Thursday, July 23rd
I awake from my slumber at a Quality Inn twenty minutes away from the site of United States Nationals. Fairly pleased with how the trip has gone thus far, I wrangle up Tim Aten and Nick Becvar, and off we go. Becvar is attempting to grind in, so we make sure to get there early enough so that he has the full day to play.
AJ Sacher, Steven Birklid, and Adrian Sullivan greet me upon my arrival at the Hyatt in Kansas City. Speaking of Adrian, I ran around like a chicken without a head looking for cards for his grinder. I managed to find Merfolk Sovereigns, Ethersworn Canonists, Sleeps, and some other random stuff for his merfolk deck in under seven minutes so that he didn’t get disqualified. Thankfully, it was all for a good cause as he happened to win that tournament and qualify for Nationals. Congrats Adrian! Perhaps some good karma was headed my way?
Throughout the day, I birded some grinders to get a grasp on the metagame. Five Color Control looked to be everywhere with a smattering of everything else. This didn’t really come as a surprise due to last week’s results, and I certainly wasn’t going to change decks, but seeing the reality with my own eyes made me want to spice my Kithkin deck up a little bit.
Later that evening, I played an M10 draft with some friends for funsies. The teams were Me, Bill Stark, and some guy named Charlie Gindy versus Seth Mansfield, Ari Lax, and Curtis Droge. This was the first time I had ever drafted M10, so I had some people tell me what I did right and wrong afterward. I opened a Serra Angel and got passed a Cudgel Troll, so I was pushed into GW pretty early. My deck was pretty good, but I lacked any real bombs or cards that can theoretically steal games (Overrun, Fireball) from my opponents. I went 1-2, losing to a Jace Beleren plus Royal Assassin from Seth and Overrun from Ari. Fortunately, Bill Stark is pretty good at this format, and Charlie Gindy never ever loses drafts so we were able to take it down.
My first impressions of M10 are that it is like any other draft format. It has its bombs and it has its terrible cards. I actually liked playing the format although my deck wasn’t that good. However, I can see M10 being a very poor sealed format. There are a lot of bombs in the format that seem pretty unbeatable, and there are a lot of busted uncommons as well. Some of the sealed deck pools that can be opened in this format will make it impossible for someone to lose because there isn’t all that much room to outplay someone in a base set. This is simply one man’s opinion, and I would love to be proved wrong in Boston.
Thursday evening, my roommate Zack Wolff arrived and we headed out to meet some of his friends from Nebraska for dinner. An aside about the Nebraska Magic players:
The Nebraska Magic players are awesome! If you guys have never met Zack Wolff, Cole Griffith, Kris Glanz, or Austin Fritz (a.k.a. Yu-Gi-Oh!) then you are doing yourself a disservice. These guys are a ton of fun, like to indulge in alcohol, and are all around good gamers. Gentleman, it was a pleasure.
Back to dinner for the evening. Zack has a real good friend who lives in Kansas City, and he said we had to eat at a certain place before leaving the city.
If you were at Nationals, I am pretty sure you ate there at least once. I went there twice. If you went zero times, you are either an idiot or a vegetarian. And if you are vegetarian, you are an idiot!
Yeah, I said it!
I would rather die than give up meat. To all you vegetarians out there, did you take a bite of a hamburger one day and say “Man, I really just do not ever want another one of these for the rest of my life”…? I refuse to believe the answer is yes.
So, about Jack Stack Barbecue. I went there pretty hungry. As soon as we sat down, Zack’s friend put in two orders of grilled shrimp like he owned the place. I’ve had a lot of shrimp in my life, but this was by far the best, and I have traveled a lot.
Then it was entree time. I ordered a rack of baby back ribs that came with three sides. Man, this place is awesome! My sides were cheesy potatoes, cheesy corn bake (think corn and melted cheese with pieces of ham in it), and roasted corn on the cob. Once my meal arrived, I was in for quite the battle. The waitress was so nice, she even gave me two pieces of toast!
I made it through most of the meal, but finally called it quits with four ribs left and an untouched piece of roasted corn on the cob. I loved every part of the meal, but I would love to see one man take that whole thing down. When the waitress came back, I called her out on the size of the meal:
Me: “So my meal was fantastic, but I find it impossible for a single human being to finish this meal.”
Her: “What do you mean?”
Me: “A full rack of ribs, three side dishes, and two pieces of toast. I am willing to bet a significant amount of money that no man has ever finished this meal on his own.”
Her: “Well honey, that’s because the meal is for two people.”
Everyone at the table laughs at me recklessly
Me: “So that’s why there are two pieces of toast on the plate!”
