PT NY Report *12th*

** Was this the worst format ever? If not, it came close. You either played Rebels (Plains), Rising Waters (Islands) or were part of the much hoped-for mostly bye bracket (Forests, Mountains and Swamps). There was a Cowardice deck that I still don't think really works, there was a W/G anti-rebel rebel deck, there were aggressive and controlling rebels, but that didn't help much. The overall picture and my testing I'll take care of later. For now, I'll cover what happened in my matches, before I forget too much of what happened. I definitely plan to do a series on my testing, but there's no reason to extend the actual report or spilt it into more than two pieces.

"Everyone's Just Going To Call It Rising Waters" (AKA The Pokey, AKA Alcatraz). Designed by Mogg Squad (more on the details later, but basically I tuned the deck from public versions I played against, and Scott Johns came up with the basis for the sideboard. The rest of the team helped test.)

The version I played was the decklist most popular among the Mogg Squad. Sigurd Eskeland played the same decklist, except he had a 3rd Counterspell in the deck instead of the 2nd Brainstorm.

Day 1:

Before round 1, I found out I wouldn't be able to get the blue sleeves I had been planning on using, which forced me to use red sleeves instead. Right now, red and black sleeves are time bombs at the higher levels. You have to replace them at least by the end of the first day or they're probably going to get marked. Before you sleeve, you really have to shuffle your cards first so a defect won't end up marking your cards. A judge pulled two Ports out of my deck that way; now I know. I also had to exchange sleeves between deck and sideboard several times.

Round 1: Michael "not a scrub" Rumsey

He's not a scrub. Let me say that again: He's not a scrub. He's quite a good player, and has back to back 20th place finishes. Over a year ago, I'd beaten him and apparently in my report I criticized his play. He was back. He played some Plains, no surprise, but then didn't do anything for a while. I thought it would be an easy win - his draw looked horrible! Turned out it was really good, it was his deck that was different. Three Last Breaths later I still had a Bouncer, but Afterlife finally finished my board control off. Wow. That's a lot of removal. The engine finally got forced through. I got Rising Waters, but he got it with a Disenchant. His engine was only high end creatures - multiple Sky Marshals, Jhovall Queens, Ramosian Commander, that kind of rebel. If I keep a Bouncer or Waters I should be more than fine. Waters number two? Seal of Cleansing. Devout Witness! I get a good mix of creatures to hold him off for a while but Parallax Wave number one gets him established and number two does me in.

Devout Witness too? Maindeck this guy has 10 removal for Waters? This has long day written all over it.

So I get beaten down by Marshals and a Queen. It's just not right. I then have to decide whether to use the aggressive board. With all his removal and his huge creatures, I decide to fight for the Waters despite his removal. Again he draws enough removal that I can't fight the Waters into play, but I have a good creature mix and it looks like I have him. He's dead in two turns, and I have a Counter. He topdecks Parallax Wave. Counterspell. He asks, "How good a player are you, Zvi?" and topdecks ANOTHER Parallax Wave. Ouch. Given the number of lands I drew, I should never have gotten that far.

I talked some with him later in the ProTour. Turns out he starts 3 Disenchant, 1 Seal, 2 Devout.

0-1

Round 2: Mark Humphryes (I'm copying the spelling from the Sideboard, hope it's right)

For a second I thought it was the other Humpherys, since he lost the first round as well, but it wasn't. So I march down to the losers' section of the tournament, feeling depressed but knowing the deck was good and things could be a lot worse. You work way more than you should on a format you hate and that happens. Hopefully I'll get an easy matchup. He plays a Swamp. The promised land of Forests, Mountains and Swamps! It's Black Control, and it's really hard to lose to it. The deck has almost no damage sources and they all cost four or more mana. So all I have to do is draw Rising Waters and get it on the table before it gets stopped by Unmask or Extortion. No Waters. All I got was three Thwarts. I Daze his Skull of Ramos, since you can't Daze later with a Ramos part out, but I still don't see a Waters. Tap five lands, Extortion. Tap six lands, Ascendant Evincar (killing a Bouncer)! Highway Robber! Beat you down!

This can't be happening!

Fortunately the next two games go the way they should. I sideboard out the Barriers and Bouncers to get Zeppelins, Bribery, all four Seals and the extra Counterspell, and make sure to counter his Skulls. Game two I come out with two Zeppelins and defend them with countermagic for the win, drawing Rising Waters after it was over anyway. Game three I get him under Waters lock early and he never gets out; I Bribe out a Cateran Enforcer for the kill.

