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But I've said too much.

Due to these... occurrences, I wasn't the happiest Magic player in Canberra when I woke up on Sunday. Sure I get to play the super happy fun Team Sealed format with solid players Scott Hunstad (Seat 1) and Egidio De Gois (Seat 3). However, considering my luck that weekend, I was rather pessimistic about our chances of opening a decent sealed deck.

And I was right, as usual.

The deck we opened contained an Akroma, Angel of Wrath, 2 Willbenders, 1 Mistform Skyscraper and a bunch of worthless cardboard that I would find crude as a substitute to toilet paper. Fortunately, there is such a thing known as deck swap in sealed PTQs and the deck we got back is quite insane with notable cards like Starstorm, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Ravenous Baloth and Lightning Rift. The double Timberwatch Elf, double Skinthinner, double Aphetto Executioner, double Krosan Vorine and a lone Sparksmith were simply the icing for an already over indulgent cake. After some deck tweaking among the 3 greatest minds in Sydney Limited Magic, I ended up playing with the following deck:

 

1 x Bloodline Shaman
1 x Wirewood Elf
1 x Barkhide Mauler
1 x Ravenous Baloth
2 x Krosan Vorine
1 x Treespring Lorian
2 x Krosan Tusker
1 x Berserk Murlodont
1 x Branchsnap Lorian
1 x Brontotherium
1 x Canopy Crawler (nuts!)
2 x Crested Craghorn
1 x Skirk Outrider
1 x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1 x Avarax
1 x Battering Craghorn
1 x Pinpoint Avalanche
1 x Skirk Marauder
1 x Venomsput Brackus
1 x Tranquil Thicket
9 x Forest
8 x Mountain
= 40 cards

As some of you might have already noted, one of the major weaknesses of this deck is that it is pretty slow. Although I could have included the Timberwatch Elves and Sparksmith we had into my deck, we took a chance and went for the beast theme to facilitate cards like Ravenous Baloth, Bloodline Shaman and Canopy Crawler. Scott ended up going G/B with a boatload of removal and Egidio ran a U/R deck that ran Lightning Rift with 10 cycling cards including Starstorm.

Round 1 vs Mono-black

To be perfectly honest, this is perhaps the worst match up I had all day since my opponent ran two Wretched Anurids in his deck for early beatings and for the finish. After much blood and tears, we split the first 2 games and went into a rip marathon on the 3rd where we both used up our hand with no creatures in play. In the end, I ripped Avarax and surge enough mana through him for the win.

1-0

My victory was short lived however, as Dan Gow came over and handed me a match lost for not registering my Tranquil Thicket properly. Scott and Egdio were less then impressed by this mistake of mine and I must confess that I wasn't overjoyed by it either. Yet deep inside my heart, I was hoping that their bombalicious decks could pull the team through such hardship.

Round 2 vs G/R

Since I got a match loss, I spent most of my time watching Scott's game, which was rather depressing since his opponent got a 6th turn Visara the Dreadful out both games. Her impressive D-cup cleavage would automatically distract Scott into a mental hiatus that he could never quite recover from.

1-1

With the cards we opened, we never expected to be down a game so soon and the morale of the team was pretty low at that stage. Things has gotten worse when we heard Ben Seck lost 3 games in a row with his U/G deck and Sydney players getting caned left right and center in the Nationals. To de-stress, Scott and Egdio went and told everyone in the convention center about how I stuffed up while I spent my time coming up with ways to torture DCI judges.

Round 3 vs R/G

This is the round where we faced Andrew Lai's team so we figured that this would be a pretty hard match to win. Even though my opponent forgot to draw from his Wirewood Savage a couple of times, the insanity of that card simply savaged my beast-orientated deck. Fortunately, Scott had managed to won his match even though he saw how I managed to let the team down twice in a row. So the game comes down to the match between Egidio and Andrew Lai. On the board, Andrew had Nantuko Husk (Mistform Masked), 2 Symbiotic Elves, Tempting Wurm and Sootfeather Flock while Egdio had 2 Mistform Walls, Imagecrafter, Frenetic Raptor and a Riptide Director that was drawing him 4 cards a turn with his mistform creatures. Eager as a beaver, Andrew sacrificed his elves to his Husk at Egdio's EoT and summoned Caller of the Claw to bring out an army of insects and bears that threatened to overrun Egdio's meager defense.

