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Theory Behind Magic: Lessons from the Australian Nationals Day 2

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

"I believe that the deck that will win the Australian nationals will not be Fires." - Minga Wong

Yes, I do remember saying those words before the Australian Nationals and was now forced to shove them back up my rear because a FIRES deck did win the Australian Nationals. The reason that I made this prediction was that many of us Sydney players had brought decks that beat Fires on a regular basis to Canberra, along with factors that I mentioned in my last article. What I didn't take into account though, were the skills of Rob Nadebaum who managed to come through, even when faced with unfavourable match ups. I will discuss this later in the article since I promised Rob that I would write about him for kicking my ass.

There was a great turn out that day even though many people have decided to drop after going worse then 4-2 on the first day. There were at least 40 Birds of Paradise at the place flying around, about 20 odd Nether Spirits and a couple of Troublesome Spirits that were causing quite some problems. The creatures in my deck were feeling pretty out of place, since my Plague Spitters aren't too welcome into the group of Birds or any other 1/1 creatures and my Phyrexian Scuta got jeered at a bit for being weak against Parallax Wave and blue bounce cards.

The reason that I had decided to bring Scuta along was because he is good against Fires and W/U if I can get him out second turn with a Dark Ritual. These decks have no way to deal with a second turn Scuta, and their earliest solution is to either Wrath of God or Blastoderm, which are both 4 drops. Hopefully, my Rishadan Port and Tangle Wire would delay them long enough for the kill. This strategy had proven to be true when I was playing Andrew Varga's R/G no Fires deck in the 7th round and Pang Ming Wee's W/U deck on the 2nd game of the 9th round when I rolled them with a second turn Scuta.

I won the first 2 rounds and lost the 3rd to Pang's Nether Spirit on the 3rd game of the 9th round. During the lunch break, I have decided that I would catch the Grey Hound Bus home if I lost the next round since I was beginning to worry about my exams on Wednesday. Plus my draws for the day were utter crap, having to mulligan 5 times in the last 3 rounds, so I figured if I don't win the next one, I would have slight chance to make it to top 8. I knew that there were still product prizes outside of the top 8, but booster packs of Magic cards don't really rock my boat after playing the game for 2 days straight.

My 10th round opponent was Rob Nadebaum and we both needed the win if we wanted a chance to make top 8. We started the game by both going down to 6 cards and we moaned about the fact that this is not the first time it happened today. I gained the upper hand in the first game by ripping of his whole hand through a Void for 4 and Tangle Wired his mana while my kicked Scuta beats away his life. However, instead of whining about his desperate situation and his crap draws like an average Magic player, Rob dealt with the situation instead of wasting his concentration on complain. He was later rewarded by a Shivan Wurm, which I chump blocked with a Flametongue Kavu and a Scuta after it has gotten me down to 7 life. Despite of the fact that he has no hand and no creatures, I could still feel the pressure from his side of the table so I decided to close the game by slaying his bird, Tangle Wiring his lands down again, and cast a Skizzik with kicker. Rob conceded soon after that.

In the second game, I sided out Tangle Wire for Perishes because I figured Tangle Wire was pretty useless against mana producing creatures like elves and birds. This proved to be a HUGE mistake since Rob never saw a first turn bird or elf in the next two games. We both went down to 6 cards again because of our crappy draw and I commented that our aura must some how contradict with each others and have some how disturbed our draws.

Since we all know who won in the end, to cut the long story short, he rolled me on the second game by tapping my only black mana source with a Port and raped my Scuta by casting multiple Saporling Bursts with Fires on the 3rd game. In all his games, Rob made no mistakes that I could see while capitalising on mine to keep me under pressure. He reminds me of one of those vicious beasts that jump on your leg and starts going at it once they are there whether you like it or not. No matter how hard you shake or even slam them against a lamppost, they would still hold on with grim determination until they get their way with you.

His greatest trait though is not how well he played but the great sportsmanship he demonstrated by being friendly though out the whole round even when he was down a game. I think that it is by putting his defeat behind him that allowed him to concentrate for the victories ahead, which is one of the reasons why he was able to win the Australian Nationals with a deck that was heavily side-boarded against. Well done Rob, if I had to lose the last round to anyone, I'm glad that it was you.

After going 6-4 in the whole event, I've decided that it was home time for me as I missed my bed at home terribly. I told the judges that I want to drop and went down to the Jolimont Centre to catch the 3:25pm Grey Hound bus home. As I was sitting on the bus taking a last glimpse of Canberra, I began to formulate ideas on how to write this article. I soon fell asleep because I was bored by those ideas but I hope you're still awake.

Thank you for reading this long 3-part article and a special thanks to my buddy Evan Weston for lending me his cards.

Minga Wong
t_memo@yahoo.com