Playing in a Standard PDC tourney ... or how I learned how to hate Goblins in just three short hours!

I knew I should have voted for Goblins in last week’s poll of most hated tribes. I played in my first Standard PDC event Thursday night, and all I saw were those pointy-nosed demons of doom on the other side of the virtual table across from me!

Unfortunately, the Goblins got the best of me – taking 2 out of 3 games from me in the Swiss portion of the event – but every game was close. Oh, and as a random thought, why are Goblins green – but normally on Red cards?

I played my Faerie Burn deck, with a few modifications since the last time I tested it in the PDC and Casual rooms. At the 9 p.m. close of entries, 26 players had entered the tourney for 3-rounds of Swiss pairings followed by a Top 8 final.

Here's my deck for the evening. It should look familiar to my regular readers.

PDC Burning Faeries v2.3

MAINDECK

4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Pestermite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Mulldrifter

4 Broken Ambitions
4 Incinerate
4 Lash Out
4 Ponder
2 Unsummon

11 Island
7 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse

SIDEBOARD

4 Remove Soul
3 Hurly-Burly
2 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Mulldrifter
2 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
2 Unsummon

In the first round, I played Zipstein who was playing … wait for it … GOBLINS! He led off with a Raging Goblin, Mogg War Marshal and then … Fiery Temper? I had to think that through for a minute. Fiery Temper is a common in Tempest, and legal in Standard – but only because it was reprinted as a purple-rarity card in Time Spiral. That means it’s Standard legal, but not Standard PDC legal – at least I didn’t think so.

Zipstein didn’t know the card’s legality either, so we continued playing while waiting for Icrodx (the tourney organizer) to pop in and tell us what to do. I watched my life whittle away but eventually stabilized at 3 life with a pair of Pestermites and a Looter il-Kor on the board. I countered an Incinerate pointed at my dome with a Spellstutter Sprite, and knocked him down to 5 with enough creatures on the board to win the next turn – but he drew another Fiery Temper (darn that card again!) and killed me dead.

However, somewhere between the first Fiery Temper and the one that killed me, Icarodx came over to the room and let us know that the card wasn’t legal – and worse, it was a match loss infraction for Zipstein. He could continue in the event – but he would have to replace the Fiery Tempers in his deck. I felt really bad about how that turn of events turned out – and I wanted to help Zipstein if I could. He asked if I had any Bloodshot Cyclops – and I gave him three from my 10^th Edition playset – since I’m not using them in any decks at the moment.

So after my first 20 minutes of playing in a serious PDC tourney, I’m at 1-0, but feeling like poo about it. But, life goes on, and about 30 minutes later the pairings for Round 2 came down from Icardox.

I get a PM from Roynot who has started a match for me to enter and play. I lost the roll, and Roynot played a mountain and passed. I kept a solid hand with two Looters and a Spellstutter Faerie and a Ponder. I played an Island, Pondered my next three cards, and kept a Mountain from the draw. Roynot started his next turn and played another mountain and … wait for it … a GOBLIN! An Emberwilde Augur to be specific. I untapped and played a Looter, then Roynot untapped and played another Augur, while burning my Looter. I ate 2 from the first Augur and he passed the turn. I played a land and a second Looter, then passed the turn. Roynot once again burned the Looter and then sent his pair of Augurs at me for 4 damage. This begun an annoying cycle for the next two turns – I play a critter, he burns it and attacks for 4. Not long after, one of the Augurs goes to my dome for lethal damage during his upkeep.

Game 2, I get to go first. I get a Pestermite to stick when I counter his burn with a Spellstutter. I eventually get six power of flying faerie on the board and end the game quickly. On to Game 3!

This game has to be one of the coolest games I’ve ever played in MTGO. We both have good games, and he is bleeding me to death with an Augur followed up by a pair of Needle Drops. I have a Pestermite down, an active Looter and a rogue-cast Latchkey Faerie doing damage on the board. Roynot has played a lot of land and poked me a bit in tactical battle. At the mid-game, I have him down to 12, and he has me at 9. I draw an Incinerate to go along with the Lash Out I have in my hand. I attack him down to 6, and I know he’s holding a bit of burn in his hand. I don’t want to go to his upkeep when he can sac the Augur and possibly burn me to death.

So I cast the Lash Out on his Augur and win the clash with a Pestermite over his Incinerate. I only have the one counter left, and it’s a Broken Ambitions which is mostly useless as Roynot has a lot of land on the board. So I go for the win with an Incinerate to the dome.

Bad move.

Did I mention I’m at 9 life? With lethal Incinerate damage on the stack, Roynot hits me with an Incinerate, followed by a Shard Volley. I cast my Broken Ambitions for a measly one in response, just to hopefully get him to tap enough mana to not be able to cast anything. He taps an extra land to pay for the soft counter and follows up with a second Shard Volley. 3+3+3 damage at the end of my turn = dead Djinn. So I almost won. Almost.

Now I’m in the 1-1 bracket and needing to win my final match to have a chance to make Top 8. One of the best things about the PDC tourneys is that there’s only three matches of Swiss. So it’s not a big commitment if you’re not going to have a chance to win. Win 2 of 3 and you’re likely to make Top 8, lose more than one and you can do something else with your evening. A number of these tourneys also have door prizes – but not the one for this evening. So you can win without winning a thing sometimes. As for me, if I want to win anything this evening, I have to win my last Swiss match. If I was lucky, maybe I would get something other than Goblins.

