Redcap's "World Magic Day" event 3/6/10

Lots more players showed up than expected tonight. They thought many players would be at a PTQ event in New Jersey but many of them chose to play for the card instead i guess?
Im not all that great at remembering match specifics, and im sure this wont read that smoothly, but here is how my matches went tonight.

I played Grixis Control.

Round 1 i played against an odd deck green deck.
Game 1 he played back to back beastmaster ascensions, harrowed a few times... and nothing else.
I beat him for 2 0 damage with a landfall triggered Calcite Snapper.
Game 2 he ramped fast with turn 2 Khalni Expedition then turn 3 landfall, harrow, sack the expedition, then turn 4 land howl of the night pack.
I had 2 turns to draw Earthquake, i didnt.
Game 3 was interesting and i was lucky. I thought his only threat was howl, so i allowed his harrows and khalni expedition assuming i just needed to keep mana open for negate which i had in hand. He plays Avenger of Zendikar.
I had a creeping tar pit and a calcite snapper in play.
I would have been screwed had he hit 2 or 3 land drops but as it turns out, he didnt hit any. In fact, 3 turns in a row he drew the same card: khalni heart expedition.
I dropped Sorin, picked off a few tokens until i lost sorin to avenger. Finally i drew cruel and played it, bumping my life up to 24 after gaining from Sorin 2 or 3 turns. He finally draws land but by then i have 2 creeping tar pit and he cant stop them. He attacks for 11 then realizes its over next turn.

Round 2 i played against a variant of Naya.
Game 1 i kept a hand i probably shouldnt have and he got early beats with double Hierarch then back to back master of the wild hunt. Drew removal too late, didnt see EQ.
Game 2 im on the play. i kill his early threats. He drops a Woolly Thoctar turn 5 and on my next turn i mind control it. Turn 6 he drops Uril the miststalker. I untap for turn 7 with cruel ultimatum, a deathmark, and my 7th land in hand but its a CIPT tar pit. Fails. I attack with his Thoctar and he PtE's him. I go get an 8th land. He untaps, swings with Uril, and drops Walletslayer. I untap, cast cruel ultimatum leaving a swamp untapped. (he was unfamiliar with it and you have to love the look of shock on people's faces when they first realize how wrong CU is He chooses to sack Uril and loses his hand consisting of Banefire and PtE. I then Deathmark baneslayer to his dismay. I forget how i ended game 2 but i think it was a creature along with a big Earthquake for the finish.
Game 3 my deck does exactly what its supposed to do. I bolt a turn 3 great sable stag, then essence scatter his master of the wild hunt on 4 or 5. Turn 6 i drop Sorin, his life total is 10. Turn 7 i Cruel, then turn 8 i Cruel. Game over.

Round 3 i played a mill deck, which i was discussing with Dan before we started how badly i didnt want to play a mill deck. Ugh.
It was U/B.
He was running Hedron Crab with 8 to 12 relevant fetch lands and 4 grim discoveries along with haunting echoes, traumatize, and Sphinx of Lost Truth. He had Negate and Rite of Replication in there 2 although im not sure if any of that was MD or sideboarded. Not sure what other removal he might have had because he couldnt ever target my stuff.
I lose game 1 eventually as he grim discoveries 2 or 3 times his crab after ive killed it along with fetch lands.
Game 2 i sided in all the dudes i had hoping going more aggressive would help. In came 2 nighthawks and 2 bloodwitch and 3rd Earthquake. (Terrible idea dropping my MD earthquakes to 2 with the 3rd in the SB, i wish now i even had 4 main deck)
I won game 2, barely. He haunting echoed my milled graveyard leaving me with 5 cards in my library. Luckily i had Sphinx and Cruel in my hand and the mana to play them.
Game 3 was grueling. He milled away alot but not all and we eventually went to turns and neither of us could finish it in time. Draw.
He would have beat me though with more time and i fear ever playing that deck again, haha.

