Domain Zoo in Extended: a little test run

So I'm going to be playing Domain Zoo this weekend in Oregon. I decided on the deck a few weeks ago because I had a lot of the cards for it, and I knew that it would be a top deck and that it was very powerful, and I think playing a powerful deck is more of a sure thing that predicting the field, building a deck to beat the field, and then playing against the decks you were expecting to make up the field. I played in a Magic-League mini (8-man single elim) to try it out. Here's the list I'm running:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains

4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Shadow Guildmage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Gaddock Teeg

4 Tribal Flames
4 Lightning Helix
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Seal of Fire
3 Oblivion Ring

Sideboard:
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Ranger of Eos
3 Jund Charm
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Duergar Hedge-Mage

I tried cutting Dark Confidant because a lot of people don't like it, and I haven't noticed it being really amazing for me, and I wanted to try Gaddock Teeg. What has been really good is Tidehollow Sculler, even in the mirror because it tends to slow down as guys come onto the board.

Round 1 I play the mirror. I pretty much get blown out Game 1. I brought in the Finkses and the Rangers and took out 2 Seal of Fire, 2 Shadow Guildmage, and 2 Mogg Fanatic. The second game I get 3 Kitchen Finkses down and he floods. Kitchen Finks is really good. Point taken.

I bring in a Shadow Guildmage and take a Mogg Fanatic for tutoring because he'd be good at taking out opposing Kitchen Finkses. I Tidehollow Sculler and see an Umezawa's Jitte in hand, and then I'm able to stick a Shadow Guildmage with mana up for Lightning Helix to whatever he's about to equip. Then I get a Ranger of Eos down leaving a Steam Vents up, so now as long as I bounce whatever blocks Jitte (which will be Ranger of Eos every time), I'm good to go. He scoops when he realizes Jitte will not get counters.

Game 2 I had a bye, so I sat around for an hour really late to wait to play Magic. Game 3 I play against Faeries, which turns out to be the Japanese variety with Azami, Lady of Scrolls. He gets stuck on land Game 1. Game 2 I play pretty sketchily. I know he has Threads in hand from a Tidehollow Sculler, and I'm holding 2 Tarmogoyfs and Jitte on the board, so I run them out, he steals one, I equip and attack and he double blocks with a Mutavault and my Goyf, and I finish off my own Tarmogoyf. I think there was an Ancestral Vision ticking down, but still no reason to be that impatient. Game 3 I keep a very slow hand and he takes control of the game. I think for this matchup I need a 1 drop, then another 1 drop, bait an Engineered Explosives, then stick my good cards, like a Shadow Guildmage, Gaddock Teeg, Tarmogoyf with Threads backup, one drop + Jitte. This Japanese version doesn't make me want to bring in Slice and Dice or Jund Charm... the worst cards for me are Threads and Shackles, so Duergar Hedge-Mage I think is fine.

I'm agonizing over the Ancient Grudge slot. The people I was testing with the other day think it should be Kataki, since if Grudge is for Affinity, Kataki is infinitely better. I didn't like it because it was narrow. I think it may also need to be Ethersworn Canonist, because it comes in against All-In Red, a deck I am equally afraid of being blown out by and I currently have no board against, and it comes in against TEPS and Elves. I'll hopefully be testing all day Thursday, and I'd like to figure out how to play against Faeries, the mirror, and play a little bit against the fringe decks like All-In and TEPS.

PTQ Honolulu 2009 schedule ...... NOT POSTED!

This is more of a trick to get people using Google to come here, because I know people will be searching for it since it seems to be non-existent on the mothership. So conceivably there could be a PTQ in your state but you may not know about it unless you're tournament organizer publicizes extremely well, or your tournament organizer has a web site and you are extremely web-savvy. (I asked someone who has said he wants to get more competitive at Magic and has the means to travel why he didn't go down to Portland a month ago, and he didn't know about it. To anyone reading this from the area... www.northwestmagic.com and www.cascadegames.com)

No more Shards Sealed! PTQ Portland damage report

This past weekend was the Portland PTQ, the last PTQ of the season for most of us. I rode up with Zaiem, Dave Derrickson, and Chris Pauly on Friday night, so there wasn't a quiet moment the entire trip, for the better of course, and had some kickass Indian food at India House. I'm normally not a fan of Indian food, but man did this Indian food rock. The hotel room Zaiem and I stayed was entirely too cold.

The sealed pool I got back was similar to the PTQ pool from Atlanta, except no double-Mycoloth triple-Squire for me to get there with. It was very much GR and I splashed White for Naya Charm and Realm Razer. I kept siding in 2 Resounding Silences. Initially I just wanted to avoid color screw as much as possible, but splashing for 4 in a color isn't all THAT bad since other than the Charm and Razer, I didn't have Gold cards or double casting costs.

Round 1 I play against a girl who was clearly someone's girlfriend and was just tagging along.
Round 2 I lose to a Eugene player who made Top 8.
Round 3 I play against very chatty person and come back after losing the first one. Round 4 I play against Dwayne who's a Washington player who Top 8'd the Seattle PTQ. Our first two games were absolute epics, we played like 15 spells each game 1, then 20 spells each game 2 and I pretty much had his entire deck written down at this point. I play faster because I don't want to draw the third game, and he keeps a 2 lander game 3 and doesn't get there.

Round 5 I play Peter Beckfield, who has rallied the Seattle troops, so to speak, to come to Portland and steal this PTQ. If anyone deserved to win this one, he did. Game 1 he blows me out. Game 2 I blow him out with Realm Razer. I had played a Relic of Progentius in that game and cycled it in the midgame. Game 3 goes to the midgame and I stick a Realm Razer. I throw the lands to the side and see some extra cards in my sleeves. It turns out they were from the Relic of Progentius cycling from Game 2... I don't want to beat anyone dishonestly, especially someone I know, so I point it out and fill out the win for him on the sheet. He even offered to replay Game 3, but we both realize that it wouldn't be smart for whoever's in his seat if we're trying to Top 8.

SERVES ME RIGHT FOR NOT PILING GAME 3. I often neglect pile shuffling Game 3 because generally the clock becomes a factor, but this time it bit me. Chalk another loss up to being lazy.

The next two rounds the wheels fall off, and Round 8 I totally blowout a Blue Moon and a Bayou Burger at Red Robin. I left my credit card in the bill envelope, so not even that round ended without a bad beat story.

I felt pretty good after 3-1, but then I started thinking about how I have to win the next 3, maybe even 4 to top 8, and it started to feel really daunting, especially since I'd have to beat four really good players. I somewhat felt it in Atlanta when I started 3-0 then fell to 3-1 and realized I wasn't even halfway through with the tournament. Oddly, I didn't feel that when I started 4-1 in the Philadelphia PTQ, so maybe I'm more confident about Constructed formats than Limited, since I haven't had much success with Limited or even felt comfortable in the slightest sense about my skills until very recently. I've got to learn to have amnesia and just take it one match... or something.

So the PTQ season is over, but the next one is about to start! Here's my tentative schedule:

Jan 3 - Portland (GPT LA same day same venue)
Jan 10 - Seattle (GPT LA same day same venue)
Jan 16-18 - Grand Prix Los Angeles
Feb 21 - Vancouver
March 21 - Seattle
May 20 - Grand Prix Seattle (Standard... actually not sure if this feeds Honolulu or Austin)

I am not sure about GP LA right now, as while plane tickets are cheap, I don't really want to take a day off of work, which I can probably do, but would involve flying out Friday night and missing the trials, and flying back in Monday morning and going back to work from the airport.

I told Alex that I was going to qualify. Here's to only needing one!

Getting ready for Portland

I've played a lot of Magic Online last week with Nix Tix and being confined to my apartment thanks to being on-call for work. (I did get paged in the first round of a draft and had to drop it though.) I have tons of replays I can go through and I've already started to note the mistakes I've been making. They range from "ticks", or really dumb mistakes that would make you slap your forehead, like forgetting to fetch or cycle at end step; bonehead mistakes that aren't the same as ticks, per se, but mistakes that just shouldn't happen if you're more aware, like tapping mana incorrectly when you were planning a second play, or walking into a trick you saw, or missing a point of damage, or not seeing a kill on the board; and then there are the high-level planning mistakes that could have altered the game in the long run, like not being aggressive enough in the early game, or playing a less-optimal creature for a particular drop, or playing the wrong removal on a creature.

The point is there are lots of things going wrong. While I cannot pinpoint patterns in them where I could just tell myself to stop doing X and I'll get rid of 90% of my mistakes, I think it's fine to analyze what you could have done differently. Tonight I will probably do a draft, and then go through as many more replays as I can and write down the mistakes and go over them on the trip Friday night to Portland.

I did my first Shards paper draft since Atlanta last night at First Pick at (finally!) managed to 4-0. Since Alara was released I had been running really cold at First Pick. I've done maybe 20 drafts at First Pick and cashed at maybe 4 of these... which, I'm pretty sure, is worse than flipping a coin every match.

Anyway, I drafted a Naya deck that had some pretty good cards like double Wild Nacatl and double Naya Battlmage, but also had some holes, like missing some bears and having to start Incurable Ogre (with nothing for it to activate) and Thorn-Thrash Viashino (without good things to eat).

I've started writing down every card I see again because I was forgetting them on MODO and then not knowing what to sideboard and also walking into them. I've started initialing damage sources on my score pad too, which I started in Atlanta. So WN is damage from Wild Nacatl, VS is Stinger, VD is Viscera Dragger... I also just felt a lot less pressure when I play against the best players. Normally I'm very afraid to make a mistake and I get very nervous, but I don't know if it was just awareness or getting used to playing against good people who are just computer screens to me or just watching better players in Atlanta, but I was way more calm, and I just focused on playing correctly rather than not blowing the game.

It was watching in Atlanta an old friend and former state champion from NC Orrin play that maybe inspired me to be more calm when I play. It was a game in the last rounds of Day 1, and he hardly said a word. I don't think I'm a real talkative player, but if eliminates a chance to get overexcited, why not? Of course, I don't want my plays to be unintentionally ambiguous as far as game state, but it was a little inspiring to see his operations. It's probably an interesting exercise to try to say as little as possible in a match and see if it affects your play and thought process for the better.

But anyway, it certainly felt different tapping the cards than it has all season, but I couldn't be convinced that I was actually outplaying people because so many of my games were blowouts or manascrew wins! I mean, that's the game my deck wanted to play, and I did tick a few times, like forgetting two counters on a Algae Gharial or tapping wrong so I couldn't run out a second guy or even represent a pump, but still... it's hard to objectively say that I went 4-0 and beat good people because I have gotten better. Again, why MODO is such a great tool because you can review the wins and see if you really did play optimally.

