For the TLDR version: Feel free to skip to the bottom.

So I arrived at NLG Preston rather nonchalantly, the list I altered after the Games Lab Open Series (GLOS) on 14/05/14 was a dry run. I've used the cards before, but this particular list had no testing except for some practice games vs Mono-Blue on Wednesday.

With great regret, I ended up dropping the Archangels of Thune. Great card, but most of the time if I was behind, I would land it for it to get blown up, or having to chump it to a Polukranos/some other big creature. Just too slow for the deck's strategy. The Dictate of Heliods stayed though. I re-arranged a bunch of cards from my sideboard into my mainboard, 3 Boros Charms for a better first game vs control, putting a 3rd Imposing Sovereign and chucking Blind Obedience in the side.

I wasn't expecting much by the time the tournament started, so I was just chatting with some of the guys I knew there.

Swiss Play-offs
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Round 1  2-0 vs Mono Blue Devotion (Sean)
Game One: From memory, I think I got the play on this one, managed to curve out pretty nicely with a soldier then a precinct captain. Manage to get some value out of the captain by getting a few 1/1 tokens. His cloudfin raptor managed to get rather big (2/3), and lands a Master of Waves for about 4 devotion. I manage to win with a brave the elements.

Game Two: Lowering my curve, I take out the Dictates of Heliod for a Blind Obedience and Banishing Light. This game, the opponent runs into a few issues, not getting triple blue for a night-veil specter. I manage to race him down pretty quickly in this game as well.

Record: 1-0

Round 2  2-1 vs Mono Blue Devotion (Luke)
Game One: Don't think I got the play on this one, the first game seems to end up like the previous round's game one, he frogblasts his own familiar, and manages to swing in a couple of times with night-veil, but I banishing light the frog, and win the life race afterwards.

Game Two: Same sideboard as the previous round. I think it cost me that game, but I attack my soldier of the pantheon into 2/3 cloudfin raptor, forgetting that I can't double-strike him since he is pro multi-colored, I decide not to waste the boros charm saving it (had two in the hand). I end up banishing light it, as it was getting rather big. Lands an Thassa and a night-veil specter to make it active.

Game Three: He lands two cloudfin raptors, but no second land drop (he had some two drops) results in him having to tank hits from soldier of the pantheon and precinct captain. Could not evolve his raptors at all, and needed to chump a mutavault to live. He admits he kept a pretty risky hand that didn't pay off.

Record: 2-0

Round 3  2-0 vs Green Devotion (Khaalil)
Close rounds, by this point we both noted that most of the NLG Preston regulars were getting matched up against each other. In previous configurations of my list, I've lost both Game Days to him, so I didn't feel that confident in this match-up, and that either one of our winning streaks would end this round. We both were considering ID'ing, but were worried it would screw with tiebreakers. We end up deciding to play for it.

Anyway, I manage to win the dice roll upon Khaalil's insistence on a high roll. Then deck check happens as we present our decks to each other. Thankfully no issues were found, so we were both given an extra 10 minutes.

Game One: Manage to apply some pressure with a nice curve. Dryad, imposing sovereign then Brimaz (I think). Manage to land a banishing light on his Polukranos, and swing in twice before he lands another one (still entering play tapped). Spear of Heliod makes my one-drops able to take out his Caryatids. Lands a Primordial Hydra, and is about to make about a bunch of 5/5 wyrm tokens. I land an Iroas and swing for lethal.

Game Two: Switch out the Boros Charms and a heliod to jam in 2 extra Banishing Lights, a Godsend and a pithing needle. From memory, this ends up similarly to the first game, as I sacrifice a Brimaz to generate a token and take out one of his Burning Tree emissaries, and land another Brimaz. I think I forced him to block into some of my weenies before I flash in a Dictate of Heliod. A few turns later he lands two Stormbreath Dragons, and is about one turn away from killing me. A Brave the Elements won that game for me.

Record: 3-0

Round 4  0-2 vs Mono Black Devotion (Thom)
Game One: He ends up short on mana, mutavault and two swanps. He tanks a few hits with my dryad militant and Boros Reckoner. After about two attempts to kill my reckoner (chewing through brave the elements and Boros Charm) he ends up racing. I end up having to block a mutavualt to not die, but it didn't really matter. I ended up with 9 lands that game.

