AnwarA101
10-09-2006, 09:28 PM
Everything started out okay. It was about noon on Friday and I was getting ready for the back-to-back Duel for Duals. The excitement was running through my veins.
I left my place around 2:45 about 15 minutes late based on my original schedule, but not bad considering what was about to happen. I get to Allen’s place (URABAHN) around 3:15 and throw his stuff in the car and head for Dan’s (nitewolf9) place. I have printed directions to Dan’s place from my house, but Allen assures me he knows how to get there. Suffice it to say that around 3:45 we still haven’t found his place. We continue in the residential areas of Reston before Allen finds something familiar and we are able to call Dan and we pick him up around 4:00. One last stop is to pick Calosso (calosso) and Dave (Deep6er) from The Lucky Frog. We get to The Frog around 4:45 considering that traffic is starting to pick and anyone who has driven in Northern Virginia knows how bad this can get. We leave around 5pm from the store, but now traffic isn’t moving. I’m headed to the home of Alix (ObFreely) and Jesse (MadZur) Hatfield. This about is about 50 miles away and I pull into his driveway at 8:15. 3 hours to go 50 miles you do the math. So at this point we have the major part of the trip, which is driving to the campsite that was selected by Dave Price (Quicksilver).
We leave close to 9pm and the rain continues to get heavier and heavier. It was raining earlier, but it mostly sprinkles in Northern Virginia, but as we drove further south the rain did get worse. We arrive at the campsite around 11:30pm. We spend about an hour pitching tents and realize that this will be the wettest sleeping experience we will ever have in our life. After talking to both nitewolf9 and Deep6er, I agree that sleeping in my car would the best and driest choice for the night. There are many things I wanted to do with my car, but sleeping in it with 2 other guys was not exactly my dream. This was simply one of the most uncomfortable sleeping experiences I’ve ever had. If you ever need an experience in your life to realize how lucky you are – try sleeping in your car for one night. I spent nearly 14 hours in my car from Friday afternoon till Saturday morning. I like my car, but I could go the rest of my life without doing that again.
I awaken to the sound of my cell phone going off and its 7am. I awaken slowly and we get ready to go. As we shower and such we have to figure out what to do for tomorrow. I try to convince Alix and Dave Price that we should just get a motel for Saturday night. So after some last minute decision-making we pack up the tents and rush to the tournament. We arrive maybe with 20 minutes to spare.
I had already decided to play Red Death. This was my list –
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Rotting Giant
1 Wretched Anurid
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Badlands
7 Swamp
Sideboard
4 Fire Covenant
4 Dystopia
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Null Rod
Round 1 – Vial Goblins (I don’t remember his name)
Game 1 – I duress his Vial. Play turn 2 Negator and turn 3 Negator. He’s able to block with a Matron on turn 3, but he’s dead. I didn’t lose a point of life.
Game 2 – I ritual into a Negator in response to his first turn Lackey. He doesn’t swing and passes the turn. I bolt the Lackey and swing in. He plays another Goblin. I bolt it and drop a Giant. He plays a couple of more Goblins. I drop a Shade and swing with Giant plus Negator. I sac everything but Giant and Negator (I have no lands left) but he’s at 3. He draws for the turn with a vial, but I think there was nothing he could do to block both creatures and prevent 3 points of trample damage. He drew another Vial and lost.
1-0
Round 2 – W/B/R Aggro-Control (Complete Jank)
Game 1 – He mulls to 5. I go double ritual hymn and hyppie. That’s basically game over. I had no idea what he was playing so I couldn’t board for it.
Game 2 – He has lands, but I get another early hyppie. He gets a chalice for 1 cutting off my bolts. I keep swinging with hyppie and I get a Giant out. I think uses Cabal Pit to kill off my hyppie but I get another creature and I kill him fairly quickly.
He conceded that his deck really wasn’t prepared for my deck’s strategy.
2-0
Round 3 – Miracle Gro (Evil Roopey)
Game 1 – I kind of remember his list, but I can’t remember the exact creature list. I make a mistake in this game. He plays turn 2 Dryad, but I decide to play a Negator instead of trying to bolt the Dryad immediatedly. His Dryad grows and my Negator gets sworded then he plays a Jitte.
