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...

Two Sealed Deck flights

I'll post my pools during the week, because I don't really want to write about how to build my decks right now, but about my play. I'll probably post my decks in the middle of the week, since I probably won't be SSE'ing one more time on Wednesday before the official release date.

In my first flight that morning, I had a decent BRGw deck with a lot of burn and some spot removal too. Round 1 Game 1 I get blown out, Game 2 I blow him out, and then Game 3 I mulligan to 5 and get blown out. Round 2 I played against a newer player and won. Round 3, Game 1 he has a pretty good deck and I can't remove his black guys with my Executioner's Capsule, and Game 2 he blows me out and there's not a whole lot I can do about that. I drop at 1-2.

In my second flight, I have a way better deck, RGWu with some pretty dirty bombs. Round 1 I play against someone who was not very good. Round 2 I play some pretty good Magic. Before I sit down, I pile and have 39 cards and can't find where I dropped the other card or what it was, so I throw my last cut into a sleeve. Game 1 was pretty much a blow out because he goes to town with a Deft Duelist and a couple of Exalted guys, while keeping me off my colors by destroying my Obelisks.

Round 2 I mulligan to 6 on the draw and I think I'm going to lose again. He plays Rhox pancake flipper and an Exalted guy and the Exalted enchantment, so the score goes to 11 to 26. I crack with a Wild Nacatl a couple of times behind my Naya Battlemage to tap guys. He plops down some more guys and a Stoic Angel and it looks really really bad for me, but I'm holding 2 Naya Charms to tap down his guys, and I've got Angelsong in hand too. I draw enough land to plop down a Flameblast Dragon, which prevents him from attacking. The score goes from 6-25 to 6-19 for me to play Naya Charm number two, then 6-11, then he taps out, plays some dude on the ground, so I tap his Angel, then finally play out the Rafiq of the Many to do 12 points. Yeah I had bombs, but I really had to plan out how I was going to win that game without losing to letting a guy through and playing a pump spell. Or maybe it was just two Naya Charms turning his Stoic Angel against him.

He then makes a comment along the lines of "Well I guess you can only hope for a draw" and I could feel it was getting pretty tense because he just lost from being up 6 to 25, made some questionable plays and untaps, and I had been a little snippier than I think I come across with responses and stuff. Time is short, so I play a little faster and try to speed him up, because I think my deck is better and I can absolutely get there. I ramp up pretty quickly and make I think a Wild Nacatl, Mayael the Anima, then serve up a fatty with Mayael, while he was beating me with a Deft Duelist and I think a Mosstodon. Time is called as he's making his Mosstodon, so I draw and pass with like those 3 guys and a Naya mana elf. He serves with Mosstodon which I let through, putting the score 6-11 in his favor, then plays some ramp stuff but doesn't leave colored mana up, at least not enough for Bant Charm. I draw for turn 2/5 extra turns, think for a little bit about the Resounding Thunder in my hand, and attack with all my guys, then mutter "Shit" trying to play like I goofed and I'd lose to a crack back or something. He blocks my 1/1, letting 10 through, and as soon as he let's the 10 through I flip Thunder onto the table and that's the game. I'm sure he was really miffed, so I didn't jump up and down like I have before when I make really sick plays to steal a win.

Round 3 I play against Joey, a First Pick regular and flood two games in a row. We play more for fun after that and I blow him out in 2 games thanks to Rafiq of the Many serving up 10-12 point deaths, then I misread my hand in the 5th game and get blown out by keeping a hand that didn't let me cast spells. Round 4 I play against someone who to me seemed like more of a casual player, and he blows me out in two. I get nothing, although I wouldn't have won much anyway.

I thought my mulligan decisions were pretty suspect, and I think I need to learn what's par for openings in the new format. Do I want to ramp, or do I still want an early game, and how much do I value having a hand with all my colors of land and just drawing into spells and playing all of them? I was REALLY bad about accounting for Unearth cards on the other side of the table. I would make trades with them that would be fine under normal circumstances, but the guys come back and wreck me. It's almost as if some of the really good Unearth guys are better left on the board than dying. I also felt myself giving away Naya Charm when I would contemplate letting damage go through, but I always ended up playing it out because I was thinking about it the turn before, maybe I take a page from poker and just think about every attack long and hard like I've got things to think about, but that doesn't really go well with me wanting to speed up my game.

