The mirror is a little bit odd in that neither player wants to try to go off first, except that certain cards like gigadrowse or even Boseiju loom large on your composure to keep everything in front of you.  The early game is all about trying to get ahead on lands, especially on any turn where that can’t untap and get enough lands into play to kill you.

game 1:  This wasn’t very much of a game as my opponent had no green mana and therefore was in no position to try to develop in the land race.  I electrolyzed him eot just to draw a card and he remanded it to dig for green mana.  He mis-clicked and discarded the stomping grounds he drew off the remand and in frustration conceded.  There is very little reason for him to concede here.  Since you control your own clock online, running out of clock becomes your own fault.  If I pull away in this game and kill him, its going to cost me more time than him.  Its very possible for him to come back with a surprise gigadrowse, or even just a weird game where I can’t find a Scapeshift.  I don’t understand forking over 25 tickets and then just giving up.

At this point I really wished I was played our Dark Depths deck, which we have been refining for months.  I had 6 cards I needed to cut here, the Repeals and the Electrolyzes and only 4 cards to bring in, negates and Gigadrowse.  I left in the Electrolyzes, because they at least cycle.

game 2:  This was a perfect example of what the mirror is about.  We both started accelerating but he was on the play and was able to Remand my Tribe Elder.  On turn 4 I didnt have a natural land drop so i didn’t even have the choice about passing to protect against his ability to untap and kill me so I decided to make him have it.  He did and killed me on t5 because he was playing the old version with wood elves and was able to attack for the remaining two damage.

game 3: I was on the play and was able to Remand his Search for Tomorrow which he strangely decided to not re-suspend, even though he started missing land drops and didnt have anything going on.  I was able to punish him two turns in a row by playing a land and just passing.  Eventually he realized he couldn’t continue to play the game he was playing and tried a Wood Elves on the exact wrong turn.  He had 5 lands to my six and I was able to cryptic command and then protect it from his negate with a remand.  I untapped and made a typical play for the deck by playing a land and a Sakura Tribe Elder, popping it immediately to ramp to 8 lands so I could Scapeshift for more damage.  Ive seen people make the mistake of playing acceleration in hand just because they can, but besides on t1, its often right to just keep mana up always, the mana ramp is mostly to help you get to 7 or 8 for Scapeshift, and you often kill people with an eot harrow into a Sakura Tribe Elder because they feel safe tapping out into 4 lands.

round 2:  TuSaisPas- Scapeshift with Punishing Fire

game 1:  My opening hand was 4 cryptic command, steam vents, breeding pool, Boseiju!! Online you get to watch replays of the previous rounds so I knew I was playing the mirror.  This is possibly a loose keep but it is very unlikely that I am unable to get to cast those commands because the deck is over 30 mana sources. He successfully resolves a wood elves, I draw a few lands, and he punishing fires me which felt like a mulligan for him. Once the 18 damage threshold is reached, there is very little reason to care about going lower.  This has come up against zoo opponents who fall under 18 and then continue to be cautious with fetchlands.  How can i possibly punish you?   The only scary point happened on my end step when I decided to command his Gift Ungiven.  he had 5 lands at the time and 4 cards in hand, so he easily could have untapped, accelerated and scapeshifted me. But if the gifts resolved, he can just search up 4 cheap pieces of countermagic and I lose anyway because I wasn’t anywhere close to being able to play 2 commands in the same turn.  He has no more action and the game ends predictably with me repealing his wood elves (again, just for the card) and then winning the counter war when it tried to come back.

game 2: My opponent double mulligans this game.  Mulliganing is particularly bad for this deck because like i said while Scapeshift is a “one card combo” it often requires 9 pieces of cardboard to win and it has no card advantage. This is another reason i don’t like things like punishing fire; each card you draw that doesnt replace itself and isn’t a land is another card that isn’t contributing to your plan.  Despite his position, my opponent chooses to trade Sakura Tribe Elders (for someone who will probably never play as many games of magic without damage on the stack as I did with it, this is still a awkward situation every time it happens). Often when you are behind on card advantage, the best course of action is to try and ignore your opponent completely and just try to win and hope they can’t stop you. Winning “fair” isn’t always an option.  Even though my hand is quite bad, with multiple Electrolyze to burn through, eventually he just runs out of things to do.

