It’s Friday, I have a PTQ to play tomorrow, I have no deck, and I have played zero games of Modern. It seems that a lot of my tournament reports have been starting out like this lately, but such is the life of a student. That week was particularly stressful, as I had two midterms, a take-home exam (don’t ask), and an assignment. On top of the workload, I was coming down with a cold, so I had absolutely no time to prepare. Luckily, I’ve been playing Magic long enough that I have a rather large network of contacts from whom to draw upon, and this time, it was Sam Tharmaratnam who came to the rescue. He shipped me the following list:

"R/W/U Modern Tempo"

• Creatures (13)
• 2 Restoration Angel
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 3 Vendilion Clique
• 4 Geist of Saint Traft

• Spells (22)
• 2 Izzet Charm
• 2 Lightning Helix
• 2 Mana Leak
• 4 Electrolyze
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Path to Exile
• 4 Remand

• Lands (25)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 1 Moorland Haunt
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Steam Vents
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Eiganjo Castle

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Negate
• 2 Runed Halo
• 1 Stony Silence
• 2 Threads of Disloyalty
• 2 Phantasmal Image

Buy This Deck

It’s fairly similar to Michael Hetrick’s (better known as shipitholla on Magic Online) list with a few changes. This is actually a deck I’m reasonably comfortable playing without any practice. It suits my style, and I’ve played a lot of Fish-style aggro-control decks in my day. Most of the cards are fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll run through some of the more important ones:

Geist of Saint Traft

If I had to pick one card that makes this deck work, it would be this one. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this deck’s entire game plan is to protect Geist at all costs. I’d even say that most of the games I lost were because I didn’t draw this card. It’s that good.

Celestial Colonnade

The W/U man land really shines in this deck. When combined with Geist of Saint Traft, you can close out games very quickly once you gain control. I pretty much always want one in my opening hand and would never play fewer than four.

Runed Halo

I wasn’t super-impressed with this card, but it definitely has its uses. It comes in for a variety of matchups, but it is probably best against decks that try to win with Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. As Hetrick pointed out in his videos, you can name Deceiver Exarch since it’s a lot easier for you to remove a Pestermite is. That makes it fairly difficult for the opponent to win, but you shouldn’t rely on it too much. You still need to put pressure on him or else he has all the time in the world to find an answer.

Stony Silence

This is something of a concession to the Eggs deck, though it also comes in against Affinity and Birthing Pod decks. You never want this in multiples, though I feel that one isn’t enough to draw it consistently.

Phantasmal Image

Jund decks are starting to play Thrun, the Last Troll, which is actually a giant beating against this deck. What applied to Standard last year still applies now, so Phantasmal Image is a highly efficient answer. It’s also pretty good in the mirror when you’re trying to win Geist fights.

There was a decent chance my PTQ was going to be doomed from the start since there was a little thing called Winter Storm Nemo going on at the time. My parents strongly suggested that I skip this one, but I wasn’t going to let a little snow get in the way of slinging some cardboard crack. Luckily, my buddy Jesse was driving us in his luxurious Toyota Tundra, and like true Canadians, we hit the highway Friday night in the middle of a blizzard.

• I’m sick.
• I’m on no sleep.
• I’ve done hardly any playtesting.
• I know hardly anything about this format.

This should go well.

Any day I start with IHOP is a good day, though, and start my morning with delicious pancakes and bottomless coffee I did. It’s been a while since I PTQ’d at Pandemonium Games, and I was instantly reminded of how much better run their PTQs are than ours. It’s the little things that make a big difference, like complementary score pads and pens. A cheaper entry fee and better prize support certainly helps, too. I didn’t take super-detailed notes, but here’s the round-by-round as I remember it:

Round 1 vs. Jacob Hutchinson with R/W/U

Game 2, I started things off with a mulligan, but my six-card hand had a two Geists, so I couldn’t really lose. Game 3 gave me multiple Remands, which drew me into Geists, and I was able to overwhelm my opponent with Angel tokens and a Colonnade.

Round 2 vs. Matt Karczewski with R/G Tron

Round 3 vs. Gary Zogopoulos W/U Merfolk

Well, that’s pretty much what happened, although I did lose Game 1. I burned away all of his Lords, and the rest of his deck was fairly unimpressive. Electrolyze was an all-star here, and the post-board Threads of Disloyalty and Engineered Explosives really put the game away.

Round 4 vs. Morgan McLaughlin with Birthing Pod

DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!

To make matters worse for him, he paid enough life to his Birthing Pod that my attack from Geist of Saint Traft and Celestial Colonnade was lethal.

In Game 2, I may have played a little too aggressively. I tapped out for a Geist of Saint Traft and promptly died. This is where my lack of familiarity with his deck really hurt me since I had no idea when I was safe and when I had to hold back.

