Roy Tang

2nd Trial for Taipei was last Sunday, October 17 at Robinson’s Galleria. I open to register a very mediocre pool while the rest of the guys at my table open awesome pools with lots of bombs. “Gee, I hope we don’t keep this pool.”

The judge comes over, rolls the dice and we keep our pools. Awkward.

I guess I pretty much misbuilt the deck. I focused too much on the Exalted deck and streamlined into two colors with a splash into red. Since my pool was a bit mediocre (no real bombs), I should’ve been greedier and went for multiple splashes. And not playing Executioner’s Capsule and Sanctum Gargoyle maindeck? No excuse for that really. I think I play better on Saturdays.

Round 1

Lost this one in 3 games to a Sharding Sphinx. Embarassing, since it was the guy’s first time to play Shards of Alara. I had a bad sequence where I had Cavern Thoctar and Jungle Weaver in my hand; I played the Weaver first, then next turn attacked with the Weaver and played the Thoctar. At that point he already had some small fliers available so really I should’ve just either kept the Weaver behind to block or played the Thoctar first (so that the Weaver could block next turn). I was very close to winning – if I had only managed to have a blocker for the Sharding Sphinx one turn earlier.

1-2 games, 0-1 rounds. It’s usually not good for me if I lose round one.

Round 2:

My opponent has the Sphinx Sovereign, but I keep drawing answers. I win in two.

3-2 games, 1-1 rounds.

Round 3:

I saw this guy’s deck on the same table in round one and it was kind of sick. War Monk, Bant Charm, Stoic Angel, Rafiq of the Many… practically a Bant precon. I managed to win game one though.

In game two, we stalled on the ground and he was killing me wih the Exalted Aven. After that game I realized that I had both Quietus Spike and Vithian Stinger in play. I called over a judge and asked “Does Deathtouch trigger on non-combat damage?” The answer was of course yes and of course I facepalmed. I could have wiped his whole board with that combo!

I kept a hand with four land and two spells in game three, but didn’t get much action then lost the game.

4-4 games, 1-2 rounds. I actually ticked “Drop” on the match result slip, planning to leave. Later I changed my mind, since top sixteen could still win me a few packs, and I went over to the judge table to get myself undropped.

Round 4:

Well, I don’t remember much of this match. My deck was faster than his, but he had more fatties. I tried to make winning push in game 3 using the Quietus Spike, but he pulled out an Oblivion Ring in time to get rid of it, then stabilized and I lost from there.

5-6 games, 1-3 rounds. I should’ve dropped the first time, so now I drop for sure!

That didn’t go so well. Next time I shouldn’t build my sealed deck quite so quickly. I should have taken the time to see if there were any possible alternative builds.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the next trial on 25-October, so my next tournament will be the last Neutral Grounds GPT on November 2.