The night before leaving for Minnesota I decided to look to the great Michael Flores for inspiration. There was one podcast that always stuck with me ever since a friend shipped me the link about a year ago or so. It was entitled, "How to Win a PTQ" and if you have not listened to it then go hunt it down after reading this. One of the biggest take home messages from it is the idea that you should feel destined to win the event. Why even go to an event if you do not accept the fact that you are going to win it? Having this mentality allows you to reach down every match and cast away any doubts because you know that this clown sitting across from you has no right to take away your glory. It is your divine right to win. I once again relived his past, and looked to the weekend with a calm sense of confidence. The win was in the bag.

Before I go on, a brief introduction is probably in order, especially since the first article I wrote for ManaNation back in 2008 lacked one. I am a level 1 pro from Toledo, Ohio, which is very convenient for all the Detroit and Columbus events. Feel free to stop by and say hello! I started playing Friday Night Magic around the end of Ravnica block and quickly got hooked on the competitive side of the game. Back then Craig Wescoe and Tyler Mantey regularly attended events at my local shop. While I regularly lost to Craig at FNM, I became friends with him more through trading and a respect was established through our knowledge of that facet of the game. After finding success on the competitive side of the game I befriended Tyler and many others as well.

I have been playing Jund in just about every event since I realized 5 color control could not work without reflecting pool, vivid lands, and good cards in general. Some believe that there is a best deck for every tournament. While I agree with this to an extent, it is nice to have a powerful deck that can adapt to the metagame enough to almost always be the right deck for any event given the experience and foresight. For example, leading up to my victory with Jund in the Midwest Masters event in Detroit, I assumed that U/W Control and the mirror would be a large portion of the meta so in came maindeck Goblin Ruinblaster and Trace of Abundance. Those two cards led me to an impressive 5-0 record against U/W that day and again smashing Ryan Wall's U/W in the finals. While Ruinblaster would shift in and out of the maindeck, sideboard, and my 75 in general, Trace was eventually lacking and had its moment in the sun as many techy one-ofs had.

I went to Grand Prix Columbus and was crushed due to a poor deck choice; however, I was able to play in the PTQ the next day going 7-1-1 and finishing in 10^th due to bad breakers. This time I had some powerful technology in Grave Titan and Slave of Bolas in the maindeck. My ideas of the meta proved to be correct. Naya and Bant were cold to a resolved Grave Titan if I killed their Fauna Shamans. Playing Slave of Bolas on a Titan was typically devastating enough to win, especially when it reduced the impact of Destructive Force. Putrid Leech on turn 2 was still winning a lot of games. The turboland matchup was the only thing I feared because I refused to make room for any Pyroclasm effects. With the assumption that Grave Titan and removal was all I needed to bring Naya and Bant to their knees, Pyroclasm effects seemed like they only remained for Turboland so I just hoped to dodge it. Unfortunately I lost to it in round 2, which cost me good breakers for the rest of the day. At least I had a good list for the Midwest Masters 5k at Gen Con…

Playing in this 5k shed a lot of light on Jund in the metagame. I was running Rampant Growth at the time as a need for an early accelerant seemed pivotal, although it proved to be the wrong kind of accelerant as I was often not putting enough pressure on my opponents if I did not have Putrid Leech on turn two. I was not running Blightning due to it coming out in almost every matchup and my arrogant views on the U/W matchup. I had not dropped a match across 5 events against U/W, which for some reason apparently meant that I did not need a card like Blightning to get there. I went 4-3 at the Midwest Masters Gen Con event with two of my losses being to U/W. Good call. The deck seemed lacking again. It was slow, clunky, and did not seem all that powerful unless I was curving out. Jund had been good to me in the past, but you just can't live the dream every match unfortunately.

