A Peek At What a High Level Tournament Looks Like Though Two Sets of the Same Eyes.

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Mpz5

30 April 2012

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This weekend I was unfortunately unable to attend the TappedOut tournament. Since I was not going to be able to attend the tournament because of the distance of travel and cost involved, I decided that I wanted to attend the next best thing. Two friends, leakyleper, 0v3rkiII, and I made the arduous journey from Anniston Alabama to Birmingham Alabama. well, I doubt many would call an hour car ride arduous but I digress. We got there at about eight o-clock, we sat down and took our decks out. Analyzing the decks, we all made a few last minute changes, wrote our deck lists down on the form, quadruple checked that they were indeed correct, signed up by ponying up our $30 entry fee.

This was my and leakyleper’s first major event and so we really did not know what to expect. I was immediately overwhelmed by the number of players that continued to pour though the door. I went fully expecting to top 32 since I nearly always top 4 or better at local tourneys. After seeing the amount of people, I decided that as long as I was in the top 50% I shouldn’t be so hard on myself; after all, it was my first event of that magnitude.

The deck that I decided on was a Tezzeret control build that I have been working on for a while. The deck has a lot of synergy and a lot of mainboard hate for some of the better decks in the format. This is the list that I stuck with if you are interested.

Tezzy and His Toolbox of Wonder.

Modern* Mpz5

SCORE: 7 | 24 COMMENTS | 1652 VIEWS

I expected to see a few pros attending the event, what I did not expect to see were Brad Nelson and Gerry Thompson showing up to the standard event wearing dresses. I was able to find a picture of them wearing the dresses which I have posted below for your entertainment.

Before the start of the event, I gave metalmagic a call and found out where he was. It ended up being pretty funny because he was seated across the aisle from me. We talked for a bit. It is always nice to be able to put an internet name to a face.

The matchups were posted and every player madly scrambled toward the board that had their matchup. I found mine and eventually found my seat. I played against a guy that I have forgotten his name and did not think to start writing names down until I decided to do an article on the event from my perspective. The guy was experienced at big events and was an amazing player. He piloted an Esper Superfriends control build. The first game he countered most of my threats but he eventually ran out and I landed a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. My opponent received a slow play prod by a judge that I felt really was not deserved. It tilted him a good bit but he gained back his composure rather quickly. Over time, I ground out advantage and ended my turn with him at 4 life with 2, 5/5 artifact creatures on my side of the board, a Grafdigger's Cage on the field to stop his flashback shenanigans, and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas at 2 loyalty. His board was empty, the problem was this: I was at 2 life and top decking. At the end of my turn, he cast a Forbidden Alchemy to grab a Sorin Markov for the win with its +2 effect. The second game was another control battle, both sides countering any threats and gaining advantage where possible. We went to time. I was trying to get the 1 point for the tie but he was able to stall me by mindslaving my turn with an ultimate from Sorin Markov. That put the match at a loss and a tie which gave me a loss for the round.

The second match was against a young B/r Zombie player named Brandon. The first game he tapped out with Tezzy and Inkmoth Nexus on the field. I animated, swung for 5 infect and passed. I then worked around his removal and waited until he tapped out again to finish him off with infect. The second round he flooded the field and got me to 11 life. I stabilized with a Black Sun's Zenith and through the course of the game, he used Mortarpod to great effect, chumping my Wurmcoil Engine and sacking the zombie for a point to my face. So, here we are. I am at 6 life, he has a lot of land and a Diregraf Ghoul equipped with Mortarpod. I have my Batterskull equipped to my Wurmcoil Engine because he killed the token I had. I also had a Sever the Bloodline in the graveyard but lacked 1 mana to use it. I attack and as expected, he declares the block and sacs the ghoul to Mortarpod to deal 1 point of damage to me. At this point, I feel pretty safe because he is topdecking. The kid topdecks a Geralf's Messenger, plays it, equips it, and sacs it for game. I was understandably irritated by the pre-Avacyn Restored miracle but chalked it up to luck and moved onto the third game in a matchup that should have easily been mine. The opening hand of the third game had zero lands in it. I of course mulligan and guess what? A no land hand again looks back at me. I sigh and mulligan again. This time my hand consists of a swamp, a Ghost Quarter, an Elixir of Immortality, a Sever the Bloodline, and a Solemn Simulacrum. I keep it because it has mana, and an early stall in the form of life gain. My thought is that I really don’t need to drop to 4 cards against an agro deck and if I hit 4, I will have a pretty viable answer in sever the bloodline as well as a chump blocker that ramps and gives me card advantage. Over the course of the game I crack the Elixir of Immortality to gain 5 life. I shuffle the deck as does he and I top it again next turn. He is constantly building up an army of the damned while I gain 5 life two turns in a row. I end up getting stuck at 3 mana holding Wurmcoil Engine, Sever the Bloodline, Solemn Simulacrum, and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas while he has 3 Diregraf Ghouls on the field, a Geralf's Messenger, and a handful of cards which I assume were removal spells that he obviously did not need to use. Well. . . that was fun. That was a second match loss for me which puts me at 0-2-0. At this point, I have to win every round from there on out to even have a slim chance at top 8. I still had 7 rounds to go.

