MTG Salvation

GP Charlotte trip report

Fk, it's hot in Charlotte. Super humid too. I figure I have enough time to play in a grinder where in round 1 I defeat a Splinter Twin opponent that walked into my removal in response to Twin twice. 2nd round I actually beat an affinity player because he insisted on taking mulligans into hands he could try to dump on the board. He ended up taking mulligans down to unplayable hands and I was lucky to win that match. I finally lost to Scapeshift who ramped into 8 lands comfortably. In game 2 I actually didn't manage my mana or resources comfortably to interact so that was my fault because I walked into 2 for 1s twice. I forgot that this match up does require some patience on my part.

So as usually is the case travelling with friends, we go to sleep by 1:30 am with the intention of waking up at 7:00. I'm not really fond of this because 5.5 (at best) still isn't the greatest sleep. I've played competitively my whole life and somewhere past the age of 23 sleep became a critical aspect of my preparation. Insufficient rest too easily results in blunders during game play in any game. While I can play great online because I choose when or when not to play, GPs wait for no one My sleep went terribly anyway. In this 5.5 hours I only got around 3 hours of sleep unfortunately.

By the GP time I sleeved up what most of you knew was this:

Main
10 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Wanderwine Hub
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Tidebinder Mage
3 Merrow Reejerey
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
3 Master of Waves
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
2 Vapor Snag
2 Dismember
1 Relic of Progenitus

Sideboard
3 Spell Pierce
2 Remand
1 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
1 Tidebinder Mage
1 Master of Waves
2 Dismember
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Chalice of the Void

I played only 2 Tectonic Edges in the sideboard instead of 4 because I didn't want to take up too many sideboard slots for just Tron. I also didn't except Tron to be a big part of the day 2 metagame. I more or less had the deck built to defeat decks I expected to see on day 2 like Twin and CoCo.

I asked the dealers if they have any foil Japanese Wanderwine Hubs. "Nope." English ones? "Nope." well fk off.

Round 1. BYE (x-0)

Round 2. vs Affinity 0-2 (x-1)
WELCOME TO CHARLOTTE. So round 2 I'm up against our worst match up. He aggressively attacked with a single Ravager. I had an opportunity to make a great block with Mutavault and cursecatcher with a Lord on board to force him to sac all his permanents to the ravager and then I would have an opportunity to snag it. Unfortunately I was too tired and only blocked with the mutavault. He sac'ed permanents but not enough to make a difference. Over the turns he drew more 'stuff' and it was enough to kill me. I lost the match easily

Even though I was sleep deprived I had to survive to 1:00 pm which is when my brain would turn on anyway.

Round 3. vs Small Zoo 2-0 (x-1)
He is playing the Step Lynx version with Goblin Guide. Just a lot of good 1 drops. i take a chunk of damage but then stabilize. The key in small zoo match ups is to protect your life total as much as possible just like a burn deck. In this case you are willing to trade creatures on the ground if possible because we can rebuild a faster clock from nothing than they can. In game 1 I stabilized the board at 12 life and eventually knocked him down a few attackers at a time until he was dead. On the draw for game 2 he got me down to 6 before I could finish his life total off from 13. Zoo decks generally take a lot of damage and are doing 33% of the work for you I like the idea of taking Cursecatcher out on the draw against a match up like this. Our opponent will have more mana than us and cursecatcher will have a hard time attacking or blocking in any situation. Blocking is hard because if we have a 3/3 cursecatcher thanks to lords we can easily get 2 for 1'd in combat thanks to removal. For this reason I side out Cursecatcher on the draw (but bring him back in on the play and side out Vial for threat density)

Round 4. vs BUG Tezzeret 2-0 (x-1)
I wasn't sure what to make of this deck. I got to see the UB Tezzeret and my Opponent started to make 5/5 artifact creatures. My stuff was mostly unblockable so I didn't care. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of the deck except it used Academy Ruins, Darksteel Citadel, Creeping Tar Pit, Mutavault. For this reason I figured his deck was best suited to play Damnation either in the main or sideboard. Game 1 I emptied my hand on the board asap and won. Game 2 I played a little more carefully and stripped his lands of colors with spreading seas and tectonic edged away an Academy ruins so he couldn't reuse engineered explosives. Patience paid off and I won. Something to note about this match is that my opponent was the very first to call a judge over the oracle text on all my cards. You see I play with mostly Japanese cards and for the first half he couldn't trust what I said the card did. What he did was very correct of him. If I ever face a foreign card that I'm not 100% sure what it does I always call the judge. I would do it 20 times if I have to. People can mistranslate what a card does all the time. For example most people think Tidebinder's ability stays in effect so long as it is in play when in reality it is only while it is under your control! It was funny that he asked for an oracle text on Merrow Reejerey twice Anyway. After telling the truth 5 times he ended up believing me for the rest of the match.

