Jeff Zandi is The Southwest Paladin

Stone Giant Slams the Door on “Season of the Bears”

The LAST IBC tournament report
By Jeff Zandi

The sun had been up for many hours on Saturday, September 29^th in the first year of the third Millennium when Jeff Zandi, Bil Payne and Robbie Howell awoke from what had been a very nice, if very brief, nap. These Magic stalwarts were on their way to the last Invasion Block Constructed pro tour qualifier of the season to be held in San Antonio, Texas. Travelling Friday night from Dallas, the three stopped for the night in Austin, at the cozy home of Jeff Zandi’s mother-in-law. Now, at eight in the morning on Saturday, the boys needed to get a move on, if they planned on being on time for the last qualifier of the season. Unsure of exactly how long it would take to get from Austin to San Antonio, the boys jumped into Guildmage One and hurried south on Interstate 35 while the theme from Conan the Barbarian shook the mirrors. About an hour later, the aged silver Plymouth minivan arrived at the site for the day’s tournament, the mighty Ramada Inn Conference Center in sunny San Antonio. The van chugged to a halt, weary from over one hundred thousand miles worth of Magic trips, caused Zandi to remember the Alamo….the Alamo car rental facility that lay only a few blocks away. The team hoped the van would be okay, and that a rental would not be required to get back home.  

Hi, this is Jeff Zandi. As you might have already guessed, I won this pro tour qualifier. As much as I would love to continue this tournament report in the stilted third-person perspective seen in the first paragraph above, I just don’t have it in me. The fact is, whether you loved or hated the Invasion Block Constructed format, this tournament represents the end of the qualifier season. There isn’t much you can do with the information of how this tournament was won, at least as far as this qualifier season goes. While I have been writing a lot of Magic articles in the past year, I’m afraid I haven’t been writing many tournament reports. It’s been more than a year since I reached a top eight of a qualifier, and more than three years since I won a qualifier. Still, the three of us that traveled together feel that we might have broken the format to a certain degree. Here’s what we saw and how we did.

The tournament was well run, as usual. Tim Weissman, his wife Sheila and the ubiquitous Don James run great Magic tournaments, year in and year out. Their organization, Event Horizons, has run over 700 major Magic tournaments over the years, and has also hosted two very unique invitation events that assembled the best and most fun Magic players from this end of the Magic world, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The tournament room was spacious and accommodating, featuring what Tim’s friend in the tournament organizing world, Ed Fox, would refer to as “Guildmage seating”. Guildmage seating is where you have enough seating room at each table that even a fat guy, you know, a REALLY fat guy can still have enough room. Apparently, there are some overweight guys on the Texas Guildmages. I guess I hadn’t noticed. Overweight Magic players are an issue unto themselves, and it is an issue I plan to get to the bottom of, as soon as I’ve had some punch and pie. This qualifier season, now ten weeks old in Texas, brought more players to qualifiers than had been seen in years. Today, however, there are seventy-nine players, a good bit less than the one hundred or so that the rest of the qualifiers this season have enjoyed. We will be playing seven rounds of Swiss.

