This One Stings: A PTQ Report

Last week, I picked up a friend, and we headed up to Costa Mesa, California from my home in San Diego for a Modern PTQ. I ended up playing a Green/White Tokens list, and through six rounds I ended up finishing with two wins and four losses. However, I learned several things about the deck in time to prepare for this week's event at my  local gane store.

1) My green was absolutely garbage against most of the field: The only green in the deck was for Gaddock Teeg and Gavony Township, which proved near-useless in every major matchup.

2) Splinter Twin was a real problem: Some of this comes back to Green being no good, but I had no answers to a deck just holding back their counterspells to defend their win conditions. It ended up proving problematic, as I managed to escape with a win against a bad Twin player, but a good player in later rounds simply picked me apart.

With those two major points to think on, I packed up, took my two prize packs, and headed home to prepare for the next week. I ended up cutting green for black, and settling on this 75:

Finally Playing Standard Again (2-3)

When Innistrad forced out the Zendikar block, I found myself in quite the unenviable position. I don't have a large budget for Magic, and every deck I wanted was at least one to two hundred dollars out of my reach. I had managed to trade for a full set of both Isolated Chapel and Woodland Cemetery to go with several Titans from pre-rotation Birthing Pod and Mono Black lists. With about an hour to fool around before going to Friday Night Magic, I sat down at the computer, opened up my favorite deckbuilding software, and got to work.

The Sandy Man Can! Hazezon Tamar (EDH League Deck)

In previous posts I've touched on the SoCal EDH League, of which I'm entering my third year of. It is a casual/competitive league that is run across half a dozen stores in Southern California on Monday nights. Players earn league points each week, one for participation, and bonus points for the top 3 finishers. The highest pointgetters across all stores qualify for a final tournament with a very hefty prize payout.

The league also makes a concerted effort to remain mostly casual during the regular season, including a lowly  two dollar entry fee to prevent players using 'unfair' decks just to win the prize pool. After discovering the Partial Paris mulligan allowed combo players many more chances to dig for their combo pieces, the rules were changed to create a modified mulligan. First mull is free, set aside your hand of 7 cards, draw a new 7, and then shuffle, drawing one less card each time. Players also recieve a 2-point penalty in the league standings if they win via an infinite combo (Taking infinite turns, Infinite combat steps, etc.).

A while back I talked about what I did to the Political Puppets Commander precon, detailing the changes I made. I said it wouldn't be my deck for my League matches, which of course presents the question of what I actually do play for it. So with no further delay, take a look at this decklist while I briefly discuss the kill conditions.

Hazezon Tamar EDH

Commander League Preseason Recap (3rd)

Southern California is blessed with a fairly large contingent of Commander players, enough to support a league format. The season was scheduled to start this week before a few issues pushed the official start backwards, meaning no points towards the Finals could be earned this weekend. However, that didn't stop sixteen players from turning up at San Diego Games & Comics to throw down. Two pods of five and a pod of six each played, with the pod winners moving on to the final pod of the night, joined by the player or players with the most player kills. Players get a 10 card sideboard where they can make changes before each round

My Pet Project: The Iron Deck-Builder Challenge

When I was first cutting my teeth in Magic I spent a lot of time on the Wizards forums, especially in Standard General. You can find me over there as ReleasetheAnts. Since 2008, I’ve become a bit of a fixture there. I’m not the type who posts endlessly in every thread, on average I have maybe two or three posts per day, but I tend to stay involved around Standard discussions, and the occasional forum contest.

This summer I wanted to try my hand at starting a competition on the forums. One of my favorite televisions shows (forgive me for nerding out) is Iron Chef, both the original Japanese series and the American revival. I enjoy how chefs can come in, be handed a random ingredient, and still produce amazing things. Of course later in life I discovered my romanticized view wasn’t really accurate, but I wanted to carry the same concept over to Magic deckbuilding. I wanted players to stretch their skills building decks by adding different variables to construction. And so, Iron Deck-Builder was born.

Talking Politics: Overhauling Zedruu EDH

It was a cool summer night last week, full of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. Two of my friends and I beat the archenemy campaign start to finish, then I proceeded to unlock Kiora Atua’s entire deck (It’s insane, but that’s another post), taking me through the wee hours of the morning. We had each purchased the game, and the time came to head to our local game store to retrieve our Titans. I, however, had a secret motive. It was Friday, the 17th: Commander Launch Day.

I was still going back and forth which deck I would get the entire car ride. Everyone else I knew who played in the EDH League here was raving about blue. Animar, Damia, Riku, almost every general with a teardrop in the corner was getting loved on. Except one. Zedruu had not had a single mention on other people’s priority list, and I couldn’t tell why. The deck seemed solid, maybe not the value cards of Riku or Damia’s decks. Still it seemed like it’d be easy to pass up, and sure enough, there it was. I traded a few rares and a twenty for the deck, passing on a Japanese version at the last second. After getting it home, the next trick was adding to it until it would at least stand a chance against the other league decks around.

A Modest Introduction

And away we go, into the ever-expanding pool of Magic Player blogs. I like to think I come at it from a slightly different perspective. But before we get into that, a confession:

My name is David, and I play terrible Magic decks.