Part 1: The List

After the release of MH2, I had been playing a lot of urza’s saga versions of the deck, to reasonable modo-league success.  The main list I used was similar to what is shown here but with:

• Maindeck: -2 ports -1 field +snow forest +4th saga or depths.
• Sideboard: -needle +field

I really like maintaining a high colored-source count – and think the 2nd forest helps a lot in matchups where your mana is under pressure like delver (casting sideboard hammer endurance through wasteland) or miracles (activating staged urza’s saga through back to basics).  I always regret registering 14, and think people are missing that shaving groves and/or fetches affects your even-more-fragile red count, which is vital in games where you want to be able to blast, and/or punishing fire multiple times.  

However, in the two weeks before the tournament, I was a bit overcome by events and hadn’t had the time to iron out the last few slots in the list.  I also hadn’t played any paper legacy in over a year (50% of the reason I’ve stopped playing Sylvan Library is to avoid manual dexterity violations) and was completely in the dark about the Phoenix metagame.  I was expecting the top three decks, based on last year’s information, to be Bant Control, UR Delver, and Taxes.   I was also expecting people to be extremely prepared for saga, since the Jeskai saga deck had just been breaking out on Modo – nightmares of getting my board serenitied, forced of vigor or melted down put the fear into me so I moved the field to the main. We’ll talk about this more later, but that was a mistake –  field is not good in your heavy saga deck because you spend so much time wastelanding yourself.  I knew that going in, many players better than me had said as much, but I was playing scared (If I actually wanted to commit to this metagame call I should have just gone to 1 or less saga.). I also cut two lands mostly at random for rishadan ports – I wanted a bit more hedge against the bant deck and opposing sagas. I had 5 sphere effects because that’s what you do as a lands player who wants to pretend to care about the combo matchups – registering a thorn is a sacrifice to ensure you don’t get matched vs lotus petal.  The sideboard needle was inspired by dull04 as a flexible 6th card against combo decks that also can force action in fair matchups.  So on the Thursday before the tournament, I sleeved it up, locked in my list and didn’t think about legacy until the event – stopping last-minute min/maxing is key to the mental game.  

The metagame ended up having almost zero bant (replaced by the surprising popularity of jeskai saga), but a good amount of UR delver and Taxes.   I think if I ran it back I would play:

• Maindeck: -field -yavimaya +port +snow forest

I sided field out in 7 of my 11 matches, and never activated my own field of the dead all day.   Meanwhile ports were great against the white decks and fine in some of the delver matchups.   

Yavimaya was exactly fine, but I want my 2nd basic back just for manabase stability reasons – could also imagine keeping it and cutting the 3rd port for the basic.  Also might miss Yavimaya once I can’t have it. Tbd.

I would also consider dropping pyrite for cursed scroll or maybe the 3rd punishing fire.  Pyrite was clunky all day, which is why I’m recommending a card that costs 3 to activate and sometimes does nothing… but my saga opponent had it and I was jealous.  

Quick note that I don’t want to claim to be any sort of expert – I’m a good enough player to get over the threshold where luck can carry me to victory…   I also was playing against a lot of people who didn’t seem to have a good handle on their Lands matchup and/or had built their decks in ways that didn’t respect it. I faced zero land hate harsher than wastelands, and got surgicalled once all day.  That said I 4-0’d my modern FNM with Esper control the night before the tournament so obviously I’m the next PVDDR and my word is gospel.

Part 2: The Event

The tournament is in Phoenix, an almost two hour drive from my house, at a store I’ve never heard of.  My darling cat had chosen this week to invent a new game where she aggressively wakes me up at 5:00 each morning and I haven’t played a match of legacy this month.  So I’m at peak performance.  The plan is simple – also in Phoenix is an excellent south indian restaurant called Udupi Cafe.  I’m going to drive up, cast some loams, and drop in time to get a dosa.   Now, it’s important to remember that Udupi Cafe’s Saturday hours are 11:00am-3:00, 5:00pm-9:00.  With a 12:00pm tournament start there’s an awkward break 3:00-5:00 where I might be out of the tournament before the dinner menu opens, so I bring my Kindle just in case. 

