Splinter For The Win with MichaelJ

Kudos to our own Michael J Flores for winning the TCGPlayer.com WWS Big Apple this past weekend with the long-threatened Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch combo deck. Mike fought his way through a 200+ person field that was split into two separate flights which merged into a single elimination Top 16. There, he squared off with Chris Leveque and Grixis Twin, GP winner Dave Shiels with Caw-Blade, MOCS competitor Reid Duke with Blue-Black Control, and finally — in a show down between the grizzled veteran Flores and the young upstart Flores — Edgar Flores with Caw-Blade.

We talked the Monday after the tournament about the big win, his individual card choices, and the operational techniques he used to get through the very long and grueling event. Here is the decklist he used and as a bonus I have included Top8Magic intern Matt Ferrando’s Bant Blade list which he played to a Top 16 finish — after winning a SCG IQ qualifier with it last week.

Splinter Twin
Michael Flores — Winner
2011 TCGplayer.com WWS Big Apple

4 Deceiver Exarch
2 Inferno Titan
2 Jace Beleren
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Pilgrim’s Eye
4 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Into the Roil
3 Mana Leak
4 Preordain
2 Spell Pierce
4 Splinter Twin
10 Island
8 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Tectonic Edge

Sideboard:
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Dispel
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace’s Ingenuity
2 Manic Vandal
2 Pyroclasm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spellskite
1 Trinket Mage

You can find all the Top 16 decklists here but I have singled out Matt Ferrando’s Bant Blade and longtime friend of Top8Magic.com’s Luis Neiman’s Dark Blade below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been awhile since I featured a guest piece on the blog — or anything for that matter, sorry — but Mitch Okun’s Facebook note about synchronicity and nostalgia at the recent Star City Games Standard Open in Edison, NJ brought a smile to my face and was something I wanted to share. Mitch was among those players who came to the very first tournaments run by what would eventually become Gray Matter Conventions — he even met his eventual wife through those events — and was a Neutral Ground regular from the day we opened the doors at the old location at 291 7th Avenue. — Brian David-Marshall

For the 1% of the human population out there who isn’t aware, I consider myself an extremely unlucky person.  It’s magnified by the fact that I play two card based games that are definitely more skill based than luck based (Magic and Poker), but for some reason the proportion of games played in the online settings of both just inevitably causes me to fall into the statistical black hole time and time again.  I stopped playing Magic for a while over it, I essentially gave up on poker to the financial swings, and I’ve stopped Magic Online for long stretches of time because of it.  However, inevitably I go back.  I *LIKE* the games.  I consider myself decently good.  And yet, as I sit here tonight, frustrated by a seemingly inhuman proportion of little bad luck swings that affect my Magic Online matches over and over and over again, I waited between rounds by reading online articles.  I went over the Wizards of the Coast’s site and found an article by Brian David-Marshall, an old friend, about the large Magic event that happened this weekend in Edison NJ.

I don’t play major events any more, but knew this thing was happening and took the opportunity to trek down with a pile of cards I wanted to consider selling.  I made pretty good money selling a lot of stuff to the online store who ran the event, but I can’t be in a room of 700+ players and not want to get involved a little, or at least watch .. and I quickly found Brian (or BDM, as he’s famously known to the Magic community) playing his 2nd round opponent.  I watched quietly and waited until between games to comment. Read the rest of this entry »

Charles “Tuna” Hwa is a long-time Magic player, one-time Editor-in-Chief of The Magic Dojo, and reoccurring character throughout the pages of Michael J. Flores’ Deckade. He has written the following tournament report about his experience at the Rise of Eldrazi Prerelease, his adventures as an ex-pat in China, and his rekindled fire to play Magic. It is an awesome, old-school, kick-ass of a tournament report. Enjoy!

Call me Umbrakul

For those who may worry, there is no white whale in this article- at least, not literally. And anyway, even if there was a white whale named “emteegee”, I’m hugging the lovable white cetacean (once again). This is the story of why I am back into Magic after ten years, a quick recounting of my Prerelease experience, and it ends with some RoE thoughts. Our story begins in August 2009, by way of February 2000.

