(I copied this from PureMTGO strictly for archival purposes)
Hello and welcome back!
It's been a while since I have been able to sit and put digital ink to paper. Work and life commitments have been really eating into my Magic time. But I am back to tell a tale of the bizarre and the humorous.
Sadly, or perhaps epically, my most prominent Magical achievement is probably winning the 2005 State Championships. Normally this wouldn't be anything too unique or interesting, but I think you will agree it is anything but normal when you spy the winning decklist below:
Battle of Wits
2005 State Champs Finals
Creatures
4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
7 cards
Other Spells
4 Dark Banishing
4 Wrath of God
4 Befoul
2 Confiscate
2 Final Judgment
4 Sickening Shoal
3 Disrupting Shoal
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
4 Hinder
1 Honden of Seeing Winds
4 Hideous Laughter
4 Rend Flesh
1 Honden of Life's Web
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
4 Counsel of the Soratami
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Chastise
1 Ivory Mask
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Battle of Wits
2 Cruel Edict
4 Brainspoil
4 Convolute
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Spectral Searchlight
4 Clutch of the Undercity
4 Dimir Signet
4 Nightmare Void
2 Telling Time
4 Compulsive Research
4 Induce Paranoia
4 Perplex
3 Terrarion
4 Consult the Necrosages
4 Last Gasp
4 Ribbons of Night
4 Mana Leak
4 Enduring Ideal
3 Oppressive Will
3 Exile into Darkness
3 Reverence
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
4 Tidings
3 Eradicate
4 Rewind
160 cards Lands
4 Adarkar Wastes
14 Plains
20 Swamp
4 Underground River
35 Island
4 Caves of Koilos
1 Genju of the Realm
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Cloudcrest Lake
4 Waterveil Cavern
2 Watery Grave
96 cards
Sideboard
2 Persecute
4 Horobi's Whisper
4 Jushi Apprentice
4 Pithing Needle
1 Twincast
15 cards
Battle of Wits
That's a lot of cards. Through a little bit of fate and luck, I was able to find the cards that I needed when I needed them and made it all the way to the finals of the tournament. When the dust settled, I was the owner of the winner's plaque. My original (heavily edited) report is available here:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=5880
The important part of this article for today's purpose lies at the end. Due to a number of factors, Ty, my finals opponent and good friend of mine, elected to drop from the tournament and I was declared the victor. The coming weeks were filled with goofy and fun tales of Battle of Wits winning the state championships.
Flash Forward to the December 18, 2010. I am completing my morning ritual (bowl of cheerios and cleaning out my gmail) when I find that I have a facebook message from Ty.
Ty, like most of us, has grown up. He lives out in Hawaii via the Navy. He found himself with some downtime and had a funny thought spring into his head. Why don't we settle the score and see what might have been. He messaged me and asked if I wanna play it out on MTGO.
Oddly enough, this could not have come at a better time. I am off from work thanks to being employed by the school system. Plus I figure it would be a funny writeup that the people might enjoy. I say to myself: Self, let's do this!
After a few back and forth messages, Ty and I are able to come an arrangement. The time: 1ish on Tuesday. The place: Casual Decks room.
Between both of our collections, we have all of the cards necessary to put together both decks, with a few small purchases (very small since most of these cards are next to useless in today’s magic).
Interestingly enough, Ty has managed to rally a pretty big segment of the Texas magic base, so the match ends of having about 10 spectators. Nathan, friend and former magic player, even commented that “this is probably the exact same people that would’ve matched this match 5 years ago”. Now, we have some real stakes: pride, bragging rights, and the use of an awesome avatar painstakingly created by our friend Sean:
Thanks again Sean for all of your hard work on this masterpiece. =P
After a quick review of the decklist to remember what in the world is in this monstrosity, Ty puts the game up and we get down to business……….or so I thought. MTGO won’t let me join the game. I laughingly have to message Ty that I need to borrow one more card: Island. Despite having almost all the cards I need to play whatever format I want, I come up short on the most common digital object online.
One quick trade later and we are getting down to business.
For reference here is the decklist that Ty is bringing to the game:
Searing Angel
2005 State Champs Finals
Creatures
4 Firemane Angel
3 Shard Phoenix
7 cards
Other Spells
4 Wrath of God
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
3 Journeyer's Kite
3 Honden of Cleansing Fire
4 Peace of Mind
4 Devouring Light
4 Searing Meditation
4 Lightning Helix
30 cards Lands
6 Mountain
8 Plains
4 Battlefield Forge
3 Boros Garrison
2 Sacred Foundry
23 cards
Sideboard
3 Pyroclasm
3 Terashi's Grasp
4 Ivory Mask
2 Pithing Needle
3 Defense Grid
15 cards
Searing Meditation
The general consensus is that I have the advantage due to the incredibly slow nature of his deck, but the randomness I am stuck with can still come back to bite me.
Sidebar: It's interesting to note that some of our decks functionalities are different from when the match was first played thanks to the new rules. Ty's Shard Phoenix is hurt by his inability to stack damage, and my spectral searchlight can no longer ping him like it did back in the day (which did win me 2 games at the original tourney).
Belated 2005 State Champs, Game 1:
We take a few minutes to wait for all of our friends to get online and then we are ready to roll. I am going first and get the following opener:
I actually debate keeping this for a little while. Then I remember he has Wraths. Thankfully, mulliganing with this deck is 100000000x easier on MTGO. Take that, Paper Magic!
