Over the weekend I played in two events. Breach the bay in San Fransisco CA and a smaller local event in Thousand Oaks CA. I got in a caravan with 3 others and split a hotel room with 1 more. Many people have heard about the final table and about the tournament from friends. This is me documenting some stories of my tEDH travels as well as the stories of a few other people.
Our Band of Heroes
On the 19th of January, the Monday before Breach the Bay, I got a text from a friend - Wayne. They tells me to drive out after work on Friday to meet at their partner - Rain - and drive to a tournament. I live about an hour from them. Wayne lives approximately 350 miles from San Fransisco. The plan:
After announcing this masterpiece to the world. A third friend of ours decides that this is a good idea and meets us all at Rain’s place that Friday. As Jan 23rd rolls around, Wayne gets the hotel booked, and at 2pm we start driving in my 2025 Jetta. During the car ride we all go over some potential swaps we made to the decks we all change aside from Hexing Squelcher . Lorwyn has really changed the fundamentals of my personal deck RogThras and has offered new win line’s in Formidable Speaker . Rain has brought a control UFarm variant to this event, expecting the meta to be overall pushed in a faster direction. She wants to see how her “counter-meta” list can do. Normally known for playing Kozilek locally, I was at least interested to see how she would do.
Now as we are driving Northbound, roughly 5 hours into the 6 hour drive we get a call from another friend of ours - Ben - who has decided it would be funny to drive up there “for the bit.” He begins the drive at 7 pm planning to not sleep and instead allow the delusion to fuel his body through round 1, and the endless coffee being offered at the event to keep him up. RogSi pilots afterall are not known for the smartest choices.
Ben meets us all at the hotel at 2 AM and we all agree that we’d be at the venue at 7:45 in order for the TO’s and judges to get by easier. All of us with the hopes of taking it down.
An Interesting Judge Call
The day started very well. Smooth player’s meeting, no delays, and everyone seemingly on pace and ready to go. Pictures are taken and I assess the general competition and signups. Overall, the field is pretty good. Lots of turbo pilots, lots of kinnan pilots, and per usual many Blue Farm enjoyers. I sit down and meet my first pod in seat 1. The pod overall is Myself, a blue farm player, a RogSi player, and a Kinnan player.
This first match is decently tight overall. Quickly I realize that the bluefarm list is not turbo but instead slants more control. Likewise the kinnan list is slanted in the control direction and the interactive direction over prioritizing kinnan. The event seems to be overall split into two camps,
- Turbo lists looking to push new protection and winlines from Avatar and Lowyn
- Decks looking to interact early and establish advantage against the expected onslaught on Turbo
For months the meta has been heading in this direction, we saw it starting all the way back in Steel City as the meta sped up, everyone is expecting the fast wins.
The hand I kept involved an early Fierce Guardianship looking to stop an early attempt from RogSi as well as get out a quick Spellseeker to get Cradle out and grind. Fortunately for me, both Kinnan and Blue Farm mulliganed very aggressively allowing me to counter an early tutor from RogSi and go for it. Unfortunately for me, my Spellseeker was hit by Spider-Sense from Kinnan and I was left with a board of 1/1s.
From that point the match stalled out with each player looking for some kind of draw engine. Several Mystic Remoras, Rhystic Studies and clones were played. This ended in a state where time was drawing to a close and I took what would be the last turn. I originally didn’t intend on pushing, using my upkeep to pay for a Mystic Remora trigger and staring down both a RogSi, and BlueFarm player with 14 and 15 cards in hand respectively. My top deck was Jeska's Will . After some thought, I cast it with the only intent of spinning Thras or seeing what I hit. A brief conversation lead to me resolving it after paying for Rhystics. I flipped Apple of Eden, Isu Relic , snap , and a clone. With my new reserves of 15 red mana, I began my line with Vibrance fully cast searching for Talon gates and removing Blue Farm’s Storm-Kiln Artist to limit mana and prevent some interaction from being used. This lead to the player removing my own piece with a Red Blast to generate mana for his next turn. Apple hit the stack only to eat a counterspell. Without diving into the entire turn, it was long and complicated. Lasting over 30 minutes. From my own memory over 10 pieces of interaction were used, including 2 Pact of Negations, 2 Force of Wills, 2 Mindbreak Traps, Bosejui, Deflecting Swat, Otawara, 2 Mental Missteps, and Orims Chant.