For Game 3, I boarded all of my counters back in and played a tempo game with him. I drew multiple Remands to keep him on the back foot, and some timely Path to Exiles let me force damage through. I also had a backbreaking Mana Leak on his Restoration Angel, and the combination of my 4-power flyers and burn spells successfully put him away.

Round 5 vs. Chris Weidinger with W/U Merfolk

This went pretty much the same way as the previous W/U Merfolk matchup did. I killed all of his creatures and eventually put him away with some combination of Geist of Saint Traft and Celestial Colonnade.

All right! One more win, and I can comfortably draw into Top 8.

Round 6 vs. Mark Sun with R/W/U Geist

Game 3, he took a mulligan to four cards. Normally, this is good for me, but I had a hand full of burn spells and no real way to take advantage of him not doing anything early. I made a mistake here that cost me the match: He played a Sowing Salt on my only red source. What I should have done was cast a Lightning Helix in response to his dome. My thinking at the time was that this was an attrition-based match and that I shouldn’t waste cards. I was bound to draw another red source soon. Well, I didn’t for a while, and the last turn came down to me being 3 damage short of killing him and dying for exact damage to his Celestial Colonnade.

I feel that I made a good judgment call based on the information I had at the time—it just blew up in my face in the worst possible way. It’s not often I lose to a mull to four, so I have to give props to Mark for not giving up.

Round 7 vs. Zee Babar with R/U/G Splinter Twin

My opponent did make some questionable plays during the match that I was able to take advantage of. In the deciding game, he played a Splinter Twin on a Pestermite that had summoning sickness. I informed him that he didn’t have two red sources, and he was forced to retap his mana and tap one of his two Deathrite Shamans. On my turn, I attacked with Geist of Saint Traft, and he chump-blocked with his other Deathrite Shaman. This cleared the way for my Lightning Helix on his Pestermite, as he no longer had the mana to play his Negate.

Standings

After looking at the standings, I was fairly confident I could draw into Top 8, as I had the second-highest tiebreakers of the 18-pointers. My opponent in the last round was Christian Ladoucer, a player from Windsor I’ve met on a few occasions and even teamed with at a Toronto Trios tournament. He took me up on the offer to draw even though he wasn’t necessarily guaranteed to make the cut. I’d feel like a scumbag if I made it and he didn’t, but the onus is really on him to figure out if he can safely draw or not. It all worked out, though, as I finished in seventh and he in eighth. The Top 8 was pretty sweet, actually, as half of it was Canadian players. Other than Christian and I, Morgan and Jesse also made it in. One of us had to take it down . . . FOR THE MOTHERLAND.

Quarterfinals vs. Stephen Rakovich with Affinity

For Game 2, I came up with the hilarious sideboard plan of bringing in Stony Silence and a bunch of artifacts. That may seem insane, but the way I see it, he can’t win with a Stony Silence in play unless he already has a Cranial Plating equipped or has a massive threat in play, in which case I’m not going to play it. Batterskull is still fine as a 4/4 lifelinker even with a Stony Silence in play. I ended up not drawing it, but Engineered Explosives did a pretty darn good job of cleaning up his board. We had a bit of a staring contest in which I didn’t want to trade my Geist of Saint Traft for his Ethersworn Canonist, but I eventually drew a burn spell to start the beatdown.

Jesse lost his match against R/G Tron, but the rest of us Canucks made it through to the semis.

Semifinals vs. Morgan McLaughlin with Birthing Pod

The next two games didn’t go quite as well, however. Morgan sided in a bunch of beefy dudes like Thrun, the Last Troll and Obstinate Baloth. That made things very awkward for me, as I was more focused on stopping his combo and wasn’t equipped to fight on this angle. I think I missideboarded for Game 3, as I once again had a hard time dealing with his army of 4/4s. I boarded back into my counterspell suite, but I should have left Negate in the sideboard. I thought that his Thrun was a one-of, so I didn’t bring in my Phantasmal Images, and that proved to be a mistake. I did my best to race, but a Zealous Conscripts combined with a Deceiver Exarch to tap my blocker did me in on the last turn. Again, my lack of familiarity with his deck really came back to bite me. I feel that I could have won if I had been better prepared.

The R/G Tron player proved to be our nemesis, as he took out Christian in the semis and then Morgan in the finals.

Wrapping Up

All things considered, I had a pretty solid finish, and I definitely performed above my expectations. I still have some other PTQs in my area I’m planning on attending, so don’t count me out of Pro Tour: San Diego just yet.

Aside: Can I just say once again that the prize support at Pandemonium is awesome? I mean, LOOK at all this swag!

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.

Nassim Ketita

arcticninja on Magic Online

http://www.youtube.com/nketita