Worcester PTQ: Mission Accomplished

It has been quite the journey as I set out this summer to try and top 8, and ideally win, my first PTQ. I encourage you to read my first entry to this blog to get an idea of my mindset going into this season. As I mentioned in that post, I felt my previous attempts at PTQs and GPs were essentially undeserving of true success. I just did not put the work in before these events to honestly have a real chance at them. The reason I started this blog was to motivate myself to work harder and give myself an actual shot at having success. I am unbelievably excited to say that I made this dream come true yesterday in Worcester.

You may remember from prior entries to this blog that it has been a bit of a struggle this season. I had an absolute heartbreaking finish at GP OKC. The last five PTQs, I essentially was never close to making top 8. These results did not discourage me though. I feel that there is a lot of variance when it comes to PTQs. I remember a twitter conversation amongst some of the top pros where they decided that the theoretical "best player in the world" would only have a ~10-15% chance at winning a given PTQ. Of course, I don't give myself those sort of odds, but it helped my mindset to think in these terms. To give yourself a real chance to win a PTQ, you have to play in as many tournaments as possible to try and hit those slim odds. I felt like my previous card pools were big dogs to make top 8. In fact the only one that may have had a chance was the pool from Augusta, Maine. As I said in my last blog post, I was just hoping to crack a solid pool and give myself a chance.

A solid pool I did crack! Here is what I built for the 210 player, 8 round PTQ, in Worcester:

The black cards are an absolute no brainer in this pool. It is pretty clear you must play them. Agent of Fates is one of the premier bombs in the set, provided you have enough things to target him with, which I did here. Double cure, marauder, emissary, harpy. gray merchant with double disciple are all also good reasons to get excited about black. I feel like the cures, in a heavy black deck, are just crucial to the format. Many games are decided by early ordealed creatures, and cure is great at busting those draws. They also are great at killing voyaging satyr and unicorns from green decks which can significantly slow them down.

As for the second color, arguments can be made for green. Bow is a sick one, and I have a hard time turning down an Asp.  Ultimately, I went blue because Prognostic Sphinx is another premier bomb, and I have a harder time saying no to that and Sea God's Revenge/Voyages End/Nimbus Naiad. Another key is the blue ordeal, which was absolutely crucial in the games. With the Tormented Hero, having access to two ordeals allows for some nigh unbeatable draws.

As for the final few cards, I had a very hard time deciding between Scourgemark and Boon of Erebos. I ultimately went with the mark as it helped devotion and cycled. I did board in the Boon some against decks with noticeable removal.

Matches:

Round 1: Shawn Pate GW
I won a pretty comfortable game 1, where my opponent did not interact much. Game two I faced a fairly early Bow of Nylea followed by an Elspeth! I started to understand why my opponent played GW. I lost game 2 to those cards pretty badly. Game three I had a solid draw and while my opponent played a turn 5 or 6 Elspeth, I was able to kill it immediately with a Cavern Lampadded creature. I went on to win from there.

Round 2: Aaron Olsen RG

We had a longish game 1 where Aaron beat me down with a big Staunch Hearted Warrior, but I eventually stabilized and took the game. He did try and play a Hunt the Hunter to kill one of my creatures, but I had to inform him that he could not cast the card unless I had a green creature to target. Pretty odd.

I don't remember what happened Game 2, but I did win.

Round 3: Willliam Moore RG
William was sporting a top 8 playmat, and after some conversation I discovered he had made Top 8 a few weeks back but lost in the quarters.

Game 1 was  very one sided in my favor, I believe an early ordeal was involved that went all the way.
Game 2 saw a turn 3 Nimbus Naiad getting a blue ordeal turn 4, and a black ordeal turn 5, triggering the blue one on Turn 5. The Naiad went the distance.

Round 4: Drew Lichtenstein GW

I won a comfortable game 1, lost a very close game 2 where I was forced to try and race him and he had a battlewise valor for exact damage the turn before I was to win. Game 3 I won, but I can't remember what happened.

Round 5 Jody Brint GW

Another GW Deck! This time I had the nut draw with Tormented hero into Blue, and then black ordeal. After a voyage's end on a Fleecemane Lion, this game ended quickly.

Game 2 wasn't quite as nutty, but I still was able to ordeal up a win.

Round 6: Bryan Haak BW

Bryan and I go way back! We first met/played back at UNH in 2006 or 2007. He is a very solid player, with a lot of experience and multiple PTQ top 8s. We had actually looked at each others decks in between rounds earlier in the day and had determined his pool was significantly weaker than mine. He did have a Whip of Erebos and a Spear of Heliod to go with two Wingsteed Riders and two black ordeals, but he had to play some mediocre cards to fill out the deck.