Game 2 – I play some creatures but he’s able to swords some of them and he drops a couple of his own creatures. I get a Dystopia to resolve and then his team vanishes. He wasn’t prepared for Dystopia and my creatures stick and swing in for the win.
Game 3 – This game was pretty close, because he is able to get double compost, but fortunately I’m able to play most of my disruption before the second compost hits. I also get out a Hyppie, which continues to go unanswered. He gets a Dryad and gets her to 3/3 before his hand is completely empty. I keep him under the soft lock of Hyppie and Anurid stays back to prevent the Dryad from racing. Sometimes I was able to swing with my Anurid when he decided to play his card for the turn, but for the most part he was either drawing lands or counterspells both of which couldn’t change the game state for him. The Hyppie and the Anurid went all the way. I think there might have been a Dystopia but it was at the very end.
3-0
Round 4 – Vial Goblins (Sorry, again I forgot your name)
Game 1 – I lose the die roll. He goes turn 1 Lackey. I ritual into Negator. He bolts my Negator and swings with Lackey and drops Kiki-Jiki. I made a mistake here, but it was only of judgement because I could have played Chain Lightning on the Lackey, but I thought that Negator was a great answer for Lackey given that I had plenty of Lands in my hand, but I didn’t expect the Bolt. But given that some decks are also starting to run STP the Chain Lightning would have been the more cautious choice.
Game 2 – My opponent on the draw goes Wasteland Aether Vial. He didn’t even mulligan his hand once. I shudder to think that Goblin players actually do this and expect to win games. I had ritualed into a Hyppie who was slowly eating his hand. My opponent rips a mountain for the turn and plays it and plays Piledriver. I drop another Hyppie and his hand is getting empty, but his vial keeps rising. I’ve also had the chance to waste his original wasteland so he is down to just the mountain. He vials in a Goblin King which I bolt because with Badlands in play that is really bad news. His hand is completely empty as I’m swining with double Hyppie. He topdecks a Ringleader with a Vial at 4. Vials it in only hitting a Goblin lackey which is convenient since he only has the ability to play 1 mana creatures because he has only 1 mountain in play. I’m able to take care of his early Piledriver with a Hyppie trade and I end up playing Fire Covenant just to kill his Lackey (I think the Ringleader died to a bolt). I swing in with Hyppie. I get him to 6, but I’m only at 5. He draws for the turn and another ringleader. Vials it in gets Piledriver, Warchief, and Incincerator I think. He had played a late vial which had just gotten to 3. He vials in Warchief and plays Piledriver off his only mountain. Game over.
My opponent apologized to me about his lucky topdecks. I know he was being sincere, but it still hurts like hell to just lose to random topdecks. I played well that game, but I wasn’t rewarded for it. He was rewarded for keeping what I can only call an indefensible hand.
3-1
Round 5- UBGW Landstill (Nick Trudeau)
Game 1- I drop some threats and some disruption. He is able to answer my creatures 1 for 1. I keep dropping creatures and he keeps answering them. This is okay, considering he has played basically no draw other than Brainstorm. We are both are low on cards in hand, but he is able to kill my lastest creature and then drop a standstill. I bust the Standstill with yet another creature, but he STPs and then drops Crucible recurring his early factory. He’s only at 12. I play for a few more turns, but I draw nothing.
Game 2- This game was really close. I boarded in a Cabal Therapy for some of my bolts though this might have been a mistake since I didn’t know what he would be brining in and his spells are so diverse that I can’t know which removal spell he has in his hand. This game is pretty similar, but this time my disruption that included Therapy, Wasteland, and Sinkhole allows me to push though some major damage. My creatures are not answered immediatedly so that means his life total is dropping. I’m also able to cut him off certain colors for certain periods of time. There is a point where I have a Giant and I have a fetch. My hand is 2 Negators and Lightning Bolt. I fetch for a basic swamp because I need to get these two Negators in play instead of just stranding them in my hand if he wastes (He has no Wasteland on the board but its not unlikely for him to have it or find it very soon). I play Negator and he is able to STP it, but Giant comes in for a swing. He gets rid of Giant, but I drop the other Negator in my hand. I get him to 2 before he answers Negator. He plays a FoF, which isn’t too good, but I think he keeps a brainstorm and some other card. He is forced to use a fetch to get a certain color and make brainstorm better. He destroys the Negator with an Edict I believe. The Lightning Bolt is still in my hand. He is almost out of cards and because he was barely able to get rid of that Negator before his death. My life total I believe is either 19 or 17 (He might have swung once with a Factory). He ends up finding a Crucible and brings back both Factory and then finds Monastry. This may have been the result of a FoF, but either way he doesn’t see a counterspell. All I draw is 3 swarmps and then maybe another creature like Anurid but he can easily block and still swing in. For 6 or more turns, I never find the Red source to kill him. He beats me in with Factory and Monastry.
