Grand Prix Kitakyushu 2013

“Danger is real… fear however is a choice” – General Cypher Raige – After Earth.

This is not really a tournament report. This is not a match analysis either. But it’s something I decided to put together as one of the most memorable Grand Prix’s I’ve attended in recent years. 1st of all – hands together for our latest Grand Prix Champion – Raymond Tan!!



April 2013
Some of you may remember I took home the PTQ Theros champ and with it was an invite to the upcoming Pro Tour in Dublin later in October. But what came with it was 1000 juicy planeswalker points (“PWP”) which allowed me essentially three round byes for the rest of 2013. I began circling the events that I would allow me to make the best use of my new found entitlement and circled the obvious GP Bangkok and GP Hong Kong. I wasn’t qualified for the world magic cup and I knew if I wanted to keep my run to 2014, I needed a way to rake in another 1000 or so PWP in the new season starting in August and circled in two more events – GP Kyushu and GP Kyoto.

Travel plans
Roughly around early July, I was petitioning to the usual travel suspects – Chye and Au Yong to come along with my brave adventure to Kyushu. I admit Japan is not the cheapest place to visit, being just a tad (actually a lot more) expensive than Bangkok. I had found the best option for flights – via SIA direct to Fukuoka (a route later on I found out not many people knew off) and cheap hotels. After my failed attempts to ring them in, I turned to GP Bangkok top 8 – Raymond Tan and he said was keen but wanted to check with his buddy Jeffrey. Raymond is getting married this year, so I knew there was lots of prep work to be done and just left it as it is. As July drew to a close, I was already set on my own travel plans and resorted to be the only guy going.

Later on I found out that my high school mate, Jason Lee (Comics Corner) and his buddy Asfa was heading to Tokyo that same weekend and decided to brave a 6 hours train ride to Kyushu to tackle the GP with zero byes. Asfa had 2 from winning a GPT but at least I knew I had company when I was in Japan.

Deck prep
I was pretty dead set with UWR Flash even before the world magic cup after watching Matt Costa in GP Miami and Huey Jenson piloting a similar deck close to undefeated in the SCG Open (before losing to mana screw). I researched and tested and test…. I tell everyone I meet – UWR is not the easiest deck to pilot and infact it was one of the most challenging deck I have EVER piloted. It had no clear strategy and it relied of defence before slowly grinding out and offense with Restoration Angel. So the deck performed decently well for me in FNM’s and playtesting until the Magic World Championships where Kibler decided to show up with his anti-meta Gruul deck. The deck lived up to its expectations and absolutely raped UWR flash. It just didn’t have enough answers. At one point I was playtesting 30 straight games (10 without sideboard and 20 with) and I lost 20 of those games. Normally it meant changing deck right away, but I was way too deep into this deck to turn around. I tried all sorts of combinations to try and combat Gruul onslaught – Searing Spear, Boros Reckoner, Manor Gargoyle, more Detention Spheres. But nothing seemed to work….

I was fearing the matchup and fearing every card the Gruul played from the awesome power of Thundermaw to the cheap quick beats of the hasty Flinthoof Boar. A turn 2 Strangleroot, turn 3 Board and a turn 5 Thundermaw Hellkite meant I had to pack it in. It was a dreaded matchup and as typical deckbuilders you tend to pound your sideboard to handle your greatest enemy. But by doing so I was really destroying how my main deck was working. It was a tough call. I decided to put together a mono green elf-ball (with Craterhoof and Garruks) as a secondary deck and bring along with me. But with almost zero-testing, it had to be really a game time decision once I scoped the field for me to throw away a deck I have been testing for 2 months.

Kyushu
I arrived at Fukuoka airport @ 830am and it was a short bus ride to the Shinkansen (bullet train station). Let me just give a warning to inexperienced travellers – be prepared to get lost in translation in Japan!

So I got myself a ticket on board the famous Shinkansen headed to Kyushu (around 120kms away but 15 minutes by train – go figure) and I found myself walking to the Twilight Zone with people running about trying to catch their trains. There were no signs in English and nobody spoke or understood a word I was saying. I was saying random people my ticket and going – Kokura? Kokura? And all I got were shrugs. But thanks to some “local foreigners”, I was on my way.



Kyushu reminded me of a classic but modern little town. If Tokyo was KL, Kyushu was Ipoh. Just a little of old and new, mixed together. I stayed at the Kokura Station hotel, which was like right central and 10 minutes’ walk everywhere including the tournament area. The weather was expected to be 35 degrees with expected rain shower. What? Thank goodness for the covered skywalk as it rained the entire trip. Here’s a view of Kyushu from my hotel window.