We had a somewhat close game 1 that I took down. We had a very close Game 2 where I did not draw an island and was sitting on Voyage's End all game. He ended up with a 6/6 wingsteed rider and we were racing. If I had been able to cast the Voyage's End, it would have been a fairly easy win, but I did not and lost that game. Game 3 was a pretty comfortable win.

Sitting at 6-0, in this 8 round tournament, meant I had a good shot to Intentional Draw the next two rounds to make top 8. This happened and I had a few hours to call friends and get ready for the biggest draft of my life thus far.

Awesomely, my friend Charlie also made top 8! He lost round 1, and then won the next 7 to get there. We actually carpooled to the event as well, so it was a pretty perfect ending for us. Aside from Charlie, I did not recognize any of the others in the top 8.

Charlie actually was randomly seated to my immediate right. I felt good about this because in past drafts with Charlie, I know he likes to go for more aggressive decks, which I prefer not draft unless forced upon. I started with a first pick Phalanx Leader over not much else. I was then passed a Keepsake Gorgon with what looked like a common missing! I quickly deduced that it had to be a foil rare that Charlie took. This of course is not really a signal because he easily could have taken a foil Aborrent Overlord, Whip, Agent of Fates...any of these cards I would take over a Gorgon.

Pick 3 was very tough. My options were Sip of Hemlock, Hopeful Eidolon, and Voyage's End. Two of my favorite, and most successful, archetypes are UB and UW heroic. Voyage's End is a key card to both decks, in UB to buy time to get to the long game, and in UW to tempo out with heroic creatures. I also figured to not see too many more of the effect as it should be highly drafted. However, Sip goes pretty well with Keepsake and makes it look like black is open. Hopeful Eidolon is one of the top cards in the white heroic deck. It goes amazing on a wingsteed rider and is great with Phalanx Leader as well. I don't particularly like BW as a combination in the format, but I felt the eidolon was just more powerful than the Sip so I took it.

The draft went pretty straightforwardly from here, and a late Triad of Fates solidified me into Black/White. I picked up a Wingsteed Rider, Observant Alsied, Divine Verdict, another Eidolon and a Sentry of the Underworld in pack 2, and was feeling great about how things were going.

Pack 3 I opened a Thassa, Blue Ordeal, and a Boon of Erebos. I strongly considered just taking the Thassa as I felt I could probably wheel the boon. In the end I took the trick as I needed a few more ways to trigger heroic and I don't really believe in hate drafting in 8 man draft.

I was then passed an Agent of Fates! Slam dunk pick obviously with two eidolons to trigger heroic as well as a few tricks.

I then was passed a Whip of Erebos! I feel Whip is one of the premier bombs in the set, and was ecstatic to see it sitting there for me pick 3.

I followed that up with a Gray Merchant and another Sentry of the Underworld.

The deck's power level was way above most of my magic online drafts. The mana was definitely a bit awkward but as long as I could draw my colors I felt like I had a great chance. Here is what I built:

Quarterfinals vs Whit Froehlich UG

Game 1 saw Whit get down an early Prophet of Kruphix, which terrified me. This is one of my favorite cards in the format, and is absolutely deadly with bestow. Luckily, he did not have much action to go with it, just a bunch of random pump spells as my Disciple of Phenax told me. The game dragged out, but I eventually got a Keepsake Gorgon down, enchanted it with the Alseid, and pecked away for 4 a turn until he conceded.

Game 2 he mulled to 4, and I won comfortably, and was loving life.

Semifinals vs Michael Dalton UW

Chatting with Michael, he had made top 4 at the PTQ in Providence a few weeks back, has top 8'ed multiple other PTQs, and won a PTQ in his past.

Game 1 was close early, but eventually I was able to get him into top-deck mode while I was sitting on lots of action. Sentry of the Underworld and Gray Merchant eventually took down the win.

Game 2 he did not play many spells and I won comfortably.

Finals vs Christopher Butcher RG with Xenagos

I was watching Chris play his semi-final vs an excellent UB deck. He went off with Xenagos in the final game ramping into a monstrous Stoneshock Giant. I was certainly a little scared by Xenagos, but I felt otherwise that I had a decent matchup with my removal and Whip.

Game 1 Chris beat me down a bit but eventually I landed an Agent of Fates which did considerable work. I eventually stuck a Keepsake which locked down the board and I finished the game with a Sentry and a Gray Merchant.

Game 2 saw Chris play turn 2 Leafcrown Dryad, turn 3 Ordeal of Purphoros. I was sitting on boon of erebos and wingsteed rider which would eventually allow me to block on Turn 4 and two for one him with my boon, provided he had no removal. Luckily, I drew Phalanx leader and was able to execute the same plan a turn sooner, and it worked. I then curved out a Wingsteed Rider, Sentry of Underworld, and Keepsake gorgon. He ramped out a 5/6 Titan of Eternal Fire and attacked with it the next turn offering a trade with the gorgon. I blocked with the gorgon, and played my second boon that I had boarded in on my Phalanx leader. This pumped my squad and allowed me to eat his 5/6. After a few turns of attacking with my enormous board of fliers and a Keepsake gorgon activation later, I had won the PTQ!!!

