PT Born of the Gods

PT Born of the Gods

I am a little bit tardy with this report, and I was considering not writing one at all, but in the end I wanted to have a bookend for this blog. Hopefully my memory serves me well as we are five months removed from this trip/event!

I arrived in Valencia on Sunday February 16th, with the tournament starting Friday the 21st. My plan was to try and jam a bunch of Modern and drafts online until the other northeast PTQ winners arrived that Tuesday. I was having excellent success in draft, all of my triple Theros practice seemed to transfer well enough to the new Born, Theros, Theros format. 

I couldn't make heads or tails of my modern practice. I was left in a bad spot having practiced mainly with a GBw deck of Wily Edel's design before the Modern bannings occurred. These bannings left the deck without Deathrite Shaman, obviously one of the better cards in the deck. I decided that with only a few weeks to practice before the PT, and the difficulty acquiring cards, I would just run with the deck I had been practicing, subbing Birds of Paradise for DRS. In practice, this seemed to be okay, I was winning at close to the normal rate. Unfortunately, I did not get enough practice at all against Pod decks as they just don't appear in great numbers online. I was holding my own against affinity, tron, UWR,  and twin, which I figured would be popular choices at the tourney. I was hoping that the burn/zoo decks would be less popular, as my deck could not beat burn, almost ever, and the zoo matchup was dicey. Such is life in Modern, I believe. No deck has great matchups across the board, and I felt my discard effects would at least give me a chance in my weak/less tested matchups.

Once the other guys arrived - Mike Sigrist, Devon O'Donnell, Bob Victory, Sheamus Kelahan, Justin Bransfield, and Brandon Gade, I tried to meet/hang out with them as much as possible. It was a lot of fun eating and playing magic with this group, and luckily Sheamus and Justin spoke enough Spanish that we were able to survive in the wild. Unfortunately, we just didn't have much time to test in the end. Tuesday was more or less lost as the guys recovered from jet lag. We did get to do one paper draft together Wednesday, and countless drafts online between 3-4 computers. This preparation was great I thought as we got to discuss picks and plays frequently. I even took down Siggy in the finals of our paper draft! Good old Uncle Brimaz...

Modern testing was a bit more difficult. Sheamus, Bob, Brandon, Devon, and I were all locked into different decks and were unlikely to change decks. Mike and Justin were unsure what to play, and thus wanted to test a variety of things. They ended up settling on a big zoo list. Unfortunately for me, my list was one of the rogue decks which just did not present much value to the other guys' testing. Everyone wanted to run their decks against the gauntlet of Pod, Twin, and Zoo, which we thought would be fairly well represented. I did get a number of games in against the Big Zoo deck as well as a decent amount against Pod, but I felt I could have used another week to really get some good testing done. Alas, it was a lot of fun, and I am super thankful/appreciative that I was included in the group.

My first draft pod featured Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Ivan Floch, Andresj Prost, as well as my new friend Sheamus! I opened a Phenax and decided it was literally a sign from the gods to jam one of my favorite archetypes, UB. This did not end up too great for me though. I was passed a number of good red cards in the Born pack, but did not want to jump into that color as it was so weak in Theros. I ended up with a number of solid rares, but not enough bounce/hard removal to deal with the common threats in the format. The card draw spells are especially weak when there are no real removal spells to draw to. In many matchups I would need to hit Curse of the Swine early to stand a chance. In other formats, this pile of cards would do quite well at stalling the board and then winning with Phenax, Whip, Nighthowler, or Tromokratis. However in BTT, the games usually come down to one jacked up heroic creature or a Nessian Asp type card, neither of which my deck handles well.

Round 1 I had to face Ivan Floch, a gold level pro and the best player from Slovakia. We had a fun chat about Zdeno Chara, a fellow Slovak, before he stomped me quickly with a very solid RW heroic deck. I even Cured his Anax and Cyamede, but he was able to use tricks to get through my blockers before overrunning me with creatures. In game two if I had decided to put him on nothing in hand, I could have milled him out over two turns with Phenax, but instead decided to play blockers instead which did not get the job done.

Round 2 I faced Sheamus and his GW deck. We had a very tight match that Phenax and Whip played a large role in winning for me. He was frustrated as he really liked his deck, but he went on to go 8-1-1 in the modern portion with Bogles to cash the event. A great result for his first PT I must say. 

