Adios Tokens, Hello Bonfire

This last weekend didn’t go according to plan at all.

All-Stars Collectables has a Star City Games Super Invitational Qualifier on the schedule, and I was most likely scheduled to judge it. Unfortunately, due to attendance concerns, I was asked to play instead of judge, and so I took my same old tokens list to task, and finished with a disappointing 2-2 drop. During this, I won a close match with Delver and crushed a janky GR Artifact Aggro deck. I lost to Naya Aggro and the new Elfball deck that got some hype on the GP Coverage.

And so that was that. Tokens goes down with another lackluster performance. I dropped from the tournament and watched a movie with my girlfriend, thinking half the time about what deck I’d rather play. I’ve become disillusioned with Tokens as of late. It just doesn’t have the power it used to in a world where every topdeck could be a Flame Wave. Bonfire of the Damned has – along with Restoration Angel (already hard enough to deal with) put enough roadblocks in place that I’ve got to throw in the towel on that one and move to plan B.

In fairness to plan B, I love this deck and everything about it. My weapon of choice from here on out is Naya Aggro. The deck is slick and powerful, full of every great card in Standard. You love the Restoration Angels from Delver? We’ve got em. Bonfire to wipe their board? We’ve got the full package. Uncounterable because of Cavern? Been there. Thalia? Yep. Huntmaster? Blade Splicer? We’ve got your token action in spades. You want Mana Dorks? Try eight.

Mikaeus? Isn’t he unplayable? Maybe not.

Hero of Bladehold? Pinch me.

Gavony Township? I’m sold.

Let me just make this very clear. Almost every card in this deck feels like it could be the best card in the format. We get to throw them all into one big pot, stir them up, add Borderland Rangers so we don’t kill ourselves with our land base, and go to town(ship).

It’s hard to not get excited about a deck with so many raw powerful cards. It’s hard to not be giddy at the thought of so many different lines of play. The only thing missing is a toolbox element, and I don’t think I want to add in the Birthing Pods, simply because it would dilute the all-gas nature of the deck.

Every single non-land is capable of advancing your board presence or dismantling theirs. None of the cards in this deck are ‘dead air’. Even the lands do good work, fighting against Counterspells and board stalls respectively.

Here’s the list that I started working from:

This list is awesome. I’m a little leery about some of the sideboard cards, and we’re certainly going to mess with some numbers, but the core is solid.

Here’s another list, from the Dragonmaster himself – Brian Kibler, who'd been advocating for a Naya build since we were all screaming about Bans.

Kibler is obviously going with more of a toolbox feeling for his deck. He’s got plenty of one-offs and the ability to find them with Birthing Pods. This allows him to have a more eclectic sideboard, full of one-of creatures with huge board impact. With that said, I think that we can tighten up his core a bit and make this deck equally consistent without the use of Birthing Pod. He’s also dropped the Bonfires from the maindeck – which is a choice I just cannot get behind. I feel like without bonfire, you’re bound to lose the mirror match in game one, and that’s certainly a matchup I’m going to want to be prepared for.

One creature that I’m very interested in is Geist-Honored Monk. I’ve watched it in some test games, and I bounced the idea off Marshall, who likes it quite a bit as well. It serves the dual role of being a major beater in a board stall situation while also putting bodies in the air to be pumped by Mikaeus and Township. It also makes Vapor Snag look like a joke, so that’s not horrible either. Kibler seems to think that we can get away with less colored Mana sources, and with the inherent power of the deck, I’m inclined to agree with him.

Thragtusk is one of those cards that has a huge inherent power, but might just get hated out by the metagame of the moment. 5/3 is a fairly fragile body with a billion first striking golem tokens running around, as well as Delvers and Flashed in Restoration Angels. I suspect we’ll see a ton more of him after Blade Splicer rotates out. (Personally, I suspect a very grindy metagame with monumental blowouts due to Bonfire as the future of Standard, post Scars Rotation.) I think I’m going to pass on Thragtusk for now, though one might find a place in the board for extremely grindy or tempo-driven games. He’s a great roadblock, with a lot more potential.

Zealous Conscripts is a very powerful card as well, but it’s use is situational, and without Birthing Pod for some Pod + Angel nonsense, I think that I’d be better off with other options, at least mainboard. It probably has a place in the side though.

Daybreak Ranger - I’m hedge-y on her. She’s spectacular in the mirror, which is almost a reason to include her off the bat, but she’s also fragile against Delver, and takes a lot of work to make it worth it. Mana dorks give her a ton of extra action by playing her on Turn 2, but I’d still be concerned about every removal spell in the format hitting her hard. Again, passing for now. Maybe in a post-Vapor Snag world.

Sublime Archangel is a powerful creature, and obviously competes with Hero of Bladehold in Nelson’s list. I don’t have any Archangels at the moment, but I think that this is one place where the Archangel might shine over the Hero. I’m a giant fan of Hero, but with the number of creatures we have (and the ability to get into deep board stalls), having a giant flyer might be just what we need to end games. I'm going to be aggressively picking them up if I can before this weekend. Turning my ground stalled out ground offence into half a dozen exalted triggers seems like a good way to take over a game.

Wolvir Silverheart seems great in any game where the other guy isn’t playing blue. Can we start hashtagging #PostVaporSnag yet? I want to play with this card, but I can’t justify skewing away from Delver. Marshall comments that it has the ability to punch through any board stalls with unparalleled power, but he worries about it's GG mana cost and it's vulnerability to Blue 'removal'.

Absent from both lists is Thundermaw Hellkite, which I’m also very interested in, but don’t quite have access to at the moment. I haven’t opened much M13 yet, and if neither of these guys thought he was worth a nod, maybe I’ll hold off on him for a little bit.

Ultimately, I came up with the following:

I’m keeping the Kibler mana base, more or less, because I think that having Gavony Township is the most important thing you can be doing with this deck once you have some board presence. I skewed more towards the Nelson style of build – aiming for consistency without Pod. I’m not a huge fan of Birthing Pod. It’s a powerful engine when built around, but I don’t like the trend of 1-ofs that it enables. I like my decks to function regardless of what I draw. Admittedly, this makes our sideboard cards less impactful, but I think the greater chance of winning Game 1’s is worth it.

I’m keeping Bonfire because seriously that card wins games.

This list is absolutely very much still in progress. I haven't played Naya since before Avacyn Restored came out, and my biggest issue was it's lack of ability to punch through in the late game. Now, with Bonfire as a late game Plague Wind, plus the addition of Restoration Angel to literally go 'over the top', I think we might finally have the deck I've been looking for to replace Tokens in my heart.

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This weekend, I'll be attending the Star City event in DC. I'll most likely be taking this deck with me, after some intense play testing for the next two nights. I'd encourage you to bring it to your game day, and see how it plays. If you're interested in meeting up, let me know. Maybe we could grab some food or something, keep each other's spirts high, and avoid all that ugly tilt.

This Thursday,we'll have the next installment of our Deckbuilding 101 series, this time looking at making your land spots count - and as a bonus, the results from my playtesting with Naya.

Got any questions about the deck? Anything you'd like me to talk about in future articles? Want to tell me what I'm doing right? Wrong? Drop me a message or a comment - here, on reddit, or tweet me (@ajrula)

Until Thursday, may all your draws be miracles.

Tournament Report: GP Atlanta (6-2-1)

It’s different when you know that it’s your fault.

“You’re going to do great,” my girlfriend told me as I kissed her goodbye at the airport. “You’ve got Marshall’s deck, and you know your stuff. You’ll be fine. See you on Sunday.”

My flight took off on time. The ground was thirty-something thousand feet below us, and I was there on the flight, trying to nap, tapping a pen gently against the notepad with my decklist scrawled against it.

“Cut a land?” I mused. “No, Flood over screw. Maybe cut one for Mishra’s? This Vault of the Archangel seems terrible. It’s a five-mana land in legacy.” I looked back up at the creatures. “Bone Shredder? Six mana for a 1/1 is so bad. I don’t know what Marshall was thinking. It answers Show and Tell if they go for Emrakul, but it’s useless against Progenitus and Griselbrand.”

I was nervous. Even though I had three free wins, I still needed to go 4-2 in played rounds to make day 2. My preparations were bad, by any account. Three rounds on Magic Workstation – two against stifle-naught and one against affinity. I was 1-2 in those. I split games against Pop in testing with Junk, but he decided not to play the deck, going with Maverick instead.

Was I bringing a pistol to a gun fight? There was a reasonable chance. I’d hate to go 0-2 drop after flying down to Atlanta, but would that be the worst case?

