Prologue

After the bust of Portland and Toronto I was moderately disheartened at the least with my Magic prospects. With the possibility of attending Worlds was converging on zero due to school, I was going to be stranded at Pro Level Three. I was already accepting the fact I would not be going to either of the first two PT's without a PTQ win, that I would have to grind out an extra round at Grand Prixes (funny fact: I've only played one GP without the full three byes), and that I would likely be faced with a decision about whether I wanted to risk my invite on an Extended PT or wait until Worlds. Nashville was just me going through the motions. Yeah, I had a shot, but it was a sealed GP. Be real, how high variance is that?

I had my chance twice to break through this year and blew it. The worst part is that I knew where I had failed and had only myself to blame. Whether it was the pitched Thrinax in round 10 of Grand Prix DC, the failure to appeal on the deck check several rounds later, or the auto-pilot to 3 life Ad Nauseum round 13 of Columbus (where I died to double Stifle as I couldn't double Thoughtseize), it was only my fault. There probably were even more punts which I was dismissing as minor, like not taking Kyle Boggemes' Jund deck at San Diego (who plays Vampires in constructed?) or not moving into Green draft two in San Juan and getting stomped by the two people I shipped the nuts to.

Then the fire struck. I started thinking about my sealed games in Toronto and formulated some plans. I wanted removal, not bombs. I drove down to Columbus for a PTQ and smashed through the swiss. The only way I lost was a turn 3 Koth. I could see my mistakes, and more importantly saw my opponents'. Sure I had some bombs to crush people with, but I won a fair number of games through standard UW Skies just grinding them out using my minimal removal to carve a path to the full twenty. Going into the top 8 I even knew the two people passing to me hated Poison. I forced it so hard I think I shoved out two people who tried to fight for it by pack three. All I know is that in pack 1 I saw nothing past pick 5, then got a pick seven choice of Tangle Angler or Hand of the Praetors pack 3. It was my event to win, and I knew that I was a strong favorite on deck if not play skill.

When I was knocked out of what I thought was my PTQ to win by a combination of BR removal, mana Flood, and solid defensive play on my opponent's part, I didn't feel the usual tilt. I was determined. We left the event and on the way home I called it. I was going to top 8 this Grand Prix.

Step One: The Drive

Simply put, the car that was assembled was a sick one: Kyle Boggemes and his lovely lady Tatyana, RIW Hobbies ringers Alex John and Donald Kastner, rising grinder and singleton master Kai "Kmaster" Ruan, along with Ebay miser Alex Olson. While Kai somehow managed to Sleep the entire way there, the rest of us commiserated on such important topics "What would you do for a Tumble Magnet?", which rapidly devolved into a question more about 'who' rather than 'what.' For the record, the card is actually that unreal. Unconditional kill that can pull two blockers out at once? Sign me up, even in constructed!

Alex and DJ had spent a ton of time grinding MODO drafts and we rapidly delved into some of the more wild archetypes in the format. Moving on through Poison (agreed upon as insane, though DJ liked Ichorclaw Myr over Plague Stinger) and WB burn, we started discussing how just randomly playing Green monsters was good enough. While I wasn't too experienced with the archetype as I would often just force poison off the green early picks, DJ and Alex had explored it deeper. We all knew Alpha Tyrannax was just game ending, but they were interested in a Liquidmetal Coating-Viridian Revel base that abused Tel-Jilad Fallen and upgraded the Green removal. While I had disliked Coating as a way to Metalcraft as it was just minus a card to do so, this way seemed like you could get a card's value out of it almost immediately.

I'm sure there was more we discussed, but that was the turning point. We knew there was an archetype people didn't want, was good, and utilized cards that we would see far later than they should be.

Aside: DJ Kastner is possibly the most underrated player in the world. That honor used to be Mike Jacob's, but times have changed with his recent PT top 8. A combination of various beats have kept DJ off the tour, but he's back. Seriously, back in the day Luis and Paul Cheon were too afraid of him to accept even odds in the Counterbalance mirror and Pat Chapin was calling him to top 8 Pro Tours before he was qualified for them. One of these days things will line up and he won't lose all three games of a PTQ finals to Mana Screw (and still win one at 1 life with 3 cards in deck).

