So my car decides to break down on my way to the airport which was very nerve wracking. I thought to myself, "Maybe this is a sign to not go." But quickly got rid of that idea, I was able contact a very good play testing buddy of mine, Jonathan Suarez and he was able to send his roommate Valarie to come and get me. No more than fifteen minutes later I was on my way to the airport and my father was coming to get my car. So I would like to thank my younger brother Amer for staying with my car, Suarez for calling Valarie, Valarie for being a super hero, my Father and Uncle for getting my car, and the Faith, the girlfriend for keeping me positive! Thank you so much everyone I don't know where I would be without you!

I am able to make my flight on time to DC then from DC I flew to Amsterdam. Long flights really suck but I was lucky enough to be sitting with Chris, who was a fellow magic player that also qualified for the Pro Tour. During our flight we play tested a bit, he was playing Doran and I was playing R/G aggro shift. Surprisingly I was winning a lot of game ones because I could just stall with my creatures then cast a lethal Scapeshift down the road. Games two's were a little rougher since he had Duress and Leyline of Sanctity, but I was still favored overall. I also threw my Mirror Sheen deck against Doran and the games were a little rough but not too bad.

I arrive in Amsterdam on Thursday Sept 2^nd at seven a.m. luckily I had a good friend of mine picking me up from there. David Sykes had already gotten us a hotel and knew how to navigate the trains. After we get off the train David warns me about cyclists and how they will run you over. Not ten minutes later I get hit by a bike because I was apparently in the bicycle lane. Amsterdam, the only place where a cyclist can kill you.

After dropping our stuff off at a super fancy hotel we get a taxi to the convention center. I get the cards I need for my deck with some help from Jeph Foster and David goes to play in the LCQ event. I register for the PT and then have a hard time deciding what I wanted to play. I thought R/G Shift was a very solid choice since it had been doing well on modo and crushed fae, but I really wanted to play the rogue Mirror Sheen/Time Warp deck. In the end I opted to play the R/G Shift deck since almost everyone bashed the rogue deck. Here is the list I played at the PT.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Kitchen Finks

4 Bloodbraid Elf

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Search for Tomorrow

4 Punishing Fire

4 Rampant Growth

3 Volcanic Fallout

3 Harmonize

4 Scapeshift

[/Spells]

[Lands]

2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

4 Grove of the Burnwillows

3 Treetop Village

10 Mountain

1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

2 Forest

4 Fire-Lit Thicket

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Thought Hemorrhage

2 Primeval Titan

3 Great Sable Stag

1 Volcanic Fallout

4 Relic of Progenitus

1 Swamp

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I knew Fae would be a bye and I expected a lot of R/G shift since it was so solid. So my sideboard consisted of the fourth Thought Hemorrhage and two Primeval Titans to act as Scapeshift five and six. They also allowed me to win with Valakut even if my opponent Thought Hemorrhaged me. I decided against artifact/enchantment removal since Scapeshift isn't totally dead even if they have Leyline of Sanctity out, because you can still shift for three Treetop Villages or against aggro you could still fetch Valakuts and destroy all their creatures. So after David sadly lost in the LCQ we went back to the hotel for some food and rest.

Our hotel had free breakfast so we got up really early for that then headed to the convention center. Things got quickly underway and I find myself seated against Nick playing some rogue 5-color punishing fire control.

Round 1 Nick Playing 5-color Punishing Fire

I am on the play but he resolves a spell first which is a Prismatic Lens. I cast a turn three Kitchen Finks and he plays a land then ships the turn back. I cast Bloodbraid Elf which hits a Kitchen Finks then I swing. He Condemns my elf and goes down to sixteen. On his turn he casts Ruined Halo naming Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Great main deck Ruined Halo is just what I wanted to see! I swing with both my Kitchen Finks and one gets Condemned and he goes to 11. I pass the turn back after playing a Grove of the Burnwillows since I have Punishing Fire in my hand. On his turn he casts a Story Circle naming Green. So I cast Punishing Fire targeting him. At the end of turn I then use Groves to try and return Punishing Fire to my hand; he responds by tapping one of his vivid lands removing a counter and casting Extirpate on my Punishing Fire. So main deck Ruined Halo and Extirpates what a nightmare. On my turn I Scapeshift for man lands even though it probably won't matter since he has Story Circle out. On his turn he plays another Ruined Halo naming Treetop Village. I am ready to scoop at this point since there is no way I can win. So I ask him how he wins, he says just with Punishing Fire. I wait a little longer to make sure that is how he wins and it was.

I bring in Thought Hemorrhages and take out my Fallouts and some Finks.

