Tournament Report: Mid Kent Magic Open 11/01/2014

Entry the first.

So this is going to be a chilled little project for me to document what I'm up to in the world of MTG! 

Today I went to Maidstone, Kent for a tournament which has a big prize payout with my team of Henry, Steve and Skippy. We've been testing with our other guy George at Shrunken Terra (Burgess Hill) and we're all at a good level of magic and wanting to push our game to new levels. 

The decklist I went for was blue black control as I'm confident with control and enjoy locking up games of Magic and tinkering my way to victory, usually completely on my terms with my opponent having to just sit and watch me do what I do. This deck pretty much wins via a millout from Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver by using value spells to sweep, counter and exile enemy threats. 

The 75 were solid..... Let's take time to talk about how great Ashiok is..... This card paired with Bile Blight, Hero's Downfall and permission means that we can essentially tick up over and over, playing our own defenders or threats when needed but basically milling enough to force our opponent to draw their last card. Many of the field is comprised of Stormbreath Dragon, Siege Rhino, Doomwake Giant & Goblin Rabblemaster.... all of which come down the turn after Ashiok enters play should this beast be defended well enough. Perilous Vault is also immense in the maindeck despite Ashiok playing it's part, consider activating Ashiok (-X: Put Creature into play) and while that ability is on the stack sweeping with Perilous Vault.... Basically you get a creature on the battlefield with nothing else at all on the field. The rest of the deck is pretty straight forward.

As for the Sideboard, my big choices included Chasm Skulker, Liliana Vess & Prognostic Sphinx. After a discussion with George at Shrunken Terra the Annul and Dark Betrayal I originally had in board had to go... Prognostic Sphinx is one of the best blockers in the meta and is unanswerable post board by most decks... Liliana Vess makes a mockery of the reanimator decks with her ultimate ability and with my deck's natural ability to control a game she makes a good finisher. Chasm Skulker is a meta call against Sidisi, U/B Control and Jeskai.... This creature is value and will probably see a bigger portion of my sideboard in later tournaments... If they deal with it and have an island they've probably lost... This is of course when they've boarded out most of their removal, so it's at a premium to deal with and if it's dealt with then you're going to be overwhelmed by Squid. I've managed to resolve a Chasm Skulker, have it at 2/2 and then as my opponent has killed it, I've then Jace's Ingenuity'd to make it a 5/5, draw 5 cards and then lose the Skulker gaining 4x 1/1 Islandwalkers in the fallout. C'est Magnifique!

The deck the week before had posted a 4-2-0 record at Brighton going undeafeated in Swiss and then crashing out in the Semi-Finals to team mate Henry. It's a good deck for me! 

The Tournament

Round 1 vs: Henry Channing (Mardu)

So this was my chance for revenge against my team mate, to be fair we'd discussed the concept of intentional draw and how that would effect us. Henry seemed more against it than me and we decided to do battle, both thinking whoever loses gets to play up the field anyway. Both matches kinda went onesided with Ashiok doing her role magnificently. Funnily enough it was Thoughtsieze which I feel gave me everything I needed to engineer a win. Henry never got the chance to make the game work for him and honour was avenged from the Brighton event. Henry is a fantastic player with a future of representing England on the top tables of GP's and PTQ's to come. Unfortunately with Ashiok and all my permission I had the game locked up and was onto round 2.  2-0.

Round 2 vs Matt Wakeford (Sidisi Whip)

Game 1 was interesting with much library counting as a Turn 3 Ashiok controlled the game practically by herself... Dealing with guy was as simple as countering anything which reanimates and drawing a timely Silence the Believers when he resolved Soul of Innistrad *sniggers* Game 2 was heinous when my opponent attacks me on what I thought was 5 life... I had 7 mana up and a Perilous Vault in play... He attacked with 2x Courser of Kruphix and a Reclaimation Sage... Instead of popping the Vault I preferred keeping it up and playing a Hero's Downfall in hand to deal with one of the creatures.... Especially if my opponent followed up with something like a Planeswalker or worse a Whip.... Unfortunately for me I'd used Thoughtsieze 2 turns ago and hadn't changed my life total, so when I kill one and say "take 4, go to 2" my opponent says "you take 4 and lose..." Oh well GG! opps. Game 3 I had won but was 1 turn away from having victory due to the game going to time and my opponent sitting on 3 cards in library at the end of the game with my Ashiok on the field. 3-1-1 (1-0-1)

