My First Nationals Part 2, Cak’d Out

Part 1 of this report can be found here.

Here’s my draft pod for day 2.

The draft went okay for me, but Sonne went into Black somehow to my left when I was Black passing to him. This lead me to basically no removal in pack 2 and I didn’t see any in pack 3 either. I also shipped an Opal-eye, Konda’s Yojimbo like sixth pick with Faithful Squire still in the pack. I wanted to force either Blue/Red or Blue/Black because those are by far my favorite color combinations at the moment. The format is so much slower than it used to be and the slower, more controlling decks benefited the most from Saviors of Kamigawa. I also really like Blue because it is still under drafted and also under rated by mostly everyone besides Chambers and myself. Here’s my second draft deck.

1 Bile Urchin

1 Minamo Sightbender

1 Floodbringer

1 Soratami Cloudskater

1 Skullsnatcher

2 Deathmask Nezumi

1 Kami of the Waining Moon

1 Mistblade Shinobi

1 Takenuma Bleeder

1 Moonbow Illusionist

1 Kami of Empty Graves

1 Gibbering Kami

1 Shimmering Glasskite

1 Throat Slitter

1 Skullmane Baku

1 Shinen of Flight’s Wings

1 Consuming Vortex

1 Reach Through Mists

1 Phantom Wings

1 Death Denied

1 Murmur’s from Beyond

9 Island

9 Swamp

That’s probably not 100% correct on the list, but it’s pretty close. My first deck is still way better than this one because this one basically has no removal other than Throat Slitter. This deck isn’t too impressive, but I expected to at least go 2-1 with it unless I had to play against Sonne and Eugene, which I did. It has a nice curve, but that’s about all it has going for it.

Round 8: Steven Zittrower

I think he was sitting two spots to my right because he got the Faithful Squire very late pack 2. Game 1 he curves out with False Hope, Ancient Law, and Waxmane Baku and draws what seem to be a million other spirits. I know I can come back from it though because I have Throat Slitter and Kami of the Waning Moon going. He also attacks a Guardian of Solitude into my 2/2, which was embarrassing for him. I eventually draw Death Denied to give Throat Slitter fear, getting back more spirits for later use. The game takes about 35 minutes because I take my sweet time making sure I don’t give him any outs. He can only get me to one and concedes after a couple of turns. I board in another Skullmane Baku because he’s Blue/White and Skullmane is the actual nut high against that deck. However game 2 he curves out again and I get a much slower draw. I have no way to deal with his Waxmane Baku tapping my blockers every turn and I die shortly after. For the third game we have about 20 minutes to play, so I speed it up because the last thing I want is a draw with this guy. Surprisingly, he curves out again not missing a single drop, but I have defenses this time and the game enters a long stall. I decide to play for the draw instead of trying to actually kill him because I was at a very low life total while he was still at 20. We do end up getting a draw, which is not how I wanted to start out on the day, but it’s better than getting a loss which I probably should have gotten this round.

Round 9: Eugene Levin a.k.a. Fanger a.k.a. Elevin a.k.a. 11

Obviously the last person I wanted to play against at my table. He just beat Jon Sonne, so I got paired up against him. Game 1 he gets a fast draw, but floods out at the end of the game while the spells continued to keep rolling for me. I take 10 from a giant Scaled Hulk, but that’s all the damage that is dealt to me and I go on to win easily. Game 2 goes kind of the same way for him and he never really gets anything going while I fly over for the win. I almost want to concede to him because I feel bad and he could potentially be x-1, but x-1-1 seemed just as good to me and I felt I could win the next round so I move to 7-1-1.

At this point I am feeling pretty good at 7-1-1. I feel like if I can win my next round I have a very good chance at Top 8 because I only need to go 2-2 in Constructed in the last 4 rounds.

Round 10: Jon Sonne

I was hoping to play against one of the other guys at the table because I didn’t know any of them. However I know Eugene beat him and Eugene’s deck wasn’t that impressive, so I have hope going into the round. Game 1 I lose straight up to a Sosuke, Shinen of Life’s Roar and 1 Matsu-tribe Sniper. He also had a Molting Skin that was very hard to deal with. I drew all of my flyers and couldn’t get anything going really. Game 2 he plays a turn 2 Sniper, turn 3 Decoy and turn 4 Sosuke. Ooooookay. I have never been crushed so fast in my entire life. For me to win the match I would need to have drawn my Throat Slitter and Minamo Sightbender combo, but I drew neither and move to 7-2-1.

