Unofficial Magic the Gathering Indonesia site

Greetings to all readers. This would be my first for Kartumagic.com so I'll hope you'd enjoy reading this simple tournament report.

Grand Prix Trials - Matsuyama is the first major tournament held in Indonesia after around 3 years of absence and certainly we're hoping that it wouldn't be the last. 25 players turned up for the event, 1 more than the expected 24, and the tournament started at 10.30 sharp. Each player started to rip open their packs and rush to register them because only 30 minutes were given by the judges to register their decks. As it would normally be during sealed deck tournaments, various comments were heard during registering; cheering, grumbling and mumbling, and I even heard a player received a Kokusho and an Umezawa's Jitte, what a lucky fellow that person is (he didn't finish in top 8 though, tough luck).

My pack was one that you will say a very mediocre pool of cards; black and white were very deep, spells were abundant but the creatures weren't enough. I intended to play control but the few creature that I had was quite low on quality but I would certainly be looking for trouble if I chose to play beatdown as I have insufficient creatures with the low mana-big power ratio. So, the only choice left is to build a tempo-oriented deck and this is what I end up with:

8 Swamp

6 Plains

3 Forest

1 Cruel Deceiver

1 Nezumi Cutthroat

1 Wicked Akuba

1 Villanous Ogre

1 Hired Muscle

1 Scuttling Death

1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi

1 Crawling Filth

1 Kami of False Hope

1 Kitsune Diviner

1 Waxmane Baku

1 Kitsune Riftwalker

1 Kitsune Healer

1 Kami of Tettered Shoji

1 Silverstorm Samurai

1 Myojin of Cleansing Fire

1 Venerable Kumo

1 Midnight Covenant

1 Horobi's Whisper

1 Befoul

1 Hundred-Talon Strike

1 Cage of Hands

1 Enshrined Memories

1 Kodama's Reach

Yes, I realize perfectly well that most players would say this deck is among the mediocre to bad standard, but this is what I could afford given the limited number of creatures I have at that moment. There is a card selection mistake though: Midnight Covenant, that aren't that useful in most of the matches I played as I missed the fact that I'm playing a three-coloured deck, but mistakes are there for us to take lessons from it, isn't it?

The registering and constructing process takes around an hour to finish and after that we were given a 30-minute lunch break. However, during lunch break some players were called by the judges due to deck registering errors. Sad to say, that they were given game losses because of those slight errors. Not long after that, the pairings for the first round was announced.

Game one ended very quick, approximately 5 minutes if I'm not mistaken. Our decks weren't that much different but when you only have two creatures in play while facing six creatures on your opponent's side, I don't think there's much to do. During sideboarding, I took out 1 Midnight Covenant and put in 1 Kitsune Palliator. The only reason for this is to delay Jovan as long as possible for me to establish board control.

I managed to cast a second turn Nezumi Cutthroat and it managed to deal 6 damage before it was removed from the game cruelly by Yamabushi's Flame. After that, Jovan cast a Kami of Old Stone which made the game locked. Both of us keep casting creatures but no one could deal any damage to the other. When Jovan managed to summon a Mothrider Samurai, a second flier on his side, things were looking bleak for me. However, he only managed to deal only 1 damage to me per turn as I have a Kitsune Healer. When he destroyed my Kitsune Healer, fortunately my Kitsune Palliator came to the rescue. The flying samurai is slowly eating away my life points until I have 6 life points left, and this is when things got interesting. (Note: I have a Befoul and Horobi's Whisper in my hand but I refuse to cast them as Jovan has a Moonlit Strider and on the first game I saw him cast a Blessed Breath. The third card was Wicked Akuba which is totally useless at that point) I drew a Myojin of Cleansing Fire (to be honest, I don't even remember that I have this card in my deck) and activated its ability during Jovan's attack phase. On my next turn, I destroyed his sole creature using Horobi's Whisper, attacked with the Myojin, cast Wicked Akuba and game two was mine.