As Nationals grew closer I knew I needed to find a replacement for Rampant Growth and a way to make the UW matchup good again. I found a list that was running Lotus Cobra and it turned out to be outstanding not only in theory, but also in practice. Here is what I registered for Nationals:

[cardlist]

[Lands]

4 Raging Ravine

4 Savage Lands

4 Verdant Catacombs

3 Swamp

3 Mountain

3 Forest

3 Dragonskull Summit

1 Rootbound Crag

1 Lavaclaw Reaches

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

4 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Sprouting Thrinax

4 Putrid Leech

3 Lotus Cobra

3 Grave Titan

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Terminate

3 Slave of Bolas

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

[/Spells]

[Sideboard]

4 Obstinate Baloth

4 Duress

3 Doomblade

2 Thought Hemorrhage

2 Malakir Bloodwitch

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I could now live a new dream of power by casting Grave Titan on turn 4. I could now make U/W's Mana Leaks much worse. I now had another 2 drop creature to put pressure on my opponents. Lotus Cobra enables so much and I should have run a full set instead of the three I settled on. Any Jund player knows the pains of come into play tapped lands and everyone knows the manabase in general can be laughable. Lotus Cobra fixes everything and gives the deck much needed consistency and power. Most decks were lacking efficient removal for Cobra and still are with the exception of Jund and mono red. There was a game in testing the Jund mirror where I was on the draw and was able to Slave of Bolas my opponent's Sprouting Thrinax on turn 3. These are the kind of devastating draws the new Jund could have and I knew that I had a list that could give me a great opportunity to win the event.

Even before I came to the polished Jund list, I never really considered running anything else. I knew Wescoe was sold on U/W, but the matchups with Naya and Bant seemed questionable. Josef Welbes was telling me that their team was sold on Valakut and that it had good to reasonable matchups against everything, but that was about a week before Nationals. The idea of learning the ins and outs of a deck in a few days has never appealed to me. Jund also seemed to have pretty good matchups across the board. Turboland seemed to be dead for the most part, mono red seemed like a weak choice at best (unless your name is Anthony Eason apparently) and the current combo decks seemed to have problems with Duress, Thought Hemorrhage, Putrid Leech, and Maelstrom Pulse.

I was traveling with local ringer and tilter Ryan Chenevert who came to the dark side within days of the event. He was going to play U/W, but also feared the Fauna Shaman decks so he audibled to Jund. Unfortunately he refused to just play my list due to "not having the cards" and other logic that is kind of weak when traveling 12 hours away for a major tournament. After completing the journey we checked in to the hotel and dined at a local pizza hutch. After taking in a few beers and explaining to Ryan the full low down of how to pick up women using various cat and mouse techniques we returned to the hotel for a fairly decent night's sleep.

Round 1 pairings go up and I am paired against Yoni Skolnik running Naya. This matchup does not feature much else aside from me curving out. In game 1, I recall that there is a situation where I can swing all in and finish him with a Lightning Bolt. He holds back a single plains trying to signal Path to Exile, but I see through his bluff and kill him. In game 2 he keeps a slow hand and I finish him quickly.

My second round is against Bradley Carpenter playing Valakut. This was a matchup I was not looking forward to facing, but knew it was winnable with early pressure. Winning the roll was pretty significant as a turn 2 Leech on the play, followed by another creature turn 3 can seal the deal. Luckily I win the roll and he mulligans to five in game 2 so it is an easy 2-0 victory. He was running Sylvan Ranger, which makes his deck a lot slower and outright terrible if I have the cheap removal to pave the way for my team.

My third round matchup is against Brett Blackman with Bant. I finally take my first game loss by keeping a hand with three lands in it and never drawing the fourth for team Bloodbraid. Typical Jund…

In game two I am low on life, but cast a Grave Titan and stabilize.

For game three I have basically the dream hand against Bant: three lands with all my colors, a Bloodbraid Elf, and three removal spells. He decides to draw more lands than he desires and loses. I kill his first couple creatures and he is out of gas.

In the fourth round I finally get to play against a familiar face in Corey Baumeister. Jund decides that it wants to give me a challenge in this match as I end up keeping: Savage Lands, Dragonskull Summit, Bloodbraid Elf, Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Bolt, Grave Titan, and Garruk. Naturally I draw five and six drops instead of ever drawing my third land and he kills me with an early Vengevine.

In game two I am at four life and again stabilize with a resolved Grave Titan. There is not much he can do after that as any double block could be devastating with a single instant removal spell so we go to game three.

