Round 6: Mark Ziegner vs. Victor van den Broek

Victor is playing an updated version of his Angry Ghoul deck he and his teammates played at Pro Tour Houston, where he failed to make day 2. He's been doing a lot better today, both he and Mark are on 5-0. Mark is playing a Blue/White Rebel deck featuring a lot of techy cards and an Enlightened Tutor sideboard.

Game 1

Victor chose to play the first game and after some deliberation decided to keep his hand. Mark simply nodded and kept as well. Victor had a turn 1 Hermit Druid and Mark could only frown:

"Why'd you think that long..."

Victor not only had the druid but the Mountain as well so he milled his whole deck turn 2 and Reclaimed 2 Exhumes. Mark's Plains wasn't really up to the task of stopping a 40/40 Trampler so he wisely conceded.

"So you're playing...plains."

Vic decides to go for a safe plan of just boarding in his Sickening Dreams to get rid of annoying Whipcorders and the like.

Mark boarded Reprisals, Topples, some Tutors and a Seal of Removal.

Game 2

Mark played first and kept his hand again. Vic had to mulligan a hand consisting of over 20 power and toughness worth of creatures and no real business spells. His second hand is a bunch of land a Hermit Druid, an Entomb and a Brainstorm and he decided to keep. A Mox Diamond off the top gave him another nice start of turn 1 Druid.

Mark then showed his first spell of the match with an Enlightened Tutor for Seal of Removal. Vic gave a little smile and nodded. The Seal came out the turn after ready to bounce any incoming fatties. The Brainstorm gave Vic a Reanimate and more food for thought as the Seal of Removal on the board can cause a lot of problems.

As long as Mark doesn't have any significant pressure, it really won't help him much though. A Reanimate on a Petradon spelled some more trouble for Mark as he apparently ran out of land and he was unwilling to bounce the Petradon just yet. He bounced it in Vic's attack phase with a little cheer that may or may not have been sarcastic:

"Whoo, I have permanents."

Vic gave the go ahead and Mark drew, having not played a creature as of yet. He did manage a third land, an Adarkar Wastes. Vic mills the rest of his deck at the end of Mark's turn and Reclaims a single Duress. The Duress nabs a Reprisal, Mark's only out against the huge Sutured Ghoul in Victor's graveyard. The crappy rare turns into a 30/30 monster giving the game and match to Victor.

Final Result: van den Broek 2 - Ziegner 0

As it turned out Mark simply forgot to play the Adarkar Wastes on his turn. If he had, he could've played a True Believer disabling Victor's Duress and allowing him to Reprisal whatever Victor would Reanimate on turn 4. Even the pro's can make mistakes sometimes.