Pro Tour Born of the Gods - Quarterfinal - Anssi Alkio vs. Lee Shi Tian

[@johnsmith-xr5vs]

One of the BEST game 1's i've ever seen. Absolutely expert plays on both sides.

[@Restokiki]

Z c zz.

[@mrsqrrl]

That first game is easily one of the best ones I've ever seen covered.

[@RagingPoo]

You couldn't hear very well because the announcers were very loud at this moment, but at the end I'm pretty sure that Anssi Alkio played the Deceiver Exarch during his OWN drawstep, tapped his land which of course his opponent floated, then passed to his first main phase emptying his opponent's pool and cast Kiki-Jiki to win during THAT combat. Some pretty impressive play there.

[@bigj123bigj6]

That's not a possible line what he did was he played exarch tapping Lee's steam vents to prevent shenanigans then he casted a kiki

[@noahgindin8436]

+Bigj123 Bigj super late, but you're an idiot

[@filipefernandes6346]

+Raging Poo yeh that was Anssi's play, a pretty cool play, which of course the commentators failed to notice as usual, insisting it was cast main, typical.

[@allidoiznguyen]

Coverage of the pt this year has been pretty good

[@jimmyjacobs291]

Awesome match I love long games like this...this is how magic is played kids: )

[@Drecon84]

I love how Tian takes out the Batterskull while Alkio brings in that same card.

[@TheCorruptPeanut]

This was MTG porn.

[@edoliverdiseasehc4313]

why alkio didn't play the combo at 30:20 when shi tian was tapped out?

[@skeptikatheist]

He could have played it, but the Exarch would enter the battlefield sickened and he wouldn't be able to go off, thus allowing Shi Tian to bounce the enchanted Exarch with Snapcaster + Vapor Snag.

[@sayapedr1234]

Does anyone know what kind of sleeves Lee Shi Tian is using?

[@aa-pn5iv]

why at 30:20 alkio didnt' cast exarch + splinter twin? opponent had all tap..

[@SkepticalAaron]

Exarch would have summoning sickness, so it wouldn't be able to tap to make copies and then Tien could just untap one of his Shackles on his turn and steal the Exarch with Splinter Twin. Splinter twin only gives haste to the copies, not the creature it is enchanting.

[@chriboh2373]

SkepticalAaron true! Splinter Twin give tap-effect to creature, not tap creature for splinter twin and make a copy..i didn't remember :) thanks!

[@skylar5257]

Am I wrong to say Lee Shi Tian could’ve casted threads to take the germ since the germ has a mana cost of 0? If he had done that it would’ve left him with exactly one mana left open after the other one gets tapped by the exarch in that last game and that would’ve been the difference between him bolting the exarch giving him at least one more turn.

[@Kaytoyaj]

At the end of the video clip, why didn't he float the red mana and bolted the Kiki jiki while it's first activivated ability was on the stack? He would've won that last match

[@ilikepi3]

The exarch was cast to tap the only red source. If Lee taps for red, Alkio goes to second main phase for the mana pool to empty to cast kiki

[@Kedislol]

He wouldn't necessarily have won, chances are he would've lost. But he certainly wouldn't have lost this turn... I think Tian forgot about Kiki completely.

[@TiRune]

I'm pretty sure he tapped the source in his own draw phase :)

[@819Dan]

Holy fuck that was good.

[@cdViking]

Match was ridiculous. I love both decks; straight combo twin has to be one of the worst matchups for the blue deck, but Alkio played amazingly post-sideboard when I thought Shi Tian was favorite.

[@MagaMoberSkaterRE]

does anyone know where I can get really cheep sleeves?

[@gaeilgeganeagla]

games island have a great selection and are pretty cheap

[@harrymorgan4543]

Amazon.

[@Bakunerf]

Local card shop and get ultra pros, if you have about $10 then get KMC hyper mats/Dragon Shield or if you have a binder and don't want to get full sleeves or can't afford full sleeves get KMC PERFECT FITS ONLY don't get ultra pro perfect fits, they are so tight that they will bend your cards.

[@Habreno]

In Game 2, if the final Deceiver Exarch is cast during MP1, LST should tap the Steam Vents for Red. Kiki then is cast (and resolves) during MP1, and Anssi has to make sure to pass to Beginning of Combat before trying to combo, as if he tries to combo duing MP1, LST can simply bolt Kiki while the copy ability is on the stack. Granted, Anssi should wait until BoC to combo, forcing LST to bolt Kiki duing MP1, meaning Anssi responds to bolt with combo. If Exarch is cast duing Draw, where it should have been, this isn't possible.

[@Kedislol]

Saw the same thing. People should be talking about this instead.

