I’ve had an urge to write about Magic for some time now, but could never bring myself to do it. The last two years of Magic have been pretty bad for me and that didn’t help. Last year was even more so — as to top it all, I fell off the gravy train, not even reaching Level 3.
I’ve asked myself why numerous times. I’m not sure I have the answer. There were definitely multiple factors at work ; surely I could have prepared better for all these events. Maybe it wasn’t a good time to be a blue mage, and my stubbornness to move away from my favorite color didn’t help. I was also not blessed with Zendikar Limited, as I like to play slow decks in Limited.
Anyway, that meant I was back to the PTQs.
But I wasn’t
that
disheartened to play PTQs again. Four Pro Tours a year is not a lot, and PTQs meant I could play competitive Magic more often. I also missed the road trips with the local players.
Thankfully, I won the first Sealed PTQ I played in for San Diego. This was quite good for morale, I’m telling you. Just a few weeks later, I Top 16’d an Extended Grand Prix with an Esper Teachings list I was quite happy with. Both San Diego and San Juan were disappointments, though, thanks to my Drafting skills — and so it was time to PTQ once again (this time for Amsterdam).
I made attempts both online and in real life — six total, I think — but no luck. I always came up short, losing twice in the Top 8 on Magic Online. That meant my last chance was to Top 8 Nationals to reach level 3 and use the invite for Amsterdam, which would in turn qualify me for Worlds. Well, the plan unfolded almost perfectly (except for the part where I won the Pro Tour, but that’s okay) and here I am delivering this report.
I knew from the start I would be playing Mystical Teachings in Amsterdam. Pacewise, the new Extended looked more like Standard than the old Extended, and I was pretty sure Mystical Teachings was not too slow for it. There were only two things that could have made me change that decision: if we wound up finding a broken combo deck, or if a control deck with a Jace engine was somehow better. As you can guess, neither happened.
I did my playtesting mostly with local player Martial Moreau, who won a PTQ, and kept contact by phone with Guillaume Matignon.
Until the very end, I was pretty sure Faeries would be a good portion of the metagame. It was so dominating a deck during its prime that it couldn’t be otherwise, right? It was clear the metagame would be varied, but I still thought Faeries would be one of
the
most played archetypes (at least 10-15% of the field), if not the number one deck.
Naturally, I spent a good portion of my testing trying to beat it. Since Faeries is also a natural predator of control decks, the Faeries matchup was the one that required the most work. I mean, if your control deck isn’t built with Faeries in mind, then you just get rolled.
So Teachings meant blue and black — and with Faeries in mind, red looked like a necessity for Volcanic Fallout. I liked red anyway because it also had the strongest finisher of all: Cruel Ultimatum. And if I wanted to, it had Punishing Fire, too. That put me on Grixis.
I liked Grixis. The only thing lacking was instant-speed card drawing. It also happened to lack one of my favorite cards — Esper Charm. I didn’t mind playing a few more comes-into-play-tapped lands if it meant I had Esper Charm. The trouble was, Grove of the Burnwillows wasn’t designed to interact well with Esper Charm.
Well, that and there was also interference between the Charms and the storage lands. I think it’s okay, playing three lands that can’t cast Charms out of a twenty-seven-land mana base. Still, it meant I had to choose two out of three: Esper Charm, Punishing Fire, Dreadship Reef.
It was around that time in my testing that a very interesting Daily Event happened on Magic Online: undefeated at the top of the standings was a Pyromancer Ascension deck. I immediately called Guillaume, who is very fond of the archetype — and he was already on it. In fact, he told me Ascension crushed Faeries. I was intrigued, because Faeries was supposed to be
good
against combo.
I got to testing to see what it was all about, and confirmed what Guillaume told me: Pyromancer Ascension destroys Faeries like it’s not even funny. Out of a series of ten unsideboarded games, Faeries won around two.
There are two major reasons for that: first, Pyromancer Ascension is much scarier than Bitterblossom. A resolved Ascension is almost always game, because Faeries can’t deal with it (Cryptic Command is
not
a good answer here). Secondly, Pyromancer is the deck that abuses Punishing Fire the best. Because of all the library manipulation, you assemble Grove/Fire easily, all the while laying lands. Backed with a little permission, it’s usually more than enough to win.
At that point, I considered briefly testing Ascension more, because that might be the broken deck we were looking for. It also played a lot like a control deck — like good old counterburn.
