Tourney report! (Formatted!)
Last night’s Standard Friday Night Magic tournament went rather
well for me. If you don’t want to read the complete report, just know
that I went 4-1, which I was very happy with. The only match I lost was
the first round to a tier-one deck, Monoblue Control, complete with
Chrome Moxen. There were no finals, so I got fourth place, thanks to
having the second best tiebreaker among the four of us that went 4-1.
Prizes were only given out to the top three, so I didn’t get a gift
certificate, unfortunately, nor was I one of the two players to
randomly win the promotional FNM card, which was a Kird Ape. There were
41 people in attendance.
I got there at 6:00, after eating dinner at Taco Bell, which was actually half an hour later than I had intended to (I’m always late for everything). I was surprised to see that there were already about twenty people there. I had checked out an FNM tournament a couple weeks before and estimated about fifteen people in attendance. Now I think that there were probably more like 25, but whatever. Since I was only expecting about that many, I was shocked to see that that many people were already there at 6:00! (Maybe I’m just used to the Tri-Cities, where no one shows up to play until after the tournament is supposed to have started!)
I sat down, hoping to trade, though too shy to actually ask anyone to trade. Fortunately people immediately started approaching me to ask me to trade. This led to a flurry of trading in which I traded away, among other things, three “Ice Age” Underground Rivers and a 9th Edition Yavimaya Coast for two Glorious Anthems, a Hokori, three Isamarus, an Auriok Champion, and an Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. Thus the decklist that I ran in the tournament was as follows, substantially different (and a lot better) than the one I posted earlier that I showed up with.
WHITE 1 Test of Faith 3 Terashi’s Grasp 1 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 1 Veteran Cavalier 1 Hand of Honor 4 Lantern Kami 3 Leonin Skyhunter 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Glorious Anthem 2 Worship 3 Raise the Alarm 2 Hokori, Dust Drinker 2 Kitsune Blademaster 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda 1 Auriok Champion 1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
ARTIFACT 1 Damping Matrix
LAND 1 Eiganjo Castle 22 Plains
SIDEBOARD 2 Altar’s Light 2 Circle of Protection: Red 2 Glory Seeker 2 Loxodon Warhammer 4 Pacifism 2 Rule of Law 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
In other words, I took out the Devoted Retainers, Reciprocate, and all my artifacts except Damping Matrix to put in the cards that I traded for. I then moved the Equipment to the sideboard, because it’s cool, and took out two Glory Seekers and the Otherworldly Journey.
My first match was against Keith, who was playing Monoblue Control, complete with Chrome Moxen, as I said earlier. His deck was very strong. It had plenty of counterspells (Mana Leak, Hinder, Rewind) and good control cards like Vedalken Shackles, Exhaustion, and Thieving Magpie. He won with Meloku, the Clouded Mirror. I sideboarded the Altar’s Lights in against him, and also decided to take out one Plains, because I was thinking that my deck had too many. The proper decklist would have two less Plains and 2 Chrome Moxen. I realized later that Chrome Moxen really aren’t the same as land and I’m not sure that replacing them with land is a great idea. Anyway, he beat me in two games, although both games I got him down below ten life.
At this point I was a bit demoralized, but in accordance with an article that I’d just read, I was determined not to focus on the fact that I had lost (which wasn’t surprising), but rather focus on winning the rest of my matches (which I ended up doing!). Since I had just lost to a tier-one deck, I was hoping now to go up against something weaker, and indeed I did. I played Matthew with his Rats deck. He was one of those people that mana-weaves and then doesn’t shuffle enough (ie he stacks his deck!), so both games I had to add a few of my own shuffles, including after mulligans. He didn’t seem to mind, fortunately, or he hid his frustration at my quashing his deck-stacking plans. The first game he got mana-hosed (he probably should have mulliganed) and I crushed him in about five turns. The second game he actually got mana, but played very few cards. He had some sort of black fattie that makes your opponent sacrifice permanents when he damages them and has an upkeep of sacking a permanent, but that was easily pacified by my Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. I won in about eight turns, I think.
So now I had some more confidence, even though I suspected that the deck I had just beaten was tier three (ie non-competitive). It may have been more like tier two, though, as I know that Rats are viable in Standard right now, amazingly. My next match was against Brian, who was playing Urzatron, complete with Chrome Moxen. This made me very scared as I knew that Urzatron was a tier-one deck, if properly built. However, I absolutely demolished him in two games. Maybe his deck wasn’t a good build, or I got lucky, but it may also be that White Weenie just tears through Urzatron with its lightning-fast speed. Each game I beat him in about five turns, I think, although the second one he got me down to six life by putting two Cranial Platings on an Ornithopter! This guy had a habit of playing tons of spells the first couple of turns. Rule of Law might be good against a deck like that if you could get it out on turn one somehow.
