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sneakyhomunculous · 4 years

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RPT Phoenix Report: Back to Back!

Part 3: Crunch Time

So to recap I finished day 1 6-2

WWL WWLWW

This is a reasonably happy 6-2!

You have the

LLWWWWWW Ecstatic 6-2

WWWWWWLL So tilted you may not even show up for day 2 6-2

Mine fell somewhere in the middle of the extremes.

But of course, 6-2 is 6-2. And my breakers should be pretty strong + the tournament is quite small compared to recent PTs. Multiple X-4s should make T8

Myself Jarvis Allen Knox and Mark have dinner at a nice Thai place.

Unfortunately we waited like 90 minutes for a table, but in the end it was worth it as we just hung out at a bar next door. and the food ended up being really good.

We don’t get back to the house until pretty late, and we are greeted with Tom Ross laying out the UW Pioneer deck

“To fix it up for the GP Tomorrow”

Instead of going to sleep I watch Tom cut multiple supreme verdicts, go up to 4 mystical disputes main, add a horribly awry to the main, sneak a tomik in the SB, along with many other hilarious changes.

He ended up registering 4 disputes main loooool IDK what his list was exactly but he ended up playing vs tons of aggro and still going 7-2.

Not sure how he finished up day 2; some middling finish I think. Turns out mystical dispute is worse than supreme verdict against mono red and black.

I get to bed a bit late but wake up feeling good.

We get over the Breakfast Club earlier today with time to eat.

I already know I’m in pod 3 with Oli2 Efro Cain Lauphiette Bloody Sadowsky and Murahashi.

We get to the site right at 9 again and I find myself in a decent seat. I have Oli 3 my left and Efro 4 away. I’m being fed by Joel Sadowsky with me feeding Bloody.

I don’t know a ton about these players preferences or limited abilities, but I do know that Oli and Efro are both very good and I am happy to be seated away from them.

This draft was a bit wild; I open Setessan Champion and take it over who cares i forgot.

I 2nd pick Alirios over some weaker cards i don’t remember, a pretty weak pack. I think there may have been like a red omen and something else but it was easy Alirios and I always want to be blue anyway.

3rd pick I happily take Mire’s Grasp over nothing

4th pick I am greeted with a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. Not the best card or anything, but i have a setessan champion and love drafting 3-4 color UG decks so this got me excited.

I fill out this pack with an icthymorphosis, a satyr grovedancer, a late cling to dust, and i know a nexus wardens tabled. I also have a memory drain a brine giant and an altar of the pantheon to keep an eye on.

Going into pack 2 I’m not really sure if I’ll be UG or GB or some combo inbetween, but I really want to be green bc of Champion.

I open Thassa’s intervention in an otherwise unexciting pack so I take that. I like this card more than most people I imagine; I think it’s very good.

I am passed lots of really good cards, but I ignore them bc there is an illysian carytid.

I’ve drafted this deck enough to know how important carytid is; and my spidey senses just tell me that I need to be base green and stay as wide open as possible to playing the gooooods that I will be receiving much too late.

Unfortunately the rest of this pack is pretty weak. I pickup a nylea’s intervention like 5th and somewhere in here I get a riptide turtle a mystic repeal a relentless pursuit 2 omen of the hunts a hierophant a 2nd altar of the pantheon and a watcher of tomorrows. Nothing exciting but I’m realllllly set up to splash anything ever.

In pack 3 I open Eat to Extinction and nothing, easy pick.

I’m finally rewarded and passed Calix, Destiny’s Hand. I already have a ton of enchantments with a few of them being removal like ichthymorphosis and mire’s grasp.

Unfortunately the rest of the pack sort of fades, I get a late Drag to the underworld and tymaret, as well as a return to nature a 2nd relentless pursuit a Nyleas Huntmaster a 6/7 colossus and another brine giant.

When building my deck I end up waffling between a lot of different configurations, but in the end I realize to make my mana really good I need to cut tymaret and drag and just splash black.

Bc I’m lacking esape and ways to deal with it I splash the cling to dust, one of my favorite cards in the set.