It is hard to come up with the words to describe the feeling of taking this tournament down and achieving what I have been working so hard for the last five months. All I can say is that I will be working hard again to show a good result at the PT. I didn't work this hard to just scrub out!

I am a little worried about the modern format for the pro tour, as I have played 1 modern tournament lifetime and basically have no experience with it aside from watching videos/streams of other tournaments. I will likely be putting together some sort of deck on Magic Online so that I can play a bunch of games and get a better feel for the format before choosing a deck. My initial leanings are to play with Dark Confidant though as it is one of my favorite cards. I also know I will not play URW control! Not my style of deck.

I will certainly continue to blog about my preparations for the PT and I may even go to GP Sacramento next month to play some more limited now that I have 3 byes!

Thanks for reading,

Ben
@bchap55

Boston PTQ

I finally have a chance to write about the Boston PTQ from two weeks ago. Here is what I ended up building:

 This was a very difficult pool, made a lot tougher by the fact that there is basically no fixing. The big issue is that there are 4 excellent blue cards that I want to play, but blue was not playable really as a main color. I also love an Arbor Collosus, and double Wingsteed/Hundred Handed One, but the deck didn't look great when I laid it out. It certainly was an option, and could have performed better than what I went with, but this was a 9 round PTQ and I felt I needed to take a gamble with this pool. And gamble I did!

To be honest I may have been strongly influenced by a double Kragma Warcaller deck I drafted the night before and easily won with. So getting double Warcaller along with 7 other minotaurs felt like a sign from God to play them. The rest of the deck is mainly filler, but the harpies and emissaries are pretty strong. I definitely overvalued Spearpoint Oread. The card just is too low impact, and should not push you into playing red. 

I ended up going 2-3 with this deck, beating a few white based decks and getting demolished by an Eslpeth and then 2 solid green decks. The minotaur deck just can't beat a green deck really. The green creatures are too big, and Time to Feed is too effective vs the war caller to ever really race. This is a huge problem because I believe the default deck in the format is either GB or UG. Players tend to only play other colors when they open crazy bombs or have a super aggressive white or red based deck. In a nine round tournament, my minotaur deck was never realistically going to get there.

Here is what I would play given another chance with this pool:

The mana is awful, but again we are gambling here to try and top 8 with a weakish pool. I don't think this deck is at all favored to make a Top 8, but I think it definitely has a better chance than what I ran.

The final two PTQs are tomorrow and the next day. I have been using my Black Friday to jam as much sealed deck and drafts as possible online, and I have had some great results. I even beat Owen Turtenwald in the finals of one of the events! 

I expect both tournaments to be 8, or probably 9 rounds, so I am hoping to get a strong pool in at least one of the events so that I have a good chance. If not, I will certainly try to make the best of it and see how far I can go. I feel pretty confident that I can now better identify the best build and play it well enough. Time to make it happen!

Thanks for reading,
Ben
@bchap55

Augusta and Providence PTQs

We are in the thick of the PTQ season, and I have made it to three events so far. I bombed out at my first attempt in Burlington Vermont with a very loose RW deck that just wasn't good enough. After really tinkering with the pool afterwards, there was a UR build that would have been better, but still fairly underpowered.

Moving on to Augusta, Maine a few weeks ago I built this deck which I was very happy with:

This is what I call a BC special, as I tend to draft UG decks in cube. This deck has some of my favorite cards in the format including 2 Voyage's End, Grip Tide, Sea God's Revenge, 2 Leaf Crown Dryad, and Nimbus Naiad. Getting the Two horizon Chimeras and emissaries also really tied the room together.  The rares, while mediocre, are fine, and contributed to wins throughout the day. I would definitely take this deck to battle again given the opportunity.

However,  it was not to be. I won round one vs Nicholas Cuenca who I know played in the last PT to a pretty good day 2 finish. Lost round 2 in a very close match with a player who eventually top 8'ed this event. I then lost round 3 to Pascal Maynard who I understand to be a very good player in a match that wasn't too close. Although disappointed to not make top 8, I then won the next 4 rounds to be 5-2 heading into the final round, playing for top 16. I ended up losing the final round in a very close match to a RB aggressive deck.

I feel like there may have been a way to win round 2 given different/better plays, but other than that I feel I played pretty well in that event, and loved my deck for the most part.

My next event was this past Sunday in Providence RI. The venue was a little sketchy, I was a little worried the floor would collapse, but I loved that they offered a sleep-in special. This allowed players to arrive at 10:45 and build an pre-registered deck. Certainly a first for PTQs that I have attended, and I definitely enjoyed being able to sleep a little longer and not have to worry about registering a pool.