Now I’m really starting to gain some confidence, after having beaten Urzatron. The next match was against Michael, who was playing some sort of green deck. He liked to play lots of Forests and then put Blanchwood Armor on his Troll Ascetic. He had tons of mana-searchers, far too many I suspect. He was constantly searching his library for more Forests to put into play or into his hand. I guess that this was good for Blanchwood Armor, but it seemed to me that his entire deck revolved around that card, which is terrible because it’s very easy to deal with. Terashi’s Grasp, for instance, did a fine job. I also sideboarded in a Pacifism against him. In any case, I smashed him to pieces in two games rather quickly with my army of fliers. His deck was probably tier three. Each game lasted about seven turns.
Round five I’m quite confident as I’m 3-1. I do, however, figure that I’m going to have to play someone good again. Much to my surprise, though, I go up against what was almost certainly the worst deck I had seen yet, played by Deleon. It featured such unplayable gems as Crossbow Infantry, Regeneration, and Overgrowth. I don’t think that I would play any of those cards even in sealed deck, with the possible exception of the Infantry. The first game got a little scary for a bit when he played Blinding Angel, but I had plenty of fliers to deal with it, though that Angel drug the game out a long time. I ended up gaining tons of life with Auriok Champion once I remembered that it could do that! I probably missed about six life gain. It was about 10 pm, though, so that’s an excuse, I think. Anyway, it took me a long time to kill him the first game, over ten turns, but I did it. The second game I knew that I couldn’t possibly lose, so that was very casual. I played a horde of creatures and killed him in about seven turns. How this guy only lost one match before playing me, I don’t know. I’ve concluded, though, that the Standard scene at Merlyn’s, at least when 41 people show up, is not very competitive, which explains how I went 4-1 with a tier-two deck after not having played in Standard in like five years or something.
So, then, at the end of the tourney I was 4-1. I assumed that this would win me a prize, but was quite disappointed to learn that there were three other 4-1s and one of them had a better tiebreaker than I did. The top two players had taken a draw (intentional I assume) in the last round. They are brothers. So they each had 13 points. They got the promotional FNM Kird Apes and gift certificates. They probably combined them and split them rather than letting tiebreakers decide who got $20 and who got $14. The owner then proceeded to ask the third place finisher if he wanted the $7 certificate or one of the FNM Kird Apes instead. This was, of course, illegal, since he has to give the last two FNM cards away to random players! Apparently he decided that he’d rather try to sell one to the third place player! Fortunately, the player took the $7. They also gave away some weird random prizes. One was an oversized Icy Manipulator. The other two were some sort of cardboard standees for some sort of Magic thing. Woo! (Of course, I would’ve gladly taken one of the standees had my name been chosen!)
The one objection that I had to the tournament was the prize payout. Since there were 41 players, after round five there should be, on average, either one undefeated player and seven or eight players that went 4-1 or two undefeated players and six that went 4-1. In either situation, the obvious reward system would then be top eight, in which case all the players that lost one or less match would be rewarded, with the possible exception of one person, who would have the worst tiebreaker of all eight of them. This would make absolutely perfect sense. You could then optionally also have single-elimination finals. (Alternately, if you had two undefeated players still, you could play a sixth round, which would result in finally having one undefeated player, four 5-1 players, and ten 4-2 players, the top three of which by tiebreaker, I suppose, would be rewarded.) In any case, the point of all this is to show that their only rewarding the top three players in a 41-person tournament is simply crazy. It should without a doubt be the top eight.
The reason, though, that they only reward the top three is probably because the admission fee is only $1. As a result, they only had $41 in gift certificates to give out. Even with this, though, they could’ve given out $2 to 5th-8th, $4 to 3rd-4th, $8 to 2nd, and $17 to 1st. Of course, that would still look really crappy since you can’t really buy anything with only $2 but frankly it’s still a lot more reasonable than getting no prize whatsoever in spite of doing really well. But let’s imagine for a moment that they had a more reasonable tournament entrance fee, say $3. Now they would have $123 to give away. Now they could give $6 to 5th-8th, $13 to 3rd/4th, $25 to 2nd, and $48 to 1st. That would seem much more reasonable. If they didn’t want to reward first so heavily, they could take some of that away and distribute it down. Even making the entrance fee only $2 would double the amount of prizes. Then at least 5th-8th could get enough money to buy a booster pack. Clearly, their system is flawed. Maybe they’ll change it someday.