My final deck is like 7 forests 6 islands 2 swamps 1 plains 1 carytid 1 dryad 2 omens and nyleas intervention for fixing. I have thassas intervention, relentless pursuit, setessan champion, cling, Calix for card advantage, and then i have grasp icthymorphosis eat to extinction mystic repeal for removal. Round it out with alirios dryad wardens turtle and some big dumb creatures; I quite like my deck and I even have lots of playable sb options.

R9 Joel Sadowsky

This match was a real banger and I wish i could remember the details better.

Joel was feeding me and he has a pretty strong RG deck. He has multiple incendiary oracles and is quite aggressive overall.

He draws his Mythic Phoenix in all the games, and he also has Typhon and maybe chimera as well (i think it may have actually been rage hound not chimera) But anyway he is beating down and escaping.

In g1 I think I assemble ichthymorphosis on one of the escape creatures and I get Calix going while eat to extinctioning a different escape creature. I just survive at a low life total and bury him in Calix cards.

In g2 I feel like I am constantly fighting to get on equal footing but if I can just put my foot down I will be ahead. Unfortunately things just keep snowballing with phoenix and then wings of hubris and I ultimately can’t deploy my cards fast enough and am forced to make suboptimal plays and blocks and eventually die to the wings.

G3 was just great.

There is a ton of back and forth and on the last turn I leave myself dead to phoenix with only a black up, and he has it and pumps it and goes to extend his hand to say GGs lol; but i cling a creature in his yard to stay at 1 life and untap and deal with phoenix. I have to fade wings for a turn or two but then I can cling again and on the last turn he ends up being able to put me to exactly 1 again after I cling for a 3rd time.

Clinggggggoat

7-2

I’m feeling good and hoping to fade Oli2 and Efro. I find out Efro lost but Oli2 has a busted white pious wayfarer deck, thats bad news.

I see the pairings and am relieved to see it is Lauphiette and not Oli, but that relief is short lived as Lauphiette begins giving me the business.

R10 Lauphiette Kincey

G1 is a really back and forth affair where Lauphiette sticks a commanding presence on a flier for a turn, but I peel the land I need to Nylea’s intervention it away. He then lagona bands the presence back, but I am able to keep his fliers at bay mostly and he seems to be taking things slow. Turns out he has Shatter the Sky and has been sandbagging a bit.

Luckily I have too, and after drawing a card from Shatter and for my turn I rebuild quickly, and I am able to hold off his presence + leftovers.

G2 and 3 are just a lesson in what happens when your opponent knows how to sideboard and u are playing a 22 land deck or whatever.

Lauphiette boards in multiple memory drains to go with his thassas’ intervention/denial/denies and I just struggle to resolve any of my good cards.

I fight my best, but in g2 he has deny for my t3 champion and then I have pretty awkward mana and never really get much going.

In g3 we hilariously play draw go for like 8 turns when he breaks first casting a big thassas intervention, i respond with my own big intervention but he counters it. I untap and go for champion which he counters, but i stick Calix.

Unfortunately Calix is not jace the mind sculptor and he just easily beats it with a bunch of fliers. Ultimately my deck was just too much air and he has all vexing gulls and counterspells and despite me fighting like hell thru all of it; he is going to kill me with damage while I also have 0 cards in my library and nowhere close to killing him.

7-3

I’m feeling a bit down after this loss as I know I can’t afford to lose again. It sucks that magic tie breakers work this way, but if I would’ve lost in like R12-13 instead I wouldn’t have felt as bad knowing I probably had another loss to give.

I regroup, convincing myself my deck is absolutely busted. (Deep down I know I just need to win this round bc I am not losing in constructed.)

R11 Brenton Murahashi

Brenton is also RG and his deck seems quite good as well, but it is a different kind of good. He is like multiple warbriars blessings and lots of escape creatures and he is just a RG removal plus large creatures deck.

The lack of aggression helps me in this match as I’m able to win the 2 games I do somewhat trivially.

G1 I just have a really strong start and have Calix going on an empty board for way too long, and feel like i am 100% to win from t6 until I actually win t18.