Dan and i got paired for Round 4 and had a good laugh about how we would now test our theories on the discussion we had 2 days ago regarding our decks. The discussion revolved around what he would sideboard against my deck and how his sideboarded Realm Razor would spell doom for me.
To be honest with you i kind of forget how our match went exactly. I won 2 games but i swear my memory is just fucking failing on details. Maybe because Dan and i talked more during our match than my other matches but im drawing a blank right now.
Hopefully Dan wont mind filling in how it went.

So now i was unexpectedly 3-0-1 and i made the cut to top 8.
I got the Kalastria Highborn full art card and im not going to lie, it looks fucking awesome. Pretty pysched about it.

I was really unsure if i was going to stick around or not to play more. I was already kinda tired and i had told my wife "ill be home by 10 or so" which i had already completely failed to deliver on. I called her with my decision to stay and play for the chance to win close to $100 in store credit. She wasnt happy. Im in the doghouse. But thats another story...

Anyway, i got matched againt Lucas Siow round 1 of top 8. He is one of several highly ranked players that frequents Redcaps and i really did NOT want to have to play him of all the people in top 8. I had never played him in any format before but he has a rep of rarely losing.
(see http://strategy.channelfireball.com/tag/lucas-siow/ for reference)
I had no clue what he was playing when i sat down across from him. It ended up being a slightly altered version of the typical Boros Bushwacker decks i have seen.
Game 1 he won the roll and we both mulligan'd to start. I probably would have mulligan'd again had i known what he was playing because he got the beating in early and i couldnt stop the bleeding/draw enough removal in time.
Game 2 i had a great opening hand of bolt, terminate, jace2, spreading seas, crumbling necropolis, swamp, dragonskull summit.
I seas'd his plains and killed his early threats and kept drawing removal along with another seas on his second plains.
He sided in Ruinblasters though so i was at 4 land turn 6 instead of 6. I drop Jace2 and brainstorm. He ges another plains and plays Ranger of eos and gets Lynx and Kor Duelist. i untap with Into the Roil in hand and say go. He attacks into jace and i roil it with kicker. He plays a dude. On my turn i earthquake for 2 and recast jace. He is empty handed so i choose to fateseal and he conceeds.
Game 3 i removed some early threats and kept it stable even though, again, the ruinblaster held me back a little. By now i realizd though that my deck does not need to Cruel to win so i wasnt too concerned with achieving 7 mana. But then he dropped his sideboarded elspeth which i knew would be trouble. I dropped malakir bloodwitch on my turn hoping she would hold him off for a bit. After another turn we were both at 12. I may have played too carefully here but i think he would have won anyway. It involved deciding to swing with the bloodwitch or not. I chose to be defensive because of how quick things can turn playing against bushwacker and if i had put the heat on him i might have had a better chance. He won by swinging with his team a few times which i could only block 1 of each time then earthquaking for 6. I had earthquake in hand but no red mana thanks to ruinblaster.

All in all it was definitely a lot of fun to play something other than limited or casual and to pilot a successful deck and top 8 where i didnt expect that i would was just a bonus.
I learned alot about the deck and sideboard and i will definitely be making changes before my next standard match.

Dan, thanks for all the help you've given me, even during our match that time (which i know is frowned upon to ask your opponent a rules question).
I hate that we had to play each other because otherwise we might have both top 8'ed.

If anyone wants my autograph now that im a successful standard player just let me know!

In both our games, I just couldn't ramp enough. You beat me to a Sphinx when I was stuck on 3 Mountain, 2 Forest, and a Valakut in game one (with 2 spectacular Chain Reactions in hand). In game 2, I missed a land drop, you countered my Expedition Map after your realized that, and I ended with Naya Panorama, Forest, 3 Mountains, and a Khalni Heart Expedition ready to go off. Realm Razer was irrelevant, as I had no Valakut.

It was a pretty disappointing day, which I kinda figured, as Valakut is tier 2 at best now. It was the only deck I had, though. I did pick up most of the pieces for that Death's Shadow-Ad Nauseum deck which is also not tier 1. Sigh...

Congrats, James!