It has been some time since my last post as things have been pretty busy as I get ready for the PTQ season kicking off this weekend in Burlington, Vermont. Since my last post, I played in an M14 PTQ in NYC and played quite a bit of Magic at GP Oklahoma City.
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/467672168
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
Been getting back on track with my M14 drafting. My last three 3-0's have been GB decks. It is definitely apparent that blue is being over-drafted at this point online. If you are joining an 8-4 queue, I'd recommend taking a black, green, or red card over a comparable blue card early in drafts. If you notice blue is in fact open, jump all over it, but it just hasn't happened often lately for me.
I have been having a lot of success with both BR sacrifice and GB good
stuff. Check out the decks below to get an idea of what you want to be
looking for with GB. Focusing on as much black removal as you can find,
the best green creatures you can find, and a howl of the night pack is a good recipe. Of course getting
some solid finishers like a Sengir or Kalonian hydra helps too. If you
have specific questions about how to draft this kind of deck definitely
post em below or ask me on twitter @bchap55 .
Sorry for the delay between posts, I have still been drafting 2-4 times most days, with a break on the weekend. I had a pretty brutal stretch of 5-6 second round exits where the games were very close and my opponents ended up winning the draft. The last few days I have been redeeming myself a bit with a win, and two losses in the finals which were also very close. I felt like I have been drafting very competitive decks for the most part. I wanted to share my last three decks:
This one finished 3-0, and as you can tell from the sideboard it was a bit of a train wreck. I was mainly UG but eventually green dried up and I got passed a Sengir/Liturgy so I delved into black. I picked up a late mark of the vampire which seemed good with my phantom warriors. It was! The deck was not great, but it had a plan - suit up phantom warrior and try to race. With the help of duress, which nabbed key removal spells, I was able to do this all three rounds.
This is one thing I have been learning watching some higher level players stream - Owen Turtenwald, Cheon, etc, and they bring up the need for a plan pretty often. Both while drafting and also a plan for a given threat or game in general. This has helped my drafting and playing quite a bit. You should be thinking of compelling reasons to do just about anything from making a draft pick to playing a removal spell or creature. If you can't come up with a good reason/plan, you probably shouldn't make the pick or play. Of course it takes a ton of experience to know what the right pick/play is at any given time, and that is what I am trying to work on going into this season.
Here are a few more decks I drafted that lost 2-1 in the finals. Both of these decks crushed the first two rounds and had very close finals that could have gone either way.
I have decided that I am definitely going to the NYC PTQ on September 14th. I wish I could have made it to GP Oakland, but I couldn't get the time off from work. The PTQ will be the only serious M14 limited event I will be able to attend, so I hope all of my practice allows me to go deep in it. In the end, like I stated at the outset, I just need to sharpen up my game in general, which I believe has been going reasonably well so far. If I have any more interesting drafts, I will make a post to talk about them, but the next post you may see will be my pool from the PTQ.
Thanks for reading,
Ben
@bchap55
Been grinding a bunch of M14 drafts since my last post with average to poor results. Have tried to stray from base blue decks to try out other archetypes, with bad results generally. I have had a few good green decks running Howl of the Nightpack along with spiders and baloths to stall.
Blue is pretty clearly the best color, but I have been beaten by non-Blue decks that just have excellent cards in other colors. If you can assemble a bunch of top 2-3 pick quality cards, any color combo will work given enough of them. For example White is widely regarded as the worst color, and it is certainly has the weakest commons, but if you can put together a number of Serra Angels and Seraph of the Swords along with Pacifisms, you can get there.
You certainly want to jump on blue if it looks remotely available, but if not, you can try to rely on seeing what is open and trying to get the best cards in those colors. Pretty basic strategy, but it seems to be the way to go. Trying to jam slivers or RB sacrifice for example has led to some pretty disastrous results. You probably want to just draft the top pick cards and if after those you can pick up cards for one of the niche archetypes then go for it at that point. Trying to slam bubbling cauldron/act of treason over top pick quality red/black cards just hasn't been a good move early on.
I'll leave you with an interesting sealed pool. At first I was super excited by the deck I had made, but it has some key flaws that led to a 2-2 drop in a premier event. The pool appears to be a little threat light, which turns it is a problem in the format. You need a legit plan to win, and the deck I built was pretty soft to a handful of spot removal. It is VERY hard to just not play red or black though given the bombs in black and the removal in red. Would love to hear how others would build this. Part of me wanted to go deep with the Angelic Accords + Cauldron, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Thanks for reading.
