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
