On Tuesday I was testing for Standard with Matt “Ferran Dynamo” Ferrando.  We had all these tokens on the table and the combat phases felt like sealed deck, and I was just hating it.

So I called Jake Van Lunen, who often has some crazy idea up his sleeve.  It turns out the crazy idea was already out there (Ferran Dynamo had heard about it that morning, but was keeping it from me!): play a bunch of Fogs and Howling Mines, and just pretend the combat phase doesn’t exist.  I was in love.

I couldn’t find the list online, so I proxied up my own version.  I played a few games with Ferran Dynamo and it worked exactly like I thought it would.  When I saw the original list later that week I was unimpressed, and refined my own version.  Here’s the maindeck I ran on Saturday:

4 Holy Day
4 Pollen Lullaby
4 Angelsong
4 Cryptic Command
3 Negate
3 Runed Halo
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren
4 Font of Mythos
4 Mind Stone
4 Mystic Gate
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Arcane Sanctum
3 Reflecting Pool
3 Plains
4 Island

I did too little testing, and upon arriving at the site I heard everyone asking for Font of Mythos and Holy Day from the dealers, so my sideboard was a complete mess.  I hadn’t the foggiest idea what my plan was against anyone, I just knew I needed some Forge-Tenders and Celestial Purges.  I had singleton Platinum Angel, singleton Wrath of God, and even singleton Hoofprints of the Stag.  I only squeezed in 2 Forge-Tenders.  2 Pithing Needle was a good addition, but mostly it was ugly.

Round 1 I got the mirror.  My opponent drew too many cards off his own mines and whatnot one turn, so he got a gameloss– but the judge told us to finish that game as if it was game 2 after he put the extra card back.  That’s a new one!  I won game 3 on the back of drawing both my Forge-Tenders and dealing 18 with them.  Seriously.  Hoofprints finished the job.

Round 2 I beat a 5-color deck that seemed to have no plan against me at all.  He killed all my Jace’s, but he was drawing first off Howling Mines, so…

Round 3 I cast my first fog effects of the day, and lost to Elementals.  My lack of preperation was on full display as I forgot that Runed Halo didn’t protect Jace from attackers, and I learned that Elementals runs a maindeck Wispmare when it destroyed said Runed Halo at an inopportune time.  I had another Runed Halo out naming “Banefire”, which of course isn’t in that deck.

Things turned around Round 4 as no opponent ever appeared.  I watched a R/B burn mirror match and thought to myself, “I hope I don’t play against one of them next round.”

I didn’t, I rattled off some wins (finally getting to play against B/W tokens once, which is basically a bye), and was 6-1 needing one more win to top 8.  I was paired against Alec Nevins, a good man whom I would normally root for.  He was with B/W tokens.  Next to us was another Fog v. B/W tokens, and if Fog won Alec and I could draw in.

During these matches, Osyp wandered over to watch.  Someone must have been complaining about how stupid the Fog deck is because Osyp began to extrapolate on the beauties of the deck.  It went something like this:

“I love that deck!  If you’re a decent player, you can’t lose with it.  I want to play it so much! It does my 2 favorite things in Magic, draw lots of cards and piss off your opponent!”

In the neighboring match, there was confusion about the timing of a Cryptic Command, and a pretty horrible ruling by the judge on the matter put the Fog player down a game (he would lose game 2 and force Alec & I to play it out).  Osyp proceeded to chew out the judge, finishing ‘er off with: “If you had made that ruling against me, I would have gotten banned: on Monday morning on magicthegathering.com it would say, ‘Osyp Lebedowicz kills local judge.’”

In the midst of this performance, I had lost game 2 to a barrage of discard and a well-timed Austere Command, and was in game 3.  Somehow, I hit a huge glut of not-fogs, and was bailed out by Alec forgeting to attack one turn (most of his guys were tapped from Pollen Lullaby clash, but he had enough power to kill me with the Marsh Flitter with tokens he had cast).  Then, on the last turn I needed to fog, all I had was Cryptic Command.  Naturally, I hit him with it and bounced his Mutavault, offering him the game on a plate if he would activate his ‘Vault, sac to Marsh Flitter, and fizzle my Command.  He must have been distracted by Osyp’s antics, too, because he missed it.

