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