Game three is fairly unusual as I resolve a Grave Titan, although his board is full enough to where swinging with it is not necessarily game over. We both draw a ton of land, along with the occasional pointless Putrid Leech on my side. He has an active Fauna Shaman, but cannot take advantage of it before I can swing with the house to wipe most of his board and win.

Finishing the standard portion at 4-0 felt fantastic. Only losing the games where I could not hit land four made me confident that I was playing the most powerful deck in the room.

My first draft pod contained David Ochoa, Josh Utter-Leyton, Charles Gindy, Ben Lundquist, Anthony Eason, Korey McDuffie and Matthew Forner. Anthony Eason was feeding me and I just hoped for the best not recognizing him. I went into the draft with two preferences. My first love in m11 draft was heavy black to take advantage of Corrupt and Quag Sickness with a light splash of red or blue. More recently I was drafting more W/x or U/W aggro strategies and the latter is what I ended up going with. My first draft was the feature draft pod and you can watch the draft via the Draft Pod Viewer on Wizard's website found here: Draft Viewer.

I went 2-1 in my first draft registering this U/W aggro build:

[cardlist]

[Land]

9 Island

8 Plains

[/Land]

[Creatures]

2 War Priest of Thune

2 Stormfront Pegasus

1 White Knight

1 Blinding Mage

1 Augury Owl

2 Aether Adept

1 Wild Griffin

1 Scroll Thief

1 Cloud Elemental

1 Wall of Frost

1 Water Servant

1 Serra Angel

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Foresee

2 Condemn

2 Unsummon

2 Ice Cage

1 Negate

[/Spells]

[/cardlist]

Most of this is pretty typical to what I would want from this strategy. I have five aggressive two drops, Aether Adepts, Ice Cages and Unsummons to play the tempo game and a couple big hitters to round out the top of the curve in Serra Angel and Water Servant. However, there are some awkward cards in this list such as Wall of Frost, Negate, and Condemn. The Wall and the Condemns are control cards and therefore are a bit out of place, although there are times when Wall of Frost holds the ground so you can win through the air. Condemn is weak here because this strategy wants to win the tempo war, which means being proactive and Condemn is reactive. You do not want them to have a big creature on the board because that means you cannot get damage through. You do not want them attacking with a big creature because that means that they are not worried about the race, which means you probably are not in good shape. You also do not want them to gain four or more life because you are playing with an army of two powered creatures. Despite how poorly Condemn works here, there are certainly worse cards to round out your deck. Also, you can occasionally find great value when your opponent decides to attack with their Blinding Mage or Reassembling Skeleton when you are off to a slow start. Negate seems weak, but I am fine with it since it deals with so many bombs and potentially stops your worst enemy in Pyroclasm. This deck really wants an Inspired Charge, another Blinding Mage or Aether Adept, and a couple more flyers, but it was good enough to give me a chance to 3-0 if I got good draws.

In round five I am paired against the eventual winner in Josh Utter-Leyton (congrats!). He is playing either mono black or heavy black splashing for possibly blue. Both games were over quickly and were very similar with me curving out to win 2-0.

In round six I am paired against Anthony Eason. I curve out in game one and take it home. The next two games are rough for me as I need some gas to put him away and just cannot get there. In game two he sits there not really doing much except sitting on a Chandra's Spitfire, which is doing a pretty good job of keeping team Stromfront Pegasus from doing their job. He plays a Yavimaya Wurm, followed by Overwhelming Stampede. I am able to block enough to stay at two life, but losing my entire board is too devastating. I look to the top of my deck for an Ice Cage to buy myself a chance at coming back, but it is a Plains…

In game three I figure the game was in the bag. I have a couple two drops, an Ice Cage for the assumed Giant Spider or Chandra's Spitfire and an Aether Adept to push him back on his heels. Unfortunately he has a Spider and a way to break the cage so after getting him below ten life we stall for a while until he draws Chandra Nalaar to ping away my creatures and deal me my first loss of the tournament.

Although the loss was frustrating I knew my deck was definitely good enough to 2-1 and I looked forward to finishing the day at 6-1.

My seventh round is against Matthew Forner playing a slow B/G deck and my deck easily punishes its sluggishness 2-0. Day one had come to a wrap and I had finished with an impressive 6-1 record, sitting in third place.