Round 5. vs UWR Flash 0-2 (x-2)
So game 1 I see a lot of UWR cards and lands, nothing unusual. It was an overwhelming amount of removal and I eventually die to a snapcaster and Restoration Angel. I simply figured this was a UWR Control deck and sideboarded as so leaving Spreading Seas in and taking most of my removal out. Game 2 I mulligan and that didn't help because he had a lot of removal and then GIEST OF ST.TRAFT?! Vendillian Clique? Oh crap this is UWR flash. Yeah I was screwed and unprepared.

Round 6. vs Amulet Bloom 2-1 (x-2)
Game 1 was lords lords lords. You could say I was lucky because I top decked and played a cursecatcher 2 turns before he went for the hive mind Pact combo which in that case I countered my own copy of Slaughter Pact. Game 2 was funny because I never came across this interaction before. I have a Master of the Pearl Trident, Silvergill Adept, Tidebinder mage tapping down Primeval Titan, and a Chalice on 0. Looks like a lock, what could go wrong? he Tolaria Wests for Engineered Explosives?! my board is wiped and I'm screwed. Game 3 I lost some lords to Firespout but rebuilt with new lords and his slow draw didn't turn into anything and I won. Reejerey is a very good card in this match up.

Round 7. vs RG Tron 2-1 (x-2)
My opponent took a mulligan twice. It didn't seem like his day. He wasn't able to naturally assemble Tron and he lost quickly. Game 2 I didn't seem to be able to interact with him and he put a Wurmcoil on the board. yeah I didn't win that battle. Game 3 He played a Sylvan Scrying right into a cursecatcher. I had another Cursecatcher but the only way he could play around that one was to play a Tron land of the same kind on the battlefield which gave him 2 Mines and a Grove. He was much weaker to Spreading Seas and Tectonic Edge and he lost.

Round 8. vs UWR Flash 1-2 (x-3)
Game 1 I see only a Narset Transcendent and we play a grindy game until I killed that btch and went to work on the opponent's life total and win. Game 2 was totally different. Again I sideboarded like this was a UWR Control deck but game 2 showed me Vendillian Clique, Restoration Angel, blink Clique, and blink Clique again. I lost to the fliers. Normally I should change my sideboard at this point given the fact Im not up against a control deck, but to what? I had no plan or experience vs the UWR flash deck. This was an archetype that died when I started getting into modern. i was too tired to make any plan on the spot to I decided to not change anything. Game 3 was very close. If I was more awake I might have won. The situation was that he revealed a bolt to me but declined to actually play it because I had an active Relic on board "oh yeah the relic". I wrote down the bolt on my piece of paper but I should have also written down Snapcaster mage! This is what I missed. The situation is that I have lethal next turn with my Master of Waves and millions of waves. The only thing protecting MoW from a Path to Exile is my Kira in the air. He attacked with 2 Restoration Angels and a Vendilion Clique. My life total is 14. My opponent has 3 lands untapped with a missed land drop for turn, one of the lands is red. I know he has bolt. He also had a fist full of cards anyway. While he might have a land and another bolt I also felt he might think he's dead so he's just going to attack and see what happens. The judge told me I had to make a decision and so I choose not to block. I got to 5, he plays a land and Bolt, Snapcaster, Bolts me. GG. I had a cavern of souls and Aether Vial in play and I'll remember in the future that in these situations my opponent's full hand is likely counters and not removal like path to exile. Still I think if I was more clear headed I could find the block. This is the 2nd time in a GP I was in a situation where if I block I win and if I don't I lose.

I drop from the event not knowing the side events are closed for the day. I was sort of bummed I got knocked out but in retrospect I was glad I won against the archetypes I had a plan against and lost to those I didn't. My rough plan vs UWR flash for the future will to sideboard and play like it's a twin match except I don't have to be afraid of a combo finish out of nowhere. The reason for this plan is because both decks has similar features like flash creatures and a lot of removal and counters.