As we was shuffling for game three (and listening to Jovan complaining and trash-talking about my top-decked Myojin while enjoying his annoyed look, sorry), time was called and we decide to end the game in a draw.

Yung-yung is playing a red-green deck with lots of snake, Sosuke and 2 Sosuke's Summons. I did manage to put Ryusei into a Cage of Hands but I was about to be overwhelmed by the snake tokens on the first game. Fortunately, my Myojin rescued me again, allowing me to win the game. I did no sideboarding as I had none against Yung-yung's deck.

I drew a beatdown hand for the second game while Yung-yung had to mulligan three times. First turn Kitsune Diviner, second turn Cruel Deceiver, third turn Villanous Ogre and on the fourth turn, Hundred-Talon Strike and Waxmane Baku; that spells my first win for the day.

Haudy has been absent from the Magic scene for quite some time (playing Vs System instead). He built a green-white deck with some islands in to support his Meloku.

On game one, I drew my beatdown hand again for the win. I sideboarded in 1 Iname, Death Aspect and took out Crawling Filth. And the judge came over to the table beside me to award a game loss to one of the players after a random deck check.

On game two, I had a mono-white creature battle squad that can only watch Meloku and the flying spirits attack me. The Myojin again saved me but my life point was very low and I couldn't recover fast enough so the game was Haudy's. The sight of Meloku forced me to take out Iname, Death Aspect and Midnight Covenant for 1 Kitsune Palliator and 1 Gale Force.

Game three wasn't that interesting, I got mana-scerewed and Meloku beat me again to death.

At this point, I need to win both the remaining matches in order to make it to Top 8 and to face Bushh at this point is not a good prospect. I knew this young prodigy opened up seven crap, unplayable rares from his packs as I was sitting in front of him during deck registration and construction, but I also knew that he had lots of quality creatures inside his deck, a green-white that's not much different from mine.

Game one looked like its turning to be another stall until Kitsune Riftwalker came in to the fray. Lucky for me, Bushh had a spirit squad on his side and 6 turns of damage from the Riftwalker won me the game. After the match, I side out Midnight Covenant again for Iname, Death Aspect.

Game two was not fun at all. Bushh had to mulligan once. Then, he was stuck at two lands. When he finally got his third, I cast Befoul on one of his lands. I didn't like to do that to a new player as it would demoralize him from playing Magic but I need to win the game. Sorry Bushh, I'm not willing to take any risk, I had to do that. A battle squad of Nezumi Cutthroat, Kami of False Hope and Hired Muscle won the game for me.

Before the match started, both of us had to undergo the random deck check. Fine with me, but I secretly hoped that my opponent is awarded a game loss coz it would ease the pressure on me to reach top 8. During deck check however, Yogi kept on talking and rambling a lot (and I do mean A LOT) about Top 8, giving money, conceding and God knows what he was talking about as I'm not interested to pay attention about this stuffs, which prompt me to answer “If I win, I'm in the Top 8. If I lose, I'm not in the Top 8.”

I lost the first match as he beat me with Nezumi Ronin and Bloodthirsty Ogre while I had a hand of Crawling Filth, Myojin of Cleasing Hand, Silverstorm Samurai and Scuttling Death with the fifth land refusing to surface. After the game, I took out Venerable Kumo, Midnight Covenant and Crawling Filth for Iname Death Aspect, Kitsune Palliator and Sakura-Tribe Elder. However, at that moment I noticed Yogi was doing a serious amount of sideboarding (while mumbling some things that I paid no heed) and I'm guessing he was changing colours. That action made me cancel the Crawling Filth-STE change, and at the same time hoping that he changed the black spells in his deck.

Game two starts and he had to mulligan. I was right, he changed his black to red. The Nezumi Cutthroat and Crawling Filth did their job and I won the game. After that, Yogi was doing serious amounts of sideboarding again. “Switching colours again?”, I thought. So, this time I really made the Crawling Filth-STE change.