I didn't think I punted any games, just some unfortunate floods and mana screws. It does concern me that I'm going 2-2 against randoms, where starting 2-2 in the PTQ will mean the end of my day. I need to get myself to the point where as long as I have a decent pool I can make good plays that will help me beat better decks, and I have 3 weeks to do that, along with 3 weeks of figuring out how to build the sealed decks and ultimately deciding what cards are actually good and what cards are actually bad.

Tomorrow (today, Sunday) I'm off to Redmond for a store prerelease, which will be giving out regular store credit in addition to packs, so a lot to play for, especially with new people coming in just for the prerelease.

Two drafts

Wednesday I decided I was going to go straight from work to go draft at First Pick. I opened the Blue/Black Liege and picked it, then was passed the Red/Black Liege, which I took over the Blue/Black 3/2 flier for 3. I don't remember a lot of details from this draft since it was two days ago now, but I was definitely trying to take the most solid card in the deck, but ended up with a Blowfly Infestation, a couple Scars and some guys, so I tried committing myself to black. In the third pack I picked a couple of Hatchlings high over 2 and 3 drops and ended up with a very 4-drop heavy deck that I didn't like putting together, but had to go with.

Round 1 I played against Martin who won Seattle Regionals this past summer and did pretty well at Nationals, and who I remember from last summer being one of the best players in the area. He also plays insanely fast, and the previous week I heard him get pretty upset with someone who was going into the tank for a while. With my place being on the slow side, I felt pressured as I was shuffling up. Game 1 he stumbles on land and I attempt to put the pressure on, but I make some bad decisions trying to be timely with his decisions and I know he's thinking way ahead of me, and he ends up coming back. Game 2 I don't really remember but I think it was a blowout. I put myself out of that game before I even played a land. I know that he plays fast, but I have to play at my pace. I've never gotten a slow play warning, so my pace must be acceptable at least to a judge. I already talked about how I'd like to play faster so that I don't draw unnecessarily, but I can't push it or try to keep up with someone's pace.

Round 2 I play against Eli, another solid player. Game 1 was actually pretty close. I made an attack toward the end of the game when he had a big guy, a Safehold Duo, and a Green mana up. I knew to play around Barkshell Blessing, but totally didn't fully consider how the best way for him to play it would be and end up losing two of my dudes and he loses none when he plays it out. Game 2 I'm under pressure early, get my two Lieges out, but can't draw more gas (not that my deck had much of it), and still lose. Out of the money.

I decide to play Round 3, but don't draw gas. My Scars are very underwhelming when my guys aren't even that good. 0-3 drop. I can chalk this one up to bad deck/bad color, but it wasn't like I was playing optimally either.

Friday I head out again, and there's only 14-15 people playing, presumably because everyone's ready for the new set to come out so they don't want to draft an irrelevant format. I draft a Red deck splashing White for Mercy Killing, Barkshell Blessing, and 3 Ballyknock Cohorts, 2 of which came about 5-7th pick in the second pack. I opened a Ballyknock Trapper and took I think an Outrage Shaman over it, then it came back and I took a Mimic over it because I wanted to be heavy Red to support my two Tattermunge Duos and Cinder Pyromancer, but I wasn't that heavy at 4 anyway, and I even cut a Mimic from my deck. My deck was still pretty solid with a good curve with lots of 3 drops and ways to win the close ones with Cinder Pyromancer/Flame Jab and Unwilling Recruit.

Round 1 I play against someone I played in the draft Extravaganza who I didn't think was that good. Game 1 I can't deal with an enchanted Slippery Boggle and lose. Games 2 and 3 my deck works pretty darn well and I don't think I ever thought I was going to lose either of those games.

Round 2 I played a WR deck, where at one point he had Prison Termed my guy and with a Finks and a Loyal Griffin beating me down from the air, with me with a few dorks. I ran out Unwilling Recruit on his Finks and even though he remove a guy the score goes from 13-19 in his favor to 13-8 in my favor. He sits back and after letting 3 go through, I run out Cinder Pyromancer and win out with Flame Jab. Game 2 is more of a blowout.

