Unexpected Adventure

Today I decided to take part in Extended tournament (I knew about 15-20 people would come). For that I needed to get up and catch the bus at 11:16.

During the night my cats decided that they need attention. Damian started meowing and couldn't stop. Amanda jumped on me and wanted to be caressed for like half an hour. I finally fell asleep and hoped for at least 6 hours of sleep. Somewhere in the middle of a dream I heard a loud 'thud' and then hundreds of not so audible thuds. This slowly woke me up as I later realized that those sounds are caused by falling cards. I did not hear any tearing or scratching sounds so I decided to continue sleeping. I fell asleep soon after but was once again woken by the very same sound. I started to wonder from where the cards fell as well...the loud 'thud' meant that it was a box full of cards falling off somewhere. Anyway I ignored it and fell asleep once again hoping to finally sleep till morning. 4 hours later Damian decided to start meowing so loud that it would wake up even a treefolk.

I got up and gave up on sleeping. I came to the mess which was previously 'cards sorted by format legality and color' and put it back in the boxes. Then I started wondering about what should my sideboard for the upcoming tournament contain.

For sure I wanted Ancient Grudge, Everlasting torment or Sulfuric Vortex (I don't have this one so I took the Torment as replacement) and Volcanic Fallouts. Then it started...I came across Choke so I started wondering how many blue controls I would encounter. I discarded the idea later though. I was also thinking about safe passages/fogs but I should do well without them. Path to Exile came to mind too (as I played only two up to that point). Later I decided to put Oblivion Rings in my sideboard (it didn't save me later though).

At 11am "I set off on my journey". Normally I catch the bus without problem. My speed was steady and fast and I was sure to make it there 3 minutes before the bus would leave. 4 minutes before the buses departure time I saw it in the distance standing at the bus stop. So I sprinted to the bus station. At the crossroad though a police car was standing and waiting for who-knows-what. So I stopped and waited for green light to light up. When it did I sprinted across the street not caring about the policemen looking at me in shock. I managed to get to the bus and the door. But the bus driver just drove away. I got really p*ssed off and wondered how to get to Prague (when the next more or less direct bus would already mean failure to get there on time). I called Squop hoping to tell him this "news" but he couldn't answer my phone call as his speaker went dead.

After that even more angry I went to the main bus station to check the Prague's ("Integrated") transport. I checked the line 380 and found out that on Sunday's the bus leaves at 12:43 which is too late for me. Then with a bit of hope I checked line 384 (last time I wanted to get to Beroun with this bus the driver told me that's too far and left me in Prague). I found out that it should be on its way in 4 minutes. I waited for 4 minutes. Bus nowhere to be seen.

I started reading Shadowmoor book and finished a story about a really annoying white kithkin hero. Few minutes later the bus showed up! I did not believe my eyes I sprinted once AGAIN to it and this time I got on it. I psychically prepared for a LOOOONG sightseeing ride to Prague.

Now imagine a narrow sinuous road going uphill and downhill and a large bus. Hopefully the bus has a priority on the road, otherwise I can't imagine how long it would take us to get to Prague.

I continued reading the Shadowmoor stories. The second story was about 5 kithkin brothers. One called Wander wandered in the forest and was lured to a swamp by a clique of faeries. He died by eating a poisonous mushroom then. His brother Might tried to find him and died after a fight with boggarts. 3rd brother Kind died because he was too kind healing a merrow. The merrow not healed fully died too on its way home. Clever died when he wanted to outwit a treefolk. The last one called Hero died by accident (a sleepwalking giant stomped on him). The moral of the story is "That kithkins should never leave on their own alone".
I have to say that after reading all the books and stories about "white" creatures winning all the battles and being heroes and whatever I enjoyed reading this story (already trying to survive Rafiq and Elspeth was too much for me...these Kithkins were even worse...o_O Even Jodah was quite ok heh). When I finished reading the story I realized that we are in Prague.

We (me and Squop)went to Andel by subway and on one of the stations three "suspiciously" looking boys entered the train as well. One of them was clutching a deck list in his hand. This was quite suspicious. At that time I got Birds of Paradise from Squop (going to alter that one^^) and I wondered what the boys' reaction would be.