round 3: brunilsks- Faeries with Dark Confidant and Thopter/Sword

game one:  I have the one-of Spell Snare (it would be great to play more of this card because its important not to fall behind, but like i said before, every card you use to stop them is one less land you have in play) to stop his Dark Confidant.  He plays another Bob but misses his 3rd land.  I peer into a Cryptic Command and start an odd chain where I repeal his Bob on t3 and then bounce it with a Command on the next two turns while he continues to miss land drops.  This was another line of play that I owe entirely to magic online replays, because I know that he doesn’t have thoughtseize or any other meaningful one drop.  As long as I keep him drawing only one card a turn, there isnt any way for him to make two plays a turn even if he draws a land.  Eventually he draws a land and Vendilion Cliques me on his turn, taking another Cryptic Command over a Ponder. The Ponder draws me into a Scapeshift and by this point I have enough lands to make the same play as before, Sakura-Tribe Elder into Scapeshift with 8 lands.  Although getting three blue mana so that you can Commmand is important, its necessary not to lose sight of your ability to make this play as well, which requires three green mana.  Keep this in mind while searching and fetching in the midgame.

Against Dark Depths and other blue/black decks, you get to bring in the Oona, Queen of the Fae which almost always gets the job done and which they very rarely have a way to deal with.  Its important to have an alternate win condition against such decks because often their plan is to Thoughtsieze your Scapeshift and Extiripate it. I also brought in the Gigadrowse against the counter heavy deck.  I boarded out Harrow (which is a nightmare to get countered), a Repeal, and Khalani Heart Expedition which you have to tap out for. It is less important to accelerate against control decks because their clock is much slower.

Game two:  He Thoughtsiezes me on turn 1 and takes my Scapeshift instead of my Oona.  He then plays Bitterblossom, while I accelerate with an Elder. He misses his third land again while i keep hitting drops, he protects his two tokens from an Electrolyze with a Spellstutter Sprite which lets me play Kodama’s Reach for what is essentially infinite lands, including a Boseiju, to go with my Oona. He plays his turn 5 oddly, tapping out for Thirst for Knowledge, probably because he has no way to deal with the Oona anyway, but I would have had no way of knowing that if he leaves his mana up.  He was probably searching for a Thoughtsieze, but he finds Extiripate instead, removing all the Scapeshifts.  I untap and play Oona and no amount of Faeries, Bobs, and Thopters (sans sword in this case) can help him.

round 4: PrEvil- Hypergenesis

game one: Despite resolving two Compulsive Researchs, he isn’t able to cascade until turn 6, and even then only has an Angel of Despair and a Bogarden Hellkite.  My draws were very poor as well, with lots of dead Scapeshifts in hand.  I had a Harrow that he know of from a Peer through Depths, but he still tried to Angel my Khalni Heart Expedition, which I am able to activate by Harrowing with the ability on the stack.  I could have just as easily sacrificed any land he was targeting but at least then he makes me Harrow the land of his choice.  I untap with exactly enough lands to Scapeshift.

Sideboarding: +3 Negate, +1 Oona, +1 Consign to Dream, -4 Repeal, -1 Spell Snare. Again I felt pretty poorly positioned for sideboarding.  Electrolyze at least serves the important function of reducing them to 18 in this matchup.

game two: This was a perfect example of executing the Scapeshift gameplan against Hypergenesis.  I suspended a Search for Tomorrow on turn one.  He didn’t have the nut draw to win on turn two and from that point on I was able to keep Negate or Remand up always, and then double Negate/Remand up once it go to the point where he could eventually play two cascade spells.  He eventually tries to go off twice, I counter twice, but have to wait a few turns to find the 8th land because he plays a simian spirit guide to block the Forbidden Orchard token that he was forced to give me when trying to cast both Ardent Pleas.  I get there, which isn’t saying much, because I have so few dead draws (redundant Scapeshifts and the Expedition) because everything is either a land, draws a card or is a way to keep him from hypergenesis.

round 5: FikFik- Hypergenesis

game one: I dont have any acceleration, but I am on the play so I am able to keep mana up in the early game with one key caveat.  On his second turn end step, with his board being Tendo Ice Bridge and Fungal Reaches, I play Peer Through Depths.  If he has Simain Spirit Guide and a Violent Outburst, he gets to cascade, but for the most part you aren’t going to win that game anyway, because he can just play the Outburst as an instant on your end step, and untap into another cascade spell, or even god forbid respond to your Scapeshift by terrastadoning 3 lands. Eventually in this game he does resolve a Hypergenesis by simply drawing more cascade cards than I have counters, but he only has an Angel of Despair and a Hellkite (who doesn’t impress me much and who I think should be replaced with something better) and I am able to Cryptic Command that team down for a few turns until i draw enough lands to scapeshift him.

