Radiating Luck

First off, a big shout out and Congratulations To Sal!

Top 8 in Montreal!

Nice job Sal.

Two qualifiers this weekend.

This is what I went with, changing nothing on Sunday.

4 Nezumi Cutthroat

4 Hand of Cruelty

4 Marauding Ogre

4 Takenuma Bleeder

4 Yukora, The Prisoner

4 Kiku’s Shadow

4 Sickening Shoal

4 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Honden of Night’s Reach

2 Hero’s Demise

20 Swamp

2 Tomb of Urami

Sideboard

4 Rend Flesh

4 Eradicate

4 Waking Nightmare

3 Okiba-Gang Shinobi

Let’s take a look at some card choices.

Nezumi Cutthroat

Some people have been removing these from Black Hand and those people are crazy. With less Black Hand in the format, and a number of Blue/Green, and Blue/White “Deck X” entering the format the Cutthroat is a 4-of, must have. The ability to sneak by snakes of both the Elder and the Scout variety is essential to winning some matches.

Hand of Cruelty

Really not that impressive sometimes but you have to have them for the White Weenie matchup where whoever gets the most Hands and Jittes wins.

Marauding Ogre

Yeah, his one toughness is a pain in the ass against Jitte or Frostling, but who plays those? Other than that, an auto 4-of.

Takenuma Bleeder

Fairly impressive. The three toughness makes him hard to kill. He’s great to throw out there as bait for removal or counters and then play the real threat, like an Ogre or Yukora. If I could hit any more qualifiers, these would come out for 4 Kokusho.

Yukora the Prisoner

I was skeptical of this guy, but he was MVP most games. People look like they had just been punched in the junk when he hit the table. Hey, did you know fatties are the one true road to victory?

Kiku’s Shadow

The flavor text on this should be “Stop punching yourself! Why do you keep punching yourself?” A little dicey. There really isn’t anything better, cheaper, or more flexible than this. The elimination in Black is so situational that you have to make compromises somewhere. Each elimination can only kill something that’s a Hero. Or is a Spirit. Or not a Black card. Or is Flesh. Or has power => toughness. So, it sucks vs. Blue, but against all the other colors, including the mirror, it’s amazing.

Sickening Shoal

Ha ha. Like I need to explain this one. Arguably better than Contagion. Arguably one of the best Black removal spells ever printed.

Umezawa’s Jitte

Let’s get retarded in here! Lets get retarded in here! Hey hey! Lose control! Get stutted! Get stupid! Lose Control! Of your wallet and soul! Let’s get retarded in here!

*sigh*

Honden’s of Night’s Reach

Yeah, that’s right. Four. In the main. There used to be this great card that I loved called “Bottomless Pit.” The Honden is like Bottomless Pit, only I never have to lose anything. Alan once said he liked to play Pit and say he was dragging his opponent down to his level. “Let’s play like ten year olds. Just flipping cards over one at a time and playing them or losing them.” To me, this card is like Adrian Sullivan said about Pithing Needle. It forces your opponent to play fair. I’m all about playing fair. Especially when I have creature elimination and creatures. And you have a deck that requires you to have a full hand and “a strategy”. Strategy is dumb. Jamie Smash.

Hero’s Demise

I actually traded for a third one on Saturday, and then decided not to put it in on Sunday. There were actually times when I was being beaten down by something not a Legend, and yet, all I had in hand was Heroes Demise.

The sideboard is the way I have always sided with Black. More creature elimination. More discard. Side in for whatever you need to win the game. Oddly enough, against Mono Blue, you want to side in Rend Flesh and Eradicate, not more discard.

I’ve had a Honden active for four turns and still had a Blue opponent with 7 cards in his hand from Azami and Jushi Apprentice. Blue doesn’t care if you make them discard in this format. They really do care if you Eradicate their Melokus and Keigas.

Why Waking Nightmare over Distress? Simple math really. I’ve pulled things from a Gifts players hand that you think are important and they just go off anyway. They recurse it from the graveyard, or just play enough land after you took their Reach Around or they top deck Kagemaro and kill your whole board. I’ve found that two-for-one is actually greater than one-for-one, even if they get to choose the two. It’s pretty darn funny when they Sickening Shoal one of your rats and then you Waking Nightmare them and all of a sudden they have three cards in hand when just a moment ago they were going to play a 5/5 Kagemaro and beat you down. Then you play a Honden.

Joshie has a wedding to go to. Alan has a Birthday party to go to. Podog stays home and watches porn with his girlfriend all Saturday. Which leaves Aaron and I driving down to Boston alone. Which is a disaster waiting to happen. Because I usually drive and someone else tells me where to go, and Aaron doesn’t have a clue where we’re going.

