Standard

Blum Breaks Through – Part Two

In case you missed part one, it’s here.

While I generally feel that round-by-round tournament reports are boring, I am going to go through and highlight some of the more exciting parts of this tournament.

Round 5 – Vidianto Wijaya – UW Control

Vidianto seemed like a pleasant guy. He chatted with me a bit before our game started. I cannot remember who had the play for sure, but I think it was him. He opened his hand and immediately shipped it back. I looked at mine and saw that I had a mix of lands and spells with [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and a couple of [card]Nightveil Specter[/card]s that made an easy keep. Vidianto mulled to five, drew his five-card hand… sighed… and shipped it back. Down to four cards, he thought a long time about his choice. Now let this be a lesson to everyone. I began to silently fist pump: How can you possibly lose against a mull to four with a [card]Thoughtseize[/card]?

He chose to keep. He played a UW dual land and passed. I cast my [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and revealed a hand with another UW land, [card]Deicide[/card], and [card]Elixir of Immortality[/card]. I snap took the Elixir. My reasoning was that it was his only kill factor (I don’t really count Jace), and he would instantly scoop. This was a bad choice. Elixir is essentially a dead card anytime early in the game, I mean, unless you really are excited about gaining five life. He proceeded to draw [card]Divination[/card] into [card]Supreme Verdict[/card], “Kill all your rats,” Jace, Verdict, [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card], [card]Deicide[/card] your [card]Underworld Connections[/card], [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card].

I drew a lot of removal spells and mediocre creatures and lost to his [card]Aetherling[/card] and Elspeth. This was further evidence that I took the wrong card with [card]Thoughtseize[/card], as the Elixir was not his only way to win, and I lost my Connections to the [card]Deicide[/card] that I let him keep. During sideboarding, he mentioned that he almost chose to not play any spells in the game and let me kill him so he would get a game where he could sideboard and I would not, which is a reasonable thought. However it put me on even harder tilt than I was already. I mean I easily, EASILY, lost to a mull to four. I proceeded to lose the match and had to take a couple cool down laps around the event site.

The next rounds involved beating Mono-Blue player after Mono-Blue player and drawing five Gray Merchants over three games versus Burn. Look, you have to get lucky to win a GP; I don’t care who you are.

I went into day two at 8-1 with two byes, feeling pretty good. That record was what I told myself I needed to qualify for the Pro Tour, as I expected to drop one round on the second day just because Magic is a game and variance is involved. Odds are that over six rounds you will lose a match due to less than optimal draws. It just feels really nice having a match to give, as having to win out is a daunting task. Also being 8-1 is especially important with the tiebreaker reset that would occur the next day.

Round 13 – Sam Pardee

I only mention this round because I accidentally broke the rules. I will bring it up so other players will not make the same mistake. I had three lands in play; he had a [card]Judge’s Familiar[/card]. He attacked with the Familiar and a [card]Tidebinder Mage[/card]. I tapped three mana and Pharika’s Cured the Tidebinder. Can you spot the cheat?

I did not know it at the time, but you have to announce if you have mana floating in your pool. Obviously the situation was such that I wanted him to think I was tapping out and have him sac the Familiar. I would then pay the one mana and get a two-for-one out of the deal. He called me on it immediately, and I am glad he did; I do not endorse cheating. What I thought was a clever trick was against the rules. If you tap your lands and float mana you must announce it.

I felt sick inside, even though it was an accident. I apologized to Sam after the match; he said it was a recent rules change that many people did not know about, so no hard feelings. I appreciated his understanding and complimented him on knowing the rules better than I.

Semifinals – Yuta Takahashi

PAUSE WATCHING AT 37:00

The coverage of our game three begins here. I should mention one thing the coverage will not tell you. The game started with both of us ripping one another’s hands apart with discard. It got to the point where he had four lands in play and all lands in hand but no [card]Mutavault[/card]s. I had three lands (one [card]Mutavault[/card]) at least one more land in hand and two removal spells. I made the comment, “First one to draw Connections wins, right?” and passed the turn with perfect information of all his lands in play and all lands in hand. He drew, tapped three mana, and played [card]Underworld Connections[/card].

Then at the end of my turn he drew another card. BDM later told me it was a second Connections. I was able to draw my first Connections a little later, but I was still far behind. Luckily I had gotten a lot of damage in with my [card]Mutavault[/card], which brings us to the point where you are now watching, and why he had such a low life total.

