UK Nationals happened this past weekend. It was in Sheffield - practically my home town (Barnsley doesn't have a real book shop, ergo it is not a real town) - so I pulled together a blue/black control list for Patriot Games pre-nats standard tournament, packed up about 50% of my belongings and headed to my Gran's house to live in Chapeltown for four nights.
Night one was literally as medicore as possible. I went 2-1-2 (the middle is a tie, for Americans who don't know how numbers work), which I kind of expected. I think blue/black control is fine in general, but the meta game at Patriot is sporadic, and with a bunch of unknown (to me) players attending as well, I was pretty worried about the aggro decks. My losses came against an interesting Jund pod deck by Rob, which I feel like I should've won, and Quinton's mono red, which is basically a write-off. The whole match with Quinton lasted about ten minutes, including sideboard and shuffling time - that should tell you all you need to know. The draw came against a pod-less version of RUG. I had only played against that deck once before, months ago, and i think i made a couple of play errors. It was a very intense game, which i feel like i could have won if i was more experienced in the matchup, but that's what happens when you only play a handful of standard games per month.
My wins were fairly straight forward, not really worth talking about. I beat a homebrew red/blue control list, which got mana screwed in both games, and a bizarre red/white/black homebrew with hawks, equipment and Dark Tutelage. My opponent, Matt, who borrowed the deck from a friend, graciously killed himself with the enchantment in game one, while game two was a fairly straightforward Solemn-into-Sphinx demolition job.
I went home feeling like i would probably skip the standard LCQ next day, even if i scrubbed out in the limited one. The meta felt pretty stacked against U/B, and i'm far from the best pilot for it so i went to bed hoping to open some titans in the morning.
A quick word on M12 limited. So far, it has been cruel to me. At the prerelease i used up all my bomb-luck by opening a Grave Titan and Sphinx of Uthuun. Since then, i have lucked-out horribly in every draft, even if i had a decent deck (see the post about game day, for example). In short, i felt like i was due some luck.
But if there is such a person as lady luck, i must've pissed her off more than i thought. The first - and, tellingly, only draft - actually went okay. I opened a Sorin's Vengeance in pack one and passed nothing in black except for a Wring Flesh. I picked up a Berserker and Incinerate back-to-back, then saw basically zero red playables for the rest of pack one. No problem, I would just play blue/black control in limited, too.
Pack two continued down that path, with a handy Doom Blade being the highlight. In pack three, i don't really remember what happened, except that i somehow got a third pick Sorin's Vengeance. Now, that seems pretty good to me; if i can stall out until seven, the game should be pretty un-losable, right? The problem is that i got pretty greedy. With little decent removal, i decided to splash the Incinerate and a Shock - yep, i splashed with two triple-black spells in my deck. And no, i didn't have a single Manalith. In retrospect i don't really know what i was thinking, but i at least had the decency to cut my Devouring Swams so i didn't need any double-mana until turn five.
The first match actually went surprisingly well, lulling me into a fall sense of security. I won the entire match with just five attacks. Granted, in game two he wrecked me with green beaters before i could do a single point of damage, but games one and three were comfortable wins.
Match two showed me just what was wrong with my deck, however. I played against the U/W aggro deck with a bunch of pegasi and drakes. Game one lasted a LONG time before he managed to "out-dude" me and finish the game off. I did resolve a Vengeance - my only damage of the whole match, as it turned out - but i didn't see the 2nd one and couldn't draw enough guys to keep up. In game two i mulliganed to five and got stuck on lands. My only spell - a Skywinder Drake - got Mana Leaked and i quickly scooped.
At this point, i figured that i would drop out if i didn't win my last match. A 1-2 record would make it so that even 3-0'ing the 2nd draft probably wouldn't be good enough. So when i sat down opposite Russel (of Worldslayer and card-throwing fame) i did so with equal measures of excitement and dread. Excitement because i know i'm a better player than him, but dread because i know how shitty i would feel if i exited nationals because of losing to him.
Sure enough, i cast a Vengeance after his green and white dorks beat me down to 13. I stablised comfortably from there and killed him. A few nerves dealt with, but in game two it was almost as one-sided as my mull to five in the previous match. I did zero damage while his crappy dudes, and a massacre wurm, ate my life very quickly. So, game three, i was on the play, and I kept two Vengeances, four lands and a dude. Oh, god, why? I've read a lot of pro players speaking about how they will play worse and keep bad hands against a player they view as inferior and this was a perfect example.
But rather than simply crushing me, the game teased me cruelly. I drew pretty well, and we stalled out for quite a while - me at 15 life and him at 11. I bashed him down to 6 but then he drew guys and i stumbled. His board was big and scary - including an un-thirsted Wurm - but I had a chump blocker and Royal Assasin with six lands, including triple black. I untapped, failed to draw a land and passed the turn. He untapped, slammed a Celstial Purge and killed my Royal Assasin. No worries, I still have a chump blocker and plenty of life. He passed the turn, I untapped, miss on land but played another chump blocker before i passed. I still had plenty of time, I assumed. He untapped, slammed a Crown of Empires, tapped my biggest blocker and killed me with exactly 15 damage. Oops.
Still, with four days hindsight, there's no point in crying about bad luck. My first nationals taught me a harsh but important lesson - one that i can apply to any of the competitive games i play. Concentrate on the game, not on my opponent. Sure, keep an eye for mistakes and know where you can get an edge, but you still have to play well. Magic isn't a game where the best player always wins. Underestimating an opponent is almost as bad as, oh, lets say, splashing cards in a deck with triple-black spells. Splashing in a deck with two triple-black cards is stupidly greedy, especially in a high-ish level event like nationals.
I can bitch about getting unlucky with the mulligan in round two and not drawing land in round three, but they wouldn't have been such problems if i had built a better deck. Having basically one win condition is not a viable option unless you really build around it. This weekend showed me that i need to play a lot more than i do.
Still, on the plus side, i did play my first ever minimasters, which is pretty awesome fun. I even won at my first ever attempt, thanks in no small part to Fireball. I did volunteer my services to Rich Hagon, who seemed like a thoroughly decent bloke, but i ended up being too addled and busy to actually go and see him again to do some writing. Ho-hum, i definitely need to be more prepared for the next event like this.
But overall, i was pretty disappointed with my performance at nationals. I enjoyed the weekend as a whole, but I feel like i let myself down in terms of playing and drafting. And as for two-headed giant, well... that seriously was annoying unlucky, completely outplaying our opponents, only to die to a stupid overrun. Best-of-one is not cool, and if i'd known it was like that i probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place. I still think we could've gone 4-2 if Tom had stuck around though (he went home when we were 1-2). Our pool was incredible!
Oh well... next year, eh?
