Last March, my brother put together the first ever Wolfpack Invitational. The idea was simple, eight friends would get together and play three formats round robin style. After seven rounds, the tournament would cut to top four, where there would be a single elimination bracket to determine the winner. After battling with three different cubes, I was declared the winner and awarded my very own Wolfpack Invitational trophy.
After five months, Eric decided he didn’t want to wait until next year to do the next invitational and decreed the Wolfpack Invitational would be bi-annual. This time we would battle with our decks from the Power Cube Rotisserie Draft, play out an Origins draft, and jam games with the ever popular Ravnica Cube.
This past Sunday, everyone gathered at my apartment at 11AM for a day of Magic.
The casual pose of all the competitors.
The cat pose.
After the pictures had been taken, Commissioner Eric laid out the plans for the day.
We would play two rounds of Rotisserie, two rounds of Origins, two rounds of Rav Cube, and then one final round of Rotisserie. After that the top four would battle. The lower seed would eliminate a format and the higher seed would choose the format from the remaining two choices. The finals would be a best 3 out of 5 with each format appearing at least once.
Before playing any games Eric also unveiled some exclusive tokens including my very own Shawn Massak plant token:
Then we sat down for our first round pairings:
I started off the day 1-1 with my Blue/Red Control deck:
Tim’s 1-1 Show and Tell/Reanimator
Paul’s 0-2 GW Little Kid
Nik’s 2-0 GB Ramp
Eric’s 1-1 UB Control
Not included are Phil’s 0-2 Mono Red Deck, Garretts 1-1 Bant Midrange, and Max’s 2-0 Five Color Aggro Deck.
After two rounds of Rotisserie, we switched to Origins. I prioritized two and three drops and ended up with a nice looking, albeit removal light, GB deck:
I went 1-1 again, beating Tim and losing to Max. Here are more decks:
Nik’s 1-1 WR Aggro
Tim’s 1-1 RW Aggro
Phil’s 1-1 UB Fliers
Not pictured are Eric’s 0-2 GB Elves, Garrett’s 1-1 Mystery deck, and Paul’s 1-1 Mystery deck.
I wasn’t feeling great with my 2-2 record and knew I would need to crush the Ravnica Cube Draft for a chance to make top four.
I started off strong with a P1P1 Savage Twister.
Nik was ready to take this match down.
I managed to start off 2-0 with this monstrosity:
Naya Tokens
Here are all the other decks:
Nik’s 1-1 Sultai Brew
Eric’s 1-1 Simic Deck
Phils 0-2 Boros Aggro
Paul’s 1-1 Jund Concotion
Tim’s 1-1 Jeskai Control
The final round we switched back to Rotisserie Power Cube.
Garrett is the dude in the Boros Hoodie. Max is getting ready to crush him.
Sometimes you cast Ancestral Recall off Shardless Agent.
The top four ended up being Max, Me, Nik, and Tim.
I was paired against Nik. He decided against playing our decks from the Origins draft. Despite defeating him the round prior in Power Cube, I chose to play with our Rav Cube decks.
After a tight three games, I manged to win our match on the back of populating several Voice of Resurgence elemental tokens. Meanwhile, Max was able to beat Tim in three games of Power Cube.
The finals came down to Max and I. Game one was Origins, Game two was Power, Game three was Rav and then if necessary Game four would be Power and Game five would be Rav Cube.
After three close games, I managed to take the match.
I became two time Wolfpack Invitational Champion and the winner of a pretty excellent medal:
At age 15, while standing in a record store with his high school bandmates, Shawn Massak made the uncool decision to spend the last of his money on a 7th edition starter deck (the one with foil Thorn Elemental). Since that fateful day 11 years ago, Shawn has decorated rooms of his apartment with MTG posters, cosplayed as Jace, the Mindsculptor, and competes with LSV for the record of most islands played (lifetime). When he’s not playing Magic, Shawn works as a job coach for people with disabilities and plays guitar in an indie-pop band.