Mirage Sealed Deck Tournament Pro-Tour Qualifier January 25, 1997 I opened my pre-registered deck to find 2 Kaervek's Torches sitting on top. Obviously, I was going to play red. In fact, I was almost able to play a 2-color red/black deck, except for the fact that I didn't have enough land (only 4 Swamps and 4 Mountains, so even with the added 5 land and the Rocky Tar Pit, I'd only have 14 lands if I went two-color - not enough). So since I would have to add a 3rd color land anyway, I added a couple of key white cards also. In a few games where my opponent played blue, I swapped in blue instead of the white to bring in islandwalkers, but that didn't have any significant impact on any of the games. Here is a list of what I played with. Creatures are listed in order of casting cost, small to large. Creatures: Multicolor: Discordant Spirit Black: Shadow Guildmage Blighted Shaman Skulking Ghost Feral Shadow Breathstealer Dirtwater Wraith Fetid Horror Red: Goblin Elite Infantry Goblin Tinkerer Pyric Salamander Blistering Barrier Burning Shield Ask. Dwarven Nomad Subterranean Spirit White: Teremko Griffin Spells: Black: Dark Banishing Drain Life Stupor Red: Agility 2 Kaervek's Torch White: Pacifism Land: Rocky Tar Pit 6 Swamps (added 2, with 1 in reserve) 6 Mountains 4 Plains Going into the tournament, I felt pretty good about the deck. It was designed to be a fairly fast deck, with only one spell (Subterranean Spirit) needing double colored mana or a casting cost greater than 4. The downside was that I didn't have any big creatures (Subterranean Spirit was my only 3/3; all the others were smaller.) But I did have 3 flyers, two pumpable creatures, a swampwalker, and the potential for two phasing islandwalkers. I had a good amount of direct damage and creature removal: 2 Torches, Drain Life, Dark Banishing, Pacifism, plus Stupor had the potential to get rid of creatures in hand, Subterranean Spirit could do 1 damage to all non-flyers, and Shadow Guildmage could do 1 damage to anything. There were a lot of good combos for Dwarven Nomad: with the 2 pumpers, the Breathstealer, the Pyric Salamander even with the Goblin Elite Infantry (which is 2/2, but goes to 1/1 if blocked). And there was the Blighted Shaman that could be used to pump another creature in a pinch. I was a little worried that I would be short on swamps for pumping and for the Drain Life, but I didn't want to go lower on mountains because I wanted to be able to cast my cheap red creatures early, plus a number of creatures had effects that required red (Shadow Guildmage, Pyric Salamander, Askari). I expected that I would usually use the Rocky Tar Pit to fetch a swamp, unless I lacked mountains entirely. As it turned out, there were a couple of games where I could have used more swamps for pumping. I never really had any trouble with not having a plains when I needed it, so maybe I should have gone with 7 swamps and 3 plains. I only got seriously mana-screwed in one gameÑmy first, as it happened. Here's the game-by-game story: First match was with Dan, an older guy, father of a junior player. Dan seemed a little hesitant in his play, but was generally pretty good. (For example, he was savvy enough to realize that when I cast a 2-point Drain Life on his Breathstealer, if he tapped a swamp to make it 3/1, I'd only get 1 life instead of 2.) He was playing a fast B/R/G deck, but didn't have much flyer defense. First game: I was totally mana screwed and couldn't get anything out. It was over very quickly. Second game: I got out a Skulking Ghost early and basically killed him with it. Third game: I got out the Ghost for a few turns, then he killed it with a Guildmage. I got the Fetid Horror out, but it didn't do much good because he had big blockers out. I couldn't play the Dwarven Nomad because his Guildmage would kill it. Then I drew Subterranean Spirit, which I used to kill the Guildmage. This allowed me to bring out the Dwarven Nomads, plus the Pyric Salamander, and attack with an unblockable, pumped Fetid Horror. I finally finished him off with a Torch. Matches: 1-0 Games: 2-1 Next match was with a junior player with an unusual name I didn't catch, also playing R/B/G. I won the first game by just being fast (and I guess he was mana screwed). The second and third were very different. Both games were basically the same story. I got out a swampwalker, but only had one swamp to pump it. He got out a Wildfire Emissary/Dwarven Nomad combo and could hit me for 5 points a turn. I couldn't Pacify the Wildfire Emissary because it had protection from white. In both games I managed to kill one or the other of his combo with a Torch or a Dark Banishing; but in both games he used Bone Harvest to bring them back. At one point I got out my Discordant Spirit, which was turning into a 7/7 creature every time he did me 5 damage. But he had enough blockers to keep it at bay for 3 turns, which was enough time for the Wildfire Emissary combo to kill me. I concluded that Discordant Spirit would be a lot more useful if you had something that could give it trample. I did make a couple of stupid blunders in these games, but I don't think either one really contributed to the result. At one point I forgot that Giant Mantis could block flyers and attacked with my Skulking Ghost and lost it. (My opponent even offered to let me take it back, but I didn't feel right about doing that, and advised him he shouldn't be so nice to people in tournament situations. After the game, he told me that I was the nicest person he'd ever played against.) But even