I managed to win Face to Face Games Toronto’s Eternal Masters Sealed PPTQ on Saturday. Afterwards, I started thinking back to my glory days of tournaments, when I was actually pretty good (like, ten years ago), and one thing that I normally did back then was to write a tournament report whenever I did reasonably well – and sometimes even when I did badly. It tended to help me remember the tournament better afterwards, and I do enjoy writing. So, in the spirit of those times, here’s the story of my PPTQ.
The very idea of the tournament sounded great to me when it was announced. Eternal Masters, as a reprint set, had a high price point, and a Sealed event with it was going to be pricey. But that was going to be true of any Limited event using it, and running a Sealed deck PPTQ on the very first weekend that it was available appealed to me. I preregistered to reserve my spot, and the event indeed filled up to the cap of 64 players during the week of. That meant six rounds of Swiss, with 4-1-1 not guaranteed – you’d need to aim for 4-0-2 or 5-1. The event also drew some older players out of the woodwork – in addition to me, there were a number of other players there that I knew had been playing for a long time.
The pool that I opened felt about average in the money department. [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] was the standout, followed by [card]Gamble[/card] and [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. Not bad, and at least I felt better than the guy beside me who opened both a [card]Sphinx of the Steel Wind[/card] (the cheapest mythic rare in the set) and a foil [card]Sphinx of the Steel Wind[/card]. On the other hand, people around us were muttering about [card]Force of Will[/card], [card]Wasteland[/card], foil [card]Brainstorm[/card]… but money value doesn’t make a good deck. The pool itself seemed obviously white-blue to me at first look. There were a bunch of flyers and some card advantage, as well as [card]Mother of Runes[/card] – the jerkiest one-drop in the format. Unfortunately, it also had very little ability to interact with my opponent’s creatures. No outright removal or bounce. A couple [card]Humble[/card]s and a pair of [card]Kor Hookmaster[/card]s was it. The rest of the colours were definitely worse, though. Black had [card]Nekrataal[/card] and [card]Tragic Slip[/card], but the best creature was [card]Wake of Vultures[/card], and things went downhill from there. Red was okay but not great, and green just didn’t have enough creatures. In the end I built the following:
[deck]
[Lands]
1 Mishra’s Factory
1 Tranquil Cove
8 Plains
7 Island
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Shelter
2 Memory Lapse
2 Deep Analysis
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Mother of Runes
1 Soulcatcher
1 Pilgrim’s Eye
1 Ballynock Cohort
2 Kor Hookmaster
1 Glacial Wall
2 Warden of Evos Isle
1 Coalition Honor Guard
1 Phantom Monster
1 Thunderclap Wyvern
1 Calciderm
1 Karmic Guide
1 Serra Angel
1 Shoreline Ranger
[/Creatures]
[/deck]
Notable SB: [card]Elite Vanguard[/card], [card]Aven Riftwatcher[/card], [card]Ticking Gnomes[/card], [card]Mindless Automaton[/card], [card]Welkin Guide[/card], 2 [card]Humble[/card], [card]Tidal Wave[/card], [card]Field of Souls[/card], [card]Future Sight[/card]
I ended up not running the [card]Humble[/card]s as they basically get trumped by every other trick, and I didn’t want to put myself in the position of offering my opponent blowouts. [card]Future Sight[/card] was initially left out as I was a little worried about triple-blue, and thought that I had enough card advantage without it to win long games anyway. It ended up being boarded in regularly, though, as the format wasn’t as fast as I feared – at least, not in Sealed. [card]Seal of Cleansing[/card] was the only main-deck card that was regularly boarded out. I had been worried about troublesome enchantments and artifacts, but for the most part, they didn’t materialize.