We land, and I grab dinner at a bar next to Pop’s gate while I wait for him. It’s absolutely delicious. Peppercorn chicken quesadillas and a local homebrew beer: Sweetwater 420.  If you get the chance, I strongly recommend Sweetwater beers – at least in Atlanta.

Pop arrives, and we make for the hotel. The place is marvelous – and I mean that literally. The hotel is a giant hollow rectangle with a central column containing the glass elevators. The end result is a cavernous hotel that appears to go on forever. The golden glow from the interior lighting feels warm and accommodating.

Pop and I are both tired, so we hang out in the room while I sleeve up my deck. I’m still not sure if I’m playing the 75 that Marshall gave me, or if I’m switching things around. By 11pm, I’m in bed and I’ll figure it out in the morning.

---

We’ve registered, and I went with Marshall’s 75, unchanged. At least that way, I’ve got a safety valve if all the cards are terrible. (Sorry Marshall!) There are 905 people competing in the main event, which means 9 rounds. The judge informs us that X-2-1 or X-3 might even make the split, depending on how things go during the tournament. That makes me feel pretty good about my chances.

I wander around the hall, periodically checking in with Pop over the first three rounds. He ends up at a 2-1 split, narrowly losing to Dredge despite an otherwise reasonable matchup. I still think he wants a second Bojuka Bog. Come to think of it, I probably want a Bog or two, at least in my sideboard. Too bad that I’ve already turned in my decklist.

The fourth round is called, and I walk to my round – about to play my first game of Legacy at Competitive REL.

Round 4 – Andrew Bailey on RUG Delver

Andrew gets a slow start off the bat, playing a more defensive game. I’ve watched a ton of Legacy over the last few months, so RUG is a deck that I am very familiar with. I get a Vial out past his Dazes and Spell Pierces, and use it to flash in two Serra Avengers. For his part, he’s cast a Tarmagoyf and a Nimble Mongoose and started swinging. I drop some health, then start coming in with the pair of Angels backed up with Vault of the Archangel. With my health jumping up by six each turn, he scooped as soon as I played a Mother of Runes.

Game two goes less well. I mulligan to six and keep a hand with Karakas and two swamps, and his first Wasteland locks me off white. I die a death to Insectile aberration with five removal spells in hand, all requiring W.

Game three I also have to mulligan to six due to land concerns. (Two hymn to tourach and no black sources makes for a horrible hand.) But I find a Vial, Mom, Plains, Swamp, Thalia and Mirran Crusader. That seems good enough to me. After drawing into an inquisition the hand goes insane and I carve him up, never dropping below 17.

4-0 (2-1 in games)

Round 5 – Dustin Flora on UR Delver

I’ve never even heard of this deck, except that Pop lost to it the previous round. I assume that it works similarly to the standard version, and just tries to go for the throat as quickly as possible. Round one starts with him on a Goblin Guide who flips four lands for me. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

We go back and forth for a while, with me having a Batterskull live and him pulling together some ground forces – hoping that his pair of Delvers flips and makes it a race. We’re both on 12 life. I play too conservatively by trying to play and equip a Jitte over two turns, and he gets the flip, barely able to get me by blocking the Jitte-equipped Batterskull and suiciding his Lavamancer with his last two  cards in graveyard (after he topdecks a fetch land to enable it).

After the match, at my request, he told me that I’d misplayed a bunch of turns earlier by not equipping my Stoneforge Mystic with Batterskull, rather than bounce-replaying it. I told him I was watching for a bolt, but he shook his head and explained that I’d seen his only card at that point, and it was a land. I need to get better at actually using the knowledge of their hand that I have.

Game two is a blowout. He has Sulfuric Vortex and Sulfur Elemental that gets two Moms and a Thalia. The game didn’t go much past that.

4-1 (2-3 in games)

Round 6 – Pascal Maynard on RUG Delver

Pascal sits down for our match and I say hello. We have a little trouble communicating because he’s from Canada and has a pretty thick accent (I’m sure he felt the same about me.) Nevertheless, he puts headphones on and starts to shuffle.

Now, I’m not that guy to ask you to take them off. If that’s how you’re comfortable playing, that’s alright, but it always rubs me the wrong way to be playing against someone who thinks his music is more important than communicating with his opponent. He may be a perfectly nice guy, but wearing headphones makes me think he’s a bit of an ass at the time.

Game one stalls out with both of us high on life until I drop a near-instant speed Batterskull. (Vial EOT > Mystic > Batterskull on his turn.) He may have been able to fight out of that, but when I vial in Mangara with a Karakas in play, he knows he’s done for. That lock is extremely powerful, and I’m glad I was able to pull it off at least once this weekend.

Game two he comes out of the gate aggressively, but I’m able to finally get a Jitte on a Mirran Crusader and wipe his board. He tries to come back and finish me from 5 life, but with Jitte Counters protecting me, I’m able to kill him past his Goyf and cards in hand.

5-1 (4-3 in games)

A judge walks over to take our slip, he looks at it and goes "Oh, which one of you is Andrew?" I raise my hand. Turns out that he read the article that I wrote on the WMCQ, and enjoyed it. So, woot. My amount of real-world people noticing me is rising, which inflates my ego more than is healthy for me.

On to a round that went less well!

Round 7 – Joe Rittiner on Counter Top

I know that this deck exists. That is about all that I could tell you about it, and that it assumedly contains some kind of counterspells and a Sensei’s Divining Top – or some other interaction with the top of something.

I’ll be brief, I don’t have a shot either game. I throw a bunch of spells into counters early in game one because I keep thinking that he can’t possibly have another. By the time I find a vial, the game is already locked up and I scoop.

I start game two with an awesome hand – two vials, and plenty of gas. I figure that bypassing his counter wall should give me a good chance of getting in for…

“Land, Pithing Needle on Vial.”

He had Counter-Top by turn 3. He Entreated the Angels twice. I didn’t win this round.

5-2 (4-5 in games)

Being 5-2 feels much less alright than being 5-1. All of a sudden, I’m fighting for my life in the tournament. There’s two rounds left, and I need to win both of them to make Day 2. Going into this tournament, I’d told myself that Day 2 means the whole thing was an unmitigated success. Making Day 2 of your first GP  is a great accomplishment, and I was aiming for it. Just two rounds left.

Round 8 – Bryan Elliot on Junk Control

Bryan’s deck is interesting. He’s running all kinds of Discard as well as a Stoneforge Package, but he’s also missing any other kind of threats. Despite carving my hand up with Thoughtseizes, I’m able to beat him on board presence in a slow grindy game that wasn’t as close as it looked.

In game two, he mulligans, and while he’s reshuffling, I look over at the game next to us. Both players are laughing hysterically and pointing at the field. The result? Both players are mono-mountains, with a pair of Pyrostatic Pillars and a pair of Sulfuric Vortexes in play.

“Jesus…” someone whispers. “You guys aren’t gonna be casting many spells, are you?”

Back to my game. I keep a loose seven with no white source, but two AEther Vial. He thoughtseizes me and takes one, but the other resolves. He seems very tired, and is almost lazily drawing his cards, and probably not playing ideally under any circumstances.  We go back and forth for a while, but eventually, I equip a Manriki-Gusari to Thalia and start to kill off his equipment (a Jitte and a Batterskull). He’s bringing them back with Academy Ruins, but he can’t possibly keep up without his draw step. I kill him in another long grindy game.

6-2 (6-5 in games)

After the match, Pop comments that I was playing kind of tilt-y. I missed a few on-board things, and was tapping a Marsh Flats for mana. It was a legal play because of Urborg, but he had a feeling that I wasn’t intending to do that, so he wanted to mention it to me. I try to get my head back in the game. Only one round to go, but it’s after 9pm now, and so that proves a little difficult.

Round 9 – He Who Will Not Be Named with Elves

 A word on this round before I begin. Despite giving the names of all the other people I played against in all the previous rounds, I’ve decided to omit his name from this one, because while I think he was an ass, I’m not a fan of public shaming.

The first game goes quickly. I swords his Symbiote early to stop him from going off as effectively, and he scoops as soon as I get a Jitte Equipped to Mirran Crusader.

The second game goes much longer. I look like I have control, swinging for 3 per turn with a Jitte equipped on 2 counters. He doesn’t seem to have much, then, almost out of nowhere, he goes off. I’m hoping that I can get out of it with a well timed vial for the last two points that I’ll need, but when he Living Wishes for an Emrakul, I know I’m pretty much done and I pack it in.

