Everyone says huge mistakes and catastrophes happen in slow motion. I don’t necessarily agree. The moment that could’ve changed my Magic life forever happened at the same speed as every other play that weekend. Which is to say it happened slowly, but not in slow motion. Maybe it didn’t feel like a mistake at the time, I’m not sure. I died the next turn. When his Glorybringer killed me I remember looking at the board, my life pad, my hand, and back to the board just saying “yuuup”. My one word acknowledgment of defeat has echoed in my mind for days. I walked outside after being one turn short of winning game 3 and advancing to the Top 8, albeit with some other questionable plays on my part, lit a cigarette and screamed at the sky. I’m okay though, I can handle it. I feel bad for my friends and teammates who watched me and rooted for me Saturday evening and also helped me prepare for the better part of a week while we were holed up in a hotel outside Richmond. I wasted their time and their energy. Thankfully I wasn’t on a team series team and it didn’t cost anyone else equity. My defeat, which I still won’t call a failure, has just inspired me to work harder for the next Pro Tour. Here’s what happened for those of you who haven’t seen it.

In round 15 of PT Dominaria I was playing my UB Midrange deck against Marcio Carvalho’s RB Aggro deck. After winning a close Game One I found myself on the ropes in Game Two but battled back to a position where I had The Scarab God and 7 mana. I had already made a Rekindling Phoenix to block his other Phoenix and sat at 4 life. He had a Chainwhirler as well and my mind decided that it would be best to Never his Chainwhirler, exile Glorybringer in his next end step with The Scarab God, attack and exert on his Phoenix. Then I could bring Chainwhirler back with The Scarab God and kill his Pia token and Phoenix token, leaving me with an overwhelmingly dominant board state, possibly with him dead on board. This play is fine but it’s the second best play since it leaves me dead to both Unlicensed Disintegration and Glorybringer. The best play, that keeps me alive almost certainly, is Never on Phoenix, immediately exile it. I was, frankly, afraid to tap out and it didn’t seem like he had Glorybringer or Disintegration because there was a turn earlier where I clearly would’ve died to either one. I tried to be cute and it cost me a Pro Tour Top 8. I was also scared, unreasonably, of him killing his scrounged and using it to counter the Phoenix reanimation. All of this is pretty much a moot point because I can’t die to Unlicensed Disintegration or Glorybringer on the next turn if I kill and exile the Phoenix and then after that all my decisions carry less weight because the board is totally stable. Game 3 was also a mess mostly because I played way too conservatively around his Cut to Ribbons. I was fairly certain I was going to win with a few minutes left. I just needed to make sure I could finish in time. I wasn’t thinking about it and I should’ve been. Honestly, with a loss to give it would’ve been better to take the most aggressive lines since the win helps so much more than the loss hurts. I didn’t attack with my reanimated Knight on Turn 2 of turns because I was worried about the Ribbons. It’s dumb though cause he has to have everything to stabilize and then pressure me and then still have enough lands to burn me for 6-8 points. I was terrified of having one of the best players in the world steal victory when he was dead cause I made an aggressive attack. The deck is so grindy that you’re supposed to play most of your turns to not lose. The Scarab God represents such a powerful inevitability that it’s basically all about playing lands and staying alive. I could’ve won so many ways and I hate writing about it. My frustration is my own though! I don’t think Marcio slowplayed me at all, despite some people alluding to that online. I’m super happy for him and Kazuyuki Takimura, who absolutely leveled me into next week with sideboarding.

When I talked to Gerry Thompson about the Takimura match afterwards he didn’t let me shrink back into obscurity with my platitudes about “hedging” and how “he’s still aggressive enough that all the removal is good.” Gerry asked me a seemingly innocuous question, “how many Cinder Barrens did you see?” I said I saw 2-3 in each game and he cast Vraska’s Contempt in Game One. Gerry told me I have to be better than that. I have to realize what the Contempt and all the tap lands means. I was conditioned by 3 straight rounds of aggressive leaning B/R decks and was unable to remain flexible in the moment. For someone who prides themselves on playing decks that switch roles well I was unable to identify the most important time I had to switch in my whole career. Takimura has to pay some cost for having Vraska’s Contempt. The cost is Bomat Courier and Kari Zev and friends. Everything makes sense. Everything is there for a reason. Right down to the basic land counts in your standard deck. For example, Swamp is a much more useful land than Island in the U/B Midrange deck I played. However, when you aren’t being forced to use your mana it’s almost always right to play Island or Aether Hub over Swamp, especially as your third land. This is because after casting Champion of Wits playing a Swamp will give you more utility. It casts Fatal Push and Cast Down or Blood Fast with the help of any other land. Don’t play a Swamp or Catacomb for no reason and end up sheepishly playing a Field of Ruin after a champion. Alright, enough about mistakes and posthumous lessons. Let’s take a look at the decklist and add some sideboarding advice because I’ve been told that’s what the pros put in their articles to get all the hits.

