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Brian Kibler said it best. A true malady has descended upon the Magic community of late. I too remember years ago, when I would eagerly await the flood of tournament reports going up on The Dojo after every major tournament. They all told a part of an epic tale that at the time I was at best loosely connected to. I read about the great ones of Magic, enjoying their stories, studying them for information and hoping one day to be one of the people writing the reports and not just a reader.

I may have been one of the few people who managed not to root for Jamie Wakefield because I wanted his bad decks punished (I’m a big fan of Deck Justice, if not Mark), but I was still happy to see his reports go up. To an extent I even used to read them. I lament that nowadays only a select few will write a tournament report for any given Pro Tour. There are a handful who can be counted on if they’re not totally embarrassed by their finish and feel they can write a worthwhile one, and often we’ll pick up a few from the top eight. But that’s it. The Sideboard doesn’t even accept tournament reports, and in my opinion that’s a shame. Luckily, they do get reports out of the Invitational players.

What can I say? SALUD! They say the people in South Africa are extremely friendly, but I really can’t say. Still, I can’t resist a great tradition, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a non-monetary reason to write something. I don’t write as much as I could, because I want to make sure each article is worthwhile. In short, I feel most Magic players write exactly the right number of articles. But since there appears to be a problem with Benafel’s Invitational Report, they need a replacement, and given what’s been going up recently I’m perfectly qualified to write one. After all, winning isn’t what the Invitational is all about, and the Invitational isn’t what an Invitational Report is all about. Not necessarily anyway. So, with certain caveats attached, as thanks for the invitation, here it is:

Invitational Report - Zvi Mowshowitz *17th*
“The following may or may not have actually happened”

To keep in mind who can and cannot read this report, with apologies to Michael Feldman (www.notmuch.com) here they are, The Four Disclaimers:

1. All events talked about in this report have been thoroughly researched, although what I say about them has not. Ambiguous, misleading or statements poorly matching reality are par for the course. Readers who are sticklers for accuracy should try and qualify next year.
2. Chris Benefal is OK by me.
3. Persons employed by Brainburst, its subsidiaries or Team Godzilla are lucky to be working at all (and if they are depends on who you ask) let alone wasting valuable coding or playtesting time reading my Invitational Report. Readers who haven’t yet read the other Invitational Reports are reminded that if you don’t pay very close attention, you miss most of the jokes.
4. All opinions expressed in this article are well-reasoned and insightful. Needless to say, they are not necessarily those of Brainburst, its editors or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.

I was born in New York City, and everyone talks in New York City. It’s no Middle Earth, and I still don’t blend in very well, but it’s where I spent the Invitational. The Magic Invitational in Capetown would have been my third invitational. That would have put me in some company. If you’re curious you can ask Mark Rosewater, because he doubtless has it all memorized. Before I get going, I’d like to thank everyone who would have voted for me if I hadn’t been in on Pro Tour Points already. It’s Christmas time, and it’s truly the joy of giving and the thought that counts. If you’re worried you didn’t actually get to vote for me, fear not. I didn’t actually get to go. Keep meaning to vote for me, and hopefully you won’t ever actually have to again – although so far this year hasn’t been going all that well. I don’t drink, but you’re welcome to take one unless you already looked at all the other reports. In that case, you’ve had enough already and I’m cutting you off. Remember, if you’re reading about the Invitational and don’t notice any drunken idiots, then YOU ARE IT.

• Let me tell you, that it was between Legends and The Dark that I started playing Magic

• So everybody, stop asking please, thanks. (or pls, tks SALUD! for those on irc)

• In 2000, I won my first “important tournament” in Tokyo. Unless you count Grudge Match, but I only had to beat Mouth there.

• Where? Grab a map dude, and wherever it is, SALUD!

• My first draft ever was about a week ago; I’ve had time to polish this a bunch since then.

• What, you expected me to talk about South Africa? I didn’t go!

• I MISSED THE INVITATIONAL! YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

• I was really sick, and I noticed I was really sick.

• Stuck on Manhattan Island, the best in the world, as everyone knows. Sorry, NZ.

• Have another toast. This might get really long… and you probably suspect I’m about to say…
  SALUD!

