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To Bloem and back By Brendan Dunn Sudden Inspiration: On Thursday the 6th of May My friend Martinus and I were at Café Barcelona in Pretoria. Me: " So it's Bloem regionals on Saturday and It's the last one of the year" Marti:" Let's do it!" It was probably the booze talking, but it really seemed like a good idea. After a couple of calls I managed to organise us two decks for the event. Martinus Also found us Uber cheap accommodation right across the street from the University where we would be playing. This was meant to be. Friday: I finished with lectures around 12 and my girlfriend and I jumped in my car to go pick up decks in Joburg. After navigating the N1 and getting lost in Rosebank we met up with Albie at Savvas' Mimmo's. After Lunch and a few games we went our separate ways. Albie was kind enough to provide a UW and Jund deck for our qualifying needs (Thanks man). We made our way back to Pretoria and got stuck in Joburg traffic for a couple of hours, after we arrived back I had about two hours to pack and get ready for the trip, we would be leaving at 8:30 pm. 8:33 pm: Martinus and I hit the road in his Hyundai Getz 1.5 Diesel Monster. 9:58 pm: We cross into the Vrystaat!!! The trip was filled with talk of the possible Metagame that we were expecting, explaining to Marti the intricacies of his deck and talking about Just how good Faeries was and comparing it to Jund's dominance of the metagame now. 12:30 am: we arrive at our hotel in Bloem. We had made great time mostly because Marti was driving 160 most of the way and we were rocking out to things like Led Zeppelin, Rhutz, Meshuggah, Muse and Roadrunner united all trip long. Our Hotel room was minimalistic, but the warm bed and the shower in the morning were absolutely amazing. Saturday: My good friend Stefan Vesely from Bloem met up with us at the hotel. After talking a lot of smack and making various conclusions about the personalities of the pro players, we drove to the site. Deck choices: We sat down and started registering our decks. I would be playing your run of the mill Jund list. After having made a poor deck choice at Pretoria regionals and going 3-3, I wanted something reliable that was a proven winner. It was 74 of the 75 played by the second placed finisher at the SCG open in Atlanta. The one random Emrakul was a bit weird, I understand the logic behind playing it, but I didn't really expect any mill or howling mine decks, so I cut it for a Bit Blast. Martinus' deck on the other hand was a bit more interesting. The deck played all the same cards as your average UW tapout deck. The only difference was a splash of green for Explore and Rampant growth in the place of knight and chalice. The deck also has a potential gamebreaker in a singleton Thornling and a couple of Bant charms to act a swiss army knife of sorts. We expected there to be a bit of everything in the room. Vampires, Red, Jund, UW and Bant. Even though Stef was a lock on rating, he decided to play as it was a 32k event and a nice 4-0 wouldn't hurt. After a trip to Joburg, Joburg traffic and a 450 km drive to the heart of the freestate we were ready to battle. Round 1: Martinus with Uwg Tapout So we went through all of that travelling together and then we play against each other round 1??? Martinus offered me the concession, but I decided that if I wanted to win this event I would have to to do it the hard way. I didn't tell Martinus this, as I knew it would allow him to relax and just play his game. I won the die roll and I was on the play. My draw was slow and a turn 5 siege gang got in with the kids once before Martinus Wrathed them all away. He was replaced by his brother. Martinus dug with Huge mindsprings, but no solution was forthcoming and the gangbanger stole game one. Game 2 had Martinus on the play and he had a nearly perfect draw as he went Martial Coup to wrath away my team. This was followed by double Baneslayer and a huge Mind spring...GG Game 3 got underway with me applying some early pressure. Martinus dealt with most of my guys with bant charm, Oblivion ring and celestial purge. He also had spreading seas on one of my lands. I was sitting with Double siege gang, garruk and ruinblaster with neither the quantity nor the colours required to cast them. A path to exile on one of my guys and rampant growth got me out of jail and I was able to grind out a very very tough game 3. I was pleased with the win, but brutally disappointed that it was at the expense of my best friend. 