My Fearless Magic Inventory

To prepare for the last PTQ of the season in Portland, I was going to start analyzing my MODO replays from the crapload of drafts and the Sealed from the weekend, since I am on-call this week and really can't guarantee I can sit down for a three-hour draft without having to drop and deal with a page, but replays are deactivated until tomorrow's downtime. Sucks that it's Nix Tix the week I can't play any Magic tournaments!

This list was inspired by Sam Stoddard's Misetings thread and subsequent article on Star City from a year ago. I wrote this at an airport on my way back from Atlanta, because I felt semi-inspired after the PTQ because I knew I was not awful but could definitely get better. I'll just copy-paste the document I have on my computer.

Some of these might not make sense as it was just brainstorming, and isn't in any kind of particular order of importance, so feel free to ask about them or make suggestions.

----

Things I Do Not Like About My Game
Most Magic players at PTQ’s make tons of mistakes. The difference with professionals is that professionals don’t make mistakes; they win the games they are supposed to win, lose the games they are supposed to lose, and don’t throw away games they are winning.
- Antonino de Rosa

“Kai Budde could have won that game.”
- Masashi Oiso

All

• I have to re-evaluate my plan every time I get the turn back, and end up playing too slow as a result.
• I'll have a particular plan playing around a card, but then I don't switch plans when it's not right to play around that card anymore.
• My mentality changes when I play against players that are a lot better than me, like Gurney, Jason, and Charles. I clearly played differently against Charles when I had no idea who he was.
• If my opponent’s play fast, I try to keep up and end up playing worse as a result.
• I don’t remember my plays well enough to re-evaluate games that I lose to find mistakes, especially if they are mistakes in planning or subtle mistakes.
• When I want to win the tournament, I put too much stress on myself during the game to think clearly. I have to just concentrate on playing correctly instead of going X-1-1.
• I bend the hell out of my lands when I play and tap them, so my shuffling is suspect. I should just lay down my cards normally.

Constructed

• I don’t know how to sideboard when there aren’t obviously dead cards.
• I really don’t know how to sideboard net decks as a result.
• When I think of sideboarding, I think of specific cards instead of the strategy as a whole.
• I don’t play Control decks fast enough to be confident in taking them to a tournament because of the mirror match.
• I don’t play enough different decks in testing to be able to switch decks the day if the metagame suggests to.
• I stick to testing one deck because of card availability, so it sometimes turns out that the week of the tournament that I realize the deck I’ve been playing is not a Tier 1 deck.
• I don’t test the mirror match enough to understand how to win them.
• I don’t adjust when net decks need to be adjusted and when they don’t. They are not always the optimal lists even if they top 8 a PTQ, but they also aren’t always awful.
• I don’t know how to build my own decks, or I don’t know what strategies would be powerful or just underwhelming.
• I don’t know how to play against Control decks or to play around counterspells. I always presume they have it.

Limited

• Shards of Alara specific – I can’t stay disciplined to two colors and end up playing a bad mana base.
• I don’t know when my deck can mulligan aggressively and when I can’t; I tend to mulligan aggressively all the time and I don’t know when keeping a one-lander is appropriate, or when my deck can't do better than what I've got
• In general, I don’t know how to split my lands.
• I give away my tricks when I go into the tank or tap my mana to consider playing it.
• Shards of Alara sealed specific – I don’t know when it’s appropriate to build a greedy deck.
• I don’t remember what cards are in my deck well enough and what cards I’ve picked in the current pack, especially pack 3, to evaluate the cards that I need.
• On MODO, I don't block as tightly. I presume from their ratings that they make loose attacks, since I (correctly?) presume from their ratings whether I can bluff a trick by attacking.
• I'm not good at new formats when I don't know all the cards., and when I don't know all the cards, I don't take detailed enough notes.

Cardboard crack goes digital again

For whatever reason, I decided to download MODO again. It wasn't as slow... but I was only drafting and not a full premier event that would ruin my computer's memory.

So the second draft I did tonight was a 4-3-2-2 ALA draft and I make my way to the finals to play against David, who happens to be a Seattle player, a very good one at that. He has drafted an Esper deck, and I am running Grw Naya. Game 1 I blow him out, and Game 2 he blows me out.

Game 3 my first play is a Court Archers and his is a Tidehollow Strix off of a mulligan I believe. We're beating each other, and he misses land and plays out Obelisks, and I eventually put down a Druid of the Anima and a Cavern Thoctar. He plays out another Obelisk, swings, and after my draw, the board looks like this:

Him: 14 life, 4 cards in hand.
His board: 1 tapped Swamp, 2 tapped Island, untapped Obelisk of Bant, Esper, and Grixis. One tapped Tidehollow Trix.

Me: 11 life, Sigil Blessing, Branching Bolt, Welkin Guide, Resounding Roar in hand
Board: all untapped Court Archers, Druid of the Anima, Cavern Thoctar, 2 Mountain, 2 Forest, 1 Plains.

Tricks I've seen are Grixis Charm, Agony Warp, and Resounding Wave. I know he has another Tidehollow Strix in there and a couple of Sanctum Gargoyles.

I already used a Resounding Thunder on his Scavenger Drake. (Possibly should have been Branching Bolt, because I know he's a tight player, saw Branching Bolt from me, and the only ground guy I did see was a Tidehollow Sculler.) If he has nothing in hand, I've got the game with my two pump spells, but that ain't happening. I've seen Resounding Wave earlier in the game, but I don't see a whole lot of point in alpha striking. So what are all the possible courses of action:

I could attack with everyone. Send in for 7. If I pass priority at this point, if he chooses to bounce/kill Thoctar (I guess Bant Charm is a possibility... otherwise there are no cards in the format that kill it), I could use my two pump spells to whack him for 9. Or I could let him bounce it, he takes 2, and I run out Welkin Guide. Next turn I can attack again with a kill possible, but my board is definitely worse.

If he doesn't do anything, he will take at least 7, which is alright. I run out Welkin Guide second main as another guy.

I could play Resounding Roar on my Court Archers before damage. If he plays Agony Warp on what I pump, and I respond with the Sigil Blessing on it, he will take 12 if he targeted Druid with -3/-0, 13 if he -3/-0's the Archers, or 12 if he targets the Thoctar. So he'd go to 2.

If he bounces the Archers I target with the pump, I let him take 6 and play my Court Archers again, saving my Sigil Blessing.

I could also Welkin Guide the Archers. If he deals with the Druid, he takes 6. If he bounces the Thoctar he takes 4 and goes to 10.

I could attack with the Thoctar and something else. If I leave back the Druid, I can follow similar reasoning as above. If I pass and he bounces the Thoctar, I can run my pumps and whack him for 7, or whack him for 1 and run out the Thoctar. I don't think he will deal with the Archers if I don't do anything. If I Resounding Roar the Archers and he does nothing he takes 10, or he Warps it, and I can Sigil Blessing and he takes 10 (don't think it matters who the targets are), and I can make it 11. If he bounces the Thoctar I run it out again.

If I attack with the Druid instead, it's pretty much the same except I cannot add an additional 1, or if he bounces Thoctar I cannot play it.

What I chose to do is attack with just the Thoctar, and it got bounced with Resounding Wave and I replayed it. This analysis took me probably 15 minutes to write up, so I wasn't able to really figure out that attack with everyone, running out a pump on a smaller guy and having him take 8 from my two pumps if he bounces Thoctar or a lot if he kills my pump target seems better.

How the game runs out is he attacks, plays another Strix, which I decide I need to kill. I attack with just the Thoctar again and it gets Resounding Silenced. Plays a Cloudskate Drake, attacks for 2 again putting me at 7, I draw something irrelevant, then he Esper Charms and draws a Sigil of Distinction, I start chumping, and he draws Sharuum and I scoop them up.

I probably really needed to think it out a little bit more, even if it took a few minutes, since it is MODO. Maybe pencil and paper would have helped? Not sure. Good players can run through that fast. I need to learn to do that.

Being lazy

I was thinking about a play from the Seattle PTQ and then thought about a play I made in the GP Atlanta Trials on Friday and realized they are very similar. Here's my play from the trial:

With me at 7, he has a Skeletal Kathari, Vithian Stinger, and Court Archers, and I have a Rakeclaw Gargantuan and a Sigiled Paladin. I am at 7, and he attacks. I decide I need to Soul's Fire to not die, so I run it out after his attacks choosing my Rakeclaw to hit his Kathari to make him at least sac a guy. For whatever reason, I did not specify that Exalted was on the stack. I think I thought he was had 8 mana and could cycle Resounding Roar, making my timing irrelevant, but that was not the case. He does have Resounding Roar and I die to lethal damage because I was extremely lazy.

The play I was thinking of from the PTQ involved Jon Loucks making a block, then his opponent asking "Stack damage?" to which Jon does something like ping his attacker that would die to one more damage and as a response the opponent bounces his own guy to what he thinks would save it and leave Jon's blocker dead from combat damage.

... except that damage was not on the stack. Jon had never indicated that he was ready to put damage on the stack, so the opponent asking "Stack damage?" was merely an indication that he was passing priority. From my understanding, a judge was called and ruled in favor of Jon, and the opponent was down a trick and probably also lost tempo if he couldn't play his guy back from spending the mana on the trick.

A couple of spectators called the play immoral, and I'm not talking about some little kids, I'm talking about the best players in Washington. A dick move? Obviously some would think so. I would always be specific about when I'm doing something and probably never try pulling something like that because I don't want to have to get in a fight over it, even if I know I am correct and the judge will rule in my favor.

Could the other player have done something about it? He could have been much more specific about what he was doing. "Stack damage" is so vague. A phrase like "I'm ready to put combat damage on the stack" (my old one) or simply "Pass priority"* (my new favorite) is much better. He could have also clarified when Jon was doing his thing, if he were aware of the ambiguity of just asking "Stack damage?"

Not trying to slam the guy, he is a good player and more accomplished than me. The point of all this is: DON'T BE LAZY! It usually always matters when you do something. If there are triggers, think about if there is any reason you would just want them to resolve. Generally there isn't. There wasn't in my case. Know exactly what phase you're in and make sure you can justify what phase you're in if you're opponent doesn't know, you might trick him and swindle a game if you're lucky (but then he'll might think you are a dick, which many writers have commented on).

For the first time in a while, I'm going to decline drafting at First Pick tonight. Gotta catch up on work. Maybe if I didn't blog so much.

* This weekend I was saying "Pass" during Declare Blockers instead of "Pass priority" and started saying "Pass priority" when an opponent asked if it was his turn and realized the ambiguity in what I was saying. "Pass" is definitely more often used to mean "End my turn". Glad that one didn't bite me, although I bet I could have argued my way out of that.

Great minds thinking alike

I actually had the pleasure of meeting Riki Hayashi in Atlanta through Tony Mayer and played EDH with him. I'm very happy that we both think Extended is very similar to the current season of Heroes.