Her: “You probably don’t want dessert, do you?”
Me: “I’m far too embarrassed to order dessert at this juncture of my life.”
I headed back to the site just in time to see Evan Erwin grind in with Five-Color Control. I then headed to my room to tweak my deck and decided to call it a night.
Friday, July 24th
I decided upon this decklist for the tournament
Creatures (20)
Lands (24)
Spells (16)
Sideboard
As you can probably see, this is not the normal Kithkin deck that I have been playing. Here are the explanations:
4 Harm’s Way
But didn’t I say this card is bad?! There is nothing special about Harm’s Way, but it is very good when people do not expect you to play it. It was mainly against Five-Color Control and other decks with Volcanic Fallout/Firespout, since I expected those cards to be extremely popular.
0 Ajani Goldmane
This card is just not what it used to be. There are no token decks in the format anymore and I did not expect red decks to get too much love at this tournament. Furthermore, Ajani Goldmane is very bad against Five-Color Control, Combo Elves, and Faeries. With the card only being outstanding in the mirror, and expecting a lot less of that due to the results from the previous week, cutting Ajani Goldmane was pretty easy and I feel it was (and will continue to be) correct.
4 Lapse of Certainty
Mainly against Five-Color Control, I figured I could get them into a situation where this would be the full Time Walk by countering a Plumeveil, Hallowed Burial, or Broodmate Dragon. It was pretty good for me at the PTQ in the Kentucky Open, and seemed like it would be good this weekend.
3 Moonglove Extract
For the mirror and Faerie decks. There were some results around the world with Stillmoon Cavalier in the sideboard of Faerie decks. That card scares the living hell out of me, and I did not want to be drawing dead to that card. As a result, I brought out some tech from Block season. It also doubles as a way to kill Scion of Oona, Sower of Temptation, and Stillmoon Cavalier in the mirror.
Round 1 versus Tidwell, Brian
Brian was playing Doran Rock, which is an extremely good matchup for Kithkin. Game 1 I keep a one-lander with Path to Exile, Figure of Destiny, Wizened Cenn, Knight of Meadowgrain, Spectral Procession, and Harm’s Way. I’m on the play and it’s a bit sketchy to keep this hand, but I figure if things go extremely wrong, I can just Path to Exile my own guy and get back into the game that way.
Turns out I had to Path to Exile my own guy and got ran over by some Wilt-Leaf Lieges. Sweet.
Game 2, I sideboard in the Stillmoon Cavaliers for Harm’s Way and prepare for battle. Game 2 is pretty locked up as I have two Stillmoon Cavaliers in play, a Path to Exile in hand for his relevant threat, and a Spectral Procession that I am sandbagging. Late in the game, I attack with a Stillmoon Cavalier and he casts a Cloudthresher. I Path to Exile it, cast my Spectral Procession, and pass the turn. He casts Profane Command on Cloudthresher, kills my tokens, and passes the turn. I draw, play Wizened Cenn, and pass the turn. It is at this point that I realize that he has made a horribly illegal action, as Path to Exile removes the Cloudthresher from the game. Why it took me that long to realize this, I will never know, but I was pretty upset with myself as I knew what the ruling was going to be before the head judge made it. The game state could not be fixed (though it could be, because neither of our plays would have changed as we were both playing off the top of our deck), and both players would be issued a warning. A pretty unlosable game went to an unwinnable game just like that.
For the record, I do not think Brian was trying to cheat at all. I normally do not miss things like that, and I blame no one but myself for the loss. If Brian was trying to cheat, he got me!
0-1
Round 2 versus Napoli, Phillip
Phil is a New York player who I worked with for Pro Tour: Hollywood. He is an all-round good guy and a pleasure to play against. He was playing Five-Color Control which I was not too pleased about, but I assumed some of my trickier cards would get me there.
Game 1 I have turn 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart revealing Goldmeadow Stalwart on the draw. On the next turn I draw a Figure of Destiny and have a decision to make. I can play both Goldmeadow Stalwart and Figure of Destiny or I can play one or the other and leave up Harm’s Way. If I leave up Harm’s Way, it looks a little odd that I wouldn’t play my next creature and simply pass the turn. It also depends on when I think when he will cast Volcanic Fallout. When I play against Five-Color Control, a lot of the players wait to cast Volcanic Fallout until my turn 3 when I am attacking them so that they can try to steal some more value out of it, so I wasn’t sure what to think.
In the end, I played both of my creatures hoping that he was on Plumeveil or that he would try to get greedy with Volcanic Fallout. He did neither of these things, cast Volcanic Fallout in his mainphase, and the game was over in rather short fashion.
