Zvi's Pro Tour Tokyo Report, Conclusion *Champion*

**Round 11: Blackwell, Trevor

Trevor had been struggling early on but since then had been doing well. His version of R/B contained one Shivan Zombie main and three in the sideboard, although I'm still not sure why he had them, so this match was expected to be more difficult than usual. It wasn't, but only because he drew poorly. In the first game, I had to choose between putting creatures on the table and holding back to stop Blazing Specter , and I decided to get out multiple Galina's Knights and simply let him hit my hand if he had the Specter, given the chance his deck could stop me from just killing him with Protection creatures. He didn't have the Void and I killed him, despite having no hand due to a Specter. Game two I again came out aggressive, and his deck gave him a three Skizzik draw. With nothing to stop my attack and having missed the early drops that would let him keep up, he didn't have a way out. Finally when he was dead on the next turn he drew his tech, Plague Spitter , but I just used Repulse on it and stopped worrying about the card. That was one of the theoretical nightmares brought up in testing that I didn't expect to actually see, and aside from that one time I didn't.

9-2

Round 12: Chai, Royce Ming Huang (Feature Match)

I was paired down this round, so I was playing for the right to draw into the top eight while he was playing for the right to play for it. He too was playing Black/Red. On turn two I played a Meddling Mage and named Nightscape Familiar. If I'd known that his deck also had four Thunderscape Familars in it I probably would have named something else, but as it turned out it was the right call that game, as he had to Terminate it. I put down one and then another Voice of All , backed up with Exclude and Absorb for his threats. He got out a Keldon Necropolis and started trying to kill off the Voices, but I'd drawn three Repulse and used them to get even further ahead on cards while protecting my Voices. Meanwhile he was looking at a hand full of useless removal. Game two he sideboarded in Bog Down , and after he made me discard three cards with a Rat and a Bog Down I used Meddling Mage to save my hand from a second Bog Down for a turn, and I got enough time to get a fourth land and drop Voice of All and then a Crusading Knight . He didn't have the Void , so that was enough to finish him off. With so few players in the tournament and excellent tiebreaks, I knew I needed only a draw in the next two rounds to make it to the final eight.

As I was leaving the Feature Match area, Ryan Fuller turned to me and said "You're next." An image flashed in my head, an old ad I think I saw in Dragon Magazine for a futuristic RPG. It has a list of world leaders, all assassinated for being champions of freedom. After going through the usual suspects, it keeps going into the future, with one in 1998 and one in 2005 and 2011. All of them have red Xs through their portraits and at the bottom is just "YOU'RE NEXT. YOU'RE NEXT.. YOU'RE NEXT."

10-2

Round 13: Bastos, Frederico

Once again I was paired down, so instead of drawing in I had to play. There's a complicated story involving what I suspect is a flaw in the current version of DCI reporter that made it more likely I would be paired down, which they're looking into. There shouldn't be a problem fixing it, and it's not all that big a problem. At any rate, Bastos was playing a B/R/U deck, and gave a two game seminar on how to crush my deck with his. I got a slow start, then got demolished by two Voids for multiple cards each and a kicked Probe . Next game his Pyre Zombie works wonders against Pure Reflection (it's a risk that in testing proved worth taking) while once again devestating me with his huge bombs. His deck was using Terminal Moraine, and when I saw his decklist it only had three copies of Void . Under those circumstances, what is already a good matchup should become even better, but he got what he needed. I still only needed one draw.

10-3

Round 14: Hager, Lucas

I had done the math, and the conclusion was that the first draw was free. There were six relevant matches - Fuller and Freneau were both in regardless at table one. After that, there were five matches playing for six slots, so if there was one draw then all the winners and drawers were in. If there was more than one draw someone who drew would miss for every additional draw. Hager had good tiebreaks in sixth place, even though he had come from 4-3, and ours was the logical table to draw. If anyone else followed suit, one of them would be behind both of us, so we were both in barring some huge bizarre tiebreaker swing. Hager is unsure about all the math, and I don't want to lie to him and say he's 100% in when it's theoretically possible he's not, but I can tell him he's a lot more likely to be in drawing than playing. I think I actually understated the case rather badly, as it was actually a 99.9% chance but I didn't have enough time to demonstrate that until afterwards. I was as close to being in as a player can get and still need to win a tiebreak.

We get up, and Bastos and Ranque have drawn on table two! For Bastos this makes perfect sense, he's a total lock, but Ranque's tiebreakers are horrible and he's almost certainly out. I ask Bastos how he managed to pull it off, and he said he told Ranque he was probably in. The math said otherwise - he needed about a five point tiebreaker swing to make it, or an unintentional draw on table six. I still don't have a good explanation for why it happened, or for Freneau's strategy against Fuller in their rather irrelevant match, but I guess it's just a mystery.