game two: I mulligan on the draw and we play the awkward dance where Im not sure how much mana I need to leave up with my hand clogged with Peer Through Depths.  At four mana, on his eot, I play Peer, because I only have one Remand anyway, and it finds me a Negate. On his next end step, figuring that he didnt punish me before, i play another Peer Through Depths, but he must have drawn an Outburst or a Richoceht Trap because he had both this time and got to put into play a Terrastadon, an Iona, and a Progenesis (all of which, btw, do impress.  If you are going to cheat guys into play, at least make sure they win the game).  The problem with my play is that there isnt even anything I needed to find with the Peer!  My hand was negate, remand, peer, scapeshift, scapeshift, with 5 lands in play. Unless I hit a Search For Tomorrow, the Peer isn’t doing anything anyway, and even the Search For Tomorrow can wait.  I won’t be winning any time soon regardless.  As soon as I draw a land, I can safely play the Peer, so why go for it?  People say that Magic is too much luck and I couldn’t disagree more.  Hopefully without being too mean, I can say that I didn’t think some of my opponents in this tournament found the best line of play.  I don’t always either.  This is a pretty glaring example because it isn’t even a judgement call, there is simply no reason for me to force the issue the way that I did.  I needed to sit back on as many counters as I could and hope that a)I draw some lands, b) he never has more cascades/traps than I have counters.

game three:  Unlike game three, this game was lost on a judgement call.  My opponent mulliganed on the draw, and led with a Gemstone Mine.  My hand was 4 lands, Remand, Sakura, and two Peer Through Depths.  On turn two I can either keep mana up for the Remand or play the Sakura Tribe-Elder.  Accelerating is a pretty large boon here because then starting on t3 i can safely Peer each turn, finding even more countermagic, setting up a situation where I am always so far ahead on mana and counters that only crazy crazy things would be able to break through.  Unfortunately, my opponent untaps, has the Simian Spirit Guide and an Outburst, dropping two Terrastadons into play.  This was an odd situation that I hadn’t encoutnered before.  I didn’t want to drops lands into play! He blew up all the land on board, leaving himself 3 elephants (he dropped a land into play for free) and me with two and the Sakura.  At this point it is important not to give up on the game.  I needed pretty specific things to happen for me to win, but the game wasn’t over by a long shot.  I don’t sac the elder because I need it to chump block and set I up a plan where I don’t trade my elephants with his, instead using them exclusively to chump the 9/9s, hoping to chain multiple Cryptic Commands to buy enough turns.  It doesn’t happen for me.

I would like to hear comments in the forums about what we think the odds of a lethal cascade is in this situation.  It is a very very complicated Bayes problem, because of certain contingencies, such as Ardent Plea not being a possible option if the other land is a charge land or a basic forest.  he was on the mulligan, so he was working with 8 cards, 7 really for the problem at hand because I knew he had a Gemstone Mine.  At least one of those seven has to be a Spirit Guide, and another a cascade spell, plus lots of creatures he could have wouldn’t even win the game for him, especially something like a singleton Hellkite or Angel of Despair not to mention the often awkward Sakashima.  Another thing that makes the math a little in my favor is how many cards he can have that are essentially mulligans, such as any extra land, extra Spirit Guide, extra cascader, Hypergenesis proper, Trap, disruption, card draw.   Please don’t take this wrong, its very possible that my situation in general is so good that I should play it safe, and wait for the fourth land before doing anything, and would be very happy to find out that I made the wrong choice here.  Getting better is what counts.

round 6: gcb- Dark Depths Thopter Foundry Jace

Gcb stands for Gabriel Carleton Barnes, the same handsome gentleman from earlier, and who happened to be battling with mostly my electronic cards.  It seems if you want to win a tournament you often have to go through your good friends, which is a mixed bag.  Its terrible to end their day, but its a nice feeling know that your friends are good at magic too and so that of course you are eventually going to have to run into them in a winner take all event.