Round 3 vs Thomas Russell (Abzan Aggro) 

Game 1 I'm on the play, I mull to 6, get my third turn Ashiok and cruise the game to victory... Game 2 I mull to 6, opponent sees the absolute on-curve draw and I'm lacking distinctly in mana too late to save the game on turn 5. Game 3 on the play and I mull to 5, don't get anywhere and lose. My opponent here went onto the Finals I believe. 4-3-1 (1-1-1)

Round 4 vs Kevin Egris (Esper Life)

After some banter about which trade binder was better me and Mr. Egris a friend of mine from Bexhill MTG did battle. His deck was rogue as hell, nothing made sense here... Warden of the North, Treature Cruise, Stubborn Denial, Ulcerate, Illusionary Angel, Thoughtsieze were among some of the mad spells Kevin unleashed on me. Game 1 I end up just about winning..... Game 2 he overruns me with a pair of Spirit of the Labyrinth and my deck pukes up on me. Game 3 was decided with my Chasm Skulkers, Prognostic Sphinx's and permission/removal packages. Kevin's deck was interesting and scared me in places. Always nice to see a homebrew too! 6-4-1 (2-1-1)

Round 5 vs Nathan Barton (Jund Aggro)

Game 1 I utterly owned Nathan, controlling every aspect of the game with Ashiok and removal, thoughtseizes and card advantage. We mucked around a little through the game as I knew Nathan Barton well and to be honest being silly and not winning the game quickly was part of my game plan. I'm not talking about stalling out and playing slowly, I'm talking allowing the game to go longer than it needed to, taking 30+ turns as opposed to the 15 or so it would have needed to win. My mindset was that if this game goes long then he wouldn't really have a chance to win Game 2/3 in time. It worked...partly.... Game 2 started at 38 minutes into the round and in the 5th turn of extra turns Nathan swung victorious with his Courser and Rabblemaster. My deck offered me up a pair of thoughtsieze from a Jace's Ingenuity towards the end of the game. I went from 5 life to 3 when I cast a thoughtsieze and saw a Sarkhan and Stormbreath, with only Thoughtseize and Bile blight in hand I had to go to 1 life and totally neutralize Nathan.... He top decks some sweet sweet threats and I hit some lands... we went to 1-1. I asked if he could conceed me into the chance for top 8 baring in mind he was on 2 losses anyways, but due to the way Kent Mid Magic works, he wanted a draw for more points to qualify for their big event. 7-5-2 (2-1-2)

Round 6 vs George Worshop (Abzan Midrange)

George wasn't at all impressed with U/B control in the recent discussions we had. Unfortunately for him it's pretty amazing against his deck and he had a tough tournament dealing with my deck for 3 rounds. By the end he wished he could play against "some proper decks" and not U/B control or U/W heroic. Fortunately for me I've always enjoyed a decent control deck and I got to show him how control goes down in today's standard. I felt bad for him as he'd come across this unfavourable match up 50% of the games in this tournament. Game 1 I saw only black mana sources and lost quickly to a turn 3 Rhino... holding 2x Bile Blight and having 3x Swamps, 1x Radiant Fountain out... Game 2 & 3 superstar Ashiok weaved her Nightmares into victory. 9-6-2 (3-1-2)

12th place... 5 booster packs earnt.... I could have easily top 8'd and probably done quite well in the field... But 2 mistakes cost me massively. 

Next up I'll talk some MTG philosophy on 'Zero Mind', Etiquette and some cunning mind tricks.