Quick report on the Sunday Super Series:

R1 Win vs Infect: just snag twice and it was over
R2 Loss vs Burn: Game 1 I kept Spreading Seas, Master of the Pearl Trident, MoW, 4 lands. Drew only lands. My opponent had 4 Boros Charms
R3 Loss vs Twin: Got combo killed with no interaction in both games
R4 Win vs Zoo: Chalice on 1 did a lot of work
R5 Loss vs Twin: Again no interaction and naturally combo killed.

My 2 friends playing Podless Pod went deep into day 2. Mark Klusa particularly got 14th place. A successful weekend for them.

It was fun meeting those in Charlotte like Kaspar So, "Post", "Stormcrow42", Paton, Jeremy, and the rest of you that didn't tell me your usernames

But to hell with Charlotte. Lets go to Copenhagen.

So I get packed and fly over to Poland where I'm staying with family. I planned to be here for a month and it turns out there is a Modern GP in Copenhagen the weekend that I arrive. Sign me up!

To prepare for this GP I took my Charlotte list and jammed a bunch of 8-mans online. I was getting killed. I was basically winning 50-55% instead of my normal 70%. I did accept however that the players in the 8-mans were superiorly better than in the dailies or 2-mans. Pros preparing for Pro Tours and big GPs jam 8-mans and the likelihood of playing such players is higher in an 8-man than in a 256 person daily. The more games I played the more flaws I saw in my deck. It was obvious that Grixis control was now a deck. Therefore I finally had a reason to play 4x Tectonic Edge for Grixis control and Tron. As much as I liked Chalice of the Void I wanted perhaps more counterspells vs Ad Nauseam, Goryo's Vengeance, while still useful vs infect and Burn so I settled on Dispel. Dispel proved to be awesome. Eventually I was playing something like this online to success:

10 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Wanderwine Hub

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Tidebinder Mage
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master of Waves

4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
3 Dismember
2 Vapor Snag
2 Spell Pierce

Sideboard
1 Master of Waves
1 Tidebinder Mage
1 Spell Pierce
2 Remand
1 Dismember
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
2 Dispel
2 relic of Progenitus
4 Tectonic Edge

I figured the Spell Pierces might be too situational and didn't want them vs CoCo decks nor BGx. So I replaced them with Relics and put Pierce in the board. As a result the only thing I didn't like about the main is that it didn't feel like it had a great game 1 vs Twin. But the rest of the deck felt great against every other match up and I decided just to have a so-so game 1 vs Twin to have a great game 1 vs everything else.

The deck started performing well online and I was happy. Thassa felt like it was doing very well in the Grixis control matches but I still played too little with it to be sure it was worth being in the deck. I knew Kira would be better in a delver match, and probably equally good in a Grixis control or Twin match. Of course I put Kira back in.

At the time of durdling with the decklist Przemek Knocinski, Polish mtg player, asked me what my build looked like as he was planning to play Merfolk and he was not paying attention to the metagame at the time. I gave him the following list:

10 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Wanderwine Hub

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Tidebinder Mage
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master of Waves

4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
3 Dismember
2 Vapor Snag
2 Relic of Progenitus

Sideboard
1 Master of Waves
1 Tidebinder Mage
3 Spell Pierce
2 Remand
1 Dismember
1 Thassa, God of the Sea/Merrow Reejerey
2 Dispel/Swan Song
4 Tectonic Edge

I told him Thassa was likely going to get kicked for Kira. He was also interested in Hibernation but I told him I didn't like it. In the end the final version of the deck was this:

20 lands
10 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
3 Wanderwine Hub

25 creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Tidebinder Mage
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master of Waves

15 Spells
4 Spreading Seas
4 Aether Vial
3 Dismember
2 Vapor Snag
2 Relic of Progenitus

Sideboard
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
3 Spell Pierce
2 Remand
1 Master of Waves
1 Dismember
1 Tidebinder Mage
1 Dispel

Przemek's only difference from my exact list was -1 Dismember, -1 Kira, Great Glass Spinner for +2 Hibernation.

