2001)

Playtesting is for Sissies! -- IBC PTQ @ Niles, IL, 9-8-01
Dave Andrews

After picking up three byes at a Grand Prix Trial at The Outpost in Grand Rapids, I had started to feel a bit more confident that I could do some winning at the tail end of the IBC season and not have the entire season end up as a Magical disaster. The deck that I had used at that trial was virtually untested, and I had been able to spend a little time working with the deck and, most importantly, the sideboard, where I replaced the ridiculous Sleeping Potions with Obliterate as an answer to Spiritmonger, as well as added some additional beatdown critters for certain matchups where I needed a little more gas. As opposed to when I headed off to the trial a week before, I was heading for last Saturday’s PTQ with a much more tested and practiced deck.

So I trashed it.

On the ride to Niles, IL, Scott Herzberg was trying to decide what deck he was going to play for the day. He turned down my suggestion to just take a nap and let the magical elves build a deck for him while he slept, and turned to a much more scientific method of deciding on a deck: he shuffled a stack of cards, each card representing a different deck, and pulled his deck choice from among them. The card he pulled represented a B/W/u deck similar to the B/W decks we all started the season trying to build, but with Fact or Fiction instead of Phrexian Arena, plus a few other blue enhancements. As he and Troy Skinner sat in the front of the car, discussing exact numbers of cards in the list, I kept hearing the cards they were mentioning and thinking, “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Oh, Spectral Lynx, that’s nice. Probe? Sounds interesting. I like Dromar’s Charm, too.” My cards were locked away in the trunk, but I whipped out my trusty Palm Pilot and started scribbling out just how I would build the deck if I had wanted to play it. By the time it was done, I indeed wanted to play it.

4:Spectral Lynx
3:Ravenous Rats
2:Desolation Angel
4:Recoil
4:Vindicate
4:Gerrard’s Verdict
4:Dromar’s Charm
2:Rout
3:Fact or Fiction (should have been 4)
3:Probe (should have been 2, what was I thinking?)
2:Yawgmoth’s Agenda
4:Caves of Koilos
4:Coastal Tower
4:Salt Marsh
3:Island
5:Swamp
5:Plains

I’m going to list the sideboard, but I’d prefer that you just skip over it – it is somewhat embarrassing. Not 3 Sleeping Potions embarrassing, but still. I really need to play a deck a few times to get an idea for the strengths and weaknesses in each matchup before I can build a sideboard. Here’s what I put together:

2:Rout
2:Lobotomy
3:Gainsay
2:Marauding Knight
2:Dodecapod
2:Urborg Shambler
2:Crusading Knight

We arrived at the tournament site a half hour before the tournament was set to begin, so I quickly assembled the deck and prepared to play the PTQ with a brand new (to me) deck.

Round 1 vs. Jason Tozier with U/R/W Control

In game 1, my deck came out with the terribly disruptive double-Verdict draw, and discarding four cards in two turns wrecked Jason’s hand. I got in a few hits with a Lynx, and continued to disrupt him with Recoil and Vindicate until a Desolation Angel hit the table, and that was checkmate for game 1.

Game 2 started with a Ravenous Rats, followed by a Vindicate on one of Jason’s lands. A few turns later I had both the Rat and a Spectral Lynx working, and drew and played a Lobotomy. I had to take Powerstone Minefield from his deck in order to keep my offense going, and while thumbing through his deck I saw a full 4 Dodecapods – I’m glad he didn’t have one for my turn 2 Rat! Jason never quite recovered from the early disruption, and the Desolation Angel shows up to wrap up the game a second time.

Round 2 vs. Mark Piunn with G/U/r Tempo

Spectral Lynx is a troublesome creature for the G/U/r deck, and in this game I had 2 working early. With all the disruption in my deck keeping a real race from ever developing, the 2 Lynxes were all I needed to reduce Mark to 0.