I mulligan to six in game three, which already has me feeling horrible. He gets a quick start, but not on his combo plan. A Hymn and some other discard takes him down to just a Verdant Catacombs in hand, and he topdecks a Joraga Warcaller, giving all his elves +2/+2. He starts to beat me down, getting me to 6 before the board stalls out. We’re both topdecking, me using discard aggressively to keep him  away from increasing his board presence.

Before I go into this, I’d like to point out that we’re both playing very quickly because there’s less than five minutes in the match. A draw gets neither of us into the Top 8, so we both want to finish the match. We’ve been pretty friendly up till this point.

I vial in a Stoneforge Mystic on his end step and touch my lands to untap, reach for my deck.

“You missed your trigger.”

Ladies and gentleman, tilt mode engage.

After talking to judges later, I think it would have been possible for me to have called them and gotten it ruled as out of order sequencing, or a player communication error, or something on those lines. If that happens, I win the game as soon as I attack, because I can trade one of my creatures for three of his, and keep Jitte on the field. He would have no hand, and the game is over. I’m gone enough that I don’t call the judge to try and get the trigger and we keep playing/

Over the next five turns, his demeanor changes from polite and friendly to aggressive and curt. He asks me what my play is three times over four turns – despite the complex board state. Due to a zealous persecution in hand, I have lethal in hand if I can manage to clear his Joraga Warcaller and then Persecute him to wipe his board. As I’m writing this, I realize exactly how bad my tilt is because I never did that on his end step.

I missed two Dark Confidant triggers, and get a pair of warnings from the judge. My opponent is pushing me to play quicker, and I’m getting sloppier by the second. He’s clearly trying to make me screw up so he can get the win. I’ve got control of the game, and with five more minutes, I could have won handily. Without misplays, I likely already would have. As is, I’ve still got significant control of the board. He has three forests, a symbiote, and a pair of mana dorks, plus no hand, and the Warcaller on 2.

Time is called, and we draw. He doesn’t extend the hand, but crosses his hands on his chest and frowns. “Well, one of us could concede. I think I have better tiebreaks. Will you concede to me?”

“I will not,” I respond. I was winning the third game at time, and this is my first GP. He’s already top 8’d a few of them, and top 16’d a couple more. This is old hat for him. Frankly, this means more to me than him. “Will you concede to me?”

“Absolutely not.” He packs up his cards, signs the slip without another word, and walks away.

6-2-1 (7-6-1 in games)

Final Ranking: 140th of 905. 129 advanced at 7-2 or better.

I would have made it if I had won that last round.

For those who know him, Pop’s ending record was 5-4

I think it was rude of him to ask for the concession there. If the match had remained friendly until the end, it would have been reasonable, but with tempers flaring on both sides, there was no way that he could have thought I’d have given it to him. I could have won it in a dozen different ways, but I didn’t, and it eats away at me that I had that chance. Like I said, it’s different when you know it’s your fault. I shouldn’t have let him tilt me. I shouldn’t have missed all those things. I should have just played good tight Magic

And with that, GP Atlanta was over.

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Pop and I go to dinner at Durangos, and the food is great. I’m a little pissed off because of that last match, but I’m mostly over it by morning. The deck preformed well, taking me inches away from day two, more on the flaws of my skill than anything else.  I think that in the hands of a better player, with some minor tweaks, this deck could do great things. I’m actively looking to acquire the cards for it now.

The next day, we meandered around the hotel site for a bit, and played in a Standard Win-A-Box. Pop and I got 1^st and 2^nd (with him winning an extremely tight game 3 after digging 9 cards deep for a Day of Judgment to win, with lethal on my side of the board, for the fifth time that game). We split the box +3 packs (with him getting the odd pack). With that, we headed for the airport, grabbed some Chili’s and opened the box (which was surprisingly good) and bidded each other farewell.

This weekend, I’ll be attending the M13 prerelease, so on Thursday we’ll be getting a listing of my top cards in each color. The following weekend is Connecticon in Hartford, CT. I’m planning on attending and playing in a couple of big events, but the nature of those events remains to be seen. I’ll no doubt report on them later.

On this blog, we’ve been doing incredibly the last few months, and I have all of you to thank for that. I’m going to be switching the schedule up a little bit. Tournament reports will be on Tuesdays. Putting them on Thursday just meant that I was waiting nearly a full week before actually talking about things that were quickly becoming irrelevant. Tuesday should make them a little more timely. As a result, the Deckbuilding 101 posts will be moved to Thursdays to compensate.

If you have any other requests for content, something you’d like to see, or expand upon, please, let me know. My reddit box is always open (andrewrula) as is my twitter (@ajrula) and the comments on this site itself. I answer just about everything that hits my desk directly, so don't be shy!

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

-Andrew

Deckbuilding 101: Mulligan with a Plan

Let’s play a game.

You’re sitting down at a Saturday Standard Shootout. You’ve never been to this shop before, and you’ve got no idea what anyone is playing. Your deck is a honed weapon of destruction in your preferred style of play (Combo-Control) and round one is just starting.

You think back to last night, when you were agonizing over those last two slots, and you’re not sure if you ever resolved the issue to satisfaction. Still – the deck’s core is an extremely powerful engine. (Well, three engines…) and you know that a reasonable hand will get you there. Your decklist sits on the counter next to you, and you peer at it.

The deck works off of three separate engines. The first is the Heartless Summoning engine that makes all of your spells undercosted and allows you to accelerate out your midrange creatures. The second is the Grand Architect Engine that lets you generate an impossibly high amount of mana and cast a single enormous creature – often with a game-winning effect. Finally, there’s the Havengul Lich plan, which often involves reanimating your dead creatures for immense additional value, but can also be used in combination with Perilous Myr and Heartless Summoning to deal 2 damage for 1 mana, until your mana sources run out (or, more likely, your opponent and everything he cares about is dead.)

Round 1

Your first foe extends his hand. “Good luck man.” You nod and smile, extending your own greeting. You finish randomizing your deck and pass it back before picking up your own and drawing your first seven. You are on the draw.

The hidden card is an island

Do you keep this hand?

This doesn’t seem bad at all. You have an early play in Perilous Myr, and by drawing only a single mana source in the first three turns, you’ve got access to both Architects and Treasure Mage, allowing you to have something powerful in play by Turn 5. You have a redundant Architect in case the first is killed. You have, in short, a game plan.

Most people have learned to mulligan if they don’t have a reasonable number of lands-to-spells. People know that “Six Lands and a Vapor Snag” is not a good hand. Just like they know that you shouldn’t (generally) keep One-Land-Hands. Both situations just put you so far behind if you don’t draw exactly what you need in a timely manner. When looking at a hand, determine if you can clearly see the line of play that leads to a win.

For this hand, we can see that we’re going to attempt to stall the field with Perilous Myr until we draw a land of any sort. Then we will cast Grand Architect and Treasure Mage, searching for an appropriate threat depending on our opponent’s deck. This could be a Platinum Empirion, or a Steel Hellkite, a Wurmcoil Engine, etc. Havengul Lich exists in the hand as a very late-game option, but we may not even have to use it.

Seems like a coherent plan, in my book. Luckily, our opponent agrees, and gets stuck on two lands in both games and never casts a spell. Our Empirion runs over him and loses. It must be nice to have good opening hands.

Round 2

You’re feeling great. Your first hand was awesome and you won. You must be great at this game. Unfortunately, you lose the first game after he reanimates an Elesh Norn on turn 3. Frites is a scary deck and does that sometimes. You sideboard for a moment and get ready for the second game. Draw your seven:

Do you keep this hand?

No. You do not. I don’t think this honestly even merits discussion. There are no lands in this hand, and it’s clogged with expensive spells. You’ll need to draw two lands to even be in the game at all, and more than likely still lose because this hand has no coherent plan at all.

Let’s just consider this for a minute. You are running a 60 card deck, including 23 lands. You have drawn 7 cards, none of which are lands, leaving 23 of 53 in your deck. That gives you a 43% chance to draw a land. That’s not so bad! Nearly half!

Stop. Consider that that’s a 57% chance to instantly lose the game on the spot. If you get the first land, you still need to hit the 42% chance for the second land (22 of 52.) Combine those, and we’ll get a nice round 18% chance of hitting your first two lands in your first two turns. You have a worse than one in five chance of even getting to cast a spell by turn two. The spell is a combo piece, and does not directly let you survive. I cannot state how bad this hand is. Standard is not a format where you can durdle around and wait for land drops. That happens in Limited – sometimes, if you’re very lucky.

