On 4/23 a 33 person Nationals Qualifier took place at Get Your Game On. A pretty stacked field of ringers battled for 6 swiss rounds. Connor Ullmann took down the event with U/W Cawblade, which composed half of the Top 8. This tournament was my first time playing Caw as well, so I'll walk through some of the matches and notable moments of the day. Enjoy!
I brought a fairly stock build of the deck, with the only "tech" being 4 maindeck Inkmoth Nexus. List available here. The day started out with chatting with DJ Kastner about sideboard slots for Caw, which appeared to be the most common archetype. After some discussion of Day of Judgment's lackluster position in the metagame, I finished my sideboard with some spicy 1 of's, and DJ cut down to 1 Day in the sideboard. Cue foreshadowing.
Round 1 I am paired against Brian Chung's Other Friend. Note that on this occasion, Brian Chung and Brian Chung's Friend were both notably absent. I greeted Brian Chung's Other Friend and quickly found out he was playing B/R Vamps. Commonly regarded as a poor matchup for Caw, I narrowly escaped game 1 with timely Ousting of my own Hawks to stay above Highborn range. I board in Condemns, Jace Beleren, and the 1 Celestial Purge from the board for Spell Pierces and 2 Mana Leak. I play Beleren into Mindsculptor and distract his guys for a while. When he's down to 3 cards in hand after kicking multiple Gatekeepers, I Celestial Purge his Dark Tutelage and protect my life total with Gideon Jura. A few Inkmoth hits later he dies to poison.
Round 2 I play against Connor, and throw away game 1 by playing Gideon instead of Jace when I know he has multiple Jaces in hand, having been locked out the whole game by my earlier Jace. He plays Jace and has Condemn + Nexus block to blow me out and I am quickly overwhelmed. I win game 2 with a sick curve that ended with me casting Volition Reins on his Jace, but game 3 ends in a draw as we go to time. I was super far behind and would've conceded if it was a later round and the draw was as bad as a draw.
The next round I play against Todd Maddock and his U/B Control deck. He has mana problems both games, and I capitalize with Jace in the first and beat him down with Squires and 1/1 fliers game two. He dures
hsed both Swords and took my only other gas in Jace, so team one powered dudes had to get the job done.
From this round I learned how well Cawblade fights when it is crippled by disruption: not very. If Todd had hit lands in game 2 and been able to cast relevant spells I would've been dead.
At this time Matt had 1-2'd and Kurtis had already dropped at 0-2. Was on me to represent Rusty in the Top 8.
Round 4 I played Aryeh Perlman with Valakut. His deck failed to deliver a Lightning Bolt for my Mystic in either game before I could equip it, and the 3/4 quickly got there. I got to Twisted Image an Overgrown Battlement this round which was awesome, and I dealt the last point with Mortarpod after he declined to block Gideon with a Titan. CawBlade is very unfair sometimes.
Round 5 was another Valakut player. I apologize for not knowing his name, but I lost to him in Extended PTQ when he was on R/G Valakut and I was playing Blue Naya. Since then I've talked to him and his brother at several events and they're both pretty cool guys. This match was a little absurd as he had double Lotus Cobra and Battlement in game 1 and I just tapped out to cast Stoneforge and Hawks since Mana Leak was dead very quickly. He just never hit a Titan and I killed him with a Gideon and some Sworded guy. In game 2 I had enough Flashfreezes to last through the first few threats, then had Gideon and Volition Reins'd a Titan of his.
Round 6 was my favorite. I ID'd with another Valakut player and went to eat with J. Jesse Bennet. We discovered there was a guy on a podium ranting about repenting sins and how everyone is going to hell on the corner of State and North University. He proceeded to get massively trolled by some Michigan students who yelled louder about "girls kissing girls" and "yay for boobies". There was also a guy who for some reason had a spoon and trolled by declaring people should worship the holy spoon. It was max value all around.
I play Alex John in the first round of Top 8. The matches were very awkward. In the first he mulligans and I have double Mystic double Sword, and they're both equipped on turn 5. He didn't have the Precursor and was promptly dead. Game 2 he opened on Inquisition for Hawk, Duress Sword that I tutored up, Duress Deprive, leaving me with a 1/2 in play and a hand of Sun Titan and lands. I proceed to draw Hawk, land, Stoneforge, and Into the Roil and kill him with one powered guys.
In round 2 I split the first two games against the Valakut player I ID'd with. I get game one quickly, but game two he has one more threat than I have answers for and I die. In game 3 my opener is Misty, Colonnade, Preordain, Jace Beleren, Flashfreeze, some card I don't remember, Sun Titan. He mulls to 5. I lead with Colonnade on 1 so I can play Stoneforge if I rip it. I do, and slam it getting Sword. He plays Explore. On my turn 3 I miss land, and have the choice of Preordain to try and hit untapped land (3 Island 3 Plains 1 Marsh Flats 4 Inkmoth 2 Tec Edge 4 Seachrome Coast 4 Glacial Fortress) or just pass and get Sword into play. I don't plan on Flashfreezing anything since he has 4x Summoning Trap and it would be suicide to counter a lesser threat, and he didn't have the ability to cast Koth. I choose to go with Preordain, and see Colonnade and Volition Reins. I keep Colonnade, play it, and 1 him. He plays an Oracle of Mul Daya, gets a land, and reveals Precursor. I end up getting stuck on 4 lands so I can't play Beleren with Flashfreeze up, and the Precursor stares down my 3/4 Mystic. I spend Flashfreezes on 2 Primevals, and tap out for Mindsculptor when he was one card left in hand and the top of his library is an Overgrown Battlement. His last card is the third Primeval and I die quite quickly.
I'm pretty sure that the correct choice was to just flash in sword now that I've had more experience. It really doesn't matter if I miss my third land drop for a turn. Getting sword equipped is just that important. I can Preordain next turn after I hit him, and even better if I draw any land I can hit plus Preordain and leave up counter next turn. Congrats again to Connor Ullmann for being a master. He took down the tournament his first time playing Caw. I could only hope to get there the second time around.
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