Roan-choke

This Saturday I woke up at 4:45, picked up my new carpool buddy Jeff, and drove to the Star City Game Center in Roanoke, VA on about three hours sleep. Google estimated it as a four hour trip, making it the longest I've ever driven for a PTQ. Thankfully the drive ended up about 25 minutes shorter than that. It was a rare joy that I knew upon spotting the "Speed Limit 70" sign.

My pool:

WHITE 1 Avenging Arrow 2 Azorius Arrester 1 Concordia Pegasus 1 Ethereal Armor 2 Keening Apparition 1 Knightly Valor 1 Precinct Captain 1 Security Blockade 1 Sphere of Safety	BLUE 2 Crosstown Courier 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Dispel 1 Downsize 1 Hover Barrier 1 Isperia's Skywatch 2 Paralyzing Grasp 1 Runewing 1 Stealer of Secrets	BLACK 1 Cremate 1 Daggerdrome Imp 1 Dead Reveler 1 Drainpipe Vermin 1 Grave Betrayal 1 Grim Roustabout 1 Launch Party 1 Mind Rot 1 Sewer Shambler 1 Shrieking Affliction 1 Terrus Wurm 1 Thrill-Kill Assassin
RED 2 Bellows Lizard 2 Cobblebrute 1 Electrickery 1 Explosive Impact 1 Goblin Rally 1 Pursuit of Flight 1 Tenement Crasher 1 Viashino Racketeer	GREEN 1 Archweaver 3 Axebane Guardian 1 Centaur's Herald 1 Chorus of Might 2 Drudge Beetle 1 Gatecreeper Vine 1 Giant Growth 2 Horncaller's Chant 1 Oak Street Innkeeper 1 Rubbleback Rhino 1 Slime Molding	HYBRID 2 Frostburn Weird 1 Rakdos Cackler 1 Sundering Growth
AZORIUS 1 New Prahv Guildmage	IZZET 1 Chemister's Trick 1 Goblin Electromancer	RAKDOS 1 Augur Spree 1 Hellhole Flailer 1 Rakdos Charm 1 Rix Maadi Guldmage 1 Skull Rend
GOLGARI 1 Korozda Guildmage 1 Golgari Charm	SELESNYA 1 Armada Wurm 1 Common Bond 1 Coursers' Accord 1 Risen Sanctuary	ARTIFACTS 1 Street Sweeper LANDS 1 Azorius Guildgate 1 Blood Crypt 1 Izzet Guildgate 1 Rakdos Guildgate 1 Temple Garden 1 Transguild Promenade

This is a pretty good pool. We have two good rares in Armada Wurm and Cyclonic Rift. We have plenty of fixing.The Red cards are a bit shallow, which means our three good Rakdos cards are probably going to be on the splash, and then only if we end up Black, which would normally seem unlikely if we're base green and trying to hit 2GGWW. This isn't a normal deck, though, as I have 3 Axebane Guardian, Gatecreeper Vine, and Transguild Promenade which can make any color of mana. The Green is also super deep. I ended up splashing Blue for the Cyclonic Rift and the New Prahv Guildmage and Red for the Explosive Impact. It's possible I should have also splashed Black for the Korozda Guildmage and the Launch Party.

I ended up building this:

1 Centaur's Herald
2 Drudge Beetle
1 Gatecreeper Vine
1 Keening Apparition
1 Pegasus Charger
1 New Prahv Guildmage
3 Axebane Guardian
1 Rubbleback Rhino
1 Coursers' Accord
1 Armada Wurm
1 Archweaver
1 Risen Sanctuary
1 Slime Molding
1 Giant Growth
1 Common Bond
1 Avenging Arrow
1 Chorus of Might
1 Knightly Valor
1 Explosive Impact
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Azorius Guidgate
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Transguild Promenade
1 Temple Garden
4 Plains
9 Forest

Last inclusions were Chorus of Might, 2 Drudge Beetle, and Risen Sanctuary. Last cuts were Precinct Captain, Sundering Growth, 2 Azorius Arrester, and Keening Apparition.

The strength of the deck is the ability to present powerful threats ahead of the curve. There were a lot of games where I laid Axebane Guardians on turns three and four and blew out my opponent with some large man the following turn. There are a couple weaknesses, however. Playing all three Guardians, the Gatecreeper Vine, and 17 lands means 21/40 cards in the deck are mana; this makes me prone to flood. I'm also a little light on removal, with basically just Avenging Arrow and Explosive Impact, with New Prahv Guildmage and Cyclonic Rift helping out (not that I'm complaining about either card!). This means I'm leaning pretty hard on Archweaver and Concordia Pegasus to block my opponent's flyers.The last thing is that I have a lot of good token producers, and basically no proliferate. A Rootborn Defenses, a Druid's Deliverance, and/or a Trostani's Judgement would make this deck much stronger. It's possible I should have started Sundering Growth as it has a lot of upside in my deck. I found myself siding it in a lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean starting it is correct.

I was worried about going a bit too top-heavy during deck construction so I never really considered putting the either of the two Horncaller's Chants in my deck. I found myself with 9-11 mana and nothing terribly powerful to do more often than I would have liked.

