On Saturday, March 2, a Sealed Deck tournament was held. Since a Sealed PTQ is coming up, I figured I needed all the practice I could get. The $25 price tag was a kick in the nuts for me as I’m an unemployed teenager with other things to do with my money, but Magic is Magic and I joined without flinching.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a full list of my card pool or my deck. I know, it’s pathetic and that’s what you’re supposed to do with Sealed tournament reports and all, but I didn’t know for sure I was going to write this report until the card pool was assimilated into the rest of my cards.

All I can offer was that it was a decent deck. It wasn’t broken like some, but not as horrific as others. It had two bombs in the form of Shower of Coals and Sengir Vampire, and a slew of solid cards. However, it was three colors (Black/Green splashing Red), so the mana was bound to be a bit of a problem. I was right.

The deck wasn’t very fast. It had a lot of creatures at the three- and four-mana slots, so once it hit turn four it started spewing out guys extremely fast. Black was there for Sengir Vampire, Carrion Wurm, Gravestorm, Mesmeric Fiend, Soul Scourges and other various goodies. Green was there for monsters like Twigwalker, Krosan Archer, Anurid Scavenger, Nantuko Disciple, Krosan Constrictor and Rabid Elephant. The Red “splash” was for Shower, Fiery Temper, Sonic Seizure and Petravark.

All in all, it was a solid deck but it had mana problems. I could only hope to shuffle thoroughly before every game (pile shuffling, AKA “powering up” was a common occurrence) and hope not to screw or flood.

Jake, one of my pseudo-teammates had an incredible deck. Balshan Collaborator, Compulsion, Psychatog, Repentant Vampire, etc. The hits just keep coming. He was one of the few people I just didn’t want to see.

Oh, and a small note. Lately in tournaments, something called “The Fix” has risen to importance. “The Fix” is when Phamms, Phanderson and Jake all play each other (and sometimes myself) in the swiss of a tournament. Some say it’s bad luck, I say it’s a conspiracy designed to give other people a chance ;)

Anyways, the first round pairings went up and I was paired against Josh Branch-Warren. He is one of the few people who can say with certainty that they ALWAYS beat Ted. I seriously can’t remember the last time I beat Josh in a tournament match. I heard he had a shitty deck so I was pretty eager to play this one out.

In game one, turn two saw him play his first creature of the match...Cephalid Snitch! Taken aback, I promptly ran him over with dudes after he played his second and last creature of the game, Mesmeric Fiend. This is a lesson kiddies....Black/Blue isn’t always a good idea.

Josh commented between the games how god awful his card pool (and deck) was. We joked around about the Snitch and got on to the second game.

Game two saw me Petravark his only Island and deal a bit of early damage. He was able to stop a bit of the bleeding with some stupid creature but my deck was just plain better than his and he couldn’t keep up.

After the match, Josh complained about his deck and we joked about him going 0-1 drop. Between the first and second rounds, Josh came up with a diabolical plan. He was going to sideboard into a completely new deck! We messed around with his Red and Green cards and made a very bad deck splashing White for Thaumatog. He’d side that in game two to throw the opponent off guard. I came back to see Josh after the second round at he was 0-2 drop.

So here’s a new milestone in my Magic career...I beat Josh! I felt kind of guilty because his deck was horrid, but a win is a win.

Second match sees the fix come into effect. I get paired against Phil Samms (AKA Phamms). I’ve known this guy for years, and we’ve playtested together for a really long time and know each other’s play styles, etc. The last time we played, in the Top Eight of the last Extended tournament, I was playing Junk without any Red hate in the sideboard and he was playing Sligh, and he PoPped me out of the match twice in a row. Bad times.

Anyways, he whined like he always does about how bad his deck was. You see, Phil has the tendency to whine and complain about everything, so that when he does well it’s supposed to make him look good. Unfortunately, this time the whining was slightly warranted as I had seen some of his deck earlier and I knew it wasn’t greatest. It could only really beat me if he got a fast draw and/or drew his Angel of Retribution.