Game two I am on the play and keep a not so aggressive hand because I have Thought Hemorrhage in hand. I am able to resolve it on turn four and name Punishing Fire. I get all his fires out and proceed to make sure he didn't bring in any other win conditions like Oona, Queen of the Fae or Sphinx of jwar Isle. He did not so I expected an early concession, but that did not happen. He ended up getting Leyline of Sanctity out along with Story Circle on Green and Ruined Halo on Punishing Fire. He then casts his own Thought Hemmorrage naming Krosan Grip he sees that I have none and we play the draw go game. When he casts Careful Consideration targeting me is when I scoop. I don't think I could've faced a worse matchup and I didn't even know his deck existed. Which it didn't since it was rogue but what made matters worse was that I know I most likely would've won if I had played the Mirror Sheen deck. Oh well I was off to a bad start but tried to stay positive.

0-1

Round 2 George Playing R/G Aggro

He is on the play and doesn't do anything for the first two turns. On my turn two I cast a Tarmogoyf which I should not have. It gets Punishing Fired at EoT. He plays Figure of Destiny then I proceed to kill it with a Bloodbraid Elf that hits a Volcanic Fallout. He then Plays Bloodbraid Elf into Boggart Ram-Gang and puts me at twelve; after combat he suspends a Rift Bolt. I draw for my turn and hard cast Search for Tomorrow followed by a Rampant Growth. I will be able to Scapeshift for Lethal next turn so I ship the turn back. He Rift Bolts my elf and follows it up with another Boggart Ram-Gang and puts me at three. He taps one red mana and I am ready to scoop, but thankfully he just suspends a Rift Bolt and I am able to kill him on my turn.

I'm pretty sure he is not running Scapeshift so I leave my Thought Hemorrhages in the board but bring in two Primeval Titans.

We both Mulligan our hand but he starts to bum rush me with turn one Goblin Guide. He then plays a turn two Goyf that is 0/1 and I get to Punishing Fire it this time. He plays figure on his turn and I play a Tarmogyf. During his main Phase he is forced to Punishing Fire and Lightning Bolt my Goyf to get it out of the way and bashes me. At this point in the game I am forced to tap out for Harmonize to search for some answers, but I only find a Kitchen Finks which wasn't enough to pull it out. I die to his animals.

This last game ends fast; I start off with a suspended Search for Tomorrow follow it up by Rampant Growth. On my Third Turn I cast double Rampant Growth which allows me to cast a Primeval Titan on turn four that put him out of the game very quickly.

1-1

Round 3 player playing R/G Scapeshift

I win the die roll and start things off with turn two Rampant Growth and all he has is a turn two suspend - Search for Tomorrow. I am able to start the beat down with Kitchen Finks, but he stops me cold with Punishing Fire. I keep drawing my basic lands and that is all I have in play I can't draw many more mountains here otherwise my Scapeshift won't be lethal. I am able to get him down to nine and he casts a Fulminator Mage which can't target any of my lands since all I have drawn is basics. I cast Scapeshift and am able to dig for four mountains to kill him.

I bring in Thought Hemorrhage and Primeval Titans.

I am able to suspend two Search for Tomorrows while he misses a land drop. So I cast a Thought Hemorrhage naming Thought Hemorrhage since I am so far ahead of him landwise. He has one in his hand and I remove the other two in his deck. He gets a Fulminator Mage on the field and passes the turn back to me. I have a Scapeshift in hand and figure I might as well cast it so I could make my goyf bigger –since that would add creature and land to the graveyard. So I cast Scapeshift with seven lands out and he just concedes without blowing up my nonbasic land. After the game I mention this to him and he looks puzzled but says he saw it and that I was too far ahead so it didn't matter. Even if I was ahead I still think he should've killed one of my lands that still would've given him a chance.

2-1

Round four Chris playing Doran

I am playing Chris the guy I meet during the flight over to Amstedam. I feel pretty comfortable since in testing I was doing pretty well against him. He is on the play and has a turn two Bitterblossom. On my turn two I decide to play Tarmogy as a 0/1 since he only has one card in his whole deck that could kill it –Nameless Inversion. On his turn he draws a card and proceeds to cast said one of Nameless Inversion. I try to stall with some Kitchen Finks and more goyfs, but he soon gets Doran out and his own goyfs while attacking me with his tokens. On my Turn I play another Kitchen Finks to keep my life high so that the following turn I can cast Scapeshift for the win. Sadly that is not to be, Chris has his other one of in the deck - Profane Command which domes me for three and gives his Doran, the Siege Tower and two goyfs fear.

Game two is normally how I assumed the match would play out. He plays creatures and I play creatures to block, gain life, and stall until I can cast a Scapeshift for the win.