The morning of the tournament, I put a pot of tea on (using the last of my good yellow) and do a quick workout (wizard poker is a full-contact sport so I want to be warmed up).   Then I gas up my 2015 Honda Fit and start driving.   I listen to Florist’s “The Birds Outside Sang” (Emily Sprague, known magic player) on the drive up.  I skip back to hear “Thank You” a total of three times.  This is what the kids call “Manifesting.”

I roll into the store 25 minutes before tournament start and pay my 30$ to the cashier.  I ask for a deck reg sheet, and am informed that it’s all online. The future has left me behind.  They ask if I have a Facebook.  I tell them “I mean, vaguely.”  This is apparently obstructive enough that they hand me a macbook to type my deck into some google form.   I imagine myself  just straight omitting or miscounting a card from my reg sheet, which is done as a single line in a pedestrian textbox typed on an unfamiliar keyboard.   Nobody deck checks me all day so we never find out.

I look around the room and see that the two people who were also considering coming up from Tucson are absent.  “It’s so far,” they say.  Well it’s a long road to the finals either way.  I recognize legacy celebrity Tony Murata (into_play on twitch).   We’ve played exactly once and I don’t feel like bothering him with a parasocial relationship, so I chill until round one pairings come out, and then continue to chill until round 1 repairings are up (they told everyone at signup to enter the code into the app but magic players are known for being unable to follow basic directions).  72 players in attendance.  I think about my lunch order.  How many leftovers do I want?  

Round 1 v Elves (W: 2-1, 1-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 1-0).

I sit down at table one and make a joke about how that’s the last time I’ll be seen there (this is foreshadowing).    I start shuffling up and my opponent comments that based on the glance of a card I just revealed I’m playing the same deck as their wife and they can’t possibly win.   I joke back that they’re assuming a level of competence I don’t think I’m going to deliver while silently cursing myself for what I’m sure will be a long series of dexterity failures.  

Game 1: I play the tabernacle then combo and they die. 

Sideboard: -1 loam, 2 valakut, bog, field +needle, 4 spheres.

Game 2: They put a leyline into play and I mentally pump my fist.   I don’t think this card matters in the matchup.  I have a tabernacle and sphere but they have ouphe and enough mana to pay for dorks and are beating down.   I eventually waste them low enough that they have to sac everything but the ouphe and I triumphantly cast my pyrite spellbomb to kill it and free my diamonds.   Listeners at home will have already realized that you can’t kill ouphe with spellbomb. I had aggressively fetched for my lone basic forest (why would you do that against elves), so when a trophy kills my tabernacle i’m too far down on mana to do anything and die to the horde.  Fixing both of those plays would have given enough mana to combo.

Game 3: They have a slow start with another leyline against through my turn 2 sphere into tab.  They trophy the tab again and I create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible but they rip successive cradles to cast endurance through the tabernacle while I waste them in the abyss.  Apparently they had lethal with allosaurus pump if they rip the 3rd cradle but I didn’t consider it because math is for blockers and I don’t plan on blocking. 

After the match, my opponent shows me their sideboard plan which doesn’t involve any copies of run afoul, basically the only card that I’m scared of.

Round 2 v UR Delver (W: 2-1, 2-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 2-0).

My opponent sits down and politely introduces themselves.  They’re playing all printouts (which is allowed by tournament rules).   I appreciate that they took the effort to do that instead of what I’ve seen other people doing and sharpie-ing over other cards, which I find impossible to parse.   Defs came in planning to lose because I miss that a scoured barrens is actually wasteland or an island was secretly volcanic. 

Game 1:  They go turn 1 volc into ragavan, then force my exploration.   Ragavan flips only lands off the top, but they bolt my constructs and eventually I die to 200$ goblin piker.   

Sideboard: -field, 2 valakut, tomb, 2 crops +3 endurance, 3 Blast

(Maybe i want pithing needle in this matchup but I don’t want to figure out what to cut for it)

Game 2: They have a channeler, but it isn’t flipping so the clock is abysmal.  I’m wasting them really aggressively to try and keep them from cantripping, and use bog to hopefully block regent.   When they surveil a submerge into the graveyard I know the game is over – they have at least one in hand and I’m pretty sure their other cards are force + murktide.  So I eot rotate into force pitching regent, then untap, put a dark depths on the table and make marit lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible.   Using my giant brain I have cleverly sandbagged two forests in my hand so they can’t cast their second submerge and we go to game three. 

