A Pentacle of Spectacles

I have been playing competitive Magic: The Gathering for a little under ten years. If you count the non-sanctioned store tournaments – which nevertheless drew players who would eventually claim Pro Tour Points or even Pro Tour Top 8s – then that number is a little over the ten year mark. Over the past decade, I have lucksacked out more players than I can remember, even after viewing the 40-odd pages of my sanctioned tournament history, and – if this old codger’s memory serves – received even more bad beats. Individual plays – decisions really, not always "plays" but the attitudes and motivations that drove them – have shaped both the player and the person I’ve become. Here are five of the most important, or at least memorable, lessons that Magic has taught me since my first tournament in May of 1996. Because I believe we learn best from the mistakes we make (after which we have the opportunity to avoid the same kinds in the future), most of these stories are tales of defeat, or at least error… and a math problem!

#1) Michael A. Quigley – 05/05/1996

The Decision:

05/05/1996 marked my first Pro Tour Qualifier, and my second DCI Sanctioned event. I received my DCI card twenty-four hours previous, when I – and a cadre of my fellow University of Pennsylvania students – travelled to the 1996 Regional Championships. In what would be a recurring event for my tenure as a tournament Magic player, several of us crammed ourselves into a hotel room for the night between Regionals and the PTQ, though I can’t remember staying up to watch ScrambleVision with altran on any other occasion since.

Regionals could have been better for me. In the last round of the Swiss, I played against a fellow Penn player and had a commanding lead in game 3 of our control-on-control affair. He was playing a Blinking Spirit/Serra Angel kill, while I packed a Millstone deck. My lock was Circle of Protection: Red plus Sleight of Mind. I knew it was the best deck as I had won a local tournament the week before – defeating hated Necropotence in the finals – and I had him pinned with the combo. Hours of testing taught me that the only card that mattered at that point was Disenchant, and I successfully Jester’s Capped three of his, leaving only one in the opponent’s deck.

Do you ever get that funny feeling? You know, when you are doing something wrong, but you do it anyway? Inexplicably, I used two of my precious Counterspells on a Feldon’s Cane (would have won anyway) and a Counterspell on my Millstone (like I said, I would have won anyway). Because of that, I had no Counterspell for his eventual Disenchant for my much more relevant Circle of Protection: Red White, and lost the match – and possible berth to the Top 16 elimination rounds – in a game that I genuinely had to try to lose.

On balance, my playtest partner the amazing altran qualified for Nationals!

… But that’s neither here nor there. For the Pro Tour Qualifier, I had to disempower my faithful 64-card U/W deck to the Homedicapped format (five cards each from every available set, including Homelands). Luckily, I had tested for both formats and knew what I was doing. I was ready for good matchups like G/W Armageddon, had a plan for bad matchups like Necropotence, and figured I had all the angles on the U/W mirror… until I actually ran up against Michael.

The irony is, I actually had Michael beat when the mistake happened. U/W Millstone simply had U/W Angel covered from every angle, and Michael couldn’t really win. I was up two games and we were playing the third because back then, you played all three games. I activated my "grinder" (that’s what we called Millstone) and flipped two Serra Angels.

The problem? Michael had three down already.

I knew my options, more-or-less, and had a vague idea that Michael would probably be ejected from the tournament if I called the judge. I remember saying "I couldn’t let that happen." I let Michael put one of his Serras into his binder, and took up the scoring sheet with the win.

Do you know what you would have done in that situation? I certainly felt like the better person… Maybe it’s because I already had the win and I didn’t actually have to give anything up. Maybe I had that warm and fuzzy – and quite selfish – feeling of wholesomeness that motivates all altruists running through my veins. I could have gotten that guy in trouble, but I didn’t!

The Consequences:

Four rounds later, Michael eliminated al from the Swiss, and Top 8 contention.

