SCG $5K Battle Report

I just heard the new Wilco single this morning on 89.3 The Current. I think it was called “I Will Fight” or something like that. MAN! I can’t wait for the rest of that album to hit my ears! The DJs were saying that it reminds them a lot of “Being There” (which is great news to me).

Well here’s my battle report from the SCG $5K Tournament. Blong and I were able to play test with each other and it was good practice. I honestly did not feel comfortable with any deck. I tried a really aggressive 5C build (Putrid Leech, Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Bloodbraid, Ram-Gang), a normal 5CC (Hallowed Burial, Volcanic Fallout, Plumeveil, Cryptic, Cruel), a combination of the two (Bloodbraid, Cryptic, Bit Blast), and I even tried a few 5C Land Destruction Deck (Incendiary Command, Primal Command, Fullminator Mage and Cryptic, Grixis Charm, Boomerang). After a bunch of losing, I went home Friday night not sure of what to play. At midnight I decided to audible to a deck that I did not even play test but contained a lot of individual cards that I have been play testing with. Here’s the deck that I played:

4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Fullminator Mage
1 Broodmate Dragon

4 Bituminous Blast
3 Captured Sunlight
4 Cryptic Command
3 Grixis Charm
3 Primal Command
4 Rain of Tears
4 Wrath of God

26 Lands (4 Reflecting Pool, 3 Rupture Spire, etc.)

Sideboard:
4 Esper Charm
3 Blightning
3 Thought Hemorrhage
3 Volcanic Fallout
2 Hallowed Burial

Match 1 vs. Tony’s EsperLark Deck (Stillmoon, Boderposts, Knight of the White Orchid, Mulldrifter, Reveilark, Cryptic, Wrath, etc.)

Game 1: He mulled to 6 and I was able to destroy the majority of his lands. Broodmate hits the table and finishes him as he’s stuck on 2 lands and a Borderpost.

Since there’s no sense in playing LD when he’s playing Knight of the White Orchard and since his deck only needs 3-5 mana to go off, I side out all of my LD and put in all of my hand disruption:

-4 Fullminator Mage, -4 Rain of Tears, -3 Grixis Charm, -1 Wrath
+4 Esper Charm, +2 Thought Hemorrhage, +3 Blightning, +3 Volcanic Fallout

Game 2: He’s on the play and starts hitting me with a Knight of the White Orchid and a Stillmoon Cavalier. Volcanic Fallout sweeps the board. He plays another Knight of the White Orchid and a Reveillark. I Wrath the board and he brings back a Knight of the W.O. and a Stillmoon. I Fallout again. In the end he pecks me to death with another Knight of the W.O.

Game 3: He mulls to 5 and I’m on the play. I Thought Hemorrhage him on turn 4 for Cryptic. He reveals 2 from his hand and takes 6. Because of Thought Hemorrhage he starts the game with only 3 cards. I play a Bloodbraid that cascades into a Blightning, which means he started the game with 1 card. Time is called and we’re down to 5 turns. He Sowers my Bloodbraid and with him tapped out, I Blightning him again. At the end of his turn, I bounce my Bloodbraid and tap his Sower with Cryptic. I replay my Bloodbraid and swing in for the final 3.

The judge asks us to fill out the form immediately because people are waiting for us and we do so.

Match result: 2-1
Game totals: 2-1
Match totals: 1-0

Or so I think…

As the next round pairings are presented, it says that I have 0 points. I immediately head to the registration table and tell them that my match results were incorrect. They pull my slip and yes… I filled it out incorrectly. At a “competitive” rules enforced tournament, it’s up to the Head Judge and Tournament Organizer to make the call. If it’s too complicated to fix, then it stands as is. But the HJ and TO said that they can easily fix it since it’s only the 2nd round, as long as Tony, my Round 1 opponent, agrees with it. I’m told to head to table 34, as everyone in the room is waiting for the round to start. I felt a bit crusty… I sit down, the round starts, and then another judge tells me to head to table 105. I head over to table 105 where my opponent arrogantly says that I was given a MATCH LOSS BECAUSE I WAS LATE!!! I head over to the registration table again and Steve, the TO, takes me to table 34, and tells me that too many people were told too many things and that I’m at table 34. *whew!!!* That was so close! I’m such a noob! That was a really close call, the TO, could of easily said “This is too confusing and we’re running late already! I’m sorry, you get the match loss.” But he didn’t and I learned a valuable lesson. In any tournament, make sure you fill out your result slip correctly!!!