3-2
Ofcourse X-2 is a bad position to be in but since I was at Table 1 in round 4 and I just lost to someone who is 4-1 I think my chances of making into Top 8 still exist. I try to regroup and continue to focus.
Round 6 – UGW Threshold (Paul Lynch, I’m not sure if he is registered)
Game 1 – I had seen him at earlier tournaments, but we never met. He seemed like a very competent Threshold player. I simply believe that Threshold is the best deck in this format especially in the hands of a competent pilot. I was concerned but was determined to play well. The game starts off pretty standard he’s playing cantrips. I’m playing some disruption via Duress and Hymn. I get a Giant down and get a few early swings. He drops a Mage on Lightning Bolt. I play a Shade which gets hit by Pithing Needle. I still get in a few swings with the Giant and the Shade as he wants to keep Mage around. He drops a Threshed Mongoose and I respond with a Negator. He plays a Threshed Werebear and another Mage on Chain Lightning. The final turn in this game is the most memorable. I get him to 1 life and I’m currently at 9. I have Negator, 2 Shade on the table with like 4 lands and 1 Lightning Bolt in hand which I can’t play due to Mage. He has Mongoose, Werebear, 2 Mage. It looks pretty even but difficult for me to crack through his defense. But I see the win, do you? This is what I do. I swing with everything. He has to prevent all damage. He double blocks Negator with Mongoose and Werebear. Each Mage blocks each Shade. We resolve damage I assign 5 damage to Werebear and Mages trade with Shades. With the Negator trigger on the stack, I float 1 Red first. He says, “Do you have the bolt or are you bluffing?” I respond by bolting him. He sighs and shows me the two cards in his hand – 2 Force of Wills.
Game 2 – This game wasn’t nearly as close. I got my creatures to stick while continuing to disrupt him. He said he made a mistake with his brainstorm and I was able to Duress his second cantrip so he had trouble getting Threshold. I was able to Duress a STP as well. My Negator and I believe Hyppie stuck around and just beat him in. I was able to clear the way with Dystopia, but his limited hand and limited creatures didn’t put up much resistance. He looked a little tired and probably was still a little disappointed with the first game, which I personally thought was unwinnable at several points in the game. Just goes to show that you shouldn’t give up too early.
4-2
Round 7- Solidarity (Krieger)
Yep, StarCity did it to us again. Krieger and I got paired at X-2 in the last round with apparently a very real shot of making it into Top8. I’m not very good at figuring out if I don’t have a shot at getting in. I know that Jesse has a slightly better tiebreaker, but I don’t want to giveaway a Top8 spot. We feel that we have to play it out. Last time this happened our games turned out to be a blast so at least all was not lost.
Game 1 – I don’t remember these games all that well. I know that I was able to disrupt him and he tried to go off too early and just fizzled after just a few spells. This whole situation was so unfortunate.
Game 2 – Not much I remember except that he wasn’t really able to go off and he wished me luck in making Top8.
5-2
The moment of truth comes and Jesse runs over to me and says you made 10th with 8th, 9th, and 10th just being separated by tiebreakers. Evil Roopey was unable to beat Nick Trudeau in the last round which not only knocked out his chances of making it but apparently pushed Trudeau slightly ahead of me and the person who came in 9th.
This wasn’t the best 2 days of my life. I almost went camping, but instead slept in my car. I almost made top8, but made 10th on tiebreakers. I almost furthered the case for Red Death being a force in Legacy. But instead I did none of these things. I have no regrets about my deck choice or even my play. Like I told ObFreely on Saturday night after the tournament, “I gave the deck everything I had and I still came up a little short.”