Round 1: Kevin Green (UW)
My opening hand for game 1 was [card]Coalition Honor Guard[/card], [card]Seal of Cleansing[/card], [card]Mishra’s Factory[/card], and four more land. I kept, then drew literally six land off the top. My next draw was [card]Deep Analysis[/card], which found me… more land. My opponent hadn’t been doing much either, but his “not much” included a [card]Phantom Monster[/card], which had been smacking me for three a turn. I was low enough that I quickly went to dead. Game two I started with [card]Mother of Runes[/card], which prompted much eye-rolling from Kevin. The ground locked up quickly. I got in two hits with [card]Warden of Evos Isle[/card] before he played a [card]Peregrine Drake[/card] to tie up the skies as well. [card]Future Sight[/card] hit the board and started cycling me through my deck, but Kevin also deployed [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card], which meant that I needed my [card]Serra Angel[/card] or my [card]Thunderclap Wyvern[/card] to start attacking in the air, and neither one showed up for a while. When I finally dug into Serra, with about six cards left in my library, Kevin tried a trick that I’d missed. He retraced [card]Oona’s Grace[/card] from his graveyard, targeting _me_. I’d completely forgotten that it targeted! Luckily for me, I had a pair of [card]Memory Lapse[/card]s in hand, which worked significantly better than a normal counter would have against a spell with retrace. An attack with Serra was followed by an alpha strike by my flyers, with the [card]Thunderclap Wyvern[/card] finally appearing as well. That was enough to get him dead before I decked out. In the third game, my first play was bounced by [card]Man-o’-War[/card], but I followed it up with [card]Calciderm[/card]. The ‘Derm connected twice, and [card]Serra Angel[/card] came to bat clean-up.
M: 1-0 G: 2-1
Round 2: Sacha Akow (GRu)
Sacha thought for a while before keeping his opening hand. Turn two Werebear led into turn three Brawn, but turn four saw only an attack, with three [card]Forest[/card]s and the Werebear not allowing any other plays. [card]Mishra’s Factory[/card] and [card]Sylvan Might[/card] allowed him a couple more attacks, but then [card]Glacial Wall[/card] locked up the ground and flyers came over the top. Sacha eventually drew an [card]Island[/card], but didn’t actually play any more spells before scooping. Game two Sacha got to show off his red spells as well. [card]Wildfire Emissary[/card] was problematic for my deck, even with [card]Mother of Runes[/card] out, but I was able to dig up [card]Glacial Wall[/card] to hold it off before getting too low. I again got [card]Future Sight[/card] and Top going, and started playing for the long game. Sacha got up to eight mana for [card]Maelstrom Wanderer[/card], but his cascades weren’t impressive. Our flyers traded off a bit, allowing me to start connecting with a sizeable [card]Soulcatcher[/card]. Sacha then tried for a trump card in [card]Crater Hellion[/card]. This could have been catastrophic for me, especially since Brawn was going to end up in his graveyard, but as Sacha knew from [card]Future Sight[/card], I had both my [card]Memory Lapse[/card]s handy. The [card]Crater Hellion[/card] was delayed twice, while I cycled through my deck to get out [card]Serra Angel[/card], [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card], and [card]Thunderclap Wyvern[/card]. When the Hellion finally hit the table, I used [card]Mother of Runes[/card] to pro-red the Wyvern, which kept it around, and it kept the other beefy flyers around. This gave me just enough toughness available to soak up the attack from the Wanderer and the Hellion, living at 2 life and killing him on the counterattack with a humongous [card]Soulcatcher[/card].
M: 2-0 G: 4-1
Round 3: Dennis Blair (WBu)
Game one I ran [card]Warden of Evos Isle[/card] into the second Warden into more fliers. Dennis couldn’t keep up. Game two we had Mothers of Runes, and the ground gummed up quickly. I got my card advantage going and built up a larger air force, eventually starting on offence. I knocked Dennis down low, threatening lethal the next turn, when he hit eight mana and dropped [card]Sphinx of the Steel Wind[/card]. The Sphinx’s lifelink coupled with my opponent’s Mother meant that I was not going to be able to get through again, and I scooped to save time for game three, sighing as I boarded [card]Seal of Cleansing[/card] back in. Game three went much the same, except this time Dennis could not find his blue splash (two dual lands) and I killed him before the Sphinx could hit the table.
M: 3-0 G: 6-2
We actually realized afterwards that we’d both been misplaying [card]Coalition Honor Guard[/card]. First off, it doesn’t affect triggered abilities, so my [card]Kor Hookmaster[/card] should have been able to affect anything I wanted while it was out. Then in game three, we had each had a [card]Coalition Honor Guard[/card], and each had a [card]Mother of Runes[/card]. Now, if only one of us had an [card]Honor Guard[/card], then either of us could target whoever we wanted with our Mothers. Mom’s ability has to target a creature you control, so the person on the opposite side of the board from the Flagbearer couldn’t target it, and could therefore choose any target they wanted. But once there were [card]Honor Guard[/card]s on both sides, we should have each been forced to target our own Flagbearers. In retrospect, we didn’t think this would have affected the game, as I’d probably even have won faster without the stalling, but it was definitely something to keep in mind going forward.