I suppose this is Karma for the first match…

You mulligan the hand away and keep a good six, barely able to come back and win the game. Game three begins and you draw your opening hand:

This hand has lands and spells we can cast with those lands. It must be keepable, right?

Let’s consult our guiding principle here – what is the plan to win the game if this is our opening hand?

We’re going to play some lands, then cast spellskite, protecting ourselves with Doom Blade and our 0/4 blocker until….something else happens, because we’re pretty much out of plays here. We have no way to cast Myr Superion in our hand, Metamorph can’t copy anything that’s relevant to our side – so we’re restricted to being a 3 mana copy of whatever they’re doing, and Wurmcoil Engine needs four lands to even touch the battlefield.

Yes, the hand could develop well, with a Heartless Summoning or a Grand Architect and a land, but we cannot count on that.

Round 3:

After your crushing defeat to the Frites player, you come to round 3, the final round in the shootout. You’re out of the prize standings, but you’re still in it for the honor and the glory and the planeswalker points. You sit down and pull your opening hand:

This should be a clear keep. You have mana, you have a clear line of play that is extremely powerful, putting a 5/6 into play on turn 3, backed up by Grand Architect – and with a Treasure Mage to follow the next turn. If you draw into something with Ponder, all the better. This hand seems resilient, and hard to deal with. I would keep it under almost any circumstances. You are a good player, and do the same, earning victory in the first game.

But now sideboards come into play. You agonize over the decision for a bit before shuffling up and presenting your deck. When you draw your opening seven though, you nearly cry out in joy!

Sometimes, things just fall into place for you. This hand has a great plan, capable of defending itself with Heartless Summoning and Perilous Myr. It has an aggressive stance with Grand Architect and Treasure Mage to find a significant threat. It has both colors of mana you’ll need to win the game, and a sufficient number of them to cast the majority of your deck. This is the best hand you could hope for.

 A great general rule for magic is that the chances of you drawing whatever you need are about half as good as you actually think they are. You cannot rely on luck to win a game, match, or tournament. You may get lucky, but you can’t rely on it to bail you out. The best way to get lucky is to make good decisions.

-----

I’ll leave you with this last image – a puzzle of sorts. These are all hands from an actual tournament played by my friend Marshall last weekend. They were given to me without context of what he did and did not keep. I know he eventually took second place, losing in the finals of the tournament to a Delver deck.

This last hand is a question to all of you. You are on the draw against a Naya Pod list and you see the following seven:

Do you keep? Talk about it in the comments, or over on Reddit. On Thursday, it's Tournament Preparation time, and we'll have a spicy Legacy Decklist that I'll be bringing over to GP Atlanta!

PTQ 20th with BW Tokens, and WMCQ Tournament Report!

I woke up. It was dark, with the horizon just starting to gleam with the light of Saturday. The bed was warm, but I had miles to go before I could sleep again – literally. I got up, got dressed, gassed up the car and grabbed some food for the road.

Maryland, here we come.

Last weekend was the final qualifier in the USA for the World Magic Cup. Designed as a replacement for Nationals, the World Magic Cup is a team event with four players representing each country. Three of our champions had already been chosen: LSV, Brian Kibler, and Alex Binek. The fourth would be decided by morning. Frankly, I hoped that it would be me.

The drive was shorter than I anticipated, and upon arriving, I caught up with some of the other players. My list had changed subtly on the suggestion of Marshall, cutting a land and an Angel of Jubilation for a maindeck Timely Reinforcements. This more approximated the curve that a lot of MTGO Tokens results were using, and given the prevalence of Delver in the metagame at the moment, we figured that the Timely Reinforcements would play a good role in game 1.

Here’s the list for the WCMQ:

Don’t use this list. There’s going to be a better one later. I promise.

After catching up with some friends (Shoutout to Mark, who I’d played against in the Philly PTQ), we sat down for the players meeting – 186 players, which meant 8 rounds of Magic, followed by a Top 8. The World Magic Cup Qualifiers had been poorly attended all across the country, since the payout was just so small in comparison to some of the other events. Furthermore, there was almost no publicity at all. Frankly, it just seemed like a glorified PTQ with cash prizes instead of packs. After talking to the Tournament Organizer (who was spectacular all weekend. Seriously, someone should give this woman a prize for being so organized. I’ve never had rounds run that smoothly) and some other people, it became evident that they were expecting something in the way of twice as many people as actually arrived. I’m sure that was disappointing for her. Here’s hoping that Wizards does something to promote the events more like a GP and less like a GPT.

REL Competitive meant that all the general fudgeyness with Lapsing triggers was in effect. I should really do an article about the differences between Regular and Competitive REL some time, because it’s something that newer players to competition screw up pretty often, and I’ve watched enough judge calls that boiled down to “He didn’t make an angel, so I win!”

Regardless, the first round began right on time, and we were off to the presses.

Round 1: Ron with UW Delver

Ron seemed like an appropriate start to the tournament. We sat down and exchanged some pleasantries before drawing our opening seven. Sadly, with no lands, I was forced down to six, while he kept seven. We traded blows for a bit, eventually skewing the advantage towards him as he cast and equipped a Sword of War and Peace to start chunking my HP. I get Vault of the Archangel online a turn too late and he manages to kill me with War and Peace triggers just before I’m able to stabilize off of a Finest Hour Gather the Townsfolk. We move to game two.

I’m going to be pretty honest here, this wasn’t really a game. I drew three consecutive no-land-hands before drawing 4 that also had no lands, but a pair of one drops. Interestingly enough, this match came down to a single turn – with him on three and me on the same. I needed to draw one of seven remaining anthems to kill him. I didn’t, getting a land instead, but he gave me a second opening to draw one of a pair of Oblivion Rings to remove his Gideon and kill him anyway. Sadly, Lingering Souls can’t block something equipped with Sword of War and Peace, and I fell.

0-1   (0-2 in games)

Round 2 – Timothy with RG Aggro

Tim was using a newer RG brew that incorporated Bonfire of the Damned. I don’t know if you’ve ever played against a deck with 1-2 miracles in it, but let me tell you something, it’s terrifying. To know that with any draw step, you could just get blown out of the game is really nerve-wracking. It puts a lot of stress on an aggressive deck to be able to end the game quickly.

In game one, he got a Sword in play on the second turn after I mulliganed to five. Something with the deck just felt off, and I couldn’t draw a good opening hand no matter how much I shuffled, pile shuffled, and reshuffled. Maybe it was just unlucky, but I seemed completely incapable of finding a second land. I lost the first game in short order, despite holding on for a while due to Vault of the Archangel and beating him down to nine through him gaining 4-5 per turn off Sword.

Game two finally found me keeping a seven card hand, and I crushed him despite casting a pair of Bonfire of the Damned – one miracle, and one hardcast. I got a pair of anthems and just ran him over with tokens.

The third game saw him resolve a Turn 2 Sword as well, which killed me in short order. I texted Marshall, informing him what happened and he responded by saying that Gut Shots may not be a terrible sideboard idea against RG in the future. I’m inclined to agree.

0-2   (1-4 in games)

And just like that, I was out of the running. The rest of the day got significantly better, with the highlights being below:

Round 3 – Pedro with UW Midrange

2-0, I win with a Finest Hour Gather the Townsfolk that I orchestrated beautifully.

Round 4 – Peter with Almost Mono-Black Control

2-0 The deck was interesting, skewing very hard towards black control with just a splash of blue for Snapcaster Mage. Unfortunately, black spot removal is notoriously bad against Lingering Souls, and I ran him over.

Round 5 – Joe with Zombie Pod

2-0 I’ve got to give props to any deck that runs Gloom Surgeon. He probably would have won a game if he didn’t exile every Geralf Messenger in his deck. I suppose that happens sometimes  when you’re exiling your topdecks away.

Round 6 – Randy with Solar Flare

0-2 There isn’t a lot you can do to someone who plays T2 Ratchet Bomb, T3 Ratchet Bomb, and T5 Sun Titan off a Pristine Talisman. A similar line of play happened twice. I feel like I need a better way to answer Sun Titans in the future.

Round 7 -  Brendan on ???

2-0 I’d stopped taking notes at this point. I was getting hungry and tired, but I draw well both games and I roll him over in two quick games before dropping to enter the last draft of the day.

Final Record: 4-3 (9-6 in games)

Bonus Round – Draft!