Please note that the deck in Gabe’s possession should probably no longer be thought of as a Dark Depths, Thopter Foundry, duel combination deck, but instead with a deck with three plans, the third being Jace, the Mind Sculptor.  Before Jace, Celestial Purge could answer any threat the deck could produce.  Likewise, Jace gives you answers to people who like to gain infinite life or to people who overload on Extiripate.

game one:  Gcb mulls on the play and has very little action.  He is able to Thoughtsieze my Search for Tomorrow, plays a manland on t2, transmutes on t3 for Hexmage, and on t4 plays the Hexmage and a Dark Depths.  When he goes for it (the longer the game goes the worse it gets for him here, especially game one) I have a Repeal, but he Repeals his own token in response to both stop me from getting the card and just to get it out of his hand.  One of the big benefits of playing a deck that only plays lands and spells is it causes so many dead cards for opponents, especially in game one.  He has very little additional action and I Scapeshift in relatively timely fashion.

Sideboarding against Depths is especially tough now that they have the third angle of attack:  +1 Damping Matrix, +1 Lightning Bolt, +2 Oona, +1 Rude Awakening (Extiripate insurance), -1 Harrow, -1 Kodama’s Reach, -1 Khalani Heart Expedition, -1 Scapeshift, -1 Remand.  On the play you leave in the Remand and don’t add the Bolt which is just to make sure Bob doesn’t get going.

game two: He mulligans again on the play, plays turn 1 Bokuja Bog, t2 Mox, Swamp, Phyrexian Arena, which trumps my hand of 4 lands, Lightning bolt, Scapeshift, Peer through Depths.   I continue to do nothing but hit land drops, while he Thoughtsiezes my Scapeshift, then extiripates them all away (on the draw step of course).  I make a possibly suspect play of Repealing his Mox, as it was his only source of blue mana and I needed to dig into some action.  He untapped and immediately played both pieces needed to 20/20.  My Oona wasn’t even close to fast enough, and I blanked on the draw step.

game three: I have a very smooth opener with t1 Search for Tomorrow, t2 Ponder.  he opens with Urborg, Dark Depths, and Hexmage.  When he goes for it, I have the Repeal with one to spare.  If your opponent shows you an Urbrog or a Dark Depths as land one, its important to respect it and prioritize setting up a situation where you can get to a Repeal or Command (if there is time).  Ofthen you don’t even need to commit to searching for it, you can just leave Peer mana up instead of playing the Sakura Tribe Elder or by Pondering and leaving it on top, and then shuffling it away if necessary with a fetchland. Its safer on top of your library anyway.  If they lead with any other land then its much less likely that they will be able to make a t2 token, because it is rare for them to slow play a Mox. So after getting 2 for zeroed, gcb plays a bob. I have the other Repeal in hand to stop him from getting cards but my eot Peer finds something even better: Electrolyze. After so many blow outs, the rest of the game isn’t much of one, as he just keeps mana up every turn and I know he can’t possibly punish me on my end step.  When I Scapeshift with double counter back up, it turns out he didn’t even have the Muddle.

round 7: BenitoUK1- Boom Bust Zoo

game one:   This game truly demonstrates how lopsided the matchup is when Zoo just tries to play creatures and attack.  Benito is on the play and has his entire hand on the table by turn 3 with 2 Noble Heirarch, 2 Wild Nacatls, a Pridemage, and a Jitte.  I keep a one lander with Search for Tomorrow on the draw because the hand is pretty good and even if I miss land on both draw steps, I will still be in position to get back in the game when it comes off suspend.  Luckily, I hit on 2 of 3 draw steps, Repeal an attacker that is wearing a Jitte, tap down his team for a turn, and then win on turn 5 with my now patented Sakura into Scapeshift combination, since he had taken damage fetching a Stomping Ground into play untapped.

Sideboarding: +2 Firespout, +2 Lightning Bolt, +1 Consign to Dream, -1 Spell Snare, -2 Electrolyze, -1 Kodama’s Reach, -1 Boseiju

game two: This time Benito has a more natural curve: Nacatl, Goyf, Knight of the Reliquary.  My hand is a bit awkward because I draw the Khalni Heart Expedition, which I play on t2 over a Sakura Tribe Elder.  The problems start coming when Benito uses the elegant interaction between Knight and Boom Bust to kill a land and then play another Goyf.  I had two Remands in my hand the whole time and I was just always much too far behind to ever use them.  Even though I was able to play another Tribe Elder, it was just too slow as a Lightning Bolt pumped the Goyfs and he just had too much power and killed me on t5, one turn before Khalni Heart would have accelerated me to victory.