The noteworthy part and why I detail all of that was a moment before the end. I decided to Channel my own Otawara, Soaring City to bounce a Rhystic study. The RogSi player casts DSwat, I let it resolve and Swat it somewhere else. The RogSi player then casts Demonic Consultation naming Force of Will. He flipped down to the second to last card, eventually finding and casting Force of Will. When he did I said “Trigger, Trigger” refering to the Rhystic and the Remora. This happened as time in round is called. With the information of a known Final Fortune turn now being no longer applicable, the Farm player says since time is called he should take it back. Normally to allow for decisions to be reversed this wouldn’t be allowed in Magic, time in round is not unknown information. Nothing about the gamestate or board changed. So I called a judge and the judge agreed with me. The blue farm player immediately asked for an appeal and the head judge comes over.
The head judge “Punchy” is a fantastic person. As the head judge comes over, Punchy assess the board and thinks, out loud saying “This is a very weird situation”. All the while I’m sat in my seat needing the Force of Will to resolve. I recognize a line in my hand with Gamble which would allow me to get Underworld Breach and at that point I was out of ways to defend my win. I payed for every Rhystic trigger which ate from what I remember over 20 mana. I had no way to backup this line and the Force of Will had me dead to rites unless I spun into something.
Punchy’s call: The force could be reversed. Several spells later the game would end in a draw.
Punchy’s explanation in their own words.
Hello! Yea I can explain the thought process.
Within the MTRA specifically, reversing decisions is defined as:
Addition to Reversing Decisions. Due to the social nature of multiplayer formats players may be influenced to reverse decisions. Opponents advising players to take back an action must clearly state any information communicated is done with intent to reverse the decision. A Judge should make this determination and should be certain any information communicated was done so with intent to reverse the action.Normally in 60 card, reversing decisions is based off new info has been revealed. Due to the collaborative nature of cEDH, this addendum has been added to change that. If the only thing that had happened was that time was called, I would’ve ruled it unable to be taken back as that is new info gained which changed the game. However with the opponents pointing out this info with the intent to have them take it back, in my eyes it falls under the MTRA’s definition and is allowed to be taken back - Punchy
To be very clear, after taking a step back from the game and giving it some time to simmer, I think Punchy made a good call. I’ve messaged several judges since and I’ve gotten a range of answers depending on how lenient they are. Its actually extremely dependent on the situation, and while that technically lead to a loss, even with the ruling I realized after the fact with sharper play there was another line that I didn’t see that required me to change the Otawara target to something else. After posting about this in the RogThras discord, a judge over there reached out and sent the scenario to Judge Foundry where even an L5 judge commented and gave what they thought their ruling would be.
For me, at the end of the day - none of that matters. Arguing with a judge is the fastest way to get DQed from an event. Even if I hated the ruling and knew with 100% certainty an exact rule to cite to prove that I’m correct, my opponents appealed the first judge’s call and the head judge made the final call. Fighting that only makes things worse for me. A better player would’ve played faster to not be in that situation, or seen the better line to play around Force of Will. Simple as.
So I started the day 0-0-1.
Fighting the Tiger
Round 2 was part of a pod that had to be a fluke of statistics. Shorikai - a 2nd Shorikai - Myself - Kinnan. I played a very familiar face at least to me, Tim Taranto aka - GoldSabertooth.
For those of you that don’t know Tim. I’ve played against him and with him in about 7 or so events before this. We’ve been paired into enough times, he remembers me, if not my deck. I played into his Marneus, his Rocco, his Plagon, and now his Shorikai. He normally is able to brute force with politics or being creative with the deals to enable a window not possible.