I end up drafting an awesome UG Soulbond Deck with a pair of Druids’s Familiar and Mist Ravens. Unfortunately, the games go extremely long and his Yew Spirit ends up being too much for me to handle in both games. I do get an Entreat the Angels in my second pack though.

I head out from the tournament site, get Chipotle. (God, those burritos are gigantic, and their Guacamole is spectacular. Seriously, get Chipotle. It’s awesome.) I check into the hotel and barely get to turn on A Game of Thrones before I pass out until morning.

-----

I wake up in an ice cold room, beneath sheets that keep me warm despite. This is actually my favorite way to sleep, for some reason, but I fight out of the bed and head back down to the tournament center for the PTQ that they’re holding. I’m one of the first people there, and so I’ve got time to make some changes to the deck. The maindeck Timely Reinforcements was useless all day, so I take it out, and the Doomed Traveler turns back into a land. I’m holding the Angel of Jubilation, ready to put the miser’s copy back into my deck when I spot the Entreat the Angels I’d pulled in the draft the day before. Marshall had long been a proponant of adding the card, but I felt it was too expensive to cast reliably. I decided to give it a shot, and it paid huge dividends.

 Here’s what I register:

Somewhere in this, I get a text from Pop.

“Joe won the WCMQ?”

Joe was a guy from my first shop, back in New York (Shout out to Comic Book Depot, one of the best stores in NY. Keep putting those results up guys.) He’s a great player, but up until now, didn’t have a great finish to his name. I’d left just as he made Top 8. I had no idea that he’d won the whole thing.

Congrats to Joe Pennachio on the win. You deserve it man.

Then I got ready, because the room was packed for the Pro Tour Qualifier. 216 players gives us another 8 round day. This one went a little bit better for me.

Round 1 – Max with Jund Pod

My mana issues appear to have disappeared overnight, and I roll out in game one. He seems to be playing Mono-Green something that didn’t actually cast any reasonable number of spells in the first game. While sideboarding, we’re talking and he mentions that he had plenty of cards, but none of the right colors. He gives away that his deck contains black, and I balk on adding in Celestial Purges, figuring that he’s trying to trick me. Turns out that he’s not, and he’s on Jund Pod – with Glissa/Ratchet Bomb.

That combo is pretty brutal for me, and I lose the second game.

Game three, I Nihil Spellbomb his Ratchet Bomb away, and get out five (!) anthems. An end of turn Midnight Haunting blows him out for 10 damage from nowhere. Feels good to be able to put 10 vigilant P/T on the field for 3 mana.

1-0 (2-1 in games)

Round 2 – Paul with RG Aggro

Paul is an older gentleman, who came to the PTQ on Father’s Day with his son. They love playing together and competing together. Paul ended up 5-3 on the day, missing prize in his last round, but he was smiling the whole time. He’s one of those opponents that you remember for the rest of the day.

I win game one despite him casting a Wolfir Silverheart and a Sword of War and Peace. Go for the Throat provides the huge blowout and Hero of Bladehold takes him from 16 to 3 with the help of a few one drops and an anthem.

Game two, we both Mull to five, before he finds a reasonable hand. I didn’t until four. Keeping a slow draw, he curves out with Birds into Wolvir Avenger into Thrun into Sword of War and Peace. I didn’t have a prayer here.

Game three he gets a turn two sword and crushes me with it. I really need an answer to that thing. It hoses the deck more than anything else in the format.

1-1 (3-3 in games)

Round 3 – Mark with Esper Delver

Mark and I have a great time before the match, chatting and goofing off. He’s playing fairly aggressively with his Vapor Snags, and so he’s run out of them by the time that I drop my Hero of Bladehold, which takes him down in short order.

Game two we both drop to six, and it’s not close. He tries to buy time with a Feeling of Dread to tap down my team, but can’t find his answer.

2-1 (5-3 in games)

Round 4 – Rebecca with GW Aggro

I present my deck and before she’s able to touch it, the judge jumps in.

“Don’t touch that deck, ma’am! I’m here to perform a mandatory and extremely important deck check on you both!”

Understand that the Bolding and Italics are not exaggerations here. He actually talked like a superhero. Sometimes I love judges. We pass the time by playing a game called Petals on a Rose, which I am apparently horrible at. The deck check comes back fine, and we play two quick games involving me praying that she never peals the Revenge of the Hunted that she has to kill me at a bunch of different places. I manage to hardcast Entreat the Angels for the first time, getting a pair of Angels that win the round.

3-1 (7-3 in games)

Round 5 – Mike with Naya Run Ramp

I dislike the ramp matchup. My deck isn’t quite fast enough to beat their good hands, and it doesn’t have the answers to prolong the game and get them into a bad position. The Naya matchup is much worse than the conventional one because Day of Judgment sidesteps my usual sideboard plan.

Normally, I can just get enough Anthems and Angel of Jubilation into play, and be bigger than his Slagstorms can kill. Day of Judgment has no such restrictions though, and it usually poses a big problem. Add Elesh Norn to the mix, and the deck is more or less a nightmare.

In game one, he ramps quickly, but then fails to land a threat. Despite three Day of Judgments, I’m able to keep putting threats on the table and put him away with a Miracle Entreat for 5.

The second and third games both go similarly, with him casting Primeval Titan and then Poisoning me out Post-DoJ, or just casting a t5 Elesh Norn after a t4 Titan. There is not terribly much I can do about that, despite getting him low in both games. The deck just needs a little more speed or a little more disruption to handle the addition of white to the deck.

3-2 (8-5 in games)

As an aside, after this match, I’ve become more and more convinced that my currentl SB plan only really works against conventional Wolf Run, and that a better answer might be to side in appetite for brains or despise to remove their primary threats on turn 3-4.

Round 6 – Pedro with UW Midrange

I get matched against Pedro again, and he takes a long, drawn out game one where I can’t quite answer the amount of card advantage he musters with Blade Splicer, Snapcaster Mage, and Restoration Angel.

Game two, he takes a swing from my Hero of Bladehold, putting him to one. He casts a Tamiyo, tapping down the Hero and starts to take control while I draw blanks. He misplays though, casting a Gideon and taunting with him, so that he can Ultimate Tamiyo. Hero of Bladehold swings, and the tokens come into play – unaffected by Gideon’s Taunt. They poke him and kill him after the judge he called informs him that – sadly, yes, that works.

The final game was leaning in his favor until I Miracled an Entreat the Angels. Playing around mana leak, I put out a pair of 5/5 flying vigilant angels that killed 3 Gideon and a Tamiyo before they crashed into him for the victory. He flashed the mana leak that he’d been holding the whole game, unable to get value out of it.

4-2 (9-6 in games)

Round 7 – Will with Wolf Run Ramp

Now here’s the ramp matchup that I prepared for. I get a couple of quick creatures out and force him to Slagstorm my guys away. Lingering Souls into a couple of anthems puts him away in the first game.

In game two, I cast T2 anthem, T3 anthem, t4 Midnight Haunting, t5 Miracle Entreat the Angels for 2. He doesn’t come back from that.

5-2 (11-6 in games)

Round 8 – David with RG Aggro

David was tired. That’s all there was too this match. He kept a horrible seven card hand in which he ended up casting a Strangleroot Geist and a Huntmaster of the Fells, with no other action in six turns. I curved out and killed him.

In the second game, I orchestrate a T3 Timely Reinforcements for full value after chump blocking his Geist with my Champion of the Parish. A second anthem (adding to the Honor that I cast on turn 2) puts the game well out of his reach. Vault seals the deal, though him missing a Huntmaster transformation trigger certainly didn’t help his case. He scoops  and I finish the tournament with an extremely nice...

Final Record: 6-2 (13-6 in games)

Place: 20th of 216

Current Seasonal Planeswalker Point Total: 527 (aiming for 750 before the end of August)

I took a look at the standing sheet. 6-2 comprised of 12th to 24th place, with around 6% Opponent’s Match Win separating the highest from the lowest. I could very easily have Top 16’d if my opponents had done better in their final round (all my former opponents lost in their last matches). I walked out with 9 packs, and the knowledge that the deck preformed more than admirably. I think that changing the sideboard to account for a t2 sword play, and being able to answer more than one type of Elesh Norn would make this deck a solid contender at any PTQ.

-----

With the lack of bans in Standard, it’ll be interesting to watch how the format develops in the coming weeks. As for myself – I’ve got this weekend off from tournaments, as I’ll be visiting the girlfriend during her summer break from school. The following weekend is GP Atlanta, and I hope to get some testing done and build a deck before I actually have to get on the flight next Friday.

