Blog 1 09:00 – Introduction
Craig Jones
Welcome to the 2006 Irish National Championships. The tournament is being held at the picturesque Dolmen hotel on the outskirts of Carlow. There are 90 competitors and they will be playing 3 rounds of Standard, 3 rounds of Ravnica block draft, 3 rounds of Coldsnap draft and then back to standard for the last three rounds. The top 8 will be fought with their Standard decks with the top 4 finishers earning a place at this year’s World Championship.
Here’s a quick run down of the players to keep and eye on over the weekend:
Darragh Long is the current Irish Champion and has picked up some Pro Tour experience over the last year. Other players that have cropped up on the Pro Tour over the last year are Alan Meaney, Sean Fitzgerald, Tom Howard and Rob McKeon. Roving gypsy Stewart Shinkins has returned from Vienna and will be eager to improve on his semi-final appearance from last year. Other players of note include Oli Bird and David Kearney. John Larkin, the most accomplished Irish player in history, is also here for his once-yearly Magic tournament.
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Blog 1 09:30 – Round One: Alan Meaney vs Matthew Barrett
Craig Jones
First round of the Irish Nationals and we have a mix of the old and the new. Alan (AJ) Meaney is a former National Champion while Matthew Barrett is touted as an up-and-coming player.
With a standard metagame as diverse as this, it’s hard to know what to expect. AJ opened with a Swamp, but it quickly became apparent he was running the current buzz deck: the rather confusingly named Solar Flare deck. Barrett was running a BUG concoction that looked similar to the decks the Portuguese ran at the last World Championships.
The young pretender got off to an excellent start as Dark Confidant was followed with a Hypnotic Specter. AJ knocked him straight back to square one with a Wrath of God. From there Barrett was slow to recover as he only had an Elves of Deep Shadow and Birds of Paradise. A succession of Remands and Mana Leaks kept Persecute away from wrecking his hand and then Jitte appeared to turn the lowly Elf into more of a substantial threat.
Barrett added a Hypnotic Specter and looked to be in control. A Putrefy on AJ’s Kokusho turned the screw. Barrett then looked to drive his advantage home as Meloku entered play. Unfortunately for him this turned out to be a little greedy as a second Wrath appeared to sweep the board. This was a little on the unlucky side for Barrett as a Hypnotic Specter surviving for a turn is usually a good indication that the way is clear. Unfortunately you can’t factor in the top of a player’s deck, especially when it obligingly serves up the big board sweeper.
From there on AJ found an Angel of Despair to blow up the Jitte and then rode the 5/5 flier home. A last ditch Meloku was delayed with Remand and game one went to AJ.
AJ 1-0 Barrett
AJ’s deck then conspired to make things difficult for him as he took two trips to Paris. The five card hand looked fairly decent though and he was able to Condemn a second turn Dark Confidant before Barrett pulled away. Barrett followed with a second and then ripped out all of AJ’s Wrath of Gods with Cranial Extraction.
“Plan B”, AJ said and slammed Yosei on the table. Bob Confidant had been fickle for Barrett. Between it and his shock lands the young Irish Player was already down to 7 life. Despite all the extra cards Barrett still hadn’t found a green source, so the Putrefy Bob revealed was still uncastable.
The top of AJ’s deck was again kind to him as Meloku put in an appearance. Barrett was able to deal with that with a Meloku of his own, but it was too late as AJ had two lands open and the two illusion tokens added just enough support to Yosei to take the game in the following attack phase.
AJ beats Matthew Barrett 2-0.
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Blog 1 11:00 – Standard Metagame
Craig Jones
Standard is an interesting format at the moment as there are just so many viable decks. With the lack of an overall “best” deck or even a well defined “tier one” it is more a case of trying to predict the local metagame. Here is an analysis of the decks being played in the standard portion today:
Solar Flare 16
Ghazi-Glare 8
Greater Good 8
Vore 8
Simic Aggro 6
Snakes 6
Zoo 4
Orzhov Aggro 4
Gruul 3
Ghost Husk 3
Sea Stompy 2
French WW 2
Enduring Ideal 2
Izzet Control 2
The confusingly named Solar Flare is the buzz deck of the moment after posting strong results. The deck didn’t really have a showing in the English Nats but a few weeks later has clearly caught on here. The deck is pretty much a good stuff black-white-blue deck with a high ratio of “bomb” cards like Meloku, Yosei and Angel of Despair.