G2 I feel ahead but I just draw a lot of timely basic lands in a row and succumb to some medium beats after losing my good cards to warbriars blessings.

G3 I feel really ahead, but he has some serious suprise burst damage with Phoenix and I think wings as well; deja vu.

CLINGGGGOAT does not care.

As a matter of fact he actually has dreamstalker manticore with me at 3 life. Draws from no hand and smiles a bit and says go. I have cling in my hand but am just holding onto it for dear life always leaving up 5 mana and 2 black. In my upkeep he fires off an omen of the forge. I give a wince and he targets me with the dreamstalker trigger.

Trigger resolves, I am at 2. Omen resolves, targetting me.

one second.......

CLINGGGGGOAT!

I clean up over a couple turns always leaving up cling.

8-3

I am obviously feeling really good here as I know I am just 7 wins away from the trophy and I have 6 teferi’s 3 dig thru times 4 wraths 26 lands and ~20 opts.

I am immediately suprised to see I am paired vs Sebastian Pozzo. He was in Pod 1 and I thought he was 8-0 overnight, but I was mistaken and he was 7-1 then 1-2 the draft.

R12 Sebastian Pozzo on Sultai Delerium

Sebastian’s list looks pretty stock (Similar to Joel Larson’s) and one thing I have going for me is that he cares way more about world’s and probably spent a lot of time testing standard instead of pioneer.

G1 is a real banger as he t2 scavenging ooze and I just chill out and counter lots of things that matter like a grisly salvage and some planeswalkers. But meanwhile he is exiling all my dig food and I am stuck with a dig in my hand and my life total somewhat dwindling down around 10.

I wrestle control of the game but promptly get emrakuled. The unfortunate thing is I timed a T3feri poorly and left him able to bounce his Emrakul. I don’t think I made any obvious mistakes and I was aware of emrakul and my teferi, but I couldn’t help but think I may have fucked it off somewhere as he is taking my turn.

Luckily he can’t devastate me too bad. He does get to spew some of my cards then go for a dig thru time grabbing 2 lands (He almost had to give me a spell! first 6 we flipped were 1 land and 5 bangers). And he bounces his emrakul and says go to my own turn.

I draw a supreme verdict and am able to + teferi and verdict his emrakul away on the way back down.

He can’t really do much with my turn and I am sort of home free. His deck still has 2 URO a Ballista a tracker another JVP and maybe 1-2 other relevant cards.

Over the next few turns I am just blasting castle tokens into play 2 at a time then eventually 3 at a time. I finally find a t5eferi after he has cracked 7 clues and cast 100 uro. I counted his deck at some point and he had 23 cards to my 19; but he was worried (I believe incorrectly) too much about me ultimating my t5eferi and he was just maximizing every clue and URO with no regards for milling. I never came close to ultimating t5eferi bc he resolved a ballista for 4 or so with 12ish lands. But my 15ish castle tokens were doing just fine protecting my already high life total.

We fight over ballista with my t5eferi and other cards but he was still drawing with uro and trackers, until he finally counts his library and its 9 cards to my 12.

My deck still has 2 verdicts another t5eferi and t3feri (I have both of those in play as well with some reasonable amounts of loyalty but not really threatening ultimate t5feri bc his ballista still around with 3-4 counters)

Upon recounting his deck he gives me a big sense of relief by conceding. He checked the clock and it was getting around 15 minutes, and he knew he would just be wasting time trying to fight thru triple castle and all these tokens with no real good cards left in his deck.

I was pretty sure this was the case, but the way he had been playing really made me think I was missing something. I kept racking my brain for how he was going to get another emrakul or something but the 1 he had was already exiled to lantern and yeah, turns out he was drawing dead.

Open decklists are great, but when u are against a deck with a bunch of 1 ofs like sultai delerium, while also not having played the matchup that much, that 1 minute of review really shrivels up as u sit there wondering why the hell this man is drawing cards with NO REGARDS FOR HUMAN LIFE!

In SBing i try to go quickly as I don’t want Sebastian to feel I got him by wasting time in any way, and also bc if I get beat by a quick TS + Tracker/dispute draw I can fight to win g3 in 10 min or whatever.