From his article today:

There has been a call for Sensei’s Divining Top to be unbanned because “T1 Top, T2 Counterbalance kolds Elves.” Halleluiah! All of our problems are solved. Forgive me, but isn’t plan akin to releasing Sylar to help catch the escaped Level Fivers?

Constructed for Christmas?

With limited almost over, it's time to get into Constructed! I want to try some new ideas in Standard and playtest it more just to be more familiar with the matchups, since I did a fair amount of testing, but nowhere close to the amount I did last Extended season. (This is of course for the Type 2 Power tournament before Christmas.) Having a full-time job sucks, especially the full-time part! But so does not knowing people well enough to call them up and saying "We are playtesting for 6 hours right now!" like I could back at school. For States I probably tested 15-20 hours at most, whereas for the first Extended PTQ I think I can say I playtested closer to 30, and then probably closer to 40 before the Grand Prix. Considering my current circumstances, I'll just have to deal with it I guess.

I also want to start goldfishing some Extended. Even if it doesn't get banned after Worlds, I really don't want to play Elves since I'd play the mirror for half the day at a PTQ. Tezzeret doesn't seem that fun either, but I could play that. I could play Faeries, but I really want to play something more proactive and fun. I've checked off All-In Red, Goblins, and Dredge as decks from the Top 16 of the Pro Tour I'd like to try, and also Zoo since I think you can tune it to beat Elves. Hopefully Elves really isn't actually so powerful that it's incorrect not to play it, since I haven't tested it, since what I really liked about the last Extended format was that you could just play one of many powerful decks, play it well and see results. But if there's an overwhelmingly powerful deck, I'd make myself play it.

Back in Seattle tomorrow!

Grand Prix Atlanta - Day 2 (the PTQ)

Sixty-four players started the day drafting in the Grand Prix, while 240-some started another Sealed deck at the PTQ. I get passed a pool with tons of great Green and White beaters with three Akrasan Squires, 5 or 6 bears, and two Mycoloths, along with two Sigil Blessing. I was short on removal, with only Branching Bolt and the pseudo-removal Excommunicate, but the deck's plan was just to not have to remove things and run over people. I was in love with the deck because it was only playing 2 Red cards. I possibly could have cut an Obelisk of Naya for a Naturalize because I had 2 Mountains, a Jund Panorama, and a Druid of the Anima for my two red cards already... but I really didn't want to mess with the mana.

First two rounds are blowouts, as I wasn't playing against very good players. Round 3 I play Ben Stark, an old pro with a handful of Pro Tour top 8's. I already played him earlier in the weekend in a grinder, where he was late and got a game loss, then got blown out in the second game. This game, I lose the first one as he comes back, game 2 I win on the back of Mycoloth-Mycoloth, and game 3 I have too much pressure and win. He was pretty upset from the double Mycoloth since he told my friend he played the next round, but he was a lot cooler and nicer than I expected those old pros to be in the heat of battle.

I then lose the next two rounds. One round I lose in three because I cannot deal with Battlegrace Angel. The next round I lose to Scourglass and then a recurred Scourglass via Sanctum Gargoyle. I made a goof in that round where I intended to lay an Ethersworn Canonist with a Scourglass on the table, holding Elvish Visionary and Mycoloth in hand for post-Glass, but I looked down at the card I layed and it's Elvish Visionary. Since two turns before I made him burn for 1 when he overtapped his mana, I didn't even bother trying to pick it up.

I then beat Erik, who is a Raleigh player who I think is very good and whom I've never beat in like five sanctioned matches. I get blown out by Naya Charm game 1, get there with Mycoloth Game 2, then blow him out Game 3 when he can't draw his Plains for Naya Charm, which I don't feel remorse for necessarily since he was playing five colors.

I lose to an insane deck next with double Bant Charm, Naya Charm, double Oblivion Ring, and a couple other great tricks, and he just keeps drawing gas. That was one sick deck. I made one bad play where I played a Squire on a board of Ethersworn Canonist and a couple other Exalted guys, attack into a 3/3 or something, and he pays Sigil Blessing, and I'm about to tap my mana, but he notes that I have already played a spell, so I lose my guy. Felt really dumb because that's exactly what my plan was.

I blow out my next opponent, and then I go to three in my final round and lose because I can't deal with Elspeth. This includes an uncharacteristic mull to 5, the mana had been great all day, where I nearly keep any hand with a Plains, Squire, and bears. I possibly threw away Game 1 because I attacked Mycoloth into a Resounding Silence that I didn't consider. I possibly still needed the pressure to deal with Elspeth, but it was more likely a mistake and me not playing tightly at the end of the tournament.

So I went 5-4. If I had gone 6-3 I would have been pretty ecstatic given how my season has been going, but 5-4 is still the best I have done in Shards Sealed.

I gave Zack, a friend at Pitt, and he still asks me why I'm sucking the big one in Shards sealed. Maybe my deck should have been an X-3 or X-2, but I certainly can't complain about my pool, even if it did lack in hard removal. I thought this was the best day of Magic I've played this season, even if the record is relatively mediocre. It felt like while I was sitting down, I was a lot more relaxed than I have been where I put so much pressure on myself to the point where apparently I make really scrub plays.

If I had 0-2 dropped or something, I would be totally pissed, but my play today convinced me that maybe I'm not as bad at Magic as I think I am, and I probably think I'm way worse than I actually am. I think I'll still make the trip to Portland for one more PTQ, hopefully get lucky, but more hopefully to not make mistakes and get a decent enough record just so I can really tell myself that I'm not that bad.

Overall, my weekend was better than I expected. A lot of Raleigh guys that I used to play with came down, some old friends also made the trip, and I made some new friends, as opposed to not knowing anyone and sitting by myself goldfishing every round.

"Hey, Mike Ward, why did that guy just get DQ'd?"
"Language!"

Grand Prix Atlanta - Day 1

So I'm brimming with confidence going into Day 1, after some relatively good play at the Trials the night before. The deck I had had tons of Red and Black removal, and some green creatures and Necrogenesis to make Jund pretty clear, but the only fixing in the entire pool was a Savage Lands and two Obelisk of Esper. The blue I threw out immediately, so I would have to do with Savage Lands, and a 6-6-4 manabase.

Round 1 I beat someone pretty handily. Round 2 I go to three, and keep a dreadful hand of 4 Red burn spells, some Green creature, and two Swamps. I'm on the play, but I really don't want to send it back because I think I flat out win the game if I draw one of 7 red sources. I don't draw a third land even and I get blown out.

From there, wheels came off, although I don't think I played incorrectly. Round 3 I get blown out because I can't get past 4 lands. Round 4 I play against someone I beat in the trials the night before, flood Game 1 after I clear the board, then get manascrewed Game 2. Round 5 I lose to a pretty weak player who tried as hard as he could to get me back into Game 1, which I probably just should have scooped because he got to 39, and then Game 2 I don't play spells again.

It's just so frustrating because I honestly can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I don't think I could be as aggressive mulliganing with this deck because my mana was so awful, but then should I keep hands like I kept in Round 2? I'll post the deck list eventually.

I'm not totally convinced that this just doesn't happen to better players. I watched Tomaharo Saito keep 4 red removal cards, a Jund Obelisk, a Cavern Thoctar or something, and a SWAMP, on the play, Game 3, and he rips land land and wins it. Like what the hell??? I'm not going to call shenanigans on that, but how do you keep that EVER?! Is that what it really takes?

More mana issues would arise in the draft I signed up for. I drafted a removal-heavy Grixis deck that played pretty well in Round 1, but then in Round 2 I don't draw land and don't draw spells and I lose. Normal land screw this time, but still unbelievable.

It's hard for me to put this one behind me because it's happened all season, and I honestly don't have any ideas how to get better, and I really don't want to just say that it's the format, because obviously some players are still winning more consistently than I am, and I'd like to think there is something I can do to become better.

I need to clear my head somehow for tomorrow's PTQ, start with a clean slate, and just play well. I thought I was playing well today, but I wish I could see an indication. UGHHHHHH why did I miss the one Constructed tournament in what seems like years last weekend?

Grand Prix Atlanta - Day 0

Despite terrible weather and flight delays, I get into Atlanta, checked in, and at the site just in time to jump into the first flight. Turns out there were no less than three big pros in the tournament in Player of the Year frontrunner Shuhei Nakamura, Australian national champion Aaron Nicastri, and the old Deadguy pro Chris Pikula. Just great.

The pool I opened in the first pool was pretty good that I stretched to four colors. I end up losing the first round in two because both games his Hell's Thunder was good for 10 thanks to Court Archers. I didn't think I made any mistakes.

The next pool is maybe not as powerful, but I kept it to three colors: RGW with Obelisk of Jund for my Resounding Thunder. I won the first round against an old pro because he was late and got a Game Loss and then got blown out Game 2.

The second round I played against a Georgia Tech student. I scooped up game 1 after about 40 minutes, and then blow him out game 2 as time expires. The way it works now is we play five turns of Game 3, then check the life totals to determine the winner. So I take out my 3 Rakeclaw Gargantuan and put in Behemoth's Herald, Goblin Mountaineer, Angelsong, Soul's Grace (the one that gains life), and some other card. He has to mulligan to 5 on the play, hopes that I don't have a turn 1 play, but drop a Goblin Mountaineer. After his turn 3, I win because the score is 19-20. Pretty darn funny.

Third round I win in two. Fourth round I get stuck on two with my 6 and get blown out, then blow him out game two. Game three I have to mulligan to 5, but I nearly stabilize and try to do the little things to keep me in the game. With me at 7, he has a Skeletal Kathari, Vithian Stinger, and Court Archers, and I have a Rakeclaw Gargantuan and a Sigiled Paladin. I am at 7, and he attacks. I decide I need to Soul's Fire to not die, so I run it out after his attacks choosing my Rakeclaw to hit his Kathari to make him at least sac a guy. For whatever reason, I did not specify that Exalted was on the stack. I think I thought he was had 8 mana and could cycle Resounding Roar, making my timing irrelevant, but that was not the case. He does have Resounding Roar and I die to lethal damage because I was extremely lazy. I decided not to push it, and talking to L3 judge Tony Mayer, it would be implied that I let the trigger resolve. Probably my one mistake the entire day. Ugh so close to three byes just to be careless and throw it away.

I felt really really good about how I was playing. I was very relaxed, like I didn't want it as badly as I have in the past. I just focused on playing correctly, which is what I was telling people about how I was doing: I felt I was playing correctly. Hopefully I will keep it going tomorrow and make a strong run, because judging by today, the mini-break from Magic is helping me.

Alright, no more jinxing this, time for bed, got a big day tomorrow.

