PlanetMTG

Top8 Quarterfinal: Armin Birner vs André Coimbra
by Mathias Passin
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Armin Birner plays his second lifetime GP Top8. His UBr Relic Control Deck performed 7-1-1 on day one with just one Bye, followed by a 4-0-2 on day2, with an intentional draw in the last round. He finished 10th in the Austrian National Championship some weeks ago.
His opponent is Level 4 Pro André Coimbra from Portugal with his unconventional “Maximus Prime V2.0” called RG Wildpair Deck that performed 7-2 on day 1 – with 3 Byes! However, it stayed undefeated on day2, leading André to a 5-0-1 record.

Reading Andrés decklist, Armin supposes the Wild Pair deck to be a hard matchup. “This is your best matchup, right?” he asks his opponent. André just smiles and nodds. It's no surprise he finished that good: One third of the day2 decks where UBr Relic Control decks with different splashes.

Armin wins the roll and the players wish each other good luck. Armin picks up a hand with Prismatic Lens, Coalition Relic, Shadowmage Infiltrator and Void but just one land. He brainstorms for a long time, then finally decides to take a mulligan. The land was on top of his deck... André would have taken a mulligan as well: “if you don't draw a land on the first turn, you probably lose.” “I probably lose anyway!” His next six cards are fine, André keeps his seven as well and Armin kicks off with Terramorphic Expanse finding Island and River of Tears followed by a Coalition Relic on turn 3. André suspended Search for Tomorrow on turn one and can play a strong Mwonvuli Acid Moss on turn 3. Thanks to his Relic Armin can play a Void for 6 on his turn and sees Relic, a land and 2 Avalanche Riders (Doh!) on André's hand. He can't play a land and misses his land drop the next turn as well, after another one of his lands is destroyed by one of the riders. André pays echo, but Armin uses Strangling Soot to prevent the timeshifted Nomad from doing more damage. As André can't play a land this turn either, he needs to be content with a Primal Forcemage. Armin finds another land and plays Foresee. A Haunting Hymn is scryed to the bottom, but Coalition Relic, Damnation and a land stay on top to be his draws on this and the next turn.

Amdré's Wildpair should cause some problems to the UBr player, that can only damnate the lone Forcemage. Avalanche Rider destroying Urborg finds a Grinning Ignus, which is bounced to Andrés hand immediately just to be cast again, finding another Avalanche Rider. This funny game is repeated with another Rider and a Radha. The hasty Riders attack for 6 damage. Armin puts a counter on his Relic and can play another land and a Damnation to clear the Board. He passes with Urborg, Academy ruins and Coalition Relic in play. André plays another Acid Moss destroying Urborg. A Wall of Roots gets a counter before the triggered ability of Wild Pair resolves so he can find another Ignus and bounce and replay it so find a Radha. Armin has no land on his turn and scoops his two remaining permanents up to proceed to game 2.

André Coimbra 1: 0 Armin Birner

Armin boards in Dismal Failure, 2 Chronicler, 1 Slaughter Pact, 1 Extirpate, 1 Disentchant and a Pact of Negation for 2 Damnation, Detritivore, Pull from Eternity, Triskelavus and a Mystical Teachings.
André replaces 3 Wildpair, 3 Igni and the Primal Forcemage with 4 Spectral Forces and 3 Molten Disaster from his Sideboard.

Armin keeps his seven of Prismatic Lens, Foresee, Teachings and four lands. André again has the first play with a suspended Search for Tomorrow on turn 2. Armin plays a Foresee revealing four non-land cards to him. After a while he decides to put Damnation under his library and draw careful consideration and Dismal Failure. André follows up with an Ignus allowing him to attack for two damage on his next turn, bounce it to his hand and use the Mana to play Wall of Roots and another Acid Moss. However, Armin can counter it with Dismal Failure. André discards Grinning Ignus and passes the turn with four remaining cards in his hand.

