Monday 11th July 2016 – 6:30am
I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m still in disbelief that I just spiked the WMCQ for the second year running, with the same freaking deck (more or less). But more importantly, I secured my shot at redemption. A chance I so badly wanted and hungered for this year.
You guys read my blog last year. Barcelona was fun and I don’t deny it was beautiful city with awesome food, awesome people and we, as a team, had a blast. But deep down inside, amongst all the fun times, I contained a bitter disappointment at our performance in the World Magic Cup. Opportunities like this to represent your country never come often and I failed to make full use of it. Psychologically, I crumbled to the weight of the expectations that was placed on Team Malaysia and myself and I had every reason to shoulder the burden of defeat on the team’s behalf. Raymond was our captain, but I was the failed navigator who couldn’t lead us to the promise land.
I ran through the early morning news today and Portugal had won 1-0 to win the Euros. The Internet were flooded with Ronaldo’s celebratory photos but one odd photo stood out, reminiscing of how I felt last year.
The French players are going home to bed and wake up to a feel of wasted chance and will never know if they would ever come this close again. However, I woke up today filled with hope and determination. I got my shot at redemption yesterday. And this is my story.
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I stared blankly at the stacks of cards all over the floor. It’s been a couple of days after a disastrous WMCQ 1 campaign for me. Shawn Khoo won and I was very proud of him. He did what I preached the most – practice, practice, practice.
Me? I tested and tuned 70 matches with Black White Control with a 65% match win percentage and 71% match win versus non Mono-White Humans and Saito UR Flyers decks, but decided to abandon ship three days before the tournament as I was afraid to play Last Airbender constantly on the back foot trying to fend of plants, knights, thopters etc.
So instead, I moved into uncharted Sultai Midrange and did 20 matches with it. It felt fine, but on hindsight, I’m sure there were better configurations that would have made it better. Hence the lack of testing meant I was ill-equipped to fight an 8 round battle and faltered early on in WMCQ 1.
Now I’m here was staring at my Signal Pests, Kitchen Finks, Scapeshifts, Cryptic Commands and my old friend Master of Waves. I knew the upcoming Modern tournament to be blazing fast with the emergence of Suicide Zoo, Bushwhacker Zoo and Infect. Also being in Malaysia, don’t count out the usual Affinity and Naya Burn. I flipped Master of Waves back into the box. Go back and read my article on WMCQ last year. He served his duty and the format was going to be a little too fast for him.
And so it began, the grueling process of deck selection. I started out with Affinity and after being “stoned” by Stony Silence more times than I can remember, I shelved the deck back into the box. Teammates Wei Han and Obama were testing out Jund and Nahiri Jeskai respectively so I left it to them to give me their testing statistics for those two. Both had the same idea, which was to play a deck to deal with the impending rush of all the linear aggro we anticipated. But that left with me with an eerie feeling of playing Last Airbender again. I had a brief stint with Bring to Light Scapeshift and Abzan Company but those didn’t work out either.
A week into testing, Eugene had sleeved up Infect for me and I went to work with it. Infect was such a joy to play. Turn 3 kill. Turn 2 kill. Out of nowhere kill you. Kill. Kill. Kill. The team could do nothing against it. It was Da Beast. During a particular testing session it was like 15-1 for Infect. I felt great, put the deck together on Magic Online and jammed some leagues.
3-2.
2-3.
1-3.
What was going on? Where’s that killer instinct? How did infect suck so badly moving from team test to online test? I watched the replays of my own matches and it dawned on me. People who knew how to play against infect wrecked it so badly. So it was clear to me that Infect was just a big school bully with a needle poking sorry kids around. But needles were no match against swords and guns. And that’s what the big boys were carrying around and they weren’t carrying them just for show. I shared my findings with the team and true enough, Infect started to lose. It wasn’t the beast after all.
I was tired and wasn’t sure what to do and closed my eyes for a while to contemplate what was next. Oddly enough, my dreams led me here.
Merfolk again? In all honestly, I felt I had exhausted all my luck with Merfolk last year. It caught the field by surprise and I navigated Merfolk’s toughest matchup ie Tron (twice!) in the elimination rounds to win. It was a grueling experience that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through again. But as though someone was actually hearing my thoughts and decided to lash back with its fury.
Kiora.
Had I dismissed Merfolks too soon? Perhaps. So I pulled the boys back from the boxes and went into the next testing session with the guys. Merfolks were still rocking. Despite piling up the wins, I wasn’t 100% convinced it could survive the online metagame and I was right. I was getting clobbered by Infect, Suicide Zoo and of course Tron but everything else felt a breeze. There was only less than a week before WMCQ and I haven’t really found my answer.