I became quite irritated at the game at this point of the tournament. Magic requires a certain amount of luck. As a spike player, I tend to want to ignore that fact and try to analyze why I lost the game. At that point, after seeing no play that I could have made to change the outcome, I reminded myself that if your deck does not give you the cards to play with, you simply cannot win. That realization hurts a bit and makes me wonder why I continue to play a game in which random chance has such a strong stranglehold on the outcome. I guess I continue to play because over time, through random chance, skill does determine the outcome. You just have to be able to see the big picture and look through the haze of isolated situations that discourage you. That game was one of those situations that I had to look past and so I trudged on to try to overcome lady lucks betrayal. I wished the kid luck, told him to not feel bad after he apologized to me about the mana screw and amazing top deck, and that it was just part of the game.

The third round brought me face to face with my first delver experience of the day piloted by a guy named Mathew. Unlike the typical delver decks running blue and white, this guy was running a blue black delver control build. The first game, I guess that my deck was trying to make it up to me for the horrible land drought the game before because I spent 9 strait turns drawing nothing but mana producers after keeping a 3 land hand. . . yea. Lost that game despite holding him off for 13 turns with Pristine Talismans (I had both) and my singleton Mycosynth Wellspring that my tezzy was able to animate before suffering a horrible sting from that pesky Insectile Aberration  ^Flip... Where is the bug spray when you need it? I figured that I would draw something relevant eventually but apparently not. Second game was beautiful. I had answers when I needed them and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on the board from the fourth turn on. I ended it pretty quickly with tizzy animating an Inkmoth Nexus and beating him down in two turns while he was topdecking land. The third game I kept a decent hand with a ton of removal, Pristine Talisman, and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. He kept a hand with 1 island, one Mana Leak, 2 Delver of Secrets  ^Flip, and 2 Vapor Snags. The dude proceeded to beat me down with the delvers, one at a time, as I dealt with them and vapor snagging them back when they were threatened. Doing this, he managed to put me at 8 life with 1 mana. . . I was impressed to say the least with how powerful that card is if allowed to do its job. He did not draw a second land until 7 turns into the game. I eventually landed a Wurmcoil Engine and made quick work of him. That put me at 1-2-0. That left me with one match down, 6 more to go. One thing that I learned from this match is that sitting where you can see the clock gives you a huge advantage when it comes to time management. From then on, I was sure to be quick about finding my next match and sitting in the seat that gave me the best view of the clock.

My next opponent was named Adam and he was sporting a pink tipped Mohawk. Interesting enough I guess. Quickly into the first game, I realized that he was playing Frights, my best matchup. This match was no contest and I honestly felt a little bad for the guy because my main decked Grafdigger's Cage hit the field 4th turn of the game off of the back of a Trinket Mage. I killed his 2 Birds of Paradise third turn of the game with a Black Sun's Zenith for 1 which set him back significantly. From there I just held onto my permission once he hit casting mana and denied him if I didn’t have removal at the time. Second game was even easier for me as I sided in more spot removal and continued the Nihil Spellbomb/ Grafdigger's Cage /Surgical Extraction assault on his grave. The game ended in a quick 2-0 for me which put me at 2-2-0 for the tournament. I wished him luck and used the time between rounds to talk to my two friends after they finished their games.

