Zvi Mowshowitz at Worlds - Day 3 and Beyond

**TurboLand is the best deck in Extended. It really is that simple for me right now. Normally, when I know what the best deck is before a major event I'll keep it a secret. I won't tell anyone what I'm playing, and I'll give out only what I have to in order to get metagame information in return. This time, however, I wasn't taking that approach. I told anyone who asked me that I was probably going to play TurboLand. I wasn't certain it was the right deck until a few days before, since the team started thinking that Donate was really good and for about a day it looked really good to me as well. For that brief terrifying moment, I was worried that even I would have to abandon my favorite Extended deck. Luckily it turned out that while good, the deck wasn't as broken as previously thought. And TurboLand turned out to be even more broken than previously thought. The word on the street was a lot of Stasis and I was worried about Donate , so I answered with Thwart. The new listing:

Round 13: Schneider, Oliver

Oliver is on our team for Worlds, so we exchange deck information before the match begins. He's playing a W/U deck built around Ophidian , Tradewind Rider and Meddling Mage , so basically a bunch of good control creatures, counters and cantrips. One of the great things about TurboLand is how resistant it is to Tradewind Rider , even combined with Meddling Mage . I get out Oath of Druids and go get Morphling . Meanwhile, an Exploration means he can't contain my lands and a second Oath shuts down that option as well. The Morphling keeps getting bigger and he scoops. I keep the deck basically the same, slipping in Powder Keg and the second Morphling . I forget what I trimmed out of the deck. Game two he gets out a quick Ophidian , I Keg it away but he's drawn some cards and forces down the second one. I get the Treetop Village but it's too late and his Tradewind Rider comes down to force through the Ophidian for fatal card advantage. Game three once again I take control from the start, and there really isn't much else to say.

Round 14: Skrbec, Ziga

Ziga is playing Stompy, which means it's time for Spike Weaver to shine. Game one Oath of Druids stays down and Spike Weaver is looking good to lock the game, but a Winter Orb puts the smackdown on that plan and I can't get the engine going, so his creatures kill me. Not to worry. I take out Morphling and the non-FoW counters for more Weavers and Powder Kegs. Game two I open with an Exploration , and his response is to play Vine Dryad , untap, Rancor up the Dryad and play two Rushwood Legates! Somehow we managed once again to forget about the Legates in Stompy's sideboard. The game comes down to my needing to Gush the Tropical Island back into my hand to find the second green mana to cast the first Spike Weaver . Three turns later I use a Gush to cast the second Spike Weaver ! At any rate, he doesn't get another attack and I hold the game for the win. Before game three, I call over a judge because his Forests are all foil and nothing else is, but he's just doing it to be cool and they're not warped so it's fine. I get to keep an Oath down in game three, but it's late on arrival and I have to spend a turn bracing for impact from a big attack. When he writes down damage I know I have him. I Scroll Rack back the Weaver, Oath into it and never let him attack me for damage again.

Round 15: Moungey, Jason

Jason is playing what he describes as anti-Oath Sligh, and a lot of it troubles me for the same reasons it's bad for Oath. Still, when beatdown decks start aiming at long game control they have to be careful not to sacrifice too much of their early attack, which seemed to be the flaw in this version. In this case it's having only four Jackal Pups and no other 2/1s to attack with quickly. With quicker Sligh decks not having a 2/1 is a mulligan, here it's something the deck has to live with.

So he starts with Seal of Fire , and I have more than enough time to go off, which I haven't gotten to do yet. I follow the rules enforcement five procedures for TurboLand, which involve being very clear at all times about how many lands I've played and how many Horns are on the table. When the deck has won the game but still has to go through the motions, even I start to worry I'll draw one card too many or play one extra land by mistake, and either is a game loss. I took out the Weaver, the Morphling and the Counterspells for Powder Keg and Spike Feeder . He doesn't put me under creature pressure, but he does play an Ankh of Mishra which I have to take four from before I can Powder Keg it away. Then the Viashino Sandstalker starts going to town and I begin to get worried. The key is that he never played a permanent creature, so I didn't have to put down Oath of Druids . That meant that Spike Feeder could stay on the table, and he had the ugly choice of killing it or letting it live. I Gushed to start drawing cards, and kept drawing into combo pieces. Soon the second Feeder came down, then the third. Finally I go off, giving him one more turn than he had a right to. I draw ten zillion cards and try to cast Time Warp . He Pyroblasts, I Force of Will , he Pyroblasts, I Force of Will , he Pyroblasts, I Force of Will with about 15 cards left in hand and he scoops. Pyroblast isn't anywhere near as good as it seems like it should be against TurboLand, since I never gave him a chance to stop anything but Impulse and Gush before it was too late.