If I haven’t explained it before, Aaron is a friend I’ve been adventuring with Online for nearly ten years. He always plays a character called “The Catt” so this whole report you’ll read him referred to as “Catt” and “Aaron”. He’s just out of the military and has come to stay with Mare and I for 10 days and go to 2 Qualifiers and Lobsterfest to meet everyone. Marilyn is doing an update on my website/Mare’s page which will feature pictures of his visit here. Should be up by the time you read this.

We print off a map from Mapquest and it takes us into the heart of Boston, 30 minutes through construction and traffic from Brighton. I know this isn’t the place, but we get out and look for the address anyway. And unless the tournament is inside an office building, we’re in the wrong place.

We get back in the car and ask directions and this kindly old fart tells us “You know Beacon Street?”

“Yeah. I’ve crossed it a few times getting here.”

“Get on that and head out of the city. Brighton is about 20 minutes.”

Beacon ends and we’re nowhere near Brighton.

Catt hollers out the Rav4 “Hey buddy, which way to Brighton?”

“Brighton? AHAHAHAHHAHAH!”

Catt looks at me. “He’s laughing at us.”

Between giggles our new friend tells us “You’re a long way from Brighton! Here’s what you do…”

We show up 30 minutes late and the round hasn’t started yet. Computer troubles delay them another 45 minutes before first round pairings are settled.

Aaron is playing a more standard Black Hand than I.

Round 1. Ken Anderson with Blue/Black

A lot of chatting is going on at the tables before they tell us to begin. Ken and I swap stories about how we have both just gotten back into Magic recently.

They tell us to begin, and I start off with a Rat. Then a Bleeder. Then a Hand of Cruelty. Ken answers with a Yukora the Prisoner and when he blocks my Hand I Shoal Yukora and he doesn’t have a counter. Then I play a Jitte and win.

Game two he gets one Black mana, a bunch of Blue mana and counterspells. I get a couple early rats, and then he counters my next 5 turns, but the rats are beating on him the whole time. He can’t find another Black for the Fat in his hand and the rats do him in.

We shake hands and say the “good game” thing and sign our slip. He walks up to report with me and says “Tell me you’re someone good so I don’t feel bad about losing in the first round.”

“I’ve been in five Pro Tours if that helps.”

Beaming smile “Good enough!” And reaches out to shake my hand again.

Aaron has also won.

That’s a pretty good start to a day in Hell. Have I told you I’m in Hell? Because I am. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Hell is actually less humid than Boston on this particular day. And since I always go to tournaments in black jeans and a tee shirt, I’m boiling over. And as luck would have it, I wore a black tee shirt today as well. Every time I go outside I swear I’m baking like a slab of steak under the broiler. My skin blistering and sweating. I don’t know if it’s the outfit, the humidity, the lack of sleep, or what, but this is the worst heat I can ever remember experiencing.

And the Air Conditioning isn’t on in the tournament room.

We have to escape to the pizza place or the Dunkin Donuts across the street to get any relief.

Round two is against Frank Katsianas playing one of my favorite decks.

I’ve long been in love with Long Forgotten Gohei and Promise of Bunrei feels like a perfect Green card to me. It’s like what soulshift should have been. Combined with Beacon of Creation. Charge Across Araba reminds me of Overrun and Kami of Ancient Law is a new and improved Elvish Lyrist. Why am I not playing this deck? I’ve seen and played against it online and have always admired it from afar, but for some reason, never put it together.

Let me describe these matches in intimate detail.

Game one he gets a Jitte on a Hand and wins.

Game two I get a Jitte on a Hand and win.

Game Three I get a rat, and then play a Jitte, and I’m holding another one. I have Jitte superiority! I’m going to win. I swing for 2 and he Terashi’s Verdicts my rat. I draw another Jitte. He plays a Hand of Honor. Three turns later he plays a Celestial Kirin. I play land and am holding 3 Jittes when I die, never having drawn another creature.

Aaron wins again.

Ben Goodman is my next opponent. Short of stature but engaging and charismatic and we chat throughout the day. I ask his age because with the beard he has I can’t quite tell if he’s 16 or 25. He tells me he’s 19 and guesses usually range from 16-22. He is from Keene and we swap stories about the town. My brother went to school there and I would go visit him and get my first glimpse of the wondrous magical place known as “college.”

He seems to be with some version of Gifts that hates Honden of Night’s Reach. I get out a fear rat and a Takuma Bleeder and just keep killing everything he plays and turning my guys sideways. Then I play a Honden. The only damage I took was five from turning the Bleeder sideways so much.

I side in 4 Waking Nightmare.