Round 3 I played a Black deck against someone who I think is pretty solid. Game 1 he draws 2 land, and Game 2 I curve out and he can't keep up. He tried to Fate Transfer from his Grief Tyrant to my Hatchet Bully, but I Mercy Killed for 3 tokens, then after running out a Green guy, attacked with 5 guys leaving back a Green guy and a White guy and he blocks with all he can leaving 2 1/1's, and I Barkshell Blessing with Conspire the two unblocked guys to deal the last 6. Blowout, yeah...

Round 4 I play against a regular. I blow him out Game 1 on his two lands, and I get blown out Game 2 after a mulligan to 5. Game 3 I mulligan again, but off of my six make my 1, 2, 3, and 4 drops. He plays out a Trapper which I dispatch with a Power of Fire on a Pili-Pala which I knew was going to get Cultbrand Cinder'd, but had to deal with. He runs out another Trapper, but I draw Flame Jab with the lands I smartly held in my hand and deal with it. I get him to 1 and just need to draw land and I get there. In that game I make the only real misplay that sticks out in my mind; I draw Flame Jab and have a Tattermunge Duo, a 4/4, and another guy and he has a couple dudes and the Tattermunge. I say Declare Attacks and he taps the 4/4, and then I realize I should have killed the Trapper right away, so that when he taps my 4/4, I still have a 4/5 to attack with which he will probably have to chump or gang block.

Other than that mistake, I was pretty happy with my play. Even though I wasn't playing against the best players that frequent the store, I'm glad I got there with a deck that was pretty good but didn't have bombs that just win the game, and I didn't punt any games.

This draft I wrote down every card that was played against me, which I think really helped my focus. I made sure to do it during my opponent's turn while he was untapping or drawing or something to not take up too much time, and it kept my mind from wandering off of the game. I totally plan on doing it during the prerelease tomorrow, not that the competition will be really great, but it's a habit I would like to develop because I think it helps me.

The past couple days I've been really looking over the commons of the set, mostly for draft and what archetypes show up. I don't know if I would draft two main colors and dip into the other two neighboring colors, or one main color and play cards from the two neighboring colors and focus on the guild. Regardless, this weekend is all Sealed Deck play, so I just have to focus on the best cards in the 75 that I open, but it did give me a look into how the format will play out. I think the commons are pretty typical, but you'll still want to get out to 7 and 8 mana to play your bombs. Tomorrow morning I'll look over the commons for tricks I need to watch out for, and then we'll see how it goes.

"He's really good" part 2

Skip to the next day at Games and Gizmos. The format is Lorwyn-Morningtide-Shadowmoor-Eventide. I draft what I thought was a sick, very aggressive Elves/Warriors deck and leave out some really really solid cards to support some synergies.

Round 1 I play against Mike Gurney, one of the best players in the Northwest with a couple PT and GP top 8's. Game 1 I get him down to 2 until I'm left with only a Mimic and him the UW scarecrow guy. In the middle is also a really bad play with Snakeform: I try to Snakeform one of his guys to kill it, and he plays Whirlpool Whelm. I reveal land and he wins the clash. For whatever reason I was thinking that the spell would put Snakeform back on top of my deck like Memory Lapse, when it's the creature that gets put on top of the deck, so I leave the land on top thinking Snakeform would go on top of that (even then, why the hell would I want land that late in the game?!?!) So dumb, and so embarrassing.

I start drawing nothing but land, and when he attacks not leaving any blockers back, I start wracking my brain as to why he would do that and what trick could really wreck me if I attack with the one guy I have...

Duh, Glen Elendra Sentinels... and even if I couldn't have thought of that, I was wrong to even consider it to be a bluff since if he was holding nothing, he was sure to not die by not attack and had little to gain by attacking me from 20 to 18. So my guy dies and I keep drawing land and die from a score of 20-2. Round 2 I keep a slow five-lander and pretty much get blown out.

Round 2 and 3 are fine. Round 4, game 1 is tight, and I'm considering an attack, so I look at my score pad, which reads 14-10 in my favor, but for whatever reason I do my math thinking that *I* was at 10. I didn't even realize it when I attacked and marked down the 10 to 6. I play a Snakeform on a Restless Apparition thinking that I have to in order to survive, then figure out that I'm actually at 14 and get really upset at the huge mental lapse. I still win the game, but am really really rattled. I get blown out Game 2, and Game 3 I make lots of errors like not dealing with a guy that sacks other guys (with removal in hand) then playing a Recumbent Bliss on something just to have it get sacked, more misplays involving Snakeform during combat, and we draw.

