{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. The author tries to limit the number of non-land rares as a way to limit the cost of the decks. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Dark Confidant, Birds of Paradise, or Wrath of God. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks "set in stone" or "done." If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}

The Regionals Report

I didn’t go to Regionals this year. I intended to play. I wanted to play. I built the deck. I even had it sleeved in the first new sleeves I’ve bought in a year, those new, shiny, black, “official” Magic: The Gathering sleeves with yellow lettering. Sweet, huh? I got ‘em right here from this here site here. Picked up one of those Akroma-from-Pacifism deck boxes, too. Yeah, my deck was pimped out and ready to take on the field.

I wasn’t, though. The more I thought about going to and being at the actual tourney, the less I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to sit in a car for three or four or five hours. I didn’t want to wake up early on a Saturday and eat breakfast at some greasy spoon or the hotel restaurant.

Regarding the tourney itself, I had even less desire to be at that venue. Being a big guy, I’m tired of climbing over other big guys to get to my seat. I’m also tired of other big guys, once I’ve found my seat, climbing over me. (They can’t like me climbing over them, either. Well, maybe one or two of them do, but not many.) Even before that, I’m tired of jostling for position to look at the seating assignments that would tell me to where I’d have to lumber in order to climb over someone to get to my seat. I didn’t want to elbow people while playing, and I didn’t want to be elbowed. I didn’t want to crawl over people who were still playing after I’d already lost. In other words, all those things for which you go to a tournament to experience, I no longer have any desire to experience.

I’m sorry. You what?

You go to these things to play? Well, yeah, but do you enjoy playing in those conditions? Really? Me, I’m over it.

Yes, I like the social aspect of the game… when people will actually be sociable. Other things bother me too much, though. I just couldn’t get myself to plunk down twenty-five bucks (the equivalent of two hundred British pounds or 80,000 French fromages) for this stuff anymore.

I think this downward spiral started for me at last year’s Regionals. The venue in Atlanta was huge. I mean, military-transport-plane-hangar huge. The organizer had planned for something like seven hundred people, and I think we got around four-hundred-fifty. Now, did he reset the tables so that we’d have more elbow and belly room? No, of course not. We still had to squeeze three matches to a table when we could have easily made it two. I kept forlornly looking over at the fifteen or twenty rows of unused tables thinking “Why can’t they spread things out a bit?”

Last Fall’s States tourney was even worse. Apparently, we set an attendance record that wasn’t also accompanied by a square footage record. We were in a room the size of a decent corporate meeting room, but not much more. Trampled feet. Bruises everywhere. The thrill of climbing over and being climbed over. Ah, but enough about my sex life! <rimshot.wav>

Seriously, I’m just getting too old for this sh**, pure and simple. What I want is a nice, clean, local place to go play for a few hours early on a Saturday and then take a short trip home. Hopefully, that will happen by the end of this month.

So, what’s a poor boy to do when he’s all dressed for Regionals with no place to go? He makes it up! What follows is the story of how I would have won Regionals… had I attended.

The Modified Deck

Just in case you wanted to know what I played, here’s the slightly edited version:

Snow Black, Final Regionals 2007 Version

14 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Godless Shrine
4 Mouth of Ronom
2 Scrying Sheets

4 Plagued Rusalka
4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Chilling Shade
3 Stinkweed Imp
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
2 Twisted Abomination

4 Cruel Edict
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Mortify
4 Sudden Death

Sideboard
3 Ronom Unicorn
4 Stupor
4 Blackmail
4 Leyline of the Void

The Scrying Sheets were added after a forum and e-mail outcry that had me retesting with a couple of those added to the deck. They were as useful as I remember them being. I had taken them out before, though, because I worried about needed Black mana. It didn’t affect my ability to cast spells as much as I thought it would, though. Even with the Mouth of Ronom and the two Scrying Sheets, three-quarters of the lands still made Black mana. Turns out that was good enough.

Castigate, however, wasn’t added. The forum hounds and my friends all thought it should be in there. I couldn’t get the colors to work, though, without diluting the number of Swamps, and that hurts Korlash. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, was not the answer, either, since that doesn’t make Snow mana. Besides, I was more impressed with a great, big Korlash than Castigate.