Step 2: Day One

To be honest, I'm not sure how the site was a real place. The best description I heard was Gavin Verhey calling it a Final Fantasy city. Winding paths led you through a complex of indoor atriums adorned with all sorts of plants that had no right being in Tennessee. We had no idea where we were going when we first got there, but it didn't matter. The touch screen maps that mapped out directions to each event were there for us. The food was expensive, but it was better value than normal convention center food. I'd rather be getting the $13 Reuben with insane Parmesan fries curve than the $5 "Is this actually meat" hot dog any day.

When I first looked at the pool I received I thought it was a disaster. I spent the full time constructing, all the way to finalizing the mana base with 30 seconds to go. Here is the pool in its entirety:

[cardlist]

1 Arrest

1 Auriok Sunchaster

1 Dispense Justice

1 Kemba's Skyguard

1 Loxodon Wayfarer

1 Razor Hippogriff

1 Revoke Existence

1 Seize the Initiative

1 Soul Parry

1 Auriok Replica

1 Glint Hawk Idol

1 Origin Spellbomb

1 Darkslick Drake

1 Lumengrid Drake

1 Plated Seastrider

1 Sky-Eel School

1 Steady Progress

1 Stoic Rebuttal

1 Turn Aside

2 Vault Skyward

2 Neurok Replica

1 Blackcleave Goblin

1 Bleak Coven Vampires

1 Blistergrub

1 Contagious Nim

2 Moriok Reaver

1 Painsmith

1 Plague Stinger

1 Psychic Miasma

1 Tainted Strike

2 Moriok Replica

1 Vector Asp

1 Barrage Ogre

1 Blade-Tribe Berserkers

1 Bloodshot Trainee

1 Embersmith

2 Flameborn Hellion

1 Galvanic Blast

1 Kuldotha Rebirth

1 Molten Psyche

1 Scoria Elemental

2 Shatter

1 Saberclaw Golem

2 Acid Web Spider

1 Alpha Tyrannax

1 Asceticism

1 Blight Mamba

1 Blunt the Assault

1 Engulfing Slagwurm

2 Molder Beast

1 Slice in Twain

1 Untamed Might

1 Viridian Revel

1 Wing Puncture

1 Copper Myr

2 Gold Myr

1 Iron Myr

1 Accorder's Shield

2 Barbed Battlegear

1 Bladed Pinions

1 Clone Shell

1 Darksteel Myr

1 Darksteel Sentinel

2 Echo Circlet

1 Glimmerpost

1 Golden Urn

1 Golem Artisan

1 Memnite

1 Nim Deathmantle

1 Platinum Emperion

1 Razorfield Thresher

1 Snapsail Glider

1 Venser's Journal

[/cardlist]

Here's how I broke it down

• There are no real rares that draw me into any color. Slagwurm is cool, but it's a seven drop.
• Black is unplayable, and along with that the poison count is too low to get there.
• Blue fails the "two bombs" check to make up for the lack of removal, so it's probably out. There's a solid aggressive base to work with if everything else fails.

That left White, Green, and Red. I toyed with a RG deck but realized I had no removal for big creatures and the deck was basically a pile. WR was very short on playables, so it was out. The Myr were set up such that I could stretch for White and Red, so I saw no reason not to. I chose to make White a heavier commitment than Red. While the lack of artifacts doesn't help either of the two colors, Hippogriff is still a 3/3 flier without them while Barrage Ogre and Embersmith are Sea Snidd and Goblin Piker.