But it quickly became apparent rex51515 had done all the major upgrades. Furthermore, with the Pro Tour on the horizon, there was no doubt in my mind all the Daily Events were scrupulously examined by everyone. Pyromancer would
not
be under the radar. In fact, now it might be the most played combo deck.
I then pitted my Grixis and 4-Color control builds against Ascension. Grixis suffered the same fate as Faeries, due to its lack of enchantment removal, whereas 4-Color was doing okay.
Around that time, I got to chatting with Gabriel Nassif, who told me he was testing Grixis with a maindecked play set of Relic of Progenitus. It was really good in this format, he said — it shrinks Tarmogoyf, prevents Kitchen Finks from coming back, helps deal with both Punishing Fire and Mystical Teachings, and it’s absurd against Living End. I was sold, so I tried it.
Sadly, though it slowed the Ascension player, it was not as strong as I expected. The Relic just wasn’t enough to prevent an Ascension from being charged eventually. If they had the Ascension on the play, you still basically died on turn 2.
Great.
Another
Bitterblossom-like card to be worried about. Except Esper Charm could really deal with this one, not just on turn 3 on the play. That was a strong argument in favor of Esper Charm.
I’m also the biggest fan of storage lands. Dreadship Reef can win combo and control matchups single-handedly. You don’t even have to do anything; you just sit there storing up mana, and it just wins. This got me to thinking : “What card do I most want to see in my opening hand against a Faerie deck?” Is it Punishing Fire? Nope. Mana Leak? Nope. Dreadship Reef? Absolutely.
What about against combo? Dreadship Reef again. Against control? Dreadship Reef. Those lands are so good. Scratch that… they’re insane.
On the other hand, I was not that impressed by Punishing Fire. Sure it made card advantage — but it also made you overload on answers. The way I see it, Punishing Fire is a narrow answer. Once you’ve put three Punishing Fires in your deck, you’ve used up three slots for spot removal — but you still don’t have anything that can deal with an early Tarmogoyf or Doran. Consequently, you end up needing to put in too much removal to cover everything, and don’t have enough room to accommodate your other needs. I think you even need to add Volcanic Fallouts if you want to be able to beat a turn 2 Bitterblossom, making your deck even more about Shocks… And that can lead to awkward situations when you’re not facing an army of Grizzly Bears.
Gabriel showed me his Grixis list, which kind of solved this problem by playing four copies of Careful Consideration. Careful could cycle through the useless stuff, had great synergy with Punishing Fire, and was ideally suited to dig for the Grove… but in the end, I still didn’t like the approach. Rather than trying to compensate with other cards, I’d rather play a minimum amount of dead weight.
All that led me to think that I needed to discard Punishing Fire as an engine. I got to talking about it with Olivier, who was also playing 5-Color, but he was totally against the idea of not playing Fire. Gabriel didn’t like the idea, either… Yet it still seemed right to me. In fact, I couldn’t find
anyone
who agreed with me — except for Guillaume, but he was the only one who hadn’t played a single game with the deck!
So that’s where I was on Wednesday, two days before the Pro Tour. I had a lot of doubts on my mind. I was thinking the format was so open that maybe 5-Color was a terrible choice. Olivier was playing it, though, as was Manu Bucher. Gab switched and was playing White Weenie. I decided that I’d just wait to talk to everyone, get the feel of the room at registration and then I’d build my final decklist.
As far as drafting was concerned, I was pretty confident. I’ve done quite a few on Magic Online, and ended up winning a lot near the end. And so I flew to Amsterdam, joined by Martial Moreau and Simon Rabiller — two local players with whom I tested for the event. Martial was playing 5-Color, too, while Simon was piloting Guillaume’s Pyromancer list.
The flight was quick, and a couple hours later, we arrived at our hostel – Stayokay. We were sharing a dormitory with three other people. Not surprisingly, they were all Magic players. In fact, the hostel was infested with Magic players. There were drafts going on in the common room, and the atmosphere was nice. We put in some useless testing where I learned nothing new, and I ended up discussing decks with Sam Black. He was torn, too, and he didn’t even know what he was going to play. He told me he liked Faeries with Shadowmage Infiltrator, though — which I was hoping no one would play, since it’s unreal good against my deck.
Thursday morning we slept in, and at around 3 p.m. we went down to the site. I caught up with everyone and I ended up drafting with Guillaume and Yann against the Belgians. We got beat, but Yann 0-3’d, so I stayed pretty confident about the Draft part.