G2 is quite interesting as well but the turns are complicated and despite time ticking sebastian is still having to take some time to think. The climax is with only a couple of minutes left he assembles the 4th type with fabled passage thru a lantern and is able to traverse for emrakul threatening to cast it next turn thru a castle garenbrig if he has a land. But i have a cycler plus a teferi in play and with my cycler i find a dig thru time which finds an ashiok and a counterspell and I know it’s over.

I ashiok his graveyard and he concedes (I would likely not be able to kill him in time this game, but I was up 1-0 and he just saved us all some time and conceded)

9-3

No breaks... Next round is up.

R13 Zachary Kiihne Rimrock RED

Zach is great. I don’t actually know him well, but we battled a lot on the ladder of Arena on the Mythic Invy qualifier month. He ended up making it I believe, while I couldn’t close and finished 13th. We played lots of my WW vs his GW tokens where he was inherently favored, but the games were always complex and large board states and he always played quickly and seemed to know where the games were going.

Keeping up that pace at the PT, Zach just fires everything right off!

in G1 I keep a sketchy hand and he has the exact start to punish me. He just plays creature creature creature shock and I do find my 4th land in time but the problem is I don’t have a verdict, and when i draw on t4 it is not verdict and i die. If it was verdict I would also likely die bc I was so low anyway. WTF M8??

Luckily Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1

in G2 and G3 I use some 2 mana interaction to survive to trawler and I kill him with them. He did have to mulligan and keep a really land heavy hand in one of the games and it hurt him.

There was an interesting spot in g2 where i had both t3feri and t5feri and he had chandra torch of defiance, exiled a card and it was lightning strike. He lightning striked my t5eferi down, then plays another card. A Judge was nearby and came and stopped our game and informed us you can in fact NOT play magic cards exiled with chandra thru T3feri. What a dumb fucking card!

The judge decides we can just back up to the point of exiling, so instead I take 2. Either way I was casting Dig thru time end of turn and going to win trivially but this way I got to keep my t5eferi in play! Thanks Judge and T3feri!!

And yeah again g3 was just him flooding and me playing trawler at a really high life total.

10-3

I finally get a bit of a break as Zach played lightning speed and we got things over with quick. I get some food and get myself amped up for these next few crucial matches.

R14 Connor Cole

Connor is a local Texan who I actually met playing at I believe SCG Dallas recently. He won a PTQ and ended up joining our local Houston guys Slack team and then went on to crush the first 13 rounds of the PT!!!

Unfortunately he ran into the Buzz Saw here; and I had to show him what the last few rounds of a PT are like.

But no jokes aside, Connor is gas and plays really well. He ended up finishing 12-4 and tiebreaker stung into 9th :( But he qued for the final and I expect big things from him in the future.

Our match was a feature, but we were the backup and they had some audio issues.

I actually just threw away the first game being overconfident in my deck. It’s funny when playing a deck like UW control my instincts are to just man up and trust the shit out of my deck. By that I mean I maximize my mana and effeciency even if I am not getting the most out of my cards, bc i trust with all these teferi’s and digs and cyclers I will be able to gain some advantage/find what i need later so long as I am surviving and hitting lands.

My mistake was maximizing mana and a dig thru time where I exiled my elspeth. At the time I was at 9 life and I had already cast a dig hitting some weak sauce, so I figured I would find my absorb or 2 counters and lock the game, but instead i found opt and charm and i fluttered around with my t5eferi as well and could not beat his running burn spells putting me to exactly 0.

If I would’ve just taken 2 seconds to realize I am in no real rush (he was on E or maybe had 1 card) I should’ve just realized I was almost 0% to lose if I just didn’t exile my own Elspeth.

Moral of the story is don’t trust your stupid deck when you already have everything you need!!!

G2 is an absolute nailbiter as I play elspeth and think I’m cruising to Trawler, but chainwhirler eats it promptly.

I then have my 2nd elspeth but 2nd chainwhirler dashes that as well.

I still slam trawler and think It’s mostly very safe, as connor just has chainwhirler kari zev and soul scar mage with me at 9.