Armin can draw even more cards with a Consideration discarding a Terramorphic Expanse and Coalition Relic. He plays another Expanse and passes with six cards in his hand.
André misses his land drop, but can yet play a Spectral Force with his four lands plus Wall of Roots. Both Creatures are destroyed by a Damnation that gets followed up with Shadowmage Infiltrator on the same turn. André can just play another Acid Moss. A Void for 6 reveals Avalanche Rider, Radha, Acid Moss and a Relic on André's hand, while the Infiltrator gets some new cards for Armin. All four cards are played in André's next two turns, destroying Urborg and a Mountain. Armin teaches for a Strangling Soot killing Radha and suspends a Chronicler for 1, André refuses to pay echo for the Rider, playing a new one and a Relic instead. Infiltrator and Chronicler hit for 6 on the next turn so the life totals are 11 to 14 in the Austrian's favor. André pays echo this time and tries to race with the Rider. Armin just takes two points of damage and kills another Radha with flashback Strangling Soot. The following attack takes down André to four and soon after that he picks up his cards for the deciding 3rd game.

André Coimbra 1: 1 Armin Birner

Armin boards in one of his Damnations again, taking out Haunting Hymn, as it's much too slow on the draw. André goes with his Wildpairs again, taking out the Spectral Forces.

Both players keep their hands immidiately and André suspends Search for Tomorrow on turn 1 followed by Radha on turn 2. Armin can play a Lens on his turn, but loses one land to Mmonvuli Acid Moss. Soot for Radha doesn't prevent his Island from being destroyed by an Avalanche Rider, but a Coalition Relic provides him with still enough mana to act. André doesn't pay echo and puts down a Relic and a new Radha instead. Armin plays a Void for six, hitting a Wild Pair in André's hand this time. He's quite lucky with André not drawing a land, as he could play the Hellkite in his hand in his Combat Phase with two red mana from Radha. Just attacking for two and playing Wall of Roots is not an equal impressing play. However, as Armin can only play a Foresee on his turn, André can attack again the next turn to play the Hellkite in the end of combat step, so Armin takes another five damage and goes down to nine lifepoints, but rising back to 17 again with an Urborg and Tendrils for the Hellkite in his turn. The next turn he uses Mystical Teachings to find an Extirpate for Wild Pair, revealing just a Wall of Roots and a mountain in André's hand. It will get very hard for André to win this game from now on, as all his card advantage is provided by the six mana Entchantments in the removed-from-Game-Zone. Shadowmage Infiltrator can stop Radha from attacking for one turn, until he goes over to attack himself. However, Armin suspends a Chronicler with one counter before he realizes that he didn't draw a card! Since the Infiltrator's ability is a may ability, he doesn't get his card.

André draws an Avalanche Riders from the top of his deck, destroys Urborg and attacks for four, leaving Armin at six life. The Chronicler comes into play and Armin thinks about his attack for a while. Finally, just the Infiltrator attacks, drawing a card this time. The Chronicler stays in the defense to block. The Rider's Echo cost is paid, Wall of Roots joins the team and André passes without attacking. Armin flashbacks Strangling Soot for the Riders at the end of the turn and attacks with both creatures. Wall of Roots chumps the Chronicler, Infiltrator takes André to 16 and draws another card.
André rips a kickered Molten Disaster from the top of his deck that does just enough damage to bring Armin to zero life and win the game!

André Coimbra wins 2:1 and proceeds to the semifinal of Grand Prix Florence!

#1	weradtijp	von Chickenfood am 09.09.2007 • 18:31
wiso iist das english, habt ihr das für wizards gleich miterledigt.

#2	wizards	von Juggernaut am 09.09.2007 • 18:34
Ja ich denke mal dass das für die Wizardscoverage ist.

#3	exactly	von TobiH am 09.09.2007 • 18:48
we are so international and the Wizards' coverage is so desperately in need of quarterfinal-coverage, that we kindly helped out. Apart from that, the top8-area is unable to support a German coverage reporter AND an English one; in terms of seats, electricity, and space in general...