So I’ve been dealing with an increasingly disabling illness that really made me reevaluate a few of my priorities. I had to stop writing for Quiet Speculation (for the time being) because I wanted to reduce my stresses, and as a result, this blog also went on hiatus. I am starting to feel quite a bit better, so no worries about your hero, but am not yet 100%. Looks like it was a medication mix-up that actually made me WORSE instead of better, so I’m back to square one. I’m going to try and get a few updates going again, but bear with me as I try to get back to how things were.
LA Mood Pre-Release Jan 29/2011
When you have a GF, it’s sometimes hard to balance “magic time” with “girlfriend time”. BUT after much begging & pleading, I was “allowed” go attend the Sunday Pre-Release at LA Mood. Granted, after reminding her about it for two weeks straight she STILL gave me heat for “abandoning” her on the weekend :S. Oh well, she’ll have to get used to disappointment… or WILL she?
On to the 46 person tournament!
The WORST Pool EVER?
I’m used to opening horrible, HORRIBLE pools, so this one was no exception. I had a couple of “good cards”, but I can’t call them “bombs”…
1) Soul Seizer
2) Havengul Runebinder
3) Thraben Doomsayer
… With the exception of A Grasp of Phantasms and a Silent Departure, the rest of my pool was unexceptional. I had 2x of the 3/2 first strike flyer for 5 and a couple 2/1 flyers for W2 and U2, so I guess evasion was my deck. I DID have 17 creatures, so that was something.
Oh yea, did I mention that I was playing a three color monstrosity yet because I wasn’t deep enough in any 2 colors to go with a duo? Yep, I was rocking the faithful U/W/B with no “real” mana fixing! It was an 18 land smorgasbord with such classics as: Shimmering Grotto, Evolving Wilds and Ghost Quarter (to target my own lands with, obv :S)! My buddy Jeff Olsen joked to me: “Dude, no bombs and you’re playing 18 lands w / no fix? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!”.
Bah! He should have had faith!?
Pppllllaayyyyy!!! (Ye-ye-ye-yes sir!)
Round 1 had my suspicions verified… my deck was TERRIBLE. I managed to grind out a win based on morbid triggers and generating card advantage with Zombie makers. Highlight was when he sacrificed his final team member to make his Aristocrat indestructible and block my 3/2 flyer.
“Thank you for activating Morbid, good sir. Cast Tragic Slip and give him -13/-13 until EoT?”
… SCOOP MODE!!!! J
Going Downhill in a Hand Basket
I was on a high roll… I managed to win a match! Yessss…
Game 2 was going pretty nice as well. I made a few calculations and swing in with my team. I have a Falkenrath Noble, so whether he blocks my team or not, he’s set up to die to the Midnight Haunting that I will be casting on his EoT… except I forget to play it, and he equips an Invisible Stalker with a Butchers Cleaver and I can’t recover.
Game 2 he plays a T2 Invisible Stalker into a T3 Butchers Cleaver and begins the pain on T4. I wasn;t just sitting there waiting to be pounded, and he did literally NOTHING for the rest of the game except swing and gain life but it was too much. So I lost AGAIN to same “combo”. *sigh*
At this point, I was super tired, disappointed with my deck, and just didn’t really want to be there anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be, and the packed venue and constant action was wearing me down. My buddies who I normally play with (Dobbs / Eric) couldn’t make it, so I was all by my lonesome without my crew.
“Well, I guess I may as well stay until I lose my next round. Shouldn’t be long. Maybe I can even make it home before the GF goes to sleep!”
Let the Good Times Roll!
As always seems the case when you’re dying of hunger but too lazy to leave, I start winning. So much for leaving early, as I win my next 4 in a row, even managing to beat out the fabled Will Bax in 3 hard matches of a game I like to call: “Mull to 5 & get destroyed”. We had a tight second game, but the first and third were basically draw, miss a land drop, say go…
So round 6 I draw with Mark Wells and cross fingers that I don’t get bumped into 9th. With my belly rumbling and my eyes bleeding, I make the cut in 7th.
I’M TOTALLY READY TO SPLIT PRIZES!
Sheesh, it’s 9pm already and I’ve been here since 1030… 11 ½ hrs is enough for me!
“So are we going to T8 split?”
“NOOOO???”
“And on top of that we have to DRAFT??”
I wake up for work @ 6:30 tomorrow, so this little turn of events was the WORST thing that could have happened!
LOUP-GAROU!!!
The top 8 draft… so much pressure!
I started off heavy in white, scooping up some nice fat 4/4 and 5/5 flyers. I branched out into black because there was really nice removal coming around. Then it was time to flip into green, because I kept getting passed really good 3cc werewolves, then I saw my Rosetta Stone and I knew what I had to do. It was IMMERWOLF, and he proved to be the bait I needed to switch to R/G w / a W splash.
After collecting all the werewolves I could (as well as a Moonmist and Full Moons Rise) and smashing it together with my white, I ended up with a pretty decent deck! It had a TON of low CC creatures to shore the board while I develop mana to play my high CC white cards.
I won game one 2-0… onto the semi-finals!
My play of the day came during this match. I had 4 werewolves on board along w / a Stromkirm Noble. He had 4 guys equal to my Werewolves, and had just spider spawned for 6. (Fortunately, he could not pay the flashback next turn, as he was not running any B mana). I played Full Moons Rise, then DIVINE RECKONING. I sack my Full Moons Rise to regenerate all my werewolves and chose my Stromkirk Noble to “survive the reckoning”. He scooped!
Won game two 2-0… onto the finals!!!
… And we finally split @ 11pm! I got to go home to my sleeping GF with 15 packs in hand for my victory. Got to sleep myself around 3am, and had to wake up for work @ 630am.
The next day at work I WAS THE ZOMBIE. L
Interesting Observation…
You know how we were supposed to have a few people be monsters (Zombie, Werewolf, Spirit, etc…) and that if you LOSE to those monsters, you become one? WELLLL… our entire T8 were all HUMANS! We survive and thrive! There should have been an award for just SURVIVING as a human!
“Just say NO to a Zombie Apocalypse!”
Cheers!
Carl Szalich
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