***
“Nature’s first green is gold…”

There used to be this great place where tons of fun people would post articles and share ideas about this wonderful game called Magic. There were lots of decklists, a whole pile of humor, and the very beginnings of strategy for this addictive card game (channel plus fireball is really good). It featured Rob Hahn and other early Magic thinkers. This place was called Usenet, and life was good.

Soon thereafter, a man emerged from the electronic wilds carrying with him something he termed “a tournament report”. (This timeline may not be accurate, but it’s my story, etc.) Though containing both truth and anecdote, the book of Wakefield provided an interesting glimpse into competitive Magic. Jamie advocated 62 cards in his deck, 26 of which were lands. “Preposterous!” one (such as me) might have said at the time, wondering how to fit Palladia Mors and Nicol Bolas into a deck with so few cards. But so it came to pass that Jamie was right (and wrong), and life was great.

Then after a while, a man named Frank Kusumoto came along and said, “This World Wide Web thing seems like a better way to organize Magic thought than Usenet posts. Also, man alive I shouldn’t have eaten all that sushi yesterday with Rob while watching that Twin Peaks rerun.” (this might not be an exact quote) And thus the Magic Dojo came to be. And life was freaking grand.

By 1999, I was working with Mike Flores and Al Tran at the Magic Dojo. By February 2000, we found out that the Magic Dojo couldn’t really support 25 employees (who knew?). But life was still pretty good. Magic thought kept flourishing, and new players just played decks and strategies that they learned from other, newer websites. I had changed though, and I faded from Magic, becoming a “casual competitive” player (translation: I wanted to win, but primarily at Prereleases).

***
“These are the days when birds come back…”

In August of 2009, I moved back to Beijing, China. Looking for something to do my third weekend here, I checked the Wizards website for giggles, checking if there were any Limited events in Beijing (Great Wall? Check. Forbidden Palace? Seen it. Tiananmen Square? I made a dust Angel in Tiananmen at dawn the day after I graduated from high school). I found out that there was a PTQ nearby in a little card shop called “Ka Dou”; literally, “Card Fight”. Fighting some cards in a Limited PTQ? What’s not to love! I mean, sure I’d never seen Zendikar, and sure it was a PTQ and not a pre-release, but it’s China, not Japan. How hard could it be to Q?

It’s harder than you think. The cards are in Chinese, and I have the Chinese literacy of a second grader (since upgraded to perhaps sixth grade). My spoiler didn’t have card numbers. Good Game. The judge took pity on me after I had spent 40 minutes registering the deck I opened, and stood by to help me decipher cards during deckbuilding. Even with his help, it still took 35-plus minutes to register my red-white deck, and my deck was only red and white because I didn’t know what my blue, black and green cards did.

I started 2-0, finished 0-4, and loved (almost) every minute of it. I throw in almost because unwashed-gamer-smell made the jump over the Pacific, sadly, and proved to be a little overpowering at times. Anyhow, I lost via bad play, I lost via bad deck construction, and I lost because of a little bit of bad luck, but I rediscovered a love for shuffling cards and casting spells. I left “Card Fight” wanting to be competitive again, at least at a PTQ level; I mean, it’s fun casting spells… but it’s way more fun to cast spells AND win. So I played a lot of Magic Online, practicing Zendikar Limited and familiarizing myself with Zendikar pictures. I also studied a bunch of Chinese characters that were directly relevant to magic (quick lesson: 目标生物 is “target creature”; it’s pronounced roughly as MOO-byao-shung-WOO). After a slew of drafts and some studying, I felt that I was ready to win some games.

***
“Surely some revealation is at hand…”

And then I didn’t play any Magic from December to March. I didn’t plan for that to happen- sometimes, life just gets in the way of casting spells. This tends to happen more often as you get a little older. Between applying to schools, going to Chinese language classes, taking finals for those classes, as well as travelling in Asia to visit long neglected branches of the family tree, there just wasn’t a whole lot of time left. So when the RoE Prerelease happened last week, I didn’t really spend a lot of time preparing, figuring with only a couple of days to prepare, I might as well just go and lose again (though hopefully less badly than at the PTQ). I also had this brief conversation with Jon Becker on Facebook (blocked by Chinese censors, but VPN for the win):

Me: “Hey Becker, I think I’m going to play in the Prerelease.”
Becker: “Mise win the pre-release amirite? Chinese players etc. kekeke.” (this might not be an exact quote)
Me: “I can’t read Chinese cards yet.”
Becker: “Spoiler, etc.”