Round 16: Dougherty, Robert

Rob was playing Countersliver, which in our testing we presumed dead after the loss of Demonic Consultation . I felt that without the ability to get the Sliver (or land) the deck needs whenever it needs it, the deck just didn't cut it anymore. That's the kind of thing someone who's never played Countersliver except as a test deck thinks, and its traditional advocates stayed true to the cause. I hadn't played any games against it in testing, so I was going to be sideboarding on the fly. Still, I kept the Powder Kegs in the sideboard so I knew I'd be fine. I win a game with Oath of Druids and he wins a game when I don't have any answers. When sideboarding, I decide the engine is more risk than it's worth, and I take out all the Horn of Greeds and one of the Explorations and even Gushes (which I later corrected) to fit all the creatures and Kegs into the deck. They want a fight, I'll give them a fight. My guys will win it. So in game three the Oath stays out, and he sits there for a while but decides that discarding is a sure way to lose. He casts Meddling Mage , knowing my hand from Duress , and names one of my two Force of Will . I Scroll Rack back the Morphling and two Forces, and mill the Forces while I Oath up the Morphling . He manages to kill my Powder Keg off and stop the Oath as well, but the Morphling stays on the table and kills him.

Round 17: Van Cleave, Trey

Trey has five warnings for slow play in the tournament so far, and while a draw is not the anathema it would have been earlier I don't like running out of time, especially against someone willing to shamelessly manipulate the clock. Plus he's just clearly not playing fast enough. I ask for a table judge for the match, they say they'll get me one. Trey hears that I've called for one, and asks me if I'm worried the match will go long or hoping I can end it quickly. I tell him a little from column A, a little from column B. So he's pissed off at me, but he's always pissed off at just about everyone so it's not like I would be able to tell the difference.

We both think we're about to get deck checked because the judge is standing right there and says he'll watch the match after the deck check, but it turns out they're for the other table. Eventually we figure that out and we get started. Game one the Meddling Mage brigade comes out. First he names Oath of Druids, then he goes for Powder Keg on the chance that I'm maindecking it this time around. I try for Spike Weaver , he counters it with Daze . At this point I know he's still using his old model without Counterspell in it. I save one mana and go for the Morphling . It resolves, and against slivers a Morphling wins in a fight. In game two, he gets out a Hibernation Sliver but I resolve an Oath and the third time it stays down. He puts out a Muscle Sliver, attacks for three and picks both up. For a while he's stuck on two land, and I sit around building up my hand with a Scroll Rack out. I put out a Spike Feeder and start attacking. Finally he's ready to move. He kills the Oath, puts out a Meddling Mage . In response I Gush , and let it through. He names Spike Weaver . He tries for a second one, I Counterspell , he Force of Wills. This time he names Morphling . I untap, play Oath of Druids number four, he Force of Wills, I use Gaea's Blessing to return three Oath of Druids , Scroll Rack for nine, cast Oath of Druids number five and he scoops up his cards.

Round 18: Gary, Justin

While I'm eager to 6-0 the final day, I'm a professional and looking at the standings it's clear I want to be drawing in the last round. I have the worst tiebreaks in the tournament because of my 7-0 run, putting me in 19th place even though a win would technically put me in the tie for 8th place. If I draw, my tiebreaks matter a lot less and I move up into the top sixteen, probably only one or two slots behind a win. When I see who I'm playing, I realize Justin is in the opposite position: He has some of the best tiebreaks but he has two draws. If he gets another his tiebreaks become important again, and he too moves up a few slots. We talk about it a little, ask to see the standings. The judges say no. So we both run to the standings, look quickly, and run back to get there in time for the round.

Justin wants to make the top sixteen, and it's clearly a gamble given our lack of information whether he'll get it. I say I think it's around a 40% shot, he thinks it's higher than that. I point out that in terms of expected winnings a draw is clearly better and in terms of PT points it's better as well, since a draw gets him at least top 24 and a loss puts him back to top 32 or possibly even worse. We know the decks. He's playing Oath of Druids . He doesn't think the matchup is as bad as I think it is for him, but he admits that with me playing TurboLand I have at least a 50/50 chance. I think it's much much better than that. At any rate, there are suddenly judges hovering around the match. Justin starts asking them technical questions about stuff like if we can have a split agreement, and I tell him not to try because it just isn't worth the risk of an accidental DQ. The rules are so arcane about what you can and can't do that those who don't know what they're doing are best advised not to try.