The next step was whittling down the high end. I eventually settled on cutting Platinum Emperion and Golem Artisan due to the lack of artifacts. Odds are my opponents would be sitting on Shatter all day, just waiting for the target to use them. The loss of card quality was something I felt was justified by making their cards all worse. I finally settled on

[cardlist]

1 Origin Spellbomb

1 Gold Myr

1 Iron Myr

1 Loxodon Wayfarer

1 Molder Beast

1 Acid Web Spider

1 Clone Shell

1 Razor Hippogriff

1 Alpha Tyrannax

1 Darksteel Sentinel

1 Engulfing Slagwurm

1 Galvanic Blast

1 Shatter

1 Revoke Existance

1 Arrest

1 Dispense Justice

1 Viridian Revel

1 Slice in Twain

1 Nim Deathmantle

9 Forest

5 Plains

3 Mountain

[/cardlist]

The mana seems a little heavy on Red, but I wanted those spells early. I made 3 misbuilds here. First was that I should have played Copper Myr and Plains #6 over Gold Myr and Forest #9. While I only wanted 3 Myr (too many leads to flooding) I would have rather have the harder to kill source for the secondary color. I also should not have played Nim Deathmantle. The same logic I applied to Artisan and Emperion was the case and it just kept dying. Untamed Might and Asceticism both got boarded in for it to great effect.

And I'm sure many of you are questioning it; Wayfarer wasn't great. It did the job though. All I needed was to hold the fort early and that is something a 1/5 does. Props to Brad Tinney for opening my eye to this card back at GP Toronto.

I also built the UWr deck with about 5 minutes left in time. It was solid, but I didn't have time to work it out. I would have boarded it if I ever felt like I was getting out bombed to attempt to just rush them, but that never happened. It also might have been better against a RB rush deck due to the double Neurok Replica, but that also never happened.

Round 1-3 (Byes)

During the byes I battled against some people. I kept losing to Kyle Boggemes' Geth-Koth-Carnifex monstrosity but was able to bash through a lot of other decks. I had a noticeable issue with Myrsmith however.

I also attempted to run a draft, but apparently Alex Bertoncini's word that his team all has 3 byes was a lie and we only get a match in before he left to play round three. I was GB poison and while 2 Hand of the Praetors got hated I still ended up with one and a Putrefax, as well as the Contagion Engine I opened. We end up losing this one around 12 hours later. Alex 3-0ed us with a 4 Soliton, 3 Heavy Arbalest combo deck (though I had a 3 turn span to rip a Poison guy to Hand him out), and apparently my teammates punted some.

Moving on to actual Magic:

Round 4: Chris Woltereck (WR Metalcraft)

Game 1 I decide to hold Revoke and play Molder Beast into a Trigon of Corruption with an otherwise empty board. My logic is that my bombs are big enough I don't care about Trigon trading for one. He ends up using Trigon and Contagion Clasp to grind down all of my threats (even though the Trigon gets empty before Clasp shows up) and then Tempered Steel to power through my remaining forces. Game two he gets Spikeshot Elder going with Darksteel Axe and Tempered Steel to power up his remaining army and I eventually lose.

3-1

Round 5: GB Poison

My opponent starts off by commenting on my RIW shirt and some negative experiences with Mike Jacob which I find comical. To be very fair to my opponent Mike can be brutal and off putting, but I've come to expect it. The kicker was him asking me to tell Mike, to which I responded with "I will but it probably won't matter." Mike's exact response later on confirms my suspicions.

The games aren't really eventful. I die to Argentum Armor game one, but games two and three I am able to kill his early drop and just bash with Green monsters till he dies.

4-1

These next three rounds are pretty blurry, but to be honest there isn't anything to be learned from most of them. I smashed through all three 2-0 with ease. My notes disappeared, but here's the recap hopefully in order.

One was against an aggressive WR deck that couldn't beat Spiders without playing Horde-Smelter Dragon. He didn't, but by the time he could have I would have won on the basis of 6/5 is bigger than 5/5 or Wing Puncture.