But he slams Chandra and minuses on my trawler. I count it up and thank the lord somehow he only has 8 damage. So i give my trawler hexproof keeping a dig thru time, and he puts me to 1. I untap and attack chandra draw and dig before damage, and I have a lot of combo’s that will keep me alive easily. Any interaction should be good enough and I leave myself 5 mana. I find a verdict and something else gassy so I just go up to 6 from trawler, verdict and then untap with elspeths ready to come back from the yard and I gain 5 and am out of range and clean up shortly after.

G3 is a bit less scary. He does put up a fight but I feel miles ahead at all points having 2 mana interaction and then also hittings lands and playing cards before trawlering on 6 while still quite healthy.

11-3

Now I’m really feeling hyped as I know I have a win and in and I’m just 4 wins from the Trophy!!!

I refocus and am very confident I will win the next round.

R15 Raja Sulaiman WB Gideon Midrange

I don’t know my opponent, but I do know he has a sweet deck. I am looking at the list trying to figure out if I’m extremely happy or a bit sad and can’t really tell. I lean towards happy but could totally see getting annihilated as well.

Luckily the match is mostly uneventful. I lose g1 to double TS Heart History Gideon...

But again,

Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1.

12-3

We did it! Back to back PT T8s!!

Unfortunately the next 20min were very unpleasant instead of happy, but that’s ok.

The pairings for R16 makeup for it!

I’m at table 1, paired against my teammate Allen Wu who has enough wins to T8 this PT and the next!

I know Allen does not care much for any bullshit, so I am actually a bit worried he is going to want to play me.

Yes we are teammates, but Allen cares [almost] solely about maximizing his chances of winning the tournaments. I respect him a lot, and I also respect this approach.

One of 3 things happened;

-Allen valued his time too much to battle me here for extremely minimal gains.

-Allen thinks there is some chance losing would make him the 2 seed while drawing just locks the 1 seed (I think he was locked 1 seed even if he played me and lost);

-Allen thinks I/my deck suck and he wants me in the T8

I’m leaning towards some combination of all 3, but who cares he offered to draw and I ACCCCCCEPT!

The final standings shake out with Allen 1 Jacob 2 Me 3. I am playing the 6, Huey, and my teammate Tommy is 7 battling Jacob on my side of the bracket.

My other teammate Corey is battling PETERRR in the 4/5 match.

Our team has 4 people in the T8!!! I know we are like 7% of the tournament, but thats 50%!

Also shoutout to Mark who I believe lost a win and in R15 or so.

Our squad obviously had a really strong showing, with 4 in the T8 and Corey winning it all. But we also just had really solid winrates in limited and constructed despite playing lots of different decks.

This is getting obscenely long.

This night was actually really annoying bc I spent it telling the same story over and over;

And also on twitter watching lots of people I’ve never met talk about how much of an asshole I am, or how much I cheat, or how bad I am, or whatever is getting the most likes.

I mostly shook it off. I got to tell the story to all the people I care about, and have dinner with a large portion of my team. I had already played my QF matchup post board a bit with Allen before the tournament, so I knew my plans.

Unfortunately it didn’t help me in the games.

I get to bed at a reasonable time and have to be at the site for like 9:15. I’m there before 9 and when I ask if I can go to starbucks I am told yes of course go ahead, but please stay around. And then immediately someone else tells me I won’t be playing until around 11 probably :0

I get starbucks and get back to battle Jacob some in his QF matchup. Mostly to just warmup and help him out, but also to get a feel for he and Tommy’s decks incase I beat Huey.

We only get a few games in before finding out my match is actually 3rd not 4th, and these BO3 are going quick and I’m about to be up.

While the other match is finishing, we present and draw our hands and get ready to start right when the other match finishes.

I am greeted with 2 censor Opt Farmland Hallowed Fountain Glacial Fortress Supreme Verdict. Not quite the nuts, but a solid A. I’m on the play and Huey mulligans to 5.

We finally start our game and this one hurt. I opt t1 and hit a teferi and keep it, then immediately draw my 4th land so i say go with censor up ready to cycle farmland, huey goes for sylvan scrying before playing land after t1 grazer got him to 2, and i censor it and he says go missing a land drop with 3 cards in his hand.