I also did some trading between rounds, but like a good boy, I didn’t change my deck, even though there was no registration. I gave up three Polluted Deltas, a Dark Confidant, and some “Ravnica” uncommons, among other things, for three more Eight-and-a-Half-Tails (later I realized that I only wanted two altogether!), another Hokori, another Auriok Champion, a Blinkmoth Nexus (w00t), and three Jinxed Chokers. I also got the promotional 9th Edition Force of Nature from the release event, a textless Oxidize, and a Boseiju, Who Shelters All (for re-trade). I also bought my fourth Raise the Alarm for a quarter from the store. So, with these new cards, my new decklist will now be:
WHITE 1 Test of Faith 3 Terashi’s Grasp 4 Lantern Kami 3 Leonin Skyhunter 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Glorious Anthem 2 Worship 4 Raise the Alarm 3 Hokori, Dust Drinker 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda 2 Auriok Champion 4 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
ARTIFACT 1 Damping Matrix
LAND 1 Eiganjo Castle 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 20 Plains
SIDEBOARD 2 Altar’s Light 2 Circle of Protection: Red 1 Hand of Honor 3 Jinxed Choker 2 Loxodon Warhammer 3 Pacifism 1 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
In adding these new cards, I also removed a Plains to keep the Test of Faith since, as I said, I had decided that I had too many Plains since they are not really the same as Chrome Moxen. The cards that I still want for the deck are as follows:
3 Damping Matrix ($3 each) 1 Leonin Skyhunter 1 Hokori, Dust Drinker ($6) 2 Auriok Champion ($5 each) 2 Blinkmoth Nexus ($10 each) 2 Chrome Mox ($20 each) 1 Test of Faith (sideboard) 4 Umezawa’s Jitte ($17 each--sideboard) 1 Terashi’s Grasp (sideboard)
The big ones are obviously the Moxen and Jittes. The Jittes are for the sideboard, actually, but the Moxen would seriously improve the deck as they would make my already really fast deck insanely fast. I’m picturing a turn one Hound and Kami, followed by a turn two Raise the Alarm and Hawk, followed by a turn three Glorious Anthem. At the end of that turn I could have my opponent down to six life!
I got there at 6:00, after eating dinner at Taco Bell, which was actually half an hour later than I had intended to (I’m always late for everything). I was surprised to see that there were already about twenty people there. I had checked out an FNM tournament a couple weeks before and estimated about fifteen people in attendance. Now I think that there were probably more like 25, but whatever. Since I was only expecting about that many, I was shocked to see that that many people were already there at 6:00! (Maybe I’m just used to the Tri-Cities, where no one shows up to play until after the tournament is supposed to have started!)
I sat down, hoping to trade, though too shy to actually ask anyone to trade. Fortunately people immediately started approaching me to ask me to trade. This led to a flurry of trading in which I traded away, among other things, three “Ice Age” Underground Rivers and a 9th Edition Yavimaya Coast for two Glorious Anthems, a Hokori, three Isamarus, an Auriok Champion, and an Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. Thus the decklist that I ran in the tournament was as follows, substantially different (and a lot better) than the one I posted earlier that I showed up with.
WHITE 1 Test of Faith 3 Terashi’s Grasp 1 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 1 Veteran Cavalier 1 Hand of Honor 4 Lantern Kami 3 Leonin Skyhunter 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Glorious Anthem 2 Worship 3 Raise the Alarm 2 Hokori, Dust Drinker 2 Kitsune Blademaster 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda 1 Auriok Champion 1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
ARTIFACT 1 Damping Matrix
LAND 1 Eiganjo Castle 22 Plains
SIDEBOARD 2 Altar’s Light 2 Circle of Protection: Red 2 Glory Seeker 2 Loxodon Warhammer 4 Pacifism 2 Rule of Law 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
In other words, I took out the Devoted Retainers, Reciprocate, and all my artifacts except Damping Matrix to put in the cards that I traded for. I then moved the Equipment to the sideboard, because it’s cool, and took out two Glory Seekers and the Otherworldly Journey.