The Kitchen Sink:

Since my first weekend of DCI Sanctioned play, this match has colored my attitude towards all other players. Put simply, I’ve learned to "call the judge." Some players don’t like this. I don’t mean to be unfriendly or unsporting even when I think there should be a game loss; I therefore can’t take it personally when other people call the judge on me. The problem is that when you are loose with someone who is breaking the rules, 1) you in fact are breaking the rules yourself, and 2) you won’t necessarily like the consequences when they bite your friend in the ass.

Keep in mind that I am not accusing Michael of any intentional wrongdoing with this story, but if I had called the judge like the rules say I should have, it would have not been he, at least, who kept my friend and playtest partner out of the Top 8.

#2) Adam K. Hughes – 11/14/1998

The Top 8:

This story comes from the 1998 Ohio State Championship, my first State Championship and one of Jamie Wakefield favorite tournament reports. It was the weekend of Pro Tour Rome (I suppose Wizards of the Coast decided that there wouldn’t be much crossover between players interested in States and players qualified for the actual Pro Tour), and "tourless" Dave Weitz stayed tourless by not attending Rome despite winning a slot off of Jason Marks (see below) some weeks earlier. Dave ended the Saturday evening Ohio State Champion, which I’m sure is more than enough bragging material for missing a Pro Tour.

My story is from the Top 8. I was playing a U/b Control deck designed by myself and Bill Macey, with Bottle Gnomes (and Corpse Dance combo) for beatdown (read "Sligh") that was nevertheless geared for Academy. I played around with Dave before the tournament and basically won every game, so it seemed like the right choice for the all-Academy metagame. Brilliantly, I had tons of anti-White Weenie and anti-Stompy cards in the sideboard. Of course even with the obviousness of Urza’s Saga, States wasn’t entirely Academy… But it was Academy enough.

I beat four Academy decks and one reanimator combo deck in the Swiss, and split 1-1 with Suicide Black, including a win in the last round to make Top 8. Despite playing against Suicide Black in every Standard tournament I had ever played a Draw-Go variant, I neglected the matchup. Probably some of those Perishes could have been some sort of generic anti-creature cards instead, I don’t know.

In case the foreshadowing of the previous paragraphs didn’t hit you on the head with sufficient force, small child ™ Adam K. Hughes was equipped with The Art of Suicide. Before 29-year-old Michael J. Flores gives his comments on this one, I’ll let 22-year-old Mike Flores, beloved of Wakefield.

…

TOP 8

Adam Hughes, with Suicide Black.

I ask Adam if he is the famous comic artist who perfected the female breast.  It turns out he isn’t.  I guess he would have been about seven when the amazing Giffen/Hughes Justice League run was going on, so that makes sense.

By the way, I hate playing against Suicide Black when playing this deck. The Perishes and Dreads of Night were useless…  they might as well have been two more Edicts, two Capsizes, one Fatty, and a Terror, I think. Against Suicide Black I would just side out one or two Lobotomies for Wastelands, because I would rather not be manascrewed than have Lobotomy in my deck.

Game 1

(this one’s for Wakefield)

Adam has a turn 1 Carnophage, but I hold it off with a Bottle Gnomes. In the meantime, he is able to get a couple of Shadows down.  I have two Bottle Gnomes on the board, but decide I should play my Disk.  My hand is amazing with one Whispers of the Muse, one Capsize, and one Forbid.  Adam has like 1-2 cards and I know he just drew a land off the top of his deck, because he played it.

So he attacks, I block random Knight.  He starts tapping mana and I think he is pumping the Knight but instead he Hatreds me.  I do the math like five times, but even with two Gnomes I die.

;(

Game 2

He starts Scrolling me with "Hatred" when I have two Islands and nothing else in hand.

…

In case you were wondering about that whole "perfected the female breast" thing, I stole the quip from my good friend and master quipster Brian Vaughan; if you want to check out the other Adam Hughes, here’s a site devoted to his particular breastcraft artistic skills: Things That Make You Go AH!

