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 »

I have to admit I was pretty stunned to see Finkel sit down for the first round of Extended play on Saturday. Over the latter course of his career Jon has made no secret of his distaste for Constructed. At 5-7 in the first two legs of the event I would have assumed it was time for him to hit the team draft circuit with fellow Hall of Famer Dirk Baberowski.

Instead there he was, handing in a decklist and shuffling up a sixty.

“I can still win money,” Jon said defiantly. Apparently he is within shooting distance of passing Kai on the lifetime winnings list. “Besides someone gave me a deck that is a lot of fun.”

I didn’t need much more than that to settle in and see what was in store. What Island based monstrosity could it be? I couldn’t imagine Jon calling Faeries fun. Maybe the Tezerator?

I almost lost my grip on reality when Jon dropped a Mountain and sent Spark Elemental hurtling into the red zone for absolutely zero card advantage. He then proceeded to follow up with another, Lava Spike, and a suspended Rift Bolt over the next couple of turns. Up was down, right was wrong, and blue was red.

Jon could not comprehend my surprise.

“I played a monored deck to a Top 8 at Worlds.”

In 1998.

Ummm…are all the Elves decks hiding? There were none in the Top 8 of the GPT we posted awhile back and now the 83 person field at the Winter King has churned exactly zero Elves decks into the Top 8 of their $3,000 extravaganza. And it is not like they did not show up in force according to Alex Stambaugh who worked the event as a judge. He said early on Saturday via Facebook that the field was dominated by Elves and red decks. I was not sure  if that meant All-In Red or Goblins or Burn. Two of those three archetypes moved into the Top 8 so…still not clear on that one. I am also not clear on the decision to feature Dominus of Fealty in Casey Miller’s All-In build. Any readers out there have an idea why you would want to inlcude that over the tramply, land-eating Deus of Calamity?

You can find all the Top 8 lists here over on TCGplayer.com.

I am guessing that having decks like the ones played by Robert Graves and Brandon Burk sporting maindeck Night of Soul’s Betrayal went a long way to keeping the green men in check. Here is the winning list:

Gifts Rock
Robert Graves — Winner
2008 $3000 Winter King

1 Etched Oracle
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Ravenous Baloth
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Chrome Mox
4 Engineered Explosives
1 Firespout
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
2 Putrefy
1 Reclaim
1 Smother
4 Spell Snare
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Academy Ruins
1 Blood Crypt
2 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
2 Twilight Mire
1 Watery Grave
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Clearwater Goblet
1 Deathmark
1 Firespout
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Jund Charm
1 Putrefy
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Smother
2 Vedalken Shackles

One of the public events at GP Okayama this past weekend was a Super Grand Prix Trial for GP Kobe — the 2009 GP schedule can be found here — which offered the winner three byes, entry, and transportation to the event. (I would imagine the organizers were happy none of the Austalian or Europeans in attendance won the Trial.) The format was Extended and provides one of our first peeks at the post-Berlin metagame. It was a pretty small event considering the prize — most of the public event thunder on Sunday was stolen by what was essentially a five-slot qualifier for Kyoto — that only had 17 players. Nonetheless it was something I was eager to look at as I am sure you are too.

It sounds like these lists will show up on the Mothership sometime in the next week or so. Both Mike and I are off this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday so they won’t be appearing there. In the meanwhile I figured I would post them here. Before you continued reading below the fold…  How many Elves decks were in the Top 8? Read the rest of this entry »

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 4

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through 16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.

With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk (ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 3

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through
16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated
by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as
diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.
With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of
these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section
with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk
(ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the
Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation
on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates
Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 2

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through
16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated
by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as
diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.
With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of
these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section
with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk
(ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the
Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation
on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates
Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

Post Berlin and Readers Comments Part 1

BDM, MichaelJ, and Wilson Price of Progress discuss the 9th through
16th place decks from Pro Tour Berlin. While the Top 8 was dominated
by Elves the next 8 decks were dominated by diversity with cards as
diverse as Fecundity and Azami, Lady of Scrolls populating the lists.
With Worlds on the horizon and a PTQ season not far behind will any of
these decks dethrone Elves as the king of the Extended hill?