My first match was against Keith, who was playing Monoblue Control, complete with Chrome Moxen, as I said earlier. His deck was very strong. It had plenty of counterspells (Mana Leak, Hinder, Rewind) and good control cards like Vedalken Shackles, Exhaustion, and Thieving Magpie. He won with Meloku, the Clouded Mirror. I sideboarded the Altar’s Lights in against him, and also decided to take out one Plains, because I was thinking that my deck had too many. The proper decklist would have two less Plains and 2 Chrome Moxen. I realized later that Chrome Moxen really aren’t the same as land and I’m not sure that replacing them with land is a great idea. Anyway, he beat me in two games, although both games I got him down below ten life.
At this point I was a bit demoralized, but in accordance with an article that I’d just read, I was determined not to focus on the fact that I had lost (which wasn’t surprising), but rather focus on winning the rest of my matches (which I ended up doing!). Since I had just lost to a tier-one deck, I was hoping now to go up against something weaker, and indeed I did. I played Matthew with his Rats deck. He was one of those people that mana-weaves and then doesn’t shuffle enough (ie he stacks his deck!), so both games I had to add a few of my own shuffles, including after mulligans. He didn’t seem to mind, fortunately, or he hid his frustration at my quashing his deck-stacking plans. The first game he got mana-hosed (he probably should have mulliganed) and I crushed him in about five turns. The second game he actually got mana, but played very few cards. He had some sort of black fattie that makes your opponent sacrifice permanents when he damages them and has an upkeep of sacking a permanent, but that was easily pacified by my Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. I won in about eight turns, I think.
So now I had some more confidence, even though I suspected that the deck I had just beaten was tier three (ie non-competitive). It may have been more like tier two, though, as I know that Rats are viable in Standard right now, amazingly. My next match was against Brian, who was playing Urzatron, complete with Chrome Moxen. This made me very scared as I knew that Urzatron was a tier-one deck, if properly built. However, I absolutely demolished him in two games. Maybe his deck wasn’t a good build, or I got lucky, but it may also be that White Weenie just tears through Urzatron with its lightning-fast speed. Each game I beat him in about five turns, I think, although the second one he got me down to six life by putting two Cranial Platings on an Ornithopter! This guy had a habit of playing tons of spells the first couple of turns. Rule of Law might be good against a deck like that if you could get it out on turn one somehow.
Now I’m really starting to gain some confidence, after having beaten Urzatron. The next match was against Michael, who was playing some sort of green deck. He liked to play lots of Forests and then put Blanchwood Armor on his Troll Ascetic. He had tons of mana-searchers, far too many I suspect. He was constantly searching his library for more Forests to put into play or into his hand. I guess that this was good for Blanchwood Armor, but it seemed to me that his entire deck revolved around that card, which is terrible because it’s very easy to deal with. Terashi’s Grasp, for instance, did a fine job. I also sideboarded in a Pacifism against him. In any case, I smashed him to pieces in two games rather quickly with my army of fliers. His deck was probably tier three. Each game lasted about seven turns.
Round five I’m quite confident as I’m 3-1. I do, however, figure that I’m going to have to play someone good again. Much to my surprise, though, I go up against what was almost certainly the worst deck I had seen yet, played by Deleon. It featured such unplayable gems as Crossbow Infantry, Regeneration, and Overgrowth. I don’t think that I would play any of those cards even in sealed deck, with the possible exception of the Infantry. The first game got a little scary for a bit when he played Blinding Angel, but I had plenty of fliers to deal with it, though that Angel drug the game out a long time. I ended up gaining tons of life with Auriok Champion once I remembered that it could do that! I probably missed about six life gain. It was about 10 pm, though, so that’s an excuse, I think. Anyway, it took me a long time to kill him the first game, over ten turns, but I did it. The second game I knew that I couldn’t possibly lose, so that was very casual. I played a horde of creatures and killed him in about seven turns. How this guy only lost one match before playing me, I don’t know. I’ve concluded, though, that the Standard scene at Merlyn’s, at least when 41 people show up, is not very competitive, which explains how I went 4-1 with a tier-two deck after not having played in Standard in like five years or something.