After checking in, I met up with Jason and Asfa at the venue. Jason had signed up for the trials (which he later won!) and I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the meta and the dealer tables. Gruul was everywhere. Jund was everywhere. UWR was everywhere. My head was thinking – it was going to be a blood bath tomorrow. So after Jason wrapped up his GPT with a win, we headed for lunch and a catch up session. Jason and I were school mates when we were 17 and haven’t really talked much apart from a brief hello at Comics Corner for the next 15 years. So it was a good catch up. I was back at my hotel early and decided to take dinner myself (extreme Sashimi) as I ponder my deck choice for the next day. And finally I thought to myself – [i]Fear is a choice[/i], and I chose not to fear the meta and decided to ahead with my first choice – UWR flash and to take on the Gruul Menace head on.

Weapon of Choice – UWR Flash
Main Deck:
4 Restoration Angel
3 Augur of Bolas
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
4 Think Twice
3 Azorious Charm
1 Izzet Charm
2 Dissipate
3 Syncopate
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
3 Pillar of Flame
1 Turn/Burn
2 Warleader’s Helix
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Sulfur Falls
2 Clifftop Retreat
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Celestial Flare
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Negate
2 Dispel
1 Turn/Burn
1 Pillar of Flame
2 Detention Sphere
2 Rest in Peace

Several unorthodox choices included the one main deck Thundermaw Hellkite – which helped me sail past many matches in game 1 and as it caught many opponents off guard and the lack of any 3 damage burn and opting for a full set of Pillar of Flames + 3 Celestial Flares. Will come to this later.

Day 1:

There was a total of 1173 players. See this Day 1 photo from Wizards:



This was just one third of the entire hall!! And while Bangkok convention hall was a freezing igloo, this hall was a total opposite like a hot oven. While I pointed out it was roughly 35 degrees outside, it was probably a crusty 30 degrees in the inside as we were sweating during games and between rounds.

Rounds 1 to 3 – Bye
At this point, I was sitting around with the traders and when I had a tap on my shoulder. It was Raymond! I was surprised to see him and Jeffrey as I didn’t hear from him since July. But he somehow made it and our Malaysian contingent was now five. Five vs a billon Japanese. Great odds.

Also as a side note - Asfa was so adamant on trying to get on Walking The Planes showcase (but apparently Japan doesn't do coverage for that). But his persistence earned him a Feature Match which was live streamed to the entire Japan!! Unfortunately it wasn't covered by Wizards so at least he got his rock-star coverage at least in Japan. Asfa lost the match (Jund Mirror) though as he couldn't follow up his Bonfire and died quickly to a growing Olivia on the other side.

[I got this feature match photo somewhere - will post it up]

Round 4 – Bant Hexproof
I was finally excited to sit down and flex my muscles. Round 4 started at 2pm and have been lingering around since 9am so I couldn’t wait to get started. My opponent was ready too and he thumped in me in Game 1 casting only 3 spells (Avacyn’s Pilgrim, Geist of Saint Traft, Spectral Flight) and ending it in 5 minutes. I had recollect myself and took the next two games with a series of efficient usage of my mana and Celestial Flares.

Round 5 – Grixis Control
This was weird. Opponent went turn 1 watery grave, turn 2 swamp EOT Think twice, turn 3 lay cavern (naming Zombie) for Lifebane Zombie (stripping my Resto) and turn 4 Blood Crypt – Olivia Voldaren?? Good start but am not losing to this random deck and it was long and painful game to finish him off. Game 2 he was off to another efficient start and this time I couldn’t deal with his early Zombies and went to game 3 with minutes left on the clock. My pony-tailed opponent looked flustered. He knew we were heading towards a draw when we shuffled up with 7 minutes on the clock. My opening hand of two Thudermaw Hellkites were a keeper. I had 3 lands and a Think Twice on the play to go with it. My first Think Twice didn’t yield and land, but my second did – laying down land number four tapped. I couldn’t really recalled what sat in my hand other than the two hasty dragons, but when my opponent tapped out for a back-breaking Slaughter Games, I could feel the early draw that I had hoped to avoid coming to fruition.

Him: Slaughter Games.

Me: Name?

He ponder for a quick second and went – “Restoration Angel”.

I couldn’t have shoved my hand any faster in front of him, cards facing towards him nonetheless and I could feel his breath being sucked out of him as he was staring at the barrel of the double headed dragons. At this point we had like 3 minutes left and a judge sat next to us to watch for slow play. What i noticed throughout the weekend was the judges were targeting control players hahha....

After the Slaughter Games had settled, i was still without the fifth land and I gave my deck a hard knock which startled both my opponent and the judge sitting next to me.

Moorland Haunt. Thank you.

Two turns later this was on the table and I was signing off my victory slip.



I was moving on at 5-0, my best start in a Grand Prix in 10 freaking years. With little time to breath, the next round was called.