I left my place around 2:45 about 15 minutes late based on my original schedule, but not bad considering what was about to happen. I get to Allen’s place (URABAHN) around 3:15 and throw his stuff in the car and head for Dan’s (nitewolf9) place. I have printed directions to Dan’s place from my house, but Allen assures me he knows how to get there. Suffice it to say that around 3:45 we still haven’t found his place. We continue in the residential areas of Reston before Allen finds something familiar and we are able to call Dan and we pick him up around 4:00. One last stop is to pick Calosso (calosso) and Dave (Deep6er) from The Lucky Frog. We get to The Frog around 4:45 considering that traffic is starting to pick and anyone who has driven in Northern Virginia knows how bad this can get. We leave around 5pm from the store, but now traffic isn’t moving. I’m headed to the home of Alix (ObFreely) and Jesse (MadZur) Hatfield. This about is about 50 miles away and I pull into his driveway at 8:15. 3 hours to go 50 miles you do the math. So at this point we have the major part of the trip, which is driving to the campsite that was selected by Dave Price (Quicksilver).
We leave close to 9pm and the rain continues to get heavier and heavier. It was raining earlier, but it mostly sprinkles in Northern Virginia, but as we drove further south the rain did get worse. We arrive at the campsite around 11:30pm. We spend about an hour pitching tents and realize that this will be the wettest sleeping experience we will ever have in our life. After talking to both nitewolf9 and Deep6er, I agree that sleeping in my car would the best and driest choice for the night. There are many things I wanted to do with my car, but sleeping in it with 2 other guys was not exactly my dream. This was simply one of the most uncomfortable sleeping experiences I’ve ever had. If you ever need an experience in your life to realize how lucky you are – try sleeping in your car for one night. I spent nearly 14 hours in my car from Friday afternoon till Saturday morning. I like my car, but I could go the rest of my life without doing that again.
I awaken to the sound of my cell phone going off and its 7am. I awaken slowly and we get ready to go. As we shower and such we have to figure out what to do for tomorrow. I try to convince Alix and Dave Price that we should just get a motel for Saturday night. So after some last minute decision-making we pack up the tents and rush to the tournament. We arrive maybe with 20 minutes to spare.
I had already decided to play Red Death. This was my list –
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Nantuko Shade
3 Rotting Giant
1 Wretched Anurid
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Badlands
7 Swamp
Sideboard
4 Fire Covenant
4 Dystopia
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Null Rod
Round 1 – Vial Goblins (I don’t remember his name)
Game 1 – I duress his Vial. Play turn 2 Negator and turn 3 Negator. He’s able to block with a Matron on turn 3, but he’s dead. I didn’t lose a point of life.
Game 2 – I ritual into a Negator in response to his first turn Lackey. He doesn’t swing and passes the turn. I bolt the Lackey and swing in. He plays another Goblin. I bolt it and drop a Giant. He plays a couple of more Goblins. I drop a Shade and swing with Giant plus Negator. I sac everything but Giant and Negator (I have no lands left) but he’s at 3. He draws for the turn with a vial, but I think there was nothing he could do to block both creatures and prevent 3 points of trample damage. He drew another Vial and lost.
1-0
Round 2 – W/B/R Aggro-Control (Complete Jank)
Game 1 – He mulls to 5. I go double ritual hymn and hyppie. That’s basically game over. I had no idea what he was playing so I couldn’t board for it.
Game 2 – He has lands, but I get another early hyppie. He gets a chalice for 1 cutting off my bolts. I keep swinging with hyppie and I get a Giant out. I think uses Cabal Pit to kill off my hyppie but I get another creature and I kill him fairly quickly.
He conceded that his deck really wasn’t prepared for my deck’s strategy.
2-0
Round 3 – Miracle Gro (Evil Roopey)
Game 1 – I kind of remember his list, but I can’t remember the exact creature list. I make a mistake in this game. He plays turn 2 Dryad, but I decide to play a Negator instead of trying to bolt the Dryad immediatedly. His Dryad grows and my Negator gets sworded then he plays a Jitte.