I get a good mix of land, Waking Nightmare, and a Honden and keep it. On turn three I top deck another Waking Nightmare and empty his hand and play a Honden. He gets a Meloku on the board and it meets a Hero’s Demise and then he plays another one and that one is forced to punch himself to death via Kiku’s Shadow times two. I tell this to Aaron and he tells me the flavor text on that card should be, “Why do you keep punching yourself?”

Aaron wins again to be 3-0!

Aaron and I go move the car out of a spot we’re not sure if we should be parked at our not and end up sitting there with the AC running for 15 minutes. We come back in and take a sit. One after another three guys come up with cards for me to sign. One comes up with Blanchwood Armor and asks me to sign it “To TRS” Ben comes up and asks for a signature on “Old Fogey” from Unhinged. And last is a Werebear, asked to be signed “To Max (heart) Jamie Wakefield.”

And the AC comes on and the place starts to cool down.

Round 4 and I’m 2-1. Still in it. Keeping hope alive. Playing Jesse Godek.

Sorry Jesse, my notes aren’t reminding me of our games. I have down we went to two games and in the second I got mad elimination. Rend Flesh a guy, Sickening Shoal a guy, trade guys, then finish the game with a Marauding Ogre and a 5/5 flying Urami demon token to make me 3-1 and very hopefully.

Catt actually loses this round to make him 3-1 as well. You know what that means? Yeah, we get paired up in round five and decide to draw.

If we hadn’t drawn, one of us would be assured of top 8 if they get paired up with someone who can also draw. The reasoning is, there are two rounds to go. We both hope to win one, draw one. Might as well draw with a friend.

Aaron and I draw to be 3-1-1 which is nowhere near as impressive is 4-1 or as awful as 3-2. We go seek relief at Dunkin Donuts and await our fate.

(I have learned something from these draws, and from drawing online with friends. It’s a bad idea. In fact, I’m going to apply what I’ve learned to all situations where I have to examine a decision.

To further explain, let me give you a little bit of my philosophy on luck. I believe luck is real. I further believe that it is a force that changes for each person on a daily basis. An aura that surrounds them. Some people are generally luckier than others, but they are not consistently lucky every day.

I would imagine that the stars of this game are very good at Magic. I would also postulate that they are very lucky. Consistently very lucky. Especially where Magic is concerned.

As for me, I’m sort of a lucky guy. Not consistently lucky, but sometimes mad lucky. If you read my last article, I think I mentioned that I was owning everything online. I made Top 8 with Joshie Green almost every time I played it. I even made Top 8 adding Llanowar Elves and entering it in an Extended tournament. Some lucky there.

Two weeks ago, I was very lucky. This week… Not so much.

Mare and I are on vacation this week. It started Saturday. Mare woke up with a migraine. On day two, I had to bring Catt to the Airport and then went home and took a nap and slept most of the day away. I was just exhausted. Come to find out Alan was sick when he came down on Thursday and gave me his cold. I spend Monday blowing my nose like it’s mid January and lying on the couch making pathetic groaning noises. Tuesday, enter 3 Magic tournaments; lose in the first round and second or third one in each of the tournaments to the worst draws imaginable. Eighteen dollars gone for zero reward and loads of frustration. Wednesday, three more tournaments, three more drops before I even hit the fourth round. Thirty-Six dollars gone. Mare’s side hurts for some reason. Like, I’m guessing, in her kidney, gall bladder, liver area. She almost lets me take her to the hospital at 11:00 at night, but then refuses. We make an appointment the next morning. They say they can see her right away, so I have to drop out of the tournament that I’m in and jump in the shower. After an examination, the doctor tells her she most likely has a cracked rib, and not cancer of the liver/gallbladder/kidney. She has no idea how she cracked it.

“Tonight the safety word is Banana.” – Lois Griffon

Joined a Magic league to play in over vacation and what a surprise, my cards are shite. By far the worst cards I have ever gotten in League. I am 1-6 in games as I type this.

Entered a tournament this morning and went 0-2 drop again.

Some fun. I could be having more fun at work, and this vacation has blown five vacation days that have made me more stressed than when I started.

Some unlucky.

I’m sure at any minute The Lovely Mare is going to walk in, suitcase in hand and announce “I’m leaving you for Chris Romeo.”

Where was I going with this? Catt and I drew and this was the wrong decision. Because with decisions like this, you should think about all the options. Think about what the likely outcome is. What the worst possible thing that could happen is. And what the best possible thing that could happen is. And then throw out the best possible thing because that doesn’t happen!