Catching up with Oli, he told me he’d dropped the Teachings. From all the chatting, I learned that apparently a lot of the Japanese (and some of the Germans) were playing Ascension, and it seemed a lot of Americans were running Doran. The dealers were sold out of Treefolk Harbinger, which were selling for $4 apiece at the end.
The bad news was that there was no food, because the player’s party was going to be held on Saturday instead of Thursday. Seems they wanted a real party with a DJ, music, and everything — and they thought it was better to do it on Saturday when the tournament’s finished. I was talking with Brad at this point, and he joked about how a party with Magic players only and no girls was gonna be
real
fun.
Since there was no food, and I still had a deck to build, we made a quick exit back to the hotel, where Martial and I rebuilt the deck. We settled on this list:
Creatures (7)
Lands (27)
Spells (26)
With all the Pyromancers, Esper Charm looked sweeter than ever. Punishing Fire got the boot — and because of all the Pyromancers and the Dorans, I decided to maindeck a Celestial Purge. Doom Blade got turned into Smother for Doran; Pact of Negation and Negate were there for Scapeshift mainly, but they were good against any combo.
The Duresses I wanted in my sideboard were swapped for Thoughtseizes, thanks to Patrick, with whom I traded decks earlier at the site. He had Thoughtseize in his Grixis sideboard, and told me it was better than Duress against all the decks you want Duress against, because the loss of life doesn’t matter that much and those decks usually have creatures you want to hit (Teferi, Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique). Makes sense.
I also saw that Pat was playing Jace. That made me wonder if I had misjudged the card in this format, but I wasn’t comfortable including any at the last minute. During my testing they had been surprisingly good against Faeries, but not so much against anything else.
It was already past midnight when we finished. We went to bed.
Morning came too early, as is usual on a tournament day — and before I knew it, the players’ meeting was called and I was off to play my first round.
I have a terrible recollection of games in general, but I’ll do my best.
Round 1: Hugh Rayner, Prismatic Scapeshift
I remember that he resolved an early Prismatic Omen — and after that, we just laid lands ’til turn 6 or so. I resolved a Teachings at the end of his turn, grabbing Esper Charm because I already had Extirpate in hand. I destroyed the Omen at the end of his next turn — which he tried to counter with a big Broken Ambitions. I Mana Leak, then Extirpate his Omen on his next upkeep. He scoops.
Game 2 was even quicker. He led with Valakut and Mystic Gate — not exactly the best combination. He missed his third land drop, then drew Forest on turn 4 and tried for Prismatic Omen. I had the Leak and Extirpate again, which forced a concession.
I was pretty surprised that he didn’t have anything else to kill me with after sideboarding… but I was strangely okay with it.
Round 2: Andres Suarez, Doran
I don’t remember much from the first two games — but I remember the last one pretty vividly because I really needed to get there, and I did.
I mulliganed into a hand of Cruel Ultimatum, Mana Leak, and four lands. On turn 1, he Harbingered for Harbinger. I drew a land. Turn 2, he Thoughtseized me, taking Leak, and played another Harbinger. He thought a long time, and finally says, “Let’s play it safe” and grabs Doran — which I assume meant he had another. That’s when I drew Mana Leak for the first Doran, followed by Smother for the second… And he had no play on turn 5! A few turns later, I took the match.
Round 3: Christopher Wolf, 5-Color
He started with a turn 2 Wall of Roots, which I Smothered during my turn. I then played a wall of my own, which I Path while he Punishing Fires me. At the end of my fourth turn, he went for another Punishing Fire and then attempted to bring them both back. In response, I Teachinged for Extirpate. He thought, and then conceded before I had a chance to look at his deck.
Game 2 was an awesome victory courtesy of Dreadship Reef. We laid lands, playing nothing for eleven turns. I had a first Dreadship Reef on turn 2 and another on turn 6. At the end of his twelfth turn, with no more lands in hand, I cast Esper Charm, preparing for the fight to come — and on my turn, I floated ten mana to cast Thoughtseize, which resolved after a small exchange to reveal a hand containing a couple of Leaks, an Extirpate, and a Teachings. I then resolved Titan with a lot of backup, and he scooped a turn later.
Round 4: David Sharfman, Doran
I can’t remember anything from this round. I just recall the feeling of Consume the Meek being lifesaving (and usually key) every time I faced Doran.
Round 5: Jeppe Kjeldsen, Seismic Swans
Yeah, seriously.
Seismic Swans
.
I’m not saying it’s a bad deck — it’s just that out of all the combo I was expecting to face that weekend, this was not one of them.