I’m very disappointed after the round because I know that I now have to win 3 more rounds out of 4 in Constructed to make Top 8 instead of the 2 I was hoping for. As long as I can get lucky I should be fine though. To recap here is the deck I decided to play in Constructed:

Bearl and Nail

4 Tooth and Nail

4 Vine Trellis

4 Sakura Tribe-Elder

4 Slyvan Scrying

4 Plow Under

4 Sensei’s Diving Top

4 Reap and Sow

3 Eternal Witness

2 Viridian Shaman

1 Triskelion

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Mephidross Vampire

1 Sundering Titan



2 Chrome Mox

12 Tron

1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfather’s

8 Forest

Sideboard:

4 Troll Ascetic

3 Iwamori of the Open Fist

3 Creeping Mold

1 Boseiju, Who Shelter’s All

2 Umezawa’s Jitte

2 Viridian Shaman

Round 11: Jonathan Morawski

I am thrilled after he plays his turn 1 Mountain because I already defeated a Red deck earlier in the tournament and it seems like a good matchup for me. Game 1 he plays an early Slith, but I have the Vine Trellis to stop that nonsense. He attacks a couple of times into the Trellis, correctly assuming I was an idiot, but I still blocked. He plays a Jinxed Choker and a Zo-Zu and my life total quickly falls lower and lower until he eventually Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forges[/author] me twice for the win. I bring in 4 Trolls, 2 Viridian Shamans, 3 Iwamori, and 2 Umezawa’s Jitte and take out 4 Plow Under, 1 Eternal Witness, 1 Mephidross Vampire, and I shave some other cards off to make room.

Game 2 goes a lot better for me as I get an early Iwamori after he had to mulligan into a poor hand. I also Viridian Shaman a Mox and a Choker and he loses shortly after. Game 3 he is forced to mulligan again and plays a turn 1 Nexus and passes the turn. I play a Top, a turn 2 Trellis, and a turn 3 Iwamori. He is forced to Shrapnel Blast Iwamori and I proceed to Shaman a Mox he has and leave him low on resources. I literally top into 3 Tron pieces for five turns in a row while he is busy playing Jinxed Chokers. I have enough mana where I can leave the Chokers in play without having them be a major problem. I go down to 6 on my upkeep from the Chokers playing around Shrapnel Blast. I finally find a Tooth and Nail with Top and entwine it getting Titan and Kiki-Jiki, leaving him without enough resources to burn me out and he loses on his upkeep from the Chokers.

After the round, I have gained all my confidence back and feel that I can Top 8. I just need two more wins in the next three rounds, so it’s not out of reach quite yet. At this point I am 3-1 in Constructed, which I am ecstatic about because I have never played a single game with this format in my entire life. I need a 2-1 to Top 8, a 1-2 to make money, and 0-3 puts me in the nearest river.

Round 12: Morgan Douglas

This ended up being a feature match that you can read here. The Ted Knutson had the honor of covering it also. I knew that he was playing WW, because I sat next to him in the earlier rounds and I was confident in my abilities to beat WW. I won’t go into too much detail because Ted did a good job of covering everything that happened in the match. Game 1 I mulligan into a hand of Tooth and Nail, Urza’s Mine, Vine Trellis, 2 Tribe-Elders, and an Eternal Witness. I decide to keep because going down to five could be disastrous and I have two turns to draw a Green source or Chrome Mox. I end up drawing the Forest on turn 2, but he has a really fast start with Suntail Hawk, Leonin Skyhunter with two more 1/1 flyers the next turn. He gets me down to 6 and if I draw any land I can entwine a Tooth basically winning me the game. However I don’t draw a land and I lose shortly after. He won the game with two lands in play, which is impressive.