Round 3 I faced another gold level pro in Andresj Prost with his BG deck. He ran me over pretty badly with turn four Nessian Asp both games with Pharika's Mender backup. My deck just didn't have the Baleful Eidolons needed to fight large green monsters. Whip allowed me to stall out a long game 1, but ultimately I couldn't stabilize against the beef.

Disappointed to be 1-2 with what I thought at the time was a solid deck, I had to gear up for the next five rounds of Modern. I needed to end up 4-4 or better to make the next day, which was my hope for the tournament. Here is what I ran in Modern:

Round 4 I faced a burn/one drop heavy Zoo list featuring Experiment One, Boros Charm, and the like. He had excellent draws and I had mediocre draws, and I was at 1-3 in no time. I think if I picked my hand and the top 3-4 cards of my deck I would have still had trouble in game one. His particular Zoo build was just too fast for my deck.

Round 5 I faced the straight burn deck complete with Bump in the Night. As stated before, this was a nigh unwinnable matchup in testing. The only times I felt good about it were when I was boarding 4 Leyline of Sanctity. I decided I couldn't beat everything, and chose not to go that route with my board. I got steam rolled game 1, but we had an interesting game 2. After some discard spells and molten rains, I had a 3/4 goyf on the board with 1 land and an extra goyf in hand against his two burn spell hand. I was at 9 or 10 life at this point, while he was at 12 or so. It was his turn and he had to decide whether to save his burn to try and kill me over a few turns, or kill my goyf. He decided to use both burn spells to kill my goyf, leaving him hellbent and me in a position to draw a land and play a second goyf. I brick. He draws, and casts ZoZu The Punisher!

I just shook my head and could not believe it. I don't think I ever saw that one in testing. Now even if I drew lands, I wouldn't be able to race in all likelihood. I missed another land drop before being able to cast Goyf, but by then he drew enough burn to race me. 

I was very frustrated to be at 1-4, especially annoying that I didn't get to play any real magic as I was steam rolled by my worst matchups. Now I had to win the remaining three rounds to make day two.

My round six opponent was Kentarou Yamamoto who had top 8'd the previous pro tour and was ranked in the top 25 in the world. At the time I didn't realize his exact accomplishments, but I recognized the name and knew it would be a tough match. He was playing Jund and we had an epic match. This match made up for the frustrating tournament I ended up having, as at least I could look back and know that I went toe to toe with one of the best in the world and really put him to the test. I believe we finished the match with under five minutes remaining, and we were not playing slow. I won game one off the back of a timely Maelstrom Pulse on two of his Goyfs which was enough to put me ahead. I ended up losing the next two games, ultimately due to his deck having somewhat of an inherit advantage and my sideboard plan. The key issue was the my Birds were basically dead cards, but I didn't realize this until after. There really was no point to ramping out Liliana or Lingering Souls in this matchup as the games would invariably go very long. Really what they did was cause me to flood. Also, I left in my discard spells, which was another mistake. The games often would develop into top-deck wars, where the discard really just doesn't do anything. I should have boarded out birds, and all but two Inquisitions for Finks, Abrupt Decays, and the extra Path. In any case, the next two games were very close and grindy but eventually Kentarou ended up drawing slightly more spells as I drew Birds and useless discard spells. At 2-5 I was eliminated from day two contention, but proud that I put up a fight and took a real game off Kentarou.

I stayed in and played out the next two rounds, losing to a RUW Twin player in three tight games and finally winning a match of modern against a RG Tron player in the final round. It was a very disappointing tournament for me, but definitely a learning experience. I was very proud that Mike, Devon, Sheamus, Bob and Justin all were able to make day two. Devon, Sheamus, and Justin even managed to cash their first PTs! They definitely represented the Northeast well as a whole with those results. Mike and Devon even managed to qualify for the next PT a few weekends later on the last possible weekend to do so. Mike has also gone on to ridiculous success at the GP level with a Top 9, Top 4, and win which gives him Silver status and qualifies him for the next three PTs, I believe. Bob also recently won a PTQ after top 8ing four prior PTQs in the Modern season. What a beast!

As for myself, since the PT, I scrubbed out of two limited GPs and a PTQ with mediocre sealed decks, though I was in contention in one of the final limited PTQs of the season. I was X-1 going into round 7 of eight. If I won that one I may have been able to draw into the top 8. Unfortunately my opponent had and cast three lightning strikes over the course of a game where if he didn't have the third one, I would have won. His deck was better in general, but it was tough to lose nevertheless.