If it wasn’t clear I have a player history and record with Tim. In the past nearly every game has been a draw between us.
The first Shorikai opens the game with an early sol ring → signet → Remora. Tim then feeds a card to get out a needed Drannith to slow the game. I deploy a Tinder wall and pass, the kinnan plays a dork and passes.
The second turn comes around with Shorikai #1 playing his own Drannith. From that point the game really ground down and turned into a serious grind. Turns went by quickly as not much happened, until I tried presenting an early draw. The response was a near unanimous “Its too early.” So I set Tim back a decent bit by bouncing some pieces to hand and cast windfall . Everyone drew 11 cards, and with a remora, 2 dranniths, plus ToR protection from one player I was confident the game would continue. Tim let the Windfall resolve on the condition I cast no other spells. I respond with “I will cast Mox Diamond and nothing else.”
Just Mox Diamond? I’ll make you sign for it!
Tim then preceded to show me a little card a few people got handed out for actual written cEDH political agreements.
I had a good chuckle about it and we all drew 11 cards.
Hey Tim, guess what? I cast Mox Diamond.
I actually got it. True to my word, I simply cast Diamond and passed holding up mana for a Crop Rotation or potential to pay for a rhystic study trigger on my Force of Will I was sandbagging. The kinnan player unfortunately flashed a counterspell so I had no plans of using any of my interaction.
The kinnan player began his turn and started casting a bunch of stuff leading to politics and Tim convincing him to leave open mana for the future in case of a win from Shorikai 1. After thinking and deploying some stuff, he eventually does.
Shorikai 1, then decides that this would be his window to push. Letting Remora die, he starts by putting teferi, time raveler onto the stack. Tim draws from his Rhystic and begins to talk to convince him to take it back flashing interaction. After a brief conversation the Shorikai backs up the teferi, and Tim says he’s out of gas. I say that I can feed some cards to Rhystic and can get more cards into peoples hands for interaction casting Crop Rotation.
This sparks a small debate between Tim and Kinnan, Tim shows me Flusterstorm and Offer. I realize that he’s a mana short and decide I can help interact. My hand had a Sylvan Scrying in it allowing me to get Cradle at a later time. Tim and the Kinnan player are debating interaction and the Kinnan player says he could use something.
So I instead search for Minamo, School at Water's Edge and I say “I’ll untap your Gemstone Caverns to unlock interaction here.” I should have been more specific with my wording, binding Tim to interact. I get the untapper on the field and instead just untap his land. This then allowed Tim to leverage politics to force the first Shorikai to let the Teferi get countered. Classic Tim.
We go to Tim’s actual turn and a long turn takes place with time being called midway through. It gets to the point where the 3 of us band together to stop him, and Tim ends up barely being short to complete his line. A judge cam over and had Tim showcase his mana better and count everything out. After counting twice, Tim barely didn’t make it, ending the second game of the day as a draw taking my record 0-2-0
Dear Tim,
On the offchance that you read this, I look forward to our next game. That will also be a draw, but I can’t wait for it nonetheless.
I know we do not talk outside of events, nor do I know you as a person. I respect your game even if others hate it.
Mulligans are hard, communicating is harder.
Round 3 was a functionally screwed up game. Yuriko, Vivi, Elsha, and Myself were in the pod. This game was pretty much a 1v1 with several key points coming down not to game actions or targets but more to simply the mulligan.
We all pitch the first 7. The Yuriko keeps the second. The Elsha also keeps the second saying its weird. I go to 6…. And Vivi talks out loud “MAN, this is so risky but it could be so good… I’ll keep.”
The Vivi took 1 game action in Mishra's Bauble before we all lost.