The next was against a WRB all removal deck. I kept track of the spells he played, and literally the only ones that weren't removal were Sword of Body and Mind and Nim Deathmantle. As for removal, he played all of them: Cerebral Eruption, Grasp of Darkness, 2 Turn to Slag, 2 Flesh Allergy, Embersmith, Scrapmelter, Revoke Existence, 2 Arrest, Shatter. He even Arc Trailed two Myr when I was stuck on two lands game 2. Both games I just ground out an advantage with Spiders, Slice in Twain, and Revel into a board state where a Darksteel Sentinel was lethal. The lesson to learn here is that a ton of removal is nice, but you need a way to apply pressure. He had Wall of Tanglecord where he should have had random Ferrovore. Given infinite time your opponent will likely have a bigger bomb than you can kill.

The thirds match is completely gone from my memory. I'm pretty sure it was against a generic UW deck. Generic green monsters were bigger than generic fliers and Spiders colded his entire deck. I had everything, he had nothing, etc.

7-1

Round 9: WG Metalcraft

This may be one of the most insane limited matches I have ever played.

Remember how I said I couldn't beat a Myrsmith? Well game one he played one on two AND three then just kept triggering them. He even had a Tumble Magnet. I was for sure dead, except I had one thing on my side: Viridian Revel. Everything started cascading downhill for him when he decided to trade the second Smith and three tokens for an Alpha Tyrannax instead of tapping it. I drew my three cards and started comboing off. Shatter here, Slice in Twain there, Spider your equipment, trade my Myr in for yours on blocks. Thirteen extra cards and an Engulfing Slagwurm later I'm starting to think about whether to draw off Revel and risk decking myself. To be fair my opponent kept setting himself up for most of these trades, but I ended the game with seven cards in hand.

Game two was the opposite. He led on a slow start of Memnite, Culling Dais. I Shattered the Dais and he chose to keep Memnite around to fuel a Rusted Relic, which was also Shattered. On his turn five he played Chimeric Mass for five and I could Revoke it or play Molder Beast. I figured I could save the Revoke for after he killed Beast and snap traded five drops when he attacked. Revoke took down the Wurmcoil Engine next turn, which let me sand bag the Arrest for the Molten-Tail Masticore follow up. Out of bombs and still missing Green mana, my opponent quickly folded under the follow up of green monsters.

8-1

Round 10: UW beats

The games themselves here are extremely uneventful. I crush him in one and three with a combination of removal, fat, and brick wall Spiders. Game two he had removal and tempoes me out with some Drakes. The thing I remember is commenting after the last game "Did you have bombs or did you just grind people out all day?". My opponent with a disgusted look flashed a Sunblast Angel and Steel Hellkite that were stuck in his deck.

Sometimes you run good.

End of day counts of cards played against me:

Planeswalkers: 0

Geths: 0

Horde-Smelters: 0

Sunblast Angel: 0

Carnifex Demon: 0

Contagion Engine: 0

Myr Battlesphere: 0

Guess that's one way to win at this format.

I return to the hotel with the 8-2 Alex John and we proceed to the next natural step: boot up MODO and start drafting. We end up in Gr Beasts and I get to witness the power of the deck. He eventually wins the draft, and it's on to day two.

Step 3: Time to Close

I wake up unfortunately early. As in 3:30 am early. Fortunately this is nothing Five Hour Energy and Tim and Eric Awesome Show can't fix. While the former is a good play in moderation when you know you will be low on Sleep, the later is just pure value at every point.

We arrive at the site and after goldfishing some Storm and battling Sealed against Christian Calcano, I'm pumped for the first draft. My pod contains Gfabs, GerryT, Ann Arbor native Dustin "TheGreatDustini" Faeder, and 4 people I don't recognize. Trick actually filmed this draft of mine, so you'll see an episode of it eventually.

Draft one is pretty uneventful. I slam a Koth and second pick a Sylvok Replica. The plan is never deviated from, though this may have been wrong. I don't remember seeing anything good in other colors, but red was clearly cut pack 1 and I didn't pick up on it. Someone on my right moved into green as well and come pack three I had multiple picks where I actually had no on color or artifact playables in my packs. Gerry being in the pod didn't help as he clearly was slamming Spellbombs and Myr left and right leaving people to take real cards. I make one mispick and take Palladium Myr out of a pack with Copper Myr and Genesis Wave. I expected Wave to table and wanted Copper Myr to help force it through, but I needed the on color Myr and earlier ramp more.