I will be heading out to the Seattle area to visit relatives August 2nd and then traveling up to Portland to see a few more before playing GP Portland which is a team sealed event. Unfortunately, none of my friends from the Northeast were able to travel that far for the GP, so I will be teaming with some local West Coasters who I have not met yet! It should be fun regardless, as I love Core set limited, and team sealed is great. Beyond that, I plan to play one Modern PTQ at the end of August as well as the nearby limited PTQs this fall. 

I would say that my mind is in a different place now compared to last year, and I am not as hellbent on qualifying, though it would be nice. Philosophically, I feel like the deck is stacked against PTQ winners when it comes to the PT. The big pro teams just have a gigantic edge on everyone else when it comes to constructed. Also, most PTQ winners can't take a few weeks off before the event to get the crucial last minute testing in with the new set. It is a little discouraging, but of course it is great to be able to play in any PT regardless.

How much I practice will likely depend on how much I like the new fall set. To be honest, I really did not enjoy Theros block limited all that much. I had just decided before it even came out that I was going to give 100% to qualifying, and luckily I did. This time around, I hope the set is a little more fun to play as that will help my motivation to grind out drafts and sealed decks. At least now I know for a fact what it takes to qualify, and we will see if I have it in me again to make a real run at it.

If I end up with another solid GP result or a PTQ top 8, I will probably blog about it here, but beyond that I likely won't be posting too much else for a while. If I have some big ideas on M15 limited or Khans limited this fall, I may post some more.

Thanks for following my blog!

Best,

Ben Chapman  
@bchap55

GP Sacramento

Hi Everyone,

After a whirlwind trip to sunny California, I am back home, greeted by single digit temperatures and a few inches of snow. It was a fun trip, and I met both my expectations and goal for the tournament. I was expecting to make day 2, and hoping to draft well enough to cash the event. Let's kick things off by looking at what I played in the sealed deck portion:

This was an interesting pool to build due to how much removal it had and how few threats were contained in the colors with the removal. I have not seen a Theros pool with this level of removal before, and it definitely threw me a bit as to how to build the deck. If I told you I was going to give you a sealed pool with double voyage's end, grip tide, cure, sip, and a single lash, I think you would be pretty excited. I was at first as well, but a quick look at the creatures in the colors shows there not to be many attackers. Most of the creatures have less than 3 power, and a good portion are straight up walls. 

So the question was, how do you actually win!? My solution was to splash green for threats. I don't think this plan is great, which is why the deck isn't just a slam dunk, but this many removal spells along with two mnemonic walls can buy a lot of time to execute said plan. The mana also works surprisingly well for having zero fixing in the pool. Luckily all of the blue cards are single blue, and can all be played later in the game to great effect. Yes, having access to early blue for a quick voyage's end or activating a returned phalanx is a thing, but in sealed the games can go slow enough that they won't necessarily be decided by not having early blue. The mana base was 10-5-3, and actually the deck wanted an extra swamp but something had to be sacrificed. The mana symbol breakdown was 20-8-3. I could have cut a forest for an extra swamp, but given how important the green cards are to the deck, I wanted to give that a little more consistency. 

The deck performed very well. As expected, the removal got me to the late game, and I was surprised at how often I had an active Erebos, which I was not counting on, as another kill condition. Games where I didn't win with Erebos were often decided by the green cards and/or Thassa's emissary/Keepsake gorgon. Mnemonic wall was great in the deck as well. I hadn't truly played many decks in this format where the wall shines, but this was certainly one of them. Often opponents were in top deck mode and I was still sitting back with multiple removal spells in hand waiting to draw a win condition, or protecting one currently on the battlefield. 

So how did I lose my two matches on Day 1? The first loss came in round 5 where I was playing a relatively close game one against a WB deck. He was playing some really bad cards like Yoked Ox, which had me worried. Typically such cards are played to get enough playables in order to cast bomb rares. Bomb rares indeed! I lost game one to a turn 7 or 8 Elspeth. Turns out all of my removal does a very poor job of dealing with her. 

I boarded in Anvilwrought Raptor, Vaporkin, Dark Betrayal, and Stymied hopes to try and cobble together some way of beating Elspeth. The plan being to take to the skies and hope to kill her before she makes too many tokens. Or get lucky and land a Stymied Hopes. 

