The plan was to play some Modern in Tolaria (it was meant to be GPT Prague) on Saturday and some EDH on Sunday. On Friday evening I came back from Beroun. I needed to put some decks together and find the cards some people needed for the tournaments. I also needed to send some orders so I had to go back to the city center and send it. Back at our flat I finished searching for the cards and prepared everything for the day after.
I couldn't sleep so I was wondering if I wouldn't play online or something but starting to draft at 4am did not seem as a good idea as at 6 I should be getting up. I spent the rest of the time trying to convince my body that it feels great (because I did not feel well at all). Not entirely sure if it helped but I managed to get up at 6 am. I ate some breakfest and headed for subway station Hradcanska. After more than 50 minutes of waiting we finally left for Pardubice.
Thanks to Adam's navigation we managed to get to Tolaria, a local game store run by Petr Brozek and Jan Stefan. It is quite small but nice nevertheless. I played Reid Duke's Jund, Adam played UWR control and Martin played Living End. We were prepared to get to top 8. I expected Adam or Martin to win.
In the first round at our table there were three Jund decks and one Kiki pod. I played against one of the Junds. I lost the first game due to my opponent having more Dark Confidants than me. In the second game it was my turn to play my confidants and win. In the third game I got bit unlucky and lost. But well what could I do? In the second round I played against Affinity. In the first game I couldn't deal with Inkmoth Nexi that later killed me. I sided in Ancient Grudge, Shatterstorms, Fulminator Mages and maybe even something else I do not recall. But this was good enough to wreck the Affinity deck. I did not care about Nexi because I had Fulminator Mages in my opener and I drew Ancient Grudge quite soon after. I destroyed Cranial Plating and all the creatures and then killed my opponent with 5/6 Goyf. In the last game I won once again quite easily. In the third round I played against Kiki pod. Nothing noteworthy happened in the game but my opponent was very nice and invited me for dinner later. He used a little black cat as a luck charm but it did not really help him much^_^. After this I played finally a game against Twin. I say finally because the last time I played against it ... Twin was played at standard. I lost the first game. I discarded counterspell so I could kill Pestermite/Exarch but my opponent later drew a second Exarch, a couterspell and Twin. In the second game I miraculously won. I managed to beat him with Tarmagoyfs while Blood Moon was in play. In game 3 I kept a hand with the dual lands and Dark Confidant hoping to draw either basic land or a fetch land. Blood Moon hit the table on T3 and sice then I was drawing only lands but none of them could produce green or black mana. In the last round I beat a monowhite deck. In the top 8 I lost to Martin with his Living End (how 'unpredictable'). When commenting our final standings Adam summed it up with 1st, 2nd and Voice (of Resurgence).
After this I spent some time with the pod player. We were chatting about work, Magic and people and it was realy nice. The food I order (Thai pork) was delicious as well. Then we headed back to Tolaria were I claimed my top 8 prize and opened this!
Then it was time to leave to Honza Brozek's place. There we played some Magic, more Magic, yet more Magic and Carcassone. I was trying Jund against Merfolk but it feels like playing Legacy Jund against Death and Taxes except the fact that you actually have some lands in play and can play something. Either the Merfolk utterly crushed me or I won but it was really though to win. Jund against Tron seemed really hopeless. Anyway the fun part was when we played some Carcassone alone with Adam. We were told that in a two player game the game is more skill intensive but it did not seem like it. The difference in victory points was about 3-4 points. Adam build a really nice city during one of the games.
He prepared us coffee and tea and we ate our (the day before bought) breakfast. In the morning we also found out what the password for the local wi-fi is and I connected to check the Banlist of the EDH tournament. In the meantime I started receiving messages of those who wanted to play Modern that day and wanted a deck from me^_~. One even tried to call. The messages started soon after midnight and ended at 9:30 am^_^.
EDH tournament was held in a restaurant Cerny Kun which was quite close to Honza's place. When we arrived there was quite a lot of players already. We ordered something for food and did some final changes to our decks. Then it was time to wait for the pairings. I got pitted against Reaper King. I've played against such decks and some of them actually worked more or less but for my 'in theory' turn 3 kill it was hopeless. I managed to discard a wrong land so I couldn't beat my opponent on t4 and had to wait till I draw another black source (Facepalm number 1). In the second game I beat him on turn 4 once again. In the second round I played against Animar. In the first game the only thing he managed was to play Animar and then lose. In the second game though it was far more interesting. He started with Wild Growth and followed with similar enchantment on t2. I destroyed the first land and thoughtseize'ed him later. I discarded Sylvan tutor and left him with some cards knowing that he could play all of those thanks to Animar. After drawing and playing quite a LOT of cards for one turn he did not manage to find a response to my combo pieces in the grave yard nor reanimation spell in my hand and lost. In the third round I played against Azamni. I kept a hand with a lot of spells like Thirst for Knowledge and Frantic Search. Unfortunately I was unable to draw a creature on about 20 cards. My first 7 draws were lands actually. This did not help much and like 50 minutes later I lost the first game. We started the second game but I did not manage to win in time. In round 4 I played against Geist of Saint Traft. I lost the first game pretty quickly. Geist was hitting me each turn and my spells got countered (and Armageddon did not really help it either^^). In the second game it was a a really quick win on my side and game 3 was similarly fast. After this win I played yet against one Geist - this time I played against Adam. I beat him in the first game as he was unable to draw an island (and third land) so I knew that there is nothing that could break my combo except Force of Will but I was willing to take that risk. In game two and three Adam got pretty lucky. In game two he won by playing Polymorph and beating me with Emrakul and in game three it was Terastodon tokens that beat me. Top decked Swords to Plowshares and Merchant Scroll into Force of Will was too much for me to deal with. My two mana dorks got destroyed by Supreme Verdict beforehand. I was unable to draw enough land so I could reanimate Skithyrix via Mimeoplasm. In the last round I was too tired and was really unwilling to shuffle my deck. Fortunately in the previous round Adam was the one doing that^_^. I lost pretty quickly to Derevi. The fast offensive creatures surprised me and I got caught off guard. In game two...I wanted to wipe the board but then I realized that I've been holding two tutors in my hand (2 tutors of any kind mean that I can combo of in that round usually when having 4-5 mana) and that by a chance I can deal with Linvala that was rendering my combo useless. So instead of tutoring up Toxic Deluge I killed my opponent with Necrotic Ooze+Phyrexian Devourer+Triskelion combo. I facepalmed myself once again and decided to win the last game as well. It wasn't too difficult. I left my opponent without lands (Terastodon) and beat him later with the combo once again. My final record was 4:2 as was Adam's. Our final standings were 3rd, 4th and 5th place.
What prize did I get? One of the most beautiful illustrations ... in a really ugly foil version .. a card I don't usually find place for...but maybe it wants to tell me something -> play Oath
The weekend was really cool. I really enjoyed it and I'm really grateful that I went there. Thanks to all that contributed to this weekend and made it awesome.
My EDH decklist can be found in my previous Magic: The Gathering post or at mtgtop8.com under the corresponding event (probably not yet there).
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