From here I play teferi to get the jayemdae tomb one every 4 turns going; Huey draws a thespians stage but can’t muster anything else, so he now has 2 UG lands a stage and 3 cards vs my censor cycle land another land and teferi.

Over the next 3-4 turns I draw 2 cards with teferi cycle this farmland and another, opt and charm, and the only playable card I find is a mystical dispute. I draw seal away and all 4 of my verdicts lol.

Huey goes for Granted with 3 mana up, and i have no choice but to dispute and hope to censor after he pays 2 for 1ing myself. I can’t be granted for distortion without a t5eferi in play or any pressure at all.

He responds by cycling vizier to make a mana, and pays for dispute with 1 mana still up. This now means I have to cycle censor looking for a hard counter but i brick. He gets distortion.

The game weirdly goes on for like 8 more turns. He just keeps making more fields with stages but I amass narset elspeth t3feri t5feri. He finally has to go for it despite not having a way to kill me, so he goes for distortion into string strings last card granted for ugin to wipe my planeswalkers; but I’m able to make a 1/1 and chip ugin down to 2. Unfortunately I draw a land, he +s on my token and i make another then draw another land. ANd now I am dead to the fae coming into play, back to hand, finding Jace and having double walker going. I just got beat at my own game!!! He didn’t even breach me!

But yeah, I am feeling a bit frustrated to lose the game despite knowing how bad G1 is.

When he mulled to 5 and got his scrying censored I believe I was a massive favorite, probably somewhere in the 70s or 80s at least and I just drew only the dead cards.

But now we board in 9-10 cards and regroup!

G2 was really great, and I made like 1 mistake a turn.

I asked a lot of really good players what they would do on all these turns and almost all of them would make the same mistakes I did.

Except for Allen;

and Drunk Tom Ross!

Tom let me know how bad I fucked up, and I really appreciate that.

Tom said many different things like “awww u really fucked up. U fucked it up bad. Damn u fucked it up”

The games are obviously on camera, but in G2 Huey goes for field + copy it with stage, I field of ruin the stage.

So his board is forest untapped Lotus Field tapped with 4 cards in hand.

I have T5feri my 4th and 5th land, 2 mystical disputes and absorb.

I untap and draw Elspeth.

The question is should I play it?

Huey has 4 disenchants, 2 disputes, 1 ugin, 1 jace, 1 thought distortion and maybe 1 more card he could bring in.

For the most part his plan is still the same, build up his mana and try to find a window to either thought distortion me, or strings my lands/his lands to make sure he resolves his key card(s).

But I just felt with the 2 disputes and t5eferi I was going to be able to apply meaningful pressure fast enough to not risk tapping out here.

In my head he could just granted for distortion then sort of ignore elspeth for a few turns and fire a distortion then kill me, but that is so unrealistic. First he has to not board the distortion in (I was thinking he like 80% brings it in. Allen brought his in and we felt like that was just correct so I assumed Huey likely would) and then he also has to somehow have perfect mana to get to 6 and then distort me and kill me before dying to this SIX MACHINE elspeth? Its stupid and I shouldve just probably played elspeth.

Not doing so was playing scared/too safe. But it really isn’t that bad or that big of a deal. If huey has a natural 2nd stage into strings I can easily just be dead. But it’s really low % and this is a tough matchup of magic the gathering vs a great player where you can’t just tiptoe around making suboptimal plays bc it makes you feel safe.

Lots of people hesitated and said don’t play it. Tom would have blown like a .40 BAC minimum when I asked him, and he immediately said to play Elspeth.

Anyway Huey untaps and just plays a temple scryland and keeps the card on top, and says go.

So now he has forest lotus field untapped and 4 cards with a banger on top.

My turn.

I draw damping sphere!

I have t5eferi damping sphere elspeth 2 dispute absorb and my 5th land.

Now a a few things go thru my mind here. Huey has 2 disputes but the way he’s played this game make me feel like it’s somewhat unlikely he has one.