Magic-League limited stats

So in the same vein as the Standard analysis I posted, I cooked up some Perl scripts to analyze the Sealed minis run on Magic-League. For right now, I just looked at the straight up W-L of every deck registered and accumulated records for each card in the format based on whether it was maindecked or not. Here are some preliminary results:

Most maindecked cards by %:

 Maindecked Sideboarded % played
Sarkhan Vol 188 9 95.431%
Flameblast Dragon 387 23 94.390%
Ajani Vengeant 206 13 94.064%
Feral Hydra 368 27 93.165%
Resounding Thunder 2164 240 90.017%
Mycoloth 368 41 89.976%
Broodmate Dragon 361 44 89.136%
Caldera Hellion 396 51 88.591%
Jungle Shrine 1089 148 88.036%
Battlegrace Angel 323 49 86.828%
Oblivion Ring 2149 331 86.653%
Savage Lands 2069 367 84.934%
Elspeth, Knight-Errant 169 31 84.500%
Magma Spray 2048 377 84.454%
Sigil of Distinction 338 64 84.080%
Branching Bolt 1985 393 83.474%
Rhox Charger 1063 213 83.307%
Skeletonize 1051 218 82.821%
Hellkite Overlord 165 35 82.500%
Predator Dragon 315 72 81.395%

Win percentage when card is maindecked
Note: If a card is doubled in a maindeck, it counts twice (seeing as that particular card is twice as responsible for a deck's result as any singleton)

 MD W MD L %
Where Ancients Tread 35 20 63.636%
Flameblast Dragon 423 276 60.515%
Caldera Hellion 429 282 60.338%
Manaplasm 360 252 58.824%
Spearbreaker Behemoth 371 260 58.796%
Woolly Thoctar 1000 707 58.582%
Broodmate Dragon 376 266 58.567%
Ajani Vengeant 212 153 58.082%
Bull Cerodon 1020 745 57.790%
Qasali Ambusher 744 545 57.719%
Knight-Captain of Eos 298 220 57.529%
Realm Razer 250 185 57.471%
Topan Ascetic 892 663 57.363%
Vithian Stinger 1910 1423 57.306%
Skeletonize 1060 791 57.266%
Wild Nacatl 1544 1165 56.995%
Jungle Shrine 1081 817 56.955%
Cavern Thoctar 1532 1172 56.657%
Sarkhan Vol 183 141 56.481%
Resounding Thunder 2105 1624 56.449%

 MD W MD L %
Clarion Ultimatum 0 5 0.000%
Mindlock Orb 1 4 20.000%
Crucible of Fire 1 4 20.000%
Cathartic Adept 20 60 25.000%
Cradle of Vitality 2 6 25.000%
Soul's Grace 24 71 25.263%
Shadowfeed 13 37 26.000%
Banewasp Affliction 11 31 26.190%
Vicious Shadows 4 11 26.667%
Marble Chalice 25 63 28.409%
Filigree Sages 41 91 31.061%
Onyx Goblet 68 146 31.776%
Dragon's Herald 12 25 32.432%
Memory Erosion 12 25 32.432%
Vectis Silencers 65 130 33.333%
Resounding Scream 32 63 33.684%
Behemoth's Herald 19 37 33.929%
Thoughtcutter Agent 39 73 34.821%
Lush Growth 97 181 34.892%
Immortal Coil 6 11 35.294%

Interesting... win percentage when the card sits in the board:

 SB W SB L %
Elspeth, Knight-Errant 32 21 60.377%
Battlegrace Angel 56 37 60.215%
Sphinx Sovereign 125 87 58.962%
Prince of Thralls 133 98 57.576%
Esper Panorama 1081 800 57.469%
Master of Etherium 355 267 57.074%
Stoic Angel 192 145 56.973%
Lich's Mirror 151 116 56.554%
Invincible Hymn 379 294 56.315%
Sedris, the Traitor King 99 77 56.250%
Grixis Panorama 929 724 56.201%
Sacellum Godspeaker 301 235 56.157%
Infest 623 488 56.076%
Sharding Sphinx 203 160 55.923%
Knight-Captain of Eos 123 97 55.909%
Angelic Benediction 898 709 55.881%
Grixis Battlemage 886 700 55.864%
Archdemon of Unx 241 191 55.787%
Courier's Capsule 1536 1219 55.753%
Oblivion Ring 325 258 55.746%

Contrast with the worst win percentages when the card sits in the board:

 SB W SB L %
Sarkhan Vol 3 7 30.000%
Caldera Hellion 30 45 40.000%
Resounding Thunder 140 207 40.346%
Hellkite Overlord 22 31 41.509%
Bloodpyre Elemental 337 474 41.554%
Skeletonize 133 184 41.956%
Mycoloth 25 34 42.373%
Kresh the Bloodbraided 30 38 44.118%
Predator Dragon 51 63 44.737%
Jungle Shrine 100 121 45.249%
Broodmate Dragon 29 35 45.313%
Branching Bolt 274 328 45.515%
Jund Battlemage 178 212 45.641%
Vithian Stinger 372 442 45.700%
Naya Panorama 335 389 46.271%
Mosstodon 486 556 46.641%
Jungle Weaver 644 726 47.007%
Woolly Thoctar 275 308 47.170%
Magma Spray 285 315 47.500%
Cavern Thoctar 668 736 47.578%

Difference in win percentage between maindecking and sideboarding.

 diff
Sarkhan Vol 26.481%
Caldera Hellion 20.338%
Resounding Thunder 16.104%
Skeletonize 15.311%
Bloodpyre Elemental 13.750%
Broodmate Dragon 13.254%
Mycoloth 12.811%
Hellkite Overlord 12.337%
Jungle Shrine 11.706%
Vithian Stinger 11.605%
Woolly Thoctar 11.412%
Kresh the Bloodbraided 11.397%
Where Ancients Tread 10.622%
Manaplasm 10.212%
Predator Dragon 9.494%
Naya Panorama 9.344%
Cavern Thoctar 9.078%
Branching Bolt 8.961%
Mosstodon 8.632%
Jund Panorama 7.911%

 diff
Clarion Ultimatum -49.367%
Crucible of Fire -32.922%
Cradle of Vitality -30.102%
Mindlock Orb -29.765%
Soul's Grace -28.195%
Shadowfeed -28.130%
Cathartic Adept -28.075%
Banewasp Affliction -27.956%
Vicious Shadows -27.311%
Marble Chalice -25.236%
Filigree Sages -23.593%
Onyx Goblet -21.913%
Resounding Scream -20.897%
Vectis Silencers -20.285%
Memory Erosion -19.824%
Behemoth's Herald -19.724%
Immortal Coil -19.411%
Thoughtcutter Agent -19.049%
Lush Growth -18.717%
Dragon's Herald -18.069%

Win percentage when card is present in pool.
So I guess you could just figure out how many games you should win as soon as you get the pool :)

 Total W Total L %
Flameblast Dragon 445 295 0.601351351
Caldera Hellion 459 327 0.583969466
Ajani Vengeant 225 165 0.576923077
Broodmate Dragon 405 301 0.573654391
Spearbreaker Behemoth 455 339 0.573047859
Knight-Captain of Eos 421 317 0.570460705
Battlegrace Angel 374 283 0.569254186
Manaplasm 430 326 0.568783069
Bull Cerodon 1270 988 0.562444641
Invincible Hymn 384 301 0.560583942
Jungle Shrine 1181 938 0.557338367
Qasali Ambusher 1129 897 0.557255676
Sarkhan Vol 186 148 0.556886228
Woolly Thoctar 1275 1015 0.556768559
Topan Ascetic 1182 948 0.554929577
Sacellum Godspeaker 387 311 0.554441261
Oblivion Ring 2367 1921 0.552005597
Realm Razer 357 290 0.551777434
Puppet Conjurer 1157 943 0.550952381
Resounding Thunder 2245 1831 0.550785083

Watch out for these ones :X

 Total W Total L %
Skill Borrower 312 343 0.476335878
Godsire 159 169 0.484756098
Scourglass 306 321 0.488038278
Clarion Ultimatum 312 325 0.489795918
Mindlock Orb 318 324 0.495327103
Sedraxis Specter 336 334 0.501492537
Dragon's Herald 1019 1012 0.501723289
Quietus Spike 321 317 0.503134796
Salvage Titan 336 329 0.505263158
Scavenger Drake 1066 1035 0.507377439
Rafiq of the Many 163 158 0.507788162
Esper Charm 1074 1038 0.508522727
Covenant of Minds 325 314 0.508607199
Archdemon of Unx 350 336 0.510204082
Knight of the White Orchid 318 304 0.511254019
Cloudheath Drake 2002 1912 0.51149719
Mayael the Anima 154 147 0.511627907
Rockcaster Platoon 1041 992 0.512051156
Ridge Rannet 2004 1909 0.512139024
Memory Erosion 371 353 0.512430939

Obviously, take this for what it's worth. The bad cards have bad winning percentages because bad players play those cards. An interesting thing I'd like to compute is the expected win percentage, based on the Limited ratings. So say Resounding Thunder has some win percentage, and based on the ratings of the people who play that card, it's expected to win some percentage of games. If it's higher than expected, then it's that damn good; if it's lower, maybe we need to reconsider our evaluation of that card.

Not quite the same as playtesting or building sealed pools, but it's what I can do :)

Incremental Growth goes to the Grand Prix

While me having to be in North Carolina for the week is a very very unfortunate and unpleasant circumstance, it does give me the opportunity to make a stop this weekend at Atlanta for the Grand Prix. Personally, I need something like this to get my mind off of such heavy matters so that I can resume normal life upon returning to Seattle.

But preparation? I pretty much stay up all night at the hospital with my work laptop, which rules out Magic Workstation, and then sleep all day. I have zero product with me, as I wasn't worried a whole lot about Magic cards when I made the trip, so when I arrive on Friday for the Trials, I will have not played Magic for the entire week.

But I wonder if that will have a positive or negative affect on my game? I've taken two relatively long breaks from Magic from doing drum corps for the entire summer, and both times I have come back pretty rusty at my game and lacking focus, and I would need a few weeks or an entirely new format to get back into it.

But I've been doing three paper Shards drafts a week since it come out, certainly more if you consider side drafts at PTQs and the couple draft-all-days. I'd like to say that I have a general grasp on card evaluations and what synergies and combos are available, yet I'm still making on-board mistakes and such. A semi-fresh look at the format will hopefully open my to things I'm not seeing and free me from some shortcuts and mental blocks that have been negatively affecting my game.

Alright, hopefully I'll find some things on the Interweb to write about before the Grand Prix.

A statistical look at the Standard metagame

So I've been tinkering a little bit with an application that takes all the Standard decks played in Magic-League tournaments and determines what are the common decks being played by finding the similarity between all pairs of decks and then clustering the resulting graph. The clustering is fairly naive; I just consider the clusters formed by the subset of edges with the greatest weight (similarity).

