Magic Deck Vortex: MOMP 10: The Outsider's Journal 3

We meet again. This is part six of the ongoing story of one man vs. the field in a State Championship Tournament.

Step inside and read on. I hope to have kept you entertained with my story thus far.

Take a look at the previous parts before continuing to refresh your mind or to pick up on an important piece of the story that you need.

After a round of hand shakes and some congratulations that headed my way, we returned the results slip to the judge. Patrick and Tysene were off walking around scouting the remaining decks and were plotting my course through the rest of the tournament. While they were doing that, Ryan and I walked in a different direction alone. I felt good about my situation, but even more so, I felt good about this situation. It was the first time that I had found myself in the position of having someone pick my brain about something. He was asking me about certain parts of the match that we had just finished and why I did certain things the way I did it. I don’t think he was far enough along in his journey as a player at that time to really be able to step back and see the game within the game which usually separates the good from the great players.

That is not to say that I am or was a great player, it is to say that I have seen enough games to have finally seen the other side of the curtain.

As he continued talking, and perhaps not even hearing my responses, I saw a bit of myself in him. He continued to talk with such a great passion and desire to improve. He even went so far as to want to replay our last match, with him winning the coin toss.

“Ryan, you played well,” I told him. “The fact that I won had nothing to do with your ability to play the game. It is all about what I knew before we sat down to play our games. I knew your deck. I knew how you would typically respond in certain situations. I knew how your deck would respond to situations I could put it in. I also knew that you knew me well enough to be able to read me and my plays, and so I purposefully made moves that I had thought about in the past, but never had tried before.”

“Like sitting there with an Oblivion Stone in play and letting your Troll beat my face in. Normally I would have blown the Stone up and had fire power to finish it off—which I did have.”

“I have been drawing Starstorm all day like it’s my job. Did you really think that I didn’t have it?”

“It’s not nice to call the winner names you know. Yea, I had at least one Starstorm during that time. I just felt that by killing your lands off I could better dominate the board, and that was also throwing you off. You could not clearly read me because I was not even playing like a high level player would be. I did that because I was playing against a high level player.”

He thought about it for a little while, letting it all sink in. We both hit the toilet and then returned to the table.

"Damn they move these things along quickly." As I walked away from the table I heard, “Hey, Newton.” I stopped and turned to see who had called to me.

“I just have one last thing to say.” He stopped short of me and then broke into a smile. “Thanks for the good game. Now go win this thing.” With that he shook my hand and we went into the mess of people trying to find their tables.

By this time in the tournament, my head was pumping from having played Magic for the last ten or so hours. I didn’t know how those guys could do multi-day tournaments without having numerous casualties due to migraines and head contusions. I found my table and saw that I was still sitting in the 20’s. "What do I have to do to break into the lower tables?" I thought to myself, a little disappointed.

As I sat down I found that I was paired against another Asian player. I sighed to myself, as I was certain that this would be a repeat of the last Asian player. He actually looked like the previous one, same colored shirt and backpack. Maybe they were teammates; I’ll never know. I did know that I was playing a different guy when he pulled out his “sacrificial mat,” as Patrick called it later, and began shuffling up.

I offered him a handshake, and he didn’t at first want to take it, but when Patrick sniffed from behind me and whispered loudly to Tysene, “What a [bleep]hole,” he reluctantly shook my hand.

I offered him good luck and began watching his masterful shuffling display. I had already finished my shuffling and was sitting back relaxing as he did his numerous shuffling techniques. When he finished, he offered me a cut and then began to shuffle my cards. I was a little put off about that, and so I looked at Patrick and he knew exactly what I was thinking.

I reached out slowly and methodically and grabbed his deck, slowly pulling it towards me with a purpose. I tilted my head as if popping my neck and lifted the deck in my hands. I split the deck in two piles and prepared to riffle shuffle the guy’s deck. “Oh no… don’t do it…” I heard Patrick whisper down to me loud enough that the opponent heard him and looked up. I then lifted my eyes to meet his and gave the longest, roughest, most bent-est back riffle shuffle you can imagine.

*Pt-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!*

I then flipped the deck over and followed that up with an equally bad shuffle, noting while doing so to look at the contents of his deck with my peripheral vision.

*Pt-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!*

The call of “Judge!” followed by laughter was all I heard from there. I sat quietly, waiting to be scolded and to receive my warning. Eventually a thinner looking guy came scooting up to our table. “He is purposefully trying to damage my cards while shuffling.”