Where was I? You are right, stuck at home. At least my good friend and teammate Scott Johns went in my place, which is why I wasn’t bitter that I exchanged an amazing exchange rate (Steaks for five dollars!) for a recovery rate (I didn’t even WANT a steak for five dollars). All the other top players including a lot of my good friends and players I highly respected especially Chris Benefal Burger got to go (well, except for Ben Rubin who shamefully didn’t get voted in and everyone else who didn’t have a publicity agent but are too numerous to mention here. Rules are rules.) I was stuck at home.
They all p..l..a..y..e..d f..o..r f..u..n, and a..t.. a.. r..e..a..s..o..n..a..b..l..e . p..a..c..e. Even Kamiel Cornelisson. Or so I’m told. A toast for him, as soon as I figure out which one to order. I’ll be right with you.

Time limits are a very good thing. So are chess clocks.

Meanwhile, a summary of the Invitational tournaments that came before:

Kuala Lampur: 2000
This was a great tournament, upset only by the fact that I didn’t win it. It was a cool city, a nice hotel, and I even bowled and played basketball, which was odd because I don’t do either. More importantly, this one had some great company, and I was really motivated to do well. I prepared in every constructed format, and felt ready. I really did think I would be happier winning an Invitational than winning a Pro Tour, not just because being on a card is beyond cool but because I thought it was the ultimate test of skill. Boy, was I wrong. The Invitational is about fun, going new places, spending time with some great people and giving back to the game, but one thing it isn’t is strictly based on skill.

This was a great tournament, upset only by the fact that I didn’t win it.

I started off strong at 3-1, then faced off against mighty perpetual invitee Chris Pikula. Then apparently I didn’t say that I was blocking with my two Wall of Blossoms, and Chris called me on it. I couldn’t believe it, but Maher confirmed that yep, I’d actually done it. Then I found out I’m really bad at Solomon Draft, which (as Pat Chapin put it) is unfortunately by far the best format for determining who is the best Solomon Drafter. I then realized in the nick of time that my Type I deck was absolutely horrendous, thus allowing me to change decks the night before and forever fool myself into thinking that I was capable of doing this. I’m not, but somehow I went 3-0 that time. I swept my last six matches only to lose on tiebreaks to Pikula, who went on to win.

SALUD!

Of course, I’m the one who won a PT with his card, so I’ll take that as a consolation prize.

Sydney 2000
There are two things about this event that I can’t quite put my finger on, and one of them is anyone I did better than. But that’s what allowed me to invoke “the curse” and win that PT with that card from Kuala Lampur, so the two invitationals ended up working together for me quite well. You can also read my tournament report somewhere on the Sideboard; it was pretty good for someone who didn’t win any matches.

Cape Town 2001
Some other guys played some Magic this year. Somehow I did even worse than I did in Sydney – I even missed the Top 16! Everyone but Jason Zila makes the Top 16 at the Invitational.

Preliminaries:
The next day it was time to turn in our cards. I turned in:

SALUD Bauble!
Artifact, casting cost 0
Comes into play tapped.
Tap, sacrifice it to win the game.

I’d wanted it to be a little stronger, but Kai convinced me to have it come into play tapped and make you have to sacrifice it in order to use it. I was pretty sure it was still strong enough for Standard. Another idea was “My Nation” that turned your opponent into a 1\4, but we decided it would just generate these huge standstills where all you had was a three power creature. So we decided to go with the Bauble. While some people think the Invitational card should be a creature, think about it. Do you want to get killed over and over by burn spells, sheer terror and even the Wrath of God every round or every tournament? Didn’t think so. That would make me a lot more than just a little nervous. Urza’s Rage, SALUD!

Fast forward to the tour day. Hmm, this is my room. No Ruels showed up, whether that is a good or a bad thing is up to you. I wasn’t alone, however, and I got to have a whine listening so extreme I could almost taste it. Of course, I’ve had whine many, many times. Remember, when you’re at a whine listening, resist the temptation to drink way too much alcohol. I can’t stress this one enough, and it should be clear why. Afterwards, I headed into the kitchen to try and keep down a little something for lunch. White rice is good. While eating I got to listen to another whinery, that’s what I get for staying home I guess. At least I didn’t have to get on a boat. That’s where everyone else started getting sick. Welcome to the club, guys. Anyway, I had even more fun with dinner than I did with lunch.

