I may only have gone 4–4 in Standard at U.S. Nationals, but I still had confidence in my Standard deck. One of my losses was to a rogue deck that I didn’t expect to see in Chicago, and one of the matches was a close affair that if had I made one decision better, I would have won. Plus, I only played against two Caw-Blade decks, which would probably change if I immediately played in another Standard event. After all, the Top 8 at Nationals included six Caw-Blade decks. With this is mind, I decided to focus my sideboard even more on Caw-Blade. I decided to add three Hero of Oxid Ridge. Not only do they help against Squadron Hawks, they’re an amazing answer to Timely Reinforcements.

Of course, this almost never happened. After Nationals, I stayed in Indianapolis until Sunday evening, because my girlfriend Rada was working at GenCon demoing Ascension, and I was busy finishing third in a 128-person Ascension tournament. Since Rada had class at Northeastern the next morning, our friend Steve Guillerm and I were in for a long night of driving her/us back to Boston. I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up on sleep after the exhaustion of the trip. Then, my best friend Rob Dougherty contacted me and asked if I was planning on playing in the Chicago $75K during the coming weekend, since I was qualified. At the time, my answer was no: Rob wasn’t going, Steve was flying, and Rada had no interest in an even longer road trip so soon after GenCon. In addition, I was still exhausted and low on travel funds. Rob insisted this was an opportunity not to be missed, so I went on Facebook to see if any of my friends were driving from Boston and had hotel space. No luck.

Not ready to give up, Rob made me a proposal: If I was willing to drive myself there alone, he would pay for my expenses, including hotel, in return for half of my winnings. This was an incredible offer. In order for him to make any profit at all, I would need to make the Top 16. I was exhausted and I knew this would be one of my last chances to spend a weekend with Rada before she went to Russia for a couple weeks, but I finally decided to go for it.

After spending around eighteen hours driving by myself on Friday, I settled into my hotel and grabbed a few welcome hours of sleep. Part of the reason Rob and I decided this was a good plan was because I could get up early on Saturday and play in Last Chance Qualifiers to try to win myself a bye or two in the main event. Despite missing all of Friday’s LCQs, this plan worked nicely. I found Steve at the site Saturday morning, and he was able to hook me up with a beautiful, mostly foil copy of my deck for me to use. I had time to play in two LCQs and, despite losing in Round 1 of the first one, I managed to 4–0 the second one and earn myself a Round 1 bye in the main event. Here’s what I was running:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Chandra's Phoenix

4 Goblin Guide

4 Kargan Dragonlord

4 Kiln Fiend

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Burst Lightning

4 Galvanic Blast

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Shock

4 Forked Bolt

[/Spells]

[Lands]

20 Mountain

4 Teetering Peaks

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

2 Manic Vandal

3 Hero of Oxid Ridge

2 Act of Aggression

4 Combust

4 Dismember

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

Round 2: Edward Song, U/B Control

I talked to Rada on the phone during my Round 1 bye and we discussed the metagame some more. After Nationals and the two LCQs, there was only one major deck type that I hadn’t had a chance to test against: U/B Control. After I told Rada this, she went online and read me the deck list of the U/B deck that made the Top 8 at Nationals. Then we discussed possible keys to the matchup and possible sideboarding plans. This was incredibly convenient, because I immediately had to face U/B in Round 2.

One of things that I felt would improve this matchup was the addition of Chandra's Phoenix. This proves true in Game 1. He kills my first two creatures, but then I play two Phoenixes and they are too much for him to handle; even his Liliana Vess isn’t enough. With no cards in hand and two Phoenixes pounding him and Liliana, he uses Liliana’s last 2 counters to search for a card and put it on the top of his library. I attack him down to 10, and then he plays a Consecrated Sphinx. At the end of his turn, I play Burst Lightning, knocking him down to 6. Then he draws two cards while I draw for my turn. I attack with both Phoenixes, getting through with 1, knocking him down to 4. I take advantage of him being tapped out, Bolt him down to 1, and replay my blocked Phoenix. He digs several cards into his deck on his turn, but doesn’t find an answer, and we move to Game 2.

In the past, my main problem against this style of deck after sideboarding is that they bring in massive quantities of removal and I can’t keep any threats in play. So I bring in my three Heroes for three Shocks to increase my threat count. I keep a one-land hand, because I have a Goblin Guide and I’m on the draw. Fortunately for me, my first couple draws are Mountains. On turn two, he counters my Fiend. On turn three, I play a second Guide, and after he kills one of them, I play another Fiend. On turn four, I play a Phoenix and things start to look grim for him. At 4 life, he plays a Wurmcoil Engine, but it’s too late, since I pump up my Phoenix with a Teetering Peaks.

Round 3: Jay Lee, U/B Control

Now that I realize what a good matchup I have against U/B, I’m happy to discover my next opponent is also playing it. I have to mulligan a six-land hand in Game 1, but I still win 2–0 pretty easily.

Round 4: Nick Edgerle, U/W/R Caw-Blade

As much fun as it was to play against U/B, I knew I would have to play against Caw-Blade eventually. In Game 1, I fight through a Grim Lavamancer and four Hawks while attacking with a Dragonlord and a Fiend. With him at 4, he plays an Inferno Titan and kills my Fiend. I am stalled at 3 mana, so I can’t level up my Dragonlord for the win. Instead, I play a Phoenix and knock him down to 2. He attacks with his Titan and kills my Phoenix. I don’t block with my Dragonlord, so I’m able to counterattack for the win.