Both of us had to mulligan once for game three. To my surprise, he's still playing red-green. That caused me to play safe and very cautious in this game as I couldn't figure out on what had he done doing the previous sideboarding. Kitsune Palliator, Kitsune Healer, Kitsune Diviner, Cage of Hands, Waxmane Baku and Kami of the False Hope were working overtime on defence, Nezumi Cutthroat played his role as a lone striker in this last game while Hired Muscle with one Ki counter just stood there watching the battle. Yogi's life was down to 8 and that forced him to waste 2 burn spells on the Kitsune-protected Nezumi. After that, the game completely stalled when I cast a Kitsune Riftwalker. An Enshrined Memories for 7 proved to be the turning point as I revealed 2 Forests, 2 Plains, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kami of Tethered Shoji and Wicked Akuba. I cast the Wicked Akuba and flipped Hired Muscle into Scarmaker on my opponent's discard phase. I removed a Ki counter from Scarmaker to give Fear to the Akuba, attacked with both of them (note that I have 7 untapped Swamps) and the game was mine. It turns out that he was adding more burn spells to kill handle my Fear creatures (“Why don't he just switched to black again? I wonder…”). We shaked hands and I head straight to the judge to give the result slip while at the same time, hearing a trash-talking complaint fading away into distance.

There were still lots of matches going on as I waited anxiously for the announcement of the top 8 players. Finally, the results were announced and I finished fifth overall. The top 8 players were Rudy ‘Ncek', Haudy, Mark, Daniel, Taufik, Fandy, Dendy and yours truly.

I opened my first pack and it was a bad one. There was nothing good in value for playing or economically speaking. So, my choice was left between Kitsune Riftwalker and Sokenzan Bruiser and I drafted the Riftwalker. Yes, that's how bad my first pack was. Then, for the second and third pick I drafted 2 Kodama's Might and soon after that I started drafting green.

Things were another way around during the second pack. I opened a Minamo which I let go and began to draft white cards coz it was passed to me a lot. This is a template for me to build a green-white deck for draft. However, I'm missing Kabuto Moth for this type of deck and I'm hoping to open more flyers from my third pack.

Patron of the Orochi was glaring back at me from my first pack which I didn't hesitate to draft it. Things were going my way in the third pack as I kept being passed green and white cards but I still didn't manage to get flyers into my card pool. The draft concluded and this is the deck that I ended up with:

Personally, this is a much better deck than my sealed deck. I like the mana curve a lot, it was quite balanced. I hope I would reach the finals with these cards.

He's a JSS player that managed to reach top 8, congratulations of course to him. This guy built a black deck with some splash of white. He has the right mind for the cards that he selected but still need some experience of which cards to draft. I'll talk about this later.

Game one was a quick one as my curve went well. I had 5 creatures on my first 5 turns and it's game over for Taufik. I didn't do any sideboarding after the game as I don't know what kind of deck he was playing.

Again my curve went well for the second game but my offensive force was soon decimated by a single card: Night of Soul's Betrayal. It was a big betrayal of course as I had no creatures in play after it resolved. I cast a Hundred-Talon Kami on the next turn and that single creature attacked for one point of damage for a few times before Deathcurse Ogre, Takenuma Bleeder and Gutwrencher Oni started to appear one by one on his side. However, I top-decked again in this game..a Kami of Ancient Law has come to save the day. My Mothrider Samurai and Hundred-Talon Kami recovered to full power and attacked Taufik to win the match.

After the game we discussed about Taufik's deck. His deck was based around Night of Soul's Betrayal. That was the reason for huge creatures in his deck. That's a good thinking but also shouldn't be your only reason. Mana efficient creatures such as Takenuma Bleeder, Ogre Recluse and Nagao shouldn't be passed over Deathcurse Ogre and Kuro although they fit in your cause. Creatures with evasion such as fear and flying shouldn't be passed that easily too, Nezumi Cutthroat is an example. This is due to the fact that you can't just rely on only one card to win. Variety and consistency is also vital when you build a deck. Hope that's a lesson to all JSS players.

This is not a good match-up for me. He's playing a beatdown deck too, but he's playing red which gives him access to burn spells to kill my creatures and I don't have any Blessed Breath.