Game Two: It gets into quite an attrional game, as he manages to bile blight my two Soldier of the Pantheons, thoughtseize a Brimaz, and devour flesh a Fiendslayer Paladin. By then, he lands a Night-veil Specter, but I end up with 27 life from the devour flesh and lifelink, and he was on 10. The race was on. Land a Godsend, then a soldier of the pantheon. Gets blown up when I try to equip it. Land a Tajic, top-decks a bile-blight. Throughout this, the Night-veil Specter has been stealing my gas, leaving me the land drops and a few creatures. He puts down a Lifebane Zombie on an empty hand and seals the deal.

Night-veil Specter loot: Brave the Elements, 2xAegis of the Gods, Assemble the Legion, Brimaz, Fiendslayer, Heliod. He quips about not stealing a land drop to play these. Hah.

With a relatively early finish, I left with a friend to fill up on some junk food.

Record: 4-0

Round 5  Draw (Sam)
By the fifth round, the standings were posted. I was surprised to end up as third. I ended up getting paired up against Sam, who was placed first with a 4-0 record. We agree to draw. I end up shooting the shit ome of the others who agreed to draw, or playing in the tourney.

Top 8 Play-Offs
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First top 8 ever, go me.

Quarter-Final Pairings:
Sam Karopoulos VS Wilfy Horig
Thomas Rafferty VS Luke Mulcahy
Patrick Robertson VS Richard Spriggs
Nicholas Chow VS Khalil Kanaan

Well shit, it seemed that we were both paired up again for even bigger stakes.

Quarter-Finals  2-0 vs Green Devotion (Khaalil)
Spoiled in the header, but both were again close games regardless. Both of the games events I might have mixed up with what happened in the Swiss, but here is my recount of it regardless.

Game One: As I stood higher in the Swiss standings, I took the opportunity to go first. Polukranos wipes a Brimaz token and something else before I manage to Banishing Light it. Landing a Dictate of Heliod gave me some staying power. He lands a Garruk, and he manages to get plenty of value from it, as I try to pressure his life total further. I end up losing Brimaz to a 7/7 Scavenging Ooze (Until that point, I forgot he had anything that gave him lifegain as well). Lands a Domri Rade that I manage to gain a life due to Soldier, forget to trigger it again a few turns later when he lands Xenagos. Dumps a Nylea during the same turn (both came into play tapped thanks to Imposing Sovereign) and swings at me with a 24/24 Scavenging Oooze. I ensure through some questioning that he is tapped out, and chump block with two Brimaz tokens (3/3s) leaving me at 1. Both our exile piles were pretty hefty by that point. I manage to swing in for lethal with a 5/5 Boros Reckoner, 4/3 Imposing Sovereign and Soldier. I think he wasn't too used to how much the dictate buffed my guys, as previously my only reach was Archangel of Thune, so that likely threw off his calculations. He still had an elvish mystic left in his graveyard, so I was one green mana off from dying (I would have to commit alot more to the block)

Game Two: Khaalil informed me that Top-8 matches were in fact the first to two wins, and not a best out of three, so after mulling our initial hands, we agreed to 'draw' and both draw 7 instead. I think I managed to curve out pretty nicely, and put some pressure in before Khaalil could stabilise. Also seemed to be one green mana off before dumping his 3 Burning Tree Emissaries and a bunch of other gas. A scry land / second Nykthos held that off from happening for a turn.

Semi-Final Pairings:
Thomas Rafferty VS Wilfy Horig
Patrick Robertson VS Nicholas Chow

Semi-Finals, 1-2 vs Azorius Control (Patrick)
I was followed some of the top 16 rounds for GP Melbourne, and I remembered watching the finals which had Patty Robertson vs Nam Sung-Wook, so I knew I was in for a really tough game. Throughout the Swiss I knew he was running a U/W control variant, so I knew the advantages I had to press was early pressure and main boarded Boros Charms.

