Teferi Time Raveler in Vintage Eternal Weekend

I've always wanted to play in Eternal Weekend. For many years, I'd set it as a goal, even when I didn't own any Vintage decks. Eventually, I completed my set of Power Nine and I thought I'd finally go. However, I never managed to attend because of a limited travel schedule and other Magic obligations taking priority. For this year, it was certainly a tentative plan, but we're now far enough into the COVID life that I can no longer pinpoint alternative activities that I once had firmly scheduled. It would have been tough to make it, so I was happy to here they were doing it on Magic Online.

I've been busy with school, so I figured I would only have time to play one of the six offered events. I chose Vintage because it always delivers. Legacy is great, but sometimes it is in a bad spot, and the current Legacy decks look didn't excite me as much as the Vintage lists did.

The Deck

A while back, I said I should always play Teferi in Modern. I don't think that necessarily runs true for Legacy, where three mana is a much bigger ask in a world of Wasteland and Daze. In Vintage, you have Mox and fewer Wasteland decks, so it seemed like maybe the Teferi strategy would translate. The extra importance of Force of Will meant the upside of Teferi was even higher.

I also knew I wanted something proactive. I don't have much experience with Vintage as of late. The last time I played any games was in 2018 and I think I had four Mental Misstep in my deck. This meant I would most likely play Paradoxical Outcome or another blue combo deck. I would not try to play Xerox Control, even though those decks are usually more my style. Also, I want to Teferi people, and Combo is the best way to do it.

I saw a list from Medvedev that did well in two different Vintage events online. It jumped out from the rest with 2 Teferi and 4! Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. Lavinia acts a lot like Teferi in Vintage since most counter magic costs zero mana. It also is very good against Basking Rootwalla and Hollow One decks.I copied this list and played a league to a 3-2 finish with the little free time I had in the week before my EW event:

I realized Teferi was better than I thought. He effectively cost two mana since he would usually bounce your Mox back to your hand to replay (rarely were there opposing creatures to bounce). I talked with some of the Austin Romancing the Stones Vintage player because there were some changes I wanted to make and I wanted to be sure I wasn't screwing up the deck too badly. They basically mandated I have at least one Hurkyll's Recall in the main. They also suggested trying a Karn package. They confirmed my suspicion that Sphinx of the Steel Wind is better now than Blightsteel Colossus. They also said that cutting Lotus Petal is fine. With those suggestions, I registered this:

With additional Teferi, I didn't think I needed the main deck Swords to Plowshares. I felt confident not having a storm card to kill with, especially with Karn as an alternative win condition. I didn't really know which artifacts to play in the sideboard. 

The Games

A quick rundown of some matches:

R1: GW Fastbond Hatebears. I think game one I have to use Karn to wish for Sphinx and then hard cast it. It was good enough. I win game two with only 1:58 on my clock. Comboing without a storm card takes a lot of mouse clicks.

1-0

R2: 4 Color Leovold Goodstuff. I think I go off game one with Teferi. Game two I hard cast Sphinx turn two with Flusterstorm backup and he can't remove it.

2-0

R3: Doomsday (tournament winner). Game one he has one more counter than me and resolves a Necropotence which buries me in card advantage. I mess up game two and don't play a Mana Crypt then can't pay for his Flusterstorm on a key turn.

2-1

R4: BUG goodstuff. I don't remember much about this. Teferi was probably very good.

3-1

R5: Hollow Vine. I lose game one but turn one Lavinia stops him from doing anything game two. He has two Deafening Silence, but eventually I build my mana up and hard cast Sphinx for the third time in five rounds. Game three I don't have any interaction, but neither does he and my combo is way faster.

4-1

R6: Blue Belcher. Game one I lock him out with Lavinia. I lose game two on a mulligan and I can't cast my interactive spells. Game three I Spyglass and see Manifold Key, Time Vault, and Grim Monolith. I name Manifold Key. He draws Narset and finds Voltaic Key to kill me.

4-2

R7: Ravager Shops. I don't remember much about the shops matchups. One match I had to cast Balance twice in a game to not die and then stabilize by blocking with a Sol Ring before I could get Lattice online with Karn. A different match I Tinkered for Sphinx to stabilize from 1 life where Colossus would not have one. One of the matches also had a game where my Sphinx was held at bay by Stonecoil Serpant but I eventually swarmed the board with Mentor tokens to kill him.

5-2

R8: BUG goodstuff. He didn't have enough interaction and Teferi definitely won a game.

6-2

R9: Ravager Shops. See round 7, not sure what happened which round.

7-2

R10: Oath. I win game one but he is better configured post board. Game three I punt when I don't tutor for a Force of Will to protect my Teferi and then lose to Narset and Pyroblast a turn before I can go off.

7-3

What I learned

I think it was a reasonable showing for not having played Vintage in a long time. Some things I wish I had done differently:

Lotus Petal was important at casting turn one Lavinia and I maybe shouldn't have cut it. I lost some games where I didn't have the mana to cast Lavinia or Teferi, I could have added an additional land instead of Lotus Petal.

I definitely would not play a storm card if I was playing a paper event. The actions of comboing go much faster and you are more likely to get a concession while going off since the clock is shared. A storm card might be nice to have online where the clicking takes so long and you can time out.

I don't know if Karn was worth it. Maybe with Teferi and Lavinia I needed cheaper cards. I would have liked to have had an Ensnaring Bridge in the board. The Needle effects and GY hate weren't that important in my games.

Balance is real messed up. This deck can take advantage of it better than usual since you only need one card to get back in it.

I don't really see the appeal of Night's Whisper. I get the logic behind needing a critical mass of resources, but when compared with cards that can straight up win the game on their own like Teferi and Lavinia I'm not sure it does enough.

Repeal or some way to remove a Narset or Karn is probably needed.

Lavinia and Teferi were great, but I think 4 Lavinia 2 Teferi makes more sense. 

The biggest takeaway was how awesome Vintage games are. Every game is epic in some way or another. I remember watching VSL and being stunned at how often the games weren't just fine or okay, but actually good. It's pretty much the only format that I always enjoy watching. I should try to play it more.

