With day two of the Gulf Coast Championships just a few hours away, I was all alone with half a deck. Everyone else had gone to bed, satisfied with what they had for the day to come.  Despite the fact that everyone in our group was satisfied with their Team top 8 and talked about simply enjoying themselves for day 2, they were playing with power I couldn't match. Something needed to be done.  This was it, that last leg of the trip of the particular UFS triathalon the Florida players had been subjected to in January. There was no way I was going to choke now. This is the final part of the UFS epic. This is how it all went down.

With the Lakeland AoP behind me, and the GCC less than a week away, I finally turned my attention on the block 2 format. My teammates for day 1 were going to be Alex Costa, and my friend Steve Jones playing Dimitri and Promo Adon respectively. That plan, however was based on the fact that up until the AoP, I was simply going to run a block 2 update of Evil Astaroth for the GCC.

"I'm switching decks," I told Alex over the phone. "I'm not playing Astaroth."
"What?!"
"Don't worry, I'll bring Astaroth along, but I'm building something else." 

The real question, would be: exactly what was that something else going to be? To be perfectly honest, I needed inspiration. I'd been playing that Astaroth deck for many months only to end up completely estranged with it. I looked to the top 8 of the Lakeland AoP for help, as well as some previous experience with a block 2 Necro deck I had played for GCC testing earlier.

This article is actually the first in a 3-part series, starting with AoP Lakeland, leading right into the GCC. January has been a pretty busy month for UFS players. When we got word that the Greater Tampa area was approved for its own AoP, there was almost riots in the streets. Our AoP, however, would be right before the GCC, the first major block 2 event, and a team event at that. The Lakeland/Tampa AoP would be Block 1, and my last chance to redeem myself at a block 1 event after a lackluster performance at the last AoP I attended in Orlando.  Still, that left me and the rest of my guys with 3 formats to prepare for, not a light undertaking by any means. With these goals in mind, I set out to ensure the most solid performance of my young UFS career.