My third round opponent was Teliot. And the first land he played after winning the dice roll was an Island! Outstanding. I played a Terramorphic Expanse and sacked it for a Mountain and we both played Islands on our next turns. I tapped my island and mountain for a Looter, and he responded with a Remove Soul. Teliot dropped a Mountain on his next turn and passed. No Goblins yet, that’s a good sign. I played another looter and passed. During Teliot’s next turn he Tarfired the Looter and suspended an Errant Ephemeron. Hmm, Tarfire is a goblin tribal spell … bad sign perhaps?

Well the next few turns were uneventful with the exception of me getting a hard-cast Latchkey to stick on Turn 6. Unfortunately, getting him to stick left me tapped out. During Teliot’s next turn he cast a Ponder, burned the Latchkey with another Tarfire and then played Empty the Warrens.

I now officially hate Goblins. Especially the six staring me in the face from Teliot’s side of the board.

On my next turn, I drop a land, Looter and evoke Mulldrifter for two cards. No help. The Errant comes out of suspension and two turns later, I’m toast from those darn goblins and a flying 4/4.

Off to Game 2. I have three copies of Hurly-Burly in my sideboard, just in case of the mirror match or a herd of 1/1s. Empty the Warrens makes 1/1s – so in goes the Hurly-Burlies. I also kept spare Unsummons for the Errants, a card I considered for my sideboard as well. So with those changes in place, off we go. The game was actually uneventful. I got an active looter down on Turn 2 and saved him from a Tarfire on Turn 3 with a Spellstutter. Teliot said he hated those darn faeries – and played PDC a lot just to avoid them. I kept the pressure on with my small flying armada – while Teliot made six goblins on Turn 6 again. Fortunately, I had the Hurly in hand, and the game in hand after casting it on my next turn. Teliot had six land, not seven – so he suspended an Errant, and never lived long enough to see it come out.

Match Three, Game Three. Do or die. Teliot went first, and dropped a Martyr of Ashes. That really sucked for me, seeing as I kept a three Looter draw. I played the first Looter on Turn 2, and took a few points of Martyr beatdown, when the Martyr offed itself when I attacked with the looter on Turn 3. I played a second Looter, who met Mr. Tarfire as the turn ended. I played a third Looter on my next turn, and protected it with a Spellstutter. On the next turn, I played a Latchkey with rogue and felt good about life, since I also had a Spellstutter to protect them from anything casting 3 or less.

Teliot untapped, and casually pointed an Incinerate at my Latchkey. I spellstuttered and felt good about life.

For about two seconds.

Teliot pondered, cast another Martyr, and then he introduced me to his other stormy friend – Mr. Grapeshot. Mr. Grapeshot didn’t like Mr. Looter, Mr. Latchkey or the Spellstutter sisters. Or me. Ouch. So my board was clear, and all I had in my hand was another Latchkey and a Terramorphic I was saving to pitch to Mr. Looter the next turn. Teliot suspended a 3/1 blue shadow creature and I hard cast a Mulldrifter for two cards and a warm 2/2 flying body. A turn later, Telliot’s shadow critter came out, the Mulldrifter was Incinerated and the Latchkey burned. Oh, and 8 1/1 goblins stopped in for tea over at Telliot’s house too.

I drew a ponder, and pondered looking at two Islands and my last looter. So I pondered shuffling my library and hoped like heck for a Hurly-Burly. I got another Ponder and pondered up three cards not named Hurly-Burly. I shuffled up a Latchkey and cast it. My flying 3/1 met a random goblin on Teliot’s next turn and I drew an Incinerate to flambé the 3/1 shadow critter. Unfortunately that left 7 goblins on the wrong side of the table – and drawing and playing a Pestermite and a sideboarded Remove Soul didn’t help.

Death by goblins again. But hey, at least I could still get in bed by midnight.

I really enjoyed playing in this PDC tourney. It felt a lot like playing in a tourney back in my old paper Magic shop. The folks in the chatroom were generally friendly, as were the players. Icardox was nice to both me and Zipstein when we had problems in the first match, and I’m looking forward to playing in some future events. The whole event felt almost … human – as opposed to the antiseptic environment found in the game’s official sanctioned events. Players talked, some talked smack, others joked – and everyone actually seemed to be part of a community.

All in all I give the experience two big thumbs up. If you’re interested in a good, cheap entry to the world of competitive (while still casual) tourney Magic – PDC is highly recommended. In the next month or so, I hope to get a bit further back in my commons collection – and then I’ll play some Extended and Future-Extended PDC events.

Until then – I hope you enjoyed this post. As always, let me know if I can be of help to anyone out there and feel free to chat me up or play me a game in the MTGO casual room when you can catch me there!

Later,

Don!

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Bonus: PDC Burning Faeries v2.4 (based on last night!)
The biggest change was in finding answers for smaller creature swarms and more actual useable choices in the sideboard. I never felt comfortable with having the Sentinels in there and never used them – and I really wished I had 8 Hurly-Burly in there too. The Martyr of Ashes solves those problems – at least I think they would. If you can get the Rune Snags, I'd put them in over the Negates and Remove Souls in the main deck.

PDC Burning Faeries v2.4

MAINDECK

4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Pestermite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Martyr of Ashes
2 Mulldrifter

2 Remove Soul
2 Negate
4 Incinerate
4 Lash Out
4 Ponder
2 Unsummon

11 Island
7 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse

SIDEBOARD

2 Remove Soul
2 Negate
4 Hurly-Burly
2 Mulldrifter
2 Unsummon
3 Errant Ephemeron