On to the top 8, which (I’m told) was predominantly B/W tokens decks.  Of course I got paired against the guy running Qasali Pridemage, Maelstrom Pulse, Tidehollow Sculler and Bloodbraid Elf, with Thoughtsieze in the ‘board.  I pulled out game 1, just barely.  Games 2 and 3 I had land-heavy hands, no Halo to protect me from Thoughtseizes or Scullers, no Pithing Needle to stop Pridemages, and couldn’t get a howling mine effect to stick through his removal.  I ended both games with more than half the land in my deck in play, without every going halfway through my deck.

I was about 10 Total Rating points from q’ing that way, so if I can put in a decent showing in Seattle and the LCQ’s at Honolulu, maybe I’ll be at Nationals yet…

The Fog deck is great.  It changes the rules and makes life very difficult for anyone who is unprepared.  However, I don’t think anyone is going to be unprepared anymore.  Aside from me…

-gcb

A little deeper look at that email Matt posted..

Around last Thursday, I exchanged a series of text messages with Asher Hecht, telling him, in the same way that you tell someone you’re going to show up for dinner, that I was going to win this PTQ.  I was confident in my deck, confident in my ability with it, and very focused.  I had worked on my toughest matchup during the week and figured out how to maximize my chance to win it, and it was the only relevant matchup that I was concerned about (Elves).

The deck I ran was Levitt Level Blue– kind alike Faeries but with good creatures like Tarmogoyf and Kitchen Finks instead of junk that says “Wizard” on it somewhere:

Everything went according to plan, as I beat elves round one.  Spencer Assif, it should be noted, had some pretty poor draws.  He also loaned me one of the cards I sideboarded in against him.  Thanks for being a sport, Spencer.

For the next 5 rounds, I played against one Death Cloud player who generously failed to pay for a Pact when he was way ahead in game 2 after I won game 1, and 4 Naya Zoo and Bant aggro decks, which don’t do anything so unfair that it makes me concerned about losing.  Christian Calcano, who I beat in round 6, shook his head after and called the matchup, “unwinnable”.  All those 3-drops that are supposed to get around Spellstutter Sprites and Spell Snares just give me time to cast finks and goyfs, resolve Visions, and start casting Cryptic Commands and powerful artifacts.

I drew twice into the top 8 and faced Desire, which I expected to be exiting the metagame by now, and had made my deck weaker against.  I drew enough Canonists to lock him out in games 2 and 3, despite seeing 0 counters game 3 and just having to pray that he couldn’t find a bounce spell (I had a Jitte protecting my canonist from burn).

In the quarters semis I beat local ptq-master Rob Seder and his interesting Disrupting Shoal, Visions, and Thirst for Knowledge-featuring faeries deck in 3 games.  If you play this deck, against faeries just cast your threats and force them to react.  They won’t catch up unless you have a very bad draw.

The finals was a W/R boat-brewish deck, with Figures, Fanatics, Ajanis, Spectral Processions, Seige-gang commanders, lightning helixes, Fulminator Mages, and such-like.  Hedge-mage came out of the board, of course.

Game 1 I had a decent hand with 4 lands in it.  Matt Ferrando was watching, and later said that he knew I’d be in trouble if I drew 2 more lands in the next 3 cards.  So it went.

Game 2 I had a better draw, and he was a little land-heavy, giving me plenty of time to deal with his threats and kill him with a Kitchen Finks.

Game 3 was much closer.  He stuck a turn-1 Figure, Helixed my turn-2 Goyf, and made his figure 4/4 on his 4th turn, while I sacced some lands. I had drawn none of my explosives or paths, and had only a sower in hand to deal with Figure and a lot of land again, so I dropped Finks on turns 4 and 5 and waited to hit 6 land so I could protect my Sower with a Mana Leak.

He played a Fulminator with one land up and beat me down to 10.  He did not sac fulminator.

On my turn I drew Umezawa’s Jitte, tapped all my non-basics to cast my Sower, stole his Figure, and left 2 basic lands up to facilitate Mana Leak.  I then traded half of a Finks and a tapped land for his Fulminator, not wanting the Fulminator around to fizzle my Jitte trigger.

