Beyond the Norm: GPDC Tournament Report; 789th with White-Blue “I Hate You”

*The following is based on my actual experience*

Having signed up for Grand Prix Washington DC several months in advance, you can understand why, the day before, I had yet to select a deck for the tournament. As always, I had requested that my friends force me to play a “real” deck if I expressed an interest in doing otherwise.

            “I think I’m going to play WU Control,” I declared happily.

            “But that deck can’t really beat other control decks,” Jimminy Johnston pointed out.

            “Good point! A seven-mana do-nothing sorcery as a win condition is a terrible idea. I’m taking it out,” I replied.

            “But… how will you win…?” asked Sally Salulu.

In one, glorious moment, an image of Ivan Floch flashed before me: sitting in the finals of Pro Tour M15 playing Sphinx’s Revelation control with no win condition but Elixir of Immortality. Control in its purest, most noble form.

 I began to compile a list. We didn’t have Sphinx’s Rev, but we had Pull from Tomorrow. Instead of Supreme Verdict and Planar Cleansing, we had Fumigate for life gain and Descend Upon the Sinful for Zombies. But how to win…? Standard staple Perpetual Timepiece was the primary win condition for a while, until I found that, even after shuffling my graveyard into my library, I would draw through my entire deck twice before my opponent drew through theirs once. #blueproblems

The answer came to me one day as I watched Gabriel Nassif, who was playing UB Scarab God Control (a poor, sad facsimile of a true control deck), ponder how to tackle the mirror. When he included two copies of Ipnu Rivulet as a mirror-breaker, I knew I’d found my primary win condition. I promptly added in four copies of the glorious blue desert to my deck along with four copies of the white desert to sacrifice to it. I then added a single Kefnet because birds are cool, and I’ve always wanted to beat someone with Kefnet and say, “Tweet, tweet, scrub,” before walking away. (Just remember the match slip! Returning to get it after dissing your opponent is always awkward.)

 I gave the deck a practice run at a local PPTQ to a strong 9^th place finish. Of course, other factors that may have helped me along included a Round 1 bye and the top 4 players getting disqualified for collusion. But I walked away from the tournament that day with two things: a single pack of Fate Reforged that was awarded to the 9^th place finisher (which I opened to much applause, I might add), and overwhelming confidence that my deck could go the distance.

Here’s the list I registered for DC:

I woke up on the morning of the tournament feeling great; without playing a single card, I crushed my first round. My second round was won as I munched on a Subway sandwich, the namesake restaurant nestled within a nearby Wal-Mart. How did I so dominantly cruise to victory in these first two rounds? Well, it turns out that if you lose at enough PPTQ’s and GP’s, you eventually get 2,250 Planeswalker Points, which then let you automatically win the first two rounds of a Grand Prix. It’s a wonderful system. I came off my byes in Round 3, and sat down across from my first victim.

Round 3 – WB Control

            “I hope you’re not on red!” joked my opponent as he mulliganned to five cards in our first game.

            “I wish you were playing red,” complained my opponent glumly on Turn 26. I nodded sympathetically, Pulled for nine at the end of his turn, then milled him for 32 over the next two turns, locking up Game 1.

But alas, I failed to Pull out victories in Games 2 and 3, as he cast triple Transgress in the second game and then double Transgress + Doomfall in the third, both times backed up by a Gideon and then a Reality Smasher.

Despite having my mind repeatedly violated by his sideboard cards, I still felt confident. I was 2-1, after all.

Round 4 – UR Scarab Control

 The moment my opponent played a Wandering Fumarole on Turn 1, I knew that I had won the game. Ironically, the moment I played a Prairie Stream on Turn 1, my opponent assumed that he had won the game. That’s because he figured I was on WU Approach, which can never win a control mirror because it runs no hard counterspells and is entirely dependent upon resolving a sorcery that costs seven mana. Thus, we both passed back and forth, taking no actions aside from drawing cards, both assuming we had already won the match.

            Then, the moment.

