Well, once again the awfulness of my awful was inconceivable. I was playing Magic about as well as Mike Milbury makes draft picks. After all of the misplays that I made at Face a Face (my local game store, plug plug plug!!!) on Tuesday, April 26th, I figured I might as well give up writing for www.manadeprived.com. I need to focus on becoming a better player, I thought. Fortunately, Alex Hayne explained that becoming a better player AND writing could coincide, so he suggested I count my misplays and put them all into an article. So without further ado I present a tournament report with a twist: the diaries of a scrub!
I don’t quite know how to explain my deck, so I’ll let a song describe it (imagine this to the tune of Rebecca black, it’ll help get you in the mood)
8 AM, waking up in the morning
My play ain’t so fresh but I’ve gotta Q
I got [card]Vengevine[/card], and I got [card]Acidic Slime[/card] (that rhyme works better than Black’s!)
Faster and faster reoccurring
Everywhere he looks creatures always roaring
He takes a minute and he has to stop
Gotta make the play, he sees my friends
[card]Vengevine[/card]s in the graveyard
Man oh man the play’s hard
He sees he can’t win, he decides to scoop!
It’s Sunday, Sunday,
Gotta beat Caw on Sunday
I’m really hoping to win the Nats Q (Nats Q)
Sunday, Sunday,
Gotta beat Caw on Sunday
I’m really hoping to win the Nats Q
Beat Caw-go, beat Caw-go YEAH
Beat Caw-go, beat Caw-go YEAH
Vine, Vine, Vine, Vine
Really gotta win this Nats Q!
In all seriousness, here’s the list I sleeved up
[deck title=UG Vengevine]
[Lands]
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Evolving Wilds
8 Forest
5 Island
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Vengevine
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Nest Invader
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Lotus Cobra
2 Frost Titan
3 Acidic Slime
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Obstinate Baloth
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Tumble Magnet
2 Perilous Myr
3 Mana Leak
3 Flashfreeze
2 Natures Claim
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]
This is a slightly tweaked version of the list Lawrence Fahey ran all the way to the top 8 at a Star City Games event in Boston. The only major changes I made were removing the two [card]Swords of Feast and Famine[/card] for a miser [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] and [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card] in order to improve the Boros matchup, which I expected to see a lot of (thanks to the hundreds of Boros videos posted by Sébastien Alarie on this very site, I might add!).
Onto the rounds and where the misplays were, shall we?
Round 1 (UW Control)
The fact that I didn’t close this out in two games is incredible. Keeping a sketchy hand is generally something I’ll do, not ever again after this game, I am just awful in that regard! An opening 7 of 5 lands, [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] and a bomb is NOT a hand I should be keeping…I am so stupid! Luckily, my opponent punted for me, deciding to brainstorm with a [card]Consecrated Sphinx[/card] in play (big ups to Scott McCallum (@MrScottyMac) for making sure I played the Sphinx, I was actually considering cutting it!). The other major misplay I made was attacking into a very obvious [card]Condemn[/card] with a [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] – that was just plain bad.
1-0
Round 2 (Mono White Control?)
I made a few errors in this matchup, although my opponent made many more which allowed to easily win this round. First off, I over-committed when it was clear that my opponent had a [card]Day of Judgment[/card] in hand, causing me to fall behind for a second or two, but I managed to get myself out of the hole and back into the driver’s seat. Finally, I made a win-more play that changed nothing and was unnecessary and had I been playing against a top-tier deck and a more astute opponent, things may have turned out differently.
2-0
Round 3 (Boros)
Before the game even starts, I make a mistake; I keep a hand of Jace, Cobra, Cobra, and lands against an opponent who I know is playing Boros. Subsequently, I lose the game horribly (go figure). After boarding in a ridiculous amount of Boros hate, I am rewarded with a game that featured 3 [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card]s, 2 [card]Nest Invader[/card]s, and the [card]Nature’s Claim[/card] for his [card]Sword of Body and Mind[/card] (must be nice!). I somehow played that game correctly: I think tapping four mana to play multiple Obstinate Baloths seems kind of simple. The third game my opponent mulligans to 6 cards and keeps a one lander with two drops…. And never sees the second land in 5 draws. I made a greedy play, playing a [card]Frost Titan[/card] to tap his [card]Mountain[/card] instead of playing a Jace, fatesealing him and playing a [card]Fauna Shaman[/card]. Although both plays seal the deal, the latter is slightly more optimal.
3-0
Seeing as this was a 32 player, 5 round tournament, I pretty much breezed into the top 8 with the final two intentional draws.
