First off, I would like to thank everyone for checking out my article last week. From what I can see, it was well-received everywhere. Worth Wollpert even complimented me on my positive attitude despite the crummy situation I was put in. And this positive attitude is what I brought with me as Frankie Richard, Vicente Alvarez, Barry Hum, and I headed to Connecticut for yet another Standard PTQ.

Fun at the Border

Getting across the border is always interesting. We can never predict the border officer’s reaction as we reveal that we are driving more than a few hours to play a card game called Magic: the Gathering. Last week, on our Syracuse trip, we quite enjoyed the replies that we got on our way to and back from the U.S.

Aren’t you guys too old for this?

Heroes of Might and Magic? Ça existe encore? Je viens de le downdloader hier soir. Je comprends rien!

Translation: Heroes of Might and Magic? That still exists? I just downloaded it last night. I don’t understand anything!

This time around, we were pulled over at the border on our way to Connecticut Friday night. I’m not entirely sure on the minute details, but Vicente, a Venezulan, mentioned that for him to cross the border, he had to pay a small fee every single time. During the short interview with one of the border officers, he was asked:

Mr. Alvarez, have you murdered anyone outside of the game of Magic?

Border officers definitely seem to have a sense of humour! After the interview, we all jumped back into the car, drove for five hours, and arrived at the Clarion Inn & Suites. Thankfully, Francis Rickard did not decide to check into the same hotel again, and we were able to quickly set ourselves off for a decent rest before the big day.

Best PTQ Experience Ever

Honestly, before showing up for the PTQ, we did not really know what to expect. The card store name was the first thing that threw us off. Ice Imports. Not exactly the type of name I would expect a hobby store to have. On top of that, there was no go-to Facebook or landing page for the event, but hey, we weren’t going to let speculation stop us from going to this PTQ.

Since then, I have learnt from others that Ice Imports was not a Magic store to begin with. They are a store that sold a bunch of different stuff including knives and swords. At some point, they decided to add Magic to their product line, and from what I understand, they have really been trying to push the game hard ever since.

When we finally arrived at the tournament site early in the morning, we couldn’t help but laugh at the presence of a barn. It added to the whole “we are in the middle of nowhere” feeling.

Once we got in, though, it didn’t take long for our group’s minds to be collectively blown away. At the entrance, there were girls selling cupcakes with Magic symbols on them. An Ice Imports representative was near the registration table giving out free Sunny Ds, water bottles, apples, and bananas. That’s right… FREE. We were also given a small gift bag with a concierge sheet. It was as if we had all been given free VIP packages for this PTQ.

And if that was not enough, there was free Wi-Fi, which is completely unheard of. Well, at least up here in Canada. The free Wi-Fi access was made even more valuable as the tournament organizer was able to get the pairings each round available online via their Twitter account. Seriously, it was unbelievable. And just to add an additional smile to my face, the name of the Wi-Fi network was BARN.

Being in the middle of nowhere meant that food options were going to be sparse, but to everyone’s delight, a Lucky Taco food truck was slated to come near the event during lunch time. However, because the PTQ ended up registering 308 players, the line-up for this Lucky Taco truck was massive. I didn’t end up getting any tacos, but I appreciated the TO’s efforts.

Still Rusty

To remind everyone, my first PTQ since coming back from hiatus was a disappointing 3-5. I had every intention to improve on that record in Connecticut. Keeping with my plan, I stuck with Jon Stern’s list, making one change that he suggested, which was to go all the way up to four [card]Temple of Silence[/card]s. After the tournament, I think I would certainly play four again. Even Owen’s latest list featured four [card]Temple of Deceit[/card]s.

[deck title=Mono-Black Devotion – Jon Stern]

[Lands]

18 Swamp

4 Mutavault

4 Temple of Silence

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

4 Pack Rat

4 Nightveil Specter

1 Lifebane Zombie

4 Desecration Demon

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Thoughtseize

2 Pharika’s Cure

1 Ultimate Price

1 Devour Flesh

4 Hero’s Downfall

4 Underworld Connections

1 Whip of Erebos

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

3 Duress

1 Dark Betrayal

2 Devour Flesh

2 Pharika’s Cure

1 Doom Blade

2 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Lifebane Zombie

2 Shrivel

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

My first five rounds went as follows:

W vs. Mono Black Devotion

L vs. Mono Blue Devotion

L vs. GB Scavenge

W vs. White Weenie splash [card]Boros Charm[/card]

W vs. Mono Green Ramp into Fatties

I easily beat Mono Blue Devotion game one using [card]Pack Rat[/card], but games two and three, my opponent was able to dominate the board with an early [card]Domestication[/card]. Against GB Scavenge, I made a midgame mistake by not playing a land, which led to a [card]Golgari Charm[/card] killing my [card]Pack Rat[/card] while I was tapped out with a [card]Mutavault[/card] in play.

PTQ Crash

With my record at 3-2, a 20-minute dinner break was announced due to technical difficulties. After a half hour had passed, really bad news was announced. At that point, it was roughly 5 p.m. and the tournament organizer announced that Wizards Event Reporter had crashed and that there was no way of recovering the tournament. They would need to painstakingly re-enter all the results manually. Therefore, the tournament was scheduled to resume at 8 pm with four rounds of Swiss to go.