I boarded in four Lapse of Certainty for four Path to Exiles and called it a day.
Game 2, I got a pretty aggressive start, recovered after a Firespout and finished Phil off with a combination of Harm’s Way and Lapse of Certainty. I also drew both Mutavaults this game!
Game 3, I got double Firespouted and then mangled by a Cruel Ultimatum. It was pretty ugly. So ugly in fact that it didn’t matter that Phil missed four triggers with Wall of Reverence. Yeah, I’m not letting that one go, Napoli!
0-2
Round 3 versus McNichols, Louis
My very first Yu-Gi-Oh! opponent. If I lost this match, dropping for sure. No disrespect to the Yu-Gi-Oh! players out there, but I am calling my tournament quits if I get defeated by someone who does not play Magic on a regular basis.
We are in a Kithkin mirror match where he has Ajani Goldmanes and I have Harm’s Way. Something I certainly feared. Fortunately, my opponent is not very good at combat, and I steal game one from him. I had a few more creatures in play than Louis, but he had an active Ajani Goldmane in play. Instead of shoving with all of his creatures, he kept shoving in with one and I was able to triple block, lose one creature, and counter attack for the win. If he shoved with them all, I was drawing dead. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Game 2 is much of the same. We both draw the exact same cards, including a Stillmoon Cavalier on both sides. However, I am much better at combat then he is, and I win a game that looks fairly unwinnable if you were just to pass by and look at the game state.
My first win at Nationals involves hoping a Yu-Gi-Oh! player is poor at attacking and blocking. I’m sure this tournament is going to turn out well…
1-2
Round 4 versus Karls, Samuel
Samuel is playing Faeries. Game 1, I keep Knight of Meadowgrain, Windbrisk Heights, Cloudgoat Ranger, four Plains on the play, and Samuel mulligans to five. I Windbrisk Heights through four lands – thank God that I didn’t draw those four lands – and play Knight of Meadowgrain on turn 2. My Knight of Meadowgrain gets Agony Warped, and I don’t play another spell until the Cloudgoat Ranger because I keep drawing lands. We are pretty deep into the midgame and we are both drawing nothing but lands. When I cast my second Cloudgoat Ranger and have it resolve, I am pretty shocked. By this time, I have two Windbrisk Heights in play. One of them contains another Windbrisk Heights and the other contains a Harm’s Way. I’m embarrassed. Trust me. Somehow, I go on to win this game because my one relevant spell resolved, and he actually never drew anything.
I sideboard in three Moonglove Extracts for three Harm’s Way.
Game 2 is about as strange as the first. Samuel gets stuck on two lands for a little while with two Bitterblossoms in play. It takes me a little while to be able to attack profitably even though he is mana screwed. Throughout the duration of this game, I draw all four Honor of the Pures and actually put myself out of double Infest range, which is what he was setting up at the end of the game when he finally drew lands.
This match was just weird.
2-2
Happy to make it out alive at 2-2, it was time to draft. I was having difficulty getting over my first round loss, but it was slowly leaving my mind. It is just so difficult to win a tournament when you give away a match like that.
I did not save my draft deck, but I do remember quite a few things about it. Pack 1, I opened up a pack with Bull Ceredon, Resounding Thunder, Infest, Blightning, Manaplasm, Magma Spray and something else good in Red, Green, or White. I took Infest because I did not want to battle person next to me for a Green deck and I love forcing Esper of Grixis any chance that I get.
The next pack I get passed Naya Charm, and I am really regretting what I have done the previous pack. Worst yet, a common was missing from the pack. I have no idea what common someone is taking over Naya Charm, but I had made my decision to force Esper or Grixis and was not looking back. So I selected a Bone Splinters…
Third pick, here comes my good friend Branching Bolt… The person to my left is going to have the sickest deck of all time. I’ll be happy with my Tidehollow Sculler, I suppose.
The rest of the draft was pretty miserable. Pack 2 was not all that kind to me when I expected it to be, as I was passed no good Esper or Grixis cards. I did manage to get an Arsenal Thresher 13th and 14th pick, which I expected, but I didn’t have enough artifacts in my deck to make them outstanding. I would be ecstatic with a 2-1.
Round 5 versus Miller, Chris
As we sit down, Chris warns me that I had better not let him get to eight mana. I wasn’t sure if I should believe him. I wish I had…
Game 1, I am stuck on mana and cannot deal with him Empyrial Archangel and Inkwell Leviathan the way that I wanted. I actually had outs to both, but being stuck at five land wouldn’t allow me to cast two spells in one turn.