Props:

Every card in my deck for being one of the best cards ever printed (and Lavinia for being good against the best cards ever printed)

Eternal Weekend Online

The RTS crew for being a good virtual hang out

Slops:

Not being able to play Beta art power nine with the "full access" accounts

My round three opponent for winning the event but then getting caught bribing opponents

Thassa's Oracle. Doomsday was way more interesting before you showed up.

Goblin Sligh in Middle School

I recently finished the Swiss portion of the Romancing the Stones Fall Semester Middle School league. I went 4-2 and got 10th place on tiebreakers. I played Goblin Sligh.

Goblin Sligh

When trying to decide what to play, I first thought I would play some type of Necropotence deck. It is one of the stronger cards allowed in the format. Unfortunately, without Dark Ritual, Vampiric Tutor, or Demonic Consultation, most of the classic Necro decks don't really work that well. Next I becan scouring old tournaments for lists, thinking maybe I'd play a Ramosian Sergeant / Whipcorder build. The tournament that gave me a bunch of ideas was Grand Prix Reims from 2002. This was fresh after PT Houston and a still fairly new Extended format. The Goblin Sligh lists caught my eye.

I have a fondness for Goblins in general. It was one of the first constructed decks I really loved playing. I played it almost exclusively in Onlsaught Block PTQ season and many times over the years later. If you want to see a good video of Legacy Goblins circa 2012 (and a great mustache!) check out this feature match. However, my love of Goblins goes back to pre-Scourge Standard lists. These lists looked really similar to the Extended lists at GP Reims. The Standard list I remember was from Jay Schneider. I talk a bit about my experience with this style of Goblins in this post.

The real card that had me interested in Goblins was learning that Goblin Grenade was legal. One mana for five damage is just about the best rate possible. This incentivizes you to build a lower to the ground, more aggressive Goblin deck. I wanted to play a low land count, and saw some old lists with as few as 18 lands. I started tinkering and eventually came up with this list:

4 Goblin Lackey

4 Goblin Cadets

4 Goblin Piledriver

4 Mogg Flunkies

4 Mogg Fanatic

2 Goblin Grappler

1 Sparksmith

1 Raging Goblin

4 Goblin Grenade

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Fireblast

4 Reckless Charge

1 Barbarian Ring

1 Goblin Burrows

18 Mountain

Sideboard:

4 Sulfuric Vortex

4 Pyroblast

4 Rishadan Port

3 Flaring Pain

Having now played six matches with this, I can tell you what worked and what didn't. 

I think the core of the deck is Lackey Piledriver Flunkies and Fanatics. Cadets is the most aggressive one mana Goblin for a Burn style deck. You want to play as many Goblins as possible to make Grenade reliable and to take advantage of Lackey. I think 24 was a good amount, but maybe you could play fewer. I don't think you want to play Jackal Pup (not enough Goblin) or Goblin Patrol (echo is too rough on 20 lands). You can maybe try 4 Jackal Pup if you have 24 other Goblins in the deck, but additional Goblins always help Piledriver.

Reckless Charge was sided out in almost every matchup. It is a reasonable card in those old Standard and Extended lists because the removal available wasn't cheap. It is not good in a field of STP, Hydroblast, and Lightning Bolt. They should probably just be more Raging Goblins, but maybe one or two Charge is fine.

One of the last cuts I made was Seal of Fire / Firebolt / Cursed Scroll. It would be nice to have more removal, but you need that critical mass of Goblins. I went with a split of Goblin Grappler and Sparksmith to fill that need. I was really impressed with Sparksmith. I wish I had at least 2 in the main deck and maybe 2 more in the sideboard. It isn't dead against the control decks of the format like Landstill (kills Factory) or Psychatog. Goblin Grappler was solid but nothing spectacular. It has a cool interaction with both Goblin Cadets and Reckless Charge. I got to provoke one Cadets in one match, and was able to use it to force through a bunch of Piledriver damage in a different match. I wouldn't want more than 2, but they could be better than Raging Goblin especially if you play Goblin Burrows.

I wish I had played a Goblin King or two. I lost a game to an Engineered Plague and it is a reasonable answer. It is also something that you can abuse with Lackey while still being good enough rate for non-Lackey draws. Goblin Burrows was good, as was the Barbarian Ring. I think you need 18 mountains for Fireblast. I wanted 20 land total to help my mulligan decisions (I may write more about this later). I can see playing some number of Rishadan Port main over either land if you want to save sideboard space. I'd rather have a Burrows than a Barbarian Ring. 

Every sideboard card was used, but Flaring Pain was the least useful. My two losses were to reanimation strategies and I really could have used some Tormod's Crypt. 4 Sulfuric Vortex may have been a bit too many, since you can only afford so many non-creatures and you have to fit the Port in there somehow. Pyroblast was chosen since I assumed most combo decks would be blue and it is reasonable against blue control decks (it straight up kills Psychatog). I should have maybe had a split with it and Red Elemental Blast as I had one opponent who had both Meddling Mage and Misdirection, but I did not get punished.

I think the deck is favored against non-Oath control strategies. It's also favored against some slower combo and midrange decks. It is weak to Oath, reanimation and faster combo decks. It also is likely to be unfavored against more traditional Sligh decks that have much more removal. 

If I was to submit this deck again, I'd probably play something close to this:

4 Goblin Lackey

4 Mogg Fanatic

4 Goblin Cadets

1 Goblin Grappler

3 Raging Goblin

4 Goblin Piledriver

4 Mogg Flunkies

3 Sparksmith

1 Goblin King

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Fireblast

4 Goblin Grenade

2 Rishadan Port

18 Mountain

Sideboard

2 Rishadan Port

4 Tormod's Crypt

3 Sulfuric Vortex

4 Pyroblast

2 Flaring Pain

League Match Reports

Round 1 vs Thomas Conmy on UW Landstill

I win the die roll and play turn one Lackey, which is Force of Will. I play a turn two Piledriver, and he plays turn two Standstill. I play two creatures, one of which he Forces off the three cards from Standstill. He then follows up with another Standstill. I have a second Piledriver and a Reckless Charge, and he doesn't have Force so I'm able to use Fireblast to kill him. Game two I have double Mogg Fanatic beatdown which can get through the first turn he plays Factory. I also have Sparksmith and Goblin Burrows, so I can attack unabated by Factory for 4 a turn. I draw a Port to keep him off double white and he can't ever interact while stuck on three lands.