Expect a report from that tournament – it’ll be my first GP, and I have reasonable hopes of doing well. I’ll tell you what I’m playing next Thursday, and why I think that it’s a well positioned deck for the tournament. This coming Tuesday, we’ll return to our deckbuilding series, with a discussion of Mulligans.

Until then, keep slinging spells the best way you know how.

-Andrew

Tournament Report: TCGPlayer $5000 Standard with BW Tokens

It's late again.

I'm sitting at my desk, with my deck laid out across it. Half of it is sleeved, half of it is sitting with a pile of other cards. Most are terrible, but some of them are getting serious consideration, despite their flaws.

“You getting any sleep tonight?” comes the voice over Skype. A friend of mine – he's not going to the tournament tomorrow.

“Yea,” I respond, only half sure that I'm telling the truth. “I just need to figure this out.”

“Wasn't it a good matchup? You said it yourself – you're 10-2 against Delver in Competitive REL events.”

“It's different now.”

Each card seems heavy, like I'm a novice deck builder fumbling through his first attempts at a mana curve. I look back up at the screen, with Gerry Thompson's list writ large across it. The Big Bad Wolf, come to knock my house down. Things were different when their whole deck could be beaten by two anthems and a Lingering Souls. Back then, the only thing with 4 toughness was a Sworded creature, or an ephemeral angel. Now they had 3/4 flying Snapcaster Mages. How do you even compete with that?

I finish the deck, then look back over towards my bed. I need to be up in not-very-long to drive for two hours to Edison. I have no idea what to expect for a $5k tournament. I've never been to anything bigger than a PTQ, and even that was just the once.

And Delver beat you twice there too.

It's late, and my mind is getting to me. Time to get some sleep and come at this fresh in the morning.

---

It's huge.

I walk in, nearly an hour early for the tournament and there's already more people than the PTQ that I attended. I grab a decklist and a registration sheet and get to work building. I run into some people from the Depot, and a bunch from All-Stars. Some of the local grinders are here too, and I make a point of saying hello's to them. A bunch are still frantically putting cards together. I don't know how you can justify showing up to an event without a deck built. That just seems like setting yourself up to lose.

I scout the room, and I don't trust what I see. I hear people talking about Wolf Run, and Three-And-Two-Half-Color-Control (which wins this week's deck name of the week award). I see a couple people sleeving up mono-green Infect, which I’m fairly sure has a good matchup. Nowhere, of course, do I see Delver.

Maybe everyone’s afraid of it. Maybe no one will be running it because they’re expecting hate?

A guy can be hopeful. I’d rather go against a room of anything but Gerry T’s Delver today. I don’t think I broke the format with my tech. I don’t think I’ve even substantially altered the deck. I’m pretty much running the same thing I had been with minor sideboard tweaks – they’re not even anti-Delver tweaks. My game plan is to ignore that Restoration Angel exists and just hope that the ground I gain because of the lack of Sword of War and Peace is better than the ground I  lost to an extremely well-tuned list and Restoration Angel.

Here’s what I register:

Some comments about the cards here might be warranted. The maindeck is my typical, though I’d wanted to squeeze in two Go For The Throat, I ended up not being able to because I couldn’t find a pair the night before. I’d have cut an Oblivion Ring (to the sideboard) and a Doomed Traveler to fit them, and I think they’d make the deck run more smoothly.

Sideboard wise, I was trying some new things. Angel’s Tomb was tech from MTGO. There’s a vaguely successful tokens build incorporating it as an answer to Wolf’s Run. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I’m trying it. Same goes with the Demonlord of Ashmouth. I was concerned with the color commitment, but if I could resolve one against Wolf Run, there isn’t much that they can effectively do to stop it post-sideboard. I actually wanted to run Indomitable Archangel in both spots, but I didn't have them handy. Maybe Restoration Angel would be a consideration as well?

The rest is just tweaks on existing numbers, which I actually have started to like more than I have before. This bodes well for me, and makes me feel much more comfortable when sideboarding on the spot. I traditionally haven’t used sideboard guides, because I feel like we should be flexible when boarding, but it’s important to have easy things to side-out in matchups.

During the player’s meeting, we’re informed by a judge not using a microphone that we’ve got 309 people, and that there will be nine rounds. So, average length of a Grand Prix. That seems…

I do some math. We’re starting at around 11am. If each round goes for an hour, that brings us to 8pm. Top 8 will take another 3 hours, and that’s 11pm. Assuming each round is no more than an hour. I quickly estimate that the winner will be leaving here around dawn.

Lovely.

They post pairings in four different places, depending on last name, and I make sure that I’m at my spot way in advance of the postings. I like getting to my seat before my opponent and setting up – and it works this time. I sit down across from a guy named Matt.

Round 1 – Matt with Kamikaze

The Kamikaze deck is the closest thing that we have to a Standard Combo deck. It uses Blood Artist and Zombies to get off to an aggressive start before sacrificing all its creatures for lethal through Falkenrath Aristocrat or Killing Wave. Unfortunately, their game plan relies on getting early damage in, because in the late game it’s rare for them to be able to Killing Wave for more than 10.

He starts with a Gravecrawler against my Champion/Gather Draw. We both beat each other down as I add an Anthem and he adds a Geralf’s Messenger. I toss an Oblivion Ring on the Messenger and he calls it a day after I gain twelve from Vault of the Archangel.

Sideboard: +3 Celestial Purge, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +1 Mortarpod, -1 Angel of Jubilation, -3 Hero of Bladehold, -3 Oblivion Ring

The thought behind sideboarding is that the late game favors me if I can get any life-gain. I just need to survive till then. My plan is to have a lot of early board presence. I really like this sideboard, and I encourage you to try it out if you’re running base-white.

Unfortunately for me, my deck shuts that plan down immediately by forcing a mulligan to 5 off of two no-land hands. The mull to five is strong though. Another Champion/Gather/Honor hand. He tries to bury me in his card advantage, throwing removal and bodies at me, and my life dwindles into the single digits without me really being able to compete, but a clutch Mortarpod keeps his Blood Artists at bay, and blocks his stronger zombies long enough for me to churn out a full-value Lingering Souls that kills him in two turns with Vault to back me up.

1-0  (2-0 in games)

Round 2- Matt Thompson with Kamikaze

Before the round, I’m sitting there and talking with a friend of mine from the New York shop. I’m chatting about how I crushed Kamikaze, and he’s doing the same about Humans. My opponent looks nervous. I’m vindicated when he plays a turn one Diregraf Ghoul.

Game one is absurdly close. We trade damage for a while, and I’m gaining a ton of life almost as fast as I’m losing it. I bounce from 7 up to 15, taking him down to 6 life, with lethal on the board. Desperate, he plays a second Blood Artist and then Killing Wave for 3, sacrificing his whole team and forcing me to sacrifice mine or die. I go to one life, and him up to fourteen.

Being on one life against a deck that runs Geralf’s Messenger, 4/1 haste creatures, and I assume some manner of burn spells is very unnerving. I panic for a turn or two, attacking with a Champion and Doomed Traveler to gain one life via Vault once he removes the Champion. I’m on two, and it’s his main phase.

He plays nothing and passes. I let out a huge sigh of relief, and draw a Midnight Haunting. He plays nothing again, and I fire off the Haunting, swinging me back to nine life the following turn off a Vault activation.

Sideboard: +3 Celestial Purge, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +1 Mortarpod, -1 Angel of Jubilation, -3 Hero of Bladehold, -3 Oblivion Ring

It worked last time, so I went with the same sideboard plan. Game two was quick, after my turn 2 Mortarpod trumped his turn 2 Blood Artist. I timely Reinforcements to trump his gravecrawler, and once I get a pair of anthems going, he’s forced onto the defensive and never comes back.

2-0  (4-0 in games)

Round 3 – Ryan with Delver

I’m nervous going to round 3. Anyone can win two, but starting off 3-0 seems so much better. I’m confident, but being at the literal top table is a little surreal, especially after you notice that Jackie Lee and Mike Flores have both picked up early round losses. If they’re losing, do I actually just have the best deck for the room?

My opponent looks vaguely hipster-ish, but smiles and seems like a cool guy. He doesn’t banter much, and we start the round. He begins with a mulligan to six, but manages to dig out of it through raw card efficiency. An early snapcast-ponder puts him back to parity with me, and I beat him down pretty hard until he casts a Restoration Angel to protect an attacking Geist of St. Traft. On two life, he goes offensive, forcing blocks for me to survive on two life myself, which I can’t capitalize on because of a second Restoration Angel and a Angel-Snapcast-Vapor Snag to stop my two remaining flyers.

