Last Saturday was the Melbourne Pro Tour Qualifier for PT Berlin. So, along with 76 other hopeful players from around Victoria (and Tasmania and Adelaide), I braved the early morning cold for a 9am start at Card Heaven in Windsor. The format was Block Constructed (Lorwyn and Shadowmoor block). I was playing the Kithkin deck I’d been playing and tweaking for the last few months. I’d played it to win a Standard tourney at the store in Frankston 2 months ago, before Eventide. That was fun, because noone thought Kithkin mono white was strong enough at that time. I’d also played it and won another small standard tournament, again at the store in Frankston last week, so I was quietly confident. I knew the deck was strong and I was very comfortable playing it.

Round 1 — Isaac with Mono Red

Isaac is one of the co-owners of Meta Games, the new store in the city. Nice guy! Isaac is playing a mono red deck. It’s got the strong three drops, Boggart Ram Gang and Ashenmoor Gouger, and a ton of burn, but doesn’t play Demigods. I’m pretty confident in this match-up. I can race, and especially in games two and three I have 4 Forge-Tenders, which make a huge difference. Game one I get him down to 5 life and he has two burn spells in hand to kill me without a final attack. I missed one attack for 2, that I could have made through the Gouger, that can’t block. My brain just wasn’t in gear. Though he played a Ram Gang after combat by mistake too.

Second game I don’t see a single Forge-Tender, but we’re trading blows. I get him down to 5, with Ajani down, so I can block anything he attacks with. He has two cards, I’m at 10 life. I pass the turn, he untaps, draws. taps 5 land, Flame Javelins me, and double Shard Volleys me. That’s 10 damage and the game! *sigh*

I get a free deck box for my troubles (advertising Meta Games—good promotional idea).

Match record: 0-1

Round 2 — Adam with Black/White

Adam’s deck is a Black white deck with all the good hybrid cards from Eventide—Unmake, Mimic, Edge of Divinity, the Avatar, Stillmoon Cavalier and the Hatchling. It’s played off a completely mono-white mana base so also plays the strong white spells, like Knight of Meadowgrain, Spectral Procession and Armored Ascension. It can gain a lot of life!

Game 1 he makes a Nightshade Mimic, I make a guy, probably a 2/2. On his turn he plays Edge of Divinity on the Mimic and swings for 7 in the air. I drop to 13. He makes Knight of Meadowgrain, so I won’t be attacking with my 2/2. I do nothing on my turn except lay a third land (I have 2 Unmakes). He Unmakes my lone creature, preparing to swing again for 7 in the air (plus 2 from his knight). I Unmake the Mimic and take two from the Knight. He gains two, life totals are now 11 to 22. I play a couple of Kithkin on my turn. He plays Armored Ascension on his Knight. It deals me 6 in the air. The lifelink makes the life my 5 to his 28. Next turn I unmake the Knight and play Spectral Procession. The following turn I play Ajani, swing for 9. From there I block what ever he attacks with and swing each turn. I win, still on 5 life.

Second game, I play defensively again. Siding in my Oblivion Rings. I make good two-for-ones off his enchanted creatures. I stabilise on 8 life with him at 29. I have Ajani and a bunch of creatures in play with +1/+1 counters on them. When I’m comfortable, I swing with everything. He blocks, looking to trade with most of my team. I play out a mirror Entity from under a Windbrisk Heights, and activate it to make all my team, base 5/5’s now with extra bonuses (because of counters and the spirits are now kithkin too, etc). He loses his team, and the four attackers that get through drop him by 28 life to 1. No recovery from that.

Match record: 1-1

Round 3 — Neil with Faeries

Game one, I get close to the super opening. He dies without ever toughing me. I have removal for his guys or tricks, so he’s on the back foot and loses out on every trade.

Game two, he gets second turn Bitterblossom. And third turn Bitterblossom. And then proceeds to drop 2 Scion of Oona’s. I die to an army of 3/3 untargetable fliers, with an Unmake I’ve just drawn. Neil wins at 13 life, all seven taken from Bitterblosom!

Game three, I have a reasonable draw. I play a few guys, O-ring his Bitterblossom. I take out two Mutavaults with combat tricks which sets him back. He has Mistbind Clique and two Cryptic Commands, but I tease these out with Instant speed Kithkin Leiges and get my Spectral Processions through. He’s so low on life, that he has cards but not enough time. He’s forced to twice play Sower of Temptation to steal a Spirit, and Nameless Inversion another. It’s not enough when I get a Cloutgoat Ranger into play. I win.

Match record: 2-1

Round 4 — Ben with Elementals

This is the most frustrating match of Magic I have played *ever*. I can’t tell you much about Ben’s deck. I saw three cards of his, other than land!

Game one. I look at my hand. It’s a couple of one-drops, a Wizened Cenn, but just one land. I throw it away. I get pretty much the same hand with one less card, still one land. I throw that back. The five card hand (on the draw) is one land, and now no one-drops. *sigh* I mulligan again. I keep a four land hand with two two-drops. Ben plays a smokebraider on turn two. I attack with my creature. Ben lays a hastey, vigilant, 5/5 trampling horde of Notions. I don’t attack again, and die five turns later after drawing no more land.