My deck ends up looking like this:

[cardlist]

[Mainboard]

1 Spikeshot Elder

1 Leaden Myr

1 Copper Myr

1 Perilous Myr

2 Palladium Myr

1 Sylvok Replica

1 Ferrovore

1 Cystbearer

1 Tel-Jilad Fallen

2 Blade-Tribe Berserkers

1 Koth of the Hammer

1 3 Molder Beast

1 Alpha Tyrannax

1 Viridian Revel

1 Slice in Twain

1 Untamed Might

1 Liquidmetal Coating

1 Bladed Pinions

1 Trigon of Infestation

9 Forest

8 Mountain

[/Mainboard]

[Sideboard]

2 Lifesmith

1 Wing Puncture

1 Ogre Geargrabber

1 Melt Terain

1 Voltion Reins

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Lifesmith didn't make the main as I felt I was short on artifacts. The mana is also really awkward with all the double Red and the lack of removal is a large issue. That said I told everyone I would mise out a 2-1 with this deck just because I could turn everything sideways.

Round 11: UW

I win two of three races. The memorable play occurred game 1. My opponent plays his 24^th card Razorfield Thresher and the race is looking a bit interesting. I'm ahead on ground, but he can gum it up a bit and has me lower on life. I declare attacks and he blocks a Molder Beast with the 6/4 and that's it. I look at him, sac Sylvok Replica on the Thresher and trample over with my two Molder Beast for 18.

I have time after this match to watch GerryT lose to Dustin's motley crew of WR beats. In true fashion, GerryT was holding Sunblast Angel and True Conviction the entire game while stuck on 5 lands. I'm pretty sure Dustin even GG'ed him.

10-1

Round 12: GB Poison

You ever play a match and know everything you are doing is wrong, but have no clue why and don't notice your play even is bad until after the fact? Yeah, that happened here. I was making miserable attacks into a Throne of Geth every game and was clueless to what my other options were. I actually asked my opponent after if he saw any mistakes I made and his response was "I think you made one or two good attacks". Game one I mised fairy godmother Koth late game and got to attack him with lethal damage and poison. Game two I just sorta ran out of guys somewhere and died. He misplayed the last game. He could have held his Heavy Arbalest shot, but decided to do it after blocks and I was able to Untamed Might in response for lethal. The attack would have put him to 3, but he hadn't seen Blast or Replica in three long games. He had seen Might, and I had represented it all game. He might not have won, but it would have let him battle back a bit more.

Looking back I could have set up better trades against his Throne rather than just running my guys in every turn and not done stupid things like attack Tel-Jilad Fallen into the obvious Carrion Call, but the general idea of trading Molder Beasts for damage against the proliferate engine was correct. I just executed it in the worst possible way.

Dustin informs me Gerard's deck is unreal. Challenge accepted.

11-1

Round 13: Gerard Fabiano (Ugr Metalcraft)

I seriously can't win a covered feature match to save my life. I was 0-X life time going into this event. I mised one feature match out at GP Seattle but there wasn't even a spectator to watch my mull to five overcome Josh Wludyka's Mana Screw as the other match was LSV vs. someone Japanese. I beat Saito at Amsterdam in a feature, but I only found it months later through Babelfish.

This is the first one I can remember actually losing to a pressure based mistake.

The official coverage was decent at this, but here's a recap.

Game 1 I get bowled over by some Rusted Relic. Game two Gerard decides to beat down and tap my Pinion'ed Molder Beast to get in damage instead of holding me off mising a second Green. I do and Slice in Twain down a Precursor Golem and two Rusted Relics. 8 for 1 much? Oh yeah, Molder Beast also crashed for 15.

The punt was game three. I keep a hand with Koth on the play and am excited about the prospect of living the dream. I missed my second red for multiple turns and snap slam Koth when I do draw it.

