The interns and Flores talk Magic before GP LA - Part 2

What’s the Best Deck Part 2?

The interns and Flores talk Magic before GP LA - Part 1

What’s the Best Deck Part 1?

In addition to the awesome coverage work that Bill Stark and Dane Young did covering GP: LA, Bill has followed up with an exhaustive burst of typing over at TheStarkingtonPost.com to post ALL the decklists from Day Two of the GP. Below you can find the decks that finished from 9th through 20th in that event and you can look through all the lists on Bill’s blog. I was only going to post 9 - 16 but when the next four players are Martin Juza, Sam Black, Gabe Walls, and Adam Yurchick I decided to just keep going a little while longer.

A couple of notes:

The top tables of this tournament were absurd. It was a pretty hot little Top 8 but then as you keep scrolling down the standings you have a former World Champion, a pair of Worlds Team Champions, Gavin Verhey locking up another invite on his climb to PT inevitable PT success, rising star Martin Juza, Gabe Walls, and Adam Yurchick.

The Top finishing Elf deck was in 18th place but it warrants looking at as LSV suggests that Elves might be good again based on the Storm front that is rolling in for the PTQ season.

The highest finishing Death Cloud deck — Michael Jacob’s — did not have any actual Death Cloud in it but Brazillian superstar Carlos Romao’s did. With or without the Clouds, the Raven’sd Crime package seems like it could be a nice way to combat TEPS decks from crafting that perfect turn.

I broke the ManuelB deck away from the traditonal Faeries listing mostly on the basis of Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Although you could easilly lump it in with the Fae this deck is something else altogether.

Gabe Walls’ Slide deck was certainly an unexpected but welcome surprise. When people were prepping for Berlin I definitley liked Edge of Autumn as a sneaky cycler and was glad to see it have some success although it would have been nice to see Walls make a return to the PT in Hawaii.

Death Cloud
Carlos Romao - 9th Place
Grand Prix-Los Angeles
Format: Extended

3 Damnation
4 Smother
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Raven’s Crime
1 Worm Harvest
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Kitchen Rinks
4 Thoughtseize
4 Life from the Loam
3 Death Cloud
2 Crime/Punishment
3 Barren Moor
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Golgari Rot Farm
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Windswept Heath
4 Polluted Delta
2 Forest
4 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Bitterblossom
2 Persecute
3 Darkblast
3 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Ravenous Baloth Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you that don’t know me (should be most of you) I’m Asher Hecht, and according to the GP LA coverage I am a self-proclaimed Ringer of the North East. I have been playing magic competitively for around three years in New York City and haven’t had much success except for PTQ Top 8’s, of which I have around 8. For the past year especially I have dedicated a lot of time to competitive magic and ptqing and have averaged around one PTQ Top 8 per season. However, time and time again I have failed to break through. To date I have lost playing for slots four times in heartbreaking game 3s, the most recent being a faeries mirror in a Berlin PTQ that was undoubtedly the best game of magic I have ever played. After that block season I was very disappointed that I didn’t qualify after Top8ing 2 of 5 PTQs and losing playing for T8 in the other 3. I went into the Kyoto season largely unmotivated due to the fact that it was Limited (I largely prefer Constructed) and that I had to dedicate a lot of time into applying to colleges.

I knew I wanted to go to LA for a while, but delayed in actually committing until around three weeks before. I always have liked Extended and wanted an excuse to escape the cold of the North East. I was luckily able to snag a ticket for real cheap and was  really excited at the prospect of my first far-away GP (I have played in 3 or 4 before always with disastrous results). However, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to play and little to no knowledge of the format. The North East players were at a disadvantage for GP LA because there were no local PTQs before the GP. This meant that no one in my area really had a clue about the format. Luckily, members of Team Unknown Stars and other helpful West-Coast MTGers told me about the format and what was viable and what was not. It seemed pretty clear to me that the format was going to be defined by Faeries and its variations and Death Cloud. Those two decks just have the strongest strategies and are very effective. I was pretty sure I wanted to play DC for a while, but turned against it when I realized that even though it did a bunch of cool things (especially Raven’s Crime) it was at its core just a mopey Rock deck. For a while I thought I was going to play UB Tron because I felt comfortable with it and have always loved Tron decks.