if I'd kept the Ghost, I probably never would have done any damage with it, and didn't need it to block, since I was never attacked with flyers. Another mistake was one point where I had a Pyric Salamander out, and he brought out a Guildmage that could do one point of damage. I thought to myself that I should attack next turn with the Salamander and pump it to max (and I had 4 mountains!), since I would lose next turn anyway. At least I would do some damage or wipe out a blocker before it went. But then when my turn rolled around, I forgot to do it. But I lost the game by more than 5 life, so again I don't think it would have mattered either. But I resolved to take things slower and be more focussed in future games, and did succeed in getting through the rest of the match with only one more (somewhat less obvious) blunder. I stayed in touch with this kid through the tournament (we were cheering each other on), and he was at 4-2 after the 6th round. He said his only loses were due to mana screw. Matches: 1-1 Games: 3-3 My next opponent was Brian, a pretty grim young man who wasn't at all happy about losing. I didn't note much special about these games. He was slow, and I was fast, and I won both games pretty quickly. The one notable thing was in the first game, in which I almost killed him with my Goblin Elite Infantry (!), because I got it out early, and was able to get rid of any blockers he brought out for about 6-7 turns. Brian was one of those people who didn't use life counters, but tracked his score in his head. I really hate this, because I always keep having to ask where things stand, and get nervous that I can't trust the answer. So I started to track his score myself with pen and paper. I've noticed that many of the more experienced players actually run two sets of life counters; one for themselves and one for their opponent, so they don't have to trust the opponent to track correctly. Matches: 2-1 Games: 5-3 Next player was a pleasant guy named Bill, playing blue/green/black. He had the disadvantage, as I found out for sure after the game, of having no direct damage or creature removal. The first game was fast and close. Basically, he hit me with something I couldn't block (I think it was a blue flyer), and I hit him with a swampwalker he couldn't block, and we both went down in life quickly, with me getting down to 1 life on the turn I finally killed him. Whew. In the second game, I sideboarded in my Islandwalkers, but they never came out and I never needed them. The only thing that really worried me was when he played a spell that enchanted my Discordant Spirit with 1 life cumulative upkeep, but it was too late to do any good. Basically, I killed him with Dwarven Nomad pushing through the pumped-up Fetid Horror (sound familiar?), plus a Torch at the end that he couldn't counter. Matches: 3-1 Games: 7-3 Now things were getting serious, as I was playing at the first table against people with winning records. I sat down next to David Humphreys, and played against a nice guy named Steven that I had met earlier when I started chatting with his wife, Sara, in between matches. Steven was playing black/red/blue, and put up a pretty good fight, except for one fatal mistake in game 2. In the first game I Pacified his Discordant Spirit and killed his Reckless Embermage, which was one of his key plays. He did get out a set of Goblin Scouts (with mountainwalk), which was a little scary at first. There was a brief period where the ability of the Discordant Spirit turned out to be a liability. At one point I had only a Dwarven Nomad and a Discordant Spirit out, and he had a big blocker of some sort, so whenever he did damage with his mountainwalking Scouts, the Discordant Spirit got pumped just enough so I couldn't use the Dwarven Nomad with it. But eventually I got rid of the big blocker (Dark Banishing?), so I could start to attack with the pumped Spirit whenever he did me damage with a Scout. I also had the Subterranean Spirit that I could have used to kill the Scouts, if necessary, but which turned out to be more useful as a plain 3/3 creatures, especially since I also had some /1 creatures in play that I didn't want to kill. He had to stop attacking with the Scouts anyway to reserve them as blockers. Later, he revealed that he hadn't drawn any islands, so had a lot of useless blue spells in his hand. In the second game, he made his blunder. We were partway into the game, and I had a slight advantage in creatures, when I played a Stupor. He decided to Power Sink it (because, as I found out, he wanted to hang onto a Ray of Command in his hand). He announced a Power Sink for 4. I looked down, confused, because I had 4 untapped lands, and said, almost hesitantly, ÒOK, I'll tap 4 landsÓ. He groaned, because he could have gone for more, but somehow failed to count my two untapped mountains. I guess he was trying to hold back enough to actually cast the Ray of Command during my next attack. We both agreed that my mountains had been clearly untapped and were in clear view, so he would not take back the play. So he lost his Power Sink, AND the Ray of Command, and something else, and I went on to win the game with a Torch (that otherwise he would have Power Sinked). So I felt a little bad about that win. Matches: 4-1 Games: 9-3 Now I was playing Greg, who was the most skilled player I had yet run across. I had chatted with him earlier, when he had told me about his Arena deck, which sounded pretty good (a black/white Sacred Mesa deck that really focussed on getting out