Harry Corvese’s article So You Think You Can Bogle came out the Friday of Grand Prix Richmond. He and Marc Lalague (co-author of sorts) had a new sideboard and Suppression Field maindeck plan to shore up matches against the expected onslaught of combo decks (Twin, Storm, Pod, etc.).
Here’s the list Harry wrote about and what I sleeved up. You can download the MTGO text file here.
Mind Bogling
Star City Games did an amazing job running the second largest Magic: The Gathering tournament of all time. They deserve a medal.
Look at all of these people!
I bored my way through the first three rounds thanks to the byes I earned grinding points last season. Round four took forever to arrive.
Friends were scattered across the convention center and I checked in with them.
Here Kadar plays a guy on Fish in round two.
Here Kadar plays a guy on Fish in round three. Kadar learned that Dredgevine isn’t a real deck no matter how much he loves it.
Kadar’s hat made him easy to find all weekend.
Here Garrett is sideboarding against his second Living End match in a row. Garrett played Tribal Geist Zoo. He learned that one must have Relic of Progenitus in one’s sideboard (or literally any graveyard hate cards).
Eventually the tournament started for me.
Round Four vs. Kyle
Of course, the one match-up I didn’t practice at all, not even a once, was the Bogle mirror. Who else in my playtesting group plays Bogle? No one.
The blurriness of the photo of Kyle leads me to believe he’s a ghost or other spirit-based entity.
I mulled to five and six games one and two while Kyle had turn three Daybreak Coronet both games.
What we learned: the key to winning the Bogle mirror is having turn two Daybreak Coronet on the play.
Round Five vs. Brian
Brian played Melira Pod Combo. Game one I mulled to six. I was swinging in for lethal, thinking he’d chump block to soak up enough damage to not die. Then I’d pass the turn, and he’d fetch Melira with Pod, and combo for infinite life with his Kitchen Finks*. Instead he blocks with the one drop he needed for fetching purposes, and an elemental token. I order the blockers, both die, and I update our life totals.
“29 to 3,” I said.
“I have one,” he replied.
“You must not have written down your Kitchen Finks life-gain,” I suggested.
He’d played a Finks a few turns earlier, announced the life gain, I agreed and wrote it down. He must not have.
“Oh, do you mind if I rearrange blockers?” he asked. I said that we had already dealt with damage so rearranging blockers wasn’t possible. To be safe we called a judge and it took two of them to agree that we had moved past the blocking stage and that the life discrepancies were what they were.
“I was going to combo off the next turn and gain infinite life,” Brian said. I figured as much, but had to swing and hope that he’d make a mistake, which he did, and it worked.
Brian had a sweet Evan Erwin signed SCG elemental token. I shot a blurry photo of it. So You Think You Can Bogle suggests I sideboard thusly, which seemed totally insane so I did it.
I had the SCG sideboard plans written in a journal so I didn’t fuck up. As I was looking at the notes Brian asks me what I was looking at and I said my sideboard notes (though I don’t think I had to tell him anything, actually). He seemed suspicious and after our match said he didn’t think we were allowed to look at any kind of notes during our game. I was positive that we could look at any non-phone information during sideboarding (later confirmed by two judges). It did put the feeling of dis-ease in my mind as to whether or not I was cheating. Maybe he was gaming me? It didn’t end up mattering at all as game two I had two Grafdigger’s Cages in play and he died to a pants’d up Bogle. Much pants.
Round Six vs. Marc Lalague
Marc and I chatted”Oh you’re that Marc Lalague.”
“Mind if I take a photo of you going off?” I asked.
“Ha! No, it’s fine,” replied Marc.
What does So You Think You Can Bogle have to say about the Storm matchup?
I won game two pretty solidly off of some suited up hexproof elf or beast.
Game three was very tight. He killed a Dryad Arbor early. I fetched up another Dryad Arbor. “Fuck yeah two Arbors!” Marc exclaimed. He’s very passionate about Dryad Arbor. This one got to wear a Daybreak Coronet, two Rancors, and at least one Umbra. I had a Grafdigger’s Cage, Rest in Peace, and a Relic of Progenitus in play at one point. I had popped the Relic because I needed something to get my creatures doing something (and got it—the Coronet). When I swung for near lethal Marc was able to fuse Wear//Tear and cast two other Wear//Tears to bring my Arbor’s enormity down to near 1/1 again. One of the Wear//Tears was drawn of a cantrip that turn. What a luck sack! HAHA!
It was hilarious. I couldn’t even be mad.
The whole match was ridiculous. Marc works for and/or is sponsored by MTG Deals so I harassed him about helping me get some German cards for Bogle and other decks. He said he would and has since been in touch.
After our match I asked if I could get a photo with the guy who redsigned the deck I took to the GP but decided it wasn’t good enough for him and played Storm instead. He said I could.
Round Seven vs. Rob Polishname
Rob beat the shit out of me with Living End. I mulled both games and at X-3 I was dead for day two.
I watched Jamie’s feature match then decided to play one more round.
Round Eight vs. Manny
A big Jon Finkel fan, Manny played Storm. He groaned when I cast a turn one Bogle and he never really got over it. The Bogle put on some pants and rolled Manny.
I sideboarded as Harry and Marc suggested, once again:
Game two Manny was one turn away from potentially going off when he was slain by a Bogle.
I quit for the day and head to get some dinner some of the stragglers also exempt from day two.
Kadar snored less so I got some decent sleep and awoke fresh on Sunday. We got to the convention center early. I won a draft, opened a Tarmogoyf in the MMA pack I got as a prize, and Kadar, Derek, and me womped some dudes in a team draft.
More like mana screw and bad luck womped these guys. Variance, it’s the best.
They were a treat to play team draft with. At a GP you only play the person diagonally across from you in the draft and then the draft is over. It’s not first to five wins. Super bummer. We won 2-1. I opened a Sword of Light and Shadow in my MMA prize pack.
The weekend was fantastic. My friends and I had great attitudes the whole time, win or lose. The importance of maintaining a positive mental attitude cannot be stressed enough. Jamie made Top 8. I didn’t play a single jerk opponent.
I’m gonna go play Dark Souls 2 now.
Love to all,
Matt Jones
MTGO: The_Obliterator
Twitter: Die_Obliterator
Twitch: twitch.tv/mattjonesrules
Matt Jones is a sometimes PWP grinder, all the time spell slinger, and one passionate dude. He started playing at the end of Revised and quit at Exodus. Upon sobriety and running out of self-help groups to join, Jones picked Magic back up at New Phyrexia, found his favorite non-Necropotence card, Phyrexian Obliterator, and earned himself a nickname. He loves Constructed and tolerates Limited.
*I’m not entirely sure which version of the combo he was going to pull off. A sliver of memory tells me it was actually going to be Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder combo. Due to three intense years of drug abuse and six years of alcoholism my brain doesn’t quite get there like it used to. Don’t do drugs, kids. You probably shouldn’t drink either.