Canadian Rashomon

Perception is a fickle beast. Reality is shaped by subjective senses where one man's victory is another one's demise. What really happened in Drew's house that day? These are two accounts from our friends across the ocean in Toronto. Enjoy! /Mg out

The first witness

Games night was at Drew’s house for a second time.  Snacks and a 6 pack of sprinkled donuts were provided but never made it out. Poor Joe, he loves a good sprinkled donut. By the way, I had two today and they were magnificent.

Bryan arrived early-as per usual. He was wearing his favourite - insert Toronto sports franchise throwback jersey based on season -, in this case it is winter, so he was wearing a Leafs Vintage Jersey Sweater. The only people still reping Leafs gear are B, 11 year olds and Carlos-from Gotham Central Comics-who sells me comics and drives a lunch truck on his off days. Needless to say it was good to see B.

Adam and Joe followed. Joe barrelled into the house with a 48oz soft drink, a coffee and a double cheeseburger combo from Wendy's. I don’t really know what to say to this other than Joe seems like a beaten man. This foreshadowed the beating that would get much, much worse.

Jordan ran into traffic and a hangover, so he was the last to arrive.

With everyone now safely arrived and composed, seats were taken and the rules were drawn up. It would be a round robin that kept track of match wins and not game wins, which at the end became problematic since no one really wanted to play the top 4 playoff.

Money was collected with little uproar.

Here are the decks, sadly only a few pics were taken and no official deck lists were recorded.

(Editor's rendition)

Bryan: 4 colour Erhnam-Geddon Control with Chaos Orb, Ancest, Mind Twist and some counters.

Joe: B/W old school death and taxes with sinkhole, hypno, sengir, and lots of creature removal.

Adam: W/R Land Tax+ Lands Edge- a griefer deck with winter orb, relic barrier and a seemingly endless supply of turn 2 Blood Moons.

Jordan: Mono G w/Ancest, Mirror, Chaos Orb and Time Walk-lots of big creatures like Force of Nature and Craw Wurm, Desert Twister and elves (not BoP).

Drew: BANT aka U/W/G aka I cant believe he is not playing Black with erhnams, serras, serendibs and some spice in the board… also a ton of counters.

The event

Lots of cool matches and some sweet plays.

Round 1 saw Adam beat Drew 2-1. Game 1 was a turn 2 Blood Moon into a turn 3 Land Tax and at that point it was “goodnight sweet Prince”. Game 2 saw Drew drop a Library on turn 1 and then face a turn 3 Blood Moon. Fortunately a timely Disk got shit back on track and Drew easily outdrew Adam and his Relic Barrier less Howling Mine. Game 3 was a real nail biter that went all the way to a Feldon’s Cane, Wheel, Winds of Change Land Tax, Lands Edge burn you for 6. Drew has a tendency of playing slow and letting his life hang low which cost him this game. No real punts and no real poor sportsmanship. Solid match all around.

Jordan ran over Joe who forgot to call Chaos Orb and was the victim of a poor flip. One of many poor flips on the night. Jord wins 2-0.

Round 2

Adam played B and got Turn 1 Ancestral, Lotus, Sylvan, TIme Walk Erhnam. He looked at B and scooped his cards. Game 2 was pretty much the same. In fact B would do this to all of his opponents at some point in the night.

Drew and B without knowing it brought very similar decks. B had the Armageddon package and Drew had the more Control heavy package with Balance, Regrowth and Recall. Both Decks had 4x Disenchant and 4x StP. Like Adam said, don’t play oldschool without full playsets of these staples. Mana bases were also much better this time around. Except for Joe who left all his Scrublands in his Legacy Death and Taxes Deck

Drew beat Joe in less than 10 mins.

Round 3

Jord lost to B, Adam beat Joe

Rd4 saw Drew play Jord in what looked like an epic blow up match between brothers, sadly Jordan was out till 6:30 drinking. The best thing that happened was Drew dropping a Merchant Ship and Arboria on him. A sweet play with Balance and the match was over 2-0. Lots of laughs here.

Joe lost to B, badly and we headed into rd 4 with B a shocking 3-0, Drew and Adam at 2-1 and Jordan 1-2. Joe was 0-3, but you already know he loses almost every game he plays if you’ve been following along.

Round 4

This may have been the best round of Magic all night. Jordan played Adam and had a very sketchy controversial Chaos Orb flip. Jordan flipped the card and it ricocheted off the targeted land, a Maze of Ith, but Adam called for a judge ruling. Joe said his view was obstructed due to the aforementioned 48oz soda, B wasn't paying attention as per usual, but Drew ever diligent and looking to weigh in on a play, said the Orb hit its target and the Maze was sent to the graveyard allowing for Jordan to come back from sure defeat. Adam went onto Land Tax, Blood Moon, Lands Edge the match and finish 3-1

The final match of the night was the two similar control decks. B vs Drew. It was an epic match too. Drew won the first match with superior card draw on the back of turn 1 Lotus, Mox, BOP and Sylvan Library. Not much B could do from there. A Counter Spell of the Mind Twist ended it and B scooped. Game 2 had B racing out an Erhnam Djinn, and  a Serendib Efreet and then Chaos Orb, Sylvan Library. Drew had a Wrath, but the Arabian Nights djinns and efreets kept coming to even the match at 1-1. Too bad the misers City in a Bottle from the board didn’t make an appearance; the look on B’s face would have been pricele$$. Game 3 was super tight with lots of interesting plays. Drew stuck an Arboria-Legends Enchant World that prevents attacks if you do nothing during your turn and just sat back and countered everything B tried to do. Eventually Bryan lifted the Green Enchantment, but Drew had his Library and Ancest, Regrowth, Ancest, Recall Ancest and Regrowth and that was that. Serra did her thing and we had 3 players with just a single loss.