I don't get over the funk in round 5 and I make more Snakeform errors and get blown out. I end up 2-2-1 when I should have been at least 3-2 or 3-1-1.

So what did I learn this weekend? I let egregious errors take me over way too easily. After that lapse with the life, even though it wasn't critical, I couldn't stop thinking about how it could have been really critical, and I lost my focus on making correct plays the rest of the day. Obviously I still have overall focus problems to work on, which by that I mean awareness of what's happening on the board so you don't walk into stuff that you knew about and do really dumb things, and I don't want to punt games. But I can't let punts take me over for the rest of the day.

My speed of play is also a little bit worrying. My Round 3 and Round 4 both went to time. I don't think I was playing too slow because if my pace in the beginning or middle of the match isn't bad enough to garner a judge's attention, then I can play at that pace at the end of a match and shouldn't feel obligated to speed it up. That being said, draws are bad and you wouldn't want another opponent putting the brakes on when he's up 1-0 because you played really slow in the loss. I think once I can run MODO I can get better at that, because my physical mechanics are okay except for a couple things (for instance, I need to invest in dice and stop using playing cards).

Once the new set comes out this weekend, I can start learning the new cards and work on playing tighter with regard to playing around things, and start figuring out the card evaluations for draft and sealed construction. (In so many of my drafts on Saturday, I would pick what I thought was the best card only to see them come really really late. Even if I might have a different opinion of what's better or not, I need to know what others think about them so I know what will come late.)

While players in the area might see me as not being an absolute scrub, I need to start convincing and proving to myself that I'm not a scrub. Lots to work on... four weeks until the Seattle PTQ.

"He's really good" part 1

Somehow within a weekend in the area, I've garnered a reputation for being "really good". While the reason for this blog is me not being very good at Magic, anyone who thought this could have easily changed their mind by the end of this past weekend.

Friday night I drafted at First Pick. I drafted an aggressive Green deck splashing white for a couple pieces of removal. My first three opponents weren't very strong, then I lost in round 4 to one of the best limited players in the area and won round 5 against another good player. I felt I played pretty well the entire night, and I got my money back in credit, so I felt pretty good.

Saturday was the fifth Draft Extravaganza organized by Eric Reasoner and L3 judge Tony Mayer. Around 56 players showed up to draft 3 different formats and then a draft format of their choosing based on placement (among the choices were Tempest block, Urza block, Invasion, Odyssey, Mirrodin, and Ravnica). The first draft was Invasion-Ravnica hybrid, so each seat alternated between having Invasion-Guildpact-Apocalypse and Ravnica-Planeshift-Dissension. I wasn't familiar with Invasion block cards, so I just tried to pick the best card for the first pack and hope my neighbors set me up. My deck was green-black-red and had Rofellnos, the guy that makes 2/2 Saprolings for kicker, and the guy from Ravnica that makes Forests into 4/4's, and not very much removal with only Consume Strength and Thunderscape Battlemage. I went 0-2-1 in this format, not getting very good draws round 1 and not playing well, punting the end of round 2 by swinging with a guy and forgetting that he could use his two mana up to make two more Goblin Trenches guys and get me on the crack back, and drawing round 3 because I couldn't deal with the equipment that gives untapped/tapped creatures bonuses (read: couldn't draw my Battlemage). I was so upset at my record that I threw my deck into the trash.

Next was triple Champions of Kamigawa, which I don't think I ever went better than 1-2 at my local store with for that entire year. My deck was pretty terrible with only 13 guys with a pretty poor curve, some random white arcane spells so I could max out Glacial Ray, and a Devouring Greed and Rage. The first round I lose to Desperate Ritual.dec where he busts out the Red Myojin like turn 4, then in the third game I stabilize the board at 9, and have the game next turn because he's drawing nothing but land, and he goes Lava Spike splicing Ritual and Glacial Ray, Ritual splicing Glacial Ray, Glacial Ray. The second match I keep hating my deck, getting stuck with Blessed Brath and Ethereal Haze in my hand with no Plains and keep trying to stick a Frostwielder and stuff. I'm at like 2 and stick Kami of Fire's Roar. I drew a Plains, and with my white Spells and Soulless Revival I manage to wipe his board with the Kami and come all the way back. Game 2 I'm able to blow him out with a Hideous Laughter that leaves him with nothing and me with a 3/3 and a 2/3. 1-1 in my least favorite format.