In Game 2, I mulligan my first hand because I don’t have a creature, and my six-card hand isn’t much better with a Hero as my only creature. Thanks to my inability to get early pressure, his life total is still pretty high when he plays a Titan, and we move on to Game 3.

Game 3 looks pretty bad for me because I’m mana-flooded, and he plays a Timely Reinforcements. A Forked Bolt helps keep things under control by killing two of the tokens. I race Hawks and his remaining token with two Phoenixes, while hoping to draw more spells. Fortunately, I draw a Dismember by the time he plays an Emeria Angel. When I try to Dismember it, he bounces it back to his hand with Into the Roil. I play a Guide and attack with all three of my creatures. Unfortunately, he Pyroclasms all of them away on his turn and replays the Angel. I Blast him to retrieve my Phoenixes. He blocks my Phoenix, but I am able to use a Forked Bolt to both finish the Angel and get back my Phoenix. With him at 4, I’m able to finish him the next turn.

Round 5: Alex Bertoncini, Caw-Blade

Little did I know Alex would prove to be my nemesis. The match got off to a weird start when we were deck-checked and Alex got an unusual game loss. He gave them the correct seventy-five cards, but they were put together as if they were a seventy-five card deck without a sideboard. Much to our surprise, Alex was given a game loss for this. Game 2 started two unfortunate trends for me against Alex. First, even after taking a mulligan, I mana-stalled at two lands. Second, even though we weren’t sideboarded yet, he played Timely Reinforcements. When he equipped a Sphinx with a Sword of Feast and Famine I knew that it was pretty much game over.

In Game 3, I kept a one-land hand because I had a Guide, nothing more than 2 to cast, and several 1-mana burn spells. Sadly, by the time I drew a second land, he locked it down with Frost Titan.

Round 6: David Gleicher, R/U/G

Game 1, I have one of my better draws, and Birthing Pod (which is what I think he is playing) is one of my better matchups. I have two early Guides and lots of burn for a quick win. In Game 2, I use a Fiend plus burn to get him to 6, but he plays an Obstinate Baloth, going back to 10 life. I play a Dragonlord and level it three times. On my next turn, I level it to an 8/8 flyer and add a Teetering Peaks for the win.

Round 7: Edgar Flores, Caw-Blade

With a record of 5–1, I now have a feature match. In Game 1, my draw is amazing going first: turn-one Guide, turn-two Guide plus Peaks, turn-three Forked Bolt plus Peaks, and turn-four Phoenix. Game 2 is another big success. I keep a hand with two Phoenixes as my only creatures, but I top-deck a Guide on turn one to immediately put the pressure on. Over the course of the game, I play three Phoenixes and neither Elspeth Tirel nor Day of Judgment could effectively stop them.

Round 8: Zach King, U/W/B Caw-Blade

Another great Game 1: turn-one Guide, turn-two Dragonlord, and turn-three another Guide plus burn. Game 2, I’m not nearly as lucky. First, I mulligan because I don’t have any creatures. Next, I mulligan due to no land. I keep my five-card hand, but his combination of removal, Mana Leaks, hand-destruction, and Gideon is too much.

Game 3 is probably the most dramatic game I’ve ever played with this deck. The key turn comes when he plays a Batterskull. I attack him with a Guide and a Phoenix with him at 10 and with me holding two cards, one of which he knows was a Lightning Bolt. Probably concerned that I have another Bolt in hand, he blocks my Guide and I finish his Germ with my Bolt. Now he plays Gideon and kills my Phoenix. At this point, I draw a Dragonlord and level it four times.

At this point, Zach spends lots of time contemplating his next move before making Gideon into a creature, equipping it with his Batterskull, and hitting me for 10, bringing his own life total to 22. I draw Forked Bolt and use it to put him at 20, and replay my Phoenix. My Dragonlord kills Gideon, and my Phoenix put him at 18. In a further attempt to stabilize, Zach plays a Spellskite and two Squadron Hawks. As I contemplate further leveling my Dragonlord, I draw a Hero and attack with everyone, bypassing all of his creatures and putting him at 2. He draws, thought for a while and scooped.

After eight rounds of Swiss, I was 7–1 and I was able to intentionally draw into the Top 8. As fate and tiebreakers would have it, I got paired against Alex Bertoncini in the quarterfinals. Although I did mana-stall in both games, I did have a moment where I thought I would win Game 1: Alex only had a Tectonic Edge untapped and I attacked with a Kiln Fiend. I had enough burn to make the Fiend lethal, but unfortunately he had a Dismember. He had played one the turn before, but sadly he had a second one. I thought I was well-prepared for Caw-Blade, because I was usually sideboarding in eleven cards, but he brought in thirteen against me.

As usual when I finish in the Top 8 but don’t win, I had mixed emotions. I never like to lose, especially when it means elimination, but it felt great to win $3,000, reward Rob’s confidence in me, and make my extreme travel feel worthwhile. Of course, my triumphant return to Massachusetts ended with a whimper—a flat tire at 4:00 in the morning—but when the check arrived in the mail a week later, it definitely all felt worthwhile. Next up, a shorter drive to PT: Philly and two formats I feel much less prepared for.