Here is what I ended up playing:

I was very discouraged as I began looking through this pool to note that the blue was very mediocre, and that I had a ton of red cards, most of which were not very exciting. The best pools I have opened involved shallow red and heavy in the blue, black, or green cards. Luckily, I made it to the gold cards and noted Fleecemane Lion, and to a lesser extent, Chronicler of Heroes. I immediately moved to see if I could make a viable GW deck. In my experience, Fleecemane Lion has been VERY powerful when it sees play. I have lost more than a few games to Turn 2 Fleecemane, and a subsequent monstrous making it an unkillable monster. Given my weak blue and shallow black, my first instinct was definitely to play GW. The deck is certainly reasonable, but nothing too exciting. With limited/mediocre ways to interact with the opponent, the deck needed ways to punch through and end a game. This led me to splash Nimbus Naiad, which I think worked out pretty well. The other potential splash was black, which I put to the right in the sideboard. The main allure of this is the Sentry of the Underworld's which are pretty powerful. In the end I felt like this would be a much heavier commitment and make the deck a little too inconsistent to pursue.

The card I wish I main decked, and sided in every time, was the prowler's helm. Normally, I dislike the card because it is a lot of mana investment, and most decks don't have the time for it, but this deck has serious issues actually winning. The card provides a way to do that and I treated it as a very late game card.

I kicked off the tournament by losing a close one to a player I had recently done a few team drafts with/against named Andrew. He played well, and I may have punted the final game, but I would have needed to get lucky on top of making slightly better plays.

I won the next three rounds to be at 3-1 heading into round 5 of 8. I proceeded to lose to a VERY good UB deck with every relevant removal spell in the colors, including Heroes Downfall. That card just feels like cheating it is so efficient in this format. My deck had mediocre draws, but there really wasn't much I could do in the match, his deck was just better. 

I played one more round, and lost again to a solid UB deck, this time the games were closer but ultimately I could not beat Sea God's Revenge.

Ultimately, it was a somewhat disappointing tournament, but I don't think the pool was very strong and I would have needed to catch a lot of breaks to top 8 with it in my opinion.

I have 3 more PTQs left on the schedule, and I still feel like if I can catch some breaks I can top 8 at least one of them! I will try to post reports/decks after the events.

I am definitely interested in hearing how anyone would have built these two pools differently, or just thoughts on the decks in general.

Thanks for reading,
Ben
@bchap55

GP OKC and Theros Limited

It has been some time since my last post as things have been pretty busy as I get ready for the PTQ season kicking off this weekend in Burlington, Vermont. Since my last post, I played in an M14 PTQ in NYC and played quite a bit of Magic at GP Oklahoma City. 

I had a great start in the NYC PTQ, going 4-0 to begin, but floundered from there with three straight losses before dropping. My deck was mediocre, and would have needed a lot of luck to make it to top 8.

Prior to GP OKC, I played as much Theros limited as possible. I played multiple events at the prerelease and played in the SCG Worcester team event where my makeshift team made it to one win from the money after starting out 5-0. Notably we gave Gerrard Fabiano's team, that eventually won the event, their only loss of the tournament. I felt great about that match as I took down Gerrard himself in a very close match to decide it. Ultimately, it was a great day of Theros limited practice in a very competitive environment which is what I was looking for, and which was hard to come by, prior to the GP.

During the week before the GP, I made and battled a box worth of sealed decks with a few friends which was great practice as well. Some things about Theros that I learned from the exercise:

Bestow is very powerful, and the pools with a lot of bestow cards were always very solid, especially pools with multiple Emissaries. 

Blue was my favorite color, paired either with black or green. The more Voyage's Ends, Grip Tides, and Sea God's Revenges, the better. 

Read the bones also over-performed, it felt like whoever resolved a read the bones won more often than not.  

A number of my losses were to unchecked Ordeals. I really hate the Ordeal cards in general as they are so high variance. Either they win the game on the spot, or are an easy two-for-one and are terrible. With heroic, there are ways to activate them sooner, but in general they felt all or nothing. This leads me to value having access to Pharika's cure, voyage's end, and lightning strike all the more.

Besides bestow cards and ordeals, it felt like rares decided lots of games. From crazy bombs like Ashiok to just very good cards like Hundred Handed One, the pools with multiple on color rares performed much better. Shocking, I know!

With this wealth of information, I flew to GP OKC to play in the grinder events. If you are lucky enough to 5-0 one of these, you earned 2 byes as well as a free sleep-in special and a box of Theros. With no byes earned for the event, winning one of these would be huge for me.

My first grinder deck was mediocre and I was glad to lose in the first round so I could jump back into another one. My second deck felt pretty strong but lost to an early Ashiok in both games to lose round 1. 