game three:  This game had three distinct phases.  He didn’t have a one drop so I was able to control the early game, even though I had no green mana, by Remanding his Pridemage and then Consigning to Dream his Knight when it attacked.  In phase two, I was desparte to find green mana, Peering into Ponders and cantripping like crazy.  I resisted the urge to two-for one him with a firespout, instead waiting so that I could use a Lightning Bolt in conjunction with the Firespout to get a 5/5 Knight when it came back into play.  My opponent never drew a fourth land in phase two, and I was getting worried that he would just run me over with threats before I could find green mana.  As soon as I found green mana he played Blood Moon, correctly assuming he would be dead the next turn otherwise.  His board at the time was Plains, Stomping Ground, Temple Garden, Wild Nacatl.   I dealt with the Nacatl by Peering for the other Firespout.  He played a second Blood Moon then we played about 4 or 5 turns of draw go. He was unable to cast anything with WRR, and later WRRRR, and I just drew lands.   He eventually drew a Basic Forest and attempted a Knight of the Reliquary. I Remanded into a Repeal and decided to go for it, with the remaining Repeals and Cryptics being my outs and any Peers or Ponders helping me to find them.  I Repeal his first Blood Moon and draw a land.  I “peel” another Repeal, bounce the second Blood Moon and play one of the three Scapeshifts in my hand in a lucky flourish.

round 8:  Mizenhauer- Urg Faeries (nearly mono blue)

game one:  he suspends turn one Ancestral Vision.  He burns a Spell Snare on my Sakura Tribe Elder but is still able to protect his Ancestral from two Remands on his t5 upkeep.   He doesn’t draw well though and I successfully Cryptic Command two Vendilions Cliques in a row.  It doesn’t draw me into anything so I am forced to ask if he can stop the Scapeshift I had been protecting.  He Vensers it back for a turn. I decline to play into his probable Mana Leak, wait a turn, and kill him.

Sideboard: +1 Gigadrowse, +2 Oona, +2 Negate, -1 Harrow, -1 Khalani Heart Expedition, -1 Kodama’s Reach, -2 Repeal

game two: He again suspends Ancestral Visions on t1, and again Spell Snares my Sakura Tribe Elder, and then another.  This keeps me off blue mana to cast my two Commands.  (There are 8 lands in the deck that dont make blue, I had drawn 3 of them this game.  It can big problem and it is not one that is easily fixed because more Flooded Groves would have to replace Misty Rainforest and that can cast a Search For Tomorrow on t1 and shuffling is surprisingly important with Ponder). While I was doing nothing he was stuck on 4 lands, but flashed into play first a Spellstutter and then a Vendilion, taking my Scapeshift which was a suspect play since I was a few turns away and mostly needed blue mana.  Instead of just attacking me, he played another Vendillion Clique the next turn. I assume this was on purpose because he had no way to deal with my Oona that he had seen earlier.  The legend rule bought me lots and lots of time.  But I continued to draw Stomping Grounds. Eventually he played a Glen Eldra Archmage, and played very well the rest of the way out, managing my life total so I couldn’t use Bosieju to power an uncounterable Peer Through Depths into an uncounterable Scapeshift.

game three: We play draw go for four turns, which I am very happy about.  Eventually I will draw a Boseiju or a Gigadrowse and win. I am also much more likely to hit land drops or otherwise build up a land advantage. Eventually he tries to fight an eot of Peer, and I untap and drop Oona.  He bounces the Oona with Venser and drops a Jitte instead of leaving up Mana Leak mana which is probably a mistake.  I am not sure I would have been brave enough to replay my only action otherwise.  When I replay Oona, Boseiju comes along too. Also, its not like he gains that much of an advantage.  For the most part, I think equipment is best played “with haste” especially in a blue deck.  Even Jitte has very little hope of beating an active Oona, but he equips Venser, runs it into my Oona for counters and main-phases a Vendilion taking my Cryptic Command over Gigadrowse, and then equipping mainphase.  I can’t imagine losing the game at this point since he will have to use all the counters every turn just to keep his Vendilion from dying to 3 1/1 flyers that I get for free, and I will eventually just Gigadrowse him down.  It is all for naught as I draw a Ponder which finds a Scapeshift.