Ghazi-Glare is also popular, probably as a result of Craig Stevenson’s success in the English Nats as is Vore. The return of Greater Good decks is a surprise. Stewart Shinkins is running a version that also includes AEthermage’s Touch.
The absence of Heartbeat is a surprise as is the low showing for Tron decks. With such a diverse metagame these fluctuations in the popular decks between different regions are hardly surprising.
I predict that Solar Flare will again post good results, but it will hard to work out whether this is due to the strength of the deck or because of sheer weight of numbers.
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Blog 1 12:00 – Ben Rhys-Davies vs Alex Rhys Davies
Craig Jones
It’s always the way. You travel all the way to play in your nationals and end up being paired against your brother. Ben and Alex Rhys-Davies, two brothers from a castle (yes, apparently a castle) in Cork, have both got off to good starts with two wins and now get to play against each other in round three.
Alex is running Greater Good and the advantage of knowing the matchup provided some consolation as it made the decision to mulligan a six card hand with three Wrath of God very easy. As his brother was running Solar Flare it was not necessarily devastating as he’d have time to recover.
The early portion of the game saw Ben steadily accumulate card advantage through Compulsive Research and Court Hussar while Alex built up his mana with Farseeks and Tribe Elders. A Congregation of Dawn for just one Hierarch seemed like losing even more card advantage after the double mulligan, but the meaning became apparent as he followed with Greater Good. It wasn’t looking good for the Greater Good deck though, as Alex was stuck on four land and now facing down Kokusho.
Mortify took down the dragon, but the main advantage of the Solar Flare deck is that just about every card is a bomb. Angel of Despair took down the Greater Good and Alex netted some cards off of the Hierarch as the game was now beyond the phase where a 4/4 was required. Alex was matching threat with answer as a Wrath took down the Angel.
The knock down, drag ‘em out nature of the match continued. Kokusho was answered with Kokusho and then there was a brief enforced lull as two Yosei’s hit the graveyard.
After all the earlier card drawing Ben seemed to have put together a steady production line of threats. Zombify fetched back Yosei. Alex again had an answer with Wrath of God, but after the double mulligan surely couldn’t keep this up for much longer.
Court Hussar fetched the elder brother more gas and finally he got a decisive blow through as Ink Eyes was given fear and sent past a Tribe Elder. This fetched Yosei from his opponent’s graveyard and then an Angel of Despair sealed the game by killing the stolen dragon and locking Alex out of his next draw step.
Ben 1-0 Alex
If you thought games between brothers would be more relaxed then you can think again. Alex was gunning for this with little niggles.
“Did you target me with your Yosei.”
“I’m sure you said go before playing that Ink-Eyes, isn’t that burn for 6?”
Ah, that’s what we like to see. A real family grudge match.
Game two and Ben was going straight for the throat with his sideboard. Two Pithing Needles, one on Sensei’s Divining Top and the other on Greater Good, would limit his brother’s options. Alex struck back with a Cranial Extraction that eviscerated the Angel’s of Despair from Ben’s deck. Ben responded with a Castigate that removed Kokusho from the game. He followed up with a killer Cranial Extraction that ripped out Yosei’s. Alex had an Elephant in play and two Kokusho in his deck. Unless you counted Sakura Tribe Elder his win conditions were looking a little limited.
A second Cranial Extraction on Kokusho and then a third Cranial Extraction on Loxodon Hierarch and this was looking brutal. Alex had got his Tops back on line but his deck had been comprehensibly Lobotomised. It was just a matter of waiting until Ben’s deck found something to administer the killing blow.
Kokusho showed up, and was promptly mortified. Then it got interesting as Congregation of Dawn put the only remaining creatures, two Tribe Elders, on the top of Alex’s deck. Elder beats for the win?
