Grand Prix Manila Trial I - May 25, 2008

I was supposed to play in the regular standard tourney on Saturday, but due to a "medical emergency", I wasn't able to play. To feed my MTG addiction, I instead played on the Sunday Block Constructed tourney. Unprepared, I whipped up a deck (late in) the night before, and decided to go with the same BG Elves deck that I recently use in Standard, with some card replacements to make it legal for LRW/SHM Block:



// Lands
4 [LRW] Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 [SHM] Reflecting Pool
2 [MOR] Mutavault
1 [LRW] Vivid Grove
1 [LRW] Vivid Marsh
10 [UNH] Forest
4 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [SHM] Devoted Druid
4 [LRW] Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 [LRW] Imperious Perfect
4 [SHM] Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
4 [MOR] Chameleon Colossus
3 [SHM] Wilt-Leaf Liege
3 [LRW] Garruk Wildspeaker

// Spells
4 [LRW] Nameless Inversion
3 [LRW] Profane Command
4 [SHM] Shield of the Oversoul

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [LRW] Cloudthresher
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [LRW] Primal Command
SB: 2 [LRW] Spring Cleaning
SB: 3 [LRW] Eyeblight's Ending
SB: 1 [LRW] Final Revels

With no 1cc mana elf in block, I opted for the 2-drop Devoted Druid. The deck now plays more like a mini-ramp of some sort, hoping that at turn 3, I would have either one 4-drop (Liege or Colossus) or one 2-drop (Vanquisher) & one 3-drop (Perfect or Cavs).


Round 1: vs. 5-color Elementals (draw)

Our first game took a long time to finish, with him constantly killing my threats via Shriekmaw & Mannequin, and drawing more answers via Mulldrifter. I still won the long game though. With time running out, I knew I just had to delay the game and I would win the round. But then of course, I would make a HUGE mistake (I seem to be making this every week). I don't have the exact details, but my opponent was at 4 life, I was at 16 life, and I swung for what I thought was an alpha strike. Unfortunately, my opponent Mannequined 1 Cloudthresher, and hardcasted another Thresher, which blocked my attackers. On his turn, with all my creatures tapped, he swung for his real alpha strike of 2 Threshers and 1 Shriekmaw ftw. And the match draw... on the fifth and last turn.

Game standing: 1-1
Match standing: 0-0-1


Round 2: vs. WW Kithkins (lost)

My round 2 pairing was definite proof that I have the worst luck in matchups, as I was very unfortunately matched up against the defending Philippine Nationals champ. But when I saw that his deck was WW Kithkins, I knew I at least had a fighting chance (or so I thought). In game 1, he was deliberately baiting me to a race, with him swinging every turn, and with me also swinging every turn. I had him at 4 life (with me at 13 life), but then on his turn, he cast Wizened Cenn (still not enough to kill me), and with no blockers, he cast Mirrorweave on the Cenn. Ouch. In game 2, he was again on race mode. It was a pretty close game though, but in the end, I lost to a bunch of flying Spirit tokens, which I had no way of blocking.

Game standing: 1-3
Match standing: 0-1-1


Round 3: vs. GWu Aggro (won)

I was up against a player I wanted to play for a long time. I see him often in tournaments, but never got matched up against him. The cool thing is his age -- he was around 50+ years old (to my estimate). It was a sleeper though, as I easily won both games behind Garruk overruns.

Game standing: 3-3
Match standing: 1-1-1


Round 4: vs. WW Kithkins (won)

Wow. Another Kithkin deck. Where are the damn faeries??? Perhaps they were all in the winner's bracket. Anyway, this was another round that took the whole hour. I won a close game in game 1, and my opponent won a close game in game 2. I was actually on the way to winning that game 2, but I made a costly mistake of swinging with all creatures on a Garruk overrun, when I didn't have to. My opponent then casted Pollen Lullaby. Wtf. And swinging with his Kithkin army next turn ftw. Good thing, I easily won game 3 though (on another Garruk overrun). Otherwise, I would have been devastated by that Fog card.

Game standing: 5-4
Match standing: 2-1-1


Round 5: vs. BR Aggro (lost)

All I could remember was that game 1 was one-sided in favor of me. And games 2 and 3 were one-sided in favor of my opponent. I especially remember game 3, when he had answer after answer to my threats. Liege #1 - Flame Javelin. Colossus - another Flame Javelin. Liege #2 - Shriekmaw. Wow. Then Demigod of Revenge ftw.

Game standing: 6-6
Match standing: 2-2-1


Round 6: vs. BG Elves (lost)

I knew I won game 1 easily. And then my opponent came back from behind (at 3 life) to win game 2. And then in game 3, as expected, I made another mistake. Faced with a decision between killing a Shriekmaw and an Imperious Perfect, I chose to Profane the Perfect. And one turn later, Nameless Inversion on the Shriekmaw. That one turn turned out to be the difference, and I lost game 3. Learning point: Shriekmaw has FEAR and is unblockable even by an army of huge green elves.

Game standing: 7-8
Match standing: 2-3-1


Round 7: vs. UW Merfolk (won)

Here's another first. I was up against a woman Magic player. There's not very many of them in the local Magic scene (based on my count, there are only 4 of them -- and 3 of them were playing yesterday). Anyway, I won game 1 undamaged. Then perhaps, like many men out there, I became over-confident, and was shocked when I lost game 2, with my opponent undamaged. In game 3 though, it was all serious. Luckily, I found answers to her Reejereys in time, and I won a close game.

Game standing: 9-9
Match standing: 3-3-1


Despite another disappointing finish (when the hell will I ever be able to finish above .500???), I was just fine after the tourney. My excuses -- I wasn't able to plan on my deck (in fact, my sideboard was horrible, I wasn't able to play more than half of them the whole day), one of my losses was from the reigning nationals champ, and my 1 other loss and 1 draw were due to puny mistakes that I made late game. More learning points.