Seattle Pro Tour Qualifier - Honolulu - Extended - December 17, 2005

For the first time I decided to travel from Portland to Seattle for a tournament. I enjoy Extended and I thought I had a good chance of doing well with my own twist on the popular Dredgeatog deck. I played Goblins in the last PTQ and I've played them a lot so I was ready for a change. I thought about playing Boros but that was very similar to many other decks I played. Guess I should have just gone with the familiar.

My family and I drove up on Friday. There was a strange pattern of frost on some of the trees which gave us a lot to look at on the way up. We got to town at about 3pm and avoided the rush hour, which is a very good thing to do in Seattle. The town should probably be renamed "The Gridlock City" from "The Emerald City." But I digress.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the Seattle Center -- the Space Needle, the carousel ride, and the local restaurants, bookstores and coffee-shops of the trendy Queen Anne neighborhood.

Sunday morning my kids got me up early (who needs an alarm clock?) and we walked to the main Seattle Center building in what I thought was plenty of time. We entered and the place was all but deserted. The only people we saw were janitors and the Starbucks staff. Fortunately they knew where I was supposed to go and I bade a rushed farewell to my family and fast-walked over to the right building.

Like they ever start these things on time.

I saw more players from Portland than I expected and that set me at ease somewhat. It took awhile to fill out the deck list -- stupid Tog one of's!

Creatures (7)
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1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror (alternate win condition, in case of Cranial Extraction)
4 Psychatog
1 Stinkweed Imp (sets Goblins back a step and it can block a Piledriver, and he's also good in the mirror. Plus his huge Dredge is handy for setting up lethal Tog'age.)
1 Wonder

Artifacts (2)
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2 Sensei's Divining Top

Spells (24)
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2 Circular Logic
4 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish (I went with the utility sideboard and I'm not sure that was a good idea, see below)
1 Darkblast
2 Force Spike
3 Gifts Ungiven (I found that Gifts didn't do any good in your opening hand because early in the game you're either playing draw-go against the mirror or countering spells from aggressive decks)
1 Life from the Loam
1 Living Wish (also a rescuer from Cranial Extraction and allowed me to put a couple of utility creatures in the sideboard)
2 Mana Leak
1 Naturalize
1 Nightmare Void (amazing in the miror or against any control deck)
2 Putrefy
2 Smother

Enchantments (3)
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3 Pernicious Deed

Land (24)
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1 Barren Moor
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Underground River
2 Watery Grave
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Yavimaya Coast

Sideboard (15)
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1 Darkblast
1 Echoing Truth
3 Engineered Plague (for Goblins or Horror against Ichorid decks)
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Gloomdrifter (anti Goblin tech)
1 Hideous Laughter
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Moment's Peace
1 Naturalize
1 Shred Memory
1 Smother
1 Stifle
1 Withered Wretch

Round 1 - Zaiem Beg - Boros with more white creatures

Let me sum this up: the round lasted two games and I didn't even see Tog either game, much less cast it. How do you think that went?

Zaiem had main deck protection from black creatures in what turned out to be a great metagame choice. He cast a first turn Isamaru followed soon by a Mystic Crusader. Normally my Smothers and Darkblast would have made short work of such threats but he just kept laying out more threats and then started with the burn. I never did a point of damage in either game.

The second game went much like the first except he also got an Auriok Champion out. It just wasn't pretty. Fortunately Zaiem was a nice guy, even though he was wearing a Broncos shirt, and we got in some good AFC West smack talk before he crushed my dreams just as Elway has so often done.

games: 0-2
matches: 0-1

Round 2 - Matt Hague - Tog, almost mono blue version with lots of counters

Game one, we played draw go quite a bit and I finally started trying to get Tog's to stick. They either got countered or Smothered and Matt finally got one out on his side, and then I died. Game two I got a quick Deed out on the table and followed that by a Llawan, Cephalid Empress which I snuck through the counterspells. He couldn't play any creatures with that setup and my Naturalizes and Putrefy's took care of the two Stalking Stones he tried to block with. Game three was a battle. He cast Cunning Wish at the end of my turn and I responded with Gifts, naming Life from the Loam, Nightmare Void (which had done well against him in game two) and two cycling lands. He gave me the two lands, then got Shred Memory with his Wish. Ouch, he took both of my dredge spells. And here I thought Shred Memory was my little secret.

We eventually ran out of time as I had started to take control of the board. I think I would have won but it wasn't clear and we ended with the draw.

games: 1-3-1
matches: 0-1-1

At this point I had a decision to make. The Type 1 tournament was starting in 15 minutes and I was really interested in playing my Goblin Welder deck with main deck Jester's Cap again. It's such fun! And I would have had to win out at that point to top eight the PTQ. So I dropped and joined the Type 1 tournament. Did I mention the top prize was a Black Lotus?

There were 119 players in the PTQ, the largest in years apparently and around double the size of the one in Portland. I didn't stick around to see where I finished out of these but I was happy to see several Portland players sitting at the first table when I left, including Josh Beck at table 1. Chris Buker, who almost always Top 8's and beat me badly at States two years in a row, won with Affinity after losing in round one. Interestingly the top 8 included two Affinity decks, two combo/Mind's Desire decks, and a Tooth and Nail (Josh's deck).