Aaron Rzepka was shaking his head. “I don’t want coverage for this match…I tried to build a fun deck.”
Jonathon Pechon was trying to figure out what that meant his opponent way playing, “Did you build the white deck of the red one?”
Game one
It turned out that he was playing the green one complete with turn two Vintara Snapper. Something must have tipped Jonathon off as to the exact nature of the deck because he burst out with, “Your playing a Fletcher deck!” Referring to Texas fixture and Invitational stand-by Fletcher Peatross. “He had that list built!”
Aaron: “Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!”
Meanwhile, Aaron attempted and failed at a Hunting Moa to his side of the table while Jonathan revealed his modifications to be the presence of Psychatog. He correctly named Forest with a Predict at the end of Aaron’s turn and drew two cards. Aaron’s modifications were revealed when he attempted an Alluren that was countered and followed with another successful Predict EOT. Jonathan played out a Voidmage Prodigy and passed the turn as the two bantered about Kai’s appearance on the card, “In a word…jowly.”
Another Alluren meant that Kai was sacrificed for the greater good. he was replaced by Kai’s rival the Shadowmage Infiltrator. When I teased Jonathan about playing a tribally themed deck based on Invitational winners he grinned and flashed me a Rootwater Thief in hand.
By now the Snapper had dealt 10 but that was not how Aaron planned to end the game. he Nostalgic Dreamed for his Alluren, Living Wished for Wirewood Savage and Worldly Tutoted for Cavern Harpy. The last was not without trepidation, “Do you have the third Predict?”
When he attempted the Alluren, Jonathon cast Fact or Fiction revealing four lands and a Counterspell and split along those lines. Jon took the spell and countered the enchantment. “You didn’t have counter? What a mauling!” When Jonathon cast a Merchant Scroll he looked to Aaron to see if it resolved which prompted a frustrated, “Dude! I’m playing green with two cards in my hand AND you know what they are. Jonathon picked up a Counterspell and to rubb salt in the wound discarded a Rootwater Thief to get down to seven cards.
Jonathan finally drew and played a Tog and from there it was a small matter of killing his opponent although he took too long for the tastes of Aaron who was screaming, “Stop slow rolling and kill me!” In this format you have to be wary of some odd cards, which was the reason for Pechon’s overly cautious play, “I accidentally killed someone with Scent of Ivy testing his deck the other day. I’m just being cautious!”
Aaron - 0 Jonathan - 1
Game two
This was an odd game. Despite resolving Intuition for Accumulated Knowledge and casting two Aks Jonathan could not deal with the Wirwood Savage and Yavimaya Granger beatdown. He was able to throw a Rootwater Thief in the way of a Spike Feeder but when he used Guilded Drake to take a tapped Wirewood Savage he gave Aaron the evasion he needed to fly over Jonathan’s slowly mounting defenses.
After the game was over Dave Williams questioned Pechon’s play, which he explained thusly, “The thing is…
“I suck! I don’t play Tog but it was beating everything else up in testing!”
Aaron - 1 Jonathan - 1
Game three
This was one of those games you hate to cover because only one player is in it. Aaron never drew enough land and could only watch helplessly as Jonathon used his Rootwater Thief to pick off Alluren after Alluren form his deck. Once Jonathan had resolved an AK for three and another for four and then topped that off with a FoF, Aaron scooped in frustration.
“I’m so mad. I don’t own any Thawing Glaciers and I knew it would ram me all day!”
Aaron - 1 Jonathon - 2