And that is how ours decks came to be

So the annoying part of this trip is that my team was leaving for Copenhagen at 10:35 pm and we expected to get there at 11:35. In a best case scenario we MIGHT get t the hotel before 12:00. Of course we get there late and we sleep at 1:30 am (again) to wake up at 7:00am. We were also very far from the venue. The hotel was noisy as people were partying outside. My roommate also snored loudly. I woke up a lot and only slept 2.5 hours this time. Ridiculous. 3/4 of us were very sleep deprived by the morning.

GP Copenhagen Day 1

This time around I was able to find myself foil Wanderwine Hubs from the European dealers. Do you have any foil Wanderwine Hubs? "Sorry, I only have one in Japanese." Excellent! I also found another dealer with an English foil Wanderwine Hub.

The player meeting happens and I look for my decklist and discover it's gone. I must have left it on a table or something. This crap happens when my brain is on 20% I rush for new decklists and quickly write everything down from the list I had on my phone. Fortunately the last thing judge's do seems to be collecting deck lists from everyone. The venue had much larger tables and comfortable chairs compared to Charlotte. On the other hand everything was expensive has fk. A small carton of water was like $5. I accidentally left a carton on a table and walked away resulting in me buying another carton of water.

Round 1. BYE
I walked around to view the metagame. It was so much Burn, Infect, and Bogels. Where are my Chalices now?!

Round 2. Jund 2-1 (x-0)
We had a bit of a game but eventually a Tarmogoyf proved to be too much for me and I ran out of gas. Game 2 was great. We both got up to around 4 lands and just kept ripping gas off the top. It was a very long slugfest of playing threats and removal on both sides but eventually it was mutavault that got in for the necessary damage to take the game. Game 3 my opponent kept a greedy hand with just two G/R lands and never saw black mana. He used some removal and played a Goyf but it wasn't enough and I steamrolled him.

Round 3. Podless Pod. 2-0 (x-0)
Game 1 I dismember their mana dork into spreading seas some of his lands while deploying lords. My opponent had a very aggressive start and put me down to 1 life. But nothing stabilizes a game like Master of Waves! Especially when his brother arrives who also happens to be a Master of Maves! He didn't get anything useful off of Collected Company and went from 18 to 5 before he conceded to a ton of waves. In game 2 I accidentally ticked Aether vial from 0-2. My opponent called the judge and I realized my mistake and told what I did to the judge. Oddly the judge didn't penalize me at all when I think I definitely deserved a warning. It's like putting 2 lands into play. I had again seas and this time Reejerey into Reejerey. This allowed me to dump my hand onto the board. My opponent was able to put a lot of Kitchen Finks on the table through Collected Company and sac through Viscera Seer to scry cards and gain life. I dumped my hand on the table thanks to 2 Reejerey and put my opponent from 19 to 1. He drew his card and conceded. I feel like this match is about killing mana dorks, holding removal for the combo, and dumping lords on the table to win asap before they do so or combo kill you.

Round 4. Wilt-Leaf Abzan 1-2 (x-1)
Game 1 I just steamroll my opponent who only played a Loxodon Smiter and some removal. At the time I thought he was just a good stuff Abzan deck totally forgetting about the Wilt-Leaf Liege version. I sideboarded like it was just a normal Abzan deck but I think I would prefer to have Aether Vial on the draw. Game 2 I got quickly choked out. While half my manabase is nonbasic to play around choke, I only had Islands this game. This was the first time I lost to choke because online I successfully fought through every choke with my nonbasics. game 3 was sort of weird. I was up against choke again though it didn't seem to matter. I fortunately flooded out to help cast my spell but it still took too long and my creatures were not impactful enough. After a few Siege Rhinos later I called it quits.

Round 5. UW Flash 1-2 (x-2)
I really had no idea what to expect from this deck. My opponent mulled down and played that Talisman ramping artifact. I didn't see much game 1 but it looked a lot like UW Tron without any Tron lands. My opponent only showed me condemn but they lost to my lords. So I sideboard like this is a control deck again, and in a lot of ways it was except it didn't have sweepers. Game 2 I lose to a lot of removal and couldn't get any traction. I realize he's not really a control deck based on what i saw and his attitude about the match. Game 3 i side in some removal for Clique and Restoration Angel but unfortunately I mulligan down to 5, draw a lot of lands and it was not hard for him to beat me.

Round 6. UR Twin 2-1 (x-2)
At this point my brain is really running on fumes. I'm so tired and I cannot tell if I'm playing well or not. I just feel numb. 2/3 of my roommates are already x-3 both complaining that they are too tired. I don't even remember this match at all. I have the scoresheet and it says I beat UR Twin 2-1 and thats all I know from this match.