You can see the other Top 8 decks on mtgonline.com. Just scroll down and look for the PTQ held on 3/28.

round 9, quarterfinals: Muellermilch2go - Odd Zoo with Bant Charms and hits like Bloodbraid Elf, Ranger into Goblin Bushwhacker, and Stoneforge Mystic into Sunforger.

Tom Martell was good enough to warn me about the crushing sadness that comes from losing to a Sunforger and I was determined not to suffer the same fate.

game one: This is what you get when your deck only has 4 cards that do anything.   Mr. Milk keeps a pretty weak hand with no action until a turn 3 Knight, at which point I had already Eldered into Cryptic mana. For the next five turns I Repealed, Remanded, or Cryptic Commanded every relevant card he played, drawing a card each time along the way.  Unfortunately, almost all of the cards I drew where lands.  I even got into an awkward situation where I drew both Valakuts and many too many of the Mountain cards, and needed to play very carefully if I was going to be able to win at all.  (Its possible to squeeze extra damage out of drawn mountains by playing them after a resolved Scapeshift.) But my tiptoeing got me nowhere.  I just drew more lands and died, to Sunforger no less, although anything would have done the job; I knew from past bounce effects about most of his hand.

Same Zoo Sideboarding although I think I left in an Electrolyze because he showed me so many two-toughness creatures.

game two: I mulliganed and felt pretty down about missing another shot at a pro tour for about three seconds until the match actually started.  Again he had no turn one play, so I got to play my shock land without taking damage and still Bolt his turn 2 Nacatl and untap t3 into an empty board.  Its very possible that he choose to play the Nacatl slowly in order to keep his life total above 18 but in my opinion that isnt right.  The extra three damage you get in with the Nacatl is worth the extra turn, especially considering that early game mana isn’t irrelevant considering my basic plan is just to Remand and Repeal things.  His turn 3 is a Knight of the Reliquary, and on his end step I Harrow and then Peer into a Command.  I untap and Repeal his Knight immediately, so it can’t protect itself with a Sejiri Steppe.  His t4 Bloodbraid hits a blank Bant Charm and I am looking pretty with five lands in play and a Scapeshift, Firespout and Command in hand. I draw a Sakura and hold it to leave Cryptic up and he is nice enough to run his Knight into it.  I draw a land and another command but he has two lands up, including a fetch, so I don’t go for it, even though he is at 17 now despite his best efforts. He just drew too many fetchs for his inital plan. I just play Sakura with Command mana up again. I was playing around Negate but he end step Helixs me instead, which also would have foiled a premature Scapeshift.  He plays another Bloodbraid Elf into a Noble Heirarch, and I chump one and drop to seven.  I untap and Firespout his team away.  On his next turn he tries Ranger of Eos, and then tries to protect it from Command with Bant Charm, but that requires him to use a fetch to find a shock land and he falls back to 17.  With him tapped out, I finally get to Scapeshift him. The games against zoo are often like this, where they feel quite close, but there is actually very little chance you lose the game, because they have no choice but to go for it and like I said before, all your cards are lands or say “draw a card.”

game three: My opponent’s lack of savvy this game was very fortunate for me as his start was very good.  He opened with Noble Heirarch into Knight of the Reliquary.  On his turn 3, he played a land, a Wild Nacatal and went to end his turn, which is the right play, as his knight was only a 3/3 at this point as growing it and protecting it is clearly better than getting in for four. But when I tried to Peer on his end step, he tapped the knight, in order to “make a mana” so to speak, sacrificing the forest he used for the Nactal to get an untapped land and tapped all his land and the Noble Heirach to Bant Charm the Peer.  [By now you can probably see that fighting over end step Peer Through Depths was a common mistake people made against me all day.  For the most part, especially in the early game, the Peer isn't doing anything and you should let it be.] When I untapped and Firespouted him, he said “obvious”, and I am not sure if he was being sarcastic or if he thought he was playing around the card.  If he was playing around a Firespout, he should have left his Knight up, ready to protect the Nacatl from the Firespout with a Sejiri Steppe, and of course naturally pumping itself out of Firespout range by putting another land in the yard.   After this point, he has a big Knight of Reliquary, but he only gets one or two attacks in with it before I bounce it back to his hand and start using blue magic to protect myself.  The game ends quite orderly.