Bleh! But it is less bleh than the prospect of going to 5 on the play with this deck.
Ty keeps his opener and we are good to go.
We both have predictably slow starts. Ty gets down (Sensei’s Divining Top) and begins sifting his library while I seek the Counsel of the Soratami, netting me some counterspells. Ty goes for a Peace of Mind and I decide to Hinder it to the bottom. My deck give me a Kagemaro, so we are going for the beatdown plan. Ty quickly shuts that down with a Lightning Helix, topped off by the fact that I didn’t leave a black open and he gets the life gain (grrr).
Ty goes for another Peace of Mind which gets Rewound. I rip a second Kagemaro and try to go for the gusto again. Shard Phoenix comes down to step in the way, but won’t be able to kill it thanks to the new rules.
We trade hits for a few turns, but Ty plops down a Honden of Cleansing Fire, so my swings are much less efficient than his birds. A few hits and life gain puts it at 16-all. I try to get in with a 5/5 Kagemaro again and he runs into a Devouring Light. I remember to activate the Maro this time and sweep the board.
Ty regroups with a Firemane Angel, but it get Last Gasped. After having found a Terrarion, I am finally able to get my green Honden on the battlefield, though my chances of winning via damage at this point are beyond unlikely.
Ty gets a second angel down, but it is crushed by a Chastise. Shard Phoenix #2 comes down to keep some pressure on.
I rip a Tidings for my turn, but only flip over a bunch of land and a Meishin, the Mind Cage. I do finally have double white for Reverence. Sadly, Ty gets the real pressure going by resolving a Searing Meditation. I have three draw steps to come up with a solution, but all I find are mana producers and Terror effects.
0-1 :(
A sad start, but I am still hopeful for the match.
I bring in everything but Horobi’s Whispers, while cutting some of the cards that do absolutely nothing (Exile in Darkness, Night of Souls Betrayal, Hideous Laughter).
Belated State Champs, Game 2:
Holy Crap on a Cracker! That's a keeper. Ty had to think for a minute (or run to the bathroom) before keeping.
My Terrarion comes down as the first play of the game Ty leads off with a Peace of Mind while I consult the necrosages, not using the terrarion to make sure I can Persecute next turn. An Island and Ribbons of Night join my hand as I ship it back. Ty discards an Angel to peace of mind before he plays a Boros Garrison.......and returns the garrison to his hand on accident (doh!). He digitally kicks himself, but I point out that it doesn't really matter as I persecute for white which gets me a Searing Meditation, Lightning Helix, and Ivory Mask, leaving him with his bounce land and a pair of phoenixes (phoeni?). Ty tries to recover, but having drawn Underground River I can tutor for my win, and Ty doesn't draw a Terashi's Grasp in time.
1-1
We both keep our boards the same and head into the biggest game of our lives......or of this afternoon, really.
Belated State Champs, Game 3:
Sadly, MTGO did not save the replay of this one, so I am gonna have to go off of memory for this one.
Ty and I both mull to 6. I end up keeping a decent hand with 2 islands and Nightmare Void and a counterspell of some kind. Ty leads off with Pithing Needle naming Brainspoil. Ty and I both miss our third land drop, but he does manage to get a peace of mind down. My drawstep gave me a battle of wits, and if your gonna draw a nonland card, that's the one you want to draw. We both recover on our lands pretty quickly, but continue to stare at each other. I have drawn a second counter, so I'm content to play the waiting game for a while.
My fifth land finally comes and it is a swamp. I decide to fire off the nightmare void rather than just rawdog out the win. Ty thinks for a minute and hits me with a pair of helixes (heli? I'm just kidding!) before the nightmare resolves. My play is rewarded as Ty has a Grasp, which hits the yard, leaving him with a hand of helix and Phoenix x2. Ty drops a phoenix ands sends it back. Being at 14 and with him down a grasp, I go ahead and slam down the battle and dare him to get lucky. Ty draws for his turn, taps his boros garrison, another plains..........and casts searing meditation. At the beginning of my next upkeep, it's all over.
Whoo! After 5 years, I am finally the undisputed 2005 state champ! (I personally prefer to leave out the heavyweight part as I have worked hard to stay out of that weight class, tyvm.)
After some friendly smack talk and post game questions (Ty wanted to know if I still go for it without the Void, which I doubt I will as I can hide behind my counters for some time), I enjoy the celebrations and head to our message board to upload my new avatar =D
What lessons can be learned from this match? What nuggets of information can the community mine and grow in their skills? .......Yeah, I got nothing on that front. Perhaps the lesson is that you shouldn't leave the true results of a tournament hanging so you can watch your miserable baseball team get beaten around (Sorry guys, but there are so many disappointing seasons the 'stros can give me before I am done.) Or maybe the lesson is that there is fun to be had in magic without always having the largest stakes on the line. This match was a blast, and not in small part because some people I haven't even heard from lately took the time to go through multiple MTGO updates to watch the match and hang out. It was a little like having those good ole days of magic back for a small window in time.
Well, if I wasn't able to educate you in any way, I hope I was able to entertain you in some way. Next time I promise to have a more valuable piece for those of a tournament mind.
See y'all next year!
Keya
gamemaster32 on MTGO
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