Match 2 vs Ben Rasmussen’s Fae Deck (Straight up Fairies Yo!!!)

We already introduced ourselves before I was redirected to table 105. He had a play mat with 7 TOP 8 PTQ PINS ON IT!!! OH DANG!!! He mentions that he drove up from Madison with Brian Kowal!!! Brian Kowal!!! That’s the guy that created that Boat Brew deck last year!!! OH DANG!!! My first match ever against a real Pro!!! And he’s playing Faeries!!! Let’s get to the report!

Game 1: I get crushed! I mean I GET CRUSHED! Turn 1 Thoughtseize, Turn 2 Bitterblossom, Turn 3 Spellstutter to counter my spell, Turn 4 Scion, Turn 5 Mistbind, Turn 6 I die.

Again, I take out all of my LD and go for hand disruption. Why must I get paired up against a Pro who is playing fairies!!! I wished I was at table 105 not 34!

Game 2: He mulls to 5 and I’m on the play. I quickly get out Bloodbraid and cascade into a Blightning. He’s now down to 2 cards and a Spellstutter on the board. I play Captured Sunlight cascading into Esper Charm, I draw 2. I play another Captured Sunlight, into Esper Charm, he discards 2, leaving him in top-deck mode. I play Broodmate Dragon, which he Remove Souls. He Puppeteer Cliques it and my life totals starts dropping fast! I play Bit Blast cascading into a Wrath. I drop a Bloodbraid, cascading into Volcanic Fallout, I swing for the final 3 with Bloodbraid. Whew! That Puppeteer was pesky!

Game 3: He plays Bitterblossom on turn 2. As he gains Faeries and loses life, I gain 11 life with Primal Command and Captured Sunlight. I Blightning him, which he Cryptics. The game goes on and he’s at 11 because of Bitterblossom, I’m still at 31. Brian Kowal, another pro, sits down next to Ben, but it’s okay. I have Blong standing behind me! On my turn I play a Broodmate, with 4 mana up because I have a Cryptic Command in my hand. He Broken Ambitions my Broodmate for 1. I gladly pay it. He flashes in a Mistbind which taps me out. I pass the turn and time is called. He draws a card and passes the turn. I draw a Bloodbraid, play Cryptic to tap out his Mistbind. Broodmate, it’s mate, and Bloodbraid swing in for 11 and the win.

Brian Kowal said that he totally misplayed that last turn, which he did. Ben should of flashed in Mistbind in response to my Broodmate, I would of of then played Cryptic to counter his Mistbind. If I did commit my Cryptic to his Mistbind, he could of Broken Ambitioned my Broodmate for 1, which I would of lost because I was already tapped out. If that did happen, he would of lost his Mistbind, but more importantly I would of lost my Broodmate. He showed me at the end of the game that he had a Puppeteer in his hand too. Whew! Close call!

Ben was really cool, we talked a lot. I asked him lots of questions because I wanted to get as much info as I could out of him. That’s what you do when you’re in the presence of a pro, you become a sponge, you learn as much as you can.


Match result: 2-1
Game totals: 4-2
Match totals: 2-0

Match 3 vs. James B/W Tokens… great…

Game 1: I forget what happens but I do see that my life went from 20, 18, 16, 12, 0. He turn 2 Sculler’ed me and was able to play around all of my cards. I remember he resolved two Spectral Processions and then I believed he played Zealous Persecution.
Again I leave behind the LD package and opt for the hand disruption package.

