05 May 4705 - Tournament Report

For those of you reading this who have no interest in Magic: The Gathering, you will almost certainly want to skip this. I would be personally and deeply flattered and concerned if you chose otherwise. The following is as accurately as I can, a transcription of the games I played in a Two-Headed Giant tournament in Richmond earlier today. At the time of drafting, the tournament is still going on, which should tell you something about my team.

The format was 2HG Time Spiral Block, which meant one hour to build two decks from one tournament pack of TS, and two each boosters of PC and FS. Jimmy was my other head for the event.

We built the following decks from our card pool:
Deck A, Jimmy's:
17 land
4 Mountains
7 Forests
6 Swamps

16 creatures
Nightshade Assassin
Gorgon Recluse
Roiling Horror
Nantuko Shaman
Firemaw Kavu
Grave Scrabbler
Corpulent Corpse
Big Game Hunter
Augur of Skulls
Rathi Trapper
Llanowar Empath
Utopia Mycon
Blightspeaker
Firefright Mage
Henchfiend of Ukor
Thornweald Archer

7 other spells
Stormbind
Search for Tomorrow
Dark Withering
Pyrohemia
Ignite Memories
Harmonize
Petrified Plating

Deck B, mine:
18 land
7 Islands
4 Mountains
6 Plains
Tolaria West

14 creatures
Castle Raptors
Stingscourger
Revered Dead
Subterranean Shambler
Jodah's Avenger
Infiltrator il-Kor
Soltari Priest
Flying Men
Knight of the Holy Nimbus
Whip-Spine Drake
Veiling Oddity
Keldon Marauders
Magus of the Future
Numot, the Devastator

8 other spells
Ophidian Eye
Piracy Charm
Dismal Failure
Foriysian Totem
Ovinize
Judge Unworthy
Ancestral Vision
Pact of the Titan

Game 1: G/w and B/r
They had a first turn Essence Warden that netted them at least 8 life, and since they weren't paying much attention to all our creatures, it could have even been 10. The player across from me looked to be playing B/r, but I didn't end up seeing much of his deck. I suspended the Infiltrator, then played Foriysian Totem, then had six mana on turn five thanks to it and played Numot. I got in a hit the next turn and blasted two of the B/r player's lands, putting him behind forever where he had only been kinda screwed before. I focused on damage for the rest, favoring an active Totem to another land blast from Numot. They basically couldn't respond to my bomb and lost. There were no hard plays for me the whole match. At one point, a Witch Hunter threatened to bounce Numot, but Jimmy iced it by summoning his Kavu. He traded it next turn with another dude, just to be sure. I was attacking with Numot, Whip-Spine Drake, and Infiltrator il-Kor, all of whom were unblockable, but just in case.
This match was a blowout. They dealt one damage to us the entire time, from the Essence Warden attacking. I thought for sure they would be in tempo heaven then, but turn 5 Numot was just too much for a mana-screwed black player.

Game 2: U/B and G/W/r
We had some early trades and hits in creature combat, nothing noteworthy. The green player helped stall until the U/B player could fetch his preponderance of control for a limited deck. We got them with a three-shot Ignite early on for nine damage, one land, one Mystical Teachings, one Giant Dustwasp. They take a hit from green's Orcish Cannonade as they remove another dude. UB fetches Dismal Failure with a Mystical Teachings. Jimmy draws out the counter with a Dark Withering, and I play Numot and he has two mana left for a Delay. With my Numot and Veiling Oddity set to suspend out and haste and evade the next turn, they swung for the win, flipping Akroma from morphed form for plenty of damage.
Usually I try not to comment on the opposing team's play style or appearance. This round, it was almost distracting. The team reminded me of everything I hate about tournament magic. Neither team really made play errors at all, and they had the cards and beat us, that's that. When they had to call a judge twice on trivial, anal things, I got a sense of their collective character. Their team name was "Brute Squad," probably because UB player was at least two-and-a-half of me, and not quite my height. Watching him sit and play magic almost made me nauseous, and I have a high threshold for other people's lifestyle choices. Them being dickheads didn't help anything.