1-0

Round 2 vs John Russel on UB Psychatog

I win the die roll. Turn one I play Lackey which  is met with Force of Will. He plays Portent and passes. I play Piledriver, but it is Smothered. I then play Lackey and Flunkies, while he plays Nightscape Familiar. I have the Bolt for the Familiar while his shields are down, and attack for 4. I Lackey in Cadets, but have no follow up. He plays a follow-up Familiar. I attack with everything and he blocks Cadets taking 4 again and going to 11 life. At this point my hand is Grenade Fireblast Fireblast, but I'm hesistant to go all in. His turn is draw go, but I draw a land. I decide to go ahead and Grenade to see what happens, and it resolves. He has an unused fetchland so I'm hoping to wait on him to use it so that when he goes to 5 life he can't Force a Fireblast and let the other resolve. He has a Psychatog the following turn so I can't attack anymore. He starts attacking me with Tog and I use the opportunity to force an issue with Reckless Charge on my Raging Goblin and Lackey, but the flashback is Dazed., forcing him to give back the Cadets and kill my Lackey while he takes no damage. I draw a third Fireblast so I'm just waiting for the right time to play around Daze and Mana Leak. I'm drawing nothing and he's cycling cantrips like AK and Shadow Rift while pinging me with Tog. Eventually he attacks and when I don't block he casts Meditate. I use the opportunity to Fireblast him three times, and he can only counter the first one and he dies. Game two I start strong with Lackey Cadets and Sparksmith. The Sparksmith kills his Nightscape Familiar, and I resolve a Sulfuric Vortex. He has the better trump with Engineered Plague and I'm now relying on my Vortex to get the job done. He ends up at 6 with a Psychatog while I have Barbarian Ring. Almost any non-mountain card is lethal for me, but he has Shadow Rift and Meditate to kill me before I get a chance to topdeck. Game three is extra epic. I once again have early Sparksmith, this time with Fanatic. I kill his Familiar again, but he ends up killing most of my team. I'm able to resolve two Vortex this time with a Pyroblast (and a Blast to kill his Psychatog). I have two ports to try to slow him down but he casts two Meditate that puts me in a precarious spot. I try to Pyroblast one but it is countered, and we are both at 2 life when I finish all my extra turns, but he still doesn't have an answer to Vortex and I squeak out the win.

2-0

Round 3 vs Eric Vergo on UGW Threshold

I lose the die roll. Game one he leads with Nimble Mongoose and I have Goblin Cadets. He has a Quirion Dryad followup and I play a Goblin Piledriver. He has another Dryan and Swords to Plowshares on the Piledriver. I play a Flunkies and he attacks for 4. I try to Lightning Bolt both Dryads, but another STP and Accumulated Knowledge saves one. I try to finish it off with Fireblast, but I made a mistake and let the AK resolve so he drew a blue card for his Force of Will to save the Dryad and I am basically out of resources and dead. I cut Cadets for Pyroblast in sideboarding. Game two he has turn two Meddling Mage on Lightning Bolt. I have two Pyroblast in hand, but immediately draw Lightning Bolt. I play some Piledrivers first but they are removed by Hydroblast and STP. I then Pyroblast the Meddling Mage, he has another Hydroblast to save it. I Pyroblast again, which lets me use Lightning Bolt on his Quirion Dryad. I only have a Mogg Flunkies in play, and he has STP for my follow up Piledriver and then plays Mystic Enforcer. I draw Barbarian Ring but only have four cards in my graveyard. He attacks me down to 9 life, and I draw Goblin Lackey and play it. He thinks for a while then decides to Force of Will the Lackey. This gives me five cards in the graveyard so Goblin Grenade plus Barbarian Ring finish of the Enforcer before I die. I draw a Grappler and start beating for 3 with Goblin Burrows, and he can't find another creature. Eventually I draw Lightning Bolt and Fireblast to kill him before he can grow the Dryad he finds. Game three I lead with two Mogg Fanatics. The first is answered by STP and the second immediately kills his Quirion Dryad. He has Meddling Mage on Lightning Bolt again, stranding one in my hand. I have a Grappler and Piledriver that can attack, and when I draw Pyroblast to kill Meddling Mage and turn on my Bolt for his Enforcer I start doing large chunks of damage. He draws another Enforcer which I Fireblast. In the meantime, I'm using Rishadan Port on his City of Brass every upkeep and he draws no more answers or creatures and I win.

3-0

Round 4 vs Brian Tweedy on Rock Reanimator Oath?

Game one he mulligans to five and just plays lands until a turn five Deranged Hermit. It almost stops me completely since I've also flooded, but using damage on the stack I can kill his board while only losing two Mogg Fanatic. He draws more land and dies to the rest of my army. Game two he has turn one Entomb turn two Exhume for Phantom Nishoba. I can't win. Game three I start with Grappler into Piledriver, but he has turn two Oath. If I had known about Oath, I would have Ported him instead of playing my two-drop since my hand had plenty of land. He ended up being land light and I would have easily won. As it happened, he Oathed into Thunder Dragon and I couldn't recover in time to race. 