Things I learned from reading about the Boat trip:

1. Fujita and Finkel seem to enjoy boat rides a good deal more than I do.
2. The Dutch had chosen to accept their mission to somehow get a draw at the Invitational. For how they did, see round six.
3. Women do not often like… well, let’s face it… Magic players hitting on them.
4. Certain websites have strict laws where “quote marks” are concerned.
5. There is no such thing as a fun draft without me.
6. The report we should really be reading is the one from Matt Vienneau.
7. There’s no baseball in MLB showdown.
8. Ryan Charles Fuller really knows how to (censored, since it obviously never happened)
9. Having a brother means never having to be alone in last place.
10. For some reason the reports from the Magic Invitational prefer it when no actual Magic is involved.

One fun thing about not going to an exotic locale is not getting to sample any local food. Even if I wasn’t sick, many many thanks for that.

Now on to the tournament!

Player Poll:
The players were all asked to take part in a poll, and I’m glad no one said they would be embarrassed to lose to me – especially considering a number of them did. Everyone else got theirs put up after day one, but since mine never got on the site it ended up here in my report. Here, for the record, are my answers:

Zvi Mowshowitz (0-0, the way it should be. Stay tuned!)
The questions were:

1. Who would you be embarrassed to lose to?
2. What do you expect/hope your final record to be?
3. What format will you 3-0 in?
4. What format will you 0-3 in?
5. Fill in the blank: I am in the top (blank) percent when it comes to sexy Pro Tour players.
6. Who at this event cannot defeat you on their best day?
7. What auction deck are you hoping not to get?

My answers:

1. Matt Vienneau, of course
2. After last year, I’d be more than happy with 8-8, but a man can dream.
3. 3-0 Five Color – I’m in a dream hall right now!
4. 0-3 Rotisserie – You kinda had to be there
5. Top 2%, since the top 1% seems full already
6. They can only defeat me if I first defeat myself.
7. No Walls, for the love of God no Walls…

Duplicate Limited:
Compared to the deck I built two Invitationals ago, this one was an absolute masterpiece. It had a perfect mana curve, always had enough mana to cast all its spells, mulligans very well and had no cards in it that shouldn’t have been there. None of those facts were true back in Kuala Lampur. So this time I was hopping not to have to go home to descriptions like Finkel’s, which described our match as “beating a 5-year old with a baseball bat” and ultimately unsatisfying. I can’t do his writing style justice when he’s in the zone though; he writes the best reports. They’re also totally accurate.

Round 1: Jon Finkel
Anyway, this year I got to face him in the first round again and luckily he’d played what turned out not to be the best colors, choosing to use Mountains. Even I didn’t play any Mountains. Faced with my superior technology, he was finally forced to concede that I could not be defeated. Done with my match so quickly, I got to read about Brian Kibler’s match against Chris Pikula, who had to face both him and Benefal at the same time which can explain why he didn’t feel like wishing his opponents good luck as he ended the round as the only person in Invitational history to be in sole last place after one round. The deadguys must be slipping.

Round 2: Tsuyoshi Fujita
Game one I missed my second land drop. Now in this format that’s not necessarily all that bad for you, since everything costs one mana anyway. However, I also missed my first land drop, and that one’s a problem. I discarded four times while getting beaten down by three 1/1s, then drew some lands off the top. I never cast anything smaller than 2/2, and his creatures started hanging back while I realized he had drawn too many lands (he had four), and this was my chance. I traded off the creatures at advantage, played some more and had every good one casting cost counterspell when it counted. I’d won game one! Alas, my sideboard was ill-prepared and my inability to fit enough top quality spells into the deck came back to haunt me in the next two games.

That’s when the dancing started.

Hungry for even more action in this exciting format, I went over and learned what I could about the match between Kai Budde and Antoine Ruel. Once again demonstrating his superior Magic skills, he cleverly drew both colors of land in the decisive third game. Can nothing stop this guy? Time to get on a roll.

While waiting for the Dutch to finish their matches, I played in a fun draft with Ryan Fuller and Andrew Johnson.

Round 3: Olivier and Antoine Ruel
In game one, Olivier had to mulligan twice. Since I didn’t mulligan at all, that left me with a distinct advantage in a format where small advantages are huge, and he couldn’t come back from it. Before game two, he went through his deck carefully while sideboarding, pile shuffled and handed it to me. I didn’t even cut his deck. If you can’t trust people at the Invitational, when can you trust them? Of course, I got my face smashed.