1-1

Round 3 (Feature Match): Tsuyoshi Fujita

I remember thinking: Don't waste one of my features now, better options will come. But it must have been a shallow round for them, and they picked me anyway. So it's feature time, against what looked like a standard rebel deck. I get a good mix of creatures and hold him off while I win with Barriers and Drakes, countering his removal. Game two I go to the Zeppelin board, taking out all the Disenchant targets except Seal of Removal, and I'm pretty sure I caught him. Early on we expected to. The deck worked as expected, and I flew over for the win.

2-1

Round 4: Taro Kageyama

I win the flip, then I mulligan, and I mulligan again. My hand's about as good as five cards that don't include Waters get. He plays Mountain, Kris Mage! It's the promised land again. I play Stinging Barrier to kill it, while he uses Squee with the Kris Mage. He plays Spidersilk Armor. I play a second Barrier. He plays a second Armor. I play a third Barrier! Kris Mage is going down! Magic is so much more fun when the decks aren't the same every round. The problem was he played Kyren Negotiations and Saproling Burst with the two Armors out. That's pretty much game.

His deck is better under Waters than our R/G is, but it's still really bad for him. He lets me do a ton of damage I shouldn't have been allowed to do by not attacking me back with a Kris Mage I should have had to hang back to block, but I don't think it mattered much. To win he has to cast huge spells like Saproling Burst, and while his cheap stuff is good there isn't enough of it. Waters takes him down twice.

3-1

Round 5: Bas Postema

He plays an Island, and I quickly confirm I'm in a mirror matchup. Unlike team Your Move Games, he's using Daze, so I think his deck is very close to mine. That turned out not to be the case. Waters was out quickly. He had early advantage, but I had the hand I needed to take control once, putting out Barrier and Bouncer. He couldn't find a way around it, so I got the game. Game two he put in Tangle Wire while I put in Zeppelins; we both pulled out the Waters. I got a draw with a bunch of Zeppelins, and after a few manipulations and test spells I slipped them into play for the win after the Tangle Wire ran out. After the match I looked at his deck. He built his deck and sideboard in haste, and had Indentured Djinn, which is generally good against rebels but awful everywhere else, and he didn't have Stinging Barrier! That basically meant he couldn't take control without a big Eye advantage game one, and game two was almost unwinnable with all my extra good threats. It's good to have a lot of time to test and be on a team.

4-1

Round 6 (Feature Match): Gary Wise

This was a pure mirror, with identical decklists. It basically comes down to who can take board control, and he had the draw to do it. Game one I had multiple dead Rising Waters and had to counter his, which killed me. Game two, I kept in the Eyes but took out the Waters, while he rolled the dice big time and took out the Eyes. I think that's a lot of risk for not much gain, but he was pretty sure I would yank all the Waters. I almost didn't, but I figured I could outplay him without the Waters and didn't want to take the risk I couldn't use them. We do 17 points of damage with two Bouncers trading hits until someone can do something. I try to take control, he counters. He tries to take control, and it works. I manage to get into position where I can take it back, but he starts drawing like a madman; twice he needed to draw into Gush or Thwart to win, and twice he did. We had agreed on a minor split, where if one of us won the match and made top 8 he owed a grand, but it didn't come up. Gary thought that this match 'proved how lame constructed is.' If you look at what cards we used, of course, you could say this proved how lame limited is. The deck looks a LOT like a good draft deck, and more so without the Waters.

Round 7 (Feature Match): Mike Turian

I was planning to play the seventh round, since taking the draw in the last round is crippling to your top 8 chances, and that's what my goal was. But I knew Turian had the beatdown rebel deck, and combined with the spirit of Potato I was more than willing to draw into day 2. Problem was, he knew how the matchup worked too and refused. He would have accepted if he hadn't found his deck, though (a technique Randy Buehler noted was 'the tech'). I got him under Waters game one after he mulliganed and didn't come out fast, and I stabilized at 17. He managed to kill off my Bouncer with Rath's Edge, but that cost five mana and I drew into another one for the game. He jokingly offered me a draw now that he was down 1-0. Game two I got double Barrier out, and Turian's deck didn't have the ability to move up the 'chain of command' to Sky Marshall and Jhovall Queen. That makes double Barrier devastating, and I swept his board away one 2/2 at a time. As it turns out, the aggressive rebel deck isn't a bad matchup if it can't move up the chain. If it can, it's a nightmare.

5-2, 30th after day 1

To be continued with Day 2...

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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