The Metagame

As we sat down to fill out our decklists for the day, each of the three of us had noticed the same thing around the room. We saw a lot of people playing discard strategies. We also saw quite a few players shuffling up Domain decks. I had been planning, for the past several weeks, to play Budde’s version of Domain today. I was guessing that a lot of players would go back to simple creature decks for the last week of the season, and that the glamour that Kai’s London win would have worn off the Texas deck field by this time. I definitely did not want to play Domain if other people were playing it, or sideboarding for it. Last Wednesday night, at our team meeting, teammate Zach Karthauser dropped a new decklist on me. His concept was another blue/black/white thing, and of course, I immediately dismissed it as Gomar version-whatever. I was definitely wrong. Zach’s deck had a lot of control elements in it, and only eight creatures. The deck had a lot of active control elements in it. Namely, discard. Zach’s creation was running three Probe, four Verdicts and three Recoil. Practicing for the past month or so mostly on my own, I was convinced that I could beat anything in game one with Domain. The past few weeks, however, the deck was falling down badly to black/red/blue and newer versions of Gomar-ish blue/black/white. Now, you have to hate being a few days away from your last chance to qualify with no clue of what to play. After just a few days of practicing, I decided I liked Zach’s deck and would play it unless the room looked entirely creature-based in San Antonio, in which case I would play Domain. What finally made up my mind was the discard that Robbie, Bil and myself saw on every table before the tournament. Suddenly, we were talking Dodecapod. As Robbie Dojo said, “Last night we didn’t know if Dodecapod was even good enough for the sideboard, and now we’re talking about it being good enough for the main deck.” Young Robert Howell is the artist formerly known as Robbie Dojo, or, as I like to call him, Roberto Dojonovich. He is playing a version of blue/black/white that was developed by the associate Guildmage from Wichita Falls, Bryan Lyons. Bil Payne, recently reacquiring his desire to dominate in Magic tournaments, is playing a very roguish black/white Phyrexian Arena deck powered by the little known genius that is Necravolver. While I am still working on how to put three or four Dodecapods into my sideboard, these two guys are talking about putting the artifact creature into their main decks. Two for Robbie, three for Bil. Amazed, but appreciating their individual deck-building talents, I start looking for how to put Dodecapod into the main deck. With time running out in deck registration time, I decide on two full time Dodecapod in place of the two Emblazoned Golems that Zach Card-Miser was playing in his deck. At the time, I was making a decision that I thought was even more key, deciding whether or not to play Gainsay. This deck seemed to be pretty aggressive with its mana, especially early in the game, casting Vindicates OFTEN on turn three and playing Probe with kicker as quickly as possible. Also, from working on Domain in general and looking at Budde’s sideboard in particular, I really appreciated the idea of playing non-blue threats in games two and three in order to make my opponent’s Gainsay as lousy as possible. In addition, Bryan Lyons was hot on the idea of sideboarding in four Meddling Mage in place of Gerrard’s Verdict, so I knew the usefulness that Mage could provide from the sideboard. Besides, I really had not become confident in using main deck Meddling Mage, always confused about when to attack and block with the Mage, and when to keep my Mages in play safe at all costs. Deciding to put four Meddling Mage in my sideboard instead of Gainsay, I had to run out to the van to get the Mages. On the way back in, I saw still more discard cards in people’s decks as they registered their decks. When I got back to the table with the other guys, I had made up my mind. I would play four Dodecapods main deck. I pulled Rout number three and Spectral Lynx number four and put them in the sideboard. At worst, I would have some clumsy three toughness creatures in my main deck. At best, I would be dropping lots of 5/5 fatties into play on game one.

Someone that I have known forever, but just can’t remember his name right now, asked me before the tournament who was going to win today. I grinned and told him that I knew, but I couldn’t tell him right now.

ROUND ONE

Corey Green is playing blue/black/white with up to twelve hard counters. In game one, he shows me Dromar’s Charm, Absorb AND Undermine. In game one, I play first and Corey mulligans down to six cards. I don’t get off to a very fast start, and Corey Absorbs my first two spells, a Vindicate and a Gerrard’s Verdict. Soon, however, I’m beating him down with a Lynx and a 3/3 Dodecapod because his deck doesn’t have enough animals in it. In game two, I leave in my Verdicts by adding three Addle to my deck. Things go badly for Corey, and he goes down in the face of my two Lynx attack. I’m 1-0, and so are Bil Payne and Robbie Howell.