Game one he got the Ultra Fast Landwalker Draw. Turn three Leaf Dancer and turn four Krosan Constricter against my Forest and Swamp meant I was sucking up four a turn and had to race. We were at odds for a little while, whittling away each others’ life until he drew (ripped would be an appropriate term actually) the seventh land needed for Angel of Retribution (what did I say in the last paragraph?).

Game two was somewhat pathetic as I got beat down by a turn two Escape Artist ripped directly off of the top of his deck turn two. I don’t think I drew all that spectacularly that game as I didn’t do a single point of damage to Phil that game.

After this match, Phil and I went outside to see if The Dogfather was there. Let me tell you a little about The Dogfather. The Dogfather is perhaps the greatest man of all time. He’s got more game than Playstation 2. He’s a hotdog vendor that sets up shop almost every day outside of the Dal SUB where we play. He seriously has the best hotdogs I’ve ever had in my life, and the Magic players always are good business for him. We hook him up, he hooks us up. I swear, it’s the perfect symbiotic relationship. After gorging the dog in record time, I went back inside.

Round three I was paired with another regular, Nathan Pay. I’ve played him before and never really had much of a problem with him.

Game one was very close. He was playing an aggressive Red/Black deck with Organ Grinders, Barbarian Outcasts, and lots of Shade’s Forms. I don’t have many notes from this game in particular, and all I can remember is killing him while I was at six life and he had a pumper on the board.

Game two was terrible. I got somewhat mana hosed and he smacked me around with a Shade’s Formed Organ Grinder. After a while, I was about to stabilize. I had three guys on the board to his two, and I had a Sonic Seizure in my hand. All of a sudden, he Demoralized for the win. BOO!

Game three was not much of a game. His opener was a creature and six lands, and he proceeded to draw almost all lands for the rest of the game. I beat him handily.

At this point, I was 2-1 and in a somewhat comfortable position to make Top Eight. 3-1-1 was required, so I only needed to win one match and draw another.

Unfortunately, in my way in Round Four was Jake. Jake is widely considered to be the best player here, and armed with a gross sealed deck he was dangerous. The last time we played was a few weeks ago in a booster draft, and I beat him closely, thanks to my friend Balshan Collaborator. This time, my friend was on his side.

I didn’t take any notes game one, but I know that I cast Shower of Coals with threshold that game, because I did it every game of the match. I also remember having Soul Scourge in play and him at two life, and he flashed back Crippling Fatigue, somehow thinking that the life loss would be offset by the life gain from the Scourge. It was only several turns later that we realized that this killed him and we started shuffling for game two.

Game two Jake started off with a Peek, giving him perfect information about my hand. I had very little game this time around, even with the Shower, and he overwhelmed me with Mortivore and the Collaborator. By the way, Mortivore is bad times against Black/Green/Red.

Game three was more of the same. We traded blows for a while until he got a Chamber of Manipulation on a land. I proceeded to topdeck a Petravark to remove the Chamber. Yet again, I cast Shower of Coals this game, but in order to get threshold I had to sacrifice a sacland and cast Sonic Seizure. This pretty much cleared his board and I soon swung for the win.

I can’t exactly remember which game it was (I have a feeling it might have been the first), but here’s the scenario. I had Sengir Vampire and an active Nantuko Disciple in play, and he had a Collaborator with lots of mana up. It was my turn so I drew a card; Fiery Temper. I thought for a while to think whether Jake would do what I wanted to do or not. I decided to take the risk, and swung with my Vampire. He blocked with the Collaborator and pumped it up. Here’s the thing though - he did all the pumping at once. Since it would be assumed that he didn’t allow any of the individual pump effects to resolve first, I responded by Fiery Tempering the guy. After this happened, Jake berated himself and kinda exploded. He also did this several times during the match. I have to admit though, I topdecked considerably better than he did the entire match.

Jake’s a good guy. He can be a little (well, little is somewhat of an understatement) hotheaded at times, but today he apologized to me for exploding which was great of him. He knows he has the tendency to get overly loud and angry, and he admitted to me he needed to learn how to “chill out”. Granted, I did draw and cast Shower all three games of the match, but it was still pretty classy to apologize to me like that. Ups to you.

