Mark Slack
4/3/2006

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PC Atlanta was one of the more interesting Pro Tours in recent history. I love modern formats without Dr. Light in them, and Atlanta was a chance to get ahead of the game, especially with such a short time between the set's release and the PC. However, reality decided to impose itself on my tournament (that reality is that I suck), and after a mediocre 4-5 performance at the PC, I've decided to try to determine where I went wrong. I've come up with a few areas that, put together, drastically affected my prediction of the metagame.

My Tournament

I think we had a decent deck for the metagame I expected, which was the Morlock evasion deck featured in the early rounds on the Metagame coverage here. In fact, Jason Green went 7-3 with the deck, including a 5-2 record against Squadron and 2-0 against X-Faces, with the final loss coming to a Mental stall deck. I went 1-2 against Squadron (at least one of those should have been a win--more on that later), 0-1 against X-Faces, 1-2 against Avengers, and 2-0 against Brotherhood.

Round 1 was an uncovered feature with Anthony Justice. I hit 2 through 6 and managed to Mutant Massacre his Beetle on turn 3, but it wasn't enough. He swung through for about 30 on turn 5 with four faceup Faces and Speed Demon coming through twice, but that left me at 11. Time was called on turn 5, and on turn 6 I tried to push enough damage through for the victory. I was still a point or two short when Callisto ran through an unfortunate 1-drop, but he had X-Men United to reinforce the guy anyway, so it didn't matter. Anthony was certain to win if we went another turn anyway. 0-1

Round 2 I played against Avengers. I don't remember much in the way of details except that I missed turn 1 and he didn't miss at all. I wasn't able to stonewall any attacks on turn 5 and Wonderman to keep Storm from attacking on turn 6 finished it. 0-2

Round three was against a Squadron deck. He mentioned that he'd Missed Drops on 1, 3 and 5 in each of his first two games, and he continued that trend by whiffing turns 2, 3 and 7 (yes, 7) against me. I missed turn 6 as well and was character-heavy, but I had finished his Joystick on 1 and his Golden Archer on 4, so he was never really in this game. It still took me forever to kill him because he was running Supply Line (!) in his deck, and blew me out of an attack with it. I'm sure this game went to turn 8, and it might have been turn 9 before I finally managed to kill him. 1-2

Round four was against an Avengers/Brotherhood hybrid. He hit Anne-Marie Cortez and I missed Marrow, so there's not much to tell. I get beaten in an uninteresting game. 1-3

Round five is against an Avengers curve deck. I curve out from 1 to 6 with a free Tommy and he just can't keep up. Retribution to get two characters on his attack step on turn 5 is key here. I end up winning with a huge endurance lead on turn 6. 2-3

Round six is against a mono-Brotherhood build. I again get the best curve, again Retribution him out of a character on turn 5, and again finish the game on six with a huge lead. 3-3

Round 7 is against Squadron. This match is back and forth. I keep a relatively high endurance total going into turn 5, but only have four characters in play. He has Nuke with Image Inducer, Hawkeye, and a 2 and 3 drop. I Backs his first attack and take the second. He sends Nuke into Marrow for fifteen. I Shrapnel Blast twice. He Answers for a pump and Flying Kicks to get right to nineteen. I look at my hand to see Bloodhound...

...and Toxin.
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