Similarity is the percentage of different non-land cards among two decks, in a nutshell. I only looked at the clusters that represented at least 1% of the decks (I had about 4200 decks downloaded), and these are the best results I got, considering pairs of decks that are at least 80% similar:

541 Faeries
465 Five Color Control
313 Kithkin
281 Red Deck Wins
203 BG Rock
160 Reveillark
141 Merfolk
52 Doran
49 Ten Commandments
2205 decks covered

Note that this doesn't cover all of the decks played, since there are a lot of homebrews, variants, and plain ol' bad decks played. But this is an interesting look, considering that on Magic League there is no issue of card availability.

In the future, I'll expose this via a web tool. Some other ideas are to break down variants of each large archetype, break down matchup statistics (since Magic-League publishes all match results to their tournaments), determine the most characteristic decklists for an archetype (using some kind of node centrality metric), and implement some kind of tagging system to name archetypes.

If you have any other ideas for this, I'd love to here it!

Unfortunate circumstances

A family emergency came up and I have to fly home tonight, so I won't be playing in States. I put down a lot of money to build the deck I wanted to play, but some things are bigger than dollars and playing Magic cards.

So what's next for me?

• There is a limited PTQ in Portland, OR on December 6.
• Worlds is the following weekend, which will then be the launching pad for Extended testing. This may be a different format than what we saw in Berlin if changes to the Banned list happen and/or if the pros shake up/fix the format.
• But before Extended PTQs gets going, Tony Mayer will be hosting a Standard tournament December 20 for a Mox Pearl to 1st and a Library of Alexandria for 2nd.
• Extended PTQs will start with the new year and run until April, but rumor has it on January 16-18 is Grand Prix: Los Angeles, which I am interested in attending if it is for real. I will strongly consider going to any other constructed Grand Prix in North America.
  

So I guess after this weekend I'll be back to the grind of drafting, drafting, drafting.

Who the heck came up with "Red Deck Wins" anyway?

So I'm going to commit to playing Red Deck Wins. I think it will be a solid call in a metagame where Five-Color Control and Faeries are the consensus best decks in the format, since I think I have an edge on Five-Color and am pretty solid against Faeries. Here's the 60 I'm going to run:

18 Mountain
4 Ghitu Encampment

4 Figure of Destiny
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Ashenmoor Gouger
3 Boggart Ram-Gang
3 Hell's Thunder
4 Stigma Lasher
4 Demigod of Revenge

4 Magma Spray
4 Incinerate
4 Flame Javelin

The sideboard will look something like this:
4 Pyroclasm
2 Wild Richochet
2 Chaotic Backlash (???)
4 Vexing Shusher
3 undecided... Everlasting Torment? Pithing Needle? Manabarbs?

I don't think Manabarbs is a good solution because I think I would only bring it in against Five-Color, and they can trump me with Runed Halo naming Manabarbs. Everlasting Torment and Pithing Needle solve Story Circle and Burrenton-Forge Tender, while Torment will also answer Runed Halo when a creature like Demigod of Revenge is named, and Needle can stop Planeswalkers and Tokens. Not sure, will try both a couple times in the coming week.

Kithkin is my worst matchup because of Spectral Procession and Cloudgoat Ranger. Pyroclasm probably helps, and I threw in Chaotic Backlash too, but I need Everlasting Torment/Needle too for Burrenton Forge-Tender, so I'll test this too, maybe I don't need Chaotic Backlash.

I'm actually really excited for States. Hooray 60-card decks!

The Cool Kids Club

I drafted today in Redmond and went 4-0 with a pretty good RGB deck that I thought was pretty bad because I had to play a 5-5-5 manabase with a Jund Panorama, Grixis Panorama, and a Obelisk of Jund. Thought for sure I would lose a match to color screw, but I managed to get lucky a couple times on two land hands, and I did elect to draw whenever given the choice. It also helped that I had 2 Sprouting Thranax and 2 Jund Charms.

In Round 2 I play against a newer player who comes with his young son every week. He has a pretty good Bant deck with double Rhox War Monk and double Oblivion Ring. Game 1 I get blown out pretty badly when he runs out both his Oblivion Rings on my fat and I can't deal with his Rockcaster Platoon, but he likes to talk out all of his plays and his thinking and asks for a lot of clarifications which really really slows the play down, and spends time kidding around with some plays and mannerisms. Game 2 I win past a Rhox War Monk, but again takes a very long time with the same talking through plays and clarifying. I set up an attack where he's at 7 and tapped out and facing lethal damage no matter how he blocks.

Him: "Okay." Just kind of sits there.
Me: "... go to game 3?"
Him: "Well wait, can I stall it out and try to get a draw?"
Me: "That wouldn't be cool."

In game 3, he keeps kidding around (to him, all in good nature) about his comment and how it isn't "cool", so I'm getting pretty upset, but I keep concentrating on the game because I want it to finish. After the TO Jeff walks by and explains that stalling is a serious offense (cheating, in fact, according to the Penalty Guidelines) and he makes another comment about "not being cool" and making fun of it all, I flat out tell him as calmly as I can "Look, it wasn't funny" and he gets the picture that I was upset from the course of events. The match goes to extra turns and thanks to a good draw I am able to win on the fifth and final turn. I was pretty upset it came to that because of his pace of play, obviously not maliciously trying to take advantage and only trying to understand what was going on, but in no way fast enough to finish three games in 50 minutes, and especially since I've tried really hard to speed up my play and stop getting unintentional draws. He did apologize for making too much fun out of it all, presumably after talking more with Jeff about what was happening.

I know exactly why he plays the way he does and thinks out loud basic situations and tries to clarify everything he can: because he is a new player and wants to get better. Fair enough. If this were at a PTQ and in the winner's bracket, I would absolutely call a judge over for stalling. But this was a regular weekend draft, and I know for a fact there was no malicious intent behind this, and I do care about not being a prick to the people I play with every week. That being said, since prizes are determined by record and not place, a draw would have affected what I get, which might have been 2 packs or something seemingly insignificant which is half a draft in credit, but imagine this scenario.

Me: (takes a $6.50 bill from you and rips it up) "Oh, it's just money, you have enough of it and you'll get more next week, lighten up!"

Yeah, it's not a lot of money, but I don't think too many of you wouldn't at least give a "What the f!@$", if not physically hurt me.

More importantly, I expect, and I think all of us expect, a certain level of seriousness and focus when you play in a sanctioned event. It really sounds silly on the outside looking in because it's just Magic cards, but there are other avenues to enjoy the game that don't take as much time and money if the experience of tournament Magic didn't matter to me. I'm more than happy to play anyone who wants to play between rounds of a draft and give advice, but inside an actual match is a little inappropriate, especially when it bogs down the game as much as it did in this case. I'm strongly of the opinion that matches in Limited go to time because people are either not being aggressive enough or they are playing too slow.

So that's off my chest. The rest of the draft was uneventful. Round 1 I played against a regular who's pretty good in 3, but threw away game 2 when I misexecuted a plan I had just from carelessness. Round 3 I blew out a regular, and Round 4 I beat a relatively new tournament player.

A little more States testing coming this week, mostly checking out sideboarding strategies and finding cards to borrow. I like the Red deck because it has edges against Faeries and Five-Color Control, but it scoops it hard to Kithkin. I tried Kithkin and it's good against Faeries, tears up the red deck, but literally cannot beat Five-Color, so I'm considering both decks.

The new Extended, or what happens when you try to change the past

The premise of the current season of Heroes is that future Peter Petrelli travels back in time to tell the present Peter Petrelli that the future is really messed up and that he needs to stop events in the present from occuring so that this future doesn't occur.

Or if you prefer, in Back to the Future II, Marty McFly travels into the future and buys a sports almanac to make money in the present on bets, but crochety old Biff takes the almanac and steals the time machine and travels to the past and gives it to himself, and messes up the present. Marty and Doc Brown have to go back and undo what happened to mess it up.

Well, I don't who Wizards of the Coast goes to for time travel. Maybe Kenji Tsumura's superhuman ability isn't Magical powers, but time travel like fellow countryman Hiro Nakamura. Or an artist was modifying the art on a Sensei's Divining Top and saw something terrible like Isaac Mendez did. Or MaRo was fresh out of ideas for new Magic cards, hopped in his Delorean, and brought back the Top from a future World of Warcraft set. WHATEVER happened, the banning of Top has appeared to really mess up Extended, as these really busted Elf combo decks took over Pro Tour Berlin.

Of course, I was thinking the mirror matches would go really fast as the decks can win the turn they go off. Nope, games were apparently taking over an hour, with hundreds of tokens, hundreds of life, and 150/150 Predator Dragons, and way too much math. And these aren't guys at PTQs or FNMs that just copied the list from the Pro Tour. This IS the Pro Tour, and these are the game's professionals. And games are taking over an hour.

If Sensei's Divining Top was banned because rounds were taking too long, it looks like the abundance of this mirror match in the PTQ's will actually be worse for time, because these huge turns could happen during extra turns. And then there could still be a stalemate if both players go off. And hoping that the Pros can find the answer to this deck for Worlds, we might have a two deck format, or a Dredge-like phenomenon where you have to be packing the hate in your sideboard if you don't want to get blown out. It looked like the Tezzerator had the right idea with Needles, Explosives, Trinispheres, and Chalice of the Voids, and he STILL lost in 5 to LSV, the eventual champion!

Rome was dominated by Tolarian Academy and led to bannings. New York (Masques block) was dominatd by Rebels and led to bannings. I don't think we need to absolutely nerf the deck ala Affinity. (Banning Heritage Druid? Glimpse of Nature? Most embarassing ban ever?) I think unbanning Sensei's Divining Top would be a good idea to keep decks like this in check and give Control a greater presence, seeing as there really isn't a great control deck in the format. I thought the previous Extended format was really great. Yeah, Countertop might have been the best deck and really really powerful, but still beatable and there were tons of great alternatives. I don't know if I can say the same.

Wizards, whatever you saw in the future is probably better than this. What you thought would be a good idea and harmless, if not healthy for the format, wasn't. Consider Sensei's Divining Top a less attractive, less human version of Claire Bennet. Save the cheerleader, save the world.

Extended and Two-Headed

This past weekend I played in some interesting events. At First Pick Games's First Birthday, we ran a mock Extended tournament for Gurney and Gavin Verhey who are probably in Berlin already for the Pro Tour. I ran this Demigod Stompy deck. Loads of fun seeing people's faces as it went off on Turn 1. Against Affinity I went off on the first turn, but then he goes land, thopter thopter, worker, Frogmite. I still won that game, then lost the next two because this deck scoops to Ethersworn Canonist.

Next round I played against Jon wrotesforbrainburst Loucks playing Krark-Clan Ironworks, went off T3 on the draw after pitching a Demigod and then recurring it, then he tried to Charbelcher one of them to stay alive. Next two I drew a whole bunch of nothing and he went off on schedule.