I realize why all the judges are hovering around the match and present at around 57:30 on the clock and when it's down to 57:10 I tell Justin to present his deck before he goes over the three minute limit. He does, the judges swoop in for our second deck check, and he decides to draw. Cut to twenty minutes later and we're still sitting there, waiting for our decks so we can leave. There's something going on involving Benefal and something going on somewhere else, and we have to wait our turn. We're told the judges are conferencing on our match and wonder what's wrong. We start to worry that they think Justin's cheating because he agreed to the draw when they announced the deck check, whereas he obviously just didn't want to sit around for a deck check. Finally, the judges come back. I ask if the draw is valid, they say yes, and I take my deck and leave. They ask to talk to Justin. Later he tells me that they informed him that he presented a 55 card deck and got a warning for being dumb. (Since the draw had already been agreed to) The standings come back, and I'm 14th while Justin just missed at 17th due to a second intentional draw we didn't have enough time to figure out might happen. But he would get his eight PT points just the same two days later, although he wouldn't know it until he got home.

Days 4+5

Normally this report would be over after I intentionally drew with Justin Gary, since my worlds was over. But the story continues, because there was playtesting to be done. Going into the last round, we had one player in contention for top eight: John Ormerod, playing Blessed Draw-Go. He was paired up against Mike Turian and his Secret Force deck, which apparently is a horrible matchup. So instead of playing for top eight in a nightmare matchup, he decided to take a gamble. There were two matchups that mattered, and he needed one of the two to go his way: Either Tommi Hovi had to lose, or another person playing for top eight had to win. Unfortunately, that other matchup ended quickly in a concession by the opponent, a friend who was unable to make it. That left it up to Tommi Hovi. Hovi was playing Oath against White Weenie, and he managed to win it. The tiebreaks were closer than we thought they would be, but in the end John still missed out and ended up 9th after the swiss. Disapointed that we failed to put anyone into the top eight, most of the team left for dinner. I missed the group for the Sideboard writers' meeting and went back to the hotel room and ordered a pizza.

On the morning of day four, I show up really early and then decide a real breakfast is in order. I get to pass everyone coming to the tournament area on my way to where the place is supposed to be, and after walking past the Hockey Hall of Fame I find a place that's run like some weird sort of market. I can't find anything without asking but the food is good. I make it back right as the first draft is beginning. I go to watch England against Wales, but they're back at the lower tables and the judges kick me out of the area after a few packs. Eventually Mike Turian is finished assembling his opponents' decklist for the quarterfinals and begins testing the first game against Nicolas Labarre, world famous player of Merfolk. Mike clearly has the edge in game one, with Kris Mage wrecking havoc without a single way to remove it and Mike's deck otherwise just dominating the board. Santin basically needs to get out both Static Orb and Opposition and then somehow manage to keep multiple creatures on the table. That's not an impossible task, but it doesn't happen very often. For the first few games I'm there I point out a few technical mistakes and suggest a few plays, but after a while I start getting more and more frustrated with the way Labarre is playing the matchup. He's not playing for the lock, he doesn't appreciate the need to keep mana untapped over the long run under Static Orb , in general he doesn't realize just what has to happen to win a game one in this matchup. I ask to step in. My first game playing the Merfolk deck I manage to get out Static Orb and Opposition , then draw Glacial Wall and slowly do lock him down and win the game. Now I had just gotten damn lucky, but if I hadn't played long term for what happened I would not have won the game.

We play some more games, reality returns and I lose a lot. There's one game where I totally lock Mike while I'm at double digit life with tons of counter magic in hand, but I don't draw any threats and die to the Kris Mage that was already on the table. Wow it was hard to win game one. Satisfied, Mike decided to leave for lunch and I went back to watching the team drafts. It comes down to a match between France and the United States. The USA is drafting like a real team, and France was miscomunicating and fighting over picks. Still, the French did seem to have a better sense of what mattered in the matchups thanks to Ruel's experience in team Rochester. Thinking about the matchups, it looks like the USA is going down 2-1, but we manage to pull out the impossible match and we're in the finals against Team Norway. Even when we end the first day out of the top 40 and losing to the United Arab Emirates, we still seem to win. To top things off, once again the US has managed to get a great set of matchups in the finals.

When Scott Johns comes back, he reports that they'd been testing for four hours at the food court. He asks me what my instincts say that Santin should sideboard out, I tell him he takes out four Static Orbs and one or two Oppositions and he smiles. That's exactly what Scott thought he would do, and it's totally wrong. What Santin needs to do is take out Opposition and keep in Static Orb , and he doesn't think Santin will find it. If Santin doesn't sideboard properly his matchup is hopeless, if he gets it right Mike is still fine. I think about it for a time, and start making arguments about what Santin should be doing and how he should be trying to win, especially whether he should play a turn two Lord of Atlantis or sit back on a Counterspell if he had a choice. None of that's important if he's not going to put the ideas into practice and I certainly wasn't going to tell him, so it wasn't all that important. What was important however was that I felt Santin would figure out the sideboarding plan. I didn't see how it wouldn't become clear after a bunch of games that Opposition wasn't worth it and Static Orb was.