3-1

Round 5 vs Andrew Webb on Hermit Druid Combo

We have each other's decklist, so he gets to play Therapy turn one on the play and name Mogg Fanatic which hits. I have to Fireblast his Hermit Druid on turn two, but he has a second one and I die. Game two he has Therapy on himself for Phantom Nishoba and then Exhume. I can't win. I really should have played some Tormod's Crypts in my sideboard

3-2

Round 6 vs Woodrow Bogucki on Landstill

Woodrow plays first. I keep a one lander with two Lackey but he has Swords for both and a Standstill. I manage to get a little bit of damage in but he blocks a Cadets and has a Conclave and Factory to block. I use Fanatic on Conclave and eventually Lightning Bolt the Factory and he had flooded out. Game two I have two Pyroblast in hand so I don't play a turn one Cadets to try to play around Chill which I thought he had in his sideboard. He had swapped it out for CoP: Red from last league though, and played it turn two. I try to Port and Vortex him but he has enough land to CoP everything and eventually I die to my Vortex. Game three I have Lackey and Cadets with a Port. He uses Swords on Lackey but Cadets does some damage. I also resolve a Sparksmith to turn off his creature lands. He Tutors for CoP Red and now the Flaring Pain in my opener is going to come in handy. I attack and he taps out for CoP. I use this opportunity to Flaring Pain and Lightning Bolt, putting him to 5 life. The next turn he casts Wrath of God. I flashback Flaring Pain and Bolt plus Fireblast, but he has Force of Will to survive at 1 life. The next eight or so turns are draw-go. I'm trying to find some more red mana since I sacrificed all my mountains to not kill him. I get to Port his Conclave / Factory for a while but he draws some Wastelands to deal with my Port. I slowly deploy some more Goblins but they can't attack. Eventually he draws some cards with Standstill and then casts Impulse to find Exalted Angel. He is forced to Counterspell a Vortex to get Angel online and finally deploys the Angel face down. I have no better window and my hand of Flaring Pain Fireblast Fireblast Goblin Grenade Goblin Grenade was more than enough to power through his final counter magic reserves before he could start gaining life.

4-2

The PWP History: Introduction

This is the first of a series of posts I hope to do covering the major tournaments in my Planeswalker Point History. I don't yet know how many posts it will be. I will try to do about 5 tournaments per post. I want to give a small synopsis of the tournament experience as I remember it now. If I can link to another post with more details, I will do that. 

My PWP history starts in August of 2000. For this series, I'm going include events that were on the path to the Pro Tour as well as other important events like States and Regionals. Each category will have its own post, though some of the categories with lots of events like PTQ and GP will probably be split into several posts.

I'll update the list below as I make new posts.

The First PWP Season (Coming Soon)

State Championships (10/5/2020)

Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers (9/21/2020)

Regional Championships and National Qualifiers (10/14/2020)

National Championships and World Magic Cup Qualifiers (coming soon)

Pro Tours part 1

Pro Tours part 2

Grand Prix part 1-X

Pro Tour Qualifiers part 1-X

Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers part 1-X

Star City Games circuit

Other Events of note

The PWP History: Regionals

For the first 15 years of Magic, you almost never had to play Standard competitively. Constructed Pro Tours were usually some untested format, whether that was a completely new block constructed format, or an extended format that was likely four sets and a possible rotation from the last time it had been played. These two took up the two constructed PT spots, and then the other three were different variations of limited (Booster Draft, Rochester Draft, and Team Rochester). From the first PT in 1996 (which was Standard) until the split into multi-format PTs in 2009, there were only five Standard only Pro Tours (out of 59 non-Worlds events). The PTQs for the PTs at the time were always the same as the PT they fed (though Block fed Extended and Extended fed Block). Grand Prix were run as just very large PTQs and had the same seasonal PTQ format schedule, with an occasional Standard GP included to spice it up (15 out of 249 in the same period). 

That didn't mean you couldn't play Standard if you wanted to. Standard was what you played at FNM. Games being played every week across the country was thought to lead to a solved metagame that wouldn't challenge the Pros on the highest stage (hmmm). The times the PT was Standard, there weren't huge surprises from the decks the Pros showed up with. PTs back then seemed more about Pros defining the metagame and trying to build the best decks possible, not an exercise in choosing the best deck from a set of known decks like more recent years. You also could play Standard at the State Championship, one of the few times the non-pros got a crack at a format before the pros did. And Wizards wasn't completely against Standard on the highest levels: it was often a part of the Masters series, and it was the main format on the path to the World Championship.

To qualify for Worlds back then (up through the 2011 WC), you needed to either have the prerequisite number of Pro Points, be in the top X in the world on rating, or finish in the top three or four of your National Championship. To qualify for Nationals, you needed to top eight your Regional Championship. This blog will be about my experience in those regional qualifiers.

I played in six Regionals over the years before they went away. The last year I played there were also several one-spot National Qualifier tournaments that happened in addition to Regionals. I didn't play in those because I had already qualified for Nationals that year, but I felt like it was worth mentioning. I made the top eight of Regionals three of the six times I played. Two of them happened in Hawaii, where you needed to top two in order to qualify for Nationals. I managed to make the top two in those as well, so I qualified for three National Championships over the years (I will talk about Nationals in a separate post).

Regionals 2003

I was very excited to play in my first Regionals. I had heard stories from my friends about the experiences in the years before. I was also feeling pretty good about my abilities as a player, since I had just won a PTQ for the first time. That the PTQ win was Limited and Regionals was Standard didn't discourage me. I remember scouring the internet for decklists from other Regionals that had happened already. The Italian Regionals had a bunch of decklists published somewhere, and I noticed that Goblins had been doing very well.

The general consensus in America at the time was that Goblins was not good. There was a strong anti-aggro sentiment among the pros and writers of the time. The aggro decks they preferred were decks like UG Madness with its ability to disrupt the control strategies of the day like Psychatog, Wake, and MonoBlackControl. If you had to play red cards, the RG Aggro deck popularized by Kai Budde from the Masters Series earlier in the season was the default. I was skeptical though. The aggressive Goblin cards weren't in the style of traditional Sligh decks and were probably unfairly discounted. There was also the anti-foreign sentiment that dismissed non-professionals from other countries as being "bad players", which also didn't make any sense to me. I played a couple of games on Apprentice with a Goblins build, and I saw it had potential.

There were dozens of different configurations though. Since it wasn't a "good" deck, there hadn't been a pro or writer to write something to definitively set the decklist. I decided I would incorporate all the decklists I saw from Italian Regionals and find the most commonly played numbers. Nowadays, a website like mtgtop8.com can do all this for you with a click of a button, but in 2003 I was doing it all myself.