The next time parings were posted, I quickly found my seat. My opponent was already sitting in my preferred spot with his girlfriend sitting at the end of the table next to him. I talked to them as we shuffled our decks. I made the comment that I was starving (I had only had a shake that morning before I left the house at 6AM and it was roughly 1PM or so at the time). His girlfriend offered me some banana chips which I gratefully took. I was happy to meet them and am a little sad that I have forgotten their names as they were both very pleasant people.

Before the match started, someone accidentally got dropped so the matchups had to be repaired. I said goodbye to the couple and wished him luck, then looked at my new pairing. I found the seat, my preferred seat, and sat down to play. The dude was named Logan and he seemed okay at first, a bit conceded perhaps but it is a common enough plight for young men. We started the first game and he was piloting a u/w delver build running Geist of Saint Traft. Traft hit turn three and beat the living crap out of me before I found a black sun to deal with him. His second traft tried to finish the deal but Mimic Vat was an all-star for me. I was being attacked and I was about to die so I blocked his traft with my Solemn Simulacrum and his angel token with my Inkmoth Nexus. In response to the animate, he Gut Shot the inkmoth thinking he had the win. In response to the Gut Shot, I tapped the inkmoth, floating the colorless mana, then mimic vatted the Inkmoth Nexus. Yes, I made a token of a land. Since the Inkmoth Nexus was a creature the last time it existed on the battlefield, I could do that. I tapped three mana to make an inkmoth token with mimic vat and used the floated mana to animate it for the block. He was pissed that I outplayed him. . . I proceeded to come back as he topped lands for a few turns. My Wurmcoil Engine ended up making a mess of his life total while supplementing mine.

The second game we both mulliganed and, not thinking, I started picking up a seventh card. When I realized what I was doing, I immediately dropped the card face down on the table, I had not even seen the card yet and he watched me start to draw and drop the card. I started asking him if he wanted me to shuffle it back into the deck or what and before I got the first word out of my mouth he was screaming for a judge. I was annoyed but whatever. I explained to the judge what happened. The judge asked me if I was sure that that was the last card and if it had come into contact with my hand. I explained that it did not come in contact with my hand and that I have not even seen it. I explained that I realized that I was only supposed to draw 6 as I was pulling it off the deck and I immediately dropped the card. He asked the other guy if he was sure that that was the extra card and the dude says that he could not be sure of that, he told him that he thought that I put it into my hand. He would not even look at me as I called him a liar in front of the judge and glared at him. The judge told me that it was a forced mulligan (to 5 when I had an amazing hand) and gave me my first warning of the night for looking at additional cards. This is where I made my mistake. I allowed my opponents poor class to tilt me all the way over. From that point on, all I wanted to do was crush his life total to a pulp and because of that I played more aggressively than I should have. He ended up winning the next two games and I was disgusted. From this experience I have learned that the last thing that you want to do is allow a sleaze-ball like that get into your head. I also learned to play more carefully at a major tournament like that. The opponent is the last person that wants you to do well while they are playing you, no matter how nice or jerk-like they are. Some people have absolutely no moral codes and will take advantage of any situation possible. I would say he is the one that has to sleep at night after screwing me out of that game but I am sure that he slept as sound as a baby; people like that tend to. The match left me with a record of 2-3-0 and a bad taste in my mouth. All I could hope for at this point was a top 32 finish if the numbers landed right.

The bad taste was pretty quickly taken out of my mouth as I met my next opponent. Her name was Gina, and while anyone that was not a smelly guy sitting across the table from me would have been refreshing, she was an attractive girl with a pleasant personality. We talked during the pre-game waiting for the round to start. Gina was traveling with her boyfriend to all the major events and they were competing together. It is nice to see the female persuasion taking an interest in the game. I think that it is largely the piggish guys with degrading comments that keep them away, but lately I have noticed woman’s slow proliferation into the game and to me it is a sign of a healthy community. Having more women playing the game should also go a long way towards blunting the geeky stigma that the game so often receives. Gina was piloting a nasty B/W control build. Her lack of permission made it easy for me to deal with the threats and I always retained control but I had to deal with constant threats in the form of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite , Karn Liberated, Gideon Jura, Sun Titan and Grave Titan. It was the hardest easy wins that I think I have ever played because her deck was mostly gas once it got going and she was a solid player. On top of that, I could not get too aggressive with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas because she was also packing 4 Day of Judgments as well as spot removal. The games almost went to time but I was able to grind out advantage with tezzy’s +1 and eventually win the games with his -4 ultimate both times. The games placed me at 3-3-0 for the day. I thanked her for the games and her polite manner, wished her luck, and looked for my next pairing.