Game 2: This game was a hard fought battle where I was able to wilt his hand down. But eventually he was able to top-deck his Redcaps and Finks. I was lucky that my Bit Blasts were continually either hitting Captured Sunlight, Wrath, or Fallout. In the end, I was able to play Hallowed Burial taking away some tokens and a 3/2 Fink. I played Bloodbraid, cascading into Blightning. A turn later, another Bloodbraid hit the table and that was game.

I decide to take out the Grixis and Esper Charms, so that if I play Captured Sunlight or Bloodbraid, I either hit Fallout or Blightning instead.

Game 3: This battle was epic! I’ll skip to the good part. He’s at 7 and I’m at 5 life and time is called. Earlier in the game he Runned Halo’ed my Blightning, I had one in my hand. Remember that my deck after sideboarding contains only 5 creatures: 4 Bloodbraids and a Broodmate Dragon. I play Bloodbraid which cascades past my Broodmate! OH NO! He removes my Bloodbraid with Celestial Purge. I play another Bloodbraid, cascading into Blightning, which is Halo’ed. I’m on turn 3 of 5, I draw a Fallout. He’s got nothing on the board except 3 Glorious Anthems. At the end of his turn I play Fallout, he’s at 5 life, I’m at 3. It’s now turn 5 of 5 and I draw my last Bloodbraid. I take a deep breath and look through my graveyard. I know that I have 3 Blightnings and 3 Volcanic Fallouts in my deck. There’s 1 Blightning and 2 Fallouts in my GY, and I have one Blightning in my hand. So there’s only 1 Blightning, which is Halo’ed, and 1 Fallout left in my deck. Again, he’s at 5 life and I’m at 3. I need Bloodbraid to cascade into a Fallout for the win, not a Blightning because it’s Halo’ed. I reorganize my GY just to make sure that my assumptions are correct. I tap my mana and play Bloodbraid. I cascade… BOOM! FALLOUT!!! Yes!!! My first card that I cascade into was a Volcanic Fallout! Fallout takes him down to 3 and I’m at 1, then Bloodbraid swings in for the win!

We filled out the result slip, which I made sure I did correctly. We thank each other for the great games and parted ways. I turn around to see Blong, Peter, Hanie, and Phi there. Nice!

Match result: 2-1
Game totals: 6-3
Match totals: 3-0

Match 4 vs. Cory’s G/W Tokens Deck

We chatted and I learned that he’s from South Dakota. I mention that this is my first real big event, besides FNM’s and Pre-Releases. He mentions that he’s a Pro and just got back from Honolulu, where he and his brother split a few grand. I asked him who his brother was and he pointed and said that guy. I turn around and looked. His brother looked really familiar, REALLY, REALLY FAMILIAR. I turn back to him and asked him what his brother’s M:TGO name was. He said “FFFreak.” “You’re brother is FFFreak on M:TGO! That’s awesome!” Sweetness, I get to play another Pro but unfortunately, I get some mana troubles and drop both games within a matter of minutes. I thank Cory for the quick beats because I finally get to take a lunch break (I think it was probably 2:30’ish at that time) and we wished each other the best of luck. He was a cool guy.

Match result: 0-2
Game totals: 6-5 (my tiebreakers are horrible!)
Match totals: 3-1

I finally get to take my lunch break, where I ate some brats and sticky rice in my car. It was nice to finally get a break because they already announced that this tournament was going to be 9 rounds, and then the top 16 go into a single-elimination swiss, and there were going to be no scheduled breaks. A few minutes later, Blong shows up to inform me that he lost and went 2-3. He was going to drop and try the Boat Cruise Sealed Deck Qualifier. I encouraged him to go for it. Unfortunately, his sealed pool was horrible!

After a full stomach of brats and sticky rice, courtesy of Nam Blong (thank you very much!), it was off to round 5!

