Metagame.com: First question—are you playing the same deck that you played when you took $10K Chicago?

MJ: I’m playing pretty much the same deck. The only thing I’m doing [different] is I’m playing Roy Harper ◊ Speedy, Mercurial Marksman to help with all of the Child Named Valeria decks.

Metagame.com: Will your game plan against those decks involve reusing Roy Harper?

MJ: Well, not with Avalon; he goes on top of your library. The deal with him is that you can name Roy Harper and Lost City, and if there’s a Lost City in the top four cards, you always get it.

Metagame.com: So it’s like a search effect for Lost City, in a way.

MJ: Yeah, exactly.

Metagame.com: Since Chicago’s result, your deck has been seeing some play in the hands of amateur and casual players who want to achieve the same results. What is the key to playing the deck well?

MJ: What you’ve got to do is . . . well, against every different matchup you have a different primary drop. Against Sentinels, you want to play a Brotherhood 3-drop, you’re going to want a 5-drop Wolverine, you’ll want Jean Grey as your 4-drop and Rogue as your 6-drop. In other matchups, you want a turn 3 Wolverine, and then a Brotherhood drop and Longshot on turn 4. You just need to know what to call.

Metagame.com: Is there a matchup you want to see all day? Something you just crush?

MJ: Yeah, Teen Titans. I love that matchup.

Metagame.com: And why is the deck so good against Teen Titans?

MJ: Because 5-drop Quicksilver just wrecks them, and I have [Mikado and Mosha] and Roy Harper now, so they can’t really do anything.

Metagame.com: So you want to see Titans all day. What do you not want to run into?

MJ: I don’t like playing against Sentinels. If they draw one Overload, it’s a game. If they draw two Overloads, they win. I don’t like that kind of matchup. I just want to win every time.

Metagame.com: I noticed you have a lot of Michigan players here with you. Are they sorta following after you, playing the same deck?

MJ: I think at least three of them are. The others are playing the decks they usually play, like [$10K Columbus Top 8 finisher Aaron] Brieder is playing X-Men.

Metagame.com: You expect good results today, then?

MJ: Definitely. At least three of us in the Top 20, I think.

Metagame.com: Well, good luck for the rest of the day.

After this short talk, Michael played a tough first round match against Roberto Johnson, who was running Michael’s most hated opposing deck, Curve Sentinels. During the course of the match, Roberto did draw two Overloads . . . and Michael still won. I caught up to him after the victory to ask him about his win and his own meticulous in-match notes.

Metagame.com: I noticed you have the notepad there. I wonder if you could explain for all of us exactly what it is you’re doing with it. I noticed you eventually had the exact order of your deck actually written on the page.

MJ: What that is, is with Xavier’s School/Longshot, I went through all 60 cards of my deck by turn 5. And after that point, Longshot always hits. Your opponent really can’t beat you if you’re drawing, you know, 53 cards a turn!

Metagame.com: Is that pretty much standard operating procedure for Longshot with your deck?

MJ: Yeah, that’s standard for him—it happens every game.

Metagame.com: Do you think that taking notes in that way can be the difference between a good player and a great player?

MJ: Absolutely. I didn’t start doing this until I replaced Night Vision with Xavier’s School. And with Xavier’s School, I started to see my entire deck every game.

Metagame.com: I noticed that you drew Xavier’s School and Longshot on your first turn that match.

MJ: (smiling) Yeah.

Metagame.com: Is that the type of quality play that it’s going to take to win this thing?

MJ: Yeah. To beat Sentinels, that’s what I have to do.

Metagame.com: He did have the two Overloads, and you still won!

MJ: Yeah! I baited him the whole game to waste Overloads on things that didn’t matter, and he did. I was able to pull it out.

Michael is off to a good start at 1-0. Follow him throughout the day on Metagame.com.com to see if he can meet his own lofty expectations!