I can't really remember what I ended up playing in my Goblin deck. I'll try to remember what I can below:

4 Goblin Sledder

4 Goblin Grappler

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Sparksmith

4 Goblin Piledriver

4 Goblin Goon

2 Clickslither

4 Firebolt

4 Volcanic Hammer

4 Reckless Charge

4 Wooded Foothills

4 Bloodstained Mire

4 Barbarian Ring

10 Mountain

Sideboard:

4 Threaten

4 Blistering Firecat

2 Clickslither

A lot of it was influenced by Jay Schneider's Legions of Geeba deck and article he had recently wrote. The numbers of the powerful four-drops were decided by my speadsheet, but I still wanted access to four Firecat in the sideboard. This is pretty close to a recent deck I've been playing in Middle School that I may write about soon.

I went 2-2, and it was entirely on me. My deck was giving me the tools and I was not good enough to make it happen. I don't know if I could have made top eight with proper play, but I did know I wasn't good enough. It was a wake-up call that maybe I wasn't as good as I had thought. I played in a side event draft and lost in the first round while being watched by Fletcher Peatross. He made some comments about my play and I again realized that I was far from the best player in the room at the time. 

This started my love of Goblins though. Eventually, Scourge was released and it changed the way that Goblins and aggressive red decks in general were played. This could be one of the many many times I was slightly ahead of my time with deck choice and trying to make something work when all the tools were not available. This will happen time and again in this series, but this was probably the first time.

Regionals 2004

One skill I've always had a knack is recognizing a good list when I see one. I knew I would probably be playing Skullclamp Ravager Affinity for Regionals this year, but I was not sure about the configuration. I once again scoured the internet (this was much harder to do back then!) and found some lists from Japanese Regionals. The big innovation was Seething Song and Furnace Dragon in the sideboard to beat the mirror match. It also had Tooth of Chiss-Goria and I realized I had not been playing with enough "free" artifacts in my lists. It's not perfect but was definitely good enough to bring me success. 

4 Vault of Whispers

4 Seat of the Synod

4 Great Furnace

4 Glimmervoid

2 Darksteel Citadel

3 Blinkmoth Nexus

4 Disciple of the Vault

4 Arcbound Worker

4 Arcbound Ravager

4 Frogmite

4 Myr Enforcer

3 Ornithopter

4 Thoughtcast

4 Shrapnel Blast

4 Welding Jar

3 Scale of Chiss-Goria

1 Mana Leak

Sideboard:

4 Furnace Dragon

4 Seething Song

4 Genesis Chamber

3 Krark-Clan Shaman

I opted for Scale to beat cards like Electrostatic Bolt and Sparksmith. Mana Leak was just some last minute spice. I didn't play Atog, and when I lost round 9 to an opponent who went all in on an Ornithopter for not lethal and killed me the following turn I realized how badly I had been playing the deck to that point. It didn't really matter because Skullclamp is a hell of a card, and most people were not ready to play games where both players could see half their deck every game. 

I got a Match Loss (Match Loss!!!) in Round 2 for not putting the 4 Glimmervoid on my decklist. I lost round 9 to drop me out of contention, and then conceded to my teammate Michael Musser the following round since he had better breakers and who knows what could happen after 11 rounds. He ended up losing the final round anyway and likely wouldn't have made top 8 with a win.

I beat good friend and teammate Justin Corbett in the mirror where he had Iron Myr instead of Seething Song to power out Furnace Dragon, but it didn't really matter. I think he mulligan and I drew better.

I think round 8 I played against future PT Finalist Billy Moreno. Game one he made an attack that would put me exactly dead with Ravager Disciple if he had Shrapnel Blast in his hand. I decided to block in a way that leaves me dead if he has it. He did have it and went all in on his Nexus, sacrificing it after combat damage to the Blast, but my last card in hand was Mana Leak. He complimented my play to bait him into going for it. Game two I got to trick him again, this time with Scale of Chiss-Goria. I had two Myr Enforcers in play, one was a 4/4 and the other a 5/5 from an Arcbound Worker token. I had him down to 9 life but he was the one with Skullclamp and Disciple so I needed to close the door soon. I attacked with my team and he blocked my Disciple and Frogmite with his Myr Enforcers and let my 9 damage go unblocked. He then tried to Shrapnel Blast my 5/5 Myr Enforcer before damage, but my Scale saved it and he took lethal. 

Josh Calvert played close to the same 75 as me and made top 8 on the strength of his Mana Leaks. David Solis dominated the tournament with Affinity going 11-0 I think? Nathan Zamora also made top 8 with Goblins despite almost being DQd for unsportsmanlike conduct when he would use his Walkman to play the Price Is Right theme after his early wins.

Regionals 2006

I don't remember much about this. I was in New York for Navy training and one of my Navy friends Ben Strickland asked me to go with him to Connecticut for Regionals. I hadn't played much Magic, especially Standard. I scrounged up a Zoo deck that I built to avoid Spell Snare. Disenssion had just been released and Spell Snare was going to be popular. I kept the powerful 2cc spells like Jitte in the sideboard to bring in against aggressive decks when the coast was clear. I ended up losing to the RUG Thoughts of Ruin deck that was both aggressive and had Spell Snare. I was trying to be too cute I think.

3 Savannah Lions

3 Isamaru, Hound of Kond

4 Kird Ape

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Burning Tree Shaman

4 Giant Solifuge

3 Lightning Helix

4 Char

4 Flames of the Blood Hand

3 Moldervine Cloak

4 Temple Garden

4 Stomping Ground

4 Sacred Foundry

3 Brushland

1 Gruul Turf

Sideboard

4 Silhanna Ledgwalker

4 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Tin Street Hooligan

3 Bathe in Light

The trip had some crazy memories. We picked up some random kid that Ben had met in Albany named Igor. This guy was a character, but I don't remember any details, just that it was good times all around. 

Regionals 2008

The first Regionals I played in Hawaii. I had just spent some time on vacation back home in Texas. I had taken part of my trip to hang out at PT Hollywood since many of my friends were qualified. I was really fascinated by the deck that Zvi Mowshowitz had brought to the tournament. This wasn't the first time a Zvi deck would catch my eye, nor would it be the last. I borrowed the cards from Tin in Houston to take back to Hawaii so I could play Regionals. The airline lost my luggage. I actually never got the one bag back, so most likely someone stole the contents included what was at the time one of the most expensive Standard decks ever. It would still be worth a solid amount if you were to come across it.