Later on, I see Tommi Hovi playtesting for his quarterfinal match against Antoine Ruel. Hovi's proxies seem odd at first but after a few games they seem like second nature. Hovi's playing Ruel's side of the matchup sideboarded, and he's winning a lot of games. Hovi's deck is Probe -Go, while Ruel's deck is RUB control. The matchup is a lot of fighting over card drawing in order to fight over six Nether Spirits, and it's hard to tell what's important and what isn't. My testing against these decks more or less boiled down to "our deck wins so don't worry about it," which put a damper on my understanding of this kind of match. I ask to get in and I play a few games with Hovi's deck. After a while it becomes clear that it's all about the fight to Nether Spirit lock the other player. Ruel has a bunch of burn to do it, and Hovi has a bunch of options as well. The strategy for Hovi starts to become clear: Get Nether Spirit out of the way of Lobotomy , then force Ruel to commit the second Spirit into the game and lock him for the win.

The key is that Ruel will do just about anything to not commit that second Spirit in most situations if he understands the matchup. That forces Hovi to go after his hand agressively. Hovi can't win if Ruel only plays one Spirit, because Ruel will simply burn the second Nether Spirit to lock the game. At first I want to keep in a few copies of Wrath of God and take out Gerrard 's Verdict, and even bring in one Dismantling Blow for use on the two Tsabo's Webs. After a while however it becomes clear that Ruel's hand is more vulnerable than previously thought and he doesn't have surplus land to discard very often, so the Verdicts go back into the deck. Still, it's clear that Wrath of God belongs in the deck in some numbers.

The hardest part is actually convincing Hovi that he should choose to draw first. It's a long term war over card advantage, card counts and counter wars over key spells without any early threats that matter, so it seems clear to me that drawing first is the right choice. Hovi keeps thinking about fourth turn Fact or Fiction followed by fifth turn Probe ; when I tried to cast Probe without kicker in testing, the first time he said I wasn't allowed to! It took a while, but I finally convinced him that a full extra card was more important than the chance to make one specific play that might pick up two of the opponents' choice.

Why was I supporting Hovi? Ruel had a bunch of PT points, and was in contention for one of the slots for the Duelist Invitational. It was unclear whether or not I would get one of those slots or whether I would have to depend on the vote, which assuming I got in would deny someone else that slot from the vote. Scott Johns was also in contention for one of the slots. Mark Rosewater had spent altogether too much time figuring all this out and had explained it to me and anyone else involved who would listen at length. Turian and Williams were also both playing for the possibility of one of those slots, not counting the one for the World Champion. At any rate, it gave everyone involved (except Ruel) a better shot if Hovi won. Turian's a friend so I was helping him out as well.

The next day we all get up early to play in the Team Sealed tournament while the Worlds Top 8 plays itself out. We get some damn good decks and I think we built them really well too. We win our first four rounds, then intentionally draw with the other undefeated team into the top eight. Because Gary Wise's team had for some reason decided not to intentionally draw in the last round, we were stuck playing in the quarterfinals with the same sealed decks against Team Ancient Kavus, which is Mike Pistulnik, Matt Vienneau and Gary Krakower. We manage to win those, and to no one's surprise Matt Vienneau and Scott Johns get into a big argument with a judge over the somewhat insane decision to give Matt a game loss for Repulsing a Quirion Elf instead of the Standard Bearer due to his "drawing an extra card." That gets fixed, but by the time they sort it out we've already won the match. In the semi-finals, we meet the other undefeated team again and we find ourselves totally outclassed on cards. My deck was great, but I just got run over. It was also one of those matches where the two color deck couldn't find its mana and the other deck played five different basic lands on the first five turns. Sigh.

The new experimental system was five rounds of swiss, then cut to top eight with the same decks and a draft in the final two. As we told them afterwards, this is a very bad idea, and no one should have to play in the elimination rounds with the same sealed decks from the swiss portion of the tournament. We suggest new sealed decks for the top eight, and they say they'll consider it. Meanwhile, David Williams got disqualified without prize from the top eight of Worlds. It's impossible to get good information on exactly what happened, although in the end the sideboard seems to have an adequate explanation. There's a lot of talk about whether it was intentional or not, and I'm not going to get into that here. I wasn't there, it's not my place to comment. It does improve my position to 14th, puts Justin Gary up into the top 16, qualifies Gabe Tsang for the next ProTour by putting him 32nd and gets Bram "never play the deck I play" Snepvangers into the top 64. I go to dinner with Gary Wise and the English. We talk a lot about Invasion Block, and they tell me about their latest creation. I have my doubts at the time, but after the last few days of testing I would have had to say I was quite impressed. Then I came to my senses.

The cycle begins anew in Denver.

- Zvi Mowshowitz

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