Game 2 – I play some creatures but he’s able to swords some of them and he drops a couple of his own creatures. I get a Dystopia to resolve and then his team vanishes. He wasn’t prepared for Dystopia and my creatures stick and swing in for the win.
Game 3 – This game was pretty close, because he is able to get double compost, but fortunately I’m able to play most of my disruption before the second compost hits. I also get out a Hyppie, which continues to go unanswered. He gets a Dryad and gets her to 3/3 before his hand is completely empty. I keep him under the soft lock of Hyppie and Anurid stays back to prevent the Dryad from racing. Sometimes I was able to swing with my Anurid when he decided to play his card for the turn, but for the most part he was either drawing lands or counterspells both of which couldn’t change the game state for him. The Hyppie and the Anurid went all the way. I think there might have been a Dystopia but it was at the very end.
3-0
Round 4 – Vial Goblins (Sorry, again I forgot your name)
Game 1 – I lose the die roll. He goes turn 1 Lackey. I ritual into Negator. He bolts my Negator and swings with Lackey and drops Kiki-Jiki. I made a mistake here, but it was only of judgement because I could have played Chain Lightning on the Lackey, but I thought that Negator was a great answer for Lackey given that I had plenty of Lands in my hand, but I didn’t expect the Bolt. But given that some decks are also starting to run STP the Chain Lightning would have been the more cautious choice.
Game 2 – My opponent on the draw goes Wasteland Aether Vial. He didn’t even mulligan his hand once. I shudder to think that Goblin players actually do this and expect to win games. I had ritualed into a Hyppie who was slowly eating his hand. My opponent rips a mountain for the turn and plays it and plays Piledriver. I drop another Hyppie and his hand is getting empty, but his vial keeps rising. I’ve also had the chance to waste his original wasteland so he is down to just the mountain. He vials in a Goblin King which I bolt because with Badlands in play that is really bad news. His hand is completely empty as I’m swining with double Hyppie. He topdecks a Ringleader with a Vial at 4. Vials it in only hitting a Goblin lackey which is convenient since he only has the ability to play 1 mana creatures because he has only 1 mountain in play. I’m able to take care of his early Piledriver with a Hyppie trade and I end up playing Fire Covenant just to kill his Lackey (I think the Ringleader died to a bolt). I swing in with Hyppie. I get him to 6, but I’m only at 5. He draws for the turn and another ringleader. Vials it in gets Piledriver, Warchief, and Incincerator I think. He had played a late vial which had just gotten to 3. He vials in Warchief and plays Piledriver off his only mountain. Game over.
My opponent apologized to me about his lucky topdecks. I know he was being sincere, but it still hurts like hell to just lose to random topdecks. I played well that game, but I wasn’t rewarded for it. He was rewarded for keeping what I can only call an indefensible hand.
3-1
Round 5- UBGW Landstill (Nick Trudeau)
Game 1- I drop some threats and some disruption. He is able to answer my creatures 1 for 1. I keep dropping creatures and he keeps answering them. This is okay, considering he has played basically no draw other than Brainstorm. We are both are low on cards in hand, but he is able to kill my lastest creature and then drop a standstill. I bust the Standstill with yet another creature, but he STPs and then drops Crucible recurring his early factory. He’s only at 12. I play for a few more turns, but I draw nothing.
Game 2- This game was really close. I boarded in a Cabal Therapy for some of my bolts though this might have been a mistake since I didn’t know what he would be brining in and his spells are so diverse that I can’t know which removal spell he has in his hand. This game is pretty similar, but this time my disruption that included Therapy, Wasteland, and Sinkhole allows me to push though some major damage. My creatures are not answered immediatedly so that means his life total is dropping. I’m also able to cut him off certain colors for certain periods of time. There is a point where I have a Giant and I have a fetch. My hand is 2 Negators and Lightning Bolt. I fetch for a basic swamp because I need to get these two Negators in play instead of just stranding them in my hand if he wastes (He has no Wasteland on the board but its not unlikely for him to have it or find it very soon). I play Negator and he is able to STP it, but Giant comes in for a swing. He gets rid of Giant, but I drop the other Negator in my hand. I get him to 2 before he answers Negator. He plays a FoF, which isn’t too good, but I think he keeps a brainstorm and some other card. He is forced to use a fetch to get a certain color and make brainstorm better. He destroys the Negator with an Edict I believe. The Lightning Bolt is still in my hand. He is almost out of cards and because he was barely able to get rid of that Negator before his death. My life total I believe is either 19 or 17 (He might have swung once with a Factory). He ends up finding a Crucible and brings back both Factory and then finds Monastry. This may have been the result of a FoF, but either way he doesn’t see a counterspell. All I draw is 3 swarmps and then maybe another creature like Anurid but he can easily block and still swing in. For 6 or more turns, I never find the Red source to kill him. He beats me in with Factory and Monastry.