BDM, Michaelj, and Wilson PoP answer the Top8Magic comments section
with a discussion of everything from smattering of basketball talk
(ranging from LeBron and company in Cleveland to why BDM thinks the
Knicks will make the playoffs), the impact of Rewind on the creation
on Cryptic Command, the new season of Top Chef, why Tom hates
Chinatown, and Elves, Elves, Elves!

This is the deck that I built with Andre Coimbra for Pro Tour Berlin:

4 Spire Golem
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Vedalken Shackles

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Cryptic Command
1 Pact of Negation
4 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

1 Academy Ruins
21 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Tolaria West

sb:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Echoing Truth
4 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Trickbind

Stupid me, I tried to get Andre to change to All-in Red at the last minute (if you’ve seen my video on it you know how enamored I was).

In fact, the Blue was probably the better deck.

It is much better than “Next Level Blue” in the current Extended for a couple of reasons. First of all, all basic Islands. Andre defeated something like five Zoo decks on day one (most popular archetype) based largely on not taking any damage from his lands.

Also, if you are in the faux mirror, your Spire Golem is hard to deal with (especially as you draw into more Islands) whereas in the typical version you present a Tarmogoyf which will inevitably meet a Spell Snare.

Also, due to the large amount of bounce in this deck, it is the best deck in the format against All-in Red. I never lost a Game One in testing.

Andre went 6-2 on day one. His first loss was to Zoo unfortunately. His opponent: nada. Andre: All. More than all. His opponent’s Dark Confidant under a Threads or perhaps bound by a Shackles. Move to… damn it! Six life, flip a Spire Golem. Really!

The other loss on day one? Luis Scott-Vargas (and you know how he did).

The deck as we presented it in Berlin was not competitive whatsoever with Elves. The problem was that we had no Chalice of the Void. I think Jake Van Lunen tricked me. Or at least he enchanted me. I knew I wanted to play Stifle in my main deck. But Jake suggested Trickbind supplementing in the sideboard as anti-storm. I believed the combo deck of the tournament to be storm, so more Stifles seemed like a good idea, especially when…

Storm your face.

Stifle that.

Pact your Stifle.

I can respect that; Trickbind your face.

I will die on upkeep to my dastardly Pact promise.

See?

Storm.

Jake.

Anyway, I thought storm was going to be the most popular combo deck and despite an email from Andre about sideboarding Chalice of the Void against Elves, I discounted that deck (incorrectly) and we did not make room for Chalices.

Had Andre been packing Chalices, he would have at least been competitive with the mighty Elf deck. As it was, we had no cards and no sideboard plan; Andre did quite solidly on the first day with 6-2, but was stuck on day two, losing multiple times to the Elves.

Is this a good deck?

I think so.

Other than adding Chalice of the Void and potentially something along the lines of an Engineered Explosives (and probably going up to the full four Tolaria Wasts therefore), the main change would be Ancestral Visions. According to a phone conversation with my friend Mark Herberholz this week, “Ancestral Vision is the worst card in the format!”  so I would therefore have to reconsider its inclusion. Mark holds a lot of weight for me.

Also, common sense dictates that if the mode deck of the format can goldfish on turn 2-3 on the draw, a card that optimally serves to draw cards well after that goldfish point may not be up to snuff any longer.

So anyway, that is the first piece we are doing on Andre’s Blue deck. Check back soon for updates or perhaps a longer analysis.

LOVE
MIKE

I am about an hour away from wheels up and off to Pro Tour Berlin. I am enjoying a quick glass of wine in the lounge and looking forward to a comfy business class flight before diving right into my weekly column, doing video segments, and culminating in the Top 8 commentary with Randy on Sunday.

It should be a whirlwind weekend of Magic: The Gathering and exciting Extended technology. Looking forward to seeing not only what the rotation of many Extended staples — and the banning of Sensei’s Divining Top — has wrought on the format but what the new cards from Shards of Alara add to the mix.

I am going to try and provide a peek behind the scenes of the Pro Tour this weekend. Go behind the curtain of the coverage team; peer over the shoulder of R&D members during late might drafts to see what their favorite strategies are; and give you a look at some of your favorite players (Top8Magicians and otherwise) and how they are approaching this new format.