I board in 2 Viridian Shamans, 2 Umezawa’s Jitte, and 3 Creeping Mold and take out 4 Plow Under, 1 Eternal Witness, and 2 Reap and Sow. Game 2 goes a lot better for me as I raw dawg the Tron and equip a Tribe-Elder with Jitte on turn 4. He plays a bunch of guys again and has a turn 3 Anthem, but I keep gaining counters with Elder and I eventually Creeping Mold the Anthem. I kill a couple guys with Jitte counters and he never finds an answer for the Jitte. Game 3 he gets the best possible draw for WW, which is a turn 1 Isamaru, turn 2 Leonin Skyhunter, turn 3 Raise the Alarm and Lantern Kami, following it up with Glorious Anthem. I need a turn 4 Tooth and Nail to have any chance at the game, which I obviously don’t so I lose. Seems kind of stupid that I’ve lost to a turn 3 Tooth and Nail and now this draw while not Toothing until turn 7 the entire tournament myself. I can still Top 8 though with a 2-0.

Round 13: Chris Manning

He’s playing a deck I highly considered before the tournament with LCG, which is Death Cloud. I know that it’s a terrible match for me because when I was testing it on Gadiel’s MODO account I didn’t lose a game to Tooth and Nail. I decided against it because it was kind of unstable and I was forced to mulligan a lot with it. Game 1 he starts off with a turn 4 Plow Under followed by another on turn 6 before I concede to an Eternal Witness. If I had played first, I would have been the one Plowing him the entire game. I’m not sure how to board for this matchup so I board in 3 Creeping Mold and take out 2 Viridian Shaman and Mephidross Vampire. I figure on the play I can just LD him until I Tooth for Kiki and Titan.

Game 2 I play a turn 4 Sundering Titan putting him on 2 lands. He has Tribe-Elder and Solemn Simulacrum though and I follow up the Titan with Triskelion and a Reap and Sow targeting his Forest. I kill off the Tribe-Elder with Trike and think about killing the Solemn also with the last 2 counters, but if he has Viridian Shaman or any artifact removal I just lose, so I decide to just attack with Titan. This turns out to be a huge mistake because on the next turn he Plow Unders me then Death Clouds the following turn, putting him at 5. We both have 0 cards, but he has a Top, which is very important at the moment. We get to a point where he has to Cloud again for 4, putting him at 1. He gets to three mana before I draw land and ends the game with a Kodama’s Reach and Eternal Witness.

So I go from 6-1 after Day 1 to a disappointing 8-4-1 now. I can still make money if I win my last round though.

Round 14: Steven Zittrower

Fitting that my first round opponent of the day is my last round opponent of the day also. I know he is playing Blue Tron and think about offering a split of some sort, but he’s kinda bunz so I decided playing is better. Game 1 he plays a turn 3 Memnarch off a raw dawg’d Tron, obviously. However I have the Viridian Shaman for it, but he still has Tron and I lose shortly after he countered everything I played. I side in Trolls, Creeping Molds, Boseiju and 2 Shamans for Tooths, Kiki-Jiki, Mephidross, and some Vine Trellis. He warns me on taking too much time, but I completely ignore him due to the level of donkness. Game 2 he has Tron again by turn 4 or 5 and I’m stuck on 4 land. I don’t draw anything relevant and I lose quickly to 2 Triskelions.

So I go from 6-1 to 8-5-1, which is almost as bad as my GP: New Jersey performance of being 9-0 then 10-5. It seems like I can never finish a tournament off after starting well. To top it off my last round opponent seemed like he won the whole thing after beating me and had to call his mom and tell her he won money in a Magic tournament.

On the bright side I’d like to congratulate Antonino De Rosa, Neil Reeves and Jon Sonne for all making the national team and Mike Patnik for qualifying for Worlds. That’s one of the best teams that the U.S. has had in a while and I’m sure they will do us proud. My next stop will be Pro Tour: Los Angeles most likely because I am skipping both block Grand Prix due to conflicts with school and mainly to the fact I just don’t want to go to them.

So let that be a lesson to all you players out there – make sure to be ready for the tournament you are playing and also know how to sideboard against everything. It is kind of important. Having to apologize to your opponent after you beat them because you suck is very embarrassing. Thanks for reading.

The Cak out!