Round 4: Ian Cox-Leigh (GBuw)
My opponent led with the green-black and white-black duals, then island-cycled a [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card] for his fourth colour of mana. He mentioned that he’d opened ten duals, and decided to just play all of his good cards. A [card]Shardless Agent[/card] cascaded through half of his deck before finding an [card]Enlightened Tutor[/card], giving me a good look at a bunch of his very good cards, and he put the green Honden on top, starting the Spirit generation. I got in some flying damage before he played some flyers of his own. I then land-flooded, giving him too much time to build up his forces. [card]Elephant Guide[/card] on [card]Emperor Crocodile[/card] gave him the ability to smash past my [card]Glacial Wall[/card], and his army of spirits also swarmed in. Game two he killed or Pacified something like five of my creatures, leaving his [card]Serra Angel[/card] master of the skies.
M: 3-1 G: 6-4
Round 5: Boston Schatteman (UB)
Game one we both played out flyers. They traded off, but I had more, and [card]Soulcatcher[/card] was enjoying the carnage. [card]Mother of Runes[/card] and then [card]Thunderclap Wyvern[/card] came down to clean up. Game two, Mom was met by Nausea, but once again the air force came to play, and Boston went down in short order.
M: 4-1 G: 8-4
The quick win here gave me a chance to hang out and relax for a bit. Face to Face recently added ice cream to their food selections, and I had a double scoop of a white chocolate/raspberry blend. I also got the chance to take on gunslinger Nick Roberts. Nick had, like me, been very excited about the EMA Sealed PPTQ, but then made top 4 of the RPTQ the week before. With an invite in hand for the next RPTQ, he was no longer eligible to play the main event, so Kelly Ackerman invited him to come by and gunsling. He spent most of the day hanging out at F2F’s streaming video table after the feature matches ended, taking on all comers, and rewarding those who defeated him with a free scoop of ice cream. He got me two games out of three, winning the third game by using [card]Force of Will[/card] to counter my turn one [card]Mother of Runes[/card]. Ah, Eternal. 🙂
Round 6: Melissa Grenier (RB)
Game one I got my defences going with [card]Mother of Runes[/card] and [card]Glacial Wall[/card]. Melissa sidestepped these with [card]Juggernaut[/card]. I took a couple hits before digging up a [card]Phantom Monster[/card] to trade for it. [card]Calciderm[/card] and flyers started to work on Melissa’s life total. She was able to sweep the board with [card]Toxic Deluge[/card], but was down to 3 at this point, and [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] let me restock quickly and finish her off. Game two Melissa led with [card]Mogg War Marshal[/card]. I answered with [card]Soulcatcher[/card] into [card]Phantom Monster[/card], while Melissa added [card]Plague Witch[/card] to her board. She took out [card]Soulcatcher[/card], and the Monster had to trade off for [card]Juggernaut[/card] again. [card]Calciderm[/card] came down to trade with multiple goblins, and we entered a phase where [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] had already drawn my action cards, leaving only land on top of my deck. Melissa, meanwhile, had little action herself, despite firing off two [card]Night’s Whisper[/card]s. I finally drew flyers. Melissa reloaded with [card]Phyrexian Gargantua[/card], and the next turn used [card]Toxic Deluge[/card] for 3 to leave only the Gargantua, but with her at a precarious 1 life. [card]Pilgrim’s Eye[/card] finally gave me a shuffle, and I played it, a [card]Warden of Evos Isle[/card], and the [card]Mother of Runes[/card], which had been stuck in my hand most of the game due to [card]Plague Witch[/card]. Melissa had only one kill spell in hand, and died to the [card]Pilgrim’s Eye[/card].
M: 5-1 G: 10-4
Unfortunately for Melissa, she’d forgotten about something relevant: she actually had a Firebolt in her graveyard from near the start of the game. With that, she should have been able to avoid losing the game when she did, and might have been able to force a third game.
I came out of the Swiss as the second seed, with first seed being my only loss of the tournament, Ian. He was immediately to my right for the draft, so I was guaranteed play-draw choice through at least the finals – if I could make it that far.
