Mercadian Masques Pre-Release Tournament
Providence, Saturday 9/25
by Leslie Turek (13th)

The Boston-area MM pre-release tournament was being held at the new
Providence branch of Your Move Games, so I got up disgustingly early,
picked up my friends Steven Lee and Alexis Layton, and headed off to
Providence by about 8:15. Alex had delayed our start a bit, but made up
for it by doing the highway driving, so I was able to relax and talk
about the new cards and card mechanics that I'd been reading about in
the spoiler lists. Exactly 1 hour after leaving Cambridge, we arrived at
the Providence YMG and found parking on a nearby side street.

They had set up a nice check-in system: none. Since the tournament was
limited to 200 people and everybody had pre-registered, they just posted
a list with table numbers and told us that at 10:00 they would start
passing out the cards. This was great, as it gave us a chance to walk to
the MacDonald's a few blocks down the road and get Alex some breakfast,
and were still back in plenty of time.

Deck building started on time. Head judge Mike Feuell initially announced
that we would have 30 minutes to build our decks, but later modified
that to 1 hour. That was good, because when all the cards are new, it
takes a little longer to read all the card text and figure out the
possibilities. They used the new rule that you could trade in any 5 of
your basic lands for a different land type (and had a nice supply of MM
land for this purpose). This being a pre-release, not a PTQ, there was
no card exchange or deck registration, which saved a lot of time.

There would be 7 rounds of Swiss, with no top 8 playoffs. Anyone who had
fewer than 2 losses after the 7 rounds would get a prize.

After studying my cards, I decided to play black/green. I had a good bit
of removal and some excellent spellshapers: 2 Undertakers (brings a
creature back from the graveyard to your hand), a Rushwood Herbalist
(regenerates target creature), and especially the rare Notorious
Assassin (destroy target nonblack creature). I had 4 Mercenaries, but
the one that could fetch two of the others, Cateran Enforcer, was so
good as an attacker (could not be blocked except by black or artifact
creatures), that I seldom wanted to tap it to fetch the other smaller
guys.

I had a Rushwood Elemental in my card set, (4/4, gains +1/+1 each
upkeep), but with the casting cost of GGGGG, I thought it was a little
iffy for sealed deck, and didn't play with it. (One of my opponents did,
though, and succeeded in getting it into play, when I promptly proceeded
to Snuff it Out.)

(By the way, I did get a foil land in place of a common in one of my
packs.)

The spellshapers turned out to be used a lot, and they made cards a
precious resource. Spells and effects that gave card advantage were
really good to have. The new creature enchantments that could be played
as instants were also quite good and used a lot.

Here's the deck I played with:

Creatures:
2 Rushwood Dryad (1G) 2/1 Forestwalk. I played these main
  deck, because they were good fast 2-drops, but I ran into
  a lot of green, so they turned out to be even more valuable 
  for their forestwalk. And the two Undertakers and the Rushwood 
  Herbalist made them really hard to get rid of.
2 Undertaker (1B) 1/1. Spellshaper that returns creature
  card from graveyard to hand. Great!
1 Cateran Persuader (BB) 2/1. This was only okay. It
  could search for a Mercenary with mana cost 1 or less,
  but I didn't have any such. When I was up against big
  creatures, I sided this out for the bigger and slower Deadly 
  Insect (6/1).
1 Deepwood Ghoul (2B) 2/1. Pay 2 life to regenerate. Useful
  to block big guys that didn't have trample - taking 2 is
  better than taking 6 or 7.
1 Rushwood Herbalist (2G) 2/2. Spellshaper that regenerates
  target creature.
1 Highway Robber (2BB) 2/2. When it comes into play, you
  gain 2 life and target opponent loses 2 life. Nice with
  Undertaker, although I never got that combo going.
1 Giant Caterpillar (3G) 3/3. and for G, you can sac it to
  make a 1/1 flyer. Also nice with the Undertakers, as you
  can bring it back again after saccing it and make even
  more flyers (I did get a chance to do this).
1 Notorious Assassin (3B) 2/2. Spellshaper that destroys
  target nonblack creature, which can't be regenerated.
  Awesome in sealed! 
1 Venomous Dragonfly (3G) 1/1. Flying. Destroys creatures
  that block it or it blocks. Great combo with the Herbalist!
1 Wall of Distortion (2BB) 1/3. Wall. For 2B and tapping,
  it makes a target player discard a card. But you could
  only play this like a sorcery, which meant that you couldn't
  block and then use the ability. Still, with spellshapers
  in play, discard effects are quite useful. 
1 Cateran Enforcer (3BB) 4/3. Can't be blocked except by
  artifact and black creatures. As mentioned above, I used
  this mostly for attacking, although it could be used to
  fetch the Cateran Persuader and Highway Robber. Its
  unblockable ability won me several games.
1 Primeval Shambler (4B) 3/3. B: gets +1/+1 until end of
  turn. Great card. Starting at 3/3 means it starts out
  big and gets even bigger, and can be really hard to kill.
1 Boa Constrictor (4G) 3/3, and taps to get +3/+3. Basically
  can be a 6/6, but only when it blocks. 