During the match I got pretty light headed. I am borderline hypoglycemic so I have to watch my blood sugar. I apologized to her for the interruption and dug through my bag for the chocolate square that I brought just in case I needed some quick sugar. During this match as well as the next when it happened again, I learned that you need to bring some solid food with you be it an apple or a sandwich to get you through the long day. If you are not eating correctly, you cannot be expected to play at your best. Your brain takes a lot of energy so despite you sitting in a chair for hours, you actually need to eat and stay hydrated.

My next opponent’s name was Jyl, another woman. She too was there with her boyfriend but had only been playing for a few months. Because of that, I suspected that she was going to be running a WW build or RDW as those two archetypes are more forgiving to newer players. As it turns out she was playing Humans and apparently, my deck has a lot of problems dealing with a resolved Mirran Crusader… who knew? The first game, she made quick work of me with the crusader equipped with a Sword of War and Peace. I could chump it for a while but without a black sun, I had no other way to deal with it and I quickly ran out of chumpers. The second game, she dropped the dreaded crusader turn 2 and turn 3 but my turn 4 Black Sun's Zenith dealt with them both handily as well as the Champion of the Parish that my turn 1 Hex Parasite cut down to size turn 3, for the wipe turn 4. From there, with a huge card advantage I was able to grind out the win. She tried Oblivion Ringing my Wurmcoil Engine but I sacked it with Throne of Geth in response, upping my counters on tezzeret and getting my tokens. Next turn I dropped 3 more artifacts and finished her with Tezz’s ultimate. The last game was a typical counter the threats, remove the rest with Black Sun's Zenith/Sever the Bloodline, and gain advantage over time through attrition for the win. It set me to 4-3-0 for the day with 2 more Swiss rounds to go. At one point during the round I received my second warning of the day from a judge because I cracked Elixir of Immortality slotted the two cards in my grave as well as the elixir in random parts of my deck and handed the deck to Jyl to shuffle it. Apparently if a card says to shuffle your deck, it means to actually shuffle it even if you can effectively do the same thing mechanically some other way. Little ticky things like that will earn you warnings so again, be sure to do exactly what the card says without taking shortcuts, no matter how innocent they are.

My next opponent was named Mike and while I was expecting to eventually face Wolf Run Ramp, I was not looking forward to it. The first game he resolved Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip turn 3 and 4. I quickly died as I couldn’t find Sever the Bloodline or Black Sun's Zenith. . . sad face. Game two, I sided in half of my deck but despite that he resolved a turn 5 primeval for Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run. I died to the stupid land that I abused so often that day in an ironic twist of events. I got completely thrashed, but the guy was nice and showed an interest in my deck after the game saying that he liked the idea. The match put me at 4-4-0.

Determined to finish the tourney with better than half of my matches as wins I found my last opponent Jake. Gina just so happened to be sitting next to me and greeted me with a ‘Hi friend’ and a smile. Jake was running the heartless Havengul Lich deck. The deck runs Havengul Lich, a bunch of fatties, Heartless Summoning, Forbidden Alchemy, and Perilous Myr. The deck is actually ingenious because running Massacre Wurm as a three of, it deals well with all the aggressive decks in the format well and it also has a massive burn combo in the deck by abusing Perilous Myr’s 1 toughness with Havengul Lich and Heartless Summoning. For those too lazy to read the cards and figure out the combo, basically it does 2 damage to target creature or player for every one mana the deck can generate. The decks’ only problem is that it is super weak to graveyard disruption. My deck just so happens to have a Nihil Spellbomb and Grafdigger's Cage mainboard as well as 2 Trinket Mages to quickly find them. I found cage the first game and shut the deck engine down but still had to deal with the huge threats. Luckily I also had a main-deck Mimic Vat which is amazing against the deck. The second game he had a quick start and had the combo going turn 5 of the game. I dropped a Phyrexian Metamorph and copied his Havengul Lich. I also stole his Perilous Myr from the grave to stop the combo. Eventually he played a Rune-Scarred Demon, grabbed a Phantasmal Image, played it copying the demon, and grabbed another Perilous Myr. I dropped my second Phyrexian Metamorph and copied the demon. From there I tutored my cage and locked him out again. His creatures were 1 p/t smaller than mine and I was able to finish him off with tezz’s ultimate since the field was effectively locked down. This put me at 5-4-0 for the day and placed me in 97th place out of I believe 388 players. I do not guess that it was too bad for my first large event but I will strive to do better in the future.

