uncle clay and the boys

8/3/2019 Uncle Clay and the Boys

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Uncle Clay and the Boys: The Chronicle of Canadian Beach House for Pro Tour Honolulu

This past week, I had the privilege to live with a group of over 15 other magic players in a beach house

on the gorgeous island of Oahu, Hawaii. Even writing this article on my flight home, I already miss the

house, the people I stayed with, and the island. This truly has been a once in a lifetime trip. This article

presents a chronicle of our experiences at the beach house, on the island, and at the Pro Tour. I really

hope I can do this trip justice with this article, as it is by far the best trip I have ever been on, and the

memories will surely last me a lifetime.

My trip began on Friday, a week before the Pro Tour. I decided to head to Hawaii a few days before the

beach house in order to do some of the more touristy things before moving into the beach house. My

travel companions for this part of the trip Andrew Norworaj, Ben Moir and Alexander Hayne were

excited to see the island, and we made plans to go hike up a volcano, visit the North Shore and learn to

Surf. Our only problem was the weather was way too nice, and instead of doing all the activities and

touristy trips we had planned, we ended up spending our days lounging on the beach and by the pool

frequently taking advantage of a Hawaiian delicacy called shaved ice. Shaved ice is basically an

oversized snow cone, and is extremely refreshing after a day in the sun and sand.


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It is very hard to have magic players together without playing cards. Our beach sessions winded down

with a couple cube drafts. In our first cube draft of the trip, one of the new additions to the cube,

Huntmaster of the Fells, was drafted by Ben. The card was far more impressive than anyone expected it

would be, it was so powerful when flipped to either side, and was quite easy to flip back and forth. It

generated tremendous card advantage with very little work; it seemed to naturally flip back and forth

over the course of games, giving you a little bit more value every time. This draft left us all thinking how

this card would impact our testing over the next week, and how it could be abused in standard.

Sunday

We were joined a day later by Adam Yurchick (a late, but very welcome addition to our beach house)

and Marc Anderson. While waiting for them to arrive from the airport we managed to run a few team

drafts in the hotel lobby with a couple Americans, who teach us that it is a bad idea to first pick Curse of

Misfortunes, something we had already assumed, but was not as obvious to our teammate who did so,

attempted to draft around it, and promptly 0-3d the draft.

Monday

When I travel, I have a tendency to wake up very early in the morning and go for walks around the city I

am visiting. Often my travel companions decide to keep me company in the early hours of the morning,

and this trip was no exception. Ben Moir joined me for a 5am walk around Waikiki beach and a 6am

poolside Nix-Tix RGD draft, with our time between rounds spent in the hot tub. What a way to spend a

morning.

On Monday, it was finally time to meet up with the rest of the members of the beach house and move

in. We managed to rent a large house right on the water thanks to Andrews hard work. Our trip to the

nearby grocery store got very interesting when we noticed a little shaved ice store in the mall calledHouse of Pure Aloha. We walked in and were greeted by an elderly gentleman who introduced himself

to us as Uncle Clay, and asked for our names. He gave us a half hour lesson in Hawaiian while I was

trying to pay for my shaved ice, and then proceeded to feed us our first spoonful to make sure it was to

our satisfaction. He noticed my Manadeprived shirt and told me that it was unfortunate that I lacked

mana, the Hawaiian word for spiritual energy. We visited Uncle Clay pretty much every day for a lesson

in Hawaiian, his wishes of good mana, and one of his amazing homemade shaved ices. He remembered

us by name and always greeted us with a huge smile. Should you ever find yourself in Honolulu, make

sure to visit this legendary parlor of traditional Hawaiian delicacy, but be sure to budget at least a half

hour for his epic tales.