Round 6 – Red Black Zombies

I had a strange feeling my opponent was sleeving up an agro deck and I can clearly remember debating on keeping a hand with three Restoration Angels and three lands. But what the heck, no one wants to live forever anyway and signaled my keeper and allowed my opponent to commence proceedings of Game one.

Blood Crypt tapped. Jund ? – I thought.

Me – Land. Go.

Swamp – Knight of Infamy. Not good at all as the Knight actually dealt a full 18 damage to me while my opponent kept me (and my countermagic) busy with a string of spells like Geralf’s Messenger, Falkenrath Aristocrat etc….

When I finally did manage to remove the Knight with a top decked Pillar of Flame, my opponent did his top deck magic with a Searing Spear for the win. Game two went in my favour as I stabilized early with multiple Pillars and reloaded re – Revelation but the real drama unfolded in Game 3 which still replays fresh in my mind today. Check out this for play-by-play action:

Him: Blood Crypt – Gravecrawler (18 Life)
Me: Tapped land – Go (20 Life)
Him: Attack, tapped Blood Crypt – Diregraf Ghoul (18)
Me: Land – Augur of Bolas (fetching Warleader’s Helix) (18)
Him: Swamp – Geralf’s Messenger – Go (18)
Me: Land – 3 mana open – Go (16)
Him: No fourth land, Doom Blade Augur (which I Syncopated) and swing with the team. Gravecrawler gets blocked and reanimated.
Me: Land #4 pass (11)
Him: Caven of Souls (naming Vampire) – Falkenrath Aristocrat. In response, I Helix the Messenger, going up to 15 and taking 6 on the attack (blocking the Gravecrawler) plus 2 more from the undying Messenger. (18)
Me: Land #5 – Supreme Verdict, Falkenrath still lives. (7)
Him: Land #5 – Play another Diregraf Ghoul, reanimate Gravecrawler and swing with Falkenrath. (18)
Me: Land #6 – Thundermaw Hellkite comes into play (he sacrifices the Gravecrawler to the Falkenrath) and I pillar the Ghoul. The dust settles at the end of turn with his lone Falkenrath staring down at the fire breathing Hellkite. (3)





Him: Land #6. He plays anothers Gravecrawler, reanimates and pass (18).
Me: Land #7 (tapped). I swing in with Thundermaw and pass. (3)
Him: At this point, he starts peeling his draws and slams Falkenrath #2 on the table (with a dead Syncopate in my hand). He declares combat and I play Restoration Angel to flicker the Thundermaw. He sacrifices both Gravecrawlers to declare indestructibility and moves to swing, but I said they are tapped (from Thundermaw’s ability). (13)
Me: Land #8 I went into the tank and declared Restoration Angel as my only attacker, holding back the Dragon and a Celestial Flare in my hand. (3)
Him: He tried to animate his Gravecrawler but I stopped him (no Zombies) and thought hard before attacking. He finally moved both Falkenraths in and my Celestial Flare dealt with one before blockers are declared and took down the other one with my Thundermaw. He looked at my 6 open mana and pass and I could smell the Searing Spear if I were to Revelation (which I didn’t have) I would be dead. He passed the turn with 6 lands untapped and two cards in hand. (10)

"Here we go..." I thought

Me: No land #9. I looked at my hand of Syncopate, Negate, Celestial Flare and Think Twice. I could deal with basically anything coming and knew the game was in my grasp if I didn’t make a mistake. The Angel and Dragon tagged team in to bring him to 2 life. I could finish the game here, Think Twice (and flashblack) to try and draw a burn spell (I still had a Helix, 2 Burn and 3 Pillar of Flame) and would still have a Negate or Flare backup. But this was a crucial gamble and decided to pass the turn instead. (3)

My opponent took a deep breath – fired a Searing Spear to the dome.

"Negate"

Him: He peeled his top card and stood up to windmill another Searing Spear onto the board. I looked at his lands. Six less two for the Spear to have four open. I took my own deep breath and tapped my remaining 6 mana to Syncopate for 5. My opponent fell back down on his chair and showed me his last card – a Blood Crypt.

6-0. Doesn’t get any more exciting than this.

But my victory dance was short lived as Round 7 presented my arch nemesis.

Round 7: Kibler Gruul
In 30 games of playtesting, I won like 10 games particularly due to him one (or more of the following reasons):
1) He mulligan to 5 or less
2) He stuck on 3 lands
3) He whiffs Domri Rade 3 times in a row
4) He doesn’t draw Burning Earth
5) I have answers ready for Thundermaw

Seems like an impossible task. So we sat down for Game 1 and moment its Stomping Grounds – Arbor Elf, I knew I was in a world of hurt. But at least he made it quick and finished me off in turn six. Sideboarding just gets worse for me as Burning Earth was the bane of all multicolour decks.