Sideboard: -3 Hero of Bladehold, -1 Angel of Jubilation, -1 Doomed Traveler, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +2 Nihil Spellbomb

The second game goes my way, with me slowly draining him out after casting a Timely Reinforcements for full value. He isn’t able to put on enough pressure to deal with it and the follow up, and I kill him with plenty of cards left in hand.

One of his friends comments over his shoulder: “This seems like a terrible matchup for you.”

He nodded and admitted to it. “It’s probably not what I’d like to be playing against.”

Game three goes to time. After our long drawn out first game, even the abbreviated second doesn’t stop it. As time is called, it’s my turn, and I have nineteen flying power on the field across eight or nine creatures. He’s on 17, and I have an active Vault of the Archangel. He has a Sworded up Angel (War and Peace), a normal Angel, and a Geist of St. Traft, plus a flipped delver. I am on 24, and have a couple of cards in hand, so does he.)

We trade back and forth, and it’s turn 4 – my last turn. He’s on five, and I still have more than double lethal damage on the field. He’s tapped out on creatures, but not on mana. I’m at seven. We have a huge crowd, as a game at the top table going to time and still being close despite a complex board position tends to attract people.

I swing out for lethal, tapping out because I don’t have an intangible virtue. I activate Vault of the Archangel. He starts tapping mana. Snapcaster Mage, targeting faith’s shield.

“That’s some kind of protection thing?”

He nods.

“Alright?” I say. “Can I see the card?”

He tosses it over to me and I read it with dread. Fateful Hour. If he’s at five or less, it also gives protection to him. In this case, from white.

“I don’t gain any life, do I?”

He shakes his head.

“I think you’ve got this one.”

I extend the hand.

2-1 (5-2 in games)

I’d like to note that this game was 100% non-loseable. First, I’d used a Nihil Spellbomb much earlier in the game to dig for a land, to activate Vault of the Archangel. This wasn’t strictly necessary, but if I had held it even a turn longer, I’d have been able to remove the shield from his graveyard and win. Digging for the land may still have been the correct choice, and only now reading my recap am I realizing that I made a misplay on my last turn.

At the time, my options seemed to be “Attack for the win” or “Defend for the draw”. Either way, Faith’s Shield giving protection from white wins him the game. However, if I had forced him to use Faith’s Shield to defend my attack, by only attacking with half my force, I could have survived by blocking his whole team and drawing the match.

I didn’t take the Faith’s Shield in his graveyard into account, and I should do that more often. Noting what spells are available for Snapcaster Mage is not something that you can ignore in the matchup. I don’t think I played badly here, and I honestly think that the match should have ended in a draw if I played it well, or a win if I had thought to hold my spellbomb.

Round 4 – John Reuben with Delver

I was pretty bummed out after my last round. I’d really been hoping to go 3-0 and position myself well for the second third of the tournament. Losing, especially in such a close match, had me questioning things left and right.

I sit down to my opponent, and he plays out a Seachrome Coast into Ponder to start. I come out the gate quickly, beating down with a Doomed Traveler and Champion. I add an anthem to the board, and then a Lingering Souls takes down the game.

Sideboard: -3 Hero of Bladehold, -1 Angel of Jubilation, -1 Doomed Traveler, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +2 Nihil Spellbomb

In our second game, I mulligan to six, and lose a close match that was broadly because I ran out of token generators and couldn’t find a black source to flash back the pair of Lingering Souls rotting in my graveyard. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that a mana-color issue has screwed me in this deck. I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

Game three isn’t close. I get early presence, and he can’t recover fast enough even through a Timely Reinforcement.

3-1 (7-3 in games)

Round 5 – Derek with Delver

A third successive Delver opponent puts me a little sour-mouthed. Can’t I go back to fighting Zombies? Those are easy. It’s almost like I’m playing against an expected meta. That’s still relatively new to me – considering that the majority of tournaments that I’ve played in have had a meta entirely dependent on who the good players in the room are. I’m going to need to get used to that going forward.

My first match went long, and ended with me barely grinding out a win with a last-second Vault activation. He can’t quite get the last three points of damage in, and I take the match.

Sideboard: -3 Hero of Bladehold, -1 Angel of Jubilation, -1 Doomed Traveler, +3 Timely Reinforcements, +2 Nihil Spellbomb

Game two sees me mulligan to six, and then lose a close race to Sword of War and Peace on a Restoration Angel. He ends on five life, and a Vault, or removal spell, at any point would have won the game for me.

Between games two and three, I sideboard out two Oblivion Rings and bring in two Divine Offering.

Game three ends up being a tragedy as I lose a race to Restoration Angel in the late game. Ironically, I lose with a pair of Divine Offerings in my hand, no targets for them, and plenty of mana to tap. If only they had been Oblivion Rings…

3-2 (8-4 in games)

Aftermath

Despite there being four more rounds, it was nearing 4 o’clock and I since I was most likely out of the range of the top 32 prize pool, I decided that the rest of the night would be better spent trekking up to New York in time for dinner. I spent the rest of the weekend with my family and saw my brother graduate from my High School – which is always a nice turn.

I’m not sure what the answer to Delver is. I feel like there needs to be one, and that if there is, I’ll need to find it. They've gotten stronger, but in different ways. I think Tokens is still a good place to be against them, but it's going to need to evolve a bit. Expect a very different list next week.

This weekend, I have FNM and a pair of GPT’s at Ron’s Comic World. I’ll be attending those, if only for the experience and the Planeswalker Points. I’m at 313 for the season so far, which puts me in easy range of my first GP Bye for next season. Those byes are going to turn out to be important, since I’ll be attending GP Boston and GP Philadelphia during that season, and byes at either are likely to be very important to my success there. I’m not at the point of assuming that I can win a GPT for any given event, and so getting 2 Byes from points would be spectacular. I’ve got a ton of big events coming up, and doing well at them should make that threshold reachable.

In the meantime, I’m brewing aggressively for the Worlds Qualifier on the 16th. I really would like to do well there and come out with a strong record. I may just take Tokens, but if I do, it’s something that I want to come with something stronger. Maybe an Esper List foregoing the Champion/Gather/Honor package for Favorable Winds, Snapcaster, Delver, and Restoration Angel? That seems like giving into the Delver Menace, but it might just give me the best chance to win this thing.

All I know is that all this talk of banning Ponder and Snapcaster doesn’t matter in the least to me. The Qualifier is on the 16th, and the next ban announcement isn’t till the 20th. After that, it’s all Legacy practice until Atlanta, and then the M13 prerelease the following weekend. I won’t be playing Standard post-ban until Connecticon on July 13-15.

Here’s hoping that the format sorts itself out soon.

Scheduling Your Grind

Today we’re going to take a bit of a break from Tournament Reports and Deck Lists and narrow in on something that isn’t often talked about in the Magic Community – finding and scheduling these high-level events. Everything I write in this article is from my own point of view, so if you live in a foreign country, things may be subtly different for you. For certain, the required number of planeswalker points is likely to change, so be wary that your mileage may vary.

When we talk about Grinding, we’re usually referring to going to as many tournaments as possible in a given period, trying to ‘grind out’ rewards related to those tournaments. The first step towards this is determining what’s out there. Here’s a quick overview. The Magic tournament scene is broadly split into three circuits right now, as well as independent events. The first and most well-known of these is the Pro Tour Series.

The Pro Tour Series

The Pro Tour is the crowning event of Magic. Held three times per year in varying locations, they offer the largest payout for a Wizards-run tournament. They are held over multiple days in multiple formats, and often feature names that you’ll hear when running around your local card shop. They’ve also got a pretty significant prize payout - $40,000 for first place, and then staggering downwards to the top 75, who each get $1000.

However, the Pro Tour isn’t something you can just walk into. You need to qualify for it. To that end, there’s three major ways to achieve this. You can Top 25 a Pro Tour, Top 4 a Grand Prix, or win a Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ). All of those are monumental accomplishments, and represent the goal for a number of aspiring grinders.

A step down from the Pro Tour is a Grand Prix (GP). Held most weekends in varied locations on the globe, they feature an 8x planeswalker point multiplier and two days of play – if you make the cut. In addition, they’re the most prominent tournament that offers byes to players for good play. You can earn between 1 and 3 byes for any given GP. The simplest way to get 3 is to win a Grand Prix Trial (Held in local stores) for the appropriate Grand Prix, though you can also qualify for them through Planeswalker Points. Grand Prix’s are the largest public events in Magic, and can break 1500 attendees regularly.