-Ben
@bchap55
Draft
So to continue practice this week I have done a few more drafts, with some more success but essentially breaking even. Did 3-0 one with a sold GW deck featuring Serra Angel, Seraph of the Sword,
a solid curve. I also lost in a close finals with this sweet brew:
Yes, I did live the dream of having double Blightcaster out followed by Quag sickness to wipe the opponent's board. I actually ended up frequently siding out a Gladecover scout for naturalize/giant growth/ranger's guile depending on match up. I don't love necessarily running any scouts, but I did take down a sweet one with a fully suited up scout, Dark Favor, Troll hide, and mark of the vampire. That got there.
Premier Sealed Event
I signed up for what I thought was the sealed premier event that started at 5:30. I set an alarm, took a nap, and woke up to find out it started at 5:00! I had 16 minutes left on my clock for round one and a 140 card deck. I lost game one and then took a look at my pool. 3 minutes for deck building! I was pretty upset to see a very strong pool...perhaps the best I've had yet. I am conflicted because I ended up going x-2 and making 12th for 9 packs. On the other hand it could have been a pretty easy top 8...as I lost all of my game ones except in the finals when I had academy raider + mark of the vampire vs a GW deck with essentially no removal.
I started out trying GU which worked okay, but after I picked up my first loss to the mana base, I revisted the pool. I noticed the white cards actually had double pacifism, which I somehow missed at first. They also were a lot easier on the mana and fit the curve a bit better because of that. I had some very close games, but also some big blowouts. Kalonian Hydra is pretty hard to beat. Here is the pool and the GW deck I ran:
I'm signed up for one of the last 64 man draft tournaments tonight...hopefully I don't sleep through that one!
-Ben
@bchap55
Got in quite a bit of drafting this week. I started off super hot winning out-right in 4 of 6 drafts. I also opened some more money rares and was sitting at 30+ packs and 50-60 tickets when I had around 5 tickets and obviously no packs going into M14 release events. My rating also jumped from 1760ish to 1860ish.
I was able to have a ton of success with multiple near mono blue decks splashing first pick cards in other colors. I chalk this up to people not yet understanding how good blue is in M14. The commons are very strong and cards like Opportunity and Air Servant are some of the best uncommons. Drafts certainly got harder as the week progressed...blue was drying up a lot sooner and I was forced to try some other archetypes with much less success.
While the format seems to generally lend itself to long and grindy games, I have run into a decent number of white based aggro decks that can definitely punish a stumbling player. Master of diversion is key in these decks. I have also seen a few RWG sliver decks that can have a pretty nasty curve, but also can stumble themselves as their mana is generally not great.
I did a 108 player premier event sealed tourny and ended up 5-2, not making top 8. The deck was okay, my losses were to similar RG aggro decks that curved me out slightly faster than I could curve them out. My wins were fairly decisive. Here is the deck, feel free to discuss what I should have played instead. I often sided out the Brindle Boars for plummet and naturalize. Perhaps I should have just mained the spells? I felt I would be short creatures in that case though.
I plan to draft more next week and try to do a few more sealed decks as well. Thanks for reading!
I just completed two prerelease sealed events on MTGO. Playing pre-release events is the worst value possible on MTGO, but it eases the pain when you open Mutavault, Angel of Thune, and Scavenging Ooze...just missing Hydra for all of the money rares. I also 3-1'd and 4-0'd the events which was nice. Played a very close finals in the 4-0 match-up, but got there. Both decks had solid black components of Sengir Vampire, Doom Blade, Liturgy of Blood, and Corrupt along with the solid common creatures. The 4-0 pool had the Angel, but she did not factor into many games beyond drawing out removal. The deck did have 3 of the 2/2 Vigilance sliver with two hive stirrings. I wasn't sure if I would like playing these creatures in sealed without better sliver synergy, but they were relevant more often than not. Sometimes grizzly bears aren't great in sealed, but they are certainly playable here. I had a couple of the Blood Bairn's which made the stirrings a lot better.
In retrospect, the pool from the previous post I believe was best with the black cards. I think in sealed the nearly unconditional removal that doom blade and two liturgies bring is way better than the red cards. Most of the games that weren't decided by mana issues turned into long drawn out games that were decided by bigger creatures. The black removal goes a very long way if saved for optimal targets.
I forgot to save the 4-0 pool, but here was the 3-1 pool, let me know how you would build it differently in the comments or @bchap55 on twitter. I definitely was torn between blue and green here, but I wanted to try out how double cancel felt, and it was great in some games mediocre in others here. Green may have been the better choice.