Round 5 vs. Danielle’s W Kithkin Deck

This girl was pretty cool, she was a Pro and even had a Top 8 PTQ pin on her play mat! I kind of want a Top 8 PTQ pin now.

Game 1: Every Bit Blast I play hits a Wrath for me. But in the end, she draws creatures and I don’t draw solutions. But it was nice that my 3 Bit Blasts that I played cascaded into Wraths for me.

Again I sideboard out the LD and go for the hand disruption.

Game 2: A pretty epic game. Turn 1 Figure, turn 2 Knight of Meadowgrain. I play Volcanic Fallout, this happens for a while where she plays creatures and I wipe the board. Eventually my discard spells start turning up and she has to top deck with no creatures on the board. Slowly my Bloodbraids and Blightnings defeat her.

Game 3: She has killer start. Turn 1 Stalwart, turn 2 Figure, turn 3 Spectral Procession. Again we go back and forth, where she plays creatures and I wipe the board with my Fallouts, Wraths, and Hollowed Burials. We both stalemated at 6 life each, I drew a Primal Command, gained 7 life and grabbed a Bloodbraid over a Broodmate because the only 3 casting cost spell I had left in my deck was Blightning, plus I had a feeling that she was holding removal in her hand. If it was a creature, I’m sure she would have played it already. My next turn I play my Bloodbraid and cascade through most of my deck to find my last Blightning, dropping her to 3 life and forcing her to discard a Path to Exile and a Celestial Purge. Bloodbraid swings in for the rest.
If I did decide to grab the Broodmate instead she would have been able to Path and Purge them, leaving us in an even longer stalemate. Good move Johan!

Match result: 2-1
Game totals: 8-6 (my tiebreakers are still looking horrible!)
Match totals: 4-1

Match 6 vs. Tue’s 5-Color Blood (Chapin’s build)

I sit down across from another Hmong guy, which I thought was going to be cool because we’re both Hmong. I introduce myself and we start shuffling. Then guess who sits down next to me wearing a ChannelFireball.com t-shirt! Gerry Thompson!!! How awesome is that! A judge walks up to Tou and I and informs us that we’re getting deck checked. We sat around for about 10 minutes just chatting and watching Gerry T smash his opponent with Faeries.

Game 1 (10 minutes later): I fight hard in this game by resolving 2 Primal Commands, but he consistently hits his Ram-Gangs with his Bloodbraid. I re-stabilize with a Wrath and but I’m down 5 life. I was able to bring him down to 7 life with a Broodmate but on his next turn he resolves Cruel Ultimatum for the win.

Again for the 6th time today, I abandon LD and go for hand disruption, since he only needs 3-5 mana to get going.

Game 2: He mulls to 6 and I hit him with an early Blightning. The next turn a Captured Sunlight cascades into an Esper Charm, making him discard 2 more cards. The next turn I Primal Command for a Broodmate and win the game.
For some reason, in game 3 Tou turned into a jerk. His demeanor was really rude and instead of saying “pass the turn” or “I’m done,” we would just do a hand sweeping motion as if he’s slapping me across my face. Peter confirmed that he was a jerk.

Game 3: This was another epic game. He turn 4 Anathemancer’ed me. I Bit Blasted his Anathemancer at the end of his turn and on my turn I Thought Hemorrhaged him for his Anathemancers. A couple of turns later I Thought Hemorrhaged him again for his Ram-Gangs and then I did a third time for his Finks. I got rid of his Ram-Gangs instead of his Bloodbraids because I don’t mind them as much, granted he does get a free card but he’s already played 2 Bloodbraids in this game and none of his Ram-Gangs. I got rid of the Finks because it was his only way to gain life and would make him revaluate using his Putrid Leech ability. Because he I was able to remove 12 cards from his deck he constantly drew land after land after land. But I also made the bad mistake of playing all of my Captured Sunlights and Bloodbraids. I flipped over a lot of more expensive cards like Bit Blast, Cryptic, and Broodmate Dragon. In the end, time was called and for the all of the 5 creatures that I had in my deck he had a Maelstrom Pulse or Celestial Purge ready for them. The 5 extra turns ended with our life totals at 11 for Tou and 6 for me.

