SEMI-FINALS

MARK HERRIN v. JASON ASCALON

After more than 2 hours of waiting, Jason finally gets to play in the semi-finals. He is up against two-time Champ Mark Herrin who is using a deck that he picked up literally minutes before the start of the tournament, LSV’s omnichord. Herrin doesn’t have Arcanis because he couldn’t find a copy, deciding to run another Teferi instead.

 

GAME ONE

Herrin wins the die roll 10 to 9.

Herrin has lands, mystic snake, teferi and accelerants in farseek and wall of roots. Jason has hussar, boom/bust and molten disaster.

On an unrelated note, DJ is still missing his cellphone.

Both players take the first few turns developing their respective mana bases. Herrin takes the initiative by playing a temple garden untapped and playing teferi eot, then smashing with it during his turn… and a few more turns after that.

Sabale wins his match against Baeyens, promptly leading Herrin to blurt out "&*%$ Tarmorack makakalaban ko?" Jason just smiles and decides to respond to the offhand remark with a kicked molten disaster, killing Herrin’s Teferi, Mystic Snake and Wall of Roots. Touche.

Herrin follows up with a Hierarch, negating the damage from the x spell. Jason tries to gain some life of his own with fetters but Herrin wouldn’t have any of it, using another Snake to counter the aura. Jason still gets to gain some life though by burning the offending snake with a helix.

Hierarch hits and a mystery guy follows. They both end up in the graveyard due to Jason’s wrath. The subsequent lightning angel is promptly rune snagged.

With the board clear, a factory token gets in for a hit. Mark casts chord eot, fetching another elephant, and forcing another stalemate on the board in the process.

The stalemate doesn’t take long as Herrin draws blanks and Jason continues to churn out factory tokens, threatening to overwhelm Herrin with various pro player cards.

Herrin takes advantage of Jason tapping out and finally reveals his morph to be pickles. On the next turn, he plays two more morphs and things look grim for Jason as it seemed that Herrin had finally established the lock… until Herrin passed the turn without unmorphing either creature, signaling to everyone in the venue that he didn’t have the shapeshifter.

 

Jason gladly untapped, continued the factory assault which finished off Herrin, who had nothing but counterspells in hand, utterly useless against the active urza’s factory.

 

Jason – Herrin: 1 – 0

 

Jason puts in cryoclasms and fetters taking out his Rakdos one-offs and a chronicler. Herrin puts in an indrik stomphowler and the calciform pools to establish mana superiority.

 

GAME TWO

 

Herrin keeps a good mix of creatures and land. Jason has burn… lots of burn.

 

Both players do nothing but play land until Herrin goes for a compulsive, looking for his fourth land. The compulsive misses though and he is forced to discard riftsweeper and venser. Jason has better luck with his court hussar.

 

Herrin fails to find the fourth land and Jason capitalizes by hitting one of his lands with boom. That’s pretty much the story of this game as Herrin takes one out of every two turns to find land, by which time Jason has the land destruction spell ready.

 

Herrin succumbs to unimpeded hussar beats and burn.

 

Jason – Herrin: 2 – 0

 

GAME THREE

 

Herrin comments that the only way he can win is if Jason mulls to 5. Future Head Judge Glicerio Garcia remarks that it would probably worse for Herrin if Jason did mull to 5 and still won.

 

Obviously, Jason mulled to 5 (it would be a waste of this game’s introduction if he didn’t) and kept with 3 lands in hand, basically what you hope for in a 5-carder.

 

However, Jason topdecks like a madman, hitting boom on Herrin’s sole blue source and following up with a compulsive into lightning angel. Herrin plays shapeshifter which can’t block because of Jason’s Sunhome. Herrin casts chord eot to fetch another shapeshifter and swings with both on his turn. Jason blocks and finishes off one of the doppelgangers with a helix. Herrin shouts "Bobo!" and we try to confirm if he was referring to himself. He answers with his trademarked grin.

 

Herrin chords into another angel forcing Jason to finally cast the wrath. Afterwards, Herrin is engrossed in mana management and misses the opportunity to see Jason counting his lands, telegraphing the molten and the potential sweep.

 

Good news, DJ found his cellphone.

 

Back to the game, Herrin has seemingly taken control and is now on the offensive. Disaster however looms for Jason, waiting to win the game as soon as he draws enough land… or another lightning angel, which he does find. An eot Teferi gets remanded and Pickles unmorphs. Mark draws the card for his extra turn and scoops.

 

Jason advances to the finals 3 – 0!

 

Herrin will have to wait for next year to see if he gets the three-peat.