We are the co-founders of the Baltimore Academy of Magic, a school for aspiring magicians. BAM is the first of its kind, and opened in the fall of Toggle navigation. The Encounter.
Meet The Encounter. A player may be awarded byes for an individual-format Grand Prix based on one or more of the following criteria:. Players can be awarded one-, two-, or three-round byes for individual-format Grand Prix. Byes are not cumulative within a given Grand Prix or from one Grand Prix to another.
Byes may not be passed down to other players for any reason and are not transferable. Byes may not be deferred from one Grand Prix to another and must be earned each time. Players that accumulate multiple byes to a Grand Prix are awarded only the bye for the greatest number of rounds.
Byes earned through Planeswalker Points are calculated using the Planeswalker Point totals from all reported events as of the Tuesday immediately before the Grand Prix. The board state had momentarily stalled. But Scott was on fire. He kept dropping Zombie after Zombie faster than Tietze could even think of dropping the Curse of Death's Hold in his hand.
And with that, Matt Scott advanced to the semi-finals. This game went long and went hard. Costa got an early flipped Delver of Secrets and took a commanding lead on Eric Meng as he dug and dug and dug through his deck for some good reanimation targets. Lingering Souls helped him out immensely. At any given time, Meng seemed to have infinite tokens out. I'm sure it was fewer than that, but I couldn't tell the difference honestly.
For a while an Invisible Stalker with a Runechanter's Pike five relevant cards in the graveyard threatened to take Meng out. It was and Meng had cast and flashbacked three of his Faithless Looting s. Vapor Snag s from Costa kept Meng off his money reanimation targets. It took out a Geist of Saint Traft and an Invisible Stalker immediately, and the five Spirit tokens concurrently swinging in told Costa to scoop them up.
Game two was a difficult one for both players. Costa started early with triple one-mana cantrips. He could certainly beat that, right? Especially with his double Geist of Saint Traft.
Not so fast, said Meng. After doing a series of "bad" blocks, he was able to wipe off both Geists and start to get himself back into the game. It was in Costa's favor for a long time while he tried to punch throw damage with a Thrun, the Last Troll. Once Costa found a Moorland Haunt , it got harder and harder to Meng to deal the damage he needed to. He eventually made the totals , and it looked like he would eke out the win.
But more and more turns meant more and more Spirit s from Costa. He was yet to run out of Moorland Haunt food. Meng struggled to keep up, and with his last ditch hope, Costa had a counterspell ready and waiting. Matt Costa eagerly shuffled up for game three. The tokens didn't last long, as Costa flipped the Delver into its insect counterpart, then Dismember ed the other one to clean up the board. Meng barely blinked and cast the second one from his hands.
And when those died, he just flashed back even more. Geist of Saint Traft with the help of a Vapor Snag took out both of the tokens, but for some reason, I expected more tokens. They just never seemed to stop for Meng. The totals were in Meng's favor. But he just had a Llanowar Elves and a Birds of Paradise to his name.
Neither were strong enough to take down a Geist of Saint Traft , or the accompanying Angel token — neither separate nor together. Meng sunk to 9, then to 2. Both David and Paulo had harnessed the power of UB Control to overpower their opponents in the swiss rounds, and now they collided here in the quarterfinals with just a difference in six drops between their lists as Dave's Consecrated Sphinx es would be taking on Paulo's Grave Titan s. UB Control mirrors in the current Standard format center around Nephalia Drownyard milling the opponent out of cards, and the grind started early in game one with both players plowing through card drawing spells to find Nephalia Drownyard , opting to discard rather than give their opponent a chance to crush them with a six-cost bomb by tapping out.
Interestingly, Dave fired off Forbidden Alchemy at will and Paulo seemed happy to let him while not playing any of his own. Was letting Forbidden Alchemy resolve part of a devious Brazilian plan to win the mirror? Dave's Nihil Spellbomb sat as the battlefield's lone non-land permanent for what seemed like ages until he found the first Nephalia Drownyard with Forbidden Alchemy.
He got two mills in before a Ghost Quarter shut it down, but the deck sizes stayed pretty close due to Dave's own mills. Both players had a lot of cards in hand and a lot of lands in play when a pair of Curse of Death's Hold landed for Dave, shutting out any Snapcaster Mage s and Grave Titan zombie tokens. It didn't seem to matter to Paulo, however, as he found a Nephalia Drownyard of his own, but he only got one mill in before losing it to Ghost Quarter.
Reverting back to a weird game of draw-go, Shiels started firing off empty Black Sun's Zenith s to buffer his library. Paulo laughed, but matched him, grimacing as Dave found another Nephalia Drownyard. PV was down a handful in the land count, but he had a slight lead in cards remaining, and he traded some of that lead to find more land with Forbidden Alchemy.
He didn't know it, but Dave had already found his Blue Sun's Zenith and was just looking for a window to fire it off for the kill. Despite nothing really happening, every turn took a long time as they counted libraries, checked graveyards and decided what cards to discard. All the while Dave's Nephalia Drownyard was working its magic on PV's deck, and soon he was down a card in the race, , in the face of double Nephalia Drownyard.
PV's draw step and a mill left him with just four cards left, and his nervous energy was apparent as he tried to devise a way to win. Another mill left him with just a single card left, and it was all up to this last turn. He used a Mana Leak of his own on a second soft counter and Dave paid for it with six more mana to work with.