In game 2, Mark was a little land light, and my deck was very unforgiving to him, providing me with 2 Vindicates to further his mana trouble. I had only a Spectral Lynx to pressure with, but Mark continued to draw non-land cards, until it had gone too far and he just packed.

Round 3 vs. Mike Dickerson with B/U/W control

I started off game 1 with 2 early Ravenous Rats, while Mike started off a little land-light. Once again, the deck I was playing was very unforgiving to a mana-screwed player, and the disruption kept him from dealing with the 2 Rats, who eventually brought him down to be finished off with the help of a Lynx.

In game 2, my opening hand was not as disruptive as I had become accustomed to thus far in the tournament, but it was enough to sneak out a Marauding Knight. Soon after, I realized Mike had probably sided out his discard in fear of Dodecapod, so I cast the ‘Pod in my hand as a 3/3, and together the 2 beasts brought Mike down to 0.

Round 4 vs. Eric Berger with U/W/G Hippo

So far on the tournament the deck I was playing, combined with the occasional poor draw by an opponent, had been doing all the work. At no point in any of my first 3 matches had a felt like I was in any trouble. This round was to be different, as I started out game 1 with a mulligan. I was playing from behind the entire game, but was finally able to clear my opponent’s critters from the board and drop the Desolation Angel when I was at 2 and my opponent was at 17. A few swings later, and I was happy to have won a game in which I had been so far behind.

In the second game, I was in worse trouble than the first, when I was able to cast 2 early Gerrard’s Verdicts, but didn’t draw much of anything else and was soon facing an impressive army without anything to protect myself. I had come back from behind by playing carefully in the first game, but in this game it all came down to a topdeck. Facing a Phelddagriff and Meddling Mage, I knew I needed to topdeck Rout to win, so I played Yawgmoth’s Agenda with only the 2 Verdicts in my graveyard, to make sure there would be no countermagic if I did draw the Rout. Eric added a Sabretooth Nishoba to his army, and brought me down to 6 life (thankfully I had gained 9 life by casting 3 Verdicts). With my last chance to draw an answer, I flipped over the Rout from the top of my deck, and triumphantly cleared away Eric’s Phelddagriff, Meddling Mage, Nishoba, and 2 Sunscape Apprentices. I thought that was a pretty good topdeck, but on the next turn my deck decided to go for one better – following the Rout from the turn before, I peeled a Desolation Angel, and slapped it on the table to take over the second game. Twice in a row I had been on the verge of losing, and the Angel came out to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Round 5 vs. Sam King with G/R/U Obliterate

I was careful in game 1 to hold back a few lands, and not overcommit resources to the board. When Sam cast Obliterate for the first time, I was waiting to cast Fact or Fiction in response, which my buddy Troy Skinner had advised would be the key to not only recovering but coming out aggressively following the Obliterate. It worked beautifully, and both Sam and I were active in fighting for control of the board following the first Obliterate. Things were looking good for me when I had 2 Lynxes versus Sam’s 2 Blurred Mongooses, but I made a horrible error that opened the door for Sam to burn up both of my Lynxes. Without blockers for Sam’s creatures, I was forced to drop a 6th land (I had already been hit by one Disrupt) and Rout.