I played Death Cloud next and won two quick ones. I then played Mind's Desire, and played a turn 1 Deus, and still nearly lost when he went off on 1 land (hooray Rite of Flame counting all graveyards!) but couldn't do anything with his Plunges since he was at 2. Game 2 I thought a lot about my first turn on the draw staring down 2 suspended Lotus Blooms. I could either play land and wait until turn 3 to play Deus of Calamity, or do nothing, pitch 1 of 2 Demigods and draw anything but land for my Mox and swing for 10. I did the latter, got lucky (had things go as expected/as they should), and won. Finished 2-2, and Zoo won the 14-man Mock. Extended is really really messed up with Top and Counterbalance missing. I think Top could have stayed around, but judges and players would have to be more vigilant about slow play. The good players aren't getting unintentional draws when they play the Top (I remember watching LSV play a feature match in Philly and I couldn't believe is speed of play!) and at the PTQ level, the Countertop mirror is no different than, say, the Teachings or Wake mirror. And I don't think it was as unfun to play against as Mind's Desire is right now. We'll see what R&D thinks about the format this weekend.

Sunday at Games & Gizmos in Redmond I played Two-Headed Giant Sealed. I wasn't planning on playing at first, but I decided to show up since it was still Magic, and I teamed with a fairly decent regular. We butted heads in deck construction a little, then got blown out in the first round because my deck wasn't cooperating. He said we got mana screwed, but I think we misbuilt it, so we made some changes (for the better), and won the next one, then lost to Zaiem and Loucks (unofficially Team usedtowrotesforbrainburst) who had pretty good decks, then got paired down against the 0-X and won. I was a little frustrated at some of the plays my partner made, like running out Panorama on Turn 1 (I can't think of a reason you would ever want to do that), insisting on keeping a hand of 2 Druids, Panorama, and 4 lands (maybe it's actually not that bad, especially since we were on the draw), and a few other things. I don't know the guy that well, and the other two times I've played the format, I played with someone else I didn't know that well at the time, and a friend who had been out of competitive Magic for a while but wanted to try 2HG. I guess the next time one of these rolls around I will try to find someone I know, like, and I can trust.

Frustration in Drafting with Shards of Alara

(That title is for Google, because apparently a lot of people end up here trying to figure out how to draft Shards of Alara. Lol.)

Anyway, drafting this set has been pretty frustrating for me. I think I generally know how to draft it decently, know what cards are powerful and how certain archetypes are supposed to go. I'm still making tons of play mistakes, which is my own damn fault. But man, am I getting manascrewed a bunch! And so are my opponents! It is the least fun way to win at Magic, because no one likes not casting their spells, and I certainly can't assert that I played better than an opponent that did not cast their spells either.

My drafting strategy has been to take any first pickable cards, but otherwise take tri-lands and panoramas as they come around (even regardless of color). One draft I took 5 lands in the first pack because I really really wanted to fix my mana. Yet I still get mana-screwed a whole bunch. What the hell is going on?

The thing with Panoramas is that they are actually pretty bad when your two-drops are multi-colored. If I have a whole bunch of RG haste guys and Steward of Valerons, I really don't want to be playing 4-5 Panoramas, which is why I don't value those creatures as highly as others.

Also, which has been said by numerous writers, when figuring out mana sources, you shouldn't count, say, Naya Panorama as a White, Red, and Green source because it's never both: it's a white, red, OR green source. But then how do you figure out splashing? If I'm splashing, say, White in my RGB deck for say.... Oblivion Ring, Naya Charm, and Bull Ceradon (Naya Charm maybe a stretch, but the other two I think are acceptable splashes, tell me if I'm horribly wrong.) and I've got say... two Naya Panoramas, and let's say I'm equal parts Black, Red, and Green for the most part. Do I play one Plains because I've now got three ways to get White, or do I need to play 2 or more because I will probably be needing those Panoramas to get my main colors? Similarly, if I've got 3 or 4 Panoramas and I want to play three colors plus a splash, what are my options? Could go 1-4-4-4? 1-5-4-3? 2-3-4-4?

Maybe I value the Panoramas too highly, and there is an upper bound on the number you can play if you want to cast your early drops and your gold cards in the early game. Maybe I just need to be stricter with my colors when I draft and never "need" the Panoramas.

As for Constructed, I think I'm now leaning toward Five-Color Control, because I actually need a lot of cards for the Red Deck. But Red has favorable matchups against Five-Color and Faeries, so I'll keep thinking about it and still be ready to throw down some cash to build that deck. At first I thought Manabarbs would be really sick to play against Five-Color, but I'm afraid Runed Halo (which is coming from the Board anyway to fight Demigod) will make it very very bad, especially if they can Wrath and stabilize and actually put you on a clock. I also think I want to try Jund Charm in the Red Deck, because of the obvious instant-speed Pyroclasm, but also pumping your guys and dealing with Mannequin, Reveillark, Persist and Unearth guys.

I've been wanting to make some changes to the Five-Color list I've been playing. Bant Charm has been okay for me, but it seems Condemn is almost strictly better than it. The only artifact I think I care about is Loxodon Warhammer, but I can just kill creatures (which Condemn does), and paying 3 to counter a Cryptic Command (or worse, Negate) isn't terribly exciting. Esper Charm is fine as card draw and pretty good as discard, and it gives me an edge against Faeries. Jund Charm is surprisingly versitile, because it gives me another go with a Kitchen Finks, and it can stop Demigod recursions. That card is definitely staying in. I want to throw in Nucklavee (I guess just 1) and some mix of Remove Soul and Negate. Probably more Remove Soul because I want things to fight early aggro (Stigma Lasher really hurts me!) and maybe 1 or 2 Negates. I kind of just want to run Chris Woltereck's winning 5-Color deck, but it doesn't run Mannequin and I really like Mannequin, especially on Empyrial Archangel. Oh, and Resounding Thunder is HOT, definitely throwing 4 in the sideboard!

Seattle PTQ

So I scrubbed out of another PTQ yesterday. I thought my pool was okay, I was RGW splash Blue for Stoic Angel. I left Vein Drinker in the board because there were too few playable Black creatures. I of course misregister my deck and leave out a Rakeclaw Gargantuan, which I realize in Game 2 of the 1st round. What happened was I layed out RGW in the beginning, really liked it, and then started laying out the other decks. With around 8 minutes to go I lay out RGW and start registering. I knew something was weird because I was short a playable, so I threw in something terrible like Incurable Ogre. (I need to join the "Incurable Ogre sucks" bandwagon really soon.) Ughhhh...

Round 1 I throw away Game 1 by Time Walking myself via an onboard Vithian Stinger against an aggressive start. Round 2 I lose to a pretty tight player and I don't think there was a lot I could do. 0-2, but I'm going to ride it out.

Round 3 I blow someone out. Round 4 I lose in three, both times to Flameblast Dragon, but in Game 3 he needed help from Spearbreaker Behemoth. I really love Sealed deck...

I still decide to stay in because I want to keep playing with the pool. My opponent doesn't show up Round 5, but it becomes a bye so I don't even get rating points. Round 6 I blow someone out who got flooded. Round 7 I beat a newer player. Round 8 I pretty much get blown out. 4-4, but I still got a draft set out of it for 60th out of 196.

I have no idea what to do to make myself stop playing awfully. I wish I could play Limited as much as I can playtest for a Constructed format, because I don't make nearly as many mistakes in Constructed as I do in Limited. This three weeks will be glorious, getting to test out a new Constructed format.

My thoughts right now on Standard are
- I hate the 5-Color mirror.
- I hate Kithkin because it cannot win against 5-Color.
- I (right now) hate my Bant deck because it cannot beat Kithkin.
I think I can tune up my Bant deck to have a little better game, because even if the matchup is terrible, it won't make up a huge part of the metagame. It played surprising well with "fair" decks like Doran. I've also ran the mono-Red deck a couple times on Magic-League and kind of like how that plays out.

Current thoughts on Standard

I've started playing a little more Magic Workstation this weekend, just trying to get a feel for the format and where my Bant deck stands. I played a couple of games against Five Color Control and I thought the deck was okay against it. If I get a T2 Finks or War Monk (preferably War Monk because he trumps their Finks), I can sit on my own counters as they try to deal with it. Treetops in the mid to late game are great too because they are Wrath resistant. I just have to avoid getting Cruel Ultimatum'd because I cannot recover from that huge card disadvantage because they're bound to find an answer to my Treetop Villages.

I played a couple games against Kithkin. The deck has huge problems against the swarm, and the worst card for me is Spectral Procession. The other day I ran a 10-game set of this matchup in solo mode plus a paper deck in front of my computer and it was 7-3 in favor of the White deck. Stillmoon Cavalier is a beating for my deck that I cannot deal with besides Colossus, and Stoic Angel was okay sometimes.. Stillmoon can still jump in front of her. The matches were dreadful enough that I almost want to dump the deck.

The more I look at the Five-Color list that I'm running, the more I want to run it. I also like the idea of a Doran update with Tidehollow Scullers and Thoughtseizes in the main, and with some other splash, probably Blue. I could just run Kithkin, since I'd prefer playing 8 rounds with a beatdown deck than a thinking deck, but I don't know how much tuning that deck can do to beat Five-Color. Maybe I'll try Marsh Usary's Chatoic Backlash list.

PTQ

I went 1-4 in the PTQ. I think the deck I registered was wrong as I was between two different decks. I won the first, lost the second to Ryan Fuller, lost the next one to Jon Loucks who I rode up with, threw away the next, then got blown out the last and I decided that enough was enough. I did a sanctioned side draft and 1-1'd with a pretty bad deck then won a 3v3 with a pretty good deck. I'll write about the sealed deck tomorrow probably.

I went and drafted at Games and Gizmos today and went 3-2. I started 3-0 and beat Gurney on a mana screw Game 1, then absolutely punted two straight games in the next round after casting my bombs but being a coward/dumbass. Round 5 I lost because my deck was short on removal and couldn't deal with Scavenger Drake soon enough. Pretty disastrous weekend.

I'll still PTQ this weekend and I'll still draft this week, but I'm starting to look toward Standard for States. I'm proxying up the gauntlet (I think it's Kithkin, Five Color Control, Faeries, and maybe BG, but I'd be thrilled running a deck that has game against those first 3.) I played my Bant deck against another homebrew, and I'm not sure if people watching thought my deck was casual, but I like how it plays and I'm excited to throw it against the format. Time to wear out my Sharpie and commons.

PTQ'ing

About to head up for the first PTQ of the season in Vancouver, BC. Report at the end of the day or tomorrow.

Drafting

I went to draft tonight at First Pick. My first pick was a Sanctum Gargoyle over a Naya Charm and a Deft Duelist. I got passed a Deft Duelist (not sure if he's a high pick... I sure do like him and they didn't seem to come around really late), then an Agony Warp, so I was going to bias toward WUB.

The deck I thought ended up okay.... I got greedy again in the beginning of the second pack and picked a Rhox War Monk and Sigil Blessing hoping for a splash, but not doing so in the end... the packs were relatively weak in my opinion, but there were options that I thought I could get later. Guess not, next time I draft I should try sticking to my guns for once no matter what gets passed in the second pack.