On his turn, he dropped another land and cast Siege-Gang Commander.  I let it stick, since I had Jitte to deal with it.  Then, at the end of his turn, I don’t think to shrink his Figure, which I should have done.  On my turn I play a land, going up to 6 lands again, give the Jitte to my Sower, and swing with the team.  He takes 9 and trades a goblin for my shrunken Finks.  My hand is now Mana Leak & land.

Knowing his deck has a lot of token generators, and that he has been missing land drops (and thus has more gas in hand than I do), I know I’m going to need to ride my Jitte.  So when he plays Hedge-Mage with 2 mana up, I Mana Leak.  He then helixes my Sower, getting his 4/4 figure back.  I don’t have the spare mana to shrink it back to 2/2.

On my turn, I draw another land.  I equip my remaining Finks and swing, as his Figure is tapped.  I pass, and we both know he doesn’t have the 6th land since he already missed a drop.  He’s also playing Windbrisk Heights, which won’t help.  But the draw yields a Bloodstained Mire, and he swings for 8 in the air with his Figure, dropping me to 2.  He has 2 goblins in play, remember, so even 2 more Jitte counters from an attack won’t buy me another turn.  Draw phase?  Flooded Strand.

I had sided a land out on the draw, too.  I should have shrunk the stupid Figure.

Earlier this season, I went 14-3 in games at a PTQ in Philly and finished 9th by 0.1% on tiebreaks.  If you’re going to be at King’s Games in Brooklyn this Saturday, I’ll see you there.  I plan on winning this time.

-gcb

Despite some concern about whether or not we would be welcome at a mono-Japanese hobby store, Zeilend and I went down for the FNM draft last friday. We had been doing a lot of drafts on the tcgplayer utility to try and get familiar with the sets again. I hadn’t drafted since the week of the Conflux release, and Zeilend hadn’t played Magic in about 6 months.

After a short subway ride + walk, we arrived at the store around 5:30pm. We watched a little Legacy action and registered for the draft. We got a full 16 people, so the organizer split us into two pods. Thankfully, he put Zeilend and I together so that she could translate for me. Luckily for both of us, the organizer also elected to use English packs for our pod. There was some grumbling about this and Zeilend told me that it was not a popular decision. Instead of handing out packs as prizes, all the rares would be pooled after the tournament and the players would re-draft them according to place.

Draft begin!

I don’t remember the specifics of the draft, but in the 1st pack I 1st picked a Naya charm, 2nd picked a Magma Spray, and picked up two Druid of the Anima and two Dragon Fodders. Both Fodders tabled back to me, getting them 8th and 10th pick.

2nd pack I 1st pick FOIL Sarkhan Vol, 2nd pick Resounding Roar, 3rd or 4th picked a foil Wild Nacatl, and also got a Rakeclaw Gargantuan, 2 Mosstodon, an Exuberant Firestoker, and a Naya Panorama.

3rd pack I 1st pick Armillary Sphere, passing a Nicol Bolas, which the player to my left windmill slammed. I end up getting a couple Matca Rioters, a Wild Leotau, a Beacon Behemoth, a Viashino Slaughtermaster and a Paleoloth!!!

I end up with around 23 playables, and decide to play my Gustrider Exuberant main deck since I had 5 creatures with power 5, and I imagined recurring it with Paleoloth might be a nice way to break a stalemate. I ended up playing one Swamp that I could mise to pump my Slaughtermaster and Matca Rioters.

Zeilend’s deck looked pretty scary. She had a blue and black Capsule, three Glaze Fiend, 2 Parasite Strix, 2 Sedraxis Alchemist, Resounding Wave, Fate Stitcher, Puppet Conjuror, Oblivion Ring, Sanctum Gargoyle, Grixis Slavedriver, and some Landcyclers. Basically, the BDM dream deck.

Apologies to all opponents for not knowing their names, I could not read them. I got by with gestures and one-word sentences.