At Andel we parted out ways as the boys went directly to the game store and I went to buy something first. We caught a tram though so we caught up with the boys.

It was pretty crowded in the game store. 19 players registered for Extended and I have no idea how many registered for All Common Series tournament. Both me and Squop entered the tournament.

I have no idea how DCI Reporter does the pairings but you know what? Me and Squop ended up playing against each other in the first round. The first game was sad and the second one even more as I sided Ancient Grudges and Oblivion Rings to deal with Squop's Esper deck (artefacts).

I went to see what other decks I might encounter. There was one Esper Deck with Time Seive, two affinity decks, two elf decks, RG, GW, lifelink deck, faeries, burn, slivers etc. The player playing the burn deck did not really want to play against me.

In the second round I played against the above mentioned player. I won^_~. In a third round I got to play against elves. I wasn't happy about it much. First game was a serious mana screw. Even though I had two duals on my side I couldn't play much except Path to Exile, Lightning Helix and Lightning bolt. I killed few elves and then quickly died. In the other two games I was keeping up with the elves until too many lords showed up on the table.

Fourth round was funny^^. I played against poisonous slivers. It was W/U/G deck with Virulents, Sinews, Sidewinders, Shifting slivers etc. I won the first game fast. In the second my opponent sided quite a lot of cards. I got my creatures on the table and started to attack and was quite happy about it and was ready to tap all nasty creatures who would want to poison me. My opponent showed me Isochron Scepter with some white fog imprinted on it. I was like WTF???? o_O. I did not side any grudges or oblivion rings but I realized then that Ajani Vengeant can take of that Isochron Scepter quite fine^^.

Last round was a tough one. Elves once again...those pointed ears and horned creatures that even fallout can't kill usually. I don't have any Wrath of Gods so I just hoped my burn spells would deal with them. In the first game I was trying my best to keep up and not to get killed by a swarm of elves. I managed to win after a really long fight. The second game started in a similar way. Soon both of us were in top deck mode. Not funny. My opponent had Treetop Village, Mutavault, Llanowar Elves, Pendelhaven and Sentinel in play. I had Treetop Village^^. Got Pridemage and Whooly Thoctar in play. That one was sent to Oblivion though. I was trying my best to get rid of the lands though. Pridemage blocked mutavault but I realized (too late) that damages don't go on stack anymore. After some time swearing I sacrificed Pridemage and got rid of the Ring. Then I got rid of mutavault and treetop village.
End of round was announced. I top decked Oblivion Ring to get rid of the last standing elf, got Wild Nacatl in play and Ajani followed. In turn 5 I won the game.

Final results 4:1 and second place. And you know what I got? In ONE Alara Reborn booster I got Maelstrom's Pulse! Buhehe.

After the tournament we played some games for fun. We played a two headed giant. My naya deck + B/U discard against Time Seive deck + Quillspike Combo. In the second game we played our opponent was at 3 life. We were trying to found out if we can win in that round. We let our opponents play (I could have killed them in that round). Few rounds later when I our opponent when to life 2 we again started to think about a way to kill them (our opponent thinking they had 3 life). Duress was what we thought that would solve the problem (as Megrim was in play). Well, our opponent thinking having 3 life continued. The player playing next to me realized that he actually has a second megrim in his hand. Both of us would merit a strong FACEPALM.

Later we played one on one. David had 2 quillspikes and 2 nantuko husks in play. I had loads of saprolings and other creatures. In his hand David had 3 Rites of Consumptions and he was like 'after we finish the game I will tell you something about one card I would not play in the deck'. I realized that he most probably has Rites of Consumption so I got rid of the nantuko husks. BTW my opponent could have killed me long time ago. He then realized what the card is for and killed me with quilspike^^.

Also what happened to me today and was quite unlucky...
I played Slivers against a mill deck. My opponent played Tome Scour. First card - sliver. The following four cards were lands. After that he played Mind Funeral. I had to mill over half of my library till I revealed 4 lands o_O (anyway I won as I top decked second Virulent sliver, hehe but it was close).