I don’t think Alex really thought it was possible, he even shuffled away the second Elder. Ben found a Zombify and Alex finally conceded to Kokusho returning to play.
Ben Rhys-Davies beats Alex Rhys Davies 2-0.
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Blog 1 14:00 – Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension Draft
Craig Jones
Now its time to move onto the Limited portion of nationals and first we kick off with a Ravnica block draft. Nine players managed to navigate the Standard portion with 3-0 records. This pits eight of them against each other on the top table. I squatted behind AJ Meaney and Tom Howard to see how the draft went.
There was a slight pause as a flower pot decided to spontaneously combust on the balcony outside (I’m not joking by the way – ask anyone who was here.)
White is widely regarded as the colour to avoid but I think Tom Howard took that avoidance to extremes as he passed over Hour of Reckoning in favour of a Lurking Informant. It was interesting as AJ also had a tempting white card in the form of Devouring Light. He shipped it in favour of the solid Viashino Fangtail.
The first booster was very good for AJ. A Civic Wayfinder came to him second pick and then he got a gift in the form of Putrefy. He then surprised me by taking Golgari Brownscale over Scatter the Seeds and then he got another late removal spell as Brainspoil came round 5th. A Gather Courage came on the bounce and AJ was stunned to see a Farseek come back round to him from out of his own booster.
Meanwhile I wasn’t really sure what Tom was doing. In fact I’m not really sure Tom knew what Tom was doing. Although, to be fair, he admitted afterwards it was first ever RGD. Ulp, talk about throwing yourself in at the deep end.
The first pick Informant seemed a little odd, although the booster was weak. His other top picks were Barbarian Riftcutter, Psychic Drain and Netherborn Phalanx, with only Halcyon Glaze as a standout. From there he did seem to settle into a black-red-blue deck and will be a nightmare for any deck with swamps as he picked up three Sewer Dreg in a row. Unfortunately for Howard, AJ was cutting out the good black removal on his right, leaving him with the Dregs if you’ll excuse the pun.
Time for Guildpact. No matter how pure the intentions, Guildpact always manages to throw in some tempting Izzet goodness. In this case AJ got the juicy Ogre Savant / Steamcore Weird choice. He could stay in colours or be greedy. He chose to be greedy and grabbed the Savant. Guildpact was a really rich vein for AJ - Streetbreaker Wurm and then a very late Skarrgan Skybreaker. More importantly it gave him Signets and Karoo lands to fix his mana. The draft table as a whole seemed a little erratic as the Signets and Karoo’s were going way later than I would predict and Train of Thought’s were still being left in boosters that were down to 4 cards.
Tom got a Orzhov Euthanist first pick and the finally got the option of a decent pick as Debtor’s Knell fell into his lap. This made me wonder where the Hour of Reckoning had got to. Guildpact was solid but unexciting from then on. Tom got a Steamcore Weird, but after then it was the second string Izzet cards like Wee Dragonauts.
In Dissension Tom got Minister of Impediements first and second and then a Crypt Champion, but was hurt by the lack of good Rakdos cards.
AJ took a Aquastrand Spider over Indrik Stomphowler as he was worried by his curve being too expensive, but he already had plenty of Signets and said afterwards he thought it was a mistake. He also passed up on two Kindle the Carnage, which were floating around far later than they should be. I think the whole table undervalued this card. On first glance the random discard seems pretty bad, but once you actually play with the card you realize it’s almost comparable to Savage Twister. The unorthodox Terminate, Cytoshape, also went under the radar and went all the way back round the table to AJ. He also got the Simic Ragworm / Ocular Halo combo for extra chuckles. I think AJ’s deck is very strong, although it could have potentially been even stronger with a few different picks.
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Blog 1 15:00 – Alan Meaney vs Matthieu Poujade
Craig Jones
Matthieu Poujade is looking to wrest the Irish Title on behalf of France. The Frenchman is currently studying in Ireland and is eligible for Nationals as he was present in the country at the start of the year. AJ is also a student and a former National Champion.