The Draft
My first pack in the draft didn’t have anything that I thought was significantly powerful, except for [card]Isochron Scepter[/card]. I literally spent about 30 of the 40 seconds allocated to us trying to remember which commons in the set worked with the Scepter, and if there were enough of them that it was worth trying. I eventually decided yes, and snagged the artifact. Second pack was weak, and I took [card]Deep Analysis[/card] more because Scepter works well with [card]Memory Lapse[/card] and [card]Counterspell[/card] than because I thought it was second-pick worthy. Third pick was [card]Tragic Slip[/card]. [card]Brainstorm[/card], [card]Mishra’s Factory[/card], [card]Oona’s Grace[/card], a second [card]Tragic Slip[/card], and [card]Phantom Monster[/card] followed. Pack two gave me a pair of [card]Merfolk Looter[/card]s and more spells, but I eventually realized that I was short on reasonable creatures. Luckily pack three gave me a [card]Phyrexian Rager[/card], two [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card]s, a [card]Gravedigger[/card], and a second [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card], to provide me with a decent army. The deck I ended up with was this:
[deck]
[Lands]
2 Dismal Backwater
6 Island
1 Mishra’s Factory
8 Swamp
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Annihilate
1 Brainstorm
1 Deep Analysis
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Oona’s Grace
1 Silent Departure
4 Tragic Slip
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
2 Deadbridge Shaman
1 Glacial Wall
1 Gravedigger
2 Merfolk Looter
1 Phantom Monster
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Pilgrim’s Eye
2 Shoreline Ranger
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Wake of Vultures
[/Creatures]
[/deck]
Notable SB: [card]Plague Witch[/card], [card]Screeching Skaab[/card], [card]Sengir Autocrat[/card], [card]Cephalid Sage[/card], [card]Prowling Pangolin[/card], [card]Hydroblast[/card]
Much like my Swiss deck, this one was built around card advantage, wanting to stall out and win later with flyers. This time, I at least had some removal to deal with troublesome creatures.
QF: Dennis Blair (GBr Elves)
Rematch against my third round opponent. Dennis led with a [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], then continued with [card]Wirewood Symbiote[/card], [card]Civic Wayfinder[/card], and [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card]. The Wayfinder fetched up a [card]Mountain[/card], which turned on his red splash for [card]Flame Jab[/card]. I used [card]Annihilate[/card] to take out the [card]Wirewood Symbiote[/card] before he could get too much advantage out of it, then found a [card]Tragic Slip[/card] to take out the Deathrite when he killed one of my guys with the [card]Flame Jab[/card]. He was still pushing damage through, but I got down [card]Twisted Abomination[/card]. The next turn I Brainstormed into another pair of [card]Tragic Slip[/card]s, and started punching back with the [card]Abomination[/card]. His team mostly dead to my removal, he wasn’t able to finish me off with [card]Flame Jab[/card] before the A-bomb got him. Game two my opponent started with a turn-two [card]Elvish Vanguard[/card]. I had [card]Tragic Slip[/card] and [card]Isochron Scepter[/card] in hand, and while I would have rather gotten them down together, I didn’t think I could afford to wait. I Slipped the Vanguard when he went for [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], then played the Scepter and imprinted [card]Brainstorm[/card]. Dennis continued to build with [card]Plague Witch[/card], then used [card]Animate Dead[/card] to bring back his Vanguard. He also ran out a [card]Goblin Charbelcher[/card]. This changed the math, as between that and the [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] I could no longer count on inevitability to win me the long game. I took a chance and ran [card]Twisted Abomination[/card] out without regeneration mana, but he was murdered by the Charbelcher. I folowed up with [card]Phyrexian Rager[/card] and [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card], and then [card]Cephalid Sage[/card] the next turn, trying to card advantage my way to victory. Dennis found land on top for his next activation with Charbelcher, and finally played out [card]Necropotence[/card] – a card that I am dubious about in Limited. He used his last card in hand with the [card]Plague Witch[/card] to take out my [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card], then Necro’d for 4, but after he had done this I used [card]Tragic Slip[/card] to remove the [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], wanting to deny him a lifegain option. Dennis decided to use his last activation of the Shaman for mana to activate Charbelcher that turn, but again hit land on the first flip. I had been drawing extra cards with Brainstorm-on-a-stick, and with plenty to do, I swung in and played a [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card]. Dennis played [card]Lys Alana Huntmaster[/card] and a [card]Lys Alana Scarblade[/card], but I found [card]Silent Departure[/card] to bounce the Vanguard and the Scarblade, then knocked Dennis down to 3 with the Ranger. [card]Tragic Slip[/card] took out the [card]Plague Witch[/card], and a desperation activation of the Charbelcher failed to kill the Ranger.
