There are people that say "those who can't do teach." At the PTQ I walked away feeling that was the case. It was the worst performance I've ever had at ANY level. But if it makes for a good story so keep reading.

Before I go too much farther I would like to point out that many writers wouldn't be sharing this type of information with you. It's easy to sit down and write about how good you did and how awesome your deck worked. It's a completely different story to open your self to public humiliation by sharing your downfalls and shortcomings.

It all begins with my last article. In it I shared my propensity for jumping decks and my normal lack of commitment to a central idea. I feel it helps me present you with more ideas but I'll never develop a "tight" list. Not 10 minutes after sending that piece into Trick I was already playing with a new idea. If I could have found 3 cards that morning I would have switched. No kidding. Crazily enough there was like 3 other players scrambling for the same card and the dealer unable to produce the dollar rare fast enough. So in the end I stayed with the list that I posted last week.

Morning of

I'm so nervous that I wake up 15 minutes early thinking that I missed my alarm. So I sneak around my house so as to not wake my wife or kids and hit the road early. On my way to Wichita I see two cars total, so I make good time and get there extremely early. In fact I was the first one there. The next to show was the card dealer who I then asked about the dollar rare and he said once we get set up I was welcome to look through his stuff.

Then the long wait for the doors to be opened. The registration was supposed to be between 9 and 10 but the doors didn't open until around 9:10. By the time the dealer set up there was already a group of guys digging for the new tech and very little time to find it. This is not how I would personally run things. The dealer should have been able to set up upon arrival and myself as the early bird should have found the worms. But I just took it as a sign that I should stay with my list.

Even though he showed up late Tournament Director still required all slips in by 10. One guy almost missed it even though all of his buddies are reminding him that time was up. With every one finally in it turns out there are only 63 players. I'm personally shocked. With all record attendance numbers being reported everywhere else and a good weather day for local travel there should have been nearly twice that number. It really concerns me for the future. If Wizards decides that it's limited number of PTQ's would be better served elsewhere it gives me one less chance of having a local tourney on a day that I am actually free to go.

Round One – Vs. Kenneth Castor running Dredge

Game 1: This game isn't fair. I win the roll and he mulls to 6. After the game he admitted he should have mulled to 5. All I really see out of him is a hardcast Narcomeoba and a Stinkweed Imp.

Game 2: I had a really strong start but stall out to his Imps. He does multiple fetch lands and Life of the Loam interactions. In the mid game I have him at 6 with a Tribal Flames in hand but no way to get the extra point of damage. I was wanting him to fetch again but he was smarter than that. I have like 5 turns to hit a Bolt, Helix or even a Dead//Gone to remove a blocker for the win but hit nothing. At the end I hit a Glittering Wish right after he hard cast a Golgari Grave-Troll with 6 tokens. So I get Crime//Punishment and bring his Imp into my control figuring to block the Troll with it. Next turn he attacks with everything which would leave me at one life if I don't block. If I do block the Troll can regenerate but it buys me another turn to hit a burn spell. But I had an idea. If I take the hit I'll have two attackers next turn (one of them flying). I know he has a third Imp in hand but I take the chance that he doesn't have another blocker figuring that on my turn I could swing, get in for 1, and then finish him with Tribal Flames. He plays two Imps!! All four Imps on the table together, what are the odds of that?

Game 3: Not much to tell about this game. He goes like Dredge goes. I do top deck a Glittering Wish when he has like 18 Zombie tokens. If I would have fetched right mana on turn two I could have Wished for Crime//Punishment and destroyed all Tokens leaving him with a 4/4 First Strike and me with a 5/6 Goyf. So that was a play mistake on my part. I didn't have a Wish in hand but I should have fetched a Godless Shrine instead of Hallowed Fountain. Two of my prime Dredge Wish targets are Jund Charm and Crime//Punishment. Wheel of Sun and Moon was playable either way.

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Round 2: Vs Dark Depths with Jace

Game 1: Early turns include two Loam Lions. When he transmutes for Engineered Explosives I hold back my 'Goyf. After he nets two lions I play Goyf and finish with burn.

Game 2: After boarding and shuffling I present for cut. He power stacks and finds 61 cards in my deck. I had messed up and place one more in than I took out. He calls the judge and it's a game loss. I'm still pretty bitter about this call. Hopefully you can learn from this as well. I am honestly half way tempted to build a 61 deck for my next PTQ just to throw off people that do this sort of thing.

Game 3: As normal I get some hits in before he can get some removal going. I actually go on a creatureless drought so he has a hand full of removal waiting for anything I drop. At one point he plays a Hexmage without a Depths in play for no reason. I figured he must have a back up in hand so I remove the Hexmage in play and Wish for Thought Hemorrhage declaring Hexmage. He shows none in hand!? If I had been able to net 3 damage from Hemorrhage I would have won the game. Eventually he is able to go Ultimate with a Jace to get rid of a Path that he knew I had via Thoughtsieze and slow rolled a 20/20 for the win. I had like 5 turns where he was tapped out and a simple burn spell would have won the game but my deck failed to present me with one.