Game 2 saw my opponent play Turn 3 Spear of Heliod into a Turn 5 Sentry of the Underworld, which I Dark Betrayled. I played a Raptor and he played Turn 6 Eslpeth, making 3 2/2's... I ultimately was able to kill Elspeth with my fliers, Chimera had joined the party, but he had 9 2/2's by that point along with some extra creatures he had cast. Without the spear, I likely could have won that game, but alas my first loss was in the books. He later told me he also had an Abhorrent Overlord...nice deck!

The other loss came in round 7 against a RG deck that was quite good. Unfortunately I misplayed game one by being too greedy with my Erebos. I activated it one or two too many times and he Destructive Revelry'd Erebos to do exactly lethal to me the turn before I was going to take over the game. I won game 2, and then we both mulled to 5 game 3. His draw was outstanding, and mine was average, leaving me with a loss for the round. It hurt to misplay game one, but I tried not to dwell on it as I was still live for day 2. I just had to win the next two rounds. 

Round 8 went very smoothly against another RG deck that didn't put up much of a fight. 

Round 9 was against ANOTHER RG deck, this time with Hammer of Purphoros. This was a TIGHT match that went three games. I ultimately came out on top after taking control of the game with an endless stream of removal.

I was very excited to make day 2 and get a chance to draft. I had traveled across the country for this opportunity and I hoped I could take advantage of it. Of course to make Top 8, I would likely need to 3-0 both draft pods, certainly easier said than done. A more realistic goal was to 2-1 both pods and make top 64 or top 100. 

After a restful night's sleep, the first draft was on! My first pack had a nice one, Xenagos. There were other good green and red cards in the pack, but I had no choice but to take the mythic. I was then passed an Ember Swallower, which I took. The rest of the draft went fairly straightforwardly, there were some late black cards available like Lash of the whip in pack one, but there was always a red or green card of comparable power to take and I just stayed the course. Notably, I saw zero Lightning Strikes or Nessian Asps the entire draft, which was unfortunate, but the deck turned out to be very powerful, if not a little slow. Here is what it looked like:

I drafted the skullcleavers fully intending on running them, but looking at the deck they didn't really fit my plan necessarily. This deck seemed to be trying to get to the late game where I would be assembling a giant monster with all of my bestow cards. Getting in for 4 damage, possibly, and then being left with a 2/2 didn't seem like where I wanted to be. Instead I opted to play 18 lands and Boulderfall! I actually ended up siding out the Boulderfall for agent of horizons, satyr rambler, and wild celebrants depending on match up each round. 

The deck had its flaws, but it turned out my opponent's decks also had flaws, and they could not overcome my giant monsters. I won all three rounds in fairly convincing fashion, though round 1 was a little closer than the other two.

Sitting at 10-2 with three rounds to play meant I was still live for Top 8! An exciting proposition to be sure, but I had to do one more draft. This time it would certainly be tougher as a number of great known players were sitting at X-2. Luckily my pod only had one of them, Gaudenis Vidugiris, or as he is affectionately known as, the Goat Dentist. He was sitting two to my right. 

The draft was a train wreck. I first picked a Hundred Handed One over an Ordeal of Heliod, and proceeded to see no playable white cards for the remainder of pack one. The best cards I saw were Returned Phalanx, Baleful Eidolon, and Lash of the Whip. I believe I fifth picked a Dark Betrayal. I then took a Wavecrash Triton over nothing, hoping blue was open, followed by a Gainsay. The rest of the pack just had nothing but mediocre filler/sideboard cards. There were a few late Disciples of Nylea, but I was nowhere near green, and figured it best to ship the signal that I wasn't interested in green rather than pick up a fourth color. I had about 5-6 playables after pack 1, not where you want to be. I was hoping this was due to the packs being especially weak.

Pack two started off with Gray Merchant over a Phalanx Leader. This was a tough pick, because Leader is so powerful, but I decided given the signals I had to try and cobble together a UB deck, and Merchant is a good start towards that. I got passed a Bident of Thassa, which was encouraging. I also picked up two voyage's ends, and a very late Thassa's Emissary. My deck started to take form, but I was still drastically short playables after pack 2. Pack 3 brought more filler, but a 3rd pick Keepsake Gorgon which meant my deck had a chance to be competitive. Given my lack of win conditions I ended up drafting a Temple of Mystery and two Horizon Chimeras with the intent on once again splashing green for threats. They were also cute with the Bident. After deck building I knew I would need to get lucky to 2-1 the pod, let alone 3-0. I could also envision losing 0-3 if things went poorly with the deck. Here is what it looked like:

I got absolutely steam rolled round 1 by a very good green devotion deck including Arbor Colossus, multiple Disciples, Karametra's Acolytes, and Asps. He even splashed March of the Returned to bring back Disciples to gain absurd amounts of life. The games were definitely not close.