I Becker* almost every Limited deck- who am I to argue against Jon Becker?! (*Becker: to play a 41st card in Limited) So the morning of the tournament, I print out a spoiler, with card numbers this time, and mosey my way over to the basement of E-world. E-world is a giant 6 story Best Buy like store that has anything you could ever want to buy relating to computers, plus lots of stuff that you’d never want to accidentally waste your money on although you wish others would spend their money and get it for you, like green and blue lasers (they are pretty cool, if you are a giant geek like me, but cost too much money and are pretty useless except for being distracting). Read the rest of this entry »

<This article, despite the author tag, is actually by Conrad Kolos.>

This past weekend I had the opportunity to back to back PTQ.  My friend Gabriel Carleton-Barnes came down from New York to crash at my place to attend the Saturday PTQ at the Philadelphia Convention Center. We both played Dark Depths Thopter Foundry.  He made top 8, losing to the mirror. We were both pretty happy to be playing the best deck and only wanted to change a card or two for the next morning’s online ptq. Luckily for me, we didn’t have enough cards to make two versions of the deck online and since Gabe loved the deck more than I did, I audibled.  Since I’m quite sure you don’t care that I had the flu, or spent most of my time that morning lending cards to various friends, here’s the victorious decklist.

SB:

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a recent email that I received from Paul Jordan aka PJ, that I thought would be useful to all of you Top8Magic fans. The images did not come out in the post, but the original file is here: Draftcap Instructions.

Enjoy

Matt

Draftcap Instructions (Courtesy of Paul Jordan)

Creating your own “Drafting With” series is pretty straight-forward. All you need is Magic Online and your own webpage. If you don’t have a webpage, you can easily create one at Google, which is what I’ve done.

Creating your webpage

To start a webpage at Google, first make sure you are signed in. Then just go to More > Sites

Then click on Create New Site. Go through the steps, choosing your site name and URL and you’re done.

Recording drafts on MTGO

Go to Menu > Settings > Gameplay and make sure the box for “Enable Draft Recorder” is checked.

MTGO will record all packs and picks and put them into Documents > Games > Magic The Gathering Online > Drafts as text files.

Converting those text files

Go to http://www.zizibaloob.com/convert_images.html and paste the contents of the text file into the Image Converter box and hit Convert Draft. Now there will be 3 boxes on the screen:

Image Converter (where you pasted your text file contents)

Output (what you copy for future use)

Preview (what it will look like on your webpage)

Copy the contents of the 2^nd box (output) onto your clipboard for the next step.

Adding a draft to your webpage

Back at your page in Google, click on Create Page. Enter in a page name and URL. If you’re going to be doing multiple drafts, you probably want a standard naming convention (draft_## or something like that) but it isn’t necessary. Once you have your name and URL, click Create Page. You’ll have a screen something like this:

Click on the HTML button on the top bar and paste the output from the draft converter and hit update. Now your screen should look like this:

You can now add comments, your decklist, or anything else. When you’re done, click Save on the top right of your screen. That’s it, you’re done.

Note – if you want to keep your decklist, you need to save it separately in MTGO during deck construction. To do this, when building your deck click “Save As” and save it as a text file. Then you can just copy/paste it into your commentary.

Anyone who has been participating in the Twitter/Google Wave enabled Standard discussions leading up to States this year is probably familiar with Thomas Dodd aka Amistod. Below is his tournament report from states. Enjoy!

Hey guys, it is Thomas, coming to you from just outside Atlanta. We had a great 2009’s turnout down here and I would like to share the deck I played. But first, a short PSA on Blightning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mail Bag Part 3

BDM answers your questions and discusses his recent trips to Seattle and Columbus with Matt Wang.

Please let us know what you think and if we should do more.

Best,

Matt

Mail Bag Part 2

BDM answers your questions and discusses his recent trips to Seattle and Columbus with Matt Wang.

Please let us know what you think and if we should do more.

Best,

Matt

Mail Bag Part 1

BDM answers your questions and discusses his recent trips to Seattle and Columbus with Matt Wang.

Please let us know what you think and if we should do more.