“What are you talking about? I am merely shuffling your deck up. Look, you’re shuffling mine. I riffled my deck before you did, so what’s the problem?”

The judge was just as tired and cranky as we were and he just rolled his eyes. “I’ll stand here and observe the shuffling then. Hurry up though.” I smiled to him and gave a quick “Ssssipt!” shuffle and handed it back to my opponent. “Alright, thanks.” And with that he began to walk away.

“Wait! Judge!” I stood and yelled to him. He turned slowly and had a look of zero patience as he faced me. “Shouldn’t I get a warning or something?”

He shook his head and finally smiled. “I’m warning you now. Next time I’ll bring a half empty bottle of Gatorade and whack you with it.”

With the distraction and ploy to get under my opponent’s skin accomplished I set myself to the task of figuring out why the hell he would be 6-1 and playing both White and Black. "Who ever heard of anyone playing those colors? Black-White Control? Black-White Aggro? What has he been doing all day?"

The main problem I had was that I didn’t see much besides Wrath of God and Phyrexian Arena in the deck, so I felt safe at assuming the deck to be Black-White Control, but were there enough options available for him to be able to overcome a Land Destruction (LD) deck? Slide had proven all day that Eternal Dragon was not enough and was just too slow to keep up with the quantity of LD spells I had at my disposal. Was he going to try and win via Consume Spirit like the previous Mono-Black Control deck? "If so, I think he is going to have a hard time, as he most likely isn’t playing much more than Duress in the way of Discard, and therefore has next to zero percent chance in this game," I thought with a touch of satisfaction.

With the shuffling and metagaming in my head out of the way, we were clear to begin our game. My opponent was clearly shaken by the slight altercation that had transpired. His face was rosy red, his breathing was audible, and his fingers trembled slightly. Was it from nerves, fatigue, or anger? I didn’t know. What I did know is that when he led off with a Grand Coliseum, City of Brass, and a Windswept Heath, I knew I had the upper hand. The Phyrexian Arena that sprung from his hand cost him three life, and I was ok with that. Especially when looking at my hand and seeing four LD spells.

I continued destroying the non-Grand Coliseum, non-City of Brass lands that he played until finally the Arena and land combination brought him into striking range, and I sent a Blazing Firecat in for the kill.

The good thing about the first game was that he was really disrupted by a bad land draw and I didn’t need to show much of my deck beyond the land destruction and a Firecat. I decided to go for the jugular by bringing in my extra copies of Oblivion Stone, two Sulfuric Vortexes, and three Shatters—just in case he wanted to play his own Stones. I was safely going to assume that he was bringing in Circle of Protection: Red (COP: Red) and Sacred Ground, plus if he didn’t already have them in the deck, he could bring in Duress.

In game two he led off, this time with a Plains. "So far so good I guess." On his second turn he played the predicted Sacred Ground. I on the other hand sat on my laurels and did nothing. The third turn proved to be a surprise for me, as he played an Astral Slide. "My word… Black-White Slide?" I followed up his turn with a missed land drop and, truth be told, thought that it was curtains for me.

With board control almost certainly on his side, he began cycling. With his fourth land drop, he Plainscycled a Dragon and followed that up by cycling an Undead Gladiator.

At that point I decided that if I didn’t draw a land, I would submit and go for game three, as I was realistically only in the game for one more draw phase. Luck, as it seemed, was on my side. However, it had a sense of humor. I drew a Forgotten Cave, and sighed as it came into play tapped. Looking at my hand again, I realized how foolish I really was, and I tapped my two lands and Mountaincycled my Cougar. Behind me I heard Patrick gasp at my newbie mistake.

The turn passed to my Sliding opponent and he returned the Gladiator to his hand during his upkeep. Drawing his card for the turn, he gave a hint of a smile and tapped to put a Phyrexian Arena in to play. This game was very quickly speeding out of control.

I untapped and drew my card, and I had to force myself not to give away my breath of fresh air. My body wanted to leap out of the chair and jump for joy, but my cunning mind said, “WAIT! He still thinks he has control!” I had drawn an Oblivion Stone.

I slowly set my hand on the table, face down, and thought for a long moment. After coming up with a few directions I could go, I decided to go with a plan. I set the Mountain I fetched the previous turn into play, and set a Sulfuric Vortex down on the table next to it and quickly passed turn. As if he were stunned, he grabbed the card up and read it a few times. With a roll of his eyes, he set the card down and began his turn.