Not that Castigate is bad. It’s just that Blackmail and Stupor from the board were better. I wasn’t going to add Castigate to the maindeck because I liked what I had in the two-mana slots already.

A Deck’s Identity

This brings me to a mini-digression on making suggestions for changing someone’s deck. Personally, I like suggestions. Regardless of what my brother and wife think, I do not have an encyclopedic memory of Magic cards. Thank goodness for Gatherer. However, when making suggestions, you really should keep two things in mind. First, you really need to know not just what you think should go into a deck but what needs to come out of it when the cards you suggest go in. Seems pretty basic, right? And, yet, I rarely get that help. Is Castigate a good card? Uh, yeah. Phyrexian Totem? Fer sure. Tendrils of Corruption? Absotively.

So, if I added any of those, what would I take out? And, having tested your suggestion, are you still sure that it’s a good idea?

You see, I actually test a lot (most?) of the valid ideas that I get. If they don’t work for me, they don’t work. Doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. Just means that I couldn’t get it to work.

Sometimes, that’s because of the deck’s identity. That’s the second thing you need to keep in mind when making suggestions. For example, a couple of folks in the forum (and one in an e-mail) suggested adding Castigate, Culling Sun, and Augur of Skulls. Those cards would completely change the identity of the deck.

That’s not to say that the deck they create wouldn’t be a great deck. In fact, I worked up one with those cards, kind of a Korlash Kontrol deck. Yeah. It’s good. It’s just not this deck. This deck is a Black Aggro deck. I think some people look at the creature kill spells and presume that those make it a Control deck. They don’t. Sudden Death & Co. aren’t there as true Control spells, not in the sense of Wrath of Good or Glare of Subdual. The creature kill is in here to facilitate the beats. Birds of Paradise the only thing between your 8/8 Korlash and your opponent’s life total of eight? Cruel Edict to the rescue! Is a potentially huge Chilling Shade worried about heading into the Red Zone because of a Thornweald Archer or a Stinkweed Imp? I say, Mortify the bad guy!

So, when you make suggestions for someone’s deck, make sure to consider those two things, what cards to take out for what you’re suggesting goes in and what the designer has in mind for the deck’s identity.

Now, on with the “tournament” report!

Fantasy Island Regionals

Round 1

Once we finally got to sit down and play, it was already 10:30 AM. With six rounds, it was going to be a long day, if I stayed to play the whole thing. I was resigned to 0-3-drop-draft, so I was pretty relaxed. My opponent was a pleasant young man named Robert. Not Rob. Not Robby. He made sure that I got that part right. Yeah, I remember that time of my life. “My name’s Chris, not Dorkwad!”

Robert won the roll and powered out a first-turn Birds of Paradise, taking two points from his Temple Garden. I started playing as if I was going to see Glare of Subdual, which I soon did. Mortify to the rescue. He gained some life with a couple of Hierarchs, but it wasn’t enough to stave off the absolutely humongous Chilling Shade that showed up. The race was on until Stinkweed Imp showed up. Hierarch stayed put, and Chilling Shade ended the game two turns later.

From the sideboard I brought in the three Ronom Unicorns for three of the Cruel Edicts. This was partly to control the Glare, allowing Mortify room to get the critters, and partly because Cruel Edict isn’t all that great if/when he gets Vitu-Ghazi, the Annoying-Token-Generating Tree, out and active. I had missed that lovely little land in game 1, but I was positive he had it.

Sure enough, it was his second land. Sadly for him (not for me), after hitting his land drops for four turns, he got stuck on four lands. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem for Glare. You just make a token, tap something down, and win. The thing was none of his Glares lived long enough to really change the game. He dropped the first and had it promptly Mortified. The second lived a tad longer, dying to a suicidal unicorn from Ronom. The third stuck around even longer, but, when the two creatures on the other side of the board have Protection from White, well, what good is it? The answer, of course, is that it can tap down Korlash and Twisted Abomination. That was why I was happy to see the second Unicorn. After that, the Jump Knights jumped, the Pump Shade pumped, and I was a winner. (1-0, 2-0)

After the match, we had a few minutes, and I asked Robert about Dragonstorm. He said that he had a very good match against them because of the lifegain from the Hierarchs and the ability to tap the Dragons down. After ‘boarding, he said it was even better when he brought in Luminesce to more than nullify Hellkite tricks while Worship joined Paladin en-Vec for what was essentially a lock against the deck. I asked what he did when they played Ghostfire on the Paladin. He kinda looked at me with that look that you often see in teenage boys when they finally figure out that, if babies are made “that way,” Mom and Dad must have “done it” at least once if not more.