Game 2, my draw is extremely aggressive, and I am able to put him on the back foot before he can get stable. His Sphinx Summoner (nice deck, bro!) gets Slave of Bolas’d, and I feel like I am in good shape as long as he doesn’t have Lavalanche or Martial Coup. I make a quip about how those are his only outs; he draws his card, and concedes.
Game 3, I once again come out of the gates pretty quickly. I decide that I need to go to the skies as he is starting to lock up the ground, and play Esperzoa and Glaze Fiend. When he plays his seventh land and Martial Coups me, I am totally deflated. I knew my deck wasn’t that good, but I really thought I would be able to beat his bomb-laden deck with that draw.
2-3
Round 6 versus Ambler, Kevin
I don’t remember too much about this match, but I stole game 2 when I had no business winning. Kevin had out a Beacon Behemoth, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and ten lands in play. He attacks with both of his guys, I play an Ethersworn Shieldmage, make appropriate blocks so that I take no damage, and he passes the turn. On his turn, I cast Controlled Instincts on his Beacon Behemoth and Controlled Instincts on his Spearbreaker Behemoth. If only he had used Beacon Behemoth’s ability with one of the ten lands he had in play, I would not have won this match.
Will I earn one win this weekend? I doubt it!
3-3
Round 7 versus Mondon, Pierre-Christophe
Pierre is a buddy I know from Columbus, Ohio. He top 8’d Grand Prix: St. Louis in 2006, and is a pretty crafty mage. He was also the person I was passing to in the draft, so I expected his deck to be pretty insane.
Once again, I do not remember too much of what happened in this match. What I do recall is that it took him a while to draw his Red source game 3 for his two Branching Bolts, and I was able to kill him with Slave of Bolas while he was trying to stabilize. I felt I got pretty fortunate to win this match, as his deck was much better than mine.
4-3
Thankfully, day 1 was over. I don’t know how I was still in contention to win the tournament. I decided to hit Jack Stack with Gindy and some Nebraska folk and call it a night. And by call it a night, I mean hit the casino, do a drunk survivor draft, and be hit on by some foxy cougars!
If you don’t know what a survivor draft is, it is a six on six Battle Royale. You do a twelve-man draft and then play a member of the opposing team. Then, once the round is over, each team votes a member off of the team. It can be your worst deck, the player you like the least, the player you want to suffer the most, etc. It gets very political and very ridiculous very quickly. First to eleven wins is the victor.
There is a fabled tale of Gabe Walls talking his way into making it into the final match when he had the worst deck in the draft.
Our survivor draft took place in the hotel lobby alongside some Bolveard Wheat Ale and foxy cougars.
You read that right. Foxy. Cougars.
So, while we are playing round 2 of the survivor draft, these two drunk cougars came up to our draft and were wondering aloud what we were doing. Five minutes and one Dave Irvine later, the cougars were asking if they could have a shot of our SoCo.
And then there was the Ameristar Casino. I’d rather not talk about that.
I got back to the hotel around 5:30am. Play began at 8:30am. Yikes!
Saturday, July 25th
Draft 2 was a real doozy. My deck was outstanding. I was Jund with three Putrid Leeches, a Spellbreaker Behemoth, an outstanding curve, and the proper amount of mana fixing. I felt a 3-0 was possible with this one.
Round 8 versus Fabiano, Gerard
None of these games were eventful, but I remember each game quite well. Game 1 I mulliganed to five and Gerard killed me with Jund Sojourners and Giant Ambush Beetle. His lands were Forest, Swamp, Mountain, Island.
I went to my sideboard, found nothing I liked and presented for game 2.
Game 2, I played a turn 2 Putrid Leech, a turn 3 Scarland Thrinax, and a turn 4 Spellbreaker Behemoth. Gerard played a turn 4 Sanctum Gargoyle returning nothing and packed it up a turn or two later. His lands that game where Island, Plains, Swamp.
I went back to my sideboard and I could not decide what kind of deck he was. It’s very clear that he was a five color deck, but was he Esper based? Was he Jund based? I didn’t have the slightest idea. I stared a hole through my Filigree Fracture in my maindeck trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with it. I then found a Molten Frame in my sideboard and figured if Gerard didn’t have an artifact in play, I could simply cycle the Molten Frame and keep playing the game. It was the best of both worlds!
Well, on turn 6 of game 3, Gerard played an Obelisk of Alara. And I had Molten Frame in my hand.
4-4
Round 9 versus Sklar, Jacob
Jacob was rocking a Naya deck with not too many early plays. Game 1, Mage Slayer took him to the woodshed.