Best,

Matt

Going into Regionals, I was pretty sure that my deck choice (obviously Jund Ramp) was solid. After hours of play and discussion with Mikey J, I was convinced that Jund was the deck to play for the tournament.

I woke up Saturday morning to what looked like rain outside. I hit the streets around 7:30, caught the bus across town, and took the 1 train down to Penn Station to meet up with a bunch of other NY magic players that were also planning on taking the 8:14 train to Edison. I found a seat in the middle of the train and popped on the headphones (LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver) for the hour long ride.

The venue is about a mile walk from the train station in Edison. I joined up with “Siege-Gang Ferrando,” Devon, GCB, Alex B and Regionals first-timer Seong An. Seong easily identified us as Magic players and joined us for the hike through commercial New Jersey.

We arrived at the venue (basement of a church) in the middle of a funeral procession and quietly worked our way to the side entrance. I am 6 cards short going in, still missing 1 Karrthus, 1 Cloudthresher and 4 Rampant Growth. I find fivewithflores and he informs me that the dealers are sold out of Karrthus. Luis “Not Vargas” Neiman hooks me up with the Rampant Growths. Lucky for me, Seong had a Karrthus and Cloudthresher that I could mise. I register and write down my decklist and pretty soon the round starts.

Round 1, Mike with 5c Control

Game 1 we both mulligan to 6. I win the die roll and make Civic Wayfinder, then Kitchen Finks, and they take him from 20 to 0 after being joined by a Treetop Village a few turns later. Mike misses a few land drops and I’m not sure he even played a spell at all.

I figured him for 5c control because of all his vivid lands and side in the Anathemancer/Karrthus/Primal Command package.

Game 2 I mulligan and we trade hits back and forth with with early finks. Eventually Mike turtles up behind a Wall of Reverence and a Plumeveil. He counters my relevant threats while gaining life each turn. Eventually he finds a Broodmate Dragon and finishes me off.

Game 3 we both keep 7 and I have a strong hand which includes none other than my borrowed Karrthus. I begin chipping away early with a Anathemancer, bolting him for 4 and getting him down to 12 before he gets a Wall of Reverence going. On my turn 6 I have a Broodmate and Primal Command, but opt for the Command to try to fish up another Anathemancer. He counters it, untaps, and slams down a Broodmate on his 6th turn. I pray for 7th land but draw Rampant Growth instead and have to settle for playing my own Broodmate. Mike plays Cruel Ultimatum, and I show him the Karrthus I am forced to discard in my hand. At this point MJF has found his way to my table, sees the board, and declares me the winner. Of course I rip a Makeshift Mannequin to bring back Karrthus, steal his dragons, and attack him for 23. He blocks the 7/7 with his wall and stays alive at 6 life. Mike untaps and Wraths the board but two turns later I find my 7th land and Unearth Anathemancer for 9.

1-0
2-1

Round 2, Justin with Red Deck

I win the die roll again and get to go first. Justin has a slow hand with no action until a turn 3 Ram Gang. I take hits and accelerate, then play three consecutive Broodmate Dragons.

Game 2 Justin keeps a hand that I can only assume has multiple Demigods. His turn 3 play is a Everlasting Torment, which prevents me from gaining life off a Kitchen Finks… but doesn’t prevent the Finks from beating him down. Justin never finds his 5th land, and I follow up my Finks with a Dragon and finish it.

2-0
4-1

Round 3, Noah with GW Tokens

Game 1 our hero is again on the play but mulligans a hand 3 Forest, 3 Cloudthresher, and Gift of the Gargantuan. I mulligan into three consecutive no-land hands and obviously get rolled when I keep on 3. I am pretty confident in that mulligan, as Gift is not an ideal turn 3 play, and that hand had no hope against an aggressive deck.

Game 2 I keep a 7 card “speculative” hand with a Fallout, Mannequin, Civic, and Gift. The Fallout is dead as his draw consisted of Dauntless Escort and Liege. My first Gift shows me 4 lands, while my second Gift shows me 4 creatures, none of which are the Shriekmaw I would need to turn the game around. I finally draw a Shriekmaw when I am on 1 and Noah has three or four men on board. In retrospect that may have been a borderline keep, but I had the right lands to Fallout if he had had a bear-into-procession draw I was hoping to see.