My next grinder, which was the last one I could enter before they stopped running, I was lucky enough to win outright! You can find the deck list from the GP coverage here:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpokc13/day1#1

Remember what I said before about Emissaries/Bestow being what you want? Having 3 on color was quite nice there. The Aborrent Overlord helped as well as one of the premier bombs in the format. Celestial Archon topped off the bombiness. Heliod himself actually was not amazing, but with double Wingsteed rider, I was able to turn him on a few times essentially making him an Abyss with upside. I never once activated the cleric making ability as I always had something better to do with my mana. Scholar of Athreos was fantastic as well and was critical to winning one of the finals games against an aggressive RW deck. 

It felt great to win, and even better knowing I could sleep in and not have to start the GP until 12:30, and with a 2-0 record to boot. 

Here is the pool I opened the next day:

It was a somewhat tough pool to build, but here is what I ended up playing:

The mana base was 8-8-1-Temple. I felt that I needed to splash to add a little more interaction to the deck, with just Rage and Invocation as spells that really interacted beyond Stoneshock Giant going monstrous to just end the game. Adding Reaper also was a very nice side benefit. I had a tough choice between playing borderland minotaurs or Disciple + Staunch Hearted Warrior, but ended up going with the red cards to power fanatic of mogis. I am not sure which is better, but looking back I think playing the green guys + warrior's lesson in some fashion may have been good. 

As you can see the deck is very heavy on the curve, so 18 lands was a no brainer, even with the two mana ramp creatures.  Given the splash, and my deck's need to hit 8 mana, I felt Burnished Hart was a good play, and it was okay. 

The strengths of the deck are Hammer, Polish Crusher, and my five drop monsters. Most games that I won involved just playing large monsters and attacking. Stoneshock Giant allowed for 24 damage in one attack for exactly lethal, which was exciting. 

I won my first two rounds, the second of which was very close and tough to someone who eventually made day 2 and cashed. My fifth round was vs. Willy Edel, the 6th ranked player in the world at the time, and was a featured match on the stream coverage. Go to 1 hour 37 minutes to watch the match:
http://www.twitch.tv/magic/b/467672168

I certainly misplayed the last turn of game one as the commentators explained, not a big thing, but no reason not to just attack first. Game 2 I kept a 6 land Unicorn hand on the play, which was a terrible decision. I proceeded to flood and lose easily as Willy boarded out his blue for green and I stared at my Shredded Winds that I had boarded in. We had a reasonably close game 3, but I got ruined by deathtouch creatures plus march of the returned. Overlord came to clean things up at the end, but I was probably losing regardless. Willy went on to cash day 2 as well.

Round 6 I lost to a similar GB deck where I stumbled a bit on lands and he just played solid cards. I may have made another questionable keep in this match as well, I think a 2 lander with too many expensive cards. This left me at 4-2, needing to win out to make day 2.

I won the next two rounds fairly easily, leaving me with a win and in for round 9. I was up against a UB deck and got stuck on two lands on the draw with a Unicorn in hand. Had I drawn a third land in the first 5 turns I think I was a strong favorite as I would have been dropping multiple good 4's and then 5's that would have trumped his board.

I crushed him game 2 with a decent draw, and was feeling good going to game three. This was a tough game where I got stuck on three mana for too long, while my opponent chipped away with a 2/1 flier, played read the bones, and eventually beat me with a Monstrous Sea Lock Monster when I had 4 mana. I had opted to play coursers on turns 3 and 4 instead of a Burnished Hart, which proved to be disastrous as if I had ramped my mana instead I may have been able to deploy enough large men to double block his monster and then stabilize from there. 

It was a heartbreaking loss to miss day 2, and a very disappointing finish overall. The deck was not spectacular, certainly not in the top 3rd of sealed pools I have opened, but it was good enough to make day 2 if a few things went my way, or if I played better/made better mulligan decisions. 

The following day I played in another sealed event in which I had a UB deck with double whip of erebos along with an Overlord! It was an 8 round event where I started out 4-0, and then lost three of the next 4 rounds to get nothing! Very frustrating indeed.

In the end, the trip was a good experience and hopefully my tough losses in both of the big events I played will harden me for my attempts at winning PTQs this season. I certainly learned a lot, and expect to at least be able to Top 8 at some point this season. 

My first chance will be this Saturday and I will post the deck and report next week hopefully.

Thanks for reading.

-Ben 

Follow me @bchap55

Drafting GB in M14

Been getting back on track with my M14 drafting. My last three 3-0's have been GB decks. It is definitely apparent that blue is being over-drafted at this point online. If you are joining an 8-4 queue, I'd recommend taking a black, green, or red card over a comparable blue card early in drafts. If you notice blue is in fact open, jump all over it, but it just hasn't happened often lately for me. 

