Oakland... and mental blocks

Oakland was a really fun weekend, hanging out with the Northwest guys I know, old East Coast friends, and making some new ones (at the expense of losing the credit card game mostly).

I ended up playing Zoo. I got a list from Dan Hanson in the middle of the week, started trying it out against some common matchups, and did some tweaking. Dan gave a suggestion on the mana base to help out with Bant Charm, but it ended up not being very good and I got that message from him that it would suck when I arrived back in Seattle on Monday. Oops.

So here's the list I played on Sunday in the PTQ (not certain about the fetches off the top of my head):

Bant Charm Zoo

4 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Plains

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Tribal Flames
4 Path to Exile
4 Bant Charm
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Meddling Mage
3 Damping Matrix
3 Ranger of Eos
2 Extirpate
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog

Meddling Mage was serviceable, but it may be 4 Thoughtseizes instead, they were pretty bad against Scapeshift.

Anyway, the Grand Prix went pretty badly and isn't really worth talking, except for maybe the guy first round who was very rude to me after we drew and I wouldn't scoop a position he had stabilized. Who scoops Round 1?

The PTQ started out much better, though. Here's a small report.

Round 1 - Faeries (W) He presents 61 cards and when I ask him, he looks through his board and he says I should call a judge. Turns out he put 5x of a card in his deck while building and got a Game Loss. I appreciated him being honest, since I probably wouldn't have asked for a deck check if he had told me it was legit.

Round 2 - Teachings (W) I play against Seattle ringer Martin Goldman-Kirst and blow him out in two.

Round 3 - Boros (W) Kasey Koerber, another local Seattle guy, picked up the deck of the tournament. I knew this before hand but forgot and put him on Teachings and toss back the nuts against him (2 Lightning Bolts and a Path). I beat him in three. I don't think I'd play this deck unless it's a very small tournament that is extremely disconnected from the Internet.

Round 4 - Dark Depths (W) This wasn't a very pleasurable match, as he complained about every answer I had. At the end of the match, his wife came over and he started getting snippy with her. I decided to desideboard somewhere else before things got more awkward.

Round 5 - Dark Depths (W) This game went to three, and in Game 3 he mulliganed to a one-lander.

Round 6 - Scapeshift (L) This is for Top 8, and I lose in three. In Game 2 when he went off, I thought might have played land #6, Searched for tomorrowed, then played a Valakut for whatever reason, and Scapeshifted. I ask him to hold while I try to figure out what the first land he played was, and he got a little agitated in Korean which I didn't appreciate. The only way this is shady is if he has Valakut #2 in hand, but I ask him to flash his hand and he doesn't have it, so I just concede. I'm upset that I couldn't remember the game state well enough and had to put him through that.

Round 7 - Zoo (L) In with a win again. Game 1 I get burned out. I think I could have put him to two the turn before he plays two burn spells since that required him playing a Red dual land untapped, but I'm not sure. Game 2 I have to mulligan and draw zero Knights of the Reliquary to his two. Things get bad when he draws Jitte, and I have to quadruple block to kill one of his Knights and Bant Charm the other, leaving me with a Kird Ape (which should have been dead but he chose not to pump his Knight with the other as much as possible). The board is now him with a Jitte with counters and no cards in hand, and me with a Kird Ape and no cards in hand. I'm at about 9 and he's at 18, but at that point I couldn't ask for a better board. I really want to draw a Knight or my last Ranger of Eos or a Tarmogoyf or a Jitte, but my deck gives me lands and a couple of chump blockers once he draws a guy and Jitte's it up.

Round 8 - (Scoop) The top four tables draw, but I get paired up against Gabe Carleton-Barnes, a former Portland ringer transplanted to the Northeast. I scoop him in after seeing the four draws and there being zero chance of me getting lucky. It's like letting someone on the road change lanes ahead of you; you do it because you'd like someone to do that for you in the other situation.

This season makes one Grand Prix, and two PTQ's. My record is now 10-8-1 (10-7-1 if you don't count concessions.) That PTQ also makes me 0-4 in matches where a win puts me in Top 8. I don't know if this is because of skill level or I'm playing worse in the moment. I know against Scapeshift I kept a pretty bad hand Game 2, and by bad I mean awful: 2 Meddling Mages, 1 Qasali Pridemage, Forest, Hallowed Fountain, and some other card. I thought I could cast Meddling Mage, but I'm actually just retarded. And I already talked about my possible mistake in Game 1 against Zoo.

The fact is that in four shots at top 8, I haven't gotten there once. Hell, I'm measuring myself by shots at top 8 and not even pins. I think I just need an IV of ice water with me to calm me down, even though this time I didn't feel nervous, but maybe a little less risk-averse than usual.

I may play this list next weekend, but it depends on how much of a deck Elves will be. If not, I've got a great Faeries list I can get my hands on that would be excellent for such a metagame.

Ruthlessness

I was bored on the plane Sunday night, my iPod was dead, and I didn't really feel like reading the book I had brought, so I scribbled at the top of a piece of paper "Fearless Magical Inventory 2010".

One of the things I wrote was that I'm not ruthless enough anymore, if I ever was. I don't find it pleasurable when players pout and complain about losing matches, so it almost gives me an excuse to not win. I feel like I should look forward to such situations, if my goal is to win.

It became very apparent last night in the finals of a draft at First Pick. My opponent was at three with a Sea Gate Loremaster active with another Ally. I ship the turn, and he draws a card, and then realizes his mistake and asks to activate Sea Gate Loremaster. I didn't really care, so I let him. He draws utter gas off of it and I get blown out from there.

Obviously I was upset, and I justified it to myself by thinking that I don't really care about getting more Magic packs, and that the stakes weren't that high. I was about to blow up when he wouldn't shut up about how nice I was, when in fact you probably shouldn't even ask for takebacks in the first place, but I just kept my mouth shut. I got over throwing temper tantrums when I was about 13.

Anyway, that incident is an absolute wake up call for me as a Magic player. I like the game, but I like it more when I am winning. I stay with the game because I still think I can win more often than I currently am, and being a nice guy to worse players won't help me win more.

I'll try to flesh out Fearless Magical Inventory 2010 more. It's definitely harder to come up with things, but I know for a fact that I'm hitting a wall.