Round 1 I get paired against a five-color deck that seemed heavily Jund. The guy had a lot of Unearth, some pingers, and both Sprouting and Scarland Thrinax. I lost game 1 to a pretty quick draw. He got both his Thrinax out, and starting growing the Scarland. We were trading hits back and forth and I thought I was winning the race until he started counting up all his creatures. “Soul’s Fire?” I asked. “Hai.”

I got pretty aggressive draws games 2 and 3. Game 2 I surprised him with lethal off of a Viashano Slaughtermaster that got pumped by Resounding Roar.

Game 3 I hit Wild Nacatl, Druid, and then 5-power creatures until he scooped.

1-0

Round 2 I am against another five-color deck. I kept a really loose hand game 1, six lands and shiny Sarkhan Vol. I runner four straight lands and scoop it.

Game 2 we both mulligan, and I think he must have been missing colors because he barely played anything the whole game, even though he was making land drops. Maybe he just kept a slow hand since he saw no spells from me game 1. I played guys, turned them sideways, and won pretty quick.

Game 3 he mulligans and keeps a 1-lander. He misses his 2nd land drop, but I have mono-forests and am beating with a 1/1 Nacatl (this is humorous to his friends who are observing us). He starts drawing lands, but I make a Druid and start dropping big men. I end the game quick by pumping up a Slaughtermaster with a Resounding Roar again.

2-0

Last round and I am paired against the other 2-0 from our pod. He was the player to my left that I had passed the Nicol Bolas to, and like my first two opponents he was also playing five-color. Game 1 he has the option of playing a Wretched Banquet on my Druid or my 1/1 Matca Rioters. Of course he chooses the… Rioters. Druid was the only source of non-green mana I drew all game, and I am pretty sure he would have rolled me if he had just killed the Druid.

Game 2 I side in Molten Frame, thinking I could use it to blow up an Obelisk. Of course I drew it in my opening hand and saw that it would not be nearly as helpful as I thought. I had a pretty good curve, mising my Swamp for my Slaughtermaster, and allowing me to make 4/4 Rioters. Imagine how excited I was when my opponent makes a turn 4 Tower Gargoyle, giving my a target for the Molten Frame. Since he had shown me no artifact Creatures game one, he was pretty shocked to see that I had brought it in. Rather than try to explain that I had misread the card, I said nothing and let him believe I was just that good. He drew some more removal, but I was getting in for damage and made a good trade with Resounding Roar. My opponent top decks a needed land and windmill slammed a Charnelhoard Wurm. He is at 4, and I have two 1/1 goblin tokens in play. Luckily, I top deck Naya Charm and swing with both tokens. He blocks 1, and I charm to regrow my Resounding Roar, pump the unblocked token, and win.

3-0

I won the pod, which meant I was the “Ichi” and would get first pick of the rares. The winner of each pod also got a Kitchen Finks FNM promo, which was pretty nice. I tried to convince everyone that the Path to Exile should be laid out with the other rares, hoping that I could pick it 9th. They didn’t get the joke, and shuffled it in with the other uncommons to be dealt out. I first picked the foil planeswalker, and also got a Sphinx Summoner, Death Baron and Mindlock Orb.

So that was my draft in Japan. I don’t think my deck was really spectacular, but it was definitely well matched against the slow decks that my opponents built.

Next time on Price of Progress: Extended decks, a topic I have been putting off for too long.

~WillPoP

Unfortunately I did not make it out to the PTQ in Pittsburgh last week; neither the length of the drive or missing valentines day appealed to me too much. Had I gone, however, I would have gotten to see a friend of mine from the area do pretty well with a deck that is not really on anyone’s radar right now. Click here to see the top 8 decks from that tournament.

Andrew Wagner ended up getting third in the tournament, losing in the semifinals with this deck:

Main deck
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Kataki, War’s Wage
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
4 Spectral Procession
4 Path to Exile
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Chrome Mox
4 Mutavault
1 Eiganjo Castle
15 Plains

Sideboard
2 Rule of Law
2 Jötun Grunt
3 Icatian Javelineers
3 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Kataki, War’s Wage

I caught up with Andrew over Facebook to ask him about his deck. Andrew said that he picked the deck because he is stubborn and does not like to play well established decks. Despite how well he did (6-0-1 in the swiss), Andrew does not think the deck is a great pick right now because it hasunfavorable matchups against some popular decks. Here is how he evaluated the matchups:

Strengths: Can beat all the aggro and combo decks on the back of maindeck and sideboard hate. This deck is loaded with cards to beat red decks (Burrenton Forge-Tender, Jitte, Kitchen Finks, Path to Exile) and combo (Ethersworn Cannonist, Rule of Law, Jitte and Path against Elves).