I have been having a lot of success with both BR sacrifice and GB good stuff. Check out the decks below to get an idea of what you want to be looking for with GB. Focusing on as much black removal as you can find, the best green creatures you can find, and a howl of the night pack is a good recipe. Of course getting some solid finishers like a Sengir or Kalonian hydra helps too. If you have specific questions about how to draft this kind of deck definitely post em below or ask me on twitter @bchap55 .

Having a Plan

Sorry for the delay between posts, I have still been drafting 2-4 times most days, with a break on the weekend. I had a pretty brutal stretch of 5-6 second round exits where the games were very close and my opponents ended up winning the draft. The last few days I have been redeeming myself a bit with a win, and two losses in the finals which were also very close. I felt like I have been drafting very competitive decks for the most part. I wanted to share my last three decks:

This one finished 3-0, and as you can tell from the sideboard it was a bit of a train wreck. I was mainly UG but eventually green dried up and I got passed a Sengir/Liturgy so I delved into black. I picked up a late mark of the vampire which seemed good with my phantom warriors. It was! The deck was not great, but it had a plan - suit up phantom warrior and try to race. With the help of duress, which nabbed key removal spells, I was able to do this all three rounds. 

This is one thing I have been learning watching some higher level players stream - Owen Turtenwald, Cheon, etc, and they bring up the need for a plan pretty often. Both while drafting and also a plan for a given threat or game in general. This has helped my drafting and playing quite a bit. You should be thinking of compelling reasons to do just about anything from making a draft pick to playing a removal spell or creature. If you can't come up with a good reason/plan, you probably shouldn't make the pick or play. Of course it takes a ton of experience to know what the right pick/play is at any given time, and that is what I am trying to work on going into this season.

Here are a few more decks I drafted that lost 2-1 in the finals. Both of these decks crushed the first two rounds and had very close finals that could have gone either way.

I have decided that I am definitely going to the NYC PTQ on September 14th. I wish I could have made it to GP Oakland, but I couldn't get the time off from work. The PTQ will be the only serious M14 limited event I will be able to attend, so I hope all of my practice allows me to go deep in it. In the end, like I stated at the outset, I just need to sharpen up my game in general, which I believe has been going reasonably well so far. If I have any more interesting drafts, I will make a post to talk about them, but the next post you may see will be my pool from the PTQ. 

Thanks for reading,

Ben
@bchap55

M14 Draft thoughts and a Sealed Pool

Been grinding a bunch of M14 drafts since my last post with average to poor results. Have tried to stray from base blue decks to try out other archetypes, with bad results generally. I have had a few good green decks running Howl of the Nightpack along with spiders and baloths to stall. 

Blue is pretty clearly the best color, but I have been beaten by non-Blue decks that just have excellent cards in other colors. If you can assemble a bunch of top 2-3 pick quality cards, any color combo will work given enough of them. For example White is widely regarded as the worst color, and it is certainly has the weakest commons, but if you can put together a number of Serra Angels and Seraph of the Swords along with Pacifisms, you can get there.

You certainly want to jump on blue if it looks remotely available, but if not, you can try to rely on seeing what is open and trying to get the best cards in those colors. Pretty basic strategy, but it seems to be the way to go. Trying to jam slivers or RB sacrifice for example has led to some pretty disastrous results. You probably want to just draft the top pick cards and if after those you can pick up cards for one of the niche archetypes then go for it at that point. Trying to slam bubbling cauldron/act of treason over top pick quality red/black cards just hasn't been a good move early on. 



I'll leave you with an interesting sealed pool. At first I was super excited by the deck I had made, but it has some key flaws that led to a 2-2 drop in a premier event. The pool appears to be a little threat light, which turns it is a problem in the format. You need a legit plan to win, and the deck I built was pretty soft to a handful of spot removal. It is VERY hard to just not play red or black though given the bombs in black and the removal in red. Would love to hear how others would build this. Part of me wanted to go deep with the Angelic Accords + Cauldron, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Thanks for reading.

-Ben
@bchap55

Strange Night

Draft

So to continue practice this week I have done a few more drafts, with some more success but essentially breaking even. Did 3-0 one with a sold GW deck featuring Serra Angel, Seraph of the Sword, a solid curve. I also lost in a close finals with this sweet brew:

Yes, I did live the dream of having double Blightcaster out followed by Quag sickness to wipe the opponent's board. I actually ended up frequently siding out a Gladecover scout for naturalize/giant growth/ranger's guile depending on match up. I don't love necessarily running any scouts, but I did take down a sweet one with a fully suited up scout, Dark Favor, Troll hide, and mark of the vampire. That got there.