I didn't drop a game in the first three rounds. For the first time this PTQ season, I felt like I was doing more powerful things than my opponent at pretty much all points. Sometimes I was making 10 power for 6 mana and blowing them out, sometimes I was playing fair, sometimes my opponents were making costly mistakes. My round 2 opponent let himself fall to 4 when he's swinging in for lethal next turn (Righteous Authority on a Sunspire Griffin) and he has (so he claimed afterwards) a Trostani's Judgement he could have cast to stay on 6. Explosive Impact to the face closes the game. Round 3, game 1, my opponent casts two spells all game--a Annihilating Fire on my Axebane Guardian, and a Street Spasm for six on my Knightly-Valor'd New Prahv Guildmage. I had UW up.

Round four I made my first noticeable play mistakes. I pumped my guy before declaring blockers and took some extra damage when he had the removal spell, although it didn't end up mattering that game. That was the last time I made that mistake all day, and I think I've shaken the habit for good. Game two I play some bodies and reset his board with Cyclonic Rift. At this point I realize that Todd Anderson has been watching the match, as he comments that I hadn't mentioned opening that card during deckbuilding (we were seated adjacently). Game three goes poorly for me. My opponent gets off to a quick start on the play, culminating in an unleashed Chaos Imps. If you look over my decklist, you'll see that's very difficult for me to deal with. Luckily, I have a Pegasus in play and an Explosive Impact in hand. Thinking I want to avoid taking the trample damage, I try to bait him into blocking. Let's ignore for a second that there's no way in a million years he would block my 1/3 with his 7/6 trample, making this the greediest bluff ever, and focus on the fact that he can't possibly fall into my trap even if he wants to, as it is indeed an unleashed Chaos Imps I am attacking into. The next turn I trade the Pegasus and the Explosive Impact for the Imps, but the extra 7 damage he's gotten in proves to be too much to overcome. The extra breathing space would have allowed me to block and make a token with Centaur's Herald, rather than just chumping with it to stay alive the on turn when I kill the Imps. Don't know if it would have been enough, but it would have been something.

Round 5 things are back on track and I handily dispatch my opponent. I ended these games on 20 and 17 life. This sets up a round six match that could very well be win-and-in depending on my breakers. It ends up not mattering as I get steamrolled by my opponents quick Jund deck. He ends the two games on 16 and 24 life, respectively. I don't think there was anything I could have done about this one, other than winning round 4 where I probably had some wiggle room to eek out a win. My round six opponent ended up making top 8. Good for him.

In the final round, my carpool buddy Jeff has a win-and-in. I am playing for a likely top 16. I get paired against Todd Anderson, who greets me with a friendly "Hey, Cyclonic Rift!" He graciously offers to split. I decline as I like my deck and am trying to get more experience playing under pressure. I get off to a great start game 1, Attacking him down to 14 with Keening Apparition and accelerating into an Archweaver and a 9/9 ooze token. I attack him down to 9 and then 4 with the Archweaver before he can stabilize by playing Vraska and killing my 9/9. On my turn the board is as follows: he has two 3/3s (Dreg Mangler and a centaur token), and a Vraska on 2 counters. I have a Keening Apparition, a Archweaver, two Axebane Guardians, and a Drudge Beetle in hand, maybe two. I decide to send both the Apparition and the Archweaver at him, dropping him to 2 and trading my 5/5 for one of his 3/3s. I lay the second bear, making him dead on board unless he has something. He has something for the next several turns and I have nothing terribly relevant, especially when he lands an Archweaver of his own. The second game isn't close.

I talked with Todd about the game 1 attack, and he thought I should have sent the Archweaver at him and the Apparition at Vraska. Depending on how he blocks, he can either go to 2 and trade a 3/3 (probably the Mangler) for my 2/2, keeping his Vraska, or maybe (and this seems less likely) trade Vraska and a 3/3 for my Archweaver. Things can still go wrong for me with this play, but I probably should have been able to predict that he'd have either a removal spell or a guy on his turn given the number of cards in his hand, which makes it likely better. I think I was put off of Todd's line because I thought he'd probably just go to 2 and keep his Vraska, although it leaves me with an Archweaver left over instead of a Keening Apparition which is a better spot to be in. I was worried that he can then Scavenge the Mangler onto his surviving token to outclass my Archweaver, although if he does that I can just attack him with the Drudge Beetle and the Archweaver anyway and he still has to have a kill spell or a second guy to stay alive, and its likely that if he has a guy or a kill spell he can't cast it and also scavenge the Mangler.

Jeff lost his win-and-in and finished 19th on breakers. I finished 26th with about 60% OMW. Todd missed top 16 on breakers. I think the lack of sleep combined with the long drive may have kept me out of top 8. Have to be better about that next time.

I'm now up to 567 Planeswalker Points on the season, leaving me 183 short of 2 byes. I'm in pretty good shape with 2 PTQs to go. This coming weekend I'll be journeying to the far-off land of "Virginia Beach." The weekend after there's a PTQ in Philadelphia which should be a good time; if things work out I'll do FNM with Jordan the night before. Hopefully I'll be back with better news from Virginia Beach.