ROUND TWO

Caleb Kelly is playing green/blue/black. Caleb is kind of a tough guy, and is subtly letting me know that he’s a great Magic player by talking about how bad his hand is, and how lame my deck is. In game one, we both mulligan to six. I play first and soon have out a hard cast Dodecapod. Caleb cleverly removes my creatures from play with his Repulse cards and again shows me his gaming genius by playing Plague Spitter. According to Caleb, some sort of miracle allowed me to escape with a win in game one. Later, in game two, during one attack phase, Caleb is bearing down on me with a Plague Spitter and a small army of 2/2 creatures. Before damage is dealt, I Dromar’s Charm the Spitter and suddenly Caleb doesn’t have any creatures anymore. The next turn, I dropped Desolation Angel and helped Caleb pick up his cards.  Robbie and I are 2-0, but Bil has lost a match and is 1-1.

ROUND THREE

Ryan Park is a good player from San Antonio. He is playing a very similar deck to mine, although he is not playing ‘Pods full time and he is playing Phyrexian Rager. He plays first and promptly mulligans to six. We dance for quite a while in game one before the simple fact that I have more creatures takes the game. In game two, I have the Meddling Mages in, and on turn two, I play one naming Dromar’s Charm. Ryan quickly runs out of cards in his hand, and never sees a Dodecapod in spite of my many discard spells. Ryan drops Yawgmoth’s Agenda with no cards in hand, his graveyard containing several Vindicates, a Recoil and some other things, but no creatures and no counter magic of any kind. Suddenly, with me at three life and Ryan at five life, I have a sizable advantage. I have three cards in hand and six land in play. I also have two Lynx and the Meddling Mage in play. Ryan has one Lynx in play, untapped, and two of his five land untapped. With Ryan at five life, all I need to do is attack with everyone, bringing him down to one life while maintaining at least a 2-1 creature advantage. Attacking with everyone is the smart play, but I make a big mistake instead. Thinking I can win THIS TURN, I cast Dromar’s Charm targeting his Lynx, hoping I can then come over for seven damage unblocked and just win. Of course, I forgot that my Mage has been around since turn two, when I named DROMAR’S CHARM. Ryan nods as I return the Charm to my hand after he points out the problem to me. Then Ryan asks me what I plan to do with the black, blue and white mana now in my mana pool. I am forced to put a regeneration shield on one of my cats and eat the rest as mana burn, pulling me down to one life before I even attack. Worse yet, I can no longer attack with all three creatures, since Ryan’s Lynx would then be able to kill me next turn. I attack with only the Mage, and he chooses not to block. On his next turn, Ryan is still unable to find anything to help him fix the board, and I win two turns later.  Robbie and I are now 3-0.  Bil is now trading cards with people, and that can’t be a good sign (even though he is the KING of trading!)

ROUND FOUR

My round four opponent is a 3-0 Bryan Bombanek, a very good player from Austin, I believe. I have already remarked on the unique aspects of his deck from a few tables down earlier in the tournament. Bryan is playing red/black/white, with basically all the good black and white cards and enough burn to help keep his opponent’s weenie creatures off the board. Oh, and Bryan plays a good bit of discard to boot! In game one, ALL FOUR of my Dodecapods come into play from my hand, although not all four at once. Bryan keeps putting on the pressure, though, and uses a late game Yawgmoth’s Agenda and a pile of Goblin tokens to put me down. In game two, I bring in Addle but not Meddling Mage, and I beat him down while never dropping below seventeen life. In game three, Bryan doesn’t have much better luck, and loses eventually to 3/3 Dodecapod and a Lynx. Howell and I are now 4-0.

ROUND FIVE

Alex Wheeler is a very cool Magic player that I see kind of often in Dallas. Alex is LITTLE. I don’t mean he’s a little kid, because he’s not, and I don’t mean he’s short, although he is shorter than me and smaller than me (most people are both shorter and smaller than me!). I mean Alex is an Elf. Alex is literally Elf sized. His red and green deck, on the other hand, is SUPERSIZED with creatures and damage. He says he’s not excited about the match up as game one begins with Alex playing first. Alex doesn’t waste a lot of time WASTING me in game one. Turn two Familiar. Turn three Raging Kavu. Turn four or five Skizzik. BANG, twenty to my dome. Game over. Game two, I Verdict on turn two and gain three life from his land discard. On his turn two, he gets Familiar in play again, but never gets the creatures rolling out and I win. In game three, I name Skizzik with my turn two Meddling Mage. A turn or two later, I Vindicate his one Mountain in play. Alex doesn’t ever see another red mana until far too late. Robbie and I are now 5-0 and hoping we meet in the next round so that we can intentionally draw.