Premier Sealed Event

I signed up for what I thought was the sealed premier event that started at 5:30. I set an alarm, took a nap, and woke up to find out it started at 5:00! I had 16 minutes left on my clock for round one and a 140 card deck. I lost game one and then took a look at my pool. 3 minutes for deck building! I was pretty upset to see a very strong pool...perhaps the best I've had yet. I am conflicted because I ended up going x-2 and making 12th for 9 packs. On the other hand it could have been a pretty easy top 8...as I lost all of my game ones except in the finals when I had academy raider + mark of the vampire vs a GW deck with essentially no removal.

I started out trying GU which worked okay, but after I picked up my first loss to the mana base, I revisted the pool. I noticed the white cards actually had double pacifism, which I somehow missed at first. They also were a lot easier on the mana and fit the curve a bit better because of that. I had some very close games, but also some big blowouts. Kalonian Hydra is pretty hard to beat. Here is the pool and the GW deck I ran:

I'm signed up for one of the last 64 man draft tournaments tonight...hopefully I don't sleep through that one!

-Ben
@bchap55

First week of drafting

Got in quite a bit of drafting this week. I started off super hot winning out-right in 4 of 6 drafts. I also opened some more money rares and was sitting at 30+ packs and 50-60 tickets when I had around 5 tickets and obviously no packs going into M14 release events. My rating also jumped from 1760ish to 1860ish. 

I was able to have a ton of success with multiple near mono blue decks splashing first pick cards in other colors. I chalk this up to people not yet understanding how good blue is in M14. The commons are very strong and cards like Opportunity and Air Servant are some of the best uncommons. Drafts certainly got harder as the week progressed...blue was drying up a lot sooner and I was forced to try some other archetypes with much less success. 

While the format seems to generally lend itself to long and grindy games, I have run into a decent number of white based aggro decks that can definitely punish a stumbling player. Master of diversion is key in these decks. I have also seen a few RWG sliver decks that can have a pretty nasty curve, but also can stumble themselves as their mana is generally not great.

I did a 108 player premier event sealed tourny and ended up 5-2, not making top 8. The deck was okay, my losses were to similar RG aggro decks that curved me out slightly faster than I could curve them out. My wins were fairly decisive. Here is the deck, feel free to discuss what I should have played instead. I often sided out the Brindle Boars for plummet and naturalize. Perhaps I should have just mained the spells? I felt I would be short creatures in that case though.

 

I plan to draft more next week and try to do a few more sealed decks as well. Thanks for reading!

Further M14 Sealed practice

I just completed two prerelease sealed events on MTGO. Playing pre-release events is the worst value possible on MTGO, but it eases the pain when you open Mutavault, Angel of Thune, and Scavenging Ooze...just missing Hydra for all of the money rares. I also 3-1'd and 4-0'd the events which was nice. Played a very close finals in the 4-0 match-up, but got there. Both decks had solid black components of Sengir Vampire, Doom Blade, Liturgy of Blood, and Corrupt along with the solid common creatures. The 4-0 pool had the Angel, but she did not factor into many games beyond drawing out removal. The deck did have 3 of the 2/2 Vigilance sliver with two hive stirrings. I wasn't sure if I would like playing these creatures in sealed without better sliver synergy, but they were relevant more often than not. Sometimes grizzly bears aren't great in sealed, but they are certainly playable here. I had a couple of the Blood Bairn's which made the stirrings a lot better.

In retrospect, the pool from the previous post I believe was best with the black cards. I think in sealed the nearly unconditional removal that doom blade and two liturgies bring is way better than the red cards. Most of the games that weren't decided by mana issues turned into long drawn out games that were decided by bigger creatures. The black removal goes a very long way if saved for optimal targets.

I forgot to save the 4-0 pool, but here was the 3-1 pool, let me know how you would build it differently in the comments or @bchap55 on twitter. I definitely was torn between blue and green here, but I wanted to try out how double cancel felt, and it was great in some games mediocre in others here. Green may have been the better choice.

M14 Sealed Deck

I won some packs at my local M14 Prerelease a few weekends back and have cracked them to work on Sealed Deck building! Here are the relevant cards that I opened in each color. I am trying out a picture based format, you will need to look up the cards if you aren't familiar with all of them.


Artifacts: 

I don't anticipate playing the millstones, but I could see going deep with a special pool. Ingot enables a splash and the ramp could be relevant. I don't love playing it in general as spending turn three not impacting the board is quite risky in this format. You have to be able to do some special things with the splash/ramp for Ingot to be worth.

Green:

Green is far too shallow to be playable here. Certainly some quality cards here and there, but not enough quantity nor bombs.


Blue:

Blue seems okay, if a little shallow. Clone is great obviously, and the whale provides lots of opportunities to HAUMPH. I also really like Time Ebb, especially in a deck with a solid creature curve. 