Here was my deck:
1 Akrasan Squire
2 Tidehollow Strix
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Deft Duelist
1 Knight of the Skyward Eye
1 Blister Beetle
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Esper Battlemage
1 Kathari Screecher
1 Fatesticher
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Steelclad Serpent
1 Kederekt Leviathan

1 Courier's Capsule
1 Esper Charm
1 Resounding Wave
1 Resounding Silence

1 Bant Panorama
1 Arcane Sanctum
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Swamp
1 Forest

Not making the cut:
Welkin Guide
Windwright Mage
Rhox War Monk
Sigil Blessing
Obelisk of Esper
Angelsong

Won't go into a whole lot of detail about the matches, because I either got blown out, mulliganed a lot, or they got mana screwed. But here are some highlights:

In Round 1 against Charles D. I made a swing with a Sanctum Gargoyle and an Esper Battlemage, knowing he probably has Branching Bolt, so I was going to save the Gargoyle with a bounce spell and get pack Strix... but he plays out a second Branching Bolt in response. Frown town :(

That same match I couldn't deal with a Algae Garial, I thought my only way to deal with it would be my big Upheaval guy or the Fleshbag Marauder. So I started trying to swing with my Deft Duelist... when he turns out to be an excellent way of holding him down. His deck was amazing though and I think he won the draft.

My last round I had only a Deft Duelist out and some pretty crummy cards in hand so I held him back when he had a clear board but a forest and a Naya Panorama. Ambusher's an uncommon, but I could have passed it to him in the draft (he was 2 to my right), and the game is over if he hits the board and sticks. I 2-2 dropped after that.

Maybe my deck was underwhelming, maybe I really was just getting mana screwed, because I mulliganed a lot. (I don't know how many times that freaking Forest was in my opening grip.) Not sure... I could have stood to play better in the first round, but the fourth round I mulliganed both games and were absolute blow outs. Le sigh... I'll debate my card selection later today.

Redemption?

I get to Games and Gizmos and play a few games with Gurney's Extended decks he's trying out for Berlin. We split 1-1 with me playing Faeries and him playing Bubble Hulk. He beat me with Tron and me with Faeries and I was about to win the next game but it was time for deck construction. To me, Faeries plays really well in Extended, especially T1 Bitterblossom and sitting on Spellstutter Sprites. Too bad that deck is a little more expensive than I'd want to dish out for a deck, although conceivably I could build it for Standard and then have my Extended deck ready...

Games and Gizmos was not doing the Shard restriction, which was great because I didn't enough great cards in one chard. I played base GWU with the most exciting cards being 2 Rhox War Monks. I decided to splash Red for Branching Bolt, Resounding Thunder, Soul's Fire, Skeletonize, and Rakeclaw Gargantuan, instead of Black for Tower Gargoyle, Agony Warp, the 2/1 Deathtouch Flier, and a couple of Executioner's Capsules. I think the red is more powerful, but if I really wanted to I could board into Black if the burn alone won't do it. My bomb was a foil Sigil of Distinction, and I opened 2 Master of Etheriums.

Rounds 1 and 2 are pretty much byes. Round 3 wasn't really that close, my deck played out pretty well. There was one mistake that could have let me win one turn earlier because I forgot I would get an extra point from Exalted, so I didn't tap my last guy to Topic Ascetic to put him to 3 for the Resounding Thunder I was holding in my hand. Round 2 is a blow out with a T3 Woolly Thoctar of his meeting my T4 Rhox War Monk followed up with a Sigil of Distinction and going all the way.

Round 4 I play against a deck with great rares that took down Gurney. Basically I can't really deal with Broodmate Dragon. Maybe should have chumped his Cavern Thoctar when he and another guy took me down form 16-6. I also think there was another misplay where I didn't think I had mana for a cycled Resounding Roar, but would have liked to do another 6 to put pressure and to draw a card. Don't really remember. Game 2 I board in Cancel because of his bombs and I know he has a Hellkite Overlord. I tap out to play a fatty to match his fatty with Cancel in hand he plays Broodmate Dragon and he goes all the way again. I did get to Cancel a Vein Drinker. Wow, three absolutely busted rares in one pool...

Round 5 I play Noah and he has a hiccup in mana Game 1 after I take a couple of Woolly Thoctar beats and once I Oblivion Ring that guy he can't catch up to my board position. Game 2 he really gets mana screwed and I blow him out.

4-1 gets me 18 packs (this store is insane with prize support!) which I use to never pay for another draft at this store for at least the next month. I started keeping track of my mulligans and I felt like I have to keep hands that give me all my colors, even if it might be a 2 or a 1 spell hand, because it can't get a whole lot better with one less card. I did get lucky more than a couple times on topdecking a color so I could play a 2 drop, but I'm not really going to play.

So all in all, pretty uneventful day. More familiarity with the cards is great.

I'm trying to see if I can get a ride to Vancouver this weekend for the PTQ. Hopefully this will turn my Magic brain on to actually start playing great. I've been playing like shit, and I don't know how to draft yet, but the pressure will hopefully trigger a hidden superhuman ability to play really tight Magic.

Draft all day, or a Draft disaster

Yesterday, after dropping off my Washington voter registration form in the mail (which I am told is useless because Washington is always overwhelmingly Democrat, regardless of who I vote for), I went to First Pick for their release event, which was 8-man drafts all day and a Sealed event.

I jumped into a draft and can't get away from GWU again. Round 1 I play Jesse. Game 1 is a blowout. Game 2 is close but with a Tar Fiend that wipes my hand (but me topdecking Excommunicate), and almost stabilizing but getting wrecked by Violent Ultimatum, I lose.

Game 3 I get a really fast start but I tap out with 3 guys on the board on my turn 4 to fetch a land and he Jund Charms my board. I didn't see Jund Charm Games 1 or 2 (and I saw a LOT of cards in those games), so I don't think it was unreasonable for me not to play around it. I lose. I don't think I made any mistakes that stick out in my mind.

Then I jump into a Sealed Deck that wasn't running the Shard restriction. Round 1 I play Joey and every game is a blow out and I win in 3. Round 2 I play BJ, Joey's father. Game 1 is close but he makes some mistakes and I win. Game 2 I don't remember much but I mulligan to 6 and he gets there. Game 3 was a blowout. The third and final round wasn't exciting, and I won.

I jump in another draft and draft WUB with 3 Sanctum Gargoyles, a Tower Gargoyle, and a couple of Etherium Sculptors. Round 1 I play against a weaker opponent and roll. Round 2 I play Jason and he blows me out with his bombs Prince of Thralls and Vein Drinker. His deck was just way too powerful and my deck too "fair" it seems.

I jump in one last draft and draft WUB again. I play Zaiem, one of a few people I kinda sorda knew when I arrived in Seattle, and while he hasn't played a lot of paper because he works in BFE (Tacoma), he's been very welcoming. Round 1 is very tight. I draw Agony Warp and make an attack planning to 2-for-1 toward the end game, but he has his own Agony Warp and 2-for-1's me instead. He said he didn't think that my attack and plan with Agony Warp was a mistake. Round 2 I blow him out, and Round 3 was another tight game, and toward the end game I have a Sanctum Gargoyle and he has a 1/1 3G Shroud guy that gets bigger when things hit the bin. He plays the 2B 3/1 Innocent Blood guy (which is amazing), and with 4 mana up, I Call to Heel my guy, but don't even consider agony Warping his 3/1 so that he has to sac his Shroud guy! That's just me not looking over all the cards in my hand and looking for all possible plays, similar to the Mercy Killing play I miss when a weaker player pumped to kill a fatty. I have no other way of dealing with that guy other than blocking, and he ends up going all the way.

Apart from learning how to draft this format, I need to get way more creative with my plays and find the amazing plays that steal wins against equal or better opponents. Beating the players I expect to beat will get me to .500 at a PTQ. I think I just need to play a lot more with the cards. Ugh, what a frustrating day.

I'm writing this on the way to Redmond for their release event. I initially was going to skip it since they were going to have the deck building restrictions, but I just need to play more... plus I want a little redemption by playing a weaker field. Need a little bit of confidence right now.

Drafting with Shards of Alara

I drafted Shards of Alara for the first time tonight at First Pick. The first deck I drafted was GWRb splashing for my first pick Broodmate Dragon. I messed up pack 2 pick 1 and picked a Rhox War Monk over a Court Archers, when I wasn't sure I wanted to dip into Blue. I still thought my deck was okay...

Round 1 I pretty much get blown out by a fast Exalted opening. I make a bad play holding Skeletonize in my hand. He has a Sigil Paladin, an Akrasan Squire, and the 1W 1/1 Exalted guy. I was already pretty low on life, so I pretty much wanted to Fog. For whatever reason, with this plan in mind, I tap down his 2/2 with Bant Battlemage. He sends in the 1/1 for 2, and the entire time I was thinking "Whoever he attacks with, I burn" and mindlessly point Skeletonize at it. Of course I don't read the freaking cards and he pays U to give that guy Shroud. Wowwww.... Game 2 I get mana screwed.

Round 2 Game 1 I curve out pretty nicely. Game 2 I get blown out thanks to mana, and Game 3 I also have weird mana and lose. I didn't think the mana was that bad, I'll post the deck tomorrow.

Luckily there were enough people who came late and enough 0-2 drops that we did an 8-man. My deck ended up terrible, starting out GWR again, but then switching over to Blue when in pack 2 pick 3 I saw a Stoic Angel staring at me. The guys weren't really coming to me, so I was picking bounce and whatever removal I could get, and I ended up with a deck with 13-14 creatures.

Round 1 I play someone who said he was just getting back into the game. I didn't think he was playing with very good cards, and I was doing what I could to stay in the game, but I couldn't deal with his fliers, no matter how poorly he was playing.

Round 2 I play against Tony, the judge who organized the draft extravaganza. Game 1 I blow him out. Game 2 I get him all the way to 1 with a cycled Resounding Thunder until he wipes the board with a Grixis Charm and we both a couple fatties, and he starts playing out his bombs. He really messes me up attacking with the Mythic Rare that takes guys that hit the bin unless I pay life, and I was considering scooping with the score 3-1, but I still draw and find the white Rhino guy that Hurricanes for 4G. I can't believe I was about to scoop. I made some pretty bad plays in this game: cycling Resounding Thunder to put him at 1 (although I could justify this by saying that waiting until he's at 6 doesn't let me take advantage of actually cycling, where cycling it and putting him at 1 digs me one card deeper to killing him), attacking with a Court Archers and a fatty while he's at 1 into 2 guys, with Court Archers getting chumped, where just attacking with the fatty would force him to chump and give up a card, and I'm sure tons of other things. I probably need to slow it down a little bit.