As it became apparent that total control of the board would be difficult to obtain, even with the help of Obliterate, I think Sam decided he would have to use his burn spells to win this game, which meant he couldn’t afford to lose too many lands casting Obliterate again. He pitched 2 Obliterates to a Gerrard’s Verdict, and I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that there would be no more. Sam had drawn more cards than I had using Fact or Fiction and cantrips, and was nearing the end of his deck, when we found ourselves in a very delicately balanced situation. I held Desolation Angel in my hand, and a Dromar’s Charm that Sam knew was there. If I could get the Angel to resolve, that would be victory for certain. There were only 1 each of Disrupt and Exclude in Sam’s graveyard, and not yet 4 Mystic Snakes. He had been holding 1 of the cards in his hand since way back when I cast Rout, so I knew it wasn’t a Snake, and he had let another Lynx hit the table, so I knew that specific card wasn’t an Exclude, so I was pretty certain it was a Disrupt. Of the other 2 cards in his hand, it was reasonable to assume 1 was either a Snake or an Exclude, based on the cards remaining in his library, the cards in his graveyard, and the way he was playing. The other I knew was Urza’s Rage because it had been revealed in an earlier Fact or Fiction, and he had the 12 mana to kick it up. All together, we were both in a situation where the first player to flinch would lose – if I tried to cast Desolation Angel, he would counter, and if I tried to back it up with Dromar’s Charm, he would Disrupt it, untap, and Rage me out. On the other hand, if he tried to Rage me, I’d Charm myself up in life to stay alive, and then drop the Angel while he was tapped. I desperately wanted to draw another land to play around Disrupt, but the next land I drew was a Coastal Tower, and by the time it untapped, he had 15 mana available to Exclude an Angel, and Rage me in response to my Charm, so the way was not clear for me to make a move.

While we waited for our opportunity to slap a game winner on the table, we maneuvered carefully with the creatures on the board and the additional spells we drew. I was able to work out a creature advantage with Spectral Lynx, and Sam was forced to Rage the Lynx to regenerate during my attack phase or take lethal damage. This led to the Lynx being Repulsed and countered, my Desolation Angel being countered, and Sam bringing me down to 1 life with Blurred Mongoose and Mystic Snake. With both of us at 1 life, and Sam having two creatures to my none, I cast Yawgmoth’s Agenda, then Rout as an instant during Sam’s turn, followed by Desolation Angel from the graveyard on my next turn, to bring about victory in game 1 as time was running out for the round. The match ended as a 1-0 victory for me, and that 1 game was my hardest fought battle of the day.

Round 6 and 7 vs. Jacob Janoska and Ryan Opalk, intentional draw.

Quarterfinals vs. Prakhesh Madhev, mirror match

I wasn’t excited about starting the top 8 with a mirror match. I won the die roll and played first for game 1, and started with 2 Ravenous Rats. Those 2 Rats kept attacking while my opponent struggled to draw land, and by the time my opponent had land, I had drawn 3 Dromar’s Charms to protect my Rats, and those 2 brought home the game 1 victory.

I started game 2 with a mulligan, and kept a very non-disruptive hand. I got beat up by Spectral Lynxes while providing little more resistance than tossing out the occasional Recoil or Vindicate target. Game 3 was even worse, as I mulliganned twice to keep a 5 card hand with 1 land, and proceeded to miss several land drops. I did eventually get enough mana to play the game, and got a Marauding Knight on to face my opponent’s Meddling Mage and Spectral Lynx, but my opponent followed that with another Lynx and Mage, and once he had the way cleared with 2 Mages naming Dromar’s Charm and Recoil, he dropped the Desolation Angel to wrap up the match.

Now, winning a match when you take 3 mulligans in the last 2 games is difficult, but the truth of this match was that my opponent had done more preperation for this tournament than I had. I think he had a good understanding of the mirror match coming into the tournament, whereas I was learning this deck as I went along, and he had a much better sideboard. I’m looking forward to finally having an opportunity to do some real playtesting and practice in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully I’ll be a force to be reckoned with at the upcoming PTQ in Detroit and Grand Prix: Minneapolis. At any rate, I was happy to be able to break out of my recent slump, and get back into the Top 8 of a PTQ.

I don’t normally do Props/Slops in my reports, but recently my work schedule has been crazy, and I’ve had a ton of help trying to stay competitive this PTQ season. Thanks to CardShark for continuing to support Team CardShark and magic players in general. Thanks to The Outpost in Grand Rapids, MI, for providing a well-run tournament close to home so I could get my game back on track. Thanks to Travis Cullum, who has been able to provide me with a good number of practice games even with my crazy schedule lately. Most of all, thanks to Troy Skinner, who has done all of the work in this format with no help from me up until this point, and has been my lifeline of information during this PTQ season. I’ll be pulling my weight again soon, I promise!

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