I am going to be headed to Los Angeles this weekend to gunsling at the Conflux Prerelease — one of a handful of large events going on around the country this weekend. If you are a Top8Magic listener in the LA area and are planning on attending the LA event please stop by and say “hello”. I will almost certainly be doing live updates to the site from the tournament so if you want to get a first look at how the Conflux cards fare in action be sure to check in this weekend.

You can find all the event details here. You can find all the Prerelease locations here.

I am very interested to see how the new Sealed deck format plays out. As you may or may not know Wizards is doing away with Tournament Packs and all Sealed Deck events will be run from a selection of five booster packs — although it is three Shards and three Conflux for this weekend, I believe. While the Tournament Pack based format was dominated by bombs this booster based version may turn out to be much more dependent on redundant commons. There was only the slimmest of chances that you could open a pool contain multiple Sanctum Gargoyles if this event was being run with a Tournament Pack — basically you would need an aberrant print run or a foil — but it is conceivable that players could end up with two or three under the booster based version. My dream pool would contain a couple of Sanctum Gargoyles, a capsule or two, and this bad boy:

My Hero!

BDM and Flores at End of Year - Part 3

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

BDM and Flores at End of Year Part 1

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

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.

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Its funny. I was talking to Andre Coimbra yesterday and he was lamenting the loss of Frank Karsten from the rolls of active authors as he was agonizing over his deck choices and pick orders prior to departing for Memphis. Then links to these two illuminating pieces appeared in my inbox courtesy of ManaMaze publisher Sven Djit of the Netherlands.

Have you ever wondered how a Pro player arrives at a decision about what deck to play in a given tournament? Well, I am not sure the linked article will provide any insight into how most people arrive at that decision but it does show you how Mad Genius Frank Karsten can grind numbers and data mine to not only arrive at the deck he wants to play but the exact configuration of the 75 cards in the deck. This is an excellent metagame overview from the much-missed Frank Karsten with a bonus link to his triple Shards pick order for all commons and uncommons in the first pack of a draft. There are a lot of surprises in here such as Resounding Thunder over Oblivion Ring, Corpse Connesieur being as high as fourth, and Branching Bolt being as low as he has it.

New Website Discussion Part 6

New Website Discussion Part 5

New Website Discussion Part 4

New Website Discussion Part 3

I was in a draft this weekend and the following gameplay situation came up and I am not sure which is the correct way to play it out. Basically I was up against local Level 3 judge Eric Smith and his Grixis-Esper monstrosity which featured six or seven pingers and plenty of instant speed removal including multiple Grixis Charms I had seen in previous games. I was bashing for three a turn with Waveskimmer Aven while Eric was swinging back for three points a turn with Cloudheath Drake. Eric had recently played a Stinger but I was way ahead on damage. I had gotten Eric down to two life and was holding Call to Heel in my hand, which I had planned to use if he had a removal spell for my Aven, and he used the vigilance ability on his Drake intending to chump block my Aven. My dilemma is this:

1. Do I continue to play it slow and steady? Sit back on my Call to Heel in case he has a trick, let him chump my Aven, and hope to finish him off next turn. Eric had all his mana untapped at the time and if he drew anything/was holding anything for my Aven he would have plenty of mana to play it plus I would be giving him a card with the Call to Heel. Even if he drew another blocker he would have to invest his mana into that creature and I would be able to more safely bounce it and swing for the win.
2. Or do I go all-in and press for the win? I could attack, allow my Exalted to resolve, and bounce his Drake. Statistically it is most likely that he is going to draw a creature or a land off of the card and — assuming he was not sitting on a spell the whole time — not be able to do anything about my attacker.

I chose the slow-and-steady approach and Eric did the only thing he could do — putting his Drake in the path of the on-coming Aven. He peeled the next card of his deck for what he seemed resigned to accepting as his last turn of the game and happily slammed Sharuum the Hegemon into play. The recently departed Drake jumped back onto the board and my chances of winning the game plummeted to about zero. I would need to draw the second Call to Heel, bounce both fliers, AND have Eric draw nothing to deal with my Aven. I ended up losing the game, the match, and ultimately the draft for my team as a result.

Although, to be fair, I was down a game to Eric’s ridiculous deck to begin with and he swept through the draft with little resistance. None of which changes my initial dilemma about whether or not I should have just pushed all-in for the game or not. What would you have done under the same circumstances? You do know he has Sharuum in his deck and multiple instants speed removals and bounce such as Grixis Charm and Resounding Wave.