The Lesson:

Adam taught me about pressure. Believe it or not, in 1998, with more than one Blue Envelope under my belt, I had no clue about how pressure and tempo could be directed towards a control deck. With even halfway aggressive decks, my Constructed wins were all about drawing tons of cards or presenting impossible-to-deal-with threats like Knight of Stromgald or River Boa. Duress itself was a new card with Urza’s Saga, so the paradigms we know of and use in Black versus Control today didn’t really exist.

I don’t want to credit Adam over players like Brian Schneider or Worth Wollpert for my deck choices later in the 1998-1999 Extended and Standard seasons, but I did qualify for Pro Tour New York with bschneid.dec and Nationals ’99 with Hatred (the same deck gave me my ninth place finish).

#3) Me versus Jason Marks – 05/15/1999

The Legend:

The first time I met Kai Budde was at Bob Maher’s Chicago. At the time, European players didn’t get nearly the press that they do today, and we all had a general sense that Americans were the Best in the World, which, if true, might not have been by quite the margin we believed. Budde was a Grand Prix and reigning World Champion; great, yes, but not yet the Kai of legend. As the Editor in Chief of The Dojo, I was not intimidated approaching him, and introduced myself.

Without extending his hand back, the dour most-successful-player-of-all-time-to-be cocked his head and cracked a half smile. "Dave tells me a story about a Carnophage…"

That’s how I met Kai. If it doesn’t seem embarrassing to you, this is the tall tale my friend Dave [Price] was telling:

"Mike had a first turn Carnophage, but was so excited by his draw, he didn’t pay the life and missed a second turn Hatred kill."

A good story, a good lie even, can be better, more useful, and more influential than the truth… if it is iconic enough. The play, summarized in Dave’s line to Kai, pretty much summed up the whole "BP" Flores thing, and it makes me laugh all these years removed. The problem is that it’s not entirely true. So iconic is the story, so sharp the memory of my meeting Kai under these circumstances though, that even I forgot that that’s not how it happened.

Did I make a mistake? Yes.

Did I give up the second turn kill? Not exactly.

The Real Story (special thanks to 23-year-old Mike Flores):

…

This game has gotten a lot more press than it should have.  A lot of the time people exaggerate events to make them better stories.  I know I am as guilty of this as anyone.  Let it be known that I did forget to untap a Carnophage, but I did not throw away a turn 2 kill.

I cut Jason’s deck and say "mulligan" playfully.  Worth says that this will be dastardly karma for me, but I laugh it off.

True to Worth’s words, I am the one who ends up having to mulligan. I keep a hand with no first turn clock.

Jason goes first and plays a Vineyard.  I play a Swamp and a Cursed Scroll and have to burn for one.  Note that I have to burn for one – putting me at nineteen.

I get a turn 2 Carnophage, and I do indeed forget to pay one life to untap him on turn 3.  However, I could not actually have won because if I paid the life, because I would have been at eighteen, and hating for eighteen would have killed us both.  It was a mistake, yes, but not a material one. I play a Dauthi Slayer and hate Jason out on turn 4.

Everyone is making fun of me at this point, with good reason, I guess.

…

My mistake was not "material" in the sense that nothing was on the line at this point (both Jason and I had already earned our Blue Envelopes), and I won both the game and the match anyway. I’d like to think the player and writer I am today would own this mistake rather than passing it off and trying to cover it up, but like I said, it has become the stuff of (an admittedly small) legend, and no longer belongs to just me.

The Next Chapter:

Advancing past this round allowed me to perform the greatest Jedi Mind Trick of my career. It was so great that Randy Buehler even wrote an article about it for New Wave Games immediately after Regionals (Randy: do you have a copy of this long lost article anywhere?). My semi-final opponent actually went on to win the 1999 Ohio Valley Regionals, but that game 2 elbow-drop has got to be one of the favorite clips in my highlight reel of matches played.