In this case, best-case scenario is that Catt and I will both be going to the Top 8 if we draw, and win our next round. Okay, using what I know now, that won’t ever happen, what’s the next most likely best-case scenario? We play, one of us wins, and will be able to draw into the Top 8.

Should have gone with that.)

Round 5 against Dominic Minicucci

He is playing Mono Blue.

We achieve parity after a few turns, with both of us with empty hands, but I have a Honden of Nights Reach on the board, and according to my notes “He keeps returning land to his hand, even discarding a Pithing Needle in order to save one card in his hand.”

I honestly don’t remember what else I had on the board or how he was returning land other than a Meloku, but that scenario doesn’t make much sense to me. All I remember is what my notes tell me, as this was so long ago.

(It’s very hard to write about Magic when you have lost so much money and time to it with nothing to show for it. Both online and RL. That’s why this is so late.)

Anyway, what I do remember is that he is doing everything in his power to hold onto one card, and I am drawing off the top of my deck trying to do the last 5 points to him. I eventually draw a Tomb of Urami, play it, and when I use it, I find out what the last card in his hand is.

Threads of Disloyalty.

I side in 4 Eradicate and 4 Waking Nightmare. A strategy I no longer employ having learned that, in Jitte block, discard is not the way to win against Mono Blue.

Despite this, I get a phenomenal draw. I hit him with two Waking Nightmares on the third and fourth turn and I Eradicate his Jushi Apprentices and Meloku.

He has two River Kaijin on the board and when I’m at 18 life, starts to attack with them, as I have no blockers. I jokingly say “Going down to 16. Hey, only 8 more turns of that and you’re in the Top 8!”

We laugh.

My life goes

16

14

12

10

8

6

Dead.

Never having drawn a creature.

Really not radiating luck that match.

I look over at Aaron’s match and his opponent is at 4. His opponent is facing 6 damage with an empty hand. Unless his opponent top deck’s a miracle, Aaron’s going to the Top 8.

He top decks Hideous Laughter.

We’re driving home soon after.

We get lost.

We get home at 11 at night and crash immediately.

I get up in the morning, wake Aaron up and we head up to Montreal. As I leave the house, I notice Joshie’s car in the driveway. He’s asleep in my backseat.

Montreal is more of the same.

I face a White Weenie player and he gets two land, a Hand of Honor and a Jitte, while I get Rat, Rat, 2 Hand of Cruelty, Sickening Shoal, Yukora, Honden’s, an Ogre Marauder and 2 Takenuma Bleeders. And just enough land to play them one after another.

What I don’t get is a Jitte, so he kills all that stuff I just listed, winning the game with two land on the board.

Wasn’t really radiating luck that game either.

Aaron and I again get paired up when I am at 3-0-1 and he is at 4-0 and we don’t draw. Instead, I just lose despite my sincere best efforts and despite the fact that he is running Raving Oni-Slave and I am running Kiku’s Shadow.

At 3-1-1 I lose in the last round, again, to keep me out of the top eight.

Aaron wins the Quarters against the mirror, and then has to mulligan against Blue in the first game.

His opening hand of six cards is Swamp, Swamp, O-Naginata, Raving Oni-Slave, and really, what else matters? He’s coming in for six trample of turn 3.

His opponent bounces the Oni once then Threads it.

Game two is a savage beating and Aaron had no chance from the opening bell.

Funny anecdotes include:

Aaron – “If you could have sex with any Magic card, what would it be?”

Joshie – “1996 World Champion.”

I laughed so hard my car mates started to worry I might be hysterical. The amazing thing about that comment was that it was lightning fast. The second it came out of Aaron’s mouth Joshie said it.

And, crossing the border on the way home, the guy asks us –

“What were you in Canada for?”

“A Magic Tournament.”

“Anything to declare for customs?”

“Two Canadian Beers and a Hustler.”

…

…

“Wait, did you say a Magic tournament?”

“Yes.”

“Step out of the car please.”

WTF?

He has us open up some bags and I show him some Magic cards and he lets us go.

My apologies to all the people I played in Canada that expected to be included in a real report. I wrote the Boston piece a week ago, and the rest of this has been languishing in the ether while I get bent over and sodomized by Magic for the last 10 days and it’s been hard to write. It’s hard to write when you’re as bitter as I am this week.

In closing, I’d just like to thank Wizards for making Mono-Green completely unplayable this block, and let them know that if Ravnica contains more ways to cast Lure, or put +1 +1 counters on creatures for way too much mana, I’m driving to Seattle to bust some heads. I swear by all that is holy, if Ravnica includes “new mechanic + counter spell” for Blue and “new mechanic + kill a creature” for Black and Green gets “New mechanic + gain life” you will feel my unholy wrath.

It won’t be pretty.