He said that his worst matchup was anything running Persecute. He said that he played his hand out so quickly in game 2 because he presumed I had it. Good presumption. Not true, but good presumption. In fact, that presumption helped me more than once that day.

Round 2

The next round, I sat across from a White Freakin’ Weenie. Not the deck. My opponent. Seriously. He was a ten-year-old kid, standing three-feet-nine “and a quarter!” inches. (I asked; he was quite proud of his recently acquired quarter of an inch.) Appropriately, he was also running a White Weenie deck. At this point, you’re probably thinking “ten-year-old kid? Bye for Romeo.” Don’t ever do that. You never know how good the person sitting across from you really is. In fact, I remember that we used to have a tourney regular around here that I’ll call Cletus. Cletus both looked and smelled like an 1890’s prospector. If you’ve seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre – and if you haven’t, put it in your Netflix queue right now! – you can just picture Walter Huston wearing a mesh trucker’s cap and playing Magic. Anyway, Cletus used his appearance like a Jedi Mind Trick against people who didn’t know him. By the time that they’d figured out that he could play, the match was over. So, there was no way that I was taking this pint-sized mage in any way but serious. Besides, he was 1-0 just like me.

I started with Plagued Rusalka, and he seemed none too happy. I understood when he led off with a Savannah Lions. On my second turn, I dropped in a Godless Shrine tapped and passed the turn. This was when he made his first mistake. He played a creature, Sidewinder Sliver, before combat. I don’t know if he thought the Sliver would help the Lions or if it was just a bad play, but he swung with the Lions. The Rusalka blocked the Lions and, with damage on the stack, killed the Sliver. On my turn, I dropped Phyrexian Arena. The extra cards and the Stromgald Crusader with that neat “Protection from White Weenie decks. You lose” ability won the game.

I was sure that he would bring in Worship and, if it wasn’t in the main deck, Paladin en-Vec. He hadn’t seen Mortify or Cruel Edict from me yet. S, I don’t think he knew what I could do to that combo. I brought in the Unicorns for the Phyrexian Arenas. While the life loss hadn’t hurt me in game 1, a speedier start on his part could have been quite bad for me Besides, the 2/2 body on the Unicorn also served a fine purpose against those weenies.

Sure enough, he seemed to have switched gears in game 2. He dropped nothing that could be killed by a Rusalka’s ability alone. Meanwhile, I kept making my dudes and Sudden Death-ing his Serra Avengers. Then, he dropped Worship. He actually went “whew!” like on a Saturday morning cartoon, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and everything. Next turn, he dropped a Paladin, and I could see how happy he was. I kept swinging away with my Crusader, and he kept taking it. Finally, with him at only two life, I swung with the Crusader. He, of course, couldn’t block or otherwise stop it. With damage on the stack, I Mortified the Worship. Game and match to me. (2-0, 4-0)

I don’t know why this matchup had worried me so much. I guess I had seen what Worship plus Paladin did to Dragonstorm during our testing, and I figured “Paladin en-Vec has protection from my deck, too!” Of course, I had something that Dragonstorm decks don’t often have: ways to deal with both the Worship and the Paladin.

Round 3

Finally! Dragonstorm! Yes, I was actually excited about this. I kept dreading it and dreading it. I needed to get it behind me. The good news in game 1 was that I hammered his life pretty efficiently. The bad news was that he finally went off and dropped me from twenty to zero in one turn.

As we were sideboarding, he seemed pretty confident. He wasn’t arrogant or cocky. He just let me know that he knew what he was doing. “You’re probably bringing in Persecute. I hope I can go off before you hit my hand.” I knew what he meant. He was playing for a four-mana sorcery. Before that, he wasn’t going to care.