M: 6-1 G: 12-4
SF: Shaun Cameron (WRu)
Shaun played a turn two [card]Squadron Hawk[/card], which made my [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card] and [card]Wake of Vultures[/card] a bit sad. He followed with [card]Aven Riftwatcher[/card] and [card]Coalition Honor Guard[/card], and got a bit of damage in before I set my defences with [card]Twisted Abomination[/card] and [card]Phantom Monster[/card]. Shaun’s red, from what I saw, was for a pair of [card]Dragon Egg[/card]s, which stopped my ground offence but didn’t give him any. We both had flyers, but once I had some tricks in hand I swung with [card]Wake of Vultures[/card] and the Ranger. After blockers, Wake’s sacrifice ability sent Deadbridge to the graveyard, stripping the last card from Shaun’s hand. This also turned on morbid, so I was able to use a pair of [card]Tragic Slip[/card]s to take out [card]Coalition Honor Guard[/card] and then punish him for double-blocking [card]Phantom Monster[/card]. Shaun tucked the Monster back into my deck with [card]Unexpectedly Absent[/card] the next turn, but [card]Deep Analysis[/card] drew me back into it quickly, and [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card] joined the fun as well. Game two Shaun again started with a turn two [card]Squadron Hawk[/card], and I answered with turn two [card]Isochron Scepter[/card] imprinting [card]Tragic Slip[/card]. Shaun’s followup? [card]Winter Orb[/card]. Unfortunately for him, I ran out a [card]Phantom Monster[/card], and started hitting him, while sometimes taking out his 1/1s. Shaun, by this time, was laughing at himself over the [card]Winter Orb[/card], repeatedly asking himself “What was I doing?” He fired out [card]Raise the Alarm[/card], but [card]Phantom Monster[/card] kept coming in. He finally used [card]Unexpectedly Absent[/card] to put the Scepter back on top of my deck, then Humbled the [card]Phantom Monster[/card] when it attacked, but he was down to one Soldier at that point, and a second [card]Tragic Slip[/card] from hand saved my Illusion. A second [card]Raise the Alarm[/card] and [card]Intangible Virtue[/card] finally let Shaun get some real offence in, but it was too late, and the [card]Phantom Monster[/card] finished him off, while he continued to bemoan having Orb-locked himself.
M: 7-1 G: 14-4
F: Jason Hailman (RG)
Jason led with [card]Keldon Marauders[/card], then a [card]Keldon Champion[/card] on turn 4. I was quickly down to 8, but had started building up my forces. I traded [card]Phyrexian Rager[/card] for the Champion the next turn, then played [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card]. Jason ran out Avarax, fetching a second one, but took the next turn to play an [card]Emperor Crocodile[/card] instead of the second Avarax. [card]Annihilate[/card] was even better than normal, getting three-for-one by taking out the Croc’s only friend, and I started swinging back. Jason reloaded with [card]Beetleback Chief[/card] and Avarax, but I imprinted [card]Isochron Scepter[/card] with [card]Tragic Slip[/card] and starting thinning the goblins out. [card]Seismic Stomp[/card] was almost nasty, but the fact that I’d held [card]Pilgrim’s Eye[/card] back let me weather the attack and counterattack for lethal. Game two was brutal, and not in a good way for me. I kept a hand with three land and four reasonable spells, but the cheapest one cost three. My opponent went Kird Ape, [card]Keldon Marauders[/card], then a second Marauders. I played [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card] on turn three; my opponent used [card]Ghitu Slinger[/card] to kill it and smashed in again. My second [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card] met a Firebolt, and we were on to game three. I again kept a hand that started on turn three, but this one worked out much better. My opponent’s first play was [card]Keldon Marauders[/card], answered with [card]Glacial Wall[/card]. [card]Flinthoof Boar[/card] and haste still pushed damage through, but without the tempo that was fatal to me in game two. We both played out creatures. I was able to gain value by trading [card]Deadbridge Shaman[/card] off for an Avarax, then [card]Gravedigger[/card] it back. An attack with all five of Jason’s creatures got some damage through as a lot of creatures left play. I untapped and Annihilated Jason’s second-last creature, again depriving [card]Emperor Crocodile[/card] of company, and started swinging with [card]Shoreline Ranger[/card]. [card]Beetleback Chief[/card] and [card]Keldon Champion[/card] followed from Jason, but I had [card]Twisted Abomination[/card] back. I took control of the game, swinging in with both of my six-drops and dropping the rest of the critters from my hand for defence. Jason chump-blocked for a couple turns, but was rapidly overwhelmed, and I took the game, match, and tournament.
M: 8-1 G: 16-5
The win gave me a qualification for the next RPTQ, coming up at the end of August. The timing works out well for me. Eldritch Moon drops mid-July, but I’ll be busy with the World Boardgaming Championships for the rest of that month. I can start ramping up my Standard play during August, and hopefully represent myself well at my first-ever RPTQ. 🙂