I picked this match as it should provide an interesting contrast between drafting archetypes over good cards. Poujade has been experimenting with drafting very cheap, fast decks made up with bottom of the barrel commons no other player would want. It’s a similar strategy to the one exploited by the Germans to good effect at PT Prague, except he leans towards green.
AJ has a very solid green-red deck with a splash for both black and blue. His cards should be more powerful but less reliable.
Game one sort of followed that plan, although it wasn’t much of a game. Poujade mulliganed to 5. Normally that would spell really bad news, except AJ was critically colour-screwed and never found a green mana source. Utvara Scalper (remember what I said about cards no other player would want), fed the bloodthirst for Scab-Clan Mauler and then swiftly brought the game to a conclusion with Indentured Oaf.
Poujade 1-0 Meaney.
The little Scalper put in an appearance for game two, but this time Poujade was lacking support and was forced to bust a Douse in Gloom on an Aquastrand Spider. AJ is only really splashing blue to enhance Ogre Savant, but with only a Scalper on the board in any case, he didn’t bother waiting for the island and raw-dogged it.
This time it was Poujade’s turn to be missing his green mana. He had a Wrecking Ball in hand and could probably manage for a little while. A Nettling Curse (another one of those bargain basement picks) on the Brownscale would make attacking painful.
AJ looked solid this game. His own Scalper traded for a Roofstalker Wight and when Ogre Savant snuck through it allowed him to bloodthirst up a Skarrgan Skybreaker.
Remember that Wrecking ball though? AJ was tapped out, so this was a perfect time. Poujade swung back with an Indentured Oaf and Scalper and AJ was looking vulnerable on 8 life. He was facing the prospect of a highly ignoble death at the hands of Scalper and Nettling Curse. He brought out a Mortipede and took another nibble from the Scalper. 7 now and needing some way to dispose of his own Brownscale.
Poujade was at 13. He coerced the Brownscale into attacking (Meaney down to 4). Meaney sent in the Mortipede with a lure effect, hoping to take down Poujade’s board. However, Wildsize saved the Oaf and AJ was defenceless against the counter attack.
Death by Utvara Scalper and Nettling Curse, does it get any worse? Score one for the janky draft strategy.
Matthieu Poujade beats Alan Meaney 2-0.
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Blog 1 16:30 – Round 5, John Larkin vs Gareth Middleton
Craig Jones
John Larkin is the most accomplished Irish Magic Player ever with multiple PT top 8’s. This year he’s eligible for the Hall of Fame. Despite not playing the game much anymore John still finds time to turn up for the Nationals every year. Gareth Middleton is one of the top players from north of the border. Currently they’re 3-1 and in fairly good shape, although Larkin will want to get as much as possible out of the RGD draft portion as he hasn’t seen a Coldsnap card yet.
The man from Northern Ireland was put an immediate disadvantage with two mulligans. A Castigate gave him some hope as Larkin’s hand was currently jammed with six mana men while he only had three land on the table. By taking a Silhana Starfletcher he hoped to slow Larkin down before cards like Novijen Sages and Oathsworn Giant entered play.
John still got in some licks with a Veteran Armorer and didn’t meet any opposition until a Blind Hunter entered play. Larkin got the fourth land for a Sword of Paruns but was presented an alternate option as his deck gave him Watchwolf. Middleton summoned Ragamuffyn and Terraformer and a stand off ensued.
Land number five appeared for Larkin and he also had a Starfletcher to get him up to six mana. With an Oathsworn Giant looming to make combat all but impossible Middleton found an Azorius Guildmage off of a Court Hussar. Now he could start chipping away with a Blind Hunter. A Belltower Sphinx gave him some extra defence.
The game was interestingly poised. Middleton had fliers, Larkin didn’t. But Larkin had Veteran Armorer, Oathsworn Giant and Sword of the Paruns to make combat incredibly tricky for Middleton. Assuming Larkin could do something about that pesky Guildmage. As Larkin was running green-white-blue, a colour not exactly renowned for its targeted removal, the Guildmage might be a problem indeed.