[After writing this article, I saw on mtgonline.com that he did not have a copy of Sejiri Steppe to search for.  I would have assumed he did, so probably would not have played Firespout.  There is no way to know how the game would have played out.]

round 10, semifinals:  TJDive- RW landfall

game one: He mulligans twice on the play, and only manages a second turn Lynx.  On turn three when he sacs his fetchland for damage it lets me electrolyze his only guy.  I waited until his upkeep so he wouldn’t get the mana untapped if he choose to Path his own Lynx although I don’t think it would have mattered as the only other spell he played was a Lightning Bolt.  I am still very surprised he fetched though, as since I was playing him in the semifinals, I assumed he would be proficient in the art of not fetching in case he drew another Lynx, or an Expedition, or a Geopede.  Like I said, he did actually nothing after that and I killed him eventually. I assume his hand was full of Paths and Searing Blazes.

SB: +2 Lightning Bolt, +1 Consign to Dream, +1 Negate, -1 Khalani Heart Expedition, -1 Kodama’s Reach, -1 Remand, -1 Cryptic Command

game two: Again he only has one creature, this time a Geopede.  I chumped it on his turn three with a Tribe-Elder, and then had a little party when on his t4 he sacced his land (again!) and I got to Consign to Dream his creature into his library. This game he played many Bolts, but with no creature, there was never any danger.  I almost made a terrible play by playing a Valakut, which he then targeted with Ghost Quarter.  Since he had Helixed me, this was potentially disastrous because I might draw a few Mountains before I got to Scapeshift and not have enough damage to kill him.  So I “fixed” my mistake by Cryptic Commanding my Valakut.  Its sometimes important in magic to overcome the sunk cost fallacy and just to play with the board state you make for yourself, even if that board state is much worse than the one you should have.  Besides this hiccup, this game went as smoothly as the first and I can only assume that he had dead cards in the maindeck and that his sideboard cards also didn’t line up very well to fight me, I can imagine him looking at his 15 full of needles, damping matrices, celestial purges, and ravenous traps and asking his friend if I still take damage if he searing blazes my sakura tribe elder (weirdly, the answer is yes, because you target the player also so that damage still happens even if the creature target is not longer around).

[I was correct.  He had 4 each of Path to Exile and Searing Blaze with only 3 each of Ethersworn Canonist and Volcanic Fallout to bring in as cards that at least do something]

round 11, finals: jimdownside- Dark Depths Thopter Foundry

I know Jim Davis as a PTQ player from the Northeast.  He used to be quite the Goblin player, I think he has a gp top 8 with those little guys even. After we both establish that yes, we very much want to go to PR, we wish each other gl and its on.

game one: I win the die roll and good thing, too, because he has “the fix.” He shows me Urborg on t1 so like I mentioned before, I chose not to play a sakura on t2, instead Remanding his Hexmage to buy a draw step. The Dark Depths deck can’t really punish you for being conservative.  Even if he has a Dark Confidant I would still like to keep it off the board for a turn so I can Electrolyze it on end step so I can keep the board clear.  Since he does have the Hexmage, at this point I don’t have a great chance to beat the token with a hand of two Elders, a Peer, a land, an Electroyze and a Scapeshift. I play one of my Elders on t3, instead of Peering, to buy myself Cryptic Command as an out.  The other possible line of play is to Peer Through Depths, which gives up on ever Commanding the token, but which allows you to find a Ponder or another Peer as well as Repeal with the Peer, which you can then play to find either another Peer or another Ponder.  If you wait until the next turn, Ponder is still an out but Peer is not [because you won't have enough mana to play the Repeal].  It would be really nice to be able to figure out the odds of such things on the spot, but I fear that this again is a little too complicated and if I can get away with saying it again, Bayesian, for most of us to do.  Another reason to go to grad school or Wall Street I guess. He plays a Swamp and Replays the Hexmage.  I untap, draw Ponder, Ponder into three non-Repeal cards, shuffle, and draw Scapeshift. I play a land and pass.  He goes for it and I Peer.  Repeal!!! He untaps and plays bob.  I untap and go to Electrolyze his bob as a reflex and then realize that if I play and pop the second Sakura, i can play scapeshift for 18.  Even though he is on 20 at the time this is basically a victory.  My remaining hand is Electrolyze, Command, and Kodama’s reach.  Maindeck he probably has no way to get the Electrolyze out of my hand without taking two, and that is assuming he lives though his upkeep.  His out is something involving multiple Chrome Moxen and a Thopter Foundry but even then he has to go lots of turns of painless Bob.  It works out and he dies on upkeep. This is something I have only learned to do recently.  In the past, I would probably have just been a slave to card advantage, killed his Bob, had my Scapeshift taken with a Thoughtsieze, and then drawn nothing but lands until i died.  Sometimes I have a problem accepting a 9/10 chance of winning the game when I could just build up my advantage but overcame it in this instance.