1-0 Round 2: Jonahan with RGW allies Jonahan put on some early pressure with Kazandu Blademaster, he ate Terminate and sprouting thrinax joined my side of the board. An akoum battlesinger and a few Orin rief survivalists showed up for the allies player. Whilst a leech came to fight for team Jund. My plan to blow him out with Maelstrom pulse was thwarted as bloodbraid elf brought with it Dauntless escort. I played Siege gang commander and passed. He attacked with the larger Orin reefs and I blocked in such a way that forces him to use the Indestructable ability on his Rhino.This means that I was left on a precarious 8 life. I untapped, pulsed away his three green guys and make some more dudes. I attacked with the leech and thrinax and he took it like a man. Kabira Evangel comes down on his side and it spelled trouble for me. His battlesinger got in there for 2 and I am left on a very uncomfortable 6. My guys keep attacking though and Jonahan is forced to block with his bloodbraid. He had one turn to draw any ally, give his guys proc and win, it was not to be and we moved on to game 2. I brought in Doom blade and hence I had Blade, Bolt, Pulse and terminate to deal with his guys. All the removal showed up throughout game 2 and I took it pretty easily with my life total never dropping below 10. 2-0 Stef had also cruised to 2-0 at this point, Martinus was 1-1, having taken down an Eldrazi conscription deck. This was after he was hit by a 15/15 doublestriking Rafiq of the many... :-) Round 3: Stef with Jund Playing the mirror against one of the best players in the country, it was going to be a great challenge. Stef explained a very intricate way of rolling four dice to decide who starts. Stef: " Dice 1 + Dice 2 - Dice 3 x Dice 4" Apparently we could get up to 100 this way. Stef rolled 6 and I beat him with 7... seems our dice skills are kinda lame. I got a decent draw on the play. We matched Putrid Leeches and removed every living creature as soon as it hit the board on either side. I had cast two blightnings and this coupled with bloodbraid elf took game one. Stef was on the play game two and came hard at me with Leech and Bloodbraid elf which cascaded into Jund charm pumping up the leech. My Goblin Ruinblaster looked pretty ordinary in comparison to his monsters that were eating my life total. I Pulsed the leech and dropped a thrinax. The thrinax and Bloodbraid traded and my three new saprolings and a raging ravine got to work on evening things out. Unfortunately Stef was able to Bolt and Blightning me to take game two. Not a bad effort considering he didn't get passed four lands. My opener for game three was curvey, with turn three Thrinax into a kicked ruinblaster on turn 4. Another thrinax and a bloodbraid elf joined my team and Stef fought back with a very one sided Jund charm. 3/3's don't die to that though and my excellent draw took the match. 3-0 Round 4: Johannes Botma with Bant I was 3-0 and on top of the standings at this stage, Bothma was the only other undefeated so we decided to Id and get some lunch. 3-0-1 After we returned from buying the customary Pie and coke I sat down to watch Martinus Battling against Jund in the last round. He was on the bubble and needed to win to make it. He managed to take game two and with only ten minutes on the clock they were off to game three. Spreading seas managed to keep the Jund player at bay and with time running low on the clock Martinus dropped two Baneslayers into play. Things were looking good. Unfortunately Bloodbraid elf came down for the Jund player and found a terminate for one of the Slayers. They went to time and being active player when time was called Marti only had two more swings left, by my calculations he would fall agonisingly short. He played a massive Mindspring in his penultimate turn trying to find an answer. None was forthcoming and the match ended in a draw. Perspective: When Marti cast the massive Mindspring he also had a stirring wildwood in play. I would have thought that activating the wildwood would have been the play as it would have dropped his opponent lower. I asked Martinus about his thoughts behind the mind spring and it turns out he was trying to find a thornling. A 7/1 hasted trampler would have won him the match. I didn't think about or see this play as a possibility. The Play I wanted to make would have left the opponent at 1 as he had guys to block the wildwood the following turn. One shouldn't be critical of another person's decision before one understands why they made it. It is easy being the spectator but when you are in the hot seat it is a completely different story. The Results: I ended up finishing second on tiebreakers and my congratulations must go out to Bothma on his fine performance. Many thanks to Roelf for hosting a great event and my congratulations to those Bloem natives who will be rocking at Nationals this year. Thanks to Stef for being a great host. I would also like to thank Martinus for being an awesome travelling partner and road warrior. Hard luck on missing out budd, You are a legend. Check you guys at Nats. -Brendan Dunnski
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