In the third game, he needed land desperately so he flipped over the top card. It wasn’t a land, but luckily for him I wasn’t really paying attention to the match so he threw the card at his brother and Antoine flipped over the next one. Antoine then threw that one at his brother, but unlike his brother he didn’t miss. He went to check and make sure Olivier was all right, and Mark Rosewater said that he forfeited the game and the match when they went off so that Antoine could make it up to his brother with some ice cream. Things were going well!

If you can’t trust people at the Invitational, when can you trust them? Of course, I got my face smashed.

Since my match had ended so abruptly, I had a chance to gather some information about the match between Scott Richards and Tom van de Logt. It was an ‘unfortunate duel’ but luckily no one was hurt. The Ruel brothers came back and were feeling better, promising not to take their matches so seriously and to do their best to insure that they both ended up with the same record. In the end, Tom put Scott’s bad draw out of its misery in game three the same way he had in game one and his opponent had in game two.

Five-Color

Round 4: Scott Richards

To all those who thought TurboZvi was just a distant memory…

SALUD!

It’s back.

I take a one-land mulligan, then a zero-land mulligan and another zero-land mulligan. I check Apprentice to make sure there’s actually land in this deck – it says there is, honest, and OF COURSE the shuffler is random and I should stop whining about it. I take another zero-land mulligan, I draw six and there’s still no land. Odd. Five cards, and there’s a Lotus but no lands. Huh. Four cards, no lands. All right, this time I’m peeking. What’s that, land? I don’t believe it! All right, three cards. Sigh. At least I get to go first since my ante was an Ancestral Memories. You just can’t top that. And I get to draw a card, how neat is that.

On turn one I lay a Svyelunite Temple, on turn two I play Crystal Vein and Impulse. Huh, Contract from Below. I untap and draw Balance, letting the irony of the situation sink in some more before playing on, and cast Time Walk. It takes me three turns to draw another land, and if five-color decks ever actually did anything I’d have been in real trouble. On turn seven I realized that time was starting to become an issue – he’d just put down a creature and there might be trouble. Still without black or white mana, I had no choice but to go for it. I played the Volcanic Island off the top, sacrificed the Crystal Vein and the Sylvedite Temple, and cast Dream Halls. I pitched Scrivener to cast Mana Severance and then pitched Vindicate to cast the Contract.

We agreed that, because of the Severance, when and if I got land I would just remove it at that time and replace it, which meant that actually drawing no land off the contract was a bit odd. I pitched Opt to cast Fact or Fiction and turned over five non-lands, although there was a Mox and a Sol Ring. Odd again. I ended up taking Sylvan Library and Dromar’s Charm. I pitched Bringeyser to cast Ancestral Memories, taking Diabolic Tutor and Cromat. I pitched Crosis to cast another one, and took the second Accumulated Knowledge and a random Brainstorm. Dromar’s Charm brought out Pursuit of Knowledge, and suddenly Brainstorm didn’t look so bad. Another seven cards for me! Catalog for another Ancestral Memories, then came Sift, Diabolic Tutor, Opportunity, Regrowth on Opportunity, Opportunity, Scrivener, Opportunity, Prophetic Bolt, the third Accumulated Knowledge, Pursuit of Knowledge (apparently I hadn’t accumulated enough yet), Inspiration, Catalog, Ancestral Recall to pump the Pursuit, Contract from Below, sacrifice the Pursuit, Opportunity, Meditate, Meditate, Meditate, Infernal Contract, Pursuit of Knowledge, Meditate, sacrifice the Pursuit, Infernal Contract, Ancestral Memories, Fact or Fiction, Pursuit of Knowledge, Sift, Flux for 16, Prophetic Bolt, Prophetic Bolt, Scrivener, Prophetic Bolt, Opportunity, Meditate, Fact or Fiction, Demonic Tutor, realize that the Yagmoth’s Will is in the ante and I don’t actually have a way to finish him off without a twist, Fire him down to 2, Time Spiral, sacrifice Pursuit of Knowledge, Gamble for Prophetic Bolt, Prophetic Bolt for the win.