So the reason I wanted everyone to stop at this point is that I had some huge decisions to make. I have had people say I made the correct move and others say I messed it up. Let’s walk through the options. I should add that at any point if one of us drew a Gray Merchant, the game would end instantly, and there was nothing to be done, so I won’t consider it an option in the decision trees.

Yuta’s Hand: [card]Swamp[/card], [card]Swamp[/card], [card]Thoughseize[/card]. All bricks.

My Hand: [card]Nightveil Specter[/card], Thoughtsieze, [card]Bile Blight[/card], [card]Devour Flesh[/card]. Two bricks and two real cards.

The first choice I had to make was whether or not to draw the second card. If I had one more mana, I think I don’t draw a card. That would enable me to make a rat and still [card]Bile Blight[/card] the Specters, and then cast my own Specter, all but ensuring my victory if he does not draw a Gray Merchant. As it stood I think it was correct to try to hit a Gray Merchant. Draw: Swamp. Right back where we were, but now I would die if a Specter touched me.

The big question is how to use this [card]Bile Blight[/card]?

Option 1: I could cast it now and kill all the Specters, then play my own, pass the turn, and give him the ol’ “removal spell or die.” The issue was that if he does draw a removal spell I lose. He would kill my [card]Nightveil Specter[/card], and I would be forced to chump with my Rat and [card]Mutavault[/card]. I then had two draws steps to hit a Gray Merchant and would probably just lose as I couldn’t keep playing two chump blockers every turn, and if I ever cast the [card]Devour Flesh[/card] on him he would draw cards and again I would lose.

Option 2: Wait. Let him make the first move. He would either alpha strike or just attack with two Specters. Regardless of what he does, I have a higher life total; I couldn’t die this turn and had at least two draw steps to hit a Merchant and win the game. I felt like I had inevitability, as my hand was better and I had a [card]Pack Rat[/card]. What would you do?

I chose to wait.

He drew. Clearly not a Merchant. He alpha striked, and I had to make a [card]Pack Rat[/card]. If he had [card]Bile Blight[/card] he would cast it now, killing my rats and forcing me to block Specter on Erebos, block Vault on Merchant, and [card]Bile Blight[/card] all the Specters. If he drew [card]Devour Flesh[/card], I don’t die if he targets me since I just sacrifice Vault and he dies to [card]Pack Rat[/card]. He allowed me to move to blockers. No matter what else happened, a [card]Pack Rat[/card] token would block the Gray Merchant. My big choice was where the Specter would block.

Option 1: Block Erebos; cast [card]Bile Blight[/card] on Specters. I would lose if he had [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card] since He would just target the Specter I targeted. The second Specter would slip through. Otherwise I would win.

Option 2: Block a Specter. Chump Erebos with a Rat token and Gray Merchant with [card]Mutavault[/card]. I would win if he drew a blank, but if he drew a removal spell, [card]Nightveil Specter[/card] or [card]Pack Rat[/card] I would lose if I couldn’t immediately find Gray Merchant on top.

I chose option one. I figured if he had drawn a [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card] he would have cast it on my Specter before letting me move to blocks, making my only out be [card]Bile Blight[/card] (he he). He didn’t draw [card]Bile Blight[/card] or I would have been dead. However there was a reasonable chance he drew a Specter or [card]Pack Rat[/card]. I figured the odds were good he did not draw Downfall as his alpha strike did not make sense otherwise. I chumped Erebos, he drew a blank, and I moved onto the final.

Magic is an incredibly complicated game. It turned out that, without a major mistake, I was not going to lose that game as Yuta bricked out at the end. But I still had to make a lot of choices about what had the potential to happen. Great players know what they can play around and when to do it. They can look at all the options and put themselves in the best position to win. While I would not consider myself among Magic’s greats, I am going to keep working hard to try to get there. I would recommend that if anyone gets the chance to play under the camera you should review your games. You never know what you might learn!

The finals were unexciting as Jadine mulliganed to five, then to six in the next game. I had Connections or Erebos both games. This tournament was a roller coaster. My emotions were all over the place. From the gut wrenching loss to a mulligan to four, to making my first GP top eight; having your opponent have three Connections in play in the Mono-Black mirror, then being interviewed as champion. Magic is the greatest game in the world, and I hope to be able to play it for years to come!

See you next week. Feel free to tweet me any questions or comments.

Tyler Blum
@BlumTyler

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