I had to scramble to get the cards from the limited connections I had in Hawaii. Luckily, Jeff Lee stepped up and let me use his cards. We became pretty good friends afterwards, and I found out he was on the team that I had beat in the finals of 2HG States the previous year.

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Countryside Crusher

4 Magus of the Moon

4 Chameleon Colossus

3 Deus of Calamity

2 Firespout

4 Lash Out

4 Tarfire

4 Karplusan Forest

2 Treetop Village

1 Mountain

4 Grove of the Burnwillows

4 Fire-Lit Thicket

8 Forest

Sideboard

2 Firespout

4 Kitchen Finks

2 Loxodon Warhammer

2 Squall Line

1 Cloudthresher

1 Akroma, Angel of Fury

2 Primal Command

1 Deus of Calamity

I don't remember much about the games. I got to use Magus of the Moon on turn two against just about everyone. Most of my opponents were playing Faeries. 

This was the first time I was qualified for Nationals. I was excited because I had always wanted to play in a multi-format event, even before I had ever played in a PT. I guess I got monkey's pawed and never got to play in any single-format  PTs though.

Regionals 2010

Once again, I can recognize a good deck when I see one. I saw Matt Sperling's PTQ winning Mythic Conscription deck. I basically copied it and was the only person at the event that had it. I easily won the event. Not much to say besides making sure to keep up with the latest developments paid off. I made some changes that clearly were worse than before but the power level was more than enough (I was still attached to Finest Hour - Rafiq combo from the non-Conscription Mythic decks).

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Lotus Cobra

4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Dauntless Escort

2 Rafiq of the Many

3 Baneslayer Angel

3 Sovereigns of Lost Alara

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

2 Eldrazi Conscription

1 Finest Hour

4 Celestial Colonnade

6 Forest

2 Island

4 Misty Rainforest

1 Plains

1 Sejiri Steppe

2 Stirring Wildwood

2 Sunpetal Grove

3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard

2 Gideon Jura

3 Kor Firewalker

3 Meddling Mage

3 Negate

3 Rhox War Monk

1 Telemin Performance

I mostly played against Jund decks all day. I played the deck again a week or two later in a PTQ and lost in the top 4 to an opponent who was ready to beat me now, but on this day no one was prepared.

Regionals 2011

I had just played GP DFW a week or two prior with Caw Blade, going undefeated on day 1 before the wheels came off and I backed into top 64 after a long day 2 of Caw Blade mirrors. It wasn't for naught though, as it gave me way more experience of playing the matchup at the highest levels. I played it again at regionals easily beating the several mirrors along the way. I lost to a good draw from a Boros aggro player, but won out to be able to draw into the top 8 and secure the invite. Berni had forgot his Caw Blade deck at the house so had to scrounge up a copy of the RUG deck. It didn't matter and he was undefeated when I was paired with him in the final round. He told me we had to play because his roommate might sneak into 8th if he beat me. I know Berni wanted me to qualify and wanted to go to Nationals together but he had to at least show his roommate he was trying. We played a match that Berni maybe didn't play his best and I won 2-1 (probably should have been 0-3 in those games). I have no idea if I would have still made top 8 with a loss, or if the roommate would have made it in instead. It's somewhat shady in retrospect, but maybe not that shady since Berni wanted to draw? Just an awkward interpersonal situation and not that awkward of a tournament situation.

4 Squadron Hawk

4 Stoneforge Mystic

1 Sun Titan

3 Gideon Jura

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Preordain

3 Mana Leak

3 Spell Pierce

2 Condemn

1 Day of Judgment

1 Into the Roil

2 Tumble Magnet

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Mortarpod

4 Celestial Colonade

4 Glacial Fortress

1 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Island

4 Plains

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Tectonic Edge

1 Marsh Flats

Sideboard

2 Condemn

1 Day of Judgment

4 Flashfreeze

2 Jace Beleren

3 Kor Firewalker

1 Sun Titan

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Volitions Reins

Some of these card choices look really suspect in retrospect. I would spend the next few months playing Caw Blade on MTGO an excessive amount, eventually leading to my second ever PTQ win. 

Conclusion

Regionals was an interesting tournament. It was generally the highlight of the year for most players, the tournament with the most on the line (back when Nationals was a really good tournament to qualify for). It attracted more people than PTQs because of the Standard format and centralized location and date. The weeks leading up to it, it was the focus of all the strategy content on the websites. 

I don't know if the old Regional system could come back. I definitely would like to see the old National Championships come back, and in that scenario you would need a way to determine who to invite. Regionals into Nationals into World Championships was a great system because someone with no pro status could earn the World Champion title by earning it that year. The World Champion title is probably better in the current iteration though. Maybe the lack of such a clearly merit-based system makes people that much more upset about perceived "non-merit" special invites to high level events.

The PWP History: State Championships

I've decided to write about my State Championship experiences. States was always a special tournament for me, even though winning meant not much more than pride. Maybe I liked it so much because the events always fell near my birthday. The field of States were the players you'd see once a month or so at the PTQs in the area, but restricted to those from your state. The Louisiana players stayed in Louisiana, the Oklahoma players stayed in Oklahoma. There was no requirement to do this, but when playing for pride, you wanted it to count extra and rep your home state. 

States went through several iterations over the years, and it may even still exist in some spots. I've thought about trying to run my own version of States, or asking the people at the Hunter Burton Memorial Open to at least give out the State Championship "Title" to the winner. Maybe a Texas State Old School Championship could happen in the future? Who knows?

I don't know how States began, but when I started playing competitively in 2002 it was run by the regional Tournament Organizers (TOs). Event Horizons ran the events for Texas and Louisiana, and maybe some others? It didn't feed into anything nor pay out anything big, but the champion would receive free entry to PTQs for the year. In the mid-2000s, Wizards began promoting it more heavily and created two new titles: the Limited State Championship and the Two-Headed Giant State Championship. This only lasted for a couple of years, and they killed the program entirely by 2009. In 2009, SunMesa Events decided to organize a nationwide State and Provincial Championship series. They even offered free entry to their Grand Prix to the winners. This lasted until 2011 or 2012, when the regional TOs lost their monopoly on big events and PTQs and Prereleases were given to the stores. I think some other people have tried to run State Championships over the years since, but nothing that resonated the way those original ones did (you can't run two in a year, that doesn't make sense!). 