Frank’s reaction tells it all. At every tournament, Frank loves to emphatically tell everyone how many rounds he paid for because that’s the number of rounds he planned to play regardless of his record. Frankie paid for nine rounds, but the news made it very unlikely that he was going to get his money’s worth this time.

Frankie, Barry, and I were all at 3-2, which meant that we were all out of top-eight contention. Vicente was still in the run, but there was a car from Montreal staying an extra day for the SCG IQ the next day, so he was safe to stay. For the rest of us, the idea of playing on for Planeswalker Points was not that appealing if it meant getting home at 5 a.m., so we decided to leave. It was a huge bummer for us since we were all coming off two wins and just felt like playing more of the game that we love oh so much.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Wizards Event Reporter has crashed in my presence. Just this past December, at a Montreal PTQ, WER decided to crash after round one, and players were given an early lunch break as the tournament organizer rushed to fix the issue.

As someone with a degree in software engineering, I just can’t help but wonder what the main cause of the crash was. Could the old software be less compatible with today’s latest hardware and operating systems? I can’t help but wonder, but I do know this: at the very least, the program should have a feature that MTGO itself has long been missing-the ability to quickly restore a given state of a tournament. I hope this is a top priority for Wizards moving forward.

Major kudos to you, Ice Imports. It is sad that the main takeaway from this tournament is that Wizards Event Reporter ruined everyone’s tournament experience, but I won’t forget that outside of that, you guys gave me the best PTQ experience I ever had and I am certainly looking forward to you guys hosting more tournaments in the future.

Unlike many of my friends, I still have faith in Wizards. I am just waiting for my…

Mono Black vs. Mono Blue Devotion

One of things some people wanted more out of my article last week was more strategic content, which I was unable to provide because of my rustiness. For in-depth information, you are best served checking out Jon Stern’s primer or Owen Turtenwald’s numerous articles on the deck he has been championing with a large degree of success. I’m just going to try to provide little nuggets of knowledge that I pick up on the way.

Everyone I have talked to evaluates the Mono Black versus Mono Blue matchup as roughly even. Some give the edge to Mono Black; others believe Mono Blue has a higher win percentage in the matchup.

In my summary, I had mentioned getting completely blown up by [card]Domestication[/card] in games two and three. I don’t think there was much I could have done game two, since I followed up a [card]Thoughtseize[/card] with a [card]Nightveil Specter[/card] only to have it stolen with a [card]Domestication[/card] he must have topdecked. In game three, I didn’t have a discard spell, but felt I had to drop threat, only to have it stolen once again by [card]Domestication[/card].

Frustrated by [card]Domestication[/card], I talked to Max Brown about the matchup and he told me that he likes to side in a number of Duresses when he plays against Mono Blue Devotion. He believes the key cards to worry about are Thassa, Bident, and [card]Domestication[/card], and Duress can deal with two of those cards.

According to him, the key is also to recognize that there are some games that will go super fast, but in the slower ones, you can afford to sit back on your [card]Nightveil Specter[/card] until you draw Duress. He also mentioned that he has been having success siding out a land while being on the draw with Mono Black Devotion.

I am definitely going to try to jam more games against Mono Blue Devotion and see if I like his approach more.

UWr Control

I have to do a quick mention about UWr Control which is a deck I mentioned last week. Eh Team listener Robert Vaughan top 8ed with it at the Syracuse PTQ and shipped his list to my friend Jared Boettcher who finished in 2nd at the conclusion of the Connecticut PTQ, losing to Ben Friedman in the finals. Ben was playing Rw Devotion. If I was looking to play control, it would certainly be one of my starting points, so I hope you guys appreciate me including Robert’s list here.

[deck title=UWr Control – Robert Vaughan]

[Lands]

4 Hallowed Fountain

4 Steam Vents

2 Sacred Foundry

2 Temple of Triumph

2 Temple of Deceit

2 Azorius Guildgate

2 Mutavault

5 Island

3 Plains

[/Lands]

[Spells]

4 Jace, Architect of Thought

2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion

4 Supreme Verdict

1 Quicken

4 Detention Sphere

3 Counterflux

3 Azorius Charm

2 Izzet Charm

2 Last Breath

1 Turn // Burn

4 Sphinx’s Revelation

1 Elixir of Immortality

3 Divination

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

1 Blind Obedience

2 Assemble the Legion

1 Last Breath

1 Celestial Flare

1 Jace, Memory Adept

1 Negate

1 Pithing Needle

3 Gainsay

2 Wear // Tear

2 Archangel of Thune

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]

Next Stop

My next stop is the home of Scott MacCallum and Dave Lee as I head all the way to Toronto for my third PTQ weekend in a row. I expect this to be the biggest PTQ I will ever attend, but I really hope that fact will not trigger some of the issues I have experienced in my last two PTQs. Don’t let me down, Kelly Ackerman!

Spoiler

One more thing. Wizards was kind enough to send us a spoiler from Born of the Gods and we will be revealing this special card next Tuesday. I’m going to be working extra hard to spoil this card in a unique way. To remind everyone, our previous spoilers were [card]Appetite for Brains[/card], [card]Slaughter Games[/card], [card]Luminate Primordial[/card], [card]Nivix Cyclops[/card] and [card]Fabled Hero[/card].

As always, thanks for reading!

KYT