Weaknesses: You are playing bad cards like Isamaru, and you can’t really beat any of the control decks in the format. Icatian Javelineers in the board hypothetically helps the Fae matchup. Rock decks are pretty tough as well, and Jotun Grunt is in there to get rid opposing Life From the Loams and shrink Tarmogoyfs. The main deck Liege is a nod to Raven’s Crime.

Andrew lost to Bant Aggro in the top 8, a deck that Mike has been posting about recently on his site. If he played it again, which he wouldn’t, he would get rid of the Chrome Mox and put another Oblivion Ring in the main.

Despite Andrew’s lack of enthusiasm for his deck choice, white weenie looks like it could a great gap deck at some point in the season if Faeries or Bant should become unpopular.

~WillPoP

PS: Knight of the Reliquary + Scapeshift = Nombo or Combo?

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 »

Last time I wrote I was confessing to missing top 8 of a sealed ptq with an absolutely insane pool.  At that tournament, as often happens for a seat-all-players, I was sitting near Chris Calcano for the sealed build.  Before we opened our pools to get started, I had offered him the blind-trades, and he had turned me down, poor fellow.

Well, fate had his back this weekend.  Chris opened up a sealed pool which allowed him to play 1 Mountain and all plains and forests for basics, splashing 1 red card, 1 blue card (off 2 obelisks) and still playing 6 rares.  Yes, 6.  Included in those six were 2 battlegrace angels, a stoic angel, and a sigil of distinction.  Unlike myself, Calcano was able to parlay his insane pool into a top 8.  I draft-capped him, and here’s approximately what happened.  Relevant cards are listed, bold is what he picked, and discussion follows in italics with me (GCB), Matt Ferrando (MF) (who also watched Chris’s draft as it progressed) and Chris Calcano (CC).

–Pack 1–
1: Arcane Sanctum, Sharding Sphynx, Soul’s Fire, Kathari Screecher
GCB: I guess I can see it as a forceful choice, but at this table I would take the bomb.  True, you pass 3 blue cards which is better signaling, but Sharding Sphynx can win games by itself and I like to draft a little more passively.
MF: Sharding Sphinx is definitely my pick, its not easy to deal with and unlike “dragons” it starts to take effect immediately if you have other artifact men in play.
CC: I think Soul’s Fire is one of the top red commons in shards draft, i figured with it being the lone red card in the pack my neighbor would pick up on that and make my draft go smoother. I later discussed the pick with GCB and Matt F and we all came to the conclusion that I was dumb and should’ve taken the Sphinx lol.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe scrubbing is too strong a word.

I ended up dropping after a 3-3 performance at the 5k last weekend. As promised, I stuck with the Greedy Grixis deck I have been posting the past few weeks. I still really like the deck but it ended up being a bad choice for the tournament. I was expecting to see a lot of 5C Control, Faeries and Kithkin (aka the Metagame). I don’t have official numbers, but from looking around the most popular deck in the room appeared to be Red Deck Wins. I didn’t think that RDW would be that bad of a matchup, but the lists I played against had two cards that were very difficult for me to beat: Stigma Lasher and Magma Spray. Stigma Lasher made Ajani awful and Magma Spray made my Shriekmaws and Sowers much worse. I never ever got to play a Makeshift Mannequin the two times I played against Red.

Here is a quick rundown of my tournament by round.