Upon beginning his turn, he first took three damage and then drew his card off of the Arena. Before leaving his upkeep, he cycled the Gladiator once and then drew his card for turn. With three mana remaining he placed a creature into play face down. I had to think for a moment; I was 99% certain that it was an Exalted Angel, however it could have been a Bane of the Living or a Grinning Demon as well in his deck. Again I forced myself to concede nothing to my opponent with my outward appearance. I wanted to hide the fact that the creature really didn’t stand a chance anyways. With that I lifted my hand again and began my turn.

I untapped my cards and put my fifth land into play. I initially thought to not waste the Stone and just Starstorm the two toughness creature to the grave, but then remembered that the last time I waited around and let the Arena give a man extra cards, I regretted it later. I decided that the Stone was the best option, even though I didn’t like it. Into play the Stone went.

Again he rolled his eyes and I could almost feel that he must have had some serious bad luck in the past rounds as even though I had only played two spells this game he was almost expecting the worst.

He began his turn and took another three damage. He did not bring back the Gladiator, but drew two cards anyways. After thinking for a few moments, he decided to just attack with the creature in morph mode, most likely to keep mana available to cycle-Slide out his creature. I happily took only two damage. Afterward, he passed the turn.

I untapped my cards, took two damage, and drew for the turn. Siege-Gang Commander. I looked up at Patrick and he nodded knowingly. Each time I had drawn him, the game ended within a few turns. After thinking a moment, I again passed the turn and allowed the Arena to give him a card.

This time he did return the Gladiator to his hand, which left him with only three mana available. ”Damn that Sacred Ground…” I thought to myself, looking at the three LD spells in my hand. He turned his man sideways and sent him over again in morph mode. This time I responded with the Stone. As imagined, he cycled—an Akroma’s Vengeance—and out of play went an Exalted Angel. He drew his card off of the cycle and the Stone resolved, putting pretty much everything in the grave, and he passed his turn. As he did so, the Angel returned to play, face up.

As my turn began, I was reminded of why the Angel was so dominant, and was also reminded of how many people actually tried to argue that it was more of a liability to protect than a benefit to play. "How crazy is that talk now?" I thought. All he had to do was continue attacking with the Angel and the life exchange was enough to overpower me. I really didn’t have many options left, except to play the Siege-Gang Commander and pass my turn.

He began his turn by thinking about the Gladiator, and decided that he wanted to cycle it. He drew a card off the cycle, and then paid to return the Gladiator. Drawing a card for turn, he launched into the attack phase. Here came the Angel, and there went my life, right into his pool. As I began to become frustrated, he became foolish. He played another land then cycled his Gladiator again. Why not wait until my end phase?

Drawing my card for turn, I sighed inwardly as I drew a Mountain, which was land number six. I played the land and then declared my attack. I sent my four Goblins in and hit him in the face for five. I then passed my turn, intending to Goblin bomb the Angel in response to his antics.

Untap, draw, attack with Angel, blow up Angel… feathers all over the place! The Siege-Gang Commander remained alone on the table. That is until he played his second face down creature. I noted at this point that he only had two sources of White in play, and I intended on fixing that problem. The only question I had for him was, why not play the Angel face up?

Drawing a card, I started to find all the land that I was missing earlier—it was all right there in that pocket. I played my seventh land and blew up a Plains with a Stone Rain. I then tapped down to put a Firecat on the table and then turned both he and the Goblin sideways. Another roll of the eyes, and a non-block left me scratching my head. Perhaps he had the White mana in hand? I set the Firecat in the graveyard and ended my turn.

He untapped his lands and drew a card, and put a land in to play; a Swamp. "Oh… that was close." He looked at me and gave a knowing smile. Turning the morphed guy sideways, he attacked for two. I was beginning to get a little nervous as I had let a good amount of damage hit me, and had not really paid attention to my own health, as I was more concerned with gaining board control. The little 2/2 guy was putting me on a short clock. Stupid Sulfuric Vortex.

However, as the day had started for my first opponent, so too did the day come to a close for this opponent. My next draw revealed a Firecat, who was quickly put into play and turned sideways. After an uneventful turn, I drew another Firecat and he followed suit, banging into my opponent, catching everything on fire. Thank God the Firecats have haste, as when the game ended, my opponent set down his hand of three Wrath of Gods and shook my hand.

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