Turns out allowing a Yuriko pilot to have guarenteed free attacks without any fear from the first seat allows for some drastic measures. The Elsha player eventually is put into a spot to where he needs to find earthquake. Unfortunately this would put me completely out of the game. just on the splashback of dealing with Yuriko’s board. So we strike a deal. Elsha would instead search for Amphibian Downpour and I would not use a revealed Deflecting Swat to put one on Elsha. Unfortunately this would then lead to the following turn Elsha simply popping off and manually storming off until a win was found. In a 3 player game, where one person is built to not really interact with the table, one person can storm off with the commander, and one person has to try to strike a deal to win or draw, turns out making the wrong deal loses you the game.
Folks, don’t keep risky hands that require you to draw a land to take game actions. The majority of cEDH decks play 25-28 lands. You have about a 1/5 to around 1/4 chance to draw a land.
The lesson for me though was around my politics. That stack had a navigable draw in there, I simply needed to “talk better” or not share information. I thought the Elsha was much more behind than reality. I got greedy thinking that my hand of interaction could actually hold back the Elsha player when I also was forced to use one of my interaction pieces save my engine.
From that point I was 0-1-2
I am Vafnar. If you see me say “hi”. Please don’t misstep my Ragavan because you recognize me, I’m not that good at the game.
I mean absolutely no shade to the person that did this, I just think this was a funny side note to the story of this event, but round 4 had another RogThras player, Kinnan, myself and a BlueFarm player. The other RogThras player lamented about not being able to get a draw in the last game they played, which bled into some frustrations being taken out. Punchy came over and somewhat observed the conversation due to how loud the whole ordeal was while we were shuffling. The BlueFarm player said that everything was chill and that we wouldn’t be drawing for no reason due to tournament standings. He suggested the idea of us all conceding if someone was close to winning and we were close to time.
Punchy looked at me, and I made a very loud point to say “Hey guys, that’s against the rules of every event.” Agreeing to concede a game to a player before it starts is very clearly not allowed. I’ve been playing cedh for going on 8 years. Do not do that if you want to play for 8 years. Punchy then walked away to the first judge call of the round.
After that fun little interaction the RogThras player asked if I needed to do sticker sheets or if I was on Semi-blue version of the deck. I said no, and after he asked about the Peregrine Drake I accidentally flashed while shuffling, he asked me “Are you TheVafnar?” When I said yes, it then lead to him giving the Kinnan player and the Blue Farm player a rundown on how my deck is different than his and how I was clearly much more threatening and was going to do things faster than the rest of the pod.
Well T1 he played a single ramp effect, the kinnan player just passed and when I cast Ragavan, the kinnan player stopped me and then was talked into countering my monkey by said RogThras player.
The next few turns were the other players developing a bit and me and the blue farm player passing, leading to me casting Song of Creation, only to have it get countered immediately. I was dead in the water after that, and I spent the rest of the match writing out the tutor chain the other RogThras player could preform to win as well as explain to the bluefarm player how RogThras works.
For alot people, RogThras looks like a scary or an intimidating deck hard to gauge where its at. As someone intimately familiar with the deck, I could see death coming from a long ways off. The other RogThras player was able to close it out even after I hit some very well timed interaction from a Thras Spin.
The vibe of that game was honestly great. I love talking and playing with people who see my stuff. Everyone was in a good mood after a bit of a tense pregame conversation. If you have questions about RogThras, please reach out! I’m happy to talk about it even if you hate the way I play. Its a flexible enough deck to where I really think there’s a minimum of 3 or 4 viable “styles” ranging from all simic, to really enduring the Temur Problems.
Thank you for the recognition!
Fr though please don’t Misstep Ragavan. I genuinely think Sol Ring, Wild Growth, or like every 1 cmc tutor is better. To a certain extent I really think that stopping Tinder Wall, Elvish Mystic, or
Send this around so that way everyone knows to not Misstep Ragavan.
This made the record on the day come to a nice 0-2-2
One last draw to hit the road.