Removal:
1 Vendetta (B) Destroy target nonblack creature, which can't
  be regenerated. You lose life equal to that creature's
  toughness. Great for those annoying little spellshapers
  or forestwalkers.
1 Snuff Out (3B) Destroy target nonblack creature. It can't
  be regenerated. (Alt. casting cost of paying 4 life)
1 Maggot Therapy (2B) Enchant creature (but can play as
  instant), gives +2/-2. I usually used this as removal, as
  it was the only thing I had that worked against black
  creatures. (But it could backfire, for example, if the
  opponent could respond with something that would give the
  creature +1/+1 permanently, as that would keep it alive, 
  and the Maggot Therapy would stay around to enhance its 
  strength. Luckily, that never happened to me.)

Creature enhancements:
1 Tiger Claws (2G) Instant enchantment that gives creature +1/+1
  and trample. This on Primeval Shambler was a game-winner.
1 Invigorate (2G) Instant that gives creature +4/+4 until 
  end of turn. Alternate casting cost of opponent gains 3 life.
1 Ghoul's Feast (2B) Instant that gives +X/0, where X is the
  number of creature cards in your graveyard. This can be used
  as creature removal (on a blocker) or as a finisher when
  cast on a trampler or unblockable guy. 

Miscellaneous:
1 Revive (1G) Return target green card from your graveyard to
  your hand. 
1 Insubordination (BB) Requires enchanted creature to attack
  each turn, or its controller takes 2 damage. I thought this
  might be useful to get rid of spellshapers, or make walls
  a liability, but didn't get much of a chance to use it.
  (When one was played on my Undertaker, I just took the
  damage for several turns as long as I needed the Undertaker.)
1 Collective Unconscious (4GG) Draw a card for each creature
  you control. A great rare in this format. I could usually get
  3-6 cards this way, and there was always the potential of
  bringing it back with Revive.

Land:
1 Hickory Woodlot (green depletion land). This was pretty useful
  for early mana acceleration, although one time I was mana
  screwed and it was sad to see it go away after it was used up.
7 forest
9 swamps

I was a little worried that I had no enchantment or artifact removal,
very few flyers, and very little removal for black creatures. But
otherwise the deck looked interesting and fun to play, with a lot of
synergy and a reasonable mana curve. A little too much at 4 casting
cost, perhaps, but the depletion land helped with that.

I didn't keep careful notes, so this won't be a blow-by-blow, but I'll
try to give some impressions. My apologies in advance for anything I got
wrong - I didn't take notes and the day is still very much of a blur in
my mind.

First round, wouldn't you know it, I got matched up with my friend,
Alexis. I had really mixed feelings about this. Alex introduced me to
Magic, but hadn't been playing as much as I've been lately, so I really
wanted him to do well and be encouraged. On the other hand, I had won
cards at a couple of previous pre-releases, and thought I had a good
chance here, so I really didn't want to lose. I tried to set my feelings
aside and just play the best I could.

In the first game, Alex, who was playing green and blue, got totally
mana hosed, and I got a great draw, with lots of creatures getting out
quickly and beating him down. My notes show his life at 20, 17, 3, and
0. It was over very quickly.

In the second game, he took out his green and swapped in black. (He
hadn't seen my forest walkers in the first game, but he did have two
swampwalkers in black.) I got slightly mana hosed this time, and he got
the two swampwalkers out. Since most of my creature removal didn't work
on black creatures, I was in trouble. I think I got one of them with my
Maggot Therapy, but the other kept on coming for the win.

The second game went very slowly, so we didn't have time to finish the
third. I had him down to 11 and I was 19 when we ran out of time. I
think I would have won it, but as it was, we had a draw.

So I started out at 0-0-1.

(In one of the tournament reports I've read, where the writer also drew
in the first round, he gave his opinion that the draw was a good thing
because it moved him out of the top tier for the rest of the competition
and he saw less black and red in the lower tiers. That may be true. My
deck was definitely better against decks that didn't contain black, and
I didn't run into as much black as I expected. In MM, it may be harder
to splash black, as many of the good black cards have BB or even BBB in
their casting cost.)