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Once the majority of the group had arrived and we had stocked our fridge full of BBQ meats, it was time

to get down to business. We went around the room and asked people what they would play if the Pro

Tour was tomorrow. By determining each players preference, it was our hope that we could find players

to champion a deck in the metagame. By ensuring we had players who were comfortable with avariety of archetypes, we hoped to be able to slowly perfect the lists we had for each. Luckily, almost

every player wanted to play something different, giving us a varied gauntlet with players comfortable

piloting each archetype.

I was one of the Delver champions. I had my 75 ready, and was very comfortable with my list, testing

it against whatever people chose to build. Paul MacKinnon was playing a G/W Humans list with Loyal

Cathar? which he and Jared McGuire had come up with, and was quite impressive in testing. Julien

Perrault brought his Jund-Pod list to the table, originally featuring a Huntmaster as a pod target, but as

testing continued that number kept growing. The mana in the black build was a little bit awkward,

forcing you to run Evolving Wilds, so some of us decided to try to find a home for Huntmaster where themana was a little less awkward. I am generally not a fan of pod decks, as I dont like the fact that they

are just a collection of solid draft cards if you dont draw and resolve your pod. In an attempt to solve

this problem, we began brewing a R/G aggro deck which did not rely on pod, but pod provided card

advantage through the inherit value of the creatures in the deck. While the deck was fine, we found that

the 3 drop slot, occupied by Daybreak Rager, was not aggressive enough. The only acceptable card was

Blade Splicer, which forced us to splash a third colour. The token generating ability of the deck also

made Gavony Township very valuable, and our manabase became a little bit too awkward. Our final list

for the pod deck was about 6 cards off of Blohons list from the top 8.

We had players who wanted to play everything from U/B, Ramp, Grixis and Pod to much newer decks

like Mono Green, Heartless Lich and U/B Self-Mill. As not everyone had arrived yet, we spent our first

evening drafting, building a gauntlet, discussing lists and playing whatever decks we brought with us.

Tuesday

Surprisingly, when I brought up the idea of waking up very early to get in a Nix-Tix RGD draft, there were

far more people interested than I had expected. We had four laptops in drafts, finalsing/winning almost


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all of them, despite one forgetting to submit a deck, and losing my internet connection for half a pack of

picks. We also decided that we should run a mini-tournament in the house. Everyone chose the deck

that they were going to champion, or a deck that we needed to test against and signed up for a 15

man tournament that cut to top 4. The top 4 ended up being Alexander Hayne with Naya Pod, Marc

Anderson with Grixis, Paul with G/W Humans and Rob Anderson with G/W Tempered Steel, with Paul

taking first in the end. In between RGD and standard we managed to run two drafts, with 8 players

playing and the rest watching and commenting on their picks during the draft and testing standard on

the side. These drafts and the discussions that followed helped us understand the format, it was much

more important to be aggressive than in triple INN, and it also taught us how much more powerful

drafting red was in the new format.

When the suggestion of waking up for an early Nix-Tix RGD draft the next day comes up, fellow MODO

grinder Francis Cormier pointed out that time zone and downtime would stop us from doing so. So what

were we to do? The answer of course was to draft before the downtime, so we started our drafts at 1am

instead of 5. Magic players cant seem to get enough Magic, after a full day of standard testing and two

drafts, we couldnt wait to play more.

Wednesday

The Naya pod deck we brewed up was testing so well that we decided to order all the cards for the

whole house just in case. Yurchick suggests we overnight them from a California store, so we rush an

order of 30 Huntmaster of the Fells to the beach house. I just couldnt beat Huntmaster with Delver. The

deck produced far too many must-answer threats for delver to deal with. As we continued testing we

noticed the mana issues, and the constant mulligan problems. I liked our list a lot, but because of my

experience with Delver I was unwilling to switch decks without significant evidence that it was better.Testing was a lot of fun, and we absorbed a lot of information quickly. We had one board state which

took about a dozen of us 10 minutes to solve and was a lot of fun to work through.