Good thing I don’t use the four mana sorcery. In came what I call The Package. The Stupors, Blackmails, and Leyline of the Voids. Four of each. Twelve cards. The ones to drop were easy. Sudden Death did nothing against Dragonstorm unless I got two off at once. Yeah, right. The Crusader and the Rusalka also came out because, well, are they really going to do anything?

Going first, I put a Leyline into play before my turn started and then hit him with Blackmail. I know he wasn’t expecting that. He revealed Dragonstorm, Dragonstorm, and Tarox. Uh-oh. I took the Dragonstorm. No the other copy. Yeah, that one. On his turn, he dropped a Steam Vents untapped, cast Sleight of Hand, and passed the turn. I played a land and passed, too. He drew, dropped a land, and passed, at which point I cycled Twisty. When I cast Stupor, he Remanded it. On his turn, he Suspended two Lotus Blooms. Back to me, I played my land and cast Stupor. I don’t know if he forgot about it or didn’t know about the randomness or what. In any event, it hit. I got a Dragonstorm at random and a Pact of Negation.

At this point, I knew that he was halfway through his D-Storms. That meant that he would either have to dig deep or swing. That was when Tarox hit. Right. Almost forgot about him. With him went a chunk of my life. On my turn, I cast Cruel Edict and Phyrexian Arena. After that, it was pretty much academic. I drew more cards that he did, hit his hand some more, and he was pretty much in topdeck mode. Korlash showed up. Then Stinky followed by Chilling Shade. When he finally got a Hellkite, he tried in vain to kill Chilling Shade. I just pumped it up.

In the final game, I also got a Leyline into play before we started. Clearly, this hurt his plan, as evidenced by the face he made. Kinda a cross between “ew, this lemonade is sour” and “ew, the dog threw up in my dinner.” Turns out he had multiple Rite of Flames in hand. In other words, no turn 2 wins. He played Sleight of Hand, and I followed with Blackmail. Again with the double D-Storm and a Dragon. He fought valiantly through the discard, using Gigadrowse and Telling Time early and often, but to no avail. He got into topdeck mode again, and Korlash, Twisty, and Chilly Willy went all the way. (3-0, 6-1)

After the match, as we were de-sideboarding, he said that he was surprised that I went with so much small discard instead of Persecute. “I get what you were doing, though. We always play to face Persecute. Stupor ended up being better. Leyline, too. I really didn’t think that would hurt me.”

Round 4

Ew. Gruul. Nasty. Just like the warm, mushy, breakfast “food” that it’s named after.

{At this point in writing his report, Chris came down with a vertigo-like affliction that strikes him every couple of years. Due to the fact that he can’t read or write for more than a couple of minutes at a time when he has this, the rest of the report had to be truncated. He beat the Gruul deck 2-0 on the back of Korlash, Stinkweed Imp, and card drawing in game 1 and massive discard in game 2. Round 5 was against a previously undefeated Barren Glory deck. Yes, really. Mortify was the hero in game 1, while Ronom Unicorn helped in game 2. In an effort to go 6-0, Chris refused to intentionally draw with an Izzetron deck in round 7. He lost 1-2. Chris then swept the Top 8 without, thankfully, having to face the Izzetron deck, which lost to a Dralnu deck in the quarterfinals. For his efforts, Chris will be playing at Freedonian Nationals on the 19th of Tributary.}

Do I wish I could have played at the Charlotte Regionals with Evan, Joe, and Co.? Sure, I do. This, however, was good enough for me. For now…

Next week, I’ll be looking at a Time Spiral Block Constructed deck that actually uses Future Sight. *gasp* *swoon*

As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Thanks for understanding about my vertigo thing. You have to trust me when I say that I haven’t had a more annoying disease in my life. Sure, I got to stay home from work. But I couldn’t read for more than a minute or two at a time. I couldn’t watch movies or TV shows unless they were filled with talking heads. And how much Headline News can you watch? Besides, that scrolling thing at the bottom is just as bad. Plus, obviously, I couldn’t drive anywhere. Yup. I’d rather have the flu. At least then I could have watched some movies or something.

Chris Romeo
FromRightField-at-Comcast-dot-net