[@brokenswmr]

Game 2 Lee Shi Tian should have responded to Deciever Exartchs ability (tapping the steam vents) and floated a red mana, preventing the Kikki combo.

[@SkepticalAaron]

He did float a red, but it wouldn't do anything. Anssi can just move on to the beginning of combat step to force Tian to cast bolt and then he could respond by going off.

[@brokenswmr]

@@kippiauto you're are right about the draw step exarch play. The commentators didn't catch it, they said he did it main phase, so I thought that too, that's smart. However, for your second point, you both are saying the same thing, I don't get how the other poster is wrong too.

[@callumokelly3905]

Why is he playing peek over gitaxian probe?

[@FritzLangful]

He wants to do as much as he can at instant speed

[@Kedislol]

Kind of marginal, but it's also better vs. goyf

[@matthiascronqvist13]

I can understand why twin was banned back then. But given the format today is it really that egregious in the format now?

[@Lv80Mudkip]

lel, played a snapcaster instead of a spell snare

[@mtglover5799]

I love twin so much

[@Shardfenix]

Anssi has no idea that his pestermites can untap his opponent's shackles.

[@cdViking]

Pretty sure the only undefeated Modern player knows that he can tap/untap opponent's permanents.

[@Shardfenix]

Implying that going undefeated in a broken format is somehow a test of player skill. He had 3 or 4 chances to win much earlier, and decided to pitch it.

[@IrwinGoodmanFan]

Shardfenix Anssi didn't know Lee's hand until he cast peek and if Anssi untapped the shackles that would've ruin the splinter twin combo cause Anssi already did get 3rd deceiver exarch.

[@Taivasvaeltaja]

I mean my guy will have summoning sickness after getting it back from shackles if I do it my turn so it isn't particularly relevant. -Anssi

[@Shardfenix]

Pestermite has flash. Even if he had an answer, you would force him to use it. The worst possible play was to discard Pertermite, getting nothing out of it at all.

[@jadsonwy]

In Game 2 , Lee Shi should have left to race , playing Bolt + SnapBolt + SnapBolt when Alkio had only two untapped lands , but he preferred the counterwar against Batterskull .

[@6million1]

Where's the standard? Why is it all modern

[@evanmoran8951]

This Pro Tour is only modern and theros/born of the gods draft. No standard.

[@6million1]

Evan Moran Well that's lame in my opinion

[@kona7043]

Sygg yeah how do you think legacy players feel ?_? seriously standard and modern are so boring.

[@TheImmortalSoul]

modern only, the most fun format

[@6million1]

Yeah I might get into modern......If I had 800 dollars and there were more than 3 viable decks

[@TiRune]

Cute little possible play: On 1:05:50 Lee Shi Tian cryptic counter draws the batterskull. He could have played around the remand on bskull by counter bounce his spreading seas which rebuys him a card as well.

[@darienboudreau5202]

At 31 minutes into game, why didn't Alkio just cryptic, bounce shackles, twin the untapped exarch and win?

[@Heuxjbeish]

Seriously. That would've worked beautifully

[@alanyuan8565]

+Darien Boudreau That needs 4 + 3 + 4. I think he was 1 short

[@darienboudreau5202]

He drew twin with enough mana and a tapped out opponent to just kill

[@filipefernandes6346]

"Vandalblast MAIN PHASE", idd what a surprise... the commentary on these is really poor, it's sad that you've commentators who seem to be learning the format as they go by the tournament. Magic is a really complex game, to be able to provide valuable commentary you've to know what's going on the format, the card interactions, the matchups, an so on... It's not something you can learn in 5 minutes, takes lots of time. But wizards seems to insist on picking up randoms to commentate instead of actual pro players, i'm not trying to bash anyone here and the people doing the coverage sure have their merits on other areas, and seem to be nice guys, but they're not the best choices to commentate. It's suspicious for us viewers when the players NEVER go with the commentators line of play, the sideboard plans totally differ the ones suggested by commentators, board states poorly described, with often commentators having no idea of the game state themselves. Magic has "watchable" game needs to improve A LOT, when I watch for example LOL games, i get baffled by the amount of knowledge the commentators have about the game, of course, most of them are actually pros/ex-pros. Here the most prestigious Magic Event is being commentated by casuals and pros who were good in 1997, please Wizards improve the commentary, the game deserves better than this.

[@aparthia]

+Filipe Fernandes Zach also said "I don't get the end step vapor snag, he'll just replay it on his turn". Summoning sickness indeed..

[@alanyuan8565]

I personally think boarding out batterskull is an awful idea. You're not really in a winning positon without it

[@joe.5103]

Yikes the commentators were struggling and randy talks over people too much. I love the guy but never enjoyed his commentary