#66. Seizing the Moment (Saturday, January 23, 2021)

What was your best day…of taking advantage of a tiny window of opportunity?

Warning: Heavy Magic: The Gathering references here. Reading #78 is mandatory if you want to know what the heck is going on.

The moral of this story is simple: you have to take advantage of your opportunities, because you never know if the chance will ever come again.

Last we left off in my Magic: The Gathering life (#78), I had just constructed a completely new deck strategy (LIBOR & Taxes, centered around destroying the opponent’s resource cards, i.e. lands) and achieved the first bit of success in early 2020 with a perfect 5-0 finish in an Magic Online league, which came with a fair amount of streamer recognition and publicity (for my online alias, ice_nine_, at least).

Then, a few weeks later, the world went into lockdown. And with all normal socialization avenues shut down (#112), I suddenly had a singular place to devote all my free time.

From March 2020 to June 2021, I played a lot of LIBOR & Taxes (exclusively) online. But it wasn’t just refining the deck and making it even stronger, but also growing its presence further in the Magic community. The Discord I established with mana d0rk quickly grew to over a hundred members, many of whom were also starting to play this strategy and discuss it on the channel, while various popular streamers (mainly FluffyWolf2, d00mwake, and ManaCymbal) and my increased winning started to make ice_nine_ a household name¹ within even the most well-known online players.

In a way, this whole period felt like a fever dream (in more than one way), and a dream come true. I had made it, and completely on my terms – finding success with something new that did not exist before.

In the eleven months leading up this, I had adjusted LIBOR & Taxes to be even more streamlined, increasing my reliance on favorite-card Suppression Field, upping the taxing component, tightening up some non-synergies, and adding in some cards that were released in a new set. I’d even written a full 50-page primer for the deck (in the form of academic paper in LaTeX) that I shared online to a wild reception. Most importantly, I’d also started playing in the Saturday Modern Challenges – the premier online event, where 100-150 players compete in a proper weekly tournament (with a Top 8, and winner, and all).

These Challenges featured the best decks and the best players², and as expected I struggled at first. But after some adapting, I achieved a Top 32 finish in September (which earned me further recognition), followed by a Top 16 soon after. Now all I needed was to get into the Top 8 – which was the big threshold since that meant a cut to the final single-elimination rounds.

Much like that night almost a year ago (#78), I loaded up the Challenge this Saturday afternoon with no idea what was coming next:

Match 1: I play against a green-white Heliod Company deck, one of the most popular decks because they have a reliable instant-win two-card combo plus a strong regular gameplan. Luckily for me, Suppression Field literally prevents the combo from working (and stops a whole bunch of other stuff in that deck), so my deck is well-positioned to beat it. Easy 2-0.
Match 2: Heliod Company again. 2-1.
Match 3: An also-popular four-color Uro–Omnath deck, which tries to ramp up on resources very quickly³ and control the game from there. Naturally that’s bad for me, but they are also reliant on many cards that Suppression Field shuts down, so I’m only slightly unfavored. I win 2-1, with a big help from the Stormbreath Dragon I added just that morning.
Match 4: A white-blue-black Ad Nauseam deck, which runs a bunch of potential instant-win combos (which are too complicated to describe here) centered around the namesake card . With help from some lucky draws, they wreck me. 0-2
Match 5: Also against a four-color deck. I get wrecked again 0-2. From this point, I have to win my last three matches to even have a chance at Top 8.
Match 6: Tables turned. 2-0 versus the four-color deck.
Match 7: Versus a green-red-black Shadow deck, which tries to win with big creatures as quickly as possible. I get blown out Game 1, take care of Game 2, then win Game 3 in probably the closest, most tense game of Magic I’ve ever played. (I was down to just a few life before semi-stabilizing, then barely clung onto that for 10+ turns before finally locking them out.) At this point, my tiebreakers are excellent⁴, so I known I’m in if I win the next match.
Match 8: Versus another instant-win combo deck, Belcher. I lose Game 1, then win the next two fairly easily. As I wrap up the last one, I start shaking knowing what’s about to happen.

I finally did it! Top 8 in the premier weekly Modern Magic event, after steadily building LIBOR & Taxes up from nothing. Even though I fall quickly in the quarterfinals (to my Match 5 opponent), this is the pinnacle of my Magic life, and a vindication of my brilliance and all those hundreds of hours I’ve spent.

Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending. Shortly after, a new set Modern Horizons 2 is released, which specifically contains super-strong cards that can’t be put into a regular set⁵ and so are released for the Modern format only. And among them is one absurdly-pushed Ragavan monkey and a series of powerful elementals that can be played without any resources. They effectively become the new metagame and render LIBOR & Taxes completely ineffective overnight.⁶

And so, in the blink of an eye, it was all over. But in that brief window I did have, I sure as hell made it count.

Of inducing pure, unbridled rage in people getting their lands destroyed. But a household name nontheless.
Technically in the world, though Magic Online was never a incredibly popular avenue for playing Magic, even while the lockdown eliminated paper play.
With help from those two cards. The former gets banned shortly after.
My Match 1, 2, 4, and 5 opponents also make Top 8.
i.e. too strong for the Standard Constructed format, which is allows only the last two years of cards.
I do spend the next year and a half pivoting my strategy for this new meta into a new SOFR & Haktos (naturally) deck. And while I eventually reach some success with it, via two league 5-0s, it’s clearly miles worse than LIBOR was at its peak.