A mediocre magus remembers Regionals 2003

This was a long time ago, but one of my best gaming moments.  Well... not really one moment, because the event lasted, like, 14 hours.  (I only remember this because I told my non-gaming friends and family I spent 14 hours in the same room at the Bayside Expo Center in Boston, MA.)  There were 10 rounds!!  This event was one of my proudest moments.  A deck, all of my own creation, sparring at a big tournament.

The spring of 2003 was standard season for odyssey, onslaught and seventh ed.  Psychatog and UG Madness (I still hate that deck) were the veteran contenders, while (Mirari's) Wake was starting to come on scene.  Truly a fearsome field!

Lately, I'd gotten really interested in a janky TurboLand build for extended (I'd managed to acquire playsets of Exploration and Horn of Greed right before that deck took off) so I decided to try out a similar concept for standard.  I couldn't play extra land, but I certainly could go for the infinite-turn combo!  Gurzigost + Time Stretch gave me that combo, so I built a stalling deck around it.  The deck list included:  (This is from memory, though I may have it written down somewhere, in which case I'll update it.)

2 Gurzigost
3 Time Stretch
4 Far Wanderings
4 Moment's Peace
4 Compulsion
4 Circular Logic
2 Krosan Reclamation
2 Deep Analysis
1 Obsessive Search
4 Mental Note
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Lonely Sandbar
12 Island
10 Forest

Yes, that's half land.  The deck fiercely needed to play land every turn. 

Game one of each round was very fun.  Spend each turn drawing as many cards as possible and getting in a time stretch if feasible.  Stall, stall, stall until the library was empty, all the while listening to the opponent saying "What does your deck do?"  Then, drop a Gurzigost and next turn put time stretch (and maybe obsessive search) as the bottom AND top of my library.  Repeat ad nauseum, with the gurzigost getting in for unblockable damage (madness the obsessive search to redraw the time stretch).  If the Gurzi dies, use the other Gurzi to get it back in the library.  I probably won around 6 of my 10 game ones this way.  I remember beating (nearly?) all psychatog opponents; they didn't realize the problem until it was too late.  I played lots of psychatog.

Game two was often much faster.  I had two or three phantom centaur in the sideboard and those won me as many games against black-playing opponents as anything else.  Psychatog players were usually able to get a swift game two victory.

Game three didn't usually finish, if we even got to it.  Game one went so long that I racked up 3 draws during the day in the 10 rounds; I think they were all against psychatog. 

In total I went 3-4-3.  I know I lost to UG Madness, though I only played it once (and Wake never).  I must have played lots of aggro creatures.  I wish I recalled how many times I won because game two never finished.  Maybe none...

I remember having a great time, though! 

Magic 2012 prerelease

Partial liveblogging from the magic 2012 prere at the Game Haven in Dayton/Riverside, OH.  I opened absolute nuts:
Red: 3 shock, one fireball, fling.  Black: doomblade, 3 gravedigger, grave titan, royal assassin.  Decided to go RWB, despite some solid blue and green.  (Two rampant growths, but too much hotness in RB to justify 5 color.)

Round one I played against Alyssa running UW control.  She got Jace's erasure all 3 games, combined with Mind Unbound to deck me game 2.  Otherwise I was happy to have targets for gravedigger.  Turn 5 Serra angel in games 1 and 2 helped and grave titan won game 3.  In that last game, she tried to mind control the grave titan.  I responded with fling; she came back with negate.  Luckily sacing is part of the cost; I brought the titan back later with gravedigger to win.  We finished all three games with me at 20.  Matches: 1-0; games 2-1.

Round two I was paired against K.P., running RW.  Apparently we were both control somehow; we went nearly to time in 2 games.  Arbalest elite was ridiculous in game 1, 3-for-oneing or something ridiculous.  K.P. had to divine favor his roc egg at one point and I was forced to play around Circle of Flame.  I did win, with lots of life thanks to alabaster mage.  Game two was a bit more one-sided.  Gideon's lawkeeper + royal assassin netted me a bunch of creatures and I won without being touched.  Again I had to play around circle of flame, but grave titan doesn't mind.  Matches: 2-0; games 4-1.

Round three I faced red-blue Zack who had to deal with some tough hands.  Game 1 he drew 13 lands.  My Stormfront pegasus swang for 16 before serra angel saw the board.  I lost game 2, again at 20, when Jace milled me twice for 10 each.  The third game he scooped when I got the titan out; his deck had only given him islands.  Matches 3-0; games 6-2.

This is where the mediocre part starts.  Next up was Scott, running a green-white deck with lots of confidence.  Scott played with a friendly, but professional demeanor, and outplayed me game one to win.  Also, skinshifter is good... and fast.  Game two was a long, drawn out affair, where triple gravediggers helped hold off a solid field.  I played serra; he pacified.  He played serra; I took damage.  I played well, extending the game ~20 minutes longer than he may have expected, but lost in the end.  Oh well.  Matches 3-1; games 6-4.

I was determined to take this card pool to 4-1.  No way would I lose again.  I sat down against a red-black deck piloted by Bryan for the fifth and final round.  His deck was fast.  Game one I couldn't keep up with a bunch of little vampires and zombies.  Royal assassin kept him from attacking for many turns, but I didn't draw a plains and my hand filled up white.  Game two was much more exciting.  He took an early lead, but I hit 5 mana and got serra angel out supported by 2 gravediggers in hand.  He used consume spirit a few times to hand my guys and kept poking with a goblinish tim (only targetting players... what is this card called?) while swinging aggressively until I hit 3 life.  I then had to shock that dang goblin.  Then the titan hit the board and I cleaved him down to 6 and decimated his board.  "I've got three cards I can draw to win," he said, untapping.  He topped incinerate.  Game.  Matches 3-2; games 6-6.

Very fun!  It's also always good to see Aaron and play with him :)  Too bad we were never matched up!