Round 1 v Tom with Faeries
I beat Tom 2-1 this round. Essentially, I won the two games where I got my Bitterblossom (games 1 and 3) and he won game 2 when he got his Bitterblossom and I didn’t draw a Wispmare for it.
1-0

Round 2 v Dave with RDW
Dave was a really nice guy and he crushed me 2-0 with Turn 2 Stigma Lasher (with me having Ajani in hand) both games. I got a couple of good Firespouts against him but it wasn’t enough since I could not gain my life back and he would eventually burn me out. Dave and I got lunch after this round, it was delicious! Dave went on to top 8 the tournament, unfortunately I did not stick around to see how he finished.
1-1

Round 3 v Kenny with BW Tokens
When I realized what Kenny was playing I got very worried because I had not tested the matchup and BDM had been telling me how good the BW tokens deck was for several days before the tournament. I managed to win this one 2-1, winning game 1 where Kenny was short on lands, losing game 2 to multiple Spectral Processions + Ajani (Goldmane) and winning game three with Thoughtseize into multiple Siege-Gang Commanders.
2-1

Round 4 v Gil with Faeries
Faeries again. I figured I had blown all my luck beating Faeries the first round but I somehow managed to beat Gil in three games. I mulliganed to 5 game 1 but it was still very close; I ended up dying to my Bitterblossom the turn I would kill him. Game 2 I found an opening to resolve a Siege-Gang and was able to win off of that. Game 3 I think Gil could have won if he had used his Thoughtseize to get rid of my Wispmare instead of my Thoughtseize. I am not sure if he realized that all of my lands came into play tapped and that I would not be able to Seize away his Bitterblossom before he could play it. Anyways, he made a turn 2 Blossom, which i disenchanted with an evoked Wispmare. A few turns later I found my own Bitterblossom and that was game.

Round 5 v Gerard Fabiano with GR Elves
It was unfortunate to get paired with Gerard as one of us would be eliminated from top 8 contention with a loss this round. Gerard is a really fun guy to play against and even though I lost I enjoyed our match. Since we both knew each others decks we were sideboarding face up and Gerard gave me advice on plays. This behavior was confusing to the people playing on either side of us. Gerard’s deck can get some very explosive draws and he blew me out completely game 1. Game 2 his draw was slower but he had triple Treetop Village which made it difficult for me to stabilize after Firespouting. I sided out Grixis charm here, which in retrospect was bad because it is my only real answer to the Treetop. Oh well.
3-2

Round 6 v Avery with RDW
I decided to keep playing to shoot for top 16, which paid out $100. Unfortunately I got paired against RDW again with all the same cards I can’t beat. Avery 2-0′d me and I dropped.

Despite my mediocre-to-poor performance I still think the experiment with Greedy Grixis was a success. After rounds my opponents usually asked to see my deck and told me that they were sideboarding all wrong because they couldn’t figure out what I was playing. This deck probably would have been much better positioned a few weeks ago when the metagame was less RDW heavy. If I could do it all over again I would probably pick a deck better suited for the field, probably something very similar to an elf list a friend of mine piloted to 7-2 or Merfolk. I will be posting the elf list soon for anyone who is still interested in T2.

WillPoP

Wherein MichaelJ plays a few rounds with Greedy Grixis by Will Price of Progress. Also a discussion on mana bases and a holiday greeting!

I played Will Price of Progress’s Greedy Grixis deck as described in Price of Progress: Kithkin Testing.

I was intending to play eight matches per the process I decided on for Eight Matches with Blightning Beatdown, which would have in fact given me the opportunity to call it something cool like “The Top 8 Magic Matches with Greedy Grixis” or some such…

But I got bored after three matches (and I will explain why soon).

On balance I went 3-0 with Will Price of Progress’s deck before being overwhelmed by the desire to make a Shamans linear deck.

The first match I played was versus Shamans.

His deck had Red for the Elementals Harbinger and Rage Forger, but was firmly Shamans with Chameleon Colossus, Doran, &c. I found this to be supremely exciting.

The games were quite close because he had too many lands coming into play tapped, and so I got them 2-0. Plus my cards were Blue whereas his were !Blue.

The coolest play of this session was realizing I had the kill in a sort of non-intuitive way. I got in, used Ajani Vengeant, then Cryptic Commanded my own Ajani, and re-played the Planeswalker for a sick little Lightning Helix to deal the final three. Would I have won anyway? Probably. But very Jon Finkel nonetheless.