In addition, there’s the World Cup, which has only been added this year. This is an invite only tournament and has the dubious distinction of being the only tournament that you need to qualify to qualify for. You need to achieve the same number of planeswalker points as you would for a single bye at a GP to Qualify for the World Cup Qualifier – which are held three times per country. Alternatively, you could win player of the year, but the Qualifier seems a bit more likely.

That’s a rough sketch of the Pro Tour Series, but it’s hardly the only show in town.

The Star City Games Open Series

Star City Games is arguably the most well known magic sales hub on the internet. They also happen to run the largest independent tournament series on the market. The Star City Games Open series is basically a fully fledged competitor to the Pro Tour, and has comparable prizes.

The crown jewel in the Open Series is the Invitational. Held four times a year, it pays $75,000 out to the top 64 players, including $15,000 for first prize. However, like the Pro Tour, the Invitational doesn’t allow just anyone to walk in – you need to qualify first. There are broadly four methods of qualification. The first is to place highly at the previous Invitational. You can also win a SCG Invitational Qualifier (which come in three flavors – Normal, Super, and Elite, with increasing prize for each), or accumulate enough Open Points (Star City’s reward program, earned from placing well at their events), and finally, you can perform exceptionally well at an Open.

Star City Opens are to the Invitational what Grand Prixs are for the Pro Tour. They’re open events – no qualification needed – with hundreds of players. There’s one most weekends in some city in the USA. They generally feature two types of events – a Standard Open on Saturday and a Legacy Open on Sunday. Achieving top 8 in either of these will get you an invite to the Invitational of your choice that year.

The TCGPlayer Max Series

While I haven’t participated in any of their events as of the writing of this piece, but from the looks of it, it’s got a healthy following as well. The crown event is a $50,000 championship – paying $12,000 to the top finisher. To get there, you need to earn TCGPlayer points, which are available from tons of events held all around the country. Some stores even run weekly events.

While it appears to be the smallest of the big circuits, it could be true that there’s less interest in them, making the tournaments softer by comparison. Again, I haven’t attended any of their events, so your mileage may vary.

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Now for the real question: Why is this important? Why do we care about all these different tournaments that are being run all around the world? Well, we want to go to some of them! We’ve got a couple of free weekends for the next few months and we want to play some high level magic and maybe see some prizes. If that all sounds fun, then there’s something you should know off the bat.

This stuff gets complicated quick.

I’m not an organized person by nature. In fact, I’m very unorganized. I need to-do lists to keep track of my day-to-day tasks. I keep a notebook on me like it’s a crutch. For me, doing this kind of thing requires preparation. The rest of this article is going to more or less go through my methodology for deciding what I’m doing with my weekends for the next two months. (And it should also give you a reasonable idea about the tournament reports that you can expect to see here on a weekly basis!)

First thing I’m going to do is block off the days that I can’t do anything. Understandably, there’s a fair amount of events going on between now and July that I can’t miss for one reason or another.

June 3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

July 6-8 – M13 Prerelease (Weekend at Marshalls)

July 12-14 – Connecticon

Seems easy enough. We just won’t look for events on those days. Next up is to hit the ‘big fish’. These are huge events, and I can’t see anything else interfering with me going to them. Because I played like a madman during the previous planeswalker point season, I have enough points for a single bye to all GP’s, and I have a qualification for the World Cup Qualifier. I generally use www.mtgmom.com to track the dates of important events, so I’ve got that in the background while I do this. It tracks the location of all Pro Tours, GP’s, Star City and TCGPlayer events, which makes it pretty invaluable.  According to that site, the only World Cup Qualifier that I can reasonably go to is in Maryland, and held on the 16^th of June. That’s an open weekend for me, so we’ll slot that into our schedule. I probably won’t win, but it’ll be a fun time, and it’s only a couple of hours drive.

Always check the details of a big event like this, because there might be more interesting things going on. For example, the World Cup Qualifier is a two day event if you make Top 8, so I’ll have to plan to either have a hotel room, or drive there and back if I turn out to make Top 8. Checking the event’s website, it looks like there’s going to be a PTQ on Sunday – so even if I don’t make the Top 8, I’ll likely still want to be there. I’ll plan on getting a hotel room for the night – they have a deal with the event so that it’s less than 100 dollars with a complimentary breakfast thrown in, which is probably cheaper than driving there and back twice, including tolls – and it’s certainly easier on my mind if I don’t need to wake up at 6am to be there by registration.

The other major event on my calendar for this period is GP Atlanta. Pop has agreed to go with me, so we’ll be spell slinging for the weekend in Legacy fashion. I’ve still not 100% settled on a deck, but preliminary results seem to be pointing at a Burn deck. I don’t know legacy too well, so a strong linear deck might just be the best option. This is taking place on June 30-31, but we’ll need to fly out on the 29^th to be there in the morning. Note to self, book hotel, book your plane flight.

The schedule now looks like this:

May 25-27 – n/a

June 1 -3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 8-10 – n/a

June 15-17 – Magic World Cup Qualifier

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

June 29-July 1 – GP Atlanta

July 6-8 – Weekend at Marshalls

July 12-14 – Connecticon

We have three weekends free during this period, and with all the travel that I’m going to be doing, I don’t think I’m going to want to do a ton of long-distance travel during those. I check the weekends on MTGMom to find out if anything is really local. The 26^th of May is a PTQ in my hometown, run by my home shop. It’s literally within walking distance of my apartment, so we can add that to the list. June 8-10 has nothing worth noting.  I’d like to have something on June 8-10 so that I’m at least warmed up for the Qualifier the following weekend. MTGMom doesn’t count GPT’s as major events, and so doesn’t list them. You need to use locator.wizards.com for that – search for Grand Prix Trials.

A quick search for premier events on that weekend in my area reveals that two stores are having a double GPT Saturday. I very much prefer Ron’s Comic World for that even though Top Deck Games is closer, though the two affiliated GP’s for either aren’t exactly within travel distance. I’ve got options here, but I’ll leave it up to me on those dates to decide if it’s worth going to. Sometimes you should leave flex in your schedule to account for being tired, sick, or just not feeling like playing Magic. Burnout is a real thing, and you need to take your mental fatigue into account whenever you have major events coming up.

On a lark, I do a quick check for the weekends that I’m not available, and I find something interesting. My brother’s graduation is on Sunday, in New York, and I’ll be traveling up through NJ on the Saturday before. As a result, I’ll be passing by a major event being held in Edison NJ – a $5,000 TCGPlayer Tournament. It starts early in the morning, so if I go and play in it, I can leave as soon as I’m reasonably out of the prize running (or if I win) and head home for dinner. It’s not something I’m married to, idea wise, but it’s certainly a possible thing I could do if I’m in the mood to that weekend.

Also, the weekend of Connecticon isn’t going to be a bust, Magic-wise, because there’s a number of events being held there by Star City Games – including an Elite Qualifier. I’ll most likely play in something, but I wouldn’t want to miss too much of the convention itself, so I’ll make that call once I see the program for the convention.

May 25-27 – Redcap’s Corner PTQ

June 1 -3 – Brother’s Graduation

June 8-10 – (Double GPT Weekend at Ron’s)

June 15-17 – Magic World Cup Qualifier

June 22-24 – Meeting Girlfriend’s Family

June 29-July 1 – GP Atlanta

July 6-8 – Weekend at Marshalls

July 12-14 – Connecticon

Seems like a busy couple of months, but it should also be extremely exciting. Just based on that list, I’ll be traveling to a state I’ve never been to, flying on my own for the first time, playing in two of the biggest tournaments of my life, and all of that wrapped up in a couple of very significant life events. I’m going to be exhausted and running off adrenaline for half of the time, but I couldn’t be more thrilled for the whole thing.

Wish me luck, and check back on Thursday, where I’ll be building a Standard deck from scratch – including sideboard and a few test matches against the top decks in the format. What deck, you might ask? Well, that’s up to you guys! Let me know in the comments section, either here or on Reddit, what kind of deck you’d like to see my construct. I’ll take the suggestion that I like the best, and we’ll see it come to life on Thursday.

Also, a question for the community. I generally have been using Thursdays to write articles on Tournament Reports and Deck Techs, but I've gotten a few comments from people saying that those have gone over their head a bit because they're not as experienced with deckbuilding. How would you guys feel about Tuesdays becoming an introductory deckbuilding series? Again, let me know in the comments - both here and on Reddit.