Game 1 went rather quickly. He just comboed me out on turn 5, and my hand had nothing to stop him.
Game 2 was quick, too. I Leak, then Extirpate his first Assault. Looking at the rest of his deck, I saw that all he had left to kill me were four Elves, four Swans, and four Ravines. He did not get there.
Game 3 was more intense. All was going well, when I made a terrible mistake.
My opening hand was two Leaks, a Charm, a Wall, a Purge, and two lands. I played a Wall on turn 2; he cast Assault on his turn 3. I played a Vivid on turn 3 and passed… Which is when he cast Bloodbraid Elf on turn 4, which cascaded into Vexing Shusher. That’s annoying, because I hadn’t seen any in game 2 — but that’s covered with the Purge, so I countered the Elf.
On the next turn he played Swans, with a mana up; I Purged the Shusher and then Leaked the swans. I then untapped, passed, and proceeded to Clique him on his draw step…
… And he responded with Ad Nauseam, with the Assault still in play.
Now, I can only pray. It kind of works, as he goes on to flip as many spells as lands. It got to the point where he was at three, with three more lands needed to kill me, and going on risks killing him.
At this moment, I also realized that I’ve drawn my lone Creeping Tar Pit, so I’ll just win if I draw any answer to Assault. He decides to stop drawing of the Nauseam, pitching a land to kill my Clique.
At this point my hand was more Leaks and Negates, which I use to deal with the spells he’s drawn — but I have nothing to deal with the Assault or his Ravine.
He just went in the next two turns with his Ravine, which I chumped once with my Wall while I drew more lands. It ended up with me at fifteen and him at three, with seven cards in hand. It was my last chance to draw something — and I did! Cryptic Command bounces Assault, to which he responds by dropping me to one — and then he died to the manland. Good job, Creeping Tar Pit.
The night before, I wasn’t sure whether an eleventh Vivid wasn’t better; I really didn’t see what one meek Tar Pit could accomplish. Now I do.
…And it was time to draft. My plan was pretty simple: Red was to be avoided at almost all costs (though of course I’d pick an Inferno Titan or splash a Fireball). I liked both blue and black a lot. I don’t mind green, but I’m not really a big fan of white.
I first-pick Doom Blade over Blinding Mage, and solidified into black. I then had a choice between blue and green — so it’s no surprise that I ended up U/B. If you want to see the whole thing,
the draft is here
.
I think I made a pretty terrible pick of Quag Sickness over a Foresee in the last pack — but I was worried about not having enough removal. Other than that, there were a few debatable picks — but like I said, I wanted to be U/B.
My deck ended up okay, although I overestimated Captivating Vampire. I don’t know why I thought it would somehow matter that they pumped my three Child of Nights. But Captivating Vampire is just a disguised bear, after all. I should have known better. More importantly, I had a Stormtide Leviathan to help the rest of my deck.
Round 6: Kai Budde, U/W
It felt strange playing against Kai. When I started playing competitively and reading about the Pro Tour, Kai was the master of the game. He was like a superhero, you know? You’re not supposed to face the superheroes from your childhood. Anyway it didn’t matter much, as Kai wasn’t very lucky and had mana issues both games, not even drawing a single Plains in game 2.
Round 7 : Brad Nelson, G/R
I started pressuring him in Game 1 with a Child of Night equipped with a Whispersilk Cloak. Meanwhile, we traded our other guys and I managed to bring him down to eight with my Child and a Liliana’s Specter. I thought I had him when he Pyroclasmed my board the next turn, and I ran out of gas. A couple of green monsters later, and I’m dead.
Game 2 saw us just trading cards. His green monsters started outclassing mine, but I was just buying time. I had Leviathan waiting in my hand, and I was curious to see how his R/G deck was gonna deal with that one. As it turns out, it didn’t.
Game 3 is a lot like game 2, except I didn’t have the Leviathan to fall back on. I wound up being overwhelmed by his green army.
Round 8: Sami Häggkvist, B/G
I don’t remember exactly what happened during those games, but I remember the feeling of being outclassed by his cards. He just had a better draft than I did, with many solid cards — a lot of black removal and good green monsters. He had Acidic Slime to answer my Mind Control, and his deck had Garruk Wildspeaker as well.
I can’t recall how I won my first game, but I remember Leviathan stealing the third to power through a board of Garruk and green monsters.
So I was 7-1 at the end of day 1. This was a pretty good start for me, but I knew Top 8 was still far away.
