• 4 Primeval Titan
• 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 4 Overgrown Battlement
• 4 Wall of Roots

• 4 Through the Breach
• 4 Tooth and Nail
• 4 Expedition Map
• 2 Beast Within
• 4 Explore

• 4 Urza’s Tower
• 4 Urza’s Mine
• 4 Urza’s Power Plant
• 1 Eye of Ugin
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 6 Forest

Sideboard:

• 1 Beast Within
• 3 Summoning Trap
• 1 Terastodon
• 3 Obstinate Baloth
• 2 Creeping Corrosion
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 2 Seal of Primordium
• 2 Relic of Progenitus

This is a really rough draft, but I’ll figure that stuff out through getting some games in.

I’m with my usual group of friends, eating at a pretty lackluster cafe in a pretty lackluster mall, discussing decklists. Josh Harris was on Naya Birthing Pod. Isabel Hayes on R/G Aggro, Raja Burrows on Humans. This was where I made the change from Whipflare to Dismember. Brian Kibler brought up a point to Izzy, saying that you really need a way to deal with Phyrexian Obliterator. Dismember fills that role, replacing Combust.

I don’t really do full on tournament reports, but I wound up going 5-2-1, dying in round eight. I had one bye, and my wins were against Humans, Delver, R/G Wolf Run, and a sweet Tezzeret Birthing Pod. My losses were to Humans, and Reanimator, and my draw was against Solar Flare, in which I punted incredibly bad.

His board consisted of a Sun Titan, Phantasmal Image (Sun Titan), Phantasmal Image (Primeval Titan). two Ghost Quarters, among many other lands, zero cards in hand. My side had Primeval Titan, Primeval Titan, Thrun, the Last Troll, Sphere of the Suns with zero counters two Galvanic Blasts in hand, two Kessig Wolf Runs, two Inkmoth Nexus, and about fifteen other lands. He’s at seventeen life, I’m at twenty four. There’s literally thirty seconds left on the clock, and there are about two ways I can win this game:

1. Triple block his original Sun Titan, eat the twelve damage, backswing and Wolf Run for everything but two, Galvanic Blast him for the rest.

2. Take the eighteen damage, going to six. Wolf Run the Images at the end step, then backswing for lethal.

I do neither of these, and wind up drawing. There were literally about sixty people watching this game, and I definitely started sinking as more people watched. I really need to work on playing under these types of circumstances if I want to continue doing well.

A good handful of us lost our win and ins. Anthony Conta (ACMaverick here on wrongwaygoback) made day two with Delver. I was generally happy with how the deck was performing. While I was clearly frustrated about missing day two, I came out with much more confidence in my own decisions and thoughts. While listening to other people’s input is always something you should do, don’t let people tell you things like “don’t do this, trust me”, especially if you know what you’re doing, and especially if these people have little to no credibility. Sounds harsh, I know, but I feel that it’s what’s been holding me back for a very, very long time.

Later in the evening, I continue to fight this cold that’s been kicking my ass all day. I actually can’t taste anything at this point, which made me enjoy the parfait I was eating much, much less than I could have.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much hanging out, catching up on old friends, and watching an insane top eight. I think I learned more in that single top 8 than I did at any stretch of events.

Moving forward in Standard, I feel that the format is as healthy as it could be. There are a ton of different angles that you could go with. In my next piece, I’ll have a more in depth view on the pillars of the format, as well as the best cards at each (relevant) converted mana cost.

As I’m finishing this, I’m still fighting this cold. If I manage to beat it by this weekend, I will be at at least one of the PTQ’s in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area.

Until then~

You can follow me on Twitter, @aulowry

This past week or so has been my most successful week in competitive Magic, Posting up a top four and top two finish in the last two Grand Prix trials. I hoped to take the recent momentum and bring it to the Grand Prix in Baltimore, the first Grand Prix that I’d be participating in.

12:11am

I arrive with Morgan Chang, Tony Busciano, and Lambros Doulos at about midnight on Thursday-Friday. I didn’t really want to do much else other than sleep, since I started coming down with a cold, a cold that would fight with me the entire weekend. I quickly grab a half of a bed and attempt to sleep.

4:21am, Friday

I wake up to what I thought was a lawnmower trying to be turned on in the room, after being startled for a second, I realize that it was just snoring. I’m a very light sleeper, so the slightest noise will wake me up. This also means that the slightest noise will keep me from sleeping. I wind up laying there until about 7am, to which I concede the night and head downstairs to get breakfast.

More tired than Stephen Whalen’s jokes, I drag myself to the hotel restaurant, to which I was greeted by a group of very nice waitresses who made some positive comments about my goggles. I grab some pretty good food from their buffet (which consisted of bacon, obviously), and take the time to register my deck for tomorrow:

• 4 Primeval Titan
• 2 Inferno Titan
• 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 3 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 1 Birds of Paradise

• 4 Galvanic Blast
• 4 Rampant Growth
• 4 Slagstorm
• 2 Green Sun’s Zenith
• 1 Dismember
• 4 Sphere of the Suns

• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 2 Kessig Wolf Run
• 6 Mountain
• 5 Forest

Sideboard:

• 2 Dismember
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 2 Karn Liberated
• 1 Naturalize
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Corrosive Gale
• 1 Whipflare
• 2 Beast Within
• 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 1 Autumn’s Veil

After realizing how much bacon I ate while finishing the deck registration sheet, I head to the event site early with Morgan, getting some sweet deals before people were allowed in (Marsh Flats for four bucks? Sure!). Most of the day was spent hanging out with friends that I haven’t seen in a long time, random drafting, and laughing hysterically at how it takes two humans to kill a Sanctuary Cat…

2:21am

I arrive back to the hotel after hanging out with some old, amazing friends that I haven’t seen in a little bit over forever. I’m completely full from eating the best cheese/ranch/bacon/sex fries ever. I make a real attempt to go to sleep without interruption this time, since there were only 2 out of the 4 of us in the room. I quickly doze off and have a pretty awesome sleep.

2:51am

I wake up to a car doing a burnout, or so I thought until I tried to move. There was a large body on top of my shoulder, and snoring directly in my ear.

Seriously?

4:44am

At this point, I scooped and got off of the bed, sat on the chair, and tried to rest as best as I could. With my cold getting worse, it wasn’t going to be easy. I wind up sitting there for about 3 hours before I just go down and get breakfast. I was going to tough out this Grand Prix the hard way…with one bye…on hardly 2 hours of sleep…

Easy, right?

~