Game two, I actually got a decent starting set of lands but not much else. I cast Worldly Council on turn two, and cast Mana Severance on turn three and put down Divining Witch on turn four. On turn five I used the Witch to get Dream Halls 70 cards down and once again went for it on turn six, this time casting the following spells in order: Gush, Gush, Infernal Contract, Pursuit of Knowledge, Peek and Gush to sac it, Infernal Contract, Gush, Ancestral Memories, Allied Strategies for four, Scrivener, Allied Strategies, Ancestral Recall, Allied Strategies, Sift, Fact or Fiction, Demonic Tutor, Meditate, Sift, Allied Strategies, attack for one with the Divining Witch (why not?), Flux for 17, Fact or Fiction, Fact or Fiction, Ancestral Memories, Infernal Contract, Prophetic Bolt, Regrowth, Prophetic Bolt, Restock, Prophetic Bolt, Regrowth, Prophetic Bolt, Yagmoth’s Will, Prophetic Bolt.

Game three my ante wasn’t big enough to cover the gap so we didn’t have to play it out again. The Sideboard’s servers thanked the card and we all moved on. That was a really fun match and a good time was had by all.

Round 5: Kai Budde
In game one, a third turn Vindicate helped buy me some time, and a fourth turn Catalog found me a second green card to pair with the Abundance – then I topdecked the no-longer-so useful Mana Severance. Figures. I’m not in any immediate trouble, so I take a turn to Fact or Fiction, then Mana Severance out all the lands, use Ice to buy a little more time, Impulse, untap and drop the Dream Halls. Then comes Fact or Fiction, Opportunity, Scrivener, Opportunity, show my opponent my hand and prey that I get a concession. I threaten to cast more Fact or Fictions and make him think, and that gets him to do the right thing. I then lose games two and three but thanks to Randy’s special ante-based system I’m still considered the winner of the match. It’s not that I couldn’t have won game two or three, it’s that I didn’t want to do all that again if I didn’t have to…

Round 6: Kamiel Cornelisson
We both ante our Black Lotus, so whoever wins this game is going to win the whole match. I attempt to play a third turn Sylvan Library after casting Contract from Below, and he stops to think about it. After a bit he says OK. I cast Abundance on turn four. Again there’s some thought, but he finally agrees. I turn over my three non-land cards, and the first is the Dream Halls. Still, I don’t have the fifth land yet and the one in my hand is a Sulfur Vent, so I wait a turn to cast Fact or Fiction. That was a mistake, but it did give me the chance to take in a movie.

I then cast Dream Halls and showed him my hand, asking for him to concede. Did I mention that I’m a moron? He looks at it, and now gets to think about every possible thing that could happen, although I appear to have the game in hand with two counters as backup: My hand is Opportunity, Mana Drain, Sift, Dream Halls, Dromar’s Charm, Scrivener, Meditate, Irrigation Ditch, Inspiration, Ancestral Memories. I try and cast Opportunity, pitching Inspiration. He lets it go after a while. Given an average response time of about a minute, it only took another hour to finish the game so we were done pretty quickly and everyone actually got to get a few hours of sleep before the next day. When I decided to ‘chance it’ and scoop game two right away. In exchange, Mark Rosewater agreed to buy me dinner.

By the way, if you want my decklist, you can see Scott Johns’ over at the Sideboard. He’s done enough, and I refuse to torture him by making him code it over again.

Day 2: Rotisserie Draft
I have to say, given that I’d never done it before, I’m proud of the way I handled myself in the Rotisserie Draft. Every time I got to pick, I think I made the right call. Not even Kai himself could have drafted a better deck in my position!

Round 7: Chris Pikula
We sit down, and Chris tells me I don’t have a deck. This man calls me on EVERYTHING! It was like I was in an old cartoon and Chris had the nerve to tell me to Look Down. (sound of falling way… way… down…)

*crash*

And there went rounds seven, eight and nine… but he’s OK by me!

Round 8: Tom van de Logt
Fastest match he’d ever played.

Round 9: Dave Price
If Pikula was going to call me on it, who was Price to stop him? He did however wish me good luck, for that many thanks.