Going into day two I was excited, but fairly nervous about draft. I knew I would continue to do well in constructed, but with draft there are simply a lot more variables. The pod was about half the same and half new faces. For some reason we were not the feature pod, although I suppose the number of big names in the pod had gone down. Anthony Eason was feeding me again so I figured he would have an idea about my preferences after playing and talking the previous day. Unfortunately, my second draft was pretty ugly. Signals were lacking to say the least. I first picked a Stormfront Pegasus. I was then passed a pretty weak pack with nothing in it aside from a Mystifying Maze. After pack one I had a pretty mediocre pile with about five playables and two Silvercoat Lions. I did have two copies of Foresee, which I hoped would fix whatever I was trying to put together. In pack two I opened Sun Titan and I hoped he would be the savior of my draft. The blue was cut and the red started coming, although the red was not anything special. I picked up a Pacifism, an Ancient Hellkite, and then a Wild Griffin. I grabbed a late Knight Exemplar and then the playables dried up again as I began taking Fiery Hellhounds and cards to improve my sideboard. In pack three I opened a Day of Judgment, followed by a Brittle Effigy and a Juggernaut. After the draft I saw I had Sun Titan, Ancient Hellkite, Day of Judgment, Pacifism, and not much else. I knew I had to play the two copies of Foresee to dig to my bombs and it helped that I was able to pick up a Glacial Fortress. I should have played the two copies of Elixir of Immortality in my maindeck so I could take advantage of what few good cards I had and I learned why after my match against David Ochoa.

In round 8 I am paired against Ochoa who is playing a heavy black deck splashing red. It was the typical Reassembling Skeleton deck with Viscera Seer, Necrotic Plague, Threaten, and also featured a Jinxed Idol.

In game one it goes about as well as it could have gone. The manabase holds up and allows me to play two Foresee, and Day of Judgment for good value when he goes all in. He soon concedes.

He chooses to draw and I have about as much of an aggressive start as I can. Unfortunately, I start drawing into a heavy land pocket and cannot put enough pressure on. I have to use a Brittle Effigy on something small to try to race, but then continue the flood until he stabilizes. I play an Ancient Hellkite and he is able to Threaten it and Corrupt it for exactly six. I draw Sun Titan and return a Pacifism for his newly played Howling Banshee. He plays another Threaten to get back Quag Sickness to kill the Titan. Seems good! We meet a stalemate where I have Mystifying Maze to hold back any attack he can make, but I cannot make a profitable attack because all my creatures are terrible. Eventually I draw myself out and lose.

While sideboarding it occurs to me that his deck cannot consistently deal with my bombs and therefore bringing in the two Elixir of Immortality will ensure that I can play them enough to make up for my weak creatures. His deck was fairly slow in the first two games so this plan seems perfect. Unfortunately my awkward mana rears its ugly head and his deck actually does what it's supposed to. He gets Viscera Seer rolling with Reassembling Skeleton and I have to waste a Lightning Bolt on the Seer to slow him down. He then finds Jinxed Idol and I am too far behind to deal with the damage.

In round nine I am again paired against Anthony Eason. After my first encounter with him I feel a bit slighted so I put myself in the mindset to accept sweet vengeance. Unfortunately, he has a very aggressive R/W deck which is awkward because he was feeding me and the only colors I saw for the most part were red and white. Secondly, it is rather unfortunate because the last thing my deck can deal with is consistent early threats. Game one involves him winning the roll and leading with a Stormfront Pegasus followed by more pressure that I cannot deal with.

For game two I bring in the Elixirs to deal with his bears and to hopefully recycle Day of Judgment. He goes all in and I play Foresee to find the Day I need to wipe the board. I play Elixir a couple times and it's over.

For game three I have a Sun Titan that I unfortunately cannot cast on turn 6 because I know I will die if I do. I play a Pacifism on his Serra Angel, but he has a War Priest to take it out. I cannot not find the Day and he enchants War Priest with Armored Ascension to kill me before flashing me the second Serra Angel in his hand. Still had all these!

Now I knew I was working with a pretty bad deck, but certainly the bombs I had were good enough to give me a 1-2 finish. I was paired against Charles Gindy in round ten and said something along the lines of, "that figures".

