Last night’s Standard tournament was held at Nth Dimension: Comics and Games and was attended by 15 players with four rounds of gameplay. This is despite the expected arrival of the typhoon that day and it was a good thing that there weren’t many heavy drops of rain and strong winds that day. I was able to join this time, playing our team’s Mono-Red Aggro deck. My teammate Ace decided to pilot Golgari Explore this time, saying that he got tired of playing Jeskai control in the past weeks.

Anyhow, the tournament started just 15 minutes after the initial schedule and here below is the summary of my matchups.

Rd 1 vs Ruel, Mono Red mirror – won 2-0
Rd 2 vs Mark Anthony, Boros Control – won 2-0
Rd 3 vs Joel, Abzan Knights – won 2-0
Rd 4 vs Philip Roy, Mono Red mirror – draw 0-0-3

It was an impressive performance of the deck as I have expected to be unlucky when I pilot a Mono-Red Aggro. The curve of the creatures was fine and the Risk Factors were right there as needed. Also, I only mulliganed twice in all my games.

One notable game that I would highlight on this tournament was Game 2 versus Mark and his Boros Control. I boarded in my Treasure Maps, Experimental Frenzy, Banefires and Fight with Fires in exchange to Shocks and a few Firebrands. I then drew most of my sideboard cards with enough lands to cast them.

Since I had expected him to be more controllish post-sideboard, it was a good keep as I would have most of his removals blank. I decided to be on the direct damage burn plan and started with a turn three Risk Factor. He took the damage as he had already on a high life total with his Shield Mare pressuring my life total.

I later on dealt with it with Lightning Strike while still not casting a creature. Turns later while continually casting Risk Factor and him taking the damage, my first creature drop was a Runaway Steam-kin, which he immediately killed with Justice Strike. That hinted me that most of his cards were spot removals as he did not yet follow up that mare earlier with another creature. I got my Treasure Map fixing my card draws until I finally flipped it to get 3 treasure tokens. I already have one Fight with Fire in hand and I just wait until he is the range on the ten damage. At Eleven life, I attempted a Jumpstart Risk Factor at end of the turn after he landed a Lyra Dawnbringer. He pondered for a while before finally taking the 4 damage and with only a Plains untapped, I am sure that time that he could not prevent the damage of the kicked-sorcery. I then untapped and showed him the card and the mana to cast it. Good game.

I finished in second placed and got two Standard Showdown and GRN booster packs for the prizes. Overall, it was a good attendance for a Wednesday night despite the storm warnings and I am happy to have the new members of the MTG Iloilo community enjoying the tournament in a competitive fashion. Here below are some of the pics during the tournament.

Tonight will be another Standard Showdown tourney at Nth but I don’t think I will be playing but I am sending best of lucks to my teammates that will be there.

That is a wrap. Until the next post.