Game 3: Now that I know they are on submerge I don’t play any forests, bait a wasteland with saga, make a token on turn 4 and they scoop.  Game is easy when they only play 5 mana answers.   

Round 3: UR Delver (W: 2-1, 3-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 3-0)

We’re back at table 1.   The player sitting next to me is someone I know is on ANT and makes a joke about all the filthy blue players clogging the high tables.   I comment that not playing blue in legacy is handicapping yourself.   I was on miracles the one time I played the ANT pilot and got completely ruined. Not smart enough to cast ponder. 

Game 1:  I go forest, exploration, saga and my opponent remarks that they had kept a hand that was good in the blue mirror.   I have successfully deployed psychological warfare.  They play a delver and we enter a race between my constructs and their 2 delvers.  I’m winning the race until they cast a maindeck TNN.  I ask them why they’ve decided to build their deck well when there are all these shiny new cards they could be playing.   They tell me that TNN is super good but I already know that and force it on blocking duty for my 4/4s.  A second TNN flips the race even though I summon the witch – they have maindeck borrowers and my opponent is rewarded for smart deckbuilding.

Board same as last round. 

Game 2: We enter the same game as before but my constructs get borrowed and they can’t find a true-name.  The tabernacle is keeping them from developing too much and karakas pins their ragavan.  Eventually they clear the tabernacle and have murktide+delver against my 5/5 constructs with punishing fire surgicaled.  They have one card in hand and appear to be considering it.   I make a joke about meltdown for 1.  They say “I guess so” and cast meltdown for 1. Shit.  I use my 2 diamonds which are my only green sources to crack map for stage, with depths in hand.  I see the stage on top of my library while searching and laugh.   Draw a second stage anyway the next turn decline a maze activation and show them Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature with indestructible and flying. 

Game 3: They have turn 1 delver which I punishing fire.  I waste them a few times and they are stuck on one land v ports for a few rounds.   Eventually they recover and play a murktide, which I blast.  I’m getting low on life against their delver when I draw into the combo.   They don’t have a borrower, I blast their delver and we enter Witch Time. 

This match was some of the most fun magic I’ve ever played and I’m really glad I was lucky enough that my opponent never cast a true-name in any postboard games.  

Round 4: UR Delver (W: 2-0, 4-0 overall, Field to Sideboard 4-0)

At this point I’m 3-0 and drop to table 4.  I wander around the room and scout the competition.  I immediately forget every linkage between face and deck type but definitely feel like I’ve prepared for my future matchups.  

Game 1: My opponent did not get the memo that they should play a bunch of TNNs and Borrowers so their ragavan flips lands for a few turns before getting karakas’d and their channeler is held off by maze before I waste their wasteland and combo in response.  Marit Lage, a 20/20 black avatar creature token with flying and indestructible, eats their delirious channeler and then eats their face. 

Same board as R2.

Game 2: My opponent is burning through their deck with channelers but I’m keeping them off with a maze and bleeding slowly.   I’m at two life when I play an urza’s saga, they overreact and dump their hand of 4 one-drops.   I rotate for blast zone, pick up the 4-for-1 and sweat bullets hoping they’ve sided out their bolts.   They cast a bunch of iterations but can’t find anything before I loam back my saga and kill them with constructs. Probably would have lost this one if they’d taken it a bit slower.

At this point I’m 4-0 and need one win out of the next 3 to probably make top 8. Delver matchup is feeling great.  Another lands player from the discord stops by to say hi, they’re 3-1 and really don’t want to have to play the mirror.  I’ll just keep winning and we’ll never worry about it.  I eat some almonds and prunes from my bag.  I walk down to the dollar store and buy a gatorade.  Hydration is essential and I left my refillable waterbottle at work.

Round 5: Madness (L: 0-2, 4-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-0)

I’m top seed and playing the pair down.  A bunch of scenarios flash through my eyes  where I lose and torch my breakers and get 9th.   

Game 1:  I’m on the draw and keep a medium hand with a diamond and a turn 3 lage + loam / waste.  They go badlands into burning inquiry.  We spend more time in this game randomizing discards than taking game actions, I lose my acceleration to the casino, decline to rotate for tabernacle thinking I can wait a turn to combo, and die to rootwallas + vengivine. 

I have no plan for my sideboard here so I bring in force, sphere, endurance and take out a pile of cards including field of the dead.  