Game 3: U/G/w and R/B
I guess they didn't get enough good white cards. Blue guy played a Castle Raptors, and that was it for the whole game. Maybe he had a Saffi in there somewhere and really couldn't pass up the splash. Not that Castle Raptors is a bad card for limited by any means. It's good. I played my own that game.
I drop Flying Men first turn, on what is perhaps the best opening hand I've seen all day, and it had been a day of good opening hands. They had some irrelevant critter that we blasted after it hit us once, and I kept on swinging with the Flying Men.
They call Flying Men "the blue Lightning Axe" because of this kind of happening. I got seven damage out of them throughout the game. All for one blue mana. Totally off the charts.
They start mounting and Jimmy and I both raise our own armies. I use Judge Unworthy to save us from five damage, picking my nest two draws as Jodah's Avenger and Foriysian Totem. BR guy jacks my Ancestral Visions with his Imp's Mischief, paying no life, and I try to draw into Numot the old fashioned way. I drop Jodah's Avenger, and Jimmy lights the board up with Pyro, killing my men and GB guy's Serendib Sorcerer, who made Jodah a 0/1. BR guy had witch's mist, so we had to be careful with the Pyro after. That same turn, I Ovinize BR guy's Skittering Monstrosity (for whom no one will ever discard the cards, I expect), and with 1 damage still on him, he dies to state-based effects. From there I summon Soltari Priest, and between him and Jodah I can keep creatures around all day for the pyro, and we were ahead in the damage race, so a few turns would have sealed it.
Well I had dropped Numot in fact, but BR guy throws Phthisis at it, hitting us for 12. The crazy bastard jacks my card drawing, and then ices my bomb and spills out the biggest life swing I saw all day. What a nuts format.
Back to the pyro about to kill them with shadow guys scene. They killed Jodah with something I forget. I attack with Soltari Priest with Jimmy's Petrified Plating on, I flash Ophidian Eye on it ahead of the damage, draw my card, and play a Revered Dead. This leaves them at 7. Jimmy plays the best card in the format, Ignite Memories, and one copy reveals a Goldmeadow Lookout for 4 damage, meaning they die no matter how the others resolve. They had had the lookout, a land, a Brute Force and a Blightspeaker in hand. Talk about a format!

Game 4: Team Cathouse, U/g/b and R/g/w
These guys had the nuttiest pulls I had seen. R guy suspends Greater Gargadon on turn 1, making me think the entire rest of the match is going to be about us dealing with it, which it was. Having the Gargadon around to sack just anything we killed was nightmarish, especially when our prime removal was Firemaw Kavu. Later they pulled a Damnation off. They just had the answers. Also an Arc Razor hit us four times. It was nuts.
These kids needed a lot of lessons in manners, both for life and tournament play. They couldn't make a wrong decision given what they had drawn, and so I couldn't approach from a technical standpoint, which is really the only valid place to approach from if your targets are strangers. Its a bit of a hit to the ego to know that any moron with the luck draw can ice you, though. Really the only thing separating pros from others is the sheer number of games. They play enough until the odds even out and everyone else they played against has played less, and then they have the most wins among them and can go pro and get sponsored and paid.
Not these kids, though. Their luck was all spent on that game. No more Gargadons and Damnations for you.

After a 2-2-0 record we dropped. Mostly because I wanted to keep playing just for fun and Jimmy had something else he could go and be doing, so off we went. Which is why I'm typing this now instead of drafting in the top 4. Oh, and since everyone had to choose a team name, I'll leave you with our conversation about it:

Kaz: So, we have to choose a name for our team. I would suggest "Throw Your Life Away for Justice," but you didn't wear the shirt, too, so...
[for the record, we were a hair's breath away from wearing matching shirts, which would have been the shit, but some other mental powers kept my transmission last night from fully getting him. will have to investigate later.]
Jimmy: We could still call ourselves that.
Kaz: Except someone could take exception to advocating suicide and have us dqed.
Jimmy: It's not that bad.
Kaz: To you or me, no, but people are anal, and it would be horrid to lose for something like that.
Jimmy: Howabout something just silly then. Like "Blueberry."
Kaz:...
Kaz:...actually I like that. Can I add something else, like "Blueberry (something)"? [yes I speak with all that punctuation]
Jimmy: Well, what did you have in mind?
Kaz: "Blueberry Nihlifaction." Just a nonsense word.
Jimmy: Okay, its still silly enough.
Kaz&Jimmy: Go team Blueberry Nihlifaction!

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