Standard:
Me, Kai and Scott Johns worked out the best deck in the history of Standard. Hey, we’re Godzilla, it’s what we do with all our copious free time. We even gave it to good old Mr. Gary Wise. But with states coming up, we didn’t want to spoil everyone’s fun. That’s why we all decided together after the Invitational that we would hide the deck. We made up a fake deck for Kai and a fake deck for Scott, and agreed to not post any deck for me at all. We’d hide the fact that the deck won every match it was a part of, and when it came time for masters every Invitational competitor who wasn’t on ABU would be allowed to play the deck. It seemed fair for all concerned, since that meant that all 16 of us would get the deck for later.

Round 10: Dan Clegg
His superior play and insightful analysis was no match for my puny deck technology!

Round 11: Gary Wise
His puny deck technology was no match for my superior play and insightful analysis! He can say things like “mulligans,” “not drawing a third land either game” or “you didn’t tell me about the sideboard card for the mirror matchup” all he wants, don’t believe him.

Round 12: Scott Johns
He had the good deck, with an identical sideboard, but since I was back in New York and he was in South Africa, I simply forced him to play our match on Apprentice. As anyone who knows about our playtesting would tell you, he never had a chance in that arrangement.

The Auction:
Again, I wasn’t there, so the ruling was that I didn’t get to bid on any decks. That was kind of lame, I only had four losses and was actually still in contention. But I had to watch in horror as one deck after another went to the other sixteen competitors. I crossed my fingers, prayed for help from above, but it was not to be. I was stuck with the Wall deck. I called up creator Andrew Cuneo on irc for advice, and his exact words were “Sorry, man.”

To make the finals, I would have to win all three matches. No one thought I even had a chance. Kai even told me that if I managed to win all three matches with this pile he would scoop to it in the finals. All right then. It was time for a lot of miracles.

Round 13: Mike Pistulnik
We roll our dice, and we both get a five. Since that’s clearly impossible, I go on Bugzilla and report it. Chrisg gets on the bug right away, and makes sure it’ll never happen again. We re-roll the dice and get on with the match.

Mike had the rat deck. He got an opening hand of three Black Lotus and three Plague Rats, the best hand that deck can have. I came out with a second turn Vine Trellis, then turn four put out two more! I would have been in trouble if he’d ever gotten another Rat down, but he never actually drew three Swamps so he just sat there while I played Wall after Wall, eventually killing him with Sword of the Ages by sacrificing the most wondrous Wall of Wonder you’ve ever seen. Game two he realizes he’d better draw three lands, so when he doesn’t have three he mulligans. Then his new hand doesn’t have any, so he mulliganed again. Soon he was down to two cards! So once again the walls came out, and slowly but surely I built up my hand, and soon the Sword was out to play again…

Round 14: Brian Kibler
Brian was playing the Dragon deck. Yes, it’s true that in the auction he got the Homarid deck, but there was no way he was playing without the Dragons. Van de Logt was between plays, so while he was thinking Kibler wrote down the board situation, wrote down what was in de Logt’s hand, took the deck, sat down, and played me with it. He took game one, and game two he had out Rith, the Awakener. He went off to go find an Armadillo Cloak for it, but while he was away Van de Logt went and took his deck back. Kibler then took out the Homarid deck, but he was too many turns behind. Heartbroken, he was too depressed to figure out what his Homarid deck was supposed to do and just sat there while I built up enough big walls to kill him with the Sword again.

Round 15: Chris Benefal Berger Sr. III, esq., POEE, KSC, and other titles of mystical import
Looking at the pairings for the last round, there was one last opponent standing between me and the finals and it wasn’t looking good. For Benefal was playing the Chimera deck, which he had accidentally bid down to five life with. A major weakness against other opponents, unfortunately that’s not really that big a disadvantage when playing against a deck full of Walls. Message was coming in loud and clear? No way this was going to be easy. Dice weren’t getting me out of this one.

Luckily, Benefal had to deal with three matches at once: Dave Price was out to get him (even if he was OK), he was playing against Hammer at a second table in a really bad matchup, and still had to find a way to handle my deck. Since my deck didn’t actually do anything, he didn’t pay any attention to me. He lost his match against Hammer while we were still in game one. I then called over Rosewater and asked him the following question: If my opponent has lost two games this round, have I won the match?

He said yes. I’d done it! I was in the finals!

