more people then you would expect for a Grand Prix Trial.
I started off the day against Red/Black Rogue Goblins, piloted by Thomas Steer, and as far as tight matches go, it never really got any tighter. Tactics involve going into the red zone and praying really hard that your opponent doesn’t have removal. A topdecked Ajani allowed me to force through vigilant Kithkin in the decider.
1 – 0
Round two was a bit of a shambles, as I was forced by the judges to desleeve my deck, since I was using potentially marked deck sleeves. This was directly after a very long game against Chris Vincent, where I had to face down multiple Colossi, Doran, and at least two cloudthreshers that were only being held back by a 10/10 Kinsbaile Borderguard. They only broke through once they have been given a profane command, at which point I wish manatithe was in block. I lost the second game due to drawing an extra card, as I was significantly distracted enough to forget you aren’t suppose to draw on the turn you start. The only thing that came out of it, I suppose was that the opponent never got to use the sideboard he spent a bit of time agonizing through.
1 – 1
Next up was against elves, which lovely Hayley Lucock used. There’s much to be said about block elves, since they don’t have the speed provided by Boreal or Llandowar elves to power out bigger creatures. That said, Bramblewood Paragon and Hunting Triad might be the new key to Block elves. However, there weren’t either of those two in sight when Stalwarts, Cenns and Knights overran her board.
2 – 1
The next two matches evolved around Kithkin Mirrors. The first one was faster , piloted by Thomas Turner, running creatures such as Order of the Golden Cricket and Milita’s Pride, which I shunned. I lost out on speed, and a mistake in game two where instead of Pumping My Mirror Entities and going in for the kill, I lost out on tempo fearing something silly like Pollen Lullaby. As such he came back from a one game lost due to being 9 minutes and 59 seconds late. The Game after was against Paul B. Wray, who ran a slower build, but significantly more solid, with Zephyrnaughts, along with sideboard Cloudgoat Rangers, though I never saw them because he went Stalwart, Cenn, Stalwart Cenn, in the second game. Not even rogues can outrace that sort of insane start.
2-3
Last game of the day was against John A. Ingram, one of the newer players to our Wednesday night events. Doran is great, but it still doesn’t survive Oblivion Rings, and the high pace Kithkin assault wittles through the slower Doran deck with frightening efficiency.
3-3.
I ended the day in 18th place, just short out on prizes. The game loss in the second round was inevitable, I suppose, as I severely lack the practice and patience for longer, drawn out games. And I was never good at outthinking Mirror Matches, Unlike Rick, who managed to get into the semifinals and conceded in favour of one of his friends. He would have won too, but as it stands, his buddy would have benefited more from the 3 byes.
…. And that was one week of magic. So onto the week after then! 14 people for Type Two Constructed here in Leeds. 14! That’s actually more then the average number of drafters we get on a regular basis, so I was quite surprise at the turnout. John brought a couple of his friends along, and Andrew Buccanon came for one last night with the Leeds contingent before moving on to other FNMs. I decided to play, fielding a Mono-green elf deck, splashing black for removal that had quite a vicious speed. Champions, Anthems and Perfects being fielded out on turn two with the power of a Hertiage Druid, followed out nearly almost immediately by Hunting Triad and Paragon makes for an insane speed that could match up to a weaker Affinity Draw. 14 players saw a wide range of decks, from Aussie Storm, Teachings, Mono-black rogues, countryside burn, Haakon, faeries, and even one Seismic Assault Deck.
First round was against Wayne, who fielded Revillark Combo, which was a nightmare matchup simply because it had wrath of god. Game one was me storming out of the gates, taking him down to zero before he could wrath the board. Game two saw me ran face first into rune-snag, then flashfreeze, then into the combo. Game three he was colorscrewed and couldn’t wrath, then a Garruk Overrun with about 7 creatures on the board finished him.
… I’m running out of breath.
Round two was against Andy Edwards, who fielded Haakon. The first game was stolen when he managed to get down the Haakon + Inversion Lock, which I couldn’t really fight out of. The second game saw my black sideboard doing abit of dirtywork, killing off his creatures while 5 1/1 manaelves picked away at his life total. Round three was suitably epic, with removal taking care of his creatures until he landed in Hidden Horror, Discarding Haakon… and locked me out of the game. There were some turning points, where I attacked my 5/5 trampling treetop village into a 5/5 razormane masticore…which has first strike, among its other abilities, which I now will remember for the rest of my magic career, especially since I ripped off an Eyeblight’s ending to take care of it a few turns after.
Round Three was against an old-school teachings deck, which ran into some problems when Damnation didn’t turn up against a board of 4/4 elves and a garruk threatening overrun. Rob mused that his teachings deck need to be updated to keep up with the agro. Perhaps a few more boardsweeping effects…
Round Four was against Rogues, piloted by Adam. It was alot closer then one can expect, with the first game being taken away with lots of elves just swinging in, rogues swinging in, and generally alot of power on the board. One of the key plays that night was dropping a Lys Alana Bowmaster to suddenly stop a turn two prowl from a nightshade stinger, forcing the use of a nameless inversion that didn’t go to a Perfect. The game ended with 8 or so elves and one Garruk Beast token. It could have gone either way, as Stinkdrinker bandits didn’t see play at all that game, and those would just really hurt.
So there you have it. Three events, alot of magic matches, god knows how much time spent playtesting with a friend from back home and with Rick and Joe, and 2HG champs coming up this Saturday. … Phew. Now that I’m done rushing through everything magic related that happened over the last two weeks… we will continue as normal from the week after.
Until then!
~Jin.