Hmmm…

The second match I played was against the Fae with White. He opened up on Arcane Sanctum and played a second turn Awesome Blossom and I was for a moment struck that I might be in some kind of a “preposterous mana base mashup” mirror.

However he ended up the Fae; I am sure you have seen these First Among Equals decks with Esper Charm for Biterblossom in the mirror, and to replace long lost playset of Ancestral Visions.

It was win-loss-win, with him shipping to Paris in the third.

I was pretty surprised with this win, but I think it was a mite confusing for him. Should he be attacking Ajani? Is it possible this deck is actually good?

I am not sure if Sower of Temptation is any good against the First Among Equals or not.

The last match on this session was against the Guile deck — more or less — from last year.

This was as lopsided a match as they come, with the Guile deck ill equipped to deal with Bitterblossom (and I drew multiples), plus <strike>my</strike> Will Price of Progress’s deck was quite spectacular in sideboarded games thanks to Gutteral Response (counters Cryptic Command and another twenty cards for one mana).

Typically I sided out Fulminator Mages and Siege-Gang Commanders and / or Makeshift Mannequin, that is, the cards that don’t do anything ever for cards that are quite good. I brought all the Thoughtseizes and all the Gutteral Responses in against Fae and Guile, and the incremental Sower, Reveillark, and Ajani against Elemental Shamans.

I actually got “the Fulminator Mage draw” against Fae and it was decidedly lukewarm. I mean basically this is Stone Rain… Only if you draw it against basic lands, viz. Guile you feel especially worthless (which als happened… but the Guile matchup is quite lopsided due to Awesome Blossom).

The best cards in this deck were: Ajani Vengeant, Bitterblossom, and of course Mulldrifter and Cryptic Command. The worthless cards were Makeshift Mannequin and Fulminator Mage (which is why I sided most or all of them out even when they were supposed to be good).

The mana base is quite horrendous. I kept having to take damage. Personally, I abhor pain land duals in this format, especially when playing suicidal cards such as Awesome Blossom. For instance the Shamans deck actually tried to race me in Game Two; it was only my topdecking Ajani Vengeant (and then setting up that awesome Cryptic Command two-step) that savedd me from the stupid Caves of Koilos, &c.

Presuming you play Will Price of Progress’s spells precisely, your mana costs look something like this:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWWWW

You can get away with 12 sources of Red mana (Will’s mana base actually only has 10) but need more than 14 sources of Blue mana. It is imperative to have at least 14 lands that come into play untapped, meaning for a deck with only 25 lands, you can only play 11 that come into play tapped.

Note that you can theoretically bias the Red mana like so:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWWWW

… which is much better than biasing Black mana due to the double cost on Siege-Gang Commander.

That doesn’t really get us anywhere, though. We still need more than eight sources of Black mana and probably White mana.

This is what Will Price of Progress’s mana base can produce:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

RRRRRRRRRR

WWWWWWW

This isn’t too bad in terms of distribution, but for the fact that there are too many pain lands and that Rugged Prairie is actually horrendous in this strategy.

I propose:

3 Arcane Sanctum

4 Cascade Bluffs

4 Crumbling Necropolis

2 Mystic Gate

4 Reflecting Pool

4 Sunken Ruins

4 Vivid Creek

You theoretically have 15 sources that can play Bitterblossom on the second turn and all 25 of your lands produce Blue mana. Also, no pain at all.

It’s a question of testing at this point, though I wonder what Paul Jordan would say (hint hint).

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

LOVE
MIKE

I PTQ’ed in Phili last weekend.  Sitting across from fellow NY PTQ regular Christian Calcano at deck construction, I offered the trade.

I always offer the trade.  Some random deck comes to you, you still don’t know what’s in it… what better way to avoid the temptation of blaming luck than to swap out the deck that fate dealt you?