Except Gerard has a metalcrafted Snapsail Glider and Darksteel Axe and just eats it. Oops.

I almost fight back but come up a bit short. Had I held Koth I would likely have gotten to Perilous Myr down the Glider and get it established and ultimate it, resulting in a easy win.

11-2

Moving on to the next draft, my pod is significantly upgraded. Gerry, myself, and Dustin are all back, only we traded for a Steve Sadin and Paul Rietzl.

Pack one I waffle a bit between Poison and considering Furnace Celebration. The later would have worked out pretty well, but I couldn't get myself to abandon Green or Black. My first pick was a Slice in Twain out of a stacked pack. Most notably I shipped a Cerebral Eruption. The card obviously can just end the game, but I wanted nothing to do with turning my games into coin flips. Pack two I see a Elspeth 3^rd and consider moving into White as I only have a Grasp of Darkness. I follow up with an Auriok Replica over Necrotic Ooze and lose a playable as White gets cut hard. I get a second Grasp and good mana pack 3, but by the end of the draft I'm pretty sure my deck is miserable and short on win conditions.

[cardlist]

[Main]

1 Fume Spitter

1 Lifesmith

1 Wall of Tanglecord

2 Leaden Myr

1 Sylvok Replica

1 Moriok Reaver

1 Blistergrub

3 Molder Beast

1 Bellowing Tanglewurm

1 Darksteel Sentinel

2 Horizon Spellbomb

2 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Slice in Twain

2 Grasp of Darkness

1 Instill Infection.

1 Tel-Jilad Defiance

1 Untamed Might

1 Strider Harness

7 Swamp

9 Forest

[/Main]

[Sideboard]

1 Elspeth Tirel

4 Plains

1 Darksteel Axe

1 Blistergrub

2 Wing Puncture

1 Carapace Forger

1 Razorfield Thresher

1 Carrion Call

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I probably should have main decked Razorfield Thresher. I also might have wanted the Elspeth off 3 Plains over 2 Swamp and a Forest, but I was aiming to be kind of consistent and hopefully 2-1 for the top 12 and level up. Blistergrub main was just a hope and prayer my opponents would play Black and I could mise a win.

Round 14: Michael Pozgay (UBw Skies)

I lose game one to Skinrender and various tempo fliers, but games two and three I board in Wing Puncture and Blistergrub and get significantly better in the match up. I basically have all the tricks and he has nothing to blow me out. Game two he doesn't have a removal spell to stop a Wing Puncture I slow rolled till his turn to eat a Trigon of Rage counter. Game three an Untamed Might eats his Necrotic Ooze on the block and he doesn't even have Twisted Image for the trade. I end up closing it out by ripping Darksteel Sentinel to eat a Skinrender in the attack game three.

12-2

Top 8 is now the goal. Win and in. That said, this would be the 4^th time I had this come up this year and I was 0-3 to date.

Dustin has lost to Steve Sadin at this point and informs me he has a Wurmcoil Engine. Paul Rietzl has also lost to Wurmcoil Engine. The third 1-0 is GerryT.

Again, challenge accepted.

Round 15: Steve Sadin (UR Metalcraft)

I joke a bit with Steve about my record playing for GP top 8's and he informs me he is in the same boat. Time to see who can break the curse.

Game one he doesn't draw Wurmcoil Engine and I Remove his blockers while Molder Beast crashes through a Darksteel Myr for lethal. Score one for the good guys.

Game two he snap keeps and I am already wondering how I'm going to race this Mythic rare. I play a standard curve, gun down a Cetarch, and then ask him for the Engine on turn 6.

A dejected shrug later and I know I have it.

Molder Beast: 2, Mythic Artifacts: 0.

13-2

Round 16: Gerry T (WR Metalcraft)

We intentionally draw with the two best breakers. And we're in.