Wednesday 6th July 2016
Team Decards dinner @ pavilion. It was one of those rare times in the past two weeks that we met up without our decks. It was a good break to basically talk crap (at Ron’s expense again) and to clap for our manager Jeffrey celebrating his birthday.
“Dear God – all I wish is a starting hand every game of Boggle, 2 lands and 4 Auras. If you grant me this wish, I’ll promise never to make fun of Ron again.”
The next morning I spent two thirds of the day with work and met up with the team in the afternoon for our last meet up before Sunday. Merfolk got crushed. Infect crushed everyone. I’m screwed. So after dinner on Thursday, I decided to search for some intervention and it came down to two cards which I completely dismissed last year and initially didn’t even consider for this year.
I jammed a league and they worked. So between Friday and Saturday night, I spent a good 10-12 hours fine-tuning the deck and sleeved up for Sunday.
I wont go into great lengths of my matches for the day but here’s a quick recap.
Round 1 – Bye
Round 2 (Abzan Company) – Lost die roll. Got combo’ed out Game 1. Won both sideboarded games.
Round 3 (GR Tron) – Lost die roll. Ugin steamrolled me Game 1. Won both sideboarded games.
Round 4 (Abzan Company) – Lost the die roll. 2-0 as my opponent stumbled with mulligans.
Round 5 (Affinity) – Lost the die roll, opponent dealt 10 infect in a single attack with me lethal next turn. Won both sideboaded games.
Round 6 (GR Tron) – Lost the die roll, opponent natural tron on turn 3 into Karn, Ugin, Ulamog (vomit vomit). Won both sideboarded games.
Round 7 & 8 – ID
So I’m through to the top 8 at 3rd seed. Having to lose all 5 die roll hurts but knowing to at least start the quarterfinals is a big plus. The top 8 comprise:
2 Affinity
2 Naya Burn
1 Suicide Zoo
1 Titanshift
1 GR Tron
1 Fish
Before the top 8 began and told myself I could do this. I was this close. Ironically, I was having a Tuna bun before the match started and actually paused for a second to consider my worldly sin. Hope Kiora and her god Thassa would forgive me and lead me the way to victory.
For the first time in the entire tournament, the Merfolk gave no quarter. They crushed the Affinity menace 2-0 and moved on to fight Suicide Zoo in the semifinals. And when he misunderstood my static ability of the “Japanese” Tidebinder Mage, it was all over in two quick games. I was on to the finals. Against Burn.
I played burn in GP Singapore last year and I knew with Burn you needed something very important. A killer instinct with a thirst for blood. I didn’t sense it in my opponent and so if this was the round to pull all the stops, my men were up to the task. In the end, it was a tight three game affair. You had to be there to witness it, but it came down to him playing a Boros Charm to double strike instead of shooting me for 4 (with me on 6) and top decking a Lava Spike which was just a turn too far and finally, what I felt a fitting end of the entire battle…. “Japanese” Tidebinder Mage off the top to clear his Wild Nacatl for the lethal attack.
I had done it. Shawn gave me a bear hug from behind and I let out a sigh of disbelief. The fishes had carried me through again. It felt amazing.
I came home and reflected briefly on the day and my wife asked me what were the key success points that got the Merfolk all the way to the top again.
1. Practice, practice, practice.
2. Precision sideboard and sideboarding plan which I had put so many hours into. To win all my sideboarded games (with exception of 1 game in the finals to a God-ly hand) just shows how far you can stretch your imagination to squeeze the best possible 15 cards to combat such a wide metagame and its my key to capturing this win.
Here's some interesting statistics of my day:
Pre-Board Record:
On the Play: 2-0
On the Draw: 2-4
Post-Board Record:
On the Play: 5-0
On the Draw: 7-1
Thanks to my wife for giving me the time and space to work on my quest. Thanks to Team Decards for being there. Two down, one to go. And finally big thanks to Eric and the Classroom team for hosting. I’m still kinda dazed from all the disco lighting and everything still looks blue to me today. Or maybe it’s just the blue Merfolks still swimming in my head.
My quest for a chance at redemption at the World Magic Cup is over. But the real work has just begun.
Game On.
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Epilogue:
Tidebinder Mage (“TM”) sat alone by the shores, watching the sunset as the exhausting day drew to a close. Master of Waves (“MoW”) came over and sat beside TM who continued to stare blankly into the pale orange sun, taking in deep breaths and basically ignoring MoW's presence.
MoW – “Long day?”
TM just nodded slightly and mumbled to himself in Japanese.
MoW – “Oh Japanese huh? Well, I heard you did good out there today, stopped some Cats and Goblins. Key to winning the war I heard. Neat stuff.”
TM looked at MoW and gestured his hands wildly while mumbling more Japanese words.
MoW – “Sorry mate, I ain’t understanding what you are doing or trying to say.”
TM stared back at the sunset and smiled.
He thought to himself – No one did.
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