Martial ended up 3-1-1 after the Constructed portion, and didn’t pull the two necessary wins in the Draft. Simon didn’t make day two, either.
We headed back to the hotel immediately after the end of the rounds. I can’t even remember where we ate that evening. I got to bed early, slept well, and was ready to draft again… But not everyone was, as table 1 was missing not one but
two
players at 9 o’clock. Scott Larabee decided to wait for five minutes, and they showed up just in time not to get three losses.
The second draft was also covered
. It went really well for me, as I opened Mind Control in packs 1 and 3. I ended up playing almost mono-blue, with a red splash for a Fireball I opened in pack 2, a Pyroclasm, and a Destructive Force.
Round 9: Ludvig J Londos, W/R
Game 1, I got greedy and declined to Pyroclasm his team of Wild Griffin and Manic Vandal, still feeling comfortable at fourteen. I played a guy instead, after which he decided to play Shiv’s Embrace on his Vandal and knocked me down to seven. I had the Mind Control for his Vandal, but had to take another hit from the Griffin, and he eventually finished me off despite my second Mind Control.
I was mentally slapping myself after that game. I still had a lot of stuff in hand, and I clearly got punished for not playing it safe.
Game 2, I just played both Mind Controls and it was just too much for him. Game 3 was more of the same.
Round 10: Conley Woods, R/G splashing blue
Both games were really one-sided. Conley ended up flooding both times, playing multiple Cultivates and not doing much with his mana; I just ran him over, helped by my three Flashfreezes in the sideboard.
Round 11: Reto Sormani, W/B
I had a great start in game 1, as I managed to wipe his board of Wild Griffin and Liliana’s Specter, which allowed my Scroll Thief to connect. My Scroll Thief got Pacified, and I was sitting comfortably with both Mind Controls in hand, with a Cloud Elemental for beatdown.
That’s when he dropped Sword of Vengeance. The turn after that, he played a Wild Griffin, which he equips.
I realize that two Mind Controls are a nice plan to fight the sword — or to fight anything, for that matter — but it’s especially sweet here, given the creature gets both Haste and Vigilance. I stole his Griffin and attacked him back. On his next turn, he played a Golem, which he equipped… And again, I stole it and attacked back. He untapped, drew, and scooped, dead to my flyers.
I was happy to start the game the same way in game 2: Pyroclasm two of your guys, connect with Scroll Thief (which get Assassinated this time). He was missing land drops, which eventually led to a board where I could play Destructive Force, killing all his guys and lands while I still had an Earth Servant. He scooped.
That put me at 10-1. It was a nice record, but I’d been there before and missed the top 8. Time to focus on Constructed again now.
Round 12: Marcio Carvalho, R/G Scapeshift
I’m happy when I realized what he was playing; it’s my best matchup. The multiple angles of attack of his deck, which is supposed to be a strength, is
actually a weakness when playing against 5-Color (or any control deck, I would guess), as each plan usually ends up falling short. Teachings is just
so
perfect in this matchup, getting you just what you need to adapt to what he’s doing.
I just did my thing: kill his guys, Extirpate the Punishing Fires (turns out he was running maindecked Maelstrom Pulses, giving him more dead cards in game 1), and I wound up winning easily.
Game 2 saw him casting Akroma, Angel of Fury — but it was too late, as I had already cast a Cruel Ultimatum and a Baneslayer Angel, which he can’t race.
Round 13: Paul Rietzl, White Weenie
I hadn’t played a single game against White Weenie in playtesting, so I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, I knew the cards he was running, and mostly to beware Brave the Elements, and maybe play around Mana Tithe — but I didn’t know if the matchup was good or not.
Well, let me tell you: this deck is scary, and it is probably the best deck to come out of the Pro Tour. That the deck plays not one, but
two
one-drops that are arguably better than Figure of Destiny practically screams violence — and Brave the Elements is the icing on the cake. Brave just makes some draws unstoppable.
I’m not surprised it won the tournament, though it would have looked much cooler in the hands of Kai (though I have nothing against Paul).
I don’t remember the games exactly, but I know I didn’t put up much of a fight and got dispatched pretty quickly. I was basically dead by turn 6 in both games.
Round 14: Luis Scott-Vargas, Doran
At this point, I just needed one more win to (hopefully) draw into the top 8. I was content with my pairings, since I knew Luis was playing Doran, and I’d already beaten it twice earlier in the tournament.