Round 14 was close, however. I went the full three games against a UW opponent, and unfortunately I feel I may have misplayed to lose the first game. I had Bident plus fliers going, but I think I got over-aggressive and did not leave enough blockers back to account for any pump spells. He ended up killing me with a Battlewise Valor that could have been avoided had I not gotten quite so greedy. It was a little frustrating because my opponent's deck was also fairly weak. Game two was close, but I won, and game 3 was kind of close but my opponent resolved a Medomai and was able to take an extra turn which sealed the match.

A disappointing end to the day, but there was still one more round to play. I faced a RG deck in the final round, and I won fairly easily 2-0. My opponent told me he had only been playing magic for a year, which I found very impressive that he made it so far in a GP. 

In the end, as stated above, I met my expectations and goals for this tournament. It would have been nice to go even deeper, but I can't complain about making my first actual money at a magic tournament by finishing in 54th place!

I have a few more weeks before the PT, and I will be practicing modern and Born of the Gods draft as much as possible between now and then. I likely won't post again until after the PT, so wish me luck!

Thanks for reading,
Ben
@bchap55

GP Sacramento and Modern

Hi Everyone,

It has been a busy month and a half since my last post with the holidays and everything they entail. Luckily I have found time to keep my Magic skills somewhat sharpened as we head into the critical few weeks before the Pro Tour. I decided to essentially skip the standard PTQ season, mainly because, for a format I don't love or have a ton of practice in, I didn't want to commit to the travel. The closest PTQs are all happening while I am either in Spain or at GP Sacramento this weekend. Given this, I decided to instead buckle down and get a good amount of Modern games in and to get a few drafts in here and there leading up to the GP.

I started testing Modern with a BW brew, essentially playing all of the good black cards, lingering souls, Sword of war and peace, tidehollow sculler, and Hero of Bladehold. I wanted to play a deck with Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize, but didn't want to spring for Goyfs just yet. The deck did okay, but was clearly not tier 1. Eventually I broke down and bought the green cards I needed to play Junk. I had been perusing the Modern daily event results and noticed Willy Edel was consistently playing a Junk deck that I quite liked the look of. I have since been playing that deck, making adjustments based on his and others lists as the daily event results roll out. It was very encouraging to see that Jeremy Dezani played a version of the deck to a Top 8 finish at GP Prague this past weekend. The deck is certainly for real, and I think has helped me better understand the format. Here is what I am currently playing:

I find the Modern format to be frustrating but also very complex. Which land you play, fetch for, and tap for mana all can be game winning/losing decisions for example. Some decks can nut draw you where you have little chance, but typically there is a good amount of back and forth interaction. This often leads to some long, drawn out games. Given this, it is hard to really jam a TON of games in the format, at least with this deck.  Even though I have played with the deck nearly every day, I still feel very under practiced with it and see myself making mistakes here and there. Who knows how many mistakes are going undetected! Probably a significant amount.

As a noob to the format, I kind of scoffed at how good Tarmogoyf was, but now that I have had the chance to really play a lot with it, the card is for real! Two drop kill conditions are pretty hard to come by in Magic and he does a good job of it. Lingering Souls is also quite the card, making chump blockers or a pseudo air elemental to finish the game. The card is critical in the Jund mirror as the games can devolve to a ground standoff, and souls allows you to break those stalemates effectively. 

If the PT were to be this weekend, I would definitely play this deck. Of course I haven't had the time or the cards to test other decks, but this one suits my style and plays two of my favorite cards to their max potential, Bob and Thoughtseize. I think it is very likely that I end up playing a version of this in the end because the format is so complex that I feel trying to learn a new deck in a few weeks would be a mistake. I will be meeting up with a group of local qualified players to formally test in Spain, so perhaps we brew up something I am comfortable playing, but I think it is more likely that they will help tune the sideboard and get some more constructive practice games in.

As I said earlier, I will be heading to GP Sacramento this weekend to make use of my three byes and hopefully to cash in on all of the Theros limited experience I have accumulated over the season. I will be quite disappointed to not make day 2 at the event and of course I hope to be able to cash the event as well. I will be tweeting updates throughout the tournament, so if you want to track how I'm doing follow: @bchap55

Thanks for reading!

-Ben