I have very few notes to say on the last game. It was Blue Farm, Derevi, myself, and a very tilted Ob Nixilus player
BlueFarm kept a hand which played very responsibly and got advantage fast, Derevi kept one of the more explosive hands involving Badgermole Cub and I kept a hand that was decent enough. The poor Ob Nix player had to go pretty deep to get anything.
This was the most sour match of the day, as it felt like everyone was pretty exhausted and had a shorter tolerance for politics and the game as a whole. No one was able to develop much of an edge and eventually the Farm player controlled the game to a draw via time.
For a final round my end tally was 0-2-3
Heads Held High
While this event began a streak for me of not winning a game going on over a week, this was also some of the most fun I had in a long time. My deck and the way I played generally was very clean. I felt my deck in every match was doing what I planned. Interacting with the game generally being in the drivers seat and doing things.
- Wayne brought Zirda. This is a person who has been refining and honing a deck for years. Their craft is that as the Boros blade. Wayne’s story this event ended at 2-2-1. 11 points. Unfortunately for them, only 1 player at 11 points could make top cut. Their breakers were not good enough, and one opponent who declined a draw is all that stood in the way of Zirda making another appearance at the top tables. Wayne’s Zirda is a responsible Zirda. Barely changing cards and understanding the micro edges for their deck, it was a truely tragic end for Zirda that day.
- Control Farm did better than I did. Rain brought the deck to a record of 1-3-1. Across the country Sky, who you might better know as a judge also brought control farm to Royal Rumble. Sky went 2-2-3 at least showcasing that Control Farm has legs in this extremely turbo world. As they iterate and improve on the archetype I’ll be updating my own mental framework on their capabilities and be ready for surprises to come.
- While I wasn’t able to get a win, I feel grateful my games ended and played well. Ben on his RogSi came to the tournament with hopes of clean games if nothing else. I personally have not seen Ben quite so mad after a game as a player went back on his deal to win the game. The real kicker to that was the tables record at that point was 0-3. No matter what the outcome of that game locked all of the players out of making top 16, asking the question: what was the point of going back on your word?
This happened to be the first large event that I’ve scrubbed out and not had win in over 3 years. Its a nice reminder that there are always better players and always room to improve. The lessons are not always in mechanics, but the social aspect of the game and your knowledge of the game.
We decided to drive back that night, signing up for another event at a local store in Thousand Oaks. Some of us had work on Monday, and given the area our hotel was in, better to get a partial refund and go early than to stay another night.
The Community
This was just my experience. A Day of losses, talking, and draws. There were literally over 200 people at this event between the players, staff, organizers, and other people at the Dave and Busters. I don’t want the stories to stop here. Everyone has stories of every event.
If you feel so inclined, if you were at Breach the Bay 2026; share your story. It doesn’t matter if you made top16, top4, or even if you won. Anything can be a story to be shared.
One last story of this cEDH weekend.
Big tournaments tend to get the most eyes. Royal Rumble, Breach the Bay, Steel City, Frenzy at the Falls, all have catchy names that come around once every few months. Stores that put up massive dollars and spend a lot for the eyes and the vendors. The cost to get to these can stack up quickly for these events.
In the background are qualifiers and games being run that tournament grinders play to call themselves the best. Not just on Topdeck, but Spicerack, Melee, and other sites and local game nights too. These games are a 30 minute drive and cost you comparatively little to get that valuable experience.
One of these qualifiers was the “Commander Invitational Qualifier - Game Haven of Maryland” which happened to be hosted the day that my party took my Jetta up the coast.
As snow blocked the roads of the east coast and the storm storm settled in, Phill Harman put his hours of work and practice to the test. Bringing Inalla, Archmage Ritualist to the event. Confident in his lines, and well practiced from the games played at Storm Crow and beyond he brought home an Undefeated record going 4-0-2 in the time it took me to get to my hotel that night.
I played Phill in the months before moving cross country every week alongside a small crew in Maryland. Congrats Phil, wish I could’ve seen it myself. You deserve it, even if you don’t think you do.