So, then, at the end of the tourney I was 4-1. I assumed that this would win me a prize, but was quite disappointed to learn that there were three other 4-1s and one of them had a better tiebreaker than I did. The top two players had taken a draw (intentional I assume) in the last round. They are brothers. So they each had 13 points. They got the promotional FNM Kird Apes and gift certificates. They probably combined them and split them rather than letting tiebreakers decide who got $20 and who got $14. The owner then proceeded to ask the third place finisher if he wanted the $7 certificate or one of the FNM Kird Apes instead. This was, of course, illegal, since he has to give the last two FNM cards away to random players! Apparently he decided that he’d rather try to sell one to the third place player! Fortunately, the player took the $7. They also gave away some weird random prizes. One was an oversized Icy Manipulator. The other two were some sort of cardboard standees for some sort of Magic thing. Woo! (Of course, I would’ve gladly taken one of the standees had my name been chosen!)
The one objection that I had to the tournament was the prize payout. Since there were 41 players, after round five there should be, on average, either one undefeated player and seven or eight players that went 4-1 or two undefeated players and six that went 4-1. In either situation, the obvious reward system would then be top eight, in which case all the players that lost one or less match would be rewarded, with the possible exception of one person, who would have the worst tiebreaker of all eight of them. This would make absolutely perfect sense. You could then optionally also have single-elimination finals. (Alternately, if you had two undefeated players still, you could play a sixth round, which would result in finally having one undefeated player, four 5-1 players, and ten 4-2 players, the top three of which by tiebreaker, I suppose, would be rewarded.) In any case, the point of all this is to show that their only rewarding the top three players in a 41-person tournament is simply crazy. It should without a doubt be the top eight.
The reason, though, that they only reward the top three is probably because the admission fee is only $1. As a result, they only had $41 in gift certificates to give out. Even with this, though, they could’ve given out $2 to 5th-8th, $4 to 3rd-4th, $8 to 2nd, and $17 to 1st. Of course, that would still look really crappy since you can’t really buy anything with only $2 but frankly it’s still a lot more reasonable than getting no prize whatsoever in spite of doing really well. But let’s imagine for a moment that they had a more reasonable tournament entrance fee, say $3. Now they would have $123 to give away. Now they could give $6 to 5th-8th, $13 to 3rd/4th, $25 to 2nd, and $48 to 1st. That would seem much more reasonable. If they didn’t want to reward first so heavily, they could take some of that away and distribute it down. Even making the entrance fee only $2 would double the amount of prizes. Then at least 5th-8th could get enough money to buy a booster pack. Clearly, their system is flawed. Maybe they’ll change it someday.
I also did some trading between rounds, but like a good boy, I didn’t change my deck, even though there was no registration. I gave up three Polluted Deltas, a Dark Confidant, and some “Ravnica” uncommons, among other things, for three more Eight-and-a-Half-Tails (later I realized that I only wanted two altogether!), another Hokori, another Auriok Champion, a Blinkmoth Nexus (w00t), and three Jinxed Chokers. I also got the promotional 9th Edition Force of Nature from the release event, a textless Oxidize, and a Boseiju, Who Shelters All (for re-trade). I also bought my fourth Raise the Alarm for a quarter from the store. So, with these new cards, my new decklist will now be:
WHITE 1 Test of Faith 3 Terashi’s Grasp 4 Lantern Kami 3 Leonin Skyhunter 4 Suntail Hawk 4 Glorious Anthem 2 Worship 4 Raise the Alarm 3 Hokori, Dust Drinker 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda 2 Auriok Champion 4 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
ARTIFACT 1 Damping Matrix
LAND 1 Eiganjo Castle 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 20 Plains
SIDEBOARD 2 Altar’s Light 2 Circle of Protection: Red 1 Hand of Honor 3 Jinxed Choker 2 Loxodon Warhammer 3 Pacifism 1 Samurai of the Pale Curtain 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
In adding these new cards, I also removed a Plains to keep the Test of Faith since, as I said, I had decided that I had too many Plains since they are not really the same as Chrome Moxen. The cards that I still want for the deck are as follows:
3 Damping Matrix ($3 each) 1 Leonin Skyhunter 1 Hokori, Dust Drinker ($6) 2 Auriok Champion ($5 each) 2 Blinkmoth Nexus ($10 each) 2 Chrome Mox ($20 each) 1 Test of Faith (sideboard) 4 Umezawa’s Jitte ($17 each--sideboard) 1 Terashi’s Grasp (sideboard)
The big ones are obviously the Moxen and Jittes. The Jittes are for the sideboard, actually, but the Moxen would seriously improve the deck as they would make my already really fast deck insanely fast. I’m picturing a turn one Hound and Kami, followed by a turn two Raise the Alarm and Hawk, followed by a turn three Glorious Anthem. At the end of that turn I could have my opponent down to six life!