2-1
4-3

Round 4, David with Bant

Game 1 is the only game I won against David, and it was the game I deserved to lose. I made multiple mistakes in this game, the worst of which was not using Banefire on his Bant Bird and playing Shriekmaw on his Rhox War Monk instead of Rafiq. By not killing Rafiq I ended up having to chump block most of the game while working him down to 7 with the Shriekmaw. The turn that I would have to chump with the Maw I drew a lethal Banefire to steal the win.

Game 2 I drew all my Banefires and none of my Shriekmaws. I kept trading 1 for 1 with his guys, hoping to draw some action for the Mannequins in my hand. I run out of answers and never get a threat, and finally succumb to an exalted BoP.

Game 3 was really close, and I am sure I made a mistake somewhere because I felt like I should have won it. Instead, my final life total shows David ending the game with 70+ life. David got out a Behemoth Sledge and kept threatening to crush me with giant, doublestriking lifelinkers. I cleared the board multiple times with Shriekmaws and Caldera Helion, but David always had another Rafiq or Rhox War Monk to pick up the Sledge. We go to turns and David continues to play threats while I stop drawing answers.

I am pretty sure that I sideboarded wrong for this match. I left in Volcanic Fallout, which is dead against the cards that matter. I boarded like I would against GW, bringing out Dragons and some gifts for Helions, Maw, and Terror; not realizing that Dragon is my best threat here since he has no way he can block a flying creature other than Birds. Instead I should have taken out Fallouts and a Gifts for the Primals, which could have been used to remove his equipment or search up removal.

2-2
5-5

Thoroughly dissapointed, and tilting pretty badly after losing a matchup that I think is pretty favorable, I vent to Mike and he convinces me to stay in to try and get some packs and practice with the deck.

Round 5, Adam with Naya 5-power

Game 1 I lose my first die roll of the day and Adam comes out slow with a turn 3 5/4. I play a Civic, take a hit from the Beast, and follow up next turn with a Finks. I take another hit and Adam plays Spellbreaker Behemoth. Luckily I have a Shriekmaw + Mannequin, which is followed up by a dragon. I swing him down to 5 and finish him with Banefire.

Game 2 plays out pretty much the same way, except now I have more Shriekmaws and a couple Primal Commands to go get them. I don’t remember the specifics of this game other than that I slowed him down early by evoking a Shriekmaw on his Bloomtender. I ended the game at 22 so it must have been pretty one-sided.

3-2
7-5

Round 6, Eric with BW tokens.

I win my 5th die roll of the day and keep a hand that is gas against anything but BW tokens: Civic Wayfinder, Shriekmaw, Fallout, Mannequin, 3 Lands. However, Eric has the triple Sculler + Glorious Anthem draw. My plays this game were Civic Wayfinder and Makeshift Mannequin targeting Civic Wayfinder.

Game 2 is much closer. I burn 2 Banefire early to kill an Elspeth and Ajani, and have a Fallout to keep him off his triple Winbrisk Heights. Eric has a Bitterblossom and we are each getting in damage when we can. I make a big mistake towards the end of the game: I have a Civic and two 4/4 fliers on the board, while Eric has a medium sized token army. I play a Helion here to wipe his board, and foolishly choose to Devour my 2/2. I had a Mannequin in hand, which could have been used 2 turns later to wrath him again. Instead I make an irrelevant 4/4 and lose the game a few turns later when Eric is able to pop all his Heights (Cloudgoat, Ajani, and something else) and slowly supersizes his team. I lose this game with Eric on 4.

3-3
7-7

Seong watches me take a third loss and tells me he is dropping and heading back. I decide to drop here so I can return his cards, and we end up traveling back to the city together.

Despite practicing with the deck, I made too many mistakes and put myself out of contention. I still think the deck is great and I am planning on playing it in any upcoming PTQs. Mike finished 6-2, you can see his tournament report on his blog, and it looks like a couple players made top 8 with the deck as well. I encourage anyone who is undecided on a PTQ deck to consider Jund ramp as it is favored against a lot of decks in the field, and seems to be 50/50 against its worst matchups.

How did your Regionals go? What did you end up playing? I know (from Twitter) that a couple people did pretty well. Let us know how your tournament went in the comments.

~WillPoP