PTQ Osaka – Dublin Report *Last*

Well, on a fresh January morn I arrived at the temple Bar Hotel feeling OK considering I had been a guest at the noble house of Brian Mulcahy and Niamh Black the night before...

I was running Raisin Bran and I had not played more than 10 games with the deck and zero against miracle gro and super gro but was fairly confident...insert hole in ground here.

Round 1: Owen Burke: PT Junk

Game 1: I was able to get the combo off fairly comfortably after a brainstorm hid a stroke of genius on the top of the deck with a turn 3 aluren underneath it in case the bold Owen had the turn 2 duress for the stroke...he did:)

Game 2: Owen got out early beats and a deed which I forced him to blow up killing 2 of his creatures and my aluren and 4 creatures...hmmm that's not card advantage...while I was still wondering about why I did that Owen killed me.

Game 3: Time is called and I'm about 3 turns from going off...this was about the closest I got to comboing off for the next 3 hours.

Round 2: Ed Fox: Speed Black

Game 1: Wastelands, Winter Orbs, Cheap black creatures with Unholy Strength on them...UUUghly

Game 2: More wastelands and cheap creatures. Ed did a good job on burying me totally. I don’t think I hit 2 land until turn 4 or 5 and I missed no land drops…

Round 3: Phil ?: Sligh

Game 1: His deck was way too fast. I kept a bad opening hand, which was retarded also.

Game 2: I played out aluren to be able to cast 2 feeders and a man 'o' war but even this was not enuf when a price of progress did me in...

Round 4: Paddy McDonagh: Miracle Gro

At this stage everyone was very supportive of my position and offered me words of encouragement like:

'MMMeh! You- You're on 1 point! He he he! I'm - I'm on three points! So I must be - pause - 3 times better than you!' Thanks guys! Even Noel and Dave Coughlan jumped on the bandwagon...Only Dave Gray and Dave Kearney were in any way OK to talk to and Dave Gray was pretty much in my boat performance-wise and Dave Kearney could afford to be magnanimous at 3-0, 4-0, 5-0...

Game 1: At this stage my play was as sloppy as that rollerblade chick going down on Dirk Diggler. Mmm! Great show. Basic summary of non idiot plays in the game is: Quirion Dryad gets big. Kills me. My deck laughs a lot and points at my big nose, while putting it’s pants back on.

Game 2: Same thing with me man 'o' warring the dryad in the middle to give myself a 2 minutes stay of execution.

Round 5: Kieran Maher: Stompy

Game 1: Kieran has lost the last 8 games straight in a row and tells me so while guaranteeing a mulligan down to 4. At 6 cards he keeps and I magnanimously decide to give him game one at 3 life with 5 creatures attacking.

Game 2: I go off for the second time in the day after Kieran shows me why he hasn't been winning games today..he's new to the game, not totally familiar with the rules and plays stompy a little too defensively in my opinion...

Game 3: He has a cursed totem and 3 creatures on the board [one of them forest walking]...I have a bone shredder and a wall of roots on the table with aluren. I have 2 force of wills, an aluren, a duress and a land in hand with my vampiric tutor on the stack...After I shuffle my hand into my library I ask the judge [Oli] what the story is...it's a match loss...[maybe a game loss I can’t remember]..ah well..Kieran pretends not to be well happy with the situation and gives me the 'I hate winning like that handshake/grimace'

I hate that. I can’t really blame him as it’s always awkward shaking hands with the moron who threw the game away. However, always admit when uou’re delighted to get a free win. Opponent gets a land screw? '’Ah, bad luck fella, I wish I could have won differently' Oh Yeah!? Me, I'll take an easy win anytime! Did you get mana-screwed against me? Whoo-hoo! Please do it game 2! I love winning like that. A fair fight? Heaven forbid! I'll take the win where I can get it and so, I presume, will anyone. Feel free to mail me if you disagree and tell me you’d rather lose a tournament game of magic than win via land screw.

Be honest please.

Round 6: BYE

Apparently when you’re last and there's an odd number of players left you're a good bet for a bye!

Alas! The players on 3 points before that round must have all dropped or won their last game as I'm still last after my bye. How crap is that. I wished I had looked at miracle gro before the tournament or done any work at all...

Top 8:

Dave Kearney: Super Gro

Chris Clapton: Super Gro

Roger Dane: Super Gro-ish

John Cowan: Sligh with dodgy sideboard

Martin Deery: The Rock and his millions of rutting dole spongers*

Mark Waterhouse: Stompy

Emmet: Good Goblin Deck [as opposed to the others]

Yuri: Reanimator

All of them had more than 4 points before the last round so I was prepared when the top 8 was announced. I still don't know who won but then neither does Robbie!

P.S: Sorry for being the 'one you got wrong' Rob...I'd feel bad but you were getting way too confident of your own predictive abilities...You were way too cocky and to ensure more solid performances in the future you needed that kick up the ass!...like someone else I know.

* Robbed from someone else’s reportJ

This is normally where I would put my decklist…I’m not sure any of ye are planning on ever playing it though, and why anyone would ever want this decklist is beyond me…still if you’re already set on mailing me to tell me you’d rather lose a tournament game of magic than win via land screw mention it if you need a deck list that suits your ambitions and I promise I’ll reply with the decklist and my Pscychic Vortex/Paradigm Shift deck too!

Cheers,

Cormac.