You’ll notice (again) a bit of a different voice in my writing seven years ago than you might be accustomed to today:

…

B_Sammons starts kicking me to the cack.  He gets out a Stronghold Taskmaster, which kills my Dauthi Horror.  Then he Drains my Dauthi Slayer.  The count is 20-12 in his favor when he casts Necropotence.  I have a 2/1 Skittering Skirge in play, he has the Necropotence and
Taskmaster, but no cards in hand.

B_Sammons: Necro for 4.
Clint_Flicker: 4?  Are you kidding?  You are at 20, and your clock is twice as big as mine.
B_Sammons:  Fine, Necro for 7.
Clint_Flicker: Hate you out.

"These aren’t the droids you’re looking for."
-Obi Wan Kanobi, *Star Wars*

"These aren’t the droids you’re looking for."
-Worth Wollpert, after game two of the semi-finals

…

This sort of sums up both Realizing How Bad You Are and Magic: The Intangibles. Like there is no such thing as a great play. That sequence was about as awesome as awesome could be from a mental game standpoint, but my "play" here wasn’t anything spectacular. Sammons just didn’t do the math and paid for it (literally). Moreover, no matter how great it seemed, I ended up losing, so it didn’t even put the eventual champ on permanent tilt. Great match and great memory, though.

#3) Me versus Donnie Gallitz – 6/10/2000

Probably the Worst Mistake of My Career…

The venue was Orlando, Florida. The tournament was US Nationals 2000. My friend Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz would eventually make the single tightest play I have ever witnessed, against Dave Humpherys in a match that had almost nothing on the line; Jon Finkel would win the National title with the deck that would forever bring a smile to my face; and I would blow the math, the obvious on-table play, and my chances to qualify for Pro Tour Chicago with a lack of finesse equal and opposite to their skill. I didn’t have a good enough Draft record to make Top 8, but I was playing Day Two for love of the game and a projected 6-0 that would qualify me for Pro Tour Chicago on rating. Going into the match against Gallitz, I hadn’t lost even a single game, whereas Pro Tour Champions Maher, McCarrell, OMS, and even Finkel had all dropped Napster matches (Jon’s most inexplicably to Trinity Green).

Donnie was also playing "Napster," but like Bob, Casey, and others, was not a member of our New York playgroup and had a poorly tuned list. His included such useless cards as Masticore and Corrupt, and all the wrong creature-kill cards (Snuff Out instead of Vicious Hunger, etc. etc.) In a deck that could swing matchups by as much as 70% with the change of a single card, each and every inefficient choice would be exposed, particularly in the mirror (for example, the YMG Kastle Black chose the role of "the beatdown,” siding Strongarm Thug against Black decks where we brought in Persecute and Phyrexian Processor).

Donnie had the superior opening, and played a Masticore to my Phyrexian Negator, and had two of the three Yawgmoth’s Wills of the game. I came back with an Eradicate and my other Phyrexian Negator. Donnie topdecked a series of blocking Skirges which put me to four lands, a Negator, and no cards in hand on the second-to-last turn, with Donnie on significantly more lands, a Skittering Horror, and no cards in hand, with five life.

I drew a Skittering Horror.

There are a lot of problems with this draw, but the biggest problem was in my head. The obvious plan was to attack Donnie to two, sacrifice all my lands, and trample over for the kill, assuming he didn’t topdeck a Masticore or Vicious Hunger. When I drew the Skittering Horror, I complicated the plan, played the Horror pre-combat, attacked Donnie to two, but sacrificed three lands and Negator, leaving the Horror and a likely win.

The problem was that Donnie immediately topdecked a Skittering Skirge.

With a massive land advantage, he eventually came back to win game 1.

The Issues:

I already laid out the proper plan. The main problem was that if I played correctly there was no way Donnie could win. Donnie couldn’t draw a Masticore… I had already Eradicated that creature. In seeing his deck I should have known he didn’t play Vicious Hunger. I, in fact, made fun of him for playing the vastly inferior Snuff Out as I leafed through his deck.