 “End of turn, mill four,” I said, sacrificing a Shefet Dunes. My opponent froze, and turned his eyes to my lands. Another two dunes were sacrificed, and my opponent was down to sixteen cards; I had four Rivulets on board. As a control player, you usually have to take joy in the despondent hopelessness in your opponent’s eyes, but the wonderful thing about my masterpiece is the moment of panic and confusion it causes as your opponent processes the fact that you’re planning on milling them. Of course, timing this moment is vital; you want to mill them as quickly as possible because the suspense of the reveal is just killing you, but you also have to wait until it’s too late for them to do anything about it. Unfortunately, my opponent realized that Disallow was his out. Thus, he immediately began deploying a board of Gearhulks and The Scarab God, fighting over threats and flashing back Disallows to counter more Rivulet triggers. He attacks me for more than lethal, I kill some stuff, and my life total falls from twenty to one. Of course, there is no meaningful difference between these numbers, as they both represent “not dead,” but people always find one life more dramatic than twenty.

Having forced him to work through his Gearhulks, Disallows, and Scarab God activations, I used an advanced system of mathematics known as counting to calculate that, this turn, my final turn of the game, my opponent can cast at most a single Disallow. I counted the cards in his deck. Four. I sacrificed my final Ipnu Rivulet, and he casts a Disallow – just as my statistical analysis had predicted. I then cast the only card left in my hand – Disallow. Let me address the one thing you’re all wondering; yes, dealing exactsies feels great when it’s damage, but it feels even better when it’s mill.

In Game 2, I knew that my opponent would be ready for my mill plan. So, instead, I played Kefnet on Turn 4, Dispelled his Disallow, and then dealt 20 damage in four turns.

Tweet, tweet, scrub.

Round 5 – BR Control

 By now, you should be getting the gist of how Game 1 goes against control decks.

• They joke around about getting Approached when I hit my seventh land.
• They sit there for a really long time with a bunch of dead spells in hand.
• They ask to read Ipnu Rivulet.
• They die.

In Game 2, a combination of hand disruption and Goblin Dark-Dwellers whittled down my hand until we were both top-decking. When in a top-deck situation, I highly recommend drawing a Pull from Tomorrow and casting it for fourteen, plus or minus seven. This is a skill-intensive play that only practiced blue mages can achieve, and I’m proud to say that I saw the line and took it. After that, my skillful hand of seven cards allowed me to defeat my opponent’s best efforts to fight me with his hand of zero.

Round 6 – Temur Energy

 My deck decided that this round, it would play the role of teacher in the class of “Introduction to Land Drops and Board Wipes.” In Game 1, I discovered that I could not cast any of my six boardwipes off two Ipnu Rivulets, one Island, and no other lands. Though I tried very, very hard, even appealing the floor judge’s ruling, I can now confirm that Fumigate cannot be cast off three blue sources. In Game 2, I discovered that if you hit all your lands and colors, you are in fact permitted to cast T6 Descend Upon the Sinful into a top-decked T7 Fumigate, and that this sequence of plays will win you games against Temur.

This brought us into the final game. Now, Game 1 had established that I couldn’t cast a double-white sweeper off three blue lands, but my wise deck-teacher felt the question merited further investigation. Thus, I mulliganned to six cards and kept two Islands, a Supreme Will, and other spells while on the draw. I proceeded to miss land drops and confirm that my two Islands were incapable of casting Fumigate into my opponent’s T3 Hydra à T4 Glorybringer. This time, the head judge became very upset with me, insisting that I was “trolling” him by repeatedly checking in as to whether the set of lands I had on board were capable of casting Fumigate. Me, trolling? Not I, sir. Never I.

Round 7 – New Perspectives

This was easily my favorite match of the day. In Game 1, they have a single copy of Approach with which to win the game, and they also draw nearly their entire deck in the process. I cast spells until I found a Disallow, then smiled encouragingly as my opponent Cycled things- lots of things.

            “What a cool deck,” I commented as he Shadow’ed back all his cards to his hand.

            “Neato!” I exclaimed as he cast New Perspectives on Turn 16 so that he could play against all the Supreme Wills that WU Approach runs.

            “It’s been a while since I’ve played against New Perspectives,” I said as he drew another ten cards. “I love how you draw your whole deck. How many cards are left?”

            I fidgeted with my Ipnu Rivulet.

He cast Approach with around 9 mana up. I had obviously found multiple Supreme Wills, which is why, for several turns now, I had done nothing, simply putting the top card of my library into my graveyard and passing the turn.