Day two, I showed up to the event looking for a different experience. I do not have the staples for legacy so I did not even try, what I did do was judge the event which was an interesting experience. I am currently a level 0 Judge but I was trying to take the test for level 1. Basically, I got put with a guy named Jason who was a level 2 judge and he watched me as I gave rulings, swooped for deck checks, and checked decks before the start of games. Jason also asked me tough ruling questions throughout the day and told me that I know a lot of the rulings but I do not always know why they are ruled that way. Rules in this game are actually extremely technical and while you might know how interactions work, it is sometimes hard to understand why they work the way that they do. I was also at a loss for tournament etiquette as the day before was my first event and apparently, that is a huge portion of the judge test. Jason said that he was uncomfortable testing me that day because he did not think I would pass the test because of my inexperience and lack of technical grasp of how things work. I did however learn a substantial amount of information and he provided me with some resources to study up on as well as some contacts to call when I am ready to attempt the test.

The first thing that they put me on was to watch the drafting table like a hawk. Judges are looking for roving eyes and talking at the table, both of which are huge offenses. Judges also clean up the pack slips from the table when the players open them. From there I was assigned with Jason to the deck check team. The start of the event we scoured the deck lists to make sure they all had at least 60 cards in the decks and exactly 15 cards in the side deck. We did not find a problem but if we had, it would have been a game loss for the player and they would have had to fix it. After that, we walk the floor and answer any judge calls. I learned how to better explain rulings to players and how to give rulings without accidentally giving advice on how to play the cards to get the best effect. . . it is a lot harder than it seems. Before the start of the round we do something called “swooping” in which we intercept two players after they present their decks but before they draw their hands. We ask them for their deck, side, and deck box and we take it to the table to compare to their deck list to make sure that it matches and check the boxes to be sure that there are no more playable cards in the deck box. The most common offense is a failure to un-side their decks between rounds which results in a game loss. The key is to check it super quickly so that it does not hold up the tournament. After we confirm their decks, we bring it back and give them a time extension. One of the highlights of the day for me was getting to swoop and deck check Brad Nelson’s deck. It was cool, even though he was not wearing a dress that day, to be able to hold a pro’s deck and actually analyze the build while I was checking it.

About five minutes before the end of the time each round, we make our way to the tournament organizer and ask him which table to watch. At time, we tell the person that is currently taking their turn that it is turn 0 and that the players have until the end of turn 5 to win the game or it is a tie. This usually stresses players out because a judge is constantly watching the game as well as many players waiting for the round to end with nothing better to do. While the final turns have no time limit we are still to give out slow play warnings/nudges in order to continue to pace at an acceptable level.

Being a judge gives you a whole new set of eyes. People genuinely respect you and call you sir and Mr. Judge. It feels good to be in that position where I know I am there to help people and they typically appreciate me for it. A few people stopped to talk to me between games only to realize after I told them that I played them the day before. Their recognition was usually pretty funny. metalmagic gave me a confused look when he saw me in the blue, judge’s shirt. All in all it was a really good experience. I knew that I knew a lot about the game and how it works but working with level 2 and 3 judges all day, I was humbled at how little I actually knew in comparison. I will strive to become a judge and work events like that in the future. I thought that I was working volunteer but they gave me some cool judge deck sleeves and some store credit which was more than I expected.

I hope that you guys have learned something from my experiences. I know that I have. I felt that that knowledge could be shared for those about to enter into the competitive game. With that, I wish you luck. If you have any questions for me, please ask. I would be happy to help you if I can.