I played in nine State Championships over the years. I won three of them, and made the finals of one more. I have one additional top 8. My match win percentage is 77.4%! Below is a recap of the State Championships I played in, with as much detail as I can remember.

2003 Texas State Championships

My first state championships, but I was no stranger to competitive play at this point. I had started playing again after a two-year break about a year prior with the release of Onslaught and my entry into university. A year later, I had already won my first PTQ and was really excited to try to claim the state title. The tournament was at my home shop, Midnight Comics in Houston. I played Goblins in the tournament. The deck was mainly an Onslaught Block Constructed deck I had played a bunch in the PTQs over the summer, but it did have some new cards from Mirrodin. Those cards were Chrome Mox, Seething Song, and some Goblin Charbelcher in the sideboard. I don't remember how many of each I played, but I do remember trying the full 4x Seething Song and 4x Chrome Mox and the deck was too mana heavy. I remember my loss in round two or round six was a game where I had sided in Charbelcher and had my opponent down to 4 life, but I was unable to finish him off with the card over three activations and he was able to kill me in the meantime. 

I believe this was the tournament that Kevin Barrington won with Broodstar Affinity, or just Affinity as we called it at the time since we knew nothing yet of Arcbound Ravager. These decks pretty much built themselves with full copies of Broodstar, Thoughtcast, Thirst for Knowledge, Shrapnel Blast, Myr Enforcer, Frogmite, etc. He may have included Disciple of the Vault and Atog with Neurok Hoversail. The group I tested with had an Affinity deck with Megatog and Lightning Greaves that put Josh Calvert into the top 8. Transplanted two-time PT Finalist Tomi Walamies made top 4 with a mono-black control deck featuring Barter in Blood and Platinum Angel. 

2004 Texas State Championships

Champions of Kamigawa came out after a summer of Mirrodin Block Constructed that Ravager Affinity dominated, or Affinity as we called it then since Broodstar and other cards were completely unplayable. I didn't play many PTQs in Block Constructed at all, so I didn't want to play Affinity mirrors without the experience. I chose to play a Krark Clan Ironworks combo deck that loses to the same hate cards as Affinity without being nearly as good. I believe this event was in a hotel near the Galleria in Houston. I did manage to beat Tracey Steele round 1, who will likely be a recurring opponent in these blogposts. I always seem to run well against him, with multiple times I remember our game threes decided by his mulligans to five. 

I have no idea who won or what the top 8 was like, but it was probably Affinity. After I was eliminated I remember inventing a fun Texas Hold 'Em variant using a friends 60 card Affinity deck. Since just about every card was a 4-of, it played similarly to a standard playing card deck. The winner after two hole cards, three card flop and a turn and river was the person whose 7-card hand made the best possible starting hand. Pocket Seat of the Synods would win on a board of no lands, but Disciple Ravager would be the best on a board with a Vault of Whispers and any other land. It was surprisingly fun just to argue about which hand was better, and a good learning opportunity for what mulligan ranges should look like among the people who were playing.

2005 Texas State Championships

I've written a bit about this before, but really should give it its own blogpost. I played a RW Searing Meditation deck that I threw together with a bunch of Phu's cards before round one when the person who was supposed to bring me cards failed to show up. Keya bought me 4 Peace of Mind from the store to help me finish the deck, but didn't want repayment. I told him I would concede in the finals if he somehow made it there with his Battle of Wits deck and I manged to get there with my last minute build.

Which is exactly how it turned out. Years later we played out the finals for real, and Keya was able to beat me legitimately.

My win in the top four was against the notorious Hunter Burton. I don't really remember how I won, he had a lot of the countermagic cards that were really good against me but I think my Journeyer's Kite and Sensei's Divining Top combo helped me win the war of attrition, eventually resolving a Searing Meditation. I'll try to write a more detailed recap later. This is still a top 5 tournament experience for me.

2006 South Carolina Two-Headed Giant State Championships

This is actually one of the oldest posts from this blog, well before I was actually blogging regularly. I don't think there is much to add 15 years later. I had been in South Carolina about nine months for Navy training at this point.

2007 Hawaii Two-Headed Giant State Championships

I had only been in Hawaii for three months. I hadn't played any Magic since moving there as I was extremely busy with my job in the Navy. I noticed I would have a Saturday off for this event and decided to show up to see if I could find a partner to play with. It was a very small event (as most Hawaii events are) and I was worried I might not get a partner. Someone was asking around for potential partners for his friend since they were a group of three. I said I was available and I joined up with this friend. His name was Paul, but I no longer remember his last name. He told me he didn't have much experience with tournament play, so I told him to just do what I say and we should be fine.

Our sealed decks were solid, we had the red Pestilence and some Grapeshots that were easy to control the board with. The top 4 draft was a lot of fun (I wish 2HG draft was still a thing) but I don't remember what we had besides the blue Serra Angel. I didn't actually expect to win the event, but we managed to do so. The one time he tried to tell me what to do I ignored him and then attacked my 4/4 into the opponents 4/1 First Strike in the Finals, but we still managed to win. 

Paul's friend Jacob Mori, who had introduced us earlier, was probably more excited about the win that Paul or myself. He told me later while we were celebrating at Dave and Busters that Paul was really happy to have won and would never have had the opportunity if I hadn't been there. 

This was my introduction to the Hawaii Magic scene and I got to meet a lot of people who I would later become good friends with. I didn't get to play much more that year, but by the time I left Hawaii four years later I felt like a part of the group. 

Edit: Adding a story about Jeff Zandi here. I remember posting on the Texas Magic forums (probably TML at the time, maybe TexasGamers? Definitely before TMZ) about my win (one good part about winning events is the bragging you get to do afterwards) and getting a bunch of comments about the relatively poor quality of the opponents I faced. Much like recent gatekeeping with PT Top 8, some people wanted to claim it wasn't a real state championship title. Zandi made a post that all I can do is beat the people in front of me, and it made me feel like it was still a legitimate title. 