Game two. I choose to play. I look at my hand and it is 1 land. Okay. I throw it back. The six land hand has all land. I want to scream. How can this happen in two consecutive games of a single match. The deck is getting properly randomised… it’s being pile-shuffled and then shuffled by both of us. I keep the next hand—five and and a couple of small creatures. My start is okay, I quickly beat him down to 10, until he stabilises with a Nameless Inversion for one of my creatures. A Smokebraider helps him get his Horde of Notions into play. I can’t attack from that point, and start taking damage. In this whole game (maybe 8 turns each), I draw all lands and an Unmake. The Unmake takes out the Horde of Notions just as I’m about to die. Lukily (for him, not me) he has his one other Horde of Notions in his hand. I die.

Match record: 2-2

Round 5 — Jafar with Kithkin

Jafar’s deck is similar, but doesn’t have Mirror Entity, Mirrorweave or Ajani. Game one I beat him down to 16 with an early Knight of Meadowgrain. two of my guys die to a Barkshell Blessing I didn’t see coming. At this point, I play a Spectral Procession, and Ajani. The following turn my flyers get in for about 21 after I reveal a Mirror Enitity from under my Windbrisk Heights and make them each 5/5’s (with +2/+2 each). I’m down to seven, but could still block with the whole team if it had been necessary.

Game two I beat him down quickly without him ever touching me. This is interesting because I seem to approach the mirror match differently to everyone else. They all sideboard in Stillmoon Caveliers. This seems good since the they have pro white. On the other hand my deck is more aggressive than most of the standard Kithkin builds. Hence I can mostly be the aggressor. So, I’m actually happy if they sideboard in Stillmoons, because most of the time, I will have the utility to make my guys big enough to not die to the blocking Cavelier. Alternatively, if they save their mana to pump the Stillmoon or give it first strike, then they are probably not developing in the early turns. Also, since the Stillmoon is not a kithkin, they are taking synergy out of their deck. One of the players their said that they believed Stillmoon Cavelier to be infinitely better than Knight of Meadowgrain in the mirror. This has not turned out to be the case at all in my experience (I’m 4-0 in sanctioned block mirror matches against Kithkin). Still, I’m interested in more opinions on this. I never sideboarded Stillmoons in against Kithkin—though I had them for Faeries and Doran. maybe this was wrong.

Played a third game for fun, won that one too. 🙂

While I didn’t lose any of these games against Jafar. I lost out in a couple of trades to a Barkshell Blessing I didn’t see coming. This is one card I would now put in either the main deck or the sideboard now. I’d just never thought of it. Conspirable instant creature pumping is very good in this deck, where you will often play multiple white guys in a turn and have a spare white mana. Probably this is most useful for the mirror match or against mono red or green, or other swarmy creature decks, that are going to be trying to race you.

Match record: 3-2

Round 6 — Tyler with Kithkin

Tyler was one of seven players who flew up from Hobart for the PtQ (apparently the community is small enough there that they all know each other). Same sort of story in this match as the last round… my deck was more aggressive and I could Tyler on the back foot and then win creature trades with tricks. I took four damage in total in the two games. I did him twelve damage in one turn to win the first game, so that was probably Mirrorweaving a Wizened Cenn after blockers or making my whole team bigger with Mirror Entity.Tyler was really interested in the differences between our decks after the round, and in my card choices. I don’t think he was playing Mirror Entity, Ajani, and less Lieges.

Match record: 4-2

Round 7 — Aaron with Kithkin

These games were pretty straightforward. I was the beatdown, I managed to kill two of his Mutavaults with flashing in lieges to pump my guys. This hurt his development. I went down to 14 in the first game, but won comfortably. In the second game we both developed quite symetrically. We both got a few points in and both got some gains off of lifelink. It came down to a critical turn where he, had slightly more guys, but I had Ajani and some counters on my guys and had more life. He swings with all his guys, and I put him on Mirrorweave. I have Unmake and Mirrorweave in hand so I’m okay if it happens. Sure enough, he mirrorweaves a Thistledown Leige. So all his guys would be maybe 9/11 and mine might be 6/8 or similar. In response, I mirrorweave a Goldmeadow Stalwart, so everything becomes a 2/2, and then his mirrorweave resolves, making everything a 2/2 (no effect). Except my guys have +1/+1 counter on them from Ajani. I block and kill all his guys of significance. Next turn, I swing back and kill him. He comments on how good Ajani is. I agree, it’s ridiculous and that’s why it’s in my deck.

Aaron was probably the best Kithkin player I faced. I got the feeling, that several Kithkin players in the tournament had got their decklist from a previous PTQ top-8 off the web and not really played it. I say this because I saw a lot of what I would consider to be strange plays or sideboard choices while watching over the shoulders of other Kithkin players between rounds.

Match Record: 5-2

Result: 16th place.

The best record on the day was 5-0-2. I think one person with a 5-2 record made it into the top 8. I had pretty bad tiebreakers, due to losing in the first round and being randomly paired against people with draws.

Overall, a good day. I played well in all the matches I won. The first round loss was really close and I didn’t see my sideboard hate cards, and my fourth round loss was basically just bad luck.

So, the aim next time is to make the Top 8. The next one is PTQ Kyoto. It’s Shards of Alara, sealed deck, with a booster draft top 8. It’s on Saturday November 29th. Maybe a couple of us could make the Top 8, that would be cool! 😀 .

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