Game One: As he was ranked higher from the Swiss, he decided to play first. From memory, I didn't get a one drop, but had an Imposing Sovereign, Captain and Brimaz with a Brave the Elements. 3 land, so not bad. We both drop scry lands for our first turn, I think I scried a land to the bottom. Draw a Dryad Militant, play it. Opponent scries again. Drop my third land, play Precinct Captain. A D-sphere gets thwarted by a Brave the Elements. Watching his land drops, I shock myself to play a Sovereign and keep Boros Charm mana open. He lands a Jace, Architect of Thought, but I decide to keep the pressure on his life total. An Iroas and Imposing Sovereign managed to nullify blocking power of his Aetherling greatly. He manages to deicide my Iroas and gets a good look at my deck. I think he manages to wipe my board at this point, but after Brimaz lands he starts to dig instead with his Jace. Mutavault, Brimaz pressure and a Dictate of Heliod seal that game.

Game Two: Even though he was Azorius, the black/white scry lands had me worried he would have some stuff I couldn't deal with in the sideboard despite seeing nothing but white removal throughout game one. I drop the Dictates for Mizzium Mortars in order to deal with any Blood Baron shenanigans, which didn't appear throughout the match. Iroas gets dropped for a pithing needle, the Reckoners get dropped for Ajanis. This game became alot harder, as he sided in Fleece-Rams and in conjunction with Jace, Architect of Thought he managed to nullify alot of my early pressure. I manage to get some value out of Mortars by shooting a ram after it blocked my mutavault. Eventually I had all 3 Brimaz's from the deck in hand, so I was hoping for a boardwipe. After a few attacks from soldier and dryad militant, he wipes the board, which at least killed his ram with it. I eke out one Brimaz at a time before they got blown up or D-Sphered. One nice move was him last-breathing my last Brimaz while Jace's +1 ability was happening. He lands an Elspeth, and ults in with soldier tokens for lethal. I don't think I got him below 14.

One issue that came up was that I said 'Declare Attackers' and tried to swing with a soldier and precinct captain, as well as animating mutavault and attacking with it. After a judge call, it seems that it was a priority/out of sequence issue, so I ended up attacking with both creatures, animating mutavault but not attacking with it. Even some explanation afterwards still had me confused, so I resolved to just animate it in main phase in the future. Mentally I was sort of thrown off for the rest of that game.

Game Three: The decider. Convinced he wasn't running Blood Barons, I sided out the Mortars for a Blind Obedience (potential extort value for casting spells+delay Elspeth tokens) and an Aegis for the Gods (need a low-drop creature slot filled, *shrug*). Started out with a one land hand (mana confluence), two soldiers, familiar, Iroas, Captain, and Boros Charm. Keep.
Managed to get him to 12 before he board wipes. Get my 2nd land drop to drop the captain onto the board. After a few exchanges, I manage to get him to 8. He thoughtseizes a Boros charm out of my hand (only had a mutavault and a dual land open, can't remember what I tapped out for). The ending of that game was essentially a repeat of the last. Near the end I see him discard a 12 card hand to make his 7. He still has to finish me with Elspeth, so I decided to play it out for a while (didn't take that long). I top deck a Brave the Elements, swing at him for 5 or so before extending my hand (Elspeth was at 7 counters at that point). Lowest life total I got him to: 6.

I think I lucked out a fair bit at GPT Sydney at NLG Preston in terms of the match-ups, however I've grinded enough to know most of the deck's plays back to front. Getting to Top 8, duking it out with some very good players and having some pretty tense games made this event something to remember. A big congratulations to Patty Robertson on securing the byes for GP Sydney.

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I was gratified that the deck managed to go this far after continually tweaking it since December, trudging through dissapointment after dissapointment at GP Melbourne, various GPTs and GLOS Tournaments. My only wish was having figured out this particular list by near the start of Journey into Nyx, but I've had definitely had fun learning it on the way. I'm sure someone could peek at this list, and take away some of the more 'Johnny' elements to make it better suited for competitive play. With that said, it looks like I've taken my 'Spike/Johnny' cake and eaten it.