Chicago PTQ 5/23

Well folks, wish that I could tell you I got a lot out of this PTQ, but I can't. I was also hoping to post some pictures, but unfortunately I left my camera->computer wire in Boston, so I guess I'm just full of bad news.

The day started out just fine, walking up at 7 and wandering over to a local bakery from my sister's apartment, getting a tea and muffin for not nearly enough money. As I sat in the window I could see the bus stop across the street, and as I was finishing up, the bus drove right by. I sighed, but that was fine; I waited the twenty minute for the next bus and crossed my fingers that I was riding in the right direction, I was and jumped off the bus wandered towards Forest Glen, the rather decrepit Metra stop I was getting on at. As I climbed the stairs, the train I wanted pulled right up, Awesome right! Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the tracks, with the only path to the right side... Blocked by the Train. Damn.

Two hours later I get on the train at 11, Ride it the three stops to Golf and get off. I then trudge the about two miles, not quite sure where the venue is. In my sweaty, sun-burned state, I decide that I'm just going to get some lunch at a local Panera.

While standing by the drink fountain, I notice a pair sitting a few tables away, obviously magic players. I chat with them and they tell me the venue is, "right over there". I peek out and see the usual cigarette smoking crowd out by a back entrance. I'm not sure I would have ever found it.

They were in the middle of round two when I got to the venue. Pastimes was the name of the store, and they apparently only had table numbers going from 131 up. It made things a bit bewildering. The store could hold about 170 people, but nearly 200 people had shown up for the PTQ, so they were overflowing into the bakery/bubble-tea shop next door. A lot of bubble tea was drunk. There were so many players in the tournament, they posted pairings outside the store itself and told the players to leave between rounds. I hung out until about 9, watched a lot of magic, played a little. Got to meet the wonderful couple from Show us your noobs, both were quite worth chatting with and you (whoever you are) should check out their blog.

Overall it was not the worst day, but gotta say, could be close, : P. All the people were wonderful, just the public transportation was aweful. Well, hopefully GP Tacoma won't turn out the same way, but, if it does at least their will be side events. By the way, here's the list of what I was going to try out this weekend, but failed.

DreamCrusher

Lands:

5 Forest

4 Mountain

4 Plains

3 Fire-lit Thicket

2 Rugged Prairie

4 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Wooded Bastion

1 Treetop Village

Creatures:

4 Birds Of Paradise

4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Countryside Crusher

4 Kitchen Finks

4 Knight Of The Reliquary

spells:

3 Path To Exile

4 Volcanic Fallout

4 Ajani Vengeant

1 Worm Harvest

2 Wrath Of God

2 Behemoth Sledge

Sideboard:

1 Path to Exile

1 Behemoth Sledge

2 Wall Of Reverence

2 Incendiary Command

3 Primal Command

3 Guttural Response

3 Fulminator Mage

I don't know if this list is good or not yet, because I 

haven't got to really play with it, hopefully I can get some

games in on thursday and friday before the GP.

Wandering Off,

P.

Maine PTQ 5/9

Drove up on Friday with a local Judge, we stayed in a hotel near the Venue, a place called Crossroad Games. They have a great event space, with a separate area for their product space; tons of play room, and with a store owner that seems like a totally chill guy that knew what he was doing, I'm pretty sure this was game store heaven.

I decided I wanted to play Blightning, since it was a deck that could really punish my opponents for stumbling on draws and had game against a lot of people who may not have adjusted to the rotation quite yet. Here's the list I was running;

Land:

4 Auntie's Hovel

4 Graven Cairns

4 Sulfurous Spring

3 Ghitu Encampment

8 Mountains

Creatures: 

4 Tattermunge Maniac

4 Figure of Destiny

1 Jund Hackblade

3 Goblin Outlander

4 Hellspark Elemental

4 Boggart Ram-gang

Spells:

3 Terror

4 Blightning

4 Flame Javelin

3 Puncture Blast

3 Volcanic Fallout

Sideboard:

4 Deathmark

3 Anathemancer

3 Everlasting Torment

2 Chaotic Backlash

2 Slave of Bolas

1 Banefire

I still like the actual card Blightning in this deck, unlike cards like Thoughtseize, BlightningDoesn't fault from the existance of card redundancy in the format; I find that the R/B deck can deal with a Spectral Procession and a Cloudgoat Ranger, but dealing with a Spectral, two Rangers and a Glorious Anthem is a lot harder. Blightning deals with those kinds of problems.

I haven't really been too impressed with Anathemancer, sure it's great against Faeries and 5-Color , but you're good in those matchups anyways. The matches I really need the help in its usually a shock that chump blocks one token out of they're swarm while you die anyways. Still, I went 3-5 at this PTQ so, take my comments for what you will.

Round 1

I start the day off with a Blightning Mirror Match, nothing like a good race to get your day started. Game 1 I start out a bit slow with a encampment into outlander while he drops ahellspark sending me to 17. he quickly runs out of gas though while I drop ram-gang and end up finishing him off with burn.

Game 2 I come up short with the hellsparks this time, and he overwhelms me with Figures and ram-gangs.

Game 3 I get him down to 9 quite quickly from a figure and ram-gang, while he has very little action. He gets the kill spells for my two dudes and I'm stuck on 3 lands then drops a ram-gang of his own, I have a ghitu encampment in play and 7 points of burn in my hand, so I don't burn out the ram-gang, planning to burn him out at EOT. Instead though, I decide to just take my turn when he passes, drawing my card like the Scrub that I am and loss the game when he drops his Demigod to kill me, not having the mana to deal him the damage to kill him.