10-3-1, Top 8

Quarterfinals: Bastos, Federico

We got the decklists, and I was amazed to see Bastos'. He only had three Voids, and four Terminal Moraine ! I made the decision not to play playtest games myself but rather to theorize instead and get as much sleep as possible. Instead, the British did an amazing job testing into the night. The next morning, we came to a conclusion that hadn't been reached in playtesting before. Eventually his deck would win the game if given time, and it was more important to just hit him with everything I had as quickly as possible than try to fight a long term war. That meant pulling Fact or Fiction for Crusading Knight , even though it wasn't intended for this matchup. Even though he had only three Swamps in his deck, he also had only three Urza's Rage for red nonblack removal. Pure Reflection I decided to bring in only one or two of and only going first.

Game one I won the die roll, and we both mulliganed. I came out fast starting with a second turn Meddling Mage on Recoil , and kept up the pressure. He used Lobotomy to take away Absorb , but I topdecked a Galina's Knight to add to the pressure and he was way behind on time. Having spent one turn already on my hand, he had to spend another on a Probe , and before he could answer the creatures he was dead. I forgot to take out the fourth Exclude during sideboarding; there's no reason to have it in and it definitely looks very weird. Luckily I never drew it so I didn't pay for the error. Game two he mulliganed but the game started poorly, as my first play was a second turn Crimson Acolyte , after which I tapped out to counter a Fact or Fiction and got Voided for 4, which took a Crusading Knight and a Voice of All . I came back with a Meddling Mage on Spite/Malice, but he clearly had time. He cast a Fact or Fiction , which revealed Yawgmoth's Agenda, Probe , Fact or Fiction and two Pyre Zombie . I knew if he had time he would win, so I hoped I would topdeck a threat and put the Probe and Fact or Fiction together to try and slow him down and stall the appearance of Agenda. It worked: He took them and I drew Crusading Knight . He got to use Tsabo's Decree to deal with that, but couldn't find a Void . I stopped his first Recoil on the Meddling Mage , and when he used a second one I just replayed it and named Spite/Malice again. All he could find were Spite/Malice and red removal, which were no help.

In game three, I once again had a less than amazing start, having only an Apprentice and Acolyte for early beatdown. I stopped Lobotomy and got to use the one Fact or Fiction still in the deck, which I used to find more land and a Voice of All . He'd been playing around Disrupt , so on the next turn I just used the two I had drawn to tap him out before they went totally dead so I could draw something to do. That gave me a steady stream of creatures, and when he tried to kill my Crimson Acolyte and play a Pyre Zombie I just played a second one and locked up the match with a Meddling Mage on Void .

Semi-Finals: Benefal, Chris

Benefal's deck had an extra Keldon Necropolis in it and a slightly better sideboard against me, so I'd been hoping to play against Fuller. I'd also been hoping to wear my Netrunner shirt as more free advertising for when I start publishing the game, but apparently the cameras had a problem with contrasts and couldn't handle a black shirt. At any rate, I know how the matchup works. Game one is an odd one, with Meddling Mage going offensive early on until it ran into a Raging Kavu . I then had to play Voice of All with another in my hand, and I had to decide what to name. Given what had happened to the Meddling Mage , I guessed that he wouldn't have held red removal and therefore he didn't have any. I wanted to be able to block the Mongoose and other potential attackers, and Thornscape Battlemage was more likely to get played than Flametonge Kavu. So I named green, which surprised Benefal and turned out to be totally right even though it was an unusual choice without a Crimson Acolyte on the table. For the second Voice I knew it was safe to go green again, and I had countermagic to back them up for the win. Game two I drew only two lands, and he came out fast so it was over quickly.

Game three I had a hand full of spells but no creatures, so I had to sit there and hope that nothing too terrible happened before I could Fact or Fiction my way into a defense. On turn four Benefal guessed (correctly) that I had Exclude and let me go, so I got to use the Fact or Fiction . It turned over five two casting cost creatures. He spent a while deciding which three I would get, after which I dropped a fifth land and the first of my creatures. I had counters for his, and another Fact or Fiction gave me even more extra creatures and locked up the game.

In game four, I once again had a counter-heavy hand, and Benefal decided to try and slowplay his way past it. However I also had Fact or Fiction , and while he was getting some damage through I was getting extra cards. Soon the game was well under control, but then suddenly he drew Keldon Necropolis , attacked with his Blurred Mongoose and things got more interesting. I had a large board advantage, but it was far from a lock. If I started letting him two-for-one me he could have been back in the game in a second. I had no choice but to let him get me into Ghitu Fire range, although I still had an Absorb . With the Necropolis it would have been virtually impossible to stop him from getting there anyway. Then he drew a Thornscape Battlemage , which would have 3-for-1ed me if I'd let it go, so I had to counter it or he would have been very close to equalizing. He had two turns to draw Ghitu Fire before I killed him. At this point, he started taking a huge amount of time, I think in an effort to torture me and have some fun, as well as put on a good show for the cameras. It was all in good fun, but he definitely went a little bit extreme. Of course I was almost certain he didn't have it, but I couldn't be 100% sure. He was definitely in the kind of mode where he'd have done the same thing if he had it, assuming he could keep his poker face. At this point, the other semi-final finished and they stopped our game while they repositioned the cameras to catch the end. I tried to get him to move already but he took his time, my time, and then some more, but eventually he had to do something.