The second round was against John DiBragga. My notes say that he won the
first game decisively (I think he had a lot of flyers), but I won the
next two, also decisively. But I don't remember any details.

I'm 1-0-1 at this point.

Third match was Neil Dahill. Both games were close, but I won both of
them. I think this was the match where my opponent was playing red and
had an artifact called Bargaining Table that basically allowed him to
draw an extra card every turn. But I got out my Notorious Assassin, so
every turn he would play a creature and the Assassin would kill it.
You'd think that with his card-drawing advantage, eventually he'd have
more creatures to cast than I had cards to discard to the Assassin, or
that he'd draw a burn spell that would toast the Assassin, but somehow I
managed to win before that happened.

2-0-1

Fourth match was Dennis Grant, a high-school math teacher from
Connecticut. Dennis had a very formidable creature, a Cateran Overlord
(a black 7/5 regenerator) that he enchanted with Inviolability (Prevent
all damage to enchanted creature). I was blocking it either with my
Deepwood Ghoul and taking 2 damage to regenerate it, or, when I got
enough swamps, my pumped-up Primeval Shambler. Then I realized the Tiger
Claws gave trample, so I put Tiger Claws on the Primeval Shambler and
started attacking with it. (By this point I had 5 swamps, so I could
pump it to 9/9, counting the Tiger Claws.) That gave me the win.

It was a long game, so we didn't have much time for game 2. I didn't
stall, but I did keep in mind that I should play a defensive game and
not leave him any openings to finish me off. He got out the Overlord
again, but only when we were almost out of time, and he wasn't able to
kill me before time ran out.

3-0-1

Afterward, I asked him why, in the first game, he hadn't blocked my
trampler with his Cateran Overlord. He told me that one of the judges
had told him earlier that a creature enchanted with Inviolability, would
not absorb any damage and all the damage would trample through anyway.
That didn't sound right to either of us, but Dennis figured that if
that was how it would be ruled, he would play accordingly.

I was curious, so I asked head judge Mike Feuell about it. He agreed
that it wasn't right. I would have had to assign 5 damage to the
Overlord (which would have been prevented) and only the remainder would
have trampled through. I don't think it would have changed the game
result, but I made sure that Dennis heard this from Mike, so he would
play it right in future matches. (And Mike asked Dennis who had given
him the incorrect information, so if it was a judge, he could correct
him.)

I had gotten so involved with this discussion, and the room was so noisy
(and I guess I was a little flakey after 4 intense matches) that I
totally missed the announcement that the 5th round was starting. I had
been watching the spot on the wall where the pairings had been posted
for the first 4 rounds and nothing had appeared there, so I thought I
was okay. But finally Dennis asked me if I was dropping out, and I told
him no, and he told me that the round had already started. Instant
panic! So I went dashing off to find a pairings list (which had been
posted in some of the usual places, but not all of them), and to find my
seat, which had changed its location in between rounds, and sat down all
agitated and upset, and in no good condition to start a match. My first
big mistake of the day.

Luckily, I made it in time, and my next opponent, Alex Buck, was pretty
reasonable. Alex won the toss and chose to play, and I looked at my hand
to see one land, so I decided to mulligan. I reshuffled, and Alex cut,
and I went ahead and counted out 7 lands and picked them up, and Alex
said "Uh...", and I said, "Oh shit." I was acting like such a scrub and
I was really annoyed with myself. Big mistake number two.

Alex was cool, though, and didn't report it to a judge, just told me not
to draw on my first turn. (Actually, since pre-releases are run at a
lower level of rules enforcement than a PTQ, I suspect that's what the
judge would have said, also. But I was still annoyed with myself.)

I won the first game, I don't remember how - I think it might have been
the forestwalkers.  I remember one lucky play, where Alex had cast a
Hunted Wumpus, a very fast 6/6 guy (costing only 3G) that had a
coming-into-play effect that allowed me to put a creature card from my
hand directly into play. Luckily, I happened to be holding a Boa
Constrictor, which could be tapped to become 6/6, which is obviously the
creature I chose. And I also had Invigorate, which could give +4/+4 as
an instant. So when the Wumpus attacked, it died and the Boa Constrictor
lived.

The second game was very bad. I had an opening hand consisting of 3
forests and a few small green things I could cast, but after that I kept
drawing black spells and more forests and no swamps at all. In this
game, Alex cast the Wumpus again, and this time I had nothing useful 
to put into play - just some dinky 2/1 guy. I died quickly.

In the third game, I just kept drawing land and creature enhancements
and NO CREATURES. It was very maddening. I lost that one, too.

3-1-1. Well, I'm still in it. I was glad that the loss was due more to
bad draws than to my playing errors. All I have to do now is calm down,
play well, and win the next two matches...

