longer.blue

M7: Broodscale I can’t escape this deck? Can I? I’m properly tired now. So it goes. G1: I didn’t properly desideboard last time since it took so long. Had to switch Nihil for Consign. He gets me pretty handily G1. I don’t remember most of it outside of it just not going my way. Sideboard: Same verse as the first. G2: We take our sweet time. I refuse to overextend. I’m in this to win it. I can do it. We GRIND. It’s back and forth. It’s staring, again and again at each other until I’m down to 1 life. I hardcast Atraxa. He Kozilek’s my Atraxa. I’m in the position with a solitude, March and two white cards after he Devours my Riddler and I Solitude one and March exile the white cards to hit the Devour. I get over the finish line with a Solitude and a Frog. We have like three minutes on time. G3: I snap keep some combo hand. Time’s slipping away. I can’t think. I need time. I manage to stave off him as he drops a disruptor flute on wrath, grafdigger, makes constructs and I just forget to do anything until we draw and I collapse into exhaustion. God that match was so incredibly draining. I feel the loopy tiredness kicking in. I have to keep it in gear. I just need two more wins. This is my last chances. M8: Abzan Devoted Combo Oh thank God, a change of pace. This style of deck has mostly fallen off without Spike being a primary driver but with my experience now, I’m no longer as scared of it as I was when it came out swinging. Mostly I was glad it wasn’t Broodscale again. G1: Awkward 6. Some interaction but not much. I get frog once or twice and he pulls out a win. Sideboard: In: 1x Celestial Purge, 1x Clarion Conquerer, 1x Nihil, 2x Snare, 2x Wrath Out: 1x Consign, 3x Faithful, 1x Goryo’s, 1x Grisel, 1x Teferi Trim down the combo. Kick their teeth in. Stick your threat. Get over the finish line. It’s a pretty simple direction. I had interesting decisions to make. I saw Bowmasters so I pulled the Faithful which probably really deviated from the sideboard plan but I didn’t want to stare down lethal Armies. I also had an initial thought to take an Ephemerate too and bring in Surgical but decided to keep in Ephemerate for more Solitude action and put the surgical back. G2: I work towards Clarion after he Grists and he dies with two lands in play. He was also tired and said he didn’t play as well after. Funnily enough, I regained my mind throughout this match. I felt rejuvenated at the end of the match. G3: Wrath babyyy. Clear the board. I even Snared as the last card in my hand to keep him off the board and Nihil his grave to keep his options limited without the harmonize spell. He dies with four permanents but useless creatures and I manage to get it going. I win pretty handily and I breathe a sigh of relief at being 5 wins. This is where it gets tricky though. I was counting my sideboard after the match and going through it to make sure I was good. I counted 14. I scratch my head. I count again. 14. I’m worrying now. If I have 14, I have an illegal deck. This is G3. If I have an illegal deck and I concede, I’m done. It’s over. No more matches. I can’t go to Day 2. I start stressing. I’m counting it out again. 14. I don’t know where the 15th card is. I’m exhausted but I need to make damn sure before I tell the judge. It’s not my first time I messed up sideboarding. I did it a number of times when I first started 60-card playing Ruby Storm. But in a high stakes tournament like this? I’m going insane. So I count one more time. 15. I compare the 7 in and out. Consign, 3 Faithful, Goryo’s, Grisel, Teferi. Purge, Clarion, Nihil, 2 Snare, 2 Wrath. 15. I breathe a sigh of relief and put my cards away. I’ll be honest. This stuck with me. If I had an illegal deck and I won that match, then I would have cheated a match from an opponent who also wanted to move up. And he might offer something if I had one, but it wouldn’t be honest and fair to do that if that all occurred. If I didn’t hold myself honest in that moment after all the accountability I had done for my fuck ups all day, that would stick with me. That ate up my thoughts for the days after and it still runs through my head even now. I even had to be consoled by my partner about people who are so worried about being honest usually aren’t the ones cheating, who keep in mind, could not give less of a fuck about magic. They support me and that’s what it was there for. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know what occurred, but to my knowledge I counted 15. M9: Jeskai Chant Control It’s the final match. Gotta shake off the feeling of the eighth match. I have one more to win and I’m in. Worst part is he could draw or win and still get in. He wants to win but it’s rough there. G1: It’s a Thoughtseize hand into a frog. I can punch a hole and get ahead. I punch a hole and get under him. His draws are awful. I get him down and we move on to G2. Sideboard: In: 1x Clarion, 3x Mystical, 2x Snare, 1x Teferi Out: 1x Consign, 1x Faithful, 1x Goryo’s, 1x Grisel, 3x Solitude I’ve always felt confident in this match. I have decent threats and strong interaction to fight back. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true as others attest to the opposite but I felt good and settled in for some grindy ass games. Taking out Solitudes makes sense since their only real creatures are opposing Solitudes and Kaheera. G2: This got funky. I interact with his Teferis and got to the point where he Surgicals Mystical. I didn’t think it was the best decision but I get the logic of less interaction. We get to the point where frog is gone. He Solitudes my Riddler and then I’m suddenly staring down 2 Solitudes and wondering if every decision I ever made in a sideboard was correct. G3: Stop a Teferi. I get Clarion. I’m trying get him down. He’s at 7 life. He’s just right there. I just need more room. He Teferis 2nd time, bounce my Frog. He does it a third time until he can Days Undoing and picks off my Clarion. He then takes my frog and Days at instant speed with Narset. And I’m done. It’s over. His hooks are in. And I’m sitting there, feeling all those feelings. The feeling of closeness. The frustration and the want but it’s over. He’s got me. I concede before he can kill me and it’s over. The observers and he even try to console me but I wave off their attempts to logic here and just let myself feel it. I shake his hand again and take one last pic of my deck before I pack it away and accept it’s over. What I learned: Fuck that was insane. I had done all day cEDH tournaments when I was into cEDH and that was effort. That was a real grind. The pressure. The stress. The Broodscale? And I enjoyed every bit of it. It was hell and heaven to play that much magic and I understand the degree of stamina at least a little now. Another lesson learned is clean up your process. My plays seemed fine for the most part as far as I know but sideboarding, deck checking, everything, I need to refine the habits that I have to not give me moments to pause. I saw a player at the ReCQ present his sideboard to the opponent to confirm the number of cards and I really like that. I think if I do that then that issue should be resolved so there won’t be any moments for it to occur. And finally, I would not have even gotten that far without all that support. I saw my partner’s texts after I got out and they were showing their whole family excited and I could see their pride in me and their excitement in showing off what I was doing. And that just made fall even more in love. And my friends. God my friends. I had a friend who was on the same pace I was and it was a constant process to keep each other going. I saw friends and the store owners from my hometown. And I absolutely would have collapsed if my friend didn’t buy me a sandwich to get me out of that. All in all, that’s what Magic’s really about. The Gathering. And it was hell of a gathering to watch the finals on tv, the closest I have ever gotten to a gathering of guys for a sports game. We watched that Azorius finals and in that moment, I felt truly apart of something.