2007 Texas Standard State Championship

This was at the hotel by George Bush Airport in Houston. I played RB Goblins with a lot of the cards from the new set Lorwyn. Phu played a similar deck, but opted for Greater Gargadon instead of Facevaulter. He ended up in top 8 while I finished one win short. Will Lowry played  a variant of his successful block deck Mono Green Gauntlet. He also made the top 8, but then physically stopped his opponent from conceding a game.Will had used Yavimaya Dryad to give his opponent a Forest to try to forestwalk past the army of morphs in the opponents Pickles deck. When the opponent tapped the Forest on his turn and cast a spell, he ended up with two extra mana floating from Will's Gauntlet of Power. The opponent had to mana burn, and thought he was dead, but he was actually at 3 life and would live. As the opponent tried to scoop, Will told him "your not dead" and physically stopped his scooping motion. A few turns and a few Cryptic Commands later, Will was the one who was dead.

I believe Carl Hendrix won this event with Elves. 

2009 Hawaii State Championship

I played a White Weenie deck a lot like the one Rob Dougherty had used at the recent World Championships. I remember it had 8 Plains and 8 Fetchlands as the only land in the deck. This was possible with Knight of the White Orchid and occasionally Path to Exile on your own creature. The main deck White Knights did a lot of work against the Jund decks of the format, and Brave the Elements and Honor of the Pure let you take games long and win out of nowhere. Edit: I found the list here.

I lost in the top 8 to the Mono Black Vampire deck despite having 4 White Knight and 4 Devout Lightcaster. I mulliganed a hand game three with five land and two spells on seven cards, but I probably should have kept with such a low land count in my deck. I ended up mulligan to four cards before I found a playable hand and then never drew a second land.

2010 Hawaii State Championship

I can barely tell you what I played. I think it had Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vengevine, Trinket Mage, Memnite, Fauna Shaman, Cunning Sparkmage, Basilisk Collar, etc. I could not beat a Primeval Titan to save my life and had no chance at doing well in this event.

2011 Texas State Championship

I called my shot and finally won an individual state title, as well as finally winning in my home state of Texas. Read about it here. Also, I played 3 Primeval Titan and 24 land, so even at this point I was still not that great at building decks!

Conclusion

I loved the State Championships. I wish they would come back in some meaningful way. I'm very proud to have won three different times in three different states. 

The PWP History: RPTQs

When RPTQs were first announced, I was not a fan. It took almost until the very end for me to see why they were created, and I must admit I was wrong to dislike. The biggest benefit of the RPTQ system was a way for people trying to chain multiple PT invites to keep it going without having to start from ground zero. It was slightly more difficult to get that chain started, but it was far easier than having to chase Pro Points at GPs and actually doing well at the PT. If it had been around in different parts of my career, I may have been able to take advantage of it a lot more. As it was, I still benefited quite a bit from the RPTQ system because I no longer had the time or desire to play a Magic event every weekend. The timing of the start just corresponded to one of my longer competitive "breaks" and it took a while to get back up to where I felt I belonged (see the upcoming PPTQ posts). I played in 6 RPTQs. I made the top 4 / top 8 needed for qualification to the PT in 3 of them.

RPTQ Hour of Devastation - June 2017

I did basically zero preperation for this Sealed RPTQ. I had done a bit of prep with the Austin Draft Camp when Amonkhet came out, but had done nothing between that and this event. I don't think HOU was legal yet. I lost early to Collin Rountree in a match that at least made it 100% certain to me that the student had become the master, though I had long suspected it. My deck was average at best and I was not familiar enough with the format to do anything beyond a middling 3-3 record. Collin at least made the top 8 and drafted his way to the top 4 and got the invite.

RPTQ Rivals of Ixalan

I wrote about the prep and this event quite a bit on this blog. See posts here, here, here, and here.

RPTQ Dominaria

I wrote about this briefly in this post. I had a very good sealed deck and drafted my seat pretty well to get the win I needed in the top 8 to qualify for back to back PTs. 

RPTQ 25th Anniversary

I have no idea why I never wrote about this. This is a good opportunity to correct that. Will Lowry and I initially wanted to team with Collin Rountree, but he ditched us to play with his less serious friends. This was understandable to a degree, but you also need to think about what happens if you actually win and have to test for a PT with your teammates. Anyway, this isn't the worst thing since we can actually find the one player in the state that is an upgrade and get Austin Bursavich to be our third. The Unified Standard was something I had wanted to try for the longest time since becoming a much better deck builder. It was clear from the start that every team would have mono-red because Hazoret and Chainwhirler etc. were too strong. I reluctantly ran back my PT Dominaria deck on the condition we could find a playable WB deck for Will to play (Austin was obviously going to play the Red deck). Somehow, someway we came up with one of our better creations over the last week or so of preparation. I don't think it was good outside the team unified format, but it was a beauty. I've never shared it before, but here it is:

4 Renegade Map

2 Fatal Push

4 Duress

4 Hidden Stock Pile

4 Anointer Priest

4 Treasure Map

4 Seal Away

4 History of Benalia

2 Gideon of the Trials

4 Anointed Procession

4 Karn, Scion of Urza

4 Plains

4 Swamp

4 Isolated Chapel

4 Evolving Wild

4 Shefet Dunes

Sideboard

4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner

4 Kitesail Freebooter

4 Settle the Wreckage

3 Aethersphere Harvester

We went 5-2, with some close losses and maybe because Austin and Will bamboozled me into playing the worse version of the Red deck. I'd say our expected value from the event was probably well above how we performed, despite ending up in 10th place.

RPTQ Ravnica Allegience

I couldn't quite get to Bronze for the Guilds of Ravnica RPTQ, but then won a PPTQ for this as well as hitting Bronze after GP Denver. I once again wrote quite a bit about this event here, here, here, and here. 

RPTQ War of the Spark

I wrote three posts about this one, here, here, and here. This is still one of my favorite accomplishments.

End

That's all the RPTQs, and it doesn't look there there will be any more in the future. I had more than my share of success at them, and I will miss them.