In game one I keep a hand with awkward mana and pay the price.

For game two the Elixirs come in for reasons similar to those of the Ochoa match. Gindy gets to see Hellkite, Sun Titan, and Day twice so he loses.

Game three was pretty interesting. He is able to play a Pacifism on my Sun Titan and gets an Angelic Arbiter on the board. I have Mystifying Maze active so we reach a stalemate. He adds an Air Servant to the board to deal with my freshly played Ancient Hellkite. He is then able to tap Hellkite, and get through with the non Mazed flyer. He can kill me next turn if I cannot kill him and I Bolt his Air Servant in response to his attack. He plays a Safe Passage, but then only has 5 mana left to tap Hellkite down and die to my Vulshok Berserker and Stormfront Pegasus.

My second standard portion starts poorly as my manabase finally costs me a match and the top 8, losing to Brandon Ayers playing Naya. Game one features about as good of a four card mulligan as Jund can ask for: Lightning Bolt, Putrid Leech, Savage Lands and another land. I am able to kill his first two creatures, but he plays a Vengevine and Realm Razor to end my misery.

In game two I am able to keep a reasonable hand. Unfortunately I only have one black source which he is able to keep tapped when he plays Ajani Vengeant. I have a Thrinax, Maelstrom Pulse, and two Bloodbraid Elves stranded in my hand and never even draw a fifth land to attempt to live the dream off Bloodbraid. My lands are then blown up and I take my first loss in constructed, which also knocks me out of top 8 contention. I refocus and prepare myself to win some money.

In round twelve I finally get paired against Jund, piloted by David Saylor who boasts that he has yet to lose a single game with his Eldrazi Monument version of Jund.

Game one he is brought back down to earth after he mulligans down to six. I attack with my Thrinax into his Thrinax and he does not block much to my surprise. He probably regrets this decision after I draw Slave of Bolas and recruit his Thrinax to bash him and gain three saprolings. A Grave Titan on turn six finishes him off.

In game two he brings in Duress and casts it on turn one taking my Slave of Bolas. I drop a turn two Leech, turn three Thrinax, and draw into two more Slave of Bolas to take the match.

Richard Douglas was my thirteenth round opponent playing U/R Runeflare Trap, which was a matchup I did not playtest too much. I figured Ascension was just a much better deck. What I did know was that the R/W version of Runeflare Trap could be problematic given a nice draw and I assumed the blue version would be similar.

Luckily I win the roll and everything appears to be in hand until he kind of shrugs on his turn and shows me the nuts.

In game two I have basically everything I could desire with a turn two Leech, a couple Duress and a Maelstrom Pulse.

Game three is similar. I play Duress and see double Twincast, double Runeflare Trap, and a Permafrost Trap. I have already Maelstrom Pulsed his Howling Mine so the Traps and Twincasts are dead unless he draws more Mine effects. I take the Permafrost trap as it is currently serving as a Time Warp and he never draws any way to make his hand worthwhile.

For the final round I am paired against Harrison Greenberg who also happens to be playing R/U Runeflare Trap. After the last round I am pretty confident after I win the roll and realize what he is playing.

In game one I lead off with a turn two Leech, which is just too much to deal with.

Game two is much more of a game and he is at three life. I have a Savage Lands untapped when he plays a Time Warp. He has us drawing three cards a turn and when he finally passes he plays a Runeflare Trap during my draw step after I draw. I am at 11 with 11 cards in hand so I play the Lightning Bolt in my hand. He plays Twincast targeting the Runeflare Trap, which I let resolve to take me to one; however, he has another Runeflare Trap to take the game. I had Duressed him the turn before he drew the second Howling Mine, but he evidently drew what he needed.

In game three I draw two or three Duress to hit the relevant spells in his hand, paving the way for team Leech and Thrinax.

With that I move up to 9th on fantastic breakers, but the cut is clean. To throw another 9th place finish on my resume is bittersweet, but $500 and two pro points were certainly nice. The fire has grown and I cannot wait to play in Grand Prix Toronto and Nashville. Without a doubt, I will be there knowing that they are both mine to win.

Aaron Wilburn