Paulo tried for one more Mana Leak and Dave let the stack resolve. Dave's draw was lighter on things to do, but he did have a Ghost Quarter to protect him from the Nephalia Drownyard PV played. Shiels found his own Nephalia Drownyard on the very next turn, but swallowed a mill in to play his own Nihil Spellbomb.
Paulo was hitting all of his land drops naturally, so Dave couldn't afford to cash out his Ghost Quarter this early in the game. PV spun his Millstone again and Shiels was quickly down a dozen cards. Every spin was agony for Dave, who slowly squeezed out the three cards with crossed fingers.
Paulo pounced, pointing Surgical Extraction at the land and forcing it through Shiels' Negate with Dissipate. Paulo was down to just Tribute to Hunger and Snapcaster Mage for action. Dave went for Liliana of the Veil and used her to make both of them discard a card to clear a path for the rest of his hand, but PV used his Ratchet Bomb to cut her off.
He flashed back Surgical Extraction to rebuy Surgical Extraction , making sure all of Dave was without Liliana of the Veil for the rest of this game.
Dave tried to trump with Bloodline Keeper , prompting Tribute to Hunger , and Dave slammed Consecrated Sphinx thinking the coast was clear. But PV had drawn the Go for the Throat. He killed the giant flyer on Dave's end step and untapped into Grave Titan against the tapped-out Shiels, who suddenly had just one turn to find an answer.
He drew, surveyed the board and said, "you win," reaching for his sideboard. The final game was going to be a struggle as Shiels led off with a double-mulligan.
PV took one of his own, and the draw-go game started. Paulo fixed his mulligan quickly with both sides of a Think Twice , but Dave was okay with his own hand, finding two Ghost Quarter s and a Nephalia Drownyard early. PV had a Bloodline Keeper in hand, but he couldn't risk going for anything crazy against Dave's unknown hand, and the puzzle got more complicated when Shiels skipped his sixth land drop, telegraphing that he had a hand full of spells.
He declined to mill for turn, preferring to keep his mana available for the time being, but Paulo took the fight to him during Dave's end step. Dissipate s traded, but Dave had the Mana Leak to keep his remaining win conditions safe. Content with the result of the fight—leaving Shiels tapped out and defenseless for a turn—PV stuck Bloodline Keeper and attacked with Snapcaster Mage. Shiels fired back with a big vampire of his own, but Paulo had successfully stolen the initiative.
Go for the Throat snatched it back, leaving Paulo with a vampire token and a Snapcaster Mage against Dave's active Bloodline Keeper , and now it was up to Dave to take advantage before Paulo's new Nephalia Drownyard could grind him out.
Even on cards, Paulo looked to dig out of his predicament with a Snapcaster Mage flashing back a three-point Blue Sun's Zenith. He found a Mana Leak and a Dissipate , but that was not exactly a promise of help with the vampires starting to press in. It did help against the Liliana of the Veil Dave went for. Paulo untapped into a Ratchet Bomb that cleared out all three of Dave's vampire tokens and one of his own, allowing his Snap caters to get in for four and forcing Dave to switch gears to the Nephalia Drownyard plan, where he was ahead Paulo struck in with his Snapcaster Mage s again, but Shiels battled back with one of his own, cutting the pressure in half after blocking.
He kept working his land-stone, realizing he could in fact finish off Paulo's library before the remaining Snapcaster Mage would get him.
It helped that Paulo's hand was full of lands aside from one Mana Leak. He ripped a second copy of the land from PV's hand and two more from his deck, leaving's dwindling library almost dry.
Smelling blood after seeing Paulo's remaining resources, David went for the kill with Forbidden Alchemy to find some backup. PV was running on fumes, having drawn most of his lands, and he was unable to stop Liliana of the Veil from getting rid of his Snapcaster Mage.
These two have both been doing great all weekend. Scott is piloting the UB Zombies deck that has made a strong showing here, and Scott decimated his quarterfinals opponent in a grand total of ten turns in both games.
Actually, I might be exaggerating; it could have been nine turns. Before making the Top 8, Costa was worried about booking last-minute flights to chase points around the country, but with this finish he's already secured his next rung on the ladder and he can rest just a bit easier. Costa went first and started with his trademark turn-one Delver of Secrets. Scott, who had to go to six cards, went Gravecrawler into a Mortarpod.
The Germ was immediately sacrificed to take out the Delver before any flipsy, tricksy things could ensue. More Delver hate came in the form of Fumespitter as his opponent sunk to Costa also allowed a post-combat Skirsdag High Priest and made a Spirit token off Moorland Haunt before he untapped for his turn.
The High Priest was not long for this world as a four-life Dismember took him out and took Costa to 12 , while second Mortarpod was hit by an incoming Mana Leak. The Fumespitter took out the Haunt token leaving Costa out of gas in his graveyard and Scott kept on the pressure with another Gravecrawler. He took Costa to 10, then 6, then equipped the surviving Mortarpod to a 'crawler — anticipating silly sacrificing tricks.
The Announcements are sent every Monday and Friday morning. Click here to see the most current set. Information about services from the Yearly Meeting available for our local Meetings and worshiping communities is listed here. On June 24, Baltimore Yearly Meeting Quakers gathered online to discuss their thoughts and experiences about reopening the Meeting Houses.
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