One problem at a time though. An Assault Zeppelid would take care of the fliers.
Except it wouldn’t, as Middleton had found a Pillory of the Sleepless by using the Hellbent ability of the Ragamuffyn.
Time to get busy for Larkin. The Starfletcher picked up the Sword and in with the guys. A Terraformer took it for the team as the life totals dropped to 11 each.
The game was turning in favour of Larkin. Plumes of Peace locked down the Belltower Sphinx and the Blind Hunter was back on defensive duties. Middleton wasn’t done yet. Even though the toughness of Larkin’s team was virtually unassailable, Middleton’s Guildmage was slowing down the bleeding while his Pillory was slowly working on Larkin’s life. He also had the Blind Hunter to pinch a few more precious life through chump blocks. An Azorius Herald brought some precious breathing room.
The game switched again. An attack with the Herald put Larkin to 4, while Middleton was still at 11. If Larkin attacked Middleton could chump with a haunted Ragamuffyn and drain 2 more life away.
And there were still more twists and turns. A Bathe in Light got rid of the Pillory and Larkin alpha-striked. Unfortunately he could only get Middleton to 1 and the bat drain effect plus an attack with Herald was enough to end the game next turn.
Middleton 1-0 Larkin
The first game took a lot of time so it looked like it might be hard for Larkin to pull anything more than a draw as both decks looked very controllish.
A Castigate removed Larkin’s Assault Zeppelid from the game. Larkin found a Screeching Griffin and there was a battle over it. Middleton first locked it down with Pillory. Larkin brought it back into play with an Ocular Halo and forced Middleton to deal with it permanently with Last Gasp. A Repeal saved his Pillory for future use.
Larkin still had more gas. This time an Azorius First Wing. He managed to team up Ghost Warden with Sword of the Paruns and take a 5 point chunk out of Middleton’s life total.
Middleton’s control elements were starting to throttle the life out of the game. Ostiary Thrull, Azorius Guildmage, the returning Pillory and then a second Pillory were preventing Larkin from getting anywhere. Bathe in the Light dealt with one Pillory but there still wasn’t any way through.
During the game Larkin had been naming red with Starfletcher. I had thought this was a bluff, but it turned out he had Burning-Tree Bloodscale. Useful, if it ever got into the red zone.
Just as time was called we had an interesting situation. Larkin declared his intention to go into the attack step and Middleton used the Guildmage to tap two creatures, including the Bloodscale. Larkin then wanted to pull the “icy trick”. Back in the old days it was assumed that unless you specifically said “in the attack step, before you declare attackers ….” it was assumed that the tapping occurred in response to entering the attack step. This moves the active player back into their first main phase and allows them to perform sorcery-speed spells and abilities. In this case it allowed John to equip the Bloodscale, untap it and then send it on a seek and destroy mission to nail that annoying Guildmage.
In the old days that might be fine, but nowadays there is a strong aim to apply rulings by intent as getting players to explicitly state every step would slow the game to a crawl. In this case the assumption now is that, unless the player states otherwise, the tapping occurs within the attack step before declare attackers.
At least I think so. It was an interesting one for the judges to debate and would depend on whether Larkin worded it as a declaration to go to his attack phase, or a declaration of wanting to declare attackers.
Anyway, after some deliberation this was ruled in Middleton’s favour, and Larkin promptly scooped as there was no way he could do enough damage in the two turns he had remaining.
Gareth Middleton beats John Larkin 1-0.
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Blog 1 19:00, Round 6 round-up
Craig Jones
Well the draft portion is over and now there are no players remaining with perfect records. Both John McCarthy and Conor Harding are unbeaten, but both have a draw to their name to leave them with 16 points. Below them is a chasing pack of 6 players.
Ben Rhys-Davies, Alan Meaney and Matthieu Poujade all 2-0’ed to leave themselves in 3rd to 5th position. Below them is David Finucane, Mark McGovern and Gareth Middleton.
Notable players on the brink are Oli Bird and last year’s Champion Darragh Long. One more loss will probably eliminate them.
