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/
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
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