Game 2, I sideboarded in Quenchable Fire as a way to finish him off, since he had didn’t have access to Blue mana and game 1 was a racing scenario. I had game 2 pretty locked up as I he was going to die from the second part of Quenchable Fire + Blightning if I got to untap. However, when he attacked with a three-power guy and two five-power guys, I immediately blocked his three power guy and his five-power guy instead of his two five-power guys. When he killed with two pump spells for exactsies, I thought about dropping right then and there. It was pretty embarrassing.
Game 3, I drew quite well and Jacob was never really in the game.
5-4
Round 10 versus Dalton, Trevor
I remember absolutely nothing about this round except for that I won. Sorry to Trevor about that.
6-4
It was time to head back to the Constructed portion of the event. I wasn’t really in the mood to keep playing but there were pro points on the line and I need two more points to qualify for Worlds. Time to get out the Kithkin one last time!
Round 11 versus Scott-Vargas, Luis
Sure, why not! LSV was rocking Faeries. Finally, the timeless question can be answered. Who is the favorite in Kithkin vs. Faeries? Well, we thought it would be answered at least.
Game 1, I didn’t really do anything, got two spells countered by Broken Ambitions and got ran over by a Mistbind Clique.
Game 2, I played a Figure of Destiny that got to level three, and LSV conceded with Broken Ambitions and Bitterblossom in his hand.
Game 3, I got my Spectral Procession countered via Broken Ambitions and was a light on land. He was stuck with only one source of Blue mana so he couldn’t exactly do what he wanted to either. However, I could never attack profitably due to the Scion of Oona I knew he had in his hand. Once he finally hit his second Blue source, Sower of Temptation cut my outs down and I never drew one.
6-5, Drop.
I decided to drop from the tournament at this point. There was nothing for me to play for and I was pretty tired from the previous night.
As I was heading for an afternoon slumber, Tom Martell asked me if I was up for some Catch Phrase. After seeing how much fun everyone was having the day before with it, I decided I wanted in. This turned out to be a very good idea, as it both woke me up and I had the time of my life.
Tom Martell, Matt Sperling, David Ochoa/Sam Black, and myself went on a path of destruction not seen since I Top 8’ed Pro Tour: Kyoto. We could not be stopped. We were 11-0 until Phil Napoli, Nick Becvar, Steve Sadin, and Jacob Van Lunen got lucky and stopped our streak. We then played the judges in a best two-out-of-three match and defeated them in two very close games.
Catch Phrase is the new hotness at Magic tournaments, and it will taking place at GP: Boston. There is a club on Facebook about the 3v3 Catch Phrase tournament that will be taking place at GP: Boston. Field a team and prepare to be embarrassed if you have to have to face Sperling, Martell, and Phillips. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Also, if you are bad at Catch Phrase, I truly believe you should be exiled to Antarctica. If you cannot describe a word to another human being, you do not deserve to inhabit any continent with a functional society. In our 11-0 run, I had to watch someone try to describe activist because they didn’t know what that was. Also, Gerard was priceless during this whole thing. Those stories will not be told here.
After Catch Phrase, I decided to help Adam Yurchick test for his semi-final matchup against the Conley Woods Special. We (being me, DJ Kastner, Ben Lundquist, Josh Wludyka) figured Adam’s deck was configured so well against his quarter-final opponent that it would be better to get some games in against the new deck of the format. We developed a pretty good sideboard plan against the Conley Woods Special, and FFFreak sideboarded pretty poorly against Adam, making things that much easier for one half of Ohio’s Finest.
Sunday, July 26th
I played in a Cruise Qualifier with a terrible mono Red deck, and I will never do that again. Not sure how the Red decks ever win in this format without Anathemancer. I felt like I had no chance to win the tournament, and was fortunate to squeeze out two victories.
After the Cruise Qualifier, I played a quick game of Catch Phrase, did an interview with Evan Erwin, congratulated our National team members and made my exit. Nationals, as usual, was a great tournament, and I can’t wait to play in it again next year.
Congrats to Charles Gindy, Adam Yurchick, and “Totally” Todd Anderson on representing the USA at Worlds this year. I guess Todd Anderson is a little better than we all thought. Just don’t do draft walkthroughs on 4-3-2-2s, buddy.
For those of you wondering, I would not play Kithkin anymore. The format is simply too difficult to battle through. I’m not too sure what the correct deck is to play right now, but if I am putting the Kithkin down for a few weeks, you probably should too.
Next week, Grand Prix: Boston results. Baneslayer Angel, I’m looking for you!