The head judge asked us to fill out our result slip immediately. I quickly turned to him and said “Can I drop and just give him the win because my tie-breakers are horrible.” The judge looked at me and said “If you do, I need you to make that decision right now.” I looked at Tou and said “How are your tie-breakers?” The head judge immediately cut me off and said “Nope! You can’t do that, you’re now 1-1-1. I said you needed to make a decision right now. You can’t convolute a match that has ended after time has expired.”

Match result: 1-1-1
Game totals: 9-7-1 (my tiebreakers are the worst possible!)
Match totals: 4-1-1

Later, Tou said that his tie-breakers were pretty good and would have appreciated the match win. I apologized for not knowing the rules about “convoluting a match after time has expired.” Honestly, that tie was not going to help me at all because my overall game record was practically even (9-7-1). I knew that regardless if I won this match or not, I would need to win all of the rest of my matches to make it into the top 16. If I lost this match, I would need to win the rest of my matches, even if I won this match, I would still need to win the rest of my matches to make it into the top 16. Bad move on my part. Even though he was a jerk, I would have still given him the win if I knew what his tie breakers were.

Match 7 vs. Greg’s 5CC (Regular 5CC that was popular a pre Alara Reborn.)

Game 1: I was able to destroy plenty of his lands but perhaps got too greedy by sac’ing my Fullminator Mages. I should of kept them around to attack with. This was the first match where LD was actually working. In all of my other matches, my opponents either drew a lot of land or only needed 3-5 mana to get going. In the end, I brought him down to 11, I could of won if I kept my Fullminator Mages alive instead of sac’ing them. I eventually ran out of LD/bounce spells and he resolved Cruel Ultimatum and then the rest of spells, which he has been holding in his hand, started to come down. I went from 20 life to 30 life to 10 life to 17 life to 8 life to 15 life to 0 life. I fought as long as I could.

Again for the 7th time, I opt for hand disruption over LD.

Game 2: I hit him with an early Blightning which he Broken Ambitions. Captured Sunlight hits Esper Charm, I draw 2. He then evokes Mulldrifter. I throw another Blightning at him, he Esper Charms and draws 2 in response. At the end of my turn, he Esper Charms again. My discard spells were no match for his card drawing spells. He plays a Broodmate Dragon and on my turn I play Wrath which he counters with Broken Ambitions. I win the clash revealing a Bit Blast. And then I do the dumbest thing ever! I Primal Command to gain 7 life and search for a creature! So dumb! I needed that Bit Blast on top of my library to destroy one of his dragons! I was so upset at myself that I even accidentally grabbed a Bloodbraid! Dang it! I meant to grab my Broodmate! AAHHH!!! On his turn he resolves Cruel Ultimatum leaving me with 1 card in my hand, Thought Hemorrhage. On my next turn I draw a Wrath, which I play, which also could of been cascaded into with my Bit Blast if I didn’t play my Primal Command! Doh! I then Thought Hemorrhage him for Broodmate Dragon, leaving him only Mulldrifters, Ajani Vengeant, and Cruel Ultimatum as sources to damage me with. Unfortunately he hard-casts a Mulldrifter that pokes at me. A few turns later he plays Ajani V and Helixes me. I kill Ajani on my next turn, but he plays another Ajani V and Helixes me for the win.

I congratulate him and wished him best of luck.

Match result: 0-2
Game totals: 9-9-1 (grossest tie breakers ever for someone who is 4-2-1)
Match totals: 4-2-1

I honestly think I hit some major fatigue. I could not concentrate for the life of me! Out of my 6 first matches, all but one goes to time. My mind is just not conditioned well enough to pilot a new deck through that many rounds of magic. So sad, I felt like I could of honestly came back to win this match. I mean, I’ve done it already 4 times today, where I had to come back from a 0-1 deficit! I honestly felt like I could of won this match, but I just made some huge misplays. This match ended with 5 minutes to spare so I went for a little walk and grabbed some snacks.