Except Egdio showed him the Starstorm he have been holding for a while. Good beats!

2-1 (Team record)

Round 4 vs B/G

Our opponents this round had employed the strategy of putting their worst decks at the top and therefore in theory, I should have been playing against their strongest deck. Lucky for me, I saw all my bombs in game 1 and got a 3rd turn Canopy Crawler out and showed my opponent my whole hand (5 cards) in game 2. The outrage on my opponent's face is one of the sweetest sights I saw that weekend. Scott also managed to win his match after losing game 1 but Egidio lost his first match of the day.
Useless bastard.

3-1

Round 5 vs B/G

When I sit down for round 5 I recognize my opponent as from the Nationals last year. According to him, if he beat me in the Limited portion of the National last year instead of the other way around, he would have gotten into the top 8. I suppose I should feel bad except I upgraded my sympathy for some good old malice a long time ago. So all I gave him was a shrug, an insolent smile and the game began. First game I rolled him with my beasts but he got an insane elf draw on the second game with something that involves Timberwatch Elf and Gempalm Strider and many elves. Third game I killed his 3rd turn Timberwatch with my 4th turn Crested Craghorn (which was crap when his Timberwatch was active last game) and after that, I fisted him so hard that it nearly came out of his mouth.

Next time Gadget, next time.

4-1

Round 6 vs B/G

Since we got paired down to play Jake Hart's team, there is no chance for us to ID even though we had great resistance. My opponent ran a deck that was similar to mine with Havoc Demon and Nantuko Husk as his bomb combo. So in game 2, I attacked with my Treespring Lorian and Crested Craghorn (provoking Husk) to force him to use his Demon's wrath effect. He did and the Husk survived. I then laid down my Krosan Tusker which he somehow managed to trade with the Husk but the difference in our deck shows when I started drawing big beasts while all he can come up with is a Festering Goblin. When I look at how my other teammates were fairing, I was worried when I saw Scott facing an amplified Kilnmouth Dragon (who does that?), Rorix Bladewing and a Future Sight while Egidio had to deal with a Convalescent Care with his U/R deck. Miraculously, they actually managed to win both of those games.

5-1

Round 7 (semi-final) vs R/G

So after 6 rounds of SWISS, we ended up playing against only team we lost to in the semis. Though I am a kind man with many benevolent attributes, I do have an unnatural thirst for vengeance and vodka. The deck I played against had Silvos, Rogue Elemental, which I have absolutely no way to deal with and double Erratic Explosion so it is definitely no easy win. In game 1, my Bloodline Shaman worked over time to give me 8 extra beast cards, which ended up swarming my opponent. Game 2 went something like this:

I showed him my hand on turn 4 via Canopy Crawler and smiled.

Then I showed him my fist on turn 6 and laughed.

When I overrun him with 40 points of damage, I was giggling like a schoolgirl.

Since all 3 of us have dined on the sweet dish of revenge, we were pretty hyped up entering the finals. To our perverted delight, the Death Dealer team got scrubbed out in the semis by Mark Leber's team. Thus in the finals we found ourselves facing 3 players that are not up to our caliber in Rochester drafting. Since both Egidio and I had to work on Monday morning, we've decided to offer them a price split where we get the money and the spot and they get the product and a pretty big shaft. They agreed and we all lived happily ever after.

Props
- Scott Hunstad for driving me down to the Nationals
- Davo, Ray, Bailey, Dan and Alex for drinks every night
- The assortment of interesting people I meet at the Nationals, which include judges, players and the food stall girl at the convention center
- Tiffiany for beating Scott Hunstad in the first Limited grinders. It was amusing to see a teenage girl beating the crap out of a 1900 player.

Slops
- Sydney player's ability to play constructed Magic
- Scott Hunstad for bringing out the chainsaw in our room every night
- Scott Smith for tempting waiters/waitress to spit in our food every time we eat
- Deck mis-registration, I should really learn how to read one of these days

Regards
Minga

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