Chris smiled, as he almost always does, and flipped a coin.  Heads we trade.  Came up tails.  I flip open my tournament pack and on the inside flap is written: “Enjoy ^^”

Here’s what I built.  And no, I’m not making this up:

1 Predator Dragon
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Vein Drinker
1 Violent Ultimatum
1 Infest
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Bone Splinters
1 Resounding Thunder
1 Blightning
1 Resounding Roar
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Blister Beetle
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Naya Battlemage
1 Jund Battlemage
1 Viscera Dragger
1 Scavenger Drake
1 Carrion Thrash
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Obelisk of Jund
1 Obelisk of Naya
1 Naya Panorama
2 Jund Panorama
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Plains
3 Forest
4 Mountain
5 Swamp

Significant unplayed cards: Naturalize, Corpse Connoisseur (not much to get..), Obelisk of Esper, Puppet Conjurer, Relic of Progenitus, Cylian Elf

The only real choice here is: do you splash white?  I figured with a deck this insane, I’d rapidly end up at the top tables, playing against a lot of bomb-riddled decks, and the O-ring and Naya Battlemage’s ability would be put to good use.  Against less dangerous decks, I sided out Plains & Arcane Sanctum for Forest, Swamp, and some combo of Relic, Cylian Elf, and Naturalize.

It all went according to plan for a while… I lost 1 game over the first 4 rounds, benefiting from an unneeded deck-reg game loss in round 2 (count your cards, people!) and only really getting tested by a 13-year-old kid named Case in round 4 who was having sooo much fun.  He had a very smooth Jund deck with less power than mine, and he played really well.  He also asked me a million questions, in complete earnest, about my day, my Magic background, and whatever else came into his head.  Case already knows what Magic is really about.

Anyway, as I’ve implied, the wheels came off in round 5.  I lost 2 games to Corpse Connoisseur in a deck with double Scourge Devil and good removal.  His removal bought him time, and he dealt 15+ in a single turn in both games.  In game 2, I mulliganed once and ended the game with Relic of Progenitus on top of my library.  I think I made a subtle mistake on an attack earlier in the game that might have bought some time.

Round 6 I lost to Sarkhan Vol, which smashed me with my own Skeletal Kathari before saccing it to itself, then stole half of my Broodmate, smashed me with it… and sacced it to a freshly-summoned Skeletal Kathari.  I had the option of casting Oblivion Ring instead of Broodmate, but at 13 or so life, it seemed like the Broodmate could handle the planeswalker with O-ring backing it up.  No such luck.

So, with that monstrosity of a sealed deck, with 4 on-shard Bombs, ample removal, nothing but solid creatures and spells, good sideboard tools, and excellent mana… I was out of the tournament.

I played the last 2 rounds to finish in 13th out of 210.

What do you think of this deck?  How many Shards sealed decks do you think you’d have to open before you found one you’d take over this?

At the end of the day, I was actually in a pretty good mood.  I watched some of the top 8, talked to Jake Van Lunen (who had the same record with a worse deck), and wasn’t nearly as frustrated as I thought I would be.  Frankly, I think I should have won that tournament… I guess I’ll just have to win the next one, instead.

The top 8 draft must have been frustrating– it looked like the packs were just terrible, and everyone was running cyclers and multiple 23rd-cards.  Local Phili Magic hero Conrad Kolos lost in the first round in an inglorious game, missing a color after a mulligan and drawing nothing but 1/1’s to put his Quietus Spike on when his opponent had a Blood Cultist and Conrad’s graveyard held a Magma Spray.  Jake and I had driven down with a fellow named Bob, and he got his first PTQ Top 8 on this day, beating Gerrard Fabiano in the round of 8 with his unearth-tastic pile before falling to Max Tietze of the lucky Blood Cultist.  He kept 4x Mountain, Swamp, Onyx Goblet in game 2.  We didn’t stay for the finals.

So, what’s the take-away?

1. If you are Chris Calcano– Next time I offer the tradesies… forget about the coin, just trade!
2. If you have the most amazing sealed deck ever, but you still miss top 8, don’t feel too bad.  It just means there’s more to a limited PTQ than opening a great pool.  Or that you are at least as bad as I am.
3. Sometimes consistent, synergistic, uncommon 5-drops beat bomb-tastic 6-drops.
4. If a planeswalker hits the table, don’t get cute.  Just kill it.

It looks like my next PTQ will be the Neutral Ground one the same weekend as Worlds.  Maybe I can open some Scourge Devils.