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Here's the situation: You are the birthing pod player, you will most definitely die to the attack next turn

and your opponent just played Gideon's Lawkeeper which has summoning sickness. They are at 13 lifeand your board position looks like this. You have a Phyrexian Metamorph in your hand. Relevant cards in

your deck: Strangleroot Geist, Geralf's Messenger, Phyrexian Metamorph, Huntmaster of the Fells and

Acidic Slime. Assume your life is irrelevant (for Podding purposes) but you will die to their attack (can't

remember what it was). How do you win?


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Thursday


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A duck walked into the back door of our house, into our kitchen, pooped on our floor, and walked out

the other door. It felt like a metaphor for our testing. We were so sold on the Naya deck until we re-tested the Delver matchup after making changes to improve the humans matchup. The deck had

become far too warped. The realization that the PT was the next day sunk in and people began to

scramble a little. Our Naya pod lists mana was too awkward for me to feel comfortable running. We

begin testing G/R ramp with 4 Huntmasters, but couldnt get it to consistently beat Delver, which was

my baseline for testing. The Andersons quickly abandon their plan to play Grixis after realizing the

difficulty the deck has in dealing with cards like Stranglesoot Geist. I begin to have my own doubts about

Delver after discovering the power of Huntmaster. I ask the people in the house if we really want to be

the ones NOT playing this PTs Bloodbraid Elf. Pham and Novoraj decide that they wont pass up the

opportunity and stay up late brewing a non-pod Naya aggro list, which Pham ended up 9-1 with.

Friday

Here is a list of what everyone in the house/visitors played:

Francis Cormier: GW Humans

Daniel Pham: Naya Aggro

Andrew Norvoraj: Naya Aggro

Ben Moir: GW Humans


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Alexander Hayne: Delver

Dominic Morel: GW Humans

Julien Perrault: GW Humans

Marc Anderson: GW Humans

Brian Su: RUG Ramp

Mani Davoudi: GW Humans

Adam Yurchick: Delver

Paul MacKinnon: GW Humans

Rob Anderson: Delver

Marcel Angelo Zafra: Delver

If you are reading this to read about my performance at the Pro Tour, you may be a little disappointed.

After my solid 4-1 record in standard, I managed to 0-3 my draft pod to miss day 2. My only loss in

standard was due to a complicated board state involving a Phantasmal Image copying a Strangleroot

Geist and two opposing Geists, I timed out on a decision on key turn and ended up making the wrong

play. Round 1 I played against Solar Flare, round 2 was G/R Aggro, round 3 Humans, round 4 Naya Ramp,and round 5 was Humans again. I wouldnt change a single card in my 75 after the event, I had tested

Delver for months before the PT, and am very confident in my list. This was my 75:

4 Glacial Fortress

4 Delver of Secrets

4 Vapor Snag

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Sword of War and Peace

4 Invisible Stalker

4 Snapcaster Mage

1 Midnight Haunting

4 Ponder

4 Mana Leak

3 Moorland Haunt

4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Geist of Saint Traft

3 Gut Shot

9 Island

1 Plains

Sideboard

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

2 Timely Reinforcements2 Dismember

1 Negate

1 Gut Shot

2 Dissipate

1 Celestial Purge

2 Phantasmal Image

2 Revoke Existence


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I would still run the exact same 75.

My draft deck featured doubles of Burning Oil, Into the Maw of Hell, an Instigator Gang, Fiend of

Shadows, Angel of Flight Alabaster, Curse of Deaths Hold and a bunch of other powerful removal. I

mulligan to oblivion in all three matches and have my fair share of mana problems, but looking back, I

think I made some mistakes in the draft. I convinced myself I needed to be Black/Red at the PT despite

White being much more open than Black in my pod. There were also a few times I kept my six cards due

to frustration, when I should have mulliganed further.