Testing Process: This was the first Pro Tour I played with teammates. Months ago I was asked by Noah Walker, best legacy player in the world (sorry Bob Huang), if I was qualified for Pro Tour Dominaria. I told him that I intended to use my Silver invite and he asked if I wanted to work with his team. I jumped at the chance. I prepared with Noah, Oliver Tiu, Eli Kassis, Jack Kiefer (the hardest working young Magic player I’ve ever met), and recent GP Champion Andrew Tenjum. Youngsters Quinn Kiefer and Rio Winslow-Trevathan weren’t qualified but were there to provide extra bodies for draft and play Fortnite in the hotel lobby. Rio provided some important feedback in particular when I was playing Standard online and noticed a presence behind me. A voice muttered “pathetic” and I heard a strange noise. Rio was behind me, glaring disapprovingly at my Standard deck and aggressively eating reheated pizza with a spoon. Kids are great. We all ended up playing different decks, which is a fine result of testing but I wondered if some people weren’t basically locked in from the start. Some of our teammates were so set on decks that I felt like I couldn’t contribute to the process as well as I would’ve liked. Noah and Oliver ended up settling on red splash scrounger fairly early on so most of the advice they gave me was related to limited. They’re both solid drafters and I certainly used some of the tips they provided. Tenjum was settled on Monoblack fairly early on as well. He eventually swayed Jack, who was frustrated with a variety of decks, to play the same thing. I needed to play blue because I am woefully one dimensional so the only person on our team also interested in blue decks was Eli. Eli is a fellow upstate New York resident and I’ve always known him as one of the best players in the northeast. He was working on a variety of UB and Esper Midrange decks and I was very interested considering Vraska’s Contempt and The Scarab God were the two cards I most wanted to play in this event. I played a bunch of leagues and had a 1-3, 3-2, 4-1 and 4-1. The first two results were Esper Midrange which was powerful but inconsistent and was also responsible for the worst hand I had throughout testing. On turn 3 my board was 2 Aether Hub, Glacial Fortress and my hand was 2 Vraska’s Contempt, Ravenous Chupacabra, Fatal Push, and The Scarab God. I lost the game, dropped fork the league, and cut the white splash. After 4-1 in a league with Kitesail Freebooter, a very tilting card that is exactly almost good enough, I ended up at this list that Eli advocated because it made their cheap removal mostly dead game one. I immediately 4-1ed with this and, with deck submission looming I was ready to just lock it in and figure out boarding and stuff with Eli.

4 Fatal Push

4 Vraska’s Contempt

4 Champion of Wits

3 The Scarab God

2 Liliana, Death’s Majesty

2 Never//Return

2 Walking Ballista

2 Aether Meltdown

2 Yahenni’s Expertise

2 Doomfall

2 Ravenous Chupacabra

1 Arguel’s Blood Fast

1 Search for Azcanta

1 Syncopate

1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury

1 Cast Down

7 Swamp

4 Island

4 Fetid Pools

4 Drowned Catacomb

2 Aether Hub

2 Ifnir Deadlands

2 Field of Ruin

1 Submerged Boneyard

Sideboard

4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner

3 Negate

2 Duress

2 Knight of Malice

1 Torrential Gearhulk

1 Confiscation Coup

1 Hour of Glory

1 Essence Extraction

My final record breakdown was as follows:

RB Aggro-2-3-1

BW Vehicles 2-0-0

UB Improvise 0-0-1

UW Control 1-0-0

-1 Gonti

-1 Search for Azcanta

-1 Syncopate

-1 Liliana

-1 Ravenous Chupacabra

+1 Essence Extraction

+1 Hour of Glory

+1 Torrential Gearhulk

+2 Knight of Malice

-2 Chupacabra

-1 Syncopate

-1 Aether Meltdown

-1 Yahenni’s Expertise

-1 Search for Azcanta

+1 Torrential Gearhulk

+1 Hour of Glory

+1 Essence Extraction

+1 Confiscation Coup

+2 Duress/Negate



-4 Push

-2 Meltdown

-2 Chupacabra

-2 Yahenni’s Expertise

-1 Cast Down

-1 Contempt

+ 3 Negate

+ 2 Duress

+ 2 Knight of Malice

+ 1 Torrential Gearhulk

+ 4 Siphoner

-1 Chupacabra

-1 Cast Down

-1 Never

-1 Search

-1 Syncopate (can keep on play)

+2 Duress

+2 Knight of Malice

+1 Negate

-1 Search

-1 Syncopate

-1 Doomfall

-1 Meltdown

+1 Gearhulk

+1 Hour of Glory

+1 Essence Extraction

+1 Confiscation Coup (Lifecrafter’s Bestiary huge problem)

-1 Syncopate

-1 Ballista

-1 Search

-1 Liliana

+1 Gearhulk

+1 Hour of Glory

+1 Confiscation Coup

+1 Essence Extraction

-2 Aether Meltdown

-2 Expertise

-1 Never // Return

-1 Ravenous Chupacabra

-1 Walking Ballista

+4 Siphoner

+1 Gearhulk

+1 Hour

+1 Coup

P.S. A sincere thank you to everyone who was cheering me on this past weekend. You guys make this degenerate lifestyle worth it, even after the bad punts! Sorry to disappoint everyone but I’m not done with the Pro Tour Feature Match Area just yet. Daddy out!