However, if I go for t5feri and he does dispute it’s really ugly. I can go for elspeth with dispute up but that feels too weak.

My options I am actually considering are just jam sphere and counter a disenchant, or jam teferi and have double dispute up if he doesn’t have dispute.

I think it’s somewhat close, but in hindsight it’s actually just an easy T5feri.

Unfortunately I go for damping sphere which is where Tom says nooooooo u fucked up bad, u really fucked it up.

And Huey immediately floats 3 GREEN? I say ok and he natural states my damping sphere.

Now this is a bit weird to me. I mean he floated 3 green immediately; but he has a forest up. And he has 2 disputes in his deck...

So now I am paranoid that he hasnt a 2nd disenchant.

But it’s Huey, and it’s a PT T8. I start thinking maybe he is leveling me and trying to get me not to counter it bc he has no dispute and no 2nd disenchant.

Ultimately my plan when playing it was to just fire off a counterspell on disenchant bc if he does have a dispute or 2nd one he will only have 2 cards, and i can just untap t5feri with counterspell. But if he doesn’t successfully kill sphere I am just going to win easily.

So I absorb.

Huey bins the natural state and before he can cast his other one a judge intervenes.

There is a damping sphere in play when i absorb; so obviously I can’t do this bc it should cost 4. I just totally forgot that part of the card even existed. I haven’t cast it in the entire tournament, and in my mind it was just strip mine lotus fields to wastes.

Even with the speed of everything and huey snap disenchanting I could have seen myself forgetting to count the sphere tax to itself, but I literally just forgot it even had that text for a second there.

Huey also forgot it. The judges stopped us and then asked me what I was thinking, so I just repeated a lot of what I just typed; all the shit I was thinking about him floating green instead of blue etc. then they came back and gave us warnings and said to carry on. Huey apologizes after the game bc he said he totally forgot himself but it looks bad bc he wanted me to absorb bc he had another disenchant.

Anyway, we backup and I have a dead damping sphere and 3 mana up with absorb Huey now knows about. I also have the 2 disputes.

Huey untaps and immediately taps field and forest and plays hidden strings. THen he looks at me lol. I say are you targetting your lands?? He says yes

So yeah, now I am looking at this absorb he knows about. He only has like what 3 cards behind this strings. It’s going to put him to 7 mana. What can he even do? There is no way he’s killing me thru 2 dispute. If he has breach natural i let it resolve, then i dispute strings. If he pays he has 0 mana left and i dispute again untap teferi + and have absorb gg yo

If he has the natural distortion then obviously I need to counter this. But he has ONE and i just showed him absorb. I am thinking to myself, dont be a fool! his hand is probably granteds and pore over the pages and hes trying to bait u into countering this stupid strings!

So I let it resolve, and I get distorted.

This was not a good play!

I could have just disputed the strings. This virtually counters it bc he only had 1 field. So while he couldve paid for dispute, it wouldve tapped him out, and strings resolves untapping only 4 mana. So from there i still have another dispute and he can’t reasonably do anything.

Instead I am empty handed and in dire straights. I do peel t5eferi immediately but i hit land off of it and draw only lands next turn as well, meanwhile huey sets up to kill me over 2 turns and does so.

what a tilting match :(

It really hurts to make such critical mistakes in these high stakes matches, but Magic is really hard and I forgive myself pretty quickly.

I had good reasons for making the plays that I did, but they were just a bit faulty;

WRONG!

I feel like if I had more time to think things through, or if there were less pressure of the stakes I maybe would have just slammed T5eferi and even Elspeth t4. But i definitely don’t have a good excuse for not disputing strings. Just Huey being Huey and somehow levelling me into punting it all off after i showed him my absorb.

But yeah GG’s YO I ended up 6th for 10k bc Allen lost too :( and 18 points.

I have a really good shot at Rivals now so I am pumped for the PT final and next RPT!

Shoutout again to Corey for winning and all of team 5% for crushing and being gas.

Also shoutout to all the grinders out there still on the outside looking in.

I see you!

Hopefully I’ll have more reports soon...

PT Finals Victory Report, RPT2 Victory Report...

Let’s get it!!!

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