Red:

Red is pretty spicy, but also shallow. Look at those creatures, not much to get excited about there. The spells however are worth a look. Flames of the firebrand, Chandra and her outrage, shock, and geyser are all premium cards and reasons to play red. Hopefully there is a color deep enough to pair it with, preferably with creatures that can fit a curve.

Black:

 Black is solid, but again shallow. Premium cards include Doomblade and two liturgy of blood. I also like the four drop creatures and mark of the vampire. The other cards are okay filler.

White:

Here is some depth at last! Very solid creature curve, though Angelic Wall is not the best attacker.  Double Master of Diversion, Imposing Sovereign, Banisher Priest, Serra Angel, and Dawnstrike Paladin are all great reasons to play white. Other filler creatures are necessary and will go well with other colors.

Spell-wise, pretty much just the Pacifism is what I am interested in. 

I think it is pretty clear that we are going to have a base white deck. The number of playables just make it nearly impossible to do otherwise. I think Green and Blue can be dismissed as being not powerful enough. This leaves Red and Black to fight it out.

My first crack at a build is BW:

Black adds three nearly unconditional removal spells that fit the curve well. It also adds a few evasion creatures which may be necessary to winning if our Serra Angel is killed. Mark of the Vampire is great on those creatures and can be good on a random 2/2 combined with Master of Diversion and our removal.

Here is a crack at a RW deck:

The red adds those premium burn spells but the creatures are pretty underwhelming. Thunder strike seems decent with the Firecats and other 2/2's, but this deck looks like it could potentially have a hard time winning. I am just not sure if the non-Serra Angel creatures will do enough to kill my opponents.

I think I would lean towards playing the BW deck here as it adds a few more threats to go with solid removal. I would definitely want to play some games with the RW version though to see if it could get there. 

What do you all think? Post in the comments below or tweet me @bchap55 . I'm also interested in hearing your comments on this style of presenting a sealed deck. 

Thanks for reading!

Beginning

My name is Ben Chapman and welcome to my Quest for the PT Blog.

I am starting this blog for a few reasons. One, I want to chronicle my path to Magic's Pro Tour. Two, I think I can write entertaining content that other Magic players will want to read. Third, I think this blog will be an educational tool for learning the upcoming Theros limited format. Finally, I want to use this blog as additional motivation to achieve my goal. 

Why try to qualify for Pro Tour you ask? This answer requires some writing. First some words about my history with Magic:

I have played and loved the game since 1995. My first sanctioned event was the prerelease for Odyssey in September of 2001. I have played tournament magic at various intensities from that point until today. My best tournament result was a win of 2006 Regionals, which allowed me to attend 2006 Nationals.  This incidentally was the coming out party for @LSV and Paul "@HAUMPH" Cheon. While they were making history, I was punting matches with a Heartbeat of Spring deck that I hadn't played until the night before the tournament. I did 3-0 the Coldsnap draft, which I did test a lot for!

Other notable results include being one win out of the money at GP Worcester last year, making day 2 of the Two Headed Giant GP in Mass 2007, and various X-3 finishes at PTQs and other GP day ones.

I have not made top 8 of a PTQ...yet. This the first step of achieving what I hope to achieve this upcoming PTQ season.

Why have I not "broken through" thus far in my tournament career? I put it down to mainly not practicing nearly enough. The results above were achieved with minimal hours put into preparation. I honestly haven't deserved to qualify for the PT nor cash at a GP. I hope to change this soon, and I want to share my journey with you, if you wish to follow along.

I revisit the question again, Why try to qualify for the Pro Tour? Currently I have a steady job that is interesting and rewarding, but definitely not my passion. When it comes down to it, Magic is my passion and the path to doing more with Magic is success at the game's biggest stage.

How will I get there?

My format of choice is Sealed Deck/Draft. It just so happens that this fall, there are a number of PTQs, nearly all of which will be Theros Sealed. I am also strongly considering attending GP OKC this October and potentially GP Toronto in November for  additional cracks at qualifying via Limited.

I plan to draft and play sealed events fanatically on MTGO in between these events as well as crack some paper sealed pools with friends for preparation. Given my work schedule, I can get in 2-3 drafts a night on weekdays, which if I do consistently over this time period, will be considerable amounts more practice than normal.

I plan to use this blog to talk about the format as I learn it, share/discuss sealed pools and drafts, and most importantly recap the major tournaments I attend this season.

We do have a few months before Theros is released however. I am going to use this time to play M14 limited to try and sharpen up my game in general. I know I make many mistakes while playing, mainly because I play too quickly. My goal there is to consciously play a lot slower and try to figure out the best play at all times, which isn't always the most obvious. I also apparently have been drafting incorrectly, at least as far as the teachings of Ben Stark go. I definitely want to try to apply what he explains in that article and start drafting "the hard way".

In between blog posts, I will occasionally do some tweeting. Follow me at @bchap55

Thanks for reading!

-Ben