Game 2: I keep a hand with sphere, combo pieces and endurance + pitch.  I endurance their turn 1 vengevine, draw expedition map instead of the mana source I need to combo and then die to rootwallas.   Rootwalla is the red delver and this is the most aggro legacy deck I’ve ever seen. Full respect. 

I take the L, consider dropping (our round was so blistering we have over 30 minutes left in the round and maybe I should just go get in position for 5:00 reopening of indian food).  I decide to stick it out for one more, but consider going on tilt. I decide not to go on tilt, eat some almonds and read a few chapters of Hugo-Award-Winning Novella “How to Lose the Time War” instead.  Book is pretty, not sure if I love it yet.   Other Lands player got the win so we’re in the same bracket and my nonsense alarm starts going off.  

Round 6: GW Depths (Unintentional Draw: 1-1, 4-1-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-1)

I dodge the Lands mirror and sit down against a player I know is on GW Depths.   They make a comment about beating their opponent through pithing needle with stage copying port.   I know I’ll be protected from that mistake because my needle is only naming knight.   This is a matchup I haven’t played enough and was pretty worried about.

Game 1: They go hard crop rotating for a fetch to save their reclaimer with pyrite spellbomb.  I put my bog into play after damage killing it.  They cast a knight but can’t buff it and it dies to punishing fire.  I untap with valakut on turn 5 or so and the game is over. 

Sideboard: -1 mox -1 ancient tomb -2 depths -1 tab + 3 endurance +1 force +1 needle 

Game 2: They have a bunch of prismatic endings that kill my explorations and valakuts then force my diamonds leaving me with zero colored sources.  They have an active reclaimer that they’re pushing up the chain but aren’t drawing any action.  Eventually they get field of the dead and start making zombies.  I leverage my ports to get a copy of their field but have less land volume than them and have trouble keeping up with zombies.  I use endurances to flash kill their reclaimer and eat zombies, but forget to maze a 4/3 knight of autumn and go from 12 to 8 unnecessarily.  Math is for blockers and I’m not doing it.  They are drawing stages and copying field while I draw mox diamonds and I eventually die to the alpha strike.  This game took over 30 minutes and we’ve got 1:30 on the clock going into game 3. 

Game 3: I make two constructs and have punishing fire grove but it’s not enough to get them to zero in 5 turns.  It’s possible I should have boarded in all my depths for yolo purposes over field / saga types of things.  I’m not actually the main character so my opponent doesn’t offer to scoop to me and we pick up a draw.

Round 7: Lands (Win: 1-0, 5-1-1 overall, Field to Sideboard 5-2)

And here we are.  Taking my draw last round means I need to win out to guarantee top 8.  Rolling into the Lands mirror just as we feared.  My opponent is 5-1 but because of my unintentional draw last round we can’t just draw to get two lands decks into top 8.  I feel bad here for letting down team tabernacle.  We shuffle up and get ready for the height of competitive magic the gathering. 

Game 1: We both mull to 5.  I pyrite my opponent’s reclaimer and we play silly buggers wasting each other for a few turns before I resolve valakut and run away with card advantage.  

Sideboard: -2 depths -1 tab -2 maze -1 pyrite +3 endurance +3 force

My opponent scoops to me after game one and goes home for brisket equity.  Thanks mate.  Hope we’ll make it pay off.  I got back to the dollar store to get a bottle of water.  I’m pretty anxious that the cashier will judge me for buying two separate items on the same day but honestly she was probably completely unbothered.   I read two more chapters of Time War and get hydrated.   People clap for top 8 announcements which is imo pretty gauche.  Loud clapping is something they invented in a time before people realized laudanum was bad for you.

Top 8:  Death and Taxes (Win 2-1, 6-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 5-3)

Top 8 agrees to split prizes. Usually I’m on team “no splits kill them all” but it’s top heavy enough that the split (190$ credit at a store in a different town) is better than any finish below second and first place still gets an invitation to the master’s tournament at the end of the year so there’s still reason to compete.   It’s past 6 right now so I’m not planning on getting past top 8 in order to hit my dosa timing.  At this point I’ve eaten only almonds and prunes in the last 10 hours and my stomach is starting to hurt.  Someone mentions that top 8 is supposed to be open decklists, which is good to know. It turns out they hadn’t actually printed them out so I’m saved from the risk of comparing to my hastily-typed list from the morning and my opponent and I trade boxes to inspect lists ourselves.   

