MY DECK, 5c BANT-GEDDON

I ended up 4-3 on the day. The deck played as strong as you would expect any pile of really good cards to play. I didn't want to have to think through all my matches during a wild day, so I chose something that would be good enough to win, but not so good I would have to care about winning. My three losses came to Blood Moon (sadly, no Shivan sighting), Twiddle Vault, and a mirror match that ran a bit closer to the ground. Good day over all!

Round 1, Kristin O'Malley (2-0)

Snagged a 2-0 win in round one against Kristin. She was an awesome opponent who was admittedly new to the game. I had actually spent some time chatting with her and her boyfriend Will before the event got started, so it was a pleasure to get matched up with her from the get go. She was on RG Aggro/Midrange with all the baddies you'd expect.

I felt a little bit bad wheen I peeped my first hand of the day. I don't remember it exactly, but I do remember it included a Library, Ancestral, Mox, Mox, and some fatty. Dropped the big guy turn two and ripped into a Balance a couple turns to clear her board to a single threat. I rolled from there through game two.

Round 2, Nicholas Batista (2-1)

Ended up taking Nicholas 2-1. This matchup was weird because I was never totally sure what Nicholas was on the who round. I suspected I was up against some kind of Tax Edge build, but it wasn't until the end of the tournament when he picked up his Spice Award that I realized he was running a bizarro Pro-Red build, complete with Repentant Blacksmiths and Knights of the Thorn.

If I remember correctly, he stole game two with a huge Balance to put me out of kill range while his fire proof dudes went to town. I was able to sneak through in game three though.

Round 3, Carl Bjornstad (0-2)

It was right around this time that I started thinking to myself, hang on, I don't think my deck is actually this good, and well, Carl proved me right.

A week or so before the tournament I took some time and double sleeved my cards for the first time. This was great and I would recommend it to anyone. But be warned! There IS a new learning curve with your Chaos Orb flips. When I played my Orb in game one, Carl and I were actually joking about it. After I passed, he said, "Well, I guess I'll test you right away." as he dropped his (spoiler alert) first Blood Moon of the game. I hit the first flip, but he ripped a second Blood Moon shortly after. The round was downhill from there.

Round 4, Matt Escher (2-0)

To be totally honest, I don't have too much recollection of this round. You see, there was a break between round three and four for lobster rolls and chowder, so I guess I food coma-ed my way to a 2-0 win against Matt on Mono Black. Mono Black is an archetype I had anticipated struggling against, but in this round, I drew well and was able to drop big creatures before he cleaned them out of my hand.

At this point I am 3-1 and feeling pretty pleased with myself. As we will soon find out, that confidence was quite misplaced. 

Round 5, Danny Friedman (0-2)

After sitting down at the round five table to face Danny, we noticed that about a third of the room was 3-1 or better. I feel like Swiss pairings always make me feel better than I actually am. Anyway, Danny is on Twiddle Vault and to be honest, that wasn't an archetype I was particularly worried about, but things, well they went poorly. I missed an Orb flip (see above) in game one that really sealed that one up.

In game two, Danny managed to go "infinite" turns by turn two and I just decided to scoop em up and chat instead. In chatting with Danny the other day, he said of our match, "Oh yeah, I seem to 'Recall' that." 😑😂

Round 6, Justin Iskra (0-2)

It was cool to meet Justin after chatting here and there on Instagram. He was on a similar build to my own, but a bit closer to the ground with Savannah Lions in tow. This was definitely the worst of my games, I never found more than two or three mana sources in either of my quick losses while his Lions and Dibs ripped me apart.

I managed to win a bit of my rep back dominating a just-for-fun third game, but at this point, I was gonna have to get a win in the final round to finish over .500.

Round 7, Nicky Scars (2-0-1)

My first ever tie! In game one I was at ten life points, and Nick was at four. I went for it and played Earthquake, X=4. A double Bolt to the face gave us my first ever draw.

Luckily after game one I was back on my game, slamming down Armageddon after Armageddon to finish up 2-0-1. Nick was tons of fun to play against and like me, just seemed more happy to be there than to really make a point to try to win games.

Round seven was a great bookend to the day and finished me up at 4-3. I'll take it!