3-2
Ofcourse X-2 is a bad position to be in but since I was at Table 1 in round 4 and I just lost to someone who is 4-1 I think my chances of making into Top 8 still exist. I try to regroup and continue to focus.
Round 6 – UGW Threshold (Paul Lynch, I’m not sure if he is registered)
Game 1 – I had seen him at earlier tournaments, but we never met. He seemed like a very competent Threshold player. I simply believe that Threshold is the best deck in this format especially in the hands of a competent pilot. I was concerned but was determined to play well. The game starts off pretty standard he’s playing cantrips. I’m playing some disruption via Duress and Hymn. I get a Giant down and get a few early swings. He drops a Mage on Lightning Bolt. I play a Shade which gets hit by Pithing Needle. I still get in a few swings with the Giant and the Shade as he wants to keep Mage around. He drops a Threshed Mongoose and I respond with a Negator. He plays a Threshed Werebear and another Mage on Chain Lightning. The final turn in this game is the most memorable. I get him to 1 life and I’m currently at 9. I have Negator, 2 Shade on the table with like 4 lands and 1 Lightning Bolt in hand which I can’t play due to Mage. He has Mongoose, Werebear, 2 Mage. It looks pretty even but difficult for me to crack through his defense. But I see the win, do you? This is what I do. I swing with everything. He has to prevent all damage. He double blocks Negator with Mongoose and Werebear. Each Mage blocks each Shade. We resolve damage I assign 5 damage to Werebear and Mages trade with Shades. With the Negator trigger on the stack, I float 1 Red first. He says, “Do you have the bolt or are you bluffing?” I respond by bolting him. He sighs and shows me the two cards in his hand – 2 Force of Wills.
Game 2 – This game wasn’t nearly as close. I got my creatures to stick while continuing to disrupt him. He said he made a mistake with his brainstorm and I was able to Duress his second cantrip so he had trouble getting Threshold. I was able to Duress a STP as well. My Negator and I believe Hyppie stuck around and just beat him in. I was able to clear the way with Dystopia, but his limited hand and limited creatures didn’t put up much resistance. He looked a little tired and probably was still a little disappointed with the first game, which I personally thought was unwinnable at several points in the game. Just goes to show that you shouldn’t give up too early.
4-2
Round 7- Solidarity (Krieger)
Yep, StarCity did it to us again. Krieger and I got paired at X-2 in the last round with apparently a very real shot of making it into Top8. I’m not very good at figuring out if I don’t have a shot at getting in. I know that Jesse has a slightly better tiebreaker, but I don’t want to giveaway a Top8 spot. We feel that we have to play it out. Last time this happened our games turned out to be a blast so at least all was not lost.
Game 1 – I don’t remember these games all that well. I know that I was able to disrupt him and he tried to go off too early and just fizzled after just a few spells. This whole situation was so unfortunate.
Game 2 – Not much I remember except that he wasn’t really able to go off and he wished me luck in making Top8.
5-2
The moment of truth comes and Jesse runs over to me and says you made 10th with 8th, 9th, and 10th just being separated by tiebreakers. Evil Roopey was unable to beat Nick Trudeau in the last round which not only knocked out his chances of making it but apparently pushed Trudeau slightly ahead of me and the person who came in 9th.
This wasn’t the best 2 days of my life. I almost went camping, but instead slept in my car. I almost made top8, but made 10th on tiebreakers. I almost furthered the case for Red Death being a force in Legacy. But instead I did none of these things. I have no regrets about my deck choice or even my play. Like I told ObFreely on Saturday night after the tournament, “I gave the deck everything I had and I still came up a little short.”