Loots

A Response Reflection on Paul’s Kumite!II Report

So I have been thinking about this a lot since the tournament and I will first and foremost say: None of those thoughts were about “how you should have conceded to me”. Mostly the thoughts were self-reflecting on how I prepare for and play in events and what I want to get out of them. Also about what kind of player / person I would like people to know me as. This play in particular, just made me feel like a bad player and I’m actually more embarrassed / mad at myself than anything else. You don’t get this opportunity all the time, with the stars aligning, with a dumb deck like I was on. I felt like I was very well positioned to make T8 and was disappointed that I didn’t. I’m hoping that writing this all out will allow me to let it go and enjoy playing again my next time out.

To the best of my recollection: After the Eureka resolved, I started combo’ing out by sac’ing lands and drawing cards. After sac’ing all the forests in play, I had drawn Lotus, DT, a Savannah, Eureka, lots of permanents, but had no mana floating and no other mana. At this point, my line was 100% to DT for Time Walk; this is a common, well known line that came up frequently in testing. I knew what I had to do.

So I have 4 mana (I think), with the Savannah Lotus but need blue to cast Time Walk. I figure I will draw into more land. I put in Savannah under Fastbond and went to tap it before sac’ing it and Paul stopped me, reminding me that it was sick. This threw me off 100% and I lost focus on my line and how to achieve it. I tanked and tried to figure out the line that I could win just using the Lotus mana. I didn’t have Regrowth, but I could DT for it, but I could only make BBB off Lotus…

At this point, I should have flopped my cards on the table, I had about 15 cards or so in hand. He had not Disenchanted or Boomeranged my Lich; if he could have killed me on my turn, he would have done it by then, in response to something. I thought I was mumbling out loud out DT and Regrowth but maybe not. In hindsight, I should have fully talked through it and shown the line I was going for and shown how I was short on the blue mana, and done the last sac open. But for whatever reason, I didn’t flop my cards on the table, and I tried to figure it out myself.

So what I did do was, I sac’ed that Savannah. And drew the Sapphire I needed to cast Time Walk; and since I was so focused on needing B and G for my line, I promptly cast Lotus, Sapphire -> Eureka, put a bunch of stuff on the table and passed the turn.

On Paul’s turn he went DT -> Regrowth -> Boomerang Lich, GG.

Paul was on Living Plane so 100% sure that he is my type of guy; I’m also 100% sure that if I HAD flopped my cards on the table, showed the line I was going for, and flipped the drawn cards face up, showing the Sapphire, that he would have just said, “Oh, yeah, Lotus -> DT -> Walk. GG.”