Saturday

The pro tour not having any side events meant that those who day 2d could explore the island. We

decided to go for a trip to the North Shore of the island to a beach/park called Waimei. The beach is

supposed to be a surfers mecca, and the 7+ foot waves crashing against the beach really reinforced

that. After an hour in the water jumping into/over/under the waves and getting wiped out many, manytimes, the lifeguards kicked everyone who was not surfing out of the ocean saying that it was unsafe for

recreational swimming. Luckily for us, right beside the beach was a park which featured a gorgeous

freshwater waterfall and pool. In fact, it is a popular filming location, probably most recognizable as the

waterfall from the TV series Lost. The water was amazing, a little cold at first, but very refreshing. The

tiny pool dropped off from very shallow to 35 feet deep in no time. The waterfall itself was very warm,

and we were very happy to swim in some fresh water.


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One of the dealers tables was selling old draft sets, and as soon as a house member saw RGD sets on

sale, we knew what we had to do. Now that we couldnt play it online, we needed our fix. 4v4 teamRGD, even at $20 a set, what choice did we have? When given the option to RGD, a real magic player

never says no.

Our team draft took a hilarious turn when during one of my matches, the opposing team got so sick of

losing to my Skeletal Vampire that Andrew decided it was far better for his team if it was no longer in

my deck. He grabbed the Vampire, yelled AQUADRAFT!!!!!, ran outside and threw it into the ocean.


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The I missed day 2 but I dont care club

Sunday

When I woke up, I knew I had to set up a special draft for the first 6 people who woke up. We had been

discussing the logistics of it all week, but hadnt found time to actually do it. Moving the picnic table a

few feet into the ocean during low tide and covering it with a tablecloth gave us the perfect surface to

try out our new format. The Canadian beach house presents the Aquadraft:


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Aquadraft Rules

- All cards that enter the water cannot be replaced, they are permanently destroyed. This isirrelevant of how the cards entered the ocean.

- Each player is allowed one vindicate per match. Vindicate has split second. Of course,vindicating a card involves picking it up and throwing it overboard.

- When a gust of wind comes, you are responsible for ensuring your cards stay in place. Thisincludes Auras on opponents creatures (as we quickly learned when Hayne let his finger slip

off his opponents Chant of Skiffsang)

- You cannot board in more cards, but you can change the composition of your deck

As you can imagine, this format is amazing. Before my first match, I managed to knock two cards from

my library into the ocean. I had my Scab Mauler and Geralfs Mindcrusher vindicated in one game to

stop my beats, my opponents turn 2 Darkthicket Wolf followed by a turn 3 pump was promptly

slammed into the ocean. My turn 3 Geralfs Messenger was in the ocean so quickly that I couldnt even

cast the Altars Reap in my hand on it.


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Hayne trades off a Zombie in combat and proudly announces a post-combat Ghoulraiser. To his surprise

he cant find it anywhere. He looks back and discovers that the most recent gust which he was

concentrating on protecting his board from, managed to take it right from his hand into the ocean.

Against Hayne, my board has a couple weak creatures and a Laboratory Maniac. Hayne confirms that he

had used his vindicate earlier in the match. I look over at Cormier, who is on my team. Should I go forit?, he looks at me confused, clearly not seeing the line of play I see. I stare a tapped-out Hayne straight

in the eyes and swiftly swipe my hand across the table, tossing my entire library into the ocean while

extending the hand. Oops, I guess I cant draw.

If it isnt obvious, it was very hard to leave the house and say goodbye to everyone today. I got to meet

many new people, learned a ton, and had some of the most fun I will ever have. Everyone who stayed

with us at any point during our time there taught me something, and contributed directly to the

awesomeness of the trip.


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We also filmed a little intro video to the beach house that you can see below. Forgive the sound quality,

it was pretty windy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM6Cuh93BDQ&list=UU-3xgB6ZUIrc3Q-

6QgBtbOQ&index=1&feature=plcp

I will leave you on the same note we left our good friend Uncle Clay. Thanks for your support at home

during the PT and your good mana!

uncle clay and the boys

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