13-2-1

Part 4: The End Game

After some train related photos, the top 8 returns to draft. I open Steel Hellkite, shipping Volition Reins then take a Revoke Existence. I look at my third pick and start to Ponder my options before I see it:

Engulfing Slagwurm

And that's game boys. I wheel a Viridian Revel and the set up is complete. I end up taking a bunch of removal and fat through pack three, where I have only Gold Myr for ramp and a Revoke in White against a Shatter and Panic Spellbomb in Red (Gerry was on my left, so I stood a chance at getting one of these). I take Galvanic Blast over Kuldotha Phoenix to keep my mana solid and Leaden Myr over Acid Web Spider as I need to get any ramp I can. I end the pack with two more, including a 8^th pick Copper Myr.

Here is the final result:

[cardlist]

[Main]

1 Copper Myr

1 Silver Myr

1 Gold Myr

1 Leaden Myr

1 Lifesmith

1 Vulshok Replica

1 Auriok Replica

1 Tangle Angler

3 Molder Beast

2 Bellowing Tanglewurm

1 Alpha Tyrannax

1 Steel Hellkite

1 Engulfing Slagwurm

1 Galvanic Blast

1 Shatter

1 Revoke Existence

1 Tumble Magnet

1 Viridian Revel

1 Untamed Might

1 Panic Spellbomb

2 Plains

5 Mountain

10 Forest

[/Main]

[Sideboard]

1 Viridan Revel

1 Wing Puncture

1 Untamed Might

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

From this point out the official coverage does a good job of laying it out.

The one thing was that I knew 100% the card Gerard was boarding was Seize the Initiative. It was even written down on my notes sheet, contrary to their story. Gerard also could have stalled me a bit hard game three by flinging his Strider Harness at my Myr, which may have made the difference. I also kept a real loose hand there game two with no Green mana or monsters.

The finals was pretty brutal. My deck was a good limited deck, Gerry's deck was a bad block constructed one. I might have been able to put up a fight game 3 if I drew a red source, but odds are it wouldn't have mattered. Pretty sure Gerry had enough to Mindslaver even through a Shatter and Galvanic Blast, or he just would have killed me with a 9/9.

Step 5: The Aftermath

The way home wasn't nearly as wild as the way there. Pretty much everyone had passed out early on. The forces of Sleep deprivation, adrenaline, and caffeine were still at work in my body, resulting in me saying some wild things in my half-sleep. I'm not sure what "Intimidate them with double Myr Galvanizer" means, but it made sense at the time. At a later point I woke up in the passenger seat to Alex Olson belting out "Never Gonna Give You Up" and was seriously concerned I had imagined the weekend or possibly my entire life.

So, here I am. Mission accomplished. Level four for another year, won money to fund it, and most importantly have hardware to show for it. But most importantly, there's the fire. Here I am, and I'm just waiting to call my next shot.

See you in Atlanta.

Appendix A: How to Molder Draft

The pick order for the Molder Beast deck is beyond simple. Other decks have to care about all sorts of things like artifact count. Your pick order is this

1. Bombs
2. Removal
3. Myrs 1-2
4. Fatties 1-4
5. Myr 3
6. Tricks 1-2

After this you basically just fill out your curve with some random guys to stay alive until the dinosaurs come to town. More Myr and fat are also welcome up to 4 Myr and ~8 fat. Gimmick cards like Liquidmetal Coating and Viridian Revel you can usually pick up late, but if you end up with a deck that really abuses one don't feel afraid to take it early.

Tricks are pretty obvious. The best ones are Panic Spellbomb and Untamed Might. Tel-Jilad Defiance and Withstand Death are passable 23^rd cards.

You almost always want 17 lands unless you have multiple Horizon Spellbomb and a ton of Myr.

In terms of fat, most of it is interchangeable. Just be aware of making a curve.

I've been told Genesis Wave is gas in this deck. I'd believe it.

Appendix B: Props

Pam from RIW Hobbies: As always, your support is why I'm here.

DJ and Alex: Thanks for the draft strat.

GerryT: If anyone deserved the win, it's you. Based on what I read of your posts, your understanding of this draft format was miles ahead of anyone.

Donnie Noland of TNLG for booking the site: It was insane.