Round 7. Podless Pod 2-0 (x-2)
My opponent made this match quite easy. He was casting Path to Exile on my lords on his main phase instead of my upkeep. This gave me a lot of mana helping me ramp into Master of Waves and everything else. Game 2 I Dismembered a mana dork on turn 1 and my opponent never got to 4 mana to cast his Collected Companys in hand. He told me that Dismember won me that game, I agreed

Round 8. Grixis Twin 2-0 (x-2)
I really cannot think anymore. I'm in such danger of losing to doing something stupid. My opponent is obviosly playing Grixis something but he's stuck at 2 lands and I spreading seas the Steam vents leaving him with UB mana. With a Vial in play I put creatures on the board and he can do nothing but play Gitaxian Probes and Thought Scours till he's dead. I sideboard as if this was Grixis control and brought in all counters and Tectonic Edges and left some removal like Dismember for Tasigur and Gurmog Angler. Game 3 is a similar story and I spreading Seas his lands to turn him into a mono blue deck. Surprisingly on one of the last few turns of the game he plays Pestermite and taps my creatures to save time before dying. So he was Twin all along.

Round 9. Amulet Bloom 2-1 (x-2)
My win and in into day 2 is always a nail biter. The last 2 times was when I had to beat 2 land hand with Ghostly prison vs a martyr deck and rules lawyer the hell out of a burn player. This time I'm up against Amulet Bloom.

I really don't mind this match up. game 1 I **** up though. I had a slow start but I think by turn 3 i had the option to hold up mana for dismember for a potential Azusa. My opponent had nothing special and in response to one of the bounce land triggers you can dismember Azusa to deny additional land drops. Basically I let my opponent do whatever and I lost. Game 2 I just had a bunch of lords, fought through Tolaria West into Engineered Explosives by holding back my 2cmc spells, Reejerey and Mutavaults were invincible and I won. Game 3 was memorable. I keep a slow hand with turn 2 Silvergill into 2 Reejereys which can be very explosive. All I need is my opponent isn't very fast. I get turn 1 Vial. My opponent plays turn 2 Amulet and I feel like the ship is sinking. I play turn 2 Master of the Pearl Trident and my opponent does some calculation, plays Simic Growth Chamber, untaps it with Amulet, floats 3 mana and returns the Growth Chamber to his hand. I guess he thought he had Azusa in hand because he realizes that there is nothing he can spend this mana on and returning the bounce land simply passes the turn doing nothing. My next turn I play Merrow Reejerey and attack for 3. On his turn he plays the BR bounce land, and casts Pyroclasm. I say "resolves." He stares at me, I stare back. "My creatures are 3/3s". Now at this point he's really pissed at himself. His son walk by and he's yelling at him how stupid the situation is. I Vial in a Silvergill Adept and on my turn play a 2nd Reejerey, draw more cards off of Silvergill Adept, dump more lords on the table and take his life from 17 to 1. He draws a card and concedes. I extend my hand and tell him sorry and he didn't want to shake it. "I should have won this game," he said. So I just said nothing and happily filled out the result slip.

Given my lack of sleep I would say I was very lucky to get into day 2. Fortunately I didn't have to interact with my opponents too much and was gifted the win in the last round of Day 1. This night however the entire team was way too tired and we easily went to sleep at 11:00 and agreed to wake up at 7:30-8:00 am.

GP Copenhagen Day 2

The whole team was well rested. I could feel neural networks firing in my brain. I was looking forward to putting up a good finish. MERFOLK! There was a 7 eleven next door. "Do you sell slurpees?" "What?" Unfortunately they did not sell slurpees and I settled with some very bad coffee. But coffee is coffee anyway.