ROUND SIX

Robbie and I are matched up, and we do intentionally draw, giving me a much-needed break.

ROUND SEVEN

Carl Labato is also playing red and green. After studying the standings for a while, Carl assures himself that he can get into the top eight with a draw, so we draw.

QUARTER FINALS

What do you know? It’s me and teammate Robbie Howell matched up again. At first, it seems like being paired in the first round of the playoffs is extremely bad luck. In reality, there is no good time to be matched up against a friend or teammate when there is only one seat on the pro tour at stake and both of you want to win it. Quarter finals is as good or as bad as any other matchup.

In game one, I go first and get a good creature jump on Robbie, hitting him for two a turn for a good while with a Lynx, until he plays a Voice of All naming white. Down to thirteen life to my twenty, Robbie is unable to attack with his Voice, but is able to gain some life Absorbing the next couple of threats I throw at him. Robbie never does get any discard, though, and I eventually hard cast a Dodecapod and beat him. In game two, I feel constantly on the defensive with Robbie going first. He misses a turn three land drop, and so after he drops a Coastal Tower on his turn four, I decide to Vindicate it on my turn four. Robbie answers with another Coastal Tower on turn five, and I answer with another Vindicate on my next turn. Robbie answers again with Coastal Tower number three, and I am suddenly running out of answers. The real story of this game is my draw of twelve lands and five non-land spells. On to game three. For game three, I employ a strategy that seems to be truly responsible for the success of this deck in this tournament. Out goes two Yawgmoth’s Agenda, then all three Recoils, and occasionally one or two sorceries. In comes the fourth Lynx and all four Meddling Mages. In the end, it was all about having an active control deck with FOURTEEN creatures and only FOUR counterspells in the form of Dromar’s Charm. Robbie and I both got low in life in game three, but the better creature base finally won game three. Robbie is bummed and exhausted. Been there, done that, couldn’t stretch the damn 2X t-shirt over my damn belly.

SEMI FINALS

As me and Robbie’s quarterfinal match stretched into a long game three, the menacing person of Bryan Augustine. Bryan Augustine, who is widely (no pun intended) known in Texas as “Mutombo”. Bryan isn’t black or seven feet tall, but he does have some fairly grim body piercings and a big red Fubu football jersey. Bryan watched our match with some interest, as he has already won his quarterfinal round and is waiting for the winner of me and Robbie’s match. ‘Tumbo is playing blue/green/white, using the bouncing creature that you can cast as an instant to rescue his green and white creatures from destruction, or just to reload a Mystic Snake to his hand while putting a bigger creature into play. In game one, Bryan elects to play first, but then has to mulligan to five cards. Augustine quickly regains the lost card economy with Mystic Snake and other cards as he reduces my life to seven before he takes a single point of damage. I lose game one rather quickly after that. Game two doesn’t look that much better as, mulligan free, Bryan pounds me down to five life before my pair of Spectral Lynx are able to start fighting back.

I get down to one life before I get Desolation Angel into play, fixing all my problems, and helping me win game two. In game three, I am again taking a healthy early beating from Mutombo’s deck, which is just plain good, by the way, when trickery and chicanery seep into the cracks of our otherwise well-played match. ‘Tumbo drops Sabertooth Nishoba, a 5/5 trampling game ender, only to have me Recoil it back to his hand at the end of his turn. Bryan picks up the giant monster, thinks for a moment, and then chooses it for the Recoil’s discard effect. Only after I have started my main phase next turn do both of us realize that Recoil can’t target the Nishoba, who has protection from red and blue. It ended up being COMPLETELY crucial, of course, as I dropped Desolation Angel and essentially ended the game.