the tokens: 4 Sacred Mesas, 4 Enlightened Tutors, Disempower to protect the Mesas, Prismatic Circles, and Withering Boons and Dark Banishings to get rid of attacking creatures). He told me after the match that he might qualify for the Pro Tour on his ranking alone. He was pleasant, but serious, carefully shuffling both his deck and mine, taking a long time with sideboarding, etc. But I was surprised to see that he played four colors: green/black/blue/red. The first game went fast, and I got him with my swampwalker. This time I had 3 swamps, so could do 4 damage a turn. He had a Gravebane Zombie, but didn't attack with it because I had two weenie blockers that would have killed it (and since it goes back to your library, I'm assuming that he didn't want that to happen, but was hoping to draw something to deal with my swampwalker instead). He finally brought out a red creature that could tap to do damage equal to its power, which could have killed my swampwalker, but I was able to Torch it before it lost its summoning sickness. The second game was tougher. He swapped out his black in favor of white, so my swampwalker wouldn't be unblockable anymore. And in white, he had TWO of those griffins that can pull each other out of the graveyard, and he used them very effectively. It was here I made my third apparent mistake. Early in the game, I had a Breathstealer and a Dirtwater Wraith and 3 swamps in play. I attacked with both, and since he had no apparent blockers, I pumped the Wraith. He then cast a Ray of Command on the Wraith and used it to block and kill the Breathstealer. If I hadn't pumped it, the Breathstealer would not have died. I guess when I announced the attack, I should have asked explicitly if he was blocking before pumping, but it seems like an odd thing to do when the opponent has no creatures out. In spite of the mistake, I developed fast, and got him down to 9 before we had a big creature standoff. After a few turns of stalemate, he attacked with everything. I knew there was some sort of trick coming, but couldn't guess what it was. I was thinking it was an instant creature enchantment that would kill a blocker, and I had a fair amount of life, so I was careful about blocking, finally only committing one blocker, my Fetid Horror that could kill his 3/3 when pumped, but keeping back my other black pumper, and taking 6 damage. As it turned out, the whole thing was moot, as the surprise was a Savage Twister that wiped out all our creatures. Then it became a race to get creatures on the board. He had more cards in his hand than I did, so I was pretty worried (but I found out later that a lot of it was land (!)) We did go pretty much one for one in getting creatures out. But during one turn when he cast two creatures at once and was all tapped out, I decided to go with my Kaervek's Torch, even though I was one short of killing him. I just worried that with blue he might counter, and figured there was a good chance I could do the one damage later Ñ I just had to get one creature ahead. A few turns later, I got my Shadow Guildmage out, which could do one damage directly, and he resigned. Matches: 5-1 Games: 11-3 After this match, they posted the results list marked up to show who still had a chance of getting into the final 8. 17 were possible, and I was number 16! (Out of about 150 starters.) Wow, things were getting serious. Rob Dougherty asked me if I would wear a Your Move Games t-shirt when I went to the Pro Tour :-) But then I met Nat, a very nice junior player with a killer deck, and my dreams of glory were shattered. Nat was playing black/blue/red, and just ran all over me. He showed me his deck later, and he had 8 direct damage/creature removal spells (Enfeeblement, Flare, Incinerate, Thirst, Ether Well, Spitting Earth, Volcanic Geyser, and something else...), 4 fast flyers (2 Feral Shadows, Azimaet Drake, and a Skulking Ghost - which I did manage to kill by making it unblockable with my Dwarven Nomad), and a bunch of moderately big red and artifact creatures. Oh yes, and he had a Meddle (which he never actually played) which would have had the effect of taking over one of my own creature removal spells. So he was in really good shape. (I later noticed in the score sheets that just before playing me, he also beat top-ranked sealed deck player Darwin Kastle.) I don't feel bad about losing those games because I don't think this deck was beatable by my deck, however it had been played. In retrospect, more intelligent sideboarding might have helped a tiny bit, but I still don't think I could have won. I should have brought in Unerring Sling against his flyers (I don't think Burning Palm Efreet would have helped, because he just would have killed it, but he may not have had any artifact control.) Swapping in blue was good, as I did get out the islandwalkers (too late to do any good), but I probably should have added Kukemssa Serpent for another big creature, and swapped out something other than Goblin Tinkerer (which might have killed one of his artifact creatures, if he didn't kill it first). Maybe add Reality Ripple to counter a creature removal spell. But I still think this would have been equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. So the final result was Matches: 5-2 Games: 11-5 I'm pretty happy with the result. It was a long day, with a lot of tension, but I held up pretty well, managed to maintain concentration (most of the time), met some nice people, gained a little credibility with people like Rob Dougherty, and had a pretty good time.