On the math, Dave Price told me that I should have kept the Negator no matter what because if I were going to win the game, I would have probably won it the next turn, and even if Donnie had a full load of Masticores and Vicious Hungers, he would have had less than a 50% chance to topdeck one of them. Basically, the play was indefensible.

The End:

Not the end of the article, but this match was the end of my run at Nationals. I beat Donnie handily in game 2, when the match should have ended, but I got a really weak draw in the third, whereas Donnie had a Persecute. To this day I think the game 1 mistake put me on tilt for the rest of the tournament. Instead of cementing my ratings invitation for Pro Tour Chicago, I lost to Replenish (a 75% matchup) after making rather a questionable Vampiric Tutor decision, and went down 0-2 to W/g Rebels (close to a bye) when I drew no Vampiric Tutors in either game. I can’t imagine losing such easy matchups to anything but a complete meltdown on my part, which is obviously what happened.

Side Note #1 on Game Theory:

How good of a game theorist are you? This is a basic question that is taught in game theory classes; it is based on the Monty Hall television program Let’s Make a Deal.

Here are the rules:

You are presented with three doors. Behind one door is a fabulous prize package; the other two doors conceal nothing of value.

You are asked to pick one of the three doors.

After you pick a door, one of the other two doors is opened, revealing a booby prize or the equivalent. You are offered the option of keeping your same door or choosing the remaining door.

Do you switch?

How you reason through, and answer, this question will reveal how good you are at game theory.

End Side Note #1

#4) Me versus Sean McKeown – 07/01/2000

… Until This Mistake, That Is.

As I didn’t get my 6-0 at US Nationals, I was forced to slug it out in the Masques Block Pro Tour Qualifiers. I expected a heavy Rebel field, and therefore elected to play a Rebel-slaying deck. I thought that the banning of Rishadan Port in Masques Block would kill the Rising Waters archetype that won Pro Tour New York 2000, so I played this deck despite its inherent vulnerability to Rising Waters:

When I say "this deck," I don’t mean the above deck precisely. I think this Black deck is pretty close to what I played, but it’s cobbled together after six years via nothing more than the scotch tape between my ears, so don’t go writing nasty forum responses about me if you play Mono-Black in the next Masques Block event and this particular seventy-five doesn’t serve you well enough. The important cards are all there for you, even if the list isn’t 100% accurate.

Sean smashed me the first game of round 1 with his greatly advantaged Rising Waters, but I had a plan. Borrowing a page from the YMG deck, I sided in the Silent Assassin with the goal of first turn Cateran Summons, second turn Silent Assassin, a clock that was faster than counters on the play, and significant enough that I could race the largely inefficient Rising Waters machine going into the late game… Beating that deck was mostly about getting something down and then removing blockers, and a two power creature for two with a reasonable ability seemed like the ideal role player.

I was ecstatic with my first turn Summons draw, and immediately went for the Assassin. My clock plan panned out and I won game 2. Sean got manascrewed in game 3, and I… Well, I really should have won the Pro Tour Qualifier.

The Mistake:

The opposite of the US Nationals mistake less than one month earlier, I focused too much on my plan and didn’t actually make the right play. I didn’t realize I had Swamp, Dark Ritual, Chilling Apparition in my opening hand, which is obviously a much better – not to mention immediately more relevant – start. That I won the match is small consolation considering the fact that I was handed my best draw and just failed to take it.

The Fallout:

Playing for Top 8, I resolved a Cateran Slaver against a U/b Rising Waters deck. I had huge positional advantage, but had used Divining Witch to set that advantage up, and got decked after a series of chump blocks which left my opponent on five life. The problem? He had a Swamp in play, and Cateran Slaver happens to have Swampwalk. I’m not blind… he actually concealed the Swamp among his many Islands… as it hadn’t been used since the early part of the game, I just forgot about it while I tried to figure out how to win before I got decked. The kicker? Josh Ravitz and Jeff Wu – my oldest friend and eventual best man if you don’t know who he is – both knew he was blocking illegally but didn’t know to call the judge (remember that first story?).

