I still remember the first Regionals that I qualified at. It was a rather different format from the current system, because rather than playing in a tournament, all you had to do was phone up and book a place at Nationals. The following year, I went 7-2 with my White deck which splashed for 4 Ray of Command, and every year after that, I managed to have enough ranking points not to have to bother. Up until last year, where I made a Red deck and qualified.
This year proved to be a bit more difficult. I’d vaguely known that the Regionals were going to be held some time during June or July, but I knew it would be fine because there were two a week for a month, so I would have plenty of time to qualify.
So then I actually checked the Wizards website, and found out that half the Regionals qualifiers had actually taken place already. Last week I went to a Regionals in Nottingham, and lost two of the first three matches. And I couldn’t go to the Regionals on that Sunday, or to the very last Regionals in Bristol.
All of which meant that I had to qualify the same way that everyone else did, by turning up to a tournament last Saturday and beating the other people who were there.
I decided to play the same deck as last week, except for changing one Shatter to a Boseiju. I decided to play the same deck partly because I thought it was a good deck, and partly because the cards which I had ordered so that I could play the Big Red deck hadn’t arrived (which will teach me for not using StarCityGames.com for all my single card needs).
I turned up and there were 89 people present. The British system is to award one qualifying slot for each eight players present, which must make those of you who went to a Regionals with 324653264 players and 4 slots or whatever feel really cheerful.
Round one vs Donald Biggs (Blue/White control)
I start off the tournament against someone who has turned up specifically to try to crush me. Or that’s what it seemed like when he cast Story Circle on turn three. I keep on attacking with a Blinkmoth Nexus equipped with a Sword, but when I get him to four life, he plays out Worship and then a Pristine Angel. I decide that going to sideboard is probably the best plan.
Game two he mulligans twice, which is nice, and plays Island, Tendo Ice Bridge, CoP: Red. Happily, he doesn’t have much land, so I just keep on summoning Red creatures and attacking until he is dead. There is one sad moment where I have four Mountains, and he has two untapped mana, so I cast Seething Song twice and then an Arc-Slogger with three mana available for a Mana Leak, and he casts Remove Soul. I still feel sad thinking about that now, though happily I still won the game, which makes it hurt a little less.
I start the third game off with a mulligan, and we get to a situation where he has a CoP: Red, a Worship, a Serra Angel, a Jetting Glasskite and lots of land in play, and I have four life, two Frostlings, a Vulshok Sorcerer, a Blinkmoth Nexus, a Sword of Light and Shadow and an Arc-Slogger. I do various desperate things involving sacrificing creatures and removing chunks of my library to kill his creatures, and start attacking. I start attacking and get him to two life, whereupon he casts Pulse of the Fields. Because that’s what you need when you have Worship and Story Circle in your main deck and Circle of Protection: Red in your sideboard. Since there are about two minutes left, I decide that rather than try to win by mana burning down to one and risk losing to Pristine Angel or some such, I’d just keep attacking and let both our life totals grow to settle for a draw, which I thought of as more a point gained than two lost, in the circumstances.
This is why you shouldn’t get the Fear or assume that any deck is unbeatable, by the way.
Matches 0-0-1, Games 1-1
Round two vs Aaron Bukalo
Aaron had a Black/Green control deck. This matchup is, in my opinion, a great one for the Red deck. They do have answers to all your threats, but they have to draw them at exactly the correct time. If you have a bunch of creatures and they don’t have Hideous Laughter, or if they don’t have a Terror for the Arc-Slogger (or had to use the Terror on a Slith Firewalker), then they lose. I had a Hearth Kami and a Genju of the Spires in the first game, which reduced his life total in easy eight-point chunks. He won the second game with a turn 2 Ha Ha Dead Elf, turn 3 Persecute, turn 4 Greater Harvester, which was fair enough, and I won game three with some early creatures, one of which was equipped with a Sword of Light and Shadow.
1-0-1, 3-2
Round three vs Martin Bishop
Martin had one of those Green decks which have Sensei’s Divining Top in them along with all the usual good Green cards like Troll, Beacon of Creation and so on. The first game was an odd one, because I kept a one-land hand going second, and attacked with a couple of Frostlings while he set up a turn 3 Cranial Extraction for my Arc-Sloggers. This actually helped thin my deck so that I drew land the following turn for my two Slith Firewalkers and Magma Jet. I summoned a Firewalker and attacked, and he had no play until my Firewalkers were 4/4 and 3/3, at which point he found a Troll Ascetic which proved too little, too late.
I brought in my Flamebreaks and Sorcerers for the Molten Rains and Zo-zu and played a quick Arc-Slogger and Flamebreaked (if that’s even a word) away all his little Green creatures.
After the match Martin said that he thought that Red was a good matchup, but especially after sideboarding it seemed really good from my side of the table.
2-0-1, 5-2
Round four vs Richard Nunn
Richard had a Tooth and Nail deck as per Internet standard. He won the first after I failed to do much to prevent him from assembling Urzatron beyond casting Zo-zu. I brought in my Sowing Salts and won the second after he mulliganed into a hand with no Forests. Game three it was my turn to mulligan, and he had a second turn Vine Trellis and a third turn Karstoderm. My Arc-Slogger and Frostling killed off the Karstoderm, but then he hardcast a Sundering Titan which finished me off, leaving me needing to win out to qualify for Nationals.