Luckily, it didn’t take much for me to switch when I saw the UR TEPS deck and goldfished a few hands with it. The deck felt really good in a fairly balanced format because it could force its combo through better than Elves but was still very fast (I would set the average win turn at 4.5 or a bit lower). The sideboard Gigadrowses seemed like a great strategy against Faeries because they have to Stifle it or just resign themselves to losing on the next turn. The only thing I was really worried about was getting Raven’s Crimed out of games. Going into the GP I didn’t really have a plan versus the GB decks but at the last minute I found Relic of the Progenitus, which completely shuts down any Loam engines and makes the matchup very good as long as you don’t get Persecuted.

So here is the list I used to make top 8 of GP LA

SwathStorm
Asher Hecht
2009 Grand Prix Los Angeles - Top 8

1  Bloodstained Mire
3  Cascade Bluffs
3  Dreadship Reef
2  Flooded Strand
2  Island
1  Mountain
1  Polluted Delta
4  Steam Vents
1  Wooded Foothills

4  Desperate Ritual
1  Gigadrowse
3  Grapeshot
4  Lotus Bloom
4  Manamorphose
4  Mind’s Desire
4  Peer Through Depths
4  Ponder
2  Pyromancer’s Swath
4  Remand
4  Rite of Flame
4  Seething Song

Sideboard:
2  Brain Freeze
2  Chain of Vapor
2  Echoing Truth
3  Gigadrowse
1  Pact of Negation
3  Relic of Progenitus Read the rest of this entry »

Asher, most recently Top 8 at Grand Prix Los Angeles, owes cake. Expect CakeCasts later in the week.

Congratulations on…

Condolences on…

Being paired against LSV.

That does not excuse you from victory cake duties,ManningBot!

Expect CakeCasts later in the week.

LOVE
MIKE

Calling all people like Sam, Reece, Pselus (assuming he is still alive), etc.

Does anyone know which podcast it was when I declared Blake Lively was going to be the next “It Girl”?

I think it was like in 2005 or 2006 and no one had ever heard of her yet.

Now that she is actually the next (err… current) “It Girl” I want to go back, listen, and gloat. Sam: especially since you can remember my commentary on who has a girl computer or whatever, I’m sure you can zip back and answer this in like one millisecond.

Thanks in advance friendlies!

LOVE
MIKE

Attendees were myself, Matt F., Tin Street Julian, and Steve Sadin.

Dinner was at Hill Country; I wouldn’t have picked it if I had realized that it is within two blocks of the Top 8 Magic offices (that is, long walk for me, short trip for everyone else). Tin Street got lean brisket (rookie). Sadin and I got a mix of moist brisket and prime rib. They sucker you with a high price on the prime rib (~$29 per lb.) to trick you into ordering it… The brisket is far superior. No idea what Matt F. ordered.

The lads had sides, I didn’t.

Then we went to a bakery called Billy’s that I had never been to before but is apparently the home of ice box cake. I double dessert-ed in order to keep our table.

We recorded a probably worthless PodCast (at least 75% basketball and Sadin and Julian hoping King James consents to playing on the Knicks).

Then we went to Starbucks and recorded a really good PodCast about all of our favorite decks from over the years. Very heartwarming… especially the story of Julian meeting Ravitz for the first time.

Hope it is up soon.

LOVE
MIKE

(That guy BDM is also mentioned).

More from good man Bill Stark at his blog, TheStarkingtonPost.com

PTQ Seattle 1-10-09

In other news, din din with former #1 Apprentice and 2005 New York State Champion Julian Levin tonight. If someone brings a recorder, we’ll post whatever was on our minds during bacon / bbq consumption. Sadin and others might also be there.

Much love,

LOVE
MIKE

BDM and Flores at End of Year - Part 7

BDM and Flores close 2008 in style discussing a wide variety of Magic topics.