They’re on classic Death and Taxes, nothing fancy, 60 cards, Kaldra, 1 prelate.  With 2 rip 2 surgical 1 prelate 1 cataclysm in the board.   I think this matchup was extremely good prior to modern horizons 2 but Kaldra is basically unanswerable from the Lands deck which forces you to actually kill your opponent instead of just grinding for years which used to be the plan.  

Game 1: I keep a hand with diamond, reclaimer, loam.  They swords my turn 1 reclaimer then play stoneforge fetching kaldra.   I don’t have an answer for the stoneforge and try to loam for tabernacle (they have only two lands) while making Marit Lage every turn, but I keep flipping combo pieces and eventually they skyclave my exploration and I slow down.  I draw a punishing fire and think “now I can get my lage through flickerwisp”, they give it pro red and I swing triumphantly while forgetting that creatures with flying can literally just block other creatures with flying.   Bad look.  I die to dorks a few turns later.  

Sideboard: -1 diamond -1 loam -tomb -bog -ghost quarter -2 depths +3 force, 3 endurance, 1 needle

I think some number of endurance is decent, it blocks well. 3 might be too many.

Game 2: I keep a hand with force, two green cards, forest and stage + saga.  This is a great hand in the old version of the death and taxes matchup but ignores the new version where kaldra instantly kills you.  My opponent unfortunately knows what they are doing and casts turn 2 stoneforge for kaldra compleat.  They make a comment about it being sortof boring that that’s basically always the right choice.  I say “yeah these new cards are really good” while putting my urza’s saga into play.  They warp in kaldra on 3 and start beating.    I untap on turn 4, seeing the entire lands community laughing at me for losing to Taxes, which as everyone knows “is basically free,” topdeck my one-of dark depths and put it into play.  My opponent plays a land, swings for 6 and I decide it’s time to go for broke and just take it without blocking.   They tank for a bit before tapping out for cataclysm.  I know from seeing their deck that they don’t have solitude so I create Marit Lage, a 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and indestructible. I am very clear to everyone who will listen that I intend to not sacrifice the token to cataclysm, and we go to game 3.  My opponent apparently was just stuck with a bunch of graveyard hate in hand.

Game 3:  This one is on camera https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=00h30m46s.   This is what the matchup looks like when your opponent doesn’t get to put Kaldra into play.  My opponent mulligans and plays turn 1 vial so I decide to not play around surgical and go super aggro with mana denial. Maybe they went lower on graveyard hate after getting spooked last round by the token. I have an unanswered exploration + loam, force the vial before it reaches 3, my opponent tutors for prelate, I pfire their recruiter when they try to path it for mana, and they never cast another spell as the constructs roll in.  There’s a judge call in the middle where I miss my saga trigger but it’s a simple rewind.  Definitely getting sloppy in hour 10.

Top 4: Jeskai Saga (Win 2-0, 6-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 5-4)

We check out each other’s decks.  My opponent is on the new hotness, a deck that I can’t believe exists – Jeskai Saga Control.  I’ve also never seen it played so maybe it’s busted but it’s a 3 color control deck with zero basics that can’t play any nonbasic hate outside of wastelands and only 2x artifacts as graveyard interaction.  I roll through their list and am pretty sure I can only lose if I brick completely and they kill me with goblin piker.  They want to wait for the madness v BR reanimator match to finish in order to be on camera but it’s after 7 and I want to blitz this match and eat Indian food so I convince them to jam round 1. 

Game 1: This one is unfortunately not on camera – it’s probably the sweetest game of the night.  I keep seven with zero colored sources.  Waste waste tab stage saga loam blast zone.  I didn’t bother counting but I thought the jeskai deck only plays 3 ragavan, and as long as they don’t play it on turn one I literally can’t lose.  They go fetch pass. I play stage.  They play saga.  I untap on turn 3, waste their saga.  They fetch tundra and stifle.  They are baited and outsmarted.   I play another waste and waste their tundra.  They have one land in play and it’s going to waste itself without generating value.  I deploy my own saga, we chat about the saga / stage interaction.  I make constructs, they cast murktide, murktide chumps the constructs, they cursed scroll themselves for lethal, revealing 3 force of wills.  I cast zero relevant spells. 