Top 8
This was our top 8 breakdown
Caw-go
Caw-go
Caw-go
Caw-go
Boros
Boros
Eldrazi Green
U/G Vine
Seeing as my matchup against Caw-go is favorable, I felt pretty confident as long as I didn’t play Sebastien Alarie, probably the best and most experienced Boros player in Quebec.
Needless to say, I played Alarie in the top 8.
We were both kinda bummed about playing each other in the top 8, seeing as we are both Mana Deprived players/writers and playing in the final would have been fun (we had an idea to write twins article for first and second, calling them Bi-Winning part 1 and 2, but unfortunately this was now impossible). In game one, I missed the obvious play of tapping his [card]Gideon Jura[/card] with my [card]Frost Titan[/card], but I managed to get there anyway. Game two is what you call the nuts: turn one [card]Birds of Paradise[/card], turn 2 [card]Perilous Myr[/card], turn three [card]Garruk Wildspeaker[/card], turn four [card]Nest Invader[/card] and [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card], and turn five [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] while Alarie was stalling on two lands for the whole game (once again, must be nice). Alarie called it quits and I was off to the top four in what was a fairly clean round for myself. Eric (@ejseltzer on twitter, follow this guy!) was cheering me on the whole way and had the tweeps talking (what I just did is called alliteration, WE BE USING LITERARY TECHNIQUES HERE AT MANA DEPRIVED).
The top four saw me play David Schnayer, the one Caw-blade player I didn’t want to play. I was a little nervous but I knew if I played the matchup correctly, I was favored.
I started off by letting Schnayer get into my head, which made me make a few crucial misplays in the opening game (discarding a [card]Vengevine[/card] off a Sword with a Shaman in play and no other creature in my hand, which was all lands. Then, I miscounted the amount of damage I needed to kill his Jace and let it live (nicely done Meszaros!). I put myself in a position I could not come back from and we were off to game two.
Crunch time, time to dig deep Meszaros!
I keep a hand of [card]Forest[/card], [card]Birds of Paradise[/card], [card]Nest Invader[/card], [card]Lotus Cobra[/card], [card]Fauna Shaman[/card], Jace, and Garruk; I really needed to see the second land. I only saw it turn three but it was good enough and it allowed me to play a turn three Garruk, I forgot to attack with the [card]Lotus Cobra[/card] (punt #1). Later on in the game, I did not tap down a [card]Squadron Hawk[/card] with a [card]Tumble Magnet[/card] to prevent my Jace from dying (punt #2). When Schnayer finally found his [card]Day of Judgment[/card], I searched for another [card]Vengevine[/card] with the [card]Fauna Shaman[/card] instead of going to get the infinitely better [card]Consecrated Sphinx[/card] (punt #3). Down and out, I draw nothing relevant for the rest of the game, a fitting end to my awful playing. My goose is officially cooked.
Well, after a punterific match, I just kinda sat there, my head hanging low. I had the chance to qualify for Nationals after only four days of testing and I threw it in the air. If you’ve read my previous articles, you’d know that generally I’d say something like “oh well, I did better than I expected” only this time, I understand the severity of what I just did. Experiences like these generally shape people and force them to change their ways; I’m hoping that the work I put into my game allows me to become a better player.
Of course, there are a lot of people who deserve to be thanked for helping me get to this point, here they are: Adrian Davidian, Joey Smith, Vasil Maystorov, Alex Hayne, KYT, and Kalvin Kwong (although he disappeared from Magic shortly). You guys helped me not be a total scrub (note the word total) and allowed me to truly feel like a part of this community!
Until next time, watch my graveyard; we’ll be back!
Jake “Professor M” Meszaros
[KYT’s note]
I want our readers to know that Jake is a young up-and-comer looking to make big strides in the MTG world this year. Here, at Mana Deprived, we hope to see him grow not only as a player, but as a writer. His articles will allow you to watch his progression with us. I believe this article showed Jake displaying an essential trait of a solid MTG player: the willingness to be transparent even if it means showcasing embarrassing misplays. Hey, I mistook a foil Gideon for a [card]Sun Titan[/card] before, can you really get more embarrassing than that?
As for what could be improved in terms of writing, I think Jake could have elaborated on a few scenarios he mentioned. For example, he talked about a win-more play that could have cost him the game. What was the play? A diary of punts is fine, but learning from your mistakes can be overrated. In a given board state, there are countless ways you can misplay. Recognizing your misplays only teaches you what not to do. I definitely would have wanted to see Jake tell us what he would do differently and why.
[/KYT’s note]