0-1

Round 2

Face down an G/W tokens deck, I've lost my notes for this match, so I don't recall the first game, but in the second I got stuck on two red for the second game, and while I drew twohellsparks to get him down to 8, but I couldn't finish him off with my hand full of javelins andfallouts.

0-2

Round 3

When my opponent complained as the game started that he's had to face the mirror in every round, I feel pretty good about my chances. Game 1 he draws dead and I crush him.

Game 2 I mull to 5 and decide to draw dead this time, and just don't get

there.
Game 3 we have quite a tight race because I take maybe 7 or 8 damage from my sulfurous springs, but I win out with my burn in the end.
1-2
Round 4 Round 4 I face off against a Treefolk deck, and let me tell you, hellspark elementals andtattermunge maniacs just don't look as good when your opponent is running out turn onetreefolk harbingers and turn two Bosk Bannerets. Both games I get him down to 6, but the huge butts on his creatures, just make everything awkward, and the occasional free woodfall primushe got off his leaf-crown elders definitely didn't help. I would not be surprised though if Isideboarded wrong in the match-up.
1-3
Round 5 The Blightning mirror one more time. Game 1 he stumbles a bit keeping a land light hand, and I run him over finishing him off with burn.
Game 2 is a lot closer with him getting me down to 5 with assorted hellsparks and burn, but once again I get there in the end with a EOT flame javelin (remembered this time!) into fallout for the win.
Apparently I'm only able to beat other R/B decks...
2-3
Round 6
After waiting around for 10 minutes, I am victorious over the vicious opponent of No Show. Suppose that happens sometimes in the 2-3 Bracket.3-3
Round 7 This round I play against Ely, the one opponent who's name I recalled, for it's interesting spelling. Ely was playing G/B Elves; but the notes for this round were on the same paper as round 2, but from what I recall we tied it up 1 to 1 and in game 3 his draws 2 kitchen finks while I draw quite the number of terrors and fallouts instead of threats.
3-4
Round 8 I play against my friend Matt who I drove up with, we had both had pretty similar records the entire day, but had avoided each other because of the draw he had picked up in the first round. He was playing B/W tokens and I just don't end up drawing any of my breakers; not a single fallout game 1 or two, and never any of my sideboard cards. We play pretty casually and I don't take notes.
3-5
While my record may have been atrocious, I had a lot of fun and had to hang around for the top 8 since my ride was a judge anyways. In the top 8 if I recall correctly there were;

3 B/W Tokens2 Boat Brew1 G/W Tokens1 5-Color Bloodbraid1 B/R Aggro
The G/W Tokens deck ended up winning, beating out the B/R Aggro deck in the finals. the G/W Tokens guy was obviously on top of his game, but also had a touch of the unbeatable aura on him, not losing a game in the top 8, apparently only mulliganing twice in the swiss, and losing his only games to mana screw. On the other hand the B/R aggro deck beat out 2 B/W tokens decks to get to the finals, and had played what sounded like 6 spectral procession decks in the swiss (4 BW/2 GW if I recall correctly) Interested, I asked for his list;

Land:

4 Auntie's Hovel

4 Graven Cairns

4 Sulfurous Spring

4 Ghitu Encampment

7 Mountains

Creatures: 

4 Mogg Fanatic

4 Figure of Destiny

3 Goblin Outlander

4 Hellspark Elemental

4 Boggart Ram-gang

4 Anathemancer

Spells:

3 Terror

3 Volcanic Fallout

4 Flame Javelin

4 Magma Spray

Sideboard:

3 Deathmark

3 Infest

3 Guttural Response

2 Chaotic Backlash

2 Puppeteer Clique

2 Banefire

He didn't give me the lands, so this may not be exactly correct, but the only differences I could really see would be some slight fluctuation with the Ghitu Encampments.

I think that Magma Sprays are probably correct, doing what Puncture Blast does for less basically every time. While I may not love them, you can't deny that those Anathemancers did get him into the top 8. Sideboard Cliques seem fine, although can I see them as inter-changeable with the slave of Bolas's in that slot; clique certainly blocks better. The one card I would have no qualms changing would be the Guttural Response, they're fine, but at the moment counterspell decks are bad, and most of the matches you want them you can win without.

I'm not sure what I would cut the Responses for; maybe I would run sideboard Blightnings, since I do see them as one of the main reasons I won the red deck mirror matches; but I could also go for just upping the numbers on some of the other slots. Go up to 4 deathmarks and infests, or raise to 3 backlashes. We'll see how this all works out for Regionals.

Wandering Off,

P.

A Purpose

I Have a goal, a goal to attend a REL Competitive Event Every weekend for the rest of the summer of '09. Most will be PTQs, but There will be also be GPs, Regionals, Nats if I'm lucky. Right now the Schedule looks like this:

5/9 Maine PTQ

5/16 Regionals

5/23 Chicago PTQ

5/30 Seattle GP

6/6 Boston PTQ

6/13 Conneticut PTQ

6/20 Boston 5k

6/27 Columbus PTQ?

7/5 Toronto PTQ?

7/11 -

7/18 New Jersey PTQ

7/25 -

8/2 Boston GP

8/8 Columbus PTQ

8/14 Indianapolis PTQ x2 (Gencon)

8/22 Boston PTQ

8/30 New York PTQ

It's ambitious, but Exciting. In those none PTQ weeks, I'll work; but I'm ready to play 'til I Qualify.

Wandering off,

P.