I lost game one due to Honden of Infinite Rage kept ‘pinging' my one-toughness creatures and thus establishing board control before going in for the win, what a card advantage that was for him. I took out a Sakura-Tribe Springcaller for 1 Terashi's Grasp during sideboarding.

It was tough luck for me in game two, or perhaps it was karma. I opened a hand of 2 Forest , 1 Kitsune Blademaster, 1 Moonlit Strider, 1 Order of the Sacred Bell, 1 Kodama's Might and 1 Kodama's Reach. Those 2 Forest are the only lands I have for the whole game and worse, one of them was Befoul-ed. You could probably see that if I drew a land, any land, I would be able to cast Kodama's Reach and have access to Plains. The Bro did perfectly well to amount more pressure and caused me to be in a greater disadvantage. Another loss means a defeat, out of contention and I can't really complaint about it. Then again, I already gave all my best during the tournament and I'm glad that I reached this far, no regrets.

It was a surprise for Fandy to win against Ncek. It was one of the two biggest upsets of the day, the other: Bernhard missed out in the top 8. A surprise as it might be, surely Phu Bo has something under his sleeves that allowed him to reach the finals. That should be a reason to watch but during the finals I was busy returning lands to the judges, de-sleeving my lands and trading for cards. I was asked to do the tournament report during this period of time when I was trading (for an Isao if I'm not mistaken) so I would like to apologize if I can't give you the full detail of the finals.

The Bro won the first match after Phu Bo cast an Iwamori which allowed a Kyoki came into play. The Bro cast Befoul on Iwamori and proceeded to win the first game.

On the second game, The Bro had his creatures totally annihilated by Kodok Beracun and can do nothing about it except to forfeit the current game and proceed to the next game.

Nothing interesting happened in the early stages of game three until The Bro cast a Kyoki. Then Phu-Bo stole Kyoki with a Mark of the Oni and forced The Bro to trade it with his Ogre Recluse. Then, The Bro cast a Kami of Tettered Shoji and Phu Bo answered with a Pus Kami. The Bro equipped Tenza to the Kami and attacked with it and Phu Bo decided to trade his Kami with the opposing Kami. On the next turn, Phu Bo cast an Iwamori and a Gutwrencher Oni. The Bro answered with an Eradicate on Iwamori. Phu Bo attacked with the Oni and cast a Takenuma Bleeder to apply more pressure to The Bro. The Bro could only answer by equipping Tenza to his Kitsune Healer. Then Phu Bo attacked with both oni and ogre. The Bro chose to trade his healer with the ogre and prevent 1 of the oni damage. The Bro draw another Kitsune Healer, cast it and equipped it with Tenza. Phu Bo attacked again with his oni but this time The Bro chose not to block bringing his life points to 1, cosidering that Phu Bo had 6 life points left. However, Phu Bo cast a Genju of the Cedars during his second main phase forcing The Bro to wish for a miracle to happen. The Bro drew a card, smiled, cast Blood Rites and end the turn. This caused Phu Bo to ask “Did you draft a Sickening Shoal?” The Bro simply answered “Who knows?” and smiled. Phu Bo hesitated for a few minutes and then decided to attack with the Gutwrencher Oni and the activated Genju of the Cedars. The Bro conceded and Kodok Beracun became the GPT winner.

The awarding ceremony was as always, full of laughter and a merry site to watch. Jokes about a frog winning the tournament rang throughout the Kafe Oke and almost all of them simulataneously laughed heartily. As for me, I received three packs for today's performance, not a bad one I might say. Well, it has been very long since I last reached top 4 in any tournament (FNM excluded). I personally hope this would be a comeback point for me in Magic. After the ceremony, I hitched a ride with Ncek back to MTA and dropped by at Yopi's to hangout for a while. I saw Yopi, Ari, Hendri and Tommy were playing Raw Deal. Hmm…more and more people are starting to play this game again, perhaps I should dig out my old Raw Deal deck from my storage box and play them again, hehehe…