But my prayers for Game 2 was answer as he struck my win conditions #1 and #2 and I easily controlled the game.

In the decider, he didn’t mulligan, he didn’t miss a land drop, he had Burning Earth (which I Negated) and he didn’t whiff his Domri Rade (though I managed to somehow deal with it). I still wasn’t dead by turn 7 but my hand was exhausted and blank (except for a lone Sphinx’s Revelation) after having to deal with everything that came at my face. But I was facing only a Flinthoof Boar with nothing else on the table and 7 life, I fired an end of turn Revelation for four cards and 4 precious life. My draws:

Land. Land. Land. Land.

The next card off the top was a Turn/Burn. I braced and my opponent (with probably blanks in his hand as well), top decked a Thundermaw Hellkite. I Turn/Burn it and took another 3 to the chin. If I drew a Revelation, the game would likely be mine.

Land.

I still had 8 life and perhaps had one more chance to draw out. Opponent said no by flipping another Thundermaw off the top for my first match loss of the day. Win condition #5 not met and that cost me the match.

At 6-1, I still had two chances to fight into day 2. But guess what? Round 8 is against R/G Kibler.

Round 8: Kibler Gruul
Game 1 was trading blows and my Restoration Angel held ground to claim victory. It was a hard fought battle but I knew I could just lose games 2 and 3 as easy as a snap.

Game 2, opponent kicked off with a turn one Arbor Elf, turn 2 Domri Rade. Uh-oh…. Bring on the pain.

However, in a wicked twist of fate, the Domri whiffed – 5 consecutive times (I also had Restoration Angel to control its loyality). When the Restoration Angel finally dealt the Domri off the board and me with a firm grip in my hand, my opponent just flashed me his hand of 3 lands and another 3 copies of Domri. He conceded that it wasn’t just his match to win and I was off to Day 2!!!!

I was riding high, Raymond and Jason both had made day 2 as well with 7-1 records but Asfa and Jeffrey had fell short. 8-1 would be setting up for a great day 2.

Round 9: Junk tokens
I was never in this game. Voice of Resurgence, Lingering Souls, Advent of the Wurm, Sorin Lord of Innistrad. The deck just had all the tools to finish me off. Even when I managed to fire a Revelation for 6 to try and get back into the game, the Revelation just didn’t co-operate and whiffed with 5 lands. Game two wasn’t a match either when double Lingering Souls and double Advent of the Wurm was just too much. Perhaps I could have prepared for the match slightly better, but his draws were amazing in this matchup.

7-2

So it was an anticlimactic end to the first day but Raymond had ended 8-1 and its still a decent showing heading into second day of play. Our day one ended with Ramen and whole of lot of Kirin beers.



Day 2 of the GP opened with a horrendous loss to Naya Aggro. I was never in the game as Sphinx Revelation just netted more lands than I needed.

Round 11 I was paired against the newest deck in the tournament - Black Green control also piloted by Shuhei Nakamaru. The deck was slow and grindy and offered plenty of attrition cards including some heavy beats such as Thragtusk. I don't remember the exact details of the game, but the turn before I finished off my opponent, he drew into Murder for my Restoration Angel followed by Thragtusk before we went extra turns. With me on healthy life, we ended up and a fruitless draw.

Three more match wins later, i found myself 10-1-3 and live for Top 32 and $400 with 2 Pro Points. The final match was against Naya, not a favourable matchup but certainly not lopsided (as compared to Kibler Aggro). But flustered and fatigued from 11 rounds of match play, a crucial mistake in game 3 let the winnings slip through my grasp.

I was on the draw and on turn 4, I had 4 untapped mana with a Warleader's Helix in hand. My opponent had lay land number 4 on his previous turn and cast a Loxodon Smiter. My hand was Helix, a Revelation and more lands. I pondered whether or not to Helix the Smiter for fear of pumps (Selesnya Charm), but I decided that I could still fire it in response and passed the turn. My opponent untapped and play his 5th land - a Gavony Township (gulp!). He swung and passed and from that turn on, I was in a precarious situation where if I tapped mana, the Smiter would be out of range from the Helix. Fast forward few turns later, the Smiter did me in and chugged away $400 of prize money.

68th place for me. 1st place for Raymond. Still it felt good competing at such a high level again.

But I did get a consolation gift after all....



I spent 18,000 yen playing the Japanese version of Roulette and got this along with 60 other random boosters include 13 boosters of Modern Masters. The road wasn't all that easy. Firstly I had to hit the ONE golden ball out of a gazzilion other balls within that hopper. And once I got that ball (which was enough to scream and yell) I had to go through another round of sweat of a 20% chance of picking up the SDCC planeswalkers set. Well thats what you get for rules written in Japanese. But lady luck was my side that day and I went home with the box of black goodies. Sweet feeling at the end after all!