Rd.10 Grixis Control 1-1-1 (x-2-1)
A controversial match. Game one my opponent won the die roll and played a turn 2 Tassigur off of fetches and thought scour. Nice life. Tasigur puts me to 8 until I have put a board presence on the board and my opponent at 5 life. Tasigur keeps attacking and I can't keep chumping with my dinky creatures so I decide to Dismember the Tasigur putting myself to 4. He had a bolt a Kolaghan's Command to finish me off. Game 2 my opponent resisted for a long time to not turn into a mono blue deck. I even misplayed with a tectonic edge and allowed him to Cryptic bounce the land back to his hand. My opponent had a lot of cards in hand but I fortunately drew a Master of Waves with 2 Vials out. Then I drew Kira. I patiently waited for the turn I could Vial both at end of turn. Once done The Master of Waves arrived with a ton of tokens off of spreading seas and it was good for the win. We had 7-8 minutes for game 3. Early in the game my opponent cast Thought Scour. He put two cards in the graveyard I thought he had already drawn a card from thought scour and then drew a card for his turn. He then proceeded to his draw step to draw his actual card for his turn. I was in doubt at the correct number of cards in his hand. My memory is very bad so I can easily be mistaken here but I called a judge to verify that my opponent had the right number of cards. It took 3 minutes to explain and verify and unfortunately we only got a 1 minute time extension. My opponent was not at fault at all and we proceeded to play very quickly. I would say I misplayed into two 2 for 1s and then faced down a Tasigur and Gurmog Angler. However my deck keep drawing more gas in the form of Master of Waves, Lord of Atlantis, and Silvergill Adept. There was also an incident where my opponent had himself at 14 and I had him written down as 15 and wanted to go back to verify where the last damage came from. Unfortunately we went to time and I had lethal next turn after my turn 4 but my opponent said he was just going to pass the turn and do nothing for turn 5. So it ended in a draw and given my behaviour with calling judges it was an understandable result. My opponent said he was really pissed over the match but he got a draw in a lost position so I think he should be grateful for that.

Round 11. Naya Zoo 1-2 (x-3-1)
Evidently I'm playing some Italian big shot. The only sad part of this game is that I feel very rushed from my last match. The pairings were announced and posted before I could even de-sideboard. I was also in the frame of mind of playing quickly with little time left on the clock. This resulted in me making an error against this Zoo deck by not activating my Vial with the trigger on the stack to play a lord and set up Master of Waves next turn. I simply put a lord in play and nothing else. While my hand was full of lords my opponent still dumped a ton of creatures on the board and had enough removal in the form of bolts to get through. Eventually I die to a Knight of the Reliquary activation for Kessig Wolf Run which tramples over Silvergill for lethal. I don't remember how I won but I won game two. I do recall taking 8 damage at one point though :S GAME 3 was very interesting. After 2 path to exiles used by my opponent I have a situation where I have a Master of Waves and a billion tokens are on the board. I have Master of Waves in hand. Vial is on 3. If I get to 4 then I can attack with the tokens and even if he tried to Path my MoW I could Vial in the 2nd Master in response to keep my tokens alive. I announced the trigger of my vial at upkeep. My opponent said "yes". I grab my die and my opponent tried to stop me saying he would like to respond. I said he passed priority. We call a judge and the judge said he acknowledged the trigger on the stack and that he's allowed to respond. I called such BS and asked what the difference was from any normal spell put on the stack? He said his ruling was final but that i could appeal which I did. The 2nd judge simply said the same thing and I just had to accept it. My opponent Pathed (3rd fcking one) my MoW before I could get Vial to 4. my board was quite barren and when my MoW hit the ground my opponent used Reliquary to find a Ghost Quarter to destroy the mountain that had 2 Spreading Seas on it (Spreading Seas wants to target basic mountains in this match so they cannot be sac'd to Reliquary). I was finished off by my opponent pathing his own creature to get a basic plains to make his own Nacatl big enough to get in for lethal. I was way behind anyway and lost.

After the match I search for Riccardo Tessitori (level 5 judge) to explain this Aether Vial nonsense. I may not understand 100% but in the sake of Aether Vial's trigger it seems non english speaking players are allowed to acknowledge such a trigger with "yes" though they are warned to use better language. Evidently its common for Japanese players to do this. So for the future if I want them to pass priority on the resolution of the trigger I must say something to the effect of "trigger resolves?" or "tick up?". Just saying trigger is not good enough. Riccardo sympathized with my situation but my opponent was allowed to do what he did because the rules allow him under the form of "miscommunication between players". Or something like that. I was never bitter about the incident at all and my opponent appeared to just know the rules better than I and use it to his advantage. The best i can do is be more efficient with my own play.