Sideboarding: Same as against GCB, but I saw multiple copies of Leyline of the Void in some replays, so I assumed (correctly, it turns out) that he didn’t have Extiripate.  So I left the Rude Awakening in the board and kept all 4 Scapeshift.

game two: I was never in this one.  He plays turn one Bob and turn two Thirst for Knowledge.  When he Thoughtsiezes me on turn 3 he takes my Repeal instead of my Electorlyze which I found odd.  It didnt matter that I got his Bob, he was too far ahead.  I never had green mana, and I made a mistake, trying to Repeal a Chrome Mox when I should have sat on it, but none of it would have mattered, he Duressed and Thoughtsiezed me into oblivion and then made a 20/20 one turn before I drew the Damping Matrix.

game three:  High drama.  But its a much different feeling playing on my computer in my messy kitchen then at some ptq, with only stragglers and carpool buddies lurking or cheering and tired judges just waiting for it to be over.  This game is all about the advantage of being on the play.  I play a land.  He Duresses me and takes my Remand instead of my Scapeshift or my Repeal.  On turn two, I draw a Command and play Sakura Tribe Elder. On his turn two all he can play is a Sword of the Meek. I get an Island, untap, and play an untapped Steam Vents, obviously representing Cryptic Command.  The question he has to ask himself is whether I would Command even if I didn’t have it. He plays land, Mox, Jace, which I of course Dismiss.  The game isn’t quite over at this point but close.  He makes a small mistake of not playing a blank Chrome Mox before sacrificing the Sword of the Meek to the Thopter Foundry he played next turn, which lets me repeal the Thopter Foundry with at least some degree of efficiency.  He chooses to deny me the card and sacs the Foundry to itself.  In a turn or two I get to the point where I have 8 mana, 4 of it green, and two Scapeshift.  He doesnt even have the first Muddle.  PR here I come.

You can probably tell from the way I sideboarded, but I would make some changes to the deck.

-1 Khalni Heart Expedition, -1 Kodama’s Reach, -1 Misty Rainforest, -1 Sakura-Tribe Elder, -1 Breeding Pool, +1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All, +1 Harrow, +1 Flooded Grove, +1 Search for Tomorrow, +1 Peek

The cute cards are just too cute and you don’t really want to be tapping your mana on your turn.  The extra Flooded Grove is a nod to the times when I had trouble casting Cryptic Command. Peek is just a way to add a little “play” to a deck that is very straight forward. Knowing that you can go just go for the kill is going to get you alot of easy wins. Boseiju was amazing for me.  It just fits so perfectly with what you are trying to do.  I added an extra Harrow in case you draw both.  I could get behind a third even.

Sideboard:  I never boarded in Ancient Grudge, although that card just seems too powerful not to play.  Like I said before, you shouldn’t be playing very many cards that aren’t cantrips or mana so you want cards that have a big impact. Also, instants and sorceries can be found with Peer, hence the reasons for choices like Ravenous Trap over Tormod’s Crypt.

-1 Ancient Grudge, -1 Firespout, +2 Spell Peirce

Spell Peirce is good in the matchups where you need lots of sideboard cards, the mirror and Hypergenesis. Firespout is pretty good but I prefer Lightning Bolt.  Not only is it better against red decks with haste guys but even against Zoo it is the early damage that matters.  By the time they have a board full of creatures you are usually just content to Command their team down.  I know all of you will cut the Consign to Dream, but it was very good for me.  It is a natural foil to problematic cards like Blood Moon, and against Zoo you don’t really want to kill their guys, just stopping them for a turn or two is good enough.

If you want to make sure you beat the deck, just put Thoughtsiezes 5-8 (Duress) back in your real deck.  Scapeshift has no way to interact with cheap discard and becomes a pile of lands.

Good Luck in Houston.  For the record, I recommend you let your friend play Scapeshift and borrow his Jaces and Thopter Foundries.