Doran is very dangerous, though, as things can go down the drain really fast with a little hand disruption followed by critters.
Game 1, I had to mulligan and keep a mediocre 6: Creeping Tar Pit, Dreadship Reef, Mana Leak, Volcanic Fallout, Esper Charm, and Cryptic command. I got stuck on two lands briefly, but drawing another Mana Leak helped me to keep the board clear except for an attacking Loam Lion bashing and a Treefolk Harbinger. (Luis’s mediocre draw helped, too.)
Then I drew my third land, a Mystic Gate, while Luis spent his turn Duressing me — revealing my hand of Cryptic Command, Esper Charm, Mystical Teachings, Volcanic Fallout, and Teferi. He took the Charm — the only spell I could play for sure on my next turn.
Fortunately, I drew another land, which allowed me to Cryptic his next play, then drew into another land, which led to Teachings for Consume the Meek to clear the board. I win a few turns after that.
Game 2 was much more relaxed, as I had the answer to everything he did. It wasn’t long before Grave Titan joined Baneslayer for a party.
Round 15: Marijn Lybaert, Merfolk
I was paired down this round — which sucked, because I couldn’t draw in.
I knew that Marijn was playing Merfolk, which I figured was probably not in my favor… but it wasn’t a terrible matchup, either.
Game 1 was quick, as I drew a couple of useless cards (Celestial Purge, Extirpate) while he piled up fishes and named Volcanic Fallout with Meddling Mage for good measure. I conceded on turn 6, but not before taking a peek at his deck.
Game 2: I remember that Cursecatcher was a real pain in the ass, making all my lines of play terrible. I didn’t last much longer than game 1.
Round 16: Michael Jacob, Grixis
Finally, I can draw in! (Big thanks to MJ, by the way, who could have played.) It feels
so
good top 8ing a Pro Tour again, especially after my disastrous last year.
When the final standings arrived, I saw I would have to face Marijn again in the quarterfinals. It’s not my best matchup — but I wasn’t sure that facing White Weenie wouldn’t be worse.
The player’s party was supposed to be just afterwards, so we stuck around for the free food. An hour later, said party was nowhere to be seen. People were still running around, setting up stuff, and we opted to just eat in town — I didn’t want to go to bed too late, and I had to prepare for my quarterfinals as well. Lazy as we were, we just went to the pizzeria close to our hotel where we’d already eaten Thursday night, and then head back to the hotel for some testing.
It looked like game 1 would very likely be his, since going first is important in the matchup, and with the new rule he’s got the toss. (For those who missed it, in the Top 8, there is no die roll – the highest ranking player at the end of the Swiss goes first in game 1.) Plus, I had a bunch of dead cards before sideboarding.
So we quickly moved to sideboarded games, focusing on how to sideboard. On his side, it looked easy: he didn’t have a lot to take out, and not a lot to bring in, either. I’m just not sure if he was going to keep the Spreading Seas or not — but in the end, it wouldn’t affect what I do.
For my part, despite having bad cards maindeck, I had many more cards to bring in. After a few games, we realized Cryptic Command was terrible. I could rarely put myself in a spot from where I could cast a good Command. We debated keeping maybe one for Teaching purposes, and agreed on the following plan (regardless of whether we were going first or not):
-1 Celestial Purge
-1 Negate
-1 Extirpate
-1 Dreadship Reef
-4 Cryptic Command
+2 Baneslayer Angel
+2 Damnation
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Smother
+1 Vendilion Clique
The matchup was still in his favor, but it looked manageable… Which is when one of my friends pointed that it was already two in the morning. I hadn’t realized it was so late, so we stopped there.
I slept like a baby and almost didn’t hear my phone in the morning. I chatted with Brian Kowal on the way to the site, sharing my plan of boarding out Cryptics, which he’s not very fond of… but I decided to stick to my guns. I arrived on site a little after 10:30, and things started on time at 11.
There’s full coverage of the match here, so I don’t think I need to go in depth here.
Losing in the quarterfinals is certainly disappointing, but it was a really good weekend overall. Making a Top 8 is still very satisfying, especially after difficult times. I spent the rest of the day drafting with Guillaume Matignon and Lucas Florent against the Japanese, which was a blast. The next day I’m dragged into trying EDH, since our flight is late in the evening… And I must say that I enjoyed it. Playing with all those old cards in long games is really fun. The deck building part also looks very interesting.
That closed an eventful weekend, and now I must say I’m really looking forward to Chiba. Hope you guys enjoyed reading!