With his eyes on my Rivulet, he cycled cards, pausing each time to give me an opportunity to try to mill his Rivulet. I went deep into the tank, tapping the table with my fingers as I counted how many times Taylor Swift sings, “Look what you (just) made me do” in her new hit single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Turns out it’s right around 26 times… lyrical genius, I tell you. I then allowed his cycling to resolve, and he cast Approach for the second time, again with about thirty mana up.

I finally picked up the seven cards I’d laid on the table and looked through them.

            “Ah, here we go!” I exclaimed, happily revealing a Disallow.

My opponent stared at it for right around three seconds. This doesn’t sound like a long time, but I promise, if you ever pause during a game of Magic and stare at your opponent for a full three seconds (time it out, it’s longer than it seems!), it will be uncomfortable. Of course, as a control player, I savored it.

In Game 2, he made me actually do things, which made it harder to count how many times Taylor Swift says she doesn’t like something in her new hit single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” He played a Kefnet, and I felt a twang of jealousy, so I Cast it Out. He then Cast Out my Cast Out, so for revenge, I Cast Out his Cast Out, using the Cast Out underneath his Cast Out to Cast Out his… Kefnet. He then tried to play a second Kefnet, and I Disallowed. I let him resolve a Locust God (the guy really looked like he could use some kind of small victory) and then cast Descend Upon the Sinful to exile it the next turn. He cycled some more stuff before going for the big payoff- Sphinx of the Final Word. I Summary Dismissal, thus triggering an enormous counter-war. In a surprising twist, as the control deck that sideboarded in an additional eight counterspells, bringing my total to sixteen, I won that counter war and, shortly after, the game.

            “I… I don’t understand,” he sputtered afterward. “Do you run more countermagic than the stock Approach decks?”

            I smiled coolly. “I’m not running Approach.”

            “You just win off milling?!” he asked, bewildered.

            “I also have a single Kefnet,” I replied, signing the match slip and standing.

            “But-but… that’s so… weird!” he cried.

            I smiled once more. “Tweet, tweet, scrub.”

Round 8 – Ramunap Red

So, uh, yeah. This happened. To be fair, I had no expectation of winning, which was good, because my expectations were most certainly met, dying on Turn 4 of both Games 1 and 2.

Round 9 – UB Scarab God Control

This was it. The win-and-in for Day 2. The moment where my absurd deck wins out to Top 32, leading to players everywhere sharing the list with each other, reveling in the glory of the new Nephalia Drownyard. Catching each other’s eye at tournaments, nodding, and muttering, “Tweet, tweet,” as they pass.

As it was another control deck, I felt real good. As usual, we both just assumed that we would win Game 1, and then he suddenly didn’t have any cards left in his deck. In Game 2, he had Sphinx on Turn 7, and a couple of counterspells for my Blessed Alliance and Fumigate. But then, a Blessed Alliance stuck, and the Sphinx was down. As I prepare to turn the corner, my opponent draws for turn, and then deploys a Liliana, returning and replaying his Sphinx.

In Game 3, I managed to get the first Sphinx, but an onslaught of The Scarab God and Gearhulks forced me to boardwipe. As tends to happen, I then proceeded to lose to the second Scarab God and the second wave of Gearhulks.

Thus ended the brief moment in the spotlight of WU “I Hate You” Control. Let’s look at some data; over the course of the tournament, I dealt 29 damage with Kefnet (20 + 5 + 3 + 1; it was repeatedly shrunk by an Ifnir Deadlands in one game), milled around 175 cards with Ipnu Rivulet, went 3-4 in actual matches of Magic (but 9-8 in individual games!), and was asked by four people if my “mill deck” was running Fraying Sanity. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a winning weekend to me!

And it wasn’t over yet! On Sunday, I played Two-Headed Giant with my wife (yes, someone actually agreed to marry me) and, in one of our two Amonkhet packs, opened Kefnet. As I’m sure you can guess, we 4-0’ed. Or should I say, Kefnet 4-0’ed.

Tweet, tweet, scrubs.

Ryan is a grinder from Boston with SCG & GP Top 8’s and a PT Day 2. His fragile self-esteem is built on approval from others, so be sure to tell him what you think of his articles on Twitter @RyanNormandin.