Match 6 was again Chris Redman. My memory is hazy once again. My notes
say that I won the first game while still at 13 life, he appears to have
won the second, although it was close, and I won the third when he was
at 9 life.

4-1-1. One more to go.

For the last round I'm back at the low-numbered tables and sitting next
to Dave Humphreys. Whew! Exciting stuff. My opponent is Derek Bruneau, a
friend of Toby Elliot's, and a very nice guy. I hear Dave offering to
split the prize with his opponent, and I offer the same deal to Derek.
To my surprise, he accepts a 2/3 1/3 split. (I'm used to guys thinking
that I'm not much of a threat and being so sure they can beat me that
they don't want to make deals like that.) I relax a little bit, now that
I'm sure of winning _something_, if only a few packs.

Derek is playing an interesting deck, where he uses the spellshaper's
abilities to the hilt by exploiting an innocent-looking card called
Groundskeeper, a little 1/1 guy with the ability, 1G: return basic land
card from your graveyard to your hand. So he would take something like a
Kris Mage (discard a card from your hand to do one damage to target
creature or player), discard a land, bring it back with the
Groundskeeper, and then repeat next turn. It was very annoying,
especially since many of my creatures had 1 toughness.

Once again, I've lost track of the details of this match. I remember
that I won the first game pretty handily, and was feeling pretty
cheerful. At one point, he got out a 2/2 swampwalker, on which I cast
Maggot Therapy, chortling, "Now he's a very big, very dead swampwalker".

In the second game, Derek started to get the advantage, and I suddenly
realized that if we drew the match, _neither_ of us would win any
prizes. Not good. So I was motivated to play quickly and try to get the
third game completed within the time limit. Derek helped by finishing
off the second game quickly by casting Lumbering Satyr, a big 5/4
creature that gave all creatures forestwalk. He had more and bigger guys
than I had, and they were now all unblockable, so he just attacked with
everything on that same turn and won.

Luckily, the third game went quickly and I just managed to win it.
(After I won, the very next card in Derek's library was the Lumbering
Satyr, so it was a close thing!)

I enjoyed playing Derek a lot because he was used his cards so well it
was an education to watch him play.

5-1-1.

So I finished 13th and won 12 packs, which I split 8-4 with Derek. Cool!

I was pleased that (except for that brief flurry of adrenalin at the
start of the 4th match), I generally played well and was able to focus
on the game in spite of the lack of sleep and the general chaos around
me.

Steven had finished at a respectable 4-3, but Alex had done poorly and
dropped out early. At dinner later that night we both looked at Alex's
cards and agreed that he had been given very little to work with and
shouldn't feel too bad about not doing well.

The following day, Steven invited me to play my deck against his deck
(actually, two different versions of his deck). He was curious to see if
he could beat me.

The two variants were very different. First he played a red/green
beatdown deck, with 2 Saber Ants (2/3 creatures that produce a 1/1
creature token for each damage they take). They're really strong with
regeneration, which he also had via the Herbalist. You don't want to
attack on the ground because he'll just block with the Saber Ants,
regenerate them, and generate a lot of creatures for the damage. He also
had Tremor, 1 damage to all non-flyers, which took care of my
Undertakers, forestwalkers, and Dragonflies (while at the same time
doing 1 point of damage to the Saber Ants and generating a few more
token creatures). I was really lucky that I had black removal that
didn't rely on doing damage to get rid of the Saber Ants.

The second deck swapped out red for blue. It had the pinging blue wall
(which also took out the aforementioned creatures), and a bunch of big
guys: 2 Deadly Insects, a Saprazzan Outrigger (5/5, goes back to top of
your library if it attacks or blocks), and a 6/6 Pangosaur which returns
to your hand if anyone plays a land. He'd get out a bunch of big guys,
while holding me off and pinging me every turn with the wall, then at
the end of my turn, he'd cast a Shoving Match (Instant, gives all
creatures the ability to tap to tap a target creatures - he had two of
them), tap all his guys to tap all of my guys, then untap for his turn
and attack with everything past my tapped blockers. It was a great
finishing tactic.

He won a game with each of his decks, but I won both matches 2-1. So he
was convinced that my tournament win wasn't a complete fluke.

Thanks to Mike Feuell and Your Move Games for another smoothly-run
tournament (even if it had to be in Providence), to David Grant for
warning me that round 5 had started, to Alexis Layton for bringing me
food at the start of round 7 when I couldn't get out, and to everyone I
played - you were all great! A special thank-you to Darwin Kastle, for
holding those informal sealed deck clinics at Your Move Games, which
have helped me improve my deck-building skills.

See you at the next pre-release!