At this point, 3-1 was guaranteed to make Top Eight...except for one little thing. Cory was at 4-0, and he’s the type of person where if he doesn’t have to draw, he won’t. He figured at 4-0 he can play it out and still make Top Eight if he loses. That’s bad news for anyone at 3-1 because a) Cory’s a decent player and b) they actually have to play. Fortunately, I don’t get paired up. Instead I get paired with another 3-1, Ryan Livingston.

I went into this match fairly confident, and I didn’t offer any draws to begin with. He didn’t either, so I assumed we were going to play.

Game one was rather lame for him as he drew five spells and eleven land. I overwhelmed him quickly and quietly with two Soul Scourges.

Game two was more balanced. He had a perfectly mana-curved draw with dudes on turns two through five. My slow draw couldn’t handle it and I lost.

At this point we were tied at 1-1 in games, so I offered the draw explaining how we were guaranteed Top Eight. He accepted.

The Top Eight was myself, Phil Samms, Mark McGregor, Cory MacMichael, Ryan Livingston, Ben Mitchell, Mats Junek and Steve Foster.

We did a booster draft for the Top Eight, and let me just say that it was HORRIBLE. Now, I don’t consider myself a great drafter, but I’m not bad either. I was sitting to the right of the least experienced player there, so I expected a few problems but not too many. When I opened my first Odyssey pack, there were NO Blue cards whatsoever. There were also very few Black cards, so I took the best Black card in the pack and passed it on. I proceeded to suck all the good Black and Blue cards coming my way and passing the person to my left White, Red and Green (and the occasional bad Blue card). Well, apparently, my signals weren’t strong enough, because on the second pack I had absolutely no Blue coming my way. I was pretty confused, as I was certain I had sent strong signals. At the end of Odyssey, my playables consisted of about three Blue cards and the rest Black. My deck was not shaping up at all.

Enter Torment. The person to my right was very cooperative the whole draft, benefiting us both. However, my other partner was unable to receive my signals, therefore dragging us both down. In the Torment pack, I got to pick up a Balshan Collaborator, Crippling Fatigue, Carrion Wurm, Llawan, and several Zombies. In fact, my deck was almost a theme deck based around locking an opponent down with my two Zombie Trailblazers. It was a fairly weak yet fun plan.

After the draft, I asked the person to my left whether or not they were playing Blue. They said they indeed were. I told them why that was a mistake and that we were both losing our first matches because of that.

The pairings were up and I had to play Cory MacMichael, perhaps the other person who always beats me in every format. He was playing Black/Blue with a splash of Green. I never got to see what he played Green for.

Game one was a perfect way to start off the match. I flooded horribly. I drew about twelve lands and four spells, and Cory was able to kill me quickly and easily.

Game two was a savage reversal of the mana problems. He kept a two land hand (Swamp and Forest), and missed his third and fourth land drops. Unable to hold back my giddiness, I giggled a bit as I Plagiarized his fifth draw. He drew a few lands later, but my Trailblazer Swampwalking Zombies plan killed him.

I knew I probably wasn’t going to get that lucky in game three, so I hunkered down for a challenge. Unfortunately, I had to mulligan and kept a subpar hand. We played a few early guys, but then he dropped Carrion Wurm on me. I didn’t have any way of dealing with it, especially with my shitty draw, and I lost.

Well, it turned out that Cory beat Mark in the finals, yet another reason for Cory to expound his virtues and rationalize why he won. God damn, that man needs to stop explaining to you why he won or lost after (or even during) his matches.

Anyways, Phil beat Mats in the Quarters and lost to Mark in the Semis. That may not seem special...but Phil was playing an odd deck. Mono Red! He was planning to go Red/Blue at first (a weak color combination), but decided to forget the Blue and just work on Red. He ended up with an...odd, yet frighteningly potent deck. I never thought I’d see the day Phillip Samms drafted Mono Red.

Another day gone by and another mediocre showing by yours truly. So here’s the obligatory props and slops section.

Props:
Phamms for T4'ing with a MONO RED DECK
Jake for apologizing
The Dogfather for having the best damn hotdogs ever

Slops:
Mats for not reading signals >:(
Jake for going 1-2-1 with a great deck

Peace out.