FINALS

Aaron Rzepka is a hard working, talented Magic player from Texas that played on one of the Texas-based teams earlier this month at the Pro Tour New York teams event. Aaron is what is known as an “up and coming” player. Aaron and I are playing very similar decks, but he is playing less discard than me, and, of course, he isn’t playing Dodecapod main deck. Aaron goes first in game one and plays turn one Swamp. On turn two, he plays a Plains and, after thinking it over, plays a Gerrard’s Verdict. The crowd loves it when I put not one, but two Dodecapods from my hand directly into play. Aaron grabs his chest and shakes his head. This game is already over.

In game two, he does indeed bring in Dodecapod, but also removes his Verdicts. My Verdicts stay in, but I add Addle and Meddling Mages. I hard cast a pair of Dodecapods fairly early, and he is simply unable to handle all the creatures. I win the match 2-0, and suddenly, after a three year absence, Zanman is back on the pro tour!

It doesn’t matter any more, and no one is more glad to be finished with the IBC format than me, but it turns out that discard really was a good idea, and Dodecapod turned out to be a pretty good idea. Maybe even better than the very techy Emblazoned Golem.

Here’s the deck:

Card Miser – by Zach Karthauser (Dodecapods and sideboard by Jeff Zandi, Robbie Howell and Bil Payne)

3 Spectral Lynx
4 Dodecapod
2 Desolation Angel
4 Dromar’s Charm
4 Vindicate
4 Gerrard’s Verdict
3 Probe
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Rout
3 Recoil
2 Yawgmoth’s Agenda
4 Salt Marsh
4 Coastal Tower
4 Caves of Koilos (Caves of Carlos)
5 Swamp
5 Plains
4 Island

SIDEBOARD

3 Addle
4 Meddling Mage
3 Dismantling Blow (sideboarded exactly one in exactly once against Goblin tokens)
3 Slay
1 Rout
1 Spectral Lynx  

PROPS to a lot of people, but no one more than Guildmage Zach Karthauser for bringing me a really good decklist last week, even when I was more consumed with the premiere of the new Star Trek series than I was with Magic. Thanks to Bil Payne for returning to Magic and, more importantly, to the Guildhall, where he is well loved by all. Special thanks also to Roberto Dojonovich, who definitely had a good angle on this format from beginning to end. Props to Guildmage Chad Jones, who didn’t get to have dinner paid for by me because he happened to be traveling this weekend with the very cool Rob Moore, the dangerous and skilled Vincent Johnson and the just plain dangerous Ronnie Jones. More props to the other active Guildmages, especially Rob Lawing, who provides a lot of the leadership for this merry band of fighting men. Rob and I were in the ‘Nam together, and we like to beat down our friends with all manner of war stories, many of which are completely untrue. Rob runs a halfway house on the far western side of the Metroplex for young Magic players who like professional wrestling and who require the type of advanced social engineering that only a man of letters like Robert Lawing can provide. Other active Guildmages these days who deserve some love include mighty Matt Duncan, old-school Scot Martin, Dave “Tiger” Williams (you know, Rob Lawing may have thought of that nickname for Dave before I did, since Rob IS the golfer of the group), and the great people that aren’t on the team but are kind enough to share their talents with us on a weekly basis, like New Jersey’s own Skye Thomsen, Jeremy Simmons and up and coming Magic talents Kip Antene and Ken Pender.

All due respect to Tim and Sheila Weissman for continuing to keep the Magic tournament scene in Texas very professional and for running great tournaments again and again. They are the best people you could ever hope to do business with.

SLOPS to people who get it wrong, and then don’t do anything to try and fix it. You know who you are. FREE DAVE WILLIAMS!   Peace out, -Zanman! 

Jeff Zandi
DCI Level II Judge
Texas Guildmages

Zanman@ThoughtCastle.com