Game three I keep a sketchy hand with no creatures but a lot of ramp and Scapeshift. He starts things off with a Thoughtseize followed by Duress and Thoughtseize the following turn stripping me out of my mana accel. I draw no creatures and he kills me with his monsters in three turns.

2-2

Round 5 vs Ryan playing RUG Scapeshift

We get deck checked and Ryan receives a game loss for not having a card in his sideboard instead it was in his main deck. We both start things off with Search for Tomorrow. I have a turn three Bloobraid Elf that hits a Punishing Fire. All the while Ryan just casts Ponder, Preordains, and some ramp spells. I get Ryan down to twelve and will put him at six at the end of his turn thanks to Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows. This will let me finish him off during my turn, but Ryan has Prismatic Omen Scapeshift to deal me way too much damage to me.

I bring in some Thought Hemorrhages for Volcanic Fallout and Kitchen Finks since life won't really matter this game.

Game two I cast some ramp spells while he digs through his deck always leaving two mana open. He gets an early Prismatic Omen down and I am forced to cast Thought Hemorrhage in order not to die to Scapeshift, but he has the counter for it and kills me with Scapeshift. I got a question for the readers; if you could've resolved Thought Hemorrhage against this deck early on what would you name? Post in the comment section.

2-3

It was time for some draft, I went into this feeling not very confident but I managed to come out with a pretty sick deck in my opinion.

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Greater Basilisk

2 Siege Mastodon

2 Sylvan Ranger

2 Garruk's Packleader

1 Serra Angel

1 Mitotic Slime

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Ice Cage

2 Pacifism

1 Call to Mind

1 Assassinate

2 Doom Blade

1 Plummet

1 Condemn

1 Cultivate

1 Combust

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Terramorphic Expanse

2 Rootbound Crag

7 Forest

4 Plains

1 Island

1 Mountain

2 Swamp

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

I really feel as though this deck would've been a 3-0 deck if I could've gotten some more big creatures, but I never saw any wurms come around. Nonetheless I was happy with this deck.

Round 6 Mark playing B/W

I never got manascrewed this match but I did get mana flooded. I end up stopping all his creatures until he resolves a Whispersilk Cloak then he is finally able to get around all my removal spells and beat me down.

Game two I bring in Celestial Purge and Naturalize for his equipments since I saw the cloak and the axe. I take out a couple of lands since I had so many game one. This game the same thing happens though I draw way to many land and am able to stall with my removal until he double Duress's me. I finally draw a packleader but end up dying to his double flying Liliana's Specter. My next card was a Serra Angel into a Celestial Purge which would have easily put me back in the game since he had no hand.

Even though I did not do so well at the Pro Tour I still enjoyed myself at Amsterdam. We walked around a lot, had the best Pro Tour party I've ever seen, and played some tournament EDH with all sorts of people.

By the way I think the new Elspeth will be very good, but Venser on the other hand you will have to build around. He costs five for one thing and doesn't protect himself like all the other played Planeswalkers. He also doesn't really fit in U/W Control - at best he will draw you a card from Wall of Omens, unatp a land for you, or make your Sun Titan and Celestial Colonnade unblockable; I just Prefer Gideon Jura over him in U/W. I will work with him though on extended for Merefolk and Menmoic Wall + Time Warp. Who knows we may get enough creatures with a come into play ability to see him get busted in Standard.

Also I got a lot of request for what the Mirror Sheen deck looked like so here you go:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Pestermite

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

3 Cryptic Command

4 Time Warp

2 Savor the Moment

3 Walk the Aeons

2 Primal Command

2 Damnation

[/Spells]

[Artifacts]

4 Howling Mine

1 Crucible of Worlds

[/Artifacts]

[Enchantments]

4 Rites of Flourishing

1 Splinter Twin

4 Fertile Ground

1 Mirror Sheen

[/Enchantments]

[Planeswalkers]

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[/Planeswalkers]

[Lands]

3 Flooded Grove

4 Vivid Creek

2 Vivid Grove

4 Reflecting Pool

2 Cascade Bluffs

2 Sunken Ruins

6 Island

1 Tectonic Edge

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Negate

2 Fog

1 Damnation

3 Vexing Shusher

3 Firespout

4 Relic of Progenitus

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This deck is like a typical Time Warp deck that takes advantage of Howling Mine effects. It also has two built in combos, one being Pestermite and Splinter Twin; the other with Walk the Aeons + Rites of Flourishing + Crucible of Worlds. People will also usually scoop when you Time Warp/Primal Command and copy it three plus times with Mirror Sheen. It was a very fun deck in testing and I wish I had played it now at the PT.

Hopefully I will see some of you in Baltimore for the 10k!