I made a total of four Pro Tour Qualifier Top 8s that summer, and travelling up and down the East Coast with Josh and Paul Jordan cemented my friendships with "the apprentices," but the curse of the broken 6-0 stuck with me for a while. The fact that I would have been playing in a six Rebel Top 8 in Week One is not lost on me, especially when the non-Chad Ellis non-Rebel deck was the one I should have replaced.

The ridiculous irony about the summer of 2000 is that this was the point when Theron Martin was about to get banned for ratings manipulation, and Theron claimed he didn’t know his rating was going up. People didn’t believe a player "of his stature" could possibly cry ignorance. After the second week of Pro Tour Qualifiers, I had a 1978 rating. I actually lost about ten points a week (you don’t net many with a Top 8 and miss, or a near-miss X-2). Brian Kibler became the DragonMaster by mising the 50th invitation to Chicago, on I believe a 1956 (any recollection Kibs?). You can probably figure out that I believed Theron could have been ignorant… If I knew I could check my DCI rating every week, I don’t think I would have risked my invitation (an invitation I never got, mind you) week in and week out.

#5) The Dave Price Fan Club – 7/19/2003

And the Oscar Goes To…

I played in a Team Pro Tour Qualifier with Tim McKenna and BDM. We lost 0-3 in the first round despite having respectable decks. We battled back over the next several rounds, and almost saw the light at the end of the backs-to-the-wall tunnel. In the penultimate round, I sat down and saw three people I didn’t recognize. That could mean only one thing: They had ridiculous decks.

The prediction of "ridiculous decks" was accurate, and their Zombie player smashed Brian’s Zombie deck with Rotlung Reanimator (just think about that). Tim won quickly with his powerful Beasts. It was up to me. I had the weakest deck on our team, R/W Weenie, facing a much better White deck. He smashed me game 1 quickly, and opened up game 2 with a Morph. His Morph was obviously Exalted Angel. Tim, disgusted, left the table while BDM slumped, his hopes dashed.

I played an Aven Farseer and passed.

He bashed me.

I drew, played a land, and passed again, with no play.

He bashed. I blocked this time, and threw my Farseer down the table, shaking my head.

"Yeah. I really have to apologize," he said.

"Fat load of good that does for me," I joked.

He tapped for another creature.

I aimed Pinpoint Avalanche at the Angel.

Careful play allowed me to win that game and the third, putting Dave Price Fan Club in the Top 4 from an 0-1 start to the day!

As per Catachresis, the Dave Price Fan Club went home with the Envelopes.

You’ve probably heard that story before, but I just wanted to end on a high note. The lesson of #5 is that even when the opponent has a great draw, unless you’re playing Vintage or something, you can at least sometimes find a plan that will surprise you.

End Pentacle Spectacle Whatnot.

LOVE
MIKE

Bonus Section: The Solution

There is a 50% chance you win if you keep and a 50% chance you win if you switch, so why bother switching? There’s no difference, right?

Wrong!

The math is pretty obvious that you have an initial one-in-three chance of selecting the right door, no matter which one is concealing the prize. Whether you choose correctly or not, at least one of the remaining doors is always wrong, fulfilling the midgame reveal. This means that you do in fact have a 50% chance to hit with that second door.

The problem is that an ostensible 50/50 doesn’t change your initial one-in-three. In a one game trial, you have a one-in-three chance of being right if you keep, but a one-in-two if you switch. Now you won’t always be right switching, but over the long haul, your chances will be essentially doubled if you play the game over and over and you always choose to change.

Switch.

So how good a game theorist are you? [Bloody terrible. – Craig, who still can’t see it]