Gen Con starts today, and Team Gathering Magic couldn't be more excited. Many games will be had, friendships forged, and experiences shared. This week we reflect back on a time where Gen Con featured Magic tournaments with the highest of stakes: US Nationals. Before the World Magic Cup and WMCQs, there was nationals, an event which you could qualify for through Regionals or rating, Hundreds of players would arrive to battle to earn their way onto the US National team to represent their country at the World Championship that year. This video is from 2011, the last year that we had US Nationals before shifting to WMCQs.

Despite the banning of Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor earlier that year, that summer was defined by Squadron Hawks and Sword of Feast and Famine. At least until Ali Aintrazi dismantled the competition with his innovative Blue-Black tap-out control deck that could go toe-to-toe with Squadron Hawks and Celestial Colonnades. Ali went on to take down the whole event, and became the perennial US National Champion; the only one who has never been unseated.

Blue-Black Control - New Phyrexia Standard | Ali Aintrazi, US National Champion

• Creatures (7)
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx
• 2 Grave Titan
• 3 Solemn Simulacrum

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 4 Jace Beleren
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Spells (21)
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
• 1 Consume the Meek
• 1 Despise
• 1 Dismember
• 3 Doom Blade
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1 Into the Roil
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Preordain

• Lands (26)
• 4 Creeping Tar Pit
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Island
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 5 Swamp
• 4 Tectonic Edge

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
• 1 Despise
• 2 Disfigure
• 2 Duress
• 3 Flashfreeze
• 1 Memoricide
• 1 Peace Strider
• 1 Praetor's Grasp
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Volition Reins
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

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