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