No one seemed to want to play it out even though it was only 10:30 so B took the Unlimited Birds of Paradise, I guess based on losing the fewest games, Drew finished 2nd and gave Adam the Legends Land Tax, taking the Legends Xira Arien, Jord somehow managed to get a NM Legends Dakkon Blackblade-which at one time, was 40$ and his record was 1-3.

Joe received a GG from all. And you all know what that means…

A great time was had by all. Looking forward to the next one boys.

The second witness

My take on the evening is a little disjointed and entirely from my perspective so bear with me.

The ride up -- As usual I was late to pick up Joe, even with so few real responsibilities I still manage to find a way to get tied up in some kind of nonsense minutes before. 

I pick Joe up, he's looking a little dishevelled but otherwise ecstatic that I am here to free him from his current obligations.

The ride up is mostly uneventful. Joe's revelation -- "I ain't eating none of that dry pie". We proceed to discuss what Joe hates most about our Pizza Nova order, I tune him out as I am pretty sure he once told me he likes Pizza Pizza.

We proceed to one of the greatest marriages in fast food history the Tim Hortons-Wendy's combo restaurant (usurped only by the Swiss Chalet-Harvey's combination). We order a couple of double-doubles so that we can stay up, Joe also manages to go with an off-menu choice of the Sugar-Cookie doughnut (later reviews were positive).

The two of us feeling pretty good enter Drew's abode little worse for wear and ready to battle. I have brought my tuned Tax/Edge deck, Joe again (a series of questionable audibles) decides to go with W/B, splashing blue for ancestral recall. Everyone remarks on Joe's food choice, somehow we avoid awkwardness while Joe scarfs his meal.

Round 1: Drew with U/G/W control

Game 1 - I drop an early blood moon, and follow up with land tax/land's edge and finish in short order.

Game 2 - Drew gets some massive card advantage with Ancestral Recall, Regrowth, Ancestral Recall. While it may have seemed I was in this game, I got so buried in card advantage I never really was.

Game 3 - This one was a nail biter. Drew has some good removal for my combo pieces, I counter with removal of my own on his threats. I eventually land a late Tax/Edge but have to feldon's cane to get enough lands to burn him out. Good games tight play.

Round 2: B-Nut Ernham Geddon

Game 1 and 2 go exactly the same - B is able to drop a bunch of mana rocks into a turn 2 Ernham turn 3 Armageddon. I am in neither game and my salt level is Dead Sea x 3. I hold off making any actual insults but don't feel particularly good about these losses.

Round 3: Joe B/W I don't even know

Game 1 - Early tax edge does it's work, am able to burn out in short order. Joe remarks my combination of relic barriers, Icy Manipulator and removal have made his evening "miserable" I apologize but I am secretly satisfied - I conclude I am probably not a good person.

Game 2 - This is a weird one. Joe opens with an aggressive strip mine/sink hole--dark ritual, However I get a land tax and a strip mine and am able to stall while removing a couple of hypnos. Tax Edge again goes the distance but not quickly, again probably miserable and again I am probably not a good person.

Round 4: Jordan Giant Green Guy with mana elves

Game 1 - A combination of mana rocks lotus and a tax/edge allow me to turn 3 dome Jordan for 18 and follow up with bolt. Jordan comments on how he is hung over and how that wasn't nice. I agree but not being a good person I don't care either.

Game 2 - This game was close, Jordan has good removal for my enchantments including a tranquility which removes the combo entirely. As Drew alluded to there was a suspect chaos orb flip. Unlike Joe's which did not make it's full rotation this one missed the card entirely. However the call being 2 against 1, the other spectators unable to see the ruling goes against your hero. The smirks on both Drew and Jordan's faces lets me know that I did in fact get foiled. Jordan takes this game, I avoid tilt.

Game 3 - This game goes much like the first, I am able to combo out before the 6 mana desert twister removal is able to interact. Jordan comments that this deck may in fact not be very good -- I agree, Andrew agrees, we all agree.

Wrap up

I get what I want as Drew flips me the Land Tax, the other top prize of birds of paradise make it into someone's deck. Both cards will probably not see the light of day for several more months.

All in all it was a great evening, while truncated - somehow we had thought we would play for 7 hours, this may have been ambitious. 

I think in the end - B Nut won, Drew and Adam tie for second, Jordan gets the booby prize, while Joe enjoyed his meal. Successful for our second ever old school games night.