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Round 3: Vs. Daniel Saunders running UG Scapeshift

Game 1: First let me comment how much of a relief it was to play a friendly opponent. After facing the ultimate in UNCOOL last round Daniel was a much needed relief. As for the actual game I keep a removal heavy hand with a Wild Nacatl. That is rather lame for the Scapeshift matchup but I didn't know what he was playing at time of mulligan decision. (Unlike some other players who will watch you shuffle to attempt to garner hints from your bottom card.) I get through for some but have mana issues at two land. He gets to 7 land with me at 16 him at 13. In my hand I have Bolt, Bolt, Helix, and Tribal Flames with 4 land types. If you do the math I have him via burn so I say go. He Scapeshifts dealing 18. I Helix to go to 19 him at 10. Scapeshift resolves and I'm at 1. I plan on Bolt at end of turn then Tribal and Bolt on my turn for the win. He uses his floating mana and the land he still hadn't played to Scapeshift again. Double Scape, bummer.

Game 2: He gets chump blockers and 7 land on turn 4. Probably the "God" hand for UG Scapeshift. GG.

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Afterward we horse around with some Standard. I break out KAC, the Kor Firewalker, White Ally, Chain Reaction deck I wrote about a few weeks ago. He plays a Polymorph deck. In both games I win around a Progenitus on the field. A swarm of Allies with life gain and an Earthquake finisher can beat the big bad wolf.

Round 4: Vs. Chris Bruns running Blood Moon Zoo

Game 1: This game is a blow out as he hits Blood Moon on the play on turn 3. I got a Goyf in since I had one Forest but Bloodbraid cascaded a Temporal Isolation on it. I hold him off with some burn and we both draw into a hand of dead cards with our mana bases but he eventually wins with little to no contest from me.

Game 2: This one plays like the Zoo mirror normally does. We each try to make our critters stick while the other removes them. He eventually sticks a Walletslayer out of his sideboard on wins. I really like his list and write it down after the match.

[cardlist]4 Tarmogoyf

4 Bloodbraid Elf

2 Temporal Isolation

2 Lightning Helix

3 Blood Moon

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Noble Hierarch

2 Qasali Pridemage

4 Boom/Bust[/cardlist]

0-4

Round 5: Hit a Bye. Yah me a win!

During the round I play a guy who dropped earlier but had nothing to do since no side drafts occurred. That's right NO DRAFTS. What is the point of going to a tourney and not playing? So many people dropped and yet no one drafted or anything. In fact only 2 signed up for the draft pods. Any way he is running the Hulk got Crabs list that was written about on Mananation a couple weeks ago. We only play one game though since he left in a hurry. What happened was he almost drew the nuts turn one win on the play. Instead he plays Ponder and says go. I have Path to Exile in hand and play a Temple Garden untapped. He should have not gone for the combo but still went for it. I just Pathed his Hulk. He scooped, muttered something about hating this game and left.

Walking around the tables I saw quite of few interesting things.

1. Almost half the players are gone. Maybe this explains the lack of attendance. If you love the game you play whenever you can. Sure you're not getting a Blue Envelope but still you play the game. My round 2 opponent is still there though he dropped at 2-2 or maybe even 1-2. There are a few people milling around like him. That's even worse. You drop but you have nothing better to do. Why drop then? I would understand if you had other commitments but really is your ego so frail that can't take a potential lose? If you carpooled then why not stay in until everyone drops?
2. Another guy at the tourney is running a Glittering Wish deck. Only instead of a Zoo shell around it he ran a Junk package. If you are unfamiliar with the Junk deck it's a GWB build using the GW for creatures like Knight and Finks and using the Black for a removal package including a very versatile Maelstrom Pulse. Most drop a Doran as well. In his build the Wish serves as extra copies of the multiple Gold cards that could be main as well as other options like I used. I was going to get the list from him but didn't see him after the game.
3. One of the guys grabbing the dollar rare I wanted earlier that day wins a game by Scapeshifting a Valakut and 5 mountains into play. His opponent calls the Judge over. The Judge actually confirms the loss. As they are scooping I look to make sure I was seeing things right. Only 5 mountains means no Valakut trigger. Yes they all see each other coming in play but Valakut says 5 OTHER mountains so you actually need 6. He can now draw into the top 8 on bad Judging and bad play. I can only think to myself that I should have had that list...
4. The dealer that is there is pretty generous with his trades. I was able to recoup the entry fee and gas costs by dropping a handful of cards I don't plan on playing unless their reprinted.

Round 6: Final Round VS. Shane Miears playing All In Red

Game 1: He wins the roll and drops Blood Moon right off. Normally this would be crippling but I have Forest and Plains in hand with a Qasali Pridemage to boot. Finally some luck goes my way. I actually do most of my damage with double Pridemages. At the end he gets to play a Deus of Calamity but I blow up his Blood Moon and use my fetch lands to play Tribal Flames for near lethal. If he swings his Deus I get in for lethal with a Pridemage that I have left. A Bolt actually finishes the game though as he wisely doesn't attack.

Game 2: He generates 6 Goblin Tokens to my lone Nacatl. A Dead//Gone and a Bolt make the combat Math swing my way so he holds back for blockers planning to extend into a Deus or Demigod. I get to Wish for a Rhox War Monk and he does all he can to keep the Lifelink from triggering. He does have 1 turn where I'm at 5 and he can top deck Demigod for the win. I had Path in hand but was tapped out of white to cast a Baneslayer Angel which he bounced back to my hand via Dead/Gone. The "Heart of the Cards" isn't there for him though. Next turn Slayer sticks and I win with the power Angel with an Exalted Bonus.

2-5

Any way there's the story. It's a sad one for our Hero but there it is. Please don't bash to hard in the Comments. I don't know if I could take it.

Class is dismissed. I'm too depressed to give any Homework this week.

Mtgxman on Twitter.