I decided to give it one more chance. Maybe I could go end up 6-2-1 at my first pro event! Let the battle continue!

Match 8 vs. Alex Jund/Naya Aggro Deck (Figures, Incinerate, Flame Javelin, Banefire, etc.)

Game 1: Alex plays Turn 1 Figure and starts bashing me in. Once I start to stabilize, he throws an Incinerate and 2 Flame Javelins at me and I die.
Not to worry, I’ve lost 6 first games today and have come back to win 4 of those matches. For an 8th time today, go for hand disruption, leaving LD in my sideboard. LD maindeck is a bad idea for the current state of this metagame.

Game 2: Alex plays a turn 1 Figure again, turn 3 Anathemancer, and a turn 4 figure. I stabilize a little bit from Captured Sunlight but then he plays Everlasting Torment. I’m able to Wrath the board but am too focused on that Everlasting Torment, I need to gain life in order survive! At the end of his turn, I bounce the Everlasting Torment with Cryptic and on my turn I play Thought Hemorrhage naming Everlasting Torment. On his next turn, he Unearths his Anathemancer for the kill… speechless… I shook his hand and could not believe it. Blong who was watching me said that I should of Hemorrhaged the Anathemancer in the graveyard not the Everlasting Torment in his hand. Blong was right but I was just so focused on getting rid of that Everlasting Torment that I forgot about that Anathemancer in his graveyard. *shaking my head in shame*

Match result: 0-2
Game totals: 9-11-1 (this has to be the record for grossest tie breakers ever for someone who is 4-3-1!)
Match totals: 4-3-1

I take a deep breath and give out a big sigh. I tried… I tried really hard… hopefully my best… Going into the tournament I said I would be happy going .500 but when I was 4-1 I had high hopes of making it into the top 16, I mean after all I did beat three regular pros. But alas, I get a tie and drop my two last games and am officially knocked out of contention. I could have stopped at 4-1 and would have been happy, but I pushed on. In the end, costly misplays cost me the tournament. Oh well, you live and you learn, life goes on. I just have to be honest with myself and admit that I made mistakes; I can’t blame mana issues or not getting the right cards because that’s not what killed me. My misplays did. I also believe that consistent mana issues and consistently not getting the right cards are not due to bad luck, it’s due to bad deck building. And so I drop from the competition.

I think I did a decent job piloting this deck, I mean, I did audible to it the night before without play testing with it. I’m not sure about the LD main build. All but one game I won with the hand destruction package, not the LD package. I think if I would of playtested this deck, I would have discovered this fact and would of done better. I played a bunch of games that I didn’t need to because of the LD package being main decked. Which lead to my fatigue and inability to concentrate.

Peter was in the middle of a booster draft so Blong and I sat down and organized our cards to sell. Blong made a killing and got like $400, he spent $100 on singles, and gave the rest to Samsona because he’s already got a box of M10 on the way. Samsona in response gave $200 to Peter for his Thailand Trip. I traded in a bunch of Lorwyn/Morningtide/Shadowmore/Eventide stuff. I made $190 in store credit, which I used up. SCG was selling a bunch of damaged cards for super cheap! I got two Jester’s Cap for $1 each! I also got 2 Deranged Hermits for $2 each! In retrospect, we all won! I did well (4-3-1) and got some new singles, Blong (1-3?) came home with $100 and some singles, Samsona got $100, and Peter (2-3?) got $200. WE’RE ALL WINNERS!!!

I’m going to continue to play FNMs at least once a month. Will I travel for events? Maybe not, but if a big tournament does come into town, I definitely will prepare for it and go. Now I can relax and focus on what all my friends are focusing on: ante decks, casual decks, EDH, & booster drafts! I hope I reached 1700! Peace and love!