Finally was Onslaught-Lorwyn hybrid, which alternated between Onslaught-Lorwyn-Scourge and Lorwyn-Legions-Morningtide. There were only four common tribes among the two blocks (Elves, Goblins, Soldiers, and Wizards), it's easy to see that if you were Elves or Goblins at your pod you would do pretty darn well. Luck would have it, I was in Elves and drafted an absolutely unreal deck. I 3-0'd to finish at 4-3-1, above .500 for the day.

More later.

Some other stuff that I've written

I wrote a few things on Brainburst's blog section back in Extended season.

PTQ Butler report - I wrote this for my playtesting mailing list in Pittsburgh just for the people who didn't make the trip. I posted it on Brainburst and ended up winning $40 when I didn't even know there were writing contests.

PTQ Burlington report - I thought I was going to Top 8 since I had come close in Butler. Not to be.

Making my red deck win, part 1 and part 2. About my final preparations to my deck before Grand Prix Philadelphia. The second part is just my sideboarding strategy and apparently got over 60,000 hits and is like the 6th most viewed Magic blog entry on the site.

Welcome to Incremental Growth

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I play Magic: the Gathering competitively, but I'm really really bad. I want to get better at Magic.

I've been playing competitively since winter of 2001 (since Odyssey for the many Magic players that only know time in terms of expansion sets) and would say I started figuring out Constructed in 2002 by playing good decks (read "net decks") at FNMs and practicing Constructed a lot. I would say I didn't figure out Limited until 2004, and I still think I'm terrible at it.

I have never top 8'd in the 6 Constructed PTQs I have played in, the closest I came was playing for it in Round 5 of 7, then proceeding to lose my next 3. In Limited, I think that while I can draft reasonably well enough, my play is absolutely terrible. If I draft a decent deck and I go 1-2, I feel a player on the next level with the same deck can go 2-1 or 3-0.

In general, I think my mental game is awful. I'll forget upkeep triggers like Recumbent Bliss. I'm very bad at evaluating combat scenarios, specifically when I evaluate one possibility, evaluate another one, but then forget the first thing I thought about and have to backtrack again, taking precious round time. My body language gives away way too much information about my hand. I play extremely conservatively when my opponent has untapped mana because I'll not know the tricks in a given format, or I think he always has an answer in hand instead of reading him and getting a better idea of what is in his hand.

Incremental Growth is going to be about my journey to get to the next level of competitive Magic. I want to legitimately have a shot at making the top 8 of any PTQ I play in. I want to be able to outplay people in Limited and not just blow them out with bombs. As exciting and close as many of my losses are, I want to turn them into wins, because as cheerful as I might be when I extend the hand I say "Great games", those are the losses I hate the most because there are always situations in the game where, despite possibly being very slight and subtle decisions, I make the wrong decisions. I never want to utter the phrase "I punted" ever again.

In Incremental Growth, I'll discuss the events that I play in, evaluating why things went right, why things went wrong, and more importantly, what I don't do well even when things go right. I'll also randomly write about the things I'm bad at and don't do and want to get better at. I foresee myself writing less about tech and more about my mental game, less about my bad plays and more about WHY I make bad plays.

I've recently graduated, and I've moved to Seattle. The great thing about Seattle is that there are so many places to play, and that you can play Magic nearly every day of the week. I'm currently playing 2-3 paper drafts a week. When I get my own place with reliable internet, I'll be playing more Constructed on Magic-League when I'm not drafting. When I get my first paycheck and get a car, I'll probably be playing even more real life Magic during the week.

Here is my major tournament schedule right now, and I'll focus what kinds of Magic I'll play accordingly to the tournament that's coming up.
October 18: Limited PTQ Kyoto, Seattle
November 8: Standard State Championships, Seattle
December 6: Limited PTQ Kyoto, Portland

Once Shards of Alara is released I'll try to draft more so I can learn the format and the cards, then after the PTQ I'll start really trying to tune some Standard decks, and then after States I'll start drafting more.

While the premier tournaments are what I'm working for, the process of getting there is the most time-consuming and had better be the most fun, and I hope you enjoy (and even learn from) my journey.