So in summary, I don't think I know how to draft this set. I don't know what comes late, what I need to pick early, and which among high picks are most valuable, where Sealed Deck I'm picking the 23rd and 24th cards. Good thing tomorrow First Pick is doing 8-mans all day, so I'll definitely be either going infinite, or wearing out my credit card. This must be what being a crack addict is like.

(I'll try to post decklists tomorrow at some point, if you haven't checked the timestamp, I'm writing this really really late.)

Suited connectors

I just read Brian-David Marshall's article on the mothership, and read the last part about Raphael Levy's request to players in the upcoming Pro Tour: Berlin to wear a suit on Day 1.

I'll admit, the first card game I got competitive in was Pokemon, and constantly on forums people would make parallels to the competitive scene in Magic. I remember clicking over to Sideboard Online and reading the tournament coverage of the 2000 World Championships, the one that Jon Finkel won. And I'm looking at the photos of Bob Maher and Jon Finkel duking it out, and while Bob wasn't dressed badly, Jon looked like he was supposed to win the game. He looked confident. He looked like a professional.

It legitimized playing with these little cards as something that you could take seriously. In my eyes, it made it cool. The smelly kids in the lunchroom you see playing with trading cards: not cool. Professionals in their 20's outwitting each other for $40,000: cool.

And I always get excited when on the Pro Tour broadcast someone in the top 8 decides to do what Jon did and try to look like a professional instead of any other backpack-toting dude you would see at a PTQ, because clearly you are not a PTQ top 8 kid-with-a-dream who maybe ran hot with a good sealed pool and went X-0-2, but you beat the best players in the world and you're playing for thousands of dollars. Time to look the part.

If I ever qualify for the Pro Tour, I'm definitely bringing at least one suit to the event. I'd might even go one, well, two further and bring three suits: one for each day of the Pro Tour, ala Marcel Luske from the 2004 World Series of Poker main event (the one Dave Williams did well at), plus that it would do no good to wear the same clothes every like some Magic players do anyway, no matter how nice they are.

I think it'd be great if Wizards instituted a dress code. I've never seen Garry Kasparov play chess on TV without a suit. Hell, he wears a suit when he plays against computers; would you dress up to play MODO? I think it'd be a great for player acquisition. If this Suit Up for Berlin deal is successful, couldn't you imagine a guy stumbling on a Top 8 match from Berlin on YouTube, seeing professionals play some kind of card game, then going to a local card store and asking about Magic for the first time? That wouldn't happen if the people playing are wearing cargo pants and t-shirts. (As a parallel, do you think poker would have exploded in popularity in 2003 if everyman Chris Moneymaker had gone toe-to-toe with a guy who looks like he hasn't shaved or bathed in a week instead of Sam Farha, who absolutely looks the part of a professional gambler?)

Anyway, I absolutely love the idea and I hope it continues so that when I finally go to a Pro Tour, I won't look silly being the one guy that dresses up for Day 1 and 0-3 drops.

Unrelated to all that, I'll leave with a snippet from Masashi Oiso from the same article that sums up what I feel like I've been trying to do since I've arrived here and the attitude I hope I have:

"Even now, I always think to myself, 'Kai Budde could have won' after each loss."

Sealed Deck Generator

I have wrirten a first draft of a Sealed Deck Generator, since I missed the bus from work and didn't go to First Pick yesterday. Go here:

http://www.danielcduterte.net/sealed_generator.php

For now, the most you can do with this is Copy/Paste a pool into Notepad, save it, and open it in MWS as an Apprentice deck, then edit your pool as you normally would have in MWS, but tonight I'll make it more usable from the web. Enjoy!

Magic Workstation sealed deck generator = fail

So now that the Magic-League official Shards of Alara patch was released, I tried to do a Sealed Deck with Alex from Pitt. I generated mine and was going through commons and uncommons until I get this message:

(21:55:15) Alex: wait
(21:55:29) Alex: how does it do the mythic rares
(21:55:45) Alex: cause i just got 4 mythics and 5 regulars in a pool

Apparently the people who wrote the patch added a new 'M' rarity, and I have no idea how they figured it, but you get 1-2 Mythics per booster pack in addition to rares and 2-5 Mythics in a tournament pack. Not sure why they didn't just make them regular rares, which I think would be the most reasonable thing to do to simulate sealed decks given what's available.

Probably Thursday I'll try to write some JavaScript page that can generate Sealed Decks ala Magic-League for its Minis and link it here, because I really would like to practice building decks.

First Constructed ideas

So at work, instead of doing work, I was thinking about Standard decks. I wanted to play a deck withmain deck Gaddock Teeg because Cryptic Command is probably the best card in the format, Manneqin is played a lot too, and people are talking about playing things like Cruel Ultimatum.

I then wanted to dip into blue to play Rafiq of the Many and Bant Charm. While Rafiq is probably best as a 2 of since it dies to a lot of things and is best when your opponent taps out and you can play him down and swing for 10 with a Chameleon Colossus or 8 with a Treetop Village on an idle board, say post-Wrath. I initially made it really aggro with Llanowar Elves, Steward of Valeron, and Wren's Run Vanquisher.

I then decided that I'd rather play Cryptic Command than spear it because it's the best card in Standard, and already have an answer to it in Bant Charm. Then I wanted to play Birds of Paradise to shore up my mana. I didn't have a lot of Elves then, so I took out Wren's Run. I took out Cloudthresher because I had thrown in Mulldrifter and had Birds now too. Then I wanted to add more blue so I wasn't only playing 6 blue cards, so I added more blue and made it more of an Aggro-Control deck with Rhox War Monk at my 3, and a couple Broken Ambitions.

I goldfished for a little bit, decided that casting Cryptic Command was really hard, but I wanted to stay Aggro Control, so I made Broken Ambitions a 4-of and cut 2 Cryptic Commands. Here's the draft for this deck now:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Rhox War Monk
4 Chameleon Colossus
2 Rafiq of the Many
4 Mulldrifter

2 Cryptic Command
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Bant Charm
4 Broken Ambitions

3 Forest
3 Island
2 Plains
2 Seaside Citadel
4 Yavimaya Coast
1 Brushland
1 Adarkar Wastes
2 Flooded Grove
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Mystic Gate
4 Treetop Village

Now I think I'm best at Constructed because I can easily practice it, and even tune decks by myself by opening up two instances of Apprentice or playing the paper cards in front of my Apprentice screen. But I'm not that great at building my own decks for a new format... in fact I've never played in a tournament like States where the format is really wide open. My idea of the gauntlet will definitely look something like:

5-color Control (I think there are two variations, didn't play block so I'll have to do some homework on this)
Faeries and weird variations (aka Faeries with Doran)
Some Doran deck
Some Merfolk deck (probably with Chameleon Colossus)
Kithkin
Some Red/Green deck

I'll keep looking over the spoiler for ideas, but I'll mostly be looking at Block decks and adding and considering the 10th cards, like Wrath of God, Terror, Condemn, Treetop Village, and Loxodon Warhammer. I'll probably test this a little bit on MWS or throw the deck to my friends have them give it a spin, and if it's good I'll buy the cards at play it at some Standard events.

Another prerelease

I went to Redmond at Games and Gizmos to play in another prerelease. I got there at 11, with the event scheduled to start at 2, and I was like 25th out of the 32 maximum for the store. As an aside, I think Wizards should go back to sponsoring big prereleases, they're way more fun and you don't have to sorry people who show up at the scheduled time because too many people come to the stores, and they really screw the premier tournament organizers that run their PTQ's for them.

I built a straight GWU Bant deck with Empyrial Archangel as my bomb. The way I think to build a sealed deck is to maximize the bombs while still having some amount of removal and good support creatures, because just a solid deck will probably X-2 a PTQ, losing to people with more bombs or better bombs.

Round 1 and 2 are pretty uneventful. Round 3 I play Jason, who's helped me get into the Seattle Magic community since I've gotten here and is very good. He plays really fast, and I again got into the trap of keeping up. Game 1 I kept a pretty crummy hand and play a lot of land and ramp and no spells. Game 2 I blow him out, and Game 3 he mulligans to 5 and I play more spells than he does. I made one mistake in the beginning of the game where I had a Steward of Valereon and a Kathari Screecher against his Naya Battlemage and a Forest and Plains, which means Qasali Ambusher. I had a Sigil Blessing in hand but I didn't really want to attack with both guys and have it only take out whoever would block the 2/2 Vigilance guy, so I attack with just the flier. He blocks with the Ambusher...

"Excuse me?"
"Block with the Ambusher."

I read it, and it has Reach. At that point I go ahead and drop my pump guy 'cause I can't lose that tempo, but I should have just attacked with both guys, and he'd potentially double block and I 2 for 1 him, or he blocks as he did and I get another 3 damage in. I honestly didn't know he had reach, but hey it's the prerelease, but hey I had the same card in my deck, I should know what my cards do. I'm pretty sure I make some questionable attacks/acts of cowardice (the new Magic term is apparently being a coward, or not attacking with guys when you should) in trying to play fast, and I need to get myself to slow down and not care that I'm not keeping up pace! Ugh!

Round 4 I lose on a mulligan to 4, keeping a no land hand on the draw but that had Elvish Visionary to get me there should I draw a Forest and another land off the top. Game 2 is close, but with the score 12-8 in my favor, with a Sanctum Gargoyle and a Waveshimmer Aven on the board and him with a lot of White, Green, and Blue mana open and his own army (but me holding an Angelsong), I fly over the top... and get Resounding Silenced. REALLY dumb of me not to consider the card at all, and I get blown out from there. That's just me not playing tight at a very low-level.

Round 5 I play against a kid who had the 4/4 Dragon that makes another 4/4 flying buddy, the 4/4 devouring haste dragon, and Hellkite Overlord in one sealed pool. Game 1 I pretty much get blown out. Game 2 he plays out all three of his bombs, and I get him down to 2 but still get blown out. I made a bad block when he attacked with a 4/4 token and I double block with a 2/2 and 2/3 flier, but completely walk into the Exalted trigger and lose both my guys. In Game 2 I also threw a flier in front of a Hellkite Overlord with my Angel on my side thinking I could keep the Angel another turn but forgot about the Firebreathing ability. Irrelevant in the end because he had 3 dragons on the board... but there were definitely reasons to not call it an injustice.

Wednesday, since a lot of people have at least a draft set, First Pick will probably be doing a bring your own Shards draft, then Friday is likely the first Shards of Alara FNM, and Saturday is all-day drafting. One thing I need to start doing that I see Jason, Gurney, and a lot of other good players do is play games for fun, because A) Magic is fun, and B) Magic is more fun when you learn the bad plays that you're making against your friends when nothing is on the line.

As for the time in between, I have 3 Sealed Deck pools in my possession, so I'll be tearing those apart and figuring out different ways to build them and seeing what's good and what's terrible. Less than three weeks now...