Round 12. Grixis Twin 2-0 (x-3-1)
So my opponent looks exceptionally tired and demoralized, unmotivated, whatever you want to say. He looked like he was through the wringer. Game 1 he mulligans and plays 2 lands, one I spreading seas and slowly put creatures in play off of Vial until he was dead. Game 2 was a bit more interactive but I kept his graveyard empty with Relic and put creatures in play with Vial. He was killing them but I just replaced them. In the end it was a Kira and Mutavault that stood alone. Kira got eaten by Anger but Mutavault was enough to win.

Round 13. Naya Zoo 2-0 (x-3-1)
This match was played against a fellow Mtg Salvationer who also plays Merfolk but decided on Zoo this tournament. I don't remember game 1 very well but looking at the scoresheet I was not under any pressure at all game 1. Game 2 I remember because I felt I had just enough stuff to stabilize. I have an Aether Vial on the draw and I take a lot of damage early from I think a Smiter but deal with it. Next 2 Nacatls are added to the board which I trade with Silvergill Adepts with a flashed lord coming into play. My opponent attempts to use a removal spell on what I think was a Reejerey. I had Dispel and MoW in hand and decided that its best to keep Dispel to protect from Path on my MoW and to counter Collected Company if he drew it. Turns out he drew it next turn and it was countered and Master of Waves wins again. A really nice guy and we had a long talk about main decked Chalice of the Voids in Legacy Merfolk

Round 14. Grixis Control 2-0 (x-3-1)
Game 1 Relic prevented him from establishing a full graveyard and a cursecatcher patiently ate away at his life total before I got creatures on the board to finsih him off. Game 2 I had 2 Relics which is a nightmare for such a deck. I was also on the plan of making him a mono blue deck with Tectonic Edges and Spreading Seas which worked out perfectly. None of his deck functioned as he wanted and he had no answer to Master of Waves.

Round 15. Martyr of Sands (x-3-1)
On paper this match up is terrible. In practice I've beaten it a lot. He starts off with Souls attendant which I'm not even sure is in the Martyr deck. Feels like a Soul Sisters card. I get a bunch of lords and Master of Waves in play and win in 1 shot. I sideboarded incorrectly because I figured it was Soul Sisters. My opponent mulligans to 5 cards but rebuilds everything after a Ranger of Eos and Squadron Hawk. My opponent was as low as 13 and then top decks... Ghostly Prison. Fine one I can deal with no problem. Next turn another Ghostly Prison. Ah fk. Then Wrath of God. JEEEEZ. Yeah I didn't win this game. I conceded when my opponent demonstrated he was gaining 21 life a turn. Game 3 I put a lot of lords on the table including a cursecatcher that was Keeping a revealed Wrath of God in check. I attacked for 21 and put his life total to 19 from 40. He top decked Ghostly Prison and I remanded it (I bring in all counters than can deal with Ghostly prison at all). Next turn I attack for lethal.

Finishing x-3-1 for 30th place felt much better than scrubbing out in Charlotte. But next was following Przemek who made the top 8. We were discussing his opponents and the sideboard options before he played each match. At first he thought the death and taxes deck was running Ghostly Prison and I told him to just side in lands to pay for the prison. Fortunately the build did not play Ghostly Prison and he had to just play normal magic to win with Master of Waves.

Semifinals his side boarding was easy. We knew he was playing Jund so we just took the vials out and put his only 3 playable cards + a tectonic edge. He was good to go.

Finals I told him to bring in all counters, Kira, and the Tectonic Edges for his scapeshift opponent. Side out the crap like Dismember, Seas, and Tidebinder. I wasn't 100% sure if tidebinder should stay in or not because Scapeshift generally sides in Baloths, Inferno Titan and such. In the end we just said **** the tidebinder. The match up is really good anyway and it didn't hurt that game 1 was a gift and then post board it was elementary.

That wraps it up! Przemek wins the tournament and is the first person to win a GP with Merfolk. I'm very happy that he carried 73/75 cards of my list to victory and further the exposure that this archetype is real. Next on my list (for Modern) appears to be Oklahoma City in September. Thanks to everyone that met me in Copenhagen and thanks for reading.

Nikachu

Quote from ctaylor33 »

Hi Nikach. How was Remand for you out of the side, and for what match-ups do you side it in?

It was fine. I side it in vs control, Twin, Tron, Clunkier Combo decks like scapeshift and Ad Nauseam, etc. Decks that have snapcaster mage, or very expensive spells that are worth time walking.