He had nothing. On to the finals!

Finals: Fujita, Tsuyoshi

We took a lot of pictures out front until we got thrown out by a policeman, although we were supposed to have permission. I went to lunch for the usual cookies but they weren't there, so I just had some juice. The entire Masters draft and final seperated the semi-finals and finals, so I had several hours to think about my match against Fujita. From my end, things seemed simple. I was the beatdown, and even though I could fight a long term war I would probably lose it. My job was to be hyper-aggressive, and take advantage of the fact that his deck had few answers to a creature with Protection from Black, since he'd have to use one of his two Repulse on it. In addition, every creature I played would have to be dealt with seperately. The question was, what would his deck look like after sideboarding?

He had a very difficult problem to solve, with too many cards competing for too few slots. It was clear he would put in Nightscape Familiar for Ravenous Rats, and swap out his two Urborg Shamblers for two more Phyrexian Scutas. He would also definitely find room for four Gainsay . After that, things got difficult, because while his deck did not match up all that well he didn't have anything that he clearly needed to take out. In the end, we assumed he would then trim to get in Gainsay . He would also want more creatures to stop Pure Reflection , but in practical terms I couldn't see him fitting in more than ten or so although he had access to sixteen. Given that gap, I decided to bring in two Pure Reflections to minimize the risk of drawing multiples and to hedge in case he had more creatures than I thought. Clearly Exclude , Repulse and Crimson Acolyte came out and Crusading Knight , Disrupt and Gainsay came in.

Game one I won the roll, and tried not to think about how much it had been worth. My opening had was five lands, Voice of All and Repulse . Given how important tempo was in the matchup, I'd decided I couldn't keep a hand like that and mulliganed. Instead I got stuck with two Plains as my only land. While I sat there doing nothing, he played three Ravenous Rats and I discarded intensive blue spells including two Absorb . I got a Coastal Tower , which he stalled with Recoil but then I got lands. Suddenly it began to dawn on me that I wasn't out of the game, because he had stalled at three lands as well. An Undermine brought me down to two but I stabalized the board. Then he dropped a Yawgmoth's Agenda , passing up an Urborg Shambler he had found with a Fact or Fiction . He had an Undermine in his graveyard and I was at two, although I had a slight board advantage with a Voice of All and enough blockers to not die. If I cast a spell, I was dead, so I had to wait until he cast one first and try to take advantage of Agenda's downside to stay in the game. But without the third Absorb it seemed very unlikely I would be able to get out of this alive. That's exactly what I drew, and when I played the Voice of All back down after a Repulse I got to counter the Undermine and go to five. Repulse was his deck's only way to stop Voice of All, and although he used Recoil to get rid of the Agenda and start casting more ground creatures the Voices came in before he could attack back.

Randy Buehler said that 'it was like Zvi read his mind' on sideboarding, but that just wasn't true. If I had been told that Fujita would sideboard as he did, I wouldn't have believed it. What he did was play only four Nightscape Familiar , a Ravenous Rat and one Phyrexian Scuta as his creatures. That makes no sense to me, especially since I have to take out Exclude and Repulse , but he said that testing indicated this was his best chance. I certainly wasn't about to complain, and simply assumed he had failed to draw Scuta. On turn one I played an Apprentice. On turn two I played a second Island and played a second Apprentice, saving a Galina's Knight and Plains in my hand to keep up Disrupt since he had both Prohibit and Gainsay . Looking at him thinking about responding, it was obvious he was in agony, looking at a counter and knowing he couldn't use it. He then played around Disrupt , using counters a turn later than usual. We started trading creatures for counters, but he couldn't keep everything off the table. Finally, I used up a Disrupt when I had a chance and knew he could play around it with ease from here on in, and I couldn't afford to hold two in my hand. Thinking I was out of them, he then played a Fact or Fiction and walked into the second one. He never caught up to the creature swarm.

Game three he cast Addle on turn three, and I prepared to discard a Pure Reflection. But he named blue! He took my Repulse , which was the only one left in the deck and was there to convince him that I had them and he needed to play around the possibility. Out came Pure Reflection , after which came a steady stream of creatures. His Familiar blocked the Reflection token, but the creatures kept coming out and he died quickly. I'd won PT: Tokyo! I quickly changed back into my Netrunner shirt for the award ceremony, went out to dinner with Scott Johns and Kurt Burgner at a great Korean BBQ place, and started the long jet-lagged trip back to New York.

As an aftermath, I then decided that given I was now in the player of the year race I would go to GP: Gothenburg. In the first draft on the second day, things were going very well for the first two packs, and I was in excellent position with a great base for the deck, but the packs simply didn't have the cards I wanted. No Terminate , no Lava Zombie , no Magma Burst, no Horned Kavu . I took Gaea's Might first and it was downhill from there. I made what I could out of the deck but it went 1-2, and I had to be content with one PT point for top thirty-two.

For now, that leaves me seven behind Mike Pustilnik and five behind Kamiel Cornelisson...

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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