But with 6 rounds still to go everything can change with players all the way down to 58th place still with a shot.
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Blog1 19:30 – Larkin’s Coldsnap preparations.
Craig Jones
While John Larkin is a legend of Irish Magic his playing is now restricted to a yearly raid on the nationals. Going into this tournament John Larkin hadn’t even seen a Coldsnap card. Some might argue that this isn’t exactly the best preparation.
Nevertheless Larkin was determined to have some advance preparation, even if it consisted of just opening a few boosters to see what the cards look like. So there you go, Coldsnap preparation, John Larkin-style.
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Blog 1 20:00 – The Coldsnap Draft
Craig Jones
“Coldsnap draft is like a lottery and I think I got a losing ticket.” – Patrick Curran.
Great quote that from an Irish Lad and I felt obliged to include it.
With the RGD draft portion out of the way it’s time for things to get all snowy as Coldsnap enters play. For this I decided to latch onto Stewart Shinkins. Shinkins is possibly the best Limited player in Ireland. Recently he’s been living in Vienna and apparently the Austrians really like their drafting. As a result Stewart has picked up a lot of experience at Coldsnap and presumably knows what he’s doing.
This draft was interesting as it started off very promising for Stewart and then slowly petered out. His opening booster was fairly weak, although I was surprised to see Stewart take Goblin Rimerunner over Tresserhorn Sinks. It was moot as the Snow-Covered dual land came all the way back. Yes, the first booster run was very good for Shinkins. After the Rimerunner Shinkins was the grateful recipient of two Skred and then a Phyrexian Ironfoot. The red continued in a flood as he picked up two Martyr of Ashes and a Snow-Covered Mountain to power up his Skreds.
Pick 5 was possibly the most interesting as it forced Stewart into a choice for his second colour. Stewart hates red-green so it was an easy decision to take the Frost Raptor over Boreal Druid. The signals did seem to say play green as a number of Boreal Centaurs flew by.
There was good reason for that as Patrick McDonagh to Stewart’s right was drafting black-blue. He was also cutting off the snow lands very highly.
White again seems to be the poor man of draft. Paddy McDonagh opened a Sunscour and both he and Stewart Shinkins thumbed their nose at it.
The first pick in the second booster was the relatively straightforward Surging Flames. The second pick was possibly the most interesting of the draft. Shinkins doesn’t like red-green, but the signals coming from the right were that green was open. The next booster passed to him had a Resize sitting in it. This looked like a good enough signal to drop the blue.
Unfortunately the signal was false as the player to his left had taken Juniper Order Ranger. The green dried up, although there was a good chance he’d get the pay off when the booster direction flipped again for the third booster.
The second booster mainly saw Stewart take Snow-Covered lands and the odd Krovikan Mist to keep his options open.
I expected the third booster to be kinder as Shinkins should get the pick of both red and green. This didn’t happen, mainly because the boosters didn’t fall right rather than the cards being cut. Surprisingly, it was the blue still filtering past Paddy and Shinkins reverted. Even then his picks were nothing more promising than a couple of Frost Raptors and Ronom Serpents.
Afterwards Stewart said he’d wanted to draft the Martyr of Ashes / Icefall deck, but hadn’t really seen enough of those cards. From a very promising start his draft had just petered out.
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Blog 1 21:00 – After the day is over...
Well day one is over, but the Magical action is still continuing. In the main room TO Jim Brophy had organized a 15 card highlander tournament. For those that are unaware of the format it involves using 15 card decks with no more than a single copy of any card. Players don’t die to decking but Glimpse the Unthinkable is still banned for obvious reasons. I don’t know too much about the metagame for this format but apparently Scepter-Chant is good and I saw a few Trash the Treasures teaming up with Sundering Titans. Diarmuid Verrier was the winner of this tournament with Jim coming second.
Over in the other room judge Thomas Ralph organized a Magic-related quiz. The team of 11 year-old Eddie Mucha and judge Simon Cooper ran away victorious, snatching a box of Unhinged.
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