The badlands mirror finishes up – BR Reanimator defeats Madness.  I think to myself that either way badlands is a bad matchup for lands.  This joke does not deserve your respect but I’m pretty delirious. 

Sideboard: -1 mox, -4 crop -1 reclaimer -2 depth -1 tab.  +3 force +3 blast +3 sphere.  

In retrospect I’m pretty sure this might be the wrong sideboarding, their answers to spheres are unaffected by sphere (prismatic, explosives), and I think  would rather have the endurances to delay murktide and block in order to get access to our wildly superior endgame.   I also considered pithing needle to emergency shut off their wastelands or something but forgot to bring it in.  

Game 2: On Camera at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=01h31m50s.

My opponent has a turn 1 ragavan.  It’s 8:30 pm.  I need this game to be over right now so I’m not playing around daze.  Exploration resolves, then gets ending’d.  Ragavan flips sphere which I try to convince my opponent to cast.   They decline.  Valakut also doesn’t get dazed.  I have a second one in hand.  Ragavan flips exploration.   I joke that that actually seems good for them.  They take the bait and cast exploration, putting them crucially behind on artifact count and revealing that they have a bunch of lands in hand. They vomit 1 drops to 1 card in hand and their last card isn’t stifle so I get my second 4-1 blast zone of the day. They make another mistake the next turn by tapping out for murktide instead of getting full value from their sagas.  I see they have only one card in hand so I blast the murktide and waste a saga. They make the same mistake tapping out to ending my valakut.   Next turn force cleans up their last saga and a retrofitter construct and I’m free to become the better saga deck.   I played field on turn 1 this game and never activated it.  

Finals: BR Reanimator (Win 2-0, 7-1-1 overall, Field to sideboard 6-4)

I know my opponent is on reanimator, and gave the other Lands player their one loss in regulation.  Matchup is pretty terrible but endurance has given you some turn 0 interaction, just of a type that’s pretty easy to play around.  Game 2 of Semis went too long, it’s now too late to drive to Udupi.  Something along the lines of “I came here to win at magic and eat dosas, and one of those things is off the table” floats through my head.

We compare decks.  It’s a shame my opponent won’t be baited into bringing in their reverent silences but I get to see that they have no Tidespout, no children, no magus.  Instead they have the two targets from Modern Horizons 2, Archon and the Angel that gives protection from anything.    Both of them have apparently been completely off the chain.

Full match on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1083075225?t=01h55m07s

Game 1:  I have the play being third overall seed.  This probably ups my winrate 20%.   I open close to the best 7 possible – green source, 2x crop, loam stage gq saga.  As long as I don’t get t1’d with Chancellor, I have bog through a discard spell.  My opponent keeps 7, I sweat through pregame actions, zero chancellor.  They try to turn 1 an ashen rider by unmasking self, zero protection.  I bog them leaving angel and petal in hand. They draw lands, I deploy saga, they looting into a reanimated chancellor, my constructs are 6/6, chancellor chumps.  I miss lethal by not getting pyrite spellbomb, they scoop anyway.  

Sideboard: -2 loam -2 valakut -1 reclaimer -1 exploration -1 pyrite -2 punishing fire -field -zone -tab +3 force + 4 sphere +1 thorn +3 endurance +1 needle

Game 2:  Great hand with endurance + 2 green cards, sphere, stage, waste, depths.  Our opponent knows what they signed up for and is uninterested in protection, going for turn 1 unmask self, reanimate grislebrand. I endurance pitching exploration, and draw a second endurance because we literally cannot lose.  I sweat a minute on turn 2 tapping myself out of endurance to cast sphere, they entomb in response which requires me to fade another reanimate.  I do and I untap, drawing a colored source.   They loot some more creatures into the grave and go for exhume which I endurance again.  That taps me off of the combo but my opponent scoops it up.

The win qualifies me for the end of the year masters event which means I don’t have to drive to phoenix for every monthly, and I think has min cash or something?  Who knows I’m starving and my phone is dead but I’m pretty sure I know where a waffle house is.  I walk outside into a gathering storm.  It’s the best weather in the world, the air is thick and wet and humming with electricity.

I make it to waffle house.  It’s closed. Lightning strikes in the distance.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index

I listen to Bell Witch’s “Mirror Reaper” on the drive home.