Finals:
This was it. Me against Kai, for the right to make a card. But the odds were against me. It was the finals, it was Sunday. He might as well have had an immunity idol around his neck. Resistance was futile. I lost our match in Rotisserie automatically, thanks to Pikula (who’s still OK by me). I lost our match in Duplicate Limited. It was game one of our match in five-color, and he had a full hand and a ton of permanents. All I had was a Dream Halls, an Inspiration and nine mana if I sacrificed all my permanents except two duallands to get it. I hadn’t even cast Mana Severance yet. My Mox Pearl was sitting in the ante, spelling ancient monetary doom. What could I do? I stopped for a minute, to think if there was any way out.

Kai began taunting me, put his little finger to his mouth and began his evil laugh. It snowballed into a bellowing roar, and he cried out: “No one can defeat me! I am the great Kai, the Champion of Solaris. I am the best mech and deck pilot in the history of the galaxy and I have conquered gaming worlds that you will never even dream of. The Earth is doomed! My card will counter all!”

Kai had taken home tournament after tournament with no end in sight. He goes to Barcelona, and we fall back. He goes to New York, my home town no less, and we fall back. He even takes New Orleans! Well no more, the line must be drawn here! This far, and no farther. And I will make him pay for what he’s done.

Now was the time to wish for Earth. The other players appeared to inspire the world’s last hope with morale, boosting one liners, two at a time…

Scott Richards and Tsuyoshi Fujita came first: SALUD!
Jon Finkel and Chris Pikula: “Jon’s title of world’s greatest Magic player is at stake, you must win!”
Brian Kibler and Dave Price: “You must protect us from a world without beatdown! Do it for the little kids and their Dragons!”
Mike Pistulink and Alex Shvartsman: “Stand up for the greatest city in the world!”
Antoine and Oliver Ruel: “Don’t forget, you’re playing Slight of Hand!”
Scott Johns and Dan Clegg: “Take the time to find the right play!”
Gary Wise and Chris Benefal: “Care for a cigarette?”
I told them thanks but no thanks.
Then Tom van de Logt and Kamiel Cornelisson stood alone, and they said simply: “You know what to do.”

And I knew what to do. I got up from the slouch in my chair, turned to Kai, and nobly proclaimed…

Kai Budde… or should I say Kai Allard-Liao… for all those living on Earth…

I will destroy you!

And I put down my two card hand. I swayed back in my chair. And I waited. And waited. And waited. And as the hours drifted by, I simply smiled, and Kamiel smiled back, for he knew that I knew. As the hour drew near, Kai grew more and more nervous, realizing what was about to happen. And as the clock struck midnight, he let out a scream: “NOOOOOOO!”

For it was Monday.

I cast Dream Halls. Kai quickly picked up his hand to cast one of his three Mana Drains or two Force of Wills, but they were gone without a trace. All he had left were three Pumpkins, Rasputin Dreamweaver, Useless Combo Piece, Shrink, and a Wood Elemental. I cast Inspiration, drawing Opportunity and Force of Will. I cast Opportunity, drawing Accumulated Knowledge, Accumulated Knowledge, Accumulated Knowledge and Accumulated Knowledge. I cast Accumulated Knowledge and drew Pursuit of Knowledge and Enlightened Tutor. I cast Pursuit of Knowledge and then cast Accumulated Knowledge, and drew seven cards. I Zvi Mowshowitz Impulsed, pitching it to cast Ancestral Memories. I played a third dualland, the only land left in the deck, giving me a full Domain. I discarded Mana Drain to cast Sliver Queen. And I pitched Timetwister to cast Coalition Victory! I took the Contract from Below that was in Kai’s ante, and proceeded to ante Jeweled Bird in each of the next two games. I was on the board!

The Auction was next, and there Kai had no choice but to scoop, as he had promised to do so back at the beginning of round thirteen. Kai may have been an evil otherworldly super-warrior out to conquer the Magic world, but it’s not like he’d lie to a judge. He kept his word. Finally was the climactic match in Standard. Kai went to get his deck, and then realized in horror he’d agreed to put up a different decklist. He had no choice but to play the deck they’d posted in his name! Faced with the best Standard deck of all time, he could not stand, and I triumphed to take the Invitational title.

On the way home I broke the new Classic, learned C++ and tracked down Osama bin Laden.

The world is safe.

But for how long?

• Zvi Mowshowitz