2-1-1, 7-4
Round five vs Thomas Law
Thomas had a Blue Urzatron deck like the one Quentin wrote about. When reading about that deck, I remember thinking “nice deck – how can it ever win against the Red deck?”
Game one I was playing first and went Mountain, Frostling, Mountain, Hearth Kami, Mountain, Mox, cast and attack with Genju and then he packed up his cards. I brought in 3 Shatter and 4 Sowing Salts, while he brought in Sun Droplets. I made some early creatures in the second game before he cast Sun Droplet and then Triskelion on the following turn. I Shattered his Triskelion, and sacrificed my Hearth Kami to kill the Sun Droplet when the Triskelion killed my Frostling and Hearth Kami. Then I activated a Genju and attacked, which he didn’t have any good answer to.
All of which meant I was two matches from Nationals.
3-1-1, 9-4
Round six vs Matthew Tucker
Matthew had a mono-Blue control deck, and was telling me while we were getting deck checked what a terrible matchup this was for him, which surprised me slightly, as I thought it was in his favor, though I didn’t feel it was my place to contradict him.
In the first game he tripled mulliganed, which certainly helped improve the matchup from where I was sitting. I had turn 1 Hearth Kami (with a Mox), and a turn 2 Genju.
In the second game he double mulliganed, making for five mulligans in two games. Unfortunately, he had turn 1 Wayfarer’s Bauble, turn 3 Thieving Magpie, whereas I had little apart from Zo-zu the Punisher, especially when he Boomeranged my Mountains with Genjus on them. He cast a Shackles and started beating me with my Zo-zu, which was pretty shameful and made me go to a third game.
The third game was easily the most exciting of the tournament. I had a hand with two Genju, a Hearth Kami and some land. I managed to get him to sixteen with the Hearth Kami and to get both my Genjus past his counters. He Boomeranged one of my Genjus and cast Bribery when on eight life. I’d sided out my Arc-Sloggers as per usual practice, so the best thing that he could find was a…
I decided to cast my own Frostling and trade it and the Hearth Kami for his Frostling so that I could reduce him to two life with an attack from my Genju.
So the situation was that I had five Mountains in play, one of which had a Genju. I had nothing in my hand. He was on 2 life, had five Islands in play and four cards in hand. Which is kind of the archetypal struggle between Blue and Red summed up, if you think about it.
He drew his next card and played a Thieving Magpie. I drew a Mountain, attacked with my Genju, traded with the Magpie and recast the Genju.
He drew and played a Blinkmoth Nexus. I drew a Boseiju and played it, attacked and traded my Genju for his Blinkmoth, and recast my Genju. He drew and cast Meloku, with one Island untapped.
This was a major setback, as it meant that the attacking with creatures plan was unlikely to be able to get me to Nationals.
I drew a Mountain, and passed the turn. He attacked for two with Meloku, played Stalking Stones, and Spectral Shifted my Genju. I drew another Mountain, and at the end of my turn, he made a couple of flyers, returning two Islands to his hand. He attacked me to fourteen.
I drew my next card – Molten Rain. I tapped Boseiju and two Mountains, and Molten Rained his Stalking Stones, dealing the final two damage and winning the match.
Just as we were shaking hands, my opponent realized what he’d done, or rather failed to do, and started to talk about activating his Meloku.
In a friendly game, I’d have happily allowed a takeback, but this was a match with qualification for Nationals on the line, and there were two judges watching, who both agreed that he had conceded before noticing that he could just return the Stalking Stones to his hand. Matthew was very sportsmanlike about this, and didn’t try to pretend that he hadn’t conceded or anything like that.
4-1-1, 11-5
They put up the standings before the final round, and I was in 11th, with 11 people qualifying. Which made it nice and simple – win and qualify, draw and lose and have to go to the grinders.
Round seven vs Alasdair Smith
We shuffle up to start, and the judge comes over and announces a deck check. Which is a bit odd, because I was deck checked last round, and Alasdair had also been deck checked before this round.
After about five minutes, they gave me back my deck. Then I saw all four judges up at the top table. After another five minutes, they called Alasdair over, and the head judge came over and tells me that my opponent has received a match loss. Which is a bit of an odd way to qualify for Nationals, but hey ho.
There ended up being eight people on 5-1-1 who qualified and two players who went 5-0-2 to finish top, Ioannis with a Red/Green land destruction deck and Jonny Chapman with a Red deck similar to mine but with more land destruction and with 2 Shivan Dragons in the sideboard to help beat other Red decks.
Now that Saviors is legal and there is time to assess its impact, the Red deck obviously needs to be improved and upgraded. For reference, Jonny Chapman’s deck was:
4
“>Hearth Kami
4
“>Slith Firewalker
4
“>Arc-Slogger
4
“>Molten Rain
4
“>Seething Song
4
“>Magma Jet
3
“>Sword of Fire and Ice
3
“>Genju of the Spires
2
“>Stone Rain
2
“>Volcanic Hammer
2
“>Sowing Salt
16 Mountain
4
“>Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Chrome Mox
Sideboard:
4
“>Flamebreak
4
“>Vulshok Sorcerer
3
“>Shatter
2
“>Sowing Salt
2 Shivan Dragon
Both this version and mine are good against the Green decks, but need improvements against Blue control decks. Pithing Needle will definitely be a large part of the answer in helping to shut down their Shackles. But whatever comes out of Regionals, two things are clear:
1. Red decks will be amongst the best in the field
2. I am going to Nationals.
Take care
Dan